Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 01, 2021


Ep 515 ｜ The Lincoln Project’s Massive Fail in Virginia


Episode Stats

Length

49 minutes

Words per Minute

174.05127

Word Count

8,595

Sentence Count

529

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

26


Summary

In this episode of Relatable, I talk a little bit about the Reformation, the World Series, and the Lincoln Project. I also talk about the Supreme Court hearing of the Texas abortion law and the Virginia Governor race.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Whether
00:00:16.000 you were doing some form of Halloween celebration, whether you celebrated Reformation Day, whether
00:00:23.700 you just celebrated pumpkin season or harvest or whatever it is we Christians say that we're
00:00:30.500 celebrating to avoid celebrating Halloween, I hope that you had a great weekend. We had a good
00:00:35.700 weekend. We did a little bit of all of that. We had a fall festival. We went to my parents' house,
00:00:43.140 dressed up a little bit, and it was a good weekend. So I hope that you guys had a great one as well.
00:00:49.200 Today, we're going to talk about a smorgasbord of things. We are going to talk a little bit about
00:00:55.740 the Reformation. So I touched on this on Thursday, but I didn't get as into it as I wanted to. So
00:01:00.780 I'm going to get a little bit more in depth today. I'm just going to reiterate what I said on my
00:01:05.360 Instagram stories. If you saw those, then this will be a little bit of repetition for you. If you
00:01:12.560 didn't, then you are in for a little bit of a historical treat. If you don't know exactly what
00:01:18.240 the Reformation is, then I'm going to talk a little bit about the irony of the World Series
00:01:24.420 being in Texas and Georgia and why I find that so hilarious. We're also going to talk about the
00:01:31.640 Lincoln Project and the Virginia gubernatorial race and how this hoax by the Lincoln Project
00:01:41.200 ended up backfiring and it was just so silly and ridiculous. What is even the Lincoln Project
00:01:48.500 trying to accomplish? And then I also want to mention that the Supreme Court is hearing arguments
00:01:55.920 on the Texas abortion law, SB 8, that was so controversial when it was put in place, when it
00:02:04.660 was enforced at the beginning of September. And so we're going to talk about all that good stuff
00:02:11.660 today. This week, we were going to get back into the swing of the news. We talked a lot about non-news
00:02:17.200 items last week and even the week before. We talked a lot of theology. We talked some evergreen subjects
00:02:22.660 and we haven't talked about COVID in a long time. We haven't talked really about politics in the news.
00:02:27.500 And it was a nice, it was a nice break from the numbers. It seems like you guys really liked that break.
00:02:32.680 And I like to kind of give us a balance, paying attention to the things that are going on, but
00:02:37.220 remembering what's most important and talking about some stories that you guys are asking about
00:02:41.620 that is not necessarily being covered by the other podcasters that you listen to or in the news shows
00:02:47.780 that you're watching. So first, let me talk about the Reformation a little bit. You guys know I am a
00:02:52.880 Reformed Protestant. There are a lot of you guys out there who are also Reformed Protestants like I am.
00:02:58.980 And there are a lot of you who are Catholics. And as I've said before, whenever I post a question
00:03:05.220 box on Instagram, one of the questions that I get from my many Catholic followers is,
00:03:10.560 why are you Protestant? Why aren't you Catholic? As if it's like this surprising thing that I am not
00:03:15.900 Catholic, which I just find so funny. Because growing up, I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and there
00:03:20.640 were very few Catholic people that I knew. Of course, there were Catholic people who live in Texas.
00:03:24.560 There were Catholic private schools. And I might have known, I went to a Christian school,
00:03:31.060 maybe one Catholic person that I can think of that went to my Christian school. But I really didn't
00:03:38.780 know anything much about Catholicism growing up. It wasn't until I went to college, which was in South
00:03:44.340 Carolina, which is still very Southern Baptist evangelical territory. But I went to this small
00:03:50.140 liberal arts college, Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. And lots of people
00:03:54.720 would come from different parts of the country, the Northeast, where there's a lot of Catholicism.
00:04:00.920 And so I had quite a few friends that were Catholics. And I didn't realize how much we really disagreed on
00:04:07.480 how much theology that we really did not see the same way. Like, I'll never forget. I'm not saying
00:04:15.800 this is indicative of Catholics in general. But, you know, evangelicals are characterized by a lot of
00:04:23.240 different things that we do growing up, like Awanas, like vacation, Bible school, all different
00:04:28.900 kinds of things like that, youth group. And I know that some Catholic churches have the same kind of
00:04:34.020 things, but this is really a more evangelical, historically evangelical tradition. And everyone
00:04:40.200 knows John 3.16. That's just like the verse that you know. And at the bottom of like Forever 21 bags,
00:04:46.480 I don't know if you guys remember this. I have no idea if they still have this. They used to have
00:04:49.960 John 3.16, which is so random. And I remember saying that to one of the girls on my hall when I
00:04:56.300 was a freshman in college who was Catholic. She and her roommate were both Catholic. And I said,
00:05:00.260 oh, like John 3.16. And she had no idea what I was talking about. Like, not even what does John 3.16
00:05:06.580 say, but did not know what John 3.16, like, was, what I was even talking about. And I realized that
00:05:15.340 there, that is not, that's not me trying to say that no Catholics know what John 3.16 is, obviously,
00:05:20.620 or that they don't read their Bibles. But she still considered herself a pretty, like, devout
00:05:24.920 Catholic, always went to Mass and things like that, and yet didn't know what John 3.16 was. For me,
00:05:29.500 in my Bible Belt upbringing, my Awana's Vacation Bible School youth group upbringing, that was very
00:05:37.260 surprising to me. There are different emphases that Catholics place on church tradition and Mass
00:05:47.020 and the Eucharist than what Protestants, the emphasis that Protestants mostly place on Bible study. Again,
00:05:55.240 that doesn't mean that Protestants don't place any importance on church traditions and teachings and
00:06:01.640 going to church, or that Catholics don't care about the Bible at all. But I would say they emphasize
00:06:07.640 those two things, prioritize those two things differently. I remember the first time I saw people
00:06:13.980 walk around with ash on their head for Ash Wednesday, and I had no idea what was going on. I am sure that I
00:06:22.060 probably went up to several people being like, what? Was this, like, for a science class or something
00:06:27.220 that all you guys were a part of, and you had to put, like, this black smudge on your head? I had
00:06:31.560 no idea. So when people ask me, why aren't you Catholic? I'm like, I didn't even know any Catholics
00:06:36.880 growing up. I didn't even know any Catholics. But then, you know, I had the pleasure of meeting a lot
00:06:40.680 of different Catholics. I had a roommate that was Catholic in college and have learned a lot about
00:06:46.080 Catholicism since then. And really, it's necessary to learn about Catholicism,
00:06:49.800 to know about why you're a Protestant. It is impossible to talk about the Reformation and the
00:06:54.740 Protestant Reformation without talking about Catholicism. And when I talk about the Protestant
00:06:59.180 Reformation, people think that I am attacking all Catholics. And I hate that language because that's
00:07:04.340 not what I'm doing. It's not ad hominem attacks. There's a lot that I appreciate about my Catholic
00:07:09.500 friends as far as, for example, their activism goes in the defense of unborn life. The Catholic
00:07:17.380 Church has been much more unanimous, much more uniform, and much more out front on the issue
00:07:26.100 of abortion, I would say, than in general Protestants have. Now, if you look at evangelical Protestants
00:07:33.140 versus Catholics, evangelical Protestants are much more conservative politically, ideologically.
00:07:39.000 This is according to Pew Research than Catholics are. But Catholics in general are very strong on the
00:07:43.560 issue of life, whereas Protestants, I feel like there's not as much of a uniform theology surrounding
00:07:48.520 that. So there's a lot that I appreciate about my Catholic friends, but there are some very
00:07:53.300 significant differences that go all the way back, not just to the beginning of the Protestant
00:07:58.220 Reformation around 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses. It goes even farther back than that,
00:08:08.140 all the way to Wycliffe, which we'll talk about in a second. But there are some very key differences
00:08:13.960 between Catholics and Protestants. And when I start talking about this, it's interesting.
00:08:18.220 While there are a lot of Catholics who will reach out to me and say, you know, I appreciate your
00:08:21.620 perspective. Here's where we disagree. There are a lot of people who get very upset and very angry.
00:08:27.760 And like, I got sent this page of someone who is a Catholic talking about Protestants and really
00:08:35.240 hateful, hateful, hateful, hateful, mean-spirited, just like ignorant stuff about Protestants. And so
00:08:43.160 I realize that there's still that age-old, centuries-old, embittered battle between Protestantism
00:08:52.540 and Catholicism when you get down to the nitty-gritty in some ways. Even though I don't feel any kind of
00:08:58.820 animosity, those disagreements are there, and they are important disagreements. So let me back up a
00:09:04.860 little bit. Let me tell you about Reformation Day, why Protestants celebrated. I see a lot of Catholics
00:09:11.620 saying, I have no idea. I don't know why Protestants would celebrate this. Like, I understand you have
00:09:17.500 your faith, but why would you celebrate the divorce of the church and splintering off into 40,000
00:09:21.980 denominations? This is such a tragic day. Martin Luther wasn't a reformer. He divided the church.
00:09:28.400 You're supposed to reform the church from within. Well, that's a little misleading. Now,
00:09:33.500 let me tell you why. And I'm going to just basically read the stories that I put on Instagram.
00:09:39.340 So if you're watching on YouTube and I'm looking down, it's because I'm actually looking at the
00:09:42.920 stories that I wrote. I had to take a long time to do this. My husband was like, this is taking you
00:09:48.340 forever. I put a lot of thought into my stories whenever I'm explaining something. And so it'd be
00:09:54.700 easier for me to just read what I already wrote than trying to do this extemporaneously. So
00:09:58.940 on this day, yesterday, 504 years ago, Martin Luther, he was a German priest. He was a theology
00:10:05.720 professor. He published his 95 contentions with the Catholic church. Now, whether or not
00:10:12.240 he actually nailed the 95 theses to the door is, we don't know if that's fact or fable, but he published
00:10:22.180 it. He put it out somewhere and people saw it. And this was the start of the Protestant Reformation.
00:10:27.140 Now, Martin Luther did not intend to start a revolution. This guy was a Catholic. He was a
00:10:33.260 good Catholic. He had been a monk. He actually promised God and promised St. Anne several years
00:10:41.820 earlier in a lightning bolt incident that he was going to become a monk. So he was a very good monk.
00:10:47.820 He was very learned. He was an expert in God's law. He was not against the formation of the Catholic
00:10:54.860 Church, the structure of the Catholic Church. In fact, there were a lot of things that Martin
00:10:58.660 Luther affirmed his belief in as far as Catholicism goes that I, as a Protestant today, do not agree
00:11:06.140 with. He was not against the papacy in general. He was against the powers that the Pope had come to
00:11:14.340 take on. So he stood firm in the gospel of Christ, knowing the sacrifices that would likely have to be
00:11:23.440 made because of his stand. And one of the things in his 95 contingents that he talks about in several
00:11:30.820 of his theses was this practice of indulgences. So at the time, Catholic clergy were exploiting poor lay
00:11:39.400 people by promising their monetary donations, the poor people's monetary donations would move their
00:11:44.820 dead loved ones from purgatory to heaven. Purgatory is something that Protestants don't believe in
00:11:49.280 because we see no biblical basis for this in between heaven and hell. The Catholic idea, generally,
00:11:56.660 there are people that could explain this in a way much more eloquently than I can, but it's basically
00:12:03.400 where you go if you're not damned to hell and you're not yet fit for heaven. Purgatory purge the sin
00:12:12.920 from you so that you are eventually able to hopefully go to heaven. And one of the ways the Catholic
00:12:21.140 Church was teaching that this could be expedited for people's dead loved ones was if these people,
00:12:27.920 poor people, lay people, would pay money, would make donations to the Catholic Church, and then
00:12:34.540 their loved ones would be able to spring from purgatory to heaven. And so Catholic clergy would
00:12:42.400 go into these poor villages and say, remember your dead parents who did so much for you. They cared for
00:12:47.900 you. And now they're in purgatory. Don't you hear their cries? Once you do something for them,
00:12:52.900 pay this money and they will go to heaven. And so this was exploitation. I mean, this is the kind
00:12:57.660 of oppression that Jesus lashes out against the Pharisees for. This is the kind of oppression of
00:13:04.640 the poor that God condemns from the beginning of the establishment of Israel when he establishes
00:13:12.700 Hebrew law. So Luther, as a man of God, as someone who loved God's law, as someone who loved the gospel,
00:13:20.500 who was one of the very few people at the time to be able to read the Bible. The Bible was often in
00:13:26.100 Latin Vulgate. And so you had to know Latin. Sometimes you had to know Hebrew and Greek to
00:13:30.360 even be able to read the Bible. So he read the Bible. He actually knew the gospel and he hated
00:13:35.400 this exploitation of the poor that he saw in the name of the Catholic Church. So he says this in
00:13:42.040 his 95 Theses, they preach vanity who say that the soul flies out of purgatory as soon as the money
00:13:48.240 thrown into the chest rattles. On the way to eternal damnation are they and their teachers who believe
00:13:54.400 they are sure of their salvation through indulgences. In this and in other ways, the Catholic Church
00:13:59.920 was teaching that salvation could be earned and that the person who offers enough indulgences need
00:14:08.080 not repent of their sins. So their sins could be remitted through their donations to the Catholic
00:14:15.600 Church. He also contended, like I mentioned a few seconds ago, with the power the Pope had gained.
00:14:22.020 He said, beware well of those who say the Pope's pardons are that inestimable gift of God by which
00:14:28.460 man is reconciled to God. So he argued, he didn't argue again against the papacy, but he argued that
00:14:35.120 the Pope can only affirm God's forgiveness to the repentant man, that the Pope himself has no actual
00:14:40.940 power to forgive on God's behalf. The Pope had become very powerful, not just over the entirety of
00:14:47.460 the church, had almost come to be seen as infallible and inerrant. But also, he had control,
00:14:57.240 he had much influence over secular rulers, over non-church rulers as well. He goes on to say,
00:15:06.520 Luther goes on to say in his theses that the power, the unbiblical power of the papacy was inextricably
00:15:14.000 intertwined with this corrupt power of indulgences. He said,
00:15:18.080 What is this new holiness of God and the Pope that, for money's sake, they permit the wicked and
00:15:23.200 the enemy of God to save a pious soul, faithful to God, and yet will not save that pious and beloved
00:15:29.420 soul without payment, out of love, and on account of its distress? So you're granting salvation to this
00:15:35.660 person who has not repented of their sins, who doesn't follow God just because they're donated a
00:15:39.520 bunch of money, but this repentant soul who wants to follow God but doesn't have enough money doesn't
00:15:44.180 get salvation? That's part of the corruption that was going on in the Catholic Church at the time.
00:15:49.080 Well, when he issued these 95 theses, you can imagine that the people in charge of the Catholic
00:15:53.460 Church, who really had a monopoly on power, had a monopoly on doctrine, had a monopoly on theology at
00:15:59.080 the time, and liked the money that was coming in from this practice of indulgences, they didn't like
00:16:03.760 what Martin Luther, who had been known as a faithful, learned Catholic up until now, they didn't like
00:16:09.220 what he had to say. So in 1523 years after he posted his 95 theses, Pope Leo X issued a papal bull
00:16:16.580 against Martin Luther, accusing him of heresy. So Emperor Charles V called a court of inquisition
00:16:22.620 called the Diet of Worms. Luther was ordered to appear and renounce his teachings, and he was asked
00:16:28.840 before the court if he would deny what he had begun to teach, and he said this, quote, unless I am
00:16:33.820 convinced by the testimony of the scriptures or by clear reason, for I do not trust either in the
00:16:38.660 Pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves,
00:16:44.320 I am bound by the scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the word of God.
00:16:48.720 I cannot and will not recant anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.
00:16:56.060 May God help me. Amen. Consequently, the Diet of Worms issued the Edict of Worms, officially
00:17:02.280 labeling Luther a heretic and banning the reading of his writing. So book banning has been going on
00:17:09.060 for a very long time. Luther firmly believed, he couldn't recant what he had said, and he firmly
00:17:15.680 believed that the average person had the capacity to understand the gospel and the scriptures. Most
00:17:22.540 people, most Catholics at the time, had not read the Bible because it wasn't made available to them.
00:17:29.080 They didn't know how to read Latin. It could only be read by those who understood Latin and Hebrew
00:17:34.460 and Greek. The normal lay person had never read the Bible, which is exactly why they didn't know
00:17:39.340 that it was unbiblical, that it was anti-gospel, this idea of being able to earn your way to heaven
00:17:44.560 through indulgences. So by 1534, he had translated the entire Bible into German, and by God's providence,
00:17:51.280 this was almost 100 years after the invention of the printing press. And so Luther's Bible, which was
00:17:56.760 translated into German for the first time, this took him over 10 years, this took him a very long time
00:18:01.720 to translate. And again, he was a master translator because he was so learned in the Word of God, the
00:18:06.640 Bible sold out quickly. And that is the fire of Europe that could never be put out. So whether you are
00:18:15.260 Protestant or whether you are Catholic, you have Martin Luther and other reformers that I'll talk about
00:18:20.820 in just a second, you have them to thank for a Bible that is in your language. But as I said, it's not only
00:18:27.980 him that we have to thank for that. John Wycliffe, or Wycliffe, depending on how you want to pronounce it,
00:18:33.460 he lived 200 years before Luther. He was actually known as the morning star of the Reformation. He also
00:18:39.980 publicly railed against the Catholic Church. He was educated at Oxford. He was also an extremely brilliant
00:18:48.220 academic. He criticized the massive power of the Pope, the unbiblical idea of transubstantiation,
00:18:53.780 that communion becomes the literal body and blood of Christ. And I know I said this on Instagram,
00:18:59.600 and I got a lot of people, a lot of Catholics upset about that. But that's a difference between
00:19:03.980 Protestants and Catholics. We don't actually believe in transubstantiation. Now, maybe there are some
00:19:09.200 Protestant denominations who do, but for the most part, Protestants believe that it is symbolic.
00:19:14.200 And I know I am going to get direct messages about that. But this is something that John
00:19:19.700 Wycliffe said, hey, that's not actually biblical. And to claim that you are partaking actually in
00:19:28.760 Christ's body and blood, he actually called that blasphemy. So he affirmed that all doctrines and
00:19:34.360 church authorities, not that they're not significant, not that they don't matter, but they have to be
00:19:39.380 subject to Scripture. That was a big difference between the Catholic Church and someone like John
00:19:44.360 Wycliffe and the rest of the Reformers and Protestants today. He affirmed that, well, his
00:19:50.660 affirmation, so his affirmation of the inerrancy of Scripture, the authority of Scripture over all
00:19:56.140 teachers and teachings of the Church led him to translate the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into
00:20:02.820 English. Now, you'll even get some contentions today about this. Catholics saying, you know,
00:20:09.380 Latin Mass is the mass that really Catholics should be attending and things like that and
00:20:14.980 whatever, that's fine. But that really goes back to Catholics hundreds of years ago who did not want
00:20:22.280 the Bible translated into the common language. They thought it really should only be in Latin.
00:20:26.940 There was even a belief that if you didn't understand it, you weren't meant to understand it.
00:20:31.460 But John Wycliffe made this brilliant point in the 1300s when he said, Englishmen learn Christ's law
00:20:37.960 best in English. Moses heard God's law in his own tongue. So did Christ's apostles. So his point is,
00:20:44.500 like, why shouldn't the average Englishman hear God's law in his language if the point is that we
00:20:50.440 are supposed to be making disciples and have people understand the gospel themselves? So the Catholic
00:20:56.060 church's monopoly on scripture and theology was over. And once the gospel got into the hands, got into the
00:21:03.980 heart and the head of the average man, the world was never the same after that. So John Wycliffe, like
00:21:12.600 Martin Luther 200 years later, did not mean to start some kind of revolution. He didn't even mean to start
00:21:18.300 this worldwide reformation, but ideas have consequences. And then there was Catholic priest
00:21:24.300 John Huss. He lived 1369 to 1415. So he was also before Martin Luther. He was also influenced by
00:21:32.800 Wycliffe. He openly condemned the corrupt power of the Pope, as well as the sale of indulgences. His
00:21:38.220 study of scripture revealed to him that the Bible and the doctrines of the Catholic church greatly
00:21:42.720 diverged at the time. Huss was excommunicated and he was actually burned at the stake for his
00:21:48.500 teachings. A huss actually means goose in his native Czech language. And he said this,
00:21:55.460 they will roast a goose now, but after a hundred years, they will hear a swan sing and him they will
00:22:02.920 endure. So him, they're going to listen to that. They're not going to be able to kill the goose that
00:22:09.260 or kill the swan that rises a hundred years after they burned this goose. This man, John Huss at the
00:22:14.960 stake, a hundred years later was Martin Luther. And they weren't able to kill him as much as they
00:22:21.080 wanted to. God providentially protected him. So after Luther came other reformers. That was that
00:22:27.460 fire in Europe that he didn't mean to set aflame, but that couldn't be put out. And then there was the
00:22:33.680 Genevan reformer of the reformers, and that was John Calvin. He wrote one of the most influential
00:22:39.780 Christian works in history, institutes of the Christian religion. It sought to draw distinctions
00:22:48.900 between the teachings of the Catholic church at the time and the teachings of scripture. And then
00:22:54.800 from the teachings of Calvin and then other reformers, reformed Protestants get the five solas
00:23:01.000 or the five alones. So the first one is sola scriptura, scripture alone. And so that doesn't
00:23:08.420 mean that we don't believe in the importance of teachers and teachings and traditions and things
00:23:12.340 like that, but that we believe that only scripture is inerrant and inspired by God. It is ultimately
00:23:20.140 authoritative. And we get that from many places in scripture, but one of them is 2 Peter 1, 20 through
00:23:26.300 21. And then we've got sola fide, faith alone. Salvation is a gift that cannot be earned. It is
00:23:33.760 a gift of faith. So works are a product of salvation. When we hear faith without works is dead in the book
00:23:41.460 of James, we are reading that faith is a product of our salvation, not a prerequisite for salvation.
00:23:48.140 Ephesians 2, 8 through 10 is one of the passages that we go to for that. And then we've got sola
00:23:53.180 gratia, grace alone. Saving faith is a gift of God's grace. Again, Ephesians 2, 8 through 10. And then
00:23:59.860 we've got sola Christo or solus Christus, Christ alone. Jesus is our lone savior and our lone mediator
00:24:07.180 between God and man, 1 Timothy 2, 5. And then soli deo gloria, to the glory of God alone, 1 Corinthians
00:24:14.740 10, 31. There's a lot more that can be said about the Reformation. There are so many questions that I
00:24:22.640 would answer. There's so many misconceptions that I would like to address. And there's so much that I
00:24:27.080 want to learn about the Reformation and the Reformers that I don't know. One of the Reformers,
00:24:32.580 John Knox, he was a Scottish Reformer. We've got his quote over here on the side. It says,
00:24:39.380 resistance to tyranny is obedience to God. There is the history between the Reformation and the
00:24:46.780 pilgrims coming to Plymouth Rock and the foundation of the United States. We would not
00:24:52.260 have the United States if it wasn't for the Protestant Reformation, not just because the
00:24:56.820 pilgrims who brought their faith here, but also the revolution, the American Revolution itself
00:25:01.020 was also known at the time as a Presbyterian rebellion. It was known as a theological fight
00:25:07.660 against the tyranny, religious tyranny of England. There was a huge theological aspect to the American
00:25:13.840 Revolution, plus this idea of individual liberty, as you can probably see from what I just explained,
00:25:19.240 and self-governance is rooted in the Reformation, in Reformed theology. We would not have the United
00:25:26.520 States. We would not have the founding documents that we have, likely, likely, at least in the form
00:25:33.320 that they took on, without the Protestant Reformation. And so whether you're a Catholic or a Protestant,
00:25:43.220 some of these historical facts are things to be thankful for. And so why do Protestants
00:25:48.800 celebrate the Reformation? I know people say there are so many denominations. They're, you know,
00:25:53.560 the one true church, the Catholic church is what I hear my Catholic friends say, you know,
00:25:58.500 has been divided or whatever because of this. Well, Protestants see this as a recovery of the gospel.
00:26:06.120 And when I hear people say, when I hear Catholics say, well, you reformed the church from within,
00:26:10.060 not from without. And these people that you're talking about, John Wycliffe, John Huss, and Martin
00:26:16.820 Luther, they shouldn't have left the church. They should have reformed it from within. I'm not really
00:26:21.220 sure what you mean by that. They were excommunicated. They were excommunicated from the church. They
00:26:25.320 didn't say, I'm leaving the church and starting my own thing. None of them said that. They were
00:26:29.480 excommunicated from the church. That excommunication and the Catholic church saying, you know,
00:26:36.480 this is where we stand. We diverge from the corrections of Martin Luther. Yeah. I mean,
00:26:43.320 that radicalized some people that pushed some people away and said, okay, if the Catholic
00:26:46.940 church believes this and the Protestants or Martin Luther and the Lutherans and Huss and the Hussites,
00:26:53.940 if they believe what they have said about faith alone, about the gospel, about scripture in the hands
00:27:01.220 of the average person, then we're going to be on that side. And if that puts us against the Catholic
00:27:06.220 church, then so be it. So the Catholic church, they pushed these people out. These people did not
00:27:13.120 start their own sex on purpose. And so that's just one point that I want to bring up. And yes,
00:27:21.100 we see it as the recovery of the gospel. I'm so thankful. Like, I'm so thankful for this. Do I agree
00:27:26.200 with everything that Martin Luther ever said? No, but God obviously providentially used him to show
00:27:32.460 corruption that existed in the Catholic church, to show where the Catholic church's teachings
00:27:36.240 and scripture diverged. And again, for the third time, he lit a match and set a fire in Europe
00:27:44.980 that could not be put out. And thank the Lord for that. Thank the Lord that we have the Bible in our
00:27:50.800 hands, in our own language, and that millions of people do around the world. That wasn't happening
00:27:55.300 before these reformers. Thank the Lord that the gospel has gone out. And I'm just, I'm so thankful
00:28:02.460 for the reformation. I'm so thankful for God's providence. And as much as I love you, my Catholic
00:28:06.900 friends, like you're never going, you're never going to get me to not celebrate the reformation.
00:28:13.020 I love the reformation. I love the reformers. I love the word of God. I love reformed theology,
00:28:18.640 and I'm thankful for it. So if you want to know why I'm not a Catholic, it's because I'm a Protestant
00:28:23.360 and I'm very thankful for Protestantism. Okay, just want to make a quick note about Texas and
00:28:30.900 Georgia. So they're in the World Series right now. We've got the Houston Astros. We've got the
00:28:35.860 Atlanta Braves. And if you're like me and you don't really follow sports, the World Series is
00:28:39.820 happening. That's something that's going on right now. And since I am originally from Dallas, I'm
00:28:44.520 obviously supporting the Braves. That's just how it is. There's, you know, this just Houston-Dallas
00:28:49.800 rivalry. So I've got to support the Braves. Also, more importantly, my husband's family is all from
00:28:54.560 Georgia. He, they live outside of a couple hours away from Atlanta, but he grew up in middle Georgia
00:29:03.060 and he was an Atlanta Braves fan, still is an Atlanta Braves fan. And so I'm a Braves fan for
00:29:09.620 right now, even though the Texas Rangers will always be my team. I actually went to the World Series when
00:29:13.840 I think they were playing the Cardinals when I was in college. My dad and I went to St. Louis.
00:29:18.280 And so that was fun. So the World Series right now, I think we thought that the Braves could win it
00:29:25.040 all last night, but now they're moving on to the next game. And the irony about all of this,
00:29:31.940 the funny thing is you'll remember the MLB All-Star game that was happening, you know, a few months ago,
00:29:38.580 I think towards the beginning of the year. I don't remember these kind of sports things,
00:29:42.620 but remember when the MLB was like, no, we're not going to have the MLB game in Atlanta like we
00:29:50.140 thought because this racist Jim Crow-esque voting law, this is voting suppression. And so they took
00:29:57.960 the MLB All-Star game away from Atlanta, costing Atlanta, which is mostly blue, by the way, and has
00:30:06.060 a very large number of Black Americans living there. They took that money away from Atlanta,
00:30:12.240 and they went to Denver, Colorado, where they already have things like voter ID in place and
00:30:20.820 very strict voter restrictions. But Colorado is a blue state, and this was just a big virtue signal.
00:30:28.760 It had nothing to do with helping Black Americans. It actually probably hurt Black Americans by taking
00:30:35.480 money away from the city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia. And the bill, of course, as we talked
00:30:42.520 about, we talked about it with Governor Camp. We've talked about it several times. The bill in Georgia
00:30:46.120 and the bill in Texas, or the laws, I should say, don't have anything to do with voter suppression. In
00:30:52.040 fact, they expand access in some ways, and they just make it harder to cheat. And so it has nothing to
00:30:57.940 do with voter suppression. To say that it's anything like Jim Crow is, of course, just this crazy,
00:31:03.240 hyperbolic and, I think, offensive talking point that has no basis. In reality, in the MLB, like
00:31:09.000 other major corporations and other sports leagues, just wanted to virtue signal, well, well, well,
00:31:15.160 now they are playing in both Texas and Georgia, and it's absolutely unavoidable. And of course,
00:31:21.580 they're not saying anything about anything. If they really cared, if they really felt the way that they
00:31:26.960 said that they felt about the racist states and the laws in Texas and Georgia, then I don't know.
00:31:32.600 I guess they would change who won, who's in the World Series, or they would change where they
00:31:38.380 played. But of course, they're not doing that. And so now my husband feels a little bit better
00:31:43.080 about watching these baseball games. You know, he was a little jaded for a little bit, understandably,
00:31:48.220 about the MLB, because, I mean, you just got a bunch of red-blooded Americans watching baseball,
00:31:54.100 and really, you're going to make a stand like that? And so he didn't want to support the MLB,
00:31:58.360 but now he feels a little bit better about watching these games, because at least he's
00:32:01.900 supporting Texas and Georgia, Georgia in particular. All right, speaking of ridiculousness,
00:32:07.740 I want to talk about this funny story that happened over the weekend. I was totally,
00:32:11.380 I was like so unplugged from, really, I've been unplugged from social media since like
00:32:16.480 last Wednesday. I just haven't known what has been going on. And so my husband told me about this,
00:32:21.080 and I had to investigate because it's just hilarious. So you guys know tomorrow is the
00:32:26.980 Virginia election for the governor between Republican Glenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry
00:32:36.740 McAuliffe. Terry McAuliffe has been, he has been governor before. He has some supporters in Joe Biden,
00:32:46.580 and Barack Obama, Dave Matthews, randomly. And he is pretty far left. Like he is extremely beholden to
00:32:56.200 the teachers unions. And he got in hot water when he said recently, and I think I have an article
00:33:01.760 for World Magazine that is coming out about this today or tomorrow. But he got in hot water a few
00:33:08.600 weeks ago when he said that he doesn't believe that parents should be in charge of their kids'
00:33:12.860 education, shouldn't have a say in what their kids are reading. And of course, Glenn Youngkin
00:33:17.840 very smartly has run with that by saying he absolutely believes that parents should be in
00:33:23.380 charge of their kids' education, as we've talked about many times before. And I think as we focused
00:33:29.160 on last Wednesday specifically, parents are the only ones or the ones who have the most vested interest
00:33:35.340 in their kids and actually care for their kids' holistic well-being more than any teacher or any
00:33:41.340 bureaucrat, any teachers union member, any administrator school board member does. And
00:33:46.280 Glenn Youngkin has emphasized that to his credit. And that is why it is neck and neck. Terry McAuliffe
00:33:51.620 should have been running away with this because Virginia is now pretty reliably blue. But Terry
00:33:57.540 McAuliffe just hasn't been running that great of a campaign. Glenn Youngkin is not. And the left is
00:34:04.080 trying to paint Glenn Youngkin as some far-right extremist, as some, you know, like, January 6th
00:34:09.620 insurrectionist or even just this, like, Trump sycophant. And he's just not. Like, he's been
00:34:15.020 more wishy-washy than I would have liked when it comes to things like, you know, women's locker room,
00:34:22.140 you know, gender stuff, men not being able to enter, boys not being able to enter a girl's spaces. Like,
00:34:28.340 he is not even probably as socially conservative as I would like. But obviously, he's far more
00:34:33.820 conservative than Terry McAuliffe. And he is on the side of the parents when it comes to kids'
00:34:38.420 education in Virginia, especially Loudoun County, Virginia, and even Fairfax County. They have been
00:34:43.440 hotbeds of the controversies that we've been talking about, about the sexually explicit material that some
00:34:49.200 kids are being presented with in school, the racially divisive topics that kids are being presented
00:34:54.060 with and just to the lack of solid, well-rounded education that a lot of public school students
00:34:59.440 in Virginia are receiving. And so Glenn Youngkin has been out front on this issue. And that is why
00:35:05.100 he is leading. He is leading in the polls against Terry McAuliffe when it comes to parents of
00:35:12.760 kindergartners through 12th graders by, I believe, it's 20 percentage points. And so parents of students
00:35:19.080 are highly favoring Glenn Youngkin. And that is because Terry McAuliffe is just a, he is just a
00:35:26.920 creature of the corrupt teachers unions. He doesn't, he does not care. He does not care about the education
00:35:33.360 of Virginia public schoolers. His kids didn't go to public school in Virginia. He likes to,
00:35:39.060 you'll see him say, oh, you know, we want the best schools in Virginia. My wife, Dorothy, and I have
00:35:45.740 raised our five kids in Virginia. That's his political politician-y way of saying, yeah,
00:35:52.080 we raised our five kids in Virginia. We also sent them to one of the most expensive schools in
00:35:57.400 Virginia, a private school where they were on the board of trustees. And so they absolutely believed
00:36:04.180 that they had the right to be involved in their kids' education. I mean, they were spending
00:36:07.840 $30,000 to $50,000 per year on each of their five kids' tuition at this expensive private school.
00:36:15.980 So they want choice for themselves. They want involvement for themselves. But they don't want
00:36:21.360 that choice and involvement for working class and poor families in Virginia. That's so typical of
00:36:29.200 Democrats who are beholden to the teachers, to the teachers' unions. And so I think a lot of people see
00:36:34.660 that hypocrisy. However, that has not stopped the supposedly virtuous conservatives, and I'm using
00:36:44.720 huge scare quotes if you are not watching on YouTube, at the Lincoln Project, these people who
00:36:52.480 build themselves at first as anti-Trump conservatives. It later came out that one of the founders was
00:36:59.880 like preying upon—I'm not trying to laugh about this. It's just so ridiculous that they're still
00:37:05.760 even in business. But one of the founders is actually preying upon young men and sexually
00:37:11.800 harassing text messages. And somehow people on the left just love them because they hated Donald Trump
00:37:16.520 so much, and they pushed back against Donald Trump. They campaigned against Donald Trump. But now we found
00:37:20.860 that they're not just anti-Trump, but they go against every single Republican, still somehow claiming
00:37:26.120 that they are going to bring the Republican Party back to the days of Lincoln when they oppose every
00:37:31.540 single Republican, including Glenn Youngkin, who, again, is more of a moderate than anything. Like,
00:37:36.960 he is not some far-right guy. He is not Trumpy. And if you don't like Trump, you don't have to worry
00:37:41.320 about that with Glenn Youngkin. Although I will say he's conservative, and you should definitely vote
00:37:45.120 for him if you are in Virginia. But so Lincoln Project hates him. They're super weird. They just know
00:37:50.840 where their bread is buttered. Their bread is buttered at MSNBC. And you'll have someone like
00:37:55.460 Eric Swalwell calling them, you know, conservatives with actual integrity. You're honorable conservatives.
00:38:01.960 They're not conservative in any sense of the word at all. I mean, they are grifters, grifters. There's
00:38:07.440 one thing that I really agree with, agree with AOC on. And she said that the Lincoln Project are
00:38:13.420 grifters and she doesn't trust them. That's discernment right there. I don't see discernment coming
00:38:18.220 from AOC very often. But she realizes that she's not going to partner with someone like
00:38:22.260 the Lincoln Project because they're just trying to make money. They don't actually have any
00:38:26.220 principles. They haven't shown that at all. They go after whoever MSNBC wants them to go
00:38:31.260 after. And so that's what they're doing with Glenn Youngkin. So over the weekend, they thought
00:38:35.120 that it would be funny to put some people dressed in, I guess, what they thought. We'll put the picture
00:38:40.960 up on YouTube. Dressed in what they thought looked like white supremacists. And so these five
00:38:47.580 people, four guys, one girl wearing like khaki pants with white button-down shirts with tiki
00:38:56.480 torches, and they're standing in front of it. And reportedly, someone said that they were saying
00:39:02.300 all in for Glenn. And so people thought at first there was this reporter on Twitter that ran with
00:39:08.640 this saying, oh my gosh, these white supremacists with these tiki torches, they're standing in front
00:39:12.640 of Glenn Youngkin. See, Glenn Youngkin is this white supremacist. Well, as it turned out,
00:39:17.360 Vice actually reported this of all outlets. Vice is pretty solidly on the left side of the ideological
00:39:24.640 aisle. They reported that these were not just random, you know, white supremacists. These were
00:39:31.300 not people that were out there supporting Glenn Youngkin. And it was in front of Glenn Youngkin's
00:39:36.100 campaign bus, by the way. It was actually the Lincoln Project. It was actually volunteers
00:39:42.280 in the Lincoln Project. And so this is what Vice reported. Five people dressed like white
00:39:47.060 supremacists who caused the violent Unite the Right riots in Charlottesville four years ago.
00:39:51.660 They showed up outside a Virginia Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin's event
00:39:55.680 in the town on Friday. It was a half-baked stunt from the Lincoln Project, a group of Republicans
00:40:02.020 who opposed President Trump and Youngkin, a group of Republicans. Again, no. The Lincoln Project
00:40:08.900 acknowledged they were behind the stunt after Vice News identified one of the people dressed in the
00:40:12.960 photo in front of Youngkin's campaign bus as a low-level Democratic operative who has recently
00:40:17.840 been working for Democratic sting operator Lauren Windsor's, the undercurrent. Lauren Windsor,
00:40:23.660 she is this, she pretends to be like this undercover reporter that tries to trap Republicans and,
00:40:30.240 you know, insane, different things. And she works with the Lincoln Project, I guess,
00:40:35.040 as some kind of communications coordinator or something like that. And she apparently organized
00:40:42.680 this. And when the news first came out on Twitter that these so-called white supremacists were standing
00:40:48.320 in front of Glenn Youngkin's campaign bus, when it wasn't known who they were, she was tweeting about
00:40:53.460 it and saying, oh my gosh, I can't believe this. Well, as it turns out, she is behind this along with
00:40:59.200 the Lincoln Project. It's so embarrassing for them. So it says, her group has repeatedly gone
00:41:03.960 undercover as conservative activists to go to politicians and to saying what's really on their
00:41:07.540 mind. It has also held events alongside the Lincoln Project in recent days. The Lincoln Project
00:41:12.600 released this statement saying, today's demonstration was our way of reminding Virginians
00:41:19.260 that what happened in Charlottesville four years ago, the Republican Party's embraced those values
00:41:23.920 and Glenn Youngkin's failure to condemn it. We will continue to hold Glenn Youngkin accountable.
00:41:28.760 Now, remember, this is the state with the governor, Ralph Northam, who was, it was discovered a few
00:41:35.900 years ago that in a yearbook, he is either wearing blackface or a Ku Klux Klan rope. Okay. So, and that
00:41:44.900 was from several decades ago and he didn't resign and there wasn't a big push from Democrats for him to
00:41:50.900 resign. He is the current Democratic governor of Virginia. Now, this is the, also the guy who said
00:41:56.240 a couple of years ago that if a baby survives an abortion, the baby should just be put off to the
00:42:01.980 side and made comfortable until the parents decide what to do. He said that on, in public, on a radio
00:42:07.260 station. So this is a grotesque guy and the Lincoln Project, the so-called principled conservatives
00:42:12.340 think that they have the upper grounds here, that they have, or they have the, they're on higher ground
00:42:18.900 and they have the upper hand here in criticizing Glenn Youngkin as a racist. I mean, come on.
00:42:26.520 The article goes on to say, or the statement goes on to say, if he will denounce Trump's assertion
00:42:31.600 that the Charlottesville writers possessed very fine qualities, we'll withdraw the tiki torches until
00:42:36.400 then we'll be back. And so it was really embarrassing. If you go on Twitter, there were a ton of Democrats
00:42:44.460 who are condemning them for this. It just looks, it just makes them look really stupid. And it makes them
00:42:49.600 look actually like they're trivializing white supremacy by basically making a joke about this. If even Vice
00:42:56.320 is calling them out, you know that it wasn't a good move. And the fact that the communications director or
00:43:01.160 advisor, Lauren Windsor, told them to do this, I mean, it just shows that she has no talent or wisdom
00:43:07.840 whatsoever. I mean, come on. Now I hope that this pushes the race even more in the direction of
00:43:13.140 Youngkin. I still think that McAuliffe probably has a good chance to win, but if you are in Virginia
00:43:19.440 and you haven't decided who you're going to vote for, definitely vote for Youngkin. I mean, come on.
00:43:24.980 It's not even, if you're even remotely non-liberal or in the middle at all, then you absolutely should
00:43:31.320 be voting for Youngkin. You should, you can go to their campaign websites. You can read the different
00:43:35.240 things about them and you can look at the different issues. We don't have time to do that
00:43:38.100 today. And you can, of course, make your decision, but McAuliffe will be a disaster as he has been a
00:43:43.300 disaster before. If you want the public schools to get worse in Virginia, if you want Virginia to
00:43:48.740 get less safe, if you want Virginia to deteriorate the way that other states and other cities that
00:43:55.520 have been, that are run by Democrats have deteriorated over the past few years, then vote for
00:44:00.320 McAuliffe. But if you want Virginia to go a better direction, then vote Glenn Youngkin. And
00:44:04.720 don't be apathetic or lazy about this. Politics matter because policies matter, because people
00:44:09.260 matter. Politics affects policy. Policy affects people. You have a responsibility to exercise your
00:44:14.260 right to vote tomorrow in Virginia. Make sure that you go do that. All right. So I just wanted to
00:44:21.040 mention that today the Supreme Court is taking up the Texas ban on most abortions. They are hearing
00:44:29.680 oral arguments on this law. As you guys know, Biden's DOJ is suing the state of Texas over this
00:44:36.400 because Biden, who the Pope recently affirmed is a good Catholic, the rabidly pro-abortion president,
00:44:43.900 he's very mad that more babies may live in Texas. And so they are ensuring that more babies can be
00:44:51.140 murdered or trying to ensure that by suing the state of Texas and the Supreme Court is hearing those
00:44:57.220 arguments. So let me read a little bit from the Wall Street Journal. The anomaly of SB-8 is that
00:45:03.240 state officials aren't allowed to enforce it, a feature designed to thwart legal challenges.
00:45:07.360 In the normal case, abortion rights plaintiffs would sue such officials and ask a judge to block
00:45:11.920 them from enforcing the law. Texas instead said enforcement would come from private parties.
00:45:18.080 So if you want to know the ins and outs of SB-8 and what all that means,
00:45:21.320 we'll link our past episode where we explained that and why it actually probably is going to be
00:45:26.780 effective. I actually saw a recent study that showed that abortions have been cut in half
00:45:31.960 over the past few weeks in Texas. Praise God. And so the novel characteristics of this particular law
00:45:41.540 helped expedite the process to the Supreme Court over the past couple of months for this law.
00:45:50.460 So abortion providers weren't able to successfully sue to stop the law from going into effect. The
00:45:57.080 Fifth U.S. Circuit of Appeals said the law, the lawsuit faced procedural problems in suing state
00:46:03.000 officials. Then a divided Supreme Court declined to intervene and the law went into effect on September
00:46:08.820 1. And then, like I said, the DOJ has filed its own lawsuit against Texas. And so that's what led up
00:46:16.040 to this. The central question, according to the Wall Street Journal, is can Texas legally insulate its
00:46:21.340 law from federal court review? And can the DOJ validly obtain a ruling that blocks the state's
00:46:27.080 legal apparatus and private parties from enforcing SB-8? So that's the issue that we are looking at.
00:46:34.320 We will keep our finger on the pulse of that, and we will keep you updated on that. Of course,
00:46:40.660 I am praying that the Texas law stays in effect. There's another law that's coming down the pipeline
00:46:46.560 from Mississippi on December 1st that also seeks to restrict most abortions in that state. And of
00:46:54.360 course, you'll hear a lot of people on the left very afraid of Casey v. Planned Parenthood being
00:47:03.640 overturned, Roe v. Wade being overturned. Of course, it doesn't mean that abortion would be abolished.
00:47:09.300 It means that it would go back to the states. That is a huge misconception that people have.
00:47:13.360 So if you live in a liberal or a moderate state, you are going to be able to have an abortion. Not
00:47:20.240 that I am celebrating that option, but it's not going to ban abortion. It's just going to allow
00:47:26.620 states to do what their voters want them to do in regards to abortion. And the fewer babies that
00:47:33.380 are aborted, the better in my book. Okay, so there's a ton going on this week. Let me know.
00:47:42.060 Gosh, I'm kind of tongue-tied today. It's Monday. I don't know. Maybe that's it. There's a lot that
00:47:49.080 you guys probably want to talk about this week. Let me know what you would like me to talk about,
00:47:55.320 what subjects you want to cover. We'll probably do another COVID episode because there's been a lot
00:47:59.720 that's gone on there that's been published in the past couple of weeks that we haven't been able
00:48:03.820 to talk about. Some of you might be tired of COVID, but there are some of my most popular
00:48:08.120 episodes. You guys like to hear everything that's going on there. And of course, it's still affecting
00:48:12.940 your life, especially if you live in a state that has these VAX passports or mandates or things like
00:48:18.760 that. I mean, it's ruined people's lives and livelihoods. And so we absolutely need to keep
00:48:23.700 talking about the discoveries that are coming out, about the origins of it, about the efficacy
00:48:31.480 of the vaccines, about the legality of these passports and mandates. And we're also, so I went
00:48:38.240 to a Southwest protest a couple of weeks ago and I interviewed some people. And just because we have
00:48:46.060 changed plans so much over the past couple of weeks, I haven't even been able to play that for you,
00:48:49.660 but I'm going to play that this week. It's still super relevant to the things that are going on.
00:48:54.380 There are still a lot of people at these companies that are pushing back against these mandates,
00:48:58.340 whether or not they like the vaccine or have taken the vaccine themselves. People are very concerned
00:49:02.600 about this encroachment upon liberty, as I think we all should be. All right. So just let me know what
00:49:07.820 you guys want to hear about this week. If you want another theology episode, let me know that too.
00:49:12.980 If you love this podcast, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. That would mean
00:49:18.340 so much to me. Thank you guys for being here. We will be back here tomorrow.