Episode 9: Artemis & Space, SCOTUS Rules 8-1, and A Look At Marriage

In Episode 9 of Encore!, Tim, David, & Donna-Jean chat a bit about Tim’s birthday – and then talk about space exploration, past and present, and what America’s space program means to us today. Donna-Jean gives some context to the recent 8-1 decision of the Supreme Court regarding free speech freedoms in Christian counseling, and David shares about a Florida wedding and what God intends for marriage. 

Music credit thanks to SunSmileMusic. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Welcome to Encore, where hope gets the spotlight. Around here, nothing's off limits. Scripture, culture, world events, the everyday mess and beauty of our lives. So thanks for coming with us and leaning with us as we talk about uh some new subjects. You know, uh a lot of times the Encore, the Encore is better than the opening act, as we all we we kind of we're figuring that out, right, guys? Right? Still to come. So I am here. Yeah, I'm here. My uh I'm Tim Chicol. I'm with Donagene Breckenridge and uh David Churchill. And uh we're so glad you guys decided to spend a few minutes with us. Hope you stick with us. We have some uh interesting things we think uh we hope we're gonna be talking about. But first of all, David had a very big event happen in his family a couple days ago. Right? What happened?

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I'm delighted. My youngest that lives here in South Florida, and her husband, they had their third. So having two boys, uh, the third one is a gift that's a female, and my my little seventh grandchild, their third, just came and I met her yesterday on Easter Sunday.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

That's so great. That is so great.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Destined to be spoiled. Oh, absolutely. There's not there's not even a chance that she can be spoiled.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Absolutely. And because of those two brothers, no boys get near that girl.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Well, that's a great she there's a little uh it was a little nip and tuck there for a while.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

I mean, yes. Uh yeah, thanks. And and you guys prayed for it. I appreciate the concern. Yeah, you know, you can imagine how upsetting it is. They heard my daughter say that the baby was was born and then immediately but immediately was not breathing and had collapsed lungs, and that they had to re of course they're skilled to know that right away, but she's looking at a baby who's not breathing.

SPEAKER_04 2:10

Terrifying. It's terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Whisked away the Nikku, and you know, they know they do what they do and they got the lungs film, but it took a mask, it took oxygen, it took incubator. But then she's fine. Thanks for coming.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

I've heard about you know, I remember when uh almost a year ago, ex uh April 16th would be my youngest granddaughter. Same thing happened. She didn't breathe. And then, you know, we're f we're flipping out because she was in labor the longest time. And uh Matt, I'm gonna forget my son in law text us, okay, the baby has come, but you know, they're taking her down to the NICU, and we're like, what? What? It's like we're we're thrilled that a baby was born, but what? He's got how many times this happens when a baby's I I said I would if I was standing there, I that didn't happen. I saw I was there for all my kids. If that had happened, I think I would have melted. I don't know what it would be.

SPEAKER_06 2:59

They would have a team to deal with the father.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 3:05

The baby's fine, we gotta deal with the father.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah, hey, hey, and then remember that scene from Hamlet where she gives birth to twins and one she thought one was still born. That's right. So that was kind of that's kind of like what my daughter experienced. Yeah, just took a few seconds.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

Oh praise, praise God. This little one's okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Amen to that. She's gonna uh you know what, she's being born into a great family. Yep, she is with with a great grandpa, and uh so we'll pray for a blessing in her life. Thanks, buddy. Yeah. But uh couple things, you know. We uh one thing is uh as we're as we're sitting here, uh I just I think we just looked on a news feed and uh Artemis II just broke the record, I think. Right. Did they just did they just do it?

SPEAKER_06 3:52

Just broke the prior record. Imagine. Just imagine.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Which is amazing, which is which is pretty cool. Which, you know, it's so funny because uh well, I didn't let me let me ask you guys this. I mean, are you guys do you find space travel? Uh you know, uh we grew up we grew up in the golden age. I mean, I remember you know what I it just came to my mind. I remember the day Alan Shepherd.

SPEAKER_04 4:18

Do you really?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

I do in that Mercury Space Capsule. Wow and I was in I was in kindergarten, and I I everybody wasn't as interested the other because I was freaking out. I wanted to watch it, I wanted to see it back then. Yeah, and even back then, I was fascinated by the by the uh uh by NASA and then uh uh you know John Glenn and and then they went into uh what was the set the next one was Mercury, it was Gemini, right? It was Gemini, and I used to, I was thinking about this this week because I knew we were gonna mention something about Artemis. I used to fake being sick when they were Gemini. Are you serious? Yeah, yeah. When there was a flight. I love it. I love it. I you know I loved it so much.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

I think what you had was zero gravity syndrome.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

I remember one time some one of the kids said, If you if you want to get sick, drink mix milk and orange juice, and you'll throw up.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Oh my gosh, seriously?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Let's see if that's true. Which I didn't. No, I didn't. I tried it, but but I wanted to do that because if you throw up, then it's guaranteed. That's it. You can't go to school. It's a guaranteed. But I I love and I and I a lot of times when I stayed home, I somehow finagled it. And uh I would watch every minute of of of you know the of the day. And I remember Ju what was his name? Jules Bergman. Was it Bergman? Wow, I think so. He was in the I think he was on Channel 7. He was fabulous covering it. And uh everything, right to you know, the splashdown, everything was just oh my gosh. And I've always been fascinated by all that space travel. All the fake stage stuff.

SPEAKER_06 5:56

Oh, yeah, right. It's not totally fake. I got to meet twice a man, the the eighth astr the eighth human to walk on the moon. He came to two different churches where we my dad had him give a testimony, Jim Irwin. In fact, um the way people would remember him most notably is it's the iconic photo of the astronauts saluting the American flag and the lunar rovers in the background. That's Jim Irwin. And he he came to Christ um after his return from space. And he he was quite quite the explorer and uh loved to tell his his testimony, and he famously said, God walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon, which sounds cynical unless you did walk, you know, as Brian Regan, the comedian I walked on the moon. I mean, that's when you're one of the few people who can actually say that.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

That's it. You can't beat that. It's like, well, you win. Conversation ends.

SPEAKER_05 6:56

Conversation ends, you know.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

But I thought, you know what? I didn't think I was gonna be that into this flight. You know why? Because I I I I guess I, you know, I just wasn't thinking. I said, well, they're going around the moon. Right. You know, what's the big deal? We've already done that. I remember uh remember the one when they read the scripture? It was Christmas Eve or something? That's right.

SPEAKER_06 7:15

It was Christmas Day, and that was Christmas Day. That was an orbit around the Earth. And what's interesting about that is you guys will remember, younger listeners may not, but there's a name, Madeline Murray O'Hare. She was the atheist activist. She sued NASA because they read from Genesis on Christmas Day. So when the space, you know, the lunar module landed on the moon for the very first time with human beings, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from New Jersey, a Montclair guy. My mother was like in like in junior high or something, and he was on the football team and she she knew his name. But they landed, and of course, was his name Collins. Mike Collins was circling.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Mike Collins.

SPEAKER_06 8:01

So when they landed, um they had like a bit of a quiet time before the door. I think it was like a couple hours before the door was going to open and this incredible moment would happen. Buzz Aldrin, who's still alive, he's one of four of the, I think it's 12 who've walked on the moon, who's still alive, he's in his 90s. He was an elder in his church, in his Presbyterian church, and he got the wine and bread and got permission to bring it to the moon. The very first meal, the very first food that was consumed on the moon was communion.

unknown 8:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 8:36

And his hope had been, he actually said, I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the fast past few hours and to give thanks in his own individual way. And it was heard by the ground crew. He wanted it to be heard by everyone. But because Madeline Murray O'Hare had sued NASA, the case was eventually thrown out. They didn't want to do it. So a lot of people didn't know about this until recently. It wasn't a secret, but it was kept kind of quiet. And that was the very first thing that was done, which I just find fascinating to think that that's what happened on the moon. You know, what a moment that must have been.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

But I, you know, I was like I said, all right, yeah, they get one around. We've already done that. But I was like so excited at the blast off. Uh, I have a friend down, lives down in Florida. She's she's about 50 miles away. Uh Marjorie used to be my uh my secretary of the church, and she she's in her backyard, she's taking a video of it. I'm going, oh my god. Can you imagine?

SPEAKER_06 9:42

Can you imagine?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

I was, and I've been following it every day. I'm actually surprised at how excited I am to hear about you know the toilet.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Yeah, everything freezing.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

They have to reposition the craft so that the urine of the 23 million.

SPEAKER_05 10:02

Plumbing is a hard job, even if it's a 23 million dollar toilet, it's a hard thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

You know, my goodness. But there's something so exciting. And I always hear about there's always somebody who goes, you know what, that cost and I and and I always go to myself, man, you know what? We were meant, I just think we're meant to explore. We were meant to be exactly people are so into this, yeah, into this uh uh this blast off and this this mission. And I just think God made us to to, you know, uh, you know, the heavens declare the glory of God. You know, I I think He just has created us to explore his handiwork.

SPEAKER_06 10:38

I mean, exactly the wonder, the creativity, the discovery. We come alive when we do that.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah. We're not running the place, we're just going deeper into what he has created. I and I think there's something uh there's something just uh amazing, amazing about that.

SPEAKER_06 10:55

And supposedly this is gonna lead the way to going to Mars, right? Can you even yeah no?

SPEAKER_01 11:01

That that's that is gonna be I mean they're gonna be what, eight, nine months? One way. That's insane. What one way. Um I I think uh that's gonna be oh man, that's gonna be something. You there'll be the whole planet will will be watching that when that lands. I think.

SPEAKER_06 11:16

Would you would you go to the moon if you could?

SPEAKER_00 11:18

I was just gonna ask you. Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

I I don't even I I have to take uh Zan next when I get in the plane now as I get older. So I'm I I'm not sure I'd make the uh uh the the the blast off without uh soiling myself.

SPEAKER_05 11:33

Do you do you do you kiss the ground when you get off a plane like uh Katie Perry did?

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Katy Perry did. Yeah, they went they bear they went a little higher than an airplane, uh jet, let's be honest.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

But they're did you see William Shatner the other day? Yes. He's 95 going on 55. Yeah, he's something else. He looks great. Yeah, he's something else. He was talking about the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Yeah, he's he's amazing.

SPEAKER_06 11:56

Well, speaking of how old someone is, oh someone, someone is gonna have a birthday.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Oh thanks for you want me to say again? Thanks for not not skipping that. Thanks, you know. Is that what the objective was? I want you to skip it. Sorry.

SPEAKER_06 12:12

We have to celebrate all month. It's a birthday month.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Anyway, um I'm gonna be uh kind of you know, I can't even attach the number to my name.

SPEAKER_04 12:23

You can't pronounce it.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

It's like it's like you know, when I think I'm I'm gonna be 70 years old, and um when I think about that, I go, when I was a kid, and I, you know, 70 was my grandfather and beyond. And this old, you know, kind of man that just used to sit, he used to, you know, whenever we used to pull up to visit him, he'd be sitting in the window in this big oversized uh uh uh stool sitting by the window, just staring out the window. I go, well, that's that'll be me at 70 if I have negative. So that's what I thought 70 was, but thankfully it's not quite that. But I mean I've been blessed to live this long. I've I've probably lived, I thought about it, um I've probably lived uh longer than 99.9% of all the people who have ever been born on the planet. If you take you know, uh and when you think about that, I mean uh uh so I I've uh it's it's it's something, but I I can't it's it's kind of it's strange.

SPEAKER_06 13:20

If you were an anti-deluvian, you'd still be like a teenager. So weren't they hundreds of years old?

SPEAKER_00 13:28

If nothing would have changed with the first family genealogies, we would be interlocked with a television. No. Um certainly Shakespeare.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Yeah, yeah. It's true. No, I can't imagine living those those many. I just I was just reading through those passages, as a matter of fact. It's like, oh my goodness. Nine hundred. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:48

But what a time to be alive. The things we did is, you know, we're talking about being children and seeing, you know, the space launch. Now we're getting to see it again.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Uh but then but but then also like just say, you know, life extended to that many hundreds of years. We've probably seen more change than they saw. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

100%, Dave. Dave, you're hey, Dave, I remember I was five years old. I this just shows what a freak I am. I was five years old watching the uh uh the inauguration speech of John F. Kennedy. Yeah. I f and and being like kind of interested, five years old. And I remember he said, We choose to go to the moon. That's it. Not because it's easy, but because it's hard. Because it's and uh and and he said before the end of the decade, I'm like, that was 19. He gave his speech and the election was 60, so 61. 61. 61. And uh so I mean by the end of the decade, what are you crazy? Right. I mean, that's that that's that's science fiction. Right. You know, uh that's Flash Gordon. We're not end of the decade, and and somehow, you know, we uh we did it. And ever ever since then it's just been it's been a dream. It's but anyway, that's how old I am. That would let's not get back to the other thing. Let's that's that's how old, but to Dave's point, how the changes that we have seen in our lifetime uh is uh And about to see breath breathtaking.

SPEAKER_06 15:10

Yeah, and every day is a gift.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Every day is a gift and and we we we we were raised and our lives were very different than our children. Yes. And can't even imagine our grandchildren's differences.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Yes, he is pretty soon, right? Yes, he is. And I'm I'm we were talking about yesterday, and uh uh I I'm pretty sure that my grandchildren probably will never drive a car.

SPEAKER_06 15:39

The youngest grandchildren probably won't have to, which is my body.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

You know, and that's that was kind of that's kind of like a rite of passage. To get your permit and then to get your license. I mean, that was like you you dreamed about it, and they're they're not even gonna do that because they're not gonna be.

SPEAKER_06 15:56

Well, it's a restructure of the culture because, like you said, rites of passage, things that we think about, and all of a sudden, if you're gonna shift to self-driving cars, what does that even mean? What what what would you study in the in the you know motor vehicle test? I it's so it's so different.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

And they're getting better and better. And you think of the perception of time. Now, now the thing you wait moments, not years, you wait for your first phone.

unknown 16:21

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, yeah. So the rate of passage is when you arrive at eight or eleven. Yeah, you're fine. You're right there.

SPEAKER_06 16:29

I cannot have a phone. Unless, and we'll you know, I keep saying we'll talk about this another day, unless you're one of the people who invented it who said, My child over my dead body is gonna have this device I just invented, which should tell us something.

SPEAKER_05 16:43

You know, we'll sell it to all the rest of you, but we'll sell it to the rest of you who don't know how to stop your kids.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

So, anyway, I'm gonna I'll I'll speed past my my birthday and just I'll I'll run real fast past the graveyard. You know what I mean? It's like uh anyway, but uh hey, you know what? Uh go ahead, Dave.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Well, Tim, it it it's 70. We're gonna give you a picklebar racket because we're gonna extend your life by getting you to play.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

I bought one when I was with you last year.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

I have one. Rust on it yet? No, I gotta, you know what, I gotta uh I I got to get out of there. I gotta get out of there. Anyway, anyway, anyway. Anyway, listen, there was there was a uh pretty uh pretty important Supreme Court decision recently came through, 8-1 decision, and uh it's I it's being billed uh as uh the conversion therapy case, right? And uh uh Supreme Court uh ruled 8 to 1 in favor of uh a uh a counselor by the name of Kaylee Childs, and basically struck down a Colorado policy that restricted what licensed counselors could say in therapy sessions with uh clients exploring with talking about the issues of uh sexual identity. Uh, Don Jean, I know um uh you've been following this pretty qu pretty closely. So get get us up to speed on what this is all about and what the uh ramifications are.

SPEAKER_06 18:06

I have been, and I I find that you know Colorado seems to be the place where these things come from. You remember uh the masterpiece cake shop uh case that went on for like 12 years. They went after this man multiple times, first for baking a cake. And again, just just to make sure we clarify, when you said conversion therapy, of course, we're we're using the terms, but they should be in air quotes so-called, the same as with um, you know, Jack Phillips wouldn't bake a cake. Well, that's not true. He said he would bake any cake they wanted, decorate it any way they wanted. He just would not decorate an a work of art that expressed a celebration of a so-called gay marriage. Again, all these terms. And this is this is a similar thing because what um what did we say her name? Kay her first name, Kaylee Chiles. Kaylee. She it was actually talk therapy. She's a Christian. And what she does is talk therapy, she's not trying to convince anybody of anything, but of minors. This has to do with minors. And because they knew she was a Christian, they would come to her. And the idea was that let's say a young person has a same-sex attraction and they have a desire or concern. Can I reduce this? How do I deal with this? Or I'm feeling a little uncomfortable, things I'm hearing, I'm uncomfortable in my own body, I don't want to feel this way. Well, the law as it stood, praise God, no longer stands in Colorado was that a licensed therapist could speak to minors to convince them and support them in, let's say, a gender transition or in their same-sex attraction, they could not speak to them the other way. And obviously, understandably, sanity prevailed, Gorsuch for the majority, saying that the First Amendment stands against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country. And there was an eight to one, I think is fantastic. We should celebrate this.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

You now, okay, so you said it was going one way and uh and not the other. In other words, um, you if you're a counselor, you could have said, oh, absolutely you should go for this. That's right. 100%. That's right. You know what? This is how you were created, this is how you were made. Don't listen to anybody else who's telling you no. This is for your mental health, this is for, you know. But you couldn't say, you know what, maybe you need to take a pause.

SPEAKER_06 20:33

And not just that, if it was coming from the minor who said, Can you talk to me about how do I, how do I deal with this? I don't want to feel like this. You were not allowed to support them if they're saying, I don't want this attraction. I don't want to feel like I'm uncomfortable in my own body. You couldn't even respond to that in talk therapy as a licensed counselor. Well, that inequity can't stand because that is against our First Amendment rights, not only of free speech, but of the free exercise clause. But one person, and you can guess which one was the loan dissent. And I think it's important to make the case. I actually feel, you know, I can disagree with justices. I actually would support an effort to impeach her. I feel she is disqualified to be a Supreme Court justice. And it started during the confirmation hearings when she responded famously to Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, saying to her, Can you provide a definition of the word woman? And she said, Can I provide it? No, I can't. And Blackburn looked at her and said, You can't? And these were the exact words of Katanji Brown Jackson. Not in this context. I'm not a biologist. Well, guess what, Katanji Brown Jackson? I can. A woman is an Adult female with XX chromosomes. This is not hard. It has nothing to do with what I think on any given day. This is who I am, and you can't change it. And these are important laws happening. This is this is really something. Eight to one, it's a monumental ruling, and it's significant because I think there are like 20 other states that have a similar rule. And you know, our words matter. I've been thinking a lot about that, about how this was it this right around the same time. You have, for instance, Jaden Ivey, Chicago Bulls, waived him after he spoke out against the NBA's promotion of Pride Month. It's just interesting. It's like there's certain things that have been untouchable. You cannot touch having any conversation about homosexuality or gender transition. But the Supreme Court's ruling is really significant. And I think we need to celebrate it, acknowledge it, and pay attention to it and not be timid about it.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

All right, now you said you said that uh the law was struck down. Was it? Or did they just kick kick it back to lower court? I thought I thought they had kicked it back to the lower court to I think we're going to see this again. I think I'm sure we will see it again. I'm sure we will, because these things never die. Yeah, no, I think I think they kicked it back. But basically this came down to uh this this became a free speech, uh a First Amendment uh kind of thing. I mean Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, free you know, free speech, it's all about the press and and uh right of the people to assemble. There's three things in the First Amendment. It's it's hey, it's a core amendment. Yeah, it's first for a reason. It's why we're different than Iran. It's why we're different than Iran.

SPEAKER_06 23:50

It's first for a reason. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

So I mean, uh uh so in that uh understanding that, yeah uh I guess what they were saying was that our First Amendment rights really don't stop at the therapist store. That's right. That we still have uh speech is still protected. It's still protected.

SPEAKER_06 24:13

It's still protected, and you can't stop someone in a talk therapy session from from certain forms of speech, and that's a problem. And I think it kind of comes out of the whole idea now of hate speech. Again, here's one of these phrases that we accept it like it's real. Oh, that's hate speech. Well, there's no such thing as hate speech. Who defines what that is? Who gets to decide what is hateful? That's a very that can be any offensive or unpopular speech that becomes hate. If I'm insulted, if I'm offended, now it's hate speech.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Hate speech is is is the the opposing view. Basically that's what it's starting to become down to. And basically, I I think one of the uh uh things that we need to take notice with with this ruling, whether they kicked it back or whatever, um is that you can't uh you can't discriminate uh uh uh you know against you know in be in favor of one viewpoint over the other. That's exactly right. This wasn't a this wasn't about stopping harm broadly. It was a it was about allowing one message and banning another. Yes. I mean that's because that's what the Colorado law was doing. It was and you know what, to their to their credit, and hey, listen, eight to one, how often do you get an eight to one? That's right.

SPEAKER_06 25:35

That's right. And everyone's focused on the one, but I think we should focus on the eight and be I think that's significant that people that I would disagree with on a whole host of issues came together on this. I think it's very significant.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Yeah, I think it is too. I mean, what can you imagine if if it was let to stand, what other areas would be imperiled? I hey, I I'm I was a pastor and I'm still pastoral responsibility for many years. It's already happening in uh in other uh in other countries as well.

SPEAKER_06 26:08

In Canada right now, the C9, it's called uh the Bill Combating Hate Act. It has passed through their House of Commons, I think it's going to their uh the next body, and it's a Canadian law aimed at strengthening hate crime legislation. Okay, criminal code, that means if you violate this up to 10 years in prison if you're prosecuted. But what they've done, this is just to the north of us. They've removed the good faith clause from section 319-3B. And that has allowed individuals to express opinions on religious subjects in good faith. They've taken that out. They've taken that out. And someone who was on the Justice Committee chair suggested uh a while back that certain passages in the Bible are clearly hateful. So now we have something, it's it's in a fast track in Canada to make speech, and it all comes back to human sexuality. This is what it's about. Speech that comes from the Bible. We, in a past episode, I think it was our second episode of Encore, we talked about Pivy Rasinen, this Finnish member of parliament. Remember that story? And it was back and forth in the courts because she tweeted a Bible verse that had to do with human sexuality. And she was just acquitted. Her acquittal was upheld in March. However, a pamphlet that she wrote 20 years ago, 24-page pamphlet on human sexuality, they say she's guilty of writing that and it should be destroyed. Well, guess what? I downloaded it and I'm gonna print it, and I'm not destroying it, so they can come for me. But the title of it is Male and Female, He Created Them. That is now hate speech. That's terrifying. That's terrifying. And we can't pull back on what marriage really is, on what the Bible says, that is not hate speech. We're not advocating killing any infidel. We're just speaking what has been the truth and the foundation of human civilization for millennia. It's not hate speech.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

And what happens a lot of times is once the government decides what what the approved opinion is, that door it doesn't stay small. It does not stay small. Um, it it just keeps widening. And uh you, Donagene, in Ambleside Online, your your organization, your homeschooling organization, you have uh some of the women uh on on your board. They're from Canada. I mean you've got to serious stuff, yes.

SPEAKER_06 28:47

And I had the opportunity um through my homeschool experience and talking about Charlotte Mason, I had the opportunity to speak in Nova Scotia um uh several months ago. It was one of the most impacting experiences of my life because these were people who made the decision in a church to stay open through the extended pandemic at risk. They had the Royal Canadian Mounted Police surrounding their church. They knew that once they stopped singing and speaking, they could enter. And they continued to meet until that they actually had a conversation of what will happen if the men are arrested, and then they were told that next time the women would be arrested as well. And they had a conversation, what are we going to do about the children? I felt like I was hearing something from the Soviet Union from from behind the Iron Curtain. Yes. And it was because they dared to still have a service in a very extended pandemic.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

If you just come into our conversation, we're talking about Canada.

SPEAKER_06 29:48

Canada, yes, Canada.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Which is which Canada is they are losing their rights one by one. Our neighbors to the north.

SPEAKER_06 29:56

We need to care about it, we need to pray, but we also have to be vigilant here. And we have to be bold enough to speak the truth about what the Bible says and not the hard part is we all know someone. We may love someone who is in a gay lifestyle, perhaps even in a so-called gay marriage. We may know and love people who have made a transition, and we have to continue to love. But it is not love to go back on what we know is true. That's not love. It's not no, it's not.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

We'll tell the truth. If we love someone, we will tell them the truth. Because and sometimes the truth is is inconvenient and uh it's uh difficult, but uh that's that's what we will do. So basically, uh I you've been following it closer than I have, but I I mean would you say that this uh this ruling isn't really taking away options, but it's kind of keeping options on the table that that's the same thing.

SPEAKER_06 30:54

I think there are two things that happen in any ruling. I think there's the actual and then there's the perceived. I think this is a victory no matter what, no matter how someone sees it. And I think it will embolden people to continue to fight. And we'll have to see what goes down in terms of the exact wording in Colorado and in these other states. But it's definitely a smackdown from the Supreme Court that there has to be an even hand in in these arguments with with uh young people. But like I said, it's you know, even something like Jaden Ivey speaking out. This is not done. Um we have to realize that we need to be bold. You know, Pride Month is coming up where it's gonna be everywhere. And a couple of years ago, you had all of the chest binding, underwear in Target, and and moms went in and said, enough. We have to be bold. We can't be intimidated. This is no time to go wobbly. We have a culture at stake, we have children at stake. And I do think, especially children that are exposed to the culture, they just think it's normal now. And we've got to speak up.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah, things gotta change because like you were saying, uh a ruling like this, and it's not just a single ruling, but it's gonna take many. Um people look, I've always said that uh uh fear is is contagious, but so is courage.

SPEAKER_04 32:26

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

It's contagious. And you know, do you remember in scripture where um Paul remember he was uh in chains and he was able in Rome and uh he said he was able to uh speak to the Philippians? To the whole he was sp able to speak to the whole Praetorian Guard. And he also said that other brothers and sisters have become emboldened because of his situation. That happens a lot of times. It does. And we are gonna have to start standing up and not with twisted, angry faces, but speaking the truth. Because unless people have the truth, you know, we we know that it's gonna their lives will be a disaster. And in the end, when we stand before God, you know what? Uh we'll have it'll be ultimate loss, ultimate disaster. So we need to speak truth boldly, more and more, and we don't we don't it doesn't have to be at high.

SPEAKER_06 33:18

Okay, so why don't we? Why don't we? Is it because I I actually think sometimes it's because we're afraid of being called ugly names, we're afraid of being seen as not loving. Really, you know, it it someone may have to call you names that are ugly, but you can still speak the truth in love. Someone may misunderstand, you can still speak the truth in love.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

And and look, it all comes down to we have a very uh uh shallow view of where our real home is. We just have a share we have a shallow view. We just came Easter when we're taping this, Easter was yesterday. And um uh, you know, it we're gonna we're gonna live forever. Wow, we're ever every person who's ever born is gonna live forever. I we I firmly believe that. And I I think that you know it's it's like a 400-foot rope, and our life is the first quarter inch of the rope and and the rest is eternity. And and we we base every decision on the first quarter inch of the rope, everything we do. I mean, you know, the the guys who are out, they just took some nice pictures of Earth. They're out there, and you think about it, every single person those astronauts know, every conversation they've ever had, everything, uh every experience has been on that globe. It's been on that round, blue, green, you know, sphere spinning in space. And you know what? Uh, that's that's not all there is. We don't we believe that. That is not all there is. Now, we we will live on a redeemed earth, we will. But uh there there is, you know, time and eternity. Uh we have a different view as Christians, you know, and uh we we live in in this uh, I think uh, you know, I'm 70, and we live we live in this sh this short span of time on this on this earth, in these mortal bodies, but one day uh we will receive new bodies and uh eternity will uh open up before us, and we need to start thinking about that because we want to bring some other people with us. Yes. And unless we speak truth in a declarative way and in a courageous way, uh people are not gonna understand, they're not gonna hear the truth. They need to hear the truth. And uh how'd I get on to that? Uh you gotta stop being no, because it's truth. The preacher just kissed, I'm sorry. So there you go.

SPEAKER_05 35:40

But anyway, never never apologize for speaking truth.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Everybody of the preacher, yes the other the other preacher uh in this uh panel um got to preach uh uh this past uh weekend day, right?

SPEAKER_04 35:55

Very cool in a very cool place.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

I got to preach half a sermon.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Half a sermon? Well I preached I preached three-quarters of a sermon once in Northeast India until uh the Hindus decided a riot and whisped me away. But this was uh this was a happier occasion. I I preached uh uh half a sermon because I was uh what uh privileged and honored and pleased uh to officiate a wedding for two very dear c friends of mine. And it was a great day. It was an outdoor wedding right here on the intercoastal in South Florida. Wow, beautiful the same waterfront that I saw the the Artemis II uh blast in uh in our sky right from my deck.

SPEAKER_06 36:37

That's insane.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Oh, you watched it. You watched it like I didn't even ask you. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, standing right here in the dock, yeah. Well, 2.5 miles south, standing on another dock. I officiated uh my buddy's wedding. Uh it was beautiful, it was really a wonderful day. Um and um so you know, you prepare your thoughts for that. So so last week, you know, I mean, what an ideal place to preach when someone situated the union of their marriage on a Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. Yeah, I mean, that's just that's just preachable. You can preach that. So it was it was delightful. We but um, as we've already uh referenced, also had a grandchild. I I had a grandchild. I bore a grandchild uh days ago. So, you know, from from Wednesday when I'm thinking about what I should say at the wedding all the way through Easter yesterday, it would, you know, it was it was an active time for me. You know, you know, um, I think I I wouldn't say Jesus had a busy weekend, but I would say he had an active church services. He was invoked to his own.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

He heard his name a lot.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

And I I dragged him, I dragged him into this wedding Saturday, knowing that he had to get up early the next morning.

SPEAKER_05 37:51

But but okay, so what you've left us hanging as to why you gave just part of the message.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Well, the and and and my buddy and I um we it was on a daily basis that we were even showing each other the weather forecast. Oh dear. It ended up with a zero chance of rain, and halfway through the sermon, boom. Yeah. So it was it was a little awkward. A little awkward. I'm on the I'm on the edge of the dock with my back to the island and the clouds, and the audience in front of me, including the bride and green groom, can see see this ominous cloud and dark cloud coming over me that I never saw.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

So apparently people are telling me now that they gestured me to stop my sermon, but I didn't note it. And so actually we're we're getting sprinkled on it. Was my first inkling, and um, we actually, the three of us had a little powha right there and decided uh if we were gonna keep keep going or just go right to the vows. So to their credit, um, they wanted me to keep speaking. But can you imagine $4,500 suit in your buddy being so considered? Yes, so considerate, so considerate that I said, Oh, dude, we're getting wet. And he go, he whispers to me, go on, I want to hear what you have to say. That's awesome. That's awesome. But but actually, we did we we did uh close down the sermon. We were able to get under uh a canopy, and then we just went right to the vows, and it was a beautiful so they did actually get married.

SPEAKER_05 39:12

That's good. She didn't forget that part.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

But these uh these are not church people, these were uh Yeah, these are my pickleball dear friends.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like I've I've adopted them. Yeah, they're just wonderful people. So so uh so it, you know, Wednesday I'm actually thinking um, you know, what I'm gonna say, uh, and it's with this great privilege. And I'm I'm sitting down, I got my kind of my journal in hand, and uh something I rarely do, but I I turned on um in in time to catch Jeopardy. And there's some guy in right now that he's won like 13 times in a row, probably as like as intelligent as anyone I've ever seen in the show. And so it comes to Final Jeopardy, and I think he has 58,000. I'm like, I dude, it the the first 15 questions of the show, you know, before the commercial break, the first first 15 questions he got all 15 of them. Oh wow. So it's like 58,000 comes to Final Jeopardy. And you know, forgive me, like um, I know it's kind of relative. You can it's when we know something, it's easy for us. When we don't know something, we're perplexed. So it's you know, we all know or don't know, we all don't know much more than we do know. But it was one of those where I did know. So the final jeopardy category is is calendar. Now you gotta remember it's last Wednesday, right? And the final Jeopardy uh answer comes up as Mark Twain wrote this quip that on this day of the year we are reminded of what we are on the other 364. Well, I know it's a little snarky and it's it's kind of witty, but I knew right away, well, it's April Fool's Day.

SPEAKER_05 40:48

Right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

The smartest guy I've ever seen in my life went, um Labor Day. Oh no. So yeah, so this guy like it was too it was too simple. He he was trying to overthink it, or yeah, I think or maybe just um probably they weren't taping yet.

SPEAKER_06 41:05

Or you're just smarter than the smartest guy. Go for that.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Well, there's that, but how the other people do the other people they they taped it months ago, so he made no easier for me to make a reference to April School than But anyways. Um, you know, he bet forty-two thousand dollars that he would know that answer because he winded up 100,000, but he missed it. So so my my week uh is parenthetically uh around of April Fools. I start working on this talk I'm gonna give. The very next morning, uh my seventh grandchild is born, and then there's Good Friday with all of its realities, and I'm doing a wedding rehearsal where actually in rehearsing, my three by five cards blew in the wind and went into water. And then there's a bit of restart there, a little encore there. Oh no. And then Saturday, you know, is is the wedding, and then of course Sunday is the Easter celebration. Yeah. So in my mind on those five days, April 1st through the through the 5th, was um the love speech of Jesus in John 15, you know, that he prepared for his disciples at the Last Supper before he was crucified. And so my thoughts uh of Jesus' love speech is where he commands us to love. You know, you know, what an idea that you could command love. It they seem to be detached. Like, you know, don't tell me I have to love you. Right, right. But what what he's doing commanding love is first of all, he's insisting on what it would be most joyful for us. He's insisting on our delight. But but in commanding love, my command is that you love one another as I have loved you. What he's saying is I think that love is that thing true about ourselves that is is the only really thing we truly possess of our own. In the sense of like, you know, my possessions, you can take them from me, you can steal them, or they could um be repossessed, or they could be devalued. Your money, you know, it it could lose its value, uh, I could lose it, I could squander it, I could gamble it away. Someone could again steal it from me. My time. We're not masters of our time. Um possessions, money, even your reputation is beyond your mastery. It's it's better to have a clear conscience than a good reputation. Yes, because clear conscience you could own. Reputation could be sullied or slandered. But love is that thing which we really could be capable of mastery of. But the mastery of it requires a master to overrule our love so that it's ordered and orderly and prioritized. Because left to our own law unto ourselves mentality, we're gonna. Love ourselves supremely. So Jesus comes into our life right before he dies, and he says, I command you to prioritize the love like I had, like the love of one another, the other person coming first. And so you know, you try to get that across to the wedding. And I just wonder, um, I I'm I'm having these thoughts, and I'm watching Jeopardy, and I go, you know what? Mark Twain thought the 364 days of the year we were fools, and then one day of the year we celebrated the fact that we were fools. You know what? You know what? We're foolish. We are foolish. That that witticism strikes home. And then I thought, you know, my daughter's gonna give birth tomorrow, and I'm gonna be involved in this wedding on Saturday, and I'm gonna see how much my savior loves me on the cross on Friday, and then experience the joy of his love on Sunday. And I'm like, but we're society. You know, we just we've done a lot of things in the last 75 years because we loved particularly the females in our lives. We we wanted to liberate them, set them free, and and well-intendedly often. But when you put the whole cocktail together of no-fault divorce and abortion on demand and radical feminism, and and then you know, and the things that come with it, it you know, it just accelerates. It takes a life of its own, where there's gay marriage and pornography is is is accepted, and then transgenderism, and what I would call it is we're living in a societal day where what we call love is what I would call casual intimacy. And casual intimacy is an oxymoron, there's no such thing. If you're intimate, you're not casual. If you're casual, it's not intimate. And so then I ask myself, what kind of world do I want my my daughters to raise their daughters and sons in? You know, and to be honest with you, in the 50s, that black and white world, that wasn't perfect. I don't want to go back to that. But then I but then I asked my question, would I rather have my grandchildren be raised in the 50s or the 2020s?

SPEAKER_06 46:10

Interesting thought, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

And I just think that um in in in our idea of what we thought we knew what love was, and to liberate everyone and to free everyone up, the restraints have been loosened. And and were those no, yeah, I understand there's people did some bad patriarchal things. Right. Were were those were there generally speaking, were they chains? Like did my father have my my wife and my mother in chains, or were they they both tethered to the church and the traditions and moorings and moralities, they kept a family intact.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

And I you know, I just I just think you know, you can you can think you're in chains and you can untether your boat and you could be lost in the tide. And and I just wonder we've done a lot of things for adult females, but adult females are the mothers, and now that they're mothers, how do they feel that they're raising their children in this moral framework that we've left for them? Have we sacrificed too much? You know, there's you know, Jesus says in John 15, when he when he commands love, he then he then says there's no greater love. That's the love he commands us to have, is the no greater love. He wants us to have the greatest love. Well, I mean, what a commandment. I mean, somebody's looking out for your best interest that he commands you to have the greatest love humanly possible. And then so then I think I'm I'm reflecting, and my daughter's actually giving birth, and I'm waiting to hear. And there's nothing like a mother's love. There's nothing like a mother's love. Yeah, I mean, they love so deeply. I I spent good afternoon time on Easter Sunday in my dearest friend's uh house where where I heard the heart of a mother who was just talking about mothering, and then said, I would do it all again.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

You know, and Dave, you know, to your point, I think um I I think there is a uh you know, you look at a culture, I don't know what they even call it a love deficit or something. But I I think a lot of that it g gets back to what you're just talking about here about mothering. Uh motherhood is put off. Um the longer it's put off, um, you know, your your thought about women, they're they they've been told they could have it all and you know, uh go to college, have a career, and then you could do the mothering thing later, and then they have trouble, and then they they gotta find all alternative ways to try to bear children. And uh uh and and then a lot of them decide, you know what? Uh we we were watching, I was watching a conservative uh uh station the other day, and I'm saying, well that she doesn't have children, she doesn't have children, she doesn't have children, she doesn't and and and uh uh you know I I I I think there's a love deficit because we've we've cut ourselves off, I think, in our culture from uh the the very path that that God gave us uh to find a lot of this uh fulfillment and to find to find that love, Dave, that that that you're talking about. I think like you said, the greatest love. And you know what? I'm I'm just thinking of uh uh we we talked about her, you know, back to Hamnet, you know, Jesse Buckley. I mean here's here's a here's a world famous actress, and she wins the Academy Award, and she gets up and she she's doing her her speech at the end. And what is she what is she talking about?

SPEAKER_06 49:29

She said she singled out her husband. She said, You Fred, I love you, man. I love you. You're the most incredible dad, you're my best friend, and I want to have 20,000 more babies with you. I do.

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Yeah. She said it was the greatest thing, you know. Uh, you know, being a mother.

SPEAKER_06 49:45

And then she talked about her baby who's eight months old. She was great. Which was wonderful, wonderful. She said, I want to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother's heart. But I love that she prefaced it with love for her husband. That was beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

Yeah, that whole thing was beautiful. And and that and she talked about she talked about love. She talked about exactly what you're talking about. She talked, you know, and it all starts with the family. It's the it's you know, that's the the atom. That's that that's where it starts. I mean, it's it's that it's the family, uh, and and we've gotten away from that. It's the building block of every culture. I say I used to say this all the time. Every culture, the building block is the individual families. And I know they, you know, uh sometimes it's you know, dad is gone or whatever, but but you know what? That influence, that influence, that male-female influence, you know, if if uh it's it's massive. It's massive on children.

SPEAKER_06 50:40

Charlie Kirk talked about it. Get married. Have more children than you can afford. And now Isabel Brown, who by the way on Instagram has 1.3 million followers, and she in front of CPAC said, get married, have children, have more children than you can afford. And the And the View killed her.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

They lost their minds. That's right.

SPEAKER_06 51:06

They said you're wrapping a woman's worth up in her ovaries. They said you're going back in time. They accused her of racism. They said it was reckless. And it's honestly to your point, David, it was heartbreaking to hear that. But they're the ones, I mean, Isabel actually said, I'd like to thank the women of the view for showing their truest, darkest colors today. They're literally shrieking like demons at the thought of encouraging young women to have children. I mean, it's that tragic. And to your point, this is, I think the tide is turning a little bit along with the problems. And what you're saying, and coming from a man, this is so beautiful. We need to speak up about this and encourage and watch our language and not be like, oh, how many children do they have? Don't they know what causes this? Or, oh my gosh, I guess you can't wait till you know they're not home. We need to have a culture where we embrace and support not just the cute little babies, but motherhood in the trenches.

SPEAKER_01 52:11

It's gonna be Denise. Go ahead, Dave. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

Well, I just uh yeah, uh I just think um the nature of love because this progressive agenda that I'm talking about, you know, there's always was was somebody on the margins that needed um, you know, us to affirm them and tell them they could be fulfilled. But the nature the contradistinction is the nature of love is that you're not completely completely your own. Yeah, it's not ultimately about self-fulfillment, but find your real self in in devoting yourself to something bigger to yourself. You know, so there is no everyone wants I want everyone to be free, but but are we free? Have we haven't we shackled our our heritage our future? And you know, but love is greater than freedom. Yeah, we can concede a little bit of free. Wouldn't every loving mother sacrifice a bit of their freedom for the benefit of the nurturing of the child?

SPEAKER_01 53:14

They do it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

Yeah, I mean love transcends the the freedom agenda, and but it's it's God commanding us that we get those tethering, those more it's transforming, it's transformative.

SPEAKER_01 53:25

I mean, I used to look at my my my middle daughter Emily had had a baby just almost a year ago, and she was she she was her mother and I used to look at her and going, yeah, I don't know if I don't know if she's gonna be cut out to be a mother. She hated dolls, she had a thousand uh stuffed animals, but she uh she she always preferred animals over people. I think she became a vet tech. And but that wait, she she had a baby a year ago, and uh it is the most beautiful transformation. Uh is the most beautiful thing to see her all of a sudden she's like a helicopter mom. She's you know that's wonderful. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing to watch, and but she's been transformed. She's been transformed by by Nora by love. She's been transformed, and it does that. And I remember Dave, you you said that uh getting outside of ourselves. I remember, you know, Brad Pitt. I mean, this gorgeous, yeah, you know, honk this actor. And I remember when he had his first child. I I'll never forget the interview they did with him. And he said, you know what? I I was am was so sick of myself. I'm so sick of tending to myself and my needs. And then we I had this child and and things just like a switch went off at me. And I said, that that really is true, man, when we give ourselves away. And um I I think the message is is clearly different in culture, Donagene. To your point, I think it is changing. I think it's starting. It's we see we see the you know the first l little signs of it changing. But uh people have been lied to for so long for a generation. You know, that uh it is about you, it's about your education, it's about how you look, it's about what makes you happy, it's about and um uh you know, it's uh uh hopefully it will change. And uh, you know, certainly uh when Jesus knelt down and washed the feet of the disciples, um the ultimate exp expression of service, and I think it I think we find ourselves in service. I as I said in a message I think a week or two ago, you know, we pay psychologists all kinds of money. We we're depressed, you know, we're we're we're we we go down the rabbit hole, and uh the simple one of the simple solutions, and I'm not saying that depression isn't organic, ever organic in nature or anything like that. But I would tell I used to tell people who were depressed, okay, what do you do when to serve other people? And a lot of times it was nothing. Get out and do you have an even people who weren't married, do you have an organization, a charity you like? Yeah, I really like that. Well, do you ever work for no do it, do it, and to get outside of yourself, because it it it being consumed with ourselves ends in just uh uselessness and depression. I really think so.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

And and good for in this commandment that he's giving us the no greater love, it is to lay down one's life, and that's of course what Christ did for us on the cross. And it's interesting. What word what word is it that we use to describe that event of the crucifixion? And Mel Gibson even uses it in the title of the movie. We call it his passion. That's the word we use for ecstatic love and devotion. Yeah, the passion. So the great he but he commands us to have the greatest love, that's the our benefit, and and the and the greatest love is is to have passion for someone else and concern for them. And it's interesting, he he says he commands us to have love, but he says, I write, I tell these things to you so that you might have complete joy.

SPEAKER_06 57:03

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

So I just I was able to tell the bride and groom the the the twin ideas of uh of love and joy. So what I said to them, I actually prayed for them, and I said, Lord God, I pray that all the days of their life that they would live nestled between the twin ideas of Good Friday love and resurrection Sunday joy. Beautiful. And then they would that they would dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Beautiful. Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

I'm gonna use that, and I'm not gonna give you credit and pay for me and then I'm just gonna use it. You're gonna be you're you're probably gonna be there one day and you go, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_05 57:38

Wait, wait, that's mine. That's mine before it's a month.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

He stole it. You know, this is a 70-year-old gotta forget that I didn't gotta cut him some slack, you know.

SPEAKER_01 57:52

You know what's that's it. That's it. That's a good place to end your birthday month.

SPEAKER_06 57:58

And send the cards and gifts, right?

SPEAKER_00 58:01

No, no, pick up already, pick up all balls.

SPEAKER_01 58:04

Don't you do please? Anyway, but uh guys, thanks. Good discussion. Um uh lots going on. Uh certainly uh there's there's no shortage of things to talk about, and we'll have a another spirited discussion in in a couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_06 58:19

The next one will be number 10.

SPEAKER_05 58:22

My word. This is number nine. We're up to we're gonna be at 10. We have to have a party.

unknown 58:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:28

Well, guys, listen, thanks for listening uh to Encore We Canada Privilege uh that you guys would spend any time listening to us. So um thank you so much. Uh it's a it's the weather's turning. I'm looking outside right now. It's getting warmer, it's getting brighter. I'm seeing the colors, flowers everywhere. It's yellow and green and all kinds of stuff. Get outside and enjoy God's creation. And we will see you again in two weeks for another micro. Take care now.