00:00:02:09 - 00:00:36:13
Kolton Thomas 
Welcome to the Reclaimed Recovery Podcast, where we are helping men to rewire their brains and overcome the shame that surrounds pornography. I'm your host, Colton Thomas, and this is episode 15 with guest Dustin Freeman. And today's episode is honestly about our culture and why men are starving for community in our culture that is highly individualistic and tends to search for the fulfillment of our desires and sex, relationships, consumerism, and so many things other than our spirituality and our underlying faith and purpose.

00:00:36:13 - 00:00:55:06
Kolton Thomas 
And so I first heard Dustin, our guest today, speak on these topics when he did his own podcast called The Church in a Changing Culture. And I will link to that in the show notes. You guys should check that podcast out because it's amazing and it's full of insights. And he spent a lot of time studying this. And so I'm really excited that Dustin agreed to come on.

00:00:55:07 - 00:01:13:06
Kolton Thomas 
He is also a personal friend and a mentor. He's a husband, a father. He's a family man. And he leads a local church. And so I really respect and value the things that he has to say, and I'm looking forward to sharing them with you. So let's get started and turn things over to Dustin. Well, Dustin, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

00:01:13:09 - 00:01:13:19
Dustin Freeman
Glad to be.

00:01:13:19 - 00:01:29:07
Kolton Thomas 
Called. Yeah. Thanks for coming. This is my first time recording a podcast and video here in the home in person. This exciting is a lot of the podcasts I've done have been virtual over Zoom, so it's really great to have here. Thanks for coming over and traveling all the way across town.

00:01:29:17 - 00:01:29:19
Dustin Freeman
In.

00:01:29:21 - 00:01:33:11
Kolton Thomas 
The small town of Little Rock, Arkansas, to be on the podcast.

00:01:33:12 - 00:01:34:22
Dustin Freeman
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

00:01:35:01 - 00:01:40:12
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah. So could you share a little bit about some of the work that you've done? Yeah. Church and culture.

00:01:40:21 - 00:02:03:05
Dustin Freeman
Yeah. Glad to. So. I guess just a little bit of my background is helpful. I grew up around here in Arkansas, but it was a missionary in West Africa for a couple of years. And when I was doing that work, I recognized that to communicate Jesus meaningfully and effectively in that really different environment that I had to understand where the people were coming from.

00:02:03:05 - 00:02:18:22
Dustin Freeman
And so I was every day, all day long I was thinking about how their culture worked and I was thinking about what I was bringing with me, what I was bringing with me. That was really Jesus and what I was bringing with me. That was just my own culture. It doesn't necessarily mean it was bad, but it could potentially get in their way.

00:02:19:07 - 00:02:37:20
Dustin Freeman
So, you know, a model for that would be, you know, Paul, you see the way that he talks to other Jews in the synagogue with him when he goes to Athens, he's speaking to Greeks. It's the same gospel. But he's he's framing in some pretty interestingly different ways. And of course, the ultimate example is Jesus, right? Like, I mean, God becomes incarnate.

00:02:37:20 - 00:03:05:00
Dustin Freeman
He puts on flesh and blood, and he moves into a small town and in Galilee, and he speaks the language and he wears the clothes in each the food. He enters culture, but he doesn't stop there. He also he uses aspects of the culture to challenge things about the culture. He tells stories he uses parables to make people think differently about a lot of assumptions that they had been carrying around about things like who's blessed, you know?

00:03:05:00 - 00:03:32:06
Dustin Freeman
And the Beatitudes, or who's a part of God's people. You know, the way he starts to talk about Gentiles or what sin even is, I mean, as he starts to call people into a deeper kind of submission to God. And so in all of that work, I started to think differently about culture. I thought it would be a missionary forever again, long story there, but ended up back in the United States and married to a woman who'd also been a missionary in South Asia.

00:03:32:18 - 00:03:55:19
Dustin Freeman
And so while here, I kind of couldn't turn off the that part of me that was now paying attention to culture. And so I sort of noticed lots of things about my own life here in the United States that I couldn't have noticed before. And as I worked through my own sense of calling, I had thought about how I thought it was going to be a missionary, but now it's here and try to make sense of that.

00:03:55:19 - 00:04:21:07
Dustin Freeman
I began to understand that God wanted me to use those same skills here, particularly because we are living through a huge era of cultural transition. And so again, there's so much to say about that, but the short version is that we're really living through two enormous cultural shifts in the United States. And this is a huge generalization, but one is the change from modernity to postmodernity.

00:04:21:07 - 00:04:40:10
Dustin Freeman
Lots of people I've written about this or talked about it, but one way to to make sense of this and think about it is it's sort of like there are these big chunks of time when everybody shares the same assumptions and stories and habits, and it's kind of like going to a different country. And so when you change cultural eras, it's sort of like get on a plane and fly to different parts of the world.

00:04:40:21 - 00:04:59:19
Dustin Freeman
But if you're not looking for that, not expecting that it really shakes you up. And that's a lot of what's going on in our culture. People are experiencing this culture change. It's like they moved to another country and don't know it. And so that shakes them up. And then so that's a 500 year change from the medieval to the modern, and then another 500 years change from modern to postmodern.

00:04:59:19 - 00:05:26:11
Dustin Freeman
And we're in that transition simultaneously. We're living through the end of Christendom. Again, many people have pointed this out, and that's a 1700 year change. So Christendom has been around since the time of Constantine, basically. So three hundreds. And that's not so Christendom is not Christianity. It's the period of time when Christianity is sort of in charge in a position of power and influence in popular culture.

00:05:27:03 - 00:05:49:09
Dustin Freeman
And that's been true in the West for, again, almost 2000 years. So that's changing. When you live through a time of cultural change, it causes you to ask new questions. It causes you to feel confused because a lot of things that were obvious or taken for granted before aren't anymore. Because there are these other options, other people asking different questions that were being asked before.

00:05:49:15 - 00:06:16:06
Dustin Freeman
So it shakes everything up and it makes people feel crazy. But I would argue that it's not all bad. It's actually an opportunity because the cultures that we've had learned plenty of things about them that were broken that we accepted and took for granted and couldn't see. And so there's an opportunity not just to be afraid of the changes that are coming, but to actually unpack and unwind a lot of the a lot of the ways that we've been shaped by our own culture that we can't see.

00:06:16:21 - 00:06:33:23
Dustin Freeman
And if we're able to do that, it's going to help us head into this next era in ways that we wouldn't be able to if we didn't look back and do the work first. So you can't do all of one and then the other. It's evolving. But that's a very brief kind of explanation of what I'm thinking about.

00:06:33:23 - 00:06:34:08
Dustin Freeman
Yeah.

00:06:34:10 - 00:06:48:14
Kolton Thomas 
So you you had the opportunity to spend a couple of years in Africa. You're in another country, you're in another culture, but then you wound up coming back and later you find yourself able to use that experience to see our culture more clearly.

00:06:48:14 - 00:06:49:05
Dustin Freeman
That's for sure.

00:06:49:05 - 00:06:57:15
Kolton Thomas 
And then you've been put in a position of leadership where you get to share some of these insights. So you've completed a thesis about church and changing culture as well.

00:06:57:15 - 00:06:58:01
Dustin Freeman
That's right.

00:06:58:03 - 00:07:22:15
Kolton Thomas 
Okay, awesome. One thing that you said that really stuck out to me and I'm imagining that some men listening will understand, like modernity, postmodernity and Christendom, some won't. Right. But basically what they need to know is that there are massive shifts going on in this culture. One of them, when you were talking about the change from modernity to postmodernity, that's a 500 year like event.

00:07:22:19 - 00:07:39:01
Kolton Thomas 
And so that's significant. We're talking about hundreds of years. We're now we're finally having like this big mindset shift there. And then Christendom since Constantine, we're going upwards of 2000 years. But both of these shifts are happening together. That's right. So it's like two it's a lot of shifts.

00:07:39:23 - 00:07:40:13
Dustin Freeman
It's a lot.

00:07:40:13 - 00:07:59:08
Kolton Thomas 
And that's why one statement I've heard you say that really stood out was in a class. And you said that right now it's possible that an older generation can be living in the house with the younger generation. That's right. It could be their own children or grandchildren and they could be living in two totally different cultures because of how rapidly things are changing.

00:07:59:08 - 00:08:00:16
Dustin Freeman
Right now without even knowing it.

00:08:00:16 - 00:08:11:11
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah, without knowing it. Yeah. And that causes a lot of pain, frustration, misunderstanding. Yeah. And so, I mean, that's not normal.

00:08:11:13 - 00:08:16:17
Dustin Freeman
No. Most people are not living in having that experience through history in any place.

00:08:16:17 - 00:08:40:00
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah. I think when you give that example, you put it that way. Yeah. Kind of gives us an idea of how rapidly the culture is changing and that has some serious implications. I like how you said it's not all negative. There's like there's opportunity there. There's yeah, there. But if we could shift a little bit, yeah. Kind of framing this towards the issue of human sexuality and pornography.

00:08:40:00 - 00:08:40:08
Dustin Freeman
Yeah.

00:08:40:13 - 00:08:49:23
Kolton Thomas 
And talk about with these cultural shifts have come a rise in technology and that has been a central part to the culture. Right.

00:08:50:05 - 00:08:52:14
Dustin Freeman
Technology often drives culture change.

00:08:52:14 - 00:08:56:11
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah. And obviously part of that is pornography.

00:08:56:11 - 00:08:57:05
Dustin Freeman
Absolutely.

00:08:57:07 - 00:09:26:05
Kolton Thomas 
Infiltration of it into the homes. I mean, the statistics are wild of the majority of homes in the church. Do churches in an exclusion most men have heard these statistics by now. We know it's so widespread, but we're interested in finding insights into why. Because if we can understand why has this become such a widespread issue and why is it so hard for Christian men to quit and live life that's porn free, you know?

00:09:26:06 - 00:09:41:22
Kolton Thomas 
Right. And even beyond just quitting porn, really striving for the picture of wholeness and sexuality that God set before us, you know, how is our culture working against that?

00:09:42:11 - 00:10:10:23
Dustin Freeman
In so many ways, it's hard to know where to start. You know, I guess part of it is that for most of human history and still in a lot of the world, people tend to live in communities where they have a lot of social and emotional support. And I think one of the things that modernity taught us is that we're all like individualism is a huge part of modernity.

00:10:10:23 - 00:10:38:01
Dustin Freeman
It's this deep belief and focus on the individual. And that's not all bad. Like coming out of the medieval era. It taught us to take personal responsibility and that people mattered. And it actually brought justice into a lot of places where it was needed, a lot of good stuff. But when you run individualism as a primary way of thinking about what's important for that long, what comes out at the end can can be can be kind of broken, both in terms of the way that we think, but also in the way we've organized our society in modernity.

00:10:38:01 - 00:11:00:15
Dustin Freeman
We imagined also that there was this unbiased, rational self that would make decisions out of this place of pure reason. And there's no such thing. We're all formed by the world around us in profound ways, not just in what we think, but in what we value and what we love and what we feel. And so we tend to be driven by that.

00:11:00:23 - 00:11:21:20
Dustin Freeman
So for four generations and generations, people lived in these communities. And whether their values were I mean, depending on your own background, you could argue about whether one community had great values or not. But at the end of the day, you were living with people who had a vested interest in you. Being someone who had the virtue to be lived with successfully, like you needed to be the kind of person that.

00:11:22:17 - 00:11:24:02
Kolton Thomas 
In the context of community.

00:11:24:02 - 00:11:51:05
Dustin Freeman
Yeah, we've got, we've got to live with you. So you need to be shaped in a way that is sort of healthy, at least depending on how different communities would find it in different ways. But sort of after the Industrial Revolution, we came to this place where we had the freedom to kind of leave home and go and kind of the technology that gave us the wealth to be free of a world where we used to be really dependent on a lot of other people.

00:11:51:05 - 00:12:11:08
Dustin Freeman
We couldn't just go and do whatever we wanted because we were dependent on others. But in this world, we've sort of traded that interdependency for for personal freedom. So now instead of you helping me take care of my problems and me helping you take care of yours and all these other neighbors, I pay people for things and then we're done.

00:12:11:17 - 00:12:45:09
Dustin Freeman
And so I can go and do whatever I want to do. And that's hard to say no to. The problem in that is that in the absence of any kind of community, any kind of social support network, we're still formed by the world around us. Our hearts, our desires are still formed by those things. And so what fills the gap is mostly media, mass media and social media, you know, and whereas the local community had a vested interest, like I said, in a certain kind of virtue, at least mass media, really its only goal is to sell you things.

00:12:45:09 - 00:13:24:06
Dustin Freeman
And the easiest way to do that in a mass way is to put a finger on. Often our most base instincts, you know, dopamine buttons and stuff. Yeah. And so it tends to lean on fear, shame, desire, lust, those kinds of really instinctive drivers. And that's what we're shaped by all day, every day. So we're we live in a world where we're constantly being kind of attacked in a way, almost not maliciously, but just that's what our disorder economic system and social system does.

00:13:24:06 - 00:13:47:04
Dustin Freeman
It's just like buy stuff. And to do that, there's this ever more sophisticated attempt to to move us. And on the other side, there's no social support, there's no community of virtue to call us up. And so we're left naked and alone in the in like in the hands of the most powerful engines of heart formation that have ever existed.

00:13:47:04 - 00:14:15:14
Dustin Freeman
Incredibly sophisticated, and social media has ramped that up even more. I haven't gotten to pornography yet, but I'm trying to describe a world where our hearts and desires are being pulled in a bunch of different directions in ways that are not normal in terms of human history, and then in many ways are harmful. And so we end up being lonely, we end up being anxious, and we don't have a lot of resources to deal with that.

00:14:15:21 - 00:14:43:08
Dustin Freeman
And then pornography enters that world. And so you have an opportunity to have intimacy needs at the most basic biological level met in an extraordinarily cheap and easy way. And that's just pretty hard to say no to. And so I would argue that it's I mean, clearly, just like every other kind of addiction, pornography is a coping mechanism to address other needs and emptiness and brokenness.

00:14:45:00 - 00:15:04:01
Dustin Freeman
So that's part of it. Like it's a whole raft of things. There are other directions we can go with the conversation, but that's a that's a big chunk of what's going on. Just one other thing to say very briefly is that I think the church as a whole has mostly has not had a very clear picture of what to do about any of this.

00:15:04:12 - 00:15:32:02
Dustin Freeman
And we've mostly said this is bad, don't do it. But telling people know isn't like you need a beautiful vision, like a calling into something better to be strong enough to resist something that that's that's that powerful and it's saying enough's not know you need a vision of a positive possibility some other potential for life that's better to overcome that and people's lives and there's more to say about that.

00:15:32:05 - 00:15:53:23
Kolton Thomas 
Not so good. Yeah. And I want to come back to that. So when you were talking about how mankind used to live in communities that just natural, they had a lot more accountability. That's right. You're working with your father all day, right? And you can't help but spend your time around people so much more of the time. So you almost can't keep certain things private.

00:15:54:00 - 00:15:54:11
Dustin Freeman
That's right.

00:15:55:05 - 00:16:18:01
Kolton Thomas 
That's right. But now it's like we have almost an opposite problem. That's right. Where we really struggle to find transparency in our lives and we have to intentionally go and seek that out. That's right. That's what reclaimed is for me. And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing, trying to give trying to help men get this vision that they can be proactive and seek this out and implement this into their life.

00:16:18:05 - 00:16:35:12
Kolton Thomas 
But it doesn't happen by accident. That's right. But part of the reason why we have to do this is because of the cultural shifts that have happened. That's right. And so I think it's really important for men to understand this. And I think sometimes men are really, really hard on themselves, are so much shame, but they don't understand all the cultural forces that have gone into it.

00:16:35:19 - 00:17:00:03
Kolton Thomas 
And so, you know, for someone listening to this, if you're really feeling that shame and you feel like the problem is all you that you're not disciplined enough, you know, there is a personal responsibility you have to take for this problem. Right. But at the same time, I think there's so much grace to extend to you. You're struggling with this because, like you said, some of the most powerful engines of desire exist today.

00:17:01:04 - 00:17:10:06
Kolton Thomas 
You know, we're talking about algorithms and exactly what, you know, they want to show you. And that's not just for social media ideas and politics. It's also for pornography.

00:17:10:06 - 00:17:10:23
Dustin Freeman
Absolutely.

00:17:10:23 - 00:17:33:18
Kolton Thomas 
You know, I wrote a piece on how, you know, some of the major porn companies, they have people whose full time position is to dial in algorithms, to get you to keep watching pornography and to try to meet what they think your fantasies and desires are. Right. So there's people out there working full time trying to capitalize off of your desires on your attention.

00:17:34:02 - 00:17:58:01
Kolton Thomas 
And one really powerful idea that I think can help men with this is that when, you know, you talked about how just saying no isn't enough. And I think one really helpful way to frame that is we're not asking men to quit on their desires. We're not asking men to doll their desires. We're asking them to follow them through to the end, to really searching for.

00:17:58:01 - 00:18:10:07
Kolton Thomas 
Right. A powerful quote that I've been thinking about was one by G.K. Chesterton that said, Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is unconsciously searching for God.

00:18:10:07 - 00:18:10:14
Dustin Freeman
Yeah.

00:18:11:07 - 00:18:16:16
Kolton Thomas 
And that's a good one. When it comes to pornography in our culture right now, that quote translates so well.

00:18:16:17 - 00:18:51:00
Dustin Freeman
Yeah, we're hungry, empty, anxious, used up and alone. And there's an easy button that feels like it's addressing those things without addressing those things at all. And one of the things that I've learned in thinking about culture, and I alluded to it in a moment ago, is that we don't just have desire like that's innate. I mean, there is a biological element to desire in us that's chemical and and, you know, instinctual for sure.

00:18:51:11 - 00:19:18:13
Dustin Freeman
But we also learn how to make sense of our sexuality and our and ourselves and our desires in our own social world, like what's going on around us, the options that are presented to us and the stuff that we do isn't just an expression of our desire. It changes us, it shapes us. And so I think one of the things about pornography that's so concerning is it's not just that it's bad, but it it actually changes what you love.

00:19:18:13 - 00:19:36:04
Dustin Freeman
It changes what you desire, and you can't just undo it. We there's something called tacit knowledge, right? Like, I can't I can't think my way out of it. Like once, once you've gone certain places, it's like you can't heal. I'm not saying that, but it's just you can't simply unknow within once, you know.

00:19:36:19 - 00:19:41:11
Kolton Thomas 
That's not how your brain works. We have brains that are designed to remember things.

00:19:41:11 - 00:19:41:23
Dustin Freeman
That's right.

00:19:41:23 - 00:19:48:16
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah. And so a lot of men struggle with this. They wonder, have I damaged my brain to the point where I can't.

00:19:48:16 - 00:19:49:04
Dustin Freeman
Write.

00:19:49:09 - 00:20:04:20
Kolton Thomas 
Or get out of this? And one thing that I do share with men, allies like. No, you have. I really do. There's always hope for healing. Yes. But you may have done some things that will require you to work harder and to manage your brain, you know? Yes, that's just the reality of it. But it's possible. And there's a lot of men who've done it.

00:20:04:20 - 00:20:13:21
Kolton Thomas 
So there's hope there. But at the same time, yeah, it's like your brain rewires when you spend hours and hours, complicated time.

00:20:13:21 - 00:20:14:09
Dustin Freeman
Yes.

00:20:14:12 - 00:20:36:05
Kolton Thomas 
Viewing this stuff. And I would say that your original desire for God hasn't gone away. That's right. It's still there. It's not like you watching pornography. You can take that away from you somehow. But it does create a dulled and warped version of the thing you're really searching for over time. And you have to put in work to get back from that.

00:20:36:05 - 00:20:40:21
Kolton Thomas 
That's right. Once you get there, it takes some work and intentional effort to.

00:20:41:10 - 00:21:10:11
Dustin Freeman
Absolutely have feelings, follow long periods of practice in all things. And so I deeply believe that we're all what we love, what we desire, what we want is being shaped all day, every day. We don't know that we're doing it. But yeah, like it's true in all of life and the way that I work, the way that I relate to people, I'm learning to love some things more and some things less based on basically what I invest myself in or don't.

00:21:11:05 - 00:21:29:23
Dustin Freeman
Jesus says, Where you treasure is, that's where your heart will be. And pornography is an example of that. It is taking me someplace. It's changing me, but that doesn't mean it's a one way trip. I can go somewhere else too, but it tends to be. It's like a garden or a kid growing up. I mean, it's a little bit at a time.

00:21:29:23 - 00:21:47:21
Dustin Freeman
It's easy. One instance doesn't appear to do much, but over time the transition is huge. And so you've got to be willing to put a lot of coins in the bank before you see any real change. But you can you absolutely can see that change. Yeah.

00:21:48:05 - 00:22:12:01
Kolton Thomas 
I've seen every single guy that I've worked in that that change can happen quickly when you add in the right. Yeah, it's like a holistic system. Yeah. You have when you're doing accountability in a healthy and right way. Yeah. You know when you get knowledge that is specific to what you need. When you have someone who can walk with you through your past and kind of inner child work.

00:22:12:01 - 00:22:22:12
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah. And when you have someone who understands enough about the science, all these things working together synergistically can help men heal from this a lot more quickly than yeah.

00:22:22:20 - 00:22:23:09
Dustin Freeman
Absolutely.

00:22:23:19 - 00:22:39:06
Kolton Thomas 
That which is pretty incredible, you know. So we've been talking a lot kind of up here, like big picture. What would you be comfortable sharing in terms of what you've actually seen and experienced, like in the church and what could we learn from that?

00:22:39:13 - 00:23:01:22
Dustin Freeman
Yeah, I mean, relevant to just everything we've been talking about, I think it's a simple segway is that you're not supposed to do this alone, but by definition, pornography is people are shamed. And so it's it's a place where people are not as likely to seek help or to be honest, but you're not supposed to do it alone.

00:23:01:22 - 00:23:22:13
Dustin Freeman
You probably I mean, maybe you can't do it alone. But that's again, that's our individualism working. You need a community of support. You need other people who are actually talking to you. So I think Satan, one of his most powerful weapons, is shame. Just being honest about what's going on is like, I don't know what percentage of the work it is, but it's huge.

00:23:23:00 - 00:23:52:19
Dustin Freeman
And so I think a lot of people believe that if they told the truth about what was going on, they'd be rejected and, you know, but that's not the case like. And so to be brave enough to actually ask for help is just enormous. And then to be able to be a part of a community of people who are actually trying to change where there's not shame, but like an honesty about our brokenness and a desire to to do something about it.

00:23:52:19 - 00:24:00:07
Dustin Freeman
Like it's not that's not rocket science, but it goes a long, long way. Yeah.

00:24:00:09 - 00:24:18:01
Kolton Thomas 
And so that and we could talk a lot about that sound simple but why so many men can't bring themselves to do it right and there's a lot of factors going into that. That's right. Really quick. One thing I want to say, what you're talking about, the need for accountability and community, it goes beyond pornography.

00:24:18:01 - 00:24:18:13
Dustin Freeman
Oh, yeah.

00:24:18:16 - 00:24:42:05
Kolton Thomas 
Men listening to their struggles in porn. A personal example. You know, it's no secret I used to struggle with pornography and, you know, I started reclaimed and I've been doing all this stuff well. I had an experience where I was wanting to handle my own finances and investments and I started to do poorly, but I kind of refused to give up.

00:24:43:08 - 00:25:04:01
Kolton Thomas 
And then I lost more money. And then I was watching a YouTube video about a hedge fund manager, large institutional stock trader, and he was talking about the difference between someone trading for an institution and an individual retail trader like like myself, what I was trying to do. And he said the main difference is accountability.

00:25:04:04 - 00:25:04:13
Dustin Freeman
Um.

00:25:04:23 - 00:25:22:07
Kolton Thomas 
When you're trading stocks, you're not, it's not your own money and you have all these other people were if what you're doing is not working, they can see that right? And that just kind of blew my mind because I was also thinking about issues like pornography. And there's a common thread here going back to what we talked about earlier, earlier in the episode.

00:25:22:07 - 00:25:49:16
Kolton Thomas 
Yes. So in this individualistic society, you know, after the industrial age, when we have all this all of this individual time and freedom to ourselves feels like this great privacy that we have now to steward or choose to follow certain paths based on that. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And I've realized that it's not just for porn, it's for multiple things that we need.

00:25:49:17 - 00:26:09:17
Kolton Thomas 
Community. Yes, yes. For. And so I'm going to go back to a financial advisor, you know, and that was a really difficult process for me because I had to admit that I can't do this. And I kind of thought to myself, maybe when I struggle with porn, that would be like the only thing in my life I need to come to that point.

00:26:10:10 - 00:26:11:10
Dustin Freeman
Yeah, but I think.

00:26:11:17 - 00:26:25:09
Kolton Thomas 
By the way, that you've described how our culture has been set up, we need to be aware that there may be multiple areas of her life where we have to step out and say, I can't do this on my own. And it's not just that I'm not good enough. That's right. It's that we're not designed to.

00:26:25:09 - 00:26:46:04
Dustin Freeman
Know that's not weakness. It's I mean, it's it's a story that's deep in our culture. All of our heroes are our lone characters. I mean, like, like all the Disney princesses, you know, like, they all have step moms because they were orphaned or whatever. I mean, Superman, Batman, Spider-Man. I mean, like Harry Potter. I mean, you just Luke Skywalker.

00:26:46:04 - 00:26:47:14
Dustin Freeman
I mean, like everybody.

00:26:47:15 - 00:26:48:10
Kolton Thomas 
Where are the parents?

00:26:48:10 - 00:27:08:02
Dustin Freeman
Yeah, they like to be a hero in our culture. You have to do it on your own. If you're rich and someone. And so when when people say, you know, like Elon Musk's parents own an immoral mine, like that's not a neutral statement. That's like understood to be like an attack. It's like saying, like, you didn't really earn this.

00:27:08:02 - 00:27:29:21
Dustin Freeman
So if you're not self-made, it doesn't count. There's no greatness. If if there is help ever again in all the movies. Right. Like, I mean, spoiler alert, but like, whoever the character is, they're going to have some kind of mentor, but they have to die or appear to die. And then the hero has to go on and complete the final act on their own or they're not the hero.

00:27:30:06 - 00:27:34:06
Dustin Freeman
Um, so, but that's none of that's true.

00:27:34:06 - 00:27:55:21
Kolton Thomas 
Why are we so drawn to that? Like, why do we just eat that up? I mean, there are I guess there are some noble things about it. I mean I mean, you have to dig deep within yourself. Yeah, but but the strange thing is that our culture has tried to make these things exclusive. Like, it's like we can't dig deep within ourselves to change and also have communities helping us do that.

00:27:55:21 - 00:27:56:22
Kolton Thomas 
You know what I mean? It's weird.

00:27:56:22 - 00:28:24:03
Dustin Freeman
No, it's it is weird. So. So we've been trained. We don't go to class to learn this, but it is in the water that we drink, right? I mean, it's just it's just in the air in our society that to need help is weakness. And and so that does two things. And I'm reiterating things you already said. It keeps us from having communities of support, which we are just not meant to do this alone.

00:28:24:09 - 00:28:39:07
Dustin Freeman
I mean, we're more like wolves than we were pack animals, you know, like we, we, we're and then from a biblical perspective, I mean, the church is the body of Christ like we were never meant to do this alone. If you want to take it from a Christian perspective, to be connected to Jesus means that we're also connected to each other.

00:28:39:07 - 00:29:03:12
Dustin Freeman
And we're supposed to be. We were never meant to do it alone. There are different gifts in the body and we need them all working together. So it's not weakness. We are designed for that. But the other piece, in addition to the fact that we've we don't have those communities of support, is that part of what we're acting out in seeking pornography is to have a need met that's not being met because we're so lonely.

00:29:03:12 - 00:29:32:05
Dustin Freeman
I mean, like we're socially isolated and so much of the positive life giving energy that ultimately does go back to God is most rightly experienced through like a rich community of social relationships. But we're too busy. We're going to work. We're, you know, like and so people are like, loneliness is an epidemic. And so we're both unfree. We're not protected because we don't have community support.

00:29:32:10 - 00:29:41:20
Dustin Freeman
But we're also trying to feed the thing that community support give us with a very cheap and easily accessible alternative that's ultimately destructive.

00:29:41:20 - 00:30:09:17
Kolton Thomas 
That doesn't require relationship, it doesn't require being vulnerable and potentially getting hurt right up to something that may not love us back. Yeah, no risk. We're looking at porn, right? It eliminates the risk. That's why it sounds so good, right? My concern is that we've now gotten so much practice being individuals that when a lot of us try to turn back into doing it in a community, we wind up doing it wrong and then we get hurt.

00:30:09:17 - 00:30:35:15
Kolton Thomas 
And it's like this feedback that's right. We're now we're afraid to change back almost, because maybe people have forgotten what it's like to live in a community like that. And so we're having to find these kind of ingenuity of ways, these creative ways to get back to this, almost to retrain ourselves. And that's been a really interesting thing for me to see reclaimed be successful in that way.

00:30:35:15 - 00:30:57:07
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah, it's like we're, we're online community we're using the very technology that we also had on to build some of that community back. Yeah. Now ideally, would we have to do it this way? No. And you know, who knows? Maybe some of these communities that are popping up online where men can join and get plugged into accountability, you know, they're doing it over Zoom.

00:30:57:17 - 00:31:11:22
Kolton Thomas 
Maybe eventually there will be a need for that. Maybe we can work ourselves out of that and get back to where our churches are providing that kind of connection and vulnerability and openness in person. But I think for a lot of churches, we may not be there.

00:31:11:22 - 00:31:36:05
Dustin Freeman
You know, I don't think it's wrong to use the technology in that way. I think technology always has the capacity to do good and bad. And so I think it's great that you're using it in that way. And when I think about belonging in where it is happening, I mean through human history, people have, whether it's kingdoms or tribes or nation states, they thought of themselves as blinded groups in different ways.

00:31:36:05 - 00:31:59:14
Dustin Freeman
And answer the question, you know, who's my brother in different ways? Who's my sister in different ways? But I think today most what the Internet's made possible for people to find, like small communities of people who are like minded with them in some pretty niche ways when they're far flung. And so that sometimes enables really radical views to stick.

00:31:59:14 - 00:32:18:06
Dustin Freeman
That wouldn't have been able to before, because maybe you're the only person in your community that thinks whatever, that you can find 100 other people around the country who agree and suddenly there's it's a lot stickier. So if that can be used for harmful things, by all means, let's use it for good things too, right?

00:32:18:16 - 00:32:37:03
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah. I don't see it as sometimes using technology to bring together community can be a little bit like medication. Sometimes we see using medication is not ideal. It can have some side effects. Yeah, it's not. Our ultimate goal is to remain on medication, but we can use it for a little bit to help us get to where we want to be.

00:32:37:03 - 00:32:57:21
Kolton Thomas 
It serves as a catalyst for mankind. Come on. And it's nice because their community and accountability is coming from spread out communities. And in a way, it's it's almost an advantage. But my hope and vision for men who joined, reclaimed and get plugged in that way is that the things they learn about the open and sharing their move into your personal world.

00:32:57:21 - 00:32:59:06
Dustin Freeman
I hope surge.

00:32:59:06 - 00:33:17:07
Kolton Thomas 
So that's the vision you know for reclaim. But I also think churches have a great capacity to foster a community like this that will meet and address this need. But it's very difficult. I know. And so would you want to talk about some of the challenges that exist that you've seen?

00:33:17:09 - 00:33:45:21
Dustin Freeman
I mean, I think we all see it. I mean, the church should be a place where we assume that we're all broken and we need Jesus and we need love and support. And we're all trying to submit to him and learn to love him and what he loves together with lots of grace and truth. But more often than not, church is the hardest place for people, to be honest, because it's where they feel the most pressure to seem like they have it all together.

00:33:45:21 - 00:34:17:13
Dustin Freeman
That seems like there's the most potential risk in being honest about these kinds of things, and that's a real shame. And so I think, I mean, a lot of that is going to come back to leaders leading with their own real vulnerability and honesty to prove that it's safe. But it's also hard because, you know, the church has been shown, like so many leaders have failed publicly in such significant ways that there's I mean, it's very easy to feel like everything's for hypocrisy.

00:34:17:13 - 00:34:36:07
Dustin Freeman
And and then and then, too, when leaders haven't failed publicly but are failing privately, it makes it really hard for them to feel like they have the right or even the courage to to step into these spaces and talk about these things because it makes them feel really vulnerable.

00:34:36:08 - 00:34:52:10
Kolton Thomas 
If you're a church leader out there, that's much more common than leaders think. And I think leaders are some of the lonely is they wind up being some of the loneliest. And that's exactly why they may struggle with porn and other things and privacy and secrets. Right. And so my heart goes out to leaders who are struggling with this.

00:34:52:19 - 00:35:15:05
Kolton Thomas 
And, you know, again, I'm not trying to trying too hard to like sell reclaimed or to but like, yeah, something like reclaimed because reclaim isn't the only community that offers some of that and is actually a pretty good option, I think for yeah, you might be struggling with this but we could talk a lot that maybe a separate podcast about why church leaders have struggled with this, why we see so many headliners in the news.

00:35:15:05 - 00:35:20:12
Kolton Thomas 
These days related to this affairs, pornography, child abuse.

00:35:20:12 - 00:35:21:00
Dustin Freeman
So much.

00:35:21:00 - 00:35:37:13
Kolton Thomas 
Child trash. But coming back to kind of what you're seeing in the church and I think one way that I'd like to where I'd like to see this heading is kind of painting. You know, you mentioned earlier in that episode painting that picture of what's the better vision.

00:35:37:22 - 00:35:38:02
Dustin Freeman
Of.

00:35:38:10 - 00:35:56:16
Kolton Thomas 
What's better than pornography, what's better than remaining isolated, and, you know, what's better than living this life where, you know, we want to kind of keep to ourselves and build our walls and not do that community thing where there's transparency, you know, why is that better?

00:35:56:21 - 00:36:26:21
Dustin Freeman
Yeah, why is it better? I mean, I think anyone who's struggled pornography knows that ultimately it is pathological, that it's harmful and that it that each you know, the alternative is a community of genuine support. I mean, I think about like I mean, obviously most specifically, I mean, pornography in a sense is a cheap replacement for love. And there are different kinds of love.

00:36:26:21 - 00:36:56:18
Dustin Freeman
Not all loves erotic love. There should be friendship and those kinds of things. But even in the context of a marriage, you know, where the place for sex is supposed to be in the, you know, from a Christian worldview. I mean, pornography is teaching us such incredibly dehumanizing ways of seeing each other. It's teaching us to our spouses, but also, I mean, at least from a male perspective, women in general.

00:36:57:13 - 00:37:35:12
Dustin Freeman
And to be able to see not just if I've been I mean, I've certainly talked to guys. It was a huge challenge and led to really terrible dysfunctional behavior. But pornography is teaching me to look around and see women as objects, ways to have my needs met potentially, which is incredibly broken. But instead of, I can look around and see human beings bathed in the image of God, you know, like all kinds of new possibilities are available there where I'm not walking around as some kind of just need trying to get its needs met.

00:37:36:01 - 00:38:00:05
Dustin Freeman
But it allows me to be fully human in a different way when I'm able to see my, the people around me, all of them as made in the image of God and to love people in ways then that are not merely consumer but family, you know, like, I mean, maybe families are good in a healthy and healthy picture.

00:38:00:05 - 00:38:28:00
Dustin Freeman
Many families aren't. But a good picture of what's of that possibility where there's mutual support and genuine care that goes deeper than having our, you know, our urges resolved over long periods of time, working through hard things and learning to trust each other and knowing that there are people there for you when you really need it, even when you're not perfect and unconditional love as opposed to transactional experience.

00:38:28:00 - 00:38:51:23
Dustin Freeman
Like it's hard work on the front end, but man, the long term of it is wholeness. Yeah, what I would call shalom, you know, like wholeness with each other and ourselves in the world. But just what consumerism, individuals to consumerism teaches us, just to know my needs and to understand them down to the most specific possible preference that I could have and then get them met.

00:38:52:10 - 00:39:27:10
Dustin Freeman
But that just doesn't bring life. It just it changes me. It transforms me into a dopamine machine, you know? Yeah. And so, I mean, there's so much more that could be said about the beautiful possibility, but being a part of that whole web of whole relationships with friends, family, brothers and sisters in Christ, your own family, your own children, your own spouse, or to have if you're single to the possibility of having a spouse.

00:39:27:10 - 00:39:43:12
Dustin Freeman
And I don't think we know how much we've objectified each other and how much we've been trained to do that, especially men towards women through pornography. And I don't think we understand how much it's that the harm that it's done to us as individuals but as communities to.

00:39:44:16 - 00:39:46:01
Kolton Thomas 
Looking at the bigger picture.

00:39:46:08 - 00:39:46:20
Dustin Freeman
Yeah.

00:39:47:02 - 00:40:04:04
Kolton Thomas 
And we do see some of the results of that and there's some statistics that are saying that it can help us see just how damaging it is. But for the most part, a lot of that damage is hard to quantify right. But we know it's there because there's so many people in our society struggling with shame around their bodies and around sex.

00:40:04:11 - 00:40:21:18
Kolton Thomas 
It's such an immense power man that's felt and so recently I heard someone talk about how the definition of lost isn't just having bad fantasies about women. It's the intention to use. Yeah. And in that, by that definition, you can use your own wife.

00:40:21:18 - 00:40:23:21
Dustin Freeman
Absolutely. Absolutely you can.

00:40:24:03 - 00:40:29:11
Kolton Thomas 
And I really believe pornography trains us to have this mindset that we're going to use.

00:40:29:18 - 00:40:30:04
Dustin Freeman
Yes.

00:40:30:05 - 00:40:40:03
Kolton Thomas 
Opposite sex. Yes. Same sex. Yes. Sexual gratification and that lust, as much as we would like to think that it doesn't carry over into our real relationship.

00:40:40:03 - 00:40:41:00
Dustin Freeman
It does.

00:40:41:01 - 00:40:41:05
Kolton Thomas 
It.

00:40:41:05 - 00:41:25:12
Dustin Freeman
Absolutely. And so so the question is, what is sex for? Like, what's its purpose? What is the better vision for sex? And so what we're called away from is this picture of where it's again, merely me getting my needs met into a picture of, well, it's the possibility of two people like God has made it so that we say that when people get married that to become one, but like he's made that physically possible and so the union of two together and to come back to that again and again is this really powerful, physical, emotional place where spiritual reality, the unity of two becomes physically manifest and there's a strengthening in that if it's healthy

00:41:26:19 - 00:41:57:05
Dustin Freeman
over over a lifetime of that love and that bond and of course, for procreation, but not only for procreation, for that unity, for that wholeness, that oneness. It can be powerful glue, but can also be using someone else. And it's just like I don't even think it was a Christian that said it. I don't remember who it was, but it's like the definition of sin is to use people as things humans are never means they should always be ends, you know?

00:41:57:05 - 00:42:41:07
Dustin Freeman
And if I'm not seeing them that way, especially the people closest to me, something is has gone off the rails. And so in the Eucharist, we are we are united to God. You know, that's what we're remembering and experiencing again and again. And I just think sex is supposed to be that way. Um, this recapitulation and of marriage, in a sense, this, this re-experiencing and so what's the good, beautiful whole unity with another person that you actually love and respect rather than just this, you know, quid pro quo of having, again, basically my instinctive needs satisfy.

00:42:41:07 - 00:43:02:15
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah, I think there's a greater chasm than we realize the lay between using people for sex and watching pornography and then experiencing that connection that whole that comes in sex in a committed romantic relationship where you and your spouse or partner have worked through.

00:43:02:15 - 00:43:03:01
Dustin Freeman
Yes.

00:43:03:12 - 00:43:06:02
Kolton Thomas 
The difficulties and the downs.

00:43:06:02 - 00:43:06:14
Dustin Freeman
Yes.

00:43:06:23 - 00:43:32:10
Kolton Thomas 
And you guys have intentionally put work into connecting and setting yourself up to be able to have sex as a part of strengthening your marriage. And so that like there's work involved. There sure is the same satisfaction that goes into working hard on a project, working with your hands. Maybe if it's gardening or farming, you spend weeks or months preparing something, building something.

00:43:32:16 - 00:44:01:16
Kolton Thomas 
I think that sex is meant to be a part of a system that's raine's work and reconciliation and commitment. And we when we watch pornography, we completely pluck it out. That's right. That's right. And it's so detrimental to our health and well-being. So to wrap up this episode, we talked about so many good things about church and culture and how so much culture is changing.

00:44:01:22 - 00:44:24:00
Kolton Thomas 
Why that puts us as men or women. True in pornography in a difficult place when it comes to community transparency, accountability. And I think that made so much sense. And then we talked about how porn leaves us broken, but also how sex can leave us whole. Yeah. And how it was designed and intended to leave us.

00:44:24:00 - 00:44:25:01
Dustin Freeman
Yeah. Yeah.

00:44:25:02 - 00:44:35:00
Kolton Thomas 
And how can we wrap up these thoughts in a way that leaves hope and encouragement? I mean, just think of some of the men that, you know, that are struggling with this. What do you want to say to them?

00:44:35:00 - 00:45:08:06
Dustin Freeman
Yeah, you know that there's hope. I Think is the is the simple answer. And because of the way that we live in the things that we do shape what we want sometimes when we're offered something else or by definition we don't want it yet. So it doesn't sound good. It doesn't sound better. But there's sort of this by faith, trusting that when the thing I'm doing isn't working, that it's worth trying something else, and that as you invest in these other possibilities in communities of support in sex, that's not consumerism, but that's actually building something beautiful.

00:45:08:06 - 00:45:33:09
Dustin Freeman
You may not want it at first, but if you if you invest yourself and over time, your desires will change and it will get better. And the thing that you have in the end will be whole and sweet and beautiful, instead of a kind of cancer in your life that gives you shame and that damages your relationships with your self and the people closest to you and potentially on some level are half the population.

00:45:34:06 - 00:46:00:05
Dustin Freeman
You know, whoever you're attracted to. I kind of have another kind of just like cultural thing to name. I talked about how in culture like like we don't go to class to learn things in culture we don't know that we're learning them. They're just built into their the assumptions of the world that we live in. And one of the easiest ways to see that is like the movies, books, stories, songs, video games, whatever that we consume.

00:46:00:05 - 00:46:22:09
Dustin Freeman
Like what stories are in those things? So individualism, the hero, but another one is that the meaning of life is romantic love. Like that's another one of the big stories. And so, you know, it can be a slasher movie or cartoon race cars or whatever, but the happy ending is almost always less recently. But for a long time it's been the case.

00:46:22:16 - 00:46:53:22
Dustin Freeman
The happy endings pretty much always two people getting together. And so there's this idea that the thing that will make you whole, the thing that will make you okay, the thing that will make sense of your life, the thing that will save you actually is romantic love that's pervasive in our culture. And so I want to be clear, that's not what I'm saying when I talk about the good possibility in sex, in marriage, as a Christian, I believe that only Jesus can save you, and that is actually living for something bigger and more beautiful that transforms our lives to have something bigger.

00:46:54:00 - 00:47:19:12
Dustin Freeman
And the sex fits in that kind of in that larger vision. But if romantic love is what we're trusting to save us, then sex is the higher sacrament. It's the thing that we're looking for. But because romantic love in real life is not like it is in the movies, it's messy. It's hard work. When we have been trained to expect it to fix our problems, make us whole and save us, and it doesn't.

00:47:20:06 - 00:47:41:12
Dustin Freeman
Then in our disappointment, disillusionment, we're still trying to have that happen on our own terms. And so out of our disappointment with the way that our relationships or sexuality is playing out, it's not giving us what was promised in a thousand silent ways. Every day in songs that we listen to and the TV shows that we watch, pornography is a way to address that.

00:47:41:12 - 00:48:19:02
Dustin Freeman
It's like the same promise. But but another way of getting at it, it still doesn't fill the bucket, but in a in a cheap, quick way seems to and so the greater truth here is that it is that we're our lives are made for something bigger and our sexuality is meant for something bigger again than we've imagined. But so from a Christian perspective, being called up into all the things that God tends for us, that lives are meant for him, and that under that marriage and sex find their proper place and actually can be more romantic and beautiful than when we try to make them the all of our lives, because they cannot bear up

00:48:19:02 - 00:48:44:22
Dustin Freeman
that weight. It's like you're poisoning the well when you expect another person to be everything to you and then go and look at porn because they're not and feel justified in it perhaps. So that's that's kind of another angle on the why in what's going on. But I think again, believe it or not, Pastor, over here, I think the answer is we need Jesus.

00:48:46:01 - 00:49:06:12
Dustin Freeman
But that may sound ridiculous to some people. And again, it's a church answer, but it's like, how does that actually work? And I think a lot of it works in the context of the body of Christ have actually began being in supporting relationships with people who are trying to go together to this other place with lives that are about something bigger and more beautiful than having our own needs met.

00:49:06:17 - 00:49:29:08
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah, that's really good. Really good thoughts. We try make our spouse or partner or sex. The main thing. Yeah. And the solution and the savior to what we're going through. And we may not, I'm sure very few men who are struggling with pornography are looking at it like something that, you know, that's trying to, like, save them. Right.

00:49:30:00 - 00:49:30:19
Dustin Freeman
You're not thinking that.

00:49:30:22 - 00:50:01:01
Kolton Thomas 
They're not thinking that. So I think it's a really important insight to understand that beneath that, the reality is you are probably seeking this love and intimacy through other people. So I think that is such a powerful way to end. This episode is thinking about how we have this natural tendency to wander and place our attachments and anything that we feel will get us out of our painful feelings, emotions, our predicaments.

00:50:01:11 - 00:50:32:21
Kolton Thomas 
We have a tendency to place our attachments in things that will be our desires, and we start searching and grasping in all these places. And if we're not grasping at God, if we're not grasping at the gospel for it, then we wind up empty and porn ends up becoming that medication and that friend in the loneliness. Yes. For so long as this idea that pornography is actually useful to us, we're using it to meet a need that runs so much deeper.

00:50:33:12 - 00:50:58:02
Kolton Thomas 
And so I think it's important to understand that, like you said, not even our spouse can meet this tend to place that. That's right. That expectation, that desire to be saved or helped into our spouse, into sex, into pornography. And what I'm hearing you say is we've got to stay focus. We've got to stay with our eyes fixed on Jesus and that he's the only thing that's going to satisfy and bring that wholeness, that sexual wholeness.

00:50:58:14 - 00:50:59:03
Kolton Thomas 
And so.

00:50:59:05 - 00:51:05:18
Dustin Freeman
That's right. And that's how there's a lot more to say about how how in the world that could actually be true. And to unpack that. But I think it is true.

00:51:05:22 - 00:51:09:09
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah, we'll have to do another episode sometime. Okay. Yeah, this is really, really fun.

00:51:09:10 - 00:51:10:13
Dustin Freeman
Yeah. Thanks for having me.

00:51:10:18 - 00:51:12:08
Kolton Thomas 
Thanks. Those who have been on the podcast. Yeah.

00:51:12:18 - 00:51:13:07
Dustin Freeman
Enjoyed it.

00:51:13:07 - 00:51:31:01
Kolton Thomas 
Yeah. Well, there you have it, guys. That concludes our episode with Dustin Freeman. And I don't know about you guys, but I am so grateful for some of the cultural insights that I've gained from Dustin and his work. And, you know, I think if there is one big takeaway from this episode, it is that we are going to have to swim against the river.

00:51:31:06 - 00:51:58:22
Kolton Thomas 
That is our culture. If we want to do life in community, if we want to do life with accountability, it's not going to come naturally because our culture isn't set up for it to happen naturally. And so we're going to have to be intentional men, we're going have to be men of integrity. We're going to have to seek and strive to live this way, to live not only porn free, but in all other areas of our lives where we know that we're struggling, where we know that we need accountability.

00:51:58:22 - 00:52:30:21
Kolton Thomas 
And it's going to be different for each of us, but for us to be able to recognize that and then take intentional steps to find community and accountability where we need it the most. And of course, if that's something you know that you're needing in your life right now here at Reclaimed, we have created a community along with a program and several other resources to help men who are struggling, who are feeling lonely, who know they need this kind of accountability in their lives, not the unhealthy kind of accountability that brings shame where we just slap each other on the wrist and keep moving on.

00:52:31:01 - 00:52:49:19
Kolton Thomas 
It's the kind of accountability that challenges one in a way that lives messed up and in a way that heals. And so if that's something that you're interested in learning more about, there are several ways you can get in contact with us. You can visit our website, Reclaimed Recovery dot com, can find ways to contact us there. You can also links to join our private community app.

00:52:49:19 - 00:53:07:13
Kolton Thomas 
That's for men. And there you can reach us as well and start getting plugged in to the community that we have to offer here at. And if now that we've finished this episode, do you want to get more insights into culture? Then you should really check out Dustin's podcast that he did on the church in a Changing Culture.

00:53:07:19 - 00:53:28:13
Kolton Thomas 
I'm going to link to those episodes in the show notes. It is a series of episodes that's couch inside of a larger podcast that is the church that he's a part of. And so I'm going to link to those specific episodes in that podcast, in the show notes. So again, go check those out if you want to hear an even greater explanation about things like modernity, postmodernity and Christendom.

00:53:28:13 - 00:53:47:07
Kolton Thomas 
I know those were some words and concepts that maybe not everybody's familiar with. And so I encourage you guys explore those further dove deeper. Now for the next several episodes, we've got some exciting guest lined up. I'm really excited about it, so hang tight until we release more episodes. Soon until then. Thanks as always for listening to the Reclaim Recovery podcast.

00:53:47:11 - 00:53:50:07
Kolton Thomas 
Have a great one, guys.

00:53:53:13 - 00:54:12:06
Kolton Thomas 
If you enjoyed listening to today's interview, you can help me move mountains by taking a couple minutes of your time and supporting the podcast. There's a couple key ways you can do that. One is really easy. You can leave a review for the podcast. A lot of times when it comes to reviews, people tend to take time to leave negative ones, but not positive ones.

00:54:12:06 - 00:54:31:17
Kolton Thomas 
But you can help change that and leave a positive review for this podcast if it's making a difference in your life. The second thing you can do is you can contribute financially, and you can help me in creating more high quality, well-researched content and interviews so you can find a link to support us through PayPal or Patreon in the show notes.

00:54:31:22 - 00:54:38:11
Kolton Thomas 
Thanks so much, guys. You rock, get out there. Be resilient. Leave porn free. We'll see you next time.