Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 287 ｜ Christians and the Age of Tyranny

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. I hope everyone has had a wonderful week so

00:00:15.200 far. Some of you guys are sending your kids back to school and I know you're super excited

00:00:19.360 about that. If you are in an area where in fact your kids can go to school in person,

00:00:24.840 maybe some of you are starting online classes. No matter what the school year looks like for you

00:00:31.640 guys, maybe you are excited about and relieved about the fact that there is going to be some

00:00:36.580 sense of normalcy. There's going to be some routine. It's crazy just how much human beings need that.

00:00:43.200 We need seasons. We need something to start. We need something to end. The monotonous nature of

00:00:51.040 everything being the same day after day, it really wears on us. It wears on our mind. It

00:00:55.300 wears on our soul. God made us to enjoy seasons even though everything is the same pretty much

00:01:00.420 year after year. Things change month by month and day by day and it's really the rhythm of life that

00:01:06.140 human beings depend on to flourish. I hope that the start of this school year for a lot of you

00:01:10.880 just brings a reprieve from the just a sameness that we have all been experiencing. Of course,

00:01:19.660 we're not complaining if sameness and things being boring is our biggest complaint right now. We

00:01:26.820 are very privileged. We are very blessed. There are unfortunately a lot of people who have been

00:01:32.460 hit hard by everything that's happened over the past few months and they are truly destitute. They

00:01:37.420 are despairing. They are looking for some kind of hope, some kind of financial relief right now. And so

00:01:43.740 I certainly don't want to make light of people who are going through a serious trial right now

00:01:48.640 by saying that being bored is the worst thing that can happen to you. Not at all. I'm simply pointing

00:01:53.680 out that the rhythms of life are good and hopefully this kind of kickstarts that rhythm again. I'm so

00:01:59.380 tired of hearing people say the new normal and while that might be true in some ways, maybe that things

00:02:06.620 will never go back exactly to how they were before this whole pandemic happened. I just haven't gotten

00:02:12.160 myself to accept the fact that things are going to be this weird, this distanced, this closed down and

00:02:20.360 this monotonous forever. I just will not accept that. I am not going to keep saying new normal,

00:02:25.780 new normal, new normal. I'm just not. I'm just not. And maybe I'm just in denial about it, but I guess

00:02:30.660 time will tell. So, okay. It's Wednesday. It's August 12th, which means that yesterday my book came out.

00:02:36.480 I'm not going to spend too much time talking about this because if you have listened to Relatable for

00:02:40.840 a long time, you've heard me talk about this book for a while. So I won't bore you in talking too much

00:02:47.940 about it again, but you might be new to this podcast because maybe you heard about my book and you're

00:02:51.360 like, okay, I'll check Allie out. My book is You're Not Enough and That's Okay. Escaping the Toxic 0.68

00:02:56.200 Culture of Self-Love came out August 11th and you guys have just been so wonderful. I have said so many

00:03:03.740 times and it's true that I have the best listeners, the best audience, the best followers in the world,

00:03:08.680 the smartest, the kindest, the most thoughtful and insightful and wisest audience in the entire

00:03:13.540 world. And as I've said, this has been a group project. This book has been a group project with

00:03:18.840 the people who have been listening to me, following me, messaging me, and emailing me for the past few

00:03:23.920 years and helping me shape my views and giving me wisdom and insight on this particular subject and

00:03:28.580 what the Bible has to say about this toxic culture of self-love and this lie that you and I are

00:03:34.960 sufficient in and of ourselves. So this book is a compilation of a lot of the things that I've

00:03:39.240 learned from you guys, things that I've learned from scripture, things that I've observed and analyzed

00:03:43.600 in the culture. And my desire is that it encourages people, especially women, to dismantle a lot of the 1.00

00:03:51.480 myths that maybe unknowingly we have believed because we've been fed them by people that we trusted,

00:03:57.980 the lie that you have to love yourself before you love other people, the lie that you're perfect the

00:04:02.540 way you are, the lie that you determine your own truth, all lies that sound very liberating,

00:04:07.620 very comforting, very good. But actually, as I talk about in the book, weigh you down, burden you

00:04:13.060 with an obligation and with a responsibility, with a weight that you and I were not meant to carry.

00:04:18.520 So this book is about good news. It's not about saying, hey, you should feel inadequate. You should

00:04:23.260 feel insufficient. You should just wallow into your insecurity. Not at all. It's actually the

00:04:27.560 opposite of that. It's telling us where to find our value, where to find our purpose,

00:04:32.160 where to find that satisfaction and fulfillment that we are trying and so desperately failing to

00:04:37.800 find inside ourselves. I actually heard a statistic that my pastor said on Sunday that 55% of Generation

00:04:43.700 Z reports bad mental health. So they report anxiety, depression, loneliness, isolation,

00:04:51.580 purposelessness. That has not been true as much for the previous generations. The millennial generation,

00:04:58.720 my generation has dealt with that a lot. And while, of course, mental health issues and instability in

00:05:05.420 that way has always existed, it has become more and more prevalent, more and more commonplace, the more

00:05:12.800 the generations go on. So the younger Americans are, the more likely they are to report bad mental health.

00:05:18.680 And yet we've had decades upon decades of this psychology saying that high self-esteem is the

00:05:24.380 answer to all of our problems. It's the answer to all of society's issues. It's the answer to crime.

00:05:29.680 It's the answer to low academic performance. It's the answer to whatever ails society or whatever ails

00:05:37.260 someone. Personally, we've been told for decades now that the only thing that needs to change in your

00:05:42.360 life is that you need to love yourself more and that you need higher self-esteem. And now people are

00:05:47.480 capitalizing off of that industry that is so prevalent, especially on places like Instagram,

00:05:52.640 and it's even evangelized to the church. And the church has taken on some of these lies.

00:05:57.800 So rather than getting our rest, our satisfaction, our peace, our purpose, our truth, our value from

00:06:03.520 Jesus Christ, we are getting those things from ourselves. And we are finding that we end up at a

00:06:10.760 dead end of disappointment when we realize, wow, we're not enough. But God actually made us flawed.

00:06:15.860 He actually made us finite. He actually made us to depend on Him. And it is through realizing that

00:06:21.800 and living that out, as I explain in my book, that we find such relief. We find such joy.

00:06:31.420 And so I really encourage you, if that sounds like something that you would get something out of,

00:06:37.220 I really encourage you to purchase this book. You can go to AllieBethStuckey.com

00:06:41.240 slash book and you can see all the places you can find it. If you've got independent bookstores

00:06:45.860 close by, I encourage you to go there. That will really help your independent bookstore if they're

00:06:52.680 open. And if they're not, you can ask the bookstore to order the book. You can go to your local Barnes

00:06:57.480 and Noble. You can hopefully go to your local public library. You can buy a few of these books and then

00:07:03.200 donate them to your local public library. That would be really helpful as well. So thank you guys so much.

00:07:10.400 Thank you to everyone who has supported the book, who is reading the book, who has already reviewed

00:07:14.840 the book. If you have already read the book and you love it, I would love for you to leave a five-star

00:07:19.420 review on Amazon. That helps me a lot. If of course you love the book, thank you guys so much for your

00:07:25.000 prayers and for your support and for your wisdom and just for everything that you have offered in

00:07:30.720 helping shape this book and helping the launch be successful. And it has been successful so far. So

00:07:35.760 thank you so much. Okay. Today, let's actually get into the podcast. We are going to talk about a few

00:07:40.900 things. We're going to talk about John MacArthur, his Grace Community Church in LA, and other churches

00:07:47.400 in California that are defying the local government, what that looks like, and kind of what the biblical

00:07:51.800 support and the historical support for that kind of decision is. And then we are going to talk about

00:07:57.080 just standing strong amidst persecution. We are going to talk about the demonstrators, the protesters

00:08:04.240 in Hong Kong versus what's happening in Portland and Seattle. And we're going to look at a little

00:08:11.060 bit of the contrast of that. And we're going to talk about the consequences of all of these things

00:08:15.780 and leave you with a little bit of practical advice and encouragement. Okay. Let's talk about first

00:08:20.580 what's happening in California. So this is from The Federalist. This is a quote.

00:08:25.380 The city of Los Angeles has issued a cease and desist letter to Grace Community Church and its pastor,

00:08:30.820 John MacArthur, for continuing indoor worship services, threatening a daily $1,000 fine or

00:08:36.940 MacArthur's arrest. According to a press release, the church's legal counsel released on Wednesday.

00:08:43.320 On July 13th, California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered churches in 30 counties, including Los Angeles

00:08:49.620 County, where MacArthur's church is located, to stop all indoor services indefinitely. In response,

00:08:55.860 MacArthur and his church continued meeting and issued a public statement declaring their freedom,

00:09:00.820 to worship, end quote. And then he goes on to say,

00:09:05.080 it has never been the prerogative of civil government to order, modify, forbid, or mandate

00:09:10.300 worship, said MacArthur and the church's elder board in their statement. Freedom of worship is a command

00:09:15.560 of God, not a privilege granted by the state. So churches are not allowed to meet together in

00:09:22.100 California inside right now due to coronavirus restrictions. Most churches are getting around

00:09:28.240 that by congregating in smaller groups or outside, but Grace Community Church is not the only church

00:09:33.860 that is meeting indoors. There are a lot of pastors who have led their congregation to say

00:09:38.380 basically the same thing that Grace Community Church is saying now, and they were even saying it before.

00:09:43.360 They were saying it a couple months ago, and they simply continued to meet together. The mayor of L.A.,

00:09:48.660 Eric Garcetti has restricted home gatherings of all kinds, too, by threatening to cut off water and

00:09:57.300 power to people whom he found broke the rules and had too many people in their home. So you can't have

00:10:02.760 some people in your home, but you have to be under a certain limit, according to Mayor Eric Garcetti.

00:10:08.820 And if you break that rule, he said a couple months ago, we will cut off your water and power. Now,

00:10:13.800 let's think about that for a second. In the summer in California, cutting off someone's air conditioning,

00:10:19.820 cutting off their water, the things that they need to survive. You don't know if they have elderly

00:10:23.740 people in their home. You don't know if they have babies in their home. You don't know what kind of

00:10:27.520 situation they're in. You don't know why they had a certain number of people in their house. And

00:10:31.760 honestly, it's really none of Eric Garcetti's business. I mean, this is some evil fascist stuff

00:10:37.100 right here. And this is not the fascism, ironically, that, quote, Antifa, who call themselves

00:10:42.880 anti-fascists and yet employ fascist tactics themselves. This is not the fascism that they

00:10:49.780 are protesting, unfortunately. And yet this is fascist. This is completely totalitarian absurdity.

00:10:56.740 This is evil. This is what I call a tiny tyrant. So I did an episode a few months ago called Tiny 0.81

00:11:03.940 Tyrants Everywhere, where we talked about how some of the leaders in this country are just getting drunk

00:11:09.860 on power and controlling people's lives, just down to the minute details of their day-to-day

00:11:15.700 schedule. Eric Garcetti, de Blasio in New York, Lori Lightfoot in Chicago, Gavin Newsom in California,

00:11:23.320 like Governor Cuomo in New York. These are petty tyrants. These are tiny tyrants. Back to the main

00:11:29.200 story. Churches are deemed non-essential in California, while liquor stores and abortion clinics

00:11:34.360 stay open. They never had to close. John MacArthur's church abided by those restrictions.

00:11:39.640 for a few months and have recently decided to defy them for a few reasons that they've articulated.

00:11:45.300 One, the virus actually hasn't ended up being as deadly as they originally thought. Originally,

00:11:50.220 they, we just didn't know how deadly it was going to be. I certainly was one of those people who said,

00:11:56.160 yes, we just need to do what they say because they were telling us this is like a 20%

00:12:00.660 fatality rate. And I thought, okay, I am loving my neighbor and I am thinking about the most vulnerable

00:12:07.260 by basically no questions asked, just doing what they say. And of course, to some degree,

00:12:13.320 it is true to be respectful of other people. But at the very beginning, I didn't see the threat to

00:12:19.940 some of these draconian and arbitrary restrictions. I'll just admit that. And John MacArthur's church

00:12:26.220 has said they just didn't know the deadliness of the virus in the beginning. Another reason they

00:12:31.020 cited is because of the clear discrimination of the policies against the churches and the

00:12:35.460 unconstitutionality of the government putting special restrictions on churches that they're not

00:12:40.720 putting on other places of business. Now, this is a little bit probably, I don't know if they would

00:12:47.100 describe it like this. And I want to describe it how they would fairly describe it. I think this is a

00:12:52.140 little bit of an honest evolution for Grace Community Church. A few months ago, I did an

00:12:58.180 episode titled Should Christians Resist Tyranny, where I made a lot of the arguments that they are 0.65

00:13:03.680 making now and other churches are making now in light of Romans 13, that the Bible is clear that we are

00:13:09.620 to submit to governing authorities. First Peter 2 makes this clear also, and not just to nice governing

00:13:15.780 authorities, not just to governing authorities that we agree with on everything, but our lives are

00:13:20.180 supposed to be marked by submission, except, and there is a big except here, and not all Christians

00:13:26.280 agree with this, but I think history and the Bible make this clear, except when submission to the

00:13:31.140 earthly authority means defiance to God. So there are many examples of this in the Bible. A few of them

00:13:37.060 are the Hebrew midwives in Egypt refusing to kill the baby boys, even though they were ordered to by the

00:13:42.220 Egyptian government. Daniel continued to pray when he was ordered not to. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

00:13:48.500 refused to bow down to the idol of Nebuchadnezzar. Jesus and the apostles obviously proclaimed the

00:13:54.020 gospel even when they were ordered not to. Church history, Protestant history especially, is colored

00:14:00.600 red with the blood of Christians defying tyrants. We see the Protestant Reformation resisted not just

00:14:08.500 spiritual tyranny, but governmental tyranny. Scottish reformer John Knox said resistance to tyranny

00:14:15.180 is obedience to God. We are obligated to resist tyranny when, when tyranny is attempting to subvert

00:14:24.080 God's authority in our lives. That was a huge reason for the revolution, for the American

00:14:29.580 revolution, for independence from Britain, freedom of faith, freedom of religion, despite what the 1619

00:14:36.420 project says about the revolution actually being about slavery. It wasn't. It was for freedom from

00:14:41.540 tyranny, including religious tyranny. Now, just as a side note, the lead essayist of the 1619 project,

00:14:48.580 Nicole Hannah-Jones, has come out and said repeatedly, look, the 1619 project wasn't meant

00:14:54.260 to be history. It wasn't meant to be fact. It was narrative. So just know that. If you're someone

00:14:58.880 who listens to the 1619 project that is now, by the way, being used as curriculum in a lot of public

00:15:04.200 schools across the country, it's not fact. It apparently was never meant to be fact. The problem

00:15:09.340 is it was displayed as that. It was advertised as real history, not just a counter narrative,

00:15:16.400 not just, quote, journalism, what she calls it, but it was portrayed as this is real history.

00:15:22.580 Everything you have believed is a myth, and this is what actually happened. She's admitted this is not

00:15:27.320 what actually happened. And the New York Times even had to say, OK, we made a mistake by saying the

00:15:31.800 revolution was about slavery because it wasn't actually about slavery. So just know that. I'm not

00:15:36.580 saying don't listen to it, maybe, if you're listening to it critically, but just realize that

00:15:40.980 the author, that New York Times has said that they were just challenging a narrative with their own

00:15:45.820 personal perspectives and with their own ideology. It's not historical fact. I would encourage you to

00:15:50.720 learn historical fact rather than someone's biased narrative that is trying to push a particular

00:15:56.000 political agenda if you are interested in learning about history. It's OK to learn about different

00:16:03.320 people's perspectives, too, but we all have to make sure that we have an underlying knowledge of the

00:16:08.140 facts, right? OK, so not only do Christians, especially Protestant, and remember, that's

00:16:13.940 protestant. So this is a part of our name. This is a part of our history, especially Protestant

00:16:19.160 Christians, have a long history of resisting tyrants for the glory of God. But obviously,

00:16:24.980 Americans specifically do as well. And in America, thankfully, for now, the law of our land is the

00:16:31.980 U.S. Constitution. That is the document under which all laws and all government authorities must

00:16:40.380 submit. That is what they must abide by. The Constitution limits the government's power,

00:16:47.740 not the people's power. So the Constitution is about what the government can and cannot do,

00:16:52.520 not what the people can and cannot do. Of course, it recognizes our God-given rights and the things

00:16:58.100 that we have a right to exercise, but it is limiting the power of the government to restrict those

00:17:05.260 rights. Our government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people. We are supposed

00:17:12.160 to be the governing authorities, and the people in office are simply supposed to be the ones

00:17:17.200 representing us and the things we want. Now, we know that there are a lot of corrupt systems out

00:17:21.780 there, and that's not exactly what happens, unfortunately. But the First Amendment to the

00:17:26.120 Constitution says that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or

00:17:31.620 prohibiting the free exercise thereof. No government leader is supposed to be able to defy that. So the

00:17:39.740 leaders of California, and especially in L.A., are the ones who are rebelling against the law of the

00:17:46.560 land right now. Now, all of that said, I do not believe that any of these things excuse Christians

00:17:53.140 to just willy-nilly disobey our authorities, even when they are in the wrong in some things. The spirit

00:18:01.180 of Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 is that of respect. It's that of deference. We should make every effort

00:18:07.000 to be obedient. We should be respectful. We should be kind. We should make our case clear. And many churches

00:18:14.340 have decided that they're not going to meet in person in light of Romans 13. They're going to

00:18:20.080 be more strategic in meeting, but trying to obey earthly authorities as much as they can. So they're

00:18:25.980 meeting in small groups at home. They're meeting outside. And that may be well and good. But there

00:18:30.520 is certainly something different in corporate worship that the Christian needs. Grace Community Church,

00:18:37.000 other churches, they recognize that necessity. People are isolated right now. Some people are destitute.

00:18:43.240 They're struggling with loneliness. They're struggling with sin. They're struggling with

00:18:47.120 addiction, with sorrow, with mourning over the loss of a loved one, just in need of spiritual

00:18:53.700 nourishment, of spiritual refreshment, and in-person teaching. And the church needs to be gathered for

00:18:59.760 that. We know that Hebrews 10, 24 through 25 says,

00:19:03.900 and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together,

00:19:09.900 as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another in all the more as you see the day

00:19:15.300 drawing near. I think that we do all see the day drawing near. And this passage couldn't be more

00:19:21.740 clear. Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another in all

00:19:27.300 the more as you see the day drawing near. Now, that doesn't mean if you listen to the end of Friday's

00:19:32.560 podcast, I talked about this with Joel Webbin, who is a pastor in San Diego, that yes, of course,

00:19:38.100 there are some threats in which you say, okay, as the shepherd of my flock, as the leader of this

00:19:43.060 congregation, I am going to make sure that we don't meet in this building on Sunday. If you know 1.00

00:19:47.360 there's going to be a hurricane there, if you know there's going to be some terrible thing that's

00:19:51.740 going to happen that is going to be detrimental for your church, then of course, there are ways that

00:19:57.260 you can protect your flock and still make sure they're getting the spiritual nourishment that you

00:20:00.600 need. But at some point, when it comes to this virus, and you look at the statistics,

00:20:05.340 and you look at the likelihood of hospitalization, you look at the likelihood of death, you assess

00:20:10.960 that risk, you look at the regulations, you look at the restrictions, you look at the needs of your

00:20:15.520 church, at some point, a leader of a church has to make the decision to make sure that they are

00:20:20.860 obeying Hebrews 10, 24 through 25. And right now, as Grace Community Church has decided, as a lot of

00:20:28.520 other church has decided as well, the church needs to be gathered. If you are vulnerable, of course,

00:20:35.640 stay home. But while virtual worship is good, while it's a luxury we all get to enjoy, it's not the same

00:20:44.180 as meeting in person. I've seen, I've heard a lot of people say, the church is not a building. It's not

00:20:48.980 a building. It's okay if we're not meeting together. That's true to an extent. Again, this goes back to the

00:20:53.860 conversation I had on Friday. That is true. The church is not a building. That is absolutely true.

00:20:58.840 But it is a body, and it is an assembly. Now, the church scattered. Is the church gathered? Again,

00:21:05.900 as I heard Joel Webbin say on Friday. And so, yes, the church, when it goes out to be the hands and feet

00:21:13.060 of Jesus, is still the church, absolutely. The entire church is universal. Our brothers and sisters in

00:21:19.260 Christ around the world are part of the church. They're part of the body of Christ, even though

00:21:24.680 we don't assemble together. But part of the church and part of what we do as Christians is gathered

00:21:30.840 together. And that is essential. God created us for the need for corporate learning, for corporate

00:21:37.620 worship. And so Grace Community Church and other churches have seen the necessity of that, and they

00:21:42.800 are deciding that they are going to defy tyrants. The defiance that we see of tyranny throughout

00:21:49.320 Christian history and in the Bible is not just resistance for the sake of resistance, not just

00:21:56.320 defiance for the sake of defiance, but in order to obey God, they defy. In order to obey and glorify

00:22:04.980 God, they resist. So we're not talking about a bunch of people that are pushing for anarchy. That's not

00:22:12.320 what we're talking about in Christianity. We're not talking about a bunch of people who are just

00:22:16.740 going out and resisting for the sake of resisting. We are talking about specific defiance, specifically

00:22:23.120 so that we can obey God, who is the supreme and transcendent authority for the glory of God. So

00:22:31.520 that's why I think that there are very specific instances in which Christians are called to defy

00:22:37.340 tyrants. But in general, we are called to submission. In general, we are called to respect. In

00:22:43.840 general, we are called to deference. And the great thing is, in America, we still have means by which

00:22:49.700 we can hold tyrants to account. And that means that they're not true. They might act like tyrants,

00:22:55.820 but thankfully, we don't have full tyranny yet. We do have our voices still do matter. We do get to

00:23:02.880 speak up. We do get to say something. We do get to push back. We do have recourse. We do have means by

00:23:08.000 which we can vote these people out, hopefully, and hold them accountable. And so I do believe

00:23:14.140 Christians also can exercise that as much as we possibly can while still being respectful and while

00:23:20.300 still trying to obey earthly authorities, as long as that does not mean that we are disobeying God.

00:23:28.480 That is our highest authority. That is who we are always bowing down to. Okay, before I transition,

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00:25:13.300 protect your data today. Okay, so in talking about defiance of tyrants in the name of glorifying God,

00:25:21.260 we in America aren't very used to doing that. But that has been what has characterized Christianity

00:25:27.080 for basically the entirety of its existence, and not just in the past, but also in the present.

00:25:34.820 What we have to realize is that religious freedom is not the norm. Tyranny is the norm. Persecution for

00:25:41.220 Christians is the norm. If you look at any report, you will find that the number one most persecuted 1.00

00:25:46.440 religion in the world, not necessarily in America, but in the world is Christianity. So the norm for 0.87

00:25:53.380 Christians throughout history and still today in places outside of America and especially outside

00:25:57.820 of the West is persecution, is torture, is imprisonment, is martyrdom. So we have to realize

00:26:06.340 that we live in this very privileged bubble of history, this very rare, this very unique place

00:26:12.960 in history where Christians have been able to have incredible influence over the mainstream culture,

00:26:18.660 and we also have been free in a lot of ways from major persecution. That is rare in world history.

00:26:27.220 That is rare in the world right now. That is why Christians want to protect it so much. Religious

00:26:32.420 liberty, by the way, doesn't just protect Christianity. It doesn't just protect Christians. It protects

00:26:36.620 people of other faiths as well. So right now, while we still can, because you know there's a force in

00:26:42.940 this country who doesn't believe in religious liberty, we need to be exercising that as much as we possibly

00:26:47.760 can. We need to be using that First Amendment right to push back on the tyrants that want to take away 1.00

00:26:52.640 that freedom, especially those who do so discriminatorily and arbitrarily. In places like China,

00:26:58.260 there's no such thing as religious freedom. In no communist country ever, in no socialist country

00:27:03.520 ever, is there such thing as free speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of religion? You just can't

00:27:08.920 find it. Here is a headline from Daily Wire. China forces Christians to renounce faith, destroy

00:27:16.200 Christian symbols, or be cut off from welfare, reports say. This is from Daily Wire's Ryan Sevedra.

00:27:21.700 Here's a quote. Qi Yan, I guess that's how you pronounce it, chairman of the Huan Jinbu People's

00:27:29.040 Congress, told the South China Morning Post in 2017, many poor households have plunged into poverty

00:27:34.200 because of illness in the family. Some resorted to believing in Jesus to cure their illnesses. But

00:27:38.740 we tried to tell them that getting ill is a physical thing, and that the people who can really help them

00:27:43.420 are the Communist Party and General Secretary Xi. Many rural people are ignorant. They think God is their 0.99

00:27:50.240 savior. After our caterers work, they'll realize their mistakes and think we should no longer rely

00:27:56.660 on Jesus, but on the party for help. Does that not sound extremely similar to people here, to people

00:28:03.660 who say they're not communists? No, they're just democratic socialists. People on the left here

00:28:07.340 who make fun of the hillbillies who actually believe in Jesus. I think it was Barack Obama in 2008 at a

00:28:12.580 fundraiser who said the only people who aren't voting for him are the ones who are clinging to

00:28:16.180 God guns in the Bible or something like that. Well, that attitude, he helped spread, of course, 0.94

00:28:22.820 during his presidency, but is extremely pervasive, extremely popular today on the left. And they

00:28:28.280 mock Christianity in the same way that in China, they mock the people who believe in Jesus and 0.73

00:28:32.740 believe that Jesus can hear their prayers and heal their ailments if he so chooses. And they would

00:28:37.720 rather them depend completely on the party. And this is exactly why I just said communism and religious 0.78

00:28:44.340 liberty never co-exist. Because in order for communism to exist, you have to have a strong

00:28:49.860 centralized power. You have to have a tyrant in the middle, making sure that everyone is obeying

00:28:56.720 authorities, that making sure that everyone is having the outcomes in life that the party wants them to.

00:29:03.980 You cannot derive values from your family. You can't derive values from your faith. You can't derive 0.85

00:29:10.040 values from any institution other than the party or else that subverts the party's authority and that

00:29:16.140 hinders them from being able to do their work. And so they have to make sure that everyone looks to the

00:29:21.900 party for truth. Everyone looks to the party for help. Everyone looks to the party for worth and meaning

00:29:27.480 and purpose and all of that. You can't be going and believing in an authority that is higher than the

00:29:34.040 government in a communist or in a socialist regime. You just can't do it because that means that

00:29:41.620 communists can't have power. Remember, power corrupts and total power, complete power corrupts,

00:29:48.860 absolute power corrupts, absolutely. And so there is great risk to Christians that are in China,

00:29:54.820 and yet they continue to meet together, and yet they continue to worship, and yet they continue to

00:29:59.800 congregate. They continue to assemble. There is much greater risk to Christians, not just in China, 0.97

00:30:05.280 but in the Middle East and in other parts of the world than there are to Americans here. When we are

00:30:10.840 looking at a virus that 99, 99, I was going to say 99.9, but I don't think it's 99.9. I think it's

00:30:18.820 about 99.6, maybe 99.6% of people survive. I mean, we're talking about threats to their life,

00:30:28.040 threats to their livelihoods that are happening in other parts of the world, and they are continuing

00:30:32.500 to assemble, and they are continuing to congregate. So we should probably be taking our views and taking

00:30:39.220 our cues on defiance from them. Now, I want you to listen to this New York Times. It's an article

00:30:45.600 from last year. I want you to listen to the description of Hong Kong demonstrations. So this

00:30:50.080 is the title of that article. With hymns and prayers, Christians help drive Hong Kong's protests. So 1.00

00:30:55.680 for you guys that don't know, Hong Kong was under British law. It was autonomous. It was obviously

00:31:01.880 in China, but it was an autonomous area. It was not governed by China. Over the past few years,

00:31:07.480 China has tried to take control over Hong Kong, and there has been lots of pro-democracy,

00:31:12.760 pro-freedom, pro-independence demonstrators there in Hong Kong. They have free press. They have

00:31:18.320 freedom of religion there. They really are just like this Western bubble in the tyranny that is China, 0.90

00:31:24.720 and China just can't handle that because China's aim is world domination. That is why they won't

00:31:31.060 recognize the independence of Taiwan. That's why they're colonizing countries in Africa. That's 0.99

00:31:36.220 why they're colonizing poor countries in South America. That is why they tried to infiltrate 0.99

00:31:40.860 the United States. That's why they tried to spy on the United States, as we heard about at the

00:31:45.180 consulate in Houston, at the consulate in San Francisco. The Chinese Communist Party is an evil, 0.99

00:31:51.520 evil actor, an evil actor. We already know that they have put over a million Uyghur Muslims in 1.00

00:31:59.420 concentration camps. We already know, as we just read about the persecution against Christians. All

00:32:03.940 ethnic, religious minorities there are persecuted, are pushed to the margins of society in China,

00:32:11.180 and there's no freedom. There's no freedom of any kind, not even freedom of thought,

00:32:17.020 not freedom of belief. And unfortunately, they have taken their tyranny, their hatred of freedom

00:32:24.380 and their communism, and they have now taken over Hong Kong. So Hong Kong is no longer autonomous,

00:32:29.140 and there were protests for many, many months in Hong Kong, waving American flags and singing Christian

00:32:34.940 hymns, fighting for, demonstrating for the freedom and the autonomy of Hong Kong. So the New York

00:32:41.840 Times reported on this. With hymns and prayers, Christians help drive Hong Kong's protests. 1.00

00:32:47.140 Christianity has had, this is what the article said, has had a striking influence in demonstrations

00:32:51.520 against a proposed law that would allow extraditions to mainland China. So that means if you broke the law

00:32:56.300 in Hong Kong, then you would be extradited to mainland China. And this was written in 2019. This

00:33:02.620 has taken effect now. Quote, Hong Kong's Christians have long played an important role in the politics of

00:33:08.220 the semi-autonomous Chinese territory on issues like religious freedom, democracy, and human rights.

00:33:13.280 And though Catholics and Protestants make up only about one in nine people in the city of 7.5 million,

00:33:18.440 the influence of Christianity and the protests has been striking, providing a source of inspiration

00:33:22.880 and solace. Hong Kong, like I said, it's no longer autonomous, but the activists, there are still

00:33:28.920 activists there that are trying to fight for freedom, that are trying to fight for freedom of the press.

00:33:34.120 Unfortunately, a very notable journalist who has been fighting for freedom for his people has

00:33:40.480 just been detained. And apparently there are reports that the Chinese government has rounded up

00:33:46.420 his family as well as a tactic to try to get him to break. I mean, this is all 1984 being made

00:33:54.420 manifest, but there are still activists there who are tweeting, who are publicly talking about the

00:34:00.880 freedom of Hong Kong or the need for the freedom of Hong Kong, who are still trying to fight for

00:34:05.620 liberty there and for autonomy there. And if you follow them on Twitter, you will see that there

00:34:09.900 is a very strong influence of Christianity in most of their lives. They're quoting scripture,

00:34:14.820 they're citing Psalms, they are talking about the importance of justice and not just any kind of

00:34:19.900 justice. Unfortunately, a lot of people here crying out for justice have no idea what justice means,

00:34:24.300 but actual biblical justice. Here in Portland, in Seattle, in other big cities, what do we have?

00:34:31.720 We talked about last week, you have Antifa burning the Bible. So you've got protesters in Hong Kong

00:34:37.100 that are reading the Bible, that are citing the Bible, that are singing Christian hymns.

00:34:41.220 And then the protesters here, so-called Antifa, who are again, really fascists, but they call

00:34:46.540 themselves anarcho-communists, they are burning the Bible. Again, can you tell me why we can't switch 0.69

00:34:53.140 these two groups? Like I would love to take all 7.4 million Hong Kongers, bring them over here, 1.00

00:34:58.380 take all the communists in the United States that hate the Bible, that hate the American flag, 0.93

00:35:02.440 that hate America, all of our institutions that hate freedom and send them over to China. Then it's 0.98

00:35:07.660 just a win-win. The people who want democracy over in Hong Kong, they get freedom here. And the people

00:35:12.540 who want communism, they can go to China and they can see exactly what that's like. And I've proposed

00:35:17.500 this program before. It's called HKX, the Hong Kong Exchange Program. I am all for it.

00:35:22.840 And I think that we should be pushing really hard to push this through. I'm kidding. Of course,

00:35:28.120 I think that it should be a voluntary exchange program, but I don't see why we aren't tossing

00:35:32.800 around this idea more and more. If the communists here really do hate America, they really do hate

00:35:37.580 Christianity. You can go to the country where Christianity isn't legal. How about that?

00:35:42.320 If you don't like democracy and you really think communism is the way, there's an entire world

00:35:47.000 superpower that believes in communism and can give you exactly what you believe that you want. So go

00:35:52.720 over there, let us know how it goes, report back if you're allowed to do that. Liberty and Christianity

00:35:58.580 go hand in hand. Christianity is inherently anti-tyranny. It always has been, especially 0.99

00:36:04.860 Protestants. And it is today. It is anti-tyranny today. We see this in small ways, small ways

00:36:11.800 comparatively, at least in the United States. We see that happening in big ways in China. That is a huge

00:36:19.140 reason why, and I always get so much flack for saying this from people on the left, but it's a

00:36:23.640 huge reason why when people become Christians, their politics change. That's also why, and this

00:36:29.420 is what people don't like to hear me say, as people begin to read the Bible more, as they begin to take

00:36:35.020 the Bible more seriously, as they submit their lives to the authority of God, the creator of the heavens and

00:36:41.020 the earth, who therefore has the authority to say what is and what isn't, what's right and what's

00:36:45.200 wrong to define things like morality, to define things like marriage, to define things like

00:36:49.360 right sexuality, to define things like righteousness. Once a person starts submitting themselves to the 0.98

00:36:55.820 authority of God above all else, as they take the Bible and his word, scripture more seriously,

00:37:02.440 their politics change. They start caring about things like religious liberty. They start caring about

00:37:07.520 things like the preservation of the biblical family, like individual responsibility, like biblical

00:37:12.700 justice. That means fair justice, impartial justice, direct justice. They start seeing the importance of

00:37:20.940 something like voluntary charity rather than coerced charity, which is an oxymoron, which is what

00:37:27.580 socialism and communism, of course, demand. So we as Christians have to realize that part of being a

00:37:36.000 Christian is obeying God no matter what. And that often comes with resistance to tyrants. And again,

00:37:44.420 that doesn't mean some necessarily always some crazy revolution. It doesn't mean necessarily going out

00:37:50.860 there and protesting. And it does mean we submit as much as we possibly can until it means that we are

00:37:57.460 disobeying God. I do believe that's what the Bible calls us to do in Romans 13. That's what the Bible

00:38:02.760 calls us to do in places like first Peter two. But we do have to realize that we are entering into a

00:38:10.080 time. And I think in America's history, where it's no longer going to be popular to be a Christian,

00:38:15.120 it's going to become very difficult, legally difficult to obey God with how we worship and

00:38:20.560 the things that we say. And we have to be prepared for that. We have to be prepared for that. A lot of

00:38:25.520 people ask, you know, what can I do? How can I help, you know, Christians across the world who

00:38:31.300 unfortunately are being cracked down upon? How can I make sure that things don't turn out like that

00:38:36.480 here? Well, there's a lot of different things. Of course, you can pray. I think the most important

00:38:40.940 thing is being obedient in your own life, making sure that you are reading your Bible, that you are

00:38:45.980 grounded in the truth, that your church that you're going to is grounded in the truth, is preaching

00:38:51.380 from the Bible, not preaching social justice and Marxism. You can go back and listen to my old

00:38:55.380 episodes if you don't know what I'm talking about, is not preaching critical theory, but that you are

00:38:59.520 taking the Word of God seriously, that you know why you believe what you believe, and then you turn

00:39:03.400 around and you teach that to your kids. You teach that to the people around you. You have those

00:39:07.120 conversations with your friends, and you make sure this is really the most that you can do, is that

00:39:11.740 you are obedient in everything in your own life. You can't control everything that goes on in the

00:39:15.740 world. You pray, and then you give that to God, and you don't let anxiety weigh you down, and you are

00:39:20.180 obedient with what is right in front of you, and you don't shrink back from hard conversations with

00:39:24.740 your friends. You don't shrink back from the hard conversations with your pastor. You don't shrink

00:39:28.840 back from the hard conversations with your spouse or with your kids. You stand on the Word of God,

00:39:32.700 and you don't apologize for it. And this is really—it's part of why. It's really the underneath

00:39:38.200 of what we have to do to push back against a lot of the nonsense and the communistic,

00:39:44.140 collectivist nonsense that's happening in our country right now that is attempting to revolutionize

00:39:49.000 and abolish all of the institutions that have made America this beacon of hope and light for so long.

00:39:54.640 imperfect, very imperfect beacon of hope and light. And yet, we are the best country that has ever

00:40:00.080 existed, not because of our flaws, but because of the things that we have done well that other

00:40:04.320 countries simply have not been able to do. Here's what we have to do as Christians, as people who

00:40:09.280 don't believe in tyranny. We have to push back against this idea that truth is relative. So there's this

00:40:16.380 conversation going on right now. If you follow someone named James Lindsay, I've talked about

00:40:21.600 him before, but he is a math PhD. I'm pretty sure that he is also a professor, but he has been

00:40:30.620 getting woke Twitter into a tizzy by saying two plus two equals four. And yes, this is true. There are 0.75

00:40:35.560 woke math people who are trying to say, well, two plus two doesn't necessarily equal four. That's

00:40:39.760 actually just a product of Western thought. That's actually just a product of oppressive

00:40:45.800 objectivism. And two plus two can sometimes equal five, or it can equal something else.

00:40:50.580 And this is the worldview of critical theory that says everything must be viewed through the lens of

00:40:55.000 the oppressed versus the oppressor. And any idea of absolute truth, absolute religious truth,

00:40:59.800 absolute scientific truth, absolute mathematic truth, it's a product of oppression because that means

00:41:06.400 some people are wrong. And so we have to push back against this with this wild idea of subjectivism

00:41:12.280 and relativism. Well, obviously you see the problem with that. Like you can't build a rocket. You can't

00:41:17.260 build a plane or anything like that. You can't build a bridge by believing that two plus two equals five.

00:41:23.500 Like we have to believe in some kind of objective reality. And that is a really good metaphor, or maybe

00:41:28.920 even just a really good example of how societies also fall apart if you don't believe in an objective

00:41:34.280 moral truth. So the objective of mathematic truth is that two plus two has to equal four. You can't build a

00:41:39.040 bridge. Like the bridge is going to fall down. In the same way, if we don't believe in certain inalienable

00:41:44.780 rights or certain unchangeable moral truths that also connect to our certain inalienable rights, we're going

00:41:53.480 to fall apart as a country. So objectivism is the basis, the belief in objective truth. And furthermore, the

00:42:02.240 belief that objective truth comes from a transcendent creator is the basis of the cohesiveness of the

00:42:09.020 United States. And if we let go of objectivism from two plus two equals four to, hey, God is real and

00:42:14.880 he is the creator that gave us our inalienable rights among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of

00:42:19.040 happiness, then we will just crumble as a nation. Now, some people don't realize that. Some people don't

00:42:23.560 see the connection between those two things. That without the objective source of objective wisdom,

00:42:28.720 God himself, that everything truly is relative. Everything truly is subjective. But because we

00:42:33.860 believe that our creator exists, and again, because we believe that he is the authority, the creator

00:42:38.260 of the universe, he says what is and what isn't, what's right and what's wrong, what's good and

00:42:43.080 what's bad. He has the sole authority to define things, to tell us what truth is, that we have to

00:42:48.420 believe in objectivism. But communism and the critical theory worldview has to push back against that

00:42:54.800 because in order for people to be good sheep, in order for people to be good communists, in order

00:42:59.660 for people to be good submitters to tyranny, then you have to get your definition of truth from the

00:43:07.260 governmental authority. You have to get your values from the governmental authority. So they push back

00:43:11.700 against the cohesion of the family. They push back against religion. They push back against freedom

00:43:16.060 of thought. They push back against freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Just read 1984 if you

00:43:20.860 didn't read it with us in Women's Book Club with Ali Stuckey on Facebook. And so in order for us to

00:43:26.280 push back against all of that, the tyranny of the mind, the revolution against free thinking, the

00:43:31.420 revolution against objectivism that is happening from the far left and is trying to reach into the

00:43:37.240 rest of the party and the rest of the side, is that we have to insist upon objective truth. We have to

00:43:43.500 insist upon two plus two equaling four. We have to insist upon the existence of God and his definition

00:43:51.600 of what justice is, his definition of what truth is, his definition of what sexuality should look like,

00:43:56.580 his definition of what gender is, what sex is, what marriage is. We have to insist upon these things 0.63

00:44:03.040 without apology because it matters. The truth matters. As you can see, without objective truth,

00:44:10.520 everything shatters. Now, that doesn't mean that we insist upon living in a theocracy. We can still

00:44:18.780 believe that people are free to believe what they believe in this country, that people are free to

00:44:23.880 worship the way they want to worship or not worship the way they want to not worship and still insist

00:44:29.620 upon biblical values that have made this country as free and as flourishing as it is. We are all

00:44:38.660 beneficiaries right now of the biblical worldview, of the biblical definition of equal justice under the

00:44:44.760 law, the biblical definition of what it looks like to live in a free and a fair country. We are

00:44:51.300 beneficiaries of those things and perfectly implemented, but they are still benefiting us

00:44:56.360 today. And in abolishing those things in the name of critical theory, in the name of social justice is

00:45:01.460 only going to end in more suffering. So what we have to do is insist upon the truth. You know,

00:45:07.280 I've seen a lot of conservatives say, this whole gender sex thing is not a big deal. I'm just going 0.97

00:45:13.180 to say, you know, yeah, sure. A man can be a woman and a woman can be a man as if that doesn't matter. 0.99

00:45:19.100 So all of a sudden, objective truth, when it comes to sex and biology and gender, it doesn't matter

00:45:23.480 anymore. So we're just going to acquiesce on that front too. I don't think conservatives realize that

00:45:27.960 when you acquiesce on that, like when you say, okay, whatever, I'm just going to go along with the

00:45:34.280 gender revolution, well, you've just given up everything. You've just said objective reality 0.97

00:45:38.280 doesn't matter. That what God says is and isn't doesn't matter. That biology, that it doesn't

00:45:43.600 matter. That objective isn't doesn't matter. And that actually one of the most basic parts of being

00:45:48.580 human being, being a man or a woman, that it's all just relative. Okay, well then everything is 0.71

00:45:53.260 relative. No, you hold the line. And you know what? We don't have a lot of Republican politicians

00:45:58.460 willing to go there. We don't have a lot of Republican politicians willing to hold the line on the 0.99

00:46:03.200 culture issues because it's so unpopular. The left has bullied us so far to where we're scared to say

00:46:08.240 things like that. Politicians are scared to say things like that. So they think they're just going

00:46:11.980 to be able to talk about capitalism and, you know, foreign policy and that they're going to get by.

00:46:18.120 Well, they are exactly why we are in the position that we are in with conservatives getting canceled

00:46:24.180 for saying very basic, normal, truthful things like a man is a man and a woman is a woman. And oh, 0.62

00:46:31.080 by the way, I think traditional families are good for society. I think it's best for human flourishing,

00:46:37.120 for us to preserve and for us to promote that. They're not willing to say that kind of stuff

00:46:42.820 because it's unpopular. And that's why we are where we are in the culture war. So I'm just

00:46:46.860 encouraging you as a Christian, as a conservative to hold the line on that stuff and don't compromise

00:46:51.840 just because people are telling you that those views are not in vogue anymore. Objective truth

00:46:56.820 and morality matter. They matter. Without it, we shatter not just personally as people,

00:47:03.740 but in general. And part of that is being anti-tyranny when it means, when it means,

00:47:10.140 when tyranny means that we are going to have to disobey God. So don't relent. Don't compromise.

00:47:15.700 Don't just let the redefinition of words happen when it comes to things like racism, when it comes to

00:47:21.080 things like justice and injustice. Don't allow the redefinition of those words to put you in

00:47:26.780 a corner to where you feel like you have to agree with them. Make sure you go to God's word to

00:47:31.000 define what these things are and that you have a biblical perspective of these things.

00:47:35.040 I have a resource page on my website, alibethstucky.com slash blog. You can click on

00:47:42.580 culture, I think, or you can just Google it. I have a whole resource page for you. So resources of

00:47:49.820 history books, of economic books, of political books, of theological books to help you shape a biblical

00:47:54.380 worldview because now it's more important than ever for us to hold the line and for us to be

00:47:58.760 relentless in this because the tyranny is coming. It's coming for us. It's coming for you. It's

00:48:03.120 coming for your family. It's coming for your kids. It's coming for our faith. It's coming for our

00:48:07.580 churches. And if we don't stand up right now, then unfortunately, this country is going to look

00:48:12.860 very different in 10 years. It's going to look very different by the time our kids are grown.

00:48:17.900 And God is sovereign. Absolutely. And he is in complete control. And one day we can look forward

00:48:25.320 to him ruling in perfect peace and righteousness. There will be no partisanship. There will be no

00:48:30.980 politics. There will be no chaos. There will be no sadness, no sorrow, no sickness, no pandemic,

00:48:36.140 no deceit, no manipulation, no tyranny, no communism, none of that. Thankfully, and we can trust Jesus to

00:48:43.160 rule and perfect righteousness and perfect peace. And that is what we have to look forward to.

00:48:48.680 We will be in fellowship, not just with our Savior, but we will be in fellowship with Christians who

00:48:54.820 here on earth we disagreed with politically, by the way. And that'll be a beautiful moment that we

00:48:58.880 will be able to share in the joy and the presence of Christ. So that's what we have to look forward to.

00:49:02.640 That's our hope. Until then, we are as obedient as we possibly can be. And we make sure that how we

00:49:10.840 are viewing the world and how we are acting as people line up with the Word of God. Okay,

00:49:15.640 that's all I have for today. I will see you back here on Friday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 12, 2020

Ep 287 ｜ Christians and the Age of Tyranny

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