Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 453 | 'God Bless Abortion'?

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

We start today by talking about the vandalizing of a Jesus statue in Arkansas. A group of leftists hung a sign on the statue's arms that said "God bless abortion." Obviously this is offensive and blasphemous, but why are progressives so eager to dismiss the value of human life? Then, we welcome Bunni Pounds, president of Christians Engaged, to talk about the alarming amount of power the government wields. Pounds' organization, Christians Engaged, was denied tax-exempt status because the IRS declared that biblical teachings are affiliated with the Republican Party. We'll discuss her story and what it could mean for Christians in the future. --- Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers safely delivers craft beef & better than organic chicken right to your door, individually wrapped, vacuum sealed & ready to grill! Go to GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE & save $20 off & free express shipping. StartMail keeps your email private. Period. And when you delete an email in StartMail, it's gone - forever! Start securing your email privacy at StartMail.com/ALLIE & get 50% off your first year. --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

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

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. As you can probably tell, I am not in my fancy studio with my nice set and my fancy microphone.

It sounds different. It looks different if you are watching on YouTube. That's because I am a little under the weather. I'm feeling a lot better than I was yesterday, but I still wanted to play it safe and record from the comfort of my room. And so that is what I'm doing. But hopefully I'll be back in the studio tomorrow. Now, do not feel bad for me. I always give messages from you guys, you very compassionate listeners who say, oh, Allie, you just need to rest. You need to, you know, not worry about getting content out. And I really appreciate that. But I'm recording this

episode rather than recording like a replay episode because I want to. We're talking about very important things today. And I really wanted to make sure that we got this episode out for you guys. But it does remind me. I don't know if you guys have seen that meme going around or maybe it was a tweet that kind of turned into a meme. What does meme even mean anymore? I don't know. But there was this tweet going around that was like European out of office is like, hello, thank you for your email, I am on vacation until September and will not be returning your messages. And then the American out of office is like, hi, just out of the office for two hours for kidney surgery, but I'll be available by myself. That is very accurate. I've only really ever worked in like small business or

in some kind of entrepreneurial setting. So that, that meme really hit me hard because that is very true. Non-corporate life, especially in the United States, freelancer life, entrepreneur life, business owner life is very much nonstop. But it's also part of what makes this country the best in the world. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. All right. That was an aside. The episodes that I will be recording tomorrow, hopefully if I'm feeling better in studio, one of them will be an interview with my dad, and I'm really excited about that. My dad is involved in Texas politics. That's where I grew up. He is going to talk to us about the voting bill that Texas Democrats are currently protesting by fleeing the state. They literally got on a private flight to D.C. And they're trying to get help

from Democratic politicians in D.C. to stop the voting integrity bill in Texas. My dad's going to talk to us about that. But a lot of you also asked me questions about my parents, like, how I grew up, what parenting choices, my parents made, how I was raised, what they did to kind of encourage me to pursue the things that I wanted to pursue. So if you guys are interested in that, I will ask him some of those questions. He's also a great person to get advice from. I've told their story before. I wrote about it a little bit in my book, too. You're not enough. And that's okay. They started from very little. They worked really, really hard to give my brothers and me a better life than the one that they had growing up. My dad took every opportunity

to make that possible. He ended up being very successful in his pursuits of trying to give us a better life. And so if you need business advice, if you need political insight, if you need some parenting tips, he would probably be willing to give answers to all of those kinds of question. So if you have any of those, just shoot me a DM on Instagram and I'll add it to the list of things to ask him. I also interviewed my mom back in 2019. We talked about like how to share the gospel on Halloween. And we also answered some, you know, personal questions about parenting and things like that. So you can go back and listen to that episode of that's something that you're interested in. But today, you are going to listen to an interview I actually recorded yesterday in

studio with the head of a non-profit organization, a Christian nonprofit organization that was originally denied 501C3 status by the IRS because they actually said in writing, in their response, in their reasoning for why they denied 501C3 status to this organization, that biblical values are typically associated with the Republican Party. I can't believe they actually said that. So bunny pounds, the head of the organization is going to be talking to us about that whole ordeal and actually very surprising and I think kind of encouraging outcome that this whole ordeal ended in. But first, we are going to talk about this very disturbing story that some of you guys sit me on Instagram, a story coming out of Arkansas, an organization which I don't think that I will actually name.

And we might even like blur out their Instagram account handle when we put the picture up for those of you watching on YouTube. they're obviously doing what they're doing for attention and I'm not sure that I want to gratify them in that way. They decided that they were going to hoist a huge sign up on a seven-story statue of Jesus that stands in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. This is an organization that apparently raises support for abortion and abortion funding, especially in the South where they see what they would probably call an attack on abortion rights. cult abortion rights. On Instagram, the organization posted a picture and said, this, in Arkansas, there's only one 65 foot statue of Jesus. There's also only one abortion

clinic. Just a bunch of angry men with no outlets writing outrageous laws about vaginas. That and the second highest rate by state of infant mortality. It's hard to see how pro-life can be so myopic in its vision of what life is. In Arkansas, there are ridiculous statutes based on cheap performative morality. And their eyes, Mary Magdalene was a whore, not a favored disciple. That's just how they see a woman's place in the world and her body is a place to, private property to be legislated by a group of landlords. I will give credit that last line is pretty poetic. And then here we go. Here's another part of this long Instagram caption. We think Jesus would understand the concept of a difficult decision. He supposedly had to make

a few of them, but understood sacrifice intimately. We just think abortion is a, I won't say it, a GD miracle worth celebrating. It saves lives, but those lives are usually female, usually female. When people have strong beliefs about decisions that don't affect them, those beliefs are worth questioning. So obviously, I have a lot to respond to. First, I just want to mention that last line. When people have strong beliefs about decisions that don't affect them, those beliefs are worth questioning.

Like, let's take that logic to its conclusion. Does that mean that we're not allowed to care about decisions that don't affect us? Does that mean that men aren't allowed to care about abortion? Does that mean that if you're straight decisions that are made about gay people shouldn't affect you? Or if you're white and decisions made about abortion. black people that you shouldn't care about those. I thought that was having empathy. And these are the same kinds of people that are always telling us that empathy is paramount. So we're not allowed to care about causes that don't directly affect us because there were a lot of people that would probably

agree with this post who really cared about what was going on. And for example, Israel and Palestine. I mean, a part of having compassion is caring about things that don't directly affect you, especially if these decisions are affecting a group of people that don't have a voice themselves. Of course. Like, that is what activism is. That's what compassion is speaking up for the voiceless. That's what people who are against abortion are doing. And I want to also correct a couple other things and respond to the logic and some of the claims made in this post.

And I hope it's helpful for you. We do this every few months and talking about abortion. And I really want to equip you guys to be able to confront these kind of statements and arguments and discussions and conversations about abortion, especially with people who call themselves pro-choice. First, I think it's important to know just to be factual, not that it really makes that much of a difference to their post, but according to the CDC, Arkansas is actually 11th for infant mortality rates. Just to clarify that, that's still not great. But like I said, it's probably important to be accurate. The post said that they're second. They're actually 11th, so just FYI. Second, abortion laws are not about vaginas. There are so many different ways that pro-choice, pro-abortion people, which I would say these people,

I mean, is there really anything, is it even possible to be pro-choice without being pro-abortion? I'm not really sure when it comes down to it, but these people are obviously pro-abortion. I don't think that you hang a sign on a statue of Jesus that says, God bless abortions, unless you are pro-abortion. But there are all kinds of tactics that pro-abortion people try to employ to make abortion be as trivial as possible or strictly about regulating and policing women's anatomy. And so they're not even saying that this is about regulating a woman's uterus. They're saying that this is about regulating someone's vagina. I'm just going to just tell, this is good news. I hope that you feel relieved feminist after I say this. No one, there's no law on the books that is regulating your vagina and do what you want with it.

What we're talking about here is babies. These are babies. Abortion kills a human being. Now, you can call that human being if you want to, if it helps sanitize it in your mind to make you feel better about this. You can call them a club of cells or you can say that he or she isn't really a person yet, doesn't have value yet. You can keep perpetuating some mystical nonsense about human beings only gaining worth and rights when they exit the birth canal. But the fact is, at the moment of conception, spurn meets egg, there is unique human DNA, sex, eye color, and all the child's attributes are already determined in that moment.

All it takes from then on, which is where we all started, by the way, is time and nourishment. But there is no moment after conception when a zygote or embryo or fetus suddenly becomes a person that is unscientific, arbitrary nonsense. Fertilized egg, zygote, embryo, fetus in relation to human pregnancy. They're all words for different stages of human development in the same way that a baby is still a child. So a fetus is still a baby in the same way that a baby isn't any less of a person than a teenager. So a zygote isn't any less of a person than an out-of-the-w womb baby. So let's go back to the basics on this. What is the justification for killing a human being inside the womb?

Is it because of location in a woman's body? So you're telling me that location is your determinant for killing someone? Is it stage of development? So you're telling me the younger a person is, the less developed the person is, the more okay it is to kill them. Is it because of size? So you're telling me that the smaller a person is, killing them is more justified? Is it dependency on the mother that justifies it? So you're telling me that the more dependent a person is, the more acceptable it is to kill them?

Because there's a lot of people outside the womb that are very dependent on other people, on their caretakers, on even machines in order to live. So are you saying that those people are disposable? Is it because the baby in the womb might grow up and have a hard to? life or be poor or be abused or be unwanted, there are millions of people around the world right now that meet that criteria should we kill them? Is it because the child has been diagnosed with some kind of disorder? There are lots of people with life-threatening disorders today. Is it okay to kill them? The fact is there is no justification for abortion that would not logically apply to people outside the womb to. If you think killing a baby in the womb is okay, then you are,

are admitting that based on some totally arbitrary criteria that some humans are expendable, some humans are disposable. And you might say, no, no, no, no, no, if none of those things, and I think a lot of people just kind of push those questions out of their mind because it's too hard to really think about, you might just say, no, it's just because I believe in women's choice. Like, I believe in bodily autonomy, except it's not just her body. It's not just her body. there's another person's body inside of her. And I'm just asking, why don't you think that human being has rights? If it's based on any of the criteria that we just listed, it's totally arbitrary,

and you're going to have to tell me your logic for not applying those criteria to people outside of the womb and denying their right to life. Abortion, poisons the baby, starves the baby, or forces the baby into a heart attack using the same combination of chemicals used for lethal injection for death row murderers, so that the baby twitches in pain and rise in pain and actually physically shrinks back from the prick of the needle. And then after the baby is forced into cardiac arrest and then dies, it is pulled apart limb by limb with forcibs and removed from the mother.

So that's what you're defending when you are defending abortion, whether you say that you're pro-choice or whether you are hanging up a sign on the statue of Jesus that says, God bless abortion. That's what you're defending. What about the life of the mother, a lot of people say, If the license the mother is at risk, anytime after about 23 weeks, maybe even 22 weeks, I think that there's at least one case I know of a 21-week old baby, not 21-week-old baby, but I'm talking in gestation, actually survived outside of the womb and has grown up and is totally

healthy. I think that's the youngest possible week of gestation where a baby could actually survive outside the womb with a lot of medical intervention and help. But really any time after 23 weeks, second trimester, the option, if the life of the mother is at risk, is delivery. It's delivery. Either way, the baby is coming out, whether through abortion or whether through delivery. Both are different kinds of birth of the baby. You're just deciding whether or not you're going to birth a dead baby or whether or not you are going to birth a living baby.

And so if a woman's life would be saved by getting the baby out, then the option is delivering. there's no reason to kill the baby in the process. Now, just to clarify, pro-lifers also believe that if there is an emergency situation in which the life of the baby and the life of the mother are competing against one another, that every effort should be made to try to save both the baby and the mother. But if in an effort to save the mother, the baby happens to die while that is tragic, it's not wrong because it's not the intentional killing of the baby. We oppose pro-lifers the intentional killing of babies in the womb, period. And don't come at me with, you're not pro-life, you're pro-birth. When is the last time, anyone who says that, when is the last

time you donated your time, your money, in your energy to help pregnant moms and families in crisis? Because every pro-lifer I know without judgment, without condemnation, or hesitation, has helped women, either financially or otherwise, who are in crisis. I would encourage you, if you consider yourself pro-choice or pro-abortion to visit a pro-life pregnancy center. I know the Planned Parenthood propaganda wants to tell you that these are places that are lying to women about what abortion is. The fact of the matter is it's Planned Parenthood who lies to women. Planned parenthood who won't show you the ultrasound, won't allow you to hear the heartbeat, won't actually tell you what happens in an abortion, but just uses euphemism to tell you that it's going to be,

you know, no more important than just pulling it to. These pro-life pregnancy centers, they don't have any reason not to tell you the truth because the truth about abortion is brutal. Like, it's convincing in itself. The science is convincing in itself. Pro-life pregnancy centers are not places that shame women into keeping their kids. They offer all kinds of free services, education programs, adoption help, help with employment, help with filing for benefits, help with immigration, refuge, from abusive situations, free or affordable diapers, crids, car seats. Does Planned Parenthood offer any of these things for women who decide to keep their babies?

Not that I know of. It is a myth that pro-lifers don't care about babies after they're born just because we don't agree with every leftist policy proposal that they say is supposed to solve the problems for poor families. Now, I agree that Arkansas and other poor southern states that top the list for a maternity, and infant mortality should absolutely focus on solutions to that atrocity. But does acknowledging that mean that I also have to accept the killing of babies in the womb? I don't think so. I think pro-lifers should be advocating for policies that reduce as much as possible the infant

and maternal mortality rate. If that's something that pro-choicers and pro-lifers can agree on come together and try to solve that crisis, more power to people who can reach across the aisle and do that. But I am not going to use that as a justification for killing babies in the womb. It just doesn't make any sense. It's a red herring to distract from the main question, which is, why do you believe it's okay to kill some defenseless, innocent human beings? So whenever you're in a conversation or a debate with someone who is pro-abortion or

who says their pro-choice, always bring it back to the baby. Now, they will try to distract you with all kinds of other points that may be worthy to talk about at some point, like I said, like talking about these different kinds of policy solutions that could lower the rates of infant and maternal mortality. But talking about these things still don't address. The only question when it comes to abortion that matters, why do you think it's okay to kill innocent, defenseless humans? Like, what's the justification? What's the excuse for that? Now, the person that you're talking to typically will then answer. They'll kind of divert again and say, well, babies in the womb aren't really babies.

It's a fetus as if fetus isn't just a Latin word for offspring, human offspring. Or they'll say it's not a person yet. They're just clumps of cells. And then you can point out what we discussed earlier, which is the very basic embryology about. gestation about life inside the womb. You can just point out, well, that's just not scientifically true. We got to agree on the fact that this is a human being at every stage of development from the moment of conception on. So tell me at what stage you think it's okay to kill

a human being and why. And tell me why you think that's a good justification for babies inside the womb to be killed, but not babies or people outside the womb to be killed. And that, it sounds like a slippery slope, but that's because it is actually a slippery slope. I wish it were a fallacy, but there are already academics and philosophers and bioethesis in the collegiate sphere that advocate for the option to kill a child after birth, even up until two years, if that's what the parents desire. And so that's because the logic is very slippery. any time that you decide that worth is described to a person sometime after conception and therefore there's a right to kill them, you are sliding down a very slippery moral and logical slope.

And I've never heard someone be able to defend that. The only honest argument for abortion that I've ever heard is when people say that it's okay to kill some innocent humans based on whatever their standards. it is. They just kind of admit that. They don't use the euphemisms. They don't try to say that it's not killing. They don't try to say that it's just a clump of cells. They'll admit exactly what abortion is. And they face the facts and they say, yes, it's justified because I actually think that I think that women having that choice trumps any right that a baby has to life. And it is killing. And they would say it's okay. It's still morally repugnant. But at least they're on

about it. At least they're not being unscientific. At least they're not trying to say that somehow it's not killing and magically the baby just disappears. Or like I've heard a lot of pro abortion people say it's terminating a pregnancy. What's a pregnancy? What's a pregnancy, guys? So when you're on the side that cannot be specific about the thing that you are defending, like about the side that you're on and what abortion actually is, then that tells you probably that you're the wrong side. I have debated people in Congress about this and I have yet to hear a single pro-abortion, pro-choicer mainstream at least, in Congress or otherwise, give me an actual compelling or a morally not-reprehensible argument for why killing babies in the woman's okay. I've never heard it.

I have never heard it. Now, last response to this post about saying, you know, Jesus, He would understand. He understands hard decisions and he would understand abortion and, you know, he's pro-choice, whatever. God hates abortion, period. Why? Because he hates murder. That's what he makes clear from Genesis onward. God hates the shedding of blood of innocent people. It is an injustice that will incur his wrath. We see in the Old Testament how much God detested child sacrifice that was and still is a pagan ritual. only now it's been given the Americanized name, which is reproductive rights. Jesus says, let the little children come to me when the disciples were trying to shoe them away everywhere in the Bible, that we see pregnancy discussed.

It's mentioned as a blessing from God. Psalm 139, Jeremiah 1, both talk about the formation of babies in the womb and God knowing us even as we're growing in our mom's bodies. That makes it clear that we don't suddenly become a person when we're born, that we were already a person made in the image of God when we were in our mother's wombs, and that goes for all babies in their mother's wombs. Now, hear me, I want to be super, super clear about this. That is not me that God hates women who have had abortion.

If you have had an abortion, God loves you so much. He can forgive you. He can pour out mercy and grace upon you. He can absolutely use your story for his glory to help other people and to tell of his faithfulness. we see in scripture that God forgives the people that we would probably deem unforgivable, the sins that we would probably not even want to utter out loud, the most hard-hearted people God forgives when they repent in faith and turn to Him.

Jesus, the same Jesus that was desecrated by these people who love abortion and clearly hate God, died for you. He died for you so that your sins could be forgiven forever and you could experience joy and freedom for all of eternity. God is holy. We are not. and we have to be made holy and reconcile to God. And that's what Jesus' sacrifice does for us. It makes us new.

It gives us a soft heart. He gives us his righteousness and his holiness, no matter what we've done so that we are a friend of God forever and ever. And that's what happens when you, by grace through faith, come to the Lord through Christ. And this leads me to my final point on this. that God can, he doesn't just use the terror and the horribleness of abortion for his glory and the good of other people. He will also use this desecration of this statue for good. More people are now hearing about the statue than ever before. The passion of Jesus has actually performed as a play at this statue, and now more people will hear about it and go see the gospel of Jesus played out.

So go tell people about it. Take your family if you're close by. the people who put on the Great Passion Play. It's actually an organization called The Great Passion Play. And here's what the organization said in response to this whole thing. They said, we wanted to acknowledge and give notice of the 45-foot drop cloth to be used in our mission trip program, the email to the people who put up the sign read, you trespassed on our property and hung this drop cloth from the Christ of the Ozarks Memorial Statue and put your lives at risk, as well as the people's lives who took it down. You used our statue to further your platform, but we are thankful for the opportunity to share our mission.

The Passion Play is a 501C3 nonprofit organization dedicated to lifting up the miraculous life, sacrificial death, burial, and ultimately the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We pray those who hung this banner are able to come and see Jesus hung on the cross and a production that has been seen by over 8 million people now. The email continued. Performances are on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays,

night through the end of October. Security is now stationed overnight in the cry to the Ozarks as well. We will not accept additional donations from your organization. So I'm not really sure what that last line means. This was reported by the Christian Post, by the way. So I love the attitude of the people who run this organization. And I feel the same way that God is absolutely going to use this to further the mission of this organization of people who are.

trying to share Christ at this statue. So let's pray for that. Let's pray for the people who hung this banner, that they would come to know Christ, that their hearts would be made thoughts, that they would repent, and that many people would hear the gospel and come to know Christ through this. We know that what Satan means for evil, God can always use for good because God is relentlessly committed to his own glory, and people's grandest efforts to thwart that will always fail. So let's pray for his glory. Let's pray for the gospel to go out through this and thwart any attempts to try to inhibit the gospel going out. They will ultimately fail.

Those efforts will always be futile because God is sovereign. And thank goodness, we are not. All right. We're about to transition into my interview with the bunny pounds. This is another great example of how God can use bad situations or what seem like bad situations. for our good and for his glory. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie,

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

and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts.

I hope you'll join us. Buddy, thank you so much for joining me. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do? Well, it's great to be here, Allie. Huge respect for you and everything you bring to the conservative movement, knowing theology and political education. It's so important. Thank you so much.

I lead Christians engaged. We're a nonpartisan Christian ministry, mostly focused on the state of Texas, but now looking at our eyes around America. But our goal is to help people build habits of prayer voting and engagement for the sake of America. And we do that through simple education on the importance of prayer for our city, state, nation, our elected officials, the importance of voting in every election and taking our civic duties that has been given to us by our founding fathers as important. sacred trust that we have as we the people and also as believers in Jesus. And then also to help people engage in basic civic engagement education, how to understand how the sausage is made, how to respond to God as it relates to the preborn human trafficking, whatever initiatives or issues that they want to get involved with. So we're kind of like the on-ramp, the beginning place for Christians to get active. Well, sounds like something that's super necessary. I know that there are a lot of Christians that are asking the questions that you guys are answering. What does God have to say about abortion?

What is God have to say about the family? And what is the biblical definition of justice? All these things that the secular world seems to be trying to answer. But Christians want to know, like, what does God's words say? And you guys really help Christians understand that. Now, tell me what happened between your organization, Christians engaged in the IRS. Well, we applied for our tax exam status like every organization does. when we launched back in December 2019.

And 18 months later in May, we received a letter from the IRS pretty much denying our tax exempt status. And they did that and they said in writing that biblical teachings are, quote, affiliated with the Republican Party, which is interesting because I always felt like the Bible was a kingdom document, not a partisan document, right? So, you know, they pretty much violated their own rules. And we do everything that any other organization does, which is educate people on their civic duties, educate people from a biblical perspective. So the situation here with the IRS is that if that decision was meant to stand, then that could affect really every Christian organization that teaches the Bible around America.

Right, because they could say that this is a partisan organization when it's not simply because they're espoused. saying biblical values. So what happened after that? Obviously, you tried to, you tried to reverse the decision or appeal the decision. So what happened? Yeah, we had an amazing friends at First Liberty Institute, Kelly Shackaford and his team. Leah Patterson is my attorney. And they appealed for us. A 12-page appeal is beautiful to the IRS laying out that they violated their own rules and violated what they should have done with our case. And 22 days later, by a miracle, they repealed this decision. It was such a big miracle because we had so many people around the country that stood up and prayed for us, that wrote letters to the IRS, that took this as a personal affront even to their own biblical

beliefs. And it was such a powerful movement to see people stand up. And then we had members of Congress, Senator Mike Lee, Senator Ted Cruz, Chip Roy from Texas that led a letter to the IRS Commissioner. And then another letter was written from Jim Jordan and Kevin Brady to the Treasury Commissioner to lay out the egregiousness of this case. And that encourages me a lot. Obviously, I'm troubled, disturbed by their original decision, but that there is still power in people speaking up and Christian standing up and saying, or just people who care.

about fairness, people who care about liberty, standing up and saying, okay, this is not right. That actually has the power to affect change. I think there's a lot of people out there that think that their voice doesn't matter, that they don't have the power to influence our elected officials or bureaucrats because that's so often the case. Now, what do you think is the implication for other organizations or even individuals if, for for example, the IRS decides, okay, you know, we decided to reverse our decision there, but going forward, we're still going to hold to this principle, that anyone who tries to hold

to biblical principles is partisan and Republican and we're going to kind of discriminate against them. What would that look like? I think we have to be diligent as believers. And when I saw the letter and I thought, did they just put that in writing? Yeah. You know, we had a choice even within our board of directors. Do we just go on and create a 501C4? Or are we? within the law. Right. And so thankfully, we made the decision to stand up and, of course, with our friends at First Liberty, get great counsel to help us in this endeavor. But it's a wake up call for believers that, you know, government is the only thing that can encroach upon our liberties, right? And so we have politics in our schools and our churches all throughout America. We're dealing

with politics. But government and why it's so important to involve ourselves in our civic duties is because government can encroach upon our rights and our liberties. So all of us have a responsibility to stand up and make sure our voices are heard when we see any kind of encroachment on that. And that's what our friends at First Liberty does to help defend people around all of the country on our First Amendment rights. But we all have to be diligent to find that wherever we find it in our communities, right? Yeah, definitely. I think what bothers a lot of people is the clear double standard that it seems like that IRS has shown towards Republican organizations, not that yours is Republican, but organizations that it sees as Republican or partisan and versus how they treat,

for example, like an organization started by someone like Michelle Obama that they see as more neutral. And so, and we've seen that in the past with Lois Lerner under the Obama administration and people are troubled by it. But I think you're story, it goes to show that when Christians are engaged when they're praying, when they're speaking up, when they're reaching out to our representatives, that positive change can happen. And hopefully it can change. It can affect positive change on an even larger scale as well. Do you have a hopeful view of the country in that if Christians are engaged like you guys want them to be, they do speak up and stand up for the things that matter, vote in accordance with their biblical

values that things can change for the better? I do. I think this is a great story of hope for a lot of people. We hear a lot of bad news, right? We're constantly feeling like we're under attack as believers. But this is a great example of how if we stand up, our republic works. The founding fathers gave us a gift in this nation. We undervalue it so many times and we discredit the gift we've been given

as Americans. And so if we do that, if we take responsibility for our cities and our communities, in our Chamber of Commerce and our state and our nation, things can change. And God is raising up the church right now to be stronger lights than ever before. In darkness, we know that in the midst of darkness, as it gets darker, the light shines brighter. And that's what's happening in our nation right now. And it gives me so much hope because we are seeing people are waking up, they're feeling a burden for America, and they're trying to respond. And that's what we do at Christians Engage is plug them into simple steps to respond to what the Lord is saying as it relates to their call to the nation. That's awesome. A lot of people are looking for tangible steps to take,

and I'm glad you guys are providing that. Can you tell everyone how they can support you, how they can find more information about this? Absolutely. Christiansengage.org is our website. We've got hundreds of articles, podcasts, videos on there. Take our pledge. to pray, vote, and engage and we'll remind you to pray with thousands of other people on Mondays at 555, remind you to vote, remind you to be engaged. And everybody lives very busy lives. We understand that. This is just one of the parts of your Christian walk.

But we want to help support you as a parish church ministry to help you pray, vote, and engage regularly. Awesome. Well, Bunny, thank you so much. This really was a huge story that I think all Christians really need to pay attention to. We've got to be diligent. We've got to be watching for this kind of stuff. because it's slowly and silently that freedoms are encroached upon. But like you said, when Christians, when Americans stand up, when we start caring about

these things, praying about these things, doing something about these things, things can change for the better. So thank you for being such a pioneer in that. I really appreciate it. And I encourage everyone as well to support you and to support Christians engaged. Thank you for joining me. Well, thank you for everything you do. And let's just keep standing up.

Definitely. Thank you. All right. So just a quick outro to say to remind you guys. that God is completely in control of the things that seem like they are spiraling out of control. When bad things happen, when it seems like every single institution is against what is good and right and true, God is not going to allow his plan to be thwarted. He's just not.

Like I said, he is relentlessly committed to his own glory, and he is perfectly sovereign. everything will unfold according to his perfect will, and he will one day exact justice. And we have hope in that, but we also have hope in today that when we push back against what we know to be dark, what we know to be wrong, what we know to be unjust, that differences can be made, not just when it comes to organizations rejecting 501c3 status of a Christian organization, but also when it comes to people trying to advertise for abortion in the name of Jesus Christ, God can use all of these things for His glory. And we as ambassadors of Christ, as soul and light in this world, get to be a part of that. We get to be his hands and feet and continue to use

bad and seemingly hopeless situations to remind people of hope and goodness and truth and the faithfulness of God that was ultimately displayed in the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is our privilege. to go into dark spaces, to go to dark places, and to be light. When light enters, darkness scatters, that is what the Holy Spirit is in us. So don't be discouraged. Don't despair. You've got a responsibility, though. Don't just sit on your hands.

Don't not say something or not do something that God is calling you to do because it's, because it might be scary. I was talking to someone who messaged me that said, you know, if I try to stand up against abortion or if I try to stand up against the divisiveness of a lot of the racial rhetoric that we are hearing today, if I try to stand up for biblical marriage and a biblical scientific understanding of gender and sexuality, I'm going to be called a bigot. And I don't know what to do with that. And my advice is to, I don't want to sound, I don't want to sound flippant at all because I'm telling this to myself, too, that we have to get over that fear.

and we have to accept the fact that we will get pushback. Like we will get insults. We will be called names. Like there's no way to avoid that unless you want to completely capitulate to secularism in every way. But if you want to stand for anything that is worth standing for it, yeah, you're going to get people who call you names and who are going to say things about you that you know are not true. And we've got to get over that fear, push past it, and then double down on the things that we know. know to be good and right and true, raising a respectful ruckus when everyone is telling us that we should just be quiet and not care, that we should just look the other way and not care as

vulnerable people are being exploited by secular progressivism. So I just wanted to encourage you in that, that it is always worth doing and saying something and that God will use you and your efforts for his glory because that's what he does. Hope is never completely lost because our hope was in Christ and he's eternal and he promises to come back and make everything right. All right, that's all I've got for today. I will see you guys here tomorrow. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day

and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort, we ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype

and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV

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