Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 24, 2018


Ep 22 ｜ Trump, The View & Tattoos


Episode Stats

Length

28 minutes

Words per Minute

179.15952

Word Count

5,150

Sentence Count

326

Misogynist Sentences

9

Hate Speech Sentences

18


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 What's up, guys? Welcome to episode 22 of CRTV's Relatable, where we approach culture and politics
00:00:08.100 from a biblical and conservative perspective. Sometimes we talk about theology. Sometimes
00:00:14.500 we talk about politics. Sometimes we talk about social issues. Sometimes we talk about cats. It
00:00:19.080 just kind of depends on what's going on. And of course, what you as a listener would like to talk
00:00:23.720 about. My goal is that we're all fairly well-rounded in the knowledge that we glean from this
00:00:29.860 podcast and the knowledge that we have. So today we're going to talk about everything. We are going
00:00:35.540 to start with some of the major news stories. Then we're going to touch on a couple cultural things
00:00:40.340 that I'm interested in talking about. And then we will do one semi-theological question. So all kinds
00:00:46.640 of fun on this Tuesday. For news, we are going to talk about Trump's back and forth with Iran on
00:00:53.800 Twitter and the released Carter Page FISA warrant. I know that we're a few days late on those things,
00:00:59.020 but they're still the big topics for culture. We're going to talk about unearthing old tweets
00:01:04.920 to ruin someone's life, as well as Trump derangement syndrome on the left as displayed with the
00:01:10.960 conflict on the view with Judge Jeanine. And lastly, for theology, I'm just going to briefly discuss what
00:01:16.840 I've already written about, and that is the crazy viral blog post titled Men Want Debt-Free
00:01:22.860 Virgins Without Tattoos. So first, if you didn't know, like if you actually have a life and you
00:01:29.860 don't spend all day on Twitter, which I'm sure is most of you, Trump sent out a tweet in all caps
00:01:35.260 to Iran on Sunday, and he said to Iranian President Rouhani, never, ever threaten the United States
00:01:43.240 again or you will suffer consequences, the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered
00:01:49.480 before. We are no longer a country that will stand for your demented words of violence and death.
00:01:57.900 Be cautious! Exclamation mark. And I yelled all of that because, like I said, it was in all caps,
00:02:05.060 which I really love. It just reminds me exactly of how any 70-year-old grandparent would send a text
00:02:11.180 to someone when they're upset. The only thing that's missing in this tweet is scare quotes,
00:02:16.140 which is something else that President Trump really likes. And more exclamation marks, I think
00:02:20.440 we could have appreciated that. But this is great. And I'm actually being serious. I kind of like this.
00:02:25.360 I know it's not the most diplomatic thing in the world. And I've never been a huge fan personally of
00:02:30.700 the president's tweets. But you have to admit that it feels good to be stood up for. It feels good to
00:02:36.200 have a president that's like, hey, if you're going to mess with us, then we're going to completely
00:02:40.860 annihilate you. Like just FYI. And I actually think that he means that. But let's back up for a second.
00:02:47.700 So I saw this tweet on Sunday and I was like, OK, this this probably isn't out of nowhere. So what's
00:02:54.380 going on? So according to The Wall Street Journal, the administration's remarks appeared to refer
00:02:59.640 to comments by Mr. Rouhani reported by the semi-official state news agency warning the Trump
00:03:05.900 administration against continuing hardline policies against Iran. America. This is what he said.
00:03:11.600 America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace and war with Iran is the mother
00:03:16.140 of all wars. And Mohsen Rizé, I don't know how to say his name, a former commander of the Iranian
00:03:22.140 Revolutionary Guard Corps on Twitter, warned Mr. Trump that 50,000 U.S. troops are in range of Iranian
00:03:30.340 weapons. I mean, that kind of sounds like a threat to me. But of course, some reporters are accusing
00:03:38.160 Trump of inciting conflict. But Sarah Sanders has rightly noted that if anyone is inciting conflict
00:03:44.520 with their rhetoric, it's Iran, not us. Sure, President Trump probably could not respond publicly
00:03:51.460 and then let his actions do the talking. But that's not really how he works. That's not his style.
00:03:56.200 He is always working double duty, which kind of makes him good at what he does. Honestly,
00:04:01.560 he's not just intimidating a foreign power to intimidate a foreign power. He is also intimidating
00:04:07.580 a foreign power. So everyone will know that he's intimidating a foreign power, a.k.a. keeping
00:04:12.740 America first, which is what so many of us elected him to do. Some people are saying that this is a PR
00:04:19.200 stunt after he was accused of not putting America first during the press conference with Putin.
00:04:23.540 And yeah, maybe. But who cares? That's politics. That doesn't make his words or his actions
00:04:29.860 necessarily wrong. All politicians have multiple motives, and I'm sure the president does, too.
00:04:36.440 But I I don't really see why that makes any real difference in any of this. Wall Street Journal said
00:04:42.820 on Monday that the U.S. hadn't changed their military position towards Iran yet, and the rhetoric
00:04:47.700 hadn't prompted any new sort of urgency. More context for this is that Trump recently withdrew
00:04:55.280 from the Iran nuclear deal, which most on the left were mad about and most on the right were happy
00:05:00.540 about. The deal was done by the Obama administration in 2015, and it basically said, hey, we will lift all
00:05:07.580 of these horrible sanctions on you, Iran, that are currently stopping you from being able to trade and sell
00:05:12.980 oil and keeping you from accessing about 100 billion dollars that was frozen because of sanctions
00:05:18.700 and in sanctions on Iranian bank accounts overseas. They said that we'll lift all of those things if
00:05:25.980 you guys agree to allow us to limit your nuclear capabilities. Iran said, OK, and the sanctions were
00:05:32.840 lifted and Iran was able to access all their money. So when you hear conservatives say that Obama
00:05:38.120 shipped pallets of cash to the Iranians, the number one state sponsor of terror, by the way,
00:05:43.200 this is what they're talking about. You can see why people had a problem with this deal.
00:05:48.140 So Trump said, no, that's that's not the deal we're going to keep going. It's a bad deal. It's
00:05:53.820 one sided. No more. So the Trump administration withdrew from the deal in May and issued their
00:05:58.560 requirements for a new deal, which basically demand that Iran completely change their military
00:06:04.700 posture in the Middle East. And if Iran turns them down, which it seems like they probably are,
00:06:09.500 then the U.S. is going to reenact serious sanctions, which will come back into play August 6th.
00:06:15.360 These are sanctions on trade, banking, etc., which are going to seriously hurt Iran's already strained
00:06:20.960 economy. So that's that for now. I'm not sure. I mean, sure, is Iran a threat? Yes. But do they
00:06:28.600 actually have the power to annihilate the United States? No, absolutely not. I'm sure there will
00:06:35.020 be further updates to come. Interesting diplomatic days in which we're living, if you can even call
00:06:41.180 them that. OK, now for something a little bit closer to home. You guys all know at this point,
00:06:47.720 at least something about the Russian collusion story deal narrative thing that's been going on.
00:06:53.380 And if you haven't been following every single detail, that's OK. Honestly, neither have I. Who
00:06:59.880 the heck has the time when there are other things going on that actually affect your everyday life?
00:07:06.260 Nevertheless, I try to follow at least as much of this as I can so I can relay an overview to you
00:07:11.920 guys so you can feel adequately in the know. There's really no reason for you to know every detail.
00:07:16.680 But the latest in this drama series is the heavily redacted release of the Carter Page FISA warrant.
00:07:22.240 OK, what in the world does all of that mean? Who is Carter Page? What is a FISA? And why do you need
00:07:28.660 a warrant? So if the FBI wants to surveil someone, they have to get a warrant. They can get a warrant
00:07:35.180 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a.k.a. FISA, at a FISA court. They are at the FISA court.
00:07:42.640 They present their case to the FISA court, say, hey, here's why we think we should surveil this
00:07:47.760 person. And the FISA court will decide whether or not the surveillance is justified. And the case
00:07:51.980 of Carter Page, the court's answer was, yeah, sure, go for it. Carter Page was a low level aide on the
00:07:57.740 Trump campaign, and it was thought that he might be in cahoots with Russian intelligence to help Trump
00:08:02.840 win the election. The FBI became interested in Page when they began investigating into Russian collusion
00:08:09.840 with Trump's campaign in 2016, when they found out that another campaign aide of Trump, George
00:08:15.580 Papadopoulos, had been offered by Russian agents dirt on Hillary Clinton. A few months later, the FBI
00:08:21.680 started paying attention to Page, or they shifted their attention to Page, and the FISA court granted
00:08:26.700 the FBI's request to surveil him. But the question has been in all of this, on what grounds did the FBI
00:08:34.240 and the FISA court agree that Page should be surveilled? What evidence did they have to support Page
00:08:40.180 was working with the Russians? Was the warrant granted based on the infamous and unverified dossier
00:08:46.760 that we all know about? A Democratic-funded dossier by Christopher Steele that alleged a number of
00:08:51.560 things related to Trump and Russia, most infamously that he had Russian hookers pee on him, aka the
00:08:59.200 golden showers. I'm sure you've heard about all of that. So Republicans and Trump have wanted to know
00:09:04.640 if the FBI is violating Page's rights by surveilling him based on extremely thin partisan unverified
00:09:11.580 evidence. If so, that would be a problem because we already know that members of the FBI, like Peter
00:09:17.280 Strzok, we talked about him last week, have shown serious bias towards the president. So a lot of
00:09:22.460 people on the right are, and maybe rightfully so, worried that this is all part of a partisan scheme
00:09:28.100 to tear down Trump. But all along, the FBI and the DOJ have claimed that they have had ample reason
00:09:37.260 to believe Page is actually guilty, might even be a Russian agent. But in order to know whether or not
00:09:44.240 the FBI and the DOJ is actually telling the truth, we need to see the warrant granted to the FBI by the
00:09:50.420 FISA court that would demonstrate the court's reasoning. And that's what was released over the
00:09:56.080 weekend. So the version we saw of the warrant was heavily redacted, which means that a bunch of
00:10:01.380 parts were taken out because of the classified nature of some of the material. But we still
00:10:06.080 learned of some of the motivations behind the warrant, some being the key word. What we learned
00:10:12.260 is that the salacious P-tape dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign and compiled by spy Christopher
00:10:19.180 Steele was used at least in a large part to obtain the warrant. But what we are still not sure
00:10:25.980 about, and this is what makes the big difference, I think, and why there's still such a debate,
00:10:30.280 is what other facts about Page were used to corroborate the dossier. If there were other
00:10:36.780 facts that made Page a justified target of surveillance, then fine. But if not, if the
00:10:42.660 dossier was basically all they used and they didn't verify the facts using some other legitimate
00:10:47.720 source, then yeah, that's a problem. And it would make it look like the whole thing is politicized.
00:10:53.360 But so much of the information is redacted that we don't really know. The FBI believed Page,
00:10:59.480 like I said, to be a Russian spy, and so they wanted him surveilled. There isn't much evidence
00:11:04.100 that that was a partisan attack. But the fact that the salacious Steele dossier was so central
00:11:10.820 to obtaining the warrant might give some confidence to the people on the right that say that this is
00:11:17.580 all a deep state plan to stop Trump. OK, now moving on. So to our cultural stories, the unearthing of
00:11:26.700 the tweets to ruin people's lives. So director James Gunn was fired from Gardens of the Galaxy 3.
00:11:31.940 I have never seen the first and second one. Didn't even know what those were. Whatever.
00:11:35.640 After some offensive tweets from a long from a really long time ago, like 10 years ago or something
00:11:41.820 like that, I think, resurfaced. And yeah, they were really bad jokes, really, really in bad taste
00:11:48.260 jokes about pedophilia, rape, 9-11, the Holocaust, like things that you don't really need to be joking
00:11:53.200 about. Really bad. Gunn was and is a really big critic of Donald Trump and of Republicans. So he was
00:12:00.440 targeted by conservatives for these really distasteful jokes. People on Twitter asking, you know,
00:12:05.780 why does this guy still have a job? There's obviously a double standard here. And I get it
00:12:11.020 that that's a kind of a legitimate question. Like Roseanne got fired for what was perceived
00:12:16.120 as a racist tweet immediately. But people on the left don't get fired for saying disgusting things.
00:12:22.420 Why the double standard? Plus, there's just so much hypocrisy from people on the left who fancy
00:12:28.840 themselves so much more virtuous than conservatives, when in reality, some of them are immoral and
00:12:34.860 disgusting. So I don't exactly blame those on the right who went after a gun in order to point out
00:12:40.480 the blatant double standard that exists in Hollywood and in media and his own hypocrisy. But I do worry
00:12:47.460 still that this is a battle that ultimately no side wins, that really just everyone gets hurt.
00:12:52.340 A 22-year-old pitcher for the Brewers, Josh Hader, he's been in the spotlight for tweets that he put out
00:12:59.620 when he tweeted things about white powers and the derogatory towards gay people.
00:13:04.240 Now, these are kind of different than Gunn's tweets because Gunn was presumably kidding and
00:13:09.960 Hader probably wasn't. But the question still stands. Do we not only judge people personally
00:13:17.700 by what they said in the past, but do we seek to also ruin them professionally? And see, I just I
00:13:23.340 don't know. On the one hand, people should understand by now that what you put on the internet lives
00:13:28.380 forever. However, even I, knowing this fact, have probably said things I regret and maybe
00:13:34.360 now would correct. It happens. We learn, we grow, we move on. We don't always delete every single
00:13:41.040 tweet or post that we regret. I think it's the posture now that matters a little bit more than
00:13:46.520 things that we said 10, 15 years ago. And even though everyone has the right to judge someone's
00:13:51.700 character as they see fit, I don't see what good it does to seek to ruin someone's entire life based
00:13:59.660 on something they tweeted 10 years ago. Would any of us like to be held accountable for what we said
00:14:05.000 10 years ago? No. I just think that this creates a dangerous trend. People aren't going to even talk
00:14:11.700 anymore for fear of the Twitter mob ruining their entire careers. I've kind of experienced something
00:14:18.380 like this. I've almost been the Twitter mob. A few months ago, there was this guy who was on the
00:14:24.460 board at Georgetown, followed me on Twitter. He always was tweeting me this rude and just really
00:14:30.640 mean stuff. And I saw that he tweeted other conservative women, similar stuff, just always
00:14:37.060 extremely biting, like spiteful, but whatever. It's the internet. Like if you can't stand the heat,
00:14:42.980 get out of the kitchen. I'm used to it at this point. But one day he told me, he said something
00:14:48.260 like wishing you a me too moment. Maybe then you won't be so heartless or something like that, which
00:14:52.800 is an absurd thing to say. I have never been heartless towards victims of sexual assault.
00:14:57.920 He just assumed that because I'm a Republican that I am. And even if I was heartless, wishing me a me
00:15:04.100 too moment or that I would get sexually assaulted doesn't really help anything. So I screenshot it.
00:15:09.900 I tweeted it and it ended up really blowing up. People contacted Georgetown, his employer,
00:15:16.060 and he actually got fired and was asked to resign from the board. And even though that guy was in
00:15:23.480 the wrong, even though a grown man should never say that to a woman, I still really regret how I
00:15:30.800 handle that situation. I think about it all the time. I think about how that guy's life was ruined
00:15:36.480 for saying something stupid on the internet. And even though he shouldn't have said it, he shouldn't
00:15:40.900 have said it. And maybe, maybe it even the fact that he got fired, stopped him or the fact that
00:15:46.640 he deleted his Twitter, stopped him from harassing other people. Maybe he was a serious creep who
00:15:52.040 needed to be fired from his job. Who knows? I still, I still think that I could have handled that
00:15:57.540 situation with more grace rather than getting caught up in the moment and letting my anger get the best
00:16:02.200 of me. Um, so that said, I worry about this trend. Should people be more careful about what they say
00:16:08.420 on the internet? Yes. Is it ever appropriate to make pedophile jokes and jokes about raping your
00:16:15.440 friend or tweeting out white power? No, not in my opinion. So maybe in these two cases, their
00:16:24.180 punishment is somewhat justifiable, but I worry about when the Twitter mob is completely subjective
00:16:30.300 in their judgment yet still gets their way. Like when Laura Ingram called David Hogg a bully and
00:16:36.280 advertisers pulled their ads from her show, she probably shouldn't have called David Hogg a bully,
00:16:41.540 but she realized that and she apologized. Was this worth losing advertisers over and people trying to
00:16:47.800 get her fired? No. So what happens when the liberal Twitter mob is mad at me, for example, because one
00:16:55.360 time I tweeted that Jesus is the only way to heaven, making me seem like a bigot or wanting me to look
00:17:00.820 like a bigot. Are they going to be successful in ruining my future career? Are they going to spend
00:17:05.320 something I said 10 years ago, something else I said 10 years ago to make it look like I'm racist?
00:17:10.180 Are they going to win? See, this just doesn't indwell for people. I don't have really a solution or all
00:17:18.060 of the answers because maybe some people deserve to be called out, but I'm just not sure this back and
00:17:23.140 forth of who can dig up the worst, oldest tweets and try to ruin the other person's life more serves
00:17:28.960 any good purpose. OK, next thing in crazy culture news, Judge Jeanine. She is a Fox News host, as most
00:17:38.760 of you know, who has been highly supportive of President Trump. I know I'm kind of late to discuss
00:17:44.480 this. It happened last week, but this is the first time I'm doing a podcast since it happened. So we're
00:17:48.760 going to talk about it. She went on The View last week and she got in a tip with Whoopi Goldberg,
00:17:54.080 who most of you know, loathes Donald Trump. And here's what happened.
00:17:59.140 Listen, I don't have Trump derangement. Let me tell you what I have. I have a lot of I'm tired
00:18:04.460 of people starting a conversation with Mexicans or liars and rapists. I'm tired of people starting a
00:18:12.500 conversation about this country. Listen, I'm 62 years old. There have been a lot of people in office
00:18:19.240 that I didn't agree with. But I have never, ever seen anything like this. I've never seen anybody
00:18:26.100 whip up such hate. I've never seen anybody be so dismissive. And I and clearly you don't watch the
00:18:35.800 show. So you don't know that I don't suffer from that. What I suffer from is the inability to figure
00:18:42.180 out how to fix this. That's my issue. But one of the things that you talk about a lot and I'm curious
00:18:47.480 about it is the deep state. How long has the deep state been there and who's running it?
00:18:52.580 Well, I want to answer your question because you get your opening statement, which is how horrible.
00:18:59.900 It is that Donald Trump is talking about. You said, you know, you said that when it was going to be here
00:19:09.140 or end up murdering the children of American citizens. You know what's hard? What's hard when
00:19:13.180 the president of the United States whips up people to beat the hell out of people. Say goodbye.
00:19:20.240 But apparently that was not all. They went backstage and more went down. Here's what
00:19:28.140 Judge Jeanine told Sean Hannity last week about what occurred backstage.
00:19:33.300 It didn't end there, Sean. What happened was I realized the segment was over. I got up and I just
00:19:42.520 started. I left the stage going downstairs and I saw her and I had to walk by her. And I said,
00:19:49.480 Whoopi, I fought for victims my whole life, something like that. And she started cursing at me.
00:19:55.340 What did she say? Tell everybody what she said without saying it.
00:19:58.400 She said, blank you, F you, F you. And I said, Whoopi, did you just say F you? I mean,
00:20:06.800 I was, she was right here. And then she said, get the F out of this building. And she yelled at me
00:20:13.460 again, get the F out of this building. And I, I felt like I was less than dirt.
00:20:19.460 Now, since then, Whoopi has said that Judge Jeanine is lying, that this isn't what happened,
00:20:24.360 that Judge Jeanine actually called everyone backstage a name that she couldn't even repeat
00:20:28.900 on television, that Judge Jeanine was rude to Anna Navarro, who was taking the place of Joy
00:20:34.160 Behar that day. And then it was actually Judge Jeanine that was causing all of this conflict
00:20:39.540 and this chaos. Who's telling the truth? We'll never know for sure. Uh, it's a game of she said,
00:20:45.820 she said at this point, all we know is what we heard in the clip from the view. And from that clip,
00:20:50.680 it definitely seems like Whoopi was the one who was losing her temper. She wouldn't even let Judge
00:20:56.040 Jeanine talk, who was a guest on the show. So she invited her on the show and then wouldn't even
00:21:01.000 let her defend her own position. And Whoopi did admit to telling Judge Jeanine to get the F out of
00:21:06.540 there. And she didn't even feel bad about that. And see, here's the thing. Here's, here's my problem
00:21:12.160 with all of this. It's not just that they got into a fight on television, whatever that's going to
00:21:16.560 happen. People like drama. Um, what bothers me is that people on the left don't feel badly about
00:21:23.040 being mean to Trump supporters or conservatives because it's justified to them because they lump
00:21:28.440 all Trump supporters and conservatives into the same category. And that is racist Nazis. It's okay
00:21:34.640 to be mean to racists. It's acceptable to be mean to a Nazi. No one cares about civility or politeness
00:21:40.600 toward a racist Nazi. In fact, the less civil and polite you are, the braver you are. You stood up to
00:21:46.320 a Nazi. You're a hero. You're sticking up for justice against these evil racist bigots. Uh,
00:21:51.900 when you consider your political opponents to be morally depraved for their political positions,
00:21:57.180 you automatically become a vigilante, a virtuous, noble person above reproach in every regard.
00:22:03.020 And when you fancy the other side, the heartless enemy and yourself a vigilante,
00:22:07.460 all forms of fighting are justified and are even expected. The more harsh, the more crass,
00:22:13.340 the more mean you are towards the enemy, the more courageous and heroic you'll be.
00:22:17.680 The problem with that is that's not an accurate portrayal of reality. Your political opponents
00:22:23.140 are not morally bad because of their political opinions. They might be bad people, but their
00:22:28.780 politics don't necessarily indicate that they're completely immoral human beings. So painting the
00:22:33.920 other side categorically as a villain and you as a hero, is it real? It's not true. And because it's
00:22:40.920 not an accurate reading on reality, it only exacerbates division. So when everyone starts
00:22:46.900 living in their own imaginary bubbles of reality with other people who share the same imaginary
00:22:53.520 interpretation of reality, you have echo chambers and you have tribes and you have identity politics.
00:22:59.920 All of this is made by and made worse by this crazy idea that if you disagree with me politically,
00:23:07.500 you're not just wrong, you're a bad person. This is how Whoopi Goldberg feels. This is how the woman
00:23:15.440 who threw out Sarah Sanders at the Red Hen restaurant felt. That is how these miscreants who show up at
00:23:22.000 Mitch McConnell's house feel. This is how Michelle Wolf feels when she compares ICE to ISIS. This is how
00:23:27.960 all of Hollywood feels when they make horrific jokes and comments about Trump and his supporters.
00:23:33.220 Their incivility is justified because everyone who disagrees with them is trash and it's okay to kick
00:23:39.100 around trash. So that's that's my take on that and what is creating this crazy culture of tribalism that
00:23:47.080 we all seem to be getting sucked into and it's not good. Okay, I have time for one more thing and I've
00:23:55.460 already addressed this in a blog post, but I just wanted to touch on it here just in case some of you
00:24:00.540 didn't read read my post that I posted a couple days ago and that is the subject of this viral blog post by
00:24:08.360 the transformed wife that went around last week. I was kind of late to even hearing about this, but the blog
00:24:15.340 post was titled men want debt-free virgins without tattoos. Wow, like that's a lot. That's a really bold
00:24:22.040 claim. First of all, let me just say that this random blog post I've never even heard of this blog before this
00:24:28.120 ran a blog post didn't provide any data or any evidence that men actually want this. So we don't
00:24:33.600 actually know if this is true or not, but this woman whoever she is decided yes, I'm going to make
00:24:39.240 this statement and I'm just going to say it's true because I want it to be true. I have heard various
00:24:44.700 Christian takes on this. Some people are down with it. They're like yeah, what's wrong with having
00:24:49.200 standards? Other people are half okay with it. Other people like me just are not down with it at all.
00:24:56.260 And here's why I am not okay with this article. And you guys know me. I am not one of those
00:25:02.380 Christians who's like, oh yeah, do whatever you want to do because grace. I'm not that type of
00:25:08.000 person. So you can just get that out of your head if you're thinking that I am trying to promote some
00:25:13.320 kind of free for all for sin because of grace. The reason I have a problem with this article is
00:25:19.240 because being a debt-free virgin without tattoos does not make you holy. It does not make you godly.
00:25:26.260 It does not make you righteous. So if these are your qualifications for a spouse, I would tell you
00:25:33.700 to look a little deeper. There are Jesus-loving women who had sex at one point, who have sleeves
00:25:40.240 of tattoos and who have $100,000 of student loan debt. And there are women who have never had sex,
00:25:46.420 who don't have tattoos, and who are debt-free and yet are not sold out to Jesus. So if as a Christian
00:25:52.960 man who is following Jesus, which I guess that would go together, you would choose the second
00:25:58.440 woman, the woman who looks perfect on paper but doesn't have a heart for Jesus, then I would say
00:26:03.740 that that's a problem. Being a tattoo or debt or sex-free doesn't make someone holy. Jesus does.
00:26:11.360 The person who is a believer yet has debt, has had sex, and has tattoos is clothed in a righteousness
00:26:16.800 and a purity that the person with none of those things yet is not a believer does not have.
00:26:22.220 Therefore, being tattoo or debt or sex-free doesn't make someone more worthy than anyone else,
00:26:28.260 at least not in the eyes of God. And I'm not sure if any of us, people who are dead in our sins apart
00:26:35.400 from Christ, have the right to view someone differently than God sees them. Now, I'm not saying it's bad to
00:26:41.460 have preferences and things you're attracted to. Sure, maybe you're completely unattractive to
00:26:45.460 tattoos. That's fine. Maybe you just prefer not to deal with debt. Okay, maybe you would really like
00:26:53.160 it if the girl or guy you married is a virgin. Whatever. I guess those are all acceptable
00:26:57.620 preferences to have. Sure. But they are not priorities for the person who is following Jesus.
00:27:02.540 The only priority a Christian should have is that they find someone who is seeking Christ right now.
00:27:07.800 And every other preference is subject to that priority. Yes, the Bible calls us to sexual purity
00:27:14.900 and financial responsibility. It does. But these things aren't good because they make us more
00:27:19.840 attractive to a potential spouse. They're good because they give God glory. So it is not our goal
00:27:26.000 to be pure or financially responsible out of debt or not get tattoos just because we want to make
00:27:31.780 ourselves attractive to someone else. We are obedient because it gives glory to God. And I will also
00:27:37.640 just note that the New Testament doesn't say anything about not getting tattoos. And so a lot of people
00:27:42.920 after I posted this blog post were really confused about that. They wanted me to clarify. No, most
00:27:48.300 Christians are actually okay with tattoos. And while God does call you to sexual purity and financial
00:27:56.580 responsibility, again, the focus there is not on making yourself more appealing or alleviating the burden
00:28:03.460 for a future spouse. The goal there is to actually glorify God. So my concern with a blog post like
00:28:09.560 this and with people who are promoting ideas like this is that you're going to have all of these
00:28:13.760 insecure girls who are running around trying to be something just for a guy who may or may not exist.
00:28:20.240 By the way, I think it's important to know that God doesn't guarantee that you're ever going to get
00:28:23.700 married. So why would you waste your time trying to create a persona that's going to be attractive
00:28:28.740 to someone that may not exist when you could spend your time seeking after Jesus first, which is what
00:28:33.320 we are called to do. Okay, that's it for today. I hope that you guys have an excellent Tuesday and I will
00:28:41.860 see you here on Thursday. Thanks for tuning in.