Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 429 ｜ Speaking — & Living — the Truth in Love ｜ Guest： Dr. Albert Mohler

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Today, it is an honor to again talk to Dr. Albert Moeller.

00:00:15.200 He is the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He hosts a daily podcast

00:00:20.120 called The Briefing, where he analyzes news and events from a Christian worldview. Today,

00:00:26.040 we're going to talk about some of those worldview issues, what Christians do in light of the sexual

00:00:31.440 moral revolution that seems to be going so quickly. How do we handle things like discerning

00:00:36.220 the truth from the lie when it comes to reading media reporting? How do we make sure that we are

00:00:43.620 continuing in truth and in love in an uncompromising and gracious way when it comes to how we use our

00:00:49.920 language? So for example, using people's quote, personal or preferred pronouns, we're going to

00:00:56.860 talk about the issue of sexuality and marriage and how Christians can lovingly and kindly stand firm

00:01:03.540 in these issues. And so you're going to get a lot out of this conversation. I'm very much looking

00:01:09.120 forward to you listening to it. Without further ado, here is Dr. Albert Moeller.

00:01:14.060 Dr. Moeller, thank you so much for joining me again. You are such a voice of encouragement for me as I

00:01:27.500 listen to you on a daily basis and trying to make sense of really what can only be described as

00:01:34.160 confusion and chaos. That's something that you describe it as often as well, whether it's coming

00:01:40.000 to gender identity and the sexual and moral revolution that you talk about so much or just

00:01:46.240 the intricacies of policy and court decisions. So first of all, thank you for that. Can you give

00:01:53.680 a little bit of first brief encouragement to Christians who really just want to bury their 0.99

00:01:59.640 head in the sand and to not look at what's going on culturally and politically and just pretend like

00:02:05.320 none of it's happening because we don't know what to do about it. Do you think it's important

00:02:09.580 for us to kind of keep abreast on what's going on and why?

00:02:14.760 Well, it's great to be with you, Allie Beth. And yes, I do want to offer that word of encouragement

00:02:18.900 to Christians not to stick our heads in the sand and try to ignore or be oblivious to what's going

00:02:25.160 on because it's not just that we have to be faithful to Christ in the midst of our times and we have to

00:02:31.640 understand what we're up against there. But it's even more importantly that we, out of love for

00:02:36.560 Christ Church, for fellow believers, for our own children and grandchildren, need to be thinking

00:02:42.180 through these issues even ahead of the culture in order to be faithful when the culture throws the

00:02:47.760 next weapon at us. And frankly, they're coming fast and furiously. And just out of love for our own

00:02:55.500 children and grandchildren and the determination that they grow up and be faithful to Christ, it requires

00:03:01.960 that we be very aware of the things going on around us. And I understand it's daunting and

00:03:06.180 painful and it's complicated, but the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ has all the resources we need

00:03:12.760 to confront these issues with faith and without fear. That doesn't mean that we don't understand

00:03:18.620 what we're up against, but we respond with faith and without fear. So that's a good word of

00:03:24.800 encouragement. You know, knowing the truth is a good biblical principle and denying reality is never

00:03:32.780 faithfulness. A lot of people find it hard to figure out what the truth is. There isn't necessarily

00:03:39.620 one source, one newspaper that people can go to and get a holistic understanding of one issue or one

00:03:46.640 story. People feel like they have to read several different outlets to try to understand all the

00:03:52.560 different angles and wade through all the biases of just one story. What is your advice to people who are

00:03:59.420 like, I don't have time to do all of that. I want to know the truth about something. How do they discern

00:04:05.000 what's biased, what's not, and all of that when it comes to reading the news?

00:04:10.240 Wow, that's a really good set of questions, Ali Beth. You know, I was a newspaper editor, and I am a theologian.

00:04:17.940 That's my main calling, but I'm thankful for that experience in journalism and working with the media

00:04:22.840 through the years. And I think we have to understand that to answer the first question, no, there's not

00:04:27.700 a single source in terms of secular press that we can turn to. There just isn't. There are more and

00:04:34.800 less trustworthy sources. But I think one of the things we have to understand is that there's a

00:04:39.960 culture of the media, and that's been true basically for decades, but it's increasingly true now, that the

00:04:45.960 culture of the media is an incredibly small, self-selected, very secular, very wealthy, very, very much tied to

00:04:55.140 the modern academic culture, very self-policing or not culture. In other words, they see the world

00:05:03.760 differently. Just today, for instance, I was listening to a report in which it referred to a

00:05:10.720 pro-abortion politician to saying that this politician's been criticized for his defense of

00:05:16.740 reproductive rights. And I mean, this was presented as if it's just a neutral news story, but you and

00:05:22.580 I know it's anything but. Helping Christians to understand what we hear, helping Christians to 0.97

00:05:27.060 understand why we do have to check sources, and we have to look for authoritative issues.

00:05:32.680 One of the first rules of journalism I was taught is don't trust anything written by anyone who can't 0.97

00:05:38.420 be fired for writing it. And that's just a good starting place. That's not enough. But if no one

00:05:44.840 can be fired for getting this wrong, don't trust it. But then again, we know that this is where

00:05:50.060 Christians really need to be involved in conversation. I appreciate so much what you do

00:05:53.580 and your careful engagement. What I try to do on the briefing every weekday is to help Christians to

00:06:00.560 think about not only what the media is talking about, but even how to judge what the media are

00:06:06.120 doing. And you're raising a very important question. And it just points out the fact that

00:06:11.040 we can't be listening to one secular voice and think we have anything close to a trustworthy flow

00:06:18.900 of information. One thing I noticed when I'm listening to your podcast is how thoughtful and careful you are

00:06:26.360 in your analysis of particular news stories, how you pick up on those words and phrases that most

00:06:32.640 people don't necessarily notice have been swapped out for another phrase. And we just kind of get the

00:06:38.080 general sense that this is a positive issue. And this person is being unfairly criticized.

00:06:43.820 How have you kind of, I would say, honed that skill and that craft of being a careful reader and analyzer

00:06:53.140 of what's going on in the news? Because I don't feel like I've perfectly honed it. There are many,

00:06:58.820 many things you say on your podcast that I'm thinking, wow, I don't think I would have even

00:07:03.320 noticed that. What can thoughtful Christians do to get better at being more considerate when they're

00:07:08.820 reading a story? Just again, I love these questions. And I certainly, I miss things too,

00:07:16.480 of course. But, you know, what I've tried to do over the years is look at how language is being

00:07:23.680 used. And frankly, it's far more important to me as a theologian than even someone who engages the

00:07:28.300 media. But language is never neutral. And how language is deployed, do you talk about abortion and

00:07:34.380 the killing of the unborn? Or do you talk about reproductive health, reproductive rights,

00:07:38.760 reproductive freedom? None of that's neutral. And the media in the United States, and frankly,

00:07:45.460 it includes a lot of what people think are conservative media, they're operating out of

00:07:49.340 the same vocabulary list. And that's very, very dangerous when those words are very carefully

00:07:55.560 crafted in order to carry a moral agenda that we believe is contrary to scripture. And just to give

00:08:01.580 you another example, I'm looking at a news source just a couple of hours ago, they were referring

00:08:06.900 to gender alignment surgery. Whoa, you know, that's the very same surgery that used to be called

00:08:13.460 sex reassignment surgery. And by the way, it's horrifying. And it's in its very, you know,

00:08:20.040 implications and reality. But you'll notice how all of a sudden that's changed. And, and I try to

00:08:25.980 document those changes. Okay, here, it would have been called unethical, unimaginable, contrary to

00:08:33.360 the Hippocratic Oath, then it becomes gender reassignment surgery, then it becomes gender 0.64

00:08:38.680 alignment surgery. Watching that is just, I think, really, really important. And I appreciate you

00:08:44.080 mentioning it. That's, that's what I try to draw attention to. The other thing is just to say

00:08:48.460 that the media have taken on a very, the mainstream media, the New York Times, Washington Post,

00:08:53.720 they've taken on a different posture and a different set of ethics than they would have had

00:08:58.100 just a decade ago. They are much more explicitly editorial in their news coverage. They are, they're,

00:09:06.660 they're not only acknowledging, they're kind of championing now advocacy journalism. And it's a very

00:09:13.840 good thing for Christians to know. It's not just that you've got news reports written by people who are

00:09:20.460 much more liberal than average Americans, not to mention average American Christians, but

00:09:25.620 they're now just owning this activism. And that's a very good thing for us to know.

00:09:32.140 You often talk about controlling the language means controlling the culture. And we've seen a shift

00:09:37.480 in rhetoric and languages you're talking about so quickly over the past few years. And one of those

00:09:42.980 shifts is in that realm of so-called gender identity and the use of someone's preferred pronouns.

00:09:50.340 I get a lot of messages. We've talked about it on this podcast, but I still get a lot of questions

00:09:55.220 about, okay, if my, you know, for example, I'm in, I'm in nursing school and they're asking me to put

00:10:01.800 my gender pronouns on my name tag or this hospital or this business organization that I work at is

00:10:07.900 requiring me to ask someone their preferred pronouns, even though I know that they're a woman and

00:10:14.360 Christians want to know how to, how to navigate that. What's your advice? 1.00

00:10:19.540 Well, you know, it's a, it's a very similar situation to a contact I received from someone

00:10:24.800 working in a hospital on the West coast and then someone working in a prison, Chris, both of them

00:10:28.960 Christians. And they said, look, I've got to do a input processing, but one in a hospital, one in a 0.97

00:10:34.320 prison. And now with the transgender revolution, I have people who are saying X or Y. 1.00

00:10:40.160 Uh, and, uh, it's, it's obviously contrary to, uh, to their, uh, their actual biological reality.

00:10:48.900 Yeah.

00:10:49.460 This is going to be really tough for Christians, uh, because the, the people who are filling out 0.97

00:10:54.680 these forms and doing these things or, or having to reveal a preferred pronoun, they're often not at

00:11:00.640 all in charge of the policy. They're not in charge of, uh, of what, what happens in, in taking someone

00:11:06.620 to a hospital, et cetera. And so there's a sense in which as Christians, we're going to have to

00:11:11.980 figure out together, and this is going to require a lot of biblical thinking. It's going to require

00:11:15.120 congregations, Christians talking to one another. What can I do? And what can I not do? Where is 0.71

00:11:20.440 what I'm doing consistent with my Christian faith? And, uh, and, and, and where is it so inconsistent?

00:11:27.360 I can't do this anymore. Uh, I would say where it's elective, we must never get into the business

00:11:34.080 of, uh, of, of identifying our pronouns as if we have to. Um, but, uh, you know, the white house

00:11:41.700 has just put the preferred pronoun thing on its, uh, its portal. This is the way the culture is going.

00:11:47.680 And that's what's so tragic about all of this. It's institutionalizing and coercing what we know

00:11:53.040 to be untrue. Uh, you know, there's just not an easy answer to that. You know, if you're working

00:11:58.580 for a company that's, uh, that, that isn't requiring you to affirm the, uh, the, the moral

00:12:05.100 revolution contrary to scripture, but you have to fill out a form, you know, excuse me, if, if,

00:12:10.680 if you are male and you can say he, uh, him, that's not untrue. It's, uh, it's ridiculous, 0.86

00:12:17.680 but it's not untrue. It's, it's true. Uh, the problem is that that implies an 0.68

00:12:22.800 entire worldview and, and Ali, but this is where we're headed. We're headed to the fact that

00:12:26.860 students who are going to be applying for colleges and universities, people, teenagers

00:12:30.680 applying for their first job, uh, you know, a lawyer who wants to become partner in a law firm,

00:12:35.500 all of this is now going to be demanded of us. And, uh, it's going to, it's going to take a lot

00:12:40.460 of really clear thinking, uh, which we can't always, we can't always come up with the policy

00:12:45.780 upfront, but we better know our convictions upfront. Yes. And I, I definitely agree with,

00:12:52.220 um, the idea that stating your preferred pronouns or putting it in the signature for your email.

00:12:58.920 If you work for a particular company, it acknowledges and affirms a particular worldview that gender

00:13:03.780 identity is different than biological sex, which we just don't believe biologically or biblically to

00:13:10.300 be true. It's just not, um, a reality that is founded in science or any kind of, uh, theological truth.

00:13:16.560 So I do encourage people to resist as, as much as you possibly can. And of course we don't believe

00:13:22.480 in, in bearing false witness against someone. And so, uh, we don't believe in lying about someone's

00:13:29.180 sex is separate than their gender identity. It is very complicated. And I think some pushback that

00:13:35.720 in particular conservative Christians get is, well, that's not loving your neighbor and not using

00:13:41.180 preferred pronouns or not affirming someone's gender identity is unloving and hateful. And Jesus was just

00:13:47.200 all about love. Um, how can you empower someone to kind of refute that argument that they may get from

00:13:54.420 progressives or progressive Christians? You know, Allie Beth, uh, one of the first principles of

00:14:00.120 Christian thinking is what's called the, uh, the unity of the transcendentals. And that sounds very abstract,

00:14:05.320 but it comes down to the fact that the Bible presents the good, the beautiful, and the true

00:14:09.820 as the same thing, the good, the beautiful, the true, and the loving as the same thing. And the

00:14:15.000 reason that they're united in, in one is because it's God who is infinitely loving is God is the

00:14:21.440 source of all love. It's God who's infinitely true. And, uh, and so God's not divisible. The, the,

00:14:26.940 the good, the beautiful, and the true, the loving, it's all the same, which means telling a lie

00:14:31.660 is never loving. It means telling someone the truth, uh, or refusing to tell someone the truth

00:14:36.840 about themselves is never loving. It means that, uh, just as you say, bearing false witness is

00:14:41.440 actually to break God's command. So obviously the, uh, the attitude we have in dealing with people

00:14:48.800 becomes a test of our love, but being required to tell a falsehood about someone is not an act of

00:14:56.080 love. And, and Jesus, by the way, who after all said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life,

00:15:01.020 and the truth, uh, Jesus spoke so carefully, you know, the Jesus that people often imagine when

00:15:06.920 they throw that out, it's not the Jesus who cleansed the temple. It's not the Jesus who spoke

00:15:12.140 so sternly to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. It's not, it's not the Jesus who said, did you not

00:15:17.080 know that from the beginning, uh, God created marriage as the union of a man and a woman? Uh,

00:15:23.060 this is, in other words, Jesus, the Jesus of the gospels never demonstrated truth in one place

00:15:29.840 and love in another. It was always love and truth. And, uh, that's a test for us because

00:15:35.320 the culture around us, and frankly, even some Christians who aren't thinking very carefully 1.00

00:15:38.920 are telling us, no, love means that you just, uh, accept people as they are. Well, you know,

00:15:44.340 that's the one thing that Jesus did do and didn't do. He accepted them exactly where they are,

00:15:50.060 which meant as sinners, but he came to die for sinners in order that through his atoning sacrifice

00:15:57.400 and our faith in him, we may be saved. In other words, he didn't love us as we are to leave us

00:16:01.720 where we are. He, he, he loved us as we are in order to redeem us by his blood. That's a very

00:16:08.580 different thing. Yes. And I would say that last part is exactly the characteristic of Jesus that

00:16:15.200 people, um, like to forget about when they're talking about Jesus affirming various identities

00:16:21.060 or social movements in the name of love. Well, he cared so much about sin that he, he died for it.

00:16:28.560 This kind of hippie social revolutionary that I think a lot of progressives describe Jesus as

00:16:35.180 just isn't in alignment with who he is in the gospels, but it's also not in alignment with the

00:16:40.480 gospel in general. It's a completely different religion. And, uh, something that I think that we

00:16:45.940 are seeing, I think we're seeing a lot of churches kind of wrestle with that. Unfortunately,

00:16:49.880 it seems like a lot of Christians don't feel like they have the equipment to even be able to answer

00:16:56.020 questions that are really answered in the first book of the Bible and the first chapters of the

00:17:00.820 Bible. What is male and female? What does marriage and family look like according to God? Why do you

00:17:08.220 think it is that so many churches that may have historically or denominations that may have historically

00:17:13.840 been solid on this issue? They so quickly cede ground.

00:17:19.380 Well, Ali Beth, I think what we're seeing is a lot of them have very little commitment to biblical 0.99

00:17:23.380 truth and biblical theology. And, uh, biblical theology comes down to the fact that you just

00:17:28.360 indicated exactly the right reflex for Christians. Our reflex should be what's marriage. Well, the 0.98

00:17:33.200 creator gets to decide what's the meaning of male and female. Well, the creator decides and has

00:17:38.020 revealed to us in the first sentences of scripture. And that means that the scripture storyline going

00:17:44.200 all the way through takes as its absolute premise, an unconditional affirmation that God made us in

00:17:50.180 his image, male and female created he them. And that, uh, that Adam and Eve, uh, our first parents

00:17:55.980 were united in marriage. Therefore they were in the, in the, in the garden naked and not ashamed.

00:18:00.980 And God establishes, uh, human humanity creates us in his image, establishes marriage. And then the,

00:18:08.460 the family, the natural family, by the time you get to the end of Genesis two, you have the mechanism,

00:18:14.280 the means whereby God is allowing human beings to be faithful to the command he's given us to be

00:18:19.840 fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. God's plan was that from the beginning. And then we follow

00:18:25.780 through the storyline of scripture all the way to men and women redeemed by Christ of every tongue and

00:18:30.280 tribe and people in nation. You, you, you have to follow this through. And, and again, how many

00:18:35.220 Christians have the instinct you just demonstrated to say, well, I don't have to kind of figure out

00:18:39.900 by mood what the Bible says about marriage. I don't, I don't, you know, I can start right in the first 0.70

00:18:44.800 two chapters of scripture. And here's the thing. Jesus himself was so clear. The scripture cannot be

00:18:50.400 broken. Not one jot or tittle will pass away until all is fulfilled. Jesus never said, well, this is the

00:18:58.440 old Testament definition of, uh, uh, of humanity of, of, of gender and sex. And, you know, I'm using

00:19:05.440 contemporary words, but you get the point I'm meaning. He affirmed everything. And here's the thing. It's

00:19:11.080 part of the most glorious demonstration. You see it, especially in the gospel of John, Jesus, for instance,

00:19:16.700 in John chapter nine, when he has the man blind from birth and he is confronted by him, what does he do?

00:19:22.440 He reaches to the ground and he, and he spits on the dirt and, and puts it on the man's eyes and

00:19:27.180 says, go, go wash. But here's the thing. He is the very agent of creation who made the first human

00:19:33.180 being, Adam out of the dust and breathe life into him. And the new Testament just goes back and says,

00:19:39.140 okay, what Jesus is saying is, is what the creator is saying, because Jesus was the logos, the, the,

00:19:44.920 the very, uh, the very Lord of creation from the beginning by the father's decree. And I don't mean to

00:19:51.140 get too deep in the theological weeds here. It just, I bet that just, it just gives me such security to

00:19:55.880 know that Jesus is actually demonstrated by his words and by his deeds. The fact that he is the

00:20:01.520 fulfillment of everything that we find beginning in Genesis one and Genesis two, he never contradicted

00:20:07.100 it. Yes. And I think that that is also why people get very confused in their theology as it affects the

00:20:14.580 rest of their worldview is because there is, um, a trend of kind of separating Jesus from the Godhead

00:20:21.940 or separating Jesus from what people say is the God of the old Testament and saying that Jesus kind

00:20:28.120 of just did away with all of that. The God of the old Testament is this bigot wrathful God that we

00:20:33.160 really don't have to worry about. We can, um, what's the term unhitch from the old Testament, uh,

00:20:39.420 because it is, it's no longer relevant. And I think that is also how, even though you could speak

00:20:44.820 to how this argument doesn't even work, that is also how people kind of feel like they can get

00:20:49.460 permission to redefine things like gender and marriage and sexuality, because they think all 0.91

00:20:55.680 of that was left in the old Testament. And finally, we just have this uber tolerant hippie in the new 0.98

00:21:02.060 Testament who establishes that the only rule is the, is that there is no rule. Um, can you tell us why

00:21:08.580 that it's just a poor hermeneutic, that's a poor understanding of who Jesus is and how to read

00:21:13.840 the Bible? It's a, just a denial of scripture. It's a denial of verbal inspiration. It's a denial

00:21:19.580 of, uh, well, for instance, you just said it rightly. There's so many people who say, well,

00:21:23.440 there's this, there's this old Testament God and the old Testament about him that we have to

00:21:28.040 unhitch from in order to, uh, to get to Christianity. So Jesus profoundly would not do. I mean,

00:21:33.540 look at the gospel of Matthew. These things happen in order that the scriptures that would be the

00:21:36.740 Old Testament might be fulfilled. It's Jesus himself making very clear that the pattern is not

00:21:41.540 Old Testament and the New Testament correction. It's Old Testament promise and New Testament 0.79

00:21:46.440 fulfillment. And you're so right, Alibeth. There's so many people who want to separate

00:21:50.160 Jesus from the Old Testament, but we have to note, they also want to separate Jesus from Paul.

00:21:56.580 And, and, and the clearest statements on homosexuality, and, and frankly, our entire

00:22:01.880 understanding of these issues is, uh, is found in exposition, not in the Old Testament, but in the,

00:22:08.540 uh, the writings of the apostle Paul, you take a passage like Romans chapter one, it, it not only

00:22:13.780 explains the sin and documents the sin of same sex sexual activity. It goes at same sex passion and it 0.74

00:22:21.040 goes to the very root of it and explains it in the strongest terms of biblical condemnation,

00:22:25.580 condemnation, not to single out, um, uh, homosexuals as, uh, as sinners in contrast to the rest of 0.90

00:22:32.920 humanity, but rather to demonstrate the depths of sin into which human beings have fallen. And, uh,

00:22:38.820 you take first Corinthians, you take, uh, his letters to Timothy. Uh, you, if you're going to do this,

00:22:44.900 you're also going to have to separate Jesus from Jesus. Uh, for instance, in the gospel of Matthew,

00:22:48.900 where he defines God's purpose and definition of marriage. And that's why, by the way, the liberals who do

00:22:55.340 this, they're never satisfied just to say out with the old Testament or out with the apostle Paul.

00:23:00.020 They eventually have to say out with a lot of the gospels too. And, uh, that's what that,

00:23:05.380 the group known as the Jesus seminar was all about. It's the same trick, but this is where

00:23:10.560 Christians are alarm bells need to go off and just say, no, we are accountable to every single word

00:23:15.240 of scripture. As Martin Luther said, every single word of scripture, it's not only scripture says it's

00:23:21.820 God says. Right. And those who call themselves, you know, deconstructionists or encourage people

00:23:28.620 to so-called deconstruct their faith, they will take something like sexuality, homosexuality,

00:23:34.300 and say, well, it's just these few verses in Leviticus or Romans, but really it means this,

00:23:40.100 or really it's been translated this way, or it was added in, in the 1940s. But again, that's a poor

00:23:47.040 understanding of how to read the Bible. We use an alliteration on this podcast, if I can even

00:23:52.360 remember it from, um, from, from memory about the definition of marriage in the positive sense,

00:23:57.960 not just in the negative of what it's not, but in the positive sense is rooted in creation. It's

00:24:03.020 reiterated throughout scripture. It's repeated by Jesus himself. It is in Ephesians five. We see that

00:24:09.120 it's representative of Christ in the church, which means that it is reflective of the gospel. And so

00:24:14.460 we're talking about something with eternal gospel significance. We're not talking about a few

00:24:19.440 verses in Leviticus that we get to decontextualize that people have used to establish this, whatever

00:24:26.240 they call it, cisheteropatriarchal oppression. I mean, we're talking about a positive, eternal sense

00:24:32.820 of what marriage actually is. And that's why it's not one of those issues to me that we can just say,

00:24:39.440 well, yeah, sure. We kind of disagree on that, but that's just a peripheral issue.

00:24:44.460 Um, I hope I'm not trying to make too big of a deal of that though. People would accuse me of

00:24:49.340 being political for doing so. Well, I mean, eventually, uh, because these issues come down

00:24:54.640 to policy, they become political and there's no way to deal with these issues, honestly, without

00:24:58.820 running the risk of someone saying you're being political. Yes. I believe the law should protect,

00:25:02.780 for instance, the life of the unborn. If you want to call that political, uh, I'll say to my critics

00:25:06.940 and, uh, yes, I want that to be policy. Uh, politics is the way that establishes policy. But you know,

00:25:12.780 when you're talking about, uh, for instance, the argument, you hear these people, especially,

00:25:16.360 and by the way, it's not so much these days, the LGBTQ, the secular activist community that, uh,

00:25:22.960 that I think is our problem in the sense of, uh, our, most of our immediate arguments. It's,

00:25:28.400 it's with kind of leftist evangelicals who style themselves that way, who want to say, well, yeah,

00:25:33.820 maybe it's true that they're just like these seven clobber scriptures. And I want to come back and say,

00:25:37.380 well, number one, just in terms of, of our understanding of the Bible, if, if there was

00:25:41.560 just one sentence in the Bible that this is wrong, then it would be eternally wrong because God said

00:25:48.060 it. But we're not just talking about seven clobber scriptures. That's the way they,

00:25:52.720 they try to dismiss them. Um, in, in the new Testament in particular, there is a use of vocabulary

00:25:59.020 that frankly is so candid, especially in Paul. The language is so candid that there is no doubt

00:26:07.380 what we're talking about here. People will try to say, well, you know, the old, the, uh, the Bible,

00:26:11.520 either the older or the new didn't know about the idea of sexual orientation. Oh yeah, Paul did.

00:26:15.980 That's exactly what Paul's talking about. He's talking about, uh, those who are burning with

00:26:20.600 passion, uh, both men and women, uh, for others of the same sex. He, he understands what he's talking

00:26:26.500 about. And, and all that to say that, uh, uh, our understanding of scripture comes down to whether

00:26:32.600 or not we just start out saying, we know that God's given us not only what he has spoken to us,

00:26:37.620 but all that we need. This is the sufficiency of scripture. We have an, all we need to understand

00:26:42.740 these things. The Bible is not going to be corrected by, uh, modern, uh, medical, uh, arguments.

00:26:49.060 It's not going to be corrected by, uh, the sexual revolutionaries. It's not gonna be corrected by 0.75

00:26:53.540 the divinity school at Harvard. Uh, the Bible is going to stand, uh, just as it is. We're not in 0.92

00:26:59.920 need of some kind of therapeutic knowledge from the 21st century to help us to understand what God

00:27:05.380 really intended. Yes. And I think it's so important for us to just reemphasize that truth when it comes

00:27:12.980 to the Christian life is not separate from love. So we don't talk about this and say, this is how we

00:27:18.860 hate people, or this is how we otherize people, or we are emphasizing this sin as the chief sin or

00:27:27.300 anything like that. The reason that we're talking about this so much is because it is such a pressing

00:27:31.300 cultural issue. It's a sensitive, a rightfully sensitive cultural issue because you're talking

00:27:35.540 about, uh, people in a very personal way. You're talking about people that you love, people that you

00:27:41.000 want to be hospitable and kind of respectful to. So the reason that we are kind of centering the

00:27:46.000 conversation on this is because so many Christians want to know how to be truthful and how to be

00:27:51.620 loving and how to be Christ-like without compromising, um, on this issue. And it can be very difficult

00:27:58.380 when you're hearing people, like you said, who profess to be Christian saying, well, the only way 0.97

00:28:03.400 to love is through total acceptance and basically having no daylight between you and any atheist morally, 0.61

00:28:12.180 sexually, politically, and Christians just kind of, we have to resist that thinking.

00:28:18.540 Well, absolutely. And we have to understand where it comes from. It's really separating God

00:28:22.520 from the good. I mean, that's the bottom line. I mean, if the, if God is, is good and he has given us

00:28:28.560 a perfect word, then to insinuate that somehow standing on that truth and affirming it, teaching it,

00:28:36.280 sharing it with people, if that's not good, then you're saying God's not good. Or you're saying that

00:28:41.440 the Bible is not really his, uh, his perfect self-revelation. And, uh, once you say that,

00:28:46.600 then frankly, Allie Beth, you know, whatever you believe is your own little personal religion and,

00:28:50.440 and, and, uh, whatever God you believe in is your own little personal imagination.

00:28:54.500 Um, it comes down to one other thing, you know, I can remember when I was nine and, uh, I might,

00:29:00.860 my parents, uh, surrounded me with the gospel. I was at vacation Bible school and, uh, I heard the

00:29:06.980 preacher talk about sin. And then I realized, wait just a minute, he's not just saying that I have

00:29:12.260 done wrong things. He's saying that I am a sinner. That was when I came to Christ. Uh, and, uh, it was

00:29:20.640 because all of a sudden I understood I'm a sinner. That's a very different thing than understanding

00:29:23.680 I've sinned. Okay. So I'm a sinner. Paul talks about this in the, in the book of Romans and he makes

00:29:30.160 the most amazing statement. He said, I would not have known my sin had the law not, not said you

00:29:36.820 shall not covet. And that's so important because Paul said, okay, I'm only saved. I've only come to

00:29:43.860 faith in Christ because I know I'm a sinner. And it, it, only the scripture tells me I'm a sinner.

00:29:50.340 And he mentions that specific of the commandments that you shall not covet. And, and that's what Paul

00:29:56.860 is doing. That's what God's doing. The Holy Spirit is doing through Paul. And, and so it comes

00:30:00.740 down to the fact that if we love someone, we want to love them to faith in Christ. We want to love

00:30:06.720 them to themselves, understanding their sin and their need for a savior. We want to love them to

00:30:12.840 knowing the fully sufficient savior of the unfailing gospel. And, and so we have to be spoken to,

00:30:21.860 and we have to speak to others with the same specificity as the Bible does, because God

00:30:27.660 loves us to be so specific. Backing off that specificity isn't kind. It's consigning people

00:30:34.980 to hell. Right. Well, and I think it's also so easy to kind of give into the rhetoric, the people 0.53

00:30:42.540 who say that, you know, you have blood on your hands. If you're someone who talks about what the Bible

00:30:48.780 has to say about gender and sexuality, you're the one that's causing people to be depressed, 1.00

00:30:54.140 anxious, and suicidal. If you speak about this, well, that's the last thing that a Christian 1.00

00:30:58.600 wants to do. That's the last thing that a Christian wants to be. It's so easy to buy into that. But 1.00

00:31:03.760 like you've said, if, if God is love, then everything that he says is good or bad is also done from love.

00:31:11.320 And far be it from us to claim that we have the authority to redefine love as something other than what

00:31:16.980 God says that it is. And so Christians do have all of the equipment in the scriptures to be able to 0.91

00:31:24.160 kind of push back against what really is a lot of bullying and a lot of manipulation in order to

00:31:30.720 silence Christians from speaking the truth, right? No, that's so well said. And, you know, 1.00

00:31:35.840 Allie Beth, you made reference to the transgenderism issue. And, you know, let's put it this way.

00:31:41.380 It's not biblically-minded Christians who've now forced on seven-year-olds the anxiety of trying 0.97

00:31:47.580 to figure out if they're really a boy or a girl. It's not biblically-minded Christians who have 0.98

00:31:52.600 driven through the entire society and instability and personal identity that led to the development

00:31:59.480 of what can only be described as a radical and never-ending identity politics. It's not

00:32:04.240 biblically-minded Christians who injected this therapeutic mentality into the culture that says, 0.93

00:32:10.820 it's all about you going inside yourself to find out who you are, which, by the way,

00:32:15.220 has to be one of the most depressing experiences for any human being. And so I find it very telling

00:32:21.920 that now Christians are being blamed for creating instability and anxiety when, frankly, Christians

00:32:28.300 teaching the same thing for over two millennia are actually the only people who haven't changed our

00:32:34.380 story.

00:32:34.780 Yeah, that's true. And I think what you said about this idea of going on this journey of

00:32:40.860 self-actualization and self-discovery being depressing is actually part of what's behind

00:32:46.200 a lot of the pastors acquiescing about this particular subject, because we've kind of bought

00:32:51.860 the secular New Age lie that the biggest problem that people are facing is a lack of self-esteem,

00:32:57.460 when really the biggest problem that people are facing, no matter their race, no matter their gender,

00:33:01.560 no matter their socioeconomic status, is that we are dead in our sin apart from Christ.

00:33:06.920 And so I think that's a lot of times why pastors, maybe they avoid talking about sin,

00:33:11.780 because we've believed that the most important thing we can give someone is self-confidence.

00:33:15.700 And like you said, how depressing if on our self-confidence we have to stand at the end of

00:33:21.760 the day, because I don't know about you, but mine wavers about every other second,

00:33:25.340 depending on a variety of circumstances.

00:33:28.960 Yes. You know, if I'm dependent upon myself for my own self-definition, my own self-security,

00:33:36.540 my own self-therapy, and all the rest, I'll just say up front, I'm doomed. I pretty much had that

00:33:41.740 figured out when I was six, I think. I certainly knew it when I was 16. I'm now in my 60s, and let

00:33:46.400 me tell you, I've abandoned all hope. You know, the last thing I need is to define myself. I'm no

00:33:51.600 better at it in my 60s than I was when I was six. The security for a child, by the way,

00:33:57.920 comes when the parent says, we know exactly who you are. I'm going to tell you who you are. That's

00:34:02.660 what the creator does, even in our bodies, by the way. He's saying, I know who you are. I created

00:34:07.980 you. I'm telling you who you are. And that has been security for human beings through millennia.

00:34:16.040 We're in the midst of a vast cultural conspiracy to undo that security. And it comes right down to

00:34:21.260 what you mentioned, you know, the preferred pronouns, as if pronouns are a preference.

00:34:25.880 What kind of insanity is that?

00:34:27.720 Right. I love what you said. And I think that's a great place for us to end that place of comfort

00:34:32.380 that we don't have to look inside of ourselves. We don't have to look to the media. We don't have

00:34:36.420 to look to culture. We don't have to look to social whims or movements to tell us who we are,

00:34:42.440 or authors, or influencers, or podcasters, this billion-dollar self-help industry. We don't

00:34:47.700 have to go to these people who don't know us, by the way, don't know our names, don't

00:34:51.320 care about us. A lot of these activist communities don't care about these kids that they are convincing

00:34:56.300 are confused at, you know, five years old. Some of these people in the scientific community,

00:35:01.000 they don't necessarily care about you. They don't care about your kids. But God does. And

00:35:05.260 He cares enough to tell us who we are so we can get off that hamster wheel of self-identification.

00:35:10.820 So thank you so much for reminding us of that. I hope people are leaving this conversation feeling

00:35:16.560 comforted. Can you remind everyone where they can find you, how they can follow and support you?

00:35:22.100 Thank you so much, Allie Beth. I always enjoy these conversations. Albert Moeller,

00:35:26.760 that's albert, M-O-H-L-E-R dot com, the briefing, Thinking in Public, and a host of actually thousands

00:35:32.620 of articles. I appreciate you allowing me to say that. If I could just say one final word, it's this.

00:35:36.900 You know, part of what it means to love Christ for the Christian church and for individual

00:35:41.660 Christians is to say to people, after the world's told you all these lies, and after you tried every

00:35:48.040 kind of therapy, after you've undergone any kind of surgery, we're the ones who are going to be here

00:35:53.460 to love you when everyone else has abandoned you. The people of grace and truth. And it's a part of

00:36:01.100 what we need to say to ourselves. We need to remember to be here for the broken, with grace and

00:36:06.540 truth, when the world, having lied to them, abandons them.

00:36:10.640 Absolutely. We don't just care about you when you are politically useful to us. We care about you

00:36:14.960 because you are an image bearer. And we care about your heart and your soul. We know that you're more

00:36:20.100 than just a body. You're more than just an agent of the state. And you're right. Christianity has been 0.97

00:36:25.380 the refuge for all kinds of marginalized people throughout our history. And we have to continue

00:36:29.820 to be that. Thank you so much, Dr. Moeller, for taking the time to talk to us.

00:36:34.140 Thank you, Allie Beth. God bless you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - May 31, 2021

Ep 429 ｜ Speaking — & Living — the Truth in Love ｜ Guest： Dr. Albert Mohler

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