Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 19 ｜ Social Justice Isn't Real Justice

00:00:00.000 Hello, everyone. Welcome to Relatable with Allie Suckey. This is the first time I'm doing a second

00:00:06.040 show in one week, which is really exciting because of you guys, Relatable went from just

00:00:11.620 one podcast every Wednesday to two podcasts a week, one on Tuesday and one on Thursday.

00:00:16.700 And for those of you who subscribe to CRTV.com, which you should definitely do, you also get to

00:00:21.660 see my face while I'm talking, which I know is really exciting. And you get to see how much I

00:00:26.720 talk with my hands, which if you don't know, is a really obnoxious amount. So that's a really good

00:00:31.460 thing. Thank you guys to list for listening. I'm really excited to do this even more than I was

00:00:36.920 doing before. Okay, on Tuesday, we talked news Trump's Supreme Court pick Roe v. Wade, the abortion

00:00:44.900 debate, etc. But today I want to go the more topical route, which I do pretty regularly on this show.

00:00:51.480 So today we're going to talk about this trend of social justice that is seeping into the Christian 0.54

00:00:58.140 church in America. And I am going to make the case for why this is not a good thing. And in fact,

00:01:04.840 I'm biblical. And at the end, I'm also going to answer one question that one of you sent to me

00:01:10.660 on Instagram. For those of you who are joining this podcast for the first time ever, welcome. This is a

00:01:17.060 show that analyzes relevant topics in politics and culture from a Christian conservative perspective.

00:01:23.660 We also talk theology. And if you want a few buzzwords to describe what I believe, I'm a reformed

00:01:30.060 Protestant. So that's what you can expect from me. And today we're kind of talking about all three of

00:01:35.300 those things. So we're talking politics, we are talking culture, and we are talking theology a little

00:01:40.580 bit. I've already talked extensively about progressivism in the church, this, this rise in

00:01:46.960 social justice and this myth that Jesus was some kind of first century Bernie Sanders and the ignorance

00:01:54.120 of a lot of my fellow millennials who are latching on to this trend. But I want to talk about social

00:02:01.360 justice. Again, I already did a whole episode dedicated to this, but this is going to be a little

00:02:05.980 bit different, a little bit more nuanced. I specifically want to talk about the difference

00:02:11.040 between social justice and actual justice, because again and again, I see this coming up in Christian 1.00

00:02:17.480 conversations and particularly in regards to racial inequality, gender roles, roles, immigration.

00:02:25.160 I promise you that you are going to get something new out of this episode than past episodes I've done

00:02:30.840 on progressivism and social justice because we're going to come from a different angle. So first,

00:02:37.400 in order to have this conversation, we have to actually define social justice. And for that,

00:02:43.340 we can turn to good old-fashioned Google and Wikipedia, which tells us that social justice is

00:02:49.620 justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, of opportunities, and privileges in society. So

00:02:56.020 under this would include things like racial equality, gender equality, socioeconomic equality. 0.59

00:03:02.380 You have probably all heard the term social justice warrior. These are the people who are protesting

00:03:08.180 racism, things like police brutality, the gender wage gap, the income gap between the poor and the rich,

00:03:15.160 immigration policy, things like that. They're typically self-avowed feminists, and almost all of them 1.00

00:03:20.800 are on the left side of the political aisle. And more often than not, they vote Democrat.

00:03:26.020 And that's because in general, social justice advocate, uh, advocates for, uh, the government

00:03:33.200 ensuring racial inequality, income inequality, or ensuring that racial inequality, income inequality,

00:03:40.180 gender inequality, et cetera, is actually fixed. Um, now you're probably asking a very smart question 0.96

00:03:47.560 at this point. And that question would be what actually qualifies as justice when it comes to

00:03:53.920 equality. What qualifies as social justice? Uh, some of the issues, social justice proponents care

00:03:59.540 about like sexism and racism, they seem really abstract. How do you actually define what justice

00:04:06.160 looks like in those areas? And that's a really good question, but the answer is really complicated

00:04:12.520 because you really can't. That is a huge problem with social justice that it doesn't seek actual

00:04:19.300 justice as we know it. Um, Thomas Sowell writes about this in his book, Quest for Cosmic Justice.

00:04:26.240 I highly recommend it. Um, he describes the push for social justice as actually cosmic justice because

00:04:33.340 it's this ethereal thing that doesn't actually have a grounding in reality, in logic or earthly justice

00:04:40.940 systems. Uh, there's no way to accomplish this kind of social justice or cosmic justice. The elevation of

00:04:49.180 one class of people, uh, without putting down another class of people, consequently taking away

00:04:53.860 their justice. Uh, cosmic justice is based on kind of unwritten rules of who is more oppressed than

00:05:00.480 someone else and who based on their oppression should be given more help. Um, so here is the direct

00:05:07.520 quote from, from soul. He describes it like this cosmic justice is not about the rules of the game.

00:05:13.940 It is about putting particular segments of society in the position that they would have been, uh, but

00:05:19.860 for some undeserved misfortune, this conception of fairness requires that third parties must wield power

00:05:25.800 to control outcomes, overriding rules, standards, or the preferences of other people. The quest for

00:05:32.180 cosmic justice focuses on one segment of the population and disregards the interest of

00:05:37.520 others who nevertheless pay the price for the decision made. So he puts it way better than I

00:05:43.260 could. So we're just going to expound on that. And the main point of what he's saying is social

00:05:47.400 justice is not real actual justice. It is not equity, um, because it demeans one group of people for the

00:05:54.520 sake of another group of people based on some arbitrary objective standard of righteousness. So for

00:06:01.120 example, for a practical example, take illegal immigration. Um, actual justice says that if you break the

00:06:07.360 law, there are consequences and in the United States of America, the consequence of crossing the border

00:06:12.600 illegally is deportation and or criminal prosecution. Uh, there are ways to cross over

00:06:17.860 legally. You can seek asylum as a refugee. You can obviously apply for citizenship and wait in line, but

00:06:24.880 crossing illegally has consequences both for you, uh, the perpetrator of the crime and also your family. If

00:06:31.100 you, if you brought a family with you, but social or cosmic justice advocates, uh, which are, who are

00:06:37.300 usually members of the progressive left, uh, hold that the consequences of breaking the law by illegally

00:06:42.600 immigrating are inherently unjust, uh, because the people crossing over are according to progressives 0.98

00:06:49.280 oppressed. And because of their oppression, they should be allowed into our country and should not be 1.00

00:06:55.820 punished. So their advocacy of legalizing all undocumented immigrants isn't actually based in any

00:07:04.200 idea of actual justice or some other interpretation of legality. It's based on an abstract, obscure,

00:07:12.420 subjective definition of justice that they have deemed superior to actual justice, which would be if you

00:07:19.120 commit a crime, there is punishment. Um, actual justice would also consider the flip side to

00:07:25.180 unconditionally allowing all migrants into the country, which is what many on the left are

00:07:30.280 advocating for. Uh, actual justice considers the dangers of human trafficking, of, uh, drug smuggling,

00:07:36.900 of the rape and murder that happened at the border of MS 13 gang members infiltrating illegally of the

00:07:43.380 crimes that are committed by illegal immigrants of the limited amount of resources we have that are being 0.97

00:07:48.020 used by illegal immigrants. The tax dollars going to support illegal immigrants, things that negatively 0.66

00:07:53.900 affect both illegal immigrants themselves and the citizens of this country. Uh, there seems to be 1.00

00:07:59.400 no compassion or consideration of the people in America who are negatively affected by illegal

00:08:05.020 immigration. Why is that? Because Americans, we don't have as many oppression points as illegal

00:08:12.140 immigrants do. Americans are viewed by social cosmic justice advocates as inherently privileged and

00:08:19.560 therefore considering our welfare is less important than considering the welfare of illegal immigrants. 0.98

00:08:25.580 And honestly, I couldn't even explain or break down the reasoning behind that if I tried. And I highly

00:08:33.880 doubt proponents of that progressive themselves would actually be able to either. There is this really

00:08:40.520 complex thing called the social justice equation, or at least I'm going to call it that. And it measures

00:08:47.720 how many points you have based on your country of origin, on your socioeconomic status, your skin color,

00:08:55.580 your gender, your sexual orientation, your family background, etc. And it considers all of these factors

00:09:01.480 in distributing you your oppression points. So the more of a minority you are, the greater number of 0.97

00:09:08.560 oppression points you have, which determines three things. A, how much help you should get from the

00:09:15.260 government, B, how much compassion you deserve, and C, how much your opinion actually matters.

00:09:21.480 So for example, if you can't tell, I am a white woman. I am also American. I am a Christian. I was

00:09:29.120 raised by two hardworking, successful parents in the suburbs of Dallas. So I have like maybe one

00:09:37.160 oppression point, maybe. And I get one just because I'm a woman. And as a woman, you know, I've probably

00:09:42.720 been a victim of misogyny at some point in my life and discrimination. Therefore, I have some

00:09:49.140 legitimacy in the social and political conversation. And the government should be helping me out by

00:09:54.820 ensuring I have absolutely everything a man has, no matter what. But a white male with my exact same

00:10:03.240 upbringing. So my husband, for example, with a very similar upbringing, he has my husband has zero

00:10:08.740 oppression points because not only did he live a life of privilege growing up, he also, according

00:10:16.040 to the left, has never faced any unfair treatment at all his whole entire life. Thus, my husband's

00:10:23.380 opinion, my dad's opinion, my brother's opinions, no matter what they've gone through, their opinions

00:10:28.080 don't matter and their plights are not considered. But see, here's the thing. For the black,

00:10:35.480 Muslim, transgender, pansexual person who is also an illegal immigrant, by the way, well, 0.98

00:10:40.900 he slash she has tons of oppression points, just a plethora of oppression points. The government 1.00

00:10:47.040 should be specifically and deliberately helping to make sure that person has all the same everything

00:10:52.940 that everyone else has and should be punishing people who treat that person any differently than

00:10:58.180 anyone else. And that person also has more legitimacy on social and political matters because

00:11:03.980 of his or her oppression. They are like top tier oppression and therefore social justice advocates

00:11:11.000 assert that their welfare, that person's welfare matters way more than the cisgender straight white 0.82

00:11:17.920 male. Does that make any sense to you? No, of course it doesn't because it doesn't actually make any

00:11:23.720 sense, period. The mental hoops, the mental gymnastics that you have to actually do, jump through to

00:11:30.720 construct cosmic or social justice or absolutely. It's absolutely insane. And honestly, they change

00:11:37.420 every day. So, for example, there was a pride parade. I think it was in the UK, if I'm remembering

00:11:42.420 correctly, this past weekend. And lesbians who were marching in the parade were protesting the inclusion 1.00

00:11:49.620 of trans people in the movement because they feel like trans people are obscuring lesbian identity.

00:11:55.800 So, I'm having a hard time keeping up with what is actually more woke these days. The delegitimizing

00:12:04.740 of trans people for the sake of lesbian visibility or the legitimizing of trans people. I don't know.

00:12:10.540 Does anyone really know? Will anyone ever really agree on that? I don't think so. Probably not.

00:12:17.100 Because progressivism and social justice always eats itself. It does. It's self-contradictory because

00:12:23.400 it's based on an idea of justice that is not real. It's entirely subjective. It is illogical. It

00:12:30.080 identifies people by their assumed oppression and grants them both legitimacy and empathy

00:12:35.880 based on that assumption. It categorizes people by their various levels of victimhood. It doesn't look

00:12:42.080 at people as individuals, but instead it lumps people together based on race, based on sexuality,

00:12:47.880 sexual orientation, socioeconomic background. It is patronizing. It reduces a person to the most

00:12:53.800 superficial things about them and says, this is all that matters. And while it's true, it's very true

00:13:00.940 that certain groups of people in this country have faced injustice. There's no doubt about that.

00:13:05.560 Black people were slaves. The Japanese were sent to internment camps. Women didn't have a right to vote. 1.00

00:13:10.620 Native Americans were treated maliciously at one point. But the fact is, that's no longer the case.

00:13:16.080 Now, that's not to say that no injustice exists, but many people believe, and I agree on some of

00:13:24.280 this. For example, that the criminal justice system unfairly criminalizes nonviolent drug

00:13:31.380 offenses. That might be true. There are instances of police brutality against Black people and against

00:13:36.340 white people, by the way. And of course, racists and sexists exist in this country. They always will. 0.98

00:13:42.480 Because guess what, guys? We live in a fallen world, if you haven't noticed that already. People are

00:13:48.240 stupid. People are sinful. They will always be that way. But the fact of the matter is, we simply do not 1.00

00:13:54.340 have a problem with systemic discrimination against minorities in this country. Sexual minorities,

00:13:59.960 gender minorities, whatever it is, we just don't. The stats just aren't there. So, for example,

00:14:05.400 a big sticking point, and I know I don't really have enough oppression points to be talking about

00:14:11.640 this, but that's OK. I'll go for it anyway. A big sticking point for the social justice crowd

00:14:16.140 is racial inequality. And while I completely adamantly agree that any instance of racism is

00:14:22.680 awful and condemnable, I completely disagree. But I completely disagree with this progressive

00:14:30.700 notion that minorities in America, particularly Black people in America, are still suffering from

00:14:36.240 the after effects of slavery and that we as a nation have made no improvements since the civil

00:14:42.920 rights era. That is the argument that they use in social cosmic justice circles, that the government

00:14:48.620 needs to do more to ensure equality for Black people. But to cite Thomas Sowell again, who, by the way,

00:14:54.220 is African-American himself, if you didn't know that, the decline of Black employment,

00:14:58.340 the rise in Black poverty and the deterioration of the Black family didn't start happening 1.00

00:15:03.700 until the 1960s. Before that, Black people, in a lot of ways, like, for example, in labor force

00:15:10.020 participation, were a lot better off and doing a lot better than white people. And we don't have to go, 0.54

00:15:16.640 and that's before the 1960s, and we don't have to go into all of the possibilities today about why,

00:15:21.880 since the 1960s, income and quality of life and equality between whites and Blacks

00:15:27.760 has increased since the 1960s. But we're pointing out that if we're going to make a case that our

00:15:34.220 government system has aided in oppressing the Black community, then you're going to have to look

00:15:38.740 decades after slavery, a long, a long time after slavery, after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, even.

00:15:46.740 The facts just don't support that slavery is the reason for racial inequality today.

00:15:51.480 And most people on both sides of the aisle used to know and accept that. Going back to the study that I

00:15:57.160 cite all of the time, the Pew study on the growing partisan divide in America. In 1994, when given

00:16:03.840 this statement, Blacks who can't get ahead in this country are mostly responsible for their condition, 1.00

00:16:09.980 53% of Democrats agreed and 66% of Republicans agreed. Now, you would think that by 2017, 0.59

00:16:18.220 23 years later, that both of those numbers would go up. Opportunities abound, wealth abounds. We have a

00:16:23.900 Black president for eight years who constantly highlighted racial discrimination and said that

00:16:28.600 he was going to save the Black community. But that didn't happen. I mean, among Republicans,

00:16:33.960 it did. That number did rise by 11 points to 77%. But among Democrats, it dropped by 25%. So more than ever,

00:16:43.160 over the past 23 years, at least, Democrats believe that Black people are not responsible at all for their

00:16:50.000 condition. And the further irony is that that number changed the most while Barack Obama was

00:16:55.280 president. In fact, that same study shows that Democrats moved to the left on almost every issue,

00:17:00.700 immigration, guns, welfare. And most of this happened during Obama's presidency. Obama was really the

00:17:07.080 first president to legitimize social or cosmic justice, to give credence to intersectionality,

00:17:13.180 to highlight racial inequality, victimization and oppression. This is why people called him the great 1.00

00:17:18.840 divider. And while I'm sure he didn't intend this, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt there,

00:17:24.120 we grew further apart than ever during his presidency than ever before. And that's not because primarily

00:17:30.060 because of conservatives. While conservatives stayed about the same on most issues, Democrats

00:17:36.160 have moved to the left, embracing these abstract social justice ideas that have very little grounding

00:17:42.340 in reality and don't manifest themselves in actual justice. The push for gender equality, for example,

00:17:49.540 is demonstrated in greater access to abortion or a push for greater access to abortion, free birth

00:17:55.720 control and closing the gender wage gap. Well, people already have access to free or really cheap birth 0.93

00:18:03.420 control, especially if you have Medicaid. Abortion kills another human being. So it's not just and

00:18:10.200 definitely doesn't ensure equality. The gender wage gap is already closed. It actually just considers 1.00

00:18:18.220 factors other than gender. If you look at the closed gender wage gap like job title, experience, etc.

00:18:24.980 That gap is completely negligible. The uncontrolled wage gap is what people are talking about. That's what

00:18:30.920 progressives and feminists cite, the 77 cents on a dollar. But that doesn't take into consideration

00:18:37.260 that women work different jobs and work different hours than men do. Really, all that wage gap tells

00:18:45.460 us is that men and women probably have different priorities and different life choices. Affirmative 0.94

00:18:51.440 action is an example of social or cosmic justice, giving an upper hand to one group of people based on

00:18:56.480 an arbitrary standard of injustice and discriminating against another group of people because you have

00:19:02.500 subjectively decided that they don't deserve the same shot. This is not actually a fair equation.

00:19:08.480 It is not actually just it is based on some abstract view of right and wrong based on illogical ideas.

00:19:15.880 Also, the push for fully validating complete and total separation of sex and gender, despite the fact,

00:19:23.000 despite the fact that biology, the sociology, anthropology, all the ologies tell us that the vast majority of the

00:19:30.020 times sex determines your gender. But we are told by the left that we must acknowledge the

00:19:34.900 differentiation between sex and gender because transgender people are a minority. And as such,

00:19:40.060 they have lots of oppression points. So we have to bow down to them as people who don't have any

00:19:44.540 oppression points. Again, social justice is not based in reality. It is not based on actual justice.

00:19:50.480 It is based on this idea of intersectionality, the oppression Olympics. Some call it neo-Marxism,

00:19:55.960 class warfare. It does not have a logical basis. So when I hear Christians in particular talking about 1.00

00:20:03.200 the importance of social justice, I'm like, well, let's clarify this. What do you actually mean?

00:20:09.940 Because all justice really is social. So if by fighting for social justice, they just mean pleading

00:20:16.760 the cause for those who are truly being treated unjustly, like women who are being sex trafficked,

00:20:22.180 for example, then I would say, well, that's just justice. And that's great. God is a God of

00:20:27.800 justice. And fighting for actual justice is a duty of Christians. God has a lot to say in the Bible

00:20:32.880 about the poor, about the powerless, about the sojourner, the victim, the lonely, the widow.

00:20:37.780 There is no doubt that we are to push for and enact justice as followers of Christ. But what I'm finding

00:20:45.060 is that many Christians who say they're fighting for social justice are actually fighting for cosmic

00:20:50.400 justice, just like everyone on the left. They are seeking, uh, they are seeking to use these

00:20:56.380 incalculable, uh, complex, illogical equations to decide what's just and what's not. They're jumping

00:21:02.820 on everything progressives are open borders, egalitarianism, intersectionality, racial reconciliation.

00:21:09.020 And listen, I'm not saying every single facet of all of these things are bad, but we would be wise

00:21:15.760 to recognize where they're actually coming from and what they actually mean and pause to consider

00:21:20.920 whether or not Christians who are jumping on this bandwagon are considering if they're fighting for

00:21:25.760 actual justice or leftist cosmic justice. Um, I am for empathy for the immigrant, but I also recognize

00:21:32.940 the danger of illegal immigration and recognize that we have to secure the border to protect the lives of

00:21:38.860 immigrants and our own. Um, I am for having conversations about repairing our immigration 0.64

00:21:44.400 system, uh, sorting out the backlog of immigration cases, streamlining the process for people to be

00:21:49.960 granted asylum, uh, to get work permits or to come here legally. Um, also I've said in the past,

00:21:55.600 I think the most Christ-like thing to do once an illegal immigrant is here is to love them, to serve

00:22:01.320 them, to help them find a way to stay here legally, definitely not to ostracize them, but jumping on the

00:22:07.820 open borders train, the amnesty train without considering the repercussions of that for people

00:22:13.740 in our own country, to me is not wise. And it's also not compassionate. It's not actual justice.

00:22:19.740 Um, I am also adamantly against racism and discrimination. Like I've said so many times,

00:22:24.540 apparently you have to say that explicitly these days, racism, white supremacy, all of it is

00:22:29.880 antithetical to the gospel. It has no place in the body of Christ, but I am also not for this idea of

00:22:34.960 racial reparations, which I heard spouted at the MLK 50 conference earlier this year,

00:22:39.300 which I see implied on the gospel coalition site, which I still love some of their articles,

00:22:45.260 but come on, we know they're getting more progressive, um, by certain it's some of their

00:22:50.340 writers. Um, but I'm seeing this particularly also in female Christianity, this idea of racial 0.56

00:22:55.720 reparations. It means that white people should make up for the injustice of their ancestors committed 0.94

00:23:01.400 via slavery, Jim Crow, et cetera. And again, it categorizes people by their supposed oppression

00:23:06.940 based on the color of their skin and points fingers at people for sins that they didn't commit.

00:23:11.640 Now we should all condemn racism. We should call out real examples of inequality, um,

00:23:17.580 when they actually do exist, but to pretend racial reconciliation is the preeminent issue of our time

00:23:23.760 and that the top priority of God distract, uh, that, that it's the top priority of God. It actually

00:23:30.340 distracts us from the true gospel, which says in Christ, there is not slave nor free nor male nor

00:23:36.160 female June or Greek. Uh, Jesus did not come to reconcile the races to each other. He came to reconcile

00:23:42.740 all races to himself. And it is that gospel that changes our hearts towards people that don't look 0.97

00:23:48.980 like, or think the way that we do. It is that message that unifies us and eradicates hate,

00:23:54.140 not the message that all white people should feel guilty for racism and take a backseat while all

00:23:58.380 minorities take the reins. That's not going to help things. It's not going to help to make diversity,

00:24:03.320 the number one qualification for a healthy church, which is absolutely the trend right now.

00:24:08.260 Diversity is a good, beautiful thing, but it is not an indication of the health of a church.

00:24:12.280 Um, I don't think that meets any definition of actual justice. And I don't see that exemplified in

00:24:18.440 the Bible either. Um, I am against misogyny and sexism. I'm a woman. I talked about Paige Patterson

00:24:25.580 on a previous episode, former head of the SBC and his horrible treatment of women and how wrong that

00:24:31.040 was. Um, I sure as heck don't like to be patronized. So I think that we should call out condescension and

00:24:37.940 discrimination against women within the body of Christ. But the answer to misogyny and sexism

00:24:42.540 within the church is not egalitarianism, which is the current push. Egalitarianism is this idea that

00:24:48.180 men and women should have the same roles in the church and in marriage. And I'm sorry, but that's 0.81

00:24:52.240 not biblical. So that's definitely not God's idea of justice. And I definitely don't think that we

00:24:58.520 need to be jumping on the whole, uh, reproductive rights thing as Christians. And y'all know how I 0.92

00:25:04.000 feel about that. Uh, abortion goes against everything God is and stands for. So I think that argument goes

00:25:10.500 without saying, um, so I just want to issue a word of warning to Christians who claim to also be social 1.00

00:25:18.400 justice advocates. Does your definition of justice match God's definition of justice or any logical

00:25:25.780 definition of justice, which inherently would be God's definition of justice, since that's the only

00:25:30.500 valid one that actually exists. Or are you just advocating for big government to swoop in as a

00:25:36.340 savior to people you assume are oppressed based on some baseless idea handed to you by progressives?

00:25:42.860 Um, Christian social justice activists have good intentions. I'm sure, uh, God does call us to love

00:25:48.400 and clothe the sojourner. God calls us to help the orphan and the widow. God calls us to take care of

00:25:52.920 the poor. God calls us to judge without partiality. I believe he hates racism and discrimination. He hates

00:25:59.360 mistreatment of women or anyone. Uh, these are all true biblical principles, but number one,

00:26:04.020 these are things he calls us to do, not simply the government. And number two, these things aren't

00:26:08.780 social cosmic justice. This is actual justice, actual compassion, actual empathy. The justice

00:26:14.140 that God calls us to is to comfort the oppressed, but he doesn't call us to devalue everyone who

00:26:20.720 doesn't share the same oppression. That's not real justice. That's not real equity. That is not

00:26:25.620 equality. Now, for example, I'm a hardcore pro-life advocate. That means that I believe in pushing for

00:26:32.860 legislation and supporting court decisions that restrict access to abortion while simultaneously

00:26:37.580 dedicating my own personal time to volunteering, to serving women and helping to make abortion 1.00

00:26:43.700 unnecessary and unthinkable. So I am not saying that we shouldn't push for humane policies or fight

00:26:49.020 for justice. As I've said, we should. What I am saying is that we need to examine whether or not

00:26:54.760 the things that we are advocating for are truly about justice, or are they just part of the

00:26:59.460 progressive agenda that demonizes straight white people and uplifts all minorities? I just don't

00:27:05.120 find justification for that in the Bible. Okay, that's it for now. That's my take on that. Like I said,

00:27:12.440 I've just seen a lot of conversations about social justice coming from Christians that I know in other

00:27:17.580 ways have good theology, and I just think that we need some clarity on that. I'm sure I'll do another

00:27:22.720 episode on it because people are talking about it more and more, it seems like. Okay, now I'm going

00:27:29.020 to answer a listener question sent to me via Instagram. I got a question about Deuteronomy

00:27:35.440 2.30, I think, or was it 3.20? No, I don't remember, but it was about Deuteronomy, and it was about

00:27:43.140 basically the hardening of people's hearts. This passage was about King Sihon, but we also see

00:27:51.040 God hardened the heart of Pharaoh. So what I would recommend, and this person had a question about

00:27:56.200 that. So the obvious question is, how can God harden someone's heart, but then hold them responsible for

00:28:03.420 the actions that they take? How can, for example, he, if you believe in predestination, how can he

00:28:10.060 predestine people to go to heaven or to go to hell to be saved or to be unsaved and still be a just God

00:28:17.100 that holds people responsible for the actions that they take? So I do encourage everyone to read

00:28:23.300 Romans 9 through 11 if you haven't already. Romans 9 addresses this very explicitly and even addresses

00:28:29.020 some of the logical questions that we have. God very clearly does predestine and choose people based

00:28:35.860 on nothing that they've done. Romans 9 says, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated, and this was before they were

00:28:41.320 born. It talks about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart through really no effort of Pharaoh besides

00:28:46.880 what he did after that. God absolutely chooses people before they were born and without any merit

00:28:55.340 of their own. So this is where the confusion lies. And the best way I can explain it is through

00:29:01.820 something called concurrence. It's a regular term, but it's also used theologically. And concurrence is

00:29:08.660 the idea that two things can happen at one time, even if they don't make sense. So those two things

00:29:13.820 that can happen if God hardens someone's heart or he ordains something to happen is that God is in

00:29:21.320 complete control. He is actively involved in everything. He ordains everything. There's nothing

00:29:27.080 that happens that is beyond his control. And simultaneously, human beings still have a will to make real

00:29:35.260 choices and their choices. And their choices do have real consequences. They're still held

00:29:42.500 responsible for their actions and their actions are punishable. We have to believe that both of

00:29:47.540 these things are true because God is all powerful, but we know that there are real consequences to

00:29:52.900 actions, both temporary consequences and eternal consequences for what we choose to do. But we also have

00:30:00.400 to realize that as we make these real choices that have real consequences, that nothing we do is actually

00:30:06.960 outside of God's control. So I can't completely make sense of it. And I think that's why it's, you know,

00:30:14.160 considered a mystery of our faith. But the Bible tells us that both things are true. And so because of that,

00:30:19.720 we kind of just have to reconcile through faith that that's reality simply because God says that it is.

00:30:25.600 So I hope that helped a little bit. I just realized that that's really similar to the question that I

00:30:30.440 answered last week about why God allows bad things to happen. So if you're curious about that, you

00:30:35.560 should go listen to that. Anyway, that's all for now. Make sure that you leave me a review if you want

00:30:42.060 to or send me an email if you have constructive criticism. Definitely subscribe to CRTV.com if you

00:30:48.100 haven't already. You can use my code Allie20 to get a discount. Follow me on social media if you so

00:30:54.220 choose. If you don't want to, that's totally fine. Anyway, I'll see you guys next week. Bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 12, 2018

Ep 19 ｜ Social Justice Isn't Real Justice

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