720: The Casino-Fication of the Church and Mark DeYmaz  🔗 **Source:** [720: The Casino-Fication of the Church and Mark DeYmaz](https://share.snipd.com/episode/2c5a3acf-4abe-4b1b-bec6-b93d5e951b39) ## Highlights - **Earnings Test Threatens Theological Education** - New federal rule tying financial aid eligibility to graduate earnings risks disqualifying theology, arts, and humanities programs despite their non-monetary societal value. - Hosts warn the regulation's metric narrows 'value' to income, threatening diverse higher education and seminaries. Transcript: Skye Jethani A new Department of Education regulation would label a bachelor's or master's program a, quote, failure if its graduates don't earn more than their peers without a degree. Students in these failing programs would be ineligible for federal financial aid. So you can't get a student loan unless your school can demonstrate that the graduates of that program earn more than the average of that age group cohort. Phil Vischer And this regulation was part of the big, beautiful bill. Big, beautiful bill. That passed Congress. Yeah. Was it last year? Yeah, Last year. Big, beautiful bill. So the Republicans in the Trump administration have passed legislation that says, if you are in a college program that doesn't demonstrably result in a higher paycheck, we consider That program a failure and will not be eligible for a student loan, which includes a lot of religious training and clergy training. Skye Jethani The new rule portends a problem in particular. Oh, I like that. Portends a problem in particular for seminaries, theological schools, and Bible colleges. By the government's own estimate, 53% of bachelor's degrees for religion and religious studies would be considered failing under the new metric. So half, if we just put the rule into action right now, half of all seminary degrees, seminary students would no longer qualify for financial aid, federal financial aid. These programs, which would not qualify for federal loans, are projected to have the highest failure rate of any undergraduate program. But other undergraduate programs that also typically fail to produce high earning graduates include anything in the arts. Phil Vischer And half the humanities. Skye Jethani And most education. Right. So now it's an unattended consequence. So maybe- I don't know if it is. Will they notice? They don't think there should be more pastors? Seriously? Or have they just not thought of that? Okay. Phil Vischer There's a quote in here from Kevin Brown, who's the president at Asbury. He's been on the show. He's a friend of mine. I actually spoke at his installation. He's a wonderful guy. Value to the future earning potential of graduates will minimize or alter its self-understanding and effectively punish those institutions for advancing a service ethos driven By their religious convictions. In other words, there's more ways to measure value than just money. And most religious institutions, including institutions of higher ed, churches, seminaries, we measure value based on something other than just money. ([Time 0:16:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4d6ec24c-9093-44d1-ab46-fda8f358c64d)) - **Casinofication Breaks Church Community** - Russell Moore coins "casinofication" to describe how individual-focused betting shifts communal attention away from shared goals like cheering for a team. - He warns the same pattern hollowing sports bars shows up in churches when personal aims replace corporate gospel orientation. Transcript: Skye Jethani McKay Coppins of the Atlantic described this term, the casinofication of everything. By the way, doesn't McKay Coppins sound like a Dickens character? McKay Coppins. That's a good name. Yeah. It's a good name. McKay Copperfield. The problem is that in sports gambling, the algorithmic nature of online betting actually changes the game people are playing. In other words, if you have a sports bar full of people watching a game, it used to be that they were all cheering for their team or cheering against the other team and they were united in A community experience. And he says, because of the crazy popularity of sports betting, a bar full of people is more likely to all be staring at their own phones, where they haven't just bet on the outcome of the Game, but they've bet on a hundred little tiny metrics of who's going to score a touchdown or in what quarter will this many points be scored. And so they're not together to cheer on a team. They're together to pursue their own individual goals, which ultimately is, I want more money. I want more money or I want to feel like a winner. I want to say that I'm a winner. I don't care about the team. And I'm not even cheering in the same direction as all the people around me. I'm cheering for my own goals. And now we have betting markets on everything. You can bet on whether a Venezuelan drug boat will be blown up between May 1st and May 10th. You can bet on whether famine will hit North Korea by winter. That doesn't mean the gambler, this is Russell Moore talking, that doesn't mean the gambler will care about those situations. It means the person will be invested in his or her own interest. And in this sense, he says, casinofication breaks down a community. And then he relates that to the church. And this is where like, all right, so how is this? Phil Vischer We can bet on how many times the pastor says, um, in his sermon. Yeah. Skye Jethani He says, um, every culture assumes some kind of split between the individual and the community. The Bible does not. Israel starts with one man, Abraham, and becomes a multitude. We are collectively the body of Christ and individually members of it. The gospel, which is living as God's people. We've always been tempted to forget our common goal. So the guy looking at his smartphone in the sports bar and checking his betting app isn't really watching the game. The game is just a means to achieve what he really cares about, his bank balance or his self-image as a winner. And there are always forces at work that want us to do the same thing with a much more ultimate game. The gospel and the church become carriers for what we already care about on our own individual or tribal terms. When the gospel becomes a tool for culture war, institutional survival, partisan politics, or personal brand, its relevance feels sharp and immediate. It's like, oh, the gospel is relevant because it's helping me feel what I wanted to feel about this issue in the culture. The things I already care about are being addressed. I love it. But the slow formation of intuitions, instincts, and affectations is being hollowed out. Once a new generation sees the church as being about marketing products or voter mobilization or ethnic tribalization or anything else, people will find both the eye of individual Identity and the we of group identity in something other than the gospel of Jesus Christ. ([Time 0:35:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/51c11838-2288-4f8f-92ea-28a3a4145135)) - **When Gospel Becomes A Means To Personal Goals** - Casinofication converts gospel use into a tool for personal or partisan aims, making the church feel relevant by serving existing desires rather than forming new ones. - The result: people root identity in culture-war, brand, or consumer outcomes instead of Jesus. Transcript: Skye Jethani That's what he means by casinofication. Phil Vischer I love it. Of the church. I agree. Disagree. I 100% agree. Is giving sky. Yeah. Well, and here's what comes to mind. How much would you bet that he's right? All of it. I'm all in. Okay. Even prior to all the sports, online gambling stuff, you could go back, I don't know, to the 1990s. And I think a lot of what he said would still be true. Yeah. Because you saw so much of this in like the seeker-driven movement, which essentially the premise was people are not directly interested in God, Christ, or the gospel. What they're directly, their felt need is I need help with my marriage. I need help with my kids. I need help with my finances. I need help with my addiction, whatever the thing is I need help with. And so the church was taught appeal to people's felt need to get them in. And then once they're in... Upsell. Upsell them. Exactly. Upsell them on... Jesus. On Jesus. Or not just on... Well, on the church. On the church, but upsell them on all the things, the gospel, the mission, all of it, but get them in with their felt need. But as someone famously said, what you win people with is what you win them to. And so when you've predicated so much of American evangelicalism on your personal need being met by God, it's a lot harder than to create a cohesive community around the mission of the Gospel or devotion to Jesus when it's all about what am I getting out of it. Right. It's a hard switch to make. Skye Jethani So often what's been pitched to us as the purpose of coming to church or joining the church is to be a part of the church machinery to enlarge the church. Phil Vischer Which is also a problem. Yeah. Skye Jethani Yeah. So we don't have, you know, we haven't done a good job actually painting the picture of the gospel in a way that you would say, I want that to happen. Because it's easier to say, I want my marriage to be fixed than it is to say, I want this church to be larger. What's the point? Phil Vischer I think they're both problematic. Skye Jethani Right. They are. They are. But you got to go past that. Phil Vischer So this, I have, John's in here. I'm looking at you, John. I have to give a talk on Thursday at Chicago Fellowship. And it's part two of this thing I'm doing about the raising of Lazarus. But I've talked to you a little bit about this. I think this is a little bit the difference between resuscitation and resurrection. Bear with me for a second. Okay, sure. Lazarus is resuscitated. He's brought back to life. But he's not transformed because he's going to die again. You know, he's still. Whereas Jesus, he rose on Easter Sunday, that's resurrection because he was both raised back to life, but he was transformed. Right. Resurrected body. Resurrected body and glorified. Skye Jethani If Lazarus had diabetes before he died, he still has diabetes. Something like that. When he walks out of the tomb. Phil Vischer I think for a lot of our churches and a lot of our Christian communities, there's this message, we don't put it this way, but it's a message of resuscitation. Your life is screwed up in some way. Things aren't going great. And you kind of want to do over. Help me fix my marriage. Help me fix my kids. Help me fix my finances, whatever, personal problems. But it's not really transformative because you're not asking people to surrender their desires and have them transformed. You're bringing them in with their desires and saying, you've been trying to meet these desires in all kinds of- In the wrong ways, but Jesus can help you meet them the right way. But we're not actually calling people to true resurrection, new life, transformation, where the desires you came in with are not the same ones you leave with. They've been completely upended and changed by your encounter with this risen God. So that's what I think is going on here with the casinification is everyone has their desires. We're just here to meet them. We're going to meet them more effectively than Oprah or Dr. Phil, but we're still just here to meet them through Jesus. ([Time 0:38:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7cdf638b-61a3-4794-b517-107ed4574a58)) - **Resuscitation Versus Resurrection In Ministry** - Phil Jisher contrasts resuscitation (Lazarus) with resurrection (Jesus) to show many churches offer temporary fixes rather than deep transformation. - He argues churches often sell resuscitation: meeting felt needs without calling people to die to old desires and be truly transformed. Transcript: Phil Vischer Bear with me for a second. Okay, sure. Lazarus is resuscitated. He's brought back to life. But he's not transformed because he's going to die again. You know, he's still. Whereas Jesus, he rose on Easter Sunday, that's resurrection because he was both raised back to life, but he was transformed. Right. Resurrected body. Resurrected body and glorified. Skye Jethani If Lazarus had diabetes before he died, he still has diabetes. Something like that. When he walks out of the tomb. Phil Vischer I think for a lot of our churches and a lot of our Christian communities, there's this message, we don't put it this way, but it's a message of resuscitation. Your life is screwed up in some way. Things aren't going great. And you kind of want to do over. Help me fix my marriage. Help me fix my kids. Help me fix my finances, whatever, personal problems. But it's not really transformative because you're not asking people to surrender their desires and have them transformed. You're bringing them in with their desires and saying, you've been trying to meet these desires in all kinds of- In the wrong ways, but Jesus can help you meet them the right way. But we're not actually calling people to true resurrection, new life, transformation, where the desires you came in with are not the same ones you leave with. They've been completely upended and changed by your encounter with this risen God. So that's what I think is going on here with the casinification is everyone has their desires. We're just here to meet them. We're going to meet them more effectively than Oprah or Dr. Phil, but we're still just here to meet them through Jesus. Whereas the true gospel calls people to die first, surrender all of your desires. And then when you're raised in your life, Christ himself will give you new ones that include community and transformation and the gospel and the glorification of God through all of Your life. ([Time 0:41:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/821fdd8c-10ea-4711-a208-cf348c28f2f9)) - **Actively Build Multi-Ethnic Church Practices** - Make multi-ethnic intentionality operational by empowering diverse leaders, building cross-cultural relationships, and mobilizing the church to bless the city. - Mark DeYmaz credits deliberate practices and cross-cultural competence for Mosaic's 25-year multi-ethnic witness. Transcript: Mark DeYmaz And at the same time, we have to take intentional steps to empower diverse leaders, to build and develop cross-cultural relationships and pursue cross-cultural intelligence or Competence and to promote a spirit of inclusion. And again, mobilize for impact. It's not just about getting a bunch of diverse people in the room and singing kumbaya, right? I mean, the idea is to turn the power and pleasure of God that uniquely dwells in unity outward to bless the city, to advance shalom, and to accomplish great work for God, Matthew 5, 16, So they will glorify our Father in heaven, come to know him as we do. ([Time 0:59:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3843444c-61a5-4b39-9a58-d787bf82ad4d)) - **Easter Stage Moment With Opposing Political Leaders** - Mark describes bringing Democratic leader Joyce Elliott and Republican Ralph Hudson onstage to model political unity and show Christians can disagree yet love Jesus. - He used Easter and the image of Christ on the cross with arms outstretched to illustrate holding political tension. Transcript: Phil Vischer To the whole congregation on Easter Sunday? Yeah. Mark DeYmaz You know, it's in our context, just take ethnicity and economics for 25 years. That's just been a part of our conversation. As I speak, as I go to other churches, I've been around, I'm sure you too, you know, sometimes you're in a particular group or setting and somebody mentions black, let's say they say a Black man or a black person and the whole congregation freezes up, you know, or leans into because people aren't used to just having that as a normal part of the conversation. What's going to happen next? And there's this fear involved. So in our church for 25 years, ethnicity, economics, culture, that's just a part of our conversation and politics has become that as well. So we've had different forums and different opportunities where we put political leaders, both in our city, as well as in our church on the stage, representing different backgrounds. It's just a part of our normal conversation. More recently in the governor's election that Sarah Huckabee entered applying, there was an African-American man, Chris Jones. He ran against her here in the state of Arkansas as a Democrat. And then the guy running for attorney general was a white guy, conservative, Republican. And I happen to know both of them. So we had a forum in our church with both these people during the election season. And again, saying we're not endorsing any of this, but these are Christ followers with different viewpoints. So all to say it's a part of our normal language. Now, related to this specific incident, this is post-Donald Trump, right? So go back 11-ish years or so. I don't remember exactly the year that was, but it was in that era. And of course, we came out of Obama and all that, and now you've got Trump. And so that tension, the political tension, which of course, as we know, goes back to our founding fathers, it's always been there. But in our lifetime, in this moment, it was during the Trump era, beginning with this first election, not long after that, or sometime in the succeeding years, that we thought, what A great representation of the unity of the body, the unity of the spirit, where Joyce and Ralph, who were known, very well known in our church, great people, love each other, everything Is true about all that, to have them kind of point out, if you will, that you can have different opinions about how to advance shalom or the common good, but that doesn't mean you are not Christian, you know, because as we know, there's Democrats and Republicans, they think you can't be a Christian and be a Republican. You can't be a Christian, be a Democrat. We're like, that's not true. Right. But again, how do you represent Jesus? How do you represent your church? The church that is so important in our day and age. So again, it just flowed out of kind of who we are and the language we have, but certainly during the Trump era, after his first election, we thought that's a real exclamation moment to Talk about the power of the resurrection and what Christ is able to do, lift it up. He said, if I'm lifted up, I draw all people, not just some people to myself. And the illustration I often use, and this is one of them with Joyce and Ralph that day, Sky, as I stretch my arms out, if I'm speaking, and I say, think about how Christ died on the cross, Arms outstretched to the right and to the left. He didn't drop the right. Let's talk politics. He doesn't drop the Republicans to reach the Democrats. And he doesn't drop the left arm, the Democrats to keep the Republican. He holds everyone in tension. And that tension is good. It should be good in our country. And, you know, it's fighting tension, but Christ holds us all in tension. And that's actually where the unity is found. You don't run from that tension, you run to that tension. ([Time 1:04:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c3399686-ab38-4e86-b005-eda6a8990886)) - **Practice Curiosity To Defuse Polarization** - Promote curiosity: assume the best, ask genuine questions, and acknowledge complexity to counter polarizing certainty. - DeYmaz frames this as formation practice that helps move congregants from rigid positions into empathetic engagement. Transcript: Phil Vischer You have this beautiful line in the book. You say, I've always believed that while no one is right about everything, everyone is right about something, which is that humble posture to say, I have something to learn from this Person, even the person I disagree with vehemently. And then you give some guidelines that I'm sure you talk about in your church all the time. Assume the best of others, ask good questions, and acknowledge complexities. I feel like this is almost the mantra for the Holy Post Media Company, as we want to assume the best of others. We really want to ask good questions, and we're always talking about complexity. I think the t-shirt that sells the most on our merch website is nuance is not a dirty word. Explain how this works itself out in your congregation, the assuming the best of others you've talked about, but the asking good questions and acknowledging complexities, especially In a world right now that everyone just wants simple black and white answers. How do you help people not feel uncomfortable with complexity in a church and a place at a time where everyone wants simple answers. Mark DeYmaz Yeah. You know, I didn't know that about your merch, but yeah, nuance is a key word here. It has been for 25 years. I feel like the entire country has lost its ability to think or to speak with nuance, which it sounds like you all are leaning into as well. And another one of those lists of the seven guiding principles for promoting peace is avoid dogmatic statements, right? So these are all super important. They're very practical things. And you mentioned being uncomfortable. One of the things that we recognized early on, and I encourage, I mean, not just encourage, but I say you in the 20th century, the way you grew your church was to get among other ways, was To make sure everybody feels comfortable and truly, and that's still true today, but that's a 20th century metric in the 21st century. You've got to get people comfortable with being uncomfortable. That's how you're comfortable. Like, you know, church like ours, you don't, nobody gets what they want every single week. It's always changing. It's a little bit, again, rooted in Philippians 2. So you get people comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, recognizing everyone in this space feels a little bit uncomfortable at times, and that's why you can feel comfortable. So it's very upside down in that regard. But the guidelines and that you're leaning into this acknowledging complexity, listening, all that, I also talk about in the book related to this very subject. And I really appreciate you leaning into that because of all the things in the book, that's certainly at the core of what we do and my heart. ([Time 1:17:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2902bc81-6f2c-44ff-8b28-df6167048750)) - **Train Congregations To Be Comfortable With Discomfort** - Get your congregation comfortable with being uncomfortable by normalizing hard conversations and changing expectations about weekly satisfaction. - Mark says 21st-century churches must teach members to tolerate discomfort as part of shared, cross-cultural life. Transcript: Mark DeYmaz Yeah. You know, I didn't know that about your merch, but yeah, nuance is a key word here. It has been for 25 years. I feel like the entire country has lost its ability to think or to speak with nuance, which it sounds like you all are leaning into as well. And another one of those lists of the seven guiding principles for promoting peace is avoid dogmatic statements, right? So these are all super important. They're very practical things. And you mentioned being uncomfortable. One of the things that we recognized early on, and I encourage, I mean, not just encourage, but I say you in the 20th century, the way you grew your church was to get among other ways, was To make sure everybody feels comfortable and truly, and that's still true today, but that's a 20th century metric in the 21st century. You've got to get people comfortable with being uncomfortable. That's how you're comfortable. Like, you know, church like ours, you don't, nobody gets what they want every single week. It's always changing. It's a little bit, again, rooted in Philippians 2. So you get people comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, recognizing everyone in this space feels a little bit uncomfortable at times, and that's why you can feel comfortable. So it's very upside down in that regard. ([Time 1:18:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/98287fbe-ee54-42cd-987b-57e97d2c56f3)) - **Silence Can Be Wise Not Complicit** - Silence isn't automatically complicity; biblical wisdom sometimes calls for silence, listening, and actions rather than constant public statements. - DeYmaz cautions pastors to weigh when words help versus when prudent silence and action better serve the gospel. Transcript: Mark DeYmaz And what, think about it as I've thought about it for several years, I'm like, what bothers me about that statement? And I could never really get to the root of that. But finally I did because number one, it's a dogmatic statement. Silence is complicity. But then when I look in the New Testament, or in the Bible, I should say, Solomon calls silence wisdom at points. There's a time to speak and a time to be silent. James calls it, if you will, moral discipline. Be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. And so when you put all this together, what is true about silence is it can be complicity, but there are many ways to speak, and words are one of them. And just like the old action. So I love that idea of finding the nuance in there. There is a time to speak, but actions speak louder than words. And it's wisdom to stay silent. Sometimes it's the listening posture. And we should be much more adept at navigating that versus being compelled to always speaking about everything from bad bunny in the Super Bowl to this or that. And of course, we're driven one thing you haven't brought up, of course, and I know you are very aware of this more than me, is AI and the algorithms that just promote outrage. And so if you're on it, that's what you're getting. It keeps you outraged. And again, that is also playing into the moment that we live in. But silence can be complicity for sure. ([Time 1:20:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/60435a7b-36b9-4d88-9c7f-db62834b3bcd))