Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 15, 2026


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

Word count

11,173

Sentence count

687

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

66

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.880 Trump depicted himself as Jesus healing Uncle Sam on Truth Social.
00:00:07.000 What exactly did he mean by this?
00:00:09.440 Also, is there an alliance between the Catholic Church and Islam?
00:00:13.780 What is going on with this seeming surge in Catholicism and also the attacks on evangelicals?
00:00:19.540 We are going to analyze all of this and more on today's episode of Relatable.
00:00:23.700 Before we get started, I do have a special announcement.
00:00:26.020 We've got a very special guest in studio on Friday, and that is David French.
00:00:30.800 He has agreed to have a friendly discussion and debate on things like Trump and Christian
00:00:35.340 nationalism, his own cultural, moral, and political evolution.
00:00:40.160 It is going to be fiery.
00:00:41.540 It is going to be productive.
00:00:42.860 It is going to be so good.
00:00:44.680 So make sure you tune into that.
00:00:46.320 Today's episode is brought to you by Kexi Cookies.
00:00:48.680 Y'all, these are the best cookies ever.
00:00:50.560 They taste amazing.
00:00:51.820 great gift for yourself, for your mom, for Mother's Day, for the loved one in your life.
00:00:56.520 If you go to Kexi.com and use code Allie, you'll get 15% off. That's Kexi.com, code Allie.
00:01:11.820 Hey, y'all. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful
00:01:15.620 week so far. If you have not listened to Monday's episode about therapy culture and
00:01:21.240 three of the most popular practices within therapy culture that I think have the ability 1.00
00:01:26.740 to deceive and manipulate Christian women, I really encourage you to go back and watch 1.00
00:01:31.200 and listen to that. 1.00
00:01:32.260 I know there's some controversial things said in there, and some of you have left your respectful
00:01:37.300 disagreement, and I really appreciate that.
00:01:39.780 But maybe it will just plant a seed for you to kind of think through, like what is true,
00:01:44.220 what is not, what is from the new age, and what is actually biblical, because the things
00:01:48.240 we put in our minds and the things we do with our body really matters. All right, y'all, we have so
00:01:53.020 much to get to today. I'm going to try to not just like talk really fast because I want to get through
00:01:58.520 all of these subjects, but I am going to try to move as quickly as possible because everything
00:02:02.840 that I'm talking about is so important. It's so important. And things just kept happening day
00:02:06.720 after day, hour after hour over the past few days that I had to add to this document to make sure
00:02:10.580 that we get to all of it. Let's get to Trump's truth social post first. Okay. Trump posted an
00:02:17.820 imaged Truth Social. A couple days ago, it was widely reported as him, quote, portraying himself
00:02:24.340 as Jesus Christ. We've got that picture right there. Okay. Now, Trump later responded saying
00:02:30.880 that he didn't intend it to be a picture of Jesus, that one.
00:02:35.860 Mr. President, did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?
00:02:40.560 Well, it wasn't a picture. It was me. I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor
00:02:45.700 and had to do with Red Cross as a Red Cross worker there, which we support.
00:02:50.860 And only the fake news could come up with that one.
00:02:54.140 So I had I just heard about it and I said, how do they come up with that?
00:03:00.460 It's supposed to be me as a doctor making people better.
00:03:03.660 And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.
00:03:07.140 As an example, the 11,000, I understand your husband's going through treatment.
00:03:12.760 Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
00:03:14.020 He's going to do some very serious cancer treatment, so this goes a long way.
00:03:18.840 Yes, sir, it sure does.
00:03:21.340 All right, so that's his explanation.
00:03:23.060 Before I even saw that explanation, my original response was, first of all, it was just exasperation.
00:03:28.960 It was the Ben Affleck meme standing outside of some building with, you know, his cigarette to his side with his eyes closed.
00:03:36.420 Like, why? We're so tired.
00:03:38.480 and that is exactly how I felt as well as sad when I saw this because there is a level of
00:03:45.400 blasphemy and just self-idolatry here that I think is really dangerous for anyone. It speaks to a
00:03:50.600 level of pride. I said this is what happens when Paula White, who is a prosperity preacher that 1.00
00:03:55.760 we've talked about many times, is your personal pastor. I mean, just over Easter, she was comparing
00:04:01.400 him to the Messiah and literally said to him, no one has paid the price like you've paid the price.
00:04:06.540 We did an episode on that. I've talked about the danger of that kind of theology, especially when
00:04:11.920 it comes to imbuing that belief in a person. I mean, there are not many people that can overcome
00:04:18.880 that kind of pride. And so my initial belief was that he knew that this was a Messiah-like piece
00:04:26.000 of AI art and that he didn't have a problem with it. And he posted it because he is prideful. And
00:04:31.460 he's been told by a lot of people in his life that he's basically the Messiah of Western
00:04:35.260 civilization, that is a deep problem. That doesn't absolve him of responsibility because he chose
00:04:41.140 those people in his life, but it does kind of give an explanation for where his theological
00:04:45.780 influence is coming from. After I saw this clip, I posted this, which I did not expect to be
00:04:52.500 controversial. I got ratioed to the moon. I don't think I've ever gotten ratioed this hard.
00:04:58.620 So I reposted that video of Trump on Fox News, and I said, I do believe that he didn't think
00:05:04.420 of this as a depiction of Jesus when posting. Still, there has to be more care and discernment
00:05:10.180 here. I had all kinds of people, all kinds of big names on the left and right being like,
00:05:14.680 you sold your soul. Come on, Allie. I can't believe you said this and you are paid to say
00:05:22.120 this. None of those accusations are true. Okay. You might even think it's sadder that I said that
00:05:27.540 for free, but I did say it for free. It came from my mind. I have never been given talking points.
00:05:33.180 I have never repeated talking points that have been given to me. I've never been paid for any
00:05:37.260 kind of political stance or opinion on any kind of political issue or politician. Zero. I'm not
00:05:42.420 on any of those group texts or any of those email chains or any of those coordination efforts that
00:05:47.780 go on in the political media sphere. I am a part of none of that. Literally, these are my original
00:05:53.120 words from my brain. And I just have to say, I do believe them. I still believe that it is very
00:06:01.560 possible, let me say that, I think it is very plausible that Trump, being who he is, and you
00:06:09.120 don't have to like this, I don't have to like this, I don't like this, that he saw that image,
00:06:14.740 someone sent it to him. It was originally posted by a guy named Nick Adams, but then it was like
00:06:19.780 weirdly manipulated and the people in the sky, like I can't even say this with a straight face,
00:06:23.520 the people in the sky turned into like weird demon-like creatures, okay? And like I think
00:06:29.100 it is possible that someone sent this to Trump. It was like, Trump, you are the doctor saving
00:06:35.460 America. And he saw it and was like, this is great. And he posted it. And that he actually
00:06:40.700 didn't think of it as a messianic symbol. Now, you might think, well, that's a problem. That's
00:06:46.260 stupid. How can you be so ignorant? Oh, that's fine. You can say all of that. I think it was
00:06:52.180 probably laziness, lack of due diligence. I just don't know that he knows and is familiar with
00:06:59.980 Messiah iconography and imagery. I don't know that he's super familiar with that.
00:07:08.580 Now, do I think that he thought he was being represented as a Red Cross member? No. I mean,
00:07:16.580 that was just a little bit too far. The Red Cross, that's just so random and specific.
00:07:20.380 I do believe possibly that he didn't see himself as Jesus in that image. Sorry. Like, again,
00:07:29.020 I'm not saying that's a good thing. It just is. And by the way, this is not the first time Trump
00:07:34.480 has shared something like this. He shared something like this. I think it was before the election.
00:07:39.160 Wasn't it? It was like, okay, not exactly like him as Jesus, but he was like writing something
00:07:45.160 on a desk and he had Jesus over his shoulder. I mean, this is like boomer AI Facebook stuff that
00:07:52.360 has been circulating since like 2016. And it's not the first time Trump has reposted it. It's
00:07:58.880 been wrong every time, in my opinion. I do think it's strange how some people who have had nothing
00:08:04.640 to say about this blasphemy and idolatry for years suddenly have so much to say about it and
00:08:11.040 are accusing me of being some MAGA sycophant, which is not true. And I'll get to that in just
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00:09:15.800 weheartnutrition.com, code Allie. So this is my response to like the 10,000 haters in my replies.
00:09:31.100 Some people, some, not all, but some people angry at me in these replies for quote unquote
00:09:37.420 defending Trump, even though I didn't defend Trump, but I didn't defend or excuse blasphemy,
00:09:42.820 have only in the last few months left the Trump can do no wrong club.
00:09:48.140 OK, the unconditional sycophancy club.
00:09:50.860 That is a club that I have never been a part of.
00:09:53.060 I have been extremely consistent in my critique of Trump for 10 years.
00:09:57.220 He is better than the Democrat alternative, but he says and does things that I don't like.
00:10:02.480 I wish he would have more self-control, more discernment.
00:10:05.680 I pray for him to turn to Christ and the wisdom that comes from that to infuse his speech and his actions.
00:10:13.040 I am also very thankful for how the Lord has used him to push policies that are good and right and true,
00:10:19.460 that have protected the most vulnerable citizens in this country.
00:10:22.520 I am so thankful for an administration, for the most part, that can define good and evil
00:10:27.360 the way God defines good and evil.
00:10:29.540 We had an administration that supported and subsidized the butchering of the bodies of 1.00
00:10:34.560 gender-deceived children, and instead we have an administration who goes along with the 0.75
00:10:39.780 science of biology, the morality when it comes to protecting children. 0.71
00:10:44.880 He invites people to the White House, children to the White House who are standing up against
00:10:48.900 this ideology in their schools.
00:10:50.780 under the Biden administration, those kids would have been condemned. All of that stuff really
00:10:55.060 matters to me. What he's done on immigration really matters to me. And while I have never
00:11:00.460 supported Trump in a primary, I got a lot of hate for that when I supported DeSantis and expressed
00:11:04.960 frustration that other people didn't see that DeSantis was super strong on policy without a
00:11:11.180 lot of the issues that we are dealing with right now with Trump's lack of self-control. So I never
00:11:16.120 supported Trump in a primary, but I am so grateful still that he won and Kamala Harris and Hillary
00:11:22.120 Clinton did not. I have people being like, oh, you voted for this. I'm like, heck yeah, I did.
00:11:26.320 I did. And if it were Trump versus Kamala Harris today, I'd do it again. For me, however, on the
00:11:32.220 other side, Trump is not strong enough on life and marriage. I think his selection of Paula White,
00:11:37.320 as I've said many times, is a dangerous error. I've articulated these things over and over again
00:11:42.520 over the years. And that's a big reason why I've never been considered MAGA. I've never been
00:11:47.920 accepted by the MAGA crowd because I'm not unconditionally MAGA, even though I voted for
00:11:54.380 him three times and have encouraged a lot of Christian women to do so. It's just interesting
00:12:00.740 that some of those who have only recently renounced their unconditional support of Trump
00:12:06.820 have never actually joined me in opposing Trump on substantive issues like taxpayer-funded IVF.
00:12:14.200 Maybe that'll change now. Maybe they'll see the light. They'll link arms with me and pushing back
00:12:19.260 against the Trump administration on some of those anti-Christian policies. We'll see. It seems like
00:12:24.600 they're dictated just by a lot of outrage online and not by substantive policy agreements. Again,
00:12:31.160 not everyone, but some. I do think that Trump is Trump and almost 80, and thus that it is
00:12:40.460 possible that he quickly posted a meme, someone sent him, without seeing it's clear to us,
00:12:47.680 Jesus imagery. That doesn't make it right, but his excuse is plausible to me, and I'm not going
00:12:52.960 to apologize for saying that. That's not an excuse. That's not to say you should love him
00:12:56.760 and be okay with that. I never said that. People, you know, accuse me of like being paid to post
00:13:04.260 that. It's just not true. I saw like David Harris and Graham Allen both like posted the exact same
00:13:12.920 thing, which apparently David got his inspiration from Graham Allen and then posted what he said
00:13:20.860 about, you know, Trump being a believer, that they believe Trump, that discernment isn't automatic,
00:13:28.380 something like that. And people accuse me of, since I said I believe Trump and I said the word
00:13:33.100 discernment, that we all got our script from the same place. First of all, I don't think Graham
00:13:38.640 and David got a script that they were sent, but I certainly didn't. And like I said, I've never
00:13:43.340 been paid for any, any stance or any position or any tweet that I've ever put out, not a part of
00:13:49.200 any of those networks. And we shared like two words in a tweet and didn't say the same sentiment
00:13:55.680 at all. So I think people are just looking for something. People just want something to grab
00:14:01.300 onto. And people want something to be outraged about. But as I said, I've been extremely
00:14:07.180 consistent on all of this. Okay, we're going to get into Pope Leo and Trump's battle in just a
00:14:13.820 second. So much that I'm interested in coming together for podcast material. I first want to
00:14:20.880 remind you about Share the Arrows though. Share the Arrows is happening in just a few months on
00:14:26.420 October 10th. Believe it or not, it's going to be here before we know it. And we have announced our
00:14:31.560 speakers. So excited about that. It's Shane and Shane, Rosaria Butterfield, Kosti Hinn, Alisa
00:14:38.480 Childers, Natasha Crane, Grace Anna Castleberry, Audrey Brogy. We have one more speaker. That is
00:14:44.540 TBA. Y'all, I'm so excited. This lineup is so good. We are going to be talking about all the
00:14:51.580 hot topics from a biblical perspective. This is no fluff. It is gospel-centered. It is worship-filled.
00:14:56.640 I'm so excited about Shane and Shane leading worship. Bring all of your women friends,
00:15:01.820 your small group, the females in your family. Go to sharethearrows.com. Get your tickets to
00:15:07.000 chair of the arrows.com. All right, let's get into Trump versus Pope Leo. So Trump took shots
00:15:14.460 at Pope Leo, and this did not come out of nowhere, by the way. Pope Leo has been signaling criticism
00:15:21.440 towards Trump and what he is doing in Iran by saying things like, God, you know, he doesn't,
00:15:28.220 I'm paraphrasing, doesn't bless conflict. Peace can't come out of military force. We've responded
00:15:34.240 to those statements by Pope Leo. You can go back and watch those episodes to get my response to it.
00:15:39.060 But since Pope Leo is speaking into the political foreign policy realm, he is going to catch the
00:15:45.100 ire. He's going to get a response from political leaders. Trump said this on Truth Social. He said,
00:15:51.140 Pope Leo is weak on crime, which is just like a funny, a funny line. I mean, he's a pope. He's
00:15:57.460 not a politician. I'm not going to read all of this because it's very long. Terrible for foreign
00:16:01.620 policy. He talks about fear of the Trump administration, but doesn't mention the fear
00:16:05.400 that the Catholic Church and all of their Christian organizations had during COVID when they were
00:16:09.160 arresting priests, ministers, everybody else for holding church services. I don't want a pope who
00:16:13.540 thinks it's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don't want a pope who thinks it's terrible that
00:16:17.820 America attacked Venezuela, a country that was sending massive amounts of drugs into the United
00:16:21.920 States and even worse, emptying their prisons. He said, use common sense, stop catering to the
00:16:28.320 radical left. It's hurting him very badly. And more importantly, it's hurting the Catholic Church.
00:16:33.240 Now, I agree with Trump on all of this. I do believe that Pope Leo is just a liberal,
00:16:37.340 that he has the very Obama sense of foreign policy and good and evil. That's why he reserves
00:16:42.740 so far to me, Catholics, you can correct me if I'm wrong, all of his ire and his criticism
00:16:48.360 towards Western nations for what they're doing and seems to kind of like
00:16:53.120 tickle the third world countries and second world countries that are systematically killing and
00:16:59.200 torturing christians and so it's a very liberal left-wing obama kind of way to view foreign policy
00:17:05.920 and war and the world that we are consistently seeing from pope leo doesn't surprise me he's a
00:17:11.780 chicago guy he probably loves barack obama um but the pope responded it's not too i i have no fear
00:17:18.740 on the end of the Trump administration
00:17:20.580 are speaking out loudly about the message of the gospel.
00:17:24.340 And that's what I believe.
00:17:26.560 I am called to know what the church is called to do.
00:17:29.480 We're not politicians.
00:17:30.800 We're not looking to make foreign policy, as he calls it,
00:17:34.580 with the same perspective that he might understand it.
00:17:38.200 But I do believe that the message of the gospel,
00:17:40.780 the lesson of the peacemakers,
00:17:42.080 is the message that the world needs to hear.
00:17:43.980 okay so evangelicals out there need to pay attention because we got to slow down we got
00:17:51.540 to define our terms because the most important thing that i think pope leo said there some of
00:17:56.080 that is true i understand from a catholic perspective if you respect and honor the
00:18:01.360 office of the papacy i understand what he is saying there however so important to see that
00:18:06.420 distinction that we'll get into a little bit more later probably when he says the message of the
00:18:11.400 gospel, blessed are the peacemakers. When Catholics and evangelicals or Catholics and
00:18:16.160 Protestants say the word gospel, they're not actually talking about the same thing. And you
00:18:20.460 can ask, you can ask a fellow Catholic in your life, what is the gospel? Like if you ask an 0.80
00:18:25.200 evangelical that, we will give you exactly the formula for what the gospel is, but it's not
00:18:32.040 typically the same thing as what a Catholic will say. And so you heard him say the gospel,
00:18:35.880 blessed are the peacemakers. Well, that's not the gospel. That is something that Jesus said
00:18:39.480 that is very important, but that is not the gospel. And actually, I'm not sure if I have
00:18:45.420 heard Pope Leo articulate the gospel since he has become pope. Again, you can correct me if I'm
00:18:50.320 wrong. I've heard him say a lot of different things, and of course, some Catholic doctrine,
00:18:54.600 but I'm not sure. Has he actually preached the gospel and urged people to be saved as Jesus is
00:19:02.300 the only way to heaven. Then he gets into, on X, the communion between Muslims and Christians in 0.56
00:19:11.940 Algeria. And he's made comments like this several times, which I think is interesting. He says,
00:19:17.420 communion between Christians and Muslims takes shape under the mantle of Our Lady of Africa.
00:19:22.160 Here in Algeria, the maternal love of Lala Miriam gathers everyone as children within our rich
00:19:28.580 diversity in our shared aspiration for dignity, love, justice, and peace in a world where division
00:19:35.640 and war, so pain and death, living in unity and peace is a compelling sign. All right, here he is.
00:19:43.720 We have at least just a voiceover, a video of Pope visiting the mosque of Algiers, Algeria.
00:19:50.580 He's got his shoes off as a sign of respect there.
00:19:58.140 Algeria has a long history of violence between Muslims and Catholics, with Muslims attacking Catholics.
00:20:05.400 And even right now, there is violence against Christians in Muslim-dominated Algeria.
00:20:12.280 Now, you could argue that that's exactly why he's going there, to try to promote peace.
00:20:17.220 although I don't believe that Nigeria is a stop in his tour of Africa, where Christians,
00:20:24.200 both Protestants and then Catholics, are also being slaughtered by Muslims. This is a pattern 0.99
00:20:32.620 that we see throughout the Middle East, throughout Africa, that I just haven't heard him talk much
00:20:37.320 about when he is decrying violence. And this language of our communion between Christianity
00:20:45.300 in Muslims, it just reminds me of 2 Corinthians 6.14, where we read, God through Paul says,
00:20:51.680 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what partnership has righteousness with
00:20:56.360 lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? I agree, of course, that peace is better,
00:21:04.300 that we want to live peacefully among people of all different faiths, but this kind of language
00:21:12.280 of our rich diversity as if it is a benefit for Christians and Muslims to live among each other
00:21:19.740 rather than everyone becoming Christian. It's not a Christlike or biblical message there. We don't 0.57
00:21:28.500 just want communion with Muslims. We are trying to evangelize and make disciples of all nations,
00:21:35.420 baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, which is exactly why
00:21:39.860 we can't just have that, okay, live and let live mentality. All right. We've got more to say on
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00:22:59.980 also before we get back to it just a reminder to subscribe to blaze tv when you are a blaze
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00:23:32.500 with promo code Allie, blazetv.com slash Allie. Okay, there seems to be a weird alliance
00:23:42.980 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
00:23:59.980 we're both for like the traditional way of life and then you've got the evangelicals and the jews
00:24:06.040 over there on the other side of things i mean it's insane now my catholic friends who are solid 0.74
00:24:11.840 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, 0.94
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
00:26:57.980 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 0.57
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. 0.98
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, 0.58
00:28:23.420 but by and large, it's from Muslims, radical Muslims. You can see what's happening in Nigeria. 0.72
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 0.91
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 0.91
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 0.99
00:29:39.680 Muslims against Jews. I mean, that's just literally insane and irrational. I support 0.97
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
00:30:23.300 their own Muslim government because they're barbarians. And so to me, it's like kind of 0.98
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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00:32:53.780 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
00:33:31.820 to decide what is true.
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.
00:35:01.220 They think it's prosperity gospel.
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.
00:35:22.840 John MacArthur was a Reformed Baptist.
00:35:25.080 I consider myself a Reformed Baptist.
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.
00:35:38.880 We believe in evangelism.
00:35:40.300 We believe that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only life, that no one comes
00:35:44.780 to the Father except through him.
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. 0.71
00:38:52.420 No one's warring with you.
00:38:54.480 God has given us everything.
00:38:56.940 All has come to pass, which means that covenant is fulfilled.
00:39:02.140 Jehovah had given Israel the land.
00:39:04.080 They settled in it. 0.99
00:39:06.340 Okay.
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
00:39:14.240 there, which I think is really bizarre.
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
00:41:37.420 to Israel.
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. 0.66
00:41:54.420 He said, thanks, Protestants.
00:41:56.260 And he put up four different images.
00:41:58.120 One is the White House that's bathed in like a rainbow flag light, I guess, when Obama
00:42:03.200 or maybe Biden was president.
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. 0.72
00:42:12.440 The fourth screenshot is OnlyFans.
00:42:15.380 And so the belief is that evangelicals founded all of these things or have supported all
00:42:21.420 of these things over the years.
00:42:22.800 Of course, that is not true.
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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00:44:53.160 According to the National Catholic Reporter, white evangelicals are the only religious group
00:45:00.080 to overwhelmingly oppose abortion.
00:45:02.840 There's a 2022 survey of more than 11,000 Americans
00:45:06.060 found that 73% of white evangelicals
00:45:08.920 believe that abortion should be illegal.
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.
00:45:20.160 This article also says that white evangelicals
00:45:23.260 are the only religious group that have the majority
00:45:26.040 that believe that life begins at conception.
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
00:47:11.440 compared to only 36 percent of evangelicals.
00:47:14.540 Still too high, but a huge difference there.
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.
00:47:38.320 Only 18% supporting that.
00:47:39.680 I'm like, who are those 18%?
00:47:41.020 That's crazy.
00:47:43.060 And this is because I think that the Pope typically has been just kind of wishy-washy
00:47:47.680 on these things in some regards.
00:47:49.340 I'm not saying John Paul II, okay?
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
00:49:29.780 things.
00:49:30.280 Now, what we're going to end on is this question of, is Catholicism actually surging?
00:49:36.740 Is Catholicism actually surging?
00:49:38.480 Because we are being made to believe that it is. 0.74
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
00:50:05.880 I'm not exactly sure.
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
00:50:19.500 still be on the right.
00:50:20.800 I just think it's a little weird.
00:50:22.320 But let's look at the numbers.
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?
00:50:34.240 we'll get into the numbers in just a second. Let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day,
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00:51:53.640 So I saw this article from the Washington Post, and I thought this was so interesting.
00:51:59.480 And I know that my Catholic followers probably won't like this explanation.
00:52:02.720 I'm going to give some caveats.
00:52:04.200 I just thought it was a fascinating analysis, this opinion.
00:52:07.160 It's in the Washington Post, and this article is titled, Why Catholic Converts Are Surging
00:52:12.100 with an Unexpected Demographic.
00:52:14.780 Julia Yost writes, The age of Instagram and TikTok favors Catholicism.
00:52:19.180 An earlier era of the internet, that of the blogosphere, was congenial to Protestantism,
00:52:23.640 with its biblical and exegetical basis. The result was the Young, Restless, and Reformed 0.91
00:52:28.620 movement, mostly male Protestants reading one another's blogs and finding their way from
00:52:32.600 secret-sensitive evangelicalism to high-proof Calvinism. Today's internet, by contrast,
00:52:37.460 is image-forward and post-literate. This helps to explain why today's online Christians tend to be 1.00
00:52:44.160 Young, Restless, and Roman. She attributes this to the visual aspect of Catholicism. 0.86
00:52:50.860 She said white steeples, Puritan clothing, snake handling, not much for an influencer
00:52:55.820 to work with.
00:52:56.900 Also, I don't know any churches that do the snake handling.
00:52:59.800 I know that some charismatic churches do not comment within Protestantism.
00:53:04.180 Catholicism has icons and incense, rosaries, chapel veils and ashes, priestly black, cardinal
00:53:08.600 red and papal white.
00:53:10.040 Catholic drip content downstream of Conclave, the 2024 film, enjoys intense engagement.
00:53:16.860 An old stereotype has it that Protestantism is for people who read books, and Catholicism
00:53:21.680 is for people who want spectacle.
00:53:24.100 Say hello to Gen Z. 0.52
00:53:26.400 I guess we've got, yeah, some videos of Catholic drip content, okay?
00:53:32.260 Hadn't heard of this.
00:53:33.500 And it's always like a comparison to evangelicalism, you know, acting like evangelicalism is just
00:53:39.500 like superficial.
00:53:41.080 I do think, okay, let me say a couple things about this, because I know that there are
00:53:44.700 going to be some friends out there who were like, are you saying that there is no substance to
00:53:48.860 Catholicism? And I'm not saying that. I mean, I do think clearly some of these influencers
00:53:53.360 put too much emphasis on the vibe when vibes aren't what saves you. And vibe isn't a faith.
00:54:01.020 It's not a worldview. But I don't think that's what all Catholic converts are doing. And certainly 0.98
00:54:05.660 that's not what I think all Catholic believers believe. I think that there is an appeal to 0.93
00:54:11.040 something that is aesthetic, and there's nothing wrong with aesthetics. There is something actually
00:54:14.780 true and good and beautiful about beauty, and so I don't think all of that is wrong. And I do believe
00:54:20.700 some people are persuaded by Catholic theology, by church history, and so there are a lot of
00:54:26.100 brilliant Catholic theologians and Catholic apologists, some of whom I call friends, and a
00:54:31.260 lot of brilliant Catholic people. So I don't want it to seem like I just think this is superficial,
00:54:35.560 but she is onto something here. This writer of the Washington Post is onto something.
00:54:40.640 that in a world that favors imagery and a world that is fast-paced, Catholicism has a better
00:54:47.380 aesthetic and a better vibe and is more likely to get views and to get attention and to go viral
00:54:53.880 and to draw someone in who is used to that kind of imagery than Protestantism, which is based on
00:55:01.820 argument. It is based on word. It is based on persuasion. It is so true about the Young Restless
00:55:07.460 reformed movement. I am a product of that. It was around 2008 to 2010 that I started getting
00:55:12.980 into reformed theology. Didn't even know what Calvinism was, but someone gave me an ESV study
00:55:18.400 Bible and my mind was just blown. And, you know, it really has shaped my theology ever since. But
00:55:24.940 back then people were reading everything and people were interested in these intellectual
00:55:30.500 theological books and the blogs and the arguments and the conferences and the speeches and the
00:55:34.360 sermons and podcasts were starting and people were starting to listen to sermons on their
00:55:39.120 iPods. And there was just so much there. We wanted to consume words and to read words.
00:55:45.020 And that's not to say there is no Catholic scholarship, but there is more iconography
00:55:51.160 and more of a visual element in Catholicism. And it is simply true that people read less now.
00:55:58.080 We're not really reading blogs as much. We're skimming tweets. The most part,
00:56:02.940 we're reading less books, people have a shorter attention span, and that does give Catholicism
00:56:10.020 an advantage. And I think back to the first Reformation. Okay, I know my Catholic friends 0.95
00:56:15.520 are not going to like what I'm about to say, but I think back to the Reformation and Martin Luther 0.73
00:56:20.400 and the reason at the time the Catholic Church was allowed to be so corrupt and why they were
00:56:27.900 allowed to preach things. Like if you give the church, if you give the Catholic Church money,
00:56:32.200 you can spring your loved one's soul out of purgatory. You can pay indulgences. That was
00:56:37.140 one of the 95 problems that Martin Luther had with what the Catholic church was doing at the time.
00:56:41.640 The reason that so many Catholics had a wrong view of salvation and a wrong view of Jesus, 0.63
00:56:48.080 a wrong view of grace, and this belief that you had to earn your way to heaven is because they 0.85
00:56:52.180 were preliterate. Okay. So that was a preliterate society where most people could not read. They
00:56:58.220 didn't have a Bible of their own and mass was in Latin. They didn't have any real understanding
00:57:03.100 of what they believed aside from what their priest told them. And when you have darkness,
00:57:07.960 when you are pre-enlightenment and pre-illiterate, you are almost completely dependent upon what
00:57:15.100 someone teaches you. Yes, the Holy Spirit can enlighten you, but gosh, that authority structure
00:57:20.960 that really thrived because so many people were ignorant was part of the problem. And so the fact
00:57:27.460 that the Reformation happened at about the same time, around the same time as the printing press
00:57:34.420 and literacy rates started skyrocketing around this time and Martin Luther was able to translate
00:57:40.900 the Bible into the common language. I mean, that is God's providence. That is God's sovereignty.
00:57:49.160 That was his grace for the church to say, no, this is the gospel. The fact that all of that
00:57:54.180 happened around the same time when literacy started taking off is just a miracle that can
00:57:59.240 only be explained by God who wanted his will to be revealed to people on their own through the
00:58:04.780 power of the Holy Spirit, through his word, and for them to understand the true gospel, which is
00:58:08.460 that by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, can you be saved. Thank God for
00:58:13.580 the Reformation. Thank God for literacy. But it scares me that we are moving voluntarily into new
00:58:19.040 dark ages. We are moving voluntarily into a post-literate society in which people are
00:58:25.240 susceptible not only to what I believe are some of the false teachings of Catholicism,
00:58:29.480 but the false teachings of all kinds of conspiracy theories, the false teachings of Gnosticism,
00:58:34.160 the false teachings of all kinds of different false ideologies, of idolatrous ideologies
00:58:41.080 in some cases, because we don't read. We don't read our Bibles. We don't read theology. We don't
00:58:48.500 have an attention span or an appetite for those things. And that worries me. That does worry me.
00:58:55.040 Now, thankfully, right now, according to the numbers, by and large, Catholicism is not actually
00:59:01.840 surging and Protestantism is not actually declining as much as people say. So let me give you my
00:59:11.200 spiel on this based on what the facts say. And I think it's important for us to know this because
00:59:15.500 it's easy for us to just watch social media and think that that trend is growing when it's actually
00:59:20.280 not. So Crisis Magazine is a, it's a Catholic magazine, okay? So this is from a Catholic
00:59:27.500 perspective. They note that according to Pew, for every one person joining the Roman Catholic
00:59:32.980 Church, eight people are leaving. This has worsened since 2014 when for every one person
00:59:38.180 that joins, six people left. And this has been cited by Catholic sources. Crisis Magazine,
00:59:45.500 says no other religion has nearly as bad of a joint-leave ratio. For every 100 people that 0.68
00:59:52.120 become Protestant, 180 leave. That's bad, but it's not Catholic bad. Conversely, for every 100 people
00:59:59.180 who leave their religious nuns, N-O-N-E-S, a full 590 become a part of the irreligious cohort. 1.00
01:00:08.660 Where are the former Catholics going? Of all the former Catholics, 56% become religious nuns, 0.98
01:00:14.920 32% become Protestant. I think we all know, he says from personal experience, that these numbers
01:00:19.940 ring true. What Catholic doesn't have family members who become Protestant or have stopped 0.96
01:00:24.060 practicing any religion? It's just part of being an American Catholic these days. You also have
01:00:29.060 Catholic apologist Trent Horn, whom we've had on several times. He published an insightful video
01:00:33.680 several months ago about this, or I think it was last year, about this trend. He says,
01:00:39.720 Protestantism is winning. Of the major religious groups in America, Protestantism is seeing the
01:00:46.740 least decline. And the truth is, this is a global reality. There has been a major religious shift
01:00:52.560 toward Protestantism in South America over the past three decades. A continent that was almost 0.66
01:00:57.560 entirely Catholic is now 20% Protestant. More than a third of South American Protestants were
01:01:02.760 raised Catholic before making the switch. The reasons for conversion that they cited were
01:01:07.800 seeking a personal connection with God. They wanted a church that helps members now,
01:01:12.240 want a greater emphasis on morality, among others. And there are a lot of Catholics who have
01:01:17.620 analyzed this unarguable shift, noting that the embrace of Marxism and liberation theology by a
01:01:23.660 lot of the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th and the 20th century led to a weakened church,
01:01:28.060 not just in South America, but globally. And I actually think we're seeing some of that
01:01:31.920 Marxism reflected in the current Pope. And that's just a really good lesson for all of us,
01:01:36.540 whether you're Protestant or Catholic, um, that the more like the world you become, the least you 0.64
01:01:42.400 are going to attract new members because why go through all of that trouble just to, you know, 0.80
01:01:47.040 learn from church, which you can learn from brunch with your friends on Sunday. Um, it's also because
01:01:51.640 evangelicals are evangelical. And according to Pew and every South American country, self-identifying
01:01:57.620 Protestants are far more likely to share their faith in Catholics. For example, in Peru, 38%
01:02:02.540 of Protestants say they share their faith at least once a week compared to just 7% of Catholics. 0.58
01:02:08.040 And I believe that if Catholics wanted to change this, then they would face this reality. Like, 0.51
01:02:13.160 I know that it's very popular on social media right now just to pretend like everyone's becoming
01:02:17.640 Catholic, but the data shows that that is just not true. We read from someone named Ryan Burge.
01:02:25.120 He's the research director at Faith Counts. He says, in the 1970s, 8% of Catholics became
01:02:30.880 Protestants while only 3% of Protestants became Catholics. In the 2020s, 12% of Catholics became
01:02:37.180 Protestants while, again, only 3% of Protestants became Catholic. So it's just not likely at all
01:02:43.960 for Catholics to become Protestant or for Protestants to become Catholic. It is kind of
01:02:50.840 likely for Catholics to become Protestant, at least more likely. And we're hearing the opposite
01:02:57.680 story. So what is the motivation for this? What's the motivation to try to compel people away from
01:03:04.280 evangelicalism into Catholicism? You know, I don't know. I don't know. Again, I understand it from a
01:03:12.060 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
01:03:20.720 conservative. Every single statistic shows this. The less evangelical we become, the more liberal
01:03:26.860 we become. That's just true. And so, I mean, I understand why you would want the country to
01:03:32.920 become more liberal if you're a progressive. I don't understand from some of these self-professing
01:03:37.080 conservative Christians why you would want that. Why this unfair and untrue caricature of
01:03:44.180 evangelicals and this pressuring of evangelicals to believe that what we have isn't real just
01:03:49.180 because it's not high church. I don't know. It's strange, but I would just encourage you.
01:03:53.460 this is what I just encourage you. You don't have to listen to me. You don't have to listen to anyone,
01:03:57.980 Catholic, Protestant. I just want you to be in the word of God. I want you to read your Bible.
01:04:02.140 If you've never read your Bible, get an ESV study Bible. It's like, I don't know, maybe 15 bucks on
01:04:06.980 Amazon. Start in the book of John, look at the notes and go forward from there. Like, I don't
01:04:11.880 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
01:04:16.740 are an evangelical, that will solidify you in your faith and you won't be moved just by the
01:04:23.000 superficial imagery that you see on social media or the social contagion that may be happening,
01:04:28.300 but you will be rooted in the Word of God. And Catholics, of course, it can't hurt
01:04:31.820 for you also to join us in reading the Word of God. It can't hurt anyone. It can only help,
01:04:36.880 right? It can only bring us closer to the God who made us and the Christ who saved us.
01:04:41.380 So that's my encouragement. Just beware. Be very wary of the messaging that we are seeing right
01:04:47.540 now and understand evangelical Christians, you are in the crosshairs for whatever strange reason. 0.79
01:04:53.980 We are in the crosshairs and it's just time for you to hold strong in what is good and right and
01:04:59.000 true. All right. I know that was a long episode and I had more that I could say. That's all we
01:05:03.640 have time for. We will be back with David French, y'all. David French on Friday. He is joining
01:05:10.300 Relatable. It's going to be fun. See you guys then.
01:05:17.540 Thank you.