Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 346 | In Jesus' Name ... A-Woman?

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

Just before the Georgia election, the Washington Post published a leaked phone call between President Trump and Ben Raffensperger, and the media has been all too eager to spin the story in a way that's harmful to Trump. We separate fact from fiction, but Trump still didn't do himself any favors during the call. Then, we break down exactly what still would need to happen in order to overturn the election in Trump's favor. Many GOP members of Congress plan to challenge the election results on January 6, but how good are their odds of success? And, Pastor Virgil Walker joins the show to give us a detailed breakdown of the split within the Southern Baptist Convention over critical race theory. -- Sources: Here’s the Full Transcript and Audio of the Call Between Trump and Raffensperger https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/2768e0cc-4ddd-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html  Joint Statement From Senators Cruz, Johnson, Lankford, Daines, Kennedy, Blackburn, Braun, Senators-Elect Lummis, Marshall, Hagerty, Tuberville https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=5541  Hawley Statement on Objecting During Electoral College Certifcation Process on Jan. 6 https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1344307458085412867  GOP Senator Josh Hawley to Challenge Certification of Electoral Votes https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senator-josh-hawley-missouri-to-object-electoral-college-vote/  Democrats Propose Major Change to House Rules, Eliminating Family Language for 'Gender-Inclusive' Alternatives https://www.theblaze.com/news/democrats-house-rules-gender-inclusive-language  The Origins of Totalitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Totalitarianism -- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

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 Tuesday. So if you guys did not get the memo on Instagram, this podcast is now four days a week. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And it is going to come out in the afternoon now. So a little bit different. and I did explain on an Instagram live, but a lot of you didn't catch that.

And so the reason that we're doing this is obviously because you guys are awesome and you wanted more content. And so we are giving you that. But also, this helps me be able to talk about all of the things that I want to talk about in a more organized way. What was happening is that with the three episodes, there was so much that I wanted to say that the episodes ended up being really long. really, this podcast is only supposed to be about a 30 to 40 minute podcast. But because I felt like

I had so much to say, especially since May, with all that's been going on in the news, they got really long. So it was actually making a lot more kind of unnecessary work for everyone involved. We are going to try to make these episodes shorter. Hopefully I'll be able to do that. I still have a lot to say, more organized and more segmented to be able to talk about all of the things that I want to talk about. We're still going to have interviews. We're still going to be talking about theology. We're still going to be talking about these big evergreen topics a lot. And that's what I know you guys love about the podcast. And so we're not changing it radically. This is not becoming like a daily news show. It's still relatable. Like we're still talking

about the things that we have always talked about. But let me tell you how we're going to organize it and then how today is going to go. So I'm going to talk to you about a big news story or politics. And then I'm going to talk to you about a cultural story or a cultural issue or topic. And then we're going to talk about a theological or a theological issue or a news are happening that's going on inside the church. And so today we are going to talk about this Trump phone call, the audio that was leaked between the Georgia Secretary of State and Donald Trump and what all of that craziness means. And also the senators, Congress people that say that they are going to object to the results of the election tomorrow. And then we're going to talk about the changes to the

House of Representatives, their rules to remove gender language. And that's a Methodist minister who prayed on the House floor ending with a men and a woman. I kid you not. And then I'm going to talk to my friend Virgil Walker of the Just Thinking podcast. And we are going to talk about this fissure that's happening within the Southern Baptist Convention over critical race theory. You might not know, but this is a huge denomination within evangelical Christianity. And so it really kind of affects everyone the conversations and the debates and the division that is going on within that denomination over intersectionality and critical race theory. So that's what we're going to cover today.

I'm going to try to make it as concise as possible, but you guys know I'm very verbose. That's just how I am. And then I'm going to try to always end with like an encouraging segment. So if I have time today, I am also going to end with that. Okay, that's what we are talking about today. Let's go ahead and get into it. Okay, today is the day for the Georgia election. You guys know I have been talking about this for a long time.

Our constitutional rights rest on Georgia. I did an episode a couple weeks ago about the Equality Act, this huge piece of legislation, which Joe Biden said that he is going to prioritize. Congress is going to prioritize. I mean, there is absolutely nothing aside from the Supreme Court if they don't pack the Supreme Court that would stop Democrats from pushing a very radical, and I don't mean that hyperbally, literally a radical far-left agenda that will affect every area of your life if Democrats control the Senate.

And so we are all eyes on Georgia. We are looking at these two Senate races between Warnock and Leffler, Warnock being the radical leftist Democrat candidate and then we've got Leffler, the Republican candidate, and then we've got Asoff, basically the trust fund baby. Not that there's anything wrong with having a trust fund, but for a guy who talks about privilege and fighting for the little man, I'm not sure that he has a whole lot of empathy or relatability in that arena, and he is going against Purdue. And so we are looking at Georgia. We are going to be watching the. election as it comes in. Now, we might not know the results of the election. Georgia is a little bit

of a mess, as you guys know, in some ways, not in every way, but in some ways right now, because there's so much pressure on this and Democrats have been working so hard. Stacey Abrams has been working so hard to make sure that Georgia truly does turn blue and gets these two Democratic candidates elected. And so there may not be results tonight or tomorrow. That's the unfortunate truth, which is just crazy, crazy, crazy. So we'll talk about that more tomorrow. Polls close in Georgia today, January 5th at 7 p.m. Eastern. So if you were in Georgia and you're listening to this, get your tail to the voting booth.

Do not listen to the crazy people that are telling you not to vote. One way to make sure that Republicans lose this election, whether or not you think that there's integrity in the system or not, which I understand the concerns. One way to ensure the Republicans lose is not to vote. and I have already promised that if you do not vote, I will show up at your house. I will fly to Hartsville, Hartsfield Jackson Airport right now, and I will show up at your house. I will find you, and I will throw frozen Brussels sprouts at your head until you get up and you go to the voting booth and you vote in the Senate elections. That is how important it is.

Thank you to all of you who early voted. Make sure that you go out and vote today. Okay. Now we're going to talk about this Trump call. So a lot of you probably were following this. You probably know what happened and there's already been a lot of back and forth. And it's not a coincidence by the way that this story came out, that this story came out right before the Georgia election.

Of course, this is strategic. This is what the media does. The media not only hates Donald Trump, but hates Republicans and wants very much for Democrats to be in control of every branch of government possible. So here's what happened. And the audio of a January 2nd call between Trump and Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensberger, and other law enforcement officials in Georgia, was leaked to the Washington Post.

Raffensberger apparently recorded the call. He said he wanted to do it to protect himself in case Trump attacked him or said something that wasn't true. And then apparently it was released to the press, which is a pretty, like, crummy thing to do. That's like not a very honorable thing to do, but nevertheless, let's get into the actual content of the call. So here's what the Washington Post reported just the other day. President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensberger, the Georgia Secretary of State to, quote, find enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that legal scholars described as a flagrant abuse of power and a potential criminal act.

The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which, which Trump alternately berated Raffensberger, then tried to flatter him, begged him to act, and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the Secretary of State refused to pursue his false claims. At one point, warning that Raffensberger was taking, quote, a big risk. So if you remember, there's been a lot of conflict over Georgia and whether there was voter fraud, if there was a problem with the Dominion voter machines, there's been a lot of criticism by Republicans towards the Secretary. of state of Georgia and towards Governor Kemp saying that they haven't done enough to verify all of the votes to make sure that all of the votes that were cast were legally cast to make sure that

there were no illegally cast votes. There have been a lot of anecdotes, a lot of testimonies coming out of Georgia saying this was an unfair process. My vote didn't count and things like that. And so there's been a lot of allegations. There's been litigation going on. And eyes have been on Georgia. the spotlight has been on Georgia and Trump himself has been very critical of Georgia and the Republican officials there for not doing enough to ensure the integrity of the presidential election. So it's really been, it's been weird. It's been like this back and forth of people saying, oh, we really have to vote in this election because the constitutional rights of the entire country rest on Republicans winning at least one of these Senate seats. And also, oh, the election is rigged in Georgia.

we shouldn't be any part of it. So that's been very difficult in conflicting messaging. And you can bet the Democrats have taken advantage of that and have loved to see this conflict play out in Georgia where they really, really want to win. So the claims that the Washington Post is making that President Trump made wanted to make Raffensberger just find votes that he could win, telling him that he was taking a big risk. That is true. I do think it's important for us to look at these claims in context, though. Thankfully, the Washington Post did release the full transcript. So I encourage you, I always encourage you to look at the source, not just listen to me,

to go read the transcript for yourself and to see what you think. Don't just take my word for it. We don't have time, obviously, to read the entire transcript. So I'm going to read you a couple of excerpts that I think are especially relevant. So here is what Donald Trump said in this call, part of what he said. We have at least two or three, anywhere from two. 250,000 to 300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rules. This is the claim that he is making. Much of that had to do with Fulton County. We think if you check the signatures, you'll find at least a couple of hundred of thousands of forged signatures of people who have been forged. And we are quite sure that's going to happen. And so he thinks that there are hundreds of thousands of fraudulent ballots. And that is why he was unable to, he was unable to officially win Georgia. But he obviously believes that he, he obviously believes that he, he is the legitimate winner of Georgia. He said, we're going to have an accurate number over the next

two days with certified accountants, but an accurate number will be given, but it's in the 50s of thousands. And that's people that went to vote and they were told they can't vote because they've already been voted for. It's a very sad thing. And then he said, it's much more than the number of 11,779. That's the current margin is only 11,779. And then he says, you know, we need you to find 11,780. He said, I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state. That's all I want to do. All I want to do is this. So that part doesn't sound good. Okay, he's saying that there are claims of fraud and he wants to make sure that they are looking into it. He wants to make sure that they're investigating that they know about all of the problems that he alleges are there, that a lot of people have alleged are there.

and Raffensberger and the other officials on the call, we're saying, look, we've looked into all of this. It's not exactly what you're saying. That's not actually what we're seeing, but we are looking into all of these claims of voter fraud. And then Trump says, but I just want you to find 11,780 votes after saying he thinks there are hundreds of thousands of votes that are actually fraudulent. And so the problem with saying that is that it looks like he doesn't actually care about the fraud and the integrity of the elections, which is something that I very much care about no matter what the results are, but he actually just cares about winning, which is not really a good look. Like if you have been claiming, you know, I really care about the honor and the honesty of our elections, but then you say, you know, I think I won by hundreds of thousands of votes, but really I only want you to find enough votes for me to win the state. that's not good. That's not ensuring anything. That's not making sure that we have integrity in our elections. And then he goes on, I got to get. I have to find 12,000 votes, Trump says, and I have them times a lot. And therefore I won the state. I only need 11,000 votes, 12,000, 11,000. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes.

Give me a break. You know, we have that in spades already. So it sounds like he is saying, and maybe I'm taking a leap here. And I know some people aren't going to like to hear me say this, but it sounds like he's saying, look, no matter what you really find, no matter what you really find, I want you to find enough votes for me to win. So that means, again, that he's not really concerned about the integrity of the election. He is concerned about winning the state, period. I am concerned about the integrity of the election, whether or not that changes the results in favor of Trump or whether that means that Biden is the legitimate winner. I am concerned about election fraud.

I am concerned about the transparency of our processes. Absolutely. And I'm very glad that Georgia is looking into all of these. I think that we should have the necessary litigation. I think that we should have the necessary legal battles and the necessary critiques of our system to make sure that everything is working fairly as it should. But I am unconcerned with whether or not that changes the results of the election in the direction that I wanted to. I care much more about fairness than I do the particular outcome of this election,

even though I wish that Trump had won, even though I think that he is obviously a much better man for the job, especially with the current problems that we are facing right now. I care much more about the process because the process lasts a lot longer than four years. But it doesn't seem from this call that that is what Trump's concern is. He is just concerned with this temporal current victory. And I think that I made a leap too early on when I first heard about the story. I said, on Instagram live that he probably did something illegal here. He probably didn't do anything illegal here. There's a lot of different ways that you can interpret this and look at this. I probably jumped the gun and saying that. And so I too apologize for that. It's not a great look.

Some of what he says, okay, totally legitimate. Like you can bring up your allegations and your concerns. But then saying, I just need you to find the exact number of votes, just the one vote, one more vote that is needed for me to win. That's not great. Okay. So that was the Trump call. The allegations of fraud are still alive and well. Several federal and state lawsuits have been filed and dismissed. Lynn Wood tried to block Georgia's election from being certified. Sidney Powell tried to argue the Dominion voting machines were changing votes from Trump to Biden. So that's what's been happening in Georgia in particular. But a lot of the cases have been dismissed for not following the proper procedure. And so those probably are not going to, again, change the results of the presidential

election. Now, tomorrow, January 6th, something big is happening. Actually, it's not typically anything that's big. It's typically a very standard process, but there's been some drama around Congress verifying the election results. So what does this mean? You probably didn't even know this was something that happened. I wasn't really aware of what this was because it typically goes on without a whole lot of hoop loss. So verifying the election results in Congress, this is the last step in the electoral process, both the Senate and the House will meet on January 6th, Wednesday at 1 p.m. Eastern time to unseal certified documents from each state and read the result of the election. Here's how AP News describes it. The congressional meeting on January 6 is the final step in reaffirming

Biden's win after the electoral college officially elected him in December. This is the federal law that Congress must meet on January 6th to open sealed certificates from each state that contain a record of the electoral votes. The votes are brought into the chamber in special mahogany boxes used for the occasion. Bipartisan representatives of both chambers read the results out loud and do an official count. The president of the Senate, Vice President Mike Pence. The vice president is always the president of the Senate. So Kamala Harris, if Biden, you know, officially takes the White House will be president of the Senate.

So Mike Pence presides over the session happening tomorrow and declares the winner. There are some congressmen saying that they will object to the results of the election publicly. So that is Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri. So Ted Cruz's plan is that he and other 10 other Republican senators, are going to announce that, or they're going to object to the January 6th tomorrow's confirmation of the results of the election. And he says this for his reasoning.

Congress should immediately appoint an electoral commission with full investigatory and fact-finding authority to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed individual states would evaluate the commission's findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change. in their vote. There are the, like I said, 10 other senators that are joining Cruz's effort, Ron Johnson, James Linkford, John Kennedy, Marsha Blackburn, among others.

I mean, this isn't necessarily a bad idea. He's just saying, hey, we should do an audit. We should do a further investigation to make sure that these claims of voter fraud, that they don't change the outcome of the election. Josh Hawley is also going to object because he says Pennsylvania failed to follow their election laws. He takes issue with big tech, Facebook and Twitter interfering in support of Joe Biden. So he said in a statement, I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on January 6th without raising the fact that some states failed to follow their own state election laws. I can't vote to

certify without pointing out the unprecedented effort of mega corporations to interfere in this election in support of Joe Biden. At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our election. So, Him and Ted Cruz are not part of the same, like, movement within the Senate necessarily, but they're kind of saying the same thing. They're saying, look, there's allegations of voter fraud. There looks to be some funny business, some sketchy things going on. And so I let's at least look into these things before we actually verify, certify the results.

There are several Republican representatives. So in the House saying that they will also object to election results basically for the same thing. So they will object and they will present their case before their colleagues in an effort to try to convince the majority in both chambers that we should not verify. We should not accept the results of the presidential election. So here's what CBS says will happen in this scenario. After the certificate from each state or the District of Columbia is read, the presiding officer will call for objections if there are any. An objection must be made in writing and signed by at least one member of the Senate and one member of the House. House, it also must state clearly and concisely and without argument the ground thereof.

If an objection is properly made, the joint session suspends and each chamber of Congress meet separately to consider it. Debate is limited to no more than two hours and each member can speak only once and for a maximum of five minutes. And so the state in the House have to vote on whether or not they agree with the objection. Something similar kind of happened in 2005. there were people who objected to the results in Ohio, for example, but it didn't work out because the majority in both houses did not agree with the objections, and that's probably what's going to

happen here. They're not going to get a majority in both chambers to agree with these objections and to hold off on certifying these results because it's not just going to be Republicans versus Democrats. There are Republicans, not rhinos, conservative Republicans that are against what Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and representatives in the House are doing to try to object to the results of the election. Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas, for example, says that basically, look, this is not Congress's job to decide the results of the election. The Constitution is clear that the states decide. The electoral college decides based on, you know, the will of the states.

and if we try to usurp that, if we try to upend that process, and then we're setting, we're sending a very dangerous precedent. That means whoever controls both the House and the Senate is basically going to control the results of the election from here on out, because they can always just then object to the results of the election and say, no, no, no, we don't. For example, if Democrats control both the Senate and the House in 2024 and they don't like the results of the election, well, they can say, oh, no, no, we're just going to object to the results of the election and actually we're going to go this direction. So Tom Cotton is saying, look, this is not constitutionally sound and this is not wise for the future. Republican Senator from

Utah, Mike Lee also refuses to object to the results of the election. They don't really think that there's enough evidence of fraud that would actually change the outcome of the election, which is also why they are, they're not making the sand that people like Ted Cruz and Josh Holly are. Republican representative from Texas, Chip Roy also disagrees with objecting to the election and he did so in, I think, a really interesting way. According to Dallas Morning News Sunday night, he objected to the seating of his house colleagues elected in the six states where President Donald Trump disputes the results. So Chip Roy's point was that if anyone is claiming that the presidential election in Arizona or Georgia or Michigan and Nevada or Pennsylvania or Wisconsin,

if anyone is claiming, if any representative that is now elected to Congress is claiming that there was fraud in those states when it comes to the presidential election, well, that means necessarily that there was also fraud in their election. So he is saying this in a kind of tongue-in-cheek way. He's saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, if we're worried about fraud in these particular states where Trump did not win, then we need to worry about fraud electing these Republican representatives from these states who are claiming that they're going to object to the results of the presidential election, but are not objecting to the results of their own election in the states where they say was widespread fraud. So he's doing, this is kind of like a tactic. He's doing this in a kind of like

sarcastic way. Like, look, if we care about the Constitution, we care about the integrity of our election, then these Republican representatives who are claiming that there's fraud also shouldn't, shouldn't be seated because they're from these states where they're saying that there were widespread problems. So bottom line is the results are very unlikely to change. I'm just going to, I'm just going to be perfectly honest on that. Joe Biden is based on everything that we now know is going to be inaugurated in a couple of weeks. Trump is probably not going to concede. He's not going to give up this fight. I mean, yes, he's going to leave the White House peacefully. But he's not going to want to. He's not a guy that accepts defeat easily. And that's

actually one thing that makes him really great. In this case, there has to be a peaceful transition of power. That is what has thankfully marked the strength of our republic and the perseverance of our republic for hundreds of years. And so there will be a transfer of power. It will be a peaceful transfer of power, even if Trump isn't happy about it, which I understand why he's not happy about it. That is not me that these Republican congressmen are secretly liberals or secretly supportive of Biden. Of course, I wish that Biden didn't win this election. Of course I do. I spent weeks, if not months on this podcast, talking about why Biden is literally the worst man for this moment. He's going to be a terrible president, terrible president. And Kamala Harris will be an even

worse president when she takes over. And so I did everything I could in my tiny corner of the world to explain to you the difference policy-wise between the two candidates. But unfortunately, this is where we are. And so we have to realize that this is coming, that the inauguration is coming, and that we are going to have to, whether we like it or not, I don't like it, we're going to have to accept this change in the political winds and hope, I'm hoping today, that at least Republicans keep the Senate so there can be some kind of protection for our constitutional rights. Okay, speaking of Congress, the House of Representatives has changed the rules. So you can no longer just say amen.

You have to say amen and a woman. So we're going to talk about that in just one second. 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. All right. I want to play you this clip from Representative Emmanuel Cleaver. He is a Methodist minister. He ended his opening prayer of the 117th Congress on the House 4 by saying this.

We ask it in the name of the monotheistic God, Brahma, and God known by many names by many different faiths. A man and a woman. Oh, man. So I am personally most offended that he did not list the 47 other genders at the end of his prayer. Everyone knows that the prayer is not legitimate unless you list all of the dozens of genders that exist. I am most offended that he reaffirmed a gender binary by saying amen and a woman. So any of you who know what amen actually means, it means let it be as you say. It means so be it.

It's not a gendered term. And so now we're supposed to think that any time there is an M-E-N or M-A-N in any word that it is supposed to reference like, a male. This is insane. This is insane. Also, the actual, like, not sarcastic, the actual offensive part of that was when he was talking about his horrible theology. Brahma, the god worshipped by people of many faiths, no. We don't, we don't worship the same gods. We just don't. Yes, Muslims, Jews, and Christians are all Abrahamic religions. That is true. But we don't worship the same God because Christians, a uniquely serve a triune god. That is God, the Father, the Holy Spirit. and then his son, Jesus Christ, the godhead three and one. That is not the same God that Jews and

Muslims worship. So I just want to clarify that. When you have that kind of theological confusion, though, you're going to have cultural and political confusion as well. And that's exactly what we're seeing here because politics is downstream from culture, which is downstream from theology, always without condition, whether or not you're an atheist or agnostic, whatever belief you have in God will affect what you think about cultural issues, will affect what you think about political issues. Confusion is exactly what's going on in our halls of power. It might as well be the Tower of Babbel. I certainly don't speak the same language as some of these people. The people who are coming up with American laws are so-called intellectuals and elites do not

even understand what most toddlers understand, which is that there are boys and there are girls. Boys are he and girls are she. This wasn't complicated until like five minutes ago. But now is apparently so controversial and so complex that our house of representatives cannot even bring themselves to affirm it. And this is how fast the train of progressivism goes. Think about the fact that only five years ago, only about five years ago gay marriage became legal. Or the Supreme Court said, yes, this is a constitutional right that people have. Most people six years ago, this is according to Pew Research, most people six years ago actually believed that the definition of marriage was between a man and a woman six years ago.

Not 60 years ago, not 16 years ago, six years ago. Now, of course, public opinion has shifted. The vast majority reject that notion and don't just reject the definition of marriage that has been around for millennia, but now reject the biological reality of gender that has existed across all cultures from the beginning of time, from the beginning of human existence. just in the past five years, all of this has changed. And this is not just fringe groups where this is happening. This is in Congress.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern, Democrat from Massachusetts, are bringing this to the House. The blaze.com reports the proposed changes would establish gender inclusive language in the House rules by eliminating gendered language. Instead of words like father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first, first cousin. What? Is that gendered? Nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, step, daughter, step, brother, blah, blah, blah, blah, grandmother, granddaughter. They have to all be replaced by these gender neutral terms. Parent, child, sibling, parents, sibling.

What? This is so cumbersome. Like, this is so just our lexicon and our language is because, because. coming so burdensome with political correctness. The proposed rules also demand the following changes. Seafarers instead of C men, chair, instead of chairmen, resign instead of submit his or her resignation. What? Such member delegate or resident commissioner serves instead of he or she serves.

And so we can't have gendered language at all. We have to actually add words and longer words into our language in order to be polite. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has already mocked the proposal. He said, this is stupid, signed a father, son, and brother. And yes, I happen to agree with Kevin McCarthy on that, but it is beyond leftist idiocy on gender. This is an attempt to obfuscate reality to officially and legally subvert biological truth, which is that there are two genders, men and women, and we are fundamentally different. We're the same in a lot of ways.

It doesn't mean that we have to fit into all of the states. standard gender stereotypes that culture has propagated. I'm not saying that, but we're talking biology. Men and women are different. And so this is an attempt to officially and legally abolish this natural dichotomy that has been around forever. And it also takes steps to delegitimize not just our natural functions as human beings, but also the natural nuclear family, mom, dad, kids. It is an effort to atomize us, to isolate us from what connects us, from our biological identity, but also the natural institutions from which all of us have come, which is from a family with some kind of mom and a dad, at least biologically. And it's an attempt to make us as flimsy and as undefined and as unimportant

and as amorphous as humanly possible. And to try to minimize the institutions like, family that have held us together and have given us identity and meaning for so long. This is the disintegration of the natural family. I don't want to hear anyone say that this is a slippery slope argument. If I would have told you five years ago that in five years we're not going to be able to say he or she, male or female, that we wouldn't even be able to define what a woman is. You would have told me that I was crazy fearmonger and that I had no idea what I was talking about and then I was on a slippery slope fallacy.

there's no such thing as a slippery slope fallacy if you can actually see what's ahead. Like if you can actually see the steps that are being taken. I mean, there is such a thing as a slippery slope fallacy, but not when it comes to the craziness of progressivism. Nothing is too crazy to assert that is going to happen because we're already seeing the craziness unfold right now. So this is an effort to disintegrate the natural family that has been part and parcel, this disintegration of every totalitarian collectivist regime, far left and far right,

communist socialist, fascists, which are really not far from each other at all, for at least the past century. You take away the institutions from which all humans derive value, morality, purpose, and belonging. So family, friendship, church, faith, enterprise. And then you replace it with the state. So the state becomes your mom, your dad, your friend, your caretaker, your moral arbiter. As Mussolini described totalitarianism. Everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. Hannah Arendt writes this in her 1951 book, The Origins of Totalitarianism.

Terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated against each other. Therefore, one of the primary concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring this isolation about. Isolation may be the beginning of terror. It certainly is its most fertile ground.

It always is its result. Totalitarianism bases itself on loneliness, on the experience of not belonging to the world at all, which is among the most radical, and desperate experiences of man. You'll probably remember in 1984 as well, how men and women were also not given any kind of distinction. They even wore the same clothes.

They called each other comrade. And so that is where this goes. Now, I don't think the architects of these rules necessarily are thinking that. They probably don't even realize that this is the ideology that they espouse and that that is where this leads. But it is nevertheless where it leads. For the Christian, I mean, we know that this is. nonsense. It's very hard to be a post-millennialist, by the way right now, like when we see the world

devolving into more and more craziness, you're like, how more depraved and confused can we possibly get? But this is like a Genesis, this is Genesis 1 issue. Okay. And so I've said before the most radical verse in the Bible, I actually heard someone else say this. I don't remember. The most radical verse in the Bible is Genesis 1-1. God created the heavens in the earth. He is the authority over all of it. He says what is and what isn't, what's right and what's wrong, what's male and what's female. So Christians, we might be. confused and disagree on a lot of things. This should not be confusing for us. This is in the first chapter, first chapter of our Bible. Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them,

this is the triune God, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image and the image of God, he created them, male and female he created them and God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth this is reiterated by Jesus himself in Matthew 19 we have talked a lot about this before I recommend the episodes biblical marriage that's the title you can just type that in wherever you get your podcast with the word relatable

and then also biblical tell-loss of gender, an episode that we did at the beginning of, at the beginning of December. If you haven't listened to those, I highly recommend that you do. So this might be hard for the Christian to hold to and to hold fast to in the sense that there's a lot of pressure against this very basic scientific and theological reality. But it is not confusing for us because the Bible is graciously so clear on this issue. The world is insane. no longer know basic truths that people of all different faiths once accepted postmodernism

makes hearts of stone and brains of mush. And that is certainly what is happening even in our halls of power. So we have the privilege of being able to hold fast to the truth, which is unchanging and as clear as ever in God's word. Speaking of truth and speaking of clarity, I am now going to talk to my friend Virgil Walker about the critical race theory that is seeping into the Southern Baptist Convention, what is going on there between the few sides that are in conflict and what this means for believers and how we push back against it with the gospel. Virgil, thank you so much for joining me. Can you tell everyone quickly, who may not know, although I think most people do listening

to this, who you are and what you do? Virgil Walker. I'm a co-host of the Just Thinking podcast with my buddy, Darrow Harrison. And recently, I've just become the executive director of operations for G3 ministries, which hosts G3 conferences under Dr. Josh By. So I'm excited. I'm actually here in some of your stomping grounds, Alley, here in Georgia. Oh, yeah.

And today is a crazy day in Georgia. So I want to talk to you about what's going on in the Southern Baptist convention. I'm a Southern Baptist, have been my whole life. I'm sure there's a lot of people listening to this who have. gone to Southern Baptist churches, and yet they don't realize there's actually a conflict that's happening internally within the denomination over critical race theory. So can you talk about what's happening and why there are two sides that are kind of budding heads over this issue? Yeah. Well, what we're seeing bubble up that most rank and foul had no idea about was the

issue of critical race theory. What happened at the Southern Basque. Baptist Convention in 2019 was this resolution nine was brought to the floor and it was voted on. And what happened as a result is we're now able, the SBC has now adopted CRT as a useful analytical tool to examine issues within its convention. That's problematic. The reality is rank and file have no idea what critical race theory CRT is. You've over the course of the last year, you've been educating your, you know, your audience. I've been educating the folks that I'm in front of, men like Tom Askell, the founders, has been doing that kind of work,

Josh Bias of G3. And we've been sharing this information as to why CRT is so dangerous. Well, because of, I think, folks beginning to pick up the ideas around the danger, the backdrop of where these ideologies come from and their danger, SBC presidents have finally kind of taken notice. And what happened in December 1st of this year, or rather December 1st of 2020, we're a brand new year, was the SBC presidents came together for what they normally do by way of meeting. And when they did, they affirmed the Southern Baptist Faith and Message, or the Baptist Faith in Message 2000. And as they affirmed it, they made something very clear. And so I want to quote what they said, because it's important to hear.

They said this, quote, we stand together on the historic Southern Baptist condemnations of racism in any form. And we also declare that affirmation of critical race theory, intersectionality, and any version of critical theory is incompatible, incompatible with the Baptist faith and message, end quote. So that happened on December 1st. As a result of that statement coming out again, at the time, all six presidents of SBC Seminaries affirmed this statement. Right after that, something happened on December the 18th. There were two key leaders, I would call them Charlie Dates, he's a senior pastor of progressive Baptist Church in Chicago, as well as Ralph West. He is the senior pastor. He's a founding pastor of church without walls in Houston. Both of them came out with a statement.

and their statement was one of absolute denunciation of the statement. I want to read you something that I thought was very compelling that Charlie Dates stated in his statement. He's actually made a decision to leave the SBC as a result of this statement that was made that condemned critical race theory. He said this, quote, when did the theological architects of American slavery develop the moral character to tell the church how it should, should address how it should discuss and discern racism, end quote. He goes on further in his statement to really just take to task the men who gathered together, stating that there was no black person who was actually in their midst in an effort to invalidate this statement.

And so as a result, he rejects the statement and he's walking away from the SBC. Ralph D. West of Houston, he was a little bit more kind in his statement, but he was a little bit more kind in his statement, but he's pushing forward something that I'm, I'm, a term I'm coining called CRT light. It's less filling and doesn't taste great. I can tell you that much. But CRT light is this idea that, well, we don't, they recognize they being those who are, our proponents, those who are advocates for critical race theory. They recognize that and if, if they're going to push this idea forward, they can't swallow the idea's hook, line, and sinker. And as a result, what they're doing is they're saying, well, we don't advocate everything that CRT states and

discusses, but there are components of it that we want to adopt. When biblically speaking, we recognize that a good, a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bears bad fruit. And the root of the tree of CRT is bad fruit. And we absolutely don't need it. Last thing that happened was as a result, Ronnie Floyd, who is the president of the executive committee, has came out and said, you know what, let's bring everybody together. So he's called a meeting of the African-American Fellowship of believers. These are key black leaders who are going to gather together alongside the presidents of these seminaries, and they're going to have a conversation that's supposed to take place in January. That's the long story short of all of the people.

happening. I mean, there's a lot of stuff in social media that you can kind of follow the trail, so to speak, of what's going on. Yeah, you did an excellent job of, of summing that up. So if I'm understanding correctly, because even as someone who is in the midst of all of this and does follow this stuff, it can be very confusing. So resolution nine, it was something that happened in 2019 when Southern Baptist convened together, they vote upon these resolutions. Resolution nine basically said, you know, critical race theory, which, as you said, we've talked about on this podcast, it is a worldview that views the world through the lens of the oppressed versus the oppressor and assigns those categories based on race. So people who are black or brown are irrevocably

oppressed. People who are white are irrevocably oppressors. And the only way to rectify that, critical race theory says, is through leftism, is through socialism, is through social justice, is through critical race theory. So for those who are kind of unfamiliar with that term, that's a very crude and short explanation of what it is. So basically, Resolution 9, back in 2019, said, okay, you know what, it's not all bad. We can kind of use it as this analytical tool,

intersectionality, which kind of does the same thing. It identifies people and places value on people based on their race, based on their sexual orientation, their so-called gender identity and all of that. So it's a way of identifying people. It's a way of looking at justice. It's a way at looking at the world, even a way at looking at sin and salvation and sanctification through a lens that is not biblical, but is actually extremely worldly. And, of course, you and I believe is completely anti-biblical and destructive.

It's evil. Go ahead. Yes. It's absolutely evil. Let's call it what it is. This is an evil ideology to have the presupposition that racism is ingrained in the fabric of American society, that racism is ingrained in you based upon the level of melanin in your skin. And because of that, the power structures like white privilege and white supremacy, not only do they exist, but they require to be overthrown.

And those are the presuppositions behind critical race theory. So to identify that, to bring that into a critical race. Christian culture, believing that that can be a valid lens by which to examine things within the SBC or any religious organization that holds to the Judeo-Christian ethic is absolutely evil. I'm just going to call it what it is. Absolutely. And that is what was affirmed, basically, probably in softer terms in 2020 in December by SBC president saying, okay, look, you know, we know that racism exists, that we've got history of that. We know discrimination exists, but we're not going to use critical race theory and intersectionality

as analytical tools. So kind of going against Resolution 9. And then as a response to that statement, you had people like Charlie Dates, like you said, in other, yes, in other leaders in the SBC saying, well, we don't like that statement. We actually think that CRT is something to be used. And basically, especially Charlie, dates accused the SBC presidents who said, look, we're not going to use CRT because we believe that it's unbiblical, anti-biblical, accused them of not dealing with racism. Or he might

have not said, hey, these people are racist, but in poetic terms, he basically did. I mean, he basically did. He called, Ali, he called them the theological architects of American slavery. I don't know how. What do you think that means? Well, I get what he's trying to do. Listen, Dates is an orator, and orators are great when they're anchored in truth. But when they're anchored in emotion as this is, they can be incredibly dangerous because they rally the people to a cause that is ill-informed, that's ill-structured.

I get what he's doing is he's looking at the historic nature of the forming of the SBC, which was on the basis of slavery. Southern slave owners wanted to keep their slaves. And so they separated from Northern Baptist, Southern Baptist, separated from Northern Baptist and said, we're going to form the SBC. Now, from that time, the SBC has done everything, bent over backwards to acknowledge the horrors of the past,

to repent for the poor choices that were made all along the lines. I mean, you know, Fred Luter, who actually signs a statement later, and I definitely needed to mention that because on the 18th, another statement also came out. But let me stick with this. First of all, he claims that they are, those presidents who made the decision to sign this document affirming the Baptist faith and message and saying critical race theory will not be a part of it. He accuses them of having the same ill intention of those slaves, of those Baptists who were slave owners back in him. Yes, he did indeed call them the theological architects of American slavery. He connected the dots, historically speaking, from current day to the historic past. And that is exactly what CRT does. That is what people who don't profess to be Christians do with CRT too. They say, hey, I mean,

it's some kind of, as we've probably talked about, a Kafka trap of saying, hey, if you are against CRT, if you're against what I want you to do to be so-called. as Ibron, ex-Kindy says, anti-racist. That's because you're actually fragile. That's because you are racist. It couldn't be that, hey, some Christians say, you know, that's an unbiblical way to look at things. Obviously, racism is a sin.

You can't love God and hate your brother for any reason, whatever it is. But let's look at a gospel-centered way to enact that and preach that. It has to be, no, you are either for CRT or you are a racist and you are. not even just a racist, but for slavery. But these are the same people who are talking about racial reconciliation. So already we are seeing, like you said in the beginning, a bad tree bears bad fruit. And so it is already bearing the fruit of division, don't you think? That's its intention.

Remember at the beginning, I told you about the presuppositions connected with CRT. The whole purpose of it is to overturn structures, overturn power structures. And so its interest has nothing to do with reconciliation of any kind. Its interest has to do with you're seeing a white power structure. In this instance, it's the SBC. And the desire is to overturn it. That's the point. Those who advocate this position will not stop until that takes place. Okay. Let's end on if you could sum up. And I know we could spend two hours talking about this. You have to spend two hours talking about this. but why critical race theory is counter to the gospel in why the gospel is better.

Right, right. Well, CRT is a lens by which to divide peoples. Again, it has a faulty anthropology. It's categorized people on the basis of melanin in their skin rather than the fact that they are image bearers of the living God. And so it doesn't unite us under the banner of God's truth. It separates. and divides us through the lens of critical race theory. And once that division has taken place, you can tell each group who and what they are, not on the basis of what Scripture says about sin and sin's condition, but on the basis of oppressed and oppressor groups. And then what that does is that allows certain groups to be devoid of sin. In other words, their ethnicity attributes to them a form of righteousness.

It's phariseicalism. They can now look through the lens of their ethnicity and say, see, I'm good and you're bad on the basis of the categories that have been set up. That's why this is unbiblical and needs to be rejected in full. What needs to be embraced is the gospel. The gospel unites, Ephesians Chapter 2. What we see there in verses 12 and following is that those who were once divided, who were once a God-ordained division between Jew and Gentile are brought together,

how, not through CRT, not through Black Lives Matter, but are brought together through the power of the gospel, through what Jesus Christ did on a cross. My encouragement would be to those SBC presidents who I know are feeling a measure of weight to capitulate, right? What they're feeling is that the idea around unity, hey, let's be brought together. It's on the false basis of something superficial and not on the basis of truth. And that's not true unity. You and I both know that.

And so my encouragement to them is to stand strong and to hold on to truth, the biblical truth, the message of the gospel that we must proclaim. that's what's going to help things. That's what's going to save us at the end of the day. Yes, and amen. And actually, as you were speaking, before you went to Ephesians 2, something that you said reminded me of Ephesians 2, and I pulled it up. So just to read, just to read this. And like you said, it's talking about the Jews and the Gentiles, but the fact of the matter is it's Jesus Christ who brings groups together that otherwise would have been hostile toward each other. So 13 through 15 of Ephesians 2. But now in Christ, Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. CRT raises a dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he himself might create, or that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two so making peace. Jesus is a peacemaker. among all believers. In between us and the world, but peace among believers. CRT looks to create tension and division among the body of Christ so they cannot coexist. Thank you so much.

Can you remind people where they can find you? They can definitely find me on Just Thinking. Just Thinking.m.m.E. Also check out the conference G3, G3, min, m-in.org. We got the conference happening at the end of September. First part of October, we'd love for you to be a part. But you can catch me there. I'm blogging there as well.

So I've been having a great time with the folks at G3. Awesome. Thank you so much, Virgil. Thanks again, Allie. Okay, guys, so definitely did not accomplish this episode being 30 minutes, but I had a lot to catch up on today. I think that I will be able to make it shorter for the future episodes. But I just want to end with this.

positive note. And I'm sure you were encouraged by that conversation with Virgil Walker. So I said this on, I said this on Instagram and I just want to say it here. You're going to see and you have seen a lot of different posts and tweets, whatever, of people saying, oh, finally we finished 2020. 2021 has good things in store for us. There's no way that things could get worse. So I'm going to be a Debbie Downer for a second. And then I'm going to lift you up with some edifying truth. Things could always get worse. Okay. 2021 could definitely get worse. Now, for you, I don't know what you personally went through. You literally could have had the worst year of your life. You could have lost everyone and everything.

And really, there might be nowhere to go but up for you. So I'm not discounting that. And I'm not discounting that a lot of people had a terrible year this year. They either lost loved ones or they lost their job. They lost their livelihood. You're struggling mentally, spiritually, whatever it is. So I'm not discounting that 2020 could have been. really hard, but it might not have been the hardest year of your life so far. And it's probably not going to be the hardest year of your life going forward. Like 2021, we have no idea what it has in store. If 2020 taught us anything, it's that we're not in control and that we can't predict what's going to happen. That is true in 2021 as well. There is, of course, we can set goals and we can have,

we can say that we want to, you know, do certain things and we want to change certain things. And we can have an optimistic outlook. But our optimism should not be. based on the potential of better circumstances, but on the God who doesn't change. So where our joy is derived from is not in this kind of superstition that the new year promises better times for us, because it doesn't necessarily. It is in our Messiah, in our king of kings, who says that he's not going anywhere, that he's not going to leave us to forsake us. And even when our circumstances change, even when we face the unknown, that he is steadfast,

You guys know I've been clinging to Hebrews 138, especially over the past year. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. So we don't know what 2021 brings. Where our anchor is, where our hope is, where our optimism and our joy comes from is in this God who does not change, whose promises do not fail. Like God's eternal plan of redemption is still going off without a hitch. I've said this a million times on this podcast in the past year, but he is not thrown off by anything that's happened. He's not shocked. He's not taken a back. He's not thrown for a loop.

He has not had to take a detour. He hasn't put anything on pause. Everything is going to, according to what he absolutely is in charge of. He doesn't remove his control. He doesn't remove his sovereignty even for one second. And all of it is working towards his glory and the ultimate good of believers. We know this and we trust in this. And that is where our happiness and our positivity comes from. Lamentations 323 tells us that His mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. So we look forward to newness every morning, not just in the new year, but every morning. We have the hope and the joy that comes from his renewed mercies that wake up with us. And so I just want to encourage you to take the pressure off of yourself, to take the pressure off of an unknown future to bring you

happiness and to bring you joy, take the pressure off of circumstances that you can't control to bring you happiness and put all of that hope, put all of that so-called pressure on God who promises to deliver those things for you. He doesn't promise ease. He doesn't promise that things are going to necessarily always go smoothly or look smoothly here in this life. But he does promise to keep his promises. He does promise to be faithful. He does promise to be with you. He promises that you can do all things through him who strengthens you, not decontextualizing that verse, but he promises that you can persevere through all circumstances because of him, because of him who loves you. And so the gospel will always be enough for our joy and for our optimism. So let that

be where our vision goes, where our eyes are set. And let that be where our joy and our optimism. comes from. Okay, that's all I got for today. I know a long episode, but we will be back here tomorrow with more good stuff. 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 heart. 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.