April 8, 2025

1985: Slayer, Hell Awaits

1985: Slayer, Hell Awaits

We examine how the church has dealt with culture and we look ack and ask, what if?

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We examine how the church has dealt with culture and we look ack and ask, what if?

WEBVTT

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Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is

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the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good afternoon everyone.

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It is Tuesday, April the eighth, twenty twenty five. It

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is currently twelve nineteen pm Central Time, and I'm coming

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to you live from the Theology Central studio located right

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here in Abilene, Texas. What If? What if? Do you

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like the what if question? What if things would have

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been different? What if I would have done this? What

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if they would have done this? I'm not necessarily a

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fan of what if because a lot of times you're

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asking what if about a situation where you can't go

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back and change. In fact, you can't go back, you

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can't change. All you can do is move forward. But

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there are times that I think if we stop and

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ask what if, then maybe we can learn something about

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where we are and where we are going. So I'm

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going to ask the what if question to Christianity. I'm

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going to ask the what if question to Christians? What

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if Christianity? What if the Church? What if Christians would

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have handled the Great Satanic Panic of the nineteen eighties. Differently,

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what if the Puritans would have handled the accusations of

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witchcraft differently and Salem in sixteen ninety two, what if

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the church would have handled this differently? Sometimes we ask

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those questions because it forces us to stop and look

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at how the church has done things so that we

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can possibly improve how the church does things in the future.

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At least that is the hope, that is the idea.

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So today it's all about what if, And specifically we're

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going to be asking what if the church in the

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past had handled culture differently, if it would have engage

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culture in a different way, what if what if it

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would have done that? And maybe by looking if, what

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if the church would have handled things differently? And we're

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going to look at one specific situation that occurred on

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April eighth, nineteen eighty five, what if the church would

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have responded to that differently? Well, what could we learn today?

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What could the church learn from that if it would

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have been done differently, so that we can actually do

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things differently in twenty twenty five. Now, I'm going to

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be honest with you, I don't think the church is

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ever going to learn this lesson. In fact, I think

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the church is going to completely reject everything I'm about

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to say, which will just continue, will just continue to

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do the same thing over and over and over, which

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I think how we've handled things has been completely completely wrong.

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So we're going to take a journey. This is going

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to be somewhat of a long episode. So buckle in

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and we're going This is going to take some twists

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and turns. I guarantee you many of you are not

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going to like where this goes, but we're going to

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take the ride anyway. We're going to take the journey

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and hopefully we can learn from what if now. I

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will be using somewhat of a narrative form for some

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of this. Sometimes I will go into the narrative. Sometimes

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I will come out. I hope this goes. I'm going

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to try to do my very best. Hopefully this is engaging, interesting,

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thought provoking, challenging, maybe even a little It may induce

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a little anger, but I think it's something that we

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need to do. So are you ready? Here we go.

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For the most of the twentieth century, and especially in

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the second half, the Church didn't know what to do

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with culture. I believe that's an accurate statement. For most

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of the twentieth century, especially in the second half, the

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Church didn't know what to do with culture. In some ways,

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I'm going to argue, I don't know if the church

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has ever really known what to do with culture. I

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think the church has always struggled with what to do

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with culture. Music changed. If we want to talk about

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the twentieth century and the second half of the twentieth century,

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music changed, Movies pushed boundaries, television exploded, books got darker,

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and art got louder. And the church it panicked. It

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completely panicked. It held conferences, it ran scare campaigns, It

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made a list of banned books, dangerous bands, and unclean films.

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And then it turned inward, building safe alternatives to everything.

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Christian music, Christian movies, Christian and books, Christian exercise, Christian

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this Christian that everything that the world had, we were

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gonna christianize, and we were going to create our own

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alternative universe that was nice and safe inside of this bubble,

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so the bad corruption of the world couldn't get inside,

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and we would be pure, and we would be holy,

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and we would be godly because we would avoid all

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of the bad stuff. We're not gonna go to Disney,

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We're not gonna watch Disney movies. We're not gonna go

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to Target. We're not gonna do this. We're not gonna

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go there. We're gonna listen to Christian music and watch

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Christian movies and Christian television shows and go hang out

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with Christians when we do aerobics, and we're gonna go

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do this, and we're gonna do this, and we're going

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it's just gonna be Christian, this Christian, that Christian, this Christian,

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that Christian this, and we'll be safe and secure because

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all of the corruption will be out there. And for

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some weird reason, nobody ever raised their hand and go, hey, Philologically,

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I think we're a little confused here. The corruption that

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we're running from is not out there. The corruption we're

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running from is in side each and every one of us.

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Because one of the core teachings of Christianity is that

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we do not become sinners by sinning, but we sin

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because we are sinners by nature. We were conceived in sin.

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We are corrupt. It's not that the world's gonna corrupt

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your kids. Your kids are the corruption. They have the

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corruption inside of them. They're already corrupt. They're born corrupt,

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they're born sinful. It's not what's going to corrupt them.

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You're probably you probably should be more concerned in how

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your kids are going to spread their own corruption because

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they are sinners. This is a key doctrine within Christianity,

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but over and over the Church when it comes to

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dealing with the culture, it's like, we're gonna run from

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the culture and hide from the culture, and we're gonna

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we're gonna lock the door, pull down the blinds, build

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a wall, and will be safe and secure inside. Sh

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don't let the monster hear us. It's out there and

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it's the world and it's sinful. Sh be quiet. And

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then all of a sudden, someone taps you on the

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shoulder and says, the monster's right here. It's inside the castle,

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it's inside the locked room. It's inside of you. You

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can't run from corruption because you are corrupt. You can't

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run from sin. You're the sinner. Corruption doesn't come from

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the outside, it arises from within. And the church sometimes

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forgets all of this. So while the church is running

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around building all of these alternatives, building our nice little bubble,

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trying to run from the monster. While it was doing

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all of that, there was one thing it rarely did

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and almost it almost never does. That is actually take

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the time to listen, to actually take the time to understand,

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to actually take the time to analyze. The Church rarely

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does that. It never it never has. You see through

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throughout history, throughout church history, Christianity has failed over and

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over again, not just in what it opposed, because sometimes

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it even opposed things I didn't even know what it

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was opposing or why it was opposing it. But even

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if it opposed something that was should be opposed, over

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and over and over, it failed in how it opposed it.

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So you can oppose the wrong thing, and you can

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oppose it for the right reason, but you can oppose

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it in the wrong way. See a pattern kind of formed, right,

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So the church would condemn things without any real context,

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without really thinking it through. It was just condemnation before

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anything else, before listening, before context, before understanding. See, it

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condemned rock music, not because of theology, even though we

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want to claim that, but because of volume. It's just

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too what is up with these kids in this loud music?

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This is not even music, it's just noise. And so

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what do we oh, it's ungodly, it's worldly. Let's condemn

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it and you'll just throw that out there, not even

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looking to go well, wait a minute, Well, what about

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this and this and this that you do? I think

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that's god ungodly and that's worldly. No, but it's the music,

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it's ungodly. No, you were condemning it because you didn't

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like it. You didn't like the sound, you didn't like

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the volume, you didn't like the aesthetic, and you just

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condemned it. You condemned it more from personal preference than

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any true philological reason, No matter what you tell yourself.

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It condemned horror, not because it promoted evil, but because

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it depicted it. It condemned novels like Harry Potter. Remember

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the great Harry Potter scare. Oh no, Harry Potter was

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gonna corrupt our children. They're all gonna be flying around

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on broomsticks and playing a game. They're all gonna be

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casting spells, and they're gonna be going to a school

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of wizardry. Oh no, it's the end of the world.

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They're all gonna be corrupted. We're all gonna We've gotta

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do something, We gotta protect our kids. Harry Potter is evil.

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Harry Potter is the Satan's tool to corrupt my kids.

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And everybody was scared of Harry Potter. Then it was

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the Well going Back before the Catcher and the Rye. Oh,

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the Lord of Flies, What a horrible book. To kill

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a mockingboard, to kill a mocking bird. Oh my goodness,

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is what are we going to do? In many cases,

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they condemned these books without actually reading them, or even

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actually analyzing them, or actually even discussing them, or even

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understanding them. It's just condemnation. They didn't try to understand.

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They didn't even try to understand what they were really about.

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And that's just books. And then oh, oh, it condemned

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comic books in the nineteen fifties. The comic books are

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gonna corrupt us. It's gonna destroy us, and we had

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to They created an agency to to censor comic books

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to make sure they followed a comic code. Then it

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was Dungeons and Dragons in the nineteen eighties. Oh no,

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we're gonna be corrupted. It's gonna be the end. We're

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all gonna I don't know what was gonna happen to

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us and playing Dungeons and Dragons, but it was in the

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end of the world. I remember, I was right there

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in the middle of a lot of this anything that

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happens in the eighties and the Satanic Panic. I was

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a part of them. Our last broadcast we discussed this, right,

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so Dungeons and Dragons I'll never forget. I kept hearing, Oh,

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it's the end of the world where you'll be possessed

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by a demon, all the stuff that's supposed to happen.

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So I go and buy Dungeons and Dragons, and I

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get my friends together, and Okay, guys, this is supposedly evil,

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this is supposedly bad. We're all going to be doing

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something really wrong. We're gonna be doing something really sinful.

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And after about forty minutes, I'm like, what is this that? What? What?

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How do you even play this like? I was like,

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there's nothing evil about this. In fact, my conclusion, and

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I rarely use the word was I don't I don't

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ever use the word boring, but I came pretty close

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to say saying I don't get this. I don't understand this.

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This is ridiculous. There's a waste of time, a waste

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of money. I would rather go run my head into

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a brick wall. Okay, maybe that's a little bit of hyperbole,

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but remember Dungeons and Dragons was gonna bring us all down. Oh,

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and now it's TikTok. TikTok is the end of society,

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these kids and their tiktoks. Oh my goodness, it's the end.

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It's the end. It's always the end. It's always that's

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the enemy. Condemned, Condemn, condemn, condemn, condemn, don't listen, don't understand,

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don't analyze, just point your finger in condemn. That's all

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the church ever can do. And it's like, oh, we

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gotta keep us away from it. And it's always some

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grand conspiracy, some satanic plot. It's gonna be the end.

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It's the Illuminati. It's everywhere. Beyonce Illuminati, Taylor's swift, she's

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a Satanist and she has snakes everywhere. It's always something,

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it's always something. It never stops. Each time the message

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goes something like this will corrupt you. No, it's not

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going to corrupt you, because you're already corrupted. Let me

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make it very clear. Anything out there that you say

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is corrupting, it cannot corrupt you because you're already corrupted.

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You were born and conceived in sin. You were born

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with a sinful nature. You have a sinful nature, and

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you will possess it all the way until glorification. This

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is the devil's work. Everything is the devil's work. Everything

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is the or it's just human beings. Because of our

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corrupt nature, we produce things that reflect that corrupt nature.

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Have you ever thought that the culture simply reflects the

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corruption that's in. It's not creating the corruption, it's not

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promoting the corruption in many cases, is simply reflecting what

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is already inside all of us. And each time the

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response contradicts one of the church's most fundamental doctrine, that

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sin doesn't come from without without it comes from within.

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And over and over the church contradicts itself. We say

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you're born a center, but then everything turns into the

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corruptions out there. We're the good people, they're the bad people.

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Don't look you hear no evil, See no evil, speak

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no evil. Let me make it very clear, whether you

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hear it, whether you see it, or whether you speak it,

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the evil's inside of you. Corruption comes from within. So

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it's this condemnation without any real context, without any real understanding.

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Another thing the church does is censorship over conversation. Instead

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of engaging art, the church tries to erase it. It

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tries to burn it, it tries to ban it, it

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tries to boycott it, it tries to censor it. It

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feared lyrics more than it feared ignorance. It feared fantasy

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more than it feared legalism. It feared r rated films

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more than it feared bearing false witness about what those

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films actually said. Let me state that again, the Church

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has feared lyrics more than it has feared legalism. It

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has feared fantasy more than it's it is fear. I'm sorry,

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it's feared lyrics more than it's feared ignorance. It's feared

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fantasy more than it's feared legalism. It's feared r rated

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films more than it feared bearing false witness about what

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the films are actually about. You see, the Church, instead

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of asking what is this story trying to say, it

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declared if it's not Christian, then it's evil. The Church

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and trying to protect people from darkness basically kept the

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people from seeing what darkness really is. In fact, we

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trying to protect the people from darkness. Everybody seemed to

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be pretending that there was no darkness inside of all

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of us. So the Church does this condemnation without context,

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does censorship over conversation, And then it does this reinforcement

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of fear based faith. By rejecting culture out of fear,

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the Church reinforced the lie that Christians are always in danger,

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as if the power of God is fragile and one song,

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one scene, one story could destroy it. And what happened.

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A generation grew up seeing Christianity as reactionary, not resilient,

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fearful not thoughtful, controlling not curious, more concerned with optics

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than with truth. And many of them walked away, not

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because they rejected God, but because they never saw how

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to think like people who knew God. But what if,

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what if the Church would have done things differently? What if? Well?

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Today is April eighth, twenty twenty five. On April the eighth,

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nineteen eighty five, an album showed up and record stores

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music stores, yeah, way back in the olden days where

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you had to go to a music store to buy music.

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That album was by the bands Slayer. The name of

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that album was Hell Awaits. The Satanic panic was spreading

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like a wildfire. And this album serves because it's the

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anniversary of the album, serves as a good thing to

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use to say what if. I'm gonna make this very clear,

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it's not about the album. It's about the what if.

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It's about what if the church would have handled this

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one thing differently, as being somewhat symbolic of handling the

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entire Satanic panic differently, handling so many of these crazy

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things differently. So everyone's going to get caught up on

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the album. It's more I'm just using the album because

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it's the anniversary of it, and because it was such

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I mean, it was such a lightning rod of controversy

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at that time that it's a good object lesson to use.

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So what if it had all gone differently? What if

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in nineteen eighty five, when Slayer released Hell awaits and

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churches were holding record burnings and parents were in full panic,

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and the Satanic panic was on every screen and in

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every sermon. What if one pastor just one would have said, no,

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we're not going to burn this, we're going to read it,

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we're going to listen, we're going to ask questions, and

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we're going to tell the truth. What if he set

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his youth group down and track by track they walked

296
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through each one and he showed them not how to

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fear the darkness, but how to discern it. What if

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someone had treated teenagers like they actually had the ability

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to think and treated them like thinkers instead of liabilities.

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What if someone had opened the lyrics to Hell Awaits

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and found a world full of sin, judgment, hopelessness, and

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then used it to point to grace. So here's what

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we're going to do for the next ever how long

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this takes. We are going to go back to nineteen

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00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:54.799
eighty five, somewhere in West Texas, a small church, and

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we're going to tell I'm going to tell. You're going

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to listen. We're going to go back and in a sense,

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watch a fictional scene unfold. Because there's clearly this did

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not happen. That's why I'm saying, what if I want

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to go back and tell a fictional story of what

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if the church would have done it this way? Now,

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when I describe it, anyone who's been in church are

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00:20:19.279 --> 00:20:21.359
gonna laugh because you're gonna be like, this is not

314
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even realistic. I know it's a fictional story. But we're

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gonna go back and I'm gonna do this as a

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fictional narrative, telling this story of what if this would

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have happened in nineteen eighty five, because this is the

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story of what could have happened. This is a story

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of what could have happened of a small church, a

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determined pastor, and an album everyone feared but no one understood.

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This is nineteen eighty five. This is the band Slayer,

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and this is the album Hell Awaits. It's nineteen eighty five.

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The satanic panic is in full swing. Churches across America

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are holding rock seminars, parents are burning cassettes and youth

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group bonfires. Pastors are preaching that heavy metal is the

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gateway to demonic possession. And Slayer, a California thrash band

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with a reputation for the terrifying, has just released an

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album called hell Awaits. Everywhere Christians are panicking everywhere except

329
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one small church in West Texas and a modest white

330
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church building on the edge of a dusty Texas town.

331
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A pastor does something unexpected. He walks into the youth classroom.

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He has in his hands the album the LP Hell

333
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Awaits by Slayer. He just picks it up, he just

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lifts it up. All the kids know about this album.

335
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They've all heard about how bad it is, how demonic

336
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it is, how satanic it is, and they're thinking, oh no,

337
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oh no, we're getting ready to get chewed out. He's

338
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gonna tell us how bad this is. He's gonna condemn it.

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We're gonna get fire and brimstone. We're gonna get yelled.

340
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He's probably gonna smash it into pieces, probably take us

341
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outside and try to burn it. But he doesn't burn

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the record. He doesn't warn the kids with fear, he

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doesn't yell at them. Instead, he's going to invite them

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in imagine. It's a Wednesday night, folding chairs. It's a

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youth room with a cross on the wall because you know,

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back in nineteen eighty five churches had crosses. You know, Okay,

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it's a joke. It's a joke. Okay, it's a cross

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on the wall, a chalkboard maybe maybe a chalkboard, maybe

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a whiteboard, chalkboard. We'll go with that chalkboard because we'll

350
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really trying to get that, you know, that nostalgic feel.

351
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The chalkboard is behind him. He has the album hell

352
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Awaits laying right there on the table as a bible.

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He looks around, he looks at all the kids. He

354
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can see they're kind of like, oh, no, what's going

355
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to happen? He can see they're kind of like, maybe

356
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some are already putting their heads down because they own the album,

357
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and or maybe they're like, oh no, my mom and

358
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dad caught found the album and they gave it to

359
00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:06.680
the pastor. I'm about to get called out. They got

360
00:24:06.680 --> 00:24:11.400
all kinds of thoughts. Maybe the pastor says, I know

361
00:24:11.480 --> 00:24:15.880
what they're saying. I know what you've heard, that this

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band is evil, that this album is satanic, and maybe

363
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some of that fear isn't completely misplaced. But here in

364
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this church, at least in this classroom, we're not going

365
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to run from the dark. We're gonna shine a light

366
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onto it. We're gonna shine a light into it. My

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kids are kind of looking around, like, what is happening?

368
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What is going on? Is the pastor possibly on crack?

369
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I mean it's nineteen eighties, right, is the pastor on crack?

370
00:24:50.319 --> 00:24:52.640
What is going on? I mean the kids are like

371
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a little bit confused. Now. The good thing is they

372
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don't they can't be looking at their phones, they can't

373
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be texting anybody. All they can do is try to

374
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whisper to each other. They don't know what to do.

375
00:25:00.039 --> 00:25:02.240
Maybe they could just maybe they're nervous, they don't know

376
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what they're like, what is happening right here? The pastor says,

377
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So tonight we're gonna do something different. We're going to

378
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go song by song, lyric by lyric. We're going to

379
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ask what is this album really saying? What does it

380
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show us about the world, about sin, about judgment, maybe

381
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even about ourselves. And when we're done, maybe we won't

382
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be afraid anymore, maybe we'll be wiser, maybe we'll know

383
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how to think, because guys, you know how to think.

384
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You can think. You're not dumb, you're not stupid, you're

385
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not foolish. And I'm not going to treat you like children.

386
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I'm gonna treat you like young adults who have the

387
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ability to figure it out. And I'm gonna teach you

388
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how to discern. Now, just even saying that, I know

389
00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:04.440
that's crazy because you can't do this in church. You'll

390
00:26:04.480 --> 00:26:06.400
get in trouble. But okay, all right, But remember this

391
00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:09.440
is a fictional story of if what could have happened,

392
00:26:09.640 --> 00:26:13.559
what happened in the fictional West Texas town that obviously

393
00:26:13.640 --> 00:26:16.079
I didn't grow up in, because this did not happen

394
00:26:16.359 --> 00:26:24.000
for me, And so they begin, no bonfire is lit,

395
00:26:24.799 --> 00:26:31.680
no shouting, no lies dressed up as spiritual warfare on

396
00:26:31.880 --> 00:26:34.200
church's love to say spiritual warfare and then tell five

397
00:26:34.279 --> 00:26:39.359
hundred and twenty three lies. Just a pastor, a room

398
00:26:39.359 --> 00:26:42.640
full of teenagers, and a determination to tell the truth,

399
00:26:43.039 --> 00:26:49.359
even about something everyone else is afraid of, because sometimes

400
00:26:50.160 --> 00:26:56.680
the most Christian thing you can do is refuse to panic.

401
00:26:58.839 --> 00:27:02.440
So he holds up the album, pulls off the wrapper,

402
00:27:04.839 --> 00:27:07.960
pulls off the rapper, and he shows everyone the cover.

403
00:27:08.200 --> 00:27:10.319
And the kids seeing the cover in nineteen eighty five

404
00:27:10.319 --> 00:27:14.319
would be like, oh, because it looks satanic. It looks scary.

405
00:27:14.759 --> 00:27:16.519
Some of the kids may even get nervous because they

406
00:27:16.519 --> 00:27:19.359
already know their mom and dad are going to absolutely

407
00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:21.599
lose their minds when they find out what just happened

408
00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:25.000
in this Wednesday night session. We already know. They already

409
00:27:25.039 --> 00:27:26.400
know that this is going to probably be the end

410
00:27:26.440 --> 00:27:28.960
of this pastor and probably the end of them ever

411
00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:31.240
coming back to this church, because they know something is

412
00:27:31.279 --> 00:27:35.400
going on. The pastor opens it up, takes out the LP, says, Okay, guys,

413
00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:40.359
before we can understand the lyrics, we've got to understand

414
00:27:40.799 --> 00:27:44.240
the music. We've got to understand what this album is

415
00:27:44.319 --> 00:27:48.359
doing musically, because so many times people who listen to

416
00:27:48.440 --> 00:27:52.279
music don't really understand music. So I'm going to try

417
00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:55.400
to help you understand the music, because the music is

418
00:27:55.440 --> 00:28:04.160
going to help us understand the lyrics. Hell Awaits. This

419
00:28:04.400 --> 00:28:09.200
album does have what we would refer to as repeated

420
00:28:09.359 --> 00:28:13.200
sections and lyrical refrains. In other words, kids, you would

421
00:28:13.240 --> 00:28:15.240
know what we're talking about. You listen to a song

422
00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:19.440
and they repeat something frequently, or over and over and over, okay,

423
00:28:19.720 --> 00:28:23.480
but it does not. This album hell Awaits by Slayer

424
00:28:23.559 --> 00:28:28.000
does not follow a traditional pop or metal hook structure.

425
00:28:28.240 --> 00:28:30.440
You know those songs that are really catchy and they

426
00:28:30.440 --> 00:28:33.119
get into your head and you just sing them over

427
00:28:33.160 --> 00:28:35.240
and over and over. They got that that hook, they

428
00:28:35.279 --> 00:28:37.720
got that that part that you just almost like sing

429
00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:41.319
it as an anthem. Well, this album doesn't really follow that.

430
00:28:42.079 --> 00:28:45.640
There may be some chorus like parts, but they're not

431
00:28:45.759 --> 00:28:48.720
written to be catchy. They're not written to be memorable.

432
00:28:48.880 --> 00:28:53.880
There's there, They're not hooky in the conventional sense. This

433
00:28:53.920 --> 00:28:56.359
is not This album is not like any other album

434
00:28:56.440 --> 00:28:59.200
you're going to listen to. It's it's doing something different

435
00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:03.440
musically and kids, this should be your clue that you

436
00:29:03.559 --> 00:29:07.920
have to interpret this differently. In church, we talk about hermoneutics,

437
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:09.759
and you as you look for the text, you look

438
00:29:09.799 --> 00:29:12.920
for those hermoneutical clues. Well, when you listen to an album,

439
00:29:13.079 --> 00:29:15.680
you've got to pay attention to the music because sometimes

440
00:29:15.720 --> 00:29:19.599
the music gives you the hermoneutical clue. And hell Awaits

441
00:29:19.599 --> 00:29:22.640
by Slayer has a hermoneutical clue all over it, and

442
00:29:22.680 --> 00:29:31.319
it's the way the album is structured. And traditional rock

443
00:29:31.680 --> 00:29:38.039
or pop or metal songwriting, a hook is a it

444
00:29:38.799 --> 00:29:43.519
goes something like this. It's melodically or rhythmically memorable. It's

445
00:29:43.559 --> 00:29:46.920
got a melody, it's got a rhythm. It's very it's

446
00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:53.559
easy to be remembered. It's got the sense of it's

447
00:29:53.559 --> 00:29:57.480
something catchy, right, It's something that you're going to know

448
00:29:57.920 --> 00:30:00.640
as soon as it starts. You know what to say.

449
00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:05.039
You just feel that it's just you're going to remember it.

450
00:30:05.079 --> 00:30:07.519
I'm trying to do this in the most non technical

451
00:30:07.559 --> 00:30:10.240
way possible, just as if I was talking to these kids.

452
00:30:12.240 --> 00:30:19.160
It's repeated at predictable intervals, usually after every verse. Usually

453
00:30:19.160 --> 00:30:20.960
you have the verse in the course, then the verse

454
00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:22.799
and the chorus. So you sing the verse and then

455
00:30:22.839 --> 00:30:25.200
here comes the course. And even if you don't remember

456
00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:28.440
the verse, everyone knows the chorus. Everybody sings along. Everybody

457
00:30:28.440 --> 00:30:32.799
sings along, Everybody sings along. It's designed to stick in

458
00:30:32.839 --> 00:30:35.440
your head after one or two listens. It only takes

459
00:30:35.480 --> 00:30:37.359
two or three. You could think of if we were

460
00:30:37.400 --> 00:30:40.839
going back to this is nineteen eighty five, guys, shoot

461
00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:44.319
us priest, pricking the law, pricking the law. Everybody knows that. Right.

462
00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:46.240
If we were to go in further up in time,

463
00:30:46.680 --> 00:30:52.480
enter Sandman by Metallica, Right, how about ac DC back

464
00:30:52.519 --> 00:30:55.160
in Black. You know these songs are catchy, they're hooking,

465
00:30:55.160 --> 00:30:56.920
and you could just name a number a million of

466
00:30:56.960 --> 00:31:00.680
other songs popular past present. Now I'm trying to stay

467
00:31:00.680 --> 00:31:06.920
within the narrative, but kids would know a song that's catchy.

468
00:31:06.839 --> 00:31:14.319
They're structured, they're accessible, they're almost as an anthem. Everybody

469
00:31:14.319 --> 00:31:20.319
sings along. Right, But this album, he holds it back

470
00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:27.839
up to the kids. Hell Awaits by Slayer. It doesn't

471
00:31:27.880 --> 00:31:31.359
seem to care about any of that. You see, it

472
00:31:31.359 --> 00:31:36.400
has unconventional song structures, mini tracks, hell Awaits Praise of Death.

473
00:31:36.599 --> 00:31:41.400
They have extended intros, abrupt tempo changes, riff based development

474
00:31:41.559 --> 00:31:47.720
instead of verse course, repetition, long instrumental passages, complex time

475
00:31:47.799 --> 00:31:52.160
signatures and transitions. There's a million things going on musically.

476
00:31:52.400 --> 00:31:55.759
And this is why kids, when your parents say it's

477
00:31:55.880 --> 00:32:00.440
just noise, it's not even music, they're not understanding because

478
00:32:00.440 --> 00:32:02.960
they're not even giving it. They're not even trying to

479
00:32:03.079 --> 00:32:06.279
understand it. There's all kinds of complex things going on

480
00:32:06.319 --> 00:32:11.799
in this album. There's the instrumentation, the complex time signatures,

481
00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:17.279
the major tempo changes, it abrupt tempo changes. There's a

482
00:32:17.319 --> 00:32:21.039
lot of complex things going on this album musically. People

483
00:32:21.079 --> 00:32:23.119
may talk down to it and speak of it as

484
00:32:23.279 --> 00:32:27.079
garbage or trash. It's because they're not seeking to understand it.

485
00:32:27.119 --> 00:32:29.759
And if they can't even understand the music, they'll never

486
00:32:29.880 --> 00:32:37.200
understand the message. These songs are almost as episodes. They're episodic,

487
00:32:37.440 --> 00:32:40.319
they're not cyclical. You don't come back to the same

488
00:32:40.359 --> 00:32:44.079
part predictably. It's more like reading a short horror story

489
00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:47.000
than hearing a jingle. It's not like the music goes

490
00:32:47.039 --> 00:32:49.440
this way and then comes back to it, goes this way,

491
00:32:49.640 --> 00:32:52.400
comes back to it, right. You know that, you know

492
00:32:52.519 --> 00:32:54.799
that no no, no, no, no no. This is like

493
00:32:54.880 --> 00:32:57.759
it's an episode. It's like telling a story. It's going

494
00:32:57.759 --> 00:33:00.559
from here to here. It's not gonna just keep repeating

495
00:33:00.599 --> 00:33:06.440
back like a jingle, so it gets stuck in your head. Now.

496
00:33:06.440 --> 00:33:12.880
The vocal delivery on this album hell Awaits, it's rhythmically aggressive.

497
00:33:13.839 --> 00:33:20.279
It's more shouted than sung. It lacks melodic phrasing. There's

498
00:33:20.319 --> 00:33:24.519
no melodic phrasing on here. It's closer to barking. It's

499
00:33:24.519 --> 00:33:31.079
closer to ranting. It's a narrative scream. It prioritizes violent

500
00:33:31.279 --> 00:33:34.839
speed and impact over tunefulness. It doesn't care if it's

501
00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:40.000
to in tune. It's about this violence to speed. Even

502
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:43.319
when lines are repeated like hell Awaits or kill Again,

503
00:33:43.880 --> 00:33:47.279
they're not hooks in a musical sense. They're almost like

504
00:33:47.839 --> 00:33:51.759
a slap in the face and a rhythmic assault. There's

505
00:33:51.759 --> 00:33:58.559
nothing normal about what's happening on this album. Kids. It's

506
00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:03.640
about atmosphere and it has narrative goals. Slayer didn't write

507
00:34:03.640 --> 00:34:06.640
the album to be catchy. They wrote it to be unsettling.

508
00:34:06.839 --> 00:34:09.440
They wrote it to be unrelenting. They wrote it to

509
00:34:09.480 --> 00:34:13.480
be thematic, not marketable. They didn't write this to get

510
00:34:13.480 --> 00:34:16.760
on radio. They didn't write this to get popular. They

511
00:34:16.800 --> 00:34:21.320
wrote this because they were trying to tell stories. The

512
00:34:21.480 --> 00:34:27.559
album is immersive horror, not accessible metal. Even in songs

513
00:34:27.559 --> 00:34:30.400
that have a repeated line kill and kill again, the

514
00:34:30.480 --> 00:34:32.639
goal isn't for you to sing along. It's for you

515
00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:36.840
to feel trapped inside the craziness, the chaos and the madness.

516
00:34:39.440 --> 00:34:43.639
So yes, some Slayer songs, some fans, some people may

517
00:34:43.679 --> 00:34:47.159
tell you they have choruses because they're repeated lines. But

518
00:34:47.199 --> 00:34:51.239
from a compositional standpoint, hell Awaits rejects traditional chorus hook

519
00:34:51.280 --> 00:34:57.280
structure and favor of thorough composed brutality. It's like comparing

520
00:34:57.320 --> 00:35:00.719
a pop song to a piece of avant grade class music.

521
00:35:01.039 --> 00:35:03.840
Both may have motifs, but one is built for memory.

522
00:35:04.039 --> 00:35:09.199
The other is for immersion and unease, and hell Awaits

523
00:35:09.400 --> 00:35:13.679
is about immersing you into the uneasiness and the fear

524
00:35:14.079 --> 00:35:17.960
and the chaos and the madness. That's what this is about, kids,

525
00:35:18.280 --> 00:35:22.320
that there's something going on here that requires you to

526
00:35:22.360 --> 00:35:26.159
have the ability to discern it, to understand it, and

527
00:35:26.199 --> 00:35:29.639
to analyze it, just like we try to discern and

528
00:35:29.719 --> 00:35:35.760
analyze literature. The Bible. We seek because you can't condemn,

529
00:35:36.199 --> 00:35:40.159
you can't yell at, You shouldn't burn that which you

530
00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:48.119
don't understand. You see, the musical structure is the first clue.

531
00:35:48.280 --> 00:35:53.239
This is storytelling. It's not a sing along from the

532
00:35:53.400 --> 00:35:58.079
very first, from the first reversed chant, because at the beginning,

533
00:35:58.199 --> 00:36:00.119
and in fact, when you play it, if you've tell

534
00:36:00.159 --> 00:36:03.960
you this album kids, if you've listened to this Teenagers, right,

535
00:36:04.840 --> 00:36:07.920
you hear this all kind of just weird noise. In

536
00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:14.400
this reverse chant, it has this sprawling, rift driven arrangement.

537
00:36:15.039 --> 00:36:18.199
Hell Awaits is musically not designed to recruit you. It's

538
00:36:18.239 --> 00:36:21.119
not designed to convert you. It's not even designed really

539
00:36:21.159 --> 00:36:26.280
to entertain you in any conventional sense. It's meant to unfold,

540
00:36:26.639 --> 00:36:30.639
not to repeat. It's to immerse, not to indoctrinate. It's

541
00:36:30.719 --> 00:36:40.159
to terrify you. It's not to entice you. Slayer intentionally

542
00:36:40.199 --> 00:36:46.400
avoids verse coorse, verse repetition. It intentionally avoids catchy melodic phrasing.

543
00:36:46.639 --> 00:36:53.239
It intentionally avoids harmonized vocals. It intentionally avoids predictable tempo patterns.

544
00:36:53.599 --> 00:36:56.679
Why is it doing all of this? Because those elements

545
00:36:56.679 --> 00:36:59.360
are used in pop and even in traditional metal to

546
00:36:59.360 --> 00:37:02.280
make things stick in your head. They're tools of retention

547
00:37:02.639 --> 00:37:08.159
and reinforcement. Slayer wasn't interested in retention. They were interested

548
00:37:08.239 --> 00:37:12.719
in relentlessness and dragging you through a hellscape without giving

549
00:37:12.719 --> 00:37:15.320
you time to catch your breath or to sing along.

550
00:37:16.159 --> 00:37:19.840
The album isn't asking you to participate. It's showing you

551
00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:24.440
a vision, like watching a horror film unfold with no breaks.

552
00:37:24.679 --> 00:37:32.280
There's no breaks, there's no slowing down. So if you

553
00:37:32.320 --> 00:37:36.000
look at it, it's basically linear storytelling. Much of Hell

554
00:37:36.039 --> 00:37:38.960
Awaits is built like a narrative or film score. It

555
00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:41.480
has a beginning, it has a middle, it has an end.

556
00:37:41.679 --> 00:37:46.199
It has rising tension, shifting sections instead of repeating refrains,

557
00:37:46.639 --> 00:37:53.519
escalation instead of resolution. These are literary and cinematic techniques

558
00:37:53.599 --> 00:37:57.599
applied musically. This is not how you build an anthem.

559
00:37:57.840 --> 00:38:02.320
This is how you build a store. For example, the

560
00:38:02.360 --> 00:38:06.400
title track starts with ritualistic chant, builds with layered rifts,

561
00:38:06.599 --> 00:38:10.760
and ends with complete submission to hell. Praise of death

562
00:38:11.280 --> 00:38:18.599
crescendos into nihilistic climax necrophiliac sends into grotesque narrative detail,

563
00:38:18.880 --> 00:38:23.239
ending in supernatural birth and damnation. These are thematic hooks,

564
00:38:23.519 --> 00:38:31.480
they're plot points. The music mirrors the lyrical content, the disorientation,

565
00:38:31.920 --> 00:38:35.599
the tempo shifts, the lack of repetition, all that serves

566
00:38:35.639 --> 00:38:39.119
the horror of storytelling, or the storytelling of horror gifts.

567
00:38:39.159 --> 00:38:42.119
We could say if Slayer was trying to recruit people

568
00:38:42.280 --> 00:38:46.239
to Satanism, they'd make the music catchy, empowering, rhythmic, something

569
00:38:46.280 --> 00:38:48.679
you'd want to return to and repeat, instead of a

570
00:38:48.760 --> 00:38:52.159
music that keeps you off balance, that tells us that

571
00:38:52.239 --> 00:38:56.400
this isn't propaganda, this isn't this is fiction. This is

572
00:38:56.440 --> 00:39:03.239
a sonic descent and to darkness. So the music on

573
00:39:03.280 --> 00:39:08.079
this album, Teenagers is our first interpretive clue the album.

574
00:39:08.119 --> 00:39:11.400
If the album had catchy choruses and simplified riffs, you

575
00:39:11.480 --> 00:39:14.159
might argue it was written to imprint an idea onto

576
00:39:14.159 --> 00:39:18.400
the listener. But it is chaotic. It shifts, It shifts constantly.

577
00:39:18.679 --> 00:39:21.760
Its brutal structure tells us it was written to paint

578
00:39:21.840 --> 00:39:25.960
a world, to narrate, not to indoctrinate. Slayer didn't write

579
00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:28.400
Hellaways to get stuck in your head. That wrote it

580
00:39:28.400 --> 00:39:31.039
to pull you down into a world where all hope

581
00:39:31.119 --> 00:39:35.039
is gone and judgment is final. And that alone is

582
00:39:35.079 --> 00:39:39.000
a massive interpretive shift, one that most Christians, most of

583
00:39:39.039 --> 00:39:43.719
the Christian world, most of your parents, most pastors, everyone,

584
00:39:44.039 --> 00:39:47.239
nobody caught on, and then nineteen eighty five and no

585
00:39:47.280 --> 00:39:51.480
one is catching on. What if the pastor would have

586
00:39:51.480 --> 00:39:57.159
broken down the music of the album like that. You see,

587
00:39:57.239 --> 00:40:01.360
most adults can't even do that. Adults can't even come close.

588
00:40:01.440 --> 00:40:04.360
You give them an album, it's just like it. That's

589
00:40:04.559 --> 00:40:08.679
a lot. That's a lot. There's no all right, don't

590
00:40:08.679 --> 00:40:12.440
even try to understand it. What if that would have happened,

591
00:40:12.519 --> 00:40:14.039
those kids would have walked if that would have been

592
00:40:14.079 --> 00:40:15.840
the end of the if the service and they would

593
00:40:15.880 --> 00:40:18.719
have all walked out. Can you imagine that they would

594
00:40:18.760 --> 00:40:23.280
have walked out understanding the album more? I mean just

595
00:40:23.360 --> 00:40:26.639
right there would have given them a The ability to discern,

596
00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:33.480
to understand, would have given them skills. So what if

597
00:40:33.519 --> 00:40:36.199
the pastor then would have said, okay, guys, well let's

598
00:40:36.239 --> 00:40:40.039
do this. Let's start with track one. Now, if there's

599
00:40:40.079 --> 00:40:42.199
only seven tracks on the album, right, the album is

600
00:40:42.199 --> 00:40:46.079
only like thirty five thirty seven minutes long. I want

601
00:40:46.119 --> 00:40:48.199
to take us through the narrative of going through every

602
00:40:48.239 --> 00:40:50.840
single track, right, But I think at that point, I'm

603
00:40:50.840 --> 00:40:53.199
gonna this, what if this is just going to turn

604
00:40:53.239 --> 00:40:56.400
into a lot of detail. But I'm gonna pick certain

605
00:40:56.480 --> 00:40:59.840
songs here go through them, just to give you a

606
00:41:00.559 --> 00:41:03.000
how this could be done, how it could have been done,

607
00:41:03.159 --> 00:41:05.000
and how it would have changed everything. And then we'll

608
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:06.880
try to wrap this up more with the lessons I

609
00:41:06.920 --> 00:41:08.639
really want to get here, because this is all about

610
00:41:08.800 --> 00:41:13.800
how the church could and engage culture, but how versus

611
00:41:13.800 --> 00:41:16.440
how the church actually does. So what if the pastor

612
00:41:16.519 --> 00:41:19.400
after he held up the album and he explained that

613
00:41:19.599 --> 00:41:21.960
to all the kids, maybe he could have even asked questions,

614
00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:24.480
do you understand musically what it's doing? Do you understand

615
00:41:24.599 --> 00:41:27.079
how different than it is than anything else? This thing

616
00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:33.639
and just from a musical standpoint, it's somewhat revolutionary. It

617
00:41:33.639 --> 00:41:36.400
has a completely different approach. But that approach tells you

618
00:41:37.239 --> 00:41:40.360
something's going on. Yeah, storytelling is going on here, and

619
00:41:40.400 --> 00:41:50.760
nobody seems to catch on. All right, back to our story,

620
00:41:51.320 --> 00:41:54.280
back to nineteen eighty five, small white church on the

621
00:41:54.719 --> 00:41:57.800
edge of a dusty Texas town. The kids are in

622
00:41:57.840 --> 00:42:01.760
the youth group. He's right all right, Track one. Everyone.

623
00:42:02.440 --> 00:42:04.920
The kids cannot believe this is happening. They can't believe

624
00:42:04.920 --> 00:42:07.920
they just got an entire lesson on the music musical

625
00:42:07.920 --> 00:42:11.079
structure of hell Awaits by Slayer. They're blown away. They

626
00:42:11.079 --> 00:42:13.239
cannot believe this is happening in church, and now they

627
00:42:13.239 --> 00:42:15.719
feel like they understand the album already better than anyone else.

628
00:42:17.480 --> 00:42:21.320
But the pastor is like, all right, track one, he says,

629
00:42:21.360 --> 00:42:24.119
this is where most folks stop listening. Right here, This

630
00:42:24.199 --> 00:42:26.679
is going to be the end. That reverse chanting at

631
00:42:26.719 --> 00:42:32.400
the beginning. All it's saying is join us, played backwards,

632
00:42:32.400 --> 00:42:36.760
over and over and over and over again. Now leaving

633
00:42:36.760 --> 00:42:38.519
the narrative, I think yesterday I said it was only

634
00:42:38.679 --> 00:42:41.480
three or four times I had to go back and listen.

635
00:42:41.599 --> 00:42:44.280
It's over. It's at the beginning. It's already doing it.

636
00:42:44.320 --> 00:42:47.400
But all you hear is kind of this, all this

637
00:42:47.559 --> 00:42:50.000
noise and sound, and it's way low, and you think

638
00:42:50.039 --> 00:42:54.000
something's wrong with your stereo system. But slowly it's just

639
00:42:54.000 --> 00:42:56.239
this reverse chanting, and all it's saying is join us,

640
00:42:56.360 --> 00:42:59.920
Join us, Join us. Is it spooky yes? Is it scary? Yes?

641
00:43:00.079 --> 00:43:01.960
If you at the first time you were listening to

642
00:43:01.960 --> 00:43:03.920
this in nineteen eighty five with a pair of headphones

643
00:43:03.920 --> 00:43:06.480
on at midnight, you may be going, what is happening?

644
00:43:08.119 --> 00:43:12.039
But it's just theatrical. It's like something out of a

645
00:43:12.079 --> 00:43:16.119
haunted house, like something at a horror movie trailer that

646
00:43:16.199 --> 00:43:18.400
may be used a you know, to preview a new

647
00:43:18.440 --> 00:43:21.760
movie coming out. It's designed to set a mood. It's

648
00:43:21.800 --> 00:43:26.400
not trying to convert you to Satanism. Then the music

649
00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:31.400
kicks in and it's relentless Musically, it's chaos, but it's

650
00:43:31.519 --> 00:43:35.679
deliberate chaos. These guys know what they're doing and lyrically,

651
00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:38.960
let's try to understand it, all right, because we got

652
00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:41.719
the aesthetic, we got the sound, which many people will

653
00:43:41.719 --> 00:43:46.400
be like evil. It's just creating an atmosphere for the

654
00:43:46.559 --> 00:43:49.960
story that it's going to tell that is somewhat horrible.

655
00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:51.559
Now I can't. I'm not going to read all the

656
00:43:51.639 --> 00:43:54.159
lyrics because if I read all the lyrics, we'll be

657
00:43:54.239 --> 00:44:00.159
here for five years. All right, So let's start existing

658
00:44:00.599 --> 00:44:05.800
on Damnation's edge. The priest had never known to witness

659
00:44:05.840 --> 00:44:10.079
such a violent show of power overthrown. Now this isn't

660
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:14.119
talking about a modern pastor teenagers. It's drawing a scene

661
00:44:14.119 --> 00:44:20.920
of cosmic battle. It's apocalyptic fiction, like revelation twisted through

662
00:44:20.960 --> 00:44:24.559
a horror lens. Angels are fighting, but they're aimless. The

663
00:44:24.639 --> 00:44:31.480
forces of hell are described as winning. Is that true theologically? No?

664
00:44:31.719 --> 00:44:35.159
But remember This is not a theology text book. It's

665
00:44:35.199 --> 00:44:41.719
a story. It's dark, it's dystopian and intentionally shocking. Back

666
00:44:41.760 --> 00:44:45.719
to the lyrics the gates of Hell waiting, as you see,

667
00:44:45.800 --> 00:44:48.960
there's no price to pay. Just follow me. I can

668
00:44:49.000 --> 00:44:52.599
take your lost soul from the grave. Jesus knows your

669
00:44:52.679 --> 00:44:56.480
soul cannot be saved. Now, this is where your parents

670
00:44:56.480 --> 00:44:58.320
are going to get angry. This is where people are

671
00:44:58.360 --> 00:45:01.000
going to start yelling and screaming and burn. But let's

672
00:45:01.039 --> 00:45:04.159
be clear. The speaker in the verse, it's not the band.

673
00:45:04.880 --> 00:45:08.800
It's a character, likely Satan or one of his demons,

674
00:45:08.960 --> 00:45:13.519
speaking to a damned soul. It's a temptation speech, not

675
00:45:13.599 --> 00:45:16.960
a belief statement. Much like in literature when the villain

676
00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:20.239
taunts the hero. This is the evil boasting. You don't

677
00:45:20.320 --> 00:45:24.679
quote the serpent in Genesis and assume that's what God thinks.

678
00:45:27.119 --> 00:45:29.880
If you only read these lyrics at face value, you

679
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:32.800
miss the fact that the entire song is a guided

680
00:45:32.880 --> 00:45:36.719
tour of damnation. It's not inviting you to hell. It's

681
00:45:36.719 --> 00:45:40.880
showing you what awaits if you end up in hell.

682
00:45:41.119 --> 00:45:43.840
Just listen to the imagery. In the second verse, the

683
00:45:43.880 --> 00:45:47.719
reaper guards the darkened gates. The demons feed the furnace,

684
00:45:47.920 --> 00:45:53.480
each leading to the burning hole that Lucifer controls. This

685
00:45:53.559 --> 00:45:57.000
is terrifying on purpose. It's like the Inferno of Dante,

686
00:45:57.400 --> 00:46:00.920
dark fantasy, meant to disturb and provoke. Is it biblical?

687
00:46:01.159 --> 00:46:06.239
Not really? Is it evil not necessarily? Is it fiction? Grotesque,

688
00:46:06.599 --> 00:46:11.880
vivid night marish fiction. Then there comes a line that

689
00:46:12.639 --> 00:46:16.679
sounds like folk lore, pray to the moon when it

690
00:46:16.760 --> 00:46:20.760
is round death with you shall then abound. Now I'm

691
00:46:20.800 --> 00:46:23.599
reading this in kind of like a rhythmic way. They're

692
00:46:23.639 --> 00:46:26.239
not delivered in that way. They're delivered really fast, like

693
00:46:26.320 --> 00:46:28.679
pray to the moon when it is round the death

694
00:46:28.719 --> 00:46:30.599
with you shall then about. It's like it's very kind

695
00:46:30.599 --> 00:46:32.679
of really fast. If you listen to the album. Okay,

696
00:46:32.719 --> 00:46:37.519
but now that's straight up poetic horror. It's a cult sounding,

697
00:46:37.719 --> 00:46:41.000
but it's a fictional verse. Slayer isn't teaching theology, they're

698
00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:47.599
crafting atmosphere. Then listen to this. Now I have you

699
00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:52.400
deep inside my everlasting grasp. The flames of hades burn strong.

700
00:46:52.639 --> 00:46:57.679
Your soul shall never rest. The message you're lost, there's

701
00:46:57.800 --> 00:47:03.239
no escape, there's no redemption, there is no rest. Is

702
00:47:03.280 --> 00:47:11.079
that satanic propaganda. No, it's despair. It's the natural consequence

703
00:47:11.199 --> 00:47:15.159
of damnation without grace. It's what the world looks like

704
00:47:15.199 --> 00:47:18.519
without a savior. It's what hell would be if Jesus

705
00:47:18.679 --> 00:47:27.840
had never come. And that's the irony teenagers. Christians reacted

706
00:47:27.840 --> 00:47:30.280
to this song with rage, but if they'd actually read

707
00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:33.760
it carefully, they might have seen something else, a fictional vision.

708
00:47:38.000 --> 00:47:44.519
We go back to my notes here, let me go

709
00:47:44.599 --> 00:47:49.119
back here, because my notes kind of got messed up.

710
00:47:52.480 --> 00:47:56.840
And that's the irony. Teenagers. Christians reacted to this song

711
00:47:56.880 --> 00:47:59.800
with rage, but if they'd actually read it carefully, they

712
00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:03.480
might have seen something else, a fictional vision of what

713
00:48:03.519 --> 00:48:06.400
the world looks like if Satan wins and God is

714
00:48:06.440 --> 00:48:10.320
nowhere to be found. It is hopeless, it is terrifying,

715
00:48:10.599 --> 00:48:14.360
and it's the perfect opportunity for us to ask if

716
00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:19.719
this really, If is this really what awaits all of us?

717
00:48:21.239 --> 00:48:26.000
Or is there something else? Is there someone else? Is

718
00:48:26.039 --> 00:48:32.599
there someone else who changes this hopeless, horrific ending as

719
00:48:32.719 --> 00:48:42.679
described by Slayer in the song hell Awaits? What if

720
00:48:42.719 --> 00:48:46.519
the pastor would have done that? What if he would

721
00:48:46.519 --> 00:48:50.320
have just done that. He's not using sensationalism, he's not

722
00:48:50.440 --> 00:48:53.679
using fearies like the song is just describing what basically

723
00:48:53.920 --> 00:48:55.960
it is, if there is no God, if there is

724
00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:58.519
no savior, if Jesus can't say I mean, the album

725
00:48:58.559 --> 00:49:00.760
seems to put the song seems to put forth the

726
00:49:00.800 --> 00:49:03.480
idea that Jesus can't save you because you're so condemned.

727
00:49:03.519 --> 00:49:05.920
There's no hope and there's no And we say that's

728
00:49:05.960 --> 00:49:09.760
not true theologically, But what if there wasn't any God,

729
00:49:09.800 --> 00:49:12.199
there wasn't any savior. This is what would be. But

730
00:49:12.239 --> 00:49:14.920
what if it isn't that way? What if someone what

731
00:49:14.960 --> 00:49:17.519
if God did send his son to die for us,

732
00:49:17.599 --> 00:49:19.599
what if he did shed his blood. I am by

733
00:49:19.679 --> 00:49:22.400
putting our faith in him, we don't have to have

734
00:49:22.440 --> 00:49:25.880
this hopelessness and helplessness and this fear and dread. We

735
00:49:25.960 --> 00:49:29.079
can have hope and that what Christ has done for us.

736
00:49:29.199 --> 00:49:32.039
This is the perfect opportunity to use the song to

737
00:49:32.119 --> 00:49:36.079
talk about a different approach to how things could end.

738
00:49:37.280 --> 00:49:40.159
Not in a cheesy way, not in the like trying

739
00:49:40.159 --> 00:49:43.000
to be ooh, it's just in a realistic way. This

740
00:49:43.119 --> 00:49:45.800
song puts forth this idea. It's just putting forth an idea.

741
00:49:45.800 --> 00:49:51.559
I don't need to be afraid of it. So that's

742
00:49:51.599 --> 00:49:54.480
that's hell awaits that's track one. Is it dark? Absolutely?

743
00:49:54.599 --> 00:49:56.719
Is it dangerous only if you don't know how to

744
00:49:56.800 --> 00:49:59.679
read it. Let's not be afraid of art just because

745
00:49:59.679 --> 00:50:04.000
it's Let's learn to ask better questions. But we need

746
00:50:04.039 --> 00:50:12.159
to move on to track two, Kill Again, all right?

747
00:50:13.320 --> 00:50:17.880
Track two Teenagers. This one is brutal and I'm not

748
00:50:17.920 --> 00:50:20.519
going to share sugarcoat it in any way, shape or form.

749
00:50:21.400 --> 00:50:24.920
Kill Again is written from the perspective of a serial killer,

750
00:50:25.239 --> 00:50:29.960
a man completely consumed by bloodlust, power, and hatred. The

751
00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:33.079
first verse opens like a slasher movie, lurking in the

752
00:50:33.119 --> 00:50:38.000
dismal fog, hungry for your blood. This is Slayer stepping

753
00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:41.360
fully into psychological horror. It's not a theological statement. It's

754
00:50:41.360 --> 00:50:44.519
not satanism. It's horror fiction from the viewpoint of a monster.

755
00:50:44.760 --> 00:50:48.320
Like reading a diary written by Jack the Ripper. What

756
00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:52.719
we're what we're looking at here is the mind of madness.

757
00:50:52.960 --> 00:50:57.039
It's grotesque, it's disturbing, but nothing here is being celebrated.

758
00:50:58.679 --> 00:51:02.119
This is something Christian real need to understand. Writing in

759
00:51:02.159 --> 00:51:06.400
the first person doesn't mean endorsement. Slayer is showing us

760
00:51:06.400 --> 00:51:12.480
what evil thinks like, not what they believe. Back to

761
00:51:12.519 --> 00:51:15.480
the lyrics, no apparent motive, kill and kill again. My

762
00:51:15.519 --> 00:51:18.719
life's a constant battle, the rage of many men. This

763
00:51:18.800 --> 00:51:21.360
is an important line. The killer isn't portrayed as strong.

764
00:51:21.599 --> 00:51:25.199
He's broken, filled with rage, constantly at war. This is

765
00:51:25.239 --> 00:51:29.440
not empowerment, it's torment. Now the next verse is even

766
00:51:29.480 --> 00:51:34.639
more violent. Slice her flesh to shreds, watch the blood

767
00:51:34.719 --> 00:51:38.599
flow free. This is horrific. This is horrible, And that's

768
00:51:38.639 --> 00:51:41.599
the point. Slayer is pushing horror to the extreme, to

769
00:51:41.679 --> 00:51:46.119
shock you, to disturb. Look at any horror film or

770
00:51:46.519 --> 00:51:50.960
extreme horror novel. It's designed to confront depravity, not endorse it. Now,

771
00:51:50.960 --> 00:51:52.559
I want to make it very clear. When people hear

772
00:51:52.599 --> 00:51:55.000
that lyric, they're like, oh my goodness, that's horrible. I

773
00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:56.719
don't want my kids reading that. Well, I guess you

774
00:51:56.760 --> 00:51:58.760
don't want them reading the Bible. I don't know where

775
00:51:58.840 --> 00:52:01.000
you know. The men of this city take that woman

776
00:52:01.039 --> 00:52:03.440
and chop her into pieces and send her parts to

777
00:52:03.480 --> 00:52:06.079
the different tribes of Israel. In the Book of Judges,

778
00:52:10.039 --> 00:52:13.440
he said, Well, the Bible's not celebrating it. Neither was Slayer.

779
00:52:14.599 --> 00:52:21.920
They were describing it. So the pastor could say something

780
00:52:21.960 --> 00:52:24.719
like this if this actually occurred. If you've ever read

781
00:52:24.800 --> 00:52:28.119
Judges chapter nineteen, you'll find something far more terrifying and

782
00:52:28.159 --> 00:52:31.760
heartbreaking and scripture. The Bible does not shy away from violence.

783
00:52:31.880 --> 00:52:35.599
It records, it reveals it, and condemns it. What Slayer's

784
00:52:35.639 --> 00:52:39.199
doing here is not unlike what the Bible does. It's

785
00:52:39.239 --> 00:52:42.239
exposing the evil of the human heart. The differences that

786
00:52:42.320 --> 00:52:45.760
Slayer offers no hope, they offer no redemption, they offer

787
00:52:45.880 --> 00:52:48.719
no grace. And that's why it matters that we're here

788
00:52:48.719 --> 00:52:50.719
to That's why we're here talking about it. That's why

789
00:52:50.800 --> 00:52:56.039
it matters. Let's talk about maybe the most disturbing line

790
00:52:56.119 --> 00:53:01.440
in the song, kill the preacher's only son, the infant die.

791
00:53:02.559 --> 00:53:08.559
This isn't satanic doctrine. It's the killer's fantasy, targeting innocence, faith,

792
00:53:08.760 --> 00:53:11.679
and purity. It's meant to be vile. And here's what

793
00:53:11.760 --> 00:53:15.400
I want you to see. The character isn't exalted, he's

794
00:53:15.480 --> 00:53:20.400
not admired. He's a demented maniac, consumed by death with

795
00:53:20.519 --> 00:53:26.480
no purpose but destruction. This is not inspiration, though, it's that,

796
00:53:26.800 --> 00:53:31.880
it's condemnation through storytelling. If Christians had looked at the

797
00:53:31.920 --> 00:53:34.920
song honestly, they would have seen that. It's not recruiting

798
00:53:34.920 --> 00:53:38.800
people to evil. It's exposing how evil thinks. And it

799
00:53:38.840 --> 00:53:41.559
gives us a chance to say, what does scriptures say

800
00:53:41.599 --> 00:53:46.320
about violence, about the brokenness of man, about justice, about

801
00:53:46.360 --> 00:53:49.679
wrath and the desire for power? The Bible has lots

802
00:53:49.719 --> 00:53:52.400
to say about these things. Slayer's not going to give

803
00:53:52.480 --> 00:53:54.559
us any of those answers. It's just showing you the

804
00:53:54.639 --> 00:54:02.039
reality the evil. If we're honest, we'd admit that there

805
00:54:02.079 --> 00:54:05.280
are men like this in our world, men broken by

806
00:54:05.360 --> 00:54:08.639
rage and sin, and the Gospel doesn't pretend they're not real.

807
00:54:09.360 --> 00:54:12.079
The difference is that the Gospel doesn't just show us evil,

808
00:54:12.199 --> 00:54:16.280
It shows us what came to ultimately defeat it, and

809
00:54:16.360 --> 00:54:20.199
that is the eternal Son of God, who came to

810
00:54:20.239 --> 00:54:32.840
die to ultimately defeat and destroy evil. Now, just imagine

811
00:54:33.039 --> 00:54:46.440
if a pastor would have done this. Just imagine what

812
00:54:46.480 --> 00:54:56.800
would have happened. So there's the song kill Again. It's horrifying,

813
00:54:57.440 --> 00:54:59.599
but it mirror, but it's a mirror into the mind

814
00:54:59.639 --> 00:55:02.360
of evil, and if we're brave enough to look into

815
00:55:02.360 --> 00:55:05.599
that mirror, we can ask better questions, not just about Slayer,

816
00:55:05.960 --> 00:55:08.800
but about the world we live in. What it looks

817
00:55:08.840 --> 00:55:11.960
like when God's truth is nowhere to be found? What

818
00:55:12.119 --> 00:55:15.320
is it like when everyone does what is right in

819
00:55:15.360 --> 00:55:19.960
their own eyes? Now, I could go to track three

820
00:55:20.320 --> 00:55:23.639
At Dawn they Sleep, This is basically just a vampire

821
00:55:23.760 --> 00:55:28.880
horror narrative. Nothing really, It's basically Dracula, all right. So

822
00:55:28.960 --> 00:55:31.480
we could take the song all apart. I'm not going

823
00:55:31.559 --> 00:55:34.679
to go all the way into it. I could, but

824
00:55:34.800 --> 00:55:38.199
for time's sake, we won't, all right, And again it's

825
00:55:38.239 --> 00:55:41.000
another violent song. Basically, if someone would have just read

826
00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:43.119
this song, if Christians had read the lyrics without fear,

827
00:55:43.199 --> 00:55:44.800
they might have seen what it is. It's not a

828
00:55:44.800 --> 00:55:47.119
message of be like this. It's a portrait of what

829
00:55:47.199 --> 00:55:50.800
life without light looks like. Creatures who fear the dawn,

830
00:55:51.039 --> 00:55:54.679
addicted to death, forever thirsting and never satisfied. And again

831
00:55:54.880 --> 00:55:59.800
that's where we come in to offer a better story.

832
00:56:00.119 --> 00:56:03.000
Track three isn't inviting you into the darkness. It's showing

833
00:56:03.039 --> 00:56:05.079
you what the darkness does when it wins. And the

834
00:56:05.760 --> 00:56:08.280
best way to fight darkness is to understand it and

835
00:56:08.320 --> 00:56:11.960
then speak truth, to speak truth clearly to its face.

836
00:56:17.519 --> 00:56:24.199
So let's just look at track four briefly. This track

837
00:56:24.280 --> 00:56:27.599
is called praise of death, and no, Slayer isn't asking

838
00:56:27.639 --> 00:56:30.400
you to literally praise death. The song isn't about satan

839
00:56:30.440 --> 00:56:32.960
or demons. It's about something far more personal and far

840
00:56:33.039 --> 00:56:35.360
more relatable. It's about what it feels like to live

841
00:56:35.360 --> 00:56:38.360
in a world where nothing makes sense and death seems

842
00:56:38.400 --> 00:56:43.320
like the only certainty. This is Slayer's existential crisis. Look

843
00:56:43.360 --> 00:56:48.239
at verse one deceased in deceased in mind, decree of death,

844
00:56:48.480 --> 00:56:53.000
blackened heart, baptized in fire. Draw the line live for death,

845
00:56:53.239 --> 00:56:57.280
potent thrust, excessive pain. This is a voice of someone

846
00:56:57.360 --> 00:57:02.960
broken mentally, emotionally, maybe spirits. There's rage here, yes, violence here, yes,

847
00:57:03.079 --> 00:57:08.360
but also numbness, confusion, and exhaustion. The narrator isn't glorifying death,

848
00:57:08.360 --> 00:57:10.920
He's drowning in it. And when we hit the course

849
00:57:11.239 --> 00:57:13.719
what Mayson would call a chorus, the real heart of

850
00:57:13.760 --> 00:57:17.599
the song comes out, stricken to live, hell on earth,

851
00:57:17.880 --> 00:57:21.599
shackled and bound, we lie praise of death. Life's a dream.

852
00:57:21.800 --> 00:57:26.039
We're only living to die. This is nihilism. This is

853
00:57:26.360 --> 00:57:30.119
plain and clear. This is not the voice of someone

854
00:57:30.119 --> 00:57:32.599
who's free. Is the voice of someone who sees life

855
00:57:32.639 --> 00:57:37.480
as pointless, mechanical, and inevitably tragic. There's no hope in

856
00:57:37.519 --> 00:57:40.719
these lyrics. But that's what makes this such a profound moment,

857
00:57:40.960 --> 00:57:44.440
not of evil, but of honesty, because sometimes this is

858
00:57:44.519 --> 00:57:48.159
how people feel, This is sometimes how you feel, this

859
00:57:48.239 --> 00:57:53.280
is sometimes how I feel. That's why we need to

860
00:57:53.320 --> 00:57:58.079
engage it, not run from it. Victim of life, insanity, lives,

861
00:57:58.159 --> 00:58:02.280
deep and shock intensive care, push too far overkill, time

862
00:58:02.360 --> 00:58:05.159
to die, no way to win. This verse is like

863
00:58:05.159 --> 00:58:08.719
a panic attack in poetry form. There's violence, yes, but

864
00:58:08.840 --> 00:58:12.480
more than that, there's mental collapse, rage, and futility. The

865
00:58:12.599 --> 00:58:15.480
narrator doesn't kill because it's fine. He kills because it's

866
00:58:15.519 --> 00:58:17.880
the only thing that makes him feel something. And that's

867
00:58:18.159 --> 00:58:22.159
not glorification, it's confession. From the edge of the abyss.

868
00:58:23.559 --> 00:58:26.119
Then comes what may some would refer to as the bridge,

869
00:58:26.400 --> 00:58:30.880
running and runting, running and hunting and slashing, burning, destroying

870
00:58:30.920 --> 00:58:34.880
and killing and bleeding and pleading than death. This is

871
00:58:34.920 --> 00:58:37.599
an explosion, But what does it really sound like. It

872
00:58:37.639 --> 00:58:40.960
sounds like a world that's come completely unhinged when people

873
00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:44.599
destroy everything because they no longer believe anything matters. It's

874
00:58:44.639 --> 00:58:49.199
not satanic. It's absolute, complete hopelessness, and that is far

875
00:58:49.320 --> 00:58:56.519
more dangerous feeling than any devil costume at mock ten velocity,

876
00:58:56.679 --> 00:59:00.440
pressure builds, can't take the strain, fill the pull, life

877
00:59:00.480 --> 00:59:05.119
will expire, cardiac cease to exist, the body gives out,

878
00:59:05.400 --> 00:59:08.000
the heart stops, and the song and the life it

879
00:59:08.079 --> 00:59:15.039
describes ends and collapse. The track isn't about death being beautiful.

880
00:59:15.239 --> 00:59:18.599
It's about death being all there is. It's a lament

881
00:59:19.159 --> 00:59:21.920
told through the lens of extreme music by people who

882
00:59:21.920 --> 00:59:26.760
are confronting the void without God. And that is why

883
00:59:26.800 --> 00:59:29.400
we're here, because we do have an answer. We do

884
00:59:29.519 --> 00:59:33.199
believe that life is more than survival, that suffering isn't pointless,

885
00:59:33.320 --> 00:59:35.599
that death is not the end. But we won't go.

886
00:59:35.880 --> 00:59:38.159
We won't get to say any of that if all

887
00:59:38.199 --> 00:59:44.400
we do is burn the album and walk away. If

888
00:59:44.400 --> 00:59:46.960
this song speaks to anything, it speaks to the heart

889
00:59:47.000 --> 00:59:50.360
of a generation that feels loss, a heart to a

890
00:59:50.400 --> 00:59:54.920
generation that feels completely alone, to a generation that feels exhausted.

891
00:59:55.079 --> 00:59:57.480
It speaks to a generation that feels angry, to a

892
00:59:57.519 --> 00:59:59.960
generation that feels like nobody is listening to them because

893
01:00:00.039 --> 01:00:10.039
they're too busy burning your music. That's that's how the

894
01:00:10.400 --> 01:00:12.159
pastor could have walked through it. Now, I can go through.

895
01:00:12.280 --> 01:00:14.599
I got. I mean, we're we're already down to track five,

896
01:00:14.800 --> 01:00:17.360
but we're already at an hour, so I'm gonna have

897
01:00:17.440 --> 01:00:20.400
to wrap this up. The next song is Necrophiliac, which

898
01:00:20.400 --> 01:00:23.840
everyone loses their mind over and it Yeah, it is

899
01:00:23.880 --> 01:00:26.920
the most explicit, It is the most vile, It is

900
01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:29.800
the most like any If Christians were gonna condemn the album,

901
01:00:29.920 --> 01:00:33.440
Necrophiliac would have been this song to go after. Right.

902
01:00:33.519 --> 01:00:36.079
It is a disturbing story, but the Bible is filled

903
01:00:36.079 --> 01:00:39.239
with some very disturbing things as well. But it's not

904
01:00:39.360 --> 01:00:42.280
glorifying it in any way, shape or form. I'm not

905
01:00:42.320 --> 01:00:44.519
gonna sit here and like, I'm not even gonna pretend

906
01:00:44.519 --> 01:00:48.719
that the song makes everyone. Let's not pretend here. This

907
01:00:48.800 --> 01:00:50.960
is the song, if we're honest, that would make everyone

908
01:00:51.000 --> 01:00:54.239
walk out of the room. Right. And the song is Necrophiliac,

909
01:00:54.320 --> 01:00:58.000
And yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. The song describes,

910
01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:00.800
in graphic, horrific detail, a man who digs up a chord,

911
01:01:01.400 --> 01:01:06.079
violates it and ends up cast in to hell. All right, now,

912
01:01:06.119 --> 01:01:08.599
if this is if this was being celebrated, I wouldn't

913
01:01:08.599 --> 01:01:11.599
even be talking about it. But it isn't celebrated. It's

914
01:01:11.800 --> 01:01:16.719
condemnation wrapped in the most grotesque horror fiction Slayer had

915
01:01:16.800 --> 01:01:21.280
ever written up to that point. All right, now, I

916
01:01:21.320 --> 01:01:23.320
could go through the lyrics, some of the lyrics I

917
01:01:23.320 --> 01:01:27.039
could not even repeat because they're they're they're they're vile.

918
01:01:27.119 --> 01:01:30.079
Let's just there's no playing around with it, all right,

919
01:01:30.840 --> 01:01:33.119
So what do we do with this? Well, we tell

920
01:01:33.159 --> 01:01:35.679
the truth. This is a story of a man overtaken

921
01:01:35.719 --> 01:01:38.840
by darkness, so corrupted by lust, hatred and violence that

922
01:01:38.880 --> 01:01:40.920
it becomes less than human and in the end he

923
01:01:41.039 --> 01:01:44.039
is judged. There's no redemption in this song because there's

924
01:01:44.079 --> 01:01:46.840
no grace in the world Slayer has created. And that's

925
01:01:46.880 --> 01:01:49.840
what makes this the perfect moment to ask what kind

926
01:01:49.880 --> 01:01:52.039
of world are we describing when we talk to people.

927
01:01:52.320 --> 01:01:54.880
Are we telling the truth about sin? Yes? But are

928
01:01:54.880 --> 01:01:58.119
we also telling them the truth about mercy? Slayer shows

929
01:01:58.119 --> 01:02:01.400
sin and all its horror, Christ grace and all its beauty.

930
01:02:01.840 --> 01:02:06.199
The church's mistake wasn't hating this song. It was not

931
01:02:06.440 --> 01:02:09.199
listening to it and realizing what an opening it could

932
01:02:09.239 --> 01:02:12.039
have been for the gospel. Hey, guys, this is a

933
01:02:12.079 --> 01:02:15.320
world without God. There's no hope, there's no redemption, there's

934
01:02:15.360 --> 01:02:19.280
no salvation. This is horrifying. This is a world where

935
01:02:19.280 --> 01:02:21.199
everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes.

936
01:02:21.320 --> 01:02:28.840
That's why Judges is so brutal. At times, some Christians

937
01:02:28.880 --> 01:02:31.719
called that song a satanic anthem, but if we're honest,

938
01:02:31.880 --> 01:02:35.159
it's a moral warning. It's a grotesque, horrifying fable that

939
01:02:35.239 --> 01:02:38.079
ends an absolute judgment. And instead of panicking over it,

940
01:02:38.159 --> 01:02:40.039
we should have sat down with young people and said,

941
01:02:40.360 --> 01:02:42.559
do you see what happens when evil rules the heart?

942
01:02:42.840 --> 01:02:44.880
Do you see what happens when grace is nowhere to

943
01:02:44.920 --> 01:02:48.159
be found. The song doesn't glorify sin, it exposes it,

944
01:02:48.360 --> 01:02:52.239
and that's where our message begins. Now, we could go

945
01:02:52.280 --> 01:02:54.880
through the rest of the tracks, but we'll just skip

946
01:02:56.000 --> 01:03:01.800
all of that, well, skip the rest of the song

947
01:03:01.960 --> 01:03:12.039
of the songs, and we'll skip down here. All right,

948
01:03:12.119 --> 01:03:15.239
I'm gonna because I got all my notes here, and

949
01:03:15.280 --> 01:03:17.199
I got a lot here still to go through some

950
01:03:17.320 --> 01:03:25.639
of the songs here. So then imagine they've gone through

951
01:03:25.679 --> 01:03:27.280
all of it. The kids are looking around, they can't

952
01:03:27.280 --> 01:03:31.039
believe what just happened, and the pastor says, so that's

953
01:03:31.079 --> 01:03:35.400
the album. We didn't burn it, we didn't run from it.

954
01:03:35.679 --> 01:03:38.199
We read it, and then reading it, we learned something.

955
01:03:38.880 --> 01:03:42.239
Slayer told the truth about death. Now it's our job

956
01:03:42.320 --> 01:03:51.960
to tell the truth about life. Now, let's be honest.

957
01:03:52.960 --> 01:04:01.800
What would have happened if a pastor did that. When

958
01:04:01.840 --> 01:04:07.159
the teaching ended, the kids probably didn't say much. They

959
01:04:07.159 --> 01:04:11.679
probably were kind of quiet because they didn't need to

960
01:04:11.679 --> 01:04:18.599
say anything, because if that would have actually happened, something

961
01:04:18.639 --> 01:04:21.440
significant would have happened in that little church in West Texas,

962
01:04:21.880 --> 01:04:27.360
something very rare, something very brave. No one needed to shout,

963
01:04:28.119 --> 01:04:31.199
No one had panicked, no one brought their lighter or

964
01:04:31.239 --> 01:04:36.719
a box of matches, because they simply sat and listened,

965
01:04:37.679 --> 01:04:44.400
thought analyzed, and for maybe the first time in those

966
01:04:44.440 --> 01:04:47.599
teenagers lives, someone treated them not like a potential victim

967
01:04:47.639 --> 01:04:51.039
of the devil, but like a disciple capable of discernment.

968
01:04:52.719 --> 01:05:02.400
That night, a few things probably changed what it would

969
01:05:02.400 --> 01:05:06.239
have accomplished if this really had happened. Maybe it would

970
01:05:06.280 --> 01:05:08.400
have taught a group of teenagers how to read stories,

971
01:05:08.440 --> 01:05:11.599
even dark ones and disturbing ones. Maybe it would have

972
01:05:11.639 --> 01:05:14.039
told them you don't need to run from culture, you

973
01:05:14.159 --> 01:05:16.519
just need to understand it. Maybe it would have taught

974
01:05:16.519 --> 01:05:18.719
them how to look at fear and respond with truth.

975
01:05:19.239 --> 01:05:22.440
Maybe it would have shown them that their questions aren't dangerous,

976
01:05:22.519 --> 01:05:25.800
and that the Gospel doesn't fear the dark, and maybe

977
01:05:25.880 --> 01:05:29.199
just some of them would have stayed, stayed in church,

978
01:05:29.679 --> 01:05:32.400
stayed in the scriptures, stayed in pursuit of the God

979
01:05:32.480 --> 01:05:35.800
who doesn't panic, but who meets people right in the

980
01:05:35.800 --> 01:05:43.840
middle of the graveyard. But let's be honest, that would

981
01:05:43.840 --> 01:05:48.199
have been the end of that pastor. He would have

982
01:05:48.280 --> 01:05:52.599
been labeled a compromiser. He would have been accused of

983
01:05:52.679 --> 01:05:57.000
letting the devil into the church. He would have been

984
01:05:57.440 --> 01:06:02.559
accused of polluting young minds with films. Calls would have

985
01:06:02.599 --> 01:06:04.800
gone out if they were a part of a denomination.

986
01:06:05.400 --> 01:06:09.119
Letters would have been written, Rumors would have spread. Who

987
01:06:09.159 --> 01:06:11.840
would have been forced to resign? The church may have

988
01:06:11.920 --> 01:06:16.119
even split. Other churches would have blacklisted him. If he

989
01:06:16.440 --> 01:06:20.960
had books, they would have been pulled from bookstores, because

990
01:06:20.960 --> 01:06:27.679
when fear rules the church, telling the truth is rebellion

991
01:06:30.360 --> 01:06:38.920
and discernment looks like betrayal. But you know what, I

992
01:06:38.920 --> 01:06:42.000
think a real pastor would have done it anyway, because

993
01:06:42.039 --> 01:06:44.719
that's what a shepherd does. They don't just protect the

994
01:06:44.760 --> 01:06:47.119
sheep from wolves. They teach them how to recognize the

995
01:06:47.159 --> 01:06:50.000
wolves when the disguise is convincing, and they show them

996
01:06:50.000 --> 01:06:53.000
how to follow the shepherd even when the valley is dark.

997
01:06:53.800 --> 01:06:56.440
That night in West Texas wouldn't have gone down, and

998
01:06:56.519 --> 01:07:00.559
any church history books. There would have been no revival deadlines,

999
01:07:00.760 --> 01:07:03.360
no altar calls. But a group of young people would

1000
01:07:03.360 --> 01:07:05.719
have walked out of a church building carrying something more

1001
01:07:05.760 --> 01:07:08.760
powerful than fear. They would have carried truth, and in

1002
01:07:08.840 --> 01:07:11.559
nineteen eighty five, that would have been the most radical

1003
01:07:11.800 --> 01:07:15.480
thing of all. But the story would have ended with

1004
01:07:15.599 --> 01:07:18.840
the pastor carrying the last box out of his study

1005
01:07:19.280 --> 01:07:22.719
because he's been fired, carrying the box to his car,

1006
01:07:22.880 --> 01:07:26.039
putting it in the trunk, and driving off, and the

1007
01:07:26.159 --> 01:07:28.840
lights would have gotten turned off the church building because

1008
01:07:28.880 --> 01:07:31.079
the people want to stay in darkness. They want to

1009
01:07:31.119 --> 01:07:34.159
live in darkness. They don't want truth, they don't want discernment,

1010
01:07:34.360 --> 01:07:36.960
they don't want facts, they don't want logic, they don't

1011
01:07:36.960 --> 01:07:44.159
want rationality. They like fear, conspiracy, paranoia, half truths, misinformation, lies.

1012
01:07:44.519 --> 01:07:47.280
That's what the church always wants throughout two thousand years

1013
01:07:47.280 --> 01:08:00.480
of church history. That's how it would have ended. Parents

1014
01:08:00.519 --> 01:08:07.239
would have been furious, he would have been fired, so fast.

1015
01:08:07.960 --> 01:08:10.280
It would have been seen as an act of full

1016
01:08:10.360 --> 01:08:14.559
blown Satanic rebellion. How dare he even if someone would

1017
01:08:14.559 --> 01:08:17.640
have just saw him walk into the building carrying the album.

1018
01:08:17.800 --> 01:08:22.920
I'll never forget when I was teaching the singles at

1019
01:08:22.920 --> 01:08:27.560
my church, not my church, at a church and Bellevue, Nebraska,

1020
01:08:28.119 --> 01:08:32.880
one of the singles brought in a Metallica album. Wanted

1021
01:08:32.880 --> 01:08:35.159
me to look at the lyrics, wanted me to see

1022
01:08:35.159 --> 01:08:37.039
what I thought, and he brought in the album and

1023
01:08:37.119 --> 01:08:40.800
I just remember, like, dude, don't let anybody see. If

1024
01:08:40.800 --> 01:08:45.000
someone sees the album, we're dead. You can't. Nobody can

1025
01:08:45.039 --> 01:08:48.479
see Metallica in this room. Do you understand what you're doing?

1026
01:08:48.680 --> 01:08:50.439
You're bringing in Satan? Okay I didn't say it, but

1027
01:08:50.479 --> 01:08:54.520
I'm like, that's how everyone would have reacted. I'm like, Hi,

1028
01:08:54.840 --> 01:08:57.920
hide it, okay, man. We can talk about this later, Okay,

1029
01:08:58.399 --> 01:09:01.960
not in the parking lot, man, at midnight. We can't

1030
01:09:02.039 --> 01:09:14.640
be seen with this now. Just for historical context, this

1031
01:09:14.800 --> 01:09:17.960
is how I interpreted the album in nineteen eighty five.

1032
01:09:19.319 --> 01:09:24.079
This is pulling from my interpretation. I always thought that

1033
01:09:24.159 --> 01:09:28.359
the first track, hell Awaits set the tone. It's the destination.

1034
01:09:28.680 --> 01:09:31.399
It declares hell is real. Judgment is final, and there's

1035
01:09:31.399 --> 01:09:34.840
no salvation. The narrator speaks with certainty, Jesus knows your

1036
01:09:34.880 --> 01:09:38.760
soul cannot be saved. This is Slayer's fictional world, and

1037
01:09:38.840 --> 01:09:42.479
that world, redemption does not exist. The opening track and

1038
01:09:42.600 --> 01:09:45.439
my estimation, I would have our and I did state

1039
01:09:45.479 --> 01:09:49.920
and argued with people, it's the thesis track. It's the thesis.

1040
01:09:52.039 --> 01:09:55.359
Hell is the only outcome, and I believe the rest

1041
01:09:55.399 --> 01:09:59.279
of the album is simply a tour of the damned.

1042
01:10:02.119 --> 01:10:04.640
That's how I always interpreted the album as a teenager.

1043
01:10:06.279 --> 01:10:08.560
Track two, Kill Again. It's a portrait of a serial

1044
01:10:08.640 --> 01:10:11.479
killer driven by obsession and rage. He lives in darkness.

1045
01:10:11.560 --> 01:10:15.279
He destroys indiscriminately. Hell awaits him as a natural result

1046
01:10:15.279 --> 01:10:19.000
of his soul's corruption. Hell awaits who's gonna be in

1047
01:10:19.039 --> 01:10:21.039
this hell? That awaits well, the guy who kills and

1048
01:10:21.119 --> 01:10:24.279
kills and kills again, the serial killer. Number track three

1049
01:10:24.479 --> 01:10:28.840
at Dawn, They sleep, vampires, cursed, bloodthirsty, hiding from light.

1050
01:10:29.000 --> 01:10:31.680
They are symbolic of spiritual slavery and addiction to sin.

1051
01:10:31.880 --> 01:10:36.079
They're undead, but they're undead but not truly alive. Hell

1052
01:10:36.079 --> 01:10:41.640
awaits them too. Creatures ruled by darkness. So serial killers, vampires.

1053
01:10:41.640 --> 01:10:44.800
I think the vampires are somewhat symbolic, but okay, vampires

1054
01:10:44.920 --> 01:10:48.560
and attract four Praise of Death nihilistic. This is despairing

1055
01:10:48.760 --> 01:10:50.840
those who see no point to life. The track is

1056
01:10:50.880 --> 01:10:53.640
the voice of a person crushed by meaningless Hell awaits

1057
01:10:53.680 --> 01:10:57.039
not just the murderer, but the hopeless in this world

1058
01:10:57.119 --> 01:10:59.600
where there is no grace. In some ways, I kind

1059
01:10:59.600 --> 01:11:02.319
of always I always kind of looked at track four

1060
01:11:02.359 --> 01:11:04.960
the way I interpreted as a teenager, Well, we're all

1061
01:11:05.000 --> 01:11:07.319
gonna go to hell because there's no point in living.

1062
01:11:07.520 --> 01:11:10.960
Life is horrible and meaningless, there is no hope. Just

1063
01:11:11.319 --> 01:11:13.760
everyone just give up. That's kind of basically how I

1064
01:11:13.840 --> 01:11:20.199
interpreted it. And then even more nihilistic way Track five Necrophiliac. Well,

1065
01:11:20.279 --> 01:11:24.079
this is the most grotesque perversion moral, physical, and spiritual.

1066
01:11:24.279 --> 01:11:27.079
He's not just broken, he becomes a literal monster. His

1067
01:11:27.279 --> 01:11:31.199
end is eternal damnation. Slayer leaves no ambiguity. Hell awaits

1068
01:11:31.239 --> 01:11:34.760
the most depraved, So Hell awaits his track one, it's

1069
01:11:34.920 --> 01:11:38.159
just everyone, It's just now. Every song is about who who.

1070
01:11:38.199 --> 01:11:43.439
Hell awaits Track six Crips of Death. This is the sorcerer,

1071
01:11:43.640 --> 01:11:48.199
the one who actively conjures evil, raises demons, curses priest

1072
01:11:48.479 --> 01:11:52.359
a mythic level antagonist. He unleashes death and disease and

1073
01:11:52.479 --> 01:11:55.279
is consumed by it. Hell awaits him and his kingdom

1074
01:11:55.319 --> 01:11:59.720
turns to ash and then track seven hardering, the hardening

1075
01:11:59.760 --> 01:12:02.760
of the arteries. Now the world itself is in decay.

1076
01:12:03.000 --> 01:12:06.359
All of humanity is infected by fear, hate, and spiritual rot.

1077
01:12:06.600 --> 01:12:10.000
This is the collective damnation of all of mankind and

1078
01:12:10.039 --> 01:12:13.520
a godless reality. It is the final vision. Hell doesn't

1079
01:12:13.560 --> 01:12:16.720
just wait a few It awaits all of us. That's

1080
01:12:16.720 --> 01:12:18.520
how I interpret it. In fact, I think I even

1081
01:12:18.560 --> 01:12:20.840
had a notebook that at the end, because a lot

1082
01:12:20.840 --> 01:12:22.279
of times I'll listen to an album and I will

1083
01:12:22.279 --> 01:12:24.159
go through the songs. I put at the end in

1084
01:12:24.279 --> 01:12:28.640
my notebook was Hell awaits all of us the end.

1085
01:12:30.760 --> 01:12:33.920
That was my interpretation of the album. And I think

1086
01:12:33.960 --> 01:12:38.560
there's a lot of truth to my interpretation. So I

1087
01:12:38.600 --> 01:12:43.239
asked artificial intelligence. I'm like, hey, it was my interpretation

1088
01:12:43.359 --> 01:12:46.239
as a teenager, somewhat accurate, and it says your interpretation

1089
01:12:46.359 --> 01:12:49.560
makes thematic sense. Track one, Hell is waiting. Track two

1090
01:12:49.560 --> 01:12:52.359
through seven, Here's who Hell is waiting for. The reading

1091
01:12:52.399 --> 01:12:55.399
frames Hell awaits not as a collection of random shock songs,

1092
01:12:55.520 --> 01:12:58.359
but as a dark concept album, a unified narrative of

1093
01:12:58.439 --> 01:13:01.439
spiritual doom in a world without grace and the irony.

1094
01:13:01.760 --> 01:13:05.840
By showing us a world without redemption, Slayer indirectly highlights

1095
01:13:05.840 --> 01:13:09.760
the very thing Christians offer. Christianity offers a different ending,

1096
01:13:16.199 --> 01:13:21.319
And there we go. That was my interpretation. Now, what

1097
01:13:21.359 --> 01:13:26.439
do we get from all of this is that Christianity

1098
01:13:27.079 --> 01:13:30.000
never does this. This is just a fictional story of

1099
01:13:30.039 --> 01:13:33.399
what if would have happened on the edge of a

1100
01:13:33.479 --> 01:13:36.600
dusty Texas town on a Wednesday night with a pastor

1101
01:13:36.640 --> 01:13:38.840
walking and going kids. Everyone in the world is panicking

1102
01:13:38.880 --> 01:13:41.520
about this right now. Everyone is scared. There's gonna be

1103
01:13:41.560 --> 01:13:44.439
churches in this area burning this album and probably you know,

1104
01:13:44.520 --> 01:13:48.359
by Saturday, there's gonna be a rock seminar on Friday

1105
01:13:48.560 --> 01:13:54.800
that everyone's losing their minds s. Everyone calmed down. I'm

1106
01:13:54.800 --> 01:13:57.279
not gonna treat you like you're stupid. I'm gonna treat

1107
01:13:57.319 --> 01:13:59.520
you like you're a young adult, and I'm gonna teach

1108
01:13:59.520 --> 01:14:01.800
you how to discern it. So let's try to discern

1109
01:14:01.840 --> 01:14:04.439
this album. I'm not seeing the album is good I'm

1110
01:14:04.479 --> 01:14:06.680
not seeing the album is bad. I'm seeing the album

1111
01:14:06.720 --> 01:14:14.239
tell stories. And these stories are brutal, they're violent, they're controversial,

1112
01:14:14.600 --> 01:14:19.680
they're grotesque, they're explicit. At least a necrophiliac is all right,

1113
01:14:19.720 --> 01:14:25.199
it's very explicit. But so I'm not saying you should

1114
01:14:25.239 --> 01:14:27.479
listen to it. I'm not saying you shouldn't listen to it.

1115
01:14:27.680 --> 01:14:34.000
I'm saying you should understand it how it impacts you.

1116
01:14:34.119 --> 01:14:39.800
I cannot speak of that. That's how you engage culture,

1117
01:14:41.000 --> 01:14:45.760
but the church never wants to do that. It always

1118
01:14:45.800 --> 01:14:51.479
acts in fear and panic, comparanoia. Now it's the anniversary

1119
01:14:51.479 --> 01:14:55.439
of the album forty years. Can you believe that forty

1120
01:14:55.520 --> 01:14:58.279
I believe it's forty years forty years. My math is horrible.

1121
01:15:00.119 --> 01:15:02.199
Not for me. It was probably around I don't know

1122
01:15:02.239 --> 01:15:04.399
what time in the day I bought the album, but

1123
01:15:04.520 --> 01:15:06.680
it was somewhere during the day, and then it was

1124
01:15:06.720 --> 01:15:11.079
that night I put on the headphones. I'll never forget

1125
01:15:11.079 --> 01:15:13.680
when I hit play. When I put the needle on

1126
01:15:13.760 --> 01:15:16.079
the LP, I was like, something is wrong with my

1127
01:15:16.159 --> 01:15:21.760
stereo because it's like there's a reverse chanty. It's all

1128
01:15:21.840 --> 01:15:23.720
low and it's all the I'm like, what has happened,

1129
01:15:23.760 --> 01:15:26.119
And all of a sudden, I'm like, Oh, I'm not

1130
01:15:26.199 --> 01:15:30.239
in Kansas anymore, I'm not in Buffalo Gap, Texas anymore.

1131
01:15:30.279 --> 01:15:33.840
Where where did I just end up? What is happening?

1132
01:15:33.840 --> 01:15:36.640
And all I knew was people are not going to

1133
01:15:36.680 --> 01:15:39.840
be happy about what Now? Was it the most controversial album?

1134
01:15:39.880 --> 01:15:41.319
Was it the one that got all the attempt I'm

1135
01:15:41.319 --> 01:15:42.920
not going to say I got all the attention. There

1136
01:15:42.920 --> 01:15:45.640
was lots of albums people were yelling and screaming about

1137
01:15:45.680 --> 01:15:49.119
in the eighties. They were burning and condemning everything from

1138
01:15:49.159 --> 01:15:54.560
Iron Maiden to Judas Priest Prince Michael Jackson. Everything was satanic,

1139
01:15:54.960 --> 01:15:58.159
just like everyone was doing with the Illuminati. Beyonce, Oh

1140
01:15:58.159 --> 01:15:59.840
this singer, look at that. Look what they did on

1141
01:16:00.319 --> 01:16:04.920
the Illuminati. The Illuminati. It's always the same thing. The

1142
01:16:05.119 --> 01:16:09.560
Church never learns, and we look foolish, we look stupid,

1143
01:16:09.720 --> 01:16:13.000
we look fearful, we look like we're we panic at

1144
01:16:13.039 --> 01:16:16.399
everything instead of being rational, going guys, can we just

1145
01:16:16.439 --> 01:16:20.479
talk about it? And isin't it crazy that all this

1146
01:16:20.520 --> 01:16:23.239
stuff we're fearful of and panicful and we're all scared

1147
01:16:23.279 --> 01:16:26.119
of And then just two years later it's like everyone

1148
01:16:26.239 --> 01:16:28.680
just already just moves on like Harry Potter was going

1149
01:16:28.760 --> 01:16:31.119
to destroy the entire world and all of our kids

1150
01:16:31.159 --> 01:16:35.279
were gonna be witches. Next thing, you know, the author

1151
01:16:35.279 --> 01:16:37.319
of Harry Potter is now the hero of those same

1152
01:16:37.359 --> 01:16:39.560
conservative Christians who wanted her burned at the stake for

1153
01:16:39.600 --> 01:16:44.159
being a witch. Now she's like, she's against transgenderism. We're

1154
01:16:44.159 --> 01:16:46.960
all for her. Yay. Well wait, wait, she's the witch

1155
01:16:47.000 --> 01:16:49.199
who was trying to turn your kid into a witch.

1156
01:16:50.359 --> 01:16:58.560
What happened? Because you know what you're getting played, You're

1157
01:16:58.560 --> 01:17:02.439
getting manipulated. If you take a group of Christian leaders

1158
01:17:02.760 --> 01:17:04.920
who can use the panic and guess what they almost

1159
01:17:05.000 --> 01:17:10.199
always do. They make money, They hold conferences, they charge money,

1160
01:17:10.439 --> 01:17:15.039
they sell books, they sell materials, they get paid, they

1161
01:17:15.079 --> 01:17:18.119
get rich. You get filled with fear and panic, you

1162
01:17:18.199 --> 01:17:22.920
make irrational decisions and sometimes looking like a fool, They

1163
01:17:23.000 --> 01:17:25.199
move on to the next thing. And all you did

1164
01:17:25.439 --> 01:17:27.680
was look like a full and lost fifty dollars, one

1165
01:17:27.720 --> 01:17:30.279
hundred dollars, two hundred dollars, three hundred dollars, four hundred

1166
01:17:30.279 --> 01:17:32.359
dollars because you were spending. Because you've got to get

1167
01:17:32.359 --> 01:17:35.479
all of this information to protect yourself from the new

1168
01:17:35.520 --> 01:17:39.800
thing that's about to destroy you. They get paid, You

1169
01:17:39.840 --> 01:17:46.359
get plaid the end. Thanks for listening this fictional journey

1170
01:17:47.039 --> 01:17:49.600
to nineteen eighty five and what if the church would

1171
01:17:49.640 --> 01:17:53.760
have actually engaged it. They could have broken that stuff

1172
01:17:53.800 --> 01:17:57.079
down and it would have been much better. Thanks for listing.

1173
01:17:57.199 --> 01:18:00.159
God bless ye