Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 58 ｜ The Religion of Progressivism

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome back to Relatable. My name is Allie. This is a podcast by CRTV. As always,

00:00:06.080 you can go to CRTV.com slash Allie. Subscribe to CRTV. You can watch this podcast rather than

00:00:12.240 just listening as you are probably doing right now. Today, we are going to talk about something

00:00:17.480 that I've touched on in the past very briefly, and we're going to expound on it. This idea that

00:00:24.740 progressivism has really become a religion and has taken the place of Christianity and really

00:00:30.580 just religion in general in America and why that is. And the reason why it is might surprise you

00:00:37.500 just a little bit, but I'm also going to give us as Christians some practical advice in how to kind

00:00:44.960 of deal with this moral and religious shift that we are experiencing in this country. Before I get

00:00:50.620 into that, I, of course, I can't start the show without reminding you about bolster sleep just

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00:01:10.900 You're giving the gift of an awesome night's sleep. I love it. As I've told you before,

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00:02:11.380 win, win, win. I don't know how many wins it is. It's a lot of wins.

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00:02:20.300 something that you want to miss out on. So make sure that you do that. Okay. So we are going to

00:02:25.180 talk about progressivism and how it has become a religion. Now, this is just a theory of mine.

00:02:31.300 I'm going to talk about two different studies and how I think that they come together. Now,

00:02:35.840 I understand that correlation doesn't prove causation. So just because two things happened at

00:02:41.220 the same time doesn't mean that they, um, doesn't mean, or even if they're correlated,

00:02:47.740 it doesn't actually mean that one caused the other. I realized that. So this is my theory that

00:02:53.700 I am putting forth. You are welcome to contend with it. If you want to send me an email,

00:02:57.300 Allie at the conservative millennial blog.com, you're welcome to do that. I would love to hear

00:03:01.380 your feedback. Uh, this is something I've been thinking about for a long time and I've just kind

00:03:05.480 of had a hunch that, okay, the reason why so many Americans are going away from Christianity or

00:03:10.740 leaving the church or leaving religion in general is because we have allowed the government to become

00:03:16.980 our God. We have allowed progressivism, this whole social justice movement to satisfy our need for

00:03:23.640 righteousness, our need for generosity, our need to even worship something. It's something that I've

00:03:29.180 always felt and thought about, but I didn't really have any data to back it up. And then I saw

00:03:35.260 this interesting, uh, survey or this interesting study. That's actually not a new study, but it

00:03:40.320 was talked about recently. And so I went back and I looked at it, uh, just the rapid growth of the

00:03:45.440 religiously unaffiliated, what, uh, Pew research calls the religious nuns, not like N U N, but N O N E S 0.99

00:03:54.120 the religious nuns. Um, it's actually in 2014, the majority of Americans considered themselves

00:04:01.020 religiously unaffiliated. So in 2007, only 36.6% of Americans consider themselves not affiliated with

00:04:09.180 their religion, uh, by 2014. So just seven years later, 55.8% uh, consider themselves religiously

00:04:17.600 unaffiliated. Maybe I'm missing the data from then until now. I would guess that that has only increased.

00:04:24.500 Now I have seen some data actually recently that, um, it looks like maybe in the past year or so,

00:04:30.380 there is an uptick in people who consider themselves believers in God. That doesn't

00:04:35.380 necessarily mean they're associated with a religion. Um, but maybe that faith somehow is

00:04:41.440 inching its way back into America. But for the sake of this conversation and for the sake of what I

00:04:46.440 think is a very accurate way to describe the state of America, uh, Americans are really going away 0.84

00:04:52.580 from religious institutions. We're going away, particularly from Christianity. Another part 1.00

00:04:57.100 of the study says that, um, Christianity, the association or the affiliation with it has gone

00:05:02.940 down, but the association with atheism and agnosticism has really skyrocketed. Um, and this is most

00:05:09.900 concentrated in my generation, millennials, 35%, more than a third of millennials consider themselves

00:05:17.180 religiously unaffiliated. I don't know about you. That actually doesn't surprise me at all,

00:05:21.860 except that I thought that it might even be a little bit higher and maybe it is a little bit

00:05:25.740 higher now. Uh, we've also talked a lot about over the past eight years, particularly, or 10 years,

00:05:32.700 particularly when Barack Obama was in office, just how progressive America has gotten.

00:05:37.640 And here's my theory. I do not think it is a coincidence. I don't think it's a coincidence

00:05:43.660 that America has drastically shifted religiously while we have also drastically shifted politically.

00:05:50.220 I would say that those things go hand in hand. Maybe it's a little bit of the chicken or the

00:05:55.160 egg, which happened first. Did we start adopting progressivism and that kind of led us into this

00:06:01.160 more secular mindset? Or was it that we were already abandoning religion and then progressivism

00:06:07.240 kind of came and filled in that gap or that void that, uh, religion had left? I'm not sure.

00:06:14.580 All I'm saying is that I don't think that it's a coincidence. We have talked about the study by

00:06:19.500 Pew Research, polarization and politics that looked, um, over the past 10 years and saw that America had

00:06:26.760 gotten drastically more progressive, that we have shifted to the left on everything. Um, from 1990 to

00:06:32.980 2017, the shift was huge. Most of Americans moved to the left, but more troubling than that,

00:06:39.780 uh, there were fewer people in the middle, fewer people that said, I have some conservative views

00:06:44.260 and some liberal views. More people were on the left and the people that were on the left

00:06:48.880 got further to the left than ever before. Much more so than people on the right got further to the right.

00:06:53.960 Um, they have shifted on everything people on the left on abortion, on immigration, on race,

00:06:58.920 on welfare. And we can hear that in the conversations. Abortion used to be considered,

00:07:03.820 you know, a necessary evil, something that was legal, safe, and hopefully rare. Uh, now it is

00:07:09.820 the sacrament of the democratic party. Just a few years ago, even Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer,

00:07:14.460 they were saying that illegal immigration is a bad thing. Well, now it's a good thing. Open borders 1.00

00:07:19.180 should be celebrated. Even a few years ago, socialism was a bad word. No one considered themselves

00:07:23.960 socialist, but now socialism, um, is really a badge of honor rather than a scarlet letter in, uh,

00:07:31.240 today's democratic politics. So the left has shifted dramatically. Progressivism has gotten

00:07:37.080 radically more progressive over the past 10 years. There was actually this interesting tweet that I

00:07:41.600 saw by Eric Weinstein. He is, uh, he is a mathematician. He's an economist. Uh, he tweeted

00:07:48.360 out a picture of a Google search. And so you can go on Google. I'm not really familiar with this. So

00:07:53.960 sorry if I'm, if I'm saying this wrong. Um, so there's something called Google Ingram viewer. I think

00:08:00.440 that I'm saying that, right. Uh, that if you type in a term like transgenderism, for example,

00:08:05.380 um, it will tell you the frequency with which that term was used, um, has been used in any printed

00:08:11.600 sources far back as like, I think 1500, uh, to 2008, 2008 is the most recent date that it can actually

00:08:18.500 see. Um, so Weinstein typed in LGBT hate speech, white privilege, transphobia, other leftist buzzwords.

00:08:26.000 And you know what he found? He found that none of these words, none of these words were ever printed,

00:08:31.640 uh, before about the late 1980s ever. So that means in a lot of these things, a lot of the,

00:08:39.440 the frequency of these terms and printed sources increased dramatically in the 21st century.

00:08:46.780 Um, it'd be really interesting to see what it's been like in the past 10 years after 2008. Uh,

00:08:52.440 but what that shows us is that all of these conversations that we're having are very

00:08:56.600 new. This is not something that people have been thinking about forever. I know we talk about,

00:09:00.980 uh, that, you know, nothing really is new under the sun. And while yes, biblically,

00:09:05.240 that's technically true of these conversations that we're having are very different than the

00:09:09.640 conversations that we were having even 10 years ago, especially 20 years ago, these conversations

00:09:14.720 that we're having about white privilege, about racism being rampant, about the gender wage gap,

00:09:21.460 all of these things are new. Uh, these are concerns that have been, uh, born really over

00:09:28.880 mostly over the past decade. And not because there's actually been an increase in racism,

00:09:34.520 not because there's actually been an increase in sexism or misogyny or all of these buzzwords,

00:09:39.120 homophobia, transphobia. Um, but because of the new wave of postmodern progressivism that Barack

00:09:45.460 Obama helped to very strongly usher in, um, this is really his legacy, the dividing of the

00:09:52.980 American nation based on perceived oppression. This is the Marxist idea, pitting the perceived

00:09:58.620 oppressed, uh, against the perceived oppressor in an effort to, uh, I don't know, to, well,

00:10:07.120 they say to bring people together, to unify people, to make sure that America is a more just nation,

00:10:12.580 but all it does is divide people. Um, because when you pit the perceived oppressed against the,

00:10:17.480 uh, perceived oppressor, people start seeing others, not as fellow Americans, not as fellow

00:10:23.080 humans, not as their friends, um, but as someone who was against them as an enemy. And that's

00:10:29.020 certainly what has happened over the past few years. I'm not saying that Donald Trump has

00:10:32.340 necessarily helped that he has scraped the wound a little bit because he's so different than Barack

00:10:37.020 Obama, but that's really what happened over the past 10 years. We got so much more progressive.

00:10:41.500 And during that time, we also got less religious. And the reason I think that is, and maybe I'm, um,

00:10:49.680 maybe I'm getting rid of my chicken or the egg theory. So I'm kind of now saying that progressivism

00:10:55.740 came first and then we left Christianity. And I'm not totally sure if that's true, but here's kind

00:11:01.460 of where my mind is currently that because progressivism demands everything far left progressivism.

00:11:09.460 I'm not just talking about believing in welfare or believing in bigger government or having some

00:11:13.700 progressive values, but I'm talking about all in far left progressivism, social justice,

00:11:19.380 political, correct, all that political correctness, um, that demands everything of the, it demands

00:11:25.000 your mind, it demands your soul, it demands your full commitment or else you're excluded or else you're

00:11:29.480 a bigot or else you're an immoral person. You're a heretic, you're a blasphemer. Um, unless you

00:11:34.340 sacrifice your entire self at the altar of progressivism, you are excluded from the movement.

00:11:39.840 You're a bad person. Well, Christianity also demands everything of you. It demands that you

00:11:45.200 lay your life down. It demands that you take up your cross and follow Christ. That's why far left

00:11:49.820 progressivism and Christianity do not go hand in hand. Not only because their values and their 0.99

00:11:54.720 principles are so different. Everything that far left progressives believe is so antithetical to the

00:11:59.880 Bible. Um, but also because they both demand everything of you. So you can't be, you can't

00:12:06.220 be a far left progressive and a Christian at the same time. It's impossible. It's impossible because 1.00

00:12:11.140 they both demand everything that you have. So what people have done is opted for that far left

00:12:17.860 progressive, uh, religion. Why? Because while it demands everything of you, it actually doesn't ask

00:12:23.860 for you to have any personal responsibility whatsoever. It's really the perfect religion for people

00:12:29.860 who don't want to contend with the idea of absolute truth, who don't want to take personal

00:12:34.740 responsibility, who just want to be comfortable, not, you know, not judge, just everyone make their

00:12:40.360 own decisions because that's what it does. It pushes moral relativism that no choice that anyone makes

00:12:45.740 is wrong, unless it's being a conservative Christian, um, that there's really no obligation that someone

00:12:50.880 has to take responsibility for their own actions, uh, that the government will just take care of us. 0.86

00:12:56.500 And we just all call each other comrade. Uh, that's a very easy religion to have when you

00:13:02.160 are averse to inconvenience, when you are averse to sacrifice, when you are averse to taking

00:13:06.620 responsibility yourself, which most millennials are. So it's really not that millennials and

00:13:13.420 Americans in general have completely moved away from Christianity and moved away from religion.

00:13:19.280 It's just a political religion. Now, why do you think they're so angry when people disagree with

00:13:24.020 them? Why do you think they, uh, get so worked up and so violent when people don't align with their

00:13:31.200 agenda? Because this is not political for them. This is religious. This is spiritual. This is a part

00:13:38.520 of who they are. This is their identity. And so when we fight against them, it's not simply that we are

00:13:44.420 disagreeing with them. It's not simply that we have different ideas. It's that we are blaspheming.

00:13:49.680 We are apostates. We are heretics to the church of progressivism. And here's why I think this is

00:13:57.040 real. Uh, this is interesting. I was listening to a podcast the other day and they were talking about,

00:14:02.220 uh, the Israelites after they had left Egypt, they were in the wilderness with Moses and, um,

00:14:08.540 they asked Aaron to make them a God. So Exodus 32 one says, when the people saw that Moses delayed to

00:14:14.840 comes down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him up,

00:14:19.300 make us gods who shall go before us. As for this, Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land

00:14:23.700 of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So Moses was gone for what they felt like was so long

00:14:29.840 as they couldn't wait for him to come back down. They had already forgotten about the God who split

00:14:34.200 the red sea for them, who, um, exited them out of Egypt and out of slavery, who liberated them,

00:14:40.580 took care of them. Um, and they said, make us something else, fashion us an idol, fashion us

00:14:45.340 a golden image for us to worship. What this tells us about human nature, what has been true about

00:14:51.460 human nature since the biblical era is that humans want something to worship. There's really no such

00:14:58.700 thing as a completely irreligious person. There's no such thing as someone who doesn't have faith.

00:15:03.840 Everyone has faith in something right now. The popular religion is progressivism.

00:15:08.240 This social justice idea that as long as you are advocating for government programs that take

00:15:15.980 care of people and put people on welfare, as long as you are for open borders, um, as long as you are

00:15:22.080 for government mandated equality, as long as you are for making, for example, the cake baker bake a cake

00:15:29.300 for gay people, then you're fine. You're good. You're on the right side of history. As long as you are for 0.98

00:15:36.140 reproductive rights, you're good. Now, none of this actually requires you to take responsibility 0.87

00:15:41.040 for yourself. None of this actually requires you to give your own money, your own time, your own

00:15:45.400 sacrifice. That's why this is so appealing. You can feel like this righteous, good, virtuous person,

00:15:51.220 even though you're not doing anything yourself, except for protesting and tweeting. That is the

00:15:56.600 religion of this age. Feel good about yourself. Feel righteous, feel moral without actually managing

00:16:03.140 your behavior at all, without actually following any guidebook whatsoever, except that it says,

00:16:08.240 um, nothing's wrong except the people who say that there's something wrong. Those people are bigots.

00:16:14.740 That's basically the tenet of this progressive religion. So what Exodus shows us is that people

00:16:19.740 are always looking for a God. They're always looking for something to worship. They were without

00:16:24.580 leadership. They were without a reminder of the God of Abraham, and they longed for something to look

00:16:30.100 to. Um, people are not satisfied with nothing. Even atheists have faith in something. They believe

00:16:36.960 in some kind of higher moral order. They believe that they have some kind of purpose that they are

00:16:42.360 pursuing. Agnostics believe in something. People are not satisfied with nothing. There is some,

00:16:48.660 some kind of longing for eternality in the human spirit and in the human heart. There is some

00:16:55.740 longing for transcendence. There's some longing for something supreme, something bigger than us

00:17:00.780 that atheists and agnostics people and people, quite frankly, who aren't Christians can't really

00:17:07.680 define. They don't really know what that is. And so they spend their whole lives searching after

00:17:12.080 things that are fleeting that don't satisfy. Well, progressivism gives a certain promise of purpose.

00:17:18.840 It gives a certain promise too of righteousness that if you're fighting for climate change,

00:17:23.580 if you're fighting for reproductive rights or fighting against climate change, I should say,

00:17:27.800 uh, fighting for reproductive rights, then you are attaching yourself to something bigger than

00:17:32.500 yourself and you're doing something good for humanity. And it's easy to believe that because

00:17:36.980 everyone in the mainstream is telling you that these things are righteous and good. The main reason

00:17:41.780 is because we Christians have completely failed. We have totally failed. We have totally failed in

00:17:49.120 sharing the gospel. We have totally failed in speaking truth. We have completely backed

00:17:53.560 down when it comes to standing up for what is morally and biblically right. We are too scared

00:17:58.780 to be called bigots. We're too scared to be called intolerant. We're too scared to be told that we're not

00:18:03.480 inclusive and loving enough. So when it comes to things like gay marriage, when it comes to things

00:18:07.740 like transgenderism, when it comes to things like abortion, where you say, oh yeah, I just love,

00:18:15.540 I don't talk about that stuff. No, we don't talk about sin. We don't talk about biblical order.

00:18:19.920 We don't talk about any of that stuff. No, let's just talk about the feel good stuff. We don't need

00:18:23.860 to fight this fight. We don't need to talk about biblical truth. No, that's too divisive. Let's not

00:18:29.420 talk about any of that stuff. Let's just, let's just sit back and pretend like Jesus didn't care

00:18:33.660 about sin that much. And I think the reason why we are so content with doing that, and consequently,

00:18:41.520 the reason why all of these people have left biblical truth in order to go for this social

00:18:47.060 justice progressivism nonsense is because we Christians don't know our theology. We actually

00:18:54.480 don't know the truth. The reason why it's so easy for us to fall into this malaise, fall into this

00:19:00.040 just kind of apathetic, lackadaisical Christianity in which Jesus is some hipster that doesn't care about 0.90

00:19:05.920 right and wrong is because we don't actually know the truth ourselves. So remember that Ligonier study

00:19:13.820 that we talked about a couple of weeks ago that showed the state of theology in Christianity or

00:19:20.580 in evangelical America? You remember that? All of the confusion that American evangelicals have?

00:19:28.040 Yeah. We don't know our Bible. We don't know our theology. That is why so many people have left the

00:19:35.080 church. That is why millennials have left the church and have sought after satisfaction and truth 0.91

00:19:40.640 elsewhere and have found it in progressivism, have found it specifically in the Democratic Party

00:19:45.440 because we don't know the truth ourselves. We don't know our Bibles. And so we don't know how

00:19:51.580 to spread that message. And the only option that we have when we don't actually know the truth

00:19:55.620 ourselves, when we're not grounded in it, is to sit back and say, okay, sounds good. Let's just ride

00:20:02.560 this wave of the moral revolution, this abandoning of any sort of biblical order whatsoever.

00:20:07.600 All right. We don't know our Bibles. If you remember the study, it says that American evangelicals,

00:20:15.520 these are people who identify as Christians in America, that they believe that Jesus was a created

00:20:21.940 being, even though he is not. They believe that everyone, that most people are good, even though we

00:20:29.620 all sin. They also believe that God accepts the religion or accepts the worship of all different

00:20:35.640 religions. That shows us that Christians do not know the truth on which our own religion is found. 1.00

00:20:44.620 So why do we expect the rest of the world or questioning people, particularly questioning

00:20:50.480 millennials, why do we expect them to be, I don't want to say attracted to, like we're supposed to be 1.00

00:20:57.680 making Christianity, Christianity attractive, but why do we expect them to be anchored in a truth that 0.99

00:21:03.660 we do not know? We do not teach theology at our churches. We just don't. We don't teach what is

00:21:12.580 true about Christology. For example, we don't teach about what is true about salvation. We simplify and

00:21:19.060 dumb down our messages so much. We're just like the rest of the world. We go for the least common

00:21:24.380 denominator in every single sermon to make sure that the least learned person understands. This is

00:21:31.140 not true of every single pastor out there, but it's definitely true in general. We give the most

00:21:36.580 feel-good message that we can. We make sure that it is as simplified as possible, that it's not divisive

00:21:44.420 at all, that it's not going to make anyone uncomfortable, that we just make Jesus seem

00:21:50.000 so unassuming, not off-putting at all. Make sure that everyone just feels good in their own skin

00:21:58.320 when they're in our churches, when that is not what we're called to do. Truth is divisive. The gospel

00:22:04.000 is divisive. Jesus was divisive. Christians are divisive. But what Christians are trying to do right 1.00

00:22:10.820 now, well, one, we are glorifying ignorance, and we're glorifying apathy, and we're glorifying not

00:22:16.740 knowing. Not knowing now, even within Christianity, has become a virtue. And it's one thing to be 0.84

00:22:25.380 humble and say, I don't know everything. It's another thing to be apathetic and say, I'm not

00:22:29.480 even searching to know everything. Theology and studying theology and actually knowing your Bible

00:22:35.500 and knowing what scripture says, knowing what it means, not just what it means to you, has become

00:22:40.880 this thing where Christians say, eh, that's not that important. What matters is my personal

00:22:46.100 relationship with God. And whatever that is, that's more important than me knowing stuffy theology.

00:22:53.280 I'm sorry, you don't know God personally if you don't know Him accurately. Okay? You don't know

00:22:59.500 God personally unless you know God accurately. And the only way you know God accurately is by reading

00:23:06.100 the Word. That's what it comes down to. We are theologically illiterate in the American church.

00:23:14.980 And what we do is we sit around and we point fingers at the outside world. We point fingers

00:23:19.800 at secularists and we say, you're lost. You don't know anything. Do we? Do you know the Bible that

00:23:26.820 says that everyone needs to adhere to? So you say, do you know the truth that you think that other people

00:23:33.500 haven't found yet? Do you know your Bible? That's where I think we have failed. Churches don't preach 0.99

00:23:42.420 theology. We don't learn theology in our Bible studies. Don't even get me started on women's 1.00

00:23:47.080 Bible studies. There are some good teachers out there. There are some that I really, really like.

00:23:53.040 But for the most part, women's Bible studies is all about how you feel. How do you feel about God?

00:23:59.460 How does He feel about you? How can this women's Bible study make you feel better about your 1.00

00:24:05.320 insecurities? You know what makes you feel better about your insecurities? Knowing that the God of the

00:24:09.240 universe made you. Knowing that the God of the universe exists. What we need is not to learn more

00:24:16.980 about ourselves through the Bible, but to learn more about God in the Bible. Someone recently said,

00:24:22.240 which I think is really good, the Bible is not about, when you read the Bible, you're not looking

00:24:27.240 for what this means to you. You're looking for what this means, period. That's what we need to do.

00:24:34.280 Until we take theology seriously, until we are reading our Bibles on a consistent basis, until we

00:24:39.780 are digging into the Bible and understanding what it means, understanding the context, understanding

00:24:45.060 what Scripture means about God, we are going to be completely ineffective in our impact and our

00:24:50.200 evangelicalism. Of course, we're going to be weak and standing up in the face of persecution. Of course,

00:24:54.780 we're going to back down when people call us bigots. Of course, we're not going to stand up for

00:24:58.260 things like biblical marriage and gender roles. Of course, we're not going to stand up for things

00:25:03.120 like being pro-life. Of course not, because we don't even know why we have those positions.

00:25:09.920 So what I recommend to you, I personally, not everyone loves to read the Bible, and I understand

00:25:16.660 that. If that's you, and you are like, I don't even know where to start. I don't even know where to

00:25:20.780 start. Every time I open up my Bible, I'm really confused, and it's really boring, and I'm overwhelmed.

00:25:25.840 I got it. I understand. I have been that way, too. Everyone starts there, okay? So first of all,

00:25:32.560 I don't want you to be intimidated, and I don't want you to feel like you are crazy for feeling

00:25:39.380 that way. What I recommend to you is to start in the Gospels, to start in Matthew, and I just want

00:25:46.080 you to read one to two verses a day. I don't want you to drink the whole chapter. I want you to chew on

00:25:51.540 two verses a day, and what I want you to do is I want you to write out those two verses,

00:25:56.040 and I want you to break them down word for word. So start in Matthew 1. A lot of people start in

00:26:00.660 John. I think that's fine. The Gospels are different renderings of the same story, but if you want to

00:26:05.780 start in the New Testament, I think start in Matthew 1. Get yourself a study Bible. I love the ESV study

00:26:10.940 Bible. That way, if I don't know a word, don't know what something means, don't know the context of

00:26:15.240 something which happens every single day that I read the Bible, by the way, I can go down to the

00:26:19.460 little footnote and say, oh, okay, that makes more sense. Now, you don't have to agree with

00:26:23.100 everything that the footnotes say. You should still be thinking for yourself, by the way,

00:26:26.380 but it's just a good way to supplement the knowledge that you have and to fill in any gaps.

00:26:32.420 So start in Matthew 1. Start in John 1. Either one of those is fine. Go through verse by verse and

00:26:38.160 actually break it down. What I like to do is I like to take two verses. I like to take out the

00:26:46.160 significant words, and I like to write synonyms for those words and what that actually means.

00:26:51.220 That helps me so much in understanding what the verse actually means. Now, a lot of people study

00:26:56.440 Greek. They study Hebrew, of course, when they're reading the Old Testament. I can't say that I'm a

00:27:02.840 Greek or Hebrew scholar. I do think that that's important. A lot of times, study Bibles will tell

00:27:07.320 you what the Greek is or what the Hebrew is in a certain word, and I do think that that's very

00:27:12.100 helpful. Again, that helps with context, but you don't have to be a Greek or a Hebrew scholar when

00:27:16.620 you're just starting out. Start with the Gospels. Go through verse by verse. Take out the significant

00:27:21.300 words. Write what those words mean. Pray about those words. Ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom before you

00:27:27.400 actually open up your Bible. Journal about these, and what I encourage you to do is to not look for

00:27:32.760 what this verse means to you and how you can apply it to your life, but what this verse means about

00:27:37.380 God. Because the more you learn about God, the better off you'll be. We don't need more self-love.

00:27:42.440 We don't need more self-focus. We need more God-love and God-focus. That's going to help you

00:27:47.160 a lot more than you using the Bible as some kind of self-help book, because that's not what it is.

00:27:53.220 So that's where I encourage you to go. And I also encourage you, I really like the book

00:27:58.140 Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem. It's just a really good supplement. Again, it's not infallible.

00:28:04.480 It is by a human author. It's not God-breathed. So it might not be perfect. You might have another

00:28:09.940 supplement that you like better. I do encourage you to get some kind of systematic theology book.

00:28:16.860 It's just the methodology is the correct methodology. It's going to interpret the Bible 0.50

00:28:23.080 as it reads and not driven by some kind of agenda. So that's what I encourage you to do. And you might

00:28:30.120 feel like you don't have enough time every single day to read your Bible. You might not feel like

00:28:34.340 you're equipped to be a theologian. I'm not either. And I never feel like I have time.

00:28:38.740 Try to take 20 minutes of your morning or night or afternoon, whatever works for you,

00:28:43.380 and read your Bible. That's where Christians are lacking. We don't know the truth. We don't know 1.00

00:28:49.100 the Bible. And so all of these people are falling away because we don't even know what to tell them

00:28:53.680 when they fall into progressivism. And when Christians are asked to give an answer for what we believe, 0.53

00:28:58.880 we don't know what to say. We're a horrible witness because we don't know our own theology.

00:29:03.600 So that's what I encourage you to do. Because if we're so concerned, if Christians are so concerned 1.00

00:29:08.820 about the state of America, if we're so concerned by the direction that people are going in, we're so

00:29:12.800 concerned with people embracing progressivism rather than Christianity or rather than religion,

00:29:19.240 then we've got to know our stuff. We've got to be a good witness. We have to know the Bible

00:29:23.140 and of course do what it says. But knowing the truth is essential to our ambassadorship as

00:29:31.000 Christians and to changing the direction of the country if that's possible. And that's not even 1.00

00:29:36.600 a political statement. That's really more of a spiritual statement. And that's it. I think that's

00:29:42.940 all I have to say. I'm trying to think if there's anything else. I think that's it. Okay. Well,

00:29:48.500 email me if you have any questions. Allie at the conservativemillennialblog.com. You can send me

00:29:53.640 a message on Instagram, Allie B. Stuckey. You can follow me on Twitter if you so desire. I think

00:29:58.300 it's also Allie B. Stuckey. Or you can probably just type in Allie Beth Stuckey and I'll come up.

00:30:02.260 If I'm not banned off Twitter, you never know. Every day, it's like a ticking time bomb. Could get

00:30:05.860 banned from Twitter for saying what I think are very logical and rational things, but you never know.

00:30:11.440 Anyway, I hope that you guys have a great weekend and I'll be back here on Tuesday. Bye.

00:30:18.500 Bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 29, 2018

Ep 58 ｜ The Religion of Progressivism

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