Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 72 | Politics, Culture, and the Gospel

Episode Date: January 29, 2019

Is the only way to engage culture and participate in politics to be a "social justice warrior?" Hardly. We dive into what it means to be compelled by the gospel to seek biblical justice and truth. Copyright Blaze Media All Rights Reserved.  

Hello, relatable listeners. How are you? I hope that everyone had a great weekend. Today is a really big day for me because I have been working towards this for a really long time and I've finally gotten there almost. I'm really, really close, but I basically am. Today is the day that I'm able to put my hair all the way up without any pieces falling down in the back. This has been a really long time coming. I have been working. I have been working. working hard towards this. The prenatal vitamins have helped, no doubt. But I even got an haircut in like eight months because I miss so much being able to put my hair on top of my head. And today, if you are watching this anywhere, you see that that is happening. And so I just wanted to take a moment to, I don't know, appreciate it. Because as you know, as like a trash person, I don't brush my hair very often. I certainly don't wash my hair every day. And so the ability to put my hair all the way up without any pieces falling down in the back, it's a really big deal for my trash personess. You know what I'm saying? So I just wanted to congratulate myself on that,

and I know that you all want to congratulate me too, so I just wanted to give you that opportunity. Now, surprise, that's not what we're actually talking about for the entirety of the podcast. We are going to talk about something much more important in my estimation. We're going to start by giving an update on what's happening with the government shut down, kind of where Trump is and all of that. And we're going to use that to transition into what you probably notice from the title of this podcast is about the gospel and how the gospel compels us to be involved in culture, involved in politics, what that looks like and what that doesn't. According to the Bible, I'm going to clear up a question that I had on my podcast about abortion

that had to do with this subject that I thought was a great question. I'm going to kind of use it as an impetus to talk about that particular subject. So let us start with Trump. And the government shut down that has now ended. Trump reopened the government if you didn't hear about that. Temporarily, he says, it could shut down again February 15th. He opened it to have negotiations with Democrats, supposedly, on border security. and he said, you know, this is going to give an opportunity for Democrats to prove whether or not they were

serious when they said they cared about border security and wanted to have a discussion about it as soon as he opened to the government. So we're hoping that that happens. Of course, what we've seen over the past few weeks is that the Democrats really, really, really do not want to give Trump a political victory. And a lot of people are saying that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have won on this, that because Trump reopened the government, because he didn't secure any funding for the border wall, that he has lost, that Nancy Pelosi just walked all over him. So the good part of this, if you want to see any good part of this, the government workers are getting paid now. We're talking about the Coast Guard, TSA, air traffic controllers. They're getting paid. That includes my brother-in-law, a father of five trying to buy a new home so his kids can go to a different school.

school. He is now getting paid going back to work. That's a great thing. I think all of them are crossing their fingers. The Democrats and Republicans are finally able or going to be able to come together and to think of some kind of deal so that the government stays open so that they can get paid. The bad part of this, of course, is that this is, like I said, a political victory for Democrats at least temporarily. I mean, Trump made the mistake in the beginning of saying he is going to own the shutdown. He said, I don't care. You know, you can call it a Trump shutdown. Well, that's exactly what Democrats have done in a unified voice for the last few weeks. They have said this is a Trump shutdown. Trump owns this. And Trump's numbers have not looked very good in reflection of that. Of course,

even if he hadn't said that in the very beginning, hey, I'm going to own this shutdown, he probably would have been blamed anyway, number one, because his approval ratings are just historically not very high, but also because he's the president of the United States. He's the commander-in-chief. He's the head honcho. So people are going to blame him for that in general. So it could also, though, it could also, as Trump said, show that the Democrats have been lying about wanting to negotiate border security. And as we have heard so many times, they believe that the wall is immoral. They've said, you know, we will grant you your $5 billion, but we're not going to pay for any kind of new obstruction. We're not going to pay for a wall. Their reasoning is because

this is, Nancy Pelosi says, this is unchristian-like, this is unbiblical, this is immoral. We'll just put aside for a second that she also believes in the slaughtering of human beings inside the womb and focus on the fact that this is sheer hypocrisy. Almost all Democrats supported the Secure Fence Act in 2006, which was the building of obstructions on the border. We've discussed that. But also the reasoning that they don't want to support a wall is really twofold. That has nothing to do with. morality whatsoever. They hate Trump and they cannot let him score a political victory. That's number one. Number two, the Democratic Party has genuinely, aside from Trump, move to the left. They have

a radical left base now made up mostly probably of millennials and they have to appeal to them. So those are the real reasons. They probably don't have to do, at least in Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer's part, don't have to do with the wall actually being immoral because it's not. That doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever. Why is a wall immoral, but other kinds of border security not immoral? And they say that there are four other forms of border security. So that just doesn't make any sense. A wall is not immoral. It is an expression of sovereignty. It disincentivizes cartels, drug traffickers from trafficking not only drugs, but also children across the border. The border is extremely dangerous because people are incentivized to cross illegally. In certain parts,

it's very easy to cross illegally. So a wall is not immoral. It encourages people to come in the right way, to file for asylum the right way, to apply for citizenship the right way, which is exactly what we want, which is why a wall or border security or immigration policies are not racist. They are wise and prudent. Now, you can argue that maybe a wall isn't the most effective thing in the world. Maybe it's not the best use of our money. Some people could argue that. That is a discussion to have. That's perfectly fine. But those are not the points of contention that we are hearing from the left, that we're hearing from Democrats. We're hearing that it's immoral. But they won't actually say why.

They just say, Statue of Liberty. We welcome everyone. That's not who we are. It's not who we are to maintain our sovereignty, to protect our borders. It's not who we are to maintain the integrity of our immigration system. Wow, that's interesting. I had no idea. We were just this kind of blob out here in the ocean that just let everyone in no matter what.

That's really interesting. That's a new fact about the United States of America that I didn't know. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the Trump base is mad about this. Anne Coulter actually called Trump a wimp on Twitter. We have seen her kind of go back and forth. I mean, she was a huge Trump fan. She wrote the book, In Trump We Trust, like huge Trump fans. She was the one who called that Trump was going to win a long time ago in the primaries.

Everyone laughed at her. Huge Trump supporter. But immigration is her issue. And Trump hasn't delivered the way. that she has wanted him to. And so called him a wimp. On Bill Maher, she said that he broke his promises. You got to give her something, whether you like in Colter or not, you got to give her something for sticking to her guns. I mean, there's a lot of people that are just going to stay true to Trump, no matter where he lands on a particular issue. I mean, she's got her issue and she is sticking

with it. At least she has principles. And she's saying, you know, these are my principles. I am going to stick by them. I don't care what the president does or says. I will criticize. him based on my principles, not the other way around. And whether you agree with her or not on what her principles are, you kind of have to admire that. Lou Dobbs on Fox Business, also a big Trump fan. He slammed Trump for losing this deal. A lot of people, though, on the Trump side, are still holding out saying that he is going

to deliver on his promises. This is just part of the overall strategy. But either way, and here's how we're going to kind of transition, either way, whether you are happy with what Trump has done, whether you're not, what this shutdown should remind us this terrible, horrible deal of a shutdown, which was just stupid in so many ways. It was really political power play, not about the people of the United States at all. What we should learn from this shutdown is that your hope should never be in a politician. It should never be in a party. It should never be in a president or any person because they will disappoint you.

They will disappoint you. Now, I voted for Trump. Okay. So for all the people out there who are going to say I'm a never-chumper, because I get that a lot, that I'm a never-trumper. I voted for Donald Trump, okay? I think he was the better alternative to Hillary Clinton, even though, yes, he has significant flaws. I have addressed the whole immorality factor that is really big with Donald Trump in a previous episode. I think it was maybe episode number two and kind of worked through that.

It worked through the nuances of that. I don't think as Christians we should justify that and write off what he's done wrong. I also don't think that we can expect any president to be our savior or be perfect. So it's a matter of discernment where we kind of draw the line for each president or who we're going to vote for, each candidate on what is too far in the immorality lane. But I thought at the time that he was a better alternative to Hillary. And I do think the country is in a better place, economically and in other ways with Donald Trump as president than Hillary Clinton is president. It was time for a change. Barack Obama polarized the country,

the most progressive president that we have ever had. But all of that said, all of that said, even though I think that Trump was the best option to vote for in 2016, in my opinion, I still believe that it is okay. It is okay to criticize him. And I really don't understand. I just personally cannot wrap my mind around this idea that I am not allowed to criticize President Trump without being a sellout, without being not a true conservative or not a true Republican. Like, you can just leave with that. I don't care. I really don't care. And you shouldn't either, whether you like President Trump or don't like President Trump.

I truly think that's an issue that a genuine Christians can debate on and disagree on. I really don't care whether you call me a neocon, whether you call me a never-trumper, or some ignorant people on the left calling me, you know, a Trump shill. I really don't care because here's the beautiful reality for all of us. For all of us, the beautiful thing about being a Christian is that you don't have to pick political teams because we are on a team that transcends all other teams. And that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about how our faith motivates us in our policy decisions, in our politics,

but our faith should not be our politics. Our politics should not be our faith and how we can view our political views, our political leanings through the lens of the Christian faith, through the lens of the gospel. So the question that I got was about my podcast from last week when I said abortion is not a social issue. It's not a political position. It is a gospel mission.

So I got this very thoughtful message that said, okay, you know, I'm going to just paraphrase. Is it really okay to say that abortion is a gospel issue because we're going to, you know, we don't like, which I agree with her, we don't like when people say racial reconciliation or racial reparations or social justice is a gospel issue. So what's the difference? Why is it not okay to say racial reparations or social justice is a gospel issue? But it is okay to say abortion is a gospel issue. So I want to clarify first that I said gospel mission, which is a little bit different. But even if I had said gospel issue, I agree that it is a gospel issue. But here's what I mean by that is that, yes, abortion is a gospel issue in that the gospel is what motivates us to end the injustice and the human rights

atrocity of abortion. But what I do not mean by that is that it is a salvation issue in that if you disagree with me on abortion or you disagree with me on another on another subject that you are not saved that you are going to hell and i am not now again we can talk about that like well can you really misinterpret this part of the bible and really understand salvation whatever the point is that the gospel which is that christ uh christ was crucified for your sins and for mine it was sufficient and efficient it was sufficient for the entire world efficient for those that were chosen, those that believe in Christ, not everyone will. He rose again, defeated sin and death, and he is coming back to establish a new heaven and a new earth in

which you and I, Christians, believers, will reign forever and ever with him. Amen. Now, you noticed in there that this did not say, by the way, you have to agree with Allie on abortion. You have to agree with Ali on other policy issues or whatever it is. Like I said, it's not a policy issue. It is a spiritual issue, but there are policy implications to it. So that I am not saying that you have to agree with me on every part of abortion or every part of any other position I take in order to be saved. I certainly am not the arbiter of that. And that is not what the Bible says that the gospel is. What I mean by abortion as a gospel mission is that the love of Christ, the gospel of Christ, the good news of Jesus compels us to end something like abortion in which the vulnerable, in which the marginalized, in which the oppressed are exploited.

are dehumanized and that offends the Amago Day. It offends the image of God. And we are meant to protect that. We are meant to preserve that. We are meant to perpetuate that as much as possible. Christians have always used the gospel to do good. Think about Wilberforce in eradicating the slave trade. There is a reason why it was Christians who started most of higher education.

It was a reason why most hospitals started as Christian. hospitals, Christians have always been in the business of meeting people's needs, whether that's education needs, whether that's health care needs, whether that's whether you are in poverty, whether that is writing the wrong, systemic wrongs, injustice. So when I, when I contend with this idea of racial reconciliation that's kind of going, this movement that's been going on in the church in Neo-Calvinism for a little bit now, and I do consider myself a Calvinist, but in this kind of, you know, young, restless reformed movement recently in the past few years of racial reconciliation. What I have a problem with is not that racism isn't a gospel issue. It is because

racism is a sin. So poverty is a gospel issue in a way, in the sense that we are compelled to help the poor. We are compelled to heal racial discord. We are compelled to heal all discord, all disunity, because the love of Christ, the gospel of Christ compels us. What I have a hard time with, with the current strand of racial reconciliation in the church is not that we're saying that racism is a sin and that the gospel compels us to reconcile with our African-American friends, with our friends of other colors. That is true. That is true.

My problem, and I know I've said this about 700 times with a million caveats, My problem is that current strand of racial reconciliation separates itself from the gospel. That's what I fear. That we are not using the gospel to motivate us to just serve and love our brothers and sisters of other cultures, other colors, whatever it is, but that we are latching on to the secular social justice movement as a solution to our racial disunity. So we are saying yes to financial reparations, for example, financial reparations, meaning that, you know, white people need to pay in some form for the suffering of black people who are, whose ancestors were either affected by Jim Crow, we're affected by segregation, we're affected by some form of oppression, we're affected by slavery, that white people today actually need to make up for that, that we need to feel guilty for that, that we need to feel, some kind of responsibility, that the church has started to talk about white privilege and white guilt, all of these secular social justice things that really are incongruent with the

gospel. And so we're seeing this kind of weird hybrid between social justice and Christianity, where you hear teachers, Christian teachers saying that social justice is a gospel issue. Well, no, it's not because social justice is secular. Social justice has secular answers for a spiritual problem. And so we as believers do not need to latch on to a secular movement that has components of it that are incongruent with the gospel. For example, again, racial reparations. Reparations are not biblical. That white people, should be demanded to pay, compensate financially for the sins of our ancestors. White guilt is not biblical, that I need to feel guilty for the sins of an entire group

because we have the same skin color. That's not the gospel. That's not redemption. That's not forgiveness. And so, yes, I do believe that the gospel compels us to fight against individual instances of racism and discrimination, but also if they do exist on a systemic level in the same way that abortion does or other injustices, yes, I do believe that we should fight against that. But here's where I think that we need to be careful. We need to be careful of the solutions that we are prescribing for this. And this is why I don't believe that Christians should be playing around with the whole social justice thing. You might think it's just semantics.

I don't think it's semantics at all. I truly think social justice is something completely different than biblical justice, completely different than actual justice because it defines people by their oppression, by their victimhood. And it is collectivist. It guilts people who have nothing to do with the injustice whatsoever. But here, let me lay this out. The reason why I do think that Christians really should be doing the good work of justice

and doing the good work of helping the oppress and the poor, but I don't believe we should be talking about social justice is because, number one, social justice is collectivist and arbitrary. So it blames, like I said, entire groups for sins of a few or the sins of their ancestors. There is nothing in the Bible about that, that I should have to pay for the sins of my great, great, great grandparents who might have owned slaves. And plus, the facts just don't back that up, that the oppression all the way from slavery to today is connected. So, I don't believe that Christian should be latching on to social justice because it is collectivist and arbitrary. There are arbitrary standards of who is oppressed and who is not just based on their skin color.

There are white people who are oppressed. There are black people who are oppressed. So this whole collectivist idea of white people are privileged and black people are not is stupid. Number two, or I can think the other way around. I think I meant to say the other way around for that one. Number two, because it involves big governments. and what we see throughout history and throughout the world is that as the government expands, it's people suffer.

And so another reason why I don't believe the Christians should be latching on to this social justice movement, even while we do good work ourselves, is because the social justice movement of today prescribes big government solutions that are not in the best interests of Christians or of individuals. I mean, you can look in China, you can even look in the UK, you can look at Venezuela, you can look at North Korea, you can look at other big governments, where the government is allowed to expand unfettered, human dignity is denigrated. Human beings are not cared for. Venezuela is a great example of Maduro who came in and continued the legacy of promising

people, health care, promising people that they were going to be taking care of, promising them that the government was going to do everything for them. And what did he do? He was completely corrupt. And now they're bankrupt. Now people are starving. People have lost on average 19 pounds. infant mortality is up. It's horrible in Venezuela. It's terrible in Venezuela. And a lot of people will tell you, well, that's just a unique situation, has nothing to do with socialism, has nothing to do with big government. Yes, of course it does. Because power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is the nature of power. It's always been the nature of power throughout history. Big government has never traditionally helped people the way that the free market has, the way that churches have when they are allowed to do so. So if you look throughout history,

the countries that have been freest are the countries also where Christianity thrives. Now, that's not to say that the church can't thrive in a place like China. It does. And you could even argue that it's that perhaps the faith of those people are more genuine and are more effective because they are persecuted, because they are pushed to the margins of society. You could definitely argue that. But there is a reason, there's a reason why America is by far. By far, by far the number one country for adoption.

There's a reason why America is by far the number one country for sending missionaries, by far the leader in planning churches here and abroad. We are also the number one in medicine and education. That is not a coincidence. There is a reason why while freedom has thrived here, Christians have thrived here too. And we are the only safe haven for Christian leaders being able to speak out without fear of punishments. We're really the last place going to be the last place. So it is in Christians' best interest to protect the freedom of our country, which means small government. When has big

government ever helped Christianity? Ever? Now, again, that's not to say that the government or that the gospel, I mean, can't spread like wildfire when we are being persecuted, when we are being oppressed, when the government expands. Of course it can't because the power of God can do anything. But shouldn't we be fighting for a place in which Christians can continue to plant churches when we continue to speak freely of the gospel? Shouldn't we be fighting for that? And so fighting for social justice, which more often than not, I would say 99% of the time is fighting for big government policies, it's incongruent with what Christians should actually

want. And then number three, the other reason is because social justice today is attached to non-bibilies. biblical issues. So abortion, feminism, gender fluidity, egalitarianism, LGBTQ, the elimination of Israel, all attached to intersectionality that, like I said, defines people by their victimhood. That's the third reason why we should not be associating with the secular social justice movement. And I've seen Christians try to do this. I've seen teachers try to do this to try to co-op the social justice movement for Christianity. Why? Why? This is what Christians, the good work that Christians are doing of trying to compel people to love and to give and to serve and to be kind to those around them, to eradicate injustice, churches, Christians have been doing that for millennia.

Why attach ourselves to a secular social justice movement that in so many ways is incongruent? to what the Bible says. So back to the original question. When I say that something is a gospel issue, when something is a gospel mission, what I mean by that is that the gospel compels us to do that thing, the gospel compels us to write wrongs, the gospel compels us to seek justice, love, mercy, and walk humbly with God. It does not mean that if we disagree, on the means by which we should be accomplishing those things that one of us is going to hell. That is not what I'm saying. Far be it from me to preach anything except for Christ crucified.

So that is not what I'm saying. But I do think that it's an important point of clarification. And this is something that I have talked about a lot, the difference between social justice and biblical justice. And there is no need. There's no need for us to get those confused. As I've said many times, the gospel is. enough. I heard a pastor say recently kind of mock that, say, well, yes, of course the gospel is enough,

but it has imperatives too. And I agree with that. He was talking about racial harmony. I agree with that. I agree that there are imperatives to the gospel, that we don't just go preach to the gospel to the poor, that we also put clothes on their back, that we also feed them, that we also give them water. We don't just preach the gospel to women in crisis. We also help them with the adoption process. We also give them free sonograms. And so I agree that there are imperatives with the gospel, but I think it's important that the imperatives that we are giving people to write these wrongs are gospel-centered and that they are biblical, that we are not aligning ourselves with the world's solutions, like reparations or something like that. And so it is important. It is important for us to

actually do things that the gospel compels us to do and not just talk about them. But it's important that the things that we are doing, the things that we are advocating for, the causes that we are associating ourselves with, that they are biblical and that they don't go outside the realm of that. I have talked a lot about this subject in the past. I've talked a lot about the insanity of intersectionality and how unbiblical it is to define yourself by your victimhood, define yourself by the color of your skin. And that is what I worry about in the church, that we have started to fraction ourselves, not based on different beliefs, but based on the color of our skin and our background.

It's almost the opposite of what we've been trying to do in this whole racial reconciliation thing. It's we've started regarding people by the color of their skin. We started counting how many black friends that we have. We've started taking notice of things that before we didn't really. notice and I'm not sure all of that is for the better. So I think I think that I pretty much covered it. I think I'll do a whole other podcast on why I, and I've talked about this in the past,

but I could probably do another one, why I am a conservative and why Christianity plays into that. I did talk about kind of at the beginning of this podcast, how Christianity and how your faith affects what you do and affects policy, your policy positions. And what I meant by that is that we are not attached to a particular party platform. We are not attached to a particular politician. We are attached to issues that happen to line up with the Bible. That is what Christians are called to. So it does mean that we are involved in the political process, but it doesn't mean that we have to be partisan. Now, I pretty much am. Like, I'm pretty much, I think I am a conservative on

everything and I have reasons for all of that. But that doesn't mean that I have to subscribe to the Republican Party. It certainly doesn't mean that I always have to support Donald Trump because remember, the team that we are on transcends, transcends politics. And one day, Jesus is going to come back and he's not going to ask us who we voted for. He's not going to ask us if we were Republican or Democrat. And it's not going to matter. It's not going to matter. So our job is to focus on that which is eternal and manifesting his kingdom on earth. That does mean being involved in the culture. That does mean being involved in politics, but having eternity in mind and not the things of this world. And unfortunately, social justice is a thing of this world. Biblical justice is not.

Okay. I think that's it for today. Thanks for listening. And I will see you guys on Thursday.