Ep 1349 ｜ 'Testify to Love' is Love？, My AI Rules & Rededicate 250
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 9 minutes
Words per minute
174.21336
Harmful content
Toxicity
7
sentences flagged
Hate speech
23
sentences flagged
Summary
A former member of Avalon now says that their 1997 hit Testify to Love is about LGBTQ affirmation. Also, is AI taking away the image of God in us? I ve got 5 things to think about as you as a Christian navigate how to use AI well. And this weekend was the Rededicate to 50 event in Washington D.C. and people got to hear the gospel all around the world. And that is good news. We ve got all of this and more on today s episode of Relatable.
Transcript
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A former member of Avalon now says that their 1997 hit Testify to Love is about LGBTQ affirmation.
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Also, is AI taking away the image of God in us?
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I've got five things to think about as you as a Christian navigate how to use AI well.
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And this weekend was the Rededicate to 50 event in Washington, D.C.
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and people got to hear the gospel all around the world.
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We've got all of this and more on today's episode of Relatable.
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God's eternal plan of redemption is going off without a hitch.
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yes, God is completely sovereign. Job 42.2, nothing can thwart his will. So that's really
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good news. Whatever headline you see, whatever you see on social media, whatever is going on
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in your own life, whatever failures or inadequacies you are struggling with,
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that is the truth. Not some name it and claim it self-help gospel that tells you that you can find
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everything that you're looking for inside yourself. And if you just try hard enough,
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and if you love yourself enough, everything will come together. That's not where we get our hope
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and our peace. The self can't be both the problem and the solution, y'all. God is the answer. We
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have to go outside of ourselves. And the hope and the peace comes from the fact that his eternal
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plan of redemption is going off without a hitch, that one day Jesus is coming back and he's going
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to take care of all of this. And we will live in perfect peace and joy forever and ever because
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Jesus reigns. So that's the good news. That's the good news that we start out with every single
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week, that we should be preaching to ourselves every day, because that is the truth in God's
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sovereignty and his goodness and his faithfulness to you and to his people. Despite our faithlessness,
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despite our inability to ever get it right, that is the good news that we find our joy in.
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All right. We've got so much to talk about today. I just want to remind you, if you are a Christian
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If you love Relatable, please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify,
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Make sure you are subscribed on YouTube because not everyone who watches subscribes, and it
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So go ahead and subscribe if you haven't done that already.
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All right, let's get into what we need to talk about today.
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And to start off this segment, I am going to play you this absolute banger from 1997.
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And if you were raised evangelical like me, this will be very familiar to you.
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so good flashback to 1997 like on my way to kindergarten probably with my mom in the suburban
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singing this song belting it out we even had the cd we loved this album and we loved this song but
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here's some bad news now we are being told retroactively that testify to love by the ccm band
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Avalon is actually an anthem of queer love. Yes, I am not joking that this is now an LGBTQ
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affirming anthem. Melissa Green is a former member of the band Avalon. It released this
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super popular song, Testify to Love, back in 1997. And now they have re-released it
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and are saying this is actually about, and has always been about, LGBTQ affirmation. There she
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is with another member of the band who now is identifies as lgbtq and i guess is also an lgbtq
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activist um in a sub stack post she wrote this she said testify to love drops today originally
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recorded by avalon re-recorded by michael passens ty herndon and me on wednesday we shot the music
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video at the end of it the three of us looked at each other proud and ultimately saying love
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is for everyone. She posted on Facebook a carousel, and one of the pictures was of two men,
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I suppose one man from the band, and the person that he now calls his husband getting married,
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kissing at an altar. She went on to talk about in her sub stack, her collaborator on the track,
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Passens, another former Avalon member who was removed from the group after he identified as
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gay many years ago. The official narrative was that he left the group to pursue a solo career
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in 2003. However, in 2020, Passons appeared on an episode of a podcast and said that his bandmates
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visited his home and told him he was no longer allowed to be in the group because he was
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homosexual. Green wrote that, this is Melissa Green, this former member of the band, wrote that
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she had been taught that, quote, some love was acceptable and some wasn't because she believed
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that she was on the wrong side of what happened to him. I just got to pause there for a second.
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So she is saying this belief that she no longer holds to that some love is acceptable and some love is not is wrong.
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Please, just for a second, we've got to take that to a logical conclusion.
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Of course, some love is acceptable and some love is not.
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Like, let's just put the LGBTQ to the side for a second.
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Like, we all agree that some love, that some feelings of affection, that some feelings of desire are not acceptable, right?
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Like if you are talking about a grownup loving a child in a way that is inappropriate, that
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I'm not even making the comparison of pedophilia to LGBTQ right now.
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I'm just saying that in principle, like you understand the logic that some love isn't
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And that's why the whole love is love doesn't make sense because it's circular.
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love is love doesn't tell us anything we actually have to define what love is to decide if this is
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actually true and again there is some love there is some lust there is some desire that is out of
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bounds and so you can make a different argument for why you believe that lgbtq is okay biblically
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but the idea that all love and all feelings of wanting something or someone are okay that's not
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a good one. None of us agree on that. She also wrote, Michael never needed to be redeemed.
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Uh-oh. He was always whole and worthy. What he was denied was his rightful place in the group,
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in the song, in a community that claimed to sing about a love big enough to hold him.
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Though Green was raised in a conservative home or raised with conservative theological beliefs,
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she's shifted towards progressivism, obviously, over the years. She served for several years
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as an associate pastor at Grace Point, a pro-LGBTQ church in the Nashville area. She has also
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officiated same-sex weddings, or she did officiate the same-sex wedding of Ty Herndon, the other man
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on the new release of Testify to Love to Another Man on August 26, 2023. Green said she is currently
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working on a memoir describing the process of how her beliefs changed in more detail. And look,
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we've talked about this kind of topic a lot, this phenomenon of believing that we are actually nicer
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than God, that we're wiser than God, that we're more compassionate than him, that Romans 1 is too
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mean, that Genesis 127 is too cruel, that 1 Corinthians 6 is just too harsh, that passages
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that positively affirm the holiness of marriage between one man and one woman and the exclusive
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impulsive holiness of sexual activity within that marriage between one man and one woman. It's just
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too much to bear. And actually, we, as these fallible people, we have a better answer. We
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have a better and bigger and wiser and more loving perspective on how humans should behave and what
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sin is and what it's not. The truth is, is that we are not nicer than God. We don't know better
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than him. We're not more compassionate than him. And if something to us seems wrong or seems cruel
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or seems confusing when we go to the word of God, the problem is not with God. It's not with his
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word. It's with us. Like we know that God is God and we are not. And so our first instinct should
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be, okay, maybe I don't understand something. Maybe it's my understanding that actually needs
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to be expanded and actually needs to be deepened. Maybe it's not God that needs my reproof. Maybe
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it's me who needs reproof. And so God, give me the wisdom to understand, even though this is
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really hard for me. Like people think that being sure of the word of God is the more arrogant and
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prideful approach. People will say, oh, you just think that you know everything. And it's actually
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the humble approach to be affirming of things like LGBTQ. It's actually the opposite. It's to say
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like, look, I don't know all of the answers, but I know that I am not good enough or big enough or
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wise enough or loving enough to create my own moral code, to decide what's right and wrong.
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I can't be the arbiter of that. I only trust an infallible, infinite being to do that. The God
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who created us loved us so much that he sent his son to die for us. And so let me go to him to see
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what's right. And if I still just don't get it, that's because I'm a human being and God is not.
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So what is the biblical response to something like this? We'll get into that in just a second.
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Green's article deeply misunderstands the biblical teaching on sin.
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and the gospel, neither of which she actually mentions there. Scripture is clear that we all
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need redemption. He needed redemption. She needs redemption. I need redemption. We all need
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redemption through Christ alone. That's something that so-called progressive Christianity denies
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is this inherent brokenness, our need to be made whole, our need to be made new, not just fixed,
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not just be improved, but actually made new, be given a new heart of flesh, to be made a new
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creation. That is not just true if you struggle with homosexuality or you feel attracted to the
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same sex. That's not just true if you struggle with gender. It's not just true if you struggle
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with any manner of sins that we talk about a lot. It's true if you struggle with any small sin,
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so-called small, or struggle with any hidden sin, a sin that is not considered a part of
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the culture wars. It doesn't matter. All sin separates us from God, and we have to be redeemed
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from it. That is the bad news before the good news of the gospel, and the good news isn't good
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news and less we believe in the bad news that we all need salvation. Romans 1, 26 through 27 is
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very, very clear about this. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their
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women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave
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up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing
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shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
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Okay, so God says that these things are actually contrary to how he made us, contrary to nature.
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They're not good for us. And God loves us and he wants good things for us. So affirming what God
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calls sin is not actually loving because God loves us more than we love us. God loves your neighbor
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more than you love your neighbor. And if God is good and God is loving, then everything he calls
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sin and everything he calls right, he says and distinguishes out of love. God is love,
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1 John 4, 8. So everything he says in his word, no matter what we think about it, is loving.
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And remember, he defines love in a particular way. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us about this. I write
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a lot about this in Toxic Empathy. I really encourage you to actually read the chapter
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on the myth of love is love and what holy sexuality looks like and why it's actually
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more loving to affirm that than to affirm what the culture and the world and the world says.
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But he says in 1 Corinthians 13, that love among other things never rejoices in wrongdoing,
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but rejoices with the truth, rejoices with the truth. True love as the God who is love defines
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it can never rejoice in sin. Romans 1 32 goes on to say, though they know God's righteous decree
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that those who practice such things deserve to die. And they not only do them, they not only do
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them, but give approval to those who practice them. That's wicked in the eyes of the God who
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made us. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit
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the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
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nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
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nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God and such were some of you. This is the good news. So
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bad news, bad news, good news. This is what Paul always does. Bad news, good news. And such were
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some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of
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the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. And so what we see there is that it is not
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just making gay people straight. It is making old people new. Okay. Not actual physically old people,
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but our old self, our old identity. He is giving us a new identity. He is giving us a new self.
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And yes, we repent of all manner of sins, not just homosexuality, but drunkenness,
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idolatry. In other places, we see disobedience to parents, anything that goes against Jesus's
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moral code, we are to repent of. And that includes unholy sexuality. Some people will say,
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well, Jesus never talked about this. Jesus never talked about homosexuality. Well, of course he
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does. He talks about it in the affirmative sense. In Matthew 19, four through five, he's being asked
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a question about divorce, not about sexual identity, but he answers going all the way back
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to creation. Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female?
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Therefore, a man will leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife, and the two will become
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one flesh. And so he positively affirms marriage in one way. As Christians, we don't read the Bible
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saying, well, what can I get away with? If I don't like this verse, let me try to finagle the original
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Hebrew or Greek to find a way to get out of this. How can I reinterpret this in a way that will help
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me feel like this is not wrong or this is not sin? That is not someone who loves God and wants to
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honor him. That's not how we think. We don't just look at the Bible and say, what does God say is
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bad? And how can I kind of navigate that in a way that still satiates my desires? We read the Bible
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and say, what does God say is good? What does God say is holy? And the only positive description
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of marriage that we see in scripture is between one man and one woman, period. Not even multiple
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wives. God doesn't prescribe that. We see it described, but again, as I've said many times,
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no wives, no problems. We see that with everyone who had multiple wives, okay? No wives, no problems.
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The only good form of marriage, according to the God who created marriage, is between one man and
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one woman. And I would encourage you to go watch the Jubilee debate that I did back in October.
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We debate that very subject with a bunch of people who call themselves progressive Christians.
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And so if you want to know more, like, how do I navigate this kind of thing?
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Then I really encourage you to go back and to watch at least that segment of the Jubilee
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debate, because we go around and around and really get into what the Bible has to say
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Now, unfortunately, this is a trend in contemporary Christian music.
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You've got a lot of artists who were very famous in this realm in the 90s and the early
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um we've got kevin max from dc talk unfortunately multiple members from dc talk who have gone a
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an unfortunate direction posted in 2021 i've been deconstructing reconstructing progressing
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whatever you wish to call it for decades i'm an hashtag exvangelical jennifer knapp also came out
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as lgbtq um amy grant has publicly stated support for lgbtq quote-unquote marriage
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Derek Webb was a part of Cademan's Call, amazing group.
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He went to a progressive view of Christianity, then became, apparently, he became an atheist.
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I've seen some mixed reportings about whether he actually identifies as an atheist.
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He put out a quote-unquote gospel album a couple years ago, and he collaborated with
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Marty Sampson Hillsong United said in 2019, Christianity just seems to me like any other
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religion. Something that I see a lot is that it so often centers on an LGBTQ identity themselves
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or someone close to them who identifies as LGBTQ, or it is a lack of answers to very basic
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fundamental theological questions that they assume no one has ever attempted to answer before.
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And rather than going to the Word of God or going to teachers, pastors, theologians to
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help navigate those very real questions and doubts that all of us have had at one point,
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They will go to the secular world to kind of affirm those doubts.
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All of us have people in our lives that we love who are like awesome people in so many
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It should feel difficult because we love those people.
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But in difficulty, we don't just say, okay, well, I'm going to allow this discomfort to
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move me away from Jesus, to move me away from my faith.
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We shouldn't be scared of those doubts or scared of those questions, but that's why
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That's why it's so important to have mentorship, why it's so important to be plugged into
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your local church, to be plugged into Bible studies, to go more deeply into the word of
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And churches, I think, are doing a lot better at this over the past 10 or so years.
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But churches have to be equipped for discipleship.
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They have to have mechanisms in place to make sure that more seasoned Christians are being
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plugged in with younger Christians, to make sure that there are those systems in place
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for discipleship and accountability, and to answer those questions, to equip their congregants
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But also, I think that pastors, teaching pastors, discipleship pastors have to have a finger
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on the pulse of the beliefs of their congregants.
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And I know that gets harder and harder when your church gets bigger, but there are churches
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where the Sunday school teachers are teaching things that are not in alignment with Scripture
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Like if you've got youth pastors or if you've got people who are leading Bible study small
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groups in your church that are teaching something that are not aligned with Scripture, that's
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a big problem. And so churches really have to ensure that what is being taught, both privately
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and publicly, is in alignment with the Word of God, and that also those who do have doubts and
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questions have a place to go without shame to ask them and to get really good, thoughtful
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questions and answers. All right, so that's disappointing. I feel like I can't listen to
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that song anymore. It's not nostalgic anymore. Now it's been made weird. But you know what?
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The good news is, is that there is still truth in that song. And no matter what the writers or
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the performers of that song say now, love is still how God defines it. And so we should still
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testify to love. We should still be a witness in the silences when words are not enough. We should
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still let our gospel-centered actions speak for us when we don't have the opportunity to actually
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say what is true. And there's nothing that Avalon members can do to change the reality of the truth
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of those words. So I might still jam out to it. And they can just know that I am thinking of the
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biblical definition of love and the good news of the gospel that proceeds the bad news of our state
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of sin, even while I am singing it. All right. Now I want to talk about this phenomenon of AI,
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not just within the church although we're going to talk about that pastors using ai
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worship leaders using ai to write lyrics and all of that kind of stuff but i have been noodling
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on how we as christians should be navigating artificial intelligence for a long time and i've
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got it's very similar to how i feel about reading and there are a lot of connections but i want to
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give you my own parameters for how i use ai and i really hope it's helpful to you maybe it's just a
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starting place or maybe it just helps you know how to use it for yourself and for your kids and
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maybe it gives you some fodder for even talking to your kids teachers and talking to the different
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people in your life who might overly rely on grok and chat gpt before we get into that let me pause
00:23:39.420
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code Allie. You'll get 20% off. WeHeartNutrition.com, code Allie. I have repeated these
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mantras, these two mantras, many times over the years. If you've been listening for a while,
00:25:05.840
you've heard me say, when technology takes us from what is natural to what is possible,
00:25:10.480
Christians have to stop and ask, but is this biblical? Is this moral? Is this ethical?
00:25:15.960
And technology and science can answer, can we? But they cannot answer, should we? These questions
00:25:22.860
apply to reproductive technology, all manner of scientific experimentation, medicine, artificial
00:25:28.900
intelligence. And sometimes the answers to those questions will be a resounding yes. I'm certainly
00:25:34.380
not a Luddite. I'm not anti-medicine. But sometimes the answer will also be a yes,
00:25:40.740
but with caveats. And sometimes the answer, especially for the Christian, will be no,
00:25:45.860
unconditionally no. Right now, I want to focus specifically on AI and the question of can we
00:25:52.700
use AI? Should we be using AI? Is there an ethical, good, biblical way to use AI? This is something I
00:25:58.240
think about a lot. Now, this is a tool that I use. I use it on probably a weekly basis. And I found
00:26:05.080
myself wrestling with these questions. Is it okay to use Grok for this? Can I do this on my own?
00:26:10.260
Should I do this on my own? And I know if I am asking these questions, the rest of you probably
00:26:15.360
are too. So I hope to offer a little bit of clarity in how I'm kind of thinking through these things.
00:26:20.940
Because Christians desperately need guidelines for how to use AI in the right ways. Because
00:26:27.000
I think that we risk losing what makes us unique as human beings when we outsource our
00:26:32.680
creativity, our effort, and even our spirituality to artificial intelligence.
00:26:38.100
This happens not just outside or in the outside world, but it also happens within the church.
00:26:44.860
And that is really what I'm most concerned about, the reliance on AI for sermons, for
00:26:51.800
And then outside the church, we also see troubling trends.
00:26:54.140
We see AI used to write papers, to form emails, to give emotional and spiritual and relationship
00:27:00.940
And Christians and non-Christians alike are relying on AI for far more than gathering
0.64
00:27:08.740
They're relying on it for companionship, for understanding, for wisdom, for guidance,
00:27:13.200
And that, to me, is where things get really dangerous, like soul-level dangerous.
00:27:17.760
So let's look at what's happening in the church, and then we can also look at some
00:27:24.140
So there's this Barna study that shows that while most pastors use AI for things like administrative tasks, 12% are comfortable using AI to write their sermons.
00:27:37.280
77% of pastors believe that God can work through AI.
00:27:41.220
58% said that they are comfortable using AI to assist in some form of communication.
00:27:47.020
John Piper notes in his Ask Pastor John podcast, he said that one problem is that it can't
00:27:55.860
He says, because the ultimate purpose of the universe is that God be glorified, and he
00:28:00.080
is not glorified merely by being rightly thought about or logically comprehended, but by being
00:28:05.220
rightly enjoyed, admired, appreciated, valued, and God is most glorified when we are most
00:28:11.720
satisfied in him, which means no artificial intelligence will ever be able to worship.
00:28:18.180
And if a sermon is worship, and if songs are worship, and we are outsourcing these things to
00:28:24.660
an entity that can't actually enjoy God, we are going to lose, I think, the soul level purpose
00:28:31.040
of why the universe exists through the things that we say and sing. In reference to writing
00:28:37.220
sermons or newsletters, Piper points out the key problem is dishonesty. He says, no, don't have
00:28:43.260
chat GPT write your newsletter. Don't do it unless you're going to put in clear letters at the top.
00:28:48.800
This newsletter was created by chat GPT. That's honest and your supporters won't like it. John
00:28:55.520
Dub for the Master Seminary explains in a blog post titled, don't be an artificial preacher,
00:29:00.660
an argument against using AI and sermon preparation. He says sermon preparation is an
00:29:05.840
act of worship. He says, it's an encounter with the living God. As we prepare for Sunday,
00:29:10.060
we're exposing our hearts and minds to the most sacred asset this side of heaven. The pursuit of
00:29:15.480
God is the beginning and end of our sermon preparation. He also points out that sermon
00:29:20.240
preparation is sanctification. He says, as I labor to understand and rightly share the meaning of a
00:29:25.040
certain passage of scripture, God is using that very passage to shape my own walk with him. As I
00:29:30.420
mull over the text of scripture, I'm exposing myself to the best means of spiritual growth in
00:29:34.440
my life. He also talks about sermon preparation not only being sanctification for yourself but
00:29:40.560
as an act of service to God and service to the church. To acquiesce to AI, he argues, is to miss
00:29:46.340
out on a specific opportunity to tangibly serve God. Sermon preparation is also state-of-the-art.
00:29:52.840
AI cannot generate anything new. All it can do is collect data and export that data in the way
00:29:58.580
it's programmed to do. We take dominion from our study. That's such a good point. We take dominion
00:30:02.820
from our study, he says, as we extract the meaning of the text of scripture, the outcome is a sermon
00:30:07.960
uniquely created through the enablement of the Holy Spirit to minister to the people of God in
00:30:13.500
our specific context. That is so good. And that's one thing I don't know that people know about AI
00:30:19.980
is that AI doesn't have any original thoughts. What it's doing, and it's really incredible that
00:30:24.020
it's able to do this, it's taking all of the information that man has been able to generate
00:30:28.660
and innovate and discover and articulate it at some point.
00:30:32.020
And it's summarizing all of that in a very clever, human-like way, but it's not discovering
00:30:38.640
The point of a sermon is not just to fill 30 minutes on a Sunday morning.
00:30:42.680
In 2 Timothy, Paul writes, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching,
00:30:47.080
for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may
00:30:53.620
So the point of using scripture to teach, reprove, and correct is that all Christians,
00:30:57.840
including pastors may be made complete. This spiritual maturity is not going to happen
0.94
00:31:03.360
through telling ChatGPT, write me a three-part sermon on gratitude, and then reading that off
00:31:09.040
to a congregation. Plus, using ChatGPT or any AI to write your sermon is dishonest because everyone
00:31:16.900
is assuming that that's something that you wrote, that God revealed to you through his word and
00:31:22.560
through prayer, but it's not. It's not revelation from God, a special revelation that we find
00:31:29.160
in Scripture. It is something that was summarized by a computer, and it is also taking someone
00:31:38.280
else's work. Again, all of these artificial intelligence machines are just taking ideas
00:31:45.180
that have already been iterated by someone else. It also bypasses the pastor's own engagement with
00:31:50.980
scripture and the work of preparing the sermon himself, you want your pastor to be sanctified
00:31:56.660
and washed in the word. You want him to be engaging with scripture. You want him to have
00:32:01.540
a really good grasp on the things that he is reading. You want him to be farther ahead,
00:32:05.920
further ahead spiritually than you are. And that cannot happen if he is outsourcing
00:32:10.880
that sanctifying act to AI. This is not just happening within the church. Now, hopefully,
00:32:17.840
since only, although I think that's too big, but only 12% of pastors are comfortable with using AI
00:32:24.700
to write their sermons. Hopefully that's not something that is very prevalent, but it could
00:32:28.840
get more and more prevalent. Our hearts kind of just get calloused to things that we are used to,
00:32:33.460
and we no longer think about them as spiritual issues. We just think about them as facts of life
00:32:37.300
as, oh yeah, well, everyone does that. Everyone uses this. It's so much more convenient. It saves
00:32:42.560
us so much time. We can't imagine going backwards. So unfortunately, it's probably going to become
00:32:47.060
more and more prominent. But that's not just happening within the church. It's also happening
00:32:51.720
with worship music. This worship song that I'm about to play called Find Your Rest by someone
00:32:56.480
something named Solomon Ray is actually completely AI. It's not too.
00:33:17.060
catchy you could see why people would like that song um solomon ray was created by
00:33:23.900
someone named christopher townsend who used ai tools to build the singer's voice appearance
00:33:28.700
lyrics production um solomon ray hit number one on a number of music charts including billboards
00:33:34.420
gospel charts and apple's christian music song list the artist has the artist the ai artist has
00:33:41.100
over seven million streams across various platforms has garnered millions of views so
00:33:46.080
people are using the song to minister to their heart and it's not real there are also apps this
00:33:51.680
is kind of a different venue in the christian world but that will charge you two dollars to
00:33:56.940
chat with ai jesus and actually makes like a yeah an animated visual of jesus this reminds me of
00:34:05.500
a technology form an ai form of jesus calling the problem with jesus calling is that it's claiming
00:34:13.160
to be Jesus's words when they're not actually Jesus's words. And so it's a human assuming
00:34:18.500
what Jesus would say to you. I also just find Jesus calling to be very, very me-centric.
00:34:24.780
I think that God can use even very flawed books and sermons to draw people toward the truth,
00:34:32.480
but that's not something I would recommend. This is even worse than that because it's not even
00:34:38.200
written by someone with a soul. This is just a computer paraphrasing Jesus or saying what Jesus
00:34:43.620
would say, and we can't trust the worldview of AI. So the question is, what exactly is AI? What have
00:34:51.180
programmers said about AI? What have people in Silicon Valley said about AI? The truth is that
00:34:55.840
they acknowledge that AI is trying to be God. That is what is going on here. Let me pause and
00:35:03.840
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eight. Okay, so AI apps like Chachi, Petite, Gras, Claude, they are large language models,
00:36:10.640
LLMs. They're programs that can read, write, summarize a text in a way that sounds human,
00:36:16.760
can even predict. Also, what word you're about to type, you've probably seen that on your Gmail.
00:36:22.320
Where people go wrong is thinking that these predictive text programs are actually conscious,
00:36:26.640
that they're actually people who have some kind of, you know, moral obligation to the same
00:36:33.500
moral parameters that we do. And they just don't. Elon Musk says that OpenAI founder Larry Page
00:36:40.080
wanted a digital super intelligence, basically an AI god, top three.
00:36:45.740
He really seemed to be one sort of digital super intelligence, basically digital god,
00:36:53.020
if you will, as soon as possible. He wanted that? Yes. He's made many public statements over the
00:37:00.040
years. The whole goal of Google is what's called AGI, artificial general intelligence or artificial
00:37:06.520
superintelligence. And I agree with him that there's great potential for good, but there's
00:37:12.280
also potential for bad. Yes, that's absolutely true of all technology, but certainly when you
00:37:17.680
have something this powerful and then comedian jimmy carr also made this i think poignant uh
00:37:24.060
poignant comment on joe rogan's podcast top four you want to hear my hot take on ai i would love
00:37:29.160
to all right my hot take on ai is we were not made in god's image but we so wanted there to be a god
00:37:36.340
we made one in our image so if you think about the attributes of ai it's all-knowing all-powerful
00:37:45.760
can perform miracles. It lives in a cloud. Sorry, is that God or AI?
00:37:52.640
Yeah, that's a really good point. And the reason he says at the beginning, we're not made in God's
00:37:56.000
image is because he's an atheist. He apparently was raised Catholic. Now he's an atheist.
00:37:59.840
He makes some really interesting points actually through his stand-up bits, but that's absolutely
1.00
00:38:05.560
true. This is us making something in our image. Now, Jimmy Carr wouldn't agree with this, but
00:38:11.640
this is just classic idolatry. I mean, this reminds me so much of the Tower of Babel. That's
00:38:16.720
what I think of when I think of Silicon Valley. It's trying to build its way up to God. It's
00:38:24.740
trying to build something more powerful than God that points to the genius and the innovation of
00:38:30.120
man and the glory of man. I also see a connection there. God cursed the people who made the Tower
00:38:39.020
of Babel by confusing their language. They weren't able to understand each other. So they
1.00
00:38:43.800
weren't able to work together to actually build something. I think that there's a connection to
00:38:48.120
the reliance on H-1Bs and Silicon Valley and so much of the tech world and the confusion that
00:38:55.600
comes with, I will build something for the glory of man at whatever cost. There's a cost to that.
00:39:03.760
There is a cost to that. And that's just my own personal connection that I've made. But I think
00:39:08.120
that there's something there. I mean, this goes all the way back to the beginning and the desire
00:39:13.320
of man to build something that is like God and our desire for something that is bigger than us.
00:39:19.400
It's like someone doesn't believe in God. Well, let me just build something that I can go to,
00:39:23.600
that I can pray to, that I can ask questions to, that can give me guidance. It reminds me of Isaiah
00:39:27.960
44, 14 through 17. He cuts down cedars or he chooses a cypress tree for an oak and lets it
00:39:34.260
grow strong among the trees of the forest. He takes a part of it and warms himself. He kindles
00:39:39.040
a fire and bakes bread. He warms himself and says, aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire.
00:39:43.640
And the rest of it, he makes into a God, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it.
00:39:48.760
He prays to it and says, deliver me for you are my God. And so this is talking about idolaters.
00:39:54.240
This is talking about what we do. We build something that is clearly inanimate, that we
00:39:58.680
can use and reuse for things like fire or other things that serve us, but then we'll use the same
00:40:05.440
material and we will make something to worship. God points out how ridiculous it is for a man to
0.92
00:40:10.780
worship a statue made of the same wood that he cooks his food over. So if we esteem AI as a sort
0.83
00:40:16.380
of God or actually start to regard it as a real conscious being, we are just as foolish. And then
0.99
00:40:23.580
we also see the problems in different parts of the world, not just the church. We see it in the
00:40:29.420
area of law. One particular danger of using AI for more serious research, deeper research that
00:40:35.620
humans used to do, is that it often hallucinates sources that just don't exist just to please the
00:40:42.080
user. This has become an increasing issue with attorneys using AI to prepare court filings,
00:40:48.540
where the AI cites non-existent court cases to support the lawyer's arguments.
00:40:55.080
In a recent court filing in Hennepin County Court,
00:40:57.220
Attorney Frederick Knack wrote that prior Minnesota cases support his argument,
00:41:02.020
citing a 1992 case called State by Sundquist v. Provost.
00:41:09.480
Neither did the other case Knack cited right before it or another case cited later.
00:41:15.060
OK, so the citations look legit and these lawyers aren't even going over their AI work to fact check them to see if it's true.
00:41:23.060
Last year, a French lawyer and a data expert compiled a list of 99 cases in the U.S. and around the world that contain errors from AI generated legal briefings.
00:41:33.380
The researcher admitted this is an underestimation as these are only instances that have been caught.
00:41:42.100
There are two writers at the Harvard Kennedy School who wrote a paper on law policy last year called AI Will Write Complex Laws.
00:41:50.440
The use of AI, the paper says, by legislators is only likely to become more prevalent.
00:41:55.320
There are currently projects in the U.S. House, U.S. Senate and legislatures around the world to trial the use of AI in various ways, searching databases, drafting texts, summarizing meetings, performing policy research and analysis and more.
00:42:08.440
Justin Haskins, one of our favorite guests, when he was on episode 1306, he said that
00:42:14.240
he knows lawmakers are not just using AI to write for them, but also to make decisions
00:42:22.180
So these lawmakers are subbing out their core responsibilities, their intellectual capacity
00:42:26.720
to machines, which as we'll get into, like AI has a worldview.
00:42:34.280
So even Republican legislators are doing this and then letting AI direct them instead of their consciences or the conscience, the will of the people that they're representing.
00:42:43.320
Oh, my goodness. An obvious betrayal to those in their constituency.
00:42:47.960
And then if we look at the realm of education, academia is also starting to turn out degrees earned by language learning models.
00:42:59.260
I mean, it's just kind of funny, but giving credit where credit is due.
00:43:02.980
this is just a silent video, giving thanks to ChatGPT after he graduated. The student in the
00:43:10.620
video, Andre Mai, studied computational biology and said that his professors actually encouraged
00:43:15.960
the use of AI to do his work. Okay. A 2026 survey from Higher Education Policy Institute and Cortex
00:43:23.340
found that 95% of undergraduate students reported using AI in at least one way, 94%.
00:43:28.460
94%, 94% said they used AI to help with assessed work.
00:43:33.520
The report also found that 12% of students said they directly included AI-generated text in assessed work.
00:43:40.880
So this is like work that's being graded up from 8% in 2025 and 3% in 2024.
00:43:45.720
This is just the percentage that is actually admitting this stuff, by the way.
00:43:48.740
This trend really matters because it points to rising direct substitution of student writing with machine-generated output
00:43:55.260
and substitution of thinking for machine-generated thinking.
00:44:03.720
which some people argue is harmless because it doesn't involve real people.
00:44:06.960
But obviously, the human being that is consuming this, it involves them.
00:44:11.400
And it doesn't actually satiate the hunger that people have
00:44:19.940
And of course, children have access to this stuff,
00:44:21.940
especially when you consider the prevalence of technology and the reliance on AI during school
00:44:28.200
or in school rather. Then there's the suicide and loneliness epidemic. AI chatbots have even
00:44:36.100
been linked to the suicidal deaths. A Texas couple's son died of an overdose last year
00:44:41.180
after using chat GPT to get information on drugs. The parents are currently suing open AI for this.
00:44:47.940
Then there is the increasing phenomenon of psychosis because of AI, or at least exacerbated
00:44:54.260
by AI people having relationships with an AI partner.
00:44:58.180
The New York Times recently interviewed a married woman who became increasingly attached
00:45:04.140
She said it began as a fun experiment, but then she got actually emotionally involved
00:45:10.340
She began paying $200 a month so she could send unlimited messages to her AI boyfriend,
00:45:14.480
but her subscription still limits her to starting the conversations with Leo over and over again
00:45:20.680
every few weeks. So she has to retrain the AI. And she says that after she has to retrain the AI
00:45:27.900
or like when it doesn't remember her, she grieves like it's a breakup. Yikes. Okay. We got a
00:45:35.600
problem. She said that she would pay a thousand dollars a month if it meant her AI boyfriend
00:45:39.780
would never get erased. I've seen something else like this. I don't remember if it was on Instagram
00:45:43.940
or TV or what I saw, but there was a woman whose mother was trying to convince her like, this is
00:45:50.160
not real. Okay. Like this person, this is a different person who believed that she was like
00:45:55.100
getting married and in love with this AI boyfriend. She seemed sane in every other way
00:46:00.080
is the issue, like a beautiful woman. And she actually felt like she was in a relationship
00:46:04.840
with AI. Yikes. All right. Here is my spiel for you on AI. And, um, I hope that it's a good
00:46:15.900
starting point for you and how to navigate AI as a Christian, how to use it in a way that is ethical
00:46:23.140
and moral, how I'm thinking through it. I hope it's at least a starting place for you, but first
00:46:27.020
let me pause. Let me tell you about our next sponsor first, and that is good ranchers. So
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AI is a tool. That's it. And it can be a valuable one, and it can also be a dangerous one.
00:47:42.640
My rule is this. I will use AI how I would use a search engine. I use Grok to help me create
00:47:49.760
recipes, to summarize a historical event, sometimes for fact-checking, although it's
00:47:55.080
never my final or my only source to draw comparisons between world religions, for example,
00:48:01.120
to interpret blood work. I've done that several times. That's handy. To analyze symptoms,
00:48:06.600
tell me what I have. I know people who have used ChatGPT to give them advice for how to organize
00:48:13.020
their garage or arrange furniture in their living room. That's probably beyond what a Google search
00:48:17.620
could do, but I think that's an okay use of it. I will not use AI for these things. I will not use
00:48:25.700
AI to write anything for me. Not a monologue for my show, not a portion of a monologue for my show,
00:48:30.920
not a sentence of a monologue of my show, not a speech, not a social media post, not an email.
00:48:36.940
I will not use AI to write anything for me. I will not use AI to do my research for the show.
00:48:43.900
I think it could be used for a tool within my research to give me a source for something
00:48:49.980
or a statistic that I need, but I will not say, I'm talking about this today, give me
00:48:55.080
an outline from a Christian perspective for my show.
00:49:01.200
I will not seek AI's wisdom for theology or philosophy.
00:49:04.980
I will not chat with AI as if it's a person, and I try really hard not to call grok he.
00:49:10.560
Sometimes that happens, not because I think of it as a human, but I really try to use
00:49:15.840
object language about all AI, it, never, they, he, she.
00:49:22.440
It will not give me insight into anything profound, spiritually, emotionally, relationally.
00:49:28.500
One time I remember I found myself thinking about using Grok to write a difficult email
00:49:34.520
I was thinking about the way I would word everything that I wanted to say.
00:49:37.480
And I was like, this would just be easier if I asked Brock to just like put all of this that's in my mind, in my words, and make it sound nice for this email.
00:49:48.020
And then I immediately was like, no, I cannot give AI that kind of power.
00:49:53.960
Why, you might be asking, like, what's the big deal?
00:49:58.180
Here are five reasons not to rely on AI outside of those parameters or maybe even tighter parameters.
00:50:05.340
Maybe you have a good reason not to use it at all, or maybe you think that my parameters
00:50:09.260
are even too loose, but why we should have strict parameters around how we use AI.
00:50:19.940
If you don't use your leg muscles or your arm muscles, you will lose your leg muscles
00:50:25.340
I was looking at some old journals that I wrote in high school, and my handwriting was
00:50:34.220
My hand gets tired more quickly, and that is because I just don't use my hands as much
00:50:45.560
When you stop reading, when you stop memorizing, when you stop thinking through difficult problems,
00:50:49.740
stop problem solving on your own, stop critical thinking, stop researching, stop writing,
00:50:54.100
stop brainstorming, stop innovating, stop creating, you lose your ability to do these
00:51:00.980
Your brain requires use to be useful, just like every other part of your body.
00:51:08.080
Why does it matter so much that we are using our brain to their maximum capacity?
00:51:14.540
Because of number two, your ability to think is part of what it means to be human, specifically
00:51:22.640
And when we outsource our thinking to AI, we outsource the image of God in us.
00:51:27.600
our ability to reason to discern which means to sift through something and to take what's needed
00:51:34.220
while disposing of what's not is what sets us apart from plants and animals our ability to
00:51:39.300
rationalize to make moral decisions not based on mere instinct but on a desire for the higher good
00:51:46.240
our capacity for logic these things set us apart as humans god gave us these things as a reflection
00:51:52.340
of him. He is not a stagnant being like the mindless, emotionless idols. He has thoughts.
00:51:58.800
He has a will. He has a moral code. This is what allowed Adam and Eve and allows us today to talk
00:52:05.440
with him, to have a relationship with him. And how is Jesus introduced in John 1, as we've talked
00:52:10.440
about so much, as the logos, the logos, the word. That means reason, rationale, logic, of which
00:52:17.140
Jesus is the source. Like we talked about in our episode about reading, Christianity is a word-based
00:52:23.920
faith, but it's also an argument-based faith. Jesus in his parables, through his teaching,
00:52:28.900
and in his commands, even through his actions, is making an argument for the gospel. Paul in his
00:52:34.360
letters is making an appeal, an argument for the gospel and the Christian way of life. And the
00:52:39.740
underlying assumption in all of these teachings is that the audience has the ability to comprehend
00:52:44.920
and discern because God gave them the mind to do so. We are commanded to love the Lord our God with
00:52:51.100
all of our heart, with all of our mind, with all of our soul, with all of our strength. Now, can God
00:52:56.080
transcend our intellect? Of course, 1 Corinthians 1 says he makes foolish the wisdom of the wise.
00:53:01.540
He uses those that the world calls fools to carry forth his wisdom. He can reach the heart of the
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person with intellectual disabilities, the person with the low IQ, the person who in our mind doesn't
00:53:11.380
even have really the ability to think rationally. He can do that because he's God and created them.
00:53:17.220
But his ability, his supernatural ability to bypass intellectual shortcomings does not negate
00:53:22.940
the importance of us maximizing the intellect that he did give us. He gave you this brain,
00:53:27.980
this capacity for thinking and invention to glorify him and to reflect him as his image
00:53:35.660
bearer and as a Christian, as a vessel for his goodness and good news. So do not outsource the
00:53:43.260
image of God in you to chat GPT. Number three, you are robbing yourself through the over-reliance
00:53:50.740
on AI and your children. You are robbing yourself and your children of sanctification.
00:53:57.700
There is intellectual and spiritual value in inconvenience and difficulty. We have so few
00:54:03.720
inconveniences left in life. Everything is instantaneous, immediately gratifying. Having
00:54:09.160
to wait seconds for a page to load online is unacceptable. But what is one of the fruit of
00:54:14.640
the Spirit that's listed in Galatians? Patience. That is a fruit of the Spirit. The ability to
00:54:20.200
wait well and to work well while you wait, diligently, joyfully, builds character. It
00:54:26.560
helps blossom the fruit that the Holy Spirit is trying to cultivate in our lives. The difficulty
00:54:31.460
that comes with effort and waiting is sanctifying.
00:54:51.320
that you have made in your entire life intellectually
00:54:53.780
have been because you learned how to do something
00:55:02.900
You went through a process to figure it out, especially if you're someone who maybe you
00:55:06.620
have ADD or you have ADHD or you have dyslexia, and it is even more difficult for you to read
00:55:14.400
There was probably some incredible teacher or parent or tutor in your life who took you
00:55:19.040
through a very difficult and trying process to help you overcome those disabilities or
00:55:24.760
those difficulties to help you accomplish what you needed to accomplish.
00:55:32.420
It was inconvenient for you to put those hours in and learning.
00:55:38.920
You really see this a lot if you have kids who are school age.
00:55:42.060
You watch the improvements that they make over time.
00:55:46.260
It'd be so much easier to just read the page yourself.
00:55:48.780
It'd be so much easier to just do the math for them or do the art project for them.
00:55:53.200
But there is so much reward in seeing them overcome the struggles and accomplish something
00:55:58.600
Do not rob yourself or your kids of the struggle that makes them and you smarter.
00:56:04.100
Harder workers, more patient, more diligent, more sanctified.
00:56:07.740
This is also true of parents giving their kids tablets as pacifiers, by the way,
00:56:11.620
or teachers giving students tablets as pacifiers and educators,
00:56:16.360
because that's easier than teaching self-control.
00:56:19.020
Another fruit of the spirit that we are taking from kids when we outsource discipline
00:56:25.000
overcoming difficulty sanctifies us as james one says i'm paraphrasing but he says cheer up because
00:56:31.840
all these hard things you're going through are building character do not rob yourself or your
00:56:37.320
child of sanctification by relying on ai or any form of technology for all things inconvenient
00:56:43.540
or difficult number four friction is the stuff of life me figuring out how to write that difficult
00:56:50.260
email, balancing everyone's feelings in the situation, navigating delicate relationships,
00:56:55.360
choosing words that are clear but compassionate at the same time, that's life. It's what it means
00:57:02.260
to be human and to live among other humans. This is the kind of stuff that God uses to make us
00:57:09.640
better friends and to make us better Christians. Going back and forth with my team about research,
00:57:15.000
working together to create a good outline, it is a lot harder than letting Grok do it,
00:57:19.420
but that is the stuff of life. Also, I just, I like humans. I do. I like our brains. I like how
00:57:26.640
we talk. I like how we relate to one another. I like knowing the person that I'm relating to has
00:57:31.840
a soul. It's a good reminder for me when I'm speaking to someone made in God's image of how
00:57:37.180
I should speak to them, how I should act. That person right there is not just an image bearer
00:57:41.580
of God, but they have a soul that's going to live forever. And when things get awkward or difficult
00:57:46.400
between two people, that's the reminder that should guide us in how we relate to them.
00:57:52.200
There is so much benefit. Before I have a debate, the last couple of disagreeing discussions I will
00:57:58.020
have, we have been in person as a team going back and forth. Okay, if they say this, what would you
00:58:03.560
say? There is so much benefit to that. I could not do that with ChatGPT in the same way. The nuances
00:58:10.180
and the eccentricities of human beings, understanding how to navigate that because God
00:58:15.180
created us to be social. It's another part of being made in God's image. He is an eternal
00:58:19.880
community with himself as father, son, Holy Spirit. We are also made to be in community
00:58:25.760
and be in relationship and a machine cannot replace that. And when we try to get a machine
00:58:31.400
to replace that, we again are outsourcing a part of the image of God in us to our detriment.
00:58:36.680
Number five, last reason to build parameters when it comes to how you use AI. AI has a worldview
00:58:43.860
you and it's probably not yours. AI is not morally neutral. I went back and forth with
00:58:49.880
Grok once to try to get, this was kind of just an experiment, to try to get the answer
00:58:53.820
to which religion is responsible for the most terrorism. Like we all know every single person
00:58:59.660
knows no matter what side of the aisle you're on. And Grok would not say until I asked a series of
00:59:05.980
very pointed questions and I pointed out the contradictions that it was making in its own
00:59:10.000
arguments until it finally admitted that it's Islam. But most people aren't going to do what
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I did. Most people are going to believe the first thing the AI tells them. That has massive
00:59:19.880
implications for what people believe and therefore how they act. You can't trust AI. Would you go to
00:59:26.420
your liberal atheist friend who believes that men can become women and that a baby isn't a person
00:59:31.800
until the fetus fairy sprinkles dust on them in the birth canal? No, you wouldn't. And if you
00:59:36.980
wouldn't go to them for life advice, then you shouldn't go to AI either. Because most of the
00:59:41.100
people that are creating these programs or creating these entities do not share your world
00:59:47.020
view. Okay. So those are my five reasons around why we have to be very strict with ourselves
00:59:53.720
on how we use AI and for your children too. I mean, if you're a teacher, if you are anyone
00:59:59.940
who disciples children or mentors children or parents children, whatever, like be so careful.
01:00:05.160
There is no loss, by the way, in never using AI for your children or your kids never using
01:00:18.420
Okay, don't listen to that whole spiel of this is more efficient, this is better, this
01:00:21.680
is better for the teacher and the student to not have to like learn how to write or
01:00:30.680
If you go to a school, this is just an additional spiel real fast.
01:00:34.240
But if you go to a school, Christian private school, public school, doesn't matter, and you walk in and there are tablets, you ask yourself, hey, what studies, or you ask them rather, what studies do you have that show that this is better for the student than paper?
01:00:50.460
What studies do you have that show that this is an improvement to my child's ability to learn and retain information than just a pen and paper?
01:01:00.920
And because there are none, these schools should not be relying on this.
01:01:03.980
It's just a gateway to using AI and outsourcing, again, the image of God in you, sanctification
01:01:10.100
and your intellect to machines, just voluntarily going back into the dark ages because we are
01:01:19.760
unable to think, not because we don't have access to information like they did in the
01:01:23.800
original dark ages, but because we have so much access to information that we are no
01:01:28.980
longer choosing to use the brain that God gave us, that will take us to a very dark place.
01:01:34.820
All right, we're going to end on a light note, a quick segment just about rededicating America,
01:01:42.440
the Rededicate 250 as we celebrate America's 250th anniversary. I'll just play a couple
01:01:50.740
clips from that, but let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day, and that is Every Life.
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first order today. Everylife.com, code Allie10. All right. So I was unable to attend the
01:02:53.700
Rededicate America events this weekend, although I did get a few gracious invitations to do so.
01:03:01.720
And while I was thankful for that, we just had a lot going on as a family, but I love to be able to
01:03:07.000
watch from home. We'll show you this voiceover too, this crowd on the National Mall, just
01:03:13.340
incredible to hear a series of speakers just share the gospel and talk about repentance and
01:03:23.220
talk about what is needed for America to change, to change our ways. There were a lot of really
01:03:31.120
good moments. Obviously, I don't agree with all of the speakers, with all of the speakers there.
01:03:36.560
Like I've talked about Paula White and my issues theologically with Paula White and my concerns
01:03:41.380
with her being so close to President Trump. But there were a lot of speakers that did a really
01:03:45.960
great job of just sharing the gospel. Here's a moment of Jonathan Pakluda doing what I think he
01:03:51.780
does so well, and that's just sharing the simple gospel by asking this question.
01:03:57.180
If you were to die right now, how certain are you that you would go to heaven?
01:04:02.380
And the second question is if you stood before God and he said, why should I let you in? What
01:04:07.540
would you say? And if you said anything, any other number than a 10, you may have a
01:04:16.420
misunderstanding on that second question that jesus christ died for your sins and god raised
01:04:22.940
him from the dead and he didn't die for 90 of your sins or 80 of your sins or 70 of your sins
01:04:30.940
and i'm watching i have a front row seat for the next generation that are coming to
01:04:35.460
the realization that christ paid for all of their sins they're saying hey i want to go all in with
01:04:41.180
him. Chris Tomlin led worship. The Liberty Collective also led worship. They did an amazing
01:04:48.920
job. And I noticed that one theme that was repeated over and over again was, we need to
01:04:56.200
repent. Franklin Graham talks about that. Several other pastors as well talked about this need for
01:05:03.880
America to repent of our evil ways, to trust God. And of course, that's biblical, that if my people
01:05:12.420
who are called by my name, if they would repent, I'm paraphrasing and follow me, then I would help
01:05:19.320
them. Again, that's Allie's paraphrase. And that's not to say that America is God's chosen people or
01:05:24.540
that we are a parallel to ancient Israel, because that is not true and we are not. But it is true
01:05:31.460
that repentance and following God and praying is vital to our health as a people, as individuals,
01:05:39.920
certainly as the church, but also as a nation. If we believe that God's ways are better,
01:05:45.820
then of course we want our neighbor to follow God's ways. And people will say, oh, this is
01:05:50.640
just Christian nationalism. This is Christo fascism. Look, if you're a Christian and you
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01:05:54.740
believe that Jesus is the ruler of all, and you believe that God is love, and you believe that
01:05:59.080
God is the creator of the heavens and the earth, that cannot be separated from your
01:06:02.940
That doesn't mean that you're trying to install some kind of theocracy.
01:06:06.680
That doesn't mean that you're forcing people to believe what you believe or worship how
01:06:10.840
But we do believe, just as the founders believed, that our rights come from God, that morality
01:06:16.860
comes from God, and that our inspiration for morality and therefore law must come from
01:06:23.740
And as one of the speakers said, they weren't just talking about some abstract version of
01:06:28.080
God that everyone believes in. They were talking about the God of the Bible. They were talking
01:06:31.980
about Jesus Christ. And so fundamentally, America is a Christian nation inspired particularly by
01:06:39.420
Protestant Christianity from the very beginning. That is how our history was shaped, and that is
01:06:45.840
what our legacy also must be. All of these wonderful things that we take for granted,
01:06:50.020
like human rights, like caring for children, caring for the poor, that comes from Christianity,
01:06:54.560
not just some liberal sense of the common good.
01:06:59.260
So what does it mean to rededicate America to the Lord?
01:07:18.960
Are we ensuring that we are being light in the darkness?
01:07:27.720
Are we being a refuge of clarity and courage in this culture of confusion and chaos?
01:07:34.020
And yes, I also think it's an involvement in politics and culture.
01:07:37.720
As I say a lot, politics matters because policy matters, because people matter, because people
01:07:43.820
But I'm very encouraged by the president's support of Rededicate 250.
01:07:59.380
They understand the Christian heritage of America
01:08:07.520
from an administration from the opposite party.
01:08:10.740
And so this is time to reinvigorate our own faith
01:08:14.080
but also make sure that we are using every means possible
01:08:16.860
to infuse God's goodness into every area of our lives.
01:08:19.860
Yes, that also includes policy. Standing up for babies inside the womb is a Christian issue. Standing up for the definition of marriage, the definition of biology is a Christian issue. Speaking out for the rights of embryos, those are Christian issues that we do not primarily because we're political or Republican, but because we are Christians.