Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 292 | Trump vs. Biden 2020: Religious Liberty | Guest: John MacArthur

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

We are counting down eleven Mondays until the 2020 election, and this episode, Allie Beth Stuckey compares where the Republican and Democratic Parties stand on religious liberty. What is the point of religious liberty? Why is religious liberty important to the founding of America? And, how would the lack of religious liberty affect us today? Allie also has Pastor John MacArthur on as a guest to discuss how those within the California government are trying to keep Grace Community Church locked down. Today's Links: https://www.gty.org/ https://alliebethstuckey.com/book

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. Today we are continuing our series. Last week we talked about our first election-related issue, which was abortion, and then we compared Republicans and Democrats, Trump and Biden on that issue. We talked about what abortion is, why it is.

is important for Christians to care about and why we should be considering it when we are considering our vote. And today we will be talking about religious liberty. Now, I am so excited about this, not just because I like this topic, but also because at the end of this conversation, I am going to be talking to Dr. John McArthur. I know a ton of you who are listening to this. Love John McArthur. You have been reading him for years, maybe decades, if you're that old. He has had a huge influence on my life in my faith, my theology. He's at an influence on my husband and even his parents. I mean, his influence really spans across the decades and around the world. And I am so excited to get to talk to him at the end of this episode. So make sure that you stay tuned in for that. Before that,

we have a lot to talk about. Okay, so I have to give you a good amount of context on religious liberty before we even get into Trump versus Biden. And really, this is going to be worldview versus worldview rather than as much about the two candidates, although we will get into that. We will talk about some democratic policies versus some Republican policies, but it's really one of those issues where we just view things differently because the assumptions that we carry in to our perspectives on the world. They really differ on this particular issue and they really affect how we see something like religious liberty. And so we are going to be talking really more from that angle than getting into the specifics about policy. We could easily do a part two on this,

by the way, to get into those specifics. And maybe we will. But I want to talk about where this comes from, why this principle is so important. What happens to countries when this principle of religious liberty, when this right of religious liberty is taken away or inhibited? Because it will give us contacts and explain why it is so important for us to prioritize it, not just as Christians, but whoever you are listening to this podcast, this is an important liberty for us to protect no matter what. Before I get into that, you guys, just got to remind you once again, you're not enough and that's okay escaping the toxic culture of self-love. I am so excited and so grateful for how many people have bought it over the past week and a half or so.

how many women have joined my women's book club with Ali Stucky. We just started going through the book together. There's a study guy that is available that I am going to make available to you guys if you want to lead the study at home. But join the Facebook group, even if you join in the middle of our discussion, that is perfectly fine. You can catch up. You're not enough and that's okay.

You can go to Alliebethstock.com slash book. That's where you can find it. Thank you guys so much for all of your support. And for those of you who bought the book, it really does meet a whole lot to me. Okay, let's get into this. So religious liberty, it can be most succinctly described as the right to believe or not to believe as you see fit and to worship or not to worship as you see fit. And this is another one of those episodes, by the way, if you're watching it on YouTube, where I really have to look down at my notes a lot because I want to make sure that the details that I have in here are exactly relayed. The First Amendment to the Constitution says this, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Pretty clear that is one of five freedoms, five rights that is protected in the First Amendment. They are all interconnected and interdependent.

The first one is that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Article 6 of the Constitution says this, no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. This does not just limit the power of the federal government to get in the way of your religious beliefs or your non-religious beliefs. It also limits the power of local governments from doing so via the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says, quote, no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Now, I think that it would be in our best interest to do a little constitutional and

American history lesson for a second because that helps us understand once again just how crucial this right is. So let's back up for just a second. Let us first talk about something very basic, the Constitution. What is it? I know that some of you who are listening to this are like, are you serious? We have to talk about what the Constitution is. But there may be people out there who don't really know, maybe you haven't thought about it in decades since your high school civics class, or maybe you're in high school or maybe you're even in middle school. And you haven't learned about this yet. So I don't want to take it for granted. Not everyone is a civics expert. And maybe you've just never really thought about what the Constitution is. The Constitution,

as I have explained before, is the Supreme Law of the Land. It originally contained seven sections that outline the separation of powers of the government, the structure and function of the federal government, the rights and responsibilities of the state governments, and the process of ratifying the Constitution. Ratify means to consent to something so as to make it official binding and valid. The Constitution officially came into force in 1789, and since then it has been amended 27 times. So there are 27 amendments to the Constitution. The first 10 amendments to the Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights, which guarantee our rights as citizens of the United States. So the Bill of Rights limits the power of the government by guaranteeing the

rights that are unalienable to us. So that means they are inborn rights. They're are God given rights. And because God is higher than the government, the government cannot take away the rights that he gave to us. That is the mentality, that is the thinking, that is the belief system of the founders that laid the groundwork for our constitution and our declaration of independence. And just as a note, those who tried to say that America had a secular founding, that we are a fundamentally secular nation, they are mistaken. America did not establish a state, religion, obviously, as we will get into today, but we are founded on biblical principles on the primary belief that we all have a creator that transcends governmental authority. And without that

fundamental belief, there is no argument for the government not having the power to take or give your rights as it sees fit, which is why, by the way, as we will explain more today, increase godlessness in a society always results in more government because the government ends up replacing God. You will always worship something and look to something to care for you. If you are not looking to God, as your great moral lawgiver, you will look to the government to do that. That's just what happens. So the founders believed in God-given rights outlined in the Bill of Rights. And the only way legally forced a citizen to be deprived of his basic rights pertaining to life, liberty, or property is, as Amendment 5 in the Bill of Rights makes clear is by, by, quote, due process of law. Amendment 6 describes what exactly this means.

Quote, in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. These are all, again, biblical principles. We will talk more about this amendment in our episode on impartial justice, but as it pertains

to the conversation today, it simply gives us context in discussing what the Bill of Rights is and what it means for us. These are rights that the founders believed, asserted, came from God. They are inherent. They are protected. This is essentially what it means to be a conservative. Our rights come from God, not the government. That is why when you try to remove God from the argument,

for conservatism, it very quickly falls apart. So the Bill of Rights does not give us our rights. It acknowledges our rights that pre-existed the formation of our government or any government. And in so doing, it limits the power of the government. The first three words of the Constitution are this, we the people. Our government in America is to be subject to the consent of the government. It is to be formed by us, directed by us, changed by us, as we see. see fit. And as many times as we as a country have forgotten that, as many times as we have fallen short of that, especially today as we see petty tyrants across the country, exercising their authority in a way that takes away the freedom that is inherent to American

citizens, this principle is still what makes our country the greatest country in the world. It is what has always set us apart and still does. I want to want to read a part of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which emphasizes this even further as he underscores the sacrifice that American men paid to end the atrocity of slavery so that we could better live out the premise upon which America was founded. And I promise, I know it seems like we're going down some rabbit trails, but I promise that all of this context does matter. You guys probably know the beginning of this address. Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated

to the proposition that all men are created equal, again, a biblical principle. Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather. to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. I think that is just as applicable to us today in 2020 as it was then.

And I think that we should internalize those words as much as we possibly can, especially when it pertains to the liberty of free worship and free, the right of free worship and free belief. A government of, by and for the people, a nation free from tyranny whose fundamental rights are recognized as God-given rather than government-contrived is what men and women from the revolution until today have fought and died to secure. And as we know, as Lincoln well knew, America has failed to live out that ideal in several seasons of our history. But as I have argued many times on this podcast, the arc of American history is bent toward liberty and justice for all.

America started as a radical, never tried before experiment in liberty and self-governance. So, of course, it has been rocky at times. Men and women are imperfect. We are sinful. We try and we fall. We try and we fall. We try and we fail. That is how all experiments go, especially experiments as great as the American one.

But the uniqueness of the American spirit is that we are relentless in our insistence upon getting back up and writing our wrongs. And I know, again, it seems like I'm going down rabbit trails, but they are necessary to provide context and to underscore just how important this primary liberty is. I just take so much issue with people who mythologize American history into a narrative that we have been irrevocably, endymically marred by racism, by injustice, and by brutality our entire existence. It's just not true. no one, no nation, no nation has ever been perfect. Every nation has had the same injustices that America has had. We have had injustices, many injustices. We have injustices that are prolonged to this day. Abortion is an injustice that is celebrated to this day. So you don't have to tell me that America has not properly and perfectly lived out her ideals and in many ways still doesn't to this day. But no one, no nation has fought as hard for the least of these than America has. and that is just a fact. We have fought wars, we've protested, we've marched, we've loved, we've served, we've

legislated to ensure that the promise of liberty and justice for all is for everyone. The difference between the fights that valuing Americans have fought and the fight that is being waged today on the left is that the premises and the aims are completely different. The fight today is not based on fact. It is not based on truth. It is not based on equality and equity. It is based in doing away with America. and the American institutions that have held us together for so long.

So as I say, if we have a problem with certain practices and systems in place in America today, the solution is not, as many of the activists in the streets of our major cities are suggesting, is not destruction or revolution against our foundations. It is in going back to our foundations. So it is not in revolution. It is in remembrance. But we have to agree on some things in order to move forward together. we have to agree that freedom is better than tyranny.

We have to agree that God-given rights are better than government-given rights. We have to agree on equality and impartiality under the law. We have to agree that objective truth exists. We have to have a basic agreement on right versus wrong, justice versus unjustice. If we cannot, then I do not believe that we can move forward together. There will be a split. There will be some sort of a major. revolution and the revolutionaries will be and terrorize the rest of us into submission.

History shows us this with leftist revolutions time and time again. And the founders knew all of this. And they knew the easiest way, the primary way for dictators to gain power is to control religion, to control people's beliefs, their conscience in every communist and fascist regime that you have ever heard about. The first priority is to outlaw freedom of religion. And the second is to abolish and control the nuclear family. And all of this is tied up in a suppression of the press and a suppression of speech as well.

Because autocrats, in order to maintain power, they must ensure that the people derive their rights and their values from him, the dictator, from the government, not from their faith and not from their family. So they have to immediately tear down those institutions in order to centralize power. communism and fascism are very similar in that they are looking to centralize power in the name of what they purport to be virtuous goals in china let's go through some examples in china Mao established atheism as the official belief system in China and viewed all religion as a threat this is a Marxist idea that religion inhibits the advancement of communism and Mao believed this he believed that since communism had taken root and the work were finally in power. You hear that language a lot, the power of the workers or the liberation

of the so-called workers. That's a communistic idea. That's communistic rhetoric. He believed that they didn't need faith to help them or save them. So he closed down churches. He abused and murdered and jailed ministers and churchgoers. All religious traditions were replaced with discussion of politics and worship of the Communist Party. This was all accomplished through force in massive propaganda. Communists are commie's going to call me. This is. This is. is what they always do. This is what they're still doing today. This is still happening in China today where they have over a million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps, where they detain people arbitrarily for worshiping God, where prisoners and religious rebels have their organs harvested while

they're still alive. So China can continue to make millions off their transplant industry. This is communism today. It's always been communism. They have banned the sale of Bibles. They're currently working on rewriting the Bible to be more communist friendly in China. So that's important to know, guys, that they actually have to rewrite the Bible to be communist friendly. Some of y'all who think Christianity is friendly to communism and need to talk to some Chinese people. This is the brutality and the totalitarian control of communism. Like I said, it always has been. They are going to rural areas right now. And they are trying to replace worship of God with worship of the party. This is what they always do. Lying is a tenet of communism. Lying, propaganda, manipulation, outright, falsification. This is how

they convince their own people of the goodness and the purity of communism. This is how they convince the rest of the world that they're actually doing very well. In Cambodia, Pol Pot, the infamous communist dictator, declared 1975 year zero. He relocated Cambodians to farming communes where he wanted them to share, quote, in the spoils of their labor. And and were untainted by the evils of money, wealth, and religion. So he got rid of the country's currency, outlawed the ownership of private property and the practice of religion. Again, sounds really familiar, please. If you don't know what happened in communist Cambodia, read about the Kumar Rouge, about the splitting up of families, the recruiting of child soldiers, the killing fields.

That, again, is communism. It is the nature of communism where all leftism is eventually going. In socialist communist, communist, Soviet Russia, several anti-religious campaigns were waged on and off from 1917 to 1990 in an effort to establish Marxist-Leninist atheism. After the Bolsheviks' socialist revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks established something called the People's Commissariat for Enlightenment, which created the all-Russian Union of teachers' internationalists for the purpose of removing religious instruction from school curricula. Again, sounds familiar.

Lennon tolerated religious people only insofar as they were willing to advance the Communist Party's goals. Article 13 of the Russian Communist Party RCP stated this, quote, As far as religion is concerned, the RCP will not be satisfied by the decreed separation of church and state. The party aimed at the complete destruction of links between the exploiting classes and religious propaganda while assisting the actual liberation of the working masses. Again, you hear that language that unfortunately we are hearing today, liberation of the working class. What they mean is communism from religious prejudices and organizing the broadest possible education, enlightening, and anti-religious propaganda. So that was a tenet of the Russian Communist Party. Again, does this sound familiar?

It is the same language being used by many on the left here today. Not everyone, but many an increasing number. liberation of the working masses, liberation from religious prejudices, what many today on the left call bigotry if you simply just believe in the Bible. In North Korea, quote, once the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, names can be very misleading, was established in 1948, the regime suppressed religious freedom by arousing the sense of struggle against anti-revolutionary elements and spreading anti-religious sentiments far and wide to strengthen the socialist revolutionary force. In my book club, we read a book called Nothing to Envy.

I highly recommend it if you did not read it with this or if you haven't read it. It is a compelling book about life today in North Korea as well as some of the recent history of North Korea. And you read about the constant anti-religion, anti-capitalist, anti-Western propaganda that is constantly used by the government, even as the people were and are starving at the hand of communism. I just hope, again, that you see the connection between communism everywhere and the communist sentiments that are still here in the mainstream, at least taking on, at least right now, they are still taking on the name of democratic socialism, but it is the same worldview. They might not, they might not be advocating for the same exact policies yet, but it is the same goal. It is the same perspective of the world. in Cuba. Under communist dictator Fidel Castro, religion was violently restricted. In 1991, Cuba lost its main financial backer, the USSR. And so Castro did start to loosen restrictions

on Catholicism so that Catholicism could become a diplomatic partner in helping him accomplish his communistic, socialistic, social vision. And yes, I am using those words kind of interchangeably. They're not the exact same thing, but Vladimir Lennon said himself, that communism is the goal of socialism, the guy that every socialist quotes and hails as a hero, German philosopher, and economist Karl Marx, he wrote the communist manifesto. And so while socialists will say it's not the same thing as communism, you won't get a socialist to decry or denounce communism either. Because again, it is the same worldview. It is the same ultimate vision. Castro, as you probably know, jailed and murdered all political dissidents.

Cuba is still, thanks to communism completely stuck in the 1950s. According to the U.S. embassy in Cuba in 2019, quote, the Cuban Communist Party, through its Office of Religious Affairs and the government's Ministry of Justice continued to control most aspects of religious life. Observer said the government continued to use threats, international and domestic travel restrictions, detentions, and violence against some religious leaders and their followers, and restricted the rights of prisoners to practice religion freely. Media and religious leaders and the government continue to harass or detain members of religious

groups advocating for greater religious and political freedom. Let's read that last line again. Media and religious leaders said the government continued to harass or detain members of religious groups advocating for greater religious and political freedom. In Nazi Germany, the Nazi government established the Reich Church under the leadership of Ludwig Mueller in 1933. the Reich Church aimed to be a new national church, which advocated a form of Nazi Christianity. It instructed preachers to exclude any teaching from the Old Testament, since the Old Testament was seen as a Jewish document.

It instructed preachers to exclude any teachings that might go up against Nazi ideology. Of course, we know what the Nazis did to people who disobeyed, what they did to the Jews, what they did to all religious minorities. as you may know, stands for national socialists. They were indeed fascists. There is no doubt about that. But they also implemented forms of socialism like nationalizing all private industries and controlling the consciences

or attempting to control the consciences of their people. In East Berlin, the socialist side of Germany for decades in the 20th century, the state-sponsored belief system was atheist. The Western side after World War II was capitalist and Christianity thrived. there. And still to this day, the religious differences between Eastern and Western Germany are huge. The majority of Eastern Germans are atheists. According to Pew Research, 60% of Eastern Germans say that religion

is not important in their lives compared to 60% of Western Germans who say that religion is important in their lives. If you look, also, I just think it's interesting to note, if you look at the level of life satisfaction between capitalist, free Western Germany and socialist tyrannical Eastern Germany in 1991, so two years after the Berlin Wall fell, according to the same Pew Research poll, only 15% of Eastern Germans, of East Germans, said that they were satisfied with their lives, only 15% compared to 52% of Western Germans. And then what happened for the Eastern Germans after the Berlin Wall fell, and they were free to enjoy the effects of capitalism, life satisfaction from 1991 to 2009 went up from 15% to 43% and it is much higher today. Still, it's a little

bit higher in Western Germany, but they're very close now. Socialism is a lie. It's a lie. Communism is a lie. It is a lie that capitalism is inherently oppressive. It is a lie that capitalism is making people miserable. It is a lie. Socialism and communism make people miserable. They take away people's freedoms, their ability to be productive. They always seek to destroy faith and destroy family. Let history be our guide. Like we don't have to blindly wander through the future and wonder what it would be like if we had a socialist country. Like we can look at countries today that are dominated by socialism and realize there is no freedom there that we enjoy so much here today.

Yes, socialism and communism. Again, they can be used, I believe, interchangeably because they are so similar and their in goals are the same. So do not be fooled by the people who say, oh, socialism and communism don't have anything to do with one another. They very much do. It is not a coincidence that everywhere you see socialism and communism, you see the severe persecution of religious activity and the attempt to institutionalize a atheism. It is no coincidence that where freedom and capitalism thrive, Christianity thrives. And the bigger the government gets, the more godless the populace gets, the more passionate they get about causes like abortion and euthanasia. It's not a coincidence. We're talking about world views here. It's all interconnected. As I've said, you are voting in November for a worldview. It is no coincidence. That, according to Pew Research, 70% of atheists vote Democrat in America. 70%. And that atheists and agnostics are more likely to support Bernie Sanders, according to Pew, than any other candidate. It is a worldview that he is espousing. The bigger the government,

the less religious liberty, and the more animosity toward religion. And where there is no religious liberty, there is no liberty, period. If you do not have freedom of conscience, then you have no freedom at all. The founders knew that. That is why it is the first right articulated in our Bill of Rights, and it is the freedom that must be safeguarded today if we are to maintain any of our other freedoms. Now, what I argue is, of course, taking precedence, what should take precedence over any other right is the right to life. It has to exist logically before any other right to exist. We are entitled, the Declaration of Independence tells us to life, to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And liberty, nor happiness, can exist without first the right to life. And that is why life

comes before liberty or the pursuit of happiness. And yet, today in America, we are robbing thousands of unborn children of that right every day in the name of women's empowerment. So, if you want to know why it seems like a large portion of the country, does not care about religious liberty does not care about any of the freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights, especially our First Amendment, it is because we have decided to throw to the wayside the most fundamental right that we have, which is the right to life. We have decided that people who cannot defend themselves that they should be discarded in the name of empowerment and choice. And the reason I believe that we have disregarded that right is because godlessness in America has increased

more and more rapidly than any other country in the world in the past 12 years alone. Much of this is because of increased indoctrination in our schools, the utter failure of our churches to preach the gospel and to speak to the issues that matter, the dereliction of duty of a lot of parents to teach theology, to teach worldview issues to their children, the indoctrination of the entertainment industry, the secularist leftist perspective constantly propagated by our media. It is no coincidence. As I say that as the country goes further to the left, we become more godless and vice versa. And as that happens, the country gets more chaotic. As you can see, and there's less tolerance for religion and any non-far left belief.

This is Marxism. It has always been Marxism. Black Lives Matter admits to being Marxist. the leaders are open supporters of communist regimes in South America. We have talked about this on this podcast. This is a worldview that is espoused by them. It's espoused by groups like Antifa. These are the groups that are terrorizing America's major cities, as we discussed last Wednesday. These are the groups glorified and hoisted up by the Democratic Party.

These are the groups that are destroying Democratic-led cities with total impunity at the expense of the most poor and vulnerable. And it's all being done in the name of equality. equality, injustice, and compassion that is always the state of premise of communism and socialism, and it never delivers on those promises. So we fight for the rights to worship as we see fit, understanding that it is one of the first casualties of communist revolutions, of leftist revolutions, and make no mistake, one is being waged right now behind the facade of the unity and the compassion of the DNC.

I don't think that Biden is a communist. I don't think that Biden is a socialist. is probably neither of those things either. But in the same way that the Obama administration was used to usher in far-left policies, the left moved far to the left during Obama's eight years, patriotism among the left dwindled dramatically. We've talked about the Gallup polls and the Pew Research polls that prove that. We've talked about that on this podcast in the same way that they were used as a vessel for far-left sentiments and policies and organizations. This next administration will absolutely be the same. I do think that Kamala Harris is far left. I think that Joe Biden simply

acquiesces on these issues because he knows that he has to in order to be in charge. But I don't want to be, I don't want you to think that I'm just exaggerating here and calling Joe Biden the communist. I don't believe that he is, but do I believe that he is going to be the vessel by which these radical leftist values are ushered in even further into America? I absolutely do. George Washington said this message to the annual meeting of Quaker 1789. Quote, the liberty enjoyed by the people of these states of worshiping Almighty God agreeably to their conscience is not only among the choicest of their blessings, but also their rights.

The founders rebelled against the religious tyranny of the Church of England, loyalists to England and America, actually thought of the entire revolution as nothing more than a religious rebellion by the Presbyterians to the Church of England. And there was a major religious component to it. that is true. No doubt the spirit of the Protestant Reformation, which sought to free Christians from spiritual tyranny, what was the tyranny at the time of the Catholic Church, and encourage lay people to read their own Bible, to have their own relationship with Christ to understand theology on their own. No doubt that that spirit also spurred the American Revolution,

which sought obviously freedom from the tyranny of Britain, including the spiritual tyranny of the Church of England. It was Roger Williams, the 17th century Puritan preacher in Massachusetts, who brought forth the importance of soul liberty, a freedom to follow God without government coercion and the freedom of the church to operate without the direction of the state. Later, George Mason and James Madison and Thomas Jefferson fought for religious liberty. The idea went from tolerance, which George Mason advocated for, to free exercise in disestablishment and separation. Madison and Jefferson were influenced by the Enlightenment, but they were helped in their quest, in their cause for religious liberty by the Protestants in their state of Virginia,

who wanted nothing to do with the official denomination at the time of Virginia, which was Anglicanism. This is a quote from Freedom Forum Institute. Quote, the revivalist message of salvation through Christ alone evoked a deeply personal and emotional response in thousands of American. So this was during the Great Awakening, that idea that was the rallying cry of the Protestant affirmation that by grace through faith, a Christian is saved, help solidify freedom of religion in this country. Reform Christians, we are just fighting against tyranny since 1517. As Scottish reformer, John Knox said, and as many Christians have echoed since, resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. This is part of the spirit of Protestantism. So let us read, once again,

the first part of the First Amendment to the Constitution and Article 6 of the Constitution. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Article 6 of the Constitution says this, no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. Let us quickly break this down. No establishment means that the government cannot establish and official religion or actively promote a particular religion. So the Supreme Court has said that the government must maintain, quote, benevolent neutrality toward religion.

That means they can't discriminate against religions. They also can't be hostile against religion. The free exercise of religion means that every citizen can believe and practice how they see fit. But there are exceptions to this, of course. The Supreme Court has ruled generally you cannot break otherwise binding laws in the name of religious freedom unless it can be proven that that law specifically discriminates against religion or another constitutional right like free speech. Let's talk about the separation of church and state because this is brought up a lot because even though the separation of

church and state is not in the constitution, it is an important American foundational principle. It does not mean as many who tend to be on the left want it to me that there is no mention of God or there should be no mention of God or that we don't apply biblical principles to our law and that they shouldn't shape our ideas at all. They do. They have to. Like it or not, the Bible is the best guidebook for lawmaking that we have for defining justice that we have. And the founders knew that. The separation of church and state protects the state from the church, meaning a particular religion, will not be forced upon the people.

And even more importantly, it is meant to protect the church from the church. the state. The state does not have the authority to govern the affairs of the church. So, church and state are separate, but God and law are not necessarily separate and religion and public life are not separate. Religious organizations are free to try to influence public policy and to raise concerns about moral and political issues in the public square. Many on the left do not believe that this should be the case. They believe some, like Bernie Sanders, believe that there should be no mention of God or biblical principles in the public square. The reason, of course, that is problematic is because not only is it a violation of the First Amendment, not only the freedom of religion, but also the freedom of speech, it's also problematic

because without God, without describing to a higher authority, we have no ultimate source of truth, no arbiter of morality. And all of our debates and discussions are subjective and ultimately meaningless. Furthermore, the First Amendment, like I said, the First Amendment right to free speech protects our right to talk about God. And so, of course, talking about God, allowing God to influence our public dialogue and our public decisions, of course, is allowed. And I would argue important. George Washington said this, quote, of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to

political prosperity, religion and morality, or indispensable supports, in vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. He and many of the other founders believed that while religion should be free, you should be free to worship, not worship, believe, and not believe. He also believed that it is vital to a society that is based on self-governance. He knew that men and women are not good on our own,

embridling our passions that get the best of us that we actually need to ascribe to a higher authority. We must follow God in his law to live peacefully together. That is what many of the founders believed. John Adams said the same, quote, we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. We are seeing right now a populist that is unbridled by morality and religion. And he says that we don't have a government armed with that kind of power. avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. He, of course, is absolutely right.

When you don't believe that our rights come from a creator, when you don't believe in a supreme moral lawgiver, then we are all our own gods, our own arbiters of truth. And it erupts in first, first, anarchy, and then tyranny, as the people with power claim to be the only ones to be able to tell us right and wrong and to be able to reign in what they call our less desirable attributes and beliefs. I talk about this in my book. This is the effect of making ourselves our own God in replacing the God of Scripture with the God of self of placing ourselves on the thrones of our lives. We make ourselves the arbiters of truth. and it leads to chaos not only in our own lives, but also in society as a whole. When you take God out of everything, we begin to deny the very existence of objective reality

like human biology and two and two making four. It ends in chaos, which again, ends up ending in tyranny. Chaos, the anarchy that leads to tyranny are exactly what the founders wanted to avoid. They trusted people to be free in their relationship with God, knew that faith and morality that comes from that relationship was necessary to function as a country. Let's talk about Section 6 of the Constitution quickly. No religious task for any government office in the United States. You can't require someone to ascribe to a religious belief system or denounce a certain belief system to hold office. Now, this has become a trend, unfortunately, especially

recently among Democratic senators to ask judicial nominees about their religious beliefs. Senators Kamala Harris and Macy Hirono targeted judicial nominee Brian Boucher. He's a Catholic during his confirmation because of his association with Catholic Charitable Organization, Knights of Columbus. According to the Associated Press, here were some of the questions. The Knights of Columbus has taken a number of extreme positions, said Ms. Hirono, Hawaii Democrat, citing the group's opposition to same-sex marriage. If confirmed, do you intend to end your membership with this organization to avoid any

appearance of bias? Miss Harris asked Mr. Boucher, who became a member 25 years ago as a teenager, were you aware that the Knight of Columbus opposed a woman's right to choose when you joined the organization? Mr. Boucher was 18 years old when he joined this Catholic charitable organization, which has millions of members. Mr. Boucher, who said he would abide by the Code of Conduct for U.S. judges regarding his affiliation said his participation has centered on, quote, charitable and community events in local Catholic parishes. A Democratic Senator Cory Booker did the same thing to Naomi Rao in her Senate confirmation hearing, pressing her on whether or not she believes gay relationships are sinful. That is none of Cory Booker's business. But many Democrats in Congress right now believe that

there should be religious tests for these positions, but only against Christians because they believe that biblical Christian views inhibit you from being able to do an adequate job. Honestly, a lot of them believe it inhibits you from being able to even be a decent person in their eyes. This is one of the reasons why our constitutional right to religious liberty is so crucial. There is hostility, unfortunately, in our government toward religion and the First Amendment and Article Sakes are meant to protect us from the effect of that hostility. AOC recently gave a speech in Congress saying that religiously.

liberty has been used to justify bigotry. No, no. Accusations of bigotry have been used as an excuse to attack religious liberty. We have a constitutional right in America to religious liberty. We do not have a constitutional right in America not to be offended. Remember Jack Phillips, the Colorado cake baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple who specifically targeted his shop for this reason and pursued him legally until his life was almost completely ruined. and his business almost completely gone under to try to force him to bake that specific cake. He would bake a regular cake for them, but he was not willing to endorse gay marriage by baking a cake for that particular purpose, for the purpose of gay marriage.

He also doesn't make Halloween cakes. This guy is a conservative Christian and he wants to operate his business in a way that he sees fit and he should absolutely have the right to do so. Democrats in general do not believe that you should be able to practice your religion if it gets in the way of what they view as progressive. They're not talking about infringing on other people's rights. They're talking about getting in the way of what they view as progressive. There will come a day if progressives, if you want to call them that, have their way. There will come a day when pastors will be forced to marry gay couples or resign, stop preaching about sin or close down

their church. Free speech and freedom of religion to the radical left wing with increasing influence over the Democratic Party. See free speech and freedom of religion as oppressive forces hurting the marginalized. They believe, like the left in Europe has already said that they believe and has already implemented in many ways, that there should be limits to what you can and cannot say and even what you can and cannot believe. There are already policies in place like this in New York and California, totally unconstitutional, but they threaten to find you, if you quote misgender someone. The DOJ, however, under Trump,

created a religious liberty task force under Jess Sessions to ensure that the religious liberty of all people is being protected across the country, that people could run their businesses and live their lives in accordance to their religious values. Democrats went berserk on this, just completely lost their minds, saying again that this is just an excuse for bigotry.

Remember the propaganda and the articles that were put out in the USSR in order to defend cracking down on religious liberty. They made the same argument that religious liberty is just another excuse for prejudice. That is communist propaganda, then, it's communist propaganda now. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo under Trump, has been a vigilant defender of religious liberty. He created a commission on unalienable rights to reexamine where here and around the world, religious liberty and other kinds of liberty are being.

infringed upon. And this has been a high priority of the Trump administration. The DNC had a statement about the creation of this commission. And it said this. It is, quote, further proof that Republicans continue to push forward an agenda completely out of step with the American people and our values. Religious liberty is a threat to leftism. It is a threat to the ideology of the Democratic Party. Do I think that every Democrat in the Democratic Party feels this way? No, I don't. I think that there are a lot of sincere people who believe in religious liberty that are a part of the Democratic Party for a variety of reasons. But just understand that coming from the leadership and coming from the movement that is getting more and more popular in the Democratic Party, this is what is coming down the pipeline, an animosity towards religious liberty and labeling the freedom of religion, which is our most fundamental right, as just an excuse for bigotry.

That is not what it is. It is the accusations of bigotry that are an excuse for infringing on people's fundamental right to worship and believe how they see fit. Democrats have long believed that religious groups should be made to comply with the atheistic worldview. The Obamacare mandate that forced all employers, religious or not, to provide insurance for birth control for their employees, even the kind that are abortifacients, is clearly an infringement upon religious liberty in the left represented by the New York Times, for example, has said, They scoffed at this idea at the time when people said, hey, this is going to get in the way of religious liberty for religious organizations who don't want to cover these kinds of medications. They said, oh, that's just ridiculous. But Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic group, has been in a legal battle over this for years.

Now, thankfully, in 2017, Trump signed an executive order offering regulatory relief for organizations like Little Sisters of the Poor. and this year, thanks to conservative justices, the Supreme Court upheld that executive order that the left tried so hard to fight against. That was one decision in July in the way of religious liberty. That was really good. And then another decision in Our Lady of Guadalupe versus Morrissey-Beroux, Justice Alito, reasoned that their responsibility goes to the core mission of most private religious schools to be able to choose what kind of teachers they want to be able to teach religion. This was about whether or not these organizations are allowed to basically hire the people that they see fit in accordance with their values. Religious liberty requires

leaving employment decisions touching on that particular mission to the school. So those were good decisions made, thanks mostly to the conservative justices made in July. And we can thank President Trump at least partly for that. Bill Barr has been a great defender of liberty. He gave a speech last year. I believe it was last year. I don't have the date right in front of me. It might have been 2018, but he delivered a speech about religious liberty at Notre Dame that made Democrats go crazy. He talked about how there is an effort to replace the Judeo-Christian moral system with secularism and the doctrine of moral relativism. Traditional religious values are not decaying, but rather are the target of organized destruction, he argued. He also said that secularists

have attacked religion and those who hold religious beliefs with, quote, social educational and professional ostracism, lawsuits and social media campaigns, those who practice their faith publicly are shamed or sometimes sued into submission like Jack Phillips, while those who hold their beliefs privately are encouraged to keep their beliefs to themselves and to not impose them or not even speak about them in fear of imposing them on someone else. He and his assistant attorney General have been working to protect the liberty of churches across the country who are being discriminatorily targeted by lockdown measures by mostly Democratic city officials and governors. Whereas Democrats, on the other hand, like I said, the ideology that is taking over the Democratic

Party, even if not every single politician or every single person who is a part of the Democratic Party believes this. And I believe there are weak people on the Republican side in the way of religious liberty as well. But when we're talking about worldviews, when we're talking about priorities, religious liberty, according to the majority of the Democratic Party today, is something they believe that needs to give way to other privileges and to other feelings, basically. The Equality Act is a great example of that. So I did an entire episode on the Equality Act.

And even though it sounds good, of course, the name of these acts and these pieces of legislation on the left and the right, they try to make it as good and as inarguable. as possible so that if you stand against it, you seem like a really bad person. But this Equality Act is not about equality. It is about inequality and prejudice against people who hold religious and biblical views. And it's such a good example of how the left and the Democratic Party sees the issue of religious liberty. So I'll read you some of what I talked about in that episode from, I think it was almost two years ago now that we talked, or maybe it was a year ago now that we talked about this. I'll read you some of what I said then. So the Equality Act makes irrelevant any

religious or conscience exemptions for doctors, for example. Under this bill, a doctor is required to perform sex change surgery and provide hormone therapy even to children. Now they can maybe find protection from that under the free exercise arguments or other conscience objection legislation, but that is completely unsure. So that's a very precarious position to be in as a doctor. Religious schools would be regulated under this act. So private schools basically are no longer private under the Equality Act, which they will continue to try to push through forever for infinity until they get it done. Even if they, even if this religious school takes no funding whatsoever from the federal government, meaning that they could not choose to hire or fire a teacher based on their

belief system. So if a Christian school, a traditional Christian school, they found out that one of their teachers is gay. They found out that one of their teachers is transitioning. For example, they would not be allowed to fire that teacher under the Equality Act. It doesn't matter if that violates the belief system of this school. And again, whether or not you believe that, whether or not you believe in what that school believes and what that Christian school believes, whether or not you agree with the decision to fire someone based on their sexual orientation or their so-called gender identity. You can see the problem with the government encroaching on the religious liberty of organizations and schools like this. And you can see how that is a threat to all

of our freedoms. The Bible is obviously clear about marriage and gender. And so what this Equality Act is saying is that a school that says that they abide by the Bible, they are based on biblical principles that you are not actually allowed to live that out. You are not actually allowed to run your business in a way that abides by the belief that you have. That is essentially what the Equality Act is trying to ensure that whether you're a doctor, whether you're a Christian school, whether you're a Christian organization, whether you're a Christian individual, that your beliefs are not going to get in the way of far left progressivism. And so it's really almost a replacement of religion with progressivism rather than just an inhibition. And, you know,

of religion altogether. This, of course, is tyranny. There is a Supreme Court case, employment division v. Smith that held that religious dissenters are subject to generally applicable laws, which means under the Equality Act, there would be very little, some but little recourse for religious people who object to these kinds of laws. Under this act, athletic teams would be forced to allow transgender boys and girls to compete on athletic teams that correspond to their so-called gender identity rather than their sex. Again, there could be some judicial interpretation that would rule in favor of objections to this, but in general, under this act, they would have that right.

That means co-ed locker rooms. That means co-ed athletic teams. That means your girls have no refuge, no safety, no recourse, really no real athletic competition whatsoever under the so-called Equality Act. This is not just an attack on women and the safety of girls. It is also an attack on religious beliefs. religious liberty. It is a disastrous act. It looks to replace what is what we know as a right, something like the right to free speech or the right to religious liberty with privileges

and to exchange those definitions without us really noticing. And in that way, we are accepting tyranny in the name of compassion. According to National Review, under the guise of anti-discrimination protections, the bill redefines sex to include gender identity, undermines religious freedom, gives males who identify as females the right to women's spaces, and sets a dangerous political precedent for the medicalization of gender-confused youth. There are Republicans in the House who have tried to add amendments to ensure some more freedom for organizations in schools. Representative Tom McClintock, Republican from California, his amendment, would have ensured that the bill would not be, quote, construed to require a health care provider to affirm the

self-professed gender identity of a minor. He explained why he added this amendment to the National Review. HR5 is a dangerous attempt by the Democrats to use the force of the government to bend biology and human nature to their ideological whims. I'm not surprised that my amendment to ensure the physicians cannot be sued for exercising their professional medical judgment was rejected. So under this act, doctors aren't even allowed to say, you know, I actually don't think that it's best to chemically castrate this child. I actually don't think that it's best to do a double mastectomy on this young woman. She doesn't actually seem to have gender dysphoria under this act. Under the so-called equality act, a doctor is not even able to use his medical reasoning

and his medical justification to deny someone this surgery. And furthermore, he is not able to do so from a religious or a moral perspective either. And so, amendment by this congressperson was added and the Democrats rejected it. He said, viewed along with the rejection of my colleagues amendment relating to protecting parents from being sued for discrimination for the act of parenting. The Democrat's radical agenda is on full display in the House. So under this act, parents who don't want their child to be put on puberty blockers, don't want their child to transition, parents who know and love their child more than anyone else, parents who say, hey, I'm willing to work with my child who might be struggling with gender dysphoria.

I love my child, except my child, but I don't think we should go down the road of chemical castration. I don't think that we should go down the road of puberty blockers. I don't think that my, you know, my eight-year-old child needs to go down the path of transitioning. Under this act, those parents would be liable to be sued. Same with parents who say, hey, I want to protect my 13-year-old daughter. I don't want her to be in a locker room with a boy. Under this Equality Act that is being sponsored by Democrats, parents would be in trouble with the law who decide to parent how they see fit. This is a worldview.

This is a communistic far-left worldview that the Democrats are trying hard to push through. It is not just in severing the relationship between the parent and the child. It is in tearing down all institutions that are higher than the government. Because like all communists and all socialists, they do not want the populace to derive our values, to derive authority and autonomy from anything other than the government. And so these are far-left ideologies that are being put. pushed through by the Democratic Party, even though I don't think a majority of Democrats would call themselves communist. I don't think that they believe all things that are communist. I think a lot of

them aren't even conscious about some of the ideologies that are packed into the legislation and the movements that they are defending and that they are pushing forward. I certainly, like I said, do not think that Joe Biden would articulate a lot of values and a lot of the principles that we talked about the left representing today. I think probably personally, He is somewhat of a moderate. Now, we know from last week he's not a moderate on abortion. He is very radical on that. But probably personally, he is a little moderate, but he has gone way far to the left just

in the past year to try to appease the far left so he can make sure that he is getting voted in. I mean, that's why he got together with Bernie Sanders, his unity task force to come up with the policy prescriptions for all the things that are going on. and one of them is making sure that we defund charter schools and that we stand against the expansion of charter schools. They're not for school choice. Therefore, taking away the Hyde Amendment, which says that taxpayers cannot fund abortion. He obviously chose a vice president who, in 2019, was the most liberal senator in the Senate, even more liberal than Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders was second most liberal. And so he has surrounded himself, by radical leftists. His administration is going to be used for this ideology, which is rabidly anti-religious liberty, rabidly anti-first amendment, rapidly anti-family, unfortunately, rabidly anti-faith, even if many of these people do not personally embody those values. So I'm not trying to indict people that don't need to be indicted. I'm not trying to exaggerate. I'm not trying to tell you anything that's not true. I'm trying to show you that you're looking at an entire interconnected ideology. For people who say, well, you know, I kind of agree with Democrats on that one thing or I'm not so sure about Trump's tweets. Just realize that you are voting for a

cohesive worldview. You are voting for a cohesive ideology. In ideology, I believe on the left is very destructive. Once again, do I like everything that Trump says? No, I do not. Do I like everything that Trump tweets? No, I do not. If I could advise Trump, I would have, advised him to do a lot of things differently and say a lot of things differently over the past few years. Do I believe that he is our savior? Do I believe that he is our hope? Do I have hope in any one political party or anyone politician or anyone president? I absolutely don't. But as I said, on the last Monday, I do believe in the importance of voting, in the importance of knowing about the issues, and the importance of caring about the issues because policies affect flesh and blood people.

They affect the most, the least of these. They affect the most the people on the outskirts of society, and I believe it is my duty as someone with the privilege and the right to vote and to read and to talk and to care about these issues, to speak up about the things that are important and to encourage other people to be educated and to vote as well. and hey, maybe you'll disagree with me, but I'm trying to give you as much of my perspective as I possibly can and warn you and warn you about the destructive ideology that is coming from the left, that is coming for your children, that is coming for your family, that is coming from your church. And no, you're not going to see it when you watch the DNC. You're not going to see it when you watch MSNBC and CNN, of course, because they're carrying water for them. And this is always how these revolutions, these tyrannical revolutions start.

They've got the people on the front lines who sound really good, say the right things, they use the propaganda, then they've got all the people in Portland and Seattle doing the destroying. And so we just need to be on guard. And quite frankly, it's a very privileged argument to use Trump's tweets and some of the things that he has said as a reason not to vote for him. They don't affect anyone. Trump's tweets don't affect anyone. Trump's words a lot of times, sometimes they do, but Trump's words a lot of times, his gaffs a lot of times, they don't affect anyone. And you know what the left thinks the same thing about Biden. He's had a lot of gaffes.

He said a lot of things that could be construed as racist. He has been accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment. And the left, like the right, has said, you know what? I'm taking the good with the bad of voting for a worldview. I'm voting for the policies that I think are best for the country. And I am going to try to argue with you Monday after Monday that the leftist worldview is a destructive one. And the conservative worldview is one that I believe is best for every demographic of the country.

Is it perfect? No, because people aren't perfect. and I don't ascribe to any one worldly ideology perfectly. And I rejoice in the fact that one day I will be in the presence of my Savior with people who I disagreed with politically on earth and we will finally be together worshipping the perfect king. But until then, until then I am going to be advocating for what I believe to be just policies, just ideals and a worldview that I think benefits every single. single kind of person in this country. Okay, that's my whole spiel. Now to the part that you guys have

been waiting for, I know this is a little bit of a long episode, but it's worth it. Here, without further ado, is Dr. John McArthur. Dr. MacArthur, thank you so much for joining me. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Alley, 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. Well, it's my pleasure, Alibeth. Thank you for the privilege.

Yes. Can you briefly give us an update on the latest attempts by the California government to inhibit your church's right to worship? Yeah, sort of up to the moment, they had told us they're going to find us $20,000. They're going to find me $8,000, the church, $12,000 for violating a court order. We went back to court to show the court that there was no court order. They were trying to force a court order that didn't exist. And so the judge says there is no violation of a court order. There is no contempt of court. And he said, Grace Church is the only church in California free to worship indoors. And you can't get another injunction against them this week either. So they're free to meet on this coming Sunday. So the judge actually said to them, this is the

third time you've come to court trying to get an injunction to keep these people from having church, what is your objective in this? So he was not favorable to this continued effort in the courts to shut us down. And did they have an answer for that, what their objective is? We know what their objective is. I don't know if they articulated it to the judge, but there was a lot of disrespect thrown at that judge, I heard, in that event because they were not happy about it. But their goal is to put on such onerous requirements that they're impossible for us to meet. It's about an inch thick of health requirements that we could never possibly come up to. So it essentially would be a shutdown, and they keep pushing for all of those.

They won't take a mitigated list of those things or a smaller list. They want the whole thing. And so it's essentially a shutdown. Right. I have heard you articulate this, but I'm not sure everyone listening has. In the beginning, Grace Church, like most churches, decided that you were not going to meet together in person. You delivered your sermons virtually, but then there was a shift. There was a change over the past couple of months. Can you explain kind of how you guys came to the decision to start meeting in person again? Yeah. At the very outset, we were told millions of people were going to die. Millions of Americans were going to die. This was going to be something like the Spanish flu back in, you know, 1918. So, you know, we don't want to kill anybody, obviously. So we said,

if this is as deadly as we're hearing, we need to obey what the law, what the leaders are telling us. So I said, we'll do a live stream, and we translated it into five languages, and it went around the world, and our people watched on television. After about three or four weeks, they started to come back. We didn't say anything. They knew I was preaching in the worship center every Sunday. They just started coming back, and there were dozens, and then there were hundreds, and then there were thousands, and they began to realize that the narrative just did not match reality. When it became apparent that 99.99% of Californians will survive this, they didn't believe that this was a legitimate fear. They just said, look, we're adults, we're going to make our own

decision. We didn't say anything about them coming back. We didn't mandate that. We just wanted to see what the people would decide on their own when reality took over from the, I think, purposeful fear that was thrown out at everybody at the beginning. Were you surprised that this has caused such an uproar, both in the secular world, but also within the church, you've got some evangelicals that have been pushing back on y'all's decision. Did that shock you at all? It doesn't shock me for a number of reasons. reasons, Ali Beth. And the number one reason I think is that pragmatism has had such a huge

impact on the church, that the church is more concerned about what the unbelieving world thinks of it than it is about ministering to the saints. The church has become an event to attract non-believers. So if you're going to do that, then you've got to buy into the conventional attitudes of those people and not offend them. If that's your goal, that's what pragmatic goals will do. then you've got to go with the flow of the culture. You can't go against that. So from my standpoint, look, the only stock and trade we have is the truth. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth.

We want our people to know the truth about the Bible, but, you know, the apostle Paul said, preach the word in season and out of season. What he meant by that is preach the word in relation to the seasons you're in. Jesus said to the Pharisees and scribes, you can tell the weather, but you don't know the season of redemption you're in. And I think being able to understand what is going on and to preach in accordance with that, without attacking the culture, without basically shaming people in any way, we have to be the people of the truth. So we never have told our people that we buy into the pandemic.

We've given them statistics continually, and they have seen them themselves. California right now, there is, I suppose, with COVID, one death per hundred thousand people. And they're still mandating a complete lockdown and trying to lock down Grace Church with that low death rate. So there's much more to this than any kind of health issue. I know you can't speculate, but if you could, what do you think are some of the motives behind a lockdown that just doesn't seem to correlate with science and maybe just even in relation to shutting down things like worship. Yeah, first of all, we did a little study and the number of deaths in California this year from

January to August is exactly the rate it's been going for the last 10 years. There's about 15 more deaths this year per 100,000 by all means of death than there were in 2019. This is not an epidemic. The numbers indicate to us that something else is going on. Masks is another issue. If you want to go around with a bacterial zoo on your face and think that's going to make you healthy, I don't think you're thinking very deeply about that. But the proof of one thing is coming out in all of this.

You don't need an army to conquer a nation. All you need is fear. Right. And you can literally overpower. Look, this country has sacrificed 10, of thousands of lives to gain our freedom, and people are going to give it all up if the government will protect them from some nebulous virus. Right.

It shows you the weakness of this generation, and it shows you the susceptibility to suggestion and the ease with which fear can dominate people, not related to reality, actually. And the fear is so great that if you don't do what you should do, you get yelled at in very many places. So it's a palpable fear that people have. try to quietly remove that fear by just doing what we normally do. And people come and they're not afraid. They're joyful. They're happy. They're thrilled to be here. And thousands are coming. And more every single week. We've got them all over the campus outdoors, indoors, in the tent, in every

room in our facility. And they're not afraid. And I just think carrying out the narrative now for thinking people is a really hard thing to do. Yes, absolutely. Could you give some encouragement to people who maybe they're in a church where their pastor is not taking the same stance that you are, but they wish that they were. And they're just afraid. They're afraid of encroaching restrictions by the government on things like freedom of worship. And maybe they're looking to the horizon that they're seeing the possibility of more severe persecution of Christians in this country. And they're maybe not afraid of the virus, but they're afraid of that. And they just don't know what to do when they don't see enough leaders standing up.

what would be your encouragement to that Christian right now? Well, look, first of all, you know that the Word of God commands you to worship, to come together, to not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as a manner of some is. Come together to stimulate one another to love and good works. You know, in the book of 1st Corinthians, when the Apostle Paul is writing to the church and talking about the Lord's table, in that chapter over and over, it says, when you come together, when you come together, when you come together, when you come together, This is the church.

The church isn't a video experience. The church is life on life. And you need to be the church. You also need not only to follow the word of God, but also realize Christ is the head of the church, not any political entity, not any government agency and not any person in power. Christ is the head of the church. Give glory to him by being the church. And then you need to understand that you don't really have anything to fear in terms of

the threat of this virus, because the statistics are just so minuscule, the deaths are people, basically, I'll give you one statistic. In California, the average death of COVID is 78. In California, the average death normally is age 78. So there's not a significant difference from this virus in any other normal year. So you have to do that examination to the point where you, you're not a significant difference from this virus and any other normal year. So you have to do that examination to the point where you can satisfy your own mind. But I think it's even more than that. I think people know that they don't see dead bodies all around. That their worlds, they may know somebody who had COVID and didn't even know they had it, but they found out when they were tested or they may know somebody that had an illness.

But we know it isn't a deadly illness. Everybody should know that. And you have to decide what your priorities are. We always say, you know, I'm not concerned about people dying of COVID. I'm concerned about people dying in sin, and 100% of the people who are alive are going to die. And after that, the judgment, and we need to be the light for the gospel. I tell pastors, have church, have church, and let Christ defend you. Yes, yes. Well, thank you so much. And just really quickly, I like to ask a particular guest to do this. If you could just share the gospel with as much time as you have left for the people who have never heard it or who need it, need to hear it again. If you could please do that for my audience, then that would be so greatly appreciated.

Sure. Look, the real pandemic in the world is sin. The Bible says all have sinned, come short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death, the soul that sins, it shall die. It's appointed that a man wants to die and after this the judgment. You're going to live forever. The Bible says you're going to live forever either in hell out of the presence of God. in conscious punishment forever, or in heaven in joy and peace and bliss forever. Death is not the end. Death is the beginning of eternity. And the questions in life are not related to how successful are you or how good is your marriage

or how fulfilled are you? The real question in life is, what are you going to do when this life ends and you face God? There's only one way to have your sins forgiven and enter heaven, and that is by putting your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died in the place of sinners, to pay the penalty for their sin, and then rose from the dead, and by the power of his resurrection,

he'll raise all of those who believe in him to eternal glory. Christ is the only Savior, and you need to put your trust in Christ, and the joy of heaven will be waiting for you, and the joy of heaven will back up into this life, so that because your eternity is settled, your life here on earth will be. be filled with joy, peace, and hope. Amen. Thank you so much, Dr. MacArthur. I really appreciate you

taking the time to talk with me. My pleasure. Thank you. 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.