Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 20, 2019


Ep 188 | Did Chick-fil-A Cave?


Episode Stats

Length

35 minutes

Words per Minute

179.51138

Word Count

6,341

Sentence Count

405

Misogynist Sentences

7

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary

Chick-fil-A no longer donating to the Salvation Army, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and Paul Anderson Youth Home amid LGBT backlash. Then, we talk about Kanye West's new gospel album, Jesus Is King.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, relatable listeners. Happy Wednesday. I hope everyone has had a great week so far.
00:00:05.960 Next week is Thanksgiving, which I am very excited about. I think I've said before that
00:00:12.120 I'm more excited about this year's holidays than I ever have been. I don't know if it's something
00:00:17.640 about having a kid. She's not going to remember this Thanksgiving and Christmas at all. She's
00:00:23.160 not even going to appreciate it, but something, I don't know, about it being her first holiday
00:00:27.780 season makes me really excited. So I'm pumped. I hope you guys are. I hope that you guys have
00:00:33.560 fun plans to just relax and be with your family. Let me know what you guys are doing. I'm really
00:00:38.420 curious. Send me a message or an email. Okay, today we are going to talk about two big stories. We'll
00:00:43.660 see if we have time to cover anything else, but I have a lot to say about especially this first
00:00:48.320 story, and that is about Chick-fil-A. No longer donating to certain organizations, including
00:00:54.500 the Salvation Army, Fellowship of Christian Athletes or FCA, and Paul Anderson Youth Home
00:01:00.960 amid LGBT backlash. So we're going to go into all of that. I've shared some of my opinions
00:01:07.320 on social media already. You may have seen, but I am going to go all in, as they say, and
00:01:13.660 tell you exactly what I think about that. Then we're going to talk about Kanye West at Lakewood
00:01:20.200 Church, which is a mega church led by Joel Osteen in Houston, and tell you what I think
00:01:26.220 about that. I'll play a little clip from it. The episode that we did on Kanye West, Kanye
00:01:31.380 knows that Jesus is King from a couple weeks ago, three weeks ago, maybe. That's actually
00:01:36.620 the most listened to episode of Relatable ever, which is kind of crazy. So I did an episode
00:01:43.160 called Three Myths Christian Women Believe. I think that's what it's called from in January
00:01:49.100 of this year, and that held the title as the most listened to episode for a really long
00:01:56.060 time. And that's the episode still that I see shared the most by Christian women. But Kanye
00:02:01.980 knows Jesus is King is the title of the episode, and it's now taken first place, which is kind
00:02:08.280 of crazy. It's probably because this is such an unbelievable, it seems like turn of events
00:02:14.600 that Kanye West really did release a gospel album. If you haven't listened to that yet,
00:02:18.240 then you can go back and listen to that episode. But first, let's go into this first. Oh, also,
00:02:23.640 we're going to be talking about International Men's Day. I'm just going to touch on it. I'm
00:02:27.280 going to play you a little video to honor the wonderful men in our lives. Well, as I'm recording
00:02:32.780 this, it's International Men's Day. So as you're listening to this, yesterday was International
00:02:36.740 Men's Day, but we're going to do a little belated celebration. So okay, Chick-fil-A no longer
00:02:42.980 donating to these three organizations, Salvation Army, FCA, Paul Anderson Youth Home. The reason
00:02:48.800 why this is a story is because these three organizations are the last three organizations
00:02:54.460 Chick-fil-A donated to that stand for biblical marriage. You might recall a story that we actually
00:03:01.860 didn't talk about on this podcast for whatever reason. I don't know, maybe it fell on a weekend
00:03:06.040 and I just didn't end up talking about it. But the singer Ellie Golding, she declared ever
00:03:11.540 so courageously that she was not going to be performing at the Cowboys Thanksgiving halftime
00:03:17.000 show this year. If the Salvation Army, who is a sponsor of the game, doesn't provide a statement
00:03:22.180 pledging themselves to the LGBTQ community or a donation or pledging a donation to one of their
00:03:28.260 organizations. I'm going to go off on a tangent on this particular story for just a second since we
00:03:33.920 didn't cover it. And it's all pertinent to the greater conversation about the Chick-fil-A thing.
00:03:38.360 This is the privilege of being oppressed in the United States of America. It is amazing the power
00:03:45.880 that the LGBT lobby has to get people to bully one of the world's largest charitable organizations
00:03:55.260 with membership of over 1.7 million people throughout the world. It's present in more than 131 countries
00:04:01.420 since 1865. The Salvation Army has been running charity shops, homeless shelters, helping with
00:04:08.240 disaster relief, humanitarian aid for a century and a half, over a century and a half. This organization
00:04:16.440 has probably helped more people around the world than any other single charitable humanitarian
00:04:22.160 organization ever has. And the LGBT coalition is canceling them because the Salvation Army is Christian
00:04:30.540 and because they're Christian, they believe in biblical marriage. They have been accused of
00:04:35.460 refusing to serve gay people and trans people. But of course, these are myths. As the Salvation Army
00:04:41.160 has said time and again, they provided a statement recently that said, an individual's sexual or gender
00:04:47.240 identity, religion, or lifestyle has no bearing on our willingness to provide service. We stand firmly
00:04:53.280 behind our mission to meet human needs in his name. So that's Jesus's name without discrimination.
00:04:58.740 According to CNN, in 2013, the organization maintained that the Bible forbade sexual intimacy between
00:05:05.500 members of the same sex maintained. So they didn't just acknowledge that the Bible actually does
00:05:10.520 forbid this, but they just maintained that the Bible forbade sexual intimacy between members of the same
00:05:15.480 sex, saying that gay Christians should embrace celibacy and that scripture did not support same-sex
00:05:21.280 marriages, but that its services were available to all people. So this is true.
00:05:27.320 The Salvation Army does in its ideological, religious, mission beliefs. They do believe
00:05:35.700 in biblical marriage, but as they have said time and again, and I'm sure as they have proven by
00:05:40.780 practice, they don't discriminate in their services. So my question is, who cares if they're not
00:05:46.900 discriminating against feeding and housing and helping people? Who cares what they believe? They're a
00:05:52.240 Christian organization, which means that yes, they believe in the Bible. And because they believe
00:05:56.500 in the Bible, they believe in a biblical definition of marriage as all adherents to the Bible do.
00:06:02.220 If you want to know the why behind this biblically, behind why Christians believe in marriage being
00:06:09.560 between a man and a woman, it's not just some arbitrary, archaic belief. It's not just some
00:06:13.940 extracting and decontextualizing a few verses in the Old Testament. That's not what it's about.
00:06:19.960 It's about something much bigger, much more eternal than that. Then you can listen to my
00:06:24.100 episode, which is titled Biblical Marriage, which explains this thoroughly. And you know what? If
00:06:29.820 you're not a Christian, though, if you're not a Christian, I don't expect you to believe that. I
00:06:33.980 don't think any Christian expects you to believe the same things we do if you're not a Christian and
00:06:38.920 if you don't care what the Bible says. I don't expect you to adhere to a biblical definition of
00:06:43.120 marriage if you don't believe in the Bible. And we're not forcing that upon you. And the law
00:06:49.660 already recognizes legally what's described as marriage, even though biblically it's not described
00:06:55.020 as marriage. The law recognizes now your right to be married to whoever you want to. And yet,
00:07:02.480 LGBT activists, not all LGBT people, but these activists are not content with allowing us to
00:07:09.380 believe what we believe and to live out those beliefs authentically. Even when those beliefs
00:07:15.340 actually don't affect you, actually don't affect them at all. The same people who constantly preach
00:07:21.620 about self-love and living authentically are also telling us that we cannot believe what we believe.
00:07:29.040 We cannot be authentic to our faith, that rather than obey God, we have to obey them or else they
00:07:33.700 will bully us into submission. It's like Nebuchadnezzar saying, bow down to my image. Shadrach,
00:07:39.980 Meshach, and Abednego were like, no, we are not going to do that. And I'm not saying that we are,
00:07:46.140 I'm not trying to insert ourselves into the story, but I think there's a lesson that we can draw from
00:07:50.220 that, that Christians is the first commandment says, you shall have no other gods before me.
00:07:55.020 We're not supposed to acquiesce to an ideology, an idea, a group that contradicts what the Bible
00:08:01.980 says. These activists do not care that an organization like the Salvation Army has helped more
00:08:08.740 people in its existence than probably any other group ever has. They don't care what they do for
00:08:13.980 the homeless or the abused or the vulnerable or the hungry. They care about ideological purity. They
00:08:20.020 are ideological tyrants. They are like 1984 thought police. They're patrolling your mind and your
00:08:25.940 beliefs to make sure that everything that you think aligns with the things that they think or else
00:08:30.560 what, or else they're going to make your life miserable and they are going to make your business
00:08:36.000 as submissive to their ideas and their worldview as possible, which is what they've done with
00:08:43.300 Chick-fil-A for years or what they've tried to do with Chick-fil-A for years, ever since the CEO said
00:08:48.600 his belief in biblical said or articulated his belief in biblical marriage, because again, Dan Cathy is a
00:08:55.260 Christian. So we would expect him to have a Christian definition of what marriage is because
00:08:59.920 Christians by nature believe in the Bible and the Bible, as I've said, is clear on the subject. It really
00:09:04.680 shouldn't be that controversial, even if you disagree with it. Um, and by the way, by the way,
00:09:10.920 I always think it's important to remind us of this until like two seconds ago, this is what the majority
00:09:16.660 of Americans believed about marriage. That's just a fact. Uh, it's only been since 2015 when a
00:09:23.520 Berger fell was decided that people who believe in what's called traditional marriage have been called
00:09:29.480 bigots. It's called traditional marriage because it has been the definition of marriage for all of
00:09:37.020 time. And by the way, this definition of marriage and sexuality is the sole reason why any of us are
00:09:44.200 currently here. It's been like this for millennia, but in the past four years, all of a sudden it's
00:09:49.400 scandalous to believe in what literally has been the definition of, uh, human reproductive relationships
00:09:57.000 and marriage forever. Um, but we are called, we are called the religious fundamentalists,
00:10:03.620 but the reality is the reality is they are the religious fundamentalists. Leftists are the
00:10:09.340 religious fundamentalists. Uh, we take our faith seriously. Yes, we take the word of God seriously,
00:10:14.720 but we're not trying to coerce you into believing what we believe. We're not trying to cancel you
00:10:19.960 for disagreeing with us. Maybe there was a certain point in history in which that was true. Uh, but that's
00:10:25.800 not the case anymore. That hasn't been the case for a long time. You are free to believe what you want
00:10:30.380 to believe. You're free to do what you want to do as long as it's legal. We're not going to agree
00:10:35.160 with it, but we would simply like the same courtesy, the freedom to disagree, to operate out of our own
00:10:41.880 beliefs. Just leave us alone. Religious people have a constitutional right to religious liberty.
00:10:47.080 You do not have a constitutional right not to be offended. That's just the truth. And yet, and yet
00:10:52.380 you would think you would think with how companies bow down with how they kowtow to these woke,
00:10:58.840 a woke activists of all different kinds that they do have a constitutional right not to be offended.
00:11:03.520 Case in point, Chick-fil-A. Now, some of you have said, Ali, these headlines are misleading. They're
00:11:09.380 not true. Chick-fil-A is just restructuring their charitable giving, which is partly true. This is
00:11:15.160 partly true. They had a multi-year deal with these three organizations, Paul Anderson Youth Home,
00:11:20.240 FCA, Salvation Army, and they fulfilled their obligation. And now they say that they're focusing
00:11:25.840 on three things. That's education, hunger, and homelessness. So that's true. But here's why that
00:11:31.280 doesn't make a whole lot of sense. These three organizations focus on education, hunger, and
00:11:37.200 homelessness. Paul Anderson Youth Home is a Christian program for so-called troubled young men. That's what
00:11:43.160 they say on their website. Men who have gotten in trouble with the law, but aren't in jail, who have
00:11:47.480 struggled with things like substance abuse or other addictions. It's an amazing program. I actually
00:11:51.880 used to work for the PR company that did PR for them for a little bit. Fellowship of Christian
00:11:59.160 Athletes aims to make disciples through athletes and coaches. And we know what Salvation Army does.
00:12:04.620 We've already talked about that. But the characteristic that all of these organizations share, besides that
00:12:09.760 they all do unequivocally good work for their communities, is that they all believe in biblical
00:12:15.760 marriage. So I just don't think this is a coincidence. BizNow reports, and this is the
00:12:22.040 this is the report that really started the whole thing. It was an exclusive article when it first
00:12:27.700 came out. And of course, other organizations, other outlets have picked it up since then. So this is what
00:12:32.200 they report. The move comes after several US airports rejected the company from concessions deals
00:12:37.700 earlier this year. More recently, the landlord of the first Chick-fil-A in the UK announced eight days
00:12:42.720 into the lease. The pop up venue would not be welcome to extend all because of the company's
00:12:47.560 perceived anti LGBT stance. The San Antonio City Council was voting on an airport concessions
00:12:54.400 contract in March when ThinkProgress reported that Chick-fil-A was still donating to anti LGBT
00:12:59.460 groups. And so let's see the San Antonio City Council brought up brought up the article at the
00:13:07.760 council meeting and counselors voted in favor of the concessions contract. As long as a plan took
00:13:12.660 was dropped from the deal. The story had ripple effect because Delaware North, the concessions
00:13:17.620 handler for Buffalo Niagara International Airport, also decided in March not to move ahead with plans
00:13:22.780 for Chick-fil-A at that airport. And officials in San Jose, California announced they would not renew
00:13:28.180 the chain's lease at the airport when it runs out in 2026. More than 100 LGBT and animal rights
00:13:35.960 protesters showed up to opening day at Chick-fil-A's first Toronto store in September.
00:13:40.080 After protests and a boycott by a local LGBT group, the landlord behind a Chick-fil-A pop-up
00:13:45.500 store at a mall in Reading, England, announced eight days into the lease that it would not renew
00:13:50.260 with the chain because the mall is meant to offer an inclusive space where everyone is welcome.
00:13:54.620 Here's what I here's what I don't understand about that. So number one, the Chick-fil-A in Manhattan,
00:14:02.200 probably the most liberal city in the country, maybe, maybe next to LA and San Francisco,
00:14:08.040 but right up there, is doing pretty well. I would guess every time I've been there,
00:14:13.220 the line has been out the door, literally out the door. So unless I'm just not seeing something,
00:14:19.240 I've never seen a protester. I mean, I've been there pretty often. I've never seen a protester
00:14:23.100 in front of there. I've never seen or heard people talk about, wow, I can't believe Chick-fil-A is in
00:14:27.480 New York. I'm not visiting New York or I'm not going to Times Square. I'm not visiting Manhattan.
00:14:32.460 I'm not going to the store. I guarantee you the vast majority of people that go into that Chick-fil-A
00:14:36.180 are liberal and they might not like it that they donate to these liberal groups,
00:14:40.040 but it seems like that store is doing pretty well. So I'm wondering why Chick-fil-A can't look at that
00:14:44.600 and say, okay, yes, there's going to be some outrage in the beginning, but once we get over
00:14:48.440 that hump, people are still going to buy our chicken sandwiches because we have good service
00:14:52.500 and our chicken sandwiches are good. And there's a huge group of people, and I'll touch on this in a
00:14:57.200 minute, a huge group of people that go to Chick-fil-A specifically, exclusively, pretty much
00:15:02.860 because of their ideological beliefs, because they have stood up against the rage mob for so long and
00:15:09.080 said, you know what, we're giving money to these organizations that believe in biblical marriage
00:15:12.460 because they do good work. And hey, it's okay that our CEO also has the same beliefs, that he also
00:15:18.600 adheres to the Bible. That is a huge reason why so many Christian conservatives, who, by the way,
00:15:25.280 are the core customers for Chick-fil-A, go to Chick-fil-A. I think that they underestimate that.
00:15:31.720 But my other thing that I think is weird is that obviously there's been backlash. There's been a lot
00:15:37.240 of at least annoyance and resentment against Chick-fil-A for not being open on Sundays. And so
00:15:44.020 if we are acquiescing in this arena, stopping our donations to organizations that are so-called
00:15:50.400 problematic according to the woke, because it is hindering the growth, then why not just open on
00:15:57.260 Sundays for the same reason? If that's what you're worried about, then why don't you just stay open
00:16:03.960 seven days a week? If you're more concerned about growth than you are your values, then there's no
00:16:10.680 reason, I don't think, to be closed on Sunday. Let the people get their chicken biscuits after
00:16:14.640 they're hungover on Saturday night. Why not? So that's what I don't really understand about all
00:16:22.080 of this. And again, it doesn't matter to the activists who have tried so hard for so long to
00:16:26.840 get Chick-fil-A to push over on this. It doesn't matter to them that the Salvation Army does incredible
00:16:33.100 work. It didn't matter that Chick-fil-A has impeccable service and doesn't actually have
00:16:38.600 any policies whatsoever that discriminate against gay or trans people. What mattered, what matters to
00:16:44.320 them is that Chick-fil-A wasn't allowed, wasn't allowed, according to them, to be associated with
00:16:49.700 Christian organizations that operate on Christian principles. That's what mattered to these
00:16:53.640 activists. And I guess that's now what matters to Chick-fil-A. In regards to this change, chief
00:16:58.700 operating officer Tim Tassapalas, Tassapalas, I don't know how to say his last name, said in an
00:17:04.480 interview with BizNow, there's no question we know that as we go into new markets, we need to be clear
00:17:09.060 about who we are. Chick-fil-A president, oh, he's also the Chick-fil-A president. Sorry, I said that
00:17:15.380 incorrectly, but Chick-fil-A president and COO Tim Tassapalas said that. And then he said,
00:17:19.940 there are lots of articles and newscasts about Chick-fil-A and we thought we needed to be clear
00:17:24.420 about our message. So this is intentional. This is intentional what they're doing. There are some
00:17:29.120 people that are saying, oh, this is not intentional. Conservatives are blowing out of this out of
00:17:32.820 proportion. No, this is an intentional political move. Another executive said that after years of
00:17:38.480 taking it on the chin, changes had to be made. Relevant Magazine had an article saying,
00:17:44.440 oh, you guys are just making too big a deal of this. And only quoted conservatives this article
00:17:49.560 did freaking out about this and said, no, this is just restructuring blah, blah, blah. No, it's not.
00:17:55.360 No, it's not. This is clearly in response to the pushback they've gotten. And the article in Relevant
00:18:00.580 Magazine failed to cite the multiple sources that reported that this is in response to LGBTQ pushback.
00:18:07.600 And I think we can take the statement of its COO and another executive to confirm that.
00:18:13.780 So the question is, is all of this going to work? Is acquiescing to the LGBT rage mob going to work?
00:18:19.440 Is this going to bring Chick-fil-A back into the good graces of the woke? Well, here's a statement
00:18:25.400 by GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian and Trans Etc. Alliance. They said, in addition to refraining from
00:18:31.460 financially supporting anti-LGBTQ organizations, Chick-fil-A still lacks policies to ensure safe
00:18:38.600 workplaces for LGBTQ employees and should unequivocally speak out against the anti-LGBTQ
00:18:45.420 reputation that their brand represents. Listen, you guys, listen, Chick-fil-A. The woke can never be
00:18:52.340 satiated. They will never be satisfied. There is nothing you, Chick-fil-A, will ever do to get back in
00:19:00.640 their good graces. You can look at this hashtag or the story on Twitter and all of the people who
00:19:06.780 have been on the left side of this issue are saying too little too late. I'm sorry, you've done too much
00:19:12.360 damage. I'm never going to eat a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich, blah, blah, blah. You will never appease
00:19:18.840 them. You will never appease them. This is not going to help your business. Like I said, there are
00:19:24.460 thousands of people. Yes, there are a lot of people who eat at Chick-fil-A. They don't care about the
00:19:27.860 politics. They don't care about the ideology. They just like their, their nuggets, their chicken
00:19:31.900 sandwich, and they're eliminated. Yes, that is absolutely true. But there are a lot of people
00:19:36.760 who love Chick-fil-A, not just for their chicken, not just for their awesome service, which is amazing
00:19:42.360 by the way, but also at least in part, they love Chick-fil-A because of who they are, because they
00:19:47.920 have stayed true to their mission and true to their values for a long time. So a deliberate choice to say
00:19:53.280 we are no longer going to donate money to organizations. These are not organizations
00:19:58.920 that exclusively or primarily stand or centrally stand against gay marriage. These are organizations
00:20:06.040 that do a lot of humanitarian good who just happen to be Christian organizations who just happen to
00:20:13.060 believe in biblical marriage because of those things. And so they're saying, you know what? It's
00:20:17.480 more important for us to take our money away from organizations that we know we're doing good,
00:20:22.280 especially the Salvation Army, the number one organization that fights against homelessness
00:20:27.260 and hunger. We're going to take our money away from them because they have a controversial stance
00:20:32.140 that makes it a little bit difficult for us to go into certain markets that believe that we are
00:20:36.620 anti-LGBTQ. You are kidding yourself if you think this is going to help that problem. I see this all
00:20:44.500 the time. I see this within the church. I see this with pastors. I see this with Christians. I see this
00:20:49.280 with organizations. They think that they are going to be woke enough to cover up the things that they
00:20:57.660 believe. So the Christian things that they believe. That if they're woke in a certain area, then maybe
00:21:03.140 the left will be okay with them and they won't bully them and they'll accept them and they'll link arms
00:21:09.160 with them. They'll be allies with them and hold hands with them saying kumbaya. That never happens.
00:21:13.780 Unless you are able to, unless you are willing to bow down on the altar of leftism, on the altar of
00:21:21.460 so-called progressivism, you will never be accepted by the left. You will always be told you're a bigot.
00:21:27.920 You will always be excluded. And this is why I say the left, they are the religious fundamentalists.
00:21:33.600 They are the ones who say you have to take up your cross, deny yourself and follow leftism in order
00:21:43.040 to be a part of it. Which is why I say that it is so hard, if not impossible to be a leftist and a
00:21:50.360 Christian. And it's not because Jesus is asking us at the pearly gates, hey, what's your, what's your
00:21:57.960 religious association affiliation or what's your political affiliation before we allow you in?
00:22:03.680 It's because leftism does not tolerate any view that aligns with the Bible. You will be kicked out.
00:22:09.700 You will be bullied until you finally and fully submit until Chick-fil-A is waving pride flags
00:22:17.980 outside of each store until they come out with some kind of advertisement saying boys are girls and
00:22:24.260 girls are boys. They are never even going to be considered by the woke, by the left to be even a
00:22:30.960 little bit acceptable. I hope they understand that, that this just is not, in my opinion, a smart business
00:22:37.480 decision. Now, it may be true that people who love Chick-fil-A, maybe this won't change their sales at all.
00:22:43.120 I certainly, I don't think it's going to help because I've always heard them say that if we ever opened
00:22:48.140 on Sunday, that would be basically the beginning of the end for Chick-fil-A. And so they know enough,
00:22:54.020 obviously, they know enough to realize that their values are what sets them apart. It's why they are
00:22:59.980 so wildly successful as a fast food chain. And yet, and yet they don't see this, I guess, as a part of
00:23:05.980 that, or they just underestimate the love that people have for Chick-fil-A based on their values
00:23:13.380 and based on the strength, based on their ability to quote, take it on the chin for so long. And I just
00:23:20.680 can't imagine that this is going to be helpful. Again, I don't know that it's going to hurt their
00:23:24.400 sales that much, but I can't imagine that it's going to be helpful. And I think a lot of people
00:23:29.360 do see it as a betrayal. Again, we're not asking Chick-fil-A to discriminate. Of course,
00:23:34.520 we don't want that. We don't want them to change their policies to, you know, be mean or discriminate
00:23:40.480 against one group of people. Of course not. But yes, we want them to stand strong and donate into
00:23:46.680 charities that do good work that just happen to believe in biblical marriage and them saying,
00:23:52.420 no, we're not going to do that. It's weak. It's, it's so weak. And quite frankly, I think it's
00:23:57.580 embarrassing. So that's my take on all of that. You guys know how much I love Chick-fil-A. Like how
00:24:03.120 often did I talk about Chick-fil-A in my pregnancy? The number one thing that I craved all nine months.
00:24:09.140 I love Chick-fil-A. I do. And I'm not calling for a boycott here, but I, I'm a little bitter.
00:24:15.540 I'm bitter. I'm bitter against this decision. I think it is stupid. I think it's completely
00:24:21.300 idiotic. And I hope that they've enjoyed the backlash over the past couple of days because
00:24:27.840 you had a line of defense, Chick-fil-A against the woke, against the people that were talking about
00:24:34.520 how terrible Chick-fil-A was and how bigoted they were. You had people like me, Christian
00:24:39.760 conservatives, and even just people, even Pete Buttigieg. It was like, you know what? I need a
00:24:43.840 Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich. Who cares? That's the logical stance to, to take care to, on, on his
00:24:50.820 end. But you had all of us saying, you know what? They're free to believe what they want to believe.
00:24:57.440 And now you don't have that line of defense anymore. And I'm not saying, I'm not saying that
00:25:01.720 Chick-fil-A can't do what they want to do with their own money. Of course they can. And if that's
00:25:05.220 how they want to realign themselves value-wise, then they're totally free to do that. And I'm not
00:25:10.620 out here calling for a boycott. It's the acquiescence to the rage mob that shows me that
00:25:16.900 there is some moral weakness there. And it just bothers me. It bothers me. And again, I think it's
00:25:23.720 a stupid business decision. I think it's a stupid moral decision, but if that's the direction that
00:25:29.780 they want to go, good luck, good luck. Like I said, you will never satiate the left, but best of luck to
00:25:37.180 you in that endeavor. Okay. Now we're going to move on to Kanye West, who has been doing a lot
00:25:42.720 of stuff in the past couple of weeks. He visited a prison and he performed there. The video of that
00:25:48.420 is pretty moving. And he went to Lakewood church, which is the church of Joel Osteen, a huge mega
00:25:54.880 church in Houston. And you guys know, most of you know how I feel about Joel Osteen. If you don't know,
00:26:00.580 I would go back and listen to an episode that I did. Also one of the most listened to episodes of this
00:26:06.960 podcast called plans to prosper question mark. It's called plans to prosper question mark. If
00:26:11.660 you have Apple podcasts, you just type it in plans to prosper question mark relatable,
00:26:15.620 and it will pop up. You can Google it. It'll come up too. And it's on YouTube and all of that good
00:26:20.840 stuff. So I talk about why the prosperity gospel isn't biblical and how Joel Osteen specifically
00:26:26.780 represents this prosperity gospel. Now my hope is that Joel repents from this. And I know
00:26:30.980 every time I talk about this, there are at least a few angry people, especially on Facebook
00:26:35.640 saying that I'm being judgmental. Well, the Bible calls us to discern false teachers.
00:26:40.080 So if you want to read second Timothy four or second Peter two, and you can listen to Joel
00:26:45.440 Osteen sermons, you can tell me what you come back with, and we can have a conversation and a debate
00:26:49.980 about this. But according to God's word and listening to his sermons, he preaches a false doctrine.
00:26:57.780 He just does. He does. Um, and Kanye West, there was a lot of controversy within the Christian
00:27:03.460 community about whether it was okay for Kanye West to go to Lakewood. Of course, the Bible also
00:27:08.380 instructs us not to associate with false teachers. And there were people saying, is this Kanye stuff
00:27:13.740 real? Blah, blah, blah. On my episode, I choose to believe that it is real. And I choose to celebrate
00:27:19.020 the fact that people are hearing the gospel for the first time from a very unlikely source.
00:27:24.580 But yes, when I heard that he was going to be at Lakewood, I wasn't super excited about that
00:27:30.160 because I think Joel Osteen leads people astray that he doesn't preach the true gospel. He
00:27:34.960 admittedly doesn't preach about sin, uh, which is pretty necessary. If you're going to teach people
00:27:40.640 about salvation and sanctification, the three S's that all pastors should be talking about every
00:27:45.200 single Sunday. Um, but it seems like that's just not his priority. In fact, he has said his goal is
00:27:51.460 to just help people sleep at night. Well, you can help people sleep at night, right? In the hell.
00:27:55.080 So I wasn't really excited about this whole collaboration, but as I've said, Kanye is a
00:28:02.240 new Christian. We all had not good doctrinal theological beliefs when we first became
00:28:09.140 Christians. I know that I did. So I'm not saying there's not grace for this situation. I will say,
00:28:14.980 yes, God can use anything. And, uh, apparently the gospel was preached when Kanye West was there,
00:28:21.880 which is awesome. And I watched a clip of it and it, I mean, it's an amazing performance. It just
00:28:28.440 is. So I'm going to play you a little bit of a highlight from that service. Even for someone
00:28:33.280 who's professing God and saying, this is going to be a God, a gospel album. The devil is going to come
00:28:38.640 and do everything he can to distract people from knowing how to fully be in service to the Lord.
00:28:48.360 And all of that arrogance and confidence and cockiness that y'all seen me use, uh, before God is now
00:28:59.440 using for him.
00:29:00.440 King of kings, lord of gods, all the things he has in store. From the rich to the poor, all I welcome
00:29:08.120 through the door. You will never be the same when you call on Jesus' name. Listen to the words I'm
00:29:15.400 saying. Jesus saved me, now I'm saying. And I know, I know God is the force that picked me up. I know Christ is the
00:29:24.920 fountain that filled my cup. So look, like I said, that's obviously an incredible, it's an incredible
00:29:32.260 performance. I mean, I would love to attend one of the Sunday services and see what it's like. Um,
00:29:38.680 I, I won't go into all the analysis about Kanye because like I said, I did that a few weeks ago,
00:29:43.800 go back and listen to the episode. If you're interested in what I think, uh, no, this is not
00:29:48.340 necessarily an alliance that I'm excited about because I just don't think it's, uh, I don't,
00:29:56.520 I, I'm not sure how beneficial it is, but, but who knows? Maybe people heard the gospel for the
00:30:02.160 first time and that's amazing. I'm still very thankful for what Kanye West is doing for the
00:30:07.300 gospel album that he put out for how many young people apparently are going to church for the first
00:30:13.180 time or hearing the gospel for the first time or picking up a Bible for the first time. I mean,
00:30:17.980 that's pretty amazing. Praise God for that. And it sounds like whenever I hear Kanye talk,
00:30:23.740 it sounds like he is humbly, uh, accepting simply being a vessel for the Lord to work.
00:30:29.660 And I pray that the Lord continues to do that. I pray that the Lord continues to humble him,
00:30:33.820 humble all of us, sanctify him, sanctify all of us, and to use him to preach the gospel. I pray that
00:30:40.620 God would keep him close, that God would align his heart and his mind to his word and his law.
00:30:48.600 And that the Holy Spirit would work in him, in and through him. I mean, praise God for what he can
00:30:53.640 do, especially through those that we deem unlikely. So I'm still very, very thankful for that. And I
00:30:59.900 pray that Joel, maybe Joel heard the gospel from Kanye West and he's like, wow, we've been preaching
00:31:04.480 too much of this health and wealth stuff. That would be amazing. Who knows? So I just wanted to make
00:31:09.660 sure that we cover that. Okay. Last and final thing, like I said, yesterday was international men's day.
00:31:15.180 And I want to play you this video. This is a video of, uh, uh, group of officers. I was about
00:31:22.840 to say a squad, but a group of officers in Fort Worth, Texas, saving an eight year old that was
00:31:29.640 kidnapped, literally snatched out of her mother's arms in an affluent neighborhood in Fort Worth,
00:31:35.840 an eight year old, just walking with her mom and a guy drives up. This was caught on a ring doorbell,
00:31:41.300 by the way, uh, ring doorbell camera was a guy drove up, grabbed her child, pulled the child into
00:31:48.840 the car. And the mom starts screaming, calls the police. And a few hours later, this was back in
00:31:54.240 May, but the body cam footage just came out. Uh, the, the Fort Worth police found the guy and found
00:32:01.840 the eight year old in a hotel room. I'm going to play you a clip of that.
00:32:05.740 Then they rushed to room 333 and barge in. The suspect is placed in handcuffs. Cops desperately
00:32:14.360 searched the room. Hey, here she is. Got her. We got her. We got her. The little girl popped her
00:32:19.340 head out of this laundry basket where she had been hidden under a pile of clothes. She was afraid to
00:32:25.220 make any noises because the suspect had threatened to hurt her and her family. We have her. We need an
00:32:31.560 EMT. Come on, sweetheart. You're going to be okay. So thank God for men. Thank God for men. I'm not
00:32:38.180 saying that there aren't some strong women out there, but this is, this is the beauty and the
00:32:44.220 necessity of masculinity. Now, as I've talked about, not all men are like this and that's okay.
00:32:51.400 Men are allowed to like things that aren't four wheeling and busting down doors and hunting and
00:33:01.840 football. Of course, there is a range of things. What it means to be a strong man, the kind of men
00:33:09.680 that we need doesn't necessarily fit some superficial definition. It means being responsible. It means
00:33:16.940 taking care of your family, taking care of your community, protecting them, providing for them,
00:33:22.820 helping the vulnerable, helping women and children who, by the way, are weaker than men are in a variety
00:33:29.400 of ways, actually. So thank God for men, communities, families, nations, the world. We need strong men.
00:33:38.240 That is when societies stumble and fall, uh, when we don't have the leadership of strong men. And so
00:33:46.640 these stupid Antifa protesters who talk about, uh, who talk about abolishing the police, I mean,
00:33:54.360 you've got socialists talking about, uh, abolishing the police. You know what? I'm just going to play
00:34:00.160 you this video over and over again. Without the police, this girl, this guy, as you saw, he came
00:34:05.120 out of the room naked with a little eight year old girl in there. So what was he doing? Raping her,
00:34:12.440 molesting her, molesting her without the police, she would probably be dead, raped and molested multiple
00:34:18.380 times. So you're telling me that's a better reality. That's a better world. I don't think so. And for
00:34:24.240 everyone that talks about toxic masculinity, what you really mean by that is actual masculinity. And
00:34:30.940 what you actually mean by that is that you would rather men be passive and take a backseat and not do
00:34:35.020 anything, not speak up, not defend women. Well, I don't want to live in that world. You can go live in that
00:34:40.280 world. I don't want to live in that world. I want to live in a world where brave men like this are
00:34:44.420 defending us and doing their jobs. Well, whether you are a father, whether you are a CPA, whether
00:34:49.520 you're a police officer, firefighter, whether you are any kind of employee person, whatever you do,
00:34:56.840 you can be a strong, responsible man that your community, that your workplace, that your family
00:35:00.560 needs. Thank you. Thank you. And God bless international men's day. Okay. That's all we have.
00:35:07.100 We'll be back here on Friday with once again, another awesome interview. If there's ever anyone
00:35:12.060 that you guys really want me to interview, please reach out to me and let me know. I would love to
00:35:17.060 hear your suggestions and I will see you then.