Point of View February 20, 2025 – Hour 1 : Stockholm Syndrome Christianity

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Thank you for joining me, it is a Thursday edition of Point of View and we're going to be talking about in the first hour Stockholm Syndrome Christianity.

[00:00:28] And when we finish that in the first hour, second hour we're going to get into some issues in the news, some very significant cases having to deal with the silencing of conservative speech on campus, as well as looking at the way in which the media has covered some of the Department of Government Efficiency and a variety of other things that I think you will appreciate. This book is something I mentioned last Friday when we had our Friday weekend edition and some of the guests off air were saying, OK, what's that all about?

[00:00:57] And I started going into the details because I had heard about the book and special ordered it. And then it arrived about the same day we did the interview with Casey Luskin as they were going to be doing another Discovery Institute event here in the Dallas area. And so we've been able to schedule Dr. John West, who is the author of this book, we'll get more into the details in just a minute.

[00:01:21] John West, if you're not familiar, is the vice president and a senior fellow at the Seattle based Discovery Institute, also serves as the managing director of the Institute Center for Science and Culture. He, along with a good friend who's been on the program many times before, Dr. Stephen Meyer, began that particular institute. And he has really focused some of his time and attention on such things as science and scientism and public policy, constitutional law and the rest.

[00:01:48] He has served in the past as an associate professor of political science at Seattle Pacific University, which, by the way, is going to come up in our conversation in just a few minutes, was the chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography, also has taught political science and history at Cal State University, San Bernardino and Azusa Pacific University to mention just a few. John West, always appreciate your writing and thank you for giving us an hour today to talk about your book. Kirby, I'm delighted. Thanks for having me on.

[00:02:17] Let's, we can't explain the idea of Stockholm Syndrome back in 1973. There was a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. And what happened, and I'm sure you can go into the details even better than I, the hostages over time began to be sympathetic to the criminals, to the robbers. And it is become kind of a term which was coined to talk about how the hostages sometimes identify with their captors.

[00:02:46] And in this case, I think it illustrates the fact, as your subtitle of your book is, why Christian leaders are failing and what we can do about it. Because we're dealing with an issue we talk about often here on Point of View, and that is being captive. Cultural captivity, which goes to one of the key passages, Colossians 2.8, because it's easy to be taken captive by false ideas.

[00:03:14] And unfortunately, some of our own Christian leaders have been taken captive by those false ideas, haven't they? Yeah, that's really the point of my book. From thinking about friends that I knew, both college professors and also in my work through Discovery, people are meeting, you know, so many of leading Christians who ought to be leaders in the culture of salt and light are too often mimicking the secular elites around them. And the more I thought about it and the more I heard people's personal stories,

[00:03:44] it became pretty clear that I think the Stockholm Syndrome is an interesting way of understanding it. If you are a person of influence in science, entertainment, even the church or academia, and you're a Christian, you've likely spent much of your life studying under and having peer groups of secular elites that largely are hostile to Orthodox Christianity. And after years of that, you can end up identifying with them.

[00:04:12] And that's what I saw actually with some of my colleagues at the school that I was at, whereas rather than trying to teach sort of Orthodox historic Christianity, they more and more saw their goal to basically get Christian students and others to buy into the secularist mindset. And so they were, and sometimes they didn't even know what they were doing. But I thought that, you know, this is an interesting example, that they thought they were being courageous.

[00:04:39] So often sometimes people think, well, they're just being sellouts or they're being fearful. There is some of that. But I actually think a lot of the Christian leaders who think that they're doing God's work, think that they're standing for truth, but in fact are identifying with the sort of the cultural elites around them and doing their work and their bidding. Let me just mention that you might be able to find the book in your local bookstore, but as we've always done, we provide a link so you can get it in hardback or Kindle.

[00:05:09] And it is a book that we certainly do recommend. Oftentimes what we sometimes do during our truth team is even send out what we think are some of the best books to some of our top donors. But I don't want you to have to wait. If this interests you, we've provided a link, first of all, of course, to the Discovery Institute, but also a place where you might want to order the book. Twelve chapters. We're going to focus a lot of times in the first half of our interview on symptoms, but then we'll get into causes and cures.

[00:05:38] And what I think is so helpful, Dr. West, is you look at, for example, the Stockholm Syndrome in terms of having a dismissive view of the Bible, then having a diminished view of God in creation, which I think you actually spoke out up there in Denton when you were here just a number of weeks ago, one on a diminished view of sex and gender and on and on. So let's start with the easier one, and that is the fact that even though they say they believe the Bible,

[00:06:07] we have individuals in pulpits and Christian leaders in various ministries that actually have what you would have to say rather anemic or maybe even diminished view, as you call it, view of the Bible. So tell us more, if you might. Yeah, no, and I intentionally started the book with chapter one being about biblical authority because I think everything else flows from that. And if you have a weak view of the Bible and its authority,

[00:06:35] you're going to end up going astray in a lot of other areas. And those of us, as evangelical Christians, we sort of prided ourselves on, well, we stand up for the Bible in truth. Yet if you look around, there are some really disturbing things. And that's what has sort of made this book a bit controversial, too hot to handle for certain Christian publishers who passed on it. But let's get specifics. I'll give two. One is Andy Stanley.

[00:07:01] Andy Stanley is the megachurch pastor out of Atlanta. He's one of the pastors of one of the largest megachurches in the United States. He trains other pastors. If you go to his website, he really focuses on leadership development for everyone else. I was an elder at a Presbyterian church, and yet we studied his works, even though he was out of the Baptist tradition. And so he's a really key figure. He's the son of the late Charles Stanley, who was also quite well known.

[00:07:31] But if you actually look at what he's been saying the last several years, it should really disturb people. So he had a book in 2018 called Irresistible where he basically trashes the Old Testament. And I go into this in detail because I want to show people that I'm being fair, but he says we should call the Old Testament the obsolete testament. He actually says we should reorganize our Bibles to put the Old Testament at the back, sort of move it to the back of the bus.

[00:07:59] And now he dodges and weaves. Oh, and in one part he says, you know, we shouldn't follow the Ten Commandments. Now, he goes on to say that, well, the New Testament has some similar things. And so he tries to sort of temper his, I'd say, heretical teachings. But let's just understand that if you love God and love the Christian tradition,

[00:08:25] why would you be trying to urge people to chunk the Old Testament? And yes, Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. I mean, this has been written for ages, but that's not just what he's talking about. He's really diminishing the Old Testament. Let's take a break and we'll come back. I think you also want to use a Christian college as an illustration. There is so much in the book. We'll just do the best to give you a general summary. But again, it's entitled Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. We'll be right back.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Earlier this month, I talked about the three hardest words for people to say. They are, I don't know. It is especially hard for so-called experts to say those words. Often what we think we know is influenced by our bias. Good science and good research should always work to eliminate as much bias as possible. Professor Philip Tidlock at the University of Pennsylvania

[00:09:22] has been systematically tracking the predictions of pundits, politicians, stock market gurus, and sportscasters. One of his more significant studies looked at politics. He evaluated government officials, political science teachers, and economists over a period of 20 years. I might mention that nearly all had postgraduate credentials. He quickly discovered that they thought they knew more than they knew. How accurate were their predictions? He said their predictions were no better than dart throwing chimps.

[00:09:49] He's acknowledged that the monkey with the dartboard comparisons come back to haunt me all the time. He has developed a computer algorithm for all these failed predictions, but I can make it much simpler. What he has found is that most experts should really say, I don't know. Does that mean we should ignore any prediction from an expert? No, but it does suggest that we need to understand that with many of these predictions are at best informed opinions. We should take them with a grain of salt.

[00:10:14] We have been subjected to pundits telling us to believe in science when the science isn't settled and when they lack scientific credentials. We've been told that a particular candidate or political party is a threat to democracy when it isn't true. Some government officials warn about misinformation and are the ones guilty of spreading misinformation. It's time to exercise some discernment, especially when most experts aren't any more accurate than dart throwing chimps. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:46] For a free booklet on a biblical view of Israel, go to viewpoints.info.israel. Viewpoints.info.israel You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Our topic today, Stockholm Syndrome Christianity by Dr. John West.

[00:11:08] I might just mention that it has been roundly endorsed by Hilary Morgan Ferrer and Eric Metaxas, Everett Piper, Doug Grotice, to mention just a few Jay Richards and others that have been on the program. So, again, many people that we've interviewed have really appreciated the book. And I thought we might, Dr. West, also mention the fact that not only were you looking at an individual who is a pastor, you, as you have already pointed out and I've pointed out, have been at Seattle Pacific University.

[00:11:38] And this is one of the other reasons why sometimes here at Point of View we say just because the organization says it is Christian doesn't necessarily mean that it will be. Or, again, just because an individual is a member, say, of the evangelical theological society doesn't necessarily mean that that individual is always holding to orthodox views.

[00:12:02] And so you take us through a number of different illustrations in that chapter to illustrate that if you have this diminished view or this anemic view of the Bible, it not only affects your theology, but, of course, it affects all the other things we're going to talk about in just a few minutes. That's absolutely true.

[00:13:02] That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. But Christians have always believed that they are a faithful representation of what Jesus said. But Lacona says otherwise. Just one concrete example. Some of the Gospels have Jesus at the end on the cross saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Which is a quote from Psalm 22, which is a very prophetic psalm.

[00:13:32] But Lacona says, well, the Apostle John rewrote that as, I thirst. Well, that's not a paraphrase. I'm sorry. If you had 100 people in a room and asked them to paraphrase, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I doubt any one of them would have come up with the term, I thirst. What he's actually arguing for is that the Gospel writers radically rewrote things for their own agenda and that really the Gospels aren't faithful.

[00:14:00] He says he believes the Gospel is faithful. But if you look at his concrete examples of what he's doing, this is not an evangelical or historically even Catholic view of the accuracy of Scriptures. Yes. The Sermon on the Mount wasn't even on the Mount. So, you know, there's just a long list. But I want to get to, I think, one of the more significant chapters and, of course, what you have recently spoken on. And that is the Stockholm Syndrome Christians diminished view of God and creation.

[00:14:28] And the person you use and the individual that really is one of the longer chapters is about Dr. Francis Collins. Now, if I said that name a few years ago, those of us with a scientific background would know him because of the language of God. Now everybody knows him because of what happened during the pandemic.

[00:14:46] But you really take some time to talk about an individual who at one time was really lauded as one of the great examples of an evangelical scientist who reached the pinnacle of scientific experience. But now you begin to recognize that he has promoted a very secular view of science. True? True. And this is another cautionary tale of sort of our celebrity culture among Christians.

[00:15:15] And he had, Francis Collins, had a dramatic sort of conversion story from atheism. And I laud him for that. And so I accept that, but that's sincere. But unfortunately, from day one, from his book, The Language of God, where he basically attacked those who were skeptical of Darwinian evolution and gave a muddled view of God's role in creation.

[00:15:38] And in that book, he basically either suggested that God really didn't know what he was doing because, and that's why there's massive amounts of junk DNA, which, of course, there aren't. We now know. But he used junk DNA as an argument for, well, God really didn't completely direct. Or he said, if you think God really directed, maybe he made biology look like it was random and undirected.

[00:16:02] Which, of course, the Bible in Psalm 19 and Romans 1, throughout the Bible, preaches that we can actually see God's wisdom in creation. So no matter how you get it, he was already at that book, Diminishing God. But too many Christians just ignored that because they so liked that he was being lauded by Time magazine. They weren't actually thoughtfully looking at what he was saying. Even many pro-life Christians were promoting him, even though if they had read the appendix to that book,

[00:16:29] they knew that he didn't really think you could understand scientifically when human life begins, which is also kind of preposterous. So the point I'm making is his views were there from the very beginning, and some of us back in those years raised these concerns, and they were largely just shunted aside by many Christian pastors, by people who should have known better.

[00:16:51] But now, after he was the most powerful Christian scientist in America as the head of the NIH and had a key role in COVID and other things, now more people do recognize just once you start being unfaithful in one area, as the culture slides down, you become worse. And so just to give one example, so not just COVID, we can talk about that, but let's see, abortion.

[00:17:15] Well, Francis Collins supervised and approved of millions of your tax dollars going to build a tissue hub to harvest baby parts from aborted babies from like six weeks, 42 weeks. I mean, over 40 weeks, you're talking about babies at term in order to do research on them. And he must have known somewhere that he thought that maybe there was something wrong with it in his heart,

[00:17:41] because when Judicial Watch went and filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get the documents of what we were doing, the NIH refused, and they had to file a lawsuit. And the only reason we know now about what was being funded was because they were able to prevail in that lawsuit. And then LGBTQ issues, I mean, we now know that the NIH under him was funding people who were doing the worst sort of transgender things on kids.

[00:18:07] And, in fact, just in the last week or so, it's come out how much they funded transgendered chemicals and abuse of animals. So not just humans, but also animals. And this was led by the nation's most recognized evangelical Christian scientists. But how did he get to the top? Well, he got to the top, sadly, because he basically, his views were indistinguishable when it comes to public policy, abortion or gay rights,

[00:18:36] or let alone evolution. His views were pretty indistinguishable from the surrounding secular culture. That's why he got where he was. And that kind of gets back to this issue of cultural captivity, and that is it is easy if you really aren't spending time in God's word, if you aren't really trying to think and develop a Christian world and life view.

[00:18:59] It is easy by almost osmosis to be that way and to actually be culturally captive or to be conformed to the culture, if you want to use a different verse rather than Colossians 2.8, say Romans 12.1 and 2. But as we come to a break, I thought I might just mention that this whole first section is so good, because you've, of course, talked about science and theology. There's one also on the Stockholm Syndrome Christians' damaged understanding of sex and gender.

[00:19:27] The Stockholm Christians' divisive view on race and class, which really, again, took some of those scientific ideas and adopted those. And even the Stockholm Christians' abandonment of religious liberty. And so each one of these, in a sense, begins to give some documentation in our section that really goes into some detail what is happening in terms of some of the symptoms. But I thought when we come back from the break, you might again want to summarize some of those briefly.

[00:19:56] You have a whole section on the causes, which is listening to the wrong voices, pleasing the wrong people, tolerating the wrong rulers. And then, of course, what we need are the cures, a call to wisdom, a call to action, a call to faithfulness. Since we're taking a break, let me also encourage you to find out a little bit more about the Discovery Institute. If you click on the picture there, it will take you to discovery.org.

[00:20:23] It is an organization we highly esteem and value and certainly encourage you to support that organization. I might also mention that if you said, I would like to read this book as well, we certainly would encourage you to find out more from them. But we also have a link so that you can get it in Kindle, paperback or hardcover. And so there's some ways in which you can benefit from that. It is a resource that I think you are really going to appreciate.

[00:20:51] And, of course, we have only covered very small aspects of the first part of the book, but I also wanted when we come back from the break to talk about, well, how did this happen? Can we understand a little bit more about the causes so that we can prevent ourselves from slipping into some of the aspects of cultural captivity? So, again, the book entitled Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, Why Christian Leaders Are Failing and What We Can Do About It.

[00:21:18] We are privileged to talk with Dr. John West for a little bit longer, and we'll do so right after these important messages. In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas. London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon.

[00:21:48] London was in many ways the center of the world economically, militarily, and intellectually. Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports. Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth. It is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today?

[00:22:16] Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints Commentary at pointofview.net slash signup. Every weekday, in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time. It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash signup right now. pointofview.net slash signup.

[00:22:47] Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again, continuing our conversation with Dr. John West.

[00:23:16] He is the author of Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. And really, the book itself is enough to look at those first six chapters, and we could spend a lot of time on that. But I did want to get to the sections on causes and then cures. And, John, one of the aspects of this is that not only can we understand why some of the leaders have gone astray,

[00:23:39] this is, as you pointed out before, maybe a lesson for how to make sure that young people, maybe you have a child or a grandchild going off to college, they need to make sure they're not listening to the wrong voices or pleasing the wrong people. And so, in some respects, this is helpful as a way to also prevent us from slipping as well.

[00:24:03] So, talk about this, because one of the sections you have devoted some time and attention to is listening to the wrong voices. And, of course, one of those is the traditional news media. Yeah. I'm so glad you want to talk about the causes and the cures, because I want to make sure people know about that, although I do spend a lot of time critiquing and exposing, the main goal of this book is to actually give practical things people can do and to provide a path forward.

[00:24:33] And so, as listening to the wrong voices, yeah, when I looked at many of my fellow Christian friends and colleagues and those that ended up going, I think, further afield, one of the things that seemed to be a common denominator is where are they getting their information from. It's not programs like this one. They tend to, if they morph into what the secular culture is, it's partly because that's who they've been listening to.

[00:25:02] And, you know, I can think of specific people who are, oh, thinking that they were getting the straight scoop from the New York Times or the Atlantic or you name it and not realizing just how much they were being manipulated by that. And so I go through, like, seven different sources. One is the traditional news media, because even now in the era of social media and things, a lot of the original content that is reposted and discussed comes from the traditional news media.

[00:25:28] And if you look, you know, surveys are clear that the most journalists do not look anything like most Americans, let alone like most Christians. They're much more secular, much more socially liberal. They're much more, you know, out of touch with normal churchgoers. And so they're setting the agenda for what you think about, for what's important, for what they cover and what they don't cover. And that is, you know, for example, at one time in a country,

[00:25:54] newspapers actually covered the sermons of major ministers in their cities. Think about that. Well, we still have, even today, more people go to church at least a few times a year than go to professional sporting events. But we do not have entire daily sections devoted to what's happening in churches. We do sports. So this is not just an objective criterion. People even today are really connected with faith communities, but it doesn't get covered other than scandal.

[00:26:23] But that's teaching you something. That's teaching that, well, faith really isn't that important, but sports is more important or entertainment is more important or business is more important. All these lifestyle things that the major media cover, but they don't cover religion fairly. So that's just one of many things. But, you know, social media, I talk about how that manipulates. One other thing. Google searches. Google is still the major search engine that dominates. But, you know, if you look up things, you're getting a very skewed view of reality. Very true.

[00:26:53] I challenge people to say put in crisis pregnancy center, as I did. I talk about this in the book. You will get things from Planned Parenthood or most disingenuous. One of the top things that you get is called a crisis pregnancy center finder. But if you actually go to the website, it's attacking crisis pregnancy centers as fake clinics that are this and that and the other thing. But that's what Google is serving you up. And that's giving you a false view of reality.

[00:27:22] And so you need to get – you need to make sure your kids, you need to make sure yourself and your friends in church are getting good information sources. Now, the good news is that there are lots of good information sources now. You just need to find them. I list on my website, StockholmSyndromeChristianity.com. I actually have a whole section of free resources where, you know, where can you get good information? And so, you know, I try to, again, empower and give people choices.

[00:27:48] Well, again, you mentioned Wikipedia, and yesterday we actually documented that. And in the second hour today, we're going to get into a couple of places where there have been deliberate or poorly written – I'll be nice and maybe say maybe they weren't deliberate, but poorly written stories with the Associated Press and a variety of others. So, again, buyer beware. But that brings us to something else, not only listening to the wrong voices, but pleasing the wrong people.

[00:28:16] And, again, if I want to get a favorable interview with The Washington Post or The New York Times or, like you said, in Atlantic, if I want somebody to say some nice things about me in the faculty lounge, that's another danger point, isn't it? It is. And that was a big one at the Christian University where I was at for 12 years. I had tenure, and I was a tenured professor.

[00:28:44] But to many of my colleagues, their estimate of what was to make it was to be mentioned in the New York Times or to get some secularist professor to praise them. And, you know, I'm not saying that you shouldn't aspire to that maybe, depending on why they're praising you for it. But that sort of seeking praise from the wrong peer group really leads people astray.

[00:29:12] And, again, I think that's an issue. One other one was, of course, tolerating the wrong rulers because, in some respects, we will take our cues from some of our leaders. You mentioned the celebrity culture. And there is a sense in which sometimes you gain the approval, not just of the secular world, but oftentimes even of the Christian world, if you seem to be a little bit open-minded. And I think we obviously have to be able to read widely and interact with different kinds of ideas.

[00:29:41] But sometimes the leaders can lead the whole flock astray, can't they? They can. And this may be counterintuitive, and this is a point I really wanted to stress, is that one of the key reasons Christian institutions fail, it's not because of the heterodox pastor or liberal professors that you see. They're doing their part. But it's who are they supposed to be accountable to?

[00:30:08] And I tell the story of Seattle Pacific University, where by the time I decided to leave, because I sort of saw the writing on the wall, is the key thing was not the theological liberals on campus, although they were doing what they wanted to do. It's that the board of trustees, which was actually filled with personally biblically faithful, biblically, theologically conservative people,

[00:30:34] they weren't willing to hold the university to its mission. They didn't have the courage of their convictions, unlike the theological liberal faculties. And so I actually hold them the most responsible for what happened to my institution. And several years after leaving, just a few years ago, they were in the national news, because 72% of the faculty at this still avowedly evangelical Christian institution, 72% voted no confidence in their institution

[00:31:03] because they wouldn't repeal their biblical statement on marriage that said that marriage is between a man and a woman and that sex is supposed to be reserved for that. 72%. How do you have a Christian institution when 72% of the faculty reject biblical marriage? Well, the answer is you don't. And again, I just say that the key thing that most people don't realize, it wasn't the liberal faculty,

[00:31:30] who enabled them, who allowed them to take over, who allowed them to be hired and get tenure. It was a conservative, theologically conservative board of trustees. And I think you see this again and again. I mean, let's talk about Andy Stanley and his heterodoxy. He has a board of elders. Are they all out to lunch like he is? Probably not. But for whatever reason, they're not willing to hold their leaders accountable. And that's how Christian institutions fail. And again, one of the individuals that endorsed your book is Dr. Everett Piper.

[00:31:58] And we've, of course, interviewed him before and actually has taken a stand as president. And yet again, it is sometimes the case that what happens is that initial compromise takes you further. And that is, well, I know this individual doesn't necessarily believe the authority of the Bible, but, you know, he's got pretty good scholarship in this area of science or sociology or psychology. And he's maybe will learn from us. And eventually we might be able to bring him over.

[00:32:27] And we've seen this time and time again that it is almost always the case that when you allow a little bit of heterodoxy or heresy, if you want to be really blunt, it doesn't stay there. It doesn't change. It seems to spread. And so I think that's another very good point. But we need to take a break. And when we come back, we've talked about symptoms, causes, and cures.

[00:32:51] And I know we'll only have a few minutes, but I thought we'd summarize real quickly a call to wisdom, action, and faithfulness. If you find yourself saying, okay, I'm ready to read the book, it is full of great information. We've only kind of touched on the very significant parts of the book. And there are so many other things you could learn from. We do have information about that on the website. We have information about Dr. John West. We have information about the Discovery Institute.

[00:33:19] And, of course, information about this book, Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, came out about a month ago. And that's why we wanted you to know about it and to talk about it and maybe read it and pass it on to others as well. Let's take a break. We'll continue our conversation with Dr. John West right after these important messages.

[00:33:55] You're listening to Point of View. Your listener-supported source for truth. Right for a few more minutes. I know John West is going to be going on in just a few minutes to another interview. But I thought we would be remiss if we didn't spend a little bit of time talking about that last section on cures. And, John, one of those is a call to wisdom. And within there, I think one of the most important sections of that chapter was beware of syncretism. In other words, the mixing together of conforming to the world.

[00:34:24] And it does seem to me that, of course, you're up there in the Pacific Northwest. But I found almost anywhere where we travel today, there is oftentimes a mixture of light and darkness, truth and error. And I think wise Christians make a distinction and find a biblical separation between the two. Don't you think? I think that's exactly right. And I think Christians need to beware of what I call a Hollywood view of evil, that if it doesn't look like Hitler, it can't be wrong.

[00:34:54] Well, actually, in a Christian view of evil, evil isn't anything real. It's a twisting of something that's good because only God can create. So of necessity, things that may have error in them, there's going to be a good part of it. And so you need to be wise and realize that even if some of it seems good, doesn't mean that all of it is, doesn't mean it isn't twisted or going in a different direction.

[00:35:17] And, again, get rid of this Hollywood view of evil that if it doesn't look like as bad as Hitler, it must not be wrong. Because that really is not a Christian view. That's not a wise view. And, again, you have sections on beware of the misuse of guilt, beware of the misuse of secrecy, and a variety of others. But a call to action, obviously, we need to be equipped for battle.

[00:35:39] And I've said before that as much as I love youth ministry and, you know, I'm all about eating pizzas and getting a pie thrown in my face and all the things that we do there, we have to really begin to understand that we're preparing young people for a hostile world. And we really need to prepare people within the church for that. Otherwise, if the world is like the church and the church is like the world, why bother even going to church?

[00:36:06] And it seems to me that really what you're talking about here is this is, and if you read through your book, it really is a call to arms, isn't it? It is. It is. And, you know, filled with God and God's spirit helping you. But in that chapter, I give 21 suggestions of things people can do, just very, very quickly. One is, you know, take control of your children's education. Don't farm it out to the rest of culture.

[00:36:31] If you are a board member or an elder or, you know, active in leadership, you have power. There's the power of no. If one person on a board raises some concerns, boards often govern by consensus. You have tremendous power that you might not even know about just to raise an issue. And then finally, just a no-brainer but that we should think seriously about is do no harm. And this is sort of a principle from medicine.

[00:36:55] But too many Christians give donations, for example, to maybe their ancient Christian university who they have warm feelings of but no longer does what was done when they went there. But they're funding it out of a misplaced sense of sentimentality. Or they stay at a church that goes really anti-biblical. I know people in the local megachurch where that was faithful but then the pastor embraced gay marriage. But they stayed even though they didn't agree. And they continue to volunteer.

[00:37:23] Well, you're actually becoming part of the problem, not the solution if you do that. So do no harm. And there are lots of other suggestions. I think that do no harm was a very good one because evaluate where you're going to church. Evaluate where your money is going. You have a whole section here about what parents and grandparents can do and then what young people can do as well. But your last chapter deals with a call to faithfulness. And that is really we are called to be faithful, not successful.

[00:37:49] And it seems to me that sometimes we believe that we have to kind of stay with something to make it successful. But if we're faithful, sometimes we'll have a smaller church. We might not always have as many friends. But that's really, in a sense, why you're saying don't be part of the Stockholm Syndrome where all of a sudden you become very much like your captors. Exactly right. And ultimately success or failure is up to God.

[00:38:18] But we are called to be faithful. And God does do. There's no reason to despair no matter what. But I also recount in that chapter times throughout history, the past 2,000 years, where if you were a Christian, you might have thought everything is lost. Christianity is going to be dead tomorrow. And God was actually working in a surprising way that you couldn't have anticipated. And so that also was a key point I wanted to make. Well, I know I need to let you go. But first of all, let me say that there is the Stockholm Syndrome Christianity.

[00:38:46] We have that link, why Christian leaders are failing and what we can do about it. If somebody would want to have you come and speak, we have some links there and ways in which people can contact you. Of course, we have Discovery Institute listed. And I would highly encourage people to get some of the resources, the videos and all of that that is there. We've had numerous guests, not just to talk about the science issue, because oftentimes that is the primary focus that we often have with the Discovery Institute.

[00:39:16] But we've had others that have addressed issues like economics and social issues as well. So I just want to say thank you for the work that you do up there at the Discovery Institute. Say hello to our good friend Stephen Meyer and many others. And I thank you for writing the book and giving us some time today here on Point of View. Thank you. And thank you for the great work that you're doing at Probe and with this show and really pointing the way to what people need to do to equip themselves.

[00:39:45] One last time, let's let him go, because I know he's got another interview, but I might just mention that again, the book is over 300 pages. And it will take some time to read through some of the chapters, but I think you will find them to be very helpful. There are some sections there that I'm going to pull out and try to do some commentaries, because as you remember, when we talked with our good friend Stephen Meyer about the return of the God hypothesis, a lot of us said, well, that one might be a little tough to read.

[00:40:12] So I eventually turned it into a booklet, and maybe we can pull a few very significant gems out of this book and make a booklet out of it or maybe a future chapter in the Outlook magazine, which, of course, gives me an opportunity to mention that one of the ways, of course, that you can support this ministry is next month. We're going to be having our truth team week.

[00:40:36] And as you support this ministry, as we've said before, if you give as little as a dollar a day, $30 a month, you'll receive not only the Outlook magazine that we send out to our donors, but you'll receive the booklets. And, of course, you can give larger amounts, and we'll be talking about that in the future. But there are some great resources that we like to put in your hands, including, of course, all the links that we'll be talking about next hour as we get into some of the issues in the news.

[00:41:01] As you go to the website, you'll notice that my commentary today has the rather provocative title, Dart Throwing Chimps. Now, where in the world did that come from? Well, earlier this month, I did a commentary on talking about what the three hardest words for people to say, and those words are, I don't know.

[00:41:20] And yet it is sometimes a tendency for especially experts to not say those words and to actually imply that they really know a lot more than maybe they know. Well, I quote from one professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has gone through systematically tracking the predictions of pundits and politicians and stock market gurus and sportscasters.

[00:41:46] And one of the things that probably was most significant is he looked at the issue of politics. And since we oftentimes get into those issues, he found that as he evaluated government officials and political science teachers and economists over about a 20-year period, they didn't do very well. Now, virtually all of them, I think 96 percent of them, had postgraduate credentials, masters or PhDs. So they were very well qualified in that sense.

[00:42:15] But he says their predictions were no better than, there's your phrase, dart throwing chimps. He even acknowledged in one interview that the monkey with a dartboard comparisons sort of have come back to haunt him from time to time. Because he's developed kind of a computer algorithm to make some predictions and to document some of those failed predictions.

[00:42:37] And he basically, with all the words and everything else, brings us back to that very famous hardest words to say. Sometimes these experts really should say, I don't really know. And so, again, I'm not saying that we shouldn't trust experts, but maybe we just listen to them with a good section, bag, grain of salt. Because, after all, sometimes they just need to say, I don't know. We're going to take a break.

[00:43:06] We'll get into some issues you do need to know about right after this. It was not that long ago that censorship appeared to be almost inevitable. Free speech was being attacked and strangled in many places. And some of us wondered if this was the end. But now, many feel a new sense of hope, a chance for a fresh dawn. Let me caution you. Now is not the time to relax.

[00:43:33] It's a time to press forward, to use this fresh opportunity to proclaim and learn how to apply truth to current issues. By the fact you're here, listening right now, that tells me that you recognize the vital role Point of View plays as a voice of truth. For more than 50 years, we've informed and equipped people who have made a real difference.

[00:43:56] And when you give to Point of View today, you breathe life into what can be a new golden era for the truth. Please, take a moment right now and invest in truth. Visit pointofview.net or give it 1-800-347-5151. That's pointofview.net. Click in now or call 1-800-347-5151.

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