Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 508 ｜ My Response to John Piper, Tim Keller & Big Eva

00:00:00.000 hey guys welcome to relatable happy tuesday hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far okay

00:00:16.120 today we're talking about some good stuff that i know you guys are going to like we're going to

00:00:21.580 talk about tim keller russell moore david french and john piper we're going to talk about some

00:00:29.680 things related to their views about the public health establishment apparently or at least one

00:00:35.120 member of it and we're going to look at john piper's argument that came out today that christians

00:00:41.660 should get the vaccine there's a lot there i won't be able to dissect his entire argument but i'm going

00:00:48.240 to try to at least give an overview of my thoughts there are things that i really agree with that i

00:00:53.260 really appreciate about what he said there are some things that i would uh push back on um october 19th

00:00:59.660 it's my husband's 31st birthday so even though i've obviously already told him happy birthday

00:01:05.120 today just a public happy birthday to my wonderful husband crazy for me to think that when i met him

00:01:11.980 he was 23 and actually it was um i used his birthday to try to like uh make make a move um because he uh

00:01:25.100 so we were working out at the same gym this would have been 2014 that's how i met him it wasn't like

00:01:31.340 a you know la fitness or something like that it was like a small crossfit type gym and we were taking

00:01:38.460 the same classes and i don't even remember really the first time i saw him or even thinking oh i really

00:01:45.360 want to talk to that person but we had talked casually during class and i knew that you know he was

00:01:50.760 cute and i wanted to maybe get to know him more and i could tell that he felt the same way but we

00:01:56.680 weren't dating or anything at this point so october of 2014 but i had remembered that a couple weeks

00:02:02.640 earlier he had told me that his birthday was coming up and i held that date in my mind i didn't say

00:02:08.740 anything about it but i think it was so it was on his birthday that i showed up to gen to the gym and i said

00:02:16.440 happy birthday and i could tell that he was very appreciative and pleasantly surprised that i

00:02:23.460 remembered his birthday that he was turning 24 and that was it hooked him in now i got two of his

00:02:29.540 babies it works ladies so remember that guy's birthday and tell him happy birthday he might be 1.00

00:02:36.460 pleasantly surprised and then you might end up marrying him and he becomes your baby daddy you just

00:02:40.840 never know happy birthday to my husband 31 he's super old i'm a very young 29 um anyway okay let's talk

00:02:50.480 about everything we're going to talk about today uh remember yesterday when i said that i am more

00:02:57.400 interested in disagreeing with believers than i am arguing with non-believers and that is because

00:03:03.380 sincerely i care i i care first and foremost about the church i care about truth i care

00:03:10.700 about us being united as much as we can in the things that are true that peace if possible truth

00:03:20.360 at all costs whether that means one side or the other accepting rebuke or correction when necessary

00:03:27.560 well i have many disagreements with what is typically referred to as big eva so if you don't know what that

00:03:34.500 is you've heard of big tech you've heard of big government you've heard of big business big pharma there's

00:03:39.400 also big eva and that stands for big evangelicalism a lot of you already know that but i'm guessing a

00:03:45.120 lot of you don't i remember hearing that or seeing that on twitter a year ago or two and thinking what

00:03:51.060 the heck is that and then i pieced it together big eva represents the corporate bureaucratic part of 1.00

00:03:58.160 evangelicalism so evangelicalism less as a part of the protestant faith and not even the political

00:04:04.140 label evangelicalism but kind of like the institution the people at the top big eva is typically these

00:04:11.680 are some characteristics of people who are just like establishment evangelicals that's one way to say it

00:04:16.800 typically anti-trump anti-abortion pro-biblical sex and gender pro-critical race theory and pro-social

00:04:26.280 justice russell moore the former head of the ethics and religious liberty commission that's the policy arm of

00:04:32.900 the southern baptist convention tim keller pastor author beth moore and others kind of in that crowd

00:04:39.780 are part of big eva these are people who are believers with whom i agree on on the vast majority

00:04:46.220 the vast majority of things or agree with on the vast majority of things tim keller in particular

00:04:51.860 i've learned a lot from i recommend a ton of his books meaning of marriage reason for god every good

00:04:59.320 endeavor gosh i could go on and on he has really helped me his writing his apologetics his theology

00:05:05.020 has really helped shape my faith in a very fundamental way however i also disagree with these

00:05:10.760 people politically and please i've just got to say this disclaimer even though i know that

00:05:16.020 most of you understand this whenever someone publicly disagrees with someone there will always be

00:05:23.120 someone in the crowd who says why are you attacking this person never in this entire podcast am i going

00:05:29.240 to attack the people that i'm talking about today but public ideas or ideas articulated publicly are fair

00:05:36.860 game for refuting publicly as well they might still disagree with the things that i have to say that's

00:05:43.240 fine i am not maligning them as people but i will question some of or one of the things recently that

00:05:51.020 they have put forward and i'll specify what that is in a second but another person that i would include

00:05:57.120 in this group is david french he is a christian attorney he's a writer who has written recently

00:06:01.860 a full-throated defense of some of the basic tenets of critical race theory i think i talked about that

00:06:06.900 on my podcast when he did and i went back and forth with him on twitter about it um in my opinion he is

00:06:13.680 very lopsided in his criticism politically i have met david french i think he's a very kind person who has

00:06:20.600 done a lot for the defense of the first amendment and has written a lot of very insightful conservative

00:06:26.500 stuff over the years one day i'd like to have him on my show to discuss some of our disagreements

00:06:32.300 people on you know in our camp on the evangelical right give me a hard time forgiving him the benefit

00:06:40.500 of the doubt not that i think i'm in like some authority or anything like that but i do like i will

00:06:45.800 constantly give believers the benefit of the doubt in the same way that i hope to be given the benefit

00:06:52.040 of the doubt i going back to kind of what we talked about yesterday where allegiance actually lies i want

00:06:58.140 to be extremely charitable in my disagreements with believers but the thing is is that the trump era

00:07:06.480 trump himself really kind of broke a lot of people in big eva the way that it broke a lot of people in

00:07:14.220 general especially on the left the trump era did some weird things to evangelicalism in general but

00:07:20.060 the top dogs in big eva decided that they were going to take the side of pro-social justice anti-trump

00:07:27.400 and there really grew the spirit of condescension it seems like mostly exhibited on places like twitter

00:07:34.900 and podcasts and things like that and i i would say there was also this embarrassment articulated

00:07:41.760 and expressed by big eva toward fellow christians who did hold sincere reasons for voting for trump

00:07:47.940 and for questioning secular narratives surrounding things like systemic racism police brutality

00:07:52.640 social justice i mean after george floyd happened people and big eva were so quick to jump on the 0.93

00:07:59.600 secular black lives matter narrative about systemic racism and police brutality and had no interest in

00:08:06.860 looking at the data or questioning the popular dogma coming from the mainstream left like they just had

00:08:14.440 no interest in the facts whatsoever it was it was really crazy and that was i think kind of a fault line

00:08:21.000 that was a that was a fissure that was something that i certainly took the more controversial less

00:08:26.840 mainstream stance on that put me in opposition not purposely but just consequently against the people who

00:08:35.980 are so quick to latch on to everything that cnn said about you know systemic racism and social justice

00:08:43.420 in the united states and i think they did so in a way that is not biblical even so i think that they are

00:08:51.820 worth these ideas are worth continuing with these disagreements are worth talking about and i don't want

00:08:58.480 to minimize i don't want to minimize the concerns of people on the other side of those issues to share my

00:09:04.620 same faith but i do feel like big eva minimizes the concerns of conservatives like me when it comes

00:09:13.260 to things like critical race theory and social justice theology and joe biden if you want to know what i mean

00:09:18.560 by those things by the way if you're thinking define your terms i have done so many episodes on social

00:09:24.440 justice theology and critical race theory those are probably the things i have talked about maybe the most

00:09:29.100 frequently in addition to abortion and gender ideology all you have to do is type in those

00:09:33.800 keywords and relatable on youtube wherever you get your podcast they'll come up also allybestucky.com

00:09:39.820 click podcast click categories there's categories for these things so you can go listen to all those

00:09:44.620 episodes to know exactly what i'm talking about but big eva claims the biggest threat we hear from 1.00

00:09:50.860 people you know like beth moore is trumpism and um white nationalism or christian nationalism and while big

00:09:59.260 eva does tend to agree that for example abortion is wrong and that gender is male and female according to 0.97

00:10:07.580 genesis 1 nowadays you will often find them a little bit quieter about it talking instead about nuance and

00:10:16.660 empathy and you know not wanting to be divisive dancing around these subjects for days rather than

00:10:23.260 just saying what is clearly true according to the god who tells us that he is love like there is

00:10:31.600 definitely this feeling not just among big eva but also the people who profess to be you know

00:10:36.940 progressive christians that they can out love god by not saying what the bible says is true and what the bible

00:10:43.420 says is false what the bible says is good what the bible says is bad it's a whole lot of hubris and

00:10:48.120 while big eva may personally hold to many of the same views that i do in the last few years especially

00:10:57.040 while trump was president it seems like those common stances have taken a back burner publicly in

00:11:03.940 exchange for a whole lot of mushiness in my opinion and secularism honestly when it comes to political and

00:11:09.800 cultural issues so this is leading to what i want to talk about with these people i guess i i shouldn't

00:11:16.500 be surprised when i see someone like russell moore tim keller and david french publicly praising it almost

00:11:24.740 tripping over themselves to praise someone like francis collins the former head of the national

00:11:30.160 institutes of health who just resigned we're gonna get to exactly what they said and what i think about it in

00:11:36.640 just one second okay so here is what david french upon the announcements um that francis collins

00:11:46.580 resigned from the head of the nih said on twitter he said francis collins is a national treasure thank you

00:11:53.680 for your faithful service here's what russell moore said i admire greatly the wisdom expertise and most of

00:12:00.680 all the christian humility and grace of francis collins i cannot wait to see how god uses him

00:12:06.620 next tim keller says as good as nih director he's tagging francis collins is it his craft he is a

00:12:15.060 better friend and so these are pastors who are promoting a particular person who professes who

00:12:20.480 professes to be an evangelical christian himself and if you don't know anything about francis collins

00:12:24.920 maybe you think that this is really no big deal and certainly his public image is very non-controversial

00:12:30.840 and you're probably thinking he must be an awesome guy these big name christians are all publicly

00:12:36.320 praising him russell moore praises christian humility david french called him a national

00:12:40.720 treasure tim calvary is publicly praising him and like i said collins has long professed to be an

00:12:46.700 evangelical christian he is admired by people both within and outside of the church the problem is

00:12:53.260 though that collins oversaw some of the most grotesque practices while he ran the nih including using the

00:12:59.600 body parts of aborted babies for research so this is according to the federalist in may of 2021

00:13:07.200 quote in the fall of 2020 researchers at the university of pittsburgh published a study titled

00:13:12.740 development of humanized mouse and rat models with full thickness human skin and autologous immune cells

00:13:19.960 in studying how organs reacted to pathogens or infections on human skin researchers grafted full

00:13:26.540 thickness human skin as well as thymuses livers and spleens from fetuses onto rodent bodies creating 0.93

00:13:33.460 what they call humanized rat models the study says researchers obtained fetuses at the gestational

00:13:41.000 age of 18 to 20 weeks from elective termination of pregnancy through mcgee i don't know how to pronounce

00:13:49.320 that mcgee women's hospital of the university of pittsburgh medical center with the university of pittsburgh

00:13:54.580 health sciences tissue bank researchers use skin from both the scalps and backs of fetuses gosh this

00:14:01.740 is heartbreaking terrible to read so that they could compare graphs with and without hair graphic images

00:14:09.660 from the experiment show that by 12 weeks fine human hair or baby hair can be seen growing darker and

00:14:16.620 longer than the surrounding short white hairs of the mice i remember when the story came out and these

00:14:21.600 images came out it's just grotesque it's heartbreaking you're talking about baby hair i think about that

00:14:27.420 david delight and he's an undercover pro-life journalist at the center for medical progress

00:14:32.840 he alleges that the university of pittsburgh has a relationship with the local planned parenthood who he

00:14:38.760 says provides aborted babies to the university the federalist article goes on to say some of the worst

00:14:45.560 violators in planned parenthood's abortion and fetal research practices were trained at pitt delight and

00:14:51.260 said appointing to ppfa medical director dr jennifer russo who trained as an abortionist at pitt and was

00:14:57.880 later caught supplying dead fetuses dead babies this article says fetuses same thing to a for-profit california

00:15:06.540 tissue procurement company gosh guys like just a reminder again how evil not just abortion the act is it's

00:15:15.060 unequivocally evil there's no debate about that especially as christians just the process is so 0.97

00:15:21.220 barbaric and grotesque but the entire for-profit industry of aborting babies it's awful then the

00:15:29.700 federalist again goes on to say and this is where we get the link to someone like francis collins

00:15:33.600 this study was funded by the taxpayer funded national institute of health and in part by dr anthony

00:15:40.580 fauci's office the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases niaid so you can go to the

00:15:48.780 university of pittsburgh study yourself and then you'll see under the acknowledgments that it says

00:15:54.840 this work was supported by the national institutes of health national institute of allergy and infectious

00:16:00.980 diseases so this is not something that we are just we are just making up but fair warning if you click

00:16:08.880 on that link you will you will see pictures of the scalps of aborted babies grafted onto mice

00:16:15.440 it's very disturbing dr fauci and dr collins both oversee the funding of their institutions or or within

00:16:23.560 their institutions because they lead these institutions and so even if they are not directly

00:16:28.560 involved in this kind of research which i wouldn't be surprised if they have been they do call the shots

00:16:34.340 about where the money goes and yes this is a bureaucracy there are multiple people in charge

00:16:38.700 but when you're the head honcho everything rises and falls on leadership i mean can you imagine as a

00:16:44.220 supposedly evangelical christian supporting a project like this can you imagine as a supposedly

00:16:50.020 pro-life christian praising someone who did support a project like this we're not talking about oh he

00:16:55.860 was just somewhere in management we're talking about the head of the nih directing the funding

00:17:00.560 to a project that uses aborted babies and as you'll see not just 18 to 20 weeks but much

00:17:09.140 later uses the skin the scalps of these babies to make humanized mice i mean is this even something

00:17:16.280 that's necessary how even ethically from a secular perspective i'm not even sure how you support this

00:17:22.740 although secularism tends to lead to stupidity sooner or later this is the most grotesque immoral barbaric

00:17:29.980 stuff you can think of this is not some well you know nuanced personally pro-life politically pro-choice

00:17:37.100 nonsense this is out now evil supported by the institution run by a guy who claims to be a

00:17:43.080 christian who some big-time evangelicals are apparently applauding now this is not all that surprising that

00:17:50.580 collins would direct something like this he does not claim that he believes that life starts at

00:17:55.520 conception there's a 2010 new yorker article that quoted collins or reports that collins sees an

00:18:03.040 embryo as a potential life and gosh i hear that so much from just like know nothing people who who truly

00:18:11.420 know nothing about biology and somehow want to justify abortion but this scientist says that he sees

00:18:17.680 an embryo as a potential life which it just doesn't even make any lot it doesn't make any logical sense

00:18:23.800 that he doesn't know when life actually begins again this is the geneticist and i just it's it's

00:18:32.140 mind-boggling to me it's absurd that this that this is being said by not just a scientist but a christian

00:18:38.500 it's obvious that a human is a it's a human at conception at the moment of fertilization because

00:18:43.840 then what else is he or she i mean right then you've got full human unique dna it's not something

00:18:51.480 else it's not some other species we know that the baby isn't the embryo isn't dead because that would

00:18:56.360 be a miscarriage and we know that biologically and logically can't be anything other than a human

00:19:01.580 being so what else would it be except for a living human you know that he's had to have thought about

00:19:08.080 this kind of thing the guy's 71 years old he's been uh you know professing christian in the scientific

00:19:14.400 industry for a very long time now i will give him that the question of personhood not the question of

00:19:20.840 humanity but the question of personhood of having rights and value is a philosophical question that

00:19:26.240 can't be answered just by you know in strict scientific means but it's answered in christianity

00:19:32.840 the faith that he says he holds on to in which we see physical life and human value

00:19:37.040 inextricably intertwined and again you can go back and listen to the many many episodes that

00:19:42.280 we have done on abortion to learn more about that and to hear me really dig into all of those points

00:19:47.940 but but this is this is collins he is much more secular in his thinking at least in regards to this

00:19:54.380 stuff than he is christian in his thinking and by secular i don't mean neutral or scientific i mean

00:20:00.700 anti-biblical science.org wrote about collins in 2019 quote when obama named him nih director

00:20:07.680 a concern was that his outspoken christian faith would influence his leadership his religion

00:20:13.520 science.org goes on to say never became an issue he followed obama's order to loosen rules for stem

00:20:20.980 cell research which some christians oppose and has defended fetal tissue research despite criticism from

00:20:27.340 anti-abortion groups so science.org of course is probably celebrating oh don't worry he says he's

00:20:33.720 a christian but that's never influenced anything that he did in leadership well that's a little

00:20:37.840 troubling isn't it collins has long supported embryonic stem cell research even though he knows

00:20:43.000 the embryos are destroyed in the process so i guess him saying that he doesn't believe embryos are a

00:20:49.540 human life again i would love for him to define just logically biologically what they are then

00:20:55.120 um i guess that's his attempt at searing his conscience about all of this uh the pioneer of stem cell

00:21:03.260 research dr james thompson sat in 2007 quote if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you

00:21:09.960 at least a little bit uncomfortable you have not thought about it enough i think that's true of a lot of

00:21:14.960 people in their support for abortion and things like this they haven't thought about it enough and

00:21:19.200 i would say that's especially true if you're a christian right like if you're not deeply uncomfortable

00:21:24.500 with this then i i think that you haven't thought about it enough or you have thought about it and

00:21:30.460 you're just ignoring what you know to be true what you know to be biblical christians are not called

00:21:36.460 to leave their faith at the door when they enter into a job like if we believe that god created the

00:21:41.220 world that he created science that we shouldn't be worried about science and ethics somehow

00:21:47.060 contradicting the christian faith if you believe that all truth is god's truth all morality is god's

00:21:52.760 morality which the christian does believe then why would you try to compartmentalize your life to say

00:21:58.600 you know i believe this about god but it's not going to influence how i run an organization or

00:22:04.300 conduct science again secularism which drives most scientists obviously isn't neutral because

00:22:10.740 you're seeing scientific textbooks and scientific academics now show that they're really more

00:22:17.360 ideological when it comes to things like gender when it comes to things like sex and so obviously

00:22:24.160 it's not secularism isn't neutral no world view is neutral as we so often say and that's obvious in

00:22:32.120 this too that collins was driven by secularism in his leadership of the nih which led to uh which led

00:22:42.020 to these grotesque practices that we're talking about or at least funding the grotesque practices

00:22:46.100 that we're talking about um he also did an interview last december with russell moore when moore was still

00:22:52.120 at the erlc saying that all christians should only be going to church virtually so this is last december

00:22:58.200 this is in an interview with the ethics and religious liberty commission uh he also held up

00:23:06.040 his cloth mask in this interview and he said this is a life-saving medical device and i'm i'm sorry

00:23:12.780 i'm sorry i'm not making a theological point about that statement it's just not true it's just not true

00:23:18.960 the university of waterloo we've talked about this so many times found that a cloth mask at best

00:23:24.820 filters out 9.8 percent of particles so if you're gonna make the argument that in order to really

00:23:31.160 love your neighbor you need to wear a mask well then apparently you're not loving your neighbor as

00:23:37.420 much as the person who's wearing an n95 mask which filters out like 40 to 60 percent of particles or

00:23:42.920 something like and those cloth masks by the way as soon as they get wet they lose their effectiveness

00:23:48.500 so at best at best it's 9.8 percent effective and probably after 20 minutes it's zero percent

00:23:55.820 effective so how can you say that's loving your neighbor how can you say that's not some kind of

00:24:00.060 political statement look at the data compare the case and hospitalization rate of states with and

00:24:05.980 without mask mandates and you will not find a difference compare sweden which doesn't have mask

00:24:11.220 mandates to the countries with a similar population size or a state like michigan with a similar

00:24:15.520 population size and you will see that you will see no difference in some um and in some cases

00:24:23.100 sweden has actually done better than those states and countries who have had mask mandates so when

00:24:29.600 we're talking about science that's troubling to me that's troubling hearing a statement like that

00:24:34.860 again that makes me think that he is more ideological than scientific in some ways but really the most

00:24:40.680 troubling part of all of this to me is the enabling of the funding of projects that use the intentional

00:24:46.340 destruction of babies for research this is also in the federalist quote collins's nih provided nearly

00:24:53.460 three million dollars in tax dollars to support a fetal organ harvesting operation by the university of

00:24:59.840 pittsburgh in its quest to become a tissue hub oh satanic for human fetal tissue ranging from six to 42

00:25:07.960 weeks 42 weeks gestation in addition collins championed the unrestricted funding of embryonic stem cell

00:25:16.240 research which involves the destruction of human embryos okay 42 weeks gestation guys like forget about

00:25:25.420 collins not knowing when an embryo is a life which is stupid in itself but how about a seven pound

00:25:32.040 squirming feeling baby that's about to exit the birth canal also there's another there's another part of

00:25:40.680 this that is so grotesque and it should give any evangelical pause before they publicly you know

00:25:48.160 congratulate them honor them point people to them as basically a hero but there's more that i think

00:25:54.800 that we as christians should really wrestle with when it comes to hoisting this person up as some kind of

00:26:00.860 champion of christianity you know within the within the government all right i want to i want to read

00:26:10.720 you also this message this official message from francis collins celebrating pride month this year this is

00:26:18.480 on nih's website here's a statement quote each june the national institutes of health joins the rest of

00:26:25.760 the country in celebrating pride month and recognizing the struggles stories and victories of those

00:26:30.840 who are lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer intersex and others under the sexual and gender

00:26:37.060 minority umbrella i applaud the courage and resilience it takes for individuals to live openly and

00:26:43.000 authentically particularly considering the systemic challenges discrimination and even violence that

00:26:48.900 those and other underrepresented groups face all too often here we go as a white cisgender

00:26:56.740 and heterosexual man evangelical christian francis collins says i have not had the same experiences

00:27:04.620 but i am committed to listening respecting and supporting those individuals as an ally and advocate

00:27:10.600 i know that developing allyship is critical as we continue to make nih and the world a more

00:27:17.160 inclusive place for all i mean come on that's just sell that's just celebration of it that's straight up

00:27:24.780 celebration of all of this you know it's one thing to say you don't work for a christian organization

00:27:30.360 i get that so it's one thing to say here's what i believe and know to be true and i still believe

00:27:37.740 if you're francis collins you could say i still believe that these people are made in the image of god

00:27:42.100 they're worthy people no matter how you claim to identify and they deserve good scientific research

00:27:47.260 they deserve good health care they shouldn't endure violence or you know some kind of truly actual in

00:27:55.380 the literal sense harmful marginalization okay that's one thing i i get that you're not running

00:28:01.520 a church you're not running a christian non-profit but it's another thing to say what he just said i mean

00:28:07.660 you are accepting all of the premises all of the definitions of secular progressivism again we are

00:28:15.000 seeing that secularism isn't neutral it makes moral statements unscientific statements like what is

00:28:20.100 cisgender really scientifically francis collins so as a supposedly evangelical christian touted by these

00:28:28.080 very mainstream influential evangelical leaders celebrated by russell moore as a pillar of christianity

00:28:34.780 this guy is celebrating the redefinition of sex of sexuality of gender he has denied

00:28:45.000 genesis 1 in these statements so you're telling me that the guy who can't even support genesis 1

00:28:51.620 believes in the much more controversial part of the bible which is the gospel john 14 6 jesus says i'm

00:28:57.380 the way of the truth and the life no one can come to the father except through me i don't know i don't

00:29:02.140 know like i said i want to give christians the benefit of the doubt but is his statement are his actions

00:29:07.940 as a leader of the nih distinguishable at all from what you know a far left atheist would have done

00:29:15.160 and said i i don't see any distinction between those things maybe you could criticize what i'm saying and

00:29:21.040 saying you know what there's a lot more to all of these things there's a lot more good that he has

00:29:25.080 done that he has said um and you know that's maybe that's true i'm sure not everything that he did was

00:29:31.280 anti-biblical or everything that he said was wrong but you see the difference between when christians

00:29:36.260 you know take over you know they lead an institution versus when secular progressives do secular

00:29:42.560 progressives are never afraid to force an entire organization entire group an entire institution to

00:29:50.620 conform to their ideology because they still operate under this myth that their ideology is

00:29:55.940 is like neutrally good objectively good um whereas christians because we're so scared of people

00:30:03.420 calling us you know theocrats or calling us i don't know people who want to impose our views on

00:30:10.620 everyone else we we allow secularists to influence us and we bow down to their language like secular

00:30:19.900 progressives are so much more evangelical than a lot of people in big eva are like they're so much

00:30:26.180 more sure they're so much more courageous i disagree with them on so much but they are so courageous and

00:30:32.180 bold and uh coercive honestly that's not something to admire but they are bullying and they are um

00:30:41.860 undaunted uh when it comes to trying to push an institution push a business push a corporation push

00:30:50.100 an organization push a church push a group of people towards their ideas i would simply like a christian to

00:30:56.340 show a fraction of the courage not talking about some of the nastiness and bullying that we see from

00:31:01.220 secular progressives but why can't a christian stand up and say this is what i believe and i believe

00:31:08.420 this to be good and right and true and i am at least the very least not going to buy in to the

00:31:15.220 ridiculousness of today's secular sexual revolution uh the nih's website also has all kinds of interesting 0.73

00:31:24.340 guides to how we for example um should refer to a person by the pronoun zur if they want to um if

00:31:32.580 they want us to or zero i don't know as it says so like there's this infographic on the website that

00:31:40.020 says that some people go by zay some people go by see spell i can't i can't i can't spell s-i-e some people go by zee

00:31:54.340 i can't i can't i can't even i can't get through this some people go by z uh spelled z-i-e some people

00:32:02.100 go by here h-i-e like some that's pronouns apparently that people go by and that used in a sentence the

00:32:09.460 nih the national institutes of health funded by your tax dollars who has been run for over a decade by

00:32:15.540 an evangelical christian um they say in a sentence this is how we would use this quote zay is a writer

00:32:22.020 and wrote that book here self i like here and here ideas um the graphic can be found on nih's website

00:32:31.540 it recommends um that we put our pronouns in our email signature in our name tags and that we should

00:32:38.740 start meetings with everyone announcing their pronouns and where at work are we joking guys is

00:32:45.540 this real are we what what exactly are we doing here that's what that's what i wake up every day

00:32:51.860 when i look on twitter and i see the ridiculousness like this morning i saw that the hhs the health and

00:32:58.580 human service health and human services under um under joe biden announced that rachel levine

00:33:06.020 is the what did it say the first female something the second part is really kind of pointless because it says

00:33:13.460 the first female the biden administration announces that rachel levine is now the first ever female

00:33:19.380 four-star admirable admiral um in the public health corps rachel levine guys is a man okay rachel

00:33:27.860 levine is a man who identifies as a woman i don't even like that language because that seems to give some

00:33:34.900 credence to this and so when i open twitter and i read something like that i say what exactly are we doing

00:33:41.620 here what's what's going on i mean when in regards to francis collins what's the point of having

00:33:47.540 christians in these institutions if they're not even going to infuse a semblance of truth into them

00:33:52.260 forget biblical truth like i'd settle for some biological truth at this point and people wonder why

00:33:58.180 we christians but just people in general because as we talked about last week there are plenty of

00:34:02.980 people who are not christians who are saying hey like a man is a man guys and these are people who

00:34:09.460 don't really care how people you know live their lives or they don't really care about pronouns

00:34:13.940 necessarily but they're still like guys a man is a man a woman is a is a woman like i just think it's

00:34:19.380 so funny that now we're calling people people with uteruses uh people with a with a prostate i'm like

00:34:26.420 oh we use gosh we used to have shorter words for those phrases where we were breaking down two groups

00:34:33.860 people so people with a uterus people with a prostate i wish we could think of just like a

00:34:39.060 shorter word to identify those two categories oh well let's just keep going with this new speak i mean

00:34:45.700 it's crazy like and people wonder why we mistrust this the same institutions who claim to have a monopoly

00:34:51.700 on truth and reason and science and medicine and the fact that these same people christians in big eva

00:34:58.340 think that the big threat to the country and the church is trump supporters and not this absolute

00:35:04.660 rot that has not only totally infected all secular global and national institutions but is tolerated by

00:35:10.580 and sometimes even endorsed by people who bear the name of christ like francis collins can idolatry of

00:35:17.140 trump in america be dangerous and this progressive nonsense be dangerous 100 we kind of talked about that

00:35:23.860 yesterday but when we're talking about the size and scope of each threat it's not even it's not even a

00:35:29.700 competition it's not even close the absolute rot the depravity the corruption in our public health and science

00:35:37.060 institutions is staggering it's sickening and i'm not saying that francis collins was intimately involved

00:35:42.820 with all of it i'm not saying that russell moore david french and tim keller can't be friends with and respect

00:35:47.860 someone with whom they disagree but ask yourself ask yourself this do you think that they would

00:35:53.860 openly praise someone in politics or in the government who is say controversial because

00:35:59.780 of their support for trump or their denial of systemic racism i don't know i feel like they

00:36:06.100 wouldn't publicly support that person because they would be afraid of attaching their name to someone

00:36:10.900 that a lot of people on the left consider problematic and yet i mean they're able to look past the

00:36:16.500 funding of aborted fetal research and the total embrace of the validity of all concepts of so-called

00:36:22.180 gender identity and sexuality and say that this guy is a national treasure an exemplar of christian

00:36:27.860 grace and humility like there were no reservations there no caveats honestly i i would take less issue

00:36:35.780 with a christian praising someone like ruth bader ginsburg because ginsburg didn't claim to be a christian

00:36:41.620 and you'd also you just say something like ginsburg was brilliant she was wrong on abortion of course

00:36:46.180 we believe this as christians she was wrong on other things i believe as a conservative but what

00:36:51.540 a stunning career and incredible mind she had that's true that's how that's genuinely how i feel and

00:36:56.420 that's probably maybe what i would say about her if i was talking about her same with trump he is far

00:37:02.900 from perfect but christians can still like him and like what he has done but am i going to say that

00:37:08.100 trump is a beautiful example of christianity no so why the apparent embrace and the endorsement of the

00:37:16.900 faith of someone who so obviously violated religious ethics now tim keller's statement doesn't necessarily

00:37:23.460 endorse his um his faith and it was really more russell moores that did that still i have a hard time

00:37:31.620 believing that they would hoist someone up with whom they disagree when it comes to trump and these are

00:37:38.740 also the same people who just believed that trump was so morally grotesque especially david french so

00:37:44.420 morally grotesque because of what he said that it is just impossible to vote for him or support him

00:37:49.380 that this is compromising christian faith you're saying that francis collins and everything that he

00:37:54.580 supported and said didn't compromise the christian faith but someone who said yeah you know what i think

00:37:59.140 that joe biden's going to lead in a radical way and not going to be good for the country i think

00:38:03.060 i'm going to vote for donald trump which is true by the way we have been vindicated sadly um you think

00:38:09.700 that like i've just i'm confused i'm confused about how you come to that conclusion it's just very

00:38:16.340 strange it's very strange isn't it all right we got a little bit to say about john piper and his argument

00:38:23.220 about vaccines uh but before we get to that okay so i want to quickly respond to an article that was

00:38:33.380 published today by pastor john piper now i've talked about john piper on this podcast before i recommend

00:38:40.660 his podcast dear pastor john and his resource desiring god a lot because it's extremely thoughtful

00:38:48.740 and i find him to be um a very sincere humble and godly person now when he published an article last

00:38:57.460 fall implicitly i don't even think he meant to but uh implicitly basically saying that voting for joe

00:39:04.980 biden is the same as voting for trump because trump's pride is just as bad as biden's support of abortion and

00:39:11.060 i vehemently disagreed with that and i just thought it was so sometimes i do think piper and this is one of

00:39:17.380 the examples that we're going to talk about today in an effort to add clarity he actually adds a lot of

00:39:23.860 confusion because he doesn't just say what he wants to say sometimes he seems to kind of cover things

00:39:31.220 up with a lot of rhetorical uh flourishing that makes things confusing and i've also i i've always kind

00:39:39.300 of found that about piper i think it's just because he's a very brilliant person um but he clarity i would

00:39:44.740 not say is necessarily always his strength and i certainly think that that is true when it comes

00:39:50.980 to today's article about um about vaccines okay so the headline of this article is a reason to be

00:39:59.220 vaccinated freedom so he uh the i'll summarize the article by saying he is arguing for christian liberty this is

00:40:07.940 something we talked about last week we talked about the centuries old debate among faithful christians

00:40:15.620 about vaccination and it goes back to smallpox inoculation in the 1700s and disagreements

00:40:24.740 you know increase in cotton mathers were on one side of the debate there were other christians on the

00:40:29.380 other side of the debate then later on there was jonathan edwards there was i believe it was john

00:40:34.980 newton who were all debating about this and really where we landed was that it is an area

00:40:39.060 of christian liberty and that's really mostly a message to the people who are on the side of

00:40:44.900 vaccine mandates who or who condemn christians who don't want to get the vaccine as not loving their

00:40:52.260 neighbor and not true christians it is an area of christian liberty although there are some people

00:40:56.820 who are extreme on the anti-vaccine side who also think that people are ungodly if they take the

00:41:02.180 vaccine and i do believe it's an area of christian liberty so mostly i agree with what piper says

00:41:08.580 but he starts off the article with some facts that i think are a little bit misleading it's obvious

00:41:13.780 where he is leaning to me it's obvious that he is leaning in the direction of you need to get

00:41:19.300 vaccinated it's the smart thing to get vaccinated it's the wise thing to get vaccinated i also

00:41:23.940 believe that he implies that it's the loving thing to get vaccinated even though he lands in an

00:41:28.020 area of christian liberty it very much seems like his persuasion or his desire to persuade people

00:41:33.460 to get the vaccine in the same way that it came across in the article about trump and biden that he

00:41:38.340 desired to persuade people to vote for joe biden or at least to persuade people that it's fine to vote

00:41:45.060 for someone who won't who openly supports the taxpayer funded aborting of babies through nine months

00:41:51.860 of pregnancy and who denies things as basic and fundamental as biological sex um he says that he

00:42:00.180 didn't mean to do that but again don't add your voice to the conversation if you're only adding

00:42:06.020 confusion for people and you seem to implicitly be leaning in a direction that you say that you're not

00:42:11.700 certainly in this article it seems like he is leaning towards saying it's the loving smart thing to do to

00:42:16.260 get vaccinated so he says with these facts nearly all covet 19 deaths in the u.s are now in people

00:42:22.020 who weren't vaccinated from may 2021 infections and fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than

00:42:28.020 1200 of more than 107 000 covet 19 hospitalizations that's 1.1 percent um 150 of more than the 18 000

00:42:39.220 covet 19 deaths in may were in fully vaccinated people that's about 0.8 percent and then he goes through

00:42:45.620 some of the other statistics that basically he is trying to say that look most of people that are

00:42:50.820 dying from um covet 19 are are um unvaccinated but i think what's important is that they're still when

00:43:01.380 you look at the percentages sound really big but when you look at the actual numbers like when you look

00:43:06.900 at the numbers of people that are dying it is still very rare to die from covet it is very very rare for

00:43:13.620 most people it's under one percent your chances of dying from covet that doesn't mean that you don't

00:43:18.900 have a chance doesn't mean that it can't happen i actually know unfortunately of this um you know

00:43:24.740 healthy 40 something year old guy i don't even know if he was vaccinated or not who lives in my community

00:43:31.300 who died now there actually seems to well i won't even get into all of that but it's real it affects

00:43:38.820 people and um it's sad so i'm not saying that it's a hoax or that it's fake but when we're looking at

00:43:44.820 the numbers we can't just look at percentages of people who are vaccinated versus unvaccinated who

00:43:49.780 died you have to look at the people the the percent chance that you have in general of dying whether

00:43:56.660 you are vaccinated or not and it's still extremely rare and he doesn't give those actual numbers he is

00:44:04.420 only giving these numbers and that paints a picture that i personally think is a little bit misleading

00:44:09.700 even if these numbers are statistically are statistically true um now there are some other

00:44:16.980 data points that i think that we do have to consider so deaths within 60 days of a positive

00:44:22.980 test by date of death non-vaccinated made up 20 of those deaths vaccinated with one or two doses

00:44:31.460 made up 80 of those deaths so that is data coming out of the uk that's a little strange i'm not saying

00:44:39.460 that that means that you are across the board more likely to get sick and die if you're vaccinated i'm

00:44:45.300 not saying that i'm just saying there is some competing data here um just in i'm reading i'm reading

00:44:51.940 this tweet that we can put up uk reports 223 covet 19 deaths this is reported today um the highest daily

00:44:59.140 number of deaths since march 79 of the population age 12 and older is fully vaccinated i mean that

00:45:06.740 makes us ask some questions about the efficacy of um of the vaccine so if we look at um some data

00:45:16.660 this is data pulled from the new york times that comes up if you just look on google and we if you're

00:45:22.180 watching this you can uh you can look at the charts that we'll put up but if you look at the united states

00:45:30.260 um new deaths are um about the same place that they were um almost a year ago so they're a little bit

00:45:41.060 lower than they were for example in like january february and they're a lot higher though than they were

00:45:49.700 in july the daily death rate in the united states is a lot higher than it was in july that's hard

00:45:57.540 to understand when you look at the vaccination rate that has only increased since july so now we have

00:46:06.260 65.5 percent of the population fully vaccinated 73 percent has had at least one dose now if the vaccines

00:46:16.500 were the number one way that we can mitigate that we can prevent the deaths uh from covid then it

00:46:25.140 wouldn't make a whole lot of sense because that's what we're told it wouldn't make a whole lot of

00:46:28.420 sense for the death rate to be so much higher now than it was in july i think really what the data shows

00:46:34.900 i do think that the data shows that um that vaccines can help prevent in most cases severe sickness and

00:46:44.020 death i'm not refuting that from the best available data that we have do i think it is the number one

00:46:50.180 way that we can mitigate the spread and that we can lessen the likelihood of death i i'm not so sure

00:46:57.460 that the data really bears that out honestly it looks like it's just more seasonal you saw a high rate

00:47:05.220 case rate and death rate in the south over the summer that's because it's hot and so people are inside

00:47:10.900 now that's going to switch you're going to see in the much more highly vaccinated states in the

00:47:16.500 northeast you're probably going to see case rates and death rates go up there because people are

00:47:21.780 spending more time inside now is the time people in the south they're actually spending outside um and

00:47:27.300 in the sun if you look at a country like australia australia's cases and deaths are on the rise right

00:47:35.140 now i mean they had zero deaths from like last november to this july zero covid deaths were

00:47:43.780 reported and now it's on the rise again to almost the same point as it was at the peak of their death

00:47:50.100 rate back in august of 2020 now how is that possible when last year they had zero vaccines and now they have

00:47:58.580 55 percent of the australian population fully vaccinated 71 percent has one dose are we not

00:48:06.100 allowed to ask these questions well the answer is no we might even get this video taken off of youtube

00:48:11.300 but i think it's worth asking i'm not saying that that's a reason not to get vaccinated but i'm saying

00:48:16.900 that john piper isn't necessarily presenting all of the relevant information that we need to go through

00:48:24.260 here to think about whether or not it is um whether or not it's something that you are are going to do

00:48:32.260 dr robert redfield he is the head of uh the cdc he told martha mccallum or he was the head of the cdc

00:48:40.100 he told martha mccallum on fox news that 40 percent of the recent covid deaths in the state of maryland

00:48:45.220 were among people who are fully vaccinated i mean that's a pretty large percentage that still means that

00:48:51.620 the majority were unvaccinated but 40 is something it's something at least for people to consider

00:48:59.940 that is true in a large number of states with high vaccination rates you are seeing a large number of

00:49:07.620 the people who are dying vaccinated and now that makes sense if you have a larger number of people

00:49:12.500 vaccinated then naturally you are going to have a larger number of people who die from covid

00:49:16.820 be vaccinated but it's still something to consider when people are looking at the effectiveness of

00:49:22.660 something um of say natural immunity versus vaccine immunity i don't think that piper lays out that case

00:49:32.420 clearly and fairly enough when he is going through these data points it seems lopsided that's something

00:49:38.100 i take issue with now where he ends on all of this that this is an area of christian liberty and if you

00:49:44.820 have truly weighed both sides of this if you have truly looked through the data if you have truly

00:49:49.620 thought and prayed about this then this is you are free to decide you are free to choose um what you

00:49:56.660 think will glorify god the most what you think will serve um yourself and your neighbor the most then

00:50:02.980 you are free to not get the vaccine and i appreciate that he articulates the freedom on that now what i find

00:50:09.780 strange about this though is that he did put out a podcast not too long ago um that argued that christians

00:50:17.780 should not take a vaccine made from aborted babies or at least i believe that is what he argues here he

00:50:25.060 says in the case of moderna this claim has um has since been called into question about them using fetal cells

00:50:32.500 in research but it's actually true you can go to cog for life dot org and uh that organization has

00:50:39.620 compiled all the research and all the facts about this there are ethical conversations and disagreements

00:50:46.020 that christians in good faith can have about using vaccines that are derived from fetal cells or at least

00:50:52.340 the research and development involved fetal cells there's an ethical debate about that but where piper landed on

00:50:58.180 this in his podcast is he basically says we should never do evil that good may come so he actually

00:51:04.420 refused the argument that just because a vaccine might save lives that we should support the use of

00:51:11.060 murdered babies um in the research of them uh he says that we have to testify to the sanctity of life and he

00:51:21.380 says god blesses principled action in his name so he ends the podcast that he put out a few months

00:51:27.540 ago on this um he says uh the observation is that acting on principle in this case the principle that

00:51:34.500 we do not want to be complicit in the desecration of dismembered human beings acting on principle

00:51:39.780 often does not look like the most obvious way to be a blessing to the greatest number of people so

00:51:44.580 he's saying the secular world is going to typically disagree with someone refusing a vaccine that was

00:51:49.620 derived from in any way aborted fetal cells um but he says if you try to act on the principle of not

00:51:57.140 participating in the desecration of these children by avoiding medicines developed from their dead

00:52:01.140 bodies someone will say but look look at all the good that is coming through the medication and they

00:52:05.700 will say that they can't see the good that may be coming from your principled action so what i'm

00:52:10.980 saying here is this piper says god has ways of honoring and blessing and multiplying the effectiveness

00:52:16.020 of principled action in his name which to the human calculation may appear futile so he's saying

00:52:22.020 someone who refuses the vaccine because they don't want to be involved in the desecration of baby image

00:52:28.580 bearers that god is going to bless what he calls a principled action he says so i'm saying let's not

00:52:34.580 act as researchers or as ordinary consumers in a way that desecrates the bodies of unborn victims

00:52:39.940 and treats those children as though they can be killed and their tissues harvested for our benefit

00:52:45.540 now in today's article where it seems to me that he is encouraging people to be vaccinated

00:52:50.820 he doesn't even he doesn't even wrestle with this like he doesn't even wrestle with the same argument

00:52:56.100 that he made a few months ago he does mention it in passing at the end of today's article but he doesn't

00:53:03.160 even talk about unless i missed it somewhere in between he doesn't even wrestle with the argument that

00:53:09.460 he made just a few months ago that he seems to be saying that the principled action for someone who doesn't

00:53:14.360 believe in the desecration of human bodies is not to take the vaccine now i think that there are good

00:53:19.580 arguments against piper's stance on not taking the vaccine because of you know deriving from fetal cells 0.99

00:53:27.300 al moeller has articulated both sides um of that argument but i haven't seen publicly uh john piper

00:53:35.940 wrestle with that and then he seems to come out with an article today that again appears to be convincing

00:53:41.160 people to be vaccinated based on the data points that he is bringing forth even though he ends in

00:53:46.520 the place of christian liberty so all i'm asking for is a little bit of clarification like a little bit

00:53:50.880 more from john piper on this to me this is another example of him lending really more confusion than

00:53:56.700 clarity on anything else seeming to lean a certain way but maybe he doesn't mean to lean a certain way

00:54:01.720 but i've got to see more like i'm i rely on him for a lot of wisdom i heard what he said a few months

00:54:07.780 ago i'm hearing what he says today i'm not seeing how those two things are you know are working

00:54:13.660 together and i'm not even telling you where i stand in all of that i'm not even telling you where

00:54:18.460 i'm standing on this particular vaccine i haven't even talked about that i'm talking about principled

00:54:22.640 biblical conversations about that i think that's missing i think that's missing from today's

00:54:27.480 article in light of what he said in the past all right that's all i've got time for today i will

00:54:31.820 see you guys back here tomorrow

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 19, 2021

Ep 508 ｜ My Response to John Piper, Tim Keller & Big Eva

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