🛡️ Is Your Safety an Idol? Risk, Technology, and the Gospel

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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm doctor James Spencer, and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome this episode of Thinking Christian on doctor James Spencer, and I'm joined today by doctor Jeremy Lungren. He is the president of Nicola Bibla Institute in Norton, Wisconsin, and he also is an instructor of theology at Being College. And he's written a book called The Pursuit of Safety, a Theology of Dounger Risk and Security, and we're going to be talking about that topic today. And I'm just really excited about this because this is such an interesting theological topic that I don't think it's enough coverage. So Jeremy, welcome to the program. Thanks for being here, man.

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Speaker 2: Thanks James, it's a pleasure to be with you.

00:01:04
Speaker 1: So I mean I actually looked into doing a theology of risk at one point in my doctoral work, and I thought this would be the coolest thing ever, and then ended up doing something on collective remembering and sort of set the risk part aside. So I was really excited to kind of see your book. I was like, oh, somebody did it. This is great. I think it's so needed. But give me a sense of why choose this topics? Like what was it about this topic that you're in.

00:01:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were a couple things kind of earlier in my life. One of the vivid memories I have. I tell this story often is I think it was like the first year of my marriage. My wife and I live in the San Diego area. Drove past an elementary school and it's said, have a safe summer, And I just made the joke to my wife, like how many twelve year old boys are there? Like last day of school? I'm really pumped. I really hope my summer is and then like still in the blank, fun, adventurous, awesome, But then you know what are the teachers and the mom flowed They want the kids to have a safe summer. So I just made a little joke. I poked at it, just just thinking through like is that really like the ideal that we want for kids? And we love our kids, we want them to be safe. But then when you constantly have that message, it's it's saying something to kids, it's saying this is more important than trying something dangerous. This is more important than being stretched or growing or getting hurt and learning how to get back up, things along those lines. So, I mean, I don't know who that who the principle of that school was or what it meant, but that's a pretty common thing that we do. And then my wife and I were missionaries in Kazakhstan for a couple of years, and while we were there, I just noticed oftentimes when you go to a different culture, you notice things about your own culture just by way of contrast. And so just noticing in America the amount of signage, the amount of messaging that we have about safety and things like that just isn't there. And you could talk about our legal structure and insurance and laws and lawyers along those lines, but it was just it was noticeably absent, and it was on my mind, and so that got me going. I did my Masters of Theology at Talbot School of Theology, and that's kind of where I first started thinking about the idea something related to safety, maybe risk, something along those lines, and just started pursuing that, started studying it, as you mentioned, just finding that there wasn't a there weren't a lot of books or people that were addressing this topic from a theological perspective. You found some stuff on like missions why we as Christians ought to be willing to take risk, but I really wanted to I spent a lot of time kind of looking historically at why we think about safety in the way that we do, why we pursue it in the way that we do, and so kind of looking back at kind of some broad societal and cultural developments that get us to where we're at today. So that's a very brief overview of kind of how I got into that topic.

00:04:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's helpful. I mean, I think it's interesting. As I read through the book one of the I mean it's the first chapter, but Tokens of Safety, I thought that was a really interesting way to sort of bring us into this topic, and so maybe talk a little bit about that, just to get people an entree into safety. Tokens of Safety what you're real to talk about there.

00:04:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, So again kind of using that tool of evaluating the culture by looking at like some of that came from the outside, and they would look at that and they would say what stands out here? What what do I notice? And if you were to go to for us as Americans, to go to another another culture and somewhere where there's another religion being practiced, we might notice, oh, there are a lot of religious tokens, or there are a lot of you know, what are those things hanging mean? Or what are these little amulets or whatever those things are. So that's why I use the word token kind of in that sense of an outsider coming to America would look and say, there's all these signs that have similar coloring and similar symbols, whatever those represent, that must be something really important to this, to this culture. And so you look at it and you notice that it's it's related to physical safety. And so you say, and again, that's something that is common to all cultures, that we have ways of noticing dangers or communicating with each other about dangers. But I just thought this is a way to highlight that this is something very important in our culture and at least to just say, let's not take this as a given. Let's not say that's just the way it ought to be. But let's ask some questions and say how important is safety? How does it rank related to other good things?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and if she looked at it sort of through history, you you do deal with a lot of the inherent risk of life. Suppose we get to sight right, and so maybe help us think through I don't know where the balance is the right word, but the relationship, maybe the trade off between danger and risk, between danger risk and see something like that.

00:06:19
Speaker 2: Boy, well, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I mean, we live in a fallen world. I have fun with my students. I'll ask them questions about could Adam and Eve have have like accidentally tripped and fallen or injured themselves in Eden or something like that. And so when we look at the man, so the fact that we have dangers. The Psalms talk a lot about how death encroaches on us or other things, hunger and thirst and enemies are coming after us. And so I think we have to take that theologically as just a constant reminder that we're sinners, that we're guilty before God that we live under well apart from Christ, Hebrew says that people live under the fear of death. And so obviously that's the big one. When we think about navigating not navigating things or taking risks is and I say that, and maybe this is like going to extreme, but I say that because you start boiling things back. And what am I willing to risk? And what am I not willing to risk? And what do I do if I lose this thing that is important to me, whether it's wealth or material goods, whether it's an injury to yourself or someone you care about. But the ultimate thing that we are worried about is death. And so Jesus talks about that where we look at a life following him and he just goes right there and he says, do not fear those who can destroy the body. But after that, I have nothing more they can do. Fear him who can destroy both body and soul, and hell, it's it's it's very rare though that on an every day in everyday life that we face these matters of life and death and uh, in kind of a total sense. But then we can also think about some things are more life giving and some things right, some things lead to life and some things lead away from life, they lead to death. And so we have to think about the things that we're doing. Are they good? Are we are we okay with with the cost that might be involved. So on a very practical example, which I think is where your question was going originally, was just like I don't know, like how far do you let your kids go off to play?

00:08:42
Speaker 1: Uh?

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Speaker 2: That might be a good example, right, because you say, well, they can go in the front yard, but they need to you know, don't don't go across the curb into the street, or they can be on our street, but don't go around the corner, or whatever it is for the characters. We're thinking about those things because we want we want our kids to have some level of freedom. We want them to hang out and play with the kids down the street, all those sorts of things. And so how you figure that out exactly that that there's no formula for it, But we just we look and we say, I want I want my kids to grow up and to be competent, to live in this world, to be able to do things, to overcome difficulties. See, it does take. It does take wisdom and figuring out just kind of like where where we draw those lines. It's hard, though, let me ask. So.

00:09:29
Speaker 1: I teach a course for Wheaton in their leadership program, and one of the things I talked about with leaders is this idea of the worst case scenario. When they're in leadership, you're you're trying to figure out you're in a complex scenario, trying to make a good decision. It's like you might consider, well, what's the worst case scenario here? Right, And so I said, I think we need to usually talk to him about we need to think about the worst case scenarios on multiple levels. Right, You've got the worst case scenarios for the organization and just strictly for the organization. It's not theological, it's not philosophical, like we parst these things out right. I suppose in reality we can't, but for the purposes of instruction, it works. See, Yeah, there's organizational worst case scenario. It's like, you know, the organization loses all its money and has to you know, lay off all its employees and it goes out of business. You know that maybe maybe that's the worst case scenarios. But from a biblical and theological pushalective. There's another worst case scenarios, which is maybe something like succeeding by not being loyal to chroisty hm, you know, or you know, being able to continue in disobedience, well, you know, instead of pointing to and glorifying God, right, something that would be like the sort of basic betrayal or of our faith is really the worst case scenario that even as leaders in organizations, he had to be cognizant of that there is a way for us to dishonor God in all of this. And so I was reading your book, I was thinking about the you know, that sort of approach to this, and you sit back and you say, well, there is there a fundamental category of risk or risks it back and says, our vulnerabilities always put us at risk of being disloiled to God, and so how do we cultivate us safety then that sort of deep vulnerability in a broken he or what does that even look like? And so I was wondering if you had any sort of take on that.

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Speaker 2: So I think what I hear you saying is because there are vulnerabilities, whether it's organizational or professional or even personal, that there's this temptation that those vulnerabilities caused us to be tempted to somehow compromise on our theology, compromise on our core commitment to Christ.

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Speaker 1: That's right. I mean, I think we see this in the Old Testament for instance. You know, maybe you put it in well, I mean even in the garden. You know, you don't exactly have vulnerabilities there, but the decision seems to be that we want to be like God, you know, we want to elevate from our current position to this new position. You probably see it more in something like a Genesis eleven. Ones are not our Babbel narrative where they don't want to be skeptyes, right, they want to be together, and so in order to be together we take these steps, and these steps end up being really in a friction wish what God would want? You see what I'm meaning.

00:12:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting how you put it, because the title of the book, the Pursuit of Safety, came as I was writing it. I just was using that phrase a lot. Yeah, oftentimes in my mind it added kind of a negative sense to it because I was trying to describe what our world does, and I just wanted to say we want to be safe, but apart from God, when are we truly saying, but we're oursuing this thing? And can we ever get to it? And so so as I think about those vulnerabilities that we have, those temptations that we have, which as you say, those are actually the dangers to pursue safety apart from God. And so you're asking like, how do we how do we stop that? How do we how do we see our safety in relationship to God? Is where my mind went. And yeah, in the Old Testament you see that so much with with with idolatry, that's the bad. That's one of the very common frameworks is you know, why did Israel go after those idols? Because they wanted rain for their crops, because they wanted to be successful in war, because they had fleshly desires that they you know, the law of God prohibited, but they could indulge in those things with these other gods. And so there were there were those other things that they desired, and over and over again they wouldn't trust in God. And I think about in Isaiah, there are a number of verses that say those who trust in the Lord, or those who wait on the Lord won't be put to shame. And so that's what I think, that's what a positive thing, that's what we need to be building up in our lives is to say, I am vulnerable as a creature. I am vulnerable, you know, because I'm a sinner who's been redeemed, but still I'm in this corruptible body, this body that can be harmed. And these the possessions I have, the things I use in this world, moth and rusk can destroy them. And so just just that attitude of the heart of going to God and saying I'm going to wait on you, I'm going to trust in you.

00:14:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I think I really started thinking about this, this idea that just sort of surrounds theirs. In the chapter I'm around ordering Creation talking there about technology, idols, and the Cross of Christ, and you just think about those three things together, and I mean, I my mind was going all over the place in that chapter, because you know, you have something like building a parrot builder on the top of your house, right, I mean we see this in the in the legal literature, and it's like, well, that's a firm of technology that we're using now to develop a safety net, so to speak. Form so that people don't fall off the house, right. I mean, oh, you have you have appropriate uses for this stuff, but then you also have extremely inappropriate uses for this stuff. And so I appreciate you saying like it comes back to wisdom, but I'd be interested to hear you talk even a little bit about how you think through technology from a risk and safety perspective, and then maybe we can talk back on what you what you do in that chapter with Across of Christ.

00:16:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if you've read much of the Jacqua Alul. He talks about Cain and the city that he builds, And I don't agree with everything that that Alul says, but you just he gets your mind, your imagination going and thinking through what was Cain trying to do in building the city. There's the textual irony there that he went to the land of wandering to establish himself, to establish that. Yeah, it's just a great like sociological and psychological and fundamentally spiritual insight to say you're cast out of the presence of God, you murder your brother. There's some pride and some hubris involved in that. And then Cain becomes the forefather of all these early technologies. You read his genealogy, and his descendants are known for basics and agriculture and technology and music and things along those lines, things which aren't inherently evil. Uh but but there's some sense in which humanity's earliest development of technology is you think about it on just a very primal level of you need food and shelter and things like that. Confession. I've watched a couple of YouTube videos about like architecture and designing houses, and the lady talks about how we love to be when you go to a restaurant or a coffee shop, you want to sit in a corner because it makes you feel safe, you know, and a lot of little things like that and interesting. You know, it's so true that that technology we oftent has the technology we can't get past, like the glowy screen and the flashy lights, and just say, what is this thing doing to my heart? And I mean it does a lot of things to our hearts related to our relationships with other people, our needs to feel important and efficient and all those things. So when it comes to safety, you just say, the technology, whatever it is, if it's a parapet wall a thousand years ago, if it's you know, a seat belt one hundred years ago, or if it's an air bag and the automatic breaking systems and all the sensors today, Like what is what is that thing promising you? What is it giving you? Uh? And and it's it's giving you at least some perception of control of the physical world around you. And again you go back to Caine, and he didn't want to trust God, right, he wanted to go out and do it on his own without trusting God. And I think a little is right that in our quest for technology, that's not all that technology is, but there are certainly remnants of that in uh, in what we're doing, like like what are we chasing when we're building these things? I am? I almost asked this question in a sermon I preached recently out a church, but I wanted to ask the question you think about our phones, the tracking and for families, like if you're a mom and you've got your kids, you can find my phone or whatever. And I just wanted to like ask the questions. So ask this question for the audience. Since you've gotten that feature, are you less anxious or more anxious?

00:19:26
Speaker 1: Right?

00:19:26
Speaker 2: Because where are you going? I am ten years ago when Life three sixty he is becoming the thing or more than that? What was it promising you? Is promising you like, where are my kids right now? What are they doing? And it was going to take away that anxiety. And so that's my question, are you less anxious or more anxious? You said, you know your answer, I'm furious what it is.

00:19:49
Speaker 1: Well, i'd say my answer is because so we got Life three sixty and as a gen x er right who grew up with the pub service ads that said, it's ten o'clock to know where your children are? All right? You remember, I els, I'm looking at this thing, going this is nuts, right, And so early on I was kind of tracking the kids all over the place. And then my son got in a car accident. Nobody's really hurt, but he gets in an accident, and you all of a sudden to realize that the only thing this thing is good for is completely reacted. Right, he's hurt off that accident. I can't do anything right. I can only get to where he is a few minutes faster. And so I kind of stopped using it unless I want the kids to stopping by the store or something like that. But I like early on, I could definitely feel it's like, oh man, where are they what are they doing with it? And and now I just kind of use it as this could be convenient for me if they're if they're out and about close to somewhere that I need something, I'm going to ask him to pick it up. But I can definitely say it would it would drive me crazy if I read it. But I think it was my son's accident where I just kind of sat back and I'm like, this thing isn't keeping anybody's right. It's only allowing me to react a little bit quipment or would. And the reality was, you know, when I got there on my son's accident, the cops already there. You know, there's there are people who were handling it.

00:21:26
Speaker 2: You know.

00:21:27
Speaker 1: I'm just now there as sort of emotional support and that's it. So yeah, I think we've gone a little overboard with some of its.

00:21:36
Speaker 2: But yeah, my daughter got into an accident reason, you know, and again not not really hurt, dis damage to another kid's car. And the funny thing with that was that her phone since she was in an accident, and then there are some sort of safety settings that we didn't set up and we didn't really know what they were doing, so it called like another teenage of hers, a guy that was somehow her default emergency compact. And then her phone was as she's sitting there recovering, the phone was just blasting, you've been in an accident. You've been in an accident or something like that, as she's trying to turn it off and the battery is almost dead and it was, and then her friends wondering, why are you calling me? So she's she's dealing with all that stuff, and you know, those questions are worth asking Are you less anxious now because of it? And I think it reveals a lot of important things. It reveals that we have an ability as people, as families, as cultures to take new technology. And the way I describe it in the book is technology at first kind of like shocks you. It overwhelms you, and it's this new, strange thing, and we're afraid of it, but we're also drawn to it, and then it just becomes normal. When we talk about technology, we usually mean like screens and devices like that. Today, you know, I don't mean the chair that I'm sitting on or troelace. Is there anything though that's technology. But that's just we've incorporated that, so we're used to it. Yeah. So so it shows us that, yeah, that we have like this emotional response to technology. Uh, it also shows us that we could manage it. I liked what you said about Uh you could let it, Uh life three sixty stress you out if you wanted to. So it shows Okay, you've got some level of control over that. You don't have to be controlled by it. You can, you can exercise wisdom, take control, take some control. So when we think about technology and safety, that that's one of the themes that I was thinking a lot about was what do we do with the promises that technology makes? You can think of lots of ironic examples of technology that makes one thing safer and three other things more dangerous, and what you know, what do you what do you do with those things? And and how how do we navigate those things? But it's just I don't know. I would encourage all of us to have not to be under impressed with technology.

00:24:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've always kind of thought of our hearts technology, and I think especially in those cane narratives you look at those maybe even the fig leaf and the skin coverings that God gives you know, right early, you know, just a chaper before, but as a response to brokenness. Technology is a response to brokenness. And so with with Cain, you know, he is pushed out of this from before the face of God, given the mark so that nobody kills him. But now he's he's also been alienated from the land. But no, God tells him that the lend is not going to meel the fruit that it used to for him, and so he's got to find a whole different way of life. And it's almost like, well, there's no there's no real big surprise that technology was one of the solutions that he ends upwards, that he goes down, builds this sea, that his family develops pichologies through their agers. It's he's sent out in a very vulnerable physician, and I guess that that'd be My next question is, how do you really see when you're talking about risk and vulnerability? Are those two sides of the same coin, Like, are they worries, sentinives or would you distinguish anything between those two.

00:25:21
Speaker 2: Vulnerable the word vulnerable, the root of that just means woundable, Uh, that you're able to be wounded. Uh. And then with risk. The kind of the earlier usage usage of the word risk, uh, implied that there was something to gain. So usually when we talk about being being vulnerable, Uh, yeah, it's just the fact that you have you know, metaphorically and underbelly right their soft their soft spots. We often use that word more often in a relational or emotional sense, you know, being vulnerable with each other. But I think that people will make arguments that it's it's good to be vulnerable with other people because there are gains to be made because of it. So in that sense, you could say you're you're taking a risk where you're saying, I'm gonna put myself out there with this other person, or maybe maybe in a more physical sense of I'm gonna be I'm exposing myself to a possible infection, or you know, if you pick up someone stranded on the side of the road, you're you're you're making yourself vulnerable to who is this person and what what might you do? Uh? But but you're saying there are things to be gained for it of showing kindness to this person that needs help. So you're you're willing to put yourself in something of a vulnerable situation. Uh yeah. And and then with risk, we all we often think about it as you know, to take the risk and you can't win if you don't play type thing. Uh though oftentimes risk today, risk is often used more as a synonym just danger, where you don't necessarily have that what's the thing that can be gained when you take a risk. It's more like that's a risk, be careful, just that's something that can harm you. So that's a little I spent a lot of time kind of parson those words and looking.

00:27:14
Speaker 1: A little Yeah, what do you see as the I mean, I know you cover the late modern risk in the book, but do you see what you see today as our big risks?

00:27:26
Speaker 2: Oh? What? I I was finishing writing this during COVID, so that was on my mind. A lot was easy to identify then, Yeah, yeah, I had written most of it before that, but was kind of finishing up and editing that kind of during that timeframe. So that was the one issue that was on my mind. And obviously there are a lot of politics involved in those things as well, and so that was obviously that was a snapshot of how we as a society, how how we just look at how dangerous is this thing? What do we need to do all those sorts of things. I don't know if I don't think I have anything ground for either or know what's say about about COVID in particular. But what are our risks today? I think a lot about children. I think a lot and young adults. You know, I work here at Nickolay Bible institu do with like, you know, eighteen to twenty four year olds and just looking at their lives a lot, And probably the thing that's the biggest on my heart is our unwillingness to let them take risks and experience real consequences for things. And we do that under the under this idea of protecting them and helping them develop. But then I look at people. I think of young men, They're hungry to be challenged, they want to be pushed, they want to be stretched. I see, I see a lot of guys rise to the occasion with that. So that's that's one of the big things that concerns me is how the older generation is kind of trying to protect younger people, but but in doing so cutting them off from developing and growing and learning. How to you know what, what's the worst that can happen. Well, you know, the worst that can happen rarely happens, but something bad happens. And okay, so how do you how do you get up? How do you how do you overcome that? I think about that a lot.

00:29:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think? I mean, when you think about risks throughout the ages? You know, obviously there are some of these that are going to be like physical risks. And I just finished up to the talking new guy about their German Reformation and he's like, you know, in Martin Luther's a Day, basically people are just dying right insign of you. I mean it you physical risks of just life, info, mortality, illness, play, you know, all those things. Those are real, tangible risks sitting right in front of you. But then you also have sort of the what we might call the symbolic risk, right, that's presence within the institutions of the day, which were selling of indulgences and being taken advantage of by an institution that really should have been for you but ended up being against you, you know, and not and having sort of an ignorance of what's going on simply because you you don't read, you don't you know, you don't speak labs, you don't you know all these different things that were going on in that Reformation period. So you've got these two like sort of very tangible risk, but then you've got also this subversive risk. Right do you see that across I'm sure you see it across all periods, But I'm kind of wondering how you think about the Is that a distinction that matters?

00:31:01
Speaker 2: Now? That that's really good. It makes me think of when Jesus says that life is more than food and the body is more than clothing. Yeah, and you think, well, what is it then? And and on that physical level where there's you know, in the fifteen hundreds, where there's infant mortality, there there are diseases and things like that, and that those are the sicknesses of the body. Those are the life and death things, and those things are so important and they just they have a way of shouting at you when things are going on on that level. And Jesus says life is more than this, right, and so what is that more? And so when you're talking about some of those symbolic risks, I think that we could look at those things and say that's pointing to the more. Whatever Jesus is talking about when says life is more than than life, is more than clothing the body, And now I'm misquoting Jesus, but whatever the more is there, and it's it's it's God gives us life. But what is this life for? What is its purpose? What is its teleology? Or it's tell us where is it going? And one of the criticisms that we can make of the current age that we live in is that we don't have an end. We don't give any goals for our young people to pursue, even like within this life, right you could say the you know, seventy to eighty years that God gives you on this earth. There's an arc to that. There's there are creational goods, there are careers and families and things that you can be doing, sacrifices that are worth making, discipline risks that you can take just within the horizon of time of the days on this earth. And we don't even give young people that so often. And I think that people want to know, like, I'm preserving my life, but what am I saving it for? What? Like I want to spend in my life? I want to use my life, So if I'm saving it now, what is it for then? Obviously, as for us as Christians, we look beyond the horizon of death, we look beyond the rison of time to say we are we want to take risks, We want to be pushing for the age to come as well, and we need to give that to young people. We need to encourage them. We need to always match that with wisdom. I know people get concerned that then you're going to have just just kind of foolish danger, and Proverbs talks a lot about that, right, the fool just walks into trouble, and we don't want that. That's not what we're trying to encourage. Where we are trying to trying to encourage people to step out in a world where we don't know the future, we don't know what tomorrow holds, where we take actions, and we don't know exactly what the outcome is going to be. But Safety says, you always want to know what the outcome is going to be before you do the thing.

00:34:02
Speaker 1: So, I mean, I'm gonna try to pull a couple of strands together this conversation, right, So, I know you've got a chapter of the book on discipleship. You mentioned working with young people, and these young men who are yearning for something more a sense of adventure or a desired pushed you know, and then we've got this sort of symbolic risk kind of concept, and this this more than you know, clothing more than a food kind of idea. And I think one of the things I've been concerned with sort lately that I see is a risk. I suppose it is like is like Andrew t o right, So not them particularly, okay, but in the vapping where young men don't have that purpose and we're not giving them that purpose, people like Andrew Bait or even in Christian verse Joe ta right who call young men team Chiesmo and bravado and as opposed to calling them to discipleship, to me is a real areer. And so maybe talk true for me a little bit at how a real how you see the connection of discipleship being part of developing an appropriate understanding of safety and risk?

00:35:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I haven't consumed a lot of Andrew Tate content, but but I've heard of described several times basically how you did.

00:35:38
Speaker 1: It's as well as you think it is. Yeah, I don't watch it either, but it's yeah, all.

00:35:43
Speaker 2: Right, and and so yeah, so the concern is, you know, what what do we do with with young guys in particular who are what like well, like I guess on the face of it, they would be like not living godly lives, being disrespectful to women, being prideful, selfish thing.

00:36:11
Speaker 1: Is that kind of the it's sort of the tone and maybe the maybe the question is just this, like, I think we've got a lot of I think there is content out there within the Christian world that does something similar to what Andrew Tate is doing, and it's calling these these young men to be masters of their domain in like sort of a like I said, a machismo way. I don't know whether you ever watched pro wrestling, but you know there used to be this guy who was oozing machismo right like you. I can't remember Razor Ramone, I think is what his name work. And you know, he'd come out and he was like this uber macho guy. And it feels like what we're what we're pushing these many young men to is that machismo, right. It's not, it's not a real substance. It's just almost like this facade of manliness as opposed to something more deeply rooted in discipleship. And so okay, we don't have to go to the manhood route, but that really more example. But I guess my question is how do we link up this notion of safety and risk to discipleship, Like how do these things connect together? Do they emerge out of discipleship? So we begin to understand risk reward, We begin to understand you know, safety, danger, Like how do you see those things fitting together? What's the role of discipleship maybe in developing a theology or.

00:37:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, so discipleship following Jesus living living a life like his. And it's an interesting topic. It's it's not one that I've I've connected to my book a lot. Yeah, I'm trying to think think through because I don't I don't want to discourage young men from taking appropriate risks, and I don't want to, like I think, you know, God created a male and female. There's masculinity and femininity, and so I want there to be good masculinity. And I don't know, you know, people look at studies of whether men are more willing to take risks than women and things like that, so there's probably something to them. Just the way men and women are created, or you look at the role of a mother with a young child and the role of a fadder, and so I want to be careful like not to not to discourage like a good, healthy development of those things, because I think we that would be part of discipleships, where discipleship is being conformed to the image of Christ, following him to become whoever it is that God has made you to be. And it's I talk in the book about the kind of the curriculum of discipleship of how Jesus leads leads us through that of dying to ourselves, taking up our cross and and following him and and and ultimately right that those things aren't in conflict with each other if you know you're being a leader, if God calls you to be a leader, while at the same time recognizing that the first shall be last and the last last shall be first. And so uh, discipleship mhm, it's taking this world. It's getting us back to the to the trajectory that we should have been on all along as as as men and women created by God. And so sin obviously rebellion takes us off track from that. And you you know, in doing a theology of safety, I had a lot of people ask me early on do you want to do like being saved or salvation or something like that, and I was always very instant, No, I want to do safety. I want to look at our life in this physical world, physical safety on that level, because I think something like discipleship can instruct us on those things. And you read the Gospels and obviously Jesus says, God who can destroy body and soul, he's the one that you fear. You don't fear those who can destroy the body. And so there's eternal life, which is that ultimate thing that we're going for. But Jesus doesn't neglect earthly life. He just put it in its proper place. And so maybe to try and answer your question, I would say that I think the discipleship is so important for how we take risks, how we interact with other people, the physical world around us, the machines and the technology that we operate and fix and engage with, and all those sorts of things that there's a place in the curriculum of discipleship to say here's how to do this appropriately.

00:41:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that's good. I you know, I know Jesus, doesn't. I think there's a way to read Jesus that is way to select days in white. You know, you say, well, a meek will inherit the worth, and so everybody should just been neiq right. But at the end of the day, following Jesus was a risky activity. I mean, there's a reason that disciples end up running away the end. It wasn't because they felt safe, and I think that you know are but you know, even that running away you sort of recognize that almost as an immature necessity of risk assessment versus what you see the apostles doing and acts, which is just you know, I mean Steven had to know he was getting stoned. Uh, you know, I mean these guys knew they were at risk of being put in jail, and they just took the risks, you know what I'm saying. Like, there is a you see a development in some of that across these books where you can really tell the disciples are coming into their own and recalculating these risks. It's kind of as they go.

00:42:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was actually this morning in my class, we were talking about how to read the Gospels, and I said, you know, talk about the cross being central, And I said, you read the Gospels for the first time, and it looks like Jesus just fails because he says, just take up your cross and follow me. And then at the moment where Jesus literally takes up his cross, they all stop follow right, they're out. And but but Jesus knew that strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter. And then I said, you read the Gospels and then you get the end, the cross, the resurrection, and then you reread it again and you say, Okay, Jesus is calling these these disciples to follow him, knowing that they can't actually follow him. And then yeah, you get to the Book of Acts where the Holy Spirit gives them power. And then that's when you see those disciples laying down their lives as Jesus had done. And and you say, oh, we need the cross in order to do that. Something I thought as you were talking about that was the way in which those right the apostles, those those young Jewish disciples of Christ. Uh. You see with the Pharisees, you see with the Sanhedrin and the establishment, and then the Roman rulers as well, with Paul, a lot of pressure for them to just kind of stay in their lane and do what they're supposed to do. And uh, yeah, the salvation of the world is at stake. But we'd really like you to not be too disruptive to what we've got going on. And that's where I don't want to discourage young men. You know. That's where I say there are counterfeits, right right, There were the zealots. There were counterfeits to this who wanted to break up societal norms or or or push buttons. Uh yeah, with with with sinful motivations. Uh and again getting back to wisdom to say no, there are appropriate times where God's calling people to take risks in his name and in the ways that's gonna irritate people in ways that's gonna gonna ruffle some feathers. And uh yeah. Yeah, So I get kind of you the concern that you're talking about where people are maybe being brash or overly abrasive just for the sake of doing that stuff. But yeah, there are good high things that Christ is calling these young people in our day two.

00:44:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. I mean, it's an interesting conungrum because you don't want to do it too safe. To your point, you know, like the protectivism that we're building into some of this is not be good for anybody either. Then, you know, encouraging someone to be risky in ways that don't really reflect Christ is another problem. And so we've got to sort of figure out how to be people who take risks and are willing to be unsafe while following Jesus.

00:45:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and uh, something I've thought about with that is when you're taking a risk, like like what are you risking? And uh, you know, what if you what if you fail? Kind of again, get to that point and when when you look in the Bible, whether it's Daniel or Shaddock, me shock in the bed and go things like that where it's like our God is able to save us, but even if he's done you, if you're knocking a bow down and worship, and that's I mean, I don't know that a little bit of much Easmo to say that to the nevikanezer Ye know that's not not in an ata sense, but it's like that's courageous. That was that that was something and but they looked at it and I don't know, like like again, so what what I imagine Andrew Tat is like I'm like what is that guy risking? Like what what is he putting out there? Maybe maybe an online persona, maybe some fame. Right, that's that's what he's gambling with, or that's what he's he's negotiating with, and and kind of the shocking things that he's doing, and and yeah, that's clearly just folly. Right, that's clearly in that category of stuff that's just gonna it's it's here and then it vanishes quickly away. But but being faithful to God, not bowing down to an idol, standing up for uh, for truth, bearing witness to Christ again, just just amazing things that we want to encourage courage people to do, like take a risk for the sake of loving your neighbor, take a risk for the sake of the honor of God. And then that's a that's that's a win win situation right where you can say, even if my this institution of this organization uh is gone tomorrow, Uh, it was worth it because the nayar of Christ is glorified.

00:47:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a great rate put it. It has to be that sort of centered on following Jesus, honoring God, serving others, and in that is going to come in inherent risks. I mean, I do think that's sort of what we see, especially I mean pending the Book of Acts a really interesting place to look because you do see them in danger most of the time. There's not a lot of time where they're like, oh, this is great. Well.

00:47:33
Speaker 2: And another interesting connection back in the Book of Daniel is that with Daniel and Shadow Mushak and Bend to Go, I think, you know, you could look there and say, what originally put them kind of on the radar was the fact that they wouldn't eat the king's diet, right, so they made it. They took us. They made a small stand for obedience to God's law, and that was kind of the first thing that they did, which was, you know, kind of out out of the ordinary. And again, you think about it, it's very rare that you're in an organization where every day you're making a decision that's going to affect the survival. I mean, I hope not right, that's going to affect our Bible right, And the same thing. In our lives, we navigate physical dangers and sometimes we have close calls with death. I almost hit a deer a couple of nights ago, I wasn't going fast enough for me or the deer to die. But occasionally, like things like that happened. But most of the time you're making decisions within your organizations or in your church or the ministry, with your family, whatever it is, that are again kind of just leading you on the path of life or leading you a little bit on the path of death. And so often that's how that's how Satan works, Right, is the little compromises more than the big ones.

00:48:53
Speaker 1: Well, I'm wondering maybe last question here and then we'll sure close this out. But you know, you talk about putting safety in its plate, and I guess I'm wondering where you think that is. We people with maybe a little practical understowing them how to think about safety and Christian.

00:49:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, putting safety in its place. My temperament, Uh what was you know when I was younger, it was was to be cynical of uh kind of safety procedures like this, We're just kind of doing this to please someone or something like that. And with age, I've come to say, no, safety, physical safety is a good thing. You look at how much God cares about that, and so on that level, we want to have a high view of safety the value of human life. Uh, we want to do what we can to relieve the suffering of other people. That's so much of Christ's ministry as he heals people, He comes to people or suffering and brings them, brings them out of it. And but in putting safety in its place. Bartimaeus, right, what a great little story where we know what Jesus says to his disciples. He says, follow me, take up your cross. Right, He's pointing them towards death. And so he finds blind Bartimaeus and that it's a short little snippet, short little scene in the Gospels, and it just says that he healed Bartimaeus, and that Bartimaeus got up and followed him on his way. And that's putting safety in its place. That's saying when Christ protects me, when he, you know, just gives me the means to be safe, that's a gift from him. But then I instantly turn around and follow him and be willing to lay down my life for his sake and for the sake of others. And I think, if you can have that in your mind, he just makes all those those thousand little decisions on what do I let the kids do where do I let the teenagers? How far can they drive? And all visual things that we're constantly trying to navigate. You can build an algorithm, you can have a spreadsheet, You can call an insurance company and ask them what they'd like you to do, and uh right, and and that just oftentimes we were pursuing safety, but the result is it just becomes a burden to us. And so I think I think we put safety in its place, receive it as a good thing. But if if the pursuit of safety is sucking the life out of you, then it's not doing what it's intended to do. There's something wrong there, and we want to pursue life and receive the safety that God gives along the way with thankfulness.

00:51:38
Speaker 1: Really helpful, jan Like I said, I began, I really sure you tackle this sedge. I think it's a it's one of those, like I said, I was really interested in it and just went a different way. But I was so happy to find your book and get to read it and interact with it, so really appreciate it. And to everybody out there, I just recommend The Suit of Safety by Jeremy Langren. I'll put the link to the book there. It is right there. If you're watching on video, you got you got a little flash of it. But I would just encourage you. I got the link in the description. This is an ivspy book, So if you ordered off IVPS website, you get a twenty percent off, just to put in the discount codes that they provide, and just really encourage you to take a look at this. Safety is such a big issue nowadays in our world, and you know we're seeing this over and over and again. So I think this is really timely work and would just encourage.

00:52:30
Speaker 2: You to pick it up.

00:52:31
Speaker 1: So again, Jeremy, thanks for being here. Really appreciated you interacting on this.

00:52:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much. James. I appreciate your questions.

00:52:37
Speaker 1: Know swe all right, Hey, everybody, we'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian Take care. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.