Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1311 | Did John Piper Just Call for Open Borders? X Controversy Explained

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Starting point is 00:00:52 mortgage lending by the book, nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans, equal housing lender, NMLS, number 819382. CNN is releasing a new documentary about so-called Christian nationalism, where a journalist fearmongers about classical Christian education and biblical marriage. But Christianity in America is not the ideology you need to be afraid of. In fact, I will paint a picture for you of exactly what it looks like when Christians refuse to engage in politics. We've got all of this and more on today's episode of Relatable. Make sure you get your tickets to share the arrows. share the arrows.com Christian Women's Conference, October 10th in Dallas, Texas.

Starting point is 00:01:35 And make sure you subscribe on YouTube and you like this show and you also leave a five-star review wherever you listen. All right, let's get into today's episode. Hey guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. So if you are watching this, you can see that the setting has changed. I'm at my home. Maybe you're listening. You can tell it sounds a little bit different. I am recording this Monday morning. a little addendum to today's episode, the rest of which was actually recorded at the end of last week. So I've got a couple things to say in light of the happenings of the past few days. Number one, we will be talking about Iran, everything going on there, all the considerations

Starting point is 00:02:24 we should have as Christians, especially in light of our eschatology or belief about the end times. Also, the tragic events in Austin, Texas, how those two things are possibly connected. So we'll be discussing all of that on Wednesday. I also just wanted to add some clarity to the subject that we're about to discuss John Piper's post with the immigration related Bible verse. So from all of the information that's come out over the past few days, it does look like this was not an intentional commentary on the news cycle or a reaction to Trump's state of the union address.

Starting point is 00:03:01 In fact, John Piper seems to post this verse. every year in accordance with his Bible reading plan. Now, you could say that there should have been more consideration about the timing and light of recent events and all of that, but this was not an intentional insertion of his opinion about immigration. However, the rest of the commentary that we give, the response that we give to those who do try to wield this verse to make some kind of liberal immigration point is very relevant, very necessary will be helpful to you as you're navigating these conversations. And the rest of the episode is also, extremely prescient last week. Of course, we didn't know everything that would be going on in Iran.

Starting point is 00:03:40 Yet this episode is about the position that America is in and how we should be thinking about that and how Christianity plays such a key role in who we are and how we should think about our national identity and our place in the world. So I just wanted to add that, give you as much information, as much clarity as possible. And without further ado, let's get into the rest of today's episode. Good news. God, the eternal plan of redemption is still, as ever, going off without a hitch. Yay. Woohoo. I'm so glad about that because there's so much craziness going on in the world. There's evil, it seems. Everywhere we look, there's so much darkness and sometimes it seems like the darkness is winning.

Starting point is 00:04:28 But nothing surprises God. Nothing takes him aback. He's never wondering, gosh, how did you make this mess? He's sovereign over all of it. And every second of every day, his anger is kindling. against evil doers. Psalm 37 reminds us that one day he is going to take vengeance for his people and he is going to fight on our behalf and all of the blood that has been ever, that has ever been shed by the innocent, by his chosen people will be avenged. And we have that to look forward to. It's really easy to think, why would God allow all of this suffering? Why would he allow all this pain? That's something that you heard Shannon Bream and I talk about on Friday. And yet we know that he He's not actually doing nothing, that he has a plan, he is determined the day and the hour that

Starting point is 00:05:14 he is returning, and he will make all things right. That's a really good reason to be courageous. Two reasons. One, the day of your death is determined by God. Missionary John Baton, he spent years of his life being a missionary to this island of Aniwa where these pagan tribes lived after 15 years of his work and the work of other missionaries, the entire island turned to Christ. And he realized in the midst of the hardship that he had to endure there, the hatred that he originally felt from these islanders, that he was immortal until

Starting point is 00:05:51 God called him home, that there was no weapon that could be formed against him that would prosper without God's will. So until the day and the moment of your death, you are absolutely invincible. You are absolutely immortal. Psalm 139 reminds us that all of of our days were written out for us before any of them came to be. And so there's not anything happening in your life that God's like, oh gosh, didn't see that coming, not sure how I'm going to avoid that. So you can be completely brave. And then the second reason is that the day of victory has already been determined by God. That everything will be made new, everything will be made right, and perfect justice will be enacted. That's another reason why we can be courageous. So just remember

Starting point is 00:06:32 your responsibility as a Christian, as a mom, as a great, grandmother, as a single woman, as a father, whatever station of life you're in, is to simply do the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God. And remember, the kingdom of God is mostly advanced through the seemingly mundane acts of obedience, the unseen and unsung acts of faithfulness by believers every single day. Through our boldness, through our kindness, through our commitment to excellence, through the love that we have for our neighbors, through sharing the gospel, God's kingdom is advanced. And what a privilege it is that we get to be a part of that.

Starting point is 00:07:11 God doesn't need us, but he chooses to use us. So we can be as bold as lions because we serve the God who has a victory and who has already planned all of our lives. And I'm just so thankful for that, especially as I look to the headlines around the world and some of them that we're going to talk about at the beginning. And the point that I want to drive home really in this entire episode, but especially and some of these things that we're going to talk about at the top is how thankful we should be, for one, the Lord, just that he gives us such a perfect roadmap in his word of the life of

Starting point is 00:07:45 godliness and how we can find satisfaction, where we can seek true justice, what truth and clarity and all of these things look like, but also just in an earthly sense, so thankful to live in the West, so thankful to live in a country that at least foundationally believe believes in the Amago Day, believes that we were all created by a God who has given us inalienable rights. It's so easy to take that for granted. And to think that this is just common sense everywhere, it's not. I saw this horrific headline.

Starting point is 00:08:18 And it was originally tweeted out by someone named Liza Rosen on X. And it's a daily mail headline. It says, hundreds, this is very disturbing. Hundreds of dead newborn girls have been found dumped in garbage piles in Pakistan over the last year as cultural preference for boys drives more parents to murder babies. Unfortunately, this is something that occurs in all kinds of non-Western countries. And actually, it occurs in America today. We just don't do it after birth. It doesn't typically happen in this way. It happens via abortion. It happens via eugenic. Some people use the IVF process to decide which gender they want to give

Starting point is 00:09:00 birth to first. So this is a very prevalent practice that happens all over the world. Now, when we read something like this, our first instinct is that is barbarism. It sounds a lot like the one child policy that happened in the 20th century in China. The boys were preferred over girls. But if you had more than one child, you had to kill your child. Even if it was eighth, ninth month of pregnancy, even if it was after birth, commit infanticide. And if you've heard me talk at all about this book by a historian named O.M. Backey, then you know what I'm talking about when I say exposure hills. Exposure hills were these places in ancient pagan Rome where newborn unwanted babies were placed outside of the city limits to die by exposure, to the elements, to wild

Starting point is 00:09:49 animals. This was a very prevalent, well-documented practice in the ancient world because children weren't seen as full humans. They didn't possess what the ancient Greek scholars at the time called the logos, and that is the ability to reason or to rationalize. Only the adult free male did. Kids didn't. So they were basically seen as on the level of animals and barbarians. And so mistreatment of them, whether it's the sexualization of them, they were very often sold into prostitution, using them for child labor, or killing them outright in or outside of the womb, was done without moral qualm whatsoever. In fact, there is like a scholarly philosophical justification for doing that.

Starting point is 00:10:30 But Owen Bakke chronicles the change in culture and the change in the perspective on children 2,000 years ago. And he attributes this change of perspective to Christians. Now, this concept of the Amago Day already existed with the Hebrews, with the Israelites. Genesis 1 says that God made us in his image. But Christians popularized this idea. And it was a radical concept at the time that none of the scholars and even the religious pagans of the time believed or even had the words to conceptualize that all people have equal

Starting point is 00:11:06 worth because they are people, not based on their status, not based on whether they are slave or free, not based on their income, not based on their gender, not based on their age, not based on their intellect, not based on their political position, but just because they are people. No one, aside from the Hebrews, believed that at the time. No one aside from the Hebrews that we know of, had any issue whatsoever with child sacrifice. It was God and his people that were distinct. And then when Christians came along about 2,000 years ago, who were evangelistic in their faith, who weren't just Jews, but also Gentiles, who were converts, who were going into the pagan world and saying, actually, this child's sacrifice that you're doing is not okay.

Starting point is 00:11:57 Actually, all people have equal worth because of the Amango Day because we're created by God, the one God. Actually, all of us are equally dead and sin apart from Christ, but all of us can be made alive in Christ by grace through faith, this radically equalizing message that Christians preached wherever they went, eventually changed how the world saw people. Because these Christians, they worship to God that was so. So unlike the Roman and Greek gods at the time. When this person that they called God, this Jesus of Nazareth came to earth, he came to earth as an embryo.

Starting point is 00:12:35 He was heralded by the kicks of an unborn John the Baptist. He was worshipped as a newborn by the angels and by the wise men. And against the protestation of his disciples had let the little children come to me, such as these belong, the kingdom of heaven. That was a completely unheard of in the pagan world. and even among the Jewish religious scholars at the time, an unheard of perspective on children, and certainly an unheard of perspective on the divine. And these persistent and very strange Christians over time, everywhere they went, as they preached the gospel, they said, the child sacrifice will end now.

Starting point is 00:13:12 The child's sexualization will end now. The oppression of the poor and the sick and of women will end now. And so they built the hospitals. They created the orphan. They built the churches that have these foundling wheels where parents of an unwanted child or a child that they couldn't care for. They'd be placed in these wheels and there would be Christians on the other side of the wall to turn the wheel and to catch the baby and to care for the baby and to make sure the baby was adopted by loving parents. And eventually these exposure hills in the pagan ancient world were stigmatized and eventually they were criminalized. This took decades and then centuries.

Starting point is 00:13:49 but over time Christians changed the game for children, changed how the world saw people. And we so take this for granted in the West today. We think that everyone kind of believes this. Like everyone has more compassion for children. Everyone has this view of the poor or the view of the sick, this instinct that even liberals have, those who are pro-abortion,

Starting point is 00:14:17 there's a cognitive dissonance there, but even they would say they have extra compassion for vulnerable kids. They have extra compassion for the elderly or the sick. That's kind of our instinct in the West, but it's not based on human nature. It's based on the Western conscience that was forged specifically by Christians. Christians changed the game. And when you don't have Christianity as your foundation, all kinds of moral atrocities, especially against the powerless are justified.

Starting point is 00:14:50 So what we see in Pakistan, what we've seen in China, what we see in the Middle East today, that we know is disgusting and is depraved and is demonic, is not seen that way in most of the world today. Because most of the world does not measure the worth of a person by the fact that they're a human, but by all different kinds of arbitrary criteria. And when your worth as a human,

Starting point is 00:15:16 being is judged by this arbitrary superficial criteria, then you get a Holocaust. You get widespread abortion. You get killing babies just because they're unwanted. So I just want us to realize that what we still have, as fragile as it might be in America, we still have the vestiges of a Christian conscience in the West. And I do believe it is up to Christians to preserve that as much is possible. It's not about Christo-fascism. It's not about building a theocracy in which people are forced to be Christians. It's literally just about loving our neighbor. And if God's ways are better, like if God is the creator and he's the authority over all of it, and he is the boss when it comes to what's right and what's wrong, what's justice and what's not, then of course we want

Starting point is 00:16:13 our policies to conform to that because we love people. And if God is love, 1 John 4.8, the most loving thing we can do and even our laws can do is agree with him and agree what he thinks about life and people and worth in the Amago Day. Christians, yes, throughout the, throughout history, of course they were sharing the gospel, they were doing all of these things, but they were necessarily and by definition, by nature, I should say, culture warriors, maybe not on purpose. but they were infusing the culture with this countercultural radical belief about human beings. And we in America here today have the same responsibility. We'll get more into this in just a second. Let me pause and tell you about our first sponsor for the day first. That is seven weeks coffee.

Starting point is 00:17:02 Gosh, what a fitting sponsor for what we're talking about. This is a company that is standing up for the voiceless, the most vulnerable group of people in our culture. And that's the unborn child. They donate 10% of every sale of seven weeks coffee to pregnancy centers across the country. They have, they have garnered more than a million dollars in donations. They've donated these to pregnancy centers. This gives these pregnancy centers the tools, the resources that they need to serve mothers in crisis. So moms feel equipped and supported to make that

Starting point is 00:17:34 life-saving decision for their child. So this is translated into saving thousands of lives. And if you have bought your coffee from seven weeks coffee, God has used you and your purchase to serve this incredible life-saving, generationally changing kind of purpose. And so thank you so much for being a part of that. And make sure you subscribe to Seven Weeks Coffee because every subscription, every month contributes to those pregnancy centers. Plus, you save money. You save 15% when you do this. Seven Weeks is super high quality, pesticide-free, mold-free, really, really good. When you use my code Alley, you save an extra 10% that seven weeks coffee.com code Alley. Okay, I also saw this other post, very disturbing what I'm about to show you. It's a video. And it's showing what's happening in Bangladesh, which is a largely Islamic community there. And that's the same thing with Pakistan. By the way, this is not only a problem what I'm about to show you and what we were just talking about in Islamic countries. It's a problem in lots of countries, Hindu countries, Buddhist countries, pagan countries.

Starting point is 00:18:47 countries, but it's especially prevalent in Islam because Islam has such a diametrically opposed view of human worth and women and children and their responsibility to righteousness and things like that. But in Bangladesh, this is a report of something that's going on here. And I'll just play you. I don't have to play the sound, but I'll describe it for you. It's basically like a dummy of a woman and she's hanging by a noose in what looks like the town square. and she's wearing this dummy as like wearing female garb and over the head of this dummy is like a black hood and then men are taking turns violently beating this dummy that is supposed to be like a woman and apparently they're practicing like they have flip flops and shoes in their hand they're

Starting point is 00:19:42 hitting her, kicking her, again, not a real person as much as violently as they possibly can. They're filming it and they're laughing about it. And this is apparently supposed to be protesting women being given additional rights in the country, which of course in these Islamic countries, women don't really have rights because they're not seen as full people. What is interesting about this, and this is the comment that I made on X is that not a single, I don't think, You can correct me if I'm wrong, but not a single liberal feminist in America would say no to welcoming any of these men into our country. If these men were transported into our country today and they were under threat of being deported by ICE, every single liberal feminist that you know would be protesting their deportation. we would have Billy Eilish saying no one is illegal on stolen land oh no human being is illegal we'd be hearing that from celebrities

Starting point is 00:20:47 until you grapple with the darkness of many of these cultures that we are importing into the United States today it's really easy to be in your gated community to be in your nice neighborhood and to say oh, no human being is illegal, we should just have open borders. F ice, get ice out. We shouldn't be deporting these people. It's really easy to say from your couch. But when you think about the vulnerable people who are actually affected by this kind of culture, by this kind of behavior, maybe, I don't know, just stop and think for a second if borderlessness is the way to go. there was a horrible study that I saw. I think Elon Muskry posted it on X,

Starting point is 00:21:39 and it was just talking about the increase of the sexual assaults in Britain. This is a huge problem. And actually we had eye on Hersey Ali on the show several years ago. She is a former Muslim. She has said now that she's converted to Christianity, which is amazing. But she wrote a book on this, the pervasive problem of sexual assault in European countries because of mass migration of Muslims.

Starting point is 00:22:04 Am I saying every single Muslim is going to commit sexual assault? No. But in these communities, the rates of sexual assault are much higher. And it's not because these guys are just rebels. It's because they don't see it as rebellion. Because their worldview is different than ours. Their view of human beings. And what their responsibility is is men.

Starting point is 00:22:23 It's not the same as ours. This idea of chivalry in the West and the United States, which I know is dwindling, but again, the vestiges are still there. There's something in our American instinct that likes to see a strong man caring for women and caring for children. This idea of self-sacrifice as leadership,

Starting point is 00:22:46 of using your strength to protect others and to guard the dignity of others. That is a Christian idea. Okay? That's not just common sense liberal classical democracy. That is Christianity that gave you that. You take Christianity away. You don't get that anymore. I'm not even talking about right and left. I'm just talking about what is true about Christianity and what it is given us. Now, a lot of people were mad. Speaking of immigration at John Piper recently, just the other day, he said, you shall treat, this is Leviticus 1934, you shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love. him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. He said,

Starting point is 00:23:37 Christians know the miserable bondage we are all in. Well, John Piper got ratioed by a lot of people on X. I thought most of them were not rude. You have people like my friend Megan Basham, respectively pushing back against him, Katie Faust as well. A lot of people I follow who were reading this as an indictment on Trump or an indictment on Trump's celebration of defending our border and deporting illegal aliens. Now, I do not know if that is what John Piper was talking about in the moment. If he just had this scheduled tweet put out, I will defend John Piper more than I think many conservative evangelicals will. I think he's gotten it wrong several times when he wades into the political discussion. I've been very clear about that over the years.

Starting point is 00:24:27 He's not a progressive, though. He's just, he's not a progressive. I'm not saying he's a Trump supporter, but he's definitely not theologically progressive, and the man knows the Bible. Now, I think living in Minneapolis and allowing his perspective to be skewed by liberal sources, like people like Russell Moore, unfortunately has led him to saying some things that are undiscerning. I don't know his motivation behind posting this. But I will take the opportunity to respond to this mentality because a lot of people do use this verse in Leviticus to justify open borders, to say that deporting people is wrong, to justify illegal immigration, and to say that deporting illegal immigrants, including pedophiles, is somehow oppressing the sojourner. You see this use just like carte blanche as a justification for condemning

Starting point is 00:25:18 ICE or all border control. And so here was my response. I said, maybe we are all reading too much into Piper's post, but for those who do use this passage to justify illegal immigration or to argue against deportations, you should keep this verse in mind. This is a verse that we've talked about, and it's Exodus 1249. There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you, okay, one law. So if as liberals do, and again, I'm not calling John Piper a liberal, but people who use that verse to justify illegal immigration, if we are going to use Old Testament law as our basis for immigration law in America today, which seemingly only progressives want to do, which is interesting, their own little fun form of Christian nationalism,

Starting point is 00:26:06 then we need to look at the whole thing because there was no tolerance of illegal immigration in ancient Israel. None. If you were a migrant, I mean, there was lots of different definitions of sojourners and foreigners and merchants just passing through and all. all of that. But if you were to live among the Israelites, you were required to be circumcised, you were, that would be a good deterrent, actually. Like if we just told people, hey, if you're going to illegally immigrate into the United States at the border, you're going to be circumcised. So if we want to apply Old Testament law to current American immigration policy, that's a conversation to have. But they also had to follow the laws about food and marriage and sexuality,

Starting point is 00:26:50 every single one of them. We can also see throughout the the Old Testament, this principle. And I just thought of this today. I wish I would have written this in my book. But something that we see over and over again in the Old Testament is that walllessness equals lawlessness. So without a border, without a wall, without a barrier of protection, you get chaos. We can see this in the book of Nehemiah, how a strong border was a signal to the enemies. Hey, don't mess with us. Don't mess with our women. Don't mess with our children because this is a symbol of God's provision for us. In fact, we read in proverbs that a city or a man without self-control is like a city without walls because you're

Starting point is 00:27:35 chaotic. You're a danger to those around you and to yourself. Jeremiah 297, as we've talked about before, urges the Israelite exiles in Babylon to seek the welfare of the nation in which God has providentially placed them. And we Christians are exiles on this earth and we are seek the welfare of the plot of earth in which God has providentially placed us. And one of the ways that we can do that is to protect our borders. Because remember, nations and governments and laws were God's idea. They were all God's idea, not our idea, because God is a God of order. And he created these modes of order, these spheres of order and law and law enforcement for our good, because we actually don't thrive in chaos. You know that if you have kids, your kids, your kids

Starting point is 00:28:23 don't thrive in chaos. They thrive when they have parameters, when they have boundaries, when they have a home with walls and they say, you can only go this far. Yeah, they might be a wild child and want to run, you know, 20 miles down the road. But you know that your fence, that your boundaries of your property are for their protection. And so it is with us. Remember that God placed us not in a jungle, but in a garden. What is the difference between a jungle and a garden? order. There are walls and parameters and rows in a garden. And we were called Adam and Eve were called to work it, or Adam was to work it and to keep it. And I think that is still true today, that we are to make orderly the world around us. And one way to do that is to protect our border. You cannot protect

Starting point is 00:29:11 your border if you're not deporting illegal immigrants because you are incentivizing lawlessness. And John Piper is a very smart person. And he knows his word very well. And I think he loves the Lord His God with all of it is heart, mind, soul, and strength. So I don't assume to know more than him or to be wiser than him. There is a disconnect. I think if this is the message he's trying to convey in this post, when it comes to connecting the Word of God to the political implications, my humble opinion. Because as we have just talked about, like, immigration and the people we how in our country, it really affects our neighbor, especially the babies and the women and the vulnerable people in our country. In light of this, all of this conversation, CNN is warning us

Starting point is 00:30:00 about Christian nationalism. And I want to respond to some of the things that they're saying, because we hear all the time, the danger is Christian nationalism. But the definition of Christian nationalism is so fluid. We've been talking about it on this show for a year. and Voddy Bacom, the late Voddy Bacom, whom I respected so much, he came on the show and talked about it and we just kind of like broke it down. What really, not according to the liberal media, that is Christian nationalism, like I'm not even sure how I would personally define it, but if you break down the words, nationalism just means that you want to put the interests of your country first. It's not automatically synonymous with Nazism or fascism, but I do

Starting point is 00:30:47 believe that we actually have the Christian responsibility to put the needs and the well-being of our citizens first. Again, God created nations. Nations are like families. You don't hate your family just because, or you don't hate your neighbors just because you lock your doors and you live inside a house. You just love your family. And God has created these circles of affection and circles of priority for us for our good, especially for the good of children again. But I think that's true of Zimbabwe as well of China. Everyone should put their country first. So that's how I was. define nationalism, like in comparison to globalism, which is what we're going to have a global government and we're trying to prioritize the needs of everyone equally, absolutely

Starting point is 00:31:29 impossible chaos, I'm anti-chaust, I'm an anti-chaust person that can basically describe my politics. And then Christian, of course, we know what Christian is, a belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so you believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, you believe in putting your country first, do you believe as Christians that your Christian worldview should impact all you think about policy and politics. And so you could describe it that way, but some would describe it as theocracy, as trying to force people through law to believe what you do, to practice what you do. People somehow inexplicably would call me a Christian nationalist for literally no reason at all, but that is because people haven't actually tried to define it. So that's what CNN I think is trying to do,

Starting point is 00:32:15 but of course they're warning against it. So they've got a documentary that is called The Rise of Christian Nationalism, and it's apparently going to air in just a couple weeks. The CNN anchor behind the project, her name is Pamela Brown. She interviewed Douglas Wilson. Doug Wilson is an Idaho pastor in Moscow, Idaho. He identifies as a Christian nationalist, and she said, quote,

Starting point is 00:32:37 the response to that report was overwhelming and highlighted the need to better understand this movement working to redefine America as a Christian nation. So you can already kind of see the bias in their language there as if America doesn't have a Christian foundation, which of course it does. But she goes on to say in the home, in a marriage, in schools, and in government. This journalist Brown defines Christian nationalism as an ideology rooted in the belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that its laws and institutions should reflect Christian values. Well, again, like I would be hard pressed to understand how a Christian could argue against that. I mean, there's no such thing as neutrality.

Starting point is 00:33:19 So it's either going to be Christianity, Islam, secular progressivism. Now, I do think that we should have religious liberty. I don't think we should force people to worship a certain way, to pray a certain way, or to be Christian. But if a worldview always has to inform law, because it does, every law speaks to a moral truth. People say you can't legislate morality. Of course you do. every piece of legislation is a form of morality. And our worldview is going to be reflected. Like Jesus' king can't be compartmentalized. Just like the Muslim doesn't believe that their belief should be compartmentalized.

Starting point is 00:33:54 Certainly, the secular progressive doesn't believe that their belief about gender or abortion should be compartmentalized. They're bringing the fullness of their belief system into the voting booth, into their PTA meetings, into the city council, into their classrooms, into every public sphere that they occupy. And Christian conservatives and Christian conservatives alone are told, you can't do that. Everyone else can, but you can't do that when you do that. That's a form of fascism.

Starting point is 00:34:22 Well, this journalist pointed to the Charlie Kirk Memorial Service as a time of, quote, unprecedented alignment between Christian nationalists and the Trump administration. And so here she is saying that, Saudi. Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and prominent Christian nationalist, was assassinated. It became a rallying call for those who believed in his message. Memorial service was one of the most potent examples of this shift in our culture that we're experiencing right now, where a large segment of American Christians are being activated by these ideas radicalized by these ideas that say that they are the persecution. ones and that they need to stand up for Christians' rights.

Starting point is 00:35:10 Okay. So, Glenn, back on there. I was also there at that memorial. It was an incredible day. I don't think Charlie called himself a Christian nationalist. Maybe I could be wrong by that. But people who threw out this moniker, it really is a scare tactic. It's to say, Ali Stucky or Charlie Kirk, they're not just Christians.

Starting point is 00:35:29 They're a radical form of Christian, actually, that you should not be supportive of. that if you listen to them, you're extreme too. This whole idea to say that true Christianity is only true, genuine Jesus like Christianity if it's private and you vote progressive. It's so dumb. It's so dumb. If you intertwine your faith with your politics, which again, every single person of every faith or non-faith does, then you are seen as some kind of extremist.

Starting point is 00:35:55 And yes, Charlie did believe in the gospel. And he talked about that wherever he went. But Charlie was actually like a very big tent guy, a lot more than I am, by the way. And so if they are calling Charlie, who is a moderate in a lot of ways, if they are calling him a Christian nationalist, then you're all Christian nationalists, too. So just get over your fear of being called that. Brown's on a skeptical, as she described a church community where women taught to submit to their husbands claimed they were living, fulfilling lives. Well, Pastor Wilson leads a growing network of conservative Christian churches and preaches a strict biblical interpretation of various issues.

Starting point is 00:36:37 His followers are taught to follow specific gender roles where wives submit to their husbands and make being a mother and homemaker their primary role while the husband acts as the head of the household and makes the executive decisions for the family. For my upcoming documentary, I embedded with a tight-knit conservative church community in Southeast Texas that belongs to Wilson's network of churches. The women there told me they're flourishing in their role as submissive wives. She's shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

Starting point is 00:37:06 I love how she said embedded like she went as a spy. Like did she pretend to be a tradwife too just so they would talk to her? Yeah, wives who submit to our husbands, I would say, are much happier than wives who don't. Who's happy in like a power struggle? But by the way, also those of us who believe in Ephesians 5 because we believe in the authority and in an inerrancy of God's word, we also know those of us who live in these marriages with our husbands that we respect and love so much that submission isn't some scary word. Like it's not like your husband ruling over you with an iron fist. It's certainly not having opinions or not having a voice or not having a personality. like it is your husband loving you and cherishing you and taking up this mantle of making the very

Starting point is 00:37:58 difficult leadership decisions for your family that I am so glad every day I don't have to make. And so it's actually like a wonderful relief for women to have this leader and to have this ultimate decision maker, especially when you're in a healthy marriage where your husband respects your wisdom and respects you and you talk through things together and you really do. have just like this wonderful love and friendship. And at the end of the day, like he is the one who bears their responsibility for the spiritual formation of our family, who makes the decisions for our family. It's a good thing. Of course, these women are thriving. They feel, they feel happy. Like, they feel relieved by that. Can you, of course, have a like a really mean husband who is abusive

Starting point is 00:38:44 in a variety of ways? Of course. But that happens. It's not Ephesians 5 that is causing that. it is in nature that is causing that. And as we just saw, like, I'm much more interested to hear about the views of women that these Middle Eastern migrants that we have been importing into our country and into the West, like, how does that affect marriage? Like, how about a little expose on some of the female genital mutilation that's happening in places like Minneapolis because of the high concentration of Somalians there? Like, if we want to talk about how women are treated, maybe not, like, loving Christian.

Starting point is 00:39:22 marriages where they're making sourdough to try to find some kind of hidden handmaid's tale narrative going on here. All right, I've got more to say on this, but I got to get through a few more sponsors. So let me tell you about our next one. And that is Javity. Absolutely loved my experience with Javity and knowing exactly what is going on with my body. My favorite part of this whole process, in addition to them sending the phlebotomist to me to take my blood, test all these biomarkers, is that after all of this was uploaded, I think like a week later, my results were uploaded super easy to see and really easy to understand. So you don't have to be some kind of like medical scholar. You certainly don't have to be super tech savvy to download their app to see your results.

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Starting point is 00:40:42 steward my body better. And so you will not regret investing in yourself in this way. Gojevd.com. that's go g-e-e-i-i dot com slash alley you'll get 20% off that's gogevity.com slash alley now on the other end of this brown asked a panel of deconstructing former trad wives so already in this as she is interviewing these former trad wives she is kind of conflating the women that she had talked to in the southeast texas church with these so-called trad wives and i will tell you what i think about that mistaken conflation in just a second But here is what this group of deconstructing women had to say about the quote-unquote patriarchy. Do you have concerns how that lifestyle is being glamorized on social media?

Starting point is 00:41:34 Yeah. Anyone who's an influencer trad wife is not a trad wife. It's a full-time job to put all of that content online and make it look really good. Also, you're getting two years your voice. You're getting your own independent money. So the people who are selling trad with free are not. bearing the costs of tradwifery. All right.

Starting point is 00:41:56 Y'all couldn't see it if you're just listening to this, but it says like former member of Christian Nationalist Affiliated Church. Now, I don't think that there is like an official network of Christian nationalist churches. So who knows what that means? It could have been your run of the mill Southern Baptist Church for all we know. I have no idea if these women were influencers and if they were really tradwives, if they're still tradwives. This is another thing just like Christian Nationalists that I think is misdefined by many.

Starting point is 00:42:30 When I talk about tradwife, I've been talking about the tradwife trend for probably going on three years now, trying to remind people that, hey, being a so-called tradwife, so the things that you're seeing on TikTok and Instagram about, you know, making sourdough and, you know, raising chickens and homeschooling your kids, that is not synonymous with being a biblical wife. There's nothing wrong with those things. In fact, I think there can be great benefits to doing all of those things, but that's not what it means to be a Christian. And actually, if it's just a fetish for some people on TikTok, which, by the way it is, there are literal trad wives who dress up in 1950 stuff.

Starting point is 00:43:10 It's like got a very sexual undertone to it. And then you have those that are really just influencers. And they're really just kind of using the. the aesthetic of it to try to get sponsor deals and to get brand deals. And the person who was just talking right there is right. That is not traditional. Like that really is just kind of a grift. And people who do that who call themselves stay at home moms and call themselves

Starting point is 00:43:34 homeschooling moms, but who are curating every single mundane moment and packaging it for social media are probably spending much less time with their kids than, say, the woman who is like a part-time secretary or a virtual. assistant or maybe has an Etsy shop where she's selling stuff like real buying and selling type job. So that of course is true. I think it's really important to know that biblical womanhood can be done in the middle of Manhattan, that it can be done in the suburbs, that it can be done anywhere in the world at any time. And Christian virtue submitting to your husband, loving your children, prioritizing your home, doesn't have to have any particular aesthetic.

Starting point is 00:44:19 And I had a lot of people who are in this camp, by the way, the so-called Theo Bros. That think that they're like so tough and masculine in all of this stuff. Tell me that I'm being a feminist for saying that. No, I just want to remind Christians that the Bible sets the standard, not Instagram. I know. So, so crazy to say that. So, yeah, I don't love the so-called trad wife movement either. But conflating that as CNN is with true Christian marriage, which has existed for 2,000 years.

Starting point is 00:44:49 One man, one woman, the woman primarily discipling, teaching the children, and the man protecting the women and children, or the wife and children, and the wife submitting to the husband. Yeah, that has nothing to do with the trad wife trend. That's just what Christian, that's just what Christian marriage is. So much of this whole Christian nationalist thing is highlighting basic tenets of Christianity as if they are new or extreme. and conflating them with new and extreme things to try to make it seem like that. So here's my response to some of this stuff.

Starting point is 00:45:29 This whole Christian nationalist trend, which we'll see more, hopefully, of the documentary soon. But let me pause before I get into that. And let me tell you about our next sponsor. And that is Alliance Defending Freedom. Let me tell you about a 17-year-old. And her name is Adelae Cross. She was forced to compete against a male athlete who was allowed to play on the girls team. Adalia lost out on competitive opportunities.

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Starting point is 00:46:52 Brown also spoke with teachers and administrators at a classical Christian school. She interviewed David Goodwin. He is the president of the Association of Classical Christian Schools. And I guess she believes that classical Christian education is a part of Christian nationalism. Now, if you know anything about classical Christian education, it starts with grammar. That's like the lower school is grammar. and then middle school is logic, and then the upper school is rhetoric. I think I have that correct, and that kind of shows you what the foundation is of what they're

Starting point is 00:47:30 learning at each stage. Not that they're only actually learning grammar. They're learning all different kinds of things, but it is on the basis of this classical model of education that, yes, is Christian in nature. Not all classical schools are Christian, but these classical Christian schools are are based on the Word of God, but everything goes back to what is actually true. And the hope is, by the time they graduate, that they can argue their way there, that they can defend what they believe. I wish I had had a classical Christian education because you really just, you learn how to

Starting point is 00:48:07 debate so well and to defend your belief system. And even math is intertwined with the knowledge of the authority of the God of the universe who made numbers and patterns. So, So anyway, I guess that's scary to CNN. And here's that part of the documentary Sat 12. What do you hope the graduates will go out and do in America? Live faithfully, wherever they are. You would like to see them in positions of power, naturally. We're glad when they get there. And classical Christian schools already have some powerful advocates like Secretary of Defense, Pete Hackset.

Starting point is 00:48:46 Okay. Like what are we trying to say you would like to see them in positions of power? Are you telling me that you don't want to see someone who shares your worldview in a position of influence, in a position of lawmaking? Everyone thinks that they're right. Everyone does. You wouldn't think the things you do if you didn't think that what you believe is true. And you believe that your beliefs are not only true, but they're good. And you believe that other people should believe the things that you do.

Starting point is 00:49:16 And so of course, you want the people who are making laws and who are influencing the future of our country to share your worldview. By the way, all Christians should believe this because God's ways are better. And so it's not some nefarious thing out there. The Islamification of America is much scarier, is much more foreign to us and has much more tragic implications than Christians just being Christians. Christians have always cared about the education of our children. Like someone's going to disciple your kids. Is it going to be the secular progressive who believes that you can be born in the wrong body? Or is it going to be the person who shares your worldview who believes that Jesus is the way the truth in the life?

Starting point is 00:49:59 It's really not that crazy. It's really not that crazy. Now, the question, was America founded as a Christian country? Well, you'll hear a lot of people say that America wasn't, that it was founded from a secular perspective, but that's not true. It was written from a theistic worldview. It was not written from a secular one. We can read in the Declaration of Independence that the separate and equal station to wish the laws of nature and of nature's God entitled them. Okay, so we can see that, what the founders believed about the human being and where we get rights. And of course, we all know

Starting point is 00:50:36 this. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now, of course, we also know that there is a First Amendment, that we are to have religious liberty. We know that in the letter from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist, there is this principle of the separation of church and state, but that principle is to protect the church, not just the state, and there is no separation of God and law. Because, that is, again, impossible. If we look at the state constitutions, actually, I'm not even going to argue this. I'm just going to show you, Charlie, at his best, when he was talking about

Starting point is 00:51:21 just this Christian thread that we see woven through not only our own founding documents as a country, but also the early state constitutions, nine of the 13 colonies were strictly Christian governed. Here's not 13. You need to read the state constitutions before anything else. nine out of 13 of the original states required you to be a Bible-believing Christian to serve in government. All 13 out of 13 required a declaration of faith. 9 out of 13 required you to be a Protestant except Maryland, which was

Starting point is 00:51:49 Catholic, which still required a declaration of faith. In almost every single one of the original state constitutions Pennsylvania included, they had I profess Lord and Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in the original state constitutions. So remember, we're a collection of states before that.

Starting point is 00:52:06 Secondly, 55-56 of the original signers of the declaration were Bible believing church attending Christians. You asked about common law. So common law is inherited from Blackstone, who was Christian. A common law is an outgrowth of the scriptures. John Adams seamlessly said the Constitution was only written for a moral and religious people. It was wholly inadequate for the people of any other. The body politic of America was so Christian and was so Protestant that our form and structure of government was built for the people that believed in Christ our Lord. Man, we lost a really good one. But for anyone who

Starting point is 00:52:39 thinks that this whole movement is somehow strange or extreme. In many ways, it's just how Christians have always been. And I think even Christians who are like, oh, no, no, I definitely don't want Christianity represented in the public square. That is the historic anomaly. That is the strange thing. Like, that is the one that you're going to have to, like, logically explain to me. We've got to, like, think a little bit harder about the difference between just infusing what is good, right and true into our politics and some like scary uh theocracy and look some people who are in this realm who call themselves christian nationalist i do not align with because i also think that they're silly grifters who like really pretend like they're on the front lines of some battle and i just don't

Starting point is 00:53:26 theologically and in probably some ways uh politically aligned with them so i'm not even calling myself as like a member of any particular organized movement here i just think that this this fear-mongering surrounding Christians wanting to infuse our faith into politics is really, really silly. And it's a manipulation tactic against you, Christian, to say that you and you alone, conservative Christian, should not be able to bring your faith into the public square, but everyone else can. When that happens, when the Christian foundation is swept out from under us, bad things go on,

Starting point is 00:54:03 as we talked about at the beginning of the show. politics matter because policy matters because people matter politics affects policy policy affects people people matter to god and therefore they have to matter to us all right we've just got a little bit more to talk about let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day it's every life love every life so much you should join the every life changing lives club when you subscribe and save with one of every life's diaper subscriptions which i really recommend you automatically become part of the saving or the changing lives club as a free bonus. Every Life will send a month's supply of their premium diapers to a church your pregnancy resource center of your choice. Plus when you subscribe,

Starting point is 00:54:45 you get 10% off and free shipping on every order within the U.S. A free 100% cotton, jumbo tote, perfect for carrying everything that your baby needs. Go to EveryLife.com. Use code Alley10. Get 10% off your first order today. That's everylife.com code Allie 10. Okay, before we end this episode, I guess it would be fitting to say, Christian, go vote. Christians, you should bring the fullness of your worldview into the voting booth. You should vote your conscience. And remember, voting is a decision. It is not, you're not voting for someone based on vibes. You're not voting for a Valentine. As I've heard others say before, you are not voting for a perfect person. You are voting. If you're a Republican voting,

Starting point is 00:55:36 in the primary this week, tomorrow, then you are voting for the person that you think can best defeat the Democrat in November. Okay. And that's important. I mean, baby's lives depend on that. Justice depends on that. There is public safety that can depend on that. Again, policymakers matter because policy matters. And so who you put in power and how you involve yourself in politics really does matter. And you might not think these local elections matter. These local elections have more of an effect on your life than the federal elections do. And so just ensure that you're going out to vote tomorrow. It's primary day. You should have already voted. I'll just chastise you for a second if you haven't voted yet. You should have already voted. You never wait until voting day because you never

Starting point is 00:56:23 know what's going to happen. You want to early vote as early as you possibly can. I'm looking at everyone in this room. Everyone in this room, make sure Jayce's voted. Make sure that you vote. You will be in trouble if you don't vote. And this is a wonderful privilege in right that we could exercise that not everyone around the world gets to. So while we still can, make your voice known, vote for the best candidate that's on the table, the one that is most likely to beat the Democrat in November. That's my opinion anyway. All right. We've got a lot to talk about on Wednesday, so make sure you tune in then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1311 | Did John Piper Just Call for Open Borders? X Controversy Explained

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