Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 23, 2024


Ep 1071 | Christianity Today: Kids Need Public School


Episode Stats

Length

54 minutes

Words per Minute

162.6867

Word Count

8,902

Sentence Count

616

Misogynist Sentences

17

Hate Speech Sentences

22


Summary

Christianity Today says Christian parents should be sending their kids to public school for the sake of their faith. Also, the IVF industry is rightly under scrutiny for some sketchy practices in the state of California. Today s all about how Christians must stand against corruption and stand against evil for their sake of children. This episode is brought to you by GoodRanchers.


Transcript

00:00:00.580 Christianity Today says Christian parents should be sending their kids to public school for the sake of their faith.
00:00:09.040 Also, the IVF industry is rightly under scrutiny for some of its very sketchy practices in the state of California.
00:00:18.780 Today is all about how Christians must stand against corruption and stand against evil for the sake of children.
00:00:26.220 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
00:00:29.480 Go to GoodRanchers.com.
00:00:30.780 Use code Allie at checkout.
00:00:31.920 That's GoodRanchers.com.
00:00:33.200 Code Allie.
00:00:43.360 Hey, guys.
00:00:44.160 Welcome to Relatable.
00:00:45.100 Happy Monday.
00:00:46.140 Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.
00:00:48.840 Okay.
00:00:49.300 This is it.
00:00:50.020 The week of Share the Arrows.
00:00:52.460 And you know what?
00:00:53.100 After this week, you won't have to hear me talk about it anymore.
00:00:55.720 Actually, I'll probably talk about it just a little bit because I'll just be reeling from how amazing it was, I'm sure.
00:01:03.460 But right now, I'm just excited about it.
00:01:05.640 So thank you so much for all of your prayers and your encouragement, whether you're attending or not.
00:01:10.260 We still do have tickets.
00:01:11.860 We have tickets available.
00:01:13.120 And so if you have not yet decided, go ahead and bite the bullet.
00:01:16.960 We've got seats available.
00:01:18.320 Every seat in the house is a great seat.
00:01:19.860 Balcony seats are available.
00:01:21.260 We've got VIP all-access tickets, breakfast tickets available, too.
00:01:24.860 And it's going to be awesome.
00:01:28.040 We've got all these amazing speakers, Candice Cameron-Bure, Rosaria Butterfield, Abby Halberstadt, Francesca Badastelli, Lisa Childers.
00:01:36.720 I mean, it's just going to be so good.
00:01:38.760 Thousands of you worshiping together, reminding ourselves, being reminded of the God who is in charge.
00:01:45.600 And the time-tested truths that we get to hold on to, the clarity that we get to have in an age of chaos and cowardice and confusion.
00:01:56.440 So get your tickets.
00:01:58.020 ShareTheArrows.com if you have not already.
00:02:01.060 And just continue to pray for us.
00:02:03.540 Continue to pray for everything to go smoothly, for God's protection, for His favor, for His grace, for Him to be glorified.
00:02:10.800 Thank you so much for all of your support over the past few months as we've been planning for this.
00:02:16.680 All right.
00:02:17.680 Let's get into the topic set in hand today.
00:02:20.080 I've been wanting to cover this for a long time, for a few weeks now.
00:02:26.920 And we finally have gotten around to it.
00:02:29.960 We're taking a pause from imminent politics and election discussion to talk about what I think is a really important cultural and even biblical piece that came out in Christianity Today,
00:02:40.780 on September 6th, about public school.
00:02:44.940 So this is titled, Public School Can Be Training Ground for Faith.
00:02:48.300 I responded to it on Acts, but I've been wanting to give a fuller response on the show.
00:02:53.120 So here's a summary.
00:02:54.920 This author, Stephanie McDade, is a theology editor at Christianity Today.
00:03:00.340 And many of you know Christianity has been leaning left for a while.
00:03:04.500 And so we're not all that surprised when we see arguments like this.
00:03:07.620 But it still has its influence in certain circles of Christianity.
00:03:11.640 So it matters what we're seeing on the pages there.
00:03:14.880 McDade argues in favor of Christians sending their children to public school because, she argues, research shows regular church attendance is more important than school choice.
00:03:24.340 She also sees more benefit in exposing her children to worldly ideas and values while they live under her roof rather than attempting to keep them sheltered in a Christian school, which is the only reason for sending children to a Christian school that she addresses.
00:03:39.840 So her assumption is that the only reason we would send our kids to a Christian school is to shelter them from scary ideas that we don't want them introduced to.
00:03:48.360 And if we want them to get antibodies, I'm actually probably giving a better argument than the one she gives in her article.
00:03:54.480 But if we want them to have antibodies to be able to refute secular arguments, then we need to send them to public school to make sure they are able to combat those lies.
00:04:06.900 So here's her article.
00:04:09.580 She says, last month, actor Kirk Cameron described Christian parents who send their children to public school as subcontracting their parenting and discipleship out to the government.
00:04:18.160 Very articulate.
00:04:19.420 He might have said that on my show.
00:04:21.220 He said that public school is creating little Marxists, little statists, little atheists, drag queens, strippers, drug dealers, you name it.
00:04:27.820 By contrast, author Jen Wilkin has made faith-led arguments in favor of public education, citing benefits for children, including a more diverse socialization.
00:04:37.840 Is that biblical?
00:04:39.180 Is that like a biblical reason?
00:04:40.700 I'm not even addressing whether or not that's a good reason.
00:04:43.500 But I don't think that we could say that's a biblical reason.
00:04:46.440 A healthy exposure to different worldviews and fulfilling the call of loving their neighbors by being in the school system.
00:04:52.220 Now, I would love to stop right there and give my entire refutation of those statements, but I've actually done an entire episode refuting what Jen Wilkin has said in defense of sending kids to public schools.
00:05:05.500 We will link that episode, the YouTube episode, as well as the audio form of the episode if you would like to go check that out.
00:05:14.440 And this article writes that as a new school year starts with an election underway, the Christian case for public schooling is worth revisiting.
00:05:24.100 She writes that she and her husband have decided to send their daughter, who is currently a toddler, to a public school for several reasons.
00:05:30.840 So first, I just want to address this.
00:05:33.240 We've got someone telling you that public school is totally fine, who doesn't even have their kids in public school.
00:05:41.960 And look, I've got toddlers too.
00:05:44.440 I think it's fine to have an opinion about education.
00:05:47.800 I think that's okay.
00:05:48.760 You can be informed about this subject without having kids in school.
00:05:53.460 But what you don't really have the authority to do is to tell you, is to tell parents, even more experienced parents, that public education in this country is fine for your children.
00:06:06.900 That it's a healthy choice, a healthy option.
00:06:09.380 And really accuse the other side of fear-mongering, of exaggerating, of not really having any biblically-based or logic-based arguments.
00:06:18.660 That you can't really do because you don't have a firm grasp on what's going on in the public school system, even though you should.
00:06:27.180 You could have an idea without being in the public school system because we see it.
00:06:32.100 It's reported on.
00:06:33.900 I listen to parents who talk at these school board meetings, who talk to me about what's going on, even at the public schools in pretty conservative suburbs in red states.
00:06:44.320 They're seeing things like gender ideology and social justice and progressive forms of SEL.
00:06:50.780 But with all the wisdom of a mother of a non-school-aged child, she says Christians should, for the sake of their children's faith, send their kids to public school.
00:07:07.180 She says studies show there are more important elements for building and safeguarding our kids' faith in the school they attend.
00:07:13.420 She is referencing research that suggests taking children to church regularly matters more than finding the right school.
00:07:23.080 Okay, even if that is true, I haven't looked at the methodology of that particular study.
00:07:28.300 But even if that is true, even if it is true that church is more important than the school you go to, I don't think there's anyone denying that.
00:07:38.420 So right off the bat, we've got a straw man there.
00:07:40.320 I don't think anyone is saying that your child's school is determinant of their salvation or is the driving factor of their sanctification.
00:07:51.940 That's not the argument those of us who advocate for Christian education, whether that's homeschool or Christian school, are arguing.
00:07:58.800 That's not what we're saying.
00:08:00.840 And that's still, that's not a good case against sending your kid to Christian school.
00:08:05.260 Yes, church might be more important.
00:08:07.160 What happens at home might be more important, but that doesn't make your education not important at all, right?
00:08:13.940 So right off the bat, we've got a poorly formulated argument.
00:08:18.640 And the interesting thing is, when you look at this study, you find that the marginal differences that this article cites between public school Christians and Christian-educated homeschool or private school-educated Christians is actually a lot bigger.
00:08:38.500 Like, we looked at the study and it found that homeschoolers are 51% more likely than public school children to frequently attend religious services into their young adulthood.
00:08:47.480 Students at religious schools had a higher likelihood of frequent religious service attendance, becoming a registered voter and fewer lifetime sexual partners than public school students.
00:08:57.280 So she really brushes over the conclusions of the very study that she bases her argument on for sending her kids to public school.
00:09:08.520 We've got more on this in just a second.
00:09:11.000 Let me pause and tell you about our first sponsor.
00:09:13.060 It's Carly Jean Los Angeles.
00:09:14.660 So I'm wearing my merch right now, my cute Jesus wins merch.
00:09:17.640 But then I realized I am wearing my tank top underneath my sweatshirt is from Carly Jean Los Angeles because I'm always wearing CJLA.
00:09:25.320 I love their clothing so much.
00:09:27.300 It is so flattering.
00:09:28.520 It's great in any season of life, any season of the year.
00:09:31.640 Plus, Carly and her family are the real deal.
00:09:34.060 She is a business owner who wants to glorify God through everything that she does.
00:09:38.460 And she has just led this business so well.
00:09:41.500 And it has grown in large part because you guys have fell in love with their clothing.
00:09:47.860 It's basically all I wear, especially their jeans.
00:09:51.060 They're my favorite because they're so flattering.
00:09:53.660 If you have not gotten anything from CJLA yet, you are missing out.
00:09:57.600 But even if you have, go ahead and use my code AllieB.
00:10:00.060 You'll get 20% off your order.
00:10:02.660 When you do, that is CarlyJeanLosAngeles.com, code AllieB.
00:10:07.380 AllieB.
00:10:11.500 The other argues that she would rather most of her child's first close encounters of the worldly kind happen while the child is still under her parents' roof, not after she leaves home.
00:10:24.840 But see, your child can still have worldly experiences, can still encounter worldly secular arguments under your roof without being inundated by these arguments for eight hours a day, five days a week, for 13 years of her life.
00:10:44.940 Like, that is a lot of propaganda imbibing that you are just hoping and praying that she is able in her young mind to refute.
00:10:55.300 Really, what you're saying is that you want to put your child on the front lines of the battle before they are even big enough to hold up their shield.
00:11:04.440 See, if my children are going to encounter worldly ideologies, like gender ideology, for example, I want to be the one.
00:11:15.200 I want their dad to be the one to talk to them about this, to introduce those ideas to them in a way that they can understand, in a way that is framed by God's truth.
00:11:29.740 I don't want them hearing those ideas first from someone who believes that they are good and true.
00:11:37.640 There is authority that comes with being the first one to introduce a concept to a child.
00:11:47.180 Whoever gets there first tends to be the one that the child listens to.
00:11:52.720 I want the school to do their job, the Christian school to do their job.
00:12:00.420 I want them to teach theology that is in accordance to what scripture says.
00:12:06.100 I want them to show how God is in math, how God is in science, how God is in literature, how God is in history.
00:12:16.200 I want them to learn how to write, and to reason, and how to memorize, and how to calculate.
00:12:23.380 Well, that's what I want from Christian education, again, whether that's at home or in a traditional classroom.
00:12:31.140 I want them to have excellent academics where they are learning not only what to think, but also how to think,
00:12:38.720 how to research, how to persuade, how to argue, how to apply God's word to every area of life.
00:12:47.640 That's what I want for my children, eight plus hours a day, five days a week for 13 years.
00:12:53.640 And within that, yes, you learn apologetics.
00:12:56.980 Within that, you learn about worldly ideologies and worldly arguments and different forms of faith and religion
00:13:05.340 that you have to use God's truth to combat.
00:13:08.740 But I want them to hear those things from the perspective of someone who knows what is actually good, right, and true
00:13:17.860 and is not trying to evangelize to my child in the name of progressivism or moral relativism
00:13:27.680 or any form of secularism or paganism.
00:13:31.480 Of course.
00:13:32.700 I went to Christian school, kindergarten through 12th grade, and I was, it's true, protected
00:13:40.880 from a lot of things.
00:13:42.920 And I thank God for that.
00:13:44.800 I thank my parents for that.
00:13:46.220 That was one of the greatest gifts that they ever gave me besides just being godly parents
00:13:52.860 themselves and loving each other.
00:13:54.680 I would say those are the greatest gifts.
00:13:57.540 But underneath that, I would say the greatest gift they gave me was my Christian education.
00:14:03.980 And my dad always said that he would work as many jobs as he needed to, to make sure that
00:14:09.420 my brothers and I got to go to a Christian school.
00:14:13.440 My parents didn't.
00:14:14.720 They didn't come from money at all.
00:14:16.760 They went to public school.
00:14:18.680 My mom was a public school teacher.
00:14:19.960 My grandmother was a public school teacher.
00:14:22.560 My grandfather was a public school band director for years of his life.
00:14:26.640 And so my family has a history with public education.
00:14:31.080 But even in the 80s and 90s, when my parents were figuring out, you know, the kind of education
00:14:37.240 that my brothers would get and then later on I would get, they understood that there's a difference.
00:14:41.660 Not only a difference academically, a big difference academically, but also a difference in the
00:14:47.840 worldview that is being taught.
00:14:50.160 And I learned from kindergarten to 12th grade, not only how to memorize scripture and understand
00:14:56.700 scripture, but how to apply scripture to every area of my life.
00:15:01.180 And that is a gift that I use every day.
00:15:05.060 I'm thankful for college.
00:15:06.960 I'm thankful for my communications degree.
00:15:09.320 You could say that I use that every day too, but honestly, I liked to communicate before
00:15:15.440 I went to college.
00:15:16.680 It's really my education, kindergarten through 12th grade, that I consider my foundation for
00:15:23.860 what I do.
00:15:25.280 And you know what's interesting is that I am very thankful for the scripture recall that
00:15:31.940 I have.
00:15:32.300 I don't always remember the references, but I can call a lot of verses to mind.
00:15:37.420 And that's not me patting myself on the back.
00:15:39.940 That is me thinking the grace of God, but also the Christian education I had that taught
00:15:47.860 us how to hide God's word in our heart.
00:15:50.840 And so whenever I think of a verse, I think of it in the NIV.
00:15:55.720 And what's interesting about that is that I have been reading the ESV exclusively for 12
00:16:01.720 years.
00:16:02.100 My ESV study Bible, if you don't have one of those, go out and get one.
00:16:05.880 It's pretty cheap on Amazon, or you could go to your favorite Christian bookstore, get
00:16:10.920 you an ESV study Bible.
00:16:12.540 It really shaped my theology and changed the game for me.
00:16:16.820 And yet, when I think of scripture, when I think of a Bible verse, I think of the NIV.
00:16:23.180 Why is that?
00:16:24.060 Because when my mind was most pliable, when I was most malleable, I was learning the Bible
00:16:32.680 with my New Adventure Bible.
00:16:35.740 You remember that?
00:16:36.660 I can put up a picture because I posted it on Twitter.
00:16:40.060 But it was like the sparkly, silver, purple, and pink New Adventure Bible.
00:16:45.160 And of course, you had to highlight all the edges of the pages and write your name on there.
00:16:50.820 This is the New Adventure Bible that I had forever.
00:16:53.580 And that's what we are learning out of.
00:16:55.320 And I love that.
00:16:57.060 Even though I like the ESV more than the NIV, I love that that's the version that comes to
00:17:01.840 mind because it's a reminder to me as a mom what sponges my kids are and that the things
00:17:08.260 that I am teaching them now, they are going to remember and that they are going to be able
00:17:14.140 to call to mind.
00:17:15.300 And it is such a reminder to me of the importance of Christian education.
00:17:21.580 And so I don't know where I would be without my Christian education, not to mention the
00:17:28.580 academics of it.
00:17:29.700 I know that there are different towns that offer different things, and there are some
00:17:34.080 excellent public schools academically, and there are some academically really poor private
00:17:40.480 schools.
00:17:41.200 But I can tell you, and I just say this to moms and dads that are thinking about education
00:17:46.380 for your kid and you think it's really no big deal, even aside from the theology of it,
00:17:51.940 it also matters the quality of education that you're getting.
00:17:57.400 I was like a B plus.
00:17:59.060 I was a B plus student on average.
00:18:02.360 A's in English, like probably C plus in science and math because I just hated those so much.
00:18:07.440 So I was a fine student, certainly wasn't valedictorian.
00:18:13.240 And I went to college.
00:18:14.520 I didn't have a scholarship or anything, but I had friends in college my freshman year who
00:18:20.680 did have scholarships, who were there on a full ride because they had a 4.0 in high school
00:18:25.680 and or they were on a half ride.
00:18:27.620 They had these academic scholarships.
00:18:30.540 And yet when we got to freshman year, college was really hard for them.
00:18:35.340 They were really struggling.
00:18:36.440 College was easy for me.
00:18:39.880 I'll say that.
00:18:40.480 Not, again, because of my own natural brilliance or anything, but because I was so academically
00:18:45.400 prepared because of the education that I had that it wasn't hard at all.
00:18:50.340 If you want to set your child up best, it matters the education that they get.
00:18:56.500 It matters the theology training that they get.
00:18:59.180 It matters the academic quality that they get.
00:19:02.740 If you want to give your kid the best leg up on life, what education will you get them?
00:19:09.740 Will you make sure that they have?
00:19:11.200 That is at least one of the questions that we have to be asking when we're thinking about
00:19:15.140 education.
00:19:16.200 All right.
00:19:16.500 Let me pause and tell you about our second sponsor.
00:19:17.940 That is Good Ranchers.
00:19:21.700 You don't have to wait until November to vote.
00:19:23.760 You can vote every day with your dollar.
00:19:25.480 At GoodRanchers.com, you can make a powerful choice to support American meat, American farms
00:19:30.260 and ranches.
00:19:30.780 All of the meat from Good Ranchers is from American farms and ranches.
00:19:37.840 They are helping revitalize this industry that has been hit by so many unfair regulations.
00:19:43.200 The prices are so high for them to conduct business.
00:19:45.880 We can really help them out by buying our meat from Good Ranchers.
00:19:50.500 Plus, it makes your life so much easier.
00:19:52.080 It shows up in a box on dry ice every month and you don't have to go to the grocery store
00:19:58.440 and worry about the quality of meat or where it comes from or how inflation is affecting
00:20:02.820 it.
00:20:03.240 You just subscribe.
00:20:04.300 You get whatever meat you want.
00:20:05.900 You can get the Kraft beef.
00:20:08.280 I love the Wagyu ground beef and I love the steak.
00:20:12.860 You can get the Better Than Organic Chicken.
00:20:14.580 You can get seafood.
00:20:15.780 You can get the Applewood smoked bacon.
00:20:17.420 It's all really good.
00:20:18.480 I've tried all of it.
00:20:19.700 It's what we eat in our house.
00:20:21.000 We love it so much.
00:20:22.080 Go to GoodRanchers.com.
00:20:24.000 When you use code Allie at checkout, you get $25 off your first box.
00:20:29.260 That's GoodRanchers.com, code Allie.
00:20:35.560 So the author says, think of it like strength training.
00:20:38.800 Your children need to build muscles of faith and public school can provide weight to lift
00:20:43.000 while you're around to spot them.
00:20:44.800 Let them wrestle with worldly counter narratives to God's truth while they're still under your
00:20:49.200 care.
00:20:49.500 That may feel risky.
00:20:50.460 But the alternative, keeping them sheltered, then letting them be exposed to everything
00:20:54.780 all at once when they leave for work or for college is risky too.
00:20:59.120 I think this person doesn't have any understanding of Christian education.
00:21:03.940 Sure, you are protected from some things when you go to a Christian school, which I think
00:21:08.520 is good, by the way.
00:21:09.560 Like, we should be protected from some things.
00:21:12.660 It's bad to expose our kids to bad things too early.
00:21:16.420 But also, it's not like you're not living in the world.
00:21:18.680 It's not like you don't have friends.
00:21:20.060 It's not like you are not plugged into media and entertainment at all.
00:21:25.260 I think I understood fine enough exactly what was going on in the world, what was sin, what
00:21:31.820 was right, what was wrong.
00:21:33.520 It wasn't really a culture shock when I got to college and I found out that people drink
00:21:38.520 before you're 21.
00:21:40.320 Yeah, that was something that I knew.
00:21:42.100 But I was protected from a lot of the effects of that because I went to a school that had
00:21:46.760 something called the 24-7 policy.
00:21:49.100 And if you were caught having sex, doing drugs, or drinking 24-7, that includes in the summer,
00:21:56.300 that includes on the weekends, you got expelled.
00:21:59.360 And so that was the consequence that a lot of parents and a lot of students were facing
00:22:04.840 if they disobeyed the rules in any of those ways.
00:22:08.740 I think that probably protected a lot of young people from really bad choices and really bad
00:22:17.640 consequences.
00:22:19.240 And I think that was a grace for a lot of people that protected them.
00:22:24.460 And the thing about sending your kids to public school for strength training and saying that
00:22:30.520 you're there to spot them, but you're not.
00:22:32.780 That's the thing.
00:22:33.600 You're not actually there to spot them.
00:22:35.420 Christian education, in partnership with the parents who are the primary faith trainers
00:22:40.440 for our kids, the primary stewards of our kids' hearts and minds, that is the spotting.
00:22:47.900 Because life, whether you go to a Christian school or not, is strength training.
00:22:52.560 You're going to go through hard things.
00:22:54.540 You're going to face rejection.
00:22:56.140 You're going to face disappointment.
00:22:57.820 You're going to have to learn how to obey your parents.
00:23:00.360 You're going to have to learn discipline and organization just by being in school.
00:23:05.300 You are going to hear other ideas.
00:23:07.120 You are going to hear things you disagree with, whether they're presented by teachers
00:23:10.840 or not.
00:23:11.520 You're going to see things in the world that you know don't align with Scripture.
00:23:16.040 But having a refuge away from that during the school hours and at home and at church
00:23:22.880 is actually a way to prepare and to rejuvenate your child, to make sure that your child is
00:23:28.960 prepared as possible.
00:23:31.240 Look, I don't want my child at, you know, a toddler age at five years old to hear from
00:23:38.980 a teacher that it's possible for a boy to become a girl.
00:23:43.860 She doesn't need to hear that.
00:23:45.480 They don't need to hear that.
00:23:46.460 What they need for the first several years of their life is a foundation of truth and
00:23:53.240 beauty.
00:23:54.280 What they need is to hear what is good and what is right, that God made us male and female,
00:24:00.000 that it's impossible to be born in the wrong body.
00:24:03.160 I wouldn't even say that at an early age.
00:24:04.780 I would just say that your body is good, that God made it good, that it is good to be a girl
00:24:10.040 or a boy.
00:24:11.160 That's beautiful.
00:24:12.140 That's purposeful.
00:24:13.000 We're all made in God's image.
00:24:14.200 God does everything with intention and care.
00:24:16.640 God made everything.
00:24:17.820 God made everything for His glory.
00:24:20.060 He loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us.
00:24:23.440 The basic observations, mommy, daddy, aunt, uncle, Grammy, papa, like, you know, all of
00:24:31.000 those distinctions are good.
00:24:32.520 They're part of God's world.
00:24:33.840 That's the foundation that we are laying, the biblical foundation that we are laying for
00:24:40.500 our children.
00:24:41.020 They don't need to hear secular ideologies' response to biblical truth yet.
00:24:47.380 They simply don't, especially, as I said, when it's presented in a way by teachers as
00:24:52.420 if it is good and right.
00:24:54.460 That can be really dangerous.
00:24:56.600 The choice is between 13 years or however many years your child is sitting in a classroom,
00:25:04.400 13 years of biblical training or 13 years of anti-biblical training.
00:25:11.200 That's what you've got.
00:25:12.780 We don't really have neutrality here, especially today.
00:25:17.300 It would be great if we had schools that were teaching biblical virtues, even if they weren't
00:25:24.180 saying they're from the Bible, and then just focusing on math and writing and reading, reading
00:25:31.500 the classics.
00:25:32.920 That would be one thing.
00:25:35.420 Then it wouldn't be as much, as much of an issue for Christians to have to think through.
00:25:43.700 It would still be something to have to think through, and I'll explain why, but it wouldn't
00:25:47.380 be that big of a difference.
00:25:49.060 But now we've got anti-God ideology, maybe not the specific kindergarten teacher that
00:25:53.920 your kid has, but the public school system, the administrators, the bureaucracy, the counselors,
00:25:59.540 the teachers' unions, the curriculum writers, all of those people behind the scenes are
00:26:03.920 progressive.
00:26:04.780 Even the best public school teachers in the world, and some of you are listening to this
00:26:08.800 podcast, the sweetest lights of Christ in the public education system ever, like you
00:26:14.320 know how corrupt and how godless it is to the core.
00:26:17.980 So we're choosing between that and a Christian education.
00:26:21.260 I understand not everyone has a choice, but if you have a choice and you know your responsibility
00:26:26.800 is to raise up your child the way that he or she should go, don't you think that's the
00:26:32.760 better option to give them as much solid theological grounding as you possibly can versus throwing
00:26:40.280 them on the front lines when they don't even have the strength to pick up their sword?
00:26:46.900 Come on.
00:26:48.080 Come on.
00:26:48.820 And I hear a lot that, well, you know, my school in the suburbs of Alabama, it's not liberal.
00:26:56.780 It's, it's, I know the teachers, they go to our Sunday school class and they are completely
00:27:03.360 solid and they're not teaching gender ideology.
00:27:06.320 They're not teaching social justice.
00:27:08.220 First, I say yet, and I'm not even talking about that one individual teacher.
00:27:12.080 Again, I'm talking about the system.
00:27:13.740 But second, and I was just talking to a friend about this, has a really great school system
00:27:19.200 by them.
00:27:19.800 And I said, even if it is a great school and they don't teach all of the liberal nonsense,
00:27:26.780 they're still not teaching the Bible.
00:27:30.820 And so even if they are getting at best a neutral education, and I'm wincing as I say
00:27:37.440 that, because I just don't think that happens today.
00:27:40.500 Even if they are getting that, they are not getting the truth of God's word every day.
00:27:45.680 They're not getting scripture memorization.
00:27:48.340 So all of the other kids their age that are getting that education, again, whether at home
00:27:53.360 or in the classroom, they just have a leg up.
00:27:55.700 Now, I am not saying that where you send your kid to school is determinate of their salvation.
00:28:01.720 I know strong believing adults who are amazing parents, amazing people who went to public
00:28:07.800 school their whole lives.
00:28:09.300 I also know people that I graduated with who are apostate, who are hostile to God, who have
00:28:18.820 completely rejected their upbringing.
00:28:20.440 So obviously, it's not salvific where your child goes to school.
00:28:27.320 But I think as parents, it is a matter of wise stewardship of our responsibility to their hearts
00:28:34.980 and their minds.
00:28:36.160 And I also, this is an encouragement for you parents, that the things that you are teaching
00:28:42.540 your kid, the things that your kid is learning, even if they do walk away one day, I have
00:28:49.160 heard so many testimonies of people saying, yeah, I walked away in college or as a young
00:28:54.740 adult.
00:28:55.260 And then maybe they got married, they had kids, and they start thinking about their faith
00:28:59.680 again.
00:28:59.960 They start thinking about going to church.
00:29:01.120 And they remember, they say, and a hymn came to mind, and a Bible verse came to mind.
00:29:06.980 And I thought about that church again and how that was the last time I ever felt truly
00:29:11.400 loved.
00:29:12.760 And I found myself calling out to God when I had reached my lowest, even though I hadn't
00:29:17.580 prayed in 10 years.
00:29:19.340 You don't know how God is going to water and give growth to those seeds, but we do have
00:29:23.480 to plant as many seeds as possible.
00:29:25.640 And education is one way to aid in that.
00:29:29.060 I simply do not want teachers who are hostile to what I believe to be handling the heart
00:29:37.500 and mind of my precious and malleable child.
00:29:42.240 All right, we'll get into more of this in a second.
00:29:44.080 Let me pause and tell you about our next sponsor.
00:29:45.740 That is Alliance Defending Freedom.
00:29:48.900 All right, the public education system and many industries, institutions in the United States
00:29:54.400 are openly hostile to Christians living out their faith in word or in deed.
00:30:01.160 And sometimes these Christians find themselves the victims of lawfare by progressive activists
00:30:07.900 who want them fired because they prayed publicly or because they won't go along with gender ideology.
00:30:15.720 And the people at Alliance Defending Freedom, they stand up for these people.
00:30:21.920 They stand up for these believers, these Americans that are trying to simply live out their constitutional rights,
00:30:30.100 exercise their constitutional rights.
00:30:31.660 And they do this without charging them.
00:30:33.700 They're an amazing organization.
00:30:35.880 I got to spend time with them this summer.
00:30:37.820 They are doing such good work on behalf of vulnerable people.
00:30:41.560 They also have this amazing guide and it's called Three Ways for Parents to Navigate Destructive Gender Ideology in Schools.
00:30:49.760 So this is quite appropriate for what we're talking about and it's completely free.
00:30:54.340 All you have to go, all you have to do is go to joinadf.com slash Allie, download the guide for free.
00:30:59.900 That's joinadf.com slash Allie.
00:31:02.300 All right.
00:31:07.440 So she says that Philippians 2.15 supports her argument,
00:31:12.280 Christians are called to be children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.
00:31:19.360 And she says,
00:31:20.480 Yeah, that's true.
00:31:41.080 And I don't want my child to be one of those little ones that is caused to stumble by the activist teacher who believes that he is liberating children by telling them they might be born in the wrong body.
00:31:56.760 I don't want that teacher to be the one that introduces that child to different definitions of marriage or who tries to make my child into a social justice activist.
00:32:08.080 So I agree that children should be protected.
00:32:17.000 I agree in being against any harm to children.
00:32:20.300 And there is so much harm that is done to children through the public education system.
00:32:26.760 She writes that we can't permanently protect our children from the world and its influences.
00:32:30.560 And at the very least, they'll encounter the worldliness of their own sin.
00:32:33.820 Again, that is true.
00:32:34.800 I would say that's a counter to our entire argument.
00:32:37.160 We don't need to send them to public school in order to encounter the world.
00:32:41.420 The only question is when they'll face that challenge and who will be around them when they do.
00:32:46.940 She said,
00:32:47.600 My worries about sending my child to public school are more about her physical safety, especially when school shootings happen an hour away.
00:32:54.860 Also, those tend to happen, not always, but they do tend to happen more at public schools than her exposure to people and ideas that might cause her to wrestle with her faith values or sense of self, even at a young age.
00:33:07.420 You see, I just think that is a complete dereliction of duty as a parent.
00:33:11.760 We are supposed to protect our children.
00:33:14.100 That doesn't mean that we overly shelter them.
00:33:16.500 That doesn't mean they don't meet different kinds of people.
00:33:18.740 But we are supposed to protect them, right?
00:33:21.420 Of course.
00:33:22.100 We're supposed to protect them from evil.
00:33:24.480 We're supposed to protect them from darkness.
00:33:27.300 And if we want them to get the antibodies necessary for a strong faith, we can introduce those.
00:33:32.520 She says that hostility is the reality in which we parent as Christians, the hostility of the world towards Christians, and that tension of witness and holiness, shrewdness and innocence, is what we must faithfully navigate, whatever schooling decision we make.
00:33:49.560 That I agree with.
00:33:50.620 It's a dance of both entrusting our kids to God and knowing that God has entrusted them to us.
00:33:55.320 True.
00:33:55.840 And it's a dance we don't undertake lightly, for at the end of all days, we will be held accountable for how we performed.
00:34:02.080 True.
00:34:03.400 True.
00:34:04.020 I agree with all that.
00:34:05.340 And I highly disagree with the conclusion that she comes to.
00:34:09.300 What does Vodibachum say?
00:34:11.720 You cannot be surprised if you send your kids to Caesar and they come back romance.
00:34:18.140 I mean, that's the bargain.
00:34:19.560 That's the risk that's being taken.
00:34:21.700 And I think we have to realize that public education isn't the same that it was 20 years ago when you were in school.
00:34:28.380 It's not like it was 30, 40 years ago.
00:34:31.200 That's for sure.
00:34:31.640 It's not even like it was 10 to 15 years ago when I was in school.
00:34:37.000 15 years ago.
00:34:38.220 I think that's when I was in high school.
00:34:40.300 Yeah.
00:34:40.680 Wow.
00:34:41.560 Long time.
00:34:42.300 Things have changed really quickly.
00:34:43.500 The sexual and moral revolution has sped up and its victims are getting younger and younger.
00:34:52.180 I want my kids to have the best foundation of theology possible so that when they do encounter wrong ideas, when they do encounter lies, they know what is good and right and true.
00:35:08.300 I don't need them to know every single lie to know the truth.
00:35:13.060 I don't need them to know everything that's wrong and bad and evil for them to know the truth.
00:35:18.560 I want them to know the truth, to know the truth.
00:35:22.680 And by the way, if you're looking at, for example, classical curriculum and like Charlotte Mason is like this and other forms of classical curriculum, they are teaching kids how to be apologists.
00:35:35.180 They are teaching kids how to be theologians.
00:35:37.260 They are teaching kids how to research, how to write, how to argue, how to defend their faith.
00:35:42.800 We basically took an apologetics class when I was a senior.
00:35:47.000 We had to read Reason for God by Tim Keller.
00:35:49.200 I know there are some things that Tim Keller has said over the years that we don't agree with, but it was a great book.
00:35:55.040 Understanding questions about God from a skeptic's perspective.
00:35:58.860 I read Mere Christianity in high school, and we read all kinds of secular books, too.
00:36:06.580 And I really think, again, just academically, so excellent in the things that I had to be exposed to, but in learning how to see God in all of it.
00:36:17.140 And so I think that I was much better equipped, actually, to defend my faith than a lot of friends who just didn't have the same theological foundation.
00:36:30.340 Now, is it true that your parents matter more?
00:36:35.140 Is it true that your parents are your primary disciples?
00:36:38.520 Absolutely.
00:36:39.300 I'm not refuting that at all.
00:36:41.280 And I understand there are exceptions to this.
00:36:43.560 A lot of private schools don't have help for kids with special needs, even if it's dyslexia or ADD, and that can be tough.
00:36:52.740 Sometimes public schools have the best resources.
00:36:56.920 Another rebuttal that I get a lot is, like, it's really expensive, which is 100% true.
00:37:02.720 I will not discount that.
00:37:03.940 Christian schools, especially nowadays, because the demand has gone up because of where public schools have gone,
00:37:10.340 it is, like, it's so expensive.
00:37:12.620 But there are hybrid options.
00:37:15.440 There are homeschool options.
00:37:17.180 And before you say, I could never homeschool or it's too expensive to homeschool,
00:37:22.880 I don't really know any rich homeschooling families.
00:37:26.080 The families that I know, they have to sacrifice to make it work.
00:37:30.020 And there are moms that homeschool their kids with the help of co-ops and other teachers
00:37:33.820 who say, I thought that I could never do this, but it was best for my kid.
00:37:37.700 I encourage you to look into it.
00:37:39.700 Look into something like Charlotte Mason or Classical Conversations.
00:37:43.460 There's a lot of resources out there.
00:37:45.580 There's a lot of help for you.
00:37:47.180 Unlike how it was 20, 30 years ago, there's a ton of community and a ton of support.
00:37:52.320 If that's something that you're thinking about and you're just lacking the confidence in doing it, you can do it.
00:37:59.080 I mean, God has equipped you and you and your husband to steward your child, to prepare your child, to equip your child.
00:38:07.580 You don't have to be a Pulitzer Prize winner to teach your child English.
00:38:14.940 And so if that's something that you're thinking about, pulling your kid out of public school,
00:38:18.860 either making the sacrifice, sending them to Christian school or teaching them at home,
00:38:23.320 I do believe that God is faithful in that and he will help you make that decision.
00:38:29.360 And I also get a lot of people say, well, what's going to happen to all the kids at public school if all the Christians leave?
00:38:36.520 And I do understand that, but your kids, your kids, your six-year-old is not a missionary.
00:38:43.920 Your kid is the mission field.
00:38:46.900 You are evangelizing to your child.
00:38:49.840 Your child at this young age does not have to walk into a mission field every single day
00:38:56.240 and be responsible for not only learning math, but sharing the gospel with everyone they encounter.
00:39:01.600 I'm not saying they can't, and I'm not saying they shouldn't be sharing the gospel.
00:39:05.200 But remember, we're not sending our kids out into the mission field of public school
00:39:12.720 to sacrifice their well-being, their theological training for the sake of other people's kids.
00:39:18.780 Like, God is sovereign.
00:39:20.100 He is sovereign over their salvation and sanctification.
00:39:23.220 There are beautiful, wonderful Christian teachers who, I think as long as they can,
00:39:27.020 should stay in Christian school and be lights there, but don't sacrifice your child's education for that reason.
00:39:37.800 Think about how you are stewarding your child's heart and mind.
00:39:42.300 There were a lot of responses to this that I thought were good.
00:39:46.620 For example, Daryl Harrison said, he quoted Karl Marx,
00:39:50.860 the education of all children from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care
00:39:54.960 shall be in state institutions.
00:39:58.500 Karl Marx.
00:40:00.000 And of course, we see this in several countries in Europe where children are actually forced
00:40:05.260 to start state-funded schools, public schools, at three years old.
00:40:09.400 And that is for the purpose of cultural uniformity.
00:40:17.180 That is to make sure that everyone is on the same page ideologically.
00:40:22.720 Megan Basham said,
00:40:23.640 It's good to see the immediate pushback to this post,
00:40:26.400 but it seems a little silly to pretend that Christianity Today is confused or misguided.
00:40:30.520 Its purpose for years now has been to deliver the next generation of evangelicals
00:40:34.400 to secular progressives on a platter.
00:40:36.700 They are in the neutering business.
00:40:39.760 Ouch.
00:40:40.520 You know, I would have to agree with that.
00:40:42.240 I don't know that every single article or every single author at Christianity Today
00:40:46.560 is just that progressive,
00:40:49.100 but I will say this is intentionally pushing the envelope
00:40:53.180 to try to get conservative Christians to calm down
00:40:56.440 and take evangelizing and discipleship less seriously, I think.
00:41:02.060 Let me pause and tell you about our next sponsor,
00:41:04.380 and that is Jace Madical.
00:41:06.540 President Biden has signed off on a highly classified plan
00:41:09.200 that shifts America's nuclear strategy to focus on China as a nuclear threat
00:41:13.280 and to prepare for the possibility that the communist nation could team up
00:41:16.300 with North Korea and Russia against the United States.
00:41:18.380 If that doesn't make you nervous, well, I don't know.
00:41:22.380 We're trusting in God, so we're not being paranoid,
00:41:24.760 but we do want to be prepared.
00:41:26.720 And that means getting an emergency kit of the medical supplies you need
00:41:31.180 through the Jace case.
00:41:32.580 It's a personalized emergency kit that contains essential antibiotics
00:41:35.400 and medications that treat the most common and deadly bacterial infections.
00:41:39.640 It provides five life-saving antibiotics for emergency use.
00:41:42.880 Go to Jace.com, enter code Allie at checkout for a discount on your order.
00:41:46.040 That's promo code Allie at J-A-S-E dot com.
00:41:54.040 Okay.
00:41:54.660 I know that's a controversial discussion to have.
00:41:59.560 And obviously, parents who send their kids to whatever school love their kids,
00:42:05.720 and I'm not doubting that.
00:42:07.040 I am passionate about this subject, and I'm sure that comes across
00:42:10.120 because I think it's so important for our kids to have the best foundation possible.
00:42:16.340 But God is in charge.
00:42:18.180 And if for whatever reason, because there are exceptions,
00:42:21.520 you have to send your child to public school,
00:42:25.460 I know that you are doing the best that you can to disciple them while they're at home.
00:42:30.560 And that is absolutely a challenge.
00:42:32.340 We won't minimize that, but God is in charge.
00:42:36.040 Do the best you can to catechize your kids every second that you are with them.
00:42:40.500 That's all of our responsibilities.
00:42:42.540 And God is faithful.
00:42:43.880 He is in charge of their salvation.
00:42:45.620 And we have to hope that we are being obedient and that the seeds that we are planting,
00:42:49.740 He will water and give growth to them throughout their lives.
00:42:53.400 All right, so let's go to a non-controversial topic, and that's IVF,
00:43:01.940 a topic that everyone agrees on, right?
00:43:05.000 No, this is probably the most controversial thing that I talk about,
00:43:08.800 the dangers of in vitro fertilization.
00:43:11.340 And I mean the ethical dangers, but also the physical dangers
00:43:14.300 for the little lives that are being created.
00:43:18.340 This is something that I started thinking about only a few years ago.
00:43:21.500 So if you had never thought about the ethics of IVF, you're not alone.
00:43:24.680 A lot of Christians haven't thought about it.
00:43:26.300 I hadn't thought about it either until relatively recently.
00:43:30.740 But since a few years ago, we've talked about it quite a lot
00:43:33.380 because it's become the center of a lot of political and cultural and moral discussions,
00:43:37.820 which I think is good.
00:43:38.940 But it's very contentious because there are many people,
00:43:42.800 many of you out there who have used IVF to conceive your beautiful children.
00:43:46.220 So it's understandably very personal.
00:43:48.660 Infertility is extremely personal.
00:43:50.060 emotional and very sensitive.
00:43:53.200 And no one does IVF as like a first resort.
00:43:56.700 And so I understand why this is such a touchy subject
00:44:00.040 and why it can be so hard to talk about.
00:44:02.760 And yet we have to talk about it because lives are on the line.
00:44:05.960 If we believe that life starts at conception,
00:44:08.740 then we believe those are in-sold image bearers of God
00:44:11.820 and how we treat them matters.
00:44:13.180 And the IVF industry discards more lives every year than the abortion industry does.
00:44:20.820 And right now we've got 1 million frozen image bearers on ice,
00:44:26.100 many of them abandoned,
00:44:28.020 many of them waiting to be adopted out by someone.
00:44:31.520 Maybe they'll be waiting years,
00:44:32.980 even decades,
00:44:33.840 and many more of them will be discarded.
00:44:37.660 And even Christian parents who go in with the best intentions,
00:44:40.280 they find themselves in an ethical quandary when they have created,
00:44:44.640 say,
00:44:44.860 six embryos,
00:44:45.860 and they plan to transfer all of them.
00:44:48.400 But then something happens.
00:44:49.660 They can't have more kids,
00:44:50.860 say,
00:44:51.120 after three.
00:44:51.660 And then what do they do with the other three on ice?
00:44:55.740 What happens to them?
00:44:56.760 They can't bear the thought of adopting them out.
00:44:58.700 They can't bear the thought of leaving them on ice indefinitely
00:45:01.200 and paying that freezer fee.
00:45:03.300 And they can't bear the thought of discarding them either.
00:45:06.160 That is the ethical quandary that every single couple
00:45:09.480 who walks into IVF potentially faces.
00:45:12.400 And that's a really,
00:45:13.320 really serious thing.
00:45:14.820 And these stories demonstrate just how precarious the IVF situation is
00:45:19.800 when it comes to unborn life.
00:45:21.940 This was reported by TMZ.
00:45:24.360 And I know TMZ is a little bit of a tabloid,
00:45:26.660 but they do have good sources.
00:45:28.780 So Celebrity IVF Clinic to be sued over lost embryos.
00:45:32.540 A popular IVF clinic frequented by celebrities like Kim Kardashian
00:45:36.540 is now facing a lawsuit alleging the clinic wrongfully discarded
00:45:40.060 16 embryos belonging to one couple after failing to label them.
00:45:45.160 So this is the same clinic also that Paris Hilton and Chrissy Teigen used.
00:45:49.000 It's crazy how many of these celebrities use IVF and all of them,
00:45:53.500 all three of them also paid surrogates.
00:45:56.360 So you are renting the womb of a woman
00:45:59.140 and you are causing a separation between the child
00:46:03.260 and the only woman,
00:46:05.080 the only home he or she has ever known.
00:46:08.380 And you are creating the child with the intention to do that,
00:46:11.580 which is why it is different than adoption.
00:46:13.740 Adoption redeems an already broken situation,
00:46:16.320 whereas surrogacy creates a broken situation.
00:46:21.780 Last October, this clinic informed the plaintiffs in this suit
00:46:25.300 that all of the eggs were fertilized
00:46:27.120 and would be placed in an incubator to grow into viable embryos.
00:46:30.500 But a few days later,
00:46:31.880 an RPMG doctor told the pair that the company had discarded
00:46:35.120 and thus destroyed all of the plaintiffs' embryos,
00:46:37.840 the suit alleges.
00:46:39.060 They eventually admitted that one of its employees
00:46:41.040 had not labeled the couple's embryos
00:46:42.800 before placing them in an incubator,
00:46:44.420 then removed the unmarked embryos from the incubator
00:46:46.600 and intentionally threw them away.
00:46:48.680 I mean, this is one story that we know about,
00:46:51.440 but how often does this happen?
00:46:55.620 It's so sad.
00:46:56.920 And of course, these parents are devastated.
00:47:00.240 These were their children.
00:47:02.100 They had their own unique DNA.
00:47:04.720 Their gender was already determined
00:47:06.440 at the point of conception.
00:47:08.140 And now she has to go through egg retrieval.
00:47:12.060 Again, she has to go through the IVF process.
00:47:14.580 Again, that is very hard on the female body.
00:47:17.020 That's another thing that's not really talked about there.
00:47:20.900 And so isn't it interesting,
00:47:22.080 whether we're talking about abortion
00:47:23.560 or whether we're talking about embryos,
00:47:26.660 the value or even the validity of a human
00:47:31.380 is determined by whether they are wanted.
00:47:35.280 But we don't talk about adults like that.
00:47:37.760 We don't talk about teenagers like that.
00:47:39.600 We don't say that a toddler who is unwanted
00:47:42.860 or abused by their parent isn't really a human being
00:47:45.920 and can just be killed.
00:47:47.140 And yet we talk about embryos like that.
00:47:50.060 I mean, it is just a crying shame,
00:47:53.220 the cognitive and moral dissonance that exists
00:47:55.720 when we're talking about these little lives inside the womb.
00:47:59.000 And remember, this is very similar
00:48:00.600 to what happened in Alabama.
00:48:03.600 Democrats say that like Trump
00:48:05.680 and his, I don't know, cronies overturned
00:48:08.620 or like banned IVF in Alabama.
00:48:10.000 That's not what happened.
00:48:10.880 This was a lawsuit that was filed by parents
00:48:14.060 who were going through IVF.
00:48:15.840 The IVF clinic destroyed their embryos
00:48:18.960 and they sued because of that.
00:48:20.600 And then based on an old law in Alabama,
00:48:23.520 the Alabama Supreme Court said,
00:48:25.280 yeah, these parents are right.
00:48:27.320 You destroyed human beings and that's not okay.
00:48:30.120 And of course that had massive implications
00:48:32.380 for the IVF industry,
00:48:34.120 which instead of having the reaction of like,
00:48:36.480 oh, I didn't know people were being destroyed in IVF.
00:48:39.880 That's really sad.
00:48:40.680 People had the reaction of,
00:48:42.240 oh, but what about me and what I want?
00:48:44.680 Which is really sad.
00:48:45.720 It's a disordered way of thinking for the Christian.
00:48:48.660 And we have one more example of this,
00:48:50.920 but I do have another ad.
00:48:51.880 We've got five ads today,
00:48:52.800 which is always hard to get in our five ads.
00:48:54.520 So let me go ahead and do that
00:48:55.860 and then I'll close this out.
00:48:57.420 It's My Patriot Supply.
00:48:59.300 There is a lot going on in the world.
00:49:00.940 We don't know what's going to happen.
00:49:02.800 And that's why we just want to be prepared
00:49:04.400 with our food supply.
00:49:05.360 Go ahead and get a four-week emergency food supply kit
00:49:07.980 from My Patriot Supply.
00:49:09.320 When you go to preparewithally.com,
00:49:12.540 you'll save that $50.
00:49:14.420 Go to preparewithally.com
00:49:16.700 for your four-week emergency food kit,
00:49:18.760 preparewithally.com.
00:49:24.480 Okay, there was this other article
00:49:26.640 that was recent in the Times
00:49:29.540 on September 15th.
00:49:31.580 Want a girl with blue eyes
00:49:34.140 inside California's VIP IVF industry.
00:49:38.820 So when you treat kids like objects or accessories,
00:49:41.320 it shouldn't be surprising
00:49:42.540 when they're also discarded,
00:49:44.600 like an unwanted piece of candy.
00:49:47.000 So here is what the article says.
00:49:49.880 Welcome to California,
00:49:50.960 fertility capital of the world.
00:49:52.440 Thanks to many years of liberal regulation,
00:49:54.140 as well as a free market,
00:49:55.480 the state's fertility industry is booming.
00:49:57.540 What have we always said?
00:49:59.300 America is the wild, wild west
00:50:01.420 of reproductive technology
00:50:02.880 in the worst way possible.
00:50:05.540 This is where wealthy people
00:50:06.620 from around the world
00:50:07.520 wanting babies flock to,
00:50:08.840 willing to pay the big bucks.
00:50:10.180 Regulation is relaxed.
00:50:11.880 The state permits commercialized surrogacy.
00:50:15.000 This is a form of trafficking.
00:50:16.460 It's basically a form of prostitution.
00:50:18.140 You are selling your body for money,
00:50:19.680 which can cost up to $100,000
00:50:22.360 plus living expenses.
00:50:23.860 People always talk about surrogates
00:50:26.200 like they are so generous.
00:50:27.860 They are getting paid a ton of money to do this.
00:50:32.780 Egg donation.
00:50:33.720 Some donors charge up to $150,000.
00:50:35.940 It's not donation.
00:50:37.240 You're selling your eggs,
00:50:38.660 another form of prostitution.
00:50:40.240 And sperm donation, $5,000,
00:50:42.840 as well as selection of sex.
00:50:45.200 And in some instances, eye color, $30,000.
00:50:48.520 So we're putting a literal price tag
00:50:51.300 on children and on women's bodies
00:50:54.180 and on male DNA.
00:50:58.000 Yikes.
00:50:59.080 How just dark and draconian is this?
00:51:03.520 And dystopian, I should say.
00:51:05.980 California has 92 fertility clinics,
00:51:08.500 the most of any U.S. state.
00:51:09.820 There's so much demand
00:51:10.460 the doctors cannot be trained fast enough.
00:51:12.100 Part of this is because we're getting married really late,
00:51:14.400 putting careers before our children.
00:51:16.800 And so women are chasing their careers
00:51:21.620 until they're 40 years old and wondering,
00:51:23.400 wait, why can't I get pregnant?
00:51:24.800 I finally settled down
00:51:25.840 because like the female body
00:51:27.700 just isn't made to do that.
00:51:29.120 And so then they're going through IVF,
00:51:31.460 multiple rounds of IVF,
00:51:32.880 not knowing that IVF is very rarely successful
00:51:36.740 when you get to that age.
00:51:38.380 It's not very successful at all in general,
00:51:40.840 but especially the older that you get.
00:51:42.380 So that's part of what's happening here.
00:51:45.280 A cottage industry of high-end fertility concierges
00:51:48.460 has popped up,
00:51:49.760 which can source acupuncturists,
00:51:52.260 ship breast milk,
00:51:53.180 and for those who want twins,
00:51:54.840 organize two surrogates to be pregnant at once.
00:51:57.160 So disgusting.
00:51:59.300 A question of ethics.
00:52:00.820 In most of the industrialized world,
00:52:02.300 it is legal to test IVF embryos
00:52:04.000 for certain genetic disorders,
00:52:06.840 such as cystic fibrosis,
00:52:08.260 sickle cell disease, and Down syndrome.
00:52:10.180 The difference is that the U.S.
00:52:11.780 has not regulated screening
00:52:13.300 for an embryo sex or other traits.
00:52:15.720 So if you decide,
00:52:17.160 say you get all female embryos,
00:52:19.680 you didn't want a female,
00:52:20.820 you just wanted a son,
00:52:22.440 you can discard all of them based on their sex.
00:52:24.600 This is eugenics.
00:52:25.620 This is what's happening in the IVF industry.
00:52:27.600 The majority of LA-based IVF Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg's clients
00:52:33.080 are from countries where sex selection
00:52:34.760 and eye color selection is banned.
00:52:37.800 Eye color selection.
00:52:39.340 Like they're a designer purse
00:52:44.500 or shoes that you're picking out.
00:52:46.120 These are human beings made in the image of God.
00:52:49.060 We are so extremely backwards
00:52:51.220 in how we think about children.
00:52:53.220 We think about them as objects.
00:52:55.280 We think about them as possessions.
00:52:57.580 We don't think about them as human beings
00:53:00.160 with rights made in the image of God
00:53:02.500 with innate value.
00:53:03.340 We are going all the way back
00:53:04.840 to pagan ancient Greece and Rome
00:53:06.780 who really saw children as subhuman
00:53:09.180 and they were only seen as valuable
00:53:11.000 in so far as they could contribute
00:53:15.740 to their family's wealth
00:53:17.680 or contribute to society in some other way
00:53:20.920 or they were seen as sexual objects.
00:53:23.380 And what changed that
00:53:24.260 was the introduction of Christianity.
00:53:26.980 What changed that was the gospel.
00:53:28.380 What changed that was Christians
00:53:29.600 who followed a God-man who said,
00:53:32.640 let the little children come to me
00:53:34.220 for to such as these belongs
00:53:36.600 the kingdom of heaven
00:53:38.740 who said that these children
00:53:41.020 are made in the image of God
00:53:42.260 and therefore they matter.
00:53:45.440 And so Christians changed education.
00:53:47.840 They introduced orphanages.
00:53:50.880 They introduced organizations
00:53:52.920 and shelters for the most vulnerable.
00:53:56.560 Hospitals.
00:53:57.760 Christians changed the game
00:53:59.020 for the most vulnerable.
00:54:00.180 We have always been for our 2000 year history
00:54:02.440 a refuge of clarity and courage
00:54:06.640 for those who are victims
00:54:09.000 of the chaos and confusion of our age.
00:54:11.720 We have led the way in education.
00:54:14.560 We have led the way
00:54:15.860 when it comes to caring for the sick
00:54:18.480 and for the child.
00:54:19.900 We have stood in the way
00:54:22.120 of child sacrifice
00:54:23.520 from Nero to Newsom,
00:54:27.580 from Herod to Harris.
00:54:29.540 That is who Christians have been.
00:54:31.400 And that's what we must continue to be,
00:54:34.000 whether it comes to the education
00:54:36.860 of our children
00:54:37.680 or the creation of our children.
00:54:39.820 All right.
00:54:40.420 That's all we've got time for today.
00:54:42.180 See you guys back here tomorrow.
00:54:43.000 Bye.