Take 2 Theology - Cults | Is Christian Science Christian? Mind, Matter, and the Meaning of Salvation

We're back at it, Zach.

We're back, back in black.

Back in black, that's right.

We're wearing black if you're watching the YouTube feed.

Yeah, so a second video.

Yeah.

Well, really third, because we keyed up,

we kind of baptism is kind of cult adjacent

because it is something that can be, you know,

if it is viewed as salvific, you might put that into

cultist behavior.

But so a lot of comments on our last one.

And we welcome the comment, especially this,

this individual, LDS.

Yeah, LDS confidence and crisis, I believe.

Yeah, okay, which is, it's good to hear from people

that we're talking about because we, we do aimed

use like good sources.

And so it's good to get that kind of back and forth

and have people in that world.

Yeah, and so you may find yourself,

because this video, although we're not talking about yet,

is geared at Jehovah's Witnesses,

you may not have any idea who we are.

Yeah, yeah.

But because you're Jehovah's Witness, YouTube knows,

you might be interested in this video.

So you may get served this.

So I would just say, hey, if that is your case,

here's out, if we get something factually wrong,

then we would love to get some interaction.

We did use a word cult and another commenter, Henry Keener,

I guess I can say his name, his handle at least,

not guaranteed to be his name, but it sounds like an aim.

Okay.

It's kind of took issue with us using the word cult.

And we're using this, and I said at least up front

because we might go on to, we can decide,

do we want to talk about new age,

do we want to talk about Buddhism, Hinduism,

those wouldn't fit that tight, cult thing,

but they would be different viewpoints.

And that's what I meant by.

We're not trying to, like, for no reason

be pejorative or anything, right?

Yeah, that means.

Right, because we, you know,

because we both have graduate degrees

in Christian theology, and in our studies,

we're just familiar with the use of the word cult

to mean a system of beliefs that is different

from the main line.

And so for us, we would say, you know,

systems of beliefs that would call themselves Christian,

but they have significant differences from

what we might call creedal Christianity,

or classical Christianity, or Orthodox Christianity.

And so we're, and we recognize that the word cult

is used in other ways, and we're using it

in the academic sense, not in the,

that's right.

We're not using it as a slur.

Yeah, yeah, not trying to, like,

just put down someone, but just factually.

Yeah.

And I think there was some good discussion

on that YouTube feed that helped.

I think in the end of the day,

it, whether like terminology was agreed on,

it showed there is a difference,

was kind of where, like, it was helpful

the interaction, right?

Yeah, I think it's a little about that.

Confidence in Christ, he said, yes,

we do not claim to be creedal Christians.

And I'm like, that's all we're,

that's what we're pointing out.

We're pointing out that there is a difference.

And it's probably not fair to say,

I have heard some people say,

Muslims believe in Christ, you wouldn't call them Christian.

And I don't think that's fair to Mormons,

because I don't think Muslims are calling Christ their savior.

I'm putting my faith in Christ for my salvation.

Obviously, when a Mormon says that,

and when we say that, we mean slightly different things,

that's what we're trying to point out.

Thank you.

But I do think it is a fair point

that just because you believe Christ existed,

doesn't mean that you are falling

under the big umbrella of classical Christianity.

I have to create, create recap,

check the YouTube comments, that's good.

Today, what's on today's agenda?

Today, we're gonna be talking about Jehovah's Witnesses.

So another group that would call them self-Christian,

but they do have some vastly different ideas

about who God is and who Jesus is.

And so thought that we could go through those.

And I think it's important that we do discuss these.

It's not like, we're not trying to hurl rocks.

That's right, we don't hate Jehovah's Witnesses

or Mormons, we love them.

And I was just reflecting on, I was walking a day

and I was thinking about this series.

And there's a lot of stuff in culture

that we debate vigorously, sports.

Yeah.

Oh boy, we have, trust me.

Entertainment, you know, politics.

Oh yeah.

And I don't, I don't see anyone, you know,

telling what's that guy, Smith, the youth, I'm out.

I don't know, Smith, Smithy.

I don't know.

The kind of controversial sports anchor.

Oh, Stephen A.

Stephen A Smith.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No one tells him like, hey, why are you,

why are you, you know, why are you calling this person out?

Maybe they do.

And he's made a living offer for the last like 20 years.

And so he's going to draw distinctions

between teams and players that he finds relevant.

And that's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to draw distinctions

between different belief systems.

And if you think that this is all made up,

which you might be, you might think

that religion's all made up,

then it doesn't make a difference.

You know, and I could see,

but it's not like we're trying to say,

Jehovah's Witnesses are not in our club.

Right.

And we're saying there are real differences here.

We're just trying to delete this,

not delete those differences to discuss those levels.

That's the word we're looking at.

All right.

So with that, I think we are ready

to take it to the next level.

Let's fire up the 20 music.

From the hearts of the low country in South Carolina.

It's the take two podcast,

where we take theology to the next level.

So we kind of already talked about this.

Framing the question.

We're not talking about whether Jehovah's Witnesses

are good or bad as people.

It's right.

We're trying to say that we have differences

in what we believe.

And obviously we disagree with them

because if we didn't disagree with them,

we would be Jehovah's Witnesses, right?

And we're not.

We're looking historically.

We're looking theologically.

We're not looking like, are they a good,

are they like, we don't have dinner with them.

Are they sincere?

Do they really believe what they say we believe?

Right.

And so what we're looking at is the words that we use,

just like we did with the LDS and Mormons,

are they using the words the same way?

And for Christianity, when we say a denomination

of Christianity, whether I know Roman Catholics

don't like to be called a denomination,

but whether we're talking about Roman Catholics

or your Baptist or your,

there is a mere Christianity that we mostly share.

Now we might have some episodes on Catholicism.

Yes.

The future to kind of draw some distinction lines there.

So if a group denies those core doctrines of Christianity,

and then we would say,

and those doctrines are like incompatible

and they just don't match up,

then we would just say, hey, separate religion.

You may still, we're not saying that you don't have

some allegiance to the Christ figure,

but it's not the main thing.

It's a different thing.

And like our last episode,

probably get some of the same things

that really revolved a lot around the Trinity

along the person and work of Christ.

That's almost all, almost all the time.

That's like where a lot of it,

and then the Holy Spirit, you know,

with the Trinity, like that,

there's, that's where a lot of the battlefield is fought

right there.

Right, because if we're arguing about Calvinism

or Armenianism, we would say that those don't rise

to the level that you're not a Christian,

but when you start talking about the very nature

of who God is, who Christ is,

or what's required for salvation,

those are the big enough, you know,

big enough the foundational building blocks

that we would say, all right,

that's different enough that you're in a different system.

You're in a different religion.

Even though you may say you are Christian, it's different.

Yeah.

You just heard that magical harp,

and thanks for that for stopping me

because I sure would have just recorded.

That's, I guess that's how tired I am.

We should have recorded,

what have recorded to help us with this twice.

Hey, you know, second time I'm in charge.

Second time, it's a charm.

So maybe, you remember the Christian science?

Yeah, I think, what are the numbers?

I don't hear it very often as much.

I don't either.

So maybe this is a dying religion, I don't know.

What, if you had a guess,

how many are in the Christian science community?

What would you guess?

In America or around the globe?

Oh, both, I don't know, I don't know.

Okay, so I would say at least in the millions,

I'd say three million in America.

All right, let's see how,

let's see what, what chat tells us.

It does, Christian science is not published official,

global membership stats.

So figures or estimates in the United States,

common estimates range from 50,000 to 100,000 out of here.

Wow, 50 to 100,000.

This is saying worldwide, 200,000 across 60 to 80 countries.

It's declined from its early 20th century peak

when it had several 100,000 members in the US alone.

Oh.

So there you go.

So maybe you didn't even know, Christian,

I mean, I feel like maybe this is,

it's like, you don't want to give them the advertisement

that it's still around, you know what I'm saying?

Well, if you are a member of the Christian church,

was it the Church of Christian science,

the Christian science church,

if you remember that and you're getting served this video,

then yeah, we'd like to hear from you.

I don't, I don't see any, you know.

Don't come across them.

So the church is center organization,

according to chat, is the first church of Christ,

a common scientist, often called the Mother Church.

Okay.

So it's based in Boston.

Oh, Boston.

Go figure.

Well, I mean, not everything out of Boston can be good,

you know what I'm saying?

There's gotta be some duds, you know what I'm saying?

Well, I'm excited to, you know, talk about Christian science.

Christian science.

Not Jehovah's Witness.

All right.

So for Christian science, obviously it's all the same stuff

that we talked about with Jehovah's Witness.

It's, you know, looking at those core doctrines.

And so if, you know, there's not as much published

on the Christian science.

So I did go to their official website

to pull some of this material.

Founder, as we mentioned before, Mary Baker, Eddie.

What a name.

Like for some reason, like you pulled that name out of fit,

nothing out, but it's like, one of those names

like sticks with you.

It's a three name.

Well, okay.

So yeah.

Maybe, maybe we should maybe say that for Banner,

but that's great.

All right.

So founded a Church of Christ scientist, 1879,

authored science and health with key to the scriptures

at 1875, claimed, this is all Mary Baker, Eddie,

claimed spiritual discovery, following recovery

from an injury in 1866, ordained the Bible and science

and health together, which was another book

as a church's pastor.

Okay.

So the Bible and science and health together

as the pastor of the church, that, that.

So context, it emerged from 19th century American

metaphysical mind cure movement,

influenced by Phoenius Quimby, you know, that great,

that great guy of mental healing.

Yeah.

Idealist philosophy, transcendentalism,

positioned as a restoration of primitive Christianity

and its lost element of healing.

So not to, you know, some of the, a lot of the cults,

the three out of three so far are, you know,

the claim is, hey, we're bringing Christianity back

to where what it should have been.

Yes, yes.

That's right.

Restoring it, yeah.

There we go.

Well, let's talk about the way they structure authority

and with Protestantism, what I like about it.

I know where you're going.

It's just, it's the word of God.

Yeah.

It's scripture.

Yeah, it's great.

You don't want to say the, you don't want to say the

solosive scripture.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah.

We're here, like many of these other cults.

Now that means you won't read any other books.

You'll only read the Bible, right?

It's a Protestant.

Close.

No other book can give you insight.

That's good clarification.

Other books can, but the final authority,

you at the end of the day, if there's contradiction,

you gotta lean, you gotta go with the Bible here.

And I think this is a common theme.

We've got multiple texts that are authority in this case,

two different texts.

Where, if you look at Christian science teaching,

they will say in science and health,

the Bible has been my only authority.

However, the Bible is read through science and health.

It really helps provide the key to scripture.

It's almost like unlocks the scriptures,

gets more insight, and like you mentioned in 1800,

or she ordained the Bible, science and health,

as the church is permanent pastor,

which I love the nomenclature here.

I'll this, these texts are ordained as the pastor.

Yeah, yeah, it is very odd.

But yeah, so science and health is this book she wrote.

She wrote and, yeah, so that is gonna be,

so when you have something that says,

hey, here's how you really understand the Bible,

which a commentary kind of does that.

Right, this is what this means.

Let us give insight.

But if a commentary was like clearly saying stuff

that wasn't there, you'd be like,

but at least this part is wrong.

Right, yeah, I think you're totally right.

And then what I'm excited to get into

is the metaphysics side of it,

because that's so fascinating.

So you're just a very subtle,

and you're like, man, metaphysics side of it.

It's just telling me more.

All right, so their core metaphysical claim

is reality is purely spiritual.

And I asked Chad, I was like,

so this is kind of like,

there are some similarities between this

and what, you know, like Buddhism and Hinduism.

Yeah, yeah.

Not exactly the same.

But you can see, like that's almost like,

what, when we first were getting into it,

it's apparently the numbers were so low

because I would feel like,

you know, there is this draw towards like,

Buddhism, Hinduism, New Agey stuff.

You know, I feel like in the West.

Yeah.

So the central doctrine,

God is infinite mind.

Matter is not ultimately real.

And I don't even know what that means

to say matter is not ultimately real

because what does real mean?

Yeah, yeah.

If God, if it can have a real impact on me,

then I think it's real.

I don't know.

Evil, disease, and death, just an illusion,

that sounds like it's straight out of Buddhism.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because when you're enlightened,

you realize that all of this is not real.

Humanity is an idea of the divine mind, yeah.

Man, getting deep.

This is a quote from science and health.

All is infinite mind and it's infinite manifestation.

Man, yeah.

So it's hard like if you carry this out by implication.

Creation is not material, real, everything we see.

It's like you're saying not real.

And ultimately, at least everything that's physical

in this universe, it's just this false perception.

We perceive it, but it's not there.

This countertop, not there.

It's like matrix before matrix.

Yeah, man, I had it ahead of her time.

So this is radical philosophical idealism.

At least the cart would have said, hey,

I think therefore I am, right?

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, we talked about that.

Call back.

All right.

So all right, so let's just get into the doctrine of God.

We already talked about God is mind, spirit, soul,

principle, life, truth, and love.

That's a quote.

Sounds.

I mean, it sounds a little new agey,

but you might know the fit that into it.

You keep behind that, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now here's where we're gonna go.

God is not personal in the orthodox sense.

Yeah, so we're starting to see some of this deviation already.

And then also ahead of her time, God is often

described as father, mother, God, father, mother, God.

Father, mother, yeah, it's, you know, I feel like

that would not as resonated as much in the 1800s,

but today again, you know, it would resonate more.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trinity, Eddie rejected the traditional Trinity theory

of three persons in one God suggests polytheism, I guess.

It's a difficult concept, I agree, but it is one what?

Three who's, so no contradiction, one being three

centers of personality, and that was like a quote you said.

Yeah.

Three persons in one God suggests, so it's like in your face,

explicit, it's not like, oh, we're twisting the words,

like she's like, no, we're not Trinitarian essentially.

Yeah, they explicitly say they're non-trinitarian.

Doctor of Christ, Christian science,

distinguishes between Jesus, the man,

and Christ, the divine idea, or principle.

Don't love that.

Also, it is confusing.

If Jesus is a man, and there's like the physicals not real,

if this is confused, get a good start confusing me, you know?

Right, it's like it could be self-cult,

it kind of starts collapsing in on itself.

Yeah, that's good, good observation.

So Jesus is the way, show, or that's another quote

from the book, the highest human expression

of divine sonship, not uniquely God incarnate.

Okay, we're, yeah, we're hitting,

we're hitting a lot of landmines early on here.

Christian science rejects the deity of Christ

as in the nice scene terms.

The incarnation of God is becoming flesh

or substitutionary tomment.

So here's a quote that kind of, you know,

just, you know, these proof texts,

but it says the material blood of Jesus

was no more efficacious than when it was flowing in his veins.

Man, yeah.

Well, let's see how that jibes

with the doctrine of atonement and sin.

I can already see we're going this.

So we mentioned a little before, but sin

is not ontologically real because it's like this,

manifestation or a way you're thinking

or a bad thought or something like that.

Evil's an illusion.

The belief in sin is punished so long

as the belief lasts.

Mine games.

I do feel like we need to address the first bolt there.

Sin is not ontologically real.

In a sense, there's one way that Christian philosophers

would agree with that.

We would say that sin or evil doesn't have its own.

It can't exist on its own.

It has to adhere in an act or a thought or a failure to act.

So we would say that you can't point to evil,

but you can point to an act that is evil.

But I don't think that's what she's saying here.

She's saying that acts are not, there's no act

that has a status of being really sinful.

It's all an illusion.

Does that make sense to you that that's kind of

a lot of philosophy?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

All right.

For atonement, no penal substitution,

which I want to ask her, she's not around,

but like what do you do with your guilt?

Yeah.

Because I think if you are human, you have guilt.

Even if you don't try to live up to this standard,

there's a standard that you try to live up to

and you still fail.

Right, yeah, yeah.

And so you would think that there has to be some penalty

for that, which is where there were penal comes from.

And there's no penal substitution.

What are you doing with your guilt?

Yeah, it's interesting.

It's almost interesting that it's called Christian science.

You know what I mean?

Like, yeah.

What are we doing?

There's no satisfaction of divine justice

kind of going alongside, no penal substitution.

Like you don't have that.

This is, so is this atonement?

This is her definition.

Like she would even say, or in health and science,

like at one minute is like a way they would teach it.

Yeah, this is a summary of, you know, their belief.

So yeah, that doesn't really make sense to me.

But I think the implication from there is if sin isn't real.

Yeah, that's right.

And there's really no sacrificial payment for it.

You just need to be one with God.

One with God.

That unity with God that's more important than sin,

which is an evil and death and disease

that are all just like mind games.

As long as you kind of tune up to God,

I think you're good.

Which we would say this is directly conflicted with

Romans 3, you know, where Paul would tell us,

you know, that nuns E. Kim all have abandoned him.

Hebrews 9, second Corinthians 5, 21, you know,

all these things that talk about sin and the price

that in the penalty, you know, what Christ did for it.

Yeah, I would love to read somewhat like the commentary

along some of this where it's like,

because it's, you know, at least in Romans 3,

Paul is really belabor, like making his book

of Jews, Gentiles, and like saying all these things.

But let's talk about creation.

We mentioned that that Christian times rejects,

rejects creation of matter by God.

And then if you can imagine the goodness

of material creation, because if, you know, physical

doesn't exist, it's that's what I'm,

that's where my mind's going for sure.

So big picture, Genesis 1, this big creation story

is really spiritually true,

not like physically something that happened.

Yeah.

And to me, it's like people invent these categories,

and it's like, it doesn't, it's meaningless.

Like, what if we just, we're calling this the wrong thing?

This is not physical reality.

This is spirituality.

It's still a reality.

Yeah, we might, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just like a rose by any other name.

It's still a rose.

So you just, yeah, it doesn't make sense to me.

Just as to an onward treated as an allegory

of mistaken material perception.

So all of it is just people going through this

false perception that's not really real.

Man.

So if we're looking at historic Christianity,

hopefully you're tracking with this real creation,

incarnation affirmed bodily resurrection, a big deal

that those are really non-negotiables.

And so in the light of that,

Christian science to nice these

at a metaphysical level.

So we see to me more than anything

else we've talked about in the cults.

This is like the most stark, like we're not,

we're not talking the same language.

This is very, very different even from, you know,

Jehovah's Witness and the Mormon we talked about.

All right, doctrine of resurrection.

Well, at least there's gonna be a resurrection, right?

Well, resurrection is not bodily.

Okay.

Is awakening to a spiritual truth.

That's more and more like Buddhism,

like Neuron is waking up.

And I don't know if she has any type of reincarnation here,

but matter has no ultimate existence.

Therefore, no future physical resurrection,

no restored creation.

So it's not like, yeah, that's like the new heaven's

new earth, man, salvation.

Let's get to the crux of what we talked about.

You know, the Atonement Penal Substitution a little bit.

Christian science would teach that,

man is already spiritually perfect.

Man is already salient.

As it's like we said, there's no sin.

So there's nothing, you know, blocking that chasm.

It's really more of what you just mentioned,

this awakening to spiritual reality.

That is salvation.

The quote we have from Miss Eddie,

man as God's idea is already saved

with an everlasting salvation.

Compared to what you've heard many times here,

historic Christianity,

humanity is sinful, they're fallen,

and need of redemption, and need of forgiveness,

needs to be born again.

Salvation is something you don't possess.

Something that through the person

who work of Jesus Christ,

very central in here, it's like you already got it,

you need to like realize it,

or you know, manifest it or whatever the terminology is.

Here's where I think I really get cynical.

Yeah, oh yeah.

So we have healing practice.

I'm not cynical about healing.

I mean, everyone wants healing, all right.

But if it's all an illusion,

then why would you need healing?

Well, so since Christian science healing,

they reject matter as real.

They deny disease is ultimately real.

Okay, so prayer is just kind of correcting

your false beliefs about what's going on.

Okay, so you're sick, just false belief.

I have a cold, and it's like,

hey, we're gonna pray and you're no cold.

Right, you're just changing, you know,

you're spiritually changing like the reality there.

But there were practitioners in healing,

they were certified, they may charge fees.

I don't know why you need the illusion of money.

It's not real, but I,

that's gonna catch it on your bucks.

And they offer prayer-based healing,

while members may seek medical care,

traditional emphasis strongly

preferred spiritual healing alone.

So you're not, you're not precluded

from going to get in traditional medicine,

but you should probably just do this spiritual thing.

I'm guessing they would say,

well, by going to that doctor,

it trash your mind better that you're doing something.

So you're, you're, you're, you're tricking yourself

into it, and it has the same effect as just praying,

and if you really believe, it would be my guess.

Yeah, that might be, that tracks at least.

What's like about, you know, their ecclesiology,

their, their kind of church setup,

there's no word in clergy.

You know, you might be certified practitioner,

but here we're not ordained in clergy.

Services consist of reading solely from the Bible,

and then science and health.

There's no sacraments, no baptism,

no Lord, supper, Eucharist,

any of those things, doing a lot of reading

from the Bible and the key that unlocks the Bible.

Yeah.

So I guess really you don't have to have a pastor there.

Yeah, that's why I could be the pastor.

Yeah.

You just have to have a reader, yeah.

Man.

All right, points of contact with Christianity.

Christian science does affirm the Bible has inspired

Jesus's central crucifixion and resurrection language.

I don't know what that means though,

to affirm something you think is an illusion.

Moral transformation and prayer,

however, these terms are redefined metaphysically,

not historically.

So you're all just kind of looking through those

from a spiritual lens.

Well, let's just look at, you know,

the theological places that are just no-goes

out of it.

Christian science rejects the Trinity,

the incarnation as God becoming flesh,

substitutionary atonement,

material physical creation,

a bodily resurrection.

It changes the definition of sin

where sin is merely an illusion.

And then salvation's also redefined to where,

you know, really everything's good,

sin's not separating you,

you just need to be awakened to the reality.

That it's all good.

Yeah, and so like we said,

this is not just some minor doctrinal squibbles

between Christians.

These are big, they concern God,

Christ, creation, sin, salvation,

the future, you know, resurrection,

how it all is going to end.

So I think we could say by any way,

say standards of Christianity

that this is outside the pale,

outside the fence of what is Christianity

is a metaphysical religious system,

kind of like Buddhism or narcissism.

They use some Christian terms,

but it's built upon this philosophical idealism

structured around Eddie's revelatory authority.

Man, wow, Christian science.

I don't think we need to say too much more.

It's very different.

What might be worth saying is, you know,

where does it share some touch points

with Hinduism, Buddhism?

Yeah.

All right, so here are some touch points,

ultimate reality for Christian science.

God is infinite mind.

Only spiritual reality is real matter

and evil are illusions for, I guess,

do you know how to pronounce this?

No, that's negative.

I think it's, I've heard it pronounced

and I would recognize it,

but I'm going to, I'm going to mess it up here.

So just bear with me, but it's

advaita, avaita, avaita, Hinduism.

Their ultimate reality is brahman.

So absolute consciousness and material world

is an illusion, so that's shared.

Buddhism, at least to the Mahayana strands.

There's no creator, God, ultimate reality

is non-dual awareness or emptiness.

That's the enlightenment.

And material permanence is an illusion.

So some of the contrast, historic, Christianity

kind of repeated some of this real creation,

real incarnation, real bodily resurrection.

So it's kind of hitting those beats again.

Sentence suffering for Christian science,

sentence, disease or mistaken beliefs.

For Hinduism, Buddhism, suffering arises from ignorance

and obviously for Christianity,

we think those things are real.

Very very real.

Very very real.

Salvation, freedom, liberation for Christian science,

salvation is waking a spiritual truth.

For Hinduism, liberation is realizing

a realization of unity with ultimate reality.

Buddhism is Nirvana, it's released from the illusion.

So you see a lot of similarities there.

Obviously for us, salvation is found in a person,

the God man, who is the interceder

between God and man, who is our great high priest,

who died for us and now stands ever

at the Father's right hand, interceding for us,

closed us in his righteousness and took on our sin for us.

And that's good.

So we think of Christian science,

and uses these other cults we're talking about,

these Christian vocabulary.

But even he drilled down to the philosophy

and it's like some of these Hinduism, Buddhism

and the fact that it's a nice matter and treats evil

essentially as an illusion.

Very much different than the historical Christianity.

It's like, I like this series that it's just like,

pretty simple, it's just like here's one thing,

here's the other and we went down the line

through a ton of different things.

Very very different.

Yep, yep.

All right, anything else to add?

And to Mary Baker, Eddie is Christian science.

Nothing else, what are we looking at next?

Let's see, I think next is,

I have a seventh day Adventism.

Here we go, boom.

I like my friend went to a seventh day Advent's PT school

and while they don't like push their beliefs hard on you,

like the school operates within that framework.

So like, you know, coffee's not readily available.

They're all these different things,

so it's interesting to kind of talk about that.

So cool.

Well, that's all I got.

Last take.

Last take.

It's cold outside.

You're wearing a sweater, but maybe we should've been wearing

a tank top, I don't know.

But if I just rip these sleeves off right now, man.

The world wasn't ready for that tank top,

and either it was I, watching it back.

Man, that's good, that's all good.

So we were putting out some shorts, more shorts on YouTube.

I was doing, you know, I did a lot back in the fall.

Thanks.

And then I think I started teaching in my time one way

and I was like, I was like, I kept thinking,

I need to get back and edit some more shorts.

And to get back and edit some more shorts.

And so then I did like at the beginning of the year,

I did like a month worth of shorts.

Nice.

And it's kind of a slog because for this,

when I produce it, I can,

it's this long format so I can do the editing

and then I can just set it around, go render everything

and I can walk away and do stuff

where I can work on other stuff.

For shorts, it's like a little bit of editing,

a little bit of rendering.

A little bit of editing, a little bit of rendering.

But we found a online service, it does it.

And so I gave it one of our videos

and I was just picking it on the like the popularity

of the video.

It was something fairly recent,

like the purpose of the church.

And so it just like cuts little segments out there

and like the first one, like 1.7K or something

like that, 1.6K.

And then we realized it's just because that was wearing a tank top.

Definitely.

And the thing that got me was,

it's the tank top plus the goatee

that's just really flowing in the wind there, man.

It is a look.

We'll say that.

It's a choice.

Oh man, it's great.

So you know, what'd that be a plug for the take two tank top?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And if for some reason, like you only watch our long

format videos, go watch if you're short to give a like.

It's, you know, it would help.

There you go.

Yeah, absolutely.

Man, next, we need a short with the, we had,

we didn't have Michael in a tank top.

We do have a short, we're Michael in the cowboy hat.

That's true, yeah.

I was telling my class, so one of my students got Scarlet Fever.

Wow.

Do you know what Scarlet Fever is?

Dang, when I think of Scarlet Fever,

I think of a little house on the prairie.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I think because she went blind from it, right?

I think so, I don't know.

And that's correct me from wrong.

I'm pretty sure that was the disease in the Velveteen rabbit.

It might, maybe so.

Well, what my student said was it is when you have strep throat

and it moves from your throat to,

yes, and if a lot of people get it's when they don't treat

the strep throat, they're like,

hey, I'm just going to get over it.

I think it's a sore throat.

You're exactly right.

Because I've had strep throat several times.

I was like, yeah, what's the big deal?

And Shaq kept telling me, hey, it could develop

the Scarlet Fever.

Yeah.

So where does it go when it happens?

Is it going to a different spot in your body?

That's a good question.

In your left nose.

If it just spreads or what the deal is,

this is a total aside.

You don't have to do anything like this.

I'm going to send you, it's going to be a total waste of time,

a video that I made in college that,

maybe my roommates made.

So it's definitely going on, but take two.

It's great.

It's like so corny.

But we did like a little bit on Scarlet Fever in there.

So you're going to like this.

It's very, it's very timely.

It's good.

But I don't know what, what the deal is.

Yeah.

So getting back to my suit.

Yeah.

This is going to come back around.

Yeah, coming back around.

But he was like, I, he was there last Wednesday.

And I could tell his, he's, but there's been something

going around.

Yeah.

And then he's gone Thursday with the,

with the parent note Friday with the parent note.

Back to day Monday when we were recording.

He's like, I got Scarlet Fever.

It's kind of the fever.

Which, and he's like, I woke up Wednesday night like at one.

And it felt like my skin was on fire.

And they took him to the ER.

They ran some tests.

And he's like, it's happened before where he doesn't know

he has strep throat.

Like something about how his, he doesn't realize he has it.

Yeah.

And so then it has developed into Scarlet Fever.

And he has had to take cold showers.

He was saying, this is not fun.

And then I reminded me, I told him about our cold punch.

We recorded two videos.

Well, we're trying to get under a minute, under three minutes.

So it's a long time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I have to tell him, I was like, you can go out there

and watch him.

Like you'll see me, see a big massive water displacement

as I like basically toddler squad

into this little pool.

That's great.

Yeah, man, the cold punch.

I want to get a sauna so bad.

Sauna's more expensive than cold plunges.

Harder to justify, man.

Just good, you should be able to like build something

and just heat up some rocks and put water on it.

That might do.

You know, you can't, it's cheaper.

Yeah, to do it, man.

That's what I, if I get a build stuff,

build it in the garage.

I want to get a sauna really bad, you know.

Leann doesn't think it's a great use of money.

So we're going back and forth.

Hey, just use the HSA money on it, you know what I mean?

It's good for your health.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

One day, maybe one day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, anything else?

I think that's all I got.

Okay, that's all I got.

All right, well, that's our take.

Thanks for listening to Take 2.

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