Shifting Perspective on Society’s Hottest Topics | Ep. 88 with Darrow Miller
Welcome to the No Grey Areas Podcast, where our host, Patrick McCalla, engages in enlightening conversations with special podcast guest and author, Darrow Miller.
In this episode, Darrow shares profound insights centered on his experiences as a Christian since the age of 13, challenges traditional beliefs, and delves into the intricacies of truth in our generation. Through anecdotes and philosophical reflections, Darrow invites our listeners to ponder the complexities of current existence and embrace a deeper understanding of their own faith journey.
His extensive travels and encounters have provided him with a unique perspective on culture, time, and current issues. He and Pat debunk myths surrounding poverty and advocate for gender equality in this modern world.
Don't miss out on this enriching podcast that transcends boundaries about trending societal topics. Watch now!
For more information or to connect with Darrow, visit https://darrowmillerandfriends.com/ or disciplenations.org.
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No Grey Areas is a motivational podcast with captivating guests centered around how our choices humanize, empower, and define who we become. This podcast is inspired by the cautionary tale, No Grey Areas, written by Joseph Gagliano. Learn more about the truth behind his story involved with sports' biggest scandal at nogreyareas.com
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Transcript
Speaker 1
In this episode of the No Gray Areas Podcast, I sit down to interview Daryl Miller, one of my favorite authors, and a man whose writings revolutionized my own thinking. Darrow is the author of 19 books and a plethora of articles and blogs. Today, he dives into the challenges of conventional beliefs, pressing social issues, mistreatment of women in modern culture, and the importance of education in today's society.
::Speaker 1
Let's jump in.
::Pat McCalla
Darryl Miller, thank you so much for joining us. In no gray areas, this is like having
::Pat McCalla
hero of faith sitting across from me. I'm a ferocious reader. Part of our audience knows that. I probably read, I don't know, two books a week or something, and I have a list of 5 to 10 books that have had the biggest impact in my
::Darrow Miller
life.
::Darrow Miller
I'm honored by that.
::Pat McCalla
So I just I love having you here. I'm so excited. The book
::Pat McCalla
that had such a big impact in my life was Discipling the Nations. I read that I was in my, I think mid to late thirties at the time. And that's all about worldview
::Pat McCalla
unpack that in a little bit.
::Pat McCalla
But you messed me up. You
::Pat McCalla
you made me lose sleep for two or three nights.
::Pat McCalla
TERRELL
::Darrow Miller
I'm glad that's what my calling is, is to get people to lose sleep.
::Pat McCalla
Yes, well, you did it with me for sure, because in that book you asked the question. Once you unpack what worldview is and the importance of it. And again, we're going to talk about that in a little bit. But then you asked the question, where is your worldview
::Pat McCalla
tainted? You know, what? Where is it wrong and why that messed me up so much is I wouldn't believe my worldview if I didn't believe it was right.
::Darrow Miller
Yes.
::Pat McCalla
true
::Darrow Miller
That are affecting your decisions and the consequences of those decisions. Yes, that's.
::Darrow Miller
Right.
::Darrow Miller
right?
::Darrow Miller
It is very much so.
::Darrow Miller
I had that those two sleepless nights when I was in my early twenties. My wife and I had traveled to Israel, studied in Israel for five months, and then hitchhiked from Israel to Switzerland. And we were.
::Darrow Miller
A
::Pat McCalla
wait, wait, wait. You hitchhiked from Israel to Switzerland?
::Darrow Miller
Yes.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah,
::Darrow Miller
No. Well, we actually flew from
::Darrow Miller
Tel Aviv to Istanbul and then hitchhiked from Istanbul to Switzerland. Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
the short part of that trip was.
::Darrow Miller
Your
::Pat McCalla
parents were excited about that. If
::Darrow Miller
No. And they weren't excited about us going to Israel either.
::Darrow Miller
A few months after the Six-Day War.
::Pat McCalla
Okay. That's why they weren't excited.
::Darrow Miller
They weren't accepting.
::Darrow Miller
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah, exactly.
::Darrow Miller
We ended up in a place in Switzerland called Liberty Fellowship. It was the home of Frances and Edith Schaefer. And I'll never forget the night that the question was asked me or a statement given to me that threw my life upside down,
::Pat McCalla
Francis.
::Darrow Miller
know, from a German lawyer named Udo Mittleman. And we were staying in his home. He and his wife, Deborah Mittleman, were hosting us.
::Darrow Miller
It was a Sunday night, and we were sitting around having high tea, little cups of tea, finger foods, British tradition, classical music playing in the background, flowers cut dried flowers from the Swiss hillside
::Darrow Miller
and snow lightly falling. It was it's a movie scene. The ambiance was incredible and we were having this very good conversation. And Udo turns to me and he said, You know, Daryl, Christianity's true, even if you don't believe it.
::Pat McCalla
Wow.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah. And I looked at him and I said, What did you say?
::Darrow Miller
He said, Christianity's true, even if you don't believe it. And I had been taught all my life that Christianity was true because I believed it. That's
::Darrow Miller
the person who led me to Christ. That's how he phrased it. I was involved in Young Life. Campus Crusade went to an evangelical seminary.
::Darrow Miller
Why was Christianity true? Because you believed it.
::Pat McCalla
And this guy rocked your world
::Darrow Miller
Who rocks my world. And I didn't sleep for two nights. I literally toss and turn. What is Udo saying to me?
::Darrow Miller
And I finally figured it out. He was saying, You know, Darrell, Christianity's true. Even if no one in the world believes it's true to what's real, it's true because God exists, and that just blew me away.
::Pat McCalla
So why did that have such a profound impact on
::Darrow Miller
you?
::Darrow Miller
Well, I've been a Christian since I was about 13 years old, and I had Christ in my heart. And this didn't challenge my faith in Christ, but it challenged my concept of what did it mean to be a Christian? And that's what rocked my boat. Yeah. And I realized I had a born again heart, but a pagan mind.
::Darrow Miller
I'd grown up in the United States right there. I'd grown up in the United States. I'd been
::Darrow Miller
educated in state sponsored education, public schools and the whole milieu of public schools. As I learned later, I couldn't have told you at that moment, but I've learned later, as I've looked at history, the whole milieu of public schools was born out of a Darwin evolutionary framework where all of life is integrated around an evolutionary motif.
::Darrow Miller
It wasn't always that way. There was a period of time in history where all of life was focused around a biblical motif. God exists. You are made in his image. He loves you. He loves you so much that he sent his son to die for you. That's the biblical motif, and it has all sorts of implications for our lives.
::Darrow Miller
But I wasn't taught that in school. I was taught a Darwinian, an evolutionary framework in which evolution is and was the integration point of all the subjects I was taught in school. So I had a born again heart and an unoriginal in mind, and I was living in two worlds and it was easy to live there because I could be a Christian on Sunday when I go to church or on Wednesday night Bible study, but not ask the hard questions on Monday because I was totally enmeshed, engaged with a secular, materialistic framework.
::Darrow Miller
That's where life was lived out.
::Darrow Miller
Well,
::Pat McCalla
that's one of the things that your your book, the one that we're talking about referring to, because you wrote a lot of books, as I mentioned in the intro. And we'll unpack some of those here in a moment. But that's another thing that your book did so marvelously for me was talking about how we dichotomies life so
::Darrow Miller
yes,
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
That's right. But in an evolutionary framework, the only thing that is real is nature. Yeah. We're only considering half the universe.
::Darrow Miller
No, there's a whole universe God inhabits that universe. He created that universe. But we learn in school there's only half a universe, and that's nature. Anything that is outside of nature is a figment of our imagination.
::Pat McCalla
What year was this
::Pat McCalla
when you were with Francis
::Darrow Miller
1961?
::Darrow Miller
I think
::Pat McCalla
Okay, so what's fascinating about
::Darrow Miller
that.
::Darrow Miller
Are now 70.
::Darrow Miller
1970
::Pat McCalla
Okay,: ::Pat McCalla
e year I read it was probably: ::Pat McCalla
truth is truth, whether you believe it or
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
right.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Pat McCalla
I believe that they're truth because I grew up with a family or in a
::Darrow Miller
sure
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Pat McCalla
But I can blame mine on you.
::Darrow Miller
Well, that's cool. I'm glad. I'm glad you had those sleepless nights, because God used it to change the course of your life.
::Pat McCalla
And he's still using
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Pat McCalla
using it. I still know that. And I'd like to ask you, I mean,
::Pat McCalla
you've lived a lot of years since then.
::Darrow Miller
::Pat McCalla
I assume you haven't arrived on having all that worked
::Darrow Miller
No, I haven't. I'm 80 years old, and I'm still working on it. That's how deeply entrenched our early education is and our our early socialization.
::Darrow Miller
It's totally entrenched in us. And we don't realize this just is what life is like. Well, it's not. But we can't see beyond what we see.
::Pat McCalla
well, let me unpack two things with you. Two big things.
::Pat McCalla
one of them is worldview, and then the other one is Imago Day.
::Pat McCalla
But worldview, first of all, for audience listening, that's not a word that they're going to probably be in the phrase grocery store, Safeway, grocery store today and hear someone say Worldview,
::Darrow Miller
most
::Pat McCalla
likely.
::Pat McCalla
So first of all, help us understand what that is and why everyone has one.
::Darrow Miller
Another way of saying it is a mindset that's a simpler way of saying it, but it is a comprehensive mindset. It's the way you see the world and you have gained this as you've learned your language, you've gained it as you go to school, as you watch television, as you play video games. All these things are shaping your mindset and you don't know it.
::Pat McCalla
Can I back up really quick
::Darrow Miller
Sure
::Pat McCalla
thing just to
::Pat McCalla
you? You said learning a language and I think that's so important for audience to get because the language you learn was part of forming your mindset or your
::Darrow Miller
That is absolutely correct.
::Pat McCalla
There's certain languages that wouldn't have a word for maybe future or, you know, and
::Darrow Miller
that's.
::Darrow Miller
Right.
::Darrow Miller
That's right. And we conceived because we are children of a biblical framework way back when we conceive of a past, present and future. Yes, we think in those three terms we can reflect on the events of our childhood, the things that we did enjoy, those things we can be in the present like we are right now, enjoying this time, and we can dream of what we could do next, past, present and future.
::Darrow Miller
I read.
::Darrow Miller
Know they don't. Let me give you an example. John Beatty was a philosopher and historian from Kenya.
::Darrow Miller
He wrote a book called The Religions and Philosophies of Africa, and he had a chapter in the book on the African concept of time. And he said, there is not one dialect in the whole continent of Africa that has a concept of future
::Pat McCalla
So they're so as they're forming their languages, a kid is growing up and
::Darrow Miller
learning, there's no future, there's the past and the. That's right. So what is life like that
::Darrow Miller
for a kid, for an adult, for a whole continent? If there's no concept of future, what is it that the future allows us to do? It allows us to create calendars, to planned, to dream all of these things that we take for granted in the West, but without the concept of future and the word future, there's no place for that in a person's mind.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah,
::Darrow Miller
that's how profound worldview is.
::Pat McCalla
right. Like there's it's tied to that morality a little bit. Like there's some things that if I really believe that what God says about certain things, I may not do this or even if you don't believe in God, but you want to have a healthy marriage, you may say no to this extramarital affair because you want to have a healthy marriage in your future.
::Darrow Miller
You're
::Darrow Miller
just today and what you feel in the moment.
::Pat McCalla
mean, it probably changes how you think through that.
::Darrow Miller
Sure.
::Pat McCalla
again, I'm wanting our audience to understand again, the the importance that they have
::Pat McCalla
what did you call it, worldview. And then you said
::Darrow Miller
up.
::Darrow Miller
A mindset.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
I'll give you another example, because I think it's critical, critically important to understand this very point. One of the greatest causes of poverty in the world is a lie.
::Darrow Miller
We think poverty is caused by lack of money. Yeah, it's not. Yes, that's a materialistic paradigm of poverty.
::Pat McCalla
World Bank, I think it was decades ago.
::Pat McCalla
They talked about that any country, one of their greatest resources that they have that's going to bring worth money, GDP to that country is going to be human
::Darrow Miller
capital.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
Because we have a materialistic mindset.
::Darrow Miller
Yes.
::Darrow Miller
You could work for a nonprofit organization, you could work for a Christian nonprofit organization, and you look at the cause of poverty through the lens of a materialistic mind. Well, why are people poor? They lack in money, they're lacking resources. So what do you do? You create a mechanism to give them money and resources. And what that teaches them is development is receiving money and resources from the West, but it does not break the paradigm they have in their mind to see, we are made in the image of God.
::Darrow Miller
God has blessed our nation. We have all of these resources. We have all of these people who are smart, who are creative. We have everything we need to develop. No, we stifle that because we are stifled in our own minds saying that they're poor because they do not have money and do not have resources.
::Darrow Miller
It's a.
::Darrow Miller
Crime.
::Pat McCalla
Yeah, and that's why both in our country, we see it in our country, but we see it around the world where when we pour millions or billions of dollars and we're doing it from that perspective and we look 20, 30, 40 years later,
::Pat McCalla
we still have poverty there.
::Darrow Miller
And then we we conclude we haven't given enough. And so we just have to give more because money is what solves problems.
::Pat McCalla
Now I just
::Pat McCalla
just to insert this really quickly, I don't think you're saying that
::Pat McCalla
resources are completely out of the
::Darrow Miller
No, I'm not.
::Darrow Miller
Saying.
::Darrow Miller
They are. And compassion is necessary. Yes. But they are not they're not the core of the issue.
::Darrow Miller
One of the greatest causes of poverty in the world is a lie.
::Darrow Miller
And the lie is that men are superior to women. Virtually everywhere you go in the world, that sexist culture is present. It's in Asia, it's in Latin America and Africa.
::Darrow Miller
When I was in Africa teaching on this, I had a young man come up to me and he said, Darryl, in my tribe, we don't have a word for women.
::Darrow Miller
And I said, How can that be? Half the people in your tribe are female? No, we don't have a word for a woman. So what do you call a woman? A tool?
::Pat McCalla
that word creates a mindset or a worldview,
::Darrow Miller
It reflects a mindset. Men are human. Women are tools. Now, when you grow up with that mindset and the whole culture has that mindset, how, however women treat it
::Darrow Miller
like tools, like tools and what breaks that mindset is a biblical worldview in which we're made in the image of the living God and male and female, not just male.
::Darrow Miller
Genesis 126 and 27. He made them in his image, male and female. Yeah, that is a profound revelation from the heart of God. And that is what not only gives us our humanity and our being made a majo de, it is what gives women total dignity, and that is the thing that breaks the bondage of poverty.
::Pat McCalla
And when why does that lie? Create poverty? I think it's important because I know this is just how you've lived so many decades. So there's probably people that are listening right now that aren't disagreeing with you, but they just don't know. What do you what do you mean? That's creating poverty, that you think of women as second class citizens or as tools?
::Darrow Miller
Well, you eliminate all the potential they have as human beings for one. Yeah,
::Pat McCalla
that and that's huge,
::Darrow Miller
That's huge. It's half the population and their potential is gone because you don't see them as having potential. That would be the big thing. And then you treat them as tools,
::Darrow Miller
Go do this, go do that. They treat you, treat them as slaves.
::Darrow Miller
In fact, in some cultures, the word for woman is slave. I've I've had the habit or I'm lecture of asking people, what do you call a woman in your native tongue? And it's horrible. Some of the stuff that you hear so often in the native tongue, the word for woman is slave. How is she treated?
::Pat McCalla
And then you. You think you get into a marriage?
::Pat McCalla
again? This goes back to worldview or mindset that's so important. If from the time you were a little boy and the language you learned was that woman is slave or tool
::Darrow Miller
Yeah, in
::Darrow Miller
As your equal equal.
::Darrow Miller
Now,
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
That's how you treat them.
::Darrow Miller
You
::Darrow Miller
And this is normal.
::Darrow Miller
And this is what women expect. They expect to be treated this way because this is the worldview of the culture.
::Darrow Miller
And because you've raised this, let me say something else that I try to convey when I am speaking to men and women in the creation, God begins by creating the raw material and the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.
::Darrow Miller
So there was clay. If you're speaking in terms of an artist or a blank canvas, if you're speaking in terms of a painter and each stage of the creation, God is bringing more order out of the unknown order,
::Darrow Miller
right? So he formed Does this matter? And now you have sun, moon and stars. Then he creates plant life and he creates animal life.
::Darrow Miller
And then he goes on to Genesis two. And who does he make first?
::Darrow Miller
man. From the dust to the ground.
::Darrow Miller
He's not finished yet.
::Darrow Miller
And each time he forms, he forms something a little higher, a little bit more refined.
::Pat McCalla
I see where you're going with this. And I agree with you,
::Darrow Miller
And what does he create last Women?
::Pat McCalla
little.
::Pat McCalla
Little more refined.
::Darrow Miller
A little more refined. And when I share this, people have never had that thought before.
::Pat McCalla
Well, you just gave me goosebumps when you're talking about it, because it again, it makes me tear up to think about if you think about so much of the world where a woman was considered a tool
::Darrow Miller
slave,
::Pat McCalla
and the day that she began to realize, like, Wait, what?
::Pat McCalla
of the pinnacle of
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
she's the crescendo of creation, the high water mark of creation, totally different than a sexist society has.
::Darrow Miller
Yes.
::Darrow Miller
And that
::Darrow Miller
I can tell you, I see women when they hear that they've never heard that before and they've never heard it from a man before. And they're in tears. Yeah. And I see men who are stunned because of how they have treated women. Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
And the last part of this, Adam named his wife Eve, and that means life.
::Darrow Miller
Her who gave life
::Darrow Miller
God? God is the giver of life. What is Eve named? Wife giver. She is the life giver.
::Pat McCalla
Wow.
::Darrow Miller
I mean, it's. It blows you away when you think about it. Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
as the church, we need to teach this and affirm this.
::Darrow Miller
And
::Pat McCalla
also see the attack of the enemy in there. So don't you? Because I remember once reading about, you know, the, the worst treated and then it gave I won't give what their answer was, but there was a a name of an ethnic group that was the most worst treated people in
::Darrow Miller
the history.
::Darrow Miller
What would you say?
::Darrow Miller
yes. They haven't existed in people's minds. Yeah, there are tools there.
::Darrow Miller
Most cultures, slaves there.
::Pat McCalla
Yeah. Mistreated,
::Pat McCalla
but again, it goes back to the, the importance of a biblical worldview. You open up the beginning of the narrative, the beginning of the story, and that's what you're unpacking for. It shows that there is a crescendo that's out there, that
::Pat McCalla
peak of his
::Darrow Miller
the peak.
::Darrow Miller
And that's right.
::Pat McCalla
that should change, how they view themselves as women. That should change how we
::Darrow Miller
We treat them as women. Yes, exactly. That's right.
::Pat McCalla
But history is full of countries worldviews that are the opposite, which I just think we believe we have an enemy,
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Pat McCalla
Yeah.
::Pat McCalla
Darrell. You and I could talk for hours.
::Darrow Miller
and I love that.
::Pat McCalla
this.
::Pat McCalla
let me just point out a couple of books that you've written here for the audience, and most of our audience are listening on audio, those that are watching, I'm holding the book up for them, but this is called The Grand Design, and I want to put this one up because this is where really what we're talking about right now, the grand design design, rediscovering male and female as the image of God.
::Pat McCalla
Now, you've used that term a few times, Imago Day. All right, That's Latin
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
Because we're not merely animals,
::Darrow Miller
which is what evolution teaches
::Darrow Miller
for that.
::Darrow Miller
Important, though.
::Darrow Miller
Because if we're animals, we're just physical beings and we are here for a short time and we die and we
::Darrow Miller
go to the grave. So I remember
::Darrow Miller
at ASU and I was in my freshman sociology class. So this 101, a professor came out on the stage and he said, What is the purpose of a life of a baby that dies in infancy?
::Darrow Miller
And then he paced up and down the stage because he wanted all those 19 year olds and 18 year olds to think about that question
::Darrow Miller
What's the purpose of a child that dies in infancy?
::Pat McCalla
to go with that?
::Darrow Miller
Came back to the microphone after a couple of
::Darrow Miller
minutes. So the purpose of a child that dies in infancy is to be fertilizer for a tree.
::Darrow Miller
That's lot. It's heartbreaking, but that's the mentality.
::Pat McCalla
but that is true. If if evolution is true.
::Darrow Miller
If evolution is true, that is true. And because people think evolution is true, the life of a baby means nothing. Yeah. Yeah. And we abort millions of them because the life of a baby is not sacred.
::Pat McCalla
Well, this is so important for what this podcast is about. The power and complexity of human choice.
::Darrow Miller
Yes.
::Darrow Miller
and.
::Darrow Miller
I can take her.
::Pat McCalla
And I'll just go take her.
::Pat McCalla
But, but that's,
::Pat McCalla
the evolutionary mindset,
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
But
::Darrow Miller
creation.
::Darrow Miller
I'm the image of God.
::Pat McCalla
because of that, I have been given the power of human choice. I don't have to say yes to that urge.
::Darrow Miller
That's right. I can say no. And that's
::Darrow Miller
why the name of your program is so powerful, because it takes people back to the choices they make and that those choices create ripples. And some of those ripples will go on forever. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't realize that. Yeah, I remember I had a man come up to me one time, not come up to me.
::Darrow Miller
I met him and he said, I can't believe that I let an 18 year old boy make decisions that shaped the course of my life.
::Darrow Miller
And I thought, Well, that's a stupid thing. Why would you do that? And then I realized he was talking about himself,
::Darrow Miller
that he made decisions that an 18 year old that set him on a track for his life.
::Darrow Miller
And he's looking back on it now,
::Darrow Miller
which is exactly what you're saying with your show.
::Pat McCalla
Well, and Daryl, I read a statistic recently and I and I'm going to goof up the percentage, but I know it's a high percentage. You said something like 70% of our life decisions will be made between like 18 and 25,
::Darrow Miller
Sure.
::Darrow Miller
it?
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Pat McCalla
I would say to anybody who's 18 to 25 or 18 to 30 or so, for them to really think through the decisions you're making are going to have a massive impact on your future?
::Darrow Miller
Yeah, very definitely. Yeah.
::Pat McCalla
So
::Pat McCalla
when we go back to this emotional day in the power and complexity of human choice and the idea that ideas have consequences, you've mentioned that term. Help us with that a little bit to where we go. Ideas have consequences.
::Pat McCalla
your beliefs have consequences.
::Darrow Miller
Well, going back to image your day, there is no God, there is no mojo day. Who are we? Well, we're animals. But I imagine myself, I'm born a boy, but I imagine myself as a girl. Now what I do, I start identifying as a girl. Then what do I do? I go and have surgery I take hormones. I have my breasts cut off.
::Darrow Miller
What are we doing? Yeah, What have we called this in the past?
::Pat McCalla
There's. There's
::Pat McCalla
but I don't know if we call it mental
::Darrow Miller
No, but in terms of physically what we're doing to children's bodies to use. It's abuse.
::Pat McCalla
yeah, yeah.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah, it's mutilation.
::Pat McCalla
yeah. We're, yeah.
::Darrow Miller
We are still, there's still groups in the NGO that I worked for for years. Had a program to fight female genital mutilation, which was that was evil.
::Pat McCalla
Africa.
::Darrow Miller
That's right. Africa in the Middle East. And we we just said that is evil.
::Darrow Miller
It is.
::Darrow Miller
And it is evil. And what do we do today? It's being promoted today because of false ideas. Ideas have ideas, have consequences. And these children's lives are going to be changed forever.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah. And we're
::Darrow Miller
promoting that.
::Pat McCalla
And this is where we go back to again. Romans 12 two says transformation comes from renewing the
::Darrow Miller
that's right.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Pat McCalla
we can start backing up because I think a lot of our audience isn't going to I may be struggling with some of those big things that you're talking about, but, you know, you may think, well, you know, I'm not I'm not worth much or I'm not that valuable.
::Pat McCalla
That's a belief.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
Consequences in your.
::Darrow Miller
Life. That's exactly right.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah. And
::Darrow Miller
You're not worth something.
::Darrow Miller
You are.
::Darrow Miller
God's creation.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah, You are the image of God when He made you, he didn't look at a monkey. He didn't look at a dog. When he made you, he looked at himself and made you like him. What do you mean?
::Darrow Miller
You're worthless?
::Pat McCalla
Yeah.
::Pat McCalla
again, it's. It's why I'm so passionate about this subject. Everybody, everybody, everybody listening. You have some things that you are believing, a mindset that you have that is causing damage to you.
::Darrow Miller
And you might not even realize it.
::Pat McCalla
Yeah.
::Pat McCalla
ou ruined me, though, back in: ::Darrow Miller
,: ::Pat McCalla
is
::Pat McCalla
there were things that I knew, like I knew. Okay, I grew up in America. So materialism, that's going to be something I'm going to struggle with, right? Our culture. I got it. I know that
::Pat McCalla
where I couldn't go to sleep as I go on.
::Pat McCalla
But what are the things that I don't see?
::Darrow Miller
What
::Darrow Miller
Yeah. So
::Pat McCalla
that's where I was wrestling. I was going, I have some beliefs that I don't want to realize are wrong.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
Right.
::Darrow Miller
And we can't realize they're wrong as long as we're in this bubble, this mindset bubble. One of the things that the Bible can do is challenge that mindset.
::Pat McCalla
for me now I'm 52 and I'm sitting here. I'm going. God has revealed since I started wrestling with this, God has revealed some of those
::Darrow Miller
help.
::Darrow Miller
Right.
::Pat McCalla
know, Darrell, what I just thought of as I as I shared that, you know, how most of those are revealed to me, those through pain.
::Darrow Miller
I think pain can bring growth.
::Darrow Miller
think of it as utterly negative, and it's not fun to go through,
::Darrow Miller
but it can shift things in our lives that need to be shifted and would not be shifted without going through the pain.
::Darrow Miller
Another thing that can do it is to go cross-culturally and live in another culture for a while, and they will see things this way and you see what are they doing that for?
::Darrow Miller
Or they'll look at you and they'll say, What are you doing this for? And
::Darrow Miller
confronting another culture or being confronted by another culture can help you say, See?
::Darrow Miller
that's what I really think. That's what I really do. And there are consequences for those ideas, for those behaviors.
::Pat McCalla
Yeah. And
::Pat McCalla
to give an example of what you're talking about, like time would be a good one, right?
::Pat McCalla
Our Western culture, we're very we're on time. And that's really important fact. You grow up in most families hearing like it's disrespectful to be late,
::Darrow Miller
Yeah
::Darrow Miller
That's right
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Pat McCalla
and
::Pat McCalla
neither one we would say is necessarily morally
::Darrow Miller
wrong.
::Darrow Miller
No, they're not.
::Darrow Miller
And we should be aware of both of them and live with both of them. It's part of our life. Yeah. Yeah. So
::Darrow Miller
people say, well, time is on your wrist. You have a mechanistic view of time. Our concept of time is relational. We spend time with people. That's our concept of time.
::Darrow Miller
And
::Pat McCalla
you've been in a lot of cultures where that's true, where
::Darrow Miller
Sure.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah. Or 4:00.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
It's relational.
::Darrow Miller
That that's exactly right.
::Darrow Miller
And there's
::Darrow Miller
There is. And somebody from the West who's always looking at the clock. You go into a culture like that, there's part of you that condemns it because you don't get anything done. And part of it is, man, I love this. I wish I didn't have to go home because there's something about that space that we need to occupy and we're made to occupy.
::Pat McCalla
Darrell. How? You talked about two things that can really help shift our worldview. Or maybe help us sense where a worldviews or mindsets may be wrong. The Bible, one of them, which why it's so important for us to be in it and in it
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Pat McCalla
consistently, consistently, but also travel. I have often said international travel or travel crossing cultures
::Pat McCalla
is one of the best educations we can have.
::Darrow Miller
it is. I usually recommend to people coming out of high school,
::Darrow Miller
take a year off and go travel or go work in another country, or go learn a language in another country, but get out of the United States either before you go to college or before you graduate from college, because that's where you will get an education, more so than in a classroom.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Speaker 1
from your No gray Areas team, we just want to say thank you so much for listening. And if you're loving this episode, would you just take a moment and leave us a review and rating on whatever platform you're listening from? If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on the new podcast episodes that drop every other Wednesday by leaving a review and subscribing, you help others discover our podcasts inspirational messages to effectuate positive change in their lives.
::Speaker 1
Okay, let's jump back in to this episode.
::Pat McCalla
Well, here's another book you wrote called Emancipating the World A Christian Response to Radical Islam.
::Darrow Miller
And
::Darrow Miller
The and has to be there.
::Pat McCalla
Why?
::Pat McCalla
Because I did. I did not finish reading. That's why Darrell saying that is I'm holding this book up. I didn't read the complete title and he caught me on it.
::Pat McCalla
But it's important to have that there because.
::Darrow Miller
Because today we're looking at what's going on in the Middle East with Hamas. And, 20 years ago, we had the
::Darrow Miller
tragedy, the the terrorist attack in New York and 911 and who did that? Jihadists.
::Darrow Miller
And so consequently.
::Darrow Miller
Ideas have consequences. And we thought
::Darrow Miller
the whole nation focused on jihadists because that was what was in our face. And at that time, I realized, you know, the church needs to realize we are fighting on two fronts. The jihadist is the fight from the east, but there's a fight in the West and that is fundamentalist atheist ists. Yeah, these are people who do not believe in truth.
::Darrow Miller
The only thing they believe in is power.
::Darrow Miller
They are fundamentalists.
::Darrow Miller
They do not want any other ideas on the playing field of ideas, but secular, atheistic ideas. And they are fundamentalists. And we see this working its way out in our country today through the media, through education, through new government policies. These are atheists who are fundamentalists. They do not want anyone to challenge what they're doing.
::Darrow Miller
They do not want another idea out there.
::Darrow Miller
Your definition
::Pat McCalla
of a fundamentalist is someone who's who's like,
::Darrow Miller
they're absolutely blind. They want no competition.
::Darrow Miller
Now,
::Darrow Miller
those are the old Liberals. The old Liberals believed, in truth
::Darrow Miller
and they so believed in truth. They and Christians created universities where people could come together and dialog over
::Darrow Miller
what is true different beliefs but what is true. And here's a place where we can come and talk about that.
::Pat McCalla
but that's I think a key for our audience to understand again to their because I said it and you, you corrected me a little bit, I said different beliefs and you said, but you took it back to truths because there's a difference between saying, well, there's these different beliefs, and your belief can be your belief. And my belief can be my belief.
::Pat McCalla
There's a difference in saying that and saying, but there's a truth.
::Darrow Miller
There is truth. Whether or not I believe it right. It's not my truth and your truth.
::Darrow Miller
It's not that we each have our own truth, which is what? The way the way the word is being used. Today I have my truth. You have your truth. Stay away. I don't want an argument. I don't want to hear anything else.
::Darrow Miller
No. Yeah. We need to argue civilly, but we need a level playing field. And the old
::Darrow Miller
liberals, that's what they wanted for. Wanted? Because they believed truth existed and you could find it. And the place to find it is to bring ideas to a a common marketplace of ideas where you could talk. Today, the universities are the opposite of that.
::Darrow Miller
They closed down discussions. We live in a postwar truth culture. It's my opinion versus your
::Darrow Miller
opinion.
::Pat McCalla
And this is a silly example, but I think it helps our audience understand it, where truth is truth, whether we believe it or not, I can say I don't believe in gravity. And when I climb up to the top of the building and jump off,
::Darrow Miller
my reality. Yeah, yeah.
::Darrow Miller
Tells you what's true.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah, that's
::Pat McCalla
true. But when we live in a society where we can't actually have dialog anymore, where we're trying to find the truth
::Pat McCalla
or you're saying that society now is saying there really isn't any truth, it's just whatever.
::Darrow Miller
It's whoever has the power
::Darrow Miller
truth. We're post truth, post moral. We are power. It's all about power. And you see that happening. You see that happening in our world today, in this country. Yeah. Truth is gone. Power is what's real.
::Pat McCalla
Well, I guess I would say to our audience, if they don't believe that, that's fine. If they're driving right now and they're listening to this, they're going to. I definitely agree with
::Darrow Miller
Daryl. That's fine. I would
::Pat McCalla
say
::Darrow Miller
look around the next
::Darrow Miller
What's going on?
::Pat McCalla
watch very closely and read between the lines.
::Pat McCalla
I think I think they'll find that it's there's a lot of truth to what you're
::Darrow Miller
saying. Yeah,
::Pat McCalla
no pun intended.
::Pat McCalla
So another book you wrote
::Pat McCalla
called Don't Let Schooling Stand in the Way of Education, a biblical Response to the Crisis in Public education.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah, public education, government funded education is atheistic education. And that that's what they want. It's to promote one atheistic culture. Yeah, and that's why I said earlier in our discussion, Evolution ism is an ideology. It's an ideology that everything is seen through the lens, the world view of atheism. That's what's being promoted. Thinking isn't being promoted, what's being promoted is an atheistic ideology, and that's not education.
::Pat McCalla
And I would suggest again that there's probably subtle like there's probably most of our listeners I'm assuming would, would say, well, I don't believe in an evolution,
::Pat McCalla
but I would suggest that if you spent your life, like most of us did growing up in this country and you went to a school system where from the time you were in kindergarten that was being taught to you suddenly not just in
::Darrow Miller
in science, right,
::Darrow Miller
Yeah,
::Darrow Miller
behavior.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
that's right.
::Darrow Miller
That's right. And that behavior will shape your life and shape the consequences of your life. But an education will prepare you for life. It will give you the tools that you need to think.
::Darrow Miller
The way I describe it, if you read the Book of Proverbs, you have.
::Darrow Miller
Three books in the Bible, by the.
::Darrow Miller
Way. I love it. Yeah, three words, knowledge, understanding and wisdom. And sometimes you think, they're interchangeable, but they're not. They're hierarchical. And below knowledge you have data points, and we're all about data points today. We're all about information and data points. The Bible doesn't start there. That's the world in which we live. But the Bible starts with knowledge.
::Darrow Miller
Okay, So now I know what does it mean? That's understanding. What are what is this knowledge mean?
::Darrow Miller
The third wisdom. Wisdom. What am I going to do with this? And education, Educating image bearers of God will help them understand these things. The Church, Christendom used to create universities because the integration point of all knowledge was God. It was a theological integration point.
::Darrow Miller
And these universities didn't just study theology and morals, they studied science because Christians realized that God revealed himself through what he made. So there was a vigorous program of science when Darwin came, the church stuck its head in the sand and created Bible schools and stopped building universities because the only thing that was important was the Bible. God's
::Darrow Miller
cards.
::Darrow Miller
How he revealed himself in creation no longer mattered.
::Pat McCalla
and that goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning. Dichotomies and
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
That's right. It doesn't. It doesn't.
::Darrow Miller
It does anything
::Darrow Miller
That's right. And he has revealed himself through his word, but he has also revealed himself through the things that he has made. So, as Paul argues there, without excuse, that's how clear general revelation is. Yeah. And that's what this book deals with. We need to get away from propaganda to go back
::Darrow Miller
to education. And the church needs to lead the way in this.
::Darrow Miller
And Christians need to really think seriously about what their kids are doing in public schools. And that doesn't mean there's not good public school teachers. A third of the teachers I've read in public schools are Christians. God bless them. But it it's it's the policies and the curriculum
::Darrow Miller
that's being taught in public schools that is absolutely devastating.
::Pat McCalla
You have another book that came out about a year ago, a call for
::Darrow Miller
Balladeers.
::Pat McCalla
losophers and theologians for: ::Darrow Miller
Yeah, that's right.
::Darrow Miller
that.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
you know, beauty primarily.
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
two reasons. One, in order to
::Darrow Miller
give power to a movement, you need artists. You need artists.
::Darrow Miller
And
::Darrow Miller
Part singer, songwriters, storytellers.
::Darrow Miller
Scriptwriters.
::Darrow Miller
Scriptwriters. Movie producers. Yeah, artists.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
They are the storytellers that shape the culture.
::Pat McCalla
And so goes the narrative. So goes the culture
::Darrow Miller
That's right. The way I describe it, you have worship, which is cult worship, cult culture, and then below culture you have institutions, and the institutions are framed by the culture, and the culture is framed by worship.
::Darrow Miller
Jesus tells us where to make disciples of all nations.
::Darrow Miller
He doesn't say Save Christians from every nation. He wants nations to be disciples.
::Darrow Miller
He wants to see nations transformed. And to transform nations, you need the whole church engaged. And the artists are critical in that engagement because there's probably no more powerful
::Darrow Miller
tool than the tools of the artist to shape culture and thus shape the institutions and the lives of whole nations.
::Pat McCalla
and a song comes on. The: ::Darrow Miller
There's
::Darrow Miller
Yeah,
::Darrow Miller
Yeah,
::Darrow Miller
of course.
::Pat McCalla
So when you're talking about the power of the arts,
::Pat McCalla
see that you see that around us, movies, TV, storytelling, storytelling has been
::Darrow Miller
that's huge.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
And the word we use today is narrative, not truth.
::Darrow Miller
We used to talk about truth. Now we talk about narrative. And narrative is a story.
::Darrow Miller
And it may be, it may may be true, may not be true. That's right. That's that's the shift. And you promote the narrative. You promote the story. And who does that better than anybody else is artists.
::Darrow Miller
That's what they're made for. Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
So that's one of the reasons I wrote it. The other is I just knew a whole lot of artists over the years. I mean, I'm old and I've spent years traveling around the world and meeting with Christians who are artists, and I've wept with them and I've wept with them because they don't find support in the church for their art unless they are doing religious art.
::Darrow Miller
If they're leading music, they're leading an evangelistic campaign, they're justified. But the church does not understand that art needs no justification.
::Darrow Miller
so I've met Christians who I've wept with because they feel so lonely because they don't find a place in the church and they go out into the world and people in the world say, What are you doing here?
::Darrow Miller
You're a Christian,
::Darrow Miller
I knew a gal who is a fashion model from Africa, beautiful woman, and somebody in Holland picked her up and said, Come to Holland, we're going to make you a big fashion star. And the first thing I told her, she had to strip
::Darrow Miller
and she had the courage to say thank you, but no, and went back to Africa.
::Darrow Miller
But how do you fit in the world? Yeah. So I've wept with artists, all kinds of artists who where is my place? What do I do? And that's the book was written for them.
::Pat McCalla
You know, one place that I think when when I tie this together and we can kind of wrap up with this and then I want to do the two truths in life with you. And but
::Pat McCalla
food is something that I've been thinking a lot about lately and how I know our audience right now is going food.
::Darrow Miller
food.
::Darrow Miller
I just look at
::Darrow Miller
Of course.
::Darrow Miller
of course.
::Darrow Miller
The
::Darrow Miller
Serve as fuel.
::Darrow Miller
Is fuel?
::Darrow Miller
He's good.
::Darrow Miller
Beauty
::Darrow Miller
Were made in the image of God, who is creative, who.
::Darrow Miller
Is creative,
::Pat McCalla
good God and a beautiful God that loves goodness and beauty because he gave his taste buds to enjoy those things.
::Darrow Miller
That's right. And and eyes to see beautiful things and ears to hear beautiful music and poetry.
::Pat McCalla
Yes.
::Darrow Miller
Yes.
::Darrow Miller
I treat
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
But I like.
::Darrow Miller
What? She's the crown of the crown jewel in the crown.
::Darrow Miller
I love that.
::Pat McCalla
I love that. And man, for all of us, all our male listeners, treat women like that.
::Darrow Miller
You want to know how worldview works. Understand that a woman is the crown of the crown and treat her like it's.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah,
::Pat McCalla
yeah.
::Pat McCalla
and not just my wife and daughter but that that the other women there, I mean, see, they're not they're not a tool.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah. Not
::Darrow Miller
That's right.
::Darrow Miller
The
::Pat McCalla
crown. And so we treat them like that. And that's how world view plays out. Like you're saying,
::Pat McCalla
Darryl, thank you so much. If someone wanted to get a hold of you, if they wanted to see because you are I, I pointed out a couple of books you've written.
::Pat McCalla
How many books have you written?
::Darrow Miller
18 or 19.
::Darrow Miller
Or 19 books.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah, they for my blogs are Daryl Miller and friends. It's not just I who write blogs, but friends of mine who are in the same genre write blogs. So Daryl Miller and Friends is one place disciple Nations dot org is the organization that Scott Allen and Bob Moffitt and I started. You can contact.
::Darrow Miller
Me to tell them hello.
::Darrow Miller
Okay, you can go to Disciple Nations Dot org to the website and go to info and there'll be a way to contact me there. And the podcast that we do every week. Ideas have consequence is So those three ways are the if you want to be in contact and get more of this stuff, that's the way you can do it.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Pat McCalla
And when you say you do the podcast, is that you, Bob and Scott together,
::Darrow Miller
::Darrow Miller
Bob Scott and a guy named Luke who's our techie guy who's also a young mid-twenties guy who understands worldview with a young mind who's always asking profound questions. So he's part of it. And then we have guests on. We just had Marvin Olasky on this last week.
::Darrow Miller
I
::Pat McCalla
dinner with Marvin in Austin when he was a professor
::Darrow Miller
Did you
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
Great book. It's shaped DNA. It shaped our organization.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah. Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
It was our guy. Yeah. Very brilliant. Asking goodness. Nancy Pearcey, folks like this, we have the privilege of interviewing Saudis.
::Pat McCalla
You have to listen to this podcast. Please go listen to these guys because these you're just naming some people. All these people you're naming have helped form me
::Darrow Miller
Yeah. Good. They formed us.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah. Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
Okay.
::Darrow Miller
All
::Darrow Miller
write
::Darrow Miller
good.
::Pat McCalla
One of the fun things we do is we do two truths in a lie.
::Pat McCalla
It's ironic because it's no gray areas and we've been talking about truth, and I'm going to ask you to lie to me
::Darrow Miller
Okay.
::Darrow Miller
It's a
::Darrow Miller
Okay.
::Darrow Miller
Okay?
::Darrow Miller
My wife, Marilyn, and I have always had a heart to help the poor. For 20 years, Marilyn has traveled to Honduras 1 to 3 times a year to work and two very remote, impoverished communities. My calling has taken me on over 4 million miles of air travel to speak about the relationship between worldview and poverty or culture and development.
::Darrow Miller
We've just talked about food, and one of the ways that we have been blessed is by joining enjoying cuisines from all over the world. And one of my favorite dishes was the savory delicacy of jungle snails. Soup.
::Pat McCalla
Jungle snails. Okay. All right. Those are good. Darrell. The middle one is true. You traveled 4 million miles.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah, that I don't
::Darrow Miller
Now that you
::Pat McCalla
have done a lot of traveling. I'm going to say the.
::Pat McCalla
Well, the only one that I'm thinking the first one, maybe not true, is that when you said you've always
::Pat McCalla
I'm wondering if if at some point you were transformed and and you're your renewed understanding of the biblical worldview is what gave you such a passion for this.
::Pat McCalla
So I'm going to say that first one is is a lie.
::Darrow Miller
know my wife has traveled to Honduras for 20 years, 1 to 3 times a year to work in two very poor, impoverished communities, same communities for 20 years.
::Pat McCalla
Wow. So and you guys. So this has just been your heart. It's always
::Darrow Miller
been your heart.
::Darrow Miller
That's one of the reasons we got married. When we got to know each other, we both had a heart for the poor. Yeah, and we still have. And God has taken our lives in the direction of helping the poor, but into different paths.
::Pat McCalla
So you didn't like the snail dish then? I guess.
::Darrow Miller
we're seeing I've ever had.
::Darrow Miller
Well, I love escargot. Yeah, but these jungles also.
::Pat McCalla
I've been going to Brazil the last year a number of times, and I've eaten some pretty strange things in the jungle
::Darrow Miller
Yeah,
::Darrow Miller
far, no.
::Darrow Miller
And these are huge snails. They're not like little garden snails or French escargot.
::Darrow Miller
They probably weigh a half a pound and they're about this big around.
::Pat McCalla
times have you been pretty like. Like sick from the food because you. But you have eaten a lot of crazy
::Darrow Miller
stuff. I have. And I've been sick a few times. Then I have memories of being sick now. Not good once. What?
::Pat McCalla
Well, Darryl, thank you so much. This did my heart so good. Just getting to
::Darrow Miller
Well, it's good to see you again, Pat.
::Darrow Miller
Yeah, I think it's been
::Darrow Miller
Yeah, no, it has been. It has been for sure. And any time I love I love this kind of a venue. And any time you want to get together and talk about some other things that are related to stuff,
::Darrow Miller
let me know for sure.
::Darrow Miller
For sure. Thanks, Darryl.
::Darrow Miller
Thank you.
::Speaker 1
Thank you for joining in this insightful conversation with the intelligent and wise. Daryl Miller. If you love this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and we'll see you soon for our next episode.
