Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 104

00:00:00.000 Hello, everyone. Happy Friday. I hope everyone's had a wonderful week. So typically we do interviews

00:00:07.080 or a Q&A on Fridays. Today, I didn't have an interview lined up and I didn't know exactly

00:00:14.660 which kind of questions I wanted to answer. I do have a lot of theological questions

00:00:18.780 that you guys have sent me that I still want to answer at some point, but it's Friday. I didn't

00:00:23.660 want it to be too terribly heavy. So what I decided to do was kind of a hodgepodge of things.

00:00:29.060 These are all things that have happened in the news this week, but it won't be exclusively

00:00:33.300 political. It won't be exclusively cultural and it won't be exclusively theological. We're kind of

00:00:38.560 going to weave all of those things together and talking about some of the biggest things

00:00:42.160 that happened over the past few days. Let's go ahead and get into what we're talking about.

00:00:46.300 So the most recent thing that happened in the news was vice president, former vice president Biden

00:00:51.460 announced his candidacy for president of the United States. Now, this has been a long time coming. If

00:00:57.680 you have watched the news at all over the past few weeks, you probably just assumed that he had

00:01:01.740 already announced his candidacy for for the for the Democratic ticket, but or candidacy for for

00:01:08.700 president to be nominated on the Democratic ticket. You probably thought that he was already

00:01:13.460 officially in the running because we've been talking about him. The news has been talking about

00:01:17.500 him like he had already announced it, but he hadn't. It was just assumed he had kind of toyed

00:01:23.300 around with it. He had talked about that. He and his family are talking through it. He has been

00:01:27.680 leading in the polls for a long time. There was a recent poll that said that he was actually ahead

00:01:32.200 of president Trump by about 11 points. Of course, we know from 2016 that polls, especially at this

00:01:37.500 point are not terribly accurate, but he officially made the announcement on YouTube posted on Twitter

00:01:44.260 like a true baby boomer. Nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying on on Thursday morning at 6 a.m.

00:01:51.860 I watched the video. I encourage you to and I'm actually going to play a clip here. I'll just

00:01:56.560 play the clip now and then I'll give you my analysis. Folks, America is an idea, an idea that's

00:02:02.300 stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It gives hope

00:02:08.680 to the most desperate people on earth. It guarantees that everyone is treated with dignity and gives hate

00:02:15.060 no safe harbor. It instills in every person in this country the belief that no matter where you start

00:02:21.080 in life. There's nothing you can achieve if you work at it. That's what we believe. And above all

00:02:29.040 else, that's what's at stake in this election. So I didn't want to play you the whole thing, but

00:02:33.740 here's my analysis of the part that I just played you. This is a very make America great again type

00:02:40.060 message. I was on Stuart Varney's show on Fox Business yesterday, and that's that's an analysis

00:02:47.720 that he and I seem to share that this is a very pro-America, America first message. The language

00:02:54.540 that he is using is certainly meant to attract people in the middle and attract people even on

00:03:00.840 the right, I think, saying that America was founded on an idea, but that it was imperfectly implemented.

00:03:07.180 He even used the name of Thomas Jefferson. I mean, any Democrat today, any far left Democrat today is

00:03:13.200 never even going to say the name of Thomas Jefferson, but he invoked the name of a founder.

00:03:17.060 He said that we were created on a good idea that America is strong, that we have to keep her strong.

00:03:23.080 And even though this great idea of equality, self-governance and all of I'm kind of paraphrasing

00:03:28.340 there has been implemented imperfectly over throughout history, that we still need to maintain the strength

00:03:35.260 and the dignity and the leadership that we have in the world. That is not today's common

00:03:41.260 democratic message. That is a very strong pro-America, even America first, make America great again,

00:03:48.280 keep America great type message without, of course, saying those words. I think he realizes that his

00:03:56.240 base is not going to be the far left. It's probably not even going to be Obama's base. His base is probably

00:04:02.080 going to be, or the people who he wants to support him are going to be blue collar, white, working

00:04:08.660 class Americans, even people who like Trump's pro-America message, but just don't like Donald

00:04:16.480 Trump. He is going to try to be the dignified, more mature, more experienced Donald Trump in the sense

00:04:23.060 that he is going to exude some sort of strength that a lot of people liked about Donald Trump and a lot

00:04:29.600 of people liked about his message without some of the crassness, without some of the pettiness that

00:04:34.540 people don't like about Donald Trump. I personally, as much as I don't agree with Joe Biden and I do not

00:04:41.320 agree with his policies and we'll get into this in just a second. I also think that he was part of

00:04:46.900 the worst and the most progressive, uh, presidency in recent history, if not all of history, even though

00:04:55.000 I dislike everything that he stands for, at least what I know that he stands for, this is a good

00:05:00.980 move. This is a very smart move by Joe Biden to use this kind of language to kind of signal to people

00:05:08.440 in the center and in the center, right? Maybe even someone staunchly on the right. Um, this is a really

00:05:15.260 smart strategy because what people did like about Donald Trump, uh, people like me who didn't like

00:05:21.680 his personality, maybe didn't like his tweets, had contentions with his morality. What we did like

00:05:28.920 about him was that he said, no, no, no, none of this, none of this America is going around to

00:05:35.040 apologize to other countries. None of this America needs to apologize for our weaknesses. No, America is

00:05:42.400 going to be great again. America is going to be strong. He, uh, made it okay again to be a patriot and

00:05:48.840 to be proud of your country and to be proud of American greatness and strength. That was something

00:05:53.720 that really appealed to a lot of people that didn't like him personally. And so Joe Biden is

00:05:58.280 latching onto that, latching onto that popular message and saying, yeah, well, I'm for that too.

00:06:05.140 Now the question is whether or not it's going to work because the other person who has been up in the

00:06:10.260 polls, also a white male, funnily enough is Bernie Sanders. Now his message is not one of American

00:06:16.460 strength. It's not one of American greatness. His message, just like Elizabeth Warren's message,

00:06:22.680 who of course is not pulling nearly as well as either Biden nor Bernie Sanders, but their message

00:06:29.260 is going to be one of fairness. Their message is going to be one of rich people paying their fair

00:06:34.980 share. They are going to be talking about free college. They're going to be talking about free

00:06:39.460 healthcare. They're going to be talking about universal basic income. They're even going to be

00:06:43.320 talking about racial inequality. Uh, I'm not sure if Biden, how Biden is going to confront those

00:06:50.960 issues, how Biden is going to be able to answer those questions if he is trying to reach white

00:06:56.480 people in the middle. Um, but that's certainly not his initial message. That's certainly not what

00:07:01.740 he's going out there and talking about first. He knows who he's trying to reach. So I will be

00:07:07.020 interested to see kind of how he walks that line. If you remember, he said something positive about

00:07:12.120 Mike Pence a couple months ago and said, you know, Mike Pence and I have our disagreements,

00:07:16.480 but we are, you know, he's a good guy. We're on the same page as far as, you know, him being a

00:07:22.900 decent man. And then Cynthia Nixon, the socialist from New York said, are you kidding me? How can you

00:07:28.940 possibly say that this guy is a decent man, this homophobe, whatever. And Joe Biden walked back his

00:07:34.580 compliment of Mike Pence. You can't even say that someone's a decent man who disagrees with you

00:07:38.600 politically anymore. And he totally acquiesced to the tyranny of the far left. He couldn't even say

00:07:44.080 that he liked him as a person. And so is that what his campaign is going to be going out there

00:07:50.120 saying something that, um, kind of shows him as a middle of the road guy who shows him as he shows

00:07:57.920 himself as someone who is not a socialist, who is really a centrist, who is trying to reach across

00:08:02.820 the aisle, get things done. He's going to say these things, and then he's going to have leftist

00:08:06.900 intersectionalists come after him and he's going to have to apologize. If that is going to be his

00:08:11.280 strategy moving forward, I don't think that's going to work very well. I do think what people

00:08:15.960 like about Bernie Sanders is that he is very unapologetic about being a socialist. He really

00:08:21.360 doesn't care what you think about socialism. To his credit, the ideas that he has had that I think

00:08:26.620 are absolutely crazy and that a lot of people think are absolutely crazy. He has been holding for a

00:08:31.100 really long time. Like he was a socialist before being a socialist was cool. Like he was,

00:08:35.540 he was praising Soviet Russia. He was praising bread lines. Like the guy has been cuckoo for a

00:08:41.620 long time. It's just that America's cuckoo-ness is just now catching up to his. Um, so we'll see

00:08:48.660 that that to me is going to be a very interesting battle because it's actually going to be a battle

00:08:53.160 of ideas, not just a battle of race and a battle of gender. If you haven't noticed Swalwell, who is

00:08:59.780 currently pulling at 0%, Cory Booker, who might be pulling at 1%, both of them have pledged to have

00:09:06.020 women on their ticket because they think that this intersectionality is going to help. Well,

00:09:10.940 according to USA Today, 77% of voters who were polled don't care about the gender of the person

00:09:17.040 who's on the ticket. And so I don't really think that's going to help them go from 0% to any kind

00:09:22.560 of formidable percentage of support whatsoever, but they apparently think it is. That to me is

00:09:28.460 very boring. Like this whole intersectional conversation of who has more oppression points

00:09:33.960 than the other. Like, that's not interesting to me. At least I get when it's Biden against Bernie,

00:09:39.940 there's going to be this back and forth of who is going to make better policies that's better for

00:09:45.900 America or who is going to advocate for better policies that are better for America. That's a much

00:09:50.460 more interesting conversation. I think that's a much more interesting, uh, cultural dialogue as

00:09:55.920 well. Okay. Do we want this person who says he's going to be middle of the road, who says he cares

00:10:00.640 about American greatness and American strength, or do we want this person who's going to take the

00:10:04.980 country in a fundamentally new direction, uh, fundamentally changing, uh, what, uh, what America

00:10:12.380 is and how we function economically and socially. Now, speaking of that, speaking of fundamentally

00:10:20.100 changing America, that's one thing that Joe Biden said in his video and his announcement video that

00:10:27.280 I just had to laugh at, he said, of course, that if we elect Donald Trump again, and he is president

00:10:34.000 for four more years, if we have Donald Trump for eight years of his presidency, then it's going to

00:10:39.820 fundamentally change the character of America. Well, what's funny about that is that he was a part of

00:10:44.900 the presidency that did fundamentally change the character of America. And that's not just me

00:10:50.340 saying that as a conservative, that is polls saying that if you look at the study that I've

00:10:54.680 cited so many times on this podcast, polarization and politics from Pew research in 2017, and you look

00:11:01.000 at just how much Republicans and Democrats began to disagree over the eight years of Obama's presidency,

00:11:06.380 they always disagree. Almost always have disagreed on everything to some degree,

00:11:11.340 but not to the degree to which they disagree now and started to disagree under Barack Obama.

00:11:18.740 This is mostly due to the dramatic changes in the democratic line of thought. Republicans,

00:11:24.500 if you look at this study, really didn't change all that much in our ideology. We didn't really change

00:11:29.280 all that much in what we thought about immigration, guns, welfare, but Democrats did. They moved to the

00:11:34.120 left on everything. I mean, why do you think that it was feasible and is feasible for a socialist to

00:11:39.920 almost, or was feasible for a socialist to almost win the democratic primary in 2016 and why he is

00:11:45.700 still so popular today? That would have been impossible before Barack Obama. That would have

00:11:50.760 been impossible without Barack Obama. I guarantee you, if we had had John McCain and Mitt Romney become

00:11:56.860 president or even Barack Obama for just four years of his presidency, Bernie Sanders wouldn't even be a

00:12:02.040 possibility. But Barack Obama warmed us all up to collectivism. He warmed us all up to identity

00:12:07.700 politics and that warms everyone up to socialism and this class warfare, this gospel of grievance that

00:12:14.620 we've talked about so many times on this podcast. So if you look at this particular study from Pew

00:12:19.900 Research and you look at how Democrats changed their minds and moved to the left, you can look at

00:12:24.920 abortion, you can look at race, you can look at immigration, you can look at welfare, you can look at

00:12:30.160 guns, you can look at health care. They've all moved dramatically, not just a little bit, but

00:12:35.400 dramatically to the left while Barack Obama was president. It's not that they were moving steadily

00:12:40.820 to the left before that. And then they just kept on moving steadily to the left while Barack Obama was

00:12:45.900 in office. No, they moved dramatically to the left. And if you even look at their rhetoric and how their

00:12:51.900 rhetoric has changed just over the past 10 years, I mean, think about abortion. Democrats used to say

00:12:56.700 that abortion should be safe, legal and rare. And now it's glorified through all nine months. It's supposed

00:13:02.180 to be a woman's choice. And New York has passed a law saying that, uh, uh, an unborn child is not a

00:13:08.820 child or is not a person inside the womb and has no legal rights whatsoever. And that is being

00:13:13.880 celebrated. It's not even just pro choice anymore. It is pro abortion. It is pro bodily autonomy. So

00:13:20.500 they say it's no longer just safe, legal and rare. It is whenever, wherever on demand through all nine

00:13:26.780 months. Uh, if you look at race in 2008, the majority of both parties, Republicans, Democrats,

00:13:32.200 um, they saw that personal choices, or they agreed that personal choices were mostly to blame for

00:13:38.380 problems within the black community. This is from that study. Uh, now the vast majority of Democrats,

00:13:43.380 the vast majority of Democrats, like more than two thirds of Democrats blame systemic racism rather

00:13:49.200 than personal choices. Uh, if you look at immigration as recently as 2013, Democrats were saying

00:13:55.200 we need to curb illegal immigration, that this is a big deal, that we need border security. Obama

00:13:59.900 himself said this during his presidency. You've probably seen that clip floating around. Uh,

00:14:04.920 now that's no longer the case. Democrats don't have any kind of plan whatsoever that they have

00:14:10.280 verbalized that says we want to secure the border and ensure the sovereignty of our nation. Instead,

00:14:15.480 they say they want to abolish ice. They demonize border patrol. They conflate constantly in their

00:14:20.360 rhetoric, asylum seekers with illegal aliens. They want to create sanctuary cities, which of course,

00:14:25.200 they've already done. They want to exclude any questions about citizenship from the census.

00:14:29.760 Uh, a lot of Democrats plain and simple, just fundamentally disagree with the importance of

00:14:34.780 citizenship. Uh, they think it's not a necessary qualification for being a legitimate part of

00:14:39.520 this country for living here, for working here, receiving benefits, whatever. Now I do want to go off

00:14:44.860 on a side note here and just talk about why for a second, this is so wrong and why it really is the

00:14:50.340 opposite of compassion. The problem with not caring about citizenship and the problem with just

00:14:55.020 saying legal immigration is fine. Everyone's asylum seekers. They should be able to come here

00:14:59.080 no matter what the problem is as a country loses sovereignty. It also loses its legitimacy and it

00:15:05.620 loses its ability to account for and protect those who live here. It makes it difficult, if not

00:15:11.400 impossible to adequately, to properly, to appropriately, to accurately enact justice. Uh, as we know,

00:15:19.380 especially as conservatives problems are always better solved and laws are better enacted and

00:15:25.780 people are better cared for by the government, uh, not by the government period, but by the government

00:15:31.540 on a local level when it is as close to the people as humanly possible. So therefore, if we have a

00:15:38.120 country that has open borders, that doesn't have any sovereignty, that doesn't have any control over

00:15:41.840 who comes in, uh, and we would have an international government in essence. We don't really have a

00:15:47.260 national government at that point. Can you imagine the bureaucracy, the inefficiency, the ineffectiveness

00:15:53.440 of an international government? I mean, when you think about the VA, when you think about the things

00:15:58.100 now that are run by bureaucracy, how well did they typically go? Not well, you don't get cared for well

00:16:04.340 because it's impossible to care for the needs of a local community nationally. When you are so far away

00:16:11.400 from what those needs actually are. And so when you don't have an ability to, uh, to maintain your

00:16:18.440 borders, when you don't have an ability to protect your sovereignty, you are not able to actually

00:16:24.320 enact justice in a way that is righteous, in a way that is good, in a way that is effective for the

00:16:30.260 people who actually live in your country. Of course, we should be able to account for who comes into our

00:16:35.740 country. And of course there should be some kind of system that says this person can come in and this

00:16:40.800 person cannot come in. That is a right of every country. That's not bigoted. That's not racist.

00:16:46.300 That's not wrong. That should be true for any country that someone is coming from. We should

00:16:51.340 have standards for who comes in and who doesn't come in. And once someone does come in, they should

00:16:56.300 of course be accounted for. That is called justice. That is called efficiency. Something I know

00:17:02.300 that many people who advocate for big government are completely allergic to,

00:17:06.300 but it's the best thing that we can possibly do for the people who actually live here for the

00:17:11.880 citizens of this country. Uh, they've also changed their minds. Like I said, on welfare, on crime,

00:17:16.620 on healthcare. And speaking of healthcare, Obamacare, if you want to talk Joe Biden about

00:17:21.260 a fundamental change to the character of the country, let's talk about Obamacare. I mean,

00:17:26.540 it was such a change to the American system that the government is going to take care of you.

00:17:31.080 And here's, here's the kicker. And if you do not allow the government to take care of you by

00:17:36.000 providing your healthcare coverage, you will be punished by paying a tax. That's what the Obamacare

00:17:40.960 mandate is. That was a huge shift in what Americans expect from the government, that you will be punished

00:17:48.180 if you do not allow the government to take care of you. So you have to, or else you get to pay this

00:17:54.040 penalty. That is a fundamental shift in how the American system works. And so I really don't want to

00:17:59.460 hear from Joe Biden that president Trump doing a lot of really good things that have put America

00:18:05.260 first and have helped the economy so much. I mean, we've got 7 million open jobs right now.

00:18:10.760 Our country is doing really well. Minorities women are doing really well economically,

00:18:15.060 uh, to say that he is fundamentally changing our country for the worst. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

00:18:20.900 Sure. You can say that he's not really helping public discourse. I would probably agree with that,

00:18:24.900 that, uh, he has said some things that you don't like. Yeah, sure. I agree with that. The Obama said

00:18:31.700 a lot of things that I didn't like too. And quite frankly, I think Obama really ruined discourse

00:18:36.500 because everything became about race and identity politics and intersectionality. And so that didn't

00:18:42.440 help either. Uh, but this argument that he is making the country so much worse and Joe Biden is going

00:18:48.500 to be some kind of savior. The guy that was part of Obama's presidency. I'm just not really buying it.

00:18:55.000 So we'll see if this works for Joe Biden. I'm really interested. I think that he is an interesting

00:18:59.980 contender. And I also think that Bernie Sanders is an interesting contender. I don't want either one

00:19:05.120 of them to be president, but I think that they can make for some interesting debates. Now I have a hard

00:19:11.300 time picturing Bernie Sanders against Donald Trump in a debate. It just, I don't, I don't know. That

00:19:18.900 kind of just makes me uncomfortable, but I do think Bernie or, uh, Joe Biden could actually take

00:19:24.840 him on in a debate and maybe outwit him. I just think that Bernie Sanders gets all flustered. He just

00:19:31.920 gets all flustered. And I'm not sure that that would actually be a good debate. Speaking of Bernie

00:19:36.780 Sanders, uh, there was a town hall on CNN, uh, a bunch of the, or all, I think it was all the

00:19:41.300 democratic candidates. Uh, they talked about their positions. They were asked a bunch of questions.

00:19:46.260 And here was the question that was asked by a lot of people are asked to, I think all of them. And

00:19:51.560 that was, should felons in prison be able to vote? Uh, Bernie Sanders says, yes, all felons. They are,

00:19:58.700 if they are citizens, if they are above the age 18 or they're 18 or older, they should be able to vote.

00:20:04.420 We should not revoke that. Right. Kamala Harris, you know, former prosecutor said, uh, well,

00:20:10.060 we'll have that conversation, which is basically what she says on anything controversial. Pete

00:20:15.180 Buttigieg, uh, the mayor from South Bend that we've talked about on this podcast, he said, no,

00:20:19.880 they should not be able to vote for prison, but they should be able to vote after. I agree with

00:20:24.420 Buttigieg on this. No prisoners should not be able to vote from prison. That is a part of your

00:20:29.520 punishment. You do not get a say in civic matters because you were a threat to society at one point,

00:20:35.940 especially violent offenders. Uh, you violated the law. Uh, I do believe that after you are released,

00:20:42.280 if you are released, so this doesn't count murderers, by the way, if you are released that part of the

00:20:47.960 reintroduction to society, part of the rehabilitation that we really should be doing a lot better could

00:20:53.620 possibly be reinstating the right to vote. I think that can be conditional and dependent on a lot of

00:21:00.760 different factors. I mean, it's really hard for me to say, yes, a rapist or a, a child molester should

00:21:07.920 have the right to vote, but it depends. It depends on so much. I mean, say you committed a crime when

00:21:12.500 you were 18 years old, you were convicted of something that you really did do, but you served

00:21:17.780 in prison for 25 years, you come out and you're a grown man now, and you've completely changed your

00:21:23.300 life. You don't get any say in the society that you live in. I'm just not sure. Maybe I haven't

00:21:28.360 completely made my mind up on that. I certainly don't think felons from, uh, from in prison should

00:21:34.180 be able to vote, but after once you're reinstated back in society, I definitely think that's a

00:21:38.720 conversation in the words of Kamala Harris, uh, that's we should have. Now I do think that we as a

00:21:46.120 society can do a lot more to help those who are exiting prison to rehabilitate them.

00:21:53.260 There is an organization called prison fellowship. I encourage you to go to prison fellowship.org.

00:21:58.120 They actually have, it's a nonprofit organization. It's a ministry. They actually have, uh, programs

00:22:04.180 that help rehabilitate criminals after they're released from prison. They do a lot of good work.

00:22:09.340 And so I encourage you to check them out. That's something of course, that Christians are called to do.

00:22:13.260 And I'm talking to myself because currently there's not really anything that I do besides give to my

00:22:18.000 church who might help, but there's not currently anything that I do personally to help those who

00:22:23.240 are in prison. And that quite frankly, is something that we are all called to do. We are called to have

00:22:27.200 compassion for the criminal. That doesn't mean that we don't believe in justice, but we are called to

00:22:31.940 have compassion for them. So that was just kind of a side note. So speaking of criminals, a Texas

00:22:37.620 executed John William King in a racist dragging death of James bird, Jr. This was back, I think

00:22:44.500 in 1998, just a terrible, terrible crime. The description, if you have kids in the car, you

00:22:51.180 might want to just fast forward through this part. So, uh, John King, uh, and in addition to two other

00:22:58.580 guys were convicted back in the late nineties for dragging James bird, Jr. Who was black James

00:23:04.520 William King and his two friends were white, um, dragging bird from the back of his truck

00:23:09.260 for miles while bird was still alive until his body was torn to pieces. He was decapitated

00:23:14.140 by this, uh, by this dragging behind the truck, horrible, horrible, violent crime makes my skin

00:23:21.220 crawl, gives me chills, gives me a lump in my throat. When I even think about this bird was

00:23:25.560 a father. He has family who is still, uh, mourning over this loss. I mean, I cannot even fathom

00:23:32.660 the evil, the hatred, the depravity that you have to have in your heart to do something like this.

00:23:37.780 And the fact of the matter is we're all depraved. We're all capable of gross evil. We're all capable

00:23:42.720 of heinous crimes. We are all capable of doing things that we thought that we would never do.

00:23:47.860 Every single one of us is capable of that. But I, I just can't imagine the hatred that someone has to

00:23:55.200 have the racism that someone has to have to do this to someone. Uh, police found cigarette butts

00:24:00.640 and hats of King and two other, uh, his two other friends at the scene of the crime. And so that's

00:24:06.420 why he was convicted. One of the other guys, Lawrence Brewer was put to death in 2011 for the crime.

00:24:10.940 Uh, Sean Barry is serving a life sentence. Uh, I do hope, I do hope for his sake and just, I guess

00:24:19.800 for, because I'm, I'm a believer. I do hope that he repented before he died. And, uh, before he was

00:24:26.900 put to death, I do hope that he repented and that he came to know Christ as his savior because Christ

00:24:32.540 can save, uh, the worst of sinners. He can save anyone who is far off. He is, can be indiscriminatory

00:24:42.100 in the sense that it doesn't matter what you have done. Christ can still save you. And I hope that that

00:24:50.120 was the case for him. I do. If not, he is living in eternal torment and hell right now. And while we

00:24:57.840 should never rejoice in criminals going to hell or anyone going to hell, we should never, um, rejoice

00:25:04.320 in someone enduring the wrath of God for all of eternity. There is comfort for us. There is comfort

00:25:11.220 for Christians and knowing that God is a God of justice, that he cares about justice, that he cares

00:25:16.960 about crimes that happen here on earth. And he has appointed a day, according to the Bible, that

00:25:21.580 every single human, every single one of us who has ever lived will be judged through Jesus Christ

00:25:27.480 and we'll give an account for every word that we have spoken in every action we have taken.

00:25:32.200 So no matter what happens here on earth, when it seems like the evil man goes free, when it seems like

00:25:37.740 the punishment doesn't fit the crime, whatever it is, justice will be served one day, once and for

00:25:44.160 all, and no one will escape it. Uh, now here on earth, here's a question that I've gotten a lot

00:25:50.120 here on earth. Are Christians supposed to support the death penalty? Well, there is an interesting

00:25:54.940 piece, um, called a call to dialogue on capital punishment by Dan Van Ness. It was written a while

00:26:01.200 ago. And there are really three arguments that Christians make for that, uh, make for or about

00:26:06.540 the death penalty. One, the Bible mandates capital punishment is one position to the Bible permits

00:26:12.300 it. And three, the Bible prohibits it. So those who say that the Bible actually mandates capital

00:26:16.920 punishment, they're looking at the old Testament. Mostly they're looking at particularly one verse

00:26:22.040 Genesis nine, six that who's that says, whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed

00:26:27.640 for the image of God has God made man. So that just shows you how much God cares about innocent life

00:26:33.820 that he demands there be equal payment for it. And then of course they go to Romans 13, one through

00:26:39.580 seven, which doesn't mandate the death penalty, but does say to submit to earthly authorities

00:26:43.700 who bear quote the sword. And then some people say that the Bible permits it, that it is not,

00:26:49.600 it's not something that we have to stand against as Christians kind of citing some of the same

00:26:53.900 verses. And then some people say that the Bible actually prohibits it. Um, they say that Jesus

00:26:59.260 replaced the sacrifice of animals. So there's no more requirement of the shedding of blood for crimes

00:27:04.160 committed that, uh, used to solicit the shedding of blood. And they say, okay, we can't look at

00:27:09.540 something like Genesis nine, six or other old Testament laws. Uh, Israel was a theocracy.

00:27:15.500 These people would say, so we don't operate in the same way that they did. We don't stone people for

00:27:20.080 committing adultery, for example, just as Jesus refused to do so for the woman caught in adultery in

00:27:24.700 the new Testament. And so we shouldn't, we also should not support the death penalty. That's what these

00:27:31.780 people would say who say that the Bible actually prohibits it. Now, I don't think that the Bible

00:27:38.880 prohibits it. I think that the best argument is probably that the Bible permits it. Obviously

00:27:46.540 God takes the shedding of blood very seriously. I do understand the argument of the Bible prohibiting it.

00:27:52.920 And I think it could be a perfectly legitimate position to be against it yourself. But I do think

00:27:58.500 it's wrong when people say that Christians have to be against the death penalty, because there are,

00:28:04.260 there's a good reason to think that the Bible at the very least permits it. But I also think that it

00:28:10.860 is, uh, a legitimate perspective to say, well, that's just not what I think is, is the best example

00:28:18.000 of God's justice here on earth, because there are also a lot of different problems with that.

00:28:23.140 In that, uh, there are people who have been wrongly convicted. I mean, since 1973, and this is from

00:28:29.560 an email, uh, that I get every day by Nick Pitts called the briefing, uh, since 1973, 151 people have

00:28:36.580 been released from death rows, uh, here in the United States due to evidence of their wrongful

00:28:41.280 convictions. And so a lot of people have a problem with, or have concerns with the truth of these

00:28:47.360 convictions that ends in the death penalty. And I think that that's a, a very good point to make.

00:28:53.780 And I think that's something that should all concern us if we truly do care about truth and we truly do

00:28:58.740 care about justice. And so I think that there is support for both position. I don't think it's

00:29:04.300 accurate when people say, well, you can't be pro-life and pro-death penalty. Come on guys,

00:29:09.400 the abortion or the abortion abortion and the death penalty are not the same thing. Abortion is the

00:29:16.680 deliberate murder of an unborn child who is helpless in the womb, who has done nothing except for

00:29:23.300 live. Of course, if you want to get into the theological terminology or theological thoughts into

00:29:27.680 that, you could talk about the taking apart an original sin, whatever, but that's not what we're

00:29:31.980 talking about. They haven't committed any conscious sins. Um, at this point, they are in the womb.

00:29:37.320 They have done nothing but exist. They have done nothing but survive and they are completely

00:29:42.980 helpless. They are babies. It is not the same thing as taking the life of a brutal murder.

00:29:48.760 That's not the same thing. One could be seen by many as a form of justice. One is murder,

00:29:55.220 plain and simple. And so I don't think we should be conflating the two thing that takes away from

00:29:59.200 the seriousness of abortion and the black and whiteness of abortion. Whereas the death penalty

00:30:04.220 could really be argued biblically either way. Abortion cannot. And so I don't think that you

00:30:08.700 can take away someone's pro-life creds just because they think murderers should still be

00:30:13.080 placed on death row. Now, speaking of the Bible, I did just want to mention this briefly. We only have

00:30:17.740 two more little topics left, but I do want to mention this, uh, since we were just talking about

00:30:23.300 the Bible. So Franklin Graham, this is Billy Graham's son. He tweeted something that is catching a lot

00:30:28.360 of flack about mayor Pete Buttigieg, who, like we said, is running for president. He tweeted mayor

00:30:32.980 Buttigieg says he is a gay Christian as a Christian. I believe the Bible, which defines homosexuality as

00:30:38.500 sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised, or politicized. The Bible

00:30:43.180 says marriage is between a man and a woman, not two men, not two women. That was part of a tweet thread.

00:30:49.320 We don't need to read the whole thing. As you can imagine, he is getting a whole lot of flack for this.

00:30:55.800 People are really mad. And I think some people have good reason to be mad over this. And some

00:31:01.880 people don't have good reason to be mad over this, or at least there are some reasons to be

00:31:05.760 frustrated by this statement and some reasons not to legitimately be frustrated by this statement.

00:31:10.480 I think that a legitimate reason to be frustrated by this statement or to say the statement, um, is a

00:31:17.340 little hypocritical is because Franklin Graham has been so openly supportive of president Trump and

00:31:23.160 president Trump has his own, uh, moral problems. Uh, we know that he paid off a porn star, at least

00:31:29.980 I guess we don't know for sure, for sure, but we pretty much do that. He has been unfaithful

00:31:35.900 to his wives multiple times that he is also engaged in divorce. Now, maybe Franklin Graham

00:31:40.720 just assumes that president Trump has repented of these things. I hope that president Trump has

00:31:44.760 repented of these things and that he's given his life to Christ. That would be a wonderful thing,

00:31:48.740 but Franklin Graham hasn't, as far as I know, called these things out. And again, maybe it's

00:31:55.860 because this is part of his past and that's not what president Trump does anymore. And so he doesn't

00:32:00.260 feel like he needs to call out his behavior, but it does seem a little duplicitous when the Bible

00:32:05.120 defines marriage between a man and a woman, which it does. The Bible also says that God hates divorce

00:32:10.080 and really doesn't permit divorce except for in a few instances like marital unfaithfulness.

00:32:15.580 Um, that probably deserves to be called out to, if you are going to talk about biblical definitions

00:32:22.000 of marriage and what God says about marriage. Um, so for him to only call out Buddha judge because he

00:32:30.100 is gay. Well, I think that gives a lot of fuel to the fire of some people on the left to say

00:32:36.220 that, well, this, the religious right doesn't really care about the sanctity of marriage. They only care

00:32:41.400 about being homophobic, whatever. Um, now the wrong reason to criticize what Franklin Graham said

00:32:49.040 is for biblical reasons for Christians to say, well, he's wrong. He's a bigot. He's hateful. Well,

00:32:55.860 he is biblically correct about marriage. We've talked about that many times on this podcast. If you saw

00:33:01.980 my interview with Dave Rubin, I explained the biblical perspective on this, which is that yes,

00:33:07.860 in the old Testament, it does define marriage as between a man and a woman. The only sexual relations

00:33:13.800 that are explicitly condoned by God are the sexual relations between a husband and a wife, one husband

00:33:19.980 and one wife. And in the new Testament as well, if you look at Romans one 27, as well as a couple

00:33:25.500 other verses, it explicitly says homosexuality is a sin. But we've also talked about on this podcast

00:33:31.380 that beyond that, it's not just a physical mandate that it is also a spiritual metaphor that marriage

00:33:37.660 has spiritual gospel implications that, uh, make it necessary for it to be between a man and a woman.

00:33:43.900 If you look at Ephesians five or Colossians three, specifically Ephesians five, the man is the head of

00:33:49.900 the wife as Christ is the head of the church. A wife is to submit to her husband as the Lord. A husband

00:33:58.460 is supposed to take care of his wife, just as Christ nourishes the church. There is a gospel

00:34:03.380 implication there. Um, there is really no way to obfuscate that there's really no theological way

00:34:10.360 to get around that, that the relationship between a man and a woman in a Christian marriage is not

00:34:15.460 egalitarian. It is that we do not have the same roles. We do not have the same responsibility. We

00:34:20.260 don't even have, uh, the same position before God when it comes to marriage in that a husband is to

00:34:28.160 account for his wife and to account for his household before God. That doesn't mean that

00:34:32.300 the woman is also going to stand before God and judgment because she will as well, but there's a

00:34:37.040 different spiritual responsibility. And so it's not just about, uh, well, the Bible says the

00:34:43.220 homosexuality is a sin. It's that, okay, marriage is actually much bigger than just a physical

00:34:49.460 relationship. It is a spiritual relationship. And the dichotomy between a Christian woman and a

00:34:55.500 Christian man in the context of marriage reflects a beautiful truth about the gospel that I personally

00:35:01.780 am not willing to mess with. I'm just not. And I don't think that any Bible believing Christians

00:35:07.840 should either. It's not just some archaic law. It is a dynamic truth that has presented, that has

00:35:14.320 been presented to us in scripture. And it's just as relevant today as it has ever been. And so for any

00:35:20.760 Christian to say that Franklin Graham is wrong in that now, maybe he didn't explain it very well.

00:35:24.740 I don't think he explained the spiritual aspect of it. Um, but for any Christian to say that he's

00:35:30.940 wrong in that, well, no, he's not, he's not biblically wrong. He, he might be wrong for being

00:35:35.500 a hypocrite, not calling out president Trump and other people for not maintaining the sanctity of

00:35:39.080 marriage in other ways, but he's not wrong biblically. So that's my thought on that. Now I have one more

00:35:46.040 thing to talk about, and this is something that I've been thinking about recently. And I posted,

00:35:53.120 I posted a story a couple of weeks ago, last week, it was before, uh, before Easter. I was

00:35:59.540 trying to say Easter, April, the same time came out April, but I meant to say Easter.

00:36:04.100 And I was in the Atlanta airport with my husband and we were on, on the shuttle to go and, uh,

00:36:12.360 to go to the parking lot, whatever. And there were these two guys, adult men sitting on the bench.

00:36:18.740 And here I am obviously seven months pregnant, holding onto my husband, trying to, you know,

00:36:25.800 stay stable as the train is moving. And these two men comfortable as ever standing or sitting

00:36:31.720 two feet away from me, didn't offer their seats. Now to me, that's craziness. That's stupid. If I,

00:36:40.160 as a woman were sitting there on the bench and I saw a pregnant woman sitting in front of me,

00:36:44.420 if I saw an older woman standing in front of me, if I saw an old man standing in front of me,

00:36:48.720 yes, of course I'm going to get up and I'm going to give them my seat. That's just the right thing

00:36:53.880 to do. There's kind of this hierarchy of, uh, ability and that relates to chivalry and relates

00:37:00.320 to decency, I think. And so I posted about it. And a lot of you messaged me and were like,

00:37:04.520 oh my gosh, you're absolutely right. Gosh, people are so dumb. But I got a lot of messages

00:37:08.500 from guys in particular saying, well, that's what you get for equality. That's where feminists got

00:37:15.800 us. Thanks feminism. And I'm seeing this attitude a lot, particularly from embittered men on the right

00:37:23.340 who use the excuse of feminism for their own impoliteness and for their own lack of chivalry

00:37:31.860 and for their own indecency. And I got this reaction as well. When I did the PragerU video,

00:37:37.800 the make men masculine again, talking about how guys open doors for women, they fight wars when

00:37:44.540 in a way that women cannot fight wars, how they use and supplement or they compliment us

00:37:50.820 with their physical strength and with unique talents that women don't have. Women do the same,

00:37:56.600 but we just have different strengths, different responsibilities. And men typically have been

00:38:01.380 the ones to be able to defend, provide and protect. And they are very good at that in their own unique

00:38:07.120 ways. Part of that has also been chivalry. I have never been someone, first of all, I've never been

00:38:12.100 a feminist, but I've never been someone who has said, no, chivalry makes me feel weak. No, I would

00:38:17.380 love for you to open the door for me. Actually, a man or a woman, I would love for you to open the door

00:38:21.820 for me and I'll open the door for you too. But yes, I expect a man to open the door for me. I expect

00:38:27.080 a man to give up his seats really for any woman, but for, especially for a pregnant woman. Now I can

00:38:32.800 already envision that I'm going to be getting YouTube comments saying, well, it shouldn't be

00:38:37.260 that way. Well, I disagree with you. Men and women are different. We have different roles. We have

00:38:42.860 different responsibilities. And I personally think there cannot be a weaker argument for your laziness

00:38:51.080 and your weakness as a man that feminists made you like this. Really? You think so? You think

00:38:58.100 feminists made you passive or do they just give you an excuse to be passive? That's a sad excuse.

00:39:05.040 That is a sad excuse for being lazy and being small. I say, stand up, take responsibility,

00:39:13.920 be chivalrous, be respectful to women and realize that you have a different role, a different strength

00:39:20.160 and a different responsibility that should be stewarded in a respectful way. And part of that

00:39:25.300 is giving up your seat for a pregnant woman. Now, if you don't do that, that's fine. I'm sure you're

00:39:30.180 a good person in other ways, but the excuse of feminism for your ineptness is really sad.

00:39:38.180 It's really sad. I personally don't think a lot of people blame, uh, male weakness nowadays on

00:39:46.840 feminists. I'm like, well, if women were really able to take away male strength, how strong were you in

00:39:53.020 the first place? I don't agree with that. I think that overbearing women come in when men start out

00:39:59.280 being passive. That's what I think. Uh, I think everything rises and falls on leadership. And I

00:40:07.540 just, I guess I have a higher expectation and a higher view of men than a lot of you guys do all

00:40:13.660 of you blaming feminism for your laziness. It just, it ticks me off. Anyway, that's my pregnant ranting for

00:40:21.300 today. I hope that you guys have a great weekend and I will see you back here on Monday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 26, 2019

Ep 104 ｜ Friday Roundup

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