Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 199 ｜ Hallmark, Netflix, LGBT & Jesus

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. Next

00:00:06.680 week is Christmas, which is really exciting. Just to let you know the schedule that's coming up,

00:00:12.380 we will have a new episode on Friday. I am interviewing Representative from Kentucky,

00:00:19.000 Thomas Massey, which I'm really excited about. He is awesome. And if you've got any questions

00:00:23.720 in particular that you would like me to ask him, please let me know. We haven't recorded

00:00:26.980 that conversation yet. So feel free to send that. We will have a new episode on Monday,

00:00:32.040 which I'm really looking forward to. I always look forward to our Monday episodes. And then

00:00:36.360 Wednesday, I will not be having an episode. And then Friday, next Friday, I will either be having

00:00:44.540 a replay or not an episode. And then the next week is New Year's. And that week we will be having

00:00:53.040 a new episode on Monday, which is December 30th, I believe. And then we will not be having an episode

00:01:01.580 on New Year's Day. And then I don't know if I figured out what we're doing for the Friday after

00:01:07.480 New Year's. I think that's January 3rd. Not totally sure, but we will figure that out. And then we'll be

00:01:13.660 in the new year and we will be back to your regularly scheduled programming. And just not FYI, I guess

00:01:23.920 just a question or just a PSA. If you guys would like to see any changes in the new year too relatable,

00:01:30.880 like if you guys have suggestions, not just for content, but also for formatting. If you watch on

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00:01:53.080 make it more listenable. Tell me not just the stories that you would like to hear, but if there

00:01:58.720 is a particular format that you would like, if you want a kind of introduction, if you want opening music,

00:02:03.800 if you want the closing music to change, whatever, just let me know. You can send me an Instagram

00:02:10.280 message. You can email me. Tell me your suggestions. If you like theology more than you like politics,

00:02:16.960 let me know. If you like politics more than you like theology, let me know. If there are people that

00:02:21.860 you'd like me to interview, if there are kinds of interviews that you would like me to do, if there

00:02:25.580 are debates that you would like me to have, please let me know. I take your suggestions very

00:02:30.620 seriously. And you guys also have really good ideas and I use your ideas to make my show better.

00:02:38.220 This show is for you guys. The goal of relatable is obviously to come alongside you guys and relate

00:02:44.160 to you and the concerns that you have and try to analyze the craziness that's going on around us

00:02:49.440 from a biblical perspective. Um, it's also to learn with you as we go. Obviously I don't have

00:02:56.380 everything figured out, but I try my best to think through issues, um, and at least lead you down the

00:03:03.760 path of thinking critically about something. And it's also, it is also to change people's mind.

00:03:08.860 Like that is a big purpose of this show. And it's something that I'm very proud of the emails and

00:03:13.680 messages I get from people who have changed their mind or changed their perspective on something.

00:03:18.480 That is a big goal. I want to reach people who haven't yet decided where they land on a certain

00:03:24.200 topic and maybe just allow them to think about it differently. Even if they don't totally change

00:03:29.260 their perspective or change their opinion. My goal is to change how, uh, someone approaches a

00:03:37.700 particular subject that maybe they haven't thought about. I want people to start thinking about why they

00:03:42.860 believe what they believe. What is the substance of what they believe? And in that be a more critical

00:03:47.980 and analytical thinker in general, even on subjects that we do not tackle on relatable. That's my goal.

00:03:54.080 If you have a suggestion for a way that we can do that better on this show, I would absolutely love

00:03:59.380 to hear it. Thank you for listening. Uh, this has been a wonderful year for relatable past couple of

00:04:06.140 months, amazing growth, amazing growth on this show for the past couple of months. Like it kind of

00:04:12.620 seems like out of nowhere, all of a sudden the, the numbers just doubled and more than doubled in some

00:04:17.840 cases, uh, a couple months ago. And that is thanks to you guys for sharing with your friends,

00:04:22.660 for sharing on social media, for talking about relatable, uh, you know, around the dinner table

00:04:28.500 or wherever you talk about it, texting the show to your friends, friends who do this, who disagree

00:04:34.120 or agree. Um, and so I appreciate it. I've always said I have the best and the smartest and just the

00:04:39.600 most quality listeners ever. There are definitely podcasts that have a greater quantity of listeners

00:04:45.640 than relatable does, but not only do we have a good quantity, but we have extremely quality

00:04:51.300 listeners. And I just appreciate that you guys sharpen me and help me be better. Not just as a

00:04:56.740 podcast host, but as a person, as a Christian, as someone who is trying to make sense of everything

00:05:02.660 that's going on. So thank you guys. Thank you guys for listening to relatable. Uh, not just in 2019,

00:05:08.220 but all of you OGs who have been here since the beginning of 2018 as well started out as once a

00:05:14.040 week, then twice a week. Now, three times a week, sky's the limit. Just kidding. There is obviously

00:05:18.700 a limit cause there's only seven days in the week and I'm not going to give you a seven day a week

00:05:21.720 podcast. I can guarantee you that just not would not be able to do it. So anyway, thank you guys.

00:05:27.660 You make this show what it is. And hopefully this show gets better and better. And you feel like

00:05:34.260 this is a place where, okay, I can listen to this podcast and I feel smarter every time I listen to

00:05:40.320 it. That is my goal. That's not going to be true for everyone. Of course, there are going to be

00:05:44.340 lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people who will always hate this podcast because they

00:05:48.620 disagree with the content. They don't like my voice. They don't like the format. Uh, they hate my

00:05:53.820 arguments. And maybe there are people out there who are like, you know what? I am, I'm worse off

00:05:59.180 because of this podcast. Sure. That's, I feel that way about a lot of podcasts that some people

00:06:03.980 like, and that's why I don't listen to them. That's totally fine. But for those of you who

00:06:08.820 I'm trying to reach, I hope that this podcast becomes more and more a podcast that you listen

00:06:14.000 to and you're like, wow, this is sharpening me. And if it doesn't in some way, just let

00:06:18.340 me know. Like I said, I am very sensitive to what you guys want and what you guys need because

00:06:24.580 relatable would not exist. It would not exist without you guys. And quite frankly, so many of

00:06:31.040 you are smarter than me and you know more than me. And so who would I be if I didn't listen to you

00:06:36.920 and allow iron to sharpen iron? That's what I hope this podcast says. Okay. Anyway, a long

00:06:42.540 introduction, but sometimes I just get carried away with gratitude to you guys because you allow

00:06:47.940 me to do something that I love and I hope to be able to do it better and better. And especially in

00:06:53.400 2020, I hope that this show grows and that the, and that it just gets to be an even more awesome

00:07:00.880 show because of you guys. Okay. Today we are going to be talking about a few things that you guys have

00:07:06.160 asked me about. Nativity scene cages happening across America where churches are putting the

00:07:12.500 nativity scene, you know, Joseph, Mary and Jesus in cages to try to make a point about what's going on

00:07:18.680 at the Southern border. We're also going to talk about this Netflix controversy where a comedy

00:07:24.920 troupe, I don't even know if troupe is the right word, a comedy group decided that they were going

00:07:29.480 to make a film or maybe it was a series. I don't actually know about Jesus being gay and Brazil

00:07:37.380 getting very upset about that, understandably, and trying to get Netflix to take this down.

00:07:43.700 We are also going to be talking possibly, it depends on how much time we have. We're going

00:07:49.320 to be talking about Hallmark and the controversy there with them pulling ads with the same sex

00:07:54.240 wedding and then putting the ads back up and what all happened there. We might talk about this drag

00:08:00.520 queen one. There's drag queen story hour going on, which is absolutely crazy. And then there's this

00:08:06.080 drag queen, drag queen show that happened at a conference in Seattle of trying the conference that

00:08:12.820 was focusing on trying to end homelessness. For some reason, there was not just a drag queen,

00:08:18.360 but a drag queen. Okay. You should maybe turn this off, censor this word that I'm about to say.

00:08:23.000 If you have kids in the car, that's probably a little bit too late for that warning. You probably

00:08:26.620 didn't want your kids to learn about drag queens either, but drag queen stripper that apparently was

00:08:32.500 at this homeless conference. So we might talk about that if we have time. And then we're a little late

00:08:36.720 on this new story, but it was the earliest that we could talk about it. The okay sign that is being

00:08:43.000 talked about because at this football game, I think it was, uh, cadets in the Navy. They showed an okay

00:08:49.860 sign on television and people are saying it was white nationalism, white supremacy. What's the deal

00:08:55.400 with the okay sign? Is it a game? Is it a circle game? Is it really a symbol of white nationalism? We're

00:09:01.200 going to talk about that if we have time. Okay. I want to get into, I want to get into this. I want to

00:09:08.140 get into the nativity scene thing first, and it kind of is going to flow into other subjects that I

00:09:14.760 want to talk about. So we might spend a good amount of time on this particular, on this particular

00:09:20.700 topic. So according to USA Today, churches across the country are using Christmas nativity scenes to

00:09:27.380 make political statements and protests from putting the Holy family in cages and a nod to the Southern

00:09:32.840 border crisis to depicting animals in the manger underwater and a creeping tide about to overtake

00:09:38.480 Jesus, Mary and Joseph in a nod to climate change. My goodness, this just makes me want to cry.

00:09:46.180 Makes me want to cry for so many reasons. The politicization of Jesus grinds my gears because it is

00:09:53.960 blasphemous. It makes Jesus much smaller than he actually is. He is the word made flesh. He is

00:09:59.300 the son of God. He is our mighty counselor, prince of peace. He is Emmanuel, God with us. He is the

00:10:06.480 Messiah. He is our sacrifice. He is King of Kings, Lord of Lords. And to make him a symbol of your

00:10:14.640 immigration stance or gosh, your climate change stance is not only blasphemous, but it is a fundamental,

00:10:21.840 it is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Bible has to say about these political topics.

00:10:27.180 And we're going to get into that. But let me just make a note on climate change since we're not so

00:10:31.660 much going to focus on that point. I've talked about this before that yes, we should as image bearers,

00:10:40.480 as human beings to whom God has given authority to steward the earth and to take care of animals,

00:10:50.140 we should care about the environment, we should treat the earth well, we should treat animals well.

00:10:56.340 I don't think that that excludes eating animals. Of course, I've talked about that a couple weeks ago,

00:11:02.080 I talked about veganism from a biblical perspective. I think the title of the episode was We're Too Obsessed

00:11:08.420 With Our Pets, talked about veganism and all of that from a biblical perspective. But

00:11:13.120 this idea that climate change is going to end the world, that climate change is going to be the thing

00:11:22.240 that dooms humanity is not biblical. We know how the world is going to end. We know how time is going

00:11:29.120 to end. You should read Revelation. That's how it's going to end. We don't have to worry about whether or

00:11:36.180 not climate change is going to be the end of the universe. And if it is, if that is how, which it's

00:11:43.740 not, but if that was how God intended to bring about the end of time, as we know it, there would

00:11:50.720 be nothing that we could do to stop it. So it is not a Christian perspective to say that climate change

00:11:56.840 is going to be the end of the world. Read the Bible. We know what the end, the so-called end of

00:12:03.480 the world is going to look like. Now, there are some eschatological disagreements about that,

00:12:09.740 but we can read the Bible to know what that's going to look like. It ain't climate change.

00:12:15.680 So again, I, and I've said this before, I know this is a little bit controversial. I'm just going

00:12:20.180 to guess, I'm going to assert that these people that are making a mockery of the nativity scene by

00:12:28.020 minimizing Jesus to their symbol for climate change or their symbol for their immigration

00:12:33.160 stance. I would be shocked. I'd be shocked. Maybe so. I would love to be proved wrong on this.

00:12:40.020 I'd be shocked if these people also believe that Jesus is the only way, the only truth in the only

00:12:46.660 life. I'd be shocked if these people could tell me what the gospel of salvation is, what actually

00:12:53.340 qualifies as salvation according to the Bible. I'd be shocked if these people believe that the Bible

00:13:00.340 is the inerrant word of God. I would be shocked because these kinds of views typically go hand

00:13:06.560 in hand. The liberalization of theology to the point to where you're basically an agnostic with

00:13:12.960 the Christian name on it, that there are many ways to God and also liberal politics. They don't always

00:13:19.540 go hand in hand, but they very often go hand in hand. And using Jesus as this figure of leftist

00:13:26.260 politics typically aligned with leftist theology to where you really believe that Jesus is only a

00:13:33.100 symbol of your politics rather than the way, the truth, and the life. So that's just going to be

00:13:37.500 my very educated guess. So this idea that Jesus represents the illegal immigrants that are at the

00:13:49.320 border, or they would probably say, the left would probably say, the asylum seekers. Is there any truth to

00:13:55.420 this? Is there anything that maybe we as conservatives should stand back and say, okay, that's making a

00:14:02.040 legitimate point? Yes. Okay. That evokes compassion or whatever. Is there a message that we should be

00:14:09.980 receiving from this? AOC and other leftists have used the story of Jesus in the past to make this

00:14:16.000 political point. There are some problems with this. AOC has said that Jesus and his family were refugees.

00:14:22.060 Therefore, because of that, I guess the argument is that we should be accepting refugees because Jesus

00:14:28.780 represents this subset of the least of these. Well, there is a problem with this assertion,

00:14:36.740 which no doubt we are going to see this year, that Jesus was a refugee. What they're really trying to

00:14:41.880 say, what the left is really trying to say is that you would, if Jesus were alive today, and if he

00:14:48.900 were at the southern border, conservatives would be putting him in a cage. And of course, Jesus does

00:14:55.500 say, whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done unto me. Let's talk about what the

00:15:02.980 problem is, though, with this assertion that AOC and other Democrats have made. Number one, Jesus was

00:15:09.640 not a refugee in the same way that refugees at our southern border are refugees. So yes, he was

00:15:17.980 obviously fleeing violence. So in that way, I do think that we should concede that in some way he was

00:15:23.600 a refugee in that he was seeking refuge. But Bethlehem is not a different country. It's not outside of

00:15:32.500 Egypt in the same way that Mexico is outside of the United States. It's somewhat not exactly, but somewhat of

00:15:40.100 the equivalent of going from one state to another in the United States. Not exactly, but close. Yes, he was

00:15:47.400 fleeing violence. But it wasn't that he was trying to seek refuge in an entirely different country. He was not a

00:15:56.420 refuge in the same way that refugees at our border are refugees. And also, not everyone at our southern

00:16:07.080 border is a refugee. Not everyone at the southern border is claiming asylum. The left wants us to

00:16:12.880 believe that because these people are coming from worse places than the United States, that they are all

00:16:19.740 refugees, that they are all asylum seekers. Well, no, everyone who comes to America, no matter where you are

00:16:26.140 coming from, is coming for a better life than the one that they have at home. America does not and cannot

00:16:32.380 have the obligation to take every single person who is coming to America for a better life. And coming to

00:16:38.740 America for a better life does not give someone the rights to come here, especially illegally. The people

00:16:44.760 who are crossing the southern border, many of them, most of them, are doing so or trying to do so

00:16:50.880 illegally or they're claiming they're trying to claim asylum that they actually don't have a claim

00:16:57.360 to, if that makes sense. So that is point number two. Not everyone showing up at the southern border

00:17:02.620 right now is a refugee. Number three, the cages that are being represented at these churches are or were

00:17:10.180 an Obama era invention. And the funny thing is, as far as I know, these cages that are popping up

00:17:16.000 at churches to make a point about what's going on at the southern border, these are new. They have

00:17:22.000 popped up only in the Trump administration, although these cages have existed long before

00:17:26.260 Trump took office. And so is this really about caring for the people at the border? Or is it

00:17:32.060 making a political statement against Republicans and against Donald Trump? In which case, this is not

00:17:36.880 about empathy at all. This is, again, just making your political point. Number four, even if Jesus were a

00:17:42.860 refugee in the same way, the people at the border are refugees. And even if everyone at the border

00:17:49.520 were a refugee, the United States already accepts millions of refugees and immigrants every year.

00:17:56.120 This is from weforum.org. Until 2017, the U.S. resettled more refugees each year than the rest of the

00:18:04.960 world's countries combined. Since 1980, the U.S. has resettled millions more refugees than other

00:18:11.260 countries, a total of about 3 million. The next two countries, Canada and Australia, have resettled

00:18:17.520 fewer than a million each over the same period. So the United States accepts more immigrants than any

00:18:24.520 other country in the world every year by far. By far. According to Pew Research, one-fifth of all

00:18:31.440 international migrants live in the United States. One-fifth of all international migrants. The

00:18:37.040 millions of them live in the United States. Why do they come here? Why aren't they flocking to other

00:18:43.240 countries? Because the United States is still the land of opportunity, the land of liberty, the land

00:18:48.720 of justice, the land of compassion, even with all of our flaws, despite what the left would have us

00:18:54.820 believe. And so the point that AOC and these churches are making is that America is such an unjust

00:18:59.940 country. They're such a bad country that we are running concentration camps at the border. Do you think it

00:19:05.120 makes sense that we would have one-fifth of all of the world's migrants? We would have millions of

00:19:10.420 people flocking to our countries both legally and illegally every day if we were really the country

00:19:15.640 of injustice, if we were really the country of racism, if we were really the country of concentration

00:19:21.420 camps? Absolutely not. America is still the land of opportunity. It is the land of privilege. It is the

00:19:27.720 land of liberty and justice. This anti-Westernism, anti-Americanism has become vogue, especially among

00:19:34.920 the squad in the House of Representatives. But if their characterization of America as this deeply

00:19:41.560 racist, unjust, economically disparate place were true, if that were true, surely people would be

00:19:48.560 fleeing elsewhere. But they're not, at least not as much as they are fleeing here. Have the people who

00:19:56.200 are sane, have the people at these churches, have AOC and other people who claim that America is this

00:20:02.560 horribly unjust place? And again, that doesn't mean that we don't have flaws because we do. But these

00:20:06.740 people who believe that America is bad to its core, have they maybe considered that people are fleeing

00:20:12.000 here because of our capitalism, because of our health care, because of our justice system, because

00:20:18.060 of the compassion and inclusivity and welcoming nature of our people? Maybe that's why millions of

00:20:25.100 people a year are showing up on our shores. Have they considered that, that maybe it's because

00:20:30.460 America in its essence is actually good? Not that we don't do bad things or haven't done bad things.

00:20:36.620 I surely believe that we do. We are murdering millions. I think it's about a million babies

00:20:41.380 every year in this country. Of course, America does bad things. But the reason why I'm not anti-American

00:20:48.480 and why I don't think America is in its foundation bad, despite all of the bad things that I would

00:20:54.700 agree we have done, is because of the goodness, of the soundness of our founding documents and the

00:21:02.140 founding ideals. That is still what makes America good. That is still why people flee here every day.

00:21:09.660 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just to speak to how exceptionally well America is doing

00:21:16.000 right now, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, among the major worker groups, the

00:21:20.640 unemployment rates for adult men is 3.2%, adult women 3.2%, teenagers 12%, whites 3.2%, blacks 5.5%,

00:21:30.300 Asians 2.6%, that's the Asian privilege no one talks about, and Hispanics 4.2%. That's amazing.

00:21:37.760 That's amazing. We are at pretty much full employment right now among every group. Now, one more thing on

00:21:44.300 the refugee stuff, the number of refugees, and this is where I'm going to kind of go away from, I would say,

00:21:50.380 the traditional conservative thoughts on this. The number of refugees under the Trump administration

00:21:57.600 has dropped dramatically in the past two years. According to Christianity Today in June 2019,

00:22:07.040 the global refugee crisis hit a record high, while American acceptance of refugees hit a record low.

00:22:13.140 So, in, I guess, somewhat of an agreement, or to give some kind of credence to these people who are

00:22:21.780 creating these nativity scene cage things, the refugees that we have accepted, including the

00:22:30.720 Christian refugees that we have accepted in the United States under the Trump administration,

00:22:34.800 has been cut drastically. There has been an 82% drop in the total number of refugees resettled in the

00:22:41.720 United States from 2016 to 2019, and in particular, a 70% drop in persecuted Christians resettling here,

00:22:49.080 despite the fact that the global refugee crisis and religious persecution is at an all-time high.

00:22:56.620 As a Christian whose allegiance is to the body of Christ, first and foremost, whose citizenship is

00:23:02.520 in heaven, as Philippians 3.20 says, who cares about the persecuted church, this, of course, concerns me.

00:23:08.500 It should concern all of us. I am totally in favor of a wall. I didn't used to be in favor of a wall,

00:23:14.920 but I am in favor of a wall. I am in favor of cracking down on illegal immigration. Those who say

00:23:20.140 that Christians shouldn't be against illegal immigration do not have a biblical understanding

00:23:24.700 of what countries are for and what governments are for. Theologian Wayne Grudem says this,

00:23:30.580 another important consideration from the Bible concerns the general responsibilities of governments

00:23:35.320 to seek the good of the nations they rule and thereby truly serve as God's servant for your

00:23:40.760 good, as Romans 13.4 says. This means that the immigration policies of a nation should be designed

00:23:46.620 to bring benefit to that specific nation. He has also written on the biblical morality of building a

00:23:52.340 border wall. So I am obviously against illegal immigration. At the same time, at the same time,

00:23:58.460 I am in favor of legally welcoming refugees, especially refugees that are fleeing religious

00:24:04.900 persecution. To be honest, I don't know if someone were to ask me, okay, well, what's the perfect number

00:24:11.500 of refugees that America should be accepting every year in order for Christians like me to say,

00:24:17.240 all right, that's good enough. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not pretending to know that particular

00:24:22.360 number, but I am concerned. I am concerned that there seems to be a priority of drastically cutting

00:24:30.200 the number of refugees that we allow to illegally seek protection in the United States. Remember,

00:24:38.480 Christians, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, are the most

00:24:44.500 persecuted religious group in the world. Today, in China, Christians, along with Muslims, are being

00:24:50.780 imprisoned. They are being tortured. They are being killed for their faith. House churches in China

00:24:56.040 are getting shut down. This Christmas, there will be Christians in China, North Korea, Syria,

00:25:02.520 throughout Africa, who will be celebrating the birth of their Savior in secret. Yes, they actually

00:25:07.700 will be celebrating. Christmas is not just an American holiday. They will celebrate knowing their own

00:25:13.220 lives, the lives of their families, the lives of their children, the lives of their babies are at risk

00:25:19.060 as they worship. If there is one thing we pray for this Christmas, no matter where you stand on

00:25:26.180 accepting a certain number of refugees, no matter where you stand on immigration, I think we can agree

00:25:31.020 that one thing we should be praying for as Christians this Christmas is for our brothers and our sisters in

00:25:37.860 Christ who are silently worshiping, who are quietly praying, who are secretly sharing the good news of

00:25:43.840 Jesus with their neighbors, who are finding places of solitude in the woods, where they can praise God

00:25:50.280 for the gift of his son, the Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us. If you want to help these persecuted

00:25:58.180 Christians, you can go to opendoorsusa.org. You can see the list of countries where people are most

00:26:03.600 persecuted for their faiths, mostly by Islamic and communistic regimes. Let us thank God. Let us thank God

00:26:11.920 here in America that we have the freedom to believe what we want to believe, to say what we want to

00:26:20.240 say. For now, we still have the freedom to share the gospel, to gather in church without fear for our

00:26:26.880 lives, that we live in a country where a church can display the nativity scene with a cage around it to

00:26:35.560 make a political point that is supposed to be an indictment on the current people in charge, on the

00:26:42.460 current administration. How amazing. I hope this is not lost on those churches who are making this kind

00:26:47.920 of political display that they are so privileged to live in a country where they can do that without

00:26:53.760 fear of punishment. And look, I'm glad. I'm glad, too. I might not like their protest. I might disagree

00:26:59.340 with it wholeheartedly. I might think it's stupid, quite frankly, and blasphemous. But I am so thankful

00:27:05.440 that we live in a country where they are free to do that. They're not going to get arrested for it.

00:27:10.280 They're not going to get in trouble for it. They're not going to get censored in some way. That is

00:27:13.700 free speech. That is the freest of speech. And I am glad that they are free to do that. I thank God

00:27:20.520 that we live in a country where they can have that kind of protest. I can talk about that kind of

00:27:25.720 protest. And we can disagree without fearing that we are going to get thrown in prison. So while we

00:27:34.360 pray, I want us to pray, obviously, for the persecuted Christians. I want us to thank God

00:27:40.480 for the liberties that we have, that we should not take for granted, that we are able to criticize our

00:27:46.960 government, that some people are even allowed, able to be blasphemous against Jesus Christ, that we

00:27:55.520 don't have to fear punishment in doing that, and that we can talk about all of these things without

00:28:02.120 worrying about whether or not we are going to not just be thrown into prison, but tortured and killed

00:28:11.180 the way that they are in places like China. Speaking of free speech, I want to note also that one of the

00:28:21.980 reasons why we should be so thankful that we still have free speech is because this is something that

00:28:27.780 is slipping away. I just wanted to note something that German Chancellor Angela or Angela Merkel

00:28:34.200 said recently. She said, but freedom of expression has its limits. Those limits begin where hatred is

00:28:41.060 spread. They begin where the dignity of other people is violated. The House will and must oppose extreme

00:28:47.080 speech. Otherwise, our society will no longer be the free society that it was. Now, that is called

00:28:52.160 doublethink. If you haven't read 1984, you should. So here we have Germany once again in history saying

00:28:58.620 we need to limit certain speech because that is how we create a good society. That is how we make sure

00:29:06.400 that people are truly free and truly safe. So when we hear things like that, we've already heard that

00:29:13.520 kind of idea reflected here in the United States. I mean, we have people trying to shut down speech

00:29:18.060 every day on college campuses because they don't like to hear what conservatives have to say. So we

00:29:23.240 need to ask ourselves who was already considered by the leftist cultural powers that be in this country

00:29:28.260 to be hateful, to be extreme, to be radical, to be bigoted. Who does the left consider to be violating

00:29:33.640 people's dignity? Christians. Christians. Of course, we are the ones that are targeted by this kind of idea

00:29:40.120 because we hold to a biblical ethic, which means that we believe in biblical morality, biblical

00:29:44.880 marriage, biblical sexuality, biblical gender, which, by the way, all happen to lead to human

00:29:50.380 flourishing. But that is beside the point for now. Christians' speech is the speech that will be

00:29:56.120 targeted as extreme, that will be targeted as the speech that needs to be silenced for the good of the

00:30:03.840 country, for the true freedom and the true well-being of everyone. So as we think about persecuted

00:30:09.760 Christians this Christmas, we also need to consider the fact that our own rights and our own freedoms

00:30:17.360 are at risk. So we pray and we also do everything we can to protect the speech that we have and

00:30:24.620 to take advantage of the time that we have to have this speech, to be able to speak the truth in love as

00:30:31.340 loudly, as boldly, and as consistently as possible while we still have the freedom to do so. We

00:30:40.500 already see in California and in other states that they are trying to limit speech in particular ways

00:30:47.000 by banning what they consider, quote, conversion therapy. Conversion therapy is, by the way, by the

00:30:53.380 way, despite what people on the left want to tell you, conversion therapy is not like

00:30:58.200 electroshocking someone to make them straight. Obviously, we would all oppose that. Conversion

00:31:03.420 therapy is a therapist counseling someone against a same-sex attraction or against acting out on same-sex

00:31:11.600 attraction or transgenderism, which, by the way, by the way, contrary to what a lot of people on the

00:31:19.080 left think, there are people, there are a lot of people who may have feelings that they don't want

00:31:25.100 or feelings that they don't want to act on. Why? Because maybe they're Christians and maybe they

00:31:31.400 realize that even though they have a feeling or they have a temptation toward a certain lifestyle,

00:31:35.580 it's not one that they want to pursue because they know that God's word compels them not to.

00:31:40.900 You should listen to it. It might have been the second episode that I ever did. It was one of the

00:31:45.240 first episodes that I ever did. It was a conversation with Christopher Yuan. I think it was titled

00:31:49.340 Holy Sexuality, where he talks about this in his own life. There are people who don't want to pursue

00:31:55.680 a homosexual lifestyle or don't want to pursue transgenderism, but they are having these thoughts.

00:32:00.340 They are having these temptations. They want to go to a professional counselor to help them,

00:32:05.140 to equip them, to give them the tools that they need to be able to combat this kind of thinking or

00:32:11.880 combat the temptations that lead to a lifestyle that they know isn't pleasing to God. But in places like

00:32:17.060 California, they are saying, no, no, no, this is not legal. You are not allowed to counsel someone

00:32:22.340 in this way. You can also listen to my interview that I did more recently with Walt Heyer called

00:32:27.620 Sex Change Regret. He gives a lot of insight into this. The left doesn't believe that people like

00:32:34.420 this exist. And if they do, the left would say that they're self-hating people and they just need to

00:32:39.280 give in to their same-sex attraction or their desire to be the opposite sex. Why? Because the left

00:32:45.320 demands that people worship the God of self, which includes bowing down to all of our base feelings

00:32:52.040 and inclinations, no matter what they cannot fathom. And they will not allow someone to do

00:32:57.100 any differently. It is an affront to the religion of progressivism for someone to ascribe to an idea

00:33:04.320 or subscribe to an idea and an ideal higher than it. Because many on the left generally do not see

00:33:11.560 people as made in the image of God. They generally do not believe that God created the heavens and the

00:33:16.580 earth and sexuality and marriage, and therefore that he has the authority to define these things.

00:33:22.480 They assert that we are self-defining and the only indication for self-definitions are our feelings.

00:33:29.040 And therefore, in the leftist mentality, any kind of counseling that says you are not your feelings,

00:33:35.060 you are not your temptations, you are not your dysphoria, these things aren't your identity.

00:33:39.840 Therefore, you are not obligated to affirm these things as the world tells you, you must affirm

00:33:44.640 them. Any kind of counseling that says that they would not be against, that would be blasphemous

00:33:51.220 to the God of self. So how we got on that subject was by talking about free speech and the free speech

00:33:59.080 that we should be thankful for, the free speech that other people do not enjoy, the persecuted

00:34:03.300 Christians do not enjoy, that true refugees do not enjoy. We got in the refugee conversation because we

00:34:08.820 were talking about the nativity thing in the beginning and clarifying what that really means,

00:34:13.740 especially in relation to the story of Jesus's birth. And now we are on free speech, something

00:34:19.640 that is being assaulted in this country that we need to be fighting for and using and praying for

00:34:25.000 protection of. And then we got on to the subject of conversion therapy as an example of an affront to

00:34:32.940 free speech in this country. And why the left doesn't see free speech is absolute because they

00:34:38.640 see feelings as more important than that. And as part of your identity and Christians need to make

00:34:43.960 sure that we can distinguish between our feelings and reality. Okay. Speaking of all of that, we are

00:34:52.420 going to, I think this is all we're going to have time to talk about. I do want to touch on this

00:34:56.500 Hallmark thing. So craziness that happened. Craziness, craziness. The outrage culture is just

00:35:02.740 crazy. It's just crazy. So Hallmark, I don't watch Hallmark movies. I'm sure a lot of you watch

00:35:09.040 Hallmark movies, but I just don't. I don't know why. I just really never have. I think my mom does. I know

00:35:14.880 a lot of people that do, but I don't really. Cute movies, romantic, whatever, especially Christmas

00:35:20.860 time. So they were airing ads by, I think it was a company called Zola. I'm pretty sure that they

00:35:30.200 plan weddings. And in the commercial, it was a lesbian couple at their ceremony and they were

00:35:39.220 kissing. And 1 Million Moms is a conservative group and they got a petition. I don't know how

00:35:46.940 many people actually signed the petition that they sent to the head of Hallmark. And they said,

00:35:52.640 look, we don't want to see this ad. Please pull the ads. Hallmark said, okay, we'll pull the ads,

00:35:58.660 which kind of surprises me. But at the same time, it doesn't. Because who are the majority of people

00:36:04.960 watching Hallmark? It's not, it's not leftist people. I guarantee you that their target demographic,

00:36:11.160 their main demographic are conservative moms, older conservative moms, probably baby boomer

00:36:16.920 conservative moms. That I would guess that the majority, those are the majority of people

00:36:20.640 that are watching Hallmark. So I'm sure Hallmark looked at that demographic and said, look,

00:36:25.220 this is a huge part of our audience. And maybe Hallmark said, whether we like it or not,

00:36:30.540 these are the values that these people have. And so, okay, we'll pull the ads, no big deal.

00:36:35.560 I think it's totally within the rights of 1 Million Moms in any group to say, we don't want to see

00:36:41.780 that, take the ad down. And it's totally within their rights. And it makes sense for Hallmark to

00:36:49.100 say, you know what, we're going to pull the ads. Well, the New York Times ran an article about this,

00:36:55.280 which is just so funny. They obviously wanted to make a big deal of it and gin up outrage on the

00:37:01.940 left to get the intended results of putting the ads back up because the left does this all the time.

00:37:09.340 The left targets advertisers. They target networks all the time to make sure that their message is

00:37:16.740 being communicated and that their message wins and that anyone who is not communicating their

00:37:21.300 message is punished. Anyone who disagrees with them needs to be punished by the left taking their

00:37:26.880 advertisers away. That is a tactic that the left employs all the time. And that, of course,

00:37:32.120 is their right to do so. I don't agree with the reasons. Typically, I don't think ever of why

00:37:37.740 they're doing it. But of course, yes, it is their right to do it. That's pretty much like the market

00:37:42.100 at work. So then the left hears about it through the New York Times. They freak out, of course,

00:37:48.200 GLAAD freaks out. And they say, how dare this group do this? And then pressures Hallmark on the

00:37:55.040 other side. Ellen DeGeneres even tweeted about it. Like, why would you pull this ad homophobic,

00:37:59.880 all this stuff? So Hallmark responds and says, OK, the ads are going back up and we're so sorry for

00:38:04.020 making that mistake. So Hallmark is just caught in the middle of this of this outrage cycle, which is

00:38:11.700 just so indicative of our times. I had a writer from The Washington Post ask, was it right for the

00:38:19.280 conservative moms group to do this? Well, that's irrelevant. Was it right? Sure, it was right in the

00:38:28.040 sense that they had the right to do it in the same way that a leftist group does. I'm not saying that

00:38:34.760 anyone did anything wrong here in the sense that everyone had the right to do what they did, that

00:38:41.320 the conservative moms group absolutely had the right to protest. Hallmark had the right to say

00:38:47.880 yes or no. And then the left had their right to protest and make a fuss of it. And Hallmark,

00:38:54.520 again, had the right to respond however they wanted to see fit. No one necessarily did anything

00:39:00.000 wrong. Everyone did something well within their rights. Now, what the left cannot fathom is that

00:39:06.320 there are people that have a legitimate moral stance on homosexuality that opposes theirs. Yes,

00:39:13.600 there are millions of people who have a traditional definition of marriage, who have a traditional view

00:39:19.420 on marriage, who have a biblical view of marriage. And by the way, that was the view of marriage for

00:39:25.400 thousands of years. That was the only view of marriage for thousands of years. It was until like

00:39:31.480 15 minutes ago that people said, oh, there's this other definition of marriage too that's not between

00:39:37.640 a man and a woman. It can be between two men or between two women. And it's just so funny to me

00:39:42.000 that there are people on the left who just, oh my gosh, I can't, I can't believe,

00:39:45.880 I cannot believe that these people over here still believe in an orthodox definition of marriage,

00:39:54.200 which has been around for millennia. And they don't hop on my progressive train,

00:40:00.020 which just started going about 10 minutes ago. It's funny that people are still shocked by that.

00:40:06.280 Yes, there are millions of people who hold a traditional biblical view definition of marriage.

00:40:13.060 Yes, they are going to have a problem with a gay ad. Now they can change the channel. They don't have

00:40:19.360 to watch Hallmark. They don't have to support Hallmark. And Hallmark can have these ads. And

00:40:23.660 people on the left who support gay marriage can be mad that Hallmark would pull an ad. Whatever.

00:40:29.040 Like, don't, I think it's dumb for someone to focus on, well, who was, who was right in this

00:40:35.160 situation? Who was correct? Well, it depends on your perspective of it. But everyone was within their

00:40:42.840 rights to be outraged and respond to outrage. That's the point. Okay. I think that's all I

00:40:48.760 have time for today. I was going to talk about the gay Jesus Netflix thing, but I mean, what is there

00:40:56.420 to talk about? Yes, people have been blaspheming Jesus forever. And yes, it's absolutely gross and

00:41:02.140 it's blasphemous and it's stupid. But I did hear some activists in Brazil say that no one has the right

00:41:09.160 to disrespect their religion of millions of people. I disagree with that. Yes, people do

00:41:15.500 have the right. Well, people should have the right to disrespect someone else's religion. Yes,

00:41:21.580 they should have the right to do that. That doesn't mean it's right. But do these people have a right

00:41:26.980 to make a Netflix special or a Netflix movie, whatever it is that depicts Jesus as gay? And the

00:41:33.800 United States, yeah, they have a right to do that. And I don't believe in taking away their right to

00:41:38.960 do that. Again, I don't agree with it. I think it's absolutely terrible. And I think that it's well

00:41:43.960 within everyone's rights to petition Netflix to take it down. And again, Netflix has the freedom to do

00:41:51.180 what they want with that pressure and with those petitions, whatever. That's fine. That's according to

00:41:56.320 Netflix's values and whatever they want to do. But yes, I would. I think that it's better for people

00:42:05.500 to have the right to be blasphemous. People should have the right to be disrespectful. Again, that

00:42:13.440 doesn't mean it is right, but they should have the right to do that. Because if people don't have the

00:42:18.240 right to be blasphemous and people don't have the right to create blasphemous material and post it

00:42:23.900 somewhere and send it out to the people they want to send it to, Christians are going to get the

00:42:29.060 wrong end of that deal pretty quickly. So I would rather people have the freedom to do it. And we

00:42:35.060 have the freedom to be outraged and to push back and to boycott, to do whatever we want to do, to

00:42:39.340 protest, to petition. That's part of living in a free country. So that's all I have to say about that.

00:42:46.060 And I know we kind of meandered around a lot of different subjects today, but hopefully it made you

00:42:51.580 think about something. And we will be back here on Friday and I'll see you then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 18, 2019

Ep 199 ｜ Hallmark, Netflix, LGBT & Jesus

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