Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 248 | Seeking Justice & Speaking the Truth In Love

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

The tragic case of Ahmaud Arbery has roiled the internet in a heated debate over truth and justice. Today, we walk through the facts we know and own up to what we don't know. We will also analyze the mainstream reaction and my take on it all. Today's Sponsors: Laurel Springs: an accredited, online private school for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. Go to https://laurelsprings.com/allie/ and receive a waived registration fee. Objective Wellness: Supplements offer targeted solutions like better sleep, firmer skin, or a healthy immune system! Go to https://www.objectivewellness.com/ & use promo code 'ALLIE' to get 20% off your first order!

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

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a good weekend. Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there, whether you are a biological mom, you're a foster mom, an adoptive mom. I am thankful for you. I admire you. And I know your families are thankful for you. you as well. Women are just so amazing. Moms are so amazing. The capacity that moms have to multitask, to comfort, to care, to nurture, to get things together. It's just incredible. I'm so thankful to God for creating women with this very special and unique set of abilities to mother. It's just I love watching all of the moms in my life from my in-laws, my own mom, my grandmother who

passed away a few months ago watching her as I grew up just mother and grandmother so well, I have been incredibly blessed to have so many wonderful, godly examples of moms in my life. And I'm very, I'm thankful. I'm thankful for motherhood. So happy Mother's Day to all of you out there. Today we are going to be talking about Ahmed Arbery and this tragic incident that happened a couple months ago that we're kind of just now hearing about in the news and has served as the center of a lot of conversation, discussion, and even debate on social media for the past few days. I would say probably the past week or so. A lot of you guys have asked me to give you my thoughts and I planned to do that actually last Friday and then I wasn't able to record the

episode for that and it actually worked out because a lot of information and I would even say nuance has been added to this conversation since I was planning that original episode. And because I shared some of my thoughts on this incident on social media, I've had a lot of good discussion, pushback conversation, constructive criticism about some of the thoughts that I shared that I think have been very helpful and in aiding me in coming up with the most holistic and proper and biblical perspective on all of this. So know that that's my heart. behind talking about this today is speaking the truth in love as graciously, as sensitively, as accurately as I possibly can. That is always what I want to do for you guys. And I know

that I have failed several times and you guys have let me know when I fail and I'm so thankful for that. And today, if I fail, if there's something that I say that is not accurate, if there's something that I say that is insensitive, know that that's not at all my intention and I welcome your constructive criticism and your feedback, pushback, whatever it may be, you can message me on Instagram, you can email me, whatever it is. I want to hear from you. I'm going to do the best I possibly can to approach this in the best and the most God-honoring way I know how. And I hope to accomplish that. But you guys always keep me in line and make sure that I am doing that well. Hey, this is Steve Day.

If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

Okay, let's get into this story. Like I said, a ton of you guys have asked me to cover this and maybe a few of you listening to this don't care about my perspective at all. Like a friend shared this with you and you're listening to this begrudgingly or you're listening because you're looking for ways that I'm going to wrongly analyze this because it's such a. sensitive topic and I am obviously a white person talking about a story that has to do with race and that in and of itself can be seen as controversial and I recognize that if that's you if you fall into one of those categories that you are coming into this thinking that you are going to disagree with me that's okay I'm glad that you're here I have an obligation to my audience to point them to the truth in the best way that I can and I certainly as I said at the top

welcome any criticism or feedback or further analysis and commentary that you guys might provide for me whether you disagree with me or not. So first I am going to give you the facts of what happened as we know then. There's a lot of opinion, a lot of editorializing, a lot of politicizing surrounding this story, unfortunately. And I will share my opinion later, but my primary order of business right now is to lay out exactly what we know and how we know it sands my subjective opinion. So understand that. I am not picking and choosing information to fit into a certain narrative. I'm not trying to convince you of anything by telling you what we know. I am going to draw from the article what I believe is the original article article in a mainstream

outlet from the New York Times that was released on April 26th titled To West. a chase, a killing, and no charges by Richard Fossett. I think that's how you pronounce his last name. This is where we are getting most of our original information right now, since then a lot of other outlets have picked it up. But as far as I know, this was the first article that started kind of getting the ball rolling and talking about this story. So Fawcett reports that in Brunswick, Georgia, Arbery, a 25-year-old black man was killed by two white men, a father and his son as he was running on a road on the afternoon of February 23rd. And the races are pertinent to this conversation because they are the reason that people are talking about this. And I think

that's fair to say. The reason this has become such a big conversation is because of the race of the perpetrators and the race of the victim. Two men were directly involved with the killing Greg and Travis McMichael, who are father and son. According to police reports, the McMichael's believed Arbery was a suspect in a series of burglaries and that he had just been trespassing in a semi-constructed property close by. There is now video that has come out since this original article was published that confirms that Arbery was inside this construction property, not taking anything but inside and looking around. A 911 call released to The Guardian has an anonymous man reporting that a black man and a white t-shirt was trespassing on the property and running away

so it would appear that the McMichaels were pursuing Arbery because they believed that he was a suspect, not just of this trespassing, but also of a series of crimes. That's apparently what they believed. According to this New York Times article, court records do show that Arbery had a criminal past. And again, I'm only bringing that up because the New York Times article mentions this. He was arrested for shoplifting a number of years ago, violating his probation. in 2018 and indicted on charges of illegally carrying a handgun into a high school football game. Just to clarify, that does not mean that he was guilty of the crimes of burglary, of which he was allegedly accused by the McMichaels and apparently others, the person who called 911.

This was claimed in that 911 call and by the elder McMichael Greg in a police report. The New York Post actually reported that there hadn't been a reported. series of burglaries in the area though. There is video of Ahmed Arbery's killing and it was just released on Tuesday for the first time. We don't know who leaked the video, how it got into the hands of the person who posted it on the internet, but it did. It shows Arbery running at a pretty quick speed wearing khakis and a white t-shirt. He runs up next to a truck, which is parked in the middle of the road with a man in the back of a truck and a man on the outside of the truck. These are the McMichaels both armed with guns and Arbery lunges towards the man, the son, Travis McMichael,

who is carrying a shotgun and he is outside of the truck. And then after Arbery lunges at Travis McMichael, they kind of tussle. And then you hear what sounds like two gunshots. Arbery starts to walk and kind of run away and he stumbles to his death. And your heart just sinks. It was a very disturbing, very troubling, very heartbreaking video to watch. I don't necessarily recommend watching the video unless you absolutely feel like you have to to see for yourself what really happened. If you are wondering who was filming this and why, we now know that the person who was filming the video was a part of the chase and was in a vehicle behind the McMichael's. We don't know what happened before this video. We don't know if this was their first

confrontation, how long they had been following him, or anything like that. All we know for sure is what happened in the video and what I already told you according to the New York Times, which gathered police reports. We also know that until this week, there were no charges made or actually last week now that I am recording this. There were no charges until last week made against the McMichauchals, and they were not arrested until just a few days ago. And here's why. The first prosecutor on the case, George Barnhill, wrote a letter to the police according to the New York Times. This is what the New York Times says. Mr. Barnhill also wrote that he did not believe there was evidence of a crime, noting that Gregory McMichael and his son had been legally carrying their weapons under Georgia law.

And because Mr. Arbery was a burglary suspect, the pursuers who had solid firsthand probable cause were justified in chasing him under the state's citizens' arrest law. So that's what the first prosecutor, George Barnhill, argued. In a separate document, the New York Times says, Mr. Barnhill stated that video exists of Mr. Arbery, burglarizing a home immediately preceding the chase and confrontation. So that is, in quotations, the New York Times. The video shows Mr. Arbery trying to grab the shotgun. Oh, no, this is continuing with the New York Times saying this.

The video shows Mr. Arbery trying to grab this shotgun from Travis McMichael's hands, Mr. Barnhill wrote. And that, he argued, amounts to self-defense under Georgia law. Travis McMichael, Mr. Barnhill continued, was allowed to use deadly force to protect himself, says the New York Times. That is why the McMichaels were not arrested. The original prosecutor on the case argued that they shouldn't be arrested because it was a citizen's arrest in self-defense. However, the prosecutor soon after recused himself after Arbery's mom pushed him to do so, after finding out that Barnhill's son worked at the DA's office where Greg McMichael used to work. Barnhill insisted according to the times that there was no bias or any kind of relationship between him and Greg McMichael,

but he recused himself anyway. So the case was then assigned to Tom Durden, the current prosecutor, and he is now recommending that a grand jury in Glen County here, the case for consideration of criminal charges. That probably won't happen for a while because of, restrictions due to coronavirus, but it will happen. After the video came out, I assume from mounting pressure, the McMichaels were arrested and they now face murder and aggravated assault charges. So that is what we know. Now let's go into what is being said, what the reaction has been, and then I will say what we don't know and then what I think. So my opinion, based on everything I know

and everything that's being said. Again, when I say what is being said, said in the reaction. I am not trying to sway your mind in any certain direction. I'm not saying these responses or reactions and disdain. I'm just telling you what the predominant reaction has been. There is a graphic that was made by the NAACP that says Ahmad Arbery was running in his neighborhood and was chased and murdered by two white supremacists. The graphic is being shared by celebrities, by influencers, all across social media and has received probably millions of millions and millions of views and likes and shares. Sean King, whose backgrounds we won't get into right now,

but he's an activist with a lot of influence. He started the hashtag run with mod and runwithmod.com. And run with mod.com says that he was out for a jog when he was chased down, shot and killed by two white supremacists. Bernie Sanders tweeted, the men who murdered Ahmad Arbery must be held accountable and there must be justice for Amad's family. there is no doubt in my mind that Ahmaud would be alive today if he were white.

Kamala Harris tweeted exercising while black shouldn't be a death sentence. Taylor Swift tweeted, I'm absolutely devastated and horrified by the senseless, cold-blooded, racially motivated killing of Amad Aubrey, hashtag justice for Amad. You saw pastors saying much of the same thing. You saw Christian teachers and authors and influencers, also posting the same NACP graphic, using the same kind of hashtags, sending people to Sean King's website, saying that, you know, this was, these were two white supremacists who killed Amad Arbery. And I'm going to say something. Now we're shifting into what we don't know. So that is what happened.

And then what is being said, the predominant reaction, there are other kinds of reactions to, but I would say that's the mainstream reaction. And I am going to go into what we don't actually know. And this is probably going to be the most controversial part of the podcast. and I don't mean it to be. I don't mean to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone. I'm just being as honest and as also as, well, it's weird to say this, but like as humble as I possibly can, not that I'm trying to, you know, dawn humility in a way that makes me seem virtuous, but in just recognizing the things that I don't know and my limited ability

to understand holistically this case. This is going to be controversial to say, we do not actually know the motivation of these killers. We know that Ahmad Arbery was shot in killed. We know what we see in the video. We know what's reported in the original New York Times article that includes police reports. But there are a few things we don't know and we need to be okay right now with admitting that. We do not know if the McMichaels were white supremacists. Maybe they were. And if information comes out that says that they are, then I am more than willing to say,

okay, we know this. This was the motivation. But right now, we don't actually know that. Or if they were just overzealous, want to be vigilantes, if they were lunatics, if they were bad, mean people, or simply just bad mean people, we don't know. They could very well, like I said, have been terrible racist. Maybe so. But we don't know that yet. Now, this point that I'm about to say about what we don't know, let me just give you this caveat beforehand. Let me preface it. What I'm about to say is irrelevant to the end result that occurred, but it's still important.

Okay. So what I'm about to say is irrelevant to the end result that occurred, but it's still important if we care about the truth. And I'll explain it a little bit more. We don't know if Arbery was out for a jog or if he was, in fact, running away from the property on which he was trespassing. The reason why that matters is not because that justifies his death because it absolutely doesn't.

That does not mean that he deserved to die because it absolutely doesn't. The reason it matters is because if he was the suspect and this crime or other crimes, the headline that's being pushed that he was jogging in his neighborhood and randomly hunted down and lynched by two white supremacists is based on conjecture rather than fact. And when it comes to a man's life and ensuring justice, which is something that we all should want, the facts matter. And we actually know that he wasn't jogging in his own neighborhood as the NAACP graphic that every celebrity shared said. The original New York Times article says that he was in another neighborhood. And the only reason that matters isn't

because it somehow explains what happened, because it doesn't. But because the truth, especially when we're dealing with homicide matters. The judge and jury are going to think these facts matter. So the truth is these men could absolutely have been racially profiling Arbery, but we don't know that yet. We just don't. And we can make all the assumptions in the world, and some of them, maybe they're all safe assumptions,

that they wouldn't have done this to a white man. You could definitely be right in saying that. But the fact is, we don't know. human beings do have a very profound capacity for evil, unfortunately. But we don't know the motivation yet. We might never know. And here's my opinion on all of it, based on what I know. These two guys, no matter what their motivation is,

no matter what Arbery had done beforehand, no matter what his criminal record was, these guys were completely, tragically and stupidly and criminally out of line. this wasn't a citizen's arrest, this wasn't self-defense, they were aggressors, this wouldn't have happened if they hadn't tried to track him down while they were armed. This was sinful, this was wrong, this was criminal, this was hateful stupidity. My opinion is that these two guys thought that they were going to be heroes by taking matters into their own hand. So they tracked this guy down, whom they and others claim was a suspect in a property crime and tried to stop him.

and maybe they were racially motivated while doing so. I don't know. What I do know is that what they did was wrong and even murderous. If you think someone is a suspect of a crime, you don't chase them down with guns and box them in with your truck. That's what appears to be happening in this video. That is unbelievably. I mean, that's so idiotic and psycho and irresponsible.

And because of their absolute stupidity and aggression and immorality, their hatefulness, no matter whether it was racially motivated or not, it was hateful, their hatefulness towards someone who at the very least didn't commit a crime that deserved a descendant. A young man is now dead at 25th. Whether he committed burglaries or not is irrelevant to the tragedy and the immorality of what the McMichaels appeared to have done to him. I have heard people try to justify it by saying that Arbery went after the son the son who was carrying the rifle and that he was trying to take the gun from him. I'm not buying that from what I see in the video.

This wouldn't have happened if they hadn't charged after him with guns. And he was apparently unarmed. They had absolutely no right to do that. In my view, it was murder. No doubt about that. Now, the jury is going to decide and I pray passionately that justice will be served. But these two men obviously had no business doing what they did. Okay, let's get into the rest of this. As far as why it has taken so long for the McMichaels to be charged,

I don't know the reason for that either. My guess is because the first prosecutor didn't think the McMichaels should be charged, which is what it sounds like from that original New York Times article, which was the wrong view, in my personal opinion. And then remember that prosecutor recused himself and then it got passed to the second prosecutor who was recommending that it go before the grand jury. My guess is that unfortunately, there are probably a lot of cases like this throughout the country of all different circumstances. Was the delay racially motivated? Again, that's possible. But I just don't know. Maybe there are some people out there that know that for sure. I just don't have any, you know, evidence to show me that it definitely was. And in a normal world

where we could count on most people to care about justice, we could just end there. We could all say there are some things that we don't know right now, but we want justice. We want the truth. This, we could say this could be racial profiling. This could be a racist hate crime. This could be a case of two overzealous vigilantes that had nothing to do with race and everything to do with two people being violently irresponsible at the expense of a young man's life. We know that he was killed and from what we know it sure looks like murder. And no matter what the context of that murder is, we want justice to be served. Let's let the judge, and the jury see the evidence. Let's hear from the witnesses and let us hope and pray that justice is executed. That should be our hope. That should be our heart and our message right now, that Arbery was a young man made in the image of God who shouldn't have died, but he did. And now we pray for his family. We pray for his mom who just had her first mother's day without her son, who was in morning right now. We pray for his dad who is in mourning right now, who I'm sure are yearning much more than all of us for justice to be served. We should be praying for truth to come to light. We pray for justice

to be expedient, to be righteous, and for somehow God to be glorified in the midst of this tragedy. We point people towards the gospel. And we say, this world is not our home and there's something better lying ahead. Let me tell you about the place where there's no crying or sorrow or sickness or murder or racism or hatred or outrage or any of that. Only peace and goodness and joy. Let me tell you about Jesus, who forgives sins and heals our wounds, who reconciles a holy perfect God and an unholy imperfect people. That should be our hope and our hearts and what we care about right now, what we are preaching right now. When it comes to stories like this that go viral, Christians have to remember that our allegiance is to the truth, not to trends. Our allegiance is to the truth,

to trends. So what we have to ask ourselves before we comment on tragedies like this one, especially one that has attracted so much attention is first, first, before we react on social media and let me just say I'm preaching to the choir because I have certainly done this imperfectly. Number one, we should ask ourselves, is what I'm saying or sharing true? Is it true? How do I know it's true? And if you failed at this one, like I said, join the club because so have I. But that's what we need to ask ourselves in the midst of these very emotional times. Is the commentary I am posting or sharing true? Do you know that it is true?

Or am I sharing this? Or do I know that it's true? Or am I sharing this because everyone else I know is? And I'm afraid if I don't, I am going to seem like I don't care. We should be asking ourselves, am I posting this because I care? or is it because I need people to think that I care? Am I afraid if I don't jump on that wave of outrage, no matter how hyperbolic or fictitious it may be

that I'm going to be left behind? Again, been there, done that. This, as I've said a few times in the past week or so, is the difference. These questions, how you answer these questions, is the difference between virtue and virtue signaling. Virtue is what Christians are called to pursue. Truthfulness, Christ-likeness, love, kindness, goodness,

virtue signaling is something Christians should avoid because it is a form of deception and pride. It is the facade of goodness in the form of saying something that sounds good, but is actually meaningless and even oftentimes untrue. Seeking virtue in these situations, making sure our responses to tragedy are truthful and productive is actually a much greater honor to the victim and their family than uncritically latching on to the mainstream narrative. if the mainstream narrative is not rooted in truth. Sadly, while a lot of people posting about this death are sincere, and I am sure of that, that in their heart of hearts, they are sincere in this.

There are, unfortunately, a lot of hustlers on social media who routinely exploit these kinds of deaths for personal gain by pushing on verified versions of stories that fit the narrative that America is affected, irrevocably with white supremacy. These are not godly people, these kinds of hustlers that, unfortunately in the past, not with this one, but in the past, have made up hoaxes for self-gain. These are not people who care about the truth. These are not people who always care about the victims or the family. So Christians have to be careful about the people that we are sharing, about the people that we are latching on to, the messages that we are latching on to, we need to ask ourselves, again, if we know what we are saying, if the commentary that we are posting

is a true narrative or if it's being pushed by self-aggrandizing people who really have no allegiance to the truth. Now, does racism and hate? Do racism and hate and white supremacy exist? Of course they do. And these things are evil. They should be called out as what they are, sin as 1 John 420 says you cannot love God and hate your brother but if we care about truth which as Christians we should we have to be careful not to jump onto narratives and storylines that are not based on fact and one of those storylines is that as LeBron James said black people are hunted downed by white people every time they leave their homes and while there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that many black people have had this experience, do have this experience, and they certainly have

different experiences than me. I'm not saying that I have the same experience as them at all. There are also many black people who would tell you, and I know many of them who would tell you that James's commentary is not in alignment with reality. And that's not me saying that from my experience. That is other African American people saying that from their experience. I saw a viral tweet that asked white people what they are going to do to make sure that white people's kids don't kill their kids. This feels, this feels like an exploitation of tragedy. Why? Because as callous as it seems to look at homicide statistics broken down by race, which I'm not going to do right now, I will say they're available at fbi.gov.

You will see that black lives are not predominantly claimed by white people and it's not even close. And one racialized crime is one too many and may we all cry out for justice for each one of them. But one of the big reasons why we can't come together during these conversations around tragedies and collectively cry out for justice is that so quickly the reaction not only becomes untruthful, but also selective and partisan. So for example, hundreds of pastors and influencers and celebrities have posted about this and the problem of white supremacy and that's fine to post about this. It's a tragedy. It's also fine when necessary, when needed, and called for to talk about the sin of racism.

But it's also okay to wonder why everyone posts about this awful murder, but not the awful murder of Molly Tibbitts. The young woman who was murdered by an illegal immigrant, I think it was last year or a couple of years ago, while she was also jogging. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with expressing outrage about the killing of someone. There is a case to be made that there is a lot of outrage to be had about this killing, considering how long justice has been delayed. But there is something wrong. For the Christian at least, there is something wrong with selective outrage, because that means your reactions are being dictated by what's popular rather than what's just and what's true. I understand we

can't care about everything all the time. There are probably a lot of stories that I have missed on that, you know, on different kinds of issues. And so I too have fallen victim to just caring about. what the media tells me to care about and part of my job is taking you know popular media stories and bringing them down for you guys and offering you a different perspective on it but if we are only posting about an instance of injustice because we know it's popular or at least it's popular among our audience but we're unwilling to post about another instance of injustice because we know it's not popular among our audience then it's a good time for all of us to make sure that our heart is in the right place. That goes for people on the left and the right. Again, there's a difference

between virtue and virtue signaling. And man, have I been guilty of that? What I see in this situation and in so many others is the church taking cues from the world. It's like Christians are looking over our shoulders and seeing what the secular world is saying to make sure that our messaging is falling in line with the right narratives and that we're reacting in the right way. I have seen more than one. Unfortunately, Christian teacher used this as an opportunity to make sure that everyone knows the work they've already, they've already put into making sure that they're not racist. And my question is, is that really the best message of hope that you have for people who are confused and are mourning over a tragedy? What a darn shame. What a shame. Now, as we've said,

are there racist and is there a reason to talk about that? Of course, we're the McMurman. Michael's racist? I don't know. Maybe so. But the truth is that our society, so this is kind of a counter to some of the narrative that's going on, our society, our imperfect society has thankfully by the grace of God and by the hard work of a lot of people come a long way in racial equality and acceptance and thank the Lord for that. But one side would have you believe that we haven't progressed at all since slavery. That is simply not true. And again, praise God for that. America paid the price of blood in slavery and many Americans since then have to continue to fight for the simple recognition that men and women of all races are made in the image of God and are therefore worthy of all the same rights.

America certainly has our faults and failures, including slavery, including the Chinese railroads, including Japanese internment camps, including Jim Crow, including injustices we see to this day. but we have triumphed over many of these faults and failures more quickly and more resoundedly than any other nation on earth. Virtually every society on earth has slavery in its history, but no society on earth has fought against it as quickly and as fervently as America did. And again, I'm not saying injustice doesn't still exist today. But let's also take into account all of the fighting and the victories that America has seen and experienced. One side would have you believe that those don't exist and that this is just another example of that. I do have a problem with looking at this

terrible injustice through the lens of America is bad and fundamentally racist to the court. Hateful racists exist and should be condemned, but the ideals of the American experiment are still good when abided by. And they have incredible results. Our ideals and ideas have created the most prosperous country in the history of the world. It is our failure to abide by these ideals that all men were created equal by God and therefore have the equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that has always got us into trouble and leads to suffering. And I wish that we could all as Americans point to this constitutional standard. That's the determinant of what we call legal justice. But often we don't. We too often let public outrage determine

what we decide is unjust, which means that too often our ideas of injustice are partisan and ideological. Again, this goes for both sides of the aisle, which means you have conservatives, usually being the only ones to talk about illegal immigrant crime because illegal immigrants obviously are here illegal, which means illegally, which means that their crime shouldn't be happening in the first place. Only conservatives know the name, Molly Tibbet. for the most part, only conservatives know the name, Kate Steinle for the most part. And then you have mostly liberals who are angry about things like police brutality and some of the awful abuse that's going on in prisons. But the fact is, people who care about justice rather than outrage should be

angry about both. We should be angry about all instances of true injustice no matter where the partisan line is. As Christians, we love justice. As Micah 6-8 tells us, should be seeking justice. God is a God of justice and praise him for that. God is a God of ultimate vengeance. Jesus himself is a judge who will judge the living and the dead. But God's justice, as we have talked about so many times on this podcast, is not determined by politics, by social movements, or by outrage. It is determined by truth in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and in the book of Romans. We read that God is against partiality. He's against being partial to the mighty or to the weak, to the rich or to the poor. God hates bias in the court of law. He hates showing favoritism

in the court of law. He says that we are to judge in righteousness. We see the people of Israel in the Old Testament were to look at evidence and truth in order to determine whether or not someone broke the law. He believes in due process. All the fundamental ideas that we have by the way of justice and due process and property and rights come from the Bible. They originate in the Bible. So when people say that we should separate the Bible from law, they really don't know what they're implying. All of this means that we look at each case. We seek to know as much as we can. We humbly accept and acknowledge what we don't know, and we pray and push for justice to be served. We refuse to castigate an entire group of people based on their immutable characteristics like whiteness or masculinity

or whatever it is. And instead we seek the truth and justice regarding the people involved. We don't get whipped up into racial or gender generalizations. We don't take part in hyperbole. We don't get won over by emotionalism. Again, preaching to the choir here. The justice that we are looking for, that we should all be looking for, is found in the Word of God, that we were all created in his image.

Therefore, our lives matter. The truth is reiterated in the Declaration of Independence. Again, that we're all created by God and should enjoy equal rights. It's not found in hashtags. It's not found in social media outrage and blaming entire races of people and in joining forces with groups that we know don't glorify God. I am praying for Arbery's family fervently. And that's not just, I'm not just saying that flippantly. I'm not just saying that to sound good. That's not a virtue signal I am. I'm praying for his poor mom. I'm praying for his dad. I'm praying for his friends. I'm praying for the people

who are mourning this loss and who have had to mourn it for the past. two months without knowing if justice would ever be served. I am praying for them. I am praying that they would be comforted, that they would know Christ if they don't already. I'm praying that God would be glorifying. I'm praying for truth and justice to prevail for a fair trial, for a justice system to become more efficient, to become more effective and condemning wrongdoing without partiality. I'm praying for the church that we would be bold and strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might and that we would pledge our allegiance to him, which also means having an allegiance to the best of our ability to the truth. May we be able to stand firm in all of that?

Okay, that's all I have to say. I know. I felt when I was talking about certain things that I'm probably going to get a few messages about what I'm saying here. And like I said, I welcome that. I do. No matter what side of the aisle you're on, no matter where you are coming at this, I want to hear from you. I do. I want your pushback critiques, your thoughts, whatever they may be. And I look forward to talking to you guys and discussing this further with you. And I hope that if you guys have a great rest of your day and I will see you back here on Wednesday. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what

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