Ep 854 ｜ Another Christian Artist Deconstructs… And Goes Drag
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 1 minute
Words per Minute
167.26704
Summary
Derek Webb of the Christian band Cademan s Call renounces his faith in the name of LGBTQ inclusion. In his new album, he features a drag queen named Flaming Grant. Yes, we ve got a lot to say about this story. And then we ll touch on a few other stories: What happened in Ohio this week, as well as the Library of Congress issuing an absolutely ridiculous apology for misgendering.
Transcript
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Another Christian artist has renounced his faith in the name of LGBTQ inclusion. This time,
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it is Derek Webb of the Christian band Cademan's Call. In his new album,
00:00:16.140
he features a drag queen named Flaming Grant. Yes, we've got a lot, a lot to say about this story.
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And then we'll touch on a few other stories. What happened in Ohio this week, as well as
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the Library of Congress, issuing an absolutely ridiculous apology for, quote unquote, misgendering.
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Also, before we get into the episode, just a couple of things to say about merch. Don't forget
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your luggage tags. If you're trying to protect your luggage from klepto weirdos in the Biden
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administration, we'll put that up on YouTube so you can see exactly what that looks like. No,
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Sam Britton, do not get our luggage. No, thank you. And then also just a note about some other
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merch that we have. Our Related Bro Friendly merch, our black and white Do the Next Right
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Thing shirts, they're fully in stock. And so now you can get your shirts within five business days.
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Because we had to produce so many of them, it took the first round of orders four to six weeks.
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It's going to be the same thing with the luggage tags. But now we've got those shirts fully in stock,
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sometimes just with the processing of all the different parties that are involved in
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making this merch. It can take a little bit longer. But if you get that merch,
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the black and the white shirts and all the merch in our merch store right now,
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all the relatable stuff, you'll get that super quickly. So go ahead, get your Do the Next Right
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Thing shirt. I've got mine here and I'm going to bring it home to Chief Related Bro. He's super
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excited about his relatable merch. All right. That's the only announcement that I had for you.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com,
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use code Allie at checkout. That's GoToRanchers.com, code Allie.
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far.
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So this is it, our last episode that we are recording before my maternity leave. I am 37
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weeks and some change pregnant. Very thankful for a healthy pregnancy thus far. And so sometime in the
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next few weeks, I will be having our third baby, which we are very, very excited about. And so we're
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going to take a break for a few months. However, as I've told you, but in case you missed it, we will
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have a new episode, a never heard or seen before episode come out Monday through Thursday, just like
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usual for the next few months. So don't you worry your pretty little heads about that. You got lots
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of new and exciting content. This is not just like throwaway content that, oh, let's just put
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something together so we can make sure to get stuff out there to meet a certain quota. This is stuff that
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was really planned, prepared for, curated with you guys in mind, produced with you guys in mind. My
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executive, executive producers are the related bros and related gals out there that tell me the things
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that you want to hear about. And so we've got lots of great conversations, controversial questions and
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subjects being addressed and answered. And I'm so excited for you to hear all of that, watch all of
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that in the coming months. Thank you guys so much for your support and your prayers throughout this
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pregnancy too. And just encouragement as always, that just means so much to me. So thank you. Thank you.
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Thank you. A lot of people are stunned when I tell them, yeah, we have 48 episodes, 48 plus episodes
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that we have been working on that are going to come out for my maternity leave. But now I've done this
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three times. And so we kind of have a strategy in place. We started preparing for this months ago. I
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don't know, maybe February or so. We started recording these episodes, February or March. And so
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it's been a long time coming and I hope that you guys really enjoy it. Can't wait to hear
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your feedback on all of that. So because this is the last episode before I'll be able to weigh in
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every day on the news and things that are going on, we have a lot to talk about. And in fact,
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right before the camera started rolling, we were working on a story that I just decided like 15
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minutes ago that I really wanted to talk about. And that is the story of a former Christian music
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artist Derek Webb of the band Cademan's Call coming out with an album that celebrates being
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a drag queen, celebrates transgenderism. And so I want to talk about this story specifically,
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but I also just want to talk about this trend of deconstruction, specifically among contemporary
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Christian music artists of the 90s, because it's really, really bizarre to me. It's very strange,
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but we'll kind of analyze why I think this is going on. So first, let me tell you the story
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of what this is. So Derek Webb, as I said, he was a member of the group Cademan's Call.
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Now, do you remember Cademan's Call? As soon as I saw that name, I remembered hearing about that band
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or hearing songs from them, but I couldn't put my finger on what song I would have known.
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And so one of their songs is Only Hope. Only Hope. I, you know, I really hate when I have to sing
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songs for you guys. This is the second day in a row that I've had to sing a song for you. Yesterday
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by Neo, today by Cademan's Call. So I just have a very like, you know, wide variety of performances
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that I put on for you guys when it comes to my singing. You can look it up on Spotify. Only Hope,
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not to be confused with Mandy Moore's Only Hope from A Walk to Remember. So that's one that you
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would probably know if you heard it. I feel like that was very popular, still probably played on
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Christian radio. And then their version of God of Wonders. God of Wonders, I believe was actually
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written by Chris Tomlin, like 95% of Christian music. But I think their version, their very like
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90s camp youth group version of God of Wonders, Cademan's Call is probably one that you would
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recognize. Those of us who grew up in youth group, mostly early 2000s for me since I was born in 92,
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but definitely remember all of the 90s youth group songs. You're probably familiar with Cademan's Call,
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which means that you've listened to Derek Webb. You've probably sung the lyrics that he has
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contributed to these songs over the years. But now he is saying that he doesn't identify as
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Christian and surprise, surprise, he also identifies as progressive. So here are a few headlines that
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grabbed my attention when it came to the story. Christian drag queen Flamy Grant's number one
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album is Battle Cry against quote unquote terrible theology of religious bigots. This is according to
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Entertainment Weekly. Yes, it is the people who say that God made us male and female. According to
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Genesis 1, we are the ones with terrible theology. This drag queen says, I'm here in all of my draggy
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audacity to demand they reckon with reality. Really? It's us? We have to reckon with reality?
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You're a man wearing prosthetic breasts and dancing in front of people. It's us? We're the
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ones disconnected from reality? Okay. It says after her, I guess referring to this man dressing as a
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woman, her Bible belt baby topped the Christian charts amid a feud with Sean Foyt. And then this is
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according to Rolling Stone, a maggot preacher condemned a drag queen. Then her album topped the
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Christian charts. Flamy Grant's good day and her LP Bible Belt Baby briefly hit number one on Apple
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Music after she was called out by Sean Foyt. So this is a separate story. It was his album that I guess
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topped the charts. But Derek Webb, his new album called The Jesus Hypothesis, has a song that is
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dedicated to Flamy Grant who came to the celebration of his album release in Nashville. And he wrote a
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song called The Boys Will Be Girls featuring Flamy Grant and also showing himself in the music video
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getting dressed up like a woman. So here's a short clip of that.
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Okay, so let me read you some of the lyrics behind this.
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It says the F word because, you know, you really have to show after you renounce Christianity just how edgy you are.
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So you have to say the F word in your deconstructive songs.
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So he says, because sometimes boys will be girls.
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What you put on, oh, it shows the world how hard you're fighting.
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I heard Jesus loved and spent his life with those who were abandoned by proud and fearful men.
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So if a church won't celebrate and love you, they're believing lies that can't save you or them.
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It's like, I don't even know how to describe the meme.
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It's like this person who is preaching to Christians about what Jesus would really do,
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what the Bible really says, what Christian love really looks like.
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And then the person who is being talked down to says, well, are you a Christian?
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And then the self-righteous atheist says, no, I'm not a Christian.
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But maybe if I use your beliefs against you, you'll do what I want.
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Derek Webb, in 2022, he said in a tweet that he does not identify as a Christian anymore.
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He still refers to the church as authoritative in people's lives.
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And he's really just using it as a mallet to get you, Christian, to do what he thinks is right,
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even though he doesn't actually believe in Christ anymore.
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He might believe in the person of Jesus, as a lot of deconstructing people do.
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They say, oh, I'm just going to cling to the red words of Jesus.
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But then they're caught, without really ever acknowledging it, in this Lord, liar, lunatic
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conundrum that C.S. Lewis very well articulated that says, okay, well, you can't just believe
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that Jesus was a good teacher because he also said that he was Lord.
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And so he's a liar, in which case he wouldn't be a good teacher.
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He's a lunatic, in which case he wouldn't be a good teacher.
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Or he is a good teacher because he's not a lunatic.
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And therefore, the only other option that you're left with is that he was who he says he was,
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And so we don't really have, logically or theologically, the option of Jesus just being
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a good teacher, of just clinging to the red words of Jesus.
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The red words of Jesus says that he was the Son of God.
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And so if he was the Son of God, we have to reckon with the entire biblical canon.
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And so that's one mistake of many, I think, that a lot of these so-called deconstructionists
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And then they turn around and they use Jesus as their kind of political tool, their ideological
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tool, in order to get people to be more progressive.
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So that's what seems to be happening in this album.
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He has come out now, and he's come out with this pro-drag queen, pro-transgenderism album,
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He's actually been, I guess, progressive for a while.
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Um, I also didn't know he has, you know, some kind of friendship with, uh, Jennifer Knapp.
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I definitely remember listening to her Christian albums in like early 2000, but I was looking
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I didn't hear any songs that immediately rang any bells, but I didn't realize she came out
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as a woman attracted to women like several years ago and started this whole ministry to
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try to get Christians to deny Genesis 1, Romans 1, and the reality of Christ in the church
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being a bride and a bridegroom, aka accepting LGBTQ identities.
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Um, and so apparently there is like, uh, a group of people that are friends that are in
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the somewhat Christian music world still, or were once at one point, who have deconstructed
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from what they believe are just the antiquated backwards values of the Bible.
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Uh, we're going to get more into this trend, why I think it's happening.
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I'm going to get Bree's thoughts in just a second.
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So like I said, this particular album is called The Jesus Hypothesis.
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And so his song, um, The Jesus Hypothesis on the album goes like this.
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Maybe The Jesus Hypothesis is worth one more test to find a rhythm for all there is that
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The Jesus Hypothesis, like Thomas's best guess.
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Oh, like Pascal wagering with all of the doubts in my head, you're in my head and you just in
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This is a message from people who try to reconcile secularism, worldly values, progressivism
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Um, and this of course is nothing new in a way this has been around forever.
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This is, um, an attempt to try to wed the God of self with the God of scripture.
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This is the kind of conundrum or not even the conundrum, the, the quandary.
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I think that people get in when they say, okay, is there any way that I can follow Jesus and
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Is there any way that I can still be a follower of Jesus or a follower of Christianity and still
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Is there any way that I can not be set apart from the world and still be considered a Christian
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and still be considered a member of the church?
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Is there any way that I can just go along with the culture and I can, um, stave off any
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persecution or any hardship and look exactly like everyone else, just go with the flow
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I think Jesus is very, very clear that that's just not possible, that we are all called to
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count the cost, that we are going to not just look different from the world, but we're actually
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going to be hated by the world, uh, because of the gospel, because of Christ, because the
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things that we believe, not just about the gospel and the state of the human heart, the
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state of the soul, which is that we are dead in sin apart from Christ, which is what Ephesians
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2 says, but what we believe about everything, the Bible says, what we believe about gender,
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what we believe about marriage, what we believe about sex, what we believe about what love really
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looks like, what we believe about the definition of good and evil.
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They're going to gnash their teeth at those things.
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They still are today, and for Christians who have convinced themselves that maybe they
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can be loved by the world and also love God, I think that they just haven't read or haven't
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If you read, for example, it's James 4, 4, we see that this just isn't possible.
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The combination of being loved by the world and truly loving God and taking up your cross
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and following him, it's just not a combination that works.
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You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
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Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God, James
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It shouldn't surprise us, I think, that a lot of these people who deconstruct, and there
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are people who deconstruct and then reconstruct, it's rare, but people who deconstruct, who
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say, oh, I'm going to lose the culturally inconvenient parts of Christianity, I'm going
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to lose the stuff about sexuality and gender, I'm going to lose the stuff that's seen as
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bigoted by the world, and I'm just going to hold on to the red words of Jesus or hold
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on to the things that, you know, the world deems loving and tolerant and accepting and all
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of that, they typically start, it seems like, with the LGBTQ issue.
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They typically start with that controversial piece, and then they move on to the rest of
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They move on to John 14, 6, that I am the way, the truth, and the life, that no one and no
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one can come to the Father except through me, except through Christ.
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Because I don't think it's possible to reject the first chapter of the first book of the Bible
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that says that God made us male and female, he defines gender, he defines marriage right
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He even tells us, I think, we see the implication of what he thinks about abortion, that human
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beings are made in God's image, therefore they are highly valuable, and therefore, as
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we read throughout Scripture, but even, you know, as early as the first few chapters of
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the Bible, that he hates murder, that human beings are important to him, that murdering
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And actually, as we see in Genesis 9, it demands the death penalty.
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But all of that, we see all of those implications, we see all those definitions in the very first
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So I just don't think you can, for very long, deny the first chapter of the Bible without
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And so that seems to be what happened with Derek Webb of Cademan's Call.
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And it's pretty disturbing when you think about the songs that we have sang, that we've sung,
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It's like, how could you be writing those songs and feeling and singing those lyrics about
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the wonders of God and the majesty of Jesus and the beauty of the gospel?
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And your heart still gets so calloused and still gets so hard and your mind gets so
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I was talking to Brie before this because she's only, she's a few years younger than me.
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So I was hoping that she knew who Cademan's Call was and some of these other Christian
00:19:47.960
And I had to question, like, were you even a Christian in the 90s, Brie?
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But your parents, I mean, your parents, were they not?
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But I think I technically became a Christian at like seven.
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Did y'all listen to Christian music in the car growing up?
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My older sister listened to like a lot of, she liked Avalon.
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I read recently that one of the members of Avalon, which is like a, I guess, a vocal
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Got kicked out of the band because he came out as gay.
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So why do you think that this happens with contemporary Christian artists?
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Maybe it's not a lot, but it seems like pretty often over the past few years, specifically
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these like 90s Christian artists have come out and been like, I don't identify as Christian
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He said he doesn't even know if he believes in God.
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Hawk Nelson was, if people don't know Hawk Nelson, Hawk Nelson, is that, what did they
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I'm looking this up guys who are listening to this.
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If anyone heard that Siri said no need to apologize.
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He, a couple of years ago came out as, I don't know if he said that he's no longer a Christian,
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When you said that, I was, I was just thinking that exact thing because I used to work in ministry.
00:22:20.520
And when I saw and still see people that I worked with who were full-time missionaries, as soon as I see them start to post like happy pride or like I'm an ally or something like that.
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And even if it's very like discreet at first, time after time, a couple of years later, they're no longer Christians.
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And I think also, like we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, Rhett and Link, Good Mythical Morning, those guys who are huge YouTubers, they were really prominent Christians, both of them, and deconstructed.
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And one of the reasons is because they moved to LA.
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And I think the people they were surrounding themselves with were in the LGBT community.
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And so I just think it's a, it's a really sad kind of like gateway to quote deconstruction.
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There was, this was who I was thinking of when you brought up earlier, the Reliant K guy, John Steingard.
00:23:37.500
I was thinking of this guy from Switchfoot though, whose name is John Foreman, who I remember when he,
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it came out, I keep on saying came out and it probably seems like I'm saying came out as
00:23:54.320
I think when I was in college, that was pretty cool.
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I noticed that a lot of these people who do the music that is like somewhat like is Christian,
00:24:08.220
It's like a lot of those guys that end up deconstructing.
00:24:11.720
But John Foreman from Switchfoot, they had a song also, speaking of Mandy Moore and Walk
00:24:18.920
to Remember, didn't they have a song on Walk to Remember too?
00:24:27.660
So John Foreman, also a couple years ago from Switchfoot, he posted a TikTok video with a
00:24:35.440
This is according to Religion News toward the LGBTQ community.
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I want you to feel loved and supported, love and embrace have always been central to our
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And then someone, I guess an LGBTQ TikToker said, I'm interpreting what you said as being
00:25:02.000
If I am incorrect in that, then I really hope that you would clarify because I think for
00:25:07.160
many queer people of faith, the bait and switch of hearing such encouraging words like yours
00:25:10.420
and then finding out that that means something else can be heartbreaking, but I don't think
00:25:17.240
I mean, I guess you could interpret his, I guess you could interpret his comments as
00:25:21.740
just saying like, yeah, I believe that you should have legal rights and not fully supporting
00:25:35.380
And I guess it's not that surprising, the whole LGBTQ thing, because they are artists.
00:25:49.080
Yeah, they're more, they're more liberal, but also they're in, they're still like in
00:25:55.180
that world of being in LA or being in Nashville.
00:26:01.740
A lot of the people in the music industry, whether it's Christian music industry or not,
00:26:08.340
LGBTQ, even Lauren Daigle, a few years ago, when she was asked on a radio show, you know,
00:26:22.160
And I think that even though that might've sounded to a lot of people like just a ditzy
00:26:27.020
response, I think that that is probably the thing is that I love a lot of people who are
00:26:39.500
And she's another one that writes those Jesus is my boyfriend songs where you don't know
00:26:48.620
But very talented, very talented and likable person.
00:26:52.660
And that's the same with like in Hollywood with Christian production companies.
00:26:56.720
Usually most of the people running those aren't Christians to begin with.
00:27:02.060
They're making that content to make money from a Christian audience.
00:27:05.220
So while some of these artists might be professing Christians, the people actually producing the
00:27:12.660
So they're still surrounded by the same people.
00:27:19.480
And so and I do think that it can inhibit some of your reach and your success, your ability
00:27:25.780
to like to to work with in these industries if you are openly oppositional to those things,
00:27:33.820
because even a lot of Christian artists who are not openly affirming or they're not openly
00:27:39.520
progressive, they still don't they're not exactly clear.
00:27:43.760
Like you're not seeing a whole lot of songs like glorifying and honoring the beauty of biblical
00:27:52.120
And I'm not saying that every Christian artist also has to be a commentator and also always
00:27:57.680
has to give the most controversial opinion that they have.
00:28:00.520
But you really see them kind of quiet on a lot of these issues.
00:28:07.340
A lot of the people in producing and in production are progressive.
00:28:12.780
And so they don't want to hurt those relationships.
00:28:14.400
I doubt that Lauren Daigle would have been able to go on Ellen DeGeneres' show if she
00:28:20.300
had been if she had answered that question honestly and said, you know what, I'm going
00:28:39.220
It's easy to justify, not just for Christian artists, but for anyone to say, well, if I
00:28:44.580
stay away from saying those really controversial things, then I can reach more people.
00:28:50.260
And once I reach them, then behind the scenes, I can tell them my controversial opinions about,
00:28:58.360
I think there are a lot of pastors that do that.
00:28:59.940
Yeah, I think, you know, that's kind of even the Joel Osteen strategy, but also like the
00:29:04.520
celebrity, uh, pastor strategy of like, let's just make people feel really good for a period
00:29:12.280
And then when it comes down to it, we'll talk about sin and holiness and repentance and
00:29:20.460
And I don't know if that's what leads to destruction, destruction, deconstruction, just
00:29:27.800
Um, but it certainly seems to contribute to it, that repentance and holiness and all of
00:29:35.140
this stuff isn't taught very prevalently within the church.
00:29:39.660
And so, yeah, you just have a lot of people misunderstanding it and missing it.
00:29:48.220
It's a shame trying to reach the largest amount of people, no matter the cost.
00:29:57.620
Like he, he's, I mean, he makes, he makes it really difficult.
00:30:01.840
He says, you're probably going to lose your life.
00:30:04.840
You're going to, you could lose your livelihood.
00:30:16.380
You're going to have to carry your own method of crucifixion on your back.
00:30:21.700
If you want to be a follower of me, are you ready for that?
00:30:26.860
So it's, it's just strange how these same people who say, well, I'm just going to hang
00:30:35.100
And, you know, one thing to keep in mind for these artists is that we've kind of proven
00:30:39.520
that there is a market for people who speak truth about these issues.
00:30:44.560
Maybe it's not as big as the traditional, you know, mainstream market, but, you know,
00:30:56.080
It's like, there's a market people are going to buy, if it's good music, people are going
00:30:59.180
to buy your music if you stand up for what is right and good and true.
00:31:03.220
And I wish more people kind of counted on that.
00:31:06.960
But I don't think that there's a very large market for like progressive Christian songs.
00:31:12.560
Like a Christian song also celebrating like drag queens.
00:31:18.240
There's a definitely a demographic of people who will listen to that.
00:31:24.000
There's a network of churches that will sing that, but churches.
00:31:27.040
But it's, it's few and far between, I would say.
00:31:30.320
Not that I think that they should just put on an album or put out an album that they don't
00:31:37.940
But yeah, I don't think that this is like the beginning of a movement.
00:31:42.560
I just think that it's people going along to get along, going along with the world because
00:31:50.960
And this is my response that I gave to, and you guys have heard me say this a lot, but
00:31:56.820
in response to this Nate Worthington person who I guess was a counselor, this is his bio.
00:32:05.840
And this tweet went kind of viral, which is why I responded to it.
00:32:09.600
A future counselor, current deconstructor, former pastor, always coffee, never nationalism.
00:32:16.700
So random, always coffee, but never nationalism.
00:32:19.780
That's what I think in the morning when I drink my coffee.
00:32:26.220
And then if you didn't know, he slash him, which I really appreciate because I had no
00:32:32.140
idea with a name like Nate and a beard that he would be a man.
00:32:38.820
So he tweeted this, and this just typifies so much of what we're talking about.
00:32:44.640
I am now a fully open and affirming Christian to my LGBTQIA brothers and sisters to quote
00:32:52.840
Derek Webb, I was wrong, I'm sorry, and I love you.
00:33:00.100
So quoting the guy, I didn't even actually realize when I pulled this tweet that he was
00:33:03.840
quoting the guy that we were talking about, Derek Webb, this Cayman's call guy.
00:33:12.440
I don't think I could say anything contemporaneously that would be better than what I've already
00:33:27.160
Marriage between a man and a woman is and always will be one rooted in creation.
00:33:36.160
For example, Exodus 2012, you shall honor your father and mother repeated by Jesus himself.
00:33:45.600
He's answering a question about divorce from the Pharisees who are trying to trap him.
00:33:52.500
He goes all the way back to the creation account that he made them male and female.
00:33:57.660
It is representative of Christ in the church, which is Ephesians 5, 31 through 32.
00:34:03.180
And it is therefore reflective of the gospel, Christ and the church.
00:34:09.720
So rooted in creation, reiterated throughout scripture, repeated by Jesus, representative
00:34:14.160
of Christ in the church, and therefore reflective of the gospel, which we see reflected in Christ
00:34:23.920
So there is gospel, spiritual, profound, eternal significance to the definition of gender and
00:34:29.180
It's not just one of those things where we can pick apart some verses and say, oh, those
00:34:35.980
Or maybe the original Greek and Hebrew doesn't quite mean exactly what we think.
00:34:43.420
Like, I mean, talk about using modern progressive lenses to try to read in to scripture.
00:34:48.860
It's not just one of those things because it's not just Leviticus.
00:34:54.780
It is also the fact that marriage between a man and a woman is the only sexual relationship
00:35:00.340
that is positively affirmed and called holy in the Bible.
00:35:04.940
Every other kind of relationship is seen as sinful.
00:35:07.100
Every other relationship is a sin, not just against God, but against yourself.
00:35:10.600
So it's not just about a few verses here and there, which if it were, that would be okay
00:35:16.220
Jesus is God, and therefore he also created the male and female.
00:35:21.340
Well, everything that God's word says throughout the Old and New Testament, Jesus also says.
00:35:31.680
From the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1, to the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation
00:35:36.480
22, the Bible starts with a marriage between man and woman.
00:35:40.440
The Bible ends with a marriage between the bride and the bridegroom.
00:35:49.880
It's not like God just said, oh, yeah, male and female, that sounds good.
00:35:56.600
The arc of redemption that we've seen from creation into eternity, the role of male and
00:36:04.880
female, both physically, as we see in the beginning, but also spiritually, that has extreme
00:36:14.180
significance in the biblical narrative and in the eternal plan of redemption, which God
00:36:21.020
So that is why when people say, ah, I think I'm a Christian, but I affirm the LGBTQ stuff.
00:36:31.540
Maybe love really is just love rather than looking at, say, 1 Corinthians 13 or 1 John 4, 8 to see
00:36:46.180
Well, that's why when people affirm that, they end up denying the gospel, because you're not just
00:36:54.340
denying one or two verses, as if that was okay.
00:36:59.820
You're denying something very fundamental, very central to Christianity.
00:37:04.680
It's not one of those things like, oh, we disagree on eschatology.
00:37:10.400
These are big issues, but they're not necessarily salvation issues if we disagree on them.
00:37:14.960
When it comes to sexuality and gender and the definition of marriage, when you mess with
00:37:19.720
that, you are messing with, again, something extremely foundational, extremely fundamental.
00:37:25.440
And that's why when you take that piece away, the edifice starts to crumble.
00:37:31.760
So Derek Webb of Cade Minscall, this seems to be another example of that.
00:37:37.140
There was that Hillsong guy, Marty Sampson, who also did the same thing.
00:37:41.820
And gosh, it just seems to be the same story over and over again.
00:37:46.760
This is just a reminder to you, because I know that this can cause, sometimes when you
00:37:50.260
look up to a pastor, you look up to an author, you look up to an artist, like it can cause
00:37:54.360
a crisis of faith for people who have been followers of them, a really big fan of them.
00:37:59.200
When you think about someone like Carl Lentz, who we talked about a couple weeks ago, I don't
00:38:03.260
know if he calls himself a deconstructor, although he does don progressive values.
00:38:07.000
But he ended up being not who he said that he was, you know, he was having an affair and
00:38:12.480
That can cause a crisis of faith for the people that trusted that.
00:38:16.420
Like maybe you heard one of these people share the gospel and you became a Christian and then
00:38:25.140
Let me remind you that no pastor and no artist and no author, no influencer, no podcaster is
00:38:36.640
Jesus is the author and perfecter of your faith, and he will never fail you.
00:38:49.020
He will never pretend to be something that he's not.
00:38:58.920
And he will never, ever let you down or turn his back on you.
00:39:07.900
So all of these people that we follow, whom God may have used in good and edifying and glorifying
00:39:15.380
ways at some point, despite their sin and rebellion, these are not the people that we cling
00:39:22.540
These are not the people that we ultimately follow.
00:39:25.880
We follow Christ and we can learn from people who are emulating Christ in their words and
00:39:32.420
I think that's good, but hold everyone very loosely.
00:39:36.660
Take every person that you've placed on a pedestal off their pedestal and keep Christ the only
00:39:43.680
one there, the only one that is uplifted, the only one that is on the throne, because I promise
00:40:00.480
Friends will reject you or maybe reject the faith that you thought that you shared with
00:40:09.720
Remember, Jesus Christ, Hebrews 13, 8, is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
00:40:18.060
And we should pray for these people's repentance.
00:40:25.540
Unfortunately, I think a difficult part of this is that a lot of people who were raised in
00:40:28.960
the faith or who were in the church for a long time, when they start to deconstruct,
00:40:34.200
they think that they've asked all the questions, that they know everything about Christianity.
00:40:40.620
And so they think that there's nothing that you could ask them or nothing that you could tell
00:40:47.940
them that would change their mind because they've heard it all.
00:40:51.960
But typically, like, the questions that they ask, like, why does a good God let bad things happen?
00:40:58.940
I'm like, oh, wow, no one's ever asked those questions before.
00:41:02.540
There's also just, there's just like a lot of pride, it seems like, from these people.
00:41:06.840
They think that they're asking questions that apologists and theologians and other Christians
00:41:11.200
haven't been asking for thousands of years and answering very wisely and biblically for
00:41:16.680
I guarantee you, the word of God has answers to the questions that you're looking for.
00:41:33.240
Okay, I just wanted to talk about this story that I think is kind of ridiculous.
00:41:41.420
But as we have just analyzed, there's a loss of sanity.
00:41:46.080
And a loss of understanding and wisdom in our culture.
00:41:49.700
And it has even infected the Library of Congress, which comes as no surprise to me.
00:41:54.300
There is no institution anymore that is sacred.
00:41:56.820
A Library of Congress apologizes for using wrong pronouns.
00:42:02.060
So the Library of Congress recently publicly apologized to author Casey McQuiston for using
00:42:06.980
incorrect pronouns when they were advertising her book signing event at the library.
00:42:13.760
So the original tweet event listing with, quote unquote, incorrect pronouns was deleted.
00:42:28.400
They had the audacity to look at someone who clearly looks like a woman and call her she.
00:42:33.160
And so Casey McQuiston, I guess she was upset about this.
00:42:42.380
She wrote the New York Times bestseller, Red, White, and Royal Blue in 2019, which is a love
00:42:47.420
story between America's first son and the British Prince of Wales.
00:42:51.140
The book has turned into an Amazon Prime original movie that releases on August 11th.
00:42:55.900
And so she was doing this, I guess, reading at the Library of Congress.
00:43:00.740
And so the Library of Congress then apologized for calling this woman, who is clearly a woman,
00:43:06.380
And they said, we deeply apologize to Casey McQuiston for using incorrect pronouns for
00:43:14.320
In our last post, Casey will be signing books after the conversation about Red, White, and
00:43:23.780
Okay, so I guess in the past couple of years, she has decided that she is multiple people
00:43:31.760
like Legion, the demon-possessed person among pigs at the cemetery in Scripture.
00:43:41.660
So she goes by they, them, and the Library of Congress failed to acknowledge that.
00:43:47.940
But a little bit more about this, about this author.
00:43:51.960
This is from Time Magazine, Red, White, and Blue was her debut novel that was a surprising
00:43:59.340
She said, I always felt that if the book could find its people, other depressed queer millennials,
00:44:07.740
I personally, I can't say that I have read the book myself.
00:44:12.960
Now, what's interesting is that in this Time Magazine article, Casey is referred to as
00:44:22.720
So in the past, let's see, month 2021, so May 2021, so a little over two years ago, she
00:44:30.600
And yet the Library of Congress had the audacity not to follow her personal identification story
00:44:37.840
so quickly, moment by moment, that they failed to refer to the singular person with plural
00:44:46.840
How could they be so ignorant and so narcissistic that they were not following the ongoing and
00:44:54.320
always developing story of her transition from she, her to they, them?
00:45:01.280
According to Time Magazine's feature, McQuiston's formative years were shaped by attending a conservative
00:45:05.340
evangelical Christian school from kindergarten to 12th grade.
00:45:14.420
See, this is another example of, I guess, deconstruction.
00:45:18.660
Anybody who's been through queer religious trauma has ways of coping with that in adulthood.
00:45:26.120
Her second novel, One Last Stop, included an all-queer cast.
00:45:29.280
It was important to her not just to have one queer person represented, as was the case on
00:45:37.020
The book is set in the Deep South at a conservative religious high school, much like her own upbringing.
00:45:42.280
She says, I have no interest in fame or notoriety.
00:45:44.440
I just want to write my gay little books and show people a good time.
00:45:55.260
So Casey goes by they then, the Library of Congress.
00:45:58.480
They have learned their lesson and they had to publicly apologize for calling an individual
00:46:06.400
Honestly, this is just, again, the gospel of the God of self.
00:46:12.540
It is so perpetually narcissistic and demanding of other people's words and acquiescence,
00:46:22.980
Um, Library of Congress, however, they have been, uh, progressive for some time.
00:46:31.660
In the least, they've gone, um, full steam ahead on things like DEI.
00:46:38.860
In February of 2021, a new PCC Advisory Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion was formed
00:46:44.820
to revisit unresolved outcomes from the original, from the original group, I guess, that was championing
00:46:51.320
DEI to address the extensive feedback it received from a survey that they put out.
00:46:56.240
And one thing that they decided to do, do not record the research description and access
00:47:02.360
gender element and personal name authority records.
00:47:05.460
Essentially, don't record gender when a library cataloging about people.
00:47:09.320
Avoid outing, misgendering, or deadnaming the person.
00:47:12.140
Or recording details about a person's gender transition.
00:47:15.160
Respect requests from the person to remove or update information pertaining to the person's
00:47:26.220
Even the Library of Congress, who is supposed to be, I don't know, about learning and about
00:47:32.320
some form of truth and knowledge and wisdom, you would hope, um, they have also abandoned reality
00:47:39.040
as most institutions, as most institutions have.
00:47:42.680
And also, you'll remember, uh, Lizzo, Lizzo played a flute in front of the Library of Congress.
00:47:49.940
Wasn't it, like, Thomas Jeffers, James Madison's flute?
00:47:57.820
We haven't talked about Lizzo and her whole thing yet.
00:48:00.780
I will be talking about it with the Babylon bees, Kyle Mann, in a few weeks.
00:48:07.140
Um, but yeah, she got to play in front of the Library of Congress and, uh, the Library
00:48:15.240
Yeah, they've just had a few woke moments over the years.
00:48:17.400
So not entirely surprised, not entirely surprised by something like that.
00:48:40.120
And I'm sorry that I didn't get to this earlier.
00:48:43.080
I know I had a lot of people from Ohio asking me, can you talk about this?
00:48:46.120
It's always so hard to talk about all the things we want to talk about.
00:48:49.220
Even today, we're not going to get to all the stories that we had planned to talk about.
00:48:52.500
Uh, usually one story just ends up kind of, um, dominating the episode and then stories
00:49:03.340
So this is summarized from various outlets, The Hill, AP News, New York Times.
00:49:08.060
On Tuesday, Ohio voters rejected a ballot measure known as issue one that would have raised the
00:49:13.300
threshold for changing the state's constitution from a simple majority to a 60% supermajority.
00:49:21.800
Okay, so this is probably why you're hearing about this as a conservative or pro-lifer because
00:49:26.440
Ohioans will vote in November on a proposal to amend the constitution to guarantee abortion
00:49:33.200
The Ohio right to make reproductive decisions, including abortion initiative is already on
00:49:39.700
Now this measure only needs a simple majority to pass.
00:49:43.380
So this would become a quote unquote constitutional right in Ohio, the ability to murder your child.
00:49:55.800
Supporters of issue one said the higher bar would protect the state's foundational document
00:50:03.940
Like I think the threshold should be raised, uh, period, but it's particularly important when
00:50:11.040
it comes to what's on the ballot this November, um, in regards to protecting unborn life.
00:50:17.140
According to, uh, the Associated Press voters cast nearly 700,000 early in-person and mail
00:50:23.280
ballots ahead of Tuesday's final day of voting, more than double the number of advanced votes
00:50:33.140
Now I'm not saying that they're not all real votes because I don't know that.
00:50:37.220
I'm just saying, I do think interest groups play a role in this.
00:50:40.580
I think the massive abortion lobby plays a role in this campaign finance data shows that
00:50:47.120
one person, one vote that measures, uh, opposition campaign.
00:50:51.220
So the more progressive side of this, they're the ones that don't want to raise the threshold
00:50:56.220
for a constitutional change, raise nearly 85% of its $14.8 million in contributions, uh,
00:51:10.200
The committee in support of issue one also received contributions from outside of Ohio.
00:51:14.540
Billionary Illinois business owner, Richard, uh, Lane contributed 4 million of the committee's
00:51:20.280
nearly 4.9 million, but they obviously, they didn't get, um, a whole lot.
00:51:27.240
They didn't get nearly as much money as the progressive side did.
00:51:33.480
I mean, the abortion lobby, these progressive groups, they're huge and they have a lot of
00:51:39.280
And like, you'll remember, remember Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz, like how much outside support
00:51:46.580
Like you've got all of Hollywood and all of these industries flooding these states.
00:51:50.280
Sometimes trying to support these campaigns, it's not always effective.
00:51:54.100
However, it seems like the same thing happened in Kentucky not too long ago when it came to
00:52:02.140
Um, it's not always effective because obviously Beto O'Rourke lost and so did Stacey Abrams.
00:52:09.680
She might still be the rightful governor of Georgia.
00:52:12.500
Um, but a lot of these come from that outside groups and a lot of outside money that for
00:52:17.420
some reason just cannot stand conservative states being conservative and can't stand,
00:52:24.620
Of course, President Biden felt the need to weigh in on this and he's super excited that
00:52:28.420
it'll be as easy as possible for women to abort their children.
00:52:31.320
The ardently Catholic president that we have, um, he said today, Ohio voters rejected an
00:52:36.440
effort by Republican lawmakers and special interests to change the state's constitutional
00:52:42.080
This measure was a blatant attempt to weaken voters voices.
00:52:46.880
Doubt and further erode the freedom of women to make their own healthcare decisions.
00:52:51.140
Ohioans spoke loud and clear and tonight democracy won.
00:52:55.560
And again, I think you have to ask yourself whenever you hear progressives say the word
00:52:59.500
democracy, you have to say, what do you mean by that?
00:53:04.600
Like what does democracy mean in this sentence?
00:53:07.560
Democracy typically just means them getting what they want.
00:53:13.980
Um, so what you can do, Ohio, is make sure that you vote in November.
00:53:20.240
And I know it might seem hopeless at this point, but that's what you got to do.
00:53:25.180
You can educate your friends, make sure that they go out and vote.
00:53:28.280
I think the majority in Ohio is in the pro-life, uh, camp.
00:53:33.420
I, I do think that probably statistically, uh, most people are leaning to the right on this
00:53:40.380
issue and they don't want to make abortion so accessible, uh, and a guaranteed right in
00:53:46.360
But there's a lot of people who just won't vote because it's not a presidential election
00:53:52.320
You got to get the moms in your neighborhood, the moms at your kid's school.
00:53:55.040
You got to get your friends who are just so apathetic.
00:53:59.700
I was just talking to someone about this yesterday.
00:54:04.200
If they don't see how it directly affects their life or their kids' lives, they really,
00:54:11.180
I would say that's not even as true on the left.
00:54:15.040
Um, but on the right, it's like, well, look, I'm just busy working.
00:54:21.120
I'm busy at church, which are all great things, by the way.
00:54:26.400
Just because you don't see how something directly affects you today doesn't mean that
00:54:30.720
A, it won't affect you at some point or your kids one day.
00:54:34.260
And B, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't care about it.
00:54:38.360
Politics matter because policy matters because people matter.
00:54:41.860
And if we're Christians, we should know better than anyone that people matter and why they
00:55:13.880
I've got to talk about this, Bree, and you can tell me what you think about this.
00:55:19.680
We were going to talk about the Massachusetts couple getting denied for adoption because
00:55:27.120
Maybe I'll talk about that on social media, but I got to talk about this FBI story because
00:55:31.680
And I just want to be able to say that we talked about this.
00:55:35.540
So this is according to the blaze and CNN, FBI kills a man who was a credible threat to
00:55:47.700
Um, and at 6 15 AM on Wednesday morning, yesterday morning, uh, FBI agents arrived at his house
00:55:55.580
And this is allegedly because of things he posted on social media that were critical
00:56:06.100
The thing is we don't have body cam footage, so I don't know.
00:56:10.540
For all we know, he could have pointed a gun at an FBI guy, you know?
00:56:15.600
But knowing what we know, I'm skeptical because it seems like what he was doing, if you read
00:56:24.220
some of his tweets, like they are, they're very blatantly like, oh, you know, I'm going
00:56:30.940
Like he says stuff on social media that is like, I guess, threatening, but he's also like
00:56:40.540
No one knocked their door down and killed them, you know, for that.
00:56:43.580
So I'm just skeptical how they were already tracking him.
00:56:56.240
I mean, obviously the things that he was saying are not good.
00:57:00.080
He said the time is right for a presidential assassination or two.
00:57:06.680
He also apparently said, um, I'll be waiting in the courthouse parking garage with my suppressed
00:57:12.300
Smith and Wesson MMP nine millimeter to smoke a radical fool prosecutor that should never
00:57:18.700
I mean, these are horrible things to say, and I'm not saying that these threats shouldn't
00:57:24.480
But I see a ton of this stuff from progressives.
00:57:28.280
A ton of this stuff against Kavanaugh and other conservative justices when Roe v.
00:57:35.500
And at that time, they weren't even, these tweets weren't even getting taken down by Twitter.
00:57:40.800
And as far as I know, these people weren't investigated by the FBI.
00:57:44.480
Some of them that I know tweeted terrible things, wishing violence and harm and destruction
00:57:51.060
I know they haven't been, uh, at least they haven't gotten in trouble by law enforcement
00:57:58.760
And so I'm not saying that this person shouldn't have been investigated.
00:58:04.620
I do think you have to investigate things like this, but is it even, or is it just because
00:58:16.600
Um, now I still, even that we don't know, as you said, if the, he, like if the killing
00:58:23.360
was justified, just like we don't know in any law enforcement, citizen situation, if the
00:58:28.740
killing was justified until we know for sure what was happening.
00:58:32.820
So, yeah, I mean, it's really, I mean, it's just such an unfortunate situation.
00:58:37.920
And he has so many tweets saying, FBI, I know you're reading this.
00:58:43.360
Make sure you tell me when you're coming by so basically I can kill you.
00:58:46.800
So they had a reason to think that he could have been dangerous.
00:58:50.640
Um, but it, it, it certainly doesn't look good when they're seeing, it never will look
00:58:55.480
good when law enforcement seems to use deadly force with partiality.
00:59:01.740
And that's something that the left understands when it comes to race.
00:59:05.360
And when they claim, I think falsely that there is a, like a partial thing going on when
00:59:11.960
it comes to killing people, according to the color of their skin.
00:59:14.780
But when it comes to political partiality in favor of progressives over conservatives and
00:59:21.740
the use of fatal force by law enforcement, it doesn't seem like progressives seem to be
00:59:26.940
They don't seem to be worried about police brutality here.
00:59:29.600
It's just like, oh, well, he did tweet those things.
00:59:33.640
Which was the first response was a lot of articles about this guy.
00:59:42.000
You know, things like that, rather than should the FBI have been doing this?
00:59:54.580
All of a sudden you're going to see their little blue, the blue stripe, um, bumper stickers
01:00:09.820
I think it's just like such a sad situation overall, um, man, oh man.
01:00:23.560
And so there's just, there's a lot of strangeness to it.
01:00:28.340
But just remember, um, God is on his throne, even in the craziness of the feds, the craziness
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of the culture, craziness of people who profess themselves to be Christians.
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The chaos and the confusion of the world will not win.
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God will claim victory and enact perfect justice and perfect peace forevermore.
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And that is the hope that we cling to in all things.
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And remember, it is always enough to do the next right thing in excellence, in faith, with