Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 72 ｜ Politics, Culture, and the Gospel

00:00:00.000 Hello, relatable listeners. How are you? I hope that everyone had a great weekend. Today

00:00:06.100 is a really big day for me because I have been working towards this for a really long time

00:00:14.360 and I finally gotten there almost. I'm really, really close, but I basically am. Today is the

00:00:20.920 day that I'm able to put my hair all the way up without any pieces falling down in the back.

00:00:27.320 This has been a really long time coming. I have been working hard towards this. The

00:00:31.780 prenatal vitamins have helped, no doubt, but I haven't gotten a haircut in like eight months

00:00:36.800 because I miss so much being able to put my hair on top of my head. Today, if you are watching this

00:00:42.580 anywhere, you see that that is happening. I just wanted to take a moment to, I don't know, appreciate

00:00:49.840 it because as you know, as a trash person, I don't brush my hair very often. I certainly don't wash

00:00:56.140 my hair every day. The ability to put my hair all the way up without any pieces falling down in the

00:01:02.080 back, it's a really big deal for my trash person-ness. You know what I'm saying? I just

00:01:09.140 wanted to congratulate myself on that and I know that you all want to congratulate me too,

00:01:14.520 so I just wanted to give you that opportunity. Now, surprise, that's not what we're actually

00:01:19.340 talking about for the entirety of the podcast. We are going to talk about something much more

00:01:24.240 important in my estimation. We're going to start by giving an update on what's happening with the

00:01:29.880 government shutdown, kind of where Trump is and all of that, and we're going to use that to transition

00:01:35.340 into what you probably noticed from the title of this podcast is about the gospel and how the gospel

00:01:42.080 compels us to be involved in culture, involved in politics, what that looks like and what that

00:01:48.120 doesn't. According to the Bible, I'm going to clear up a question that I had on my podcast about

00:01:53.860 abortion that had to do with this subject that I thought was a great question. I'm going to kind

00:01:58.200 of use it as an impetus to talk about that particular subject. So let us start with Trump and

00:02:07.080 the government shutdown that has now ended. Trump reopened the government, if you didn't hear about

00:02:14.200 that. Temporarily, he says it could shut down again February 15th. He opened it to have negotiations

00:02:22.700 with Democrats, supposedly, on border security. And he said, you know, this is going to give an

00:02:29.440 opportunity for Democrats to prove whether or not they were serious when they said they cared about

00:02:36.520 border security and wanted to have a discussion about it as soon as he opened the government. So we're

00:02:40.980 hoping that that happens. Of course, what we've seen over the past few weeks is that the Democrats

00:02:47.640 really, really, really do not want to give Trump a political victory. And a lot of people are saying

00:02:54.640 that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have won on this, that because Trump reopened the government,

00:02:59.280 because he didn't secure any funding for the border wall, that he has lost, that Nancy Pelosi just

00:03:05.540 walked all over him. So the good part of this, if you want to see any good part of this,

00:03:10.240 the government workers are getting paid now. We're talking about the Coast Guard, TSA,

00:03:14.200 air traffic controllers. They're getting paid. That includes my brother-in-law, a father of five,

00:03:19.280 trying to buy a new home so his kids can go to a different school. He is now getting paid going

00:03:25.480 back to work. That's a great thing. I think all of them are crossing their fingers. The Democrats and

00:03:29.800 Republicans are finally able or going to be able to come together and to think of some kind of deal

00:03:36.080 so that the government stays open so that they can get paid. The bad part of this, of course,

00:03:41.960 is that this is, like I said, a political victory for Democrats, at least temporarily. I mean,

00:03:47.600 Trump made the mistake in the beginning of saying he is going to own the shutdown. He said,

00:03:52.580 I don't care. You know, you can call it a Trump shutdown. Well, that's exactly what Democrats have

00:03:56.900 done in a unified voice for the last few weeks. They have said this is a Trump shutdown. Trump owns this.

00:04:02.360 Trump's numbers have not looked very good in reflection of that. Of course, even if he hadn't

00:04:08.040 said that in the very beginning, hey, I'm going to own this shutdown, he probably would have been

00:04:12.140 blamed anyway. Number one, because his approval ratings are just historically not very high,

00:04:17.040 but also because he's the president of the United States. He's the commander in chief. He's the head

00:04:20.840 honcho. So people are going to blame him for that in general. So it could also, though, it could also,

00:04:28.400 as Trump said, show that the Democrats have been lying about wanting to negotiate border security.

00:04:35.380 And as we have heard so many times, they believe that the wall is immoral. They've said, you know,

00:04:40.020 we will grant you your five billion dollars, but we're not going to pay for any kind of new

00:04:44.520 obstruction. We're not going to pay for a wall. Their reasoning is because this is Nancy Pelosi

00:04:49.340 says this is unchristian like this is unbiblical. This is immoral. We'll just put aside for a second

00:04:55.500 that she also believes in the slaughtering of human beings inside the womb and focus on the

00:05:00.440 fact that this is sheer hypocrisy. Almost all Democrats supported the the Secure Fence Act in

00:05:07.100 2006, which was the building of obstructions on the border. We've discussed that, but also the

00:05:13.140 reasoning that they don't want to support a wall is really twofold. That has nothing to do with

00:05:18.280 morality whatsoever. They hate Trump and they cannot let him score a political victory. That's number one.

00:05:25.340 Number two, the Democratic Party has genuinely, aside from Trump, moved to the left. They have a

00:05:31.300 radical left base now made up mostly probably of millennials and they have to appeal to them.

00:05:37.340 So that's those are the real reasons they probably don't have to do, at least in Nancy Pelosi and Chuck

00:05:42.940 Schumer's part, don't have to do with the wall actually being immoral because it's not. That doesn't

00:05:48.240 make any logical sense whatsoever. Why is a wall immoral, but other kinds of border security

00:05:53.200 not immoral? And they say that there are four other forms of border security. So that just

00:05:58.180 doesn't make any sense. A wall is not immoral. It is an expression of sovereignty. It disincentivizes

00:06:04.840 cartels, drug traffickers from trafficking, not only drugs, but also children across the border. The

00:06:11.240 border is extremely dangerous because people are incentivized to cross illegally. In certain parts,

00:06:16.120 it's very easy to cross illegally. So a wall is not immoral. It encourages people to come in the

00:06:23.200 right way, to file for asylum the right way, to apply for citizenship the right way, which is exactly

00:06:28.060 what we want, which is why a wall or border security or immigration policies are not racist.

00:06:33.720 They are wise and prudent. Now, you can argue that maybe a wall isn't the most effective thing in the

00:06:38.660 world. Maybe it's not the best use of our money. Some people could argue that. That is a discussion to

00:06:43.440 have. That's perfectly fine. But those are not the points of contention that we are hearing from the

00:06:48.080 left, that we're hearing from Democrats. We're hearing that it's immoral, but they won't actually

00:06:52.000 say why. They just say, Statue of Liberty. We welcome everyone. That's not who we are. It's not

00:06:59.080 who we are to maintain our sovereignty, to protect our borders. It's not who we are to maintain the

00:07:03.940 integrity of our immigration system. Wow, that's interesting. I had no idea we were just this kind of

00:07:09.480 blob out here in the ocean that just let everyone in no matter what. That's really interesting. That's

00:07:15.280 a new fact about the United States of America that I didn't know. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the

00:07:21.240 Trump base is mad about this. Ann Coulter actually called Trump a wimp on Twitter. We have seen her

00:07:26.060 kind of go back and forth. I mean, she was a huge Trump fan. She wrote the book In Trump We Trust, like

00:07:32.200 huge Trump fan. She was the one who called that Trump was going to win a long time ago in the

00:07:37.160 primaries. Everyone laughed at her. Huge Trump supporter. But immigration is her issue, and Trump

00:07:42.340 hasn't delivered the way that she has wanted him to, and so called him a wimp. On Bill Maher,

00:07:48.000 she said that he broke his promises. You got it. You got to give her something, whether you like

00:07:52.220 Ann Coulter or not. You got to give her something for sticking to her guns. I mean, there's a lot of

00:07:55.920 people that are just going to stay true to Trump no matter where he lands on a particular issue.

00:08:01.840 I mean, she's got her issue, and she is sticking with it. At least she has principles.

00:08:05.360 And she's saying, you know, these are my principles. I am going to stick by them. I don't

00:08:10.860 care what the president does or says. I will criticize him based on my principles, not the

00:08:14.740 other way around. And whether you agree with her or not on what her principles are, you kind

00:08:18.940 of have to admire that. Lou Dobbs on Fox Business, also a big Trump fan. He slammed Trump for losing

00:08:24.040 this deal. A lot of people, though, on the Trump side are still holding out, saying that he is going

00:08:29.560 to deliver on his promises. This is just part of the overall strategy. But either way, and here's how

00:08:35.240 we're going to kind of transition, either way, whether you are happy with what Trump has done,

00:08:40.740 whether you're not, what this shutdown should remind us, this terrible, horrible deal of a

00:08:46.080 shutdown, which was just stupid in so many ways. It was really political power play, not about the

00:08:51.580 people of the United States of all at all. What we should learn from this shutdown is that your hope

00:08:58.400 should never be in a politician. It should never be in a party. It should never be in a president or

00:09:04.980 any person because they will disappoint you. They will disappoint you. Now, I voted for Trump.

00:09:12.760 OK, so for all the people out there who are going to say I'm a never Trumper, because I get that a lot

00:09:17.940 that I'm a never Trumper. I voted for Donald Trump. OK, I think he was the better alternative

00:09:25.180 to Hillary Clinton, even though, yes, he has significant flaws. I have addressed the whole

00:09:31.980 immorality factor that is really big with Donald Trump in a previous episode. I think it was maybe

00:09:37.480 episode number two and kind of worked through that and worked through the nuances of that. I don't

00:09:43.320 think as Christians we should justify that and write off what he's done wrong. I also don't think that we

00:09:48.580 can expect any president to be our savior or be perfect. So it's a matter of discernment where we kind

00:09:54.540 of draw the line for each president or who we're going to vote for each candidate on what is too

00:10:00.820 far in the immorality lane. But I thought at the time that he was a better alternative to Hillary.

00:10:06.920 And I do think the country is in a better place economically and in other ways with Donald Trump

00:10:11.660 as president than Hillary Clinton as president. It was time for a change. Barack Obama polarized the

00:10:16.420 country, the most progressive president that we have ever had. But all of that said, all of that said,

00:10:23.220 even though I think that Trump was the best option to vote for in 2016, in my opinion,

00:10:29.500 I still believe that it is OK. It is OK to criticize him. And I really don't understand. I just

00:10:40.060 personally cannot wrap my mind around this idea that I am not allowed to criticize President Trump

00:10:48.720 without being a sellout, without being not a true conservative or not a true Republican.

00:10:55.200 Like you can just leave with that. I don't I don't care. I really don't care. And you shouldn't

00:11:03.380 either, whether you like President Trump or don't like President Trump. I truly think that's an issue

00:11:08.720 that a genuine Christians can debate on and disagree on. I really don't care whether you call

00:11:15.720 me a neocon, whether you call me a never Trumper or some ignorant people on the left calling me,

00:11:21.000 you know, a Trump shill. I really don't care because here's the beautiful reality for all of us,

00:11:27.240 for all of us. The beautiful thing about being a Christian is that you don't have to pick political

00:11:35.440 teams because we are on a team that transcends all other teams. And that's what I want to talk about.

00:11:43.000 I want to talk about how our faith motivates us in our policy decisions, in our politics,

00:11:49.700 but our faith should not be our politics. Our politics should not be our faith and how we can

00:11:56.340 view our political views, our political leanings through the lens of the Christian faith, through

00:12:03.660 the lens of the gospel. So the question that I got was about my podcast from last week.

00:12:10.740 And when I said abortion is not a social issue, it's not a political position, it is a gospel

00:12:18.760 mission. So I got this very thoughtful message that said, okay, you know, I'm going to just

00:12:25.740 paraphrase. Is it really okay to say that abortion is a gospel issue? Because we don't like, which I

00:12:34.340 agree with her, we don't like when people say racial reconciliation or racial reparations or social

00:12:39.920 justice is a gospel issue. So what's the difference? Why is it not okay to say racial reparations or

00:12:46.080 social justice is a gospel issue, but it is okay to say abortion is a gospel issue. So I want to clarify

00:12:53.100 first that I said gospel mission, which is a little bit different, but even if I had said gospel issue,

00:13:01.140 I agree that it is a gospel issue. But here's what I mean by that is that yes, abortion is a gospel

00:13:09.080 issue in that the gospel is what motivates us to end the injustice and the human rights atrocity

00:13:16.760 of abortion. But what I do not mean by that is that it is a salvation issue in that if you disagree

00:13:25.300 with me on abortion or you disagree with me on another subject, that you are not saved, that you are

00:13:32.600 going to hell and I am not. Now, again, we can talk about that like, well, can you really misinterpret this

00:13:38.680 part of the Bible and really understand salvation? Whatever. The point is that the gospel, which is that

00:13:44.960 Christ was crucified for your sins and for mine, it was sufficient and efficient. It was sufficient for the

00:13:51.940 entire world, efficient for those that were chosen, those that believe in Christ. Not everyone will.

00:13:57.200 He rose again, defeated sin and death, and he is coming back to establish a new heaven and a new

00:14:01.760 earth in which you and I, Christians, believers, will reign forever and ever with him. Amen. Now, you

00:14:07.040 noticed in there that this did not say, by the way, you have to agree with Allie on abortion. You have to

00:14:14.640 agree with Allie on other policy issues or whatever it is. Like I said, it's not a policy issue. It is a

00:14:20.880 spiritual issue, but there are policy implications to it. So that I am not saying that you have to

00:14:26.160 agree with me on every part of abortion or every part of any other position I take in order to be

00:14:31.800 saved. I certainly am not the arbiter of that, and that is not what the Bible says that the gospel is.

00:14:37.140 What I mean by abortion as a gospel mission is that the love of Christ, the gospel of Christ,

00:14:43.560 the good news of Jesus compels us to end something like abortion, in which the vulnerable,

00:14:49.960 in which the marginalized, in which the oppressed are exploited, are dehumanized, and that offends

00:14:56.660 the imago Dei. It offends the image of God, and we are meant to protect that. We are meant to preserve

00:15:01.960 that. We are meant to perpetuate that as much as possible. Christians have always used the gospel

00:15:09.320 to do good. Think about Wilberforce and eradicating the slave trade. There is a reason why it was

00:15:16.180 Christians who started most of higher education. It was a reason why most hospitals started as

00:15:22.880 Christian hospitals. Christians have always been in the business of meeting people's needs,

00:15:28.680 whether that's education needs, whether that's healthcare needs, whether that's whether you are

00:15:33.400 in poverty, whether that is righting the wrong systemic wrongs, injustice. So when I contend with

00:15:41.980 this idea of racial reconciliation, that's kind of going this movement that's been going on in the

00:15:47.720 church and neo-Calvinism for a little bit now, and I do consider myself a Calvinist, but in this kind

00:15:53.820 of, you know, young, restless, reformed movement recently in the past few years of racial reconciliation,

00:15:59.560 what I have a problem with is not that racism isn't a gospel issue. It is because racism is a sin.

00:16:08.380 So poverty is a gospel issue in a way, in the sense that we are compelled to help the poor. We are

00:16:17.120 compelled to heal racial discord. We are compelled to heal all discord, all disunity, because the love

00:16:24.580 of Christ, the gospel of Christ compels us. What I have a hard time with, with the current strand of

00:16:32.120 racial reconciliation in the church is not that we're saying that racism is a sin and that the gospel

00:16:37.320 compels us to reconcile with our African-American friends, with our friends of other colors. That is true.

00:16:44.840 That is true. My problem, and I know I've said this about 700 times with a million caveats, my problem

00:16:51.760 is that current strand of racial reconciliation separates itself from the gospel. That's what I fear, that we are

00:17:02.000 not using the gospel to motivate us to just serve and love our brothers and sisters of other cultures,

00:17:08.620 other colors, whatever it is, but that we are latching on to the secular social justice movement

00:17:14.320 as a solution to our racial disunity. So we are saying yes to financial reparations, for example,

00:17:21.960 financial reparations, meaning that, you know, white people need to pay in some form for the suffering

00:17:27.760 of black people who are, um, whose ancestors were either affected by Jim Crow, were affected by

00:17:36.200 segregation, were affected by some form of oppression, were affected by slavery, that white people today

00:17:41.880 actually need to make up for that, that we need to feel guilty for that, that we need to feel some

00:17:46.960 kind of responsibility, that the church has started to talk about, uh, white privilege and, and white guilt,

00:17:53.620 all of these secular social justice things that really are incongruent with the gospel. And so we're

00:18:01.960 seeing this kind of weird hybrid, um, between social justice and Christianity, where you hear teachers,

00:18:09.420 Christian teachers saying, um, that social justice is a gospel issue. Well, no, it's not because social

00:18:19.160 justice is secular. Social justice has secular answers for a spiritual problem. And so we as

00:18:29.340 believers do not need to latch on to a secular movement that has components of it that are

00:18:36.620 incongruent with the gospel. For example, again, racial reparations. Reparations are not biblical,

00:18:42.960 that white people should be demanded to pay, compensate financially for the sins of our

00:18:49.040 ancestors. White guilt is not, uh, biblical that I need to feel guilty for the sins of an entire group

00:18:56.040 because we have the same skin color. That's not the gospel. That's not redemption. That's not

00:19:02.620 forgiveness. And so, yes, I do believe that the gospel compels us to fight against individual instances

00:19:09.320 of racism and discrimination, but also if they do exist on a systemic level in the same way that abortion

00:19:14.940 does or other injustices, yes, I do believe that we should fight against that. But here's where I

00:19:20.320 think that we need to be careful. We need to be careful of the solutions that we are prescribing

00:19:26.900 for this. And this is why I don't believe that Christian and Christians and should be playing

00:19:32.760 around with this whole social justice thing. Um, you might think it's just semantics. I don't think

00:19:37.540 it's semantics at all. I truly think social justice is something completely different than biblical

00:19:41.880 justice, completely different than actual justice because it defines people by their oppression,

00:19:48.300 by their victimhood. And it is collectivist. It guilts people who have nothing to do with the

00:19:56.620 injustice whatsoever. But here, let me, let me lay this out. The reason why I don't think,

00:20:01.180 why I do think that Christians really should be, um, doing, doing the good work of justice and,

00:20:08.660 and doing the good work of helping the oppressed and the poor, but I don't believe we should be

00:20:12.680 talking about social justice is because number one, social justice is collectivist and arbitrary.

00:20:18.140 So it, it blames, like I said, entire groups for sins or a, of a few or the sins of their ancestors.

00:20:25.420 There is nothing in the Bible about that, that I should have to pay for the sins of my great,

00:20:30.260 great, great, great grandparents who might have owned slaves. Um, and plus the facts just don't back

00:20:35.900 that up, that the oppression all the way from slavery to today is, is connected. So, um, I don't

00:20:41.980 believe that Christians should be latching onto social justice because it is collectivist and

00:20:46.560 arbitrary. There are arbitrary standards of who is oppressed and who is not just based on their skin

00:20:52.100 color. Um, there are white people who are oppressed. There are black people who are oppressed. So this

00:20:56.540 whole collectivist idea of white people are privileged and black people are not is stupid. Um, number two,

00:21:02.580 or I think the other way around, I think I meant to say the other way around for that one. Uh, number

00:21:07.540 two, because it involves big governments and what we see throughout history and throughout the world

00:21:12.240 is that as the government expands, it's people suffer. And so another reason why I don't believe

00:21:18.160 the Christians should be latching onto this social justice movement, even while we do good work

00:21:22.580 ourselves, um, is because the social justice movement of today prescribes big government solutions

00:21:28.920 that are not in the best interest of Christians or of individuals. I mean, you can look in China,

00:21:34.320 you can even look in the UK, you can look at Venezuela, you can look at North Korea, you can

00:21:38.120 look at other big governments, uh, where the government is allowed to expand unfettered human

00:21:43.380 dignity is denigrated. Human, uh, human beings are not cared for. Um, Venezuela is a great example

00:21:51.460 of Maduro who came in and continued the legacy of promising people, healthcare, promising people

00:21:57.360 that they were going to be taken care of, promising them that the government was going to do everything

00:22:01.320 for them. And what did he do? He was completely corrupt. And now they're bankrupt. Now people

00:22:06.160 are starving. People have lost on average 19 pounds. Infant mortality is up. It's horrible in

00:22:12.740 Venezuela. It's terrible in Venezuela. And a lot of people will tell you, well, that's just a unique

00:22:17.620 situation has nothing to do with socialism has nothing to do with big government. Yes, of course it does

00:22:23.000 because power corrupts, absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. That is the nature of power. It's

00:22:27.940 always been the nature of power throughout history. Big government has never traditionally

00:22:31.780 helped people the way that the free market has the way that churches have when they are allowed to do

00:22:36.640 so. So if you look throughout history, the countries that have been freest are the countries

00:22:42.980 also where Christianity thrives. Now that's not to say that the church can't thrive in a place like

00:22:47.220 China. It does. And you could even argue that it's the prayer that perhaps the faith of those

00:22:53.000 people are more genuine and are more effective because they are persecuted because they are pushed

00:22:59.060 to the margins of society. You could definitely argue that. But there is a reason. There's a reason

00:23:06.420 why America is by far, by far the number one country for adoption. There's a reason why America is by far

00:23:15.260 the number one country for sending missionaries, by far the leader in planning churches here and

00:23:19.300 abroad. We are also the number one in medicine and education. That is not a coincidence. There is a

00:23:26.960 reason why while freedom has thrived here, Christians have thrived here too. And we are the only safe haven

00:23:33.240 for Christian leaders being able to speak out without fear of punishments. We're really the last

00:23:41.460 place going to be the last place. So it is in Christians' best interest to protect the freedom

00:23:47.880 of our country, which means small government. When has big government ever helped Christianity? Ever.

00:23:54.540 Now, again, that's not to say that the government or that the gospel, I mean, can't spread like wildfire

00:24:00.260 when we are being persecuted, when we are being oppressed, when the government expands. Of course it

00:24:04.720 can because the power of God can do anything. But shouldn't we be fighting for a place in which

00:24:11.060 Christians can continue to plant churches, when we continue to speak freely of the gospel?

00:24:17.520 Shouldn't we be fighting for that? And so fighting for social justice, which more often than not,

00:24:23.400 I would say 99% of the time is fighting for big government policies. It's incongruent with what

00:24:28.760 Christians should actually want. And then number three, the other reason is because social justice today

00:24:35.060 is attached to non-biblical issues. So abortion, feminism, gender fluidity, egalitarianism, LGBTQ,

00:24:42.320 the elimination of Israel, all attached to intersectionality that, like I said, defines

00:24:47.080 people by their victimhood. That's the third reason why we should not be associating with the secular

00:24:55.600 social justice movement. And I've seen Christians try to do this. I've seen teachers try to do this,

00:25:00.920 to try to co-opt the social justice movement for Christianity. Why? Why? This is what Christians,

00:25:08.140 the good work that Christians are doing of trying to compel people to love and to give and to serve

00:25:19.160 and to be kind to those around them, to eradicate injustice. Churches, Christians have been doing that

00:25:27.060 for millennia. Why attach ourselves to a secular social justice movement that in so many ways is

00:25:35.400 incongruent to what the Bible says. So back to the original question. When I say that something is a

00:25:45.940 gospel issue, when something is a gospel mission, what I mean by that is that the gospel compels us

00:25:54.200 to do that thing. The gospel compels us to right wrongs. The gospel compels us to seek justice,

00:26:01.200 love, mercy, and walk humbly with God. It does not mean that if we disagree on the means by which

00:26:07.840 we should be accomplishing those things, that one of us is going to hell. That is not what I'm saying.

00:26:12.860 Far be it from me to preach anything except for Christ crucified. So that is not what I'm saying,

00:26:18.540 but I do think that it's an important point of clarification. And this is something that I've talked

00:26:23.940 about a lot, the difference between social justice and biblical justice. And there's no need. There's no

00:26:30.680 need for us to get those confused. As I've said many times, the gospel is enough. I heard a pastor say

00:26:39.200 recently, kind of mock that, say, well, yes, of course the gospel is enough, but it has imperatives too.

00:26:46.800 And I agree with that. He was talking about racial harmony. I agree with that. I agree that there are

00:26:54.340 imperatives to the gospel that we don't just go preach the gospel to the poor, that we also put

00:26:59.200 clothes on their back, that we also feed them, that we also give them water. We don't just preach the

00:27:03.840 gospel to women in crisis. We also help them with the adoption process. We also give them free

00:27:08.540 sonograms. And so I agree that there are imperatives with the gospel, but I think it's important

00:27:15.340 that the imperatives that we are giving people to right these wrongs are gospel-centered and that

00:27:22.420 they are biblical, that we are not aligning ourselves with the world's solutions, like

00:27:27.400 reparations or something like that. And so it is important. It is important for us to actually

00:27:35.940 do things that the gospel compels us to do and not just talk about them. But it's important that the

00:27:42.300 things that we are doing, the things that we are advocating for, the causes that we are associating

00:27:46.840 ourselves with, that they are biblical and that they don't go outside the realm of that.

00:27:53.400 I have talked a lot about this subject in the past. I've talked a lot about the insanity of

00:27:59.040 intersectionality and how unbiblical it is to define yourself by your victimhood, define yourself by the

00:28:06.920 color of your skin. And that is what I worry about in the church, that we have started to fraction

00:28:13.040 ourselves, not based on different beliefs, but based on the color of our skin and our background.

00:28:18.180 It's almost the opposite of what we've been trying to do in this whole racial reconciliation thing.

00:28:25.600 We've started regarding people by the color of their skin. We started counting how many black

00:28:29.540 friends that we have. We've started taking notice of things that before we didn't really notice.

00:28:34.320 And I'm not sure all of that is for the better. So I think that I pretty much covered it. I think

00:28:44.500 I'll do a whole other podcast on why I, and I've talked about this in the past, but I could probably

00:28:50.400 do another one, why I am a conservative and why Christianity plays into that. I did talk about

00:28:58.760 kind of at the beginning of this podcast, how Christianity and how your faith affects what you do.

00:29:04.040 And affects policy, your policy positions. And what I meant by that is that we are not attached

00:29:11.560 to a particular party platform. We are not attached to a particular politician. We are attached to

00:29:15.980 issues that happen to line up with the Bible. That is what Christians are called to. So it does mean

00:29:22.360 that we are involved in the political process, but it doesn't mean that we have to be partisan. Now,

00:29:27.320 I pretty much am. I'm pretty much, I think I am a conservative on everything. And I have reasons for all of

00:29:33.300 that. Um, but that doesn't mean that I have to subscribe to the Republican party. It certainly

00:29:38.000 doesn't mean that I always have to support Donald Trump because remember the team that we are on

00:29:42.200 transcends, transcends politics. And one day Jesus is going to come back and he's not going to ask us

00:29:49.580 who we voted for. He's not going to ask us, uh, if we were Republican or Democrat, and it's not going

00:29:54.980 to matter. It's not going to matter. So our job is to focus on that, which is eternal and manifesting,

00:30:01.800 uh, his kingdom on earth. That does mean being involved in the culture that does mean being

00:30:06.640 involved in politics, but having eternity in mind and, uh, not the things of this world. And

00:30:13.520 unfortunately, social justice is a thing of this world. Biblical justice is not. Okay. I think that's

00:30:19.740 it for today. Thanks for listening. And I will see you guys on Thursday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 29, 2019

Ep 72 ｜ Politics, Culture, and the Gospel

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