Will Spencer hosts a thought-provoking episode of the Renaissance of Men podcast, featuring Dr. Joe Rigney, a theologian and author who dives deep into the nuances of emotional manipulation and leadership within the church and family structures.
Rigney's book, 'Leadership and Emotional Sabotage,' explores how anxiety can disrupt relationships and institutions, emphasizing the critical need for direct and honest communication. Spencer shares his personal journey from liberalism to a more traditional worldview, revealing how this transformation has shaped his understanding of communication dynamics and emotional responsibility. The conversation is rich with insights on how modern societal pressures can silence dissent and create environments where emotional manipulation thrives, particularly within church communities.
Throughout the episode, Rigney discusses the importance of being a sober-minded leader, advocating for clear and masculine communication that fosters healthy dialogue and confronts issues head-on rather than allowing them to fester beneath the surface. He warns against the dangers of unmoored empathy, which can lead to emotional sabotage and undermine genuine leadership. Rigney's arguments resonate with Spencer's reflections on the manipulative power dynamics observed in various social settings, illustrating the necessity for men to reclaim their authority and lead with integrity amidst societal pressures.
Takeaways:
My name is Will Spencer and you're listening to the renaissance of Men podcast.
Will SpencerMy guest this week is a fellow of theology at New St.
Will SpencerAndrews College in Moscow, Idaho, plus the author of Leadership and Emotional Sabotage.
Will SpencerResisting the anxiety that will wreck your family, destroy your church, and ruin the world.
Will SpencerPlease welcome Doctor Joe Rigney.
Joe RigneyYou are the renaissance.
Will SpencerAs many of you know, I spent most of my life as a liberal, basically until summer 2016, when I discovered that american leftist values are not human universals then trumps election and the circumstances surrounding it finished off my desire to associate with the left, with democrats, and with progressivism as a whole.
Will SpencerIt was one thing to unwind my belief in the state as a solution to the worlds problems, but it was quite another to dismantle all the socio cultural programming I had absorbed.
Will SpencerThe hardest bit I had to unplug was around communication.
Will SpencerI noticed quickly my own tendency towards indirect speech, not saying what I meant and dancing around the point.
Will SpencerIf you listen to me now, you might find that hard to believe, but it's true.
Will SpencerI also noticed how quickly I and others would jump to defuse tense situations by placating people, silencing dissent, and bowing to the loudest and most shrill voices, even if they were being unreasonable.
Will SpencerBut most importantly, I watched the way that families, communities and conversations were being manipulated by the most shrill and demanding voices among us.
Will SpencerIn these scenarios, everyone would rush to diffuse tension.
Will SpencerThis left issues simmering beneath the surface rather than everyone boldly confronting them.
Will SpencerThis would be difficult enough, except I also observed that the experts at this particular game would often wield unearned power in the situation.
Will SpencerOne of the great blessings of COVID for me was that it gave me a chance to sit back and examine where id come from, both overseas and the Bay area, and consider these phenomena from afar.
Will SpencerI spent time in group chats with men and observed the way wed all talk with each other.
Will SpencerThen, when I took that communication style out into the world, I'd find that things worked very differently.
Will SpencerIn fact, I experienced the same manipulative power dynamics I described above, being used against me and others who tried to communicate using clear and masculine speech.
Will SpencerAnd that's when I realized the war we're all fighting today isn't just a cultural war, an economic war, or even a political war.
Will SpencerIts a language war with words as the threats and adult forms of temper tantrums as the consequences.
Will SpencerThis works by playing upon everyones inability to stand strong in the face of social tension and conflict.
Will SpencerIt squashes masculine resistance and clear speech and bashes everyone down into speech patterns that constrain expression of certain ideas.
Will SpencerBy constraining expression, you constrain thought.
Will SpencerAnd that's how wokeness functions.
Will SpencerIt's awful, anti human and anti male, and it's literally how the liberal world works.
Will SpencerHaving lived in San Francisco for over a decade, I can tell you that that's true.
Will SpencerAnd it was the hardest thing to unplug from my own mind because I had to do it one interaction at a time.
Will SpencerSo you can imagine how shocked I was to see these same patterns inside churches and small groups.
Will SpencerI thought Christianity was the masculine religion, with God the father and his son Jesus Christ, the patriarchs, the disciples and apostles, covenants and headship.
Will SpencerAnd amidst all that manipulative speech patterns controlling thought and dialogue, I was shocked.
Will SpencerI didn't know what to do.
Will SpencerI can understand constraining unrighteous and ungodly speech, that's fine, but forbidding clear, direct and masculine speech to protect feelings that made no sense to me from within a christian framework.
Will SpencerAnd for a long time I thought I was alone.
Will SpencerI didnt know that anyone else could see it.
Will SpencerI wondered what to say and how, but thankfully someone else already had it figured out.
Will SpencerWhich brings me to my guest this week.
Will SpencerHis name is doctor Joe Rigney and hes a fellow of theology at New St.
Will SpencerAndrews College in Moscow, Idaho, plus the author of the outstanding book leadership and emotional sabotage.
Will SpencerResisting the anxiety that will wreck your family, destroy your church, and ruin the world.
Will SpencerThats a bold claim about the power of emotional sabotage, and its one that I can validate because Doctor Rigney has put his finger on something that ive seen first in the world and that has now infiltrated the church.
Will SpencerIts a silent power that doesnt wield physical force, rather emotional and verbal force, to get its way, which runs directly counter to the gospel.
Will SpencerAnd I think as a nation we were largely unprepared for the arrival of this form of soft power in the 20th century, after millennia of so called hard power.
Will SpencerSo the soft power crept in unnoticed and took over, crippling every institution that it touched, including evangelicalism.
Will SpencerStephen Wolffenhe, the author of the Case for Christian Nationalism, might call it the most effective weapon of gynocracy.
Will SpencerBut now, with a resurgent church, husbands, fathers, and pastors are beginning to encounter this nameless force like I did.
Will SpencerAnd for them it's not merely an academic question.
Will SpencerThey see it weakening everything around them, including their own households and families.
Will SpencerWhich is why Doctor Rigney has performed an admirable service documenting whats going on in brief, clear language, not overburdening the point, and providing a map for faithful leaders to help guide us out.
Will SpencerIn our conversation, Doctor Rigney and I discussed his journey into empathy, the unmooring of our virtues, the meaning of a mature adult, being responsible for yourself before God, why battles are ugly when women fight, why virtue requires fear, defining respectable and credible the way that God does, and finally, being the image of God to your wife and kids.
Will SpencerIf you enjoy the renaissance of men podcast, thank you.
Will SpencerPlease give us a five star rating on Spotify and a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts.
Will SpencerIf this is your first time here, welcome.
Will SpencerI release new episodes about the christian counterculture, masculine virtue, and the family every week.
Will SpencerJust a reminder that many things about this podcast will be changing very soon.
Will SpencerAs you heard me say recently, this podcast will soon become the Will Spencer podcast.
Will SpencerNew brand new topics, new guests, same format you love.
Will SpencerAnd I hope you won't mind these regular reminders to make sure we all come along together.
Will SpencerAnd please welcome this week's guest on the podcast, the author of leadership and emotional sabotage, resisting the anxiety that will wreck your family, destroy your church, and ruin the world, Doctor Joe Rigney.
Speaker CPastor Rigney, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today.
Joe RigneyHey, glad to be here.
Speaker CI've got your book here, leadership and emotional sabotage, with the important subtitle, resisting the anxiety that will wreck your family, destroy your church, and ruin the world.
Speaker CFantastic.
Speaker CFantastic.
Speaker CAnd I want to say before we get started, I want to thank you for this book, because as my listeners know, I spent a long time in the secular world.
Speaker CI lived in the bay area for about ten years, and the principles that you articulate in here about anxiety and empathy is how the secular world works.
Speaker CWhen I saw that you were producing this book, I was like, oh, he's cracked the code.
Speaker CSo I've been looking forward to speaking with you about it.
Speaker CSo, for a first question, how did you encounter the subject of empathy itself?
Speaker CCause I saw your sin of empathy talk with Pastor Wilson.
Speaker CWhen did you realize that this was, like, a thing?
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneySo I can't remember exactly how I got ahold of Friedman's book, and it may have been that Doug gave it to me, or it may have been that I gave it to him.
Joe RigneyAnd so I don't remember.
Joe RigneyBut it was about, it was about a decade ago, and I read.
Joe RigneySo I read failure of nerve, found it really insightful and helpful, and started using it in the leadership class that I was teaching at Bethlehem.
Joe RigneyAnd then basically, over the next five or so years, it was like the world conspired to prove Friedman's point.
Joe RigneyEverything, it was all there.
Joe RigneyAnd he was writing long before that and had seen it in sort of seed form, but it was as if the world just can fire to prove the point.
Joe RigneyAnd so as a number of the discussions about whether it was race, whether it was about gender, whether it was about abuse, all of these sort of big issues that were substantial issues in the evangelical world and in the wider culture, all seemed to be animated and in some ways hijacked by untethered empathy, by empathy gone amok.
Joe RigneyAnd so at some point after I'd been teaching courses on it, I'd been talking to other churches about the way that these dynamics were showing up in their context.
Joe RigneyWe were seeing some of it even in our own.
Joe RigneyAnd so when I was invited to do man rampant, and we need to pick a topic, I said, why don't we do the scent of empathy?
Joe RigneyAnd then everybody.
Joe RigneyAnd then, so we did that, and then when it released, everybody decided to prove our point again.
Joe RigneyAnd so it was just like one after another, you say these things, and then people really do.
Joe RigneyIt does become manifest.
Joe RigneyIt is an teaching opportunity for people to actually see it in action.
Speaker CAbsolutely.
Speaker CAbsolutely.
Speaker CWhen I heard, I discovered that talk after the fact.
Speaker CSo maybe within the past year or so.
Speaker CSee, it was uploaded maybe three years ago.
Speaker CSo maybe.
Speaker CCan you describe some of the blowback that you received from that?
Speaker CBecause I've heard about the blowback, but not actually seen it myself.
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneySo I would say the order of events in terms of that particular conflict.
Joe RigneyYou know, I'd filmed man rampant, probably in 2018 or so, and then it didn't.
Joe RigneyBut it didn't release for another 18 months.
Joe RigneyAnd in the meantime, I'd written a couple of articles at desiring God, kind of in that screw tape letter format where, you know, the first two articles, one of them was focusing on the way that you can kind of have the kind of compassion that doesn't ever actually want to get their hands dirty.
Joe RigneySo it keeps it at a distance, tries to steer people shut down.
Joe RigneyOh, you feel sad.
Joe RigneyPlease stop.
Joe RigneyIt makes me uncomfortable.
Joe RigneyAt least you have your health, that sort of thing.
Joe RigneyAnd so I hit that sort of ham fisted compassion first and then transitioned to sin of empathy.
Joe RigneyAnd I would say those two articles, and then when the man rampant episode released, basically the first place it landed was in kind of the abuse advocate survivor community, and they were really unhappy with it.
Joe RigneyAnd so I spent a good bit of time, and some people I would say there was two sorts of people that were upset.
Joe RigneyOne was people who were confused.
Joe RigneyThey just had never heard the idea that empathy could be a problem.
Joe RigneyLike that never had occurred to them.
Joe RigneyAnd so they were like, are you saying all empathy is bad?
Joe RigneyAre you saying no?
Joe RigneyNo.
Joe RigneyOkay.
Joe RigneySo there was some clarification that I was happy to provide, and then others were clearly using that confusion as a tool of manipulation.
Joe RigneySo it didn't matter how many times they clarified, they were still going to misrepresent and try to use it as a weapon in order to do their power plays.
Joe RigneyAnd so over the next three or four years, basically every so often, I kept writing things on it, responding, taking it new directions.
Joe RigneyAnd every few years, so often it would blow up again.
Joe RigneySomebody else would discover it, or it would run, somebody else would criticize it.
Joe RigneyAnd so through it all, it was usually those two.
Joe RigneySome people hear it, and they can't imagine empathy being bad, and so they just need some help.
Joe RigneyRight?
Joe RigneyWell, you can think anger could be good or bad, right?
Joe RigneyAnxiety, fear could be good or bad, right?
Joe RigneyLike, sometimes fear is warranted.
Joe RigneySometimes it's unreasonable.
Joe RigneySometimes anger's righteous.
Joe RigneySometimes it's unrighteous.
Joe RigneySo these other passions, right, they can be bad.
Joe RigneyWhy couldn't empathy be the same way?
Joe RigneyAnd some people are able to get it, others are determined not to get it, because the play that they're running depends upon people not getting it.
Speaker CYes.
Speaker CYes.
Speaker CI've got a book here by the author, Simon Baron Cohen.
Speaker CThis is actually Sasha Baron Cohen's brother.
Speaker CIt's called the essential difference.
Speaker CIt's a book about neurological differences in brain structure between men and women.
Speaker CSo he's an atheist.
Speaker CSo differences in brain structure between men and women is about as close as an atheist will ever get to goddess.
Speaker CAnd so in here, he says that the female brain is designed for empathizing, and he defines empathy.
Speaker CAnd he says empathy has an imaginative and an affective component.
Speaker CSo the imaginative component is you imagine yourself in the other person's shoes, and then you imagine how you would feel.
Speaker CThis is the affective component if you were in their shoes.
Speaker CSo I'm imagining myself in the quicksand.
Speaker CHow would I feel?
Speaker CAnd then we're supposed to feel that and never question it, which sounds like what you touched on.
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneyAnd I think in that respect, the important thing, and I stressed this from the beginning, that in and of itself, that's a perfectly.
Joe RigneyThat's a very human, God designed thing, both in general and for women.
Joe RigneyI think that part of the reason, the strength of women in that respect is that intuitive emotion sharing that allows them to be first responders.
Joe RigneyWhen people are hurting, they're just right there and they just kick into gear.
Joe RigneyAnd it's a good and grand and glorious thing.
Joe RigneyThe problem comes when you take it out of that context and it becomes unmoored from any other concerns, any other issues.
Joe RigneyAnd just the other day, so I preached on this the other day at our church, and I had come across a Cs Lewis quote, or actually it was Chesterton, is the modern virtues have gone mad.
Joe RigneyThe old christian virtues.
Joe RigneyIn the modern world, old christian virtues have gone mad because they've become unmoored from one another.
Joe RigneySo on the one hand, you have the scientists pursue truth, but their truth is pitiless.
Joe RigneyAnd the humanitarian elevates pity, what he called pity.
Joe RigneyBut their pity is untruthful.
Joe RigneyTheir pity is untethered from truth.
Joe RigneyAnd so you have there you have pitiless truth or untruthful pity, untruthful empathy.
Joe RigneyAnd it's those things.
Joe RigneyWe actually have to keep these things together.
Joe RigneyWe have to keep them tethered to something sturdier than our own feelings.
Speaker CSo as all this is kind of landing on you, you put out these talks, you write these articles, everyone's setting out to prove you right, and they're doing a good job of it.
Speaker CWhen did the book begin to kind of come together?
Speaker CLike, I should probably write a book about this.
Speaker CBut not just a book, but more Like a manual.
Speaker CPastor Wilson has a map.
Joe RigneyYeah, a map.
Joe RigneySo part of the WAy the book came together was when I moved out here to moscow.
Joe RigneyYou know, I've had friends who've, you know, gotten into Friedman and read it, but have always had the same thing that I had, which is this is, it's a really great paradigm.
Joe RigneyYou know, his, his paradigm for dealing not just with empathy, but just leadership in general is a really helpful one for navigating family conflict, for navigating workplace stuff, church stuff.
Joe RigneyBut you have to wade ThrOUgh a lot of stuff.
Joe RigneyIt's not the sort of book that you could just give to anybody because some people are going to stumble over some of Friedman's categories, his psychological language, the evolutionary roots that he's grounding everything in.
Joe RigneyAnd so when I came out here, they said, hey, you've been doing this for a while.
Joe RigneyWould you want to put, you know, could you pull that together into some talks or into a book or something?
Joe RigneyAnd so I said, sure.
Joe RigneyAnd it came together actually relatively quickly, partly because, you know, it was the emerging of a couple of different streams.
Joe RigneyOne was for the last few years, I had been translating Friedman's concept of self differentiated leader as sober minded.
Joe RigneySo I had been thinking and talking in terms of, when we say, when talking about somebody being a mature adult, what do we mean?
Joe RigneyAnd sober mindedness had kind of become this organizing virtue as a way of thinking of someone who is steady, stable, grounded, clear eyed, but also engaged, not checked out.
Joe RigneySo there's a certain kind of person who can analyze stuff, but they're emotionally totally uninvested, and they're not going to do anything.
Joe RigneyAnd then there's another kind who's just going to do, and they're going to get led by the feelings.
Joe RigneyWell, you need somebody who's grounded, steady, stable, has a stability of soul, but is ready to act in the right way, and is governed by reason, governed by what's true, governed by what's good.
Joe RigneyAnd so I'd already been doing that, and that had been sort of my own take on freedmen over the last few years.
Joe RigneyAnd then I'd done a lot of thinking about man, actually manhood and womanhood and the way that.
Joe RigneyWhat does it mean for a man to be the head of his home?
Joe RigneyWhat does it mean for the woman to be the body?
Joe RigneyThis head body idea, what was that?
Joe RigneyAnd how do we better articulate both?
Joe RigneyWhat's sort of the facts of nature, just the way things are.
Joe RigneyIt doesn't matter whether you want them to be this way or not.
Joe RigneyThis is facts.
Joe RigneyAnd then in light of those facts, how should we live?
Joe RigneyWhat does it mean to be a faithful head?
Joe RigneyWhat does it mean to be a faithful member of the body?
Joe RigneyAnd so I'd been working on that separately.
Joe RigneyAnd so you kind of had, Friedman, you had my sober mindedness stuff, and you had this manhood, womanhood stuff.
Joe RigneyAnd then various experiences I'd been through, I preached through the book of acts.
Joe RigneyI'd seen enough manipulations and pressures and stresses that it all just kind of, like, came together and was able to be wrapped up into six pretty short chapters.
Joe RigneySo all in all, there was a timeliness thing that I'm grateful God's been kind to pull it all together.
Speaker CAnd you produced a course, which I watched as well, or a series of conversations with Pastor Wilson, and then a course.
Speaker CMaybe you can talk about those also.
Speaker CAnd then we'll walk through some of the content.
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneySo the first thing was that the canon asked to do, hey, let's do a little course.
Joe RigneyAnd so we did six sessions, put those on canon plus.
Joe RigneyAnd that was the initial ask.
Joe RigneyAnd then I said, you know, I wrote about 17,000 words, getting ready for this course.
Joe RigneyI could probably add another ten, and it'd be a nice little book.
Joe RigneyAnd they said, great.
Joe RigneyAnd so that's where.
Joe RigneySo that was the course was first in the book and then kind of coming out of it, you know, Friedman wrote these fables to kind of illustrate some of his fundamental principles.
Joe RigneyAnd we and Cannon had the idea, why don't we have you and Doug talk about these fables?
Joe RigneyBecause they can be a little bit surprising.
Joe RigneyThey're just a little bit.
Joe RigneyWhoa.
Joe RigneyThat's the way fable, good fables, good myths work.
Joe RigneyThat way they kind of grab your attention.
Joe RigneyBut then they gave us a good base from which to launch to talk about, how does this show up in your Home?
Joe RigneyOr how does this show up in the Church or in the culture?
Joe RigneyAnd so we put together those four little episodes also on canon plus.
Speaker CYeah, I'd never heard of FRIEdMaN's fables, but hearing you and DOug work through them, it's like, oh, I've seen this a thousand times in my life.
Speaker CThis is basically how the SeculaR WorLD works, right?
Speaker CEspecially the rope.
Speaker CLike, maybe talk about the rope and the bridge example quickly, and then we'll just use that to set the stage of what the kind of fable looks like and what they articulate.
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneySo there's, one of the fables is a guy's going on a journey.
Joe RigneyHe comes to a bridge.
Joe RigneyAnother guy's walking across the bridge, and the hero of the story is trying to get where he's going to go.
Joe RigneyHe's got a vision for his life.
Joe RigneyAnd the other guy comes up, hands him a rope, and then jumps over and then basically holds him hostage.
Joe RigneySo I'm not, you know, the guy's like, I'll help pull you up.
Joe RigneyAnd the guy, the hanger is saying, no, you'll just hold on.
Joe RigneyAnd these are these moments where you realize you're in a hostage situation where the other person is basically saying, if you don't, you're emotionally responsible for me, and I'm your problem.
Joe RigneyAnd it's not that I'm your problem in the way that God expects, you know, so a husband's ahead of his home, he's responsible for his.
Joe RigneyFor his household.
Joe RigneyIt's not that.
Joe RigneyIt's actually, I'm denying, you know, the person who's holding hostage, the hostage taker, is saying, my emotional state is entirely up to you, but it's not really up to you.
Joe RigneyI'm denying all agency, and I'm going to hold you hostage.
Joe RigneyAnd you see that in all sorts of places.
Joe RigneyYou can see it in extended families.
Joe RigneyThe example I used the other day in the sermon was, this is how the trans movement operates.
Joe RigneyThe question would you rather have a dead son or a living daughter?
Joe RigneyIs a great example of someone saying somebody's, you know, you have a boy, parents, you know, have a son, and he's been groomed into gender ideology and now is convinced he's a girl.
Joe RigneyAnd the activists will come and say, look, mom, dad, you need to get on board with this.
Joe RigneyAnd if you don't, you're gonna end up with a dead son.
Joe RigneyAnd so if you don't want a dead son, you better accept your new living daughter, and you better pay for the surgeries and the hormone blockers and everything else.
Joe RigneyAnd it's basically a hostage situation that says, mom and dad, this is, if they do something, if they kill themselves, it's your fault.
Joe RigneyIt's your fault.
Joe RigneyAnd what are they doing?
Joe RigneyThey're playing on the parents compassion.
Joe RigneyParents are compassionate.
Joe RigneyGod designed them to be.
Joe RigneyAs a father has compassion on his children, so shall the Lord have compassion on you.
Joe RigneyShall a mother forget her nursing child?
Joe RigneyShall she fail to have compassion on the child of her womb?
Joe RigneyThese are biblical texts that say, fathers and mothers are exhibit a of compassion and empathy and pity and whatever word you want to use.
Joe RigneyAnd so that also means there's a danger that they can be manipulated by it, and clever, ungodly agents will figure out how to exploit it.
Speaker CSo let's make this grounded and practical, then.
Speaker CSo not everyone's going to be dealing, although someone listening may be dealing with this exact situation, with the trans son, the dead son, living daughter.
Speaker CBut it seems like everyone has at least one situation, probably in their lives, where someone has thrown the rope around them and says, now you are responsible for me.
Speaker CAnd if you don't do what I say, then the hostage gets it, and I happen to be the hostage.
Speaker CSo, like, how can men and women, too, how can they spot these situations when they're coming?
Speaker CAnd how can they, in the moment, wield the righteous no?
Speaker COr what is the right response in that?
Joe RigneySo I think a couple of things is, first, getting so recognizing when it's happening is often a matter, first of becoming more aware of your own passions.
Joe RigneySo, because oftentimes paying attention to your own hesitations, reluctances, aversions, your angers, your anxieties.
Joe RigneyBecause oftentimes we intuitively are aware of the social environment.
Joe RigneyWe know what's expected of us when you go home for Christmas.
Joe RigneyYou know that there's certain people, certain topics.
Joe RigneyYou stay away from certain things.
Joe RigneyWhen people get agitated, you just kind of begin to maneuver around.
Joe RigneySo we all do this sort of intuitively and naturally to avoid relational pain.
Joe RigneyBasically, we want to avoid the emotional pain, relational pain, and we get very adept at dodging.
Joe RigneySo the first step is becoming aware of when you're doing that automatically.
Joe RigneyWhen are you ducking?
Joe RigneyWhen are you avoiding?
Joe RigneyAnd you can tell that by your own passions.
Joe RigneyYou know, there's, here's the thing I could say in this moment that would set everybody off.
Joe RigneyAnd then you have to ask, okay, am I doing that because of wisdom?
Joe RigneyBecause there's an issue that needs to be addressed, but now's not the right time, but I'm gonna address it later, or am I doing so out of cowardice?
Joe RigneyI just don't want, I don't want to deal with it.
Joe RigneyI'm fearing man.
Joe RigneyAnd so that's how you diagnose when you're doing it.
Joe RigneyThat's one of the key ways you diagnose.
Joe RigneyThen it's getting more clear on the nature of responsibility.
Joe RigneyWhat does God act?
Joe RigneyWho are you responsible for and how.
Joe RigneyHow are you responsible for it?
Joe RigneySo your first and fundamental responsibility is for yourself.
Joe RigneyYou stand before God, and you're responsible to him for you.
Joe RigneyYou're responsible for your emotions, your attitudes.
Joe RigneyYou're responsible for your actions, for your words, for your deeds.
Joe RigneyYou'll give an account for every bit of it to the Lord.
Joe RigneyHe's the one who will.
Joe RigneyYou're responsible to him.
Joe RigneyThen if you're in leadership, you're also responsible for those under you.
Joe RigneyBut you're not to blame for everything under you.
Joe RigneySo you're responsible, which means you need to address it.
Joe RigneyBut part of, like, if you're a pastor of a church, you're going to be held account for what happened in your congregation.
Joe RigneyBut what that doesn't mean is every sin in your congregation will be imputed to you.
Joe RigneyWhat it means is when you discovered or saw the sin, when you saw that issue, what did you do?
Joe RigneyDid you lean in?
Joe RigneyDid you address it?
Joe RigneyDid you rebuke, correct exhort?
Joe RigneyDid you use the word, did we bring it to bear?
Joe RigneyThat's what you'll be held responsible for your actions and what you ought to do, and they'll be held responsible for what they did.
Joe RigneyAnd so this is like with Adam and eve, right?
Joe RigneyEve sinned.
Joe RigneyBut when God, you know, both of them sinned.
Joe RigneyEve sinned first.
Joe RigneyBut when God showed up, he wanted to talk to Adam.
Joe RigneyWhy?
Joe RigneyBecause Adam was the head.
Joe RigneyAdam, where are you?
Joe RigneyI want to talk to you because you're responsible for the whole thing.
Joe RigneyI gave you the law of the garden.
Joe RigneyYou were responsible to teach it to your wife and to make sure she knew what the law of the garden was.
Joe RigneyAnd then you were responsible to guard and protect this place from evil.
Joe RigneyNow you're naked.
Joe RigneyNow you've clothed yourself.
Joe RigneyWho told you that you were naked?
Joe RigneyWhy are you hiding?
Joe RigneySo he wants to talk to Adam because Adam's the head.
Joe RigneyBut that doesn't mean that eve can say, well, if Adam's the head, I don't have any responsibility here.
Joe RigneyNo, that's not true.
Joe RigneyEve's responsible for herself.
Joe RigneySo that blame shifting thing that all humans want to do, we want to offload blame.
Joe RigneyOffload responsibility to others is the thing that you have to lean in with.
Joe RigneyYou have to say, no, I'm responsible for certain things, but not for other things.
Joe RigneyAnd so that's what prevents the hostage situation.
Speaker CCan you speak a word of encouragement into men who are experiencing this currently in their lives?
Speaker CAnd they know with their families or their workplaces or their friends, that if they say the thing, everything will blow up and they will get blamed for the explosion because everything was going along just fine, quote unquote, before, and then you had to go and say the thing, and now all of this chaos, now it's all on you.
Speaker CObviously, we know in our hearts that's false, but can you speak a word of encouragement to men that are facing situations like that?
Joe RigneyYeah, this is where, it's where courage is needed.
Joe RigneySo you get clear on what's happening.
Joe RigneyGet clear on it.
Joe RigneySo that means someone can be the occasion for a blow up and not the cause of the blow up.
Joe RigneySo when Paul's, you know, in the book, I talk about Paul in the book of acts, and everywhere Paul goes, there's a mob.
Joe RigneyAnd so the optical illusion that can result from that is Paul causes mobs.
Joe RigneyAnd it's actually, no, Paul is preaching the gospel.
Joe RigneyWhat's happening is his opponents are following him around, and everywhere he goes, they lie, they slander, they stir up mobs in order to oppose him.
Joe RigneyThis is an effective means of trying to put a damper on the gospel proclamation.
Joe RigneySo if you were to say, yeah, Paul causes mobs, you're like, no, you're not seeing it clearly.
Joe RigneyIt's his opponents that are causing the mobs.
Joe RigneyThey're behind the scenes.
Joe RigneyPulling.
Joe RigneyThey're puppet masters.
Joe RigneyThey know how to stir people up.
Joe RigneyThey know how to use slander and false accusations in order to steer people, and they're doing it.
Joe RigneyAnd so there's the mob and Paul.
Joe RigneyWhat Paul's refusing to do is he's refusing to be cowed by the mob.
Joe RigneyHe's not backing down from the mob.
Joe RigneyHe sees the mob as an opportunity to be faithful, to preach the gospel.
Joe RigneyAnd so you got to get clear on, if I say this, I may be lighting a match, but you ought to be able to light matches.
Joe RigneyOkay?
Joe RigneyThe issue is somebody else has been pumping gas into this room, and that's what's going to blow up.
Joe RigneyBut it's the person that's pumping the gas that's responsible for it, not me.
Joe RigneySo I'm going to own my words, but my words ought to be not, you know, my words are not.
Joe RigneyYou're speaking the truth, then it ought to be uncontroversial.
Joe RigneyIf you in heaven, if you said what you said, would the angels react?
Joe RigneyThat sort of question?
Joe RigneyRight?
Joe RigneyWould the saints who have been made righteous, if you said whatever thing that you're going to say in the setting, would they approve it or disapprove it?
Joe RigneyThat's how you should calibrate yourself.
Joe RigneyWhat does God think about this?
Joe RigneyWhat does the word say?
Joe RigneyThat's the true calibration.
Joe RigneyThen it's okay.
Joe RigneyNow, in this context, I'm going to say it and it's going to be uncomfortable, and then you're ready to deal with the blowback.
Joe RigneySo you know you're going to do it.
Joe RigneyAnd that's where you have to steel yourself with.
Joe RigneyI know what God thinks.
Joe RigneyI know who I am.
Joe RigneyUm, I'm seeking his approval.
Joe RigneyI'm gonna.
Joe RigneyI'm gonna speak plainly and clearly.
Joe RigneyUm, I'm gonna be, um, master of myself.
Joe RigneyGod's restored control of me to me.
Joe RigneyI'm.
Joe RigneyI'm self controlled and sober minded.
Joe RigneyUm, I.
Joe RigneyMy passions aren't running amok inside.
Joe RigneySo I'm gonna take this blowback knowing that it's coming and I'm gonna try to lead through it.
Joe RigneyThat's, that's how, that's what God calls, um, leaders to do.
Speaker CSo.
Speaker CSo I asked first about men, because I think courage and disagreeableness, to use a Jordan Peterson word, is something that's very inherent to men.
Speaker CWe're supposed to be disagreeable.
Speaker CCombat battle is disagreeable.
Speaker CBut I think one of the things we're also facing today is women having the need to be disagreeable about particularly sins about feminism, for example, that show up within families, and manipulation.
Speaker CAnd so I've spoken to a number of women that see many things going wrong within their families, within their friend groups, and they want to speak into it.
Speaker CBut women aren't maybe necessarily character or logically designed, made to be disagreeable in that way.
Speaker CCan you speak a word of encouragement to women as well in this regard?
Joe RigneyYeah, so we definitely see.
Joe RigneySo while women are not designed by God to be frontline fighters when battles are, Lewis said, battles are ugly when women fight.
Joe RigneyAnd then he still gave Susan that bow and arrow in Narnia, Father Christmas tells Susan, battles are ugly when women fight.
Joe RigneyYou're not supposed to be in the front lines, but there are times when everything's coming apart where you're going to need that bow and arrow, you're going to need that dagger.
Joe RigneyAnd so there is a place, and all women ought to be women of courage.
Joe RigneySarah in the Bible is a model of courage.
Joe RigneySo in one Peter, we're told, be like the holy women who hoped in God.
Joe RigneyBe like Sarah, who submitted to Abraham, calling him lord, who did good and did not fear anything that was frightening, so that fear.
Joe RigneySo a woman could say, this is going to be awkward in my friend group if I bring up, but this is wrong.
Joe RigneyGod doesn't.
Joe RigneyThis is false.
Joe RigneyThis is not true to the scriptures.
Joe RigneyYes, it will be awkward, and there's a hurdle that you have to get over because of the agreeableness, the natural female agreeableness, but faithfulness demands it.
Joe RigneyIt's still, do you care what God thinks, or do you care what man thinks?
Joe RigneyAre you seeking to be approved by the world by your friends, or are you going to be approved by the Lord?
Joe RigneyThat's the fundamental thing that you've got to get straight and you've got to anchor yourself in this.
Speaker CPastoral advice is fantastic.
Speaker CSo to follow on from that, let's say that you're in the room full of people, whether man or woman, room's full of gas, the chronic anxiety, you light the match, the thing blows up, and nothing is ever the same again in any kind of way.
Speaker CHelp counsel people through what to do in that moment of grief, like, I've just lost this thing that was precious to me.
Speaker CHow would you counsel somebody in that situation who's sitting with that?
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneySo then I think, well, part of what you're doing is maybe this would be even part of the advice before you do it, is you're entrusting it to goddess.
Joe RigneyRight.
Joe RigneySo a big part of what you're doing in being willing to say it is, Lord, I'm going to say these words, and I'm all.
Joe RigneyEverything that happens after that, I'm going to say the truth, or I'm going to resist the lie, whatever it is, I'm going to be faithful, and I'm leaving the results in your hands.
Joe RigneyAnd so in the aftermath, if it went sideways.
Joe RigneySo first, let's start with sometimes we say the thing that we think is going to be a problem, and we're actually shocked that half the people in the room are like, thank you.
Joe RigneyLike, this actually happens more than you think, where you weren't the only one.
Joe RigneyEverybody else was uncomfortable with it, too.
Joe RigneyThey just hadn't got there yet.
Joe RigneyThey hadn't gotten to the courage point.
Joe RigneyAnd it's you saying, hey, actually, I don't think we need to do this.
Joe RigneyIt's you saying, no, we're not going to cater to that, no, we're not going to coddle that.
Joe RigneyAnd a bunch of people come up to you after and say thank you.
Joe RigneyOr you discover that if it's in a family context, that one of your siblings had also had the same thought about your extended relative who was causing the problem.
Joe RigneyAnd now what happens is, in that moment, you actually bind with them in a certain way.
Joe RigneyYou're forming the nucleus of a more healthy system, because it's one that's built on the truth and upon, you know, what God thinks and not what the world thinks.
Joe RigneyThe reason the other one's so unhealthy is because it's shot through with worldliness.
Joe RigneyYours, you're trying to build something healthier.
Joe RigneySo sometimes, just know, you might say it and people actually might, might get on board, but say they don't say that.
Joe RigneyThe herd instinct kicks in and everybody tries to shout you down or get you to apologize.
Joe RigneyIn that moment, you're entrusting the whole thing to the Lord and you're saying, Lord, I don't see how.
Joe RigneyI don't see the way out.
Joe RigneyI don't see how this could ever be any better.
Joe RigneyBut I'm going to be faithful and I'm going to leave it in your hands and just keep doing that daily.
Joe RigneyI think when it comes to one of the little bits in the book that I don't know if people fully appreciate, but I've appreciated it more and more in recent years, is the way that job, at the beginning, part of what job made job a faithful leader and a faithful father was.
Joe RigneyHis kids are having their parties and he's regularly going before the Lord and saying, lord, I'm going to offer these sacrifices to you on behalf of my kids, just in case they'd sinned and cursed you in their hearts.
Joe RigneyRight?
Joe RigneyAnd so what job is doing there is taking responsibility for his kids.
Joe RigneyHe's like, I can't reach in there and turn their sin on and off.
Joe RigneyI don't have that power.
Joe RigneyNobody has that power for another person.
Joe RigneyYou don't even have that for yourself.
Joe RigneyYou need the grace of God to change your own heart.
Joe RigneySo I don't have that power, but I can, Lord, bring it before you and say, I'm responsible.
Joe RigneyThese are my children, and so I am, as the head, I'm going to take responsibility for them.
Joe RigneyAnd so that's what you're going to do both before and after both, when you're, when it's still simmering and when it's finally blown up is say, lord.
Joe RigneyYep, okay, I said it.
Joe RigneyI took a stand.
Joe RigneyI had some nerve.
Joe RigneyUm, I I didn't go along the way that we've always gone along in the past.
Joe RigneyI I stood my ground, and now everybody's mad at me.
Joe RigneySo, lord, I'm entrusting this to you.
Joe RigneyYou're going to have to bring something out and help me in the meantime to be cheerful, to be joyful, to rejoice, because they're saying all kinds of false things about me.
Joe RigneyLord, help me to do, to obey Jesus who said, when they say false things about you, go do a dance, go have a party, you're blessed.
Joe RigneyHelp me to receive that and help me to maintain my humility.
Joe RigneyI want to think your thoughts.
Joe RigneyI want to be wise.
Joe RigneyI want to be gracious.
Joe RigneySo you're just.
Joe RigneyAnd you'll notice that what's happening is you're actually becoming a more dependent person.
Joe RigneyYou're becoming more dependent upon the Lord and therefore independent respect to people.
Joe RigneyRight.
Joe RigneyLike, you're actually, like, because you're depending on the Lord, you actually have the ability to stand against the crowd, and that's where you, that's where you want to live.
Joe RigneyLive there.
Speaker CYou used a word that I think doesn't get used enough these days, but I think is very accurate.
Speaker CHave some nerve.
Speaker CLike the word have some nerve, maybe.
Speaker CCan you unpack that a little bit?
Speaker CBecause that's a concept we've lost in our world today, I think.
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneyIt's a way of talking about courage, fortitude, backbone, any of those sort of terms.
Joe RigneyIt's.
Joe RigneyHere's a hard thing that, and it could be social pressure.
Joe RigneyIt could be objective danger.
Joe RigneyRight.
Joe RigneyIt doesn't matter what it is that produces fear in me.
Joe RigneyAnd so the question is, is my fear going to run me?
Joe RigneyIs the fear in charge?
Joe RigneyDoes the fear win?
Joe RigneyDoes the fear lead?
Joe RigneySo the presence of fear is not a problem.
Joe RigneyIf the fear wasn't there, then you wouldn't have.
Joe RigneyThere would be no possibility of the virtue being there either.
Joe RigneyRight.
Joe RigneySo you need the fear because you need then the grace of God acting through your mind and heart to overcome it and to not give way, to not buckle.
Joe RigneyAnd so if you're standing firm, then you might.
Joe RigneyWe'd say, oh, he's got fortitude because he's standing firm.
Joe RigneyIf it's you have to move forward, you'd say, he's taking a risk, he's being courageous.
Joe RigneyBut in both cases, yeah, you're planting your feet, you're standing firm in the face of challenge, sabotage, steering, pressure, consequences.
Joe RigneyI'm going to be faithful to the Lord no matter what.
Speaker CSo we started sort of in the home, the friend, the family structure, and in the book, that's where you start, and then you start building out into the.
Speaker CAnd into the world.
Speaker CSo maybe let's start with the church, because I think the world is being confronted in some ways, but these conflicts that crackle, this anxiety exists within so many churches, and I think people are rightfully afraid to light a match, but maybe in some ways they kind of have to.
Speaker CSo maybe we can spend some time talking.
Speaker CMaybe have to isn't the right word, but maybe it's necessary would be a better way of putting that.
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneySo I think one of the things I've been writing about more recently, and we'll probably try to pull some things together even in the future, but it's kind of a follow on to the sabotage book is.
Joe RigneyHow does it.
Joe RigneyWhat are the mechanics of it?
Joe RigneyAnd so I mentioned in the book that often worldliness gets laundered through other Christians, meaning you've got the worldly things happening over there and you don't care what the world says because you've got enough backbone.
Joe RigneyYou know what Jesus said?
Joe RigneyThe world will hate us, it's okay.
Joe RigneyBut there's a Christian who's closer to them, who does care and has compromised, but you don't care what that Christian says because they're a compromised Christian.
Joe RigneyThat denomination's unfaithful, that church is unfaithful.
Joe RigneySo you don't care about that.
Joe RigneyBut then there's a person closer, one step closer to you who does care what that group thinks.
Joe RigneyAnd there's a person.
Joe RigneyAnd so it's just this chain.
Joe RigneyAnd the hard thing to resist is the one that's close to you, right?
Joe RigneyAnd this is what, you know, the illustration of the book is when Peter withdrew from the Gentiles because of certain pressures from the circumcision party, which probably means the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem.
Joe RigneyAnd so it's like, how did that work?
Joe RigneyWell, those unbelieving Jews were making trouble for the church in Jerusalem.
Joe RigneyJames was, you know, people are getting persecuted.
Joe RigneyThey're getting kicked out of the synagogues, thrown in jail.
Joe RigneyJames is worried about this.
Joe RigneyHe sends.
Joe RigneyHe sends messengers to Peter.
Joe RigneySo now you've got three steps, three people involved.
Joe RigneyAnd those men come to Peter and they say, look, if you keep eating with the Gentiles, it's making it really tough for us.
Joe RigneyYou know, people are not liking it.
Joe RigneyWe have.
Joe RigneyOur reputation is shot.
Joe RigneyCould you maybe back off and just for a little bit?
Joe RigneyMaybe just for a season, you know?
Joe RigneyAnd you can.
Joe RigneyAnd we're not told the details, but it's not hard to imagine the kinds of appeals that would be made in that kind of setting.
Joe RigneyAnd Peter goes, okay, and he withdraws.
Joe RigneyAnd then Leeds, Barnabas comes along with Peter, and then the rest of the jews come along with Peter.
Joe RigneyAnd so.
Joe RigneyAnd then it takes Paul to finally say, but wait a minute.
Joe RigneyWait a minute.
Joe RigneyNo, this is wrong.
Joe RigneyAnd to actually take the stand to oppose Peter to his face, to light the match, which may be really awkward, and you don't know, is it going to blow up or is it going to make peace?
Joe RigneyAnd so that's the sort of thing that.
Joe RigneyThe way that the world launders its influence through other christians.
Joe RigneySo the way I've come to talk about this, this isn't in the book, but it's coming out of the book, I would say, is that oftentimes christians live under the progressive gaze.
Joe RigneyUnder the progressive eyes.
Joe RigneySo.
Joe RigneyEyes, yeah, eyes, not.
Joe RigneyYeah, progressive gaze, not gaysgaze.
Joe RigneyAnd I actually get the term.
Speaker CThat's true.
Joe RigneyYeah, I guess they're both true.
Joe RigneyBut I actually got the terminal from Toni Morrison, who's a novelist, african american novelist, who kind of popularized this, talking about the white gaze.
Joe RigneyAnd what she meant was, there's a way with her as a black author, she always felt like that there was this presumption that her true audience was white people, and so that she needed to speak and act and write in such a way that that was her main audience.
Joe RigneyShe was trying to make sure they were the ones evaluating.
Joe RigneyWhite people were the ones evaluating.
Joe RigneyAnd so it was something like, she basically felt like there was this little white man sitting on her shoulder saying, you know, sort of furrowed brow, you know, well, that doesn't make sense.
Joe RigneyAnd, you know, you know, and so she said, I couldn't just describe my own experience because I was not writing.
Joe RigneyAnd so she said, I had to really work to get that guy off my shoulder and write for the audience I wanted to write for.
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneyAnd what it is, is it's actually just a really creative way to talk about people pleasing.
Joe RigneyRight.
Joe RigneyLike, you know what I mean?
Joe RigneyLike, at some level, it's like the worldly gaze, the progressive gaze, the white gaze, whatever gaze is just a person on your shoulder who's evaluating everything you do.
Joe RigneyAnd Christians, this is the thing.
Joe RigneyChristians have gotten in a habit of doing this by saying, well, the world is watching.
Joe RigneyThe world is watching.
Joe RigneyAnd it's like, and that's true.
Joe RigneyJesus says, you know, they'll know you're christians by your love for one another.
Joe RigneyThey're watching.
Joe RigneyAnd it's like, yeah, but what, but who else is watching?
Joe RigneyIs the Lord watching?
Joe RigneyWhat does he think about what we just said?
Joe RigneyWhat does he think about what we're doing?
Joe RigneyThat's, again, the more fundamental question, but, because when you live underneath, when the church lives underneath the progressive gaze, when it lives under that sense of judgment, it will then seek to cater and accommodate and placate progressive ideologies, progressive sins.
Joe RigneyIt will speak softly about things that progressives want us to speak softly about, and it will drop a big hammer.
Joe RigneyThis is the origin of the phenomenon where we talk about people who will punch left but, or punch right but coddle left right.
Joe RigneySo things that are associated with the right that are culturally unacceptable, the church will just drop hammers.
Joe RigneyNo nuance.
Joe RigneyNo.
Joe RigneyLet's try to understand that perspective.
Joe RigneyNope, just, boom, drop it.
Joe RigneyAnd then on the other hand, to the left, it's, well, we gotta nuance this.
Joe RigneyWe gotta be winsome here.
Joe RigneyAnd it's like, what's happening is there's a little progressive sitting on the shoulder that's dictating how and when and why we speak.
Joe RigneyAnd so that's how the church and the world.
Joe RigneyAnd so, and this is the hard thing for a leader, is it's often the first fight is not with the world, but it's with your elder team.
Joe RigneyIt's your elder team.
Joe RigneyIt's the three guys in that room who have that little progressive on their shoulder.
Joe RigneyAnd you're going, but we're just drifting.
Joe RigneyWe're being steered left.
Joe RigneyWe're being moved left.
Joe RigneyWe're being moved in a progressive, liberal, unbiblical direction.
Joe RigneyAnd it's, how do I stop it?
Joe RigneyWell, it's going to take some courage, some nerve to stand up to them, just like Paul had to stand up to Peter.
Speaker CSo there could be someone listening who could be like, that's all well and good, but I'm not Paul.
Speaker CRight.
Speaker CAnd push back on that a little bit.
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneyI'd say, well, you better be if you're a leader, you are.
Joe RigneyI mean, like Paul says, you know, if whatever you've heard and seen in me practice these things, do it.
Joe RigneyHe puts himself forward.
Joe RigneyImitate me as I imitate Christ, he says.
Joe RigneySo Paul puts himself forward as a model for other leaders, for Timothy, for churches.
Joe RigneyWe're supposed to look at Paul and go, how did he handle these kind of situations?
Joe RigneyBecause he's trying to follow.
Joe RigneyHe's seeking to follow Christ.
Joe RigneySo I would say you may not be Paul in that you're not an apostle, but you are the leader in that room.
Joe RigneyAnd so the question is, will you be faithful at your post just as he was faithful at his post.
Speaker CMm hmm.
Speaker CSo what can christians listening then do to root out the progressive gaze that lives over their shoulder?
Speaker CBecause it seems to me that it's a very powerful force within the church today.
Speaker CLike, it's just living right there.
Speaker CThe progressive gaze, the science man gaze.
Speaker CLike all these different gazes are sitting on christian shoulders and it's not the gospel.
Joe RigneyYeah, right.
Joe RigneySo I would say this is what I think this is Toni Morrison.
Joe RigneyShe just said, you just gotta flick that guy off.
Joe RigneyJust, but the thing is, here's the danger.
Joe RigneyThis is the, to borrow a Jesus image, he says, you cast out one demon and then you leave the house swept clean.
Joe RigneySeven more worse than the first come back and reinhabit.
Joe RigneySo it's like, it's not enough to simply remove, to simply say, I'm not.
Joe RigneyOftentimes what we're doing when we're writing for that gaze is we're trying to manage results.
Joe RigneyWe're trying to, like that.
Joe RigneyWe want, we're not simply trying to be faithful.
Joe RigneyWe're trying to manage consequences and results.
Joe RigneyAnd so the first step is you're not God.
Joe RigneyYou have no control over consequences and results.
Joe RigneyYou can't predict it.
Joe RigneyYou can't with an absolute way.
Joe RigneyYou can sort of anticipate things, wisdom.
Joe RigneyYou can sort of read, okay, I think I know how this is going to go, but you don't have any control over what happens.
Joe RigneyYou're not goddesse.
Joe RigneyAnd so I'm not God.
Joe RigneyI'm going to step out of that role by trying to manage and be God.
Joe RigneyYou know, I got a friend who talks about, we think of evangelism as being God's pr guy, right?
Joe RigneyWe've got to be his PR spokesman to try to spin everything to, you know, to help appeal to the audience.
Joe RigneyAnd it's like, you're not God's pr guy.
Joe RigneyYour task, you're God's herald.
Joe RigneySay what he said, okay?
Joe RigneySay what he said.
Joe RigneyAnd where the thing does come into play is, you know, which by your own hesitations, which things you say are gonna cause that.
Joe RigneyAnd it's often, that's the signal of what faithfulness means there, right?
Joe RigneyWhat, it's no good to gather all the, you know what here.
Joe RigneyI'm gonna gather all these christians in a room and I'm gonna preach about the sins that aren't in the room.
Joe RigneyI'm gonna gather all the christians and I'm gonna address every, I'm gonna address all kinds of sin and I can thunder and everybody, and I'm gonna get amen.
Joe RigneyAmen.
Joe RigneyAmen.
Joe RigneyAnd it's all about sins that are in that church across town or in that world over there.
Joe RigneyWe're blasting those now.
Joe RigneyThere's a place for that because these christians are going to go out there and they need to know how to live.
Joe RigneySo you do want to equip people.
Joe RigneyBut if you're doing, if that's all you're doing, and you never address the sins in the room, you're always right.
Joe RigneyWhat sins are in the room?
Joe RigneyWhat sins are in the room?
Joe RigneyThat's the sin that's most pressing.
Joe RigneyAnd if you're avoiding that one but still thundering against the other one, then you're not being faithful because you're living before the gaze of your audience, right, rather than the gaze of God.
Joe RigneyBut if you live under God's gaze, if you say, all right, I want to be faithful, and I know what faithfulness looks like here, what you'll often find is God blesses it, right?
Joe RigneyGod, God.
Joe RigneyGod will bless it.
Joe RigneyAnd the blessing might be persecution.
Joe RigneyIt might be that kind of hard, hard mercy, right?
Joe RigneyLike sometimes happens in the New Testament and other times thousands of people get saved.
Joe RigneyThousands of people go, oh, finally, someone said it somewhat, you know, where are the christians who were just testifying to the way things are?
Joe RigneyAnd they go, now?
Joe RigneyI want to.
Joe RigneyLet me hear more.
Joe RigneyWe'll hear you more about how many times did Paul have these two reactions in the book of acts?
Joe RigneySome people said mocked it.
Joe RigneySome people blew up about it.
Joe RigneyThey mocked it.
Joe RigneyThey derided it.
Joe RigneyThey tried to persecute him.
Joe RigneyAnd then other people were like, we'd like to hear more about this.
Joe RigneyBecause it was plain, direct, no waffling.
Joe RigneyHe's trying to be winsome.
Joe RigneyHe is attempting to sort of make it comprehensible, but he's not trying to shade it.
Joe RigneySo one of the dangers is sometimes you'll see pastors who speak in order to be misunderstood.
Joe RigneyI've got a friend who, he's working on a project along these lines, the pastors who are gonna say something, knowing that one audience will hear it one way and another audience will hear it a different way, and it allows them to sort of have plausible deniability in both.
Joe RigneyNo, no, I didn't say that.
Joe RigneyBut to this group.
Joe RigneyOh, I did say that.
Joe RigneyRight.
Joe RigneyAnd you're speaking to muddle things.
Joe RigneyNot speaking, to be clear.
Joe RigneyAnd the number of times where Paul or the apostles, one of my favorite things about the apostles is whenever in the early part of acts, Peter and James and John are preaching to the crowds, and then they get hauled before the authorities.
Joe RigneyAnd the authorities are like, you're trying to make us guilty of this man's blood.
Joe RigneyYou're saying that we're guilty of the murder of the Messiah?
Joe RigneyAnd they're like, yes, that's what we're saying.
Joe RigneyI'm glad we are communicating.
Joe RigneyThat is.
Joe RigneyYes, you murdered the author of Life, and God raised him from the dead.
Joe RigneyYou've got it.
Joe RigneyWhat?
Joe RigneyAnd Jesus does the same thing, right?
Joe RigneyWhen he condemns, I think he's condemning the pharisees at one point, and the scribes said, rabbi, in condemning that, you condemn us also.
Joe RigneyAnd Jesus says, yeah, about the scribes, and just launches into round two.
Joe RigneyAnd it's like, like, that's.
Joe RigneyBut because what's he aiming for?
Joe RigneyHe's aiming for clarity, right?
Joe RigneyYou're always like, a fundamental thing for leaders is you're always aiming for clarity.
Joe RigneyYou want to bring clarity.
Speaker CPlease say more about that real quick, because I can see there's a ditch on one side of the road of not saying anything at all.
Speaker CAnd then there, especially with social media, there's the ditch on the side of the road of making your entire personality about saying the thing.
Speaker CSo how do people who have the courage to get up out of one ditch avoid navigating straight into the other one or even down the road into the other one.
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneySo I think especially when it comes to the social media question, it's important that all of your efforts to export via social media are grounded in real life community, that you're not treating that online Persona as a substitute for a life well lived with God's people in a particular place.
Joe RigneyAnd so sometimes I think that part of the way it can go wrong is that people have taken.
Joe RigneyThis is a category from a friend of mine named Josh Mitchell, who's written some articles on it.
Joe RigneyBut you take something that's designed to be a supplement and it becomes a substitute.
Joe RigneySo you can think about the way that vitamins are meant to be a substitute or supplement for meals.
Joe RigneyBut if you replace meals with vitamins and all you're doing is vitamins, it's like something's off.
Joe RigneyIt's a similar thing with kind of social media, if that's designed to breed connection, but it's not designed to replace face to face embodied life.
Joe RigneyAnd so I would say that's the first check I would have, is if I was somebody saying, hey, here's what my life looks like.
Joe RigneyAm I doing too much?
Joe RigneyAm I too online?
Joe RigneyAnd I would say, well, let's talk about it.
Joe RigneyLet's talk about what is it like with your wife and your kids?
Joe RigneyHow much is your orientation towards out there online?
Joe RigneyNot because being a man and being outwardly oriented, I gotta go build something is good.
Joe RigneyGod designed us for that.
Joe RigneyTake Dominion.
Joe RigneyRight, but is the thing that you're building start in your home and then in your community?
Joe RigneyOr is it entirely digital?
Joe RigneyAnd if it's entirely digital, the danger is it can be so carefully curated and manicured, you can present women do it with their Instagram accounts.
Joe RigneyHere's the life where it's a fake life, it's a curated life.
Joe RigneyIt shows some true things, but it masks all of reality and therefore creates a false impression.
Joe RigneySimilar thing can happen with anonymous Twitter accounts or whatever you want to say.
Joe RigneyI know there's good reasons that some people are anonymous.
Joe RigneyThey could lose their job or whatever, that's fine.
Joe RigneyBut if you lean into that anonymous identity and not into your embodied reality with your family, your church, if you're not in community with real people, then it's a good bet that that's going to take on a life of its own and just become another way that your passions will be steered.
Speaker CSo you mentioned in the book the difference between apostles of the world versus refugees of the world, and speaking to those two.
Speaker CSo one of the questions that I had in response to.
Speaker CThat was, how do we speak to apostles of the world knowing that the refugees are listening?
Speaker CRight.
Speaker CBecause no one tweet can speak to both people.
Speaker CSo how do we navigate that for those of us who are called to speak truth with clarity?
Joe RigneyYeah, good.
Joe RigneyI mean, this is one of the things, you know, to circle all the way back to whenever the empathy thing kind of blew up, I was always trying to discern, as people would throw comments or make criticisms, which 01:00 a.m.
Joe Rigneyi dealing with.
Joe RigneyAnd I would, and I would self consciously respond to both publicly, and I would do so in different ways.
Joe RigneySo in other words, sometimes it was clear and I would try to do a little bit of a, there would be a little bit of sharper, you know, I'd be trying to, this is combat, and I'm trying to do that.
Joe RigneyAnd then any other time when I thought, there's a good chance that this person is confused or has been lied to or has been manipulated by these other people, I'm going to just totally try to diffuse all of it.
Joe RigneyI'm not taking.
Joe RigneySo it was never personal.
Joe RigneyAnd it was always, oh, hey, great question.
Joe RigneyLet me answer that.
Joe RigneyAnd the goal was, this is something I picked up from the apostle Paul, was surprise, the importance of surprising people.
Joe RigneySo if you remember in the story that I do in the book, in the last chapter where he's before that, that audience, they've been told he's a gentile loving grecophile who hates Moses.
Joe RigneyAnd so, and then when he gets beat up, he gets arrested.
Joe RigneyThen he asks, can I go back out and speak to the people?
Joe RigneyAnd the tribune says, sure.
Joe RigneyAnd so he goes back out, and they're chanting, it's a mob.
Joe RigneyAnd what he does is he immediately begins speaking in flawless Hebrew.
Joe RigneyAnd you go, why is it significant?
Joe RigneyWhy does the Bible record that detail?
Joe RigneyHe'd spoken Greek to the tribune, and he comes out and he's speaking Hebrew, and it says that the crowd responded by being hushed into silence.
Joe RigneyThey were like, wait, what?
Joe RigneyAnd it was, he surprised them.
Joe RigneyThey didn't think this guy knew Hebrew.
Joe RigneyThey certainly didn't think he knew that kind of Hebrew.
Joe RigneyAnd so he surprised them.
Joe RigneyAnd so I'm always, when I think about that, I'm going, if someone comes out with a snarky comment, but I think it's because of a confusion or at least, or at least there might be other people watching that I'll often deliberately go, I'm not going to take the bait and hit back in kind.
Joe RigneyInstead, I'll absorb it and try to just say, oh, let me.
Joe RigneyHappy to be clear, I don't want there to be confusion.
Joe RigneyLet me answer that question.
Joe RigneyAnd so they were not asking a good faith question, but I will answer it in a good faith because I have my eye on the refugees.
Joe RigneyI want people to kind of go, well, that's not what I thought he would do.
Joe RigneyI thought he would be really snarky back.
Joe RigneyAnd so you're always, so that's how I would do it is I am aware, especially in online interactions, it is a combat zone, but you do have non combatants or you have confused combatants and going, I'm not trying to necessarily persuade the person I'm talking to because in all likelihood, if they're an apostle, there's not going to be.
Joe RigneyAnd because of the nature of the case, they're in a combat situation.
Joe RigneyThey're going to dig in out of, even if they think I'm right, they're going to dig in.
Joe RigneyRight?
Joe RigneyLike, in other words, if I were to answer their objection in a way that was compelling, they're going to dig in because they lose face.
Joe RigneyAnd so people, online interactions are combat, and so people will dig in on stupid stuff because they don't want to lose face.
Joe RigneyThey can't admit that they were wrong.
Joe RigneyIt's like, that's okay.
Joe RigneyI'm not worried about winning them, but I am worried about people who are observing and who are trying to understand what's the big deal about all of this?
Joe RigneyWhat's the big controversy all about.
Joe RigneyAnd that's where, and so that's where I'm wanting to define respectable and credible the way God does, right.
Joe RigneyNot the way the world does, because the world's going to use respectability.
Joe RigneyWell, if you don't believe this, you're not respectable and they're going to try to steer you by it.
Joe RigneyThe world is watching.
Joe RigneyWorld is watching.
Joe RigneyAnd I'm saying, well, there's truth in wanting to be respectable, but I want my respectability insofar as it's determined or shaped by outsiders.
Joe RigneyLike, I want to have a good reputation with outsiders.
Joe RigneyI want it to be people who've actually seen me up close and personal have watched me coach baseball with my kids.
Joe RigneyIf unbelievers in those contexts saw me and they said, well, we hate what he thinks, but we got to admit that he's a really good baseball coach and really cared for the kids, well, that's the standard.
Joe RigneyThat's that good reputation with outsiders, not random anonymous person online says, you know, you're evil, and therefore I have a bad reputation.
Joe RigneyIt's like, ha, who cares about that?
Joe RigneyInstead, I'm going to speak over that to this other group who's just observing.
Speaker CMake them have to contextualize what they might find as sharp words in the larger picture of a man.
Joe RigneyExactly right.
Joe RigneyThat's a great way to put it.
Speaker CSo you mentioned baseball.
Speaker CSo do you mind if we transition, talking about strangely bright real quick?
Joe RigneyYeah, for sure.
Speaker CAll right.
Speaker CI really enjoyed that book, by the way.
Speaker CDid you intend for strangely bright and emotional sabotage to come out at the same time, or was that just sort of, like, providential?
Joe RigneySo.
Joe RigneyWell, so strangely bright actually came out.
Joe RigneyIt was first released, I want to say, a couple years ago.
Joe RigneySo Crossway published it first, and it's actually the little cousin of a larger book called the things of Earth, which I published back in 2015, 2016.
Joe RigneySo the things of Earth was the first version.
Joe RigneyHow do you treasuring God?
Joe RigneyBy enjoying his gifts.
Joe RigneyAnd that book was helpful to a lot of people, but it was a big, fat book.
Joe RigneyAnd so I then said, I'm gonna rework the content and write a smaller version that you can give to your mom to kind of, you know, like, write a little book that she'll read because she's not gonna read a big, fat one, maybe.
Joe RigneyAnd so I wrote strangely bright, and then.
Joe RigneyAnd it just so happened that it released at the same time it re released.
Joe RigneySo this new release that cannon just did was a rerelease of an old book, but that was an attempt to kind of get it into a.
Joe RigneyGive it new life, get it into.
Speaker CNew new circles, because I noticed that the strangely bright cover is green, the emotional sabotage cover is yellow.
Speaker CAnd I think they both deal with some uneasiness that it seems to me that modern evangelical christians have with the world.
Speaker CFirst is around the question of the righteous use of power and then the other, and then strangely bright is the righteous enjoyment of pleasure.
Speaker CI thought that was an interesting and providential juxtaposition.
Joe RigneyYeah, no, that's right.
Joe RigneySo I would say so things of earth came first and was really about, okay, we want to be.
Joe RigneyWe're supremacy of God, people.
Joe RigneyGod is greatest.
Joe RigneyGod is the best.
Joe RigneyGod is the chief good, the ultimate good, highest good.
Joe RigneyBut then there's all the stuff.
Joe RigneyWhat do we do?
Joe RigneyHow do we enjoy it rightly?
Joe RigneyHow do we steward it rightly?
Joe RigneyHow do we not abuse it, commit idolatry, but also say thank you?
Joe RigneyAll of those kind of questions.
Joe RigneyWas the things of earth strangely bright?
Joe RigneyAnd then basically, what's happened is I was wrestling with that question probably beginning like 25, 6789.
Joe RigneyThose years are when I'd been newly married and was trying to navigate that as a christian hedonist.
Joe RigneyGod is most glorified in me when I'm most satisfied in him.
Joe RigneyBut now, what with all the gifts.
Joe RigneySo that book emerged out of that season.
Joe RigneyAnd then I think what's happened is culturally, the conversation has shifted, like you said, to the use of power or the question of culture, the question of politics, the question of social order, which is basically an extension of how do we live in the world?
Joe RigneyRight?
Joe RigneyLike the common thing is I've got to live in a world.
Joe RigneyIt's a world of pleasures and it's a world of sin and a world of power.
Joe RigneyIt's how do you live faithfully there if you've made God supreme?
Joe RigneyBecause Jesus is lord.
Joe RigneyAnd so you're right to recognize there is a shared approach to that question in both of those books.
Speaker CSo I listened to strangely bright.
Speaker CNow, normally I read physical books, so I can highlight and make notes, but I listen to strangely bright, so I don't have any notes in front of me.
Speaker CSo let's walk through the argument of strangely bright a little bit while preserving some of the mystery and the enjoyment of people to listen or read it.
Joe RigneySure.
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneySo the basic idea is, if you believe that whom have I in heaven but you on earth?
Joe RigneyThere's nothing I desire beside you speaking to God.
Joe RigneySo God, there's nothing I desire then, and that's psalm 73.
Joe RigneyHow should you live?
Joe RigneyHow should you.
Joe RigneyOkay, Lord, there's not only you, all you.
Joe RigneyAnd then you look down the row at church and there's your family.
Joe RigneyWhat about them?
Joe RigneyDo you desire them?
Joe RigneyDo you love them?
Joe RigneyDo you enjoy them?
Joe RigneyThat's the tension that the book's trying to address.
Joe RigneyAnd the first and fundamental place is that, well, why did God make that world?
Joe RigneyWhy did he make a world in which he's supreme, but which is filled with all kinds of pleasures, all kinds of enjoyments, all kinds of goodness, whether it's your.
Joe RigneyI talk in the book about sensible pleasures like food and drink and things that are pleasurable to the bodily senses, relational pleasures, which is people, and then vocational pleasures, the things you do that are enjoyable.
Joe RigneyThe world is just shot full with all this stuff.
Joe RigneyWhy?
Joe RigneyAnd it's because God wants to communicate himself and he's communicating himself in the things that he's made.
Joe RigneyThis is how the Bible heavens declare the glory of God.
Joe RigneyHis invisible attributes have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made, and so that's why God made them, is that they're meant to be revelations of his own character, his own glory, his own grace, and they're meant to draw us back to him.
Joe RigneyWell, that means if that's why they're there, well, you can't get.
Joe RigneyThere's no shortcut.
Joe RigneyYou've got to go through the things.
Joe RigneyHe's given the things to lead us to him.
Joe RigneySo follow the things.
Speaker CSo was this a question for christians prior to now, or was this a.
Speaker CIs this.
Speaker CHas this always been present, or is this just a modern manifestation?
Joe RigneyNo, I think it's a universal, as old as dirt problem.
Joe RigneyThe problem has always been, how do you navigate the two fundamental sins?
Joe RigneyYou can say in the book of Romans, Romans one begins with this description of human sin.
Joe RigneyThe bottom line, sins, there are idolatry and ingratitude.
Joe RigneyThey don't honor God as God, nor do they give thanks.
Joe RigneyThose are the two fundamental sins.
Joe RigneyAnd you can see there's the two ditches.
Joe RigneyOn the one, idolatry is saying to God, okay, I put God on one side of my scales, and I put everything else, all the good stuff, on the other side.
Joe RigneyWhich one do I want?
Joe RigneyAnd idolatry says, I want the stuff, not God.
Joe RigneyRight?
Joe RigneyI want this stuff.
Joe RigneyOn the other hand, ingratitude said, well, I don't want to do that.
Joe RigneyI want to love God.
Joe RigneyAnd so I'm not even going to.
Joe RigneyI won't accept any gifts, right?
Joe RigneyNo God, I.
Joe RigneyOnly you.
Joe RigneyGod, only you.
Joe RigneyI don't want any of this stuff.
Joe RigneyAnd so that's the ascetic route.
Joe RigneyThat's the, you know, the route of ultimate self denial.
Joe RigneyI'm not going to receive anything good because I don't want it.
Joe RigneyIt's an idle trap.
Joe RigneyI don't want it to be an idol.
Joe RigneyAnd so those are the two twin dangers that we all human beings have always faced going back to Adam.
Joe RigneyAnd so I do think in a wealthy society like ours, it's a particular temptation.
Joe RigneyAnd I think that some of the reason that that book has resonated is, you know, John Piper is one of my heroes.
Joe RigneyI'm so grateful.
Joe RigneyYou know, he changed my life in college, and then I was able to serve alongside him for 18 years or so when we were in Minneapolis.
Joe RigneyAnd his message into the myth of this wealthy society was basically, God is supreme, right?
Joe RigneyThe supremacy of God in all things.
Joe RigneyFind your deepest delight and satisfaction in God.
Joe RigneyThe way that you glorify God is by delighting in him.
Joe RigneyAnd this just shook up a bunch of people who had been comfortable.
Joe RigneyIt's all about having a nice, comfortable middle class life.
Joe RigneyAnd it shook people up.
Joe RigneyAnd so I thought, what a great.
Joe RigneyThat's true.
Joe RigneyThat Bible, is Jesus going to do that?
Joe RigneyBut then, okay, you shook them up.
Joe RigneyNow come along after and they're going to go, okay, but I still have my wife, I still have my kids, I still have my job.
Joe RigneyI like my chips and salsa.
Joe RigneySo what now?
Joe RigneyHow do I navigate the world of fish tacos and Doctor pepper, given that God is supreme?
Joe RigneyAnd that's the.
Joe RigneySo the reason I think that the success or fruitfulness in some ways of men like piper, men like RC Sproul, who elevated the glory and supremacy of God, their fruitfulness and evangelicalism meant that this was going to be the next problem.
Joe RigneyAnd I was just, that was, I was raised in that and thought, okay, I see it.
Joe RigneyI see it in my own life.
Joe RigneyI see it in other people.
Joe RigneyI want to help people to treasure God by enjoying his gifts and then avoiding the idolatry, by generosity and by self denial and by sacrifice and by suffering.
Joe RigneyHow do you face those things?
Joe RigneyThat's what proves that God really is supreme.
Speaker CSo maybe to put the books together a little bit, you talk about the crisis of degree in emotional sabotage, leadership and emotional sabotage, and then the importance for the husband, the father, the leader to lead.
Speaker CIs there a way that a husband father man can lead in terms of rightfully ordering his affections with the things that he enjoys, of the earth for his family and those around him?
Joe RigneyAbsolutely.
Joe RigneyBecause it starts with at one level, it starts with enjoying them.
Joe RigneySo one of the main applications in strangely bright is, okay, God made the world to communicate his glory, made things, make invisible attributes visible.
Joe RigneyThat's the world is not.
Joe RigneyWell, guess what?
Joe RigneyYou're a made thing.
Joe RigneyGod made you to do that.
Joe RigneyAnd as a husband and a father, you're either going to tell the truth about God or you're going to lie about it.
Joe RigneyYou're either going to tell the truth to your family, you're going to tell the truth to the world around you about what kind of father is he.
Joe RigneySo when the Bible says God made fathers to image his fatherhood, okay, what are your kids, they're going to grow up in your home, what do they think fatherhood is?
Joe RigneyWhat have they internalized about fatherhood?
Joe RigneySo one of the statements that's come out of this for me has been, be the smile of God to your children.
Joe RigneyAnd that really does bring together both books, because I can't remember if I said it in the second one, but be the smile of God to your children, be the smile of God to your wife was a way of saying, look, you're meant to image who God is and this is how you lead.
Joe RigneyThis is how you orient a home, is by first and foremost being satisfied in God.
Joe RigneyYou live under the smile of a happy father.
Joe RigneyGod is happy with you in Christ.
Joe RigneyThis is my beloved son in Christ and I'm well pleased with him.
Joe RigneyDespite his sin, I'm pleased with him.
Joe RigneyThat's the gospel of justification by faith alone.
Joe RigneyGod's happy with us.
Joe RigneyOut of that, then I want to communicate that to my family by playing with them.
Joe RigneyBye.
Joe RigneyRaising them in the Lord by delighting in them.
Joe RigneyAnd so.
Joe RigneyAnd that's both modeling for them strangely bright, as well as leading them in the world.
Speaker CPraise God, sir.
Speaker CWell, beautiful synthesis of those two.
Speaker CThank you.
Joe RigneyThat was bringing those together.
Joe RigneyI love it.
Speaker CThat's great.
Speaker CSo just.
Speaker CDo you have time for one more quick question?
Joe RigneyAbsolutely.
Speaker CSo how much pushback did you get in order to put in the recipe for pumpkin crunch cake?
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneySo the reason that the pumpkin crunch cake recipe made it into strangely bright is that when I published things of earth, I think in like four or five chapters, I mentioned how much I liked it and I used it as this illustration in things of earth.
Joe RigneyAnd so I used it.
Joe RigneyAnd so what would happen is I would go speak someplace and I would have people come up to me afterward and they would be like, oh, we loved your book, but where do I get the recipe?
Joe RigneyBut where do I get the recipe?
Joe RigneyAnd it was just like, I'm like, it was just a, like the number of.
Joe RigneyAnd it wasn't just, you might think, oh, the ladies wanted it.
Joe RigneyAnd I was like, the guys were like, hey, I need to tell my wife how to make this deal.
Joe RigneyWhat do I do?
Joe RigneyAnd I would sit there and go, oh, and my wife did have the recipe online at the time, like on her family blog or something.
Joe RigneyAnd so I was always, like, giving out this random URL to a family blog post.
Joe RigneyJust go search.
Joe RigneyAnd so then when Crossway asked number of years ago, hey, would you want to do a small version of it?
Joe RigneyYeah, absolutely.
Joe RigneyAnd I'm not going to make that mistake again.
Joe RigneyI'm putting the recipe in.
Joe RigneyAnd it's funny because everywhere now, everywhere I go, people go, oh, we tried it.
Joe RigneyAnd you are correct, sir.
Joe RigneyIt is in fact that good validation for, yes, my wife makes a mean pumpkin crunch cake.
Speaker CAmen.
Speaker CAmen.
Speaker CWell, thank you.
Speaker CSo much.
Speaker CI know it's summer vacation for you.
Speaker CThank you for taking time out of your summer day baseball and the kids to talk with me today.
Joe RigneyYeah, thanks, Will.
Joe RigneyAppreciate it.
Speaker CWhere would you like to send people to find out more about you and what you do?
Joe RigneyYeah.
Joe RigneySo, simplest play.
Joe RigneyI mean, only social media I have is Joe Rigney on Twitter, but then lots of stuff on canon plus.
Joe RigneySo if I was going to say, what's one?
Joe RigneyWell, I say lots of articles on desiring God.
Joe RigneyYou can go back and find all sorts of stuff.
Joe RigneyI've gotten dozens, you know, not dozens, half a dozen articles on empathy and various and sundry things at desiring God.
Joe RigneyBut now lots of stuff on canon plus.
Speaker CExcellent.
Speaker CWell, thank you so much, sir.
Speaker CI'll send people there.
Joe RigneyThanks for listening to this episode of the renaissance of Men podcast.
Joe RigneyVisit us on the web at wren of men.com or on your favorite social media platform at Ren of men.
Joe RigneyThis is the renaissance of men.
Speaker CYou are the renaissance.