Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1297 ｜ Rebutting Ben Cremer’s Unbiblical Take on ICE

00:00:00.980 Supporting ICE is Christian nationalism, and white evangelicals are the source of all of

00:00:06.920 our problems. At least that's what you're hearing on Instagram from the so-called progressive

00:00:11.840 Christians. Well, don't worry. We are responding to all of this and more on today's episode of

00:00:17.060 Relatable.

00:00:17.400 Hey, guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful day so far.

00:00:32.100 All right. I got to tell you, God's eternal plan of redemption is going off without a hitch. It's

00:00:36.500 still going off without a hitch. On this week, on this day, it is still going off without a hitch.

00:00:41.140 Nothing surprises him or takes him aback. Nothing confuses him. Nothing throws him off. He is

00:00:45.680 sovereign over all of it. He is never looking down and wondering, how did you get into this mess?

00:00:50.960 What is going on? He is all seeing. He is all knowing. And he is working all things together

00:00:56.080 for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. And that is what we can

00:01:00.720 trust, that one day there will be no more disagreement, no more politics, no more debate,

00:01:05.100 because Jesus is coming back. He wins, and he will rule in perfect peace forever. So what is our role?

00:01:11.200 It's not just to sit on our hands and wait for that day. It's to do the next right thing in faith,

00:01:15.680 with excellence, and for the glory of God. When we don't know what to do, we don't know how to make

00:01:20.240 a difference. That's what we can do because God uses the unseen and unsung faithful acts of obedience

00:01:26.180 of believers to advance his kingdom. Sometimes that's something really public. Sometimes it's

00:01:32.540 just changing a diaper or washing dishes or sending an email with joy and excellence.

00:01:36.720 So I always like to start out the week with that reminder. It's as much for me as it is for you,

00:01:44.320 because we're talking about things that can make us angry, understandably, that can make us sad,

00:01:49.040 and it can feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But actually, we know who wins in

00:01:54.000 the end. But as we are navigating the chaos of this world, we have to remember, as Christians,

00:01:59.320 we are called to be agents of order and agents of clarity. We have the opportunity,

00:02:04.060 when things are crazy outside, to be a refuge of strength and truth. And so one thing that I really

00:02:10.960 like to do—like might be a strong word—one thing that I think is necessary for me to do

00:02:16.680 is to look at some of the most prominent claims that you are seeing, especially on Instagram,

00:02:22.920 especially from people who are identifying as progressive Christians, and then read about them

00:02:29.900 using logic and using scripture. I will say, in some way, this is one of my favorite things to do.

00:02:36.840 And that is why I thoroughly enjoyed my three-hour debate on Jubilee, one conservative Christian

00:02:41.740 versus 20 supposedly liberal Christians talking about all of these things. It's kind of what I do

00:02:48.820 on a daily basis. And I found when I was in that setting that this is a lot like doing my podcast.

00:02:54.320 And you guys always appreciate when I kind of give you the tools to say, when someone says this,

00:03:00.000 this is how you respond. So that's what we are going to be doing today. Progressives are really

00:03:04.940 good at emotionally evocative language. They are really good at using scripture in such a way that

00:03:10.040 arrests your thinking and emotionally manipulates you into supporting their position, into believing

00:03:15.520 that being progressive means being a good person, means being Christ-like, and being on the other

00:03:20.920 side of that is scary and wrong and bad. So I want to give you the words to be able to support why you

00:03:26.260 believe what you believe biblically and politically, especially when it comes to immigration. So I just

00:03:32.940 want to go through some of the claims, starting with this first claim that I've seen over and over

00:03:37.640 again, that supporting ICE operations or any kind of immigration enforcement is so-called Christian

00:03:44.220 nationalism. We've talked about Christian nationalism a few times over the years, but we just got to hammer

00:03:49.320 home what this actually means, what our perspective on it should be. Benjamin Kramer, a lot of you guys have

00:03:56.240 sent me his posts on Instagram. He's a pastor at the Cathedral of the Rockies. This is a United Methodist

00:04:02.220 Church congregation in Idaho. United Methodist Church split several years ago over the LGBTQ issue, whether we

00:04:10.200 should honor so-called gay marriage as something that is biblically legitimate. He is a very progressive

00:04:15.660 guy. He doesn't talk about in his latest post that is very popular with 143,000 likes on Instagram, ICE

00:04:25.760 specifically. But judging by his other posts and the timing of this, this is clearly what he is talking

00:04:31.160 about. So this is a post against so-called Christian nationalism. And I'm not going to go through all maybe

00:04:37.420 20 slides that he put up, but I'll just give you a taste of what he is saying and then I'll respond to it.

00:04:43.660 So he says, Christian nationalism looks like seeing Jesus hanging on the cross and saying he should have

00:04:51.360 just obeyed the law. Christian nationalism, Ben Kramer says, looks like cheering on Pharaoh while

00:04:57.860 condemning Moses for being too political. Christian nationalism, he says, looks like getting outraged at

00:05:03.400 the prophet Nathan for rebuking King David for his horrid sins and telling him God can use a filthy

00:05:08.840 minded wealthy man to accomplish good things. And then the last one that I'll read, although there

00:05:13.980 are quite a few more that you can read on your own. Christian nationalism looks like using the Bible

00:05:18.120 to seek first the power of the empire rather than the self-sacrificial love of Jesus. Christian

00:05:23.460 nationalism looks like worshiping power rather than loving God and our neighbors. Christian nationalism

00:05:28.560 looks nothing like Jesus. So this is a moniker that gets thrown my way a lot. And if you are a

00:05:38.840 quite a few times at this point, like I typically, when someone messages me that I just respond with

00:05:45.360 sarcasm. I think we learned from Jesus that well-timed sarcasm actually makes a better point

00:05:50.160 sometimes than literalism. Someone called me that the other day, just said, I think you mean you're a

00:05:55.780 Christian nationalist. And I said, oh my gosh, Stephanie, I've changed my mind on everything. Thank you so

00:06:00.820 much. My eyes are opened. Abortion is great and men can become women. It just doesn't work,

00:06:06.100 but I want you to know why it doesn't work. I want you to know why this whole Christian

00:06:11.240 nationalist fear-mongering thing should do absolutely nothing for you. And you really

00:06:17.340 shouldn't be afraid of someone calling you this. Okay. So number one, what is Christian

00:06:23.180 nationalism? We learned from 2020, the importance of defining our term. So what is a Christian? We

00:06:28.320 could define it as those who believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is followers of Jesus of

00:06:33.880 Nazareth, who is God, who is the only way, the only truth, and the only life, the only

00:06:39.300 way to heaven. What is nationalism? Putting the priorities of your nation first. That's

00:06:45.140 literally what that means. What it is not, and this is what progressives seem to think

00:06:50.560 that it is or how they describe it, it is not believing that America is the chosen nation

00:06:55.520 or the new Israel, that all of the prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled in America

00:07:01.220 today. And if you are someone who is on the right and you do believe that, that's not

00:07:05.440 biblical. But most people who are called Christian nationalist derisively don't believe those

00:07:12.260 things. They are simply people who are Christians. And so we have Christian values that infiltrate

00:07:17.440 every area of our lives. And we are placed providentially by God in America. So we seek the

00:07:23.340 interests of our country first, as every other country also has the right and responsibility

00:07:27.760 to do. So Christian nationalism for what it really is, and then Christian nationalism for

00:07:32.960 what the progressives say. And then the next question, of course, is Christian nationalism

00:07:38.060 wrong? Well, a Christian believes necessarily by nature that God's ways are better. Why do

00:07:46.460 we believe this? Because of the most controversial verse in the Bible, which I think is Genesis 1-1.

00:07:51.820 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Why is that the most controversial?

00:07:55.640 Because if God created all of it, he is the authority over all of it. If he is the authority

00:08:00.000 over all of it, then he gets to say what is and what isn't, what's right and what's wrong,

00:08:03.320 what's good, what's bad, what's true, what's false, what a woman is, what she's not, what

00:08:05.960 a marriage is, and when life begins. And we really see the answers to all of those things

00:08:10.640 in the very first chapter of the first book of the Bible in Genesis 1-27. And so if you're

00:08:16.300 a Christian and you believe that God's ways are better, and you believe that he has the authority

00:08:20.040 over all of it, that is necessarily going to influence your politics. What is a nationalist?

00:08:27.300 A nationalist means that you care about your country the most, that you want to put your

00:08:32.280 interests and your fellow citizens' interests in security, number one, before the interest

00:08:37.940 in the security of other countries. We read something like this in Jeremiah 27. The Israelites

00:08:44.540 are in exile in Babylon. And God tells them, but seek the welfare of the city where I have

00:08:50.280 sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find

00:08:56.040 your welfare. And if that was true of exiles then, that they should seek the welfare of the

00:09:02.160 city that they're placed in, surely it is true for Christian exiles here today to seek

00:09:06.500 the welfare of the country, of the city, of the community in which we have been placed.

00:09:10.460 Is Christian nationalism wrong? Another part of this is that every single person believes

00:09:16.860 their worldview should inform the policies of our country. This is natural. This is

00:09:22.380 inevitable for the atheist, for the agnostic, for the progressive, for the Christian, for

00:09:27.060 the conservative. Every single person allows our worldview, the fullness of our belief system

00:09:33.140 to follow us into the voting booth. Don't be fooled into believing that you as a conservative

00:09:38.900 Christian are the only person who is not allowed to let your belief system inform your vote.

00:09:47.380 Every other group does this. You have the right and responsibility to do the same. And by the

00:09:53.140 way, Ben Kramer does the same thing. He believes that his worldview as a so-called progressive

00:09:58.620 Christian should inform policies, should inform the law, and should be enforced on everyone

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00:11:34.640 Okay. So we hear a lot from people like Ben Kramer that putting your country first is wrong or

00:11:39.200 allowing your Christian conservative views to inform how you vote that that's wrong. But then

00:11:45.020 when we look back at some of the things that he said and posted over the years, eight months ago,

00:11:50.000 for example, he posted myth number one, immigrants are a drain on our country. What I'm most interested

00:11:56.840 in is not that he's saying that that's a myth, but his response to that. He says the Bible never

00:12:01.340 defines a person's worth by their economic output. In fact, it warns us not to favor the rich over the

00:12:06.600 poor. God's kingdom is built not on cost benefit analysis, but on belovedness. The call to welcome

00:12:13.280 the stranger is rooted in who God is, not in what the stranger can offer us. So what I want to point

00:12:18.760 out here is that he is conflating the kingdom of God with America. So he is refuting this political

00:12:25.320 statement. People usually don't say it like this, that immigrants are a drain on our economy, but they

00:12:30.320 might say illegal immigration is really difficult economically. Like it affects the labor force. It

00:12:36.740 affects the demand and therefore the price for houses. And that's really difficult for the poor and

00:12:41.280 hardworking people who are citizens of this country. And he responds by saying God's kingdom is built

00:12:47.120 not on cost benefit analysis. We're not talking about God's kingdom. We're talking about the United

00:12:52.060 States. So actually in him saying that Christian nationalists are trying to enforce some theocracy

00:12:58.700 by allowing the law to be informed by what we believe, he is actually the one that is conflating

00:13:05.040 our spiritual obligation to the poor in the spiritual kingdom of heaven with America here

00:13:11.480 today. And we see that over and over again. And we'll have more on that point in just a second.

00:13:16.320 Here's another question that we have to explore when we're seeing this Christian nationalist

00:13:20.740 accusation. Is so-called Christian nationalism violating the separation of church and state?

00:13:26.660 This is something that I see a lot that you Christian can't vote against abortion because that

00:13:31.340 is not separating church and state. First of all, separation of church and state. Not in the

00:13:35.820 constitution. It was in a letter to the Danbury Baptist. It is a principle that we see, yes, in the

00:13:42.340 first amendment, but you will not see those words there. It is a separation of the authority of the

00:13:48.040 church from the authority of the state, primarily to protect the church, not primarily to protect the

00:13:52.660 state. But this is not the separation of God in law. The founders knew that that was impossible.

00:13:58.420 And that is why, for example, in the Declaration of Independence, we read that we were created by a

00:14:04.980 God who has given us inalienable rights among them, being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

00:14:09.520 The founders knew that our rights come from God, and that is the basis for the law giving in the

00:14:14.840 United States. That is not a theocracy. That is stating the belief that a creator whose power

00:14:21.960 transcends the government and who is the arbiter of morality must be the basis of our general law

00:14:28.060 giving. Because morality always informs the law. People say, oh, you can't legislate morality. No,

00:14:33.760 you have to legislate morality. Like, morality is legislation. Every single law is making a moral

00:14:40.080 statement. Okay, so as Christian nationalism so-called violating separation of church and state,

00:14:46.200 our worldview and policy was never meant to be separate, and it's actually impossible to do that.

00:14:51.780 I do not think that Christians are called to enact a theocracy here in the United States.

00:14:56.480 We don't see precedent for that in Scripture, and I don't believe that we should be forcing people

00:15:01.420 to go to church or to believe a certain way. But which worldview should inform policy? Of course,

00:15:07.600 I think it's the Christian worldview. And then last in all of this, is immigration enforcement bad?

00:15:15.260 So if we are to put aside the Christian nationalist thing for a second, which we've already addressed,

00:15:20.740 is immigration enforcement unbiblical or wrong or evil? You've heard me say this a lot,

00:15:26.460 and I just want to reiterate it because there's a lot of new people here, it seems.

00:15:29.840 Every country has the right and responsibility to regulate immigration and control its borders.

00:15:36.160 Zimbabwe has that right. China has that right. South Korea has that right. And America has that right.

00:15:41.620 Because sovereignty equals legitimacy. And legitimacy equals the ability to make and enforce

00:15:47.680 laws which protect you. Okay? And it's also important to note in all of this, as we read

00:15:55.560 from people like Ben Kramer that it's us, we're seeking empire, we're seeking more power, and that's

00:16:00.720 why we're enforcing immigration and protecting our borders. I just want to note something, that

00:16:07.180 progressives and the Democrats actually seek to make the government bigger. They want more power to

00:16:13.320 the government, less power to parents, less power to churches, less power to individuals. They want

00:16:19.480 the government making more decisions, taking more in taxes, gaining more authority to do everything

00:16:24.980 except what the Bible actually tasks the government to do. And this is important in the immigration

00:16:30.080 conversation or any conversation about politics and law. Romans 13, two through four, for rulers are not

00:16:36.520 a terror to good conduct, but to bat. That's how it's supposed to be. Would you have no fear of the

00:16:41.360 one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval. For he is God's

00:16:45.760 servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.

00:16:51.500 For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

00:16:57.860 All right, the government was instituted by God. It was his idea. Law and law enforcement were God's

00:17:03.320 idea. Now, this right here is why it is so important to elect politicians that define good and evil,

00:17:10.820 how God defines them. When you have an administration, like the last administration

00:17:15.600 especially, who calls evil good and good evil, who thinks that it's good to force a company to force

00:17:22.420 its employees to take an experimental COVID shot, or thinks it's good for boys to identify as girls and

00:17:29.480 go into the girls' bathroom, or who thinks it's good to abort as many babies as possible, well, yeah,

00:17:36.260 we're going to have a hard time bearing the brunt of Romans 13. But if you have an administration

00:17:41.720 that defines good and evil the way that God defines it, this is why it matters so much who we

00:17:46.140 vote for, then this is actually a blessing to a country. All right, another statement. So that was

00:17:53.740 all under Christian nationalism. Another statement that we hear over and over again is that we shouldn't

00:17:59.820 put America first because the kingdom of God is multicultural. Okay, so Ben Kramer says,

00:18:07.220 Christian nationalism looks like hearing God say, I will pour out my spirit on all people in Acts 2,

00:18:12.260 where all nations, languages, tribes were present, then protesting by saying America first. Okay,

00:18:17.780 so now we're going to get into this point. This is my favorite point about Christian nationalism

00:18:22.200 and all of this stuff. And I just really want you to understand this. There's an irony in this

00:18:27.480 accusation. Progressives, as I noted earlier, consistently conflate America and the church,

00:18:33.120 which is the very thing they accuse Christian nationalists of doing. America should have looser

00:18:38.400 immigration laws, they say, because the Bible says to love the foreigner. America shouldn't put our

00:18:42.880 nation first, they say, because the kingdom of God is multicultural. America should implement

00:18:47.360 socialist economic policies, they say, because the early church gave everything they had to each other.

00:18:52.680 Number one, these verses are taken out of context. This is called eisegesis. When you

00:18:57.340 read a message or read a meaning into the text, rather than reading the text and pulling the real

00:19:02.900 meaning out of the text by studying its original language and its context. Yes, we are supposed to

00:19:10.900 love the sojourner. That is true. Exodus 22.1. But no, this does not justify illegal immigration.

00:19:17.880 We read in Exodus 12.49, there shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns

00:19:24.240 among you. One law. That means that there was not a condoning of lawlessness or illegal immigration.

00:19:32.120 The sojourners that came into the land of Israel, yes, they were cared for and yes, they were not

00:19:40.080 oppressed, but they also had to get circumcised. Like they also had to follow laws when it came to

00:19:45.720 homosexuality and marriage, every cleansing law, every civic law that was on the books.

00:19:51.200 They weren't just given a pass for lawlessness just because they were sojourners. So this is what

00:19:59.480 we consistently see from God, that he is a God of mercy and also a God of order for our good.

00:20:06.260 Yes, the kingdom of God is multicultural. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that

00:20:12.000 Jesus Christ is Lord. We read that in Romans 14.11. But no, this does not mean that every nation

00:20:17.440 has to represent every culture. The truth is, hot take, we do not see the importance of ethnic

00:20:24.820 diversity within nations or local churches anywhere in scripture. Nowhere. Does China or Yemen need more

00:20:31.660 diversity? For some reason, like we don't see people saying, gosh, China really needs more black

00:20:36.320 people. Like they need more Latinx communities in Yemen. No one ever says that. It's only America

00:20:42.560 America and the UK, Northern Europe, Canada. We need more ethnic diversity. But these homogenous

00:20:50.460 countries don't. Why? Because of this assumption that progressives sometimes don't even know that

00:20:55.480 they're asserting that less whiteness is better or holier. No one's going up to the Hispanic church

00:21:00.180 or the Korean church on the, you know, street corner and Plano saying like, why don't you have more

00:21:05.800 people of Norwegian descent inside your doors? But if there's a predominantly white church in a

00:21:10.940 predominantly white area, you get people walking in and saying, you know, why don't you have more

00:21:16.100 black people here? And so the call for diversity is not even sincere. And that's not something we

00:21:23.880 necessarily have to represent as a signal of holiness in the local church. Yes, it is true that the early

00:21:30.800 church gave everything they had. We read that in Acts 2.45. But this followed belief, baptism, and an

00:21:38.360 outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and it was not compelled by the government. You see this over

00:21:43.560 and over again with this conflation of the kingdom of God and America, that they will take particular

00:21:49.760 decontextualized verses and say, this should be the policy in America. But then to the conservative

00:21:55.380 argument, which says God is the source of truth and goodness, and there are principles we see in

00:22:01.120 scripture that we should let inform our morality and therefore shape our laws without forcing a

00:22:08.300 theocracy, that's bad. And then they'll say, well, the kingdom of God and America are the same, and we

00:22:14.460 should enforce generosity and diversity that we see in the early church and the future of kingdom and the

00:22:20.200 kingdom of heaven. And so that's the hypocrisy that we see over and over again. Conservatives, we say that

00:22:26.400 people are made in God's image that murder is wrong. We shouldn't kill babies inside the womb.

00:22:30.760 Progressives, that's Christian nationalism. Now give me your lunch money so I can give it to the

00:22:34.220 Somalian daycare center. Those are the differences that we're seeing in how we interpret how Christians

00:22:39.400 should interact with politics in America, and that's what's going on here. Okay, we got more on this.

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00:23:39.940 We see a lot from so-called progressive Christians that Jesus was an activist. He was killed by

00:23:50.520 basically ICE agents in the Roman Empire just following orders, just doing their jobs. He was

00:23:57.240 an activist killed by the Roman Empire for opposing state power. That is not true. That is not why Jesus

00:24:06.740 died. Jesus gave up his own life voluntarily. We read that in John 10, 18. No one takes it,

00:24:14.180 my life, from me, but I lay it down, Jesus says, of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down,

00:24:21.460 and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my father. You know,

00:24:28.520 we get this like weak, hippie Jesus from these progressives that was basically like a communist,

00:24:34.220 non-binary activist, and that's not who he was. Jesus is God. Ephesians 5, 2,

00:24:42.020 and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice

00:24:48.680 to God. He gave himself up for us. Jesus, first of all, was not an activist. He changed, yes, how the

00:24:58.440 world saw and treated vulnerable people. Christians have carried that baton for millennia, by the way,

00:25:06.540 but he was not killed for opposing state power. Christians, by taking the baton of the gospel

00:25:12.840 and the belief in the Imago Dei, the belief in actual biblical justice, have changed cultures,

00:25:20.520 have forged Western civilization, have ended infanticide and child sacrifice in so many

00:25:28.680 different ways across all kinds of cultures. And I would actually love those on the progressive side

00:25:34.340 who call themselves Christians to join us in that fight. And yet, for some reason, brutalizing kids

00:25:40.460 outside of the, inside the womb, brutalizing kids outside of the womb who say they're born in the wrong

00:25:44.960 body, that apparently is great biblically. Those of us who oppose that are Christian nationalists,

00:25:52.040 but they won't join us in the fight to care for the Imago Dei of the people who actually can't defend

00:25:56.500 themselves. And yet, it's Ben Kramer who says, you have a clever way of ignoring the commands of God

00:26:01.740 so you can follow your own teachings. He's quoting Jesus in Mark 7, 9. I would say that he should be

00:26:09.340 very careful of quoting Mark 7, 9 here, because that could be said about him. In fact, if we look

00:26:16.260 at the context of Mark 7, we see that the Pharisees are gathering around Jesus and they're noticing that

00:26:21.880 his disciples are eating without having washed their hands, which goes against tradition, but there

00:26:27.400 was no biblical command against this. And so Jesus rebukes them, Mark 7, 6 through 9. And he said to them,

00:26:34.300 Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, this people honors me with their lips,

00:26:39.920 but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments

00:26:45.380 of men. You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. And he said to them,

00:26:51.820 you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.

00:26:57.760 So I think that Ben Kramer and others like him, and we should all read scripture and assess our own

00:27:05.440 lives and our own sides and our own hearts, but I see this so clearly reflected in someone who is

00:27:12.220 using the principles of man, the principles of secular progressivism, and is proof texting the Bible to try

00:27:18.940 to fit those interpretations into his belief system. The truth is, is that many of the examples that

00:27:25.760 Kramer is using from these biblical narratives have nothing to do with how God says a nation should

00:27:32.440 be governed. He takes these interpersonal commands about our relationships and how we should voluntarily

00:27:37.900 treat other people, and he projects that into prescribed policy. And really, Kramer seems to imply

00:27:45.780 through these interpretations that he would rather we adopt his version of Christian nationalism,

00:27:52.180 one in which the government takes on the personal responsibilities that Christians have to show

00:27:56.700 generosity and kindness. And I think it's a really good reminder for all of us, but especially a

00:28:01.920 pastor, what 2 Timothy 2.15 says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker

00:28:08.060 who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. Which reminds me of another former

00:28:16.140 pastor and so-called Christian leader, John Pavlovitz. He is apparently a former evangelical pastor, and now

00:28:24.340 he is a writer. I have tried to get him on my show several times. We've gone back and forth a few times

00:28:30.260 over the years because he is far left, LGBTQ affirming, and he deconstructed at some point. He is no longer a

00:28:38.180 pastor. And he posted on Instagram that the biggest threat to our country, in fact, the source of all

00:28:45.440 of our strife and all of our woes as a nation, come from white evangelicals, conservative white

00:28:52.780 evangelicals, not black evangelicals, not Hispanic evangelicals who might share our same belief, but

00:28:58.300 certain people of a certain melanin count who are also conservative evangelicals. So let's go through this

00:29:04.020 post that, as of now, has over 42,000 likes on Instagram. So it's obviously resonating with some

00:29:10.900 people. A pastor's warning. Not a pastor. I just want to point that out. He's not a pastor anymore.

00:29:16.300 We're not in a civil war, but a Christian nationalist holy war, and they must not win. News to me,

00:29:25.700 news to me, John. I need you to understand something. He argues conservative white evangelicals

00:29:31.560 need to be stopped. You might agree with me as a simple emotional reflex, he says, but that's

00:29:37.160 not enough. I need you to know the danger and the urgency of this moment. He says that our moral

00:29:44.140 failure as evangelicals will get exponentially worse now that we have an unprecedented opportunity. We are

00:29:49.800 religious extremists. And so listen to this. I don't know if you knew. I don't know if you knew this

00:29:56.380 about our power and just how powerful we are, white evangelicals. He says, if allowed to continue

00:30:02.980 their death grip on all three branches of government, death grip, conservative Christians

00:30:09.120 will render this nation unrecognizable. LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, immigrants,

00:30:16.840 and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. I would like to see your source cited.

00:30:24.600 Like, and I just want to pause for a second. Is democracy, does democracy mean people who I like

00:30:31.020 are elected? Like, I just want to be clear about that. He says we have a death grip on all three

00:30:36.280 branches of government. Well, Donald Trump was elected by popular and electoral vote. So what happened

00:30:43.160 there? Why is it a death grip just when the people that you didn't vote for get elected? Do you believe

00:30:49.280 in democracy or not? Or do you believe in your version of a Christian nationalist theocracy? I

00:30:55.700 would love to know. He says, full-blown theocracy is the plan. Trust me. Trust me, bro. When I tell you

00:31:05.120 that we won't recover from it if they are ever given greater power or prolonged influence, if we fail at

00:31:11.080 opposing their Christo-fascist agenda in both the streets and the polls. He's looking for more martyrs,

00:31:17.540 by the way. My opinion is that he's looking for more Renee Goods and more Alex Preddy's because that

00:31:22.940 gives him the ability to stoke these flames that he thinks will change the course of the next election.

00:31:31.320 He said, we won't have elections anymore. We will never have a voice again in our lifetimes. Okay,

00:31:37.060 this is the kind of stuff that inspires very tragically people like Renee Good and Alex Preddy to go out into

00:31:43.440 the streets and to bust the taillights of ICE officers and try to run over another ICE officer

00:31:49.060 because people believe stuff like this without any citation or any source. Just trust me, bro. I don't

00:31:55.780 know, but I know. No, like that's the vibe that's going on here. And unfortunately, people who are

00:32:01.860 already unstable in some way or already have resentment in some way, they are very incensed by this.

00:32:09.760 He said, I wish more decent people in America remembered that they are among the vast majority

00:32:15.260 instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them. We

00:32:19.800 need to defeat them and we have to oppose them, yada, yada. He says, as a former pastor, I can't make

00:32:28.000 this any clearer. So the top line was that he's a pastor, now he's a former pastor. White evangelical

00:32:32.700 Christians, listen to this. Listen to this. And tell me if this reminds you of any dangerous language

00:32:38.880 that you have seen in the past that has led to some very scary movements around the world. He says,

00:32:45.840 white evangelical Christians are the source of everything afflicting our nation. All of this

00:32:53.160 violence, chaos, dehumanization, and suffering, if you want the beautiful, expansive humanity of this

00:32:59.880 world to be equally protected, respected, and cared for, they need to be stopped.

00:33:07.260 All right. So I just want to remind you that evangelical Christians, Christians who pray every

00:33:13.660 day, Christians who go to church every week, that statistically we give the most in charity,

00:33:19.720 that we adopt the most children, that we offer the most volunteer service hours every year.

00:33:26.280 This is the hallmark of Christianity. This is why we have this amazing country in which we have

00:33:33.160 something called rights that can't be arbitrarily given and taken away by the government. This is why

00:33:38.660 we have this concept of the Imago Dei, that people matter because they're people, not because of their

00:33:45.140 political capital, not because of their productivity, not because of what ancient Roman Greece and

00:33:52.640 Greece society believed that you have to have a logos or the ability to rationalize in order to

00:33:58.400 be a valuable person. But people matter because they're people. We have that concept. We have the

00:34:04.120 concept of justice because of Christianity. And yet this person who still claims to be a Christian,

00:34:10.720 by the way, says that it's white evangelicals who are the source of all of our affliction.

00:34:16.080 What do you think that is going to encourage his readers to go out and do?

00:34:21.480 He says, America is not in a civil war. We're in white Christian nationalists, grim and loveless

00:34:27.060 holy war. All people of faith, morality, and conscience need to stand together and push them

00:34:33.400 back into the hell they came from. I mean, you cannot get any stronger language that seems to be a

00:34:41.020 death threat without coming out and saying it. Like that is some pretty radical stuff that is

00:34:48.520 getting almost 50,000 likes on Instagram by someone who claims to be a Christian. And I would love

00:34:55.600 sincerely to have John on the show, like any format in person. I would love for us to have a conversation

00:35:02.600 and I want to know, give me your examples. Give me your examples of this. How are we the source

00:35:10.340 of affliction? I've been an evangelical Christian my entire life. I'm around evangelical Christians

00:35:17.860 every single day. And when I think about, for example, share the arrows, um, and having six to

00:35:25.140 7,000 women for the past two years in one room, worshiping together, loving each other, holding each

00:35:32.800 other's babies, comforting each other when they cried, befriending strangers from all around the world.

00:35:38.680 I can tell you these are the kindest, the most loving, the most charitable, the most generous

00:35:45.060 women you will ever find. You know what I see when I see the people, not saying all people on the left

00:35:51.820 or all people who vote Democrat, but when I see some of these radically violent agitators, people who

00:35:57.480 follow people like John Pavlovitz out in the street, you know what it reminds me? It reminds me of the

00:36:03.280 white witch's army in the Chronicles of Narnia. Like, and I'm not just talking about the, their

00:36:09.760 outward appearance. Like I am talking about the disorder in their heart and their lives. And there's

00:36:15.620 no other explanation besides a profound spiritual explanation that these people swap evil for good

00:36:21.220 and just cannot see things rightly. They are truly blind guides and we should pray for people like

00:36:28.400 Pavlovitz and people who believe in this kind of stuff. And we've got a biblical response to this.

00:36:34.100 And I hope that there's someone out there listening that the word of God can seep into

00:36:37.660 and realize that they need to turn away from this and they just need to repent. Let me pause,

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00:37:53.440 alley. Okay, so a couple of things here. White evangelical Christians are not the only people

00:38:03.140 who support Trump or who support ICE. Many of the federal agents that work for ICE and Border Patrol

00:38:11.100 are not white. They might not even be Republicans. They might not even be evangelicals. But Pavlovitz

00:38:18.800 effectively erases all of those groups. They're outside of white evangelicals. He erases the legal

00:38:25.400 immigrants and the citizens of all ethnicities who think secure borders are a good idea. And he's trying

00:38:31.720 to prop up this belief that conservative Christians are racist and that we're bigots and that we have like a

00:38:37.880 monopoly on evil. And the irony is, of course, that he is accusing white evangelicals of racial prejudice

00:38:45.120 while he is practicing that himself. And therefore, he is showing partiality. We read over and over again

00:38:51.400 that partiality is a sin. It is not of God. James 2.1, for example, my brothers, show no partiality as you

00:38:58.520 hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. We saw this over and over again in 2020.

00:39:04.520 People who profess to be Christians telling white people, you need to apologize to black people,

00:39:09.540 even if you are never involved in any kind of racial prejudice. It is your responsibility and

00:39:14.380 your burden. And black people, you basically have no responsibility or agency. You can do whatever you

00:39:19.720 want to and white people have to apologize. That is not an exaggeration. Be the Bridge and their

00:39:24.840 regulations for their Facebook group and the groups that they were hosting actually said that white

00:39:29.600 people had to allow black women of color to yell and wail at them and to accuse them and white

00:39:34.940 people couldn't defend themselves. Okay. So that was in Christian circles. That kind of partiality

00:39:40.040 happening doesn't surprise me that in the secular circles, and I do consider him secular, that they

00:39:45.000 are boasting of this kind of partiality. But Matthew 7, 1 through 5 tells us, judge not that you be judged.

00:39:51.500 This is a verse that is very popular among progressives, but I think the rest of the verse is

00:39:56.520 really important. For with a judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use,

00:40:00.740 it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice

00:40:04.840 the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your

00:40:09.460 eye when there's a log in your own eye? You hypocrite. First, take the log out of your own eye and you will

00:40:14.700 see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. And so we are supposed to, as we see in

00:40:20.300 John 7, 24, not judged by appearances, so not skin color, not socioeconomic status, but we are to

00:40:26.520 judge with right judgment. So it's not that we're not supposed to judge. It's not that we're not

00:40:31.180 supposed to discern right from wrong. It's not that we're not supposed to call out sin, but we can't do

00:40:35.440 it hypocritically. And we can't do it by judging people on appearances, which of course is exactly

00:40:40.560 what Pavlovitz is doing. He also claims that conservative white evangelicals have experienced

00:40:46.440 a quote wholesale moral failure without providing any examples. Maybe you have to subscribe to the

00:40:53.060 sub stack and pay those $8 a month in order to find out what his examples are. But I'm more

00:40:58.480 interested in what scripture says here. Proverbs 19, 5, a false witness will not go unpunished and he

00:41:04.120 who breathes out lies will not escape. That's really important for all of us, especially professional

00:41:09.420 yappers. We talk a lot and we need to make sure that we have very high standards for the truthfulness of

00:41:15.680 what we're saying. Proverbs 10, 18, the one who conceals hatred has lying lips and whoever utters

00:41:21.540 slander is a fool. Matthew 12, 36, I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for

00:41:28.260 every careless word that they speak. Again, for professional writers, for pastors, for podcasters

00:41:35.380 like me, I want to take those verses seriously. So I'm not just lodging those verses against Pavlovitz.

00:41:40.740 Those are verses that I want to consider every day, but I wish people like him would also consider.

00:41:47.240 Like if you really fear God and you believe that one day you will give him account, then the accusations

00:41:52.560 you make of other people, they carry a lot of weight. That's why it's better to make accusations

00:41:58.760 against one individual because you can be pretty sure that you're right. Like if you're digging into

00:42:03.840 the truth of that and you're actually looking for evidence and you're saying, okay, that person is

00:42:07.960 sinning, this is how I know, you have a much better chance of being truthful and correct than if you

00:42:13.320 say all people who look like that or all people who vote like that, they all hate babies or they all

00:42:20.320 hate immigrants or whatever. You've got a really good chance that you're lying somewhere in there.

00:42:24.420 So I want to take that seriously as well. Pavlovitz makes projections that conservative white

00:42:31.440 evangelicals will usher in full blown theocracy. He calls this a clear and sober forecast because if

00:42:37.820 you just say that, then it makes it so. I declare bankruptcy. It just doesn't work like that.

00:42:43.920 Women will lose bodily autonomy and voting rights, he says, but here's the truth is that we don't

00:42:51.060 believe in autonomy at all costs, not Christians. In fact, autonomy and authenticity are only good if

00:42:57.960 they are in submission to God's truth. Authenticity and autonomy used to justify things like identifying

00:43:03.560 as the opposite gender or killing the baby inside your womb is not something that Christian should

00:43:08.800 support. So opposing abortion, he's using bodily autonomy as a euphemism for that, which is another

00:43:14.700 form of lying, which is a sin by the way. Abortion is not biblical. Exodus 2013 is very simple. You shall

00:43:21.540 not murder. A baby inside the womb, whether it's a zygote or whether it is a fetus, whatever medical

00:43:28.760 language you want to use, that is still a living human being that is defenseless and legally innocent

00:43:33.500 and therefore, by definition, killing that human being is murder. And so, of course, Christians should

00:43:40.500 be against it. That's like Christianity 101. We should be against murder. Psalm 139, 13 through 16,

00:43:46.440 for you formed my inward parts. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I'm fearfully

00:43:52.180 and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. I love this part. My

00:43:57.580 frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the

00:44:02.300 earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance. And then in your book were written, were written for me all

00:44:09.220 the days as yet there were none of them, my unformed substance. So I see a lot from progressives and this is

00:44:15.460 not in this particular article, but the baby is not a baby inside the womb because he or she looks

00:44:22.300 like a clump of cells or they don't have a fully formed brain yet or they don't have all of their

00:44:29.040 fingers and toes. But the Bible says that God can see our unformed form, our unformed body, and that

00:44:37.120 God cares about it, that he forms it, that he knits it together, and that it has value. And so

00:44:42.680 progressives really don't, for me, carry a lot of moral weight in any of their arguments when it

00:44:48.520 comes to human rights when they persistently believe that babies inside the womb have no

00:44:53.420 right to legal protection against being dismembered by forceps. Like I am willing to hear you out a lot

00:45:00.060 more, even if you're on the opposite side of the aisle, like if you can just meet me there.

00:45:04.160 Like if we can both just say, okay, I think killing any innocent person is wrong and should be illegal

00:45:11.700 in or outside of the womb, then I feel like we at least have enough of a shared moral basis where we

00:45:18.340 can talk about the rest of the stuff. But if we can't agree on that, then to me, like your cries for

00:45:23.820 justice and human rights are just laughable. And then of course, saying women aren't going to

00:45:29.920 have rights. He's basically just talking about abortion, repealing the 19th Amendment. It's

00:45:36.420 pretty fringe. There are some people who believe in that, don't think that's something that's going

00:45:41.560 to be carried out anytime soon. LGBTQ people will lose rights to marry and adopt. And again,

00:45:49.940 this is a very straightforward biblical position that marriage was created by God. It was designed by God,

00:45:55.920 rooted in creation, reiterated throughout scripture, repeated by Jesus in Matthew 19,

00:46:00.860 representative of Christ in the church and reflective of the gospel. We've talked about

00:46:04.460 those five R's many times. And if we believe that we are supposed to carry the cause of the fatherless,

00:46:11.000 then that would apply to those who are motherless too, which means that we are not going to purposely

00:46:15.180 manufacture motherlessness and fatherlessness by supporting the legal redefinition of marriage.

00:46:21.300 We could go through Leviticus 20, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6 for the prohibitions on homosexuality.

00:46:28.020 Those of you who have been listening to the show for any amount of time have watched us and listened

00:46:31.920 to us go through that many times. You can go back and listen to past episodes if you are curious.

00:46:36.860 He says people of color will be excluded from the electoral process. Lie. Immigrants will be denied

00:46:42.640 opportunity and refuge. Also not true. Just a reminder that America has accepted more refugees

00:46:51.280 than any other country by far. And I think that's a good thing. I want us to prioritize Christian

00:46:57.240 refugees from war-torn countries. And I still want them to be vetted. And I still want there to be a way

00:47:03.160 when safe for them to go back to their home country. But I do just want to say that it is the

00:47:08.060 responsibility and the right of any country to say, this is how many refugees we should take

00:47:14.060 and no more. And for people who say, oh, we should accept all asylum seekers or all refugees,

00:47:20.040 really any people who oppose immigration enforcement, I think it's a really good idea to

00:47:25.980 ask them some questions. Like, is there any level of enforcement of our immigration law that is not

00:47:33.540 Christian nationalist that wouldn't be fascist? Like, is there any limit to the number of people

00:47:39.640 that we should accept? Or should we, do we have an obligation in your mind to accept every single

00:47:45.900 person from every country that is poorer than the United States? At any point, do American interests

00:47:53.180 start to outweigh the interests of people from Zambia? At what point does that become not Christian

00:47:59.960 nationalists? Most of them can't answer these questions because they've never thought through

00:48:05.760 it before. But the fact of the matter is, every country has that right and responsibility. It's

00:48:11.540 common sense. And I think it's important for us to remember that, yes, the American Somalian person

00:48:20.980 is our neighbor. We can love them and we can care for them. But Lake and Riley is also our neighbor.

00:48:26.660 And Molly Tibbetts is also our neighbor. And Kate Steinle was also our neighbor. And loving them would

00:48:35.380 have meant making sure that our immigration law is enforced. Like, we wouldn't be seeing all of this

00:48:42.560 chaos right now, this unfortunate violence and this loss of life, if we had had common sense, tough

00:48:48.620 immigration law, and if we had been enforcing it. And I just, it's worth pointing out, yet again,

00:48:56.700 that I didn't see John Pavlovitz or Ben Kramer or any of these people up in arms when Joe Biden and

00:49:03.500 especially Barack Obama were doing the same things. Because they were. It wasn't any crazier,

00:49:09.860 or it's not any crazier now. It wasn't more humane then. They didn't use due process. You can go back

00:49:15.720 and listen to last Wednesday's episode for some examples on that. A lot of this is manufactured

00:49:20.740 outrage. And if you haven't read my book, Toxic Empathy, like, I don't even care if you buy it.

00:49:26.920 Borrow it from a friend. Go to the library. Most libraries have it, although it's usually checked

00:49:31.200 out because I really just at least want you to read chapter four of this book. But this will give

00:49:36.720 you words and an understanding for everything that is going on right now. Of course, you can get it on

00:49:41.560 Amazon and all those good places. But if you don't have the cash to buy it right now, there are lots

00:49:46.220 of places that you can get it for free. And I just, I really want you to be equipped. This book is my

00:49:51.540 answer to the question, what do I say when? On almost every subject, it's concise, and it'll give

00:49:57.140 you all of the biblical and factual knowledge that you need on these subjects. I'm really passionate

00:50:01.600 about it because I don't want Christian women to be duped by Toxic Empathy. I want us to be good thinkers.

00:50:07.240 And I love talking about evangelical women, but the fact of the matter is it's not just evangelicals.

00:50:11.560 Who are struggling with this stuff and who are getting confused on this stuff. We got issues

00:50:16.840 outside of the evangelical camp, but I want everyone to remember that. So let's get into

00:50:21.020 that in just a second. Let me tell you about our next sponsor. And that is Preborn. I love partnering

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00:51:18.460 today. That's preborn.com slash Allie. Okay. So I've been seeing a lot of people criticize

00:51:31.540 evangelical women for how evangelical women are duped on all of this stuff. And of course,

00:51:38.200 I know that. That's why I wrote this book. That's even why in a lot of ways I wrote my first book,

00:51:43.620 because I've been in this evangelical world forever. I know exactly how it looks. I know exactly

00:51:48.380 how it works. I know exactly why it's effective. And I can say all of this, these critiques and

00:51:53.940 disagreements from a place of love and a place of optimism and hope, because I really feel like

00:51:59.620 evangelical women with really good theological training can do a better job of seeing these

00:52:04.280 messages in the media and push back against it with logic and with good theology. But I'm seeing

00:52:10.260 some people outside of the evangelical women camp ask this question. And I want to say, no, no, no,

00:52:14.420 no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Because yes, there are evangelical women who are duped,

00:52:20.380 but evangelical women outside of that group are the strongest on all of these issues. When it comes

00:52:25.780 to female demographics in the country, we're the strongest on immigration. We're the strongest on

00:52:29.060 abortion. We're the strongest on marriage. We're the strongest on gender. Like we are the bulwark of

00:52:33.380 female conservatism. So when I see my beloved Catholic friends criticizing evangelical women,

00:52:40.180 I just say, turn around, look at your own circle, because our beloved Catholic friends

00:52:47.640 have a huge issue of progressivism when it comes to abortion, all these things, way more than the

00:52:53.120 evangelicals do. So I would love my conservative Catholic friends to focus on inside their camp,

00:52:58.500 because we need Catholics to be super strong on life and all of that. As I will say, much of the

00:53:04.400 church traditionally has been, but we've got a big social justice problem inside the Catholic

00:53:09.820 church. And I think that my Catholic conservative friends would agree with that. We have, for

00:53:14.760 example, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey. He urges Congress to defund ICE, calls it a lawless

00:53:21.080 organization. He urged Congress to vote against renewing funding for such a lawless organization.

00:53:29.200 We mourn for a world, a country that allows five-year-olds to be legally kidnapped and protesters to be

00:53:34.120 slaughtered. Okay. Two lies, two lies right there. Five-year-old was not kidnapped.

00:53:38.960 And Alex Preddy and Renee Good were not protesters. Like, you could still oppose how they died,

00:53:44.340 but they were not protesters. They were agitating. They were impeding law enforcement operations. And so

00:53:49.200 that is toxic empathy. That is using a lie to advance a nefarious cause by pulling on your

00:53:56.660 heartstrings. We've got Cardinal Parolin. Violence in Minneapolis is unacceptable, which, of course,

00:54:03.300 I agree with. But he says, the position of the Holy See is always to avoid any kind of violence,

00:54:08.340 obviously. And therefore, we cannot accept episodes of this kind. That is our position,

00:54:13.620 as you know. He's talking about Alex Preddy's death. And of course, in general, I agree. I don't

00:54:20.380 like violence. I would love for no one to ever die at the hands of the police. However, Romans 13,

00:54:28.640 the state does not bear the sword in vain. So even Alex Preddy case aside, just in general,

00:54:35.080 we can't actually be against all forms of violence and agree with what the Bible says about how the

00:54:40.600 state designed by God carries out punishment against the wrongdoer. You'll remember, we talked

00:54:45.980 about it a few months ago. Pope Leo, the new pope, he said this on immigration. He said,

00:54:50.860 someone who says, I'm against abortion but is in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life.

00:54:58.300 Pope Leo, I would love to have you on the show and discuss this because this is that whole nicer

00:55:04.540 than God phenomenon that Charlie Kirk and I talked about the last time we talked face-to-face on his

00:55:09.600 show is that so many faith leaders believe that they are nicer than God. Genesis 9-6 instituted the

00:55:16.860 death penalty because man is made in God's image. That's still true today. He says, the pope says,

00:55:22.420 and someone who says I'm against abortion but I'm in agreement with the inhuman, maybe, or inhumane

00:55:28.040 treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don't know if that's pro-life. Okay, sure. Well,

00:55:35.480 a couple things. I don't like expanding pro-life beyond abortion because then it just means nothing.

00:55:40.120 If being pro-life is also, you know, being for fighting for climate change and open borders

00:55:46.200 and about immigrants, then it just completely distills it and it's not as potent as when we

00:55:51.800 are fighting against the slaughter of babies inside the womb. So that's lame. We see this in

00:55:55.640 evangelicalism too, this like womb to tomb pro-life. You have to, you're like against abortion personally,

00:56:01.660 but then also you're for welfare and that's also pro-life. But also I'd want to know the example,

00:56:07.460 what's the inhumane treatment of immigrants in the United States? And are you conflating immigrants

00:56:13.380 and illegal immigrants? I say clarity is a gift. This is completely unclear morally, factually. And

00:56:20.360 so I actually don't think it is helpful in, by the way, deporting people and slaughtering people

00:56:26.200 inside the womb. They are not morally on the same ground. But I think this is why I see a lot of my

00:56:33.040 Catholic friends struggling so much to give, not all, not all, but to give a morally clear stance

00:56:40.140 on something like immigration. I see like a lot of strength and clarity when it comes to abortion

00:56:45.200 in a lot of cases. But when it comes to things like justice, when it comes to things like crime

00:56:49.200 and immigration, I see a lot of confusion and lack of clarity from that group. And I think it's because

00:56:54.520 the leadership at the top is like really unclear about what the Bible has to say about those things.

00:57:00.220 And just remember, we are not nicer than God and borders and governments and laws and justice were

00:57:07.140 all God's idea. Remember, God is a God of mercy, but he also is a God of order. And we are to be

00:57:14.000 agents of mercy, but also agents of order because it's good for our neighbors. All right. We got one

00:57:21.000 final thing to talk about, but I have to tell you my last sponsor for the day, and that is Good Ranchers.

00:57:26.320 I love Good Ranchers so much. So glad that we rely on it almost every night in our home. We've been

00:57:32.200 eating Good Ranchers for five years. Let's see, what did we have yesterday? I'm sure we had chicken.

00:57:38.100 We make the chicken in the oven. We had ground beef. Oh yeah, we did have ground beef last night.

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00:57:49.060 I make some form of Tex-Mex almost every night and Good Ranchers allows me to do that in a very

00:57:55.440 healthy and pro-America way. Just like I like my Mexican food, by the way, as American as possible.

00:58:02.260 This year, they are donating a portion of their profits to the Paralyzed Veterans of America

00:58:09.720 organization. So important that we are supporting our veterans. We are supporting American farmers and

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00:58:20.440 of your meat from Good Ranchers sent right to your front door. Go to goodranchers.com. Use code Allie

00:58:24.780 at checkout. That's goodranchers.com. Code Allie. Okay, my Catholic friends will be happy to hear.

00:58:33.480 We're going to go back to the evangelicals now, okay? Because I just want you to note that I spent a

00:58:40.240 short amount of time critiquing Catholic leaders. Every time I do that, I'm always like,

00:58:45.420 why do you? People are like, why do you hate Catholics? Why are you attacking Catholics? No,

00:58:50.040 I attack my own camp a lot more. I just wanted it to be noted that y'all have some work to do

00:58:56.200 within your camp as well. So we're back. We're back to the evangelical church now.

00:59:00.480 And I just wanted to end on addressing this video that has been going around of this Minnesota pastor

00:59:06.020 that is addressing. This was actually before all of this stuff happened with Renee Good and Alex

00:59:11.460 Preddy. It was after all of the widespread fraud had been uncovered by Nick Shirley. And this was his

00:59:19.580 response to that, which I just think is a strange thing to say in light of the revelation that hard

00:59:26.020 working taxpayers have had their money stolen from them by newcomers that are using it to enrich

00:59:32.820 themselves and Democrat politicians. Stop five. I want you to know that there was horrible fraud

00:59:39.640 in the state of Minnesota. But I want you also to know that there are a hundred thousand Somalis in our

00:59:47.520 city and the hundred thousand Somalis in our city are not like the few that took advantage of the system

00:59:57.800 and perform fraud. There is 250,000 Latinos in our city. And when we have a president that is actually

01:00:06.660 villainizing a whole people group, it is anti-God, it's anti-gospel, and it's anti-New Covenant.

01:00:16.280 Okay. I don't think that this is the clearest and best response to the revelations that we saw after

01:00:24.080 this investigation. This is a very wishy-washy response to that. Yes, this happened over here.

01:00:30.740 No condemnation of it, by the way. No explanation for why it was wrong. No sympathy for the people

01:00:35.920 who have been trying to make ends meet and have realized that they've been forking over money,

01:00:40.980 not to make their own roads better, probably, but to enrich these fraudsters. Like, no expression

01:00:47.720 of compassion for that immediate pivot over here to say, but all of these people are actually who we

01:00:53.560 should focus on. Also, I haven't heard Trump say that every single immigrant or every single Somalian,

01:00:59.620 every single Latino person is bad or is a part of this fraud. It's okay for us to just say that fraud

01:01:08.500 is wrong. It's wrong. And illegal immigration is wrong. And that we should be putting the welfare of

01:01:15.820 our city first. And so this was the same kind of thing, the same kind of thing we saw in 2020,

01:01:22.420 this weakness, this moral ambiguity, and the lack of courage and clarity from pastors to just be able

01:01:31.460 to call sin, sin. And maybe if this had been a little bit more even-handed, like I would have been

01:01:38.760 okay with that. There are things that he said in there in principle that I don't disagree with,

01:01:44.140 but I am so tired of pastors and influencers and Christians allowing the liberal media exclusively

01:01:52.400 to dictate their outrage. All of these people, as we've talked about, who never talk about politics,

01:01:59.500 who never weigh into stuff like this, the only time that they start talking about it is when

01:02:03.740 liberal influencers and the liberal media and their Democrat friends tell them they should.

01:02:08.560 Like there was not a campaign to get people to talk about Trump almost being assassinated. But

01:02:15.620 anytime there is something that makes Democrats mad, you get the same people who say that they're not

01:02:21.960 political speaking up in such a morally ambiguous way that is so not helpful. We need pastors right now

01:02:30.620 who are just clear. I'm not asking you to be a newscaster. I'm not asking you to be,

01:02:36.720 you know, a political commentator. I don't think a pastor has to go up every Sunday and use the pulpit

01:02:43.260 to talk about the news of the week. That's not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to shepherd

01:02:49.120 your flock by faithfully exegeting the Word of God well. That is going to intersect into politics at times.

01:02:58.020 You can't really preach the Bible without talking about things like abortion, for example, or gender,

01:03:03.120 or marriage. And the theological has become political. And so pastors have to wade into that.

01:03:08.420 But when you are doing so, make sure you're doing so because the Word of God demands it,

01:03:12.860 not because liberals demand it. So don't follow the direction and the example of this pastor,

01:03:21.180 or even worse, Ben Kramer or John Pavlovitz. These people at the very best are confused,

01:03:29.120 at the very worst are purposely leading the flock astray. All right. I hope that gave you some

01:03:35.120 clarity today on all the chaos that's going on. We will have much more for you on Wednesday. See you

01:03:39.840 guys then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 02, 2026

Ep 1297 ｜ Rebutting Ben Cremer’s Unbiblical Take on ICE

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