Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 364 | Christians vs. Cancel Culture | Guest: Dr. Christina Crenshaw

Episode Date: February 4, 2021

Today we're excited to sit down with Baylor University professor Dr. Christina Crenshaw, who has recently made headlines for questioning the Biden administration's expansion of protections for transgender people. A small but loud group of students have been calling for her to be fired, but Dr. Crenshaw is holding strong against the cancel culture mob. -- Today's Sponsors: Annie's Kit Clubs have the perfect subscription box for both boys & girls. Kids develop actual skills, mastering real-world building or new crafting techniques while expressing their creativity. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE & save 75% off your first shipment. Gabi Insurance: You're probably overpaying on car and home insurance. See how much Gabi can save you! Go to Gabi.com/Relatable — it's totally free to check & there's no obligation. ScoreMaster isn't credit repair — it's credit science & it helps you get your points fast. Go to ScoreMaster.com/ALLIE & see how many points you can add to your credit score & how fast! -- 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 guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. So excited for you to listen to this conversation that I'm about to have with Dr. Christina Crenshaw of Baylor University, who is the latest target of a small but loud mob of cancellers who are trying to take her down and get her fired simply because she tweeted skepticism about Biden's executive order to expand Title IX so that boys will have access to girls' restrooms and locker rooms. and sports teams, and she simply questioned the implications of that. And also, if the feelings and if the opposition of the majority of Americans even matters when it comes to policies like this and when it comes to this kind of activism, she's got a lot of insight for us, a lot of encouragement, as you can tell, it's a longer conversation because so much is packed in. But I know that you are going to leave this dialogue, feeling edified and feeling challenged and feeling built up. So I'm really excited to end the week with this conversation.

Without further ado, here is Dr. Crenshaw. Dr. Crenshaw, thank you so much for joining me. Could you tell everyone who you are and what you do? So thank you so much for having me. So I teach as a professor, technical lecturer at Baylor University. I have been in education for 20 years, taught as a high school English teacher and then moved into the higher ed side. and I have taught as a professor out in California, and then we moved back to Waco, teacher Baylor. I have taught everything from educational leadership to social issues in education,

most currently teaching a faith in writing class in the English department, and then I also teach an anti-human trafficking class through the Honors College. Okay, gotcha. And you are here, not just because you sound like an awesome professor, which I'm sure you could teach us a lot of things,

considering everything that you have studied and taught over the years, but you're also here because you've gotten kind of unfortunately and unintentionally in the middle of some drama and maybe in some hot water with some students at Baylor because of something that you said on Twitter about the expansion of Title IX. So can you just give us a recap of what happened? Sure. You know, it was just a week ago, so still kind of reeling from it. But I would say it was a small group of students with a very last.

voice and that that is often the case but because I want to accurately represent the student body I have felt overwhelmingly supported by colleagues and students yes so about two weeks ago I would call my like-minded colleague Dan Darling posted his own tweet that said you know we need to be concerned as people of faith about the Mexico City cancellation with the executive orders by Biden and this title nine expansion that we should be concerned about this And so then I replied and said, you know, what about the rest of us do we have a voice on this? You know, essentially saying we are catering, we are appeasing the 1% really at the expense of the 99, the rest.

And that isn't to, you know, imply that everybody shouldn't be protected. But my concerns, what I was really raising with just 140 characters is the idea that are we penalizing biological females at the, in order to cater to, again, to kind of acquies, you know, the small percentage who really want to occupy these spaces. And if you, you know, kind of look at the language of the tweet, I use it in terms of children. Because when I was tweeting, I was not thinking at all of my identity as a professor. You know, I certainly have, you know, a constitutional right as a professor to solve this opinion. But I'm looking at it through a lens of being a female, of being a mother and anti-trafficking work that I do. I think that those are all places, this is a place of real concern. If we start allowing biological men, whatever their sexual identity, that is sort of like a nuanced and tangential, you know, conversation. If we allow biological men to have access to spaces historically reserved for biological women, we are going to have, that could be problematic.

I think that there's enough data and enough reason to be concerned about about that issue. Yeah. And so you raise concerns about that. And just I think everyone listening probably knows exactly what you mean by the Mexico City policy in the expansion of Title IX. But just to clarify for people who who may not know, the Mexico City policy, Biden reversed. And what that actually does is it sends our tax dollars to fund abortions worldwide. This has kind of gone back and forth between Republican and Democratic presidents. Republican presidents have said, yes, the Mexico City policy stands. Our tax dollars are not going to. fund abortions worldwide. Democratic presidents, including Bill Clinton, Obama, and now Biden

have said, yep, your tax dollars are going to fund abortion worldwide. Christians should obviously care about that. Those of us who are pro-life and then the expansion of Title IX is talking about allowing boys who identify as girls into girls' exclusive spaces. So locker rooms, bathrooms, sports teams. And your tweet raised a concern about that, which I think is a totally legitimate question. What about those of us who don't want our daughters to share a bathroom with a boy? Like, do we matter? Do our concerns care? Does our offense matter if we're offended by this? If we're worried about the safety of our kids or just the fairness for competition for our girls? Why don't our voices have a say? And I think the fact that you got so much backlash for raising that

concern shows that the opinion of some people, even if it's a minority of loud people, is that your voice and your opinion and your concerns, they don't matter at all. And not only that, but they're bigoted. Would you say that's an accurate assessment of the reaction that you've gotten from some? Absolutely. Again, I would say, you know, here's what I think is also really fascinating about this is I didn't realize how organized the backlash would be. So, you know, a good week goes by and nobody really, you know, people like the tweet or whatever, but there was not an immediate reaction to it, mostly because within my then small, it's tripled in size and since small Twitter community, it is full of like-minded people. So I think it's, you know, similar

conversations that I have been having. But there is a group on campus who is working to become an organized official sanctioned group on campus that would support LGBTQ. Right. So they would be part of the university campus recognized groups. And they've, they've been on this mission for a while. You know, I was doctoral student there and I remember, you know, they were fighting for to be part of the university even then. And I'm not really privy to all of their conversations. I have not really been paying attention. I just know it's been at least, if not longer, a 10 year battle. And apparently there has been a very organized effort as of late to make this happen. So the, The Baylor Lariat, which is the student paper, ran an article recently, but, you know, before my tweet, you know, really advocating for this group to become an officially recognized group. And this was just fodder for, I think, their agenda because then from here they ran an entire student, I mean a student paper. It's not Baylor official, but, you know, it's on campus. A story about, and the title of it was Dr. Crenshaw, you know, our Baylor Lecture tweets homophobic rhetoric. And so, you know, it's even that language that was homophobic. You know, I'm looking at our children and what this means for women. And suddenly this has this label on it that looks to shut down conversation that looks to really label somebody to pigeonhole them. It shuts down. It makes the conversation polarizing. And it's no longer a conversation. It's a label. And it's hate speech, which is part of, you know, what they had called it. So a petition gets started to get me

fired. There's a whole change.org petition to get me fired. Finally, the university weighs in, and they do it in a very diplomatic way, which is to be expected. And they say, hey, this is the right to free speech. This wasn't hate speech. It's within the constitutional right. We need civil discourse. That then enrages the students, the small group on campus even more. How many signatures were there at the time that Baylor responded? Honest, Ali, I can't bring myself to look. So friends will like, screen check colleagues are coming to my defense. They're like, or did you see this comment? And I always thought it was odd when, you know, people of notability, celebrities or, you know, politicians would say, I don't, I don't read the news on me.

And I'm like, yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. But I think your soul can only take so much. Totally. So I would estimate that between, you know, social media and to my emails, and this is a fascinating case study, social media. social media is where all of the hate speech is coming. Nobody will write that in an email. Like it's either overwhelmingly supportive or they'll say, hey, I support you.

But maybe if you're going to raise this question just needs to be a little more sensitive. I'm like, fair. That's fair. But on social media, between the two, I've probably gotten 300 responses. If I had to quantify it, 75% is probably supportive. And then 25%, you know, there were some who wished ill will to my children. And I, you know, there was a day last week where every time a car would drive by the house, I'm like, wait. You get nervous.

Yeah, I get nervous, which I've never ever had a reason or, you know, struggle. But the amount of just hateful words, just venom that I think people would say. And I understand they believe they're fighting for justice with these words, is what I think it is. You know, they're young, they're in college. This is their activism. I know. And I don't think that they realize that. That I have been doing this two decades longer and that I have actual things that you can point to to say this is what activism looks like.

Even if you want to, you know, I approach life through a Christian worldview lens. Everything I do is very gospel-centered. But I think even as an agnostic or an atheist or in a pluralistic society, you could look at that and say, she's doing really great work. And just because you disagree with this one tweet doesn't mean you have the liberty to paint her as transphobic. So I think that that has been the majority of the rebuttal to the situation. What probably intensified it is I don't know if you've noticed, but almost every Christian network picked it up. Because I think it's because not that there's, you know, this entire thousands and thousands

of people mob that's coming after you. It might just be. And it typically is a small minority of loud voices that are speaking up. But it's happening at a Christian university. You echoed a concern that a lot of very rational people have, people who believe, as you and I do, that we are called to love our neighbors and that we are called to treat people equally. We also believe that, you know, we live in a pluralistic society where we have to balance rights and religious liberty and all that. So rational people, you and I, from my perspective, anyway. but we have some concerns.

We have some concerns with the expansion of Title IX. We have some concerns for our girls, for kids, for what this means for safety and trafficking and all of that. And I think that's probably why it's caught on because you said something in a very simple way that you probably, I mean, not that you did it thoughtlessly, but you probably didn't think that much about it before you said it. I had no idea the firestorm it would cause.

It was just a simple reply to a friend that could, we were having a conversation. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think that's, yeah, that's why it's kind of picked up and it's become something, especially when there are students, even if there are just a few hundred or a few thousand students trying to get you fired. I mean, we say that we live in a society that has free speech.

And technically that is true because we have a First Amendment. But I've talked a lot before that, yeah, you can have a First Amendment. but if the institutions and the people around you will not allow you to safely state your very rational opinions, then do you really have free speech? What do you think? Yeah, you know, so it's interesting. I didn't have a reason to really dig into my first amendment right to tweet before. You know, mostly I have, I'm a pretty, you know, safe, centered person online. But also I just, you know, I think we all assumed we lived under these rational. reasonable protections. But it turns out that there are actually, you know, some criteria under this and that I was within my first minute right. But you are protected to free speech if your speech is contributing to a concern in the public square. So essentially if it's something on policy,

if it's something socially and if it's something within the local community. So if you are expressing concern, which I was, that's protected speech. You are also protected if your speech, is not, if you are not representing any official organization. So I could not say, you know, on behalf of Baylor University, on behalf of my organization. But you're not talking about what the First Amendment allows you to say. You're talking about. Under the First Amendment, there are these employer rights. Employer.

Okay. So you're talking about under the umbrella of employer. You're not talking about in general as an individual. Because obviously, the right to free speech expands much farther than just genuine concern and things like that. Correct. But under if you are an employee and your employer wants to look into investigate, you know, potentially have some sort of, you know, retribution for your actions, then the questions that they would look at, and there's been some cases who have gone, you know, to the appellate courts on this, they look at,

okay, is this person contributing to a conversation at large in the public square? Yes. Is this person representing the organization for which they work? No. I mean, perhaps, you know, like indirectly, but as I am not. claiming to stand. That this is the stance of it. Right. So this was completely within my constitutional right to free speech on all levels. Right. So I think that that's where, you know, if Baylor had to land on that. But it does raise concerns. You know, I have gotten some requests

to be parts of groups behind paywalls. And these are groups that I would never think did not feel comfortable speaking in public because they have very large public platforms. But I think this was really eye-opening experience to realize that people don't necessarily feel comfortable speaking freely, even if they can root their stance in data. I think a Cato study came out recently saying that two-thirds of Americans don't feel like they could share their opinion in public without some sort of backlash or persecution. And now, I don't know if it looked. I imagine the demographics were broad across the spectrum. I would like to think on the study. I haven't looked into it. But I do remember reading that and thinking. So that's that's you know, people from both ends of the spectrum are

feeling if I lend my voice to any conversation and the public square, I could potentially be risking my livelihood. If not worse. And when I would hear studies like that prior, I would think, well, that's a little bit of an of a rash reaction that surely we still live in an America where we can say things like I disagree with Biden's 30 executive. orders that he assigned within the last 10 days without having to have a university that has historical Baptist tradition roots disagree and slander. And so I think that's what's been alarming for people to say, wait, if this Christian professor at a Christian university cannot even express Christian Orthodox traditional views without any sort of persecution or backlash,

what does that mean for the rest of us? And I think, that that was really what was raised in all of these articles that have been written. Right. And Baylor, though, they've done a pretty good job of making you feel supported. Is that true? I would say that that is true, largely. I will go on record saying I have not personally heard from administration. I think that there may be just hoping it dissipates. But the provost, who is the second in command right under the president, did write a really great response about free speech, civil district. course brought up this example and said these are not this is not constitute hate speech it is not grounds for reporting somebody to title nine to question title nine you get and we're not going to

fire her over this and so it was it was a stance yeah um again that just enraged the small group further because then they took their you know backlash out on me so yes and i in my experience it does typically dissipate you're you'll get probably a trickle every now and then a people who will message you and and things like that. But it is probably more encouraging than you realize for people to see someone like you raise a concern and, you know, state something that so many people feel. And, you know, we talked about a couple weeks ago, there was this baby sleep trainer. Her name is Kara Duma Plin. And she was found out that she voted to or she donated to the Trump campaign. And, you know, they tried to cancel her, put all of their,

her paid for content for free online and all this terrible stuff. And, you know, how she reacted to it was very kind, very gracious, and she didn't apologize. And that's the thing that I think people need to see is that if you say something that you really meant and then the mob, even if it's a small mob, they come after you, they try to take you down. Unless you really regret what you said, don't apologize. And I appreciate that you have it. Yes, maybe you've taken some what you feel like is constructive criticism or whatever.

but not apologizing, not then adding caveats, not then backing down. That actually gives people a lot of courage, don't you think? Yeah, you know, I have found that to be true. Well, one of the things I said to someone who reached out, they're, you know, a really big Christian organization, and they had written about me. And he said, you know, thank you for your bravery. And I said, you know, just very honestly, I was like, well, bravery is hard. I mean, bravery, it's really difficult. It's not easy to be on this side.

I can see why people would cater or where people would cave and retract a statement. I could understand that now. I haven't and I stand by what I said. You know, I will say it again, biological males do not need to be in biological women's spaces. That that really is not the best for the majority. Yeah. You know, I'm putting it in very simple terms because it's hard to believe that is a polarizing statement in this day and age. I know.

Right. You know, I would say, you know, my husband asked me at their day. It was like, if you could do it again, would you? And I'm like, gosh, it's such a hard answer. You know, a hard thing to answer. But I would say yes. I would maybe take off the cool at the end. I think that made it a little snarkier than I had intended.

You know, in the moment, again, just between, you know, colleagues or small little Twitter circle. But I think, you know, otherwise, no, I feel comfortable with what I said. I stand by what I said. I don't apologize for what I said. And I'm sorry if it hurts a few people's feelings. I'm not looking to be cruel. I'm not looking to hate anybody.

I am simply looking to protect the interest of everybody, but in this case, the majority. You know, like we have not stopped to consider how sometimes policies we make actually hurt more people than they help. And I'm just asking, can we ask the question about whether this is really a good idea, whether it is with funding overseas for abortion or whether it is allowing biological men to compete in sports or to participate in girls clubs that have been exclusively for girls? You know, we have to remember that Title IX, 1972, was really created to protect women, to create space for them to compete in education, for them to compete in sports, for them to have equal opportunity and equal access. And so this is the first time, you know, really Obama administration that we see, he, you know, was the first one to include, you know, rights of people who were not

biologically of their gender that we've always defined it by. But I think when we look at what defines sex. Like that's also a conversation. I've had people who are not necessarily faith-based, but are scientists who are, you know, biologists who work with anatomy. And they're like, this is really ridiculous for the sciences. The hard sciences are having a hard time with us as well. Definitely. And we've had some of those people on this podcast. There are a lot of people. It's interesting how this whole, not just cancel culture, but I would say how far leftism has moved to the left, how it has created strange bedfellows. It has united people in common cause.

You know, I have conversations on this show with atheists about the dangers of critical race theory, agnostics about the dangers of, you know, erasing women, radical feminists. They would call themselves who disagree with the expansion of Title IX and Biden's executive order in the Bostack case that apparently Biden's executive order was based upon. And so there's a lot of people. I would say the vast majority of people when they really think about the issue, not just, well, do you believe transgender people have rights? Well, yeah, of course. I believe everyone has rights. But when you dig past it, well, do you think that men should be able to enter girl spaces in prisons, in women's shelters, in locker rooms, in bathrooms, in girls sports? Most people say, well, no, that's not fair.

But I think when we've allowed kind of postmodernism in this post-truth world in which we live to infiltrate every area of our lives, then what is science? What is biology? Right. What is gender? What is sex? Very relative. It all becomes very arbitrary. But the ironic thing in all of that is that in the midst of all that relativism are people, the people who carry that relativism are so dogmatic about being right.

Yes. And you have just been on the bad end. of that, would you agree? Right. And I think what I'm finding, too, is you really cannot enter any kind of a civil discourse or conversation with people who are dogmatic and hostile and refuse to have a conversation about it. You know, if they're not willing to be reasonable about it, if they're not willing to bring in any kind of facts or data, if it is completely what we call, you know, within writing, pathos, you know, logos, pathos, ethos, if it's basically just a feeling based emotional argument, then you can only take that conversation so far.

Because really, this is a conversation that requires that we look at the logos, the facts involved in this, the data. You know, do we really think this isn't the best interest of everybody? And that isn't to say that we don't look to protect everybody and to extend rights, but perhaps that looks like single-stall bathrooms. Or can I at least have a nuanced conversation about what this will mean when, biological men want to compete in track in sports because we already have some examples, some case studies of when biological men have competed in women's sports as a train,

they identify as transgender. Then they obliterate the field. You know, they end up winning all of these competitions. And you have these women athletes who are saying, wait a second, this is not fair. This is not right. We have worked too hard to get here, you know. First and second way, feminists worked to establish equal space.

And then we have these third and fourth waves coming in saying, well, anybody who wants to identify as a woman is welcome to join the table in the conversation. So I think there are a lot of us left. So, you know, saying, can I raise my hand and ask a few questions about this? Because it all feels a very anti-woman, to be quite honest. Yes, it definitely does. I was just posting about on Instagram. I listen to, you know, I'm pregnant. So I listen to some pregnancy podcasts, some birthing podcasts and things.

like that and the insistence upon saying people, birthing people instead of women or pregnant women or moms, it really grinds my gears. And it's, it's offensive to me. Or when I hear the term chest feeding or something like that, I'm like this amazing miracle that I so uniquely get to experience, what a privilege it is that God gave women, this amazing ability to be able to birth life and then sustain life, you're saying that that has nothing that's not unique. Like, that's not a special characteristic that God gave me that I can't relish and the beauty and the uniqueness of being a woman through birth that I have to say, no, this just applies to all people.

I'm offended by that. And kind of going back to your original tweet that got some people mad, does my offense not matter? Right. Right. Can I be offended that you're offended or does it not work that way? Yeah. So I can't be offended.

So the vast majority of people who give birth, I mean, they're all women, but the vast majority of us identify as women. And you, calling that into question, it offends me. It bothers me. It feels like I'm being, it feels like women are being erased. Right. And so we've gotten so far, like you said, in women's rights and I, definitely, I don't consider myself a feminist. I don't agree with a lot of the so-called logic of feminism.

I think it helped get us here. But we have gotten so far in so many ways for women's rights only for me to not be able to say, like, that women have unique capabilities. It all just seems so counterproductive. Well, and it all seems very, it's all very circular. And I think to your question earlier, I mean, if your listeners want to do a deep dive into critical theory, because that is where critical race theory stems. We do that a lot on our podcast. Well, and I did a podcast through actually our church. We did one, it has a podcast and we did one on critical theory and the dangers of it. And really this idea of deconstructing, you know, like specifically with with theology,

deconstructing 2,000 years of church history in order to fit into your postmodern, secular, humanist narrative. Like, that just seems ridiculous. There's a lot of hubris involved in that. Right. The amount of like harmonautical gymnastics you have to go through in order to make something fit your postmodern narrative is it's exhausting and it's embarrassing. And I don't think that they see the circular thinking within it. You know, like, well, I'm offended, but I'm offended, but you don't get to be offended. Okay, got it. You know, and I think also the irony. So for example, within the article that the slanderous article that the Baylor student paper wrote, this a student of mine, a former student of mindset, essentially like, I really liked Dr. Conchardt. She was on our safe list for the LGBTQ community. So I was on her safe left on Monday, but then they had to take me off on Tuesday. And I'm like, nothing about me has changed. Unsafe, right. So whatever it was about the way that I taught or, you know, like my life is a pretty open book. You can go to my website. You can see I'm, you know, overtly faith-based. You know, I have associated with a lot of faith-based things. If that made you feel safe on Monday,

But then I tweet something on Tuesday and suddenly it negates the whole of everything else that I stand for. That is on you, not on me. Right. So I think that that has been really interesting too, is to see all the logical fallacies within this progressive thinking that says, you have to wholesale accept our narrative or you were either with us or against us. Yeah. And it's disheartening. But I think before it felt more like theory and to actually live through it.

And you're like, no, really, I do think that we need to be concerned about free speech. Even if you run in, you know, Christian circles, I think that you need to be concerned about, you know, your right to express orthodox traditional views. Right. Because there are going to be people who question that. I think that we also need to be concerned about how much of a voice we give to youth. You know, I have said often before on social media, yes, all voices matter. but not all voices carry the same weight. Yeah, definitely.

You know, look to the experts. Kind of goes back to the ethos, pathos, logos. You have to have, I mean, obviously appeal to authority can be a logical fallacy, but knowing where something is coming from and if that person has any significant and matters. I would go to Dr. Fauci to get my epidemiology, but I go to doctor. A lot of people listening to this podcast would disagree with that. Okay. compared to, for my theology, I would go to Dr. Timothy Keller, right?

Like, I don't, you know, you go to the expert in the field. I'm not necessarily saying that I agree with everything Fauci says. So I'm saying you don't take advice exclusively from the internet. There's going to be people who also don't agree with Timothy Keller on everything. So just, you know, people have, you can disagree on all that. That's perfectly fine. But yes, they are experts and that you wouldn't go to Dr. Fauci for theology. Exactly, or Keller for epidemiology, right?

Like you go to the people who have done the hard work in this field. And that is, you know, really my point there. So wherever you land, if you, you know, gospel coalition or whatever, you know, is where you go for your source. But the point is, go to people who do this for a living. Don't just take advice from groups on the internet. You know, like you have to go to people who have the clout and credibility as really is where I'm coming from in that. And so I think that that has been interesting because we live. now in this world, the last 10, no more than 15 years, where everybody has a voice and everybody

has a seat at the table and we want to, you know, hear every voice and every voice counts. And I think that we're starting to realize there's a danger in that, that that is not the most reasonable and then the best interest of everybody to allow so many voices to be present at the table. Yeah. So, yeah. And you have to look at actually, how many voices are there? there was someone who I've had on this podcast, Abigail Schreier, who she wrote the book, Irreversible Damage.

And she talks about this subject, about how there's actually a social contagion involved, but these teenage girls suddenly saying that they identify as the other gender, some of them go through surgery or procedures, and they regret it. So she's written a book about that. She's really been a champion of that issue of advocating for these young girls who are kind of being tossed aside by the medical community and just, given hormones and forgotten about. But someone, one person, random person on Twitter,

complained about Target selling her book, one person. Random, again, like, I don't know how many followers they had, but it wasn't some journalist or activist or anything. Target immediately responded, took her book out of distribution. Now, thankfully, she noticed this. And the rest of us, it's, I mean, this is what it always is. The rest, conservative Twitter got last. started writing stories about it, interviews on it, and they put it back on distribution.

But it seems like just one tiny voice of opposition when it comes from the left is enough to make major corporations and sometimes universities cower in fear and cowtow. For no reason. I just think it would make such a statement if more people did what you said and said, okay, hmm, do I need to respond to this? Where is this? Where is this coming from? just one random troll that is angry.

Okay, that's not worth responding to. It's when the universities respond or when the corporations respond and when they count out to these demands that it becomes this whole big thing, just say no to pet your own children. And I think there are very, there's only a few examples that I can point to where I have seen corporations stand up to an angry mob. I remember this summer hearing a story about there was a group, some probably changed petition online to get Trader Joe's to cancel. You know, some of their items.

And Trader Joe's was like, you know, we don't listen just to the views of a few. Like we make corporate decisions within corporate and we feel fine with these names. We are not going to change them because you woke up today and chose to be offended by this. That is not how it works. And you know, and that's really interesting too because when a student reached out and was like, we're reporting you to Title IX. I got to tell you, Allie, my first thought was actually not fear. Because I went to that place in my mind.

I was like, okay, probably Baylor's going to get this and think, this is ridiculous. You know, she is, you know, a graduate of our school. She's won awards. She has a great teaching record. She really, at the end of the day, makes us look good. Like, this is what we want to be able to say our professors are doing great research, great work, and from a place of Christian mission. You know, check, check.

But I thought to myself, okay, so Baylor gets this, you know, what if they do decide to do an investigation? Because that's what they were trying to trigger. They were trying to initiate these students, some sort of an investment. investigation into this Twitter post. And I thought, okay, let's say I lose my job. Let's say I can never teach there again. I can't ever go to, you know, A&M or UT or any other school. You know, I'm blacklisted. I guess I just pivot and I do something else. I had to go there in my mind, which is really sad and disheartening, but I say that to give people courage because I think these are places we have to

think through, particularly as Christians, particularly as believers. we have to say, I'm going to count it all loss. What does that look like to count it as a loss? It is disheartening that I had to count faith as a loss within a faith-based circle. I mean, it really brings tears my eyes to even think about that, that I, you know, didn't feel completely protected and within tradition and orthodox and biblical perspective amongst this group of students. That loving my neighbor looks like loving my transgender neighbor, but it also looks like loving

all of the women and all of the daughters and all of the people that I would be concerned with, you know, when this Title IX policy is implemented or implemented back from the Biden administration because Trump had rolled it back and then Biden just reinstated it is essentially what happened. So I think that on this side, I would say coming out of this, that we have to count the cost. You have to be able to say, worst case scenario, what would my plan be, be? because I don't want to allow the world to negate what I know to be true, true about science, true about scripture, true about morality, all the things that we have historically said, this is a truism. And we have upheld it through the test of time. We can't just allow a postmodern

narrative to obliterate that. There has to be space for a conversation and not just a cancellation. Yeah, absolutely. I like what you said about the importance of loving everyone, loving your transgender neighbor, loving all kinds of neighbors. But we cannot, not but to you, but to this idea of love that is projected on us or is dictated to us by the world. We don't get our definition of love from the world. So loving your transgender neighbor, your gay neighbor, whatever it looks like, doesn't mean to the Christian saying, yes, we agree with you on everything.

We agree with how you live your life. That's just, that's not what God calls us to. We see a perfect depiction of love and truth in Jesus that he never compromised in what is true, that he always relied on the truth of God's word and his mission from the Father, even while loving so radically and intentionally throughout his life. And that's what Christians are called to do too. I mean, Martin Luther said, truth at all costs peace if possible.

And we're not to make peace with the world. James tells us that, you know, enmity with the world is peace with God and vice versa. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. And so I think that Christians also need to not lay down and be okay with it, but get used to the cancellation that's coming because Jesus says that we're going to be canceled for saying things that to us

are so obvious that, hey, boys and girls are different. And in some places, they don't need to be sharing spaces. And hey, like, this is what we believe about life inside the womb. People want to make you feel like that's radical. People want to make you feel like that's fireable, like that's cancelable. In Matthew 10, Jesus says, well, don't fear the people that can hurt your body. Fear the God that can destroy both your body and your soul and hell. That's our response to canceled culture. Yeah. Is that there's nothing you can do to me that is worse or bigger than what God can do.

Right. And I think that that would be, you know, yeah, sort of my overall synopsis that, you know, my key takeaway lesson learned from this for everybody else is that you really do have to go into a situation where you are speaking up for truth. again, you know, biblical truths, scientific truth, just things that we know to be little T-truths and big T-truths and to say, okay, but I have to count the cost of standing up for this, because if I don't, then what is the legacy I am leaving for the generation behind me? I am constantly thinking that. If I acquiesce to a postmodern, secular, really relative narrative here, what damage am I doing to the gospel?

What damage am I doing to my children who are coming up behind me to my, to my, to my Christian witness into the precedence I am standing for them. And so I think that that is, it's definitely true. It's a little disheartening because I think we all, we're all working as believers towards a place where we can engage our faith in the public square. And I have been a fierce advocate, whether I am doing that through anti-traffking work, because I see redemption and restoration in that, whether I am joining, you know, Christian women's leadership boards. I am doing that because I believe that the gospel is the answer to brokenness. And it sometimes looks like overtly Christian work, and sometimes it looks like common good work, right? But I am nervous for the first time after this

experience saying, wait, it is getting harder and hostile. When people have been warning me about this, I see it, I've experienced it. And this isn't coming from a state school. You know, this is coming from in a school that associates and their rhetoric says that they're unapologetically Christian. Right. And so to the one side who is saying, well, being Christian looks like accepting everyone, being Christian looks like loving everyone. Being Christian does not necessarily mean look like acquiescing to everyone when you are having to acquiesce what God says to be true. And I think that we are entering into this new era where we are going to have to navigate those nuanced conversations as believers with such care and caution. You know, I mean, it doesn't mean that we shirk back, that we aren't bold about it. But I think that that this is where culture may not be as much on our side as it has been historically. Yeah. And I'm seeing that. Absolutely.

And I, you know, that's scary for a lot of people. But we, you know, we did an episode on cancel culture the other day and said so much of what you're saying now is one of the pieces of advice that I give to myself that I give to everyone that's looking at this wave of hostility that they know and feel is coming whether or not they've experienced the way that you have. to number one, count the cost. It's time for us to count the cost ahead of time. Don't wait until you've been canceled to count the cost. Decide now, is it worth living for Christ? And I'm not trying to say that means we have to agree on all things politically, but there are some basic things that to the Christian are not political.

Gender is not political to the Christian. Abortion is not political to the Christian. These are theological issues primarily. And so it's time to count the cost. And then another thing that I think that I encourage people to do is that when they see someone like you or someone that they know we're just standing up for what is true, getting the brunt of this mob to stand up with them to be willing to share the arrows, be willing to share the heat.

I think that's part of loving people as you, you know, treating people as you want to be. Treat it. I would want someone to stand up in my defense and say, hey, this person's character is not what you're saying it is. This person is not a hateful person just because you disagree with them. And you know what? I agree with them. I think if we had more people willing to publicly say, I know I'm going to get canceled, I've counted the cost and it's worth it. And when I see someone being unfairly maligned for something that I know is true and I agree with, I'm going to raise my hand. Even I could stay hidden for a really long time, but I'm going to raise my hand and say,

you know what? I agree. Yeah. That's really powerful. Maybe we won't change. Maybe we won't change politics, but we'll at least be united under a banner of truth while all of this is happening. Right. And I think, too, you know, it's interesting because it actually, you know, it brings tears my eyes. I got teary eyed when a student reached out and said, I just want you to know, we have a group chat with 188 students in it and we're praying for you. I didn't even know you could put that many on in her chat. You know, but I just got really tired. It was a male student that I actually have never even taught. And I think this has been a red letter moment for this micro example.

I would love to believe is going to be true at the macro level that when we face opposition, that like-minded people with similar values will rally around us and say, this is not okay. You don't get to cancel somebody because they have a dissenting opinion. And that is true of the right and the left. But I think that most of us would agree with the statement that we see it more strongly on the left. There was a study that came out of Harvard recently. I don't know if you've read this, not long ago, but within the last two years, that looked at cancel culture. And it found that both sides do it.

But it indicated that the left does it more and that the consequences are more dire. And I, you know, and so I read that. And I remember thinking, well, I can see that. But I think here, like, I really see that. It's very rare that I see conservatives trying to ruin someone's livelihood. It happens. The incidences are much more rare. And yeah, typically I see it with something like, hey, I'm going to boycott Netflix because they had cuties. Exactly. You know, we talked about that too, the distinction between saying,

hey, I'm going to take my business elsewhere, which everyone is totally, you know, free to do on the left or the right. Fine. Vote with your dollar. That's very different than saying, hey, this small business owner. Or this one person. We're going to take on this person. This one person who said something I don't like or this florist who won't service a gay wedding because of her belief and, you know, biblical traditional marriage, I'm going to ruin her life and I'm going to go after her in court. Those two things are, they have very different repercussions. Right. Right. Very different motives. Yeah. And very different repercussions. Yes. And so I do think, so again, I, you know, I see this happen on the right or the left. I see it happen more on the

left. And I do see that the consequences are more dire. And there is actually a study that supports that. So, you know, we can point to some data there. But I think, you know, Yeah, that is the thing that I think as believers, we're going to say, you know, this is a red letter moment for all of us. Micro example on what we need to do at the macro level. When we experience cancel culture, when, you know, somebody is trying to negate our right to free speech to ask valid questions in the public square to say that we disagree, then we have to be able to rally like-minded believers to say she's not alone. He's not alone. We are concerned too, and that's not okay.

And I think that in a way that we have not historically had to because we shared the majority belief, I don't know in this culture. I don't know that we have the loudest voice. And that is the thing. I think that we have the shared majority values across the spectrum of Christendom and people who believe in Christianity. But I don't know that we have the majority voice anymore. And so it is going to take a rallying of people who say, hey, that's not okay. And you cannot just bully somebody into submission. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think the refusal to be bullied into submission also is, I mean, both of those things play together. Other people encouraging you and saying, hey, don't be bullied. Hey, everyone else don't bully her. And also that person, hey, I'm not, I'm not going to be bullied. And I actually think there's a lot of encouragement. I remember a pastor a few years ago saying something that's just always stuck with me

and has just become more and more significant as the years go on. And as I hear about different situations like this, is that the church actually thrives on the margins. So we are, the church is in America being pushed out of the mainstream into the margins. And the way that that's happening right now is it's being really just evangelicalism in general as being conflated with things that it is not white nationalism, white supremacy, hatred, bigotry, being told that it's dangerous, that it's inciting violence and domestic terrorism, and that it's a threat to national security.

And so, of course, any kind of speech that is even similar to any kind of traditional conservative Christianity, whether or not that person's a Republican, whatever, is going to be pushed to the margins. And that's scary for a lot of people because we have had this exceptional respite from religious persecution as Christians in the West and in particular as Americans. But it's the rule, not the exception that the church has been persecuted. And Jesus promises us that the gates of hell are not going to prevail against the church. That includes true believers in America.

So yes, there's going to be pruning to the vine. Yes, there's going to be people that we thought were believers that at the slightest bit of pressure fall away. Yes, there's going to be compromisers who then come back and repent. And we might be pushed to the margins to where we don't have the cultural megathons anymore, to where we are, everyone's called a bigot and a racist for believing that the Bible is the Word of God, whatever it is. But the church doesn't die on the margins. The church thrives on the margins.

The church is not destroyed by fire. It's refined by fire. Yeah. And in all of these instances that you might feel, maybe you feel like this is so small that you just said a tweet that wasn't even necessarily theological. Yeah. And, you know, it's not going to make,

it might not go to Fox News. It might not go to, certainly not going to go to CNN. You know, it might not be this viral story. This small instance actually does not. It actually does matter. And people listening to this conversation, it actually does matter. It is just another fortification of people's spirit to say, you know what, I am going to count the cost. And it is worth saying this thing that people think is controversial.

Do you have any just last words of wisdom or encouragement for people who are facing, you know, the same kind of anxiety that a lot of people are feeling right now with our views? Yeah, I would say take heart to knowing that even if you feel that, that the church is being pushed to the margins and not really welcomed, you know, in public spaces, that there are still, you know, people who are willing to stand for truth and you're not alone. I would say to take comfort knowing that the global church is growing. You know, the global church, I think more than ever the last few years have made me look to what is God doing globally. Sometimes I can become a little, you know, ethnocentric, just what's going on in the American church?

And I forget, I have brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world. And we're facing far greater persecution than Americans ever have. Right. I might, you know, I could have lost my job as a professor or been canceled at universities. I wasn't, thankfully. But there are people being persecuted in prisons for their faith, the underground church in China. I mean, there are places, you know, where people do not feel like in the Middle East that they can profess to be a Christian. And so I think you're not alone in your persecution, but you're not.

alone in your hope either. You know, that, yeah, for 2,000 years, the church has been growing, and it has withstood the test of time, and it will. And so I think that's where my hope is. You know, I know that the Lord is never ending, you know, that his promises are true, and that I can rest in that. I can trust in that. I can trust that, you know, those promises are going to come to fruition, even if I don't see it in the moment, those are going to come to fruition. And I would say the last thing, a litmus test for me. because sometimes people don't know, well, what voice do I trust? What, you know, who do I listen to?

These are my quick litmus test for people. I would say, I ask myself, would I trust this person to raise my children? Would I trust this narrative to raise my children? As I'm listening to, you know, particularly I am trying to find voices for racial reconciliation within the church. Because I want to find people who love Jesus and who are pointing me to truth and to say, you know, I trust the fruit in your life. you know, the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, going to stay balanced, generalness, and self-control. I see that in you, and I would trust you to raise my kids. And then I see these other hostile, cancel cultural narratives, and I think, I wouldn't trust you to babysit my kids.

I don't want that anywhere near. So if you wouldn't let your kids touch it, you probably shouldn't touch it either. And then another thing I say is, okay, creation, fall, redemption, restoration. Do I see this idea that the biblical narrative, creation, we're created in God's image, we've all experienced a fall. We all have a fallen sinful nature, whatever that vice is. You know, it needs to be redeemed and restored. And do I see redemption and restoration in this story, in this narrative, in this person? And if you cannot point to that, you probably ought to run from it. Yes, and amen. And make sure that we are defining sin and wrong and right and good and bad and true.

and redemption and restoration and reconciliation in biblical terms, not in worldly terms. And thankfully, the Bible does give us the answer for so much. And if anyone is wondering, okay, wait, how is your connection between talking about gender and, you know, your faith and persecution and all of that? That's something we've talked to a lot about on this podcast before. Biblical tell-loss of gender is an episode that we did a few weeks ago that makes that connection in case, you know, anyone's new to the podcast and hasn't heard it. But I just want to thank you so much for all the encouragement that you've given us, for the insight that you've given us

today. Is there any way for people to support you? Just pray for you. Can they reach out to you? Or what? Yeah. So I've finally made my social media accounts public again. I had to go private in order to like just protect myself from the onslaught. But you can follow me on Instagram. You can follow me on Twitter. I, you know, not all that actually. Maybe I will be now. But yeah, so you can finally on social media, have a web page. We'd love to connect with anybody who is like-minded and, you know, wants to establish a friendship in that.

Okay. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Allie.