Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1008 | Dr. John MacArthur on Preparing Our Kids for Battle

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

Starting point is 00:00:19 We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Dr. John McArthur has been the pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California since 1969. He is given over 3,300 sermons. He is a husband of over 60 years to his wife, Patricia. He is a father, grandfather, great grandfather, his ministry has had an impact through the power of the Holy Spirit on millions and millions of people.

Starting point is 00:01:10 And he is here today to talk about his new book, The War on Children. as we often say on relatable children are always the unconsenting subjects of progressive social experiments. Satan seems to have it out for children and it feels like an especially scary time to be a Christian parent. But Dr. John McArthur is here today to encourage us as well as to respond to some of the backlash that he's received in recent weeks over comments that he made about mental illness and mental health. We've got all of that and more on today's episode of of Relatable. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far. So we are going to get into this conversation with John McArthur. Maybe you have seen his name recently. He went

Starting point is 00:02:08 viral on X for saying that PTSD does not exist. Here's Sot 1. There's no such thing as PTSD. There's no such thing as OCD. There's no such thing as ADHD. There's no such thing as ADHD. Those are noble lies to basically give the excuse to, in the end of the day, to medicate people. And big farmers in charge of a lot of that. This caused quite a bit of backlash on social media, several Christians claiming that this is dangerous. But he is going to explain exactly why he said, what he said. said and what he really meant at the end of our conversation today. First, we are going to get into his new book, The War on Children, why this is such a uniquely dangerous time for children, but why we can

Starting point is 00:03:11 absolutely trust as parents in God's sovereignty and what God will do through our children. He is going to give us advice on what it looks like to live life in light of the hope that we have in Christ, even when the age that we are raising children in is so chaotic, you are going to be so encouraged by this conversation. Before we get into it, just a couple announcements or one request, actually, if you could please leave, if you love this podcast, if you have benefited from it at all, if you could please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, if that's where you listen, or if you listen on Spotify, you can leave a positive review there. but a five-star review on Apple Podcasts would mean so much.

Starting point is 00:03:53 If you watch these episodes, make sure that you are getting the notifications. Make sure that you like and subscribe. That helps us a lot too. Also, there will be no episode. There will be no episode on Memorial Day. So no episode on Monday. We will be back here on Tuesday and everyone hopefully will enjoy your safe and fun in the sun weekend. All right.

Starting point is 00:04:18 That's all we've got. That's enough pream. here is Dr. John MacArthur. Dr. McArthur, thanks so much for taking the time to join us again. You know, I heard you tell a story not too long ago about your great grandson and he was, I think, running across the church campus and someone remarked to you about just the trying, scary times that he is going to grow up in. And you gave a really comforting response to that.

Starting point is 00:04:51 And I would just love for you to share that. I think a lot of parents listening to this are nervous about the age in which our children are growing up. Well, this was my great-grandson, who, by the way, his name is John Owen MacArthur. So he's got a lot to live up to with a Puritan name like that. But it was his first foray to run around the church campus. And he was just checking it all out. And his dad was following, you know, at a distance, just kind of watching him. He was bouncing in between the people.

Starting point is 00:05:27 He was looking at the fountain and just taking it all in. And somebody came up to me and said, you know, it's such a beautiful kid. It's too bad he had to be born in a time like this, so difficult. And I said, I don't look at it like that. This is his time in the plan of God. He has come to the kingdom for such a time as this. And God knows what this generation is going to need.

Starting point is 00:05:53 And he's going to raise up the right kind of leaders for him. this generation as well. And I'm thrilled that this little guy is going to be raised in Grace Church by loving Christian parents to become everything he can be in Christ and make a difference in the world. I'm not, I'm not worried for him. And he's got a personality that's going to make him, he's going to be something to deal with. Yes. So we hope with the gospel clearly penetrated in his heart, he's going to have an impact. Yes. And, And that is really at least part of the spirit of the recent book that you just published, the War on Children, providing refuge for your children in a hostile world.

Starting point is 00:06:38 And though we trust in the sovereignty of God, and of course we know that he is going to raise up the leaders that he has predestined, that he has ordained, there is something seemingly unique about the age that we're in. It does seem like there is, I don't know, a different kind of intensity when it comes to the assault on children's innocence, on children's bodies. Can you speak to that? Is the wickedness that we face now, is it unique in any way or is it just a reiteration of evil that we've seen in the past? Well, I think it's both of those things.

Starting point is 00:07:19 for one thing, this is a post-Christian era. And in our culture, largely speaking, it's as if the New Testament was never written. It's as if Christ never came, never died, never rose again. As far as the culture is concerned, so we have gone really back to the paganism of the past, the pre-Christian era. This is not post-Christian only. This is pre-Christian. So what was pre-Christian culture like?

Starting point is 00:07:50 Go back to the Old Testament and you find child sacrifice. You find babies being offered to Bail and Mulek. And there's a chapter in the book where I deal with this. And it covers all the continents. There was child sacrifice in Europe in Africa among the Mayans, the Incas, the Aztecs. It was very much a part of pagan life to pacify false gods by the sacrifice. of children. And one of the things you have in those ancient cultures like Carthage and Phoenicia was when people ran out of their own children, they basically would buy somebody else's

Starting point is 00:08:28 child to offer as a sacrifice. Christianity changed all of that dramatically. But as the centuries have gone by and we've wound up with a post-Christian culture, it's as if it's pre-Christian. And we're back to killing babies at a pace that even the ancient world wouldn't have understood. I mean, killing them in the womb, by the millions, I think, over 60 million in the last number of years since Roe v. Wade. And if we don't mutilate them in the womb, we wind up mutilating them when they get out, and we're still mutilating them when they're 12 and 13 years old based upon a horrendous satanic, deceptive lie about gender identity. So it's not just enough to be in a fallen world to have a sinful heart.

Starting point is 00:09:20 That's enough of a battle. The culture, the Christian influence in the culture in America for years has protected the innocent protected children. That is gone. As some of the gays said so boldly, we're coming after your children. And they mean just exactly that. Right. You write, today we are not merely contending with the normal accumulated evil of past generations.

Starting point is 00:09:47 We're also living in a culture that has specifically targeted children for destruction. Why is it that it seems like Satan has always had it specifically out for children? Why do we continually see this kind of manifestation of evil? Well, because they're the most vulnerable. I mean, they're the least able to defend themselves. Satan goes after the weakest, and children are the weakest. And the design of God was to provide protection for that in the family. Protective parents and protective grandparents and protective friends.

Starting point is 00:10:30 And the basis of the family was going to provide the protection, the insulation for children. children. But in this culture, the family has been basically dismantled, destroyed, the attack on women, the attack on men, the attack on the family, the sexual revolution followed by a homosexual revolution, as Romans 1 says, followed by the reprobate mind where you can't even think straight. All of that literally has caused this open assault on children. This is satanic. Satan knows that if you want to get them, you get them young. So it comes through, just think about it this way. It's in the educational system.

Starting point is 00:11:14 It's in the breakdown of the family where Satan has access. And it's in the cell phone in the hands of the child, the corruption at a level that never has occurred in human history. So they're not only fighting natural fallenness, natural evil, they're fighting the culture, abandoning all of its normal protections and allowing assaults that children have never experienced in the Christian era, let's put it that way. It's more like the paganism of pre-Christian history. You know, it's crazy to think that Obergefell, which attempted to redefine something that the law can't redefine, and that is marriage happened in 2015. That's not a long time ago at all.

Starting point is 00:11:59 And as you mentioned, the sexual revolution has moved forward since 2015. Of course, it was happening long before that. But since 2015, at an astounding clip, I think most people, even Christians can't even wrap our heads around how we went from love is love. How does it harm you for two men or two women to get married to what we're seeing now? You mentioned how gender ideology has convinced us. in the name of empathy and love to allow children to butcher their bodies because they supposedly believe that they are the opposite sex. How do you explain just how quickly we have traveled

Starting point is 00:12:45 from the redefinition of marriage to the complete obliteration, attempted obliteration of biological reality that, as you said, is now showing up in the lives of young, young children who are being purposely deceived and confused by their parents and doctors? Well, I think it's because of the fact that the people who are the worst purveyors of Satan's agenda have so much power. And I'm not just talking about political power, but there's plenty of that. I mean, when you have the president say, if you're a transgender young person, you need to know I've got your back.

Starting point is 00:13:27 Well, that's a bizarre statement to say. I mean, what I thought of when the president said, I've got your back, it was as if he's going to push him off a cliff into a disastrous oblivion. But if the politicians are protecting those people, and if the media, the educational system, television, music industry, I mean, you name it, film, all of it is going to advocate for that, that the tsunami of this corruption coming at children will escalate as fast as media can produce it.

Starting point is 00:14:06 When you think about going back maybe five years even with the Disney Corporation, there was still some sense of Disney means family. And now it's frightening to see what's happened. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issue issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase

Starting point is 00:14:43 narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed. You can watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. I was just yesterday largest hospital in L.A. And they're one of the leading places where they do this transgender surgery. What happened to the Hippocratic oath of the doctors to protect? Yes, yes. And that's a really scary part of this. A lot of parents are intimidated by these doctors

Starting point is 00:15:31 who threaten them by saying, you know what, if you don't go along with what we say about so-called transgenderism, your child's going to commit suicide. Or we are going to remove your child from your home, and we are going to ensure that this child is, quote, unquote, transitioned ourselves. I don't think that we have ever seen something like this. And it causes a lot of even Christian parents who hope that something like that, of course would never happen to them. It causes a lot of anxiety. It causes a lot of fear and a lot of,

Starting point is 00:16:07 I don't want to say paranoia as if it's unjustified at all, but it causes a lot of panic, I would say, among Christian parents to look out the window and see all of this chaos. How do we balance the real concerns that we have with what is going on and the trust and the hope that we have in Christ? We don't want to bury our heads in the sand and pretend like these threats don't exist. At the same time, we don't want to be preoccupied by them constantly so that we're living in this state of fear. So what does that look like? Well, I think there's a dynamic that you have to understand. The whole world lies in the lap of the evil one. That's what the Bible says. Satan is the God of this world. He is ruling in this world. He goes about like a roaring line.

Starting point is 00:17:00 lion seeking whom he may devour. So this is not just a political issue, an educational issue, a moral issue. This is a satanic conspiracy. And at the bottom of the efforts of Satan is one dominating reality, and that is that he is a liar. Jesus said Satan is a liar and a murderer. He's the father of lies and a murderer. he's a deceiver. All of his ambassadors and all of his agents are deceivers and liars.

Starting point is 00:17:38 And I think going along with all that's happening to assault the family, to assault virtue, to assault Christianity, of course. So go back to COVID. How did they get away with that? How did they do so much destruction to families, to children by taking them out of school? They did it by fabricating lies about the supposed danger of COVID. I think the toughest thing right now for Christians in this world is to get to the truth.

Starting point is 00:18:10 The culture is not going to give that to you. Oh, here and there, there'll be a whistleblower. Here and there, there'll be somebody who's willing to tell you the truth. But there's a massive effort to build an entire society on lies so that people, first of all, are confused, and secondly, that they are made afraid. The lies that they want to tell frighten you. Like, you know, if you don't quarantine at home and stay at home, you're going to kill people. If you're not vaccinated, you're going to be the cause of somebody's death.

Starting point is 00:18:42 If the kids go to school, they're going to pass on this illness and people are going to die. So that the extreme lies that we've seen happen are part of the fabric of how this thing is laid out. And I would just add recently a new study was done. And the truth is that if you have transgender medication or transgender

Starting point is 00:19:08 surgery, you are 12 times more likely to kill yourself. So that lie that if you don't let your child follow the feelings of this bizarre transgender

Starting point is 00:19:25 movement, you're going to cause your kid to commit suicide is actually the opposite of the truth. Do you think that Christians have any responsibility in how quickly this revolution has gone? It does feel like to me, especially the Christians that have been elected to represent us in D.C. that when a burgufel happened, most conservatives, even people who consider themselves Christian conservatives, just decided, you know what, that's a lost cause. We're going to move on from that. Okay, they got marriage. Who cares? Not that big of a deal. And let's move on to the economy and immigration and some other things. It just feels like there wasn't a whole lot of

Starting point is 00:20:26 courage at that time to say, hang on, this is a fundamental existential societal issue. and we can't just move on from this. So I don't know, do Christians bear any responsibility for the direction that this is gone? That's a really important question, Allie. And yes, they do. We are salt and light in the world. And, you know, Jesus said if the salt has lost its savor, then what effect is it going to have?

Starting point is 00:20:55 So yes, Christians have stood by and watched as spectators, but it's more than that. You have to step back one step from the Christians and ask the question, have the churches stood up? You know, for the last 20 years, the evangelical movement has been bent on courting the world, bent on finding a way to connect with the culture. I mean, this is opposite of what the church is in the world. We are against the world, contramundo. We confront the world.

Starting point is 00:21:31 we condemn the world. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. It doesn't mean that we lack kindness or compassion. Quite the contrary. It's kindness and compassion that forces us to be honest. But when you have so many mega-church pastors who largely influence masses of quote-unquote Christian people who are only fearful that they might offend the world,

Starting point is 00:21:59 the church gives up its power. It fails to fulfill its calling in the world. And I think you have so many of these churches trying to make connections with sinful people without offending them that we have failed to be honest about sin and righteousness and judgment. And I think this comes out in so many, many ways. Churches are afraid to identify LGBTQ for what it is. Many churches are talking about same-sex attraction as if it's something normal. Church leaders talking about that as if it's a God-given design that you have those feelings. I mean, why would we cave in on that?

Starting point is 00:22:56 There's a recent edition of Christianity today, which through the years has been a flagship magazine where you could kind of catch up on evangelicalism. Their latest issue was all about LGBTQ and pronouns. So the evangelical church has failed to take a stand. You know, when COVID came and our church sued the state of California and city of Los Angeles, because they tried to shut us down, we sued them to stay open. you'll remember we won that lawsuit. Evangelical leaders said to me and about me, why are you fighting this battle? Why don't you wait and fight a bigger battle? And I said, we fight every battle.

Starting point is 00:23:43 We earnestly contend for anything that comes at the faith. There are no small battles. You know, you die a thousand cuts. But literally, there were articles written, we're wasting our ammunition on COVID, which we'll be storing up for some future battle of homosexuality. Well, I watched that fall on deaf ears. They didn't fight COVID, and many of them aren't fighting homosexual intrusion either.

Starting point is 00:24:11 So we fight for the truth, we uphold the truth, that's our calling in the world. And when the church doesn't do that, Christian people get confused about what the issues really are. and how can you expect them to take a stand if their leaders don't? Mm-hmm. You wrote a book that I own 24 years ago. Let's see, yes, it came out September of 2000. Why Government Can't Save You an alternative to political activism, really, really helpful book.

Starting point is 00:24:43 How do we balance that reality, that biblical truth, that we know that the government cannot save us, that we cannot put all of our trust in princes and politics, and politicians, understanding that Jesus' victory is sure, that's where our hope is. That's what we cling to. While also understanding that politics have an effect on people, that policy really matters, that it can lead to the greater slaughter of unborn children. It can lead to children being taken out of their parents home because the parent won't call

Starting point is 00:25:15 Jack Sally. So, like, how do we balance that? How do we balance understanding that? that there has to be political involvement with Christians. And as you said, even with churches, with also realizing that at the end of the day, God is the one who is in charge. Yeah, well, first of all, Alie, you understand that Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world.

Starting point is 00:25:39 If my kingdom was of this world, my servants would fight. So we don't start revolutions. We don't overthrow the government. That's not the Christian behavior. In fact, we conduct ourselves as good citizens. We should be the best citizens in a society. Now, the way that you live out your Christianity in a society is by your godly living, your righteous living, upholding truth and the word of God.

Starting point is 00:26:12 And how does that coincide with politics? For me, politics gives me an opportunity. to stand up for righteousness, to stand up for righteousness. So, and sometimes, it's, you've got two fairly bad options with candidates. You might say,

Starting point is 00:26:35 neither one of them is, you know, consistent with biblical righteousness, but I want to make the best choice I can. We have to uphold righteousness. We have to stand up if we have any mechanism in the government that we live in, and the United States certainly has that

Starting point is 00:26:54 more than any other nation in history, to declare our stand for righteousness, then we need to exercise that. But again, it's not about economics, it's about righteousness. And that has become the issue. I mean, in all honesty, the Democrats and the Republicans

Starting point is 00:27:14 aren't particularly against each other based on economics. It's morality against immorality. When your agenda is kill babies, mutilate children, advocate homosexual marriage, those are sins of epic proportions that will completely destroy a culture. So if I am in a society where I can take a stand against that, then I have to do that. That's my responsibility before God to do that. At the same time, I understand that changing the culture will not change the people. The gospel changing the people will change the culture.

Starting point is 00:28:01 So the church can't fall off on the sort of political side, the nationalistic side, to the detriment of the proclamation of the gospel. There's only two possibilities. One, you can change a culture and that'll change people. or you change people and they'll change the culture and that's the only correct way. That's the biblical way. And if we're looking back at the ancient pagan world, you mentioned how when Christians burst on the scene in a world that was full of child sacrifice, the objectification of children, the sick, the elderly women, how did that look concretely, tangibly when Christians changed culture and ended up changing the children? the world because of their radical revolutionary view of human beings and specifically children?

Starting point is 00:28:53 Well, I would say, first of all, it didn't go well because they were martyred. I mean, when you look at the apostles, they killed all the apostles, basically, with a few exceptions. In the early church, persecution broke out, severe persecution broke out. But eventually, as the gospel began to find its way into the hearts of people in the first and second century, it began to change the culture dramatically. And historically, you can show where cultures began to abandon those, you know, just really vile pagan practices that were really the defining aspects of their religion, sexual orgies, prostitutes who were,

Starting point is 00:29:40 priests and priestesses in these false temples, all of that began to go away. Within the first three centuries, Christianity had developed enough that it was having an influence on the culture. Even though it was kind of the Roman Catholic Church that sort of launched itself in the 300s, that church did have a moral impact on the culture because it did uphold biblical morality. Even if they didn't get the gospel right, they got biblical morality right. And they were a monolithic force for that morality. And they held the culture to that.

Starting point is 00:30:22 As that began to break down, even the Reformation added to that the true gospel. But as the Reformation eventually gave way to the Enlightenment and the increase of philosophical ideologies, the culture was no longer propped up by Christian principles, Christian truth, biblical truth, and we've seen the result of that. Orphanages, hospitals, homeless shelters, organizations that provided aid resources to those who were considered less than Christians treated them with the dignity that they knew that they had because of this radical message of the equality of value of image bearers. And also the gospel that says that we are all equally dead and sin apart from Christ. And we can by grace through faith be made

Starting point is 00:31:21 alive in Christ. I mean, that changes what you think of people, of course, in ancient Rome and ancient Greece. How they measured value was not by your innate worth and not by your humanity, but in different ways what you could produce and what you could produce and what you could. you could add. Christianity changed all of that. And I think people believe that we are going to be able to preserve the parts of Christianity that we like, for example, human rights. Even when Christianity loses its entire influence here in the United States, that's just not the case. We're not going to be able to retain the things that Christianity brought us once we have decided Christianity is of no use to us anymore.

Starting point is 00:32:08 Yeah, it really becomes, that's all very true, and I agree with that. It all comes down to an authority. As soon as the society abandons an authority, it has no way to define right or wrong, truth or falsehood morality. So again, you're back to the Bible. When people accepted the Bible, biblical morality, they accepted the Bible as an authority. when leaders accepted the Bible as an authority, you had a divine, transcendent revelation of human behavior,

Starting point is 00:32:45 what God would tolerate, what he wouldn't. There was a threat of judgment. Even the founding fathers of America knew that the Constitution would only work in a society where there was this divine authority, where there was the threat of a divine judge and divine judgment. So when a society abandons the authority, then you can do anything because there's not a common authority. What we have in the culture today is the authority is how I feel about myself. It's literally insane.

Starting point is 00:33:22 If you're a man and you are saying, I demand to be considered a woman, the insanity of that on the surface is obvious. is. The simplest kind of authority would be, well, you could take a look at the biology and the DNA, and we could tell you you are a man. But when you reject every form of authority, even natural law, and then you reject biblical law, you get utter chaos that's completely out of control. Everybody is doing exactly what they did in the Old Testament, whatever's right in their own eyes. Right. And if you don't like what I do, you have hurt me. You have harmed me because my feelings are who I am. Yes. It's the God of self. And the God of self will follow its whims, will follow its demands, even if it's sacrificing biological reality, as you said, biblical truth as well.

Starting point is 00:34:21 What does it look like in the everyday life of parents who are looking at the chaos that is before us and with the expectation that in a lot of ways it's probably going to get worse? But as you said in the beginning, raising our children with joy, with hope, with trust in the Lord's faithfulness, with his goodness that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, what does that look like moment by moment? Well, I think it's twofold. First of all, you have to provide protection. We don't hear about that. But that is a vital, vital responsibility for a child. When I think back to our four kids being raised, we were as much concerned to protect them as we were to instruct them. And what that meant, well, we protected them from things that could harm them, whether it was playing in the street or whether it was playing with tools that they shouldn't handle. or whether it was making friends with kids that we didn't think we're going to be a good influence on them. I think parents have lost the sense that these children are so vulnerable, so vulnerable to whatever comes their way. And they don't have the maturity, obviously, to pick and choose and discern, you know, what to accept and what not to accept. So parental protection is huge. That means

Starting point is 00:36:02 I've got to protect them from bad educators. Psalm 1. Don't sit in the seat of scoffers. You know, you don't put your kid in a school where Christianity's being mocked. You're making an impossible situation

Starting point is 00:36:21 for that child to go down the right path when somebody far more powerful than that child is pounding into their brain things that are not true. So protection, I think, is missing. I think parents are irresponsible because they let kids watch whatever they want. They let them have cell phones. There's a book out, you may have seen it called The Anxious Generation. And it's a book about what happens to this generation of kids from 2010 to 2015 who got into the cell phones. And how in an unprotected environment,

Starting point is 00:36:58 their souls were stolen from them. And it's led to this increase in self-harm, cutting, and even suicide. So protection is a big thing. And protection means you have a father who is a protector, and you have a mother who is a protector. In addition to that, the positive side is you want to instruct them in what is right. You want to raise your children and the nurture. admonition of the Lord. The book, the war on children, starts out by dealing with the problem.

Starting point is 00:37:34 But the bulk of the book is looking at what the scripture says about raising your children so that you can enjoy the fruits of that effort. And I don't think that any culture can stand against a faithful family that provides protection for their children and provides instruction in the Word of God. And if you live it out, it's not this difficult. I mean, this is God's design. One husband, one wife, mom, dad, a family built around the truth of God's Word. Children being protected, being loved, and being instructed. But the home has become a sort of an ancillary issue. Everybody's career-oriented. They're going a million directions. We all know that. They're sitting together, but they're all looking at their own cell phones. I mean, we all know these things. So

Starting point is 00:38:30 to get a hold of the family to provide protection and instruction is as simple as that. Yes. The War on Children, I remember you did a similar sermon series a few years ago, and it was in the midst of COVID, and I just remember listening to that. And it provided so much help for me, and this book goes into more detail about all those things, and I'm so thankful for it. I've got one more question for you. A lot of people saw comments that you made recently that went viral and I'm sure that you don't spend your days scrolling through Twitter and social media. But comments that you made about PTSD and mental illness, ADHD have received some backlash. And I'm just wondering if you could talk just a little bit more about that.

Starting point is 00:39:33 I know we're about to run out of time, but for people who are saying, what are you talking about? There's no such thing as PTSD. There's no such thing as ADHD. Of course they are. I'm diagnosed with those things. What do you say to that? So just to sum it up with a couple of clear foundational truth. The brain can be sick.

Starting point is 00:39:56 The brain can be damaged. You can have a tumor. You can have encephalitis. You can have a brain. problem. That's clinically manifest that can be diagnosed and that can be treated with medication and surgery for the brain. The mind is something completely different. The mind is transcendent. You can't fix the mind with a chemical. You can wound the brain. And that's what's coming out now in psychiatry. You go back to Thomas Saz back in 1957, I think.

Starting point is 00:40:33 when he wrote the book, The Myth of Mental Health, he wasn't saying that people don't have problems. What he was saying is they aren't brain problems. So you can't use some kind of chemical as if it were to fix the brain. The big deception was there's a chemical imbalance in the brain. We all heard that for decades and decades. Take this medication and it'll fix the chemical imbalance. Well, they're now admitting that that was all a useful lie.

Starting point is 00:41:03 There's no way to find people's difficulty in dealing with the issues of life as a brain problem. It's a mind problem that's very different. So what I was saying was, is there post-traumatic stress? Of course. Is it a brain syndrome? No. Is there ADHD? Are there kids who have trouble paying attention?

Starting point is 00:41:31 Trouble sitting still? yeah, I was one of them. Is it a brain problem? No. What about obsessive-compulsive problems? Is that a brain disorder? No. But part of the culture's bent is to say, hey, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. You've got a disorder. You've got a disorder. You can have a brain disorder, but that's not what they're talking about. Like PTSD is really grief. It's horrendous grief. It's survival guilt, it's having watched your buddies blown to pieces. You can't, you've got to deal with that grief. But putting a chemical into your body that will alter your brain, that's what's becoming the issue now. And there are lots of psychiatrists who are being honest for the first time.

Starting point is 00:42:23 There's a, there's a book that's very helpful. It's called A Profession Without Reason by Bruce Levine. and what he basically says is that psychology and psychiatry has been trying to deal with mind problems with things that alter the brain. They don't fix the mind problems, the emotional issues, but they do negatively impact the brain.

Starting point is 00:42:48 That's all I was saying. If you want to solve your mind problems, you've got to find love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control, those are spiritual virtues that are available in Christ. Don't turn to chemicals, turn to Christ. And we've had psychiatrists on this show say the same thing that you said, by the way, that actually we are causing a lot of harm, especially to children,

Starting point is 00:43:18 by diagnosing or medicalizing every single behavior that doesn't fit perfectly into a classroom or doesn't fall in line within this uniform range of normal. It is actually causing side effects in these kids, in these veterans, that actually make it worse than what they were dealing with before in a lot of ways. So there are a lot of people saying what you are saying as well, and I appreciate your boldness. I really do, as always. Thank you so much, Dr. McArthur.

Starting point is 00:43:52 Thank you for your ministry. I have lots of friends who attend your church. and they're thankful for your faithfulness as well. So I appreciate it so much. My pleasure, Alibbeth. I'm thrilled with your ministry over the years. Thank you for being so faithful. Thank you so much.

Starting point is 00:44:10 Have a great day. You too. Okay, so all of this is why we are having our Share of the Arrow's conference this this fall, September 28th. We are bringing together Christian women. You don't have to be a mom. There's going to be a lot of moms there, but they're going to be single women there. They're going to be college women there.

Starting point is 00:44:33 They're going to be grandmothers there, grandmother age women there. And we are all coming together as Christian women to understand to get our heads around the craziness that we are facing, coming from so many different directions as the church. But also, how do we combat it in our everyday lives with clarity and courage, with whatever resources, whatever talents, whatever people, influence God has given us. Like, how do we face this current age with courage? That's why we're having people like Rosaria Butterfield, Elisa Childers, Abby Halberstadt. These are apologists. These are authors. This is a homeschooling mom of 10 that is going to just encourage, equip,

Starting point is 00:45:16 and empower us. That's why we're having Francesca Battistelli, lead us in worship, even some more speakers. That's why we are coming together with thousands of us in Dallas, Texas on September 28th. to share the arrows.com. You can go to share the arrows.com. Your ticket options are all right there. Either come by yourself. That's totally fine. Or bring friends, bring sisters, bring your mom, bring your women's ministry. It's going to be an incredible time. And I'm so excited for it. That's share the arrows.com. All right. That's all we've got time for today. We will see you back here next Tuesday. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God,

Starting point is 00:46:14 humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1008 | Dr. John MacArthur on Preparing Our Kids for Battle

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