Red Letter Christianity

50. Changing Hearts: Heal, Develop, Share with David Gornoski

Episode 50 Cover Artwork

David Gornoski is the host of the radio show A Neighbor’s Choice –a show that looks at politics, science, and culture through the lens of Jesus’ personhood revolution. In this episode, David shares his strategy for changing the direction of the world. If we want to see political change, we must change the hearts of the citizens. In order to do this, we must imitate Jesus. On his radio show and also on his online exclusive podcast and film series, THINGS HIDDEN, David has interviewed personalities like Ron Paul, Jordan Peterson, and Slavoj Žižek.

David has also written multiple essays and columns promoting Jesus’ nonviolent ethos and personhood revolution for publications such as DailyCaller, Townhall, American Conservative, and FEE. David’s shows provide a look at current events through the lens of anthropology and imitating what Christ really did while He was on Earth. His YouTube channel is currently banned for “speaking too much truth” (something we Christian-anarchist know all too well).

After listening you will have a new understanding of how we can help lead people away from the state and to Christ by healing, developing new technologies, and sharing victims’ stories.

EPISODE TIMESTAMPS:

3:05 Jesus changed history

  • The last shall be first and the first shall be last

    • In His day, the elite got the place of honor at the amphitheater

      • Today, disabled people get the place of honor in the theater 

        • No one dares take those seats, even if the theater’s packed

    • Groups are now vying to be seen as the least

      • BLM, StopAsianHate, women

      • Gun owners vs gun violence victims

      • Right vs left

    • Who are the victims and who are the monsters?

    • I desire mercy, not sacrifice

      • People these days try to show mercy with sacrifice

        • I will give you this medicine for free, but if you don't take it, you will be excluded from society 

    • “Everybody's vying for the perks of being the most supreme martyr.” - David

      • They want to stick their face in the hole of the painting the cross like tourists do

      • “Jesus said the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Meaning, in the act of being perceived to be rejected, you gain power and that power can be used for good or evil.” - David

    • They convinced Americans that we needed to be in Afghanistan to help women become empowered 

      • “It's disturbing to me how Christians will buy into this narrative to we're helping these folks by dropping bombs on their children.” -Craig

        • “We’re helping them, but we have to kill them first.” -Craig

    • Sometimes atheists act more Christ-like than Christians

      • They get it from somewhere

        • Jesus’ influence permeates the world

        • Loving one’s neighbor or enemy were not concepts in the world when Jesus was on Earth or before

12:37 Government & Politics

  • To fix stuff, we need to change people's minds about the state by loving our enemies and caring for our neighbors

    • Thus exposing the government for not doing it

  • “The government is almost like a curse for when a society becomes decadent and stupid, and it doesn't know how to police itself.” - David

  • Which came first? Corrupt government or corrupt society?

  • No matter who you are, you are part of society and part of the political system

  • Parties

    •  Libertarian

      • Fight about everything, fiercely

      • No unity

    • Democrats

      • We're going to take your stuff and do whatever we want with it

      • and we will tell you that to your face

    • Republicans

      • We will do the same as the Democrats, but try to hide it

  • Libertarianism and anarchism are like supplements 

    • When you don't have Jesus Himself, you take vitamin pills of His philosophy 

    • They're like a malnourished form of Christianity

      • “Libertarianism and Anarchism only exist because there's a malnourished form of Christianity that's dominant in the culture.” - David

16:32 Christianity

  • People get defensive against the American version of Christianity… because it's not true Christianity!

    • People take more of Decartes’ approach

      • I think I am ___, therefore I am 

      • Also apply other religions/ways of thinking’s approach to their Christian religion

    • Spreading American Christianity is like telling a young black person that if they believe in the stories they're told about MLK, then they can benefit from what he did

      • We all benefit from him, even those of us who don't know he existed

    • Jesus is the King of the world. He has an effect on everyone. 

      • It doesn’t start when we believe the exact formula our sect says we must

  • Paul

    • “God didn't want him to kill those people. So the God that he was serving didn't exist.” - David

    • He quoted a Greek play when telling the Greeks his conversion story

      •  From Bacchae

        • The people put the god Dionysis on trial as if they had authority over him, just as Jesus was put on trial when He's the ruler of the universe

        • However, instead of destroying his enemies, Jesus submitted to them quietly and then showed Saul (Paul) love instead of punishing him

23:18 To make the state irrelevant

  • We have to change people's hearts by imitating Christ

  • I don’t want to call myself an anarchist anymore; I’m just telling people I’m a Christian -Craig

    • I’m an anarchist because I’m a Christian

      • No King but Christ

      • I imitate Jesus, who was not involved with the state!

        •  Are we not going to imitate Jesus?

    • Polycarp

      • Honor the government unless it does us harm

        • What do they do that doesn’t bring someone harm?

  • Our message must stay consistent

    • No King but Christ means we don’t follow to the state

      • Counterargument: If the state does exist, it can be used to move things in the right direction

        • There’s good teachers in a bad school

        • People make friends in concentration camps

  • Is voting violence?

    • Most of the time, yes

    • But voting for Ron Paul might not have been

    • People want to vote for more liberty

      • Legalize… liberty?

        • “Dude… you’ve already got liberty.” -Craig

        • Don’t force me into your vision of liberty by law

      • You cannot gain liberty through force


29:43 So, what does it look like to bring about liberty by changing hearts?

  • Love your neighbor, and everything else will fall into place

    • How? 

      • How do we love triple-maskers who want us to behave like them?

      • What does it look like to love someone who wants the vaccine to be required for you to go to the store and feed your family?

      • or the people who want you to hate yourself for your gender or skin color?

    • Ask real questions

      • Do you want to force people to get the vaccine?

        • No, but they should be pushed to

          • Pushed how?

          • Pushed by vaccine passports

          • How would the passports be enforced?

            • It’s force

    • Imitate Jesus

      • He was healing people all the time

      • He asked people questions to get them to think

      • To heal:

        • Find cures for major diseases

        • People are dependent on the state to heal them

          • Nutrition science is funded by the state

        • Scientists and doctors believe that 90% of diseases or disappear if we stopped eating vegetable oils

          • Most olive oils are corrupted, but it's not on their labels

          • They sneak vegetable oil into everything, even products that say they're made with olive oil or  something else

          • If a fat guy and a skinny guy eat the same amount of food

            • The difference is how their body processes vegetable oils

            • The fat guy's body stores it

            • The skinny guys runs it as fuel

              • Can cause autoimmune disorders

        • Set aside Wednesday services for health education

        • Therapeutic Ketosis

        • Prison reduced omega-6

          • Antisocial violent tendencies reduced

        • Heal your neighbors’ chronic health problems so when they get COVID, they won't get deathly ill

    • After we heal them physically, they might start to wonder what other lies the government has fed them

    • People around the healthy start to ask what they’re doing to prevent disease in their family

42:10 More health tips

  • Carbs are inflammatory

  • Vegetable oils are in our pork and chicken fat because they feed them grain

    • The meat becomes high in PUFAs

      • polyunsaturated fatty acids

    • They get extra fat

  • Fatty acids are unstable and were never meant to be our fuel

    • 5 tablespoons of corn oil = 96 ears of corn

    • It’s toxic, but they find ways to deodorize it

  • If you try to avoid it, it’s in EVERYTHING

    • Burgers, buns, ice cream, cookies, crackers

      • A little sugar treat is fine; just make sure you’re not also eating seed oils

  • Government-funded healthcare cannot fix what government-funded nutrition science broke

    • They’re pushing the anti-meat agenda with their “experts”

      • They tell people they can lessen their guilt by eating vegan

        • Vegetarian choices kill more animals than meat options

          • Wildlife is displaced and killed to make room for fields

49:00 Technology to reduce scarcity

  • Not only expose people to myths about war and food

  • Provide alternative energy sources

    • Low-temperature nuclear energy

      • Small, maybe neighborhood-sized

      • Won’t explode because it’s not hot, no high pressure


    • 24/7 solar panels

      • All over the house that harvests intermittent energy

    • Elemental transmutation

    • Not funded by taxpayer dollars

    • Disrupt the Middle Eastern oil deal

51:57 Government narratives

  • The planet is dying; we’re the only ones who can save you

    • If we have our own energy, we’ll be more capable of surviving

  • We’re the only place you can afford to get health care

    • Depend on each other and work hard

    • Learn the truth about your health

54:35 The heart of a child

  • Full of wonder and imagination

  • Freely loving

  • Jesus didn’t listen to institutions

  • Tesla got his alternative form of electricity into the world through the market

  • Challenge orthodoxy


56:51 Why this isn’t happening

  • Churches are afraid to step out and look quacky

  • Or people know someone who’s involved in the seed oil industry

  • Afraid to get involved in political issues

57:54 Tell stories of victims

  • Step 1: Heal

  • Step 2: Outcompete the government monopolies

  • Step 3: Personalize

    • Don’t just try to convince their mind

    • Irwin Schiff 

      • Wrote books on tax evasion

      • Chained as if he posed a physical threat on his deathbed

    • Kids with dads arrested for victimless crimes

      • Cry every night

      • Grades suffer 

      • Performance in and enjoyment of activities go down

    • Just as the Gospel writers told the story of an innocent victim

1:03:35 Plugs


Related Episodes

45. Radically Following Jesus with Shane Claiborne

In this episode, Shane Claiborne joins us to talk about living like Jesus, abortion, gun violence, Christian nationalism, and whether we should get involved in politics as a way to help others live in freedom. 

We know the teachings of Jesus, but what does it look like to actually follow them? How can we care for other humans as God instructed, and how can we do that when we live amidst a corrupt and often unjust government? As Shane points out, “If anybody should be suspicious of state power, it should be Christians who worship an executed and risen savior.” Our Lord was killed by the government. We should not trust in our rulers, but in Him, but, as Shane would argue, we can use their system to help people by getting bad policies changed.

Who is Shane Claiborne? He is a radical advocate for living as if Jesus really meant what He said. He heads up an intentional, simple-living Christian community called Red Letter Christians, and is the co-founder of The Simple Way, an intentional neighborhood-based Christian community in North Philadelphia. Shane has been to jail multiple times while advocating for the poor and against war. You can connect with him on his personal website, Twitter, email, and Instagram

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Timestamps:

1:26 What following Jesus looks like

  • “Man, I was pretty together, met Jesus, and He messed me up.” -Shane

    • Teachings like

      • To be great, become the least

      • Love your enemies

      • Sell possessions and give to the poor

    • Started a community for local homeless people who were being evicted from a church. They

      • Fix up abandoned houses

      • Create gardens

      • Paint murals

      • Care for neighbors’ needs 

7:24 Pro-life or just anti-abortion?

  • “We shouldn't be in other countries dropping bombs on people” -Craig

  • One-issue voting is inconsistent

  • Christians are the obstacle to progress

9:45 A Bible in one hand; a newspaper in the other

  •  Know what's going on in the world around you

  • “When you look at Jesus, He was talking about the Kingdom of God coming on Earth, as it is in Heaven. Not just something we go up to when we die, but something we bring down while we're alive.” - Shane

  • Study the Bible and sociology together

11:41 Christian Nationalism

  • Trump didn’t change the church; he revealed their true beliefs 

  • “A lot of white Christians have been shaped more by whiteness than by Christ.” -Shane

  • People use the Gospel to justify all kinds of atrocities

  • Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

  • Compare Trump and his policies to The Sermon on the Mount

  • Christians betrayed Jesus with a kiss for a couple seats on the Supreme Court

  • Welcome the stranger -- not because you're Republican or Democrat, but because you follow Jesus, and that is His example

  • “A lot of times it's been more Fox news or a political party that's shaping our imagination than the Gospel” -Shane

  • Christians wind up saying ugly things like that they want to go to the border and shoot people when they follow Trump instead of Christ

19:15 Nothing new

  • People fear the transfer of power from white people

    • They want to take America back; to make it great again

      • To counteract any progress Black Lives Matter made

  • Fear and love cannot occupy the same space 

    • “What would America look like if love rather than fear were compelling our policies and shaping our minds on a lot of these things?” -Shane

22:45 Debate: Do we need to get involved in politics to love our neighbor?

  • Shane: Laws can either improve or destroy people's lives

    •  We need to work to get harmful laws changed for the good of our neighbor

  • Craig: Politics are not our thing; we're of a different Kingdom

    •  Jesus didn't use politics to advance His agenda

  • Shane: Opting out has consequences

    • We're not putting our hope in a politician; we’re voting to change policies that make life harder for our friends

    • Vote on behalf of those Jesus blessed

      • The poor, the mourning, the refugees, the incarcerated... 

    • Don't only help them through the ballot. Work every day for their freedom.

    • Fight for laws that make it harder to kill them

  • Craig: Ballots don't do that. Voting doesn't change anything and doesn't help anyone.

  • Shane: We should use every weapon we have; harness the principalities 

  • Craig: Christians live on the fringes of society and shouldn't be involved in the system at all

  • Shane: Moving to a community with black folks changed my perspective

    • Dr. King went to jail for political change 

    • “I do believe that the church is a primary instrument for God transforming the world.”

    • God can redeem the system using us

    • Legislation helps people flourish

      • We use it to keep people safe in cars; need for guns too

      • Jesus judges nations on how they cared for the poor

31:14 The early Church’s politics

  • They were called atheists because they denied the deity of Rome

  • They disrupted the empire by claiming another Emperor

  • But Jesus didn’t kill anyone to overthrow the empire

    • He died.

    • And many details leading to His death can be seen as a parody to Caesar’s rule

  • “If anybody should be suspicious of state power, it should be Christians who worship an executed and risen Savior.” - Shane

  • Irreconcilable vocations

    • Brothel, executioner, anyone who had to kill for the state

      • Jesus said love your enemies, which means not killing them

  • They were consistently against all violence

    • Abortion, execution, gladiators…

36:09 Living like Christians

  • People use the Bible to justify terrible things

  • We cannot live like a Christian and go against the teachings of Christ

  • Gandhi wished we would. He liked Jesus, but was not a fan of the church

  • We should view the entire Bible’s contents through the lens of Jesus 

39:13 Guns into Gardens Project; Beating Guns book

  • Old Testament prophets speak of turning swords into plows

    • Similarly, turning guns into garden tools

      • And crosses

        • One says I want to kill; the other says I’m willing to die

      • And jewelry for victims of gun violence to wear and sell

    • People say it's not a gun problem; it's a heart problem

      • It's both

      • God transforms the heart; people transform the laws

    • Jesus should inspire us to protect life

42:04 The American Revolution

  •   Claimed to be following God

    •  If they were, they never would have gone to war 

    • America began with guns. It's impossible to imagine our country without them

      • How else could they have started a country on stolen land with stolen labor?

42:56 Red-letter Christian Intentional Community

  • A glimpse of Heaven on Earth

  • Sharing everything in common end taking care of each other

  • Reducing gun violence through:  

    • Hospitality

    • Drug addiction recovery

    • Lifting people out of the ditch

      • Figure out what's landing them in the ditch in the first place

        • It’s often government laws and policies

          • So we vote and advocate for change

  • It'll probably land you in jail 

    • Charged with a felony for leaving water in the desert for immigrants 

    • Obey the good laws; disobey the bad ones

      • Expose how crazy they are by loudly getting in trouble 

      • A rich tradition of civil disobedience 

      • Be willing to suffer the consequences of exposing injustice

  • Issues around the world

  • We spend more on the military than social uplift and are headed for spiritual death