Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - Relatable & Informed About What Matters [Featuring Allie Beth Stuckey]

Episode Date: May 4, 2024

“If we are to love other people in our lives the way that God has called us to love them, that means speaking the truth about primary issues,” Allie Beth Stuckey said during this podcast with Pastor Allen Jackson. Stuckey, a mom, wife, and the host of the popular podcast “Relatable,” joined Pastor Allen to discuss the importance of being a voice for biblical truth and overcoming the challenges that come with that assignment. Stuckey’s mission is to help strengthen people (and especially women) theologically, so they allow the Bible to form their opinions on current issues—not the culture around them. They discuss the importance of upholding a biblical worldview, gender issues, abortion, the value of life, following Christ at college, redemption, and Stuckey’s new book, “Toxic Empathy,” which releases this fall. More information about Allie Beth Stuckey:Website:https://alliebethstuckey.com/“Relatable” Podcast:https://alliebethstuckey.com/category/podcast/--It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you.Listen on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6dListen on Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

Because it's not that you have the power to clean yourself up and you're just not yet. It's that you're dead and your sin. Dead people can't clean themselves up. They can't get the stench of death off of them. There's nothing that they can do to save themselves. Jesus, Ephesians 2 actually had to make us alive, not just make us better, make us alive, and give us a whole new self. And so that's what Christianity offers.

Christianity says there is nothing that you can do to save yourself. It is only by grace through faith that you can get salvation, and that salvation is for anyone. Well, welcome. My guest today is Ali B. Stucky. If you don't know her, I am honored to be able to make the introduction. She's a wife, a mom of three. She's the host of the podcast, Relatable. She is a powerful voice in our nation for a biblical worldview on behalf of family. Allie, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I am so proud of you and grateful for the work you're doing. doing, I feel like as a pastor, you make my job so much easier because a young mom and wife

that is willing to tell the truth with boldness and courage, what caused you to take that stand? Well, first let me say, I'm very thankful for you because while all pastors you would think would have the same courage to say what needs to be said from the pulpit about what really are biblical issues, when we're talking about things like abortion, the family, things that it involve children, dignity of people, identity. All pastors should be talking about that. But unfortunately, a lot of shepherds of the flock just simply aren't doing that. So I just want to say, I'm very thankful for you that you are willing to say simply what the Bible says. So for me, I have always loved to talk. I've always loved to write.

I've always loved communicating. That part is it new. But it was probably about 2015, living in a college town. I was living in Athens, Georgia. I just graduated college myself, Fermin University, moved to the area for a job in PR. And I was among a lot of college students, particularly sorority girls. I was leading a Bible study at the time. And I realized that, wow, these young Christian women don't really have the words to express a biblical worldview, especially when it comes to voting. It was right before the big 2016. election, very contentious. And God just kind of created this intersection with what I love to do, and that's talk and communicate and have a passion to do, which is speak about things that matter.

And then that crazy election season where a lot of those college students were really paying attention for the first time. So that's how it started. And then God has just been so gracious to kind of grow this over the past, gosh, it's been almost nine years now. And so, as you said, now I have the podcast and books and speaking, but I really just see my role as speaking about the things that matter, that yes, have a political impact, yes, have a cultural impact. But again, at the end of the day, are really fundamentally theological issues that I really, really desire particularly Christian women to have a biblical perspective on. That is so good. You know, you're here at the church because we're in the midst of a culture

and Christianity Conference, which even the idea of that is almost anathema amongst a lot of Christians. So I not only think it's appropriate for us to talk about current events, I think it's our assignment. And I mean, clearly you've leaned into that heavily, but maybe some of the people listening and they're not sure how to talk to their friends or their family, if it's appropriate, or their friends say, I don't want to be political. I don't think it's political to say God created male and female or marriage was God's idea. Right. But can you? you offer some encouragement to those people that are a bit reluctant? Yeah, look, it is difficult.

I just want to acknowledge that. When you've got someone in your life that you love, whose opinions you value, you don't want to cause a rift. You don't want to cause division. You don't want to alienate them, especially if this is someone, say they're not a believer, they're somewhere in their faith that is not very strong and you're trying to witness to them. The last thing that you want to do is cause disagreements on things that you might see as secondary

and tertiary. And there is some validity to that. But look, when we're talking about marriage, when we're talking about gender, when we're talking about abortion, when we're talking about these really existential issues because they have to do with human existence, we're not talking about secondary and tertiary issues. We're not talking about things on the periphery. We're talking about things that matter theoretically. They also matter to the survival of our society. And so rather than kind of, I would say, exchanging. biblical love for niceness. That's what we do in a lot of our relationships. We think that God

has commanded us not to love our neighbor, but to just be nice to our neighbor. And that's not true. He's commanded us to love those in our life. And 1 Corinthians 136 says love love rejoices with the truth. And so if we are called to love our neighbor, and 1 John 4,8, tells us that God is love, so he defines love. And 1 Corinthians 136 says that he defines love is not ever rejoicing in evil, but rejoicing in the truth. And that means our obligation to love those in our life means that we must speak the truth to them. And we must speak to the truth to them about these fundamental biblical issues. Again, when you're talking about the family and babies and the definitions of all these things, dignity of all of these things, we're not going to some random

verses in the Bible that don't matter. We're going to the very first chapter of the first book of the Bible. God cared about these things so much that he put it in the very first chapter. He didn't want us to miss it. And he really answered all of these culture war questions in one verse in Genesis 127. He made them male and female in his image. So right there, we get the definition of male and female. We get the definition of marriage. And we see how much human beings are worth, even human beings inside the womb. So right there, we get the answers to all the questions. If they matter that much to God, they have to matter that much to us. And if we are to love other people in our life the way that God has called us to love them, that means speaking the truth about these primary issues.

I couldn't agree with you more. And your theology is right, too, that the big ideas of the Bible are introduced in those early chapters. Those first 11 chapters of Genesis give us the big rock ideas. Right. And all of them feed, they're built one upon another. Canaan Abel, God told two brothers what an appropriate sacrifice was. And one cooperated and one didn't. The one who chose not to cooperate got mad at the one who did. And it's really no different today.

Yeah. You know, we all know there is a God. We choose to yield to him or not. And the people that are most angry are the people who choose not to yield to God. Yeah. And they don't want us to say anything because they don't want to be reminded of it.

Yep. You're absolutely right. It's an awkward place. And the church, I struggle to understand the ambivalence of the church today. If somebody were stealing our golf clubs or damaging our automobile, we would do whatever it took to get our golf clubs back or to protect our car. And we're losing a million babies a year. And the church says, well, I don't want to offend anybody or

I don't want to be impolite. I will be impolite to protect the children. Right. And I hear how you have processed that and your views have clarified and gained boldness. And I, I, I, I know that isn't easy to have the courage to say. I've heard you do it in other settings. And I sit in the back of the room just cheering and applauding. Well, thank you. Yeah, it's, you know, it's not, it's not always easy. And of course, I don't always do it perfectly. I can look back and think of times where I wish maybe I would have had more courage, whether it's behind a microphone or just in relationships in my life. No one has been perfect in being as steady and consistent and courageous as they should have been. But the point is, you have to learn from your

past cowardice and try not to repeat it because God has given us not a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, a spirit of self-control. And I can control the anxiety or the desire that I have for someone's approval and channel that desire into trying to be approved of by the God who purchased me with his son. And part of that is saying things that are really difficult. And I would love to say it doesn't bother me when I get messages from people hateful. A lot of it doesn't, honestly, because I understand that when you turn the lights on and someone's been sleeping for a long time, their reaction isn't going to be pleasant. That's just true. It hurts to turn the lights on after you're so used to darkness. But it does hurt when it comes

from professing Christians. It does. When they say that we're being too harsh on abortion or we're being, we're not being loving enough to use someone's preferred pronouns or whatever it is that we talk about these issues that are just too divisive and polarizing and they even go so far as sometimes to question your intentions or even maybe your salvation. I mean, that is, that's difficult. But here's what I also think about. I think about in the New Testament, how Stephen was described as being full of grace and power. Jesus was described. Jesus was described as being full of grace and truth, full of grace, full of power, full of truth. Any of us would want to be described like that.

I would want to be described as full of grace and full of truth. What happened to them? Stephen, after he spoke up and shared the gospel to the crowd, he was stoned to death. What happened to Jesus? He was crucified. So we cannot measure our obedience by people's reception to what we say. That is so good. or their approval of what we say, or how many people are following us, or how many nice messages

that we're getting, how many op-eds we're getting in the Washington Post or the New York Times. In fact, if we're getting tons of approval from the secular world, that should, we should maybe reassess what we're saying and what we're believing. But just remember that, that do not measure your obedience, do not measure your faithfulness, do not measure the truth in your words, or even your effectiveness by how many people out there are cheering you on. Remember what they did to Jesus. That is good. And if you read what Stephen said

or what Peter said on the day of Pentecost or what Jesus said, a lot of the words they used were caustic. I mean, Peter would stand up and say, you murdered the Messiah. Right. I mean, in the city of Jerusalem, that takes courage to say today, let alone 2,000 years ago.

Yes. And, you know, there's a lot of tone policing out there from people who say, okay, you might be right, but I don't like the exact way that you said it. And while I do think that we should always try to be as kind and compassion as possible, I'm not saying that we should try to be bombastic. But when you look at the words of Paul or the words of Peter or the words of Jesus, they were, according to our standards, which again, I think we've elevated niceness way too high, they were, we would say they're rude or they're mean or they're too harsh or their tone was off. The people who tone police Christians today,

because they're courageous, would have tone policed Jesus and Peter and Paul too. And so we do everything that we can to come across as compassionate and compelling, absolutely, but don't allow the peanut gallery and the tone policers to wear you down. Voddy Bakum is so fond of saying the 11th commandment is not, thou shalt be nice. Yes, yes, yes. He's absolutely right. Let's step the other side of it for just a moment, because we've lived in a culture, which could accurately be described for quite a season now as a culture of death with regard to children.

We've endorsed immorality. Those things have touched everybody that will listen to this directly and indirectly. So that I don't want this to be a message where they imagine we're shaking our finger at them and say don't. I think we also have to process that if we are repentant and we recognize that we made bad choices and we've held bad thoughts, that God has made a way for us to be free and clean and redeemed so that we don't live our lives under that shame. Amen.

The heart of our faith is the redemptive work of Jesus. Yes. And we have this two-sided assignment to speak the truth about what is right and wrong. And then to help those, because as you said, none of us are perfect. And it's not just our words where we've been imperfect. We've made poor choices. So help, if you have a young woman or a family or a young man and they've been involved in immorality or abortion, what do you say to them?

Yes, I want them to know that I understand the voice inside you is telling you, yes, but I've done this. I know that you're talking about God's grace. I know you're talking about his love, but not for me. I'm the one person you think that is outside of the realm of grace, outside. of salvation, that you're too far gone, you've done too much, you've thought too many bad thoughts, whatever you've done, you think has put you outside of God's plan of redemption, and that's not true. Amen.

That's a lie. No one is too far gone. No one is too far off. God sent his own son to die a death that all of us deserve to die on our behalf. And when you look at the story of Paul, the greatest missionary in all of history, the world's greatest evangelist, what was he doing before his conversion? He was approving of the slaughter of Christians, the slaughter of people who followed Christ, and it wasn't until he had an encounter of Christ.

And through God's grace, he was changed completely. Was he then redeemed, reconciled to God, and then he went out and spent his life preaching the gospel? If that can happen to Paul, it can happen for you. It can happen to anyone. and it sounds foolish to the world because I think the world really is more comfortable with works-based religion. They want to know, how do I get to God? What do I do? What rules can I follow? It gives us a sense of comfort that we have some control over our salvation or our holiness or our approval before God. But that's the thing about Christianity. That's why it's so radical because

lots of religions claim that they can tell you how to get to God to do all of the right things. but Christianity says you can do nothing. I am coming down the proverbial mountain to you. Because it's not that you have the power to clean yourself up and you're just not yet. It's that you're dead and your sin. Dead people can't clean themselves up. They can't get the stench of death off of them.

There's nothing that they can do to save themselves. Jesus, Ephesians 2 actually had to make us alive, not just make us better, make us alive, and give us a whole new self. And so that's what Christianity offers. Christianity says there is nothing that you can do to save yourself. It is only by grace through faith that you can get salvation. And that salvation is for anyone.

Amen. And when you recognize the magnitude of that gift that you were made alive, then our response to that is the desire to walk uprightly before the Lord. Yes. We're not earning our way, but it also makes me not want to be sloppy in that. Yeah. You know, you don't want to be a sloppy mom and feed your children occasionally or take care of them when it's convenient. Yeah.

And I don't want to take care of my relationship with the Lord that way. Right. He's done so much for us. He delivered me from the kingdom of darkness and gave me a future for all eternity in the kingdom of his son. The least I can do is engage this struggle with my carnal self that wants its way. Yes. And say, I will not let you prevail. Yes.

to honor the Lord, and I may do it in a halting way or a broken way, but I'm not going to look for cultural voices that excuse my ungodliness. I'm going to grapple with my tendency towards sin. Yes, and yes. That's why I love Ephesians 2, 8 through 10 that says, for by grace, you have been saved through faith, this is not your own doing. It is a gift. And then it goes on to say in the last, in the verse 10 there, that God had preordained the good works for us to do so that we would walk in those good works. So those good works are a product of our faith, as you're saying, not a prerequisite for our salvation. So we do have work to do. Right. We don't just say the sinner's prayer, get dunked in a pool, and then sit on our good intentions until we hear a trumpet

blow. Yeah. We're a new creation now. We have a new identity. We have new desires. And it's such good news because we're no longer, we think, or some people think that, okay, once you become a Christian, now you have, now you are enslaved to this set of rules. Well, we do become a slave to Christ. But what people didn't realize is that you're not going from freedom to slavery. You're going from slavery to sin, to slavery to Christ, a bond servant for Christ. And so everyone who is outside of Christ is already enslaved. You're just enslaved to your passions. your carnal desires and your sins. And it's really good news that we get to be freed of that.

You're the expert on this. We're going to step in your arena for a minute. Small children in a relatively healthy home emulate the behavior of their parents. And they're always insisting that me do it. You know, they want to do it. Whatever you try, they think they can do it. And I think with the new birth, that should be something of our response to God. I see it in Peter when he says, Lord, if that's you walking on the water, I want to walk too.

Yeah, yeah. And I think we have to learn to lit that loose. in us to be like what we see in the scripture and see what we see of the Lord. As we get that revelation of Jesus, then we want to live that out in the same way that the children do it imperfectly. I mean, they're clumsy. They're still mastering their motor skills. And we don't do it perfectly. We do it haltingly. And we get more flour in the kitchen and then we do in the cookie, but I still want to help. Right. And so there's no shame in the imperfection. of the way we serve the Lord, but we want to grow up in that desire.

And it is an effort. It's on the one hand, there's so much grace, just like we have grace for our children. I don't expect my two-year-old to be able to do the same thing that my four-year-old does, and I'm going to give her more help than I'll give my four-year-old in certain things, getting dressed, all of that, even if she wants her independence. And I do think, even though we always have unlimited grace from Christ and he's always helping us, there is a maturity that is expected. There is a growing up that is expected.

We're called to grow up in every way into him that is the head of the church into Christ. And so we are no longer to be children tossed to and fro on every wind and wave of doctrine. But we are to speak the truth in love. This is Ephesians, I think it's chapter three. And so there is, there should be a growth. There should be a maturation there. There should be a working out our faith. and fear and trembling. There should be greater obedience, more holiness in our lives. Not that we take

credit for, but there have to be disciplines in our life. There has to be an effort to repent of our sins, to resist sin. All of that should be growing in the life of the believer, which is why the local church is so important, my Bible reading is so important. Having Christian friends, if you're a young person, you're going on a college campus. I always say the first thing that you do, you've got to find your Christian friends. You got to go to your local church. You got to go to the local ministry. You got to find the Bible study. Doesn't matter if they're a little weird. Doesn't matter if you wouldn't hang out with them otherwise. If they are Christians, then you stick with them for the rest of your time there because every professor and every friend is going to be telling you

college. Those are your years to do what you want to do. You can be a responsible adult later. Don't buy into that life. Find your Christian friends and stick with them. And that's true for all of us in any stage of life. That is so good. Good advice. I've heard you talk. about empathy and how it can be not helpful. I understand you've even written about it. You've got a new book coming out on toxic empathy? Yes, in October, yes. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yes. So this is something that I've seen through my years talking to a lot of well-meaning, and I mean that sincerely Christian women, the reason that they're persuaded by progressive policy, not just when it comes to abortion or family or gender, sexuality, but also on things like immigration, or social justice, so-called, is because they have bleeding hearts and because they have conflated biblical love with empathy. And what I argue is that empathy can lead you to a form of Christ-like love. I think that becoming a mom has created greater empathy in me, greater empathy for other parents, empathy for children. I just see things from a different perspective because I have experienced

the life of now three children. And I know. more of what that's like. So the empathy that allows you to put yourself in someone else's shoes and say, I see that, I could feel that, I understand that. If you look at the NIV, the verse that says Jesus is a high priest that empathizes with our weaknesses, other versions say sympathizes, it means he can feel our pain. That in and of itself is not bad, but it's not enough. You do not have to be empathetic to love your neighbor. I do not have to know what it's like to be in your shoes. I don't have to have walked in your shoes. I don't have to understand your circumstance to love you as Christ has called me to love other people. We're supposed to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Some people think that that's a dictate to love ourselves. No, Jesus is saying you were born loving yourself. You seek to quench your thirst and satisfy your hunger and you seek to fulfill your longings as you so naturally seek to meet your needs, seek to meet the needs of other people. You don't have to have empathy to love other people in that biblical way. And actually thinking too much about how someone feels, putting yourself in someone else's shoes too much can actually blind you to the truth. Social justice is a great example of that. You start to empathize for the story of the criminal, the story of the murder,

and you start to think, well, they had a really tough upbringing. Maybe they shouldn't go to prison. Maybe we shouldn't be harsh on crime. Well, if you extrapolate that and you start having that kind of empathy for every criminal, then you live in an age in a society of lawlessness and anarchy that is actually creating more victims and more vulnerability. So empathy can be very harmful. It is not the driver of policy.

It cannot be the driver of policy. truth, tradeoffs, that's politics. It's a hard game. But empathy can't be first because it can actually blind us to what is just and true. Well, I think all of that has to be understood in the light of the sovereignty of God. You know, because empathy leads us to believe that our experiences ultimately are the ultimate definer of reality. And the larger story is that there is a God who's sovereign, who is the creator of all. And we don't all begin in the same place with the same circumstance or the same gifts. Right.

But God is a just judge. And we have to love one another and encourage one another through all of those differences. And I like the phrase, you talked about people being well-meaning. And we have this imagination that if I meant well, then everything after that is okay. And that's a sloppy grace. Right. Because God's called us to do more than try. When outcomes really matter, I don't care if you're trying.

You either do or you don't. it's a Yoda quote. You know, he said, he said, you either do or you don't. There is no trying. And in the Christian community, we've given all this license. And I think we've got to come back with a bit more seriousness in our faith. We don't take ourselves too seriously. But the God we worship and the assignments we've been given, as a mother, as a wife,

as a sister in Christ, as a part of the community of faith, those are roles that define. our perspective in time and eternity. Yes, yes. And so well-meaning is not enough, well-prepared, well-trained, disciplined, committed, a life of honor and respect and duty. We've almost lost all of those things. Yeah. And I'm so appreciative that from your life stage and the place you are,

the courage with which you pick them up and talk to people about it. And the transparency. because you kind of let us listen to you grow as your thoughts mature and your experiences emerge. You have been honest enough to let those of us that will listen to your podcast grow along with you. And that is a valuable, valuable gift. Please don't stop doing that. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

And what you're saying, I think that some Christians, because this world is so chaotic and it's scary. As a mom of young kids, I understand. I don't like picturing the future sometimes when I think about the law. conclusion of where some of these ideologies are inevitably going to take us. And I remember, though, one, of course, that God is sovereign, that Jesus wins in the end. We can trust that. I don't have the capacity to care about or do all things at once. And so I remember our limited capacity. But it's easy to feel like we just want to escape and just think about the fact that Jesus is coming back and just think about the fact that one day will be in heaven and just

think about the fact that we won't have all these problems one day anymore. So let's just not worry about what's going on in the world. And that's not quite right because God, if God just wanted you in heaven, he wouldn't have made you for the here and the now, but he puts you in a body. He puts you in 2024. He puts you in the family, in the city, in the town, in the church, in the job that he placed you and not arbitrarily or accidentally,

but purposely. If he didn't want you to do something in the material world, He never would have sent you here. But here we are. And God cares so much about the material world. We have to be careful not to embrace some form of Christian Gnosticism where we believe that there isn't value in the material because there is. I mean, God became flesh.

And we are going to have a resurrection of the body. And God is going to give us a new heaven and a new earth. He cares so much about all of this stuff that it's all part of his grand plan. of redemption. That's how much he cares about the material world. That's how much he cares about time. He created it. He loves it. He loves the body. He loves the earth. He loves his creation and he cares what we do here. And earlier, when we were on a panel together and Kirk said something really wise, he said, if God wanted to get rid of evil forever, get rid of all of the evil doers, do away with abortion, do away with all the wickedness, he could. He doesn't need us. And yet we see throughout scripture

that God chooses to do things through a process. He chooses to work through the obedience of believers. He doesn't need our prayer. And yet we're told that the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. He doesn't need our evangelism. And yet he tells us to go out and make disciples. He's sovereign and can do anything he wants to. And yet he has preordained that he would use the efforts and the faithfulness of the church to accomplish his will. And if he didn't care about the here and the now, he wouldn't have done any of this. He wouldn't have started it, but he does. And he cares about his eternal plan of redemption. It's always going off without a hitch, but he is gracious to allow us to be a part of it. And one of the great mysteries of the Bible is that

God loves us. It's never explained. It's simply stated and asserted. And he loves us so much that he allows us to participate in his purposes like you described. It remains a mystery to me. Why? And all of our brokenness and my complaining and my whining and my reluctance and my heels dug in.

God still invites me into his stuff. And occasionally I wake up and up to go, oh, thank you. But you're right, it's the great gift in our life. Well, my guest today is Ali B. Stucky. She has a podcast. You can hear a lot more of this and it is worth the investment of your time called Relatable.

She has a book coming out later this year. Maybe we can talk again, toxic empathy when you get ready for that. We're doing a conference this week called Culture and Christianity. God loves you. He has an assignment for you. Give him your best. He will bring new opportunities to your life. He will not put limits on it.

God is the delimiter. It's exciting to serve him. Allie, I thank you for what you're doing and joining us today. Thank you very much. Likewise. Thank you. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too.

If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.