Reflections on Moral Values in a Godless Age; and Preparing Your Kids for College

Isn't it wild how the left is flipping out over Vice President Pence saying that he won't dine with a woman who's not his wife? It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH.

That's 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Yeah, it's called the Billy Graham Rule. It's the idea that as a man, you are not alone with another woman other than your wife.

So you don't take a trip together with a woman that's not your wife. You don't go on a car ride together. You don't sit and have a meal together. Obviously, we're not talking about daughters or relatives. The Billy Graham Rule, how he and his team have lived for decades, and how governor and now Vice President Mike Penn says he listened.

There's been this outcry over it. All right, one of many things I want to talk to you today about or talk to you about today on the line of fire. This is Michael Brown. Welcome to the broadcast 866-348-7. 884, that's 86635.

For truth, the number to call to weigh in or to raise your own comment, concern, question. I decided finally to ask a couple of questions on Twitter. And it's interesting, getting more responses to the second question than the first. The first question. Do you believe that the Obama administration surveilled Trump and his team prior to the election?

On Fox News, there was a report saying, yeah, there's stuff going on, and Susan Rice wanted to see it happen and unmask some of the people with Trump, etc. Was there surveillance of Trump and his team prior to the election as he has claimed?

Someone say he has claimed that recklessly and irresponsibly. Others say no, he's getting the truth out.

So I asked, do you believe that the Obama administration surveilled Trump and his team prior to the election? Yes, no, we're unsure. And what's your take on that, by the way? What do you believe? What do you feel?

Do you believe that the Obama administration was surveilling Trump, that there was wiretapping and things like that going on, or other types of illicit activities? That's my first question. My second question. Do you believe that Trump secretly colluded with Russia? to help him win the election.

That's my second question, and that's getting a bit more response than the first question. I asked the minutes apart. Do you believe that Trump secretly colluded with Russia to help him win the elections? And again, yes, no, and unsure. What's interesting.

and not surprising, And I'm not going to give you the results here. You can weigh in. You can tell me your own opinion if you believe Trump secretly colluded with Russia or if you believe the Obama administration surveilled Trump. But it's basically exact flip side. opposites.

that those who said yes on the first and believe that the Obama administration surveilled Trump, said no on the 2nd. and don't think that Trump secretly colluded with Russia. And reverse it, those who said yes on one said no on the other no yes etc so anyway anyway just found that interesting but not surprising Not surprising to see these results. Your take is 866-348-7884. Also, Yeah, from from Texas, the tragic crash last week, a pickup truck swerves into the lane.

of a church van Coming back from a retreat, mainly older Christians, some in their 80s, others in their 70s, some in their 60s. All but one killed.

So 13 out of 14 killed, including the driver. from a Baptist church in Texas coming back from a retreat. many of them members of the choir. And from one eyewitness report, the driver of the pickup truck who had been driving erratically. This they captured on videotape.

They even called police to warn about him. According to One witness who spoke with the man who did not die, the pickup truck driver, the one who swerved into the lane. According to the report, He said he was texting. Texting. 13 lives lost.

Wow. We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. I confess I've been guilty. I've done it. I've texted while driving. Yeah, use dictation and things like that, but then look down to make sure it's...

Correct or well, yeah, I mean, maybe on a back road, and maybe just look around. Guilty. I'm guilty I've done it. I've checked other things on my cell phone. Can't do it.

Can't do it. Must change my habits. And what happened in Texas whether whether true or not, and and I suspect it's true given the totally erratic nature of the driver up to that point, swinging in and out of of the uh Oncoming traffic lanes back and forth that was documented on a video that folks took driving behind him. And the claim that he said, I was texting, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and someone said, you know what you've done? And police are not officially commenting, but saying they're looking at everything, including things that would have distracted the driver.

We know it happens a lot. We know it happens a lot. last year. a friend of our family was driving in her vehicle. I believe she had like a small truck she was driving.

And a woman with baby in the back seat, in a car seat, swerved into her lane. There's no way she could avoid the impact. It's just two-lane highway. Swerved into her lane, was instantly killed. The baby survived.

Of course, totally traumatizing for the friend of our family that was in the accident. She was guiltless in that respect. What can you do when suddenly a car just swings into your lane? But the mother was texty.

So now you have a baby. Without a mother, and presumably a husband without a wife. Because of texting.

So again, I am pointing a finger at me. And I'm saying Let's just take this to heart. Let's be sober about it. Let's realize that lives are at stake. And as Nancy has reminded me, As Nancy has reminded me, It's not just me keeping my eyes on the road in terms of where I'm going, but someone else for any reason they could be erratic, for someone else swerving into your lane, or for something else, you know, somebody stopping unexpectedly in front of you or something else where they're not driving responsibly.

That's why we've got to pay attention.

So I'm just chastened by it as I think about it and I think about these lives lost. You say, well, thankfully they're Christians in the presence of the Lord. Yeah, better Christians in that respect that are with the Lord. But think of those losses. Think of how many of them were pillars in their Christian community.

Think of the role they had in family. That was mom, dad, that was grandma, grandpa, great-grandma, great-grandpa.

Some of them with a history and legacy and all from the same church. And yeah, obviously who survives, one of the passengers survives, and probably because of the age of of many of them, it was you know the impact even more traumatic, and hence only one survivor on the church van. But then add into that, Uh the fact that the driver survives Apparently the guilty negligent driver. what goes on in his life. And can he ever find a place of forgiveness and redemption in God where his story can be used to save other lives?

All right. Just wanted to mention that 866-348-7884.

So When when I got saved, certain things we were taught about wisdom. And then, as years went on with relationships, you know, you want to avoid being alone with your girlfriend or your fiancé or something like that, because you could do things you ought not to do before marriage.

So, you know, it's one thing if you went out together to a restaurant or you're sitting in your car together, but if one of you had an apartment, you don't want to go in there alone. Just certain things like that, common sense, or trying to use more wisdom, or because it's too easy when you're involved with someone. to fall into sexual sin and someone you're not involved with to get romantically involved. And then you're taught, you know, don't counsel someone of the opposite sex alone. And now you have even issues with what someone's saying is sex attractive, but we put that aside for the moment.

And I remember just the ethic that we'd have when I was teaching at a Bible school and different students, male or female, would come in to see me. If it was a female student that wanted to talk to me, we'd always have the door open. I had friends that... Excuse me, had always a small window on their door in their office so that whatever was going on, anyone could come in and peek in, that there would be nothing secret. Just little things like that.

And you say, isn't that kind of like overdoing it?

Well, actually, no. The the old adage, better safe than sorry, makes good sense. The old adage that That's what a pound of an ouncid prevention is worth a pound of cure. Those things are right and true. And let's just say.

pastors falling into sin with someone in the congregation. The way It's often happened, the way I would hear of it happening, would be first an emotional attachment and then a sexual attachment. Maybe a pastor counseling a woman. And she and her husband are going through a hard time in marriage, and he really starts to relate to her. And she says, You know, Pastor, just every word you say to me, it's like life.

It's just so important. It changes me and it helps me. And I don't know where I'd be without you. And maybe just want to talk a little bit more outside of that. Maybe the pastor's wife is kind of unappreciative of him, and he's so absorbed with other things that he's not a good husband and father.

And so he's not appreciated at home. And this woman, oh, she thinks he's amazing and he's great. And they start to develop a relationship. And then, then. it it turns into full-blown adultery.

In other words, in many cases, in most cases that I've been aware of, it was not first sexual, it was not first physical, it was first emotional, and then it became physical and sexual due to the attraction between males and females.

So There's wisdom. in saying hey If I'm not married to you, I'm not going to have a meal alone with you. If, again, we're talking about outside of family. If you're of the opposite sex, if I'm not married to you, then I'm not going to have a meal alone with you. And that's just policy.

And if you need a ride somewhere, hey, let's get somebody else in the car. There's also another reason. that you don't want to have any potential appearance that looks wrong. Hm why why is he driving her every I see them in the every days driving her to work, and Hm was something going on there? They seem a little friendly.

Or yeah, they're having like meals once a week. It's business meeting. They seem a little chummy to me.

So there's the appearance that you can't you can't stop.

someone coming to a wrong conclusion based on false premises.

However, It is good. exercise wisdom. And to avoid the appearance of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5 is wrongly translated in the King James to say, avoid every appearance of evil. It should say, avoid every form of evil.

of evil. But I believe that if my doing something could give a wrong impression to others, I need to avoid it as much as possible. I don't want to give a wrong impression to others and thereby cause them to stumble. But there's another aspect to this. There's another reason.

What if It produces undesired effects on the other person. You're the boss, right? Let's say you're a male boss and you've got a female employee. And you're just having a business meeting. It's a business luncheon.

And once a week, the two of you sit down and you catch up on business.

Well, you're the big man. That could be the reverse if it's a woman with a male employee. But let's just say this.

So it's Vice President Pence, and he's having a weekly staff luncheon, but this one is just focusing on this one individual, and he and she meet on a regular basis. What if something is produced in her? What if she starts to really look to him more? What if she starts to lean on him in a way that's wrong? What if she thinks, you know, I'm just going to be a little flirty and a little friendly and kind of, you know, and wear this dress he seems to like.

And now it creates wrong things in her heart. And then it could potentially produce wrong things in his heart. Either way, it's the kind of thing that I've been taught over the years to live by. Oh, I don't mean that if there was a situation where there was an 18-year-old student, a female, and was stranded somewhere and needed me to drive her to a gas station or get her, that I couldn't do that, that I'd have to wait until someone else arrived. I don't mean that you live in such a way that it's completely paralyzing, but as a principal...

as a way of life. You want to do everything out in the light in public, and you want to avoid certain stumbling blocks.

Now, to me, it's like, yeah, that's how I live, that's how my friends and colleagues live, that's how we've lived for years before we. Ever heard of the quote Billy Graham rule? This is a way of life for Many people I know, most people I know in in ministry and things like that, again, just make sense, common sense. I've seen way too much adultery, way too much fornication, way too much breaking up of marriages, way too much people getting involved the wrong way.

So, yeah, common sense. You want to do the same thing. You know, if whatever the relationship is, if it brings about a certain close personal contact that is very, very regular and potentially intense, Be wise. The way the left is slipping out on it, it's wild. I mean, think of what problem do they have with this if this is a way a man feels he can keep his marriage strong.

Very odd. I'll share some when we come back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on the line of fire 866-348-7884. By the way If you didn't hear this tragic terrorist attack in Russia, Bombs planted on trains there. Uh how many killed now?

Over over 10 killed, others. injured Uh and then in Punjab attack on uh apparently Muslims attacking Muslims there. Others dead. Other casualties. Uh Bloody, bloody days on a regular basis, the state of the human race.

violence, hatred, destruction. Not from above, but from below. May God awaken us and have mercy. 866-34TRUTH. Just looking again on my Twitter poll, my two questions: Do you believe that the Obama administration surveilled Trump and his team prior to the election?

Do you believe that Trump secretly colluded with Russia to help him win the election? Again, interestingly enough, but not surprisingly, those that said yes to the one said no to the other, percentage-wise, those who said no to the one said yes to the other.

So this pretty well divides down to those that trust Donald Trump and those that don't. Those that think he's in the right, those that don't. All right, 866-34TRUTH on the stream. My colleague John Smirak asks Should Might Pance be prosecuted for not dining with women? Vox thinks so.

and he mentions Molly Hemingway, writing He cited this column at Vox as the dumbest response to the non-story that Vice President Pence takes modest, prudent steps to guard his marriage. What is the problem with taking wise, modest, prudent steps to guard your marriage? What? Yeah. What is the big deal about it?

Do we have a problem with people being too faithful to their spouses? Do we have a problem with marriages being too solid today? Do we have a problem that there are not enough divorces? Do we have a problem that there's not enough infidelity?

So we need more infidelity and more divorces and more problems and more adultery and more temptation. Oh, we need more of it. Is that the issue? There's a dearth of infidelity? You say, come on, this has got nothing to do with infidelity.

Yes, it does. That's the whole reason for the guidelines.

So Molly tweeted, I made a joke light last night that today Today's pence fidelity stories would be even stupider. A wish. I'd be wrong.

So this is from Joanna Grossman. and an attorney who specializes in law. This is on thevox.com. The practice described by Pence in that 2002 interview. This is what it goes back to, is clearly illegal when practiced by a boss in an employment setting and deeply damaging to women's employment opportunities.

Friends, forgive the facetiousness of my tone of voice, but that's how it sounds to me. You've got to be kidding me Title VII, which governs workplace discrimination, does not allow employees to treat people differently on the basis of certain protected characteristics, one of which is sex. This means that an employer cannot set the terms and conditions of employment differently for one gender than for the other. This includes any aspect of the relationship between employer and employees extending to benefits like equal access to the employer. As John says in response, it might be the dumbest hot take on the penses, but it's also.

deeply revealing. As John says, I'm not a lawyer. I can't comment on how well Grossman has parsed the relevant statutes. But it's clear what she has in mind. There is no aspect of life, however private, that the left doesn't want to police.

Ah! That's an interesting angle. A man cannot decide whom to eat with. He cannot take basic steps to guard the sanctity of his marriage. His every decision, however personal, stands beneath the eyes, the prying eyes of prosecutors and tort lawyers.

Yeah. Why? Because his decisions might... This might alter the career prospects of an employee. That wouldn't matter if the employee were a straight white male and has done a matter of one's one of discrimination laws protected classes.

But a member of almost any other group, if fired or chided or slighted, can call in napalm strikes from federal, state, and local regulators with very deep pockets. You need not even prove the intent to discriminate, and accidental disparate impact is enough to win a fat legal judgment. and goes on from there and for good reason takes issue with this ridiculous argument that there is a problem with what Pence has done. Let's just see here. Uh yeah this I'm looking at this.

This Report on Vox: The problem with don't eat alone with women, good character. is better Then strict rules. Here's an article, Evangelical University Professor on the Controversy Around Vice President Mike Pence's rules of conduct. And here this Evangelical Unity Professor, University Professor Karen Swallow prior. Is explaining why, yeah.

Look, I've run into this sometimes where other evangelicals, males, practice the Billy Graham rule, but she doesn't like it. And she thinks, hey, you just have good character, and that matters more.

So I, ah, gosh. Don't you use wisdom If you're a good driver, do not put your seat belt on. No, in fact you're required to by law. And I know many good drivers over the years when it wasn't the law they put their seatbelt on because they were good drivers. And they wanted to be wise, and they wanted to be cautious, and they knew that in the vast majority of accidents, that not having a seatbelt on could lead to worse damage or even fatalities.

Therefore risked not wanting to have a severe injury or fatality that could be prevented, they would put their seat belts on and they'd tell their kids in the back seat, seat belts on kid but daddy, my mommy, seat belts on, kids.

So it's not a matter of good character or quote strict rules. It's a matter of good character and wisdom. good character and modesty. good character and thinking through, What is the best way to relate?

Now, as a boss. Are you telling me? that the only way Your employees can go up the ranks. The only way they can see more openings, the only way they can get salary increases. That they can have Better job opportunities is by having meals alone with you as the boss?

that there is no other system in place by which they can advance? And that you have no other system of evaluation other than having meals alone with people? Yeah. You say, well, you can't even meet alone. No, no, he didn't say meat alone.

It's having meals alone. And again, if a student came in, a female student wanted to talk to me. uh about something when I was teaching at schools in different settings. I do so with my door cracked open. And this way the secretary, or whoever was out in the hallway, was fully able, anyone walking by, the door was cracked open.

And it was an ethic, and it created no hardship for Any One. None.

So good for Vice President Pence. And I there's some even more crazy responses. Maybe I'll get to some. It's change over. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr.

Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire 866-348-7-884. No, I didn't hear this.

Someone just uh tweeted this to me. I was not aware of this LifeSight News. Reports.

So last Thursday, March 30th. lesbian with quote wife and two kids selected to lead US Air Force Academy. An open lesbian has been chosen to be the next commander of the U. S. Air Force Academy.

According to USAF Academy report and other media. No, I had not. Heard. about that. Didn't hear about it.

Uh 866-34-TRUTH.

So what one more Segment here. On Mike Pants and his his guidelines.

So this is on Daily Wire. Frank Camp reports. Wall Street Journal writer blast Mike Pence's relationship rules as fundamentalist quote terror of women. madness The reaction to these guidelines is madness.

So According to this article, Uh Ashley Parker Profile of Karen Pence, wife of Mike Pence.

So Washington Post published this.

So Parker writes, in 2002, Mike Pence told The Hill that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife. and that he won't attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side either.

Alright, and further context. Pence told the Hill he often refused dinner or cocktail invitations for male colleagues, too. It's about building a zone around your marriage, he said. I don't think it's a predatory town, but I think you can inadvertently send the wrong message by being in certain situations. Yes!

That's what we call common sense. The 2002 article notes that Pence arrived in Congress a half decade after the 1994 Republican Revolution, when Newt Gingrich was the Speaker of the House. Several congressional marriages, including Gingrich's, encountered difficulty that year. Pence seemed wary of this. Quote, I've lost more elections than I've won, he said.

I've seen friends lose their families. I'd rather lose an election. He even said he gets fingers wagged in his face by concerned Indianans. Little old ladies come and say, Honey, whatever you need to do, keep your family together Indianapolis Star adds this. During his 12 years in Congress, Pence had rules to avoid any infidelity, temptations, or even rumors of impropriety.

Those included requiring that any aide who had to work late to assist him be male? That's what you call wisdom. good guidelines, both for personal reasons and for appearance. never dining alone with a woman other than his wife, and not attending an event where alcohol is served unless his wife Karen was there. In a two thousand two interview, Pence called it building a zone around your marriage.

If there's alcohol being served and people are being loose, I want to have the best looking brunette in the room standing next to me. He's talking about his wife. Is Is that something that is so unimaginable? People drinking, people getting a little bit loose. He's in that environment.

He knows what goes on. He says, I want my wife there. And what if he himself had a potential weakness with drink? What if? I'm just saying what if, I don't know that, but what if?

What if that had been an area of where he felt temptation, or it was an area of his history, his family, or something? Again, I don't know, maybe not the case at all. Wouldn't that be wisdom to say, you know, I put up these little Barriers. I put up these little walls to make things safer. Do we have a problem on the road when you're driving on the road and you have medians?

You know, you're on a highway and you've got a wall separating the traffic going in one direction from traffic going in the other direction? Do you say, I wish that wasn't there? That's so restrictive. Why don't we need all these guardrails? You say, thank God, when you're going on a cliff.

And you encounter, you know, it's a dangerous road here. Do you say, man, stupid guardrails, they make me feel restricted? Or do you thank God for them? Oh, I didn't even get to the Wall Street Journal yet. Change the world.

Change the world. Give us strict to always do what's right. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. Alright, so. Just looking down in this article in Daily Wire. Uh Uh Just different tweets, the calling card of all religious fundamentalism, Brett Stevens, Wall Street Journal. Terror.

of women. Mm. Steven's linked to another tweet from Danish journalist Martin Burkhart, which reads, how different is VP from Orthodox Muslim men? Mike Pence doesn't eat alone with women. Maybe he's even a terrorist, he's like a terrorist.

I had some gal treating, I don't know who she was, and she'd say, Look, you know, you criticize Islam and the women wear hijabs, and it's like. What? What connection? Does a woman wearing a hijab? or woman being required to wear a burqa and be covered head to toe, what does that have to do with the vice president saying, if alcohol is being served, I want my wife there with me?

And if someone's going to stay late and work with me, there's an aide, and the two of us are staying late. You ever heard of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and scandals like that? That if I'm gonna have an aide working late with me, it's gonna be male?

So relationship guidelines. Vice President Mike Pence has, presumably with consent of his wife Karen, abided by a set of guidelines in order to avoid impropriety or even the appearance of impropriety. These rules include not dining alone with women who aren't as wife, not drinking alone with a colleague of any gender, not attending parties where occult is being consumed unless Karen is also there. I mean requiring that any aide who had to work late to assist him be male. Article here says, elected officials in DC are just as flawed as any other human being.

Additionally, men and women in positions of power are more frequently the target of unwanted advances, unsubstantiated accusations, and tabloid speculation. Given the environment in which elective official lives, the limitation Penn supplies to himself are admirable and prudent. This brings us to part two. Mike Pence applies the rules to himself. Uh so within this Danish journalist question is a sort of straw man.

You know, what's the difference between this and Orthodox Muslim men? With, you know, Mike Pence doesn't need a loan with him. What's the difference?

So, taken at face value, Mike Pence's behavior is no different than that of an Orthodox Muslim. The difference is this. Mike Pence has adopted a set of personal rules by which he lives. These rules are not universal to Christians. He has chosen to abide by what he believes is a set of standards that will help him avoid any appearance of impropriety.

given his pub position in the public eye. It's also likely that Pence recognizes that as a fallible human being it's wise to avoid situations where infidelity may be a temptation. On the other hand, an Orthodox Muslim man might not eat alone with a woman because his faith prohibits him from doing so. Abiding by the rules of one's faith in this regard isn't wrong, it isn't misogynistic, it isn't insulting.

However, there's a critical difference to be noted. While Pence's rules are personal, Orthodox Muslim might believe that such rules must be applied to everyone and enforced everywhere because of the adherence to Sharia law. That is misogynistic. One of the same. Mike Pence is not dictating.

Mike Pence is not dictating how a woman dresses. He's not saying you are not allowed in the White House unless you're wearing a burqa. It's not saying that. And that's not the issue. Obviously, if there's someone dressing in a completely immodest, inappropriate way, it's right as a boss to say that's out of place here.

We don't dress like that here. It's out of place. Just like if one of his aides came in, you know, wearing uh gym shorts and a t-shirt. In sneakers, you say, hey, you're in the White House, you don't dress like that. Yeah, fine.

But We are not laying out a universal law. that unless the woman's skirt is to the ankles, she's not allowed in our building.

So that would be a contrast also with Islam. And of course, Islam is free to do that. If the women go along with that, that's their business. If they feel that's the way to modesty, full covering, and that's the way the society interacts, and that's how men and women both like it, then that's their life to live. All right?

But here's another question to ask. Yeah. Doesn't it say in 1 Corinthians 10 that let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Isn't that in the Bible? Isn't that God's warning to us?

And doesn't God say, look at all the others who fell and all the others who messed up? Look at that. All right? Now, second point that Frank Camp gets into in the Daily Water is this. Mike Pence applies the rule oh sorry hang on third point Christian fundamentalism doesn't teach fear of women So Brett Stevens' tweet implies that Mike Pence personally adopted rules as a result of fundamentalist Christianity, which allegedly teaches terror of women.

And this way Stevens has wandered far from the reservation. Certain faiths, particularly the more radical sects of Islam, indeed teach that women are inferior, that female sex rally is to pray to over, to draw a line between those extremist teachings and Pence's personal rules as intellectually dishonest.

So look, this has nothing to do with thinking, well, women are really bad. I mean, these women, they're just looking for any opportunity to get a man. And if Mike Pence had d dinner with one of his female staff members, she'd only have one thing involved, and that's to corrupt him, and that's to destroy that man. No Nobody's saying that. Nobody's saying that.

And if anything, Christian teaching would point more to male tendencies to be lustful and wandering and straying. The fact of the matter is, where the gospel goes, women are liberated. The fact of the matter is, where the gospel goes, women are raised up. You can just imagine. In radical Islamic culture, if the gospel spread through that culture, how liberating it would be for women.

I don't mean that they go from Burker to Bikini. I'm not saying that is liberating. I'm saying that their status, that the way they would be viewed, that the things that would be imposed on them would be very, very different. I'm talking about in radical Islamic circles. I'm sure you have more equality for women in other Islamic circles.

In point of fact, where the gospel has gone through history. Here in the ancient world, for example, the ancient world, it was expected for a man to, well, men are men, but women had to be pure up to marriage. I mean, to this day, you hear about honor killings in certain parts of the world, especially the Muslim world, honor killings where a woman Was not faithful.

So before she was married, she was with someone else or with her fiancé. All right? And she gets killed. She gets killed. Family members will kill her for the disgrace of not being a virgin on her wedding day.

But did it kill the guy? Or did it even raise that question or raise that charge? If it's adultery, that would be one thing. Both would be killed. But you hear about the honor killing of the woman who was unfaithful.

She's expected to be a certain way and preserve a certain purity. The man Maybe not so much.

So in the ancient world, Ancient Greco-Roman world, other parts of the world, it was common to think that the woman had to be pure at marriage, but men are men, boys are boys.

Well, when the gospel spread, it changed. No, no. Men have to be pure too. Men have to be godly too. Men have to be chased too.

Men should be virgins when they marry too, not just the women. If you're raised in the faith, then that would be expected. Both.

So the gospel has a great liberating power. And in the early church, there were women who were martyred as well as men because they played significant roles in ministry. And Paul goes out of his way to commend certain women in ministry and the role that they play and the importance of their work and in the ministry of Jesus. Yes, it's true that the apostles he chose were males, and I believe that senior governmental leadership is primarily male in terms of God's method of who he uses. but the women play key roles and the women are highly honoured.

I mean, to the point that you have the idolatrous honoring of Mary and the Catholic Church and things like that. But it comes out of the way that she is valued and honored in scripture and then jumps to ridiculous, idolatrous, unbiblical proportions. But The fact of the matter is that to say that I won't have a meal alone with another woman. is not thinking women are so bad, but saying... I'm a human being.

I don't want to open the door to getting too friendly. That's one thing. I recognize the person I'm sitting with as a human being, and that person may really look up to me or something. I don't want to open the door on their end. I don't want to do anything that would give her a wrong appearance.

And here's the big one. I'm doing it because I honor my wife. I'm doing it out of honor for women, in particular my wife. the most important woman in my life, hands down, nothing else close. Yeah.

And then of course, then of course. Ah. daughters, granddaughters, they're very important as well. But you understand what I'm saying. Yeah, look at this.

Mike Pence's dinner rule shows Donald Trump team's fear of powerful women. Oh, that's it. They're afraid of powerful women. Yeah, like Ivanka Trump. They seem really afraid of powerful women like Ivanka Trump.

or like Kellyanne Conway, Or like a bunch of others. Here we go. Let me just read this to you. When men like Trump. and pants only see women in sexual terms.

Organizations like Planned Parenthood are indeed a threat because they empower women to make their own choices about themselves, their reproductive health, and their future. That's USNews.com. What kind of world are these people living in? I think I just got to write on this. I've got to write an article on this.

The absolute absurdity of these attacks. And what makes it so absurd is they don't even Recognize what it's all about. Powerful women. That's it. Trump and his people are afraid of powerful women.

Utterly self-disqualifying. We'll be right back. Uh It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. I want to switch subjects and just focus on President Trump for a moment now. Yeah, I'm not happy with the Twitter tirads. I'm not happy with attacking the media and going Chuck Todd and Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and Again, I think it's demeaning of the presidential office. I think it takes away from his authority.

I think it gives more fodder to his critics. Yeah, let him break the politically correct rules, but let him also act as a serious leader. to be respected. And Again, my view. I don't think I'm in the minority in having that view, but minority are not.

Pretty self-evident to me. At the same time, I recognize that a lot of the opposition coming against him. is ideological. that a lot of the opposition come against him is because he has taken certain stands to try to drain. the DC swamp.

Because he has taken certain stands to undo a lot of what he felt was wrong stuff that was enacted by President Obama. And that as much as there have been some Um Rushed attempts, the initial executive order on the temporary ban from immigration from seven hotbed countries suspected of Islamic terrorism. the way that perhaps the repeal of Obamacare was pursued and trying to replace it with something better. I think there have been some missteps along the way. And I I think again that he opens himself up to criticism the way that he conducts himself in particular on Twitter.

At the same time, There are things he's doing that I believe are right and good and important.

So, yeah, it's a mixed bag. There's great potential, but I continue to have concern.

So. gets my attention when I see this. Johnny clip number one. These were self-proclaimed witches who gathered in Balbo Park, California. In order to Hex President Trump, now weren't there others that gathered to curse him recently?

The gathering of so-called witches. to send it on Balboa Park. Saturday, this is 10news.com, at high noon. in an effort to impeach President Donald Trump by hacks. Ten News reported just to the other side.

witnessed the dozen or so participants of an event called Fire the Fool San Diego. Hell, that's right on April Fool's Day at the fountain in Balboa. Park. Go ahead, Johnny. Let's play that clip.

A group of protesters hoping to impeach the president with a curse. Today a dozen so-called witches gathered in Balboa Park to protest President Trump. They signed a pink slips and put a, quote, curse on the president. The event called Fire the Foul was hosted by the group Ground Zero Players. People at the event say they are horrified by the president's actions.

Yeah, and and remember Everyone was poised, they fully expect it. that Hillary Clinton was going to be the next president and with that the pushing forward of a radical left liberal agenda which did not happen. because of which there is this Horror. and people still not accepting this as the reality. and trying to fight it.

Now she said, fire the foul. I believe it's Fire the Fool, April Fool's Day, unless I misheard the clip there. One participant held up a sign that read, I Hex DT to protect America. Another war read, Making that American Native Again hat. Mary Lou Finley said, it's incredible that anyone could be so stupid as to do so many things that are hurtful to the American people.

Then I read about A dance, a quote, queer dance in front of Ivanka Trump's home where people were twerking in front of her house. Oh, yeah, this adds a lot, doesn't it? It adds a lot to the cause of the dignity of LGBT community when you have those kinds of responses and they're sexual and they're erotic and they're offensive. And it's, hey, this is, you know, we're just going to shout it out. Yeah, well, that's what happened at Gay Pride Parades for years, and it didn't do well.

in terms of forwarding the goals of the movement. Nor will this. And is this who people really are? Are they that vulgar? Are they that crass?

Are they that carnal?

Well, speaking of that speaking of that Yeah, okay, so here is Here's something designed. To combat SB6 in Texas, the Texas Privacy Act, which critics say seeks to ban transgender individuals from using the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. Others in favor of the bill would present it in a more positive context. But this is Uh on the YouTube channel. IPLGBT.

Yeah, it it was posted February 18th. I only became aware of it last week, but let's listen to a clip from this video. You gotta take a seat to make a stand. You gotta spray it to save. Because this isn't a privacy issue.

and we can take care of ourselves. Because money should be spent keeping kids in school, not out of bathrooms. IP, IP, IP, IP, IP with LGBT. Because everybody pees and everybody deserves a safe place too. Uh You know what?

You know what? That was so incredibly profound. That was such an amazing statement. Sarcasm fully intended. For those of you that like what what was I just listening to I want to play this again again.

Here's here's the the backdrop This is encouraging folks to stand with Say a man who identifies as a woman who who wants to use the woman's bathroom. To stand with folks like this.

So let us listen to it once. More. You gotta take a seat to make a stand. You gotta spray it to save. Because this isn't a privacy issue.

And we can take care of ourselves. Because money should be spent keeping kids in school, not out of bathrooms. I pee, I pee, I pee, I pee I pe with LGBT. Because everybody pees and everybody deserves a safe place too. I'm not making this up, okay?

I I'm not making this up. This is an LGBT activist group allies saying this is how we stand. This is how we stand with. Hmm. LGBT community.

You know, bathroom solidarity. And by the way, this is on the ACLU TX, ACLU Texas YouTube. channel. Yeah. Don't keep kids in school.

Don't spend money on it. One reason money is being spent on these kind of things is because of LGBT activists. overreach.

So we care about individuals, we reach out to everyone with compassion, and we stand against the cultural madness. To whatever extent the President does, to that extent, he'll also be attacked.

So, where are we? Back where we've always been. We're a messed up, crazy world, but we have the antidote. We have the gospel. We have the message of Jesus.

We have the Word of God. And if we will follow godly principles and live by what God has laid out through the life of Jesus inside of us, We can not only be changed, we can be world changers. Let's do it together. Hey, friends, we've got a terrific new thank you gift. For those of you who become torch bearers monthly supported this month, first time we've ever done it, you want to sew-and-chew with some wonderful new resources, go to thelineoffire.org to find out more.

Thelineoffire.org. My bottom line today. Yeah, the world's still going crazy. And yes, we still have the answer.

Alright, you're about to send your kids off to college. What do you need to do to get them ready? It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and President of Fire School of Ministry.

Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I'm hoping tomorrow to have Lieutenant Governor Dan Forrest on the air with me around this time of the day, within a half hour of this time, to talk about the repeal of HB2.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Forrest has been a key player on the front lines with a strong conservative backing. We want to hear what he has to say because many are disappointed. Just want to give you a heads up on that. Welcome to the broadcast today. This is Michael Brown.

I'm delighted to be with you. And I have a guest that is going to be joining me shortly. Talking about preparing your kids for college. And friends A lot of big questions come up when it comes to sending our kids to college. Number one, why are we doing it?

Is it just an automatic?

Well. Everybody goes to college. It's not the way it's always been in our history. And some of the greatest achievers we have in America to this day never went to college or dropped out of college.

Some didn't even get through high school.

So is this something we just automatically pursue? Another question, do we send them away from home if they want to go to the best university to a secular school? If you're going to send them away from home, you'll only send them to a Christian school. Or what kind of environment are they going to experience? I had uh lunch with a well known pastor and his wife last week, and she said very godly values, very high standards, that she sent all of her kids to public school growing up.

They all went to public school. And they were grounded in God and grounded in godly values. And I guess the school system was pretty decent overall. But she said now her kids, she mentioned one of her daughters, is home schooling all of her kids. that things have changed sufficiently in the school systems around us that whereas a generation back you could send your kids to public school that now it's much more difficult to.

Some say I have no alternative, We don't have the ability to homeschool. We don't have funds for Christian school. There's nothing in our community. And public school is the only option, but we're involved with our kids' education. Hey, I understand everyone makes their decisions.

Matt Walsh, blogger Matt Walsh, who will be joining us on the Line of Fire broadcast in the coming days. He says that our kids aren't equipped to be public school missionaries. Quote, we should agree that public education is inherently hostile to true Christian values, and for that reason, it is not anywhere close to the ideal environment for our kids. Let's go beyond all of that now, these very valid points and questions talking about college. That it's challenging enough to have your kids in grade school and dealing with all kinds of issues.

I was asked in one of three services at Grace Church in St. Louis over the weekend to address gay activism in the church. And one man told me, he was flying on the same flight back with me afterwards, back to my home city, and he said to me that he had some of his kids in there with him. And one of his kids, his daughter said, hey, we've been here or one of his kids said, we've been here about this since third grade. These issues come.

You know, I think parents, well, we don't want to bring it up until the kids are older, and here they're getting. They're getting bombarded with it, third grade, and some kindergarten, first grade, and they're getting bombarded with it from very different perspectives than ours. What happens now when they go off to college? What happens when they're in an environment where most of the people, the vast majority of the kids, are not living godly moral lives, the vast majority sexually active, many of them drinking, many of them getting high, maybe the first time the kids have been away from home in an environment where they could do whatever in the world they want to do. without restriction.

And then they're bombarded by professors with very different worldviews and orientations and mindsets. What then?

So, we're going to talk about that. And my guest, Jonathan Morrow, has a book. Welcome to College, a Christ Followers Guide for the Journey. And Jonathan's going to be joining us next right here on the line of five. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.

Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I was just proofreading.

My forthcoming book, Coming Out With Thomas Nelson. in September called Saving a Sick America. And I have a whole chapter on the education system. Focusing not just on children's education but College, university, education, environment there, the way that we just bow down to secular accreditation, the way that we can just send our kids off to the best school to get the best degree, often with little thought of their spiritual life or their moral life when we send them. And I had guests on with me, PhDs, professors the last couple of weeks who called for some radical solutions and radical.

Overhauling of how we deal with accreditation in Christian schools, and should kids even be in secular universities, et cetera. These are big questions. An article from the Washington Times last year, liberal professors outnumber conservatives nearly 12 to 1. I have some of these stats in my book. Elon Journal Watch in 2016 said the study looks at faculty voter registration at 40 leading universities and finds out that of 7,000.

243 professors, Democrats outnumber Republicans, 3,623 to 314 are by a ratio of 11.5 to 1. That's just part of the college environment. I myself am a product of college and university, all secular. I never studied with believers. Queens College for my bachelor's and New York University for my MA and PhD.

It was very valuable for me to be in that environment. But are there other ways to do things? And what if? What if kids are being sent somewhere else? I lived at home and went to school and was married and went to grad school.

So we want to get some expert advice on these things for parents, for young people. And I'm glad to welcome to the line of fire Jonathan Morrow his new book, Welcome to College, A Christ Follower's Guide for the Journey. Jonathan, thanks so much for joining us. Hey, thanks so much for having me on. I'm looking forward to it.

Yes, sir.

So, Jonathan, first tell me about yourself and how it is that you come to write this book. Yeah, so I wrote Welcome to College because it was everything I wish somebody would have told me before the college years, before I went. Because I came to Christ at 17, went off to the college environment, had virtually every kind of anti-Christian professor along the way, and came to a point where it was like, hey, I don't want to believe Christianity for fairy tales. Are there good reasons to believe that? Believe, and I had a lot of wise mentors that helped me along the way and was able to avoid a lot of those potholes.

I want students to do that as well.

So I wrote that. Welcome to college for them so they can be equipped. to follow Jesus with confidence on campus, because that's not easy to do in today's culture. Yeah, so talk about today's culture. Talk about what you got bombarded by as a new believer, and what kind of school did you go to?

Yeah, I went to a large state school, about thirty thousand students, largest state school in Tennessee. And when I was there, it was I mean, every viewpoint under the sun. I mean, my my university one-on-one professor About halfway through the semester, which is kind of that class that every student kind of has to take where they go. Hey, here's Kyle. You ought to eat something and sleep, and there's the library, that kind of thing.

Um for me About halfway through, it was controversial topic day. And about halfway through that class, they'd already moved all the desks out. It was: if you agree with this, stand on this side of the room. And if you agree with that, stand on that side of the room. And I just knew something was coming and this teacher said, Okay, as a Christian, you believe all non-Christians are going to hell.

If you believe that, get on this side of the room. If you don't believe that, get on the hell. on the outside of the room.

So I'm over here on this side of the room. Maybe there's one person, but they're right behind me. But the rest of my class. Is on the other side of the room, judgmental, and the teachers let this go on for a couple of minutes. And that was just one example.

of the kind of thing I've I encountered. And so I didn't want students to be caught off guard. by things like that because what we're doing is we're living in a culture that is post truth, as everybody's talking about these days from Time magazine covers to the Word of the Year. And people don't care about truth as much anymore until it affects them, and that's the problem. And then this tyranny of tolerance where our students are kind of being forced To agree with everything else that everyone else agrees, except for their own Christianity.

And so they're feeling tons of pressure there.

So, those are some of the questions: the riptide of relativism. Skepticism towards God, and definitely a real bucking against any sort of God's design for sexuality or human nature or anything like that.

So, students are going to run headlong. into those kind of issues. And Jonathan, what year did you graduate? Yeah, I I graduated in two thousand from college. 2000, and then you've gone on to earn an M Div and a and a D Min.

And and I want to talk to you about worldview in in a moment, but uh one can easily suspect and I'm sure there's plenty of evidence that things have gotten even worse since then. Oh, absolutely. You know, I work with college students now. I work with an organization called Impact 360, where we have a gap year for high school graduates aged 18 to 20, where we kind of try to prepare them for that next season of their college experience. The challenges are extremely in their face.

I mean, safe spaces, people talk a lot about those. There might be safe spaces if you're kind of a pluralist, but there's not many safe spaces for a Christian if you take your faith seriously. in terms of intellectually on campus. And so The pressure to conform, just the temptations to kind of resist that hookup culture and things like that on our college campus is very, very strong. Um and we've just got to do a better job preparing our students uh to really you know, encounter that because our churches Many of them, and I'm a fan of the church, I was a pastor for six years.

Um, you know, it's more like Disney World for them and then rather than the battlefield that they're actually walking into. And so they're just they're caught flat-footed, they're just not ready for this. Yeah, and when we hear of the amount of kids that fall away from their faith within the first year of going away to a secular college, I know some of them weren't truly walking with the Lord, they weren't really grounded, they were just Christians in name only, but certainly many come in and they're not used to being away from home.

Now, having to make more responsible choices, and you've got the party atmosphere common among young people on a campus. You've got roommates doing all kinds of things they haven't been exposed to. And then they're thinking, okay, I'm going to be studying math, or I'm going to be studying account or I'm going to be studying philosophy. And they're not expecting the assault on their values. I remember the first ancient history class I took, I wasn't expecting an assault on the Bible.

And there it was, you know, early on in college. And is it from your experience working with young people, is this stat really accurate in terms of high numbers of Christians going to secular school and falling away or questioning their faith deeply even in the first year? Yeah, I I've seen that and And I've seen that to be the case. I know Barna and David Kineman has research on this, that up to 59% will disengage from their Christian faith during the college years. I've seen some numbers as high as 70, some as low as 40.

So let's just split the difference. one out of two is not good in any way, you look at it. And the reason why is because they're getting in there and they're like you said, this when they're when the first time they've ever been away from home, they're challenged, they're alone, they never encountered challenges like this. they go underground or they stop believing along the way because they've grown up in a church that's Basically, said, Hey, guess what? We can't real Christians don't ask those kinds of questions here.

So they just pretended to believe something they didn't really believe anymore just to make everybody happy. Yeah, forward to your book by John Stone Street, president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. I know of no better book. you can put into the hands of a Christian student headed to college. Hey, parents listening and young people are going to be graduating high school, going to college.

This book, Welcome to College by Jonathan Morrow, it could really be the difference between spiritual life and spiritual death for you. These are really, really serious, serious issues. And I say this as an educator myself. Jonathan, what are possibly the most frightening questions? a graduating high school senior can be asked.

Yeah, that that's great. There's several. One of them, though, they get asked a lot is what are you going to do with your life? And they have this pressure. You know, I've been around a lot of young people Yeah.

We live in a very pressurized culture for them to have it all figured out by the time they get out of high school. And so there's questions of identity, like who am I? Does God really love me? What am I going to be when I grow up? And when they get asked those questions, And there's this pressure of you've got to make it happen and save the world by the time you're 21, or you've failed.

They don't want to fail. There's pressure that's just overwhelming. for them is they they try to navigate. That and then to try to incorporate the Christian piece of it: like, how do I live my life for Jesus and actually be a good steward of this thing?

So I think a lot of students many times just feel a lot of pressure to perform. during this and I want to give them a word of encouragement and say, hey, look, You know, God. You are perfectly accepted in who Jesus has called you to be. You can be perfectly forgiven.

Now live out of that basis of security. Into the season, discover your God-given calling, know why you believe what you believe, engage people, tell them about Jesus, but flourish, ask lots of good questions. There's lots of good stuff we can do, but they're feeling pretty overwhelmed by the time they even hit college. Yeah, absolutely. And then how many people really know?

Where they're going. I went to college only to honor my parents because I just was so focused on ministry. Started as a music major, then switched to liberal arts and thought, I can't take this. I just was no interest in it. Ended up switching to a Hebrew major and getting a doctorate in Semitics.

I mean, if you told me that when I was 18 years old, I thought you're crazy. I've got no more likelihood of that than going on a mission to Mars. And yet, that was God's plan. And the pressure that's on these kids is intense. Hey, we come back.

I want to talk to Jonathan Morrow, author of Welcome to College, about how important these years are, the high school, college years, in forming the trajectory of life for a believer and a bunch of other things that can help people be ready. William Lane Craig said this: Jonathan has both the intellectual resources as well as the practical experience to provide an effective student survival guide to university life. I'm impressed with the wide array of issues he discusses-from intellectual challenges to financial problems to sexual snares to getting enough sleep. All this is done in easily. digestible bits for the student on the run.

We'll be right back. Ain't the world It's fire we want for fire we Please. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. My guest is Jonathan Morrow. His website, jonathanmorrow.org. That's M-O-R-R-O-W.

His new book. Just out for a couple weeks now, a few weeks now. Welcome to college. A Christ Follower's Guide for the Journey. Sean McDowell says, Welcome to College has been my go-to book for helping students prepare to succeed spiritually, relationally, and academically in college.

Jonathan, the teen years, the late teen years, from your observation, your own development, and now working with many young people on college campuses, how important are those years in that person's spiritual and personal development? Yeah, I mean just that are so critical these high school college years because and here's why, I mean, you think about this question to frame it. When we talk about our high school years, we now summarize that with a few sentences.

So the question I like to ask college students is What story would you like to tell about your college experience? Because about four or five years from now, whatever that is, you're going to be walking across the stage. And you're either going to look back with regret and shame on that or satisfaction that you at least did it well, not perfectly, but well. Because think about it, there's probably no greater time in your life when you've got the least amount of competence and wisdom, but the most at stake in the choices and relationships that you form during college. And so it's so pivotal to make wise choices, to lean into others' wisdom for you.

on your behalf during those college years because it sets the trajectory and the pathway. that you're going to form, whether that's long term relationships for dating and marriage, to career, to vocation, to where you live and who you surround yourself with.

So the college years are this nexus of choices that really, really matter to to to uh to the traject trajectory of our life. All right, so kids get to school. They are going to be put under pressure because of their Christian faith.

Now you have growing pressure in terms of God's design for sexuality to the point that We know people have actually been kicked out of schools because they couldn't go along with certain programs having to do with LGBT activism. Trigger warnings today, choose your pronouns. Again, it continues to be an increasingly different world.

So in your book, you especially want to speak to students, obviously parents as well. But how do you lay things out in a way that there's a lot to handle, a lot of different issues here? There's my personal morality, there's my spiritual outlook, there's the attack on my values.

So how do you lay things out in the book so people can just kind of get what they need to get out of it? Absolutely. I wrote Welcome to College with lots of short, bite-sized chapters that are still meaty and substantive, that deal from everything from how to navigate the problem of evil and suffering to how can Jesus be the only way, or God's design for sexuality and marriage, or dating. does God exist and so I wrote these in such a way that you can either read it straight through or just go pick the one. Hey, the chapter on doubt, if I'm really experiencing doubts as I go through these.

issues because the reality is is our young people have come to age, come of age in a society that says how you feel determines What's real? And that's just not good. Like that lie our culture is perpetuating is breaking. hearts and lives because We do not get to determine what reality is like. We either cooperate with it or break ourselves against it.

And so one of the things I've tried to do in Wellcome at College is help them see that Christianity is not a fairy tale for grownups. That there's good reasons why we believe what we believe, that it's true, that God exists, that truth exists, that Jesus was who He claimed to be and rose from the dead, and things like that. And if it is true, and this is the key. Then it affects every area of life. You know, many times I'll be talking to students and I'll be like, hey, how many of you guys think that Christianity could be false?

And they're afraid to raise it raise their hand. I'm like, I'm not saying that do you think it's false, but could it be? Because if something can't be false, then it can't be true. And what the Apostle Paul did in 1 Corinthians 15 was that, look, he made Christianity testable. He says, our hope is rooted in history.

If the resurrection didn't happen, your faith is worthless.

So ours is not a blind faith, it's a real faith. And as soon as students can kind of begin to grasp that, at various layers, they begin to have some confidence to go, you know what, How I feel about the world isn't the same thing as how the world actually is. My feelings need to kind of more become aligned with that as we come along. And then they'll learn that this good God also has a plan for their life and they're designed to flourish as a human being.

So, those are some of the kind of things I try to talk about in Welcome to College. Why do you think that in many church environments? The feeling is, I'm not allowed to ask questions. I'm not allowed to say I'm struggling in my faith. I'm not allowed to say.

I'm having a problem with this passage in the Bible. Why why do we seem so insecure? Yeah, I think I think part of it is we've bought into a lie that you have to have this absolute one hundred percent certainty that I couldn't possibly be wrong in order to know something. And to betray any of that means you've got doubt, and doubt is not Christian. And so the problem there is we kind of Create these artificial environments where everybody is like, hey, how are you today?

I'm okay, you're okay.

Well, we do that with a spiritual life, but students. Go, well, wow, okay, I can't ask that. I'm not sure I believe in God, but this youth group isn't the place where I can ask that question. Because People don't seem to give reasons. Another reason is, a lot of Christianity.

Has bought into this idea that faith is blind. You just kind of hold your breath and try really hard to believe something. And that's the way it works. And so The problem is, is that's not working for students and it's not what the Bible teaches.

So that's a double whammy against it. And then students in that environment learn real quick to They either conform, go underground, or reject it outright, or sometimes just become. Christian relativists, where they kind of go, I'll keep the label, but I'm going to put this in the category of true for me, but not. um, for everybody else because this is just my personal preference about how I was rated. And friends When we talk about the atmosphere on college campuses, we're not exaggerating.

For whatever reason, there are numbers of explanations, but our campuses have swung so far to the left, and often with an overt anti-God, specifically anti-Christian. Bias and it is palpable and it is real and it is aggressive, and to not be prepared. It is to simply be unwise. It's to be sending folks into battle basically unarmed. Jonathan, just got a minute and a half before the break.

But fundamental things parents could help their kids with in terms of the liberties that they're now gonna have on campus. What would you say? Yeah, I'd say one of the biggest things you can do now in high school is give them freedom now so they can fail while they're with you. Because if they get to college and they've never had real freedom before, like a curfew or anything else to navigate, it's like never having seen a donut before, being given 12 Krispy Kreme donuts. And they're like, Hey, I'll eat all twelve because they've never had them before.

So straight. Start giving them freedom now while they're in their house.

So, that you can have conversations about how they fail and move from fixing everything to coaching them along so they can get some. understanding and grow that muscle of learning to make some freedom and responsibility decisions because they're definitely going to need that in college. Uh All right, so we're not saying throw them in the deep end and have them spend a week at some shooting house where everybody's getting high on drugs, but you're saying that they're going to have to make choices. They're going to have to have enough responsibility to make. Those choices.

Look, it's not so easily done. Jonathan, does your book give guidelines to parents as to how to help them in this way? It does have a little bit in some of the freedom chapter, but my website, jonathanmara.org, I also have some resources that help parents with how to have better conversations about that, to kind of not be the helicopter or drone parent that kind of swoops in every time something goes wrong. Got it. All right, friends, important book by Jonathan Morrow.

J.P. Morrilland says, this is the book I've been looking for for the last 40 years to give to college students. It is available now. Welcome to college. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr.

Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thanks so much for joining us today on the line of fire. This is Michael Brown, your voice of moral sanity and spiritual clarity. My guest, Jonathan Morrow. Graduated from college in 2000 and since went to get after that an M Div and a D Min. He wrote a book nine years ago, Welcome to College, but now has a new edition of the book out, and it is getting rave reviews.

Well-known professor, apologist, philosopher J.P. Moreland. Said this, wow, what a book. Quite frankly, this is the book I've been waiting for the last forty years to give to college students. It is the single best volume I have ever read.

For preparing students for how to follow Jesus and flourish as a disciple in college. Jonathan, in your view, Is it possible not just to survive? college and university as a Christian, but to thrive in that environment. Absolutely, and that's why I'm optimistic about this generation. We have to be sober-minded when we look at the challenges, but we have huge opportunities because these students, if they're prepared to know what they believe about the big questions of life and why they believe them, which will give them the confidence and get a vision.

For life as God's ambassador and to live in God's greater story in the world. I mean, just think of the possibilities of the life change and influence that could happen.

So I definitely think that students can flourish. in college, but it won't happen by accident. And that's why I wrote Welcome to College to kind of help shape and empower and encourage students to walk into that season and follow Jesus with confidence on campus. Yeah, and I always tell young people this is the greatest mission field they'll ever have in their entire life because people are wondering, they're seeking, they're having their worldviews challenged, and it's an environment which a solid believer has answers. that these other kids need, and that they won't find an empty worldly philosophy or in a drink or in a sexual encounter.

They'll find it in God. Jonathan, your demand focuses on worldview. Polling consistently indicates that the millennial generation, and then even more so the youngest part, say 18 to 23, that only the tiniest percentage of American young people have a biblical worldview. How do we go about addressing this? Yeah.

the number of even just even in polls and how minimal that vision of a worldview is. I mean, it's not exactly the super robust thing.

So what do we have to do? We have to I in my view, I think we have to rethink the way that we approach on the next generation. Because If they go to youth group one hour a week, And they consume about, oh, I don't know, eight hours on average of screen time a day. and their education during the week. And movies they watch, and film, and radio, and iTunes, and everything else, Spotify.

That one hour is evaporating if most of it was just fun and games.

Now I'm all for fun and games, having a great time. I love working with students, we get crazy and have fun.

However, If we are not training them, And actually, role-playing with them, helping them, you know, all right, how would you respond to this?

Okay, talk about this objection, or how are you going to reply or respond if you're put in a situation where you're. They want you to drink alcohol in your underage? How are you going to respond if your friend asks you to go to a strip club in college? Or how are you going to respond if it says, hey, let's go over here and watch this new pornography movie at my house or whatever? How are you going to respond in those situations?

If we're not preparing students for those kind of conversations, we're not preparing them because that's the real world that they're inhabiting every single day. To do worldview training well, we've got to give them reasons, we've got to encourage them to form healthy relationships. and we need to help to help them have healthy rhythms That they can arrange their life around of reading scripture and renewing their mind and prayer and some of those kind of things, but. The bottom line is, the attendance model is failed miserably. We must go to a training model if we want to see our young people flourish during those college years.

Yeah, absolutely. Again, friends, the book, Welcome to College, the author Jonathan Morrow, M-O-R-R-O-W, his website with more resources, jonathanmorrow.org. All right, we've got a few more minutes with Jonathan. I've got some fundamental questions to ask when we come back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.

Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I'm speaking with Jonathan Morrow, the important new book, Welcome to College. Jonathan, as a fairly recent college grad.

Uh uh college in 77 and did my my graduate work after that.

So you graduated in 2000.

So that's quite a few years later. And now we're almost in another world again. But what would you have done differently if you had the experience now that you had back then? What might you have done differently? Yeah.

That's a great question. I think one of the things I would try to take more opportunities to build more relationships. with people that didn't believe what I believed during those years, knowing how strategic they are. Because by God's grace, one of the things I feel like I was able to do well was have wise relationships and friends around me.

So I had a core of friends But I think there were some people even more so than I did. I would go back and do that differently. Another thing that I would do. is I was clueless when it came to finances. And one of the things I see happen to young people so much with student debt and everything else is is they become a debtor, a slave to the lender, and they just put themselves in positions that are just crushing them.

From being able to follow God during that next chapter because of their financial situation. Because they're paying, you know, in many cases, $100,000 for this education, and they're having their heart and mind completely. Taken away from what even Jesus calls them to.

So it just breaks my heart on all those levels. But those are some things. that, you know, hindsight's twenty twenty I'd go back and and do the little more of. And if you're counseling a student, They're about to go to college. What are some of the first things you would tell them to do when they get there?

First thing is absolutely I call it the six weeks rule. If you're a freshman at college, everyone is new at the same time. They're all awkward.

So you need to find your people that first six weeks. Relationships during the college years Will determine the direction and quality of your life, and everything in between. Proverbs 13:20 says, He who walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm.

So that first six weeks, go to all the Christian ministries, crew, RUF, Baptist Student Union, whatever those things are, intervars City Navigators. get plugged into a Bible study that first six weeks before everyone finds their people and then begins to move through the rest of the semester. Because if you get isolated and you start encountering struggles and doubts and insecurities and tough questions about God, it's really hard to Not be affected by that. You need strong Christians around you who can help pull you up and call you. All right.

Just your own views on this, just your average situation, all things being equal. Would you counsel parents and prospective students to consider a Christian university, Christian college first? Or do you think, hey, it's going to be different for everybody? All right, great. Question: What I would encourage them to do, it depends on the Christian school because just because it has Christian in the name doesn't mean that it's Christian.

I'm one of the directors. I'm going to lead the faculty at Impact three sixty Institute. We have a Christian Gap Year for high school graduates age eighteen to twenty. I think honestly, every Christian student in America would benefit from taking a Gap year, then come check us out at impact three sixty dot org. But by and large, the bottom line is you have to prepare them well.

It's very rare that a student has to go to a particular state school or secular school. But you need to know if they're ready for that. Because if they don't have accountability, they don't own their faith, they're going to be just sitting sitting ducks in that environment. But also in some Christian environments, they're just going to get complacent and not challenge.

So, you know, great schools like Bio University or Wheaton or others, there's some really good ones out there. Just because it has Christian in the name, don't be fooled by that because some of the some of the really most sinister attacks on their faith can come from kind of a professor who's integrated in the school, quote unquote. who seeks to undermine their confidence in the Bible or existence of God or God's design for the world. A more enlight a more enlightened Christian view they present, right? Yes, the progressive the progressive view, right?

Because we don't want to be those closed-minded Christian old old time views. And I know for me, being in a secular environment was great in terms of day and night witness. And I'm the kind of person that being challenged, you know, learning to swim by being thrown in the deep end worked well for me. But we realize, again, it doesn't work well for others. And at the very least, if they're going to be thrown in the deep end, they should be prepared.

What about social media? What about this role of impact in the student's life leading up to college and once they're in college? How big is that today? It's massive because it's really a question of identity, but here's the issue, because who are they becoming and do people affirm and accept them? Um but really the question is their digital footprint because They're living their life online.

For everyone to see, future job, future family.

So don't post something online that you don't have to explain to your kids someday because all they have to do is Google it or look it up on Facebook or Instagram or something. It's like, hey, what about that picture, Dad or Mom? And so this digital footprint is huge, but then the bullying and the performance that comes with these issues as well is massive.

So you just have to be wise about social media. I'm not saying don't do it at all. But definitely don't go in there going, hey, I'm just going to do this the way the world does it, because If you look at articles everywhere from the BBC to everywhere else. people are actually disconnecting their social media because it's actually having an adverse effect on their health. We could fall into the comparison trap.

Everybody in the world's having more fun than I am right now. They're much more interesting lives or they're making a bigger difference.

So it can be a great tool, but it also can be a big landmine that can really blow up some students' lives, especially if they do too much of that stuff in public. and don't have a little bit of restraint and self control in terms of what they post. There's also the way we program our minds that it's increasingly difficult for us to stop and think, to sit down with a book and read it through, because there's this constant addictive fix to what's happening and being connected and so on.

So it does affect our thought patterns as well. And I've heard professors talk about that, the difficulty of getting a student to sit down with a book and learn and think and read it through. What about... Being tolerant. Jonathan, we don't want to be intolerant.

We don't want to be bigots, transphobes, homophobes. We want to be open-minded. How tolerant should we be as believers on a college campus? And should we have friends that aren't believers? You talked about the importance of finding your own spiritual tribe and getting with people that believe as you do.

And I know for me, even as a tough, strong person ready to be challenged, I was thrilled to meet other believers on campus. And I did not live on campus, so it was pretty easy in that respect, but it was still great to meet other believers and to know they were out there. But should we only have believing friends? And does that make us intolerant if we don't? How should we relate to this?

Yeah, it's a great question. And so the short answer is we ought to be as tolerant as Jesus was. And so he perfectly loved people. He's our example. But he also called out.

Sin and truth, and he talked about these kinds of things. The problem with our culture is we're now in a position. where tolerance has been redefined to mean that we can't even disagree with someone with what they believe And still not be loving.

So, for example, if you're not going to say that any viewpoint is fair game and good. then you're intolerant will That's not going to work at all. What we need to do is re tolerance in the sense of We're going to give people the right to be wrong because that's what we'd like. That's what true tolerance is. That's what we're after.

And what we want to do is have our core be Christian friend. But our outside people around us, we need to be able to reach out to atheists and Muslim friends and everyone else, but not in our inner core because they're the most wise relationships that are shaping us the most. In my view, I want to see those be Christians because If you asked me how to predict where a student will end up five years from now. just show me their friends, and that will tell me largely the trajectory and the kind of choices that they'll make. That's how influential friendships and relationships are during those college years.

But we can't buckle to this tyranny of tolerance. But that only comes with knowing why we believe what we believe and being ready to live that out. Got it. And Jonathan, your website, jonathanmorrow.org. What will folks find there?

Yeah, they'll find resources to help you understand what you believe and why you believe it, follow Jesus with more confidence. And for parents and youth pastors and people who care about the next generation, they'll find resources about how to better equip them. And how to give them a lasting face.

So I've got video tools and podcasts and some courses and things like that that'll help them as well. And you've got phenomenal endorsements from fine people, friends and colleagues of mine, well-known apologists, Frank Turks, Sean McDowell, William Lynn, Craig, others. What are you hearing from students, from young people who are getting your book, and now they're at college, and what's happening to them? Yeah, just thank you for writing on this. Hey, I'm using this at FCA in my Bible study at Clemson or Oklahoma State or wherever.

And they're using this and they're benefiting from it. And they're, hey, I'm going to do my relationships differently based on the chapter you wrote on dating. Or I'm going to break, honestly, I'm going to break up with so-and-so because I have no business being involved with this guy. You know, so I'm encouraged by. The way that Welcome to College is helping students, and my prayer for them is in this book: it would really empower, encourage, and equip more students.

to take advantage of these critical college years to really follow Jesus and make a big difference. Yeah, absolutely. I'm thrilled to hear that. You know, Jonathan, I wrote a five-volume series on answering Jewish objections to Jesus and began debating rabbis years ago. And my first and foremost reason was I wanted to help fellow Jewish believers who were dealing with rabbis and countermissionaries and learned people who knew far more than they did.

And they were kind of thrown to the lions in that respect. And I remember what I experienced as a new believer going through that. And I thought, I don't want anyone else to have to experience this. I want to put out resources.

So I so resonate with what you're doing. And I've met Jesus. Jewish believers around the world that say, hey, your books were used by God to keep me in the faith. And I'm quite sure you're going to be hearing that in the years to come, Jonathan.

So keep up the great work. Much appreciated. Hey, thanks so much for having me on. It's just my pleasure, and that's my prayer as well. Amen.

God bless you. All right, friends, I've got more campus news when we come back. Are you ready? Maybe not. Change the world.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thank you so much for joining me on the broadcast. Hey, let me just give you a little review of some of what I covered on the air today. As we've been on for almost two hours, many of you catching our last half hour now. We do our best to make every hour stand on its own, every half hour stand on its own.

So whenever you're tuning in, you will get a full menu of truth, life-changing truth. But in the first hour, I majored on the liberal response, the leftist response to the revelation about Governor Mike Pence's guidelines, his prudent guidelines to preserve marriage and to not have meals alone with people of the opposite sex, to not be in a meeting where alcohol is being served and drunk unless his wife is there, just things like that. We talked about that a lot.

Some other things as well. I didn't solicit responses or... Put anyone on the air with responses, but I did ask two questions on Twitter, and I just want to give you an update on those, all right? And then I want to get back to college campuses.

So I asked these two questions on Twitter.

Well, four hours ago. Number one, do you believe that the Obama administration surveilled Trump and his team prior to the election? Number two, do you believe that Trump secretly colluded with Russia to help him win the election? Interestingly, the second question is getting more responses than the first, but they're almost mirror images. In other words, the ones who say yes to the one say no to the other.

So in answer to the question, do you believe that the Obama administration surveilled Trump and his team prior to the election? 77% say yes. Twelve per cent say no. 11% unsure. You say, what does that prove?

Proves nothing. Proves nothing. It simply indicates where my Twitter followers stand. That's all. Doesn't prove what happened or didn't happen.

simply answers the poll question. I want to find out what they think.

Now conversely, Do you believe that Trump secretly colluded with Russia to help him win the election? Only 9% say yes. 81% say no. 10% say unsure.

So look at this: 77% yes on the first question, 9% on the second, 12%. No on the second one, 81% no. Excuse me, on the first, 81% no on the second.

So just about the exact flip. Of that. A couple months ago, we had on with us a tremendous bold intellectual from Canada, Professor Jordan Peterson. For years as a psychology professor, he has studied. things like communism and its impact on society.

The taking over of concepts and words, that this is acceptable, that this is not, this kind of corporate think where everyone has to think the same way and you get penalized for not doing it.

So, when stuff came his way with gender pronouns, and that students could say, well, even though I'm a biological male, I want to be identified as she. Or because I don't want to be singled out with my gender, I want to be identified as they. Or, I don't relate to he or she, it's kind of a combination, so I want to be identified as Z. He said no, I'm not going to do that. There's an opera on the campus, and by the way, he is fearless and outspoken.

There was an uproar. What kind of bigoted guy is this? And the university said. That that Basically, if you get sued, we're not going to stand with you.

So So The latest news from NationalPost.com. University of Toronto psychology professor Dr. Jordan Peterson has had a federal research grant application denied for the first time in his long and distinguished career.

So you're working on something, you put in your application for a grant so that you could Do research, in other words, you're not going to be teaching, you're going to be taking a break from that, or you need time to just devote to this, so you get a grant, and that's how much research is fueled. Professor Peterson is certain that the rejection from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the government agency that supports post-secondary research, is linked to the controversy surrounding his stand on gender-neutral pronouns such as Z and Z. and the modern notion of gender as being fluid. that his application was also rated so poorly is telling, he said. meaning that if the proposal had just missed the mark, it might have been a credible critique, but the proposal failed abysmally.

So here he's never had a research grant denied before. He's a distinguished professor. Oh, because he is defying the gods of political correctness. How dare he? Julia Gautieri, spokeswoman for the council, said in an email Monday that grants are awarded through a merit review process and that past funding is not a guarantee of further funding.

Names of the peer-reviewed committee members will be publicly posted once all applicants have been fully notified, she said. Peterson, Sparked a free speech fury last fall with YouTube videos about the dangers of the then-looming and now law Federal Bill C-16, which included gender identity and gender expression in the Canadian Human Rights Code and the Criminal Code.

So for example, under that code, let's say I had a Bruce Jenner was a student of mine and said, I'm no longer Bruce, I'm Caitlin, I want to be identified a certain way. If I said, hey, I have an issue with that, I'd be breaking the law. He was immediately warned by the university, quote, to stop repeating these statements because they were purportedly inciting fear in the transgendered community. And at the time, Peterson said he knew he was most vulnerable to attack in two areas, his grant funding and his license as a clinical psychologist. I think it's the controversy provided someone with a convenient opportunity to make their displeasure with what I'm doing known.

I can't shake the suspicion. Nothing else has changed. He said as usual he has three top caliber graduate students working with him. His citation counts, the number of times a work is cited by peers are rapidly rising and have always been high. Indeed, it's the graduate students' loss of income that Peter feels badly about, though he's working already on alternative ways to raise funds for them.

So this is going to help his students. Quote, almost all of it, grant money is used to pay my grad students their supplements so they can get their PhDs. Another chunk would have gone to pay research subjects. There was also a small budget for the students to travel to present their Data. Yeah, so No surprise here.

This is what happens. By the way, Peterson taught at Harvard University for six years, and he says there is absolutely no reason why this grant was declined other than the bias against him. Welcome to the world of radical liberal campuses. It is the reality all around us. We need to be prepared.

I strongly say we need to challenge the accreditation system. that can be biased in these ways as well at times. I strongly say that we do not need to bow down to the system and we may need to establish our own guidelines. There are certainly enough believers and Christian universities and colleges in America to do that. And we don't need to bow down to the fact you have to have a degree.

Some do, some don't. I've got a PhD. Nancy has a high school degree in one-year medical assistant school. And she's a million times sharper than me on all kinds of issues and far wiser in so many other issues. And yet, yep, she doesn't know Semitic languages the way I do.

Great. I mean, we each have our calling, but the idea you have to have a degree to be there. Who says who? Based on what? Talk to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Michael Dell about you have to have a degree.

All right. Go to my website thelineoffire.org, check out our latest videos, articles. Oh, and an amazing new thank you gift for our new torch bearers at thelineoffire.org. My bottom line. Let's bow down to God's system and God's ways for change.