Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 81 ｜ Purity Culture

00:00:00.000 Hello, relatable listeners. Welcome to Theological Thursdays. I hope that everyone is having a great

00:00:06.540 week. So as I said, we are going to talk a little bit about theology, but I also want to talk about

00:00:13.320 some abortion news because, you know, some things just happen during the week and they need to be

00:00:18.800 covered even if they don't fit into our categories for Tuesday, Thursday. As most of you guys know,

00:00:24.140 Tuesday, I typically do news. Thursday, I typically do Bible-type stuff or approaching some kind of

00:00:30.320 cultural issue from a biblical perspective or something that's happening within the church.

00:00:34.560 Today, there's a lot to talk about, but I do want to talk about this item in the news,

00:00:38.680 which is that the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act that was authored by Ben Sasse was

00:00:44.780 shot down by mostly Democrats in the Senate. And I want to talk about what that bill was,

00:00:49.360 what that means for the pro-choice movement or the pro-choice side, what that says about Democrats,

00:00:55.760 what we as pro-lifers need to be saying and doing. And we're also then going to transition

00:01:02.400 into purity culture, which is something that I ranted about on my story last week, I think,

00:01:08.820 and where that is within the Christian church and the different ideas of what purity culture should be,

00:01:15.620 how it's been damaging, how it's been beneficial. And I'm going to give my take on it

00:01:19.000 if we have time. I want to talk about the Methodist church and the vote that was just held

00:01:23.500 in St. Louis for the Methodist denomination. I'm not sure if I'll have time to get into all of that,

00:01:29.580 but a lot of you guys have messaged me about the Methodist church and their stance. Well,

00:01:36.600 I'm not going to talk about it quite yet, but their stance on LGBTQ matters. So first,

00:01:41.540 let's talk about the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Very long name of the bill.

00:01:46.320 Like I said, it was authored by Ben Sasse. This bill does not address abortion, okay?

00:01:51.420 Shouldn't be controversial. We shouldn't even be talking about whether this is a pro-life bill or

00:01:56.260 whether this is a pro-choice bill. This is just a practical bill. It has nothing to do with abortion.

00:02:01.360 It doesn't have to do with late-term abortion. It doesn't have to do with partial birth abortion. 0.94

00:02:04.880 This is a bill that says that a baby who survives an abortion, who is out of the womb,

00:02:11.080 so laying next to the mother, laying in the operation room, is alive because it survived

00:02:17.540 a botched abortion, that that baby has to be taken care of just like you would take care of a wanted 1.00

00:02:24.160 child. That you have to attend to that child's life and care for that child efficiently, effectively,

00:02:30.300 and diligently, just like you would care for a wanted baby or any other patient. So this is what

00:02:35.820 the bill says, which you can read at congress.gov. It says, one, if an abortion results in the live

00:02:41.360 birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States

00:02:46.480 and entitled to all the protections of such laws. Two, any infant born alive under an abortion or

00:02:52.660 within a hospital, clinic, or other facility has the same claim to the protection of the law that

00:02:57.440 would arise for any newborn or for any person who comes to a hospital, clinic, or other facility

00:03:02.360 for screening and treatment or otherwise becomes a patient within its care. So what this means is

00:03:09.020 a child is immediately and diligently cared for. I'm still reading from the summary of the bill,

00:03:13.840 by the way. Child is immediately and diligently cared for as you would any other child. A child

00:03:19.000 is admitted to a hospital as soon as possible, requires any employee of the clinic or hospital

00:03:23.640 who witnesses a failure by the provider to care for the child and admit them to a hospital,

00:03:28.000 must report it to a state or federal law enforcement agency. The guilty abortion provider,

00:03:34.120 so the abortion provider who fails to care for the child and admit them to the hospital,

00:03:38.340 would be subject to a fine or up to five years in prison. Personally, that's not enough of a

00:03:43.600 pinnacle, a pinnacle, what? Penalty? I don't know what I was trying to say. Penalty for that. I think

00:03:49.580 it needs to be much harsher. Whoever intentionally performs or attempts to perform an overt act that

00:03:55.540 kills a child born alive, described under subsection A, shall be punished as anyone else

00:04:02.720 would for intentionally killing a human being. It also says the mother of the child will not be 0.89

00:04:08.380 prosecuted. So like I said, nothing to do with abortion, no restrictions on abortion. There are

00:04:14.460 no loopholes that makes it harder to get an abortion in this particular bill. In fact, in 2002,

00:04:20.080 there was a similar bill that was signed by George W. Bush called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act,

00:04:25.520 that bill defined infants as persons under U.S. law, but it didn't give requirements for how an

00:04:31.740 abortion provider would have to care for the born alive child who survived an abortion. That bill, 0.99

00:04:39.160 though, that defined a child that was just born as a person, which is not a radical concept,

00:04:43.740 it's radical to think that some people wouldn't agree with that definition, that bill passed in

00:04:48.260 2002, passed the Senate unanimously. So Democrats all agreed that, yeah, this is obvious. This is a

00:04:55.160 common sense piece of legislation. This is something that we all agree on. This is not a partisan issue.

00:04:59.940 This is a compassion issue. This is a practical issue. It has nothing to do with politics and

00:05:05.900 whether you're pro-choice or pro-life. This is about protecting born children. Democrats agreed on that

00:05:11.860 in 2002. And now, just 17 years later, you don't have a single Democrat. Well, actually, some Democrats

00:05:18.820 did agree. Most Democrats, the vast majority of Democrats, except for a few, I think it was three

00:05:24.940 Democrats who actually voted for the piece of legislation, the vast majority of Democrats voted

00:05:29.880 against it. That is yet another sign of just how radical and how radically left the left and Democrats

00:05:35.900 have gone. So that was the reason, though, the fact that the Born Alive Infants Protection Act did not

00:05:41.760 actually specify how abortion providers should care for the babies if they survived an abortion.

00:05:47.880 That is why the new bill was authored by Ben Sasse. The bill needed 60 votes to proceed. 53 were in favor

00:05:55.980 and 44 opposed, all except for three Democrats. Like I said, three Democrats opposed. Three Republicans,

00:06:02.240 including Murkowski, did not vote. This shows you just how far Democrats, pro-choicers, people on the

00:06:15.820 left are willing to go to advance their agenda, that they're not even willing to protect children

00:06:20.760 that are born. And they want to scoff at us. They want to laugh at us when we say that they're pro-infanticide.

00:06:26.880 But what else are we supposed to think? I mean, they're now on the record saying that they don't

00:06:31.680 want to defend, protect vulnerable babies that have been born alive after an abortion. I mean,

00:06:38.640 there really is no two sides to this. There are no two moral sides to this. And yet Planned Parenthood,

00:06:43.560 of course, is defending themselves or attacking this piece of legislation or this bill that was

00:06:49.920 authored by Ben Sasse. The CEO of Planned Parenthood tweeted this. At Planned Parenthood, we will always

00:06:55.980 fight lies and misinformation designed to restrict patients' health and rights, including the right to save

00:07:01.620 legal abortion. Again, bill had nothing to do with abortion, you lying weirdo. Thank you to the 0.98

00:07:09.680 pro-reproductive health senators, pro-reproductive health senators, who blocked this bill. Hashtag

00:07:15.840 protect providers. And then she tweeted along with that a statement from Planned Parenthood that said

00:07:21.880 that this bill would have singled out providers and subjected them to harsh criminal penalties,

00:07:27.960 the fine in five years. Harsh criminal penalties based on misinformation. My question is,

00:07:35.340 what misinformation? You had a lot of Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer, Maisie Hirono, I think

00:07:41.600 that's her name, standing up and saying that this is based on a lie. There's so much misinformation in

00:07:46.640 this bill. No one that I heard cited any specific language in the bill to say what was actually

00:07:51.380 misinformation. Where's the lie? I would love for a Democrat to tell me what the lie is.

00:07:57.400 Stephen King tweeted that Republicans, that President Trump was lying about this particular

00:08:01.800 bill protecting born children. They're saying, no, that's deception. That's misinformation. I guarantee

00:08:08.140 you the vast majority of people that are saying this is misinformation and a lie and deception have not

00:08:12.960 read the bill. It takes only a few minutes to read the bill. Get some information, get some knowledge

00:08:18.360 before you spout off about things that you don't know. But it's actually crazy that they're not even

00:08:23.100 trying to defend the morality of not protecting life outside of the womb. They're just saying it's 0.68

00:08:27.880 a lie. They're just in denial about it. They're just going to say that it's not true because they know

00:08:33.320 there is no moral defense for the stance that they're taking. There just isn't. This is eugenics. 0.96

00:08:39.460 This is saying because a child is born into a vulnerable situation, because a child isn't wanted,

00:08:44.700 because a child might end up poor, because a child might have a hard life, and because mostly

00:08:49.400 because the woman just doesn't want to raise a child, that they should be killed, that they don't 1.00

00:08:54.020 have any dignity, they don't have any sanctity of life, that they don't have any protection under the

00:08:58.420 law. Why? Can you tell me one logical, moral, philosophical, religious, legal reason why that

00:09:05.300 makes any sense besides the fact that you're bloodthirsty? There just isn't one. So President Trump

00:09:11.800 tweeted, Senate Democrats just voted against legislation to prevent the killing of newborn

00:09:16.660 infant children. The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don't mind executing

00:09:21.780 babies after birth. This will be remembered as one of the most shocking votes in the history of

00:09:26.480 Congress. If there's one thing we should all agree on, it's protecting the lives of innocent babies.

00:09:31.180 Absolutely an amen. Now, do I think that President Trump wrote that? Probably not. I don't really care.

00:09:36.300 It's his administration that is pro-life, and they've done a lot of great pro-life things. I'm going to get to

00:09:41.180 one that they just did in a couple seconds. But he's absolutely right. And you had all of these

00:09:47.820 people, like I said, tweeting at him saying, this is a lie. This is a lie. You had Planned Parenthood,

00:09:52.400 the president of Planned Parenthood saying that this is a lie. This is not true. Where's the lie?

00:09:57.980 What misinformation is it? Can you tell me which part of the bill is based on misinformation and a lie?

00:10:03.420 Which part? The part that says a baby that survives an abortion is a human being? Can you scientifically

00:10:10.040 tell me why that's not true? Of course you can't. Of course you can't. I mean, I cannot even think

00:10:18.360 about how you justify that in your mind. How exhausted do you have to be to do that much

00:10:25.360 mental gymnastics to justify letting a child die? Gasp for air. A child who just wants to be held by

00:10:33.420 its mother. A child who instinctively is reaching for its mom. A child who is probably writhing in pain

00:10:39.720 because it just survived its murder. And you can just sit there and let the child cry. Let the child

00:10:48.400 suffocate. Let the child just die slowly. I don't understand how you can claim to have any moral 1.00

00:11:00.560 credibility on any issue whatsoever and stand for that. This is not about being pro-choice or pro-life.

00:11:08.280 We're not even talking right now about your stance on abortion. We're talking about your stance on

00:11:12.440 babies. And let me just say for a second to the hipster, woke social justice Christians who always 0.59

00:11:26.900 have something to say about what's going on in the news, who always talk about the least of these,

00:11:31.000 who always talk about how we need socialism to help the poor, who always talk about the dangers of

00:11:36.740 white privilege, who had so much to say after the Jussie Smollett hoax about how dangerous it is to live in

00:11:41.980 this country if you have a certain color of skin or if you have a certain sexual orientation and how

00:11:46.680 important it is for us to just be loving and inclusive and accepting and to create this great

00:11:52.500 progressive world in which there's no classism, there's no sexism, there's no homophobia, all of

00:11:57.500 this stuff. They have nothing to say about the slaughtering of unborn and just-born children.

00:12:02.880 So we can talk about all of the social justice issues that you woke Christians are interested in.

00:12:08.520 That's fine. I am fine talking about racial reconciliation in the church if there is any

00:12:15.720 inherent value in diversity. I am willing to talk about how you feel about LGBT issues. We can talk

00:12:26.940 about these things and we can have honest discussions about these things. That's fine. But you cannot

00:12:33.220 justify your silence on a reality that is so stark, that is so undebatable as rescuing children,

00:12:42.160 defenseless human beings in and outside of the womb. There's just nothing to debate. There's nothing to

00:12:48.120 talk about. We should be united in this. Even if we disagree on other issues, this is an issue that we

00:12:53.920 should be united in. There is no two sides about it. And I try to be open-minded on particular issues in

00:13:00.220 which the Bible allows me to be open-minded. If there is room for debate, that I am always willing

00:13:07.340 and ready to welcome a debate or to welcome a productive conversation or to see another side

00:13:12.620 of it. There are no two sides to this. There is zero other sides other than being on the side of life.

00:13:19.340 So if your favorite Christian leader has a lot to say about social justice, but the only kind of 0.99

00:13:27.340 social justice they're talking about is diversity and they have nothing to say about abortion,

00:13:35.620 that person doesn't really care about justice. They care about being woke. And we're not called

00:13:40.300 to be woke. We're called to be biblical. We're called to be holy. And there are very few holier

00:13:50.840 causes than defending the least of these. And that goes for not just unborn babies. It does go for the

00:13:56.080 poor. It does go for those in vulnerable situations. It goes for mothers in crisis as well. That's what

00:14:00.840 we're called to as Christians. There aren't two sides to that. So President Trump and his

00:14:07.180 administration has done a really good thing. They are set to redirect millions of dollars away from

00:14:11.500 abortion providers. This is according to the New York Times. The Trump administration announced on

00:14:15.900 Friday that it will bar organizations that provide abortion referrals from receiving federal family

00:14:21.240 planning money, a step that could strip millions of dollars from Planned Parenthood and direct it

00:14:31.260 towards religiously based anti-abortion groups. Of course, this is a left-leaning publication,

00:14:36.240 a left-leaning article, which is why they say religiously based anti-abortion groups rather than

00:14:41.960 groups that are aiming to protect human life. The New York Times says clinics will be able to talk to

00:14:48.400 patients about abortion, but not where they can get one. And clinics will no longer have to counsel

00:14:53.640 women on all reproductive options, including abortion. Yeah, that's because abortion isn't 1.00

00:14:57.720 a reproductive option. Reproduction's already been done. A change that will make anti-abortion

00:15:03.960 providers eligible for funding. Again, pro-life providers. No Title 10 funds will be able to go to

00:15:11.740 facilities that perform abortions. In order to get their funding, they will have to perform abortions

00:15:16.380 in a separate building. I believe that's what the stipulation is. This is going to be challenged in

00:15:21.600 court. Of course, you've got people like Planned Parenthood and pro-choicers unhappy about this.

00:15:26.780 There already is something called the Hyde Amendment, where technically taxpayer funds are not allowed

00:15:31.140 to directly support abortion. But we already know that Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers

00:15:37.340 have sneaky ways to make sure that our taxpaying money, the $500 million that currently goes to

00:15:43.180 Planned Parenthood every year still does support abortions, of course. You wouldn't give money to

00:15:50.320 a known child molester or someone who you know is going to buy child porn, for example, even if that

00:15:58.420 money isn't directly going to child porn. You're not going to support someone that does that. Of course

00:16:03.520 not. And so we shouldn't be directing any money whatsoever to abortion providers. I shouldn't

00:16:08.380 have to subsidize Planned Parenthood. Okay. So, well, I was going to say speaking of all of that,

00:16:14.840 but I kind of went out of order. I talked about the hipster Christians before I was going to, 0.98

00:16:19.640 so my transition doesn't work very well. So we're just going to do a stark transition where we talked

00:16:24.000 about abortion, and now we're going to switch over to talking about hipster Christians yet again.

00:16:30.480 And we're going to talk about it in light of purity culture. So talking about purity culture is

00:16:34.880 something I've seen a lot recently on YouTube, on Instagram, from this movement that's called

00:16:42.340 like bad Christians, where they are, they're basically just unbiblical Christians, or they 0.98

00:16:48.860 call themselves Christians, but they're basically just living unbiblically under the name of Christ. 0.88

00:16:53.000 They are culturally convenient Christians where they're like, yeah, we can do all this sinful stuff, 1.00

00:16:57.720 and God doesn't care because Jesus is accepting and awesome, and we can cuss and be cruel and rebellious

00:17:04.320 and look just like the world, but we're awesome because we're, we love Jesus. And they just think

00:17:10.740 that that's uber rebellious. And I'm like, that is so old. It's like, that's as old as Adam and Eve

00:17:16.280 believing the lie that did God really say, and if you do this, you'll be more like God. You're doing

00:17:22.000 the same thing that Eve did, girl. Like, that's not cool. That's not rebellious. And part of this

00:17:25.960 is pushing back against the purity culture. If you remember the Lutheran pastor that we talked about

00:17:33.180 last year, the female pastor who was taking purity rings from her congregation, and I think women 0.99

00:17:38.840 around the country, because she writes books, to melt into a gold vagina statue to protest purity 1.00

00:17:46.740 culture. You probably remember her. Well, she actually did that. She posted on her Instagram 0.99

00:17:51.780 a picture with her and Gloria Steinem, you know, world-famous feminist who is like 170 right now, 0.99

00:17:57.940 with her little golden vagina statue, a maid of all of these purity rings. And she was really excited 0.99

00:18:04.660 about that. She did hashtag shameless. And I think that's her whole thing, that we shouldn't have

00:18:08.940 any shame over what we've done sexually. She is one of many, what they call themselves, they call

00:18:14.620 themselves, I think, sex positive Christians. And what they mean by sex positive is not just that they

00:18:20.240 think of sex positively, but that they think really most of these people I've seen so far really just

00:18:25.580 think all kinds of sex goes. And you shouldn't feel guilty about it. You shouldn't be ashamed of

00:18:29.620 it. Someone sent me an Instagram story of a popular sex positive woman the other day, sex positive 1.00

00:18:34.740 Christian woman the other day, who said that, no, God doesn't care about what you do sexually, 1.00

00:18:41.380 doesn't care about, oh, having sex before marriage. He has a lot bigger things to think about. Okay. 0.90

00:18:47.900 So let me just say first that I agree with a lot of these women. They're mostly women that there was 0.98

00:18:56.220 a problem with purity culture growing up in the youth group. I have always gone to church. I went

00:19:00.980 to a Baptist church growing up. That is a great church in so many ways. But the books I read in

00:19:07.440 the sermons that I heard about purity growing up were mostly you should not have sex or even get close

00:19:14.160 to sex because then your husband probably won't like you as much. There was actually this book,

00:19:19.600 it was called dateable. And I remember this distinctly. It was probably, I probably read it

00:19:23.560 before I ever had a boyfriend or anything. I was probably 15. I remember distinctly a chapter with

00:19:28.440 illustrations comparing, comparing you. I think it was probably a girl or a guy, but comparing you,

00:19:36.760 the reader to a car. And the more you use a car, the more used it is, the less it's worth. And the

00:19:43.780 less likely someone will be to buy it. They said, it's the same thing. The more you do in your

00:19:50.380 physical relationship with a guy or a girl sexually, the less desirable you'll be. And it's crazy to me

00:19:57.700 looking back that that didn't hit me as completely blasphemous and unbiblical. So the motivation that 0.50

00:20:04.660 many of us had, at least that I had, and was taught to me in books and in youth group was that

00:20:09.980 you need to be pure for your future husband or future wife. You need to be pure for your future 0.90

00:20:16.320 spouse. That's your motivation. That is your goal. But my problem is with that is not the purity side

00:20:23.200 of it. The problem that these sex positive Christians, rebellious, hipster Christians have 1.00

00:20:28.780 with the purity culture is the purity part, which their position is unbiblical because God does call us

00:20:35.480 to purity. Purityness does call us to purity. My problem with purity culture is not the purity part,

00:20:41.900 but the culture part. The way that they were teaching it, the motivation that they were giving us

00:20:47.660 to be pure, to be holy. The Bible says, be holy because I am holy, not be holy so your husband will like

00:20:55.420 you better. Be holy so you're not like a used car when you are ready to get married. Be holy and so

00:21:02.780 your husband sees you as whole and pure and beautiful. That is the wrong motivation.

00:21:07.940 And I kind of look back at a lot of the things that I believed as a teenager. First of all,

00:21:13.900 I'll just say that none of that stuff helped me very much. None of it was very motivating to me

00:21:18.560 to be pure for your husband because all of that stuff doesn't last. It's not internal. It's just kind

00:21:24.640 of this external superficial motivation that doesn't really take hold of your heart and take hold of

00:21:30.640 your soul. And I must have known that innately. But I did have this fixation on my future husband

00:21:36.620 as a teenager. I was obsessed with this idea of who is he? What's he going to be like? What's he

00:21:42.020 going to look like? I can't wait to get married, which a lot of it is completely normal. I have loved

00:21:47.180 boys since I was probably like two years old. Like I literally had a boyfriend from the time of

00:21:53.100 preschool. So I've always loved boys, always loved the idea of getting married. I think a lot of that

00:21:57.360 is totally natural for women and it's fine. But I had this obsession as a teenager with who I was

00:22:03.900 going to get married to. I had a journal that I wrote to my future husband. I would write like

00:22:08.720 letters to my future husband. I would pray for my future husband. And that was all part of purity

00:22:13.680 culture, all part of what we were told that we should do to stay pure and to think about our future

00:22:20.500 husband. What I was not told or what I don't remember being told was that we are supposed to be

00:22:25.900 holy and be pure and be obedient for Christ and with Christ and because of Christ and through Christ,

00:22:34.660 not of our own doing, not of our own strength and not for our future husband, but because it's the

00:22:41.700 biblical and right thing to do as a disciple of Christ, to be obedient to him. And because he loved

00:22:47.420 us so much and because he died for us and he wiped our slate clean, he has made us new. He has

00:22:54.100 introduced us to a new and better and more pure and holier way. I don't remember learning that.

00:23:01.420 I remember this very horizontal motivation of the purer you are, the more liked you're going to be,

00:23:08.500 the more your husband will see you as this fresh, awesome, beautiful, perfect virgin,

00:23:14.760 not be holy because God is holy. So my problem is with the motivation of purity culture

00:23:23.100 that we have taught young people. And again, it's not the purity part that I have a problem with.

00:23:29.520 The Bible is very clear. Genesis 2, 24. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be 0.59

00:23:34.020 united to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Hebrews 13, 4. Marriage should be honored by

00:23:39.000 all and the marriage bed should not be defiled. The Bible has a lot to say about sexual immorality.

00:23:43.740 The Bible is very clear that sex is only meant between a man and a woman in the context of marriage.

00:23:48.900 So it's not the purity part that I have a hard time with when it comes to purity culture.

00:23:53.500 The part that I have a hard time with is the motivation behind it and that it's not particularly

00:23:57.780 biblical. And I said this on my Instagram story, and I know it caused a little bit of controversy,

00:24:04.280 although a lot of you agreed with me. This idea of praying for your future husband,

00:24:08.420 I actually saw a really big influencer, a Christian. She's not a Christian influencer, 0.59

00:24:11.940 but she's a YouTuber who is a Christian. She posted about praying for your future spouse.

00:24:17.040 And I think that just made me think really for the first time, is that what we should

00:24:21.820 be teaching our kids? And I'm not saying this is like a salvation issue. If we disagree on this,

00:24:27.120 this is just kind of maybe a point of contention that we can have all within the realm of biblical

00:24:31.480 Christianity. I'm not sure that I am going to encourage my daughter to pray for her future 0.99

00:24:36.260 husband. It won't be bad if she does, if she decides to write a journal to think about and pray for

00:24:41.860 a future husband. She wants to do that every now and then. I'm not certainly going to stop her,

00:24:46.300 but I'm also not going to encourage it. And I'm going to have conversations with her about that,

00:24:51.780 about whether or not she's fixating too much on being married. Because I do think another aspect

00:24:57.420 of the purity culture and saying your motivation for being pure is to be pure for your future husband

00:25:04.100 is an unhealthy obsession with getting married that is not biblical. The Bible says, Paul said,

00:25:09.940 it is better to be single than to be married so you can fully devote yourself to Christ.

00:25:13.700 And if that's true, and if Christ is our fullness of joy, then no desiring to be married isn't bad.

00:25:19.580 Being married isn't bad. I love being married. But obsessing over being married and thinking that

00:25:24.340 God is going to guarantee you a husband one day, I think that is wrong. And I think it does distract

00:25:29.300 you from a very early age from what is important. I am much more concerned with my daughter having her

00:25:37.140 satisfaction and her identity and her hope and her joy and her peace in Christ than I am with her

00:25:44.740 taking solace in the fact that she might get married one day. Because remember, all marriage is,

00:25:50.640 is a reflection between Christ and the church. It is a reflection of the gospel. It is a reflection

00:25:55.840 between the divine relationship between Christ and the church. It's just an early, early, earthly

00:26:01.580 representation of that, which makes it beautiful, which makes it holy, which makes it awesome, which

00:26:06.860 makes it something that can beautifully glorify God. But it is just an earthly rendering of a spiritual

00:26:14.180 reality that is a lot better than the earthly one. And so I am much more concerned with my daughter

00:26:21.860 knowing who she is in Christ than praying for her future husband. Maybe you can do both.

00:26:30.020 I think I found it difficult now looking back as a hormonally charged 13-year-old girl reading

00:26:36.520 Redeeming Love over and over again, waiting for my Michael Hosea to separate my hope in my husband

00:26:43.400 or to deprioritize my hope in my husband under my hope in Christ. It's just very difficult for you to

00:26:51.720 do as a child. And so I don't plan to aid my daughter in obsessing over who she's going to

00:26:59.200 marry or obsessing over being married. Like I said, it's awesome. It's a natural feeling that all of us

00:27:05.120 have. But I want her to know that her most important relationship in her life is her relationship with

00:27:09.680 Christ, her satisfaction in Him, and the reason why she strives towards holiness through the power of

00:27:15.460 the Holy Spirit and the reason why she wants to be pure, the reason why she should conduct her life

00:27:22.540 in a righteous and holy and pure way is not because some guy will like her better, but because God has

00:27:29.400 called her to that and has called her holy and has called her new and has called her a new creation in

00:27:34.840 Him. That should be her motivation. And I also just want to speak for a second on this idea because a lot

00:27:41.420 of you listening were probably like me, like you weren't perfect before you got married. You didn't

00:27:46.700 live this perfectly holy, righteous, sinless, well, no one lives a sinless life or stainless life before

00:27:52.620 you got married. Maybe you got married with some regrets. Maybe your spouse has some regrets. Maybe

00:27:58.820 neither of you are virgins. Maybe both of you are virgins, but you've done things that you don't

00:28:03.560 think are great or one of you has, whatever it is. Know that if you are a new creation in Christ and

00:28:10.600 you are a believer and you've been saved by Christ, your slate has been wiped clean. There was this

00:28:16.340 ridiculous blog post by the something wife, the happy wife, the joyful wife, some blogger. It went 0.99

00:28:24.640 viral. And the title of the blog post was men want debt-free virgins with no tattoos. So be that. And

00:28:31.880 this is exactly what I'm talking about when I'm talking about the horizontal and the sinful motivations

00:28:36.620 of a lot of people in this purity culture world, the traditional purity culture world is this idea

00:28:41.980 that you should be pure because your husband wants you to be pure. That's not a godly way to think.

00:28:47.280 I'm sorry. You can have preferences, but if God sees someone who has committed sins as new, as clean,

00:28:54.360 as pure, as perfect because of his son, then you as a guy or as a woman have no right to see that 0.99

00:29:02.820 person any differently. Now, I'm not saying you can't use discernment. If someone, for example,

00:29:07.120 has been guilty for the past 15 years of credit card fraud, like you might want to take a second

00:29:12.040 look at whether or not this is someone you want to marry. You don't have to marry someone, but it is

00:29:17.880 wrong for you not to forgive someone when Christ has already forgiven them because God is really the

00:29:23.120 only person that would be justified in holding a grudge. And through Christ, he doesn't for those who

00:29:29.960 are saved. And so it's important to see those who are new creations as new creations and not hold

00:29:36.520 their sins against them simply because maybe we didn't commit the same sins. I think that's wrong.

00:29:41.680 And so you should take hope and you should take joy and you should be assured by the fact that Jesus

00:29:48.900 has made you clean and what you've done in the past doesn't define who you are now. It doesn't

00:29:53.580 admire who you are now. It doesn't make you any less desirable. It doesn't make you any less of a

00:29:58.440 good prospect for a wife if you are going to get married one day. And just rest in the new identity

00:30:04.620 that he's given you because quite frankly, you have no right to see yourself any differently than he

00:30:08.580 sees you because he knows you way better than you do. And he has called you new and clean and through

00:30:14.180 him righteous. So let's see how much time do we have? Okay. I think that's going to be it. I will just

00:30:22.400 say maybe we'll talk about it more next week because there are developments happening. So,

00:30:27.940 and I'm, as you're listening to this, I am recording this the day, a couple of days before.

00:30:32.700 So I don't want to give you too much information that is going to be inaccurate by the time you

00:30:35.940 listen to it. But the United Methodist representatives I'm reading from Greenville News

00:30:41.080 Online have rejected plans that would change the denomination's restrictions on LGBT clergy and

00:30:46.460 same-sex marriages. Committee members at an international conference in St. Louis have rejected two sets

00:30:51.540 plans that would have allowed individual churches to decide for themselves on LGBT issues and instead

00:30:56.680 advanced a plan that would keep current rules forbidding same-sex church weddings and LGBT

00:31:02.680 clergy. This is the Methodist denomination. A lot of people were surprised by this. There was,

00:31:08.160 I think it was called a one-church plan that LGBT advocates were pushing forward saying individual

00:31:13.040 churches should be able to decide whether or not we want, you know, gay clergy, whether or not we want

00:31:18.480 to perform gay weddings. But the Methodist, the United Methodist representative said, no, 0.93

00:31:24.240 we're going to stick with the traditional plan. This is what the Bible says about the definition

00:31:28.000 of marriage. This is what the Bible says about good and holy sexuality. And the Methodist denomination

00:31:33.780 is going to stick under the traditional plan. That is the case for now, as I am reading and learning

00:31:39.760 about this, but apparently it could change. There could be a comeback of this one-church plan.

00:31:45.320 So I'll keep you updated on that as I can, but that's it for today. Thank you guys so much for

00:31:51.000 listening. As always, please send me feedback. Send me an email, ali at the conservative millennial

00:31:56.160 blog.com. You can also message me on Instagram. It's hard for me to see all of those messages. I

00:32:01.480 get a lot of messages on Instagram, which I love, but I can't always respond to them. So if you send me

00:32:06.240 an email, I'm more likely to see it. And if you like the, if you like the podcast, please leave me a

00:32:12.480 five-star review on iTunes. I would love to hear your thoughts and share it with your friends.

00:32:16.980 I love you guys. Thank you. So, Oh wait, Oh, Oh, Oh, I forgot. I have an announcement. I have an

00:32:22.220 announcement to make. Okay. Actually I have two announcements. Okay. One announcement is that

00:32:27.700 this podcast is going to three times a week. Really exciting, right? Right. I'm really excited.

00:32:34.660 Three times a week. I haven't decided on the days yet. So you can give me feedback,

00:32:38.580 whether you want it to be Monday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Tuesday, Wednesday,

00:32:43.080 Thursday, trying to figure that out. We're still going to do news theology, and then probably a

00:32:48.180 conversation. But if you have any feedback on what you want that extra episode to be, I took a poll

00:32:53.100 not that long ago, and I think I have a pretty good idea of what you guys want. But if you want to give

00:32:57.800 me extra feedback, please do. That is my first announcement. My second announcement is smaller

00:33:02.620 than that, but still really exciting. I am going to be on the show outnumbered on Fox a week from

00:33:08.940 today. And I think it's at 11 a.m. central time, 12 p.m. Eastern time. And so that means I'm going to

00:33:16.300 be on TV for a whole hour. I'll be co-hosting the show. I'm really excited about that. I think it's

00:33:21.160 the longest I've ever been on live TV, I think for Fox. And so I'm honored to have been asked. It'll be

00:33:27.960 really fun, but all of you guys should tune in for that. My husband and I will be going to New York

00:33:31.900 to film that, and I'm looking forward to it. Okay, that really is the end of my podcast.

00:33:37.180 If you are at CPAC, make sure that you come say hi. I'm speaking today,

00:33:41.620 and I'll talk to you guys next week.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 28, 2019

Ep 81 ｜ Purity Culture

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