Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 10, 2024


Ep 1112 | Joel Osteen’s ‘Mary’ Movie Gets the Gospel Wrong


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 6 minutes

Words per Minute

163.56284

Word Count

10,879

Sentence Count

749

Misogynist Sentences

11

Hate Speech Sentences

13


Summary

Two kindergartners at a Christian school in California have been shot by a man who says that he was paying retribution for America s crimes in Gaza. We ve got all of that on today s episode of Relatable, with our friend Abby Kirkendall.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 The new Mary movie on Netflix produced by Joel Osteen totally misses the point of the gospel
00:00:08.480 and Christmas. Also, people are weirdly sexualizing the assassin of the United
00:00:16.440 Healthcare CEO, and we are covering a little-known story. Two kindergartners at a Christian school
00:00:23.840 in California have been shot by a man who says that he was paying retribution for America's
00:00:32.040 crimes in Gaza. We've got all of that on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our
00:00:37.120 friends at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com,
00:00:41.340 code Allie.
00:00:42.120 Hey, guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
00:00:56.480 We are back in the studio looking and sounding as normal. Thanks for bearing with us yesterday.
00:01:02.360 All right. We've got a lot to get to today. Just a reminder that we've got our hospitality special
00:01:07.840 out. Relatable at home with my friend, Abby Kirkendall. She walks me through making a very
00:01:13.940 simple bread recipe. Took a lot less time than sourdough. This was beer bread. But more than
00:01:20.100 that, we just talked about what the Bible has to say, what Jesus's ministry and life has to say
00:01:25.760 about setting tables for people, hospitality, inviting people into our home. This is really
00:01:32.440 a beautiful message for anyone in any stage of life. She talks about how she started her
00:01:38.360 hospitality journey when she didn't know how to cook, when she was a single woman inviting college
00:01:43.760 students over. And then when she became a wife and now she is a mom of a little baby boy and
00:01:49.680 hospitality has looked different in every season of her life. But it was really good for me to hear
00:01:55.160 that we're really never too busy to extend the call of hospitality and generosity to the people in
00:02:02.100 our lives. So a really fun and unique, special, a different side of relatable that we don't
00:02:08.020 usually get into on the day-to-day show. So go to blazetv.com slash Allie. I think you can use code
00:02:14.920 Allie10 for a 10% off your subscription. I think so. So use that promo code. Also a Blaze TV subscription
00:02:22.540 would be a really good gift to either the Related Bro or the Related Gal in your life because you get
00:02:28.140 access to all kinds of Blaze TV content, not just my stuff. And we're really hoping in the new year
00:02:34.380 to give you guys more consistent subscriber exclusive content. The Relatable team, we've got lots of
00:02:41.120 ideas lined up. It's a lot to do in addition to the show that we have. And so that's why it's been a
00:02:48.260 little bit sparse, but we're hoping to be able to give you more of that in the new year. So go to
00:02:54.840 Allie or blazetv.com slash Allie. One more announcement. I just thought of it. We do have
00:03:01.000 the date for Share the Arrows 2025, y'all. I am so pumped. That's all I can say right now. I promise
00:03:07.640 all will be revealed in due time when ticket sales will go up, when and where it will be and all of
00:03:14.880 that good stuff. But I just want you to keep your eyes peeled. Share the Arrows 2025. This year was
00:03:22.440 amazing. This was honestly one of the highlights of my year. I still think about just how super
00:03:28.960 naturally special that day was. It was such a spirit-filled day. We were all able to feel it
00:03:37.220 while we were there. And I've talked to so many of you who are ready for round two and so many of you
00:03:41.380 who couldn't make it this year. You were having a baby, you were traveling, whatever, and you are
00:03:45.880 set and determined to make it in 2025. So don't you worry. Tickets will be on sale soon and I will
00:03:54.080 give you more information as I can. But be on the lookout. All right. I want to talk about this story
00:03:59.360 that I really have not seen circulating in the media all that much. And that is this tragic story
00:04:06.200 of a California Christian school shooting where two kindergartners were shot. Now, thankfully,
00:04:12.920 they are still alive. They are in critical condition, but they are alive. Praise God for
00:04:20.320 that. And this just hasn't been the viral story that it really should be. Unfortunately, this is
00:04:27.740 not the first school shooting we've had to talk about. Far from it. And so some people may see this
00:04:34.300 just as a common occurrence. But it seems to me that the virality of a story when it comes to the
00:04:42.160 mainstream media coverage of it, when it comes to politicians' attention to it, really depends upon
00:04:48.180 the perpetrator and the victim. This is a dynamic we talked about in yesterday's show when we talked
00:04:53.900 about Daniel Penny and Jordan Neely. That is the unfortunate reality that many people interpret
00:05:01.540 the events of the day and the weight of the significance of the events on the day depending
00:05:06.940 upon the intersectionality scale. So if it is a convenient perpetrator and say it's a white straight
00:05:14.720 male and it's some kind of minority that gets killed or is assaulted in some way, that tends to
00:05:21.940 blow up as a news story. But if it's a narrative that doesn't really fit into progressive ideology,
00:05:28.900 it typically depends upon conservative outlets to sound the alarm about it. And this seems to me
00:05:37.140 one of those cases, especially when we look at Governor Gavin Newsom's response to it. So some
00:05:43.840 more details about this. You probably haven't heard about it unless you saw me post about it on
00:05:49.020 Instagram. On Wednesday, December 4th, two kindergarten age boys were shot shortly after 1 p.m.
00:05:54.620 at Feather River School, a private Seventh-day Adventist Christian school in Palermo, California,
00:06:00.220 by a man claiming to be taking revenge for American involvement with a supposed Gaza
00:06:06.040 quote-unquote genocide and attacks on Yemen, according to a Thursday, is it Butte County,
00:06:13.140 County Sheriff's Office briefing. I apologize if I got that name wrong. So more information
00:06:19.640 about these victims. Roman Mendez, he is six years old. Elias Wolford, five years old. We're in critical
00:06:28.440 but stable condition. Again, praise God, following the attack by a gunman, a 56-year-old who was known
00:06:34.840 to have a lengthy criminal record in mental health history. I'm not going to say his name, and we've
00:06:42.640 gone back and forth on this. Sometimes it's so hard not to say their name because it's very confusing to
00:06:46.720 explain these stories, but so often these gunmen want notoriety. They want to become famous, and
00:06:53.100 would-be killers want that fame. And so when they see someone's name out there, it motivates them to
00:07:01.920 do a copycat attack. And I'm not saying that my show is going to make or break that for someone, but
00:07:07.840 whatever I can do to not contribute to that, I want to make sure that we adopt that kind of policy.
00:07:16.020 So I'm going to do my best when we're talking about the stories today, not to give air to their fame.
00:07:23.140 So the shooter arrived at the school, which was fewer than three dozen students enrolled,
00:07:28.160 so a very small Christian school. He took an Uber under the alias Mark Hansen. He had reportedly
00:07:37.240 scheduled an appointment with the school's administrators under another alias, Michael Sanders,
00:07:43.600 an identity that he had previously used in a November license forgery and theft of a U-Haul truck.
00:07:49.920 Well, that is not very bright, is it? If you're going to use a fake name, you can't come up with more
00:07:55.400 than one. Under the guise of Sanders, the shooter pretended to be interested in enrolling his fictitious
00:08:01.440 grandson at the school. After a tour of the facilities, the shooter headed toward the school's parking lot
00:08:07.580 before suddenly changing direction and turning toward the playground. He pulled out a concealed
00:08:12.340 ghost gun pistol and shot the two boys. A California highway patrol trooper was the first to arrive on
00:08:19.700 scene. He found the two wounded students and discovered the shooter dead from an apparent
00:08:25.720 self-inflicted gunshot. So he committed suicide after he shot and tried to kill these two boys.
00:08:33.540 Thank the Lord for law enforcement that they were able to help save these boys' lives.
00:08:39.180 The families of these two kindergartners say that they are showing signs of improvement.
00:08:43.840 Roman's sister, Vanessa Diaz, posted on social media that her little brother is awake and breathing
00:08:48.560 independently. The nurses told his sister the first words that came out of his mouth when the tubes
00:08:53.980 were removed were, where is Elias? Oh, that is just so sweet. What a sweet boy. Elias came out of
00:09:00.700 surgery Friday afternoon. His grandmother said that the doctors were able to close all of his wounds.
00:09:05.700 Again, just praise God. Pray for these two little boys. Pray also for the other children that saw this
00:09:12.300 happen. Oh my goodness. That is something that their eyes should never have witnessed. They could be
00:09:16.840 traumatized forever. Just pray for them. Pray for their families. Pray for the teachers that God would
00:09:22.500 give them all wisdom, give them all strength, give them all courage and comfort in this time,
00:09:28.760 and that somehow he would be glorified in all of this. We'll talk a little bit more about the
00:09:35.780 shooter's motivations because he did leave behind a manifesto that I think are pertinent to this
00:09:42.340 conversation and would be worth highlighting, I think, as the governor of California. But interestingly,
00:09:48.220 for some strange reason, Gavin Newsom decided to leave out the apparent motivations of this
00:09:54.760 shooter. But let me pause and tell you about our first sponsor for the day. It's Seven Weeks Coffee.
00:09:59.720 I absolutely love Seven Weeks Coffee. If you've got a coffee lover in your life, this would be a great
00:10:05.100 Christmas gift for them. You can go ahead and not just give them the box of coffee, although that's a
00:10:10.300 great gift, but you could subscribe for them. So they joined Seven Weeks Coffee's Heartbeat Club,
00:10:16.400 and so they get the box of coffee to their front door every month. It's just one less thing to think
00:10:21.500 about. And plus, it's a win all around. Not only are you getting the highest quality, organic,
00:10:27.400 mold-free, super clean, great-tasting coffee from Seven Weeks, but you're also supporting a company
00:10:33.460 that puts their money where their mouth is when it comes to their pro-life values. That's the entire
00:10:38.700 point of Seven Weeks Coffee. They're named after the size of an embryo at Seven Weeks Gestation,
00:10:44.560 just the size of a coffee bean. And they donate 10% of every sale to a pregnancy center across the
00:10:50.140 country. They have raised over half a million dollars for these pregnancy centers. That's
00:10:54.060 translated into saving thousands of lives as these pregnant moms are resourced with the things that
00:11:00.100 they need to be able to choose life. So go to sevenweekscoffee.com. Use code Allie. You'll get
00:11:06.520 10% off your order when you do that. Sevenweekscoffee.com. Code Allie.
00:11:14.940 Okay, so why did this man do what he did? Was he just mentally ill? A lot of times that's what we
00:11:20.560 hear. We hear that there's a mental health crisis in this country. I think that's absolutely true.
00:11:24.640 There's actually probably more of a mental health prescription crisis in this country, but certainly
00:11:29.900 the godlessness and the moral relativism that is so pervasive in our society today does lend itself to
00:11:39.980 a mental instability and to mental sickness. Certainly as people are purposeless, they don't
00:11:47.160 know whose they are. They don't know who they are. They don't know why they're here. These are questions
00:11:52.540 that people for all of time have been seeking to answer, and we basically tell people through the
00:11:59.000 popular narrative of today that there is no real answer to those questions, that you do you. You
00:12:04.760 serve the god of self. You pursue your own happiness that ironically doesn't make people happier. That
00:12:11.480 makes people a lot lonelier and feel a lot more insignificant, actually. And so when we have detached
00:12:19.340 people from the god that made them in the name of liberation, inclusion, whatever, I do think that
00:12:27.720 we send people down a path of being very lost, and it manifests itself in a variety of ways. But really
00:12:36.780 our solution, our so-called solution to the problem of our low mental health in the United States has
00:12:45.440 actually made the problem worse through over-prescribing medications that actually lead to
00:12:51.540 psychosis and further depression and anxiety. Anyway, I don't know if that's the problem here.
00:12:56.960 I'm just saying that that's a conversation that's always had when really we need to be looking deeper,
00:13:01.760 more spiritual, because evil people do exist. It's not always just a mental health diagnosis.
00:13:07.420 So why would someone choose to target little children? Sure, it could be a mental health problem.
00:13:12.500 It also could just be that he's spiritually sick and he's an evil person and did an evil thing.
00:13:19.260 So he targeted this Feather River School. He attended a school of Seventh-day Adventists
00:13:27.740 in another town as a child. He possibly had a relative who attended Feather River as a young child,
00:13:34.740 so we don't know exactly what the connection is there. There's clearly some history, maybe some of you
00:13:40.100 who are in the community. Maybe you know better. We couldn't find any verified facts of that
00:13:44.940 correlation. And so if you've got information, feel free to reach out to me. Police found that
00:13:50.160 the shooter had left a statement where he tried to justify the shooting as revenge for the ongoing
00:13:54.320 Israeli military operation against Tamas in Gaza and operations to counter Ansar Allah's,
00:14:02.140 a Houthi terrorist leader in Yemen, maritime terrorism and missile attacks. Now,
00:14:07.640 what's the connection there? I don't know. Maybe he thinks, oh, all of these children are dying
00:14:12.640 in Gaza and the U.S. needs to feel the same pain that the Palestinians are feeling. Maybe that's
00:14:19.040 his mentality. I'm not sure. He said countermeasures involving child execution have now been imposed at
00:14:27.140 the Seventh-day Adventist School in California, United States by the International Alliance. So that's
00:14:32.760 what his manifesto said. I, lieutenant of the alliance, carried out countermeasures in necessitated
00:14:40.480 response to America's involvement with genocide and oppression of Palestinians along with attacks
00:14:46.480 towards Yemen. So he believes that he is a foot soldier of the Arab oppressed in these areas and that
00:14:55.080 he is paying retribution to the United States for what they have done. Was he radicalized by someone
00:15:03.280 either here in the United States or elsewhere that convinced him that he would be doing some kind of
00:15:10.600 act of vigilantism or heroism here? We're just not sure. He goes on about America's involvement in
00:15:17.580 the Middle East and how there needs to be payback for that. He also had made an appointment to visit
00:15:23.000 another Seventh-day Adventist School in Red Bluff on Thursday. Investigators say that this was his
00:15:29.160 alternative target. Law enforcement was working to identify if there was indeed an organization by the
00:15:35.320 name of International Alliance or if it was just a fabrication of the shooters. He does have a criminal
00:15:41.540 history, not a violent criminal history, but he has been in trouble with the law in the past. He was
00:15:47.480 actually sentenced to eight years in state prison in 2003. At the time, law enforcement also
00:15:52.800 found a bulletproof vest and notes on his computer that indicated that he was planning some sort of
00:15:58.240 mass incident involving explosives. So I highly doubt that his true motivation had anything to do
00:16:04.320 with Gaza or America's involvement over there. I mean, maybe this is an extended grievance that he's
00:16:10.560 had all the way since 2003, but he just seems like he's a violent person. And again, gosh, this could have
00:16:16.180 been so much worse. Praise God that these little lives were preserved. And I just pray
00:16:20.100 that Jesus would draw these boys to himself and that somehow their testimony of God preserving their lives
00:16:28.320 would lead other people to Christ. What Satan means for evil, God intends for good, and some glory and good
00:16:35.900 can come out of this because we do serve a God who works all things together for the good of those who love
00:16:41.840 him and are called according to his purpose. And I just pray that these families truly do love the Lord
00:16:47.640 and that God just brings them near. The shooter was a convicted felon and therefore could not legally
00:16:55.240 possess a firearm. And so any commentary, which we'll get into in a second, about gun control,
00:17:04.180 it really is, it's moot because this was not a gun that he purchased legally. So this was not because
00:17:12.180 of the laws. He did what criminals do. He broke the law. And so California also has really strict gun
00:17:22.560 laws, really strict gun laws, some of the strictest in the country. It is really hard to carry a gun
00:17:28.700 legally in the state of California. And so there's really no response from the gun control lobby that
00:17:37.600 is appropriate here, which is actually why you're not hearing a big reaction from them. If this had
00:17:44.460 happened in Texas or Arkansas or Tennessee or any of the states that are constitutionally aligned with
00:17:54.900 the second amendment, then this would have been a much bigger story. But the fact that this guy
00:18:00.460 was at least ostensibly on the side of progressives when it comes to Gaza, the fact that he attacked
00:18:07.020 Christian students at a Christian school, the fact that this was in a place that has very strict
00:18:15.140 gun laws, it just doesn't really align with any grander narrative that progressives like to push,
00:18:22.080 which is why, of course, California Governor Gavin Newsom failed to mention the names of the victims
00:18:27.960 or the shooters' pro-Palestine motives in his statement. Instead, focusing vaguely on gun violence,
00:18:34.640 he didn't push this because, again, this is his own state. He knows what the laws are.
00:18:39.280 He said, heartbreaking. Once again, a community is shattered by senseless gun violence. Our hearts
00:18:45.680 are with the children, their families, and everyone impacted by this horrific tragedy.
00:18:50.440 To the survivors of gun violence, just like general out there, you are never alone. California stands
00:18:57.140 with you. Conservative outlet Red State points out the contrast of this statement with Newsom's
00:19:03.680 response when a Muslim boy in Illinois, so a totally different state, was stabbed to death
00:19:09.620 in another religiously targeted killing. So he said this,
00:19:14.280 My heart broke when Wadiah Al-Fayoumi, a six-year-old child, was stabbed to death in Chicago. He and his
00:19:20.540 mother viciously attacked because they were Palestinian and Muslim. I grieved not just for
00:19:26.100 Wadiah and his family, but for all who felt less safe after that devastating tragedy, who wondered
00:19:31.740 whether they or their children might also be targeted because of their Muslim faith or Palestinian
00:19:39.000 heritage. This sort of horror doesn't just inflict violence on one life or one family. It tears at
00:19:46.820 the safety and belonging of whole communities. And so obviously, this was his lengthy and heartfelt
00:19:54.500 response because of who the victims were. And this was an entire letter that he wrote to the Muslim
00:20:04.480 community in California. This is probably largely because this was before the election. He thought
00:20:12.760 that he could make a point about this and try to paint conservatives as anti-Muslim or bad in some way.
00:20:22.860 But I didn't see a letter from Gavin Newsom to the Christian community or the Seventh-day Adventist
00:20:29.880 community in California. So when a Muslim is killed in another state, that apparently is a crime or an
00:20:37.340 intimidation tactic against Muslims as a whole. And it was apparently, according to Gavin Newsom,
00:20:43.800 because of their Muslim identity. But when Christian kids are attacked, it has nothing to do
00:20:48.840 with the motivation of the shooter, has nothing to do with the religion, the beliefs, the identity
00:20:54.160 of the victims. It's not an intimidation tactic or an attack on the entire Christian community. This is what I
00:21:02.120 mean by viewing every instance through the lens of intersectionality. Because Christians, especially
00:21:10.020 white Christians, and one of these boys was white, the other one looks Hispanic, they are seen as the least
00:21:16.660 oppressed. They are seen as the most conservative. And therefore, because of that, their lives to these
00:21:23.760 progressive politicians just don't matter as much because they're not as useful to push a particular
00:21:28.820 narrative. That the white Christian oppressor must be taken down through progressive ideology. It's
00:21:34.880 really evil. It's actually anti-justice. But this is who Gavin Newsom and many like him have
00:21:41.380 unfortunately proven to be. So I just wanted to highlight this story because it's not being talked
00:21:46.720 about a ton. I want you to pray for them, pray for these communities, lift up these boys and their
00:21:52.220 families in prayer. I don't see in my notes. I will post about it if I find it a fundraiser for this
00:21:59.520 school or for these families. If I find that, I will post about it on Instagram. I know if it were
00:22:08.280 one of us, we would want people to rally around us and to pray as much as possible. So please continue to
00:22:14.780 do so. All right. We've got another sad story to talk about, especially when it comes to the reaction
00:22:22.000 to it in just a second. But let me pause and tell you about our second sponsor for the day.
00:22:27.260 And that is Good Ranchers. Another amazing gift idea, unique gift idea for someone in your life who
00:22:36.040 maybe loves to grill, loves to cook. We love our meat from Good Ranchers. This would be an amazing
00:22:42.900 subscription gift to give them. Let me tell you, my life is so much easier now that I do not have
00:22:47.960 to think about getting meat at the grocery store because, you know, most meat at the grocery store,
00:22:52.120 even if it says made in the USA, it's actually imported. It was just packaged in the USA. So I
00:22:57.560 have no idea if it meets my standards. I have no idea what the quality, what the taste is going to be.
00:23:02.940 But I know when I get my meat from Good Ranchers, whether it's seafood, whether it's the chicken,
00:23:07.760 whether it's the beef and the steaks, anything, the bacon, I know that it is going to be from
00:23:14.120 American farms and ranches. We have also been loving their seed oil free chicken nuggets. Okay.
00:23:21.260 We love chicken nuggets in our family. Who doesn't? But we stopped buying them a long time ago because
00:23:25.740 even the healthy chicken nuggets in the grocery store all have canola oil or sunflower oil or something
00:23:33.340 and seed oils can be extremely inflammatory. And so now we can have awesome chicken nuggets that
00:23:39.620 taste really good without any seed oil. So give a gift to your kids this Christmas. Get their seed
00:23:45.920 oil free chicken nuggets. Go to GoodRanchers.com. When you use promo code Allie, you get $25 off your
00:23:53.500 order. GoodRanchers.com, code Allie.
00:23:56.680 Okay. So this was a shocking story to me. UnitedHealthcare CEO was assassinated on the streets
00:24:08.900 of Midtown Manhattan last week. And the reaction to it has been mind blowing. I just had no idea that
00:24:16.880 there were this many people who would want to justify or even celebrate the murder of a businessman,
00:24:25.340 of a husband and father because they didn't like the policies of a healthcare company. But that is
00:24:33.380 exactly what's going on. So last week, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down early Wednesday
00:24:39.780 morning outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel where he was scheduled to attend his company's annual
00:24:45.820 investor conference. In response, many took to social media to rationalize, if not celebrate the death of
00:24:53.520 the healthcare insurance executive, he leaves behind a wife and two sons. And a disturbing response,
00:25:00.080 many are calling the accused killer. He's a 26-year-old, and it's going to be really difficult
00:25:04.420 not to say his name in this segment because so much of the commentary has to do with his very Italian
00:25:10.920 sounding name. They're calling him a hero and attractive. I'm going to really try not to say his
00:25:17.100 name because I don't want to lionize him more than he already has been. So I'll get into all of the
00:25:23.800 response, like why people are celebrating this, what people are saying about this killer in a second.
00:25:29.020 But first, I want to back up and tell you about how they found this person and what happened. So I saw
00:25:35.820 the video last week, and I was just I was very chilled by it. Unfortunately, if you're on X, you're going to
00:25:42.080 see a lot of disturbing stuff. I am on X less and less. I will sometimes like, you know, put my take
00:25:49.140 out there. But I really don't doom scroll. Because the if you click on something, just once they will
00:25:56.440 assume that you want to see it over and over again. For example, I saw someone I follow commenting on a
00:26:03.760 video of a Chinese person, viciously violently torturing a cat, and then asking, why do does it
00:26:12.980 seem like Chinese people are like torture animals more than other groups do? Is it cultural? And so
00:26:18.560 it was like a whole conversation. But because I had clicked on that, like one tweet, not even the tweet
00:26:23.660 that was being commented on, not even the video, but just the commentary. It, I don't know, X just assumed,
00:26:29.680 okay, now you want to see all of these people commenting on this topic. And I did not. I did
00:26:34.440 not. I'm very disturbed by it. And so I know that's how algorithms work. I'm not even saying
00:26:39.340 it's Twitter's fault. But it just makes it a really unpleasant experience. And I don't want to fill my
00:26:43.980 mind with all of that. So when I did click on this video, because of course, the headline is very
00:26:49.980 shocking that someone was assassinated in like a nice part of Manhattan. And it didn't look just like,
00:26:55.580 you know, a gangbanger. I clicked on it. And I was so it was I was just so it was so chilling. It was so
00:27:05.080 disturbing to see this guy slowly lose his life and this assassin just walk off calmly. And everyone
00:27:15.680 immediately erupted with speculation that this was a paid assassin. This was obviously intentional. This
00:27:21.540 wasn't just like a random act of violence. He went into Central Park right after he killed this guy.
00:27:28.620 And I had no idea. But I saw people say on X that inside Central Park, there's actually no cameras.
00:27:37.060 Isn't that so strange? There are cameras at the entrance, but not actually within Central Park. And so
00:27:44.200 I guess this assassin knew that and that's why he escaped into Central Park. But it does seem like he has
00:27:50.260 been caught now after a five day national manhunt that included divers scouring a Central Park lake for a
00:27:57.960 missing murder weapon. Police arrested the suspect following a tip from a McDonald's employee. The 26
00:28:04.480 year old was found carrying multiple fraudulent IDs, a U.S. passport, a firearm and suppressor
00:28:10.220 consistent with the weapon used in the murder. According to the New York City Police Commissioner, police
00:28:16.320 arrested him on gun charges and brought him in for questioning. It was also reported that he had
00:28:24.880 been like before the assassination, he had been caught on a security camera pulling down his mask,
00:28:30.740 I think in a Starbucks because he was talking to the employee and they started flirting and she asked
00:28:39.020 him to take down his mask and smile. And so, again, it's all like a little hard to believe.
00:28:44.460 Are you some kind of evil genius or are you a dummy? It could be both. It could be both. But apparently
00:28:52.480 that is part of the story here, how they ended up catching this person, because, of course,
00:28:57.280 that was caught on a security camera. In an interview with NBC, Thompson's widow,
00:29:02.200 Paulette, told the network that there had been some threats against her husband potentially related to
00:29:07.360 a lack of coverage, a lack of health insurance coverage. According to the AP, the words deny,
00:29:13.460 defend and depose were found emblazoned on the ammunition. This is according to law enforcement
00:29:20.460 sources. There is a 2010 book critiquing the insurance industry that is titled Delay, Deny,
00:29:27.000 Defend, which is a common description of its tactics, which is basically just describing how
00:29:34.460 they treat those who are trying to claim coverage, who are trying to get covered for the medical
00:29:41.320 events that they have. Police found a two page document on this strong person of interest. So
00:29:47.800 the suspect that railed against the health care industry and suggested that violence is the answer
00:29:52.520 to quotes from his letter. These parasites had it coming. I do apologize for any strife and trauma,
00:29:58.960 but it had to be done. So late Monday night, the suspect was charged with murder in New York and is
00:30:04.840 facing four other charges, including one count of forging a document and criminally possessing a
00:30:10.800 firearm. He was denied. Bail is currently being held alone in a single cell at the maximum custody
00:30:17.100 level, according to Pennsylvania Department of Corrections press secretary. So who is this person?
00:30:25.860 He is apparently the suspect is an Ivy League graduate software engineer from a prominent Baltimore family
00:30:32.440 who appears to have favorably reviewed the manifesto of the Unabomber on a book website. He was the
00:30:40.940 valedictorian of his high school. This is an all boys school in Baltimore. He said on his Goodreads
00:30:50.900 profile that he approved of parts of the Unabomber's manifesto, he said he was a violent individual
00:31:01.920 rightfully imprisoned who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized
00:31:06.320 as those of a crazy, crazy Luddite. However, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme
00:31:13.580 political revolutionary. He also had his own medical issues. He suffered from troubling
00:31:20.880 back pain. He underwent surgery to treat it, according to a friend and online postings. Friends that
00:31:27.440 went to high school with him said that the back surgery changed everything. He went absolutely crazy. There
00:31:32.880 are also books on his Goodreads profile about back injuries and about trying to not only fix your back
00:31:44.120 injury but also how to get out of like the scam of fixing back injuries. Apparently, there's a whole
00:31:51.560 industry that surrounds back injuries that are not really helping people with those injuries but
00:31:58.360 hurting them or at least that's what he believed and some of the books that he was reading were
00:32:03.160 purporting. He doesn't actually seem to be a left-wing guy. I think a lot of people assumed that because as
00:32:08.600 we'll get into in a second it is mostly not exclusively but mostly progressives who are celebrating his death
00:32:15.260 who are saying, you know, health insurance companies not only are they evil but they're also the reason why we need
00:32:21.500 socialized medicine. So it was kind of assumed that he was a progressive activist. But if you look at his
00:32:28.820 social media history, he's heterodox. Like he certainly retweeted and followed some right-wing people or at least
00:32:36.560 some like right-of-center people. I wouldn't be surprised if he was a guy that voted for Donald
00:32:41.760 Trump. But I could also see him being like a huge Bernie Sanders supporter. So he doesn't fall
00:32:47.620 solidly into one political camp. And he does seem to retweet a lot about mental health and the mental health
00:32:59.140 industry. So it's not really clear like what his background and what his ideology was or what exactly
00:33:07.780 motivated him except that we know that he thought that health insurance companies were scamming people
00:33:14.300 and leaving people to die and that he needed to take retribution into his own hands and to murder this CEO.
00:33:24.420 So we've got more about this in just a second. Let me pause and tell you about our next sponsor.
00:33:29.620 And that is Hillsdale. I love Hillsdale. We know that most universities these days are just communist
00:33:35.980 indoctrination factories. And you don't want that for your child. If you want your child to go to
00:33:42.160 college, you need to check out Hillsdale. It promotes truly Christian conservative values. They also have
00:33:48.880 40 free online courses available to you and things like history, economics, politics, philosophy,
00:33:54.920 and more. This holiday season, you should check out Hillsdale's free course on Charles Dickens'
00:34:01.360 Christmas Carol. It's an amazing book. I also love like every movie of the Christmas Carol. I've seen
00:34:07.620 the musical. I love it. I bet this course is absolutely fascinating. The best authors teach us to
00:34:13.380 see the world in different ways. The stuff that's lost in our busy daily lives. Hillsdale professor
00:34:18.500 Dwight Lindley will lead you through the mysterious world of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Jacob Marley,
00:34:26.880 the ghosts of Christmas, Tiny Tim. I bet it is so good and so fascinating. Go to hillsdale.edu
00:34:33.940 slash Allie to enroll. No cost. Easy to get started. Hillsdale.edu slash Allie.
00:34:40.740 So apparently he has isolated himself or he had isolated himself over the past few months. A friend
00:34:51.320 said nobody has heard from you in months and apparently your family is looking for you. I don't
00:34:56.540 know if you are okay. One post on X read from October following his arrest, the suspect's social
00:35:04.860 media presence became popular. And a hashtag saying hashtag free the suspect's name went viral
00:35:11.480 online. He also had a Tinder profile. He is being called a hot assassin on social media. This is what
00:35:18.180 you're going to see from people left, right and center that he was some hottie and that he in some
00:35:28.260 cases, some people are saying that he's a hero, but some people are just sexualizing him because they
00:35:33.300 think that he was attractive, which I know that a lot of people are joking and they're not actually
00:35:38.760 approving of his actions. However, I just think that that's really stupid and really evil. I mean,
00:35:47.540 this was the person who killed him or the person who was killed rather, Brian Thompson, like it's a
00:35:54.380 real human being with a family. And if you're his wife, hopefully his wife is not on social media or
00:36:01.080 you're his sons. I think his teenage son scrolling on social media and you are watching people talk
00:36:07.500 about how hot your dad's murder is. Like, is that not just going to kill you? Like these are actual
00:36:16.360 people. This guy is not just a meme. Like a father of two was gunned down in the streets of Manhattan.
00:36:22.760 I think it is gross how people are even jokingly saying that this guy was hot. I really do. And
00:36:30.760 also you are just inspiring the next person to do something like this, because this might be the
00:36:37.260 most fame and the most significance that someone has. And if someone is feeling like they want to
00:36:44.300 make something of themselves and become a hero, they are seeing right now how to do that. That's
00:36:49.440 to murder someone that a lot of people don't like. And I think that's very dangerous.
00:36:54.520 Um, the ironic thing here, this guy who says that, you know, he had to shoot down the United
00:37:03.520 Healthcare CEO because, you know, I'm, I'm paraphrasing, but he's just a rich guy who installed
00:37:10.780 policies that denied people coverage and people died because they were too poor to pay for their
00:37:18.220 healthcare needs, which is sad. Like I actually agree. Health insurance is largely a scam and I'm not
00:37:24.500 saying that these executives play no part in that. And that really does have a detrimental
00:37:29.500 effect on people's lives. I absolutely agree there. But this guy who claims that this CEO
00:37:36.060 was so privileged and just in a position to hurt people because of that privilege, he actually had
00:37:43.580 an even more privileged background, um, himself. If you look at his upbringing, who his family was,
00:37:50.560 the education that he has, the money that he apparently came from. Um, and so there's just,
00:37:57.020 there's a lot going on here. There's a lot going on here that clearly this guy was either probably
00:38:02.460 unwell or again, he just did something evil because he had evil motivations. The complaints about health
00:38:11.060 insurance may be valid, but the fact that some people are saying that those valid complaints justify
00:38:16.940 this murder, it's really bad. Taylor Lorenz posted a blog post, uh, last Thursday entitled why we want
00:38:27.040 insurance executives dead. Like you'll remember that Taylor Lorenz, she used to write for the
00:38:32.140 Washington post. So she was kind of seen as this mainstream person who just analyzed the effect and
00:38:38.820 the impact of social media. And she went after libs of Tik TOK. I think she doxxed libs of Tik TOK.
00:38:46.340 She definitely showed up at her family members' homes. Very strange. COVID has made her absolutely
00:38:52.780 lose her mind. She just posted, I think it was last week. She said that she is having a lunch,
00:38:58.480 uh, for her friends and that she paid thousands and thousands of dollars for all of these different
00:39:03.740 air filters and UV lights and all of this stuff to kill COVID germs because she believes that she's
00:39:10.860 living with long COVID that she has some kind of special need and that everyone else in her words
00:39:16.420 is just raw dogging the air. And that we're the reason that she and her friends, I guess, are dying
00:39:25.440 of COVID almost five years later. So that is like the mental state of Taylor Lorenz, this person who is
00:39:33.540 celebrating, celebrating this murder. Now she does say in this, in this blog post, even though she said
00:39:41.880 that, you know, yes, we want them dead, but she said it doesn't mean we should murder them. But if
00:39:46.680 you've watched a loved one suffer and die from insurance denial, it's normal to wish the people
00:39:53.000 responsible would suffer the same fate. I don't know, actually, I don't know if that is normal.
00:40:00.200 She posted a bunch of stuff on blue sky. Blue sky is, I guess, like the liberal X and the post,
00:40:06.720 every post that I see from blue sky is so violent and degenerate. Like this is what, this is what
00:40:13.220 happens when progressives are in their echo chamber completely unmitigated. It's like hell. I'm not
00:40:20.740 kidding. It is like what I imagine hell to be. Some of the things said on blue sky and it bills itself
00:40:26.480 as like the kinder app versus X, but it's not, it's awful. Uh, she posted on blue sky, a picture
00:40:34.040 of the CEO of blue cross blue shield, Kim a click posted a picture of her and her name. And apparently
00:40:43.220 is trying to say you're next. And so like, she wants these CEOs to die. I saw a post on blue sky. If we can
00:40:51.020 find it, we'll put it up where she said like, this is what's spamming my group text this morning.
00:40:55.980 And it was like this little meme of a smiling star. And in comic sans, the text said CEO down.
00:41:03.360 And so she is openly celebrating this on Pierce Morgan's show. Taylor Loren said that she felt
00:41:09.520 joy when she saw this CEO assassinated. I do believe in the sanctity of life. And I think that's why
00:41:17.420 I felt along with so many other Americans, joy, unfortunately, you know, because it feels like
00:41:23.700 serious. I mean, joy, the man's execution, maybe not joy, but certainly not. No, certainly not
00:41:30.120 empathy because again, we're watching the footage. How can this make you joyful? This guy's a husband.
00:41:36.180 He's a father and he's being young down in the middle of Manhattan. Why does that make you joyful?
00:41:41.520 Of Americans that be murdered. So are tens. So are the tens of thousands of Americans,
00:41:46.220 innocent Americans who died because greedy health insurance executives like this one
00:41:52.920 push a policies of denying care to the most vulnerable people.
00:41:58.200 That is so dark, so dark and depraved. Columbia professor Anthony Zink has said this today. We mourn
00:42:05.940 the death of United healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, gun down, dot, dot, dot. Wait, I'm sorry. Today.
00:42:10.860 Today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who needlessly die each year so that insurance
00:42:16.060 company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires. Okay. Can we care about both?
00:42:25.100 Is that possible? Like, can we say yes, health insurance, as I already said, is in many ways
00:42:31.380 a scam. It is so convoluted, so complicated. People are denied coverage for their care way too
00:42:40.280 often. And yes, if you have seen your child suffering, or if you are told there's like this
00:42:47.820 new policy I saw announced last week that apparently some insurance companies won't cover anesthesia if
00:42:55.820 your surgery goes too long. So past a certain point, they'll just stop covering the anesthesia
00:43:00.620 when of course that is not the patient's fault. And so I understand like there's a lot of frustration,
00:43:05.920 but this is an individual. This is a person who is not directly responsible for those people's deaths.
00:43:14.740 And even if he were assassinating him is not the way to go. And so if you feel joy watching this
00:43:23.180 instead of just like deep sadness and disturbance, then it is your moral compass that is off. You can
00:43:31.320 have compassion for people who don't have the health insurance that they need. Although there
00:43:37.300 are many, many, many safety nets in the United States for poor people when it comes to healthcare
00:43:43.320 coverage. I'm certainly not saying that it's perfect, but there are options. But you can have
00:43:50.640 compassion for those people. You can help those people. Rather than celebrating Taylor Lorenz,
00:43:56.100 let's think about this. You said that you spent thousands and thousands of dollars on a lunch with
00:44:03.480 your friends with all different kinds of filters to make sure that the little COVID germs have gone
00:44:09.280 away. Instead of spending thousands of dollars doing that completely unnecessarily, why don't you spend
00:44:15.180 thousands of dollars helping someone who needs care? Helping someone whose health insurance won't cover
00:44:21.720 their chemotherapy or won't cover anything else they need. Why did you spend your money doing that so
00:44:28.500 that you could have a little frivolous lunch? You think that you are contributing to people's health
00:44:33.640 and well-being by celebrating the murder of a husband and father? If you actually want to contribute to
00:44:40.180 people's health and well-being, why don't you put your money where your mouth is? But you're a
00:44:45.140 performance activist. Of course, it's much easier to sit on your couch and to celebrate the murder of
00:44:51.020 people and think that you're actually helping when you're not. Whom have you actually helped? It is
00:44:57.600 time for people like that to take a look inward. And I pray to God that they would. And I pray for
00:45:04.300 justice here. I pray for comfort and for strength for this person's family. Someone pointed out, and I
00:45:11.540 think that this is a good point, that we know so much more about this killer. And just like a few days
00:45:17.120 after this assassination, then we know about the guy who tried to assassinate Donald Trump. And that's
00:45:23.360 been six months at this point. That's strange. I mean, again, it's just interesting and strange to
00:45:30.800 analyze sometimes the information that we get, how we get it, how fast we get it, and why we get it.
00:45:37.980 And so this is a, it is scary and a sad situation and just a sad commentary on where we are spiritually.
00:45:46.440 And some of these people, by the way, who are defending this assassination are like the same
00:45:53.700 kind of people that would defend what happened on October 7th. I mean, also the same people who say
00:46:01.800 things like silence is violence if you don't speak up for like their pet issue. And words are also
00:46:08.500 violence if you say something that offends them, like calling them by the quote-unquote wrong pronoun.
00:46:13.720 But actual violence is a justification as long as it achieves their ends. And that is a dark and twisted
00:46:24.300 worldview. And Christians have every opportunity to speak into that, the truth and love about
00:46:30.760 the image of God and the dignity of all people and what truth and justice actually looks like.
00:46:37.060 All right. We've got a little bit more. Let me pause and tell you about our next sponsor for the day.
00:46:41.520 And that is Preborn. This Christmas, we celebrate the gift of life, a savior that came in the form of
00:46:48.060 an embryo and then an infant. And we get to reflect God's love for children, God's care, and creating
00:46:57.020 all of us in our mother's womb with the utmost intention and purpose by doing everything we can
00:47:03.380 to care for pregnant moms in need. Preborn is a network of clinics that provides resources to
00:47:09.600 pregnant moms in need. There is a young woman named Deanna. She already had several children. She was in
00:47:15.800 a difficult marriage. She found out that she was pregnant. She tried to order the abortion pill,
00:47:21.840 but by God's design, it never showed up. And then at 18 weeks, she visited a preborn clinic for a
00:47:28.220 sonogram. Her baby ended up, this is just an amazing testimony. Her baby, while she was getting
00:47:34.440 the sonogram, looked like it was waving at her. And if you've ever had a sonogram at that point in
00:47:40.460 pregnancy, you know that that can happen, that the baby's already kind of developing a personality,
00:47:45.380 is moving all around, and really sometimes looks like they're interacting with you. So that happened.
00:47:50.740 That was providential. God saved her baby that day, and he saved this mother too. And so when you are
00:47:57.840 giving a gift to preborn, you are donating toward these free sonograms that can save lives. If you
00:48:04.420 donate just $28, that covers the cost of a free sonogram, but maybe you can donate $5,000. Maybe
00:48:10.020 you can donate $500. Maybe you can only donate five. Every bit counts and saves lives. Go to
00:48:15.440 preborn.com slash Allie to give this holiday season. That's preborn.com slash Allie.
00:48:25.540 Okay, so I want to just briefly, we don't have very much time, talk about this Mary film. And I'm
00:48:31.560 going to bring in Brie to talk about it a little bit because I have not had the chance to watch this
00:48:38.940 yet. And I'm afraid that I'm not going to have time before we're done filming for the year. But I know
00:48:44.060 you guys are interested in it. So I've read all about it, and I know the problematic aspects of
00:48:49.600 it. So I'll give you my thoughts, but I have not watched it in full myself. Brie has, and Brie's
00:48:54.240 a hater. So she's going to bring her hating commentary to Relatable today. But let me give
00:49:00.940 you a little bit of a background, and then we'll get Brie's commentary. So this movie called Mary,
00:49:05.700 this is according to Plugged In, great resource again for you parents. It's an upcoming coming-of-age
00:49:10.960 film that tells the story of Mary's conception of Jesus and King Herod's pursuit of them both.
00:49:15.700 It came out on December 6th on Netflix. It's directed by Catholic director DJ Caruso,
00:49:22.420 who said in an interview that, as a practicing Catholic, I believe Mary is the most extraordinary
00:49:27.320 woman ever to walk the earth. Her story, especially for the younger generation, has often been
00:49:32.860 underappreciated. I wanted to create a film that presents Mary as someone we can all relate
00:49:37.180 to. My hope is that audiences feel my reverence for Mary and come to see her not only as a holy
00:49:43.060 figure, but as a friend, a mother, and one of the greatest heroines ever to grace the screen.
00:49:48.640 In the end, it's her love that will save the world. Well, well, I've already got a problem.
00:49:55.420 I've already got an issue with that because, of course, it wasn't Mary's love that saved the world.
00:50:00.660 She did have great love. I think that Mary was full of grace. That's what we read of her in
00:50:06.520 scripture. And I think it's beautiful how she submitted to the Lord's will, knowing that it
00:50:11.700 could cost her her reputation, thinking that, oh my goodness, what if this cost me my marriage? Of
00:50:17.120 course, she was comforted by the angel that that was all going to work out, but she trusted God and
00:50:22.380 she believed him. And she carried Jesus, which is an extremely significant role. But was it her love
00:50:30.560 that saved the world? No, it was God's love that saved the world. That's, of course, what we read
00:50:34.480 in John 3.16. Timothy Michael Hayes wrote the screenplay after consulting with priests, bishops,
00:50:40.940 baptists, pastors, rabbis, Mormons, and Muslims, along with biblical scholars and theologians.
00:50:48.820 Um, so, okay, so that's a little bit about this story. But also, Pastor Joel Osteen is one of the
00:50:58.220 film's executive producers. Oh, my gosh, I've got a lot going on here. Okay, so Joel Osteen, he is the
00:51:05.960 prosperity gospel from the megachurch in Houston. He preaches a health and wealth gospel, basically,
00:51:12.300 that if you have enough faith that God owes you promotions, he owes you health and wealth, which is
00:51:17.580 not the gospel at all. Jesus said, in this world, you will have trouble. Take heart. I will overcome
00:51:22.300 the world. We are promised persecution. We are promised tribulation. Health and wealth are not
00:51:26.320 bad things. They're beautiful things. They are blessings from God, but we are not owed those
00:51:30.680 things through the gospel. He gives, he takes away. He gave to Job. He took away from Job. And it wasn't
00:51:38.360 because of Job's lack of faith or because of his faithfulness that he had those blessings, but it was
00:51:43.020 according to God's goodwill. And actually, through discipline and through taking away, we can be
00:51:49.380 sanctified. We can be drawn closer to God. And it is our holiness, not our health or happiness, that God
00:51:55.560 cares about most. He cares about those things, but he will do whatever it takes to draw us close to him
00:52:02.120 and to glorify himself. And sometimes that means that we go without health or wealth. And so these people,
00:52:08.700 including, you know, not these people, I should just say Joel Osteen, but other prosperity gospels
00:52:13.300 like him, prosperity gospel preachers like him, rarely post or preach about sin or repentance or
00:52:23.600 sanctification or any of the richness of Christian theology that really matters for someone's understanding
00:52:33.600 of who God is and what the gospel is. So he is a part of this executive, one of the executive
00:52:40.640 producers. He is a part of the marketing campaign. One of his posts on X says, shunned and forced into
00:52:48.280 hiding following a miraculous conception. Mary and Joseph go on the run to save the life of their
00:52:53.540 newborn baby Jesus at all costs. This is Mary like you've never seen her before. Noah Cohen was cast as
00:53:01.520 Mary. She is an Israeli actress and people were upset about this, which is so silly. Why would
00:53:09.420 people be upset about this? Again, I've got issues with like the content of the movie and the arguments
00:53:15.180 that it might be making, but I don't have a problem with this actress being Israeli. I think that that fits
00:53:23.680 who Mary was. Someone said, and this was a very popular post on X, she quote tweeted or quote posted
00:53:33.060 the announcement of who the actress is in this film, said played by an Israeli actress, LMAO,
00:53:42.140 go F yourself. Someone else said, if you make a movie about Mary where everyone is portrayed as
00:53:47.340 non-Middle Easter and you deserve criticism, if you make a movie about Mary and she's played by an
00:53:51.540 Israeli, you deserve to be shot in the head. Do you know about Jesus? Do you know? Do you know
00:54:00.400 who he is? You know he was Jewish, right? Like, you know, he wasn't a Palestinian Muslim communist
00:54:06.280 gender fluid hippie, right? You know that? So these people, not well. There's a ton of other posts
00:54:14.760 saying basically the same thing. Mary was a refugee woman oppressed by the state and had to flee her
00:54:21.380 country to save her in her child's life. Casting an Israeli woman. It's frankly insulting. Okay,
00:54:29.160 here's the best one. Here's the best one. Because I'm so glad that they consulted Muslims for this film.
00:54:34.580 Okay, here's a Muslim commentator saying, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was Muslim.
00:54:41.720 There is more written about her in the Quran than in the Bible.
00:54:44.880 She is described as the purest woman in the world. Sure she is. Sure she is. She was a Muslim. Okay,
00:54:55.920 she was Jewish. Joseph was Jewish. Jesus was Jewish. Now Jesus also is the son of God. And he is the
00:55:07.980 founder of Christianity. He is the center of Christianity. We believe that Jesus is the way,
00:55:15.860 the truth, the life, that no one comes to the Father except through him, whether you are Jew or Gentile.
00:55:23.220 That is who Jesus is. Yes, as a person, he was Jewish, but he is also the founder, the initiator,
00:55:30.640 the sustainer of the Christian faith. And the Christian church is the bride of Christ. And he
00:55:39.000 is coming back again. And he will avenge his people. And those who have found salvation through
00:55:45.960 him who are a part of his flock will get to enjoy his presence in victory forever and ever. That is
00:55:53.180 who Jesus is. He wasn't some, what, like, I don't know what y'all think. Like, I don't know, Islamic
00:56:00.280 jihadist, Palestinian, pro-Gaza, anti-Israel activist. That's not who Jesus was. And you don't
00:56:09.060 believe him. Like, you don't believe that he's God. So why do you even care what nationality he was?
00:56:14.740 You despise him, actually. You despise everything that he stood for. You despise the faith
00:56:19.880 that he initiated. And so really, a lot of you just want to use him as your political tool, as
00:56:30.660 your mascot. Now, let's talk about, like, what is actually in this film, Brie? Because I don't see
00:56:38.840 anything in my notes at all. And so I guess that you're going to provide us with your problems.
00:56:42.980 Yeah, I'll provide you. I'm a hater, like you said. No, I really wanted to like it. I really did.
00:56:47.980 I wanted to be, you know, I don't know. I wanted to like it, but I couldn't. And it's because my
00:56:54.720 main issue with it was, it wasn't just that they took what they knew from the Bible and then added
00:56:59.360 some things that maybe could have happened, like The Chosen says that they do. They just changed
00:57:04.800 things for no reason at all. Like, for example, Mary is treated like this special, Gabriel comes to
00:57:12.500 Mary's parents and tells them that she's going to come and that she's going to be the answer to.
00:57:16.840 So it's like one generation before, Gabriel is like doing all of the, he's really up to a lot
00:57:22.360 in this movie. And he orchestrates Mary and Joseph meeting.
00:57:25.720 Which is not biblical. Like, we don't have any indication that Gabriel went to her parents.
00:57:31.360 No. And she, throughout the whole film, is treated like this special, like she's the answer to
00:57:37.300 something. They send her to a temple and there's this female priestess who, as soon as she sees her,
00:57:42.360 she's like, you're, you know, you're the answer, like without anyone saying anything. And so people
00:57:47.000 just kind of recognize in her that she's this special person, which I feel like undermines
00:57:51.140 the story that she was just an average person that God chose for this. So that was my first issue.
00:57:57.960 They're also just like dumb changes. Like Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem, not because there's a
00:58:03.560 census. He says in the film, we have to escape these people coming for you. And my, I have family in
00:58:09.200 Bethlehem. But then when they get to Bethlehem, they're trying to find a room at the inn and no
00:58:14.040 one has a room. And I'm like, you just said your family's here. I don't understand why you need a
00:58:18.660 room now. And then I think one of the biggest issues is also that it's explained that everyone
00:58:24.360 in Bethlehem is there, not for the census, but because they heard that the Messiah was going to
00:58:30.340 be born there. So everyone there knows. Everyone there knows. And yet when they see a pregnant woman,
00:58:36.120 they're like, nah, exactly. You can't come in. I'm waiting for the savior. It's not,
00:58:40.440 it's not this one. Exactly. Yes. And then when she gives birth, then there's like crowds of people
00:58:46.120 standing outside. I guess all the people that were there for, you know, to see the Messiah born and
00:58:51.380 she's in a stable. So, um, things like that, there's some really silly lines. Like Elizabeth says,
00:58:57.320 you know, she looks at her and she says, trust the strength inside you. And so there's lots of silly
00:59:03.060 stuff like that. And I just thought they just changed things they didn't need to. And they
00:59:06.820 made Mary this like feminist, female empowerment goddess. And there's cultural things. I feel like
00:59:13.240 they probably got wrong. I'm no expert, but even with her, a marriage to Joseph, you know, that would
00:59:20.440 have been expected back then that it was just, they put those two together, but she has this whole thing
00:59:25.820 where she's asking God, why, why do I have to do this? And, um, it just seemed kind of, you know,
00:59:31.820 to be missing some cultural context. Yes. Yeah. No, I think that you make a really good point
00:59:37.180 that portraying her is having this kind of special aura about her that everyone detects
00:59:44.140 undermines what God did through her. Now I don't think, and there are Catholics in the room that
00:59:50.520 could correct me if I'm wrong, that that is Catholic teaching that she was detectably special
00:59:55.940 throughout her life. But certainly Catholic doctrine emphasizes more of Mary than we read
01:00:04.720 in scripture. Mary is not mentioned very often. Yes, she is full of grace. Yes, we believe that
01:00:10.060 she is special. But I think if we read what scripture says about Mary, we get a really good
01:00:15.800 and accurate rendering of who she actually was. We don't read that she was queen of heaven.
01:00:20.940 We don't read that she was, we don't believe that she was perpetually a virgin forever.
01:00:26.480 We also don't believe that she didn't have a natural death, but that is what Catholic doctrine
01:00:32.460 believes. They believe different things about Mary than we do. They also believe that Mary can
01:00:37.100 hear our prayers, can carry our prayers to Jesus. Again, I don't read that in scripture.
01:00:43.460 And I personally do believe that that does take away from what God did and who Jesus is and what
01:00:50.180 his power is. And the amazing story of Christmas is that God came down, he became flesh and he
01:00:56.800 reconciled us to a holy God and he becomes our one mediator, that he is our great high priest who was
01:01:03.720 as we are yet was without sin. And because of that, he is the one who hears our prayers and he is our
01:01:10.960 great intercessor. And so here's what we read about Mary in Luke 1.
01:01:15.900 And the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to
01:01:20.800 a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was
01:01:25.880 Mary. And he came to her and said, greetings, oh favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was
01:01:32.060 greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel
01:01:35.960 said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. So it is God's favor on her
01:01:42.800 that makes her special. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you
01:01:47.700 shall call his name Jesus. He will be, he will be great. He will be great and will be called the
01:01:53.420 son of the most high. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will
01:01:58.900 reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom, there will be no end. And Mary said to
01:02:04.840 the angel, how will this be since I am a virgin? And the angel said to her, the Holy Spirit will come
01:02:10.760 upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born
01:02:16.180 will be called Holy, the son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also
01:02:22.020 conceived a son. And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren for nothing will be
01:02:27.800 impossible with God. And Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according
01:02:36.560 to your word and the angel departed from her. So that is what is special and amazing about Mary is
01:02:46.080 that she submitted to God's will and we can't know how much she understood of what was to come. She knew
01:02:55.840 and believed what the angel told her, but even not knowing everything, she still accepted the Lord's
01:03:02.820 will. She submitted to God's providence. And in that she carried Jesus, the savior of the world.
01:03:10.680 And that is amazing. And then of course we read in the next chapter, actually in the next segment of
01:03:16.360 chapter one, um, Mary's song of praise, how her soul magnifies God. So we do see her faith and how she
01:03:24.280 longs for God's glory, how she delights in God's plan. That is an example to us all, but Mary is not the
01:03:31.520 point. She is never the point. She is in a long line of submissive servants that were used as mere
01:03:41.320 vessels to accomplish God's plan. And she was, uh, a servant of God. She was merely a person and we
01:03:50.860 will, those of us who are Christians get to celebrate with her one day, but she would want more than
01:03:55.520 anything else for us to be worshiping Christ and Christ alone. And from what I hear from Bree and
01:04:03.340 from what I read about this movie, it misses the mark, makes Mary the point. Mary is not the point.
01:04:11.040 John the Baptist is not the point. Paul is not the point. Jesus is the point. And any depiction of the
01:04:17.760 nativity, any depiction of Jesus's arrival on earth that does not make the glory and the power
01:04:24.840 and the providence of God, the main point of the narrative, it misses the mark. Now, Joel Osteen
01:04:32.980 is presumably a Protestant, and I don't think that he would agree with an elevated depiction of Mary.
01:04:39.480 Mary. So I don't, I don't, I don't know what the reason is behind this, except I will say, I guess
01:04:46.540 it's just an entrepreneurial endeavor. But if you're going to put your name behind something like
01:04:51.960 that, I think that you would want it to be, uh, theologically solid. So I cannot recommend
01:04:57.740 the movie of Mary. I don't even know if all of my Catholic friends would necessarily recommend the
01:05:03.040 movie of Mary because it even has depictions of her that I don't even think they would agree with.
01:05:07.620 But let's make sure Jesus is the point. No one else. Um, okay. Last sponsor for the day before
01:05:14.040 we head out of there, uh, head out of here rather, and that's Jace Medical. Uh, Jace Medical is providing
01:05:20.780 for you an emergency medical supply should you need, uh, antibiotics and you can't get to them
01:05:26.620 through the traditional means. So get you a Jace case. You can get lifesaving antibiotics. Also add
01:05:31.920 on things like ivermectin, EpiPen, Tamiflu, get a Jace Daily case. That's a year-long
01:05:37.020 emergency supply of the medications that you and your family rely on. Go to Jace.com. Use code
01:05:43.340 Allie at checkout for a discount on your order. That's Jace.com, code Allie.
01:05:51.720 Okay. Longer episode today. We had a lot to get to. This is our last week of filming for the year.
01:05:57.800 And so we've got a lot to fit in that we haven't been able to talk about, um, so far. And then we'll
01:06:04.780 have some episodes that'll come out over the three weeks. We'll be out for three weeks for the week
01:06:09.640 of Christmas, the week of New Year's. And then after that, or no, it was the week before Christmas,
01:06:14.140 right? The week of Christmas and then the week of New Year's. And then we'll be back at the beginning
01:06:17.940 of January that week after New Year's. But we will have a smattering of new episodes that will come
01:06:23.580 out over the break. Um, hope you guys are enjoying this Christmas season already. So thankful for you
01:06:29.140 guys. And we will be back here tomorrow.