This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 671: Lost 1k Subs When I Quit Teaching the Deity of Christ, Then God Showed Up with Knieshia This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Audio file 671 Knieshia.mp3 Transcript 00:00 Sean Finnegan Hey there, I'm Shawn Finnegan and you are listening to Restitudio, a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. 00:11 Sean Finnegan When Kanisha came to question the doctrine of the Trinity, she had to make a decision. 00:16 Sean Finnegan After she did the Bible study, she knew Jesus wasn't God. 00:20 Sean Finnegan She took a step of faith and began teaching her new understanding of the human Jesus. 00:25 Sean Finnegan Overnight, she lost 500 subscribers on her YouTube channel. 00:30 Sean Finnegan In time, that number grew to 1000. 00:33 Sean Finnegan Still, she didn't want to teach false doctrine, nor did she want to hide the truth she discovered. 00:39 Sean Finnegan Then, something amazing happened. 00:42 Sean Finnegan She started gaining subscribers. 00:44 Sean Finnegan Eventually, she ended up with 2,000 more. 00:47 Sean Finnegan And that was before she flew to LA to appear as a guest on the Dr. 00:51 Sean Finnegan Daf Show. 00:52 Sean Finnegan Here now is episode 671. 00:54 Sean Finnegan Lost 1,000 subscribers when I quit teaching the deity of Christ. 00:59 Sean Finnegan Then God showed up. 01:08 Sean Finnegan Welcome, Kanisha, to Restitudio. 01:10 Sean Finnegan So glad to talk to you. 01:11 Knieshia Thank you, Sean. 01:13 Knieshia Big fan. 01:14 Knieshia I've been watching your videos, especially recently, since I've become a biblical Unitarian. 01:20 Knieshia I just love the work you guys are doing and the honesty that you really try to portray in scripture. 01:26 Knieshia So it's actually a blessing for me that I'm on here with you. 01:30 Sean Finnegan I feel the same way. 01:32 Sean Finnegan I think you're doing a lot of great work too. 01:34 Sean Finnegan For people that aren't familiar with your story, I was thinking we could start there. 01:40 Sean Finnegan Where does Kanisha come from? 01:43 Knieshia I definitely did not come from any church upbringing or any 01:49 Knieshia praying and Bible reading and things of that sort? 01:53 Knieshia My family would say things like, hey, if you're a good person, then you're going to heaven. 01:59 Knieshia Like that's about the summation of the beliefs in God were. 02:06 Knieshia And growing up, it was a very immoral household. 02:12 Knieshia So there was a lot of sexual immorality going on. 02:20 Knieshia A lot of witchcraft. 02:23 Knieshia A lot, like my favorite thing to watch was scary movies because that's all we ever watched was like scary hauntings, talking about ghosts, talking about possessions, doing Ouija boards, buying witch books, you know, my mom would say, and she still does to this very day. 02:41 Knieshia She's not saved. 02:43 Knieshia But she says things like, you know, I'm a good witch. 02:47 Knieshia You know what I'm saying? 02:48 Knieshia And so there was just this really dark presence in the home. 02:54 Knieshia There was a lot of violence, lots of violence, lots of fighting, lots of screaming, lots of cussing, belittling. 03:04 Knieshia I mean, the story, some of these stories, I'm going to have to wait till some people are dead and gone before I can share. 03:10 Sean Finnegan Yeah, you don't want to get yourself in trouble. 03:12 Knieshia Yeah, but it was pretty dark and absolutely zero 03:17 Knieshia God involved in our day-to-day lives. 03:20 Sean Finnegan When you talk about the horror movies, do you think that watching those, how do you think it affected you watching all that? 03:29 Knieshia 110% affected me because when you put your mind on these things, that's all you're thinking about is the ghost, the demons, 03:40 Knieshia searching for demons in your house, conjuring up demons to see if they're real. 03:44 Knieshia I mean, it literally transforms your life. 03:47 Knieshia That's why you have to be careful on what you watch, what you're entertaining day-to-day. 03:51 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I totally agree. 03:53 Sean Finnegan But at the same time, I know there's a lot of Christians that watch horror and think it's no big deal. 03:59 Sean Finnegan And I think it's just psychologically, you're doing a lot of damage, much more so spiritually opening yourself to 04:09 Sean Finnegan the possibility of a lot of sources of darkness there. 04:13 Sean Finnegan So how did you become a Christian considering that was your home life was so dysfunctional and so toxic and so dark? 04:26 Sean Finnegan Like where does Christianity even come into that picture? 04:30 Knieshia Good question. 04:31 Knieshia Yeah, in my early 20s, my ex, he 04:38 Knieshia He was much older than I was, 14 years older than I was. 04:43 Knieshia And he was always just so wise. 04:45 Knieshia Like everything he said was just so mature and so just greater than I was, right? 04:51 Knieshia So that was an attractive quality that he had that intrigued me when he would say things. 04:57 Knieshia But there were times where he would say something and it would just drive me bananas. 05:02 Knieshia And this is how Christianity got introduced to me. 05:05 Knieshia So he would say, every time we watched a documentary, because I love, I'm a history buff, science nerd, those type of things. 05:13 Knieshia And every time we would watch a documentary together, and it would say billions of years ago, you know, when dinosaurs roamed the planet, you know, these type of things, he would scoff. 05:23 Knieshia And finally I said, why do you keep doing that? 05:27 Knieshia Why are you doing that? 05:29 Knieshia Stop. 05:30 Knieshia He's like, because the earth is not billions and billions of years old. 05:32 Knieshia I said, yes, it is. 05:33 Knieshia The science says so. 05:35 Knieshia we got into talking about science, talking about history, and then he brings up the topic of giants. 05:43 Knieshia And then I was like, okay, he's really lost his mind. 05:47 Knieshia Like he's got, he knocked down a couple of credits 05:50 Knieshia because he's talking about giants and he's saying it's in the Bible, the Nephilim and talking like this. 05:57 Knieshia And I'm just thinking this guy has lost his mind. 06:00 Knieshia So we're going back and forth, going back and forth. 06:02 Knieshia So I finally said, okay, I'm going to go buy a Bible and I'm going to show you that giants are not in the Bible. 06:11 Sean Finnegan So you got a Bible to disprove what he was saying? 06:15 Knieshia I did. 06:17 Sean Finnegan To me, that's just so hysterical. 06:19 Sean Finnegan It's so ironic because then you got hooked, right? 06:23 Sean Finnegan Tell us what happened. 06:24 Knieshia Instantly. 06:25 Knieshia So I bought the Bible and I start reading it and I didn't know there was different types of Bibles. 06:31 Knieshia I didn't even know about denominations. 06:33 Knieshia I mean, about as ignorant as you could be, Sean, to Christianity, Jesus, God, Bible. 06:39 Knieshia I mean, you put me at the highest rank of ignorant. 06:42 Knieshia So I just go and buy one. 06:43 Knieshia And I think it was an NIV, big, huge, ginormous Bible with like coloring stuff in it. 06:50 Knieshia And I was like, I'll buy this one because I can color on it. 06:53 Knieshia That's my first thought. 06:55 Knieshia So anyway, so I'm reading it. 06:57 Knieshia But what really got me was the next day, it was the next day was Christmas. 07:02 Knieshia And I had as soon as my eyes opened, I said, where did Christmas come from? 07:08 Knieshia Now, I have never asked myself that question before. 07:10 Knieshia I never was intrigued about where it came from. 07:12 Knieshia All I knew was the best holiday to ever exist because of the lights and presents and stuff like that. 07:18 Knieshia So I looked up, you know, a random video on YouTube, where did Christmas come from? 07:24 Knieshia And I found out that it was pagan for pagan roots, right? 07:28 Knieshia And I'm not coming after anybody who celebrates Christmas. 07:33 Knieshia This is just my testimony of what really happened to me. 07:38 Knieshia I sat back and I said, what? 07:40 Knieshia So then I called my mom and I was like, mom, did you know that Christmas is pagan? 07:44 Knieshia She's like, well, yeah, but that's not why we celebrate it. 07:49 Knieshia And I was like, what? 07:50 Knieshia I hang up the phone. 07:51 Sean Finnegan That's kind of interesting because your mom, you just said is a witch or thinks of herself at least as a witch. 07:55 Sean Finnegan So if Christmas is pagan, she would even want to celebrate it more. 08:00 Knieshia I know, It's really funny. 08:04 Sean Finnegan That wasn't significant to her. 08:06 Knieshia No, and then my grandma, my mom's mom, they're Mormon. 08:11 Knieshia Okay. 08:11 Knieshia So then I call my grandma and I said, grandma, did you know that Christmas is pagan? 08:16 Knieshia And she goes, well, yeah, same exact response. 08:19 Knieshia It was like eerie. 08:20 Knieshia I can still hear it in my head. 08:22 Knieshia Well, yeah, but that's not why we celebrate it. 08:24 Knieshia It's Jesus's birthday and things like this. 08:27 Knieshia And I remember hanging up the phone with both of them and I felt betrayed. 08:32 Knieshia Now why I felt betrayed, I don't know why this was the first emotion, but I felt betrayed. 08:37 Knieshia And I said, what else is a lie? 08:39 Knieshia And I remember sitting on my bed in my living room, because it was like a studio, sitting on my bed in my living room and just sitting there. 08:47 Knieshia And I said, what is truth? 08:49 Knieshia So every time I read that in the Bible when Pontius Pilate says it, what is truth? 08:54 Knieshia That was exactly what I said. 08:55 Knieshia And I just sat there for a while. 08:57 Knieshia So I open up the Bible and I mean, I'm just hooked. 09:00 Knieshia I go in there to buy a Bible to disprove him, but instead of disproving him, I'm finding myself like, this isn't what I thought God was. 09:08 Knieshia This is different. 09:09 Knieshia I'd never heard this story before. 09:12 Knieshia And it literally was like an overnight transformation for me, changed the rest of my life. 09:18 Knieshia And yeah. 09:19 Sean Finnegan It's just incredible. 09:20 Sean Finnegan So you are a Bible nerd. 09:23 Sean Finnegan You're somebody that loves to read the book. 09:27 Sean Finnegan Do you have your Bible nearby? 09:29 Sean Finnegan Can you show us what it looks like? 09:30 Sean Finnegan Do you have an actual paper Bible nearby? 09:32 Knieshia I do. 09:34 Sean Finnegan All right, well, we need to take a look at it because... 09:38 Knieshia This one, this one... 09:39 Sean Finnegan What? 09:40 Sean Finnegan Okay, so you've got it. 09:42 Sean Finnegan You've got it all highlighted. 09:44 Sean Finnegan You've got sticky notes. 09:46 Sean Finnegan Oh my goodness. 09:48 Sean Finnegan Once we get to the New Testament. 09:49 Sean Finnegan Yeah, it's just crazy. 09:50 Sean Finnegan So, and you're, I can see you're a whole Bible person. 09:54 Sean Finnegan You're not just reading. 09:56 Sean Finnegan a little portion of it. 09:57 Sean Finnegan You're reading the whole thing. 09:58 Knieshia The whole thing. 10:00 Sean Finnegan And how many years ago was this when you had this awakening and started reading the Bible? 10:06 Knieshia I think I was about 22, 23, around the time frame, so about 10 years. 10:13 Sean Finnegan Okay. 10:14 Sean Finnegan So this is just so incredible. 10:17 Sean Finnegan Reading the Bible is what converted you to Christianity. 10:22 Knieshia Yes. 10:24 Sean Finnegan And as you're reading the Bible, you're seeing what God likes and dislikes, I guess, right? 10:32 Sean Finnegan Or how would you say it? 10:33 Knieshia When I was reading it, I thought, this is true. 10:39 Knieshia Like, I can't explain why I just knew in the depths of my being. 10:44 Knieshia I said, this is truth. 10:46 Knieshia You know, this God of this Bible, whoever he is, because I'm still reading it at this point, but I'm like, 10:53 Knieshia It was like this, I don't know, internal like checkmark, like, yes, that's me. 10:57 Knieshia Nice to meet you. 10:59 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 11:00 Knieshia And so, yeah, and then I started seeing for the first time in my life sin and like what sin actually is. 11:09 Knieshia And I never thought about sin before. 11:11 Knieshia I knew I was a bad person because never in my past as a, you know, atheist, 11:19 Knieshia right? 11:20 Knieshia Pagan type of thinking. 11:22 Knieshia I never thought of myself as a good person. 11:25 Knieshia I knew I was a bad person. 11:26 Knieshia So when I'm reading for the first time, like actual on paper, what a bad person looks like and how to correct it and that it could be corrected, I mean, there was no way I didn't want to know more about this God. 11:38 Knieshia I had to. 11:39 Knieshia It was like a hunger developed in me to where I night and day 11:44 Knieshia literally, if I didn't have my paper Bible, I had the audio Bible going. 11:48 Knieshia If I wasn't allowed to have my audio Bible or the paper Bible, I was talking to somebody about it. 11:54 Knieshia Like I had to, I had to have this God. 11:57 Sean Finnegan Yeah, That's incredible. 11:59 Sean Finnegan So you, I experienced something similar to what you're talking about, where I turned to God really at 19 years old. 12:08 Sean Finnegan And one of the first things 12:11 Sean Finnegan Well, I had a totally different childhood than you. 12:15 Sean Finnegan And I was kind of like going with the flow with a lot of Christian stuff. 12:18 Sean Finnegan But once I became a teenager, I was kind of like not, I didn't really take it seriously and I was living my own life. 12:28 Sean Finnegan I'll just say it that way. 12:30 Sean Finnegan But at 19, when I turned to God, I received, I guess, not that I would say it back then, I was just surprised to discover a thirst. 12:42 Sean Finnegan to be able to read. 12:43 Sean Finnegan And I would read the Bible before when I was like younger and it never really grabbed me. 12:52 Sean Finnegan And I don't think I really understood it very well. 12:57 Sean Finnegan But then once this transformation happened in my heart, like I was just like, I couldn't get enough. 13:01 Sean Finnegan I'm reading it and reading it and I understand what it's saying. 13:05 Sean Finnegan Not everything, but enough where I'm like, all right, what happens next? 13:09 Sean Finnegan So 13:10 Sean Finnegan Your experience definitely resonates with me. 13:13 Sean Finnegan Now, as time has gone on, of course, you've changed plenty of your beliefs because you are no longer an atheist, you're no longer watching horror movies and all that. 13:23 Sean Finnegan You've entered the Christian world. 13:26 Sean Finnegan And I'm sure as you've come into the Christian world, you've discovered there are different things that align with the Bible better than others. 13:35 Sean Finnegan Maybe you could tell us about how 13:38 Sean Finnegan you started your channel, your YouTube channel. 13:42 Sean Finnegan Tell us what it's called and what the original intention was, like why you wanted to do it. 13:48 Knieshia Yeah, so I have, since I became a Christian, I literally have been obsessed with God and talking about God. 13:59 Knieshia And it has been a regular daily part of my life since I got saved. 14:05 Knieshia And I have always had a job, worked very hard, and I struggled with infertility for a decade. 14:13 Knieshia And finally now I have two babies. 14:16 Knieshia When I got pregnant with my three-year-old, I ended up wanting to be a stay-at-home mom so I can raise my children in the ways of God and really take their education seriously. 14:26 Knieshia So I got a stay-at-home job. 14:29 Knieshia And since I was at home, I felt like, who am I going to talk to 14:35 Knieshia about God. 14:38 Knieshia And I started really just missing having people to talk to about God, right? 14:44 Knieshia Because I mean, my household can only hear so much of me saying the same thing all the time. 14:49 Knieshia So, and I just love interacting with people. 14:52 Knieshia And so I said, 14:56 Knieshia I should try to do this YouTube, like make a YouTube video. 14:59 Knieshia I didn't think I was gonna be a YouTuber. 15:01 Knieshia No, That was not the plan. 15:03 Knieshia I just wanted to do a YouTube video and just talk about God randomly. 15:08 Knieshia And I was like, nobody's like, nobody's gonna watch. 15:10 Knieshia I don't even, you know, this is probably pointless. 15:13 Knieshia I just, I gotta do something. 15:16 Knieshia So I had created the channel and back then when I created the channel, I was an absolute 15:26 Knieshia 100% die hard Trinitarian. 15:28 Knieshia Like you could not convince me the Trinity wasn't true when I started my channel. 15:35 Knieshia So the first year, I didn't know what I was doing. 15:39 Knieshia I'm not a tech person. 15:40 Knieshia I'm not on my phone all day. 15:41 Knieshia Now, in my ministry, I mean, my phone is nonstop, unfortunately. 15:47 Knieshia But at that time, it just wasn't even a regular part of my routine. 15:50 Knieshia I could leave my phone at home and go somewhere and not even miss it. 15:56 Knieshia So the first year I just would put out video here and there, but I really wasn't focused on being a YouTuber. 16:03 Knieshia Just when a subject came on my heart, I did it. 16:06 Knieshia Well, when I started doing open panels at the beginning of year two, and I've been doing it now three years, this year three years on YouTube. 16:16 Knieshia But I started doing open panels talking with atheists. 16:20 Knieshia And because I love a challenge, Sean. 16:22 Knieshia I don't like the- You're not shy. 16:24 Sean Finnegan You're not worried about somebody coming up with a better argument. 16:29 Sean Finnegan You're like, let's go. 16:30 Sean Finnegan Let's see what happens. 16:31 Knieshia Yes. 16:31 Knieshia And it's not that I like to argue or anything. 16:34 Knieshia I just love a challenge. 16:36 Knieshia I've always been that way, an overachiever. 16:39 Knieshia But I just love it. 16:40 Knieshia So 16:41 Knieshia I would pick the hardest topics. 16:43 Knieshia The ones that are not talked about, that's what we're going to talk about on my channel. 16:47 Knieshia That's my favorite thing. 16:48 Knieshia If you don't want to talk about it, well, then that's going to be the subject. 16:52 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 16:53 Sean Finnegan So now you're at almost getting to 5,000 subscribers. 16:59 Sean Finnegan Almost, 4,800 and something subscribers. 17:04 Sean Finnegan And you've got 120 videos in here. 17:11 Sean Finnegan I have. 17:13 Knieshia Way more than that, but I have taken down all the old ones. 17:18 Sean Finnegan Oh, you did? 17:19 Sean Finnegan Okay. 17:19 Knieshia Yeah, but I have maybe like, I don't know, maybe about 1000. 17:24 Sean Finnegan Okay. 17:25 Knieshia Yeah. 17:25 Sean Finnegan All right. 17:26 Sean Finnegan And so I think that 120 must be just your videos, not your short, not your live videos. 17:33 Sean Finnegan And your live videos is really the majority 17:37 Sean Finnegan I see you have a live video here called stream one day ago, 3.7K views, 8 hours and 14 minutes. 17:48 Knieshia Yeah. 17:50 Sean Finnegan Sorry, I'm just incredibly impressed by that endurance. 17:58 Sean Finnegan And the video is titled Repent from the Trinity Lie. 18:02 Sean Finnegan So tell us 18:05 Sean Finnegan about your journey out of the Trinity, because most Christians are Trinitarian. 18:10 Sean Finnegan How in the world did you come to question that? 18:14 Knieshia So yeah, so again, I have open panels where I invite, I don't care what your belief system is, I invite you on and we discuss all these topics. 18:26 Knieshia So I have a wide range of belief systems that come on and we discuss all these topics. 18:35 Knieshia So. 18:37 Knieshia I started noticing, Sean. 18:44 Knieshia I started noticing some inconsistencies or difficulties in trying to explain the Trinity. 18:53 Knieshia Right. 18:55 Knieshia And I and I had because I had I have a panel that and an audience that literally you get every belief system involved 19:04 Knieshia I started noticing more and more people say the Trinity is a lie. 19:07 Knieshia So it kind of just intrigued me to see why, because ever since I became a believer, since that Christmas Day and I had that conversation with my family, I like to search the reasoning behind why people say what they say, not just automatically dismiss everything that everyone says and think that I'm right. 19:27 Knieshia So I was like, let me just check. 19:31 Knieshia Let me just check. 19:33 Knieshia And 19:34 Knieshia I did. 19:35 Knieshia So I started rereading the Bible, unbiased this time. 19:39 Sean Finnegan Yep. 19:40 Knieshia And I noticed first that it was clear in scripture, the verses that kept popping out was God the Father, God the Father, God the Father. 19:51 Knieshia But I couldn't understand because I've always thought Jesus was God and held that as my highest belief system. 19:58 Knieshia I couldn't figure out, okay, well, Jesus is the son. 20:03 Knieshia how is it Jesus is God, Jesus is a son. 20:06 Knieshia And then of course, one is people loved it. 20:08 Knieshia They were, you know, well, cause he's the father, he's the father. 20:12 Knieshia And I, never quite felt comfortable with them making those statements. 20:19 Knieshia Because. 20:25 Knieshia I understand when they try to explain the son is flesh and God is spirit and God was in the flesh. 20:31 Knieshia I totally got that. 20:32 Knieshia I was down for that. 20:34 Knieshia made perfect sense to me. 20:36 Knieshia However, I still was not grasping then how is Jesus God? 20:44 Knieshia And something kept telling me in my inside, keep going, keep looking, keep searching. 20:49 Knieshia And one day I had 20:55 Knieshia was reading scripture. 20:56 Knieshia I could not tell you what scripture was, honestly. 20:59 Knieshia But I'm just reading scripture and it just clicked and I was like, oh my God, literally. 21:06 Knieshia Jesus is not God. 21:09 Knieshia Now you have to understand that Jesus meant as God, Jesus as God meant everything to me. 21:15 Knieshia This was not a game. 21:17 Knieshia It was not an emotional response. 21:19 Knieshia This was my life. 21:21 Knieshia And I'm known around town. 21:22 Knieshia I'm known on my channel 21:25 Knieshia Jesus is God, right? 21:28 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I even saw an earlier testimony that you gave where you were talking about how God became a man and died for our sins, kind of the standard evangelical understanding. 21:40 Sean Finnegan And when you were talking about that, and this is from a couple of years ago, you were emotional, you were passionate. 21:48 Sean Finnegan It wasn't just like a belief that was like, oh, well, maybe, not, who cares? 21:53 Sean Finnegan So 21:55 Sean Finnegan What I hear you saying is that you expose yourself to people who have different ideas. 22:01 Sean Finnegan That's part of just your whole YouTube channel is having those kinds of conversations. 22:09 Sean Finnegan You're not necessarily looking for people that agree with you to enjoy a nice chat. 22:17 Sean Finnegan You're looking to challenge, right? 22:20 Knieshia Yes. 22:22 Sean Finnegan And somebody challenged you on this and you're like, you didn't just miss it out of hand. 22:27 Sean Finnegan You looked into it. 22:29 Sean Finnegan And once again, it seems like it was the Bible that converted you. 22:33 Sean Finnegan Yes. 22:35 Sean Finnegan Right. 22:36 Knieshia Yeah, it was. 22:37 Sean Finnegan It wasn't like some book, you know, like on a bookshelf that you have that 22:43 Sean Finnegan you read and you're like, oh, well, so-and-so says this, so I'm gonna, it was just straight up Bible once again. 22:49 Sean Finnegan Yes. 22:50 Knieshia Isn't that funny? 22:51 Knieshia I never thought about that, John. 22:53 Knieshia Twice. 22:53 Sean Finnegan That's what I'm hearing, but I wasn't there. 22:56 Sean Finnegan So I'm just trying to understand, you know, how it all went down. 22:59 Sean Finnegan Because let's face it, Kenesha, this is a huge shift. 23:04 Sean Finnegan And it's risky and it has consequences because now certain Christians, at least, 23:09 Sean Finnegan will treat you badly because you no longer toe the party line on what you're supposed to say about Jesus and God. 23:15 Knieshia Right. 23:17 Sean Finnegan What verses in particular stuck out to you on this whole subject? 23:24 Knieshia Honestly, nothing in particular. 23:25 Knieshia It was the whole picture as a whole. 23:28 Knieshia I couldn't ever find where Jesus was equal with God. 23:32 Knieshia I couldn't find where Jesus claimed to be the Father. 23:35 Knieshia I couldn't find 23:38 Knieshia Jesus never not having a God over him. 23:41 Knieshia So in my mind, I'm like, if he's the most high God, then how does the most high God have a God over him? 23:48 Knieshia That defeats the entire name, most high God, right? 23:52 Knieshia So it was a whole summation or summary of all of these things coming together that I just couldn't deny it anymore. 24:02 Knieshia And I had to ask myself the question, the serious question, 24:05 Knieshia If Jesus was a man, Kanisha, does that bother you? 24:09 Knieshia Does that change what he's done and the impact that he has made on your life and who he is? 24:15 Knieshia Does that bother you? 24:17 Knieshia And I had to sit with this for a while and then I said, no, I'm not going to be ashamed of you, Jesus. 24:24 Knieshia Like as you are, everything you've done, the titles you have and the mission and everything, you are good enough for me. 24:35 Knieshia and God as you are perfect. 24:38 Knieshia You don't need to be multi-personal. 24:40 Knieshia You don't need to become a human being. 24:42 Knieshia You don't need any of these things that they keep telling me, but that I can't find in scripture. 24:45 Knieshia You are perfect as you are. 24:47 Knieshia And I made-up my mind, turned on my camera, hit record on my channel, and I was like, this is a deal, peeps. 24:56 Knieshia I don't care if you like it or not. 24:59 Knieshia And what's really funny is that people were telling me, you're gonna lose followers. 25:03 Knieshia You're gonna, everything's gonna crash and burn. 25:06 Knieshia I mean, the fear tactics, literally from the same people that said, we're doing it because we love you and saying it because we love you. 25:12 Knieshia They were telling me I'm gonna crash and burn. 25:15 Knieshia Everything in my life's gonna come falling down. 25:20 Knieshia So when I confess this to God, that 25:25 Knieshia I believe you and I accept you. 25:27 Knieshia I don't need anything else. 25:28 Knieshia I accept you exactly as you are and your son exactly as he is. 25:34 Knieshia Like in my spirit, I'm not even kidding you. 25:37 Knieshia It was like he told me not with an audible voice, but inside you're about to lose a lot of people, but I'm gonna gain many more. 25:46 Knieshia So I thought, I don't really know. 25:48 Knieshia This is me just talking. 25:50 Knieshia Almost overnight, I lost like 500 subscribers. 25:55 Knieshia And in a total, I lost 1000. 25:59 Knieshia Well, what's really funny is almost instantly after that, I gained 2000, over 2000. 26:07 Knieshia So it was like a confirmation, like, yeah. 26:14 Sean Finnegan Well, that's kind of like the walk of faith, isn't it? 26:17 Sean Finnegan That 26:19 Sean Finnegan you can, like Peter, stay in the boat because of fear, play it safe, or you can step out and see what happens, right? 26:28 Sean Finnegan And yeah, he got wet, but he also walked on water. 26:33 Sean Finnegan And so, wow, that's incredible that you were able to recover that quickly. 26:39 Sean Finnegan There was a time when they were burning us at the stake for questioning this. 26:43 Sean Finnegan And 26:45 Sean Finnegan I'm so thankful that so much has changed. 26:47 Sean Finnegan And, especially with the Internet now, you can you can get your ideas out there and people don't know where you live. 26:56 Sean Finnegan They can't, you know, mess with you like they used to be able to. 27:01 Sean Finnegan What else have you seen since you've been on this path as far as interactions with people goes? 27:08 Knieshia I've since that happens, I've gotten I don't even know how many comments and emails 27:14 Knieshia saying, Kanisha, this is happening to me too. 27:16 Knieshia Thank you for coming out and saying something because I thought I lost, I thought I was losing my mind. 27:24 Knieshia And I thought I was alone. 27:25 Knieshia And, you know, when I ran, I don't even know you, know, and I scrolled across your testimony and all these things, like it gave me confidence. 27:33 Knieshia I talked to somebody about it today that 27:35 Knieshia I'm no longer a Trinitarian or a oneness or whatever. 27:38 Knieshia So I mean, so much has good has came out of this where everybody in the world, Christians, were telling me that I was going to lose everything and everything was going to go bad for me. 27:52 Knieshia People who so-called are doing it because they love you have been calling me dog, having been saying I never was saved. 28:02 Knieshia that I hope I have fun burning in hell. 28:06 Knieshia Oh boy. 28:07 Knieshia I was never a Trinitarian. 28:09 Knieshia I never actually believed the Trinity or Jesus was God. 28:13 Knieshia I mean, so much negative. 28:15 Knieshia But what's really powerful about this, see, this is why I'm just like, it doesn't phase me, Sean. 28:20 Knieshia It doesn't phase me. 28:21 Knieshia And you would think that those things would and I would cry or something, but it hasn't phased me because it's like, how can I go wrong if I'm following exactly what Jesus says? 28:32 Knieshia And no time did Jesus claim to be God, even though the God of the Old Testament clearly, boldly, unashamedly said I'm God multiple times, thousands of times, and made it clear exactly who he was. 28:45 Knieshia And how can I go wrong when Jesus told me how to pray and who to pray to? 28:51 Knieshia How can I go wrong when Jesus points me to go through him to get to one and one alone the Father? 28:57 Knieshia Now, why would I have to go to God to get to God? 29:00 Knieshia I would have to go through God to get to God like all of these things. 29:03 Knieshia So it has done the opposite of what everyone who hates me for changing belief. 29:12 Knieshia It's doing the opposite. 29:13 Knieshia They said I'm going to crash and burn and everything in my life is going to go downhill from here. 29:19 Knieshia And God has been, the more I'm pressing into, nope, Jesus, you said, God, your word says, I'm believing what you say, the more and more God has just been giving me understanding, blessing me with people, blessing me with taking care of my household, blessing me in my marriage, blessing me in my, just every single step. 29:43 Knieshia He really is the God who hears, honestly. 29:46 Knieshia Our father takes care of us in every sense. 29:51 Knieshia And I have seen him show up and show out the most I ever have in my life since I chose this path. 29:58 Sean Finnegan And how long ago was that? 30:01 Knieshia Was, it was right before I had my baby. 30:04 Knieshia So she's five months, about six months ago. 30:06 Sean Finnegan Okay, very good. 30:08 Knieshia I stopped being a Trinitarian the last November. 30:10 Knieshia So this journey started this past November 2025. 30:14 Sean Finnegan Okay, so that 30:15 Sean Finnegan That would be maybe 10 months ago. 30:18 Sean Finnegan So as you have developed your YouTube channel, you have quite a few videos on this subject. 30:27 Sean Finnegan Like your video from, or your upcoming video is prove the deity of Jesus 1v1. 30:35 Sean Finnegan You were talking about Alpha and Omega last night, repent from the Trinity, lie before that. 30:41 Sean Finnegan Let's see, I saw some others here. 30:43 Sean Finnegan Trinitarian leave, the Trinity lie. 30:46 Sean Finnegan It's easy, it's easier to just believe what's there. 30:50 Sean Finnegan And it looks like you've had Dustin Smith on as well. 30:53 Knieshia Oh yeah, Dustin's a good friend. 30:55 Sean Finnegan Yeah, Dustin. 30:57 Sean Finnegan Jesus is different than Yahweh. 30:58 Sean Finnegan You have a number on that. 30:59 Sean Finnegan So it seems like this is a subject that you're really passionate about. 31:04 Sean Finnegan You're able to make or persuade some people. 31:08 Sean Finnegan You're probably also making some enemies. 31:10 Sean Finnegan But 31:12 Sean Finnegan why focus on this? 31:14 Sean Finnegan Why is it so important to you, I guess, is the question. 31:18 Knieshia Great question, Sean. 31:19 Knieshia It's because this is everything. 31:21 Knieshia If we have the wrong God, if we have the wrong gospel, how can we claim the benefits of it? 31:28 Knieshia And I take eternal life so much more serious than I think probably 98% of Christians do, because I've heard so many make the statement 31:41 Knieshia over and over. 31:43 Knieshia as long as we do this then. 31:47 Knieshia And for me, I'm like, no. 31:49 Knieshia How can you say you love this God, but not want all of this God? 31:55 Knieshia It doesn't matter if we feel something like it should be this way or we feel God will give us grace in this area. 32:03 Knieshia What does God say? 32:05 Knieshia And I take this so seriously because we only have one shot at this life, Sean. 32:10 Knieshia we don't reincarnate and do this over and over again. 32:14 Knieshia And that eternity is a long time to make the wrong choice. 32:18 Knieshia You know, by that time it's too late. 32:20 Knieshia And so I really sit here and since I got saved, and this is why I think God uses me, because I am a yes man. 32:26 Knieshia You're probably familiar with that term, but yes man, meaning like when God says something, I'm like, all right. 32:32 Sean Finnegan There are other topics though that you cover on your channel from time to time, I'm sure. 32:40 Sean Finnegan Would you say that in the last couple of months you have seen like, would you say there's more of a response to this subject of who Jesus is over say other subjects that you also have covered? 32:55 Sean Finnegan 100%. 32:55 Sean Finnegan Why do you think that is? 32:56 Knieshia Because people like the idea of Jesus being God more than they like anything else in the Bible. 33:02 Knieshia There's this fear that if he's not God, then the sins are not atoned for. 33:09 Knieshia Because how can a man do this? 33:11 Knieshia So people have more comfort in believing God did it and God died for you than they do for a man, right? 33:20 Knieshia But here's the wickedness behind that, is that this has been, in history, a pattern. 33:28 Knieshia See, history always repeats itself, Sean. 33:31 Knieshia And we can just read the Bible and see that. 33:34 Knieshia People want to set up something in place of God because they can't visibly see God. 33:40 Knieshia But Jesus visibly was here. 33:42 Knieshia So this is the golden calf. 33:44 Knieshia This is the something that they can touch tangibly, have a face and a name to have their God in arm's reach, basically. 33:58 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I hear you. 34:02 Sean Finnegan Certainly that idea that Jesus had to be God to pay for our sins has been around for 1,000 years now, and it's really kind of dominated a lot of people's thinking. 34:14 Sean Finnegan But really, if we consider it even just at a surface level, it doesn't make any sense. 34:20 Sean Finnegan Like if Jesus really is God, then he can't die for our sins because God's immortal. 34:29 Sean Finnegan And if God died for three days, who was keeping gravity functioning? 34:35 Sean Finnegan And who kept the protons and the neutrons stuck together inside the nucleus of the atom? 34:42 Sean Finnegan Who was doing that for three days, right? 34:45 Sean Finnegan So, you know, we'll say, oh, well, that's the Father and the Holy Spirit were doing that. 34:49 Sean Finnegan It's like, wait a second. 34:51 Sean Finnegan So Jesus is like extra to the Trinity? 34:55 Sean Finnegan He's really needed, right? 34:57 Sean Finnegan So 34:57 Sean Finnegan I don't know. 34:58 Sean Finnegan I think there's just like so many problems with this idea that God died for our sins. 35:03 Sean Finnegan And I don't think most people have really thought it through. 35:07 Sean Finnegan And if you challenge them on it, they'll probably say, you know, they'll get technical and they'll say, well, just his human nature died. 35:17 Knieshia Yep. 35:18 Sean Finnegan And to me, you know, my human nature is just like part of the total picture, right? 35:26 Sean Finnegan It's not the whole person. 35:30 Sean Finnegan So for just a whole human to die would be more valuable than just human nature dying. 35:36 Sean Finnegan So it's a less valuable sacrifice if we really want to get technical. 35:41 Sean Finnegan I agree. 35:41 Sean Finnegan And you know, Kenisha, what blows my mind about Jesus, especially in Gethsemane, is that he didn't know for sure that God would raise him from the dead. 35:53 Sean Finnegan He believed it. 35:55 Sean Finnegan just like I believe Jesus is coming back and you believe, what you believe about the future. 36:01 Sean Finnegan we believe a lot of things, but we don't know for sure. 36:07 Sean Finnegan And so Jesus had that level of trust that he could go through the crucifixion, go through with it, don't escape out the back. 36:16 Sean Finnegan But stay there, get arrested. 36:18 Sean Finnegan And then when he got arrested, don't try to get out of it. 36:21 Sean Finnegan Because I think he could have outmaneuvered Caiaphas or Pilate any number of ways legally if he wanted to get out of it. 36:29 Sean Finnegan And certainly could call on angels to get him out as well. 36:33 Sean Finnegan So he had to stay through it. 36:34 Sean Finnegan And then in his last words, when he says it is finished, he dies in faith. 36:43 Sean Finnegan but he still could be wrong, right? 36:45 Sean Finnegan So to me, that's so powerful that like there, he had to have, now if he's truly God, the whole thing is just a charade, right? 36:55 Sean Finnegan Like it's, people are going through their lines, they're acting out their parts, but like they already know 37:01 Sean Finnegan Okay, I am God, so I'm gonna raise myself. 37:04 Knieshia Right. 37:05 Sean Finnegan Come on, like there's no heroism there. 37:08 Knieshia Yeah, no, like you don't need to trust because you're doing it. 37:12 Knieshia So what do you need to trust God for? 37:14 Knieshia I mean, there's, and it's just contradiction after contradiction of what was actually there. 37:19 Knieshia And that's what the doctrine of believing Jesus is God does to you, Sean. 37:23 Knieshia You have to explain away what he actually said. 37:27 Knieshia how he actually felt, what he actually went through. 37:30 Knieshia You have to explain it away to make him God, which it's so dangerous to do that because that means you don't like the real Jesus. 37:39 Knieshia He becomes a problem for you. 37:41 Sean Finnegan Yes. 37:42 Sean Finnegan And that is a problem. 37:44 Sean Finnegan Let's face it. 37:45 Sean Finnegan You know, that seems to be like what you're all about is trusting the Bible itself, trusting what God says about God, trusting what Jesus says about Jesus, 37:56 Sean Finnegan rather than the opinions of, I don't know, creeds or confessions or dusty books. 38:04 Sean Finnegan you want to go to the sources. 38:06 Sean Finnegan I just respect that so much. 38:10 Sean Finnegan So it looks like you had an opportunity here recently to go on something called Dr. 38:17 Sean Finnegan Daf YouTube channel. 38:19 Sean Finnegan I don't know if this is also put on TV or what, looks like super. 38:26 Sean Finnegan But can you talk about this? 38:27 Sean Finnegan What can you tell us? 38:28 Knieshia Yeah, so like I said, God has just really been using me in so many ways. 38:33 Knieshia I never would have thought I would have ever been asked to do anything like this. 38:38 Knieshia But it was a conversation between 1 Trinitarian, her name is Ty, and us 3 biblical Unitarians here on the right side of the screen. 38:47 Knieshia And the topic was on the Trinity. 38:50 Knieshia So the Trinitarian got to pick all the questions, got to pick 38:54 Knieshia how everything went down. 38:56 Knieshia We were really having to feed into whatever she said and how she wanted to go down. 39:01 Knieshia But we're gonna see when this does come out, which is on October 3rd. 39:07 Knieshia But it did not turn out the way she thought it was gonna go. 39:12 Sean Finnegan Do tell. 39:14 Knieshia Yeah, she was not prepared. 39:17 Knieshia And it definitely showed. 39:19 Knieshia She was out of her league for sure. 39:21 Knieshia For sure. 39:22 Knieshia I think she went in because she's friends with God Logic and all these big Trinitarian groups. 39:29 Knieshia So she, I feel, and she's young. 39:31 Knieshia So I'm giving her some grace and ignorance and kind of just immaturity that we all deal with. 39:39 Knieshia But she really came in thinking she was going to just knock it down. 39:43 Sean Finnegan She was going to wipe the floor. 39:44 Knieshia Wipe the floor. 39:45 Knieshia Attitude as soon as she came in. 39:47 Sean Finnegan And this was in person too. 39:48 Sean Finnegan Like you actually went to California? 39:51 Knieshia LA Studios, yeah. 39:53 Sean Finnegan Incredible. 39:53 Sean Finnegan What an awesome opportunity. 39:55 Sean Finnegan And like this channel, Dr. 39:57 Sean Finnegan Daf, gets like millions of views on their videos, right? 40:02 Knieshia Yes. 40:03 Knieshia Yep. 40:03 Sean Finnegan So this is, this could be potentially big for you to get your name out there. 40:08 Knieshia I don't even care about my name out there. 40:09 Knieshia I want people to, for the first time in their life, say, what if, let me just see, like, let me just check. 40:16 Knieshia What did she say? 40:17 Knieshia What scripture is that? 40:18 Knieshia Like, that's my hope. 40:20 Knieshia And it's my hope every time I have these conversations. 40:23 Knieshia I don't care if I stay, I keep telling the father, keep me tiny. 40:27 Knieshia Don't **** ** up. 40:28 Knieshia Like, keep me tiny. 40:30 Knieshia As long as they see the video and it makes them open this up, use me all day long. 40:37 Knieshia And that's what I'm most excited for, Sean. 40:39 Knieshia I don't even care if they could forget my name or just say girl with the hat and not even look at my channel. 40:45 Knieshia But if they listen to the words. 40:47 Knieshia Yeah, you did have a hat. 40:48 Knieshia Yes. 40:52 Knieshia And that's the hat right there. 40:53 Knieshia I'm not a girly girl. 40:55 Knieshia I don't do makeup and like things like that. 40:56 Knieshia I'm just casual type of woman. 41:00 Sean Finnegan Who's the other two on your side there? 41:04 Knieshia In the middle is Courtney. 41:05 Knieshia She's a recent biblical Unitarian as well from being a Unitarian. 41:11 Knieshia The beautiful gal in the dress at the end, that's Miss Elizabeth. 41:14 Knieshia That's Luke Jones' wife. 41:15 Knieshia I don't know if you know who Luke Jones is, but fantastic couple. 41:20 Knieshia You guys love them to pieces. 41:22 Knieshia And so it was a really strong, strong team for sure. 41:28 Sean Finnegan Nice, I love a strong team. 41:31 Sean Finnegan Nothing worth being on a team where everyone's 41:34 Sean Finnegan Yeah, exactly. 41:35 Knieshia No, it was strong. 41:38 Knieshia We came in strong. 41:39 Knieshia That's why I said the Trinitarian. 41:40 Sean Finnegan You know what I love about this too is that what I love about this too is that people are going to watch this because of the, you know, the Trinitarian side. 41:52 Sean Finnegan You know what I mean? 41:53 Sean Finnegan Like, oh, I'm going to come in there and wipe the floor with the, you know, these 41:58 Sean Finnegan It takes 3 biblical Unitarians against one, the whole optics of it, I think are going to sell really well to the Trinitarian audience, which is awesome because those are the people that you want to have access to in order to ask them questions about, what about this? 42:15 Sean Finnegan What about that? 42:16 Sean Finnegan So I think this could potentially reach a lot of people, which is, will certainly be exciting if that pans out. 42:26 Sean Finnegan What else can you share about your experience going there and doing this? 42:32 Knieshia It was just all a God thing, honestly. 42:34 Knieshia I didn't have the funds. 42:35 Knieshia I'm A stay-at-home mom. 42:36 Knieshia You know what I'm saying? 42:37 Knieshia My husband works two jobs, 70 hour weeks, literally has gone from 5 in the morning, actually even earlier than that, 4.30 to get there at 5, doesn't come home till late at night. 42:48 Knieshia And this is seven days a week. 42:49 Knieshia So I'm literally always at home by myself with the babies. 42:54 Knieshia And 42:55 Knieshia We don't have the funds for that. 42:56 Knieshia He has to work that much so we can pay our bills. 42:58 Knieshia You know what I'm saying? 42:59 Knieshia Every penny goes to these things. 43:02 Knieshia And Will Walkie, Will, said, why don't you start a GoFundMe? 43:08 Knieshia And I was, I just don't ever ask anybody for money. 43:11 Knieshia In real life, you'll never catch me asking you for money. 43:14 Knieshia If I don't work for it, it looks like I ain't gonna have it. 43:17 Knieshia Like, that's how I feel. 43:19 Knieshia Right? 43:19 Knieshia So doing that was really like, 43:21 Knieshia I don't want to, but I felt like it was okay. 43:25 Knieshia Again, just like that, not an audible voice, but just in my spirit, I felt like it's okay. 43:32 Knieshia Like, do it so you can go and do my will, right? 43:37 Knieshia Well, I made a GoFundMe and within just a few hours, like 4 hours, five hours, made the $1000.75 that I need, or $1075 that I needed 43:49 Knieshia to go pay for the hotel because they don't pay for anything, which I think is crazy. 43:55 Knieshia The hotel, the plane ticket, the cab, the food. 44:00 Knieshia And it was literally because I just had a baby. 44:03 Knieshia I was leaving on Saturday, coming back Sunday night. 44:07 Knieshia So I went non sleep. 44:08 Sean Finnegan Wow. 44:09 Knieshia Yeah. 44:10 Knieshia Traveling. 44:11 Knieshia When you guys see me, I'm literally going off of maybe, 4 hours of sleep. 44:18 Sean Finnegan My goodness. 44:19 Knieshia Yeah. 44:21 Sean Finnegan So how, wait, say it one more time. 44:23 Sean Finnegan How many hours was the GoFundMeUp before you gave your number? 44:29 Sean Finnegan Four or five hours. 44:30 Knieshia Yeah, all of it. 44:32 Sean Finnegan That's awesome. 44:33 Sean Finnegan What does that tell you? 44:35 Knieshia How much I needed? 44:36 Knieshia $1,075. 44:36 Knieshia Guess how much I exactly got? 44:40 Sean Finnegan $1,075. 44:41 Sean Finnegan There you go. 44:41 Knieshia I'm not kidding. 44:43 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 44:44 Sean Finnegan Well, that tells me that people want to support 44:46 Sean Finnegan this kind of work and they want to see this succeed. 44:50 Sean Finnegan So that's really cool. 44:53 Sean Finnegan Are you thinking about coming to the UCA conference in Arizona? 44:57 Sean Finnegan Any chance of seeing you there next month? 45:00 Knieshia I've thought about it. 45:02 Knieshia would have to be another God miracle because I'm actually, a lot of life is happening right now. 45:11 Knieshia I'm having to take in my dad who has dementia and Alzheimer's, so he'll be here any day. 45:17 Knieshia And I don't know how this is going to plan out. 45:21 Knieshia Plus, I obviously have two very needy little ones. 45:26 Knieshia Yeah. 45:26 Sean Finnegan We'll see. 45:27 Sean Finnegan Maybe, not. 45:30 Sean Finnegan And people can find you. 45:31 Sean Finnegan They can type in teach Yahweh or teach YHWH to find you. 45:37 Sean Finnegan Is there anything else that you 45:40 Sean Finnegan would like to mention about how people can get in touch with you or I guess you do a lot of live streams and people can watch that after the fact or they could jump on. 45:54 Sean Finnegan Do you have like a certain time when you do that or is it just like as and when? 46:00 Knieshia No, it's random. 46:02 Knieshia Everything is random. 46:03 Knieshia There's no set times, but I do go live about like at least four times a week. 46:08 Knieshia My channel, like he said, is teach TEACH space YHWH teach Yahweh and my e-mail is GODANDSTUF at gmail.com. 46:24 Knieshia So that's God and stuff, but with only one F at gmail.com. 46:29 Knieshia Just an encouragement for the audience. 46:32 Knieshia If you're watching this and you're in that state of you don't know, 46:39 Knieshia I just encourage you to just be okay with checking yourself and checking your own beliefs. 46:46 Knieshia Do not fear. 46:47 Knieshia God is not looking down on you by double checking yourself. 46:50 Knieshia I promise you. 46:51 Knieshia He actually blesses those who diligently seek him. 46:55 Knieshia And when you do do that, please do it unbiasedly. 47:00 Knieshia The way I like to reference this, it's going to be direct. 47:04 Knieshia but it's very important that you see it this way. 47:06 Knieshia If somebody was abusing me, do I go to my abuser and say, hey, are you abusing me? 47:13 Knieshia No, I have to take myself out of that situation to see the full picture that I'm in abusement. 47:20 Knieshia Now I use that, I know that's a strong reference, 47:24 Knieshia But that's exactly how deception works. 47:27 Knieshia You don't realize you're in deception if you go to the deception to see if you're in deception. 47:31 Knieshia You must take yourself out of that situation and examine your environment and examine your beliefs, examine yourself and be okay more and more every day with examining yourself. 47:44 Sean Finnegan Very good. 47:45 Sean Finnegan All right. 47:45 Sean Finnegan Well, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me today. 47:49 Knieshia Thank you so much, Sean. 47:50 Knieshia God bless you. 47:51 Knieshia Thanks for putting up with the kids in the back. 47:53 Knieshia By the way, everybody, if you're watching my channel, that's a regular. 47:58 Knieshia So if you don't like hearing the noise in the back, my channel is probably not the best for you, but I'm doing the best I can as a stay-at-home mom. 48:06 Sean Finnegan Awesome. 48:06 Sean Finnegan Well, thanks. 48:11 Sean Finnegan that brings this interview to an end. 48:13 Sean Finnegan What did you think? 48:14 Sean Finnegan Come on over to restitudio.org and find episode 671. 48:18 Sean Finnegan Lost 1,000 subscribers when I quit teaching the deity of Christ, then God showed up with Kanisha. 48:24 Sean Finnegan On last week's episode 670, I almost became a Jehovah's Witness, then I found Biblical Unitarians with Will Turner. 48:32 Sean Finnegan Joe wrote in on Spotify saying, I was raised a devout Mormon but fell away as a teenager. 48:37 Sean Finnegan 20 years later, I was basically agnostic. 48:41 Sean Finnegan I started taking religion more seriously after listening to Jordan Peterson breaking down Genesis. 48:47 Sean Finnegan My neighbor is a pastor. 48:49 Sean Finnegan He explained the Trinity, but I just saw nonsense. 48:52 Sean Finnegan That led me to the Tuggy White debate a few years ago. 48:56 Sean Finnegan Dale crushed it. 48:57 Sean Finnegan That led me to the UCA. 49:00 Sean Finnegan Sadly, there's no church within 100 miles except Jehovah's Witnesses. 49:05 Sean Finnegan I checked them out, but their authoritarianism instantly made me say no. 49:10 Sean Finnegan Well, Joe, thanks for writing in and for your honesty about your own journey. 49:17 Sean Finnegan You are certainly correct that we are in desperate need of more biblical Unitarian churches across the United States and across the world. 49:27 Sean Finnegan This is something that I too have noticed and that I am very interested in helping to solve. 49:33 Sean Finnegan If you or someone is interested in starting a church, what we call planting a church, I encourage you, go over to the website lhim.org, stands for Living Hope International Ministries.org, and under the Connect tab, click Let's Start Churches Together. 49:50 Sean Finnegan And there's an application you can fill out there and we can see if we can work together to help you start a church or 49:59 Sean Finnegan We may know somebody that would be a better fit, some organization that would be a better fit for you than Living Hope International Ministries, and I can refer you to them. 50:07 Sean Finnegan But this is definitely a major area. 50:10 Sean Finnegan We have so many scattered individuals all over the place. 50:13 Sean Finnegan But as we have developed some maps, especially on Unitarian Christian Alliance.org, but also LHIM.org and other websites, people are increasingly noticing that there are others in their town or a town over. 50:26 Sean Finnegan that hold the same beliefs. 50:28 Sean Finnegan And maybe you don't have enough to start a church, but you can start an in-home Bible study or at least meeting for encouragement over coffee. 50:35 Sean Finnegan And just having a person to support you and to be with you, I think is such a great benefit when you do feel isolated. 50:43 Sean Finnegan So this is definitely something we are looking to solve. 50:46 Sean Finnegan And I encourage any of you who are not yet listing yourselves on the various directories out there, 50:53 Sean Finnegan Again, UnitarianChristianAlliance.org is the big directory for biblical Unitarians of all different types. 50:59 Sean Finnegan But then also if you share beliefs a little more similar to mine, namely belief in the kingdom of God and in the sleep of the dead and so forth, check out LHIM.org where there is another directory there which is a little more narrowly focused on those kinds of beliefs. 51:15 Sean Finnegan Now also on that same episode from last week, we got in a bunch of comments on YouTube, as we typically do. 51:24 Sean Finnegan Someone named Daniel said, enjoyed your story. 51:26 Sean Finnegan It is very hard for non-Trinitarian Christians to find fellowship. 51:30 Sean Finnegan And the hang-up for me as a non-Trinitarian, born-again Christian with biblical Unitarians is Jesus pre-existing. 51:37 Sean Finnegan I think his pre-existence is a slam dunk and the entire motivation for Yahweh. 51:42 Sean Finnegan That's my hang-up with Dr. 51:44 Sean Finnegan Dale Tukey too, who is super awesome, but biblical Unitarians seem very logical and surgical in their approach to the relationship of father and son versus rejoicing in the relationship between Jesus and Yehovah. 51:57 Sean Finnegan It's Yehovah's desire slash will that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father, right? 52:04 Sean Finnegan So that's the core gospel, that relationship. 52:07 Sean Finnegan God didn't paper, rock, scissors decide who to send, but rather gave his best, closest companion for us. 52:14 Sean Finnegan John says the world came into existence through him, Jesus, but it did not know him. 52:20 Sean Finnegan All right, well, thanks for writing in, Daniel. 52:23 Sean Finnegan I have to disagree with you on some of what you said there, but I do appreciate you engaging and sharing your own experience as a subordinationist Unitarian who believes in the literal pre-existence of Jesus. 52:37 Sean Finnegan There certainly are other biblical Unitarians who fall into that category who believe Jesus pre-existed as a spirit being or an angel. 52:46 Sean Finnegan Of course, the Jehovah's Witnesses would be the largest group that holds that particular position that I know of at least. 52:53 Sean Finnegan But there are plenty of others that hold that too. 52:55 Sean Finnegan And pre-existence is not a deal breaker for the Unitarian Christian Alliance. 53:00 Sean Finnegan The UCA welcomes both those who don't believe in the pre-existence of Jesus and those who do. 53:06 Sean Finnegan So that's kind of an interesting point. 53:09 Sean Finnegan Now as to your specific remarks about how biblical Unitarians seem very logical and surgical, that is certainly the case with Dr. 53:18 Sean Finnegan Dale Tuggy. 53:19 Sean Finnegan I mean, he's an analytic philosopher from an Ivy League school. 53:24 Sean Finnegan I should hope he's logical and surgical. 53:27 Sean Finnegan That's really his background. 53:29 Sean Finnegan And if he's not logical and surgical, then he's not being true to his training. 53:33 Sean Finnegan And you see that a lot with analytic philosophers and especially the more recent analytic theologians as well. 53:40 Sean Finnegan And that's their lane. 53:43 Sean Finnegan That's where they flourish and that's where they dominate. 53:46 Sean Finnegan But you shouldn't universalize Dale Tuggie 53:49 Sean Finnegan as if he is the standard biblical Unitarian out there. 53:52 Sean Finnegan Just like Trinitarian Christians, Unitarian Christians come in all stripes and shapes and colors and sizes. 54:00 Sean Finnegan There are charismatic ones. 54:01 Sean Finnegan There are very straight-laced ones. 54:04 Sean Finnegan There are those who believe in exhaustive foreknowledge, even Calvinist ones. 54:10 Sean Finnegan It's hard to even imagine that's the case, but yeah, I know a couple of Calvinist biblical Unitarians. 54:16 Sean Finnegan There are lots of ones that don't really focus on doctrine, are more concerned about practical application. 54:25 Sean Finnegan And there's a full range, just like in any different kind of, you know, we're looking at one particular belief here. 54:32 Sean Finnegan So there's 54:33 Sean Finnegan millions of people that hold this view and they're going to be different on lots of different things. 54:38 Sean Finnegan So don't universalize Dale as great as he is at what he does. 54:42 Sean Finnegan He is not representative of all biblical Unitarians. 54:47 Sean Finnegan And then on to your next point that we should honor the Son even as we honor the Father. 54:51 Sean Finnegan That is a very commonly misunderstood text from John chapter 5. 54:56 Sean Finnegan The immediate context there is that we would 55:00 Sean Finnegan recognize Jesus's role as the Son of Man. 55:03 Sean Finnegan That's really what it's talking about there. 55:05 Sean Finnegan And that we would honor Jesus as the judge because the Ancient of Days has given to the Son of Man the responsibility of God's judgment of the nations. 55:17 Sean Finnegan And so we would honor the Son as we honor the Father because he is the Son of Man. 55:22 Sean Finnegan He's playing the role that has been granted to him. 55:25 Sean Finnegan It's not 55:26 Sean Finnegan an absolute statement that in every way that we honor the Father, we should honor the Son. 55:30 Sean Finnegan Obviously, we should not honor the Son as being the Most High God because the Son is not the Most High God. 55:36 Sean Finnegan That doesn't make any sense. 55:39 Sean Finnegan We shouldn't honor the Son for sending His own Son to die for our sins because that doesn't make any sense, right? 55:44 Sean Finnegan So I think we have to recognize that John 5 has a context and that 55:49 Sean Finnegan We don't want to cherry pick out a verse or even a part of a verse and then universalize it as if it is some sort of proverb or maxim to be memorized and repeated. 56:02 Sean Finnegan Your next point is about the relationship between the Father and the Son. 56:07 Sean Finnegan I certainly would agree with that. 56:09 Sean Finnegan It's interesting we don't really see anything in the Bible about that relationship prior to the life of Christ on earth. 56:16 Sean Finnegan Isn't that fascinating? 56:17 Sean Finnegan We get no description 56:19 Sean Finnegan of if he existed with God, what was he doing? 56:22 Sean Finnegan We know from Hebrews chapter 1 that he wasn't talking. 56:24 Sean Finnegan He wasn't speaking on behalf of God. 56:27 Sean Finnegan So he can't be the angel of the Lord as a lot of people have speculated. 56:33 Sean Finnegan So what was he doing? 56:34 Sean Finnegan You know, that's a question I ask. 56:35 Sean Finnegan I read through the Old Testament, I read through Tanakh, and I say, what was Jesus doing here? 56:41 Sean Finnegan And I see prophecies about the Messiah to come, prophecies about the suffering servant, 56:46 Sean Finnegan but there's no indication that God's conferring with a really special person that he calls his son. 56:54 Sean Finnegan No, I don't see that anywhere. 56:56 Sean Finnegan So that's where I'm coming from on it. 56:58 Sean Finnegan Calling God Yehovah is almost certainly an error. 57:01 Sean Finnegan And I would refer you to Andrew Case, who recently came out with a great book explaining why Yahweh is probably the best way to say the name of God, not Yehovah. 57:12 Sean Finnegan It is true that the vowels 57:14 Sean Finnegan of Yehovah are present in the Masoretic text. 57:18 Sean Finnegan But that's because they're trying to get you to say a different word, not because they are actually original to the pronunciation. 57:26 Sean Finnegan And it's easy to see why people get confused on that. 57:29 Sean Finnegan But I think Yahweh is probably a better pronunciation. 57:32 Sean Finnegan Another point you made is that honoring the Son just as we honor the Father is the core gospel. 57:38 Sean Finnegan No, it's not. 57:39 Sean Finnegan That's not the gospel. 57:41 Sean Finnegan I could say that's certainly important. 57:43 Sean Finnegan that we honor Him as we honor the Father as judge, we honor the Son as judge, certainly. 57:47 Sean Finnegan But that's not the gospel. 57:49 Sean Finnegan The gospel is that God is going to heal our world. 57:52 Sean Finnegan We call that the kingdom of God. 57:54 Sean Finnegan And that in preparation for that, in advance of that, He has made a way for us to become clean, forgiven, and healed of our dysfunction, our sin, our acts of rebellion against God through the sacrifice of His Son 58:12 Sean Finnegan and his resurrection from the dead, proving him to be, in fact, the true Messiah. 58:18 Sean Finnegan So that's the gospel. 58:20 Sean Finnegan Whether or not someone recognizes Jesus as the final judge, to me, I don't think is an essential. 58:26 Sean Finnegan So I would diverge from you on that one. 58:29 Sean Finnegan Somebody called Penny wrote in saying, this was very interesting. 58:33 Sean Finnegan I was at JW for about 25 years. 58:35 Sean Finnegan Since then, I discovered biblical Unitarianism online and have been interested in learning more. 58:41 Sean Finnegan because I can't return to being a Trinitarian or JW. 58:45 Sean Finnegan Right now I'm just reading the Bible and hoping to unprogram some things, but I just couldn't go back to believing in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit being one. 58:55 Sean Finnegan Well, Penny, keep up the good work, keep studying, and see if you can meet up with other biblical Unitarians in your area and get some fellowship, as I was saying before. 59:06 Sean Finnegan Andy on the internet wrote in saying, this is painful to listen to. 59:09 Sean Finnegan A kid grows up in a good Christian home, never gets it, jumps into sin, then gets dragged into a 2,000 year old history. 59:17 Sean Finnegan Yikes. 59:18 Sean Finnegan I guess getting away from the GWs is a plus, but still, man. 59:22 Sean Finnegan Well, Andy, that's obviously where you're coming from. 59:25 Sean Finnegan You probably do believe in the deity of Christ. 59:28 Sean Finnegan So for you, it is a bad turn that Will took. 59:34 Sean Finnegan But here's the thing, I don't think Trinitarians are hearing this story over and over again. 59:40 Sean Finnegan I didn't believe in the Trinity, but just by reading the Bible alone, I came to believe in this mysterious threeness and oneness. 59:48 Sean Finnegan So I jumped on the internet and searched for others that also believe this strange new idea that I had no idea about before, but it seems really clear in the Bible. 59:59 Sean Finnegan I don't think they're getting those kinds of messages. 1:00:03 Sean Finnegan We are. 1:00:04 Sean Finnegan all the time. 1:00:06 Sean Finnegan All these different biblical Unitarian YouTube channels, podcasts, churches, ministries, denominations, we are getting this all the time. 1:00:14 Sean Finnegan People are coming to us and they're saying, look, I grew up leaving the Trinity. 1:00:18 Sean Finnegan I never wanted to question it. 1:00:19 Sean Finnegan I never wanted to suffer persecution. 1:00:21 Sean Finnegan But after reading the Bible through, 1:00:24 Sean Finnegan I didn't see it there and I had to, I had never even heard of the term biblical Unitarian. 1:00:28 Sean Finnegan I didn't even know what it was called and I just searched the internet to find what this is even called and now here I am and I'm looking for a church. 1:00:36 Sean Finnegan This is happening all the time. 1:00:37 Sean Finnegan So I wonder that you have to recognize the possibility that this could be a genuine move of God to clean out this 1:00:46 Sean Finnegan antiquated doctrine that was not originally in the Bible. 1:00:49 Sean Finnegan It crept in centuries later under intense political pressure and philosophical speculation. 1:00:56 Sean Finnegan The groundings for such philosophy, Neoplatonism, are no longer tenable in our society today, in our knowledge of the universe, our metaphysics. 1:01:06 Sean Finnegan Christians are not Platonists today, by and large. 1:01:10 Sean Finnegan And so that is the foundation upon which this Trinity idea rests. 1:01:15 Sean Finnegan And the foundation is gone, man. 1:01:17 Sean Finnegan So let's get back to the Bible and let's see what it says. 1:01:20 Sean Finnegan Jonathan Felts said, Unitarians are confused because they try to figure out God by their own thoughts, which is another way of making God in your own image. 1:01:30 Sean Finnegan They only go to the verses they think support their position while ignoring the many that show they have a false gospel and false God. 1:01:39 Sean Finnegan He goes on for quite some time from there. 1:01:42 Sean Finnegan I think you could probably 1:01:44 Sean Finnegan guess what he says from there. 1:01:45 Sean Finnegan Well, Jonathan, that is certainly an opinion that a lot of people have that were confused. 1:01:51 Sean Finnegan But if you listen to the testimony of Will Turner from last week or Kanisha from this week or many, many others on the Rest Studio podcast, what you'll discover is that people are claiming over and over again to be unconfused. 1:02:04 Sean Finnegan They're saying that they were confused when they believed there were three persons in one being, whatever that means. 1:02:11 Sean Finnegan and they couldn't really understand it. 1:02:14 Sean Finnegan And there's of course the adage that says, if you try to understand the Trinity, you'll lose your mind, but if you fail to confess it, you'll lose your soul. 1:02:23 Sean Finnegan And that I think nicely expresses this appeal to mystery we find all too common because of the confusion generated by the Trinitarian model of understanding God. 1:02:35 Sean Finnegan Whereas 1:02:36 Sean Finnegan Coming to the Unitarian side, we are unconfused. 1:02:39 Sean Finnegan We are undeceived. 1:02:40 Sean Finnegan We're just like, okay, the Father is God, period. 1:02:43 Sean Finnegan It's so simple. 1:02:45 Sean Finnegan All the Jews believed it in ancient times and still to this day. 1:02:49 Sean Finnegan And where did Christianity come from? 1:02:50 Sean Finnegan It came from Judaism. 1:02:52 Sean Finnegan Don't be anti-Semitic in your theology. 1:02:55 Sean Finnegan We need to recognize and consider deeply the debt of gratitude we owe 1:03:01 Sean Finnegan to the ancestors of our faith, the Jewish people, as we read, especially in the Old Testament, and they're clear declarations of God's oneness over and over and over again. 1:03:11 Sean Finnegan He is God and there is no other. 1:03:14 Sean Finnegan So I'm gonna stick with that. 1:03:16 Sean Finnegan And I don't wanna ignore data that goes against my position. 1:03:19 Sean Finnegan I wanna consider the data that 1:03:21 Sean Finnegan people say goes against my position. 1:03:23 Sean Finnegan We want to work all scripture together. 1:03:25 Sean Finnegan We want to have a thoroughly systematic theology that fits as well as we can understand it with the Bible, recognizing that we are, of course, limited and there is much to learn. 1:03:36 Sean Finnegan Well that's going to be it for comments today. 1:03:39 Sean Finnegan I hope to see some of you folks next month at the UCA conference in Arizona. 1:03:46 Sean Finnegan Check out more detail about that at UnitarianChristianAlliance.org. 1:03:50 Sean Finnegan If you live in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Northwestern Mexico, and certainly Arizona, please come to this event. 1:04:03 Sean Finnegan It's going to be in Phoenix. 1:04:04 Sean Finnegan Or if you can get on a plane like I'm going to do from New York, 1:04:07 Sean Finnegan Let's meet up in the Phoenix area at the 2026 Unitarian Christian Alliance Conference. 1:04:13 Sean Finnegan All the details are at UnitarianChristianAlliance.org. 1:04:16 Sean Finnegan I am going to be speaking there as are a number of others that you don't want to miss. 1:04:20 Sean Finnegan And I hope to encounter many of you there. 1:04:22 Sean Finnegan But that's it for this week. 1:04:23 Sean Finnegan If you'd like to support us, the best way you could do that is to share this episode with others, whatever platform you're listening to it on. 1:04:30 Sean Finnegan Also, if you'd like to support Restitudio with a monthly donation, that is such a blessing and such a help. 1:04:37 Sean Finnegan for us to keep this podcast going. 1:04:41 Sean Finnegan We started in 2015, so we're now 11 years old. 1:04:44 Sean Finnegan Wow. 1:04:45 Sean Finnegan And thanks to those of you who have supported this from the beginning and those who have come on in more recent years. 1:04:53 Sean Finnegan So you can do that and get more information at restitudio.org. 1:04:57 Sean Finnegan I'll catch you next week. 1:04:58 Sean Finnegan And remember, the truth has nothing to fear.