Friday, September 13th | The State of the Methodist Church (ft. Dr. John Check)

This episode of Clearview Today is brought to you by Le Bleu Ultra Pure Water.

David, how many bottles of water do you think you drink a day? Well, actually, I only drink Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew, Strawberry Yoo-Hoo, and the occasional Pepto Bismol. Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew? Do they even make that anymore?

Fun fact, no. I have to make my own with McDonald's Sprite, and you guessed it, Texas Pete. I am genuinely horrified to hear that.

Me too. You know, unlike other bottled waters, Le Bleu water only has two ingredients, hydrogen and oxygen. Nothing more, nothing less. Le Bleu's award-winning Ultra Pure Water is the result of their patent-pending Five Steps Beyond Mother Nature process, which eliminates the inorganic materials and creates uniquely pure water, free of contaminants and perfectly balanced and fresh tasting. And Le Bleu produces only the highest quality ultra pure bottled water on the market. You can get them in 1 liter, 1.5 liters, 12 ounces, 20 ounces, or even in the 3 to 5 gallon water coolers. And best of all, Le Bleu Central conveniently delivers this pure refreshment right to your home or office.

That's right. Le Bleu delivers our water coolers right here to Clearview Church every single month like clockwork. And it's not just water. Le Bleu supplies the finest gourmet coffees, teas, and hot chocolates to accommodate every preference in your office. I'm talking Green Mountain, Starbucks, Krispy Kreme Donut Shop. So whether you're looking for the perfect brew for yourself or for your workplace, Le Bleu has got you covered. You can visit their website today at MyLeBleu, that's M-Y-L-E-B-L-E-U.com, and use promo code today, that's T-O-D-A-Y, for a 10% discount at checkout. Every single purchase you make using that promo code helps us here at The Clearview Today Show and gets you one step closer to the purest, most refreshing water you've ever tasted. Thank you to Le Bleu for sponsoring this episode. Now let's start the show.

Where's my Mountain Dew? You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. You can find us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com. That's right, and you can help us keep the conversation moving forward by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and family. Leave us a good five-star review on iTunes or Spotify and where you get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave a couple of links in the description so you can do just that. Ryan, happy Clear View Today Friday. Happy Clear View Today Friday. It's Friday, Friday. It's finally Friday.

Everybody's looking forward to the weekend, right? Sure. That's what, what's her name? I don't know. What's her name? Oh, Rebecca Black. What do you think of her name to save my life? It took me a second.

I didn't have the tune in my head, but then I was like, ah, Rebecca. It's Friday, Friday. Oh, okay. So let me ask you this. We talked a little bit yesterday about Gavin's budding Pokemon obsession.

Yeah. I tried to, I tried to get him onto the Pokemon games. I gave him my DS. Then I was kind of realized like, this is hard for, for a three-year-old.

Pokemon's tough. When did you, when did you let your kids start playing video games? Like, like, like here's, here's a game. I'm going to go into another room or whatever.

Like, like you can handle this. So they have, so they have like kids' tablets that they have games on. So I guess, I mean, I guess in a sense that's, it is video games.

It's not like a console game, but I mean, they're, they're playing on those. I think Asher got his when he was four, maybe, maybe three. Yeah. Gavin's, Gavin's rounding four. The reason I ask is because it's actually funny you mentioned the tablets because Ellie was asking, should we get some of those like leapfrog or leap pad? Yeah, leapfrog.

Leapfrog tablets for, for, uh, for Gavin just to keep him occupied, keep him, you know, learning and stuff. And I was like, I'm not paying money for that when we got a perfectly good Nintendo switch sitting right here. I've got an Xbox series S right here.

You can play that. So I started searching for kids' games and I was like, these kind of stink and they handled terribly. Yeah, there's not great kids' games on consoles.

But I will say this. I think I got lucky here. I don't think this was a wise or good parenting decision, but I think I just got lucky in that this game actually handles pretty well. He saw a thumbnail for a Paw Patrol game and it was like $20. And I was like, ah, $20 game is probably going to handle like junk. You're going to get bored with it, son. Cause it's going to be glitchy broken.

You're not going to like it. He was like, please, please, please. And so it's kind of clever what Ellie did.

Ellie has a, an account with money set aside for them. So if they ask for stuff, you know, it's like, Hey Gavin, you know, this is coming out of your little envelope and he's, you know, he doesn't care or you're Mickey piggy bank. He didn't care at all. He's like, I want it right now.

So we took the 20 out, whatever got him, got him his Paw Patrol game. It's actually pretty fun. Like not for me, but I'm saying it handles pretty well. Like it's not glitchy.

It's not broken. He's getting, he's playing on my account. So people are seeing me sign onto Xbox and play like Paw Patrol.

And what's worse is it's linked to my phone. I'm getting achievements at work. We're sitting in our lunch meeting, I think two days ago, we're talking or, or yesterday I should say, and we're talking about something with the new sanctuary. And I was like, yeah, the AV install is going really well. What they're doing now is they're trying to, and I see blue Paw Patrol achievements pop up.

And I'm like, Oh, sorry. I'm like trying to get away from it and trying to get back in, but he's getting really good at it. And the, the achievements are so easy that he's getting them like five minutes into each other. So I'm just constantly getting Paw Patrol achievements while, while I'm working, Gavin is running up your game score.

That, that is pretty good. I'm kind of glad that I'm getting high gamerscore off Paw Patrol. I don't like that my online friends are going to be able to see like, Oh, this guy's playing Paw Patrol games and getting easy gamerscore.

But the funniest thing to me is I'm sitting here working on stuff and then I just see a Paw Patrol achievement. I'm like, Oh, Gavin's at home playing the game. That's cute though. You kind of know what he's doing. You can kind of get a glimpse into his day. Yeah. He loves it. And more than anything else, he he's entertained. Yeah.

You know, he's entertained at least for an hour or so I can, I can, I can pretty much guarantee that. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.

I love it. If your kids are, uh, gravitated toward video games and you, uh, you have some suggestions on what to, what route to go. Maybe you're a leapfrog person or you have like a Kindle kids account. Give me some advice.

Cause I'm new to this. You know, I don't want them to play call of duty. Yeah. That's four years old.

I don't want them to play like Gears of War. None of that stuff. Probably not. Write in and let us know two five two five eight two five zero two eight. Or you can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. We'll be right back. Hey, what's going on listeners. My name is John and I'm Ellie and we just want to take a second and let you know about Dr. Shah's new book on the market right now called, can we recover the original text of the new Testament? Boy, that is a long title.

True, but it's a very simple message. The original text of the new Testament is not only attainable, but there are lots of different ways that scholars go about discovering it because a lot of people out there saying that the original text is lost forever or that it's hopeless to actually try to find it or that there's many texts of the new Testament. But alongside Dr. David Allen Black, Dr. Shah has actually compiled papers from some of the world's leading experts in textual criticism, including one written by himself on various methodologies for extracting the original text. And listen, if you're interested in textual criticism, this book is a great introduction to the field. You can pick up your copy on Amazon or you can buy it from our church website.

That's clearviewbc.org. We're going to leave a link in the description box so you can get your copy today. Love that. Ellie, let's hop back in. Let's do it.

This is for Friday, September the 13th. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. That's right. We're here once again in the Clear View Today studio with Dr. Abaddon Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor and the host of today's show, alongside very special guest, drum roll, please. Let me go ahead and get that drum roll right there. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. Dr. John Czech, it's good to see you, my friend.

We need some air horns. Second or third time on the show, I believe. I think so.

Second time on the Clear View Today show. Very good. I appreciate you having me over. Absolutely. Welcome back.

It's a wonderful, fabulous show today. Dr. Shah, we were talking earlier in the intro about how my son, my three-year-old has entered the world of video games now. Oh. And I can't work here at the church without getting updates on my phone of all the achievements he's getting.

Oh, no. When you were, when your kids were, I don't know how many, I don't know how, how much your kids are still gaming these days, but for 50 grand, I thought about this during the break, for 50 grand, every time they get an achievement, you get a notification on your phone. Would you take that? For 50 grand? 50 grand.

But every time they get an achievement in a video game, you get updated on your phone. Absolutely. I'll take it. 50 grand. Yes. It'll be just nonstop. That's no problem.

I'll take it. Did you grow up in a video gaming household? Well, I did not grow up, but did you, did you have like video games in the house and stuff? Pong came out when I was about that age. So I played Pong not long ago and I thought, okay, Pong, wait, I can handle this. It's intense. It was really difficult. Those old games don't joke around it.

You know what's funny? If you go back and like adjust for inflation, they were like $200 or $300 for a game. I had a Mattel and television and I used to skip chapel at Dallas seminary with a PhD buddy of mine. We'd go to my office and play Mattel and television football. And I had one play that I found out the system could beat the system. You could not defend against this one play. I would score every time I had the low Jackson. No, no, it was way pre all that. This guy got so frustrated with me.

He said, I'll play with you, but you can't run that play. If you find something that works. Well, that Dr. Scheck is very, very good to have you on the show. We've got a great episode on in, in, uh, in store for, I guess that's yet to be seen, right? Oh, it's going to be great.

Especially now that you're here. Oh yeah. Right. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the Clearview current, where we cut through the chaos of today's headlines with a clear Christian perspective. We're going to keep you up to date on what's going on in the world. Clearview church is a Southern Baptist church, but we would be sticking our heads in the sand if we didn't address this huge issue that's going on in the Methodist church as of, as of this year, 2024, uh, more than 8,000 congregations have actually left the United Methodist church.

That's right. Uh, and it's, it's over this, uh, same sex controversy that's going on from within. Dr. Chuck, you're, you're a Methodist pastor. Um, so I know you've probably got more experience with this than any of us, but Dr. Shaw, just for the sake of, of anybody out there who just is like, I've not heard about any controversy. I'm not keeping up with Methodist news.

It personally has been coming for a long time. I mean, I would say, and I believe my friend, Dr. Chuck would agree is when it, when it became United, things began to go against scripture. And, and so anyways, I mean, it's the theological controversies were brewing, but then when they were given this, um, you know, uh, challenge that either you, you know, submit to the same sex marriage issue or you leave. And, and to me, a lot of congregations realize at that point, wow. So this is how real this is that we, we are now are kicked out of our own denomination and losing the properties and all the things that our parents, our grandparents and pastors worked so hard to build. Um, they could just be taken away and, and, and done ruthlessly, hatefully at times.

And of course, I mean, Dr. John Czech, he, he knows more about this issue than because he's living it from the inside. Right, right. Well, you know, one of the things I would say too, is that this went, when I first made the plunge to go into the Methodist church, uh, 1990, 92, somewhere in there, I saw a rainbow flag at our annual meeting and I was actually standing in front of one when a channel 17 reporter came up and grabbed me and want to interview me. And unfortunately they didn't use anything. I said in the interview, they did a voiceover saying, uh, minister supporting this issue. And I got phone calls from friends of mine going, what?

Well, that's pretty typical kind of mainstream media even back then. But the fact of the matter is, um, we were given an option back in, in 2019, I believe it was when we had this pathway to leave and what it involved with our churches was all kinds of paperwork. We had to go back in and actually make photocopies of all our, all the documents we had, every document we had had go to, to the mothership and be taken away from us. So we've lost our history, but they, they have since returned that to us.

If they, uh, digitized most of it and sent us back the originals. But the point is we had to go through all kinds of hoops to do this, including paying a significant, what, what our folks have referred to as a ransom fee to get out. But one of the things that we're dealing with now, frankly, is that as I see it, is that the stated reason to leave was homosexual gay marriage issue, but there were so many more issues involved. That's in fact, a lot of churches, uh, on a weekend and nod voted on that issue to leave. But truthfully, there were many, many other issues involved as well, including, you know, in the United Methodist church, you have lifetime appointed bishops, and even when they retire, they have a voice and those retired ministers or clergy are doing a lot of damage. And then there's no accountability for that. And now we have a system where we're still in flux.

We're still kind of the newbies on the block trying to find out what we really are, who we really are as a global church, global methods church. But in fact, um, there are no paid superintendents in our system. Now, uh, if you're going to be a superintendent, you're also passing a church, which is good. And you can only serve a brief time before you rotate out. And you know, there's no guaranteed appointments anymore in our, in the global church, which basically in the United Methodist church, once you're ordained, you have what is considered tenure. Frankly, you have to be brought up on charges to, to be booted out. In fact, if they don't have a place for you to serve that the mothership has to pay you.

So yeah, it was kind of that guarantee. And then also there's no minimum salary in the global church and the minimum salary in the United Methodist church when I left was really approaching $90,000 by the time you look at benefits, housing, except for retirement pension and all that. So small churches are getting, we're getting killed by that. And then other, other things that were going on in United Methodist church were very, very troubling to all of us.

And a lot of those around human sexuality, a lot of those around just the fact that they would not abide by the rules that they set. So I think what happened in my opinion was started way, way long ago. And in fact, in the 1950s, there was a document printed out by one of the denominations that became part of a United Methodist church that declared the world evangelized. And that from that point on the, the turn for the denomination was very, very much social. And so when you lose that evangelistic fervor that, you know, you began to wither and die anyway. And so from what I've seen, the process really was began even before the United Methodist church was United and was really never United. But it kind of followed the same, the same pathway that our, our federal government has followed in terms of progressivism. The question is what is truth and how is truth determined?

And Dr. Shaw has written about that, I'm sure. And how do we know what truth is? To use a theological term, it's more of a epistemological issue than, than anything else. But to answer your question even further, I think what happens is when seminaries began to collapse and they began to lose their, and, and again, here's, here's the path I think it has, has occurred as I see it. And after the industrial revolution began in Europe and the scientific world began in Europe, in Darwin in particular, theologians felt like they needed academic credibility. So they began to adopt a blend of evolutionary thinking and Christian thinking. And in time, as I see it, the, the world began to acquiesce to that. And so the, the theologians began, certainly were acquiescing to that to the extent that they had to come up with a different hermeneutic to determine truth. And so in the 19, by the 1930s, most denominational seminaries had already bought into that.

Harvard, Princeton, Yale, those schools had already bought into that idea. And so what happens then they, as you have written about, they began to demythological approach to scripture so that if you, if you go into the Bible and you believe that, that, that because miracles are not scientific, they can't happen. And then your, your, your hermeneutics says, well, you got to find a deeper meaning behind these miracles. What happens then is you say, okay, it doesn't matter that Jesus walked on water.

The scripture says he walked on water. What, what matters is the deeper spiritual meaning behind that, such as you can rise above your circumstances or whatever you want it to mean. They're trying to rescue God, really saving him. Some of them are, I would say some are very devious.

They have purpose to destroy. And I describe it as a hermeneutic of narcissism. Anything I want to make it say, I can make it say, right. And so when you, when you start with that approach, then before long, it doesn't take long before you, you get into this pathway that says, we determine the meaning based on the, we being our, our sub, our subculture, our religious culture. And you get a bunch of pointy headed theologians in a room.

They, they, they decide what the Bible means. And you know, Wesley coined the phrase many, many years ago when the plain sense makes common sense seek no other sense. Right. Right. That actually came from Wesley, not, not Charles Ryrie.

He was, he was, he was, he was, Ryrie was credited for saying that, but he stole that from John Wesley. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, well, I mean, Wesley was an Oxford graduate. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I guess the biggest thing, and I want to maybe talk about this because this is something that I was unfamiliar with until about maybe 30 minutes ago when we were talking off mic. And, and Dr. Sean, maybe you can speak to this too, because we, again, we're Southern Baptists, but I grew up in that sort of framework. And so I don't know anything else. But we were talking about it and it said, you know, a lot of these churches, they have to get approval from the United Methodist church to leave. And that's not the case with, you know, Southern Baptist churches and churches that are affiliated with the Southern Baptist convention.

How does that exactly work? Well, Southern Baptist, they say, you know, we are bound together with a rope of sand by a rope of sand, which means yes, we are connected, but in the sense, in a sense, we're not obligated to the mothership as Dr. John Chuck just mentioned. And that is to some extent true and is good, but to some extent, I think it's not always true. Yes. Recently, you know, some, some decisions were made to sort of kick out those churches that have gone off the deep end with their view on scripture or view on the gospel or view on sexuality and all of that.

But see that, that sword cuts both ways. And I want us to be careful because when you start doing that and you, you know, you say, well, we're going to now do this to these churches. Okay.

I get you. But when, when does the wrong leadership get in place and they turn the tables and go, now we're going to do this to you. And I don't think that day is very far away. If Southern Baptist don't wake up and realize, yeah, when we begin to control like that, yeah, I see the benefit, but at the same time, I mean, just look at the other side. What you can do is define your world smaller and smaller to see who fits in and who who's approved.

Right. But, you know, let me also clarify that as of, as of 2024, when the larger denomination met United Methodist church met prior to that, you could leave without having to get their permission. What you had to do is go through the process and they figured out a penalty factor. They came up with some formula that said your church's liability for the United Methodist pension fund is such and such. So we're going to ask you to pay this amount, uh, to get out. And our little church, it was, uh, I think a total including legal fees was about $40,000. But if you pay that pension, do you keep your building? Do you keep your property or you get to keep all of it?

Yeah. And some of the, some of the churches out there, and I had somebody stand up in our meeting and say this, where can you get $700,000 for the property for $40,000 and pension fund. So, but again, now, now that presents us a big problem because church people left for a variety of reasons.

And all of a sudden it feels sometimes like we're hurting cats because we don't, didn't all leave because of scriptural authority. People left for a variety of reasons, but there are churches out there that, um, tried to leave that, uh, I mentioned it a little bit ago off mic that, uh, the left bust in literally bust in people to vote, who had been inactive members of these churches for years and years and years. Some, uh, I don't want to call the church out, but one particular church, they had 80 people come in and half of those, two thirds of those people had not been in church in five to 10 years.

The names were still on the roll. And one of the things I've been trying to get across to our denomination, the global church is we can't allow that to happen again. So we need to have a policy in place that says an inactive member loses their privilege to vote at church meetings after such a period of time. And, uh, you know, I think that, and I can repeat story after story about churches that went through that, but it'd just be redundant. And my, my daughter kids me about being the chair of the redundancy department chair, but at any point, you know, uh, there all kinds of scurrilous things occur during that time of transition. It sounds like, um, and you know, from the issues you were sharing, doctor, doctor check, and then Dr. Shah, you as well about the Southern Baptist convention, it sounds like there's this problem of egocentric viewpoint of church is creeping into church politics, politics, church government. I mean, do you see that happening? Do you see this, this egocentric trend or is that not a new thing? Well, from my perspective is if you don't bow to certain authorities, then, then there is, there is that, um, chance that they will come against you or find something to fuss at you. You know, so it's, it's a, it's, it's weird.

Uh, I've seen it and I've seen it overseas. You know, my dad had to deal with that and he was a Christian missionary alliance pastor, but I remember back in the eighties, I mean, his church is growing rock solid, amazing. And then the synod got, you know, somebody, somebody whispered something in someone's ear. Next thing you know, he's getting letters that you need to conform to our standards and blah, blah, blah. He's like, Hey, everything is conformed. And then next thing you know, they're, they said, we're coming, we're coming to investigate.

And so I remember this very clearly. I was a little boy, I was maybe seven or eight years of age, and this is after our Sunday evening service and about eight to 10 of these people from the synod and some of them are pastors, some of them are superintendents. They show up. Would you, would you mind just explaining what the synod is very briefly? Well, I mean, this is for, for a denomination is like the governing body of a certain region.

Okay. That's what it is. So this was a synod for our state of Maharashtra, which where Bombay is the capital. And I remember my dad had already instructed the deacons, the leaders of the church and said, you know, don't stick around for the meeting. You need to go home. Because if you stick around, they will call a meeting and do all kinds of crazy things, which is unconstitutional. They cannot do that. They cannot just show up and do this. So anyways, they showed up and I remember very clearly, I mean, they came, they look like the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.

Sounds like they didn't want to shit your dad on the cheek. Yeah. I mean, that's what it looked like.

Exchange some silver for him. Right. Yeah. I mean, they came, they parked their cars, vehicles, and they started walking towards the gate of the church. And at that time, a church is getting out. I mean, I remember as a little boy watching this display and most of our leaders were like, have a good night. And they all left. My dad was left there.

He said, no, leave, because if you, they get you here, they're going to starve something. And watching this whole drama as a little boy, I remember that. And they stood there and said, oh, I was, you know, they had to chat about this. And then after a while they just left.

But it's so sad. I mean, these are, some of these were pastors. You know, my concern has been to kind of play off what you just said. I've got friends out there who I think sold out and they became district superintendents. I mean, guys that I would have, I would have gone to war with those guys because I thought they were so solid, but then they got a little power and they got positions of authority on the cabinet and board members and all this other stuff. And the next thing you know, they've drunk the Kool-Aid and they're, one of the guys, the story I wanted to tell was about my friend who got removed from his church on a Sunday morning. One of the guys, a district superintendent that was involved in that, I thought was a solid evangelical.

And at some point he drank the Kool-Aid and you know, he, he just really, I think fell into apostasy. And you know, that happens and you use the word ego. Well, again, human beings are prone to either follow God or not. And it doesn't matter how I feel. It doesn't matter, you know, my, my feelings aside, the scriptures are clear. And I think that at the end of the day, that's what I'll be judged by.

And so I have no concern, you know, I've paid a price of time or two, I guess, for being faithful, but probably more, more times not paid a price for being dumb. But at some point, I think it's important to realize that the, that the motivations behind people include the need for recognition. People have recognition needs. And also they have, they have the need for, for authority.

It's almost, it's almost the Barney Fife syndrome. I think what I, what I say is when some, some people, when they get a little bit of authority, they strut it around like Barney in his badge or his bullet in his shirt pocket, you know, and I think I've seen that. And one of the things I have to be mindful of myself is that success is where I get in trouble. When we have some success going on, I go, well, you know, you know, you had to remain humble and earn it every day. And if you don't do that, you find yourself setting up failure for yourself.

That's right. I'm very good at doing that. What advice, maybe Dr. Check, then Dr. Shaw, would you give to listeners who are listening? Maybe they're a part of a Southern Baptist church or a Methodist church or another denomination, but they're listening and they're like, you know, I'm really not happy with the way that my church is handling these issues, or I'm really not happy with the way that my denomination is handling these issues. What advice would you give them? Well, I think the most important thing is to, first of all, study the scriptures. And, you know, I think it's important for our, for people not to go emotionally off half cocked about issues. They need to understand the issues from a theological standpoint, not from what I think or feel.

What I think or feel is not relevant. What the scriptures teach is relevant. And I think, first of all, make sure you're grounded in scriptures. And if you're in a church that's not preaching the word and not being faithful to the word, get out, because you're not going to change them.

They will only change you in time. And I think it's important to have that point of view. Now, having said that, what are the essentials that we talk about? You know, Baptist history essentials of the faith. I remember that book I read years ago about what's essential and what's not essential. From my standpoint, the essentials are the authority of scripture, meaning inerrancy and how you view scripture. Another essential from my point of view is Christology. What about Jesus? If you don't have a virgin birth, you don't have a savior.

And so forth. And if you don't have a bodily resurrection, you don't have a resurrection. So we're all in trouble.

First Corinthians 15. But I think it's important to make those decisions based upon sound thinking and sound scripture. The thing I would say, too, in addition to that, is partner up with some people of like mind and have the conversations back and forth in a community of faith with people you trust and determine what's the best course of action for you and your family. Sometimes people think they can change systems. And I think that's naive. I appreciate the idea of doing that, but it doesn't happen real often. I just say, make a decision, get out, go find a church that honors the Lord and honors the Bible and preaches the word.

I 100% agree with everything Dr. Chex said. And that's what I would, you know, once you realize that this is not healthy for the spiritual growth of your children, your grandchildren, then at that time, it doesn't matter if grandma is buried in the backyard of the church. You got to go find where the word of God is.

That's right. One of the things I think is guardrails that I've tried to have in my life is truth and grace. A church without truth is what I would call a Protestant existential church. A church without grace is a right-wing fundamentalist church. And I try to be aware that both of those are not good.

In terms of mental health issues, in terms of churches, you know, it's so easy to be seduced into a church that doesn't preach, that maybe even preaches the Bible, but they use it as a club and not as a sword. And I think it's important to have some understanding about how that rolls out. That's right. And be wise as serpents, harmless as doves.

Well, Jesus said when they saw him coming, he's filled with grace and truth. That's right. True.

They can coexist at the same time. That's right. A hundred percent.

That's right. Man, it's so important for us. Dr. Check, thank you so much for being on the show today, talking with us. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, write in and let us know, 252-582-5028. Or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

Don't forget you can partner with us financially on that same website. Scroll to the bottom, click that donate button, and let us know what's coming from our Clear View Today Show family. John, what encouragement you want to give our listeners with this weekend? As always, make sure you find a good, solid church to worship at. Make sure that you are under the biblical preaching of the Word of God. And we'll be seeing you next week right here on the Clear View Today Show. Amen. Make sure you guys tune in. Have a great weekend. We'll see you Monday.