Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 256 ｜ George Floyd and the Burning of Minneapolis

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. I hope everyone has had a great week. Today

00:00:15.360 we are going to talk about George Floyd and what's going on in Minneapolis. We're also

00:00:20.420 going to talk about mob justice in general. We will also, if we have time, talk about the

00:00:26.800 lead singer for Hawk Nelson and his deconversion story and why we're seeing this trend of

00:00:34.040 deconversion. We will start with this very heavy topic of George Floyd. Let's talk about George

00:00:41.060 Floyd. He is the man that you've probably heard about on social media, especially if you are on

00:00:46.260 Twitter. I saw a video a few days ago that showed a police officer putting his knee on this man's

00:00:54.540 neck who was under arrest. So he had his handcuffs behind his back. He was laying down on the

00:00:59.920 pavement and this officer had his knee on his neck and George Floyd was saying, I can't breathe

00:01:06.400 officer. I can't breathe. So I'm going to show you just a few seconds of that clip.

00:01:09.720 Shut up. 1.00

00:01:15.620 They kill me. They kill me, man. 1.00

00:01:22.400 Bro, with your feet on his neck, man. You get out. 1.00

00:01:24.740 His nose is bleeding. Like, come on now.

00:01:26.760 That's right right there. With his feet on his neck.

00:01:28.500 Look at his nose.

00:01:29.340 You just see your knee on his neck.

00:01:30.540 You got your piece. 0.91

00:01:31.440 Right on his neck, man. 0.90

00:01:33.100 I cannot breathe.

00:01:33.940 You're having a wrist.

00:01:34.420 I cannot breathe.

00:01:35.760 So that should break your heart. It broke my heart. I didn't know at that point when

00:01:44.600 I originally saw the video that it was going to become what it is now and cause the reaction

00:01:51.700 that it has. And the reaction that we have seen of anger and of wanting justice for him

00:01:59.460 is, of course, justified. I can't even imagine any kind of second angle or second side of the story

00:02:07.240 that would excuse that kind of behavior. For nine minutes, apparently, this officer had his knee

00:02:13.300 on George Floyd's neck, and then George Floyd later died in custody. Now, the police report

00:02:19.760 said that he was resisting arrest, but he wasn't being arrested for a violent crime. He was

00:02:24.780 apparently being arrested for being in the middle of forgery. He was accused of forgery. So a

00:02:30.740 nonviolent crime for a police officer to pin this guy down to the point to where he couldn't breathe

00:02:36.000 and died later in custody. That is not justice. So, of course, people have a right and should be

00:02:43.060 angry about this. We should be upset about this. As a human being, I am upset about this because

00:02:49.560 this isn't just happening to him. This has happened to others. This could happen to anyone. As a

00:02:56.220 conservative, I'm upset about this. I believe in limited government. I don't believe in disproportionate

00:03:01.960 police force or police power. As a Christian, I'm upset about this because this human being,

00:03:08.240 like all human beings, was made in the image of God. This person has a soul. That means he's living

00:03:13.160 forever. That means he is eternally valuable. This person is a brother, a friend, a son. This is a

00:03:21.440 human being. We should care about police brutality. We should care about situations like this, whether

00:03:27.160 they are caught on tape or not. Now, this particular situation was caught on tape. And of course, the

00:03:33.600 reaction was intense. The reaction on social media calling for the conviction of the police officer who

00:03:42.200 pinned this guy down to conviction of murder. That was a popular thing that was going on. We do know

00:03:49.840 that the four police officers that were involved in the arrest of Floyd were fired the next day. But of

00:03:56.540 course, we don't believe that that's enough. President Trump, he ordered the DOJ to investigate

00:04:02.220 into this to make sure, you know, to see everything that's going on. And so it may very well be that this

00:04:08.040 police officer is charged with murder. I'm not going to pretend like I know exactly how that's

00:04:14.900 going to go down or even exactly how it should go down. We all do have the right of due process.

00:04:20.240 And I'm not necessarily interested in giving this police officer the benefit of the doubt.

00:04:24.860 Like I said, I don't see any other angle or any other side of the story that could possibly excuse

00:04:29.480 this kind of brutality. But of course, I am not the judge and jury. So I don't know how it's going to

00:04:35.280 go down. And I can't say authoritatively how I think it's going to go down. Now, we are in a very

00:04:41.160 or how I think it should go down. We are in a very similar situation to where we were a few weeks ago

00:04:48.720 when we were talking about Ahmaud Arbery. And you can go back and you can listen to that episode. And I

00:04:53.840 won't rehash everything that I said there. But it is a similar situation in that we see a video

00:05:00.560 that looks condemning, that is condemning as far as we know. We see a video that causes outrage and

00:05:08.660 that causes justifiable anger. And then it becomes a hashtag, then it becomes a trend. And then we hear

00:05:17.100 certain storylines that say, OK, Ahmaud Arbery was just on a jog and he was racially profiled. Of course,

00:05:24.820 here in the case of George Floyd, we are also hearing that this is a classic case of racialized

00:05:32.320 police brutality. And I'm going to say probably the most controversial thing that I could say,

00:05:38.120 the thing that I said then and the thing that I will say now, even as I am agreeing that this looks

00:05:44.760 to be a miscarriage of justice, this looks to be abuse, just like in the case of Ahmaud Arbery,

00:05:51.020 that was murder. It looks to be murder. It was wrong no matter what their reasoning was to chase

00:05:56.220 this guy down. I don't care if they said that it was a citizen's arrest or vigilantism. It was wrong.

00:06:02.320 And they are right to be imprisoned right now. In the same way, while I think that this police

00:06:08.480 officer was certainly in the wrong, and I believe from what I can tell that he will be charged with

00:06:14.400 murder, I don't know if this was racially motivated. And again, that's the most scandalous

00:06:18.860 and controversial thing that I could say. And I don't say that again, because I want to give the

00:06:24.160 benefit of the doubt to the perpetrator. I don't have a dog in this fight in that I'm not going to

00:06:30.920 automatically defend the police officer because that's typically what conservatives do. I'm not

00:06:35.880 interested in that. I am trying. I desire some kind of humility for me to say that I just don't know.

00:06:42.540 I don't know what the motivations are. And that is not me denying the existence of racism ever in

00:06:48.740 all places. It is me simply saying that in these cases, which do seem and are cases of injustice,

00:06:56.220 I don't know if they were racially motivated. But of course, that is the storyline that is going on

00:07:03.760 on social media right now. And it is that idea, which people are free to hold that idea. They're free

00:07:09.580 to talk about that idea. They're free to assert that idea. That's that's totally fine. But it is

00:07:15.300 that idea that is perpetuating the riots that are going on in Minneapolis. Now, there were peaceful

00:07:21.880 protesters in Minneapolis about this. They had a lot of signs that said, I can't breathe, which is

00:07:26.400 exactly what George Floyd said before he died as he was being pinned down on the pavement. There were a

00:07:32.340 lot of peaceful protesters. They had their masks on and that's fine. That's a beautiful part of living in

00:07:37.240 the United States of America is that you are free to do that. And you should be free to do that without

00:07:41.880 punishment. By the way, there were some stories of peaceful protesters being tear gassed. I don't know

00:07:48.800 if that's true. I didn't see videos of that. But of course, if that is true, I don't believe that

00:07:53.180 that's right. People should have a right to peacefully protest without being cracked down upon by the

00:07:59.120 police. But those peaceful protests turned into very violent and mob like riots. So I'm going to show

00:08:06.840 you some clips that demonstrate that.

00:08:36.840 You got it!

00:08:37.840 You got it!

00:08:41.840 Get out of here! 0.99

00:08:43.840 out of here so that is that's terrifying that's terrifying and i said something about it

00:09:10.120 on twitter i said you know peaceful protests can be very effective and they are constitutional

00:09:15.360 and they are good i i believe in people exercising their right to protest uh peacefully however that

00:09:23.400 is not a protest i mean you saw mobs of people looting a target you saw them and maybe if you

00:09:30.640 didn't see that in the clip you saw them um trying to break into atms and break into banks

00:09:36.340 burning down auto parts stores burning down a dollar general there was a clip of a small

00:09:42.880 mob of young men attacking an elderly woman who was trying to defend herself in in a wheelchair

00:09:49.980 and so this has moved beyond it seems like it appears crying out for justice which is something

00:09:57.680 that i think that we have a right to do and that we should do that we should be angry about instances

00:10:02.920 of injustice but you're gonna have to tell me how looting a target correlates to justice for this

00:10:10.820 poor man george floyd you're going to have to tell me what it actually accomplishes now when i said that

00:10:17.880 on twitter when i talked about that peaceful protests are effective and this looting and things

00:10:22.680 are not i got a lot of angry people saying well obviously peaceful protests are not effective and

00:10:30.460 you are just uh you're just a karen because you don't want these people to to loot in target you

00:10:37.100 care more about this billion dollar business target than you care about the the death of of george floyd

00:10:43.760 the death of george floyd was also unconstitutional and this is again this crazy binary that twitter

00:10:51.760 always comes up with that exists in the social media realm is that you are not allowed to hold two

00:10:58.380 thoughts at the same time the fact of the matter is is that george floyd's death was a tragedy it

00:11:03.500 wasn't injustice it can also be true at the exact same time that there are better ways to cry out for

00:11:10.140 justice than looting a target than breaking in to banks than assaulting people who get in your way can

00:11:17.120 we not just agree on that all of us who care about justice and who care about truth and who care about

00:11:23.000 holding people to account and care about people's lives black white whatever can't we all agree that 0.87

00:11:29.300 both of those things are wrong and now it's true that murder is worse than looting yes that's

00:11:35.760 absolutely true but for the people who are saying that oh you just care about target they're a billion

00:11:40.660 dollar company you'll be fine okay let's think through this just a little bit so we're in the

00:11:45.140 middle of a pandemic well hopefully we're on the tail end of a pandemic and we know that we have lost

00:11:49.620 uh roughly a hundred thousand people to the coronavirus which is just devastating but on top

00:11:55.520 of that we have other losses we have employment losses and so there are millions and millions of

00:12:00.560 people that are freshly unemployed there are millions of people now who are in uh experiencing

00:12:06.360 economic calamity and i would suppose that that is true in minneapolis in the same way that it's true

00:12:11.840 in other places people who have jobs are hanging on to their jobs for dear life speak for dear life

00:12:17.280 because they want to be able to feed their family just like everyone else does these riots this uh

00:12:23.380 burning down of various buildings uh these these instances of looting and theft this is only going to

00:12:33.300 exacerbate those problems these economic problems i don't care about target as a company but target

00:12:39.640 employs people all of these businesses the auto parts stores that were burned down uh the banks that

00:12:45.900 were looted and uh almost destroyed all of these different stores and small businesses that were

00:12:51.380 destroyed by these mobs they represent people and so when you are looting target you're not hurting

00:12:58.060 the billion dollar company of target like target is going to be fine what they're going to do is

00:13:02.480 they're going to raise prices on everyone else to make up for the losses in their minneapolis store

00:13:07.020 and so we're all going to be hurt by that but i don't even care about that i care about all the

00:13:11.060 employees of target all the employees of all of these small businesses in minneapolis who don't

00:13:16.160 have a job on monday like who who aren't going to be able to feed their families because they no longer

00:13:21.960 have that paycheck coming in i mean this affects this affects people this affects families this is

00:13:28.540 not justice this is not justice all you're doing is hurting the people that you say that you're

00:13:33.680 defending there are people of all different races that work at target that work at these small

00:13:38.580 businesses and now their livelihoods have been destroyed because these mobs and these riots do

00:13:46.240 not correlate with uh with trying to get justice for george floyd the fact of the matter is is that

00:13:53.440 i didn't see anyone and maybe they do exist i didn't see anyone saying yeah that police officer

00:13:58.000 was in the right that was fine it's okay i didn't see anyone saying that everyone that i saw was

00:14:03.280 equally outraged that hey this is disproportionate police force this is wrong and a lot of people

00:14:08.980 saying this could possibly uh be racist this is a problem i saw everyone crying out for justice and

00:14:15.500 accountability and he was fired and i i agree that there needs to be an investigation there and there

00:14:21.600 needs to be a longer process to make sure that justice is truly served and that george floyd's blood

00:14:28.540 is truly avenged but still these riots broke out that ended up having nothing to do with this poor

00:14:36.640 man's life i mean you are going to have to show me you're going to have to show me some evidence

00:14:42.580 uh that proves that these kinds of riots have any kind of correlation uh to the death of this man

00:14:49.280 and are uh giving us anything productive in the way of justice i just have a hard time believing that

00:14:56.260 the motivations for all of the people that are going out there and stealing alcohol that are

00:15:00.620 stealing items from target and these small businesses are are truly looking out for justice

00:15:06.820 injustice doesn't uh doesn't perpetuate justice injustice begets injustice it just keeps going and

00:15:15.600 in situations like this i think that we believe that in order to be virtuous we have to show a high

00:15:21.480 amount of emotion we have to latch on to the mainstream narrative we can't criticize any

00:15:26.160 movement we can't criticize any reaction we can't criticize any narrative or else we are not

00:15:30.860 sufficiently righteous but as christians we know that we are not beholden to the mob we're not

00:15:36.160 beholden to mob justice that's for sure we're not beholden to the mainstream narrative we have to be

00:15:42.540 able to have the humility to say i'm against injustice too i'm against racism where it exists i'm against

00:15:47.880 brutality and abuse and murder and i am for people fighting for these things and sticking up for these

00:15:53.480 things and sticking up for the lead of least of these i also care about truth i also want to know

00:15:58.580 uh all the facts of of every case not just this case but every case i'm also going to question uh what

00:16:05.380 the media tells me what the mainstream narratives are i'm not going to lash latch on to hashtags just

00:16:10.460 because they're available i'm not going to post something or share a post just because doing so

00:16:15.220 shows how virtuous i am i am going to be thoughtful about this i am going to be biblical about this i'm going to be

00:16:21.120 careful about this i am going to show compassion and love without sacrificing truth i think that is

00:16:28.280 what christians are called to in the midst of this and i'm not saying that we can't call this racism if

00:16:34.480 it is racism of course i i think we should i think we should call out real instances of racism but again

00:16:40.100 these assumptions these jumping to conclusions these uh this inability to say hey riots and looting and

00:16:49.940 thievery and violence and abuse in the name of justice for someone who is killed by the police

00:16:58.800 is also wrong like that's also not biblical justice mob justice isn't justice that's something that we've

00:17:05.700 talked about before and it's still true uh godly virtue is not measured by emotionalism it is not

00:17:12.920 measured by how quickly you lash latch on to a hashtag or latch on to a trending post or latch on to a

00:17:21.380 mainstream narrative that is that is not what godliness looks like that is not what justice looks

00:17:28.040 like so we have to be able to simultaneously hold these thoughts in our head no matter what people tell

00:17:34.640 us no matter what people say hey you must just not care enough if you are criticizing the people that

00:17:39.780 are looting no of course you do of course you do you can care about both things and you can still

00:17:44.600 believe that murder is worse but you can also say that these riots are counterproductive and that they

00:17:49.800 affect the real lives of people they affect the lives mostly of poor people they affect the lives of 0.64

00:17:55.320 minorities they affect the lives of all the people who are already hurting in need of help this doesn't

00:18:00.680 help anyone and i look at all of these people that are writing and i'm not angry at them i'm sad for

00:18:06.980 them they too are also people made in the image of god and i have no doubt that a lot of them feel

00:18:12.460 true pain and they feel um a lot of anger about this and they too want justice i believe that a lot of

00:18:20.160 their motives are um are are real i'm not saying that they're right but a lot of their motives and and

00:18:26.880 maybe looting and doing all of the things acting out of anger i believe that those emotions are real

00:18:31.760 maybe not all of them but a lot of them and i feel for them i do i feel for them i mean we have a media

00:18:38.520 who tells us that this kind of stuff that this kind of police brutality happens on a daily basis against

00:18:43.880 black people we have a media and blue check marks on twitter who say that black people are murdered by

00:18:49.920 white people on a daily basis i hate reading statistics and conversations like this and so i always 0.54

00:18:56.440 have them and i and i don't want to because it seems callous you can look it up yourself but that

00:19:01.840 doesn't bear out those kinds of statements are not true they're they're not factual that these things

00:19:08.400 are happening on a daily basis now one racialized instance or incident is one too many i completely

00:19:14.820 agree with that but it is simply not factual the statistics do not bear out the narrative uh that

00:19:21.980 white on black crime is happening on a daily basis i had someone tweet at me that white people are

00:19:27.060 murdering black people on a daily basis if i were hearing that as a black person i would be really 0.96

00:19:31.860 terrified as well but the facts are that's just not true that's that's just not true and we can still 0.97

00:19:38.620 care about truth and care about justice and care about the murder of a man we can still care about

00:19:45.760 police brutality we can still care about riots and uh what it looks like to peacefully protest and fight

00:19:53.080 for justice you can still care about all of these things at the same time but unfortunately uh we live

00:19:58.580 in a very reactionary culture where again our virtue is measured by our quickness of reaction and the

00:20:04.440 emotionalism of our reaction and that was also true in this uh in this case of a woman named amy cooper who

00:20:13.320 was walking her dog in a part of central park where you were supposed to have your dog on a leash

00:20:18.180 because people are bird watching and so if you've got like she had a cocker spaniel running around in

00:20:23.520 this part of uh central park then you're going to scare the birds away and these people who are

00:20:27.780 bird watching aren't going to be happy with you so she had her dog off of the leash and uh this man and

00:20:34.220 this is pertinent to the conversation he was a black man he approached her and he said hey ma'am can you 0.50

00:20:39.200 please put your dog on the leash and she said no she didn't want to put her dog on the leash and so

00:20:45.060 he called the dog over gave the dog treats she started freaking out he started recording she called

00:20:50.080 the police and said i have an african-american man who is um who is approaching me threatening me and my

00:20:56.140 dog and this whole time she's holding i don't want to show the video because i don't think that this

00:21:01.320 situation needs to be uh i don't think the video needs to be shared anymore than it already has but

00:21:06.560 the whole time she's holding the cocker spaniel on the poor i'm watching this and the poor cocker 1.00

00:21:11.320 spaniel is like is choking because she's holding the holding the collar so hard and so this goes 1.00

00:21:18.420 viral because it's posted on the internet she is uh threatening she's basically threatening this guy 0.97

00:21:24.460 knowing that hey the police might show disproportionate force to you if i tell them

00:21:28.240 that you're an african-american which i think that we can very clearly and confidently say that that

00:21:33.020 was a racist thing to do i don't think that we need to wonder whether or not that was racist i mean

00:21:37.680 we see the racist comments on tape and this ends up going viral now what happens to her her name wasn't 1.00

00:21:44.940 shared in the original tweet well she gets doxxed by people so that means that her personal information

00:21:51.920 all of the all of her information about her employment her address her phone number were put uh were put

00:21:59.660 on the internet for everyone to see which ended up with her getting fired from her job and her losing 0.92

00:22:07.800 her dog so this is what mob justice looks like it doesn't actually correlate to any real or substantial

00:22:16.740 view of justice and truth so this person obviously was racist she obviously freaked out she shouldn't

00:22:24.840 have done what she did and she should have calmed down and the guy bird watching didn't do anything

00:22:30.220 wrong in the video he was very calm all we have really is his side to the story he actually went

00:22:35.680 on cnn and was like okay the reaction to this was way too much like this lady got death threats i was 1.00

00:22:41.780 just trying to kind of like show what happened so she ends up getting death threats she ends up getting

00:22:45.860 fired from her job she ends up uh she ends up losing her dog because of mob justice and doxxing 0.99

00:22:52.640 online no one ever said asked hey has she been racist at any other point in her life we don't

00:22:58.440 know if she was good at her job we don't know you know the rest of her history we do know that 0.99

00:23:03.340 apparently she is a lifelong democrat that she is a big obama supporter and hillary clinton supporter so

00:23:09.520 that part of the media narrative was taken out from under them but of course it still perpetuated this

00:23:16.600 idea that these kinds of instances are happening on a daily basis and hey maybe they maybe they are

00:23:22.140 in some cases this was just one that was recorded but this this lady ended up losing everything 1.00

00:23:28.740 because of a really bad and what we as christians know was a really sinful moment now i'm not sure

00:23:35.700 that that represents any sort of real justice like i don't know if that kind of reaction and that kind

00:23:42.480 of outcome has any real grounding and truth and virtue but when you have a culture that is morally

00:23:50.920 relative like when you have a culture that is not dictated uh by godly morality or the biblical rule

00:23:58.020 of law or any kind of objective standard of morality um your definition of justice is defined by whatever

00:24:06.320 the mob says and that has really dire outcomes for people's lives like you can put people on blast

00:24:13.600 you can call them out and you can criticize them but i'm not sure that things got any better that any

00:24:20.720 good was produced from this lady losing everything that she has from a really bad moment like would you

00:24:27.800 like to be recorded in your very worst moment and lose everything based on that moment probably not

00:24:34.280 and again this lady was totally in the wrong like she definitely needs some kind of counseling or 1.00

00:24:40.640 something like that she had a very disproportionate reaction to this situation however i'm not sure

00:24:46.540 that the outcome that mob justice was the best conclusion to what was a bad situation to begin

00:24:54.080 with i'm not sure that justice was advanced at all okay so if all of this has you feeling heavy-hearted

00:25:01.260 the way that it has me feeling i just look at all of the contention that's going on in the world

00:25:05.920 between races between political parties between different factions within christianity between

00:25:11.360 uh christians and secularists and it makes it makes me sad it makes me sad not because i want my

00:25:18.240 side to be right because ultimately as christians we know that christianity god's kingdom god's church

00:25:24.760 will prevail so i'm not concerned about that i am concerned about people that are living with so much

00:25:31.020 fear and hate in their heart on both sides of the aisle that they are wasting their lives in in

00:25:37.900 misery and what we actually need the only thing that can bring us together is the gospel that is

00:25:43.980 ultimately the only thing that can bring us together that's the only thing that can reconcile the races 0.97

00:25:48.660 that's the only thing that can stop class warfare or race warfare or gender warfare or any of the

00:25:56.580 contention and the conflict that we are dealing with today it's the only thing that can turn a heart

00:26:01.940 of stone to a heart of flesh i read the storybook bible every morning to my daughter and one of the

00:26:07.420 themes in it is having a heart that is soft towards god right now what we are viewing throughout the

00:26:13.340 country both sides of the aisle and different sections of the population is a hard heart toward god

00:26:19.000 which concludes in a hard heart toward other people which causes the kind of conflict that we are

00:26:25.160 seeing today and an inability or unwillingness to defer to the word of god for morality for virtue for

00:26:33.280 uh for justice and so you have a lot of confused people a lot of confused hateful fearful people who

00:26:42.200 are caught up in these conflicts that just they don't just divide our country but they divide uh they

00:26:48.920 divide your own heart they fracture your own heart they're not good individually they're not good

00:26:53.720 collectively they're not good in communities they're not good for society as a whole it's not good for

00:26:58.960 the church and if we want any hope of reconciliation any hope of restoration then we should be looking to

00:27:05.840 the gospel ourselves even those of us who know the gospel we need to refresh our minds with the gospel

00:27:10.680 on a daily basis we need to live out the gospel as the hands and feet of jesus taking care of the

00:27:16.060 least of these loving our neighbors as ourselves pursuing real justice pursuing real mercy pursuing

00:27:22.740 uh real truth and we need to be sharing the gospel to other people we have to trust that the good news

00:27:29.440 today is is still as good as it was two thousand years ago when jesus died and rose again it is still

00:27:36.260 just as powerful today it is powerful enough to change hearts to change families to change communities to

00:27:42.100 have a generational impact and so yes we can care about current events obviously we talk about

00:27:48.220 politics we talk about different issues on this podcast that i think actually uh you know require

00:27:53.740 action and may even require activism but at the end of the day and underneath it all above it all

00:27:59.820 what transcends it all is the gospel of jesus christ knowing that that is the only thing that can change

00:28:06.300 hearts and in order to change society in order to change systems you have to be able to change the

00:28:12.020 heart and there's nothing there's nothing that can change the human heart um other than the gospel

00:28:17.460 of jesus christ so i want to read the scripture because it reminds us what our responsibility is

00:28:23.340 as christians and it gave me a lot of good urgency but it also gave me a lot of comfort and that is first

00:28:30.700 peter four seven through well we'll see how long i want to go once i start reading uh we'll start with

00:28:36.820 verse seven the end of all things is at hand therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of

00:28:43.140 your prayers above all keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins show

00:28:49.400 hospitality to one another without grumbling as each has received a gift use it to serve one another

00:28:55.180 as good stewards of god's varied grace whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of god whoever serves

00:29:02.120 as one who serves by the strength that god supplies in order that in everything god may be glorified

00:29:08.280 through jesus christ to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever amen beloved do not be surprised at

00:29:16.260 the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you

00:29:21.780 but rejoice in so far as you share christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory

00:29:28.720 is revealed if you are insulted for the name of christ you are blessed because the spirit of glory

00:29:33.860 and of god rests upon you but let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler

00:29:42.980 yet if anyone suffers as a christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorify god in that name so i think

00:29:50.680 that's a good reminder of us that if we are to suffer if we're to suffer injustice if we are to suffer

00:29:58.000 condemnation if we are to suffer persecution it should not be for wrongdoing but for doing good

00:30:02.900 and obeying the lord uh sharing the gospel that is what we should focus on continue continuing to obey

00:30:10.360 the lord uh because the call to obedience the call to holiness the call to love and to faith and to hope

00:30:16.140 is unconditional no matter what's going on around us so let us cling to that when we feel like the rest

00:30:22.380 of the world is burning down those of you who are in my women's book club we're reading screw tape 1.00

00:30:26.720 letters and a lot of us have talked about how that passage in screw tape letters that just hits us

00:30:31.200 so hard is that um when screw tape the uncle demon is talking to his nephew demon and he's saying our

00:30:38.260 situation is no more dire than when a patient that's a human being that the demon is trying to torment

00:30:44.820 than when a patient looks around sees no reason to have faith in god and still persists in his faith

00:30:51.740 and that is what christians are called to do and i do want to talk that does lead me into the

00:30:57.100 conversation about uh this trend of deconversion and the lead singer of hawk nelson and i'll talk i'll

00:31:03.380 talk about it for just a second but i'm also going to talk about it more on monday i'm talking to costi

00:31:08.520 hin he's the author of god greed and the prosperity gospel it's going to be an awesome conversation we're

00:31:13.060 going to talk about deconversion more on monday but i'll just say this briefly that there are so

00:31:18.280 many christians that do not do what the screw tape letters describes we look around and we see all

00:31:23.940 these reasons to question god we see tragedy we see injustice we see suffering we see oppression

00:31:29.000 and we say there's no way that a good and powerful god to can allow this to happen and we say well

00:31:34.540 it must not be true it must not be true we trust our reasoning we trust our faculties worst of all

00:31:39.960 we trust our emotions and we say okay well god must not be real at least not the god of the bible

00:31:46.080 and as i read this deconversion testimony from the lead singer of hawk nelson these were some of the

00:31:52.380 questions that he had how can a good and powerful god allow something you know allow all of these

00:31:58.020 bad things to happen what about these confusing parts in the bible that seem you know oppressive

00:32:03.440 towards women or seem like they contradict one another and once he decided that he was going to

00:32:10.000 agree with his doubts he then felt like the word of god wasn't trustworthy at all and that the rug

00:32:16.020 had been pulled out from underneath him and that he no longer had any kind of faith to believe in

00:32:20.800 and this is very similar to the deconversion story of the hill song singer that happened almost a year

00:32:27.980 ago now and we also saw the deconversion story of josh harris the guy who wrote the christian book

00:32:34.540 i kissed dating goodbye he also came out and said you know what i am just not a christian anymore and

00:32:40.120 here's the comment we could go into so many different things with with the trend of deconversion

00:32:45.340 and kind of doubt as virtue that trend that's going on right now but the one thing that i see so often

00:32:52.240 and that really breaks my heart is that pastors it seems like are are failing these people that these

00:32:58.960 people the questions that they're asking that they're presenting as groundbreaking that why do bad

00:33:04.320 thing seemingly happen to good people or how why do natural disasters happen or what about the verses

00:33:10.140 about women not being able to teach in the church and how do we reconcile that with you know women

00:33:14.700 being made in the image of god these are very basic theological questions that theologians have been

00:33:21.720 asking answering wrestling with preaching about for literally thousands of years so all of these

00:33:28.080 deconversion stories they present questions and seeming quadris as if they are novel they're not novel

00:33:34.520 millions of christians everywhere have asked these same questions the difference is instead of resting on my

00:33:42.300 reasoning instead of agreeing with my doubts instead of viewing myself as um sovereign over truth or like

00:33:52.640 the arbiter of truth i go into the word of god i have to start with the idea that god is good that god

00:34:00.460 is in control and that the word of god is true and then i have to go into the word of god to answer the

00:34:06.300 questions and the seeming quadris that i've created in my head about my faith i have to go into the faith

00:34:13.100 i have to go into christianity i have to ask people who are smarter than me i have to read people who know more

00:34:18.720 than i do i have to talk to people who have more experience than i do whose faith has been tested

00:34:23.720 more than mine has and who has ended up on the other side we have to go into the faith when we have these

00:34:29.840 questions not step out of them and go into our doubts because we're always going to get confused

00:34:34.700 we're always going to get confused and another theme that i see in these deconversion stories is that

00:34:39.560 they want to retain parts of christianity but not christianity itself so in this story he says you know

00:34:45.820 i want love joy peace and all of that stuff and eventually maybe it'll lead me to god but don't

00:34:51.140 you see that if you want to pursue the love and joy and peace and satisfaction and purpose

00:34:55.360 all of these things that christ offers through his gospel plus eternal life and the greatest gift

00:35:01.000 reconciliation to a holy and wrathful and merciful god that you have to add jesus into that you have to

00:35:09.960 pursue jesus for those things that you don't find happiness truly you don't find satisfaction

00:35:15.420 and purpose and true joy and unconditional love outside of christ you don't you don't find those

00:35:21.000 things you find replacements for them you find pleasure you might find what feels like freedom

00:35:26.320 you might find what feels like temporary happiness but all of the things that you are looking for

00:35:32.240 are are found in the bread of life and living water and of course satan exactly like he told eve is going

00:35:39.920 to convince you that did god really say did god really say that you have to be a christian to have

00:35:46.200 those things did god really say that you have to follow him that you have to follow jesus in order

00:35:53.220 to be joyful no surely not just take a bite of this fruit and you'll have everything that you need and

00:35:59.160 you'll even be like god being wiser and being more um being more open-minded you'll be more tolerant

00:36:05.960 this way and you'll get all the things that christianity offers too but you just don't have

00:36:09.940 to follow that whole archaic religion with its confusing bible and unfortunately people buy into

00:36:15.480 that and it just shows me how a lot of pastors obviously not all maybe not even most but a lot

00:36:22.520 of pastors have have failed its congregants and i started this thought earlier and now i'm going to

00:36:27.680 finish it uh these basic theological questions that these people who are converting away from christianity

00:36:34.080 are asking should be answered in the pulpit like these are basic theological questions i think too

00:36:40.280 many pastors don't preach theology they don't preach theology why does bad thing why do bad things happen

00:36:45.660 to good people there are no good people why did natural disasters happen how did the fall happen why did

00:36:51.460 god create human beings with the capacity to sin all of these questions have been answered by people

00:36:57.300 who are way smarter than we are and pastors unfortunately aren't teaching this kind of thing

00:37:03.300 they're afraid to go into controversy they're afraid to hurt people's feelings they're afraid

00:37:07.480 to offend people and so every weekend they get up and say jesus exists to make you feel good about

00:37:12.460 yourself and if you follow jesus then you'll finally have the confidence that you need to go on and live

00:37:17.800 your life self-love well there's a reason why the number one denomination that is uh dwindling is

00:37:25.180 mainline protestantism so that is uh the the liberal theological churches the churches who basically

00:37:32.300 preach universalism that yes sure jesus might be one way and we preach some parts of the bible but the

00:37:37.940 bible isn't inerrant it's not necessarily authoritative we pick and choose we're cafeteria christians we pick

00:37:43.080 and choose the the parts of the bible that we want and you just kind of live your life and god just wants

00:37:47.280 you to be whoever you want to be we don't really worry about sin and holiness and the wrath of god

00:37:51.340 and all that stuff we just follow jesus for what we decide is the tolerant jesus or hipster jesus is what

00:37:57.940 i call it well there's a reason why those churches are dwindling much faster than conservative evangelical

00:38:04.200 churches because why go to church every sunday when you're just going to get agnosticism like go to

00:38:09.300 brunch on sunday you don't have to go to church if you are just going to be fed the same thing that you're

00:38:14.200 going to read a cosmo like why go to church why dedicate any part of your week to something that

00:38:20.920 is not offering you anything different than what the rest of the world is teaching you so my challenge

00:38:25.940 i'm not a pastor and i don't know everything about pastoring churches but my encouragement or just i

00:38:32.300 guess just desire and hope is for more pastors to be willing to offend for the gospel to be willing

00:38:40.120 to answer these tough theological questions because you've got people that have been in your churches

00:38:44.300 for 20 years that are leaving your doors not knowing basic theological questions and walking

00:38:48.840 out of their faith because they think their doubts are the end-all be-all and you've got that combined

00:38:54.100 with uh with the virtue of this age which is not knowing which is agnosticism we are taught to believe

00:39:01.840 in modern day culture that it is uh virtuous and good and righteous and even kind of holy to not know

00:39:08.440 things to not know who god really is to not really know theology to just kind of be vaguely spiritual

00:39:15.160 and to go on with your life and to kind of just whatever live and let live like that has now become

00:39:21.780 the brand of righteousness doubt as virtue as i've heard it said and as i call it combine that trend

00:39:29.660 with pastors not preaching theology not preaching the gospel afraid to preach about sin afraid to talk

00:39:36.860 about these very fundamental theological questions and you've got a lot of congregants walking away

00:39:41.780 because they don't find anything different in the church than they find in the rest of the world and

00:39:45.000 quite frankly they would rather do something else on sunday mornings than go to church and listen to

00:39:49.320 something that they could read in any kind of secular new age book uh so those are my thoughts about

00:39:55.340 deconversion in general now i pray for him i i pray that he would be restored i pray that he would be

00:40:01.560 brought back i pray that he would be brought to his knees that the eyes of his heart would be

00:40:05.500 enlightened to the hope to which he has been called i hope he understands jesus i hope he understands

00:40:10.380 the gospel for the first time i pray that for all of the people who have latched on to this trend of

00:40:15.500 deconversion that they would know the god who made them and that they would um realize that you don't

00:40:23.180 get purpose joy happiness all the things that you're longing for outside of your creator outside of

00:40:29.680 the gospel of jesus christ okay another long episode we will be back here on monday with costi hen and i

00:40:35.640 will talk to you guys then

00:40:36.520 you

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - May 29, 2020

Ep 256 ｜ George Floyd and the Burning of Minneapolis

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