May 30 2011

Show open and the Memorial Day greeting debate

• Can you properly say "Happy Memorial Day"?

A host opens from the Pathway Studios in Johnston, introducing himself on air as "Ben Pooh." The hosts then debate whether one can properly say "Happy Memorial Day" — contrasting Easter ("a celebration") with Good Friday — and spin into a story about mistakenly calling a Catholic coworker on Good Friday.

Memorial Day one-hour special announced

The hosts announce the "half-off sale": the Memorial Day show runs one hour, 10 to 11, instead of the usual two.

Upcoming guests: Ashton Powers and Echo

The hosts preview next week's musical guest Ashton Powers and the following week's Echo, their first hip-hop artist (heard on Pulse 99.5). The Echo preview turns into a running gag: the hosts call him a "locust," riff on freestyle rap battling, and address Mike and Dan by name on air. A joke about Tim Cooper's "your mom's fat" line being cut from the one-year anniversary footage closes the bit.

Westboro Baptist counter-protests and the mirror-on-a-truck gag

• What is the best reaction to a group like Westboro Baptist Church?

The hosts discuss counter-protesters (reportedly including Ku Klux Klan members eager to be seen as "not those guys") drowning out a Westboro Baptist Church protest at a Memorial Day event attended by Obama. They joke about carting a 20-foot mirror on a truck to every protest so the protesters look like they are yelling at themselves, then land on what Live from the Path would actually do: "huddle in a corner and pray."

Is "huddle in the corner and pray" always biblical?

• Is always huddling in the corner and praying biblical?

The hosts ask whether always defaulting to quiet prayer is biblical: if God tells you to go out and you huddle instead, that is a problem. Prayer is right — but not as a dodge of obedience.

God's character, generational thinking, and personal responsibility

• How would people know the "end of times guy" is wrong without studying it themselves?

A long theological thread: God thinks generationally rather than week-to-week and is not threatened by lies or misrepresentation; personal responsibility remains — no one can blame a false teacher when "there was a Bible right in front of you." The hosts note everyone has a real opportunity to hand their life to Christ, that pride blocks humble submission, and that a relationship with Jesus is personal, not mediated through someone else's pastor. The "end of times guy" and a Calvinist thread are referenced.

The rabbit, the flea-ridden dog, and the garage quarantine

A host tells the story of his dog half-killing a rabbit and leaving it twitching on the deck: the moral paralysis of having to kill it himself (a possum precedent, no vehicle, no gun in town), the debate over twisting its neck, and the relief when the rabbit hobbles off and dies by the fence overnight. The rabbit gives the dog fleas, forcing a garage quarantine, a flea-knowledge debate with the chat ("ask the woman — the woman knows fleas"), and a digression about cows shaking the life out of grass.

Sunday service recap: Hebrews

A host asks Troy in the chat what he thought of Sunday's service; Troy admits he was not there. The service covered Hebrews (the letter to the Hebrews), and the hosts credit the fancy graphic with pulling people in.

The hard question posed: Christians deciding for a society that rejects God's rules

• Should a Christian in civic authority support safeguards (like handing out condoms) that help a society which rejects God's rules?

The hard question of the night is posed: if God sets rules and a large share of society will not follow them, should a Christian in a decision-making role (e.g., a school board) make different decisions because they don't follow Christ? The test case is schools handing out condoms to fight teen pregnancy. A host who went to a school with high teen pregnancy pushes the harm-reduction framing.

Abstinence education vs. condom handouts in schools

The hosts argue abstinence education versus harm reduction in schools: teach abstinence, let students choose — but is handing out condoms tacit encouragement? Includes the verbal flub "the consequences to failed algebra are not herpes," a joke about Colin watching in the chat, and the claim that it is not the school's business whether someone gets pregnant.

Free condoms for welfare recipients, and Rome

The question is widened: what about free condoms for people on government assistance to curb fatherless births? One host frames harm reduction as "treating symptoms, not character"; another insists "truth is always truth" — a society ignoring the designer's standards will disintegrate regardless, "ask Rome" — prompting the gag that Rome fell when they started handing out condoms.

Gun analogies and counseling non-married couples

• Would you provide counseling to non-married couples who are having sex?

The hosts test the equivalence with analogies: if people shoot each other anyway, do we hand out "softer bullets," better guns, or Kevlar vests for the innocents? A pivot asks whether a Christian counselor should counsel non-married couples who are having sex — and whether that can honestly include safe-sex advice alongside preaching abstinence.

Accountability inside the church, God handles the outside

A host draws the biblical line: Christians are in charge of holding fellow Christians to the standard Jesus holds them to; God handles people outside the church, and believers do not hold outsiders to the same judgment — citing how Paul handles this in the New Testament.

After-care vs. prior-care: the cab ride and the crisis pregnancy center

The hosts distinguish after-care from prior-care: giving a drunk a ride home, running a crisis pregnancy center, helping after the tornado — all help people already in the consequences — versus handing out safeguards beforehand, which feels like encouragement. "It's not our job to make anything safer; it's our job to say, here's the truth of God": teaching truth and helping people up after poor choices are the consensus points.

Building relationships, and "you're already married — sign the license"

The debate closes unresolved: a host admits his own stance is inconsistent — he would drive a drunk home but not hand out a condom, even though the situations are "apples to apples." Others insist on relationship-based help over random handouts, and on never merely handing a safeguard without preaching God's will alongside it. Gags close the night: a couple already having sex is told "you're already married — sign the license, be fruitful and multiply," and a condom is imagined with a picture of Jesus and a sermon from Dan Hudson at Pathway Church on it.

Show close

The hosts sign off, plugging next week's in-studio appearance by Ashton Powers and the archive at livefromthepath.org.