Derek: 00:28

Welcome back to the Fourth Way Podcast. So I had originally planned out this episode when I was actually at a, a kids camp, and I didn't have access to Internet for the week. And I had completely forgotten that, that I've already done an episode on the propaganda slayer and a kind of a discussion of how discipleship combats propaganda and how we we distinguish discipleship from propaganda. However, now as I as I was looking back over the stuff that I wrote for this episode, I think it's gonna be a a good kind of, repeat of some of the things I said in the the last Propaganda Slayer episode, because I actually I recorded that quite a number of of episodes ago in terms of my recording order. And I think that there are some just different ways that I'm gonna say things in this episode, as well as a few different points that might help to, flesh out this idea of propaganda as, or as discipleship as a propaganda slayer.

Derek: 01:37

So, hopefully, you won't find this episode too redundant. Hopefully, we'll we'll bring out some nuances here, and it'll be a good addition to the season. And I I really do think it will be a good addition because, you know, talking about discipleship and how to fight propaganda is really the culmination of of all that this season's been about. My intention this season has not been for, this to be a rant about propaganda or conspiracies or government or any of those other things, but rather a way to help us identify, the propaganda and and, those bad aspects of the way that power is wielded so that we can turn around and fight back and know how to shape our minds and our lives. Because it really does us no good to look at how bad the world is and how steeped in propaganda we are if we don't know how to combat that.

Derek: 02:37

So certainly knowledge is in and of itself a way that we can combat propaganda. I mean, being able to identify propaganda is is gonna be a huge first step in not allowing, the chameleon, the shape shifter that propaganda is, to enter your life without knowing it, without being aware of it. Yet we saw from the beginning of the season that propaganda really has little concern with our beliefs so long as our beliefs don't interfere with us acting in accord with the propaganda. Action is really what propaganda wants. So seeing propaganda intellectually isn't enough because you can see propaganda, and you can even believe that propaganda is harmful and know who the propagandizers are, yet still act out what the propagandists desire.

Derek: 03:30

So we need to do more than see. We need to do more than no. We need active counter propaganda. And that's where this episode and, and our discussion of the, the propaganda slayer is gonna come in. Because I think that, I I have an answer, the the start to an answer, and that is in this idea of discipleships, discipleship.

Derek: 03:58

So this is the beginning of the end of an answer. I'm I'm really working through it. I I haven't figured out what it all entails, but I I think it's a really good start for future work to, to kind of play off of, and showing you what to pursue. It's not the whole answer, but it's a glimpse of where we need to begin. And I've been teasing this out for the whole season, and I even did a a propaganda slayer episode already.

Derek: 04:25

And in some of my interviews, I kind of get into discipleship just a little bit. And I have expressed, this idea of discipleship as a propaganda slayer quite a bit already. But now I want to just dig into that more deeply and kind of hash that out again about why I think discipleship is a silver bullet, a stake through the heart of propaganda. This season, we have traveled a very, very long road in exploring both the potency and the pervasiveness of propaganda. In fact, the potency of propaganda often lies in its pervasiveness itself.

Derek: 05:05

Propagandists seek to propagate their message as frequently as possible and as in as many forms as possible. We highlighted that in all throughout the season, but, you know, the one that sticks out to me the episode that sticks out to me is the one where we did it on Mein Kampf. You know, Hitler recognized that you want this stuff in really simplistic forms, and you wanna say it as much as you possibly can. And the goal of propaganda here then is gonna be formative. It seeks to shape the individual into a particular type of actor or work into performing particular acts.

Derek: 05:45

And this brings us to our first and perhaps our biggest distinction between propaganda and discipleship. And that is that propaganda forms actors with a latent character, while discipleship forms actors with overt character. The way that I would like to think about this is that propaganda is kind of like a virus. You know, a common mechanism used by various pathogens, and maybe it's not a virus, bacteria, viruses, I don't know, the, the distinction in regard to this mechanism. But I know that various pathogens, often what they do, the way that they work is they they lie dormant.

Derek: 06:25

They get into your body, and they're not strong enough to overwhelm your your, your system. And so they just lie there, and they wait, and they wait, and they wait. They stay hidden until they get a bunch of their buddies and more and more buddies to kind of, team up. And once they build up a sufficient number and they reproduce enough, it's at that point that they start attacking the body. When that tipping point is reached, the pathogens send signals to each other, and they make their attack, and they begin to overwhelm the body.

Derek: 07:03

They're like terrorist sleeper cells inside your body. And that's really how propaganda so often works. You know, you think that you're not propagandized. Right? You're you're feeling perfectly fine.

Derek: 07:16

Then all of a sudden, bam, you're you're just laid out. You buy that product or you support that cause that you thought you you denounced in your mind because you really do believe that it's it's not a good cause. Yet that propaganda has taken control of your, your actions, And it really doesn't matter what you say you think you believe. And that's because the propaganda has formed you. It only needed a particular event to activate your, your actions.

Derek: 07:47

I think about this kind of thing all the time as I move around Romania. You know, they, they have great people here in Romania. I, I like them a lot, and violence is very low. Now it's it's hilarious that when we go back to The States, people are like, oh, do you feel safe in Romania? And it's like, man, we have to psych ourselves up to come back to The States because, living in The States is more nerve wracking in terms of violence.

Derek: 08:13

Like, we feel perfectly safe here in Romania. Whereas in in The US, like, you're always kind of looking over your shoulder because you've got psychos. And it's just a very different type of culture. Yet, you know, when I read through books from like Hannah Arendt, I think, her Eichmann in Jerusalem, and she talks about how Romanians back in World War II were some of the most propagandized people who just turned on their Jewish neighbors, like it was nothing. Or when I read about, you know, the book Ordinary Men, which was about how a lot of the death squads, the people who did the, like, in your face killings, like where they had the ditches dug and they put guns up to the backs of people's heads.

Derek: 09:00

Like those people who did those face to face murders, a lot of them were just bakers and lawyers and people who are conscripted. They were ordinary men who just killed their neighbors when they were given the command to do it. And it's, it's just hard to believe. And there, there are quite a number of books like that. They Thought They Were Free is another one that just interviews everyday normal people.

Derek: 09:25

Right? And, Romania was a significant part of that Holocaust, in terms of their willingness to participate. Yet, as I walk around Romania, as I live here, it's like, I can't even imagine that these people would just turn on their neighbors and murder them. Yet, I don't think that the people here are any different than they were back in the day. And I don't think the vast majority of the world is different than that.

Derek: 09:53

I think the vast majority of people, can turn on a dime and you'd never be able to tell that just by your your everyday interactions with them. I mean, neighbors turn against neighbors all the time in these kinds of situations. How could a seemingly peaceful people who respect their neighbors suddenly become sadistic torturers and murderers? I mean, I don't know, but that kind of thing isn't rare in human history, and it's not confined to a particular time or a particular group of people. This latent character of violence that we see come to a head so often in history, this nationalism and ethnics or religious superiority, it's propagandized in a lot of people.

Derek: 10:40

Now, like propaganda, discipleship also seeks to form one's character, but rather than create this latent character that all of a sudden surprises you when it comes to a head, when it's activated, Discipleship doesn't, wait for this opportune time. Rather, discipleship creates overt character, a character that's intended to be immediately and always expressed without exception. Discipleship openly declares the desired character and actions, and it expects continued conformity. This is a part of the reason why integrity is so important or ought to be so important for Christians, And it's why we have to throw off the consequentialist moral ethic that so many of us have embraced, this moral double double standard. It is why I did a whole season on consequentialism before I even knew, right, about propaganda and discipleship.

Derek: 11:41

And before I'd really thought that through, I I recognized the importance of combating consequentialism. And it's it's only now, what, like, eight seasons later that I'm recognizing a huge part of why that's important, why that integrity, matters, how that plays out. This this consequentialism, as it often kind of shows itself as, this moral double standard, it's often what we call hypocrisy. And, you know, hypocrisy, everybody hates it. But it's it's also perhaps the chief indicator of propaganda.

Derek: 12:24

And that's probably why we innately hate it. Like, we recognize the duplicity, and it's just it just smells so bad when we see people who are hypocritical. As a clear example of this, for my conservative evangelical friends, you know, you can just take a look at communism because, conservative evangelicals, conservatives in general, they hate communism. Right? The the story here, from back in communist Romania, I think of, before the nineteen eighty nine revolution, there was a nineteen eighty seven almost revolution, quasi revolution.

Derek: 12:59

I don't know what it was. But, in 1987, here in the city of Brasov. And when when people went in and they, like, raided the the primaria, the, I can't even think of the word, the the, like, not courthouse, but the main, like, government building, they, like, go in and they find these wheels of cheese and, like, all of the bananas, these things that were just unheard of in Romania. Like, you couldn't get regular people couldn't get. But the government officials, like, they were hoarding them, and they had free access to those types of things.

Derek: 13:36

And that's what a lot of conservatives think when they think of communism and socialism. They think, oh, yeah. It's a bunch of guys who are, who end up getting power, and they end up being hypocritical. You know, workers of the world unite. Like, we need to all be, for every every person.

Derek: 13:56

We are a society that works together and cares for each other. No, you don't. Right? The the leaders are just hoarding goods for themselves and making sure that that they and their families end up well. And so a lot of conservatives, critique, communism and socialism in large part for this type of hypocrisy that, that we see.

Derek: 14:19

But, you know, for my liberal friends, capitalism, right, the capitalism that that we so often see is just absolute hypocrisy. Right? Free market, free market, free market. There's not a not a free market. In our Haiti episode and other episodes, we talked about, you know, things like NAFTA.

Derek: 14:40

Okay. It's, it's free trade. Right? There's this guise of freedom. But what the government ends up doing is it ends up subsidizing businesses.

Derek: 14:51

It ends up subsidizing, businesses here in The States, and then that undermines farmers in Mexico. So then they're out of jobs because they can't, create crops for their people. So then you've got a migrant crisis and we say, no, we don't want them taking our jobs. And it's like, well, but we've already taken their jobs by under undercutting their their ability to sell, because it's not a free market. And a free market, right, should include labor too.

Derek: 15:19

It's not just a a free market of goods. It's a free market of labor. If somebody's willing to work cheaper, then I should be able to hire that person. Like, what's up with these borders and and keeping, free labor out? So we don't really have a free market.

Derek: 15:33

We we undermine countries like Haiti with our subsidies, and and, they lose their self sufficiency because it's actually cheaper to import our rice and buy it from us, and we force them to buy it from us. And then, they no longer grow rice. So you've got capitalism that ends up, where businesses run the show through lobbying and other sorts of things and and end up putting money back in their pockets. So capitalism oftentimes ends up being the same level of hypocrisy as as communism and socialism, and it reeks to both sides. Right?

Derek: 16:07

The communist, critiques of capitalism are so often spot on, and the, the capitalist critiques of socialism and communism are so often spot on in regard to the hypocrisy. So, you know, all of these things, capitalism, socialism, communism, you know, they might have iterations that are good or true particular instantiate instantiations. But we so often see the presence of hypocrisy or a refusal to follow the conclusions of a certain belief system, to to their logical ends or or to consistent ends. And the thing is, whenever you see that inconsistency, you know, you're being propagandized. Right?

Derek: 16:52

Maybe that communist government leader really did initially think, hey. You know what? This, this solidarity thing with all of my countrymen and women, that really is a good thing, and that would work if we all did it. I'm gonna do that. Then he gets access to his first, order of cheese, and he's like, you know what?

Derek: 17:11

Nobody would know if I kept that. And so then, you know, you start the hoarding and bribing and all that other stuff. Right? Same thing with capitalism. Maybe, you got this business that this person starts off, and they they have their own business, and they do really well, and they're an entrepreneur and great.

Derek: 17:30

But as they get more money, they get more clout, more buying power, and they recognize their ability to essentially funnel funds back into their company, and subsidize themselves and give themselves an advantage. Well, of course, they're gonna do that. Right? And that's hypocrisy. Right?

Derek: 17:48

You like the you like the idea of something until you're able to get the power to, to manipulate that. But once you get the power to manipulate that, you become a hypocrite. At that point, what you're doing is you're espousing propaganda. You're saying, this system is really working for me. I'm gonna tell you to adhere to that system because you're feeding me.

Derek: 18:09

You're giving me the subsidies. You're giving me the cheese, but I am not going to adhere to that system or promote that system. So whenever you see hypocrisy, you're essentially, being propagandized. You're being told something that the person who, who is telling you is, is only telling you to try to manipulate you. That's propaganda.

Derek: 18:32

So this is why, I mean, for, for any ideology, but especially for Christians, you know, you say that you believe in Jesus's ethic, yet you throw it off to gain power and control over government, over a political party, over the presidency, over Supreme Court justices. Really? So you really don't believe it. You just wield it out of self convenience. I mean, you say it's for God, of course.

Derek: 18:59

Right? You wanna give him that that sacrifice that costs you nothing. But, really, it's it's for you to wield power. Right? You bludgeon others with, the the supposed truth of Jesus, and you use that truth to keep people in line or to gain power, to legislator, whatever it is that you wanna do.

Derek: 19:24

But you don't apply it to yourself. You're a communist eating cheese while the masses go hungry then. Right? You've turned Jesus into propaganda, and everyone can see it. And that's why hypocrisy is so damning.

Derek: 19:39

It wields and it distorts truth, making the truth indiscernible or undesirable. It ties millstones around necks. It puts stumbling blocks in paths. True discipleship has no place for hypocrisy and pretense. Rather, it expects clear and immediate action.

Derek: 20:02

Of course, nobody's perfect. Right? Which means that both the discipled and the discipler will, at times, display what you might be able to call hypocrisy. Right? A lack of conformity to the standards that they espouse.

Derek: 20:17

People will deviate from the actions that they say they believe, that they they teach, right, that they desire to follow. But this is where the second distinction between propaganda and discipleship really comes in. Propaganda expects a comporting of actions, whereas discipleship maintains accountability for actions. Now, on its face, these two responses might seem like they're the same thing, but that really there lies a great difference in this nuance. Both propaganda and discipleship seek to correct wayward actions, but the scope of each form of correction is quite different.

Derek: 20:59

Propaganda tends to belittle or attack individuals who deviate from a desired response. The goal isn't the good of the deviant individual, but rather the integrity of the propaganda. It's, the the greengrocer's refusal to put up his workers of the world unite sign. Right? Deviance is a threat to uncovering propaganda for for what it is.

Derek: 21:26

Certainly, discipleship is also concerned with the integrity of its message. I mean, we just talked about the importance of of integrity and not being hypocritical and, making sure you stick to to what it is you say you believe and and you teach. The Bible is filled with warnings against false teachers and and falling in line with those things and and, performing incorrect actions. For for a non biblical example, you know, you could, think of the the show Breaking Bad. Right?

Derek: 21:58

You've got, Jesse who goes to this AA meeting for drug addicts, I think. And he just has this breakdown where he's like, man, I've been coming here the whole time, and I've been lying to you guys because I've been coming here not to get better, right, to get off of meth. I've been coming here so I could get Marx to sell meth too. Right? So the point is that, like, seeking to preserve a group or seeking to preserve the integrity of a group, it can be a propagandistic thing, right, where you're just trying to protect a message.

Derek: 22:35

But it it can also, like in the case of an AA meeting, making sure that you don't have drug dealers coming to sell drugs to your, to the people who are trying to get better. Like, yeah, there there is a level of upholding integrity. But the the scope of those two things of the way that propaganda works and discipleship works is a bit different. Because, biblical discipleship, it doesn't view a deviant as, a threat that needs to be silenced. Right?

Derek: 23:04

But rather as someone who needs to be loved and who you need to seek restoration with. And, you know, there's, you know, in in some of the New Testament passages that talks about snatching a brother from hellfire, you know, making sure, like, hey, we need to to take care of them. We need to confront them. But my probably favorite example and an example that I I use with some frequency is from first Corinthians five. I think it depicts what how how discipleship works.

Derek: 23:35

Right? It's not like, Havel or Solzhenitsyn's I think it's Havel's, Green Grocer where, you know, he doesn't put up the sign that the communist want, and so he goes to prison. Right? Or he takes down a a picture of Kim Jong Un and, dies. Right?

Derek: 23:53

It's not that kind of thing that where you have to silence the person, but rather it's something that seeks frustration. So in first Corinthians five, you've got this guy who is sleeping with his stepmom. And the Corinthian church is kinda like, well, I mean, he's one of us. Like, okay. We'll we'll let it slide.

Derek: 24:14

Like, and they don't do anything about it. And so Paul is abhorred, and he says, no way. Like, this cannot be going on. He's like, even the the non Christians don't do that kind of thing. Like, that's insane.

Derek: 24:27

And so he's like, you guys need to take care of this. So Paul's prescription is, like, you need to get him out of your community. Right? He's not gonna be part of you anymore. And, you pray that his flesh is delivered to Satan so that his soul may be saved.

Derek: 24:44

So he's saying, you don't touch him. Right? That's not your domain to do physical harm to him. But you get him out of your community, and at that point, he no longer has spiritual protection. He has chosen to essentially leave his your group based on his actions.

Derek: 25:00

Like, he doesn't wanna be a part of you anymore because he knows the expectations of disciples of Jesus, and having sex with your stepmom is against those expectations. And, so he says, so let let Satan have him. Right? Remove your protection of community from him. But we want his soul to be saved.

Derek: 25:22

Like, ultimately, we want him to come to repentance. And you see in second Corinthians, Paul's, Paul actually has to kind of go back and tell the Corinthians, he's like, alright, guys, look, the dude repented. Like, you can stop being so hard on him. Like, he's, he's repented. He's come back.

Derek: 25:39

I you don't have to just, you don't have to treat him so harshly. And the goal was that he would come to repentance, and he did. So let him be a part of your community and let him back in. And that is a very different goal. That's not cancel culture.

Derek: 25:57

That is, you know, that is seeking the good of the group as, not through silencing, but through, through seeking restoration. Hopefully, you can see the the distinction and the difference, there. And it is similar in some ways, but it is also significantly distinct. It's not viewing, somebody who who goes against discipleship norms is not viewing them as a traitor, but rather as somebody in need of of love. Propaganda is concerned that individuals comport for the sake of the message and to accomplish desired actions, that that the propaganda wants to bring about.

Derek: 26:44

But discipleship, while it also does desire right actions that that conform to the message, it it only desires that because those actions are good for the disciples themselves. And so you saw that even in in Paul in first Corinthians, like, he wasn't like, that guy is deviant. He's a traitor. Get rid of him. He's like, we want his soul to be saved.

Derek: 27:08

And so he had restoration in view. So this brings us to a third distinction between propaganda and discipleship. What happens to someone who deviates without repentance? Propaganda's response to unrepentant deviance is ostracization, whereas discipleship's response is excommunication. Again, you might not see a significant difference in these two responses, but just like in the last point, I I hope to assure you that there is a significant difference.

Derek: 27:45

As a clear example of what I mean by ostracization versus excommunication, just think back to someone like Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem. You know, this large group of people who are advocating for Kaepernick to lose his job, his livelihood, because he didn't honor the flag as a certain propagandized demographic desired him to. And when Kaepernick did lose his job, there was great rejoicing. Now what did the flag and football have to do with each other? Nothing.

Derek: 28:17

And how did Kaepernick losing his job benefit the flag? It or it didn't. I mean, it didn't benefit the NFL. It didn't benefit, the flag. It didn't benefit anything.

Derek: 28:29

Now you could say, well, he his skill wasn't that good, so it did benefit the well, sure. Well, then him him getting, fired because of his skill is one thing, but that's not why people were wanting him to lose his job. They were connecting it to his dishonoring of the flag. Right? Yeah.

Derek: 28:48

Because Kaepernick didn't comport to a certain prevalent form of propaganda, he was cut off by a lot of people, and he was cut off with pleasure. I mean, without any sympathy or remorse, not like Paul's, hey, we want his soul to be saved kind of thing. It's just like, good. This is what you deserve. I mean, when you compare that ostracization of Kaepernick, you can see the difference then in what I'm trying to use the term excommunication, here to mean as exemplified in first Corinthians five.

Derek: 29:23

So in first Corinthians five, the man was harming relationships. Right? He was sleeping with his stepmom. I can imagine that that would harm his own fidelity to his wife if he was married. He was deviating from agreed upon social and community standards.

Derek: 29:41

He was, certainly ruined or harmed his relationship with his father, I would imagine, maybe with his siblings too, his step step siblings. And, he ended up being driven from fellowship with the church community, but, it he didn't lose contact with them. And that's evidenced by his ability to repent. Right? He was able to come to the community, and the community was able to enact discipline and to accept him back.

Derek: 30:11

So he didn't lose communication with him. They didn't cut him off. And the goal of restoration, was restoration in this man's good. So ostracization is really like cancel culture. It's, cutting somebody off.

Derek: 30:25

And the excommunication is more like, just saying, hey. Look. In this manner of relationship, it's just not gonna work for us. Right? If you're gonna be sleeping with your mom, that's not going to produce a peaceful environment here because, you know, your dad comes to church here.

Derek: 30:44

Your siblings come to church here. You've got other married people who come to church here. You just it doesn't foster trust. It doesn't foster the type of community that we say that we are. And if you're not gonna say if you're gonna say that you're not a part of us, okay, that's that's your choice.

Derek: 31:01

You choose to not be a part of us. But that that is completely different than ostracizing and cutting off. Alright. Finally, I want to end with a distinction between discipleship and propaganda, which doctor Kalontas, unraveled in our discussion this season. So whereas propaganda is eschatological, discipleship is ideological.

Derek: 31:29

Propaganda views the ends that it wants, and it determines identity, whereas discipleship declares identity, which ends up determining, actions. So let's let's think about propaganda on a national level here. The goal of national propaganda is to help a nation cohere and to advance its interests and to gain power. But notice that this end is extrinsic to the individual. An American is an American by accident of their birth based on the extrinsic factor of geography and where borders happen to be at the time that they're born.

Derek: 32:07

A loyal patriot is one who performs certain actions, like pledges to a flag or votes or supports the war du jour. Now since these attributes or actions are extrinsic to an individual, these benchmarks for being an American can change with time and with the need. For example, as the American empire expanded, so did the geographical borders, which ended up producing Americans in different places. But not only are these aspects, mutable, they're also quite restrictive because they they lie outside of oneself. And therefore, they they never declare who one is, but only one who, only who one could be or who one can remain being if they choose to take the appropriate course of actions.

Derek: 33:02

So let's flesh this out a little bit. You can be an American if you're born within our borders and you follow the prescription for patriotism. In World War two, we saw that Nazi defectors who bolstered our military might, yet were born outside our borders, quickly were made Americans. And whistleblowers on, you know, the government and military corruption, these whistleblowers who marred America's image, people like Edward Snowden or Daniel Ellsberg, they were denounced as un American despite their loyal service to the country prior to that and their desire for justice and upholding the constitution and despite being born within the geographical borders. They were kinda denounced as un American.

Derek: 33:51

Now one can only ever be viewed as an American for the moment. You can never be assured that you're you're going to always be considered American by people, maybe legally, but, not necessarily functionally. Right? It's being an American is not a permanent guarantee that one is going to remain American. Maybe the best recent example of the extrinsic nature of being American was when we saw conservatives bashing people for injustice in America.

Derek: 34:26

They said, if you don't like it, you can leave, which is essentially saying, hey. Look. You're basically not an American. You might as well just go live somewhere else because you're not truly an American. Or when several Democratic congresswomen were being vocal about various issues, despite being Americans, had, conservatives chant, send them back.

Derek: 34:52

Right? Send send them back to where? Right? These are Americans. But this was clearly the evoking of the extrinsic nature of perceived citizenship, in order to silence what people viewed as a threat.

Derek: 35:07

They said, hey. Look. I'm going to cancel you by implying that you are not American, by not viewing you as American. Sure. I can't take away that legal right from you, but, if enough people view you as an American, that's going to significantly influence your safety in your life.

Derek: 35:28

Now these extrinsic items are are manipulated. Right? The extrinsic expectations of what it means to be an American, and they're manipulated in order to preserve some eschatological end. The US needs to have a strong military that we can believe in. Therefore, to expose military injustice or to undermine military power by questioning it makes one un American.

Derek: 35:55

To preserve power, social cohesion, religion, status, economic wealth, or any other number of ends, extrinsic attributes can be manipulated and wield wielded propagandistically as weapons of exclusion and destruction. Now whereas propaganda wields this fluid terminology, these moving borders and and, extrinsic factors to achieve its desired ends, discipleship, as Doctor. Klontis, pointed out, it's, it works in reverse. And, he used this term etiology, I believe, and said that, you know, there's this etiological sense to who Christians are. And essentially what that what he meant by that was, you know, rather than looking at the ends to determine the means, which is not a Christian ethic, by the way.

Derek: 36:54

And but that's what propaganda does. Christian discipleship, however, it looks at the truth of what now is, and it tells us to live in accord with that reality. As a Christian, that means that I recognize the truth that I am a child of the king, and along with all other humans, I am made in the image of God. Based on this truth, on this fabric of reality, I am to act accordingly based on my nature, who I am and who other people are. I think it was CS Lewis who said something to the extent of, like, you know, you have never met a mere mortal.

Derek: 37:35

Right? Everybody you come in contact with is, an eternal being, somebody created in the image of God. I ought never to deny the image of God in another, and I ought always to live as a child of the king because that's the nature of true reality. Yet that's not how most Christians, at least, in The States, function today. Integrity and moral consistency are perceived hindrances oftentimes to the desired end, the end we know that God must actually desire.

Derek: 38:14

Ironically then, so so many conservative Christians who denounce things like the transgendered movement as being willfully blind to biological reality end up themselves being blind to an even more important and deeper reality, spiritual and moral reality. Things grounded in the very character of God, an immutable God. Rather than trust in a eudaimonic world where a good God ordered creation to best function when the good is followed, So many Christians deny such a reality, such a good and wise God, and they seek instead to define good and evil for themselves. That sounds familiar. But true discipleship will have none of that.

Derek: 39:00

True discipleship tells Christians who they are, and they are to live in accord with reality. Discipleship calls them to this reality. It's a reality which, unlike national borders or patriotic expectations, it never changes because it's grounded in an immutable God who has woven his goodness and our identity into the very fabric of reality. Discipleship doesn't call us to live up to some standard outside of ourselves in order to be to become accepted. Discipleship tells us to stop being what we're not, to stop embracing non being as, as we discussed in our episode on, morality.

Derek: 39:48

We are loved. We are accepted. We are image bearers of God. It's who we are, so act like it. Your actions should flow out from that intrinsic reality.

Derek: 40:01

So all that right there is is why I think discipleship is the propaganda killer. Propaganda is all about the fabrication of reality, while discipleship uncovers the fabric of reality. Propaganda is fabricated while discipleship is authentic. Sure. Both attempt to shape you.

Derek: 40:20

But whereas propaganda seeks to form you to its image to do its bidding, discipleship seeks to help you uncover your true form. Now at this point, I'm sure any secularist listening to this episode think that I'm nuts because so much of Christianity has been and still is propagandistic. I fully acknowledge that, and I hope that my extensive look at the false prophet of the church this season gives me some credibility here that I'm not just trying to prop up the church blindly and say that it's been perfect. I fully admit that what Christianity has done, what the church has so often done, is propaganda, right, and not discipleship. And that's because power is alluring and propaganda mimics discipleship.

Derek: 41:13

Yet rather than conform to reality, propaganda allows the propagandizer to form and propagate their own reality. It's very similar to, to a movie that I reference quite frequently, The Book of Eli. I think that's a fantastic look, metaphor, whatever it is, to how you can have a bunch of people who are grasping at the same power, but they're all seeking to use it for different things. And, the intention of the the power mongers doesn't invalidate the good of the object they're seeking to wield. So, sure, the church has often wielded, the power of religion to exclude others and to destroy threats.

Derek: 41:58

We've looked at quite a number of of examples of those this season. It has forced conformity through the sword while failing to provide loving accountability. And the church has harbored abusers and hypocrites in great measure, and it has glossed over the hypocrisy of its history just as nations do, concealing hypocrisy with myth. And that really is what myth is, isn't it? It's, a concealer of of hypocrisy.

Derek: 42:29

It accentuates or fabricates the good while denying or diminishing the bad in order to prevent us from seeing the hypocrisy of our disciplers. Because if we saw their hypocrisy, we'd realize that we've not really been discipled, but propagandized. Church history is filled with many great disciplers, but also with just as many great, terrible propagandizers. Unfortunately, much of what the church tries to do is to cover up these instances of evil in its past and its present rather than uncover truth and admit to evil because doing that could be costly to power. In this way and in many others, the church indicates that it is by and large an institution of propaganda, at least in in certain parts of the world and and at certain times.

Derek: 43:30

For some, that means that they feel legitimated in their decision to throw off the church. But I I don't think that that's the right answer at all. I mean, where are you gonna run to? The government, science, business, media, the family? I mean, all of these institutions are plagued with propaganda.

Derek: 43:52

We've looked at each one of them and the ways that they've, they've been used as propaganda, and they've they've harbored propagandizers. So the church then isn't uniquely propagandistic. In whatever institution can afford a propagandist power is gonna be manipulated by propagandists. So for me, the church is still my hope because it has the basis for uncovering the true fabric of reality, a morality grounded in the love of other and a model of selfless discipleship, Jesus, A call to integrity, no matter the cost to self and, self sacrifice. I mean, it's it's, altruistic at its core.

Derek: 44:38

Like, you're not gonna get that from, secularism, and you won't get that from a lot of other religions, which are are moralistic. So this episode, this season, hasn't been about seeking to undermine the church at all. Rather, it has sought to depropagandize it and to purify it because I think that the church offers our best and only hope at seeing reality, the reality of the world of God and the reality of who we truly are. What the world needs is real people, people who recognize the value of all people and who refuse the arbitrary and extrinsic distinctions that nations and other groups try to give. The world needs people who speak the truth always, even at cost to self.

Derek: 45:36

It needs people who refuse to do evil, even if that evil would gain them power or promise some greater good. The world needs people who are authentic, sharing not only their successes on social media, but admitting their failures. The world is filled with all kinds of propaganda. It's a fabricated unreality. It's filled with myths of all sorts that cover over hypocrisy.

Derek: 46:04

It's only through discipleship that we have a chance, not to drive and form the next generation into who we want them to become. That's propaganda's way. Right? Rather, we have a chance here to shepherd the next generation into becoming who they truly are already. That's all for now.

Derek: 46:27

So peace. And because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. 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.