Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 775 | Pastors: Stop Trying to Be Nicer Than God

Starting point is 00:00:00 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.

Starting point is 00:00:19 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. Pastor Mike Todd goes viral for saying some seemingly troubling things about transgenderism and homosexuality. And another so-called pastor is also gaining attention for stating that drag is holy. And a courageous Christian hockey player refused to go along with his team's Pride Night early. this month. Also, we'll give a brief update on Trump's potential arrest, a lot going on.

Starting point is 00:01:04 This is all brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use promo code Alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code Alley. Hey, guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone's having a wonderful week. If you have not listened to yesterday's episode where I had my dad on, he talked about his life story, but we also talked about Trump's apparently impending arrest and what? what that may look like. He gave some predictions based on some information that he got yesterday. Trump was not arrested yesterday. We're not really going to get in depth on that. I just wanted to say that off the top. He is possibly still awaiting arrest. But as my dad said yesterday, there's probably not going to be a perp walk.

Starting point is 00:01:57 Remember, he's still protected by Secret Service. Secret Service is not going to allow that. And so we'll see what this actually looks like. again, go back and listen to yesterday why we think that this is just a complete and total witch hunt. There is no grounding in the rule of law, no integrity, none of that. This is a political show. And this is also kind of sparked a conversation about the presidential election, whether this is going to help or hurt Trump, whether DeSantis's response is going to help or hurt him. I honestly don't think this is going to stick as much as people think it will. I know it seems like that. and maybe for some people it will. But look, news moves fast. There's going to be another thing, another dramatic scene that plays out in the next few months.

Starting point is 00:02:47 Remember, a year is a long time. It's going to be about a year before the presidential election really starts heating up. Governor DeSantis hasn't even announced whether he is going to run for president. So as much as I think people today believe that this is going to be the deciding fact, for who becomes the Republican nominee. I think it could have an effect. I don't think it's going to have as big of an impact as people think. Remember, people have amnesia. Things are sad. Things are done by politicians and people forget very quickly. They care much more about what that president may or may not do for them and their family. So that's where we are. We still don't know if President Trump is

Starting point is 00:03:30 going to be arrested. It's a sad day in our country where this is even a question. Remember, this is over a misdemeanor. The statute of limitations has expired on this misdemeanor. They are trying to make it a felony, which is absurd. So we'll see. We'll see what pans out and we'll see what happens there. And I don't know. Sometimes I just don't have the answer to the state of this country except for God is totally sovereign. That's one of the things that we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about the consistency of God, the consistency and reliability of God's and what some pastors and Christian leaders say don't seem to correspond with that reality. And we're going to start out with this story about Mike Todd.

Starting point is 00:04:17 Mike Todd is a pastor of a large church called Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We've talked about Mike Todd before. He had that egregious scene on stage at his church where he actually spit into his hands, like hocked a lugie into his hands. This really grosses me out to say. and like put it on the face of someone in the congregation that he brought up on stage trying to make some kind of biblical illustration. All right. It was really gross. He ended up apologizing for that, but that's, of course, not the only thing. I disagree with Mike Todd theologically on quite a few things. He leans prosperity gospel. You can go back and you can listen to his sermon. You can read some of his books. I feel very confident in saying that. That's not to say he doesn't say things that are also true and that are also edifying at times. I mean, the same is.

Starting point is 00:05:05 true for almost any pastor that calls themselves that is a prosperity preacher and health and wealth, name it, and claim it preacher. There are things that Joel Osteen says that are uplifting, that are biblical, that are true, that doesn't mean that he doesn't present in a lot of ways a false gospel. I don't think Mike Todd is necessarily on the level of Joel Osteen, but certainly leans towards the health and wealth, name it, and claim it kind of theology. And now he is under fire for a viral clip that's going around. It's from a sermon from March 5th. And the sermon is titled Power Trip to Power Flip, Serve the Kingdom.

Starting point is 00:05:45 It's part four in a sermon series called King, D-U-M-B. It's a play on words to indicate that if you don't have biblical knowledge, you can't know God. And here's what I'll say. So I saw this clip going around and I was like, oh, my gosh, I've got to respond to this. This is so sad that a pastor doesn't know how to talk about this. very sensitive but very clear subject of sexuality and gender identity. And I was just totally ready to slam him for this because this just breaks my heart when you have someone who is so

Starting point is 00:06:15 talented and so influential, has so many people sitting in front of him asking for wisdom when he just so clearly gets it wrong and pretends that the word of God equivocates on this. But as usual, the clip was kind of pulled out of context. And I'm not saying that I agree with everything that was said and I'm going to play you a little bit of the clip, but I am going to read you the context and I think that it's better than what people are saying on Twitter. He actually offers more clarity than what he appears to offer in this clip. So we'll talk about the good and bad and the ugly. And the reason I'm doing this is not to pick on Mike Todd because we all say things that we don't mean or maybe we say things and we look back and we wish that we had said it better or more clearly.

Starting point is 00:06:56 That is certainly true of me. I've done so many interviews and so many podcasts, there are so many things I look back on and I'm like, that's not necessarily theologically correct or I wish I would have just explained that better. And so I'm not trying to pick on him. What I am trying to do is to offer an example of one way to explain these sensitive identity centered subjects. And then for us to compare that to what God's word actually says, which is always so graciously clear on these so-called culture of war issues. So let me play you, this clip that's going around that is so controversial, especially among conservative evangelicals. As a pastor's like, so what do you think about game?

Starting point is 00:07:34 I don't know. I don't know why you're wrestling like that. And I don't know what to do to help you, but to stand with you and pray with you and not, and you're welcome at Transformation Church. Trans is in the title. Transformation, you can be here. Oh, God. What you're loved here? I want you here. 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. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective

Starting point is 00:08:21 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. So that's what's circulating on social media where he says, people ask me what I feel about gay

Starting point is 00:08:55 marriage. And I'm like, I don't know. And then he says trans is literally in our name. You can be here. And it's really hard to even tell what he's saying because he's got all these people in the audience cheering after every word. And look, I know that I'm not a charismatic. and so I'm used to kind of like my prim and proper Southern Baptist Church where you don't kind of make that noise.

Starting point is 00:09:18 And I'm not, so I'm not saying that that's wrong. I don't want like my bias to influence what I'm about to say. But it does seem like it's, I mean, it's the same way like a, you know, a Stephen Ferdick church where he has people in the front that are cheering on the things that he has to say. this just feels less like preaching from the word of God, less like trying to point to God and more about him and more about a performance and more about what he's saying. I mean, after every single word, you've got people standing up and cheer. Well, he's not even saying anything. Like he literally said one word. Why are we cheering for what? He said trans is in our name and they literally showed the congregation. There's people standing up and applauding for that. What is going on here? What is going on?

Starting point is 00:10:02 So I do take issue. I'm okay with different types of worship. styles and all different kinds of things, as long as they are biblically based. I don't think that the only one way to worship is how Southern Baptist worship at all. But when I see things like that, and when I know that he leans kind of toward prosperity, it just makes me feel like, okay, is this really a church service or is this some kind of performance where you're trying to get affirmation from people for basically not saying anything. So, but I do want to give him the benefit of the doubt here because what he said right there, absolutely ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Trans is in our name. And so you're welcome here. However, if you look at the context of what he's saying, what he's

Starting point is 00:10:42 actually saying is not justifying transgenderism, is not justifying what is typically referred to as gay marriage. If you look at the context of what he's saying, he is actually saying, look, this is a complicated subject. Okay, he might be saying that or this is really uncomfortable. It's culturally inconvenient. All I know is what the kingdom of God is. All I know is what the Bible says. And I don't know that I would say that he's apologizing, but kind of. He's kind of saying, look, this is just what the Bible says. So let me read you a little bit of what he actually says here that I think makes these out of context clips better.

Starting point is 00:11:21 So he, around 45 minutes into a sermon, he starts talking about how to serve in God's kingdom, you have to submit and relinquish your opinion on things. And he said, God's already decided some stuff that we think we can have an opinion on. God decided male and female. And then the audience kind of mildly chaired. Okay, so he said that. I think that that sentence alone is really important context. He said God decided male and female.

Starting point is 00:11:45 So he's going back to Genesis 1, 27. God already decided that. We got to relinquish our opinion on that. He said, no, I need you all to hear my heart on this. This is not a bashing. And he said, if I was there, maybe I would have told him, is there something in the middle you could do? I feel you.

Starting point is 00:12:05 And I wish there was an option of other in the kingdom and culture you can make it whatever you want to. And culture, you can build whatever you want to. But the truth of the matter is that if we are going to submit under what the king says, I'm going to have to wrestle with that. I don't even fully understand. So very unclear, but basically he's saying, look, I don't want to be anti-transgender. I don't want to say that it's only male and female.

Starting point is 00:12:26 This is just what God's word says. And I can sympathize with that. I do take issue with kind of the caveating, the new. and the apologizing for God's word, as if, like, we are more compassionate than God, as if we're nicer than God or kinder than God or more loving than God. I think we can stand on God's word without apologizing for it. But I understand the sentiment. He's like, yeah, this is inconvenient. This is uncomfortable, but this is what God's word says. So he says, well, why did? So he's quoting, well, why did? I don't freaking know. No, honestly, I wish God would

Starting point is 00:12:59 have made it so much simpler. And it was like A, B, C, or D. Like, Frick, no, I'm serious. This is, this is a sermon. As a pastor, it's like, so what do you think about gay marriage? I don't know. But I do know in the kingdom. I'm not the king. I don't, I don't know why he decided to do it like this. I don't know why you're wrestling like that. And I don't know what to do to help you, but to stand with you and pray with you. And you're welcome at Transformation Church. Transformation is in the title. transformation. Transformation can be here. You're loved here. I want you here. And then he says, so again, that was the problematic part that people are taking issue with. And then he says, will I marry you? And what he means by that, like, will I officiate your marriage if you are two men or two

Starting point is 00:13:42 women? He says, I can't. Not because I don't think you found love, just as a kingdom ambassador, when I look back at the orders that are in the constitution of the kingdom. I know people don't like to talk like this because they want it to be black and white, but there's some things on earth. I don't have the answers to. And so when I don't know, I just default. I come sub to the mission. Got it. I know people are going to try to make this clickbait and make it something I didn't say. I hope you hear the heart of what I'm saying. I wrestle and pray for all types of people all the time. How freaking unfair it must feel to feel something every day of your life and it not line up with the God you love. I don't have all the answers. So that's the context of what he's saying.

Starting point is 00:14:21 And some of what he says, obviously there, it's true that God already decided this. It doesn't matter our opinion. He's also trying to show some empathy there that I understand you feel a certain way. Maybe you're confused about your identity. Maybe you are attracted to a certain gender. And that's simply not what God's word says is holy. That must be really hard. So I can appreciate that. What I don't appreciate here is the lack of clarity. And again, the apology for what God's word says and for the constant saying, I I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Because while he says that he is standing on God's word, he is also giving himself an out. And I don't think that we need to let God off the hook. I don't think we need to give ourselves an out. Again, if God created all of this, if he's in charge of all of this, if he is the authority over all of it, if he is the definer of all things, the arbiter of right and wrong, what's true and what's false, like if Genesis 1,1,

Starting point is 00:15:21 one is true that God created the heavens in the earth, then yes, we can submit to his authority on all things, but we can do so without caveat or apology. Sure, we can have empathy. We can say, wow, it must be really hard to be tempted by that. I'm also tempted by things. I'm also confused about things. I understand that this runs counter to what the culture says, but here's something else that he doesn't do in this long segment is actually go to the Word of God and read the Word of God. Like if you don't know, If you're confused about what to say, if you're trying to find the right words, then the truest and best and most effective thing that you can do is read God's own words rather than relying on our faulty and fallible wisdom. The Bible is so clear about this. And it also troubles me that he says, I don't know why God did it this way. I don't know why God made us male and female. I don't know why God says marriage is between a man and a woman. Dude, you're a pastor. You should know. You should know. It actually doesn't help your congregation to say, I don't know. That's not humility. That's ignorance. And you have too much influence to be ignorant at this point. And actually, I think that he might not

Starting point is 00:16:32 be ignorant. He just doesn't really want to say it. He doesn't want to say it because to me, it seems like he's so scared of sounding like a bigot or of being criticized for being conservative or whatever that he just, he knows the truth. It's clear here. He knows the truth. He knows the truth. and he's willing to kind of say it or imply it, but he doesn't want to explain the whole thing, at least in this sermon. And I tried to give as much context as possible. I mean, we've given this alliteration a million times.

Starting point is 00:17:02 Please, Mike Todd, you can use it. I mean, you might not want to say this is from Ali Stucky in your sermon. I'm not sure how that's going to fly. But maybe just say that someone said, marriage between a man and a woman, according to the Bible, is rooted in creation. we see that in Genesis 1. It's reiterated throughout Scripture.

Starting point is 00:17:22 One example is honor your father and mother. It's repeated by Jesus himself, Matthew 19, 4 through 5. That is so clear. It is reflective or representative of Christ in the church. We read that in Ephesians 5. And therefore it is reflective of the gospel. Wow, there is spiritual. There is eternal significance to the definition of male and female, and therefore the definition

Starting point is 00:17:46 of marriage between a man and a woman. It's all there. And so even the people who say, oh, we can't listen to Leviticus or we can't listen to First Corinthians or we can't listen to Romans 1, which that's all silly. Look, okay, even without those totally legitimate and valid verses and passages, by the way, which are very explicit, we can look at what God calls holy, what God calls good. And we can say there is some kind of mysterious, spiritual, eternal significance to the definition of things.

Starting point is 00:18:17 And because God is so good and because God is so powerful and because God is love as 1 John 4 8 says, we can and must as Christians submit to him in these things. That's the why. That's the why. As a pastor, as someone who I think God has gifted in so many ways, has obviously gifted him a congregation to steward. He needs to know why. No, it's not enough at this point. in your ministry to say, I don't know. I don't know why God made us male and female. I don't know why God made marriage this way. I appreciate you saying that he did. I do. People need to hear that. People do. But people want to know why. It's innate. It's the same reason why when we're toddlers. We say, why is something like this? Why do we do this? We want to know why. As a pastor,

Starting point is 00:19:12 that's your job as far as you can. And the good news is that we don't have to rely on our own wisdom or our own smarts, our own knowledge to tell people why. Again, the truest and most effective, most loving thing we can do is simply agree with God. How do we agree with God? We look at, we read, we preach what God's word says and we say, I agree with that. Not because I fully understand it, not because it's easy, but because I am called to imitate God and because I want to love my neighbor. The only way I can do that is to imitate and follow the God who says he is love. And that God who says he is love says that he made us male and female and that marriage between one man and one woman, period, end of story. Of course that's going to get backlash. Of course

Starting point is 00:19:53 it is. Of course people are going to call you unloving. Of course people are going to call you hateful. Yeah, that's the story of the church. That's been the story of the church for 2,000 years, being both misunderstood and maligned. And all we say is to God be the glory. Most loving thing that we can do is to speak the truth without caveat and without apology. So that's just what I encourage. That's what I encourage every pastor, every Christian to do. And we're going to fail at that. I also want to just caution because I've fallen into this trap too.

Starting point is 00:20:27 I have. And I apologize for any time I've done this. It's never been purposeful. Just caution people against taking words like this out of context because I do think that Mike Todd deserves a little more credit, a little more credit on this than he's getting. Even though there are things to say with how he kind of handled this. it wasn't a complete like affirmation of transgender ideology or gay marriage. So I think it's important to just kind of note that.

Starting point is 00:20:56 But I did want to respond to it because I do think that responding to things like that can show people. And not that I'm perfect at this again, show people what the right response is based on what God's word says. It's actually such a gracious gift that God gives us so much clarity on this issue that we don't have to wonder. what's gender? What's marriage? What's holy sexuality? God is so abundantly clear because being sovereign, he absolutely knew that this is going to be a difficult issue for the culture and for individuals. And so he lays it out for us. Thank you, Lord. All right, you've probably seen this other clip circulating that has gone viral. And this is a progressive pastor who is talking about drag. And if you don't know, if you're a sweet summer child and you don't know what drag is, I actually had someone the other day in my church who could not think of the term drag or drag queen and was trying desperately to explain what he was talking about. And it really made me laugh. And I was like, wow, I love that you are so disconnected from the craziness that is Twitter that you can't think of the word drag. So for those of you who don't know, drag is when men, grown men, well, I guess in some really scary and perverse cases, these are younger.

Starting point is 00:22:26 boys also something that happens in the United States dressing up like women now very often they are wearing prosthetic breasts thongs corsets fishnets high heels and people will tell you that it's not innately sexual look a man dressing up as a caricature of a woman is always going to be inappropriate in particular for children um cross dressing a man dressing like a woman is wrong but also in the sexual caricature-like nature of drag. It's not something that will ever be glorifying to the Lord. However, this particular pastor, Reverend Dr. Caleb J. Lines, he posted this on his TikTok. Here's his argument to the contrary. Drag is holy. There has been an assault on the rights of drag performers in this country,

Starting point is 00:23:22 and we must call out the hypocrisy and the injustice. Jesus called himself a mother hen longing to gather up her chicks. Gender is a construct, you see. And if Jesus can be a mother hen, then you can dress in drag. I've even heard it said that Jesus was and humanity is God in drag. So let me say this again for those of you in the back. Drag is holy. I was expecting there to be a lightning storm right after all of that blasphemy.

Starting point is 00:24:02 I mean, that person I think it's safe to say is not a believer. He is not a believer in Jesus Christ. He does not believe in the basic tenets of Christianity. He doesn't believe. In Genesis 1, the first chapter of the first book of the Bible that contains many of the fundamentals of our faith, what we understand about human nature and the nature of God, the nature of creation, which is we just said in that first segment, God made them. male and female, made them in his image, male and female. Genesis 1.27. Right there, we've got the

Starting point is 00:24:31 definition of marriage. We've got the definition of gender. And what I believe is the first implicit condemnation of abortion that we are different from all the creatures in creation. We are actually made in God's image. There is something special about humans. And actually, in Genesis 9, 6, when God demands, commands the death penalty in cases of murder, What he refers to as his reasoning is that human beings are made in God's image. That's how valuable we are. That's why murder is so egregious. It's different than animal sacrifice.

Starting point is 00:25:07 Human beings are different. We are special. We have an innate worth and innate value because Genesis 1-27, we are made in the image of God. And being made in the image of God means being made male or female. Now, whenever I say this, people like to bring up, what about, what about intersex? So there's a very rare disorder that affects me. maybe, maybe point two. It might even be 0.02% of the population in which there are hormonal differences or there are even physical differences where there are traits of both male and

Starting point is 00:25:38 female existent in a human being. Look, this is the fallen world. People are born in all different kinds of ways that humans are not supposed to be ideally born into. There are people who are born with just one leg. And do we say that human beings can have one leg or two legs? No, we say human beings are bipets because we understand human nature. We understand that human beings as a species have two legs. They are bipeds. And we also understand that people are born with different anomalies. The exception does not rewrite the rule. That is the case with intersex. Intersex has nothing to do with transgenderism whatsoever. Of course, those people are also made in the image of God. They just are part of, just as we all are a fallen world, so they're a part of all of our

Starting point is 00:26:18 buddies that are not perfect. But Jesus or God made the human species, she's as male or female. That's very clear. So when this pastor, so called, says gender is a social construct, there is no biblical basis for that whatsoever. There is no biblical category whatsoever for something outside of male or female. There is no possibility. According to the God who created all of this and defines all of this to identify as something other than what your biology is. So I also take issue when people say, this person didn't say it, but people say this a lot. You especially see this on like the feminist activist side, people who are called turfs, people who are against transgenderism, but are typically on the left.

Starting point is 00:27:03 They'll say sex, not gender. We shouldn't even be using the word gender, gender, and sex are different. Gender is femininity or masculinity. These are social constructs that we should just do away with and shouldn't even think about. We should base our laws on sex, not gender. Look, those categories are the same. Those categories are the same. Sex and gender are the same thing.

Starting point is 00:27:26 I don't think that we should try to separate them because that is actually the basis of transgender ideology. This idea that you can actually identify as something that is other than what your chromosomes say that you are and you can't. It's not possible. And this all goes back to people's people don't even realize. This all goes back to how you think about human nature. This all goes back to teleology, the purpose. of why we were made, who you think God is. If you worship the God of self rather than the God of Scripture,

Starting point is 00:27:56 of course you think that you can identify as something other than what you are. But if you believe that there is a power that is higher than you, who is the authority over you who actually created you, then you cannot identify as anything other than what he made you to be. That's actually really freeing, that we don't have the power to identify ourselves or define ourselves, that he already did. that for us. Thank you, Lord. But this pastor, this person who says that he's a pastor, doesn't understand that. He worships the God of self, and therefore he believes that he is more

Starting point is 00:28:30 loving than God, that he is more compassionate than God. So of course, he calls what God calls an abomination holy. He has exchanged the truth of God for a lie. So he elevates sin as good. Of course. That's what all people with depraved minds do. That's what but all people who worship the prince of the power of the air as Ephesians 2 calls Satan do. They continue to get it wrong. They confuse light for darkness and vice versa. The problem is that he now can amplify this confusing, this demonic message to millions of young people via TikTok. You are going to be very confused by this.

Starting point is 00:29:15 No, of course, drag is not wholly. drag like any other sin, like any other subversion of nature is idolatry and is unholy. We had a previous drag queen on. He used to be a drag queen. He used to be on that scene. And thankfully, the Lord brought him to repentance. Can a drag queen be saved? Can a drag queen become holy?

Starting point is 00:29:41 Absolutely. They're not more far off. They're not farther off than any of us. before we came to Christ, there's a radical equality that's brought to us by the gospel as we read, again in Ephesians too, that we are all equally dead in sin apart from Christ. And then by grace through faith, we can be made alive in Christ. And so no one is too far off. No one is too far gone. No one is too perverse or too sinful or too transgressive. But any so-called ambassador of God, so-called pastor that doesn't preach repentance to this community or any other community who is

Starting point is 00:30:22 continuing to sin and celebrate sin cannot in good faith call themselves a representative of Christ in the church. The reality is this pastor hates God and therefore he hates the people around him. He thinks that he is loving. He thinks that he is compassionate, but at the expense of their souls. So how loving is that really? So I pray for this pastor and all pastors like like him that they would repent, that they would know the God who is love and who also is truth. It's really revealing having all of this kind of information and these differing perspectives on TikTok. Because then you see, wow, this is really how progressive see the world and see God.

Starting point is 00:31:06 I mean, it is confusing to me why these people even, why do you even want to pretend to be a Christian? like if you have no interest in submitting to God's word, if you don't even think the Bible is really God's word. Like, do you just like to play dress up? You just like to put on the robes. You just like the MDiv. Like you just like the letters after your name. You just like the power that comes with leading a local congregation or you just, I guess, one, a semblance of the comfort that you think comes from pseudo Christianity. Like, I don't know. Maybe that's it. But gosh, there are better things to do. If you don't actually believe that God is the authority over all of this, then go to church on Sunday. I mean, go to brunch.

Starting point is 00:31:50 If you're just going to worship yourself, there's no need for all of the pretense. I think actually it'd probably be better if you were just honest with yourself and the world that you worship yourself and that you're more interested in what Satan has to say than what God has to say. Okay, here's a little bit of a happy story. I don't know if it's necessarily happy, but it's an example of. of someone not equivocating and not going against what God's word says and actually doing the opposite, being a salmon, as we say, swimming upstream against the chaos of the culture. So there is an NHL player who refused to wear pride-themed jersey in support of the LGBTQ plus community. This is a report by deadline. It was contributed to by the Associated Press.

Starting point is 00:32:52 And if this story sounds really familiar, if you're like, oh, we talked about a very similar story. A few months ago, that's because this is the second NHL player. There was another NHL player. Let's see, his name was Ivan. Ivan Proverov also declined to do this back in January. Also, the New York Rangers recently opted not to wear pride jerseys or use pride stick tape as part of their Pride night in January. despite previously advertising the plan. So there's some pushback here.

Starting point is 00:33:25 I'm also just like very confused what's going on here. I thought Pride Month was in June. And even if this were happening in June, like why do these sports teams have to wear rainbow jerseys and like rainbow hockey sticks? Why? What like what? What are they exactly supporting? What is going on here?

Starting point is 00:33:44 Why do they have to make this statement? So now there is the second NHL player who is saying, no, I'm not going to do that. Thanks so much. This is a San Jose shark scoley, James Reimer. He's declined to participate in pregame activities on Saturday, March 18th, that Pride night that would require him to wear promotional pride-themed jersey. Reimer issued a statement saying that he always strives to treat everyone with respect and that members of the LGBTQ community should be welcome in hockey.

Starting point is 00:34:20 But he says, in this specific instance, I am trying to be. choosing not to endorse something that is counter to my personal convictions, which are based on the Bible, the highest authority in my life. So this is similar to what Ivan Proverov said back when he said he wasn't going to do this. He wasn't quite as eloquent. He just said, you know, this goes against my faith. So the sharks, the San Jose shark, said in a statement that they are proud to host Pride night, saying the event reinforces the team's commitment to inclusiveness. As we promote these standards, we also acknowledge and accept the rights of individuals to express themselves, including how or whether they choose to express their beliefs,

Starting point is 00:34:58 regardless of the cause or topic. As an organization, we will not waver in our support of the LGBTQIA plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, community and continue to encourage others to engage an active allyship. Why? I just, I really do. I fail to understand why a hockey team needs to make a statement. about this at all. Why? There was a time where we had neutral institutions. Well, I don't even know

Starting point is 00:35:31 if you could say it was neutral. They tried to be neutral as possible, at least when it came to these kind of contentious issues. And whether you think it's contentious or not, millions of Americans do. And it's not so much for most Americans. Most Americans are not conservative Christians like me. most Americans don't really care about the L and the G or even the B. But when you start talking about the T, which is what Pride Night now represents, now you're talking about men pretending to be women. Or in some cases of some famous TikTok stars, men pretending to be six-year-old girls and getting celebrated for it and millions of dollars and sponsorships and recognition by the White House.

Starting point is 00:36:18 You're talking about men going into girls' bathrooms. You're talking about men playing in female sports so that women no longer have a fair shot at scholarships or championships or opportunities. You are talking about minors getting double mastectomies. You are talking about nine-year-old boys getting chemically castrated with the same drug that is given in many states to pedophiles to chemically castrate them. So when you're now talking about pride and you're talking about Pride Night and you're talking about the pride flag, you're including all of that. And whether or not you think it's great that girls as young as 12 places like Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, according to one psychologist, are getting double mastectomies. Like maybe you think that's awesome. Maybe you think it's great for 10-year-old boys to go on puberty blockers.

Starting point is 00:37:12 Maybe you think it's awesome and amazing and fantastic. for adolescents to be rendered permanently deformed and sterile because they're temporarily confused about their gender because they have other mental health issues that are underlying there. Even if you agree with all of that, there are millions of Americans who don't. And there is absolutely no reason for any entity to encourage in any way their players, their employees to represent a movement that glorifies all of those things. It's actually very sick. It's very disgusting.

Starting point is 00:37:53 And so I applaud this person for saying, no, I'm not going to do that. And I guess if I'm going to give any points to the San Jose Sharks, at least they say, we support our players right to express themselves how they see fit. I'm sure that this person, James Reimer, has been given a lot of hate. I'm sure he's gotten a lot of pushback, even though ostensibly they're saying that they support their players right to choose whatever they want to say. I'm sure it has been difficult for him, just being the only one on his team. And it's sad too because I highly doubt he's the only Christian on his team. I highly doubt he is only one of two Christians in the NHL.

Starting point is 00:38:39 but how many players, and I understand this to a certain extent, but how many players, how many students, how many employees across the country, just sit down and shut up because they want to keep their job, they want to get a good grade, they don't want to get canceled, they don't want to get mean messages, they know that it's wrong,

Starting point is 00:38:58 but they would rather seek the approval of men than the approval of God. And look, I'm not saying that it's easy to stand up, to share the arrows, to raise a respectful ruckus about the things that matter. I'm not saying it's easy to face that kind of exclusion or to face the threat of firing and not being able to feed your family. And I'm not saying that you have to stand up in every single scenario. But if we know anything about moral and sexual revolutions,

Starting point is 00:39:26 political revolutions, as we've seen throughout history, the most effective thing that you can do, even if it's just effective in cleansing your own conscience, is not lie. And at this point, waving a pride flag is long. line. It's lying because now included in that is the belief that men can become women and vice versa. And it's actually always been lying because, I mean, it's also the belief that two men and two women can form a marriage in the same way that a man or a woman can define all science, define all tradition, define all of human history, define God himself. But, no, but no.

Starting point is 00:40:07 Now, I mean, you are blatantly denying biological reality at the risk of women's safety and fairness. I mean, now, by waving the pride flag, you are endorsing men being put in women's prisons, even when they have been convicted of violent rape. You don't believe me? Just go to the Redux site. Go to their website, their news site, and you can read all of the stories of this happening. Now when you wave the pride flag, you are celebrating that. It's all wrapped up.

Starting point is 00:40:44 So maybe think about that. Even if you're not a Christian, of course, if you're a Christian, you shouldn't be waving the pride flag at all. But even if you're not, just think about whether or not you want to endorse that. Why would the NHL be endorsing that? Why would any of these corporations or entities be a part of that celebrating that? The White House celebrates that. Again, just aghast that anyone who calls themselves Christians could be in a lot.

Starting point is 00:41:07 support of an administration or a political party that celebrates that kind of thing. Of course, there are Republicans who are too. I think I saw a Republican from the state of Kentucky, some legislator. I don't know if we have that clip. We happen to have it in the server somewhere. Maybe not. But it was a Republican state legislator, I think in Kentucky saying that his grand, his grandchild has come out as trans and he has to support that. So he's against anything that would stop the genital mutilation of children who happen to be confused about their gender. You know, that never happens on the other side. Like, you never see those exceptions from Democrats being like, oh, maybe dismembring babies

Starting point is 00:41:49 is not great. Like, you never see them making some kind of brave speech, being heterodox, going against the majority of what their side thinks about things. You don't see Democrat legislators standing up and saying, I don't know if we should be chemically castrating little boys. Doesn't really sound like a good idea. But our side, we have defectors all the time. And yet, of course, we are the ones accused of being the brainwashed fascist,

Starting point is 00:42:17 even though we have plenty of people on our side who, unfortunately, we keep electing that are continually wrong on the most basic fundamental issues. But there are people like this, like the NHL player, who stand up and say, you know what, I know it's not going to be popular. It's not going to be lucrative. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate. But scripture, highest authority. And so I'm going to submit to that.

Starting point is 00:42:42 So I appreciate that. I appreciate this person who was willing to go into the metaphorical fiery furnace instead of bowing down before Nebuchadnezzar. I mean, that's what it is. The pride flag at this point is an idol that we have to refuse to bow down to. And there will be pushback. I mean, just look at the cake baker in Colorado. He has suffered for a decade plus because he didn't want to violate his conscience and creating a cake.

Starting point is 00:43:11 So there's a cost when it comes to this. Don't let people tell you that these are just culture war issues. These are just political issues. We just need to love people. Look for the Christian, these are not primarily political or cultural war issues. These are primarily biblical issues. These are primarily Genesis 1 issues. And if you as a Christian are not willing to, you're not courageous enough to stand up for Genesis 1.

Starting point is 00:43:32 Genesis 1 27. I have a really hard time that you're a hard time believing that you are going to be courageous enough to stand up for John 146, that Jesus is the way, the truth, the life, and that no one comes to the father except through him. That is much more offensive than the reality that God made us male and female. So let's go ahead and count the cost on this easy stuff, this really simple stuff, this really straightforward stuff that is so easily seen in biology. Before we are fully counting the cost for preaching the gospel that every,

Starting point is 00:44:03 Everyone is a sinner separated from God, which again is far more offensive than the reality of gendered biology. All right. So just a reminder, you've got until tomorrow night to enter our giveaway. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to Monday's episode. We've got a giveaway with all kinds of free stuff from our sponsors. We've got amazing gift cards from Good Ranchers, Carly Jean Los Angeles, other fun products. Merch.

Starting point is 00:44:41 We've got new merch, guys. We've got amazing merch. I can't wait for my merch to come in. when it does, I will probably only be wearing that merch because I love it so much. If you go to Alliemerch.com, we'll put the link in the description of this episode, Alleymerch.com. You can see all our new merch, and we've got even more awesome stuff that's coming your way. I don't know when in the coming months. You can use Allie 10 at checkout for 10% off. Allie 10 at checkout for 10% off. This will make a great Mother's Day gift, guys.

Starting point is 00:45:14 guys, relator bros out there for the related bells in your life, they want a corduroy hat. Okay? They want a be a salmon crunach sweatshirt. They want a tote bag with a relatable on it. They want these things. I'm just letting you know right now and she's considered, she's got it in her cart. And she's wondering whether or not she wants to spend the money on that. You know what?

Starting point is 00:45:41 You just need to go ahead, get it for her. get it for her birthday, get it for her for mother. Say she will love it and she will thank you. I promise. I'm just giving you a little tip for your marriage or for your relationship with your fiancee or your girlfriend. She wants relatable merch for these things. All right. Let's see. I don't know what we're going to talk about tomorrow. Let me know if you have any suggestions on Monday. We are going to have Ginger and Jeremy Volo on the show. I'm super excited about that. Feel free to say. in some questions for them. My episode with Ginger Duggervolo that we did in January did amazingly well. You guys were so interested in her story and what she had to say about her upbringing and the theology that kind of characterized her upbringing. I would go back and listen to that episode if you haven't just as like a part one. And then we're going to do a follow up on that on Monday with both of them.

Starting point is 00:46:37 They're going to be in person, which I'm really excited about. So lots of fun stuff coming up. All right. Thanks so much for joining and we will be back here tomorrow. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality.

Starting point is 00:47:11 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.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 775 | Pastors: Stop Trying to Be Nicer Than God

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