Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1297 | Rebutting Ben Cremer’s Unbiblical Take on ICE

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Starting point is 00:00:46 That's fellowship homelones.com slash alley, term supply, see site for details, fellowship home loans, mortgage lending by the book, nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans, equal housing lender, NMLS, number 819-39-382. Supporting ICE is Christian nationalism and white evangelicals are the source of all of our problems. At least that's what you're hearing on Instagram from the so-called progressive Christians. Well, don't worry. We are responding to all of this and more on today's episode of Relatable. Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable.

Starting point is 00:01:28 Happy Monday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful day so far. All right, I got to tell you, God's eternal plan of redemption is going off without a hitch. It's still going off without a hitch. On this week, on this day, it is still going off without a hitch. Nothing surprises him or takes him back. Nothing confuses him. Nothing throws him off. He is sovereign over all of it. He is never looking down and wondering, how did you get into this mess? What is going on? He is all seeing. He is all knowing. And he is working all things together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. And that is what we can trust that one day there will be no more disagreement, no more politics, no more debate, because Jesus is coming back. He wins and he wins. And he wants. will rule in perfect peace forever. So what is our role? It's not just to sit on our hands and wait for that day is to do the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God. When we don't know what to do, we don't know how to make a difference. That's what we can do because God uses the

Starting point is 00:02:23 unseen and unsung faithful acts of obedience of believers to advance his kingdom. Sometimes that's something really public. Sometimes it's just changing a diaper or washing dishes or sending an email with joy and excellence. So I always like to start out the week with that reminder. It's as much for me as it is for you because we're talking about things that can make us angry, understandably, that can make us sad and it can feel like the world is going to hell in a hand basket. But actually, we know who wins in the end. But as we are navigating the chaos of this world, we have to remember as Christians, we are called to be agents of order and agents of clarity. We have the opportunity when things are crazy outside to be a refuge of strength and

Starting point is 00:03:08 truth. And so one thing that I really like to do, I like might be a strong word. One thing that I think is necessary for me to do is to look at some of the most prominent claims that you are seen, especially on Instagram, especially from people who are identifying as progressive Christians and then rebut them using logic and using scripture. I will say in some way this is one of my favorite things to do. And that is why I thoroughly enjoyed my three-hour debate on Jubilee, one conservative Christian versus 20 supposedly liberal Christians talking about all of these things.

Starting point is 00:03:47 It's kind of what I do on a daily basis. And I found when I was in that setting that this is a lot like doing my podcast. And you guys always appreciate when I kind of, give you the tools to say when someone says this, this is how you respond. So that's what we are going to be doing today. Progressives are really good at emotionally evocative language. They are really good at using scripture in such a way that arrests your thinking and emotionally manipulates you into supporting their position into believing that being progressive means being a good person, means being Christ-like, and being on the other side of that is scary and wrong and bad. So I want to

Starting point is 00:04:24 give you the words to be able to support why you believe, what you believe, publicly and politically, especially when it comes to immigration. So I just want to go through some of the claims, starting with this first claim that I've seen over and over again, that supporting ICE operations or any kind of immigration enforcement is so-called Christian nationalism. We've talked about Christian nationalism a few times over the years, but we just got to hammer home what this actually means, what our perspective on it should be. Benjamin Kramer, a lot of you guys have sent me his post on Instagram. He's a pastor at the Cathedral of the Rockies. This is a United Methodist Church congregation in Idaho. United Methodist Church split several years ago over the

Starting point is 00:05:08 LGBTQ issue, whether we should honor so-called gay marriage is something that is biblically legitimate. He is a very progressive guy. He doesn't talk about in this latest post that is very popular with 143,000 likes on Instagram. I specifically. but judging by his other post and the timing of this, this is clearly what he is talking about. So this is a post against so-called Christian nationalism. And I'm not going to go through all maybe 20 slides that he put up, but I'll just give you a taste of what he is saying and then I'll respond to it. So he says Christian nationalism looks like seeing Jesus hanging on the cross and saying he should have just obeyed the law. Christian nationalism.

Starting point is 00:05:54 Ben Kramer says, looks like cheering on Pharaoh while condemning Moses for being too political. Christian nationalism, he says, looks like getting outraged at the prophet Nathan for rebuking King David for his horrid sins and telling him, God can use a filthy-minded, wealthy man to accomplish good things. And then the last one that I'll read, although there are quite a few more that you can read on your own, Christian nationalism looks like using the Bible to seek first the power of the empire. Rather than the self-sacrificial love of Jesus, Christian nationalism looks like worship. being power rather than loving God and our neighbors. Christian nationalism looks nothing like Jesus. So this is a moniker that gets thrown my way a lot. And if you are a conservative Christian,

Starting point is 00:06:36 you have probably been told this quite a few times. At this point, like I typically, when someone messages me that, I just respond with sarcasm. I think we learned from Jesus that well-time sarcasm actually makes a better point sometimes than literalism. Someone called me that the other day, just said, I think you mean you're a Christian nationalist. And I said, oh my gosh, Stephanie, I've changed my mind on everything. Thank you so much. My eyes are open. Abortion is great and men can become women. It just doesn't work, but I want you to know why it doesn't work. I want you to know why this whole Christian nationalist fearmongering thing should do absolutely nothing for you. And she really shouldn't be afraid of someone calling you this. Okay. So number one, what is Christian nationalism?

Starting point is 00:07:24 learned from 2020 the importance of defining our term. So what is a Christian? We could define it as those who believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Who is God? Who is the only way, the only truth and the only life? The only way to heaven. What is nationalism? Putting the priorities of your nation first. That's literally what that means. What it is not, and this is what progressive seem to think that it is, or how they describe it, it is not believing that America is the chosen nation or the new Israel, that all the prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled in America today. And if you are someone who is on the right and you do believe that, that's not biblical. But most people who are called Christian nationalist derisively don't believe

Starting point is 00:08:11 those things. They are simply people who are Christians. And so we have Christian values that infiltrate every area of our lives. And we are placed providentially by God in America. So we seek the interests of our country first, as every other country also has the right and responsibility to do. So Christian nationalism for what it really is, and then Christian nationalism for what the progressives say. And then the next question, of course, is Christian nationalism wrong? Well, a Christian believes necessarily by nature that God's ways are better. Why do we believe this? Because of the most controversial verse in the Bible, which I think is Genesis 1-1. In the beginning, God created the heavens in the earth. Why is that the most controversial? Because if God created

Starting point is 00:08:57 all of it, he's the authority over all of it. If he is the authority over all of it, then he gets to say what is and what is it, what's right and what's wrong, what's good, what's bad, what's true, what's false, what a woman is, what she's not, what a marriage is, and when life begins. And we really see the answers to all of those things in the very first chapter of the first book of the Bible in Genesis 1-27. And so if you're a Christian and you believe that God's ways are better and you believe that he is the authority over all of it, that is necessarily goal. to influence your politics. What is a nationalist? A nationalist means that you care about your country the most, that you want to put your interests and your fellow citizens' interests in

Starting point is 00:09:35 security number one, before the interest in the security of other countries. We read something like this in Jeremiah 27. The Israelites are in exile, in Babylon. And God tells them, but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare, you will find your welfare. And if that was true of exiles then, that they should seek the welfare of the city that they're placed in, surely it is true for Christian exiles here today to seek the welfare of the country of the city of the community in which we have been placed. Is Christian nationalism wrong? Another part of this is that every single person believes their worldview should inform the policies of our country. This is natural. This is

Starting point is 00:10:22 inevitable for the atheist, for the agnostic, for the progressive, for the Christian, for the conservative. Every single person allows our worldview, the fullness of our belief system to follow us into the voting booth. Don't be fooled into believing that you as a conservative Christian are the only person who is not allowed to let your belief system inform your vote. Every other group does this. You have the right and responsibility to do the same. And by the way, Ben Kramer does the same thing. He believes that his worldview as a so-called progressive Christian should inform policies, should inform the law, and should be enforced on everyone else. I'll get into that in just a second. Let me pause, tell you about our first sponsor for the

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Starting point is 00:12:34 Okay, so we hear a lot from people like Ben Kramer that putting your country first is wrong or allowing your Christian conservative views to inform how you vote that that's wrong. But then when we look back at some of the things that he said and posted over the years, eight months ago, for example, he posted myth number one, immigrants are a drain on our country. What I'm most interested in is not that he's saying that that's a myth, but his response to that. He says, the Bible never defines a person's worth by their economic output. In fact, it warns us not to favor the rich over the poor. God's kingdom is built not on cost-benefit analysis, but on belovedness.

Starting point is 00:13:12 The call to welcome the stranger is rooted in who God is, not in what the stranger can offer. So what I want to point out here is that he is conflating the kingdom of God with America. So he is refuting this political statement. People usually don't say it like this. The immigrants are a drain on our economy, but they might say illegal immigration is really difficult economically. Like it affects the labor force. It affects the demand and therefore the price for houses. And that's really difficult for the poor and hardworking people who are citizens of this country. And he responds by saying God's kingdom is built not on cost, benefit analysis. We're not talking about God's kingdom. We're talking about the United States.

Starting point is 00:13:53 actually in him saying that Christian nationalists are trying to enforce some theocracy by allowing the law to be informed by what we believe, he is actually the one that is conflating our spiritual obligation to the poor in the spiritual kingdom of heaven with America here today. And we see that over and over again. And we'll have more on that point in just a second. Here's another question that we have to explore when we're seeing this Christian nationalist accusation. Is so-called Christian nationalism violating the separation of church and state? This is something that I see a lot, that you Christian, can't vote against abortion because that is not separating church and state. First of all, separation of church and state. Not in the

Starting point is 00:14:35 Constitution. It was in a letter to the Danbury Baptist. It is a principle that we see. Yes, in the First Amendment, but you will not see those words there. It is a separation of the authority of the church from the authority of the state, primarily to protect the church. not primarily to protect the state. But this is not the separation of God in law. The founders knew that that was impossible. And that is why, for example, in the Declaration of Independence, we read that we were created by a God who has given us inalienable rights among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The founders knew that our rights come from God. And that is the basis for the law giving in the United States. That is not a theocracy. That is stating the belief

Starting point is 00:15:19 that a creator whose power transcends the government and who is the arbiter of morality must be the basis of our general law giving because morality always informs the law. People say, oh, you can't legislate morality. No, you have to legislate morality. Like morality is legislation. Every single law is making a moral statement. Okay, so as Christian nationalism so-called violating separation of church and state, our worldview and policy was never meant to be separate, and it's actually impossible to do that.

Starting point is 00:15:52 I do not think that Christians are called to enact a theocracy here in the United States. We don't see precedent for that in scripture, and I don't believe that we should be forcing people to go to church or to believe a certain way. But which worldview should inform policy? Of course, I think it's the Christian worldview. And then last, in all of this, is immigration enforcement bad? So if we are to put aside the Christian nationalist thing for a second, which we've already addressed, is immigration enforcement unbiblical or wrong or evil? You've heard me say this a lot and I just want to reiterate it because there's a lot of new people here, it seems. Every country has the right and responsibility to regulate immigration and control its borders.

Starting point is 00:16:36 Zimbabwe has that right. China has that right. South Korea has that right. And America has that right. Because sovereignty equals legitimacy. and legitimacy equals the ability to make and enforce laws which protect you. Okay? And it's also important to note in all of this is we read from people like Ben Kramer that it's

Starting point is 00:16:57 us. We're seeking empire. We're seeking more power. And that's why we're enforcing immigration and protecting our borders. I just want to note something that progressives and the Democrats actually seek to make the government bigger. They want more power to the government. less power to parents, less power to churches, less power to individuals. They want the government

Starting point is 00:17:20 making more decisions, taking more in taxes, gaining more authority to do everything except what the Bible actually tasks the government to do. And this is important in the immigration conversation or any conversation about politics in law. Romans 13, 2 through 4, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bet. That's how it's supposed to be. Would you have no fear of the one who is an authority? then do what is good and you will receive his approval. For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrong doer.

Starting point is 00:17:58 All right, the government was instituted by God. It was his idea. Law and law enforcement were God's idea. Now, this right here is why it is so important to elect politicians that define good and evil how God defines them. When you have an administration, like the last administration especially, who calls evil good and good evil, who thinks that it's good to force a company, to force its employees to take an experimental COVID shot, or thinks it's good for boys to identify as girls and go into the girls' bathroom, or who thinks it's good to abort as many babies as

Starting point is 00:18:34 possible, well, yeah, we're going to have a hard time bearing the brunt of Romans 13. But if you have an administration that defines good and evil the way that God defines it, this is why it matters so much who we vote for, then this is actually a blessing to a country. All right. Another statement. So that was all under Christian nationalism. Another statement that we hear over and over again is that we shouldn't put America first because the kingdom of God is multicultural.

Starting point is 00:19:06 Okay? So Ben Kramer says, Christian nationalism looks like hearing God say, I will pour out my spirit on all people in Acts 2, where all nations, languages, tribes were present, then protesting by saying America first, okay? So now we're going to get into this point. This is my favorite point about Christian nationalism and all of this stuff. And I just really want you to understand this. There's an irony in this accusation.

Starting point is 00:19:29 Progressives, as I noted earlier, consistently conflate America and the church, which is the very thing they accuse Christian nationalists of doing. America should have looser immigration laws, they say, because the Bible says to love the foreigner. America shouldn't put our nation first, they say, because the kingdom of God is multicultural. America should implement socialist economic policies, they say, because the early church gave everything they had to each other. Number one, these verses are taken out of context. This is called Iso-Jesus when you read a message or read a meaning into the text, rather than reading the text and pulling the real meaning out of the text by studying its original language. and its context. Yes, we are supposed to love the sojourner. That is true. Exodus 22.1. But no,

Starting point is 00:20:15 this does not justify illegal immigration. We read in Exodus 1249, there shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you. One law. That means that there was not a condoning of lawlessness or illegal immigration. The sojourners that came into the land of Israel, Yes, they were cared for, and yes, they were not oppressed. But they also had to get circumcised. Like, they also had to follow laws when it came to homosexuality and marriage, every cleansing law, every civic law that was on the books. They weren't just given a pass for lawlessness just because they were sojourners. So this is what we consistently see from God, that he is a God of mercy and also a God of order for our good.

Starting point is 00:21:05 yes the kingdom of god is multicultural every knee will bow in every tongue will confess that jesus christ is lord we read that in romans 1411 but no this does not mean that every nation has to represent every culture the truth is hot take we do not see the importance of ethnic diversity within nations or local churches anywhere in scripture nowhere does china or yemen need more diversity for some reason like we don't see people saying gosh china really needs more black people. Like they need more Latinx communities in Yemen. No one ever says that. It's only America and the UK, Northern Europe, Canada. We need more ethnic diversity, but these homogenous countries don't. Why? Because of this assumption that progressive sometimes don't even know that

Starting point is 00:21:55 they're asserting that less whiteness is better or holier. No one's going up to the Hispanic church or the Korean church on the, you know, street corner and Plano saying like, why don't you have more people of Norwegian descent inside your doors. But if there's a predominantly white church in a predominantly white area, you get people walking in and saying, you know, why don't you have more black people here? And so the call for diversity is not even sincere. And that's not something we necessarily have to represent as a signal of holiness in the local church. Yes, it is true that the early church gave everything they had. We read that in Acts 245, but But this followed belief, baptism, and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and it was not compelled

Starting point is 00:22:41 by the government. You see this over and over again with this conflation of the kingdom of God and America, that they will take particular decontextualized verses and say, this should be the policy in America. But then to the conservative argument, which says, God is the source of truth and goodness, and there are principles we see in scripture that we should let us, let inform our morality and therefore shape our laws without forcing a theocracy, that's bad. And then they'll say, well, the kingdom of God and America are the same,

Starting point is 00:23:14 and we should enforce generosity and diversity that we see in the early church and the future of kingdom and the kingdom of heaven. And so that's the hypocrisy that we see over and over again. Conservatives. We say that people are made in God's image that murder is wrong. We shouldn't kill babies inside the womb, progressives. That's Christian nationalism. Now give me your lunch money so I can give it to the Smalley and Daycare Center.

Starting point is 00:23:35 like those are the differences that we're seeing and how we interpret how Christians should interact with politics in America. And that's what's going on here. Okay, we got more on this. Let me pause. Tell you about our next sponsor for the day. And that is we heart nutrition. I love we heart nutrition. I know I talk about them all the time, but it is a genuine love. It is the product that I talk about on my show that I probably use the most because I take we heart nutrition every single night before I go to bed and it's helped me feel so much better. It's helped me fight illness. Chief or later bro probably should be taking more wee heart nutrition because he's sick right now. Guess he's not sick? Me. I'm not sick because I am taking my immunity supplements from we heart nutrition. Every

Starting point is 00:24:17 ingredient comes in the most bioavailable form. That means your body is actually able to absorb it. You don't want to spend a lot of money on vitamins that aren't even really working for you. Plus, this is another family-owned Christian pro-life company that you just want to support. it go to weheartnutrition.com. Use code Alley. You'll get 20% off your order when you use my code. That's weheartnutrition.com code Alley. We see a lot from so-called progressive Christians that Jesus was an activist.

Starting point is 00:24:49 He was killed by basically ICE agents in the Roman Empire just following orders, just doing their jobs. He was an activist killed by the Roman Empire for opposing state power. That is not true. that is not why Jesus died. Jesus gave up his own life voluntarily. We read that in John 1018. No one takes it my life from me, but I lay it down, Jesus says,

Starting point is 00:25:17 of my own accord, I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my father. You know, we get this like weak hippie Jesus from these progressives That was basically like a communist non-binary activist, and that's not who he was. Jesus is God.

Starting point is 00:25:40 Ephesians 5-2. And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. He gave himself up for us. Jesus, first of all, was not an activist. He changed, yes, how the world saw and treated vulnerable people. Christians have carried that baton for millennia, by the way, but he was not killed for opposing state power. Christians by taking the baton of the gospel and the belief in the Amago Day, the belief in actual biblical justice have changed cultures, have forged Western civilization,

Starting point is 00:26:23 have ended infanticide and child sacrifice in so many different ways across all kinds of cultures, and I would actually love those on the progressive side who call themselves Christians to join us in that fight. And yet, for some reason, brutalizing kids outside of the, inside the womb, brutalizing kids outside of the womb who say they're born in the wrong body, that apparently is great biblically. Those of us who oppose that are Christian nationalists, but they won't join us in the fight to care for the Amago Day of the people who actually can't defend themselves. And yet, it's Ben Kramer who says, you have a clever way of ignoring the commands of God so you can follow your own teachings. He's quoting Jesus in Mark 7.9. I would say

Starting point is 00:27:08 that he should be very careful of quoting Mark 7.9 here because that could be said about him. In fact, if we look at the context of Mark 7, we see that the Pharisees are gathering around Jesus and they're noticing that his disciples are eating without having washed their hands, which goes against tradition, but there was no biblical command against this. And so Jesus rebukes them. Mark 7, 6 through 9. And he said to them, well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. And he said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment

Starting point is 00:27:54 of God in order to establish your tradition. So I think that Ben Kramer and others like him, and we should all read scripture and assess our own lives and our own sides and our own hearts. But I see this so clearly reflected in someone who is using the principles of man, the principles of secular progressivism, and is proof texting the Bible to try to fit those interpretations into his belief system. The truth is, is that many of the examples that Kramer is using from these biblical narratives have nothing to do with how God says a nation should be governed. He takes these interpersonal commands about our relationships and how we should voluntarily treat other people. And he projects that into prescribed policy.

Starting point is 00:28:43 And really, Kramer seems to imply through these interpretations that he would rather we adopt his version of Christian nationalism, one in which the government takes on the personal responsibilities that Christians have to show generosity and kindness. And I think it's a really good reminder for all of us, but especially a pastor, what 2 Timothy 2.15 says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed rightly handling the word of truth. Which reminds me of another former pastor and so-called Christian leader, John Pavlovitz. He is apparently a former evangelical pastor, and now he is a writer. I have tried to get him on my show several times. We've gone back and forth a few times

Starting point is 00:29:30 over the years because he is far left, LGBTQ affirming, and he deconstructed at some point. He is no longer a pastor. And he posted on Instagram that the biggest threat to our country, in fact, the source of all of our strife and all of our woes as a nation come from white evangelicals, conservative white evangelicals, not black evangelicals, not Hispanic evangelicals who might share the same believe, but certain people of a certain melanin count who are also conservative evangelical. So let's go through this post that as of now has over 42,000 likes on Instagram. So it's obviously resonating with some people. A pastor's warning, not a pastor, I just want to point that out.

Starting point is 00:30:15 He's not a pastor anymore. We're not in a civil war, but a Christian nationalist holy war, and they must not win. News to me, news to me, John. I, need you to understand something, he argues, conservative white evangelicals need to be stopped. You might agree with me as a simple emotional reflex. He says, but that's not enough. I need you to know the danger and the urgency of this moment. He says, our moral failure is evangelicals will get exponentially worse. Now that we have an unprecedented opportunity, we are religious extremists. And so listen to this. I don't know if you knew. I don't know if you knew this about our powers. and just how powerful we are, white evangelicals.

Starting point is 00:31:00 He says, if allowed to continue, their death grip on all three branches of government, death grip. Conservative Christians will render this nation unrecognizable. LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, immigrants, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. I would like to see your source cited. like and I just want to pause for a second. Is democracy, does democracy mean people who I like are elected? Like, I just want to be clear about that. He says we have a death grip on all three branches of government. Well, Donald Trump was elected by popular and electoral vote. So what happened there? Why is it a death grip just when the

Starting point is 00:31:46 people that you didn't vote for get elected? Do you believe in democracy or not? Or do you believe in your version of a Christian nationalist theocracy. I would love to know. He says, full-blown theocracy is the plan. Trust me. Trust me, bro. When I tell you that we won't recover from it, if they are ever given greater power or prolonged influence, if we fail at opposing their Christo-fascist agenda in both the streets and the polls, he's looking for more martyrs, by the way. My opinion is that he's looking for more Renee Goods and more Alex Prettys because that gives him the ability to stoke these flames that he thinks will change the course of the next election. He said we won't have elections anymore. We will never have a voice again in our lifetimes. Okay, this is the kind of stuff

Starting point is 00:32:38 that inspires very tragically people like Renee Good and Alex Prady to go out into the streets and to bust the taillights of ice officers and try to run over another ice officer. because people believe stuff like this without any citation or any source just trust me bro i don't know but i know no like that's the vibe that's going on here and unfortunately people who are already unstable in some way or already have resentment in some way they are very incensed by this he said i wish more decent people in america remember that they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them.

Starting point is 00:33:19 We need to defeat them. And we have to oppose them, yada, yada. He says, as a former pastor, I can't make this any clear. So the top line was that he's a pastor and I'm a former pastor. White evangelical Christians, listen to this. Listen to this. And tell me if this reminds you of any dangerous language that you have seen in the past that has led to some very scary movements around the world.

Starting point is 00:33:44 He says white evangelical Christians are the source of everything afflicting our nation. All of this violence, chaos, dehumanization, and suffering if you want the beautiful, expansive humanity of this world to be equally protected, respected, and cared for, they need to be stopped. All right. So I just want to remind you that evangelical Christians, Christians who pray every day, Christians who go to church every week. That statistically we give the most in charity, that we adopt the most children, that we offer the most volunteer service hours every year.

Starting point is 00:34:27 This is the hallmark of Christianity. This is why we have this amazing country in which we have something called rights that can't be arbitrarily given and taken away by the government. This is why we have this concept of the Amago Day, that people matter because they're people, of their political capital, not because of their productivity, not because of what ancient Roman Greece and Greece society believed that you have to have a logos or the ability to rationalize in order to be a valuable person. But people matter because they're people. We have that concept. We have the concept of justice because of Christianity. And yet, this person who still claims to be a Christian, by the way, says that it's white evangelicals who are the source of all of our

Starting point is 00:35:15 affliction. What do you think that is going to encourage his readers to go out and do? He says, America is not in a civil war wherein white Christian nationalist grim and loveless holy war. All people of faith, morality, and conscience need to stand together and push them back into the hell they came from. I mean, you cannot get any stronger language that seems to be a death threat without coming out and saying it. Like that is some pretty radical stuff that is getting almost 50,000 likes on Instagram by someone who claims to be a Christian. And I would love sincerely to have John on the show.

Starting point is 00:35:58 Like any format in person, I would love for us to have a conversation. And I want to know, give me your examples. Give me your examples of this. How are we the source of affliction? I've been an evangelical Christian my entire life. I'm around evangelical Christians every single day. And when I think about, for example, share the arrows and having six to seven thousand women for the past two years in one room, worshiping together, loving each other, holding each

Starting point is 00:36:32 other's babies comforting each other when they cried befriending strangers from all around the world. I can tell you these are the kindest, the most loving, the most charitable, the most generous women you will ever find. You know what I see when I see the people, not saying all people on the left or all people who vote Democrat, but when I see some of these radically violent agitators, people who follow people like John Pavlovitz out in the street, you know what it reminds me? It reminds me of the white witch's army in the Chronicles of Narnia. And I'm not just talking about their outward appearance. Like I am talking about the disorder in their heart and their lives.

Starting point is 00:37:14 And there's no other explanation besides a profound spiritual explanation that these people swap evil for good and just cannot see things rightly. They are truly blind guides. And we should pray for people like Pavlovitz and people who believe in this kind of stuff. And we've got a biblical response to this. And I hope that there's someone out there listening that the word of God can seep into and realize that they need to turn away from this. And they just need to repent. Let me pause.

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Starting point is 00:38:41 start hearing sign up for your $1 a month trial today at Shopify.com slash alley. That's a $1 per month trial that you can start today with Shopify.com slash alley. Okay, so a couple things here. White evangelical Christians are not the only people who support Trump or who support ICE. Many of the federal agents that work for ICE and border patrol are not white. They might not even be Republicans. They might not even be evangelicals. But Pavlovitz effectively erases all of those groups. They're outside of white evangelicals.

Starting point is 00:39:24 He erases the legal immigrants and the citizens of all ethnicities who think secure borders are a good idea. And he's trying to prop up this belief that conservative Christians are racist and that we're bigots and that we have like a monopoly on evil. And the irony is, of course, that he is accusing white evangelicals of racial prejudice while he is practicing that himself. And therefore, he is showing partiality. We read over and over again that partiality is a sin. It is not of God. James 2.1, for example, my brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory. We saw this over and over again in 2020, people who profess to be Christians telling white people, you need to apologize to black people.

Starting point is 00:40:09 Even if you are never involved in any kind of racial prejudice, it is your responsibility and your burden. And black people, you basically have no responsibility or agency. You can do whatever you want to and white people have to apologize. That is not an exaggeration. Be the bridge and their regulations for their Facebook group and the groups that they were hosting, actually said that white people had to allow black women of color to yell and wail at them and to accuse them and white people couldn't defend themselves. Okay. So that was in Christian circles. That kind of partiality happening doesn't surprise me that in these secular circles and I do consider him secular that they are boasting of this kind of partiality. But Matthew 7-1-3-5

Starting point is 00:40:48 tells us, judge not that you be judged. This is a verse that is very popular among progressives, but I think the rest of the verse is really important. For with a judgment, you pronounce you will be judged and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother? Let me take the speck out of your eye when there's a log in your own eye. You hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye and you will see clearly to take the spec out of your brother's eye. And so we are supposed to, as we see in John 724, not judged by appearances, so not skin color, not socioeconomic status, but we are to judge with right judgment. So it's

Starting point is 00:41:28 not that we're not supposed to judge. It's not that we're not supposed to discern right from wrong. It's not that we're not supposed to call out sin, but we can't do it hypocritically and we can't do it by judging people on appearances, which of course is exactly what Pavlovitz is doing. He also claims that conservative white evangelicals have experienced a quote wholesale moral failure without providing any examples. Maybe you have to subscribe to the substack and pay those $8 a month in order to find out what his examples are. But I'm more. interested in what scripture says here. Proverbs 195, a false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will not escape. That's really important for all of us,

Starting point is 00:42:08 especially professional yappers. We talk a lot, and we need to make sure that we have very high standards for the truthfulness of what we're saying. Proverbs 1018, the one who conceals hatred, has lying lips, and whoever utters slander is a fool. Matthew 1236, I tell you on the day of judgment. People will give account for every careless word that they speak. Again, for professional writers, for pastors, for podcasters like me, I want to take those verses seriously. So I'm not just lodging those verses against Pavlovitz. Those are verses that I want to consider every day. But I wish people like him would also consider. Like if you really fear God and you believe that one day you will give him account, then the accusations you make of other people, they carry a lot of

Starting point is 00:42:56 to wait. That's why it's better to make accusations against one individual because you can be pretty sure that you're right. Like if you're digging into the truth of that and you're actually looking for evidence and you're saying, okay, that person is sinning, this is how I know. You have a much better chance of being truthful and correct than if you say all people who look like that or all people who vote like that, they all hate babies or they all hate immigrants or whatever, you've got a really good chance that you're lying somewhere in there. So I want to take that seriously as well. Pavlovitz makes projections that conservative white evangelicals will usher in full-blown theocracy. He calls this a clear and sober forecast because if you just say that,

Starting point is 00:43:38 then it makes it so. I declare bankruptcy. It just doesn't work like that. Women will lose bodily autonomy and voting rights, he says, but here's the truth is that we don't believe in autonomy at all costs, not Christians. In fact, autonomy and authenticity are only good if they are in submission to God's truth. Authenticity and autonomy used to justify things like identifying as the opposite gender or killing the baby inside your womb is not something that Christian should support. So opposing abortion, he's using bodily autonomy as a euphemism for that, which is another form of line, which is a sin by the way. Abortion is not biblical. Exodus 2013 is very simple. You shall not murder. A baby inside the womb, whether it's a zygote, or whether it is a fetus, whatever

Starting point is 00:44:27 medical language you want to use that is still a living human being that is defenseless and legally innocent, and therefore by definition, killing that human being is murder. And so, of course, Christians should be against it. That's like Christianity 101. We should be against murder. Psalm 139, 13 through 16, for you formed my inward parts. You knit me together in my mother's boom, I praise you for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. I love this part. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eye saw my unformed substance. And then in your book were written, were written for me all the days as yet there were none of them. My unformed

Starting point is 00:45:12 substance. So I see a lot from progressives. And this is not in this particular, in this particular article. but the baby is not a baby inside the womb because he or she looks like a clump of cells or they don't have, you know, a fully formed brain yet, or they don't have all of their fingers and toes. But the Bible says that God can see our unformed form or unformed body and that God cares about it, that he forms it, that he knits it together and that it has value. And so progressives really don't, for me, carry a lot of moral weight in any of their arguments when it comes to. to human rights when they persistently believe that babies inside the womb have no right to legal protection against being dismembered by forceps. Like I am willing to hear you out a lot more, even if you're on the opposite side of the aisle, like if you can just meet me there. Like if we can both just say, okay, I think killing any innocent person is wrong and should be illegal in or outside of the womb, then I feel like we at least have enough of a shared moral basis where we can talk about the rest of the stuff. But if we can't agree on that, then to me,

Starting point is 00:46:22 like your cries for justice and human rights are just laughable. And then, of course, saying women aren't going to have rights, he's basically just talking about abortion. Repealing the 19th Amendment. It's pretty fringe. There are some people who believe in that don't think that's something that's going to be carried out anytime soon. LGBTIQ people will lose rights to marry and adopt. And again, this is a very straightforward biblical position that marriage was created by God. It was designed by God, rooted in creation, reiterated throughout scripture, repeated by Jesus in Matthew 19, representative of Christ in the church and reflective of the gospel. We've talked about those five hours many times. And if we believe that we are supposed to

Starting point is 00:47:09 carry the cause of the fatherless, then that would apply to those who are motherless to, which means that we are not going to purposely manufacture motherlessness and fatherlessness by supporting the legal redefinition of marriage. We could go through Leviticus 20, Romans 1, 1st Corinthians 6 for the prohibitions on homosexuality. Those of you who have been listening to the show for any amount of time have watched us and listened to us

Starting point is 00:47:32 go through that many times. You can go back and listen to past episodes if you are curious. He says people of color will be excluded from the electoral process. Lie. Immigrants will be denied. opportunity and refuge. Also not true. Just a reminder that America has accepted more refugees than any other country by far. And I think that's a good thing. I want us to prioritize Christian refugees from war-torn countries. And I still want them to be vetted. And I still want there to be a way when safe

Starting point is 00:48:03 for them to go back to their home country. But I do just want to say that it is the responsibility and the right of any country to say this is how many refugees we should take and no more. And for people who say, oh, we should accept all asylum seekers or all refugees, really any people who oppose immigration enforcement, I think it's a really good idea to ask them some questions. Like, is there any level of enforcement of our immigration law that is not Christian nationalist that wouldn't be fascist? Like, is there any limit to the number of people that we should accept? Or should we, do we have an obligation in your mind to accept every single person from every country that is poorer than the United States? At any point, do American interest start to outweigh the interests of people from Zambia?

Starting point is 00:48:57 At what point does that become not Christian nationalists? Most of them can't answer these questions because they've never thought through it before. But the fact of the matter is every country has that right in responsibility. It's common sense. And I think it's important for us to remember that, yes, the American Somalian person is our neighbor. We can love them and we can care for them. But Lake and Riley is also our neighbor. And Molly Tibbitts is also our neighbor.

Starting point is 00:49:30 And Kate Steinle was also our neighbor. And loving them would have meant. making sure that our immigration law is enforced. Like we wouldn't be seeing all of this chaos right now, this unfortunate violence and this loss of life, if we had had common sense tough immigration law, and if we had been enforcing it. And I just,

Starting point is 00:49:54 it's worth pointing out yet again that I didn't see John Pavlovitz or Ben Kramer or any of these people up in arms when Joe Biden and especially Barack Obama were doing the same things. because they were. It wasn't any crazier or it's not any crazier now. It wasn't more humane than they didn't use due process. You can go back and listen to last Wednesday's episode for some examples on that. A lot of this is manufactured outrage. And if you haven't read my book, toxic empathy, like I don't even care if you buy it. Barrow it from a friend. Go to the library. Most libraries have it, although it's usually checked out because I really just at least want

Starting point is 00:50:33 you to read chapter four of this book, but this will give you words and an understanding for everything that is going on right now. Of course, you can get it on Amazon and all those good places. But if you don't have the cash to buy it right now, there are lots of places that you can get it for free. And I just, I really want you to be equipped. This book is my answer to the question, what do I say when? On almost every subject, it's concise and it'll give you all of the biblical and factual knowledge that you need on these subjects. I'm really passionate about it because I don't want Christian women to be duped by toxic empathy. I want us to be good thinkers. And I love talking about evangelical women, but the fact of the matter is it's not just evangelicals who are

Starting point is 00:51:12 struggling with this stuff and who are getting confused on this stuff. We got issues outside of the evangelical camp, but I want everyone to remember that. So let's get into that in just a second. Let me tell you about our next sponsor. And that is preborn. I love partnering with preborn because they equip pregnancy centers across the country with the equipment that they need to help these moms in need. And these moms are walking in pregnant, believing the lie sometimes that they're carrying a clump of cells. And maybe they think the easiest, most convenient thing is to have an abortion. And yet these pregnancy centers, they are able to give this woman a sonogram. She's able to see that this is a life with a beating heart, a part of her. This is not just a clump of cells. And so often,

Starting point is 00:51:52 when she gets that sonogram, she chooses life. And so pre-born helps these pregnancy centers by supplying this equipment so they can save lives, but pre-born needs your help. $28 covers the cost of a life-saving ultrasound, but whatever you can give can help. Whether it's $2.80, maybe it's $28,000. You can partner with them in saving lives. So go to preborn.com slash Alley. Make your donation today. That's preborn.com slash Allie. Okay. So I've been seeing a lot of people criticize evangelical women for how evangelical women are duped on all of this stuff. And of course, I know that. That's why I wrote this book. That's even why in a lot of ways I wrote my first book because I've been in this evangelical world forever. I know exactly how it looks. I know exactly how it works. I know exactly

Starting point is 00:52:49 why it's affected, effective. And I can say all of this, these critiques and disagreements from a place of love because and a place of optimism and hope because I really feel like evangelical women with really good theological training can do a better job of seeing these messages in the media and push back against it with logic and with good theology. But I'm seeing some people outside of the evangelical women camp ask this question. And I want to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay? Because, yes, there are evangelical women who are duped. But evangelical women outside of that group are the strongest on all of these issues when it comes to female demographics in the country. We're the strongest on immigration. We're the strongest on abortion. We're the strongest on marriage.

Starting point is 00:53:30 we're the strongest on gender. Like we are the bulwark of female conservatism. So when I see my beloved Catholic friends criticizing evangelical women, I just say, uh, uh, turn around. Look at your own circle. Because our beloved Catholic friends have a huge issue of progressivism when it

Starting point is 00:53:51 comes to abortion, all these things, way more than the evangelicals do. So I would love my conservative Catholic friends to focus on inside their camp because we need Catholics to be super strong. on life and all of that, as I will say much of the church traditionally has been, but we've got a big social justice problem inside the Catholic Church. And I think that my Catholic conservative friends would agree with that. We have, for example, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey.

Starting point is 00:54:18 He urges Congress to defund ICE, calls it a lawless organization. He urged Congress to vote against renewing funding for such a lawless organization. We mourn for a world, a country that allows five-year-olds to be legally kidnapped and protesters to be slaughtered. Okay, two lies. Two lies right there. Five-year-old was not kidnapped. And Alex Preddy and Renee Good were not protesters. Like, you could still oppose how they died, but they were not protesters. They were agitating. They were impeding law enforcement operations. And so that is toxic empathy. that is using a lie to advance a nefarious cause by pulling on your heartstrings. We've got Cardinal Parolin.

Starting point is 00:55:00 Violence in Minneapolis is unacceptable, which of course I agree with. But he says the position of the Holy See is always to avoid any kind of violence, obviously, and therefore we can not accept episodes of this kind. That is our position, as you know. He's talking about Alex Preti's death. And of course, in general, I agree. I don't like violence. I would love for no one to ever die at the hands of the police. However, Romans 13, the state does not bear the sword in vain. So even Alex Preddy case aside,

Starting point is 00:55:33 just in general, we can't actually be against all forms of violence and agree with what the Bible says about how the state designed by God carries out punishment against the wrongdoer. You'll remember, we talked about it a few months ago. Pope Leo, the new Pope, he said this on immigration. He said, someone who says, I'm against abortion, but is in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life. Pope Leo, I would love to have you on the show and discuss this, because this is that whole nicer than God phenomenon. Charlie Kirk and I talked about the last time we talked face-to-face on his show is that so many faith leaders believe that they are nicer than God. Genesis 9-6 instituted the death penalty because man is made in God's image that still

Starting point is 00:56:19 true today. He says, the Pope says, and someone who says I'm against abortion, but I'm in agreement with the inhuman, maybe or inhumane treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don't know if that's pro-life. Okay, sure. Well, a couple things. I don't like expanding pro-life beyond abortion because then it just means nothing. If being pro-life is also, you know, being for fighting for climate change and open borders and about immigrants, then it just completely distills it and it's not as potent as when we are fighting against the slaughter of babies inside the womb. So that's lame. We see this in evangelicalism too. This like womb to tomb pro-life. You have to, you're like against abortion personally, but then also you're for welfare and that's

Starting point is 00:57:04 also pro-life. But also I'd want to know the example. What's the inhumane treatment of immigrants in the United States? And are you conflating immigrants and illegal immigrants? I say clarity is a gift. this is completely unclear, morally, factually. And so I actually don't think it is helpful in, by the way, deporting people and slaughtering people inside the womb. They are not morally on the same ground. But I think this is why I see a lot of my Catholic friends struggling so much to give, not all, not all, but to give a morally clear stance on something like immigration.

Starting point is 00:57:42 I see like a lot of strength and clarity when it comes to abortion in a lot of cases. in a lot of cases. But when it comes to things like justice, when it comes to things like crime and immigration, I see a lot of confusion and lack of clarity from that group. And I think it's because the leadership at the top is like really unclear about what the Bible has to say about those things. And just remember, we are not nicer than God. And borders and governments and laws and justice were all God's idea. Remember, God is a God of mercy, but he also is a God of order. And we are to be agents of mercy, but also agents of order because that's good for our neighbors. All right. We got one final thing to talk about, but I have to tell you my last sponsor for the day.

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Starting point is 00:59:24 Use code Allie at checkout. That's good ranchers.com. Code Allie. Okay. My Catholic friends will be happy to hear. We're going to go back to the evangelicals now, okay? Because I only, I just want you to note that I spent a short amount of time critiquing Catholic leaders.

Starting point is 00:59:43 Every time I do that, I'm always like, why do you, people are like, why do you hate Catholics? Why are you attacking Catholics? No, I attack my own camp a lot more. I just wanted it to be noted that you all have some work to do within your camp as well. So we're back. We're back to the evangelical church now. And I just wanted to end on addressing this video that has been going around of this Minnesota pastor that is addressing.

Starting point is 01:00:07 This was actually before all of this stuff happened with Renee Good and Alex Pready. it was after all of the widespread fraud had been uncovered by Nick Shirley. And this was his response to that, which I just think is a strange thing to say in light of the revelation that hardworking taxpayers have had their money stolen from them by newcomers that are using it to enrich themselves and Democrat politicians. I want you to know that there was horrible fraud in the state of Minnesota. but I want you also to know that there are 100,000 Somalis in our city and the 100,000 Somalis in our city are not like the few that took advantage of the system and perform fraud. There is 250,000 Latinos in our city. And when we have a president that is actually villainizing a whole people group, it is anti-God.

Starting point is 01:01:11 It's anti-gospel and it's anti-new covenant. Okay. I don't think that this is the clearest and best response to the revelations that we saw after this investigation. This is a very wishy-washy response to that. Yes, this happened over here. No condemnation of it, by the way. No explanation for why it was wrong. No sympathy for the people who have been trying to make ends meet and have realized that they've been forking over money.

Starting point is 01:01:41 not to make their own roads better probably, but to enrich these fraudsters. Like, no expression of compassion for that. Immediate pivot over here to say, but all of these people are actually who we should focus on. Also, I haven't heard Trump say that every single immigrant or every single Somalian, every single Latino person is bad or is a part of this fraud. It's okay for us to just say that fraud is wrong. It's wrong. and illegal immigration is wrong and that we should be putting the welfare of our city first.

Starting point is 01:02:17 And so this was the same kind of thing, the same kind of thing we saw in 2020. This weakness, this moral ambiguity, and the lack of courage and clarity from pastors to just be able to call sin sin. And maybe if this had been a little bit more even-handed, like I would have been okay with that. there are things that he said in there in principle that I don't disagree with. But I am so tired of pastors and influencers and Christians allowing the liberal media exclusively to dictate their outrage. All of these people, as we've talked about, who never talk about politics, who never

Starting point is 01:03:00 weigh into stuff like this. The only time that they start talking about it is when liberal influencers and the liberal media and their Democrat friends tell them they should. But there was not a campaign to get people to talk about Trump almost being assassinated. But anytime there is something that makes Democrats mad, you get the same people who say that they're not political speaking up in such a morally ambiguous way that is so not helpful. We need pastors right now who are just clear. I'm not asking you to be a newscaster.

Starting point is 01:03:34 I'm not asking you to be a, you know, a political. commentator. I don't think a pastor has to go up every Sunday and use the pulpit to talk about the news of the week. That's not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to shepherd your flock by faithfully exegeting the word of God well. That is going to intersect into politics at times. You can't really preach the Bible without talking about things like abortion, for example, or gender or marriage. And the theological has become political. And so pastors have to wait into that. But when you are doing so, make sure you're doing so because the Word of God demands it, not because liberals demand it.

Starting point is 01:04:15 So don't follow the direction and the example of this pastor or even worse, Ben Kramer or John Pavlovitz. These people at the very best are confused at the very worst are purposely leading the flock astray. All right. I hope that gave you some clarity today on all the chaos that's going on. We will have much more for you. on Wednesday. See you guys then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1297 | Rebutting Ben Cremer’s Unbiblical Take on ICE

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