Ep 775 ｜ Pastors： Stop Trying to Be Nicer Than God
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Summary
Pastor Mike Todd goes viral for saying some seemingly troubling things about transgenderism and homosexuality. And another so-called pastor is also gaining attention for stating that drag is holy. And a courageous Christian hockey player refused to go along with his team s pride night earlier this month. Also, we ll give a brief update on Trump s potential arrest.
Transcript
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Pastor Mike Todd goes viral for saying some seemingly troubling things about transgenderism
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and homosexuality. And another so-called pastor is also gaining attention for stating that drag
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is holy. And a courageous Christian hockey player refused to go along with his team's
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pride night earlier this month. Also, we'll give a brief update on Trump's potential
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arrest. A lot going on. This is all brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use promo code ALI at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com. Code ALI.
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Hey, guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone's having a wonderful week.
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If you have not listened to yesterday's episode where I had my dad on, he talked about his life
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story. But we also talked about Trump's apparently impending arrest and what that may look like. He
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gave some predictions based on some information that he got yesterday. Trump was not arrested
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yesterday. We're not really going to get in depth on that. I just wanted to say that off the top.
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He is possibly still awaiting arrest. But as my dad said yesterday,
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there's probably not going to be a perp walk. Remember, he's still protected by Secret Service.
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Secret Service is not going to allow that. And so we'll see what this actually looks like.
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Again, go back and listen to yesterday, why we think that this is just a complete and total witch
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hunt. There is no grounding in the rule of law, no integrity, none of that. This is a political
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show. And this is also kind of sparked a conversation about the presidential election,
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whether this is going to help or hurt Trump, whether DeSantis' response is going to help or
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hurt him. I honestly don't think this is going to stick as much as people think it will. I know it
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seems like that, and maybe for some people it will. But look, news moves fast. There's going to be
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another thing, another dramatic scene that plays out in the next few months. Remember, a year is a long
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time. It's going to be about a year before the presidential election really starts heating up.
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Governor DeSantis hasn't even announced whether he is going to run for president. So as much as I
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think people today believe that this is going to be the deciding factor for who becomes the Republican
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nominee, I think it could have an effect. I don't think it's going to have as big of an impact as
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people think. Remember, people have amnesia. Things are said, things are done by politicians,
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and people forget very quickly. They care much more about what that president may or may not do
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for them and their family. So that's where we are. We still don't know if President Trump is going to
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be arrested. It's a sad day in our country where this is even a question. Remember, this is over a
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misdemeanor. The statute of limitations has expired on this misdemeanor. They are trying to make it a
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which is absurd. So we'll see. We'll see what pans out, and we'll see what happens there.
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And I don't know. Sometimes I just don't have the answer to the state of this country except for
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God is totally sovereign. That's one of the things that we're going to talk about today. We're going
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to talk about the consistency of God, the consistency and reliability of God's Word, and what some
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pastors and Christian leaders say don't seem to correspond with that reality. And we're going to
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start out with this story about Mike Todd. Mike Todd is a pastor of a large church called Transformation
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Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We've talked about Mike Todd before. He had that egregious scene on stage at
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his church where he actually spit into his hands, like hocked a loogie into his hands. This really
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grosses me out to say, and like put it on the face of someone in the congregation that he brought up
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on stage trying to make some kind of biblical illustration. All right, it was really gross.
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He ended up apologizing for that. But that's, of course, not the only thing. I disagree with Mike
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Todd theologically on quite a few things. He leans prosperity gospel. You can go back and you can
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listen to his sermons. You can read some of his books. I feel very confident in saying that.
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That's not to say he doesn't say things that are also true and that are also edifying at times.
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I mean, the same is true for almost any pastor that calls themselves that is a prosperity preacher
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and health and wealth, name it and claim it preacher. There are things that Joel Osteen says
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that are uplifting, that are biblical, that are true, that doesn't mean that he doesn't present
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in a lot of ways a false gospel. I don't think Mike Todd is necessarily on the level of Joel Osteen,
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but certainly leans towards the health and wealth, name it and claim it kind of theology.
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And now he is under fire for a viral clip that's going around. It's from a sermon from March 5th.
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And the sermon is titled Power Trip to Power Flip Serve the Kingdom. It's part four in a sermon
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series called King Dumb, D-U-M-B. It's a play on words to indicate that if you don't have biblical
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knowledge, you can't know God. And here's what I'll say. So I saw this clip going around and I was
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like, oh my gosh, I've got to respond to this. This is so sad that a pastor doesn't know how to
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talk about this very sensitive, but very clear subject of sexuality and gender identity. And I
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was just totally ready to slam him for this because this just breaks my heart when you have someone who
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is so talented and so influential, has so many people sitting in front of him asking for wisdom,
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when he just so clearly gets it wrong and pretends that the word of God equivocates on this.
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But as usual, the clip was kind of pulled out of context. And I'm not saying that I agree with
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everything that was said, and I'm going to play you a little bit of the clip, but I am going to read
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you the context. And I think that it's better than what people are saying on Twitter. He actually
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offers more clarity than what he appears to offer in this clip. So we'll talk about the good and bad
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and the ugly. And the reason I'm doing this is not to pick on Mike Todd, because we all say things
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that we don't mean, or maybe we say things and we look back and we wish that we had said it better
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or more clearly. That is certainly true of me. I've done so many interviews and so many podcasts.
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There are so many things that I look back on and I'm like, that's not necessarily theologically
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correct, or I wish I would have just explained that better. And so I'm not trying to pick on him.
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What I am trying to do is to offer an example of one way to explain these sensitive,
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identity-centered subjects. And then for us to compare that to what God's word actually says,
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which is always so graciously clear on these so-called culture war issues. So let me play you
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this clip that's going around that is so controversial, especially among conservative evangelicals.
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As a pastor, like, so what do you think about gay men? I don't know. I don't know why you're
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wrestling like that. And I don't know what to do to help you, but to stand with you
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and pray with you and not, and you're welcome at Transformation Church.
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Trans is in the title. Transformation, you can be here. Oh God.
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All right. So that's what's circulating on social media where he says, people ask me what I feel
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about gay marriage. And I'm like, I don't know. And then he says, trans is literally in our name.
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You can be here. And it's really hard to even tell what he's saying because he got all these people
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in the audience cheering after every word. And look, I know that I'm not a charismatic. And so I'm
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used to kind of like my prim and proper Southern Baptist church where you don't kind of make that
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noise. And I'm not, so I'm not saying that that's wrong. I don't want like my bias to influence what
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I'm about to say, but it does seem like it's, I mean, it's the same way, like a, you know,
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a Stephen Furtick church where he has people in the front that are cheering on the things that he has
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to say, this just feels less like preaching from the word of God, less like trying to point to God
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and more about him and more about a performance and more about what he's saying. I mean, after
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every single word, you've got people standing up and cheering. Well, he's not even saying anything.
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Like he literally said one word. Why are we cheering for what he said? Trans is in our name.
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And they literally showed the congregation. There's people standing up and applauding for that.
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What is going on here? What is going on? So I do take issue. I'm okay with different types
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of worship styles and all different kinds of things, as long as they are biblically based.
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I don't think that the only one way to worship is how Southern Baptists worship at all. But when I
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see things like that, and when I know that he leans kind of toward prosperity, it just makes me feel
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like, okay, is this really a church service? Or is this some kind of performance where you're trying
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to get affirmation from people for basically not saying anything? So, but I do want to give him the
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benefit of the doubt here, because what he said right there, absolutely ridiculous.
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Absolutely ridiculous. Trans is in our name. And so you're welcome here. However, if you look at the
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context of what he's saying, what he's actually saying is not justifying transgenderism, is not
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justifying what is typically referred to as gay marriage. If you look at the context of what he's
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saying, he is actually saying, look, this is a complicated subject. Okay. He might be saying that,
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or this is really uncomfortable. It's culturally inconvenient. All I know is what the kingdom of God is.
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All I know is what the Bible says. And I don't know that I would say that he's apologizing, but
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kind of, he's kind of saying, look, this is just what the Bible says. So let me read you a little bit
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of what he actually says here that I think makes these out of context clips better. So he, around 45
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minutes into his sermon, he starts talking about how to serve in God's kingdom. You have to submit and
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relinquish your opinion on things. And he said, God's already decided some stuff that we think we can have
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an opinion on. God decided male and female. And then the audience kind of mildly cheered. Okay.
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So he said that. I think that that sentence alone is really important context that he said, God decided
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male and female. So he's going back to Genesis 1, 27. God already decided that. We got to relinquish
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our opinion on that. He said, no, I need you all to hear my heart on this. I'm, this is not a bashing.
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Um, and he said, if I was there, maybe I would have told him, is there something in the middle
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you could do? I feel you. And I wish there was an option of other in the kingdom and culture. You
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can make it whatever you want to in culture. You can build whatever you want to. But the truth of
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the matter is that if we are going to submit under what the King says, I'm going to have to wrestle
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with that. I don't even fully understand. So very unclear, but basically he's saying, look, I don't want
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to be anti-transgender. I don't want to say that it's only male and female. This is just what God's
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word says. And I can sympathize with that. I do take issue with kind of the caveating, the nuancing
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and the apologizing for God's word as if like we are more compassionate than God, as if we're nicer
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than God or kinder than God or more loving than God. I think we can stand on God's word without
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apologizing for it. But I understand the sentiment. He's like, yeah, this is inconvenient. This is
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uncomfortable, but this is what God's word says. So he says, well, why did, so he's quoting, well,
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why did? I don't freaking know. No, honestly, I wish God would have made it so much simpler.
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And it was like A, B, C, or D, like frick. No, I'm serious. This is a sermon. As a pastor, it's like,
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so what do you think about gay marriage? I don't know. But I do know in the kingdom, I'm not the king.
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I don't know why he decided to do it like this. I don't know why you're wrestling like that. And I
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don't know what to do to help you, but to stand with you and pray with you. And you're welcome
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at Transformation Church. Trans is in the title, Transformation. Transformation can be here.
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You're loved here. I want you here. And then he says, so again, that was the problematic part that
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people are taking issue with. And then he says, will I marry you? And what he means by that, like,
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will I officiate your marriage if you are two men or two women? He says, I can't. Not because I don't
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think you found love, just as a kingdom ambassador. When I look back at the orders that are in the
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constitution of the kingdom. I know people don't like to talk like this because they want it to be
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black and white, but there's some things on earth I don't have the answers to. And so when I don't
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know, I just default. I come sub to the mission. Got it. I know people are going to try to make
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this clickbait and make it something I didn't say. I hope you hear the heart of what I'm saying.
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I wrestle and pray for all types of people all the time. How freaking unfair it must feel to feel
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something every day of your life and it not line up with the God you love. I don't have all the
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answers. So that's the context of what he's saying. And some of what he says, obviously there, it's true
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that God already decided this. It doesn't matter our opinion. He's also trying to show some empathy
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there that I understand you feel a certain way. Maybe you're confused about your identity.
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Maybe you are attracted to a certain gender and that's simply not what God's word says is holy.
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That must be really hard. So I can appreciate that. What I don't appreciate here is the lack
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of clarity. And again, the apology for what God's word says and for the constant saying,
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I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Because while he says that he is standing on God's word,
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he is also giving himself an out. And I don't think that we need to let God off the hook.
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I don't think we need to give ourselves an out. Again, if God created all of this,
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if he's in charge of all of this, if he is the authority over all of it, if he is the definer of
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all things, the arbiter of right and wrong, what's true and what's false. Like if Genesis 1,
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one is true, that God created the heavens and the earth, then yes, we can submit to his authority
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on all things, but we can do so without caveat or apology. Sure, we can have empathy. We can say,
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wow, it must be really hard to be tempted by that. I'm also tempted by things. I'm also confused
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about things. I understand that this runs counter to what the culture says, but, and here's something
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else that he doesn't do in this long segment is actually go to the word of God and read the word
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of God. Like if you don't know, if you're confused about what to say, if you're trying to find the
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right words, then the truest and best and most effective thing that you can do is read God's
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own words rather than relying on, on our faulty and fallible wisdom. The Bible is so clear about
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this. And it also troubles me that he says, I don't know why God did it this way. I don't know why
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God made us male and female. I don't know why God says marriage is between a man and a woman.
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Dude, you're a pastor. You should know. You should know. It actually doesn't help your
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congregation to say, I don't know. That's not humility. That's ignorance. And you have too much
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influence to be ignorant at this point. And actually, I think that he might not be ignorant.
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He just doesn't really want to say it. He doesn't want to say it because to me, it seems like he's so
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scared of sounding like a bigot or of being criticized for being conservative or whatever
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that he just, he knows the truth. It's clear here. He knows the truth and he's willing to kind of say
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it or imply it, but he doesn't want to explain the whole thing, at least in this sermon. And I tried
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to give as much context as possible. I mean, we've given this alliteration a million times. Please,
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Mike Todd, you can use it. I mean, you might not want to say this is from Allie Stuckey in your sermon.
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I'm not sure how that's going to fly, but maybe just say that someone said marriage between a man
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and a woman, according to the Bible, is rooted in creation. We see that in Genesis 1. It's
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reiterated throughout scripture. One example is honor your father and mother. It's repeated by
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Jesus himself, Matthew 19, 4 through 5. That is so clear. It is reflective or representative of Christ
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in the church. We read that in Ephesians 5. And therefore it is reflective of the gospel. Wow,
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there is spiritual, there is eternal significance to the definition of male and female, and therefore
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the definition of marriage between a man and a woman. It's all there. And so even the people who say,
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oh, we can't listen to Leviticus or we can't listen to 1 Corinthians or we can't listen to Romans 1,
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which that's all silly. Look, okay, even without those totally legitimate and valid verses and
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passages, by the way, which are very explicit, we can look at what God calls holy, what God
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calls good. And we can say there is some kind of mysterious, spiritual, eternal significance to
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the definition of things. And because God is so good, and because God is so powerful, and because God is
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love, as 1 John 4, 8 says, we can and must as Christians submit to him in these things, that's
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the why. That's the why. As a pastor, as someone who I think God has gifted in so many ways, has
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obviously gifted him a congregation to steward, he needs to know why. No, it's not enough at this point
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in your ministry to say, I don't know. I don't know why God made us male and female. I don't
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know why God made marriage this way. I appreciate you saying that he did. I do. People need to hear
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that. People do. But people want to know why. It's innate. It's the same reason why when we're toddlers,
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we say, why is something like this? Why do we do this? We want to know why. As a pastor, that's your job
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as far as you can. And the good news is that we don't have to rely on our own wisdom or our own
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smarts, our own knowledge to tell people why. Again, the truest and most effective, most loving
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thing we can do is simply agree with God. How do we agree with God? We look at, we read, we preach
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what God's word says, and we say, I agree with that. Not because I fully understand it, not because
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it's easy, but because I am called to imitate God. And because I want to love my neighbor, the only way I
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can do that is to imitate and follow the God who says he is love. And that God who says he is love
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says that he made us male and female, and that marriage is between one man and one woman, period.
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End of story. Of course, that's going to get backlash. Of course it is. Of course, people are
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going to call you unloving. Of course, people are going to call you hateful. Yeah, that's the story
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of the church. That's been the story of the church for 2000 years, being both misunderstood and
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maligned. And all we say is to God be the glory. Most loving thing that we can do is to speak the
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truth without caveat and without apology. So that's just what I encourage. That's what I encourage
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every pastor, every Christian to do. And we're going to fail at that. I also want to just caution
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because I've fallen into this trap too. I have. And I apologize for any time I've done this. It's
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never been purposeful. Just caution people against taking words like this out of context,
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because I do think that Mike Todd deserves a little more credit, a little more credit on this
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than he's getting, even though there are things to say with how he kind of handled this.
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It wasn't a complete like affirmation of transgender ideology or gay marriage. So I think it's important
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to just kind of note that. But I did want to respond to it because I do think that responding
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to things like that can show people, and not that I'm perfect at this again, show people what the
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right response is based on what God's word says. It's actually such a gracious gift that God gives
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us so much clarity on this issue that we don't have to wonder what's gender, what's marriage,
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what's holy sexuality. God is so abundantly clear because being sovereign, he absolutely knew that this
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is going to be a difficult issue for the culture and for individuals. And so he lays it out for us.
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All right. You've probably seen this other clip circulating that has gone viral. And this is a
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progressive pastor who is talking about drag. And if you don't know, if you're a sweet summer child
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and you don't know what drag is, I actually had someone the other day in my church who could not
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think of the term drag or drag queen and was trying desperately to explain what he was talking about.
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And it really made me laugh. And I was like, wow, I love that you are so disconnected from the
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craziness that is Twitter that you can't think of the word drag. So for those of you who don't know,
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drag is when men, grown men, well, I guess in some really scary and perverse cases, these are
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young boys also. Something that happens in the United States dressing up like women. Now, very often
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they are wearing prosthetic breasts, thongs, corsets, fishnets, high heels. People will tell you that
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it's not innately sexual. Look, a man dressing up as a caricature of a woman is always going to be
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inappropriate, in particular for children. Cross-dressing, a man dressing like a woman is
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wrong. But also in the sexual and caricature-like nature of drag, it's not something that will ever
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be glorifying to the Lord. However, this particular pastor, Reverend Dr. Caleb J. Lines,
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he posted this on his TikTok. Here's his argument to the contrary.
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Drag is holy. There has been an assault on the rights of drag performers in this country,
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and we must call out the hypocrisy and the injustice. Jesus called himself a mother hen longing to gather
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up her chicks. Gender is a construct, you see. And if Jesus can be a mother hen, then you can dress
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in drag. I've even heard it said that Jesus was, and humanity is, God in drag. So let me say this again
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I was expecting there to be a lightning storm right after all of that blasphemy. I mean,
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that person, I think it's safe to say, is not a believer. He is not a believer in Jesus Christ.
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He does not believe in the basic tenets of Christianity. He doesn't believe. In Genesis 1,
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the first chapter of the first book of the Bible that contains many of the fundamentals of our faith,
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what we understand about human nature and the nature of God, the nature of creation,
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which, as we just said in that first segment, God made them male and female, made them in his image,
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male and female. Genesis 1, 27. Right there, we've got the definition of marriage. We've got the
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definition of gender. And what I believe is the first implicit condemnation of abortion, that we are
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different from all the creatures in creation. We are actually made in God's image. There is something
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special about humans. And actually, in Genesis 9, 6, when God demands, commands the death penalty
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in cases of murder, what he refers to as his reasoning is that human beings are made in God's
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image. That's how valuable we are. That's why murder is so egregious. It's different than animal
00:23:48.080
sacrifice. Human beings are different. We are special. We have an innate worth and innate value because
00:23:53.400
Genesis 1, 27, we are made in the image of God. And being made in the image of God means being made
00:23:58.800
male or female. Now, whenever I say this, people like to bring up, what about intersex? So there's
00:24:05.440
a very rare disorder that affects maybe, maybe 0.2, it might even be 0.02% of the population in which
00:24:12.460
there are hormonal differences or there are even physical differences where there are traits of both
00:24:19.760
male and female existent in a human being. Look, this is a fallen world. People are born in all
00:24:25.380
different kinds of ways that humans are not supposed to be ideally born into. There are people who are
00:24:29.520
born with just one leg. And do we say that human beings can have one leg or two legs? No, we say
00:24:35.500
human beings are bipeds because we understand human nature. We understand that human beings as a species
00:24:40.500
have two legs. They are bipeds. And we also understand that people are born with different anomalies.
00:24:45.060
The exception does not rewrite the rule. That is the case with intersex. Intersex has nothing to do
00:24:49.840
with transgenderism whatsoever. Of course, those people are also made in the image of God.
00:24:54.560
They just are part of, just as we all are, a fallen world. So they're a part of all of our buddies
00:25:00.300
that are not perfect. But Jesus or God made the human species as male or female. That's very clear.
00:25:09.280
So when this pastor, so-called, says gender is a social construct, there is no biblical basis for
00:25:17.160
that whatsoever. There is no biblical category whatsoever for something outside of male or
00:25:22.040
female. There is no possibility, according to the God who created all of this and defines all of this,
00:25:27.380
to identify as something other than what your biology is. So I also take issue when people say,
00:25:34.080
this person didn't say it, but people say this a lot. You especially see this on like the
00:25:38.700
feminist activist side, people who are called TERFs, people who are against transgenderism,
00:25:43.280
but are typically on the left. They'll say sex, not gender. We shouldn't even be using the word
00:25:47.680
gender. Gender and sex are different. Gender is femininity or masculinity. These are social
00:25:53.520
constructs that we should just do away with and shouldn't even think about. We should base our laws
00:25:59.340
on sex, not gender. Look, those categories are the same. Those categories are the same. Sex and gender
00:26:05.180
are the same thing. I don't think that we should try to separate them because that is actually the
00:26:10.680
basis of transgender ideology. This idea that you can actually identify as something that is other
00:26:15.740
than what your chromosomes say that you are and you can't. It's not possible. And this all goes back to
00:26:23.280
people's, people don't even realize this all goes back to how you think about human nature. This all goes
00:26:28.400
back to teleology, the purpose of why we were made, who you think God is. If you worship the God of
00:26:35.740
self rather than the God of scripture, of course, you think that you can identify as something other
00:26:40.340
than what you are. But if you believe that there is a power that is higher than you, who is the
00:26:45.180
authority over you, who actually created you, then you cannot identify as anything other than what he
00:26:50.920
made you to be. That's actually really freeing that we don't have the power to identify ourselves or
00:26:57.080
define ourselves that he already did that for us. Thank you, Lord. But this pastor, this person who
00:27:05.640
says that he's a pastor doesn't understand that. He worships the God of self and therefore he believes
00:27:10.800
that he is more loving than God, that he is more compassionate than God. So of course, he calls what
00:27:16.040
God calls an abomination holy. He has exchanged the truth of God for a lie. So he elevates sin as good.
00:27:25.880
Of course, that's what all people with depraved minds do. That's what all people who worship the
00:27:32.340
prince of the power of the air, as Ephesians 2 calls Satan, do. They continue to get it wrong.
00:27:39.240
They confuse light for darkness and vice versa. The problem is, is that he now can amplify this
00:27:47.420
confusing, this demonic message to millions of young people via TikTok, who are going to be
00:27:55.200
very confused by this. No, of course, drag is not holy. Drag, like any other sin, like any other
00:28:02.220
subversion of nature, is idolatry and is unholy. We had a previous drag queen on. He used to be a drag queen.
00:28:13.200
He used to be on that scene. And thankfully, the Lord brought him to repentance. Can a drag queen be saved?
00:28:20.100
Can a drag queen become holy? Absolutely. They're not more far off. They're not farther off than any of us
00:28:29.540
were before we came to Christ. There's a radical equality that's brought to us by the gospel as we
00:28:34.540
read, again in Ephesians 2, that we are all equally dead in sin apart from Christ. And then by grace
00:28:40.660
through faith, we can be made alive in Christ. And so no one is too far off. No one is too far gone.
00:28:48.760
No one is too perverse or too sinful or too transgressive. But any so-called ambassador of God,
00:28:57.020
so-called pastor that doesn't preach repentance to this community or any other community who is
00:29:03.780
continuing to sin and celebrate sin cannot, in good faith, call themselves a representative of
00:29:11.540
Christ in the church. The reality is this pastor hates God, and therefore he hates the people around
00:29:17.060
him. He thinks that he is loving. He thinks that he is compassionate, but at the expense of their
00:29:21.500
souls. So how loving is that really? So I pray for this pastor and all pastors like him that
00:29:28.000
they would repent, that they would know the God who is love and who also is truth. It's really
00:29:35.060
revealing having all of this kind of information and these differing perspectives on TikTok.
00:29:42.760
Because then you see, wow, this is really how progressives see the world and see God. I mean,
00:29:47.920
it is confusing to me why these people even, why do you even want to pretend to be a Christian?
00:29:54.660
Like, if you have no interest in submitting to God's word, if you don't even think the Bible is
00:29:59.880
really God's word, like, do you just like to play dress up? You just like to put on the robes? You
00:30:04.740
just like the MDiv? Like, you just like the letters after your name? You just like the power that comes
00:30:10.660
with leading a local congregation? Or you just, I guess, want a semblance of the comfort
00:30:14.860
that you think comes from pseudo-Christianity? Like, I don't know, maybe that's it. But gosh,
00:30:22.200
there are better things to do if you don't actually believe that God is the authority over all of this,
00:30:28.320
then go to church on Sunday. I mean, go to brunch. If you're just going to worship yourself,
00:30:33.860
there's no need for all of the pretense. I think actually, it'd probably be better if you were
00:30:39.760
dishonest with yourself and the world, that you worship yourself, and that you're more interested
00:30:45.160
in what Satan has to say than what God has to say. Okay, here's a little bit of a happy story.
00:31:02.520
I don't know if it's necessarily happy, but it's an example of someone not equivocating and not going
00:31:09.680
against what God's word says and actually doing the opposite, being a salmon, as we say, swimming
00:31:14.740
upstream against the chaos of the culture. So there is an NHL player who refused to wear pride-themed
00:31:22.800
jersey in support of the LGBTQ plus community. This is a report by Deadline. It was contributed to
00:31:31.780
by the Associated Press. And if this story sounds really familiar, if you're like, oh,
00:31:36.920
we talked about a very similar story a few months ago, that's because this is the second NHL player.
00:31:43.120
There was another NHL player. Let's see, his name was Ivan Provorov, also declined to do this back in
00:31:53.720
January. Also, the New York Rangers recently opted not to wear pride jerseys or use pride stick tape as
00:32:00.580
part of their pride night in January, despite previously advertising the plan. So there's
00:32:06.400
some pushback here. I'm also just like very confused what's going on here. I thought pride month was in
00:32:10.860
June. And even if this were happening in June, like why do these sports teams have to wear rainbow
00:32:17.920
jerseys and like rainbow hockey sticks? Why? What like what? What are they exactly supporting? What is
00:32:25.500
going on here? Why do they have to make this statement? So now there is the second NHL player
00:32:31.200
who is saying, no, I'm not going to do that. Thanks so much. This is a San Jose Sharks goalie,
00:32:36.580
James Reimer. He's declined to participate in pregame activities on Saturday, March 18th,
00:32:42.200
on that pride night that would require him to wear a promotional pride themed jersey. Reimer issued a
00:32:48.320
statement saying that he always strives to treat everyone with respect and that members of the
00:32:55.600
LGBTQ community should be welcome in hockey. But he says, in this specific instance, I am choosing not
00:33:04.040
to endorse something that is counter to my personal convictions, which are based on the Bible, the
00:33:08.840
highest authority in my life. So this is similar to what Ivan Provorov said back when he said he wasn't
00:33:15.980
going to do this. Not quite as he wasn't quite as eloquent. He just said, you know, this goes against
00:33:20.740
my faith. So the Sharks, the San Jose Sharks, said in a statement that they are proud to host Pride
00:33:27.940
Night, saying the event reinforces the team's commitment to inclusiveness. As we promote these
00:33:33.080
standards, we also acknowledge and accept the rights of individuals to express themselves,
00:33:37.080
including how or whether they choose to express their beliefs, regardless of the cause or topic.
00:33:41.420
As an organization, we will not waver in our support of the LGBTQIA plus, plus, plus, plus, plus,
00:33:50.260
community and continue to encourage others to engage in active allyship. Why? I just, I really do.
00:33:59.720
I fail to understand why a hockey team needs to make a statement about this at all. Why? There was a time
00:34:07.820
where we had neutral institutions. Well, I don't even know if you could say it was neutral. They
00:34:14.520
tried to be neutral, as neutral as possible, at least when it came to these kind of contentious
00:34:19.460
issues. And whether you think it's contentious or not, millions of Americans do. And it's not so much
00:34:26.060
for most Americans. Most Americans are not conservative Christians like me. Most Americans don't really care
00:34:32.600
about the L and the G or even the B. But when you start talking about the T, which is what Pride
00:34:39.780
Night now represents, now you're talking about men pretending to be women, or in some cases of some
00:34:49.640
famous TikTok stars, men pretending to be six-year-old girls and getting celebrated for it and millions of
00:34:56.280
dollars and sponsorships and recognition by the White House. You're talking about men going into
00:35:02.460
girls' bathrooms. You're talking about men playing in female sports so that women no longer have a fair
00:35:09.140
shot at scholarships or championships or opportunities. You are talking about minors getting double
00:35:16.460
mastectomies. You are talking about nine-year-old boys getting chemically castrated with the same drug
00:35:23.260
that is given in many states to pedophiles to chemically castrate them. So when you're now talking
00:35:29.600
about pride and you're talking about pride night and you're talking about the pride flag, you're
00:35:35.020
including all of that. And whether or not you think it's great that girls as young as 12, places like
00:35:42.100
Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, according to one psychologist, are getting double mastectomies,
00:35:48.400
like maybe you think that's awesome. Maybe you think it's great for 10-year-old boys to go on puberty
00:35:53.700
blockers. Maybe you think it's awesome and amazing and fantastic for adolescents to be rendered permanently
00:36:01.360
deformed and sterile because they're temporarily confused about their gender because they have other
00:36:06.720
mental health issues that are underlying there. Even if you agree with all of that, there are millions
00:36:13.940
of Americans who don't. And there is absolutely no reason for any entity to encourage in any way
00:36:22.900
their players, their employees to represent a movement that glorifies all of those things.
00:36:31.340
It's actually very sick. It's very disgusting. And so I applaud this person for saying, no, I'm not
00:36:39.480
going to do that. And I guess if I'm going to give any points to the San Jose Sharks, at least they say
00:36:45.200
we support our players right to express themselves how they see fit. I'm sure that this person, James
00:36:53.940
Reimer, has been given a lot of hate. I'm sure he's gotten a lot of pushback, even though ostensibly
00:37:02.100
they're saying that they support their players right to choose whatever they want to say. I'm sure it has
00:37:07.420
been difficult for him just being the only one on his team. And it's sad too, because I highly doubt
00:37:14.840
he's the only Christian on his team. I highly doubt he is only one of two Christians in the NHL.
00:37:21.720
But how many players, and I understand this to a certain extent, but how many players,
00:37:26.160
how many students, how many employees across the country just sit down and shut up because they want
00:37:31.800
to keep their job. They want to get a good grade. They don't want to get canceled. They don't want to
00:37:36.960
get mean messages. They know that it's wrong, but they would rather seek the approval of men than
00:37:42.680
the approval of God. And look, I'm not saying that it's easy to stand up, to share the arrows,
00:37:49.400
to raise a respectful ruckus about the things that matter. I'm not saying it's easy to get to face that
00:37:55.180
kind of exclusion or to face the threat of firing and not being able to feed your family. And I'm not
00:38:00.000
saying that you have to stand up in every single scenario. But if we know anything about moral and
00:38:05.840
sexual revolutions, political revolutions, as we've seen throughout history, the most effective
00:38:10.660
thing that you can do, even if it's just effective in cleansing your own conscience, is not lie. And
00:38:16.620
at this point, waving a pride flag is lying. It's lying. Because now included in that is the belief
00:38:25.240
that men can become women and vice versa. And it's actually always been lying. Because I mean,
00:38:32.420
it's also the belief that two men and two women can form a marriage in the same way that a man or a
00:38:41.100
woman can, defying all science, defying all tradition, defying all of human history, defying
00:38:47.120
God himself. But now, I mean, you are blatantly denying biological reality at the risk of women's
00:38:57.540
safety and fairness. I mean, now, by waving the pride flag, you are endorsing men being put in
00:39:04.940
women's prisons, even when they have been convicted of violent rape. You don't believe me? Just go to
00:39:11.500
their Redux site. Go to their website, their news site, and you can read all of the stories of this
00:39:17.640
happening. Now, when you wave the pride flag, you are celebrating that. It's all wrapped up.
00:39:27.540
Even if you're not a Christian. Of course, if you're a Christian, you shouldn't be waving the
00:39:30.780
pride flag at all. But even if you're not, just think about whether or not you want to endorse
00:39:35.040
that. Why would the NHL be endorsing that? Why would any of these corporations or entities be a
00:39:40.720
part of that, celebrating that? The White House celebrates that. Again, just aghast that anyone who
00:39:46.200
calls themselves Christians could be in support of an administration or a political party that
00:39:52.500
celebrates that kind of thing. Of course, there are Republicans who are too. I think I saw a Republican
00:39:56.660
from the state of Kentucky, some legislator. I don't know if we have that clip. We happen to have it in
00:40:03.100
the server somewhere. Maybe not. But it was a Republican state legislator, I think, in Kentucky,
00:40:09.660
saying that his grandchild has come out as trans and he has to support that. So he's against
00:40:16.220
anything that would stop the genital mutilation of children who happen to be confused about their
00:40:24.380
gender. You know, that never happens on the other side. Like, you never see those exceptions from
00:40:28.680
Democrats being like, oh, maybe dismembering babies is not great. Like, you never see them making some
00:40:34.280
kind of brave speech, being heterodox, going against the majority of what their side thinks about
00:40:40.080
things. You don't see Democrat legislators standing up and saying, I don't know if we should be
00:40:45.460
chemically castrating little boys. Doesn't really sound like a good idea. But our side,
00:40:50.300
we have defectors all the time. And yet, of course, we are the ones accused of being the brainwashed
00:40:57.260
fascist, even though we have plenty of people on our side who, unfortunately, we keep electing that
00:41:04.580
are continually wrong on the most basic fundamental issues. But there are people like this, like the
00:41:11.220
NHL player who stand up and say, you know what? I know it's not going to be popular. It's not going
00:41:16.180
to be lucrative. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate, but scripture, highest authority. And so I'm
00:41:22.140
going to submit to that. So I appreciate that. I appreciate this person who was willing to go into
00:41:29.120
the metaphorical fiery furnace instead of bowing down before Nebuchadnezzar. I mean, that's what it is.
00:41:35.540
The pride flag at this point is an idol that we have to refuse to bow down to, and there will be
00:41:40.840
pushback. I mean, just look at the cake baker in Colorado. He has suffered for a decade plus because
00:41:48.960
he didn't want to violate his conscience in creating a cake. So there's a cost when it comes to this.
00:41:54.940
Don't let people tell you that these are just culture war issues. These are just political issues.
00:41:59.480
We just need to love people. Look, for the Christian, these are not primarily political or
00:42:03.700
culture war issues. These are primarily biblical issues. These are primarily Genesis 1 issues.
00:42:08.280
And if you as a Christian are not willing to, you're not courageous enough to stand up for
00:42:13.040
Genesis 1, Genesis 127, I have a really hard time believing that you are going to be courageous
00:42:19.780
enough to stand up for John 14, 6, that Jesus is the way, the truth, the life, and that no one comes
00:42:25.400
to the Father except through him. That is much more offensive than the reality that God made us male
00:42:31.260
and female. So let's go ahead and count the cost on this easy stuff, this really simple stuff,
00:42:36.720
this really straightforward stuff that is so easily seen in biology, before we are fully counting the
00:42:42.300
cost for preaching the gospel that everyone is a sinner separated from God, which again is far
00:42:48.580
more offensive than the reality of gendered biology.
00:43:05.680
All right. So just a reminder, you've got until tomorrow night to enter our giveaway. If you don't
00:43:10.640
know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to Monday's episode. We've got a giveaway with all
00:43:14.640
kinds of free stuff from our sponsors. We've got amazing gift cards from Good Ranchers, Carly Jean
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Los Angeles, other fun products, merch. We've got new merch, guys. We've got amazing merch. I can't
00:43:25.640
wait for my merch to come in when it does. I will probably only be wearing that merch because I love
00:43:31.620
it so much. If you go to AllieMerch.com, we'll put the link in the description of this episode,
00:43:37.900
AllieMerch.com. You can see all our new merch and we've got even more awesome stuff that's coming
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your way. I don't know when, in the coming months. You can use Allie10 at checkout for 10% off. Allie10
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at checkout for 10% off. This will make a great Mother's Day gift, guys. Guys, Related Bros out
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there, for the Related Bells in your life, they want a corduroy hat, okay? They want a be a salmon
00:44:06.240
crew neck sweatshirt. They want a tote bag with Related Blonde. They want these things. I'm just letting
00:44:13.860
you know right now and she's got it in her cart and she's wondering whether or not she wants to
00:44:20.320
spend the money on that. You know what? You just need to go ahead, get it for her, get it for her
00:44:27.040
birthday, get it for her for Mother's Day. She will love it and she will thank you. I promise. I'm just
00:44:32.700
giving you a little tip for your marriage or for your relationship with your fiance or your girlfriend.
00:44:38.060
She wants relatable merch for these things. All right. Let's see. I don't know what we're going
00:44:44.020
to talk about tomorrow. Let me know if you have any suggestions. On Monday, we are going to have
00:44:49.220
Ginger and Jeremy Vuolo on the show. I'm super excited about that. Feel free to send in some
00:44:56.560
questions for them. My episode with Ginger Duggar Vuolo that we did in January did amazingly well.
00:45:04.480
You guys were so interested in her story and what she had to say about her upbringing and
00:45:09.200
the theology that kind of characterized her upbringing. I would go back and listen to that
00:45:13.740
episode if you haven't just as like a part one and then we're going to do a follow-up on that on
00:45:18.040
Monday with both of them. They're going to be in person, which I'm really excited about. So lots of
00:45:22.580
fun stuff coming up. All right. Thanks so much for joining and we will be back here tomorrow.