Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 49 ｜ Christians' Theological Confusion

00:00:00.000 Hello, friends. Welcome to Relatable. It's Thursday. That means that the week is almost

00:00:06.000 over. You have almost made it. And that means that Halloween is next week and then it's November and

00:00:11.280 then it's Thanksgiving and then it's Christmas and then it's the end of the year. And I just

00:00:15.180 can't believe it. 2018 is probably the year that has gone by the fastest for me. I just cannot

00:00:22.320 wrap my mind around the fact that January was almost a year ago and that I started this podcast

00:00:29.200 at the beginning of the year or in March. Basically, I cannot I cannot wrap my tiny little

00:00:34.460 mind around that. It's amazing to me. But I'm really excited about the holidays. We're actually,

00:00:39.200 like I said, on Tuesday, enjoying a fall. And I'm excited about Halloween, too. I know Christians

00:00:44.780 have mixed reviews about Halloween. When I was growing up, we never decorated for Halloween.

00:00:49.920 My mom wouldn't let us. I think the scariest thing that she let me put outside was maybe like a carved

00:00:54.920 jack-o'-lantern. And maybe maybe one time she let me put out like a fake spider web. But we were only

00:01:01.160 allowed to decorate for fall, not Halloween. And I was never allowed to be anything scary.

00:01:05.920 One time she let me be a witch, but I had to be like a pretty witch, like a cute witch. I couldn't

00:01:12.240 be a scary witch. My husband was raised the exact same way. I think it's hilarious. Our parents were so

00:01:17.780 similar growing up, which has been a great thing for us. But it's just so funny to look back at some of the

00:01:24.140 stuff that our parents didn't allow us to do or made us do. I don't know how you guys feel about

00:01:29.320 dressing up for Halloween. If you think it's just harmless, if you think it's, you know, the state

00:01:33.480 of your heart, or if you think it's this hedonistic, terrible thing that we should avoid at all costs.

00:01:39.460 Either way, I think I understand the position. I still like Halloween. I actually think that it's a

00:01:45.000 good ministry opportunity, maybe. Like last year, for example, we sat on our porch and I think I

00:01:52.980 dressed up as like a seventies person or something like that. And we met all of these people and all

00:01:57.820 of these families that we had never met before. And we got to talk to them and it was, it was really

00:02:03.680 fun. You could even put on your little, um, on your, uh, little candies that you hand out, like

00:02:11.900 little, um, pieces of paper with scripture on it or with the gospel on it. Like that could be a

00:02:17.000 really great way to minister to people and kind of redeem what is otherwise perhaps a, uh, pagan

00:02:23.900 quote holiday could be a good opportunity for some hospitality and for some evangelism. You never know

00:02:30.160 this year. Sadly, we are not going to, I'm not going to be in town for Halloween. Uh, really makes

00:02:36.600 me sad, but I'm going to be doing something fun. I'm going to be going to an Ed Sheeran concert,

00:02:40.480 which is cool. My brother really likes Ed Sheeran. And so my husband and I are going to take him

00:02:46.060 to that. I am kind of like, I don't really care about Ed Sheeran, but I've heard that

00:02:51.500 he's really great in concert. So we're going to be going to that. I'm not going to be here

00:02:54.640 on Halloween last year. We have a black cat. You guys probably know her name is Rachel

00:02:59.360 McAdams. And my husband came up with that. I wish I could take credit for it, but I can't.

00:03:04.580 She sat in the window when we were on the front porch handing out candy and everyone thought

00:03:09.960 that she was a decoration. And this one little girl freaked out because my cat moved and she

00:03:14.000 didn't realize it was a real cat. So this year, sadly, we won't be able to experience that,

00:03:19.160 but maybe we'll leave out some candy or something like that. Anyway, that's not what we're talking

00:03:23.560 about today. Uh, today we are going to talk about this study that came out by Lifeway Research

00:03:28.600 and Legionnaire. I think that's my, maybe how you say it, Legionnaire Ministries that, um, was

00:03:34.700 called the state of theology. So they asked evangel or evangelicals and non-evangelicals in America,

00:03:42.040 a few theological questions where they gave them a theological statement. And then the

00:03:46.500 evangelicals, some of them, not evangelicals. And some of the questions answered, whether they

00:03:51.740 strongly agreed, strongly disagreed or somewhere in between. And so we're going to talk about that

00:03:56.820 and the implications for that, what that means about the American church and where we are and

00:04:01.040 how we understand who God is and who we are in relation to him. Uh, first, I want to talk about

00:04:06.700 some news just for a second. So in case you guys didn't hear yesterday, there were, um, suspicious

00:04:14.180 items that were possibly explosive, explosive devices that were found in the vicinity of Hillary

00:04:21.440 and Bill Clinton's home. Apparently there was one also sent to CNN. There was also one possibly

00:04:27.840 sent to Barack Obama's house. And then a few days ago, there was one apparently in the mailbox of

00:04:33.700 George Soros's home. Now, how the heck that happened? All of these people are millionaires.

00:04:39.080 George Soros is a billionaire. How, how this could have happened? I'm not really sure. I guess it could

00:04:45.120 have been by mail, some kind of mysterious package. Uh, I don't really know, but it's scary.

00:04:51.260 Nonetheless, I condemn any act of terrorism or violence that is not ever a justified means of,

00:04:59.340 of communicating your political disagreement ever. I don't care if they're politicians that I don't

00:05:04.620 agree with, or I don't like, uh, I still don't want them to be terrorized. I don't want them to

00:05:08.780 be murdered. I don't want them to be threatened. I don't want their lives to, to be, um, not secure.

00:05:18.240 However, okay. So this is going to make me sound like a little bit, I shouldn't even say, however,

00:05:22.720 there's no, however to that. And this is going to make me sound a little bit like a conspiracy

00:05:27.520 theorist. And I'm just going to go ahead and acknowledge that I have no proof for what I'm

00:05:31.140 about to say. It just all seems very suspicious. Like why were explosive devices sent to these

00:05:37.840 people's homes at the time that it was now, a lot of people are saying this is a leftist hit job

00:05:43.140 and they're just trying to blame it on the right to make it look like we are the violent ones. I

00:05:48.780 don't, I don't know that that's true. I have no evidence that that's true whatsoever. So once we

00:05:54.080 get the police report after they investigate this, maybe we'll know a little bit more clearly

00:05:58.260 if it is someone on the left, we'll probably never hear about it. I'm not saying that this

00:06:02.600 is someone on the left trying to, uh, frame someone on the right, but I am saying it just

00:06:08.560 is a little bit weird. Like it just doesn't seem to fit all together, especially like right before

00:06:15.280 the midterms. I don't know. I don't know. I honestly don't know the answer. All I'm saying

00:06:20.380 is that I'm a little bit skeptical of this whole thing, regardless, whether it was someone on the

00:06:25.980 right or the left, someone who's apolitical, someone who has a personal beef with these

00:06:30.080 people, it's wrong. It's wrong. No matter what, whether it was from, uh, no matter what the motive

00:06:35.900 was, it is wrong. And I am sorry for all of these people, no matter how much I do disagree with them.

00:06:42.520 George Soros, of course we know not just in a conspiracy way, but he really is behind a lot of

00:06:48.320 the progressive movement. Open society, for example, is an organization that is funded by

00:06:54.120 George Soros and it advocates openly for open borders, for the free migration of people, um,

00:07:00.620 from nation to nation. He is behind so much of leftism. He does pay protesters. That's not,

00:07:08.360 again, that's not a conspiracy. Now I do think that it's kind of dumb for us to constantly blame George

00:07:14.200 Soros for everything. He's surely not behind every movement of the left. That's just ridiculous. And

00:07:20.100 his name has now been associated with kind of tinfoil hats, but I mean, he is responsible for

00:07:26.560 much of the progressive movement and the activism and the mobilization and the funding of the leftist

00:07:31.580 movement. And even so, even though he's someone that I think has done a lot of damage to our culture

00:07:36.860 through his funding and through his backing, I don't want him to be murdered. I don't want his family

00:07:42.440 to be threatened. That just shouldn't be who we are as Americans. Now, of course, immediately when

00:07:48.520 this comes out, the media is so predictable. People on Twitter are so predictable. Uh, you have people

00:07:53.780 automatically saying that this is president Trump's fault, that because he talks about how CNN is fake

00:08:02.240 news and how fake news is the enemy of the people that he demeans the Clintons. He, I don't know if

00:08:09.260 he's ever talked about George Soros, but his supporters have probably talked about how evil

00:08:13.180 George Soros is. They've talked badly about Barack Obama because he's done these things because he's

00:08:19.480 so quote divisive that this is all his fault. You have a plethora of blue check marks saying this on

00:08:26.020 Twitter, like this is legitimate analysis. But of course, when it comes to violence that is perpetrated

00:08:31.700 on the left, oh, well, you know, it's, you know, it's either that they don't say anything or well,

00:08:37.380 you know, who can blame them? Who can blame them? They're just frustrated. As, as Chris Cuomo said,

00:08:43.260 you know, you can't antifa, for example, that they're not as bad as the people that they're

00:08:49.440 protesting, even though, you know, they use violence, even though they cause chaos, even though they're,

00:08:55.280 um, facilitating and causing anarchy, no, they're not as bad as the people that they're protesting because

00:09:01.320 the people that they're protesting are bigots. You see this kind of talk on, on the left, when it

00:09:06.720 comes to antifa, when it comes to the extremists, when it comes to the shouting down of conservatives

00:09:12.100 on college campuses, you don't hear progressives condemning that. Typically, I'm not saying there

00:09:17.840 are no progressives that do, but typically you don't hear progressives saying that that's bad,

00:09:22.060 that we shouldn't be silencing people. We shouldn't be bullying people. We shouldn't be doxing people.

00:09:26.200 We shouldn't be harassing people. You say, no, well, you know, it kind of makes sense. These are divisive

00:09:30.860 times. I mean, we had Hillary Clinton just a couple of weeks ago in an interview say that we can't be

00:09:36.920 civil, that the left shouldn't be civil because this administration is, you know, causing so much

00:09:41.700 harm and is trying to undo all of the wonderful things that progressives have done. She said that

00:09:46.700 we should be uncivil. Of course, Eric Holder said that we should, that when we go low, when conservatives,

00:09:53.780 I guess, go low, that they should kick us. Now that is a metaphor. Of course, I don't think he means

00:09:58.260 physically kick, but he's trying to say, we're going to play dirty. Barack Obama had a plethora

00:10:03.680 of divisive statements when he was president talking about fighting the political enemies,

00:10:08.920 of course, again, metaphorically, but he constantly dehumanized the people on the right by saying that

00:10:14.480 we're just his, we're just the ones that are trying to oppose progress. We're just the ones that are

00:10:18.800 holding America back. So you're saying that this president is more divisive than the last president.

00:10:24.220 That's not true. The numbers don't show that. Maxine Waters, encouraging harassment,

00:10:29.500 encouraging people to get in their faces. That's another thing that, or the left to get in

00:10:33.940 conservative faces. That's another thing that Barack Obama has said. The left has said that

00:10:38.280 conservatives and people in the administration shouldn't be able to eat dinner in peace.

00:10:43.200 So you're saying that it's the right that's encouraging violence. And look, I am not,

00:10:48.420 I'm not blaming the left for the violence that we've seen, or I'm not blaming everyone on the left.

00:10:53.000 I'm not blaming Maxine Waters for every bad thing that the left has ever perpetrated.

00:11:00.320 But I am saying if you're going to automatically blame Donald Trump and conservatives for this

00:11:06.980 bomb threat that we have seen against the Clintons and Obama and Soros, then you need to be fair.

00:11:14.160 You also need to be blaming the people on the left who are actually directly calling for violence,

00:11:19.820 unlike conservatives. Now I've said before, I do not think, even though the left is so mob-like

00:11:26.160 right now, so unhinged, so off their rocker when it comes to all of this, I do not think

00:11:31.680 conservatives should stoop to that level. I don't think that we should be violent. I don't think

00:11:35.900 that we should be immoral. I understand people saying, oh, we should fight fire with fire. I

00:11:40.300 disagree with that. Conservatism and morality go hand in hand because we believe in self-governance.

00:11:46.480 Self-governance is not possible without a moral, virtuous, and compassionate people.

00:11:51.220 If we devolve into anarchy, then I guarantee you big government is going to win. Small government

00:11:56.100 is not going to win out in a country that is torn apart by tribalism and has, like I said,

00:12:02.940 devolved into anarchy. It's just not going to work. Conservatives don't need to stoop to that level.

00:12:07.820 I know it's difficult. I know it is. So if these really were conservatives that planted these

00:12:13.520 bombs, it's absolutely wrong and it should be condemned, but it shouldn't be treated like on

00:12:19.280 the left, like this is some exclusively conservative issue. It's not. And plus, conservatism and violence

00:12:25.680 do not go hand in hand. Progressivism and Marxism have historically gone hand in hand. So it's not

00:12:30.860 our ideology that is to blame like it is on the left. Now there are some bad actors, but conservatism

00:12:37.600 has not been perpetuated by violence like Marxism has. So like, let's just put that differentiation

00:12:44.000 out. And to say that we are the hyperbolic ones, that we have the apocalyptic language is absolutely

00:12:49.780 ridiculous. If you've ever read an email from the Women's March, you will see how everything is the

00:12:56.200 end of the world. Nancy Pelosi said that tax cuts are going to be, they're going to be Armageddon,

00:13:01.900 I think is what she said. We heard that once we repealed the Obamacare mandate, that 24 million

00:13:07.620 people were going to die. That was a lie. We heard that when Kavanaugh was going to go on the Supreme

00:13:12.320 or was if he was confirmed to the Supreme Court, that women were going to be getting

00:13:17.640 coat hanger abortions in alleys. They make up these lies to incite outrage. That's exactly what we saw

00:13:24.880 with the Kavanaugh thing. And then when someone reacts to that outrage with something crazy and violent,

00:13:30.480 like harassing Nancy Pelosi or doing this horrible, terrible act of planning bombs, then they say,

00:13:36.600 oh, it's the right. It's conservatives. They're the ones that are crazy here. No, no, no, no, no, no.

00:13:43.620 Call out your own crazy. You can call it crazy on the other side. That's fine. But call out your own

00:13:47.740 crazy first. Don't say that your crazy is justified. But any craziness that you see on the right, which

00:13:53.360 by the way, has not reached the levels that we've seen on the left, that that that you see on the right

00:13:57.960 is terrible, awful. Everything that's wrong with this country and everything that's wrong with

00:14:01.500 conservatism. Just be honest. So those are my thoughts about all of the violence that we're

00:14:07.840 seeing. Violence is not the answer. It's not the answer. We have to stop dehumanizing the other side

00:14:12.740 as categorically evil. I've said that multiple times on this podcast. While I vehemently,

00:14:19.080 passionately disagree with leftism and leftists, while I think that they are so unhinged and so

00:14:24.780 emotional in so many ways, and they're just so wrong on almost everything, even though I think

00:14:31.600 that with all of my heart, I do not see them as evil simply for disagreeing with me. Are there evil

00:14:38.520 people on the left? Yes, there are evil people on the right, too, even though I might disagree or agree

00:14:43.260 with their ideas. But I do not dehumanize them as Nazis, as all generally horrible people that are on

00:14:51.600 the wrong side of history that have to be defeated at all costs. No, I think their ideas are bad and I

00:14:56.580 want to defeat their ideas. If we lose the ability to defeat ideas and we just go after people,

00:15:01.960 again, we don't have an argument for conservatism because that's what conservatism is based on.

00:15:06.240 That's what America is based on. America was based on an idea. That idea is self-governance.

00:15:11.240 Self-governance is not possible without morality and decency. Okay, that is my spiel on that,

00:15:17.720 which took up a lot of time. So I guess I'll go semi-quickly through this statement on theology.

00:15:24.520 So state of theology, like I said, that was just a very quick transition. I didn't even try to make

00:15:29.220 it smooth at all. A study by Lifeway Research and Legionnaire Ministries. So it examines evangelicals.

00:15:35.580 Some of these questions are for evangelicals, these next few questions that I'm going to read,

00:15:40.520 and then they ask evangelicals whether they agree or disagree. This study defines evangelicals as

00:15:46.380 Christians with a great concern for the gospel. So in my mind, it doesn't actually say this in the

00:15:52.600 study. We're talking about not just nominal Christians, so not Christians in name only.

00:15:58.160 We're not talking about Christer Christians, Christians that only go to church on Christmas

00:16:01.740 and Easter. Evangelicals typically mean practicing Christians, Christians who go to church, who read

00:16:08.120 their Bible, who probably go to Bible study. Again, it doesn't say all of those qualifications

00:16:12.800 in this study, but typically that's what evangelical means. Evangelical means Protestant, and it means a

00:16:18.880 variety of denominations within Protestantism. Typically, I wouldn't say that that includes

00:16:23.900 Episcopalian and then some of the more fringe and liberal denominations in Christianity. Maybe it does.

00:16:32.580 Maybe it's on an individual basis. I don't know. Evangelical has become a very political term in this

00:16:37.700 sense. I am talking about not nominal Christians, but Christians who believe they have a relationship

00:16:42.180 with Christ, who study the Bible, who go to church, who are active in the Christian community.

00:16:49.080 So here's the first statement, and this is quite a troubling one. So this is the statement that they

00:16:57.060 gave. Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature. 52% said yes to everyone sins a little,

00:17:04.800 but most people are good by nature. That's just not true. That's not what the Bible tells us.

00:17:10.640 Romans 3.11 says none is righteous. No, not one. We know that all of our righteousness is as filthy

00:17:16.320 rags. 52%, the majority of evangelicals that were polled said that people are good by nature.

00:17:22.980 No, we are not. You have to teach people to be good. You don't have to teach your little kid

00:17:27.120 to steal blocks from his brother. You don't have to teach them to lie. You don't have to teach them

00:17:33.120 to be disrespectful. We are born bad. Now, do we have goodness within us in that God gives us common

00:17:41.460 grace, and then we do have a feeling of maybe compassion or empathy towards our fellow man? I

00:17:48.160 believe that God can give us that, but those are God-given things. Naturally, we are absolutely corrupt.

00:17:54.740 Romans 3.11 and other verses throughout scripture confirm that, that we are sinful in our mother's womb.

00:18:00.280 There is another statement, God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism,

00:18:08.060 and Islam. So pluralism here. God accepts the worship of all religions. 51% of evangelicals agreed

00:18:16.800 with that. 51% of evangelical Christians, the majority of Christians, apparently think that you

00:18:24.260 don't actually have to be a Christian for God to accept your worship, that he actually accepts the

00:18:28.560 worship of any religion. Okay. Well, John 14.6, we know, says that I am the way, the truth, the life,

00:18:35.900 that no one comes to the Father except through me. Not a single person has access to God except

00:18:41.480 through Jesus Christ. So this idea that God accepts the worship of all religions is not based on the

00:18:48.140 Bible. And as an evangelical, you should be basing your beliefs or your religious beliefs on the Bible.

00:18:54.120 Um, next statement, God counts a person as righteous, not because of one's works, but because

00:19:01.820 of one's faith in Jesus Christ. 81% agreed. Okay. That's great. That is biblical, but it contradicts

00:19:09.700 some of the other statements. I mean, we already said, or some evangelicals, the majority of evangelicals

00:19:15.080 already said that people are pretty good, even though, uh, we sin a little. And then we are also saying

00:19:21.400 that a person is righteousness, not as righteous, not by what they do, but because of their faith

00:19:27.060 in Jesus Christ. So we're good on this whole grace thing. Uh, on the one hand though, we don't believe

00:19:33.160 humans are all that bad or that our badness condemns us, which it does. We believe that Jesus needs to

00:19:38.840 save us though. It makes no sense from a theological perspective, but it does make sense from a worldly

00:19:45.620 relativistic perspective. This idea of moral relativism that has infiltrated every segment

00:19:51.440 of society. That's exactly what we are seeing throughout the study that Americans are convinced

00:19:57.600 by relativism, evangelicals and non-evangelicals alike. This idea that your truth is your truth.

00:20:03.220 My truth is mine. And we're all going to get saved by Jesus in the end. And it's fine. That's a very easy

00:20:08.720 and convenient way to think. It's a very, uh, loving sounding way to think that in the end, God's just

00:20:14.460 going to accept everyone. And as long as there is some kind of faith out there, we're all going to be

00:20:21.900 fine. Uh, 97% of evangelicals believe in the triune God. So again, that is good. Father, Son, Holy Spirit,

00:20:29.080 three in one. And yet another contradiction. And yet 73% of evangelicals believe that Jesus was the first

00:20:36.760 and greatest being that God created. So they believe in the triune God, God, 97%, three in one

00:20:43.580 great. And yet 73%, a large majority believe that Jesus was the first and greatest being that God

00:20:49.780 created. No, no, he was, he was not. If he is one with God, he was not created by God. Uh, John one,

00:20:58.080 one through three in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. He was in the

00:21:03.700 beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was

00:21:10.140 made and it was life. And the life was the light of men. Uh, that's pretty clear that if the word is

00:21:17.840 Jesus, which we know it is in John one, and the word is God and the word was with God in the beginning,

00:21:25.080 then there was no God came before Jesus and then made him. He is God. He was with God. Now that might

00:21:31.940 not be something that we understand, but it's true. There's lots of things that we don't understand

00:21:36.540 because we're finite and God is infinite. Uh, there are statements given also to the general

00:21:42.080 population of Americans, not just evangelicals. So here's one of those statements. Even the smallest

00:21:47.780 sin deserves damnation. 69% of people that were pulled disagree with that, that even the smallest

00:21:56.840 sin deserves damnation. Now I want you to think about that. Do you believe that even the smallest

00:22:02.200 sin deserves damnation? That sounds extremely fire and brimstone. It sounds extremely scary. It sounds

00:22:10.360 extremely, uh, judgmental, but if you are a Christian, you have to know logically and theologically

00:22:18.920 that yes, it does. Even the smallest sin deserves damnation. Even the smallest sin condemns us to hell.

00:22:25.540 If it doesn't, then you are saying a human being could avoid hell without Christ because theoretically

00:22:31.960 someone could just live their lives, just making these little tiny sins, maybe like a white lie here,

00:22:37.580 or, uh, maybe they thought a bad thought about someone there. And that person, according to the

00:22:43.900 majority of people in the study, 69% of people, they could get to heaven because you're not damned to hell

00:22:49.880 by smallest by small sins. Apparently if that's the case, if humans are able to get to heaven by not

00:22:56.440 really sinning that badly, then surely Jesus wouldn't have had to come to die, right? Like

00:23:02.980 surely God wouldn't have sent his only son to die a gruesome death on a cross just so we could manage

00:23:09.040 our behavior and get to heaven ourselves, right? No, we needed Jesus's sacrifice. That's what the Bible

00:23:15.820 tells us because every single one of us is completely detached from God without him. We're

00:23:20.840 completely depraved. We're completely hopeless. Ephesians two says that we are dead in sin,

00:23:26.880 that we're dead men walking, that we don't have any life with Christ, that we're not reconciled to God

00:23:32.180 at all. We have no ability to get to God on our own. I don't care how good we are. Uh, this also goes

00:23:38.660 back though to a misunderstanding that people have about who God is. Most Americans probably don't

00:23:46.220 believe, I would say judging from this poll, that God is holy. And they might say that he is,

00:23:52.540 but what they mean by that would probably not be biblical according to this. Um, holy meaning that

00:23:58.400 he is perfect, that he is without any stain or flaw or sin. I think people think about God too much

00:24:03.840 like a man. And of course, God is Jesus. Jesus was fully man. But I think we think about him

00:24:10.720 in the human sense of having sinful flaws and that's wrong as a holy, perfect being. He is not

00:24:18.360 going to be united with something that is unholy or flawed or sinful. And that is why in the old

00:24:24.380 Testament, they offered sacrifices as a propitiation for their sins. Why the priest had to perform rituals

00:24:30.660 before going into the Holy of Holies, they had to wear certain things, perform certain sacrifices.

00:24:35.860 And then Jesus came and the new Testament to become that sacrifice, um, to become those rituals

00:24:41.240 for us to enter into the Holy of Holies on our behalf. So we could have full access to God without

00:24:46.460 having to do all of the things that they did in the old Testament. It's not that God in the new

00:24:50.420 Testament suddenly start stopped caring about sin. It's that his wrath still kindling is satisfied

00:24:58.300 by Christ's sacrifice, an eternal sacrifice that is fully a thousand percent sufficient for all who

00:25:04.920 confess their sins and believe in Christ as their savior. Um, the next statement is religious belief

00:25:11.780 is a matter of personal opinion, not objective truth. 60% of the Americans polled, not just evangelicals

00:25:20.280 agree with that. I'm not really surprised by this, uh, because again, relativism, this idea of

00:25:27.000 postmodernism, which really is centered on relativism, uh, says that absolute truth does not exist,

00:25:32.400 but there's so much cognitive dissonance, so much hypocrisy in being a person who says that absolute

00:25:39.060 truth does not exist because the statement that absolute truth does not exist is an absolute truth.

00:25:44.900 So, you know that there's no absolute truth and you know that absolutely. Um, and also everyone

00:25:50.820 actually believes in an absolute truth or else you wouldn't believe what you believe. You only believe

00:25:56.100 what you believe because you believe that it is true. That's like when people say, Oh, this so-and-so

00:26:02.400 always thinks they're right. Well, of course, everyone always thinks they're right. You don't

00:26:06.860 think thoughts or have beliefs or have values that you think are wrong. Now they might be wrong, but

00:26:12.740 you believe that they are true. And if you're honest with yourself, you believe that everyone would be

00:26:18.420 better off if they had the same kind of values that you do. You disagree with people that don't think

00:26:23.460 that the same way you do. Now you might not, um, confront them. You might not argue with them.

00:26:28.960 You might not say that you're better than them, but you believe the way that you do because you

00:26:33.640 believe that what you believe is true. So sure. You might say what's fine for you is fine for you.

00:26:39.140 It's fine for me is fine for me, but that's really just apathy. You don't want to come across as

00:26:43.960 judgmental or confrontational. Um, but the fact is you believe it is true. Plus every sane person

00:26:52.560 believes in a higher moral law that, uh, there are some absolute truths that if they are denied,

00:27:01.080 they should, they're, they're punishable. There is, uh, there is a consequence for contradicting

00:27:08.720 things that should be true. For example, the innocent life should be protected. So murder is

00:27:13.940 wrong. Now, of course we have differentiations in what is life when it comes to things like abortion,

00:27:19.460 but most people, including like the UN, we believe that murdering an innocent person is wrong. That

00:27:26.160 stealing is wrong. That cheating is bad. Now, like I said, a lot of these things get more and more

00:27:31.680 muddy, but in general, the world believes this. That's why we call a human rights violations,

00:27:37.600 human rights violations, that there is a universal definition of, of what that is. Uh, why do we believe

00:27:45.080 in a higher moral law? One, if there is no God, but also if there's no absolute truth. So again,

00:27:49.820 there's just a lot of hypocrisy and people who say that there's no absolute truth. You can be an

00:27:54.960 open-minded person and still know that there is objective truth out there. For example, like I could

00:28:00.280 say, I don't know that all of my opinions about theology or about politics are objectively true.

00:28:07.520 Now, again, I would not believe them if I didn't think they were true, but I don't know if they're

00:28:12.820 objectively true. Maybe someone will come along and convince me otherwise, or per persuade me in

00:28:18.740 another direction. Um, but that doesn't mean that I don't believe in objective truth. I believe that

00:28:25.320 objective truth is out there. Now. I also recognize my inability to always match everything I believe

00:28:30.900 with that objective truth, but I believe in objective truth. And I believe that it is our goal

00:28:36.040 to get as close as we can to that truth. And that's impossible without the Holy spirit. So next statement,

00:28:41.400 even 32%, or this is not really a statement. I'm just telling you 32% of evangelicals, uh,

00:28:47.420 believe that their religious beliefs are not objectively true. My question is, why are you a

00:28:52.400 Christian? Why not just like have another hobby when I'll just be a happy agnostic. If you don't

00:28:58.100 believe that Christianity is true, but you call yourself a Christian. Uh, so here's an interesting

00:29:02.120 one. This is given to all respondents. So not just evangelicals, the Bible's condemnation of

00:29:07.840 homosexual behavior doesn't apply today. That was the statement that they had to agree with or

00:29:12.240 disagree with 44% agree. 41% disagree. That's interesting. So the majority of people in this

00:29:20.720 case, uh, or 44% of people in this case believe that the condemnation of homosexual behavior

00:29:26.720 founded the Bible doesn't actually apply today. That for whatever reason, it was just back then.

00:29:31.360 It doesn't apply anymore, but 41% disagree with that. So 41% of respondents, not just evangelicals,

00:29:38.000 just Americans, uh, believe that the condemnation of homosexuality found in the Bible still applies

00:29:44.840 today. That's interesting because the media would have us believe that everyone is fine with gay

00:29:50.840 marriage. Everyone's fine with homosexuality. And that if, well, if you don't agree with that,

00:29:55.520 then you're just this horrible, horrible bigot. But the fact of the matter is a lot of people

00:30:00.040 seem to have conservative Christian values on this, despite what Hollywood, the media and the left is

00:30:06.500 telling us. Um, another surprising one, 52% of respondents, again, not just evangelicals, 52% of

00:30:13.820 American respondents said that they agree that abortion is a sin. So that's the majority of people

00:30:19.960 pulled. Again, the media would have us believe that it's only us random fringe people that just believe

00:30:27.200 in, uh, shoving, uh, shoving evangelical Christianity down your throat that believes that abortion is a

00:30:32.520 sin, that we're just these backwoods people that would rather women die in childbirth, that we're just

00:30:38.120 these people that have no brains, but we're dying off soon. That's not true. 52% of people think that

00:30:45.940 abortion is a sin. That is, that's pretty amazing. And gosh, they are doing their damnedest to make sure

00:30:54.660 that you feel like you are a freak, that you hate women, that you are backwards. If you believe that

00:31:00.920 abortion is wrong or abortion should be stopped or abortion should be regulated at all. But just keep

00:31:06.300 in mind that you are in the majority, you're in the majority. It's them that are weird and them that

00:31:11.940 are wrong. By the way, uh, interesting findings among millennials, some surprising, some not millennials

00:31:17.360 are actually more likely today to believe in Jesus for salvation or to say that they believe in Jesus

00:31:22.620 for salvation than they were two years ago. The majority also believe are the ones that were

00:31:27.060 pulled on that ultimate judgment of God is going to be here at the end of time, but they are, they

00:31:33.500 as in we, but I don't want to include myself in this. Uh, they are most liberal on views of homosexuality

00:31:40.480 and gender identity. The study shows that millennials do not believe what God's word says about homosexuality

00:31:47.560 and gender. They don't believe that it applies today. They believe that it's fine. Again, that part is not

00:31:53.560 really surprising. Millennials have been completely plagued and pervaded, um, with, uh, progressivism our

00:32:01.040 entire lives, especially our entire adult lives. We don't like to be inconvenienced. We don't like to

00:32:06.740 be confrontational. We don't like for things to be awkward. We don't want people to think that we're

00:32:11.380 judgmental. We want to be so tolerant, so loving, so open-minded, so accepting that we really don't want

00:32:17.280 to say that something is bad. Now to say that we believe in Jesus for salvation and even that he's coming

00:32:23.020 back to judge the world is something that's a little bit more detached for us. Like we can kind of just

00:32:28.280 say, Oh, well, Jesus is going to judge us at the end of time, but I don't really want to say that something

00:32:33.100 like homosexuality is a sin or that transgenderism is wrong. That's very typical. That's very typical

00:32:38.920 millennial. Uh, so what is all of this say? What is all of this imply? I think it says one good thing.

00:32:46.520 Uh, Americans, it seems are, are more Christian and more conservative in our views than the left

00:32:53.440 and the media would like us to believe Christians still in American still have biblical ethics in a

00:32:59.940 lot of ways. Now our theology is off as well, but in general, we have generally Christian biblical

00:33:06.780 ethics. Almost half still believe homosexuality is a sin. The majority believe that abortion is the

00:33:11.680 sin. These subjects we are told over and over again are settled that these are good things.

00:33:17.480 These are sacraments. They should be fully embraced by modern society as moral, uh, that anyone who doesn't

00:33:23.540 agree is some kind of extremist on the fringes of society. That's just not true. There's a large portion

00:33:28.740 of Americans, Republicans and Democrat probably, um, that, that would say that they do still have a

00:33:35.100 biblical view of the world. Now that said, this study also shows that Christians and Americans are

00:33:41.040 deeply confused theologically. And the biggest thing to me is that evangelicals and non-evangelicals

00:33:47.800 both have a very wrong and very unbiblical perspective of human beings and God. They see humans as not all

00:33:56.820 that bad and God as someone who doesn't really care that much about sin. Uh, the Bible though,

00:34:04.540 couldn't have a more different message than what evangelicals believe the entire story of the

00:34:11.720 Bible is about, uh, a perfect, holy, loving, and yes, wrathful, jealous God and his faithfulness to

00:34:20.400 his people through redemption. Uh, the redemption that we see throughout the Bible in the old Testament

00:34:26.160 and in the new Testament through Jesus would not be necessary if God weren't perfect. And if people

00:34:31.820 weren't sinful, the entire story of the Bible and the story that continued after the Bible was written

00:34:37.500 is about the amazing miracle of God's justified anger, being satisfied by the death of his sinless

00:34:43.860 and willing son, Jesus. Uh, I guarantee, I guarantee you that God would not have sacrificed his son.

00:34:50.560 If we weren't in the dire need of that sacrifice, uh, for God so loved the world that he gave his only

00:34:55.680 son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That is the miracle of the

00:35:01.000 gospel. And it would not be necessary if people weren't bad and God weren't holy. Um, God is so

00:35:06.940 loving is so gracious is so merciful is so perfect. And we are not. And to fill in that gap between

00:35:14.460 perfect and depraved is Jesus, our intercessor. But as we've seen through this poll, uh, that reality,

00:35:22.100 the reality that we need an intercessor is really uncomfortable because that means that we're sinful.

00:35:27.820 That means some people are not saved are not interceded for that. Jesus, uh, we would rather say that

00:35:33.720 Jesus is just kind of like this small part of this whole thing, that he's just kind of an option, that

00:35:38.560 he was just a good example for us. We don't want to talk about why he actually came. Um, because you

00:35:44.760 know, it's no big deal. We're all just going to end up fine in the end. And it would be a lot easier if

00:35:51.580 that were the case, but it's not in souls are at stake. If we get that wrong, theology is so

00:35:57.240 important. People who say that, Oh no, I've, I've had a friend who has said, you know, theology

00:36:03.180 is not, is, is not that important. What what's important is your personal relationship with God

00:36:09.000 and your personal communication with God. Of course, your personal relationship with God is

00:36:13.260 important. Of course, your communication with God is important, but if your communication with God

00:36:17.800 and your view of God is not based on proper theology as is found in his word, then you're

00:36:23.500 going to be sadly mistaken about a lot of things that have eternal implications. Your own soul is

00:36:29.140 at stake. And so are the souls of other people that you share the gospel with. So just keep that in mind.

00:36:34.760 I mean, get in the word. And I would also encourage you, I would encourage you. And people ask me this

00:36:40.660 all the time, like what Bible studies do you recommend? What authors do you recommend? And I will tell

00:36:45.200 you, I'm having a harder and harder time recommending people like they are falling like flies. These

00:36:50.720 people that I used to recommend as the solid biblical teachers now devolving into this social

00:36:56.720 justice warrior rhetoric that I just don't believe is biblical. For example, Jen Wilkin, Jen Wilkin,

00:37:03.540 she was a teacher at the village. She has had some solid Bible studies. I've taken a Bible study with

00:37:08.120 her. Like she's a good teacher. And I still believe that a lot of what she believes in preaches is

00:37:13.880 so theologically sound. But my mom went to a conference last week. I wish I had the audio

00:37:18.180 for you, but I don't. My mom went to a conference last week here in Dallas called the Abundance

00:37:22.540 Conference. If any of you guys went, you can message me about it and confirm whether or not my mom said

00:37:27.580 what she said is true. I'm guessing it is. She said that Jen Wilkin spent a large chunk of her talk

00:37:34.340 talking about how misogynist, she said, misogynist theologians have been in describing Rahab of the

00:37:43.060 Bible. My mom also said that the statements that she read were not misogynist at all. And that that

00:37:49.000 became kind of like a central theme and what Jen Wilkin was talking about. I don't see how that's

00:37:53.840 productive at all. I don't see how that's biblical at all. All that is doing is communicating this

00:38:00.060 subliminal message that women should be afraid of the patriarchy and that the patriarchy has infected

00:38:03.980 everything and that we should be skeptical of everything a man says, everything that a man writes,

00:38:09.540 especially if it's about a woman. Give me a freaking break. Give me a break. I'm going to

00:38:14.360 be so sad if I see, and I already do, but see this victimhood mentality seeping into the church when in

00:38:20.720 Christ we are victors. We're more than conquerors. You are not a victim. There is, and also there is

00:38:25.320 neither slave nor free nor Jew nor Greek nor male nor female. And so this idea that we are dividing

00:38:31.500 people by their particular oppressions like the secularists do in the social justice intersectionality

00:38:36.600 world is so anti-biblical and so, so anti-gospel that I just can't even contain my anger. So

00:38:42.180 anyway, when people ask me who I recommend, I have a really hard time recommending people.

00:38:47.300 A great theological podcast though is the Sheologians. Love the Sheologians. They've been on my show. I've

00:38:53.180 been on their show. They are wonderful. They probably have even better recommendations than I do. I love

00:38:58.120 Rosaria Butterfield. I think that she's great. I think Christopher Yuan writes really good stuff. They both

00:39:03.780 happen to have the same kind of story of being homosexual and then converting to Christianity and then changing

00:39:09.660 their life. So maybe those aren't good Bible studies, but they're good people to, uh, to listen to. I think

00:39:16.200 I still think John MacArthur is great. A lot of solid theology. Not everyone who is in this mainstream

00:39:22.400 Christian world is bad. Not everyone who claims social justice and as a Christian is bad. I just think

00:39:28.460 that they are mistaken. So anyway, that is that this was kind of a long podcast today. Hope that you guys enjoyed

00:39:34.400 it. I really wanted to keep talking because I want to talk about this whole migrant march and why it is not

00:39:39.660 Christian and not discerning and not wise to say, Oh yeah, let's just let everyone in no matter what. Oh man,

00:39:47.160 there's so many problems in the world. You guys, I'm sure that there will be plenty, plenty more to talk about on

00:39:52.020 Tuesday when we're back. Love you. Thanks for listening. See you guys on Instagram and elsewhere. Bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 25, 2018

Ep 49 ｜ Christians' Theological Confusion

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