Ep. 6 - Christian Dating in a Woke World

Ever wonder how your spiritual beliefs and political views can shape your love life? Get ready to explore the minefield of Christian dating in our hyper-political, 'woke' age. We'll guide you through the murky intersections of faith, ideology, and romance, promising some eye-opening revelations about the current dating landscape and how it's being altered by societal shifts. Navigating this terrain is far from simple, but we're here to offer insights and strategies for single Christians seeking relationships that resonate with their core values.

Our conversation takes a turn through the humorous and the serious, from "freedom fries" to the profound impact of politics on personal relationships. We're joined by guests who offer their perspectives on the challenges faced by conservative evangelicals in a society marked by a reluctance to date across political lines. The realities of online dating, ideological dealbreakers, and the shaping force of social media are all dissected with candor and depth. Through it all, we're committed to uncovering how singles can stay true to their convictions while on the quest for love.

To wrap things up, we ponder the core purpose of Christian dating and how ideologies like 'wokeness' and critical theory can complicate the search for a spiritually aligned partner. We discuss not just the importance of shared values, but also the ways in which a partner's beliefs can deeply influence one's faith journey. Our episode is an earnest reflection on maintaining Christian integrity within the complex tapestry of modern relationships. Join us for heartfelt advice and thoughtful dialogue on thriving in love without compromising your faith.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Alright, everyone, welcome back to the Psych and Theo podcast, a podcast where we discuss church culture and all things Bible related. I'm Sam, I'm Tim, hello hello, hello, hello man. We're talking about a very fun topic, I think.

Speaker 2: 0:18

Fun yeah fun fun Air quotes fun.

Speaker 1: 0:22

We're talking about Christian dating in a woke world. What does that mean? We don't know we're going to talk about it. What we do know, we're going to talk about it right now. But again, if you're following us on Instagram, on Spotify, on Apple Podcast, we thank you so much for it. Actually, one thing that we do want to request from you guys is we've gone in. This would be a little bit over 10 episodes Start leaving reviews. If you could leave us a review on what you think about the podcast, that would help us to know how to format our episodes and even just discussions that we're having. We think we're having some good conversations around things that are related to you, but you can help us out a lot with that by submitting your reviews.

Speaker 2: 1:09

Tell us how to get better. Tell us how to get better. We want to get better. Yeah, we want to get better.

Speaker 1: 1:12

We're doing this podcasting thing.

Speaker 2: 1:15

In fact, we just had a friend donate some money to us for some better equipment.

Speaker 1: 1:19

Yeah, should we give him a shout?

Speaker 2: 1:20

out? Yeah, should we do it in public? Should we ask him first before we do that? Let's do that.

Speaker 1: 1:26

I don't think so, because we're going to have him as a guest at some point, but let's ask him first before we do it. Okay, we'll ask him first.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Yeah, but we did have a good friend reach out and donate some money to us. May there be more good friends like that.

Speaker 1: 1:38

This podcast is currently operating on the donations. I guess he's the first friend, but if you want to help us out, there's many ways to do that.

Speaker 2: 1:48

And our own checkbooks and our own checkbooks.

Speaker 1: 1:50

We're invested, Like we are invested in this and we hope that we need the Koch brothers to sign on with us.

Speaker 2: 1:57

Yeah, All right. So also just real quick, if you are. Okay, this episode is about Christian dating in the woke world. If you are a married person and you're listening to this episode, don't tune out. Listen to this episode because your single friends you're going to hear things probably in this episode that your single friends are going to echo at some point and it's going to be good to have some practical advice to give them. Okay, so just because you're married or maybe you're engaged or you're already kind of dating someone that's pretty normal and sound and a good Christian person, there's going to be some good things that you can take from this, that you can help maybe your single brother or sister in Christ.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Yeah, yeah, I like that. That's good Setting the stage for this topic. I think one of the places that we wanted to start was kind of defining what do we mean when we say Christian dating in a woke world. That word woke has a lot of leading attached to it. There's a lot, that's a point that too.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Yeah, there's a lot we could unpack here, so I'll try to be really quick. The term woke is way overused now it's almost broken beyond repair because people have used it to basically refer to anything. That's not far right. If you're not lockstep, toe the line with a certain political persuasion, then you must be quote, unquote woke. That is such a lazy way of thinking about what woke is. So let's unpack what woke is first, so we know what it is, and then we can talk about how this relates to dating.

Speaker 2: 3:34

So wokeness comes from a progressive ideology or something called critical theory. We don't have time to unpack what critical theory is at large. Man, I should have got some good books to recommend on this, sorry I didn't, but we'll come back to it. But critical theory is basically a postmodern philosophy that views social relationships through the lens of class struggle. But particularly this class struggle is delineated by race. It's not economic, like rich versus poor, but by race, gender, sex, ethnicity, religion and some other categories where you would distinguish one group in society from another and rank them according to their power and privilege the power and privilege that accrues to them by virtue of being belonging to a status, having some status as part of some group.

Speaker 1: 4:27

Those would be the two identifying factors right, the power and privilege within a relationship.

Speaker 2: 4:33

Yeah, so yeah, and we get into, like the modern definition of racism that people always throw around, which is incoherent and absurd, is that racism equals power and privilege, instead of the classic definition of racism, which again, that's another topic, maybe we can address for another day.

Speaker 2: 4:49

But yeah so power and privilege, you know, enable certain classes to oppress other people. Okay, so you look at the, you look through society through the lens of oppressor and oppressed. So woke ideology focuses. So what it means to be woke is that you are, your eyes are open to this.

Speaker 2: 5:07

Okay so most people are asleep. They would say that even the oppressors are asleep, and then others who have internalized their oppression are asleep. So wokeness, getting woke is to be have your eyes opened to it. It's not the different than red pill, okay. Yeah, which we will talk about some point.

Speaker 2: 5:23

So woke ideology focuses on dismantling systems of oppression that hinder marginalized minority groups, that create these. These systems create barriers for their progress. Okay, so the wokeness is about dismantling those barriers, like the prac prac, being a good, woke person is about calling out those barriers and then trying to dismantle them. The barriers themselves are a result of explicit or implicit bias on the part of a dominant oppressor class, be that race, gender, you know, whatever religion. This class sets up barriers to preserve and perpetuate their power and privilege over everyone else, and so the job of a woke person is to identify those barriers, which most people may be unaware of, and then to call them out and dismantle them, because they're perpetuating oppressive class structure. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:17

Okay, this is. This is the operating lens through which a wokeness.

Speaker 2: 6:21

You know woke people operate. So, in other words, to put this in, try to put this in layman's terms, wokeness means that you look at the, you look at every, you look at people as oppressor or oppressed, depending on certain things like what race they are, what gender they are, what religion they belong to. If a person belongs to a group that has more social power, or perceived social power, then they have privilege quote, unquote privilege and they have that privilege that they enjoy over other groups and they can exercise that privilege to their advantage and perpetuate it through systems.

Speaker 2: 6:54

Okay. So an example of this would be a man they're going to.

Speaker 3: 6:59

they're going to get me on this one a white, heterosexual, cisgendered, able-bodied Christian man.

Speaker 2: 7:05

Cisgendered means like there's only two genders man and woman. Okay, right, able-bodied pretty self-explanatory, because that's another class thing for them. Christian man I am all of those things. Okay. I am white, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied Christian. Okay, and I'm a man. I am a person like that, like me. I belong to all of the classes that enjoy this perceived. I belong to the class that enjoys the greatest amount of privilege and power in our culture. So, therefore, I am enjoying the benefits of a system that's set up to benefit me, like I'm basically, like my participation in the system perpetuates the oppression of the system okay.

Speaker 2: 7:51

And I enjoy those benefits okay, so I need to check my privilege Whenever. If I say, oh, you need to work hard to get through in life, well, yeah, you're a white man. You could say that that's how people, that's how woke people dismiss the achievements of people not like them, basically, or people who are of a perceived oppressor class. An oppressed class this is what I call the royal flush of oppression would be a black, lesbian, transgender, disabled, islamic woman, Right.

Speaker 1: 8:25

Okay.

Speaker 2: 8:28

All of those markers would be intersections of oppression, by which this person could claim that they've been oppressed, and for many angles.

Speaker 1: 8:42

Okay, Right Now, tim, how does that differ from feministry? Because it seems they have some overlap between this idea of woke and feministry, which we talked about a couple of times, because they look at it as a power differential, which I see it as more of the pressing concern within relationships Like the woke. It's an ideology. It does see everything through his power, class struggle. But is it different at all or is it pretty much along the same vein?

Speaker 2: 9:07

as a feminist, no, no, they're related. So feminism at least the radical feminists that we see today are a string of wokeness. Now, wokeness tends to be used with reference to race mostly, but all of it comes out of critical theory. This is what people need to understand, and critical theory is a postmodernism which is like relativism of knowledge. There's no way you can access truth. All claims to truth are really just claims to power, to grabs for power. So anyone who says that, well, the genders are supposed to be this way Men do this, women do this Well, that's not a troop claim, that's just a claim to power, and most men make those claims. So feminism, radical feminism is about dismantling the power structures of the patriarchy. So that's an example of wokeness. The Barbie movie is a good example of this. If you watch the Barbie movie, it's terrible. It's a terrible movie, is that it? But I think you should watch it to be aware of what Because, the messaging.

Speaker 2: 10:09

I mean it's so ham-fisted, it's so lazy and it's messaging. I can't even respect it as a deceptive movie. It's like I at least can respect Clever Deception. Okay, a movie that's like so progressive and just insidious in its outlook on the world. But it's Clever, I'm like all right, I can at least respect that. But something like Barbie, it's so ham-fisted.

Speaker 2: 10:35

It's just made up. Yeah, but there's a scene in Barbie where all the Barbies they internalize the patriarchy and then they have to basically get snapped out of it by their Barbie friends. Basically they get woked. Right right.

Speaker 2: 10:49

Okay, and they, yeah, okay. So that's an example of that. Yeah, feminism would fall into Radical feminism, would fall into this kind of woke, broad woke umbrella. Yeah, so that's what wokeness is. Okay, let's kind of fast-forward a little bit or at least just paint the picture of what the culture is like. We live in a culture today because wokeness compels, like, if someone is truly on this guise of critical theory, and Now the left hates the term woke, okay, because the right has taken it and they've used it as a pejorative term. It was a term that they used for themselves and now the right has used it as this like make fun of them thing, so they don't like using it anymore. So they'll say other things about themselves. But critical theory and those who are in this vein, like critical race theory and others, they, because all of America or all of American society is oppressive and we need to address it in some way. All facets of life eventually become political. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:53

Okay, so we are witnessing the politicization of everything. The politic yeah, did I say that right? The politicization of everything, yeah, so politics, politics is. I don't want to paint this idealic past, because politics has always been an important part of American life, so let's not pretend like there's some idealic past where we didn't have any problems. Okay, it's not the 1950s, all right, that's just not true. However, in the past few decades, there's been this exponential spike in political messaging among things that used to be non-political, or mostly non-political. Things could be seen in sports, food products, beverages, car companies, clothing razors remember the Gillette ad.

Speaker 1: 12:36

I remember that yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:38

Air styles, even underwear and body imaging in department stores, like the positive body imaging. All these things are political messaging where 20, 30 years ago that wasn't happening. So something has changed in our culture and there's been this increasing politicization of every aspect of life. All of life is politics. Basically, if you think about it, television has always had some political pieces, like political productions. There would be a show that would be political but other shows that weren't. But now it's hard to find a show that's not political, a new one coming out. Think of, like Netflix and all these, all the things coming out on Disney and all that so many just overtly political shows, and it makes for really bad writing.

Speaker 2: 13:21

But another topic for another day. Really funny example of this would be like in 2003 when we invaded. It's not funny that we invaded Iraq. I'm not saying that that's not the funny example. The funny example was France opposed us invading Iraq in 2003. And in response, conservative America decided that we were no longer going to call French fries French fries. We were going to call them freedom fries. I kid you not, this was a.

Speaker 2: 13:51

This was a thing and so if you called French fries French fries, you were on American according to the conservative, so that would be a stupid example of like you're politicizing French fries. Yeah, I know, yeah, so so I'm going to go get some freedom fries after this All right, anyway, so now let's bring this back to dating.

Speaker 2: 14:12

Okay, when everything is politicized, especially with the wokeness stuff, okay. This takes an outsized position in human relationships, including dating relationships. In other words, the more politics are part of everyday life, the higher the impact that political differences in your dating relationship are going to have.

Speaker 1: 14:34

Okay.

Speaker 2: 14:35

So political views, because political views are reflective of deeper ideological worldviews Okay, they are indicative of how you, of your religious worldview, of your moral worldview. So that's why politics, when they become ubiquitous in our culture, they have an enormous influence on our ability to find a mate, a suitable mate. Right.

Speaker 2: 14:59

Okay so, and the trends in politics then are that things are becoming more and more political, but the left and the right are moving further and further apart as well. So there's the the moderate middle is becoming thinned out, and there's it's like more right and more left, but fewer in the middle. Not that moderate politics is a virtue, I'm not saying that. But what remains when there's a hollowing out of sort of this, like ability to think across the aisle and fellowship with people who have little, some differences, and what remains is mostly aggressive, like, especially on the left, because the moderate left is almost completely gone. What remains is a mostly aggressive radical left coalition who are largely socialist or communist in our worldview.

Speaker 2: 15:52

There are some there's sort of a there's. There's sort of a there's. There's there's contingent of moderate leftists that still hang on to power, but the left in America is moving very, very far left. And they'll try to say, well, the right is moving far right, but that's so based in statistics like there's no statistics that bear that out, it's just based in total ignorance. So why do I pick on the left here? Well, because women, especially college educated white women, are the most significant demographic for moving to the left. They're becoming more and more liberal, and by liberal I don't mean moderate liberal, I mean progressive, woke liberal. Okay, that's the demographic that has shifted the most of all the demographics, that's the one that's shifted the most and that does affect the dating world.

Speaker 1: 16:42

Yeah, and here's the question that comes up is is this really an issue for Christian men and women or is this more an issue for conservative men and women? Because the people that we're talking about are radical and they have these views that are obviously gonna impact the way that they encounter relationships. But we're going to assume that you guys are audience, that you guys are not on those two extremes. Let's just assume that, for the sake of this argument, and that you're in the middle and that the struggle that you're having is related to this idea of wokeness, because it's influencing culture. Maybe it influenced some of your ideas about dating, some of your ideas about men or about women. So all of these are definite factors.

Speaker 1: 17:32

So I guess the question is is how much of it is actually influencing the dating scene? Is it more about do you actually believe what you're talking about in regards to your Christian values? But we could also argue that, well, the way that you believe politically tells me something about your values. So, whether that be again, even if you're in the middle, where in the middle do you land? Do you lean more towards conservative and more towards liberal? And you might say if you're somewhere near the middle, should we really make it a big deal Like what is the actual issue in the dating scene for Christians, so people who believe in the Bible, who believe in salvation through Christ and Christ alone? So for them, what are the struggles that they're experiencing as all of this wokeness is happening around them?

Speaker 2: 18:23

Yeah, so that's good. I liked your first question. Is this really a problem of just conservative versus liberal, or is it Christian versus non-Christian? And there's elements of both. I don't have the stats in front of me, but if we had time we could get into the stats of is Christianity the dominant religion Anymore in America? That's true, I don't know. Again, I don't have the stats in front of me, but there are fewer.

Speaker 2: 18:54

Over the last like three, four decades, the number of conservative evangelical Christians has declined rapidly. So there are fewer people who identify as conservative evangelical Christians. So that's one problem. And then you add to that the political problems of the shifting demographics. Now most conservative evangelicals are gonna be politically conservative, but not all. So there's like a double whammy of fewer Christians in general and then, in general, just a greater divide of men and women when it comes to politics.

Speaker 2: 19:32

Like let me give you this stat. This comes from a recent Gallup poll of Americans 18 to 29 years old who identify as liberal in the year 2024, 40% of women. This is Americans, just Americans. In general, 40% of women 18 to 29 identify as liberal. We're not even counting moderates, because moderates make up a big portion, so 40% consider themselves liberal. Only 25% of men do so right there. That shows you that's a huge shift. This survey was done over like a almost like 25 years. 30 years. Men have largely stayed around 25% liberal. So on average over the last 30 years roughly one in four men identify as liberal, but for women it's gone from about one in four to about four in 10. So that's a huge shift in 30 years. And again, we're not counting moderates at this point and conservatives.

Speaker 2: 20:45

We're just looking at like what's the shift in identifying as liberal.

Speaker 1: 20:51

And this causes issues with modern dating, because you don't know this stuff until you actually start talking to the person engaging with them. Obviously, if you're seeing someone in church, you get to observe them in a different side, but very rarely at least from what I've been able to see, do the political leanings of people come up in everyday conversation, unless someone's willing to go there, right. So if it's someone that you actually are dating or considering dating, that conversation will come up at some point, or you hear them have those conversations with other people and it gives you a gist of kind of what they believe. But this cause problems also because of how many people are maybe in the online dating world. I think it's the eight. So 18 to 24 year olds this is by Pew Research Center.

Speaker 1: 21:41

27% of young adults have used online dating platforms. So on a dating platform you can put whatever information you want, and I think the struggle that people are having is that once they go out on that date one, two or three is that they start figuring out all this stuff their political leanings, their actual beliefs about Christianity and their faith and it's just like there's a clash, like, well, I thought you believed this, but really you don't. So I think that's one of the modern day struggles is that we can present who we want online and then when you actually meet people, then you really start to see where those differences kind of lie, and that's a real struggle.

Speaker 2: 22:18

Yeah, yeah. Now I like that you mentioned the online dating world, because this is a lot of men experiences where women or more in the dating online dating scene, women are more likely to put their political persuasion in their profile. Really.

Speaker 2: 22:36

And to say, basically, I'm not interested in dating anyone who isn't this. So women, more than men, are more likely to impose their political view upfront in their online dating profile. That's interesting, yeah, and let me just so. We take these two things. Okay. Women in general are moving more left, and they do that. They're more likely to basically signal that in the dating world. Let me give you another stat. This is crazy. Okay, this is college students who do this. Yeah, this is an Axios poll College students, just 18 to 22,. They were asked would you do the following with someone who voted for the opposite presidential candidate? Okay, this was in 2021, so who were the candidates?

Speaker 2: 23:28

Okay. So would you go on a date with someone who voted Just voted for the opposite candidate? Okay? 31% of Republicans said no. 71% of Democrats said no. Wow.

Speaker 2: 23:43

So 71% of Democrats said no, they would not go on a date with someone who voted for, basically, donald Trump, and 31% of Republicans would say no, they wouldn't go on a date with someone who voted for Joe Biden. Now, some of that could be like. The Republicans are lower number men are just more willing to go to women on the political left, you know, but that's that's that. That alone should tell you there's a significant barrier if you are a Christian and a political conservative to boot. There's significant demographic barriers against you right now, just just as a cultural current.

Speaker 2: 24:22

Yeah so if you're like man, I can't find anyone. It's really hard. It feels like there's no one out there. There aren't people out there, but the demographics have just shifted. Okay, you're swimming in a pond that's full of a lot of fish, not like you. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Hmm.

Speaker 2: 24:41

Yeah, so, yeah, some other things that this might mean for dating is you know, if you're, if you're, if your partner is of a different political persuasion than you like In, particularly more politically progressive, because typically the it comes from this side, they're more likely to expect you to hold to their view, but not just hold to that, but to be vocal and active. Hmm, and politics conservatives are typically quieter when it comes to their politics. Progressives are not. They're typically more active, more loud, quote-unquote loud. You know, in politics, if you're dating someone like that, they will typically More than it's more. They're more probable, more likely that they will expect you to do the same thing. Another Slogan of wokeness is silence is violence. Yeah, okay, so if you're doing nothing, you are perpetuating the systems of oppression. So imagine if, like a.

Speaker 2: 25:40

Christian, white, conservative man in the dating world. It's like what are you doing to help us dismantle what? How are you using your, how are you using your privilege To dismantle the system of privilege? Okay, so that's just a silly example, but that does happen, yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:57

Yeah, yeah, no, we want to hear from from you guys. You know what. What is it? What does it look like out there in the dating world? You know some of the things that you know we're talking about here's also what's expected of you as a man or a woman if you lean one way or another, right? So part of this is this cultural expectation that is Placed on relationships, like when we talk about traditional roles, right. What does that look like? Is are there expectations within Christian dating where that's changed Because of how the culture is moving? Right? So if you view the world through the perspective or through lens of power and privilege, they could you imagine being in a relationship like that where you always Naturally assume that there is this differential? It's gonna change the way that you behave within dating. Yeah, that is a real challenge.

Speaker 2: 26:51

Yeah and so let me say one thing, and I want to kick that to you for, like, let's talk about what the purpose of dating is. Yeah, that's a Christian, what the mindset of a Christian is in dating. Okay, good, again we would say what? Why is this so serious? I think it's the presupposition or the assumption we're bringing to the table is this is the serious problem Because of how Christians view the dating.

Speaker 2: 27:12

Yeah the purpose of dating. If we're just dating for fun, who cares? You know, it's true, okay. But if you are dating someone who is woke, let's say, be that a man or a woman, that's going to affect Certain expectations they have of you with respect to gender roles or identities. Gender identities we really want to go there. Race relations, immigration, welfare, healthcare, abortion, taxation I got a funny not a funny story about abortion, but a personal story about that one criminal justice, education. Do you guys plan to have kids? What are you gonna do about education? This person will expect you to have the same views as them, okay, and that's gonna affect things like where you, where you are gonna live, you're gonna raise kids, you're gonna send certain schools. How are you gonna vote All these things?

Speaker 1: 28:10

Yeah, and where do you bend, like I mean, is there anything out of all those topics that you mentioned, like, do you have to agree on all of that? That's the question. That's where you start seeing this kind of back and forth of, well you know, is it really that? Does it really matter to me how we Get involved in this aspect? Does it really matter to me school choice versus public school, private school, homeschool, let that you, when you start asking those questions, obviously your values come to the surface, right, what do you truly value?

Speaker 1: 28:41

And you're gonna have to make some decisions, because there are a lot of things on that list that You're gonna disagree on some part. What are you gonna sacrifice? And and that's the question that we're faced with so Obviously, there's a part of getting to know the person, going through the whole process of your non-negotiables and so on. But, yeah, I mean, what is their space or room where we can disagree, because it's not a core value, or or should I just not think this person at all? If there's any differences here, I wonder. I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. You know oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 29:16

So I think that's gonna depend on the, on the degree To which they hold to certain things. Okay, let's come back to this personal story I just referenced about the abortion issue. There was a decent lady that we went on a couple dates as many years ago and Then, you know, one time we were at some house party and I cracked a political joke About, you know, my favorite person, hillary Clinton. Okay, shocker, right. So I cracked a joke about Hillary, okay, and I didn't think anything of it.

Speaker 2: 30:02

I was like you know whatever you know, and then like the next I think it's like the next day she called me up and she asked me Would would you consider what I consider myself a political conservative? And I was like, well, yeah, yeah, I guess. So I was like I'm kind of libertarian on a lot of things, but you guys, you could like if you had to pin me to the wall yeah, I'd be Political conservative.

Speaker 2: 30:24

And then she asked me about certain things, like certain issues, if those would be dealbreakers for me, and I said I had to think about it for a minute cuz I never been asked that question. You know, okay, this is new. But one thing I came down on was I said you know, the abortion issue I would need to see eye to eye with In my partner. On that one I was like one I'm. I'm a professional theologian and an ethicist, okay, so I take a very specific.

Speaker 2: 30:56

I take a very strong position on this issue. It would be very important to me to have a partner who does that too. I don't think that'd be a difference we could overcome you know, I was like other things, like you know, um, you know we can talk through and I'd be happy to educate you on no, but I said you know there's other things that aren't as important, like taxation, even though I have very strong views about that.

Speaker 2: 31:21

That's not a like a dealbreaker, Okay it's like she believes in a 35% tax, like can't marry her, like it's that's silly, okay, but something like abortion, that's a pretty important issue. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:32

Anyway, I Didn't hear from her after that so I was like, well, I think we just agree to be friends. I should say, but Okay, yeah, all that to say yeah, I think it depends on the issue and the degree of the differences too. But Definitely, if someone, if someone is Buying into wokeness, whether intentionally or unintentionally and a lot of people Nowadays have they have bought into, they have bought premises of wokeness. They may not think that they are woke, but they have accepted certain premises. It's just true.

Speaker 2: 32:09

Yeah one of them being like that definition of racism that I just told you. People just talk about it now as though that's always been the definition of racism and then that it's just obvious that that is the definition. That would be an example of people just accepting a premise because it's been repeated over and over again. Not because it's true. Yeah, or or the patriarchy.

Speaker 1: 32:29

Or that's a big the gender wage gap.

Speaker 2: 32:32

Okay, these things are, these things are are perpetuated in our culture, and then people just talk about oh yeah, yeah, that's true, yeah, every time I hear him I'm like Like how much time do I have, you know? Right, yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:48

And, by the way, we're talking to both men and women here, right, because there are men who could be woke or who have, you know just of that. But, speaking specifically, as Tim was mentioning, the leaning seems to be highly in the way of Women who lean more towards that and, again, there's there's a lot of factors that play in regards to that. But this is an important factor to consider as you're dating in the modern world, because, again, the tendency, I think, is that everything else might be going well, like you guys, joe, well, you guys have a good personality, your relationship, you guys feel comfortable with each other, but then you come down to the valleys and then you see a discrepancy there and we're more willing. Again. That's why these conversations, from my perspective, are had early on, so that you can start to fill throughout those things like these are true Values that I have, and if we can't agree on that, then it's gonna be tough to to move forward. But that looks different for every couple and you get to choose when you have those conversations, right. But this is an issue that comes up because, when you're trying to, one of the Concerns, I think, is how do you balance your faith With dating where you're trying to find someone who shares your faith and beliefs, right, someone who believes in scripture, believes in the Bible, and Also how you maintain physical boundaries and emotional boundaries throughout the process, throughout the relationship, right?

Speaker 1: 34:14

So another one of the challenges I think that are faced in in Modern dating is this idea of unrealistic expectations. What does that look like? Because the expectations are being set up by Not just a political leaning, but also social media. Right, social media has probably done the most damage to most Relationships that we can think of, because there is this constant level of comparing not just you as a person, but also even comparing your relationship to that of other people. Right, we only get the highlights on social media, but we we tend to believe that there's always something Better and that's gonna draw you away from actually being fully committed to a dating relationship. You know, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, tim, but obviously, comparing also the Hollywood love stories and what the media portrays as this is what love actually looks like, or this is what it should look like, this romanticized view it's gonna lead to a lot of disappointment and discontentment.

Speaker 1: 35:15

Right, there is this aspect. Actually, there was a study done on People who use social media, who are the ones who are more depressed are the ones who are scrollers, people who are just scrolling through social media because they're not engaging. I mean social means supposed to be a way to connect with people. And if you're just a scroller, a passive scroller, your mind is just set up in the, in it's in the mindset of expectation of false reality versus your own reality and your own realities, which are gonna compare to other people's reality or Supposed reality, and therefore feeling more depressed because there's that constant comparison I'm not good enough, why and I in that spot where they are? They're doing so good and I'm not doing great. So there's always gonna be this constant comparison. But you have any thoughts on that in this aspect of unrealistic expectations?

Speaker 2: 36:05

Well, okay, so let's back up. We need to get to the point of what dating is. I think okay.

Speaker 1: 36:12

Why are Christians dating? Yeah?

Speaker 2: 36:15

so the purpose of dating for a Christian is to eventually settle down and Define a spouse. That is the purpose of dating. If you're a young person like you know maybe 18 to 22, maybe you want to date for fun, just to kind of figure out what you like. What you like okay, I'm not one of those people that's like that's wrong, okay. But eventually you need to get serious and start looking for a spouse, and the timing of that is in God's hands. So that looks different for everyone at different ages and there's some people that are single well into their later years.

Speaker 2: 36:57

So, yeah, but the purpose of dating is to find a spouse, okay, that's why it's so serious when we're dealing with this problem of wokeness in the dating world, because if someone is buying into this worldview of wokeness, that is a problem. Here's why because wokeness, like critical theory, like wokeness, comes from critical theory. Critical theory is antithetical to the Christian worldview. They are not compatible. Okay, wait, there's entire classes and books on these things, but they're not compatible. So if someone, the more someone has in their way of thinking something that is not compatible with the Christian worldview, the more tension, the more conflict that's gonna come in your relationship. Okay, yeah, so that's what I would say is like if we're talking about just Christian dating in a woke culture. That's the problem that we have is that a lot of people are buying into a worldview, a very cynical worldview, that is antithetical, it's, to the Christian way of thinking.

Speaker 1: 38:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah and I've kind of alluded to this earlier too is that because it is dating is with the purpose of eventually marrying someone? Is that one of the driving forces to compromising values is the loneliness factor? Like, there is that loneliness factor and, again, age plays a huge role with this as well. But no matter where you are, I think when we're looking at our data points, I think our age range was like 22 to 37. So that's a good age gap which you would be thinking about dating and marriage and so on says you think about all of that. Don't allow for loneliness to compromise your values on this. You know what you believe, know what you're looking for in a partner, but allow forgot to give you wisdom in that.

Speaker 2: 39:01

Yeah and who you date like people. Your dating partner is gonna influence you. Yeah, you're not immune to influence, that's true.

Speaker 2: 39:09

Okay. So you need to be aware. This is my recommendation. It's just as a teacher you need to be aware of what woke culture is and reject it. Now I've given you a basic summary of what it is, but there's lots of resources online that you can go look up Christian resources. You need to reject it. Okay, don't buy into the myths of oppression and the cynicism that it breeds. It doesn't matter what class, gender, ethnicity you come from. Woke culture, critical theory, will breed bitterness and cynicism in you, and it's something that will overshadow any sort of godliness that you wanna grow in your life as a Christian. So you gotta know what the Christian worldview says about things like race, gender equality and so on and such. So don't accept the false premises of the world. I would say that to everyone that's listening. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:06

I agree, and one of the things that we are also seeing in regards to how the swokeness is affecting dating is how does this, what are the people who are believing these things, what their past look like? And this one's always tricky because you're talking about past baggage or purity culture in a sense. So what does this mean? When you're dating someone who has this worldview or this belief about this woke perspective or woke worldview, is that you're probably gonna see a lot of trauma and stuff from their past because they don't have any strong foundations. That's typically set up within the family system. It's typically set up within the church that they go to or the church that they grew up in. Like all of that sets a foundation for what they're gonna believe and what they're leaning towards.

Speaker 1: 41:02

Just for was listened to a grocer her story. She's not saved, but she talks about what it was like growing up in this very traditional culture. She didn't talk about any type of trauma or church or anything like that. She just said my parents were so strict that when I turned 18, I just went all out in the opposite direction. So in that process has developed a sense of baggage that she didn't have prior to being in the faith.

Speaker 1: 41:29

So woke culture kind of opens your eyes to this idea of freedom and individuality and sexual expression and all of these things which eventually will influence your relationship, because that is something that's gonna come up in the dating relationship is that that conversation will happen? And when it does, that's where you have to really start considering all of these things. Like okay, do I want to deal with that? Like what is that gonna look like? Can I walk alongside them? And sometimes you get into the kind of the savior mentality, for both men and women. Do you have men have it, women have it this idea of wanting to save the person or be that sound, wise voice in the person's life? But again, that past will influence the relationship. So it's very important to kind of pay attention to those, because woke culture has influenced how we view family, how we view relationships and so on.

Speaker 2: 42:26

Yeah, yeah, something similar. Yeah, don't missionary date yeah yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2: 42:35

Very common If someone is deeply engrossed in woke culture, radical political left culture, it's very unlikely that you're gonna convince them out of that. However, if you share genuine Christian, a genuine Christian faith with the person and they're sort of like I guess what I would say maybe caught in the trap of wokeness, it's possible to wake them out of wokeness. In fact, there's kind of a trend I'm seeing this on social media of formerly radical left women being almost like transformed overnight into conservative women when they meet like a really strong conservative guy and they start dating him.

Speaker 2: 43:22

It's like they get snapped out of wokeness. You know now that's social media, so it could just be like inflating something that's happening, but that does it's. It's hitting the algorithms. Let's say yeah. I'd say to everyone you know all the, you know Christians out there don't get discouraged, don't give up again. Recognize the cultural forces that are at work there's.

Speaker 2: 43:48

There's fewer Christians out there and there's a lot of people moving far, far to the left in their world because of that, okay for women I would say you know, continue to carry yourself with grace, beauty, class, like in terms of you know, virtue, pleasant to be around, confident, okay, now someone's gonna call me a misogynist for giving giving any sort of recommendation to women yeah like I'm not a woman. How dare I speak to these things, you know? But I can speak to what men want yeah, what men look for.

Speaker 2: 44:24

Know what you know women know what you want in life. You know as far as a husband, family and children. But don't be entitled. I see, I see, you know, I see this on social media a lot too. Is this sort of entitlement attitude like my man's got to be a certain way and he better do this and better do that? That's a surefire way to run, run a man off. Yeah, if he senses that don't be mean, don't be just automatically just distrusting of like every man, not again like don't don't just be like you know, trusting of everything because there's lots of predators out there. I'm not saying that. But don't give a guy a chance. Give a guy a chance what I'm saying and then like don't be complaining, or like an arrogant. That's a. So I think we've talked about this before at some episode where there's just this like some women buying to this lie that I need to be like one of the guys.

Speaker 2: 45:16

I need to have this like arrogant kind of machismo about me, and that's what makes me attractive and a lot of guys just aren't attracted to that. So don't fall into that. Also, don't fall into the temptation of flaunting your body online. A guy with values like a conservative guy with values doesn't want that in a wife and in fact, that's gonna be something that's gonna create hesitancy in him. He might still pursue you, but it's gonna create hesitancy because he's ultimately gonna want he's not gonna want you to do that right so are you gonna take the chance on missing a good guy because you're flaunting yourself online?

Speaker 2: 45:59

and you're you're clearly gonna attract some not good guys right coming to your table let's say so.

Speaker 2: 46:05

Is that something you want to? You want a good man to evaluate about your character? For men, I would say this it's easy to get discouraged, just like you know for women, it's easy to get discouraged because the pool is smaller. Again, don't missionary date. But you know. Know that as a man, you know it. And from a Christian worldview we would say men are natural leaders in a relationship and so you can influence your. You can influence your partners worldview and political views, especially if you do so in a graceful and gentle way.

Speaker 2: 46:36

Don't blame, don't blame your singleness on women yeah okay, again, there's cultural forces at work, but the world is too complex, okay, and there's there's still too many fish in the sea to blame your singleness on women. Okay, that's a cop out. Yeah, some guys are fine into that and then they go into this in cell, migthal red pill community and just hate on women and think, oh, women are the problems, like, oh, really, like 50% of the world's population, they're the problem, they're the only problem. So that's just a cop out. Yeah, take responsibility for yourself, like it's. It's not gonna help. No, okay, it's not gonna help. If you blame your singleness on on women, it's just not gonna help you. It reinforces you're already currently yeah just not helping yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:26

So don't do that and don't. But also don't hate on yourself. Recognize the situation for what it is. It's just harder to be a Christian man or Christian woman in this culture and just, but just get practical about it. Now, you know, I have to preach that to my, my advice to myself, you know, sometimes on that but and then avoid cynicism, like avoid the red pill communities, that what I just mentioned. You know one more thing, and then I'll turn over to you nation, yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:55

I would say this one more word I would say to Christians who are dabbling in wokeness, who maybe have accepted premises of that, be that men or women, because I've talked about women a lot and I feel like they're gonna someone's gonna target me, I'm gonna get canceled to those who are, you know, hold to some form of of wokeness. You're gonna have to decide eventually where your loyalties lie. Do they lie with a Christian worldview that you claim to hold or do they lie with a cynical, progressive politics that you've inculcated through education, media, friends and corporate America. Which one is it? You can't, you can't serve both. They're incompatible they are incompatible.

Speaker 2: 48:41

Okay, critical theory at its core is atheistic, it's Marxist and it's deeply, deeply cynical. These are all things that the Christian worldview rejects. Okay, it exploits the human tendency toward envy and bitterness. It replaces your Christian worldview lens with a darkened view of the world, whereas some people are guilty of collective sins by virtue of their class that they were born into and so they can never be atoned for. Okay, critical theory? It leads you into basically into a heresy. It can lead you into liberation theology, black liberation theology and a host of other things. It's conspiratorial to its core. Nothing can count against it. Oppression is everywhere. You see it everywhere. Everything in life is interpreted through this lens of prejudice and bias, including attempts to, including attempts not to be prejudice and bias so just it's conspiratorial, it's a conspiracy theory, but it's one that our culture has just, you know, put on everyone.

Speaker 2: 49:51

And it also rejects basic tenants of Christianity that human beings are equal because they are created in the image of God. Not, you know, not because of their race, gender or anything else. Okay, and all human individuals suffer from the same sinful nature, including the sins of racism and bigotry. All human beings have that tendency, some more than others, of course, but all have that. So, you know, wokeness will tell you that some Pete, some groups are incapable of being racist or being bigoted or misogynistic because they belong to an oppressed class. Christianity says no, we're all sinful and we all suffer from those same sins. So you got, you got to pick. You got to pick which worldview you're gonna have.

Speaker 1: 50:39

Yep, you can have both absolutely so and hopefully we tie together how, when you do pick either worldview, how that's gonna influence the way that you date and who you date, and it's important to meet someone who has some inner values, but not one that lines with this wokeness that that we've been referring to. So, yeah, we're with you, we understand it. Hopefully he's able to take some nuggets of wisdom from this episode, and you know that we start getting letters about successful dates and how wokeness was addressing that would be a good letter to have.

Speaker 2: 51:21

I'm just waiting for the letter that cancels me from the show and Sam has to find a new, a new co-host. I won't do it.

Speaker 1: 51:28

I'll have to get canceled with you better not give it to the mob we'll not do that, you know. Yeah, that again just something that Tim and I talked about way before that. As we touch on these topics, that we're gonna go down together if it happens, but we will still keep producing content.

Speaker 2: 51:47

It will happen listen, we're just gonna keep dropping grenades, which is dropping every, every episode. We're just right. We're trying to cancel, right all right, oh man.

Speaker 1: 51:58

Well, hopefully you guys had a good time listen to this episode, hopefully you guys take it and are you gonna learn from it, and we will come back next time with another hot topic. But thank you for tuning in.