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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.
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Where's my Mountain Dew? You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. And 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.
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We're going to leave a link right there in the description so you can leave us a nice glowing review. Very mindful. Very demure. I like that. It's cutesy.
It's really cutesy. You're not like those other reviewers. No, no, no. Not at all. Not at all.
You're the best reviewer that ever lived, hands down everyone agrees. Speaking of mindful and cutesy, my two kids... Are mindful and cutesy. Well, they're fine. They're okay. This is like, I don't know if this should be a full on gripe vine, because I kind of like it, but it kind of makes life hard.
And you tell me if you've experienced this. We went to DC this past week and we took the kids with us. Now that was something we were like, Ellie and I were like, do we really want to do this? We're like, let's do it. We can take the kids. I want to hang out with them.
I want to see them. It wasn't a mistake. I'm not going to say it was a mistake. They behaved as a one year old and a three year old would behave. So I'm like, whatever, that's fine. Everybody around me talked about how well behaved my kids were, which felt good.
But then I guess something clicked and this is like 50 people on this church group. Every single one of them were like, I feel the need to reward these kids. I'm going to give them some ice cream. I'm going to give them some snacks. I'm going to buy them books. I'm going to buy them toys. Times 50.
Times 50. Yeah. And so, and so you've got people now again, on the surface, I don't want to make this a gripe vine cause I like it. I like that people love my kids and I like that people appreciate my kids and want to spoil my kids. The fact that people love all my kids makes me feel good.
What I see happening once they leave is that my kids are like, I'm great. I get ice cream. I get toys.
I'm the jam. They buy me books. They buy me toys. They buy me souvenirs. We went to the ice cream shop and I saw Gavin making his rounds to people asking for some of their ice cream.
And almost every single one of them went up to the countertop, got another spoon, came back, gave him two or three bites of ice cream and he moved right onto the next person. You have five kids. I do have five kids. How do you stop church people from spoiling your kids? Or do you?
The short answer is you don't. Because you, it's, plus most of the people that, I know the people that were on the trip with you, most of the people that were on the trip with you are either grandparents or of a grandparenting age. Right. Right. So they are already kind of like pre-programmed to, oh, sweet little kid.
Let me give you some. Right. Right. So the short answer is you don't. What you do is you take your kids aside and be like, hey, you don't go up and ask people. If somebody gives you something, you can very graciously say, thank you very much.
But you don't go up and ask people for it. Can I have a bite of ice cream? Or that looks good. My mom said, I can have that. I wish my kids have done. Oh, I remember your kids doing that. But you know, what's funny. My mom said I can have cookies.
What's funny is, and I've said this to someone on the trip. I remember when your kids did this stuff, it didn't bother me. Right. It did not rug me at all.
I was like, oh, of course he's a little kid. When my kids do it, it's different. I don't like it. Right.
And I don't know what it is. Cause I remember Asher, Joanna, all of them, they would come up to us. I'd be eating chips and they'd be like, I like chips. And I'd be like, oh yeah, I like chips.
Okay. We get some chips. They're like, okay. And we'd eat them. I like more chips. And my mom said that if I was good, I could have some chips.
And I'd be like, here you go. And it never once got on my nerves. And what you didn't see was after the fact, we would pull them aside and be like, don't do that again. Don't go up and hug people while they're eating.
If people offer you the food, that's fine, but don't hover over them while they're eating. That's rude. When I see my kid do it, I get angry. It's because you are, you were not responsible for my children developing into productive members of society. You are responsible for your boys. And I wanted to see your kids happy and it was like a handful of chips. So to me, it was nothing. I never thought about it again. And then it's like, I'm in the ice cream shop and I'm like, well now I can't just stand up and be like, hey, attention, everyone. Hear ye, hear ye.
Can everyone hear me? Please don't buy my children things. Don't give Gavin your ice cream.
Everybody's like, well, now the mood's spoiled. So you can't do that. It's just, I don't know, man.
Yeah. The short answer is like, tell your kids not to go up and like beg people for stuff. But if, I mean, if you're on a trip like that, people are going to give them stuff.
Especially holding one and can't talk yet. All he has to do is see someone's ice cream and go, ah, ah. And they're like, all right, you're getting it.
You're getting a whole, I'm going to go buy you a whole bowl just for yourself. Yep. Yep. That's, I mean, that's, that's really, that's the way it works every time with kids. If you grew up in the church and around church people, did you ever have to deal with them? I'm talking to you, the listener, now I should have specified that, but did you ever have to deal with people spoiling your kids for you? And if so, how did you handle that?
Yeah. What'd you do? Write in and let us know.
Dr. Schatz kids have grown up in the church. I wonder what the process was like. They're all for spoiled terrible, terrible. One of them sitting right here, uh, operating the camera.
I hate to hear that. Write in and let us know. Two five two five eight two five zero two eight. Or you can visit us online at cleerviewtodayshow.com. We'll be right back. Hey, Hey you. Me?
No, not you. You listening to the Clearview Today Show. You're here right now because you love Christian talk radio and I'm a hundred percent down for that. But what if I told you that Clearview church also produces original music?
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Amen. Let's hop back into the show. Welcome back to Clear View today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at Clearview todayshow.com.
If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. That's right. And we're here once again in the Clear View today's studio with Dr. Abbadon Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, also a father of four. Dr. Shah, when your kids were small, right, when they were little, how did you handle well-meaning, well-intentioned, sweet country church folks spoiling your kids rotten? Well, hard not to spoil your kids, right? You want to raise your kids to be disciplined, well-mannered and not spoiled. And then you bring them to church and everybody sees the kids and they want to love on the kids and they end up giving the kids cakes and cookies and ice cream.
Yeah. I understand where you're coming from, but we were at a very different season in the church's life. So when we came here, our family were the only ones who had little kids. There were one or two families here and there, they came later, but we were the only ones for the longest time.
And so Rebecca and Abigail for a while, and then Nicholas came along and then finally Thomas came along. So it was basically just these four and a little kid here or there. And so the church people who were mostly elderly, their kids had grown or they had grandkids, but they live far away. So these were their grandkids. Our kids were their grandkids. And so they would just lavish them with toys for their birthdays and Christmas time.
Christmas time, we would have our Christmas Eve service or we would have the Sunday after Christmas or before Christmas service. And then after that, they would have this gift exchange or gift giving time, which was pretty much give all the gifts to the Shaw kids. The Shaw kid Christmas. This was not the Shaw Christmas special. God forbid if other kids were there.
Cause I was like, Oh my God, this is bad. They decided to stay, but there's not a single gift. And then once in a while there was a lady or a family there who would be like, Hey, I got a little gift right here and I can just change the label on it and we can give it to them. It's like, please do that. Please do that.
Otherwise here's a candy cane kid. But you know, my side of the family were in India. Nicole's side of the family were in Georgia. Nicole's dad had passed away. So her mom was not making trips this way by herself.
So it was a very tough time in that sense. So the church people were their family. Right. Did that happen? Does that happen in India too? You think that's just a global thing where like, like Christian, like churches, they're just, they love to spoil the little kids? I saw that more in America.
Yeah. I'm sure they do that over there too. But in America is where I saw, especially on our family, being here at this church that we saw church people just like, I bought him three dresses or got him a pair of shoes. I know he's gonna love those. It's like, okay, thank you. I saw when we were in DC last week, I saw Gavin outside the window. I was outside the ice cream shop and I was looking in and he was like going to people and he was like, and they would go get a spoon. They'd give him his ice cream. They'd give him two or three bites and they'd be like, all right, that's enough. He'd go find the next person. Cause he knew like, they're going to give me the ice cream.
So he had his own and then he had some 100% 100%. And that's one of the things I don't want to, you can't go in the ice cream shop and be like, Hey everybody, attention, please stop giving him ice cream. Cause he's going to act up and then he's going to get a whooping because he's sugar high and crazy. And then you get either, well, I don't care. You can go ahead and whoop him. I don't know. It's not my kid. Or you get, you better not whoop him.
You better not whoop him. And it's, it's weird because it makes me feel good that the church people, mostly ladies, mostly ladies, but it makes me feel good that they love my kids and they want to spoil my kids. So I'm like, I guess I'm just gonna go ahead. Yeah.
If he acts up, he's going to, he's going to be tried as an adult. We were talking about when my kids were little, they would come over to people and she'd be like, I like cookies. My mom said I can have cookies. And then later the conversation would be like, Hey, don't do that again.
If they offer you, that's fine, but don't go up and just comment. My mom said I could have cookies. Sometimes when I, sometimes when I see you eating cookies, I remember that my mom said that I could have some. Whereas like my son, like Gavin is kind of subtle. Holden's just like, just reach his hand.
I'll take it. When he sees me eating your youngest one, you know, you have Gavin and Holden. Gavin is a three year old. Holden is like almost two, almost two. Gavin is four, right? Gavin is going on four. He'll be four in a couple months.
Two years difference between them. But Holden, when he sees me eating, it's like, he starts crying. He's like, you're not going to give it to me?
Like, what, what is this? When you're eating, I'm eating. When you eat, I eat. And I eat that.
He started crying several times when he saw me eating. And so what ends up happening, what ends up happening is all these church ladies, instead of being like, well, no, no, that's your, they're like, here, here, take, take the bread, take the candy, take the sugar. He's like, cool. Yep. We're good. I cried. I screamed. I got what I wanted.
We're all good here. This has reinforced this neural pathway for me. Oh, well asked and answered. There you go. The verse of the day today is coming to us from Nehemiah chapter nine, verse 19. Yet in your manifold mercies, you did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of the cloud did not depart from them by day to lead them on the road nor the pillar of fire by night to show them light and the way they should go.
Yeah. I love the book of Nehemiah. I remember that was one of the, in fact, no, that was the first series I ever heard you preach on back in 2013.
First time I ever came here. And I remember sitting in the service and seriously, this is, this is, I think it was just a testament to the type of preaching that I'd heard up to this point. I was like, who preaches out of Nehemiah? Is this even a book? And I would look, golly, it's actually a book in the new Testament and sitting under that preaching. I think there was maybe seven weeks left in your series on Nehemiah, but man, I, I remember walking out thinking, who is this guy?
Like, how do you make Nehemiah interesting? Then come to find out the Bible is full of stories like this. Well, now we're in the book of Judges and in Judges, there's information that people don't even know, stories that are never heard and they are life changing.
This is about leadership. It's about repentance. It's about the, the, the presence of Jesus Christ throughout the history of Israel. I mean, it's just unbelievable. It's fascinating. It's fascinating. And you do an excellent job, Dr. Shav, bringing those stories that are maybe somewhat obscure, some that we're not as familiar with, but not only like bringing them to light, but making them so relevant and so easy to connect to in, in our day and age.
I mean, it's, it's, it's incredible. I want to find, I want to find which one it was. It wasn't in Table of Nations. It was before that. I think it was in one of the Christmas ones. Maybe it was fulfilled.
I want to find that message and try to put it in the description if we can. That was a great one. Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah, absolutely. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the Clear View Current, where we cut through the chaos of today's headlines with a clear Christian perspective. We're here to keep you up to date on what's going on in the world, big or small.
Several suspected ISIS terrorists were arrested in Indonesia a couple of weeks ago. This was this, we were going to talk about this last week. And then I think the school shooting happened in Apalachee, but they were arrested for trying to assassinate the Pope.
Yeah. What happened? I don't get it. I don't get it.
Why the Pope? I also, I thought, I didn't even know ISIS was still operational anymore. Yeah. I guess they're just not in the news as much. They didn't get the message. Some remote or like group of people that are like, what do you mean we're disbanded?
What? No one told us. So Indonesia has an anti-terrorism police called Detachment 88, and they arrested seven different people in various cities. So they must have known, I mean, like it got out that this was about to happen. Wow. And they went after them and they got them. They went after them and got them. Yeah.
They haven't released the names of the full suspect as of yet, but arrests have been made and they were a hundred percent linked with ISIS. Yeah. I don't get it. I don't know why after the Pope. Yeah.
I don't know. I mean, it's like they somehow thought like the head of Christianity of all Christians is the Pope. And the Pope's like, not me, not me, not always. It's not me. It's like, no, in America, that's what people love. People in America love the Pope.
No, no, not me. I don't think I could even name the Pope. What is the Pope's name?
Is it like John? Pope. Pope. Mr. Pope. Mr. Pope. Mr. Pope himself.
Mr. Popo. Yeah. I mean, it's such a ludicrous misunderstanding that they would actually think that he represents all Christians.
Yeah. Like who's the King of Christians? I mean, Jesus, of course, but like- Jesus. But then right under him is the Pope. Is the Pope. Yeah, it's gotta be. They're buddies. Yeah. Cause wasn't Peter like the first Pope?
I think that sounds pretty good. That's right. Yeah.
That Jesus said to him, on this rock, I will build the Pope. I mean, these are also the guys who didn't get the memo that ISIS wasn't doing anything anymore. This is a group that needs to really be examined. Just like, talk to us a little bit. I think y'all have some issues.
Tell us where you're like, what is the game plan here? Like what was the, what was the docket that you're reading? You know what? It's kind of embarrassing, but I think this is like a relevancy thing. Like we used to be the stuff, but we're not the stuff no more.
Everybody's talking about Hamas. So now we need to do something. We gotta do something wild. We gotta do something wild. What if we get the Pope? It's like a Scooby Doo scheme. Hey, look, I'm not trying to disrespect the Pope or nothing like that.
I'm just saying. I would have gotten away with it too. It's like a, you wanted to assassinate the Pope, to show it to America. What were you thinking there?
Honestly. And then the ISIS thing. Do you guys, have you heard?
Yeah. Heard what? No, I mean, have you heard? That the bird is the word.
This is brand new information. So this is kind of funny. And it got me to thinking about this. Nobody wrote into the show, but I did, somebody listened to the James Earl Jones episode that we did on Monday and I went out to eat and this is actually happening more and more. Are people starting to recognize you by your voice, like out in public? Yeah, they do.
They do. Yeah, it happens. We went out to eat and someone was like, Hey, are you on the radio? And I was like, well, I don't mean to brag. I don't want to toot my own horn, but a beep beep. No, I'm joking.
I'm joking. I was like, yeah, we do the Clearview Today show. They said, I listened to your episode on James Earl Jones.
I was like, man, that was, that was a great, great episode. And we talked about Star Wars for a little bit. And they said, you know, I didn't know he was Catholic.
And I said, yeah. And they said, are you, y'all aren't Catholic. I said, no, no, we're Southern Baptist. We're Southern Baptist Church. But they said, but you don't put Clearview Baptist Church.
No, no, no. So all of it led to that conversation. And then it was like, what do you think about Catholics? Which is kind of like, how do you answer that?
I mean, what are you asking? I think what he was asking, are they Christians? Are Catholics Christians? Are they saved? Yeah.
Yes. I mean, many of them are, and many of them are not. I would say those who truly believe that Jesus Christ is God's son come in the flesh.
Yes, they are. I mean, you cannot say that without the Holy Spirit. And so if they have this relationship with Christ, if they have received him, it's not just like saying it, it's about having that confession of faith.
Of course, they're saved. The real question comes in that, what do you do about these extraneous things like, you know, Salve Regina, you know, Hail Mary, or what do you think about, you know, venerating all these saints? That's where the issue comes in. Like, can you do that and still be a Christian is what the real question is.
Right, right. Because it's no secret that, you know, in the Catholic faith, I mean, there's two, correct me if I'm wrong, this is just kind of how my brain works. When it comes to Christianity, you have Catholic and then not Catholic, which is Protestants. And then everybody kind of falls under Protestants.
And then there's Catholics and a group on their own. There are groups who would say that we're not Protestants. There are those who will claim that we were part of the radical reformers, or we were even there before the radical reformers. So we were not part of even the Reformation, the Protestant Reformation.
These would be those who claim to be the Waldensians or the Anabaptists will say that we're not Protestant. And there was a time that I used to say that too, you know, that personally, I don't feel like the reformers are my predecessors. I hold to a faith that goes even beyond that. But if you really think about how much we have been impacted by the Reformation, can I really say that? Can I really say that?
Probably not. So I have to say yes, in a sense, I am a child of the Reformation, but the idea of salvation by grace through faith alone or the church is a body of believers. That idea, that thought was there even prior to the Reformation. I don't claim like a line that goes all the way back to, you know, John the Baptist Jesus kind of thing.
So people do that. The Trail of Blood, they're kind of, they're crazy. You cannot find that Trail of Blood that clear. I've never heard of the Trail of Blood.
I was actually interested in it. I think it's G.R. Graves, Trail of Blood. It was a book that came out back in the, I want to say the latter part of the 19th century, first part of the 20th century. It was very much based on this idea that there's this unbroken succession or this connection going all the way back to Jesus. And that had nothing to do with the Catholic Church or the Protestant Church.
Okay. So this is some fringe group. This is not Catholics nor Protestants that would do the trail. Yeah, they would say that we're not necessarily fringe. We were the main thing. But we had to run away into the hills to protect our faith.
An unbroken like spiritual lineage almost. Right. So I kind of want to ask you this because, you know, St. Aloysius, where you went to school. Yes.
Would you consider, it was a Catholic school. Right. You saw nuns.
You saw, I've never seen a, I don't think I've ever seen a nun in real life. Really? I don't think so. Really?
Not even at an airport? I don't think. We saw some in Israel, but I don't know that we did. Yeah, we did. We did? Yeah, we did. We saw some nuns. Yeah. But you grew up around nuns. You would say, I went to a Catholic school. Oh, yes.
Did they teach all the doctrines of the Catholic faith that we, like when, when I think of Catholic churches here in America and all the things that they teach, like the Hail Marys, all that, the confession, all that stuff, was that stuff that was taught to you in school? No, they didn't do that. They don't do that. They don't do that.
No. So there is a class and usually that class was like at, after lunch or something like that, I think, I forgot now. And, and the Catholic students would get up when the bell would ring, they would get up and they would go to their catechism. Okay.
The rest of us would stay in the class. So even though you were in a Catholic school, you would, no one would say, Abadan Shah's Catholic. He's a Catholic. No, no, no. Okay.
No, they were, they were Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs. Okay. All kinds of people in that, all kinds of students coming from various families were in that Catholic school with me. Okay. Yeah. So no, they don't, They don't have to be Catholic to go there.
No, no. They don't even teach Catholic doctrine in that school. Okay. During this one hour, the Roman Catholic students would go to the chapel, which was by the convent, and they would go in there and that's where they will have their catechism, where the nuns would teach them, you know, all the basics of the Catholic faith or whatever they're working through a book or whatever those of us who stayed, which is the rest of the class, which is about, I would say 90% of the students who are not Catholic, we would study what's known as moral science.
Okay. Moral science would be just like, do good to others, be a good neighbor, you know, stuff like that. Be kind, be gentle, you know, understand the worth of each other. That's a very, very bland platitudes on good living.
So how does it work here? Cause your, your kids went to Christian school. My kids are not old enough to go, your kids go to Christian school.
My kids are not school age yet. Do, is there a profession of faith or something? Is there any sort of thing where it's like, Hey, you have to be a Christian to attend Christian school? No.
Okay. It is more of a, are you going to cooperate with what is being taught here? The doctrines are taught here far more than they were taught in the Catholic schools in India or Christian schools in India. Like there are Christian schools in India. In fact, one of my friends owns a Christian school in India and he had me come there and go to each of the classes and I have videos and stuff like that. I can show some videos if you like. And they, they teach, they teach the Bible, they teach this and that and the other, but they're not, they don't go beyond that.
So it's very surface. So I remember one time, this is the first time when I went from elementary school to middle school, the bell rang and the teacher up front was like, okay, looking at me, you go, I go, I was like, yeah. Cause elementary kids don't go.
The catechism is just, it begins in the middle school to high school. So I'm like, okay. So I walked with all these Catholic students. I'm like, I know them. I'm like, why am I going here? Like, okay.
I went, I went to the chapel and that's where they were doing all the Hail Marys and the sign of the cross and everything. I don't know any of that. So I came back to, how old were you, do you think? I was probably in fifth grade. Okay.
Okay. And I came back to class and the, and then the next day the bell rang again. I'm like, I guess I got to go.
And the teacher said, no, no, no, not you, you stay. I was like, okay, I do. They're like, no, he's not. He's not. Yeah.
He's he gets to stay. So yeah, it is, it is not mandatory for other Catholics, other people. Talking about Catholics, are Catholics Christians?
You know, that was the original question. As I mentioned, yes, there are many who are Christians because only all it takes is a confession of faith that Jesus Christ is your God. And as he's your savior, your Lord, you know, we don't have Lords and ladies always say God or master. So if Jesus is your God, he is your master and he is your savior, then you are saved.
What do you do with all these extraneous things, whether worshiping Mary or, or praising Mary or praying to the saints or praying to Mary. That's very tragic. That's very sad. I don't know why they do that, but unfortunately the masses don't have a relationship with Christ. They, they are more depending on their works to get them into heaven. Really? Is that that's where their salvation is in their works? It's in their works.
Wow. Again, let me clarify. There are many Catholics who do know that it's by grace through faith in Christ alone, right? And yet the masses don't understand that.
When you say masses, do you mean the big population or like the mass, like this, the population, the population do not understand that they are simply, I do my signs, I do my science. I burn a few candles. I do some penance, you know, I do some confession. I'll go to the mass. I didn't go to mass this week.
I'll go next week. You know, they're, they're going by these rituals. These are things I do. Hence I'm going to be in heaven. Because those things cleanse me. Those expunge all my sins. Yeah. They, they get me back in the faith.
I'm good. And that's very tragic. Yeah. That's very tragic. That's why I believe many of them are lost. I mean, lost as anything. Wow. But the ones who do understand that.
I'll give you one example. David's seen my book on Francois Fenelon. He was very mystical.
He was, he was a Bishop in France, Catholic. Some of the things he's written are powerful, wonderful, great truths of the crucified life. I love it. Love it. Love it.
Learned a lot from it. But then there are times he's like talking about Hail Marys. I'm like, wow, you're such a brilliant man. You helped me tremendously in my spiritual walk. And yet, why are you praying to a saint? Right. Why are you saying Hail Mary?
You know, Hail Mary, Salve Regina, or Hail Queen. Why? Why would you do that? Is it because your position? Because you're a Bishop in the Catholic Church? Is that why you feel like you have to do it?
Because I know there's no way you're going to believe that you got to go through her. Right. And I've read his devotions on the various special days of the year. And it's like, they're, he doesn't talk about those days as much as what they mean. For example, let's see, I'm trying to think, what is one, one that he, he wrote about? Let's see, the Feast of St. Augustine, St. Augustine. And in the Feast of St. Augustine, he talks about how Augustine had a change in life, and he had a change in perspective. And, you know, the whole, whole in my heart, you know, Augustine talks about, you know, there is a God-sized vacuum in my, in our soul. And until it's filled by him, we will, you know, try to fill it with everything else. I'm paraphrasing. And he talks based on that of how Augustine understood his need for Christ.
And I was just, beautiful. But then he has this other side and it's like, I don't get it. The need for going along with this system. But then again, Francois Fenelon also got in trouble a lot. Really?
Because he was counter-cultural. That's a good point. Interesting. Yeah. Hopefully today's discussion was helpful for you guys answering that question.
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