Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 381 | Glennon Doyle’s Gospel vs. the Real Gospel

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

We start off the week by giving an update on the James Coates situation. You'll remember that Pastor Coates is in trouble with the Canadian government for not following COVID guidelines and choosing to open his church to all, in accordance with his faith. The jailing of Pastor Coates is a sharp contrast to another legal case in the Edmonton, Alberta, area: A sexual predator with a long history of convictions was released from jail the same week that Pastor Coates was locked up. Under what logic is James Coates the bigger threat to society? Then, we discuss a recent article in the New York Times that points out the alarming idea that Instagram influencers are beginning to occupy the societal role typically associated with church and religion. The article points out people like Glennon Doyle, who, through books and Instagram feeds, give pseudo-spiritual comfort to thousands and thousands of women. --- Today's Sponsor: Patriot Mobile is America's ONLY Christian conservative wireless provider. They will never silence you & they've never sent a penny to the Left! This month get FREE premiere activation, where they set up the phone for you, and a special gift, with the offer code 'ALLIE'. Go to PatriotMobile.com/Allie. --- Past Episodes Mentioned: Ep 380 | Pastor James Coates Imprisoned: Persecution or Ploy? | Guest: Erin Coates https://apple.co/3rvYabH Ep 272 | Canadian Pastor Jailed & Lessons from Limbaugh https://apple.co/3cgNesb --- Show Links: The Christian Post: "Court orders pastor to remain in jail until May trial for violating COVID-19 restrictions" https://bit.ly/3l12M7d Global News: "Questions raised after Edmonton child predator re-released: 'How many times is enough?'" https://bit.ly/3qzG5bG The New York Times: "The Empty Religions of Instagram" https://nyti.ms/3rG9Jxj The Seattle Times (from 2017): "UW study finds Seattle’s minimum wage is costing jobs" https://bit.ly/30rBkGu --- 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 Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Today I am going to give you an update on Pastor James Coates. Most of you listened or listened to or watched the episode with his wife, airing Coates from last Thursday. If you haven't done that yet, highly recommend you do so. I heard from so many of you, some of you who are new to the podcast, some of you who have been listening for a long time, some of you who disagree with the choices of pastors. James Coates, but really were encouraged, edified, and emboldened by that interview. Aaron Coates has such a sweet, godly spirit. And wherever you fall on this issue, whether you think that James Coates should be obeying these government edicts or not, I really think that you can get something out of last Thursday's episode. And if you're someone who has the propensity or you are inclined to push back on this situation and quickly dismiss it as something that is not qualifying as persecution, then I do

highly recommend you go listen to last Thursday's episode and the episode that I did, I think a couple weeks before that explaining the whole situation. We have talked about the details of it before, but I'm going to give an update for you today. And then we're also going to compare it to another case that's going on there in Edmonton and just the hypocrisy of the so-called justice system there. And we're going to tie it. that into a conversation about social justice and what social justice actually is and very often what it looks like. And then we're going to transition into this very interesting article that I read in New York Times about Glennon Doyle. She is the author of The Book Untamed. She kind of styles

herself as a, I want to be as charitable as possible and as fair as possible. A new age kind of Christian self-help self-empowerment. guru and I'm going to talk about that article and what it has to tell us about the theology of millennials and what I think the human heart and in particular the young female heart is searching for and where it can actually be found. So let's go ahead and start out with this James Coates update. So according to the Christian Post, quote, court orders pastor to remain in jail until May trial for violating COVID-19 restrictions. So you probably remember. remember that they had filed an appeal and they were going to know the results of that last

Thursday. Aaron was hoping and his lawyers were hoping that he would be released from jail for the next couple of months until his trial in May. But the court said, no, we're going to continue to enforce the conditions of his bail. And a higher court also agreed that, yes, he violated the law. He is saying that he is going to continue to violate the law if he gets out of jail. And so he needs to stay in jail until the beginning of May until his court date. And one of the conditions of his bail is that, hey, you got to follow the rules. You got to limit the capacity to the congregation of the congregation, you know, to 15%, which is why he is in jail in the first place. That's something that he was not willing to do because he feels that according

to scripture, he reads, according to scripture, that his responsibility, his obligation as a shepherd of his flock, as a leader of this church, is to have as many people that want to hear the gospel in person. And he was not willing to turn people away according to this government edict. You'll remember, Aaron said, they have taken all kinds of precautions. There have been no COVID outbreaks that have been associated with this congregation. And so, of course, many of us feel that these are draconian measures being taken by the Canadian government to make a point. And a lot of people are accusing James of trying to make a martyr out of himself. It almost seems like the government is trying to make a martyr out of him. So going on with this article

from the Christian Post, it says the Edmonton Court of Queens Bench Justice Peter McAllen ruled Friday, March 5th that Pastor James Codes of Grace Life Church must remain in jail until his trial scheduled to take place from May 3rd to May 5th in Alberta Provincial Court in Stony Plain. Coates was detained at the Edmonton Remand Center on February 16th. He refused to agree to bail conditions that he does not attend or conduct services at Grace Life Church unless they comply with government guidelines requiring capacity limits and social distancing. Coates and Grace Life Church are represented by the Justice Center for constitutional freedoms. They argue that the bail conditions and health orders violate his charter freedoms of conscience,

religion, expression, association, and peaceful assembly. Of course, I would agree with that. JCCF plan to file an appeal to the Alberta court of Queens bench to continue seeking Coates' release from jail before his trial date. The president of JCCF, John Carpe, says, this is just too much. This punishment is too much for a pastor who just wants to preach to his church. Like he is not posing any kind of danger to society. People are free to not come to his church if they don't want to or if they're uncomfortable.

The people there are typically keeping a distance and are taking precautions according to their conscience. And so there really isn't a scientific or a medical or even a legal reason they are arguing for this. He contends, his lawyer contends that the arrests of of Pastor Coates's charter rights and freedoms. And he said that charter freedoms do not disappear because the government declares regular church services to be outlawed while allowing hundreds of people to fill their local Walmarts. And that's also a contradiction that we talked about last week with Aaron that these, you know, major stores are allowed to have hundreds or

thousands of people in their stores at once, apparently. But they are not allowed to have, uh, their congregation meet together unless it is limited at 15% capacity. Now, here is an interesting story that raises a lot of questions and a lot of concerns. So there are people, obviously, who are so adamant saying that, look, this is not Daniel from the Bible moment. This guy is not being persecuted. There's no double standard here. The government is just enforcing the law.

This is what they're supposed to do. and if he really loved his neighbor, he wouldn't be having them meet together. He wouldn't be killing people in his congregation. I saw someone on Twitter saying if he was really a pastor who cared about his congregation, he wouldn't be killing them by congregating as if the people in the congregation don't have agency, like don't have the free will to decide whether or not they want to take the risk of showing up for church. And by the way, there have been no deaths that have been traced back to this congregation. So again, it's just a silly assertion, but we use hyperbole. People use hyperbole in those cases in order to try to make something sound as dangerous and harmful as possible to prove their point. But the fact of the matter is it's not accurate. But there should be something that even those critics, even those dissenters are willing to face. And that is that there is a duplicitous standard going on here, especially when you look at this one case and the exact same.

area. Global news is reporting this, that a child predator has been re-released from prison. So Edmonton police put out this PSA on Twitter saying, hey, this child predator, he has been released. This is now the third time. I believe that he is being released from prison. So let me read you who exactly this guy is. A convicted child sex offender, Kyle Larson, was released on Monday, March 1st in Edmonton, Alberta. He has a long history of these types of crimes. including a case in 2008, where he was convicted of inappropriate behavior with a six-year-old that is an appropriate sexual behavior with a six-year-old. He has been arrested and released multiple times after reoffending.

Each time he is, the police issues are warning to the public, one of them being will commit another sexual offense against someone under 16. So it is known that this guy is a serial child sex abuser. He has also abused a 10-year-old, I think, lured this child into a basement and then sexually assaulted them. I don't know the details of these assaults, but this is sexual molestation, sexual assault of children, and this guy has been released several times. And so the question that you might be asking that I think any sane person is asking is why, why? And there are some attempts to answer this. The article goes on to say, according to the Edmonton police chief,

they have no say in whether or not he gets released. All they can do is try to prevent him from reoffending. Michael Cooper, a member of parliament from, or a member of parliament for St. Albert Edmonton said, it keeps happening because unfortunately, our laws are not keeping dangerous criminals behind bars. That's really the bottom line. It is a revolving door. Unless you're designated a dangerous offender or subject to a long-term supervision order, the fact is far too many individuals who are dangerous are let out into the street, which is strange because you would think that this guy who has been sexually assaulting minors over and over again, that he would qualify as someone who is a dangerous offender. According to MP Cooper,

the threshold for being designated a, quote, dangerous criminal is very high. In a statement to global news about why high-risk offenders are let out of prison, the Parole Board of Canada wrote, the decision-making process is very systematic and highly structured. Is it? Is it? The risk assessment process focuses on three major components. The offender's past behavior, present, how the offender's behavior has changed, and future. Release plan, community support, and supervision strategies. The Correctional Service of Canada said a number of factors help determine an offender's risk of public safety. Factors is the nature and gravity of the offense, the offender's degree of responsibility,

their level of engagement with their correctional plan, the availability of support in the community, victim concerns, indigenous social history, and recent. professional opinions such as those from health care, mental health, and police comments, in addition to any previous decisions. An inmate is detained past their statutory release when there are reasonable grounds to believe that the inmate is likely to commit one or more of the following before the end of their sentence and offense causing serious harm or death, a sexual offense involving a child or serious drug offense. So again, how does this not apply? How does this not apply? I don't understand how he qualifies in any circumstance by any stretch of the imagination to be released from prison.

So the one thing I think about, so the factors that are included in deciding whether or not someone is going to be released from prison is the nature and gravity of the offense. So is the nature and gravity of sexually assaulting, sexually molesting, I don't know, possibly raping six and 10-year-olds? Is that not enough? Is that not grave enough? And knowing that he has been released several. times and always recommits the same kind of crime every time? Like, in whose interest is it that this guy is let out on the streets? But a pastor whose biggest so-called crime is preaching the gospel to a congregation of a couple hundred people stays in jail. Can you tell me how this amounts to any sort of justice whatsoever?

And something I talked about last week is that so many people who claim to be social justice advocates who claim to be criminal justice advocates have no problem with what's happening with James Coates. They see it as totally fine. They see it as something that he deserves. They see it as something that should be happening because he violated COVID restrictions and, well, he deserves it. We need to lock up all the pastors who are not bowing down to Caesar. And then when it comes to things like this, we're supposed to, what, add nuance to it. We're supposed to be more, what's the word that is used ad nauseum, empathetic towards this person? we're supposed to just understand that restorative justice rather than punitive justice

is what should be preferred here when it comes to this child sex predator? I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that's evidence of a very convoluted and contradictory mentality that I do not think in any way aligns with any real definition of justice, which of course is God's definition of justice, biblical justice. It is social justice, which is very often as we are about to get into. social injustice, but it is not actual justice.

And seeing, I think, seeing this hypocrisy on full display with these two cases right next to each other is a really important moment for us to learn from. And this is not necessarily representative of the entire justice system, whether it's in Canada or the United States, but you can see what kind of mentality and what kind of social justice proclivities could lead to this kind of injustice because that's that's what it is. Thomas Sol says this in quest for cosmic justice, and I'm kind of paraphrasing, what is often called social justice should actually be referred to as social injustice, since exactly what is ignored is the cost to society.

So in quest for cosmic justice by Thomas Sol, he argues that when people use the word social justice, what they actually mean is cosmic justice or what he describes is cosmic justice. And so it's trying to basically socially engineer different circumstances and different situations, so everyone ends up in the same place to achieve this new fangle definition of equity, which is equal outcomes. And so trying to make sure that no one is getting any kind of upper hand or any kind of opportunity or any kind of help up that someone else is not getting to make sure that everything is arranged in such a way that everyone has an equal outcome in their life. That is the new left-wing definition of equity.

It's not just that everyone is treated fairly under the law or that the law is applied equally, but that the law is applied in such a way that everyone ends up in the same place. So if that means discriminating against one group to try to give advantages to another group, that would be a form of social justice. That would be a form of what Thomas Sol calls cosmic justice, which he argues actually has a high cost to society. It actually ends up in a form of injustice. So I'm going to give you some examples of that. An example that he gives in the book.

And again, I was drawing this from memory this morning. And so I'm going to paraphrase some. But say that a pizza place in a particular area, say that they said that they won't deliver to a few particular neighborhoods because the neighborhoods are very high crime neighborhoods and the pizza parlor just doesn't want to take their risk of sending their employees to these very high crime neighborhoods, especially at night. And so they have decided that they're not going to deliver pizzas to these particular neighborhoods. and say these neighborhoods are predominantly black. An activist group hears about this. They accuse the place of racism. In the name of social justice,

they rally all of the powers of social media and all the social influence that they have to pressure this business to start delivering to these neighborhoods because it's racist if they do not. So the business bends. It feels like it has to. It doesn't want to get harassed. Their Yelp pages getting spammed

with all these negative reviews. social media is lit up with accusations of racism against this pizza parlor. And so they say, okay, fine. We will start delivering to these high crime neighborhoods. In order to do that, though, they've got to hire three more employees to cover the ground. They also have to pay the new and current delivery workers more for the risk of delivering to these high crime neighborhoods. And in order to cover this greater cost, they have to raise the prices on the pizza.

And because they have to do all of these things, because the pizza prices are now higher, this cuts business down, not just in the new neighborhoods, which are not buying the pizza, but also among the business's original clientele who can just go somewhere down the street and get cheaper pizza. So ultimately, this place cannot sustain the cost, so they shut the business down. And say the owner was not some rich, privileged guy. He was just a man who had grown up in that community, had come from nothing and finally was able to make something for himself and his family.

all the teenagers he employed were, were themselves trying to get out of those high crime neighborhoods, out of poverty, save up money for college. Now no one has a job. And for what? For what? This was a high cost on the community on society. And for no good reason,

for something that actually wouldn't have ultimately benefited anyone. Because those neighborhoods weren't actually buying the pizza, especially after the prices went up. Remember, For every liberal policy that sounds good, the question should be, what is the cost? And I'm not just talking about the cost to the taxpayer, although that absolutely matters. I'm talking about the societal cost, too. The same thing with a federal minimum wage raise.

So if we raise the federal minimum wage to $15, most small business owners cannot afford that. They cannot stay afloat and will either raise their prices, which threatens the existence of their business, or they will fire their employees. Because if you've got three employees that you're currently paying $10 an hour, so $30 an hour total, and now you have to pay them $15 an hour. So that's $45 an hour total. You're going to hire, you're going to fire one of the employees to get back down to $30 an hour. So you have the money to keep running your business and not raise the prices on your client, so they will keep coming and you can keep your business afloat.

And the big companies are just going to automate so they can cut costs, so they don't have to hire more employees under this new law. So this just leads to further unemployment. The cost to society is high. And it's bad. It sounds really good, but it doesn't end up making economic sense. Washington University conducted a study on Seattle's minimum wage law, which phased in an increase in minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2021 this year.

The Seattle Times reported this a couple years ago. Seattle's minimum wage law is boosting wages for a range of low-paid workers, but the law is causing those workers. as a group to lose hours. And it's also costing jobs, according to the latest study on the measure passed by the city council in 2014. So it's boosting pay and low-wage jobs by about 3% but also resulting in a 9% reduction in hours worked in such jobs that resulted in a 6% drop in what employers collectively pay and what workers earn for those low-wage jobs. So for an average low-wage worker in Seattle, that translates into a loss of about $125 per month per job.

The report also estimated that there are about 5,000 fewer low-wage jobs in the city than there would have been without the law. So what is the cost to society of low-wage workers losing $125 a month and there are now being 5,000 fewer jobs for people to work in? It's not good. It's not a good cost. So anytime you hear any proposal, it doesn't matter, if it's Republican or Democrat, although it's typically Democrats that are making these kinds of

proposals, especially the kind that sound good and progressive and involves giving someone something. Maybe it truly is good. Maybe the cost is absolutely worth it. But the question should always be asked. And by the way, just because someone asks the question, asks what is the cost on the other side of this equation? What is this equation? Is this ultimately going to be better for everyone?

or is it going to maybe possibly benefit a few people at the expense of everyone else? Just because you ask those questions and think critically in that way doesn't mean that you lack compassion. It actually means that you are compassionate, but you're also thoughtful. You're also critically thinking. We can't just accept a proposal that sounds good and progressive and wonderful and compassionate and helpful without thinking about what the cost is. That's actually not compassionate at all.

Bail reform is another example. It sounds good when you hear first. example that someone shouldn't be locked up because they can't afford bail. I agree with that. I do think that our justice system does tend to favor people who have money. And I do think that that's a problem. I don't think the bail reform that we are seeing coming down the pipeline actually solves that problem very well because there's another cost that's associated with it because it's also corresponded with a huge spike in crime in places like New York and Houston. And of course, criminal justice activists say that there's no correlation there whatsoever.

Some of the liberal media is saying that there's no correlation there, but there are many, including police officers, who would beg to differ with that assertion. Another thing, of course, that we talk about a lot is boys who identify as girls playing girls' sports. It sounds good because it sounds inclusive because you don't want to exclude anyone that is, of course, a very American tolerant sentiment that we don't believe in discrimination and exclusion. We believe in inclusion. And so when you hear phrases like trans girls or girls and let trans kids play sports, of course, that sounds good. That sounds like something that you want to accept.

But what's the outcome? Domination of girls sports by boys. Lack of confidence and safety for girls, decrease in scholarships and athletic opportunities for girls, that we don't have girls sports anymore. Is that better for society? So again, social justice tends to try to rearrange everything for the supposed benefit of the fuel at the expense of the rest of society. So at the cost to the rest of society, that is what social justice, cosmic justice arrangements very often tend to do. And how this correlates to what we're seeing in Edmonton, it shows that social justice, this kind of these criminal justice laws that are allowing this child sex predator to be released from jail in the hopes of restoration and the hopes of reconciliation with society at the cost to his victims. While there is a pastor in jail because apparently him being released from prison and preaching the gospel in a church, apparently that is more dangerous.

that is a form of this kind of newfangled, perverted social justice that is actually just injustice. It's actually just injustice. Because as you're trying to reach some form of convoluted justice for this child sex predator, you are costing the rest of society. And so that is why whenever people use the term social justice, even though it sounds really good, I'm always very hesitant to give any kind of pat on the back because I want to know what do you mean by that. Some people when they say social justice, all they mean is good causes. All they mean is helping the poor voluntarily. And all they mean is feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, all the things that Christians are called to do, or trying to end sex trafficking,

or trying to help those who are in need, running abuse shelters for women. when some people say social justice, they mean that. But just understand that there is also a, I would say, a dominant and a very dangerous form of social justice that tries to, at least it says it tries to uplift the few at the cost of the many. And that is not justice. That's not impartial, truthful, direct, proportional justice as the Bible outlines for us. And we do not know what justice is outside of what God tells us it is. It doesn't matter if you're secular.

It doesn't matter. If you're atheist, it doesn't matter. If you're a progressive or a conservative, the fact of the matter is that there has to be a source of transcendent truth. There's no argument for justice. There's no argument for objective truth or transcendent morality or universal values outside of a supreme moral lawgiver. And so saying that our justice.

needs to align with God's justice, is not saying that we should live in a theocracy, because as I've said many times, I don't think there's any biblical precedent for setting up a theocracy here on earth. I am not ever trying to set up a theocracy here on earth. But yes, there is a separation between church and state, which I think is a very good thing. It's supposed to protect the church from the state in as much as it protects the state from the church. But there is not and cannot be a separation. between God who establishes and defines justice and our establishment and definition of justice, because then it's just subjective.

Then it's defined by what? A few social elites, a few political elites, a few activists who give us new definitions of what justice and social justice are. I don't think that's a better alternative. And people say, well, no, it's just, you know, according to common sense. Well, obviously not. Obviously not. I don't think common sense tells us that a.

child sex predator should be released from prison while a pastor stays behind bars and basically solitary confinement. And I got some pushback on that. When I say solitary confinement, yes, it is because of so-called COVID restrictions. He's not actually being, it's not technically solitary confinement, but he is by himself in a cell all day supposedly to protect him and to protect the other inmates from COVID. And so that is solitary confinement, literally. even though it's not technically like a part of the conditions of his incarceration. So I just wanted to clear that up. All right.

So there is this New York Times op-ed that I wanted to talk to you guys about. And it's titled The Empty Religions of Instagram. And it is by a woman named Lee Stein. She is the author of the novel Self-Care, which is actually a satire of the wellness industry and influencer culture. I love satire that makes fun of that world. You guys who follow me on Instagram, no, I forget even the title of the account, but there is an account that I recently started following that doesn't have very,

very many followers right now, but I'm trying to change that because I think it's so funny. It makes light of and makes fun of all of the self-care, self-love mantras and how hollow they are that we are seeing on Instagram. and I think it's good. I think it's about time for us to kind of take a step back and realize just how vapid some of this encouragement that we are getting is. And this article touches on that, but also touches on just how attractive and appealing Glennon Doyle is.

If you don't know who Glennon Doyle is, we've talked about her several times on this podcast. I wrote about her in my book. She was known as like a Christian mommy blogger for a very long time. Then she ended up getting divorced from her husband. She married Abby Wambach, who was a professional soccer player, and she has written several bestselling books. Her blog was extremely popular. She's got tons of followers on Instagram. And her book Untamed that she wrote sometime maybe at the beginning of last year. It has been on the New York Times bestseller list for now 51 weeks, I think, which is like an amazing feat. And so she is extremely popular. She is

extremely attractive to a lot of women who are just looking for some kind of new cathartic religion that is not the same as the traditional forms of religion and especially Christianity that we or that they feel like they typically see in America. And I think that she still considers herself a Christian, although she has some very unorthodox beliefs. obviously her beliefs on sexuality in marriage are different than traditional orthodox Christianity, but also her view of God is interesting. She refers to God as a she, and some of her definitions and metaphors of God are really more new age than anything that we would see reflected in the

Bible. But let me get into this article that tells you a little bit more about who she is. and why so many people love her. So this article says, quote, Ms. Doyle's gospel, an accessible combination of self-care, activism, and tongue-in-cheek Christianity, can worship at any time of day or night at the Electric Church of her Instagram feed.

By replacing a rigid dogma of religion with the confessional lingua franca of social media, Ms. Doyle has become a charismatic preacher for women, like me, who aren't even religious. 22% this article notes, and we've talked about this before, 22% of millennials are not affiliated with a specific religion. We are known as religious nuns.

And I always have to spell this N-O-N-E-S, not religious N-U-N-S. That would be a super interesting trend if millennials were just like joining these convents. But they are known as religious nuns. In February, Ms. Doyle posted a virtual sermon to her followers on Instagram, encouraging them to embrace quitting as a spiritual practice. More than 100,000 members of her congregation liked it. followers responded with prayer hands emojis, God bless you, and one hallelujah sister. She is known as an instavangelist.

She has a largely female following, shows how many American women are desperate for good vibes, for coping skills, for modern life and proactive steps to combat injustice and inequality. The article says, left-wing secular millennials may follow politics devoutly, but the women we've chosen as our moral leaders aren't challenging us to ask the fundamental questions that leaders of faith have been wrestling with for thousands of years. Why are we here? Why do we suffer? What should we believe beyond the limits of our puny selfhood? And so she's saying that they aren't asking these kinds of big and existential questions. They're actually bringing us not outward as traditionally faith has and especially Christianity has, but actually inward towards who we are. We talk about this

a lot in my book, you're not enough and that's okay escaping the toxic culture of self-love, which as you can tell is the exact opposite of Glidden Doyle's book, how this kind of new age melding with Christianity says, rather than go outside of yourself, rather than look to God to tell you who you are, rather than looking upward to find your purpose or to find some kind of transcendent meaning in your life, you need to look inward. You need to go in some kind of inward path, inward journey of self-discovery and self-fulfillment. And once you find your real self, like once you throw off all of these societal expectations, all of these unfair standards that have been placed on you by other people, whether it's by the patriarchy,

whether it's by systemic racism, whether it's by capitalism, whether it's by toxic relationships and all of these things that are just trying to tell you who you are. Once you throw all of those things off, what you'll find deep inside of yourself is some inner wonderful, perfect goddess that is worth following, that is worth trusting, that is worth tapping into. And once you find her, once you've released her and uncaged her, then finally, finally, you will have all of the things that you want in life. You will have the power to get the job that you want, to start the business, to have healthier relationships, to jump off the deep end, whatever that may be, just once you find in love and adore and empower that deep an inner goddess

that is laying down beneath there, beneath all the muck and the mire, then finally you will be free. So that's the opposite of what Christianity tells us. Christianity does tell us that we are lost in the muck and the mire, but not of the outside world, but really of our own sin. So it blames our problems with identity and purposelessness and jealousy and insecurity and temptation and all of these things on our own sin, not on society and not on symptoms, not on other people, but actually something that we have in our own hearts. And that what we find when we look inside of ourselves, when we go deep inside of our hearts and deep inside of our identities is not some inner goddess. is not some beautiful, perfect princess that is waiting to come out and to reign her world, rain over her world boldly, but is actually a person that is in need of a savior, like a sinner, a depraved person who, as Ephesians 2 says, is dead in our sin apart from

Christ who can do nothing to save ourselves, nothing to ultimately make ourselves better. We might be able to take some steps towards moralism or self-discipline to be able to lose or have better relationships or get the job that we want or to save money, whatever it is that we want to do, it might be possible for us to do those things. But ultimately, Christianity holds that you are unable to save yourself eternally. You are unable to sanctify yourself, ultimately. You are unable to fulfill yourself. You are unable to ultimately satisfy yourself. And even if you take all of these steps and read all of Glennon Doyle's books and you do all of these things in the way of self-care and self-empowerment and self-confidence and self-sufficiency

and self-love, you probably will feel better about yourself and feel good about yourself for a little while, but at the end of the day, you will still be thirsty, you will still be hungry, you will still be asking these questions that these instavangelists are not asking or answering for you, which is who are you? Why are you here? Where are you going? And is there anything bigger than you and your own happiness and your feelings. At the end of the day, you can follow Glenn and Doyle. You can follow Brunei Brown. You can follow all of the people that are in this article who are extremely popular, who will probably help you in the short term in particular ways. They will definitely help you feel good about yourself in the morning sometimes. They will definitely

help boost your self-confidence sometimes. They will definitely make you laugh or make you happy or maybe even give you the confidence to ask for a raise sometimes. But at the end of the day, they're still not answering the questions that are plaguing you when you wake up at night and wondering if there is something more than this little universe that you have created around yourself. And that is why ultimately these gospels of self-help and self-sufficiency will fail you. Because here's one thing that we all want to know. In addition to who are we? Why are we here? who made us, where are we going? Is there a reason to care about something outside of myself? Why do I feel like even though I've dedicated all of my time to me and all of my time to my happiness

and all of my time to my success and my stability and my mental health? Why do I still feel like it's not enough? Like why do I still feel like I'm running on empty? Like why do I still feel like I am just being tossed on the waves of my emotions and my circumstances? is why is it not enough? In addition to that question, we also want to know what's going to happen with evil? Like, how is bad going to be dealt with? Because we look around and we realize, okay, the world is bigger than us.

It's not just about my problems. It's not just about my feelings. There are also people that are really hurting. There's a lot of injustice that goes on in the world. Like, who's going to do anything about that? Yeah, of course, we can do what we can. And we help other people. We love other people.

when we serve other people. But I want to know that something is going to happen to the evildoers. I want to know that ultimately it's going to be taken care of, that ultimately good is going to triumph. It's not going to be darkness pushing forward forever and ever. And these instavangelists, this me-centered theology, which I call in my book, Miology, cannot answer that. It tries to, in the way of social justice,

which, as we've talked about before, is actually so often injustice and does not have the answers to the societal ills that we are facing to the real injustice and depravity that we see on a daily basis. But ultimately, this meology fails to tell us how that is all going to be taken care of. That's something that I think the human heart craves. The human heart craves real justice. We want to know that evil and wickedness are going to be taken care of. and this pithy, superficial, pseudo-Christianity, new age type spiritualism cannot offer that.

It cannot offer you anything besides making you feel good about yourself for a little while, which will have, like I said, some short-term positive benefits. It absolutely will. But long-term, it doesn't have anything to say about eternity. It doesn't have anything to do for your soul. It doesn't have anything in the way of good defeating evil. It doesn't. It's not going to offer the things that your heart is longing for.

You are still going to be thirsty. You're still going to be hungry. You are still going to be wanting. And I'm telling you that you can only find that satisfaction in the one who calls himself living water, in the one who calls himself the bread of life, and that is Jesus Christ himself, who, thankfully, unlike the trends of these instavangel, says in Hebrews 13 8 that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the one who made you.

He is the one who has been here since the beginning before a time began, who loves you, who died for you, who has something to say about sin, who has something to say and do about injustice, who made all of, who promises to make all of the wrongs that you see both in yourself and in the world right one day. So that starvation that you feel for fulfillment, for sufficiency, for satisfaction, for someone to do something about the sin that's inside of you and the sin that you see in the world, that can only be found in Christ. And unfortunately, these are diversion tactics. People like Glenn and Doyle, other people in her circle, they're trying to tell you that you can be satisfied, continuing to live how you live. There's really no such thing as sin besides what Glennon Doyle says is sin, which I think she's. she would say is like, I don't know, the only sin is being her definition of a bigot,

but there's no real definition of sin according to God. There's not this whole thing of holiness or unholyness. There's not this salvation or lack of salvation. There's not real sanctification or lack of sanctification that you just do what feels good to you, what your inner goddess is telling you feels right, and everything will fall into place. because you can be trusted, you can be followed, you can empower yourself, you can fulfill yourself. There is no idea of letting go of sin and letting go of the things that God calls bad in exchange for what God calls good and right and true. Instead, it's just getting to know yourself better. Instead, it's just following yourself more closely. And like I said, that sounds really good at the end of the day,

it will fail you. And it's contradictory to Christianity. And I know a lot of people who profess to be Christians who think they get something out of people like Lennon Doyle. And unfortunately, you are just being fed something that tastes really good. But just like what we talked about with social justice, there's a high cost to it. There's a high cost to it. And by the way, all the things that you are failing to find in her and finding yourself can be found in an eternal and in a fulfilling way. and Jesus Christ himself because guess what? Glennon Doyle doesn't know you. She doesn't know your name. None of these instavangelists do. They don't care about you. They can't care about you. Of course, they're very good at attracting an audience and I'm sure they're genuine and sincere behind that.

But they don't know you. So when they tell you that you're perfect, that you're beautiful, that inside you have an inner goddess, that you are just fine the way that you are. They don't know that. They're speaking into a screen and you're hearing it through a screen. They don't know you at They don't know your habits and hangups. They don't know what type of friend you are, what type of mom you are. They don't know the problems that you face. And at the end of the day, when they lay their head on the pillow at night, they don't really care because they don't know you.

They don't have, they're just human beings. They don't have the capacity to care about everyone. Not faulting them for not caring about everyone. They can't. But guess who does. Guess who knows you. Guess who knows your name. Guess you knows your sins.

All of your habits and your hangups and your peasant. past and your present and your future and your struggles and the problems that you're facing. And guess who does care? Guess who can and will and does bear those burdens? That is Jesus Christ himself. And yes, of course, the way of following Jesus is much more difficult and much more trying than the way of following Glyn Doyle. Of course it is because he asks us not just to give some things up, to give ourselves up. As C.S. Lewis says, he doesn't just say, I want some of you. Give me some of you, but nothing that's too hard. He says, I want all. of you, every single part of your heart and your soul and your mind, I am going to eventually

claim. That is the exchange that Jesus gives us. He says, I want everything. I want every single part of you. In exchange, I am going to give you inexpressible joy. I am going to give you peace. I am going to give you fulfillment. I am going to give you satisfaction, even when it's hard, even when it's sad, even when you face trials. And beyond that, I am going to give you an eternal glory that you could never even start to deserve, but I'm going to give you because I love you and by grace through faith, this is the deal that I made when I died on the cross and rose again. That's a better gospel. That's better news, you guys. I promise you that's better news. So let's compare some of the things that we hear from these inst evangelists to what the Bible

tells us that is a harder but better gospel. Luke 923 through 24. And he said to all, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Take up his cross. Deny himself and take up his cross. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. So we're not told to go deeper inside of ourselves to find our inner goddess. We're actually told to deny ourselves and to lose our life so we can find it in Christ to take up our cross,

a form of brutal and torturous crucifixion to lay down our old self and to find new life in Christ. 1.1.13 through 18, this speaks to who we were, now who we are and what we are called to do. Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So your hope is not found in yourself or what's right in front of you, but in the hope that will be revealed to you in the day of Jesus. Jesus Christ as obedient children. Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. And so change is necessitated. Change is a part and parcel with the Christian life. But as He who called you as holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. That's what we Christians are called to and empowered to do by Jesus Christ. And if you call on him

his father who judges impartially, according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways you inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. When people say that Jesus doesn't care about sin, that God doesn't really care about sin, that when he talks about sexual immorality or when he talks about the different things that he calls bad and wrong and sinful, that he He doesn't really care about that. All he cares about is that you feel good about yourself, that Jesus is just this kind of

hipster friend who comes along and tells you that you're pretty and that your hair looks awesome and that you can do anything that you want to do. I just wonder what Bible they're reading. God cared so much about sin that he died for it, that we were ransomed. We were bought with a price. This passage says from the feudal ways, the useless ways, the purposeless ways, the pointless ways, the hollow ways, the empty ways that we used to know. and that this passage says that our forefathers used to know and engage in. And now we've been brought

into something better, into something more fulfilling. And this entire book speaks to, yes, there are trials that you're going through. Yes, it's really hard, but your hope is in heaven and it's worth it. Because Jesus ransomed you. He bought you from your old ways. And so when we hear that we don't have to change when we become Christian, sure, it's true that you don't have to change to come before Christ, that God does love you exactly as you are, but as you've probably heard people say before, he loves you too much to let you stay as you are. Ephesians 417 through 24. Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do and the futility of their mind. So there again, we see that, that we see that word futility, that how we were before Christ

was futile. It was pointless. It might have felt good. but it didn't have any purpose in it. It was vapid. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God. And by the way, when they say Gentiles here, they're talking about non-believers. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way that you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him as a truth is in Jesus to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt

through deceitful desire. So that's different than the Instavangelist gospel, which says deep down within you is a beautiful and perfect and flawless self that you just have to, you know, dig past the patriarchy and societal expectations to get to. No, we're told that we have an old self and a new self. We don't have like a best self or a deeper self or a true self. We've got an old self, who is corrupt through deceitful desires, this passage says. And then we have a new self, which verse 24 says is created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. Colossians 3.9 also says put off the old self and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. So Christianity believes in the old self and the new

self, as I talk about in my book, not the best self and the truth self and the disendent. genuine self, whatever it is that this new fangled new age Christianity, pseudo-Christianity tries to present. That's not the dichotomy, that's not the reality that the Bible gives us. And then when it comes to this idea that it's okay to be selfish, which is what something that Glennon Doyle says, that it's okay to be self-seeking, that it's okay to put yourself first constantly. It's okay to make sure that your happiness is number one in your life. the Bible tells us something different. Philippians 2, 3 through 7. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. But in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. That is something that I fail

at that every single one of us fails at so often. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, I think, to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. So even the God, of the universe, holy and perfect and royal and righteous in every single part of his ways. He emptied himself. He took on the form of a human being just to be to be close to us, to be able to sympathize with our weaknesses, as Hebrew says, to be able to obey the Father, to glorify the Father, to bring more people to himself, to reconcile an unholy people to

a holy God through his death and resurrection. And then finally, 1 Corinthians 6, 18 through 20 talks about, again, the old self and the new self and how we are committed to God in every single part of ourselves, including our bodies. It says, flee from sexual immorality. And it doesn't just say that. It tells us why. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You are not your own, for you are bought with a price. So glorify God with your body. And so it tells us the why behind obeying God, not just in heart, not just in mind, not just in this kind of intangible way, but actually using our bodies, which God cares about so much in a way that glorifies him, in a way that aligns with what he says is moral and is good and is true. Now, if you are someone who has committed according to the Bible what amounts to sexual immorality, there is all of the forgiveness, all of the grace, all of the compassion, all of the love, all of the acceptance for you. That is a beautiful thing that we see about Jesus is that we see direct alignment with the word of God and with the commands of God.

we also see incredible mercy, incredible grace, incredible kindness and forgiveness as he deals with all kinds of people, in particular women during his ministry that we see specifically chronicled in the gospels who were caught in adultery or who were guilty of adultery. And he doesn't just ignore their sin. He doesn't push their sin to the side, but he looks them in the eye. He treats them with gentleness and compassion, and he tells them to go and to sin no more. forgives them of their sins, which meets the need that we have that these instavangelist, so-called gospel proclaimers cannot give us. He deals with our sin. Romans 2 says that it is God's kindness that leads us to repentance, and there's so much there. It's actually, yes, God does have wrath, and he does have vengeance, and he does have discipline, but we're not told that

those are the things that bring us to repentance. We're told that it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance. And furthermore, we're not told that God's kindness leads us to complacency. We're not told that God's kindness leads us to stay as we are. It's not, we're not told that God's kindness leads us to self-empowerment and self-discovery. We're told that God's kindness leads us to repentance of our sin. That's how much he loves us. Is that he deals with our sin. He provided a way to deal with our sin, not just now, but forevermore, that's something that you're not going to find in Glenn and Doyle or any of these instavangelists. You're not going to find it in me. You're not going to find it in any one person besides the person, the God man,

Jesus Christ. That is the gospel. That is a better gospel. That's a better way. It's a harder way, but it is far, it is far in a way worth it. And that I can promise you because God promises you. All right. That's all I've got for today. I will see you guys back here. And we, this week, we're going to talk about a few things. We're going to talk about HR 1.1. that big voting bill. We are also going to talk about a couple other bills, the spending bill and all of that. We're going to talk to a couple legislators.

I think that we are going to talk to Rand Paul, Senator Rand Paul on Thursday. So I'm super excited about that. And so we are going to have to get into some political stuff this week, but it is really important for us to know what is in those bills. I also want to say one more thing. I know we're cutting it close to an hour. but a few of you have brought up that the Max Lucado, the Max Lucado episode that I did that is,

has like blown up on, on YouTube comparatively for like for this channel. There's a lot of people watching it. I got a ton of positive feedback and I'm very thankful for that. But one piece of feedback that I've gotten that I think is is totally fair and I want to address is that it seemed like, especially from the thumbnail that I was lumping in Max Lucato with these two other people that have been found guilty of being a part of sexual scandals and sexual immorality. And that was not even a thought in my head. And I should have been more thoughtful about it. The theme of the episode was supposed to be, what do you do and how do we think about

teachers disappointing us? And I did say twice in the episode that, okay, these two stories, Carl Lentz and Ravi Zacharias, are very different than this story with Max Lucado. I did specify that twice, but I can definitely see just how the, the lumping of all of them together in the thumbnail in particular, which we are going to change, makes it seem like if you're just scrolling through, like I'm trying to accuse Max Lucato of that. And that was not at all my intention. You'll also probably notice that in the video, I don't like the question of the video is like,

is it time to let go of Max Lucato? And I don't necessarily answer that question. I don't answer any of those questions in the episode. I just tell you what happened and what the Bible says. And so the question is supposed to get you to ask that question. I just wanted to clarify that because it is never my desire. If I want to treat people how I want to be treated, I don't want to be mischaracterized. I certainly don't want slander perpetuated against me.

And so that was never the goal. We stuck to the facts. We stuck to what the Bible said. We stuck to what has been reported in that. And you can still disagree with anything that I said. But the last thing that I want to do is mischaracterized because, That was not at all my goal. And so I apologize if that is the impression that I gave. And I do take responsibility for that. All right. That's all I've got for today. I will see you guys back here tomorrow.