Ep 1156 | Steven Lawson Breaks Silence, Dylan Mulvaney’s Book Flops & Gym Clothes Rant
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 6 minutes
Words per Minute
165.62476
Summary
Preacher Stephen Lawson has broken his silence after it was revealed several months ago that he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a woman that was not his wife. We are going to take a look at his statement today and give my response to it. Also, Dylan Mulvaney is out with a new book and we got some comments on that. And last but not least, I am putting my rant on gym clothes in a permanent spot on this podcast. We ve got lots on this episode of Relatable, which is brought to you by GoodRanchers.
Transcript
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Preacher Stephen Lawson has broken his silence after it was revealed several months ago that
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he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a woman that was not his wife.
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We are going to take a look at his statement today and give my response to it.
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Also, Dylan Mulvaney is out with a new book, and he was on The View, man-on-man.
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And last but not least, I am putting my rant on gym clothes in a permanent spot on this podcast.
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We've got lots on this episode of Relatable, which 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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Just a couple things before we get started, though.
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The fall seems forever away, but it's really not.
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And so you need to go ahead and get your tickets.
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Bring your women in your Sunday school class, your sisters, your friends, your mother-in-law,
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We will be releasing some of the speakers so soon.
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So make sure that you go to ShareTheArrows.com.
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I hope that it is the highlight for all of you of your year.
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If you love this podcast, please leave us a five-star review, whether you listen or watch
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Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, or if you want to subscribe on YouTube, that is super
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Thank you so much to all of you who have been listening now for...
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Seven years ago this month, we started Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey.
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And then a few months later, it was four times a week.
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And here we are giving you news, politics, theology, culture from a Christian conservative
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perspective with two-ish interviews a week, pop culture, and what's going on in D.C. and
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sometimes the world as clearly as we possibly can.
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And some of you have literally been around now for seven years, and I'm just so grateful.
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And for all of you who are new too, and you really have become like friends and family
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every time I get to meet you in the wild, you let me know that you're praying for me,
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I always say I have the best and the smartest, most thoughtful audience in the world that's
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never been more evident to me than at Share the Arrows last year, but it's just really
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Everyone should want an audience like the Relatable Audience.
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You guys are salt of the earth people, and I love you so much, and I'm just so thankful
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All right, let us talk about Steve Lawson's statement that he finally put out yesterday
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So let me go back a little bit and give you a refresher.
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Maybe you don't even know what I'm talking about.
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Steve Lawson was the teaching preacher, not the shepherding pastor, not the main pastor,
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but the itinerant preacher at Trinity Bible Church in Dallas.
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This is a pretty new church, and he focuses on, through not just his preaching, but also
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in his various ministries, his teaching at John MacArthur's Master's Seminary Expository
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I have read some of his books about the Reformers.
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I have met him before, just a very dynamic, charismatic person who seemed to take the Word
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I don't know many preachers who have the same expository passion and skill as Stephen Lawson.
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So when I heard several months ago through a public statement made by Trinity Bible Church,
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the church where he was preaching, that he had been caught, I'm using my own terms here,
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but in an inappropriate relationship with a younger woman, I was so shocked and devastated.
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This is one of the last people I ever would have guessed would have been found in some kind
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And we still don't know the details of that relationship.
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That was a big sticking point for a lot of people who were fans, followers of Stephen Lawson,
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or who attended his Bible study, or who attended his church, is that we didn't really know.
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It was really like a lot of sleuthing of people to try to figure out what went on.
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And we did find out this was a younger woman who he knew through Master's Seminary, whose
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parents had been a part of John MacArthur's Grace Community Church for a long time.
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We don't know the full extent of the relationship.
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It sounds to me, if I am to read between the lines, that it was not a sexual relationship,
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not a full-on affair, but that it was more of an emotional bond, way too familiar, communicating
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Although even the congregants in Trinity Bible Church have really kind of, for the most part,
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been left in the dark, there are congregants at Trinity Bible who feel that the elders there
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They're thankful for the strength, the resolve, what they see as the transparency of their elders.
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And I know many people who have left Trinity Bible Church because they did not like how it
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And maybe they were attending just for Stephen Lawson and his expository preaching.
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And then when he left, they didn't want to stay anymore.
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And I think a lot of people have been very frustrated by the silence that Stephen Lawson
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I understand not wanting to stoke gossip or stoke speculation by giving little breadcrumbs.
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And as we will read in his statement, he says he hasn't said anything because he wanted
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However, I understand how basically being ghosted by your spiritual mentor, a lot of people felt
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like he was a spiritual mentor for them, was really hurtful, much more hurtful than if
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he had come out right away and at least given some clarity, some transparency, and then said,
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hey, I'm going to be taking a step back from all public communication.
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Pray not only for me that Christ would help me walk in repentance and sanctification, but
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please pray for my family, please pray for my wife, and really kind of shifted the focus to
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the people that he hurt, the people that he harmed.
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But just the lack of communication there, I think, was extremely devastating for a lot of people,
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He resigned from all of his duties at the time at One Passion Ministries.
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And also another thing about the statements that we noted, and it turned out to be correct
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at the time, one thing that you noticed in these statements was that they did not say
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It was actually that Stephen Lawson had been found out in his sin, and that at that point,
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it was not clear that he had actually acknowledged and turned away from his sin.
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And there was some very strange, wishy-washy language in those statements that made people
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Some people got mad at me for reading in between the lines, but that ended up being confirmed
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And so he released this silence, or he released this statement, rather, breaking his silence
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He said, it is with a shattered heart that I write this letter.
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I have sinned grievously against the Lord, against my wife, against my family, and against
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countless numbers of you by having a sinful relationship with a woman, not my wife.
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Again, we don't know what kind of sinful relationship, but a sinful relationship.
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I am deeply broken that I have betrayed and deceived my wife, devastated my children, brought
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shame to the name of Christ, reproach upon his church, and harm to many ministries.
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You may wonder why I have been silent and largely invisible since the news of my sin became
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He said he needed time to search his own soul and determine that my repentance is real.
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Reading in between the lines there, I think he's trying to say, don't blame this woman.
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This is something I'm taking responsibility for.
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I have confessed my sin to the Lord, to my wife, to my family, have repented of it.
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He says that his sin carries enormous consequences.
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He says many have looked to him for spiritual guidance, and he has failed these people.
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And some people out there might say, well, it's not fair that all of these people are demanding
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these statements or demanding transparency for him.
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It's not his fault that they look to him as a spiritual mentor.
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Well, he purposely placed himself in that position of being a mentor to thousands and thousands,
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not just people he knew personally, but people that he reached directly online, digitally.
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He put himself in that leadership, mentorship, teaching position.
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He says he's dealt with sin issues that have been painfully exposed in my heart.
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I've submitted myself in weekly accountability to two pastors and the elders of a local congregation
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I am also under the oversight of an accountability team who monitor my progress and give me wise
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I'll talk about this a little bit more in a minute.
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If this is just my personal, subjective opinion, I don't need to hear those details.
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And to me, that almost comes across as defensive.
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I just think that it's, I think that is a little strange personally, just from a PR perspective.
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He says, I'm growing in grace, reading and absorbing the word of God, putting it into practice,
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I'm involved in the life of the church, attending and participating in prayer meetings, Sunday
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school, the worship service, and taking communion weekly.
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I am being fad the word in the midweek Bible study.
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Please pray for my spiritual growth into Christlikeness as I follow him moment by moment during
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And maybe to me, I'm wondering, who are you answering?
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Who are you speaking to when you are listing all of these weekly religious activities that
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I hope and pray and believe correspond to real heart change and real humility?
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I'm not doubting the sincerity there, but are these answers to questions that people have?
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I mean, I've talked to a lot of people who attended his church and who looked to him for
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guidance, and none of them have been like, well, I just, I wonder if he's taking communion
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Really, like, the bigger concern is, what happened?
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Now, you might say, he doesn't have the responsibility to answer those questions.
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To some extent, I would say some of those questions don't have to be answered.
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And look, I have a lot of grace because these statements can just be so hard.
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They can be really, really difficult to say the right thing.
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But listing all of the repentance-centered activities that are happening every week, again, to me,
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And I'm not sure that that's what people need to hear in this moment.
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He says, I'm grateful for the unmerited grace of God and the gospel to extend his full forgiveness
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He says, please pray for me, the Lord's mercy and grace as I seek to make right the deeply
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wrong sins I've committed against my wife and family, and that in his time and way, he
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will bring about redemption and restoration in our marriage for his glory.
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We, of course, don't know exactly what that means, if there has actually been any physical
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And I also, I'm not sure if it would be appropriate, but there is another party here.
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I mean, there is a young woman who, yes, sinned.
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She had agency, and she, as far as we know, willingly entered into this sinful relationship,
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So I'm not saying that she was a victim as far as I know she wasn't a victim here.
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I'm not sure if it's appropriate for him to say that in a statement.
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Should he have said something like that or not?
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But whether or not he should have said that, the truth is we should be praying for her.
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So I've kind of got more of a response to this, the biblical response, and then my PR
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Okay, I have no reason not to believe the genuineness, the honesty of Stephen Lawson as just a fellow
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believer, but also as someone who I want the best for him.
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I want the best for everyone who has ever read him, listened to him, been mentored by him.
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I want the best for the global church, for Christianity in general.
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I hope and pray that this is true repentance, that all of this—I don't really care about—I
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mean, I do care to an extent, but I'm not as interested in all of the weekly activities
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that he's engaging in as much as I am just seeing the true heartbreak contriteness that
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And when I was reading this and I was thinking through my thoughts, the first verse that
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Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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Really, it's not my responsibility or anyone's responsibility to try to—because I don't have
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a personal, you know, friendship with Stephen Lawson, like, I don't have to go into all of
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the different nooks and crannies of this and try to pick it apart and doubt whether or not
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I'm going to take it at face value and hope and believe the best.
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Most commands, many of the commands that we are given in the New Testament to take care
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of the least of these, my brothers, for example, to ensure that we are caring for the household
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of God and to look after the saints in the work of ministry are actually commands to take
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It is very clear throughout the New Testament that that's really our first obligation.
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That is where our loyalty lies, first to the church, first to fellow Christians.
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And so, yes, of course, we are called to love and to care for others and to care for the
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But the love that we are called to in 1 Corinthians 13, we should feel, I think, most deeply for
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And so, that's one guidance I'm giving to myself and that I would give to you as well.
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I love the whole book of Ephesians, as you guys know.
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Tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.
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So, not just forgiving one another as it feels good.
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Gosh, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.
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Think about how much we were forgiven when Christ died on the cross for our sins.
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All of the ugliest stuff in our heart and mind and lives was completely just obliterated.
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Our slate was wiped clean because of the perfect sacrifice of Christ.
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That is the kind of forgiveness we are supposed to extend to other people.
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So, no matter how deeply Stephen Lawson hurt you, we are actually called to a very powerful
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countercultural forgiveness through the strength of Christ.
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Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over
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And so, if we are to take this at face value and believe and hope that this repentance is
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real and only he and only God and hopefully those in his life really truly know that that's
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just the nature of it, no matter who it is, no matter who we're talking about, then heaven
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And God is celebrating and God is so gracious and so good and he is quick to bring us back
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and to work out all things for our good and for his glory.
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Pray for his marriage, which is an earthly reflection of the marriage between Christ and
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And my PR opinion does not discount his honesty and sincerity.
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I am just talking about what is effective messaging.
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What is going to appropriately impact as many people as possible?
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There are always going to be people that pick apart what you say and that are going to completely
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Or they're going to say that you said something that you didn't say.
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Or they're going to say that you said the opposite of what you actually said.
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As someone who talks a lot in the public, that happens.
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You get people who are like, you never talk about this or you said this.
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And so no statement, no person is ever going to be perfect or a perfect communicator.
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What I would advise someone in this position, very simple, very straightforward language,
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That's a little bit tricky because you want to give transparency that shows honesty without
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inviting more speculation and more gossip and potentially targeting this young woman.
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He did not say, oh, it was a really hard time in my life or I didn't know how to handle this.
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I do wish he would have said, which maybe you could argue he did in so many words, I was
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a total hypocrite and I was preaching about purity and I was preaching about Christlikeness
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And I don't blame the people that question my ministry and question my integrity.
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But I want you to know that everything that ever came out of my mouth that was directly
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from the word of God is true and that I am not trustworthy, but Jesus Christ is trustworthy,
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that he's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
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Look, I fell into this sin and here's what happened.
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I personally would like to see a little bit more clarity and just forthrightness and what
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actually happened, the timeline of what happened, because you've got a lot of people torturing
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themselves thinking, okay, was it during this sermon?
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What about the time that I followed this Bible study and he said this?
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Or the time he counseled me in this way, was this really going on then?
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Like, I think something really clear about what happened.
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And again, I think there should have been more of a focus on Christ and who he is, his stability,
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his trustworthiness, his unchanging nature, and also a focus more on calls for prayer for
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My personal opinion, I also would like to see something in this statement that says,
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I know that I am disqualified from ministry here on out and you're not going to see me behind
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the pulpit again, and you're not going to see me leading one passion ministries for the
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I am going to lead a private and quiet life with my wife, my kids, and my grandchildren.
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Some of you might disagree with that, but I do think that this is a disqualifying act
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It doesn't mean that God's not going to use his gifts to edify the church in some way,
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but the public platform is part of what led to this compromise.
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And also an assurance again to people who are looking to him for public guidance to say,
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I'm going to go quiet again and you're not going to hear from me.
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And maybe ever again, because public ministry is just no longer in the cards in this last
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chapter of my life, maybe not in the cards, however you would word that in a biblical way.
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Again, these statements, just like the statements of the churches or that the church and the
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ministries released at the time that it happened, they are very carefully curated for people
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that say, well, you're thinking too hard about this statement.
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You're looking too much at what was said, what was not said.
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These statements are labored over for days and days and days, maybe months before they
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All kinds of people are consulted, lawyers, publicists, fellow Christians, all of that.
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But what is said and what is not said is extremely intentional.
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Again, just to reiterate, that is not me discrediting his repentance or saying that he's not telling
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And we should continue to pray for that and pray for those also who were heartbroken by
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this and who have had a crisis of faith because of this failure.
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Pray that Jesus would draw them close, would draw them near, would restore to them the joy
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And they would remember Hebrews 13, 8, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today,
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No matter who fails you, who betrays you, Jesus never, ever will.
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And sometimes that helps us shift gears a little bit.
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And we just don't have anything to shift gears.
00:26:40.580
I wish I could play some elevator music right now to shift into talking about Dylan Mulvaney.
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And there's no softer way to transition for whatever you say.
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No, no, no pun intended is what I meant to say.
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But OK, yeah, I'm trying to collect myself here.
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And it's called Paper Doll Notes from a Late Bloomer.
00:27:22.740
I hope that this episode is included in his PR team's recap email that he receives this Friday
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that Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey highlighted his, uh, highlighted his new book.
00:27:38.760
Earlier this week, trans-identifying influencer Dylan Mulvaney, with 1.5 million followers on
00:27:46.160
I'm guessing this is supposed to be 9.2 million and not 92 million followers on TikTok, released
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a new book, the memoir, about his so-called transition, how he responded to the ensuing
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media firestorm that followed his Bud Light sponsorship.
00:28:03.360
If you're new here, we do use the pronouns that correspond with someone's sex.
00:28:08.760
It's not because we're being intentionally mean.
00:28:13.300
This is something that I debated with myself maybe seven years ago, and then I came to this
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epiphany that I can't out-love God, and I'm not nicer than God.
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And if God says something is true, then the most loving thing I can do in any situation
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Those of you who have been listening for a long time have heard me say that ad nauseum.
00:28:37.740
But God says in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible that we are made in
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his image, male and female, that's Genesis 1.27, that's repeated by Jesus in Matthew
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19, 4 through 5, it is positively affirmed throughout Scripture.
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Whether you're looking at the definition of parents, the definition of marriage, you see
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And just that first verse that we mentioned, it emphasizes how important that is, that that
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So when I call Dylan Mulvaney, he or him, that is not me being purposely disorientated.
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Unrespectful or bigoted or unloving, although of course the world will interpret it like
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And you can read about that in the trans chapter of my book.
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And that is me refusing to compromise the truth in the name of a worldly superficial toxic
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We quoted the seventh verse in that chapter earlier.
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The verse right before that says, love never rejoices in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the
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Never rejoices in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
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So the love to which Christians are called is inextricably intertwined with the truth.
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And only God gets to define love because 1 John 4.8, he is love.
00:30:00.380
So again, the most loving thing we can do in all situations is agree with him.
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He was made a male at the point of conception in God's image.
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Dylan doesn't have some secret female deep inside him.
00:30:15.500
He doesn't have this identity that is mismatched with who he actually is.
00:30:20.760
And I don't even believe that he has true gender dysphoria.
00:30:24.240
I think that he was probably considered more feminine growing up in musical theater.
00:30:32.600
I don't know what other trauma he endured in his life and his upbringing, if any at all.
00:30:37.900
I mean, it's usually something when a grown man who was almost 30 years old declares that
00:30:45.940
But the truth is, is that he is a person with a soul.
00:30:52.300
And I don't want to deny him the goodness of the truth that God has for him by affirming his
00:31:02.580
delusions that will ultimately destroy him, body and soul.
00:31:07.620
And a lot of people, I guess we probably won't have time to get into it.
00:31:10.860
And I promise I'll get into the rest of this Dylan Mulvaney stuff.
00:31:13.700
But, you know, there was a whole thing on X, Tommy Lahren saying it was rude for the
00:31:18.740
congressman, congressman self to call Sarah McBride, congressman Sarah McBride, who was
00:31:35.680
I personally believe she just doesn't have a moral foundation for what she believes.
00:31:38.800
But look, if you are still at that point, if you as a conservative are still at that
00:31:43.500
point, I understand if you're new, if you're like part of the maha, you're new over here
00:31:47.100
and you're just trying to learn this stuff, like grace, patience, all of that.
00:31:50.800
But if you have been over here for a long time and you are still stuck in this idea that you
00:31:57.480
should call a man she for the sake of politeness, you are so far behind.
00:32:03.220
And like praise to all of the center center right people who over the past five or so years
00:32:08.480
have graduated to reality, realizing that it's either a man and a woman or it's not.
00:32:13.860
Like you can't say men can't play in women's sports, but also call a man she.
00:32:21.460
Either two plus two is four or two plus two is five.
00:32:24.260
If two plus two is four, there's no, there's, there's no good in saying that two plus two
00:32:29.720
And there's a big cost in saying two plus two equals five because your complicity and the
00:32:36.460
You saying, oh yeah, that man is actually a woman because he looks like a woman or he
00:32:49.380
Of course you can't say to someone, oh yeah, you're a woman.
00:32:55.240
I don't want you to be mad at me, but no, you can't go into this woman's bathroom.
00:33:01.620
And if they are a woman, why can't they go into the woman's bathroom?
00:33:03.860
But if they can't go into the woman's bathroom because they're not a woman, then they're
00:33:09.860
Denying reality has a really big cost and it's more important.
00:33:19.640
You'll remember who he is because back in 2023, Bud Light partnered with him to celebrate
00:33:25.640
his year of girlhood social media campaign by sending him packs of Bud Light featuring his
00:33:30.720
face, which Mulvaney then shared to his popular social media accounts.
00:33:34.380
There was a really big response from conservatives opposed to transgender ideology calling for a
00:33:44.300
And Forbes reported at the time that Bud Light lost $1.4 billion in sales in the year following
00:33:50.780
the controversy, which is great because, of course, you are the blue collar conservative
00:34:00.660
And then all of a sudden, overnight, it became super gay to drink Bud Light.
00:34:05.720
And, of course, they've leveraged different figures, different comedians to try to get back in the good
00:34:12.960
I think they even ran a Super Bowl ad that was like conservative coded, which has probably been kind
00:34:19.980
If you are going to, as a brand, celebrate a grown man acting like a girl, then I've got a big problem
00:34:37.420
And we have to stop for an ad in just a second, but I feel like I've given enough preamble.
00:34:41.520
I have to give you something about this book that we brought up a couple minutes ago.
00:35:05.340
I just heard someone say in the room, it is creepy.
00:35:09.120
Day one of being a girl, and I'm coming out for the third time in my life today.
00:35:13.500
The first time I was 14, I came out as a gay boy.
00:35:18.840
And now here I am at 25, finally ready to tell the world I am a trans woman.
00:35:46.180
Like I have, I have kids now and I have watched three-year-olds turn to four-year-olds
00:35:55.900
And I, and my kids are very brilliant and very verbal.
00:36:00.020
And I know the emotional intelligence of people this age.
00:36:07.280
And by the way, like four-year-olds, they are smart for their age.
00:36:12.760
They can be smart for their age, but overall, really dumb, really dumb.
00:36:24.420
And so for a four-year-old to be able to articulate God put someone in the wrong body, this is a
00:36:32.380
There is this whole part of left-wing ideology as, again, they look at everything through
00:36:40.160
They see kids oppressed by the nuclear family, oppressed by parental authority and need to
00:36:47.900
And so this dualistic idea that Nancy Piercy talks about so brilliantly in Love Thy Body,
00:36:53.280
everyone read that, that you can be a different person on the inside than what you are on the
00:36:58.500
outside, and you know that deep down, and you've just got to unlock that one day through your
00:37:06.320
It is a fantasy that he is actually playing out.
00:37:10.980
And again, I will just reiterate, it is creepy.
00:37:15.040
It is weird for a grown man to say that he is a girl, okay?
00:37:22.320
He has dressed up like a six-year-old girl before.
00:37:24.840
Let me show you this picture of Dylan Mulvaney from a couple years ago, last year, dressing
00:37:33.240
Remember, Eloise is a six-year-old fictional character who lives at the plaza in New York
00:37:41.920
And if you know enough about trans ideology, if you've been following this show, listening
00:37:47.080
to the experts that we talk about, you know that this is a pattern of grown men suddenly
00:37:52.680
saying that they identify as the opposite sex, and then starting to dress up as adolescent
00:37:58.280
girls, as teenage girls, even sometimes younger than that, with the bows, with the skirts, with
00:38:12.340
And once you understand that the trans movement is not a bunch of people who have genuine struggle
00:38:19.560
with gender confusion, with gender dysphoria, that so much of it, I don't know this for a
00:38:24.640
fact about Dylan, but so much of it is actually led by pornography, by the worst kind of pornography,
00:38:31.200
then you start to realize, okay, this pronoun politeness stuff, it's completely bunk.
00:38:34.920
I'm not going to affirm that dark, demonic underbelly of the trans movement.
00:38:43.800
It's not that you don't have sympathy for them, but you have sympathy for them as people
00:38:46.800
who are lost, who are possessed in some way, not as people who genuinely are stuck in the
00:38:53.540
And that's a really important distinction to make.
00:38:56.460
Okay, we've got more about this in just a second.
00:38:59.280
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He did this whole Days of Girl thing, Days of Girlhood thing on Twitter, or not on Twitter,
00:40:22.160
Let me tell you something also about Dylan Mulvaney that is just freaky, and I've said
00:40:30.060
So we have been talking about him, and I've talked about him in very compassionate terms
00:40:38.420
too, like pleading to him to see that God did not make a mistake, that he never makes
00:40:44.620
mistakes, and that he made your body exactly what it was supposed to be.
00:40:48.600
He's gone through this, like, facial feminization surgery, all of this stuff.
00:40:52.920
Estrogen, which is not good for the male body to have too much estrogen.
00:40:56.500
It's not good for the female body to have too much testosterone.
00:41:00.980
And we discovered one day, this was, I don't know, a couple years ago, Brie?
00:41:08.160
Yeah, I think it was 2023 or beginning of 2023, maybe.
00:41:13.120
And, like, Brie, I don't even think you had been on the show at that point yet.
00:41:19.160
And definitely the other girl who worked on the team at the time to do social media had
00:41:23.720
never been on the show, had never, we had never publicly said her name.
00:41:28.080
I might have said the name Brie before, but you wouldn't have known last name.
00:41:33.600
And again, this social media girl, like, y'all probably don't even, y'all don't know the
00:41:42.360
So, and we all found one day when we were trying to look at Dylan Mulvaney's Instagram
00:41:51.420
Our show page, my page, Brie's page, our social media girls page.
00:42:01.000
There is no public information that says, that said Brie's first and last name, our social
00:42:05.780
media girls first and last name and associated with relatable.
00:42:08.340
And yet somehow he found a way to block all of us.
00:42:14.460
That to me tells me something that to me tells me, I think this is just my suspicion that
00:42:20.380
he had contacts or his people have contacts at Meta, at Instagram, that they were able
00:42:26.420
to figure out everyone who had access to our show page and that they, because you, you
00:42:33.780
can't, again, you can't find that publicly and he wouldn't have been able to find that.
00:42:38.600
But they found everyone who has access to our show page and basically blocked us for
00:42:46.160
Because there were other people on our team who were not logged into our show page who
00:42:55.340
And so anytime that he talks about, you know, being oppressed or whatever, he's got power.
00:43:02.700
You can ask any person how difficult it is, especially as a conservative, to even talk
00:43:10.700
I almost said countries, but, and like get an answer, get help.
00:43:17.140
So yeah, he doesn't, he doesn't like us, which is just so shocking.
00:43:22.060
So he went on The View to talk about his new book, which is crazy.
00:43:30.400
His, his book right now is number like 800 something in the top 100 books.
00:43:37.080
And it just came out, which I have a much smaller platform than Dylan Mulvaney.
00:43:43.580
At one point, my book was in the top 100 books on Amazon.
00:43:48.540
I'm, and I'm not even saying that to like brag, I'm just saying like, this is true of
00:43:52.420
a lot of new authors with any kind of platform or like new books.
00:43:55.500
They hit the top 100, but his has only gone down and he went on The View and has done all
00:44:00.220
of this national stuff and it has 19 reviews and 2.5 stars.
00:44:11.540
So he went on The View and he started talking about, you know, girls sports and things like
00:44:20.580
And they started talking about trans identifying athletes and Whoopi Goldberg brings up California
00:44:27.340
Governor Gavin Newsom's recent comments, acknowledging that it is unfair for trans
00:44:34.600
We haven't even talked about Gavin Newsom's podcast with Charlie Kirk.
00:44:38.440
Charlie did great, but I have so many thoughts on that.
00:44:41.260
Anyway, then she asks Dylan what he thinks about this comment.
00:44:48.080
The last time I played a sport, I was six years old and I was on a soccer team, but I
00:44:56.680
And so in the words of Wicked, I am not that girl.
00:44:59.860
Part of the problem that the trans community is facing, and it's the same problem that women
00:45:07.240
face is if you don't know anything about our bodies, you don't know how it works.
00:45:12.400
So when you come in and you say, oh, you know, these men, these are men, you know, competing
00:45:21.940
You're assuming that the women are weak and just can't do anything except for you.
00:45:35.240
First of all, if there is anyone who knows nothing about the female body, it is Dylan
00:45:43.580
And then he said he's someone who is the opposite sex.
00:45:46.420
He knows nothing negative about the female body.
00:45:50.360
Remember that one time when he said he walks around with tampons in case, like, there is
00:46:05.540
Because to say that, oh, the reason why we have sex-segregated athletics is because we
00:46:15.680
Oh, this is your inner misogynist that you don't believe that men can compete against women.
00:46:22.880
Do you remember when the Olympic U.S. women's soccer team, they played a Dallas-based under-15s
00:46:39.020
The 14 and 15-year-old boys beat the Olympic women's soccer team in a scrimmage a few years
00:46:50.140
To quote from, this is a Duke University study from 2017.
00:46:57.500
If you know sport, you know this beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:47:00.160
There is an average 10 to 12% performance gap between elite males and elite females.
00:47:05.580
The gap is smaller between elite females and non-elite males, but it's still insurmountable,
00:47:15.740
There's a performance gap between elite males and elite females.
00:47:25.060
Just in the single year 2017, Olympic world and U.S. champion Tori Bowie's 100 meters lifetime
00:47:31.620
best of 10.78 was beat 15,000 times by men and boys.
00:47:41.420
This is the most elite runner probably in the world.
00:47:46.720
She was beaten 15,000 times, not just from men, but also from non-elite boys.
00:47:55.000
There are high school boys that can beat the fastest female runner in the world.
00:48:01.660
The same is true of Olympic world and U.S. champion Allison Felix's 400 meters lifetime of 49.26.
00:48:12.580
2017, men and boys around the world outperformed her more than 15,000 times.
00:48:18.500
They note that this is a result not based on mere identity, not based on better resources,
00:48:28.000
It is because these boys have an androgynized body.
00:48:36.640
The results make clear that sex determines win share.
00:48:41.720
Female athletes are not competitive for the win against males.
00:48:46.080
The lowest end of the male range of testosterone is three times higher than the highest end of the female range.
00:48:57.240
Post-puberty, that's not changed by pumping a guy with estrogen.
00:49:06.480
He has more aerobic and anaerobic capacity in his lungs.
00:49:18.320
Every single cell of his body, except for some of his sperm cells, are XY.
00:49:30.720
These biological differences, Duke University says, explain the male and female secondary sex characteristics
00:49:35.980
which developed during puberty have lifelong effects, including the most important for success in sport.
00:49:44.100
There is no other physical, cultural, or socioeconomic trait as important as testes.
00:49:51.460
The number of men and boys beating the world's best women in the 100 and 400 meters is far from the exception.
00:50:09.520
I mean, science and statistics are basically just catching up to what we already know.
00:50:14.820
And I want to end this segment with this story that I came across on Acts this morning.
00:50:20.320
Just a reminder to you of why anytime you feel, gosh, this is just, it's too harsh.
00:50:30.820
I want to remind you that not only are you trying to outnice God, which is self-idolatry, which is a serious sin,
00:50:38.440
but you are also complicit in a movement that is ruining people's lives.
00:50:44.660
And that is the difference between toxic empathy and love.
00:50:47.400
Toxic empathy simply affirms someone's feelings because you don't want to make them feel bad.
00:50:56.860
It refuses to look at the people on the other side of the moral equation.
00:51:02.220
Remember, Christians are called to the truth in love.
00:51:05.760
That is the difficult and sometimes tense dichotomy that Christians are called to.
00:51:11.620
And the love that we are called to is not always seen as nice or easy or acceptable by the world.
00:51:18.720
And that's okay because friendship with God is enmity with the world.
00:51:30.540
He talks a lot about detransition and just the evil of this movement.
00:51:35.400
And so he went to a conference recently where he told this young person's story.
00:51:47.080
At Detransition Awareness Day, Forrest Smith describes running away to Portland after dropping out of college
00:51:52.560
and availing himself of a network of homeless youth services that allowed him to reinvent himself as a transgender woman
00:52:03.960
During COVID, he was rushed through for an emergency orchiectomy, that is the removal of testicles,
00:52:11.000
despite closure of the hospital for elective procedures with the aid of a referral specialist whose job was to manipulate billing codes for gender procedures,
00:52:20.620
received a letter from a psychiatrist testifying that testicle removal was urgent and life-saving.
00:52:31.660
When he then, after he got his testicles removed,
00:52:42.060
and insurance that paid to remove his testicles while he was homeless and drug addicted
00:52:47.180
would not cover removal of his breast implants.
00:53:04.320
But gosh, how many detransitioners have we talked to?
00:53:07.200
Especially women who will never have their voice back.
00:53:10.000
They will never have their reproductive abilities back.
00:53:12.340
They will never be able to breastfeed because they made this horror decision when they were young
00:53:17.100
that there, of course, is some responsibility on them for.
00:53:20.660
But they were affirmed by these adults who were too scared to tell them the truth
00:53:24.720
or maybe who really believed that simply affirming people's delusions was the most loving thing.
00:53:30.920
Whether someone regrets it or not later, it's still not loving.
00:53:36.540
And if Christians are not the one to stand up for it,
00:53:39.680
as Christians have stood up against evil for the past 2,000 years,
00:53:43.700
and we pass the buck to people who don't even know Christ,
00:53:48.480
who don't even believe that we are made in God's image,
00:53:51.300
the movement against this kind of wickedness will fail.
00:53:53.840
It has to be led by Christians who are uncompromising in the truth,
00:53:58.840
not despite our love for neighbor, but because of our love for neighbor.
00:54:03.360
And if you want more about this movement, about what is happening to people's bodies,
00:54:09.500
It's a short read, but it is really important for Christians to understand what is going on here.
00:54:15.860
And so that is why I'm not going to – I'm just not persuaded by your pronoun politeness.
00:54:22.880
I'm not persuaded by your moral extortion and your emotional manipulation
00:54:26.580
because lives and bodies are on the line, and I care about that.
00:54:31.880
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So we're going to talk about gym clothes because I posted about this on the fly on my Instagram story,
00:55:58.640
and I just got such a response from so many of you and so many people asking me to talk about this on the show.
00:56:05.960
Some of you are going to love this and be yelling amen, and some of you are going to be like,
00:56:11.400
this is mean, this is wrong, you shouldn't talk about this.
00:56:17.180
And now some of it is biblical, as we'll get into, but I mean, some of it is just my take.
00:56:26.960
Okay, so I joined a gym for the first time in like 12 years.
00:56:33.160
I have done other forms of workouts, every form of workout.
00:56:37.140
I've done CrossFit and cycling and Orange Theory and barre and Pilates and long-distance running and all that kind of stuff.
00:56:45.000
And I really like everything, really, in a different way.
00:56:48.700
But I decided to join just a regular old gym because I like weightlifting, and I had no idea really what to expect.
00:56:59.320
It's been a pretty good experience, except for the fact that the girls wear no clothes.
00:57:08.340
Obviously, I believe in modesty first as a heart posture, but it should also manifest itself in what we wear.
00:57:15.320
However, I would not call myself a legalist when it comes to this.
00:57:19.280
The Bible doesn't say how long our skirts have to be or if we can wear tank tops or not wear tank tops.
00:57:28.420
Modesty is one of those things that it's kind of you know it when you see it.
00:57:33.120
Different things look different on different people.
00:57:35.840
It's obvious when someone is wearing something for the purpose of provoking lust.
00:57:47.940
So anyway, I'm not what you would call a stickler on every single part of clothing.
00:57:55.600
You would have to be blind to not see what I am talking about in gyms.
00:58:04.600
The things that women are wearing these days are insane.
00:58:12.960
Bras that might as well just be like your regular brasier, not even a sports bra.
00:58:19.340
These people are wearing, these women are wearing publicly with the leggings that are not typical
00:58:25.500
leggings but actually scrunch in the butt crack so it looks like you have a wedgie.
00:58:31.300
Now, I remember when having a wedgie used to be a form of bullying.
00:58:40.000
Like, you know, the old 80s sitcoms where the nerd would get a wedgie and he would get hung
00:58:59.640
You've got your, like, translucent leggings stuck all the way up your butt.
00:59:05.160
And let me also just say it's not cute for the most part.
00:59:13.180
I say for the most part because obviously there are people who are professional athletes and
00:59:19.180
they're athletic and they look very strong in this stuff.
00:59:22.620
That's really kind of beside the point when we're talking about decency and appropriateness
00:59:29.780
But I just want to say, and I say this as someone who would also be talking about myself.
00:59:33.960
I am not saying this from the position of thinking I have perfect physique by any means.
00:59:38.300
I just want to be the wake-up call for you because TikTok has deluded you.
00:59:45.720
Like, there is no one that I've seen that would not look better in a shirt.
00:59:50.900
And I think that TikTok has really deluded us into thinking that these, like, light-colored,
00:59:58.680
wedgified leggings and these skimpy sports bras make us look more athletic.
01:00:10.440
I know from experience how easy it is to put on a shirt.
01:00:14.360
It's so easy to just put a shirt or a tank top over your sports bra.
01:00:20.420
It takes no effort at all that it is so obvious that you are making the choice that you are
01:00:26.320
making with your clothing because you are thirsty.
01:00:33.800
And I know that we hear, oh, you know, these women, they're not dressing for the male gaze.
01:00:42.200
Well, let me just say on behalf of the homegirls, we don't like it.
01:00:47.740
If you're dressing for us, you can put a shirt on.
01:00:56.300
Because if men have to wear a shirt, I've never seen a man at this gym without a shirt
01:01:02.780
If men have to wear shirts, then women should have to wear shirts, too.
01:01:06.820
It doesn't seem like that difficult of a rule to enforce.
01:01:16.440
I don't think gyms should have to, like, measure, you know, how long are your shorts?
01:01:20.100
I'm not saying that, although that'd be kind of cool if they did.
01:01:35.060
And I've gotten these responses saying, well, you know, it gets hot in there.
01:01:47.220
Because you are thinking about falling out of your clothes when you're doing your bent
01:01:54.700
It's actually, like, I would think very uncomfortable.
01:01:58.340
And there is no form of working out that I've ever done that I've thought, you know what?
01:02:02.380
Like, this would be way better if I could take my shirt off right now.
01:02:13.420
So, another part about this is that you will see this, and I think it's influencer culture
01:02:21.980
And we can debate all different kinds of things, if women should be wearing leggings at all,
01:02:29.900
But influencer culture has made women think that they need to dress like this when they
01:02:37.020
And you'll see dialogue, discussion among these influencers, like, well, this man was
01:02:47.280
Like, she'll have her phone set up, and she's, you know, wearing this outfit, and she sees
01:02:53.100
a guy in the background who doesn't realize he's being recorded checking her out.
01:02:56.640
And then she'll have this whole meltdown afterwards.
01:02:59.860
And she's like, I can't believe you're looking at me.
01:03:15.240
Girl, look, men are certainly responsible for their actions.
01:03:21.860
Jesus said, if your eye is causing you to lust, pluck it out.
01:03:31.660
However, you are also responsible for how you dress.
01:03:34.860
And there are a lot of men out there who do not follow the advice of Christ.
01:03:40.020
And so you can't really be surprised when they're checking you out.
01:03:43.600
Now, I'm not saying that that justifies any kind of disrespect or any kind of harassment
01:03:58.820
And I am respecting your body more than you're respecting your body when I say that.
01:04:03.560
Because you are worth more than self-objectification.
01:04:08.220
And you should respect yourself enough not to be thirsty when you're working out.
01:04:20.440
And I wish that this wasn't controversial to say.
01:04:25.760
And I'm sure that I will get a wide range of YouTube comments on there.
01:04:31.540
But I just wanted to share my thoughts in a permanent place.
01:04:45.160
However, like I sometimes go to like an infrared sauna gym.
01:04:52.780
And so sometimes I see people in there working out by themselves in like sports bras.
01:05:07.580
I've never seen anyone without any clothes, which is good.
01:05:15.340
It's got to be super distracting for dudes, too.
01:05:21.780
And then we don't have time to get into all of this.
01:05:25.200
But there is this like gym owner in the UK who wanted to start her own gym that was just for women.
01:05:30.820
And she is being absolutely lambasted by these trans activists because she was like, yeah, you got to actually be a woman like your biology has to be a woman.
01:05:41.620
And she is absolutely getting so much pushback.
01:05:47.980
But still, even if we're male, female split up, I don't want to see.
01:05:53.760
And for anyone who says mind your business, I would love to mind my business.
01:05:57.420
Don't shimmy by the squat rack if you want us to all mind our business.