Ideas Have Consequences
Everything that we see around us is the product of ideas, of ideologies, of worldviews. That's where everything starts. Worldviews are not all the same, and the differences matter a lot. How do you judge a tree? By its fruits. How do you judge a worldview? By its physical, tangible, observable fruit. The things it produces. Ideas that are noble and true produce beauty, abundance, and human flourishing. Poisonous ideas produce ugliness. They destroy and dehumanize. It really is that simple. Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of Disciple Nations Alliance, where we prepare followers of Christ to better understand the true ideas that lead to human flourishing while fighting against poisonous ideas that destroy nations. Join us, and prepare your minds for action!
Ideas Have Consequences
A Framework for a Life that Works with Katherine Gallagher
Many Christians uncritically blend secular thinking with a Christian worldview. They syncretize the dominant worldview of their friends, family, and community with bits and pieces of a biblical worldview. Today's guest shares that this fragmented thinking creates real challenges, because only one worldview actually works. There's only one God, and He alone sets the standard for right and wrong, good and evil, right? Assuming you answered yes, then wouldn't the worldview God offers be the only worldview that comports with His world? Join us as we seek to continually align our daily thoughts and actions with the truth of Scripture. Don't miss this enlightening discussion with our good friend Katherine Gallager from GoStrategic, author of Worldview: A Handbook for Biblical Thinking and Lifestyle. This episode is not just another discussion; it's a call to understand and act upon the profound consequences of our beliefs.
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We can be Christians and not have a Christian worldview.
Scott Allen:And I think a lot of people don't understand that that's a really important point.
Katherine Gallagher:Understanding our beliefs is not a extra spiritual gift, like maybe you have it, maybe you don't. This is something all of us have and all of us are responsible for. I mean, the Lord has told us to steward our minds, steward our bodies right, steward ourselves. Worldview is a part of who we are. That's our responsibility before the Lord to steward.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, welcome to. Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world, to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Scott Allen:Well, welcome again everybody to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. My name is Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and today I am joined by my friends and coworkers Luke Allen, dwight Vogt, daryl Miller, and we have back with us one of our favorites, catherine Gallagher from Go Strategic. Catherine, it's great to have you back on our podcast. Thank you so much. Yeah, no, this is always a joy for us. Catherine, we really appreciate you so much.
Scott Allen:We appreciate Dennis, your father, dennis Peacock, and the ministry of Go Strategic. For those of you who are not familiar with Go Strategic, catherine is the executive director. It was a ministry that her father founded and it's a sister ministry to the DNA. Really, we share the same heart. We want to bless and encourage and equip churches, local churches, to have the biggest possible impact that they can have on the culture in terms of being salt and light, and so we share that heart together and it's a terrific ministry. I just want to encourage you all to check it out. You can find it online go strategiccom. I believe it is Catherine.
Katherine Gallagher:Dot org.
Scott Allen:Dot org. Forgive me, and dot org and Catherine, the specific reason that we wanted to have you back on is because we wanted to talk to you about a new book that came out last October. Very exciting Congratulations to you as the author. The title of the book is Worldview a Handbook for Biblical Thinking and Lifestyle. We've never thought about worldview or biblical worldview Totally new concept.
Katherine Gallagher:We wanted to understand what this is about yeah, what is this?
Darrow Miller:What is this?
Scott Allen:No, it's great and congratulations on bringing it out. And I know, dwight, you've had a chance to go through it, so I need to go through it. But I know that, itight, you've had a chance to go through it, so I need to go through it. But I know that it's a concise book and I just wanted to thank you for that work. That can be challenging to write something that is really short, abbreviated, concise, something that people can pick up and just get a kind of quick understanding and overview. And it's not easy to write those kind of books, especially on what is as big as the biblical worldview or the worldview. It a kind of quick understanding and overview and it's not easy to write those kind of books. So, especially on what is as big as the biblical worldview or the worldview, it's kind of everything. So, anyways, here's a concise overview of everything. But anyways, catherine, congratulations. I'd love to just start and, team, you guys can just jump right in here. But, yeah, tell us what prompted you to come out with this book at this time.
Katherine Gallagher:Yeah, thank you so much for having me and I'm grateful to get to have this opportunity to chat about this. I'm very passionate about it, as I know you all are, because we just know how critical understanding worldview is for us to be able to really have an impact on the culture and actually produce lasting transformation. So what really prompted me to write this book was a lot of our content is a little bit more of a deep dive, and if you can't explain something simply, I don't think you really understand it. So we were challenged from folks who had been connected with us for years to say, hey, what do you have? That's more entry level, that you know someone who really isn't familiar with these things. They're not ready to do those big, deep dives. You know, how do you back up to what's really behind it? And so I really had in my heart to create something like that.
Katherine Gallagher:And our organization you know, our ministry was founded back in 1979 by my father, as you mentioned, dennis Peacock, and so for over 40 years he has really worked in this arena. And so what I did actually a couple years ago is I took all of our worldview teachings and I did, if anybody's watched, kind of a fun crime drama. Do you know how, when the detectives are trying to figure things out, they put the pictures and the receipts and all the information up on a on a wall and they're connecting dots between those papers and people. That's literally what I did in my office. I taped. It was really fun. I taped all the teachings on my office wall and looked at them, kind of like from a crime scene investigation right, and thought, okay, what's the commonality here? What do I keep seeing over and over again in this content?
Katherine Gallagher:And that process actually took me over a year, not just because it was that long, but you know we're busy and I think you know you kind of have to leave something and come back to it sometimes to see it, enough to really see what you're looking for. So I did that for over a year and really distilled it down and said how can I really simplify our approach to worldview? And that's how I came up with this, this handbook, and I wanted it to be as simple as possible and we really are emphasizing presubstantial thinking and critical thinking skills for how to think, not just what to think. So that was the the big picture process and I wanted it to be as accessible as possible.
Katherine Gallagher:Um so and and actually I I also took a time to teach it to my daughter's eighth grade homeschool class. As I was working on the draft of the book, I took all the eighth graders through it and we had some great discussions, which I may come back to later here, for how you kind of analyze information. Because, again, if you can't teach it simply, you know, if I can't teach it to eighth graders, how well do I understand it? Graders, how well do I understand it Right? So that was some of my process of before I got to kind of the final, final stages of what we now have as the little handbook.
Scott Allen:Wow, that sounds.
Darrow Miller:Let me just say, Catherine, because I've read it and it is probably the clearest, simplest thing that I have seen to lay out the basics of worldview. So I think you've done a commendable, commendable work that a lot of people will find very helpful.
Katherine Gallagher:Thank you so much, and you were kind enough, I know, to give me an endorsement. I do appreciate that as well, darrow, so I really appreciate that.
Darrow Miller:Yes.
Scott Allen:Yeah, so the goal, though, was to make it simple. Catherine, as you were writing the booklet, I'm curious, you know it sounds like your approach to it or your kind of. The reason for doing it was to take a lot of work that your father had done and to kind of distill it, so you were kind of coming at it from that end. But as you were doing that, what were your own thoughts on just why are we teaching on this subject of worldview? You know why now Is there an emphasis?
Scott Allen:I mean, it's frankly, it's been an emphasis for the last 20 plus years or more. But why? What caused this to become an emphasis for the church or a need for the church right now? Did you stop and kind of think about that and ask that question? You know, if you go back, maybe 30, 40 years, probably there wasn't going to be a lot of talk on this concept of worldview, but now there's a lot, so much so, in fact, that I think some people kind of you know, have kind of been there, done that. I've heard that. You know now. But what are your thoughts? Why is it an emphasis, you know, right now?
Katherine Gallagher:do you think, yeah, I mean you're hearing the word much more often now. You know when our ministry first started and I know this was the case for Darrow as well with some of his earlier books, you know, and Francis Schaeffer and others. You're kind of a bit of a voice in the wilderness or the beginning. You know rumblings of these things. Now the term is used a lot, but what I've found is often and this isn't a bad thing, it's just different Often, when different organizations, people, authors, are using the term worldview, they're looking at it more in the sense of apologetics or even comparative religions which
Katherine Gallagher:both of those things are important, but our take and what we're trying to emphasize is actually what happens before that, before you even engage, some of those apologetics issues, you know, before you try to look at other religions, what does worldview actually come down to? And it's how we see reality. And it's not even a Christian concept, it's a life concept. I mean, it affects everyone. We all have a worldview. We all perceive the world in a certain way. We just may not realize it and we may not know how to analyze our own beliefs, to understand what's behind them. So often these things are actually unconsciously held and that's why, of course, we see so much disruption in the church and outside of it of people not living aligned with their actual belief systems because they don't even understand what they actually believe.
Scott Allen:I have a theory on this and I'd love your thoughts on it, and it's very similar to what you said, I think for a long time, especially in the West, which is where we come from, the United States, because our culture was so deeply shaped by the Bible for hundreds of years, going all the way back to the Reformation and beyond, so much so that so things were so many of these ideas, christian ideas were just taken for granted, assumed.
Scott Allen:You know, everyone kind of thought this way, whether you were a Christian or not. But then you know, as in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, as the culture began to shift and aggressive secularism, Marxism, atheism, you know, darwinism, these things began to kind of shape the culture and the institutions and trickle down to the common man, All of a sudden these things that we were taking for granted couldn't be taken for granted anymore, you know, and we started thinking, oh, wow, the culture's changing, right? There's other ideas now that are vying for, you know, for acceptance or prominence in the culture, that are shaping curriculum and law and government and everything else, that are not Christian, and it was like for the first time, christians had to start kind of thinking differently about things. And that's when, you know that kind of parallels the rise of this concept of worldview and worldview thinking. What are your thoughts on that? Do you agree with that?
Katherine Gallagher:Yeah, I think we definitely took for granted for years just that biblical base that we didn't even totally consciously realize was there or understand how many concepts actually were truly biblical.
Luke Allen:We just thought that's just what it is and didn't even realize it.
Scott Allen:It's just the way people think yeah.
Katherine Gallagher:So I'm I'm sure that has been definitely a big part of the shift, uh, where all of a sudden wait a minute, we need to be, we're not, we're no longer just automatically thinking, thinking that way and um, and you know, we've had in my opinion as well, especially in the States, but it's, it's spread, the, the shift of the, the in the culture, a lot of how we've promoted Christianity to be a certain type of religion to just help you feel good. God loves you and God wants you happy.
Katherine Gallagher:And we've kind of taken away some of the attributes.
Scott Allen:Very shallow. Yeah, yes, yes, yeah. So I think there's multiple things there. I've often said, you know, people think a lot of Christians think of Christianity not as a worldview, but they think of it as a plan of salvation or you know something that it is, but it's so much more than that, but they've not thought about the more. They just think about the smaller thing. Go ahead, daryl.
Darrow Miller:Let me just throw something in here that I'm thinking because of this conversation when you start with worldview and then you begin at the top, and then you start at the top and then you start to project down and that's where the depth goes, as you were saying, catherine, but as I'm listening to this and thinking about what's going on in our world today, if you look at the consequences, ideas have consequences. It's the name of our podcast. We start with the ideas and say if you start with these ideas, then you move here to these principles and these values, and down here is what it looks like the consequences. What we also need to think about is looking at the consequences. You have poverty Okay, that's a consequence. Where's that come from? You have cheap life where people babies are killed. Where's that coming from? And you have these consequences. That are horrible consequences and we kind of wonder well, where are those coming?
Darrow Miller:from but we never start with the consequences and do the analysis in the reverse direction. And those consequences have come from somewhere and we need to see where they've come from, and I think this is why so many liberals old liberals, as I call them, people who still believe in truth but who are atheists they're liberals, they're looking for truth and they watch the West falling apart and they're going this is not good. These are the consequences of something, and they're realizing the West falling apart is the consequence of throwing out where the West began. So they're starting to look at things that they've never taken seriously before and we maybe need to think backwards from the consequences and say, okay, if this is a good consequence, where did it come from? If this is a bad consequence, where did it come from?
Dwight Vogt:I think what's unique, Darrell, for me is that I can go back 40 years in my own life and I go. I was taught culture was neutral and so there was no such thing as a worldview, because there was just one, and and uh, and, and so then, when people would do this process that you just described, well, what's the consequences?
Dwight Vogt:well, you take it back. We assume the world all thinks the same, we're all the same, and you take it back. Well, it must be, you know, economic, it must be colonial influence, it must be this, it must be that. And but somehow the the penny dropped, as you know, in the last 20 years, and people are going oh, my goodness, it might be worldview, it might be culture. You know, culture does matter and worldview matters, and so I, I, I think it's interesting that the penny has actually dropped. Uh, in my opinion, and that's what you see in the wider intellectual group, and this sort of thing. Sorry, catherine.
Katherine Gallagher:Yeah, no, I agree, I was just going to say what the process you're talking about there, daryl, is actually something that I did in that eighth grade class I was talking about and it was so wonderful and it's something I want to. It's a skill that I would love for more people to understand how to do, which is like you said you take the idea and you say, okay, what? So we did this with transgenderism, abortion, black Lives Matter movement, crt. I put that idea up and said, okay, what's what's the big idea here? You know what's behind it. And then what does that say about what they that, what they believe about the nature of God? So let me back up In the book the way I tried to really simplify how do we analyze an issue?
Katherine Gallagher:Just our lives. For us, we would say, in simplest terms, it comes back to what do you believe about the nature of God, the nature of man or the nature of truth, or some combo of those three? But those three axioms you can pretty much trace every I submit to you every issue you could trace back to one of those three or a combination of them. So those are the questions that I started with with the kids in the eighth grade class. Okay, what is someone who believes that transgenderism is is a good thing? What does that say about what they believe about the nature of God? Or what does that say in the nature of man? And then you can, you diagram it out and you can see if someone does believe in God, if someone doesn't believe in God, or what kind of God right, or they what they believe about man, and you trace it out and it's, it's such a wonderful exercise because it produces, of course, discernment, to actually simplify the argument of what you're actually dealing with.
Darrow Miller:This is what we do in the session, the ABCs of culture. The roots of the tree are the belief system and the trunk is the value system and the branches are the behavior and the fruit is the consequences. And you can go up that from the roots or you can go down from the fruit and you can analyze a value or you can analyze the fruit. You can start anywhere and go upwards and downwards with that tree.
Katherine Gallagher:Well, what's so great about learning to think that way is you don't have to be an expert on that topic necessarily.
Katherine Gallagher:That's right, because you're just getting down to the key ideas. What does this actually mean? Because we want to, especially when people want to get into big debates, they want to get into all the nuances of this and that, but actually it can be quite simplified. Let's get it down to. What does that say about what you believe about God? Or what does that say about what you believe about man? It's so freeing and simple and what I found too, when you have those types of conversations, it also diffuses often the emotions of a situation because it gets down to hey, we actually just fundamentally believe very differently about, you know, what you believe about God versus what I believe. I'll give an example.
Katherine Gallagher:I feel like I might have shared this in one of our other times. We've gotten together, but, you know, I have someone very close to me that is transgender and when we were having these discussions, I got down to you know, and the immediate accusation is you know that you don't all this stuff, you don't love them, and why don't you just accept them all, the, all the things? But I just said, hey, do you believe that God? Do you, do you believe in God? It was like, well, I'm not really sure and I said but if, well, if you do believe in God, what does that mean relative to how you know the body that you're you know, quote unquote trapped in?
Katherine Gallagher:And basically she got down to saying you know that I, well, I believe I was a mistake, that this was a mistake. And I said well, I understand that you believe that God made a mistake. That's the kind of God that you believe in. I don't believe that God makes mistakes, so for me, I can't. That's why, for me, I can't get behind exactly the road that you're walking down, because fundamentally I don't believe that God made a mistake, and it's a very simple thing. But it kind of diffuses sometimes the you know, all the other stuff we want to get caught in and the fruit and let's just get down to hey, we just believe very fundamentally different about what kind of God there is.
Darrow Miller:And that's fine, but just know there are consequences to those beliefs.
Katherine Gallagher:Yes.
Darrow Miller:So if you're unhappy with some consequences, then you can go back and say, well, where did those come from?
Luke Allen:And it really can take away the emotions out of a discussion at that level. Yeah, I find it very freeing as well. Well, earlier in the discussion we were talking about how a lot of churches just generally have become somewhat shallow, you know, and maybe the seeker friendly churches or whatever that is. And I think a lot of times a response to that is to go to, you know, the apologetics conference or, you know, learn a bunch of arguments and memorize a bunch of explanations for why Jesus existed and stuff like that. And that's a great approach and you can learn a lot there.
Luke Allen:But for me it felt like if I don't memorize all the right arguments and I have all the right points and statistics down, I can't talk to people about what I believe and you feel a little trapped.
Luke Allen:It's like as long as this conversation goes exactly where I'm hoping it will, then I can speak to you. But if I get off track I'm toast. But when you understand more of a biblical worldview argument that explains the whole of life and how to live, essentially you know the owner's manual for how to be a Christian. There's a lot of freedom there, because you don't need to know all the right arguments, you don't need to know the numbers and statistics, you just need to know. You know what is the nature of God, what is the nature of man and what is the nature of truth, and if you can point people back to those, then yeah, it's really freeing. And you don't. You can say I don't know right now the answer to your very specific question about, maybe, this one argument, but I can tell you about how we could unpack it and walk through it together or I can get back to you on that.
Scott Allen:So, yeah, I found it really freeing and just the practicality of having worldview-based discussions and we're talking about it kind of at the individual level here, but you know, I think, for the DNA and obviously for Go Strategic, you know, these worldviews, they become a culture, right, they become a way that a group of people think and act and behave.
Scott Allen:They shape the institutions that they form. You know, at the center of every nation or every culture there is a worldview, you know, that's rooted in, as Dara says, a cult or a deep belief system, a form of worship, and you're either worshiping the living God and his understanding of what it means to be human and what reality and truth is, or you're worshiping a false god and you know so. I think that cultural aspect is huge for me on this whole worldview discussion, because I think earlier generations of Christians had a confidence that this is true. You know what the Bible teaches, what the Bible says about God man. You know truth, it's true, and it's not just and this is where I think it differs from the church today it's not just true for us as Christians in our churches. This is true for everybody and people in earlier generations, christians. They had a confidence in that and so they weren't ashamed to see it become work, work in an intentional way, for it to become a culture, in the sense of embedding these ideas at the foundation of civilizations, of institutions.
Scott Allen:You know, I read a quote and, darrow, you brought this to my attention. This is a quote from Tom Holland, and he's the author, the British historian, author, of the book Dominion how the Christian Revolution Made the World, and he's one of these secular folks who has recently come to Christ, essentially through a kind of a reflection on the culture of England that he grew up in and a culture that was heavily shaped, of course, by the Bible and biblical answers to these questions over many hundreds of years. And he said this. I thought this was really striking. He said most people are oblivious to the way in which the West's Christian heritage or worldview, you could say the Christian worldview, has shaped modern education, health care, music, art, literature and the scientific revolution, to name but a few. And then he went on and said I began to realize that in actually almost every way, I'm a Christian. Now he's saying this at a time when he wasn't a Christian in the sense of you know, believe in the Lord.
Scott Allen:Jesus hadn't bowed his knee, but the way he thought, you know, was in almost every way a Christian. And so, yeah, these ideas, these powerful biblical ideas, they're not just true for the Church and they are to become a culture. That's what we say in the Disciple Nation, that's what it means to disciple a nation In some ways. Having somebody like Tom Holland is a vision of success. We want him, obviously, to become a Christian, but to be able to influence a culture to the point where he thinks, even without hardly realizing it, in Christian ways. That's the kind of confidence that our forebears had that.
Scott Allen:I think we don't as much today. Yeah.
Luke Allen:That's such a cool story. I mean, when I think about this, if you don't truly believe that the biblical worldview is the only worldview that works, that Christianity is the only way to live life, then you wouldn't set up a government that had freedom of religion, that had freedom of speech, because you wouldn't have that confidence that, if you leave it open to the masses, that they will eventually, if they're honest and open-minded, will find God, that they will eventually, if they're honest and open-minded, will find God. That just to me, speaks volumes about how they understood that the biblical worldview was, as our friend Christian Overman says, the uniview, the only view of how to live in this world. Speaking of worldviews, catherine, when you were teaching that eighth grade class, I'm curious.
Luke Allen:I think a lot of times when people are teaching about worldview it can sound somewhat academic or theoretical. You know, it's a view, it's in my mind, it's the way I maybe just see the world, but when it actually is it's truly a lifestyle, it's a way of living. How did you go about crossing that divide with those students?
Katherine Gallagher:Yeah, trying to start with just explaining to them, you know, that everyone has a worldview, whether they understand it or not, and it's simply it's how we view reality and it's how we choose. Then all the you know decisions, heart decisions A phrase we love to use that was coined by my father the mind justifies what the heart has chosen. Uh, we, we justify. Once we consciously or unconsciously know what we really want and believe, then we do everything we can to reinforce that. And uh, even again, with these teenagers, they have the time. They are not as self-centered, naturally, teenagers are. They also, at the same time, have not really taken time normally to analyze themselves. Right, they're still growing up and don't realize time for self-reflection. So in the course I was trying to get them to understand we need to actually look at ourselves and think well, why am I making that decision? Why do I think that is not a big deal? What idea is behind me? You know deciding to, you know lie to my parents or whatever the thing is. So I tried to make it very practical of what are the beliefs, because nothing we do is out of nothing's neutral. As you were saying earlier, there's always. We all have a bias, one way or the other, and what is that bias and what informs that perspective? So, trying to just simplify it, this is just how you can either go about life trying to figure this out or you can actually look at it and see strategically what am I actually thinking and doing? Because, as we said, and see strategically. What am I actually thinking and doing? Because, as we said, ideas have consequences and with the teens in particular too, I was always emphasizing their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed yet, which means it's the best time to set healthy habits. I said to them if you can get this now, this will just become how you live.
Katherine Gallagher:I mean, ultimately, we want our worldview to manifest in our lifestyle consistently, and I think that's, of course, one of the big issues we find in the church today is and you know this from all the Barna studies and everything you know we've got so many Christians with syncretic worldviews, hodgepodge of beliefs, and if you have an inconsistent worldview then're vulnerable. It because it's it, doesn't match up. There's going to be chinks in the armor gaps, and I think that's why we're seeing so many christians often, you know, veer off, into being off in different issues, especially if they're emotionally driven because they're not thinking through. You know, if we really believe our god is good and really cares, what does that actually look like for these social issues? So that was a big way to connect when I was explaining it to the teenagers. And I would say, when I'm interacting even with the you know unsaved, my neighbors, you know the heart of things.
Katherine Gallagher:Often people want I think a lot of people ultimately want the same thing in a big sense of what they actually think is right, even if it's not really right biblically. Their motives might be okay, but they don't understand the compassion of the wicked is cruelty. That kind of thing happens and people don't realize that they're off in those base. So, getting people to actually think that way, what does this actually mean? I was going to say quickly, just because it reminded me when Scott was speaking about Tom Holland when I was at the ARC event. I think we talked about this in one of our other exchanges.
Scott Allen:And just remind our listeners about what that is, Catherine, too.
Katherine Gallagher:Yes, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. They had an inaugural event last October of 2023 and brought together a lot of, you know, conservative thinkers but people that really wanted to really believe that there's a chance for sustainable prosperity. It was not an explicitly Christian event, but I would say the large majority of people there were Christians.
Scott Allen:I would say the large majority of people there were Christians. Just on that, catherine. This was organized largely by Jordan Peterson. Yes, kind of a cohort that he was working with.
Katherine Gallagher:Yes, dr Jordan Peterson was one of the main conveners of it, your friend Os Guinness. There was a lot of people there that you would know. But what was interesting when I was there, michael Schellenberger, who's the author of Apocalypse Never and San Francisco and several other books dealing with climate change and some of the really leftist policies, I got to meet him briefly when I was there and I was talking with him and he said you know, he said he told me I got saved when I was writing Apocalypse Never, because he was he's just, he said he told me I got saved when I was writing Apocalypse.
Scott Allen:Never because he was, he's just, he's a new Christian. I didn't know that. Yeah, Okay.
Katherine Gallagher:Michael.
Scott Allen:Schellenberger is on the very forefront of the. I mean, he was chosen by Elon Musk, I think, to do a lot of journalism around the kind of what they call the Twitter files and the whole censorship, the collusion between our government and big tech to do all this censorship, but particularly following the last election. Yeah, so he was.
Katherine Gallagher:He was kind of on the forefront of that free speech censorship, Right and that, and that came up because when he was doing all of his research around for apocalypse never he was saying you know, he's going into the leftist ideology. He's looking at and also trying to compare well what?
Katherine Gallagher:he was asking the right questions and I think you know you ask the right questions, you start analyzing things. He's a critical thinker. That's where and I think that's a lot of where we see some of these other great minds coming around, because they're realizing wait a minute, there's actually truth here, and there's an African proverb I think I quote it in the book that I love that says that truth is like oil no matter how much water you put on it, it will always float, it will always come to the top, and I think that that's a lot of what we're seeing with some of these, because it's truth works and eventually it will keep popping back up. So it's interesting to see that happening in the culture. Well, I think, michael.
Scott Allen:Schellenberger is an example too, catherine, of kind of why this is happening. In other words, we didn't see this kind of heavy-handed effort to censor people and to silence people by powerful forces in the government and in big tech if it countered what they wanted truth to be their official narrative right? We just didn't. I mean to a small degree, but not like we are seeing it today, and especially in a country like the United States with our constitution that enshrines the freedom of speech you know as a basic right. So it's kind of shocking, and I think that shock is what's kind of behind a lot of this change in the lives of people like Schellenberger and Tom Holland and Jordan Peterson, for that matter. They're shocked, they're going. What's happening? All of these things that I took for granted, these freedoms in this case freedom of speech and I always thought they would just be around are now eroding and they're going away rapidly. They're thinking what kind of world will this be like? They're looking at places like North Korea and they're saying it'll be like that, you know. And then they're asking the question. And then they're asking the question, and this is the new question for them where did it come from? Why did we have that belief and, just like Tom Holland says, people are oblivious to it, christians are oblivious to it. It's just always been that way. We've always had freedoms or whatever it is been that way. We've always had freedoms or whatever it is. We've always had a healthcare system that prioritized the needs of patients and had a value on human life or whatever it is. We've always had a scientific endeavor that was based on truth and said we've got to follow the data wherever it leads and not fudge data to make it come out in the way that we want it to come out. It's always been that way. Then their question is why?
Scott Allen:I heard somebody say recently and I thought this was very profound. They said, this group of thinkers that we're talking about right now they're asking a new question. The old apologetics question was you know, is God real? Right, is it true? You know, and that's a good question, right, but it's not the question that they're asking. They're asking where did these powerful ideas come from that cause us to have a livable civilization or culture? Right? Where did they come from? Or another way of saying it is you know, can we live without belief in the Christian God? Right? That's what they're kind of asking and it's just—I just think that's a fascinating thing.
Scott Allen:I wanted to, yeah, just continue to get your thoughts on that, because you went to arc and you've met some of these people and I think you um, you're closer to this even than we are, katherine.
Luke Allen:So just just to give us some context here, katherine, can you name some of the people that were that we're referencing here? And michael schellenberger is one of them? Jordan peterson, who else are these people? Tom holland, asking these types of questions right now? Yeah, and, of course, russell Brand. Russell Brand, yes, he has had a huge shift Again, obviously clearly a seeker.
Katherine Gallagher:He's been seeking for some time and there's others, I think, that have been. Oh, and actually I'm not sure I'm saying her name right, is it Ayanna Hirsch?
Scott Allen:Ayanna Hirsi Ali. Thank you, she was at ARC the.
Darrow Miller:Somali immigrant.
Katherine Gallagher:She spoke at ARC as well, and it was interesting because she was sharing some of her journey with shifting. Because, again, here's the thing All of them are asking questions and they're thinking which sounds simple.
Scott Allen:Well, and they care about the culture. They care deeply about the culture, in a way that, I'm sad to say, a lot of Christians in the churches don't. Exactly.
Katherine Gallagher:They care about a particular culture that we need to say Meaning understanding Western culture.
Darrow Miller:They care about a culture that values human beings, that supports freedom and justice. Those are the things that they value and as they see those eroded, they're saying well, where?
Scott Allen:did these come from? Yeah, where did these ideas come from?
Katherine Gallagher:Yeah, and I see this going back, too, to the issue that we have still of dualism in the church, because we've got these unbelievers asking the questions that we should be asking. Right, we should be caring more about these things and not that all I mean. Obviously a lot of Christians do, but there is a lot of Christians still, as we know, just focused on. You know, I'm saved and I'm going to heaven and I'm just kind of making it through the week Versus the kingdom approach, which I know we've talked about. You know the difference of the gospel, the kingdom and the gospel of salvation. You know, salvation is the door into the kingdom. It's not the end. All it's wonderful. Let's go to heaven, yes, but what about making a difference on the earth and so often we've seen that it's not necessarily the church.
Katherine Gallagher:Now sometimes, yes, I mean obviously, let's think historically. You know the anti-slavery movement, you know Wilberforce and some great examples for social change, but at the same time, I think of issues around even like the environment. You know what brought Michael Schellenberger up earlier? You know, how are Christians not at the front of proper environmental stewardship? Shouldn't that be us? I mean, we're the ones who are going to—.
Scott Allen:Yeah, catherine, we got into all of this through our work at Food for the Hungry, you know, for many years, and the issue of poverty.
Scott Allen:And when Christians began to engage on that issue which for a long time Christians kind of stopped, you know, because of this dualism that you're talking about and they said this is an issue that's a secular issue, let's call it.
Scott Allen:It's below the sacred-secular line and we should be focused on evangelism and church planting and any kind of care or concern for the poor isn't really—it's not that it's bad, but it's not a priority or it could potentially be a distraction from this higher right, this higher goal that we have. And so that's that kind of sacred secular thinking. Now, when you think that way on this issue of poverty, what you tend to think is the Bible doesn't have anything to say about that issue. That if I want to go about fighting poverty in the world, I have to go and think like a secular person thinks about that, you know, and so you know that explains so much of the way the Church—if you ask the church, for example, what were the principles in the Bible that gave rise to modern health care? Like you just get blank stares. Or free nations, like people couldn't say, because the Bible doesn't speak to those things. Those are secular things, right, you know, so to speak, they're not Christian things, right.
Katherine Gallagher:There's so much there, though, right, that we just miss because we're not thinking that way.
Scott Allen:Well, it's exciting for me, darrow, to see them kind of leading the discussion now. I mean, they're the ones who are coming back with fresh eyes going oh, this idea came from the Bible. Look at this, isn't this beautiful, Isn't this precious? You know? Yeah, we need the Bible. You know they haven't got to the point many of them, some of them have of I need to personally bow the knee to Jesus and I pray that many of them do, all of them but they've at least got to the point. You see, this with Jordan Peterson, of saying look at the Bible, this is so powerful. All that we take for granted, this belief in objective truth and of compassion or whatever it is, goodness you know, comes from this book, you know.
Katherine Gallagher:And that, where it reminds me of what Luke was sharing earlier too, of you know the reality of that. If Christianity is truth, which we believe, it is that we always believe in choice. That choice is that we always believe in choice. That choice and that and he was saying earlier, you know, if the government that you know we're obviously confident, if we really know that we can put it out there in the marketplace of ideas and it will, truth will ultimately win and it shows you, with this whole censorship and some of these you know questions going back to where is this all coming from? That we see that disconnect of you know it's the irony of Christianity being called, you know, not being intelligent and being so stifling, but we're the freedom of choice in the big sense. You know God wants us to be able to choose and that's a unique thing that you don't get in some of the other religions.
Scott Allen:And the fact that truth works and you can choose.
Katherine Gallagher:And yet we're accused as being the opposite. And yet we in the marketplace of ideas, we're for choice that way and that there's. You know that that's an important attribute. So that's the irony with the censorship and such that's going on.
Scott Allen:Yes, and you have these thinkers. They're saying why do we value freedom and people's choice? And they're the ones who are doing the deep work, going back into the Bible and saying it's because God, god, is free and he created people with free choice the choice to reject him or accept him. You know, and you know this freedom is deeply rooted in God himself and in his creation. You know, it's not something I think a lot of—I was just telling Luke.
Scott Allen:You know, before the podcast on the issue of marriage, I had, you know, some non-Christian family members many years ago who you know they came from divorced families and you know, marriage for them was just a wreck, it was just all negative in their life. And so they were, you know, cohabiting. And you know I said to them you know I was bothered by that as a Christian, I'm like, you know, you should really get married, right, you should get married. And they looked at me and they said why? And I had the hardest time answering that, you know, because I just wasn't used to thinking, you know, about these things, I just took them for granted, you know, and so it caused me to say why, why is marriage important? Where did these ideas come from, about marriage and faithfulness and covenant and all of this, you know, I just hadn't thought about it so and covenant and all of this, you know and I just hadn't thought about it.
Luke Allen:So, yeah, and the reason we started talking about that, dad, was that I was talking about that quote I saw from Jordan Peterson, or it was during a talk, and he said essentially a lot of your conservatives, you know Christians as well, I would include in this thought. At least they tend to be very moral people, they tend to be very ethical people, but they don't know how to explain what they believe.
Luke Allen:They don't know their ethos well, and that's a lot of people out there and the problem with that camp is because they haven't taken the time to really think about that and understand what they believe and why they believe it. Then, when you have people with a real passion and a strong you know uh vision for the future or worldview come along. You know these radical leftists oftentimes they'll come marching through and when they uh, when they put you, your average conservative, on the spot and pressure you into something.
Luke Allen:If you don't have that strong understanding of why you believe what you believe, well you're going to cave, probably every time, uh, and you'll throw your hands up and you'll say, all right, well, you're going to cave probably every time and you'll throw your hands up and you'll say, all right, yeah, I give up, Even though I don't exactly agree with you, because they can't articulate their stance.
Luke Allen:And, like you were saying, Catherine, if you can't explain something simply, you might not really understand it. And I think that's a lot of people nowadays, and I think it's just because of the, I would say, because the biblical worldview is so inground in our culture which is awesome it's caused a lot of people just not to take the time of asking those questions at the ethos level of why they believe in something like marriage and why that's important. It's just no everyone gets married.
Scott Allen:Yeah, but why See? This is the urgency of our time, and the urgency and the need for the book that you just wrote, catherine, too, is that we can no longer take these things for granted. We have these ideas, these powerful biblical ideas that have shaped our culture. They don't just stick around without you know, they can go away, especially as you were saying, luke. They can go away, especially as you were saying, luke, if you've got a group of people out there with a different, let's say really harmful, false worldview, and they're very intent on—they've got a strong vision to shape a culture, they're going to have their way.
Scott Allen:You know, unless—i would say unless we, the body of Christ, the body of believers, re-understand our own worldview, these ideas that are at the foundation of freedom and marriage and everything else, and understand it. It's to say, you know, this is the personal application. I guess we start living by it ourselves and then are ready to defend that. The time is short, but I don't think it's too late, but thanks for your book, right to be a part of the urgency here of just equipping the church at this time. So, darrell, you were going to say something there.
Darrow Miller:Yeah, I think, the default position. If we're not thinking about these things as Christians and someone comes up with a strong argument on the other side, what is the default position? You retreat to a sacred-secular divide. Because if you have that divide, you can live out your Christian life in the sacred and not worry about the secular. So that becomes the default position. And that's where the church is today. So that becomes a default position. And that's where the church is today, because we're not used to thinking and thinking, as Catherine's saying, analyzing and following the threads. We don't think in those terms. We're not taught to think in those terms. That's why this book is so, I think, important for Christians to begin to engage with.
Scott Allen:And Darrell, just you know it's a fallacy what you said. It's a fallacy that we can retreat into our sacred-secular kind of divide and just hold on to our Christian beliefs in the church in our private life. It's a fallacy because we don't just live inside of the church and we don't just function based on these kind of spiritual beliefs. We are out in right the culture as doctors, as nurses, as businessmen. And if the culture is shaped by Marxist, postmodern ideas, it's a fallacy to think that we ourselves are not going to be influenced by those ideas, especially if we don't think the Bible has anything to say about them.
Darrow Miller:Well, this is where Os Guinness, in his book the Call, is so clear. He says God has his people where he wants them. They're all over the community. They're doctors and lawyers and publishers.
Scott Allen:Yep every sphere.
Darrow Miller:The problem is they're not being his people where? They are, that's right.
Scott Allen:That's the problem. That's the sacred-secular divide they're thinking like the culture when they're out there.
Katherine Gallagher:The culture.
Scott Allen:Because that's all they know. You know that the Bible doesn't speak to those issues, and so well, somebody's speaking and shaping those issues.
Darrow Miller:So, catherine, back to you. How do we, in this part of the conversation we're having, if somebody's listening and saying I want to get a hold of this book, how would they do it? And if they're asking I need to learn how this book is going to help me think, tell us about that.
Katherine Gallagher:Thank you, yeah, and I just was going to say, with some of the thoughts that you had here too, of you know it go, and I talk about this in the book that we, we can be Christians and not have a Christian worldview. And I think a lot of people don't understand that and one of my frustrations.
Scott Allen:I know that's a really important point.
Katherine Gallagher:Yes, yeah, and it's again. We're not talking salvation. You're saved by grace, grace alone.
Scott Allen:Yes, yeah.
Luke Allen:And it's again, we're not talking.
Darrow Miller:salvation, you're saved by grace, grace alone blood of Christ.
Katherine Gallagher:All that, amen, good, go into heaven. All good and important, but it doesn't again, it doesn't stop there and again this is why we can see I think we've got in many places a pretty impotent church because the people aren't going beyond. You know they're not as you were saying. You know actually doing it where they live and reflecting it in their lifestyle, knowing how to engage these conversations. So it's so important.
Katherine Gallagher:And one of the things I say you know, in the book, and when I'm talking about it too, is just, this is crucial. It's not understanding our beliefs, is not a extra spiritual gift, Like maybe you have it, maybe you don't. You know, I think people sometimes think you know, well, oh, I've got the gift of prophecy or teaching, or you know this is. This is something all of us have and all of us are responsible for. I mean, the Lord has told us to steward our minds, steward our bodies right, steward ourselves. Worldview is a part of who we are, so we are. That's our responsibility before the Lord to steward, and if we're not doing that, we're missing the mark, I think. And we can see it culturally.
Katherine Gallagher:You know, I just got back from almost a month in Madagascar, in Africa, and again you could see. You know how many people, years and years of you, know wonderful salvation messages and yet what has changed there? I mean, you've got huge churches and the countries are still falling apart. Why is that? Again, ideas have consequences. There's huge gaps there in their Christian worldview that there was so much just on salvation that they missed all this practical that actually, you know, is in how God's designed us to think and to operate, yeah no, that's right.
Scott Allen:And if that's not part of our core discipleship, this is where you know this isn't something that this worldview subject isn't something that is just for the people that are interested in apologetics.
Katherine Gallagher:Let's say Right, it's everyone.
Scott Allen:No, this is for everybody. At a very basic level, then we will function according to the dominant belief system of the culture, which, in Madagascar, is probably some form of, you know, animism. Daryl, I always remember you teaching in Korea many years ago, saying to the Korean Christians you are saved, but you have a Confucius mind, you know. And they were like what do you mean? Right, you know what do you mean.
Scott Allen:You know, well, of course Koreans have been shaped by Confucianism for millennia, you know. And that doesn't change unless there's a real intentionality to say you've got to change the way you think right. And in the West it's the same. If there's not an intention, we are going to think postmodern, secular, you know that's what's driving the culture right now. Yeah, so to his earlier question.
Katherine Gallagher:I know he that's what's, that's what's driving the culture right now. So yeah. So to his earlier question I know he was asking about the book. So the book, uh, is uh well one. We actually have a plan in the Bible app, the YouVersion Bible app. There's the worldview. A little plan is in there.
Luke Allen:Uh, it's in.
Katherine Gallagher:It's in English, spanish, french and Portuguese, so you can get them all there. And then the book itself is. You can get it on our website, go strategicorg. It's also on Kindle? It will be. No, it is already on Kindle. Yes, sorry, it's already on Kindle, and the French, spanish and Portuguese versions are all coming out in the next month or so here, so you can get them through our website and eventually also on Amazon Kindle. So just search for the book.
Scott Allen:You know how. Do you want our readers or, excuse me, our listeners to use the book? Do you want them to use it personally in churches, or what's your thought on that?
Katherine Gallagher:Great question. We actually did film a video series that corresponds with it for small group study, if you do want to use it in a small group setting, so everyone can get the book themselves. And then there's a small group audio or video that you can watch. I know quite a few churches that are using it now, which is wonderful, so you can go through it in a small group setting. I think it's great for the individual and I, you know, I made my kids read it.
Katherine Gallagher:Make your children read this book, because I again, I want to make it simple If I can't explain it to my high school age children, right? So it's good for younger ages and for older. You know, we always say you never outgrow your need for the basics and we need to learn to properly think this way, and so I think it's a great personal tool and obviously great for small group setting and yeah, and hopefully it's an encouragement to people because it's meant to be, as I know Luke was saying earlier too. Just, it hopefully brings freedom because it can be so overwhelming when we do think big picture worldview apologetics. This is actually pretty simple and if we can learn to think this way and tether it to the truth in the scripture, you know we've got a lot of empowerment there because we've got the truth behind us.
Scott Allen:Yeah, well, I like to, you know, just to move it out of the apologetics frame or just kind of this brain thing. I like to think of these as precious gems and jewels. Right, the truth that all people are created in God's image and loved by God and have dignity and purpose. I mean that is a priceless jewel and we have it. You know. God's given us that. That's not just for us, that's for the whole world, you know, and it's something of incredible beauty and power. So just to think differently about this isn't just some academic thing. These are priceless gems that build beautiful cultures when they're put into practice, and you know.
Scott Allen:So, just thinking about worldview differently, and so well, catherine, I just want to thank you for the work that you're doing and for writing this book and for the Ministry of Go Strategic. I just we're so grateful for you and you're such a clear, winsome kind of articulator of so many of these ideas and it's just a joy to know you. I want to encourage all of our listeners to go check out gostrategicorg and this book on worldview and, yeah, make use of it in the discipleship of your children, in small groups and churches or in any other way. So this is so important. This is really critical at this time. Catherine, thanks again for being with us. We look forward to having you back again, and, guys, it's great to be with you as well. It's been a great discussion. Thank you, catherine.
Katherine Gallagher:Thank you, gentlemen. Always an honor to be with you all.
Darrow Miller:Thank you, thanks Catherine, thank you, gentlemen, always an honor to be with you all.
Katherine Gallagher:Thank you Thanks.
Scott Allen:Catherine, say hello to your parents for us. Yes, I will for sure. Yep say hi. Thanks to all of you who are listening. We appreciate so much your tuning in and making Ideas have Consequences a part of your life and encourage you to, just as you have opportunity, to share it with friends as well, so that we can get the word out. This is Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Luke Allen:Thank you for joining us for this episode with Katherine Gallagher. As always, to learn more about our guests and find any of the resources that we mentioned during the episode, just tap the link in the show notes and head over to the episode landing page. On this week's page, you'll see more information about Catherine Go Strategic and the Worldview Handbook. I personally just went through the nine-day Worldview Bible study on the YouVersion Bible app that Catherine mentioned at the end of our discussion, and I loved it. It was very simple and concise, probably took less than 10 minutes a day to go through, and it ended every day's study with a list of scriptures to help you meditate on the lesson of the day. So again, don't forget to head over to the episode landing page and, while you're there, please take a minute to let us know what you thought about this podcast in the comments area. We always appreciate hearing your questions, concerns or anything that you might be learning.
Luke Allen:The Ideas have Consequences podcast is brought to you by the Disciple Nations Alliance, which is a ministry that has worked around the world for the last 26 years, training over a million people in over 90 nations with a biblical worldview. If you'd like to learn more about our ministry. You can find us on Instagram, facebook and YouTube or on our website, which is disciplenationsorg. Thanks again for joining us. Please share the show with a friend and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcast or wherever you're listening, and I hope you're able to join us here next week again. On ideas have consequences.
