The discourse at hand delves into the intricate dynamics of church unity as illuminated by the multifaceted narratives of the gaming franchise "Mass Effect." The esteemed hosts, Joshua Noel and TJ Blackwell, engage in a profound dialogue with Christian Ashley, wherein they explore the vital lessons that can be gleaned from the game's thematic elements. The central thesis posits that, akin to the diverse races within the "Mass Effect" universe, the Church must strive for unity amidst its inherent differences. This episode elucidates how the principles of collaboration, mutual respect, and understanding can facilitate a more harmonious ecclesiastical environment. We invite listeners to contemplate the parallels between the complexities of intergalactic diplomacy in "Mass Effect" and the contemporary challenges faced by the Church in fostering unity among its varied denominations.

Church unity remains a pressing concern and is a topic that resonates deeply within the modern Christian community. In a compelling crossover episode of The Whole Church Podcast and Systematic Geekology, Joshua Noel and TJ Blackwell engage in a thought-provoking dialogue with Christian Ashley, exploring the intricate relationship between church unity and the gaming franchise, Mass Effect. The discussion delves into the profound themes of collaboration, community, and the importance of shared goals, drawing parallels between the dynamics of the Mass Effect universe and the contemporary church.

As the hosts reflect on the narrative of Mass Effect, they articulate how the struggles faced by Commander Shepard and their crew mirror the challenges encountered within Christian congregations. The concept of diverse alien races working together to combat a common threat serves as a poignant metaphor for the Church's need to unite against the adversities of the modern world. Christian Ashley elaborates on the significance of embracing differences and fostering cooperation among various denominations, emphasizing that, similar to the alliances forged in Mass Effect, the Church must strive for unity amidst diversity.

Throughout the episode, the speakers draw on biblical references, particularly from John 17, where Jesus emphasizes the importance of unity among believers. They argue that just as the characters in Mass Effect learn to work together for a greater cause, the Church must cultivate an environment where members can engage in meaningful dialogue, overcome differences, and build relationships founded on mutual respect and understanding. This discussion serves as a call to action, urging listeners to reflect on their role in promoting church unity and to take tangible steps toward fostering collaboration within their communities.

The episode concludes with an encouragement for listeners to consider how they can actively participate in fostering unity within their own congregations. By identifying individuals who are eager to contribute and empowering them to take on leadership roles, church members can create a more inclusive and supportive environment. The overarching message is clear: the journey toward church unity is not just an ideal but a necessary pursuit that requires intentional effort, collaboration, and a shared commitment to embodying the love of Christ in a divided world.

Takeaways:

1. In John chapter 17, Jesus emphasizes the significance of unity among his followers, paralleling it with the perfect unity found within the Trinity.
2. Christian Ashley draws an insightful comparison between the interactions of the Trinity and the ideal relationships within the Church, advocating for a model devoid of conflict and division.
3. The concept of church unity is likened to the collaborative efforts seen in the Mass Effect franchise, where diverse species must unite against a common enemy to achieve a greater good.
4. The conversation highlights the necessity of addressing historical and systemic issues within the Church, akin to the political complexities faced by characters in the Mass Effect narrative.
5. Participants discuss the challenges posed by differing beliefs and practices among church denominations, stressing the importance of ecumenical dialogue and understanding.
6. Ultimately, the episode calls for a collective effort to foster unity within the Church, recognizing that shared goals can transcend individual differences and biases.

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John chapter 17, verses 12 through 13. Then verses 20 through 21 in the New American Standard Bible. While I was written with them, I was keeping them in your name, which you have given me.

And I guarded them and not one of them perished except the Son of destruction, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world so that they may have my joy made full in themselves.

Skipping ahead to verse 20, I am not asking on behalf of these alone, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. In this passage of Scripture passages, Jesus is praying to the Father. He's saying he knows that his time on earth is coming to an end pretty soon.

And Jesus asked for this fullness of joy of his joy in his followers after his resurrection, before he goes on to go to pray in verses 20 that all of his followers be united together.

Christian Ashley, Master of the Divine, how might this fullness of joy in Christ be connected to the unity that he prays that his followers would experience?

He draws a deliberate comparison between the Trinity and the Church in that as the Trinity is perfect unity and that there is no disagreement between them, there are no fights or anything that can cause harm in between them. There's never any way to cause wrong. So the way the church should be now, that's an impossibility because we're more finite beings.

But at the same time he's still asking that we do that, that we look up to our Heavenly Father, the Spirit and Jesus and look. Oh, that's how they interact. How are we supposed to do the same?

Well, we do that by being as much as possible in unity, rejecting evil, getting rid of the people in our midst, like the Son of destruction, Judas, who has no place within the church and will only bring him so like working together to make sure the church is as stable as possible so that we can feel the joy that comes from being united.

Yeah. Amen. Hallelujah. Verily, verily, other such phrases. Hey guys, welcome to the Whole Church podcast and systematic geekology.

It's gonna be a fun episode.

Today we're talking about church unity as always, because the whole church podcast, but we're also going to talk about a video game because this is kind of also systematic ecolog. Kind of. I'm Joshua Noel, one of the hosts of both shows. I'm here for the whole Church podcast.

I'm here with the one and only Pot Almighty, also host of both shows, TJ Tavria is Juan Blackwell. Welcome to your shows. Thank you. And we're here with a host of Systemic Ecology and also every other podcast that's not the whole church podcast.

Christian Ashley. How's it going, Christian?

Go well, Joshua.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Today's topic, a little impromptu. We had some scheduling difficulties with some of the other guests that we've told you about.

And I started playing a game recently that I know both of these guys like, called Mass Effect and some of the themes. And I was like, you know, this fits. I was playing it once I finished the games to text and be like, you guys want to talk about that?

But instead this opening came up before I finished playing the games. Played them before, but it's been a long time. So right now I'm like, halfway through my second playground. But that's what we're talking about.

We're talking about Mass, the video game series and how it relates to church unity. Because we know not everyone listening is a geek.

We'll do our best to explain it in terms that make sense to people who haven't played Mass Effect if we can. Yeah, yeah.

Christian Ashley, returned guest, good friend of ours. He hosts the Let Nothing move you podcast along with every other show on Earth.

But let knowing Mingyu specifically is about going through the Bible one chapter at a time. So if you want something to listen to for the next 60 years, there you go.

I'm your man.

He also hosts Systematic Ecology. We're doing the crossover.

He hosts why I don't like, where he just kind of talks about what he doesn't like and gives it a good faith review when possible. Friday night Frights, he discusses with Joe Day what goes bump in the night, from cryptozoology to serial killers and more.

He hosts Spidey Swing Bys where he goes through Spider man comics. He's the author of the Azaril Chronicles and more. Anything that you need to need us to add to the rap sheet, we can.

But there's a time anyone's bio has et al. At the end, it's Christian et al.

Yeah, so what? If you're listening to us, go to our website, purchase one of our T shirts. If you're listening for either show, this still applies.

It helps promote the show, raise money for podcasting needs, and gets others to know about the importance of our mission to educate and unite the modern church. Or talk about theology and geek stuff.

Yeah.

So one of our Shirts one Josh is wearing today is for systematic ecology. I'm gonna shout that one out. I, of course, always am a big proponent of the TJ quote on the back shirt for both shows.

Yeah, both shirts have a logo on the front with nothing on the back. And the name of both shirts is still TJ quote on the back. Yeah, there's a good bit. It's good bit.

Logo on the front, logo on a sleeve, nothing on the back. It's perfect. Check out the Honest out podcast network for shows like ours and most of

the shows that Christian does.

Yeah, I mean, I think all the Christians shows that Christian does.

Secret podcast.

We aren't done. None of us are on. That's true. He might have one on Joe's network that we don't know about. Yeah, I do too. Want to shout out.

Since we talked a lot about different podcasts on the Amazon podcast Network. You can get an Amazon podcast T shirt, and there is one that has nothing on the back. I don't think it says DJ quote.

I think it just says on the podcast. But the. The one I like has a bunch of stuff on the back and is about honestly engaging horror. Spider man comics.

I don't think it's a Spider man comics. Says science, church, theology, a lot of different fonts, cool stuff on there. And, you know, that's what that whole network is about.

It just honestly engaging the world we live in, not acting like we're in some other world.

And, you know, we're in a world where people play games like Mass Effect, so it's important that we know how to engage such a topic with other humans. We're in a world where the church has a big impact for good and worse sometimes. And it's important that we engage the church as it is.

As much as we want to make the whole church whole again, it's important for us to sometimes recognize that's not always the case. Yeah, so we're gonna be doing some of that today.

But first, we always like to do a holy sacrament over here, Christian, that I think you know about called silliness. We start with silly question, and I'm making it relevant for today's topic.

If Buzz Lightyear was the main protagonist of the Mass Effect instead of Commander Shepard, what would be different? Tj, why don't you start this one?

Okay. Is it like, fresh out of the box? I was gonna ask, what are we talking about?

This matters. My brain was thinking from the animated series with Paul. So, like, man. Yeah, yeah. Buzz Lightyear, a Star Command. Not the toy.

Okay. I. I think the Reapers still win. I think they'd win a lot harder if it was like a fresh out of the box Buzz Lightyear.

But I don't know, does he get to, like, play through the entire game? Like, is it just Buzz Lightyear start to finish?

Sure, yeah. It's just Buzz.

He's our protag.

Okay.

He might.

He might.

He might be able to get it done. I mean, Commander Shepard's kind of. Kind of blank. Kind of a blank slate. As long as he still gets picked up at the start of Mass Effect 2, I guess.

I guess we're good. You know, I might have a more pessimistic take here. Buzz Lightyear from the TV series had a lot, you know, weak history, galactic politics.

And we see him not really wanting to play ball with the diplomats. You know, he's kind of pushing up against him a lot. I don't think he ever makes it to being. Why can't I think of the term now? Spectre. Yeah.

I don't think he ever gets made a Spectre. I think he does because he's too anti. I don't know. That's what I'm thinking.

I. I think it does. I think he would have a very similar path to Commander Shepard.

I hope so.

And then he has proved tiebreaker.

What's Buzz Lightyear doing here?

He's gonna crash and burn the galaxy, man. I hate to say it. I love Buzz, but he doesn't have the charisma that Shepard does.

You know, eventually, you know, in soccer, man, he learns how to work with people. You know, after the end of the movie and then the series itself with Mira and Booster and XR and everyone. But, like, that's rough.

And putting him among the crew of the Normandy, I don't expect that to go as well. So I imagine Reaper victory, counterpoint.

If he gets to bring Booster with him, I think he wins.

Maybe.

But if he's not able to establish the same kind of relationship with Joker that Shepard can.

Yeah. Which, true, we're doing a really bad job of making this easy for people who haven't played math. So I'm gonna move on to the question.

We'll explain some of what we're talking about in this silliness here in a second.

We'll try.

We'll try.

Half the fandom is like bringing up proper nouns.

Yeah.

And then people going, what?

Yeah, yeah. So that seems accurate.

And we've got to start with our history of Mass Effect, so we're going to start with you Christian, you're an honored guest. You alone are the honored one. What is your history of Mass Effect and what impact has it had on the gaming community at large?

Well, thanks for the jujutsu Kaisen intro there. I really appreciate that one. I am indeed the honored one. And in so doing, I played these games very early on in high school.

My friend Todd actually gave me his game because he was about to go off. No, unfortunately, no. Todd Howard and I are not besties. Before he went off to go join the military, he gave me a bunch of his stuff.

That's how I got my Firefly DVD set and Serenity and all that and a couple of other games. But Mass Effect was in there and he said, dude, you're gonna love it. I know you, you love your Star wars, you love your Star Trek.

You're gonna love this too. And you know what? He was absolutely right. So when two came out, day one by. When Mass Effect 3 came out a couple of months by.

Because I was poor then, but you know, eventually I got there. I played Andromeda as well. It's is what it is. It's not the best, it's not the worst.

And yeah, hopefully they can make another game in the series soon. Even though we have gotten an announcement, haven't we? Of a five.

We have, yeah. Pretty recently.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's it.

That's just an announcement. And I disagree. I think Andromeda is the worst of the four.

I'm not saying it's not the worst. I'm saying it's a little better than people make it out to be.

Yeah, it's not. It's really not that bad. Especially today when it launched, it had some issues. Yeah, it's worse issues. It's fine.

There's a Mass Effect.

Yeah.

Mass Effect, Andromeda. Yes.

Okay. Yeah, I didn't know about that until like right this second that we're speaking. It is different.

It will feel different.

Yeah.

What about you?

What about you, Josh? What's your Mass Effect history?

Well, I was not allowed to play it when it came out, so most games that everybody was talking about, cuz at least in my circles, this was one of those that like everybody was talking about Mass Effect even if they didn't play it seemed to be the case where a lot of them, once I started playing, I was like, I don't think these guys know what they're talking about. I think they're just saying it because everybody else is talking about. Anyway, I was unmedicated when I first tried to play It.

I remember going to a neighbor's house because that's how I played all the games I wasn't allowed to play. And I watched him play some and it didn't make any sense, but I was like, I want to play because the shooting part looks cool.

And I'm like, you had to keep making choices. So I couldn't just ignore the videos. So I just clicked X the whole time. Whatever she said was whatever she said. I don't know.

And then I just shot the things. When I finally got to shoot the things, and I was like, I guess this is okay as a shooter game.

Like, if that's all you're trying it as, it's not great as just a shooter game. It was just so much story to try to ignore

at the time, though it came out.

This is my experience you could talk about.

But I did eventually get through it, and I got confused at a lot of parts, so I kept looking up what was happening because I'm like, I guess I want to know who I'm shooting. And, you know, I pieced together parts of the story. Then when everybody was talking about it at school, I kind of got the story from them.

But I don't think I ever really had the story until this go round and I'm like one and a half through and like, I know what happens, but I'm like, yeah, I definitely was not paying attention the first time I played these games. So now Medicated Josh likes Mass Effect way more than unmedicated Josh did. Yeah.

When you have a story of you, I don't know what else is.

When you say one and a half, are you like, halfway through Mass Effect 2 or are you. Yeah, okay, cool. I just wanted to make sure that you're not just playing Mass Effect 1 three times,

which is.

There's nothing wrong with that.

I mean, that wouldn't be surprising. I don't think I thought about playing again because I was like, is there a world where I can keep. What's his name? Rex. Rex. I really had to look up.

I was like, can I keep him from dying?

Very easily.

Yeah.

Well, Google told me no, so I didn't play again.

You can't keep him on your team, but you can keep it from dying.

Yeah. Oh. Anyway, about that later.

I was. I was in eighth grade, so I was 13, I think, when I was playing through Mass Effect. And man, it was just perfect.

It was exactly what I wanted in a game. To date, I don't know if I've played a better game that I would call just like strictly sci fi. That was kind of what it was for me.

And Mass Effect became like this huge kind of pillar of my life for a little while just because it was awesome. And then finding out that your choices carry over from one to two to three, that was the coolest thing in the world to me.

So if I really wanted to do like a second playthrough, I had to start at Mass Effect 1 and make different choices and get rid of the other save and start Mass Effect 2. And it was so cool. It was the coolest thing ever on the community at large.

I do feel like Mass Effect has left this massive impression on people that got almost entirely effect on it. It had a massive effect on everyone. The ending of Mass Effect 3 combined with the release of Mass Effect Andromeda,

I think left a really bad taste

in most people's mouths that kind of blew all of the good faith that it had built up over Mass Effect 1 and 2. But they're still great games. Most of Mass Effect 3 is still really good game.

Just.

Yes, a lot.

It loses a lot from. From 1 and 2. But I. I still feel like if you ask most people if they liked Mass Effect, they would say yes.

Yes. Yeah. Three suffers from the fact that it's amazing until you get towards the end where certain choices allegedly are there that you have to make.

Yeah. The game that truly built itself off of. It's your game. You make the decisions. You change the world.

Ending with a split doorway that leads down the same hallway. It was really, really something.

I also think it's gonna. Large parts of this game series throughout infuriate me. Someone who hates the whole luster of two evils, you know, the whole utilitarian mindset.

Because I feel like it does put you in a position where you kind of have to do those decisions.

Almost like challenges you.

Yeah. Mostly because it's only A or B. I don't think real life works that way, but it's fine.

Yeah. It's not deep enough for Josh.

Well, I'm just a curmudgeon that's like. You never only have two choices. How dare you.

And then I think it would just gonna infuriate me even more when I finally get to the end, where it's like you only have two choices, but it's also only one.

No, three, technically a fourth.

And the end result. Yeah.

Anyway, so let's talk about the story. Tj, you're great at summarizing things. What happens in the first three Mass Effect games? We'll just keep this conversation.

Yeah, we're not talking about Andromeda.

I don't know about that.

So Mass Effect is the story of Commander Shepard, the first human specter, more or less, trying to ingratiate the human race into Galactic Council, as it were, and stop the Reaper onslaught. Sovereign. Onslaught. Sovereign's the name of one of the.

What's Reaper or Sovereign. Right.

Harbinger is two, Sovereign's one.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah. Yeah. They are all reapers. Sovereign's the first, Harbinger's the second one, third one's the rest. But, yeah, that's pretty much what it is.

You make a lot of choices. You build a big crew.

Choose which ones you like.

Yeah, it's. Honestly, the first one's like a pretty. Pretty good, like, political thriller drama.

Yeah.

Which you navigate. You navigate between all these different alien races, some of which have been around the galactic, you know, scale larger than.

Longer than humans have. Like, humanity is kind of like the new kid on the block. What's our place in this society? Why don't we get our respect?

And then, you know, one is, we found this threat that's ancient. Oh, no. All life keeps getting eradicated every 50,000 years or so. Can we stop that threat?

You kind of stop the threat the first time around, but there's more coming. Two is your character dies at the very beginning. Spoilers.

Then is brought back to life by a terrorist human organization that is working to stop the Reapers. You assemble some of your old crew, some new people to go on a suicide mission to stop the birth of a human Reaper, as it were.

Because whether you find out the human, there's gonna be Reapers, take the DNA and the genetics of people that they conquer to make new Reapers and the like. And then three is. Oh, no, now they're actually invading. We have to get every.

All.

Every single one of these alien races together so that we can fight off against Reaper threat and not be the next group of species, like, destroyed by them in this cycle.

Yeah. So Reapers being the main threat. My understanding, and I don't really remember all of it. I'm only halfway through playing the games again.

They're kind of like, I don't know, create is the right word, but it seems like they're just trying to stop organic life from destroying all synthetic life is kind of their deal. So they're trying to wipe out all organic life so that we just stop doing that. Is that kind of.

What are you, a sympathizer?

Yeah, I'm trying to understand. That's like the motive, right?

Supposedly he does have those metal plates he was talking about before recording, you

know, definitely got some reapers. Can I just get a yes? No. If that's the motive, I want to know if I have the story correct before talking.

I don't think the Reapers really have a motive, so to speak. Their motive is more kind of just growth survival.

Faulty AI is your answer to the question. And faulty motivation.

They're vi. What are you talking about?

No,

I know, I know that. Just the Citadel, at some point, try to argue. No, there is virtually stupid.

Oh, yes, yes.

That made me mad. Sorry, that's a tangent.

I do feel like, for the most part, Mass Effect is kind of like a more realistic Star Trek of like, hey, here's all the alien species and Starfleet and people trying to come together, form a big unity to protect the universe. And what it actually looks like is way messier than Starfleet ever looks for some reason.

You can blame Ron and Barrett.

Yeah, I appreciate it because he was

a humanist who thought we'd all get things together if we just worked together. Kumbaya and all that nonsense, thinking that it would actually work in reality. And also we have no money, even though we don't explain how.

I think there are ways to make it work better, but I think it's more realistic that there's just always going to be problems. That's true.

You just don't use money just like, oh, you need that.

Christian's also wearing a systematic geekology shirt. You didn't mention that. I didn't see, our listeners are sad. Okay, so. Yeah.

But basically put that out there.

And I think. Yeah, me too.

I love Star Trek too, but I think that ending with a large part of Mass Effect 3, the whole we're getting the alien races together to stop this threat is really what made me go, hey, this could be a. This could be a church unity conversation as well as some of the politics and like the Citadel and stuff.

So speaking of the Citadel is basically the Coruscant. The Citadel is Coruscant if you're a Star wars fan. If you're not a Star wars fan, Big planet. That's a giant city.

And that's where like, the alien races meet and have their. Let's find ways to be diplomatic instead of killing each other. I think it's kind of short.

So it's essentially the Babylon 5.

Yeah, that's better. But a less popular reference. Yes. So what can we learn from the mistakes of the Citadel?

And like, what examples from galactic diplomacy are relevant to church unity today in the real world? You know, there's no, like, a sorry, orthodox church for us to. For us to talk to, so. Yet. Yet. Yet. But what is there for us to learn there?

What do you think?

I think what you said earlier is something I've thought of too, Joshua, about how the Federation in Star Trek is more like, we're all going to get along. Yeah, there's still conflict and stuff like that, but it's not in the same way.

You don't have petty species differences as much as you get in Mass Effect because Mass Effect is a little more like, yeah, you know, we have evolved past where we were, but at that same time, we're still people. We're still, you know, limited moral agents.

And some people are going to look after their own interests other than yours, and they're not going to listen to evidence that contradicts what they want because that world is scarier than the world I live in. So I'm going to choose not to think that way. As you mentioned, with the Reaper threat and, like, attacking one, but like, oh, no, something else.

It was a rogue agent. There are no reapers, and they're going to downplay anyone who thinks otherwise.

So one thing we can learn from that is that regardless of whatever system we make in this world, it is created by flawed agents who are sinful, are going to have their own biases. And even if they're doing good in the world does not mean that they themselves are 100% good.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Well, one of the things I really like about the Citadel, whenever you're like, traveling about, I guess, is that how I'm going to word that for now. They have a section that's like the embassies. And it's really cool because you see where, like, humans do have their.

Still their own governing bodies and stuff, like the human alliance and stuff. It's not like we just suddenly are now part of a different political system. It's. We still have our own political systems.

And then we have an ambassador, someone who is there on behalf of humans whose job is basically ecumenicism, diplomacy. You know, it's, hey, I'm going to talk to them. See where can we give? Where can we not give? Explain what are human values?

How does that relate to the other values? Where can we see I and I and work together? Where can we not work together? And all the different species kind of have the same thing.

And they have their own bar, meeting places. And I actually do think that's important. That, like, as much as I love the idea that we'll all just decide we're going to get along and that's it.

Sometimes it's important that the Methodist Church stays. The Methodist Church, it has its own church polity, and that's a good thing. And the Lutheran Church is a different one, and it's still a good thing.

And I think it's important that we have people who are dedicated to the work of ecumenicism. That's saying, okay, here's what Lutherans believe. Here's where we can bend to work with you. Here's where we can't.

Here's where we have to stand our ground on what we believe. And here's where maybe we have some stuff in common. Here's what we can do in the community together.

And here's where if you're going to be saying those kind of things, I don't want to be a part of it. And I think having that kind of just having people dedicated to the work, I think actually is important.

And I think you see that in the embassies in the Citadel in a really cool way. Yeah.

It's also really nice, too, there. Sorry, dj, in that the Diplomats explain themselves when you ask questions.

Yeah.

About who they are, what they're about. You know, you need people working as emissaries in between these different groups to know, okay, this is what we're about.

This is why we're different than you. That doesn't mean I think you're inferior, but, like, here's why we do what we do.

Yeah. It is also nice to just see, like, a fictional representation of humanity as a united front, at least generally speaking.

There is some division, of course. Especially Mass Effect 1, if you're listening.

I despise Ashley Rounds if you're listening.

Yeah, we actually will, of course.

But if you just listen to the chat around the human sections of Presidium, you can hear people, like, don't agree with some of the policy enforcements that happen to humans. But it's cool. It's a living, breathing world and it's really awesome.

Oh, yeah. Well, even some of the. The flaws of the Citadel, I'll say, like, where they're like, oh, humans are new. We don't know if we could trust them all.

Whatever. Like, I don't think there's stuff we can learn from that too.

Like, again, having grown up Pentecostal, TJ knows I probably know what I'm talking about. When you get to more intellectual circles, pretty commonly it's, oh, Pentecostals, you know, And a lot of it's because it's newer.

Some of it's because they don't understand some of the traditions or they've heard complete misconceptions. Good friend of the show, been on before. We've talked about it. We're cool.

This is not a negative thing, but I remember when I first met Dr. Peter Beck in class was making jokes about Pentecostals, and it wasn't until years later, because I was afraid to tell him that I was Pentecostal, that he was like, oh, just joking. You didn't. I was like, I didn't take it to heart, but I was just afraid you were gonna think I was dumb as a thing. Yeah, Yeah.

I don't.

I don't suffer from. From that. Usually when people meet me, they're like, oh, this is the smartest person alive. Oh, my goodness.

It's because he wears glasses.

Yeah, yeah.

Wear smart kind of glasses, and you talk smart and you're postured like, you're confident, but you're not tall. So people assume that the confidence is because you're just that much smarter than them. Yeah, that's it.

That's how you avoid Pentecostal backlash discrimination.

Yeah. They should have tried that at the Citadel. Humans just be more confident. Yeah, yeah.

Shorter and more confident. Yeah.

Okay. I do want to move on some other things.

One of the other things that you learn in the Citadel and around is about the Krogans, who also were the coolest. Rex was my favorite teammate. I am still angry.

Yeah. Rex is the best. That much is true.

He's awesome.

Maybe second.

And you guys might have to correct me a little bit here, because you know how I am with memory and just anything that involves thinking. But Gorgons were more or less genetically spliced, put together to be awesome warriors for a fight thing. No,

this is their biology. They were uplifted by the Salarians.

Uplifted being the term of, like, they were basically pre war, pure Star Trek people, and then brought up because they needed them to fight a war against the Rachni, which is this insectoid race that, you know, would keep attacking the members of the Citadel.

And the problem was Though when they did that, they didn't think about the repercussions because salarians rarely do because they don't live that long of oh no, we brought them on a galactic stage. And Krogans are what are known as explosive breeders. Think your rabbits on crack. They just keep going and keep having more kids.

And so you have this incredibly tough race of people who live in a very warrior almost in fact in some respects a Klingon esque culture. Yeah, it's a warrior cast who loves fighting. Yeah. And well now there's no enemy for them to fight, so they're going to fight against other people.

So they had to come to the point where the Solarians. Oh, we made the problem, let's solve the problem by creating a problem.

And that of course being the Genophage where they have reintroduced that genetic tampering into the Krogans to where through this virus, they don't. They still breed as much as they do. But there's far fewer survivors of pregnancy, as it were. So the race is severely reduced as a result.

And the fact that they're always infighting with each other because they always have

something to prove, it also makes the birth rate of female Krogan's went down.

Yes,

by a thousand times. I think it was like what was the number from the game? One in every. One in every 10,000, maybe more.

Something like that.

Krogan's is born female.

It's a lot Nasty, nasty work.

Yeah, yeah. So what I want to get to with this though is the.

When you're at the Citadel and you're discussing with Krogan's, because of all the things that Christian said, you have a lot of interesting politics stuff kind of behind the scene and in the forefront if you're paying attention, it turns out. But the whole problem of how the problem was created by one race.

So you kind of have like a systemic sin situation of like, well, what do you do with the sins of your forefathers? Or your politics created this issue and then solved it with very slow form of genocide for some reason.

And it's like that solution also is just layering on more and more problems.

You have one group that has done all these wrongs in their past and it's like, well, even if you didn't directly do it still seems like you have some responsibility for what happened here.

And then the people themselves, how do they participate in a galactic political system when you've been just done so wrong by all, by the other species? And there's a lot of weight that comes with that. And I don't know, it's really messy all throughout the game.

And I think a lot of stuff similar to that happens in real life, even with the church. You know, the church did not play a great role in slavery in America. It doesn't play a great role in a lot of the holy wars, etc.

The Church has done a lot of great things also. But we do have to address, like, there's problems that the church has created in the past.

In some degree, I think we do have responsibility for answering for those things in a responsible way. Not in a oh, I did something wrong and I need to feel bad for it kind of way, but to take responsibility for the past.

Yeah, with something like that, I mean, you mentioned slavery. Well, the vast majority of abolitionists, the reason why they were abolitionists is because they were Christian.

They realized it was an issue in the system that needed to be addressed. So rather than working on some human philosophy nonsense, they said, no, this is what God actually says.

We're not going to use the scriptures for our own purposes. We're going to use it for his purposes and get rid of the issue and by fighting slavery as much as we can.

And that's what you do in situations like this. You identify the issue. You identify, okay, if God would be here right now, how would he want us to handle it?

Then we then go to the people who need to be educated, educate them as best as possible. If they don't listen, then they don't get to be part of the fold. This is why excommunication is a useful thing.

It's not just there to be harsh or because I don't like that person. It's because it is cancerous for you to be around us. So we cannot abide by that.

Now, when it comes to the Krogans, some of it they brought on themselves. That doesn't justify the use of a genophage or anything like that.

But when you act the way you do, when you start massacring people because you have to prove yourself and that's your culture, well, something about that culture has got to give. That doesn't mean you can't be a warrior race. It means you have to figure out a new way to do it.

And that's one of the things of Rex's story is Tim noting, like, yeah, we're doomed because we can't even agree on how to change things. So when he eventually becomes leader of Tuchanka, that's a huge Part of it. It's like, I'm going to let their natural instincts stand.

We are warrior race. We are warrior people. But what if we fought these people instead, or we fought in this way, or acted as protectors?

And that's a huge thing to happen in Krogan society, because if you kill him off and you get his brother instead, you get the exact opposite of response of, we're just going to keep things like they are. Because I like things how they are.

Yeah, yeah. So the real question here is Solarian. Is that.

Is it Solarian? Solarian.

That sounds right. Yeah.

S A L A Right. Is that why I never knew.

Yeah.

There's a Starfinder class that's close to that. Anyway, who's paying for their crimes?

Yeah. Yeah.

Why are the Solarians suffering?

Indeed. And even I'm gonna double down on that. Double down on that issue, bringing it back to real world.

Even, like, how do you decide to be in communion with other churches? So, like. Yeah, we're mixing metaphors. I'm sorry, guys. It's fine.

But even what Christian's talking about, excommunication in some instances, I think that should be very slow, too.

And I think we need to draw a distinction between excommunication, as in we can't call you part of the church, and excommunication, as in do we still love this person and want to be around them? And can people hang out with them like that, saying they're not a part of the church? I'm down with saying that people can't be around this person.

I'm like, that seems unloving. And that's where I'm like, yeah, there's got to be. I don't know how to handle stuff, but Sidebar.

Lots of churches, unfortunately, have had problems with sexual abuse, sexual assault, etc. Especially from people in the pastorate office. The Catholic Church has chosen to deal with that in one way.

By having priests who aren't allowed to marry, etc. Different polities since then. They've had a very long history with it. Way longer than most people seem to know.

But anyway, Baptist church has also had a lot of stuff come out recently. It's come out in a lot of different places, and different churches have different ways of handling it.

I love how the Lutheran churches hold people accountable. How we're going to have this, like, ethic test. We're going to test. Make someone go through a psychology. Psychological test. Yeah, yeah.

We have these things. We have people you're held accountable to.

Like, there's A certain system that the Lutheran Church, ELCA does to make sure the pastors are people of certain standing who aren't going to be doing these things, etc. And I'm sure some stuff still falls through the cracks because there's just no such thing as a perfect system. Right. Because I like that system.

That does not mean I get to say every church has to have that system. And I won't communicate with the Methodist until they have the same system as usual. No.

But I do have to consider if I'm going to be in communion with people Christian. I'm sorry. Especially people who are, like, Southern Baptist right now, how much communion am I willing to have?

Because I am not okay so far with how they've handled that and what systems they've put in place. I think they still have more to do. I think they're working on it, though. So, like, I need to show grace. I don't want to be a part of that system.

I'm still okay working with them, but then there's a level of, if they did absolutely nothing, I don't think I'd want my church working with their church because they don't seem to be taking accountability. And that's where politics get messy. And, yes, church is also largely politics, unfortunately. And that's where this game kind of helps.

You see, there's a lot of new ones. There's a lot of like, well, what about the salarians? Is that what they're called? Yeah, it's like, well, what about that?

They also did something wrong here. They're not being held accountable. Why are we okay with them being in the Citadel?

And it's, like, messy, but Christian's going to solve it all for us because he wrote a book, of course, and

that makes me qualified.

Yes, it's your fault. He also stayed at the Holiday Inn Express last night for those wondering.

Oh, I did.

I'm learning a lot about myself today.

Yeah. Yeah. Smart man.

You're talking about two different organizations at that point in time when it comes on the denominational side of things. Like, one of the things about Southern Baptist churches, historically speaking, is that, yeah, we are unified by common creeds and the like.

Like, if you don't line up with these values with this theology, you're out. There is no actual organization. Sorry, there's organization in that.

There's a convention and all that, but there is no, like, oversight as opposed to your Catholic Church, which has, you know, all these hierarchies and the like. It's like, there's Supposed to be someone in charge of stuff like this, that that doesn't exist as much.

It's supposed to be the church because there's a fierce independence inside of the Southern Baptist Church. So yeah, I get that as being like, okay, you're a little wary of it because no such system exists. Should there be such a thing?

Maybe, But I think might not be as Southern Baptist if you did that before. Even though it is still a good idea to have a common creed, as it were. It's like, no, we cannot allow such things to happen.

We have to make sure the right people are put in positions of power. And in fact this kind of ties into one of my God, moments later on of how this went poorly in one of those areas already could have gotten worse.

Planning to cheat.

Go ahead. Oh, well, that's what I do. I mean people come to the show if they see me here. Oh, Christian's gonna cheat. How is he gonna cheat this week?

True.

When it comes.

Yeah.

When it comes to the Solarians, the thing is that they are a short lived race. I think like Max, like 40 some years. Yeah, yeah. So the people who did this are long dead. Croatians live far longer. Yes.

So the issue is when people who weren't around then but still have the knowledge of the genophage and have plans to use it again in certain ways. That's what needs to be addressed here. Those people we can actually do something about.

I can't like unearth the bones of the Salarians who came before this and you know, like that one poor Pope, after he died, they had the whole trial of what happened to him. I can't remember which one it was like, that's not going to work.

But what I can do is hold them accountable for what they currently know and are about to do and make sure those things don't happen again.

And that's why one of the greatest characters in the games is Morden, who is a Salarian scientist who has seen what has happened with the genophage, has done research on him himself and gone. We're in the wrong. Let me find a way to make this better and actually produce a cure.

Yeah. And it's one of the more of touching like side quest.

Not.

It's not even a side quest in Mass Effect. Just very like, I'm gonna save this race of people forever. I'm gonna solve this problem. That's what my life is for. And it is great.

I couldn't remember his name, but I don't like many of the other Solarians in the game because they're all kind of,

yeah, I'm not a huge fan. They're not mortals.

But so I do think again, so this goes to like, I don't like that the Southern Baptists don't have more of a hierarchical system, more of a system of people to answer to and keeping them accountable. But I understand the principle of freedom of independence and I can respect that. And that's where you have to navigate.

Like, how am I going to work with people who are in a system that I disagree with the system? Like, I don't have to be a part of that system to work with people in the system. But I do need to be weary of if I think that is dangerous.

I'm probably also not going to recommend anyone else going to them. And some Southern Baptist leaders will see that as not honoring them or being disrespectful.

Because I'm like, well, I wouldn't tell anybody to go to one of those churches because I don't believe in the system that's created there. But it's not like to me, I'm not being disrespectful. It's just that's my opinion.

You know, I still love the people there and I think they love God and I understand the principles of independence, freedom, etc. I'll do the exact opposite example because I like giving positive examples. I am queer affirming. I absolutely am. Like, hey, I'm on board.

I think you can be married, same sex, God loves that. I think God can definitely be affirmative of that Christian. And I disagree. Just letting people know. That's not the point of this example.

The point is the United Methodist Church and I forget what the name of the ones that split are. I apologize.

But I like how the split happened because the Methodist churches who were not going to go along with being queer affirming, didn't put, didn't rub the church through the mud. They didn't try to ruin people's names. They said, okay, we will change the name of our churches.

They were allowed to keep their buildings and said, all right, we're going to be called something different now because we don't see eye to eye and we're going to move on.

And that's where like, hey, those people who are not queer firming who went through this, like, I like how they handled it, how the policies, the politics went through. And that's something I really respect. So it's easier for me to work with them.

Even if I disagree, then maybe some other Denominations who have made other decisions. Even, you know, I think Mormons are Christian, but I have a much harder time with some of their beliefs and stuff.

So, you know, like there's varying levels of how much unity, how much I'm willing to work with or suggest people go to different churches based on that kind of thing, you know. Tj, Christian, any other thoughts before moving on to whatever's next?

All right, so come the third Mass Effect game, we're still talking about Mass Effect. If anybody lost track, I know it's. It's been a wild episode. Shepard is recruiting Commander Shepard.

He or she is recruiting across alien races to unite to fight a common threat to organic life, etc. Wondering what do you guys. We'll start with Christian since he's our honor guest. What do you think the mission here?

We won't get to the ending if we don't have to, but we can. Tells us about the importance of a common goal, common enemy, or a shared sense that life matters when it comes to not just church unity, but unity.

You know, one of the important things it teaches us is just because that common thread exists, it doesn't mean people are suddenly going to all drop everything and say, let's join together, guys.

You know, even though it would be smarter for me to do this, I still have my pride or my race has this instinct and therefore I'm not going to listen to what you have to say. And that's a good lesson to teach because I mean, if we're going to make this about denominations, look at every single one of them.

We all have a common enemy and that of course is Satan and our sin. And then there are going to be people out there who are listening and say, well, he's not real.

And there's other people who say, well, actually he's just an accuser. He's not a bad guy. And I'm going to be of the opinion, I would say fact, that he is real. He hates and despises us.

He's going to cause problems and people are suffering as a result because we're not unified around a common threat which we all share. And ignoring him for a moment, we do have a common threat. Now we all experience sin, but then the same thing crops up.

They're going to say, this isn't a sin. I'm going to say, look at this book, look what it says. And it says exactly that. That's a sin. So how dare you say anything else.

And then friction is going to erupt there. So, well, this is not being addressed at this church because they love this sin or this church over here is addressing.

Not addressing this because they love the sin or they're going to downplay it because, well, we can't let the pastor be taken down. He's the only person in charge, and that causes problems. So, yes, you're not unified.

Threat is a good thing if you actually, you know, unify against it.

And one of the good things about this game is that there are people eventually who lay down their pride, who submit to the authority of someone who isn't who they would have picked. And we are able to, depending on how you win the game, stop the threat or. Yeah, I'm not going to go any further.

I've wrestled with Mass Effect 3 since release.

Yeah, it's really. It just goes to show you, one of the few things that we've said on this show, at least for me since the beginning, is that pride can stop any unity.

And setting that aside is the only thing that allows us to truly unify. Also, it's a major part of Saren's whole character arc from Mass Effect 1.

I know we're talking about 3 now, but he ruined his entire life because he had too much pride to let a human join the Galactic Council.

Yeah, yeah. Which also, great story. Maybe a different episode one day, but just talking about Saren.

Yeah.

I want to throw a couple of things out.

I am not big on the whole sheared enemy thing in general, mostly because I think typically we use that to justify othering someone else in our culture and making them the enemy, whether it's the gays, this ethnicity, whatever, this country. We could just treat all Muslims are the bad guys. We should just go bomb them and that'll create unity. And, like, that stuff gives me the ick.

And that's not what Christian was talking about. I just want to say, usually when I hear this stuff, that's what my brain goes to. And I'm like, I don't like that.

I do think, though, in my experience, in the churches in America, a lot of times, even around the conversation of, like, soteriology, when we talk about what is salvation, you have people talk like, well, salvation is wholeness. Making it's making this person whole. Have the fruit of the spirit feeling love, being filled with Christ.

And then people who talk about salvation as if it's, well, getting rid of sin and not going to hell and kind of focusing on not the negatives, you know? You know, and what's weird is you see a lot of, like, unwillingness to Cooperate because it's like, oh, well, you mean something different here.

And I'm like, wait a minute, I can be for wholeness making and that be what I think salvation is all about and still not like sin. Like, both of those things can be true. And I can look past, like, if I'm talking about salvation, to me, the biggest thing is wholeness making.

It's having someone have a life that's flourishing in Christ. And I can hear, I might be misrepresenting, I don't know.

But I can talk to Christian and know that he thinks the biggest thing is that we fight against sin, fight against our sinful natures, you know, powers that be, of hell, whatever.

At the end, both of us have the goal for people to accept Jesus as the one who died and rose again as God himself, and for us all to be in heaven one day. The metaphysics, the logistics of all that and how we both think are gonna be pretty wildly different in the meantime.

But I think that shared goal is still important, even if it's not necessarily the shared enemy thing.

I think the game does a good job at showing that and showing that it's messy because you have to really convince some people, no, this is a shared goal. Like, well, no, because you're gonna do it that way, and that's the human way. And I'm like, hold up at the end.

This is the result we both want, right? Well, let's work towards that. And sometimes that's hard to do because some people only hear, wait a minute, you said salvation isn't about sin.

Okay, let's move past that question for just a minute here. Just a minute. And, you know, I see a lot of that with Catholics and Protestants.

I'll point this out really specifically of, like, there's that question of are we saved by faith or by works kind of deal. And it's. Well, first off, Catholics don't believe you're saved by works.

They believe that you are saved by faith and your salvation is worked out so you're saved while you're doing the works. And what Protestants will say is, no, you're saved by faith alone. And as soon as you're saved, you're going to start doing those works.

The end result, both groups still think you're saved by faith and that you should be doing those works. The logistics are important. The semantics are incredibly important.

But, man, some of the fights and, like, the just hatred that people show one another over this seems a little silly when you really boil down and realize what the semantic argument is and you're like, yeah, that's an important argument, but it really makes sense to hate the other guy for having that difference. I don't think so. But, you know, we make it hard on ourselves a lot of times. Yeah, that's true. Go ahead, Christian.

Well, I was just gonna say the important part of it is I think sometimes Joshua has very stupid takes. But if I learned that, that me being upset at stupid takes then turn into hatred, I become the person who should be mocked in that scenario.

Even if his attacks are objectively wrong, I'm still in the wrong for allowing something like that to get to the point of hatred and anger. So, yes, when it comes to working with these different denominations and the like, I am never going to agree on certain matters.

I'm never going to agree on transubstantiation. I'm never going to agree on affirming LGBT into the church and marriage and all that. But what I can do is I can say, I think that's stupid.

And here's how I'm going to justify it by looking into scripture.

But then I'm going to go, okay, this church right here, this Methodist church, which didn't split off, is still within the sphere of influences earlier. Has this already set up homeless ministry here? That's an easy thing to bring up there. And I am in the church nearby.

Well, what would be the easiest thing to do? Me joining with them doesn't mean I agree with everything that you do.

It means that I agree with the purpose you've built in that state, which I am commanded to do, to look after those who are lost, look after those who are hungry and don't have a place to stay. So why can't I get over what I don't like about them and work with them, even though I do despise some of the things they think, well,

let me throw a wrench in this real quick and show people why it is still complicated, because I don't want to be those people who make it seem way more simple than it is. There are levels of this.

I think your example, when it's like a food pantry, homeless mission, whatever, is a really good one, if that's happening, I think it should be a lot easier for churches to say, hey, let's work with one another on this. Sure. If, though, it's like insert church, I'm trying to think of church that I like. I just don't agree with very much.

Usually it would be the Southern Baptist, unfortunately, and I love a lot of Southern Baptists. We have them on the show pretty frequently.

I'll use the Mormon Church because I disagree with them more, even though this is an absurd example if we use them. But it's fine.

If the Church of Latter Day Saints, Jesus Christ in the area was having a big ecumenical service, inviting people to come worship with them and saying, bring three friends, I might go.

Personally, I'm not bringing three friends because I don't want to mislead people to going to that church because I think that there's a lot of stuff that you believe that is incorrect. Similarly, like, if we're going to do an evangelist mission together. What do you mean? If we're going to do mission work?

And Krishna's like, hey, Josh, let's me and you go feed the hungry in New Orleans. Okay, man, let's do it. Krishna was like, let's go to New Orleans and convince five people to become members of the Southern Baptist Church.

I'd be like, hey, man, I wish you the best and I hope you do a really good job with that.

I don't think I should be a part of that particular mission, you know, and I don't think Christian would want to do the same thing if it was ELCA, like, hey, Christian, help me get 10 people to sign up to be. He probably won't be on board with that.

So I think it depends what kind of missions, what kind of stuff we're doing, because different, I think different levels of mission, of work, different kinds of work shows different levels of approval. You know, if I'm bringing people to that big Mormon church event, that shows that I'm approving of what they believe.

Whereas if they're helping the hungry and I'm like, let's go help the hungry, I don't think that really shows that I approve of their beliefs. It shows that I want to help the hungry.

I agree. I agree. So if we were to try and have a local church at the Citadel with humans, Tyrians, Asari, a quarians, salarians, Krogans on our all of them,

what

would be the most difficult differences to navigate? How would we handle those? If you were their pastor or their shepherd.

See what we did there? Shepherd commander.

Yeah, I mean, it's already difficult enough with just the one species.

It's pretty hard.

But then you throw in other ones. I mean, that asks a lot of questions. You know, if, you know, these other species exist, did Jesus show up on their planet?

Are they fallen races given in the games? Yes. Every single one of them would be counting as fallen. So that means there would be a need for them to be redeemed.

Does that mean there was only the singular Jesus who showed up on Earth and now it is my responsibility to be a missionary to these races?

Or did a Jesus figure who is actually Jesus show up as a Turian, show up as a quarian, so on and so forth in their past and now we are going to have to work together to figure out, okay, this is what your Bible says. This is what my Bible says. Well, why did, why is this written in mind? Well, maybe because it pertains to Earth.

Well, this pertains to Tuchanka, what have you. And now that's a lot of extra work and something that's already difficult enough as it is. Let's move all that to an aside.

Yeah, I personally, I do believe in simultaneous galactic Jesus.

If we're, if we're throwing out, that needs to be a name for that doctrine specifically.

But then there's a lot of overcorrection that needs to be done here because you've got a. Sorry, who by their very nature they're designed to be, you know, blue skinned alien babes who can mate with any species in the galaxy.

The free love stuff does not work within the confines of Christianity unless you have a really mixed take on what the Bible actually says on the issue. So how do we handle that with quarians? How can I give them communion without murdering them?

Because they, they can't live outside of their specialized suits. And same thing with Turians too. They have a different biochemistry than humans. So what is their version of bread and wine?

That they wouldn't die if I gave it to them. Like there's a lot of things you have to do that.

And that's not even considering everything about different cultures and different ways on how justice is delivered. Like it's going to be a lot of extra work and it's something well worth doing if this were to happen.

So it sounds like Christians answer is, all of it is the most difficult part. Literally all of it is.

It is.

I am. Did you want to go, tj?

I was gonna go.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. I don't agree with what he said. Obviously that would be difficult, but that's too easy.

The hardest part is what are you gonna do when the 980 year old Asari matriarch in your congregation comes up to you for advice?

Yeah.

What do you mean? You're 900 years old. What do you need my advice for?

I hear that's a common problem that pastors have. Not that specific one, but of having, like, older pastors in their congregation, ask them about stuff. Because it's like, who am I to tell you?

I don't know.

I feel as though when Christian's a pastor speaking that soon, hopefully, I believe there probably going to be a point where Will's going to ask him for something at some point. Like, hey, I want to know what you think about this. And I imagine that being very humbling.

Like, even though y' all disagree on a lot of stuff, it would be like, oh, wait, what?

He wants my honest opinion on this, I better give it to him.

Yeah, I think one, I gotta, like, credit where credit's due. I think Christian's probably right.

If there were multiple Jesuses and thus with multiple Bibles, then figuring out which passages apply and don't apply probably would be the most difficult part.

It's also why I love, even though I'm not on board fully, I love that the Orthodox are like, hey, the main authority isn't actually some guy in Rome, and it's not the church and it's not the Bible, it's the spirit. And yes, that's a cop out. But I think if you really believe the thing, it makes sense. So kind of, you know, put that one out there. I don't know.

I think to me, and I'm going to give a cop out answer here. Most sci fi things, when you have other alien species, it just feels like really exaggerated versions of what we're already dealing with.

You know, like, oh, this is the species that likes war better than not war. And this is a species that's like all nerds. And I'm like, well, you know, even like, sorry, I love Star Wars.

But even like when you go see other planet, it's like, wow, that plane is so different than mine.

I'm like, well, actually, you know, if you just kind of flew to a different part of this world, it does look pretty vastly different in a lot of the same ways. It's actually hard to create something that's truly alien. That's my critique of all sci fi, just in general.

But I think it's helpful because it allows us then to think about, wait a minute, this does exist. It does exist. Where? Like in our local church, there are some people who are more primed to be aggressive.

There are some people who are more primed to care about the intellectual parts, who are more primed to care about the emotional spiritual parts, etc.

There probably is some churches where people are so allergic to gluten that they have to make those Accommodations with communion and go, wait a minute, I actually have to do communion different because some people can't take this. You know, my church will love will they have like gluten free option.

They have a non alcoholic wine for those who don't want to participate in that thing. And I think that's important that we think about ways to accommodate.

If your church has handicapped people, you need to think about ways to accommodate the handicapped people in your area. If you have people with learning disabilities, you have to consider that like, I think all this stuff is actually real problems.

And I also, I said I like the structure. I love the Lutheran church. And now I'm going to contradict myself.

I still think the best model was the early church where we're all gathering together. And TJ's the intellectual and he spent all this time studying. So let's let him share his gift with you.

And hey, I'm the one who's maybe don't study as much, but I'm a really good empathetic. Have a good gift of empathy. Perhaps I don't think I do, but in this example I do.

So I'm there for Christian and tj so they can talk to me because they feel more comfortable.

And Christian's gonna be the one who's a really good speaker, so he might be the one giving the speech at the time and our other friend might be the musician. And like we all take turns sharing our gift because that's like what the church is supposed to be anyway.

And so sometimes I think we're a little too structured and we need to take a page from the Pentecostals and let the spirit lead sometimes and let everyone share their gift. But the church has gotten really big and that makes that kind of thing really hard to do. And that's why I still like the structure.

But I'm gonna just contradict myself. I think the early church was right, but I also love the structure in the elca and I think it's important to have that.

I don't have a good answer of how to do both. Just do it. Maybe it's small groups. Maybe small groups is the answer.

Small groups.

Yep.

No more big church.

Yeah. Yep.

Is there anything else that we should discuss for church unity that we can learn from Mass Effect?

I think it's the sound, the endings presented. Destroy is the best option.

I would say. The soundtrack.

If the.

If every church had a soundtrack as good as Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3, there'd never be a problem.

I think solid one. A lot of Our pastors can learn from Commander Shepard.

She had people who were, I won't say racist against other species on her ship, as well as a lot of people from other species with wildly different beliefs. Seemingly got them to work pretty good together, except for on a couple occasions. Well, that was awful.

It is a little bit easier when you can be like, hey, do what I say or you're getting court martialed.

Yeah, yeah, that too. But, you know, I. I think there's something about more intimate teams and maybe I'm just going back to small groups again. I think I am.

Something about just like intimate teams having a common mission. You know, even on the, like the little levels where it's like.

And that's one thing I loved about the games is like, depending on you choose two people to go with you for each mission, depending which two changes the dialogue of the level. And I'm like, yeah, it's kind of fun. I should not have Ashley on there ever, because she always makes the dialogue piss me off.

Well, there's something big in what you said besides your irrational hatred of Ashley, in that.

Oh, no, it's rational.

What? What? Absolutely not. What Shepard does. Well, is he or she, depending on you, can choose between either male shepherd or female Shepherd.

What he does is he identifies people who are willing to solve a problem and adds to them on the team to solve problems.

Like Katie.

That doesn't mean. Yes. Yeah, sure.

And then works with them, learns about who they are, gets things done with them to establish a relationship with them, which then inspires other people who might not have normally joined such a team to go, oh, they got something done. Because he was willing to do something about it. I want to do something. I don't know if I have confidence. Well, maybe if I join them, I can.

And that's how we get some of the good relationships we get later on in the series and other species working together is that it started with individuals and then moved on to, I want to say the word congregation. That's wrong, but it's right if it's for this.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I like that too.

And I do love, like the times in between missions where you're just on the ship and you can just go talk to these people you've recruited or who are on your ship and get to know them better. And I like that. Actually has real implications for the leveling system and the story. It's kind of cool. Just cool in general games. Really well done.

People should play Mass Effect. Yeah, there you go.

So one last Thing we like to do before wrapping up on this show, Whole Church podcast, in case you forgot and thought this was his Mac Ecology. It's not.

We like to ask people, if you had to or could provide a single tangible action, something our listeners could go do, they'll help better engender Christian unity in the church.

Church, you can cop out and say, play Mass effect if you want, but Christian, what is one thing you think people could do that would help just us have more unity within the church today?

I'd say that. I mean, that same principle I just talked about applies.

Like, identify people in the church who are willing to get stuff done, help them as best as possible, and if you can't do it, find someone who can help them help. Like if there's someone who's really good and what would be good in children's ministry but they don't have the confidence, help build them up.

Give them moments where they can prove themselves. Or if you have someone in your church who is. Maybe they do have a gift of preaching well, spend time with them. See if it's true.

Then maybe pastor, step down for one Sunday and let them speak instead. Like, find where people are good at and help them get to where they need to be. Be a good shepherd.

And what would change in the world if we did that?

I mean, more problems get solved. I mean, it's just not going to solve every single problem that the church encounters.

But the fewer problems the church has, the easier it is to get things done, the less hurdles we have to jump over. So why not make things easier by yourself by doing the work?

Yeah. Yeah. I just want to reiterate. Church is a participatory relationship. If you're not participating, you're not in relationship.

You just went to a building and sung some emotional music. Church is the people, and we have to be in a relationship. We have to be doing something.

Like if it's just one guy speaking or a couple people singing, that's a performance. It's not church.

Mm. Mm.

That's why I like small group idea.

Yeah.

That TJ had in this episode that I had.

That was me.

Yeah. He originated small groups during this recording.

So before we wrap up, we like

to do a little thing.

I don't know if you've ever heard of it, Christian. We call it our God moment. First time caller. Yeah, we call it a God moment. We just ask where you seen God recently in your life.

Whether it be a blessing and challenge moment of worship, whatever it may be. I always make Joshua go first. To give the rest of us enough time to come up with our God moment or moments.

Yeah, well, mine's gonna be how I. I didn't follow through with some made up rule I gave myself. Yes. I was waiting for Memorial Day for it to officially be summer, to do summer things that I like. That way I'm like, really in the season.

It's been 80 degrees a lot of days recently. Not today. It was cold today, unfortunately, because it's my day off. But my wife got a grill while I was at work.

One day I came home and she got stuff for me to make my orange aid that I make during the summer. My mind was like Labor Day to Memorial Day, sweet tea, then Memorial Day to Labor Day. I'm gonna do my orange aid again because I love orange.

Like, nope. All right. Making some orangeade, gonna grill out, have some burgers, even got some Malibu and white Monster. And I was like, you know what?

I'm just gonna act like it's summer for a little bit and just let myself experience it and just not adhere to some random made up thing I gave myself. And it just filled me with a lot of joy. And I was like, oh, man. Yeah, I'm ready for the warmer weather.

And just that little bit of joy, that's my God moment. I needed that to be surprised by joy. That's my obligatory C.S. lewis reference of the episode. Contract withheld.

And for our bonus content for today's episode, we three are going to rank the different types of aids. A, D, E, S, orange, lime, lemon, whatever.

Really concerned with what you meant by that. I don't know about that.

Not the other thing, but for me, my God moment. I have never, ever been invited on as many vacations as I have been this year.

Yeah, he shut me down and I was gonna invite him on another one, so I guess I won't do that.

Yeah, I almost got double booked for a week. I've got too many friends. God bless. That's it.

Suffering from success. The TJ story.

The art of the deal. So, Christian, you have God moments for us today.

It's God moment. We don't cheat because we know he's going to cheat.

I know it's not only my first time on the show, but I feel like I have the need to cheat. I'm going to start with the bad one first.

That, of course, being speaking of scandals in the Southern Baptist Church, there is a friend of mine who was having an emotional affair with a former student. Not while she was a student, but while she was an adult that doesn't make it better, but it explains the process. And it's also not better.

I guess it's better in that nothing bad happened physically, but something could have happened if they had escalated it. But the good news is that he realized what he was doing, brought it up before the leaders of the church and the elders there.

And the pastor of what he was doing lost his job as a result, which is after an investigation was done, he was at a different church where he started off with and I say a good thing that came out of it is that we just got a new pastor at our church a couple months ago and he knows none of the context for this and yet he delivered a very well placed report at the end of his service to us about, hey, this is what happened. Here are the facts.

If there is something we don't know about, come up to us not to air it out with everyone and spread gossip, but for the sake of making sure we have everything correct and everything done well and that could have ended way worse and be handled way, way more poorly.

So I'm still praying for him as he's going through this is that he recognizes what he's done, he's more repentant and I think there is signs of that, but it's not done yet. So that's slightly less positive, but some positivity in there.

The good one, on the other hand is while I'm still on the job search, I've been doing substitute teaching and I had a student while I was actually a couple weeks. So yeah, a couple of weeks serving as an ISS person while they were needing to hire, someone came up to me and asked me why I was always smiling.

And if you don't know me, that's not a question that's normally asked of me. That's something I've had to work on for years because I naturally don't default to a smile.

Not because I'm unhappy or upset, it's just my face looks like I'm angry when I'm thinking. And yet he saw me day after day while he was being punished for something and asked me why I was smiling.

And I had the cop out moment where I could have said, oh, want to spread joy? And like, well, yeah, that's great, but no, stop. Let's talk about why you smile. Why I smile, why I feel joy is because I have Jesus in my heart.

I mean, you can Sunday school all day long for that in the children's ministry. But like I do, I feel this joy. So I have Actively thought, when I'm out and about, I need to smile more.

Not for the sake of looking fake, but for the sake of. No, I'm actually happy. Let me see people see that. He saw that. And we didn't have a conversion that day.

It's not the great story of that, but, like, that's not something he's familiar with. And I got to explain that. And God gave me that opportunity. And for once in my life, I actually said yes. And it was great.

Yeah, praise God.

So the answer was, I'm cheating because you like to see children suffer.

No, no, I'm going to cheat now. Also because I had a God moment while he was giving his God moment, if that's allowed.

Because I've talked to you guys before this recording and I've been really grumpy lately and I do think it's largely because of pain and maybe because I'm doing too much. Maybe a little combination of both.

I just been getting recently angry at stuff that I know I'm not actually mad at that I actually enjoy some of the stuff and I'm getting mad at it anyway. And I still have somebody at work who always talks about, like, why are you so happy all the time? And I'm like, I don't feel it right now.

And I do think even though I still need prayer and I am down, it does help to remember, like, how much more I might be upset and how much harder some of this stuff is without Jesus. And the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart way or down in my heart, you know, having both, because, you know, I still have joy. I still smile a lot.

I just need a little help right now. And both things can be true.

Yes.

All right, tj, take some.

Alright, so please consider sharing this episode with a friend. Share with an enemy.

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Go to the website, purchase one of our T shirts. You can promote the show.

You help us raise money for podcasting needs, and it lets others know about the importance of our mission to educate and unite the modern church. If you're listening to this on Systematic Geekology, if you liked this episode, this is pretty much what we do on. On the whole Church podcast.

Except there's a lot less science fiction than video games usually.

Usually there was a pirate episode though, so maybe check that one out.

You know, we.

We get out there whole trick biaries.

Check out our shirts, they're all really comfy. We have a couple of new ones.

Yeah. If you like both show shows and want to just Hear a lot more of Christian Tube. Amazon Podcast Network has its own website. Check it out.

We mentioned a lot of Christian shows. They are all good. Check Friday Night Frights. I think if you're into the geeky stuff, that why I don't like.

If you're into more of the theology stuff, the Bible stuff, let nothing move you. He does great work over there. Also want to shout out some of the other shows, Theology on the Rocks with Christy Whe and Leah Robinson.

They do amazing stuff. And I have been working on Daniel 1 and stuff on Be Living Water from Christian Daoist Perspective.

And I've been meaning to text Christian to see if there's a chapter he wants to talk about Daniel with me. And I just remembered to let him know that I've been meaning to text

him that on air response for judges. So we're at an impasse.

Did you text text me?

Yes.

Well, I definitely want to talk about Deborah. Duh.

Okay. I figure.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, we hope you enjoyed it.

Podcasting on air.

Coming up, we'll have Dr. James McGrath back on the show to discuss his newest book, Beyond Deconstruction, Building a More Expansive Faith. And then after that, we're gonna have on Dr. Thomas J. Ord once again to discuss his newest book, A Systematic Theology, Theology of Love, Volume 1.

After that, we're going to be speaking with Pastor Sarah Hinckley Wilson about her time as a pastor in Japan, as well as her podcast, the Queen of the Sciences. And at the end of season one, naturally, we're gonna have Francis Chan on the show.

Save the applause. No, but now that now that he knows Christian's been on, he's sure to contact us.

Almost certainly.

I know Francis follows everything Christian does because why wouldn't he? Everybody falls Christian.

Unless spoke to him about 15, 20 years ago.

Yeah, well, he can't wait to make it happen again.

Yeah.