Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - REPLAY: Kids Are Not Public School Missionaries | Guest: Dr. Voddie Baucham

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Today we're joined by Dr. Voddie Baucham, dean of theology at African Christian University in Zambia, to discuss the current state of the country and the topics of public schools, race, diversity, and Christian nationalism. First, with the midterm election coming up in two weeks, we look at how Christians can come to terms with where we've found ourselves as a nation in the midst of drag queen story hours and corporate CRT policies. We talk about the depravity of public school curriculum and the popular philosophy of sending kids to public school as "missionaries." We break down how CRT and race politics are merely about power and how the Left only wants diversity if it's ethnic diversity. Then, we dive into how "Christian nationalism" has become a trigger phrase for the Left and what it actually means. --- Previous Episodes with Dr. Baucham: Ep 282 | Exposing & Opposing Social Justice Theology | Guest: Dr. Voddie Baucham https://apple.co/3grw2G0 Ep 460 | How Social Justice Activism Is Infecting The Church | Guest: Dr. Voddie Baucham https://apple.co/3SvMnXE --- 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. Christian nationalism, equity, inclusion, diversity, social and racial justice, queer theory. What in the heck do all of these things really mean? Where do they come from? and how should Christians biblically navigate them? How do we walk our children through these things and raise them up in a way that is good and right and true in a world that is hostile to the things of God? To explain all of this to us today in his clear and compelling classic way is Dr. Vodhi

Bakum. We are going to discuss all of this and more. As always, this episode is brought to you by our friends at Gwoldi Baccom. Go to Ranchers, go to good ranchers.com slash alley. That's good ranchers.com slash alley. Now, without further ado, here is our good friend, Dr. Vody, Baccombe. Dr. Bacom, thank you so much for joining us. I think this is the third time.

Yes. Yes. It's first time in person. First time in person. You are one of my favorite and one of my audience's favorite guests for just grounding us and giving us clarity when the world seems to be just waiting and confusion and chaos. So that's what I want to start us out with today. We're ahead of the midterms in the U.S. It seems that as there is more pushback and uproar by Christians, by conservatives against the

chaos of the culture when it comes to gender, sexuality, the family, race, it seems that the other side is getting even louder, is accelerating even more. It just feels like we are at a pressure point. And a lot of people are scared, worried about the future of the country, the state of the world for our kids. Can you just give us some perspective? I know that's a big question, but about where we are and as Christians who are just looking out our window and we're like, how do we even begin to make sense of all of this? Yeah. I think there's a couple of things there. Number one, it's a clash of worldviews. And it's been a clash of worldviews all along. but, you know, we also live in this sort of social media age where everybody's got a voice

and everybody's got a platform. And I think that's what's accelerating a lot of this. So things that would have just been discussed in, you know, a gender studies colloquium, you know, at your local, you know, college or university, those things are now taking place in the public square. and they're taking place in the public square after a lot of groundwork has been done to prepare people's, you know, moral compass for this kind of takeover, if you will. So we've got people who for the last generation have been prepped for this. For the last generation, they've been taught, you know, the foundational and fundamental ideas, this sort of general.

general Marxist, you know, cultural Marxist ideology, this general view, you know, of the world and the way things work. And now as these things have sort of gone public, and not only have they gone public, but in many instances, they've been accepted, right? They've taken the field, so to speak. There's just chaos. And so a lot of Christians who haven't been in a gender studies classroom or on a college campus, you know, for that matter, in the last, you know, 40, 50 years, they see these things, you know, coming to surface. And that's where the panic comes from. Because people are saying, wait a minute. What, like, what is this? Where did this come from? So we got one generation that's saying, you know, welcome to the party. And another generation

that's saying, you know, the sky is falling. Right. Right. I think a lot of people believe that the gender stuff, that boys can be girls, vice versa, that a lot of the race ideology that we saw poured out into the streets during 2020 and are still seen. And really from about 2015, that idea kind of became mainstream, that all of this happened all the sudden, that maybe it was Obama that brought this on, although I do think that his policies accelerated some of it, but that it's all the sudden, it's all of the sudden coming up or it just originated in the last few years. And kind of what I'm hearing you saying is that actually there is a long academic history rooted in critical race theory and queer theory that has been in academia and intellectual spheres for a while. And the ideologies of feminism and of LGBTQ. And as you referred to, the Marxist racial ideology, they have roots going back decades and decades.

But for Christians who had never heard of this stuff in the past few years, it seems like all the sudden the world has gone mad. How important do you think it is for Christians to understand the roots of these progressive ideologies? Do you think it's important for us to understand the roots of critical race theory, queer theory, the standpoint of mis epistemology, all that. I do. I really do think it's important. You know, my last book, I addressed that. And I addressed it for this very reason. I believe we need to know where these ideas come from. Ideas have consequences, right? And if you're just looking at the consequences, but don't understand the ideas that have brought them about, then you're not very well equipped to, you know, have a reasoned response. So yeah, we do need to know these things. Now, do we all, you know, need master's degrees

in critical theory or whatever, some kind of grievance studies? We don't. But there are some general, you know, historical overviews that we need. And there are some people out there who are being very helpful as it relates to giving us those general overviews. And I hope, my hope is that that the work that I've done has contributed to that. Yes, and your last book is called Fault Lines, and you do lay that out very clearly. You don't have to read all of the original sources of critical race theory to understand what it is.

Although that could be great, but- By the way, reading the critical sources, reading the original sources will give you less of an understanding. Right. A lot of these fields write in very, very obscure ways. Yeah. And a lot of people who've gone and found more of these original sources, these original

academic sources, they come away. They're just scratching their heads, right? Because people will say in, you know, 2,000 words, what could have been said in 25. Right. You know. Tell us how you think these previously just academic ideas spilled over into the mainstream. You talked about how we have kind of been conditioned before these hit the mainstream to accept them, whether it's through the rise of secularism, moral relativism. We had already been primed with feminist ideology, the idea that men and women can be the same anyway.

They're basically interchangeable. The idea that white people are oppressors and all black and brown people are oppressed. Even if we didn't know the words queer theory, critical race theory five years ago, we were kind of. of already primed in general to accept them. So what was the tipping point that all the sudden, it seems like these things are mainstream. We got drag queen story hour. We've got corporations accepting the tenets of critical race theory. When did all of this become part of our culture?

Yeah. The critical theorists really did a good job of infiltrating the institutions. often referred to as the long marks through the institutions, right? And several areas in particular. The grievance studies areas, right? Feminist studies, women's studies, you know, queer studies, and all these kind of things. But also, and more importantly, things like journalism, political science, and education. And I think education above all.

people like Paula Freiree, right, and critical pedagogy, when our teachers are immersed in critical theory, when our teachers are immersed in these ideas and, you know, critical pedagogy, and when the overwhelming majority of Americans are sending their children to the government schools, then over time, this is how you get a general. generation that's immersed in these kind of presuppositions, right? Nobody's saying to them, you know, queer theory or critical theory, this and the other, but they're talking about these ideas. They're talking about these ideas of, you know, the oppressor oppressed paradigm as an explanation

for the way and the reason that things are, the way they are. They're talking about history through a particular. And they're shading history in particular ways. They're talking about sexuality. They're, you know, making decisions, you know, on the broader level in school systems about how they're going to teach in areas of sexuality. And also how they're going to conduct themselves. Like, what are you going to do about bathrooms and what are you going to do about, you know, kids coming out and, you know, how you are you going to handle these sort of gender identity things?

You know, all of those things have been going on within the educational system. And when I say the educational system, I mean first the way we train teachers. And then secondly, the way that they execute that training within our schools, that's been going on for generations now. And it's been preparing the ground. I have a lot of conversations with moms who have their kids, Christian moms, Christian conservative moms, they have their kids in public school. Now, I've also gotten to a lot of respectful, but I'd probably call them arguments, respectful arguments with women about this,

because I don't believe that if you can help it, that you should have your kids in public education system. And over the past couple of years, I have seen a lot of parents who previously thought it was okay, who previously thought, not my district. We live in Alabama. We live in. We live. in Georgia. We live in Texas. It's not going to happen here. And I'm equipping my kids. They're going to be light in the darkness. And we've got good Christian teachers. Yeah, oh, they go to our church there in our Sunday school. And a lot of those, to their credit, a lot of those moms have actually come back to me and said, you know, I changed my mind or it's very often been, you know, what Voddy Bakum said about not being able to send our kids to Caesar without them coming back

Romans. That really resonated with me. I hear that a lot. And so, But I do know that in this audience, there are still parents hanging on to this idea that, well, I had a public education and I was fine. Well, my kids are going to be sharing the gospel. My kids would never, you know, imbibe this kind of ideology. What do you tell those parents who are still wrestling with whether they should give their kids a Christian education or whether public school is okay? Luke 640. A pupil is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. and we need to understand that in the school system, the teacher is the curriculum.

And even then that good old Southern school where the teachers or members of, you know, this church or that church, they're not writing the curriculum. And the people who are writing the curriculum have an agenda. The other thing that we need to recognize is that government education in America is anti-Christian by federal mandate. Right. It cannot be anything other than anti-Christian. And for those people who say, well, we just need to reform the schools. To reform something needs to take it back, right, to its original purpose. Well, in the 1870s, when we got government education in the United States,

you know, northeastern, you know, liberal, Unitarians, Universalists, wanted to establish the government education system in order to eliminate what they called religious superstition. Yes. When Tocqueville came and looked at, you know, America, one of the things he said was that education was everywhere in the hands of the clergy, right? And in the 1870s, that was the goal. It was based on the Prussian model, and the goal was to eliminate this stronghold of Christianity

and to establish a system of secular humanism. And that's exactly what we have. So people just need to have. their eyes wide open. They, you know, by, what, 1900, even into maybe the 1920s, two-thirds of all students who would graduate from high school, if you will, it was still the church or the home or dame schools, you know, as they would call them, we now call them co-ops. That late, you know, we still hadn't sort of succumb to this idea.

It was only later that people said, you know, if you can't beat them, join them. and so the idea of us, you know, going in and evangelizing the schools was something that came in later. And if that was going to work, it would work by now. Right, right. Yeah, expound on that a little bit more for the parents who say, well, you know, my kindergartner, my fifth grader is basically a missionary. And if my Christian kid is not in this school, these other kids will never know Christ. Can you address that argument? First of all, missionaries need to be trained, right?

and you don't send your missionaries to be trained by your adversary. You don't send your missionaries to be trained and indoctrinated by the people that you want them to share the gospel with. You train them first and then you send them into that territory. So we're doing it completely backwards. Our kids are not the missionaries. They're the mission field. That's a really good point.

That's a really good point. And I also think about the fact that it's not just what kids are learning or it's not just what they may not be learning. So even if your child is in a school where gender ideology hasn't fully hit yet or critical race theory hasn't fully hit, although I would say that's kind of hard to believe at this point that it's not somewhere in there, even if the parents don't realize it's in the curriculum. Right, right. Even as you said, it's subtle. They're not saying today we're learning critical race theory. It's today we're learning the real history of the United States or something like that. But it's also, I think, what they are missing when they don't have a Christian education,

I'm very thankful that my parents were able to give me that from kindergarten through 12th grade. And I understand that's not a guarantee for a kid's salvation or a guarantee that they are going to remain in the faith. but when I think about how that foundation set me up for the rest of my life, how I still use the gospel-centered education that I had in every subject, I just think that that is one of the greatest gifts that my parents gave me. Because even if in a public school they're not learning some of the crazy progressive stuff, I promise that they're not learning the gospel. I promise that they're not learning how to apply their faith in math, in history, et cetera, like I did.

And Ellie, even beyond that, in modern American schools, they're also not learning how to read and write and do math. Right. Right. Right. I mean, our schools are terrible academically. So for the Christian parent, what we're saying is I'm not only willing to compromise theological in my kids' education, right? By the way, kindergarten through 12th grade, a child spends 14,000 instructional hours in school. Okay.

So I'm number one, I'm willing to compromise. theologically and teach my children by default that Christ does not lord over academics. Number two, I'm willing to compromise academically because the American school system ranks middle of the pack and below in math and science, for example. So, you know, we're not only doing harm from a biblical, theological, Christian worldview perspective, but we're also doing harm from just a basic academic perspective as well.

I think that that's right. And I think a lot of parents, thankfully, are waking up to that. We have seen, in every demographic, we have seen homeschool increase over the past couple years. Fastest growing segment in education. Yes.

The Christian schools that I know of locally, I mean, they have weightless, they've had families, who more than ever have been transferring from either charter schools or public schools to try to get their kids a Christian education. So I do think COVID kind of woke people up to not just the indoctrination, but also, wow, the teachers' unions don't really care about the students because they're willing to completely isolate them for the sake of politics.

And in a lot of people, that was the first time they got to see what their kids were learning. Because now, okay, the kids starts doing this stuff online. And there were a lot of parents who, for the first time, got a real glimpse into the material and the source of their child's academic experience and were just appalled. So your book, Fault Lines, was primarily about kind of this social justice, critical race theory, ideology, which we've talked about for the past couple of interviews. Now, there's been a lot of discussion and debate for the first time in a lot of churches. churches over the past couple of years, obviously, since George Floyd and the riots. And we saw a lot of Christian teachers saying, okay, church, it's time to do the work. It's time to read white fragility, whatever it is. And it's hard to determine whether things, when it comes to that particular

conversation, have gotten better among Christians or worse. I do think some people have realized now Black Lives Matter was a scam, a lot of that stuff that Christians were, were pressured into. It wasn't really biblical. But man, I still see a lot of division when it comes to what justice looks like, what oppression really looks like, what so-called racial reconciliation looks like. What is your feeling of how Christians are approaching the subject now about two years out of when it was most tense? 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 the Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts, I hope you'll join us. I think a couple of things have happened.

One, I think some people have gone underground, right? And just they hope that people don't remember what they said, what they did, what they championed. I think, two, some people have just, they've kept the same ideology. They believe, you know, the whole anti-racist ideology. They believe the whole white fragility ideology. They imbibed it. But they're moving away from phrases, you know, Black Lives Matter, them being exposed the way they have. People are like, okay, that was bad.

They were wrong. They're willing to say that, you know, the organization was bad, that that movement per se was bad. But they're still holding on to the ideology that lay at the foundation of that movement. So they still believe fundamentally that our goal ought to be equity and not equality, right? They still want the diversity, equity, inclusion, you know, program. And just in case there's anyone new here, can you just tell us the difference between equity and equality? So, again, equality is that age-old idea that everybody is equal and ought to be treated equally and that everybody ought to play by the same rules

and have the same opportunities, right? Equity is the idea that everybody ought to end up at the same place and that if they're not ending up at the same place. And when I say everybody, I don't mean individually, right? We have to racialize everyone and we have to see everyone as groups and not as individuals.

And so groups need to have the same outcomes. And if groups are not having the same outcomes, then the assumption is that that's because of racism in the system, right? And equity says we then need to, you know, deconstruct the system, you know, to whatever degree we need to in order to get to those equal outcomes. Yes. Thomas Sol, as you know, has written many books on this really for, I don't know, 40, 45 years, but two of the more recent ones, Quest for Cosmic Justice and Discrimination and Disparities,

talks about that. In Quest for Cosmic Justice, that's basically what he calls social justice is cosmic justice, because it's basically like the people in charge see themselves as gods in the cosmos, and they're saying, how can we hold this group back, push this group forward, so everyone ends up on the same plane, basically punishing one group for having too much perceived success, reward another group for having too much perceived failure so everyone is on the same plane. It never works because the calculations aren't really based on reality and a correct view of human nature, but just based on the belief that human beings are kind of just clumps of cells that you can manipulate as you see fit,

so that everyone will end up in the same place. And there's a million different policies that I can think of that kind of align with that idea of cosmic justice and they never work. Yeah. And the assumption, of course, too, is that the only difference between people is the influences upon them, right?

There aren't differences in culture. There are differences in ability. Choices. There aren't differences in choices. There aren't differences in interests. There are certain groups of people that just aren't interested, right? in certain things.

You know, the Austrians make great violins. Well, praise God, let's go by violence from the Austrians. But, you know, that doesn't mean that we say, well, no, no, no, no, no. We've got to have them make fewer violins and we've got to have these people make, you know, more violins and, you know, how about we ask what it is about their culture, right? What it is about their history, what it is about their interests that that leads them to do that, that would explain why this group over here wouldn't be as proficient. And then how about we say, that's great.

Let's buy our violins from them and let's go by whatever else, you know, that these guys are great at from them, right? But this whole, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion mantra has really got people buying an idea that, number one, it's completely illogical. No two groups of people have ever been. Yeah. You know, completely the same in that way. No two individuals.

No two individuals. That's what Thomas Soul says, dude, you could have twin brothers and the same family, same background. I mean, pretty much like the same DNA. And one could be an abject failure. Yes. One could be a successful doctor. Yes.

So if you can't get two twin brothers from the exact same family to end up in the same place, how do you think you can get two strangers from different parts of the country with different families, different backgrounds to end up in the same place, just by manipulating policies. It's an impossibility that actually leads to policies that try to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator. And that's the only way you can make it work. You know, that's the only way you can make it work is, you know, you cut off all the

stocks to make them the same height, you know? Yeah. Use the classic illustration. Yeah. And it's unfortunate, you know. But I think there's another more sinister. aspect of this. At the end of the day, this is about power. At the end of the day, this is about people saying, you know, there's power dynamics at work. These people have too much power.

Take it from them and give it to me. I mean, essentially, that's what this is about. And it's about those people who are representatives of, you know, so-called disadvantaged groups, accumulating power for themselves. Nobody ever gets better because of this, but certain people get richer because of this and get more powerful because of this. And at the end of the day, this is a power play. Right.

And that, I mean, that's been going on, especially when it comes to race politics and activism for a while. Booker D. Washington talked about that, how there's a certain group of people that want to keep black people feeling like they're oppressed because they make money off of that perceived depression. And man, is that still true today? I mean, Black Lives Matter, we've now seen basically just garnered millions and millions of dollars

for their own mansions, not to do anything for the communities that, by the way, were destroyed by the riots that they provoked. And so it really is a huge gimmick in the name of social and racial justice. And I did just want to say something about equity and equality because, you know, you can read in scripture how God cares about equity. So when we talk about the difference between equity and equality, we're talking about progressives, new fengled's definitions of equity. Equity in its true sense actually means impartiality, that the law should apply the same to everyone, no matter your background. That is biblical. We read over and over again in scripture. God hates

partiality. Do not defer to the poor or to the great in a lawsuit. But in truth, judge your neighbor. And so, but today's new fangled definition of equity is equality of outcomes. Well, and you bring up an important point because one of the things that I've seen, as people have talked about this, you know, different speakers, you know, different pastors or whatever or not necessarily pastors, different Christian leaders who have been advocating this critical social justice ideology. And one of the things that they do it's this biblical slight of hand.

And so they'll say, you know, these people are all upset, you know, because of, you know, talk about equity or you can't say anything about oppression. And then they'll go to a Bible verse, right? You know, you go to Proverbs 1 and, you know, there's, you know, equity and justice, right? And they're like, it's right there in the scriptures

or, you know, the Israelites were oppressed right? by the moment, and they're like, there it is in scripture. So these people don't want us to talk about this, but the Bible talks about this. And your point is spot on. The Bible uses those words. We're not talking about those words per se. We're talking about the meaning that has been poured into those words today. Right. And by the way, there are sinister purposes behind that. Because if you use words that are familiar to people and that are attractive to people, but you change the meaning of those words, that's one way that Christians have been deceived into going along to one degree or another with these movements. Because there are words like social justice.

Okay. Anti-racism. Well, I'm not pro-racism. Right. Equity, you know. You know, those words are attractive to us because we belong to Christ, because we love the body of Christ, because we love our neighbor. And sometimes, you know, by God's grace, people will recognize that these words don't mean what they thought they meant. Other times, people are carried along until they're shipwreck.

And there are a lot of people who've been shipwrecked. There's some of these leaders, right, who are now in another camp. I heard a spokesperson for the NHL the other day say that they are working to reduce the number of white people in the corporation. They need more minorities working for them. and hear this a lot. You hear this from churches, you hear this from Christian schools saying that basically it's a problem

when you have too many white people, almost like whiteness is some kind of like disease that you need to eradicate or diminish. So, I mean, how should Christians think about that? You like diversity, sure, but should we be seeing whiteness as some kind of problem to be solved? Yeah, you know, I think we need to be truth tellers.

I think we need to be people who treat one another with respect and with dignity based on the fact that all people are made in the image of God. I think we also need to be people who recognize and appreciate the true diversity that God gives us, right? in gifts, talents, abilities, desires, whatever. One of the things that's so sad about all of this is that these moves to get rid of these people in favor of those people, these moves give a form of diversity, but they destroy another kind of diversity. What I mean by that is this.

They want people who are ethnically diverse, but they don't want people who are ideological. diverse. So for example, people say, you know, we need to elevate black voices. Okay, great. How about Voddy Bakum? Oh, no. Not his voice, right? Because we don't want ideological diversity. And so I think we need to be honest with one another. I think we need to, you know, respect one another enough to live in that kind of honesty with one another. And I think that we need to trust God enough to distribute his gifts

in his own way and just receive whatever it is that he gives us. I think you're right in that if we recognize that there is this malicious, you know, sort of discrimination that's going on, again, as followers of Christ, that can't be tolerated, you know. And then I'll go another step further.

I think one of the problems is that because we've just decided, number one, that any kind of disparity is automatically the result of racism and discrimination. Right. And then, you know, number two, you know, we don't want to victim blame and we don't want to, you know, judge cultures or whatever. I think because of that, we're not getting bad. behind the numbers. So, for instance, what I mean is if, you know, if black children, for example, are

underperforming academically, we just say we need to change the standard, we need to change the test, we need to change the system, we need to change. But what if there are reasons behind that that need to be addressed if we're just changing the standard and we're just changing the test and we're just changing the institution? then what we haven't done is we haven't gotten to the root of whatever the real problem might be. And to me, that's the sinister part of all of this. Right. In San Diego, I think it was that they basically did, they did away with a grading scale

because disproportionately black and Hispanic students weren't, they weren't getting the same scores on math tests as the Asian students were. And so kind of what we were saying earlier, just lowest common denominator, rather than saying, okay, why is this group of students falling behind? If this is the standard that people need to reach to be successful in life, to be productive members of society rather than lowering it. So no one is a productive member of society. How can we bring this group up? And actually, if you look at the numbers, obviously fatherlessness has something to do with it. But also Asian students, on average, spend the highest.

number of hours on homework, higher than white students or anything else. Yes. And they have more wealth than white people as well. So, right, right, exactly. The highest median income in the country, it's not white Americans. White Americans is like midway. It's Indian Americans, which is a little confusing if the whole system is apparently a white supremacist system.

So there are other factors there that the very people who say that they care about liberation and lifting up black and brown communities don't want to address because of what you said earlier, that doesn't give them power. Yeah. That doesn't give the activist power. Yes, absolutely. And I mean, listen, like I said, at the end of the day,

this is a power play. And at the end of the day, these people are not concerned the way they claim to be concerned. They don't have these folks, best interest at heart. And that's what's just incredibly sad about it. Yeah, I agree with you. All right, can you give some encouragement then to Christian parents as they are kind of waiting through the chaos? Obviously, we know God is sovereign, but for those who are thinking, whoa, you know, this country is

just going to howl in a handbasket. It's hard for them to maintain their hope and their joy in the midst of all of this. What encouragement do you have for them? Oh, boy. The first thing is to remember that this is not our home, right? You know, we are citizens of another kingdom. But having said that, you know, we ought to keep Jeremiah 29 in mind, right? That we pray for the welfare of the city where we've been sent into exile because in its welfare, we will have our welfare. And God is faithful.

I mean, he is absolutely faithful. And the kingdom of God is undefeated. And so if we are on the side of the kingdom, and if we are working to advance the kingdom, then number one, our hope is secure. But secondly, we have the privilege, you know, I don't live here anymore, but we have the privilege of living in a place that has been incredibly blessed by God. And it is God's providence that has made America, you know, what it is. We ought to rejoice in that.

We ought to hope in that. And we ought to take advantage of the fact that we have an opportunity to turn the tide. It can happen, right? And then finally, we need to make sure that our desire is not just for America to have the tide turned for America's sake, but for America to have the tide turn for the gospel's sake. To me, the greatness of the United States is the fact that the gospel has prospered here and borne fruit here, unlike anywhere else or any other time in the world. And so my desire is for all of those things that allowed that to happen to continue to flourish so that the work of the gospel can continue to flourish here and continue to be a blessing elsewhere. But Dr. Bacom, isn't that very scary Christian nationalism? Absolutely it is.

Yeah. It is most assuredly very scary Christian nationalism. You know, again, now you open another can of worms. I remember it seemed like things started to get traction, right? In terms of people waking up to the problems with this whole social justice movement, people started to speak up, you know, and speak out. And all of a sudden, the folks on the other side, I think got a little nervous. And then they started going, yeah, well, what about this Christian nationalism?

And for most of the rest of us, we had to go, wait a minute, and go look it up, right? What is that? I may be with you, right? I may, you know, there's maybe this big scary boogeyman or whatever. And then we go look it up and there's no clear definition of what it is. And, you know, there are different people who are defining it in different ways. And essentially, it was a smokescreen. And then if you just stop and think about it for a minute, right?

Okay, if you don't want Christian nationalism, what other kind of nationalism do you want? Yeah. Right? Do you want, you know, secular nationalism, Muslim nationalism, you know, or if it's not the Christianity, that's the problem. Is it the nationalism that's the problem? If we don't want nationalism, what do we want? Do we want globalism?

You know, no thank you, please. Right. With China in charge. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, so yeah, it does sound like a bunch of scary Christian nationalism and so what. You're right. Christians are the only ones who are told to check their worldview at the door before they vote, before they teach. Secular progressivism is not neutral. It's what characterizes our curriculum. It's what characterizes much of our legislation today. It's what characterizes corporate policy today. It's not neutral. It has its own theological. Claims, it's pseudo-religious claims.

And it's only when Christians say, well, you know what, I've got a world view too. And I think it's better. And so I'm going to bring my ideas and my faith to the table when we're having these discussions. All of a sudden, that's scary Christian nationalism. Yeah. But it's also not Christian nationalism, apparently. On the left.

On the left. When Stacey Abrams or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden, when they invoke the Bible and basically say that they're- The Reverend Raphael-Wan. Oh, yes. When he invokes his faith to say, oh, no, we need to force the taxpayer to pay for the dismemberment of babies. That's not Christian nationalism.

It's only when conservatives say, well, you know what? I believe babies are made in God's image and we shouldn't be allowed to murder them. That's Christian nationalism. Or when Gavin Newsom puts a Bible verse on a billboard trying to attract people to California to kill their babies, right? So, I mean, for a generation, anytime you speak up. It's, you know, separation to church and state, separation of church and state, you know, Christians for a generation. Right.

And it bothered me so much. People would come and they would say, oh, you know, Dr. Buckham, you know, we know you apologetics and all this sort of stuff. And, you know, how do we make an argument, you know, about abortion or an argument about, you know, same-sex marriage, but not using the Bible because they don't believe the Bible. So we want to make an argument that doesn't rely on the Bible. And now here they are using the Bible. unapologetically, right, with no shame at all in order to advance these ungodly ideologies. Yes. And man, I could talk about that whole subject for 30 more, for 30 more minutes, even just Christians trying to get out of using the Bible or using their faith as the basis

for what they believe about abortion and gender. And yes, you can make secular arguments about those things. But at the end of the day, only our faith informs. not when life begins, but why that life matters when life begins, not just that human beings are sexually dimorphic, but why that matters more than someone's feelings about themselves. So actually, I think that it's okay for Christians to say, at the end of the day, all of these things are informed in my belief that God created the heavens and the earth,

and he says what is and what isn't. Christians shouldn't try to shy away from that because they're scared of being called Christian nationalists. Amen. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. I hate to close this out. We're ending right on time, though. I really appreciate your time. Tell people where they can buy your book, follow you, maybe follow your, the speaking tours that you sometimes do in the United States. How can they do all that? Yeah. You can go to Voddybockham.org.combe.combe.combe.combe. You can find out whatever you need to find out about it. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you. You're very welcome. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political.

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