Ep 1136 ｜ Christianity Today, Be the Bridge, & the Evangelical Underbelly of USAID Funds ｜ Guest： Megan Basham
Episode Stats
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Summary
Trump signs an executive order that protects women in sports. Meghan Basham joins me to talk about it and why it's a good thing it came from the president, not from the progressive government agency USAID. She also talks about the girls and women who were behind him to be a part of this historic executive order.
Transcript
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Christianity Today and other Christian organizations have been revealed to be receiving a lot of
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money from the very progressive government entity USAID.
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We talked about USAID and the charity World Relief earlier this week and some of the corruption
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that these institutions seem to be playing a part of.
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And now it seems like there are other Christian organizations that are all a part of this
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Megan Basham, journalist and author, is with us here today to uncover those details.
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But we've also got some amazing news coming from the Trump administration first.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
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So if you are watching this, you can see that I am not in studio today.
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I mentioned earlier in the week that all of my kids have been hit with the flu, which is
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But this morning when I woke up, I felt like I was starting to get some symptoms.
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It's not super terrible yet, but I can feel it coming on.
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And so I just wanted to play it safe and record from home today.
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I'm going to be joined by one of your favorite guests in just a minute, Megan Basham, to talk
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about all of the craziness with USAID and Christianity Today and Be the Bridge and all of those entities
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that have been railing against conservatism, President Trump, and really forms of conservative
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But before we get into that, I just want to share some more good news.
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I'm still just so excited every day by what Trump is accomplishing and by what he's doing.
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And this week he has signed an executive order to protect women's sports.
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If you go to the White House website, they've got the text of the executive order.
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You can read the whole thing, but just an excerpt from it says this, it is the policy of the
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United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair
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athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of
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It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation
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and women's sports more broadly as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.
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The rest of the executive order details exactly how that will be accomplished.
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I just want to play this sweet clip from the moment that President Trump signed this historic
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I want to make this a really good signature because this is, you know, this is a big one,
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And right before this, there was another sweet moment.
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All of the girls and women who were behind him to be a part of the signing of this executive
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There's a lot of security concerns when it comes to President Trump in any kind of large
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So because of those security concerns, I guess Secret Service didn't want them gathered around
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But right before he signed, he looked over to them and said, you know what?
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If y'all want to gather in around me, a Secret Service really worried about them.
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And they all kind of laughed and got to gather around him before this really sweet moment.
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And it's sad that an executive order like this is necessary.
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This really shouldn't have to come from the president.
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You know, I was talking to Jesse Kelly on his show yesterday, and he made a really good
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point that the fact that our culture has come to a place where the president of the
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United States has to issue an executive order saying that delusional, deranged men cannot
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It should have never gotten to the place where we said two plus two equals five.
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And when it did come to that place, it should have been local communities and fathers all
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standing up and putting an end to it right then and saying, no, I am not allowing my daughter
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It should have been shut down as soon as it started.
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But we live in an age of cowardice and complacency and conformity and compromise.
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And so we've gotten to a place where from the federal level, we have to have the person
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Allow girls to have their own spaces and sports.
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And so I'm sad that we're at a point morally and culturally where this is necessary, but
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I am so thankful that we have a president who is willing to do what is needed.
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And the irony in all of this, as we have pointed out before, one of the biggest complaints,
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indictments of President Trump has been his past with women, his comments towards women.
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You hear all the time the left-wing feminist saying that he's a misogynist.
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And yet President Trump has done more to advance women's rights and to protect the rights of
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vulnerable women and girls than any of those left-wing feminists, including people like
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Kamala Harris, because their only definition of a right that needs to be protected is the
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right to kill a baby inside the womb, a baby girl inside the womb.
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And so that's like the dark irony in all of this.
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And just to contrast what is happening right here to the last administration, I just like
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And even though we talked about it on the show a lot when it happened and also during the
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campaign, this really escaped the attention of a lot of people, definitely on the left,
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Just remember, when Biden was president, they pulled school lunches from poor public schools
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who did not comply with the new rewrite of Title IX, aka they didn't allow boys into girls'
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This is the headline from Washington Free Beacon, but there are lots of outlets that reported on
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No free lunch, Biden admin pulled funding, meal funding for schools that don't comply
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And so through the USDA that helped provide the snap lunches for the poor, low-income students
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in public schools across the country, they issued this punishment that said, if you do not allow
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boys into girls' restrooms, they called that discrimination.
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If you continue to discriminate against these students based on their so-called gender identity,
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then you will no longer receive these free lunches.
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And there are many of you out there who experienced this at the time.
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You remember at your school, your school was really worried about this and had to all of a
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sudden create these new rules and allowances for these boys and girls who identified as the
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opposite sex to go into their own bathroom or to go into the bathroom of the sex that they are
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This is a horrible, malicious bullying tactic that if you don't believe a lie, if you don't
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put girls in danger by allowing boys into their bathrooms, we are going to take away food from
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And by the way, like, I don't remember seeing any social justice Christian who is now crying
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about things like deportation, complaining about that at the time.
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So, like, give me a break if you're now like, oh, Micah 6'8", I'm speaking up for the powerless
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and you had nothing to say about all of the injustices of the Biden administration, including
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an egregious one like that, like, I don't really want to hear it.
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Like, I think that you've probably lost a lot of credibility.
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I also don't think it's an excuse to just be like, well, I didn't hear about it.
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Of course, if you're only consuming the New York Times or Christianity today, you're not
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You're just going to get a biased perspective on reality.
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And so you really need a wide range of perspectives in order to even start to get at what the
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Speaking of Christianity today, their leftward drift seems to be less of a drift and perhaps
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more of a pull because of where their funding is coming from.
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And Megan Basham, the author of the New York Times bestseller Shepherds for Sale and a journalist
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from Daily Wire, is here with the details on all of that, all of these progressive Christian
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entities that have actually been taking our tax dollars to survive.
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Megan, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.
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And as we first heard about all of the craziness that our tax dollars are funded through USAID
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and then somehow Christianity today and Be the Bridge and Revoice and the After Party,
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And a lot of this is still unfolding and we're trying to figure out, okay, what are some of
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these line items that this new data tool has uncovered?
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And so for those who aren't familiar, an X account, I still struggle not to say Twitter,
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an X account created this tool to search through government grants and funding.
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Basically, they scraped a lot of data from the old USAID website and other government funding
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websites and put it all together in this data tool.
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So, you know, part of this blew up because of the left-wing media's outrage over the shutting
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People hear that and they think, oh, it's just the U.S. doing, you know, charitable things
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It does a little bit of that, but it does a whole lot of other stuff too.
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And so what it actually stands for is the U.S. Agency for International Development, and
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it will work with the State Department and the CIA to ostensibly advance American interests.
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So when that happened, a lot of people started to look at, okay, well, where has this USAID
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And some of the things that turned up were, you know, bizarre projects like LGBTQ dance
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And so as people have been searching through this, they found some things that look like,
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okay, that didn't turn out to be anything like it can tell you.
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Looking at the revoice, it looks like that was PPP money, so maybe not that interesting.
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And other things that are not yet really explained, like why did Christianity Today show up,
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taking $1.8 million from the federal government in their 2023 tax return?
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So, you know, I don't have an answer for that yet, but these are the kind of questions that
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And some things turned up that confirmed what we already knew, but showed it to be worse
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And one thing I can tell you there is that, you know, I knew, and we have talked about in
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the past that left-wing foundations were funneling money into this political Bible study that
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Curtis Chang, Christianity Today editor-in-chief Russell Moore, and New York Times writer David
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French developed to bring on to Christian college campuses and churches.
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One of the things that was buried in this little data tool is that they got several hundred
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thousand dollars from Bill Kristol's Defending Democracy organization, which is a political
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It was named the top source of dark campaign spending in 2020 by the watchdog group Open Secrets.
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So what we found is that not only were they taking money from left-wing foundations, but now
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we know they were taking money from explicitly political left-wing foundations.
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It just doesn't seem like a coincidence to me that these organizations like the After Party,
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like now Christianity Today and others, are taking money from the same government that has
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been pushing the idea for the past few years that white Christian nationalism is the greatest
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terroristic threat and threat to democracy that exists because we have seen those ideas
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echoed in all of these entities, including the so-called racial reconciliation group Be the
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And so I know that there are other organizations also like Samaritan's Purse that has taken
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And so I'm not saying that all organizations that are taking funding from this entity are
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pushing this idea, but it doesn't seem, I don't know, it doesn't seem like a coincidence,
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especially when you see that Christianity Today started taking money in 2023.
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Over a million dollars didn't get that in 2022.
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And I don't know, it seems to me like that was also a big shift for Christianity Today,
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especially under the leadership of Russell Moore.
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Well, I'm glad you brought up Be the Bridge because yes, it was one of the most poisonous
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I wrote about that a little bit in my book, but I mean, it became a tool for abusing white
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I mean, it included groups where people weren't allowed, where the white members weren't allowed
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to talk for months until they had, quote unquote, done the work of reading all of this CRT type
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But I'm glad you brought that up because Christianity Today has been very much on the front lines in
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both their editorial coverage and their news coverage of banging this drum against Christian
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And what we've seen recently with this USAID revelation is that they have come out strong
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for their partner in the evangelical immigration table, World Relief, saying it's terrible that
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the Trump administration is shutting down this funding that goes to really good groups doing
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really good things for the least of these overseas.
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And one thing I have been digging into for the last few days since this became a really
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hot topic in the news cycle is, OK, what is World Relief doing with this money?
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Because we are seeing these stories where people are saying, hey, it's terrible that they're
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And World Relief itself put out a statement saying how much they're grieving the shutting
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And so I started looking at what are they doing.
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And some things they're doing are fine, but some are pretty questionable.
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And one of those, for example, is they took in 2019, and it ran through 2024, $29 million
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from USAID for a program called SCOPE to encourage contraceptive use and morning after pills in
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And when you look at the material that they're using on the ground there, it uses pretty surprising
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It heavily talks about promoting reproductive health and family planning.
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And I've got this on my phone because I wanted to read directly from it.
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One of the things they do is that they push these village women in these countries to make
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a commitment at the end of, say, a training session to embrace some kind of family planning
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And they say that they're trying to overcome the local cultural and religious bias against
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And even more importantly, why do they have this material promoting morning after pills,
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which we know has a secondary mechanism to prevent implantation when they're supposed to be a
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I mean, the morning after pills and even the hormonal birth control, no matter what someone
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feels about it, the fact of the matter is, is it always has the potential to be an abortifacient.
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And I would understand why secular organizations and why the Bill Gates Foundation, why they
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But for an explicitly Christian organization to be doing so, it just seems that when you
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get so much money from a federal government that is run by secular progressivism, that has
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been very clear, like you said, with USAID and the programs that they're funding all across
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the world that pushes, you know, that push things like abortion and transgenderism and
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DEI programs and funding things like DEI-themed musicals in Ireland, like when you're getting
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money from an entity that has that kind of ideology, it's hard to imagine that you wouldn't
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have to make some compromises, that there would be some exchange.
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You mentioned that World Relief, we talked about this some earlier this week on the show,
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but that World Relief is receiving a lot of money from USAID.
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It's not just a little bit, but it's a lot of money.
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Like, is it is normal for a charitable organization?
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I speak to a lot of charities, pro-life organizations, and I haven't met any that get tens of millions
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I haven't met, you know, people who run pregnancy centers who are getting tens of millions of
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So is this like a normal partnership that we see between the federal government and a Christian
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Well, and it depends on how you define normal, because as you just said, when you talk to your
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crisis pregnancy centers on the ground, no, of course they're not getting funding like
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that, but when you talk to some of these pseudo-religious, really large organizations that are helping
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promote lax border policies, which World Relief does through its partnership with the Evangelical
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Immigration Table, and which groups like the, you know, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
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I mean, if you're just wearing your religion as a cloak and you're furthering some of these
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globalist aims to erase borders, to promote this idea that healthcare means having access
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to abortion, if you're doing those kind of things, then yes, then they're going to get
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money, because that's their purpose, to sort of convince you, well, actually, to take a Christian
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position means that we can go ahead and adopt some of this left-wing language that they use.
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And, you know, some of it has been so surprising to me, and I will read you this one directly
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from the World Relief training module, where it describes a woman who's been working with
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these village women in these third-world countries, and it says, she's been able to bring together
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women of reproductive age who could not speak in public on matters of family planning and
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These women are further mobilizing other women in their neighborhood to share health messages
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So they're really acknowledging that we're talking about Christian nations.
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I mean, Kenya, Malawi, Haiti, the overwhelming on-the-ground religious belief is Christianity.
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So they're saying, we are having to overcome how their faith is informing their decision whether
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or not to take birth control and whether or not to limit how many children they have.
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So that's the kind of thing that they talk about.
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And they also talk about equitable gender when they are discussing why these women need
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to embrace reproductive health in the form of contraceptives.
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So what we see is that this is very much a ostensibly Christian organization that nonetheless
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adopts the language of the left when they talk about what does women's health look like.
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I don't know why women's health means limiting how many babies they want to have by convincing
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them, gosh, it's better if you have fewer babies if culturally they want more babies.
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Why is that our baseline assumption when our command is actually to be fruitful and multiply?
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And, you know, each couple has to decide what that looks like for themselves.
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But if you have a culture in Malawi that's pro having lots of babies, why do they feel they
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And I know that some people will say, well, it's a poor country and there is bad health
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care there and maybe some women feel forced to have babies.
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My answer to that would be a Christian organization should then address those issues.
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Like that is what both the gospel of Christ allows us to do when we are talking about like
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what marriage should look like, how a husband should treat his wife.
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But also like our compassion that we are compelled to by Christ would have us address the health
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care needs, address some of the dynamics going on there that might make it dangerous for women
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But to do the exact thing that like the Bill Gates Foundation would do or any secular entity
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would do, the Clinton Foundation would do and say, OK, well, here's some birth control.
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We're not going to address the root problems, which maybe they are in other ways.
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But it sounds like from the progressive language, like let's just address these problems from
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a secular perspective and leave the rest up to you.
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And they're not just saying we're going to help you access this birth control if that's
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In fact, what they're saying is that women who don't really want to access this birth control,
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what we're doing is implementing training programs to convince them that they should take it.
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Like I said, they have one group meeting that said it starts with women who are skeptical
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And it leads the training coordinator how to walk them through examining their bias against
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And at the end, it solicits from them a commitment.
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It asks the women, it tells the coordinator, ask the women to make a commitment before they
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Will you start to talk to your husband about family planning?
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Could you commit to taking this birth control pill?
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So it is something very different than just saying, hey, if you want to have access to
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it, I think that's a bizarre kind of thing for a Christian foreign aid group to be doing
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But if you are going to say that, one of the things we're going to do is make it available.
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That's very different from saying, we're trying to overcome your bias and get you to commit
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Because at that point, it seems very much like we're moving into the realm of pushing population
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And I know, and that's really getting my wheels turning, because we know that that is a, and
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you know, this is just us pushing the pieces together here.
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I'm not saying that, you know, World Relief has said this explicitly, but when you look
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at the ideology of the people in Davos, the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates, those who are
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funding these entities that are then funding these programs abroad, like one of their main
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priorities is depopulation, is population control.
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I mean, these foundations have been pushing abortion and abortifacients and birth control
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pills on young girls around the world for decades.
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And it would be a real shame if an organization that was started by the National Evangelical
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Association in the United States were also pushing that population control.
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And when you're explaining like the process or the almost the ceremony that they go through,
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Like, it almost sounds like an altar call, like a perverse altar call of, like, of population
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And even further, they talk about in this training about how you can get local faith leaders to
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also come on board, because they said, you know, locally, a lot of times faith leaders are the
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people who are the ones promoting what they would call misinformation against taking, say, the morning
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But they said they've had a lot of success in bringing faith leaders on board in order
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to get them to use their curriculum and to be educated, to use their talking points.
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So when you talk about an altar call, I don't think it's an accident that they are discussing
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how do we bring faith leaders into this program to distribute these contraceptives and birth control
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pills, including the morning after pill and plan B and things like that.
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I'm sorry, but that's the same thing that she did in the early 20th century.
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She started writing the letters to the Black faith leaders at the time saying, hey, you're
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the one that's getting in the way of birth control.
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I'm not, again, I'm just putting pieces together and drawing parallels from my perspective and
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But that famous line that a lot of conservatives repeat when Margaret Sanger said, we don't want
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the word to get out that we're trying to control the Black population.
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That was actually in a letter to faith leaders in the early 20th century to tell them to get
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out of the way when it came to disseminating birth control to poor populations.
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I'm just saying it seems to be a similar theme going on.
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And that's very disturbing coming from a Christian organization funded by our tax dollars, by the
00:29:09.420
It's one thing if you want to fund that yourself, like voluntarily, but we are being forced to
00:29:14.340
fund a Christian organization disseminating abortifacient birth control in poor countries.
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So $29 million went to just this one scope program for world relief.
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That's just a part of what they've gotten from the U.S. government.
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And when you look at their funding, it was something like in their last IRS 990, I think
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filed for 2022, the vast majority, over two thirds of their funding comes from government.
00:29:41.360
Only a very small piece comes from private donors.
00:29:44.720
And so when you see them saying, this is terrible that they're shutting down this government
00:29:48.640
funding, and you did see this, some of their leadership saying, Trump is preventing us from
00:29:57.640
He's saying that right now you're not going to do it with taxpayer dollars because we're
00:30:02.080
going to put a pause on that until we look at this program, we start to sift through it,
00:30:06.840
see if there are abuses, see if there are ways that it needs to be reformed.
00:30:12.740
They are still free to continue ministering to refugees with private charitable donations,
00:30:19.040
which I would say is actually more in line with a biblical model of how we are to minister
00:30:27.480
And, you know, I'm thinking about all of this is like the USAID is also, it seems like,
00:30:32.540
how we kind of how the government skirts around the Mexico City policy, which is, you know,
00:30:40.800
the executive order that's put in place by presidents that says, OK, we're not going
00:30:47.140
But if the USAID is granting taxpayer funds to organizations that are pushing abortion,
00:30:54.160
and I'm not saying World Relief is pushing actual explicit abortion, although we don't
00:30:58.560
know what their euphemisms like that seems to be a way to get around that.
00:31:02.700
And it seems like the righteous and reasonable position for a president to say, look, yes,
00:31:13.360
A lot of these organizations, possibly also World Relief, but Catholic organizations, even
00:31:18.320
Jewish organizations that have been operating under the guise of refugee resettlement have
00:31:25.880
And you can't be allowed to enable help breaking the law against the interests of the American
00:31:33.800
And so to me, it just seems like a common sense thing that President Trump is doing.
00:31:39.360
And I do think when you talked about the jargon, I do think it should be an alarm bell when we
00:31:44.460
hear Christian organizations using terminology like reproductive health and family planning and
00:31:50.720
normalizing that because it does serve to make the local population more comfortable with
00:31:55.980
those terms when some organization that doesn't have pro-life commitments comes in behind them
00:32:00.860
using the exact same language as a euphemism for abortion.
00:32:06.760
I mean, when you hear reproductive health in the U.S., you typically now think abortion.
00:32:11.460
When you hear family planning, you tend to think abortion because that's how the left uses it.
00:32:16.700
And when you talk about immigration, you see the same sort of trickiness with rhetoric because
00:32:24.280
you will see World Relief in its work talk about asylum seekers and they will say, well,
00:32:36.560
And then these groups, these religious immigration groups, help them apply for asylum so that they
00:32:46.580
But they came illegally and the majority of those asylum claims will be denied.
00:32:53.460
So it's really abusing what the asylum system is designed for, which is not if anyone can get
00:32:58.880
across the border, then they can claim asylum, which is reserved for religious, racial, and
00:33:06.460
And to get back to Christianity, and I mean, a great example of that we just saw in Christianity
00:33:11.220
Today's coverage, where they did this, you know, very sad story about a man who was arrested
00:33:17.340
outside of his church in Atlanta, who was an illegal immigrant.
00:33:21.680
And in the story, they say, well, he was, he came illegally, but now he was legal because
00:33:29.920
The reason he applied for asylum from Honduras was because he was fleeing gangs, it said.
00:33:36.600
Well, gangs is not actually a legitimate reason to ask for asylum because that's not religious,
00:33:48.260
And I'm sorry that that has happened, but we can't absorb everyone all over the world who
00:33:53.240
may be dealing with a gang problem in their home country.
00:33:55.520
And there were a lot of places that this particular man, like Costa Rica, Belize, could have stopped
00:34:00.680
on the way, and instead they came all the way to the United States.
00:34:04.120
And so that's part of the game that you see in some of this coverage with outlets like
00:34:11.060
And I think that is part of why there's a problem, not just for, you know, what government money
00:34:16.040
they would be taking, but it should also be noted that they took $5 million this year,
00:34:22.760
at the beginning of this year, from the Lilly Endowment, which is the secular foundation
00:34:27.580
founded by the Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company.
00:34:31.240
And the purpose of that grant was to promote diverse and global storytelling.
00:34:38.940
So I think that's the kind of thing that we're seeing already in their coverage.
00:34:42.860
And, you know, I don't want to belabor the point, but I did cover that their executive
00:34:48.160
news editor, Marvin Alasky, sent out a request for stories, and he exclusively asked for stories
00:34:56.360
that show how these illegal immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers are being impacted.
00:35:04.600
He wanted to know about churches serving as sanctuary.
00:35:07.560
But he didn't ask for any stories about how American citizens are being impacted by illegal
00:35:15.540
He didn't ask about how their services are being stretched to the breaking point.
00:35:20.040
He didn't ask about potential crimes that they may be suffering in their communities.
00:35:26.600
And, you know, World Relief specifically, we talked about this on our episode with World
00:35:31.960
But on their site, they say, here are some myths about immigration, and they go through
00:35:39.800
And they don't even really counter them that well.
00:35:45.880
And one of the things that they say is a myth is that refugee populations or immigrant populations,
00:35:53.320
that they commit a significant number of crimes.
00:36:04.100
And that is a radical ideological word choice because you're saying that basically there's
00:36:15.440
And if that's what you think about citizenship in countries and sovereignty, then yes, I'm going
00:36:21.320
But they cite the Cato Institute, which is very libertarian when it comes to immigration,
00:36:28.860
When we looked at the data from Europe especially, and we also looked at the fact that if you
00:36:34.660
are undocumented, then by definition, you don't have documents that make it possible
00:36:41.140
And also, every single crime, even if it's just one that's committed by someone who should
00:36:53.080
So it really doesn't matter if it's a million crimes or one crime.
00:36:57.520
There's no argument for adding to the criminals that are already citizens in this nation.
00:37:03.040
But it's just very revelatory of where they're coming from.
00:37:07.640
And again, they're not just talking about refugees.
00:37:12.080
They're talking about the quote unquote undocumented, which tells me that they probably are, as you
00:37:18.020
said, playing that role of enabling, exacerbating illegal immigration, which contributes to human
00:37:25.880
trafficking, to drug trafficking, to gun trafficking, which is destructive and chaotic.
00:37:31.480
And I would just want to know, like, are you taking money from open society?
00:37:39.480
You just seem to be a part of an agent of chaos in some ways, at least.
00:37:43.760
Well, and that's why I think so much of this USAID discussion that we're suddenly having is really important.
00:37:50.420
And I think it's why the Trump administration's approach right now of shock and awe has been really helpful,
00:37:57.800
because I think so many people didn't realize that these charitable organizations are, in
00:38:07.280
So they're facilitators of government contracts.
00:38:10.240
They're not operating with money from churches, for the most part, you know, or just operating
00:38:17.660
And I think it's why we need to talk about, okay, it's a problem when our Christian institutions
00:38:23.440
or what we think of as Christian institutions are getting a huge amount of their support
00:38:28.580
from either secular foundations or from the US government.
00:38:31.820
So it's very much worth taking a look at this and asking, okay, if we are doing this much
00:38:37.820
partnering with, say, the Rockefeller Foundation, or in Christianity Today's case, the Lilly Endowment,
00:38:46.160
at what point is this not a Christian institution anymore?
00:38:50.680
Because it's primarily not funded by fellow Christians.
00:38:53.620
It's funded by the US government or by secular foundations.
00:38:57.920
And we talked about that when you were on last time about organizations like the Ant Campaign,
00:39:02.220
I think also took funds from the Rockefeller Foundation.
00:39:07.780
That does not automatically mean that an organization is compromised, but it's worth asking what a secular
00:39:14.520
left-wing foundation like that, what interest they would have in funding an organization.
00:39:20.440
Because again, I go to a lot of pro-life pregnancy centers across the country that are actually doing
00:39:25.960
life-saving work and soul-saving work by the gospel of Christ, who have never seen a dime from these
00:39:37.280
They've never heard from, I think you said it was the Lilith.
00:39:45.580
And in fact, they're just trying to get their community to give the money so they can provide
00:39:50.200
diapers and baby bottles to these pregnant moms in need.
00:39:54.580
And so I think it's at least worth asking, like, what is the interest of the US government and
00:40:00.840
these left-wing organizations in funding things like the After Party or Be the Bridge?
00:40:06.220
And I want to go back to Be the Bridge for just a second, because you mentioned that this was a
00:40:18.020
And by the way, like, our books go together so well.
00:40:21.980
And I really, if people have not read one or the other, definitely get Megan's book.
00:40:25.740
If you haven't read mine, like, buy them at the same time, because they go together so well.
00:40:29.500
All of these are examples of Shepherds for sale.
00:40:31.660
But there are also examples of Toxic Empathy, like picking a purported victim and ignoring
00:40:37.220
the moral equation on the other side, the other victims on the other side.
00:40:40.320
But Be the Bridge receives 20 percent, was 20 percent funded by federal grants in 2023,
00:40:50.620
And what's interesting about that is I think, like, the grift was up after 2020 when people
00:40:58.280
They read the list of rules that said, hey, white people, don't defend yourself.
00:41:02.600
Hey, white people, don't say that you're not racist.
00:41:11.100
Just let people of color and women of color basically walk all over you and you go read
00:41:18.160
You go read the Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ibram X.
00:41:26.060
But you need to sit down and listen and learn and completely manipulated scripture to support
00:41:34.380
this idea that white people today are all responsible for the sins of a group of people
00:41:40.040
that lived 200 years ago that kind of shared our melanin count, like not even our actual
00:41:47.060
And somehow equated that to like Israel having to pay for this.
00:41:53.400
And actually it was, and I know there's been some back and forth here, but it was Neil
00:41:57.060
Shenvey who did a really good and like fair critique and review of Be the Bridge at the
00:42:03.360
But 20%, I feel like that's the only reason Be the Bridge has stayed afloat.
00:42:07.480
20% of their funding came from federal grants in 2023.
00:42:12.840
And as this, you said, money trail is coming out and look, people are feverishly right this
00:42:18.540
second as we're talking, digging into all the money trail.
00:42:23.460
But, you know, others have shown that the African-American Christian Foundation, 95% of
00:42:31.360
government or Charlie Dates, who we know well, the NGO that he runs, the Together Chicago,
00:42:39.700
it looks like 70% of their income is coming from the U.S.
00:42:45.220
So, you know, all of these things, people are going to be digging into it for the next few
00:42:48.620
days going, okay, why is Charlie Dates' organization, who was heavily featured in the after party
00:42:54.160
curriculum, by the way, and he was used as an example for why Christians need to vote
00:43:03.360
His organization looks to have been taking 70% from the U.S.
00:43:08.220
So, you know, these are things that need to be explored.
00:43:13.160
And I think these organizations need to answer some questions.
00:43:17.120
And, you know, when Christianity Day tells you directly the $5 million we got from the Lilly
00:43:22.780
endowment, a secular organization, is for global and diverse storytelling, we should have questions.
00:43:30.620
Why does the Lilly endowment want to see that particular kind of reporting coming from the
00:43:40.500
They took a smaller amount, but $40,000 from USAID, it looks like, in 2023.
00:43:48.600
And they are the pro-LGBTQ organization that also claims to be Christian.
00:44:02.300
government is purposely funding initiatives that are infiltrating the evangelical church
00:44:10.140
in particular in order to make it more progressive?
00:44:13.700
In the name of fighting so-called Christian nationalism, but really in dismantling biblical
00:44:20.120
values when it comes to the sexual ethic and even ideas about national sovereignty and
00:44:26.580
Is that an orchestrated, purposeful effort that these organizations are knowingly or unwittingly
00:44:38.140
So just because they're not directly taking money from USAID doesn't mean some of these
00:44:42.860
organizations aren't getting government money through pass-throughs like the Rockefeller
00:44:47.260
So the Rockefeller Foundation will take money from USAID, and then they will give it to some
00:44:51.800
go-between who then gives it to the ostensible Christian organization to push some liberal policy.
00:44:59.840
So, you know, it can get very complicated, but it is why it's important to know.
00:45:03.140
Let me tell you all about America's Christian Credit Union.
00:45:10.700
This is not just a typical bank or a credit union.
00:45:14.480
This really started as a grassroots movement to create a financial institution that supports
00:45:21.400
America's Christian Credit Union was started by pastors for the benefit of their congregants,
00:45:26.880
It's got thousands of branches nationwide, and they still exist to serve people like you.
00:45:34.080
Unfortunately, as we've seen, President Trump even mentioned this.
00:45:37.580
There are some big banks that have debanked conservative Christians because of the values
00:45:45.200
That's a lot of anxiety for us to be carrying around.
00:45:52.360
You want to know that the people that you bank with are supportive of your values and
00:46:01.920
So that's why you should make the switch to America's Christian Credit Union.
00:46:05.540
They will donate a box of Every Life diapers to a Christian pregnancy center for every new
00:46:14.060
And so they also are giving a $100 bonus to your new account.
00:46:18.720
When you use my code ALI to sign up, go to americaschristianceo.com slash ALI, code ALI.
00:46:26.100
America's Christian Credit Union is federally insured by the NCUA.
00:46:33.480
What do you think Christianity Today, David French, Russell Moore, what do you think their
00:46:39.380
response is going to be to, for example, Trump saying that he's going to try to root out
00:46:50.520
I mean, they have really had no response to these positive things.
00:46:54.180
I mean, we have seen just such tremendous pro-life wins.
00:46:57.320
And I know we were all very disappointed by some of the GOP language and what Trump did
00:47:06.080
But we have to say that since he has taken office, we have seen some really positive moves
00:47:10.860
ending the Mexico City policy, ensuring that no federal tax dollars are going to fund abortion
00:47:19.420
domestically, sending J.D. Vance, his first public appearance as vice president at the March
00:47:26.660
for Life, making really strong pro-life comments.
00:47:30.860
So you would think that there would be some commentary on that from a David French and a
00:47:37.260
We haven't seen it in the act that President Trump just signed to protect women's spaces
00:47:43.740
and to protect children from transgender mutilation.
00:47:47.820
So, you know, I find that really odd how they can just entirely ignore it, because I will
00:47:52.240
be honest with you, if the Biden administration had done any of those things, as much as I was
00:47:57.200
opposed to so many of their policies, I would have been the first one cheering and encouraging
00:48:02.920
So I think that's really telling that they've been so silent on so many of these things.
00:48:09.100
I mean, it's just not even debatable, some of the moves that Trump has made, especially
00:48:14.220
in contrast to what the Biden administration did, that all Christians, if you're a true
00:48:21.020
I mean, Trump signing that EO versus the, you know, the EO protecting girls' sports versus
00:48:27.540
all of just the abominable things that the Biden administration did to advance the mutilation
00:48:33.640
of children's bodies who are deceived about their gender.
00:48:37.080
Like, even if you just, you're just a Genesis 1 Christian, like you just believe a little
00:48:43.740
Of course, that doesn't actually exist, but you know what I mean.
00:48:46.740
Even if you were just to buy into the fundamentals of the Bible, you would have to rejoice over
00:48:52.300
And yet we have Russell Moore coming out here writing articles, yes, Jesus was a refugee.
00:49:02.660
Well, and, you know, I do go back to the money a little bit here because seeing that not only
00:49:07.320
were they taking money from left-wing organizations, but from a political dark money organization
00:49:13.960
like Bill Kristol's Defending Democracy, that should be discrediting for a news organization's
00:49:21.940
So developing a political Bible study that went into churches promoted on Christian college
00:49:27.440
campuses by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, that as the person overseeing
00:49:33.900
the coverage at Christianity Today was involved with that and took money from an explicitly
00:49:39.840
anti-Trump political organization that donated millions and millions of dollars to defeating
00:49:46.820
him, that should absolutely make you look askance at all of their coverage.
00:49:53.800
So Pam Bondi, she is the attorney general, the newly confirmed attorney general.
00:50:00.720
She said at a national prayer breakfast, or President Trump ordered Pam Bondi to set up
00:50:13.680
Unfortunately, this is something that we've seen with the IRS, you know, several years ago,
00:50:17.960
basically targeting Christian or conservative organizations, and then also with the FBI and
00:50:24.140
the DOJ basically calling every Christian conservative some kind of like Christian nationalist
00:50:31.480
Unfortunately, I do think this is something that's necessary.
00:50:34.440
And again, it's hard for me to see how any Christian like couldn't celebrate this or
00:50:44.840
And how God sometimes works is that someone like President Trump with the crass personality
00:50:50.160
in the background that he has, that he is plain and simple making righteous decisions that
00:50:55.000
are leading to the prosperity and the goodness of our country.
00:50:57.720
And like, it's just time to put aside your anger and celebrate that and thank God for that.
00:51:05.720
But you know, money, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and it can get people
00:51:13.480
And you know, yeah, I'm not tired of the winning yet.
00:51:16.160
I'm seeing so many wins for policies that I've wanted for so long.
00:51:19.800
But when I look at it, I go, it's not who I would have expected to do these things,
00:51:26.240
Lord, but maybe it took a particularly, I don't know, pugnacious type of personality to withstand
00:51:33.660
the onslaught of lawfare and really just using every avenue of government power that they
00:51:47.500
I would have probably pretty early on gone, you know what?
00:51:52.920
So I do think you probably needed a unique sort of personality.
00:51:57.940
Okay, before we end, I just realized that I forgot to say this.
00:52:01.700
And people will remember this Anglican, my notes say Episcopalian, but I'm, is it Episcopalian
00:52:09.160
The bishop that was preaching at Trump and Vance and basically said, you know, have mercy
00:52:14.800
on the trans child, which is something that doesn't exist, but also talked about illegal
00:52:19.140
So we found that her organization, Episcopal Migration Ministry, so I guess she is Episcopalian,
00:52:28.560
It earned $53 million from various taxpayer funded government organizations to resettle
00:52:35.660
3,600 individuals, legal, illegal, we don't know.
00:52:42.960
And so I don't think it was purposeful of Trump to specifically go after this person, but it
00:52:50.540
And I do want us to remember that 50 years ago, 60 years ago, there was still a lot of
00:52:57.500
really good preaching and doctrine and strong Christian community coming out of mainline
00:53:03.920
And over time, they have become sort of these liberal, progressive, social clubs with crosses
00:53:12.760
And that's what happens when the church loses sight of its mission, because now what it is
00:53:17.820
is it's just a functionary of progressive causes in the U.S. government.
00:53:22.480
And that's why it is so important, because I don't want my church, I don't want my denomination
00:53:26.540
to turn in to what the Episcopalian church is today.
00:53:32.700
Well, Megan, I just wanted to ask you one more thing about what you posted publicly just
00:53:39.200
You announced that you have been diagnosed with cancer, that you are currently undergoing
00:53:48.100
I'm just so sorry, because I'm sure that that has been very hard and sanctifying and
00:53:53.240
But I just want to hear from you how you're feeling and how everyone can be praying for
00:53:59.400
I waited until I knew I was really like, okay, I'm ready to talk about it now.
00:54:03.360
So I first got my diagnosis right after Thanksgiving.
00:54:08.840
You know, it was a long process because you don't expect someone at my age and I'm in good
00:54:16.140
And I kind of want to tell everyone, by the way, it's really skyrocketing among younger
00:54:25.520
Because when I first went to the doctor way back in March, I went to the emergency room
00:54:31.400
They told me, no, we think this is just colitis.
00:54:39.380
And so finally, right around Thanksgiving, got diagnosed with stage three colorectal cancer.
00:54:47.500
So that is an advanced stage, but we're really grateful that we have caught it before stage
00:54:54.000
So, you know, it's not as early as we would have wished, but it is certainly a much better
00:54:59.400
prognosis than if I would have been at stage four, which is the point at which it has metastasized.
00:55:05.100
So, you know, I would pray if you can ask for prayers that it does not metastasize and that
00:55:10.900
the treatment I'm going through right now, right now in radiation and chemo, that it's
00:55:17.820
And, you know, we already feel incredibly blessed by the people who've come around us and who
00:55:25.500
And I went through some dark nights of the soul when we first met up.
00:55:29.860
So, I mean, I had some Isaiah 38, Hezekiah turning his face to the wall and just crying.
00:55:38.280
But I will say, you know, now I do feel this sense of strength and peace.
00:55:43.300
And sometimes I'm like, is it okay, Lord, that I really feel fine right now?
00:55:50.840
So, you know, I have to take that as supernatural peace.
00:55:56.760
But I'm really touched by all the people who have told me that they're praying and reached
00:56:05.240
Well, now you have even more people praying for you.
00:56:08.780
I'm sure there's a lot of people listening to this and watching this that already knew.
00:56:11.700
They saw your announcement, but I'm sure there are people listening who didn't know.
00:56:17.880
And I'm just so thankful that we serve a God who says that the prayer of a righteous person
00:56:22.080
has great power as it is working, which is such a mystery since we serve the sovereign
00:56:26.620
God, yet like He has ordained our prayers to actually do something and accomplish something.
00:56:34.300
And just praying for your sweet kids and your husband and just that you would continue to
00:56:38.580
have that strength and peace that God would be glorified, but for total and quick physical
00:56:43.720
healing and wisdom for doctors and all of that.
00:56:48.140
And so we and all the relatable community will absolutely be praying for you.
00:56:55.320
And thanks for the hard work that you're doing.