Ep 1247 ｜ Three Men & a Baby： Polyamory Is Infiltrating Foster Care
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 4 minutes
Words per Minute
165.4664
Summary
On today's episode of Relatable, we pay tribute to the memory of our friend Voti Bakum, and remind you that God is in control of all things. He's not surprised by anything going on in the world, and he's not feeling overwhelmed.
Transcript
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The sexual revolution is reaching new lows as polycules around the world are now adopting
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Also, our friend Voti Bakum has gone to be with the Lord, and so we will pay tribute
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to him, but we will also do our best to bring clarity to the chaos of the culture that is
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raging around us in a variety of ways on today's episode of Relatable.
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If you love this show, please leave us a five-star review wherever you listen or watch.
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If you're not subscribed on Spotify or Apple or Google Play or on YouTube, make sure that
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It really helps the show out a lot, and make sure that we can continue to bring you content
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that gives you the clarity and courage that you're looking for.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Here to remind you that God's eternal plan of redemption is still going off without a hitch.
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It's always going off without a hitch, and he's not surprised by anything going on in the
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He's not looking down, wondering, how did you get yourself into this mess?
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He is the ultimate ruler over the heavens and the earth.
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And while we live in this broken world with evil and with things that cause fear and anxiety,
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we can trust that Jesus wins, and we can trust that he is coming back to claim total victory,
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and we are to push back against darkness from a place of victory, not just for a victory,
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It's something that we can look forward to and that we can anchor our hope in,
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even when it seems like the world is falling down around us.
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Certainly, when we scroll through our phone and we see the news, it feels that way,
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but maybe it feels that way in your own life, too.
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Maybe your life has taken unexpected turns over the past couple of weeks, over the past couple
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of years, and you're wondering where God is in all of that.
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But Romans 8, 28 tells us that God works all things.
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That's all things together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to
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Now, that doesn't mean that God is reveling in the evil or the wickedness or the violence
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that occurs, that he wants those things to happen.
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It will always be somewhat of a mystery to understand that God is omnipotent, so he's
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all-powerful, he's omniscient, he's omnipresent, he can do absolutely anything he wants, and yet
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he still allows really bad things to happen, bad things that are beyond our comprehension
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that can be really tough to understand, whether we're looking at what's going on in the world
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or looking at what's going on in our own lives.
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And yet, we know that both things are true, that we live in a fallen world and that God
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And the good news is, as we read in Psalm 37, that God is not doing nothing about the
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And his wrath is kindling, and he has a day and an hour that he has preordained since the
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beginning of time, since before the beginning of time, for his return.
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And those of us who are believers in Christ Jesus for our salvation will be with him forever
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It will feel like, you know, after you've been on a really long trip and maybe you had
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a lot of travel delays and you had to deal with a really annoying gate agent who didn't
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Maybe you missed your flight and you've just been carrying this burden of stress and adrenaline
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for so long you don't even realize how much tension you have in your shoulders as soon
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And you're able to drop your bags and sit down and just that relief and that peace floods
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That's how it will feel multiplied by infinity when we get to the other side of glory.
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I want to start out the week with that because we're going to talk about some things today that
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could easily cultivate fear inside you or anger or sadness.
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Sometimes those are justified responses to what's going on in the news.
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But we can have peace and joy while still understanding what's going on in the world.
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Our peace can't come from closing our eyes to what's going on.
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And the reason for that is I saw an influencer say, oh, we just need to ignore politics altogether
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While I understand that sentiment, what do we always say?
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Politics matter because policy matters because people matter.
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They matter to God because they're made in his image.
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And therefore, as Christians, they have to matter to us.
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And so politics is not the only or the primary way to love your neighbor, but it's a way
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Because how our policy changes and how our culture shifts has a real tangible effect on
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people, especially the most vulnerable, especially the powerless, including, and I would say especially
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So a lot of the stories that we're going to be talking about today have to do with that.
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They have to do with evil, but what can we do as Christians who are here on this earth,
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who are seeking the welfare of the city that God has providentially placed us in?
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What can we do to push back against darkness for the glory of God and for the good of other
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So that's what today's episode is going to be about.
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But I just want to read you first, kind of in the spirit of that, I want to read you this
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incredible testimony that I saw Denny Burke post on Acts.
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Denny Burke, we've cited him many times before.
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But he quoted Wayne Grudem, who recently wrote about this Christian school that he started
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If you don't know who Wayne Grudem is, he's an incredible theologian.
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He's written lots of things, but the thing that I cite most from Wayne Grudem, we've also
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had him on the show before, is systematic theology.
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I really encourage you to invest in a systematic theology book.
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It's a little bit pricey, but it's very well-priced for what you're getting.
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The theological information and the clarity of what you are getting in systematic theology
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It will break things down, and you will treasure this, I think, for the rest of your life.
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So go get you systematic theology by Wayne Grudem.
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But he wrote this, and it was a testimony about Charlie Kirk, and it's just amazing.
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He said, sometimes the results of our ministry appear many years later.
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In 1982, when our oldest son, Elliot, was in third grade, Margaret began to think that
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we needed a Christian school in the north suburban Chicago area.
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We began to talk with other parents, and soon we formed a committee to address the possibility
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After many presentations at many churches and in many homes, Christian Heritage Academy opened
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in 1984 in Northbrook, Illinois, with 59 students in grades kindergarten through sixth.
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The school now has moved to nearby Northfield, Illinois, and has over 400 students in grades
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I was the first president of the board from 1982 to 1984.
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I think many of you who received this prayer memo, so this is a prayer memo that he sends out,
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worked with us to get Christian Heritage Academy started.
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I'm going to try not to cry as I read this last paragraph.
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He says there was an 11-year-old boy in fifth grade.
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And one day, after hearing a challenge from a teacher, he raised his hand to commit his
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This commitment set the direction of his whole life.
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Okay, I'm going to stop crying now and just encourage you with this, that you never know.
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You never know what seeds your small step of obedience is planting.
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She woke up and she said, hey, this would be a really good idea.
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Or maybe it was something that had been cultivated over time by multiple people in her life.
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But God planted the seeds of this idea more than 10 years before Charlie Kirk was born.
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God knew before he placed that idea in her heart, before they were able to raise their
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Every single student in every single life that would be discipled and affected through this
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But he also knew that it would affect Charlie Kirk's life.
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He also knew that this was the means by which Charlie would hear the gospel and believe
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God knew how this would set him up and how many lives would then be changed through God
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You might not even get to see in this lifetime how many people you have affected just by doing
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And so I just want to encourage you that the seemingly small, unseen, unsung acts of obedience
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that you are doing every single day in your home, at your work, at your school, with your
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neighbors, in your community, God is doing something with them.
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And it won't be until we get to the other side of glory that we see the fullness of the tapestry
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that God has put together that makes up all of the interwoven testimonies of his church
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He is in the business of redemption, of making beauty out of ashes, and Satan can try his
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God has given him some authority as the prince of the power of the air, as we read in Ephesians
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But God loves to give Satan a little authority, stack the odds against himself, and then do
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what seems like the impossible to bring himself glory.
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And God will stop at nothing to bring all of his flock to himself.
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Remember, we serve a Jesus who has overcome the world, and he has very graciously ordained
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that you and me are vessels by which he is going to accomplish his perfect will.
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Let's live boldly knowing that we are immortal until God calls us home.
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That we are bulletproof until God calls us home.
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And go full steam ahead in complete and total surrender to Christ.
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We got to get into some more stuff in just a second, but I just want to say a couple things.
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One, we are less than two weeks away from Share the Arrows, which I'm wearing my Share
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the Arrows Carly Jean Los Angeles sweatshirt right now.
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This year's Share the Arrows is brought to you by Carly Jean Los Angeles, but they've also
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Um, we are going to have more merch than we did last year because we underestimated how
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many of you would want the items, but all of the stuff is so cute.
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Whether you are a curious skeptic or whether you are a seasoned believer, whether you are
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Whether you are single, whether you are married, whether you're a mom or a grandmother, it doesn't
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This is for Christian women and seeking women in all stages of life.
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And I'll go ahead and warn you, if you're looking for self-help, if you're looking for
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theological fluff, if you're looking for motivational speeches, Share the Arrows is not for you.
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But if you want theological depth, if you want to be challenged, if you want to create lifelong
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friendships with fellow believers, like if you want to walk out there with zero fear of
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man, if you want courage, if you want to feel grounded and emboldened and like you just
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want to sell out for Christ, no matter the cost, then you should come to Share the Arrows.
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You will walk out of there knowing that you're not alone and knowing that the cause of truth
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If you go to ShareTheArrows.com, you'll see more information about the speakers.
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If you're watching anywhere right now, you can see the speakers that we have coming.
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So we are going to have more information, I'm sure, about this as the days and weeks go
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But I just want to acknowledge this absolute tragedy that occurred yesterday.
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A Michigan Mormon community was targeted in Grand Blanc, Michigan.
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It's a town that's 60 miles northwest of Detroit.
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The suspect is identified as a 40-year-old man from Burton, Michigan.
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He was later shot dead by the police in the building's car park.
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Right now, we've learned that there are four dead, and that there are at least eight injured.
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But what I'm reading from the BBC is that some people remain unaccounted for.
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I mean, I am sure that there were children that were victims.
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We don't know for sure why exactly this person targeted the Mormons in this community if he
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It does seem that this is a pattern, not specifically for Mormons, although I'm sure that Mormons are
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But certainly non-Islamic religions, whether it's a Christian church, whether it's a Mormon
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community, whether it's a synagogue, over the past few years, we have seen this kind of
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extremist, what seems like progressive or pro-Palestinian violence against these kinds of institutions.
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And so, I mean, not only pray for this community who has just been indelibly affected by this and
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pray for the families, give them peace, pray for the people who are in the hospital who are
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I mean, obviously, hopefully we are seeing an awakening and a revival that is going to seep into the hearts
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of all kinds of people, but we are seeing a certain segment of American society become more and more
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radicalized and more and more violent against who they perceive as their enemies of their radical
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And obviously, like we saw the completely disparate reactions to Charlie Kirk's assassination from an
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a, you know, by an avowed progressive and the death of George Floyd, we had vigils versus violence.
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And I think the difference is only going to become more and more stark.
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We have to show that dichotomy of light versus darkness.
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But that does not mean that the government does not have a role to step in in a very aggressive way
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to do whatever they can to preempt this kind of violence.
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And so praying for that, praying that our leaders would have courage to do the right thing and to do
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what they have to do to carry out their God-ordained responsibility, as we read in Romans 13,
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Not only did this murderer shoot up this Mormon community, but also used accelerant on the building,
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And then, you know, the entire building caught a blaze.
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And I don't think we know yet the damage, the extent of the damage.
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We'll probably be talking more about that in the next couple weeks.
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But I wanted to talk about something that we actually haven't addressed in a while.
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We've talked about it over the span of Relatable many, many times over the years.
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But we kind of we've taken a break a little bit from talking about things like surrogacy and IVF,
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There's just been a lot of other things to talk about.
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And so just buckle up for a conversation that maybe you haven't heard before.
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I am having Katie Faust speak at Share the Arrows, and she's the best on this.
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She is the best on pro-child politics and how we center the child and how we structure society
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And she is a champion of the reality that kids are best suited.
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The ideal situation for every child is to live with their married biological mom and dad.
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And before you post your caveats and your kind of exceptions to that, that is the ideal.
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Every data set we have, and we'll get into some specific numbers, shows that kids are
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best suited to live with their married biological mom and dad.
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Yes, there are some exceptions to that, but the exceptions just prove the rule.
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So when we venture outside of that, whether it's two men or two women raising a child, whether
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it's one woman or one man raising a child, you fall outside of the ideal.
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There is a death of a parent, or maybe the mother was abandoned.
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Of course, sometimes those are tragic scenarios.
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But when we are talking about the sexual revolution that has occurred over the past 20 years,
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and especially the past 10 years since Obergefell, we are talking about intentionally creating
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motherless and fatherless children, intentionally taking children out of the ideal and putting
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them in, in the most charitable terms, a less than ideal situation, knowing that the data
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shows us that this is not best for their well-being.
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And as Christians, we are called to champion the cause of the fatherless.
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And for whatever reason, there are a lot of Christians, especially those who fancy themselves
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social justice Christians, who don't include these children who are being purposely raised
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without a father or purposely raised without a mother in that category of vulnerability,
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of fatherlessness that we see throughout scripture.
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And I'm sure that we can deduce that motherlessness would be included in that category of vulnerability,
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but that is such a historical aberration that it wouldn't have made sense for at the time
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the Bible to have language for that because it's been virtually impossible and so very rare
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But now through IVF and surrogacy and the loosey-goosey regulations of adoption, motherlessness is not
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only allowed in society today, but it's celebrated.
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We treat children who are born in these surrogacy situations worse than we treat puppies or kittens.
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We understand that puppies and kittens need to stay with their mom for at least six weeks.
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But when you have two men that buy the eggs from one woman, that rent the womb from another woman,
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and then force this child away from their biological mom and away from the only body and home they've ever known
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immediately after birth, placed them on their strange hairy chest, you've got two men who are exploiting
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these women and who are commodifying this child and treating this child worse than we treat animals in the United States.
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Okay, that is just one small part and one small terrible consequence to the LGBTQ revolution
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that has just taken over over the past 10 years.
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But when you change the definition of marriage, of parenting just a little bit, that opens the door
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So now it's not just two men or two women who are having these children through whatever means possible,
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but now we have three men or two men and one woman or any kind of combination of thruple or polycule that's out there.
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Being validated and allowed to raise children because we have decided to lay a child's needs and well-beings
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We are no better than any other pagan society that has ever lived.
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We are still sacrificing children, whether it's through abortion, whether it's gender ideology,
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butchering the bodies of children, or whether it's through this.
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Purposely laying them down on the altar of adults' sexual whims.
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That's what's going on right now, especially in Quebec.
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I saw this video going around that explains that this polycule of three dudes just adopted a little baby girl
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For the last seven years, Jonathan Bédard, Eric Leblanc, and Justin Maheu have been waiting to become parents
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together, something that officially happened yesterday.
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Like Annie, she's curious, she's energetic, she loves to play, she loves to jump, she loves to dance.
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They adopted their three-year-old through Quebec's youth protection services,
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but first had to be approved as foster parents, something that required a lot of work and openness,
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We had a lot of things to go through in order to be able to have that accreditation,
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and it's through that process that they learned that we are a little different because we're three,
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You actually are, though, because you're three dudes, which tells me you have no moral limits.
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Like if you're willing to not only defy nature, and you are willing to defy even liberal definitions
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of marriage, and you live in some kind of inherently unstable polycule situation,
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then you do not have the correct components to raise a child.
00:26:08.720
I think that, okay, even if we take religion out of it, let's just look at this scientifically.
00:26:14.820
Two men or two women who want to be in a relationship have to acknowledge that they do not have the parts
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And therefore, because biology, not bigotry, has set limitations on your reproductive abilities,
00:26:35.580
then there should be limits and restrictions and regulations around your ability to obtain and raise a child.
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Because you see all of the hoops that have to be jumped through,
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and all of the moral limitations that have to be placed to the side in order for an inherently unstable relationship like this
00:27:08.320
And I will say without apology, and this is like, this is a big statement.
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And it's hard to say because I think foster care is so terrible in so many ways,
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and that it's not even close to an ideal for a child.
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But this little girl would be better off in foster care until she is 18 years old
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than living with three men who are living in a polycule situation.
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100% because there is no end to the confusion and instability and chaos that a situation like this can cause.
00:27:50.940
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Corley and Ben, they've sat on this couch, I've talked to them,
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They are, I think, living out that Jeremiah 29 command to seek the welfare of the place
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Okay, so this is totally legal in Quebec, but this is also legal elsewhere.
00:29:18.480
In Glamour magazine, I found this article from 2017.
00:29:22.360
A New York judge granted child custody to a polyamorous family.
00:29:25.940
A Suffolk County Supreme Court judge ruled in 2017 that three adults could share custody
00:29:32.040
of a 10-year-old, saying the child viewed all three as parents, and the three parents
00:29:55.640
It is seeking the best interest and the well-being, the highest well-being of the person that you
00:30:03.960
And we don't define that by just what they want or just what we want as Christians.
00:30:08.820
We understand that we define good, and we define benefit, and we define well-being.
00:30:14.640
We define love how God defines all of those things.
00:30:22.080
And one thing we read about love in 1 Corinthians 13, verse 6, says that we should never rejoice
00:30:34.400
We cannot support destructive policies and say that we are loving someone just because
00:30:38.540
we're affirming their way of life, or we're not being judgmental, or we're validating how
00:30:47.380
And by the way, Christians are called to judge with righteous judgment.
00:30:53.620
And so we shouldn't be condemning someone for something that we are also actively guilty of.
00:30:59.320
But we are supposed to be calling a spade a spade.
00:31:04.840
We are called to push back against darkness and to expose the unfruitful works of darkness,
00:31:13.840
And so it is very important for us to be able to look at something like this and say, no.
00:31:18.580
In fact, that has been the history, the legacy, the heritage of Christians since the very
00:31:23.880
It's not about being divisive or even primarily political.
00:31:28.840
First chapter of the first book of the Bible, Genesis 127, tells us that God made us male
00:31:35.500
He created gender, marriage, family, the value of human life, all in one verse in the very
00:31:44.200
OK, so let me keep going on this story and clamor.
00:31:46.900
Don and Michael Morano, a married couple, formed a polyamorous relationship with their
00:31:52.400
OK, and their neighbor carried their son via surrogacy and all three co-parented until Don
00:31:58.320
and Michael's divorce sparked a custody battle.
00:32:06.300
I, I, that, that, that just throws me for a loop.
00:32:09.580
I definitely thought that this was a, an, in sickness or in health, holy covenant kind
00:32:17.280
I can't believe that this is inherently unstable.
00:32:21.580
At the time, one of these people, Michael, planned to appeal the ruling saying that Don is not
00:32:27.180
entitled to custody because she isn't biologically related to the child.
00:32:35.960
Some people who push back against my surrogacy stance, because I think it's always wrong
00:32:39.620
in every situation, because you're always asking the child to do something difficult
00:32:44.220
on behalf of the whims of adults, which is leave the, leave the only body, the only home
00:32:53.420
And if you've got a question about adoption, I'll answer that in a second.
00:32:56.220
Um, but it creates these complications and going back to the beginning, going back to
00:33:02.320
Genesis again, like we see the complications of surrogacy.
00:33:06.600
When we look at Hagar, people say, oh, well, surrogacy is in the Bible.
00:33:14.960
God still took care of Hagar, took care of Ishmael, but, um, it created problems.
00:33:22.300
Any time you venture outside of God's ordained definitions for marriage and family, one man,
00:33:28.340
one woman for a life, first marriage, then kids, things get complicated.
00:33:41.060
Yes, of course, because he's good and he's perfect and we're not, but we should do everything
00:33:46.380
that we can to intentionally stay within God's bounds because we know that he's good.
00:33:50.840
God created marriage in the family for a lot of reasons to reflect the marriage between
00:33:55.440
Christ and the church, but also on a practical level to protect women and children because
00:34:04.800
And so we, marriage is amazing because a man who is called in Ephesians 5 to love his wife,
00:34:12.780
It's a protector for the woman who is also serving as a protector for the child.
00:34:17.720
Like this saves the child from the predation of the medical industrial complex or from a
00:34:26.600
government prowess or from any kind of predator, from any kind of exploiter, like a strong family
00:34:34.320
unit is the biggest defense against all sorts of societal decay.
00:34:41.960
And this is exactly why Satan comes after it and has from the very beginning, like what
00:34:48.440
There's been enmity between the husband and wife because of Adam's sin of passivity and
00:34:55.520
because of Eve's sin of disobedience and not trusting God.
00:34:59.880
And we still see that manifesting itself today because Satan knew, by the way, that redemption
00:35:08.060
And so he has it out for children because they are vulnerable.
00:35:15.920
And Christians have always been called to speak out against the satanic.
00:35:20.960
California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Washington, Vermont allow courts to recognize more than
00:35:28.180
And there are other states that have court rulings that support tripartite.
00:35:34.460
So like this kind of polycule situation, custody or parental rights for a third parent.
00:35:42.620
And there's really no end to this because if three people can all claim to be a valid parent
00:35:58.320
If we have 50 men who say, oh, yeah, I want to adopt this baby girl.
00:36:05.460
Is anyone allowed to say, oh, something doesn't feel right about this.
00:36:12.100
Are we allowed to say that without being called bigots?
00:36:17.420
Maybe we should start caring about the well-being and the rights of children more than we care
00:36:21.800
about the sexual whims or even just the desires, any kind of desires of adults.
00:36:31.380
And at least when it comes to adoption, there are some restrictions.
00:36:34.640
Like even though, unfortunately, these three men were allowed to adopt this child, they did
00:36:41.500
They supposedly had to prove that, you know, they had some semblance of a stable life.
00:36:47.760
However, when it comes to surrogacy, no such regulations exist.
00:36:53.600
You don't have to go through a background check in order to obtain a child through surrogacy.
00:37:05.120
You find the surrogacy or the surrogate in a catalog.
00:37:08.920
And as long as you can pay the tens of thousands of dollars, as long as the women will sign the
00:37:13.820
dotted line, you can have as many children as you can afford.
00:37:19.140
No one's going to come to your home to make sure that child is okay.
00:37:22.620
Surrogacy and the reproductive fertility world in the United States is the wild, wild west.
00:37:38.500
We've got, and this is true whether we're talking about LGBTQ, it's also true when we're
00:37:44.740
talking just about like the ethics behind IVF and surrogacy in general.
00:37:49.800
We've got a million babies, a million embryos who are on ice.
00:37:55.680
Either they've been abandoned, they've been forgotten about, they've been left to be destroyed
00:38:03.200
It is such an egregious sin what we do to unborn life in the United States.
00:38:09.920
It is incredible that God has given us so much mercy and has shown us so much patience.
00:38:15.740
But I want Christians to rise up and to speak out against this stuff, speak up on behalf
00:38:21.780
of children, speak up on behalf of children's rights.
00:38:25.580
Children should have an acknowledged legal right to a mother and father, ideally their
00:38:32.540
But everything should be done when children are in foster care, when they're seeking adoption,
00:38:38.180
no matter the situation, everything should be done to ensure that child has a mother and
00:38:51.420
God knew what he was doing when he made our biology.
00:38:54.220
I was talking to Elisa Childers the other day and she said something that I hadn't heard
00:38:58.600
before that I thought was a cool way to think about it, which of course we knew.
00:39:03.440
So everyone has their own full digestive system, right?
00:39:13.940
Like it is complete inside our body as a rule, but you only have half of a reproductive system.
00:39:19.580
Everyone only has half of a reproductive system.
00:39:22.180
It cannot, it doesn't produce anything on its own.
00:39:27.080
And so God created men and women in this obviously biologically complementary and necessary way
00:39:38.660
And so those of you who believe in science, don't you think at the very least that science
00:39:43.040
tells us a little something about how society should be set up, how marriages and families
00:39:50.680
Of course, I believe that it's not only science, but it's also scripture.
00:39:54.680
It's also God himself who is so intelligent and so creative and so good in creating the
00:40:02.160
I think this is like the biggest issue of our day that Christians just need a lot more
00:40:09.500
I love that you speak out against sex trafficking.
00:40:12.200
I love that you speak out against other kinds of exploitation.
00:40:15.560
Are you willing to speak out against the reproductive industry?
00:40:18.640
Are you willing to speak out against the corruption and adoption and foster care agencies?
00:40:22.640
Are you willing to speak out against the redefinition of marriage that has led to millions of fatherless
00:40:32.500
Now, before I get into this data, which we'll get into in just a second, I do just want to
00:40:38.940
Okay, when we're talking about surrogacy especially, because I'm not trying to conflate surrogacy and
00:40:48.000
But particularly when we are talking about two men obtaining the egg, obtaining the womb,
00:40:56.800
and taking this child away from the mother and the woman who carried them, how is that any different
00:41:03.780
That's what people ask because adoption requires you to take this baby away from the mother as
00:41:11.280
So if we're talking about the effects of that, then aren't they morally equal?
00:41:16.900
And this is a phrase that we came up with a long time ago that I think helps us understand
00:41:22.760
Adoption, as a rule, redeems an already broken situation.
00:41:28.560
Surrogacy, sperm donation, egg donation creates a broken situation.
00:41:33.460
So when a woman gets pregnant, she doesn't mean to get pregnant.
00:41:38.260
She doesn't want to be in the situation where, you know, she has a pregnancy of a baby that
00:41:48.380
And so she bravely gives this child up for adoption.
00:41:54.360
But when you are intentionally creating children for the purpose of taking them away from their
00:41:59.420
biological parent or raising them fatherless or motherless, you are creating that broken
00:42:10.120
Let's get into what the data actually says about how kids fare in different kinds of homes.
00:42:15.960
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Children in stable, married, biological, two-parent homes consistently show the best outcomes
00:43:41.260
across multiple domains, including cognitive development, educational attainment, behavioral
00:43:45.840
health, emotional stability, and economic security.
00:43:49.000
They have lower rates of delinquency, substance abuse, and mental health issues, higher high
00:43:53.720
school graduation, and college attendance rates.
00:43:58.960
Like we should say, okay, no matter what your personal beliefs are, no matter what your personal
00:44:06.140
And it shows that, again, even if you don't agree with the religious undertones of this,
00:44:11.100
that biologically, clearly we are set up in an ideal situation to be with our married mom
00:44:16.440
and dad. It gives us a sense of belonging and purpose and identity that is really important
00:44:25.420
Now, are there kids who will be raised in a different kind of home who will be fine?
00:44:30.260
Are there kids who are raised by an awesome married biological mom and dad who don't turn
00:44:36.760
It's not judging it just by the outcomes, but also by just the morality behind it.
00:44:43.560
But we're talking statistically, like we're talking by numbers.
00:44:50.640
So we have to be able to understand things in those terms.
00:44:53.700
A 2014 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that children raised by married
00:45:00.240
biological parents had a 50% lower likelihood of experiencing poverty compared to single-parent
00:45:06.000
households and 30% lower than cohabitating households.
00:45:10.000
A meta-analysis of 100 studies showed children in intact two-parent families had better academic
00:45:16.080
performance and fewer behavioral problems, 60% lower risk of delinquency.
00:45:21.520
This is from a 2001 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family.
00:45:24.860
The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this is from 1997, found children of married biological
00:45:31.820
parents who are 20% more likely to graduate high school and 25% more likely to attend college
00:45:40.380
What we also know, that a very dangerous situation for a child to be in statistically is to live
00:45:51.040
That's not to say all stepdads are bad by any means.
00:45:53.840
I know a lot of you out there are awesome stepdads and have awesome stepdads.
00:45:57.340
But again, statistically, a live-in boyfriend or a male partner who is not biologically related
00:46:04.800
to the child is the most dangerous statistically person in that child's life.
00:46:13.020
If we look at single mother homes, which I think is also important because we see this
00:46:17.940
rise in fatherlessness, I mean, especially in among the Black American community, I think
00:46:24.800
it's something like 70% plus of babies are born out of wedlock, which if we're looking
00:46:30.780
at delinquency and instability and high school graduation rates, I mean, I think there's a
00:46:37.100
reason why, for example, Asian Americans, they have the lowest divorce rates and they have
00:46:41.660
the highest rates of graduation instability and financial resources and all of that.
00:46:48.160
The U.S. Census Bureau in 2020 reports that 65% of single mother households live below
00:46:56.260
The Fragile Family Study showed that children of single mothers had a 40% higher risk of
00:47:00.540
dropping out of high school compared to peers from married biological parents.
00:47:06.360
Again, we've got data about live-in boyfriends.
00:47:08.980
A 2011 study found that children in cohabitating households with a non-biological male partner,
00:47:14.460
okay, so this is a man and a woman or two men, had a 10% to 20% higher risk of physical or
00:47:21.060
sexual abuse compared to children in married biological two-parent homes.
00:47:26.440
The National Survey of Family Growth showed that cohabitating unions with children were
00:47:30.980
two to three times more likely to dissolve within five years.
00:47:34.320
So think about the polycules that we were just talking about than married unions.
00:47:38.520
They also have higher rates of anxiety and depression than peers in married-to-parent homes.
00:47:44.540
That's from a Manning and Lamb study from 2003.
00:47:49.000
So we have very sparse specific data on polyamorous situations, but I think we can deduce based
00:47:56.140
on all of that data that the best situation is a married mom and dad.
00:48:00.740
Now, there are less than ideal situations because we live in a fallen world.
00:48:04.820
However, we should be doing as a society everything we can to ensure that every child has a mom
00:48:12.020
and dad, and again, ideally a married mom and dad.
00:48:16.300
Now, a lot of people say, well, what are Christians doing?
00:48:21.340
Look, evangelical Christians take up the lion's share of adoptions.
00:48:29.080
Should the church be doing more to empty out the foster cares?
00:48:35.360
But I don't think this is primarily because the church hasn't adopted again.
00:48:41.440
It is primarily specifically evangelical Christians who are going into these foster cares and adopting these kids.
00:48:50.180
It's also because I think in a lot of situations, gay couples are actually prioritized.
00:48:55.180
And we saw with Jessica Bates in the state of Oregon, she's a Christian mom, and she wanted to adopt these kids out of foster care.
00:49:04.100
And the state told her no because she would not sign a form that said, sure, I'll transition my kids if they want to transition their gender.
00:49:11.880
Sure, I'll affirm their sexuality if they say that, you know, they're whatever they want to be.
00:49:17.240
The state of Oregon tried to require her to sign that.
00:49:19.760
She wouldn't sign it, so they wouldn't let her adopt.
00:49:22.240
And thankfully, Alliance Defending Freedom won her case because it's religious discrimination.
00:49:26.840
But how often is that happening in sneakier ways across the United States?
00:49:33.400
So I don't think that this is all on the hands of the church.
00:49:37.420
I think it's also because we live in a very messed up world.
00:49:40.940
And so in addition to trying to adopt these kids, Christians have to be changing policy.
00:49:51.500
I want to talk about my friend Vodhi Bauckham, too, in today's episode.
00:49:56.920
He was an incredible minister, preacher, husband, father of nine kids.
00:50:03.540
And he went home to be with the Lord last week at the age of 56 after a medical emergency.
00:50:16.320
I think the last time I saw him in person was last June.
00:50:25.480
And gosh, he was like, he was going full steam ahead then.
00:50:31.960
I know him and his family had just moved back to the States and had a lot of exciting things
00:50:42.480
I mean, it just seems like it's one after the other.
00:50:50.900
All of these incredible evangelical theological titans that helped so much infuse clarity into
00:51:00.160
And the Lord is taking them home and adding them to his roster.
00:51:06.800
I mean, what an incredible time to be spending eternity together.
00:51:15.040
And I don't think that we have to minimize that.
00:51:17.140
So I'm going to go through some of my favorite things about Vodhi Bauckham, some things that
00:51:21.660
I think that we need to remember him by in just a second.
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00:53:04.320
Votie's sermons were awesome, and he just had so many good responses to the lies of this
00:53:16.680
world, whether it was in his book, Fault Lines.
00:53:19.420
I mean, he's written lots of books, but that was his latest book that he wrote, or just in
00:53:27.800
We do not have a God who calls upon us for blind faith.
00:53:37.220
So those are the two things that I want to do, right?
00:53:40.120
Number one, just, you know, get off your moral high horse, because you've got presuppositions
00:53:46.220
And number two, look at what your presuppositions have wrought.
00:53:49.640
And then number three, let me talk to you about mine.
00:53:57.460
Everyone has a lens through which they see the world.
00:53:59.400
Everyone is bringing their worldview to the table when we talk about politics and culture.
00:54:03.600
And so if the atheists can bring their worldview to the table, we're talking about politics
00:54:07.640
and culture, why can't the Christian, without being called a fascist or a Nazi, no one is
00:54:13.880
Everyone believes that their view of morality is right.
00:54:21.120
Atheism is what has wrought so much suffering, especially in the 20th century through socialism
00:54:29.200
His big thing, I think one of the things he was known best for was advocating for Christian
00:54:34.920
education, particularly homeschool, but really just not public secular education.
00:54:40.240
One of his most famous quotes was, if you send your kids to Caesar, don't be surprised
00:54:46.740
That one brilliant line struck a chord with millions of Christian parents across the country
00:54:54.120
who decided right then and there to sacrifice whatever they had to sacrifice financially,
00:55:00.200
time, energy, effort to make sure that their child had a Christian education either at home
00:55:09.520
I mean, we're hitting on a lot of the most controversial things I talk about today.
00:55:12.820
It's actually not abortion or gender among my audience.
00:55:18.200
We didn't really get into that and listen to my past episodes on IVF.
00:55:21.180
We'll link a couple of them, but also public education because I'm a staunch advocate of
00:55:26.960
Not because we absolutely know that it guarantees the outcome of your child's salvation or your
00:55:32.920
child's life, but because of stewardship, because of obedience, because we only have so many hours
00:55:40.440
And why would we outsource hours of discipleship to people who don't have the same worldview as
00:55:45.860
us or who aren't even legally allowed to talk about the Christian worldview, even if they do share
00:55:52.380
I was talking to a friend a few years ago who was like, yeah, I think we're going to send our child
00:55:57.200
They live in this nice, affluent area where the public school is probably better than others.
00:56:04.920
We live in this conservative area and I know the teachers and I've heard this a lot, whether you live
00:56:10.880
This was very prevalent thing to think and say, especially a few years ago.
00:56:16.380
But my thing is, even if that is true, which it's probably not, it's more pervasive than
00:56:23.540
But even if that is true, even if you know all of your kids' teachers, even if you live
00:56:27.520
in a conservative area, it's not just about what they're learning.
00:56:34.280
That even if it sands all woke stuff, they're not going to be learning about the Word of God.
00:56:41.700
They're not going to be learning the Nicene Creed.
00:56:46.580
They're not going to be learning that two plus two equals four because God ordained it to
00:56:50.760
And so if your child is not getting that kind of foundation, then they're missing out.
00:57:00.260
And that's not to say that they won't become incredible Christians because primarily the
00:57:08.380
But I think that Christian parents should do everything they possibly can to give their
00:57:15.260
Like, in addition to my parents taking me to church and just being solid Christians themselves,
00:57:20.720
greatest gift they gave me was giving me 13 years of a Christian education.
00:57:24.440
You guys are asking me all the time, how do you know scripture?
00:57:29.000
How did you learn to research Christian school for 13 years?
00:57:33.480
Not only did it give me such a theological foundation, but writing, research, articulating, argumentation.
00:57:42.480
College was a breeze because kindergarten through 12th grade, I had a really good training, a
00:57:52.520
But gosh, I am still, I think, reaping the fruit of like a Christ-centered education for
00:58:01.940
And I think more parents are financially capable of doing it than you think.
00:58:10.300
So thank you, Votie Bauckham, for just being willing to not only live that, but to speak
00:58:16.720
That changed the trajectory of millions of people's lives.
00:58:20.260
So thank you, Votie Bauckham, for your courage on that.
00:58:23.700
Like I said, Votie has been on Relatable several times.
00:58:28.400
We've talked a lot about social justice, especially around the time of 2020.
00:58:33.280
Here's what he had to say about social justice in 2023, SOP 5.
00:58:38.760
I think what we have to do is we've got to just stop, right?
00:58:48.280
And we've got to stop letting people make us feel guilty about things that we haven't
00:58:54.380
done, about things that we've had no part in, about things that nobody we know had any
00:59:06.200
He was such a strong voice against social and racial justice and all of the critical race
00:59:13.160
I mean, he was also just like willing to call people out very specifically by name.
00:59:19.400
And I just always appreciated that about him a lot.
00:59:22.680
We'll finish out by saying one more thing about Votie.
00:59:28.040
But I've got one last sponsor, and that's Constitution Wealth.
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So Votie was married to his wife, Bridget, since 1989.
01:01:14.240
And she is still committed to home educating them.
01:01:18.720
And so Founders Ministries has set up a GoFundMe for their family to just be able to live in
01:01:27.740
And with him gone, this is going to be really hard on Bridget, really hard on their kids.
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He's got adult kids, but then he's got kids that are still pretty young.
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So if you can donate, if you can support in any way, whether it's small, whether it's
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And we have such amazing technology today that through the body of Christ, it's actually
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Through the body of Christ, we can do this for people not only in our communities, in our
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And I just want to play this clip of Votie talking about his death, Sot6.
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You are going to hear a rumor one day that Votie Wackham is no more.
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It will not be the end of me because Christ is raised.
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That is why he is called the firstborn from the dead.
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Folks, you don't talk about a firstborn unless there's others who are born after him.
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You pity the one who wants to hold on to Jesus without holding on to the resurrection.
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You pity the one who has absolutely no hope because they have no resurrected Christ.
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And I just hope, just like Charlie, that his message spreads further than it ever had before,
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that people read more of his books, listen to more of his sermons, and that the gospel
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I'm sad for all of us who benefited so much from him.
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But I just know that God brings beauty out of ashes and that he's going to continue to
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do that through the life and legacy of Odi Bakum.
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And yet again, we look at a saint who has died and we say, I want to live like that.
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And we should all hope that when we die, that the gospel will be spread further because of