Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 20, 2018


Ep 39 ｜ When Your Favorite Christian Teachers Let You Down


Episode Stats

Length

32 minutes

Words per Minute

176.58644

Word Count

5,738

Sentence Count

379

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

22


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. It's me, Allie Stuckey, your host. This is a podcast of CRTV.
00:00:08.580 You should go to CRTV.com slash Allie and subscribe so that you can watch me while I'm
00:00:13.320 speaking. My code is Allie20 and I think that gets you some kind of discount. I don't remember how
00:00:18.840 much, but any discount is good, right? Okay, so it's been kind of a while since we have
00:00:26.140 talked about something kind of exclusively Christian and biblical because there's been
00:00:31.220 so much going on in the news cycle that I want to make sure that y'all are in the know about.
00:00:36.020 But today is the day and it's actually going to be a little theological and a little political as
00:00:41.860 well. It's a problem specifically that I'm seeing within the church and it started with a video that
00:00:46.780 I saw of a particular pastor that I really like. This will have political languages in it because
00:00:51.860 it's a political problem that I see within evangelical Christianity and that is kind of
00:00:57.620 the use of identity politics and this overtaking of progressivism. As far as I can tell, the Bible
00:01:04.740 doesn't really align with identity politics and a large portion of progressivism. That's why I think
00:01:10.220 it's a problem. That's why I think it is worth talking about. It is counterproductive to the spreading
00:01:14.860 of the message of Christ. And really what kind of set me off to this whole thing is because I watched
00:01:21.320 a video by Vice that is going to be shown on HBO about Matt Chandler in which he talks about the
00:01:28.200 problems within evangelicalism and who Christians are really called to be. And what I watched was
00:01:34.320 just a preview on Facebook of the longer documentary. I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but I will
00:01:41.000 so know that the judgments that I am about to articulate are not on the documentary as a whole.
00:01:47.460 I don't know everything Chandler says in the documentary, so I'm going to comment on what I
00:01:53.260 heard, knowing that editing happened, knowing that maybe there was context, but I'm going to comment on
00:01:58.380 what I heard. And then I'm going to just kind of use that as a springboard into the conversation that
00:02:03.240 I want to have about kind of leftism in the church. First, a little bit of background on Matt
00:02:09.420 Chandler and why this video actually meant something to me personally. If you don't know,
00:02:14.280 he is a pastor of the Village Church in a suburb of Dallas. The Village is non-denominational
00:02:19.320 slash Baptist. It's a part of the Southern Baptist Convention, even though there's not,
00:02:24.920 you know, the word Baptist in its name. Chandler is in his early 40s. He's got a beautiful wife who
00:02:30.980 is also a singer, sometimes leads worship. I think three or four kids. He's been preaching for about
00:02:37.180 20 years, so all of his adult life. The Village Church has just boomed under his leadership and
00:02:43.880 has expanded to multiple campuses across Dallas. He also beat brain cancer a few years back, which
00:02:49.840 is pretty incredible. He's just a really cool guy. He's just cool. I've been listening to Matt
00:02:55.820 Chandler's sermons since 2009, so a long time. I listened to him when I was in high school and
00:03:02.080 then in college. I got tons of people hooked on his sermons, including my husband. He has been the
00:03:07.880 go-to person for me when it comes to recommending to non-Christians and new Christians a pastor that
00:03:14.320 they should listen to. He just explains the Bible, in my opinion, so well and preaches the gospel so
00:03:21.240 clearly. And plus, he's funny. He's smart. He's intellectual, but not in a stuffy way. He still
00:03:27.080 explained things really simply. And my own faith has grown a lot under his teaching. When my husband
00:03:33.880 and I moved to the area at the beginning of 2017, this is where I grew up in the suburbs of Dallas,
00:03:40.500 we didn't even question where we were going to go to church. We knew that we wanted to go to the
00:03:45.220 Village. We just loved Matt Chandler that much and had heard great things about the small groups at the
00:03:51.580 Village, all of that. So that's where we wanted to go. And we went. As soon as we moved to Dallas,
00:03:57.840 we wanted to get plugged in right away. We, of course, loved hearing Matt. It was like hearing
00:04:01.760 a celebrity to us, even though I'd seen him preach before. But joining a small group at this church
00:04:07.740 was next to impossible. You had all of these hoops that you had to jump through in order to get
00:04:12.420 involved. I won't go into all of the drama that happened surrounding this process. I know that we're not
00:04:18.600 alone in this. A lot of people have had a hard time getting plugged in at this church. There was
00:04:23.360 this whole lengthy process where you had to wait until a certain window of time, I think it was every
00:04:28.840 three months. And then you had to go to a class and sit through this talk that talked about small
00:04:34.060 groups. That's all, you know, that part is fine. And then you would say where you lived and then you
00:04:38.740 would go stand in a line to see if there might be enough room in the small group that's close to
00:04:43.580 your house so that you can join. So we did all that. We waited, I think, three months to try to
00:04:49.980 join a small group. We didn't like that we had to wait so long to get plugged in and actually have
00:04:55.440 community. But we were like, you know, if that's what we have to do, that's what we'll do.
00:05:00.300 We went to the class that you had to go to in order to join a small group. And we were told that
00:05:06.460 there still wasn't enough room and that they were going to call us. We never got that phone call
00:05:10.580 to join a small group. And so we then waited another few months in order for the window to
00:05:17.080 open back up again. We wanted to go to this class to join the small group. When we showed up, they
00:05:23.760 said, oh, your name is not on the list. OK, now in their defense, they did eventually plug us into a
00:05:30.080 small group. This was several months after we actually started going to the church. But at that
00:05:34.940 point, we were pretty discouraged and kind of done. And I do also want to say that they did
00:05:42.060 try to help us in some ways get involved in the church. And that just didn't work out. I just
00:05:47.020 couldn't meet all of the obligations that it that it required of me. I just literally don't have
00:05:54.500 didn't have any of the time for this particular role that I was looking at. So it's not their entire
00:06:00.420 fault. Now, it's not just that that kind of turned me off to the village because I am under the
00:06:10.060 impression, which I think is the right impression, that the church does not exist to primarily serve
00:06:14.920 you, that it's not just about what I want, what makes me feel good. And I was willing to kind of
00:06:20.300 wait it out. And I'm sure there are plenty of things that we did wrong in the process, too,
00:06:23.900 and trying to get involved in the village. I am not saying that we have no responsibility
00:06:27.660 whatsoever. But really, the big reason if you've been listening to Relatable for a while, you know
00:06:34.900 that I have problems with the MLK conference that was held by the ERLC back in January. And Matt
00:06:43.480 Chandler spoke at this conference. And the message that he conveyed there was very, very problematic to
00:06:52.340 me. And this was not just me, by the way. I wasn't the only person who had a problem with not
00:06:59.160 just the MLK 50 conference that was, you know, held for evangelicals and evangelical leaders, but
00:07:04.880 really, it was a lot of Christians, black, white, all different kind of backgrounds who listened to
00:07:10.960 these talks and Matt Chandler specifically and said, I'm sorry, what? What? His talk, you can go listen
00:07:19.260 to it online. In my opinion, in the opinion of a lot of people was the most patronizing, condescending
00:07:24.280 and unbiblical message on, quote, racial reconciliation that I have ever heard. And granted,
00:07:29.920 I haven't heard that many, but this was really bad. He chastised his own church in his own community for
00:07:36.420 really not understanding and not being empathetic to racial issues. He put the onus on, quote,
00:07:42.860 white pulpits to say something. I'm not really sure what, but something. He talked about how bad it is
00:07:50.860 that his kid doesn't learn more about Africa in school and that that is apparently part of this big
00:07:56.500 problem. And then the best part, he said that for church leadership, when he's hiring, if he has an
00:08:02.420 African-American seven and a white eight, I guess on a scale of one to 10, then he's going to pick the
00:08:08.000 African-American seven because he's African-American. Now, that might have been talking maybe about
00:08:13.640 church planning in a minority area. Maybe he's talking about that. I'm not sure. I don't want
00:08:18.640 to take it out of context, but still, I have heard black Christians say that, no, that comment was
00:08:24.900 completely out of line. You know why? Because it's belittling. The whole thing was self-righteous
00:08:30.760 toward all of us who, to him, just don't get it. And not just white people who don't get it,
00:08:35.940 but apparently black people too. He said, he said this, that if a black person agrees with a white
00:08:41.540 person who doesn't support this new racial reconciliation movement, it's because that
00:08:46.420 black person just wants to be approved of by the white person. I'm sorry, what? Are you now the
00:08:54.560 interpreter of all black thoughts? Really? Who are you to make a judgment like that? So we left the
00:09:03.980 church. And like I said, it was kind of a long time coming. And look, I don't believe that in order
00:09:08.800 for you to go to a church, you have to agree with the pastor on every single thing. As long as you
00:09:14.040 can find support for what he says in God's word, or if he says something that's really just kind of a
00:09:18.800 matter of opinion and not a matter of biblical and errant truth, then I think that's fine. We can
00:09:24.580 disagree. And we probably could have stayed at the village and enjoyed many Sundays of good,
00:09:30.480 solid biblical teaching for Matt. I don't judge anyone that goes there. It's fine. I'm not calling
00:09:35.940 that a false teacher. I still think that he is an excellent communicator. And when he preaches the
00:09:40.340 gospel, he preaches it in a way that seriously could bring you to tears. It's just that powerful.
00:09:46.820 But I heard and felt him moving in the direction of elevating social justice and racial reconciliation
00:09:53.040 to the place of the gospel. And I cannot get behind that. As I've said many times on this podcast
00:09:58.960 before, Jesus did not come to reconcile the races to each other. He came to reconcile all races to God
00:10:05.940 and uniting as the body of Christ in which there is no Jew nor Greek nor slave nor free is a natural
00:10:12.460 and beautiful consequence of being reconciled to God in Christ. I agree with a lot of what Matt has
00:10:19.720 said in the past that racism, white supremacy, racial bigotry in the gospel cannot coexist. That as
00:10:26.580 Christians, we should condemn racism, both systemic racism and individual racism, because they are
00:10:32.720 sins. They are forms of hatred. And Jesus says that hating someone in your heart is the same thing as
00:10:37.640 committing murder. Of course, I agree with that. He had an excellent, I thought, now some people didn't
00:10:44.560 like it, but I thought he had an excellent sermon on white supremacy after Charlottesville happened
00:10:49.480 that I shared on my Facebook page. Some people, like I said, didn't like it. But I loved it.
00:10:56.200 But condemning white supremacy and the sin of racism is not the same thing as saying,
00:11:01.780 I'll hire an African-American seven over a white eight and calling on all white pulpits to do something.
00:11:07.740 Do what? Say what? What do white pulpits, white pastors, or any pastor, what do they need to say that
00:11:15.160 Jesus hasn't already said? What message needs to be conveyed in addition to the one found in
00:11:20.960 scripture? This is heartbreaking to me. I've actually cried about this. Believe it or not,
00:11:27.520 maybe I'm being dramatic, but it's heartbreaking for me coming from the guy who has said for the
00:11:32.920 past two decades that you can never graduate from the gospel. It's never the gospel plus. It's never
00:11:39.400 the gospel and. There is nothing to add to it, and nothing should be taken away from it.
00:11:44.420 But now we need to add this flavor of social justice to it? No. Preach the gospel. That is
00:11:52.940 how you foster peace and reconciliation between men and women, black and white, rich and poor.
00:11:57.900 The gospel brings us together. The gospel makes us one. There is nothing white pastors need to do
00:12:03.840 besides preach the gospel and live out the gospel indiscriminately and boldly. At the end of the MLK
00:12:10.260 50 conference, they gave away scholarship money to only black students, apparently. I wasn't there.
00:12:16.140 This is apparently what happened, which is getting dangerously close to reparations. Reparations
00:12:22.980 being this concept that white people need to pay money to black people to make up for the injustice
00:12:29.900 that we have perpetuated or caused them. There's nothing biblical or just about being forced to pay for
00:12:36.820 the supposed sins of our ancestors. But that is the concept of social justice. As I've said many,
00:12:45.760 many times, social justice isn't actual justice. It is the elevation of a group that is seen as
00:12:52.100 marginalized at the expense of another group that is seen as privileged. Now, who gets to decide who's
00:12:57.100 really marginalized and who's really privileged? We don't know. People on the left. Now, he is doing
00:13:02.820 a documentary for Vice calling Trump immoral and Obama a great guy. Here's an excerpt from that
00:13:11.540 preview. Can we agree that President Trump isn't of the utmost moral character? Absolutely. Like,
00:13:18.520 are people arguing other than that? So this is what I want to ask you. To me, evangelicals prioritize
00:13:24.640 morality being Christ-like, and yet they played a huge part in getting him elected. Yeah. How did that
00:13:30.560 happen? What did they like about it? I think people are frightened. I think they're frightened at the
00:13:37.160 speed at which things are changing culturally. Yeah. And so I think they began to grasp for
00:13:43.640 something that might help. The Obama presidency, a great man. Some of his policies and some of the ways
00:13:51.020 he rolled out his policies really, really scared evangelicals. Yeah. And without any kind of
00:13:58.820 real help from pastors and ministers to help their people understand, the news media just whipped us
00:14:07.440 into a frenzy. The bathroom bill had passed, and I'm telling you, people were terrified by that
00:14:14.840 bathroom bill. More than anything else, the thought that their children were going to be in a bathroom
00:14:19.640 with the opposite sex, right? And I know all the arguments around that, but I'm using the language
00:14:26.420 that I think would make sense to most conservatives. That made them go, whoever the opposition is to
00:14:33.360 that I'm voting for. And then they lost their soul in it. Many of them did. Now, I haven't watched the
00:14:39.400 whole thing. Like I said, I will. And I will report back to you guys. And because I haven't watched the
00:14:45.140 entire thing, because I know how editing works and maybe how vice itself operates, I'm not going to
00:14:51.500 spend a ton of time analyzing what he said because I don't have the full context. But, but you can
00:14:59.480 probably guess, yes, it really bothers me that he called Obama a great guy. Why did he make that
00:15:06.620 comment? It kind of seemed like an offhand comment, but I mean, really? Okay, call Trump immoral. I think
00:15:13.160 that's fine. I don't think any of us think that Trump is some upstanding moral guy. But calling Obama
00:15:18.640 pro-abortion, racially divisive, horrific president, Obama a great guy? Is that really necessary? Does
00:15:26.520 Obama stand for anything Christians stand for? Or under his presidency, did we see the country become more
00:15:32.260 progressive and more polarized than ever before? While conservatives stayed the same on nearly every
00:15:37.760 issue, this is documented, the left went to the left. And when the left goes to the left, it is not
00:15:42.740 in the direction of biblical truth. Just like, by the way, when the right goes too far to the right.
00:15:49.640 Also under Obama, the IRS targeted Christian and conservative groups. Obama stoked division,
00:15:54.940 chaos and racism at every term. And this is not a random assertion that I'm making just because I'm a
00:15:59.940 conservative. This is backed up by nonpartisan research at places like Pew. But Obama, but Obama
00:16:06.940 is a great guy. The guy who supported Planned Parenthood, the largest murder mill in the country,
00:16:11.580 great guy. But Trump, he is totally immoral because apparently his sins are worse than Obama.
00:16:20.400 Look, I don't think, I don't believe that you have to be a conservative or like Trump to be a
00:16:27.080 Christian. In fact, if you are a Christian, there are plenty of things about Trump that should
00:16:31.000 probably bother you. I mean, they bother me. I'm pretty darn critical of Trump, especially for
00:16:36.180 someone who voted for him. But you're not going to hear me say that Obama was a good man just because
00:16:41.220 I don't like everything that Trump does. And again, this was one small comment by Matt Chandler.
00:16:48.080 But it tells me that either a he was playing to the vice audience, that he was maybe even a little
00:16:54.820 scared of the vice interviewer and what she would think of him, which is definitely how it comes
00:17:00.940 off to me in in the preview. Or B, he is legitimately listening to the narrative that Obama was a great,
00:17:08.960 peaceful, awesome, godly president because he sounded better and didn't have sex with porn stars.
00:17:14.640 But Trump is terrible because he's rude and probably did have sex with porn stars.
00:17:18.220 Either way, that is troubling for a man, Matt Chandler, who has insisted on the perfection and
00:17:25.320 exclusivity of the gospel as long as I've known him. This addition that I think that he is adding
00:17:33.180 to the gospel that now we have to lean progressive and advocate for the things that a lot of the left
00:17:40.140 advocates for. That's what it kind of seems like in the rest of the preview. You can go to Facebook and
00:17:44.680 watch it. Tell me if you think I'm wrong. Matt Chandler is someone also who is harsh with the
00:17:50.660 truth. He's never been afraid to call out sin, to call out wrong, especially when it comes to abortion
00:17:55.160 and to say what is true biblically. So to see him mimicking progressive narratives, at least in some
00:18:01.340 ways, is really troubling to me. It feels like he is purposely trying to marginalize his conservative
00:18:08.460 church members, which is sad. It feels, and I don't know for sure, it feels, from multiple things that
00:18:16.200 he has said, like he is part of the side who thinks that all white people who voted for Trump are racist
00:18:21.440 bigots, whom he doesn't really want in his church anyway. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive here.
00:18:27.000 Maybe I am too political to judge this objectively. Maybe I'm judging too harshly.
00:18:31.580 But to me, that is what happens when biblical truth is mixed with identity politics. You start
00:18:39.180 believing that in order to be loving toward black people or immigrants, you have to become this SJW
00:18:45.360 who hates Donald Trump and loves Obama. You have to buy into the leftist narrative that black people
00:18:51.240 in this country are systemically oppressed on a daily basis, that illegal immigrants have every right
00:18:57.840 to be here no matter what, that women need further representation in every sector of society in
00:19:02.360 order to truly finally gain equality. This is a dangerous road to go down, in my opinion.
00:19:09.540 I just, I don't know if teachers like Chandler realize what they're getting into, that soon they're going
00:19:18.460 to be asked that the church make reparations to black communities, that soon they'll be expected to
00:19:25.100 support abolishing ICE and opening the borders, that soon they will be marginalized if they don't
00:19:30.640 allow women to preach from the pulpit on Sunday mornings, that they soon will be called greedy for
00:19:36.220 not supporting socialism and expanded welfare programs, that they will be accused of homophobia
00:19:41.240 for not condoning gay marriage, that they will be seen as tools of the patriarchy unless they support
00:19:46.780 abortion. I don't think people like Chandler connect their new social justice flavored message to the
00:19:53.640 rest of the progressive social justice cause. And they might say, well, no, we're just going off
00:19:59.340 of what the Bible says. Well, no, you're already not. The Bible doesn't say you should hire someone
00:20:05.800 less competent just because they're a minority. That's not what the Bible says. Not sure the Bible
00:20:11.120 makes a case for calling a president who gladly presided over millions of abortions a great guy.
00:20:16.220 And that goes for all pro-abortion presidents, by the way. So if you're willing to step outside of
00:20:21.880 scriptural bounds when it comes to these things and instead hop on the progressive express,
00:20:26.760 why wouldn't we expect you to do so when it comes to things like abortion and marriage and gender
00:20:32.320 roles? I'm not sure if they realize just how relentless the progressive push is that now that
00:20:42.280 you're out in the open against Trump and against conservatives who you deem scared of cultural
00:20:47.780 changes, which is very demeaning and condescending, by the way, that you are going to be held to
00:20:53.380 progressive standards. You are going to be expected to acquiesce to their demands. And maybe
00:21:00.140 they won't. I hope they won't. Maybe people like Matt Chandler, Russell Moore, and the ERLC won't go
00:21:05.600 that way. Maybe they just see racial reconciliation and immigration differently than I do. And that's okay.
00:21:11.940 I'm not saying that I have it all figured out and there's no place in my heart and my mind in which I
00:21:17.000 don't need to be sanctified. I'm not saying that. But that's typically not how progressivism works.
00:21:23.020 It takes more and more. I will not be surprised if Christian socialism becomes mainstream.
00:21:28.780 If mainstream evangelicals are advocating for open borders, if we get more and more quiet when asked
00:21:34.420 about abortion and marriage and gender, it's already happening. But you would like to think that people
00:21:39.300 like Matt Chandler wouldn't give in to that. But we're already seeing that in Christianity. We're scared
00:21:45.120 of being called bigots. We're scared of being persecuted. We want to join arms with the social
00:21:49.460 justice movement because it looks cool and sounds good. And I think we think that if we just give in
00:21:55.880 a little bit, if we just give in on the racial reparation stuff, if we just give in on the anti-cop
00:22:02.480 stuff, then that'll be enough for progressive. They'll stop calling us bigots and they'll want to
00:22:07.120 join our movement. No, no, no, that's not how progressives work. Good luck with that. I hear a
00:22:15.260 lot that social justice and intersectionality are actually biblical concepts, that they're supported
00:22:20.960 by Jesus. No, they're not. They're not. Intersectionality defines people by their oppression.
00:22:29.420 They say, oh, you are a woman, you are black, you are Muslim, whatever it is. And that oppression
00:22:34.800 defines you. And it gives you credibility in certain conversations. And it shapes how you should see
00:22:39.460 the world. And it also affects how you should vote. No. In Christ, you're a new creation. That's
00:22:47.340 what you are. You're not defined by your oppression. That is the language of law, not the language of
00:22:53.060 gospel. And social justice, like I've said, arbitrarily helps one group at the expense of the
00:22:58.400 other, which isn't real justice. And this idea of identity politics, that your gender, socioeconomic
00:23:06.240 status, race, ethnicity should define your politics. That is not biblical. It is divisive. And that is
00:23:12.940 what Obama, this great guy, perpetuated. And look, there are problems on the right as well. I'm not
00:23:20.400 denying that. There's a new study by the Cato Institute that shows the secularization of
00:23:25.020 conservatism. More and more people on the right who consider themselves Donald Trump conservatives
00:23:30.980 and not traditional conservatives, who typically, traditional conservatives are typically conservative
00:23:36.320 because we believe in Judeo-Christian values. We believe in the Judeo-Christian concept that all
00:23:42.240 men and women are created equal and have the same dignity in God's sight. And therefore,
00:23:47.300 we are given certain inalienable rights by our creator that shouldn't be taken away by the government.
00:23:52.480 I've said before, I don't think it makes sense to be a conservative without believing in God
00:23:57.780 because you have to give some kind of answer for why you think people have rights that they
00:24:03.600 inherently deserve to keep. If not given by a higher power, then why aren't they given or taken away
00:24:10.040 by the government? So there are problems on the right as well. I'm not saying that you, like I said,
00:24:16.720 that you have to be a conservative in order to be a Christian and you certainly don't have to like
00:24:21.160 Donald Trump. But to think that you're just going to be able to join arms with progressives on a few
00:24:27.200 things and not be called a bigot for the other things you believe, like things on marriage and
00:24:32.800 abortion, you're absolutely crazy. That is not how progressivism works. And I just worry that they
00:24:40.120 are going to slip more and more down that slope. They are going to start joining forces with these
00:24:47.540 progressives who actually are not tolerant at all of any biblical views. So what's going to happen?
00:24:54.420 Are people like Matt Chandler going to start growing silent on things that are controversial,
00:24:58.700 on things that polarize people on the left? Or is he going to say, oh, wait, wait, this progressive
00:25:06.200 movement, the social justice movement is too unbiblical for me to be a part of, and I'm just
00:25:12.420 going to stand up for what the gospel says. I don't know. We'll see. Of course, if anyone had
00:25:18.480 any knowledge whatsoever, they would realize that America has been used by God to alleviate
00:25:24.660 suffering and to alleviate hunger and to alleviate poverty more than any other nation in all of
00:25:30.200 existence. And the reason why we have is because of the liberty that has been preserved by conservatives
00:25:35.080 and the constitution that has been preserved by conservatives and capitalism that has been
00:25:40.640 preserved by conservatives. Like I said, you don't have to be a Republican in order to be a Christian,
00:25:45.600 but you would realize that conservative values are what have perpetuated the things that have
00:25:51.060 helped not just our countrymen, but also the world be a better place, a place with less suffering,
00:25:59.040 less hunger and less poverty. Okay. A couple more things that have nothing to do with that.
00:26:06.280 I wanted to point out a couple of things that are stupid. I guess this is kind of like a thing that
00:26:12.900 I don't get segment a little bit. It's really just a thing that makes me angry. So Maduro, he is the
00:26:22.100 leader of Venezuela. As you guys know, Venezuela is under a socialist rule. Socialists like to say it's
00:26:28.360 not under a socialist rule. It is under a socialist rule. He came in, Maduro came in promising all of
00:26:35.020 these wonderful things to Venezuelans, raising the minimum salary by something like, I don't know,
00:26:44.400 3,000% or something like that. Of course, that didn't work out very well. Now people are eating
00:26:51.080 dogs on the street and using leaves for toilet paper. They have absolutely nothing. The pictures from
00:26:55.800 Venezuela are haunting. They're terrible. People are starving. I was just reading a story about a woman
00:27:01.420 who has lost 70 pounds in the past three years that she's unable to feed her child. They have absolutely
00:27:07.900 nothing. And what is Maduro doing? Well, there was just a video that was published by Salt Bay. You guys
00:27:15.000 know Salt Bay, the guy who, where is he? I think he's in Istanbul, who has a steakhouse there. And, you know,
00:27:23.040 he does the little salt thing. And there is a video of Maduro meeting this guy and being fed
00:27:30.680 these very bougie steaks in this bougie steakhouse, taking pictures with Salt Bay. All the while,
00:27:38.660 his people are starving. That is peak socialism. So when people tell you that socialism encourages
00:27:47.220 equality, that it encourages equal ownership, just remember that picture of Maduro eating bougie steaks
00:27:54.860 with Salt Bay and the people scrounging on the streets, sifting through trash for something that can give
00:28:02.480 them sustenance for the next two weeks. That is socialism. Socialism is not possible without a strong
00:28:09.280 central government. And what happens when a strong central government has a lot of power? It's the same thing
00:28:15.200 that's happened throughout history. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts, absolutely. That is what has
00:28:19.980 happened in Venezuela. Don't let anyone tell you differently. That is a perfect picture of socialism. So
00:28:24.380 when someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or anyone else advocates for socialism, know that eventually
00:28:30.680 that's the end of it. That's what it looks like. Okay, I got one question, but it was really a sarcastic
00:28:38.100 question, but I'll answer it seriously on Twitter. So someone said, Allie, I love your podcast,
00:28:46.980 but I stopped liking it when you said that you don't believe that women should teach men the Bible.
00:28:54.180 So maybe you need to stop doing your podcast because I'm a man. I listen to your podcast
00:28:58.160 and you're teaching me the Bible. You think that's unbiblical. So maybe you just need to
00:29:02.120 put a little PSA out there saying, if you're a man, don't listen to my podcast because I'm about
00:29:09.040 to talk about the Bible. Oh, man. So first of all, I never said that women in any context whatsoever
00:29:17.300 are not allowed to teach the Bible. I said in church. I said in the context of like from a pulpit
00:29:26.020 or in a church context, not from media. I cannot help it who listens to my podcast.
00:29:32.920 If a man listens to my podcast, I don't even know. I don't know if men listen to my podcast.
00:29:38.240 I am not teaching you the Word of God from a pulpit. And if you don't know the difference
00:29:43.280 between a pulpit and a podcast, then I really can't help you. Then you might want to listen to
00:29:48.700 something a little more elementary anyway. Okay. Oh, one more thing that I wanted to say. I wanted to
00:29:55.700 answer a question. So someone gave me a list of questions about like skincare and organization
00:30:04.380 and how I spend my time and things like that. And I think that that is hilarious and so sweet.
00:30:10.240 And social media must just be like, I never try to put forth any kind of front on social media that is
00:30:16.600 not real. I don't think that I try to give some kind of picture of my life that is ideal because
00:30:23.100 it's not. And I don't think that I try to communicate that at all. But you know,
00:30:27.880 you can only communicate so much. So maybe it looks like my life is all together. This person said,
00:30:32.400 you seem to have it all together. You seem organized. What kind of planner do you use?
00:30:36.500 To which I laugh very hard because I am not organized. I've never been organized. There's a
00:30:42.400 very good chance I have undiagnosed ADD. I lose things all of the time. I get a planner every year.
00:30:49.020 Every year I set a resolution to be more organized and to plan my life better. I never ever do.
00:30:55.180 Sometimes I write in my planner if I'm feeling really organized on a Sunday night, but I don't
00:30:59.620 look at it for the rest of the week. I literally keep all of the things that I have to do in my head.
00:31:04.160 That is dangerous. And I can't tell you how many times I've run into things where I've double booked
00:31:08.120 myself. It happens all of the time. That is no way to live. I'm not an organized person. I don't have
00:31:14.440 it together. Most of the time I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off
00:31:18.220 because I don't plan my time wisely. And that is not a good thing. So I don't have
00:31:26.360 any advice for you whatsoever. In fact, if you guys are listening and you have advice for me,
00:31:31.600 if you can give me some kind of just quick tip for an unorganized person to be more organized,
00:31:38.580 a person who procrastinates like me and actually works better when I wait until the last minute,
00:31:42.420 then I would gladly take your advice. Feel free to email me,
00:31:46.820 Allie at the conservative millennial blog. Wow. I just totally butchered my own email address.
00:31:52.980 Allie at the conservative millennial blog.com. I don't know what happened there. I just had like
00:31:57.120 a speech issue. Or you can message me on Instagram as many of you do on a daily basis. I always
00:32:02.080 appreciate that. Please feel free to leave me a positive review on iTunes. It really helps and it
00:32:07.860 means a lot to me. I read those, by the way. I try to read them every week and they just really
00:32:12.020 make me happy. So thank you for that. Feel free to recommend this podcast if you like it to your
00:32:17.740 friends, especially your liberal friends. And send me an email if you do have any criticism or feedback
00:32:22.360 or suggestions on what you would like me to talk about. Like I said, Allie at the conservative
00:32:26.900 millennial blog.com. Okay. Have a great weekend.