Ep 1298 | She Left a Movement She Once Believed Was Christian … Millions Still Belong

Welcome back to Unashamed. We had a little dust up here before we got going, but one day that'll be a podcast

“a topic we've decided. I think it's a family dynamic. Yeah, that every few days we must have an argument.”

And I get tickled at the argumentative style because it's such a throwback to our parents. Because I just remember all those years and all those holidays. It was just like what I just witnessed this and it's funny to me. And we had guests here. We had bear shirts. Oh, we had guests? Yeah, so JD turned 18 today. We're going to get them to sign a, well, it's not disclosure agreement. Yeah, it's an Indiana poorly. I don't know. I wouldn't been so sarcastic now. So JD is turned 18 this week. So he's a young man officially and his mom works with Lisa.

It's a real estate. So they're here today. Witnessing what they just saw. But I wonder I was we were doing it. It's just I wonder if Maddie Stepp is you stepped in and said, all right, that's the bell round one. We got to record and then Jay's guys, I think I won that round. I think I won that round and then that started the whole other. That started around too. And then it's who we in. So I'll let me ask you if if nobody intervened, how long do you think me and Chase would sit here? We would still be going.

Yeah, it would go all morning. It's because I've seen these. I see. And then at some point, it gets personal.

“You know, the we never got there, but at some point it would have gotten into personal attacks. That's the only way you can really end it.”

The reason those are helpful though is because I found those illuminating. Do you understand that word? Why is that because I figured out.

You know, the first problem is realizing there is a problem. I'm like.

I think I figured something out here. Well, Jay did say, does that maybe working towards getting baptized again? So we'll see how it works out. We'll let you know when we're ready to have that discussion. No, no, in public. So I feel like man yesterday, we recorded podcast. We were ready to go back to back. And you weren't here yet. I wasn't even here. You might have dropped last night.

So I got in at 3 a.m. tonight before from the or morning before from an event. Got up. We did yesterday's podcast. Then I drove back home to be here for today. So I'm not sure where I am. I'm somewhere over the.

Yeah. You know what I found fascinating. It was 80 degrees yesterday in this morning.

It was 29. Yeah, this is happened. This is the last of the co-weather I guess. Yeah, it was springtime fly or two days. It'll be 80 degrees again. And then you're like, oh, wait. Wow, one last of the fire this morning. Is it hitting you today, is that over there? We're going to learn. I got I got a. I got a wool sweater on.

Yeah, that tells you. And the last time I wore this wool sweater was in a duck while I would chase when it. We got ice apocalypse. So yeah, you had that own and I didn't say anything. I don't underneath all my stuff. Oh, he put it. That's fix I say. You could see that.

Yeah, this is my bag of my bait. My base layer is a wool like a wool long underwear. And then I put this on. And then I got my jacket. Well, we all know the jacket and the aboundable snowman, but I did not get cold. I did not get cold. You're layered. So Jason, today, ins your, your bachelor run.

Yeah, I've been. I've been the lone wolf last night. I celebrated and I went and got some crawfish. Yeah, it's some shrimp. Which was fantastic.

“But that's why I like this time of year. I love LSU baseball even though we're a work in progress this year.”

But we give a lot of grace when you're the defending national champion. It's all through that end. And we have crawfish. Yeah, I've actually more crawfish this season than years past. I mean, I saw something there. They look really big this year.

The ones I saw, but maybe that's why I was so frisky. Could you either want to crawfish? No, I got my painters at this morning when that started. I started spawn and hairs. Yeah, just couldn't help it. It forced us our anaphyrdesia across these.

Our aphyders, aphyders. It wasn't for Jay. Sorry. As you'll say, it wouldn't heresy. You love it. I said that affectionately. Yeah.

But I actually want to bet that I did another argument because I threw this fact out that a female crawfish has up to 800 young. And so I said, That's not true. Because they're thinking one crawfish. How could one crawfish?

Which this wasn't exactly a Christian environment.

“So when they said, are you trying to tell me that one crawfish has 800?”

That's not even possible. And so, well, you tell them about a setup. I was like, well, I believe the Bible says with God all things are possible. Look it up. Somebody found a picture of about 800 little bit of the one's on the end of a crawfish.

Yeah. And like, well, how many you think that is? They're like, wow.

I never knew that was going on.

They thought they were just producing one crawfish at a time. I think so. And I'm like, no, you didn't tell us that, dear old dad. But that was right out of life lesson. So, I mean, I'm sure I could have looked that up and see.

I think I will. I look it up. Let's see. I may be wrong that. But I know they're not like a horse. I do remember on the original show,

which is one of the reasons why that was always so funny to me. He was funny in a dad, like, not trying to be funny sort of way. But memory, the episode, Jason, where he did the birds in the bees. Lesson to Cole. I think it was Cole, wasn't it?

But that he was in the used to crawfish. Visit example. And he was pointing out the male crawfish. He said, and you see right there, Cole, man.

“That's what in the business, they call that the Talleywacker.”

That's what he referred to it on the show. The Talleywacker. So, there's that. Do you find out? I'm looking at how.

Well, this is between 50 and 700 plus. Well, that's quite the range. What does that mean? The female crawfish can typically know this is a, so that they're just taking a collection.

They say the average is 2 to 400. But it can be up to 800. Yeah. Do you believe that, Zack? You know, I was going to take over the world.

Yeah. I believe it. I used to be in the crawfish business. And I was crawfish farmer for a season. Really?

What? Two weeks. About three, three weeks. Was that we were in the crawfish business? Did you work for, well, what happened was, what had happened was,

we were out about this guy.

“I knew he had a, this, they hunted this rice field out,”

off a, like, how was it? How he 15? What's the one right out there? That's it. They, they dug kind of out there.

We would go out there a few times a year with him. And so, I don't know why he went out there. But he said, man, he came back to the house. I was like, you are to see the crawfish on this rice farm. He said, they're like all over the levees.

I mean, everywhere. So we drove out there. And literally, you drove down the levee of a rice field. And it was just, like, just, I mean, millions of them. Yeah.

It's quite a scene when you see it. Oh, it's like, I've never seen anything quite like that. They were huge. And basically, you want to go grab a net, start grabbing them up. Yeah.

But we didn't have a net. So we went down the field's house. And we told him what we saw.

And then Phil was basically like, here's what you're going to do.

He said, I've got 50 traps right out there in the yard. You're going to load those up in your truck. And you're going to take it down there. And you're going to go get you some buffalo heads. And he's going to run.

So there's a fish. Not a buffalo. We didn't kill actual buffalo, just saying that. There's a fish. There's a fish.

He's a fish. He's going to have to explain that. Because most people don't call buffalo fish buffalo. I have a story that I tell about dad. And I say buffalo.

And afterwards, if I don't clarify it, somebody comes like, you're a dad used to actually kill buffalo. No, it's a fish. It's a drum. So I don't know about you guys, but as you have more kids,

you know what else I've noticed happens is you get more gray hair. Yep. Not a lot. But I get into my beard. Maybe you just want to slow it down.

Yeah. Slow it down. One of our new sponsors is a company called Array. I got a thick beard. But you know, I was looking at all pictures.

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After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you're heard about them. Please support this show and tell me you heard about it here. It's a fish. And so he said, cut the heads off of them throw the heads in the trap. And he gave us all the instructions and he said, and then you bring me back to sex.

You keep the rest. And that was his instructions. So we went out there and we put out those 40 traps. And I'm not kidding. You probably 30 minutes later.

I just picked one up. I waited out there and that worked rice field.

Because about the up to your thigh deep.

I picked that trap up. And I mean, slam full of crawfish. And I picked up the next one, slam full. So we ended up then we went down to the local shop. They're called Cormias, which is back then.

That was I think that was about the only place in town. You could just say. Yeah, they were the original. Yeah, that was the original crawfish place. So then we started running a business.

Jeff was in on it. And 20. I mean, we did not sleep for about two and a half weeks. And we just as many as we could get. We would go and sell them.

And then we, and then we got done. We took all those traps back down to your dad's. And since you were a flush with cash. So you got to head you some beer money back in those days. I'm sure.

All beer money though. And you were good. Yeah, but then.

But the second chapter still working on their testimony back in those days.

Yeah, we still work on that. Just saying that. Actually, you know what? We all cleared up by that. We cleared up by that.

That makes me feel better. Yeah, we probably about the time we got into the farm, which lasted a couple years. But that was after that. So Jayce was, uh, Jayce spent one whole year. That was your right.

You graduated high school crawfish. You and curly. Where the managers of the operation. And it was such a tough experience that Jayce was actually ready to go to preaching. Well, where was the farm out?

It was where our property is now. You know, we're a farm in crawfish. Yeah, I did it for. We're talking.

“We're talking hundreds of traps that y'all did 40 days is doing probably what?”

Five hundred twice a day. Uh, we ran them. Would y'all get a bunch of them? Oh, my goodness. They're sacks.

And so we were selling them to super one. I've had hundreds of traps. They literally set up a boat in the store. And the crawfish that Jayce and curly were catching. We're going in to the super that they were providing the supermarket with crawfish.

And they would just pour them in this boat live. They're just crawling around there. And people would come and get them and buy. I've shared this before. I don't know where you are.

I mean, we do. I've never heard this. It's like they went to how many times do y'all have to go to the hospital for that. That's what. Let me.

Zach, I could have died. That's what. It's almost that. That's what really shut it all. They had blood poisoning because they were dealing with all these dead things.

But here's what it is. I mean, sum it up in 60 seconds. I guess. You know, feels like.

“I think we make some money doing this crawfish.”

So my dad brought all, he bought these pellets. Yep. That. Because it's easy. He put the little brown pellet.

Look like dog food. Yeah. Kind of like fish. Every trap would have seven or eight crawfish. He's like.

I know there's more crawfish here. And you got to buy that stuff. So it's cutting into your profit. So somebody told him we got a fresh bait. Feel.

Well, he's got all this hoop nets. Because we were commercial fish in the river. So that's when this thing took a turn. So then we would go run the net. Take all the good fish.

Go sell them at the fish market. Take all the coal fish and chop them up. Put them in the crawfish traps. We got 500 traps. So we start running these nets.

Take in the good fish, sell them at the market. Take in the bad fish. Not bad as in worthless. We weren't throwing those back. But now we're using those for bait.

But just think about this. Have every day you wake up in your chopping up fish. Using it for bait. Then you're running 500 traps. Well, all of a sudden, we started catching 10 to 20 times what we were catching.

So now we're selling them. But your hands, even though you had gloves on, crawfish will pinch you.

Well, we have fans. Fans are punching me.

“And the problem is now everything is in varying degrees of decay.”

Like the bait. And then as I recall, you got the all were fishing so much. You couldn't catch enough fish to bait. So then it was roadkill. Well, people started bringing in stuff that they ran over.

Dead. It started getting carcasses. There was a freezer full of dead animals. It started getting weird. And I felt like I had gone into a medieval existence.

Because it looked out. We're doing this all day every day. And I mean, there were, it was good money. And we were eating a lot of crawfish. That was fantastic.

The downside is, you know, red streak started going up my arms. And look, I will say this. Every five traps had a snake in it. Yeah.

At first, that was terrifying.

Because you pull up the trap. There's just a snake. Yeah. After a while, they became bait. They became bait.

And anything that lived outside of the crawfish became bait for the crawfish. There was only two things that stopped production, which is because every 20 snakes would be a poisonous snake. Right.

Now that we shut the motor off. Is that how it had to be dealt with? Well, you can die immediately. And the other thing was when someone got knocked out of the boat. Which happened.

The most funny story of all is the boat. We're just doing our thing.

“And all of a sudden, I'm like, what is field doing?”

Because he's always, he was the drive in the motor.

We're headed to the bank. Why it opened? I try to run and look. And I see field way off in the distance hanging on a tree. Literally, a tree Liam's trying to stay out of the water.

And we're going wide open. We're not going to get the motor. Brays for impact. Because I don't have time to get into the motor. And we just lamb crashed the boat.

I think at that point, because then that day, curly wound up going to the hospital again for blood poisoning. And spent four or five days there to get over. And we just kind of had a meeting and said, you know, Well, here's what, so the year prior to that, when Jay's graduate high school,

some guys came out and tried to recruit us to go seminary. And we said no. I was still in college helping out a little bit with dad and the duck called business. And we said no, even though we were starving to death. And then dad gets some of the crawfish caper.

And then when they came back the second year,

all of a sudden, there's like, you know what? And they said, somebody will support you guys to go to school. And Jason, I'll leave the agenda. You know, it's just getting the Bible for two years. I mean, look at me.

Well, I'll tell you what. When I, my little stand in the crawfish business, I was like, it was when I saw what they eat. Like you said, they rode killed decaying carcasses. Exactly.

If you died and fell in the water, they would have eaten you. That's what it was like. And that's the, and that's the first time that I felt. I really questioned my eschatology. You know, whenever, whenever he says that don't call anything.

He says, don't call anything clean. Unclean that I've called clean. There are a rise kill and eat that when all that stuff came down. I actually thought I understand why God told the Jewish people not to eat crawfish. Because they are nasty.

I mean, if you look at what they eat, I mean, it is a,

“We do realize that the bow track of a crawfish is the only thing”

between that decaying material and your bow track. It does make you wonder. But I have to say they're delicious. I will close the story out with an important point. I believe that Louisiana is God's chosen people of the USA.

To figure out what you were supposed to eat. Because that's the people who came up with eating crawfish, oysters, all this kind of stuff. That is true. They were willing to take a shot. That's why it's called a sportsman paradise.

You cracked open an orchard and said, man, that looks tasty. And they aren't delicious. They'll famously say that in Louisiana, the two questions that rule are, what is it? Can we eat it?

I'd say, will it make sense? You're welcome, America. We broke down those walls. And that's why look at crawfish. I'm going to come up delicious.

They're fantastic. I have to say I agree. So Jay, she got a couple of pooches. And one of them was your dog. The other new inherited. So you didn't really, you weren't in the raising

and the training part of that, that the second poochie. Does that do that make a difference? That's a nice way I say in my second dog as terrible manners. And yet, I reward both of them equally with their favorite,

Yeah, we love rough greens.

Because let's face that our dog show up for is even the ones sometimes that have some manner issues. But here's one thing that happens. They all get older. They get a little slower.

They get a little pickier about their food. Their stomachs get off and then you got some problems. Right? They got some clean up issues and you got some sick dogs. And it's mostly from traditional dog food. It's missing probiotics.

It's missing enzymes or mega holes.

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Rough greens. We make any dog food better. We have a special guest today, Melissa Dordy. Is that the last name right, Melissa? I'm so impressed.

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“Where did you go to hunt though? Where do we have them out here?”

It's been a few years. There was a fireman out there that wrote a letter. My dad said, yep. There's one and more of the southern part closer to Mexico. What else was thinking on that?

Maybe a lot's crazy. Yeah, around some native reservations. I remember that. I'm not sure where that's that.

I mean, we're in the Albuquerque area. So we're kind of in the middle of there. So maybe you were more up north. It's more green. We went several times ahead.

“Because the best thing when a state doesn't have a whole lot of water”

that are not known for, it kind of localizes the ducks. And there was no hunters. It was us and the firemen. We're just going out there wherever. So it was kind of a lot of our balloons.

Did you see any while you were out here? I'm sure I did. Thank you. I don't think you can see it. I don't think you can see it.

I don't think you can see it. I don't think you can see it. I may have to do that when I get the resurrected body. Yeah. I mean, Jesus ate fish post-resurrection.

What Dad always said, and now I get to see now he said, and when he gets on the other side,

he said, it's going to be a pristine swamp. Ducks everywhere. Shotgun shells. You don't have to wear eternal supply. And not a game or an insight.

That's what you use. Yeah. Yeah. He can toss things out of the balloon. Lady Target practice.

Like little army men with the parachutes. Right. He just toss them out. I don't think you can shoot a gun out of the hot air balloon. But I will ask just for your saying.

Well, I will accept that challenge if we ever want to do that one day. Well, you're welcome to come on out if you guys ever want to go up. So Melissa says here in the battle about you, you're a Christian apologist. Arthur, artist, wife, and mother. And so we already got to experience a little of that.

We picked up our hot debate from earlier and you jumped right in. So we're going to have that debate at some point. And you're going to come back because that was 100%. There's too much fun. Exactly.

I don't want to break. I don't want to bring up what the debate was. I'll just say this to Melissa was certainly teams at. It was nice. It was very.

Is that you feel fortified now that Melissa has come home and joined you? I can tell already. She's very smart. The biblical arc of creation fall redemption restoration. It felt like restoration.

It felt like something war was doing something. I felt vindicated. It was. It was beautiful. Okay.

Is this right? This, according to AI, the definition of an opologist is a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial. Yeah. Anybody could be an apologist technically.

Like think of a lawyer. There's Muslim apologists for Islam. There's LDS, Mormon apologists for Mormonism. And then there's Christian apologists.

“And that's what it is is that there's an.”

An active defense knowing what you believe and why you believe it.

Using a lot of critical thinking logic reasoning, knowing your Bible and what it says and why it says it in order to defend it.

Because there's a lot of garbage out there. And my background actually I grew up in a new age, new thought kind of movement. Two different things. That's actually what my first book was about. Happy lies.

It was about the new thought movement. And it's about a movement you've probably never heard of that shaped our self-obsessed world. That's the subtitle. And so there's a lot of noppy nonsense out there in my friends. And I'm just here to make it less noppy.

And so people can know what that is. So they can know better what they believe and why they believe it. So see a my simple mind. Here's what I got out of that. Lawiers actually are going to happen.

They're good. They're good. They're good. They're good. Yeah.

Yes, sir. That was a joke. But kind of nothing. That was a good joke. I came to that realization when I went to a last of any freedom.

And met some of those lawyers who donate their time for religious freedom. And found out, yes, there's some fantastic lawyers. So it tells a little bit more about that. Well, it's because we'll get to your book, which is why we brought you on. But I was curious about that.

“Because I saw that you had come out of kind of that mysticism or what would you call it?”

But as you described it, that background, because that deals with that a lot. Up where he is in his area. Is that not correct that? Don't you deal with that? Talk one folks.

Yeah, I live in Asheville, which is very new age. They call it a vortex city. And so we've seen some of the people coming to Christ out of that in the last couple of years. That it is pretty wild. But yeah, that's the world that we live in.

And it's been interesting. I think that there's a lot of these new age mystics that we've met with. They did at least have a much more poignant or maybe visceral longing for a kingdom that's here. They just they don't have the context for that. And then when they meet Christ, they're like, oh, this is the one we were looking for.

And wait, I mean, it's been a incredible journey.

The last four years that I've charged.

And the Christ has been pretty beautiful.

So I came from Louisiana that I'm less so I didn't have that background. Obviously, that's not a big thing. It was down where we came from. But so we moved here. It was kind of, we were a little bit ill-equipped.

But the Holy Spirit certainly has equipped us over the last few years.

“That's why I'm looking at your book right now.”

I didn't know that's what that was your background. It's interesting. So this episode is brought to you by Pocket House. The world's number one expandable hose. Jason's springtime.

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That's unashamed to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase. Unashamed to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. Yeah, there's a mecca of people coming out of new age.

What I thought I came out of was new age though.

So I always say I'm an ex new thawter with a little bit of ex new age or sprinkled in.

And that's where I never wanted to write a book because it's hard. Takes a lot of time, a lot of research, and there's a lot of responsibility. When you put your name on something like that, especially if it's never been touched before. And so when I realized what it was on my own, no, I have to write a book. And so I did, and I'm glad I did.

But yeah, it's called Happy Lies. Yeah, the new thought movement.

“I think it always helps to kind of define the two because everybody's heard of new thought.”

Everybody. If they've never heard of the word, new thought, you know exactly what it is though. But everybody knows usually what new age is, and they can spot it better, especially Christians. So like new age, if you think about it, it's more eastern. Think of more Hinduism, Buddhism, transcendental meditation, psychic mediums. Yeah, the crystal ball, shock rise, reincarnation, karma, energies, yes, rakey, all those things, right?

We know exactly what it is when we see it. New thought, I didn't even know there was a word for it, but it looks and sounds Christian. It's more nastic in origin. It claims to be true real Christianity. This is where it gets tricky because you have people calling themselves Christian who are believing in these metaphysical beliefs.

If I were to define new thought in two words, it would be metaphysical Christianity. All that means is that everything that you see physically has a spiritual counterpart, including words. And so when you're reading the Bible, if you're reading it, say you're something as simple and clear as John one one. We read that and there's a fancy word in seminary and in apologetic spaces called Hermanutics. And all that means is understanding the context in which you're reading. We do this with any history book, by the way, who's writing it? Where did they write it? When did they write it? Who are they writing it to? The fun stuff.

I get a kick out of that. And my God, this is what it really means and then you draw the meaning from the text. Now take that and reverse it completely. You're the arbiter. You're the one that interprets it on how it feels to you and what it means to you because metaphysically speaking, truth is found from within, not outside of yourself because God is in you. So it's a subjective interpretation. It's metaphysical. There's a higher, deeper, esoteric hidden meaning within that text that's meant for you.

And so that makes it really tricky because then people are like, oh, it's secret. It's hidden and it gets, it got me. Okay, it got me. So metaphysical Christianity. In a sentence, I would say it's the positive thinking movement in America with Jesus as its mascot.

All you, their sickness, poverty, things like that are all a state of mind. How you feel creates your reality. You speak affirmations. I am affirmative statements because what you speak you create.

And it creates a lot of distortion of truth, which is why the book is titled the way it is happy. It's happy lies. And the cover is very specific as well. It's a mirror because there is a saying in New Thought that when you look in the mirror, there's a God staring back at you. And that's the secret. That's the truth of what Jesus was really trying to say. So, sometimes that people might understand in New Thought Christ consciousness. That's a big one. Speaking in believing, naming it and claiming it.

There's a lot of word of faith, positive confession in that movement. That's actually directly from New Thought. I was wondering why that was. I'm like, man, why are you guys doing the law of attraction? I used to do that. You know, but that's, it's related. There's a lot of pseudo science of, you know, neuroscience and quantum mechanics says that did you know that it can change the dynamic of your food, the chemistry of your food, depending on how you feel. A lot of that is really new thought. You, you create an effect, the reality around you. And it sounds really good.

And it duped me, it got me. And so yeah, that's basically what the book is about. That's fascinating. Well, two things that when you, your description of it.

What I was thinking and you just said it, you got there where I was thinking, listen to you, was it's the ultimate form of idolatry. Yes, we are God. Yes, you are God. I mean, that's where you go with that, right? Because you create.

“We're going back to a conversation that happened in the garden. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, because that was the ultimate lie, right? You will be like, God.”

And so I totally, I totally see. I had no idea. I didn't, I did not know any of that. You just described that that was the foundation. I'd heard of the movement. But I didn't know what really what they believe I'd never researched. Yeah, it's not too far away from, you know, we're studying first yarn right now. Yeah, and the people not acknowledging Jesus is coming in the flesh.

Yes. Yes. These people trying to lead a mystery. I think, which he dubbed that a spirit of the anti-Christ.

Mm-hmm. And he's writing to a church that had been affected by narcissism. Yeah, that's kind of what we had concluded. And you know, another thing you said, Melissa, the I was striking, you said, we make that we were making a lot of I am statements, which is such a big deal when you study Johns writings about there's only one I am. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's not you. Yeah. You can I am all you want, but you're not the end.

“You know, that's why that that Jesus coming to flesh is kind of like the big dividing line. Yeah, I believe that we've we've dealt with a lot of this.”

Even once you're talking about Melissa, even with these new age folks coming to Christ, it's kind of a process of getting out of that mentality. I mean, even the term esoteric of I've heard that once I've heard a thousand times, I'm saying, you know, it's like the idea that there's this hidden special knowledge that. I have this private kind of revelation, not even revelation, suddenly revelation, because it's derived from within. You know, you just determine your own reality the way it kind of manifests in pun intended in pop culture language is I'm going to manifest this.

Yes. And so manifesting, you know, manifesting, what does that mean? I'm making this thing come into being. I'm going to say the thing that I want to happen. So then it drips down even in the kind of pop culture or people who aren't necessarily new thoughters or new age. Yes, just they've just bought into it. They're like, I'm not really what I want to be true. Yeah, you get it. This is how everybody knows exactly what it is. And even the self-help movement was built on the shoulders of new thought authors like Napoleon Hill, people don't realize he's a new thought author and a scam artist by the way, I made a whole video about him.

You have, ah, she was the other guy, Dale Carnegie. I mean, you have so many people who were writing about basically that you now have attributes of God that once only belonged to God, that's the big secret. So yeah, you got it, you nailed it.

“But that's not the book we're talking about today, is it?”

No, today, but that's a very interesting book. No, so yeah, definitely want to talk about this. So here on set. Yeah, yeah. Got the book, the day that made the way. And it's a brave book, which we've been brave has been a sponsored podcast for quite a while. Missy has a book with brave and so do Jep and Jessica, of course your old friend Kirk Cameron, a ton of people that are awesome and I loved it.

I like it. We had tea ball on the podcast recently because he has a new illustrated book and Jace was enamored. But it really is good. And I'll say this as we begin the discussion about it because I want you to give us some of the, give us the why you wrote it and the importance of it. But it was, it was very CS Lewis. Yes, thank you.

“Yes, that's what that's what I thought because we just did Hillsdale studying on CS Lewis and I love it.”

When you can create other people, I could never, I don't have enough creativity to do that, but you created like this, this new group of people.

And in a setting where children would love the story in how you describe it and they're called the sunters. But tell a little bit about why you wrote it and kind of what your purpose was in writing. Hey guys, I want to tell you guys about something that's really cool we're doing with our Hillsdale Friday episodes. We're going to pick one listener to come down to West Bend Road, Louisiana, to watch a live recording of on the shame. And we're going to pay for it. We're going to pay for travel and lodging for you and a guest up to $1,000 each.

All you got to do is take the ancient Christianity course with us. We're doing that every Friday. Finish all the quizzes and send us your certificate of completion. You can sign up and take the course or free it on the shame for Hillsdale.com. Then you can upload your certificate at watchunashained.com and you'll be entered for the drawing. We'll pick a winner in June so you guys stay tuned.

“Yeah, it was twofold. I am not excited to write again, right?”

A book, I'm good, I'm done, but a children's book was very different because first of all,

they pitched to me that it would be an allegory around Easter, my favorite holiday of all time, I love Easter. And I'm like, oh, okay, let me think about it. But then it turned into a family project where all of a sudden, because you know how brave it is, they're phenomenal. They're such a good, yeah, I love brave. They're great family company, very family oriented. They do it so well and they just open the doors wide open, like bring your kids.

Let's get ideas from them and I'm like, okay, I'm sold. Let's do this. And so they got to design, like the centers, they helped design the centers, right? They, they sent in their drawings and the illustrator did a phenomenal job. Somebody said it looked like a baby group.

Yeah, so I thought they'd be good, that's exactly what I thought.

Over my head, I totally didn't see it until somebody mentioned it. I'm like, oh, no, I can't even see it. That's awesome. That is so good. But yeah, the girls, they designed their own little characters. They didn't want to be in specifically, they, my oldest daughter. She's like, let's make 'em twins and you know, one of them's a boy.

The other is a girl. It was fun. And then of course, we had little Easter eggs pun intended. You know, if my husband has hotter balloons or in the beginning and then there's me and my husband and we looked that way. And it was just so fun, because we all got to come together to do that part of it. And then it was the actual allegory part of it. The storyline was phenomenal, the meaning, the direct correlation to scripture.

“I mean, I mean, look at the cover. I mean, is that not narrow gate?”

You know what I mean, the light? Yes. And one thing I really wanted to transfer over was the light, because John six, everybody knows John six are John three, my bad. John three, my bad. John three, 16, forgot to love the world that he gave us one, and only son that whoever should believe in him will be saved, right?

But then if you keep reading, the rest of it, it's so good. It's so beautiful. Because the idea is, is that, you know, Jesus said, I didn't come to condemn you. I came to save you. Why? Because you're already condemned. People miss this. People think that God sends people to hell. It's like, no, you're already on your way there. I'm here to save you from it.

And then the verdict is that the light came into the world. Jesus came into the world, but people loved their darkness, right? They loved their darkness. They didn't want to be exposed. They're afraid of the light. They're not afraid of the dark. They love their darkness. They're afraid of the light. And so there's, there's an allegorical truth all throughout the entire

book about that. And at the end, it's my favorite, the little thunder, which means separated by the way. So the terminology was very specific that thunder means to be separated. And at the end, this little thunder, he's looking at the light and he just kind of afraid of it. And he looks and he sees the bright one. That's the main character of the Jesus figure in the allegory. And he runs towards the light, right? And it transforms him.

That's the lesson at the end. I leave it with that scripture.

You know, little kid, little child reading this story, run to the light.

You know, you're going to have this division within you. You're going to have this fight, but go towards the light. Yeah, you say the quote that you had in there at the very end, before there was a way into the light, someone had to step down into darkness. And it's really, really, really good. And one of the things I love, we talk a lot on this podcast about living in light now.

And the idea of when Jesus came, he brought eternity in the concept with him. And so when the kingdom is established, we live in the light now.

“And that's what the book teaches, which I thought was really, really good.”

And instead of waiting until eternity, before we go into this light, this light now. You know, so weird, because I remember my dad who we witnessed through thousands of Bible studies on our couch when we were kids, we would watch this. And he was so blunt, because he had such a terrible background. I guess he got away with it. But I mean, he would confess his sins openly. But he used to ask people, it's interesting you brought that up. He had asked him,

"Are you scared of the dark?" And when you say that to people,

everybody always says, "Yes," because they're thinking, "Oh, yeah, fun lights are out."

And he would say, "Well, you're not acting like it." (laughter) Because he's already heard what they're into. And then he would read that end of John 3. Really?

You're scared of the light. Yeah. And so, it's interesting when you brought that up, because I thought, "Well, my dad used to use that same principle, with just an individual in the couch talking about how they're living their life." And so full sun, I love that. Yeah, it's profound. But it makes people think, you know what? Because when nobody's around, I've done a lot of cutting up.

Well, and the list of that was one of the things I said was like, "See us, Lewis," because a lot of his allegories, he pressed the same point that you're doing in it. And I love it that it's shaping in the minds of children, because they have to see, you know, they may not even get it in the moment, but they're going to get it at some point.

“And but the idea that it's hard to separate from that, which we're plagued with, because that's what we know.”

And a lot of Lewis's work was like that. Zach, you mentioned before on the lizard member on the, was that from Great Divorce? Yeah, the lizard. Yeah, the lizard. On the shoulder on the shoulder. And it's tailed, whispered, and the lies of the last it is here. And the angel's like, "Hey, can I kill that?" And he's like, "Oh, I don't know."

That's going to hurt. Yeah, it might kill me. He's like, "Yeah, my, but I mean, you want to go on like this." And then when he took the lizard off and threw it on the ground, then it turned into the stallion or something that the man could ride. So the thing that was controlling him, that was having dominion over him, he ends up having dominion over, once the liberation happened.

And I think that it's such a key thing. And I love these, the way you could tell

those stories, Melissa, because I think the default position of the way most of us grew up if you're in church culture, even if you're not. You've grew up with a very humanistic framework of how you interpret reality. And so everything is about, I'm going to perform so that God will give me the reward and not send me to the punishment place when this is much more about,

just like this is more of an ontological reality. This is the way the world is. This is being, and one way is life, one way is death. And so my revelation is not. I'm providing with you. I'm turning on the light so that you can see the life really is. And you guys are in first John now too, because he's talking about

the lights there, and the darkness doesn't know it, though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you think about like, when we saw this analogy on the podcast before, but you know, you wake up in the middle of the night. I've done this several times in my life. I'm on a hotel room.

I don't know where I'm at. I wake up. There's no light whatsoever. And you just kind of freak out.

“And you're like, what am I? What's going on? Do you have no context for anything?”

And the moment that you find relief is when you stumble to the floor, and then you can see that little crack under the door. You see that crack a light. And then that's that's your context. And now I got to place the move towards and move and get out of the darkness. But there's nothing worse than waking up in total darkness.

Not knowing where you're at. We've all had that experience. And as soon as you can find that smallest sliver of light, you're going to have hope. And I think that that's kind of the picture, you know, would be right in the box. Beautiful. Yeah. And I hope it steps like our sticks with kids,

I'm not sure if you guys have ever watched the animated version. But that's what we watch every Easter.

And that is the, I always want to say Paul Bunion.

John Bunion. The elementary kid in me and the Christian, you know, they kind of fight for that name. But yeah, John Bunion, he wrote the Pilgrims progress. And there's something about allegory. Even Tolkien, I'm reading through the Lord of the Rings series again.

It's just, there's something about when darkness is in the world. And there's pain and there's evil and there's suffering. Those stories, those stories speak to that fight. That fight against good and evil. Because that's, that's what it is.

I mean, I, it's an allegory book for kids, but I want them to remember it because they're going to go out there someday in this battle. And they're going to have to fight a spiritual battle. And there's something about being knowing, knowing what that goodness is and that it's worth fighting for.

And what that light is and how to dispel the darkness because there's so many lies out there.

There's like a thousand million trillion lies, but there's one truth.

And there's so much darkness, right? But that light is so bright.

“I really just hope that they remember that.”

I, I, I want them to have that kind of, um, like you mentioned CS Lewis. Why do we all know that, right? Like, why do we all respond to that? And so that's my hope with it is that, uh,

what allegory in general has done for me and my children. I hope to kind of pass that baton over in this book. Well, I mean, the, uh, we, we were talking about this in a previous podcast, um, you know, Lewis was, was a skeptic. We all know kind of the story, but like, what, uh,

there's an interesting story of how talk and basically, uh, would walk with him. There was a, who's the other guy? Oh, um, there were three or four of them. But they would walk with with Lewis as he's working through his doubts.

And he's trying to intellectually satisfy all these objections. And I love apologetics too, uh, but that, that did not really do anything for him in terms of coming to Christ. And, um, it was when talking was basically like you got to quit, like, like, like, not that you'd lead your rationality,

but like you're trying to approach this, strictly through the lens of rationality. And he said, you know, once you just rest in the story of Christianity. And it was the story that, that led,

uh, Lewis to Christ.

“And I, I think that that's how we all operate primarily”

as through through the lens of the story. And it's not anti-rational. It's more than rationality though. Mm-hmm. And with kids, especially, that's why I would highly encourage you guys to get this book.

I was always big advocate of any of the stories that we can tell our kids when they're young.

The fostered the imagination for the kingdom while they're very young to put the incubate them in the stories, because I promise you the time is coming when there's another story that's going to be indicating them. Yep.

And that's what scares me with my own kids. It's like the other story that they're hearing that is a story of defouration, not a story of transformation. Um, so I highly encourage you guys to get this book. So the book is, uh, the day that made the way,

and I have one here, you can go to madetheway.com to get a copy of it. Is that right, Melissa? Yes, sir. Madetheway.com is where it is.

“And I think that you can also get a plushie.”

There's an option to get a plushie there, too. A little sender plush. No, awesome. And they can find you on YouTube, because I know our listeners a bunch of them are going to want to come listen to

what you have to say. So you're just your channel or whatever's on YouTube. Yeah, you can just look me up, Melissa Dordy, uh, on on YouTube. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, all the socials.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. What a blessing to get to meet you. And we're ready to have that big debate. We're going to bring you back.

Let's go. Well, it's got a gloves on. It'll be fun. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you, Melissa.

Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Melissa. Let's see you next time on OnaJay. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on Apple podcast.

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