Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 404 ｜ Should Christians Get Botox？｜ Q&A

00:00:00.000 Hello, hello. Welcome to Relatable. We are back today with another Q&A episode. You guys

00:00:16.260 have a lot of good questions for me. We are going to talk about Botox, putting pronouns in your bio,

00:00:24.520 communal repentance, what will America look like for our children, all kinds of good stuff,

00:00:30.200 a wide range. So let's get to this first question. Should Christians get Botox? Should we get lip 0.90

00:00:36.700 fillers? Should we do these kinds of surgical or semi-surgical procedures to make ourselves

00:00:45.800 look better? So I know Christians who do this. I know Christians who genuinely love the Lord

00:00:52.160 and who get Botox because they don't want that line in their foreheads or they don't want the

00:00:57.140 line around their mouths or they get Juvederm or they get lip injections and things like that.

00:01:02.560 And I think their argument would just simply be that it's not that they idolize their appearance.

00:01:08.480 It's just that this is something that they want to do, just like getting your nails done or just

00:01:13.000 like getting highlights or, you know, putting on clothes that you like, wearing makeup and things

00:01:19.820 like that, that it's just kind of, you know, something aesthetic that they've chosen to do

00:01:25.320 has nothing to do with the fear of getting old or anything like that. So I think that's one

00:01:29.260 perspective. And I would certainly not question anyone's love for the Lord or the sincerity of

00:01:34.700 their faith because of that, because it's true. Of course, we as women do all kinds of things to make

00:01:40.880 ourselves look better. I've never gotten anything like that. I've never gotten Botox or injections or

00:01:45.220 anything. And I don't ever plan to do that. And I'll explain why, but I do get highlights in my

00:01:51.640 hair. I do wear makeup. There was a time when I used to do more, like I used to get spray tans.

00:01:59.720 And back in the day, I used to get my eyebrows waxed. I don't do that anymore. People ask me about

00:02:06.260 my eyebrows a lot. The fact of the matter is, is that I really, I just inherited these babies from,

00:02:12.000 I don't know, my ancestors. And I sometimes pluck them. People ask me what I do with my eyebrows,

00:02:19.180 if I get them threaded or something like that. I do not. I don't fill in my eyebrows. I actually

00:02:23.840 really hate it whenever I get my eyebrows, like filled in. If someone's doing my makeup,

00:02:28.080 I already have dark eyebrows. That's just an aside. These are just the eyebrows that I was born with.

00:02:33.020 I really don't do anything to them. And I'm just kind of like a simple gal anyway. Like even if I was

00:02:39.820 all on board with Botox and injections and things like that, I just don't think that I would do it

00:02:43.980 because I'm lazy. And as you can probably see, if you're watching on YouTube, my nails aren't done.

00:02:49.480 I'm just not, I've never been that kind of person. I've definitely gotten girlier. I think that as 0.81

00:02:54.560 I've grown up, like when I was little, my mom can tell you, I've two older brothers. So she was so

00:02:59.640 excited about getting a girl. Of course, you're so excited about all the bows and all the frills and

00:03:04.140 all the dresses. She was sorely disappointed by the time I was like two years old. And I decided

00:03:09.220 that I was mature enough and independent enough to make my own decisions about my wardrobe.

00:03:14.040 And of course, there were times when I acquiesced and I wore the dresses and the bows and things like

00:03:18.680 that. But I hated that. All I wanted to wear was jeans and a t-shirt. I was embarrassed by dresses

00:03:25.040 and frills and things like that. I'm still pretty simple. Like I don't like anything loud.

00:03:29.060 I don't like a bunch of jewelry. I don't like anything big. I don't like makeup that is like

00:03:34.360 really obvious that I'm wearing makeup. I like things to be like extremely neutral,

00:03:39.680 extremely simple. So I just want to be honest about that, that I'm, when I say that I'm not

00:03:44.660 going to ever get Juvederm or Botox, I don't want it to sound like I'm being self-righteous.

00:03:49.560 The fact of the matter is, is that's just probably not something that I would do. It's not really my

00:03:54.480 style. That's not my personality. That's not how I have ever been. That's not how God made

00:03:59.020 me. But I do think that there is a spiritual conversation, a theological conversation to be

00:04:03.860 had about getting Botox and Juvederm and things like that. Fillers, facelifts, I don't know,

00:04:12.440 cool sculpting. What else do the kids do these days? I have no idea. Other kinds of cosmetic

00:04:18.800 surgery or augmentation that people get. Now the Bible does talk about conceit. The Bible does talk

00:04:26.620 about vanity and caring too much about what we look like. 1 Timothy 2.9 does speak to not wanting

00:04:34.140 to, as women, we shouldn't want to draw attention to ourselves based on how we look. Women should 1.00

00:04:38.880 adorn themselves. This passage says, in respectable apparel, with modesty, with self-control, not with

00:04:45.060 braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire. And of course, we read that passage to mean not

00:04:50.900 necessarily literal braids or not necessarily literal gold. I'm wearing gold earrings right now,

00:04:57.060 but it is talking about this kind of boisterous or ostentatious style that is meant to draw attention

00:05:04.120 to you rather than to your godliness or to your virtue or to the gifts of the Spirit that the Lord

00:05:10.060 has given you, but rather draw you to kind of draw people to your superficial characteristics. Now, I don't

00:05:16.040 think that that means that beauty is bad. God created women very beautifully, created women to 0.97

00:05:21.020 be attractive to men, to be attractive to our spouses. And so it is important for men to be

00:05:28.940 attracted to the person that they end up with, but we also realize that the beauty of our youth is going

00:05:35.560 to change. I don't like to say that it's going to fade, although I guess that's true and I guess

00:05:39.900 that's biblical, but it's going to change. We are going to come into new stages of life where our

00:05:44.940 skin isn't quite as firm as it used to be. It's harder to lose weight. Our metabolism slows down.

00:05:52.420 We get wrinkly and we just don't look how we did when we were 25 years old. And I think the better

00:05:58.380 way to look at aging is not to see it as a necessary evil, not to see it as something that

00:06:03.840 we are trying to avoid, but something that we should be thanking God for. Now, I know that's really

00:06:08.680 difficult when it comes to appearance, especially for someone like me who sits in front of a camera

00:06:13.020 every day. I mean, it's so easy to compare myself to other people who look younger than me, or they

00:06:21.360 do get these kind of aesthetic procedures and to wonder, well, should I do that? Is it something that

00:06:27.440 I need to do in order to stay appealing? Is it something that I need to be thinking about or

00:06:33.260 investing in? But I think that probably the right way for us to look at aging is with a heart of

00:06:40.580 gratitude and humility that every day that we have, every wrinkle that is added to our face is a gift

00:06:47.060 from God. Because some people, a lot of people, millions and millions and millions and millions of

00:06:51.800 people throughout history have never gotten to the age of being able to see their skin degenerate.

00:07:00.140 Like God hasn't granted them the days on earth to be able to see a wrinkle, to be able to see a laugh

00:07:06.880 line, or they haven't had enough joy in their life to be able to have laugh lines. God did not give

00:07:13.680 them the years in their life to be able to experience the effects of aging. Every day, every breath,

00:07:20.860 every year that God gives us is a gracious gift that is supposed to be filled with purpose. And the

00:07:27.120 aging of our faces, the aging of our bodies speaks to the grace that God is giving us and allowing us to

00:07:32.760 live a little bit longer. And I'm just not sure if we are supposed to be erasing the signifiers of

00:07:39.620 the gift of life that God is continuing by His sovereignty to give us. And we also know that

00:07:46.520 focusing too much on outer beauty is just not something that Christians are called to do like 0.97

00:07:51.140 we read in 1 Timothy, but also in Proverbs 31, that classic passage about women, charm is deceptive, 1.00

00:07:57.580 beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. 1 Peter 3, 4, that it is 0.99

00:08:05.740 far better to focus on the inner self, the unfailing beauty of a quiet and gentle spirit, which is of

00:08:12.820 great worth in God's sight. So again, I don't think this means that beauty doesn't matter and that God

00:08:20.200 didn't create us with purpose because He did make some people more physically beautiful than others.

00:08:26.560 But God also makes clear that what He cares about most of all, what actually lasts, what's actually

00:08:32.400 really attractive and really appealing about someone is the work of the heart, something that's going on

00:08:39.040 in the inside. And if that is our focus, I'm not sure that the wise way to steward our money is through

00:08:45.480 these kinds of aesthetic procedures. Now, at the same time, it gets a little muddied or it gets a little

00:08:53.120 confusing when we think, okay, well, why is it a waste of money or why is it kind of not glorifying

00:09:01.160 to God or grateful to God for the years that He's given us to get Botox, but it is okay for us to have

00:09:07.680 highlights or it's okay for us to wear makeup? And I think that there are a lot of possible answers to

00:09:15.900 that question. And maybe you think that it is just hypocritical altogether. And I do think there's a

00:09:21.000 conversation to be had about that by getting highlights. Am I saying that I am like grumbling

00:09:27.960 against God for the kind of hair that He gave me? Am I saying that how God created me isn't good enough

00:09:34.300 by wearing makeup? Am I saying that I don't appreciate the natural look that God gave me?

00:09:40.500 Or is it just a way to kind of enhance how God made me? I think there's a conversation

00:09:48.200 to be had there. And I certainly think that it has a lot to do with our motivations. I think it has a

00:09:54.440 lot to do with our heart. I think it has a lot to do with the why, like I said, behind why we're doing

00:10:00.080 what we're doing, how much of our budget we are spending on those things, how focused we are on those

00:10:05.460 things, if we are more focused on our outward appearance than we are on our inward sanctification,

00:10:13.100 then that would be a problem. That would be idolatry. So I don't know if I answered as clearly

00:10:18.420 as I would like to on that, but I hope I gave some biblical direction for this. For me, I just,

00:10:26.700 I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I'll make that pledge to you now that I might wear

00:10:31.380 the face masks. I might do the like retin-A at some point in my life, but I just don't, there's,

00:10:39.320 there's something biblically, there's something spiritually that I'm just not on board with when

00:10:45.460 it comes to those kinds of procedures. And maybe I'm a hypocrite for also getting my hair done. I

00:10:51.600 don't know. That's why I don't stand in a place of judgment or condemnation on these things. And I'm

00:10:56.140 trying my best to understand, but I hope I gave you at least something to think about. And I'd love

00:11:01.680 to hear your thoughts on it as well. Here's another contentious topic that is pronouns in your bio. So

00:11:07.920 this particular person asked me about Christians putting pronouns in your bio. So this is the kind 0.63

00:11:12.140 of question that I've gotten a lot. And I will, I'll talk to you about, well, actually I've already

00:11:19.340 talked about it and I'll probably talk about it more in a future episode, but we did an entire episode

00:11:24.240 called the biblical telos of gender, the biblical telos of gender. And I'll try to remember to put

00:11:29.380 the link to that episode in the description to, um, of this podcast. But we, we answered this

00:11:35.700 question very thoroughly. Like, what does the Bible say about gender? Like, why do we believe in male

00:11:39.740 and female? We've talked about that a lot on this podcast before. Go to my website, allybethstucky.com

00:11:45.480 slash podcast. You can click on, um, culture, I think, or you can click on any of the categories,

00:11:50.620 then you can click on gender and sexuality. All of the episodes about gender and sexuality will pop

00:11:55.800 up there. Um, that's just a little trick. If you didn't know that I've got all my podcasts categorized

00:12:00.840 on my website and you can go check them out. Um, but what we talked about in that episode and what I

00:12:07.620 still believe today is that Christians, we don't need to be saying what our pronouns are. Um, and the

00:12:14.840 reason for that is because that affirms this idea, which is not a biblical idea that gender

00:12:20.240 identity and sex are different, that it is actually possible to identify as something other than the

00:12:27.560 sex that you were born with something other than your chromosomal makeup. And we just don't believe

00:12:33.160 biblically. That's true. Yes. We know that there are abnormalities. We know that people have disorders

00:12:37.720 in which, um, they have hormone disorders or they have chromosomal disorders where they can technically

00:12:44.260 be categorized as intersex, but you don't use an exception to prove the rule. For example,

00:12:51.540 we say that human beings have two arms and two legs. We have 10 fingers and 10 toes. Does that mean

00:12:56.340 that there are no people without 10 fingers and 10 toes? Does that mean that there are no people

00:13:00.200 who weren't born, who, who were born with one leg? Of course, we know people who are disabled. We know

00:13:06.800 people who were born without an arm or without a leg, but that doesn't change the fact that we say

00:13:12.360 that as a rule, human beings are born with two arms and two legs. The human beings are bipeds.

00:13:18.220 There are some people because of cancer treatment that do not have hair. Do we say that those people,

00:13:23.700 um, that they lack the, that one characteristic of being a mammal, or do we say that, well, not all

00:13:28.880 mammals have hair or not all human beings have hair? No, we say human beings have hair, even though

00:13:34.000 we know that there are some people who do not. And so we don't allow the exception of people

00:13:39.020 who are intersex and who should be treated with all the kindness and the respect of the world

00:13:43.600 to then define the rule for all of humanity. The rule for humanity is that there is male and female. 0.81

00:13:50.240 And that is a Genesis one issue. It's not just scientific. It's also theological. And if we cannot

00:13:56.260 accept what God tells us in Genesis one, and then is reiterated throughout scripture, even by Jesus

00:14:02.300 himself in Matthew 19, as he's answering a question about divorce, that God made them male

00:14:06.580 and female, then we cannot be expected to stand up for the issues that are far more controversial in 0.80

00:14:13.700 the Bible, namely the gospel. The gospel that we are all dead and sin apart from Christ is far more

00:14:18.320 offensive than what Genesis one says about God making them male and female. And so do not kid

00:14:23.960 yourself. Like if you can't stand up for this basic truth, basic scientific truth of male and female,

00:14:29.100 basic theological tenet of male and female, then I don't think that it is true that you will be able 0.99

00:14:38.460 to stand up for something which is far more controversial, which is John 14, 6, that Jesus

00:14:42.900 is the way, the truth, and the life. And so saying what your pronouns are, and I understand some workplaces

00:14:50.220 make this very difficult, but they cannot, they can't really compel you to say something. They

00:14:56.940 can't compel you to define your, to define your pronouns. I mean, it's ridiculous, obviously, but

00:15:06.220 it's also not great corporate policy. There's a possibility that there could be a lawsuit on their

00:15:11.320 hands. I would look into that if that is your situation. But stating your pronouns, like when your

00:15:17.560 pronouns are obvious, it's just giving credence to a gender identity theory, again, that your gender

00:15:23.480 identity can be separate from your biological sex that Christians just don't believe. Remember, also,

00:15:28.560 as we talked about in that episode, Biblical Tell Us of Gender, the idea that gender identity is separate

00:15:34.180 from sex, that gender is actually a product of your feelings or environment, was first established by a

00:15:40.720 doctor, Dr. John Money, in the 1960s. He started the Gender Identity Clinic at Johns Hopkins.

00:15:47.560 He came up with this idea, not based on research, but based on some theory that he had. He tested the

00:15:53.360 theory on twin boys, one of which he convinced the parents of to castrate him and to raise him actually

00:16:03.320 as a girl because both twins actually had a problem with their urinary tract and with their tools down

00:16:13.180 there. And so he decided that one thing that they could do for one of the boys, one of the twin boys,

00:16:19.180 was actually to castrate him and to raise him as a girl named Brenda. And so that's what the parents

00:16:25.120 did. And while these boys were young, and I've got the, like I said, in that, we talked about it in

00:16:32.100 this previous podcast. You can see the links to all of that, all of this story in the description of that

00:16:39.320 podcast. I mean, this is all just like basic knowledge that you can find just by searching

00:16:44.760 online. But he experimented on these twin boys when they were kids. He forced them to do sex acts

00:16:52.660 on each other. We're talking about twin boys, one that he convinced the parents to raise as a girl

00:16:56.820 while he was observing these sex acts and while he had other doctors observing these sex acts. And

00:17:04.680 what happened to those two boys? Well, the boy that was raised a girl, he knew he was uncomfortable

00:17:08.720 as a girl. He was a teenager and he didn't want to be a girl anymore. He felt and knew that he was

00:17:15.420 a boy. And so he actually ended up getting surgery later in life to reaffirm his biological sex. He

00:17:22.380 ended up getting married, but both boys ended up committing suicide, of course, because they were sexually

00:17:27.140 traumatized from a young age. I'm sorry, this is not very loving, but their weirdo parents were

00:17:35.560 convinced by a weirdo perverted doctor to do something to them that harmed them for the rest

00:17:41.120 of their lives, sent them into a spiral of depression. They committed suicide. Not only that,

00:17:46.200 this guy who came up with this concept of gender identity, which I say was a very failed experiment,

00:17:51.300 considering that his subjects both killed themselves as a result of that. He also,

00:17:56.500 in research, and I put that in square quotes, he had pedophiles, known pedophiles, write him detailed

00:18:03.780 accounts of their interactions, sexual interactions with children, so he could have, you know, robust

00:18:10.880 research on pedophilia. He was a pedophile advocate because of these things. The guy was a pervert,

00:18:18.300 Dr. John Money, and he's the guy who came up with this idea of gender identity, and we have just

00:18:23.420 carried it with us through all these decades, and now we're trying to apply it to our lives

00:18:27.080 and apply it to children. It's insane. It's insane. So for Christians to, in any way, give any credence 1.00

00:18:35.560 to this idea that gender identity is something that is different than the sex that God created us

00:18:40.840 to be, and how God made our bodies by saying, oh, here's my gender preference, or here's my pronoun

00:18:50.980 preference. I think it's ludicrous. I think it's wrong. I think that you should resist it. I don't

00:18:55.700 think in any way that you need to give any kind of credibility to that. You're a man. We know what

00:19:00.500 your pronouns are. You're a woman. We know what your pronouns are. Next question. Hmm. What should I 1.00

00:19:07.400 answer? Okay. This idea of communal repentance. So we've heard this a lot in conversations about

00:19:14.020 race and within the church, so-called racial reconciliation. Tim Keller, LaTosha Morrison,

00:19:19.720 Jamar Tisby. A lot of these leaders have talked about the importance of communal repentance,

00:19:25.020 and what they're typically talking about is white people repenting for the sins of racism and systemic

00:19:30.480 racism and paying some kind of reparations, whether via the government or not, to black people, 0.77

00:19:37.400 because of the sin of slavery, because of the sins of Jim Crow, and the systemic discrimination that

00:19:42.900 they claim lingers because of that. And they typically cite, for example, LaTosha Morrison talks

00:19:49.220 about the book of Ezra, talks about the book of Daniel, how the people were called to repentance,

00:19:55.280 their communities were called to repentance for oppression and for injustice and for breaking God's law.

00:20:02.160 The fact of the matter is, is that there is no biblical precedent for communal repentance that

00:20:07.500 is based on your skin color. That is not what we see in Ezra. That's not what we see in the book of

00:20:13.600 Daniel. That's not what we see in ancient Israel. When you look at the book of Ezra, when you look at

00:20:19.040 the book of Daniel, they are asking the community, God is telling the community to repent of sins that

00:20:24.380 they were actively committing. Not that they were passively committing or that people who looked like

00:20:29.740 them may or may not have committed a number of years ago. He was talking about direct and actual

00:20:37.220 sins that were actively being committed at the time. That is what God was asking them to repent of 0.95

00:20:44.120 in both of those books. Another thing is that if you look at the communal repentance of Israel,

00:20:49.200 that does not correspond with communal repentance of white people today, because white people are not 0.70

00:20:54.260 God's chosen people. I think everyone would agree with that. But any people of any skin color, of any

00:21:00.180 melanin count, do not correspond to God's chosen people of ancient Israel. And so we are not God's

00:21:07.820 covenant people based on our skin color. Of course, we are God's covenant people as Christians bought by

00:21:13.140 the blood of Christ. But we do not correlate or correspond to Israel, whether we are white or black.

00:21:20.780 And so the call to God's covenant people to communally repent of something cannot therefore be applied to

00:21:26.620 people of all the same skin color in one place. And that is not God's definition of justice, which we 1.00

00:21:34.720 have talked about so many times, which is direct, which is impartial, which is truthful, which is

00:21:41.480 proportional. To say that all white people owe all black people something in the United States 0.82

00:21:50.000 is to negate all of those definitions of what God tells us that justice is. Because we don't even know.

00:21:59.320 If you're a white person in the United States, you have no idea if your ancestors played any part in

00:22:04.220 slavery, if your ancestors played any part in Jim Crow. You could have come from a long line of people who

00:22:10.640 have been oppressed themselves, who have been poor for generations. You might still be a product of

00:22:18.060 the oppression that your white ancestors or any other kind of ancestors have endured in the United

00:22:24.520 States. You have no idea if you or anyone that you know has any culpability in the kinds of

00:22:29.280 injustices that we have seen against black people in the United States. And so for you to say that the

00:22:35.620 family in Appalachia owns or owes reparations to Kanye West, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

00:22:43.940 That doesn't sound a whole lot like justice, does it? Of course not. Like, I'm not sure. Well, I actually

00:22:49.140 know for sure that that's not how God defines oppression. That's not how God defines how we seek

00:22:55.140 justice and love mercy. And if you're a black person in the United States, you actually, I mean,

00:23:00.760 you might know maybe your ancestors were slaves, but maybe they weren't. Like, maybe you're not from

00:23:06.720 Africa. Maybe you don't have a lineage of slavery. Maybe you actually come from a long line of very

00:23:14.980 successful Americans and that you have not been under the thumb of oppression that other black 1.00

00:23:20.620 Americans and some white Americans and some Asian Americans have been under. Maybe you have,

00:23:26.560 maybe you have it. It could be that you have ancestors that actually sold other Africans into 0.87

00:23:31.240 slavery in Africa. It could be that you have ancestors that own slaves, black ancestors that 0.87

00:23:37.120 own slaves here in the United States. Same thing if you're a Native American. The reality is, is that 0.97

00:23:42.540 the history of the world is people oppressing others and people being oppressed. People of all skin

00:23:49.380 colors, people of all creeds, people of all nationalities have been oppressed and have been oppressors.

00:23:55.320 And so when we say today that people who are born today have pre-packaged grievances against someone

00:24:02.840 of another skin color, that somehow someone at the top has to like re-engineer and rearrange their 0.57

00:24:12.560 lives in the hopes of achieving some kind of equity and the hopes of trying to right past wrongs.

00:24:19.060 And when we use communal repentance to justify this, I'm just not sure that it has any basis

00:24:25.380 in the Bible, of course, but I don't think it has any basis in logic either. And there are a lot of

00:24:31.820 questions, by the way, there's a lot of debate around this idea that every disparity that we see between

00:24:38.320 white and black people in the United States today is due to the legacy of slavery or even the legacy of 0.71

00:24:43.520 Jim Crow. As we've talked about many times, both the white and the black family began deteriorating 0.85

00:24:49.220 at rapid rates in the 1960s. And while the black fatherlessness, the rate of it has been higher 1.00

00:24:55.220 than white fatherlessness in the United States, white fatherlessness has increased at the same

00:24:59.920 rate since the 1960s as black fatherlessness. And the divorce rate among black families before the 0.99

00:25:07.260 1960s was actually lower than that of white families. How is that possible if truly it is 0.97

00:25:13.300 slavery that is to blame for the deterioration or fatherlessness in the black community? How is it

00:25:18.600 possible that actually family togetherness was better among black families before the 1960s than it was

00:25:24.640 among white families? And you also have to remember that it's not just black people and white people

00:25:28.580 that live in the United States, that family togetherness is much higher in Asian communities than it is

00:25:35.520 white communities. And in fact, in virtually all categories, Asian people in general in America

00:25:40.820 are doing better than white people in America. They've got a higher median income. They've got a 0.52

00:25:44.500 higher graduation rate, a lower divorce rate, a lower crime rate, higher test scores. And so if the

00:25:50.400 problem that we are facing today is white supremacy, like how do you explain that? And if systemic racism

00:25:57.040 is to blame for all disparities between white groups and black groups, what's to blame for the 0.99

00:26:02.360 disparities between Asian groups and white groups? And so again, there are a lot of conversations to

00:26:06.860 be had about some of the claims that are made about what certain groups have to actually repent of and

00:26:11.580 why in this country. So that's part of the problem. Not even whether or not communal repentance is good

00:26:18.080 or biblical, but also the question of like, what is being repented of? What are the problems we're

00:26:23.680 facing today? And what is the actual cause of them? All right, I'm going to do one more question.

00:26:29.400 What will America look like for our children? So of course, I don't know for sure. I don't claim

00:26:35.100 to be a prophet. I don't claim to be a prophetess. But I think it can go a variety of directions.

00:26:42.280 So either the powers that be can have their way. And when you think about it, when you think about

00:26:50.160 the likelihood of the country becoming more conservative or becoming more godly or becoming

00:26:56.520 just more sane in any way, it seems very unlikely. The same form of progressivism, of social justice

00:27:04.820 activism, which is chiefly concerned with performative activism in the United States, not at all concerned

00:27:12.580 that their supply chains, for example, at these major companies are characterized by slave labor in

00:27:19.540 China. That characterizes, that describes most of the powers that be in this country. Most of the 0.81

00:27:28.880 cultural powers that be are dominated by that form of leftism. Whether you're talking about big tech,

00:27:34.720 whether you're talking about major media corporations, most of the federal government now,

00:27:40.140 a lot of the intelligence community, as we've seen over the past few years, even portions of the

00:27:44.560 military, as we've seen in the past year or so, academia, the public education system, social media,

00:27:53.580 mainstream media, all of these entities and institutions are almost completely dominated

00:27:58.840 by that form of leftism. We're not talking about the natural liberalism that basically says live and

00:28:04.620 let live. We're talking about ideological leftism. And those same entities are telling people that

00:28:11.320 really the biggest fear that you have to have are conservative Christians and people who voted

00:28:16.200 for Donald Trump, who have no institutional power, by the way, like have no cultural sway,

00:28:21.040 have no social capital whatsoever. They're telling you that they're the real threat. And so the people

00:28:27.620 who say that they're so scared of fascism are pointing fingers at conservative Christians when really

00:28:33.620 they need to be looking at the wedding of corporate media and government power that's happening on the left. 0.94

00:28:39.140 That's the definition of fascism, by the way. But it's all kind of a farce. It's all kind of part of

00:28:46.280 this revolution that seems to be coming on so quickly. So when you think about all of that,

00:28:50.940 you think about, is it possible that in combination with actual communist regimes like China, who is

00:28:58.380 about to be the world superpower, how is it possible for us to push back on that kind of stuff?

00:29:03.560 And of course, I don't know. I wish I could say that I am completely optimistic that things will

00:29:10.240 get better. I do know that God is sovereign. Things could get worse and worse, or things could

00:29:15.080 get better for a little while, as we've seen throughout history, then get bad again. I mean,

00:29:20.020 history and the church in particular has gone through cycles of liberty and cycles of oppression.

00:29:26.160 I would say the church's history has been characterized mostly by persecution and oppression

00:29:30.340 than liberty. But history goes through cycles of really good and bad. History has been really bad

00:29:35.920 before. Humanity has gone through some really bad stuff, worse than way worse, a thousand times

00:29:40.720 worse than what we're going through right now. People around the world have seen more suffering than

00:29:45.340 you and I can probably imagine. And so it's possible, certainly, for things to get better. History tells

00:29:51.760 us that. And then it's possible for things to crumble again, or it's possible for things to crumble and

00:29:55.760 then possibly get better. It's really hard to say. But I actually do think that pushing back against

00:30:02.380 critical theory, pushing back against Marxism, pushing back against the absolute sexual insanity

00:30:09.020 that we are seeing in a curriculum, that we are seeing represented in the mainstream, I actually do

00:30:16.760 think that it's having some effect. I think that the left overplays their hand when they say, yes,

00:30:21.760 biological boys can play girls' sports. Yes, this man can enter into the girls' restroom. When they

00:30:29.160 start questioning parental rights, when they start to get too controlling too fast, I think that they

00:30:35.560 overplay their hand and people start to push back. I mean, there are already people that we've seen

00:30:40.180 who regret voting for Joe Biden because of how radical his administration has already been. Now,

00:30:47.540 whether or not they're going to have amnesia and forget about this when it comes to the next

00:30:51.120 election is yet to be seen. But I do think it's possible that raising the alarms about the things

00:30:56.200 that are going on, comparing it in a very realistic way to the leftist social revolutions that left much

00:31:03.440 of the world in shambles in the 20th century, I do think it can be effective. Because think about all

00:31:09.260 the institutions that I just told you were completely dominated by one form of progressivism.

00:31:14.940 And the fact that almost 80 million people voted for Donald Trump, like there are still tens of

00:31:20.780 millions of people in this country who do not agree with the values of those companies and those

00:31:26.200 institutions, that's pretty amazing that so many people are still unaffected or at least unpersuaded

00:31:31.580 by the propaganda that we're seeing coming from all those mainstream institutions. And of course,

00:31:36.100 that's why we're seeing so many power grabs come from the Democrat-dominated Congress. That's why

00:31:43.460 they're trying to change voting laws. That's why they're trying to make it easier to come into the 0.99

00:31:48.080 country without any path to citizenship or any need for citizenship. That is why they're trying 1.00

00:31:54.420 to dominate as much as they possibly can, because they know that their ideas are not popular. Their

00:31:59.700 most extreme ideas are not popular with most of the country. That's why they have such a, they lost

00:32:04.560 seats in the House, despite so much anti-Trump hatred. That's why they have such a slim majority

00:32:10.620 in the Senate because most of their ideas, their most radical ideas are not popular. So they've

00:32:14.940 got to shove it down your throats and to say that the voices of 80 million people at least

00:32:18.800 just don't matter. So that's why we're seeing what we're seeing. And it's just a matter of how much

00:32:23.660 they're going to be able to get away with. But do not discount your ability to have influence

00:32:27.720 in your kids' school, in your community, in your area, speaking up about that which is not true,

00:32:34.460 that which is not fair, that which is not right, that which is not safe. You absolutely have a voice,

00:32:39.820 and you have influence. All right, that's all I've got to say for today. I will see you guys back here soon.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 15, 2021

Ep 404 ｜ Should Christians Get Botox？｜ Q&A

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 15, 2021

Ep 404 ｜ Should Christians Get Botox？ ｜ Q&A

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Ep 404 ｜ Should Christians Get Botox？｜ Q&A