All right, welcome back, and joining us now is Jay Warner Wallace.
He's been a guest once before. We've talked about his background. He was
a cold case detective. This is somebody who goes back and investigates murder cases,
things that don't have a statute limitations, murder cases where perhaps all the
witnesses have died and he's just going back looking at the physical evidence of it.
He's now written a book called The Truth and True Crime, and I
love the tagline here, when investigating death teaches us about the meaning of life.
It looks like a fantastic book, and so I wanted to get him
on to talk about that one as well. Thank you for joining us,
sir, Well, thanks for having me. I really appreciate. This is
my favorite book I've written so far, so I'm glad to talk about it.
Oh, it looks like a great angle, and you know, and
something that you know really affects all of us, and everybody loves the crime
aspect, and the things that you glean from it too are really interesting.
I think. Yeah, I think there's actually some hidden like I was not
a Christian through all my career, but through the first eight years or So
I was not a believer until I was thirty five. I became a believer
by examining the Gospels kind of from a forensic perspective. How do we know
or why would we trust if we tested these people as eyewitnesses? Why would
we even think number one, that they are written by eyewitnesses or even anybody
who had access to eyewitnesses. And if you did believe that, how would
you test them to see if they could pass the test? Now, once
I was in I started to look at human behavior a little bit differently.
Right, if you work murders, you are seeing people at their rawst point,
the point at which all of the kind of bars are off. I
mean, this is sadly, when you get to the point where you were
willing to do something crazy like this, it's probably because you've been pushed to
a certain limit and your true nature is now going to be revealed, and
it really, I think, exposes all of our true nature. So I
wanted to write a book that has talked about like, what are these attributes
fifteen attributes of human flourishing that I discovered in fifteen separate crime stories, and
then talk about, you know, is that something Number one that yeah,
secular people, they do studies on this, and they confirmed that this is
these are fifteen things that if you simply embrace these fifteen principles, you will
have a better life. But it turns out these are fifteen ancient descriptions of
human nature from the Scripture that people for the most part, think they're discovering
them in the last three three decades, when in fact, these have been
on the pages of the New Testament for two thousand years. And so I
really wanted to do a book where I kind of demonstrated that that's amazing.
Yeah, it's And why did you do a forensic investigation of Christianity in the
first place. Well, I was thirty five, so it was probably about
nineteen ninety five or six, right in that range. It took me about
eighteen months, I would say, to complete the stuff that I was so
skeptical and not raised around Christians or anybody really believed in God in a way
they could articulate. So I didn't have like a leg up like somebody who
could say, hey, look at this or look at that. I had
to come out a row and so I bought my first Bible. I was
thirty five, and it took me a while to kind of go through the
Gospels, and I was just tearing them apart from just word usage, you
know, all the attributes. I wrote about this in a book called Cold
Case Christianity, and that book just kind of covers that journey. But that's
something that'll get you to the point where you might believe it's true. Look,
I think that that as a boomer, as somebody who's older, I
have a high value for whether something is true or not. And there are
people in my generation would probably agree. But I don't know that that's the
case for young people gen z and millennials. I think they're not as concerned
about whether something's true because they've co opted that word. That war doesn't mean
it's true anymore. It means it's true for me. That's right. It's
true based on my lived experience, or it's true based on how I have
applied it to my life. Doesn't mean it's true for them. Now.
When I use the word true, I'm using it in a more objective way.
But it's true for all of us, whether we like it or not.
I think that this generation on I can to now, is more concerned
about whether or not it's good because they believe they've been sold by the culture
that Christianity is the source behind every evil intent, misogyny, racism, homophobia,
whatever it may be. It's really they are going to attribute to it,
to this traditional Western culture worldview that we hold as Christians. So I
wanted to show that, Yeah, but if you didn't believe in Christianity,
you're probably already employing its teaching if you're flourishing, and the more you detach
from its teaching, the more you're going to struggle. So I just look,
this is what we're seeing in culture. And so I wrote a book
this time which really looks at all of the data. So most of my
books I spend a lot of time researching. And although this book has about
fifty pages in the printed edition of footnotes, there are two hundred pages in
the PDF file you provide online. Why because I want you to see that
if I'm making this claim, it's support by the data. But it turns
out that that data simply supports what was claimed in scripture two thousand years ago.
So it's eye opening for me to realize that our human it makes sense
though, think about it, if we are designed by a creator God who
knows something about us, and we are in his image. Then it turns
out that that book we have called scripture, called the Bible ought to describe
us the way we really are. And if it does describe us the way
we really are, you could consider that at least. I was listening to
a pundit who usually talks about politics recently who's Jewish, and when asked,
when he defends why he's Jewish, he says, well, because it turns
out that these principles work. I thought, Oh, that's interesting, and
he sees that as an evidence that the worldview is true. Okay, And
by the way, that may or may not be an evidence that your worldview
is true. But it strikes me that if your worldview is true, it
ought to describe you the way you really are. And so in that sense,
it could provide you with some insight into your human nature and how you
could flourish. Yeah, it would be necessary, not necessarily sufficient, but
it would be necessary for that. Yeah, true, right, that's right,
exactly right. Yeah, what's the most surprising thing that you found out
about human nature? And investigating this? Well, so every chapter is a
crime story, right, So in one of these stories I talk about celebrity
and how sometimes when you are a local, especially in the gang cultures,
if you're somebody who's known locally, you can kind of become like a celebrity
in your own neighborhood or at least in your own click or your own gang.
And I've got one of these stories here to show how detrimental our pursuit
of celebrity is. And the reason why I wrote that chapter is because I
don't think it's just it's just not just a few of us who are seeking
celebrity anymore. I mean, there are no gatekeepers. You know this,
even think about it. We are able not to develop our own personal platforms
without a gatekeeper at NBC, ABC or CBS that used to be or Salem
right, whatever the radio station was that used to be the gate keepers that
kept people from becoming a celebrity. Those are gone. So now all of
us, if we can develop a following, we can make it from zero
to it a million listeners without any support. And that's where I think we
have to be careful. It turns out that one of the most powerful attributes
that we could adopt as humans that would change your life as a matter of
fact, if you simply embraced this virtue, you will have increased flourishing in
every single metric that we use to actually measure human flourishing, longevity, mental
health, physical health, the deepness of your relationships. That improve, will
improve your marriage, I'll make you a better employer, a better employee,
You'll learn at a higher level, you'll get better grades, you'll make more
money. I mean, every way that we measure flourishing improves if you simply
adopt this one thing. And it's really the opposite of celebrity. It is
the attribute we know as humility. Now, they've been studying this for about
three decades and looking at all kinds of studies that are out there that talks
about how humble people succeed at levels that are far higher than the rest of
us, and why that might be true. Okay, fine, but it
turns out that humility is one of those things that I think if I ask
people, hey, what do you think the one attribute you could adopt that
would help you in every aspect of your life at a higher level than anything
else, I don't think many people would come up with humility. But it
turns out, yeah, it is actually the thing we need to embrace.
Now, what's interesting about that? Think about every worldview that's out there,
None of them leverage humility, like the Christian worldview. What I mean is
if your theistic worldview, your spiritual worldview encourages you to do these certain things
to reach the highest level that your spiritual worldview offers. In other words,
if it is about earning something, it's a transaction between you and God,
a transaction between you and the universe. There's no way to avoid pride in
that kind of system, because at some point you're going to look across the
room and say, I'm doing better than that did. We measure based on
our achievements, right. And I have a friend who's now no longer with
this name, Mike Adams. Mike and I would travel and do a lot
of events together, and he used to always tease writ in this book how
to Become Humble in ten easy steps and how I made it in eight You
know, it's like this, there's no way that you can pursue humility without
at some point doing just the opposite and becoming prideful. So it turns out
that humility is something you It's an assessment Spurgeon calls it the proper assessment of
who we are before a holy God. Now, Christianity leverages this because it's
the one worldview that says, no, it's not a transaction. There's nothing
you can do to earn this. As a matter of fact, if whatever
the highest thing you think you hope to achieve in your worldview is, We're
going to give it to you. It's a free gift over here. Why
so that Paul says, no one can boast. It's a an antidote to
pride and celebrity. It's an antidote to look what I did is look what's
been done for me. This view requires us to begin in humility because to
say that, okay, there is God and it's not me, well,
it's a very humble position. I'm not the God of my own I'm not
the center of my own decision making universe. Well, this begins and ends
in our Savior, says this pulses have the attitude that Jesus had, who,
although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with
God a thing to be grasped, but instead emptied himself taking the form of
a bond servant, taking the form. In other words, it's all humility
start to finish, And as difficult as that is for us to achieve,
if we don't recognize its power in our lives, will never even try to
submit, will never even begin to let go of the things that possess us.
So I just want to spend one chapter in these fifteen chapters talking about
the role that celebrity plays. And by the way, almost every crime you're
going to, every crime you're going to commit, is driven by these different
chapter but these three prideful motives. It's the pursuit of money, the pursuit
of sex, or the pursuit of power. Now, that pursuit of power,
that's a huge category of misbehavior, and that's where celebrity fits all of
us. Look, you and I both would we like more people to listen
to what we're saying. Of course we would. So although we might protect
ourselves from the pursuit of money and the pursuit of sex, knowing that that
can derail us, we don't usually protect ourselves from the pursuit of celebrity.
In fact, what we typically do is want to increase that area of our
life so we can We'll argue, oh, because I want to reach more
people with this divine message. Really, so we will increase the celebrity.
Now, now here's the danger in it, and this is a different chapter,
but there's a danger in this. I have never known anyone of those
three motives for misbehavior, and there are only three. There's not a fourth
motive. There isn't. Now you can just gover this secularly working as a
homicide detective, or you can discover this on the pages of scripture, because
John writes about it in one of his letters. But my point is,
these are only three motives out there for stupid, and if you don't protect
yourself from those three motives for stupid, you will eventually do one of them.
Here's what I've noticed. If you begin to scratch one of those itches,
you will eventually scratch the other two because the other two become available to
you on the basis of what you've achieved in the third. So you see
this and even Christian leaders right where they fall for someone. Why, well,
here's why, in my opinion, is because as a congregation, or
as your deacon board or your elder board, they're trying to protect their pastors
from the sex and money but everyone wants their pastor to be known more so
they can build a bigger church. And when you increase your celebrity, you
only open the door to the other two. So this is why I've struggled
with this even in writing this book, because as I'm writing this book,
if I'm going to heed my own advice, I have to do less of
this because it turns out all of this talking about a book you've written is
about you trying to amplify your platform, amplify your influence in culture. And
that's I think there's a good by the way. All three of these things
have been designed by God for his glory and for our good. We just
happened to distort them. So sex, money, in power is something that
God is giving us in a positive way. This is another chapter in the
book. It's a chapter about a guy who was basically homeless and was killed.
And I'm thinking, what are these three motives? What did this killer
have to gain from this homeless guy who was so sweet They called him Santa
Claus because he looked like Santa Claus and he was as sweet as Santa Claus.
And what does he offer in terms of sex, money, or power
that would be worthy of killing him. Well, here's what happens is that
when we focus on those things that are given to us by God instead of
on the God who gave him to us, we're stopping one level short of
our worship. And we all worship. Everyone worships, whether you're a believer
or not. There is something that you think as of utmost importance that you
dare not take that from me, because that's the thing that I covet,
And this idolatry is what causes us. So in this particular case, this
poor guy had slipped over. They were he was recycling stuff. Every day,
he would go out and spend the first half of his day picking up
trash cans, going to trash cans and picking up recyclables. Then he would
take them to the recycling center and get just enough money to go and he
would buy alcohol and food in the afternoon. And that was his day every
day, very very workmanlike. And he had slipped into an area of our
city that another guy who was doing the same thing felt was his alley.
Don't be picking trash out of those two cans. And although the amount of
money that Santa Claus probably got from that was what pennies dollars? Maybe it
was enough. So he confronted this guy. He confronted Santa Claus and said,
don't be doing that anymore at a recycling center. Santa Claus kind of
just blew them off. Well, it turned out in that one moment he
had triggered the two of the three things. Number One, he had disrespected
him. So the idea of power, authority, respect, that's in the
third category. Now I'm upset because you disrespected me in front of my peers.
Two you're taking pennies or dollars. But because I've turned both of these
things, I covet them at a high level. I've now turned them into
idols. You dare not try to destroy my idols. And that night he
stabbed him to death over virtually nothing. This is the power of idolatry.
And by the way, it's not just people you work and working homicides.
It's all of us. And so on that chapter. What I try to
do in every chapter is show you, hey, if this is your struggle,
whatever these things are, here's a way for you to address it.
And in this chapter, I just to ask fifteen questions, like what you
want to know what your idols are, because we all have them. Well,
ask these fifteen questions and you'll probably identify them. And then once you've
identified him, you can start to actually think, Okay, look, it's
something that God has created it rather than the God who created it. We
simply have to transfer our worship up one levels, just from the level where
we're stopped in God's creation and back to the creator. And so it's something
that if you do it, you will flourish. Will you will not Number
one, you'll protect yourself from stupid and number two, you'll actually start to
pursue the things that contribute to a meaningful life. And I think that you
do that with thankfulness because when you say thank God for what that is,
and sincerely think about what it is that God is giving you, you look
at it as not something that you've achieved, then that does move it to
the higher level. And yeah, with that right now, I'm I'm skipping
across a number of different chapters here, but yeah, I think you're right.
I think the part of it is is that what I've discovered and is
true of all of us, is the least thankful people are the people who
think they have nothing to be thankful for or the least forgiving people are the
people who think they have nothing to be forgiven for. So it does turn
out that a proper assessment of who you are, because it's really easy for
me to think, well, everything I've got in my life I achieved that.
Yes, I am the reason for all my success, the reason for
everything I've ever possessed. Okay, if that's your view, well, that
kind of pride is it doesn't lead any more positive. That's right, because
anytime anyone challenges that that might not be the case, you're now offended.
And so it turns out that whatever it is we've worshiped that becomes the master,
the master that you dare not question, the Master that I'm now willing
to give up tons of time for resources for. I can say that,
you know, I had that early on when I was young. I had
a lot of success with a lot of stuff very easily, and I did
think it was what I had done. And I got to say, it
was such an amazing blessing for God to take that away from me and humble
me, you know, And that's exactly what it was, and I thank
God for that taking that away from me. Well, the biggest blessings of
my life. And you're absolutely and I think you and I as guys,
we are even more prone to this because and this is a different this chapter
two of the book. It's an identity issue for us. I mean a
lot of it is is that I don't have my as a Christian. I
ought to have my identity in Christ. But the way we form identity,
and I covered this in the book, we don't typically form it that way.
What we typically do instead is we form it as men in our achievements,
in what it is we've achieved. So if I asked, you know,
who are you David, Well, You're going to say, I'm the
host of this show. If you said, who are you, Jim Well,
I'm a cold case detective. Okay, is that who I am?
Look, I haven't been in a dayline episode in three years? Okay,
I need at some point you need to say, Okay, who are you
really, Jim? And this struggle of identity is so key to how we
function in the world because identity is really exposed as our forms of worship.
Because I guarantee, as men, we typically form our worship based on what
we do. You know, identity when you study it in the surveys and
the research on this, it's inseparable from value and purpose, and unfortunately,
a lot of us form our identity based and reverse. In other words,
we asked the question, where am I valuable? What am I good at?
What do I have purpose in? That's who I am? Rather than
say, well, no, who am I? I want to form my
value and purpose based on my identity first, not my identity based on my
value and purpose, because that's the problem, because there's nothing but pride that
comes out of forming your identity based on what you're good at, because it's
about what you're good at. Yes, so this is and it's the biggest,
one single move that leads to contentment is to reform your identity not based
on what you can achieve, but based on what you receive from a holy
God. That is amazing. When you're talking about that, you say,
you know, how do you define yourself? Is it the show that you
have, is it the book that you've written, or is the career that
you have? Makes me think back to the Austrian Empire. When they would
have their emperors died, they had these big elaborate funerals and they would take
them to this amazing crypt. Actually, I've been there with my family to
see this thing, and it truly is amazing. And they would have as
they bring the body into the crypt, they would knock and the person inside
would say who goes there? And they would give all of the big political
titles, you know, he's the empire, the empire of this, and
the king of that and all the rest of this stuff. I don't know
him. And then they would knock again and they say who is it,
and he would give family relationships right that he has. I don't know him.
And then he'd knock a third time and it would say, and it's
a humble sinner, Ronz Joseph, I know him, enter, you know.
And that's a kind of an interesting thing. Awesome. Yeah, that's
an awesome just a word picture of what we're talking about here. Yeah,
Now, this is something that is and I don't know how much time we
have on this. Let me to say, I've got a friend named Joe
Martin who's a doctor who as a philosopher and a dielogian. We got plenty
of time. By the way, he says that men are all about the
Asians when we have conversations. It's all about the Asians, and I think
it does expose how we form identity. So for example, he would say,
when we meet another guy, we shake hands and we say what do
you do? First ation is occupation. Okay, that's the first ation,
and when we're not really asking what do you do? We are because of
how we form identity as men, we're asking who are you now? As
we ask that, all identity, remember, is comparative. It's not about
well, how wealthy are you? It's how wealthy are you compared to this
guy or everybody else. That's how you know if you're wealthy, how smart
are you compared to others? But sadly, identity is for by comparing,
and that's why it's so prideful, right, because we have a tendency to
say, well I'm better over here, I'm better over there. So occupations
the first ation, and then what we're measuring. We're saying, okay,
well I know what that job requires in terms of education. Second aation,
we're now we're saying, well he's better educated or I'm better educated. We're
measuring here we are in that first conversation with another guy, and by asking
what is your occupation. We're starting to measure the other asians, second one
as education. Third, well, we're asking, well, I know what
that makes. If you're a surgeon, I know you're making some or if
you're an accountant, whatever it is, you're measuring compensation. That's the next
station. So at some point then you're asking, too, well, how
good are you at this? You could be a doctor, but just be
a terrible doctor. Reputation is the next ation. What are we doing here?
Well, we're measuring based on we're assigning value based on the answers here.
And if you're a guy, if you're a cop, especially, you
could be somebody who's that's got nothing more than a high school education and you're
working as a patrol officer and I've been making that much money. You've never
tried to do anything other. But if you're six foot eight and cut like
a Greek god, you're still the biggest dog in their room. Because now
it's about intimidation at the last station. So I think he's got a point.
It's very unlike now. I'm sure that for all of us. If
you're not a guy, you're a woman, and you're listening to this,
then there's probably some other level of but be honest, we do this all
the time. And because identity is comparative, it really takes it rears its
head, most notably in group gatherings where you're introducing yourself because now you're getting
the opportunity to compare. Well, there's the danger in it, and identity
becomes the thing that sadly is behind so much of our trauma and struggle.
This is a separate chapter of this book. I'll give you an example of
this. We would do a lot of work now with officers to Billy Graham
Association in the summer. So we're getting ready to leave in two weeks here
to do the first of six weeks of counseling or marriage resiliency for officers who
have been involved in critical incidents and now they're struggling in their marriage. And
sometimes they only even get there before they get a divorce. They get a
divorce, they say, we're not coming. I always say, just hold
on, just try to get through this trip first before you make a decision
that big. But this is the dire straits therein Okay. I discovered only
three or four years ago that the thing that is the biggest struggle for officers
is, especially if you're injured, is identity. It turns out that if
you were to look at all of the trauma in your life, whatever it
was, if it was an injury, you suffered, a divorce, a
loss of a job, a child being loved, whatever you lost, whatever
it was you suffered in a trauma, you'll see that at that same point
you were suffering the trauma, you had had a relatively dramatic shift in your
identity. You thought of yourself as married. Now you're divorced, you see
yourself differently. Identity is simply how you continuously see yourself. The self is
at the issue, and every time you suffer a trauma, you suffer an
identity shift. So it's interesting that trauma typically causes an identity shift, but
the opposite is also true. An identity shift often causes trauma. So if
you wanted to protect yourself from trauma or minimize the kind of trauma you'll experience,
you need to put your identity in something that can't be shifted, stolen
from you, taken from you, bruised in some way, damaged in some
way. And of the three ways that we form identity inside out outside in
or top side down. Only one of these three ways is stable enough to
protect you from shifting. If you're forming your identity outside in where you say
it like, this is how the ancients did it. You know, this
thing outside of me existed before I was ever born, and I'm just going
to reach out and grab that and form my identity. So it's a tribe.
That's the tribe I was raised in. It's the name of my family
name, it's the profession of my family. We're all cops, so that's
like who I am. Okay, that's outside in identity, and I all
of us do some of that inside out based on my desires, my preferences,
even my sexual preferences. I'm going to ask you outside of me to
identify me based on my innate heart's desires. Okay, that's inside out identity.
Both of those are unstable because at some point your job ends, you're
going to retire, than who are you then? Or you're going to get
injured and or your desires are going to change because your heart is fickle,
it's just the nature of it. Well, then get ready to suffer some
trauma on the course you're like, now, if you've formed your identity top
side down, where you put it in something that's transcendent and unchanging. Then
you're going to have lows in your life, of course, but they're going
to be not quite as deep, because that the day before you suffer the
injury, you were a child of You were in Christ that day. The
day after you suffer the injury, you're still in Christ. You're still the
same God sees you the same way. Now, are you going to struggle
because you're an injury? Of course? But who you are hasn't changed.
And it turns out that's the thing that we struggle with them Almost even in
an injury, it's not so much just the pain of the injury, it's
who am I now? And that's why we have to kind of really be
serious about our identity formation or we're going to find ourselves. It's about human
flourishing. It really is. Yeah, And of course you know, it's
about integrity. And we often think about integrity is how other people perceive us
or something, but it really is how you perceive yourself. Do you have
that integrity? And you have that integrity if you're thinking about that from top
down? This is so wise. I'm really enjoying listening to you talk about
this, and I think about how unique things are right now. As you
begin talking about that, you said, you know, this lure of being
famous or a lot of people following you, that all comes as a social
media stuff. It truly is amazing to me to see that and how that
has transformed younger people. And it is such a transformational thing to think that
there is some value in having a bunch of people that you don't know,
you know, following you and everything I focusing on that, it's amazing.
Yeah, that is something that we take for granted, David. We take
it for granted because yes, we are now in an age the information age
has become the identity age. Why because so how do we start? If
you go on our social media platforms, what's the very first thing? We
have a moniker, like, what is the public name? I'm going to
adopt that I want you to see me as second, we're going to put
a bio. Now we're going to list a series of priorities, identity priorities
in the bio. So all of this, then we're going to spend the
next how many years on social media posting only in a way that amplifies the
way I already want you to see me. That's right. So I'm not
going to reveal something of myself that violates the identity I've already established. And
even if I'm not even thinking about it, my posts always expose who I
am. And there were times in generations prior where you didn't know who people
were, and the way you know who they are now, having access to
every thing we think gives us gives people complete access to who we really are.
And I think we know that if a republic figure, and so we're
careful. You know, I never post anything about my family on social media.
I stay pretty focused in that area of what it is I'm trying to
communicate related to the Gospel, and I just stay focused on that. Now,
that doesn't that gives people a view of me that's not actually true.
It's the view that I'm crafting for them, and we have to be aware
of that. But everyone does that. I mean, I see people I
follow who you think all they do is eat because but it's really that it's
not just that we are in some way forming and sharing our identity. It's
that we are also revealing our idols. We're revealing our priorities. We're revealing
the stuff that we think is so consequential, so important that we are willing
to proclaim it. That's one of the ways you can you can see what
your idols are. Ask yourself, like, look at your social media streams,
Well, I want to know what your idols are. I can kind
of figure it out if you've got a social media platform, right, that's
right. Yeah, we got a full lifelog that is up there. Yeah.
You know, it's such a shallow things we're huming about with social media.
It's there so that you know, you can glorify yourself. Isn't it
interesting that in the last days people become such lovers of self that that that
we've never had those tools, that we've never had the tools to magnify it
exactly. Yeah, And I think at some point we are going to have
we're going to see that this is not beneficial to our well being and we're
going to volunteerly pull back a little bit, or we're going to reach a
point in our lives where we're going to burn out on it and we're going
to put so you might be more active on social media at some point in
your life than you are later. But I'm also trying to be very careful
not to be the old guy who's just shaking his fist at the moon,
right, because yeah, I use social media as much as anybody else,
but I do want us to be very very practical about it. Like,
Look, if we're trying to protect ourselves from what causes us to do bad
things, we have to have a very honest assessment of who we are.
Are we by an instant different chapter in the book, But are we by
nature innocent, born innocent, born virtuous? And we are corrupted by our
families, by our environments, by the systems that are in place, from
government systems. Is that who we are? Or is the flip true that
we are by nature fallen and depraved enough, but no matter what system you
put us in, we'll find a way to corrupt it, even religious systems.
Which of those two things is true? We need to figure that out
because if the second is true, which has always been the claim of the
Christian worldview, that we are by nature fallen, well, now we can
explain certain aspects of what happens in culture, and we can put our resources
in the right direction. Look, Luther put it this way. We are
so inwardly focused that we can take even things that are good and corrupt them
and do them for selfish You can even behave uber Moraley, but you're doing
it for selfish reasons. Even our efforts to do something godly are entirely depraved
and selfish, is what his claim is. This is what you find also
in the modern studies about altruism, like people are trying to figure out,
like, how could it be that someone who could be a Pulitzer Prize winner
can also kill his spouse or her spouse? How could that be? How
could it be that there's somebody who, for the last thirty years has been
an exemplar in our community, the deacon at the church, the doctor who
delivered my babies, Yet thirty years ago he killed his wife. How could
that be? There's no way he could be that duplicit? Is there?
This enigma of man has to be sorted out. Now. What I see
in the studies is that, yes, we do have good examples of the
altruism of humans. Humans are capable of great altruism. They are until it
doesn't serve them personally. I'm usually the studies show that humans are usually pretty
generous until resources get tight. Then we start holding toilet paper. Well why
are we doing that? Because we are, at our base nature self serving,
and even when we are doing good for others, it serves us in
some way. That's why we're doing it. We want to be seen a
certain way. Very seldom do you see people who you know do good things
who aren't proclaiming to you that they do good things. That's how you know
they're doing good things. Well, that's because that proclamation is what they're really
after. Yeah, okay, that's the truth. If that's the case,
then now we can make a proper assessment of our own condition. Number One,
it causes me to know that I am not trustworthy, that I am
no different. Number One, It's leveled the field for me. So I
never went into an interview once I had this realization. I never went into
an interview and thought I was somehow better than the guy I was interviewing.
No, I knew that we're all the same person. But for the grace
of God, my buttons haven't been pushed the way that this poor guy's buttons
have been pushed. Now, look, this is not to try to elevate
people who do bad behavior. I'm a justice guy, so we're going to
take care of this, but I recognize that I am just like him.
We are all just like him. When you watch an episode of Dateline,
I'm hoping you're not sitting there and going, yeah, what an idiot.
I hope you watch it with a certain amount of introspection and you're thinking,
Oh, that could easily have been me, because that is where humility begins.
It begins when you realize the proper role. By the way, if
you know the fallen nature of humans, if you know that's really true,
well that also changes the way you establish systems. This is why our country
was built in a way that had the kinds of checks and balances between the
three arms of the federal government. Why is that there because the people who
formed it new you can't trust people, you can't trust humans. We are
by nature fallen if we don't have a way to check and balance each other,
if we don't have a community. Basically, this is why the Christian
worldview has not lived in isolation, because this is why marriages saw. This
is another chapter of the book why marriage is so important. Because I have
I've close enough to another human that I have given her permission to tell me
where I'm wrong. I've given her permission to help shape me toward what it
is God wants from me. And if you're not in a relationship with somebody
who you know well enough to have given them permission to tell you what an
idiot you are right now, and you don't have true friends, and you
don't have the kind of relationship that'll urge you towards something better. So it
turns out that those are other things that sociologists have discovered. There was a
chapter and here about true friendship. Well, why because I've worked so many
cases where people were killed by somebody they thought was their true friend. M
Well, so what is the nature of quality relationships? So we need to
kind of dig into that because it turns out that there are some relationships that
if you're listening, that you're holding right now, that are hurting you,
that are detrimental to your well being, and that it might at some point,
by the way, likely if I'm the first ting I'm going to do
if I'm working your homicide, is I'm going to look back at all your
relationships because the chances are that is somebody you knew really well who kills you.
Yeah, and in the end we have to ask the question, what
am I doing wrong that I'm hanging out with somebody who I have not in
some way vetted better? You know. So I think a lot of this
is important for us as Christians to say. By the way, the Scripture
has an antidote for that. This Christian's got great guidance for that. We
just haven't been paying attention in this generation, it seems. Yeah, you
have a statement. Many crime stories are centered around poor relationships, you know,
not having a relationship or having a relationship that's going to I guess goed
you into that right some way. Yeah, I mean this is why.
So if you're looking at what causes and we've got enough time, I think
you're to cover this that if you look at what is causing, what really
describes relationships that will cause you to flourish. It turns out that studies show
this one of the longest studies ever done on human happiness, look like sixty
year study that was done, and it really revealed that is your relationships.
They're at the key the core of what causes you to feel content, to
be happy, to have satisfied life, satisfying life. But it's not just
any kind of relationship. It turns out it's the kind of deep relationships that
you cannot have with hundreds of people on social media. So there's three things.
Three things that lead to the quality of flourishing in your relationships. Here
they are. First, you need deep committed relationships with people you've given permission
to be like a brother to say, hey, you know what did your
off the rails here? And that has to be with a small number of
people. You can't have those kinds of deep committed relationships because they require a
certain amount of vulnerability and a certain amount of time. So if you're somebody
who says, oh, I know lots of people, I got lots of
friends, well they're probably not. Then these kinds of friends you need to
have a small number of deeply committed relationships with the third piece virtuous people.
Now here's the reason why. I've met lots of folks who are deeply connected
to others who are not virtuous, and they're basically they're part of their crime
family. And so you can have deep connected relationships that lead you astray because
there's no virtue. Now here's the tricky question is what do we call virtuous?
Who gets to decide? So there's a code of ethics amongst gangsters,
is that what is virtuous? What they say is because they would say,
hey, if you offend us, we're going to come over there and kill
you. That's just the code. You knew better before you did that.
You should have known that was coming, because you know that's what you're going
to get. And so who just gets to decide what is righteous right or
wrong? Virtuous? Who gets to decide that? Is it a group of
people or is it a single individual or is there something that transcends all of
us that it overarches all communities. So it turns out that virtue is something
that does require a transcendent, unchanging, overarching virtue giver the authority that we
would actually say virtue is grounded in because if we say it's grounded in groups,
then get ready for all kinds of stupid. And we're already seeing this
because what's virtuous to even politically, what's virtuous to one side or the other
is very different. Then we're arguing as if there's no transcendent, overarching virtue.
So this is one of those areas your relationships that does benefit from a
worldview in which you can ground virtue objectively. There's a couple of places where
that happens in this book, but this is one that's very important because we
can say you tell your kids all the time, but don't be handles with
there's a bad people who gets to decide they're bad. This is now suddenly
Caught is going to have to cause us to think about how we ground good
and bad. How do we ground a righteousness? And if you're going to
ground it in just the opinion of people, well that's every case. I
work at some point we have to be wiser than that. And that's why
I think it's important for us to adopt the one worldview, graded and humility
that provides you with an objective, transcendent source for virtue that is such great
wisdom. I'm really looking forward to reading this book, and of course it's
just come out, but it is available now, right, Yes, it's
available now, and I appreciate you can learn more at the Truthantruecrime dot com
the truthantruecrime dot com. And because I'm so sensitive to the idea that this
should not be about us just building a platform and trying to sell something.
What we do. At that website, you'll see there's a ton of free
stuff that comes with a purchase. We simply wanted to try to level that
a little bit right so that you don't feel like this is about spending money
on a book. I really want to advance the causes that are in the
book, and that's the challenge, of course. Excellent, excellent book.
Again, it is the Truth in True Crime. That's I in nott nd
the Truth in Truecrime dot com. And just before you go, I know
you got to go. This message is from guard go Ol Smith and Rock
Finney says thank you both. Cold Case Christianity is excellent, and in the
conversation today, I'm reminded that the trap that even catches people who try to
spread freedom messages or biblical messages, it seems that one must beware of commoditizing
oneself. Difficult to promote one's work, even freedom or biblical work without that
promotion becoming self promoting rather than praising God. That's absolutely so good, so
good. Yeah, that's great observation. He's written me before he loved Cold
Case Christianity, which he got the first time I interviewed you. But I'm
really looking forward to the Truth and True Crime. And again there's a website,
the Truth and Truecrime dot com. Thank you much, Thank you so
much for joining us, Sarah. Excellent stuff and such wisdom. It truly
is amazing. Looking forward to reading it myself. Thank you. Well,
I'm indebted to you. Thanks so much for having me I well, thank
you. The David Night Show is a critical thinking super spreader. If you've
been exposed to logic by listening to The David Night Show, please do your
part and try not to spread it. Financial support or simply telling others about
the show causes this dangerous information to spread. Father. People have to trust
me, I mean, trust the science. Wear you mask, take your
vaccine, don't ask questions using free speech to free minds. It's The David
Night Show.