Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1205 ｜ ‘I Was a Murderer’： From Abortion to Gospel Redemption ｜ April Chapman

00:00:00.000 A few weeks ago, I received a ton of blowback for asking one of my guests this question.

00:00:07.300 Why does it seem like the prosperity gospel is especially prominent in black majority

00:00:14.660 churches?

00:00:16.040 Oh my goodness.

00:00:17.080 I fielded all kinds of accusations, but there was one commentator who stuck up for me and

00:00:23.280 she gave me her perspective and that is April Chapman.

00:00:27.640 She had an incredible video on this subject and I wanted to have her on to talk not only

00:00:32.780 about that topic, but really to share her incredible testimony of how God saved her.

00:00:38.780 She has an incredible pro-life story about going through her own abortions and then God 1.00

00:00:47.020 saving her and changing her heart, changing her perspective on life and on children.

00:00:52.640 You are going to be so edified by her wisdom and just her vulnerability in sharing what

00:00:58.720 God has done in her life.

00:01:00.840 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:01:03.740 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:01:05.160 Use code Allie at checkout for $40 off.

00:01:07.780 That's GoodRanchers.com.

00:01:09.060 Code Allie. 1.00

00:01:09.700 April, thanks so much for taking the time to join me.

00:01:22.360 Absolutely.

00:01:23.220 I'm a fan for sure.

00:01:24.900 Thank you.

00:01:25.380 Well, thank you.

00:01:26.480 Okay.

00:01:26.760 For those who may not know, can you tell us who you are and what you do?

00:01:29.860 Yeah.

00:01:30.400 So I am April Chapman.

00:01:32.100 I am actually host of Unshakeable with April.

00:01:34.580 Just went through a rebrand and I'm a wife and a mom and a Christian content creator.

00:01:42.760 I talk about politics and faith and all of the crazy things that are going on in the

00:01:48.340 culture from a biblical perspective.

00:01:50.700 Yeah.

00:01:51.020 So that's me.

00:01:52.040 That's you.

00:01:52.540 And I first found your channel.

00:01:55.080 Maybe I had seen it before, but I definitely saw it when that whole kerfuffle happened when

00:02:02.760 I had Melissa Doherty on and we were talking about the new age and the prosperity gospel

00:02:08.520 and how the prosperity gospel seems to be prevalent in majority black churches.

00:02:15.520 And I really honestly didn't think that comment would cause controversy, but then Eric Mason

00:02:22.400 and Anthony Bradley and others, you know, they made a point to say, well, these white ladies

00:02:28.140 are talking about this and they shouldn't be talking about it.

00:02:31.160 But then you made a response video and I just want to say thank you for that because you

00:02:34.740 did, you shared the arrows and I know that you weren't trying to do that.

00:02:37.900 You were just giving your genuine thoughts, but I appreciated that.

00:02:40.920 And I was like, I started watching all your other videos and I was like, you've got so

00:02:44.720 much insight.

00:02:45.420 So thank you.

00:02:46.460 You are welcome.

00:02:47.380 I really looked at it as just from one believer to another affirming what was true.

00:02:53.640 And it really, I saw part of your interview and then I saw another YouTuber respond and

00:02:59.300 I was like, yep, this, this is pretty much right.

00:03:01.640 And then when I saw the backlash, I was like, oh, okay, I know what this is.

00:03:05.000 So I, I am very much committed to seeing unity amongst the brethren, regardless of these

00:03:13.100 ethnic distinctions.

00:03:14.320 And I find that when we're elevating that, I'm like, okay, so this is the division that

00:03:19.760 the apostle Paul is talking about.

00:03:21.360 This is what he's talking about.

00:03:23.080 These, these, these silly controversies and where do these divisions and fights come from

00:03:29.080 among you?

00:03:29.760 And I'm like, this is just a work of the flesh.

00:03:31.960 Yeah.

00:03:32.680 Okay.

00:03:33.300 Can you tell me your thoughts on the difference between the unity among the brethren, regardless

00:03:38.760 of our ethnic distinctions?

00:03:40.440 I love how you worded that and that term that we've heard so much over the past, I don't

00:03:45.840 know, seven or so years, racial reconciliation.

00:03:49.720 Well, the thing is the gospel is what reconciles us to God vertically this way.

00:03:56.860 And then the beauty of that gospel message is that we're now reconciled to each other.

00:04:03.160 So the pagans are going to do what pagans do.

00:04:05.540 They are going to create constructs and categories that divide people.

00:04:11.320 But when you're in Christ, I don't understand language that says we need racial reconciliation.

00:04:20.180 If the gospel, if we're honest, what the gospel does is it takes this group of people who are 0.99

00:04:28.940 just filthy, wretched sinners and then provides us a way to be reconciled to God and then we're

00:04:36.320 reconciled to each other. 0.89

00:04:37.400 So then when you bring in this another construct to say, well, we need racial reconciliation.

00:04:41.180 And I'm like, but we're believers.

00:04:43.340 The gospel's already accomplished that.

00:04:45.340 I get really confused and I don't, I'm like, this is something else.

00:04:49.980 And so when you talk about the term racial reconciliation, I have to reject it on its premise because

00:04:59.860 if I look through scripture and I read Galatians and I see what the apostle Paul is trying to

00:05:06.000 help the church of Galatia understand, there's no Jew nor Greek, slave nor free.

00:05:11.340 We're one in Christ Jesus.

00:05:13.200 That's enough for me.

00:05:14.440 What more do I need to hear?

00:05:15.840 Some people say, okay, but we shouldn't be colorblind.

00:05:21.160 Other people say, no, we should be colorblind because of the verse that you just said.

00:05:25.140 Others say, well, no, God made us intentionally with the skin colors that we have.

00:05:29.300 And there are different ethnicities with different backgrounds and cultures.

00:05:32.800 And so what do you think?

00:05:34.260 How should Christians celebrate our differences without making them primary distinctions?

00:05:40.700 Right.

00:05:40.800 Um, obviously, you know, I'm melanated and I don't ever walk around trying to deny who

00:05:51.140 I am, like this, who I am and how God made me is an expression of his glory in the world

00:05:57.720 and someone else with a less melanin count.

00:06:01.400 That's his reflection of his glory expressed in them.

00:06:04.760 So I don't, I don't think anyone needs to be colorblind.

00:06:08.360 Um, and then we, in the midst of that color conversation, there are cultural distinctions,

00:06:15.240 things that make us different.

00:06:17.580 White people are different than blacks and blacks are different than Indians and Indians are 1.00

00:06:21.260 different than, you know, Hispanics. 0.96

00:06:24.280 Um, I think we can celebrate our differences, but when you're talking amongst the brethren,

00:06:30.300 we don't need to ignore our ethnic differences, but we also don't need to elevate them to a

00:06:37.320 level of what I would call ethnic idolatry or narcissism, ethnic narcissism, where you view

00:06:44.060 the world through this lens of, I don't even like, I like biblical terms.

00:06:50.580 I'm not even going to say race, ethnicity, right?

00:06:53.660 Why are you looking at the world in that way?

00:06:57.200 That is something that the pagans do, the unbeliever, because they don't have an identity 1.00

00:07:04.100 that's hidden in Christ.

00:07:05.480 They don't have their sins atoned for.

00:07:08.620 They would speak that way.

00:07:10.500 But for the believer, I'm like, well, we can acknowledge those, but we don't need to elevate 1.00

00:07:16.440 them to an unhealthy level to where, to where we're now levying charges of sin against others

00:07:22.800 who look different than us just on the basis of, because you look this way, then you must

00:07:27.760 believe or think this way.

00:07:30.040 And I just remember seeing this a lot in 2020 from the pulpit.

00:07:34.440 There was one message of guilt that was given to white congregants and one message that was

00:07:41.880 given to black congregants.

00:07:43.840 And that message was one of alleviating any responsibility for anything at all that they 0.75

00:07:49.660 themselves have done.

00:07:50.940 And then for the white congregants, it wasn't only responsibility for what you have done, 0.69

00:07:55.600 but also you should feel some level of shame and guilt for what some people, not even related

00:08:02.080 to you, but that kind of maybe looked like you 200 years ago did.

00:08:07.280 You should feel responsible for that.

00:08:09.220 But this group over here should feel responsible for nothing. 0.98

00:08:12.540 And this group over here should listen and learn, sit down and shut up.

00:08:17.080 And this group over here, there's basically nothing you can say that's wrong.

00:08:20.680 There's no tone, no level of anger or bitterness or resentment that is unjustified.

00:08:25.480 And I just thought, okay, I don't see a biblical basis for that, especially when we're talking

00:08:29.740 about justice, which is inherently supposed to be blind.

00:08:33.720 Right.

00:08:34.280 Listen, and I'll say this.

00:08:37.260 I do.

00:08:37.960 I talk about this a lot on my channel.

00:08:39.900 I am tired of my white brethren constantly being made to feel that they have to live under

00:08:47.840 this perpetual condemnation, right?

00:08:51.000 You were not alive during, you know, the years of the Confederacy or when the KKK was doing

00:08:57.960 whatever they were doing.

00:08:59.960 We're in 2025 now.

00:09:02.060 I think it's time for individuals to be judged or assessed on the basis of what they do as

00:09:11.540 individuals.

00:09:12.060 And it should have, it should always be that way.

00:09:14.660 The people of God should function differently.

00:09:17.060 So when you start hearing Christians espouse ideologies by saying you can't speak and you

00:09:22.780 can't say, you just need to sit down and listen.

00:09:25.160 I'm like, that is so ungodly.

00:09:27.900 Where do we find that in scripture?

00:09:30.560 This is a sin issue.

00:09:31.800 It is a matter of the heart.

00:09:34.060 And so I talk about it a lot on my channel.

00:09:37.240 I'm, I am grateful to God for what he was able to do in my life by showing me my own

00:09:44.840 sin being raised.

00:09:46.760 I'm from New York city, very urban context.

00:09:49.900 If I'm honest, I didn't spend a whole lot of time around white people growing up and that 0.99

00:09:54.560 wasn't bad.

00:09:55.460 It was a reflection of my upbringing.

00:09:58.300 I grew up in the South Bronx.

00:09:59.740 You read the black or Hispanic or some other of Caribbean descent had a few white teachers.

00:10:05.920 But other than that, I didn't spend a lot of time around white people.

00:10:09.480 And so based on media and, and what was going on out there in the world, you have these stereotypes

00:10:16.600 that are pushed on you or indoctrinated onto you that you believe and internalize about people

00:10:23.500 who look different from you.

00:10:25.680 And when the Lord saved me, that was one of the very first things that he dealt with concerning

00:10:32.000 my heart.

00:10:32.800 Why are you making these assumptions about this person?

00:10:35.140 You know, nothing about, are you judging them on the merit of what they've done to you?

00:10:40.480 Or are you pushing these assumptions?

00:10:42.680 Well, well, you know, that's how white people are, right? 0.89

00:10:45.180 Like that's, that was a heart issue.

00:10:47.880 The Lord healed that and dealt with my heart in such a way that now when I see it in others,

00:10:54.840 I'm like, yeah, you have to lay that down at the foot of the cross.

00:10:57.680 That's, that's just, it's sin.

00:10:59.520 Yeah.

00:10:59.820 It is sin.

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00:12:07.760 I want to hear more about your story.

00:12:09.760 You said that you grew up in New York City.

00:12:11.720 What was your upbringing like?

00:12:13.300 So my parents were married for 10 years before I was even thought of.

00:12:18.440 And then I came along as that change of life baby.

00:12:21.040 My mother's in her 30s.

00:12:22.260 My dad's almost 50.

00:12:24.040 And their marriage lasted until I was four.

00:12:28.640 And so they divorced.

00:12:30.560 And it was just myself.

00:12:33.100 I have, you know, two brothers and a sister, older siblings.

00:12:36.420 But all I knew was the matriarchy. 1.00

00:12:40.880 I knew grandma, great grandma, mom, sisters, aunties.

00:12:46.120 I had no semblance of an intact home, even though I knew my dad and he was, you know, close by.

00:12:54.860 But we didn't have a very close relationship.

00:12:57.420 And then, you know, you go through life.

00:13:00.620 I'm raised as a Christian in a Christian home doing all of the religious things that you know how to do.

00:13:07.680 You know, you say your grace.

00:13:09.200 I was in church every day of the week, I felt like.

00:13:14.140 But I had a very strong aversion to the things of the Lord because I spent so much time in church.

00:13:19.340 I was just like, oh, my gosh, I'm so sick of these Jesus people. 1.00

00:13:22.200 They get on my nerves. 0.99

00:13:23.740 I hated the hypocrisy of it all. 0.90

00:13:26.540 And then I go to college. 0.60

00:13:28.460 I go to college.

00:13:29.400 And then I get exposed to the prosperity gospel as a freshman at Spelman College.

00:13:36.460 And I thought, this must be what Christianity is all about. 0.99

00:13:40.800 God wants me to be wealthy and rich.

00:13:43.600 And he wants me to live my best life now.

00:13:46.120 Where'd you hear this?

00:13:47.260 Was it at a church?

00:13:48.380 It was.

00:13:49.400 I, the college campus ministry of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church,

00:13:54.520 which was pastored by Bishop Eddie Long at the time, had a very robust college campus ministry.

00:14:00.640 If I, you know, obviously he was a false teacher.

00:14:03.520 He's no longer alive.

00:14:05.540 But that ministry did a very, very good job of college outreach.

00:14:10.180 They were sending buses to all of the college campuses, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Spelman, Morehouse, Morris Brown, Clark Atlanta.

00:14:17.600 And they were pick up the college students.

00:14:19.700 And I only went because a boy invited me.

00:14:22.680 Okay, I wasn't interested or thinking about God.

00:14:25.620 But in that service, Bishop Long had said something that weekend.

00:14:31.000 I had just had an abortion that weekend before.

00:14:36.700 And so I went.

00:14:38.580 And to ameliorate or, you know, to provide some sort of palliative care on the guilt that I was experiencing.

00:14:46.300 You know, in the black church context, they open up the doors of the church.

00:14:49.880 I went down, did a little cry.

00:14:53.040 Looking back, it wasn't a genuine brokenness over my sin.

00:14:57.140 I just wanted to feel better.

00:14:59.360 And the message of the prosperity and the money, I'd never seen a ministry of that magnitude.

00:15:06.580 I mean, this was a huge megachurch full of black folks with money. 1.00

00:15:10.300 I mean, most of us were poor, but you could see the affluence of it all.

00:15:16.120 And that was appealing.

00:15:18.720 And so I go down.

00:15:20.360 Some people might not know that Eddie Long is a very, like, infamous prosperity teacher who just very blatantly preached,

00:15:27.680 if you sow the seed of faith, if you pray this, then God will reward you with the Bentley, with the mansion, with all of this stuff.

00:15:34.500 And you had never heard that.

00:15:36.540 No.

00:15:36.860 And so it sounds like because you went down after you had had an abortion, there was something in you either that day or even before that felt that what you did was wrong and that there was some kind of brokenness.

00:15:49.880 And so a lot of people might not know that prosperity sermons, there is a mixture of truth in it.

00:15:57.360 So it's a possibility that you heard something that was true that started to kind of prick your heart, but it was also mixed in with this, well, do this and God will reward you.

00:16:05.940 It was more performative.

00:16:08.220 It was a mixed bag.

00:16:09.860 It was the performance of I need to do something so that God will accept me.

00:16:14.920 And then it was, oh, this is the key to success in life.

00:16:21.380 And I had never heard the prosperity message before that all of my problems would, you know, just disappear and God would be pleased with me if I pursued these things.

00:16:33.180 And so I spent years pursuing that, experienced a lot of more brokenness, a lot of more bad relationships.

00:16:40.940 And this is what's so, so bothersome and burdensome about that prosperity message is that it never gets, it never preaches to the heart of the matter that it's your indwelling sin.

00:16:52.040 That's the problem.

00:16:53.200 It makes you look to something else out there as the solution to make things better.

00:17:00.040 And so after years of doing that, I finally meet the guy who is my now husband and he finds out that I go to new birth and he's like, yeah, this, that's going to be a no for me.

00:17:13.060 And this was the first person.

00:17:15.260 It wasn't the first person that challenged my thoughts about prosperity doctrine, but it was the first person that kind of came to me and just flat out said, that man is a false teacher.

00:17:25.300 And if you think I'm going there, you've got another thing coming.

00:17:30.360 But that intrigued me because I was like, well, what's wrong with him?

00:17:33.360 And he was like, you don't see.

00:17:35.460 And I was like, see, see what?

00:17:37.800 What's the problem?

00:17:38.960 And so he spent some time just kind of showing me that what he was preaching wasn't in the Bible.

00:17:45.200 And that put me on this path of questioning a lot of things, a lot of things about what the Bible actually taught concerning giving and our posture to give and prosperity.

00:17:59.040 And through the course of all of that, I would say I did not hear the gospel for the very first time until about 2014, 2015.

00:18:10.740 I was on Facebook and there was an individual who basically was saying, nope, that's not true.

00:18:17.820 You're dead in your sin and your trespasses.

00:18:20.100 God has to make you alive.

00:18:21.040 To you.

00:18:22.020 They were saying that to you.

00:18:22.740 It was in the course of a very heated debate and exchange over some other false doctrines that I had affirmed that I was like, that's not true.

00:18:31.740 And he was just busting them all up.

00:18:34.860 And I was just like, no, no, no.

00:18:37.740 And what that what that disagreement did was drive me to the scriptures.

00:18:41.640 And I was brought to my knees in Ephesians 2, where I read where, yes, Paul is explaining to these Ephesian individuals who they are in Christ now.

00:18:57.080 But I'm reading it like, wait a minute.

00:19:00.220 I'm dead in my sin.

00:19:02.340 Christ made us alive.

00:19:03.940 And I'm reading all of these beautiful gospel centric messages.

00:19:08.840 And it was at that moment that I recognized that I was sinful and needed my sin atoned for in the person and work of Jesus.

00:19:19.160 And I can't pinpoint.

00:19:22.000 It was just a season of me searching through the scriptures about what was true.

00:19:27.620 And then I start questioning everything.

00:19:30.120 I start questioning everything.

00:19:31.620 Were you married at this point?

00:19:32.760 Yes, I was.

00:19:34.680 So you had moved away from Eddie Long's church because your husband was like.

00:19:38.380 Well, to get the guy like I couldn't date.

00:19:40.700 I couldn't date my husband and be a new birth. 0.97

00:19:43.020 So yeah, he told you.

00:19:44.780 He said, we're not.

00:19:45.900 He's like, I'm not going there.

00:19:47.700 So we were we I had left there and we were on a journey of some other bad churches that just weren't as bad.

00:19:55.220 But the Lord was using my husband who we now realize that he was an infant in the faith and may not have been able to articulate with, you know, theological clarity, all the things that was wrong.

00:20:11.500 But he knew enough to know that's unbiblical. 0.54

00:20:13.920 And if it's not in the scriptures, I can't do it.

00:20:16.720 And then the Lord used that and social media, as crazy as social media is, the Lord used it in my salvific journey.

00:20:27.940 So I'm grateful for it.

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00:20:36.880 I love 4th of July.

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00:21:51.800 So that was 2014, 2015, and that was a season of kind of just understanding, okay, what the gospel is.

00:22:01.920 So I'm guessing when you were going to new birth, you didn't hear that you were sinful and that you needed a Savior.

00:22:11.040 So like what was being taught?

00:22:13.060 What are the altar calls at this church if it's not like, hey, you're a sinner and Jesus died for you?

00:22:19.160 I don't recall in the years that I was there ever hearing a plain gospel message preached.

00:22:26.880 It was a lot of you are called to win.

00:22:31.520 The motto at new birth at the time back then was taking authority.

00:22:35.260 So to take authority over your life and your circumstances, we are supposed to be these kingdom people and we're supposed to be conquering and dominating in every sphere of life and influence.

00:22:50.020 But it was apart from the work of the Spirit, like somehow you were doing all these things in your flesh.

00:22:57.040 There was a lot of scripture being ripped out of context, a lot of over-spiritualizing, a lot of estrogen-rich sermons, which appeal to women.

00:23:08.380 Yeah, what do you mean by estrogen-rich sermons?

00:23:10.580 Meaning it was just like, you know, you've been down for so long and, you know, you've been dating that guy, you know, he don't love you.

00:23:19.240 I mean, it was just, it was a lot of preaching to our pain as opposed to saying, as Jesus would put it, you know,

00:23:30.160 So the reason why you love the darkness rather than the light, because your deeds are evil, it was more of celebrating and, like I said, pointing to other things external, outside of yourself that were the problem.

00:23:48.580 And then providing this connection between season, harvest, favor, breakthrough, and increase.

00:23:55.840 So the seed, and then the devil or the enemy, all of these other things that are out there that are against you, you're not going to have to experience those things anymore.

00:24:10.440 And it was still very performative because you never felt like you were giving enough.

00:24:15.200 And then if you gave and God still didn't show up for you, now you're looking at, well, maybe I need to give more money.

00:24:23.720 Did I do my first fruit?

00:24:25.840 Maybe I'm not serving enough.

00:24:28.000 Very performative, very works-based.

00:24:31.220 I really thought that we were saved by grace plus works.

00:24:35.860 And we're, I was a Protestant, right?

00:24:38.400 I didn't understand.

00:24:39.640 I was like, well, what do you mean?

00:24:40.960 Well, we just have to do enough for God to accept us.

00:24:45.960 I did not understand that it was the finished work of what Christ has done.

00:24:50.600 And that if you're doing good works, it's because those good works were prepared beforehand that you should walk in them.

00:24:57.940 I never understood that.

00:24:59.620 I was just told, just do your best.

00:25:01.520 And hopefully when you get up there, God's going to be like, okay, I'll let you in.

00:25:04.780 Yeah.

00:25:05.580 And that Ephesians 2 passage is just so important.

00:25:08.300 I love Ephesians 2.

00:25:09.700 I think it's my favorite depiction of the gospel too.

00:25:14.180 And how God through Paul goes through so many pains in just those three verses of 8 through 10 to say, this is not your own doing.

00:25:22.960 It is a gift, right?

00:25:24.660 No one can boast.

00:25:26.320 You didn't do this on your own.

00:25:28.420 This is by grace through faith.

00:25:30.500 And all those good deeds that you just talked about in verse 10, like God pre-planned those beforehand.

00:25:36.760 So you can't even take credit for the good deeds that you do.

00:25:39.860 And that's what I was used to.

00:25:41.800 I was used to doing that, being very performative, checking the boxes, making sure that I was following the rules.

00:25:50.620 Whereas sanctification, it's not, you're not necessarily following the rules, but it's coming from a place of a heart change.

00:26:00.980 It's our heart that is the problem.

00:26:03.880 And I didn't understand that before.

00:26:05.740 And now looking back post-salvation, I can see, oh, these good works I'm doing, it's because it's God working in me both to will and to do his good pleasure.

00:26:16.600 And the people around me get to just experience that.

00:26:20.200 But it's a work of the spirit that's actually doing that.

00:26:24.080 You mentioned that you had had an abortion years prior from when you actually were saved and understood the gospel.

00:26:31.300 Can you talk about the redemption from that?

00:26:35.400 Did you have to kind of like reckon with that at some point when you realized, oh, wow, that was sin and I need to deal with this?

00:26:43.680 Right.

00:26:44.100 I didn't really deal with that one or the subsequent one in my very early 20s until after the Lord had saved me.

00:26:52.720 Post-subortive women do a very good job of suppressing the truth in their unrighteousness. 1.00

00:26:58.100 Just trying to block it out and filling the emptiness and the guilt and the shame with other things.

00:27:06.220 And I had several years of doing that, bad relationships, you know, just not trying to find some sort of way to silence the pain that I was experiencing.

00:27:20.560 What I did was it it caused me to double down with a feminist mindset. 1.00

00:27:26.500 So I was very I was very much a feminist, very liberal in my thinking.

00:27:31.320 I was pro-choice, even though I knew that that view was incompatible with the scriptures.

00:27:36.500 I had reconciled in my mind that it was somehow OK.

00:27:40.500 And so over the course of some years, once I got saved, the Lord brought those things back to my remembrance and allowed me to go through a series of or a season, I would say, of healing.

00:27:56.160 But you first have to acknowledge that what you did was sinful.

00:28:01.120 You have to say the words.

00:28:02.740 I was a murderer.

00:28:04.240 You know, this was displeasing to God.

00:28:07.540 That was life.

00:28:08.540 Those were babies.

00:28:10.080 So the first thing I had to force myself to do was to humanize those image bearers in the womb. 0.88

00:28:17.020 And then, you know, you have to express this truth.

00:28:20.480 Some people choose not to do this.

00:28:22.260 But I had a very candid conversation with my now husband and my children.

00:28:27.360 The best way to teach them about the sinfulness of humankind is to show them that their mama was a sinner.

00:28:37.120 Right.

00:28:37.700 A lot of people can't do that.

00:28:39.520 But God enabled me and strengthened me and equipped me to do that.

00:28:43.900 It's all a part of the story and the journey.

00:28:46.580 But definitely humanizing those image bearers, talking about what I did in very real terms, but then accepting the free grace of God that he bestows upon all those who repent and believe.

00:29:01.580 And then trusting, trusting in what the scriptures actually say.

00:29:06.920 No one is beyond the point of being redeemable.

00:29:11.960 The scriptures have been such a healing balm for me in that.

00:29:17.240 And then God was able to bless the fruit of my womb.

00:29:22.160 I didn't think that I would ever be somebody's mama.

00:29:24.560 I did not.

00:29:26.000 I was just like, because that second, that second abortion was so traumatic physically that I just thought that it could not happen for me.

00:29:36.820 Are you able to talk about what happened?

00:29:39.440 Yeah.

00:29:40.320 There was, there is an abortionist in Atlanta by the name of, I don't even have a problem saying his name, Tyrone Malloy, who has harmed and maimed and injured so many women.

00:29:53.240 He performs these procedures.

00:29:56.520 I'll sanitize it with no anesthesia.

00:29:59.720 These are not chemical abortions.

00:30:01.660 These are surgical ones without anesthesia.

00:30:05.380 I was given like a muscle relaxer that I don't think kicked in.

00:30:10.200 Very traumatic, very traumatic.

00:30:12.820 And then within 24 hours, I was in the ER trying to preserve what was left of my reproductive organs because it was an incomplete procedure.

00:30:23.780 I hemorrhaged tremendously.

00:30:26.020 So at that point, I'm thinking, well, you know, getting married and having kids is not, that's not in my future.

00:30:33.360 And so I lived a rebellious life as this single woman, never really committing to anyone because I was just like, well, for what?

00:30:42.340 I'll just chase the career.

00:30:44.400 So I had a very, you know, very prosperous career in the insurance and financial industry.

00:30:51.540 Then I met my husband and then I conceive.

00:30:57.220 And I'm like, okay.

00:30:59.660 Mind you, I'm not a believer at this point.

00:31:01.260 But I knew enough that I said, okay, I'm 20, 26 now.

00:31:08.160 I said, I can't go to a clinic.

00:31:11.640 And we were not married at the time.

00:31:14.680 So obviously we're living this sinful life.

00:31:17.500 Yeah.

00:31:17.800 Or whatever.

00:31:18.680 You both thought that you're believers.

00:31:20.040 He's kind of an infant believer with that discernment.

00:31:22.640 But this is when, in the season where you're still going to the prosperity church.

00:31:26.400 So you're living a life that you think is Christian, but really is just about you. 0.94

00:31:32.560 I was a Christian in name only.

00:31:34.640 Very, very still, very much deceived.

00:31:37.340 But in that deception, there were these moments of clarity where the moment I found out I was pregnant, I knew what not to do.

00:31:48.000 So for the first time in my life, there was conviction of don't do that.

00:31:53.600 And I sat on that floor and I was like, okay, we've got three tests.

00:31:58.800 They're all positive.

00:31:59.820 I guess I'm going to be somebody's mama. 0.88

00:32:02.180 And I tell my husband, well, we were engaged at the time.

00:32:07.740 And he was like, okay, this is what we're going to do.

00:32:11.660 And then the enemy came in and started putting all kinds of things in my life all at one time.

00:32:21.120 I lose my insurance agency.

00:32:23.600 He has a death in the family.

00:32:25.580 There are all of these life issues that were telling me, you need to go and just get rid of this baby.

00:32:32.920 It's too much.

00:32:33.620 It's just too much.

00:32:35.520 And then I have a health crisis in the middle of that pregnancy that lands me in the hospital.

00:32:40.020 And when I get into the hospital, well, we had broken up at this point.

00:32:45.780 He looks at me and he's like, no.

00:32:48.400 He was like, I have to be a dad and we have to figure this out.

00:32:55.420 He's like, we have to figure this out.

00:32:56.880 Because you were thinking when you had that health crisis that you might still have an abortion.

00:33:01.740 Well, no, at that point, no, I just thought I was going to lose the baby.

00:33:04.640 I thought I was going to lose him because they had me on a morphine drip.

00:33:10.640 And I was like, all the odds are against this kid.

00:33:14.440 But in that moment, something broke.

00:33:19.820 My husband, my fiance, I don't know what he was at the time.

00:33:23.540 It's okay.

00:33:23.840 My husband, the guy, your current husband, my one flesh partner.

00:33:30.460 We just God heals the relationship.

00:33:35.380 And my aunt said something to me.

00:33:37.660 And oh, and then my dad died two weeks after I got out of the hospital.

00:33:41.600 Gosh.

00:33:41.960 And then my aunt at the funeral says to me, what's the plan?

00:33:46.560 What are you guys going to do?

00:33:47.620 Oh, because, you know, we don't do children out of wedlock in this family. 0.59

00:33:51.780 And I'm like, oh, did she just say that out loud?

00:33:54.780 She said that out loud.

00:33:56.300 And then Robert at the time was like, we're going to work it out.

00:34:02.040 And I'm like, we're going to work it out.

00:34:03.440 He's like, we're going to work it out.

00:34:05.160 And the Lord worked it out.

00:34:07.120 All of a sudden, all of the big life things that were happening that we thought were the end of the world were so small.

00:34:15.720 And he starts nesting.

00:34:18.260 And then I start nesting.

00:34:20.340 And then we end up getting married that December.

00:34:24.340 Wow.

00:34:24.820 And my son was born in February.

00:34:27.400 Oh, my goodness.

00:34:28.360 And then the kids just kept coming.

00:34:30.220 Yeah.

00:34:30.580 How many do you have?

00:34:31.800 We have four all together.

00:34:33.660 Yeah.

00:34:33.920 Everyone is almost two years apart.

00:34:36.320 Yeah.

00:34:36.560 So I was like pregnant for like six years straight, which I'm sure you already know what that's like.

00:34:40.720 But it was the idea that the Lord blessed the fruit of my womb when I thought it could not happen.

00:34:49.100 Yeah.

00:34:49.340 I just thought I was it just wasn't going to happen.

00:34:52.500 And God was so faithful and merciful and kind in that because I didn't in my mind.

00:34:59.320 I'm like, I don't deserve this.

00:35:01.060 How can I be someone's mama? 0.98

00:35:03.140 And then he took this feminist, liberal, crazy girl from New York and then turns me in. 0.95

00:35:12.940 Nothing makes a woman more conservative than having children, getting married, having children and becoming a small business owner. 1.00

00:35:20.820 Yeah.

00:35:21.040 Those three things did it for me.

00:35:23.240 And I just not only am I having a spiritual awakening, I have this political awakening, too, because I was like, this is crazy.

00:35:33.660 I can't be a liberal.

00:35:35.180 These policies are horrible because I'm thinking as a mom now, I'm thinking I've got to protect this baby and we've got to educate this baby.

00:35:43.600 And I'm concerned about what he's eating.

00:35:45.880 All of a sudden, GMOs and organic foods and cloth diapering.

00:35:51.100 But I come I become completely crunchy overnight.

00:35:54.600 Your audience knows when I say crunchy, they know what I mean.

00:35:57.060 They know.

00:35:57.380 Yeah.

00:35:57.600 Yeah.

00:35:57.800 I became crunchy.

00:35:59.120 Yeah.

00:35:59.800 So I Jesus loving crunchy conservative.

00:36:02.820 That was me.

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00:37:09.540 I would love to talk a little bit more about your political evolution and when you started to become pro-life and you said that you were an Obama supporter.

00:37:25.640 And so I don't know where your husband was in all of this, but talk about that a little bit more, how your eyes started to open and you started to consider, okay, can I be a conservative?

00:37:35.200 Right. Well, my husband's incredibly conservative, but like most Black Americans in this country, we may have been raised conservatively, but it never matched our politics.

00:37:48.180 Long story for why it is, can't get into it right now, but it's just how it kind of is.

00:37:54.500 And so as a new wife and mom, we start seeing these cultural things happening in the world.

00:38:00.600 And my husband is like, oh, heck to the no, absolutely not.

00:38:05.080 We're not doing that.

00:38:06.500 We don't believe that.

00:38:07.860 And I'm like, we don't, we don't.

00:38:10.300 And it just, it happened to him before it happened to me.

00:38:14.500 But feminism has always been on my husband's radar as the one thing that was destroying this country. 1.00

00:38:23.380 And I never even considered myself a feminist, but I was very feminist minded.

00:38:30.340 And during, after Obama's second term, we started seeing economically how liberalism wasn't working for us because we're small business owners now.

00:38:42.980 Two things happened.

00:38:45.200 While we were small business owners, we started to realize that the people who were pouring into us the most and helping us economically did not look like us.

00:38:57.720 These people were cheering for us, giving us the cheat code to our industry and how to win.

00:39:03.860 Just like colleagues, people that you knew.

00:39:06.300 Yes, in the industry.

00:39:07.360 So we had, we spent 11 years in the furniture industry.

00:39:11.840 And so that is a generational business.

00:39:14.700 You've got two and three and four generation furniture store owners with multiple locations.

00:39:20.440 And we would go to these professional industry events.

00:39:25.200 And these people were so nice.

00:39:28.600 We're newbies in the business.

00:39:30.200 And it's not a lot of minorities in that space.

00:39:33.280 Well, it's not a lot of black minorities.

00:39:35.020 There are other minorities that are doing well.

00:39:37.180 But we weren't well represented.

00:39:39.140 And when we're getting there, we're finding out that everything that they kept telling us about how racist America was just was not true.

00:39:48.180 We were not experiencing it.

00:39:49.780 In fact, we were experiencing the opposite.

00:39:51.380 The ones that were trying to help us weather the 2012, 2013 real estate crisis were the ones who did not look like us and wanted us to win.

00:40:03.720 And so our lived experience wasn't matching all of the hands up, don't shoot, and all of those colloquialisms that we started to see happen.

00:40:15.020 And then as I'm bearing more children and I am seeing culturally all of these conversations about race.

00:40:24.480 And I was just like, is this really happening in real life?

00:40:28.580 Because we're not experiencing.

00:40:30.080 I mean, I live in what I call the bastion of melanated Marxism, which is Atlanta.

00:40:36.560 I mean, it's like the crux of colored communism. 1.00

00:40:39.620 And but I saw around me from the time I got to Atlanta up until the Obama years, all I saw was black prosperity.

00:40:49.220 I saw black people winning, making money, hand over fist. 0.99

00:40:54.800 And there were no white people stopping them.

00:40:57.160 So I was like, what is this stuff Obama is talking about?

00:41:00.280 Like if I had a son, he'd be like Trayvon.

00:41:03.040 I'm like, no, he wouldn't.

00:41:04.840 It didn't match.

00:41:06.180 It didn't match.

00:41:07.080 And that's when I realized I was like, they are running a PSYOP on us to make us be more divided when that's not happening.

00:41:17.160 Like I, my two boys were born first.

00:41:20.960 So when people were saying, you know, you know, as a black mom, you have to have the talk with your sons.

00:41:26.140 And I'm like, why would I need to have that talk with them?

00:41:29.280 Their father teaches them how to respect authority.

00:41:32.380 Say yes, ma'am.

00:41:33.600 No, ma'am.

00:41:34.340 Yes, sir.

00:41:34.920 No, sir.

00:41:35.640 They're well-adjusted children.

00:41:38.740 I don't believe I'm going to have to have a conversation.

00:41:41.800 They weren't driving age.

00:41:43.480 But I was like, what is all of this?

00:41:45.340 These people are talking about.

00:41:46.820 And now that my sons are actually driving age, I still, how we raise them in terms of how you present yourself to the world, how you show up, being respectful,

00:41:59.700 being of good character, following the law, those are the things that take you far in life.

00:42:09.080 They have no concept of this victim mentality that was indoctrinated into me because me and my husband just never, we didn't raise them to view themselves that way.

00:42:21.640 They view themselves as image bearers created in the image of God.

00:42:25.600 And they know that if a man doesn't work, he does not eat.

00:42:30.340 And if you don't provide value to the marketplace based on some gift, skill, talent, or ability, you will probably be poor.

00:42:38.620 But that America is a ladder and you can start at the bottom rung and work your way up based on your own effort.

00:42:46.820 If you are completely fed up with the public education options or maybe just the education options in general in your area, then it's probably time to try something new.

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00:44:03.180 You mentioned earlier in our conversation that a part of your testimony is realizing that you had these ingrained assumptions about white people or maybe about people of all different kinds of ethnicities or they're just like that because they're white or because of their skin color.

00:44:26.280 And I know you talked about in the furniture industry, some of those assumptions were dispelled.

00:44:30.700 But can you unpack that a little bit more?

00:44:33.100 What did that evolution look like for you?

00:44:35.160 What I learned from that, the furniture industry is very gate.

00:44:38.880 It's a gate kept community, meaning to get in, you either have to know someone, everything is on the hush hush.

00:44:46.960 And when I found out that gaining entry into these markets and being able to compete had everything to do with being able to negotiate well, being trustworthy, it had nothing to do with ethnicity.

00:45:06.860 I realized, first of all, I was doing business with a lot of Asians.

00:45:10.780 They care about green.

00:45:13.120 It's all about the green.

00:45:15.480 And I also did a lot of business with East Indians, people from Syria.

00:45:22.020 I mean, High Point Furniture Market is like the furniture capital of the world.

00:45:26.820 And people from every country and nation descend upon High Point to do commerce.

00:45:33.940 No one is thinking about what color you are.

00:45:37.800 They care about, do you have the money to buy the product that I have?

00:45:42.620 And if so, can we negotiate the best price?

00:45:46.400 That's that's all that mattered.

00:45:48.380 And so, in my real life experience, I realized that, okay, I have this business and I'm serving the individuals in my community.

00:45:59.420 But on the back end of the business, the ones that are feeding the products and the services that I offer my own community, they didn't look like me.

00:46:08.780 And all they cared about was, what does your community want to buy?

00:46:13.380 How do they want to style their space?

00:46:15.540 What sells to them?

00:46:17.580 And at the end of the day, I was able to compete in a marketplace where I was the minority, but I did it in America in a country where my ancestors at one point weren't allowed to do that.

00:46:36.700 But once we understood the market, the world of capitalism and free markets, as Booker T. Washington taught, people only cared about, do you have a product and a service and a way to get paid?

00:46:50.280 And is it better than the competitor down the street?

00:46:53.360 And they would do business with me.

00:46:55.680 So that's kind of what dispelled the myths that you had maybe even unknowingly harbored about people who.

00:47:02.960 I did, because I just wasn't experiencing it.

00:47:06.520 I mean, I had two, second and third generation, you know, as some might even say, you know, oh, those were the rednecks in the South. 0.71

00:47:14.760 Sit down across from me, breaking bread and telling me, this is what I did when I started my business.

00:47:21.300 These are the things that I did that helped me be successful.

00:47:24.360 Here's my number.

00:47:25.420 Or you call me if you get stuck and don't, you know, or need any assistance or I'll come down to where you are.

00:47:33.380 These men didn't owe us anything.

00:47:36.100 They didn't look like us, you know, they but they had a lot of money and all they cared about was we were equals in the same industry.

00:47:46.380 And there's enough out here for everyone.

00:47:48.820 Now, if you want to get into a conversation as to whether they would want my son to date their daughter, okay, we can have a conversation about that.

00:47:56.340 They may not have been accepting of that, but who cares?

00:48:01.420 We don't and we don't know.

00:48:02.920 And that's, you know, a lot of people have the assumption.

00:48:05.400 It's like you assume that, oh, because they're white, they would think this, this and this.

00:48:11.460 But that's the problem with assumptions.

00:48:14.300 Those were the assumptions.

00:48:15.460 And I think a lot of us come to these cultural conversations with these deeply held presuppositions.

00:48:23.040 And we will never know.

00:48:25.500 First of all, why do you even care about what someone else thinks about you?

00:48:29.740 Then they don't even know you, right?

00:48:32.800 You love them.

00:48:34.640 You treat them with dignity and respect.

00:48:37.880 And until they show you otherwise, you don't need to be overly preoccupied and concerned about what they think about you.

00:48:46.080 Why?

00:48:46.600 We're here to please God and God alone, right?

00:48:50.040 We are here to make much of Christ and to be reflections of his glory in the earth by doing good to others.

00:48:56.960 To have these assumptions about other people who don't look like you is very sinful because you're judging based off appearance, right?

00:49:07.120 You're not allowing using any sort of righteous judgments.

00:49:11.820 And so I find that I think Christians, Christians would do well to go to the Lord and repent of the hatred in their heart because that's really what this is.

00:49:24.340 It's hatred in the heart on the basis of ethnicity. 0.83

00:49:27.220 And I see it on on on in black people and in white people. 0.90

00:49:32.620 There's this crazy Christian nationalism conversation that I did not see brewing where it's an overcorrection, just like on the woke side. 0.55

00:49:44.560 It's an overcorrection of what was it's their response to the wokeness.

00:49:49.400 But it's so far to the opposite side that it's equally sinful.

00:49:53.600 A certain subset of people who might call themselves Christian nationalists.

00:49:58.680 There's a whole conversation to be had about what Christian nationalism actually means, what it actually is and who belongs to it.

00:50:05.740 So I don't hear you saying that everyone who might be a nationalist and a Christian is part of that.

00:50:10.960 I thought I was a Christian nationalist because I was like Christian.

00:50:13.940 I love my country.

00:50:15.180 Christian nationalist.

00:50:16.360 I had no problem with the term on its face until I saw the crazies.

00:50:21.880 I was like most people mean.

00:50:23.600 Right.

00:50:24.340 Most we ignorantly.

00:50:26.460 Even still, a conversation can be had about being a Christian and having a national identity that you are proud of.

00:50:35.860 Yeah.

00:50:36.000 I would describe myself as that person.

00:50:39.340 You know, now if you you know, once they start getting into the weeds about, you know, the ethnic thing.

00:50:45.640 Preserving a white ethnostate. 0.86

00:50:47.040 Yeah, that's sinful. 0.86

00:50:48.480 And all of that.

00:50:49.340 Yeah, there's that whole other conversation to be had there.

00:50:52.520 But certainly all of us have to repent of any presuppositions that are based on hate or bitterness or resentment because Ephesians 4 tells us to be rid of all of those things.

00:51:05.820 And that is an obligation for the Christian.

00:51:09.200 You've mentioned you mentioned in the video in the rebuttal about, you know, all the Eric Mason stuff that it was very difficult for you to find a solid church in Atlanta.

00:51:20.420 So what did that process look like for you and your husband as y'all left the prosperity movement?

00:51:25.380 It was a journey.

00:51:26.580 And it was, well, one, when you're a new Christian, you don't even know what to look for.

00:51:31.360 So I, we had a very hard time finding a solid, a biblically solid church where our family felt that we belonged.

00:51:43.480 So instantly I took to YouTube because now that I'm this new creation, I know some of the heresies to stay away from.

00:51:52.220 Well, that eliminates most of the churches.

00:51:54.200 Most of the churches are going to fall into that category of either crazy, charismatic, unbiblical expressions or hyper prosperity or their NAR, the new apostolic reformation.

00:52:11.460 I mean, there's so many different brands of bad doctrine.

00:52:15.540 We went through three churches before we found a home.

00:52:18.920 We knew what we weren't looking for, but we didn't know what we were looking for.

00:52:24.200 In Atlanta, Atlanta is a theological desert, meaning there are only a select few congregations and they're all scattered out around the city, which makes it hard, depending on where you live, to find a solid church that preaches from the Bible.

00:52:42.600 Or if you, I can't tell you how many calls I've made.

00:52:47.580 What type of sermons?

00:52:49.540 I mean, I knew at this point, I was like, okay, I'm looking for exposition.

00:52:52.660 I need the pastor to preach line by line, if not all the time, most of the time.

00:52:58.700 That was hard to find.

00:53:00.540 Most of the churches were like, what?

00:53:02.620 We don't even know what that is.

00:53:04.740 And then some churches were like, why do you care about that?

00:53:07.640 Like our youth program is popping.

00:53:10.380 I was like, okay, but my kids need to learn the scriptures.

00:53:14.180 I don't care about, you know, the youth program.

00:53:16.920 So with that controversy, I was able to speak about that, not just from the Atlanta context, but I grew up in church.

00:53:26.580 I know the struggle that is happening within the quote unquote black church context.

00:53:35.000 And it is a desert and a starvation of sound doctrine because the social gospel and the prosperity gospel has basically caused the church.

00:53:47.180 If we were to group it and label it as a church, it's widespread apostasy.

00:53:52.220 I don't apologize for that statement.

00:53:54.520 Now, granted, there's widespread apostasy across a myriad of ethnic expressions.

00:54:01.300 But in the black church context, it's really bad.

00:54:07.000 And so when you said what you said, I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's true.

00:54:12.860 I mean, we have the doctrine.

00:54:17.640 So many pastors are unwilling to just stand on the authority of scripture and preach what accords with sound doctrine because many of them don't know it.

00:54:27.140 It's performative.

00:54:28.820 It is emotionalism.

00:54:30.240 It is how can I fill these butts in the seats and whatever I have to do to compromise the message to get those people in those seats, I will do that.

00:54:39.720 We're seeing a lot of that.

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00:55:48.080 What's your encouragement for people who they're either hearing you and maybe they're thinking for the first time, oh gosh, I didn't realize I believe in the prosperity gospel.

00:55:56.880 Or they're in the same struggle.

00:55:58.260 They know and they're trying to find the right church and it's hard to do.

00:56:02.260 What encouragement or advice would you give them?

00:56:04.620 The first thing is to get solid on what is the gospel, right?

00:56:09.700 When you have a solid understanding of the gospel, it is very easy to identify a church that is inconsistent with that.

00:56:17.980 And the gospel is this, is that we are all sinners.

00:56:23.320 Adam sinned and we are fallen sons and daughters of Adam.

00:56:28.200 And because of that sin, we must be reconciled to a righteous and holy God who can't look upon sin.

00:56:36.060 And so because sin is the problem, there has to be a righteous substitute.

00:56:41.440 Sin must be atoned for because the wages of sin is death.

00:56:45.580 But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

00:56:48.940 So the only one who qualified to atone for the sins of his people is the sinless Savior and his name is Jesus.

00:56:58.540 And our salvation doesn't come by doing good works or, you know, helping little old ladies across the street or making sure that, you know, you're not sleeping with your boyfriend, but you're doing something else.

00:57:11.220 No, salvation comes by believing that the finished work of what Christ accomplished on that cross for his people can be applied to you by faith, believing in what Christ has done.

00:57:25.340 That is the message of the gospel.

00:57:27.040 So if you are caught up in a message of prosperity that says God wants you healthy and rich and to live your best life now, the bad news is this is as good as it's going to get for those who die apart from Christ. 0.99

00:57:45.580 You eternal life, living in eternity with your creator can only come through faith in Jesus.

00:57:53.980 Yes.

00:57:54.700 Amen.

00:57:55.040 And that is the starting point for all of it.

00:57:57.700 It is.

00:57:58.220 Thank you so much, April.

00:57:59.780 And people can find your YouTube channel just by typing in your name, April Chapman, right?

00:58:03.500 Yes.

00:58:03.940 April Chapman or Unshakeable with April.

00:58:06.900 Awesome.

00:58:07.260 I'm on all platforms under that moniker.

00:58:10.060 Awesome.

00:58:10.400 Well, everyone, subscribe to our channel, support her.

00:58:13.320 April, thank you so much.

00:58:14.460 Thank you.

00:58:15.120 Love you.

00:58:25.040 We'll see you next time.

00:58:37.660 See you next time.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 17, 2025

Ep 1205 ｜ ‘I Was a Murderer’： From Abortion to Gospel Redemption ｜ April Chapman

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