The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 357 - The Katie Hill Saga Continues

Episode Date: October 25, 2019

A significant victory was achieved in the James Younger case. Also, the Katie Hill saga has gotten more salacious and at the same time more ethically complicated. The war on Halloween continues. Finally, are we morally required to always leave a 20 percent tip? Date: 10-25-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is pretty stunning news, I have to say. I just wasn't expecting this. I completely blindsided. Tim Ryan has ended his presidential campaign. I am floored, I think like everybody else. Yesterday when this was announced, I left my house and I saw people walking through the streets in a days. All of their hopes and dreams dashed in an instant. Because without the promise of a Tim Ryan presidency, what point is there? anymore? What reason do we have to continue? What hope do we have? Where do we go next? Also, follow-up question, who the hell is Tim Ryan? And I suppose now we'll never find out. And that maybe is the greatest tragedy in all of this. Okay, moving though, from tragedy to, I think, a good outcome, at least as good of an outcome as we could have hoped for. The judge in the James Younger case

has effectively nullified the jury verdict by giving the father joint conservatorship over his son, which includes having a say in the boys, quote, transition. You remember earlier in the week, the jury decision gave the mother full custody and the ability to make all the decisions, including medical decisions, which means that she could facilitate this quote-unquote transition of her son into a girl. The judge, though, I suppose, has basically overturned that and said that, no, the father will will have a say, which is good. As I said, it's as good of an outcome as I think we could have reasonably hoped for. Now, it's not all good. She did gag the father and the mother, so they can't

talk to the media. She kicked all the media out of the courtroom before giving this verdict, although I'm told by Lifesite News. LifeSite News and a website called the Texan have both been following this case. They've been on the ground there reporting on it. And for most of the time, doing great work, reporting on this case. And for almost all that time, the mass media had no interest in the case whatsoever. For the last few days, the media has been paying more attention because we sort of forced them to pay attention. But so you can imagine their outrage. I was, you know, just listening to some of the life site people, for example, imagine their outrage that they even following this case, now we get to the moment, the big moment, and they're kicked out of

the courtroom while, according to a LifeSite reporter, a camera from, one of the people from, I think, the local CBS affiliate was invited into the go. They were allowed to be there. But all the reporters that had been there the whole time, they couldn't be there. So that's no good. But at least the father will have some ability now to protect his son, which is obviously what we were fighting for. And at the same time, we not only forced the media to pay attention to this issue, but we got the, you know, the Texas governor took notice of it, various other people in positions of power. Here's the thing, though, the public cannot be mobilized every time a child's gender confusion is encouraged and amplified by his abusive parents. This is happening more and more in this country as more and more minors follow the trend of identifying as transgender, because I'm sure it's just a coincidence. transgenderism is a natural phenomenon, we're told, but somehow coincidentally, as it's talked about more and been more accepted in the media, it becomes this trendy thing. You've got more and more minors that discover that they're transgender. What a coincidence. But as this is happening, we're not going to be able to protect them all from being prescribed puberty blockers, which is chemical castration. And we're not going to be able to do this every single time.

there's a case like this, especially because in most of these cases, you don't have one of the parents trying to step in to stop it. In most of these cases, either there's one parent doing it and the other one's not in the picture. The dad's not in the picture. I suspect that's the case a lot of the time, or both parents are on board with abusing their child and turning them into some other gender. And this is why Republicans in Congress need to act. Now is the time to do it. it is there is no situation where it could ever be morally, ethically, medically, scientifically justified to give a physically healthy child drugs suppressing his normal development simply because he's confused about his biological identity.

There's never a time where that is not a horrifically wrong and deranged and abusive thing to do to a child. And so it shouldn't be hard for Republicans in the Senate to come up with a bill that bans the chemical castration of children. You can even call it that in the bill, the anti-child castration amendment, or whatever you want to call it. And it would be a very accurate way of describing the bill. And it would be a bill that who could, it would be a very politically risky thing for the Democrats to oppose a bill like that. I'm sure they would and let them do it. Let them come out and explain. Let them make the case for child castration. Republicans, if they have any sense, they'll put the Democrats in the position of having to do that.

All right. Moving on again, the Katie Hill story. It's interesting that there's been kind of a saga this week, because we started this week, which feels now like it started five years ago. But we started the week talking about the Katie Hill scandal and James Younger and remarking about how the media wasn't paying attention to either case. Now, at the end of the week, these are two of the biggest stories in the country. And I think that's at least partly because we forced the media to pay attention to these stories. As for Hill, the story has also been helped along significantly by yesterday a Daily Mail article published, which contains a whole mess of new photographs and text messages which the Daily Mail, quote, obtained. They don't specify how exactly. Some of these pictures are, again, of Hill, Sons, clothing.

in various compromising positions. One shows her with a bong, and it reveals, strangely enough, what appears to be an Iron Cross tattoo, and she's naked in that picture. And there are even more photos that the Daily Mail says they have, but they haven't published.

And those sound like they're even more explicit, shall we say. The 22-year-old female staffer that she was sexually involved with has also been revealed, and her name's been put out there. I'm not going to mention her name because I don't think it's relevant. And the new photos have, whereas the first photo that came out of Hill, naked, brushing some staffer's hair, the face of the staffer was blurred out. Now we've got all these pictures, and the face is not blurred out anymore.

They're putting that out there. All right. With all this new stuff, I think there are two issues. One is the fact that Hill has been involved in this activity, activity which, as I've argued throughout the week, is unethical at a minimum, potentially illegal, certainly dangerous, as it opens her up to blackmail and extortion by America's enemies.

I was also interested to see that apparently Hill started this relationship with the staffer before she was hired on the campaign. As far as I know, the Daily Mail, they're the first person to, they're the first outlet to report that fact, because the timeline was never completely clear. So Hill, according to the Daily Mail, Hill got involved with this staffer and then hired her on. So Hill was paying a sex partner thousands in campaign funds without disclosing the relationship, which is a clear misuse of funds, a clear scandal, and yes, it is relevant to the public. and yes, Hill should resign because of it.

We can also talk about the hypocrisy that many people have pointed out, considering that she was a vocal critic of Kavanaugh and a proponent of the Me Too movement, and yet this is how she was carrying on. Carrying on this way with subordinates, which if that doesn't count as workplace sexual harassment at a minimum, then I don't know what does. You want to talk about sexual harassment? Well, if what we are seeing now documented, if that doesn't count as sexual harassment, then I don't know how you could ever accuse anybody of it. But there's a second issue here, too, which I think complicates matters slightly. And that is the fact that these personal photos, this revenge porn essentially, was released to the media and published in the first place. Now, a couple of these pictures were apparently actually posted online on a forum where spouses shared naked pictures of each other with the world.

And that's a thing now that people do. I don't know if Hill knew that those photos were going on that forum. I assume she did. I'm not sure. But this goes back to when she was still with her husband because she was with her husband and this other girl at the same time. At any rate, if naked pictures of a U.S. Congress member are willingly posted on a public forum, well, then I'd say you can't blame the public for taking notice.

And if she knew that that particular picture was going up online and she was okay with it, and now that picture is everywhere online, well, that's on her. That's her fault. But many of these pictures were not, so far as I'm aware, posted anywhere with Katie Hill's knowledge. They were, for malicious reasons, given to the media, and that is wrong and potentially illegal, as revenge porn is illegal against the law in like 40 states. So I think it's important to strike a balance with this story. Originally, you had the one leaked photograph with the younger woman's face blurred out, and it was just that. But now someone is releasing volumes and volumes, apparently, of salacious, explicit, pornographic photos. without obviously the consent of Katie Hill or her knowledge.

And we have to say, yes, what it reveals about Hill is highly problematic, troubling, unethical, potentially illegal. But the release of the photos is also all of those things. Problematic, troubling, unethical, potentially illegal. And I think that's a balancing act that's important to get right here. because I don't think we want to be in a position of endorsing revenge porn. And it's not because, like, I'm not sitting here trying to take the moral high ground, looking down on all the peons.

No, it's, this is, right, I think we can all agree that revenge porn is a bad thing. We're not fans of that. We're not putting our stamp of approval on that. But when someone, even if they do it illegally, when they release information, even if it's information that we shouldn't know, it's kind of like the email thing with the Democrats in 2016, all these emails were coming out. Well, yeah, we shouldn't, those emails shouldn't have been hacked and they never should have been published in the first place, but they were. And so now we know these things, and that matters. We can't pretend we don't know it. So, yes, maybe these photos never should have ended up online in the first place, but they did.

And so now we know that she was doing that with her subordinates and paying them with campaign funds. And that matters. And so, sure, she could, look, she could go and pursue legal penalties and all of that, find out who leaked the photos. And yeah, I don't blame her for doing it. If I was her, I'd do the same thing. But at the same time, she should be kicked out of Congress. Because to call this inappropriate behavior from a U.S. Congresswoman would be way, way, way understating it. One other note in this, just I have to also mention, I think probably what a lot of people are thinking is,

what kind of husband posts naked pictures of his own wife online? I'm talking about the one that was posted when they were together, the one that again presumably she knew was put up but what kind of emasculated cuckolded pathetic excuse for a man do you have to be to give other men a picture of your own naked wife to be used as pornography that's that's a if this guy was in a position where he could be thrown out of somewhere or impeached or in I think he'd deserve it too um because that is so pathetic. All right.

Now for the requisite war on Halloween topic, you've got to do one of these every year, so as we get ready for Halloween, the Daily Wire has an article up right now by Paul Bois reading in part, according to Yahoo Lifestyle, the Evanston-Skoki School District, 65 in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois,

announced last month that Halloween celebrations alienates certain members of the staff and student body, who do not participate for religious or personal reasons, as well as those who cannot afford costumes. As part of our school and district-wide commitment to equity, we are focused on building community and creative, inclusive, welcoming environments for all, the statement from the superintendent read, while we recognize that Halloween is a fun tradition for many, it is not a holiday that is celebrated by everyone for various

reasons, and we want to honor that. We are also aware of the range of inequities that are embedded in Halloween celebrations that take place as part of the school day in the unintended a negative impact that it can have on some students, families, and staff. As a result, we are moving away from Halloween celebrations that include costumes and similar traditions during the school day. We are confident our school communities will find new and engaging ways to build community within their schools. A range of inequities embedded in Halloween. Yes, that's exactly what I think. When I open the door for trick-or-treaters on Halloween, kids knock on my door, I open it. Well, look at this range of inequities, you bunch of filthy bigots. Get off my porch. Get out here, you Nazis.

Don't we all respond that way? That is not at all a really weird way to look at Halloween, is it? A range of inequities. Inequities and iniquities, too, if I could mention. And then the article continues over at Vermont's Burlington School District. English learning director of programs Miriam Edsatham Cating. Wait, Etta Shamm, E H-T-E-S-H-A-M-T-A-M-E-S-H-A-M-A-N-G. Miriam Etta-Sham-Kating told local reporters about the fear that people have over culturally insensitive costumes. Many people are made uncomfortable by the notion that you change your identity. Hold on. Let me back up. Okay, so this is Etta sham cating talking about the problem in Halloween.

Many people are made uncomfortable by the notion that you change your identity. You turn into someone else. And those somebody else's could represent cultural appropriations. Yes, this is a very troubling aspect of Halloween. You've got all these people changing their identities, becoming witches and werewolves and vampires, all different identities. That's the other thing. When I open my door on Halloween, there's all these trick-or-treaters. And I look at them and I say, you frauds. You're not really a power ranger.

This is a fraud over here. Identity theft. That's what I say. Hey, you, you're not Frankenstein. Hold on. Say, what's the big idea here? Actually, wait, I think there's a word. There's a word for changing your identity on in a festive way as part of a holiday tradition. There's a word for it.

What is that? It's, what's the word? Oh, yes, it's called a costume. Isn't that? Yeah, you're costume. Anyway, I think there's a word for people who get offended by children's Halloween costumes. Yes, that word is a, is a, it's on the tip of the idiot is the word. Halfwood, Cretan, Dunst, imbecilic, overly sensitive, puritanical, humorless, tedious, party pooping, ridiculous,

loudmouth mutton-headed scolds is another, well, it's more than one word, but all of those words really would work for this. I, I, how, there's a part of me that's so badly, you ever seen magical school bus, you know magical school bus? A great, great show, at least the original. They've got a new version of Magic School Bus out now. I saw my kids watching it, and I made him turn it off because it was such a disgrace compared to the older, the better version. Anyway, I've always, there's a part of me is always, always wanted to get into a magic school bus. And if I could go into the mind of someone like this, someone like a Miriam at the sham caning, just to see what's going on in there, if anything.

But I really want to understand. Maybe I don't. But I don't know. Maybe going into such a mind would be like entering into a black hole. So maybe, but how could you, how could you even see? Halloween in these terms as culturally insensitive, stealing identities. I can't even imagine looking at it that way. All right. So I wanted to chime in on one more subject before we get the emails. A Washington Post columnist, I've been wanting to talk about this for a couple of weeks, but other news has gotten in the way. A Washington Post columnist wrote a piece a couple weeks ago. They got a fair amount of attention. He argues that, well, the headline is, poor service, you still have to tip 20% no matter what. Have to do. And he goes on to say that it's our responsibility to always tip at

least 20% in every situation, even if we get bad service. Because the people who work on tips depend on it for survival and they don't get paid a living wage. They need the tips, so you have to cough, cough it up. And that's the argument. It's a familiar one you hear. Anytime you talk about tips and people who have been in the service industry work in it now or have worked in it, this is the argument you always hear. They point out that your waiter probably isn't getting paid much of an hourly wage. He or she needs the tips, and so that's why you have to tip. I myself have worked in the service industry in many capacities, and I still say that that attitude is BS. First of all, by this logic, when you go to a car dealership, you, you know, you go to a car dealership,

you have to buy the most expensive car you can possibly afford because the salesman depends on that commission. There might as well be a Washington Post column arguing that, hey, if you could get a better, oh, you could get a better deal on a car too bad. Pay full price. Because a lot of car salesmen, they only get paid on commission. I think pretty much that's the case for pretty much every car salesman, unless they're also a manager or I'm pretty sure that certainly many of them, most of them, don't get paid much of a wage other than the commission that they earn. And they might only sell 10 or 12 cars in a month, if that. And they really don't make a whole lot on each car, contrary to popular belief. Unless you're at

a high-end dealership buying Lamborghinis or something, these people are not making, your average car sales, I mean, you might only make the equivalent of minimum wage. So is it your ethical duty then to spend as much as you can to make sure that he has enough to eat? I suppose that would be a nice thing to do, but is it your responsibility? Would anyone actually do that? No, obviously that would be crazy. And if you take this logic and extend it, you've just made it so that every consumer during an average day of errands and shopping has a moral responsibility to be bankrupt by the end of it. Here's what I'll say for tipping.

I actually do almost always tip waiters and food service people in the food service. I delivery people and waiters. Anyway, I almost always tip at least 20%. I've done both of those jobs myself. I do have an affinity for those people. I have an empathy for them. And it's just how, you know, this is also something that becomes generational, I think. My dad was a big tipper.

his dad was a big, it's kind of passed down, I think, through the mail line, the tipping. And so if your dad was a good tipper, then you probably are a good tipper. If your dad wasn't, that's my theory. Maybe I'll do a paper on that. So maybe someone should do a study on that. So I generally will tip 20%. 20% is my minimum. Not because I have to, or I have some kind of moral responsibility or because I owe it to the person that's handing me my food. It's just I want to, so I do. And if the service is really good, then I might tip, I could go up to. I could go up to. I'm a person. I could go up to. I'm to 30%. I could go up to 40%. I can go up to 50. If I'm really feeling generous and you really blew my socks off with your service, then who knows? Sky's the limit. Point is, if you're serving me and I tip you, and this is just a hint that if you work in the service industry and I ever happen to come sit down in your restaurant and you're serving me, and I tip you less than 20%, that's a hint that you were really, really, really bad. You have to really earn it for me to give a bad tip. I think I've given no tip maybe two or three times in my life, and that was only because the service was so miserably aggressively, aggressively bad that I had

no choice. I felt like I was backed into a corner, and I could not justify leaving even one cent. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't. But usually for run-of-the-mill bad service, I'll give out 10 or 15%. But I also try to be cautious. This is one of the reasons why I don't penalize on tips as often as some people do is because having done these jobs, I realize that many times the things that we get mad at the waiters for, foods coming out late, you get your appetizer at the same time as your entree. That really annoys me. I hate that.

You order your steak, medium, rare, but it comes out well done. Most of that stuff, that goes to the kitchen. That probably wasn't the waiter's fault. and so to penalize the waiter for that, I think is not fair. All that said. The problem, though, and again, that's, that's, it's, but it's not an entitlement thing. So if you feel entitled to the tip, even, even if I, if my baseline is 20, you still have to earn it. And the advantage to working in a, in a, in a, something based on tips is that you can, yeah, it means that you're not getting the, the hourly wage that some

people are getting, but it's really up to you. I think if you, if you're getting, if it's a busy night, if you're working at a restaurant and it's a busy night, if it's not a busy night, people aren't coming in, then yeah, you're not going to make much money. You can't do much about that. But if it's a busy night and you're getting tables and you're constantly getting stiffed on tips, that probably just means that you're bad at what you're doing. But it could be a lot better. It doesn't take much, really. Be energetic, be cheerful. Not that I'm one to speak about being cheerful, but I don't do that for a living. So be energetic, be cheerful, be helpful. Just do that. And you can pretty much guarantee 20% tips from most people, if not more.

It's one of the reasons I was a deliver. I delivered pizzas for a long time, a long time, I don't know, maybe a year. And it was probably my favorite of those kinds of jobs, if all the jobs I had as a, if all the jobs I had as a teenager. That was by far my favorite job. And I like the fact that it was based on tips because I knew that, look, if I could just get there on time or even a little bit early and I'm super friendly for those, for that one-minute exchange, I can really generate those tips. And I kind of like that. All that said, the problem is that everyone now in our economy tries to get a tip out of you. every coffee shop you go to, every cafe, every eatery, places where the person behind the counter is just ringing you up and handing you your order. They're not waiting on the table.

They're not cleaning up after you. They're just, you tell them what they want. They, what you want. They punch it in. And then they, and then this is what it is in every coffee shop now. It seems like they flip that little iPad thing around after you put the card in. And then it pops up. Do you want to give a 15% tip?

20% tip? 30% tip? You're asking me for a, you're suggesting that I give you a 30% tip for handing me a coffee. Come on. This is what you're doing. This is the whole job. I say, okay, I get a medium, medium roast coffee. Hit it in there, turn around, hold up the cup, bring it around, hand the cup.

30% for that? Come on. you better be pretty damn friendly. You better be, not just pretty, you better be the most, the friendliest person I've ever encountered in my life in order for that to warrant 30%. So that's my only problem with the tipping

is I think we need to, every day now of life has become like a stay at a high-end hotel. You ever stayed at a really high-end hotel where everybody, everyone's very nice and they're all very helpful. Everybody you encounter wants a tip. And so even if you're lucky enough to go, sometimes I'll travel and, you know, I do speaking events and stuff.

And sometimes someone's very generous. They put you up in a really nice hotel. But what it ends up being is it ends up costing you $10,000 because you'd have to tip everybody all. You're just handing out cash to everyone. As you walk through the lobby, you're just throwing dollar bills everywhere. And that's what it's like in life now. Everywhere you go. Everyone expects a tip. It's just it's gotten a little too much. And that is my cheapskate rant for the day. Okay, let's go to emails. Matt Wallshow at gmail.com. Matt Wallshow at gmail.com from Christine says, Hey, Matt, thanks for your addressing the whole breastfeeding and stigma on your show yesterday. And an even bigger thanks for not comparing it to public urination like some people sometimes do. One is an unsanitary waste product. One keeps infants alive.

I agree that that comparison is, I think, unwarranted. Also, a little creed. in a number of ways. Your comparison to feet, however, is just a bit off. It's not illegal to show your feet in public. We wear shoes in public places because feet are dirty without. They pick up everything we walk on and keeping them covered in such places as a health measure in addition to preventing someone from suing a place for injuring themselves by stepping on a nail.

Breasts aren't being dragged around on the ground. Okay, there are so many jokes I contemplated making and I'm just going to move on. go to a beach and you and you show your feet no problem. Go topless in America and you will have the cops called. Hang your feet on a window driving down the highway. Hang your feet out of a window driving down the highway

and you have a country song. Well, you also have a ticket if you do that. Not to mention you get into an accident with your feet. I see people driving down the highway with their feet hanging out. I was like, do you realize what's going to happen to you? If the driver has to stop short, do you realize where your leg is going? Most of your body's going through the windshield.

Your legs going out that way, just so you know. Hang your feet out. Okay, hang your breasts out of the window and you're a sex offender. As for, well, it really depends on where you are, I suppose, with some of this stuff. As for covering up to each their own, someone feels safer covering. For others, it's just an extra burden and it's faster and easier not to. Do you think Mary covered Jesus up in the heat of the Middle East to preserve modesty? Very doubtful.

He would have had a heat stroke. Overall, you didn't dig your hole in the world. the subject too deep, I've breastfed five children and you have never been approached or have never been approached or told to cover up. I think the stigma is in the social circle people choose to run in. Okay, so I didn't dig my hole in the breastfeeding subject too deep. Let me try again. My only issue with your response, Christine, is that you're talking about the comfort level of the breastfeeding mother, and that's good because there should be a comfort level. And as I said yesterday, breastfeeding should not be stigmatized. I, I, I,

It doesn't seem to me that it really is, but if it is, it shouldn't be. Women and women shouldn't be prevented from doing it. There's nothing bad or shameful about it. Obviously, it's a healthy, good thing for a woman to do. So I'm on board with you there. And as I said yesterday, my wife is currently breastfeeding our new baby and has just as she did for the three other babies that we've had. But I also think that even if you don't want to call it modesty, It's just maybe a matter of basic politeness to at least take into consideration everybody else.

So can you meet me halfway? Can we agree on that? You're focusing on, well, it's up to the woman. What does she want to do? And right, okay. But also, in general, in life, we should take into account the people around us and try to be considerate to some degree, right? Within reason. And, you know, we've all been out in public in situations where a woman just, for lack of a better term, sort of whips it out, not a care in the world, feeds, does the thing around everyone, no cover, no attempt at all, even slightly to be discreet. So I think we've all been in scenarios like that. And I think that's kind of absurd. There's no reason to go out of your. way to show off. So as long as we can agree that there should be some kind of balance, that there should be some element of discreteness and taking into account other people. And so hopefully we can agree on that. And then everything will be, everything will be fine. Okay. From Simon says, hi, Matt, have you seen a quiet place? I have seen it. And it's a great film.

And I'll tell you the thing I really liked about it. I liked everything about them. movie, honestly, but the thing that I, including just the way that they handled suspense and a horror movie that doesn't rely on gore and it doesn't even rely on jump scares all that much. There's some of that, but not as much. It really is just building suspense, psychological suspense, which I appreciate it. But I also really appreciate it in that movie the way that the father character is portrayed as a good heroic father who loves and sacrifices for his family. So I like that movie a lot. from Lauren says, Hi, Matt, I listen to your show all the time,

but this is my first time emailing. I think what you've said about three-year-olds, not knowing what gender means is absolutely correct. I think that sometimes a kid might say they're a boy or a girl because they want to be a part of something boys or girls are doing.

I have a 12-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy. I have to listen to your show today. I remember an occasion when my son was about three, I was painting my daughter's toenails, and I had painted my own right before. My son said he wanted his nails painted it. too. I explained that we had our nails painted because we were girls and boys and don't wear nail polish. Then I started an activity that the three of us could do together. Now having a

girl and a boy, they both played with dolls, trucks, et cetera. My son has never expressed a desire to be a girl, but probably because I made it clear to him that he is, in fact, a boy. You are exactly correct, Lauren, and what you just said there is so important for people to understand. And this is the point that I've been trying to make that when a young child says that they say when a boy, for example, says he wants to be a girl. What he's really trying to communicate is that he wants to do the things. He wants to be a part of something that the girls are doing. And very often, the thing that he wants to be a part of, fine. Let him be a part of it. If he wants, they're all sitting around in coloring, doing arts and crafts. He wants to do that, fine. He wants to play

with dolls. Who cares? Now, I agree with you, with our boys, we're not going to paint their toenails or put them in dresses. I think that's going several steps too far. And that will create the confusion because on one hand, there's no reason to freak out. If your son picks up a doll, you're not going to say, put that doll down. Stop, right there. You're not going to do that. Who cares? He's got a doll. Who cares? And that's not going to confuse him. But you do want to set these boundaries and help him to understand who he is. And so dressing him up like a girl is only going to create confusion. You don't want to do that. So I think you've got the right idea and the right insight into this.

And we just can't emphasize enough that as parents, a big part of our job is to help our children understand who they are and what they're supposed to do as people. We don't take their cue. We don't sit back to our three-year-olds and say, okay, you tell me, who you are, what you want to do, how your life is going to run. We don't do that. They need us to step in and show them the way until we can fling open the doors and let them fly, let them leave the nest as free birds. This is from Shannon says, hi, Matt, really appreciate your views.

I have one question, though. I hope you don't take offense to. Why do you as a Catholic look to the Catholic Church to interpret scripture? for you. The great thing about the Reformation, in my opinion, is that it empowered and encouraged people to draw their own conclusions and not to rely on the interpretation of fallible humans. What is your take on that? Again, don't mean this with hostility. Well, you say you don't mean it with hostility, but Shannon, I take great offense to this question. It hurts my feelings deeply, but I will try to forge your head. So a few things. First, just my view on scripture,

It's true that I do trust the church's interpretation, but I also read the book for myself. And I do, in a sense, draw my own conclusions in that I don't just look to what the church tells me I should get out of the Bible and say, well, okay, that settles it. Don't need to read it. They've spoon-fed it to me, and I'll take their word for it. No, I pick it up and I read it, and I see what I actually do get out of it. And I think, and I turn the passages over in my head, I reflect on them and all of that. I'm a huge proponent of doing that, a huge proponent. And in fact, I will grant the stereotype that many Catholics in my experience don't read

their Bibles enough. And generally speaking, Protestants are better versed in Scripture than Catholics are. That is not always true. And it is, as I said, a stereotype. But many stereotypes are there for a reason. And I think this one is, if I'm being totally honest. It's not uncommon for me. Now, if you want to talk about the uninformed, lazy Catholics, I don't know the Bible,

right, but they don't know anything. And in Protestant churches, you have the same thing, right? You've got plenty of Christians who are lackadaisical, aren't paying attention, don't read the Bible, don't pay attention to anything. And so I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking really about, it's not uncommon for me to encounter highly educated Catholics who can spit moral theology at you all day long. And they can tell you all about Aquinas and Augustine and the church fathers.

And they can speak very philosophically and they're very informed about all these highfalutin theological concepts. And they can give you theories on the atonement and they can do all this stuff. But and they can give you church history and they can tell you. But some of them, in my experience, they couldn't tell you what happens in Matthew's infancy narrative. Not exactly anyway. So some of the really basic biblical stuff they aren't as versed on, and not always the case, but sometimes I have noticed that. And that's a problem. And I do think there should be a greater focus for Catholics in schools and in churches on reading the Bible and understanding what it says. Now, on the other hand, so I have granted that.

On the other hand, this idea that the Protestant Reformation was all about people interpreting the Bibles for themselves, I don't see that. I don't think the history of the movement bears that out. I don't claim to be an expert in the history of the Reformation, but I have read about it, and I'm fairly familiar with it. and it seems to me that the guys who were at the forefront of the Reformation, Luther and Calvin, they had their own interpretations of the Bible. In fact, these men were openly critical of certain books of the Bible, hostile to them even. Focusing on Luther for a minute, he, as I think most people know, he famously was insulting towards the book of James. He seemed to really hate that book. Called it an epistle of straw. He never explicitly advocated for removing it from the canon, I think because he knew he couldn't get away with that, but he all but did that.

He said it shouldn't be taught in schools. He said that it's wrong on a number of points. That it doesn't have, I forget what his phrase, it doesn't have the spirit of God in it or words to that effect. So it's always been interesting to me that the Reformation was supposed to be all about getting back to the Bible, but the Reformation was started by a guy who had no problem criticizing the content of the Bible. Bible, something that certainly Protestants today, for the most part, certainly the mainstream, would never openly do. But in the Reformation days, the people that got this thing kick-started, they did it all the time. They were very open about it. And what's interesting, too, is that

that's not something that you would have found then or now in the Catholic Church. You're not going to fine. Now, you might take issue with how the Catholic Church interprets books, but the Catholic Church is not going to come out and say, this book is wrong and shouldn't be taught. Luther did say that. Here's the main thing. Putting that aside, it seems to me that Luther and Calvin took the epistles of Paul, especially Romans, and made those the central documents of the whole book. and interpreted the whole book, that is the entire canon of Scripture, through the lens of Paul, interpreting even the teachings of Jesus through the lens of Paul. So that all the places in the text, where Jesus seems to very explicitly tell us that our ultimate destination

will depend to some degree on the things that we do on earth. I mean, Jesus indicates this many, many, many times in the gospel, all over the place in the gospel. And this is a subject that he is asked about and speaks on frequently, sometimes very directly. What can I do to inherit eternal life? Keep the commandments. Now, and I know that you talk to, you might have an answer for that verse. You could say, no, no, no, no, he didn't mean it like that. But what you do with all those various verses where Jesus seems to really indicate, not just indicate, but say, that to some degree it's going to depend on the things you do,

So what you'll probably do is you'll say, no, no, that's not how he meant it. Here's what's meant. And then the next thing you're going to do, and this is my experience, almost every time, out comes the book of Romans. So it seems like what you're doing is you're reading Jesus through the filter of Paul. Now, in my view, it should be the opposite. We should read Paul through the filter of Jesus. and wherever one teaching seems to need to be subordinated to another, maybe that's not exactly the right term.

I don't mean supplanted or replaced. I don't mean that they contradict. But what I mean is that one of those teachings has to be the foundation for the other. And I think that the teachings of Jesus are the foundation for Paul, not the other way around. So when you've got Paul saying salvation by faith and you've got Jesus saying the ones who make it to heaven, we're the ones who clothe the naked and fed the hungry, and we're trying to figure out how to make it all fit. We should begin with the assumption that there is some way to interpret Paul that will fit within Christ's framework, rather than beginning with the assumption that there is some way to interpret Christ that will fit within Paul's framework. So that is my point. And so this is an interesting discussion.

We could continue it. I'd be happy to, but I just, I want to make the point that if you're in the Protestant tradition, you are following an interpretation of the Bible that was handed down to you by men like Luther, whether you know it or not. So you're not just coming up with it on your own. you know, if you had no idea of any of this and you were not brought up in any tradition whatsoever and you were to just pick up the Bible and read it, which this is the way people pretend they read the Bible, where they, no influence, they're picking it up and reading it. I submit to you that if you

were to do that without any influence of any traditions of men, as you put it, there is no way you would arrive on your own at the conclusion that, you know, that it all boils down to Romans and that everything has to be seen through that lens. I just don't think there's any way you get through all those books and everything, including the four gospels where the Son of God is talking, is giving teachings, and then get to Romans and say, okay, this is everything right here. That, what I'm saying is that is one way to interpret it, but I don't think that's your interpretation.

I think that's interpretation that was given to. Doesn't mean it's wrong. I think it is wrong, but just because it was given to you by someone else doesn't mean it's wrong. And in fact, I think that, as I said, nobody picks up the Bible and freely interprets it without any influence. No one does that, even if they claim they do. And it's good that no one does that, actually, because I don't think that's the right way of approach in the Bible. I think that we do need some help and guidance in making sense of it. And anyone who has just picked it up and read it from the first page and just read on like it was a novel or something, which it isn't.

But anyone who has read it that way, it doesn't take you long before you start encountering things and you say, I'm not sure what this means. I can't figure out how to make sense of it. And so that's where you go somewhere to help you figure out how to make sense of it, don't you? you. So you have your place that you go. I have my place. We could talk about which place is the right way to go. My only point is you can't pretend that you don't have a place you go for your interpretation because you do, which in and of itself is fine. And I think unavoidable. And so much of interpreting scripture comes down to finding these various, when you have these various teachings, so much of interpretation comes down to figuring out what lens to see it through.

In other words, when you've got two teachings that appear to contradict, even though they don't, appear to, interpretation so often is, do I view passage B through the lens of A, or do I view passage A through the lens of B? And the decision you make that, there, depending on what the passages are, is going to be, is going to determine so much of your theology. But how did you decide that original thing? You've got two passages. How do you know which one? Because the Bible itself doesn't contain a glossary or an index explaining in itself how to do this. And especially in the New Testament, the New Testament books rarely refer to each other. sometimes they do but rarely and so you're not going to often find in the book explaining where the book says okay here's what it's saying here but oh that other book remember that it says this here's how to read those two things together the bible doesn't do that for you and so you have to decide how to view it and again i would suggest that your decision there on how to view it is not it's probably not something you you actually came

up with yourself. All right. Interesting subject, though. So thanks for that. Thank you for that question. We'll leave it there. Thanks, everybody for watching, listening. Have a great weekend.

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