Ep 1333 ｜ Tucker Carlson & the Pope Embrace Islam. What's Going On？
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 5 minutes
Words per minute
169.82307
Harmful content
Misogyny
2
sentences flagged
Toxicity
15
sentences flagged
Hate speech
66
sentences flagged
Summary
Trump depicted himself as Jesus on TruthSocial. What exactly did he mean by this? Also, is there an alliance between the Catholic Church and Islam? What is going on with this seeming surge in Catholicism and attacks on evangelicals? We are going to analyze all of this and more on today s episode of Relatable.
Transcript
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Trump depicted himself as Jesus healing Uncle Sam on Truth Social.
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Also, is there an alliance between the Catholic Church and Islam?
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What is going on with this seeming surge in Catholicism and also the attacks on evangelicals?
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We are going to analyze all of this and more on today's episode of Relatable.
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Before we get started, I do have a special announcement.
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We've got a very special guest in studio on Friday, and that is David French.
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He has agreed to have a friendly discussion and debate on things like Trump and Christian
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nationalism, his own cultural, moral, and political evolution.
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Today's episode is brought to you by Kexi Cookies.
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great gift for yourself, for your mom, for Mother's Day, for the loved one in your life.
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If you go to Kexi.com and use code Allie, you'll get 15% off. That's Kexi.com, code Allie.
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Hey, y'all. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful
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week so far. If you have not listened to Monday's episode about therapy culture and
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three of the most popular practices within therapy culture that I think have the ability
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to deceive and manipulate Christian women, I really encourage you to go back and watch
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I know there's some controversial things said in there, and some of you have left your respectful
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But maybe it will just plant a seed for you to kind of think through, like what is true,
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what is not, what is from the new age, and what is actually biblical, because the things
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we put in our minds and the things we do with our body really matters. All right, y'all, we have so
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much to get to today. I'm going to try to not just like talk really fast because I want to get through
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all of these subjects, but I am going to try to move as quickly as possible because everything
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that I'm talking about is so important. It's so important. And things just kept happening day
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after day, hour after hour over the past few days that I had to add to this document to make sure
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that we get to all of it. Let's get to Trump's truth social post first. Okay. Trump posted an
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imaged Truth Social. A couple days ago, it was widely reported as him, quote, portraying himself
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as Jesus Christ. We've got that picture right there. Okay. Now, Trump later responded saying
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that he didn't intend it to be a picture of Jesus, that one.
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Mr. President, did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?
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Well, it wasn't a picture. It was me. I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor
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and had to do with Red Cross as a Red Cross worker there, which we support.
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And only the fake news could come up with that one.
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So I had I just heard about it and I said, how do they come up with that?
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It's supposed to be me as a doctor making people better.
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And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.
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As an example, the 11,000, I understand your husband's going through treatment.
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He's going to do some very serious cancer treatment, so this goes a long way.
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Before I even saw that explanation, my original response was, first of all, it was just exasperation.
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It was the Ben Affleck meme standing outside of some building with, you know, his cigarette to his side with his eyes closed.
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and that is exactly how I felt as well as sad when I saw this because there is a level of
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blasphemy and just self-idolatry here that I think is really dangerous for anyone. It speaks to a
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level of pride. I said this is what happens when Paula White, who is a prosperity preacher that
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we've talked about many times, is your personal pastor. I mean, just over Easter, she was comparing
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him to the Messiah and literally said to him, no one has paid the price like you've paid the price.
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We did an episode on that. I've talked about the danger of that kind of theology, especially when
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it comes to imbuing that belief in a person. I mean, there are not many people that can overcome
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that kind of pride. And so my initial belief was that he knew that this was a Messiah-like piece
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of AI art and that he didn't have a problem with it. And he posted it because he is prideful. And
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he's been told by a lot of people in his life that he's basically the Messiah of Western
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civilization, that is a deep problem. That doesn't absolve him of responsibility because he chose
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those people in his life, but it does kind of give an explanation for where his theological
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influence is coming from. After I saw this clip, I posted this, which I did not expect to be
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controversial. I got ratioed to the moon. I don't think I've ever gotten ratioed this hard.
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So I reposted that video of Trump on Fox News, and I said, I do believe that he didn't think
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of this as a depiction of Jesus when posting. Still, there has to be more care and discernment
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here. I had all kinds of people, all kinds of big names on the left and right being like,
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you sold your soul. Come on, Allie. I can't believe you said this and you are paid to say
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this. None of those accusations are true. Okay. You might even think it's sadder that I said that
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for free, but I did say it for free. It came from my mind. I have never been given talking points.
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I have never repeated talking points that have been given to me. I've never been paid for any
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kind of political stance or opinion on any kind of political issue or politician. Zero. I'm not
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on any of those group texts or any of those email chains or any of those coordination efforts that
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go on in the political media sphere. I am a part of none of that. Literally, these are my original
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words from my brain. And I just have to say, I do believe them. I still believe that it is very
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possible, let me say that, I think it is very plausible that Trump, being who he is, and you
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don't have to like this, I don't have to like this, I don't like this, that he saw that image,
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someone sent it to him. It was originally posted by a guy named Nick Adams, but then it was like
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weirdly manipulated and the people in the sky, like I can't even say this with a straight face,
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the people in the sky turned into like weird demon-like creatures, okay? And like I think
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it is possible that someone sent this to Trump. It was like, Trump, you are the doctor saving
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America. And he saw it and was like, this is great. And he posted it. And that he actually
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didn't think of it as a messianic symbol. Now, you might think, well, that's a problem. That's
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stupid. How can you be so ignorant? Oh, that's fine. You can say all of that. I think it was
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probably laziness, lack of due diligence. I just don't know that he knows and is familiar with
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Messiah iconography and imagery. I don't know that he's super familiar with that.
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Now, do I think that he thought he was being represented as a Red Cross member? No. I mean,
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that was just a little bit too far. The Red Cross, that's just so random and specific.
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I do believe possibly that he didn't see himself as Jesus in that image. Sorry. Like, again,
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I'm not saying that's a good thing. It just is. And by the way, this is not the first time Trump
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has shared something like this. He shared something like this. I think it was before the election.
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Wasn't it? It was like, okay, not exactly like him as Jesus, but he was like writing something
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on a desk and he had Jesus over his shoulder. I mean, this is like boomer AI Facebook stuff that
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has been circulating since like 2016. And it's not the first time Trump has reposted it. It's
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been wrong every time, in my opinion. I do think it's strange how some people who have had nothing
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to say about this blasphemy and idolatry for years suddenly have so much to say about it and
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are accusing me of being some MAGA sycophant, which is not true. And I'll get to that in just
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weheartnutrition.com, code Allie. So this is my response to like the 10,000 haters in my replies.
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Some people, some, not all, but some people angry at me in these replies for quote unquote
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defending Trump, even though I didn't defend Trump, but I didn't defend or excuse blasphemy,
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have only in the last few months left the Trump can do no wrong club.
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That is a club that I have never been a part of.
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I have been extremely consistent in my critique of Trump for 10 years.
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He is better than the Democrat alternative, but he says and does things that I don't like.
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I wish he would have more self-control, more discernment.
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I pray for him to turn to Christ and the wisdom that comes from that to infuse his speech and his actions.
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I am also very thankful for how the Lord has used him to push policies that are good and right and true,
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that have protected the most vulnerable citizens in this country.
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I am so thankful for an administration, for the most part, that can define good and evil
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We had an administration that supported and subsidized the butchering of the bodies of
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gender-deceived children, and instead we have an administration who goes along with the
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science of biology, the morality when it comes to protecting children.
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He invites people to the White House, children to the White House who are standing up against
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under the Biden administration, those kids would have been condemned. All of that stuff really
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matters to me. What he's done on immigration really matters to me. And while I have never
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supported Trump in a primary, I got a lot of hate for that when I supported DeSantis and expressed
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frustration that other people didn't see that DeSantis was super strong on policy without a
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lot of the issues that we are dealing with right now with Trump's lack of self-control. So I never
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supported Trump in a primary, but I am so grateful still that he won and Kamala Harris and Hillary
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Clinton did not. I have people being like, oh, you voted for this. I'm like, heck yeah, I did.
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I did. And if it were Trump versus Kamala Harris today, I'd do it again. For me, however, on the
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other side, Trump is not strong enough on life and marriage. I think his selection of Paula White,
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as I've said many times, is a dangerous error. I've articulated these things over and over again
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over the years. And that's a big reason why I've never been considered MAGA. I've never been
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accepted by the MAGA crowd because I'm not unconditionally MAGA, even though I voted for
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him three times and have encouraged a lot of Christian women to do so. It's just interesting
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that some of those who have only recently renounced their unconditional support of Trump
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have never actually joined me in opposing Trump on substantive issues like taxpayer-funded IVF.
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Maybe that'll change now. Maybe they'll see the light. They'll link arms with me and pushing back
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against the Trump administration on some of those anti-Christian policies. We'll see. It seems like
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they're dictated just by a lot of outrage online and not by substantive policy agreements. Again,
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not everyone, but some. I do think that Trump is Trump and almost 80, and thus that it is
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possible that he quickly posted a meme, someone sent him, without seeing it's clear to us,
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Jesus imagery. That doesn't make it right, but his excuse is plausible to me, and I'm not going
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to apologize for saying that. That's not an excuse. That's not to say you should love him
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and be okay with that. I never said that. People, you know, accuse me of like being paid to post
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that. It's just not true. I saw like David Harris and Graham Allen both like posted the exact same
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thing, which apparently David got his inspiration from Graham Allen and then posted what he said
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about, you know, Trump being a believer, that they believe Trump, that discernment isn't automatic,
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something like that. And people accuse me of, since I said I believe Trump and I said the word
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discernment, that we all got our script from the same place. First of all, I don't think Graham
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and David got a script that they were sent, but I certainly didn't. And like I said, I've never
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been paid for any, any stance or any position or any tweet that I've ever put out, not a part of
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any of those networks. And we shared like two words in a tweet and didn't say the same sentiment
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at all. So I think people are just looking for something. People just want something to grab
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onto. And people want something to be outraged about. But as I said, I've been extremely
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consistent on all of this. Okay, we're going to get into Pope Leo and Trump's battle in just a
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second. So much that I'm interested in coming together for podcast material. I first want to
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remind you about Share the Arrows though. Share the Arrows is happening in just a few months on
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chair of the arrows.com. All right, let's get into Trump versus Pope Leo. So Trump took shots
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at Pope Leo, and this did not come out of nowhere, by the way. Pope Leo has been signaling criticism
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towards Trump and what he is doing in Iran by saying things like, God, you know, he doesn't,
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I'm paraphrasing, doesn't bless conflict. Peace can't come out of military force. We've responded
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to those statements by Pope Leo. You can go back and watch those episodes to get my response to it.
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But since Pope Leo is speaking into the political foreign policy realm, he is going to catch the
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ire. He's going to get a response from political leaders. Trump said this on Truth Social. He said,
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Pope Leo is weak on crime, which is just like a funny, a funny line. I mean, he's a pope. He's
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not a politician. I'm not going to read all of this because it's very long. Terrible for foreign
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policy. He talks about fear of the Trump administration, but doesn't mention the fear
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that the Catholic Church and all of their Christian organizations had during COVID when they were
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arresting priests, ministers, everybody else for holding church services. I don't want a pope who
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thinks it's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don't want a pope who thinks it's terrible that
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America attacked Venezuela, a country that was sending massive amounts of drugs into the United
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States and even worse, emptying their prisons. He said, use common sense, stop catering to the
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radical left. It's hurting him very badly. And more importantly, it's hurting the Catholic Church.
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Now, I agree with Trump on all of this. I do believe that Pope Leo is just a liberal,
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that he has the very Obama sense of foreign policy and good and evil. That's why he reserves
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so far to me, Catholics, you can correct me if I'm wrong, all of his ire and his criticism
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towards Western nations for what they're doing and seems to kind of like
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tickle the third world countries and second world countries that are systematically killing and
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torturing christians and so it's a very liberal left-wing obama kind of way to view foreign policy
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and war and the world that we are consistently seeing from pope leo doesn't surprise me he's a
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chicago guy he probably loves barack obama um but the pope responded it's not too i i have no fear
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are speaking out loudly about the message of the gospel.
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I am called to know what the church is called to do.
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We're not looking to make foreign policy, as he calls it,
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with the same perspective that he might understand it.
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But I do believe that the message of the gospel,
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okay so evangelicals out there need to pay attention because we got to slow down we got
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to define our terms because the most important thing that i think pope leo said there some of
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that is true i understand from a catholic perspective if you respect and honor the
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office of the papacy i understand what he is saying there however so important to see that
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distinction that we'll get into a little bit more later probably when he says the message of the
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gospel, blessed are the peacemakers. When Catholics and evangelicals or Catholics and
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Protestants say the word gospel, they're not actually talking about the same thing. And you
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can ask, you can ask a fellow Catholic in your life, what is the gospel? Like if you ask an
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evangelical that, we will give you exactly the formula for what the gospel is, but it's not
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typically the same thing as what a Catholic will say. And so you heard him say the gospel,
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blessed are the peacemakers. Well, that's not the gospel. That is something that Jesus said
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that is very important, but that is not the gospel. And actually, I'm not sure if I have
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heard Pope Leo articulate the gospel since he has become pope. Again, you can correct me if I'm
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wrong. I've heard him say a lot of different things, and of course, some Catholic doctrine,
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but I'm not sure. Has he actually preached the gospel and urged people to be saved as Jesus is
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the only way to heaven. Then he gets into, on X, the communion between Muslims and Christians in
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Algeria. And he's made comments like this several times, which I think is interesting. He says,
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communion between Christians and Muslims takes shape under the mantle of Our Lady of Africa.
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Here in Algeria, the maternal love of Lala Miriam gathers everyone as children within our rich
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diversity in our shared aspiration for dignity, love, justice, and peace in a world where division
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and war, so pain and death, living in unity and peace is a compelling sign. All right, here he is.
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We have at least just a voiceover, a video of Pope visiting the mosque of Algiers, Algeria.
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He's got his shoes off as a sign of respect there.
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Algeria has a long history of violence between Muslims and Catholics, with Muslims attacking Catholics.
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And even right now, there is violence against Christians in Muslim-dominated Algeria.
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Now, you could argue that that's exactly why he's going there, to try to promote peace.
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although I don't believe that Nigeria is a stop in his tour of Africa, where Christians,
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both Protestants and then Catholics, are also being slaughtered by Muslims. This is a pattern
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that we see throughout the Middle East, throughout Africa, that I just haven't heard him talk much
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about when he is decrying violence. And this language of our communion between Christianity
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in Muslims, it just reminds me of 2 Corinthians 6.14, where we read, God through Paul says,
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Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what partnership has righteousness with
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lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? I agree, of course, that peace is better,
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that we want to live peacefully among people of all different faiths, but this kind of language
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of our rich diversity as if it is a benefit for Christians and Muslims to live among each other
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rather than everyone becoming Christian. It's not a Christlike or biblical message there. We don't
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just want communion with Muslims. We are trying to evangelize and make disciples of all nations,
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baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, which is exactly why
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we can't just have that, okay, live and let live mentality. All right. We've got more to say on
00:21:46.960
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also before we get back to it just a reminder to subscribe to blaze tv when you are a blaze
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with promo code Allie, blazetv.com slash Allie. Okay, there seems to be a weird alliance
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shaping up between some who identify as Catholic and Muslims. I've seen this by popular accounts
00:23:51.120
on x saying like these are the people who are like really allying that um muslims love jesus
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we're both for like the traditional way of life and then you've got the evangelicals and the jews
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over there on the other side of things i mean it's insane now my catholic friends who are solid
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you know they're devout catholics and they're also saying they're not saying this like they
00:24:16.260
don't believe this. So I'm not saying that this is what everyone or even most people within the
00:24:21.720
Catholic Church believes. I'm not even saying that this is what the Pope means by what he's
00:24:25.600
saying, although I don't like the direction he's going that way. But there definitely are some who
00:24:31.380
see this kind of alliance, who start soft-peddling Islam and to make us believe that Jews are the
00:24:39.200
sources of the problem and evangelicals who tend to defend the Jewish people or defend Israel,
00:24:43.520
they're the source of all of our problems politically morally it's very strange
00:24:47.620
tucker carlson has been one of these people that he has just been very sarcastic when it comes to
00:24:54.240
fears around sharia law for example he has talked about how sharia law that dominates different
00:25:01.740
middle eastern countries has actually made better societies in some cases than societies that we
00:25:07.160
have here. Not completely and totally, but some. And he seems to have kind of changed his tone
00:25:14.800
over the years when it comes to Islam and when it comes to the threat of Islam and when it comes to
00:25:20.140
the threat of the implementation of Sharia law here in the United States. Now, he's not Catholic,
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00:25:26.560
but he certainly is someone who has criticized evangelicals, as we'll get to. I was kind of
00:25:32.620
shocked. I was kind of shocked. Maybe I shouldn't have been, but kind of shocked when he went like
00:25:36.380
full mask off. The Tucker Carlson Network posted this in light of this whole conversation between
00:25:43.020
Islam and the Pope. The post on X says, the people in charge, who's that? I don't know.
00:25:50.060
The people in charge don't want you to know this, but Muslims love Jesus. Islam reveres him
00:25:58.240
as a major prophet and messenger of the Lord, believes he performed miracles and states that
00:26:04.520
he will return to earth to defeat the Antichrist. That's why Donald Trump's painting depicting
00:26:09.920
himself as the son of God offended the president of Iran. It was an attack on his religion,
00:26:16.180
as well as Christianity. And yet here they are reposting it. And so today's Morning Note
0.90
00:26:22.740
newsletter covers that topic, basically. Okay, Muslims love Jesus. My response to this was
00:26:31.720
that, yeah, Muslims love Jesus so much, and they prove that by routinely slaughtering his followers
1.00
00:26:38.620
throughout Africa and the Middle East. That's how much Muslims love Jesus. I've heard this a lot,
1.00
00:26:44.220
specifically from a lot of Chadcalf people, that, oh, well, the Jews hate Jesus. The Talmud says
00:26:50.760
that he is burning an excrement or whatever, and Islam regards Jesus as a prophet. And so we have
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more in common with Islam than we do with Judaism. Well, that's just not true. We share half of our
00:27:03.440
Bible with the Jewish people. Our Savior is Jewish. And Islam, again, routinely slaughters
00:27:10.720
Christians everywhere, almost everywhere, where they become a majority. And I don't really care
1.00
00:27:18.260
if Islam believes that Jesus is a prophet. He is not just a prophet. I don't care if they believe
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00:27:25.500
that he was just a messenger from God. He wasn't just a messenger from God. Jesus is God. Judaism
00:27:33.420
denies that. Islam denies that. Okay. So they're both wrong. It's both, both stances are blasphemous.
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00:27:42.820
Both standards are out, or both definitions rather, are outside of the truth. Okay. So like,
00:27:50.540
I don't know why I'm supposed to believe that Islam has some close alliance with Christianity.
00:27:57.080
Have we seen that throughout history? Do we see that in most Muslim-majority countries today?
00:28:02.700
This alliance, this tolerance of Christianity by Muslims in charge? Absolutely not.
1.00
00:28:10.060
The biggest source of Christian persecution in the world is from Islam, not from Judaism,
00:28:17.180
not even from atheism, although that absolutely happens in places like China and North Korea,
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00:28:23.420
but by and large, it's from Muslims, radical Muslims. You can see what's happening in Nigeria.
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00:28:30.340
And again, a lot of these people will pretend that that's not happening,
00:28:33.560
that Christians aren't really being targeted, that it's every group that's being targeted.
00:28:37.360
That's not true. It's not true. It's mostly Christians who are being kidnapped and tortured
00:28:41.720
in Nigeria by these Muslims. And as if that makes it better, that not only Christians are being
1.00
00:28:47.840
targeted, but also other people are being targeted, too, by these radical Muslims in charge in
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00:28:52.620
Nigeria. Like, tell me why the vast majority of designated terrorist groups throughout the world
1.00
00:28:59.100
are Islamic. Do we think that's just a coincidence? No, it's because there is something inherent
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00:29:04.760
within Islamic ideology that calls for jihad and domination that lends itself to violence
0.98
00:29:12.800
and terrorism. So I'm sorry, Tucker Carlson Network, it's not going to work on me. It
00:29:17.420
shouldn't, it wouldn't work on any real Christian, by the way, okay, because we read the Bible.
00:29:22.960
That doesn't mean that we should say, oh, Judaism is fine, and we should unconditionally
00:29:27.340
support Israel. That's not the natural conclusion to that. I don't believe that. However,
00:29:34.760
It also doesn't mean that we engage in this stupid war of like, I'm aligning myself with
1.00
00:29:39.680
Muslims against Jews. I mean, that's just literally insane and irrational. I support
1.00
00:29:46.780
Israel to an extent for pragmatic reasons. I'm not a dispensationalist, not because I believe
00:29:54.480
that we have to expand the territory of Israel for Jesus to come back. I don't believe that
00:29:58.840
biblically. I'm an evangelical. I'm not a dispensationalist. So I don't believe all of
00:30:03.360
the thing is that people like Tucker Carlson say people like me believe, but they're the closest
00:30:08.480
thing to a democracy that we have in the Middle East. They're one of, if not the most tolerant
00:30:14.460
countries of Christians in the Middle East. And the Palestinian people are treated like trash by
0.99
00:30:23.300
their own Muslim government because they're barbarians. And so to me, it's like kind of
0.99
00:30:30.580
obvious, if you have to pick a side, which maybe you don't have to, but if you have to pick a side,
00:30:34.800
like which side pragmatically we should be on, theology aside. All right, speaking of evangelicals
00:30:41.940
and what we believe, there's an attack against evangelicals within all of this. Evangelicals
00:30:47.200
are being cast as part of the big problem of the liberalizing of the West, the liberalizing of the
0.60
00:30:52.200
United States. Catholicism, we are told by some, not all Catholics certainly, but by some is the
00:30:58.740
answer that that is the only way that we are going to get back to the place where we need to be as a
00:31:03.000
country. And evangelicals have allowed the evil Jews to take power, and that is why we are in this
0.98
00:31:09.700
whole mess. And there's a lot of conflation of evangelicals with Zionists that unconditionally
1.00
00:31:17.780
support Israel, and it's just a very strange thing. So I want to talk about that trend and
00:31:22.860
then talk about what's actually happening within Catholicism, because a lot of people
00:31:27.720
say that everyone's becoming Catholic and that it's a great thing that everyone's becoming
00:31:32.360
Catholic when it's not really true. That's not true. So first we need to define our terms,
00:31:37.760
what an evangelical is, and we'll get to that in just a second. Let me pause and tell you about
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code Allie. Okay, let's first define our terms because people have a lot of different ideas
00:33:04.480
when they say evangelical. I call myself an evangelical because an evangelical is a Christian
00:33:10.760
who believes that the Bible alone is the final authority for faith and practice.
00:33:15.300
So that's what we mean when we say sola scriptura, that the Bible alone is the ultimate authority.
00:33:20.700
It doesn't mean that we don't have creeds, that we don't have teachings or extra books
00:33:24.700
or theological teachers that we learn from, but that ultimately we go back to the Bible
00:33:34.460
An evangelical believes that salvation comes by faith alone in Jesus Christ, not by works,
00:33:39.180
not by religious systems. And an evangelical, by definition, submits fully to scripture above
00:33:45.040
culture, above tradition, above human authority. This is according to John MacArthur's ministry,
00:33:50.660
Grace to You. Now, evangelical has come to mean all different kinds of things. I would also add
00:33:57.020
to that definition that we are literally evangelical with our faith, that we tell
00:34:03.060
people the gospel, we want people to become Christians. And you would think that that is
00:34:07.400
every form of Christianity in every denomination, but evangelicals are the most evangelical. That's
00:34:14.560
why we have the message of the gospel, the Roman road down pat. That's why we emphasize so much
00:34:19.760
scripture memory. That's why the evangelical upbringing is just so rooted in scripture and
00:34:24.760
church attendance and understanding apologetics and how to share the gospel, how to persuade
00:34:29.620
someone. All of that comes down to wanting to make disciples of all nations, as Jesus told us to do.
00:34:36.020
Now, some people think of evangelical as big mega churches.
00:34:39.580
Some people think of evangelical as dispensationalist, which I've done episodes on dispensationalism
00:34:44.380
you can go back and listen to or watch those, the belief that history has been broken down
00:34:50.000
into different dispensations, that Israel is still God's chosen people.
00:34:53.800
God has a plan for Israel, has to do with the end times and all of that.
00:34:57.500
A lot of people think that that's what evangelicalism is.
00:35:02.780
They think that it's just Paula White, but it's not true.
00:35:06.600
Like you can be a Presbyterian evangelical, you could be a Lutheran evangelical, you could
00:35:10.720
be a Methodist evangelical, you could be a Baptist evangelical.
00:35:13.860
And within evangelicalism, there are like different forms of theology.
00:35:18.180
I just listed some denominations, but there's also like Reformed theology.
00:35:27.380
We've also done episodes on Reformed theology, but broadly, that is what an evangelical is.
00:35:36.300
We believe in the Bible as the ultimate authority.
00:35:40.300
We believe that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only life, that no one comes
00:35:46.380
This is why, as we'll get to, evangelicals are so conservative.
00:35:50.680
We're the most conservative on every single issue because of our emphasis on these things,
00:35:55.300
on a literal interpretation of Scripture and going back to Scripture as our authority
00:35:59.700
on everything that is necessary for life and godliness. Evangelicalism is a part of
00:36:05.260
Protestantism. There's Protestant, there's Roman Catholic, there is Eastern Orthodox. Protestant
00:36:11.780
has different denominations that we all believe that the other one is Christian. We agree on the
00:36:17.640
fundamentals, but we have secondary and tertiary disagreements. Okay, so Tucker Carlson, he was
00:36:24.000
raised Episcopalian. I think he claims to be Protestant, but he is one of the people who has
00:36:28.760
called Protestantism corrupt. Stop four. Protestant Christianity in the United States,
00:36:34.180
leadership, totally corrupt. And not just corrupt on an obvious level like, oh, the preacher's
0.99
00:36:40.760
having an affair or they're taking money from whomever. They're shaking down the congregation
00:36:46.520
for you know 20 tithes no corrupt on the level that matters most which is spiritually corrupt
00:36:55.160
they're not preaching christianity not just because of their fealty to israel which is
00:37:02.340
bizarre and kind of hard to understand but on an even deeper level than that
00:37:06.340
there are many protestant american church leaders who are preaching a religion that
00:37:17.540
bears no resemblance to christianity okay well i've obviously called out the prosperity gospel
00:37:23.840
and lots of people who are within so-called protestantism who would call themselves protestants
00:37:28.780
or evangelicals who are a lot of people in the charismatic realm who i heavily disagree with
00:37:35.340
who preach a different gospel, I'm not saying all charismatics, but some people within that
00:37:40.060
realm. But to say that all leadership within Protestantism is corrupt, there are so many
00:37:46.880
pastors within Protestantism that are so solid, that are so good. I would say the vast majority
00:37:52.380
are preaching the true gospel, or a large portion. I guess there are just a lot of apostate churches
00:37:59.760
out there, churches that aren't preaching the true gospel. But to say that all of the leadership
00:38:03.620
there when we don't even have one concentrated leadership. That is like one characteristic of
00:38:07.480
Protestantism. That's just not true. But this is a line of attack. And then again, conflating
00:38:12.040
Protestants and Protestant leadership with this unconditional support of Israel, again,
00:38:16.700
that does not characterize most of Protestantism. I was raised evangelical. I really do not remember
00:38:23.420
any emphasis on Israel or Zionism or even hearing the word Zionism growing up at all.
00:38:29.280
Tucker also had a guest on his show, Nathan Apthel, who said that most Christians aren't actually practicing Christianity and actually were just Talmudic Jews.
00:38:40.540
I would say most Christians, especially dispensationalists or Zionist Christians, are Talmudic Jews wrapped in Christianity.
00:38:48.300
So in Joshua 21, he says, I've given you peace in the land.
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00:38:56.940
All has come to pass, which means that covenant is fulfilled.
00:39:06.980
There's a lot that we don't have time to get to.
00:39:08.960
And that when it comes to the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant and what he believes
00:39:15.900
Believe we could debate that and talk about that later.
00:39:18.020
but him saying that most Christians are Talmudic Jews. That is a signal against evangelicals. What
00:39:24.580
does that even mean? Anytime I hear a non-Jew reference the Talmud, that's like a little,
0.98
00:39:29.840
like my antenna goes up because never in my entire life, and I've known Jewish people almost my whole
00:39:35.540
life, had never have I heard the Talmud referenced. I've never heard Ben Shapiro be like, well, the
00:39:41.500
Talmud says this. I only hear people talk about it when they're criticizing Jewish people or
00:39:46.540
criticizing evangelicals, who I've also never heard reference the Talmud, which is like a
00:39:53.060
collection of millennia of rabbinic teachings that is not considered, I believe, like an inerrant
00:40:01.300
source of wisdom, the way that we regard scripture to be a source of wisdom. So this weird
00:40:06.900
conflation, evangelicals, Protestant Christians with Jewish people and with so-called Christian
00:40:12.380
Zionists. Christian Zionism is demonized a lot by these people. Zionism is generally described or
00:40:19.880
defined as believing that Israel has a right to their land. There could be various implications
00:40:26.760
of that, but it's seen by Tucker Carlson and others as evil. You've got Calvin Robinson on
00:40:33.560
Acts saying, Daily Wire finds a troubling pattern in Catholicism. Catholics cannot be manipulated in
00:40:39.340
the same way as evangelicals. Catholics are not Zionists. It is in Israel's interest to have
00:40:44.340
Christians believe they must be committed Zionists to receive God's blessing. He posts this article
0.94
00:40:50.220
by the Daily Wire that references the Catholic Church does not demand that the faithful be
00:40:58.140
committed Zionists to receive God's blessing. Now, as far as I can see in this article, this person
00:41:03.660
is not criticizing this. Actually, Ryan Gurdusky is a Catholic himself, and so it doesn't seem like
00:41:12.460
he is criticizing the Catholic Church. I think he's just stating a fact, and so this is a huge
00:41:16.860
reach by Calvin Robinson to say that the Daily Wire is saying that this is a problem. It actually
00:41:22.280
seems like they are trying to get the Catholic representation of their beliefs on their platform.
00:41:28.700
Also, The Daily Wire basically only employs Catholics right now.
00:41:32.700
Like most of their hosts are Catholics and don't all agree with Ben Shapiro when it comes
00:41:38.560
And so, again, just like a huge reach, just a pot shot at evangelicals there.
00:41:44.120
And then we've got this that happened over the weekend, such a kerfuffle.
00:41:48.220
This person named Sean on Acts, but this tweet went viral.
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00:41:58.120
One is the White House that's bathed in like a rainbow flag light, I guess, when Obama
00:42:04.720
The Hollywood sign, I guess, evangelicals founded Hollywood.
00:42:09.980
The third screenshot is like the rise of abortions.
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00:42:15.380
And so the belief is that evangelicals founded all of these things or have supported all
00:42:24.900
evangelicals are still today like the bulwark against the insanity of the left every statistic
00:42:32.620
shows this and the idea that it's catholics that are holding the line when it comes to these issues
00:42:38.860
and evangelicals have brought in liberalism is just a lie it's just not true i have a lot of
00:42:44.080
very conservative catholic friends that i am thankful for when it comes to their belief on
0.88
00:42:48.200
life on ivf on the body on marriage and all of those things but most catholics do not believe
00:42:54.600
that way. Most evangelicals do. So let's get into the data, Catholics versus Protestants,
00:43:01.400
and let's try to understand why is it that the most conservative group in America, not just
00:43:07.400
when it comes to Israel, whatever you believe about Israel, but when it comes to immigration,
00:43:11.680
when it comes to abortion, when it comes to gender, when it comes to marriage, when it comes
00:43:17.200
to IVF, when it comes to all of these things, the most conservative, the most biblical group,
00:43:21.880
why are we in the crosshairs when it comes to people's criticism, when it comes to those who
00:43:28.720
like wish to destroy, why do they have their sights set on us when we presumably agree on
00:43:37.060
all of these really big issues? Kind of strange. We'll get to that in just a second. Let me tell
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According to the National Catholic Reporter, white evangelicals are the only religious group
00:45:02.840
There's a 2022 survey of more than 11,000 Americans
00:45:11.040
86% of white evangelicals said that allowing fetuses
00:45:14.840
to have rights is in line with their religious views.
00:45:23.260
are the only religious group that have the majority
00:45:30.080
There's also a Pew Research survey from 2016, so that was 2022, then 2016, that showed that
00:45:35.600
76% of white evangelicals see abortion as morally wrong compared to only 51% of Catholics.
00:45:41.280
The Catholic Church still upholds its original teaching, but I think we should ask the question,
00:45:47.460
like, if the catechism and if the magisterium of the Catholic Church is supposed to lend
00:45:53.320
itself to unity, why are the so-called schismatics, as many Catholics say, the evangelicals so
00:45:59.380
much more united on what is actually biblically true why are we more aligned with what the catholic
00:46:04.380
church teaches if our um if our belief system has led to liberalism and has led to all of this
00:46:11.720
dissension and disagreement why are we so united on the issue of life and catholics are not
00:46:16.060
i think it's a good question when it comes to ivf and birth control i am very thankful for
00:46:21.080
official catholic teaching on this however according to pew 84 of catholics believe that
00:46:26.400
the church should allow the use of birth control. 84%, that's a lot. 83% believe it should permit
00:46:32.480
IVF. Wow. And again, the Catholic church teaching is clear on this, but again, the mechanisms might
00:46:40.820
not be there to make sure that those who identify as Catholic are actually catechized. And it should
00:46:48.900
be asked, is Sola Scriptura actually a better mechanism to make sure that everyone actually
00:46:53.640
knows what God teaches about the body and about human life.
00:46:57.700
Sixty percent of Catholics believe that priests should give blessings to same-sex couples.
00:47:01.540
Fifty percent believe that the church should formally recognize homosexual marriages.
00:47:05.960
In a 2023 to 2024 survey, Catholics pulled 70 percent support for a same-sex marriage
00:47:18.700
And then when you have the acceptance of transgenderism.
00:47:22.320
We've got 36% of Catholics believing that the acceptance of transgenderism is positive.
0.82
00:47:29.420
They're only 35% believing that it is negative.
00:47:33.320
This is compared to 64% of evangelicals that view transgender acceptance as negative.
00:47:43.060
And this is because I think that the Pope typically has been just kind of wishy-washy
00:47:51.100
but in 2023 the previous pope pope francis said of homosexuality it's not a crime but it is a sin
1.00
00:47:57.540
and i think that's a okay that's a good thing however in 2018 he said to a gay man god made
00:48:02.520
you like this and he loves you well god didn't make you um sin uh but of course he does love you
00:48:10.760
and he also famously said in 2013 who am i to judge when asked about a gay priest he also hosted
00:48:17.760
in 2023, transgender women's lunch. It was the latest gesture, the AP says, of inclusion
00:48:24.240
from a pope who was made reaching out to the LGBTQ community, a hallmark of his papacy.
00:48:29.920
There's nothing wrong with that as long as the motivation is evangelism and a call
00:48:33.540
to repentance. 60% of Catholics polled say that they want the church to be
00:48:39.300
more inclusive, even if that means changing some teachings. And again, I think this kind of
00:48:46.600
goes to, um, not the, I think this kind of goes to the issue of how things are taught in the
00:48:55.560
Catholic church, how things are brought down to the actual lay people. Um, maybe it's not a problem
00:49:02.660
in all cases with official Catholic teaching, although I would probably argue that it is,
00:49:06.660
but again, like I would reserve some of your criticism for the dangers of sola scriptura
00:49:11.780
and the dangers of denominations because, again, evangelicals are so much more united.
00:49:18.320
So clearly having the Bible as our ultimate authority without a magisterium has led to
00:49:24.320
more understanding of what the Bible says about the body and more agreement about these
00:49:30.280
Now, what we're going to end on is this question of, is Catholicism actually surging?
00:49:38.480
Because we are being made to believe that it is.
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00:49:41.080
we're first being made to believe the lie that evangelicals are the source of all of our problems
0.64
00:49:45.340
i'm not saying that catholics are the source of all of our problems i'm saying people who don't
0.89
00:49:49.180
know their bibles and don't abide by their bibles will certainly lead us usually in a bad direction
00:49:55.120
politically that is for sure but first we're being told that everyone or yeah that evangelicals are
00:50:01.080
the problem then we're being told that everyone is becoming catholic so why we're being told this
00:50:07.420
I understand from a progressive perspective why people would want us to stop being evangelical
00:50:11.800
because that means for a lot of people stopping being conservative.
00:50:15.240
But it's a little strange coming from people like Tucker Carlson and others who claim to
00:50:24.060
Like, is Catholicism really surging and is Protestantism dwindling?
00:50:29.100
Is evangelicalism losing its influence or people leaving low church to go to high church?
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So I saw this article from the Washington Post, and I thought this was so interesting.
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And I know that my Catholic followers probably won't like this explanation.
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I just thought it was a fascinating analysis, this opinion.
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It's in the Washington Post, and this article is titled, Why Catholic Converts Are Surging
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Julia Yost writes, The age of Instagram and TikTok favors Catholicism.
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An earlier era of the internet, that of the blogosphere, was congenial to Protestantism,
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with its biblical and exegetical basis. The result was the Young, Restless, and Reformed
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movement, mostly male Protestants reading one another's blogs and finding their way from
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secret-sensitive evangelicalism to high-proof Calvinism. Today's internet, by contrast,
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is image-forward and post-literate. This helps to explain why today's online Christians tend to be
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Young, Restless, and Roman. She attributes this to the visual aspect of Catholicism.
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She said white steeples, Puritan clothing, snake handling, not much for an influencer
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Also, I don't know any churches that do the snake handling.
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I know that some charismatic churches do not comment within Protestantism.
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Catholicism has icons and incense, rosaries, chapel veils and ashes, priestly black, cardinal
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Catholic drip content downstream of Conclave, the 2024 film, enjoys intense engagement.
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An old stereotype has it that Protestantism is for people who read books, and Catholicism
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I guess we've got, yeah, some videos of Catholic drip content, okay?
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And it's always like a comparison to evangelicalism, you know, acting like evangelicalism is just
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I do think, okay, let me say a couple things about this, because I know that there are
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going to be some friends out there who were like, are you saying that there is no substance to
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Catholicism? And I'm not saying that. I mean, I do think clearly some of these influencers
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put too much emphasis on the vibe when vibes aren't what saves you. And vibe isn't a faith.
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It's not a worldview. But I don't think that's what all Catholic converts are doing. And certainly
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that's not what I think all Catholic believers believe. I think that there is an appeal to
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something that is aesthetic, and there's nothing wrong with aesthetics. There is something actually
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true and good and beautiful about beauty, and so I don't think all of that is wrong. And I do believe
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some people are persuaded by Catholic theology, by church history, and so there are a lot of
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brilliant Catholic theologians and Catholic apologists, some of whom I call friends, and a
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lot of brilliant Catholic people. So I don't want it to seem like I just think this is superficial,
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but she is onto something here. This writer of the Washington Post is onto something.
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that in a world that favors imagery and a world that is fast-paced, Catholicism has a better
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aesthetic and a better vibe and is more likely to get views and to get attention and to go viral
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and to draw someone in who is used to that kind of imagery than Protestantism, which is based on
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argument. It is based on word. It is based on persuasion. It is so true about the Young Restless
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reformed movement. I am a product of that. It was around 2008 to 2010 that I started getting
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into reformed theology. Didn't even know what Calvinism was, but someone gave me an ESV study
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Bible and my mind was just blown. And, you know, it really has shaped my theology ever since. But
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back then people were reading everything and people were interested in these intellectual
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theological books and the blogs and the arguments and the conferences and the speeches and the
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sermons and podcasts were starting and people were starting to listen to sermons on their
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iPods. And there was just so much there. We wanted to consume words and to read words.
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And that's not to say there is no Catholic scholarship, but there is more iconography
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and more of a visual element in Catholicism. And it is simply true that people read less now.
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We're not really reading blogs as much. We're skimming tweets. The most part,
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we're reading less books, people have a shorter attention span, and that does give Catholicism
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an advantage. And I think back to the first Reformation. Okay, I know my Catholic friends
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are not going to like what I'm about to say, but I think back to the Reformation and Martin Luther
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and the reason at the time the Catholic Church was allowed to be so corrupt and why they were
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allowed to preach things. Like if you give the church, if you give the Catholic Church money,
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you can spring your loved one's soul out of purgatory. You can pay indulgences. That was
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one of the 95 problems that Martin Luther had with what the Catholic church was doing at the time.
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The reason that so many Catholics had a wrong view of salvation and a wrong view of Jesus,
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a wrong view of grace, and this belief that you had to earn your way to heaven is because they
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were preliterate. Okay. So that was a preliterate society where most people could not read. They
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didn't have a Bible of their own and mass was in Latin. They didn't have any real understanding
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of what they believed aside from what their priest told them. And when you have darkness,
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when you are pre-enlightenment and pre-illiterate, you are almost completely dependent upon what
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someone teaches you. Yes, the Holy Spirit can enlighten you, but gosh, that authority structure
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that really thrived because so many people were ignorant was part of the problem. And so the fact
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that the Reformation happened at about the same time, around the same time as the printing press
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and literacy rates started skyrocketing around this time and Martin Luther was able to translate
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the Bible into the common language. I mean, that is God's providence. That is God's sovereignty.
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That was his grace for the church to say, no, this is the gospel. The fact that all of that
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happened around the same time when literacy started taking off is just a miracle that can
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only be explained by God who wanted his will to be revealed to people on their own through the
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power of the Holy Spirit, through his word, and for them to understand the true gospel, which is
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that by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, can you be saved. Thank God for
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the Reformation. Thank God for literacy. But it scares me that we are moving voluntarily into new
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dark ages. We are moving voluntarily into a post-literate society in which people are
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susceptible not only to what I believe are some of the false teachings of Catholicism,
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but the false teachings of all kinds of conspiracy theories, the false teachings of Gnosticism,
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the false teachings of all kinds of different false ideologies, of idolatrous ideologies
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in some cases, because we don't read. We don't read our Bibles. We don't read theology. We don't
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have an attention span or an appetite for those things. And that worries me. That does worry me.
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Now, thankfully, right now, according to the numbers, by and large, Catholicism is not actually
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surging and Protestantism is not actually declining as much as people say. So let me give you my
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spiel on this based on what the facts say. And I think it's important for us to know this because
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it's easy for us to just watch social media and think that that trend is growing when it's actually
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not. So Crisis Magazine is a, it's a Catholic magazine, okay? So this is from a Catholic
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perspective. They note that according to Pew, for every one person joining the Roman Catholic
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Church, eight people are leaving. This has worsened since 2014 when for every one person
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that joins, six people left. And this has been cited by Catholic sources. Crisis Magazine,
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says no other religion has nearly as bad of a joint-leave ratio. For every 100 people that
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become Protestant, 180 leave. That's bad, but it's not Catholic bad. Conversely, for every 100 people
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who leave their religious nuns, N-O-N-E-S, a full 590 become a part of the irreligious cohort.
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Where are the former Catholics going? Of all the former Catholics, 56% become religious nuns,
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32% become Protestant. I think we all know, he says from personal experience, that these numbers
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ring true. What Catholic doesn't have family members who become Protestant or have stopped
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practicing any religion? It's just part of being an American Catholic these days. You also have
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Catholic apologist Trent Horn, whom we've had on several times. He published an insightful video
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several months ago about this, or I think it was last year, about this trend. He says,
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Protestantism is winning. Of the major religious groups in America, Protestantism is seeing the
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least decline. And the truth is, this is a global reality. There has been a major religious shift
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toward Protestantism in South America over the past three decades. A continent that was almost
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entirely Catholic is now 20% Protestant. More than a third of South American Protestants were
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raised Catholic before making the switch. The reasons for conversion that they cited were
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seeking a personal connection with God. They wanted a church that helps members now,
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want a greater emphasis on morality, among others. And there are a lot of Catholics who have
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analyzed this unarguable shift, noting that the embrace of Marxism and liberation theology by a
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lot of the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th and the 20th century led to a weakened church,
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not just in South America, but globally. And I actually think we're seeing some of that
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Marxism reflected in the current Pope. And that's just a really good lesson for all of us,
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whether you're Protestant or Catholic, um, that the more like the world you become, the least you
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are going to attract new members because why go through all of that trouble just to, you know,
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learn from church, which you can learn from brunch with your friends on Sunday. Um, it's also because
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evangelicals are evangelical. And according to Pew and every South American country, self-identifying
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Protestants are far more likely to share their faith in Catholics. For example, in Peru, 38%
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of Protestants say they share their faith at least once a week compared to just 7% of Catholics.
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And I believe that if Catholics wanted to change this, then they would face this reality. Like,
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I know that it's very popular on social media right now just to pretend like everyone's becoming
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Catholic, but the data shows that that is just not true. We read from someone named Ryan Burge.
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He's the research director at Faith Counts. He says, in the 1970s, 8% of Catholics became
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Protestants while only 3% of Protestants became Catholics. In the 2020s, 12% of Catholics became
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Protestants while, again, only 3% of Protestants became Catholic. So it's just not likely at all
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for Catholics to become Protestant or for Protestants to become Catholic. It is kind of
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likely for Catholics to become Protestant, at least more likely. And we're hearing the opposite
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story. So what is the motivation for this? What's the motivation to try to compel people away from
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evangelicalism into Catholicism? You know, I don't know. I don't know. Again, I understand it from a
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progressive perspective because, and I know that this is offensive to my Catholic conservative
01:03:16.360
friends, but the more Catholic America becomes, the more liberal she becomes, not the more
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conservative. Every single statistic shows this. The less evangelical we become, the more liberal
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we become. That's just true. And so, I mean, I understand why you would want the country to
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become more liberal if you're a progressive. I don't understand from some of these self-professing
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conservative Christians why you would want that. Why this unfair and untrue caricature of
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evangelicals and this pressuring of evangelicals to believe that what we have isn't real just
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because it's not high church. I don't know. It's strange, but I would just encourage you.
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this is what I just encourage you. You don't have to listen to me. You don't have to listen to anyone,
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Catholic, Protestant. I just want you to be in the word of God. I want you to read your Bible.
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If you've never read your Bible, get an ESV study Bible. It's like, I don't know, maybe 15 bucks on
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Amazon. Start in the book of John, look at the notes and go forward from there. Like, I don't
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care if you listen to me as a source of truth, but I want you to go to the word of God. And if you
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are an evangelical, that will solidify you in your faith and you won't be moved just by the
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superficial imagery that you see on social media or the social contagion that may be happening,
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but you will be rooted in the Word of God. And Catholics, of course, it can't hurt
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for you also to join us in reading the Word of God. It can't hurt anyone. It can only help,
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right? It can only bring us closer to the God who made us and the Christ who saved us.
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So that's my encouragement. Just beware. Be very wary of the messaging that we are seeing right
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now and understand evangelical Christians, you are in the crosshairs for whatever strange reason.
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We are in the crosshairs and it's just time for you to hold strong in what is good and right and
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true. All right. I know that was a long episode and I had more that I could say. That's all we
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have time for. We will be back with David French, y'all. David French on Friday. He is joining
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Relatable. It's going to be fun. See you guys then.