Redemptive Biblical Thoughts on the Hillsong Scandals

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Well, there's been a whole lot of discussion about the recent scandals with Hillsong. Let's have a constructive and redemptive discussion today. It's time for the Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity.

Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on the Line of Fire. And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown. It is great to be with you today on the Line of Fire. Michael Brown, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us.

Those who look forward to listening every day, my joy and privilege to spend this time with you. We are broadcasting from our studio Christ for the Nations in Dallas. I'm here the entire week to be teaching here and then in Fort Worth administering Tuesday night.

If you're anywhere in the DFW area. In fact, I should mention it again in the second half hour where we pick up a lot of DFW listeners. By all means, join us for the Tuesday night service. All right, here's the number to call. And like I do on Fridays, I'm opening the phones for all subjects. All calls on all subjects. Anything you want to ask me about, talk to me about, differ with me about. We'll have a civil conversation. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. I do want to play a clip from Ukraine's President Zelensky just so that we don't let the suffering of the Ukrainian people be out of sight, out of mind.

We'll play that a little later in the broadcast. But I want to devote some substantial time today to having a redemptive, constructive discussion regarding Hillsong, the churches, the movement, the recent scandals. I am not sitting here in a self-righteous position, God forbid. I'm not sitting here to throw stones at brothers and sisters. I'm not here to say, aha, oh there, see, told you.

That's not my heart, that's not my attitude whatsoever. But Hillsong is so influential. There's been controversy about Hillsong over the years. And now with the recent spate of scandals, resignations, other things going on, including the resignation of the leader of Hillsong, Brian Euston, it's time to have a constructive discussion. If you want to call and weigh in, that's fine.

But again, this is not the time where we just stand on the sidelines and throw stones at brothers and sisters or condemn, all right? I am not part of Hillsong. I have no relationship with anyone at Hillsong on any personal level, except Carl, Lance, and I know each other a little. We spent some time on the phone once. We've texted each other, emailed each other a few times.

That's it. Never met face to face. Brian and I have maybe exchanged a couple of tweets so we know each other and know of each other.

But if I ever met Brian face to face, it would have been in the 90s, briefly in some meetings in Australia. So I have no relationship with Hillsong. I don't know how they govern their churches. I don't know all of the policies that they have in place. I am not speaking in any way as an insider.

Far from it. I've never attended a service at a Hillsong church. Not only so, but I am not a historic critic of Hillsong or an historic apologist for Hillsong. I have made some statements over the years when there were things that were relevant, that were in the news, that were being talked about. I have made some comments that were necessary and had some private interaction in the midst of those comments.

So that's it. Again, I've been attacked as a critic of Hillsong. I have been attacked as an apologist for Hillsong.

Neither one are accurate. There are things that I'm an apologist for and I get attacked for that. And there are other things I'm a critic of and I get attacked for that. In this case, both are false. I'm neither a critic nor an apologist for Hillsong. I'm just coming at things in the most neutral way that I can.

But aligned with the Lord and his word as we all desire to be. Okay. Number one.

Number one. There's no reason why we can't enjoy Hillsong worship. There's no reason why we can't sing Hillsong songs in our church. If you enjoyed Shout to the Lord from years back, or This is How We Overcome, or more recently, What a Beautiful Name, or some of the other great songs they've written. They're powerful songs. If their lyrics are good, if the people that wrote them wrote them as unto the Lord, why can't we sing them?

It's not that everything with Hillsong is now tarnished, everything with Hillsong is now bad. Is that how God looks at it? If that was the case, we'd all be damned. We'd all be condemned. Because none of us on our best day are perfectly righteous, none of us on our best day are perfectly holy, none of us on our best day are perfect in our doctrine, in our understanding, or our conduct, on our very best day.

So if we're going to be disqualified in full because of a partial problem or defect, then we're all disqualified. So that's number one. I have no reason to stop singing Hillsong songs. The ones that I've enjoyed, the ones that have ministered to me, the ones that I believe ministered to the Lord. If they've been a blessing in your church, those songs are not tarnished.

And if the songwriters themselves are living godly lives, the songwriters are not tarnished. Here, you may be part of the Southern Baptist. There's a scandal with a major church in the Southern Baptist. Does that mean that all Southern Baptist churches are bad? You may be with the Assemblies of God. There's a scandal in Assemblies of God, or with any major group. You're Catholic.

Does that mean all Catholics are all priests are bad? No. Scandals do exist. You're a student at a Christian university and there's a scandal with a leader. Does that tarnish the whole university?

No. Now, it for a moment can give a bad feel, but if you're there, the classes are good, the environment is good. So let's not judge the whole by the part.

It's never a safe thing to do. That's first thing. Second thing, for everyone that's come to know Jesus through Hillsong, for everyone that's come to be born again and come into a genuine relationship with Jesus through Hillsong Church, I rejoice. I thank God for that. That's a soul forever with the Lord. And Jesus tells us the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner who's saved. So for everyone that's really come to the Lord through Hillsong Church, praise God. That's wonderful. I want to recognize the good wherever I can.

One of my colleagues in Australia, Messianic Jewish leader, has taught regularly at their Bible school there, said he was always treated with the utmost respect, that the doctrine that they put forward was fundamental and unorthodox, and they welcomed his teaching on Israel. Well, I appreciate that. That is positive. Okay, now some of the concerns. So first, no reason not to sing their songs. Second, thank God for the Lord your good. Third, we do have to look at the culture that was encouraged.

Now I'm asking questions here, to be redemptive, to be constructive, for us to all examine ourselves. To the extent that there was a culture associated with Hillsong, or say Hillsong, New York, that was known as kind of a celebrity church and a cool church, and the pastor was called by others, he didn't call this himself, was called the apostle of cool. To the extent there was a mindset that following Jesus is cool, that following Jesus is trendy, to that extent that is a destructive mindset. Oh, it's true that Jesus was very popular with many sinners and was rejected by many of the religious people. That's very true, but he called the sinners to repentance and transformation, and he didn't glorify the sinners. You know, Nancy pointed this out to me some weeks back when we were having a conversation, that it's interesting that Jesus never over-praises people.

The way we do, oh, we're so honored to have so-and-so with us there, this and this and this, an amazing, wonderful, incredible man of God, extraordinary woman of God. And I know we're seeking to be honoring and appreciative, and we give all glory to the Lord, but Jesus may have said, great is your faith to someone, or I see you without guile. But he did not go around over-praising people, and he was totally unimpressed with human beings, for good reason. Of course he's totally unimpressed with human beings, because he sees all of us.

He sees the good and the bad and the ugly, and he realizes our frailty and how easily we could turn on him. So, to be very, very clear, we do not want to have a culture that, following Jesus, is the trendy, cool thing to do, and come to our church because it's the trendy, cool thing. Now look, I know decades before Hillsong that there were major churches in different cities that exist to this day, and this is the city, the church you go to, you're new in the town, you're starting a law firm, you're starting a dentist's office, you're launching a new program.

This is the church you need to be in to make connections. I understand those things happen. I understand that you might be attracted to a certain group of people.

Hey, I love being with the young people, or I love being with the older professionals, or boy, I much prefer this music to that. That's fine. No one's saying that there aren't cultural differences. No one's saying that churches cannot be watering holes in meeting places. I'm talking about a culture.

I'm talking a mindset. To the extent that culture, to the extent that that mindset celebrates the world, celebrates fame, celebrates celebrity, celebrates worldliness, to that extent, that church has erred, that church has gotten off track, that church has departed from New Testament standards, which call us to deny ourselves and take up the cross and bear the reproach, not the coolness, but the reproach of being followers of Jesus. So, to the extent, again, I'm not here throwing stones, I'm asking questions, to the extent that culture was cultivated in Hillsong churches or any of our other churches, that is a dangerous culture. That is a culture that leads to scandal.

That is a culture that leads to fault. Brian Euston, in a very humble, forthright confession, one that we should take at face value and stand with him for health, restoration, wholeness, repentance where needed, he made clear, alcohol was not my friend. I think that's an exact quote. Alcohol was not my friend. People said to him, how are you coping with all the stress and pressure of this and that? He says, I wasn't. I wasn't. Alcohol was not my friend. So, to the extent that there was a culture that celebrated freedom to drink and freedom to party in certain ways and certain things I observe with my own eyes over the years, that concerns me.

That is a worldliness. That is dangerous. And in that sense, alcohol is really not anybody's friend. If it's something that's dependent on something that's looked to, it's not your friend.

It's not your buddy. It's your enemy. And again, I don't say this in any self-righteous way. For each of us, there I go, but by the grace of God. For each of us, we stand by mercy. For each of us, every one of us has had to apologize.

Every one of us has regretted certain things said and done. Most of them are fixed in private. Some of them rise to the merit of public. They have to be addressed in that way. Anyway, more to come, and you can weigh in on this, but any question, biblical, theological, you name it.

Phone lines are open, 866-348-7884. This is how we rise up. It's our resistance.

You can't resist us. This is how we rise up. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. That is the number to call. Any question on any subject that relates in any way to the Line of Fire, we're going to have time for calls today.

Like we do on Friday, we can never get to all the calls on Friday, so we're opening the phone lines for all subjects this Monday, 866-348-7884. You might say, well, I don't listen live. I catch you later on podcasts. Wonderful.

I'm so glad you do. Probably the bulk of our listeners catch us later on podcasts or watch later on YouTube or Facebook. You say, well, what do I do with my questions? Well, send them to our website. Well, first, go to our website, AskDrBrown.org, and search it because we've got thousands of articles up there, all kinds of resources, access to all of our previous broadcasts. You'll probably find your question answered already and maybe in great depth, but if not, there's a contact link there.

Just write to it, and you will get a response. All right, 866-344-TRUTH. I talked about this last week on the Tuesday broadcast when we talked about should Christians drink alcohol? Should Christian leaders drink alcohol? Should we do it in public?

Should it only be done in private? And I made clear my views that I do not believe you can argue for total abstinence based on the Bible. There's just too much in the Bible that speaks about wine in general, other drink in positive ways, as a blessing, as something to be enjoyed in moderation. Yet the Bible throughout warns against the dangers of drunkenness, and 1 Corinthians 6, among other passages, makes clear that those who walk in persistent unrepentant drunkenness will not inherit the kingdom of God, so it is a serious violation and a serious destructive act. So the warnings are there, but you cannot in any way prove total abstinence as the biblical call. And as far as we know, Jesus would have drank wine, certainly in religious holy days and things like that, when it was appropriate. That being said, my own position has been total abstinence for 50 years in the Lord.

I especially encourage it for other leaders, but by all means, let any of us who feel the liberty to drink keep that liberty private or among close family members, where this is not an issue. But when we do these things in public, when we talk about them, when we boast about them, then what happens is that along the way we cause others to stumble, which is terribly, terribly dangerous. And Paul warns about Romans 14. So tying this back to the question of church culture, all right, the antidote to legalism, which is deadly and destructive, the antidote to legalism is not license. The antidote to legalism is not to say, look at how free I am, I can do whatever in the world I want. Paul says, even if you had that freedom, it's not constructive, it's not helpful.

That may be your position. But the bottom line is, we are not free to sin, we are free from sin. We are not free to indulge in the sin of the world, we are set free from the sin of the world. So we want to make sure that in our church culture, we don't celebrate worldliness, we don't celebrate carnality, we don't celebrate celebrity, we don't celebrate the love of the world, we don't hear pastors, preachers. What do you think is going to bring more people to the Lord? Preaching Jesus clearly, strongly from the scripture, exalting him as the one who died for us and rose from the dead and is coming again, preaching against sin and offering a beautiful, wonderful antidote to sin through the cross, and walking and living in the power of the Spirit. That, or you know all the latest movies and can weave in themes from all the latest movies into your preaching. What's going to be more effective?

Yeah, no brainer. Let me go a step further. You could be trying to reach young people who have never put on a suit, young men in their lives, or girls who've never put on a dress, okay, except for going to a funeral or something like that. They are casual in their dress, they don't know King James vocabulary, they don't know they don't like the old hymns.

You can have a church singing the old hymns where the pastor and the men of the church wear suits and the ladies wear dresses and the pastor preaches from the King James Bible. But if he's preaching a living Jesus and the power of the Spirit, based on the clear testimony of the Word of God, and people are encountering the Lord, young people will go flocking there as their lives are changed, as they get hope, as they get set free from suicide and depression and drug addiction and immorality and every other kind of sin that would pursue them, as they get healed of sickness in their bodies. They will go flocking there more than to the church that has the right music, the right lighting, the cool looking pastor, but lives are not being transformed. And you say, no, no, I've seen churches packed out that are worldly.

Okay, when the testing comes, when the shaking comes, they won't be there, they won't be there, they won't endure, because the roots are not deep. Now, for me, for me, I love the contemporary worship songs. The old hymns are powerful and great and still have a place in my life. God greatly used them when I first got saved. But I love the contemporary songs.

As I said, some of the Hillsong songs are some of my favorite songs, and they go through a process of writing them and reflecting on them and looking at the theology, and I appreciate that. That's good. Praise God. And although I prefer all the lights on during worship, many of my colleagues have kind of lights down, and that's okay, fine, if that's helping you not be looking around. Either way, I'm going to worship God and meet with him, and I much prefer not having to dress up in a suit and tie, like I did regularly for years while preaching. I much prefer dressing casually. So if I could choose, I'd choose the contemporary music and lights on, but if they're going to be turned down, that's fine.

And on top of that, a more casual dress and not using a King James Bible. But I'm telling you once again, when God's really moving, and I've been an eyewitness to this for decades, when God's really moving and people are really encountering him and being set free, the cultural context is very secondary to that. All right, as we look at the Hillsong scandals, the fourth thing is we search our own lives. We look at our own lives. We examine ourselves.

We ask the difficult questions, and we say, okay, are we living right? What are we cultivating? What are we celebrating? What are we exalting? What are we majoring on in our church culture?

What standards are we living by? You say, well, it's just wrong that Brian Houston covered up charges that his father was committing sin with boys. Oh, hang on, that's an accusation. That's an accusation. It's going to come out in the courts. Let the truth be known. Innocent until proven guilty. For anybody.

For anybody. Look, I met Brian's father in the mid-90s. He was a revered Pentecostal leader in Australia, and absolutely welcomed strong holiness, repentance, preaching.

That's what I brought, and he welcomed it. And yeah, I was aware that others in the meeting did not welcome it, but it seemed that he did. It was an absolute shock to find out about the scandals with him, which were true. Absolute shock to find out about that many years later. It was after his death, I believe, that I first heard about these things, but it was an absolute shock. So let the truth come out.

Brian has strenuously denied these charges while confessing to other things in his life. So let the truth come out there, all right? But we search our own lives, asking if the light was shone on us, then what? And that leads to number five. So my points today, number one, we can still sing the Good Hill Song songs, no reason not to. Number two, we rejoice in the good that's come out of their churches and those who truly come to know Jesus. Number three, we evaluate the larger culture. We do not celebrate worldliness or celebrity or coolness. Number four, we search our own lives.

Number five, we look for leadership patterns. What do I mean by that? Let's say as a pastor that 10 years ago you were budgeting things out with your church and you took some tax benefits that you had been told by your pastor were fine to take. And then the others on the board are looking at this and say, pastor, you're not allowed to take that. That could be against the law. And it's like, are you serious?

And it's like, are you serious? I had no idea. I thought that that was a benefit that was tax deductible. No, no, you can't do that.

Okay. You fix it, right? You make sure it's fixed legally.

It has to be with RRS, et cetera, or penalties to pay, et cetera. You go back and fix it. But it was innocent. The whole world doesn't have to know about it, okay? Let's say that two staff members, associate pastor and someone else on the team, got too friendly. They were married, they got too friendly. They said, hey, this is not good. This is dangerous.

We need to step back. Shared it with others. Okay. The whole world doesn't need to know that. There are other things that cause someone to step down from ministry. There are other things that now the whole world does know because it becomes public. So my own belief is that if someone sins on a certain level in private, does not cross certain lines, or you didn't break up your marriage and commit adultery, you weren't stealing money from the church, you weren't guilty of abusing people, whatever, okay? So it doesn't cross certain lines. And things can be confessed privately and dealt with privately and fixed privately. That's the great majority of what happens.

That's the way it should be done. There's no reason to broadcast it for the entire world if it doesn't cross a certain line and if it is dealt with rightly and internally. And there's, above all, genuine repentance. You say, well, why is it that certain things come to light? Well, maybe because there was a pattern. Maybe because there wasn't real repentance. Maybe because someone walked in something repeatedly, so one of the instances now goes public, but they walk in it repeatedly. Let's you put the fear of God in each of us, friends.

It really should. And then sixth, last point, what was important to Jesus? That's you. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us, friends, on the Line of Fire, 866-348-7884. That is 866-34-TRUTH. To all of our friends in the Dallas, Fort Worth area, join me this Tuesday night. So it's Monday if you're listening live. So tomorrow night, services at 7 p.m. at Christ for the Nations Institute. We'll have a time of worship. And then I'm really looking for this to be a night of divine encounter where we really minister and allow the Holy Spirit to speak through his word and open our hearts to receive from him.

So join me if you're in the area on Tuesday night. Okay, remember what's coming. Yeah, the countdown. What's today? Ten days.

Ten days, yes, until Not Ashamed of Jesus Day. National Not Ashamed of Jesus Day. We're getting great response. People are excited to say, okay, on this day together, let our voices be heard together across the nation. We know it's just getting the ball rolling this year.

It's first year being announced. But there's excitement. Hey, another day with intentionality to make our testimonies known. Or another day with intentionality to reach out and love to a coworker. Or another day with intentionality to say, hey, we're followers of Jesus. We're not ashamed.

We love him and we love you. Go to notashamedofjesus.org. Notashamedofjesus.org. That is the place to go.

And you'll get lots of practical ideas. Scripture, Esther 4-14, why we've chosen, April 14th. And then for pastors and leaders, a packet of more information of things that you can do to help make this important day known.

Again, notashamedofjesus.org. So I want to say one last thing in terms of what should be important to us as ministers of the gospel. What should be important to us as followers of Jesus? Very simply, what was important to the Lord should be important to us.

Let me say that again. What was important to the Lord should be important to us. What did he value? What did he put his life into? What did he give himself for? Ultimately, it was to see a family united around him that would be with his father forever. And if you read John 17, our unity was very important to him.

And if you read John 13 and John 15, our love one for another was really important to him. You can cultivate that in a house group. You can cultivate that in a mega church. You can cultivate that in an underground church setting.

You can cultivate it in many, many different ways. But ultimately, our unity in him, our being true disciples, our love one for another, these are things important to the Lord. They're more important than outward success.

They're more important than numbers themselves. The goal is not numbers. The goal is disciples. The goal is not just having a lot of people. The goal is having people who love one another. The goal is not just having a nice building, but have beautiful things happen in that building and beautiful things come out of that building. Many times, we get caught up with a worldly mentality.

I've done it too. You can measure things by your reach. You can measure things by sale of a book. You can measure things by numbers of those following.

You can measure things like that, and they may have nothing whatsoever to do with what God's interested in or what God's looking for. Nothing whatsoever. All right, just checking something here on my computer here, but we're good.

Whenever I'm in a different studio here, the CFNI studio, there's always a new configuration, and they're scrambling with other things every other week, so we appreciate everybody working together as hard as they do. Let me illustrate this for you, okay? My dad told me a joke when I was a kid, and I'm sure if you listen regularly, you've heard me refer to it one time or another, but let me do so again. He said to me, you're good with math, right?

I said, yeah, I was good with math as a kid. He said, okay, a man gets on an elevator, or you get on the elevator, right? When you get on, three other people get on with you, and you go up to the third floor, and two people get out, five people get out, and two people get out, five people get in.

So I'm computing, okay, here's the total number. Then you go up to the seventh floor, and three people get out, nobody gets on. You go up to the eighth floor, and it just goes on and on, a bunch of floors, right? So I'm calculating, and then we get to the end, and I'm ready to tell them there are 11 people left on the elevator, or six on the elevator, or whatever the number was. And he says to me, he says, how many stops did the elevator make? Oh, I wasn't concentrating on that.

I've used this analogy. You are hired to go into South Africa with a mining company, and to look for diamonds, and that's your whole assignment. Look for diamonds. There's a new area that's been discovered that's considered diamond-rich.

Look for diamonds. So you go there with your crew. After one year, you tell the company that sent you, we're doing amazingly well. We're doing incredibly well. We've got truckloads and truckloads of stuff that we've pulled up from the mines.

So the heads of the company come in to expect, it's like, what's this? They're all rocks. We want diamonds. Oh, well, we couldn't find the diamonds, but there are lots of rocks. We didn't want the rocks.

Rocks can be found anywhere. What we wanted was diamonds, diamonds. That's what we wanted. So the same way, we can be enthralled with numbers. We can be enthralled with the glitz.

We can be enthralled with lots of outward stuff, and it may not equate to disciples or quality of life or depth of spiritual life. I'm not saying this is an indictment against Hillsong. I am not. We're an indictment against megachurches.

I'm not. Again, I've never spoken in Hillsong Church or to my knowledge in my life attended the Hillsong Church. There was a Hillsong sponsored event that I was in in probably 97 in Australia at the invitation of other leaders speaking on other things. So they asked me at that event to get up, which I did, and just brought a strong holiness message in the midst of it. But all that to say, I'm not an observer.

I have no connection. And I've had the privilege of speaking at some of the most famous megachurches in the world. So I'm not saying this against numbers.

I know house groups that are healthy and house groups that are unhealthy. I'm saying that often as human beings or in America where our mentality is often bigger is better, bigger is better, that often we miss the mark. Often we get off track. Often we often we fail to see what's really important, which is making quality disciples.

Think of it. When Jesus saw the masses, he often gave his hardest teachings. Look in John six, where the people came back because their bellies were filled, not because they saw the Son of God work miracles and thought, wow, we need to be near him. No, because their bellies were filled.

That's what happened. And he begins to teach more and more. He ends up saying, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. And they're like, what?

And they leave. Why did he teach something so radical that they were bound to misunderstand unless they really trusted him? Because he was sifting through the crowds. He didn't want crowds. He wanted disciples. Look in Luke 14, beginning in verse 25, that says great crowds were following him.

Great crowds. He loved the crowds. He had compassion on the multitudes. He fed them. He healed them. And ultimately, he died for all of us. So he loved every human being there. But when the large crowds were following him, he said, unless you hate your father and mother, your brother, sister, your very own life, you can't be my disciple.

That was bound to be misunderstood by people who didn't trust him. What? Unless you take up your cross and follow me, you can't be my disciple. Unless you leave everything, you can't be my disciple. What?

It seems so extreme. But he was looking for the real deal. He was sifting through the crowds to find the real disciples. Because once he died and rose, he was now going to commit the future to these disciples. He was now going to commit the future to them. And this was now a matter of the mission.

This was now a matter of building on a solid foundation. If he just had a bunch of followers, now things go south. Now he dies on the cross.

Now following him is going to cost you your life. That's it. It's over. That's the end of the Jesus movement.

And in the same way, that's how the church grows, not just by consumers, but by disciples, by genuine, committed followers. All right, do I have time to play this clip? I'm switching subjects now. I said what I wanted to say. Switching subjects, and I don't think it's proper for us in the busyness of life and the rapid change of the news cycle, I don't think it's proper for us to lose sight of the atrocities that have taken place in Ukraine.

This is what President Zelensky had to say during an interview about what he has now seen as Russian troops have withdrawn from parts of Kiev and other areas. Listen to what he had to say. All right, hang on. We're going to stop that clip there.

All right, so here's what happened. Somehow the clip that I sent to my team that was then excerpted and sent here was sent without the translation. I let it play for a little while because the one I heard started with his voice and then the translator came in. So unless you understand Ukrainian or Russian, which would be close, then that wouldn't have been helpful. President Zelensky is talking about things that is talking about things that he said are indescribable. He's talking about, as they've retaken ground now and Russian troops have withdrawn, that there are people with their hands tied behind the back and decapitated. I've read other reports of people with their hands tied behind their back and shot in the head. Van Mark children completely shot up so the children inside killed. And according to President Zelensky, children before they were killed were tortured. And he said, who can imagine anything like this?

President Biden has not used the word genocide, which President Zelensky did, but President Biden has talked about war crimes being committed by President Putin. It's a real tragedy right in front of our eyes, friends. We'll be right back. On the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I just tweeted this out moments ago to the extent that we think following Jesus is cool and trendy.

To that extent, we have not learned to be disciples. All right. 866-34-TRUTH. I did an interview earlier today on my new book, The Silencing of the Lambs, The Ominous Rise of Cancel Culture, and how we overcome it. And in the interview, I was asked by Bob Dutko, who was doing just four hours of radio a day. Amazing. I know a bunch of guys do three hours, which is still amazing to me.

Four hours even more. And he always seems well prepared with what he's doing. In any case, he asked me, why is it that folks on the left, the radical left, the so-called progressives, are often the most intolerant, are often the ones who seem to stifle debate, are often the ones leading the charge to cancel and marginalize others? And he said, is it just a tactic that they're going to brand us as haters and bigoted, etc., as a tactic to silence us? Or do they genuinely believe that they are so enlightened that their position is true and all of the positions are dangerous that the right thing for them to do is stifle us? And I said, I think it's both, and it depends on the person. I read gay activist strategies going back decades where they plainly laid out, here's how we demonize the opposition.

Here's how we make them look bad. So, for example, if you said, I don't believe in two men, quote, marrying. By the way, getting laws changed about marriage was not even one of the activists' goals.

The more sober ones said, that's not going to happen. We just want our relationships to be accepted, etc. But to change the fundamental definition of marriage was not in their playbook, for the most part. In any case, this may be the most radical, but the more mainstream ones, no, it wasn't.

But here's the thing. They knew that to make progress, they had to demonize the opposition. So the moment you would say, it's really best for kids to have a mom and a dad, or I believe that homosexual behavior is contrary to God's word. The moment you say that, their strategy was to associate you with a backwoods preacher, like a Fred Phelps, God hates fags kind of person, even though he and his congregation had a lot of lawyers in their midst.

But it's the hateful, bigoted, backwoods, caricatured preacher. Or to liken you to the Nazis and the pink triangle that they put on homosexuals. Or to liken you to the KKK.

So this is an actual strategy. The moment that you speak something in difference with LGBTQ++ activism, the moment you do that, it's been for decades that you're labeled a hater, a bigot. Here I am, a Jewish follower of Jesus. I've been labeled a Nazi for years for doing this. I have black friends. They're labeled KKK for doing this.

Seriously. So that's been a strategy, and it's been an effective one. On the other hand, on the other hand, there are many who believe that our views are destructive and dangerous, that our views have hold into God's ways and God's standards, and what's laid out as biblical morality, that those things are actually dangerous. Here, think of this. Let's look at it more broadly.

Let's not even focus specifically on biblical morality for the moment. Let's talk about varied views when it comes to COVID and the vaccines. You're not sure how efficacious the vaccines were. You're not sure how safe the vaccines were. You've consulted leading doctors and people involved with the science of vaccines or who understand epidemics and pandemics, and they've had different views. And you want to put those views forward on your YouTube channel, you get banned.

Why are you banned? Well, some say it's a threat to big pharma and greed and all that. Okay, let's put that aside.

Whatever's said that's true, we'll put that aside. Others simply look at it like this, that they dare not allow this because you're going to kill people with your views. People won't get vaccinated and they'll die, so you're killing people with their views. Therefore, rather than saying, you can have your views and we'll answer you, or you can have your views and other channels will answer you, no, you can't have your views.

So it's the same with questions about climate change or global warming or how much is man-made, etc. No, no, you're not allowed to have a dissenting view because that dissenting view is considered too dangerous and people will die. So this is the mentality that some have on the radical left, that their views are so enlightened, their views are so righteous, their views are so life-giving that they must silence dissenters. And as Bob said in the radio interview today, generally the side that wants to silence the opposition, take away its voice entirely, is the side that's on the wrong side. And I know for me, when I'm invited to a college campus, those that have the courage to try to get me in, when I'm invited to a college campus to talk about a controversial subject, which is normally why I'm invited in, when I'm invited to do that, invariably, invariably, I say, can you get someone from the other side to debate me, whether it's about Israel, whether it's about biblical moral issues, whatever the subject is, can you get someone from the other side to debate me?

This way, the students can hear both sides. And of course, it will bring more people out when both sides are going to be represented in a debate setting. And then, can we have live Q&A after? If they say no one's willing to debate you, which is the norm, no one's willing to debate you, then the next thing, okay, then if we can't have a debate with live Q&A after, can we at least have live Q&A? Why? I want people to have the opportunity to challenge what I say.

I want people to bring their best objection. What does Jesus say in John 3? That whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, that his deeds may be exposed, but whoever walks in darkness hates the light and doesn't come into the light, lest his deeds would be exposed. Look, remember as a kid, and your mommy said, did you eat those cookies? I told you those are for our guests later. Did you eat those cookies? If you didn't, it's like, mommy, no, look, look at my teeth, look at my hands, look at my pockets, check. I didn't eat them because you're clean.

Did you eat them when you have? It's like, you're hurting my feelings. You're making me, you're accusing me.

You don't love me. Why? Because you don't want mommy to check your teeth or check your pockets. So when you're clean, you bring everything into the light. In the same way, when you're confident of your position, you welcome the scrutiny. You welcome the opposition. Not everyone's a skilled debater. Not everyone feels comfortable in an immediate Q&A setting. That's fine. We all function differently. I have brilliant friends who differ with me that don't want to do face-to-face debate because they say, no, they need to read the thing, study it, evaluate it, think it through, and then respond.

That's fine. But they're willing to do that publicly and openly. In other words, they'll say, okay, let's have that exchange. Let's just do it in writing because they're confident in their views too.

So we differ with each other, but it's not a matter of trying to silence the other. You say, well, hang on. You Christians, you lead the way with boycotts.

You're the worst. Boycott Disney, boycott Target, boycott Starbucks, boycott this one, boycott that one. Ah, there's a big difference. One thing is saying, if you want our business, be sensitive to our values. Don't destroy gender and Target, and there's no separation from boys' toys and girls' toys, and don't allow a man who identifies as a woman to use the woman's bathroom.

Please don't do that. If it's that important to you, if having a place for transgenders is that important to you, then make the investment and put in some individual bathrooms that people can just go into, and it's private, and it's just one stall, and you close the door, and that's it. We're sending a message saying, if you don't care about our values to this extreme level, then we won't bring you our business. And the other thing is, in good conscience, we don't feel right supporting you when we know that you are so aggressively taking another position.

If my favorite local health food store I found out was actively sending money to Planned Parenthood clinics, using their profits to fund Planned Parenthood, and I knew that, and they announced it, then in good conscience I couldn't give my business. But I'm not trying to destroy them. I'm not trying to cancel them as a company. I'm simply saying, okay, there'll be an economic price to pay for trashing our values and not just being neutral on these things. That's different than cancel culture. It says, we're going to silence you. We're going to wipe you out. You don't even have the right to exist. By the way, I have a new article about that on the stream.

It just came up this morning, stream.org, a new article addressing that very subject. The difference between righteous boycotts and cancel culture, the difference between righteous boycotts and cancel culture. By the way, as I've been giving out the number through the hour, you might say, how can we take any calls? I'm not sure if we have an issue with our phone system. Our main radio studio is doing a massive transformation, putting in all kinds of new equipment, because we got a bunch of people calling in but weren't able to bring any of them on the line.

People weren't there when our team got to them. So I'm not sure what happened, but I wasn't giving out the number just to tease you. You say, I tried to call and get through.

Not sure what happened, but hopefully we'll get all that addressed and see wherever the issue was. All right, bottom line friends, as we reflect on a whole lot of things that are messed up in this world and a whole lot of issues within the church and a whole lot of issues in our own lives, let's go to the Lord. Let's lean hard on Him. Let's give Him our absolute total trust, our all, because He's doing something beautiful with those who yield to Him. Back with you tomorrow. Another program powered by the Truth Network.