Catholic vs. Protestant: "Did We See A Miracle?" YES or NO With Ruslan KD
Can Catholics and Protestants agree on on anything? In this episode of YES or NO, Michael Knowles is joined by Christian YouTuber and apologist Ruslan KD for a spirited faith debate. From biblical miracles to modern-day testimonies, they test each other’s beliefs on divine intervention, theology, and what it truly means to witness the supernatural. Expect laughs, challenges, and maybe even a few revelations.
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Are Orthobros more difficult to debate than Catholics?
Oh, man.
You can't pin them down on anything.
Well, they would say that you guys are the ones that are schismatic.
They say all sorts of stuff in Greek.
Who even speaks that?
I don't know.
Welcome to Yes or No.
Okay, you don't have to applaud.
The Bibulus.
No!
All right, that's good.
That's good.
Yes or no is the Bibulous battle to discover who knows whom better.
My guest today, obviously there's a lot of excitement.
All these people packed into the audience because they wanted to meet him.
Ruslan KD, how do we play?
I will ask Ruslan a yes or no question.
He will select his answer away from my prying eyes.
Then I will guess how he answered.
If I guess correctly, I get a point.
If I guess incorrectly, I lose a point.
No matter what, I will probably end up drinking.
Then it's Ruslan's turn.
Neither of us has seen the questions beforehand.
Whoever has the most points at the end wins.
The stakes could be higher.
Ruslan, thank you for coming on the show.
Thank you for having me, Michael.
Now, I want you to know something.
I have not had lunch yet.
Okay.
I was plied with nicotine by my producer, and I have this martini in front of me.
Okay.
So if you lose, are we going to get a bunch of excuses?
I didn't get enough.
I'm already setting that up.
Okay.
That's what's up.
That's the setup.
But I want there to be a wager, okay?
All right.
So I'm a gambling man.
I see.
I say, if I win, you have to come back and do one of my panels.
Okay.
And when you're in town, if the stars align, we'll make the stars align.
Latin Mass.
Okay, that's fair.
All right.
That's fair.
What's your wager?
That's fair.
My wager is if I win, you get to come to my Blessed God Summit in San Diego, California, March 5th, 6th, and 7th, and be on a panel regarding Catholic, Protestant affairs.
So if you win, I get a speaking gig.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, unpaid speaking gigs.
Hold on, I still can't afford your feet.
It's fair enough.
I thought Armenians were better at driving hard negotiations and bargains.
Okay, that's good.
I'm in.
I'm in.
All right, here we go.
All right, here we go.
Do you know the rules?
I think so.
Okay, that makes one of us.
Yes.
Since you're a man, I will go first.
If you were a lady, I'd say you go first.
Okay.
Okay, ready?
All right.
Is the first step for Protestant churches to match the rise in traditional Catholic attendance to reform the laser light show concerts in their worship services?
Okay, I actually have, I have thoughts on this question, but I'll save them before I have to guess your answer.
So you put your answer down, and then I have to guess what you would say.
Who wrote this question?
Actually, an evangelical Protestant wrote this question.
Okay.
Who I think has gone to a few laser light shows in his life.
It's an itch to reform the laser light show concerts in the worship.
Gosh, this is a good one.
This is a good one.
Oh, man.
All right.
You would say no.
Correct.
I would question the premise.
Now, the Catholicism and specifically traditional versions of Catholicism, they are spiking right now.
But I don't think Protestantism is suffering.
I don't think Protestantism in the evangelical way is declining exactly.
And in some ways, I think it's actually since Charlie's murder, I think it's gone up along with all Christian traditions.
But no, you would say it's not the liturgy that's leading to the decline where it exists.
So what's driving it?
Well, I actually think the entire question is interesting to say the least, because according to our mutual friend Trent Horn, Protestants aren't losing attendance.
According to him, it's the Catholics that are losing attendance with the data that he reacted to.
Because we're getting adult conversions a lot, but because there's infant baptism, a lot of people, they go, they have a lunch afterward, but no one's ever really practicing the faith all that much.
So for every one adult convert, you're getting like eight cradle Catholics who are leaving.
That's exactly what he pointed out.
Yeah, yeah.
How does that make you feel?
Well, it means that we've got to be tougher on these parents.
And he's got, I'm a godfather because I'm Sicilian, but also because I have this role in different kids' lives.
We've got to get tougher.
I think certain Protestant traditions are losing people.
Like the, I don't know, does anyone go to Methodist churches anymore?
Methodists had a big schism recently over there.
The LGBTQ thing.
I was at the National Prayer Service at the inauguration.
That bishopris lady, who, first of all, that alone is a problem.
But then she basically took the opportunity to scold Trump on immigration or whatever.
That was awful.
I think the mainline churches on the Protestant side have emptied out.
But I don't think it's just because of liturgy.
The Episcopalians have better liturgy than any of the other Protestants.
It's because of the teaching.
The teaching has just been watered down, so they have rainbow flags outside their buildings.
Spot on, yeah.
That's the issue, right?
Yeah, we've had record-breaking attendance back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back for the past year, but the past several weeks, every single week, there's more and more people.
And we don't have laser light shows at my church.
We actually meet in an old Episcopalian building, but we would probably be like a modern evangelical type church.
Because that building can go one of two ways.
Assuming we're not getting it back from Henry VIII, you know, in the UK, it's going to go one of two ways.
It's either going to be low church Protestant, you know, non-denominating evangelical stuff, or it's going to become a mosque.
Those are kind of the two choices.
Or they're going to tear down and build condos.
Yes, condos or a coffee shop.
Or a coffee shop.
Okay, you're right.
All right.
I'm going to clear my response.
Okay.
With the rise of Alex O'Connor and others like him, is a new atheist movement forming?
New new atheist, I guess.
The new new.
The neo-new.
The neo-new atheist.
Oh, man.
What would I say?
I think you would say no.
Correct.
Yes.
You know what's forming is Alex O'Connor is going to become Christian.
Right.
I don't know about that.
You think he's hardcore about it?
I think that Alex is a gentleman that's built an amazing platform and built almost a cult of personality on being a non-combative non-believer.
But when you get deeper with him on, like, hey, Alex, have you read the entire Bible?
Yeah, yeah.
Hey, Alex, have you gone to church recently?
Hey, Alex, like, have you wrestled through these things?
In my opinion, they're unfortunately very shallow answers to those questions.
I totally agree.
And I really like Alex O'Connor.
I've, in fact, I don't know if I'm telling tales out of school.
I've dined with him with priests.
He's very charismatic and sweet guy.
But that to me is a good sign because the fact that he's very sharp, he's all these great things.
We're flattering him to no end.
But the fact that he doesn't have hardcore answers to all of those questions, to me, says the moment he's obviously curious, he probably hangs out with more Christians than he hangs out with atheists.
The moment that he really starts to keep following that, he's going to become Christian.
There's no new atheism.
The new atheism is old and it's dead.
Yeah, it made so many promises to our society that the more secular we become, we'll have this scientific revolution, and everybody will be more rational.
And then you fast forward that out 25 years and they've delivered on none of those promises.
Even the book, Hitchens wrote that book, God is Not Great, which doesn't even make that argument.
It doesn't even, that's not even the point of the book.
The point is, you know, I don't, Christians have done things that I don't like.
But fast forward now, 20 years after New Atheism, Richard Dawkins is calling himself a cultural Christian and getting canceled.
And getting canceled for it.
For basic biology.
Because he saw the conclusion of the new atheism, which is Islam.
Yeah.
In the design in the UK, right?
So, yeah, that's done.
And I kind of hold out hope for Mr. O'Connor.
Alex, if you're watching this, you can come, when I win and Ruslan comes to Latin Master, you're welcome.
There's a seat for you.
There actually isn't a seat.
We'll make a seat for you.
Thank you.
All right, so now you're picking one.
Clear the answers.
Okay.
Are ortho bros more difficult to debate than Catholics?
Oh, man.
Oh, gosh.
That is a good question.
I could see that cutting both ways, even the meaning of the question.
Are Orthobros more difficult?
Yeah.
More.
Okay.
Are Orthobros more difficult?
Can I ask for a clarifying question?
Yes, I've already given my answer to what you're going to say.
Yeah, so how would you define difficult?
Like, are they more difficult and unpleasant?
Not that they're on, well, that's I would say you leave the debate with the Ortho bro.
And you say that was a more tedious experience than the debate with the Catholic.
Whether or not you won, you lost, you feel, you persuaded, or other.
You just, I'm saying you leave the debate.
Exhausted.
You say that was difficult.
That was difficult.
Of course.
Yeah.
Of course.
Why?
Okay.
This is where it gets good.
So what I love about Catholics is that, and I don't know if this is official language or not official language, but you guys acknowledge doctrinal development.
Yes.
You can say, hey.
And John Henry Newman was a great, great articulator.
You guys would say, hey, the church is the magistrate and so on and so forth.
And so stuff has developed over time.
Which I think is beyond reasonable to say.
What the apostles believed in practice is not necessarily what churches believe today on both sides, Catholics, Protestant, Orthodox.
Or the real, now the fear of development of doctrine, which is articulated very well by John Henry Newman, who was Anglican actually, and then he became Catholic.
He was very anti-Catholic.
He becomes Catholic, becomes a saint, becomes a doctor of the church, like three weeks ago.
He would say that true development of doctrine is something that was always there, that was often practiced and understood, but is articulated later on or comes to a fuller understanding later on, often in response to challenges to that traditional teaching.
So the way Catholics think about heresies, say we don't like heresies, they've been heresies since day one.
But they're great in the sense that they allow the church then to clearly define her teaching on Gnosticism, on the sexes, on the Immaculate, all the way up to the Immaculate Conception, say.
So that the doctrine becomes clearer over time.
The way it can be abused by liberals, in the church even, is to say, well, the church used to say that marriage is between a man and a woman, but doctrine has developed and now it's between two guys and a billy goat.
You say, well, hold on, that's not a development.
That's a change.
That's an innovation.
That's contrary to scripture.
That's out.
But the liberals do use it that way.
Yeah, that's helpful.
I think the idea that the development is only in as good as what they actually believed, I think that would be my issue with both the Orthodox and the Catholic, is that when I read and I go back and I'm trying to understand Polycarp, I'm trying to understand these apostles, the disciples of the apostles.
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus.
Yeah, I think there's a pretty big chasm between what they taught and believed and what is expressed.
And what I appreciate about Catholics was doctrinal development tends to kind of acknowledge that a little bit, whereas the Orthodox will say, no, this is the exact faith that the apostles practiced.
Yes.
So regardless of what you think about any particular doctrine, you say, well, I don't see that in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch.
But at the very least, the Catholics will say, well, here's why you think you don't see it, and here's why I think it's here, and here's why it seems different.
Whereas the Orthodox, the Orthobros will say, this was always what was taught, and we haven't changed a jot or tittle.
I hear there's a Catholic party happening.
Why don't you jump in?
Hi, Isabella.
It's good to meet you.
I'm coming through for the day.
Please do.
Can I jump in?
Feel free to shout from the sides.
That's great.
I love that.
Thank you.
Wait a minute.
Can I phone in Wes Huff?
What is going on?
Actually, you can't get Isabella.
That's not all of us.
I promise I won't weigh in.
We barred West Huff from the premises, actually.
I thought you were going to say the reason it's more exhausting to debate the Orthobros is because there's no unity of belief.
They've had these different patriarchs forever.
Historically speaking, again, there's no Orthobros in the house, so I'm not going to be physically assaulted.
Oh, they're going to clip this.
They're going to destroy us, just so you know.
Typically, in the history of the church, going back to antiquity, challenges to doctrine, also known as heresies, tended to come from the East.
Now, the Orthobros could shoot those down too.
But a lot of these doctrines, Arianism took a lot of hold in the East.
All sorts of things.
Arianism also had some issues in the West, but we stamped it out.
That because of that, you know, with the Catholics, we can say, look, to quote St. Augustine, Rome has spoken, the issue is settled.
He said that on Arianism, actually.
in the East, they'd say, well, you know, Patriarch, you know, Papadopoulos said, like five minutes ago that, you know, you have to have lamb in your soufflaki and not chicken.
But then the other guy-You're torsion over the doctor.
No, I'm just, no, I listen, I have a great, they have great liturgy.
I love, I, I'm mostly salty because I can't grow the beard.
I would be Catholic too if I couldn't book.
Yeah, of course.
They will say, well, no, actually, there's this other tradition.
There's this mystical tradition that actually says something different.
And so the thing that I find exhausting about debating our beloved brothers in Orthodoxy is you can't pin them down on anything.
Whereas, you know, even in antiquity and through the Middle Ages, you'd have Eastern bishops come before the Great System.
You'd have Eastern bishops come, they'd all agree to something, right?
And then they'd go back and the emperor would say something different and they'd like kind of ignore the council.
And so you can't say, well, you guys believe this, right?
And they say, well, but we also kind of believe this.
Let me ask you this.
So to kind of throw a bone to my Orthodox brothers and sisters, do you think that they have maintained a closer tradition, not to the apostolic church, but to the three or four hundreds when a lot of these doctrines formed?
Would you acknowledge that?
I would go further.
I would say, yes, they do have a great connection to the Apostolic Church because they have apostolic succession, because they have, generally speaking, valid sacraments, because their liturgy, I'll throw a bone to the Orthodox, their liturgy is much more beautiful than a lot of what passes for modern liturgy and Catholicism.
So, no, listen, I'm being tough on them.
I actually do have a great deal of respect for the Orthodox, but it's the point of unity.
You know, there are four marks of the church.
One, holy, Catholic, and apostolic in the Nicene Creed.
And so, yes, they've got the apostolic.
Sure, let's say it's holy.
You know, they've got the claim to some kind of universality.
But where's the unity?
You know, the unity.
This is really where the primacy of Rome comes in.
But that was always a point between us and the Orthodox.
Well, they would say that you guys are the ones that schismatic that.
They say all sorts of stuff in Greek.
Who even speaks that?
Did you just wave it off?
Yeah.
Hold on one second.
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Russ lines up.
Yes.
All right.
Do you have any idea where the Pope and the Vatican as a whole stand on the death penalty, global warming, and illegal immigration?
And you have to guess how I would answer.
Yes, do you have any idea where the Pope and the Vatican as a whole stand on the death penalty, global warming, and illegal immigration?
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, I know where the Vatican stands.
And again, it's kind of mixing those issues together because the death penalty is a little different than, say, global warming.
Global warming is a kind of prudential matter for the civil authority that is not entirely within the competency of the Holy See.
Death penalty is a little different.
And so for the entire history of the church, death penalty was fine under certain circumstances.
Church would today say.
Like burning heretics at the state.
Yeah, yeah.
We need to bring a little more of that back, frankly, but that's a topic for another time.
But in principle, capital punishment is okay under certain circumstances.
So the church would say today, well, that teaching remains true.
The death penalty is okay under certain circumstances.
The question is over a prudential matter.
Are those circumstances satisfied today?
Because the death penalty comes from the book of Genesis, right?
Whosoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed.
For man is made in the image and likeness of God.
Because of human dignity, we have the death penalty.
And St. Paul says civil authority doesn't bear the sword in vain.
That was clear enough.
Some popes carried it out, including Blessed Pius IX, who oversaw 500 executions in the Papal States.
John Paul II says, yeah, it's fine in principle, but I oppose it practically because modern society allows us to protect society from the perpetrators, so you don't need to carry it out today.
Pope Benedict said much the same thing after JP2.
He said, look, reasonable minds can disagree on this, but practically I oppose it.
But Francis comes in and he says, the death penalty is morally inadmissible.
This is in the Catechism.
So this is not an excatheter teaching on faith and morals, you know, without error, officially pronounced.
It's just, he says, morally inadmissible.
He doesn't say it's intrinsically evil because he can't, because that would contradict scripture and 2,000 years of church teaching.
So he says, morally and what is that word?
It's a little dubious.
Pope Leo has basically maintained that and says we work toward the abolition of the death penalty.
Okay.
Again, that's a prudential practical matter.
He's not saying it is a dogma officially.
Certainly not a dogma that couldn't possibly be.
But, so we can say, yes, we understand what the Vatican is saying about this today, but we see it in light of tradition and scripture and 2,000 years.
And so some of my Catholic friends, I was speaking with the young lovely Isabel here about this earlier.
Some of them, they fall into two errors on this.
The one, modern people, they don't care at all about what the Pope says.
But there is a deference to Rome.
Going back to antiquity, going back to the Apostolic Age, as far as I'm concerned, you got to care what the Pope says.
Maybe it's just because I'm Italian.
You don't need to concern yourself with what the Pope ordered for lunch, okay?
You don't need to.
The Chad medieval peasant was not updating Twitter all the time.
What did the Pope say to some reporter today?
It's not, you can have what I call a Mediterranean nonchalance.
When the Pope says something that is prudential, political.
In my mind, you don't need to stay up all night worrying about it.
Okay, two follow-up questions.
Yes.
It is fair.
I love how nuanced you are on all of this.
This is amazing.
You sound like a liberal a little bit.
Nuancing.
You're a disciple of John Henry Newman.
Fair enough.
So could you see from the Protestant perspective and from the Orthodox perspective how there's been many contradictions, or specifically on that one?
Let me just not say many and be general.
But that seems, from the outside looking in, of like, man, there was a lot of executions.
And now it's like, not so much.
Can you see how that's a contradiction?
Yeah, that I don't have a follow-up.
I don't think it's a contradiction, but it's kind of two layers of the public.
I know you don't think it's a contradiction.
I'm saying, can you see from our perspective?
Totally can.
Because there's this kind of flattening, basically, of these two layers.
Doctrine, dogma, you know, perennial teachings of the church, and a kind of practical weighing in on politics.
There's always been, religious authorities have always had something to say about politics.
It was pronounced in the West because the Western Roman Empire collapsed, and so the Pope had this unifying, even political authority.
But he's dealing with, in some cases, Gothic kings, some of whom were heretics, Aryans, whatever.
In the East, they always had much more centralized political authority in the person of the Eastern Emperor.
So because of that, I don't know, there's a kind of we recognize a distinction between the secular and the religious, that they play on one another, but there, I mean, even Dante wrote a whole beautiful piece about this in Monarchia, about the distinction between the two.
It's not all the same, but it can seem that way if the Pope is talking about environmental policy in some modern nation.
Yeah, there's a lot of things.
So the two categories are doctrine and dogma, and the second category is, what was the political issues.
Political issues.
Just modern political issues.
So death penalty, bad political issues.
Now, what if, paint a picture for you, what if all of a sudden the Catholic Church comes out and says, yeah, we know doctrine, dogma is like same-sex couples, not good, but go ahead and let them get married.
We're already blessing the unions.
Go ahead and let them get married.
And gay marriage, it's cool.
Would that then contradict the doctrine and dogma?
A famous Catholic debater said, if the Catholic Church ever allowed gay marriage, that would completely invalidate the entire Catholic Church.
Would you agree to that?
How would you feel about if it was gay marriage?
I'm reasonably confident that that could not happen.
What if it did?
It wouldn't invalidate the Catholic Church.
No, it wouldn't invalidate the Catholic Church.
It would mean that some prelate or someone was spouting heresy, which has happened over the years.
But that would not supersede clear scriptural teaching and 2,000 years of magisterial authority.
It wouldn't happen.
Now, the reason why I'm confident that that would not happen is even just looking historically, a lot of other ecclesial communities have spun off.
I like how you call this ecclesio community.
Ecclesio communities.
Yes.
You got our own churches, but you're like cute little ecclesiastics.
It's part of the mystical body of Christ, albeit not in the fullness of the world.
That you sound like an Orthodox.
But Martin Luther, I don't think would have been totally down with Steve and Bill getting married.
I don't think Zwingli or Calvin would be into that either.
Agreed.
And yet, there are some people who would call themselves Lutherans today who support that.
Obviously, the Anglican Church supports that.
Plenty of other, even plenty of non-denominational churches are funded.
We got a name for those folks.
You call them heretics.
Heretic.
I was going to say, is it fatal here?
We don't do any stuff with them.
We don't invite heretics to our events.
We don't partner with heretics.
We're like, they're bad.
But I would say you look at the church, the Catholic Church, there are plenty of liberal priests, some of whom go on TV who seem to push the envelope.
I don't want to name these Jesuits, but they seem to push the envelope.
And yet even they don't go that far.
And so the fact that the Catholic Church has survived through modernity, despite all of the problems of this fallen world with the men who run the show, to me, that's an evidence that we're actually, I feel pretty good about it.
I would be willing to wager every dollar to my name that at no point ever will the Catholic Church redefine marriage, say.
And I don't know that I would say that about other communities.
All right.
That's a big wager.
That's another wager.
Should we do another wager?
Yeah, yeah, we are.
I know.
We might not be around to prove it.
People, someone's going to Google your net worth after this.
Okay.
I'm also going to need a raise from the Daily Watch.
All right.
I got to sneak out, Michael, but I can't resist a good theological debate.
Yeah, you're leaving?
You're leaving.
I got to go film other things.
What about when the hard ones come up and I need to follow?
I know.
I'm sorry.
Maybe I'll feel the vibes.
I'll get my phone.
I'm up.
You're up.
Who's winning?
Clear the idea.
I think we're tied.
We're tied.
Yeah, okay.
Okay.
I clear button.
Now, before we get to this prompt, we have to watch this video.
Alright.
Alright.
Bye.
Alright.
Is rap music cultural appropriation?
Wait, wait.
Hold on.
Is rap music cultural appropriation?
Yes.
Not fit for liturgy.
That's not the question.
Is it cultural appropriation?
Cultural appropriation of what?
Like, is it mixing genres and stealing from any other genre?
Is it essentially Armenian or is it something else?
I have to answer your...
I don't understand.
Are you an appropriator?
Am I an appropriator?
Well, I don't want, that's your word.
I would say appropriate.
Proproita.
Proproprieta.
Yeah.
Is rap music.
I think the question would be better, like, are white dudes making rap music culturally appropriating?
And are Armenians white?
I mean, that's a whole separate rabbit hole.
We could go down.
So is that what they're Yes.
are you appropriate is a non-black artist yes who is making you're literally from the caucuses i'm I'm a real-time.
You're as Caucasian as they get.
Yeah.
The rest of you guys are frauds.
Yes, yes.
And the Sicilians have always been a little African.
Okay.
What would you say?
Is it cultural appropriation?
It's a great question.
All right.
I got it wrong.
I said yes.
I said it is.
Oh.
How is it not cultural appropriation?
Because I think the beautiful part about cultural is that you're blending and breeding together different aspects that are creating in America what we would call a melting pot.
Therefore, you are appropriating some other culture.
You're using cultural appropriation.
Give me my point back.
You're using cultural appropriation.
He just said in his explanation that I was right.
So I think it's because cultural appropriation would be a negative connotation.
It has an.
I like it, though.
I think appropriating culture.
When I think of cultural appropriation, I think of like, I think this is, this would get me canceled.
I think of rappers who will use gospel music and elements of gospel music to create a feel while rapping about the most debaucherous, interesting, awful things.
So I think that's actually appropriating Christian culture or like a music video.
There was a priest that I actually met in New York who allowed a music video to be shot in one of his churches.
Sabrina Carpenter, right?
Yes.
Who I actually like.
And I like the priest that I met.
He was the sweetest guy.
I'm not going to name check him here.
Maybe I'll make a video about it later.
And he used the church.
And I think that's cultural appropriation.
So I take it as a negative term.
You're saying it can only be negative.
That's the way I heard it.
Yeah, that's the way I heard it.
Versus seeing it as a positive of like, hey, we're going to create, we're going to take Japanese and Chinese food and create Asian fusion.
Because, you know, not to be too glib about it, but you know, scripture tells us Christianity is appropriative.
You know, there's neither Jew nor Greek.
Yes.
Right?
We're all one.
So like, I agree, it has this negative connotation.
I think it's good, though.
I mean, America has always kind of thrived on cultural appropriation, going back to the Mayflower.
And I think it's good.
But to your point, you want to appropriate good things.
Yes.
Now, what do you think, like you mentioned the rappers who bring out who bring gospel into their stuff?
Pre-Heil Hitler, Kanye would do that, I think in a pretty good way.
I actually, I have a kind of esoteric take on this Hitler song too.
But when he would do, you know, like, gee, sauce, walks, like, that was a good song.
I'm glad he was rapping about that.
His Jesus is King album.
I thought that was, it's not my speed, but I thought it was good generally.
So it's okay if they do it, like in that case, in Jesus Walks.
Was that a good use of cultural appropriation?
So Jesus Walk, well, Jesus Walks is like a, I mean, it's a classic, amazing record that it's difficult for me to detach my emotional, you know, appreciation for that record versus the standard of it.
So I think when someone is authentically sharing their experience the way Kanye did on Jesus is King or on the Donda album, I don't think there's anything wrong with that because I think Kanye was going through his journey with Jesus and trying to figure it out and wrestling.
And unfortunately, he had some setbacks in that that I think he's trying to find his way back to the Lord.
I'd like to believe that.
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Versus, hey, I'm going to take these chords.
I'm going to take this style of music and then just rap about craziness.
And that does happen where they're taking stuff that's, you know, overtly Christian sounding and they're rapping themes and concepts that are incongruent with said value.
So can I ask you a follow-up question?
Okay, so there's a lot of railing between, so you like cultural appropriation as a positive.
If it's good.
If you're appropriating a good culture.
But then what's the difference between that and what the issue that a lot of folks have now, especially on the right, is like multiculturalism.
Because when I hear multiculturalism, I think of what you described as good cultural appropriation.
Yet we're saying, but multiculturalism seems to mean something different now?
Or have I always misunderstood that?
No, I think multiculturalism is kind of the opposite of cultural appropriation in the sense that it's saying, look, black people need to celebrate Kwanzaa.
Christmas is for the white kids, Hanukkah's for the Jewish kids, and Kwanzaa for the black kids.
I was like, wait a second.
Aren't blacks Christian?
I've met plenty of Christian black people.
And they say, no, no, no.
Basically, you're fixed in your culture, which is itself.
And all these cultures have to coexist together.
Yes, but without really sharing anything.
Got it.
Without ever giving anything up, without ever taking anything on.
So to me, it's like this, there's the image of the melting pot, for better or worse.
And the multiculturalism is the image of the salad bowl.
You know, the tomato doesn't take on parts of the cucumber.
But in that beef stew, man, it's all kind of getting jumbled up in it, right?
So the libs have obviously pushed the multiculturalism thing.
But I say, no, no, no, let's appropriate even more.
Let's appropriate, well, if there is a good part to appropriate from rap music, I guess there are some good beats or whatever, then you appropriate that part and you get rid of the gang shit.
Absolutely, womanizing or whatever.
Yeah, and that's happened.
That's happened within Christian music.
I'm not sure how much you're keeping up with Christian hip-hop.
Guys like Indy Tribe, guys like John Key.
I played on the ukulele.
No big deal.
I would love to play it.
Forrest Frank, you know, is doing a lot of amazing components of hip-hop music in his art and is, I mean, he's doing arenas, selling out arenas.
Yeah, yeah.
And it fuses all these beautiful elements together that I think is awesome.
Now, do you think rap music is music?
It can be.
I think for it to be music, there has to be some element to it beyond the percussive.
Yeah, melody.
There has to be at least a melody, something vaguely.
People would agree with that.
Yes.
Though I'm with Plato, I think we have to be very careful about music.
So I'm not like, bring it on, man.
Music more than any other art form can bypass the reason straight to the sensitive soul.
And so you've got to be very careful what you're putting into your ears.
And so a lot of, and that's especially true with percussive music, which is why, you know, it's hard to be brainwashed by brahms.
And you can be brainwashed by some rapper, you know, by a puff daddy.
Oh, absolutely.
You have to be very careful.
You reference Puff Daddy.
Okay, that's good.
Yeah, I never, I'm salty because I never got an invite to a white party or a freak off.
And I'm glad I didn't want to go, but yeah, it's true.
But I was, you want to be invited.
You think rap music is music?
Take that.
It can be Shapiro.
It's some kind of music.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But he's now a number one billboard charting rapper.
Yeah, with Dr. Dreidel.
Tom McDonald.
Tom McDonald, yeah, Dr. Dreidel.
And I'm a little salty about that too, okay?
That's all right.
Okay.
All right.
You ready?
Yes.
It's on me.
Video or prompt?
Okay.
Okay.
This is interesting.
So I broke my back exactly two weeks ago.
Is today day 14?
Got an x-ray and a CAT scan.
It showed that I had multiple fractures.
Could not move an inch without excuse anything.
I wake up today, forget to put on my back brace, just start doing the morning.
I pick Bodhi up, and then I realize, wait, I'm not wearing my brace.
What is going on?
I'm wearing my brace right now for precaution.
Order an urgent x-ray, go get the x-ray.
I have complete healing in my back.
I have no fractures in my back.
No sign of a fracture in my back.
So, praise God.
We saw a miracle.
Did we just see a miracle?
So I get to.
Do I guess first what your answer is going to be or do I wait?
And if you think you know me better than I know myself, maybe you do.
I'm going to read your face here.
Okay.
Did we see, did we just see a miracle?
Oh, man, this is hard because you're Catholic.
I say yes.
I want you say yes.
I'll give it to you because it's not within my competency to declare a miracle.
However, if you say, gun to my head, you have to bet, you know, you're going to the conference, this is on.
I would say, yeah, I'd bet it probably was.
If it is not explainable by natural means, and this guy is saying, you know, we prayed for this or whatever, you know, we've.
That's Forrest Frank, that's my friend.
Force Frank, yeah, yeah.
I remember when that happened.
I would say, yeah, good chance it's a miracle.
Miracles happen.
Yeah.
You know, it's just even in ecclesial gatherings.
Even to Protestants.
Look, even I would say if a miracle can happen to a Hindu, I guess it could happen to a Protestant, too.
Well, thank you for that.
I'll take it.
No, and also because, you know, a miracle is a working of God's grace, supernatural race.
So it's not, you know, I don't get to say, well, no, I don't want a miracle.
And Forest Frank seems like a nice guy.
But I don't say, well, I don't like Johnny.
I don't.
Because God is not working in a way that I have prescribed, he's not allowed to do that.
You don't want to tell God he's not allowed to do things.
That's good.
He will prove you wrong.
Yeah, that's good.
And I think I probably get a lot of fleck from some of my Protestant brethren who get mad when I acknowledge miracles in the Catholic Church or miracles in the Orthodox Church.
So pretty good.
I'm glad we agree there.
Okay, of course.
David, what are we going to, are we going to pull up any Catholic miracles?
No, they're all miracles from God.
Okay.
I'm up.
This is.
Oh, gosh.
Are you ready for this?
It's the rapid fire round.
Three questions, 30 seconds, no times to outthink each other.
Let's go.
They change the colors.
That's how you know we're in.
Right now, am I losing?
That's bad.
I'm losing one to three.
But even though it's a good thing.
There was the one reason.
Anyway, that's fine.
That's fine.
I'm not.
Look, it's good.
If I lose, I win because I get to go to the blessed God summon.
All right.
Are the questions written here?
Oh, yes, they are.
Okay.
This is where I fumble my lead, huh?
Okay.
Is the Annabelle doll actually demon-possessed?
No.
No.
Is the gateway process, which is I've never heard of.
I don't know what that is.
Is it just witchcraft for Fizz?
All right.
I don't even know what that is, and I got that right.
That was good.
Dang it.
Is hustle culture antithetical to Christian culture?
Ah, these are too easy.
Yes.
Yeah.
The hustle culture.
He just took the lead.
Can I ask?
That was good.
That was good.
Well, you might get it back on your end.
The only one, I don't know about Annabelle or whatever, and obviously not like.
I don't think an inanimate object can be.
An inanimate object cannot be demon-possessed.
Unless it's like Chucky or whatever.
And then Gateway, what is the Gateway process?
The Gateway Process is this real interesting CIA operative where they started using psychics and different experiments of tapping into the spirit.
Oh, yeah, I've read about this.
Yeah, super trivial.
This is all documented.
You could pull it up in CIA documents, and they were able to track down certain information in the culture.
That's the thing.
It probably kind of worked.
Yeah.
It wasn't like 100% accurate, but there were times where they would get certain information.
Yeah, okay, I totally buy that.
Hustle culture.
Is that like, I'm going to get up on my grind?
I'm going to, you know, I'm going to go get that green, get them stacks.
Whatever.
I don't know.
You're best rapper impersonation again.
Thanks.
Thanks, Jimmy.
I'm training.
I love it.
Why is it antithetical to Christian culture?
I agree.
Yeah.
I think what's antithetical is what is your utmost aim?
What are you shooting for?
And I think the beautiful part about following Jesus is Jesus becomes the thing we're aiming at.
And as Jesus is who we're aiming at, that is going to be contextual to where we are.
So, man, if you're in North Korea or China, aiming for Jesus is going to cost you probably everything.
Whereas in the West, aiming for Jesus, trying to live Jesus' ways, trying to apply what he's done in your heart to live it out, I think is generally, not always, because you can still get hit by a car, cancer can still come.
You can still be assassinated.
Yeah, you can still be assassinated.
But generally speaking, will lead to flourishing, generally speaking.
Okay, that's a fair point.
And also, I like it because, you know, the hustle culture makes an ultimate end of an instrumental good.
So like money can be, it's not that money is evil.
The love of money is root of all evil.
But it's like you can use money in wonderful ways, charitable ways, take care of your family, but it has to be for something.
It really has to be for the glory of God.
Right down to the martini.
The martini is for the glory of God in as much as it facilitates a good conversation with somebody, you know, right?
So, okay.
All right, that's good.
So I took the lead.
You're up.
Gosh.
Here we go.
All right.
Rapid fire.
What is Sola Scriptura a recipe for Eamon Hillman style TikTok theology?
I don't even know who Eamon Hillman is.
I don't either.
Okay.
I got to clear that.
Okay.
Yeah, for sure.
Okay.
Are most Hollywood elites involved in the Illuminati or Freemasonry?
Okay.
We would care a lot more about the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict if Armenia had more oil and lobbyists.
Oh gosh.
I gotta get one of these right.
Okay.
Darn.
Yes.
Yes, obviously, when you have lobbyists, it is.
But the actual reason, I'm as pro-Armenia as it is possible for an American to be.
But the actual hard reason why we're not more into it is because they're allies with Russia and Iran.
And so from a grand strategic standpoint, it's hard to support Armenia.
But I think the U.S. government should out of Christian charity and fidelity.
But anyway, okay.
Darn.
How do we do it with the other ones?
Yeah, you got them all right.
Yes.
Yeah, you got them all right.
Okay, all right.
Okay.
This is great.
It's time for the final round.
All right.
The prompt will be read.
We will both lock in our answers, then move our glasses to yes or no to see if we can read each other's minds, not through witchcraft.
This round is worth double points.
It could change everything.
Right now, the score is four, me, six, you.
Now, the way we're going to do it here, I'm going to put my drink on my name.
You're going to put your drink on your name.
All right.
Let's take a sip first.
Is that okay?
That's good.
It's pure gin, I think, right?
Room testing.
It's actually vodka.
It's the Russian side.
Yes.
Okay.
So we read the prompt.
We lock in our answers first on what we would answer for ourselves.
What we would answer for ourselves.
Yes.
And then we move each other's drink to where we think the other person would like it.
Okay, okay.
All right.
All right.
So do we both have our cart?
No, there'll be two.
There'll be two.
There'll be two.
Okay.
You leave that there.
You got it.
Get that.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
Have you ever seen a demon manifest?
In person?
Yes.
In person.
Not counting videos, right?
In person.
Yeah, you see, yeah.
Okay.
Your poker face is killing me.
You're going to say.
And you got to move mine where you think I'm going to go.
Oh, okay.
Okay, ready?
One, two, three.
Correct.
Okay.
I got it wrong.
It was 50-50.
I was going to say no.
Oh, man.
My wife's going to be so angry when I leave town again in March.
Thank you.
Okay.
So you have.
You haven't.
So I have not.
In person.
Yeah.
I have not.
I have friends that do a lot of the deliverance stuff.
Yeah.
And they have shown me videos and they've talked about it extensively.
And I believe demonization is real.
I believe it could happen.
I think it does happen.
A lot of what we're dealing with is stuff in the unseen realm manifesting itself in reality.
I have never seen it in person.
Have you ever heard one?
Like in person?
Yeah.
No, no.
I have.
This is going to be really sad.
You ready for this?
I have tried to cast out a demon once.
Did it work?
No, I think it was just a dude with schizophrenia.
Yeah, okay.
Okay.
But it could.
You really tried, though.
And then I was like, I think you just need to take your meds, dude.
Yeah, this is, I've never been involved in an exorcism or anything like that, but I do have friends who have done it and exorcist friends too.
And, you know, the first thing they do is they basically check for mental illnesses.
Yes.
It's kind of like with a other kind of, like a miracle.
You'd first say, is there a natural explanation?
Okay, you exhaust all the natural diagnoses.
Okay, maybe this is something else.
You ever have sleep paralysis?
Yes.
So I think sleep paralysis is a medical condition that is not necessarily always attributable to the supernatural.
I might have heard a demon once.
I might have heard one.
I've only experienced sleep paralysis.
I didn't think about it.
I didn't think about it with sleep paralysis.
Now, the answer would still be the same because you don't see.
Well, I guess you could, but I think one time I might have heard one.
Yeah.
I'm with you.
Yeah.
I'm with you.
I used to have sleep paralysis really bad.
Did you?
Yeah.
And not anymore.
Yeah.
Because someone casted all the demons out of me.
Maybe, yeah, like legitimately.
That was a joke.
Yeah, yeah.
That was a joke.
It could be.
I was at a baptism the other day, godfather to another kid.
And, you know, the traditional rite of baptism involves multiple exorcisms.
Baptism.
Yep.
Oh, wow.
So you cast out the demons and then you put a little salt on their tongue, sal sapiencia.
It's great because little babies have, it's the first time they taste salt.
And it's like very, they're not reacting to the demons, I don't think.
I think it's mostly the salt.
Okay.
How many kids have you godfathered?
I am a godfather of five kids.
All right.
To my knowledge.
I think only five.
This is where my rapper identity is.
I was going to say, how many?
Like, whoa.
It's eight, too.
There's no coming back from me.
Yeah, there's no.
Okay.
All right.
Well.
All right.
So I'm asking you the last question.
Yes.
This is, I'm going to lose anyway, but maybe I can finish my drink.
Okay.
Okay, this is good.
Are the pyramids of Egypt remnants of pre-flood technology?
I said no.
Well, I didn't.
I guess it doesn't matter.
All right.
All right.
It doesn't matter.
He's just getting.
No, he's twice.
I ruined this.
All right.
Now you have to guess how I would answer.
Give me my points.
Oh!
They, it's kind of That's a cheap answer.
They literally are remnants of pre-flood technology because they were made using technology.
Oh, no, shoot.
I was reading that as ancient technology.
Yes.
So basically, were they pre-flood is the question.
Were they built pre-flood?
Right.
Well, I want the points anyway, so I'll say yes.
But I'm a little more agnostic on that question.
You don't think so, though.
You think flood happened, then they built the pyramids.
Yeah.
Why do you say that?
Because I'm a Protestant.
I just read the Bible in linear fashion.
And I don't have any magistrates or popes that tell me otherwise.
Where are the pyramids in the Bible?
Hold on.
I'm going to look into.
Because, you know, there's a strange fact, which is that Cleopatra lived closer in time to the building of the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid than she did to the building of the Great Pyramid of Eza.
Even by experiencing you don't think there's any world in which the pyramids are much older than we think they are.
I think it's possible.
Yeah.
I think it's possible.
And you're right.
The scriptures don't describe the pyramids.
There's no book of the pyramids.
Yeah, there's no book.
I think whenever I read Egypt, all the Christian movies I saw make me think that the Israelites were building the pyramids.
Yeah, okay, all right.
And so that's not in there.
You're right.
Okay.
That's the same.
That's me getting away from somebody.
So what do we get?
Okay, final score.
I still lose.
Yeah.
Four to six.
That means I'm going to your conference.
You're going to my conference.
All right, that's great.
That's a win as far as I'm concerned.
A win for the Protestants.
It's a win.
We needed one.
It's devastating.
Ever since the 16th century, you guys are racking up dubs.
Go get Ruslan's new book, Godly Ambition, Unlocking the Full Potential of Time.
That's what I said.
Unlocking.
I thought I said unblocking.
Not on block.
Unblock him on social media and get the full potential of your time, talent, and treasure.
