Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 354 ｜ Far-Left Cabinet Picks + the Dangers of Today's 'Accountability'

00:00:00.000 Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. Once again, have a lot to talk about today.

00:00:15.260 We are going to first talk about a couple of Biden's latest picks for his administration.

00:00:21.740 We are also going to talk about if we have time, some of the other censorship

00:00:25.340 that has been going on in Twitter, Big Tech, even in cable news.

00:00:32.020 And then we are going to end with a new segment called Word Watch.

00:00:38.580 And that's just how I envision once we have like an actual branding for this segment,

00:00:43.960 I imagine it saying Word Watch. And so that is us keeping an eye on the language and how the

00:00:51.380 evolution of the use of words is affecting our understanding, our cultural understanding,

00:00:58.800 our political understanding, because the definition of words, especially nowadays,

00:01:03.520 changes very quickly, in particular on the left side of the aisle.

00:01:07.440 And so we really need to understand how these words are being used, what they mean,

00:01:12.080 what the actual meanings of them are. And so we're going to go through that and we're going to look at

00:01:17.700 the biblical use of a term that I think is being overused and misused right now and what that all

00:01:23.960 means and what we should think about it as Christians. First, let's go ahead and start out

00:01:28.360 with a couple of Biden's latest picks. So Biden announced last week, I believe, that he is

00:01:33.320 nominating San Diego School Superintendent Cindy Martin to be Deputy Secretary of Education.

00:01:39.880 Christopher Rufo, whom I had on the podcast yesterday, if you did not listen to yesterday's

00:01:44.860 podcast, even if you don't have time to listen to the whole thing, I highly recommend listening to

00:01:50.840 my about 20 or so minute interview with him about what's going on in our public school system as far

00:01:57.500 as what is being taught to our children and how it's going to affect their minds and their lives

00:02:03.700 and even what they think about their family and what they think about their faith. Go listen to

00:02:09.340 that episode from yesterday. But Christopher Rufo, being the investigator that he is,

00:02:14.460 into our education system, has done some digging on Cindy Martin. He did a tweet thread not too long

00:02:22.120 ago talking about how Martin's, I don't know if it's Martin or Martin's actually, promoted the concept

00:02:30.280 that schools, quote, spirit murder black children and that white teachers should undergo, quote,

00:02:36.300 anti-racist therapy. Now, again, if you listen to yesterday's episode, if you listen to the interview

00:02:42.600 between Christopher Rufo and me, you will know that this term anti-racist is really a misnomer.

00:02:48.740 It sounds really good because, of course, we're not racist and we want to be against any form of

00:02:54.100 racism. But it is really a term of critical race theory, which means that you have to see racism

00:02:59.420 in every part of American life, from your interpersonal relationships to the systems and the institutions

00:03:06.380 that are in place. It is an idea that is promoted not just by Ibram X. Kindi and other academics,

00:03:12.980 but also people like Robin DiAngelo, who wrote the book White Fragility. It's this idea that we have to

00:03:20.860 divest of whiteness or decolonize our minds, all of these very academic, very strange, meaningless,

00:03:29.440 hollow, vapid terms. It really means a lot of self-hatred and self-loathing and self-resentment

00:03:38.700 for white people in the hopes that that will create equality and liberation and equity and all of these things.

00:03:45.960 It doesn't. It just creates more bias. It creates more hatred, not just of yourself, but also of other people.

00:03:53.060 Remember, the nature of critical race theory is to divide people by their racial identities,

00:04:00.120 by their skin color, and allocate oppression points based on that. There's no game plan after that

00:04:06.320 happens for how people then come together. There's no game plan for unity after that. There's no game

00:04:11.240 plan for reconciliation. So people that are using critical race theory, using Ibram X. Kindi, using

00:04:16.880 Robin DiAngelo, using some of these people who may not even realize that they're using critical race

00:04:23.100 theory, but are using their teachings to try to bring about racial reconciliation. It's never going

00:04:28.620 to happen. It's not in the nature of critical race theory. And so this woman is a perfect representation

00:04:34.120 of the effects and really the effects of the mind virus that is this ideology, the idea that schools are

00:04:43.320 spirit murdering, whatever the heck that means. Black children and white teachers should undergo

00:04:47.820 anti-racist therapy. San Diego Unified School District tells white teachers they are guilty of

00:04:55.640 these of this spirit murder of black children. And he obtained Christopher Russo obtained whistleblower

00:05:02.460 documents from the training from the training session. They hired the school district that,

00:05:09.500 again, the deputy secretary of education, Cindy Martin, was in charge of, hired a critical race

00:05:15.600 theorist, Bettina Love, for a district-wide training on, quote, challenging the oppressive practices

00:05:21.280 that live within school organizations. The district forbade recordings, but a whistleblower took

00:05:28.100 screenshots and detailed notes. According to the whistleblower notes, this is Christopher Rufo on Twitter,

00:05:34.200 Love began by saying that racism runs deep in America. And remember,

00:05:37.980 that is the cornerstone. That is the idea that critical race theory asserts. And that's not an

00:05:44.200 argument, by the way. That's why they don't accept debate. That's why they won't actually talk about,

00:05:48.900 OK, can you talk about evidence of systemic racism? Can we talk about why disparities actually exist,

00:05:54.500 maybe beyond or in addition to or instead of discrimination? It's an axiom. It's a statement.

00:06:01.120 It's self-certifying. So you're not actually allowed to argue against it. If you tried to debate someone

00:06:06.480 who holds to critical race theory, who believes that everything in America is systemically racist,

00:06:11.780 then you are just a part of the problem. That's this is a Kafka trap. You are just fragile,

00:06:17.360 perhaps, or you are just a white oppressor. Therefore, you cannot argue against it. So

00:06:21.880 understand that critical race theory is full of axioms, not arguments. It's not up for debate.

00:06:27.260 And so this critical race theorist, too, is teaching these educators in San Diego saying

00:06:33.140 that racism runs deep. She's not looking for a debate. She's not looking for a discussion. She

00:06:37.820 and she doesn't therefore have to bring any proof or evidence or objective fact in that. That is why

00:06:43.060 these people listen to people. That's why critical race theorists love Ibram X. Kendi, but hate Thomas

00:06:48.500 Soule, because Thomas Soule talks about facts. He talks about numbers. People like Ibram X. Kendi

00:06:54.780 make assertions and present axioms without actually presenting any objective argument. This critical

00:07:03.800 race theory trainer says in San Diego says that public schools, quote, don't see blacks as human.

00:07:11.160 They perpetuate anti-blackness and spirit murder babies. Now, what do you want to bet that

00:07:18.360 this person actually advocates for the choice of murdering actual babies, of actually murdering

00:07:26.160 babies? And she says that public schools spirit murder babies. What does that even mean? If that

00:07:31.840 if that has a tangible definition, if that has an objective reality, I want to know because spirit

00:07:36.640 murder sounds really bad and I don't want that to be happening. And hey, any chance we get to

00:07:41.480 criticize the public school system, I am for. I think that there is a lot of oppression and a lot of

00:07:46.800 abuse that goes on in our public school system. So if this person has legitimate examples of this

00:07:51.480 happening, I, you know, I believe it. I just want some definitions here. I just want to know what

00:07:57.120 she's talking about rather than just these very superstitious sounding, sounding terms. But there is

00:08:04.980 apparently some kind of definition. This concept is at the heart of Love's teachings. She says that

00:08:12.040 this is a death that is built on racism and intended to reduce, humiliate and destroy people

00:08:19.540 of color. She said that that's what's happening in our public schools. Now, I also would guess that

00:08:26.920 this person's probably not in favor of school choice. Like I would say if there is a racist school

00:08:32.480 that is discriminating against black and brown children that is not serving black and brown

00:08:37.260 children well, then I would say that that family should absolutely have the right and the ability

00:08:42.660 to be able to switch schools and that the money should follow the child rather than us just funding

00:08:48.180 these failing institutions. I would also bet that this person doesn't agree with me on that. And also

00:08:54.440 people who who traffic in critical race theory and who make money off of this stuff aren't interested

00:08:59.500 in actual practical solutions, by the way, to failing public school systems, because then they would not

00:09:04.960 have a job. Now, she argues that. See, OK, here we go. She says to correct this spirit murder that's

00:09:13.500 happening. She argued that reform will not work and that schools must adopt abolitionist teaching to

00:09:20.480 remove oppression from its roots. Again, what the heck does this mean? What does this look like? It looks

00:09:26.620 like what we talked about with Christopher Rufo, what's happening in Cupertino, making eight and nine

00:09:33.300 year old children deconstruct their sexual and racial identities to know where they are in the great

00:09:40.260 hegemony of the United States, where their power and their privilege really lies and whether or not

00:09:46.580 they are oppressed or an oppressor. That's what it looks like. It looks like self-loathing. It looks

00:09:50.980 like psychological abuse in this age of self-love and what I call trendy narcissism. What I talk about in

00:09:56.980 my book, we are also teaching kids to hate themselves and hate each other as either hating themselves as an

00:10:02.260 oppressor or hating someone else as an oppressor. It's not healthy. Academic theories very rarely when

00:10:09.020 they're implemented on a practical scale do well. And yet the people who purport these academic theories

00:10:14.780 like intersectionality and critical race theory don't care whether or not they have a positive

00:10:19.340 practical effect because unlike in the world of science and in the scientific methods, you have a

00:10:26.100 hypothesis, you test it. And if your hypothesis is wrong, your conclusion is based on the data,

00:10:31.580 not whether or not you wanted your hypothesis to be true. Unfortunately, in a lot of science

00:10:37.620 nowadays and in academia, they make a hypothesis like, hey, if we split everyone up, if we categorize

00:10:43.360 people by their race, then maybe we can eliminate oppression when that is actually practiced in our

00:10:49.580 school districts. And it doesn't accomplish that. It accomplishes division. It accomplishes forms of

00:10:55.540 abuse. It accomplishes more bias and more hatred and more resentment and even violence. In some cases,

00:11:02.400 you never see the academics backtrack and say, oh, OK, I was wrong. My ideas were bad. No,

00:11:09.460 they just double down. And that's precisely what's going to happen. That's precisely what's happening

00:11:14.280 by making Cindy Martin, who is the head of the school district that is using this training by making her

00:11:21.500 deputy secretary of education. They're doubling down on ideas, on bad ideas, ideas that do not work.

00:11:30.820 San Diego Unified School District, again, that Cindy Martin ran, has been radicalized. In recent

00:11:37.120 months, the district announced mandatory diversity training, added a new racial grievance curriculum,

00:11:42.220 and abolished the requirement to turn in homework on time. So I think that we might have talked about

00:11:47.420 this on the podcast, that this school district in San Diego decided that having a time that you have

00:11:54.560 to turn in your homework and offering grades based on timeliness and being punctual was racist because

00:12:02.980 they said that, you know, black and brown students weren't able to meet this standard. And so rather

00:12:09.360 than giving them the tools to meet this standard or helping them in any way, they just said, you know,

00:12:14.300 we're not going to have a standard. We're just going to take the standard away. And we're just

00:12:18.660 going to say, whenever you want to turn it in, you can turn it in. There's nothing good about

00:12:22.760 punctuality. There's nothing good about, you know, staying organized and being able to manage your

00:12:28.460 time well. This is only going to create more disparities because the kids who are taking school

00:12:33.620 seriously, the kids whose parents are involved in their schoolwork are still going to make sure that

00:12:38.100 they turn things in on time, whether or not there's a grading scale that applies to the punctuality of

00:12:43.380 their work. And so all you're doing is you're teaching kids that may already be struggling with

00:12:48.100 punctuality, that may already be struggling with getting all of their work done. You're teaching

00:12:52.320 kids that they don't have to work to meet that standard. What's going to happen when they get to

00:12:56.120 the real world and things are actually dependent on timeliness and things are actually dependent on

00:13:02.200 punctuality. I mean, this has real effects in people's lives. I mean, the market is dependent on

00:13:09.580 things happening on a certain schedule. So when they get to a job and they don't know how to show

00:13:14.360 up on time, they don't know how to finish an assignment on time and they get fired and they're

00:13:18.420 unemployed because they were never taught by their teachers to be able to abide by these principles.

00:13:24.740 What's going to happen to them then? You are creating more failure. You're creating more

00:13:29.220 disparities. Sure, it might end disparities, at least the appearance of disparities in the short run,

00:13:37.000 but how are you hurting these kids in the long run? If some kids need extra help because of their

00:13:41.740 socioeconomic status or whatever, then they get extra help. They get extra tools, but you don't

00:13:47.380 lower the standard. Remember, the people who talk about equality and equity most always mean equality

00:13:53.960 and equity downward. They mean lowering the standards to the lowest common denominator. They never mean

00:13:59.640 helping and resourcing the people who are struggling to move up to reach a high standard. And so that's why

00:14:06.300 those who talk loudest about equality and equity are always pulling people backward rather than actually

00:14:13.880 pushing people afford. And this is, by the way, this taking away this grading scale is in the name of

00:14:22.360 becoming, quote, an anti-racist school district. It is not a coincidence that these people who say that they

00:14:28.680 care about disparities between white, Asian and then black and brown students are never interested in what I would

00:14:35.460 call conservative solutions to things. They're never interested in school choice. They're never interested

00:14:40.840 in talking about how the funding is allocated. They're never interested in talking about the corruption

00:14:45.800 of public school or public teachers unions. They're never interested in talking about particular programs that

00:14:53.800 can maybe help these kids achieve punctuality and timeliness in their work. They're only interested in these

00:14:59.420 vague, weird academic theories and lowering the standards for everyone, bringing everyone to the lowest common

00:15:06.800 denominator and thus creating misery and creating a lack of success. And it's it's really sad. Christopher Rufo points out

00:15:15.640 rightly that these policies will ultimately harm all students, including minorities. As charter school leader Ian Rowe argues,

00:15:22.200 the district's policies are a modern day version of the soft bigotry of low expectations that will dumb down

00:15:27.800 the grading system for all. That is absolutely true. How low do you have to think of these kids that you

00:15:33.920 imagine that they are not even they're not even able? They're not even able to meet the standards of

00:15:39.340 other kids. Again, rather than helping them, you say there's just no there's just no standard. Are you really

00:15:45.120 helping them in the long term? You're absolutely not. You're taking the easy way out. Unfortunately, this is what

00:15:51.620 happens when wokeism affects people's minds and is applied in practical ways in our children's

00:15:58.380 education. It's going to have a real effect on their lives. And unless parents stand up and say, no, I'm

00:16:05.900 not going to going to allow my child to be affected that way. I'm not going to allow my child to be taught

00:16:11.640 in this way unless you say something. And, you know, I always encourage you to take your kids out of public

00:16:17.240 school if that is at all an option. Like it's just not it's just not worth it. But if you have to stay

00:16:22.920 in public school, you need to be saying something. You need to be speaking up. The hard thing is the

00:16:28.720 public school system doesn't really care because you're going to pay through your taxes for that

00:16:33.400 public school and for the teachers and for all the curriculum that they are that they are teaching

00:16:39.180 these kids, whether or not your kid goes there, whether or not you have a complaint. If you send your

00:16:44.440 kid to a private school, if that's something that you can afford, you actually have more power because

00:16:48.840 you're able to go directly to the administration and say, look, this teacher is teaching this hogwash.

00:16:53.260 You got to change it or I'm taking my money elsewhere. You don't have that kind of power or leverage when

00:16:58.300 you're trying to reason with people at a public school district. Now, nevertheless, I do think it's

00:17:03.940 important for parents to stand up and say, this is craziness. This is craziness. OK, we're going to talk

00:17:10.680 about another pick health secretary that Biden picked, a person called Rachel Levine. And I'll

00:17:18.580 get into that craziness in just one second. All right. Let's talk about another Biden pick,

00:17:28.580 a person called Rachel Levine. Now, I say a person called Rachel Levine because this is a biological

00:17:34.200 man who identifies as a woman. And that's pertinent to our conversation, at least according to these

00:17:42.140 media outlets. And of course, these media outlets refer to Rachel by the preferred pronouns that

00:17:51.280 Rachel has. And so I'm going to be reading these articles verbatim. So Washington Post reports this

00:17:57.100 president-elect Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he will nominate Pennsylvania's top health official,

00:18:02.180 Rachel Levine, to be his assistant secretary of health. Levine, a pediatrician, would become the

00:18:06.880 first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Levine serves as

00:18:11.940 Pennsylvania secretary of health and has been leading the state's public health response to the

00:18:16.700 coronavirus pandemic. Serving under Xavier Becerra, whom we will talk about in just one second,

00:18:22.020 Biden's nominee to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Levine would oversee key

00:18:27.420 health offices and programs across the department, 10 regional health offices nationwide.

00:18:31.340 The Office of the Surgeon General and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Now,

00:18:38.060 Rachel has some baggage. Remember, Rachel is Pennsylvania's secretary of health, has been

00:18:46.180 leading the state's public health response to the coronavirus pandemic. According to Press and

00:18:51.260 Journal.com, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced today, this is back in May,

00:18:56.820 that over the past several weeks, his office has opened criminal investigations into several

00:19:01.900 Pennsylvania nursing homes. Shapiro said in a press release that his office is going to investigate

00:19:07.440 any nursing home engaging in criminal and neglect of patients and residents because there had been

00:19:11.780 several allegations of that. According to State Department of Health numbers released Tuesday,

00:19:16.180 there are 12,130 resident cases. Again, this was in May of COVID-19 and 1,724 cases among employees and

00:19:25.540 nursing and personal care homes nationwide. Sorry, statewide for a total of 13,854 at 540 facilities in 44

00:19:36.180 counties. The state has 57,991 cases total. Out of the total deaths, 2,611 have occurred in residents from

00:19:45.280 nursing or personal care facilities. That is about 68.6 percent. So remember, Levine led the coronavirus

00:19:56.360 response in Pennsylvania. And there were so many allegations of nursing home residents not being cared for,

00:20:05.640 being completely neglected in some cases. Unfortunately, this is very pervasive. It seems across the country being

00:20:11.940 abused in some cases. And what does Levine do? Levine, this is according to PennLive.com, had removed her 95-year-old

00:20:23.220 mother from a personal care home amid a statewide coronavirus outbreak that has been particularly devastating to

00:20:29.060 facilities that house elderly populations. So Rachel Levine said, death and decay for thee, but not for

00:20:38.880 me, or at least not for my mother. And that is very typical of bureaucrats. That's very typical of people in

00:20:45.640 power. This is, I've talked about this, I think, before, if not on my podcast on Twitter. This is shaping up to be a

00:20:54.360 cake-histocracy. That is a government made up by the least qualified people. I mean, that's what's

00:21:02.120 happening, for example, in the state of New York. Bill de Blasio and Governor Cuomo have done a terrible

00:21:07.780 job with the coronavirus, whether it's economically or in regards to public health. And yet they continue

00:21:13.080 to be honored by the media. Governor Cuomo gets a book deal. He gets an award. Apparently, he was even

00:21:19.080 being talked about as attorney general. That is what we call a cake-histocracy, someone who has failed

00:21:24.500 so many times and yet continues to be rewarded with positions in power for their failure. Now, I want to

00:21:31.720 talk about Xavier Becerra, because remember, he is apparently going to be, he's the nominee to head

00:21:41.880 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This is according to LifeSite News on Xavier Becerra.

00:21:46.920 And I actually, when I interviewed Alexandra DeSanctis, this was in December. So a few weeks

00:21:53.220 ago, we talked about him specifically. This is what LifeSite News reports on Xavier Becerra.

00:21:58.320 As attorney general of the Golden State, Becerra was responsible for enforcing draconian restrictions

00:22:03.340 on religious assembly in the name of containing COVID-19 and has joined other Democrat officials

00:22:08.300 across the country in using the pandemic as a justification to demand abortion pills be

00:22:13.100 approved for unsupervised home use. Becerra has also shown a marked hostility to Americans who

00:22:19.980 follow Judeo-Christian teaching on matters such as abortion and homosexuality from forcing churches to

00:22:25.020 subsidize elective abortions and health insurance. Pro-choice, right? Forcing churches to subsidize

00:22:33.960 elective abortions and health insurance. Forcing pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise abortion

00:22:38.620 resources. That was a measure that was in particular championed by Kamala Harris also when she was

00:22:46.020 attorney general of California. Forcing pro-life centers, crisis pregnancy centers to advertise

00:22:53.740 openly for cheap or free abortions in their facilities. How cruel. Just how cruel. How bloodthirsty do you have

00:23:01.700 to be? This also, this article goes on to say about Becerra refusing to fund state employees travel to

00:23:08.760 South Carolina in protest of its law protecting adoption agencies that insist on giving children both

00:23:14.780 a mother and a father. That is going to be the head of health and human services under Joe Biden.

00:23:22.880 Again, a cake of stalkers and not just that, but far left. Anyone who voted for Biden think he's going to

00:23:27.800 be thinking he's going to be the moderate choice. I'm thinking that he's not going to pander to far

00:23:32.160 leftism. That we're just going to get this modern, or I mean this moderate and normal administration

00:23:38.660 who is not going to push a far left agenda. That's not what his staffing says. That's not what his

00:23:45.260 administration nominees say. Absolutely not. He is going to pander to the far left and everything he does

00:23:51.800 and you so-called pro-life evangelical conservatives. You voted for him in the name of decency and

00:23:58.640 normalcy. You're going to see how quickly your purported values are attacked. You're going to see

00:24:06.620 very quickly what you voted for. Again, this is characteristic. This is characteristic, I would say,

00:24:15.440 of both parties rewarding failures and rewarding incompetent people and corrupt people sometimes with

00:24:24.140 power and with privilege. Remember Eric Swalwell? It was found out that he was actually in cahoots. We

00:24:30.520 don't know how far those cahoots went with a Chinese Communist Party spy named, I think, Feng Feng. And

00:24:38.040 Speaker Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi, named Eric Swalwell to the Homeland Security Committee.

00:24:44.400 Despite the fact that he was in cahoots with a Chinese Communist Party spy. So that's great. This

00:24:51.100 is going to be great. AOC and the Finance Committee in the House. Bernie Sanders is the new chair of the

00:24:58.240 Senate Budget Committee. He said that he is going to cut military spending and he, of course, is going

00:25:04.720 to make sure dollars are allocated to every pet issue that he has. It's going to be great. It's going to

00:25:11.700 be great, guys. I mean, Marxism has always worked, right? Socialism has always been great. It's

00:25:16.580 always fulfilled its promises. I mean, just look at how wonderful the 20th century was. I mean,

00:25:21.860 Khmer Rouge, a great time, right? Everyone loves Khmer Rouge. They think about it and they're like,

00:25:28.260 wow, that was just, that was a wonderful time. Venezuela, great place. Everyone's doing very well

00:25:34.660 there. Everyone has a lot of food, tons of resources, good jobs. Let's see, Cuba doing really

00:25:43.980 great, doing really well. Zimbabwe, wonderfully. Can't think of anything wrong that has gone on

00:25:51.080 there. Soviet Union, absolutely splendid. Yeah, when I think about everywhere that socialism has been

00:25:59.480 tried, where far left, far leftism has been implemented for the past, I don't know, 100

00:26:05.060 years. All I can think of are these just wonderful success stories. So it's going to be great. It's

00:26:10.780 going to be great. I'm super excited. So before we move on to the next part of our podcast, we're not

00:26:16.780 going to be able to talk about censorship. I need to get into the Word Watch episode so I can fit

00:26:20.900 everything in. Okay, Word Watch, our new segment where we are going to break down how words are

00:26:33.840 evolving to take on new political, cultural, social meanings. And today we are going to talk

00:26:40.840 about this phrase, held accountable. You've probably seen this a lot and it's used in this very, I think,

00:26:46.800 creepy fashion. Like, oh, you're not getting canceled. You're just being held accountable.

00:26:52.160 Oh, we're not punishing you for your speech. Oh, this boycott that we're doing, this doxing that

00:26:57.700 we're doing over here just because we don't like what you have to say. It's not canceled culture.

00:27:01.920 It's not bad. We're just holding you accountable. Like how fascistic can you possibly get? It's just

00:27:08.760 holding accountable. I mean, that's really draconian. And like I said, creepy and a little cruel

00:27:14.580 sounding. And of course, this phrase comes from none other than AOC. She tweeted this a few months

00:27:21.140 ago. The term cancel culture comes from entitlement as though the person complaining has the right to

00:27:26.640 a large captive audience. And what is a victim if people choose to tune them out? Odds are you're not

00:27:32.620 actually canceled. You're just being challenged, held accountable or unliked. That is rich coming from

00:27:39.000 the person who every time she is criticized says that she is being attacked. This tweet is from

00:27:47.880 someone named Mariah. But the reason why it's pertinent is not just like a random tweet or

00:27:52.260 random thing that I found. Right now, it has been retweeted almost 50,000 times, has somewhere close

00:27:59.040 to like 300,000 likes. So it's a viral tweet. And I think it's representative of what I am seeing a lot

00:28:04.700 of people say in the world, in particular of progressive Christianity. She says, I'm so sick

00:28:10.180 of seeing Christians in America claim persecution. You are being persecuted for loving Jesus. You are

00:28:15.260 being held accountable for not acting like him. So let's look at this word accountable, what it

00:28:22.840 actually means. It has French origins and literally means to answer for or to answer to. Now in the Bible,

00:28:31.480 and this is what I think is really important. And I'm going to kind of explore its use in the Bible.

00:28:36.220 I'm going to bring it back to our daily use today and how we should view it and what it actually means

00:28:41.440 for us in our daily lives. So we only see this exact word accountable once in the Bible. Romans 3 19

00:28:50.380 quotes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every

00:28:56.560 mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. This word in the Greek is

00:29:03.820 hupodikos. I'm sorry, my Greek isn't great. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, which literally means

00:29:09.440 under sentence or judgment or subject to prosecution. In this verse, it is used in the context of this

00:29:16.600 chapter to explain that everyone in the world stands condemned before God in light of his perfect

00:29:23.740 law. God gave the law to Israel, not just to set them apart as a people, but also to demonstrate the

00:29:29.360 perfect standard of righteousness that is required to be in his presence, to be in fellowship and in

00:29:37.700 communion with him. And this chapter explains, referencing Psalm 14 and 53, that none of us can meet the

00:29:44.860 standard. That's why we stand condemned. That's why we are accountable to God. The chapter says, referencing

00:29:51.840 these Psalms, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks God. There is no fear of

00:29:59.340 God before their eyes. And so are we hopeless? All of us who are accountable to God, who stand condemned

00:30:05.200 before God? No, there's really good news. There is one, just one person who can and has met this

00:30:12.040 standard and he's done it on our behalf. Paul explains this in verses 21 through 25, quote, but now the

00:30:18.400 righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness

00:30:23.960 to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no

00:30:30.380 distinction for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift

00:30:37.020 through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received

00:30:43.760 by faith. So this man, Jesus Christ, fully God, fully man has become our righteousness so that we don't

00:30:51.480 have to be perfect keepers of the law. Instead of having to work to be in fellowship with God through

00:30:56.640 perfection, he has given us the gift of righteousness and fellowship and salvation through Christ. We are still

00:31:04.560 held accountable to God, all of us. The question is who is giving an account on our behalf? If it's us,

00:31:13.260 then we're condemned forever. If it's Christ, then we are seen as righteous and acceptable and perfect. And that

00:31:19.320 gift of salvation in Christ is given to us by a gift revolution or by grace. Revelation 20, 11 through 15

00:31:28.660 describes the fate of those who do not know Christ. Quote, then I saw a great white throne and him who was

00:31:34.300 seated on it. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne and books were opened. Then another book

00:31:40.200 was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books

00:31:43.860 according to what they had done. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life,

00:31:49.020 he was thrown into the lake of fire. But those who are in Christ, those whom by grace through faith have

00:31:55.320 taken up their cross and follow Jesus, we are justified before God. We are righteous, not because

00:32:00.740 of our own goodness, but because of God's grace. So that accountability has been taken care of.

00:32:06.600 We are accounted for. Our sins were answered for on the cross. Christ gave the answer to God on our

00:32:14.120 behalf. He paid the price for our inability to keep the law. He bridged the gap between a holy God and an

00:32:20.500 unholy people, all of us. He gave us his holiness. He imputed his righteousness. He gave us his perfection,

00:32:27.420 his acceptability before God. It became ours so that we could approach God confidently and live with him

00:32:33.420 forever. We don't have to give an account for our sins. Jesus is taking care of that for us. That is

00:32:39.000 the only time in that Romans passage that we see that specific word accountable in the Bible in a

00:32:44.220 vertical sense between us and God. We are accountable to God. And unless our answer is Christ, unless he

00:32:50.520 gives an account on our behalf, unless he is our righteousness, we will be condemned forever. We will

00:32:55.900 justly and rightly be prosecuted for our sin eternally. Typically, when we today use the word

00:33:04.040 accountable, we mean in a horizontal sense, holding one another accountable. But really, the term is meant

00:33:10.700 to denote some kind of hierarchical relationship. So we are answering to someone who is in charge, who has

00:33:16.760 the power or authority to convict or condemn us. It can literally mean to be under something.

00:33:23.000 The only time even the synonym of hupodikos is used in neko or in neko is used, it's meant to hold a

00:33:31.980 grudge or to entangle or to be subject to. So again, it's that kind of power dynamic relationship or that

00:33:39.540 person in power and that person in subjugation relationship. And it's used in the Bible in a

00:33:45.420 negative sense. In Mark 6, 19, it's used Herodias held a grudge against John the Baptist. Luke 11, 53,

00:33:52.420 the Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus with what they saw as trick questions. Galatians 5, 1,

00:33:58.320 we are warned against submitting to the yoke of slavery to sin. So even in this sense, we are

00:34:03.480 talking about power. We are talking about someone or something in power trying to subjugate someone

00:34:08.400 else. And this is what accountability really means. It means someone in power demanding an answer

00:34:14.200 and or submission from someone beneath them. And this is not what the word just means biblically,

00:34:20.840 but literally what it means in our language as well. And yet a lot of us use it as, like I said,

00:34:26.980 my friend is holding me accountable in my diet or in my Bible reading, or we're holding people

00:34:31.480 accountable for sin. But really, that's not exactly the right word because accountability has to do

00:34:37.060 most of the time with punishment or, again, someone in power demanding something from someone else.

00:34:45.360 And that has to do with some kind of authority. And so people like AOC and that other person and

00:34:52.180 other people that you might see tweeting, hey, we're just holding people that we don't agree with

00:34:56.800 or who say something that we consider harmful accountable. That is actually exactly what they

00:35:02.300 mean. They are using it in a very frightening way. Correctly. They are talking about punishment.

00:35:08.540 They are talking about using power and influence and leverage to exclude from polite society to

00:35:13.940 drag through the mud until that person loses their job or their livelihood or their sponsors or their

00:35:19.000 access to common spaces or services like Twitter. The question is, does that quote accountability

00:35:25.260 make for a good society where all of us are using our power or voice or influence to punish each

00:35:31.380 other by meddling in each other's lives to bring one another to ruin, either because one of us does

00:35:36.540 something legitimately bad or because one of us says or does something that we disagree with?

00:35:41.600 Sounds a whole lot like bitterness and resentment and malice and anger, all the things Ephesians 4.31

00:35:47.000 tells Christians that we are to put away. It sounds a whole lot like the communist cultural revolutions

00:35:51.780 of the 20th century, which ended in widespread oppression and punishment and murder and arbitrary

00:35:57.140 imprisonment of all people and nothing like Christianity or freedom.

00:36:00.560 That doesn't mean accountability. Real accountability shouldn't exist. It's just a matter of where and

00:36:06.340 how in a society that can function in any kind of peaceable way. If someone breaks the law, it is the

00:36:12.580 job of the arbiters and enforcers of the law to hold you accountable. If someone violates employment

00:36:17.580 policy, it is the job of their boss to fire them or to chastise them. If someone violates their oath

00:36:24.040 of office, it's the job of the people in charge to ensure they're removed. Our elected officials are

00:36:28.500 supposed to be accountable to us by relying on our vote. They're supposed to answer to us. We are

00:36:34.280 supposed to hold them to account by not voting for them if we don't want to or if they haven't fulfilled

00:36:39.780 their promises or their duties to their constituents. As far as we relate to one another, yes, we can

00:36:46.380 discuss and debate. We can refute and disagree. We can point out wrong. We can even call for

00:36:50.680 resignations, whatever. But when we get to the point of trying to punish one another, hurt one another,

00:36:56.420 call for the cancellation of one another, we have placed ourselves in a position of authority that

00:37:01.100 we are not in. We have given ourselves a job that we don't have. And this is also something I talk

00:37:06.040 about in my book, that we've created a culture, this postmodern culture, in which we worship the

00:37:13.040 God of self. And that does lead to cancel culture. That's what I argue in my book, because the standard

00:37:18.380 of morality doesn't come from a transcendent source. God, it comes from all of us. And so this kind of

00:37:23.940 moral relativism in a world that has to function on the idea of absolute truth and objective morality

00:37:29.440 launches us into canceling one another for not meeting our ever-changing subjective standards. It's

00:37:36.800 chaos. A peaceable society cannot exist that way. We need to, as 1 Peter 5, 6 says, humble ourselves under

00:37:46.100 the mighty hand of God and realize we don't get to come up with morality. We don't get to say what's right

00:37:50.860 and what's wrong, what is and what isn't. We submit to God's way, all of us, as the great transcendent

00:37:56.020 moral lawgiver. Even the deist that founded our country knew that. Within the church, we don't hold

00:38:02.200 one another accountable in the way that the word really means and is biblically used. We rebuke and

00:38:08.900 encourage one another. According to passages in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Christians, and in particular,

00:38:15.420 Christian leaders are to rebuke those who persist in sin, those who contradict sound doctrine,

00:38:22.160 false teachers. Even sometimes there is a process of excommunication in these cases. This word rebuke

00:38:28.720 in the Greek means to expose, to tell fault. So it's different than our cancel culture, than the

00:38:35.500 so-called accountability that we see in the world of random people on the internet punishing you and

00:38:40.920 canceling you and doxing you because you say something that they don't like. This so-called

00:38:45.800 Christian who said, oh, we're just holding you accountable. You're not called as a Christian to

00:38:50.560 hold accountable, to punish, and to ruin the lives of random people on the internet. Christians are

00:38:57.540 called to Ephesians 4, 15, rather speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him

00:39:03.340 who is the head into Christ. So the difference in Christian rebuking, and in particular in the body of

00:39:10.060 Christ, but in the difference in Christian rebuking and the quote, holding accountable, aka cancel

00:39:17.120 culture, is not just the how behind it, but also the why. We rebuke one another in Christ because we

00:39:24.240 love God, because we love each other. We want holiness for each other. We want obedience for each

00:39:30.440 other. We want growth in Christ for one another. We want the very best today and forever for one

00:39:36.160 another. Another word for encourage is edify, which literally means to build up an edifice, as you

00:39:41.840 know, is a building. We build one another up. Worldly accountability, cancel culture, tears people

00:39:48.920 down. Hebrews 10, 24 through 25. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love in good works,

00:39:55.700 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. And all the more

00:40:01.200 is you see the day drawing near. So we're not just building one another up. We are propelling each

00:40:08.420 other forward. We are propelling each other forward toward Christ, forward toward love, forward toward

00:40:15.040 more good works, toward hope, toward heaven. Worldly so-called accountability cancellation doesn't seek

00:40:21.500 just to tear down. It also seeks to hold back. It is everything that Christians are not supposed to be

00:40:26.500 a part of. Also, remember, there is a difference not just between Christian rebuke and encouragement

00:40:31.620 and encouragement and worldly accountability cancellation, but there's also a difference

00:40:38.660 between worldly accountability cancel culture and actual justice, real justice, as we've talked about

00:40:47.260 so many times on this podcast and have looked at the scripture supporting these descriptors.

00:40:52.680 Justice, according to the Bible, according to the God who created it, is primarily four things. It is

00:40:58.360 impartial, it is truthful, it is direct, and it is proportional. Justice is enacted by the proper

00:41:04.080 authority and the proper way with the proper proportionate repercussions. It is not Twitter taking it upon

00:41:10.860 themselves to ruin the life of someone they don't like. It is not a mob. It is not a riot. That is

00:41:15.460 satanic. This is a good reminder for all of us. We can call out. We can correct. We can disagree.

00:41:22.680 We can debate publicly. But this bait and switch of saying that cancel culture, the mob mentality,

00:41:30.140 this cruelty toward people is actually just accountability, is unbiblical. It's totalitarian.

00:41:36.140 It's dystopian. It's Orwellian. It's nonsense. And for Christians to be using this language tells me

00:41:42.200 that those who are using this in this sense are much more worldly than they are Christian.

00:41:48.840 We rebuke. We encourage. We shed light and we build up. We reveal and we propel forward. Our motivation

00:41:55.620 is love. Our motivation is biblical unity. We don't seek to tear down. We don't seek to punish

00:42:02.400 in this way, to place ourselves in a position of authority that we do not occupy. We don't seek

00:42:07.720 vengeance. We don't do anything out of rivalry or jealousy or bitterness. James 3 says that that is

00:42:13.360 demonic. Ephesians 4 says that that's only how non-Christians live. Philippians 2 says that that's

00:42:19.200 a sin. Romans 12 says that vengeance is not our job. Our goal is truth and love. That is how we are

00:42:25.360 distinguished from the rest of the world and the craziness and the chaos of cancel culture. And so

00:42:31.700 let us be very careful about the words that we use. Let us make sure that we are speaking in a way

00:42:36.320 that is the truth and love. And let us encourage and rebuke one another in that because I'm sure

00:42:43.360 that I have used words flippantly or used phrases flippantly without actually thinking about what I

00:42:48.180 mean or how the evolution of the word actually affects its meaning. If we want to stay sane through

00:42:54.260 this crazy postmodern post-truth era, we have to be very specific about our definitions and we have

00:43:00.460 to hold fast to absolute truth that is primarily found in God's word and that he is also revealed to

00:43:06.040 us by general revelation in nature. We have to be absolutely dogged in our pursuit of and our

00:43:14.340 adherence to the truth. And we have to be so careful as we watch how our language and the language of

00:43:20.460 culture changes. All right. That's all I have today. Tomorrow, I've got a big interview with Glenn

00:43:26.020 Beck. He is going to talk to us about what we can expect from the Biden administration. Tomorrow is

00:43:31.340 inauguration. And so we will also be talking about all of that and what we can expect. And then later

00:43:38.540 in the week on Thursday, I have an interview with Dan Crenshaw. So if you've got any specific questions

00:43:43.420 that you want me to ask Representative Crenshaw, then please let me know. I'll be talking to him

00:43:48.420 about immigration. I'll be talking to him about some things going on in Texas and how the Republican

00:43:54.080 minority in both the House and the Senate are going to be able to function and stand up for the rights

00:43:59.140 and the needs of their constituents when Democrats are controlling both the White House and Congress.

00:44:04.840 So make sure that you tune into that. And I will see you guys tomorrow.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 19, 2021

Ep 354 ｜ Far-Left Cabinet Picks + the Dangers of Today's 'Accountability'

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