Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 508 | My Response to John Piper, Tim Keller & Big Eva

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

Today we start by discussing some of the problems with "Big Eva," the large industry at work within evangelicalism. While the people at the top of these institutions remain true to some biblical beliefs, like the biblical definition of gender, they have strayed into the trap of social justice on other issues like systemic racism. This was demonstrated after Francis Collins resigned from his position as head of the NIH. Although Collins identifies as a Christian, he oversaw horrific experiments involving stem cells from babies from terminated pregnancies, something no Christian should support. Despite this, many figures in Big Eva praised Collins and his work, including David French, Tim Keller, and Russell Moore. Then, we talk about a new article from John Piper about vaccines. Piper eventually comes to the correct conclusion that the COVID vaccine is a matter of Christian liberty, but along the way he seems to reveal his true thoughts that everyone should be vaccinated. Timestamps: (0:00) introduction (3:00) responding to Big Eva, plus Tim Keller, Russell Moore's praise for Francis Collins after it was announced he's stepping down from his role as NIH Director (43:21) responding to John Piper's recent article about vaccines & vaccine mandates --- Today's Sponsors: Annie's Kit Clubs for children are designed so that your kids can make them on their own. Young Woodworkers Kit Club sends kids real hammer-and-nails construction kits. The Creative Girls Club sends a variety of projects & introduces your girls to new crafts with every shipment. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE & save 75% off your first shipment! Good Ranchers safely deliver American craft beef & better than organic chicken right to your door, individually wrapped, vacuum sealed, & ready to grill. Go to GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE to place a one-time order OR subscribe & save 20% on each box of mouth-watering meats. Plus, get an additional $20 off & free express shipping when you use promo code 'ALLIE' at checkout! Fast Growing Trees — fall is planting season! Skip the big box stores & join over one million satisfied gardeners at FastGrowingTrees.com/ALLIE & right now save 15% off your order, now through November 30. --- Show Links: The Federalist: "University of Pittsburgh Uses Taxpayer-Funded Aborted Babies for Medical Research" https://bit.ly/2XpO16y The Federalist: "NIH Director Francis Collins Isn't a National Treasure, He's a National Disgrace" https://bit.ly/3jjRpaO Science.org: "For a Decade, Francis Collins Has Shielded NIH — While Making Waves of His Own" https://bit.ly/3m3cUid Desiring God: "A Reason to be Vaccinated: Freedom" https://bit.ly/3vu0hji Desiring God: "Can I Take a Vaccine Made from Aborted Babies?" https://bit.ly/3jgGOOa --- Previous Episode Mentioned: Ep 507: Our Real Enemy, Our True Family & Our Ultimate Goal https://apple.co/3n6e4J2 --- 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. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far. Okay, today we're talking about some good stuff that I know you guys are going to like. We're going to talk about Tim Keller, Russell Moore, David French,

and John Piper. We're going to talk about some things related to their views about the public health establishment, apparently, or at least one member of it. And we're going to look at John Piper's argument that came out today that Christians should get the vaccine. There's a lot there. I won't be able to dissect his entire argument, but I'm going to try to at least give an overview of my thoughts. There are things that I really agree with, that I really appreciate about what he said. there are some things that I would push back on. October 19th, it's my husband's 31st birthday. So even though I've obviously already told him, happy birthday today, just a public

happy birthday to my wonderful husband. Crazy for me to think that when I met him, he was 23. And actually, it was, I used his birthday to try to like make a move because he So we were working out at the same gym. This would have been 2014. That's how I met him. It wasn't like a, you know, LA fitness or something like that. It was like a small CrossFit type gym.

And we were taking the same classes. And I don't even remember really the first time I saw him or even thinking, oh, I really want to talk to that person. But we had talked casually during class. And I knew that, you know, he was cute. And I wanted to maybe get to know him more. and I could tell that he felt the same way, but we weren't dating or anything at this point. So October of 2014, but I had remembered that a couple weeks earlier, he had told me that his

birthday was coming up. And I held that date in my mind. I didn't say anything about it, but I think it was, so it was on his birthday that I showed up to the gym. And I said, happy birthday. And I could tell that he was very appreciative and pleasantly surprised that I remembered his birthday that he was turning 24 and that was it hooked him in now i got two of his babies it works ladies so remember that guy's birthday and tell him happy birthday he might be pleasantly surprised and then you might end up marrying him and he becomes your baby daddy you just never know happy birthday to my husband 31 he's super old i'm a very young 29 um anyway okay let's talk about everything we're going to talk about today. Remember yesterday when I said that I am more interested in

disagreeing with believers that I am arguing with non-believers? And that is because, sincerely, I care. I care first and foremost about the church. I care about truth. I care about us being united as much as we can in the things that are true. That peace, if possible, truth at all costs, whether that means one side or the other accepting rebuke or correction when necessary. Well, I have many disagreements with what is typically referred to as big Eva. So if you don't know what that is, you've heard of big tech, you've heard of big government, you've heard of big business, big pharma. There's also Big Eva, and that stands for big evangelicalism. A lot of you already know that, but I'm guessing a lot of you don't. I remember hearing that or

seeing that on Twitter a year ago or two and thinking, what the heck is that? And then I piece it together. Big Eva represents the corporate bureaucratic part of evangelicalism. So evangelicalism less as a part of the Protestant faith and not even the political label evangelicalism, but kind of like the institution, the people at the top. Big Eva is typically, these are some characteristics of people who are just like establishment evangelicals. That's one way to say it. typically anti-Trump, anti-abortion, pro-biblical sex and gender, pro-critical race theory, and pro-social justice. Russell Moore, the former head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, that's the policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention,

Tim Keller, pastor, author, Beth Moore, and others kind of in that crowd are part of Big Eva. These are people who are believers, with whom I agree on on the vast majority. the vast majority of things, or agree with on the vast majority of things. Tim Keller, in particular, I've learned a lot from. I recommend a ton of his books, meaning of marriage, reason for God, every good endeavor. Gosh, I could go on and on. He has really helped me. His writing, his apologetics, his theology has really helped shape my faith in a very

fundamental way. However, I also disagree with these people politically. And please, I've just got to say this disclaimer, even though I know that most of you understand this. Whenever someone publicly disagrees with someone, there will always be someone in the crowd who says, why are you attacking this person? Never in this entire podcast, am I going to attack the people that I am talking about today? But public ideas or ideas articulated publicly are fair game for refuting publicly as well. They might still disagree with the things that I have to say. That's fine. I am not maligning them as people.

but I will question some of or one of the things recently that they have put for it. And I'll specify what that is in a second. But another person that I would include in this group is David French. He is a Christian attorney. He's a writer who has written recently a full-throated defense of some of the basic tenets of critical race theory. I think I talked about that on my podcast when he did. And I went back and forth with him on Twitter about it. In my opinion, he is very lopsided in his criticism.

politically. I have met David French. I think he's a very kind person who has done a lot for the defense of the First Amendment and has written a lot of very insightful conservative stuff over the years. One day I'd like to have him on my show to discuss some of our disagreements. People on, you know, in our camp on the evangelical right give me a hard time for giving him the benefit of the doubt. Not that I think I'm in like some authority or anything like that, but I do. Like I will constantly give believers the benefit of the doubt in the same way that I hope to be given the benefit of the doubt. Going back to kind of what we talked about yesterday, where our allegiance actually lies, I want to be extremely charitable in my disagreements with believers. But the thing is, is that

the Trump era, Trump himself, really kind of broke a lot of people in Big Eva. The way that it broke a lot of people in general, especially on the left. The Trump, the Trump, era did some weird things to evangelicalism in general, but the top dogs in Big Eva decided that they were going to take the side of pro-social justice, anti-Trump, and there really grew the spirit of condescension, it seems like, mostly exhibited on places like Twitter and podcasts and things like that. And I would say there was also this embarrassment articulated and expressed by Big Eva toward fellow Christians who did hold, sincere reasons for voting for Trump and for questioning secular narrative surrounding things

like systemic racism, police brutality, social justice. I mean, after George Floyd happened, people and Big Eva were so quick to jump on the secular Black Lives Matter narrative about systemic racism and police brutality and had no interest in looking at the data or questioning the popular dogma coming from the mainstream left. Like they just had no interest in the facts. whatsoever. It was really crazy. And that was, I think, kind of a fault line. That was a, that was a fissure. That was something that I certainly took the more controversial, less mainstream stance on that put me in opposition, not purposely, but just consequently, against the people who are so quick to latch on to everything that CNN said about, you know, systemic racism and social justice in the United States. think they did so in a way that is not biblical. Even so, I think that they are worth, these ideas are

worth continuing with, these disagreements are worth talking about. And I don't want to minimize, I don't want to minimize the concerns of people on the other side of those issues to share my same faith, but I do feel like Big Eva minimizes the concerns of conservatives like me when it comes to things like critical race theory and social justice theology and Joe Biden, if you want to know what I mean by those things, by the way, if you're thinking define your terms, I have done so many episodes on social justice theology and critical race theory. Those are probably the things I've talked about maybe the most frequently in addition to abortion and gender ideology. All you have to do is type in those keywords and relatable on YouTube wherever you get your podcast. They'll come up.

Also, Ali Best Suckie.com, click podcast, click categories. There's categories for these things. So you can go listen to all those episodes to know exactly what I'm talking about. But Big Eva claims the biggest threat we hear from people, you know, like Beth Moore, is Trumpism and white nationalism or Christian nationalism. And while Big Eva does tend to agree that, for example, abortion is wrong and that gender is male and female, according to Genesis 1, nowadays you will often find them a little bit quieter about it, talking instead about nuance and empathy and, you know, not wanting to be divisive, dancing around these subjects for days rather than just saying what is clearly true according to

the God who tells us that he is love. Like there is definitely this feeling, not just among Big Eva, but also the people who profess to be, you know, progressive Christians that they can outlove God by not saying what the Bible says is true and what the Bible says is false, what the Bible says is good, what the Bible says is bad. It's a whole lot of hubris. And while Big Eva may personally hold to many of the same views that I do, in the last few years, especially while Trump was president, it seems like those common stances have taken a back burner publicly in exchange for a whole lot of mushyness, in my opinion, and secularism, honestly, when it comes to political and cultural issues. So this is leading to what I want to talk about with these people. I guess I

shouldn't be surprised when I see someone like Russell Moore, Tim Keller, and David French publicly praising, almost tripping over themselves to praise someone like Francis Collins, the former head of the National Institutes of Health, who just resigned. We're going to get to exactly what they said and what I think about it in just one second. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and

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

If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Okay, so here is what David French, upon the announcements that Francis Collins resigned from the head of the NIH said on Twitter, he said Francis Collins is a national treasure. Thank you for your faithful service. Here's what Russell Morris said.

I admire greatly the wisdom expertise and most of all the Christian humility and grace of Francis Collins. I cannot wait to see how God uses him next. Tim Calder says, as good as NIH director, he's tagging Francis Collins, is at his craft, he is a better friend. And so these are pastors who are promoting a particular person who professes to be an evangelical Christian himself. And if you don't know anything about Francis Collins, maybe you think that this. this is really no big deal. And certainly his public image is very non-controversial. And you're probably thinking he must be an awesome guy. These big-name Christians are all publicly praising him. Russell Moore praised his Christian humility. David French called him a national treasure. Tim Calvert

publicly praising him. And like I said, Collins has long professed to be an evangelical Christian. He is admired by people both within and outside of the church. The problem is, though, that Collins oversaw some of the most grotesque practices while he ran the NIH, including using the body parts of aborted babies for research. So this is according to the Federalist in May of 2021. Quote, in the fall of 2020, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh published a study titled Development of Humanized Mouse and Rat Models with Full Fickness Human Skin and Autologous Immune Cells. In studying how organs reacted to pathogens or infections on human skin, researchers grafted full thickness human skin as well as thymuses, livers, and spleens from fetuses onto

rodent bodies, creating what they call humanized rat models. The study says researchers obtained fetuses at the gestational age of 18 to 20 weeks from elective termination of pregnancy through McGee, I don't know how to pronounce that, McGee Women's Hospital of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center with the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Tissue Bank. Researchers use skin from both the scalps and backs of fetuses. Gosh, this is heartbreaking, terrible to read, so that they could compare graphs with and without hair. Graphic images from the experiment show that by 12 weeks, fine human hair or baby hair can be seen growing darker and longer than the surrounding short white hairs of the mice. I remember when the story came out and these images came out. And

It's just grotesque. It's a heartbreak. You're talking about baby hair. I think about that. David Delighton, he's an undercover pro-life journalist at the Center for Medical Progress. He alleges that the University of Pittsburgh has a relationship with the local Planned Parenthood, who he says provides aborted babies to the university. The Federalist article goes on to say, some of the worst violators in Planned Parenthood's abortion and fetal research practices were trained at Pitt. Delighton said, pointing to PPFA medical director, Dr. Jennifer Russo, who trained as an abortionist at Pitt and was later caught supplying dead fetuses, dead babies. This article says fetuses, same thing, to a for-profit California tissue procurement company. Gosh, guys, like, just a reminder again,

how evil, not just abortion act is. It's unequivocally evil. There's no debate about that, especially as Christians. Just the process is so barbaric and grotesque. But the entire for-profit industry of aborting babies, it's awful. Then the Federalist, again, goes on to saying this is where we get the link to someone like Francis Collins. This study was funded by the taxpayer-funded National Institute of Health and, in part, by Dr. Anthony Fauci's office, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,

in I-A-I-D. So you can go to the University of Pittsburgh study yourself and then you'll see under the acknowledgments that it says this work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. So this is not something that we are just, we are just making up. But fair warning. If you click on that link, you will see pictures of the scalps of aborted babies grafted onto mice. It's very disturbing. Dr. Falji and Dr. Collins both oversee the funding of their institutions or within their institutions because they lead these institutions. And so even if they are not directly involved in this kind of research, which I wouldn't be surprised if they have been, they do call the shots about where the money goes. And yes,

this is a bureaucracy. There are multiple people in charge. But when you're the head honcho, everything rises and falls on leadership. I mean, can you, imagine as a supposedly evangelical Christian supporting a project like this? Can you imagine as a supposedly pro-life Christian praising someone who did support a project like this? We're not talking about, oh, he was just somewhere in management. We're talking about the head of the NIH directing the funding to a project that uses aborted babies. And as you'll see, not just 18 to 20 weeks, but much later uses the skin, the scalps of these babies to make humanized mice? I mean, is this even something that's necessary? How even ethically? From a secular perspective, I'm not even sure how you

support this, although secularism tends to lead to stupidity sooner or later. This is the most grotesque, immoral, barbaric stuff you can think of. This is not some, well, you know, nuanced, personally, pro-life, politically pro-choice nonsense. This is how now, even out and out, evil, supported by the institution run by a guy who claims to be a Christian who some big-time evangelicals are apparently applauding. Now, this is not all that surprising that Collins would direct something like this. He does not claim that he believes that life starts at conception. There's a 2010 New Yorker article that quoted Collins or reports that Collins sees an embryo as a potential life. And gosh, I hear that so much from just like know-nothing people.

who truly know nothing about biology and somehow want to justify abortion. But this scientist says that he sees an embryo as a potential life, which it just doesn't even make any logical sense, that he doesn't know when life actually begins. Again, this is the geneticist. And I just, it's mind-boggling to me. It's absurd that this is being said by not just a scientist, but a Christian. It's obvious that a human is a, it's a human at conception at the moment of fertilization because

then what else is he or she? I mean, right then you've got full human unique DNA. It's not something else. It's not some other species. We know that the baby isn't, the embryo isn't dead because that would be a miscarriage. And we know that biologically and logically can't be anything other than a human being. So what else would it be except for a living human? you know that he's had to have thought about this kind of thing. The guy is 71 years old. He's been, you know, professing Christian in the scientific industry for a very long time. Now, I will give him that the question of personhood, not the question of humanity, but the question of personhood, of having rights and value is a philosophical question that can't be answered just by, you know, in strict scientific means.

But it's answered in Christianity. the faith that he says he holds on to in which we see physical life and human value inextricably intertwined. And again, you can go back and listen to the many, many episodes that we have done on abortion to learn more about that and to hear me really dig into all of those points. But this is Collins. He is much more secular in his thinking, at least in regards to this stuff, than he is Christian in his thinking. And by secular, I don't mean neutral or scientific. I mean anti-biblical. Science. wrote about Collins in 2019, quote, when Obama named him NIH director, a concern was that his

outspoken Christian faith would influence his leadership. His religion, science.org, goes on to say, never became an issue. He followed Obama's order to loosen rules for stem cell research, which some Christians oppose and has defended fetal tissue research despite criticism from anti-abortion group. So science.org, of course, is probably celebrating, don't worry, he says he's a Christian, but that's never influenced anything that he did in leadership. Well, that's a little troubling, isn't it? Collins has long supported embryonic stem cell research, even though he knows the embryos are destroyed in the process. So I guess him saying that he doesn't believe embryos are a human life, again, I would love for him to define just logically, biologically, what they are then.

I guess that's his attempt at searing his conscience about all of this. the pioneer of stem cell research, Dr. James Thompson said in 2007, quote, if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough. I think that's true of a lot of people in their support for abortion and things like this. They haven't thought about it enough. And I would say that's especially true if you're a Christian, right? Like if you're not deeply uncomfortable with this,

then I think that you haven't thought about it enough or you have thought about it and you're just ignoring what you know to be true, what you know to be biblical. Christians are not called to leave their faith at the door when they enter into a job. Like if we believe that God created the world, that he created science, that we shouldn't be worried about science and ethics somehow contradicting the Christian faith. If you believe that all truth is God's truth, all morality is God's morality, which the Christian does believe, then why would you try to compartmentalize your life to say, you know, I believe this about God, but it's not going to influence how I run an organization or conduct

science. Again, secularism, which drives most scientists, obviously isn't neutral because you're seeing scientific textbooks and scientific academics now show that they're really more ideological when it comes to things like gender, when it comes to things like sex. And so obviously, it's not, secularism isn't neutral. No world view is neutral. as we so often say. And that's obvious in this, too, that Collins was driven by secularism in his leadership of the NIH, which led to these grotesque practices that we're talking about, or at least funding the grotesque practices that we're talking about. He also did an interview last December with Russell Moore, when Moore was still at the ERLC, saying that all

Christians should only be going to church virtually. So this is last December. This is, This is in an interview with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He also held up his cloth mask in this interview and he said, this is a life-saving medical device. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not making a theological point about that statement. It's just not true. It's just not true.

The University of Waterloo, we've talked about this so many times, found that a cloth mask at best filters out 9.8% of particles. So if you're going to make the argument that in order to really love your neighbor, you need to wear a mask, well, then apparently you're not loving your neighbor as much as the person who's wearing an in 95 mask, which filters out like 40 to 60 percent of particles or something. And those cloth masks, by the way, as soon as they get wet, they lose their effectiveness. So at best, at best, it's 9.8% effective and probably after 20 minutes, it's 0% effective. So how can you say that's? loving your neighbor. How can you say that's not some kind of political statement? Look at the data. Compare the case and hospitalization rate of states with and without mask mandates and you will not find a difference. Compare Sweden, which doesn't have mask mandates to the countries with a similar population size or a state like Michigan with a similar population size. And you will see that you will

see no difference in some, and in some cases Sweden has actually done better than those states and countries who have had mask mandates. So when we're talking about science, that's troubling to me. That's troubling hearing a statement like that. Again, that makes me think that he is more ideological than scientific in some ways. But really, the most troubling part of all of this to me is the enabling of the funding of projects that use the intentional destruction of babies for research. This is also in the federal list, quote, Collins's NIH provided nearly $3 million in tax dollars, to support a fetal organ harvesting operation by the University of Pittsburgh in its quest to become a tissue hub. Oh, satanic for human fetal tissue ranging from six to 42 weeks.

42 weeks gestation. In addition, Collins championed the unrestricted funding of embryonic stem cell research, which involves the destruction of human embryos. Okay, 42 weeks gestation, guys. Like, forget about Collins not know. knowing when an embryo is a life, which is stupid in itself. But how about a seven-pound squirming, feeling baby that's about to exit the birth canal? Also, there's another part of this. That is so grotesque. And it should give any evangelical pause before they publicly, you know,

congratulate them, honor them, point people to them as basically a hero. But there's more that I think that we as Christians should really wrestle with when it comes to hoisting this person up as some kind of champion of Christianity, you know, within the government. All right. I want to, I want to read you also this message, this official message from Francis Collins celebrating Pride Month this year. This is on NIH's website. Here's a statement, Quote, each June, the National Institutes of Health, joins the rest of the country in celebrating Pride Month and recognizing the struggles, stories, and victories of those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and others under the sexual and gender minority umbrella.

I applaud the courage and resilience it takes for individuals to live openly and authentically, particularly considering the systemic challenges, discrimination, and even violence that those and other underrepresented groups face all too often. Here we go. As a white cisgender and heterosexual man, evangelical Christian Francis Collins says, I have not had the same experiences, but I am committed to listening, respecting,

and supporting those individuals as an ally and advocate. I know that developing allyship is critical as we continue to make NIH and the world a more inclusive place for all. I mean, come on, that's just celebration of it. That's straight up celebration of all of this. You know, it's one thing to say, you don't work for a Christian organization. I get that. So it's one thing to say, here's what I believe and know to be true.

And I still believe, if you're Francis Collins, you could say, I still believe that these people are made in the image of God. They're worthy people, no matter how you claim to identify. And they deserve good scientific research. they deserve good health care. They shouldn't endure violence or, you know, some kind of truly actual in the literal sense harmful marginalization. Okay, that's one thing. I get that. You're not running a church. You're not running a Christian nonprofit. But it's another thing to say what he just said. I mean, you are accepting all of the premises, all of the definitions of secular progressivism. Again, we are seeing that secularism isn't neutral.

It makes moral statements, unscientific statements. Like, what is cisgender really scientifically, Francis Collins? So as a supposedly evangelical Christian touted by these very mainstream influential evangelical leader celebrated by Russell Moore as a pillar of Christianity, this guy is celebrating the redefinition of sex, of sexuality, of gender. He is denying Genesis 1 in these statements. So you're telling me that the guy who can't even support Genesis 1 believes in the much more controversial part of the Bible, which is the gospel, John 146. Jesus says, I'm the way of the truth in the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.

I don't know. I don't know. Like I said, I want to give Christians the benefit of the doubt, but is his statement, are his actions as a leader of the NIH distinguishable at all from what, you know, a far left atheist would have done and said, I don't see any distinction between those things. Maybe you could criticize what I'm saying and saying, you know what, there's a lot more to all of these things. There's a lot more good that he has done, that he has said. And, you know, maybe that's true. I'm sure not everything that he did was anti-biblical or everything that he said was wrong.

But you see the difference between when Christians, you know, take over, you know, they lead an institution versus when secular progressives do. secular progressives are never afraid to force an entire organization, entire group, an entire institution to conform to their ideology because they still operate under this myth that their ideology is like neutrally good, objectively good. Whereas Christians, because we're so scared of people calling us, you know, theocrats or calling us, I don't know, people who want to impose our views on everyone else. We allow secularists to influence us, and we bow down to their language.

Like, secular progressives are so much more evangelical than a lot of people in Big Eva are. Like, there's so much more sure. There's so much more courageous. I disagree with them on so much, but they are so courageous and bold and coercive. Honestly, that's not something to admire. But they are bullying. and they are undaunted when it comes to trying to push an institution, push a business, push a corporation, push an organization, push a church, push a group of people towards their

ideas. I would simply like a Christian to show a fraction of the courage, not talking about some of the nastiness and bullying that we see from secular progressives. But why can't a Christian stand up and say, this is what I believe. and I believe this to be good and right and true. And I am at least, at the very least, not going to buy in to the ridiculousness of today's secular sexual revolution. The NIH's website also has all kinds of interesting guides to how we, for example,

should refer to a person by the pronoun zer, if they want to, if they want us to, or zir, I don't know. It says, so like there's this infographic on the website that says that some people go by Zay, some people go by C, spell, I can't, I can't, I can't, spell it S-I-E, some people go by Z, I can't, I can't even, I can't get through this. Some people go by Z, spelled Z-I-E, some people go by here, H-I-E, like some, that's pronouns apparently, that, people go by. And that used in a sentence, the NIH, the National Institutes of Health, funded by your tax dollars, who has been run for over a decade by an evangelical Christian, they say,

in a sentence, this is how we would use this. Quote, Zay is a writer and wrote that book, He herself. I like Here and Here Ideas. The graphic can be found on NIH's website. It recommends that we put our pronouns in our email signature. in our name tags and that we should start meetings with everyone announcing their pronouns and we're at work. Are we joking, guys? Is this real? Are we, what exactly are we doing here? That's what I wake up every day. When I look on Twitter and I see the ridiculousness, like this morning, I saw that the HHS, the Health and Human Services under Joe Biden announced that Rachel Levine is the, what did it say?

The first female something. The second part is really kind of pointless because it says the first female, the Biden administration announces that Rachel Levine is now the first ever female four-star admirable admiral in the public health corps. Rachel Levine guys is a man. Okay. Rachel Levine is a man who identifies as a woman. I don't even like that language because that seems to give some credence to this.

And so when I open Twitter and I read something like that, I say, what exactly are we doing here? What's going on? I mean, in regards to Francis Collins, what's the point of having Christians in these institutions if they're not even going to infuse a semblance of truth into them? Forget biblical truth. Like I'd settle for some biological truth at this point. And people wonder why we, Christians, but just people in general, because as we talked about last week. There are plenty of people who are not Christians who are saying, hey, like, a man is a man, guys.

And these are people who don't really care how people, you know, live their lives or they don't really care about pronouns necessarily. But they're still like, guys, a man is a man. A woman is a woman. Like, I just think it's so funny that now we're calling people people with uteruses, people with a prostate. I'm like, oh, we use, gosh, we used to have shorter words for those phrases. where we were breaking down two groups of people. So people with the uterus, people with a prostate, I wish we could think of just like a shorter word to identify those two categories.

Oh, well, let's just keep going with this newspeak. I mean, it's crazy. And people wonder why we mistrust this same institutions who claim to have a monopoly on truth and reason and science and medicine. And the fact that these same people, Christians in Big Eva, think that the big threat to the country and the church is Trump supporters?

And not this absolute rot that has not only totally infected all secular, global, and national institutions, but is tolerated by and sometimes even endorsed by people who bear the name of Christ? Like Francis Collins? Can idolatry of Trump in America be dangerous? And this progressive nonsense be dangerous? 100%. We kind of talked about that yesterday. But when we're talking about the size and scope of each threat, it's not even a competition.

It's not even close. The absolute rot. The depravity, the corruption in our public health and science institutions is staggering. It's sickening. And I'm not saying that Francis Collins was intimately involved with all of it. I'm not saying that Russell Moore, David French, and Tim Keller can't be friends with and respect someone with whom they disagree. But ask yourself, ask yourself this.

Do you think that they would openly praise someone in politics or in the government who is, say, controversial because of their support? for Trump or their denial of systemic racism? I don't know. I feel like they wouldn't publicly support that person because they would be afraid of attaching their name to someone that a lot of people on the left consider problematic. And yet, I mean, they're able to look past the funding of aborted fetal research and the total embrace of the validity of all concepts of so-called gender identity and sexuality and say that this guy is a national treasure and exemplar of Christian grace and humility. Like there were no reservous.

There's no caveat. Honestly, I would take less issue with a Christian praising someone like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Because Ginsburg didn't claim to be a Christian. And you'd also, you'd just say something like Ginsburg was brilliant. She was wrong on abortion. Of course, we believe this as Christians. She was wrong on other things. I believe as a conservative. But what a stunning career and incredible mind she had. That's true. That's how, that's genuinely how I feel. And that's probably maybe what I would say about her if I was talking about her. Same with Trump. He is far from perfect, but Christians can still like him and like what he has done. But am I going to say that Trump is a beautiful example of Christianity? No. So why the apparent embrace and the endorsement of the faith of someone who so obviously

violated religious ethics? Now, Tim Keller's statement doesn't necessarily endorse his faith. And it was really more Russell Moores that did that. Still, I have a hard time believing that they would hoist someone up with whom they disagree when it comes to Trump. And these are also the same people who just believed that Trump was so morally grotesque, especially David French, so morally grotesque because of what he said, that it is just impossible to vote for him or support him that this is compromising Christian faith. You're saying that Francis Collins and everything that he supported and said didn't compromise the Christian faith, but someone who said, yeah, you know what? I think that Joe Biden's going to lead in a radical way and not going to be good for the country.

I think I'm going to vote for Donald Trump, which is true, by the way. We have been vindicated, sadly. You think that, like, I'm just, I'm confused. I'm confused about how you come to that conclusion. It's just very strange. It's very strange, isn't it? All right. We got a little bit to say about John Piper in his argument about vaccine.

but before we get to that. Okay, so I want to quickly respond to an article that was published today by Pastor John Piper. Now, I've talked about John Piper on this podcast before I recommend his podcast, dear Pastor John and his resource desiring God a lot because it's extremely thoughtful. And I find him to be a very sincere, humble, and godly person. Now, when he published an article last fall, implicitly, I don't even think he meant to, but implicitly basically saying that voting for Joe Biden is the same as voting for Trump because

Trump's pride is just as bad as Biden's supportive abortion. And I vehemently disagreed with that. And I just thought it was so sometimes I do think Piper, and this is one of the examples that we're going to talk about today, in an effort to add clarity, he actually adds a lot of confusion because he doesn't just say what he wants to say sometimes. He seems to kind of cover things up with a lot of rhetorical flourishing that makes things confusing. And I've always kind of found that about Piper. I think it's just because he's a very brilliant person. But clarity, I would not say, is necessarily always his strength. And I certainly think that

that is true when it comes to today's article about vaccines. Okay, so the headline of this article is a reason to be vaccinated, freedom. So he, I'll summarize the article by saying he is arguing for Christian liberty. This is something we talked about last week. We talked about the centuries-old debate among faithful Christians about vaccination. And it goes back to to smallpox in the 1700s and disagreements, you know, increase in Cotton Mathers were on one side of the debate. There were other Christians on the other side of the debate. Then later on, there was Jonathan Edwards. There was, I believe it was John Newton who were all debated about this. And really where we landed was that it is an area of Christian liberty. And that's really mostly a message

to the people who are on the side of vaccine mandates or who condemn Christians who don't don't want to get the vaccine as not living their neighbor and not true Christians. It is an area of Christian liberty, although there are some people who are extreme on the anti-vaccine side who also think that people are ungodly if they take the vaccine. And I do believe it's an area of Christian liberty. So mostly, I agree with what Piper says. But he starts off the article with some facts that I think are a little bit misleading. It's obvious where he is leaning. To me, it's obvious that he is leaning in the direction of you need to get vaccinated. It's the smart thing to get vaccinated. It's the wise thing to get vaccinated. I also believe that he implies that it's the loving thing to get vaccinated,

even though he lands in an area of Christian liberty. It very much seems like his persuasion or his desire to persuade people to get the vaccine. In the same way that it came across in the article about Trump and Biden that he desired to persuade people to vote for Joe Biden, or at least to persuade people that it's fine to vote for someone who openly supports the taxpayer-funded aborting of babies through nine months of pregnancy and who denies things as basic and fundamental as biological sex. He says that he didn't mean to do that, but again, don't add your voice to the conversation if you're only adding confusion for people and you seem to implicitly be leaning in a direction that you say that you're not. Certainly in this article,

it seems like he is leaning towards saying it's the loving, smart thing to do to get vaccinated. So he says with these facts, nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are now in people who weren't vaccinated from May 2021 infections and fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 107,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations, this 1.1%. 150 of more than the 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people that That's about 0.8%. And then he goes through some of the other statistics that basically he is trying to say that, look, most of the people that are dying from COVID-19 are unvaccinated. But I think what's important is that there's still, when you look at the percentages sound really big. But when you look at the actual numbers, like when you look at the numbers of people that are dying, it is still very rare to die from COVID.

It is very, very rare. For most people, it's under 1% your chances of dying from COVID. That doesn't mean that you don't have a chance. Doesn't mean that it can't happen. I actually know, unfortunately, of this, you know, healthy 40-something-year-old guy. I don't even know if he was vaccinated or not. Who lives in my community who died. Now, there actually seems to, well, I won't even get into all of that.

But it's real. It affects people. And it's sad. So I'm not saying that it's a hoax or that it's fake. But when we're looking at the numbers, we can't just look at percentages of people who are vaccinated versus unvaccinated who died. You have to look at the percent chance that you have in general of dying whether you are vaccinated or not. And it's still extremely rare. And he doesn't give those actual numbers.

He is only giving these numbers. And that paints a picture that I personally think is a little bit misleading, even if these numbers are still. statistically are statistically true. Now, there are some other data points that I think that we do have to consider. So deaths within 60 days have a positive test by date of death, non-vaccinated made up 20% of those deaths, vaccinated with one or two doses made up 80% of those deaths. So that is data coming out of the UK. That's a little strange.

I'm not saying that that means that you are across the board. more likely to get sick and die if you're vaccinated. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying there is some competing data here. Justin, I'm reading this tweet that we can put up. UK reports 223 COVID-19 deaths. This is reported today. The highest daily number of deaths since March, 79% of the population, age 12 and older,

is fully vaccinated. I mean, that makes us ask some questions about the efficacy of, of the vaccine. So if we look at some data, this is data pulled from the New York Times that comes up. If you just look on Google and if you're watching this, you can look at the charts that will put up. But if you look at the United States, new deaths are about the same place that they were almost a year ago. So they're a little bit lower than they were, for example, in like January, February. And they're a lot higher, though, than they were in July. The daily death rate in the United States is a lot higher than it was in July.

That's hard to understand when you look at the vaccination rate that has only increased since July. So now we have 65.5% of the population fully vaccinated. 73% has had at least one dose. Now, if the vaccines were the number one way that we can mitigate, that we can prevent the deaths from COVID, then it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense because that's what we're told. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for the death rate to be so much higher now than it was in July.

I think really what the data shows, I do think that the data shows that vaccines can help prevent, in most cases, severe sickness and death. I'm not refuting that from the best available data that we have. Do I think it is the number one way that we can mitigate the spread and that we can lessen the likelihood of death? I'm not so sure that the data really bears that out. Honestly, it looks like it's just more seasoned. You saw a high rate, case rate and death rate in the south over the summer.

That's because it's hot. And so people are inside. Now that's going to switch. You're going to see in the much more highly vaccinated states in the northeast, you're probably going to see case rates and death rates go up there because people are spending more time inside. Now is the time people in the south, they're actually spinning outside and in the sun. If you look at a country like Australia, Australia is.

cases and deaths are on the rise right now. I mean, they had zero deaths from like last November to this July, zero COVID deaths were reported. And now it's on the rise again to almost the same point as it was at the peak of their death rate back in August of 2020. Now, how is that possible when last year they had zero vaccines and now they have 55% of the Australian population fully vaccinated 71% has one dose. Are we not allowed to ask these questions? Well, the answer is no. We might even get this video taken off of YouTube.

But I think it's worth asking. I'm not saying that that's a reason not to get vaccinated, but I'm saying that John Piper isn't necessarily presenting all of the relevant information that we need to go through here to think about whether or not it is, whether or not it's something that you are going to do. Dr. Robert Redfield, he is the head of the CDC. He told Martha McCallum, or he was the head of the CDC, he told Martha McCallum on Fox News that 40% of the recent COVID deaths in the state of Maryland were among people who are fully vaccinated. I mean, that's a pretty large percentage. That

still means that the majority were unvaccinated, but 40% is something. It's something at least for people to consider. That is true in a lot of. large number of states with high vaccination rates, you are seeing a large number of the people who are dying vaccinated. And now that makes sense. If you have a larger number of people vaccinated, then naturally you are going to have a larger number of people who die from COVID be vaccinated. But it's still something to consider when people are looking at the effectiveness of something of, say, natural immunity versus vaccine immunity. I don't think that Piper lays out that case clearly and fairly enough when he is going through these data points. It seems lopsided.

That's something I take issue with. Now, where he ends on all of this, that this is an area of Christian liberty. And if you have truly weighed both sides of this, if you have truly looked through the data, if you have truly thought and prayed about this, then you are free to decide. You are free to choose what you think will glorify God the most, what you think will serve yourself and your neighbor the most, then you are free to not get the vaccine. And I appreciate that he articulates the freedom on that. Now, what I find strange about this, though, is that he did put out a podcast not too long ago that argued that Christians should not take a vaccine made from aborted babies, or at least I believe that is what he argues here. He says in the case of

Moderna, this claim has since been called into question about them using fetal cells in research, but it's actually true. You can go to COG forlife.org.org. And that organization has compiled all the research and all the facts about this. There are ethical conversations and disagreements that Christians in good faith can have about using vaccines that are derived from fetal cells, or at least the research and development involved fetal cells. there's an ethical debate about that.

But where Piper landed on this in his podcast is he basically says we should never do evil that good may come. So he actually refused the argument that just because the vaccine might save lives, that we should support the use of murdered babies in the research of them. He says that we have to testify to the sanctity of life. And he says, God blesses principled action in his name. So he ends the podcast that he put out a few months ago on this. He says the observation is that acting on principle, in this case, the principle that we do not want to be complicit in the desecration of dismembered human beings, acting on principle often does not look like the most obvious way to be a blessing to the greatest number of people. So he's saying the secular world is going to typically disagree with someone refusing a vaccine that was derived from in any way aborted fetal cells.

but he says if you try to act on the principle of not participating in the desecration of these children by avoiding medicines developed from their dead bodies, someone will say, but look, look at all the good that is coming through the medication. And they will say that they can't see the good that may be coming from your principled action. So what I'm saying here is this, Piper says, God has ways of honoring and blessing and multiplying the effectiveness of principled action in his name, which to the human calculation may appear futile. so he's saying someone who refuses the vaccine because they don't want to be involved in the desecration of baby image barriers that God is going to bless what he calls a principled action.

He says, so I'm saying let's not act as researchers or as ordinary consumers in a way that desecrates the bodies of unborn victims and treats those children as though they can be killed in their tissues harvested for our benefit. Now, in today's article where it seems to me that he is encouraging people to be vaccinated, he doesn't even wrestle with this. Like he doesn't even wrestle with the same argument that he made a few months ago. He does mention it in passing at the end of today's article, but he doesn't even talk about, unless I missed it somewhere in between,

he doesn't even wrestle with the argument that he made just a few months ago, that he seems to be saying that the principled action for someone who doesn't believe in the desecration of human bodies is not to take the vaccine. Now, I think that there are good arguments against Piper's stance on not taking the vaccine because of, you know, deriving from fetal cells. Al Moller has articulated both sides of that argument. But I haven't seen publicly John Piper wrestle with that. And then he seems to come out with an article today that, again, appears to be convincing people to be vaccinated based on the data points that he is bringing forward. even though he ends in the place of Christian liberty. So all I'm asking for is a little bit of

clarification, like a little bit more from John Piper on this. To me, this is another example of him lending really more confusion than clarity on anything else, seeming to lean a certain way. Maybe he doesn't mean to lean a certain way, but I've got to see more. Like I rely on him for a lot of wisdom. I heard what he said a few months ago. I'm hearing what he says today. I'm not seeing how those two things are, you know, are working together. And I'm not even having to be. telling you where I stand and all of that. I'm not even telling you where I'm standing on this particular vaccine. I haven't even talked about that. I'm talking about principled, biblical conversations about that. I think that's missing. I think that's missing from today's article

in light of what he said in the past. All right, that's all I've got time for today. I will see you guys back here tomorrow. Hey, this is Steve Deast. 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. self. 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 Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.