Ep:1 Pilot

Join Pastor Daniel and Marie Cox on the pilot episode of the Cultural Connections Podcast! Here they discuss the intersection of Christ and the culture for real conversations about faith and everyday life.


After many years in ministry together, Marie returned to school and became a licensed counselor so they could better help people who are struggling. Now they explore how Jesus connects with culture, family, anxiety, trauma, and the challenges we all face.

Simple, honest, and always grounded in the KJV Bible.

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📌 CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome to Cultural Connections
0:28 Our Background & Why We Started
1:10 Why She Went Back to School
2:43 Christ & Counseling
5:59 All Truth Is God’s Truth
9:15 What Is Culture?
10:54 How Culture Shapes Us
13:38 Changing American Culture
18:45 Jesus and Culture
19:35 Culture Affects Everyone
20:54 Narcissism & Modern Issues
24:40 The Wounded Healer
25:56 Closing Thoughts

Thanks for watching — we’d love to grow this with you.
#ChristianPodcast #FaithAndCulture #BiblicalCounseling #JesusAndCulture #ChristianMarriage

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Welcome again to this first episode of Cultural Connections. And really, this was a desire that was born in our hearts a number of months ago. My background, I have pastored uh for much of my adult life. And uh I'm not sure if I'm a theologian yet, but I am trying. But I I am married to a Sheologian. And so we enjoy having conversations about life and ministry and family. We've been blessed with four children, and that's a huge benefit in our lives. And uh a number of years ago, you wanted to go back to school and uh maybe talk about going back to school, what that looked like, and and how that's kind of informed ministry for us um and how we effectively try to reach people in our society.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Well, I first add that he is a theologian. I go to him often with all of my questions, especially when I'm sometimes the answer is I don't know, but that's okay. He knows most of the time. Um so it started back um in I would say my mid-30s. It was around 2016, I think, when I really stated to you that I felt like I needed to go back to college. Um as he'd mentioned, we had been in the ministry for a very long time, really almost right at the start of our marriage. Um he was assistant pastor for a year, but then right after that, a pastor and a pastor's wife, um, at a very young, early age. And so we had come across many people needing help and counseling and assistance. And I I often tell the story that the day that I realized I needed to go back to school was I had led a young lady to the Lord and she had young children, and she came back that next Sunday and asked if she could speak to me. And I said, sure. We met in my husband's office and she had questions, questions that I could not answer. Um, I left that meeting feeling very defeated, and I told my husband I I was not ready to give her an answer for her problems that she had dealt with, lots of trauma in her early life that was affecting her to this day as a mom. And so um, of course, him being the gracious husband that he always is said, absolutely go back to school. And so he stepped it up and helped with the children. I went back to college. Um, I graduated um in 2018, and then I furthered uh my education to receive my licensure in the state of Florida, and so yeah, that really began this journey that that many years ago.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

So you pursued state licensure. Um, I think as a means of that I remember that conversation you had with that that young lady, and feeling kind of limited as a Christian. For the scripture commands us to be ready always to give an answer to every person regarding the hope that is in us. And the the hopelessness, I think you felt that you didn't have an answer for her. And I think it opened a doorway for you to say, I I I not only want to have the answer, but I want to have the key that unlocks every door to have every conversation that's possible. So as you were going through school, I was kind of going along with you and um kind of reading, and we were talking after classes, and and my my worldview was being changed a lot as well. Uh I think for much of my life I would have said to that young lady, man, just read the Bible more and be more faithful to church. And not really understanding her cultural perspective at all, or maybe some of the traumas that she had gone through. So I think all of that kind of goes into the soup of kind of what brings us here is there is a connection between Christ and culture. Uh and we'll talk about what we mean by culture in just a moment. Um, but maybe maybe you can answer this question and I might pick up on it too. Where does where does Christ and counseling, where do those kind of integrate? Because we're kind of having conversations uh maybe in Christianity today about um integrating Christian principles with maybe counseling practices. Um I'll kind of ask you, kind of what's your view on how does Scripture inform us, or what place does Jesus Christ or the truth of God's word even have in a counseling room?

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yeah, well, everything to for starters. And I would say too, for maybe those looking into um studying counseling or or psychology, that that Christianity and psychology or Christianity and counseling, they don't have to be in competition with each other. They actually complement each other. Um that is when you find things that are actually true. There's a lot of things out there that are not true, and as a Christian, we can see that. We can see clearly in scripture where things that that may that maybe the culture is saying in regards to counseling is absolutely not true. But to answer your question, if if Christ is not in that counseling room, there is there will never be complete healing because he is the ultimate healer. And I often speak about the style of counseling that I use, which is holistic counseling. Um, I counsel the whole person, so we can't ignore the physical, the emotional, or especially the spiritual because they're all interconnected. I know we talk about being a you know part of a trinity or or you know, there's three parts of us or two parts of us, a dichotomous or trichotomous. Um the way I really look at it, and which helps me in counseling, is we have an inner life and we have an outer life, and they're absolutely connected, and we cannot, we cannot break them apart. But I I will just say Proverbs 25 says that counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. And so this to get to this place of understanding, there has to be study, and we can look at things that that uh that are true, that we can look at and say, this does not um contradict God's word in any way. And in fact, scripture supports it. So that's kind of where where I stand on that.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah, so I mean I would argue that all truth is God's truth. Yes. That Jesus said, I am the way, I'm the truth, and the life. And Paul even says to the Colossians that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Um I teach a college class called Science and Faith. And uh that that class kind of meets at the crossroads between um what people would say is faith and reason, or uh science and religion. And I think Christians have been bullied into a corner of saying, well, you can either believe in science or you can believe in the Bible. You can either believe in evidence or you can believe in fairy tales. And what we're discovering in the natural world, whether it's archaeologically or historically, uh, what we're discovering is uh the Bible is not a science book, nor is it necessarily a history book, but the Bible does speak about scientific things and where the Bible speaks, it can be trusted. And I think kind of the untold story of if it's science or if it's um counseling, the fact is um our God created our bodies. He created us, as as you kind of touched on a little bit, maybe some terms you guys aren't familiar with, but are are we a combination of three parts, spirit, soul, and body, are we a combination of two parts? And and I agree with what you said. We have an inner life and we have an outer life, and the fact is all of our parts were made by God. And he made us and we can we can live healthy lives as we look to him. So I I think the conversations we want to have are not just saying, hey, what does the New York Times say about this, or what does CNN say about this, or what did you read on Twitter lately? I mean, there's so many and I I think one of the deceptions of the enemy today is to kind of flood the zone with information. Um, you know, we just came out of of the the situation of Charlie Kirk's uh assassination, and you could kind of see this play out in real time, is there were so many narratives that were drawn so quickly, and and I think it discourages people from saying, I don't even know what the truth is anymore. And I think they stopped looking for the truth because they think the truth can't be known. But as Bible believers, we know that the truth can be found. And as our pastor used to say, I'm not searching for the truth, I'm searching in the truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. So if we were talking in this show about um maybe uh the trans movement, or um there's lots of conversation we're having in the in the culture today. Um maybe it's pornography or drugs, or maybe it's the sex trait or abortion or anything like that. Um, we're gonna take that back to scripture because we we don't look for Christ in our pursuit of information. We begin with Christ, and we know that through Christ, He kind of leads leads our way of thinking. I think that's what you're trying to say in in counseling, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah. And I and I'll bring us back to the the verse, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And I think that is a that is a path that education can take some people on because they go on this path of trying to understand and learn. And and even Socrates says, know thyself, right? And they go on this mission to try to know themselves, but they disregard God. And you cannot know truth without God. So um, yes, we want to understand and know, but you cannot go on that journey without Christ Himself.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

So just kind of wetting the whistle a little bit, I think maybe we define terms a little bit. So I'm gonna use the word culture, right? I think, I think, I think we think we understand what we mean by culture. Um, I brought a book that has, I think, a really good definition for culture. Uh this this book was written by a guy named Edward Sheen, and it's more of maybe a cultural or a um a corporate cultural book, but I really like his definition. He says that the culture of a group can be defined as the accumulated shared learning of that group as it solves its problems and external adaptation and integration. But this is the line I really like. He says culture is the accumulated learning which creates patterns or systems of belief, values, and behavioral norms that come to be taken for granted as basic assumptions and eventually drop out of awareness. In other words, the culture becomes so part of who you are, it drifts out of your consciousness of, is this really cultural? Like it's culture is the air that you breathe. Like it's it's the like a fish. Does a fish wonder its culture? No, it just fills the water. Like that's that's its domain. So when I'm using the word culture, yeah, we're talking about music, we're talking about food, we're talking about government, uh, we're talking about dress or any of those types of things. But but really what what I what I'm using the term culture as is it's the collective consciousness of a group of people, um, shared experiences or thoughts that they have, and how do those interact with scripture? What what do you take by the term culture?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Well, I would say it's it's maybe something you don't really think about too much or really understand that too much until you go into a different culture, right? And and we just both experienced that when we left Florida and went to California. Um I think we said that often. Sure. Well, I don't understand this culture or or even the culture in a church, even just the the church there, the culture felt different than the culture that we'd ever been a part of. And so it's I think the way I describe it is the accepted norms. What is accepted as a norm? What are what are oh yeah, this is just what we do. Yeah, this is just how you do life. And when you question it, it's like, why are you questioning that? That's culture. So it's just an accepted, almost a uh a non-thinking or a subconscious way of just accepting things that you didn't even realize you were accepting in. So it's just part of life. It's like what you said, it's just the air you breathe.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Okay, so we are Christians, and when I say I'm a Christian, I'm not really talking about, and there there's probably a cultural component to even the definition of what I mean by the term Christian. When I use the word Christian, I'm talking about I am a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ. But I think I mean more than that. When I say I'm a Christian, what I'm saying is I have accepted the culture of Jesus Christ, the pattern of Christ. Um we have in our in our world today, in our society, I've we I've read this article this week, I should have brought it with me. But um the what we would kind of call the monolithic Anglo-Saxon white American person is on the decline. And through immigration or um through certain people groups from the Middle East who have sought asylum here, um, there are other different ethnic ethnicities in the United States that are having a lot of children. And uh maybe families such as ours weren't quite having as many children, and so the American culture is just changing based on the fact that there's other people groups coming here, and one of those people groups would be Islamic people. And a lot of people assume that like Islam is a religion, and it is a religion, but really the term Islam means submission, and what they're saying is they're submitting to a certain culture. So, what happens when a typical what we call an American culture meets um a heteronormative culture that adheres to like Sharia law? There's going to be some consequences there, and that we can maybe talk about that later. I bring that up to say there is a culture that surrounds the person of Jesus Christ. And what we want to dig into is what is the normative assumption that Jesus makes about his people that we haven't assumed for ourselves. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yeah. And it's funny, you were talking about culture and even maybe the amount of kids that that Americans, especially white Americans, are having.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

It was an olive garden, actually. Yes, that is.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

But now it's almost frowned upon to have two kids. Um it's like, oh, you're having more than one, or you're having children at all. And we were having this conversation in the car, um, just maybe it was yesterday. But I think part of the decline really in in our culture, especially furthering, you know, and and it's the image of God. Why do we why do we bear children? Because we're furthering the image of God and and the lives of people, and especially people who are Christians. We should, we should definitely further this. Um, but part of it is that they're just selfish. And I think that's part of what's going on in our American culture right now. It's it's selfishness. I don't, a child brings too much to the table. It takes away from me and what I want to do and the money I want to make. And they do. I mean, in order to be a mother, you have to be extremely selfless to be a good mother. Um, so it it is part of a decline in America that that I mean, as a 40-some year old woman, I won't tell you exactly how old I am, but um it it it's a little frightening. Like what is happening to our culture is the culture that we know it disappearing, and what happens when people just stop having kids?

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Yeah. Again, I I bring up kind of another conversation that we might have in in time to come, but um people, Christian people who want to perpetuate the culture or the faith, uh, there's kind of pejorative terms that have been created by the media, maybe terms like Christian nationalism or things like that. What we're saying is the scripture actually commands us to make disciples. And making disciples means uh we want to further, we want to perpetuate a culture, a way of living. Um and I I think maybe kind of the where I grew up, and maybe where you grow up, and maybe some of the circles that we've kind of been involved in, maybe we maybe we majored on some lesser parts of culture and and less on those really soulish things that really make someone a Christian. Like we could go to Africa or Europe or other places. I've I've traveled some in the world. I've been to Central America, I've been to the Middle East, I've been to Asia, and what we find there is people that I I embrace their culture because it's not the food. I mean, there's some foods that they eat that I kind of like repulsed by, but there's a culture of faith there that I identify with. And and and being honest, that there's been some I think the danger of a missions trip is sometimes you come back to an American church and hey man, we're sometimes a little disappointed in the culture, right? But it's our responsibility to go make disciples and to perpetuate what does it really mean to be a Christian? And how do we view everything in our lives through biblical lenses? Like I have some friends that are still like fighting over like a Democrat, Republican. Like, that's the biggest problem in our world today. And I just feel sorry for them because I just see the world a different way. Like, I don't I don't just see the world Democrats and Republicans and a few independents who couldn't win like a primary on either side of that, or or uh, you know, I'm from the South and this person's from the north. I mean, these are like silly little games that we play. Like we really are at the crossroads of like good and evil, like biblical truth and error, like damning error and heresy that like condemns people's souls. So what I what I want these conversations to to produce is is more thought-provoking in people's minds to say, if Jesus Christ were alive today, and I know that's so abstract and hypothetical, but if Jesus Christ were alive today, what decisions would he make based on the things that we're talking about? And I think that probably is even a really dumb question because if we read the scriptures, we can determine exactly how Jesus would have responded to a lot of the issues in our lives and our churches. Um we have teenagers, we have adults now and our, you know, our kids. Um but truth never changes. I I I think that's what I want people to see too, is the culture is quickly changing. I mean, I I think our kids grew up in a radically different world than we grew up in. Um you've talked about your mom giving you a few bucks and you took your bike down to the corner store and and what you could buy for a dollar. And I mean, we live in a radically different world. But what I think our kids have needed to know is that there are some things that never change. Like all may change, but Jesus never, the old song says. The truth of scripture is something they can ground their hopes in.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Yeah, for sure. And as I mean, just as we continue in this conversation, I and speaking of culture, I was thinking about um you said how do we know what Christ would do? I and I think it shows us right in scripture, because he was in a culture, a very clear culture of what was happening, and he would go against the norms. I mean, radically go against the norms. Something as simple as as a woman sitting at his feet to learn, that was against culture. But here he is doing it. Why? Because this is the right thing to do. And but living in that culture, he would still partake in different cultural things, like the way they ate their food, the way they sat around a table and getting in the culture. But when that culture goes against God's word, then he's ready to say, This is not how it's gonna be done. And so I think that's kind of what we want to talk about. Where can we come together as a culture and Christ and counseling and how do they all intersect with each other?

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Yeah, for sure. So so in counseling, like do you ever run into like Christian people who think, and I'm a Christian, I go to church, I'm not being affected by the culture. Like is that is that a dangerous place to be in?

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Oh, yeah, for sure, because it's impossible for you to not be affected by the culture. This is all part of what you're you're hearing, you're breathing. Like I like the word you use, breathing it in, because we are. I mean, it's the culture that you're in, and you and it's surprising how quickly you will change to each culture you you go into. It didn't take us long to feel like we were Californians, even though we'd been Floridians, well, for me, for almost all my life, and for you, enough where you try to claim to be native. So, I mean, but we we began to just take it in. Something that was so just felt different at first, and then we just became a part of it. I mean, something silly as like the fighting over which burger place was the best place. That's such the culture there. Is it in and out or is it habit? And we both took determining lines of this is where we're gonna stand in this culture. So it's just to to say that culture doesn't affect you, you're living in denial because it does. And so you need to realize where it's affecting you and where it, where is maybe some of the the ungodly thoughts and beliefs or or worldly um thought about what's happening is is really overtaking the way you view God, which is which is important. Is it changing your perspective on God and God and His Word?

SPEAKER_01 20:53

So our worlds, we kind of we kind of started here and we'll kind of end here. So um there's there's a perception that our worlds don't overlap at all. There's theology, there's counseling. Um, but what we want to do is to go to the scriptures uh to find best practices. I do think that one of the cultural abnormalities in in our world today is severe anxiety and um depression, narcissism. I mean, we're seeing things now that are part of the kind of the cultural malou of I I don't know. I mean, maybe I just wasn't paying attention, but like the term narcissism was not something that I ever remembered hearing spoken of when I was a teenager. Like, what is that? Like, is that a behavioral, like is it it almost feels like uh some type of endemic, like uh um mass psychosis like formation of I it's a it's a buzzword.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

So it's this it's this word that people are saying now. I mean, did narcissism just begin like a few years ago? Absolutely not. Um we Would use the word, oh, you're so prideful, you're so full of self. I mean, that's the same thing. And I maybe we'll save that for another episode, but but just to to to maybe set where I feel about narcissism, everybody, and I mean everybody, you, me, we everybody suffers from narcissistic tendencies. So to be so quick to point the finger and call someone a narcissist, you you probably need to look back at yourself as well, because we all tend to have these things, some of us more than others. Um, but we we are all bent towards ourselves. I mean, this is this is this is what the fall is about. It became about ourselves. But that's a buzzword. Are there narcissistic tendencies? Yeah, does it seem like they're they're becoming worse and worse? Well, yeah, because the world is waxing worse and worse.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah, and I think it's a sign that the culture is just uh the culture is probably having a greater impact on us right than we're having on the culture. Like I, you know, people used to say there's there's too much of the church, there's too much worldliness in the church. And um the responsibility of the church is to be affecting change. I mean, when you read the book of Acts, uh you read about uh the Church of Thessalonica, who recognized that there were Christian leaders who had come and the term they had turned the world upside down, they had they had overturned conventional thinking. When Paul goes to Ephesus, he affects the um the idol trade when Jesus comes. As you said, Jesus does not really come to play by uh the rules of the Jews in in his in his day. He really came to hearken them back to the heart of what it means to love God with all of your heart. So, yeah, I think I think all of those buzzwords are are really endemic of the fact that we've allowed the culture to affect us and we haven't we haven't bought into the culture of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. So what I'm looking forward to is just having conversations with people who have been affected by sin. Uh so not just having a conversation about what does the Bible say about pornography. I mean, we could have that conversation and and maybe should, and we could have a a theological conversation about the consequences of that. You could you could bring a counseling side in that says um, you know, there's neuropathways and uh there's dopamine hits, uh, the same as would be the case of um some type of chemical addiction and drugs or alcohol. Uh but I think what we want to do is bring people in who would say, yeah, my life has been affected by this culturally, right? But the gospel of Jesus Christ set me free, and now I'm living in freedom from those things. So I'm I'm kind of looking forward to having some of those conversations as well. Are there any conversations that you're interested in having?

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Yeah, well, um I would say for sure, I I I think one of the phrases you've you've I actually named me this or using as one of my titles, but you use the phrase a wounded healer. And um I I like to mention often that we're all broken people um and in need of a savior who can heal us. Um but to ignore the brokenness, maybe, maybe past traumas or things that happen in our life, I don't that that is not conducive to healing. Um but but to take some position that maybe we've never been affected by life or by culture as the word we're using today, um, that would be to ignore what's really happening, but to really accept, okay, yeah, we're broken people and we're in need of of of healing. And so that's the journey that God has called me on, is to help people on their healing journey. And so I'm I'm really interested in any topics really that have caused maybe trauma in people's lives, or maybe is has stopped them from the ability to continue growing in and their sanctification. And what are these areas that have stopped them and to help them get through these maybe pits in the road that they're stuck in? Um and comforting really people with the comfort wherewith I have received from Christ. I mean, that's kind of what I feel called to do is to comfort those who are hurting as as God has comforted me.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

So I'm still growing as a person, as a Christian. Um the Lord has stretched my soul. Uh I didn't come up with the term wounded healer, by the way. I I read that in a book. I'd actually read it in a book about a person, and then I read the person's work himself who used that term. And he would not be on the theological battleground that I was raised on. Um, his name is Hen Henry Newen. He was not a Baptist person, uh, but he wrote about wounded healers who turn their pain inside out and affect the culture around them through bringing the healing of Christ. I I bring that up to say some of our conversations will reveal that uh the Lord has challenged me and strengthened me in areas um in my own, I think, sanctification. And so wherever Christ is, wherever Christ leads, wherever the truth leads me, I I that's where I want to go. And that's where I want our listeners to go as well, that there are other things maybe outside of our faith tradition that we actually need for our Christian lives. And so uh we want to pursue Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, and and have these conversations together. So we want to invite you guys on this journey as uh we converse about the goodness of God and the truth of Scripture. Um, it's our strong belief that the Word of God is as relevant today as it was pinned under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And we want it to encourage you and help you. If you are enjoying these conversations, we hope that you'll hit that like button and share it with your friends and join this conversation with us. And thank you for tuning in today, and God bless you.