Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 790 ｜ The Rise of 'Christian' Witchcraft ｜ Guest： Hilary Kennedy

00:00:00.000 Amazon is selling Ouija boards marketed to children and Christians. Also, Disney has more

00:00:07.200 satanic-themed, demonic-themed kids shows. But don't worry, there is really, really good news 0.96

00:00:14.120 that I'm going to celebrate about a decrease in abortions at the end of this episode. So we've

00:00:20.940 got both dark and light to talk about today. Lots to cover. This episode is brought to you by our

00:00:25.280 friends at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use promo code ALLY for American meat delivered

00:00:30.100 right to your front door. That's GoodRanchers.com, code ALLY.

00:00:42.360 Hillary, thanks so much for joining us. I only ever bring you on to talk about these very dark

00:00:48.000 subjects. Have you noticed that? Yes, it's true. Well, I go on Pat Gray's show sometimes too,

00:00:53.080 and it's always about like child grooming or, you know, some sort of unsolved murder. So I like to

00:00:59.680 talk about the happy topics, but sometimes these just kind of end up coming to the surface.

00:01:04.600 Yes. Well, you're a very bright and cheery person, but also you're a mom. I'm a mom. And so you care

00:01:10.140 about what is being advertised for children. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking

00:01:14.560 about games. We're talking about shows that have explicit demonic themes that are being marketed

00:01:19.600 to kids. And you presented it to us, to my producer. And you're like, do y'all know that

00:01:24.260 this is going on? So just tell us, tell us kind of what you sent us and what's going on with the

00:01:29.760 different games and shows. Well, first, I love that you talk about these topics, because like you said,

00:01:34.220 as a mom, it's something that really concerns me. So I love that you're willing to put this out there

00:01:38.020 and talk about it. I started looking at some things that are being sold on Amazon. I stumbled upon this

00:01:43.000 and was kind of blown away because we've seen the occult sort of be glamorized in TV shows and in

00:01:49.100 books and in movies a lot more recently than it has been in the past. But now they're marketing things

00:01:55.180 in very subliminal ways that even Christians are being fooled by it or people who are maybe

00:02:00.160 looking into faith practices or becoming a Christian or things like that. So there is a Ouija board 0.80

00:02:06.580 that they are marketing as a spirit board on Amazon. It's $29.95. It's advertised as a way to

00:02:14.180 communicate directly with Jesus. And the little planchette that you put your hands on when you're

00:02:19.320 using a Ouija board, it's in the shape of a cross. The way they have it marketed is they say it's perfect

00:02:24.600 for churches, prayer groups, or just getting together with friends. It says, unlike other spirit boards,

00:02:30.240 this one will never contact evil ghosts or demons. So you can ask your questions with an assured

00:02:35.760 sense of safety. Oh my goodness. Yeah. It says, okay, so it's called the Holy Spirit Board by Holy

00:02:40.960 Spirit Games, Christian religious talking board for seance. And as you said, it promises that you can

00:02:48.540 get your life's most important questions answered straight from the man himself while promising it

00:02:54.960 will never contact evil ghosts or demons. And so I don't know, maybe you're a Christian and you think 0.74

00:03:01.560 this would be fun for my small group, or this might even be fun to give my teenagers. This is a

00:03:08.040 biblical form of connecting with the other world, right?

00:03:11.700 Right. Well, it's scary because there's a lot of things that you can purchase on Amazon and other

00:03:16.180 sites that you think are actually helpful biblical resources or something that will help you in your

00:03:21.060 faith journey. Another thing I came across were these things called Psalm cards, and they're supposed to

00:03:26.400 have the Psalms on there to kind of help you. I'll read the description. It says,

00:03:30.020 they're a source of spiritual inspiration, 150 power verses. And then it says,

00:03:35.100 embedded in the ancient Psalm verses are rich images that form a symbolic language. Whether

00:03:39.320 you're searching for answers, insights, or spiritual teachings, pull a card from the deck and allow the

00:03:43.940 image to offer its compelling, succinct message. And then it says, turn to our companion guide for a

00:03:48.880 fuller explanation. Well, so these look like, you know, like when you buy affirmation cards or Bible

00:03:54.220 verse cards that you take with you to kind of study scripture or memorize. These are actually tarot cards

00:03:59.880 or oracle cards, but you wouldn't know that necessarily by looking at the description. So

00:04:04.260 there was one reviewer that was like, I got this. And this is not at all what I was expecting because

00:04:09.660 they realized this was something that people are using as an oracle card or a tarot card,

00:04:13.620 but it's being marketed as something for Christians to know the Psalms, which I thought,

00:04:19.440 you know, there's so many of those things now that are disguised as one thing, but used for something

00:04:25.360 else. And we have to really be on guard with what we're being given, what we're giving to friends,

00:04:30.360 what we're exposing our children to, but the Ouija board, especially that one, I think, you know,

00:04:36.240 some people are saying, well, they meant this as a parody, but even still not everyone will know that

00:04:40.880 or see that. And we'll buy that thinking, Oh, this is something that I can use to deepen my,

00:04:44.740 my walk with God. And I do think this idea has become popularized even among people who profess to be

00:04:51.260 Christians, or maybe who are new to their faith, that there is a Christian way to practice what may,

00:04:59.100 they might not call it witchcraft, but practice kind of, you know, psychic readings, using tarot cards,

00:05:06.580 using Ouija boards. And they think that this is a, a pure or holy way to, or lightened way to kind

00:05:18.560 of connect with the other world or to engage in paranormal activity, not realizing, not fully

00:05:25.580 knowing that this is, as you said, kind of Satan disguising himself as an angel of light. And the

00:05:32.420 problem is even beyond just being deceived. It is that you are opening yourself up to a very real

00:05:41.700 connection with the spiritual world that is not actually of God. And the reason why we know it's

00:05:47.900 not of God is because he actually forbids, biblically, this kind of activity. He forbids

00:05:55.460 witchcraft. He forbids the use of divination, sorcery, spiritism. He forbids the use of psychics.

00:06:05.320 We can see that in Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 18, 9 through 14, even 1 Timothy 4, 1. It says,

00:06:12.500 the Holy Spirit clearly says that in later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving

00:06:17.800 spirits and things taught by demons, even those that look like angels of light. So there is a really

00:06:26.620 big spiritual, eternal consequence that we're talking about here.

00:06:31.060 Absolutely. And I think that some of the ways that people are getting sort of sucked into this

00:06:36.680 is through Instagram and TikTok. And TikTok has so many videos that have some sort of

00:06:43.540 occult theme or they're teaching some form of witchcraft that it's actually called witch talk.

00:06:48.500 There's the hashtag witch talk. So there were 11 billion views on those videos on TikTok last year

00:06:54.800 and 7 million posts on Instagram. So that is a lot of content that we're being inundated with. And some

00:07:01.260 of it is disguised as a way for you to grow closer to God. It's not overt. You know, it doesn't say

00:07:07.000 like, I'm a practicing Satanist or I, you know, I'm a witch. It's something that seems like it's

00:07:11.800 something else. And we have to be careful. On the Ouija board note too, I want to point out when I was

00:07:16.960 searching for the spirit board and just kind of reading what was out there, there is a Ouija board.

00:07:21.800 It's called the kitten board. And this is clearly marketed to small girls. And it looks just like a cute,

00:07:30.360 fun little board game, but it is actually a Ouija board. And they have it listed as perfect

00:07:36.360 for cute girls. And it has kittens and hearts on it and said it would make a great decoration for

00:07:41.380 any bedroom. So just be careful when you're looking for games for children and you're on Amazon what

00:07:46.740 you're actually buying because you may be buying something that you don't want in your child's bedroom.

00:08:00.360 You know, as we were talking about, it does open you up to real demonic activity. It would be one

00:08:09.140 thing if it was just a game that maybe you don't want your kids to play because it's kind of

00:08:12.740 inappropriate or dark, but you really do have the possibility of communicating with demons. We know

00:08:20.560 that God doesn't communicate to us through this kind of medium. He doesn't communicate to us through

00:08:25.240 Ouija boards. So it's not even a question of if you're using one of these, oh, am I hearing from

00:08:30.120 an angel? Am I hearing from God? Am I hearing from Satan? Thankfully, we know that God is the God of

00:08:35.880 order and peace, not a God of confusion. That's why he gives us his word. So if you want to hear God

00:08:40.840 talk, go to his word and you will be able to hear the Lord. If you want to actually hear him,

00:08:46.540 you can read the Bible out loud. But going to a Ouija board, you are, you might be connecting with the

00:08:53.040 spirit and it will be a demonic spirit. And Satan is not a respecter of persons. He's not going to

00:08:58.920 say, well, this cute girl is too innocent or she's too young, or this is a Christian family, 0.89

00:09:04.060 or this is, oh no, this, this board says Holy Spirit on it. I'm not going to enter through that.

00:09:09.020 Look, Satan is looking for every opportunity. He's prowling around like a lion looking for someone

00:09:14.820 to devour. He doesn't need these board games. I mean, there are lots of different ways,

00:09:19.660 but this is certainly one way that he is looking to try to enter into your life,

00:09:26.880 your child's mind, your home in a variety of ways. So it's very real.

00:09:31.480 Absolutely. And the last time that you let me come on the show, I got to talk about Disney plus,

00:09:36.720 well, it's FXX, which is a subsidiary of Disney. They had a show called Little Demon. It was a cartoon.

00:09:43.120 It was aimed towards adults. It had a lot of satanic themes. It was really glamorizing and glorifying.

00:09:49.940 Satanism and the occult, graphic violence. There was a huge uproar about it. One Million Moms and a

00:09:56.380 couple of other organizations started a petition for all of the sponsors to pull their advertising

00:10:00.900 from FXX because of the show. So it looked like the show was going to be canceled. There was all

00:10:07.460 sorts of news about it being canceled. Disney's not bringing it back. Well, now Disney has said it's not

00:10:12.720 canceled. They haven't said whether or not they're going to release a second season. So they're just not

00:10:17.400 saying anything at the moment. However, they're creating a new show that they're testing out in

00:10:22.840 Germany that's very similar, except for this is not a cartoon. It's a live action TV show

00:10:28.200 called Pauline. And it's about an 18 year old girl who gets pregnant and falls in love with the devil

00:10:35.160 after a one night stand. So Disney is testing that out there also had an aspect of that. There is

00:10:41.760 at least an implicit sexual aspect to Little Demon because wasn't it that the mom, the human 0.97

00:10:48.600 demon procreated with Satan to create this Little Demon. So there's also that weird aspect. It's not

00:10:56.700 just, OK, here's, you know, a demonic symbol or here's even a demon or Satan. There's always some

00:11:02.780 kind of sexual interaction, it seems, in these shows.

00:11:07.760 Both of those, Little Demon and Pauline, are both like a coming of age story. And so it's like right

00:11:13.320 around the time that children are sort of, their hormones are raging and they're experimenting with

00:11:18.820 things or they're kind of awakening to who they are. And so they're really focusing on, oh, as

00:11:23.020 they're doing that and they're becoming more sexual, they're also exploring their spirituality and they

00:11:27.540 keep kind of interweaving those two things together. So this show, like I said, they're going to test it

00:11:33.200 out in Germany and see how it does. I think they think it's a little too racy for the U.S. market after

00:11:38.240 what they saw with Little Demon.

00:11:39.160 The Germans. Always, always at the beginning of the slippery slope, it seems. 1.00

00:11:45.140 But yeah, so that's supposed to be coming out this year. And then I do have some good news.

00:11:51.360 There is a show called Owl House. It's a cartoon that's been on Disney Plus. And this takes place

00:11:57.520 in the Boiling Isles, which was created from the body of a dead god where demons and monsters are an

00:12:03.460 accepted part of society. The heroine's a 14-year-old who stumbles onto a portal to the demonic realm,

00:12:10.960 befriends a witch. And even though she doesn't have any sort of magical powers, she starts to

00:12:16.000 become an apprentice to this witch. Anyway, this is not a children's show. Disney has it rated for

00:12:21.940 ages seven and up, but it has a lot of sexual themes in it as well, along with the witchcraft and

00:12:27.300 the occult. But I found out it was just canceled on April the 8th. So for parents everywhere,

00:12:33.660 I mean, they're saying it's canceled. Maybe in a couple of years, they'll be like, ah.

00:12:38.080 Right. You just don't ever know. But that was another show that got a lot of backlash. And so

00:12:43.360 the creator said she believes it was canceled because it didn't, quote, fit the Disney brand.

00:12:48.080 But at this point, we don't really know what the Disney brand is anymore. So you just have to be

00:12:52.580 careful when you're looking at even those cartoons that seem so cute and harmless. And this one in

00:12:56.600 particular, Owl House won an award for being creative and innovative as far as children's

00:13:03.020 programming goes in the last year. So, you know, when you see a cartoon is getting a lot of acclaim

00:13:07.200 and getting awards, you think, oh, this is going to be really cute and interesting. That's not always

00:13:11.100 the case. So. No, not at all. And as you were saying, the products also that are marketed to kids,

00:13:17.200 I mean, you see a lot of like astrology type things that are marketed, especially to young girls.

00:13:23.000 It's almost always to young girls and not to young boys. I think these shows, but also the

00:13:28.100 different toys and the games. And I think it's just because the nature of girls, one, they're a 1.00

00:13:33.080 little bit more curious in the spiritual. They're more emotional themselves. Also, I think there is

00:13:38.400 a bigger aspect of social contagion among girls that, OK, if you have three people at a sleepover 0.99

00:13:47.640 that are using a Ouija board, there is some pressure by the other girl to say, oh, I want 1.00

00:13:52.420 to be a part of that. I want to be included in this. And I think there's also more of a temptation

00:13:58.580 to kind of, I don't know, manifest a different identity through witchcraft or spirituality. And

00:14:07.340 certainly the witch talk that you're talking about is mostly women. It's mostly women who are 0.98

00:14:12.880 trying to manifest a better life through a variety of kind of witchy means. And some of

00:14:20.740 them are more seemingly innocent than others, like sage burning, the use of crystals for

00:14:26.340 kind of spiritual purposes, all kinds of things that I think are seen sometimes as just, well,

00:14:33.660 this is kind of the new age of self-help and self-love, but really do have an occultish background.

00:14:42.980 And I think along with that, it's finding a sense of belonging with a group because I've

00:14:48.800 had two personal friends in the last year who suffered a lot of loss in their families and

00:14:54.780 they really were searching for things and both have turned to Wicca to kind of find a community

00:15:00.260 and a group. And even in this Disney Plus cartoon, they talk about how this main character

00:15:06.980 kind of sets herself up to create a new family through her witchcraft exploration and says,

00:15:14.380 you know, I don't know what the family situation is in the cartoon, but they talk about her making

00:15:18.460 a new family as she studies witchcraft. And I thought, you know, that really is sort of at the

00:15:23.140 heart of a lot of these things where people just want to feel like they have a place that they belong,

00:15:27.040 where their life makes sense, where they can create the family they want, maybe instead of

00:15:30.920 the family they have. So these sorts of cartoons and games really appeal to that because it gives

00:15:36.360 you a sense of community. A lot of these are things that you can do with a group.

00:15:40.020 Yeah. It just goes to show that in a post-Christian world, people don't stop worshiping 0.96

00:15:43.940 and they don't stop seeking. They still want to connect to something higher. They still want to

00:15:48.560 believe there's something more than meets the eye. They still want, as you just said, community,

00:15:53.700 but I think they believe or they have been deceived into believing that Christianity can't offer that

00:16:02.940 because Christianity demands that you give things up, which is actually true. Christianity does demand 1.00

00:16:08.920 that you give things up. And so I think the message of Christ that you have to deny yourself,

00:16:13.340 take up your cross and follow me versus the satanic message of you can worship yourself and you can find

00:16:21.000 happiness and fulfillment that way. The same lie that basically he told Eve in the garden today in

00:16:26.740 our hyper-individualistic, narcissistic society. I think that that message is very attractive.

00:16:33.360 Oh, I can get all of the fruits of spiritualism without having to deny myself anything. And we know

00:16:41.100 that always ends in a dead end.

00:16:43.740 Absolutely. I think that's, I think you're spot on with all of this and that people want to be able

00:16:49.680 to control their outcomes themselves instead of giving their life up to, to God and letting him

00:16:56.260 be in control. They want to be able to control it. And these are all different ways that they think

00:16:59.620 that they can do that. And it never ends well.

00:17:14.640 There's a huge market for this. And I think a lot of Christians are deceived by what is kind of

00:17:21.020 referred to as the new age, which I think is sometimes a gateway into full-on witchcraft,

00:17:28.380 because some of it sounds very similar to the self-help stuff that we hear, the manifestation.

00:17:34.880 You think something, it can come into being. Basically, you deserve your goals. There's this

00:17:40.140 inner goddess inside of you that you just have to unleash and you'll be able to find and fulfill

00:17:47.260 all of the things that you're searching for. These are new age self-worship, even kind of

00:17:53.600 witchcrafty beliefs that I think even professing Christians have unknowingly taken on. Pew Research

00:17:59.840 did this interesting study to examine what Christians and those who have no religion believe

00:18:04.080 concerning the new age beliefs of things like reincarnation, astrology, psychics, and spiritual

00:18:10.500 energy and objects. That's something that we say a lot. I even will say that, like, I don't like the

00:18:15.020 energy of that. And I don't mean it in a new age way. I kind of just mean like vibe, which is

00:18:20.220 actually also new age. I guess just like the feeling of it, but it has become so colloquial.

00:18:25.840 Most Americans self-identify as Christians, but some still hold one or more new age beliefs. So

00:18:31.080 about 60% of American adults accept at least one of these new age beliefs. Reincarnation,

00:18:36.720 astrology, psychics, spiritual energy, and physical objects. 60%. 47% of evangelicals accept one of

00:18:45.800 these beliefs. Almost half. Wow. 70% of Catholics. 70% of Catholics believe in one of these new age 0.98

00:18:52.760 beliefs. 70% of Protestants in the black tradition believe them. 56% of agnostics. 80% of people whose

00:19:00.360 religion is nothing in particular. Adults under the age of 65, those who have not graduated from college,

00:19:06.900 racial and ethnic minorities, and Democrats are more likely to hold at least one new age belief.

00:19:13.940 Isn't that interesting? I think it's both shocking and not shocking at the same time because I think

00:19:20.240 because we have these sorts of programs, and you and I have talked about this before offline about how

00:19:25.060 a lot of these TV shows or games have been around for a long time. And, you know, you're exposed to it

00:19:30.240 little by little over time, and then you become desensitized or you think, oh, it's not that bad or

00:19:35.040 it's harmless or, you know, it's not that big of a deal. And I think that is why so many professing

00:19:39.680 Christians are like, well, I mean, horoscopes is just kind of a silly, fun thing. Or, you know, 1.00

00:19:44.720 going to a psychic, oh, that's just something silly and fun we did, you know, for a birthday.

00:19:48.840 But they do still sort of believe, well, it could be real or, you know, maybe this person has a gift

00:19:53.600 from God. And it's because we've been so conditioned to see it and hear it and get used to the language

00:19:59.100 that it suddenly doesn't seem like that big of a deal anymore. And I do think that's why it's

00:20:03.240 important to kind of keep an eye on what's going on with our TV shows or our games or our books,

00:20:07.420 because the more of it we allow in, the more normal it becomes. And then suddenly the things

00:20:13.120 that are good and are right and are pure don't seem important anymore. So, yeah.

00:20:20.520 And it just causes fear, I think, in our kids too. That's what we were talking about right before

00:20:25.720 the show, that this isn't new. Maybe the explicit satanic symbolism is newer. Like you see people like

00:20:33.500 Sam Smith or Lil Nas X. I mean, they are just explicitly dressing up like a caricature of Satan.

00:20:39.560 I mean, I don't think Satan really does have hooves and a pitchfork, but still, they're not ashamed of it.

00:20:44.340 I do think that that is somewhat new, although maybe the rockers of the 80s were kind of like that too.

00:20:51.840 But certainly marketed towards children. And people made fun of your, you know, Southern Baptist

00:20:57.240 grandma in the 80s who took that kind of stuff seriously and really cared about the content that

00:21:01.940 their kids and grandkids were consuming. But now that we've grown up, I'm like, oh, yeah, I think my

00:21:07.220 parents were right that I shouldn't have been watching Are You Afraid of the Dark? I'm aging myself.

00:21:13.420 The 90s. So weird. That was something that was on Disney. Even some of those like original movies

00:21:20.000 that Disney put out, a lot of them were cute and wholesome by today's standards. But some of them were

00:21:24.660 just scary. And because I wasn't allowed to watch them, but, you know, I had two older brothers.

00:21:30.240 And so sometimes I would watch things that I wasn't supposed to. And I would be laying in bed,

00:21:35.320 you know, probably five years old, scared because I just watched Are You Afraid of the Dark? And I'm

00:21:40.220 like, yes, I am. I'm scared of these ghosts actually, you know, come into my room. But I didn't

00:21:44.840 want to tell my parents because I knew that I wasn't allowed to watch it. And then if I confess that

00:21:48.940 that was why I was scared, then that was no good. And so that's also just something that we don't

00:21:53.280 want to give our children. If we can protect them as much as we can, we don't want to fill them with

00:21:57.480 the anxiety that comes from that kind of content, right? Absolutely. They're only little ones and

00:22:04.220 you want them to be able to enjoy their childhood and not lay in bed in fear at night because of

00:22:09.940 something they've seen on YouTube or on TV. And, you know, not all of it's bad. A lot of the shows have

00:22:14.780 little things, you know, that maybe seem occultist or have themes. Like I was telling you,

00:22:19.660 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, sometimes Minnie dresses up as a witch. And, you know, there are some of

00:22:24.080 those shows where it's not overt and we can't police every single thing. But you're right,

00:22:28.960 like just being able to kind of have a handle on what's out there and be cognizant of it and not

00:22:33.320 allow them to just watch YouTube or YouTube kids where it's just streaming constantly because we

00:22:38.380 don't know. And, you know, the people who are getting upset about what books kids are reading in

00:22:42.180 school, we do need to monitor what's out there. We do need to protect their minds. We do need to know

00:22:47.240 what they're reading and what teachers are talking about in the classroom. That's important. It was

00:22:52.400 important a hundred years ago. It's important today. Yeah. And all the people who watch Sabrina

00:22:57.340 the Teenage Witch are now growing up and they're making, I know. And you watched Bewitched too. I

00:23:03.180 don't think I watched that, but there are all those vampire shows that we watched, the books that we

00:23:08.500 read. There was a lot of dark stuff. I even remember like watching Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice is also

00:23:15.440 very dark. Some of the like, is it, what's that kind of like nightmare before Christmas type

00:23:23.780 stuff? Who's the guy? Tim Burton. Tim Burton. I almost said Tim Horton, but I think that's a

00:23:30.800 coffee brand in Canada. Anyway, so that kind of stuff was also dark. And so we did grow up with a

00:23:38.180 little of that. And now, and I think we would like to say, well, we turned out fine. One, you know,

00:23:43.880 maybe it did negatively affect us then, but also like, okay, well now our generation is the one

00:23:48.400 creating all of this smut. That's, oh, that's a great point. Cause yeah, I read all the like 0.86

00:23:53.400 goosebumps and all the R.L. Stine and yeah. And I didn't think it was a big deal as a kid,

00:23:58.840 but you're right. Like, yeah, exactly. Like some of them really were scary. And you know, I think

00:24:04.200 age appropriate is also what's important. Cause I feel like they've changed the standards for what's

00:24:08.880 age appropriate. What was rated R when I was a kid is now PG, right? It's just crazy how they've

00:24:15.740 changed the standard, but children's brains are still developing the same way, you know? So I,

00:24:21.460 I don't know. I don't always go by what like Disney plus saying this L house cartoon was okay for seven

00:24:27.440 plus. Well, clearly it's not. Clearly it's not. So. And kids are little sponges. Like I just

00:24:32.340 even notice with, with my kids, the things that they repeat, the things that they say.

00:24:37.240 And you think when they're young, well, they're not going to remember this. This doesn't affect

00:24:41.400 them. Cause I don't remember things from when I'm three, but you don't realize how everything that

00:24:45.540 you're consuming, especially at that age is becoming formative for you.

00:24:50.200 Yes. A hundred percent. It's just being embedded in their little minds.

00:24:54.380 Yeah. And so it's so important for us to know about this stuff. I wouldn't have known about it if

00:24:58.680 you hadn't pointed it out. So thank you for pointing it out. As always, Christians just need to be 1.00

00:25:02.640 discerning and God is so gracious that he has given us his word. And so if you're looking

00:25:07.220 for answers, if you're looking for fulfillment, if you're looking to connect to something bigger

00:25:11.700 than you, God gives us that through Christ and through his word. And so that's a wonderful

00:25:17.560 privilege. And we don't actually have to worry when we open up the word that we are communicating

00:25:22.260 with some kind of dark force, but only what is good and right and true.

00:25:26.020 Absolutely. It's the only place we need to look.

00:25:27.920 Yep. Thanks so much, Hillary. I appreciate it. Where can people follow you and find you and

00:25:31.900 all that good stuff?

00:25:32.800 I'm on Twitter and Instagram at Hillary Kennedy, and it's just Hillary with one L.

00:25:37.900 Hillary with one L. 0.76

00:25:38.620 Thanks, Mom, for making that tough for everybody.

00:25:40.560 Yes. And she does the four-minute buzz for Glenn, and you're a guest on a lot of shows

00:25:45.440 too. And maybe you'll see her on a random commercial, like I do sometimes when I'm traveling

00:25:50.500 the country. And I look up and I'm like, there's Hillary.

00:25:53.440 I do like to do the occasional commercial, Sonic America's Drive-In.

00:25:56.980 Exactly. Exactly. So if you recognize her, that's probably why. Thank you so much, Hillary.

00:26:00.880 Yeah, thanks for having me on.

00:26:14.860 Okay. So Christians must be on guard. I don't have to tell y'all who are listening to this podcast that 0.97

00:26:20.900 things are dark and things are evil out there. But remember that, as we said yesterday,

00:26:27.740 God's work doesn't always make headlines. His eternal plan of redemption is always going off

00:26:32.780 without a hitch. All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called

00:26:37.100 according to his purpose. Romans 8, 28. And he is still in the business, as ever, of saving lives,

00:26:44.380 of redeeming souls. And he is going to accomplish his purposes. And sometimes we have to dig deep for

00:26:53.020 the good, redemptive, beautiful, life-giving things that are happening because they are happening on a

00:26:58.820 daily basis. And he uses, graciously, Christians to be ambassadors of that goodness, of that light,

00:27:06.700 and of his life-saving purposes. And one of the ways that I love to see Christians being used in such 0.99

00:27:15.560 magnificent and miraculous ways is in the saving the lives of unborn children and caring for their moms

00:27:22.520 and dads. And thankfully, because of the hard work, mostly of Christians, they're pro-lifers of all

00:27:29.280 different kinds of religious backgrounds. But the vast majority of people who are anti-abortion in this

00:27:34.840 country are Christians, follow Jesus. And so because of the hard and persistent work, both in

00:27:42.500 the public and the private sphere of this group, we saw, after 49 years of basically unfettered bloodshed

00:27:50.920 of these pre-born children, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Dobbs decision last year, which then

00:27:56.440 allowed states to enact very strong restrictions against abortion. And we didn't know exactly what the

00:28:03.760 result would be. All we heard from the media was that women are going to die. Women are going to 1.00

00:28:09.060 die because of this. And we've talked about this in depth. We've debunked a lot of the stories,

00:28:13.600 a lot of those talking points. We can link some of those past episodes. We don't have time to get

00:28:17.740 into all of that right now. But we also knew and hoped that this would save the lives of image bearers

00:28:24.420 of God, that this would prevent these young children, these babies from going to the slaughter.

00:28:30.620 And according to CNN, that is exactly what has happened. So they reported last week that 32,000,

00:28:38.640 there were 32,000 fewer abortions in the United States six months after Dobbs. Like, let's just stop 0.99

00:28:45.840 right there. 32,000. 32,000 human beings that are going to be here on earth. Maybe more than that,

00:28:56.360 because in some of these cases, you might be talking about twins. You might be talking about

00:29:00.740 triplets. That would count as one abortion, but that would obviously count as two or three image

00:29:05.360 bearers of God. So at least 32,000 human beings are here on earth, are saved because of a law that was

00:29:15.800 passed in Mississippi that made its way to the Supreme Court that caused the Dobbs decision to be

00:29:23.120 decided by justices who were appointed over a span of 30 years, but by, I believe, five different

00:29:30.740 presidents. And all of this was put into place by pro-lifers who were persistent and who were

00:29:36.940 consistent in their fight on behalf of unborn children. And so now, because of this Dobbs decision,

00:29:44.400 32,000 fewer abortions were performed in six months. That's of 32,000 children who were saved,

00:29:53.000 or at least 32,000 children who were saved from poisoning in the first trimester, poisoning and

00:29:58.680 dismemberment in the second trimester, second trimester towards the end of it, and then towards

00:30:05.300 the third trimester, that involves forcing the baby into cardiac arrest using the same chemical

00:30:11.940 combination that is used in the lethal injection of murders on death row to make sure that that baby

00:30:18.020 dies inside the womb as it tries to wiggle away from the point and the pain of the needle containing

00:30:25.540 that deadly chemical combination. And then that baby is dismembered and brought out of the womb. There

00:30:32.040 were babies who were saved, who were saved from that fate because of the decision by the Supreme Court

00:30:39.780 and because the laws that have been enacted in conservative states. Praise God. Christian,

00:30:45.720 this is why politics matter. This is why politics matter. What do we say so often? Politics matter

00:30:51.680 because policy matters because people matter. That's an alliteration that we came up with on this show

00:30:57.700 that we talk about so much because it is so incredibly true. The Christians who say we shouldn't 1.00

00:31:04.180 get involved in politics, we shouldn't be involved in the culture war because it's too divisive,

00:31:09.020 it's too worldly. We don't want to get our hands dirty with that. We don't have to read up about

00:31:15.320 the complicated, complex issues. None of that matters. Jesus is coming back. We don't care about

00:31:21.860 the right or the left or Democrats or Republicans or voting or elections because we know Jesus is in

00:31:27.300 charge. Yes, Jesus is in charge. Yes, he's coming back. Yes, there will one day be a world without any

00:31:32.800 partisanship, without any politics, where we won't have to vote. We won't have to worry about abortion.

00:31:36.660 We won't have to worry about drag queen story. We won't have to worry about all of these things,

00:31:40.900 but we occupy the here and the now. And God did not place us here arbitrarily. If he did not want

00:31:47.480 us to occupy the here and the now and all the spheres of the world that are embedded in a society,

00:31:56.960 then he would have kept us in heaven. He wouldn't have given us these bodies. He wouldn't have placed

00:32:02.880 us on this tiny speck of eternity on which he placed us. But just like in Jeremiah 29, where we see

00:32:09.700 the exiles of Israel in Babylon and where God tells them, look, dwell where you are. Seek the welfare of

00:32:21.220 the city in which I have placed you as exiles. Christians are exiles in this world. God has placed 1.00

00:32:28.100 us providentially, purposely to be where we are and when we are. We are to seek the welfare of the

00:32:37.160 city, of the country in which God has placed us. One way, not the only way, but one way to do that

00:32:43.800 is through politics. And look, for us, abortion, the reality of male and female, the definition of

00:32:52.660 marriage and the family, while the world may call these political and culture war issues,

00:32:57.720 for the Christian, they're not. For the Christian, they're not. They're primarily biblical issues. 0.75

00:33:03.260 Yes, they become cultural and political. That's okay. They're moral. There are even philosophical

00:33:08.980 questions about them. But primarily for the Christian, they're biblical issues. They're theological

00:33:15.740 issues. These are issues that Christians have cared about far before the creation of the American 0.72

00:33:22.080 political system, far before the forging of Western civilization. These are issues that

00:33:27.100 Christians have cared about since the beginning of the church. And these are issues that we still

00:33:32.280 care about today because they're biblical issues. They're Genesis issues. They're Genesis 1 issues.

00:33:37.740 They're actually Genesis 1 issues. God created the heavens and the earth. If God created the heavens

00:33:43.700 and the earth, then he's the authority over all of it. He says what is and what isn't, what's right

00:33:47.240 and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad, what's good and what's evil, what's false and what's true.

00:33:52.760 He says when life begins. He says what life is valuable. He says what male and female is.

00:33:58.340 And there is not a realm in all of the earth over which he does not have ultimate authority. That

00:34:04.100 includes the political realm. So yes, how we vote, how we engage in these issues is a part of submitting

00:34:10.340 to the authority of God who is the creator of all things. We don't get to compartmentalize any part of

00:34:16.160 our lives or any part of the universe away from our faith or away from God. A worldview is supposed

00:34:22.140 to be total. And if we believe the first verse of the first chapter of the Bible, that is going to

00:34:27.720 affect how we think and what we do about everything, how we vote, how we talk, the issues that we advocate

00:34:35.020 for. Go down a little bit more. You'll see Genesis 127. That answers most of the controversial

00:34:40.700 culture war questions that people have today for the Christian. That God created us male and female.

00:34:46.700 In his image, he created us. In his image, he created us male and female. That answers the question

00:34:54.120 about what gender is. That answers the question about what a marriage is. That answers the question

00:34:59.220 about the value of human life. We are made in God's image different than any other creature creation

00:35:04.200 on earth. Done. We see what we should think about abortion, about gender, about the family. The

00:35:10.120 foundation is right there in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible. And when we submit to

00:35:17.480 God's authority in these things, we see lives saved because God's way is always better. God's way is

00:35:24.460 always better. Okay. Let me finish a little bit more about what CNN said. There were about 5,000

00:35:29.720 fewer abortions each month on average than there were in the months before the ruling, a drop of

00:35:33.940 about 6%. And the 13 states that enacted bans following Dobbs abortions fell by more than 95%,

00:35:39.700 with just a few reported each month from July to December. Praise God. Praise God. There were more

00:35:45.860 than 8,500 telehealth abortions in December, more than double compared to April. So there is that.

00:35:52.180 There is that, that women are still seeking abortions. Women who want abortions may cross 1.00

00:35:58.480 state lines. That's all true. And that's still tragic. But yes, we want to make it as difficult

00:36:03.160 as possible to murder a child. And so even though I am not happy, I am not glad that a woman can cross 1.00

00:36:09.380 state lines and get someone to kill her child. I still want it to be as difficult as possible for

00:36:17.180 someone to do that in these red states. That is absolutely just.

00:36:33.540 States with the largest declines in the number of abortions during the six-month period after the

00:36:38.120 Dobbs decision compared to baseline, Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, Arizona, Louisiana.

00:36:43.360 And then there were also states where there were significantly more abortions, Florida, 0.99

00:36:48.580 Illinois, because, you know, Florida just enacted that six-week ban, has a lot of exceptions,

00:36:52.820 but did enact a six-week ban. Prior to that, I think it was 15 weeks. Prior to that, not too long

00:36:58.000 ago, I believe it was just last year that it became 15 weeks. And then before that, I'm pretty sure it was

00:37:03.080 24. It was a very liberal state for abortion. And so 7,190 more abortions in Florida and more in 0.99

00:37:13.200 Illinois, North Carolina, Colorado, and Michigan. So we see that abortion restrictions work. That

00:37:18.760 doesn't mean that we don't care about the well-being of the mother. That doesn't mean that we

00:37:22.060 don't believe that we shouldn't save her life when that is needed. I believe that the

00:37:27.400 mother and the child should get all of the medical care possible in order to save and protect both of

00:37:34.080 them. We understand that, unfortunately, early delivery is sometimes necessary to save the life

00:37:38.720 of the mother. And in that process, the baby might die. We just don't believe in intentionally

00:37:43.720 killing a child inside the womb because both of those lives matter. God believes that both of those

00:37:51.420 lives matter. And as far as after birth, I don't want to hear that Christians are only pro-birth. Yes,

00:37:57.360 we're pro-birth. I think that's better than being anti-birth, by the way, even if we were to stop there.

00:38:01.880 But Christians don't stop there. Christians have been doing the work that pro-choice activists say

00:38:07.840 needs to be done before we can really be pro-life for years and years and years, really since the

00:38:13.260 inception of the church, but certainly since Roe v. Wade in the 70s. The pregnancy centers that provide 0.99

00:38:18.840 all of the resources that meet all of the needs that this mother, that these families could have,

00:38:26.720 they have existed for a very long time. If you're concerned that there's not enough work being done

00:38:30.860 for these women in crisis who find themselves with surprise pregnancies, why don't you just take a 1.00

00:38:35.460 second to look up your local pregnancy center? Show up there today. See what money you can give. 1.00

00:38:40.080 See what time you can give. I promise. I promise that they will put these things to good use. So

00:38:44.020 rather than just complaining about work that's not being done, why don't you be a part of the solution

00:38:48.560 as many Christians have been for years and years? So thank you, God. Thank you, God, for saving these

00:38:53.080 lives. I pray for the lives of these image bearers. I pray that they would know Christ and the power of

00:38:58.440 his resurrection. I pray that they would make a beautiful and positive impact on the space that

00:39:04.100 they occupy. Their lives are not a mistake. Their lives might be hard. They might be poor. They might

00:39:09.760 be with parents who did not expect them and do not want them. That doesn't mean that they don't

00:39:14.920 deserve to live. They do because they are image bearers of God just as much as the rest of us. So

00:39:20.000 praise God. Praise God for the work that he's doing. I just wanted to close out on a positive note.

00:39:25.120 All right. Thanks so much for listening. Tomorrow we will be with James Lindsay. So we had to reschedule

00:39:31.760 that from last week. Oh, man, we've got so much to cover. So many of the things that you guys have

00:39:36.740 been asking me to cover. We are finally going to get to tomorrow. That horrible Washington law that is

00:39:46.980 now saying that kids can be taken away from their parents if they want a gender transition and their

00:39:52.840 parents don't support it. The UN pushing to decriminalize child rape. They call it sexual

00:39:59.540 interaction between an adult and a minor. But we know what that really is. We're going to be

00:40:03.620 uncovering all of that. What's really going on? And we're finally going to be talking about the

00:40:06.820 Bud Light controversy, too. And James Lindsay is going to break it all down for us. We might also

00:40:11.220 talk about a few of our disagreements. So it'll be good. It'll probably be two parts because I always

00:40:15.920 have a lot to say with James Lindsay. So that's all I got for today. Thanks so much for listening.

00:40:21.560 Leave a five star review if you love this show. Appreciate you guys. See you back here tomorrow.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 18, 2023

Ep 790 ｜ The Rise of 'Christian' Witchcraft ｜ Guest： Hilary Kennedy

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