[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hi, my name is Caddy Malone, and.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: I'm Brendan the husband.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: And you're listening to the little flock, the podcast that offers practical insights about living a counterculture of goodness, truth and beauty in a world of increasingly hostile secularism and indifference.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: So if you're looking to learn from two imperfect followers of Christ about how to live like the wheat amongst the darnil, this is definitely the podcast for you.
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the little flock.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Hi, everyone.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: That's, in case you couldn't hear it, that's Katie's voice with a little bit.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Of a laughing at your high energy.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Entry because just before we came on here, there was a little bit of banter back and forth. And I said, save the banter. Save the banter for the show. Speaking of banter, that's not really banter. Please subscribe. If you're new here and if you like the content and you can do that whatever platform you're listening on, please give us a rating that really helps the show and a couple of other quick things. We'll just get them out of the way really quickly today, I promise.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: You promise.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: This is a husband promise.
If you want to support our work, you can do
[email protected]. Left foot media if you become a five dollar monthly patron there, then you will get exclusive access to a daily podcast from Monday to Friday where, where I, you explore and respond to current affairs and political issues and things that are in the news and particularly pro life news as well. So if you're interested in that, we often cover stories that no one else will cover, and there's generally commentary that just goes out a little bit deeper on the issues. It's not simply reacting to stuff. So become a five dollar patron and you'll get access to that. And you'll also be helping to support this shoe. Shoe, shoe. Not a shoe, sorry, it's a show. Go too fast.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Eleanor would be happy if you support her shoes.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Keep her in the lifestyle to which she's become.
So the other way to do that is to go to lifenet.org dot NZ and become a regular AP donor. And if you're in New Zealand and you do that, then you will be able to claim that back on your tax each year, and you will be helping to support all of our important ministry work that we do full time at Lifenet. Katie, one last thing, and that is this. Well, two last things very briefly. Number one is if you've got questions, we're answering your questions today. If you, if you've got questions you want to send to us or topics you'd like us to cover, go to the littleflockpodcast.org dot. That's where you find all the back episodes. And at the top of the page there you'll see a link to fill in a questionnaire or go directly to Lifenet.org dot NZ and you will be able to click on a link there and just fill in a very brief online form. Nothing dramatic. It's not like the id.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: You don't have to give us your credit card details.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: No, no. Very straightforward, very simple and very quick. And you can just send us your question. And can it be totally anonymous too, so you don't have to worry about giving your name if you don't want. Last but not least, don't forget the forge.org dot nz. We've set up the new Forge social media pages now and every week we're publishing a brand new short social video. The Forge is going to be a platform, a website that exclusively offers all of the video versions of presentations that I deliver around New Zealand and Australia. So it's a formation website and they'll all be available on there and they'll be broken down into little bite sized pieces so that you can actually get together a group of friends if you wanted to, or maybe a group of people at church. And like a 1 hour presentation will be broken down into 320 minutes parts so you could actually watch the video. There'll be some discussion questions, have a meal together, I guess, kind of like advanced alpha, if you've done Alpha. So, yeah, the forge.org dot Nz if you go to the website and you'll see the links to the social channels that have been set up. And every week between now and the launch of the website later this year, we'll be publishing a short little 60 to 92nd social media video about different topics that we're covering. So, yeah, well worth doing that.
Take a breath.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: All of the things out of the way.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah, all of those things.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: That must be a few notices.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: Record time. We did it in three minutes. And we included a bit of banter.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Just like that.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: A bit of back and forth, Katie, as they say in the game. Speaking of back and forth, let's just jump straight into it. So we're not here to waste your time, folks. We know that you are here.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: We know what you want. The hard hitting topics.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. You're here for an informative time, not a long time. And so we will cut straight to the information we've got a couple of articles that we were gonna kick off with. First of all, today, Katie. And the first one is quite hilarious. This is from the independent dot co dot UK. So a well regarded news website, as such as these things are today, I'll regard it. Yeah, exactly. And here's the headline. Online dating coaches. Did you know there was such a thing?
[00:04:38] Speaker A: Only from that movie hitch. Was it online or in person dating?
[00:04:42] Speaker B: It was in person.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Wasn't that true?
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: I didn't realise it was the new version.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: That's funny, eh? But I didn't know that you could be such a thing.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: You can be anything you want these days, babe.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Well, they rub your shoulders. Yeah, that's good performance. They go on the dates with you, bring a towel, you know, you know, dry you off, you know, between sessions. And look, mate, get back in there. You did not deliver that line. Well, go back in there. Say sorry to her.
Don't punch her this time. It's not a boxing match. Right. So anyway, an online dating coach. Enough of the dad jokes spark debate for pushing women to embrace traditional gender roles.
Shock horror, man. Online dating coaches are polarising viewers. Oh, so they're viewers. They're not like.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Or I guess you watch these things on Instagram or TikTok and learn how to date people.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: That's an odd description.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: They really learn how to be a good dater.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Imagine going to a gym and your coach was there and you just watch them do the workout.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: That's pretty much what you do with Instagram. So, yep, that's pretty much how it works.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Dating coaches are polarizing. I tell you, Katie, they're polarizing the viewing world as they increasingly encourage women to embrace traditional gender roles, by which.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: They mean people are getting angry in the comments.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: That's what they meant by.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: And they were desperate for clickbait stories, so they decided to write a story about it in her videos. 24 year old dating coach, 24, no features.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Done a lot of dating younger.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Come on, man. I mean, you'd think. Wouldn't you be talking to, like, some expert married couple?
[00:06:11] Speaker A: No, but they're not dating anymore, babe.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah, but they. They're out of the game. They know what's.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Yeah, they forgot.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: They probably don't know the character scene, do they? In her videos, 24 year old dating coach Carla Ila or Elia, something like that. Something like that often tells. It doesn't matter. She's a misogynist.
Tells her 1 million followers. 1 million?
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Crazy wowzers. That they should only date men who can afford them.
Playing into the idea that men are providers while women are receivers. I don't think they're the polar opposites, are they?
[00:06:44] Speaker A: No.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: A provider and a receiver.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a funny. She's kind of mixed up two things there as well. Like affording someone is different to providing for them. Yeah, isn't it? That makes it sound like there's a woman who want expensive presents. Well, maybe providing for someone is different.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: We'll get to that point. But you're right. And it's funny, like, if you're not the provider in a family, are you passive? Like, that's what a receiver is. They just, like, they don't do nothing. That's it. I would argue that is a feminist mythology about women in the home and women who actually don't go into the workshop.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Kind of twisting the whole stay at home, yeah, mum, stay at home wife thing. Aren't they at home girlfriend?
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. They're passive receivers of something. Or they are worse.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Sounds like it's coming out of the football wives movement.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. They're just greedy sort of leeches who just.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: What are those, all those programs real housewives of?
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, they're hugely popular.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Is that where this has come from? Kind of thing, but in a dating version?
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Or is it like pushback to a rampant culture of promiscuity and radical feminism and people who kind of don't know where to land just go in the other direction? Wildly.
Aliyah's videos have been highly criticized among viewers. Probably some viewers, I'd say. If she's got a million followers, then clearly not.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Not all of them are criticising.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: No way. But her antiquated advice that, my friends, is what we call editorialising. That's not a fact, that's an opinion. Antiquated advice. That. Her antiquated advice has resonated among a community of heterosexual women. So it's not the gay people. This is so biased.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Lesbians don't need.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Yeah. No. They would never fall for such shenanigans.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: There's only another woman who can afford them.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: No, no. And they would never, ever be tricked by bad ideas. A community of heterosexual women who see relationships between men and women as transactional.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: Not transactionally.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: What is a trans but different kind of trans faster.
I see the dating seen in relationships as a business because it is a liar. Explained to NBC. A lot of people don't like to admit that relationships are transactional, but they are. You know what? This is brutally honest. It is awful, but it is true.
And the independent can't really criticize this when you're running articles about how great Tinder is. Yeah, because these are transactional dating apps. The whole purpose of Tinder is to treat a human person as an object for your gratification. You literally like cattle. Swipe. Swipes. Oh, I like the look of that cow. I think I'll purchase that one. No, I won't purchase it. As Elvis said, I will get the milk for free.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: Did Elvis say that?
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Well, he sang a song that. I don't know if he wrote it, but he sang that song, why buy the cow when you get the milk for free? So we all know what that was about, folks. And that's what this is. And so, yeah, this is crazy. It's like she's just saying, okay, you've built this world. She's 24. She didn't build it. So you've built this world. Previous generation, I will happily inhabit it. You've told me this is what I should do.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: But here they are. To criticize her. In one TikTok video, Aliyah noted that her husband had a separate savings account, specifically because he knew he was going to date an expensive woman, quote unquote. She added that he had a provider mindset from the get go. I'm assuming that he doesn't still date woman and that he doesn't have a separate account. I'm assuming this was before the married, right?
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: It's weirdly written. Yeah, but that is kind of unusual.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Well, she liked him because he had a provider mindset, by which she meant he had saved some money up to spend on her.
I mean, good for him if that's what he wants to do.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: But that's not a provider.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not providing.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: Kia, take some pesos. I'm providing. How about you be present? How about you emotionally show love and care for me and the kids? No, no. I'm throwing pesos. I'm a provider. Yeah, it is. It's not. It's not good. A. It's not flash. But this. It's kind of odd, though. Like, before he's married, he had a separate savings account just for dating woman. Is that what she means?
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Sort of obscure, isn't it? Whether that was just that he had saved because he knew he needed to buy himself a wife, essentially, or whether he was just a good saver and he was like, I'm happy to spend it on you because you were awesome. Those are different things, aren't they?
[00:10:43] Speaker B: It's like that scene from the Blues brothers.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Think love is shown by being given stuff.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah, but I don't know, like a separate.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: I could see the attraction there, but for me it's like.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: Sounds like human trafficking.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Don't buy me stuff. Don't show me.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Like I said, it's like blues brothers. I want to buy your daughter. How much for your daughter? I have savings account full of money. I give you a good deal.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: I give you five cows.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Her comment section was flooded with women asking where these kinds of men were.
That is funny. No, I'm telling you, she's being criticized. And all these women are asking, do you know where these men are quite.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Keen on special clubs for which men would say, account for data.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Quite keen on. For. This is the thing, by the way, this is a social.
Social. Sorry, I'll say that correctly. This is a social media gimmick. This is a false presentation of the world. There are not men out there, large numbers in doing this. People think they are, they think this is normal. They go and try and live this out and they realize, oh, this was actually just a scam. You know, someone was trying to sell me the ideal life and it looks so wonderful and beautiful on social media, but it's not real. It's just not real.
There was also people commenting, sprinkle. Sprinkle, which is TikTok code for transactional relationships. It doesn't mean they thought it was negative. They did it. However, some noted that they wanted to accomplish their goals and be able to provide for themselves before they sought out a provider. That's an interesting, interesting.
It is. Hey, it's kind of. This is a funny liberal problem. It's like I'm the radical, autonomous, self choosing individual and I must be autonomous. But like, even at a basic economic level, the fundamental economic unit, if you want to call it that, of any functioning, flourishing society, is the family, it's not the individual. And so if you try and do that, you really want to hiding to nothing, like, you have to. If you don't do the family model, which is the better model, then you have to sacrifice family to go alone and afford houses and stuff. And you probably never get there, or you'll get there just far too late, and you'll go, oh, my gosh, I've been robbed.
But, yeah, that's an interesting response. Say I get the financial end, but you have to seek more. One person wrote, I don't want a man seeing me as expensive, more than like, worth it.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: That's quite wise.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Yeah, she's worth it.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Better perspective.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: But even then, that's not quite enough either, because, yes, you are worth it. But why are you worth it? And what happens if I all of a sudden don't feel like you're worth it?
[00:13:12] Speaker A: You're worth it anymore. If I wake up one morning and.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: I'm like, is she really worth it? No, that's irrelevant. It's actually about an obligation that you have. If you've entered into a covenant with someone of self giving love, then the obligation is to love, even when it's hard. Others dismissed Ella's advice, sorry, Elihah's advice, as archaic, with some saying they'd rather provide for themselves. Well, you've already just told us that previously. Anyway, I'm able to afford me, and it's all that matters. That's a comment from someone. I'm able to afford me, and it's all that matters. I've had my fun, and that's all that matters.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: These are the kind of people that end up marrying themselves.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Oh, thank you.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: You know, those stupid, like, self weddings?
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Oh, man. But you get to a point, too.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: Where you're probably like, who loves me enough is me.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: I need more than me.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: It's pretty lonely, me being married to yourself.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Me.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: You have an argument, you won't talk to yourself. It's awful.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, exactly right. Who?
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Storm was out first.
It's complicated.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Me do. I do.
And me fix the cupboards. Me make the dinner. Me sit alone. Eat tubs of ice cream. Watching Bridget Jones's diary. Why are we alone? Me do it yourself. Ladies. Another added no one is coming to rescue you.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Be your own hero.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Be your own hero. That is a tragic comment. Like that sold as empowerment. But it is a tragic sort of revelation about culture that there are people who are that cynical. They're like, nah, you're on your own, man. There's no good men out there. It's all over. Alya isn't the only dating coach alleging that woman. Alleging that woman should approach romantic relationships as transactions with many influences in the same space. Advising that woman should seek the princess treat. Wow.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Far out.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: What's that?
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Didn't work out so well for Megan. Michael. Just saying.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Welcome to our new segment, royal gossip. Don't interrupt. Okay. They encourage women to tap into their feminine energy by being nurturing and soft, but reject so called masculine traits, such as paying the bill. That is interesting. I don't know if paying the bill is a masculine trait.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: No.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Is it inherently? You know, I'm a real man. I pay bills.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: I'll take care of this.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: That is kind of a. That's a very modern take on that. But there is something interesting there saying, look, support the notion of being nurturing and, you know, reject masculine traits. Now, why this is such an affront to modern mainstream feminism is because of the writings of Simone de Beauvoir, and she was pivotal in shaping modern feminist thought. And she literally wrote that basically, the softness of femininity and the motherliness of the feminine genius is evil. And what really turns the world and what people really admire are powerful masculine traits. She literally says, like, killing and taking life. She says, nurturing life is not a valuable trait. It's not a noteworthy trait. But taking life, killing trait, killing life, that is a powerful trait. And women should actually seek that. There's no reason why they shouldn't desire. So that's why this would be like, oh, my gosh.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: How dare you?
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Anathema.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: How do you suggest women are soft?
[00:16:19] Speaker B: I know.
Again, it's this whole false dichotomy. An idea that if you are not out there being a man, that somehow you're a passive weakling. It's like, no, well, why can't there be something else while the man is also out there doing his thing? That's right. Very weird. Dating influencer Abigail Siu claimed that her elevated dating advice.
That's a terrible quote. I provide elevated, so I only date men in lifts. Boom, boom, boom. I need that. Where's that? There we go. Yeah. Her elevator. That is some pretty grandiose claim making there. Is meant to cater specifically to the emotional needs of women. What she told NBC was because she believes men and women are fundamentally different.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: She gets one of those mentally different.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. This is.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Where'd she get that from?
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Hold on. I should give her this.
That's not really some sort of banhammer or something. Cancel that woman. I don't believe that men and women are equal. Apart from the fact that we should have basic human rights and we should be able to get paid the same wage, working in the same position. That's a funny one. To include basic human rights and the same wage, but other than that explained to the outlet. But apart from that, we really are different biologically, physically, and emotionally. Oh, my gosh. This woman. What a science denier. She's not heard of the latest trans craze? How could she say such a thing? The popularity of these dating coaches isn't surprising, according to Cecile Simmons, a researcher studying the rise of anti feminist influences.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Oh, here they come.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Oh, man. I bet she's doing a gender studies class. I mean, I'm no expert, but I'm just guessing here. With the rise of the trad wife or traditional wife Persona and the stay at home girlfriend, that is a thing, right?
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Apparently so people on.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: On social media, like, I'm a girlfriend who stays at home.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm a kept girlfriend.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Yeah. That is like. Yeah, okay, I understand the importance of mothers being present in the home, but a girlfriend staying at home. Yeah. Come on. You've just. You are playing a game here, and you probably are bilking because he provides.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: You to do that.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: That's the thing. It's. You know, it's very odd. She explained to NBC that there's been an uptick in dating coach influences espousing ideologies that mirror anti feminist dialogues that can be found online. Oh, no, they're challenging the feminism. That's what she's upset about. This wave of internalized misogyny. That's where, basically, you as a woman see the world differently to feminists. So therefore, you a. You have misogyny.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: That's what that is on my insides.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: Yeah. But on the inside, your ovaries are misogynist.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: They are.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: They're male ovaries.
Oh, that's a thing now has emerged in tandem with what Simmons calls the manosphere. Oh, yeah, the good old manosphere. That is so old, it's not even like. I mean, you might as well be talking about people on what was the original before Facebook.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: MySpace.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: MySpace. That's it. Like, the advent of MySpace. It's causing great problems in the world. Like, that's how out of date you are referring to online spaces in which men trade largely misogynist. Sorry, misogynistic. And misogynistic is what I meant to say. There not misogynistic advice on how to become an alpha male. Within these spaces, men often deliberate what constitutes a high value woman and what indicates their sexual market value.
I know, but here's the thing. They are a fruit of a culture that you've created, and now they're like, oh, how dear. They. It's like they're just doing what you told them to do.
It's unbelievable.
In these really misogynistic communities, there's this idea that all women want is a rich guy. The incels, that's the involuntary celibates. And all these communities hate women for that, Simmons said. So then you have some woman reclaiming that, saying, yeah, I want a rich guy, and I'm entitled to that. A bit like the manosphere guys. Would say they're entitled to an attractive woman.
It's a mess, man.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Nobody's entitled to anything, guys.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Nah. And they've created this mess by abandoning authentic, self giving love. So they started with a cultural promiscuity in previous generations that has exploded into utter carnage. Now it's just madness, eh? By selling a lavish lifestyle as an escape from the burnout of a nine to five. So in other words, they're trying to escape from a culture that's dysfunctional.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: Burnout of a nine to five. I've got news for you. The nine to five's pretty recent.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: And it's the olden days. You'd be doing a seven to seven.
Five to five.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: That was on a holiday.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Six days a week as well is right, you know.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And nine to five. Ask a mother about her nine to five, she'd probably kill for that. Funny that, eh? And tapping into the brewing resentment among women in the dating landscape, these. It's like they're not even hearing what they're saying. They're saying there's a major crisis here, but it's like, let's pretend there's not a crisis and we'll just talk about these people who are the fruit of the crisis instead. That's right. These influences are capitalizing on the backlash against the girl boss feminism of the 2010s.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: Is that what we call them?
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Girl boss? Twenty ten s.
The tennies.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: The ten s. Teenies.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: I didn't realize there was a girl boss feminism.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: That must have you.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: Look, I know of the girl boss phenomena, but I don't think you'd say that an entire decade was a girl boss feminism sort of era, would you?
[00:21:43] Speaker A: I don't know. I've never really thought about it, but it's definitely out there.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: I think that's a bit over the top. But tapping into your feminine energy won't free you from the daily grind and societal expectations. In fact, someone's noted that it to.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Work through the laundry, you could be.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: A gender studies student. That would free you from the daily crime. And it's more of a band aid than a solution. It just provides a kind of quick and easy solution to a few women. But it doesn't liberate women as a whole, she said. Kind of an odd comment, isn't it? So it does liberate, but it doesn't. Not me.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: Only a few people.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: People who don't think like me.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: And are they genuinely liberated? I mean, that's another conversation, isn't it?
[00:22:19] Speaker B: That is what's so fascinating to me about that, as I said, is that they are critical of a culture they've created, and it speaks to a big crisis here.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: So it's like they surprise. There's a push back against feminism.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Because that's essentially, to some extent, that's what this is.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Right? Like, oh, yeah, yeah, big time.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: People are pushing back against being told that they can have it all, but they also have to do it all.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, and there's a. There's a sense I really need a sound effect, like, huh.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: Cause that's what you see.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: They're going, huh. How did this happen? Why is this going on? It's like they have no concept of connecting their behaviors and the culture they've built with this outcome. It's just like, crazy. But what would you say, though, if one of our daughters would be a.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: Stay at home girlfriend?
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Hey, I've been watching this influencer and mum. I think this is great.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: What advice would you give off instagram?
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Get back. Cleared out your room.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I've got some traditional gender roles for you.
Laundry is over there.
Here's the stuff for cleaning the bathroom.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: Let's try some traditional parenting first. Go and clean your room. Go and do that laundry for me. Yeah, it's funny. And I guess this is the thing. A lot of young women will be adrift if they're not in a good, this is a lesson why for us, I think, as people who are listening today, who are parents, you know, build a good family life so your children actually are role modeled, goodness and truth, not some sort of play acting, pretend tradition of people who are desperately looking for it but don't know where to look.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a mistaken understanding of traditional gender roles anyway. Yes, but it also takes out the aspect of service in a relationship, serving the other, self giving love. Yeah. Because they're just like, well, he despised me. Everything I want. What does he get in return for that? Just a little bit. Starting to sound a little bit like prostitution.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: Wow. It is, right? That's what it is. Yeah, it is. I mean, like, yeah, you may not be the worst version of prostitution that could be. You're not trafficked around the country and things like that. But, yeah, there is a, there's definitely an objectification and a commodification of persons here, and that is a problem. And again, this has arisen on the back of liberalism. It didn't come from Christianity. You can say what you want, and we can rightly critique periods of Christianity where maybe we were a bit slow to respond to the fundamental truth of Christianity about how we should show increasing respect for women like, you know, the various cultural norms that hung around and were sort of very stubborn. But Christianity did radically change. You can critique that kind of stuff, but you can never, ever say that Christianity and its fundamental core vision of reality believes that any person should be an object or a commodity. That's one thing they rail against. In fact, by the way, folks, that noise you can hear in the background is because the door is open. Beautiful warm day because it's summer, autumn. I know. Does it take you back to lockdown?
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. That was a good time. The weather, well, some of it was good.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Being in prison, the weather was one of them. Wasn't so fun, but the weather was awesome.
Let's move on to another article, second article off the rank, before we get into your questions. This is an analysis piece, Katie, so this is important. Listen up. It starts with analysis. Americans are fighting over no fault divorce. Maybe that's because they can't agree what marriage is. First comes love, then comes marriage, and they stop there. Very modern tape.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: We won't talk about the next one.
[00:25:33] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't talk about love and babies. So goes the classic children's rhyme. But not everyone agrees. Increasingly, the idea that love is the most important reason to marry or at least stay married. That's the interesting bit for me because, like, there's plenty of people out there who, and we'd critique someone who did say, oh, no, you don't need to have any love at all and just marry the person for some other utility. We'd say there's a problem there.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Because he had a savings account.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
Because he kept me in the trad wife lifestyle to which I'd become accustomed to my 1950s dresses, from stay at.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Home girlfriend to stay at home.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I wore, you know, five layers of makeup every night just to cook the dinner for them, you know, and all that sort of stuff. But, you know, we get there. But to then go on and say, well, you know, increasingly people are saying that love is, like, not the primary reason to stay married. That is, there is. There's a problem there. We'll get to that. Republican pundits and lawmakers have been pushing back on the availability of no fault divorce, challenging the idea that not being in love is a valid reason to end a marriage. Well, I would say, first of all, no fault divorce is a problem. Yes, it has done untold carnage, and one of the worst things that you could do to a human being would be to subject them to the breakup of a marriage. Good, honest people who have had their marriages break up sometimes for reasons well beyond their control, like being the victim of abuse or stuff like that, or they lied to and someone's committed multiple infidelities and, you know, just destroyed the marriage on them. They will tell you that they would not and did not want this as an outcome, and they really wish their children didn't have to go through this. This idea that it's sort of. It's so harm free in some people's minds that you could just have no fault divorce. That's done untold carnage, man. So that's the first thing. And secondly, well, what do you think, Katie? This idea that being in love or not being in love is a valid reason to end a marriage?
[00:27:26] Speaker A: Nah. Stupid.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: It's dumb, right?
[00:27:28] Speaker A: Yep. Most of our marriage is always gonna feel in love.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: Right. You choose to love. It's a decision you make. You choose to keep loving.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: Well, that's the key bit for me, is like, first of all, you wanna clarify? What do you mean by in love? Because I have a feeling what you might actually mean is in sentiment. So I get sentimental enjoyment from them. They give me good sentiments. That's not love.
And. Or maybe in the modern context. Oh, is the sexual relationship good and pleasing to me? Because that's also not.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: I think it's just also that whole romanticized idea that every time you see the person, your heart's gonna go flutter. Flutter?
[00:28:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Which, you know, doesn't last.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: No.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: Forever.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: No.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: In fact, it should get deeper.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: It's a different kind of love. It's not the same love you had at the beginning of your relationship. You know what I mean? Like, it's. Yeah. An evolving, changing, deepening love.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: It's also, when you think about the scope of most married lives, that flutter. Flutter stage is so small. Yeah. It's very brief.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: It's very fluttering.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's when the real butterflies life. Yeah, that's it. Three days. And that's the thing.
That's where the real business. And as long as you're focused on that, that's where the real business of marriage actually begins. At the moment the infatuation ends and the honeymoon comes to an end, you've really got to actually love before that. I mean, it's easy. Come on. It's really easy when it feels good to do a thing, but when it actually requires effort. In fact, I was thinking about this, and I was thinking, in fact, most of the time, you are not in love.
I don't think in a marriage, you are not literally there the whole time, day after day, moment after moment, thinking, wow, wow.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Well, you need to get anything done.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: This is phenomenal, this is awesome. You just don't, you are not in love. You are loving if you're doing marriage properly. You're like, okay, I need to do the dishes, okay, I need to go and earn money to help feed my family. Okay, I need to pay this bill. I need to take this kid to basketball.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Maybe you're in love in a different way because you're in the love.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: Very good. Yeah, that's good like that.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: That's what I'm here for. Wisdom.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: You should be a marriage coach.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: Three wise things in one podcast.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: People can just watch you do marriage.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Pay money, get on instagram and say things like that. Or imagine the common, hey, ladies, you've.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Got to use your feminine energy to be in love. You've got to be a high interest woman.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: You choose to be in love. Right? Like you choose to say, well, I'm here. Yeah, I'm in this.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly it.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: And how do I exercise love? How do I show love? How do I make sure he knows he's in love, you know?
[00:30:06] Speaker B: But what a troublingly concerning view of the world. Like, well, oh gosh, you don't really do it for me anymore. So let's end this. Hold on a minute. What about if you've got children?
[00:30:17] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Are you gonna subject them to the awful psychological and emotional earthquake that is and you don't ever recover from it? I've talked to adults, they'll tell you this. You don't ever recover from it.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: No.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: And you're gonna tell me that you're gonna subject them to that because you, your fifi's don't satisfy at the moment or they're not satiated. Tell you what, don't do that. Don't quit. Hang in there, love your spouse instead and come and talk to me in five years and see whether or not this was just.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: The more you tell yourself you're not in love with them and that you should be separated, then the less you will be able to be in love, you know?
[00:30:51] Speaker B: Yeah. You won't fight for it, right. Because you just give up.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
And you just become resentful. And then people say, well, I was miserable. Well, you were miserable because you, you know, not obviously speaking about situations where you have legitimate abuse, actual problems, which, you know, I guess maybe you could fall out of love with someone because of those.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: Funnily enough, in my experience, what I've seen, particularly from the woman, because it's usually what I've seen is men being the abusive party. But it can go the other way, is that the abused party is often the one who does try extra hard and probably stays around sometimes too long because they love the person. They really want to see them change and their love is taken advantage of. So ironically, they're not the people who bail.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: No, that's right.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: They often leave too late. It tends to be the, it's interesting you mentioned that point, these people who probably have talked themselves into their own misfortune and their own sort of malaise and sense of, you know, despondency. And then they go, oh, the last couple of years were awful. And that's because the last couple of years you were sort of thinking, I gotta get out, I gotta get out, I gotta get out. It's really interesting what's going on in our culture right now. There's clearly people who, the liberal ascendancy is really, it's waning because liberalism has done so much carnage and created so many problems and given birth to all sorts of ideologies and movements that are destructive. And now people are like, well, they don't have the answer. This isn't the way forward. And there's this pushback. And clearly also, a lot of liberals have not had enough kids. They're starting, they're on the cusp now of discovering, uh oh, all those crazy, bloomin traddy christian people had kids.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: The weirdo superstitious lot that we were trying to get away from. Their kids near our number, our kids, if we've got any. And they're starting to become dating coaches or they're proud enough. They are. But you know what I mean? And they're starting to get involved in politics and they're starting to say, hey, there's a problem with no fault divorce. Maybe we should actually stick around and fight for a marriage.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: So, man, this is interesting times, eh? But, yeah, it's a, we won't read too much more of the article, but the point is that it's just sort of that they are railing against and they're really upset about this idea that somehow that people are starting to say that just, you know, quote unquote, feeling not in love is not a reason to end a marriage. And they're saying, you should actually fight for your marriage.
So. Yeah. And she trots out a terrible example, by the way. So she starts by saying, for most of us history. Getting a divorce was difficult. Like that was somehow a bad thing. You talked to a lot of kids of divorce.
They'd tell you, goss, gosh, sorry. I wish my parents were. Maybe it took their time a bit more and hadn't ended it. But then she trots out this example of Stephen Crowder. Those who don't know Stephen Crowder, he is a youtuber, he's quite unquote conservative, but he ended well. His marriage ended when some footage was released of him just treating his wife very, very badly. And he's supposedly christian, supposedly a conservative commentator, and his behavior behind closed doors was anything but. And it wasn't just a moment, it was like, it was really unacceptable behaviours from a man who sort of purported himself to be a Christian in public. So you're always going to have those examples and that's what they tend to go back to the. Like, the local minister was always talking about Jesus, but he treated his wife and kids really badly. But that's not the only marriage in our society.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: And yeah, this matters. Like, I think we'd say to our kids, don't go the dating coach influenced.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely don't do that.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: And don't go this way of saying, oh, it's only the feeling of being in love.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Marriages are things that you've actually got to fight for, and there's a reason why you fight for them. But we've lost sight of all of that. And it's not just the sacred, transcendent vision of reality that Christianity gives us, but even the fundamental natural law truth of having children comes with basic obligations to society as well as to those children. So it's not just about your child, it's about the harm to society that happens. And we don't think that way, though, anymore. Right. That's considered antiquated because we have modern dating coaches to tell us how to live our lives. Alrighty, Katie, let's wrap that up there. Do you have any other advice that you want to, any responses to this?
[00:35:00] Speaker A: I like it when you wrap it up.
[00:35:03] Speaker B: Don't come back now, you hear?
Alrighty. So that beautiful introduction music, as per usual, you know what that means. It's time for our moment of goodness, truth and beauty. Katie, please, you go first. Well, I went first last time, remember? Yeah, we've been doing a little roster. We need a who goes first coach. Feminine energy or masculine traits?
[00:35:37] Speaker A: See, I knew. I can see your moment of goodness, truth and beauty, and I knew you were going to use it, so I better not use that one.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: Were you thinking about it? Were you?
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Oh, it was. It was a beautiful moment, but I'll issue that later. Mine is a little bit random, but, you know, we've just had Easter and obviously in the northern hemisphere it's spring and so there's flowers and baby birdies and bunnies and all that. But here in New Zealand it's autumn, but I actually really like this time of year. We were talking the other day about one of our favourite trees in the garden and how the leaves on it at the moment just look like flames. And Christchurch does autumn. Well, I grew up in Auckland where it was like, green or green, you know, green or brown. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, we're fortunate enough to live here where we actually get a real autumn and it's a real blessing. And I was thinking, oh, you know, but weird having Easter and autumn, but actually there's quite a lot of symbolism in that in itself. I was thinking about how the leaves are falling off the trees. Obviously things are dying, but even in that there's beauty.
[00:36:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Just made me think.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: And there's a pointer to resurrection because you know that that tree will not stay in the tomb. That's right, yeah.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: Cause we also do spring really well. Just saying.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's quite. It doesn't feel like autumn today, though. No, it's like 27 degrees out there.
[00:36:53] Speaker A: Look out there and see all the leaves.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: But, yeah, yeah, the trees are just.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: Stunning at the moment. It's just absolutely beautiful out there.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: And those flames. I thought you were going to talk about Pentecost.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: Oh, you're true. I should have.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: But we'll be gone by Pentecost. The feast is coming. The feast of Pentecost. We don't. I guess one is, obviously, we go to church and it's a big deal and you hear the readings for Pentecost and we celebrate that way. But in our family home, we do the little. We've been doing the little glow hearts, haven't we? Or we tried to. What did you do last year? You did something with flames.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: I think that was clever of me. I don't remember.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: It was a cake or something, or it might have been muffins or something you made. And so we don't make a huge deal about it, but it is. That's one worthy of remembering and celebrating. But I thought you were going to go there and say, look, it's like the tongues of fire, because they kind of do look like.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I reckon the trees are better this year than they've been in the last couple of years. They're definitely.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: They really. There's been something about this. The trees, they're really striking this year. We experienced this in a big way last year because it was around this time I had to go and speak at an event down in Queenstown, and you were away overseas with a couple of the kids. So I took the other couple of kids with me and I didn't realize or fully appreciate. I always knew that down south, like Cromwell, Queenstown Way, Wanaka, they had this big reputation about being the autumn destination. And it wasn't till we were down there and we were driving and you're like, holy moly. These whole entire hills are just, like, orange, red. And, like, it's just. Man, you really get why they have this reputation. There's something about it.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: In my research about autumn, I did find that.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: I did research.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: I did find that overseas, like some places, like around Massachusetts, and that they have an update on the news about autumn, about how the leaves are doing. No, there's different places where it is like that. It's so impressive that they're like, okay, leaf update. This is awesome.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: We need this breaking news in messages.
[00:38:45] Speaker A: In Auckland, it'll be like, still boring.
Stuff is changing.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Yeah. If a leaf hits the ground, they'll be like, oh, my gosh. On the ground.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: Someone tell the news, they literally just go brown. They don't have, like, this transition colour.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Well, yeah, those that do go brown. Right. We get the whole thing. The acorns drop off, but generally you get a whole loss of leaves.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: Don't talk about the acorns because there are people who don't like the acorns.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Welcome to the Massachusetts autumn update. All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: I think we also need to change the name of autumn because I don't think it's poetic enough. In the movie the village, they talk about leaf change. I was like, oh, we should call it that. It's way better.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Leaf change. Yeah. That is.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: Clin can have autumn because. Boring. But we'll have leaf change.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll have orangey brownie. Leaf time.
Leafy fall off tree, tree time. No.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: You'Ve ruined it now.
[00:39:41] Speaker B: You've ruined it.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: Not poetic enough.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: Rib it back a bit, Brendan. The class does not need to see you showing off. She's already married to you. You don't need to actually show off to.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: You don't have a savings account. Very disappointing.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: So, yeah, that is a beautiful thing. And autumn, man, it is there's something about that, and funny, I guess it's an advantage that maybe those parts of the world that do have autumn, really have, where the seasons really do remind you of the seasons of life. See what the English are always banging on about it in their poetry and writings because they read about this as well. So. Yeah, well, that's a good moment. My moment of goodness, truth and beauty is a little bit different. It happened over the Easter weekend. It was holy Thursday night, and we were at the church service that we have in our church for the Lord's supper to commemorate the last Supper and the events of that fateful night before Christ went to his passion and cross on Good Friday. And my brother and another couple of good friends of ours and my brother's kids, so my nieces and some other young people in our parish, they have a choir, they lead the music. It was so beautiful, like a youth choir, really, is how you describe it, with a couple of adults helping as well, in parts. And they sang this beautiful piece at communion by Philip Stopford. Now, Philip Stopford is an english composer of sacred choral music, and it's like, his stuff is beautiful. And the piece that they sang was, in my father's house are many dwellings.
If you haven't heard this, get on Spotify not now, because you're listening to us, but get on Spotify as soon as you stop listening to us and actually search up Philip Stopford in my father's house in mini dwellings. Listen to it and you will be glad that you did. It'll be the, like, most beautiful six minutes you spend today doing anything. Probably I could be wrong. You might be in some great arch or some great cathedral in Europe right now, but, you know, if you're not, this will be the most beautiful thing. Yeah. If you're not looking at them autumn leaves.
It is absolutely beautiful. They sang this and they were. They sang a faithful and truly beautiful and excellently performed version of that coral piece. So it wasn't kids warbling away or anything. It was beautiful. It was in parts and like, I was in tears, and for me, there was sort of layers to this one was the profound beauty and goodness and truth. Like often with the transcendentals, goodness, truth and beauty. You get one, you get all of them. But sometimes that's not always the case, but in this case, it was. The beauty flowed out of the beauty of the singing, the beauty of the composition, the beauty of the words, the beauty of the voice of Christ, the beauty of the moment. It was all there. So that was profoundly beautiful and I was in tears, just like. I really felt like this sort of heavenly, enraptured moment where I'd been pulled out of this ordinary, mundane, earthly life and elevated into something truly divine. And I could really hear Christ in that moment. It was really quite profound. But also there was a great beauty for me and a great joy of hearing my brother and my nieces and our friends and their young people in our church. And they weren't just like, it wasn't a performance.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: It wasn't a showy offy thing.
[00:42:51] Speaker B: No. They were down the back, for starters, with the choirs. Secondly, it's not like, right, let's get out the guitars and the drums and not. There's anything wrong with that. There's a tiny place there, but it wasn't one of those kind of things, like, hey, look at me, look at me. They were invisible and deliberately so. And they produced this thing of beauty and to be there and to realize, yeah, this is some of my nieces and this is young people in our parish, and they're giving themselves to actually create a moment of goodness, truth and beauty for other people. It was so overwhelming. It was beautiful, eh?
[00:43:21] Speaker A: Yeah. The beauty of the human voice is an instrument, right?
[00:43:24] Speaker B: Yeah. God's creation and sacred polyphony. Multiple voices together. It's just. Look, if you haven't heard it, go and check out Philip Stopford in my father's house in mini dwellings. He has another one, too. Do not be afraid. Listen to that. They also have done that one previously and they did that justice as well. The one other thing as a bit of a follow up was I got on Twitter. I just had to tell people, I think was the next night or maybe even that night, wasn't it?
[00:43:50] Speaker A: It's actually called x now, I think. But then the problem is that you don't know what you meant to say when you x. I exed somebody. I exed about this.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: The dating coach told me to ex you. We're out. So Seacrest out. If you remember that, then you're too old. Yeah. I got on Twitter, among other things. I got on a couple of my social media platforms and I just tweeted or posted the same thing about what a moment of beauty this was. It was just. It was profound. I had to tell people because it was just so overwhelming. I was like, make sure you listen to this piece of music. And I know some of you saw that and listened to it as well, but I got on Twitter and I tweeted about this and Philip Stopford actually replied last week, a few days later, and he was very gracious. He said, thank you so much. He was like, he was overwhelmed by it. And I replied back to him and I said, look, no, thank you for your beautiful sacred music compositions, and we're regularly using them in our parish. They really are beautiful. But that was kind of nice. It was lovely. He had seen someone, and I noticed actually, his Twitter feed was basically a whole lot of people saying, your music is so beautiful. And him just saying, oh, thank you, I'm so touched by that. And he was very humble. Yeah, it was amazing, eh? So, yeah, good on him. And, yeah, make sure you do check that out. Right. Scripture of the month. Katie, what's your scripture reflection? Do you have one?
[00:45:00] Speaker A: I have a reflection. I don't have one particular scripture.
[00:45:02] Speaker B: I'm going to go with the whole Bible. I'm going to go with all of.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: The scriptures, all the big ones. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Well, actually, it's actually from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I actually don't know if it's in all of them, but I was listening to a little homily online the other day, and the priest was talking about when Jesus breathed on Thomas. He told us he hadn't been there previously to get breathed on. What the priest was talking about was how Jesus says before that, peace be with you. And he said the same thing to the apostles when he appeared before. Peace be with you.
[00:45:32] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: And I thought, isn't that amazing? After he had risen from the dead, he says it to them three times, peace be with you. My peace I give you. And then he's like, now go out. And it just made me think about how he knew, obviously, that they were in, like, a lot of emotional turmoil and things were a bit weird. And he was like, peace be with you. And he speaks it over them right before he gives them their mission, you know, right before he anoints them with the Holy Spirit, go out and make disciples. And the only other time he does it, well, I may have missed one, but he says it at the last Supper. In John's discourse on the last Supper, he says, peace be with you.
[00:46:10] Speaker B: It's quite profound.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: Yeah. I hadn't actually ever kind of reflected on that before. That's when he gives his piece, is when he knows they're gonna need it the most.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: Someone I saw actually posted related to that, and I'd never really thought about this before, but they said, imagine the psychological trauma of those disciples from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning. And you're like, yeah, I always knew it'd be dark and it'd be difficult and that they were hiding away, but it would have been traumatic. Jesus had been killed and brutally slaughtered and publicly. And that's it, game over. They're not expecting anything else. They did not know of the resurrection. They did not even know that that was a thing.
[00:46:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
[00:46:56] Speaker B: He'd tried to prophesy it to them, but they hadn't got it. And rightly so. Why would you. Are you sure? Sure, yeah. It's a metaphor. Right. Right. You know, you're not really coming back. You know, like they wouldn't have thought. And so the trauma that they must have felt. Imagine that. I mean, so it really, for me, it was like, wow, if you are ever going through really hard psychological burdens and torment, think of those disciples and a hope as well. But imagine what they went through. Christ knows that. And so when he says, peace be with you.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So that meaning of peace. Shalom. In Hebrew, it has a lot of meanings, but one of the main ones that would be used or that they would have understood is that of reconciliation between God and man.
[00:47:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: So for him to say that after he had risen, like, this is what I've done.
[00:47:48] Speaker B: I've reconciled all of creation.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: Reconciled. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:47:51] Speaker B: It's quite interesting. In John's gospel, the way he writes is really theologically loaded, and a lot of people often miss it.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: He's also the fastest disciple. I think we just might need to.
[00:48:01] Speaker B: I'm about to talk about that point in just a second. So don't.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: But we talked about that last year.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: Spoiler alert me. No, no. I have more information to bring your information on the footrace, I have to talk about this. But that particular passage where they go to the tomb, it starts by saying that they went to the tomb when it was still dark. And the scripture scholars tell us that is not simply a description of a daylight state. Like it was. The sun hadn't risen yet, so it was darkness. No, it's actually about the state of darkness and confusion that they are in in that moment. It is still dark, as in catastrophic. They have not heard. Peace be with you. All of creation has not been reconciled. This is the turmoil of the almost just before the creation. You know, there is nothing in the.
[00:48:50] Speaker A: Dawn and all that.
[00:48:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And what happens? God speaks everything into being. Jesus speaks the new creation into being as well. Man. Profound. We double teamed that. We work together. And what a team. Now I will bring my scripture now, Katie. And there will not be any humorous murmurings from the pills John 21 to four. Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went. That's that statement. While it was still dark. That's what John's talking about. Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved. So that's John and that's me, folks. I'm the guy who's wrote this still with me. Before social media he would have said, you know, I mean, I really am blessed and privileged to be here.
Something like that. Anyway, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they have put him. So this is interesting, right? So first of all, they are not thinking, yeah, he's resurrected. If you were writing a fake document, that's probably what you'd have them saying. Something like, yes, this is being fulfilled as we knew it would be. But they say what? They've stolen his body. That's their first instinct, which is a really interesting proof for the reality and reliability of the resurrection. But this is the next bit. That's key. This is the bit I'm getting to. So Peter and the other disciple, that's John, the one that's privileged to be here. So Peter and the other disciples started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple, that's me, folks. John out ran Peter and reached the tomb first.
[00:50:25] Speaker A: I'm sure we talked about this last week.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: We might have. But what I.
[00:50:28] Speaker A: Every year I'm like, ahaha, here we go.
[00:50:30] Speaker B: Oh, John, you again make merriment, John. I dust. You don't need it though.
[00:50:36] Speaker A: In all of those readings in Holy Week, you need a little bit of John.
This is something Lucy was saying.
[00:50:43] Speaker B: You need a good forum.
[00:50:44] Speaker A: I had a conversation with Lucy about this and she was saying there's a bit in the passion that they read on passion Sunday where he's like, it was Peter. Peter chopped off his ear. This is John as well.
I didn't do it.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: It was Peter. It wasn't me. I ain't got no sort of mind.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: I'm pay to do it though. I could have got there first, but I didn't want to chop off anybody's ear.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: John just turns to Peter and goes, Peter, what did you do, John?
[00:51:08] Speaker A: Such a cheeky young man.
[00:51:10] Speaker B: But the funny thing is, it's not like for me, it's not the humorous sort of mirth, mirth in this moment. And I think we've touched on that in the past, but it's quite a key moment in the reliability of the gospels. This might not seem like much, but it is. The famous english novelist and writer Graham Greene. The english novelist, he said this moment here was the thing that actually converted him to Christianity. He became a Catholic and he said, why? Because in his experience as a writer and a good writer of literature, this detail didn't make sense. If you were writing literature that wasn't real, you would not put this detail in. This is a detail that you put into a personal remembrance of actual real events. It's an account. It's not literature, and it's true. It actually, like. Why would you put that in there? First of all, seriously, what purpose does it serve? They had a foot race. Oh, I'm looking at this, Katie, and I don't see the depth of theology. You know, maybe John was youthful in his zeal and Peter was a bit jealous of him. And so the Lord is saying, don't be jealous, and you too will win the spiritual foot race. There's nothing like that. It's just a detail about this event. And the detail's there because it's real.
[00:52:30] Speaker A: It's like kids writing stories at school, right? That's it.
[00:52:32] Speaker B: They tell you what they saw before.
[00:52:34] Speaker A: If you were prefreading that in year four, they'd be like, take that bit out. You don't need it.
[00:52:37] Speaker B: That's redundant.
[00:52:38] Speaker A: Put a full stop there.
[00:52:39] Speaker B: And so it's there because they are telling you the truth. This is an account. Because if this was manufactured, then not only would this almost certainly, probably not be in there, but if it was, there would be some great elaboration as to why this meant something to be in there. And probably you certainly wouldn't have a case where the chief disciple, who is Peter, he's mentioned more than any other disciple in the scriptures. He clearly has a leadership role, regardless of what denomination you are amongst the disciples.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: Very fast runner.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: But he's not a fast runner, right? So the gospels would probably say, well, Peter, you know, the great leader that he was, got there first. They wouldn't put Peter in a negative light. So this is a detail that speaks to the historical liability of what you're reading, which is. It's quite profound, I thought, alrighty, folks, that was our moment of goodness, truth and beauty, and our scriptural reflections. So, Katie, let's jump into the three questions that we have to answer from our listeners. I was about to mistakenly say, viewers, if you're viewing a podcast, that means you're at our house, and that's a problem. Looking in our windows. So, number one, when should we take our children out of church? And I was going to facetiously answer in dad joke style when church ends, but that's not what they mean, right? They mean, is there a point where children's noise. Yeah.
[00:54:05] Speaker A: Are we talking about misbehaviour and noise?
[00:54:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Much.
[00:54:08] Speaker A: Not talking about problems with church, which would be. No, no, I think it's just. It's up to every family. Right. Like, you know, if your kid is screaming the house down and father's trying to preach that, you probably should exit the building.
[00:54:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:19] Speaker A: Till they calm down.
[00:54:20] Speaker B: So, basically.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: But everybody's got their own limit. Yeah. And I think for me, as a mum, if I hear a kid crying and crying, I just think, oh, not my circus, not my monkeys. And I get on with being at church, but I try not to do the old head swivel, because you get a bit of the head swivel. And that does make people feel. Feel awkward. Sit in the front row. Row if you don't want to worry about it.
[00:54:38] Speaker B: Sometimes there does feel like a appropriate head swivel might be in order.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: Well, if you think someone might be or something.
[00:54:46] Speaker B: No, when it's gone too far.
[00:54:48] Speaker A: Not a head swivel and a glare, though, because that's.
[00:54:50] Speaker B: No, no, that's bad. We've had that.
[00:54:52] Speaker A: No combos of.
[00:54:52] Speaker B: But there are moments where children just make childhood noises, little burbles and childhood stuff. You know, that's one thing. But I think my. Probably my standard is, is it really loud and persistent?
[00:55:05] Speaker A: It's very distracting. Yeah.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: Like, it could just be a bang and then, like, ow. And then that's it.
[00:55:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:11] Speaker B: Might've been really loud. But is it persistent as well? Yeah, but they're screaming, they're crying, they've worked themselves up and they're not gonna be talked down off the ledge, so. And I see parents doing this all the time. They take up the child in their arms and they walk out the back.
[00:55:23] Speaker A: Or outside, and what I call the football. Rugby. Football, carry under the arm and away they go. They've really been misbehaving when I had the twins, that I certainly should do a double.
[00:55:33] Speaker B: One of each double rugby. Grab them by their dungarees. Right.
[00:55:36] Speaker A: Don't pull them by one, because then they'll get nursemaids out. Elbow or shoulder.
He's bad at the a and e.
[00:55:43] Speaker B: It doesn't look good. So. Yeah. I think generally, though, I think we need to have a high tolerance.
[00:55:50] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:55:50] Speaker B: I think as parishioners, we need, like, people who come to a church service, we need to have the high tolerance parents. I would advise you take a lower tolerance, and then you'll probably always be safe. But don't be scrupulous about it. Don't think, oh, my gosh, my child was making noises with a crayon on the seat. Let's take them out. No, no.
[00:56:07] Speaker A: One of our former pastors used to say, children always sound louder to their parents.
[00:56:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:56:11] Speaker A: And he was probably right.
And he would say that when I was in church with Lucy, when she was one, and it was like a very small chapel, and, you know, it's clearly quite loud.
But he was very tolerant, I think, also, like, you know, obviously, if they've injured themselves, like, there's often a time. I remember one time in church, Nathaniel was about 18 months or two, and he just had a header over the back of the pew, and there was that whole, like, bang, and then the. The silence before they yell and, you know, you know, I've got three, four.
[00:56:39] Speaker B: 5 seconds to deal with this.
[00:56:41] Speaker A: If they're not crying yet, then the crying is gonna be bad.
[00:56:44] Speaker B: Mammoth.
[00:56:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And I just had to scoop and run, really, and just keep him outside till he calmed down. And one of our lovely fellow parishioners, who's a former nurse, followed me out to make sure he was all right, which was lovely. But, yeah, I think in those instances when you know, you know that it's gonna be a bad one.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: Bad one.
[00:57:00] Speaker A: Take off. Yeah, yeah.
[00:57:01] Speaker B: I think it's about prudence, really. And I think part of it, too, is also about timing and thinking about, okay, what's the best time to be in church with the kids? Maybe you might have to adjust that. It's also about, don't, I would say, don't be afraid to even take in for younger kids anyway. Take in a little snack or something like that. Maybe something not too noisy. But if they need that to get them through church, don't be afraid of doing those, just fundamental things, because, I mean, I think we don't have evidence for this, but I'm pretty confident that if you went back to the early church, you would see this kind of thing where I think children, probably particularly younger children, they would have nursed them. They would have. They would have looked after their needs. They wouldn't have expected them to just be these sort of weirdly quiet, subservient things all the time. They would have expected them.
[00:57:49] Speaker A: And they do learn. I know it feels when you're in that season, you feel like they're not going to behave for their entire lives. But they do come to a point where they can. Eleanor's still a nightmare. A lot of the time she's still.
[00:57:59] Speaker B: She's a quiet nightmare.
[00:58:01] Speaker A: Well, except when she comes down the stairs.
[00:58:03] Speaker B: Yeah, but she's not screaming, she's not yelling.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: She's real stealthy about it.
[00:58:07] Speaker B: And she's constantly moving around in the pew.
[00:58:09] Speaker A: Can I go outside?
[00:58:10] Speaker B: Can I go outside? And she's giving you big hugs when you're trying to pray. Yeah, she's all very lovely.
[00:58:15] Speaker A: Human gymnasium situation over here, but I have taken her out recently because she was being too persistent with wanting stuff that she wasn't going to get. And she got taken out and she got a nice, quiet talking to in the corner. And then we went back into mass.
[00:58:29] Speaker B: A conversation. There shall be no.
[00:58:31] Speaker A: We had a chat about our church behaviour.
[00:58:34] Speaker B: So, yeah, I think it's just prudence plan for it. Well, I think reality. This is what the sound of a pro life church is. There will be. If there's no children's voices, then I.
[00:58:44] Speaker A: Would absolutely hate to think that a mum or a dad wasn't coming to church because their children were not behaving well enough. I think there's space in every church where you can sit quietly or you can take turns with your spouse or whatever you need to do. There will be a season where you are not in church for the whole of the service. And that's just a reality, I think. But it doesn't last forever.
[00:59:04] Speaker B: There's an interesting question sitting behind this, and I'll ask you, what do you think of crying rooms?
My opinion's changed on that.
[00:59:12] Speaker A: Has it? Interesting.
[00:59:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Cause I used to think, oh, yep, plan for them should be a good idea, but it depends on the church. Well, after having children and also talking to a couple of people, I'm like, you know what? These are people who disagreed with them. I'm like, yeah, I think they're right. I actually think they shouldn't be segregating.
[00:59:29] Speaker A: Is that like separating the congregation?
[00:59:32] Speaker B: The idea of having, like, wings or whatever that you could sit in or maybe a space down the back or something like that, and if you really, really need to. A place to go to where you can hear everything, and if they need to be taken out, that's just inevitable.
[00:59:42] Speaker A: We've got that separate room, not that we're in a church at the moment. Thank you, earthquakes. But we've got that separate room where we've got the speakers in there now, eh? So you can actually hear.
[00:59:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:51] Speaker A: What Nathaniel used to call the naughty boys room. He's quite keen on the naughty boys room to get taken in there. But that was before you could hear of it.
[00:59:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:58] Speaker A: It was a bit of a punishment because it was, like, ridiculously hot in the summer and really cold in the winter.
[01:00:02] Speaker B: But the thing is that I think the idea of crying rooms, in theory, they seem like a good.
[01:00:09] Speaker A: They don't really work because they're really loud inside the room.
[01:00:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And what I've discovered is you go in there and my experience has consistently been that they tend to become like crash rooms, not crying rooms, so they're not a legitimate purpose.
[01:00:23] Speaker A: People don't really participate in the mass when they're in there or in church.
[01:00:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Or people go to church and they don't. The crying room becomes the late room. Well, there's a spare seat and they will go in there. Or it's for people who I've seen kids just sent in there on their own, or the parents just bring them in there and they're like, let's go nuts with the toys. And in actual fact, genuine parents who are trying to comfort or feed a child and just want a quiet space, all of a sudden it's a crystal. And. Yeah. I still think there's something not quite right about that idea of segregating off families and saying, well, you got young kids, move out of the sanctuary, move out of the room and like, yeah, I don't know if I agree with that.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: I think there needs to be a space where mums might want to feed in private or quiet.
[01:01:05] Speaker B: Exactly.
[01:01:05] Speaker A: Try and get a baby to sleep or whatever.
[01:01:07] Speaker B: And this balance, you got to have balance with all things. I guess the challenge for us who are parishioners now, I mean, our kids are a bit older, so we don't have that same noise inducing issue with our family. But what we need to be now careful of is not passing judgment.
[01:01:20] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:01:20] Speaker B: On others, because that can happen. You can forget very quickly and you can think, oh, why aren't they dealing with that problem child when it's just a kid who needs a little bit of extra love and care? And why shouldn't they be with the.
[01:01:30] Speaker A: Wishes and, oh, my goodness, you've got no idea what those parents probably went through to get to church that morning. Like, you know, if that's how it is at church, then it was probably a lot worse getting out the door. So a little bit of grace, eh?
[01:01:41] Speaker B: Well, I'd say too, this is part of the problem with liberalism because liberalism thinks that we are all individuals, including when we come to faith, we're not. The authentic christian tradition is that you actually come into a relationship with Christ and his faith community. The bride, the church, and that means the people, the families, they're all part of that. So it's not just you and what you want out of church, it's you and the community together worshipping. And that includes people who are little and who make a little bit of noise. Question number two. Gosh, one extreme to the other, from making noise to not enough noise. How do you communicate with teenage boys?
[01:02:15] Speaker A: I used to giggle when I saw this one because I was like, I don't at the moment. Yeah, choose not to.
It's, Nathaniel's still a couple of years off that. Although there's definitely some pre teeny behavior.
[01:02:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:02:26] Speaker A: Starting to happen. Yeah. But I did have three brothers growing up, so.
[01:02:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:31] Speaker A: My first piece of advice is first you need to go and learn grunt 101 so you can communicate.
[01:02:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:38] Speaker A: On the level.
[01:02:40] Speaker B: What time is it?
[01:02:43] Speaker A: My brothers were teenagers.
[01:02:45] Speaker B: Grunting.
[01:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah, they're grunting. But you might have more advice because you have been a teenage boy and have four brothers.
[01:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's interesting. I think there is a bit of a myth here, the stereotype of the teenage boy. There are certain traits that you've already alluded to that are consistent, that often or will appear at different times. But I think the stereotypical teenage boy who locks himself in his room, sleeps in.
[01:03:10] Speaker A: Sprays links everywhere.
[01:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah, sprays links everywhere. Grunts all the time. Doesn't really want to communicate. I'm not convinced that that is actually a consistent pattern of behavior for most teenage boys. I think a big part of it is that you've got to actually build a lot of the prior relationship work before they get to that stage. So that there is a sort of a sense of expectation that, hey, dad or mum just sort of bowls on in any time and says hi, and they sit on the end of my bed and they chat to me. And then when I'm a teenager they keep doing that. It's not like I've been left alone. And now I will now establish my own kingdom of loneliness and, you know, shut the door and they're out. So I think part of it is establishing boundaries and expectations. Well, before you get to that point, I think another factor in this is also having community for teenage boys. Like they're in community with other members of the family, their siblings, like, if they all just go separate to their separate spaces and never the twain shall meet, and maybe only at dinner times, then, yeah, you're probably gonna get that teenage boy access because it's just easy, males in general, it's just easy not to communicate, not to be in community, just to do your own thing. But the way to actually, I think, promote a more beautiful alternative is to actually work hard at having sibling community.
And that's, I think, as parents, we've got to do that.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[01:04:28] Speaker B: But if you do have a problem with a teenage boy who's non communicative, you've actually got to communicate with them. And so part of it, I think, first of all, is you've got to find an appropriate time. Don't do it at the wrong time because it'll probably blow up in your.
[01:04:40] Speaker A: Face when they're hungry.
[01:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Just before dinner, an appropriate time. And at that appropriate time, communicate with them honestly. Say, look, hey, your mum and I, we're a little bit worried, or your dad and I were a little bit worried. We feel a little bit like we don't hear much from you anymore or you're constantly locking yourself in your room. And so we feel this needs to change. And if you need to have some rules too, just be upfront about that.
[01:05:01] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:05:02] Speaker B: And don't be surprised. You're gonna get a reaction, probably. And that reaction may not be pleasant. So don't worry about first reactions. You've just got to move beyond that. Keep loving them and keep those clear boundaries in place, because they will move beyond that and it will change, and they will be grateful eventually for that, as opposed to being left without boundaries and being left alone. And I think the other thing that you've got to do is you've also got to figure out, okay, where. Where can we find common ground?
What is it that they do? Or what is it that we can do together? Maybe it doesn't have to be something as naff as like, right. I'm going to insert myself into their hobbies. They like Xbox, I will learn the Xbox, too. And it's very weird and inauthentic. It might be a completely different activity that you can find to do together and do that thing regularly. So the channels of communication are open people, often times available, right?
[01:05:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:05:57] Speaker B: It's not just about a willingness to communicate. You and I have a willingness to communicate, but if we don't dedicate ourselves to the channels, the places and spaces where you can communicate, then the communication won't happen. Even though we're willing for it to happen.
[01:06:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:06:08] Speaker B: So. So the same with teenage boys. And I think I would. One last thing I'd say is, don't be afraid. You. I heard some great advice a couple of years ago and I think it's. It was pretty blunt, but I think it's spot on. There are periods of your child's life, particularly through the teenage years, where you just have to accept the fact that you aren't going to be their friend. You have to be the police officer.
[01:06:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:06:30] Speaker B: And you've just got to suck it up, buttercup, and accept, oh, gosh, I don't like that this is the case. I really wish it was much more pleasant and amiable, but in actual fact, I have a responsibility as the parent and I'm going to have to be the police officer for a few years. But don't worry, they will come out of it. All of us teenage boys, we come out of it, you know, we do.
[01:06:51] Speaker A: Came out the other side. Someone that I follow on instagram in the states, she has, her third child has just turned 16, I think was either 14 or 16. Anyway, she posted all these photos of him as, like a kid, like a, you know, young little kid, like, absolute terror. The time that she had to saw him out of the bunk beds because he'd inserted himself between the slats and, like, his face covered in mud. She said, he was never not muddy. And she said, now he's a teenager.
[01:07:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:18] Speaker A: And he's grown up and there's always pictures of him with his sisters and hanging out. And she said, look, he's not perfect, but he is becoming an amazing man. And I think, yeah, you've just got to know that there's that on the other side of it. Yeah. I think one of the things that you do really well, and hopefully you'll continue to do this, is making sure that Nathaniel knows that you're proud of him, that we see his goodness, that we see the beauty of what God has made in him because he can be quite down on himself and that's probably only going to get more as he becomes a surly teenager. He just has those. Those moments where he doesn't share with us everything he's thinking, which is normal for teenagers.
[01:07:56] Speaker B: Well, I'd say, too, if you're listening and you're in a situation where you've got the very difficult and tragic situation of not having a dad in the home with a teenage boy, you do need to be aware of the fact that teenage boys and their mums, they do go through a bit of a phase, and it's important to try and figure out, okay, how can I get some male role modeling if dad's not there for whatever reason, or he's not reliable for whatever reason? How do I get some good male role modeling where this older bloke is actually gonna do a bit of mentoring and he's gonna have the, if you like, the social credit that I don't have right now, they will come to love you later. But in that moment, they often think, well, mum doesn't get me. Mum doesn't understand me. And I think one thing I think is really important for mums is be careful. Cause you can overmother. And, look, boys, I've seen it with you. You love Nathaniel. There's something about mums and their boys. They love their daughter as well, obviously, but there's something about mums and their boys, and it's a beautiful thing. But the danger, I think, through the teenage years is it sort of becomes, we know that old story, right? The overbearing mother. That is a real thing. That's why that stereotype exists, because it is a real thing and it's a trap. And what can happen is the son is not getting enough input from his dad in those key moments because the dad thinks, oh, well, you know, mum's got this, or I'm not welcome, whatever it is. So dads, step up. Mums, be careful that you sort of allow the space for that, and the dynamic of the relationship will change. He's not your little boy anymore, but trust me, he will be your big little boy one day soon. He'll come back to that. But, yeah, it's important that they have men in their lives. I've seen situations, sadly, I talked to someone recently, actually, at an event, and they were talking, in a way about their dad that wasn't healthy. And I knew their dad, and I knew that what they were saying was not fear. And so I just said it was. You know, there was a question and answer conversation going on, and I said, look, don't be afraid to actually cut your dad some slack. No man is perfect. He's doing his best. I know your dad, and he's not a bad fella. And I know from your perspective, he might not be the perfect dad. But, you know, the simple truth is, I know your dad, and I know he's trying. So cut him some slack, because one day you'll be probably in his situation. And so the reason I tell that story is because what had happened was you could see that the mother had had to take a stronger influence in the life of that young lad just because of circumstance. And unfortunately, as a result, he'd sort of started to look at his dad as if he wasn't really necessary or was not quite getting it right, and that wasn't really the case. And so you just gotta be careful around that kind of stuff. Dads, you really need to step up. You just need to. So what you can't do is you can't turn around and say, oh, look, you're overbearing, and then do nothing. Because what is your wife supposed to do? Abandon her child as you sit on the couch and do nothing? Don't be stupid. Get off the couch. Get involved.
[01:10:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:10:54] Speaker B: So, yeah, that would be our advice, I suppose, in a nutshell.
[01:10:56] Speaker A: I mean, ask us again in a few years. Might be completely different.
[01:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, we might have completely changed.
Someone please tell us what to do. We'll delete this. Episode number three, final question. How do we respond to teenagers who believe popular myths about overpopulation? So I guess they've gone to school, or they've been on social media and they've seen some YouTube video, and someone said, oh, the world is overpopulated. We're all gonna die if we don't stop having people babies. You know, get your fur babies instead. You know, something like that. And they've gone, oh, man, it's scary out there. We're gonna die. How do you respond to that caddy?
[01:11:29] Speaker A: Well, you start by saying, what makes you think that's true?
[01:11:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great place. A question is always good. And that question I always ask a.
[01:11:37] Speaker A: Million dollars, I don't have the answer. So then I say, and what do you think about that, Brendan?
Have you got some hard dial for ask your father? He's read lots of books about that.
[01:11:46] Speaker B: What do you think your dad would say about that?
[01:11:49] Speaker A: What I said about that book he read?
[01:11:51] Speaker B: Well, yeah, that is true. You need to arm yourself. Obviously, overpopulation is a myth. We are, in fact, heading towards, and I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but we are heading into a demographic winter, and we have known this for several decades now. So there's no excuse for the fact that there are still media and individuals and teachers and curriculum. I've seen this. You still hear it preaching. And I'm like, they complain about the education sector and what's not going on. And I'm like, dude, you are literally teaching my kid a complete fabrication that is not backed by any evidence. Whatsoever was based on a flawed prediction. From 1968, a guy called Paul Elric published a book called the Population Bomb, which got all of the data wrong. And things. Not only was he wrong, but things have changed massively since then in food technology and other things as well. And the data now shows us we are heading into a major demographic winter that is going to have absolute carnage for the world.
[01:12:48] Speaker A: And everybody's watching climate change.
[01:12:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And so I think why overpopulation got a resurgence was precisely because of climate scare mongering and people who meant well but just became fear mongers. If we just sell them fear porn, maybe they'll take the action we want them to take, you know? And that became a convenience. There's too many people. Funnily enough, actually, I talked about this on a recent podcast episode. So if you're a patron, this is a good reason to become a patron. You would have actually heard this episode. There's a brand new, or some new data has been revealed about this study that was breathlessly touted by the media. And like a couple of years ago, everyone was talking about the worst thing you can do for the environment is have a child. And the best thing you could do, and it talked about all these tens of thousands of carbon emissions you would reduce just by not having a child. Yeah, they stuffed up. The study was wrong. In fact, they didn't stuff up. They lied effectively. You look at the study and what they did and how they treated the data, they were wrong. And what they did was in that study was they looked at, okay, if you have a child, that child will have a child, and then I have another child. And they. They counted out almost like, I think, a thousand generations or something absurd, and said, you now, Katie Malone, the mother of child a, who went on to produce a whole lineage of people over hundreds of years, all of that carbon is on you. So it's not actually the child emitting the carbon, it's hundreds of people emitting the carbon. It was just unbelievably shocking. So there's a lot of that population narrative myth. There's antinatalists out there who just hate kids and they're out there. And sadly, there are people in our schools, misinformed people who think they know what they're talking about. They don't. So you gotta arm yourself a bit with a few facts. But you're right. Ask questions. Where did that idea come from? Why do you think that's true? Have you considered this piece of evidence? Have you considered this?
My general experience now is that young people are a bit more savvy with some of these nonsense stories.
[01:14:36] Speaker A: Yes, because there's a general scepticism.
[01:14:38] Speaker B: So they're just, sadly they don't believe anything. But, but they also like, nah, don't believe that because the man, the establishment's trying to sell me the myth now.
[01:14:45] Speaker A: Tell me what to think.
[01:14:46] Speaker B: But, but yeah, it is an issue. I would also say if you're a parent and that the, the child that you're talking to says, well, they told us this in school, I would say, don't be afraid. You should do this as a parent. You've got every right to do this. It's a very appropriate, responsible thing to go to the school and say, hey, look, I just want to let you know, principal, principal Smith, that one of your teachers here in social studies or science or whatever has been teaching children this particular claim here, it's not true. This is misinformation and you're teaching it in your school and give them a bit of solid reading material, not conspiracy kooky theory stuff, but actual solid research. There's plenty of good stuff out there, good books on this.
There's plenty of, in fact, a couple of really good population decline books that have recently been written on this topic. And so say, look, you need to actually correct this because my kid came home and they, I think the more.
[01:15:38] Speaker A: Likely scenario is that they've probably seen it on Insta or another form of social media. So in which case you need to be aware that the more they watch of it, the more the algorithm will show them videos of the same and probably will go well beyond overpopulation, but encourage them to look at other sources to have a balanced viewing on this.
[01:16:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I think another thing too that Christianity gives us, which is quite a powerful weapon in this.
And I try to reggie too, with my kids, use this and say, look, don't let fear govern your life. There's too much fear and there's too much fear porn. And we know this generation is being targeted by the ideologues with this stuff. And we know from the data there's several studies that have come out in the last couple of years showing their anxiety levels are through the roof and it is being directly traced back to, particularly climate alarmism and fear about the world. And I think what's happening here is it's not that there's this sort of scare mongering. There's nothing new about scaremongering. What is new though is we're now living in a culture where most people don't have a sacred, transcendent vision of reality, so they have no way to process that. They have no sense of an eternal perspective. They have no hope. So for the first time, all of these young people don't have a stable adult or two in the family home who has hope, who can actually bring them through this. So all they've got is a whole family of people freaking out and saying, yeah, yeah, the climate's going to kill us. We better do something all the time. And so I think what we need to do is actually bring christian hope into this and just remind people, I did this recently with my kids. I don't know how well received it was, but I said to one of my daughters, she was freaking out about something really, she didn't need to. And I said, look, daughter, I won't use her name for the sake of charity. The reality is we're all going to die one day. You can't change that. So worrying, as the gospel say, who of you can add a single hour to your life by worrying? And she was like, oh, dude, that's not helpful. But it actually kind of was. And don't be afraid to break that hoodoo and actually say, you know what? We're not going to talk about climate change today. We're going to be together as a family and we're going to pray and we're going to do other things which help calm us and give us perspective and bring goodness, truth and beauty into our hearts and minds and family life, you know. So break the shackle as well.
[01:17:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
[01:17:56] Speaker B: I think that's all we want to say on that caddy.
[01:17:58] Speaker A: I think so.
[01:17:58] Speaker B: So another episode in the can, as they say. Thanks folks. Don't forget, subscribe. If you haven't already, subscribe whatever platform that you're listening on. If you can, give the show a rating that already. Speaking of the algorithm, yeah, that helps the show. So give us a rating if you can. And some stars, please share this with your friends and family. Let them know it's word of mouth that really helps podcasts. So please tell other people, say, hey, look, we enjoy this podcast. You should listen too. And if you want to support our work, patreon.com leftfootmedia the link is in today's show notes, and if you become a $5 monthly patron, you will also get the added bonus of a daily Monday to Friday podcast for our Patrons or Lifenet.org dot NZ and you can contribute, make a one off donation or become a regular AP donor. We really need that support for our ministry. Things are growing, but we need to keep growing and that requires your generous support. So please, if you're getting benefit from our ministry, we'd really appreciate you just doing whatever you can to help ensure that it keeps flourishing. Lastly, if you've got questions, send them in to us the littleflockpodcast.org or lifenet.org dot nz and at the top of page you'll see the links there. For all of that, well done.
[01:19:03] Speaker A: Take a breath through your notices.
[01:19:04] Speaker B: I did. I think I only took about a minute too.
[01:19:06] Speaker A: We get shorter every time.
[01:19:07] Speaker B: Do you get annoyed at podcasts? The notice is probably the least enjoyable part.
Thank you.
[01:19:14] Speaker A: They're okay.
[01:19:15] Speaker B: You are very kind to me.
So yeah. Anything you want to say to wrap us up?
[01:19:21] Speaker A: No, we're good.
[01:19:22] Speaker B: Enjoy the autumn.
[01:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah, the leaves, those of you that are in autumn, the fire imagining we.
[01:19:27] Speaker B: Have international listeners, the fire in the trees. Thanks for tuning in, folks. We will see you next time on the little flock. In the meantime, don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies, and we'll see you next time on the show.
[01:19:39] Speaker A: See you then.
The little flock is a joint production of the life net charitable trust and leftfoot media.
[01:19:53] Speaker B: If you enjoyed this show, then please help us to ensure that more of this great content keeps getting made by becoming a patron of the
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LeftfootMedia thanks for listening.
[01:20:05] Speaker A: See you next time on the little flock.
