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Join us on today’s episode as we delve into the legacy of Dr. James Dobson, a pillar in the Christian community, and explore his impact on the Family Research Council. Our discussions shift to current global conflicts, including Russia’s latest military actions against Ukraine and an update on Israel and Hamas. What’s driving these geopolitical tensions, and what role do nations like China play in shaping the outcomes?
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from the heart of our nation’s capital in Washington, D.C., bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and sound bites into conversations with our nation’s leaders and newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview. Sitting in for Tony is today’s host, Jody Heiss.
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We cannot give up. And we’ve got the Lord on our side. We can’t forget that. We’re not alone in this thing. The Lord has called us to a battle. He’s called us to fight with everything that we have. My job is just to be faithful and to hang in there. And I’m going to do that as long as I’ve got a voice and we’re not going to give up as long as I’ve got breath in my body.
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During an interview with Tony two years ago, Dr. Dobson went home to be with the Lord today at the age of 89, and today we will honor his life and legacy. Welcome to this Thursday edition of Washington Watch. I’m Jody Heiss, filling in this month for Tony. We’re glad to have you on board with us. I’ll be joined by FRC’s founding president, Jerry Regeer, as we remember Dr. Dobson, who was a founder of the Family Research Council. Also on this edition of Washington Watch, we’ll discuss some of the other latest developments in several wars. Russia’s war with Ukraine, Israel’s war with Hamas, and the Trump administration’s war against drug cartels. North Carolina Congressman Greg Murphy will be joining me in a moment for that discussion. And then here’s a disturbing clip, a so-called interview that former CNN correspondent Jim Acosta had with the AI-generated likeness of a Parkland school shooting victim, Joaquin Oliver.
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Joaquin, I would like to know what your solution would be for gun violence. Great question. I believe in a mix of stronger gun control laws, mental health support, and community engagement. We need to create safe spaces for conversations and connections, making sure everyone feels seen and heard. It’s about building a culture of kindness and understanding. What do you think about that? I think that’s a great idea, Joaquin. Wow.
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That so-called interview generated quite a backlash, and with good reason. We’ll discuss it later when I’m joined by Shane Winnings. He’s the CEO of the National Men’s Ministry Promise Keepers. And then lastly, new data has been released by the American Bible Society on U.S. church engagement. What are the effects of church engagement, and which generations are the most engaged? and which are the least engaged. Well, we’ll unpack all of that with Dr. John Plake. He’s the chief innovative officer at the American Bible Society. So as always, we’ve got a lot coming your way today, and I know you don’t want to miss any of it. But if by chance you do, you can always go back and catch it on our website, TonyPerkins.com. I also want to encourage you to be praying for… and to be planning to attend our upcoming event coming in Chino Hills, California on October 17th and 18th, our PrayVoteStand Summit. This is something you certainly don’t want to miss. You can get information now by going to our website, PrayVoteStand.org. All right, now let’s jump into our first news item for today. Earlier today, Russia launched one of its biggest waves of airstrikes on Ukraine in weeks. It’s the largest that they’ve done. And so all this is coming to fruition. debate the question as to how serious these two countries are when it comes to potentially a peace deal. Speaking to reporters today, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that there’s no sign whatsoever from Moscow that they truly intend to engage in any substantive negotiations at all. And Russia, well, are they stalling? Well, joining me now to discuss all of this and more is Congressman Greg Murphy. He serves on several committees. including the Ways and Means Committee. He represents the 3rd Congressional District of North Carolina. Dr. Murphy, welcome back to Washington Watch. Great to have you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, Jody, good to see you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, well, let’s start with this. There’s a lot that I really want to cover with you today, but let’s start with Russia. The foreign minister there of Russia has said that Putin is all ready to make a deal, but he also says that any real deals for peace that depart from those that were set out by Russia back in 2022 in Istanbul, that it’s totally hopeless. So what’s your take on what we’re seeing? Where’s all this headed?
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, Jody, that really was very shocking and depressing today to see what Russia did, launching their greatest missile attack or one of the biggest offensives they’ve had since the war, when literally, good Lord, just a few days ago, Vladimir Putin came on American soil and talked to President Trump about peace. look, you know, trying to give Putin a reason to stop the war because he has no reason to stop by his measures. He doesn’t mind killing his own people or killing the North Koreans or specifically killing Ukrainians. And trying to get a peace on this is extremely difficult. Why he would continue to press like he’s doing right now, really, I think, try to push the Ukrainians to accept any deal just because they’re continuing, Russia’s continuing its murderous ways. I don’t know. But you know, the president wants something done sooner than later, as does the entire world. And I’m hopeful that he’ll be able to see this to fruition.
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It’s hard to get into Putin’s brain, but you look at this and you have to kind of scratch your head thinking, what in the world is he doing? Like you said, just meeting with Trump the other day, and there seems to be great progress, and then all of a sudden, an enormous airstrike. At the same time, Putin is reportedly keen on China in the sense that it appears that they’re going to be asking China to play a very important role in the security guarantees. What do you think of that? Any surprise there?
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Yeah, no. You know, you look at the axis of evil. You know, I just came back from a long trip from overseas and I watched the movie Reagan, which if the viewers have not seen this, I would wholeheartedly recommend everybody watching. And we talked about the axis of evil. And truth be told, nothing’s changed since Reagan was president. You still have North Korea. You still have China, which wants one world domination. Russia, you have a dictator that is ruthless to the extent. And so just like in World War II, where Mussolini and Hitler got together, it’s no different now. Dictators tend to migrate towards each other. And sadly enough, this is seemingly repeating again today.
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Well, that’s a good perspective, and I think there’s a lot more perception there than most people really thought to describe. Congressman Murphy, if I can switch gears with you a little bit, let’s jump over to Israel. It appears that they are now on the verge of seizing control of Gaza City, which they have certainly described as a terror stronghold of Hamas. And Hamas says Israel’s plans to attack Gaza City is just a blatant disregard for any efforts for a ceasefire and hostage release. But, you know, I look back at this and have to ask, it seems as though, and I like your opinion, that Hamas, they are the ones that have really not been serious about striking a deal. What are your thoughts with this whole thing?
SPEAKER 06 :
I don’t think so. You know, October 7th will go down as not only – a day in world history, obviously that it was tragic, but really will still be solidified in the history of Judaism. You know, I’ve been to Israel several times. You’ve been to Israel several times. The people just want peace in the region. And I think more and more their neighbors want that also. But when you have a terrorist group that wants nothing more And to eliminate the Jewish people, I don’t think they care about anything else. They sure haven’t cared about the people that live in Gaza that they’ve used as human shields, the hospitals, the schools, etc. And so I think they’re willing to, you know, literally go on to their, you know, their heaven if they if they are martyred when they die and they’re willing to take anybody with them. You know, Israel is tough. The Hamas people have not been allowing in aid. There’s been very difficult to get into it. It is a humanitarian crisis. But at that point, it could all end in one moment if Hamas would just surrender. And I think those who are pro-Palestinian forget to say that, forget to push that, that if Hamas would just lay down their arms and come out and surrender, they are the ones who started this massacre, things would change immediately. But they’re not. So, you know, the Israeli Defense Force has every right to push its offensive to try to have some type of security guarantees for its own country.
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Yeah, and it’s amazing how much the legacy media has just played into the doctrine, if you will, the mantra coming from Hamas. Let me play a clip for you. This is of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explaining during an interview with Sky News what the goal is of going into Gaza City. Get this, and I’d like to get your reaction.
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My goal is not to occupy Gaza. It’s to free Gaza, free them from Hamas’ tyranny, free Israel and others from Hamas’ terrorism, give Gaza and Israel a different future. And I think we’re close to doing it. It’ll have to, of course, mean getting the last strongholds of Hamas. They shouldn’t be there. Everybody understands that.
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Your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I think it’s true. I think he wants peace in the region. I think he wants peace for the Gazans. And I think that’s what the whole world wants. But sadly enough, given the fact of the bellicose attack by Hamas on October the 7th, They haven’t shown any desire. And they, you know, multiple attempts to stop the conflict have all been pushed away by Hamas because they don’t want a resolution to this. They literally want war and they want the destruction of the Jewish state. So given those terms, you know, Israel has to basically, honestly, they have no choice. They have to go in and take out Hamas wherever they are and eliminate them from the face of the earth.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and again, the media continues to try to spin all of that in spite of the reality that Israel has done more than any other country I’m aware of to get people out of harm’s way and all that. Let me switch gears one more time for you, if I can, Congressman Murphy. The Trump administration, they are now at war, if you will, against drug cartels. The United States has now deployed three Aegis guided missile destroyers down off the shores of Venezuela. And the Trump administration has reportedly directed the military to prepare for lethal strikes against those cartels if necessary. Your take on these developments?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, you know, Jody, that’s an entirely new level that’s never been breached before, taking an offensive into another country on these, especially a country, you know, that doesn’t really like the United States. That’s a whole other level. I’m not sure really… where I am with that. Sadly enough, we’re losing 100,000 Americans every year to drugs that are flowing in from this country. China’s played their hand with it. Central America and South America played their hand with it. You know, we have a president that, you know, is tired of messing around with a lot of these things. You don’t do things incrementally with Trump. You do things in broad strokes. I think that will have significant international ramifications. I pray it would never come to this, but you have a president down there that obviously he was indicted by the United States. $15 million, I think, was the first bounty, $25 million in the Biden administration, and now it’s up to $50 million on his head because he is a narco-terrorist. We have to protect our own citizens, and that’s what the president is trying to do.
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Yeah, that’s a bold, bold step, to say the least. Real quickly, we’ve only got about a minute or so left, but the news has come out that the Biden administration placed more than 11,000 unaccompanied illegal children, immigrant children with unvetted sponsors. Your take on that real quickly.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, Jody, believe me, if I could say a few explicit words, I’d love to say that, but damn them for doing this. Taking the most vulnerable of children and giving them to people who most likely, a significant number of those individuals most likely now are being exploited in some way, either as slave labor or in sexual violence. cartels or something of sorts, but they didn’t care. They just literally wanted the border to come open, bring in people to hopefully vote for them for one day. So damn them for doing this. This is tragic. It is sad on those individuals, and who knows if we’ll ever get those kids back.
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Yeah, it’s you know, you get these kind of stats coming back and it is it’s horrifying. Eleven thousand children. It really is. Congressman Greg Murphy of North Carolina, thank you so much for joining us today on Washington Watch. Greatly appreciate it.
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Good to see you.
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Likewise. All right, friends, coming up, we’re going to honor the life and legacy of Dr. James Dobson. What a life. What a legacy. I want to bring in a very, very special guest who will do that for us. So you don’t want to go anywhere straight ahead. More coming your way. We’ll be with you right after this break. Stay tuned.
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The family is the oldest, most tested, and most reliable unit of society. It is divinely created and sustained. And yet, there are those who are always tampering with its values and structure. That’s why we need organizations like the Family Research Council that can effectively defend and strengthen the family.
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Family Research Council began over 40 years ago, like all great movements of God, with prayer. Today, rooted in the heart of the nation’s capital, FRC continues to champion faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview.
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FRC is one of those bright lights that helps us focus on true north. And I shudder to think, had they not been here, that it could have been worse, worse, worse.
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The Family Research Council is key. It’s one of a handful of groups that I think will determine whether our children live in a country that enjoyed all of the freedom and all the opportunity that we enjoyed in this great land.
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It’s just a wonderful parachurch organization that doesn’t seek to take the place of the church, but it seeks to assist the family and the church as we try to move forward successfully, not in a defensive mode, but in an offensive mode as we seek to live our lives according to the Holy Scriptures.
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FRC is not going to be whooped. You know, we’re going to fight. We’re going to take a stand. And again, we don’t retreat. You will never see in front of this building here in Washington, D.C., a white flag fly. We will never step back. We will never surrender. And we will never be silent.
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Few people have had the positive Christ-honoring impact upon the family as Dr. James Dobson. His legacy will be lasting. In every sphere in which he engaged, he served the cause of Christ and proclaimed God’s faithfulness to his people. He brought to public policy a new focus on the timelessness of family. All of us at Family Research Council extend our sympathy and prayers to the entire Dobson family. Dr. Dobson fought the good fight of faith, finished the course, and kept the faith. He leaves a legacy for his own family and millions of families worldwide. Well done.
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We cannot give up, and we’ve got the Lord on our side. We can’t forget that. We’re not alone in this thing. The Lord has called us to a battle. He’s called us to fight with everything that we have.
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Welcome back to Washington Watch. Thank you so much for joining us today. I’m Jody Heiss. Filling in for Tony and a great honor to do so. As I noted at the top of the hour, Dr. James Dobson, certainly one of America’s most influential Christian leaders of the last half century or more. Well, he went home to be with the Lord today at the age of 89. And through Dr. Dobson, God touched so, so many lives, strengthened so many countless numbers of families. Mine is one of them. Probably many of you watching and listening right now have been touched by his life as well. But you may not know this. that it was Dr. Dobson who is one of the founders of the Family Research Council. And he also had his hands very much involved in bringing Tony to FRC 22 years ago. In fact, that was 22 years ago this week. So we here at FRC want to honor Dr. James Dobson today and celebrate both his life and his legacy. And to help me do that right now is FRC’s very first president, founding president, Jerry Regeer. Jerry, welcome to Washington Watch.
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Thank you, Jody. Great to be with you.
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Well, it’s great to be with you. And we have so much deep love and appreciation for you and the role that you had here at FRC and continue to have. But you also had a very special relationship with Dr. Dobson. Why don’t you share with us some of your experiences, some of your interactions with him?
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Thank you, Jody. Yes, Dr. Dobson was just an amazing person. And even as I saw the pictures that you just put up, with him, with world leaders and Christian leaders. He never lost his personal touch with his friends and those that he helped mentor, I being one of those. I remember making that phone call in 1979 to a person I didn’t know at the time, and just had a wonderful conversation with him. He then came to Washington and really helped put some wheels on the vision that I had shared with him for FRC. And so I can’t say enough about the way that he has mentored me. And even after I left FRC, I continued to write personal notes and was just such an encouraging, encouraging person.
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in addition to him being the megaphone for the family for generations yeah i think that personal touch is a great part to bring up i i certainly did not have the relationship with him that you and tony and so many others had but i of course was able to be with him on a number of occasions and every single time He made you feel like you were the only person on the planet. I mean, he looked you in the eye and just that personal touch. I’m so grateful you brought that up. And what would you have to say about his influence? You touched on a little bit about his influence on you and even broader his influence on our nation.
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Well, his influence on me was just phenomenal. I’ll start there. We went on a skiing trip with he and Shirley. slept on the hideaway sofa in his home. And so he mentored me very much so. I remember Jody the first time he put me on the radio. I was in my 30s and was really just a country boy. I didn’t know all the ways things happened. And after the interview, he effusively thanked me for being on. And my response was, thank you. He stopped the show and rerecorded. He said, Jerry, you need to be a little more thankful for being there. And so I learned how to even respond to somebody else. So he was a mentor. And in terms of just the broader nation, he brought FRC to life by initially putting a plug in on his film series. You might remember his film series, which went to churches and big auditoriums around the nation and around the world. And so he was just such a leader. When I first met him, Jody, he probably had four people in his office helping him. And so I just saw how much impact he had as his ministry grew And his influence went way, way beyond even his radio program, particularly even in public policy. And that’s where family research came in. He was so passionate about strengthening the family, about re-energizing the institution of marriage, about pro-life causes. And so he influenced not only those causes, But he also influenced so many young leaders like myself who then went on to have large organizations themselves. And he gladly and readily shared that stage with those of us he mentored. So he was a gem.
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Is there anything that few people would know about Dr. Dobson that you wish more people actually did know?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I probably would say just again, his personal touch. I mean, we, we drove in the car with him to that skiing vacation for about five hours and he was well read. He, he loved to discuss astronomy, uh, of all things. Uh, he loved to read about the stars and, and, uh, uh, He and my wife in particular, because she has an interest in that, had a great conversation as we drove along. He also loved his wife, Shirley, and people would guess that, but they wouldn’t necessarily have seen that in action. And so I think just his personal touch, even though he became a mega celebrity in the Christian world, He still had time to write personal notes, to call, and that just always amazed me. And so he was an influence way beyond the big crowds, also the small ones.
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And so far ahead of his time. We only got about 30 seconds before I have to wind down. Is there any one thing that he said to you that just forever has gone with you?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I think the thing that’s forever gone with me was a letter he wrote me. And he just talked in the letter about the prayer meeting that we had initially for the Family Resource Division, Family Resource Council. Right. And he made the comment that that’s where our hearts were knit together.
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Jerry, I’ve got to wrap it up there. That’s awesome. Jerry Regeer, Air Force C’s founding president, thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you so much, Jody.
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All right, friends, coming up next, we’ve got some dangerous information about AI. Stick around.
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Download the new Stand Firm app for Apple and Android phones today. You can join a wonderful community of fellow believers. We’ve created a special place for you to access news from a biblical perspective. Read and listen to daily devotionals, pray for current events, and more. Share the Stand Firm app with your friends, family, and church members. And of course, Stand Firm wherever you go.
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At Family Research Council, defending the family isn’t just a mission, it’s our daily calling. Every team member at FRC uses their God-given talents to stand for biblical truth, protect life, and uphold religious freedom.
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Here at Family Research Council, we face many threats to the family, threats that have been with us for some time. Abortion, the gender ideology threat, the attacks on marriage, the attacks on parental authority, and the attacks on religious freedom. We have to promote, support, strengthen, and incentivize family growth so families take their place in society in a place of honor.
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I’m defending the family by working in the Center for Biblical Worldview to provide cutting edge research and resources for pastors, ministry leaders, and Christian parents.
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Through my work at the Washington Stand, I passionately defend what God has defined for marriage and family. I don’t see the Washington Stand as just a place to talk about cultural events. It’s a place to share biblical truth with the perfect outlet to advance and defend what God has defined as good, true, and beautiful.
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Because of you, we’re able to frame things in such a way that help Christians stand for truth on the things that matter most like life, faith, family, and freedom.
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Thank you for standing with us.
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Thank you for your support. It is so critical to the work that we at Family Research Council are doing day to day as we support and strengthen the family. So thank you.
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Good afternoon. Welcome back to Washington Watch. Great to have you joining us. I am Jody Heiss filling in today for Tony. All right. I probably don’t need to tell you this, but it seems like AI is taking a lot. It’s just the craze these days. I mean, people are flocking to it for answers to questions, for assistance, for multiple things, even for companionship. But sometimes what they get is not true. It may be unhelpful, even unhealthy. And there’s a great article in the Washington Stand that highlights some of the alarming news headlines from AI. And I want to encourage you to check that out. Go to the Washington Stand and pull up that article. But there’s a lot of things that are happening. And this is one of those things that’s making headlines, particularly here recently, CNN news correspondent. The interview that we showed a clip of just a little while ago, and a reanimated, AI-generated interview of someone who’s not even alive any longer. It’s really, really disturbing. So I want to bring in a guest right now, Shane Winnings. He’s the CEO of the National Men’s Ministry Promise Keepers. He’s a former Army lieutenant and also a police officer. Shane, welcome to Washington Watch. Appreciate you joining us.
SPEAKER 18 :
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
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All right, so we’ve looked at a part of this interview, if you want to call it that, that Jim Costa had with the AI-generated version of Parkland shooting victim Joaquin Oliver. What’s your thoughts on that?
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Yeah, I thought it was gross, honestly. I think that’s probably the best word to describe it. And I heard, I wasn’t able to fact check this, but that the parents are the one who blessed off on the interview. And look, I understand people being emotional and the sentiment of wanting something to happen, but trying to artificially resurrect a dead person to lobby for gun control, it’s disgusting. And I think it just shows the lengths people are willing to go to make their point. And that has me really scared for the future, especially regarding AI with all the advances we’ve seen just in the last year.
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Yeah, I think gross is the right word. I mean, that’s how I felt when seeing it. It was just abhorrent to watch. And I think gross is probably a great word. Let’s try to go down the path of the ethical and spiritual concerns of, in a case like this, reanimating someone who’s dead. Tell me your thoughts on that, ethical and spiritually.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, the kid can’t be here to speak for himself. So they’re putting words in his mouth based off of what they want him to say, which is wrong. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And I think what we see overinflated are the gun crimes, but what are underreported are all of the crimes that are prevented by a good guy with a gun. And, you know, this is a conversation that we can’t have with this young man, unfortunately, because he was killed. And we need to leave it at that. Again, when we start to try to resurrect people and put words in their mouth with our own biases and then act like we’re actually having an interview, like, I think that was more important. disturbing to me than the AI dead guy is Jim Acosta acting like he’s really conducting an interview that wasn’t pre-programmed. The whole thing was just bizarre. And again, it just shows how far we’ve drifted as a nation that this is the kind of stuff that we’re putting out there in the world.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and it did get a lot of pushback, and rightfully so. It deserves a pushback. I can’t help but think that the vast majority of people would feel toward this the same way you and I feel. Even if they agree with what was said about gun control, even if they agree, just the way this was done is just disturbing in every way. All right, so AI in general. This is something that certainly there’s a lot of good, a lot of value that can come from it, but there’s a lot of potential dangers as well. Tell me your thoughts on how AI generated content potentially poses a threat to truth and overall to public trust as a whole.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, you know, well, when you look at the Jim Acosta incident, one, they openly told you that it was AI, which I’m grateful they at least did that. Two, you know, it wasn’t done very well. It didn’t look realistic. There is some very realistic AI out there that it is pretty difficult to tell if it’s real or not. So when we talk about what are the dangers, I think six months to a year from now, we will see full-fledged interviews or monologues that you would not be able to tell without the gift of discernment from God if this is real or not. And I think that’s where it’s heading. I think there’s people… who are excited about that because they’ve got agendas they want to push and they don’t want people to know if it’s real or not. But, you know, the whole deep fake movement and all of that, it just, I fear for the next generation. You know, I miss just riding around on bikes and, you know, having a little notepad of phone numbers or phone numbers memorized. Now, you don’t need to do any of that. You don’t need to learn anything. You can just search it on AI. It’s really, really scary. And I think that we’re undergoing a large human experiment that we won’t know the long-term effects until we’re already living it out.
SPEAKER 04 :
And it’s going to determine who is directing the flow of information from AI that ultimately, I mean, this is one of those things that just, it scares me where this is going in the long run. And this is an issue certainly that Christians need to be very much aware of as this goes forward.
SPEAKER 18 :
I’ve already seen ministers and pastors on social media, you know, using it to share messages. And it’s pretty easy right now to pick up what’s AI generated content. And I’m like, dude, a man of God should not be doing something like that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Shane Winning, CEO of the great National Men’s Ministry Promise Keepers. Thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER 18 :
Hey, thanks so much.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Coming up, we’ve got some new information from the American Bible Society about church engagement. You don’t want to miss it. So stick around.
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Family Research Council is committed to advancing faith, family, and freedom from the East Coast to the West. So FRC is going to Southern California for this year’s Pray, Vote, Stand Summit, October 17th and 18th at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. Join us for this powerful gathering of Christians desiring cultural renewal and spiritual revival. The Pray, Vote, Stand Summit brings together Christian leaders, issue experts, and government officials for a time of prayer, inspiration, and action. Together, we will seek God’s guidance for our nation and engage in meaningful discussions on the intersection of faith, government, and culture. If the spiritual foundations and the cultural walls of our nation are to be rebuilt, we all have a role to play. May we each find our place on the wall as we build for biblical truth. Register now at PrayVoteStand.org. That’s PrayVoteStand.org.
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Jennifer, it’s so exciting to be here with you today talking about our new book, Embracing God’s Design. Who is actually gonna benefit from reading this book in your view?
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There are so many different audiences that can benefit. The first one are counselors themselves, because we have some material in there where we really address the gender dysphoria diagnosis and what is wrong with it. We have information for people who are wanting to go back to embracing God’s design for their life.
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This is really magical to have the therapist and the individual who suffered come together and write about why this is happening and why we’re seeing this.
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And we brought all of that experience to the table. We want to see people walking in the fullness of who God has called them to be and not a false identity.
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Order today at embracethedesign.com.
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How should Christians think about the thorny issues shaping our culture? How should Christians address deceitful ideas like transgenderism, critical theory, or assisted suicide? How can Christians navigate raising children in a broken culture, the war on gender roles, or rebuilding our once great nation? Outstanding is a podcast from The Washington Stand dedicated to these critical conversations. Outstanding seeks to tear down what our corrupt culture lifts up with an aim to take every thought and every idea captive to the obedience of Christ. Whether policies or partisan politics, whether conflict in America or conflict abroad, join us and our guests as we examine the headlines through the lens of Scripture and explore how Christians can faithfully exalt Christ in all of life. Follow Outstanding on your favorite podcast app and look for new episodes each week.
SPEAKER 04 :
You tuned in to Washington Watch. Thank you so much for joining us today. I’m Jody Heiss, an honor to be filling in for Tony. All right, you probably just saw the ad a few moments ago, but before I dive into this last segment, I want to once again encourage you to join FRC as well as thousands of other like-minded believers for our upcoming PrayVote Stand Summit. Friends, this is one of the most powerful conferences that you will ever attend. This year it’s going to be in Chino Hills, California. It’s coming up on October 17th and 18th. This will bring together some of the most powerful Christian leaders in our country, issue experts on multiple issues, government leaders. This is something you absolutely don’t want to miss. If you haven’t already registered, we want to encourage you to do so today. To do so or to get more information, simply go to PrayVoteStand.org. All right. Every month now for the past four months, the American Bible Society has been releasing a chapter from their 15th annual State of the Bible Report. And their latest release shares some new data regarding U.S. church engagement, specifically things like what are the effects of church engagement, which generations are the most engaged, and which ones are the least engaged. Joining me now to go over this new information is Dr. John Plake. He’s the chief innovative officer at the American Bible Society and editor-in-chief of the State of the Bible series. Dr. Plake, welcome back to Washington Watch. It’s great to have you.
SPEAKER 19 :
Thank you, Jody. It’s great to talk with you today.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, let’s start with, as I look at all this, I think first question, how do you measure church engagement?
SPEAKER 19 :
That’s a great question. We do it in the same way that employers measure something like employee engagement. We ask a series of questions. And in this case, we ask people five of them. First, we want to know in the past year, have you had the opportunity to learn and grow in your faith? Second, do you have a best friend at church? That’s kind of a big one. Third, is there someone at church who is encouraging your spiritual growth or formation? Is your pastor or are your church leaders people who seem to care about you as a person? And then at church, do you have the opportunity to use your gifts? And when we put all five of those together, they hold together really well in what social science researchers call a coherent scale. And we’re able to look at people who score higher or lower on those factors.
SPEAKER 04 :
Interesting. So let’s go into this a little bit further. In the midst of all this, you’ve mapped out like the correlation between church engagement and human flourishing. I think that is a fascinating comparison. study right there. And we could spend a lot of time just talking about that. But again, as far as definitions are concerned, as it relates to this, how do you consider a human as flourishing? What does that look like? And how do you determine it?
SPEAKER 19 :
Well, we could go all the way back to the Bible and look at what Jesus said in John chapter 10, verse 10. He said, the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. That’s not flourishing. But he says, I’ve come that you might have life and have it to the full or have it abundantly in some translations. And so we’re really looking at this wellness, this overall wellbeing of a person’s life. And we actually rely on some great researchers from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the human flourishing program there that Dr. Tyler Vanderwill leads. And they really look at human flourishing across many domains. Do people have meaning and purpose in their lives? Do they have a sense that they’re a good person? Do they have strong relationships? And basically five major factors plus their financial and material stability. Are they worrying about where their next meal is coming from? And the idea is that the higher they score on each one of these areas, the more likely they are to be living a good life or to be flourishing as human beings and not be struggling or languishing actually is the opposite of flourishing.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s really interesting, just this morning in my personal quiet time, I was going through, among other things, Psalm 92, specifically verses 12 through 15 there, mentioned specifically the relationship between righteousness and flourishing. And it says that the righteous will flourish Like a palm tree and goes on, it says, even in their old age, they will flourish light as though they were still in the youth. And that’s what really struck me when I see what you’re part of your study, your research is on the the. correlation between church engagement and flourishing as a human being. And all of that ties in with righteousness and right relationship with God. Really, what you’re saying is that that flourishing comes out of that right relationship with the Lord. So just push a little bit further with this, Dr. Plake, if you will, as far as how all this relates to church engagement. And in other words, are there levels to flourishing, if you will, in church engagement?
SPEAKER 19 :
There absolutely are. We measure these on kind of a continuous scale. So you can, you know, score one or two or three on each one of these. But we look at really high levels of flourishing. And what we noticed is that a majority of people, if they are highly engaged in church and highly church engaged individuals, that’s about 62% of high church-engaged individuals, they also are experiencing the highest levels of human flourishing. So they kind of go together. And actually earlier this year, we did a podcast interview with Dr. Kate Long, who’s part of the Harvard University program and particularly looks at the intersection of church and religious engagement with human flourishing. And there’s this strong correlation, not just in the United States, but around the world, because we really believe that the church cares about people holistically and you get this you can go back to genesis chapter 2 chapter 3 and looking at how god designed us to be flourishing but he also designed us to be together in worshiping communities And so we find a lot of purpose there. And so high levels of flourishing, high levels of church engagement. The sad part is that that’s not actually true for all Americans. And one of the things that stood out to me in the study was that Gen Z, which is the youngest adult generation in America, the age of my children in their 20s and late teens, Gen Z actually has the lowest church engagement score of all the generations in America. And it’s a little bit of an alarm bell, I think, for those of us who care about the church and we care about people in the church. And so we were able to look at that a little bit more closely and try to come to a better understanding of things that we together can do better to care for the youngest American adults.
SPEAKER 04 :
Totally fascinating. So let’s dive into that a little bit. You’ve got, well, let’s start with Gen Z since you brought that up, the least engaged. Why is that? What distinguishes that generation from other generations in terms of church engagement?
SPEAKER 19 :
Well, I think the obvious thing is they’re age 18 to 28 in our poll. That’s the group of young people that we’re looking at. And the first thing that they told us that really stood out was that only one in five Gen Z adults strongly agrees that they have opportunities to use their gifts at church. they haven’t found a place to be able to contribute. And being able to meaningfully contribute at church is really important. It’s a part of being considered someone who’s a part of the community. So you’re not just receiving ministry, but you’re also contributing to it. The second piece was that one in four young adults strongly agree that someone in their church is encouraging their spiritual development. And I think about Gen Z as this group that social scientists call emerging adults. They’re in this phase where they haven’t completely matured yet. They’re not married with children typically at this age. And they can fall between the cracks. And there may not be somebody that is really connecting with them, but they tell us we really want a mentor. We want someone who’s encouraging our spiritual development. And then finally, only one in three Gen Z adults strongly agrees that they’ve had an opportunity to grow in their faith in the past year. And that compares to almost half of the older generation. generations. And so I think in some ways, these young adults, maybe they’re not in youth group anymore if they’re from a church that has that kind of tradition, but they’re in this in-between stage and nobody is really giving them opportunities to grow, really focusing on their spiritual development. And they need that. They’re asking for those of us who are older to invest in them and not just that, but to give them opportunities to serve on Christ’s behalf as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely fascinating. So what generation is most engaged and why would that be? Perhaps that’s just the reverse of some of the answers you gave from Generation Z, but which is the most engaged?
SPEAKER 19 :
Well, it varies by component. But as we look at, for instance, Gen X, my generation, they do tend to have much higher levels of engagement. But also baby boomers, if we look at, hey, is there someone who encourages my spiritual development? It’s an absolute tie for all of the older generations. 43% of them strongly agree, whether they’re millennials or Gen X or boomers. Similarly, I’ve had opportunities to learn and grow in my faith really in the mid to upper 40% range for all the older generations. Having a best friend at church, this is one where older adults actually stand out. And yet, I think the real story here is that Gen Z is not like the others. And they are asking for the opportunity to be considered part of that adult community.
SPEAKER 04 :
You zoom out, we just pull back and look at this. Number one, how is overall church attendance in America? But perhaps more important, what do churches need to do to hone in on Not just having a come and watch type of environment, but something that does engage people, not only in church, but in scripture, in a relationship with the Lord, in a relationship with other believers. What adjustments need to be made?
SPEAKER 19 :
I think those are great questions. It may not come as a surprise to you that 64% of all Americans call themselves Christians. So 64% is a pretty high number. But what’s interesting is when you dive into that number, 45% of Americans who call themselves Christians say that basically they never attend church. So that’s kind of an interesting category of Christian. So let’s look at the 55% who say they have attended church within the past six months. Within that group of church attenders, 34% attend weekly, and they’re actually doing really well. This is the group that’s thriving. This is the group that has a best friend. They have high levels of church engagement and human flourishing, and they’re doing really, really well. 10% only attend monthly, and 11% attend about twice per year. And I think the fascinating thing is you might think, well, I go monthly, so that’s better than only going twice per year. Statistically, it’s actually no better. I don’t want to discourage anybody from going at least monthly, but what I’m saying is all those benefits come. when you’re attending weekly and you’re serving others i think that’s because it really does take a community of believers around you to help you engage deeply in scripture one of the things that we that we asked highly engaged churchgoers is they basically said that the message of the bible has transformed their lives and there were two key things ninety percent of them highly engaged churchgoers said that their church leaders make the Bible relevant to their lives. So that was interesting. And also 90% of them said that their pastor or church leader encourages them to read the Bible on their own. And so really, if you’re going to get the benefit of the Bible, we do that together in a community. Engaging in Scripture is not a do-it-yourself project. You can read the Bible alone. I certainly read the Bible alone, but that’s not the only way that I engage with Scripture. And so it’s great to have that community of people around us. Maybe one other thing while we’re talking about this, Jodi, we asked how people attend church services. So churchgoers, 72% of churchgoers say they attend service in person. And that’s a big change from the COVID times when a lot of people were having to attend church virtually or online. About 12% say they participate primarily online, and about 16% say they split their time between in-person and online attendance. So what’s interesting about those little data points is that those who attend church in person are much more likely to strongly agree that they are learning and growing in their faith, that their pastor cares about them, and that someone in their church is encouraging their spiritual development, and that they have opportunities to use their gifts to serve others. So you know those that are attending church online may feel disconnected from the broader community and i think pastors who are engaging in online ministry have to find ways to break that digital barrier to kind of engage people in zoom small groups in bible studies that occur virtually or asynchronously but in a way to help people engage wherever they live. If they’re a large church that maybe has multiple campuses and people who are attending from around the world, well, let’s make sure there’s a way for them to engage in their faith in their local community.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m really glad you brought that up because that was the next thought that I had while you were unfolding all this. Because it’s very popular for people to attend church online any longer. And to see the difference, it’s a pretty significant difference in terms of overall engagement. It’s fascinating with that. So when looking at the last question real quickly, we’ve only got about a minute, but when looking at churchgoers who are indeed highly engaged versus those who are less engaged, are there other ways that they’re different from one another that stood out?
SPEAKER 19 :
You know, there are. Like we said, they’re engaging with the Bible. They have lower levels of all kinds of negative things. So when we talk about human flourishing, we’re usually talking about the positive stuff, right? They have meaning and purpose and close social relationships and all those kinds of things. But they have less stress. than others. So if you’re highly engaged in church, you’re going to have less stress in your life. You’re also likely to have less anxiety than those who are less engaged in a church community. You’ll have lower levels of loneliness and you’ll have higher levels of hope. And all of those are really statistically significant. It’s like, what comes with church engagement? All the good stuff. And what comes with being disengaged from church or disengaged from God’s word? Well, there are more challenges that come that way. And I’d like people to have an easier life. So connect with God’s word and find a vibrant Christian community where you can engage.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. Who out there watching and listening does not want less stress? They want more hope. They want less anxiety. You’ve just heard it. The research is there. Engage in church. Engage with the Lord. He will change your life. Dr. John Plait, Chief and Innovative Officer at the American Bible Society, thank you so much for joining us. All right, friends, that wraps it up. Have a great evening. We’ll see you again tomorrow.
SPEAKER 16 :
Washington Watch with Tony Perkins is brought to you by Family Research Council and is entirely listener supported. Portions of the show discussing candidates are brought to you by Family Research Council Action. For more information on anything you heard today or to find out how you can partner with us in our ongoing efforts to promote faith, family and freedom, visit TonyPerkins.com.
