164. The Slippery Slope of Cultural Relativism

I found my freedom in you I found a joy I can't lose And thank God it's true You wrapped your arms around me And heaven broke through From the moment you found me I found my freedom in you Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Safer and Brett Martin. Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. It is a wonderful time to be with you and always a blessing to be in front of the mic and be able to talk. Brett, I'm always amazed that we have people that tune in every week and listen to us. We ramble sometimes and we're just a rambling man at times, but it is great to be back here and have you back with us. You've had some health episodes over the last couple of weeks and part of that's been solo episodes with me and had some guests on. But how are you doing? Give an update on your health for the family that's listening and let us know how things are going. Things are going real good. I'm doing a lot better. They got me on some, you know, I've had some real bad tension headaches that have affected me, but they've got me on some medication that has seemed to help with that. So I'm getting better every day. And so my headaches are almost non-existent now. And so things are doing good. And I'm enjoying this weather out today. I'm on spring break from seminary. And so I've been able to get out on the roads and do some visiting. And I've been ripping and running the past three days in the road, racking up the miles. So things have been really good at church. And it's been a beautiful day out. And so we're just glad to be here. Yeah, man, solars are great right now by having the sun out. I have solar panels in my house. And so we're loving the sunshine, the warm weather, and just being able to hang outside with the kids. We got to play a little basketball out in the driveway the other day and just had a good time with the kids. We're in the middle of flag football season for us. I'm a flag football coach at my wife's school. And we had our first game last week. We won, so we're undefeated right now. We don't know how long that's going to stay, but right now we are. And just having a great time with that. It's a small little like two-and-a-half-month season. I think we'll play like seven or eight games. And we're in the middle of March Madness. I know this doesn't have anything to do with our podcast, but are you a bracket guy? Do you do the March Madness NCAA bracket or no? I used to, but I don't anymore. But I used to do that. Man, come on now. I'm a bracket guy, and so I try to do two to three every year. I did my three this year. Normally I do like a random pick. I do like a top seed pick, and then I do my own personal pick. And so I go through and I evaluate every single one of them. I pick them all the way through. And the one that I did, the one that I picked all the way through, I've got Arkansas and Duke in the national championship. Duke, you know, when I did the bracket, Duke was, again, top of their league. I'm a Carolina fan, as you can see with my shirt on. We won last night. But Duke, they had a couple of injuries in this tournament, and one of the players doesn't come back. So it's opened the door for some teams to come through there. But I'm pulling for Carolina. I always will. But I really like the chances that Arkansas has got this year. So I'm putting my bet on Arkansas, and we'll see what happens. I'm actually picking Arkansas to win the national championship game this year. So we'll see what happens. I'll tell you, for some of our listeners that used to go to Howes Anderson, when I was going there, I was a telemarketer, not only for AmeriCall, but then I also was a telemarketer for True Green Chemlon. And one of the things that we did every year at True Green was we'd do the March Madness bracket, and we'd fill out our own brackets and pass it around. And the winner would get, you know, so many days off and everything. And what I can remember about the time, of course, this was years ago, is nobody ever wanted – everybody was against Kentucky. Nobody wanted Kentucky to win. But that's all I remember about it. Yeah. That's great. I love it. I love March Madness. It's really the only time I watch basketball as my kids are playing. I'm a football guy through and through. And so, yeah, we are excited about that. My boys have started a basketball team this past year, and they're just absolutely in love with it. My son used to be inside playing Fortnite for hours a day, and now he's outside playing basketball for hours, which I guess that's a good move. It is. It is. Well, we're excited about that. Brett, speaking of being outside, the weather's been great, and it's great cigar weather. And so if you would like or mind, we'd love for you to go to our cigar page and check out what we've got going on over there at the 4 Freedom Cigars at the 1689 Cigar Company. Right now, we are moments away from rolling out our sweet Connecticut. We have had some supply chain issues dealing with the Dominican and Nicaraguans. It's just supply chains are where it's at and trying to get some of those in. So we finally started getting some supplies in. These are premium-quality cigars, and we've already been getting some great reviews on that. Our Habano and Maduros are in, and we're looking to roll out a sweet Maduro as well. So we'll have a total of four cigars in our 4 Freedom Cigar line. And so we hope you will go and check out that, buy some Father's Day gifts, some graduation gifts, and enjoy giving those things out. We've got some great news, some things that we're working on that we're going to be rolling out in the summertime with that, and I think it'll be great for you. But right now, we'd love for you to jump on there. They're at a great price, great discounted rate. You know, we're barely doing anything on that. And so we just want you guys to have a good quality cigar, great conversation starter for that. And so we hope you go and you try those out. Brett, what else we got? We got something coming up this summer. What's going on there? James, I forget about this summer, but what I was keyed up to talk about was I got the need for something. You know what I got the need for? Need for speed, baby. No, not at all. I got the need for falafel. So what I need to do is I need to go back to Israel, and that's what you need to do, and that's what our listeners need to do is get ready to come journey to Israel with us for freedom in the Holy Land is what we're calling it. It's going to be January 30th through February 7th of 2026, and we're getting together with the AL Group Tours, and we are going back to Israel. Our buddy Marcus took us over there, and we got a taste for it, and we got a trip set up for next year. Our trip dates, of course, 30th through the 7th of 2026, and if you go on the website, we'll put it in the show notes. You can go to our Facebook page and get the password to our website and go to the website, check it out, see the prices, see the payment schedule, see the itinerary, what we're going to do, where we're going to go. We're going to start at the top of the country, go all the way down through the bottom. We're going to begin at the top at Mount Hermon, go and see everything, and then we'll end at the Dead Sea at the bottom, and it's a once-in-a-lifetime journey. You're not going to be sorry that you spent the money that you went. You might not ever have an opportunity to go like this again the next four years. I promise you're going to be the safest four years to go to Israel with Trump in the White House. You're not going to have to worry about everything. You'll never read your Bible the same again. It's going to bring the black and white pages to living color. You're actually going to see the places that your Bible mentions. These places exist. I think every Christian should go at least once in their life, and we've got a trip ready to go for you. I'll tell you, our buddy Marcus, he was over there. They were over there in Greece this past week and just enjoying it. I enjoyed looking at their pictures. Then old Marcus, he got a flight over to Israel, and he's waiting on the next group. James, me and you were talking before we started recording. I mean, that's just the life. He's just hanging out in Israel. He's hanging out in Israel. I mean, he's just big time. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Marcus Merritt is a high roller right there. That's right. If you want to come to Israel with us, go check out our website. Check out our Facebook page. Get the details. Get on our payment schedule. Put your deposit in because our spots are going to go quick. Yeah. You know what I'm excited about, Brett, is the – you said falafel. I only had one falafel, and it wasn't the best for me. I know some other guys had it in the restaurant. But I never had a shawarma that was better than when I was there. And I'm excited about going back and getting some shawarma. Well, not at all. Listen, I saw my wife a reel the other day, and it was of this guy that was at a hotel in Israel, and he was showing the breakfast buffet. James, you remember. The breakfast buffet. To have no pork, because it's Israel, of course. They don't have any sausage or bacon. But to have no pork but have just almost half a football field of buffet, maybe even more, just down every wall, every kind of pastry you can think of, every kind of fruit, food, casserole. Fish and – Old fish and hot fish. I know. It's just crazy. It was unreal, the breakfast buffets that they have in Israel. And, man, it's just – it's such a beautiful country. And the weather was nice when we were over there. And, look, it's just going to be a great trip. And anybody that wants to go should go. Yeah, absolutely. And then we've got in June, Brett, we'll be down in Dallas at the Southern Baptist Convention. And it's going to be a great time. I'm actually going down just a little bit early to spend some time with family down there. And then you're coming down the week of the convention that Sunday, Saturday, Sunday. I think that is June 7th. June 7th and 8th around there. And if you're in that area, Daniel Wins down there, some other guys are down there. We'd love to get together maybe one night, get some dinner and hang out. And it'll be a great time to – For Freedom Meetup. For Freedom Meetup. And we'll have some cigars with us and we'll share those. And you guys can join us. We're renting a house, Brett. It's going to be a great time to be together. And hopefully you'll join us if you'll be in the area. Shoot us a text or a DM and let us know. You know, I think that every time between now and then when we see – when we say the word Dallas, we should play a little excerpt of Walker, Texas Ranger. The Eyes of a Ranger. I think we should do that. Love it. Maybe we can do that in post-credit. I don't know if I have time to edit that this time. Maybe starting next week when we hear Dallas, then you're going to hear Walker. That's right. All right, Brett. Well, let's jump into our episode today. We cannot truly worship God while we stay silent on injustice in all kinds of areas. And I know as a white pastor, I have blind spots. So I am part of the problem. James, Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures. And my friends, we must as well. White people fear black men. That's not fair. But it's true. Jesus repents of his racism and extends healing to this woman's daughter. I love this story because it's a reminder that Jesus is human. He had prejudices and bias. And when confronted with it, he was willing to do his work. I believe in the non-binary God whose pronouns are plural. I believe in Jesus Christ, their child, who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads and saw everyone as a sibling child of God. I believe in the rainbow spirit who shatters our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity. I believe in the church of everyday saints, as numerous, creative, and resilient as patches on the eighth quilt, whose feet are grounded in mud and whose eyes gaze at the stars in wonder. I believe in the calling to each of us that love is love is love. So, beloved, let us love. I believe, glorious God. Help my unbelief. Amen. This woke self-loathing. And we will never let the woke left take it away. It's because they're putting woke ideology. To a woke mob that can't even tell you what a woman is. In this season of the For Freedom Podcast, we want to bring to you some enlightening topics that deal with the wokeness of the church. We want to bring to light some issues that are often overlooked, and we hope that it will be a blessing to you in your listening experience. Hey, hey, hey, man, rock time. Everybody okay? Imagine you're standing at the edge of a vast canyon. On the other side is solid ground. Absolute truth. Biblical authority. God's unchanging standard. Between you and that solid ground is a long, rickety bridge. One that shifts with every step. Its planks rotting. Its ropes fraying. That bridge is cultural relativism. Now, cultural relativism doesn't seem all that dangerous at first glance. It's dressed up in words like tolerance. It's the idea that each culture or even each individual gets to define truth for themselves. It tells us what's right for you may not be right for me. It whispers that morality is fluid. That the Bible is a product of its time. And that we should update our beliefs to fit modern values. Now, let's be honest. It sounds appealing, doesn't it? I mean, no confrontation. No absolute right or wrong. Just a peaceful coexistence where everyone gets to live their own truth. But here's the problem. If truth is always changing, then nothing is ever truly right or wrong. And if nothing is wrong, then why did Christ have to die for sin? This mindset is creeping into the church. We see it in pastors who avoid controversial topics because they don't want to offend. We see it in believers who reinterpret scripture to fit cultural trends. We see it in Christians who say things like, Well, I know what the Bible says, but I just feel like God wouldn't judge someone for that. Slowly but surely, that rickety bridge is replacing the solid ground of God's word. And let's talk about where that leads. If morality is subjective, then we have no foundation for justice. If truth is up for debate, then sin loses its meaning. If we adapt the gospel to fit culture, then we're no longer preaching the gospel. We're preaching whatever people want to hear. Paul warned us about this in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 3 and 4, when he said, For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but have itching ears. They will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. That time isn't coming. It's already here. And that's why today we're talking about cultural relativism from a biblical worldview. We're going to break down what it is, how it snuck into the church, real life examples of its influence, and most importantly, how we as believers can stand firm against it. So if you've ever wondered why so many churches seem hesitant to take a stand, if you felt pressure to compromise biblical truth for the sake of being loving, or if you're struggling to respond when people say, Who are you to judge? Then stay with us, because this is a conversation we can't afford to ignore. We are not here to sugarcoat things. We are here to speak the truth. So let's get into it. Welcome back to our Wokeness in the Church series. Brett, what a great cold opening you just gave, man. I got chills just now as you were reading it, man. This was... I'm James, and alongside me is Brett. And, man, we're here to delve into this critical topic of cultural relativism from a biblical perspective. We're titling it The Slippery Slope of Cultural Relativism. Once you begin, it is hard to turn around and get yourself back out of it. And we're going to be talking about that from a biblical perspective. We're going to explore the definitions of it, its emergence from inside the church, some contemporary examples of what that looks like, and strategies on how to counteract it and how to respond when we encounter it. Man, Brett, how are you doing, man? Excited about the topic today. Absolutely, man. If there was ever a time when this subject needed to be talked about, it's now. Now is the time to talk about it. Now is the time when the church is losing ground, and we have to fight tooth and nail. Cultural relativism, it's increasing its influences in every aspect of society. And now it's beginning to creep into the church. And that is something that we definitely can't stand by and let happen. Yeah, I remember when we had first moved back to North Carolina, and we were attending a church there in Kannapolis, and the youth pastor got up in our teaching, and I was helping teach some of the middle school boys, and we were just serving the Lord and helping out. And he got up, and he began talking about how this relativism, he didn't use the term cultural, but he just said relativism. And he said a good way to explain this is if I walk outside and I look up and I say, you know, the sky looks really, really pink today, and it's blue, but I say it's pink. Who are you to judge me or to say that it's a different color than what I think? Because truth is only what I see and hear in my own head. And he said this is what relativism is. There's no absolute truth. And so as we begin to define this and give us some basic work and definition, essentially it's the idea that a culture can only be understood and judged by its own standards, behaviors, norms, and values, not by anything outside. This perspective suggests that moral standards are culturally biased and based, and they're therefore subject to an individual's choice of whatever they see fit to be right or wrong. That's right. You see, cultural relativism posits that no culture's ethics are superior to another's, implying that there are no universal moral truths. This concept was introduced by anthropologist Frank Boaz, who argued that all humans see the world through the lens of their own culture and judge it according to their own culturally acquired norms. Yeah. You know, and Brett, one of the things as we begin to approach this topic is a lot of times we'll approach it by promoting understanding and tolerance. You often hear that. We must understand where they're coming from. We must tolerate. We must have a tolerance for this. It's also a challenge. This also challenges the notion of absolute truths, which is foundational to our biblical worldview. Scripture affirms that God's truth is unchanging, that it's not just some archaic thing. And we'll often say that you'll hear people say, well, that's a, like you said in the cold open, it's a book for its time. Well, the Bible says that Micah 3, 6, that God says, I, the Lord, do not change. And so therefore he is the word of the Lord as well. And he does not change either. And so if you're going to say it's for a time, it's for all time. And the word of God is for all time and for all peoples. How many times have we seen the bumper sticker that says co-exist, made with all the different symbols of every religion. And they're these people that preach tolerance. When it comes to Christianity, when it comes to the truth, they're surprisingly intolerant. But, you know, moving on to its infiltration into the church, cultural relativism began to influence Christian communities. As societal values shift, particularly during the postmodern era, that's what we're in. And Wright says, we're in a postmodern, post-Christian era. The emphasis on subjective truth and individual experience led some churches to adapt their teachings to align more closely with prevailing culture norms. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Brett, this adaptation often resulted in the dilution of the core biblical doctrines. For instance, teaching on moral issues became ambiguous, I can't say that word, ambiguous to avoid offending contemporary sensibilities, leading to a compromise of the gospel. The last thing we must do is compromise the gospel. And 2 Timothy 4 says it like this. He says, For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but have itching ears and will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to truth. And I believe this is why we see it so often, Brett, that good biblical sound-based teaching will begin to fray away from that because people are ultimately seeking to hear and see the things that are going to only appeal to them. I'm not against megachurches by any means. I think that God has a desire for churches to reach the masses. But oftentimes when the pastors began to see their level of influence, they began to compromise on areas that are away from sin. We see this so often, and we're going to talk through some cultural examples here in just a minute. But, you know, one of those, like, it's like a Joe Osteen, for instance, someone who, not that I know that he's ever stood for truth, but when he has the opportunity to sit before Larry King live, what does he do? He says that your only way to belief is your way to heaven, and he couldn't give a definition for sin. And this is what begins to happen when you have a platform, is you begin to culturally relativize and fray away from hard truth and hard doctrine. But just like you said on Larry King live, he asked him in that interview, what do you think about homosexuality? And Joel said, the only time that I ever talk about this is in interviews when I'm asked about it. That's because he doesn't preach it from his pulpit. He doesn't preach the whole counsel of God. He stays away from controversial topics. What this conversation reminds me of, James, is have you ever seen the – he's got a TikTok page and a Facebook page, but it's a guy called The Holy Note. Yes. Yes. I love The Holy Note. We don't agree on 100% everything, but I pretty agree with the guy on a bunch of stuff. And some of the videos are just like so just cringe-worthy, you know, just really, really bad stuff. But the shift that me and you are talking about, it underscores the tension between adhering to scriptural authority and accommodating cultural changes, okay? This is a balance that many churches continue to navigate today. Yeah. And what we're going to jump into now is some – not necessarily calling out people, even though there's a place for that. But today we're going to talk about some modern examples of issues that begin to allow culture to influence their stance on something versus the Bible. And so we're going to consider a couple of those today. One of the most prominent areas would be your sexual ethics. This is where some churches have revised their stance on issues like premarital sex and same-sex relationships, and they align them with the societal acceptance. And sometimes at the expense of the traditional Baptist or traditional biblical teaching, then they'll begin to see what the world says. And it's almost like – Brad, it's a good way to put it – is that they lick their finger, and they put their finger up in the air, and they see which way the wind's blowing, and that's which way their cultural standings is going to be. Whatever way the cultural winds are blowing, that's what the church is going to affirm. And we're no longer going to stand firm on biblical teaching where God says he made man and woman two different sexes, two different genders. And he says, male and female, you will be them, and you will cleave to one another, male and female, and you will leave your mother and father, and you will become one flesh because you have joined this union of marriage together. Judas clearly lays out what marriage is. He clearly lays out what sexes are. He clearly lays that out in Scripture from the very beginning of Scripture. And yet somehow in our modern culture, we have decided that we're going to change that to make it acceptable for the people that are around us. Right. And I've got people that are close to me, family members and whatnot, that do go to progressive churches, and they redefine the Bible to say that the only sexual sin is pedophilia, but past that, everything else is now acceptable. You know, it doesn't matter who or what or what with, everything's acceptable. Now, that's the only thing that the Bible condemns, and it's just not true. Another example is the prosperity gospel movement, which aligns more with a consumerist culture than with biblical principles of humility and selfishness. This reflects cultural relativism by adapting the gospel message to fit contemporary desires for wealth and success. They take when God says the words, I'm here to make your life more abundant, give you life more abundant, and give you all these things. You know, they take that as material. You know, God doesn't want you to be poor. God doesn't want you to be sick. And if you're poor and you're sick, then you don't have enough faith. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And one of the ones, Brett, the next one we're talking about is one that is so often will— I get so fired up about it because it's one of those issues that it's like common sense issues, but yet we have to even talk about it. But there's this acceptance of abortion in certain circles. Certain circles are okay with killing a baby at a certain age, a certain time of life. And Scripture is very clear. The way I'm going to put this is—I don't want to get too much into it, but Scripture is very clear. It says in Psalms 139, 13 to 14, For I formed you in your mother's inner parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. We understand and we should believe the Bible, and the Bible says that from the moment of conception, we are made in the image of God. We are a life in the image of God. And to have an abortion is to murder, is to kill, is to commit one of the Ten Commandments, right? You're not supposed to kill, and yet you're killing a life that God has created. You're killing an individual that God has created for His glory and for His honor, and you're taking them away from their mother. You're taking them away from life. And one promise that I believe is that they're in heaven and they're with the Lord. And they are seated there, and God has this ordained council of babies that have been awarded, and they're worshiping Jesus right now. But, man, what a tragedy that we're going to have to stand before God and say millions and millions and possibly even billions of lives have been destroyed because we didn't take a stand and we didn't stand up against it. And rather, churches have stood up and not taken a stand over the last 50 years and allowed these things to happen. So I think the Bible is very clear that life is valuable to the Lord. Amen. Amen. You know, another example is the redefinition of justice. Biblical justice, which emphasizes righteousness and accountability before God, is often replaced with secular social justice ideologies that promote partiality, contradicting Leviticus 19.15, which warns, You shall not do injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great. But in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. So we live in this idea that if you're born of a certain skin color, you're always going to be an oppressor. There's nothing you can do. It's ingrained in our culture. It doesn't matter if you've ever said anything racist or prejudiced. Because you're white, you're always going to be an oppressor. And if you're any other color other than white, you're always going to be the oppressed. It doesn't matter social standing or anything. It's just the way things are. And there's nothing you can do about it. People play into this. And they live their life playing the victim. And other people live their life cowing down to people because of the skin color they were born. When that's not at all what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches a colorblind society. Neither Jew nor Greek nor man nor woman. We're just all God's people. And that's something that we're forgetting today. Yeah. Yeah. And you may say, you may be listening here, dear listener. And you may say, well, Brett, that's so Old Testament. That's so old school. Why are we going to Leviticus? You know, there's so many laws in Leviticus we don't follow or observe or listen to. And so let's give a modern day example. Modern day example. A modern New Testament example. In James chapter 2 where James, the half-brother of Jesus, is writing to the church at Jerusalem. And he says, my brothers, have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Lord, without partiality. For if any man with a gold ring and fine clothes comes into your assembly, a poor man in ragged clothes comes in. And you have respect for him who wears the clothing, the fine clothing. And you say to him, sit here in the good place. And you say to the poor, stand there or sit there under his footstool. Have you not become partial among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brother, has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you and drag you before judgment seats? Do not blaspheme you unworthy by the name of Christ? And so all of a sudden we see that in this modern day example, in this modern example that we have here in Scripture in the New Testament, they were also showing this partiality as well. So it's not a new concept. It's not something that is this radically new thing. It is something that we have fought against all throughout church history, all throughout time, because we would rather put some person above someone else. I think that James was uniquely qualified to talk about partiality because look who his brother was. Can't you just hear Mary? James, why can't you be more like your brother Jesus? Right, right. He never messes up. Anyway, you can go on. Oh, I agree 100%. I think that's why he had that ability to talk into it a little bit because he had that story. He had that, I was raised with Jesus, the Son of God. I was raised with the perfect God. I had the partiality. And I'm here to tell you that it just doesn't work in God's kingdom. I love it. I love it. Hey, we've got to get you talking more like a woman there, Brett. So how do we fight back against this, right? Things happen. We're addressed with some of these issues. To begin this, to counteract cultural relativism, it's essential to reaffirm the authority of Scripture. Hebrews 4.12 reminds us that the Word of God is a living and active being, sharper than any two-edged sword. Regular, in-depth Bible study will help you as a believer to discern truth from cultural trends. Just recently preached a sermon at a church in Cool Springs, North Carolina, here, real close to the church I met. And I began to talk about the voices of those that influence us and the power of the influences of words and things in our life. And I gave the illustration of the voice of Satan versus the voice of the Lord, right? The voice of the Lord is the shepherd speaking to his sheep. They hear his voice and they know who he is. But all of a sudden, there's this voice of the devil that we don't always know because we're not so in tune with the voice of the Lord, we're not able to discern which one is the voice of the Lord and the voice of Satan. And so we must be so in tune with the Bible, so in tune with Scripture, that when Satan speaks, we immediately know it's something different. We immediately know it's the flesh. We immediately know it's not of God because it is so contrary to the Word of God. Amen. Amen. You know, I think that, of course, that is 100%. We need to stand on Scripture. But on that, we also need to engage in apologetics. Apologetics is vital for a Christian. You know, 1 Peter 3.15 instructs us to always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you. And by understanding and articulating the reasons for our faith, we can confidently address relativistic arguments and uphold biblical truth. And I'm going to tell you right now, you will get so much benefit by even just watching people do apologetics. You open up your YouTube and you go to Cliff Connectely. Okay. He goes and he stands on college campuses all over the country. He's a pastor from Connecticut. And he just, he talks with atheists and people, college students that have questions. And so much of the apologetic answers that I, you know, that are in my repertoire have come from Cliff. Frank Turek's another one. Wrote a good book. I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. His cross-examined.org is his website and his channel. But Frank Turek, Cliff Connectely, you need to get on there. You need to watch some apologetics. You need to get some of these answers where when people ask you, you see, they always ask the same, people's like, man, they always, these apologetic, these apologists, they always give the same answers just because they're always asked the same questions. These are the same questions that people have been asking for thousands of years. And so we need to know these answers. And I think it would be benefit to anyone to go watch some apologetics and get some of that under your belt. Absolutely. And one of the things, Brett, that we must do, we say this, I feel like we say this almost every week, but it's so valuable when we talk about the church, is we must be in a fostering of community that values accountability and discipleship, encourages us to adhere to biblical standards, and it provides support to us against cultural pressures. If you're in a church that is doing these things, that is preaching biblical doctrines, that is encouraging you, that is keeping you accountable to the Lord, all of a sudden your faith is going to begin to grow. Your faith is going to begin to flourish because you are surrounding yourself with men and women of like mind, of like faith, that is valuing the word of God, that is valuing what is true, what is right, what is honest, what is just. They're thinking on those things. They're doing those things. They're meditating on those things. And they're allowing the word to influence them and not the culture of the time that they're in. They're allowing the word to influence them in everything they do. Well, I want to hit on one thing you said, and I think it's probably one of the most important things, is that's of accountability. We can discipleship and we can set all these things up, but if we don't have a process of keeping ourselves accountable, we won't stay in line with the truth. Absolutely. Our flesh is going to knock us off course. We have to lean into each other in the church. We are here to encourage one another in a church, in a local body. People in that church are there to encourage one another to stay on track, and we need to use that. Use your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Get in a three-person discipleship group that keeps you accountable for your prayer and your Bible reading and some sin that you're in. You need to get accountable. I think that's just a big part of this. But we need to go into the next question, is what to do if we encounter cultural relativism? We're out in the wild. We're out in the world, and we come across this. What do we do? Well, we should approach the situation with grace and truth. Colossians 4, 6 instructs us that your speech always be gracious, season with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Grace and truth. And notice that it's the two working together. Not just truth, but you've got to have that grace. You can't scream. You can't barf. You can't get hot. You know, you can't, you know, because that's what they're going to do. Okay? They may go low, but we need to go high. Right. We don't need to do like some politicians have said. When they go low, we go lower. We must go high. Yes. I just felt what I was cooking. Yes. Yes. Another thing we can do, and these are some practical advices for us as we encounter this, is we must engage in respectful dialogue. Seek to understand the underlying reasons for their beliefs, and then gently present an unchanging truth of Scripture. Man, this is one of the things that Jesus tells us in John 17, 17. He says, sanctify them in the truth, and your word is truth. The only way we're going to win the world over is by the word. It is not by our own sense of understanding. It's not by our own intellect, but it is by the word of God that is sharper than any two-edged sword. And by us presenting that to people, by us telling people the word and allowing the word to do the work, it is a whole lot more graceful than us yelling back and forth at one another. Exactly. And when somebody comes at you and they're asking you these questions about what you believe and why you believe it, and if you've watched Apologetics, if you've watched something on YouTube, maybe you have something to say. But at the end of the day, you need to rely on the Holy Spirit. You need to pray and ask God for wisdom and discernment to help you answer these questions. James 1.5 encourages believers, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. We need to go to the Lord and ask him. He promised us. We want wisdom. Ask for wisdom, and he'll give it to us. Yeah, absolutely. It is so important for us to do that. And then lastly, I think what we need to begin to talk about is remember that our goal is not to win the argument. Oftentimes, we think we've got to be right. We think we've got to win. But it is to be lovingly guiding others toward the transformation of the power of the gospel. Ephesians 4.15 calls us to speak the truth in love, standing firm on our convictions while demonstrating Christ's love. We must be a people who are loving others, who are pointing people to Jesus. There is this thought of what people like to call the cage stage of life, the cage stage Calvinist, the cage stage different area that we live in. And one of the most important things that we get to do is not be cage stage, not try to win the world over to our ideology, but win the world over to the Lord and tell them about the truth. Tell them about love. Tell them about the grace that God gives them and speak that truth in love. Amen. People are going to start asking you these questions. And this stuff is coming into the church. And, you know, if you're conservative, you're going to stick by the word of God and you're going to get questioned. You're going to say, you know, this is an ancient book. You know, this book was written 2,000, 3,000, up to 4,000 years ago in the Old Testament. You know, why do you, why is it relevant for today? And we've got to be able to answer them with the truth. And we need to do our due diligence and we need to study and we need to study the word of God. And, you know, and we need to pray and ask God to give us wisdom to continue to preach the word of God. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolute truth spoken in love, spoken in grace, spoken with truth, and spoken with authority will do the rest. And the absolute truth that we have is the word of God. And when we speak it with the power and the authority that Christ has given us, the Bible says that the power of Christ, the dynamite of Christ, the dynamite of his word will take over. We don't need to try to win the argument. We don't need to try to win them over with our wonderful speaking ability. We just need to speak the truth and let the Lord do the rest. And we'll begin to see a change in our nation, a change in our world, and a change in our culture. And so we hope you've enjoyed the episode today, talking about cultural relativism, excited about what we'll be talking about over the next couple of weeks. We're getting close to the end of our woke series. We've got about three, four more topics to talk through. And then we've got a couple of things. We're going to be talking about the different camps of the IFB and where they came out of to finish up this season. And we've already got lined up for some awesome interviews for next year, for next year, the next season there. We come back from the summer and already prepping for that. And so we hope you've enjoyed this. As always, if you ever have a thought or a concern, reach out to us on social media. Let us know your thoughts. Let us know your thoughts on these episodes. And it's always a blessing to be able to do this. Brett, any final thoughts, final words? No, I just, I'm thankful. I'm glad. I'm looking forward for the rest of the season. I'm especially looking forward to the IFB camps. And we have lined up one interview in particular that I am extremely excited about. And if I know our audience, I think they're going to be excited about it too. It's a big name. And, you know, it's going to drop some jaws. And I am looking forward to it. Absolutely. Well, if you ever have any questions, let us know. And until next time, to God be the glory. Great things he has done. I found my new name. I found that good grace. I found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning that has no ending. I found that second chance. I found my best friend. I found my forgiveness. I found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. For Freedom Podcast. . Thank you.

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