Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 609 | Tim Keller’s Terrible Abortion Take

Episode Date: May 2, 2022

Today we're reacting to and discussing Tim Keller's recent tweets in which he fundamentally misunderstands the political debate over abortion in America. We go through the tweet thread and discuss what he gets wrong and talk about the theological reasons behind wanting to ban abortion, as compared to whether or not other biblical tenets need to be codified in law. We also talk a little bit about Jen Hatmaker and the wonky racial theology she recently espoused in her podcast. --- Timecodes: (0:00) Introduction (9:00) Tim Keller's problematic tweets (23:22) Tim Keller on whether or not we should decrease abortion, according to the Bible (43:25) Can Christians maintain unity when they disagree on big issues? (50:16) Jackie Hill Perry's vague tweet (57:00) Jen Hatmaker's 'divine' comments --- Today's Sponsors: Healthycell is a new type of dietary supplement that absorbs in your body far better, plus it tastes great! Go to Healthycell.com/ALLIE & use code 'ALLIE' to get 20% off your first order. Dwell enhances your time in the Word with their new read-along experience featuring big, bold text & beautiful background art while you're listening to it being read. Go to DwellApp.io/RELATABLE to get 10% off a yearly subscription or 33% off for life! My Patriot Supply: their three-month emergency food kits are on sale now, you can save $150! Go to PrepareWithAllie.com before it's too late. Bambee: you run your business; let Bambee run your HR — for just $99/month! Go to Bambee.com/ALLIE for your free HR audit. --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise- use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: 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 Monday. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to good ranchers.com slash Alley for a discount.

That's good ranchers.com slash alley. Okay, y'all. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I hope that you are starting to ring in. the summer wherever you are or if you're up north, maybe you're just now ringing in the spring, which is always exciting when things get a little bit warmer. We celebrated a one-year-old birthday party in my family this weekend. I can't believe it's been one year since I gave birth to my last child. It's just crazy. The time really does go by so quickly. And I know that's

cliche. Everyone tells you that, but it's true. It's true. And so we made some precious memories this weekend. And what else was I going to say? Oh yeah. I was also going to tell you guys that I've kind of failed a little bit on my whole healthy eating working out endeavor that I committed to do with you for 30 days a couple weeks ago. Here's what happened. I got a stomach bug and that kind of derailed me because when you're recovering from a stomach bug, you don't really want to eat just meat and vegetables, you really need some carbs to refuel yourself. And that's what I did. And that kind of just got me off track. And I also didn't want to work out. I didn't want to expend that kind of energy when I was recovering from a stomach bug. And then I was traveling. And so I've gotten off rails,

but I'm back on, baby. We're back on today. So if you've stayed committed for the past couple of weeks, good job. I was not right there with you. I was at first. Then some things happened. But now I'm back on track. So for the month of May, we're getting on track. We're working out for at least 10 minutes every day and we're going to cut out the junk food. That's my commitment. And it's not about, I saw some comments when I was talking about this a couple weeks ago resisting the Easter candy. It's not about just like losing weight or being super strict about everything you eat. It's not about that. It is about discipline. That's something I need in this area of my life. And so I am trying to re-implement that. So if you want to start today or if you're

you want to restart today. Here we are. We're going to restart. All right. Just wanted to get some personal, some personal stuff at the beginning before we get into our more serious episode. It's going to be a fun episode, but it's also going to be serious because we're talking about Tim Keller and asking the question, is Tim Keller okay? Is Tim Keller okay? I'm not sure. Based on this Twitter thread that he tweeted last week and then doubled down on and then triple down over the weekend. We are going to try to answer this question. Is Tim Keller, who I think is a brilliant theologian in a lot of ways, is he okay? He tweeted this thread talking about his views on abortion and really tried to strike this, what he would probably call a balance, what I would call

moral relativism and a false equivalency between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to abortion. and his argument was so terrible and that breaks my heart and breaks my brain as someone who knows that Tim Keller is a very smart person. Let me back up a little bit before we go through this thread and before I respond to this thread, let me say that I really appreciate Tim Keller in a lot of ways. Now, a lot of you out there, I know I can see the comments on YouTube now. You're going to be saying, oh, Tim Keller, he has been a wolf and sheep's clothing for a long time. He's. He's a wolf and sheep's clothing for a long time. He's been a communist, Marxist for a long time. We should never be reading Tim Keller.

We should have never read Tim Keller. He is a false teacher. He has nothing good to contribute to the Christian conversation. There are definitely going to be people listening and watching you think that. There's also going to be people listening and watching who are thinking, what? Tim Keller is completely untouchable. He is the modern day C.S. Lewis. Maybe that's what you're thinking or you're thinking.

He is the best contribution to modern Christianity that exists. and there's nothing that he's ever said is wrong. And if Tim Keller says it, then it must be right because he is so perfectly wise. So I land in between, in between there. I probably am closer to the latter description, actually, because I have probably read more books from Tim Keller than I have from any other single author. He has helped me a lot from the time that I really became a Christian in high school to up until I would say a couple years ago, his books, let's see, the reason for God, making sense of God, the freedom of self-forgetfulness. The freedom of self-forgetfulness was actually one inspiration for the book that I wrote a

couple years ago. You're not enough and that's okay. Every good endeavor, prodigal God, I could go on. I'm sure that there are other books. There are many other books that he's written that I've read that I just can't think of. Oh, the meaning of marriage was very instrumental for us. That's what we read. My husband and I read when we were engaged.

And so I am not some Tim Keller hater. I do think he's brilliant. I do think he is really wise that he has had incredible contributions to the faith. And just in my own thinking and my apologetics and my basic understanding of the Bible, I will still recommend to you the reason for God. meaning of marriage and every good endeavor. Those are probably the three that I would recommend most. I would still, but over the past couple years,

I've been really disappointed in what I see as not just incorrect opinions about politics. Yes, we can be free as Christians to disagree about some tertiary or even secondary things when it comes to how we see these cultural and political issues. But really, it seems to me, a lack of critical thinking from Tim Keller. when it comes to some of these issues like abortion and abortion policy. That's troubling to me because I know that he doesn't lack the capacity to think hard about things and to think thoroughly about things. And yet, this tweet that we're about to, or this tweet thread that we're about to get into

shows exactly that. Or worse, it shows that he has thought about it and he doesn't want to share his opinions publicly because he knows that conservatives will pounce on the fact that he's probably a progressive when it comes to things like abortion. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and

reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

All right. Let's talk about our friend Tim Keller. So he tweeted a few days ago, churches must not maintain unity at the expense of the gospel. Churches should not destroy unity or fellowship over. political differences. So I always find that vague tweets like this aren't particularly helpful because they leave the reader wondering, well, what are you talking about? What kind of political difference is? Let's define our terms, which we have learned, especially over the past few years, how important defining your terms is because as Christians or just as people in general, when one person uses the word equity, they could mean something totally different than what someone on the other side of the aisle means when they say equity or equality or justice or love or empathy. And so it's always really important to define our terms. And as Christians, we always ask a question, where are you getting

that definition from? Are you getting the definition of, for example, love from the Bible? Or are you getting the definition of love from the world? If your definition of love means unconditional tolerance of someone's identity, self, you know, self-stated identity or someone's sin, well, then that's not biblical love because God is love and he is also holy and intolerant of sin. So anything that God says is wrong, we from love would also say is wrong. And so as Christians, we not only define our terms. We use our critical thinking skills to do that to try to get on the same page as someone, but we also make sure that we are going to scripture to define the terms that we're using. So when Tim Keller says that we should not destroy unity or fellowship over political

differences, I tend to agree. But it depends on what you mean by political differences. If what you mean by political differences is that maybe we disagree on some welfare policy, we disagree on how exactly to fix the immigration issue in our country or what kind of, or whether or not bail reform is a good, a good change for so-called criminal justice or dealing with crime and incarceration. Yeah, those are some political differences that should not divide us as a church, even though I might think that you are completely wrong on all of those things. And we can have strong opinions on them.

We can try to change each other's mind. But at the end of the day, we don't have to leave the church over those things. The Bible does, I think, speak to those issues, but perhaps not explicitly and in a way that indicates someone's salvation, if that makes sense. However, if by political differences, you are talking about something like abortion, you're talking about something like, can a man change into a woman and become a woman and then be accepted by people as a woman? if you're talking about sexuality and the definition of marriage,

if that's what you mean by political differences, then yes, those things can and actually should divide a church. Why? Because for the Christian, those are not political differences. Those are theological differences. Deep foundational theological differences, they actually go all the way back to Genesis 1.

And if you believe, for example, that abortion is okay, that it's something, maybe you think of it as a necessary evil that you just have to keep legal, or maybe you think that it's something that's fine because the baby inside the womb is a potential human, as that side says, which is so unscientific and ridiculous. And you just think it's a matter of bodily autonomy, that a woman should be able to make that choice. Or if you believe that a man can become a woman or that gender fluid or non-binary is a real thing, thing or that a man should be able to, or that it's perfectly acceptable and not sinful at all for a man to be able to marry another man. Well, that goes back to what you actually think about

Genesis 1-1. That goes back to whether you think God created the heavens in the earth. If you believe that God created the heavens in the earth, which is most controversial statement in the entire Bible, then you also believe that God is the authority over the heavens and the earth. And you define things as he defines them. And God defines us as made in his image. That covers whether or not abortion is wrong. It is. We're made from conception in his image.

He defines us male and female. That covers the gender thing. And then he defines marriage. It's between one man and one woman. So it really all goes back to Genesis 1. Yes, those things have become political and cultural issues. But for the Christian, they're pre-political. They're pre-cultural.

They're pre-civilization. They are fundamentally theological and they are theologically fundamental. So if as a church you find yourself disagreeing on those things really what it means to be human and what it means to be made by God and what it means to submit to God's authority, then yes, that should divide the church. Now, Tim Keller then expounds upon it in a way that I think always comes across as very exasperated. So you see this a lot from, and I would classify Tim Keller in a lot.

lot of ways is woke. So I'm just going to say that. That you see this a lot from woke kind of social justice types. And by the way, they always claim to be politically neutral and they never actually are. They just think that their progressive perspective on things is not political. So he throws this vague thing out here. This is what you see from people like him. They throw a vague thing out there. And then they're so mad when the rubs don't understand and ask for clarity and ask to define terms as if you should just read Tim Keller's brilliant mind and know exactly what he's talking about. So he does this thread expounding upon this. He says, I recently wrote about how churches should not destroy unity or fellowship over political differences. The replies show that many American evangelicals have no coherent understanding of how to relate to the Bible and politics.

Here's the original tweet and then he quote tweets the tweet that I read to you. So you see, it's your fault. It's not that he sent out a vague tweet without any explanation at first of what the heck he was talking about, what political differences he was referring to. It's your fault. It's the evangelical Americans' fault that you don't have any understanding. So he says, here are two biblical moral norms. One, it is a sin to worship idols or any other, or any God other than the true God. True.

And two, do not murder. If you ask evangelicals, if we should be forbidden by law to worship, any other God than the God of the Bible, they'd say no. We allow that terrible sin to be legal, but if you ask them if Americans can be forbidden by law to abort a baby, they'd say yes. Now, why make the first sin legal and never talk about it? And the second sin illegal at a main moral, political talking point. At the very least, it shows a lack of knowing how to apply the Bible to politics. Since we can't simply say, if the Bible says it's sin, it should be illegal, how do we choose which morals to politically champion?

Please don't say, I just want to see the Ten Commandments made law and society that's too simplistic and we don't do this already. The Bible tells us that idolatry, abortion, and ignoring the poor are all grievous sins, but it doesn't tell us exactly how we are to apply these norms to a pluralistic society. We are to help the poor, but the Bible doesn't tell us which political strategy, high taxes and government services versus low taxes and private charity, to use. the Bible binds my conscience to love the immigrant, but it doesn't tell me how many legal immigrants to admit to the U.S. every year. I know abortion is a sin, but the Bible doesn't tell me the best

political policy to decrease or end abortion in this country, nor which political or legal policies are most effective to that end. The current political parties will say that their policy most aligns morally with the Bible, but we are allowed to debate that. And so our churches should not have disunity over debatable political differences. It is also why I've never publicly or, privately told Christians who they should vote for. I have also never told anyone they should vote for Democrat or Republican, depending on the policy. We can more or less find alignment with biblical morals. I believe all Christians should be active in politics, but it is unwise to identify Christianity with any particular party. Sigh. Sigh. Once again, the exasperation with you idiot plebeians.

People are focusing on the example, abortion is physical harm and not the principle. You can do the same object lesson about gay marriage why codify that moral in law and not others all right let me respond to a little bit of this it's a long it's a long thread and i think what we find is that he has actually thought about it but i still think that he is thinking about it wrongly i still think that this shows very superficial thinking about what a political difference is versus what a theological difference is, it also to me shows a misunderstanding of what the parties actually represent. Like, what is the stance that they actually represent? We do live in a pluralistic society. We have a First Amendment. So the state is not going to establish a religion. So that is why we do

not prohibit idolatry in this country. That is why we do allow people to worship whatever God they want to worship. We do, however, believe in outlawing murder because we do, we do allow people. we don't believe in anarchy. So of course, there was some thought by the founders when they enshrined our Bill of Rights into thinking what is going to be made illegal and what is not. When they said in the Declaration of Independence that we are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, what we see there in principle is that the most fundamental, the most basic responsibility of even the smallest and most limited government is to protect the taking of innocent life. And so it's not really hard to understand, okay, well, why don't we force people

to only worship the God of the Bible and not other gods, but then we, but we don't apply the same principle to murder because we don't live in a theocracy, but we also don't live an anarchy. And so because of that, we believe that the government has a responsibility to protecting the most vulnerable. Now, of course, we look forward to the day when every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord and that everyone will worship, that we all will worship the one true God. And so we do. We absolutely do look forward to that day. And that is the idea. But because we do live in a non-theocracy, because we do live in a pluralistic society, we do have to decide how we care for the most vulnerable while also allowing the freedom of religion. And so it's not really that complicated or that complex about why we should restrict murder the way that we should and why we don't ban idolatry.

It's really not that complicated. If you don't believe that the government should restrict murder, then you're not. You are pro-anarchy. Christians understand that not every sin is going to be forbidden by law. I don't think that's the argument that pro-lifers make. I think that some sins should, obviously, like murder, like theft, there are plenty of things that were sins first that are outlawed by law, and that's a good thing.

I happen to believe that murder, including murder, of a child inside the womb, should be outlawed. But we understand not every single sin that the Bible calls. calls sin is going to be outlawed by the state. And we are okay with that. The argument is not for pro-lifers that every single thing that the Bible calls sin is going to be or even should be a matter of state restriction. The argument is that this should. This should. Like abortion should be a matter of state protection and state restriction. The argument isn't that everything should. the argument is that this should because we are talking again about the most fundamental

and basic responsibility of the government, which is to protect the right of an innocent person not to be murdered. It's very simple. I'm going to get into what I think is his gross misunderstanding of the positions of the political parties on abortion in just one second. All right. So Tim Keller says that we should debate. We are debating between Republicans and Democrats how best to end abortion or how best to decrease abortion. He says that the Bible doesn't really talk about what is the policy to decrease or end abortion. First of all, the Bible actually does speak to, like if you're going to use that argument, the Bible actually does say the best policy for a murder, the best punishment for murder. Genesis 9-6 tells us this

before the creation of Israel, before civilization, before he gives the law to Israel, and that is the death penalty. So you can't say that the Bible doesn't speak to it. You could say that you don't believe that that applies to our society today because of kind of what we were talking about before, we don't live in a theocracy. You can make your argument for that. But you can't say the Bible doesn't speak to it. The Bible actually does speak exactly to the punishment that God sees fit for murder, and that is the death penalty. We've talked about this many times before. Genesis 9-6, because it precedes and transcends the creation of Israel in all civilization, it is a is still applicable even, well, I believe it's still applicable as a possible, as a just

punishment for murder, whether you live in Israel or not, because the reason that God gives for the death penalty, not just for suggesting it, for demanding the death penalty in the case of murder, is because we are made in his image. And we are still made in his image. He doesn't say that, you know, I demand the death penalty in this time and this place and this particular cultural moment. He says, I demand the death penalty for murder because, because man is made in my image. So because he values human life so much, because he loves us so much, because we are of incredible worth and value as people made in his image, the only punishment severe enough to make a payment for murder is the death penalty. That's what Genesis 9.9.

six tells us. And so, again, you can make your argument that that shouldn't apply here in America, that we don't have the right system for that, that you don't want that to apply for abortion here in the United States for whatever your reason is. But that's not what Tim Keller says. He says, the Bible doesn't speak to the particular policy of how we should deal with abortion. And that's not true. That's simply not true. And here's how I know that he doesn't understand the debate, really, about abortion and abortion policy in the United States. He says that, that's the we don't know what particular policy, like the Bible doesn't tell us the best political policy to decrease or end abortion in this country. See, this is an argument that I hear from the left a lot.

And again, this kind of shows his particular bias, whether he realizes it or not. That restricting abortion isn't going to decrease abortion. Restricting abortion is just going to make abortion more dangerous. People are still going, women are still going to be getting abortion at the same rate. They're just going to travel to a different state or they're going to try to do like some sort of self-managed abortion. And so don't restrict abortion. Just take care of women and provide them with all this free stuff. And then they won't get abortions and that will decrease abortion. And then as we've debunked many times before, they'll show these erroneous charts that are the perfect, perfect example of the correlation causation fallacy.

And they'll show, look, when Democrats are president, the abortion rate goes down. But as even the Goopmacher Institute will tell you, which is a pro-abortion research institute, there really is no causal relationship between who the president is, Republican or Democrat, and the abortion rate.

You have to look at the policies passed by state legislatures. For example, when Obama was president, you saw the abortion rate low. than when some other people were president, including Republican presidents. And people conclude, oh, because Obama was president, women were having fewer abortions because they had more resources. But that's not true. You know who dominated state legislatures who were in charge of abortion policy while

Obama was president? Republicans. Republicans passed more pro-life legislation when Obama was president during his eight years than in any other time in history. And Republicans dominated more state legislatures when Obama was president. president than I think any other time since FDR. And so if you want to try to say that there is a correlation between who is in power or causal relationship between who is in power and the abortion rate, then you would have to look at not who's president, but who is running the state legislatures.

Those are the people who are making the laws that actually impact abortion. So that chart has always been dumb. And it's never actually corresponded to any kind of good argument for Democrat policies. There's no evidence whatsoever. The Democrat policies are decreasing abortion. And yet you will continue to hear that from the left, that it should be about decreasing abortion. Look, that is one goal of the pro-life movement, of the anti-abortion movement. I'm fine with that too. Pro-life is kind of, that term has been bastardized to include too many things, have nothing to do with abortion. The point of the anti-abortion movement is not just to decrease abortion, although I think that that's a good goal. We are committed to loving and taking care of women and their children and families, fathers, and their children before, during, and after pregnancy.

Like, that is the majority of anti-abortion work. That whole your only pro-birth myth is just that. It is a myth. We dedicate so much of our time, our money, our energy into helping women after they give birth, making sure that they are well taken care of. And so we are all on board with decreasing abortions, decreasing the felt need. I don't believe that there's a need, but a felt need for abortion, decreasing that desperation, decreasing the loneliness and the destitution that might lead someone to have an abortion to changing people's hearts so that they don't think that they need to sacrifice their child

for something superficial like a career or for travel or for just like autonomy and independence. We are committed to all that. but that is not what changing the law is primarily about. Changing the law when it comes to abortion is recognizing the child's humanity, recognizing that that life inside the womb is a human being and therefore they are entitled to human rights. They're a human being and therefore they are entitled to human rights the most fundamental being the right to not be murdered. So changing the law is about recognizing

the child in the womb as a human and as someone who is entitled to the right to life. It is not just about, even if abortion did not decrease at all because of the change in the law, it would still be right to change the law. Because you recognize a child's right to life. Think about if we decided to not outlaw anything unless there was data proving that it decreased that thing. I mean, you could possibly live in anarchy because there's all different kinds of ways that you could use convoluted data to justify making something legal. The law is definitely a deterrent, I think, including in abortion, but say you couldn't make that argument at all. Say that there was no proof that outlawing murder of someone outside of the womb decreased the murder rate.

You can actually possibly prove that, especially right now. especially right now. But actually, no, you probably couldn't because I think the reason that murder rates are up is because of bail reform and criminal justice reform and the lack of applying the law and doling out just punishments. And so anyway, but if you could make the argument, if you could make the argument that outlying murder of people outside of the womb doesn't actually decrease the number of murders, is that the argument for not outlying it? Is that the argument for not putting people in jail? No, of course not, because that's not the only reason. Decreasing something is not the only reason that you make it illegal. You make it illegal because it's the right thing to do because it's not just about punishing the criminal.

It's not just about punishing the person who perpetrated the crime. It is about recognizing the legal right of the victim. The legal right of someone to not be murdered. The legal right of someone to not be stolen from. the legal right of someone not to be assaulted. That is also what the law is about. And Tim Keller, in all of his thoughtfulness, in all of his brilliance, doesn't seem to understand that.

He thinks we're having a debate about how to decrease abortion. That is not primarily the goal of the anti-abortion movement. And news flash Tim Keller. Here's the important part. No one on the Democratic side is talking about how to decrease abortion. Okay? This is not a debate in the United States between the right and the left. about how to decrease abortion. The debate is about whether or not abortion is evil.

The left does not believe that abortion is something that needs to be decreased. I'm sure there are some well-meaning people who professed to be Christians and Democrats who would admit in hushed tones that abortion is something that is bad, that we shouldn't celebrate at least. They might say, oh, no one is pro-abortion. Oh, yes, they are. Have you spent a little time on the inner webs, my friend. Have you spent any time on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter? There are thousands, if not millions of people who identify as Democrats, certainly who identify as people on the left who are pro-abortion. Shout your abortion an organization that was touted by Oprah that I wrote about in my book. They are absolutely committed to, quote,

destigmatizing abortion. And there is an indebted. entire movement, a large movement of people on the left. I mean, you can read in the New Yorker, which is a very mainstream left-wing outlet, an article titled, Abortion is a moral good. You will not get a Democrat to say or any kind of mainstream left-wing journalist. You will not be able to get them to say that we should decrease abortion. You will not be able to get them to say that abortion is not a good thing. They celebrate abortion. Abortion is a sacrament to the Democratic Party. You have to be. pro-abortion, basically without limits, in order to run and to win any statewide office as a Democrat today. There is no chance in heck that a Democrat would be able to run for senator, be able to run for president, certainly no nationwide office. You wouldn't be able to run for anything statewide or nationwide as a Democrat if you are anti-abortion in any way. even just personally anti-abortion, you wouldn't be able to do it. You have to be pro-choice, pro-abortion through all nine months of pregnancy in order to be an accepted Democrat.

Just a few years ago, the head of the DNC was saying there's no place for a pro-life Democrat in the party. That's who they are. Do you don't see the legislation that's coming out of Maryland, that's coming out of New Jersey, that's coming out of Colorado and California that is allowing the decriminalization of perinatal deaths of infants, perinatal is up to 28 days after birth. And they are taking away the criminalization of a baby's death at any point in that perinatal

period due to neglect. So we're talking about not just abortion, which I think is a form of infanticide, but a post-birth infanticide too. And Tim Keller, you think the debate is actually between whether whether Republican policies or Democrat policies decrease abortion, that is not the argument that's being had. That's not the debate. That's not the topic of discussion.

Tim Keller is the perfect example of someone who does not understand what time it is. Who does not understand the battle that is being waged, which I agree is not primarily between Republicans or Democrats, is not primarily between the right and the left. There are a lot of lost people on the right. There are a lot of immoral people on the rights. It is ultimately always for the Christian, no matter where you live, no matter what time in history that you're in between good and evil, darkness, and light. That is absolutely true. And I am not saying that that perfectly falls along left and right lines. I'm not because like I said, there's a lot

of darkness on the right too. But leftism is exclusively dark. Okay? They're exclusively dark. Everything that they promote personally and policy wise is wicked. Whether it's how they want to treat the poor through programs that say that they care for the least of these, but actually just chain people to government dependence, take away people's dignity by disincentivizing work, whether it is the catastrophic immigration policy that is actually incentivizing the deadly track of migrants to our border, and then they're infiltrating the United States in a way that harms both immigrants and citizens,

whether it's their pro-abortion policy, in which they believe that abortion should be allowed through nine months, should be subsidized, should be celebrated, should be destigmatized, whether it is the gender indoctrination and the body mutilation that they are promoting toward children. It doesn't matter what policy or what issue you look at when it comes to the left. it is marked by this wicked, this dark ideology of progressivism. That doesn't mean that everyone who is on the left is a bad person. I don't believe that.

I think that they're misled in a lot of ways. That doesn't mean that everyone on the left that their intentions are wrong, even though I think that they are wrong in general. It doesn't mean that they have a bad heart, although I do think that their heart is misleading them. I'm not trying to characterize everyone on the left as lost or bad, but the ideology that drives that side is destructive and deadly. That's the debate that we're having.

And that doesn't mean that everyone or everything or every issue or every perspective on the right is right and full of light. I'm seeing that there's more of a chance, though, and there's more of an alignment there when it comes to conservative policies and conservative ideas about immigration, about abortion, about how to actually help the poor and allow them the dignity that comes through work that we see reflected in scripture. Yeah, I think that there is more of an alignment there absolutely between what the Bible does say about human beings and human rights and righteous and just policy and conservatism. Of course I believe that. I wouldn't believe the things that I do about politics if I didn't believe that. I don't see any alignment on the left.

I just don't. and apparently Tim Keller simply doesn't see leftism and the current the current agenda and platform of the Democratic Party does not see it for what it is, especially when it comes to abortion. Just to reiterate, it is not a debate between the left and the right about how to decrease abortion. It is a debate over whether or not abortion is even wrong. Most people on the right would say, yeah, it is. Christians on the right especially would say, yeah, we need to do away with it. Democrats would say it's not even wrong or they would at least say maybe the most like tepid Democrat would say, well, it's at least necessary. It's just necessary. It's just something that we have to do. And at the end of the day, they would probably admit that they just think that it's a matter of bodily autonomy. That's the debate that we're having. It's not about right and left. It's about right and wrong. That's what it is. And Tim Keller is too scared to admit that. He's too scared to say that because at the end of the day, I think Tim Keller is a progressive and he's not going to give any points to the conservative side about that. That's the issue.

Now, I agree with Mr. Keller that God is not Republican or Democrat. He's not. He transcends America. He transcends our politics. He transcends our partisanship. I'm very thankful that God is not in the Republican Party, that he is not our political mascot, unlike people on the left who tried to paint Jesus as some kind of transgender, queer, communist, feminist, Palestinian.

and BLM freedom fighter. I don't believe that Jesus is any kind of political mascot. He's not. He transcends all of that. He is king of kings. I simply believe that that reality that he is king of kings should shape how we think of policy. It should shape our worldview.

I don't believe our worldview should be fragmented. I believe that Christianity is going to inform what I think about justice and what I think about policies. And I believe that scripture is going to ensure. should inform what the Christian thinks about this. And for anyone who says separation of church and state, that's not what separation of church and state means. Separation of church and state is not the same thing as separation of worldview and how one sees policy or the separation of God and law. Separation of church and state simply means that the state should not be interfering in the

church's affairs and the church and the state also can't establish any kind of church religion or any kind of state religion rather. And so people think that separation of church and state means that Christians and only Christians should have to check our worldview at the door and that we can't bring it into the public square, even though progressives, with their pseudo-religion of progressivism, they get to allow their worldview to color and influence everything they think about policy. Apparently, Christians are the only ones who are not allowed to, and I just call just junk on that. That's bad argument. Everyone has a worldview. Everyone is informed by their worldview Christians included. And we should because, by the way, the God that Christian served

created justice. And his definition of justice did lay the foundation for the basic principles of the Bill of Rights. And so it is good that we allow our worldview to influence what we think about the law and what we think about these so-called political and cultural issues, especially the ones that are pre-political and are actually theological, such as abortion. So Tim Keller, he goes on, he goes on to double and triple down. He says healthy disagreement, not about biblical morals, but about how these morals are applied to political policies is good, but not something to divide over. No matter how much we yell at each other, Christians can disagree about political

applications of biblical morals, not the same. Okay. So I agree that if you, my sister in Christ, you believe in. I don't know. Some kind of disagreement over, I'm trying to even think like what that agreement would actually look like. Maybe if there's a disagreement in incrementalism versus abolishing abortion altogether. For example, some pro-lifers, they're okay with the restrictions. So like, okay, there's a 20-week restriction. That's good. There's a 15-week restriction. That's good. Let's keep pushing a deck. There's a six-week restriction. That's good. Okay, let's go all the way back to

zero week restriction. And so they believe that incrementally, a state could get more pro-life. And so some pro-life advocates are for that. And then you've got the abolish abortion side, which says no incrementalism whatsoever, the only just law, the only kind of law worth celebrating would be abolishing abortion from the point of conception. And so there could be some disagreement there, definitely, between Christians about, you know, what should be. celebrated and what should be advocated for or at least what is worth our praise that at least more babies are going to be saved even through incrementalism. But I do not think believers can in good faith disagree about whether or not abortion is wrong and whether or not it should be legal,

period. I just don't. If you are a Christian and you don't believe that the law should restrict murder, then I have to wonder if you believe that human beings are made in the image of God. What do you believe about babies inside the womb? Why do you think that murder should be restricted of people outside of the womb and not babies inside of the womb? Like, what do you see in scripture that supports that kind of separation of dignity, that people inside the womb have less dignity? Why?

Because they're smaller, because they're more dependent, because of the location. They're inside a woman's womb. Like, why do you think the baby in the womb is worth less than the person outside of the womb and therefore it should be okay to murder them legally, but it shouldn't be okay to murder the person outside of the womb. I'm not really sure that we can disagree on that and find unity. That doesn't mean that that person's not a Christian necessarily because we have all believed wrong things. I think at some point in our Christian faith, sanctification doesn't happen overnight. I think it takes time. It takes wisdom. It takes correction. It takes admonition. It takes rebuking.

There are plenty of things I believed when I started out as a Christian that are just not true. theological, politically, culturally, and it just took time and the wisdom of other people and reading and thinking to come to what I think are biblical conclusions. There are plenty of things now that I probably think that I don't realize are erroneous, that I will grow and read and learn over time, and I will change my mind on those things, hopefully, to conform closer to what scripture says. So that doesn't mean that someone isn't a Christian, but I don't think I can maintain unity if I were in a church and half of the church believed that abortion should be legal. and abortion should be okay and my pastor was split on that, I do not believe that I should stay at that church.

Because again, we disagree on Genesis 1. And if we as a church disagree on Genesis 1 and a pastor isn't able to say so clearly what Genesis 1 means and the implications of that, yes, even policy-wise, then I'm not so sure you're being shepherded well. I believe that you have a divided flock that is actually being led in chaos. And God is not a God of confusion. He is a God of peace. and I think that a pastor should reflect that piece and that clarity. There are some secondary tertiary issues that I think we will disagree on as Christians. I mentioned some of those earlier and that we can maintain a lot of unity when it comes to those things, even if we duke it out.

That's okay. Like I think it's good to argue and still maintain unity. But on some things, on those Genesis 1 things, I don't think that we can agree. We're going to have to, we're going to have some disunity as a church if we disagree on those very, very fundamental. things. This, of course, is not the first time that Tim Keller has said some of the things that he has. He's talked about Christians in the freedom of conscience and politics back in 2020. And so he's kind of been big on this, even as he has supported the idea of left-wing racial and social

justice. He's written about these things before. I think he would probably consider himself a moderate. And, you know, I've heard him say something to this effect, and I've also heard, you know, people like the and campaign say as Christians, we really should have some positions that are left and some positions that are right. We should have some positions that are more in alignment with the Democratic Party and some positions that are more in alignment with the Republican Party. We shouldn't be partisan. No, I think that the Christian, if we look at the Bible and we apply the Bible, we are going to be far more conservative, at least on the what are considered the culture war issues than most Republicans. It's not being nonpartisan as a Christian doesn't mean that you're in the

middle. It doesn't mean that you're liberal on some things. It is going to put you in a place where you are far more conservative than the average Republican today. That means because you're going to be very clear on what marriage is. You're going to be very clear on what gender is. And look, we've got the biggest conservative network Fox News that just hired someone who now goes by the name of Caitlin Jenner. And so as a Christian, you're going to be a lot more conservative than Fox News on these fundamental issues. You're going to be a lot more conservative when it comes to abortion. You're going to be a lot more conservative when it comes to marriage. Yes, even if we do this degree in some ways, in some ways on how this looks politically

when it comes to what we believe we're going to be far more conservative than either policy. We're probably going to be far more conservative when it comes to even welfare policy because unlike a lot of people in the most people, if not all, in the Democratic Party and unlike, unfortunately, even a lot of people in the Republican Party, or some people in the Republican Party, we believe that work is absolutely necessary to human dignity, that you must have it, that you must incentivize it, that it is absolutely ungodly to create a society in which people are dependent on the government rather than on themselves and their own families and own communities for a provision. And so being a Christian and being nonpartisan as a Christian, which I do think

is important in a lot of ways is not going to put you in the middle. It's not. There's going to be very few things that you agree with the Democratic Party on. I'm not saying nothing, but there's going to be very few things if you apply scripture to how you think about culture and politics. There are plenty, however, of Christians who disagree with this. Jackie Hill Perry also sent kind of a vague tweet over the weekends that people were talking about. And this is something that kind of happens a lot. She tweeted in response to, she tweeted in response to President Biden and his, one of the comments that he made at the White House correspondence dinner, which is just a ridiculous affair where people who are unnecessarily self-importance come together to feel even more

important and to pat each other on the back for I'm not really sure what I don't know supporting their regime without any kind of criticism whatsoever that's typically what happens um there were some good zingers I actually thought Trevor Noah he had some good zingers he kind of picked it both sides which I think of all politicians or if all reporters and all comedians did that more picked at both sides I think we actually be a lot healthier as country. So President Biden said, if you're at home watching this and are wondering how to get vaccinated, just contact your favorite Fox News reporter. They're all here vaccinated and boosted, you know, basically saying that Fox News is hypocritical for being saying, I guess, I guess he's saying that

they say that they're against the vaccine, but they're all vaccinated themselves, which is not true. I know that not all Fox News employees are vaccinated. Tucker Carlson has said that he is not vaccinated, even though the media has tried to say that he is vaccinated. And so Joe Biden is kind of picking on them, which whatever, good for Joe Biden for being able to finish a complete paragraph without forgetting where he was. Jackie Holt Perry quote tweeted that and said, the shade of it all laughing face, crying face, crying face. And I think at this point, people are used to her kind of showing in vague ways, which side politically that she's on. I'm not saying that this was some kind of awful tragic tweet that she sent. You're absolutely allowed to laugh at things.

But I think people have noticed how slanted these kinds of reactions are when it comes from her. And then she will say that she's not political, that she's apolitical, that both sides are bad. She did the same thing about Katanji Brown Jackson when she commented on a picture of her daughter looking at Katanji Brown Jackson and said, mood. And then she got mad at all of these so-called white evangelicals in her DMs who were pointing out the Katanji Brown. Angie Brown Jackson has a really terrible, terrible record, especially from the Christian perspective. And she, of course, offended herself and said, you know, it didn't have anything to do with politics. It just had to do with this cool picture of a mother and daughter, which I don't really believe that. I thought it was a cute picture, too.

But if I am going to infer some kind of support for someone, I'm going to make sure that they don't have a background that is absolutely reprehensible, especially from my Christian perspective. And so this has kind of been typical for the past few years from Jack Hill Perry. She's been very critical of Donald Trump. She, of course, is all on board, at least from what I can see and from what I have heard with progressivism when it comes to the subjects of social and racial justice. Those are the narratives that she is going to perpetuate. She has also criticized the right for saying that they are pro-life, but not acting in other

kinds of what she would consider pro-life ways, you know, recognizing what she might call something like black dignity. I obviously have a ton of disagreements there. Unfortunately, people send me these screenshots. I can't follow myself because even though I've never had any kind of interaction with Jackie Hill Perry, except for the one time that I asked her to come on my show, she blocked me on all social media, which is just kind of sad. I do think that she has a lot of wonderful things to say. I really appreciate her testimony, but it's the same kind of deal. You see this so much from progressives. Let me put this like vague tweet out there, leave people guessing.

Then when people criticize me for it, I'll call them bullies and say that it's really their problem for not understanding exactly what I was saying. So I would say just be discerning there. Be discerning with all people, of course, including me. But also don't be afraid to ask people to like, what do you mean? What do you mean? Can you define that term? let me tell let me hear what shapes your perspective what are you actually trying to say with this

particular statement or this particular tweet i think that's important especially when it comes to the people who say that they're apolitical but clearly are leaning progressive that's important to me all right so i just want to react to one more one more piece of um woke christian commentary that i thought was not surprising at this point because it's coming from Jen Hatmaker. And I think Jen Hatmaker is in a completely different category than Tim Keller or even Jackie Ho Perry. I totally different category in my opinion, someone who continually in all different ways just spouts nonsense, including about gender and sexuality. And so she had an interesting clip with some kind of, I don't know, author or something on her show that I want to play you

a little bit of. Obviously, I don't need everyone to go on a 400-mile walkie pilgrimage to the Black Madonna's, but I need people to go on a journey for themselves to find their own sacredness that we can all start to actually treat each other as if we're sacred. That's beautiful. Yeah. Right. The tendrils of that effect would change everything. It would change everything. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And if we had a world where like all women and all black people were truly sacred, right. That would dismantle literally every system that harm that. That's right. That would mean the whole earth would flourish. Oh. Yes. So it always feels so self-defeating that patriarchy and racism and all the isms are so, stubborn and want because it would truly be the liberation of earth if everybody was valued as

divine it would it would it'd be the liberation of the whole earth even the men even the white men like it would be for their flourishing too and so it okay all right um so this is a form of well it's a form of liberation theology that comes all the way from james cone and even before that Now, James Cohn is someone who is cited very often, even by people who consider themselves, conservative even evangelicals, who himself was not a Christian. Even though he claimed to be a Christian, how do I know that? It's not just because I disagreed at some points in his theology. But he actually said that he accepted any religion as legitimate who believes in liberation.

So that included Islam. He was, if anything, he was a universalist. He didn't believe in the exclusivity of Christianity. He didn't believe that Jesus was the way, the truth in the life. He believed in Christianity as a vehicle for liberation from political and earthly oppression only. He was not really interested in like the salvation and the regeneration of someone's heart. And that is why he would accept, you know, Malcolm X's faith or any other kind of racial activist faith as long as he agreed with them politically about the so-called liberation of black people. and it always had to do with the growth of the government to accomplish their purposes.

And so that's part of what they're talking about here. Part of also what they're talking about is some kind of new age self-goddess stuff in where you see everyone as divine. That's different than made in the image of God. We are not all divine. We are not all gods. We are not all little G gods or big G-gods. There is one God.

We are made in his image and we have that spark. in that reflection, which does give us amazing value far beyond any plant or animal or any other organism on earth. However, we are not divine. We are not divine. That is different because we are not worthy of worship ourselves. We are not worthy of adoration ourselves. And that is a very typical new age idea that if we all just worshipped ourselves and each other as a part of the divine, whatever, again, defining our terms, what does that even mean? Then we would all be liberated from the so-called systems that are apparently all weighing us down. What does that mean?

Now, maybe you go listen to that episode with Jen Hatmaker. You go watch it and you say, you know what? The context made this so much better. And now I understand what she's saying. You should. You should go listen. We didn't have time to play the whole thing. You should go listen to it or watch it if you want to.

But what does this even mean? This kind of theology is so intangible and is so, I don't even want to say academic because that almost has like positive connotations, but is so ethereal and beyond the reach or the comprehension of like any kind of common sense or any kind of basic understanding that human beings have. And that is why it is perpetuated because if you continue, to say that what I believe or really what's going to liberate the world and what is going to heal us of all this earthly oppression is so beyond reach that you really need me. You really need me, this expert, this very smart person, this person that has special access to this liberating knowledge in order to attain it. Well, then that person stays in a position of power. That person continues to get money. You continues to get attention.

You continue to get people to need you because you have access to this. special power of the divine that is going to liberate the earth. Those people don't really want to relieve the earth of any kind of oppression because then they would be out of the job. I mean, that's true of race hustlers and all of this. They'd be out of a job if oppression was actually relieved. And of course, we know that they don't actually care about real oppression because the only true reliever of oppression is the gospel is through the changing of hearts, which does, yes, affect our politics, but it's not primarily political. It is theological.

And that's kind of, I guess, the theme of this episode. It's just a bad understanding of how the Bible applies to politics in a bunch of different ways. All right. I hope you enjoyed all that. We will be back here tomorrow with more. Hey, this is Steve Daste. 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 the Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.