Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 01, 2023


Ep 815 ｜ MLB Christians Push Back on Pride


Episode Stats

Length

50 minutes

Words per Minute

171.69054

Word Count

8,595

Sentence Count

623

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

33


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Christian MLB players speak out about the shameful LA Dodgers Pride Night, some more strongly than
00:00:07.640 others. And not every MLB player is standing firm. At least one is apologizing for his biblical
00:00:14.180 stance on marriage, which is really sad. Also, peaceful pro-lifers were attacked in Baltimore
00:00:19.440 this week. Lots of lessons to be drawn from these stories on counting the cost of following Christ
00:00:24.920 and pushing back against the darkness, no matter the sacrifice. Also, because it is the month of
00:00:31.540 June and we get to celebrate the beautiful rainbow, we've got merch for you guys. Beautiful
00:00:36.880 merch. One says, Happy Noahic Covenant Month. If you want to know more about that, listen to
00:00:42.140 yesterday's episode. And then we've also got the rainbow belongs to God. We're not taking back the
00:00:48.920 rainbow. The rainbow has always belonged to God, still belongs to God and always will. So we've
00:00:54.660 got these two t-shirts up on AllieMerch.com. You can click the link in the description and we'll
00:01:00.640 have some more. We'll have two more designs that I think you guys are really going to like in the
00:01:05.280 coming couple of weeks. Okay. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
00:01:09.360 Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com. Code Allie.
00:01:13.200 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. Happy June 1. I really love the month of June.
00:01:29.880 Summer is my favorite season. As we discussed yesterday, it is the start of a very important
00:01:35.580 month where we look to the rainbow and we remember God's faithfulness and that he is always faithful
00:01:42.400 to keep his promises. As we read in Genesis 9, every time he hangs the rainbow in the sky, he
00:01:48.320 remembers the covenant that he made between him and Noah in all flesh on the earth that he would
00:01:54.740 never flood the entire earth again. While God is so merciful, he's so good and he is so powerful and
00:02:02.780 holy and one day everything will be redeemed and made new. So this is just a month I think that we can
00:02:08.940 double down on that and we can even, I don't know, set some goals for this Noahic covenant month.
00:02:15.580 Since there are seven colors of the legitimate rainbow, there are only six colors, which is a
00:02:22.440 symbol of being incomplete in the pride flag. Maybe we can do something seven times that is redemptive
00:02:29.700 or especially good this summer or this June, this month. Maybe you can share the gospel
00:02:35.620 seven times, have a gospel conversation seven times. Maybe there are seven people that you can
00:02:41.960 think of that you need to pray for on a daily basis or on a weekly basis with the seven days of a week.
00:02:47.960 Maybe there's one different person that you pray for every day. Maybe it's seven acts of kindness to
00:02:54.400 people around you. Let's think of ways to set redemptive and beautiful and gospel centered
00:03:00.900 and God glorifying goals for this month. Because look, this day is the Lord's. This is the day that
00:03:07.060 the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Every month of June is the Lord or every day of
00:03:13.920 the month of June rather is the Lord's. Every day of the year is the Lord's. Psalm 24 is that the earth
00:03:21.300 is the Lord's and the fullness therein. So the entire earth, the entire universe, every single
00:03:31.880 second of every single day falls under the complete and total sovereignty and power of the Lord. And so
00:03:40.960 we have every reason to be just as hopeful, just as happy, just as joyful, just as celebratory today
00:03:46.720 as we do any other day. We will not allow the celebration of sin, of abomination, of depravity, of chaos
00:03:53.800 and confusion, which is what Pride Month represents, to depress us or to make us more anxious or to worry
00:04:01.760 about the way that the world is going. We read, well, we did read Ephesians 1 yesterday and also talked
00:04:09.420 about Ephesians 2, but we also talked about Romans 1. This kind of depravity and confusion, exchanging the
00:04:16.700 truth of God for a lie, exchanging what is natural for what is unnatural has been going on for thousands
00:04:23.800 of years. Yes, of course, I agree. It's more in your face than it has been or than it was previously,
00:04:31.020 but that should not diminish our joy or our hope or our strength at all. In fact, it should just
00:04:38.500 emphasize to us the importance of fortitude. It should remind us of Ephesians 6 that the battle
00:04:47.240 that we're waging isn't primarily against corporations, is not primarily against politicians
00:04:51.900 or activists or people. It is the prince of the power of the air. It is the spiritual authorities.
00:04:58.960 This is a good and evil fight. This is a fight between God and Satan, between God's chosen people
00:05:07.260 and the world. It has always been this fight, and that's still where we are now. And we still have
00:05:14.300 the full armor of God. We still have the presence and the help of the Holy Spirit. We still have the great
00:05:19.800 commission that Jesus gives us in Matthew 28. And he said,
00:05:23.880 Behold, I will be with you always, even till the end of the age. That includes today.
00:05:31.340 So be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Allow the joy of the Lord to continue to
00:05:37.420 be your strength. Don't allow the celebration of depravity to diminish that joy at all because,
00:05:44.060 you know, Satan, he works overtime. He is on the one hand, he is loving, of course, the celebration of
00:05:52.180 sin and the rejection of God that is represented by Pride Month. But he also loves the collateral
00:05:57.760 damage that it does, that it steals the joy of people who are wondering how in the world we got
00:06:02.800 here seemingly so quickly. And so what can we do? We can be in our Bibles. We can stay plugged in to
00:06:11.280 our local church and our community, remind ourselves of what is true. And we can use the love that God has
00:06:18.380 given us through Christ to then go out and love other people and just refocus and redouble our
00:06:23.660 efforts on sharing the gospel and only representing and living out that which is good and right and
00:06:29.140 true. Now, I do want to address some negative feedback that I got yesterday. Some negative feedback
00:06:38.120 on specifically on YouTube, on the segment that I did on the chosen and the pride flag that was seen
00:06:47.080 in a picture of a behind-the-scenes segment of the set. There was a pride flag, as we talked about
00:06:56.020 yesterday, on a camera, a pride flag patch, I guess, that this camera crew was wearing and people,
00:07:02.040 I think, were understandably asking, wait, is the chosen pro-LGBTQ, this Christian show? Are they
00:07:09.140 compromising in this way? And I had a take that a lot of you didn't like. I won't re-explain all
00:07:17.000 of it, but I'll summarize it in a second and then I'll respond to some of the criticism that I've
00:07:21.380 gotten because of that. Okay, so let me just address briefly some anger that I got yesterday
00:07:40.280 on my YouTube video about the chosen. So I said, which I still think is true, although I've thought
00:07:50.060 about this more over the past 24 hours and I've taken some of the respectful feedback and disagreement
00:07:55.440 that I've gotten and I have asked myself, okay, did I get that wrong? Did I downplay the existence of
00:08:01.540 this pride flag on the set of the chosen? And I, you know, I'm still kind of wrestling with that. I'm still
00:08:08.120 kind of going back and forth on that. On the one hand, I don't think it's wrong for people like
00:08:12.320 John Root or anyone else to criticize the chosen for being a show that espouses, obviously, Christianity
00:08:19.840 and Christian values and says that they want to share the gospel and then to share an image or
00:08:25.780 share, I guess, a video that happened to have a pride flag in the background. It does seem kind of
00:08:31.820 weird, not just to work with people of different beliefs and different backgrounds, but to allow that
00:08:36.640 kind of symbol to be waving on the set of a Christian show. I totally get that. My point that I tried to
00:08:44.420 make, which I still think is true, is that that there are other reasons, but that is probably not
00:08:50.900 the deal breaker. There have been red flags before the pride flag. I think a lot of people would say
00:08:57.860 that there are actually some critics would say bigger issues with the chosen than them working with
00:09:04.180 people who probably have different beliefs and different backgrounds and having the pride flag
00:09:08.560 on set. Now, some of you were not respectful in your disagreements. I appreciate those of you who
00:09:15.780 were. That's always welcome. Honestly, I take that seriously and when it's legitimate and when it's
00:09:20.860 well thought out and well articulated, I really do. I take those and I think about them and I pray about
00:09:25.600 them. And there have been several times where I've come back on here and be like, you know what? I
00:09:29.180 thought about that and you guys were right and whatever. And so I'm still thinking,
00:09:32.740 I'm still thinking through just like how big of a deal is this for the chosen? Is the chosen even
00:09:38.020 considered? I know this is going to sound crazy, but like a Christian show. I know that sounds crazy
00:09:44.120 because it's about the life of Jesus, but I'm not even sure that Dallas Jenkins would necessarily
00:09:49.020 call it that. And so it didn't surprise me as all I'm saying is it didn't really surprise me that
00:09:55.760 there was, you know, there are gay people and that there was a pride flag and all of that stuff.
00:10:00.980 Um, but so I understand working through that, thinking through that, thinking through some
00:10:05.820 of the arguments that you guys respectfully made, but then some of you, a lot of you on yesterday's
00:10:12.600 episode, um, just on YouTube, you're unhinged. You were unhinged literally and just lying, lying
00:10:22.540 and slander about me because you disagreed with my take on that. After about 10 minutes of reading
00:10:32.260 scripture about what God says about identity and sexuality and explaining what the rainbow really
00:10:39.980 represents for the Christian. After the episodes upon episodes upon episodes of me offering explicit
00:10:48.540 clarity on what the Bible says about gender and marriage and identity and sexuality. Some of you
00:10:56.620 who claim that you have listened to me for a long time had the audacity to say that I am wavering on
00:11:02.560 this issue, that I am compromising on the word of God, that I might be strong on other issues,
00:11:09.440 but on this one, I'm wavering. I'm faltering. I'm compromising. I'm giving in because Dallas Jenkins is
00:11:15.340 my friend and I'm defending him and defending the use of the pride flag. First of all, Dallas and I
00:11:21.060 never talked before the interview that we had on relatable. We have not talked since then. That was
00:11:26.400 the only interaction that we ever had. I don't feel any kind of fidelity to the show, the chosen. I
00:11:30.880 don't have any like special interest. I am not someone who watches the chosen. I've seen a couple
00:11:35.860 episodes, but I am not a regular watcher of the chosen. I've talked about the different
00:11:40.840 controversies. I feel absolutely no responsibility whatsoever to defend or attack the chosen. I just
00:11:48.120 gave you my opinion. There has probably been no one more clear on the LGBTQ issue, all the letters of
00:11:57.760 the LGBTQ, than this show. Like we have not compromised or given in one centimeter on that issue. We have
00:12:07.960 stood firmly on the word of God every single step of the way. You will not find many cultural
00:12:15.240 conservative commentators who can say that. There are certainly some. I'm not alone, but there aren't
00:12:20.580 very many. So for some of you in the comments to slander me and to accuse me of absolutely atrocious
00:12:30.060 and ridiculous things like compromising on the word of God on this, simply because I had a take about
00:12:36.540 that it's possible to have, you know, secular people behind the camera and still have a good
00:12:41.120 message in front of the camera. If that's what you think about the chosen, I'm not even defending
00:12:44.560 necessarily all the messages portrayed by the chosen, even though I would never allow a pride flag
00:12:52.840 to be waved like on my set or on my camera or anything like that. Just giving you a different
00:12:59.040 perspective to try to kind of calm us down and see the big picture. Some of you disagreed with me.
00:13:04.720 That's okay. But to say that I compromise, like, do you not listen at all? Like you don't have to be
00:13:11.020 so emotionally reactive. You don't have to, you don't, you don't, you do not have to put words in
00:13:17.120 people's mouth. You don't have to intentionally represent, misrepresent people. You don't have to
00:13:21.700 lie about people. You don't have to ignore the vast, vast majority of their work or even what I said
00:13:28.140 in the first 10 to 20 minutes of yesterday's episode. And then accused me of something that is so
00:13:32.680 blatantly untrue, which is compromise. Are you freaking kidding me? This reminds me of that scene
00:13:39.440 because this is like the only logical conclusion that I come to that some of you are just like high
00:13:44.880 out of your minds. It reminds me of the scene from Parks and Rec when Leslie Knope asked John
00:13:49.820 Ralphio, like, why are you like this? And he's like, pills, baby. Some of you, I'm like, is it, is it,
00:13:56.300 is it Sharpies? Is it paint pens? Is it spray? What is it? Like what, what is actually getting
00:14:02.580 your mind to the point of thinking that some of the things that you guys said yesterday on this YouTube,
00:14:07.920 on yesterday's YouTube video is okay or true? Do you guys know I haven't compromised on that?
00:14:13.360 I don't, I do not listen to or like respect or take in in any way comments that are not respectful
00:14:23.620 and not well articulated, but simply just accuse me of things that are not true. Come on now. Come on.
00:14:29.860 We can be better than that, right? There are going to be lots of things that we disagree on,
00:14:33.760 especially with the elections coming up. Like maybe just consider who I am and all the things
00:14:40.580 that I've said over the years and maybe give me the benefit of the doubt when we disagree on this
00:14:46.000 kind of thing. All right. I will do the same for you. Okay. Let's talk about though,
00:14:52.120 some of these MLB players that are speaking out some very strongly, some not so strongly
00:14:58.380 against the pride nights that we are seeing hosted by MLB teams, specifically the pride night that is
00:15:07.000 being hosted by the LA Dodgers. That's not just celebrating different kind of pride groups or gay
00:15:15.020 groups or whatever it is, but specifically invited this group called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
00:15:20.620 And if we have like an advertisement for who they are, we'll show you. You know, what's amazing also
00:15:25.680 is that, so this is a group of drag queens and they dress up like nuns and they dress up like Jesus.
00:15:31.600 It's horribly, horribly blasphemous, sacrilegious, absolutely terrible. And they're these like very
00:15:37.340 sexually explicit shows where they use a cross. They use like a Jesus being crucified on the cross.
00:15:44.340 They make fun of Mary. It's just absolutely awful. And they say, of course, that they're like fighting
00:15:50.400 social justice or whatever stupidity like that. But you know, what's amazing is that Sam Britton,
00:15:56.100 who was in the energy department under Joe Biden, you remember that guy? He ended up being a klepto.
00:16:02.700 He ended up being accused of, guilty of stealing women's luggage at airports.
00:16:12.500 Taking their luggage and then wearing their clothes because he's weirdo. He's weirdo. He also taught like
00:16:18.340 kink classes and like puppy play. You don't even, we don't even need to get into what all of that is.
00:16:25.020 This is before he was hired by the federal government. Only the best and the brightest, right?
00:16:28.980 Also, we have like a product coming out soon, making fun of that whole Sam Britton situation.
00:16:35.360 But anyway, he was a part of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
00:16:42.220 And I guess there are like different groups or whatever. So that just shows you like the
00:16:47.320 depravity of this group. So originally this group was invited by the LA Dodgers to their pride night,
00:16:53.720 but then they were disinvited because there was understandably some uproar that it's not just a
00:16:57.940 pride group. It's not just a drag group. It's not just a trans group. Like this is also a group
00:17:02.900 that's making fun of a specific faith. Obviously, this would never be tolerated if they were making
00:17:08.160 fun of Muhammad, if they were making fun of probably not even Buddha, but certainly not making fun of
00:17:14.980 Islam. But it's tolerated when it's making fun of Catholicism or when it's making fun of Christianity
00:17:20.880 with Jesus on the cross. But then there was backlash to them being disinvited.
00:17:26.140 And so what did the LA Dodgers do? Of course, they bowed down to the drag queen lobby and they said,
00:17:33.140 oh, we're so sorry for disinviting this disgusting group. We're actually going to have them back on
00:17:38.020 and they're going to win an award on the field for outstanding community service. This is not a joke,
00:17:45.300 guys. This is not a joke. This is really happening. And so there was an MLB player,
00:17:51.260 Clayton Kershaw. He is an LA Dodgers pitcher who did speak out about it. He is, I guess,
00:18:01.880 the most prominent member of the Dodgers. I'm not really a baseball fan. I'm not really a sports
00:18:07.100 person, so I don't know. But his name does sound familiar. And apparently he's a Christian
00:18:10.700 and he's outspoken about his faith. And he pushed the Dodgers to do a Christian Faith and Family Day.
00:18:17.400 He posted about this on his Instagram. It's on July 30th. And he said, excited to announce the
00:18:21.960 relaunch of Christian Faith and Family Day at Dodger Stadium on July 30th. More details to come.
00:18:26.480 We're grateful for the opportunity to talk about Jesus. Okay, that's awesome. I'm so glad about that,
00:18:32.540 even though it's a CYA, I think, in a lot of ways, of course, for the LA Dodgers.
00:18:37.580 But I'm glad that this is happening. I hope that the true gospel is shared. I hope people come to
00:18:42.700 know Christ. I hope some of the degenerates and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence come to know
00:18:48.000 Christ because of this. So when he announced this, he didn't directly mention the Pride Night
00:18:53.800 incident and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. But he did issue a statement to the LA Times. And
00:19:00.400 I would love to know exactly what you think about this. I don't like to be too harsh when people are
00:19:05.580 trying to take a stand in the public eye. But at the same time, I do get tired of the
00:19:09.520 constant caveating that I kind of see here. So it says, I think we were always going to do
00:19:14.420 Christian Faith Day this year, Kershaw said to the New York Times. But I think the timing of our
00:19:19.020 announcement was sped up. Picking a date and doing those different things was part of it as well.
00:19:23.020 Yes, it was in response to the highlighting of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence by the Dodgers.
00:19:26.820 I don't agree with making fun of other people's religions. It has nothing to do with anything
00:19:31.500 other than that. He wants to make that clear. I just don't think that no matter what religion you
00:19:36.620 are, you should make fun of somebody else's religion. So that's something that I definitely
00:19:41.140 don't agree with. For us, we felt like the best thing to do in response was instead of maybe making
00:19:46.900 a statement condemning or anything like that would be to just instead try to show what we do support
00:19:52.140 as opposed to what we don't. This has nothing to do with the LGBTQ community or Pride or anything
00:19:58.740 like that. This is simply a group that was making fun of a religion that I don't agree with.
00:20:04.360 So while, Clayton, I am so excited that you are promoting this Faith and Family Night,
00:20:09.960 this Christian Faith and Family Night. That's awesome. And I kind of like the strategy of saying
00:20:15.100 we're not just going to talk negatively about one thing, but we are going to replace it with
00:20:19.760 something good. That's good. That's real action. That can be really redemptive. So that's great.
00:20:23.960 And I don't want to nitpick here, but I hate that Christians feel, especially in the public eye,
00:20:31.420 that they can only have the most narrow complaints. They can only condemn in the slightest and most
00:20:43.260 non-offensive way. So the problem with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is that they were making fun
00:20:49.220 of a religion. That's the only thing that he's willing to complain about. He just wants to make
00:20:54.340 clear that it's not that he's anti-gay. He's not that it's about the LGBTQ community, which might be
00:21:00.680 true for him, but it would be okay if it was about that. You're a Christian. It's okay for you to say,
00:21:08.600 you know what? God made us male and female. I stand on the Bible. I'm not going to be a part of
00:21:14.280 celebrating this. And it's not just because they're making fun of a religion. They're making
00:21:19.480 fun of Jesus, although I really don't like that. Look, I also don't believe in celebrating men
00:21:24.820 dressing up as women. I also don't believe in celebrating pride. That violates my religious
00:21:31.780 beliefs, what I know about the world and who created the world. And I'm not going to be a part
00:21:37.180 of that. I'm not. And then you could say, you know what? And some of the things that we've seen
00:21:41.700 are especially atrocious, like X, Y, Z, and that should not be awarded. But I really don't want
00:21:48.400 to be a part of this pride night in general. And that's why I'm pushing for the Christian faith
00:21:53.860 and family night. Now, I completely understand why someone would not want to say that.
00:21:59.140 I understand. But we do not have to cede so much ground in our statements. I think I would have liked
00:22:08.380 better if he didn't add all of these caveats. If he didn't say, this has nothing to do with gay
00:22:13.460 people. This has nothing to do with LGBTQ. It has nothing to do with drag queens. It doesn't have
00:22:17.260 anything to do with that. It just has to do with making fun of a religion, ending religion,
00:22:20.820 Buddhism, whatever. Like we shouldn't have to. It's like we're trying to take our faith off the hook.
00:22:27.880 We're trying to take God off the hook. We're like implicitly apologizing for the word of God
00:22:32.780 or kind of like apologizing for what we believe without actually apologizing for it. Like we
00:22:39.220 don't actually want to stand on Genesis 1. We don't actually want to stand on Romans 1. And so
00:22:44.460 we pretend like our offense has nothing to do with sin and everything to do with just this one tiny
00:22:50.680 small part of it that everyone can hopefully kind of get on board with. The part of it that will get
00:22:55.360 us the least amount of backlash for condemning. I just think that we need to be more outright
00:23:01.280 and more outspoken than that. I'm not questioning his faith. I'm not questioning his sincerity. I
00:23:07.480 think that this is par for the course for most people in the public eye. They just like, this is
00:23:13.820 the issue. Even when it comes to Christian singers like Lauren Daigle, like this is the issue that they
00:23:19.200 don't want to touch. They don't want to get into because they know that the backlash is extremely
00:23:25.240 fierce. And I get it. But God is more loving than us. He is kinder than us. He is better than us. He is
00:23:33.680 wiser than us. So the most loving thing we can do is simply agree with him extremely clearly. Remember,
00:23:40.420 God is love. 1 John 4.8. We're not going to out love him by disagreeing with Genesis 1.27.
00:23:55.240 All right. Blake Trinan is another LA Dodgers pitcher. And he released a statement on Tuesday
00:24:04.560 evening with much stronger language than what Kershaw said. He said, people like baseball for
00:24:08.860 its entertainment value and competition. The fans do not want propaganda or politics forced on them.
00:24:14.540 I believe the word of God is true. And in Galatians 6, 7, it says, do not be deceived. God cannot be
00:24:19.280 mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Look, I think that's good. I think that's good. I actually
00:24:25.100 think that that is a way to be really clear, like stand on the word of God. And you don't have to
00:24:32.520 necessarily always get into this is specifically what I'm against. Although, again, I would love
00:24:38.220 that kind of clarity. I still don't see as much caveating and compromise in this statement,
00:24:44.360 especially when you reference scripture. And that's actually the exact reference that we used
00:24:49.920 when we were talking about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and the awful sexually
00:24:54.840 explicit performance that they were putting on where they had Jesus almost naked on a cross and
00:25:01.820 basically a drag queen twerking on it. It was absolutely awful. We didn't want to show it.
00:25:05.640 It was just too much. But I thought of two passages. One, when Jesus is on a cross and he says,
00:25:10.880 forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. I think that's true. They have hearts of stone and
00:25:16.420 brains of mush and just an incapability right now because they're dead in their sin to really
00:25:20.620 understand the seriousness of what they're doing and the consequences that come from it.
00:25:25.860 And then it was Galatians 6-7 that God will not be mocked. What someone reaps, what someone sows,
00:25:33.500 he will also reap. And so even though God has mercy, he extends forgiveness through Christ.
00:25:40.580 We also know that he is not going to allow evil to flourish forever. So I love that he references that.
00:25:45.220 So here's what he says. He says, I'm disappointed to see the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence being
00:25:50.140 honored as heroes at Dodger Stadium. I understand that playing baseball is a privilege, not a right.
00:25:56.920 My convictions in Jesus Christ will always come first. Since I have been with the Dodgers,
00:26:01.000 they have been at the forefront of supporting a wide variety of groups. However, inviting the
00:26:04.600 Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to perform to some franchises in a large community promotes hate of
00:26:08.260 Christians and people of faith. This single event alienates the fans and supporters of the Dodgers
00:26:12.000 major league baseball and professional sports. People like baseball for its entertainment. We
00:26:15.440 already read that. And then he said the debacle with Bud Light and Target should be a warning to
00:26:19.700 companies. And he said, I believe Jesus Christ down on the cross for my sins. I believe the word of God
00:26:24.360 is true. And in Galatians 6-7, it says, do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. The man reaps what
00:26:28.540 he sows. This group openly mocks Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of my faith. And I want to make it clear
00:26:33.120 that I do not agree with nor support the decision of the Dodgers to honor the Sisters of Perpetual
00:26:38.000 Indulgence. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord Joshua 24-15. Okay, I like that.
00:26:43.740 Like he didn't put a bunch of caveats. Oh, I'm not talking about all gay people. I'm not talking
00:26:47.740 about all trans people. I'm not talking about the whole LGBT community. I'm just talking about
00:26:52.300 making fun. He does like focus on that, which I understand. I mean, when you work for a company,
00:27:00.120 very often they will do things that you don't always align with. So I do understand both with
00:27:04.820 Kershaw and with him, like why this was a line that they needed to highlight. But I appreciate
00:27:09.400 that he didn't make apologies. He didn't like make a bunch of excuses. And he did stand on the word
00:27:14.840 of God. Again, would love someone to reference Genesis 127 and all of this. But I really appreciate
00:27:22.060 that statement. I thought that was good. And then you've got Trevor Williams. He is a starting pitcher
00:27:26.180 for the Washington Nationals. He was the first MLB player to publicly denounce the Dodgers controversy.
00:27:31.140 He wrote a lengthy statement on Twitter on Tuesday saying that he was deeply troubled that this group
00:27:37.180 had been invited. He says that the Dodgers actually made a clear violation of their own
00:27:43.920 discrimination policy, which explicitly states that any conduct or attire in the ballpark that
00:27:48.480 is deemed to be indecent or prejudiced against any particular group or religion is not tolerated.
00:27:53.160 Of course, we always know that Christians are the exception to that. He says, as a devout Catholic,
00:27:57.520 I'm deeply troubled by the Dodgers decision to re-invite and honor the group,
00:28:01.700 the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, at their pride night this year. A major league baseball game
00:28:06.740 is a place where people from all walks of life should feel welcomed. To invite and honor a group
00:28:11.740 that makes a blatant, deeply offensive mockery of my religion and the religion of over 4 million
00:28:15.780 people in Los Angeles County alone undermines the values of respect and inclusivity. Creating an
00:28:22.400 environment in which one group feels celebrated and honored at the expense of another is counterproductive
00:28:26.500 and wrong. And he's absolutely right. And he talks about the discrimination policy. That's true.
00:28:32.200 And again, he doesn't caveat that. And, you know, I really, I really appreciate that. I don't know
00:28:38.320 if these players realize they probably do. And I understand maybe like a Twitter statement isn't the
00:28:43.540 place to say it. But I think a lot of people don't realize that the reason why it's okay for Christians,
00:28:51.700 there's always like a Christian loophole in these discrimination policies or in the values of
00:28:57.680 inclusion. And that's because this is a competing religion. Progressivism as a whole, but specifically
00:29:04.740 LGBTQ, it's a competing religion. These two things cannot go together. There is always going to be
00:29:11.440 animosity. There's always going to be friction. There's always going to be enmity because it is the
00:29:16.380 God of self versus the God of scripture. One says pride is worth celebrating. The other says that
00:29:22.520 pride is a deadly sin. One says that the most important thing in life is to just be happy and
00:29:28.100 feel good. And the other one says that the most important thing is to be holy, to take up your cross
00:29:33.360 and to follow Christ. These are two competing philosophies. These are two competing worldviews. And
00:29:39.960 right now we have an extremely dominant religion in LGBTQ, extremely dominant religion when it comes
00:29:47.080 to progressivism, because you also see this with race and so-called social justice and things like
00:29:52.320 that. These things don't go together. When people ask me, can you be a progressive Christian? I say, well,
00:30:00.180 in the same way that I don't think that you can be like a Christian witch. These are two competing
00:30:07.680 worldviews. These are two competing belief systems. They are going completely opposite directions.
00:30:14.460 They cannot be paired at all in the same way that you can't serve God and money. It's an idol. Either
00:30:21.980 you are denying yourself and you are following God and his order and his commands, or you are denying God
00:30:28.220 and following yourself. And so that's the competition here. And right now, and for the foreseeable future,
00:30:36.360 the LGBTQ religion, which is specifically anti-Christian, wins. And then you've got Anthony
00:30:43.780 Bass. This is a sad story, guys. This is a sad story. What Christians shouldn't do. But again,
00:30:50.960 who knows? I mean, who knows what pressure he was under? Toronto Blue Jays player or pitcher recently
00:30:57.220 shared a post on his social media, which promoted Christians boycotting target and Bud Light.
00:31:03.000 And he shared an Instagram, an Instagram video from a user called Dude with Good News to his
00:31:10.340 Instagram stories, or to his Instagram stories, teaching the biblical reasons for boycotting
00:31:15.420 target from Ephesians 5, 11 through 13, which says, take no pardon in the unfruitful works of
00:31:20.580 darkness, but instead expose them for it is shameful to even speak of the things they do in secret.
00:31:24.660 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible. Great passage. I just love the book of
00:31:30.980 Ephesians so much. And so he shared that. And then he got backlash because of course he did.
00:31:38.520 Of course he did. This is just scripture, by the way. Then he apologized. So here is a video of
00:31:45.640 Anthony Bass from the Toronto Blue Jays apologizing for this.
00:31:49.920 I recognized yesterday. I made a post that was hurtful to the pride community, which includes
00:31:56.640 friends of mine and post family members of mine. And I am truly sorry for that. I just spoke with
00:32:03.580 my teammates and shared with them my actions yesterday. I apologize with them. And as of right
00:32:09.520 now, I'm using the Blue Jays resources to better educate myself, to make better decisions moving
00:32:13.980 forward. The ballpark is for everybody. We include all fans at the ballpark. And we want to welcome
00:32:20.160 everybody. That's all I have to say. Thank you.
00:32:23.580 Oh, that is bleak. That is really sad. I mean, I imagine he got a ton of heat for sharing that.
00:32:33.840 Obviously, this was a very scripted response. So I want to know if it wasn't because maybe he would
00:32:41.580 say, no, it's not pressure. It wasn't pressure at all, which of course is not true. Okay,
00:32:45.380 well, what's changed? What's changed? Like, do you believe Ephesians 5? Do you believe that
00:32:51.980 selling tucking bathing suits and promoting sex switching and the denial of Genesis 1 is an
00:32:59.800 unfruitful work of darkness? Or do you not? Has God changed? Has God's word changed? Have his standards
00:33:07.180 changed? His definitions? What changed? What changed was he was forced to go through a struggle
00:33:14.000 session. If you don't know what a struggle session is, you can Google it. Actually, don't use Google.
00:33:19.880 Use DuckDuckGo or something. You can search it and it'll probably come up. You'll be able to see it
00:33:25.880 on Wikipedia, Mao's Cultural Revolution in China, where if someone expressed a religious opinion,
00:33:33.240 a politically unpopular opinion, something that went against the regime, they would be forced into
00:33:39.560 a struggle session where they were tortured. They were publicly humiliated. They were even beaten in
00:33:45.900 some cases until they went back on what they said and they were properly educated so that they would
00:33:54.600 come to the right conclusion. It's not so different living here in America, the land of the free and
00:34:02.920 the home of the brave than it was living in communist China. I mean, obviously, it's different in a
00:34:07.820 variety of reasons, but we've got similar tactics. And of course, it's even worse in Canada. So I'm sad
00:34:16.280 about this because this is compromise. It is compromise. And then if we ask, well, what are you
00:34:23.260 supposed to do? Are you supposed to just quit your job? Are you supposed to just give up the money and
00:34:29.140 the opportunities? I mean, you've got a family to feed? The answer is yes, actually. The answer is yes.
00:34:36.240 Yes. I actually do believe that Christians should be willing to get fired or to quit their jobs or to
00:34:43.760 fail their class or to get expelled from school if that means that they are standing on what's true.
00:34:56.380 Like, I do believe that that is part of the sacrifice of being a Christian. Absolutely. I'm not saying
00:35:02.140 that's easy. I know people might say that, oh, it's easy for you to say you work for like a conservative
00:35:09.020 company. It's actually not. Like, I don't want to have to tell people that. I'm not saying it's easy at all.
00:35:14.400 I'm saying that we were not promised ease. We weren't promised that it was going to be convenient.
00:35:19.520 We weren't promised that we were going to keep our accolades or keep our reputation or keep our friends
00:35:24.720 or keep our good standing in our community or keep our money or keep our fame or keep our
00:35:29.760 baseball contracts. Like, we weren't promised any of those things when we decided to count the cost
00:35:35.720 and follow Christ. I mean, it would be great if you didn't have to make those sacrifices,
00:35:42.260 but some people are called to. And when we decide that we are going to renege,
00:35:48.460 when we decide that we are going to go back and we are going to apologize for what the Word of God
00:35:53.320 says for saying something that God says is true, then that means that after counting the cost,
00:36:00.540 we decided that following Christ was just too expensive, that we would actually rather gain
00:36:07.140 the whole world and lose our soul. Now, all of us have compromised in some way. I'm not saying that
00:36:12.560 there's not abundant grace. I'm not saying that I have never said something that should have been
00:36:17.800 braver or should have been clearer. Of course, I pray against that, but all of us have. So I'm not
00:36:24.540 saying that there is not grace for this baseball player. I mean, Peter denied Christ three times after
00:36:29.860 living with him and seeing him and knowing his miracles and loving him. He still denied Christ.
00:36:37.600 He was still a coward. I mean, Thomas saw the resurrected Jesus and was like, I need to actually
00:36:44.280 feel the scars in order to believe this. And so there's grace. There, of course, is grace for
00:36:50.900 doubt. There's grace for wavering, but there's not an excuse for it. That doesn't make it right.
00:36:57.260 It's still sin that if we have the Holy Spirit, we will be convicted of. So that's what I pray for
00:37:02.560 Anthony Bass. Again, I don't doubt at all that he was facing a ton of pressure that maybe a lot of us
00:37:07.780 have not faced. I totally get that. But I pray that he would be convicted. That's what I pray
00:37:15.720 happens. I pray that he would come back out and say, you know what? I shouldn't have apologized for
00:37:20.800 that. I shouldn't have apologized. What I said was true. God's word is true. God is good. He's more
00:37:26.660 loving and more just and wiser than the rest of us. And I'm going to hang my hat on that. The end.
00:37:31.500 And if that costs me everything, so be it. It's very, very difficult for a rich person
00:37:38.380 to enter the kingdom of heaven. It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to
00:37:46.340 do that. And this is one of the reasons. It's really hard. And I'm not just talking about
00:37:50.420 baseball players. I'm talking about anyone who has any amount of comfort and wealth, which is really
00:37:55.420 all of us living in the United States. It's very difficult to sacrifice those things for the
00:38:01.420 sake of Christ. But of course, Christ follows that with saying with God, all things are possible.
00:38:07.980 God can give us the grace and the ability and the power to count the cost and truly take up our cross
00:38:14.320 and follow Christ. So I wish he wouldn't have apologized. It sets a really, really bad example.
00:38:19.740 I hope that he does feel the godly guilt that scripture talks about and that he does. He does repent.
00:38:31.420 All right. I do want to bring up this story. There are a few things I want to talk about that I didn't
00:38:44.100 get to. But I want to bring up this story because here's an example of people counting the cost.
00:38:50.460 Here's the example of people standing for what is good and right and true, even when they seriously
00:38:56.420 suffer from it. So there were two pro-life supporters who were attacked outside a Planned
00:39:02.820 Parenthood in Baltimore, Maryland. Mark Crosby, 73, Dick Schaefer, 80. They were attacked outside the
00:39:10.340 Planned Parenthood clinic. There were volunteers with the Baltimore County right to life. They were
00:39:15.780 simply praying in front of the Planned Parenthood facility when Crosby was attacked from behind.
00:39:21.220 According to security camera video footage of the incident, the suspect charged Schaefer
00:39:25.880 and knocked him into a flower pot. And then the second, this is, I mean, this is violent. This
00:39:30.280 is kind of hard to hear. Okay. The second victim, Crosby, he rushed in to help after the first guy,
00:39:36.680 Schaefer, was shoved into the flower pot. But he was shoved to the ground. The suspect then continued
00:39:43.060 to punch Crosby in the head as he was lying on the ground before kicking him with extreme force in the
00:39:48.500 face, according to police. And we'll put up the picture that we can put up of Mark Crosby's
00:39:53.680 injuries. You know, YouTube has some rules about the kinds of pictures that we can put up. So as
00:40:02.780 I'm recording this, I don't know if we can actually show you the full thing without blurring it. But
00:40:06.640 you can look on Twitter. It's in several different places. He has an extremely swollen eye and he is
00:40:14.040 bleeding across his face. You can tell. Poor guy. I mean, he is extremely traumatized. Again,
00:40:19.820 this person is 73 years old. The other guy was 80 years old, attacked by this rabid,
00:40:27.840 assuming pro-abortion activist. According to Fox News, Crosby told the police that the suspect had
00:40:35.380 approached volunteer members of Planned Parenthood and spoke with them before directing his attention
00:40:38.920 to the pro-life volunteers. Okay. So he knew what he was doing. This is not just like a random criminal.
00:40:44.480 In a redacted police report, Schaefer said the suspect spoke with him in an aggressive manner,
00:40:48.760 opposing his pro-life ideas and without warning, tackled him into a large flower pot. It is also
00:40:55.140 noted that several witnesses saw the assault unfold with one telling investigators that the
00:40:59.940 conversation between the suspect and the 80-year-old victim, Schaefer, was a debate over their ideas about
00:41:04.980 pro-life and pro-choice viewpoints. Crosby was diagnosed with a large hematoma. This is a 73-year-old
00:41:11.480 that tried to come in and help and then was kicked in the face. Hyphema and head and neck pain,
00:41:16.200 but is in stable condition. His orbital socket will have to be replaced with metal. So that socket
00:41:21.920 behind his eye, police are still looking for the attacker. In a statement to WBAL news organization,
00:41:29.360 Karen Nelson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Maryland, said the organization
00:41:33.460 does not condone any violence. Really? You kill multiple babies every day.
00:41:37.880 That is violent. That's why this is happening. You're a terrorist organization. You're a murder
00:41:44.800 male. Of course you condone violence. You profit off of violence. And I think it is unfortunate that
00:41:50.720 there was an incident that occurred outside our health center. She added, it is a darn shame.
00:41:55.700 Oh, this is the important part. This is what she's really concerned about, you evil, evil, wicked woman.
00:42:01.440 It is a darn shame that folks who are trying to receive health care have to put up with remarks and
00:42:05.760 comments when they are just trying to go into a facility and receive health care. So that's the
00:42:09.920 real, that's the real sadness here. That's the real sadness that there were two people who were praying
00:42:15.500 outside of your murder mill where you're dismembering little voiceless, defenseless, vulnerable human
00:42:21.880 beings. That there were two people, that's the darn shame, not the murder that you are profiting from,
00:42:29.280 not the fact that these two old men were brutally beaten by someone who defends you and the murder
00:42:36.460 that you conduct on a daily basis. Um, the GoFundMe, uh, for these two people has now been disabled.
00:42:46.440 They received $41,881 in three days, but the GoFundMe has now been disabled. Uh, you'll remember all of the
00:42:57.100 terrorism against the, uh, pro-life organizations, against the churches, against the pregnancy centers
00:43:03.020 after the Roe v. Wade decision, after the Dobbs decision was released last June, right? You remember
00:43:09.700 all of that? Still wondering when those people are going to be brought to justice. And you remember
00:43:14.820 the peaceful pro-lifers? We've had, we had a couple, uh, on our show, someone named Herb Garrity
00:43:21.840 facing federal charges for a peaceful protest. We had Mark Hawk, not on this show, but we talked
00:43:28.940 about the story of Mark Hawk in Pennsylvania, peacefully protesting outside of an abortion
00:43:34.120 facility, trying to defend his son from someone, um, who was extremely aggressive and basically
00:43:39.540 threatening to attack his son and saying very vulgar things. He pushed this person back, faced federal
00:43:45.280 charges. The FBI actually came to his house, hunting him down while his little children and his
00:43:51.020 wife were there. Um, look, listen, you don't have to be on the side of evil, but if you are on the
00:43:59.000 pro-choice side, no matter how virtuous you think that your position is, how nuanced you think your
00:44:04.980 position is, like how, how moral you think it might be to fight for women's reproductive freedom.
00:44:12.600 First of all, you've been lied to. Abortion is murder, period. You're murdering a human being.
00:44:18.340 Look at the evil that is not just on the fringe of your side. It is in the mainstream of your side.
00:44:26.060 You remember, uh, the 83 year old woman in Michigan last year who was shot in the back
00:44:33.480 for canvassing, for block walking, for a pro-life initiative in Michigan, shot in the back
00:44:40.200 an 80 year old woman. That's your side. And again, it's not surprising at all. Your side
00:44:46.000 is entirely based on violence against vulnerable people. So we are not shocked at all when the
00:44:56.180 demons are angry, when truth is being shared and when people are praying. We're not shocked at all
00:45:01.680 when there's violence against people outside of the womb. Of course, people who advocate for
00:45:06.960 violence and murder of people inside of the womb are going to be inherently more violent towards
00:45:12.040 people outside of the womb. Of course, why wouldn't you be? What's the difference? They're
00:45:16.440 both clumps of cells technically. It's just that the baby inside of the womb is defenseless. It's
00:45:21.940 not surprising at all that abortion activists would prey upon elderly men who are simply praying there
00:45:27.820 and peacefully expressing their ideas. Of course, that person believes that a baby can be rightfully
00:45:32.880 dismembered inside the womb. That's what this side is. It is evil. It is wicked to its core. Do not be
00:45:39.740 on this side. It's the side of Nazis. It's the inside. It's the side of the enslavers. It's the
00:45:45.980 side of every single human rights violator throughout history. That's what the pro-choice side is. Stop.
00:45:54.040 You don't have to be on that side. You can defend innocent life. Hold on to your other progressive
00:45:58.520 beliefs if you want to. Don't be on the side of murder and violence. You don't have to.
00:46:18.160 Okay, so I just want to finish on this. I saw this interesting study that was posted by the New York
00:46:23.940 Post that just makes a whole lot of sense. I'm sorry to say. I mean, obviously, we know,
00:46:28.920 as we've already said, like progressivism, Christianity can't go hand in hand. There's
00:46:32.260 just, it's godless. It's godless. That's not to say that Christless conservatism is good either.
00:46:38.380 Certainly not. But the principles of progressivism are always going to be anti-good. They're going to
00:46:47.520 be anti-good and anti-god. But it's also like a psychological thing, I think, that goes on here.
00:46:55.300 So this is according to the New York Post. And this was a study, I guess, that was originally
00:47:00.920 published by Psypost. Left-wing extremism linked to psychosis and narcissism. Left-wing extremism is
00:47:08.480 linked to toxic psychopathic tendencies and narcissism, according to a new study published in the peer-reviewed
00:47:13.500 journal Current Psychology. The majority of research on authoritarianism has focused on right-wing
00:47:18.840 ideology. So the authors of the study sought to address the disparity. The authors noted that many
00:47:23.080 researchers were skeptical about the notion of left-wing authoritarianism, which is why there is
00:47:27.760 not as much research on it, because most of them are left-wing themselves. So they say the study
00:47:35.520 suggests that people with dark personality traits like narcissism and psychopathy are drawn to certain
00:47:40.000 antagonistic ideologies and political activities. However, their motivation is not necessarily
00:47:44.880 driven by a genuine desire for social justice and equality. Instead, they use these ideologies and
00:47:49.620 activities as a way to fulfill their own ego-centered needs. The researchers call this phenomenon the dark
00:47:56.280 ego vehicle principle. And they say that this tends to attract people specifically to left-wing
00:48:04.460 authoritarianism. And I think that's really interesting. That's not to say that there aren't
00:48:10.500 people who are on the far right who are authoritarian and have their own psychological issues. We talked
00:48:16.960 about some of that actually with a psychologist, Dr. Carderis, on this show before and incels and all of
00:48:23.180 that. But I think it's like very, very clear that there is an element of psychopathy when it comes to
00:48:30.160 like, when it comes to a big part of left-wing ideology, that there's a ton of narcissism, that it's mostly
00:48:37.200 about narcissism. Again, it's about the god of self and worshiping the god of self. And when the god of self
00:48:43.200 feels like they're being blasphemed, or they are being inconvenienced in any way, when they're not getting
00:48:49.740 the worship that they think that they're due, of course, they are going to lash out in this kind of vengeance.
00:48:55.580 And so there's a lot of violence, and there's a lot of chaos, there's a lot of anarchy, there's a lot
00:49:00.400 of anger, there's a lot of delusion that comes with that. And I think that it's, I mean, it's
00:49:08.680 interesting that this study shows the things that we already knew. So I just wanted to, I just wanted
00:49:15.200 to punctuate the episode with that. And again, you don't have to worship the god of self. It's a very
00:49:21.440 cruel god. You don't have to, there's something better. Like, you can actually find freedom and
00:49:26.240 joy and fulfillment in the god who created you, who offers you good news and forgiveness and
00:49:31.560 fulfillment. You can be free from your sins and being enslaved to your feelings and your desires.
00:49:36.760 You can live for a higher purpose and have satisfaction in Christ. Read your bible. Get you
00:49:42.320 an ESV study bible. Start in the book of John. Go to founders.org slash church dash search. Find you a
00:49:49.700 good local church. Get plugged in. You don't have to be on the side of wickedness and just
00:49:54.440 sadness anymore. You don't have to. You don't have to. God offers you a better way.
00:49:59.180 All right, that's all we got time for today. We will see you back here next week.