Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 433 ｜ Healthy Body Image vs. Unhealthy Enabling ｜ Q&A

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Today we are doing a Q&A episode. You guys sent me some

00:00:15.480 questions on Instagram. I am going to answer them, some theological, some cultural, some

00:00:20.600 political. I'm very excited to get into them. First question that we've got, how do you

00:00:28.840 deal with a husband who has turned away from the faith? So you married a guy, he said he was a

00:00:34.940 Christian, you were both following the Lord, or you both thought that you were following the Lord

00:00:39.580 when you first got married. And then he decided that he was no longer going to be a part of the

00:00:46.200 Christian faith. Maybe his faith was never genuine in the first place, or maybe he is just going 0.98

00:00:51.480 through a season of doubt, a season of spiritual turmoil, a season of temptation, and the Lord is

00:00:56.960 going to bring him back. As his wife, obviously your desire is that he knows Christ, not just so

00:01:04.240 that he knows joy and he knows peace and he knows assurance today, but also so he is with God for

00:01:12.640 all of eternity, for people that we love. That is our number one desire. That's our number one goal,

00:01:19.300 is for them to know the gospel, for them to be reconciled to the holy God who made them.

00:01:25.180 So what does the Bible have to say about this? The Bible does talk about not being unequally yoked

00:01:30.800 with unbelievers, that we don't believe that we are, as Christians, to marry someone who

00:01:36.460 is not a believer. Marriage is already hard. It can be already hard because life is hard and you go

00:01:44.400 through seasons of difficulty, seasons of maybe tension, seasons of some kind of calamity in your

00:01:51.760 life that can make marriage even harder than it already is. All kinds of relationships are

00:01:58.260 difficult, but especially when you are in such close contact with the same person every day,

00:02:04.780 you have an intimate relationship with them, you know everything about them, they know everything

00:02:08.580 about you, you notice all of their tics, you know their habits, and you know their hangups.

00:02:13.100 Of course, marriage is going to be hard because it's the wedding of two sinners. The Bible does tell

00:02:17.760 us that love covers a multitude of sins, and we also realize that as Christians, we believe

00:02:22.940 that marriage is a covenant bond. Matthew 19, Jesus in Matthew 19, in answering a question about divorce,

00:02:30.320 he says, what God has joined together, let not man separate. And of course, he does give some

00:02:35.100 reasons for divorce, but still we understand that it is a commitment that we make to another person

00:02:41.920 through thick and thin. That is why we believe that it is, that's part of why we believe that it is

00:02:50.420 better, that it is right, that it is obedient as a Christian to marry another Christian. Yes, 0.81

00:02:55.540 of course, you may fall in love with someone who is not a believer, but those feelings of passion and

00:03:02.760 all-consuming romance, they have to, they must, in a healthy way, transition into a steady kind

00:03:10.600 of commitment, a kind of love that yes, sometimes is emotional, and yes, very often is passionate,

00:03:18.740 but more often than not is actually a choice that you make to be committed to that person,

00:03:23.600 to love that person as you love yourself, to choose that person over and over again. And so

00:03:30.500 from the beginning, we do believe as Christians that a Christian should marry a Christian, that having 0.99

00:03:37.460 that foundation of Christ is what makes the weathering, the thick and the thin possible,

00:03:43.880 and not just possible, but joyful and glorifying and worth it. Now, if you marry a believer and then

00:03:49.920 say a few years down the road or say a decade down the road, something happens and they have a crisis

00:03:55.440 of faith and they say, you know, I don't know if I believe that anymore, what do you do? Or maybe

00:04:00.040 you married someone when you were not a Christian and he was not a Christian, you became a Christian

00:04:05.080 after marriage. He did not become a Christian after marriage. And of course, again, your chief

00:04:09.280 desire is that they know Christ and that you can have a marriage that is reflective of Christ in

00:04:15.540 the church. As Ephesians 5 says, you want them to know the joy and the freedom that you have now

00:04:20.840 found in Christ. The Bible actually speaks to these kinds of situations in which the husband in

00:04:25.700 particular is not a Christian, but the wife is. First Peter 1, 3, 2 through 3. Likewise, wives, 0.91

00:04:33.060 be subject to your own husband so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be one without a 0.72

00:04:39.440 word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. So the fruit of

00:04:46.020 the spirit coming out in your life, the fruit of the spirit that is defined by Galatians 6, the kind

00:04:51.640 of spirit and respectfulness and purity that we see articulated in 1 Peter 1, that kind of conduct,

00:04:59.920 that kind of behavior, the Bible tells us, can be used by the Holy Spirit to win over a husband

00:05:07.000 to Christ. I don't think that means that you don't share the gospel. I don't think that means that you

00:05:12.280 don't articulate that which is true. But what this passage is saying is that by being a godly wife that

00:05:20.040 is first and foremost submissive to Christ and also in a respectful and a healthy way subject to your

00:05:27.380 husband, that you actually make a really good case for the gospel. Now, I know for those of you

00:05:34.600 listening, maybe you're new to the podcast or you just have a difficult time with that word subject or

00:05:41.280 submit. Trust me, I understand as someone with a strong personality, someone who is independent, someone

00:05:46.460 who has lots of opinions, someone who has always struggled with that word that I see in the Bible,

00:05:51.520 submit to your husbands, be subject to your husbands. I hear you. I feel you. I know exactly what you're 0.64

00:05:56.780 thinking. I know exactly how you are feeling. But if you go to Ephesians 5 and you see the command

00:06:02.680 again reiterated that women are supposed to submit to their husbands as to the Lord, you will also see

00:06:09.980 a command for the husband, that the husband is supposed to love his wife as Christ loves the

00:06:15.680 church. Well, Christ died for the church. Christ laid down his life for the church. The responsibility of

00:06:20.640 the husband to love his wife is much more cumbersome, much bigger than the wife's responsibility to 0.97

00:06:28.780 submit to her husband. That doesn't mean it's not hard. That doesn't mean that it's not difficult,

00:06:32.680 that it doesn't rub up against our pride. But men are not off the hook. Men are held to an extremely

00:06:38.680 high standard, a Christ-like standard of self-sacrificial love and care that they are supposed to demonstrate

00:06:44.640 in marriage. And yes, wives are supposed to submit to our husbands. Now, what does it mean to 0.97

00:06:48.800 actually submit to our husbands? Well, as we can see from the description in Ephesians 5, it certainly

00:06:54.620 doesn't mean this kind of master and servant kind of relationship. It's not a dictator and his subject.

00:07:04.340 That is not what it looks like in a Christian marriage. Of course, we believe that women can be 0.97

00:07:11.660 able to speak up, that of course we have opinions and that we make decisions and that we have

00:07:16.500 responsibility. It is not this kind of handmaiden situation. It is the husband is the leader 0.50

00:07:23.980 spiritually of the family and is leading the family in a direction towards being God glorifying

00:07:33.900 in every area of their life. At the end of the day, he is going to be held responsible for the decisions

00:07:40.160 made for the family. That does not mean that the wife doesn't have a say. As you can imagine,

00:07:44.080 I have a lot of say about a lot of different things. And my husband is wonderful and we do

00:07:49.140 so many things together. At the end of the day, I am going to trust him as someone who is following

00:07:54.560 Christ to make the best ultimate decisions for our family. That's what that means. And I try to be as

00:08:01.420 respectful as possible. That doesn't mean, again, that I feel like I have to be a church mouse in

00:08:07.320 any way. And as we've talked about before, this kind of language, this kind of command to women

00:08:14.280 in the times that these epistles were being written would have been like balm to the weary soul for

00:08:22.560 women because they were looking out in culture and they were seeing women objectify. They were seeing

00:08:28.600 women used as sexual objects. They were seeing women being used and abused by their husbands. They would

00:08:34.460 see them being discarded or tossed aside when the husband wants to sleep with a servant or sleep

00:08:39.840 with a prostitute. Women were not highly regarded in a lot of these secular communities in which

00:08:45.540 Christians were living. And so for Paul to say to the church at Ephesus, hey, husbands, it's not just

00:08:52.020 the wife that has a responsibility to act a certain way as a Christian. You have a huge responsibility. 0.78

00:08:56.880 And that responsibility is to be like Christ, to cherish them, to love your wife,

00:09:02.020 to sacrifice yourself for your wife, to lay yourself down for your wife. That would have been radical at

00:09:09.720 the time. For women to hear that, wow, my husband has a responsibility to be faithful and to be loving

00:09:15.500 and to be gentle and to be kind and to be sacrificial towards me, that he's on the hook by God to treat me a

00:09:22.520 certain way, to behave a certain way. That would have been very different from what the culture was

00:09:27.120 teaching and from what traditional religion had taught up until that time. So now, of course,

00:09:33.780 our feminist proclivities say, oh, submission, subjection, that sounds so terrible. But to 1.00

00:09:39.760 the Christian woman at this time, hearing that marriage is actually a refuge for her, actually a

00:09:46.380 safe place for her, a place where she is going to be, should be loved and respected, even as she loves

00:09:51.760 and respects her husband, would have been really good news. And it should be good news for us.

00:09:55.400 The Bible tells us that in doing that, in showing our husbands what it means to be a Christ-like and

00:10:02.600 a godly wife, even if that husband is not being a godly and a Christ-like husband yet, that that is

00:10:08.760 actually very persuasive. James 5.16 also says, therefore, confess your sins to one another and

00:10:15.400 pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power

00:10:20.100 as it is working. So of course, we believe that another solution to this or something else that

00:10:26.040 we are called to do if we want someone to come to Christ, especially someone that we love as much as

00:10:30.640 our husband, is to pray for them, is to pray that the Lord would save them, that pray that the Lord

00:10:37.840 would soften their hearts. Yes, you can pray also that people will come into their lives, that a mentor

00:10:42.820 would come into their lives, that there would be other people who surround him that share with him

00:10:49.260 the gospel and make the gospel of Christ attractive by their godly behavior. But ultimately, it's going

00:10:58.100 to be God who turns the heart of stone to the heart of flesh. And the prayer of a righteous person,

00:11:02.840 which all Christians are righteous because it's not our righteousness, it's Christ's righteousness

00:11:06.540 given to us. It has great power. So that's my long-winded answer to the first question.

00:11:23.380 Let's move on to the second question. The second question is saying the gospel is sufficient,

00:11:28.620 divisive. I think that's a wonderful question. And my answer to it is yes and no. So I think where this

00:11:35.520 is coming from is that there is a debate among, in particular, evangelical Christians about so-called

00:11:41.220 racial reconciliation and what is called racial justice. So we hear from a certain sphere of

00:11:52.440 evangelical Christians that, okay, we need to adopt some of critical race theory. We need to look to

00:11:57.780 the world a little bit when it comes to what racial justice should look like. We might need to link arms

00:12:03.460 somewhat with Black Lives Matter. We at least don't need to condemn or criticize those people. We

00:12:10.300 actually do need the government. We do need monetary reparations. We do need a little bit of these

00:12:16.040 secular ideologies to kind of help us along in the way of racial justice and racial reconciliation.

00:12:22.920 Now, some of them might not say that explicitly, but there are certainly plenty of Christians who

00:12:29.840 learn from Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi and who have adopted more of their language and definitions

00:12:37.820 of equity and social justice and so-called racial justice than anything that aligns with scripture.

00:12:46.180 And the response to that kind of movement has been, hey, the gospel is enough. When you're talking

00:12:53.200 about the problem of racism, the gospel is the only thing that can get rid of racism. The question is

00:12:59.620 not whether, and this is where things get lost. The question has never been within Christianity about

00:13:04.920 whether or not racism exists. We all know that it exists because we understand that hate in the human

00:13:10.840 heart exists and that can manifest itself in a variety of ways that end in ism. It could be racism.

00:13:17.920 It could be ableism. It could be sexism. This could all be hatred of a particular kind of person

00:13:24.120 because of some sort of immutable characteristic. These are all forms of hate that reside

00:13:30.660 in the human heart. So there's never been a question of whether or not racism exists. There

00:13:36.220 has been a question of to what extent. So in 2021, or just even in recent history, is systemic racism.

00:13:42.940 That means racism down to the core of what America is that infects all of the systems. Is that still

00:13:50.500 alive and well today? Is that to blame for the disparities that we see between white groups and

00:13:55.560 black groups? That has been a big debate that we have obviously engaged in many times on this podcast.

00:14:02.460 And then the other debate is, okay, well, what do we do about it? Like, is it possible? What is racial

00:14:09.540 reconciliation? How do we reconcile one group with one melanin count with another group of another

00:14:15.920 melanin count? Are these kind of like monolithic groups based on skin color? And what does that

00:14:21.020 actually look like? And so there have been a lot of Christians who have said, well, the gospel is

00:14:26.320 sufficient for that. Like, if you have hate in your heart, the gospel is sufficient to take care of

00:14:31.740 that because we agree that racism is wrong. The Bible says in 1 John that you cannot love God and hate

00:14:37.300 your brother. So for any reason, whether it's because of his race or nationality or because of

00:14:42.240 his ability or disability, because of his socioeconomic status, you cannot hate God and

00:14:47.100 love your brother. Or you cannot love God and hate your brother, rather. And so we believe in

00:14:54.380 repenting of that. We believe in righting that wrong, absolutely. But our belief is that only the

00:15:02.460 gospel can do that, that only the gospel, only God, only the Holy Spirit can change your heart.

00:15:09.360 And we actually believe that critical race theory, that Black Lives Matter, is not aiding and abetting

00:15:15.360 any sort of real civil rights movement, but is actually hindering any sort of gospel-centered

00:15:21.720 progress that we could have as a church because it takes on secular, anti-God ideologies in order to

00:15:29.060 accomplish goals that we don't think are either realistic or just. Their definition of justice

00:15:35.960 doesn't align with God's definition of justice. And so that is kind of the debate. And what you'll

00:15:43.180 hear from the other side, so one side says, look, the gospel is the only thing that can make racism go

00:15:47.680 away. The gospel is the only thing that can reconcile two people together. Ephesians 2 tells us that

00:15:54.400 when it's talking about the Gentiles and Jewish people, how—

00:15:59.060 the cross, it tore down that dividing wall of hostility. And so if the cross can tear down the

00:16:05.440 dividing wall of hostility between Gentiles and Jews who come together through the gospel, then

00:16:12.260 certainly it has the power to tear down the dividing wall of hostility between two races that both share

00:16:19.440 the name of Christ. But you will hear more social justice-minded Christians say, well, you say the gospel

00:16:26.700 is enough when it comes to racism, but why isn't the gospel enough when it comes to abortion? And so

00:16:32.260 they see this as a kind of hypocrisy or an excuse for apathy. And what I would say to that then is that

00:16:40.860 it is yes and no. So the gospel is sufficient to change hearts, but we do. We do believe that

00:16:47.040 something actually has to be done to right wrongs and to fix injustice. And we know that Micah 6,

00:16:52.640 8 tells us to seek justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. Matthew 25, 40 says,

00:16:59.600 and the king will answer them, truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these of

00:17:04.580 least of these my brothers, you did it to me. And so obviously we know that the gospel compels us to

00:17:11.120 action. The gospel compels us to do something. The gospel compels us to love justice, to seek

00:17:17.620 justice, to enact justice, to alleviate the oppression of the oppressed. And so that's

00:17:24.400 absolutely true. And we see that really well when we see the anti-abortion movement within

00:17:29.960 Christianity, how we don't just, you know, stand outside of abortion clinics and pray and plead with

00:17:36.740 women who are about to have their child killed. But there are pro-life clinics that are run by

00:17:42.720 Christians across the country that don't just help women keep their baby. They don't just provide

00:17:48.880 ultrasounds and pregnancy tests and prenatal vitamins, which is all very important. But they

00:17:53.920 also provide everything that this woman and her child needs for afterbirth as well. This whole idea

00:17:58.740 that pro-lifers are just pro-birth is such a myth. I mean, provide them with immigration help,

00:18:06.900 provide them with refuge if they're in an abusive situation, provide them with financial help,

00:18:10.960 provide them with Medicare help, provide them with parenting classes, with different forms of

00:18:18.760 education, with free baby supplies. I mean, these Christian pro-life pregnancy centers do everything

00:18:25.680 for these expecting moms to love them in a way that is both tangible and in a way that is spiritual.

00:18:33.520 So obviously, we believe that when it comes to abortion, that there is some action behind it.

00:18:38.880 And so it is a good question to say, well, then why don't we say the gospel is sufficient for that

00:18:46.100 and just let it be? But we do say that for something like racism or systemic racism.

00:18:52.320 And it goes back to some of those debatable questions. The question is, to what extent does

00:18:58.680 the racism, systemic racism, institutional racism that has existed historically in this country,

00:19:04.920 historically in some parts of the evangelical church, to what extent does it actually affect

00:19:09.960 and oppress people today? And to have that conversation, like you have to be able to look

00:19:15.240 at data, like you have to be able to look at history. You have to be able to look at some kind

00:19:19.700 of empirical evidence as well as people's experiences, as well as people's stories and testimonies.

00:19:26.500 But I think the most important thing is that when we are looking to solutions, when we are looking

00:19:31.980 to ways to actually reconcile, we have to look to the Bible's definition of what justice looks like.

00:19:40.480 This is the big problem. It's not that I don't believe that we should do nothing about racism

00:19:46.000 where it actually exists. My problem is within that conversation, there's a lack of specificity

00:19:51.980 and there are a lack of biblical solutions when it comes to that conversation.

00:19:57.140 And there's also a lack of truth. Like we've talked about the false narrative surrounding

00:20:01.760 racialized police brutality, surrounding some of the arguments that we hear today for why the

00:20:07.120 black family has deteriorated since the 1960s. Everything is tied back to this view of the legacy 1.00

00:20:14.720 of slavery. And that just doesn't hold up against history. Like we've talked about that kind of

00:20:19.600 stuff before. So I think that's part of the problem is that there's a lot of, there are false

00:20:23.400 narratives surrounding this conversation, both within the church and outside of the church.

00:20:27.340 And then the solutions that are offered in the way of actual justice are not biblical solutions.

00:20:35.260 Critical race theory, which asserts that if you are white, you're on the side of the oppressor.

00:20:40.580 If you're black, you're on the side of the oppressed. And that intersectionality categorizes you 0.91

00:20:46.760 this way, assigning you a certain oppression point based on your immutable characteristics and certain

00:20:54.240 kinds of identity. That kind of mentality skews our idea of what justice and what reconciliation

00:21:03.560 actually look like. And that manifests itself in the church as preaching a gospel of repentance for

00:21:10.260 racism to all white people and preaching a much gentler, a much softer and incomplete gospel 0.87

00:21:18.280 and enabling gospel to people who are not white. That is a kind of partiality that God speaks against

00:21:24.900 time and again, especially in the book of James in the Bible. And so we're seeing, I think, within the

00:21:30.860 church trying to make up for past partiality with current partiality against white people, preaching a

00:21:36.720 different gospel to white people than you preach to black people, taking on secular solutions to 0.61

00:21:41.560 spiritual problems. And so I understand that, yes, seeking justice, loving mercy does mean that the

00:21:48.420 gospel compels us to action. But the question is, what are the actual problems today? And what are the

00:21:54.960 actual biblical solutions? Remember, justice according to God is impartial. It's impartial. It is direct.

00:22:02.160 It is truthful. It is proportional. Starting with truthful, you can look at Exodus 23, 1-3 that says,

00:22:09.180 you shall not spread a false report. Leviticus 19, 15, you shall, if you want to look at impartiality, you

00:22:16.140 shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but in righteousness you shall judge your neighbor.

00:22:23.300 Deuteronomy 19, 15-21 speaks to God's concern with truth, impartiality, proportionality, and directness.

00:22:32.160 Acts 10-34, Peter is preaching the gospel to Gentiles and says that God shows no partiality.

00:22:40.280 James 2 talks about the sin of partiality. And so we see throughout Scripture that God's definition

00:22:48.040 of what is right and what is wrong, God's definition of justice is marked by impartiality. And I think

00:22:54.260 what we're seeing today is a different treatment of white people and non-white people in the hopes that 0.99

00:22:58.900 this is going to lead us to equity and reconciliation. And that is the beef. Like, that's the big beef

00:23:05.540 between Christians. Not whether or not racism exists. Not even whether or not the gospel is

00:23:11.120 sufficient. But whether or not the Bible speaks clearly enough to this issue or whether we need

00:23:17.820 to be adopting definitions of social justice from Black Lives Matter. So I think that this conversation

00:23:25.020 gets very muddled, but I hope that I offered some clarity on what is actually being disagreed upon

00:23:30.300 when one side says that the gospel is sufficient. Because it is true, 2 Peter 1-3 says,

00:23:35.240 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the

00:23:40.020 knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence. And so again, that's not an excuse

00:23:45.840 for apathy or for complacency or for not doing something. But we need to ask ourselves,

00:23:50.840 what are the real problems before us? And what is the truth behind these narratives that are being

00:23:56.880 pushed about systemic racism, for example, or about police brutality? What does the data say? What

00:24:02.040 does the truth say? What does history actually say? What are the different perspectives on this? We can

00:24:07.280 look at those things while still being compassionate and listening to people's stories and experiences.

00:24:13.060 And then how does the gospel, how does scripture inform us to actually right real legitimate wrongs?

00:24:19.420 And let's be extremely specific and scriptural in how we do that.

00:24:33.180 So this is another question. I think it's really interesting. Difference between healthy boundaries

00:24:38.140 and cancel culture. So boundaries is a word that we're hearing a lot about in the self

00:24:42.840 and the self-care, self-love world right now. And I do think it's important to have certain healthy

00:24:47.740 boundaries in your life. I do think that that can turn into this kind of narcissistic mentality of

00:24:53.960 claiming everyone who doesn't serve you perfectly in that moment is toxic. But of course, we believe

00:24:59.900 in boundaries and friendships. We believe in boundaries and relationships before marriage. There are some

00:25:06.940 relationships and situations. Work-life balance is another example of boundaries.

00:25:12.840 But boundaries should never be used as an excuse for narcissism, an excuse for selfishness,

00:25:19.400 an excuse to put off thinking of other people or elevating the interest of other people above your

00:25:25.560 own, because that's exactly what Philippians tells us to do, is to look also to the interests of other

00:25:32.360 people, to consider other people as more important than ourselves. And so while I do think it's important

00:25:37.160 to have boundaries in certain ways and certain contexts, we also have to just be really honest

00:25:42.960 with ourselves and make sure that we're not using that term boundaries as an excuse to, you know, call

00:25:49.760 everything that we don't like in that moment or everything that inconveniences us or burdens us in

00:25:54.320 any way toxic. Now, the difference between healthy boundaries and cancel culture, I think we totally have the

00:26:00.760 ability to choose who we want to support, choose what we want to buy from. I don't think that you

00:26:07.860 have to follow someone who doesn't align with your values. You don't have to buy their product. If they

00:26:13.460 say something that you don't like or that you don't believe in, you can absolutely unfollow them. You can

00:26:18.600 absolutely stop supporting them. And I don't think that's cancel culture at all. That's voting with your

00:26:23.880 dollar, in a sense. That is deciding where you want to spend your money. That is absolutely

00:26:29.900 a product of living in a free society. And I think that that's fine. Where it turns into cancel

00:26:38.100 culture is when you decide that you're going to orchestrate a campaign against this person or a

00:26:43.300 campaign against their advertisers because they said something that you don't like. Or you're going

00:26:47.660 to try to swarm their Yelp page with negative comments. Or you're going to try to stick to the mob on

00:26:52.700 their comment section on their Instagram. Or you're going to try in any way to destroy their

00:26:59.100 lives or to destroy their livelihood. I think that there's a difference in doing this, by the way,

00:27:04.700 or extracting these kinds of malicious targeted campaigns against an individual or a small business

00:27:09.640 and trying to pressure like a major million billion dollar company like Netflix to take off content that

00:27:17.080 you see as inappropriate. So I think there's also a distinction between people like raising

00:27:22.000 raising heck about the gross cuties movie and cancel culture. You're not trying to ruin anyone's life.

00:27:32.060 You're not trying to enact vengeance in any way against someone. You are just expressing your

00:27:42.520 dismay. And you are trying to influence a company in a particular way. You're not actually trying to

00:27:49.500 cancel anything or anyone in particular. You're not trying to ruin anyone's life. Cancel culture is 0.99

00:27:56.700 digging up something from someone's past, trying to hold them to a standard because of a mistake that

00:28:03.140 you don't hold yourself to or double standards based on that person's politics. Or you are trying to

00:28:12.720 have them canceled or have their life ruined because of their religious views or because of their

00:28:17.560 political views. And again, this is not just not supporting them anymore. This is trying to hurt

00:28:23.920 them, trying to destroy them either financially or physically in some way, get them fired. Like that

00:28:31.100 is a form of vindictive cancel culture that we've unfortunately seen in all kinds of totalitarian

00:28:36.720 societies for the past 100 years. And it's from Satan. Like it is from the pit of hell. And it's not

00:28:43.940 something that Christians should be a part of. Again, that doesn't mean that we cannot not support

00:28:49.860 someone that we don't align with. But yeah, I unfollow people. I unfollow bloggers. I unfollow

00:28:55.180 influencers. I try to not shop certain places because I don't want to support them. I don't

00:29:02.160 want to give my money there. But I'm not trying to ruin their lives. I'm not trying to say that they

00:29:07.100 shouldn't have a right to say what they want to say or believe what they want to believe. I'm not

00:29:11.280 trying to get them canceled in any way. And so I think there's a really big difference. And when

00:29:15.620 people say that there's not a big difference, they're typically just trying to gaslight you.

00:29:20.420 Like they're trying to make the conversation more confusing than it actually is so that you will say,

00:29:26.380 okay, well, maybe cancel culture is fine. Like maybe being scared to speak up about my conservative

00:29:31.220 or Christian views. Maybe that's not cancel culture. Maybe it's fine. People on the left do not fear for

00:29:37.140 the most part saying their views. Like there's nothing off limits, mostly for the left that will

00:29:42.520 get you canceled by the left. Like you can be a communist. You can be the most sexually depraved,

00:29:49.380 deviant person in the world. Like you can be as far left as in love with Stalin as you possibly want to

00:29:55.660 be. And you're not going to be canceled by the left. You're going to be fine. Or you can have enough

00:30:01.900 like anti-racist or social justice street creds like Joe Biden or like Ibram X. Kendi,

00:30:09.040 where if you say something that's potentially problematic, you're not going to be canceled

00:30:13.800 or raked over the coals for it because you are too useful to that side. So when Ibram X. Kendi said

00:30:19.720 that he was terrified when his daughter came home and said that she wants to be a boy and that he

00:30:25.180 realized that maybe they had made a mistake and not, you know, elevating the goodness of being a girl

00:30:30.280 enough, he's not going to be canceled for that because he's Ibram X. Kendi. Joe Biden can say 0.73

00:30:34.300 all of the racist stuff in the world for the past 20 plus 50 years of his life and he can have all of

00:30:42.400 all of the gaffes and it's not going to matter because he is youthful to the left. So those double

00:30:49.000 standards also speak to a cancel culture that I'm not saying doesn't exist ever at all on the right,

00:30:54.360 but it is being dominated by people on the left to very much believe that they are the tolerant ones,

00:31:01.760 even though they are some of the most intolerant people in in the world. Let's see. I'll do one more.

00:31:12.700 OK, so this is this is a question that I get a lot. How do we deal with this assertion that being

00:31:19.060 overweight or being obese is actually healthy? And I always want to be super sensitive about this

00:31:25.560 because to be perfectly honest, like I think that a lot of the body positivity movement is

00:31:30.400 really good. I actually think that it's very healthy. I think that for a very long time,

00:31:36.220 we have had unrealistic standards of what it means to be a woman. And I'm not sure if that's been forever

00:31:41.660 in the history of advertising and media, but certainly for the past, I don't know, 50 or so years,

00:31:47.200 there have been ever changing and at times unrealistic and double standards for women when

00:31:53.360 it comes to representation of how we should look. And I do think it can be very damaging for

00:32:00.480 self-esteem, especially when it comes to social media, like the age of kids on social media is

00:32:05.780 getting younger and younger. And the things that they see and the examples that they are told to look

00:32:10.360 to are still very unhealthy. I think that it's great when a fitness company has someone

00:32:16.640 modeling their clothes that has cellulite. Like I think it's great to have models that aren't

00:32:22.500 perfectly thin, that don't have all of the just quote, right proportions that have just like normal

00:32:29.040 bodies. Because the truth is you don't have to be a size two to be beautiful. You don't have to be a

00:32:33.980 size two to be healthy. Like you don't necessarily have to look a certain way in order to show that you

00:32:42.640 take care of your body. There are people who work out every day and eat really healthy and are never

00:32:47.480 going to be a size two. They're never going to have, you know, stick skinny thighs or they're never 1.00

00:32:53.480 going to have super toned arms. That's just how God made their bodies. And I do think it's okay to

00:32:58.340 have better representation. I think it's great to have better representation of reality when it comes

00:33:03.980 to that sort of thing on social media and in advertising. Now we as a society have the propensity

00:33:10.020 to overcorrect. Like progressivism, even if you just wanted to see it in the most charitable terms,

00:33:16.820 or if you wanted to see it that way, then you would just call it the ideology of overcorrection.

00:33:22.900 And I do think progressivism is an important compliment to conservatism. I don't, I think

00:33:27.840 when it dominates, it becomes very absurd and cruel, but it can be a good compliment to conservatism

00:33:34.340 because it can question things that actually need to be questioned. The problem with progressivism is

00:33:38.700 that it questions things that doesn't need to be questioned. And it pulls it in the opposite

00:33:42.100 direction in an effort to correct. And it never actually knows where it's going. And then it ends

00:33:46.820 up just ruining the thing that it tried to correct. And then we just swing back to the other direction.

00:33:51.680 And I'm afraid that is what is going to happen with this body positivity movement. It's like,

00:33:56.420 we can never just swing the pendulum into like a healthy middle spot. We always have to swing it the

00:34:02.420 other direction. And I think we're seeing that, um, with like covers of magazines and with different

00:34:09.580 spreads in, um, in magazines and different pictures on social media saying that being obese is totally

00:34:18.080 healthy and being obese, um, is, is fine. It's something that doesn't have any indication of how

00:34:24.620 healthy someone is. And that's just not true. Like that's just the denial of science. Like I said,

00:34:30.080 of course, it's true that you may not be a size two and you could be amazingly healthy. You could

00:34:36.580 be way more healthy than the person who is a size two. But of course we know that it, when you get

00:34:41.100 to a certain weight, that your chances of heart disease go up, your chances of diabetes go up,

00:34:47.140 your chances of all kinds of fatal illnesses go up when you get to an unhealthy weight. And so if we

00:34:53.680 believe that our bodies as Christians, we don't believe that our bodies belong to us, but they belong to

00:34:59.860 God and that our body is a temple, a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit, as first Corinthians 6, 19 says,

00:35:05.400 then we do feel that we have a responsibility to treat our bodies well, to treat our bodies with

00:35:10.140 respect. Um, and again, I think that there is a balance there. I don't think that that means that

00:35:15.640 you never eat ice cream or that you never indulge yourself in any way. These are wonderful gifts of,

00:35:20.380 of common grace. If I believed that as a Christian, I couldn't eat ice cream. Oh, that would be very,

00:35:25.580 very sad, especially during pregnancy. Um, but I think that there's a balance there that we treat

00:35:31.060 our bodies with discipline. We treat our bodies with respect. Um, but we also realize that we don't

00:35:35.980 idolize our bodies. We try to be as scientific as we possibly can when it comes to dieting and things

00:35:42.200 like that. And we don't overcorrect going to a place that is just fantasy that says that you can

00:35:48.500 gain any amount of weight and you're still going to be just as healthy as if you weren't obese.

00:35:52.900 That's just not true. That's not how, that's not how God made us. That doesn't mean that people

00:35:57.160 who are obese are not beautiful or that they're not valuable or that they're not made in the image

00:36:01.820 of God or that they're any worse than me or you. That's not saying that at all. Um, that's just

00:36:06.880 saying that God designed our bodies to function a certain way and that we have to be as balanced

00:36:10.920 and as healthy in how we look at our bodies and how we treat our bodies as possible. So that's my

00:36:16.000 nuanced view, if you will. All right, that's all I've got time for today. We will be back here soon.

00:36:22.900 Thank you.

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Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 07, 2021

Ep 433 ｜ Healthy Body Image vs. Unhealthy Enabling ｜ Q&A

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