Ep 1108 ｜ UK’s Assisted Suicide Bill, Booming Bible Sales & John Piper Scorches Pronouns ｜ Guest： Dr. Calum Miller
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Summary
The UK is debating a bill that would legalize assisted suicide, and we have Dr. Callum Miller to tell us the true moral implications of a bill like this. We will also be talking about some good news, the significant rise in Bible sales, and a word from John Piper, who has something to say about so-called pronoun politeness. All of this and more on today s episode of Relatable.
Transcript
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The UK is debating a bill that would legalize assisted suicide. We've got a UK doctor here
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today, Dr. Callum Miller, to tell us the true moral implications of a bill like this. We will
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also be talking about some good news, the significant rise in Bible sales. And we've
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got a word from John Piper, who has something to say about so-called pronoun politeness. All of
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this and more on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Go to GoodRanchers.com, use code Allie at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com, code Allie.
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far.
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First, we are going to talk about this assisted suicide bill that is now being discussed,
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debated in the UK. Of course, the debate has made it over here in the United States, where
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it is legal in some places to die by euthanasia. Of course, this is also legal in Canada. We
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have already seen, as we will discuss with Dr. Callum Miller, the slippery slope of assisted
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suicide. This is not about dying with dignity. This is allowing people to murder themselves.
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And of course, we as Christians understand because people are made in the image of God,
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they have infinite value and therefore inducing their death, communicating to them that they are
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too much of a burden either to themselves, to their communities, to their family, to their
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friends by saying, yes, your pain is too much. This is too hard. Here is a way that you can end your
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life. We know that that is immoral. We know that that is actually undignified, that that is wrong.
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And this is the consequence of this consent-based morality model that many conservatives and
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progressives have adopted. This idea that as long as you choose to do something, as long as you consent
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to something, it is therefore moral. Well, that is not true. You can consent to something that is still
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immoral. You can consent to being objectified. You can consent to being exploited. You can consent to
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being sexualized. And that is still immoral. It is still wrong to objectify a human being. It is still
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wrong to treat a human being less than the image bearer of God that they are. And so we can't have just a
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consent-based model that is also the justification for things like abortion. It's the justification for
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things like pornography, all kinds of unethical, immoral things. We have to have a standard of
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objective truth and universal morality. We at least have to debate our way to get to as close to that as
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we possibly can, to get to a place where we agree at least that there is an objective morality, that
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every law, that every policy decision that we make should be aiming toward. Yes, we live in a pluralistic
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society. Not everyone believes in the God of the Bible. Not everyone believes in the supremacy and the
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authority of Scripture. But we as Christians should, with our whole chest, be advocating for that worldview in the
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public sphere because lives are on the line. I hear from so many pastors that Christians shouldn't engage in the
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culture war, that we shouldn't care about politics because, well, that's just divisive and you're going
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to hurt someone's feelings. And maybe you might even inhibit someone from knowing the gospel because of
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your diehard position on politics. That is such a weak and cowardly and ignorant position. We care about
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politics because it affects people. Because politics matter, because policy matters, because people
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matter. Politics affects policy. Policy affects people. People matter. They matter to God. And therefore,
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as Christians, we understand better than anyone else that they must matter to us. Politics are not just
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an abstract thing. The culture wars are not just some far-off intangible idea. When we are talking
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about things like abortion, when we are talking about dying by suicide, the legalized killing of
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vulnerable, mentally and physically vulnerable people, we are talking about image bearers of God.
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And if Christians are not willing to advocate with the fullness of our worldview, which says that we
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believe in a God who created us in love and with purpose, and therefore how we treat people matters,
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and the law should protect people because they matter, then no one else is going to advocate for these
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people. Politics is not the only or even primary way to love your neighbor, but it is a way to love your
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neighbor. We advocate for the legal right to life for unborn children because those children cannot speak up
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for themselves, and yet their value is the same as ours, and they should be protected. And we know that if God
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hates anything, he hates the murder of the innocent. He hates the exploitation and the abuse of the
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vulnerable. That is his character. That's what he shows himself to be throughout Scripture and throughout history.
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And it is true also in the end of life. Now, you guys know that I am in favor of the death penalty
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for certain crimes, like capital murder, for the same reason that I am against abortion, because I
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believe in the protection of innocent life, and that is the only just and proportionate punishment for
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purposely ending the life of an innocent person. But not all killing is murder. Some killing is murder,
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like the purposeful killing of an innocent person, but not all killing is prohibited in Scripture. War,
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self-defense, these are not the same things as murder. Dying by suicide is. It is self-murder,
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and it is also dependent upon the help of professionals like doctors, like lawmakers, who are not only
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making self-murder accessible, but palatable and attractive, or even encouraging self-murder for
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people who just feel despair, like they just can't take it anymore. And so the UK is debating this bill.
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It is Bill 012-012, and it was introduced in the UK's House of Commons on November 11th. It hasn't
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made it all the way yet. It's 38 pages long. It allows for adults, excuse me, over the age of 18 who are
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terminally ill and expected to die naturally within six months to request and be provided medical assistance
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in order to end their life. But there are groups behind this bill who are very nefarious, who want to
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control population growth, and there are really no guardrails in this bill at all. It will lead to the killing
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of so many vulnerable people. And so today I've got Dr. Callum Miller, who has been very vehemently and
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publicly opposing this bill. He graduated from the University of Oxford Medical School in 2015.
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He holds a master's with distinction in biblical studies. He works as a medical doctor in the UK.
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We've had him on before because he is one of the few outspoken pro-life advocates and doctors
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in the UK. And so we've had him on the white couch sharing his perspective on that. But now he has
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something to say about not only the Christian, but the doctor's responsibility to preserve the lives of
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their patients rather than encouraging them to die early. So we're about to get into our conversation
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Dr. Miller, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I've been seeing your posts on X about
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this so-called end-of-life bill. Can you tell us what is going on in the UK?
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Yes, in the UK, we've just passed in second reading. It's not fully passed, but we've nearly
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passed a bill basically for euthanasia through assisted suicide. It would allow people within
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the last six months of their life or who are predicted to have less than six months left to
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live, it would allow doctors to give them lethal drugs so that they can kill themselves, which would
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be very unprecedented in the UK. We don't have anything like that at the moment. Only a small
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handful of countries in the world do. And so it would be a really radical shift, not only to our
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approach towards suicide, not only our approach towards vulnerable people, but also our approach
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towards medicine and doctors and the role that they have in making them people who kill rather than
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people who save lives. And so it's caused a lot of debate over here, which I've been part of over
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the last week. So those who defend this bill say that this is allowing people who are going to die
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anyway, to choose how they die, how quickly they die, and in that way is giving them dignity.
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This bill would only allow those, it says, that have some kind of terminal illness. Say they have,
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you know, I don't know, stage four pancreatic cancer. They've only been given a few months left to
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live. And instead of languishing in a hospital, they want to be able to die at home with their loved
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ones in a way that they see fit. And so they're almost saying that this is actually a human rights,
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human dignity bill, but that's not how you see it.
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No, I think, I mean, one of the concerns is that almost no one believes that it would remain
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at, you know, just this small group of people. You know, when we see how this works in other
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countries, it almost always expands to a larger group of people. It might be done through parliament,
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through legislation, or it might be done through the courts. If the courts say this is discriminatory
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because you're only allowing autonomy to a certain group of people, you know, it's discriminatory and
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it needs to be struck down and it needs to be applied to everyone. And in fact, even if you look
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at the people pushing the bill, the patrons of the charity pushing the bill, and a lot of the supporters
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are basically already saying it doesn't go far enough because it's only limited to a small number of
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people. And also, when you look at the logic of the argument, it almost inevitably leads to being
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expanded because the argument is basically, these people are suffering. The only humane option to
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prevent that suffering is to kill them. And, you know, if that's the case, then what about people who
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are suffering tremendously, but have decades left to live, they have even more suffering ahead of them.
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And it seems even more inhumane to allow them to keep living their lives. And so I think just the
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inherent logic of this plus the momentum and what we've seen in other countries is that it's pretty
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much guaranteed to go beyond this initial scope. And this would just be the first sort of step towards
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that. So, you know, of course, there's a doctor and someone who's familiar with medicine and familiar
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with the statistics. We don't think that killing is the solution to suffering. It's very rare that
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palliative care is unable to control symptoms. And actually, when you look at the statistics,
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most of the people that choose this have ultimately existential problems, they feel like they're being
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degraded or humiliated. Actual pain itself is not really a big part of this, which says that ultimately
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the solution isn't killing, which is never dignified. It's actually giving people a better understanding of
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their self-worth and their dignity, even in their vulnerability independence. And so I think ultimately,
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it's a existential and spiritual problem that we have, and that will never be fixed either by
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symptom management or by killing. It will be fixed by reaffirming human dignity for those people.
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And for those who don't know, palliative care is just comfort care. So if someone is going to die,
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there's nothing left to do that could actually save their life. You comfort them in the last moments
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in a way to alleviate the pain. And as you said, some of the other symptoms that might come along
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with the diagnosis they have, correct? That's right. Yeah. And there's a lot of confusion
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about this because they've been calling it an assisted dying bill. And they do this in many
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countries. They use terminology in a fairly misleading way. We already have assisted dying.
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People die. We assist them in controlling their symptoms, keeping them comfortable looking after
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them. That's perfectly legal. We do it every time someone passes away when we can. What they're
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actually trying to legalize is assisted suicide, where we're actually giving the patient the tools
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to end their own life, which is very different. Right. And you have criticized the lack of
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guardrails that exist in this bill. The defenders of the bill say, oh, there are already so many
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stipulations, so many safety measures that are put in place to make sure that this is not the slippery
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slope that people are afraid that it will be. But you say that this two-doctor guardrail that is in
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this bill that basically says two doctors have to sign off on it. That already is not enough, correct?
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Yeah. So they say, you know, the proponents of the bill say, look, you have to have two
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independent doctors signing off. The reality is that doctors do not have time to understand
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patients' full history. They don't have time to understand or even the ability to understand if a
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patient is being coerced. We know that in Oregon, where this is legal and the bill is modeled after
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Oregon, 40% of patients having assisted suicide say that they're having it because they feel like
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they're a burden to their friends or family. So this is already going on in the US on the West
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Coast as well. And, you know, nearly half of those people who are victims of it are doing it in part
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because they feel like a burden. And so those safeguards are clearly not working. Some of them even
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say in Oregon that they're doing it because they're worried about their finances. And so, you know,
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coming back to the two doctor thing, they say, look, it's these two independent doctors,
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even if, you know, the doctors could legitimately and reliably detect coercion and that sort of thing.
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What the bill actually says is that the first doctor chooses the second doctor. So they're not
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independent at all. You can just get a doctor who's fine with euthanasia for any reason,
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refers to another doctor who's fine with euthanasia for any reason. And then it even says if the second
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doctor by chance says no, then they can choose another doctor to be the second doctor. So it
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really is, you know, the most farcical kind of safeguard. And that's why a lot of disability groups
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and many other groups that work with vulnerable people are so frightened about this piece of
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legislation. It sounds so similar to the euphemisms that are used surrounding abortion and the definitions
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that are used surrounding abortion. Abortion in several states in the US is legal through all nine
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months as long as it is to save the quote unquote life and preserve the health of the mother. But
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health is defined in the Supreme Court case Doe v. Bolton as not only physical health, but it could be
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her mental, emotional health. It could also be her familial state. So if she has an unstable family
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situation, it could also mean her financial circumstances. So virtually for any reason, as long as it falls under
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this loose category of health, then it sounds like this is the direction that euthanasia has already
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gone, not only in some places in the United States, but certainly in Canada, we don't really have to look
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very far to see where this goes. Several instances in Canada have shown that this is used for people who
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are simply unhappy, not just unwell, but unhappy. As you said, they feel like a social burden, or maybe they
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just don't feel like they can carry the weight of their own circumstances or their own diagnosis.
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And so, as you said, it's not actually just assisting people who are already dying. It is inducing death.
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It is allowing someone to kill themselves because we can't be bothered either as a community or a
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country or whatever to help alleviate the actual burdens that would encourage someone and strengthen
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someone to go on. And that's a really sad moral state of things, I would say.
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Absolutely. And, you know, we had our former prime minister, David Cameron, write an opinion piece that
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said this bill isn't about ending life. It's about shortening death, whatever that means. I mean,
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the reality is that everyone is on a pathway to death and any killing could be seen as shortening death
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in that sense. And you're absolutely right that the way these are interpreted go way beyond what the
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people initially propose. In Canada, they're now trying to introduce it for mental illness. In Oregon,
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they're already doing it in part for mental illness. We know that some people have committed
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suicide through the state because of anorexia in Oregon. And, you know, they say that you have to
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have six months left to live or less. The reality is this is very unreliable. I think there was a study
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that showed this is only about 30% reliable, so it's worse than flipping a coin. But moreover, when they say,
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you know, you're expected to have less than six months, there's evidence that in Oregon,
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they interpret this as, you know, with or without treatment. As in, you know, you could say that
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someone with appendicitis has less than six months to live, because if they don't get treatment,
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they will die because the appendix will burst and they'll get an infection and so on. But
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appendicitis is obviously completely treatable in almost every case. But the way the law is being
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interpreted in Oregon suggests that even a simple condition could count as giving you a six month
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prognosis or less, because they say, well, if we don't treat you, then you're going to pass away
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soon. And therefore, you're entitled to this. And so all of these things, you know, these loopholes
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are always exploited. That's part of the intention of them. And we see that in every country in the
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Yes. And I just wanted to verify what you're saying, because there will be some out there
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who are thinking this doesn't happen in Oregon. There is no way that they are allowing people who
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suffer from things like anorexia and bulimia to kill themselves. But I just looked it up. People
00:19:02.660
can look it up. I typed in Oregon euthanasia, anorexia, and several articles came up. This is
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absolutely something that is happening. And people who claim to be scholars are the ones that are
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providing the arguments to justify this. So as you said, we already see exactly where this is going.
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naturalcosmetics.com, code ALI. You mentioned the people behind this. Do you know what organizations
00:20:32.080
are behind this? There's a lot of dark money, which often gets kind of, you know, labeled with
00:20:39.020
conservatives. But actually, in this case, there is a lot of really shady kind of stuff. We don't
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really know where the money comes from. We know that a lot of it comes from large donors who are
00:20:48.680
not named. We know that some of the groups pushing this, there's a group called More in Common, which is
00:20:53.720
in the US and the UK and a couple of other countries. This is very closely connected to the sponsor of the
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bill. It was actually set up, you know, after the death of the sponsor's sister a few years ago, very
00:21:07.480
closely related to it. They have been pushing opinion polls, pushing for this bill. They're funded by
00:21:13.340
various groups, including George Soros' Open Society Foundations. They're also funded by the Hewlett
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Foundation, which has a huge population program. They've spent about $500 million over the last few
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decades pushing for population control and depopulation of the world. I tried not to be a
00:21:34.000
conspiracy theorist. I chastised a lot of my friends for kind of going in that direction. But it's
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absolutely true to say, and there's, you know, very, very clear evidence to any observer that there is a
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depopulation agenda, the idea that the world is overpopulated, that people are a burden. And of course, this
00:21:50.680
is getting worse because of aging populations, because we don't have enough kids. We're having a lot more
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elderly people who need a lot more time and care. And it's much, much more convenient to kill someone
00:22:01.000
for a few dollars than to spend thousands of dollars and a lot of time and energy actually looking after
00:22:06.320
them. And so, you know, I don't know the intention of everyone who's pushing for this. I'm sure that there
00:22:11.080
are a lot of people who support this really out of good intentions, because they want to alleviate
00:22:16.040
suffering. And, you know, I know many people who support it because of that. But at the same time, we have to be
00:22:20.960
aware that there will always be much more powerful and sinister entities that want this for much more
00:22:27.600
sinister reasons. They will hijack whatever goes through. And they're even very likely pushing what's
00:22:33.340
going through as part of a depopulation agenda, really just for economic reasons. And so it's
00:22:38.860
something that we need to look more into. And we haven't fully got to the bottom of it yet.
00:22:43.760
Yes. And really, the Hewlett Foundation, I mean, if people want to say that that's conspiratorial,
00:22:48.260
all they have to do is look that up. The population program at the Hewlett Foundation is pretty clear
00:22:54.120
about what their goals are, although they, of course, use the euphemisms because they understand
00:22:59.100
that saying something like baby killing instead of abortion or reproductive health or even assisted
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suicide just isn't palatable. And so they'll say things like this. The Hewlett Foundation's
00:23:09.720
population program focuses its grant making in three broad areas, international access to family
00:23:14.920
planning and reproductive health, which is probably most mostly abortion, research, training and
00:23:19.920
advocacy to create sound policy. I would say that that probably is what this assisted suicide bill
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falls under there. You know, one of their other initiatives, family planning and reproductive health
00:23:31.740
in the United States specifically. So access to abortion, Open Society Foundation, George Source's
00:23:37.920
organization is is the same way. And so you're right. It sounds like a conspiracy, but unfortunately,
00:23:44.900
really all the way since Malthus, there has been this Malthusian fear of overpopulation that people
00:23:52.880
like Bill Gates and like Margaret Sanger and like the Hewlett Foundation and George Soros and many,
00:24:02.860
many other very rich and powerful people, specifically in the United States, they have really acted on that
00:24:08.780
fear of overpopulation and have pushed things like abortion and assisted suicide. That just happens to be
00:24:14.320
true. It sounds conspiratorial, but it's frighteningly true. Absolutely. And, you know, one of their
00:24:21.260
documents on the population program says explicitly we have two complementary goals. And I'll paraphrase a
00:24:27.300
little bit, but they basically say, you know, to empower women's reproductive rights, to have the
00:24:31.940
freedom and the number of kids they want. And then the second goal is to reduce population growth to,
00:24:37.820
you know, what they call a sustainable level. And it just so happens in their perspective that these two are
00:24:43.180
complementary, that women don't want a lot of kids. And that just happens to line up with their desire
00:24:48.920
to have a lot fewer people in the world. So it would be very inconvenient if it turned out that women
00:24:53.740
actually do want kids, they just don't feel empowered to have them or in a position or in a
00:24:58.260
circumstance to have them. It would be very inconvenient if there were lots of old people who had nothing to
00:25:03.240
do with reproductive rights, but who still, you know, emit carbon or, you know, eat food or take up
00:25:10.380
resources or, you know, use our time and money. And so ultimately, when you look at their stuff,
00:25:15.820
it's not just they make it very clear, this is not just about human rights, even, you know,
00:25:20.660
even under their definition of human rights, they've made it clear that a separate sort of
00:25:25.600
criterion and goal for them is the reduction of population, even aside from that. And they try to
00:25:31.120
say that these are just two sides of the same coin. But that obviously depends on some dubious
00:25:36.160
empirical claims and and on some wishful thinking on their part.
00:25:40.100
Yeah, you are a Christian pro-life doctor in the UK. Do you feel alone in your fight,
00:25:47.600
not only for the dignity of the unborn, but the dignity of people who are dying imminently?
00:25:53.380
Or do you feel like there are more doctors than we see who align with you?
00:26:00.260
We're pretty lonely on the abortion fight. I'll be honest, there are not many of us in that one.
00:26:05.060
On this one, we've actually been pleasantly surprised. There's huge, huge opposition to
00:26:09.240
this among doctors. So our population has always been largely in favor of euthanasia because they
00:26:15.040
just haven't looked into it. It's quite, you know, appealing, intuitive thought that we just
00:26:19.880
look after people by ending their suffering. But those who are actually familiar, the politicians
00:26:25.600
who've read about it, the doctors and so on, are much, much more opposed to it. So if you look at
00:26:30.900
the opinion polls for the palliative care doctors, the ones who know most about end of life care,
00:26:36.380
about suffering in the final few days and weeks, about coercion, about social dynamics, about 90%
00:26:43.480
of palliative care doctors in this country are opposed to legalizing euthanasia, which is really,
00:26:49.080
really striking. So they've been very forcefully against it. The Muslim groups have been very against
00:26:54.220
it. The communists and socialists have been very against it. So about 40% of our socialist party
00:27:00.560
in government voted against it, including most of the far left people, most of the people with the
00:27:06.740
sort of, you know, impressive lefty credentials. Yeah. A lot of the, you know, a lot of people who
00:27:13.180
are totally not conservative, not religious at all. JK Rowling is another example. You know,
00:27:17.840
she's conservative on the trans issue, but she's otherwise just a standard kind of liberal feminist
00:27:22.480
person. She was retweeting me this week. She retweeted me twice. And that does not normally
00:27:27.860
happen. I don't normally get JK Rowling retweeting me on abortion. And so we've seen that there's
00:27:33.700
actually a lot of opposition, particularly among, really among anyone who's just looked into it.
00:27:38.440
I think most people instinctively feel some sympathy for euthanasia because they just want to,
00:27:44.980
you know, help ease suffering. That's, you know, where compassion can lead you initially.
00:27:48.900
And then almost everyone who actually looks into it and knows the reality ends up turning against
00:27:54.520
it. And so we're fortunate that in this country, we have a lot of politicians on the left and the
00:27:58.520
right, a lot of doctors, a lot of disability rights groups, all of whom have been really,
00:28:04.320
really passionately against this. And we hope that they continue and hopefully are successful.
00:28:08.820
Yes. I saw someone who identifies as a Marxist on X this week saying that she has come to realize
00:28:15.780
over time that euthanasia is a crime against humanity. And I appreciated that. And I'm trying
00:28:21.900
to understand that from her ideological perspective. Obviously, you and I share the belief that we are
00:28:27.820
made in the Imago Dei and we have innate worth and therefore assisted suicide is always wrong. But
00:28:34.500
I'm guessing it has something to do with understanding the imbalanced power dynamics at play,
00:28:40.660
that even if someone isn't explicitly coerced, someone who is socially isolated in a vulnerable
00:28:45.960
position being told by someone in a white coat that this would make their life better,
00:28:51.580
that is a form of coercion and manipulation. And there are simply no possible safeguards against
00:28:58.100
something like that. And that is too serious for us to allow. What is your thought about how this will
00:29:05.920
end up? Do you think that all of the different kinds of people who are coming out in opposition
00:29:11.080
to this bill will be able to put a stop to it? I really hope so. And we have a chance. So our
00:29:18.100
parliament is 80 percent left wing. So it's overwhelmingly left wing. They should be able to pass anything.
00:29:25.160
And yet it was only about 50 percent to 40 percent in this vote on Friday. And so it was actually
00:29:31.420
relatively close. It was about 50 votes because we have a huge parliament. And we've calculated that
00:29:37.260
if we add up all the parliamentarians who voted just to continue further debates, but were not
00:29:43.820
necessarily committed to supporting it fully, then we can actually win this in the final vote. It's an
00:29:50.120
uphill battle, but it is possible. As I said, we've got a lot of people on our side from across the
00:29:54.820
political spectrum. We also have challenges that some of the conservatives have not been great. So
00:29:59.920
our conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, used to be a patron of conservatives for choice.
00:30:06.960
You know, she was a patron of a pro euthanasia charity. She came out in this case against it,
00:30:13.140
but only very late with a few weeks to go after most of the leftist politicians had already come
00:30:18.220
out against it. And so even people who might be thought to be more robust, you know, solid leaders,
00:30:24.740
there's been a lot of excitement about her being anti-woke. But the reality is that even people like her
00:30:29.740
just do not have a robust conservative vision of society or robust values that can really help.
00:30:36.700
And so as well as sort of winning over a few more of the socialists and left-wing people,
00:30:42.240
we also have to do a better job, I think, convincing the conservative party and their leaders that this
00:30:47.680
is something that is really, really important, that it's non-negotiable, and that, you know, this
00:30:52.780
actually matters to conservatives and that they're not really authoritative, credible conservatives if
00:30:58.480
they even consider the idea of something like this. Yeah. Okay. Quickly, how can people over here
00:31:05.080
in the U.S. support you guys? I think, you know, making a fuss about it. You know, we've seen that
00:31:12.320
there's been a lot of times where conversations in the U.K. pick up from the U.S., often from celebrities
00:31:18.060
or politicians. Sometimes that's negatively. You know, there are some politicians that most British
00:31:23.220
people are not huge fans of who tend to sort of react in a sort of backlash fashion, too. But I
00:31:29.560
think anything that raises awareness, I think if we had key conservative or any, to be honest, any
00:31:35.220
leaders in the U.S. speaking about this, I think if people like Elon Musk started speaking about this
00:31:40.820
and raising concerns, then I think it would at least wake people up in the U.K. So we have to be
00:31:46.280
careful. We can't just make any old arguments. But I think we need to have more knowledge from
00:31:50.460
Oregon, what's going on there, more stories from Oregon. We need to have people just raising
00:31:55.360
awareness because the reality is most of this is getting through because the large majority of
00:32:00.860
people in this country just don't know the reality of euthanasia. They don't know what's going on in
00:32:05.680
Canada. They don't know what's going on in Oregon. And really, it's a matter of raising awareness
00:32:10.040
and actually building a public conscientiousness about this. And so anything that contributes to
00:32:17.540
that, whether it's speaking to your U.K. friends or getting high profile people in the U.S. to start
00:32:22.100
speaking about this or just getting more stories from the U.S. or Canada, all of that's really
00:32:26.880
helpful. So we'd love to partner with anyone in the U.S. on that. And hopefully we can beat this
00:32:32.360
together because it's going to come for the U.S. soon as well.
00:32:34.960
Oh, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Miller. I really appreciate your voice.
00:32:45.380
Quick pause to tell you about our next sponsor for the day, and that is Covenant Eyes. Y'all know that
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online content by going to CovenantEyes.com. Use code Allie for your first 30 days. Your first 30 days
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will be free with my code CovenantEyes.com slash Allie code Allie. There are many stories from several
00:34:11.260
countries, whether it's Canada or the U.S. or the Netherlands, where people are suffering and choose to
00:34:21.020
die by suicide just because they are in a little bit of pain. Maybe it's from Lyme disease or maybe
00:34:26.980
it's from allergies or because they are anorexic or bulimic or because they are poor and they can't
00:34:34.360
afford housing because they need some kind of medical treatment that they don't have access to.
00:34:41.400
These are the people that are dying by suicide. And if you don't think this is eventually coming for
00:34:47.320
your kids. I promise you that it is. What do we always say? Children are always the unconsenting
00:34:53.680
subjects of progressive social experiments. In fact, we already see this at the beginning of life.
00:34:58.860
That's what abortion is. It's euthanasia for babies. It's the death penalty for babies. And so this is
00:35:05.060
already happening at the beginning of life when children certainly have no say. I promise you that it will
00:35:11.020
inch its way towards toddlers, towards preteens, towards teens, maybe even preteens and teens who
00:35:19.020
have transitioned, detransitioned, but they've ruined their bodies. They've ruined their fertility.
00:35:24.020
They can't stand it anymore. They feel trapped in the body that adults allow them to brutalize in the
00:35:29.940
name of being transgender and they will seek to kill themselves. And I would say that's probably
00:35:34.960
mission accomplished for the nefarious organizations that are behind this movement. All right. I do want
00:35:41.460
to transition to a little bit of a happier story. All right. Because I think we need a little bit of
00:35:47.240
uplifting after all of that, because in the tumult of all of the evil that is occurring in the world,
00:35:54.680
we know that Satan, according to Ephesians 2, is the prince of the power of the air. So he does have
00:35:58.660
some power. He does have some authority. He knows he's going to lose, but he's trying to take as many
00:36:03.560
lives, as many souls, as much joy and as much victory as possible until he gets to that point of
00:36:10.240
ultimate defeat. And yet, what? God's eternal plan of redemption is always going off without a hitch.
00:36:16.480
Even in something as evil as this, he is using the boldness and the courage and the voice of the church,
00:36:21.540
the voice of people like Dr. Miller, to advocate for the beauty of the biblical worldview,
00:36:29.340
the beauty of the existence of the Imago Dei. And I think because of that, because of the darkness
00:36:36.440
that exists, a lot of people are craving light more than ever. A lot of people are saying, okay,
00:36:42.120
I'm tired of waiting around in the darkness. Can someone just tell me that there's light? Can
00:36:47.680
someone just turn the light on for me? Can someone just tell me what is true? Can someone make sense,
00:36:55.120
make order out of this chaos? And that is why I think, according to the Wall Street Journal,
00:37:01.040
Bible sales are up 22% in the United States through the end of October, compared with the
00:37:06.780
same period last year. In comparison, overall U.S. book sale trends rose by less than 1% in the same
00:37:13.720
timeframe. Jeff Crosby is the president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.
00:37:18.820
He says this, people are experiencing anxiety themselves or they're worried for their children and
00:37:22.960
grandchildren. It's related to artificial intelligence, election cycles, and all of that
00:37:28.120
feeds a desire for assurance that we are going to be okay. Amy Simpson, publisher of Tyndale House
00:37:35.480
Publishers Bible Division, says there seems to be a surge in engagement, particularly among members of
00:37:39.460
Gen Z and college students. You have a generation that wants to find things that feel more solid. I think
00:37:47.120
that is absolutely true. And I know that we see a lot of progressivism, a lot of lostness
00:37:52.400
among Generation Z. We've got unprecedented rates of Gen Z that identifies as LGBTQ. But I think those
00:37:59.680
that fall outside of that are even more solid than those that identify as Christians in the millennial
00:38:06.440
and boomer generation because they have been raised in the craziness and the chaos of progressivism.
00:38:11.320
And so they have been able to see in a very concentrated way that that does not have the
00:38:17.040
answer. They've been able to see up close and personal people who try to find love and satisfaction
00:38:25.020
and sexual promiscuity and self-identity and worshiping the God of self and filling themselves
00:38:32.660
with the pleasure of the world. I mean, everything that has been at their fingertips since they were
00:38:37.320
toddlers through the devices that their parents have given them. And they are realizing what all
00:38:44.580
Christians have realized for all of time, that there's something more than this. There's got to
00:38:48.680
be something bigger than this. There's got to be something deeper than this, more solid than this.
00:38:52.900
I also think as the country awakens to the craziness of progressivism and everything that the ideology
00:39:06.320
entails. And as they realize some of the lies about things like abortion or transgenderism or whatever
00:39:14.420
it is, and they start just becoming more conservative, not even more Christian, they start becoming more
00:39:21.140
conservative and then they start picking apart their own belief system, the lies that they've believed,
00:39:26.800
why they have believed them so often that does lead someone towards Christianity. And I've seen it time
00:39:34.020
in time again. I saw that Candace Cameron Bure made headlines for saying that President Trump's
00:39:39.460
election kind of demonstrates that people are having an awakening of faith. And of course, the
00:39:44.620
people that you would expect to trash that take trashed it, the progressives online. But I think
00:39:52.100
that's absolutely true. That's not to say, and she's not saying, and I've never said that being a Republican
00:39:58.240
and being a conservative is the same thing as being a Christian or that voting for Donald Trump means
00:40:03.760
that you're automatically a Christian. But I do think it means that a lot of people are repudiating
00:40:10.000
at least aspects of the secular progressive ideology. And of course, I believe that conservative
00:40:17.120
politics most naturally flow from a biblical worldview. And so no matter how you get there, whether it's,
00:40:24.400
you know, my preferred route, which is start with the Bible and then work from there, or whether
00:40:29.600
someone just realizes, okay, like conservative politics kind of seem more right, or some of the
00:40:35.980
conservative ideas seem more right, I wonder where they come from. And then that brings them to the
00:40:40.740
Constitution, which brings them to the Declaration of Independence, brings them to the founders, which
00:40:45.540
believed that we have rights that were given to us by a creator whose power and authority
00:40:51.020
transcends that of the government. We're still all realizing the same thing, which is that we were
00:41:00.560
made by God, and his rules are better, and his ways are better. And so I'm very thankful. I'm very thankful
00:41:07.700
for that. According to the New York Times, for the first time in modern American history, young men are now more
00:41:12.800
religious than their female peers. They attend services more often, and are more likely to identify as
00:41:19.120
religious. And of course, I hope that young women catch up to that as well. Let me pause and tell you
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I also love that according to the Wall Street Journal, they say sales of Bibles are booming,
00:42:35.500
fueled by first-time buyers and new versions. Publishers attribute a 22% jump in Bible sales
00:42:43.520
this year to rising anxiety, a search for hope, or highly focused marketing and designs. I love that.
00:42:51.360
I love that. I mean, a lot of people have concerns about, you know, different versions of Bibles and
00:42:58.600
things like that. And of course, when it comes to translations, I think that we should use the most
00:43:02.940
accurate possible. But I have no problem with the more beautiful Bibles, the better designed Bibles,
00:43:10.860
the Bibles that are marketed maybe specifically to teens or specifically to women, as long as it is
00:43:16.820
the unfiltered, unadulterated Word of God, and it's getting into people's hands. I think that's
00:43:22.900
beautiful. Or like the wide margin Bible so people can journal. I love my ESV study Bible. If you want
00:43:30.740
to start the Bible for the first time, maybe that's your New Year's resolution. There's no reason to wait
00:43:35.280
until the new year, though. I would just go ahead and do it. Get you an ESV study Bible. You can get it on
00:43:40.840
Amazon. You can get the, you know, fancier versions that are a little more expensive, but you can just
00:43:46.380
get the standard. It's red, white, and black ESV study Bible. That was the version of the Bible that
00:43:52.040
totally changed the game for me. I had a friend who gave that to me when I was, I think it was the
00:43:57.420
summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college. And I had grown up in a Christian home,
00:44:02.360
and I went to a Christian school, went to church, loved the Bible, loved theology. But that was really the
00:44:07.500
first time I started reading the ESV. I grew up reading the NIV as a lot of, you know, Baptists
00:44:13.080
in the South did, and that was fine. It's just a less exact translation. So the ESV, it really just
00:44:20.320
clicked with my brain, and I was able to memorize Scripture a lot better than I ever had. And the
00:44:26.140
notes and the resources in the ESV study Bible gave me so much knowledge and understanding of what I was
00:44:32.960
reading. So I really encourage you to get an ESV study Bible. Get a copy of Systematic Theology
00:44:39.240
by Wayne Gruda. Maybe ask for that for Christmas. I also love a keyword study Bible that comes with
00:44:46.540
the original Greek and Hebrew, and so it doesn't tell you the exact original Greek and Hebrew of
00:44:54.380
every word of every chapter, but just keywords that really helps me in my study as well. Another
00:45:00.380
supplement that I would encourage you to get is Ethics for a Brave New World. Ethics for a Brave New
00:45:07.840
World. That also has helped shape a lot of my conclusions when it comes to things like the death
00:45:14.320
penalty, when it comes to IVF and surrogacy, just really challenged my thinking and clarified my
00:45:21.340
thinking on a lot of those issues. And so I would say, like, if you want a great starter pack for the
00:45:26.540
Christian worldview and seeing the world from a Christian perspective, that would be a great way
00:45:30.640
to go. I'm always going to recommend C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, and Screwtape Letters.
00:45:38.720
Those are the first two that I would recommend as well. I mean, there are just, there are so, so many
00:45:43.900
others that could really be helpful for you. But for me, when I look back, still those resources help me a
00:45:52.100
lot. But when I look back to really digging into my faith at the beginning part of college,
00:45:57.360
those were the resources that helped me the most. All right, let's talk about, speaking of
00:46:04.620
Christianity and speaking of biblical truth, I want to talk about one other story, and it has to do with
00:46:11.120
John Piper. I'm trying to decide, do I want to do the last ad now or do I want to wait? Okay, let's just
00:46:16.180
knock the last ad out of the way because I do have one more ad, and then we'll get to this John Piper
00:46:19.960
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00:47:08.020
Okay, I am so thankful for John Piper's take on something called pronoun politeness. I recently
00:47:19.400
did a segment where I was disagreeing with John Piper about his take on Biden versus Trump,
00:47:25.540
Kamala versus Trump, his take on the election, but I've also said how much I am grateful for John
00:47:32.440
Piper and his positive influence on my theology and understanding so many things. I've listened
00:47:37.740
to several episodes of Ask Pastor John, and in a recent episode, he was asked about so-called
00:47:45.500
pronoun politeness, and that is the idea that has been propagated by people like Preston Sprinkle and
00:47:51.040
others that even if you disagree with transgenderism, that to be polite or maybe even some would say to
00:47:58.760
win someone over for the gospel, you can still call a woman who identifies as a man he or a man
00:48:05.700
who identifies as a woman she. This is the same thing that progressives say, except they would say
00:48:10.960
you do it because they really are what this person, you know, what they claim that they are, and so
00:48:16.060
it's a matter of respect. It's a matter of dignity, whereas I would say, no, that's lying to them,
00:48:22.160
and God made them male or female, and God loves them more than I do, and I don't think I can
00:48:26.680
love them well by disagreeing with God. Who is love? And John Piper, in his very eloquent way,
00:48:33.940
he speaks out against pronoun politeness. The question originally was, during a recent training
00:48:40.740
session, a ministry that this question asker is a part of asked us to consider using gender
00:48:46.120
pronoun hospitality on our local campus. I wonder what ministry that was. I actually don't know.
00:48:52.240
I actually really do wonder, but I kind of have an idea. A suggestion that has now come before the
00:48:58.160
elders of the church to see if we will allow our members and those we support locally who work on
00:49:03.120
the campus to do so. The argument is that there are times when, for the sake of evangelism,
00:49:07.200
one may decide to call a person by their chosen gender if such an act removes a possible barrier
00:49:11.700
in sharing the gospel. Pastor John, what should I do? Piper stated that the entire idea of,
00:49:18.100
quote unquote, gender pronoun hospitality is a misleading slogan and that connecting the beautiful
00:49:23.120
biblical word hospitality with the unbiblical concept of gender pronoun is unhelpful and that
00:49:30.460
we ought to be hospitable, but we ought not to be affirming of pronouns that designate a destructive
00:49:38.380
choice and a false view of reality. It is possible to be hospitable and honest. He said the very use of
00:49:47.160
the word gender is a compromise with sinful views of reality. I think that we should use the word
00:49:51.640
sex everywhere. I have always disagreed with that. I'm open to hearing his argument. I don't think
00:49:58.300
that's true. When you look at the etymology of gender, gender and sex seem to me to be interchangeable.
00:50:04.240
But he says, I think using the word gender where the right word is sex is like using the word
00:50:09.120
marriage for a relationship between two men or two women. It is not marriage. It is so-called marriage.
00:50:13.920
In our present context, maleness and femaleness are sexes, not genders. Again, I disagree with that.
00:50:23.760
I think they're one in the same. And actually, I think separating the two or saying that they are
00:50:27.420
two different things is where we get into this mess. But I'm sure he has thought through his
00:50:33.480
position thoroughly. He says that a better way to evangelize to someone who's claiming to be
00:50:40.060
the opposite gender would be like this. He says, I know you intend to change your sex,
00:50:46.140
but you are my friend. And I think there's a better way. Jesus has a better way forward for you.
00:50:51.400
He's full of grace. He's full of forgiveness. May I share that with you? That's a legitimate
00:50:56.820
evangelism, Piper says, from the get-go. And it might be a good way.
00:51:03.540
Okay. So he goes through why you shouldn't use pronoun politeness. I won't articulate all of
00:51:08.960
these reasons in full. I encourage you to go listen to this episode. But one, he says that it
00:51:13.880
defies God. Self-conception as male or female should be defined by God's holy purposes in creation.
00:51:20.660
Number two, it involves living a lie. A woman cannot become a man, nor a man a woman. Number three,
00:51:29.900
being a man or a woman is not like being left-handed or right-handed. It goes far deeper
00:51:33.500
and touches the depths of our created nature. Number four, it regularly leads to destructive
00:51:37.980
and irreversible surgeries and treatments. Number five, when that happens, it destroys the God-designed
00:51:43.540
potential of procreation and will bring sooner or later profound and suicidal regret. It expresses
00:51:51.740
the deeply anti-God, this number six, commitment to human autonomy over against the will of God.
00:51:58.780
I will decide the essence of my being, not God, is essentially what this would be saying.
00:52:04.320
It contributes to the cultural disorder of sexuality that tends to undermine God's
00:52:08.260
pattern from male and female and confuses and destabilizes our young people. It overlooks
00:52:15.000
alternative ways forward that take seriously a person's sexual confusion or rebellion. Nine,
00:52:20.460
it is the prelude to future perversions. Ten, therefore, the greatest possible care should be taken
00:52:27.300
before. One gives any impression of approving or even being mildly disagreeable toward so-called
00:52:35.940
transgenderism. I think that is a perfect response, and I am so grateful for his clarity.
00:52:43.380
Pastors, remember and take this as an example, clarity is kindness. You are not kinder than God.
00:52:50.820
You are not nicer than God. You are not more loving or more compassionate than God, and therefore,
00:52:56.460
the kindest and most loving thing that we can always do is agree with God, and he tells us what
00:53:02.660
we are right there in Genesis 127. It is our obligation, as we love God and love others, to
00:53:10.180
echo his clear words there. All right, that's all we've got time for today. We will be back here tomorrow.