Ep 1184 ｜ Are Stay-at-Home Moms Dumb？
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Summary
Is being a mom boring or intellectually stimulating? I ve got a tip for how you can answer really fun, but theological challenging questions in your home. Also, surprise surprise, Russell Moore has misrepresented me yet AGAIN in the pages of Christianity Today, and Bre and I will be judging all of the best and worst Met Gala outfits. We ve got all of this and more on today s episode of Relatable.
Transcript
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Is being a mom boring or intellectually stimulating? I've got a tip for how you can
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answer really fun but theological challenging questions in your home. Also, surprise, surprise,
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Russell Moore has misrepresented me yet again and toxic empathy in the pages of Christianity Today,
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and Brie and I will be judging all of the best and worst Met Gala outfits. We've got all of this
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and more. On today's episode of Relatable, it's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Go to goodranchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's goodranchers.com, code Allie.
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
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If you have not watched or listened to yesterday's episode, if you have not shared it, if you have
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not shared it and tagged Elon Musk or Pam Bondi, I need you to do that. I don't get anything out
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of that. I just want awareness about what is going on with KinderCare, who is getting hundreds of
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millions of dollars of our tax money and systemically covering up the abuse of children. I want them to
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be brought to justice. I want people to know about this, but also our government needs to know about
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this. Doge needs to know about this and the Justice Department needs to know about this because
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children matter. And this is why politics matter. Politics matter because policy matters because
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people matter. Politics affects policy. Policy affects people. People matter, especially people
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with no political capital, no means to defend themselves. Children. And so something needs to
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change there. And yesterday's episode, and specifically Edwin's really courageous and thorough
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reporting has the potential to make a difference. But I need all of your help in amplifying that.
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All right. Got quite a few things to talk about today. It is going to be, this is such a representation
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of all that you can expect on Relatable. We will be talking about culture. We will talk
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deeply about theology, but then we are also going to talk about the Met Gala. Somehow it is that time of
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year again. I feel like the Met Gala was like last week. And yet here we are judging Met Gala outfits
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again. For some of you, you absolutely love it when we talk about the Met Gala. And some of you,
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you don't like when we judge outfits. So if you don't like the outfit judgment part of Relatable,
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then I would just skip past that. And in this episode early, but for those of you who love that,
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you are in for a treat. All right. Before we get into all of it, let me remind you to sign up
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for Share the Arrows, y'all. It's going to be amazing. It's not just for moms. It is for any
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Christian woman, no matter what stage of life you are in. And it is only for women. This is not a
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conference where you can bring your husband, where you can bring your guy friend. It's not for them.
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They have their own men's spaces and men's conferences. It is so important for me to have
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Share the Arrows be a theological training and equipping conference only for women. We are hearing from
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Alisa Childers. We've got Ginger Duggar Voila. We've got Shauna Holman and Taylor Dukes. They're
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going to be on an all-star amazing holistic health panel, which I'm so pumped for. We've got
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your favorite, Katie Faust. Francesca Battistelli is coming back to lead us in worship. We've got two
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more speakers who will be leading us in a motherhood apologetics equipping panel, which again,
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I am just so excited about. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be here before you know it.
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I don't want you to miss out. I don't want you to have FOMO. So Related Bros, those of you who are
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listening to or watching this, you need to go to sharethearrows.com. Go ahead, get your girl,
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get your Related Bell in your life tickets to Share the Arrows. Maybe go ahead and get two so she can
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bring a friend or maybe you can collude with a fellow Related Bro and y'all can both get tickets
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for your wives. They will be so excited and so pumped about that. We've got different VIP options
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too, but the general admission is going to be amazing. I am so, so excited about the encouragement
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that we will receive that day. And of course, I will be speaking too. I always forget to mention
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that. So go to sharethearrows.com and get your tickets today. All right, let's talk about this
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debate that is going on all over social media. It started last week when someone who I guess
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fancies herself some kind of conservative commentator, although she is very pro-choice
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and pro a lot of values that most conservatives and certainly Christian conservatives don't align
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with. She posted a video talking about the trad wife trend and how conservatives, the Republican
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party really shouldn't be promoting the trad wife lifestyle, shouldn't be promoting hobbies such as
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baking sourdough. She says that she's all for it, that she promotes traditional values, but she also
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says that you really need to find a new hobby that makes you money. She says, guess what,
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baby girl, that lifestyle working out, a man, a provider, you just get to sit at home, bake bread
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every day, slim to none. I would say none. And that's going to work out for you or quite literally
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anyone you know. Is that the real transcript of what the video? Okay. I'm not totally sure exactly what
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that means. And then she goes on to say, like, you guys are cringe. She says, okay, let's bring some
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other things to the table besides sourdough. Guys want to be mentally stimulated as well as
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physical. Okay. And so this caused a large debate online. People obviously took issue with what she
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said. Steve Dace's daughter, Anastasia Hibb said, you need to follow God's calling for your life. If
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he's calling you to stay at home and provide for your family by cooking, cleaning, and taking care of
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children, then that is honorable because God called you to do so. Making fun of women because they're
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following God's calling for their life is cringe. Joel Berry of the Babylon Bee said, my wife was
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trad before it was a trend. We were willing to be poor to make it happen. Totally worth it. Stay at
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home moms contribute more than sourdough. They're doing the most important work of all the formation
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of the souls of our children. John Mason, whom we've talked to before, he says his wife had no
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interest in being a trad wife, but she did have every bit of interest in being a biblical wife and
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a mother at the age of 26. When we got married, she's a mother of six beautiful children that she's
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raising, nurturing, equipping, and educating in Christ. Caitlin Francis is another ex-user. She says,
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quoting, stay at home mom isn't intellectually stimulating. She says, ma'am, I have more conversations
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with my children about theology, politics, history, and or culture before 9am than you could ever dream of
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having with your woke co-worker in the break room. This is a random account, but this is just kind of
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funny. She said, new E mom, I don't know who this person is. My husband doesn't want to be mentally
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stimulated by me when he gets home at 7pm. He has to save up his final brain cell for whatever deep
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philosophical question our four-year-old swings at him at bedtime. Gosh, that is so true. Okay,
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so I obviously have thoughts about this as someone who has talked about this whole trad wife trend
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in the past and who also is a traditional woman and who is a wife and a mom and a Christian. And I
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think it's great for women to stay at home. Obviously, I have this podcast, which affords me a lot of
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flexibility to still prioritize my family and doing something that I love and also feel called to.
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But I do believe that there are some jobs that are simply not conducive to motherhood when your kids
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are really little, like most corporate jobs, a lot of jobs that are completely inflexible. And so I am all
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for moms staying at home full time. Now, that might mean she's also a sub stack writer. Maybe that means
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that she is also, I don't know, a swim lesson teacher. Or maybe she also has an Etsy shop as an artist in some
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way. Most moms that I know who stay home are also doing other things with the other talents that God
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has given them while still prioritizing their kids and their family. And I think all of that is great.
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What I don't agree with when it comes to this trad wife trend, as I've talked about many times,
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is the attempt to make traditionalism or being a traditional wife and mom into an aesthetic.
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The trad wife trend online is largely, not exclusively, but largely a cosplay by women who
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are working while they're also telling you that they're not working and that you should not work.
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So they're spending eight to 12 hours a day making content. And it's not the work that bothers me as
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much as just the hypocrisy of that. I mean, I think that women can work in a way that allows
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them to prioritize their family. This job allows me to do that. But there is a dishonesty in trying
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to promote a particular lifestyle that makes it look like you live in the 1800s. And that makes it
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seem like this is the only way to live the Christian biblical life, living on a homestead and,
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you know, raising chickens and baking sourdough when that is not the same thing as being a biblical
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woman. All of those things can be good. And there are millions of women across the country
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who actually honestly live that life, but aren't trying to promote it as some kind of superficial
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aesthetic. And a lot of the women, again, who are promoting that aesthetic and are trying to create
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some kind of rule book for what it looks like to be a feminine woman or a biblical woman,
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don't actually possess those values themselves. And so I've always said it's much more important to
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be biblical than it is to be quote unquote traditional because traditions are started by
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man and they can be really good, especially when they're rooted in scripture, but they have to be
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rooted in scripture in order to be good. You can live a biblical life as a single woman or as a wife
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that doesn't have children yet. You can live a biblical life of biblical womanhood if you live
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in New York City or if you live in the middle of nowhere or if you live in the suburbs. And so I just
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think it's really important that our standards are actually set by scripture and not by social
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media. And so I'm not necessarily against all criticism of this like whole trad trend. What I am
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against is this critique that if you are a stay at home mom or if you are a quote unquote traditional
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wife that you are not being intellectually stimulated and that you are not able to bring
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anything intellectually to your home or to your husband because that is just not true. So I have
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three points to make on that and then I've got some sub theological points within that that I want
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to make. So I'm going to take us on a journey here. So here's my first point. The first point
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is that being intellectually stimulated is important for every person. You will never hear me say,
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oh, well, there's just a season of time where you shouldn't be learning. You shouldn't be growing.
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You shouldn't be reading. It's okay if you're dumb. It's not. Christians are called to love the Lord,
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our God, with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We are called if we are moms to teach our
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children. We are called if we are any kind of Christian woman to mentor other women, to learn
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from other mentors. That means that we should be reading our Bibles, that we should be talking about
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the Bible. We should be knowing theology. We should have the ability to reason. We should be praying
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for wisdom as the book of James tells us to do. And we should be applying all of these things to
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whatever task is at hand. So whether you are single and working or whether you are a stay-at-home
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mom, women have a brain. They have a brain that needs to be exercised and sharpened and used every
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single day. Any hyper-patriarchy bro who asserts that it's unimportant for a woman to be smart or well-read
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or well-spoken, I think is just insecure. And they are out of step, honestly, with church history. If you
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look at the Puritans, if you go back to the women of the Bible, Lois and Eunice, that passed down
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their Christian faith, their theology to Timothy, we see Achilla and Priscilla corrected the theology
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of Apollos. And that was a couple, Priscilla obviously being the woman. But the Bible says
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that both of them, they knew the gospel well, and they were able to correct the theology of this
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very articulate Apollos. Mary's Magnificat demonstrates a deep understanding of theology.
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Women in all stations should steward well the mind that God has given them for His glory and the good
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of other people. In fact, if fewer women allowed our feelings to outpace our thinking, we would not have
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so many of the cultural and moral issues we have today. We see that in how the majority of women vote.
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Okay, so that's my first point. I agree or I think that women should be intellectually stimulated and
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that we can and should bring a lot to the table intellectually. Number two, being a girl boss is
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not always intellectually stimulating. In fact, many professions actually reward you for falling in
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line, following protocol without asking questions, pleasing your boss, and that's it. In fact, in corporate
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America, you are expected to censor your thoughts, police your speech, limit your creativity so that
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you don't rock the boat. The right words, say the right words, follow the rules, and you can get ahead,
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especially if you are a woman. Intellect, critical thinking, creativity are not required in many,
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many jobs today. So I just want to say, working outside of the home or having like additional
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hobbies outside of being a wife and mom does not guarantee that you are going to be smart,
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that you are going to be challenged intellectually, and that you're going to be able to bring more
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to the table regarding intelligence. There's just no guarantee of that because so many realms of the
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world today outside of the home do not reward being smart and thinking critically. And here's the
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third point. Here's where we're going to go on a little bit of a theological journey. Being a mom can absolutely
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be intellectually stimulating. It absolutely can. A lot of it is more physically and emotionally tough in the
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early years. But if you wait until your child turns four, five, and six, you will see that this is not a time as a
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mom to be dumb. This is a time where we are using our brains a lot. You better be really smart because
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your kids are about to ask you some really, really smart questions. As long as you're not pacifying
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them with a screen all day and you're allowing their mind to work and observe things and ask questions,
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they are going to ask you things that really challenge you. Now, let me give you a caveat before
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I get into the rest of that point. I know that I say all of this as someone who has
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a podcast. I write. I do speaking engagements. My husband and I work together full time. I have lots
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of opportunity to talk to adults throughout most of my days. So I'm not discounting the importance of
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having adult time in order to stimulate your mind. In fact, I think you should. You should be going to
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church. You should be meeting up with other moms when you can, maintaining friendships however you can,
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going to Bible study. Now, maybe you can't do all of that in one day or sometimes even in one week,
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but it is important for adult community. But even outside of that, your kids, even if you stay at
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home all day and you don't have other adult time, I can tell you when I don't have other adult time,
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when I'm not podcasting, when I'm not talking to people about, you know, cultural things and
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theology. My kids absolutely challenge me and challenge my brain and challenge my heart. And my
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oldest especially has been asking so many good questions about creation, about the fall, about
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heaven. Everything, it seems like, turns into some kind of opportunity to talk about what's true and
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what's not. So when she asks me, for example, like, why did God put the snake in the garden? Or do bad
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guys go to heaven? Or why did this is a recent one? Why do people celebrate Passover if kids died?
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Like, I need to know my Bible to help navigate the right answers. And an aside on this point, but this is
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like part of the journey. So it's a really important and kind of long aside. On this particular point,
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I want to give a little bit of advice that I shared on Instagram, and I'm going to flesh it out. And
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I'll show you how I kind of do this, not only with my kids, but with myself. So on these theological
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questions that really challenge you, I just want to encourage you that you don't have to know
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every answer. Maybe you're a new Bible reader, or maybe your child is asking a question that no one
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fully knows because those questions exist. You know, scholars haven't even been able to answer
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some of the questions that your kids are going to ask you. It is always safe to go back to the three
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G's. And I will explain that in just a second. I will explain what the three G's are in a moment.
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That's sevenweekscoffee.com. Code Allie. Okay. When your child asks you a question,
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you don't know the answer immediately, or maybe you do know the answer, but you just don't know
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how to say it in a way that they will fully understand. Here are three things that you can
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always go back to. It's a really safe way to answer any question about God or the Bible.
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Number one, God's goodness. So God is good. Everything he does, he dies out of his goodness.
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We know that. And then the second G is God's glory. God does everything for his own glory,
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even when we don't understand it. And then the third G is the gospel. So God's goodness and glory
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show up most in the gospel, which says God sent his only son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins
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so that we could be friends with God and live forever with him. Everything points to that.
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And actually, it's not just that these three Gs can help you answer questions that your kids ask.
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They can help you in your own thinking as you think through the answers to questions for yourself,
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or as you come across a passage that is really difficult and you don't really understand.
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Maybe it's hard to see God's goodness and glory. I think this is true, especially throughout the
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Old Testament. Don't beat yourself up for asking those questions or feeling uncomfortable. A lot of
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the Bible is uncomfortable because not everything is prescriptive. A lot of it is just descriptive,
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telling you terrible things that happened. But a lot of things we see God allowed happen,
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or God even caused to happen or told his people to do that makes us feel uncomfortable today.
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But when we shift our own thinking into focusing on the three Gs, how can I see God's goodness,
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God's glory, and the gospel in this passage? It really shifts things. It really changes what we get
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out of Scripture and how we seek God when we are reading Scripture. So let me give you an example of this.
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The question that I got, why do people celebrate the Passover if the firstborn sons of Egyptians
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died? And I'm not about to tell you what I said to my daughter. This is a lot deeper and more
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complicated than that. But it's a good question for us, I think, as we're reading a passage like this.
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So if we start with the knowledge that God is good, and he does things for his own glory,
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and that the gospel truth that he would send his son to die for our sins exists throughout
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Scripture, if we start with those assumptions, we can then understand that Passover is celebrated
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not because of the death that occurred, but because God was making a way for his people to be saved.
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So it took this action, this very tragic action, this killing, to convince Pharaoh to let God's people
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go and to free them from slavery. And the lamb's blood that was placed over the door frames of the
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houses of Israel that signaled God's Spirit to pass over them was actually a signifier of the gospel.
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It was a signifier of what was to come, the blood of the final spotless lamb, Jesus, which cleanses us
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from sin and saves us from eternal death. And also, an interesting point, in Exodus 4.22,
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God calls Israel his firstborn son. So he says, you, I'm paraphrasing Egypt and Pharaoh,
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you're killing and oppressing my firstborn. I will now kill yours. So here he kills his enemy's
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firstborn son to save his own firstborn son, Israel. But in the New Testament, what does God do?
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He kills his own son to save his enemies, who become his sons and daughters. So in the Old
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Testament, God kills his enemy to save his children. In the New Testament, God kills his child to save
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his enemies. How incredible is that? These are the verses that come to mind for me when I'm thinking
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through that passage. And the first one is Romans 5.15. And it's, for if many died through one man,
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so that's Adam's, trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that
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one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And then there's also Colossians 1. I love that whole chapter.
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I always have. It refers to Jesus as the firstborn of all creation. So in verse 18, we read,
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he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
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So above and before Israel is Jesus Christ, both the redeemer for Israel and for Gentiles. And in
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verse 21 of Colossians 1, Paul says, and you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil
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deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and
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blameless and above reproach before him. So all of the death and the sacrifice and the warring for the
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promised land and the punishment for sins and the celebrations of God's provision in the Old
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Testament, all of it points to Jesus. All of it is a signifier of the Messiah that God had preordained
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to save his people once and for all for their good and his glory. And all the pain and all the sickness
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and all the sin and all the injustice that still goes on today, all of these two are signals of what
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is to come. So the tension builds, Satan is desperate, evil abounds, and yet God is not doing
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nothing about evil. His wrath is kindling. He will one day come back and avenge his people. He will punish
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all wrongdoing. He will do away with wickedness forever and ever. Psalm 37 assures us of that. It assures
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us that we have nothing to worry about when it seems like the bad guys are winning. God will take care of
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them. And we can be at peace trusting that. So God is good and God will be glorified. And God's gospel
00:26:30.280
is the most prominent display of this goodness and glory. And it is woven throughout the Bible,
00:26:35.940
throughout history. It is the lighthouse guiding us home. And that kind of thinking, those three G's
00:26:42.440
can be applied to every single theological question, every single passage in the Bible.
00:26:48.500
And that shift in perspective, it will change how you read scripture and it will change how you teach
00:26:55.700
your kids. So to the moms, to the stay at home moms, to the Christian moms in particular, we are called to
00:27:05.600
not only put our bodies into motherhood, but our brains into motherhood, our hearts into motherhood.
00:27:12.500
And God has both called and equipped us to do that because we are raising the next generation
00:27:18.220
of moms and dads and leaders and missionaries and pastors and voters. And the last thing we need,
00:27:24.700
the very last thing we need is intellectually morally inept moms. And that is part of why,
00:27:33.380
by the grace of God, this show exists because women are smart and we have the capacity to think
00:27:39.460
and to reason and to research and to teach in the right context. Don't freak out and edify and mentor
00:27:46.880
and help shape culture in a way that glorifies God, to raise a respectful ruckus for the things that
00:27:53.380
matter, to push back against the lies that are most pervasive among women, like toxic empathy,
00:28:00.040
like the cult of self-affirmation. And guess what? You do not have to have a podcast or a platform to do
00:28:07.080
that. You don't have to be an influencer to have influence. You can do that as a mom. You can do
00:28:12.000
that as a wife. You can do that as a single woman. Another message you've heard me say is that your
00:28:16.680
Christian life, your calling does not start when you get married and have kids. Those things matter
00:28:22.620
immensely. They are so important. We should cherish them a lot more as a culture than we currently do.
00:28:28.080
But for the Christian woman out there who is waiting to become a wife and a mom, I always just want
00:28:32.760
to remind you that the fullness of joy is there for you right now in the presence of Christ, not when
00:28:39.660
your relationship status changes and not when you have children. That's actually a trick of the devil
00:28:45.380
to get you to be discontent and ungrateful for what you currently have to make you believe that you
00:28:52.080
cannot have peace and joy and fulfillment into some future date that may not even come, by the way.
00:28:59.260
Remember, today has enough trouble of its own. But those are my thoughts on that. That as a mom,
00:29:07.760
you have plenty that challenges you in all different kinds of ways. And let us just make sure,
00:29:13.640
though, that whether we're a mom or not, but especially if we're a mom, that we are stepping up
00:29:19.460
to the task and that we are using the fullness of the minds that God has given us to his glory for the
00:29:26.700
good of those around us, including for the good of our children. All right. That's all I want to say
00:29:32.680
to weigh in on that debate. And let's see. We've got about 18 minutes left. Brie, what should we do?
00:29:39.440
Should we go straight into the Met Gala or should I talk about Russell Moore?
00:29:45.420
Russell Moore Met Gala. He wasn't at the Met Gala.
00:29:50.220
Um, we got a lot of, a lot of outfits to review. Okay. You think we have 18 and a half minutes
00:29:55.480
worth of outfits? I'm not sure that we do. If you want to do Russell Brand or Russell Brand,
00:30:00.880
I keep saying that. You always say Russell Brand. Last week on the phone,
00:30:03.860
um, uh, Brie said, did you want to talk about that article that Russell Brand wrote about you?
00:30:10.340
And I was like, what? He won't come on my show, but he's writing articles about me.
00:30:16.780
That's really sad. Russell Brand won't come on the show. As far as we know.
00:30:21.220
No. Well, now he's got things going on. He's got, he's got legal, legal problems. So I don't know if
00:30:28.680
he can't even do something like that. No, Russell Moore. Okay. I guess, I don't know. Sometimes I go
00:30:33.840
back and forth as Russell Moore just like want attention. I don't know. I guess. Okay. I'll talk about it
00:30:39.860
quickly. Um, because the, the evangelical world, some people in the evangelical world just pretend
00:30:48.280
to be unable to grasp the argument of toxic empathy and the other works that are criticizing
00:30:56.720
the dominance of empathy as like the preeminent value in our culture today. Like, and the thing
00:31:04.160
is like you heard, um, you heard my guest last week, David Zweig, uh, say that he loves the concept
00:31:11.820
and the phrase toxic empathy. Now he is not a conservative. He is not a Christian. And yet
00:31:18.900
he fully grasped, uh, grasped the concept and he was able to apply it to a lot of the terrible
00:31:25.560
policy that we saw surrounding, uh, surrounding COVID. And yet people who claim to be Christians,
00:31:32.580
who claim to have a biblical worldview, pretend like they cannot wrap their mind around what the
00:31:38.340
argument is. Instead, they create these straw men and the straw man. And that means you're creating
00:31:44.260
an argument that doesn't actually exist. And you're fighting that when we should be steel manning an
00:31:49.640
argument. So you're trying to properly represent what your opposition says and then dismantle it.
00:31:54.840
But if you're straw manning it, then you are fighting against like a scarecrow. It's not a real
00:31:59.800
person. It's not real. So that is what is going on with so many, if not all of the professing
00:32:06.280
Christians I have heard that say, Oh my gosh, toxic empathy. You're saying all empathy is bad.
00:32:12.500
Oh no, we need more empathy. I can't believe that you're demonizing all empathy. This is just
00:32:17.540
gaslighting. All you have to do is read the subtitle of the book. And you know, that's not the argument,
00:32:23.160
how progressives exploit Christian compassion. And we go through five subjects. We go through
00:32:30.520
abortion. We go through gender. We go through marriage slash sexuality. We go through immigration
00:32:36.660
and we go through justice. And we look at the mechanisms that are in place to pull on people's
00:32:44.060
heartstrings to convince you that the only moral, compassionate, and empathetic position is to be
00:32:49.840
on the progressive side of all of these issues. It's not just about feeling for someone. It is
00:32:55.420
using empathy as a form of emotional manipulation, as a form of moral extortion to persuade you that
00:33:02.720
you must use someone's preferred pronouns, or you must be pro-choice, or you must be for light sentences
00:33:09.880
for, you know, in the name of racial equity. You must be for borderlessness in order to truly love
00:33:16.640
people because you feel so deeply for them when you hear their story. And my argument is not that
00:33:21.600
we shouldn't feel for people. It's that we are called to something better and deeper and truer than
00:33:25.900
this superficial toxic empathy, which actually blinds you to reality and morality. We are called
00:33:31.320
to the truth in love. 1 Corinthians 13, 6 says that love never rejoices in wrongdoing, but rejoices with
00:33:38.400
the truth. And since God is love, 1 John 4, 8, and he gets to define it, and he also is the source of
00:33:44.500
truth. There is no way that we can disobey God, disagree with God, and truly love our neighbor.
00:33:49.800
We just can't. The most loving thing we can do at all times is agree with God. Yet empathy doesn't
00:33:55.260
care about the truth. It simply puts yourself in someone else's shoes, and it stops there. It is
00:34:00.240
amoral. It is neither inherently immoral or moral. It is amoral. It really depends on which way you allow
00:34:07.440
your empathy to take you. Are you allowing your empathy to take you towards affirmation of sin
00:34:12.400
and validation of lies and the support of destructive policies because you feel so deeply for this one
00:34:18.160
person that's in front of you that you're ignoring the second order of facts? Or are you allowing your
00:34:23.300
empathy to simply see this person as an image bearer of God, to love them as Christ would love them,
00:34:29.600
and then you are refusing to support sin, but you are still grounded in the truth, and you are supporting
00:34:36.780
policies that are actually just and rooted in biblical justice and truth. So that's the direction. Those are
00:34:44.060
the directions that you can go with empathy, but toxic empathy is always bad. And if you're curious
00:34:48.720
about that, you are welcome. You are welcome to read the book, Toxic Empathy. It's a really quick read.
00:34:55.400
It's an easy read, but if I do say so myself, it is a very compelling read. I'm very thankful. It's a New York
00:35:00.240
Times bestseller. It's gotten a lot of criticism because of that, but thousands and thousands of you have also
00:35:07.220
just shared the errors with me, and it has helped and equipped you, and I'm very thankful for that.
00:35:11.700
Russell Moore, he is the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today. He has become very progressive over the years.
00:35:16.980
He used to be the head of the ERLC, Trump Derangement Syndrome. Same thing happened to David French.
00:35:22.480
He wrote a piece not too long ago comparing me because I said Matthew 25. Jesus is talking,
00:35:31.180
the least of these is not the world's poor. It's actually the least of these are brothers and
00:35:36.340
sisters in Christ who are being persecuted. He said that take is akin to being a 20th century
00:35:44.020
German soldier, so a Nazi. So he doesn't like me. Surprise, surprise. He's also going to misrepresent
00:35:50.200
my book. So the title of the article is Hellfire and Brimstone Empathy. So he says empathy is
00:36:03.880
necessary. He argues that empathy is necessary because if you are a pastor, for example, and you
00:36:12.340
have someone who has a drinking problem, you have to be able to put yourself in their shoes in order to
00:36:18.440
really understand what they're going through and therefore help them. He says, without empathy,
00:36:24.120
the problem is not simply that we will deny the humanity and created goodness of other people,
00:36:28.960
although that's certainly a problem, is that we will have a superficial view of sin,
00:36:32.600
seeing it in the cartoonish terms of a person who sets out to be a villain. Of course, that is
00:36:37.920
not the argument of toxic empathy at all. He might be referring to Joe Rigney's sin of empathy,
00:36:43.900
but that is also not his argument. So no matter how you shake it, he is misrepresenting what we
00:36:50.120
are saying, that empathy is powerful and it can very easily turn toxic and get you to support sin.
00:36:56.300
It is not about denying the humanity of a person. In fact, my book is all about seeing the Imago Dei,
00:37:03.720
especially in the first three chapters, and we have to keep that in mind in order to love someone well.
00:37:09.520
Empathy is not necessary to see the humanity in someone. And empathy is not necessary for the
00:37:16.100
pastor who is helping someone who is struggling with an addiction to alcohol. That could play a
00:37:23.040
part. Again, it's amoral, but it is not necessary. What is necessary in those situations for the
00:37:28.920
Christian is to know the truth and to love the person in front of us. And love is so much deeper
00:37:35.000
than empathy. We can love someone, treat them well, because that is the example that Christ set
00:37:41.160
out for us without putting ourselves in their shoes. We could do that. And in some cases,
00:37:46.920
it's really good to do that, but it's not always necessary to do that. To claim that empathy is the
00:37:52.860
necessary mechanism that Christians must employ to love people well, that is not biblical.
00:37:58.660
We simply do not see that in scripture. There is importance in understanding people's pain.
00:38:06.020
There may be, again, even importance at times of being able to put yourself in someone's shoes,
00:38:11.620
but you can love people without that. And to say that we're denying the Imago Dei because we're
00:38:16.700
questioning empathy as the highest value, I mean, that's just straight up slander. I guess in this
00:38:21.940
case, libel. All right. That's all I wanted to say to that. He would do very well to read the book,
00:38:27.080
as with David French. I sent David French a copy. I haven't heard back from him. I don't think that
00:38:33.560
he's read it. He also completely purposely misrepresented the book and the New York
00:38:37.640
Times. And this is malicious, by the way. It's not because they can't read or they don't have time to
00:38:41.840
read. It is malicious. They are purposely creating these evangelical conservative monsters to their
00:38:49.220
readers, knowing that the readers of the New York Times and Christianity Today aren't going to dig
00:38:53.500
into these things themselves. And they're just going to believe whatever these writers say.
00:38:58.180
And they've created this completely false caricature of us in their heads and then mission
00:39:04.100
accomplished for people like Russell Moore and David French. It's very sad. It's very sad the power
00:39:09.500
that Trump has had over people's spiritual lives. Like he really shouldn't. You shouldn't allow any
00:39:15.160
politician to push you in any direction like that. All right. We'll talk about the Net Gala.
00:39:20.960
Okay. She's, Brie is chomping at the bit, chomping at the bit. Like she's just so excited about this.
00:39:27.620
So let me, I got to pause though. I got to do an ad and then we'll get into the Net Gala.
00:39:32.220
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Okay, now we only have seven minutes, so we got to go through it. Speed run.
00:41:00.680
Okay, so tell us about the theme. Okay, so the exhibition, they always have an exhibition and
00:41:06.460
then like a dress code. The exhibition was called Super Fine Tailoring Black Style. And the dress code
00:41:12.740
was tailored for you. So the whole thing was about black menswear, which I think it's just
00:41:21.780
menswear. So that was the theme. Not black menswear. Black menswear. Like menswear that is black.
00:41:30.040
No, no. Not for black men. The men are black. Oh. Yeah, yeah. Oh. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yes. The clothes that black men
00:41:37.320
have worn in history. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Yep. So really, I think a lot of people took that as,
00:41:46.680
you know, it's just like normal menswear and tailored outfits and things like that. And so...
00:41:53.000
People just wear what they want. A lot of them just wear what they want. They don't care. At the
00:41:56.500
end of the day. Some of them you'll see are pretty on theme. And I will say, I love a good,
00:42:01.920
like, blazer. I love a good blazer on a woman. And so I think some of these are really, really fun
00:42:07.400
outfits. And so I think that this is one of the ones, this is one of the Met Gala themes that I've
00:42:12.400
liked. Okay. So I, Met Gala, we'll just remind everyone, it's supposed to be weird. People are
00:42:18.540
supposed to wear weird stuff. It's not necessarily just what looks good or what is in style. It's
00:42:24.280
supposed to be quirky. So as we are rating people one through 10, we are rating people based on
00:42:31.400
whether they fit the theme or whether we just like it. What's the rubric?
00:42:39.180
I don't think we have enough knowledge to know if it really fits the theme. I would say we're
00:42:44.380
rating based on if we like it. Vibes alone. 10 being the best. Yeah. One being the worst. Yeah.
00:42:50.060
Okay. Let's, let's just go through a minute order. Let's do Rihanna.
00:43:00.760
Sure. I always have such a hard time seeing it because it's kind of far away and then I
00:43:05.320
have a glare on this one. Um, so she, she basically announced that she's pregnant.
00:43:11.360
Okay. I was about to ask that and I didn't want to, you know, better. It's hard to see in this
00:43:17.780
photo, but no, I can tell. Yeah. Well, good for her. Congratulations, Rihanna. I feel like if you're
00:43:23.180
going for menswear, this is like a feminine way to do that. I kind of like it. Like I'm probably
00:43:30.380
going to read it like, I don't know, an eight. Okay. Yeah. What do you think? Um, six. You'll see
00:43:41.360
like villains. Oh. Like with the hats. A lot of them went for that look. Are they trying
00:43:47.820
to? Why? I think that's just like their, what they took as the theme, I guess. Okay. Yeah.
00:43:53.800
Okay. Zendaya. Is that how you say it? I think so. Yeah. I mean, I love this on her. Everyone's
00:44:02.300
doing the like kind of shaded hat thing. The hat. Yep. Which I feel like is so Melania. Yep.
00:44:08.040
Sure. They don't mean to do that. I love, I mean, I actually don't love the hat as much
00:44:13.640
with this outfit. I love the outfit on her. I think it's tailored so pretty.
00:44:17.300
Yeah. She looks amazing. She always does though. She does. I don't know if she always does at the
00:44:22.720
Met Gala. Sometimes she has some weird stuff, but she's pretty known for being like a standout at
00:44:27.160
these things. I think she looks great. Yeah. Me too. I've never seen her talk. I've like,
00:44:32.360
I've only seen pictures of her. I don't think I've ever like watched her in a movie. Really?
00:44:36.600
Yeah. Wow. She's done a lot too. She was in Euphoria, which I never saw. It looked too
00:44:41.240
depressing for me. Spider-Man movies. Oh yeah. No, haven't seen any of that. Okay. See, I think
00:44:49.300
this is, maybe I rated Rihanna too high. Cause I think this is a lot better than Rihanna's. Like
00:44:53.380
I'm going to go with a nine and a half. I'm docking half a point. Cause I actually like think that the
00:44:57.440
hat could have been different. Okay. Yeah. I would have said a nine. Okay. Okay. Um,
00:45:05.020
Jenna Ortega, let me tell y'all, I tried to say who I, she was like, Oh, did you see any outfits?
00:45:11.920
I was like, yeah, Jenny Ortega. And Brie was like, who, who is that? I've never, she was like, Oh,
00:45:18.760
Jenna Ortega. And I was like, so surprised that Brie didn't know. Cause she knows all
00:45:25.420
celebrities, but. Okay. Can I just say though, in my defense, there is a pretty famous guy named
00:45:30.300
Kenny Ortega. That's who I may have thought you were talking about at first. Oh, okay. So
00:45:36.840
it's okay. Brie knows she knows. Okay. I like this one because I think it's a beautiful dress on her.
00:45:42.440
Like I just fits her so well. And it's made out of rulers, which I think is interesting.
00:45:49.760
I don't know if that has something to do with tailored, like measuring. I'm not sure you don't
00:45:56.380
use those kinds of rulers for measuring. What do you think? I think she, I mean, it fits her so well.
00:46:02.740
Yeah. And I think it's unique. I think it's creative. I think it's really comfy. She always looks really
00:46:07.760
spooky. I think she's in that show Wednesday playing Wednesday Adams and she looks so much
00:46:13.580
older. Like I know, I know. I thought she was a child, but also she's kind of taken on that persona
00:46:18.720
in real life. So yeah, she always kind of looks a little bit dark. How do you sit down? I don't know.
00:46:28.020
Um, okay. I'm going to rate this again. I rated Rihanna too high. Cause now I feel like I have to,
00:46:35.120
cause okay. I'm going to lower Rihanna to a seven. Like I would probably call this maybe not as good
00:46:40.500
as Zendaya. So I'd probably call it like an 8.5. Okay. I was going to say eight. Okay. Uh, Lisa.
00:46:48.440
I don't know if she has a last name. She doesn't. Okay. This is a K-pop person. Yeah. She was in the
00:46:54.800
band, uh, the K-pop band Blackpink. Now she's doing her own thing. Is she Korean? She, so she's,
00:47:02.400
I think from Thailand, but yeah, it was a Korean band. Yeah. Okay. So the re we can't zoom in here
00:47:09.400
because it'd be weird. But the reason why people are talking about this is because it looks like
00:47:15.080
on her, I don't know if she's wearing like a corset type thing underneath this, like a onesie
00:47:21.380
situation, but it looks like Rosa Parks's face is on her crotch. Yeah. You heard that right. Yeah.
00:47:28.760
Little did Rosa Parks know when she refused to get up from her seat that her face would be on a K-pop
00:47:38.000
star crotch many years later. She could only dream. I know. Yeah. I have a dream. It seems a little bit
00:47:45.620
different than this. Um, just weird. Is it Rosa Parks? I haven't verified, but that's what it looks like.
00:47:52.260
There are, I think, uh, like a bunch of different faces on that underwear. It's like a pattern made up of
00:47:57.820
faces. Okay. Um, so that's the one that people are. Okay. But is it because we're honoring black men?
00:48:04.200
And so that's supposed to be like a black hero. Yeah. And she is from Thailand. Yeah. Okay. There's
00:48:11.080
also controversy because she supposedly has said the N word before and never apologized. And people are
00:48:16.760
really upset about that too. So that's why this is her making up for it. This is her attempting to
00:48:22.260
make up for it. Okay. Let's do just like a couple more. Let's do, which ones should we do? Okay. Wait,
00:48:29.220
let's do Gail King. Let's do Gail King. No, I'm sorry. Um, no, I'm going to probably do three.
00:48:40.340
Yeah. I was going to say two. This is awful. Yeah. It just doesn't fit very well at all.
00:48:48.360
I guess I can kind of see the theme with the lapels. Maybe that's supposed to be like a suit.
00:48:52.580
I just don't think it fits well. Yeah. I think in another style, the purple could work with her,
00:48:58.060
but no, no, no, no. So, okay. I said three. You said, uh, did I say a number? Now I can't remember
00:49:05.520
two. I'll give her a two. Okay. Let's do Emma Chamberlain. She's such an interesting
00:49:10.320
human to me. Yeah. So this is, there's no back. It's like a one strap. Yeah. I don't like it
00:49:20.820
personally. I'm probably going to go with a four better than Gail King. Wow. Better than Gail
00:49:27.300
King's probably. Cause it's like, I don't know if it's a little more on theme and I feel like she's
00:49:32.820
trying, but I don't like it. I don't like how it fits at all. No, I don't like it. Yeah.
00:49:39.840
I'm giving it a three. Okay. Um, I want to do Sabrina and Lizzo, but do you want to do Andre?
00:49:47.680
Is that important to you? Yeah. You got to look at Andre. Okay. Andre.
00:49:51.360
Okay. So he's carrying a backpack. He's carrying a piano. I mean, he's carrying a piano as a backpack
00:49:57.700
is what I meant to say, which is much more important to note. I have no idea what this
00:50:04.520
is attempting to do. No, I don't know even how to rate this. Cause it's not even about his outfit.
00:50:11.860
It's about his piano. I'm like, can you, we just do anything? Like, could I wear a live ostrich on my
00:50:19.620
head and be like, this is the theme. Probably you'd get talked about. They'd be like, there's some deep
00:50:24.620
meaning here. Yeah, exactly. I know. Maybe that AOC wore eat the rich. Yes. To the Met Gala. LOL.
00:50:36.600
Yep. Um, okay. I don't know what to rate it. Seven for effort. Honestly, I'll give it a nine for
00:50:44.260
effort. I kind of love it. I love the unhinged ones. So yeah, it's so unhinged. Do you think it's a,
00:50:49.600
like, how much do you think that weighs? I, it doesn't, it didn't look like it was very heavy.
00:50:55.200
Okay. So like, it's like cardboard, not a real piano. That would be impressive. That'd be
00:51:01.680
impressive. Yeah. I have just have no idea. I'd be curious to know what this means. Okay. Sabrina
00:51:06.320
Carpenter. Um, I just feel like this is inappropriate. Um, but I know it's like her. I mean,
00:51:19.240
she looks really pretty, but this was a common theme. I'll say a lot of girls showed up with
00:51:28.340
like in leotards, but with a suit jacket over it. And Lisa was in that too. So a lot of them
00:51:33.960
were kind of wearing the same thing. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to give it a five or six. Maybe
00:51:41.400
five. I think she looks really good. I mean, I don't love the no pants, but I think she looks
00:51:47.780
Okay. That's not at all what I was expecting. I mean, she looks amazing. Like she is on a
00:52:02.640
fitness journey. The blonde hair is interesting. Yeah. You know what? My culture is not your
00:52:11.380
costume. Um, but the dress is pretty on her. I mean, obviously it's showing a lot up there.
00:52:21.240
Yeah. But for her, I'm probably going to give this like
00:52:26.780
a 6.8 minute. Maybe seven, maybe seven, seven and a half. I don't know. It's pretty good for her.
00:52:35.960
Yeah. I was going to say eight. I think she looks amazing. And I also, I think that the platinum
00:52:40.420
blonde hair kind of works for, for this outfit at least. Yeah. I like it. It's like a thing for
00:52:46.320
people to have platinum blonde hair right now. Yeah. Um, she's got blue lips. Is that blue?
00:52:51.280
Hmm. Can't see that close. I wonder what black man has worn this dress.
00:52:58.140
I'm just so confused about whether people care about the theme or not. I don't think most people
00:53:04.120
do. I just don't. Yeah. No, you'd kind of just, I guess they pair up with a designer and they just
00:53:10.520
kind of do whatever they want. I think what they should just do is what they did a few years ago.
00:53:14.720
It was camp. Yeah. And every, it just, every year is camp. You should just make it camp
00:53:20.480
because that's what people are going to do anyway. Yeah. Just wear the craziest thing you can find.
00:53:26.340
I know. Yep. Do we have Pedro Pascal this year? I hadn't seen him. Remember people thought that we
00:53:33.760
were mean. Cause I said he looked like Lucifer's nephew. Yeah. In the shorts he was wearing. Classic
00:53:39.200
moment. Uh, but it was true. It was true. There were a lot of men wearing things that were feminine.
00:53:46.400
So I don't know. We can't celebrate cross-dressing, but women can get away with wearing men's clothes
00:53:52.220
that are feminine more than men can get away with that. Okay. Sure try. Yep. Any last thoughts on the
00:53:59.820
Met Gala? Um, no, like I said, I liked the outfits at this one more than I typically do,
00:54:05.880
but I think that's just cause everyone stuck with like tailored suits. So it seemed more normal than
00:54:12.300
usual. Yeah. Zendaya is the winner to me. Yeah. Oh, she looks so good. Okay. That's all we've got
00:54:17.760
time for today. We will be back here tomorrow with Michael Knowles and we will be talking about the Pope
00:54:24.660
and what's going on there and Catholicism and all kinds of good stuff. That'll be a fun conversation.