(292)S11E9/14: Discipleship - The Propaganda Slayer
Welcome back to the Fourth Wave Podcast. We have spent a lot of time now digging into the topic of propaganda. We've taken a look at how propaganda manifests itself in a multitude of situations, ranging from its use by the small scale domestic abusers all the way up to the biggest abuser of them all, government. I think it's all been a worthwhile journey, but it will have been a pointless one if we leave the case in the negative form. If we have delved into the dark recesses of power, control, abuse, and manipulation only to remain there, it might give us a realistic view of the world that is, but it wouldn't grant us a desire for what could and ought to be.
Derek:To leave the discussion in the negative form would be to leave the world as it is right now, dark and unchanged. That's not at all my intention, to leave the world as it is. Though I do think seeing what truly is is a vital first step. Because I think offering up the positive form of this discussion is vital, I've tried to provide a brief glimpse of hope throughout the season. And I've mentioned over and over again that I think discipleship is the antithesis to propaganda, the silver bullet that has the potential to kill propaganda, but also the tiny seed we need in order to bring forth flourishing life.
Derek:I think discipleship is the light that destroys the darkness, the key that unlocks our shackles. I hate making such strong claims, but I really do think discipleship lives up to them. And for as dark and depressing as propaganda is, with all of its tendrils wrapped around every institution and outlet of life, I believe that discipleship has 10 times the force. So with hope in hand, let's unpack the positive form of the propaganda discussion. Let's discuss the propaganda killer, discipleship.
Derek:Discipleship as counter propaganda didn't initially seem apparent to me. And that's because on its face, discipleship seems like just another word for propaganda. It's just I call it something else because it's propaganda that I think is true. I mean, propaganda's goal is to get you to conform to a group. Right?
Derek:To teach you particular ideas and get you to comport with the said group. Right? Isn't that the same thing that discipleship does? Getting you to comport with the group? But I knew that if Christianity is true, then God is not a manipulative propagandist who'd want to fearmonger us into making a choice that serves him out of our own self interest.
Derek:So I studied, I read, and I thought more and more about what seemed like Christian propaganda, this notion of discipleship, until I actually ended up concluding that discipleship isn't only not propaganda, it's actually counter propaganda. It's a way of seeing and moving in the world which cuts through lies and manipulation. So, again, strong claims, I know. If you've got thoughts of inquisitions, crusades, or conservative insurrections in your mind, I understand. But, hopefully, you can hear me out in this episode.
Derek:And, hopefully, my argument for discipleship lives up to half the hype that I've stirred up. If it does, then I think there's hope. So let's jump into the episode and begin by looking at how Christian discipleship differs from propagandistic manipulation and formation. First, discipleship is invitational, whereas propaganda is compunctional. Now there's a word I don't use too much, compunctional.
Derek:Actually, I don't know if that's a word at all, but it fits, and you get the point. Discipleship invites to something positive, to a new road, or to a new life. It calls one onto a journey, or as Bonhoeffer termed it, a life together. Propaganda, on the other hand, almost always involves compunction. It creates anxiety or guilt within an individual in hopes that this compunction will cause them to fall in line.
Derek:We've explored a plethora of ways that propaganda does this as it creates or exaggerates some dilemma. Then it offers itself up as the solution and savior, if only you'll join the cause. True Christlike discipleship is not like this propaganda. If you look at the message of the New Testament, you find that discipleship is an invitation. While many modern Christians have propagandized the message of the gospel by stirring up a fear of hell and potential proselytes, hell wasn't at all a part of the original gospel message or at least a a very small part of it, if you wanna try to make it out to be.
Derek:The salvation being offered in the New Testament, at least as far as it's depicted to us, wasn't some gooey mystical religiosity focused on the distant future when we'd all be resurrected on some ethereal plane with wings on our backs and harps in hand. And we certainly get glimpses of the necessity of a future hope, a hope of which a resurrected Jesus is the promise and first fruits. But that future promise was not a promise of some future kingdom only, but rather a promise that the kingdom which had already come would be vindicated and fully obtained as history played out. Time and time again, we see that Jesus brought the kingdom. The kingdom of God is at hand or preach the kingdom.
Derek:When Jesus sent his disciples out for the first time, two by two, he told them to proclaim not future salvation after we die, but rather to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Now that's a down to earth, taste it and know it kind of message. The kingdom is here. And as proof, have your body healed so you can live in it some more and see it coming to fruition day by day. True Christianity is focused on discipleship, not conversion, and a lot of Christians get this wrong.
Derek:They think the great commission tells Christians to preach the gospel and get a lot of of other people to make intellectual decisions and pray prayers of repentance to avoid some fiery afterlife in the distant future. But that's not at all what the great commission says. Jesus didn't care about converts. In fact, he seemed to despise them. He He knew more than anyone else that intellectual decisions are fleeting and meaningless.
Derek:In fact, we get a glimpse of this at the end of John two where Jesus recognizes that intellectual ascent is pointless on its own. John writes at the end of the chapter, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name, but Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person. Time and time again, Jesus had those who at one time proclaimed his name, turn on him, and walk away. He even says that there are many who will say that they knew Jesus, yet Jesus will deny knowing them.
Derek:Intellectual ascent is meaningless without heart ascent, and the formation of the heart is what discipleship is all about. Propaganda relies on fear to get you into its kingdom and to keep you there. Christian discipleship focuses on forming our loves and getting us to desire the kingdom. Discipleship is meant to give us glimpses and tastes of what the world should, could, and will be, and it calls us to lovingly live out the kingdom so that others can taste it and see it too, and to come willingly to it because they want to. True Christian discipleship invites others in to share, while propaganda tends to push people in by creating compunction.
Derek:A second distinction between discipleship and propaganda is that discipleship tends to be relational, whereas propaganda tends to be distancing. Or maybe we could say that discipleship is more egalitarian, while propaganda is more authoritarian, or discipleship is inverted, whereas propaganda is hierarchical, however you wanna phrase it. My favorite depiction of true discipleship is this idea of the upside down kingdom. When you think of authority or hierarchy, you tend to think of a pyramid where the majority who are less important or weaker are at the bottom, the base, and the leader or authority figure is at the top. But Christian discipleship inverts this pyramid and places the leader at the bottom.
Derek:Rather than standing on the shoulders of those below him or her, the leader elevates everyone else. We see this a number of times in Jesus' ministry, when he performed the job of a slave and washed his disciples feet, when he said that the last will be first and the first last, and when he said that the one who served and the least and the lost, the naked, the poor, the prisoner, that this was serving Jesus himself, the king and creator of the universe. True Christian discipleship isn't some mystic initiation right that gets one deeper and deeper into an inner circle of knowledge and benefits. Rather, Christian discipleship calls one more and more to a life of outward focus and self sacrifice. Compare this to being propagandized.
Derek:Propaganda creates fear and anxiety and calls one more and more to polarization. It calls one to get deeper into party politics and policies and to entrench oneself, to fortify the palisades, to build the moats. While propaganda may create a deeper solidarity of relationship in group, the relationship and, quote, love it produces is not an affinity for the other as an other. It produces a love and an affinity for an ideology, your ideology, and a love for other only insofar as they conform to this ideology. The propagandized don't really love the people in their group.
Derek:That's made apparent by the fact that they're willing to sacrifice anyone in the group as soon as their ideas change. John Howard Yoder was the first who pointed this out to me in his book, the politics of Jesus, as he said that it's the people in your own group that often end up requiring you to bear your cross. Nobody's hated more than a perceived traitor. Don't forget that it was Jesus's own people and peers, other rabbis and religious leaders who sought out death for Jesus. The Romans may have killed him, but they did it at the behest of the Jewish leaders.
Derek:Here's another quick example of what I envision this potentially looking like for those who may have a problem understanding in, in maybe the real world, the modern world. And I've shared this story a number of times before, but I think it illustrates this point well. So I'll share it again. So a while back, a couple years ago, some year or two into President Trump's presidency, my wife and I got taken out by this, this leader, missions leader from one of the churches that supports us. So they took us out to Chick fil A, of course, the, you know, Christian restaurant.
Derek:And, and we're sitting there, and they they start to tell us how there are people who have complained, because my wife had posted something on Facebook about President Trump. And it was something like he had said some horribly derogatory stuff like, you know, I don't know, get them out of the country and talking about the some of the the women politicians, I think AOC and all that other stuff. But just the the way that he talked to people and, just the the language that he used and and all that kind of stuff, she just said, hey. Look, guys. Now I whoever you voted for, right, if this is your candidate, like, let's at least hold people accountable.
Derek:And this is this is after, of course, we know that President Trump, the way that he talked, about grabbing women by the private parts, was dismissed by our group as, oh, that's just locker room talk. You know, all guys do that kind of stuff. So all my wife did was say, we need to hold people accountable. Even if he's your candidate, you need to hold him accountable. Like, let's not excuse these kinds of things, because, like, as Christians, we're held to a higher standard.
Derek:Like, we need to have integrity. Right? Well, anyway, because, we did not 100% fall in line with President Trump, We didn't agree with everything that he said. We, asked people to hold him accountable in his, you know, actions towards others that are unloving, all that kind of stuff. Because of that, there were people at this church who questioned whether they should support us because it was unclear to some of them, like, how how we could be Christians.
Derek:And that conversation was just rife with, cringe worthy moments. And I don't get I don't get, too upset or emotional very often, but I was just inside, I was so furious. Because we eventually we we had gotten to the the topic, I guess. The the individual who took us out did most of the talking, and he's trying to explain it, you know, soften everything that he's saying. And so as he's talking, he's like, you know, I know that not all political candidates are are the greatest.
Derek:And he he started talking about racism and that kind of stuff. But he said, you know, back, I remember, back in the seventies or whenever it was, when we turned people away from, black people away from our church. And he said, you know, that that wasn't good, but things are are so much different now. We have a black congregant now. So so he did that whole, like, well, I have a black friend type of thing to just say, like, well, you know, I will wave away racism, the existence of racism, past church actions, current political racism, and and issues, in in our party, his party, political party.
Derek:And it was just disgusting. It was it was gross. And that's what I was furious about. Okay. If a church doesn't wanna support us, they don't have to support us.
Derek:But it just made me furious that there's this this just lack complete and utter lack of integrity, and this this complete, bamboozlement of of the church to a political party, to a political individual. It was just disgusting and infuriating. I was so mad. But, anyway, you know, who we were, Catalina and I, what we stood for, the work that we were doing and had done, none of that mattered at that moment. It didn't matter to this church because we didn't fall in line with Trump.
Derek:Conservative propaganda evoked raging fear within this supporting church. It caused them to close the gates and man the towers behind this conservative ideology, this figurehead. It created in them a hierarchy of authority. Whatever Trump said and did was either gospel truth, or if it was bad, it was dismissed as hyperbole, locker room talk, whatever else you wanna call it. Sure.
Derek:The supporting church wanted us to bow the knee to Christ, but we also had to bow it to Trump if we wanted to get along. Trump and Jesus became practically one in the same metric for salvation, because when we questioned Trump, our Christianity was questioned. The structure of discipleship versus propaganda here that we're we're discussing is extremely profound. And in my opinion, this aspect may be one of the hallmarks that helps us to identify whether an institution of a family and individual, your church is propagandized and propagandizing, or whether it's discipled or discipling. While Jesus was given all authority in heaven and earth by God the father, he kinetically emptied himself and laid down his life for us, as Philippians two so beautifully shows us.
Derek:He had no problem grabbing a towel, washing feet, touching the unclean, and going to parties with tax collectors and sinners. Meanwhile, the Jewish leaders were behind their entrenchments hurling stones at Jesus and the adulteresses out there. Good propaganda doesn't have a category for the laying down of power, for stooping beside a sinner to write in the sand, or for refusing to participate with the imperial power structure. This is because, as we've seen from the first episode on, propaganda focuses on exerting one of the three main forms of power, specifically information. Information is really just a facade for violence, and the violence ultimately erupts when the facade fails to hold.
Derek:To abdicate from a seat of power or to have the ideological head show weakness is anathema to good propaganda. It cracks the facade. Doing something like questioning a political candidate for one's group by questioning the power structure, that cracks the facade, and they can't have that. For Jesus, it was perfectly fine to make cracks on the surface because it exposed that underneath lay the bedrock of truth. But propaganda isn't built on bedrock and therefore has to maintain the power that hierarchy and distancing provide.
Derek:Don't get too close to competing narratives or those who are other than us. Don't question. Because if you do, the lies may be exposed. Propagandists and their acolytes can't have that happen, And, therefore, they'll sacrifice you as soon as they can should you question them or change your ideology. A third difference between discipleship and propaganda is that discipleship models inclusion, while propaganda models exclusion.
Derek:I think this is probably the aspect of Christian discipleship that most non Christians get wrong about Christianity. Christianity, unlike many other religions, is indeed exclusive in the sense that it makes truth claims, which are either true or false. Either Jesus is Lord or he's not. If Jesus is the way, then other ways are not. There's definitely exclusivity in Christianity, and that makes it seem like it's an exclusive religion.
Derek:Makes sense. Yet when you dig into Christian beliefs and actions, particularly the actions of the anti Nicene church, you find that Christianity has a strong focus on including those who are considered outsiders and other. Christians were well known for going to those despised in society, for taking care of the poor, for taking in abandoned and deformed infants, caring for plague victims when everyone else was fleeing, or even loving their persecutors. Christian discipleship leads to incarnation and mission that seeks to include all people. Compare this to groups that are propagandized, which today includes many Christian churches who aren't following the gospel model.
Derek:Propagandists and abusers often, one in the same type, seek to isolate their victims from dissenting voices. Isolation and separation also work to create fear, as is so clearly seen in the way that racism was used to perpetuate slavery by viewing other as inferior or as a threat. We even see this principle of exclusion in video games, though to a more trivial degree, of course. Are you a Sony gamer or an Xbox gamer? There are actually people who draw lines in the sand based on which console one prefers to play or whether or not one owns a console at all and instead plays games on a PC.
Derek:The video game industry has been happy to feed this type of consumerism too, to create brand identity and following. They feed this cult following in a variety of ways, perhaps most effectively in the way that they seek to acquire certain game titles to be exclusive to their system. If system. If there's a game you wanna play, but it's only on PlayStation, then you might fear missing out on that experience if you buy an Xbox. Perhaps that fear will make you see the light and convert to Sonyism.
Derek:Propaganda relies on a fear of being on the outside and a desire for being on the inside. I think exploring the way this threat of isolation works out in regard to parenting might be helpful too, because I think we parents can often act as propagandists more than we act as disciplers. At least, I know that's true of me. There are a lot of times my kids do something that I don't want them to do, and I just really want them to comport. Sure.
Derek:I want my kid to grow up and be a decent human being. I would love a good life for them. But if I'm honest with myself, there's plenty of my desire for their well-being, which comes from me wanting others to think that I did a good job raising my kid. There's a lot of pride and self interest that seems to be mingled in with parenting. I love my kids, but in having kids, I also see more and more how much I love myself.
Derek:I mean, I've gotten on to my kids several times already for interrupting me while writing up the script for this episode. Can't they see that I'm busy doing important things, like trying to work on my podcast so others can learn how important being a good discipler is? Yeah. Doing this episode has been convicting. So please don't hear me saying that I've got this down.
Derek:Not even close. Anyway, ideal parenting, ideal discipleship is when I make my parenting relational and focused on my child's well-being. Let's all be honest again. There are a lot of times that we just want our kids to comport, especially if we're out in public or around those we perceive as good parents who we really wanna impress and they always have it together. I want immediate obedience.
Derek:I want my kids to be good little puppets for my sake, not just for theirs. Probably more for my sake. Now this type of parenting brings with it external motivators. Fear through threats of what might get taken away or fear of missing out on some reward if the kids don't meet expectations. Rather than teaching my kids honor, respect, obedience, and love, rather than discipling them, I end up trying to manipulate them so I can have some peace and save face.
Derek:That manipulation is akin to the propaganda route that we've seen implemented throughout the season. The discipleship route, on the other hand, seeks first the well-being and formation of the other. In the case of parenting, this other is one's own kids. When I'm parenting the right way, when I'm discipling my kids, we tend to use the idea of the circle of blessing. There's this imaginary circle that we're all in.
Derek:And when we stay in that circle, there tends to be blessing. When we step outside of it, there are often consequences. For instance, if I have a child who's continuing to be loud and disruptive at the table, I can yell at them and demand, them to just comport, or I can demean them. Tell them that they always disrupt our meals, or any other number of things that make them feel like they're other. You know, they're not one of us.
Derek:They don't fit in. They need to to to comport. We can make them feel like the rest of the family is a group that they've just separated themselves from, and they know it because we're humiliating them. We're treating them not with love, but like one who's on the outside. This shame and humiliation and fear may drive them back to obedience, a comporting with our mealtime standards.
Derek:I can definitely do that, and I'm not gonna say that I've never done it. But I could also choose a different option. I could choose to train my child, not just train their base actions, but train their desires and understanding of actions. I can talk to them about being in the circle of blessing. We talk about how interrupting others can hurt their feelings and cause them to become angry or sad.
Derek:How these feelings that they they cause in other people can escalate to become retaliation or a loss of trust or relationship. How mommy and daddy need to be able to talk to have a good relationship so we can care for the kids. And mealtimes are when a lot of our important and ordered conversations happen as a family. We can discuss how peers will be frustrated, and it will be harder to make friends if if they don't learn to control their speech. I mean, the list could go on, and it really just depends on your family circumstances at the moment and each child's, age and personality in regard to how you wanna address it.
Derek:But we help our kids to understand what their actions lead to outside of the circle of blessing and how we can try to work on remaining in that circle. We're not kicking them out of the circle. They're placing themselves outside of that circle through their actions. This isn't an evocation of external motivators. You'll get candy or TV if you obey or a spank if you don't.
Derek:It doesn't artificially toss them out of the circle or artificially try to draw them back into it through rewards or punishments. It's helping them to understand what their actions lead to and are working together to form good actions and habits. It's not some consequentialist discussion where I tell my kids that their actions are bad because they lead to bad results. Rather, it's eudemonic. Their actions aren't bad because the consequences are bad, but rather doing bad or disobedient or rude or unthoughtful things tends to lead to bad results.
Derek:True discipleship isn't centered around using external motivators, but rather it's about peeling back the fabric of reality to see the truth of how the world works. Teaching our disciples, our kids, how true reality functions, and then inviting, not threatening them back into the circle of blessing that tends to exist when one lives their lives in line with the grain of the universe that a good and orderly God created. Yet I implement the circle of blessing thing less often than I like. Why? Because it's time consuming.
Derek:Sometimes you can have conversations and role playing that take over an hour. I don't wanna take an hour out of my day to form my kid. I just want them to comply so that we can get to tomorrow. But when I remember that parenting is discipleship, that my goal is to lay down my life and to invite the other into that circle of blessing, not because I want them to convert to my team or because it will make my life easier, but because I love them and I want blessing for them. When I do that, then I end up stepping into the circle of blessing myself, and parenting becomes more of a joy and tends to run more smoothly.
Derek:True discipleship is able to focus on other as subject, on those outside of one circle, rather than viewing other as objects to manipulate for my good or impediments to remove for my ease. Finally, a fourth difference between discipleship and propaganda is that discipleship tends to be a flexible, growth oriented endeavor, whereas propaganda tends to be rigid and entrenching. This particular point plays into the idea that we've talked about this season where we discussed that a key aspect of propaganda is its polarization. It always tends to polarize. Propaganda only cares about one's decision, which leads to action.
Derek:In that sense, propaganda is an all or nothing endeavor. You either buy into the propaganda, into the group, or you don't. It has rigid boundary lines. We saw this type of thing after nine eleven in The States, which is something that we've seen during many other wars throughout US history, most notably World War one. But if one spoke out against the war or if one was not anti Islamic, then that individual was an American.
Derek:And in Christian circles, that person was probably not really a Christian because Christianity and Americanism were supposedly so connected. We saw the same thing, with the story I just told you a few minutes ago about our church, that supported us and the the strong lines in the sand that even just asking for integrity in regard to one's own political candidate caused rifts. Right? There are rigid boundary lines. Good, strong propaganda doesn't allow for differences of opinion or nuance in situations.
Derek:There are rigid boundary lines. Compare this aspect of propaganda to discipleship. Discipleship allows for flexibility because it's not focused on defending and entrenching the position of the propagandist. Rather, discipleship is oriented around growth and movement, the growth and movement of the disciple. You can see this type of thing a lot when you look at the ministry of Jesus.
Derek:The disciples are depicted as screwing up all the time, not understanding what Jesus is saying. And Peter's even associated with Satan at one point when Jesus says to him, get thee behind me, Satan. I mean, Peter alone shows a wide range of screw ups. He fails to keep his eyes on Jesus and falls into the water. He tempts Jesus to refuse God's plan, and he betrays Jesus in his last hours.
Derek:Peter definitely crossed the line. Right? He should be out. What kind of a disciple is he? Yeah.
Derek:Jesus didn't see disciples as an immediate all or nothing endeavor. He allowed room for Peter's growth. He met Peter where he was at, wherever he was at at any individual moment. While Peter screwed up and even betrayed Jesus, he also was the first one to declare Jesus lord, the first and only one to step out of the boat onto water, the first and probably only one to draw a sword in defense of Jesus, and he eventually died on a cross for the message of the kingdom. Peter would make a terrible American Christian and church member, but he made a phenomenal disciple.
Derek:He was willing to do the hard things and make the big mistakes and repent and grow after each one into somebody who's willing to die. Of course, I'm not at all saying here that Christian discipleship doesn't have any boundary lines or that there isn't some objective goal that we seek to move disciples towards. But there's a huge difference between maintaining boundaries through propaganda rigidly and maintaining it through discipleship flexibly. Discipleship allows room for movement, for a roller coaster of regressions and progressions, for mercy, forgiveness, and grace, we could say. And, ultimately, discipleship focuses on the disciples' growth rather than on the disciples' rigidly adhering to some ideology in order that he not embarrass our church or denomination or whatever.
Derek:Propaganda maintains its rigid boundary lines because its focus is the ideology, and it can't look weak. Discipleship's focus is the disciple because the discipler's methodology and modus operandi is love of other. Okay. So that's kind of where I am so far in working through discipleship as the antithesis of propaganda. I'm sure there's a lot more that could be drawn out here as not only am I not well read on discipleship literature, but I also don't think discipleship has been evaluated in this context before, looking at how discipleship combats manipulative, propagandistic formation by the various entities and institutions we've discussed this season.
Derek:So there's almost definitely more that could be drawn out here, but I think that this is a solid start. And if I have to summarize it briefly, I'd say that the significant thread that distinguishes discipleship from propaganda is this theme of objectification. Propaganda views people as pawns, as tools. It objectifies them for some message or cause. Discipleship, while it seeks to move an individual towards some goal or action as well, is completely focused on the individual in love.
Derek:Propaganda sacrifices other for the cause, while discipleship sacrifices self for the disciple. Propaganda compels through fear, while discipleship invites through example. The two are very different methodologies. I think it's pretty clear here how discipleship beats out propaganda in terms of being a more ethical model of forming others. But I also claimed that discipleship is counter propaganda.
Derek:It actually helps to expose and cut through it. With the rest of the time left in this episode, I wanna briefly explain how I think this happens. Propaganda works through a few key mechanisms that we've hammered home over and over and over again. The main mechanism we've discussed, throughout the season and in this episode is fear, which, in turn, works with polarization and isolation, along with demonization, making others enemies. These really all go hand in hand and are often inseparable.
Derek:Propaganda creates an enemy, which causes fear to arise, which in turn causes one to move farther from the enemy and towards the savior's pole. This isolates them in the propagandist camp and away from those outside of it. At that point, one is fed information from the propagandist and cut off from outside information. A feedback loop ensues, and you have now entered the matrix. Discipleship cuts this type of loop off in a number of ways.
Derek:It does this mainly by refusing to view other as an impediment or an enemy. It refuses to objectify. When one loves all others, even enemies, then one is hard to propagandize because they're not susceptible to the fear of other. You're not gonna get a good Christian disciple to move to a pole and cut themselves off from others. A good disciple will be free to fail and make mistakes because the discipler isn't expecting perfection and actually encourages growth.
Derek:They're free to work through competing ideas and information. In essence, a good disciple is extremely resistant to propaganda because discipleship bolsters the areas in an individual that propaganda seeks to exploit. Unfortunately, I don't think we Christians have tended to do a very good job of discipling. We have resorted to propagandizing ourselves as it's alluring in this day and age. It seems to be quick, easy, and effective.
Derek:Maybe the case. We might grow bigger churches with propaganda and scare people into the kingdom of God or at least to where they think they're in the kingdom. But it this methodology is really only effective at producing momentary intellectual converts, not heart changed disciples, not the kind of people who are going to change the world like the early church did. Our world doesn't need any more self proclaimed Christians, self deluded Christians. It needs more people who are the embodiment of Christ.
Derek:Hopefully, this episode gives you a vision for what that looks like and why that's vital. Hopefully, this episode helps you to desire the kingdom. That's all for now. So peace. And because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it.
Derek:This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to nonviolence and kingdom living.
