Ep 906 ｜ Time to Boycott Scholastic Books ｜ Guest： Kirk Cameron
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Summary
In this episode, Pastor Kirk Cameron is here with us to talk about all kinds of things. Yes, the darkness and craziness that s going on in the world, specifically in our schools, and also disturbingingly at Scholastic Books, they are promoting books that encourage gender transition and show pornography to kids in schools. He s going to discuss the alternative that he is building and has built to that, but really, more than anything, Kirk is here to encourage us as parents, as Christians, and as Christians in general.
Transcript
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Kirk Cameron is here with us today, and we are going to talk about all kinds of things. Yes,
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the darkness and the craziness that's going on in the world, specifically in our schools,
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and also very disturbingly at Scholastic Books. They are promoting books that encourage gender
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transition and show pornography to kids in schools. He's going to talk about the alternative
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that he is building and has built to that. But really, more than anything, Kirk Cameron is here
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to encourage us today, encourage us as parents, encourage us as Christians. I mean, it's a whole
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sermon, everything that he says. You are going to leave this episode, and rather than feeling like,
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oh my gosh, I'm just down about the state of the world, you are going to feel completely on fire.
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The hope and the optimism that he gives through the power of the gospel and just biblical truths
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is going to be such a comfort to you. It certainly was for me. You're going to love this conversation
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so much with Kirk Cameron. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to
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goodranchers.com. Use code ALI at checkout. That's goodranchers.com, code ALI.
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Kirk, thanks so much for joining us in person. I'm excited to be here. Yes, I'm so glad that
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you're here. Last time you were here, we were just talking about this. You kind of made headlines
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for saying something about public school. Do you remember? Yeah, it was something along the lines
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of public education is public enemy number one when it comes to parents and what their kids are
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being taught. Do you still think that? Do you stand by it? Unfortunately, I do. And I say that as
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somebody who is so grateful for public school teachers. My dad's a public school teacher. My
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grandmother and my grandpa are public school teachers. And I know so many good ones who are
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trying to reach these kids, but they're working within the context of a system that is so stacked
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against them. And the good public schools that remain out there and the little towns out there
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in the sticks somewhere that haven't been totally hijacked and infiltrated by Marxism, socialism,
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all of that. I'm afraid it won't last that long because of the funding, because of the source of
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the materials, the curriculums that come in there. And eventually, I think it's going to come down to
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parents have to take back that sacred duty of educating their children and not just farming them
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out for seven hours a day to a place where they don't know what's being taught to their kids.
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Right. My mom, also public school teacher, my grandmother, public school teacher. I have a lot
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of respect for them too. And I get a lot of messages from Christian public school teachers
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asking me, what should I do? You know, part of me wants to stay here because I love these kids and
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I want to be light in the darkness. And they're thinking, I might be the only Christian that these
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kids know. Or they're also thinking, I don't want to be a part of this because I'm in a system,
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like you were saying, where I really can't not go along with some of this curriculum and things like
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that. So in your personal opinion, what should these Christians teachers do? I know it's
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individual, maybe case by case, but like, what's your encouragement and advice for them?
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Yeah. Well, sometimes, here's what I want to help people, individuals and institutions as much as I
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can help them. However, if, if, uh, if a certain way of doing things is fundamentally flawed, I think
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we're going to be sort of hobbling around trying to fix something when we would be much better off,
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like, like taking it on the chin right now and getting back to the way things are supposed to be.
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So when I, I say that thinking about those public school teachers who are saying, look, I'm not going
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to do some of the things that they tell me to do. I'm not going to teach this stuff, but then I'm going
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to get fired. So I got to go along with it. And then, you know, but I'm, at least I'm, I'm a little
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light in, in this giant darkness, but you know, what I found is that when parents have pulled their
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children out of school and said, we want something better, the home education market is now
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looking for great teachers to come out of the public school system and join them and start new
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schools at churches or community co-ops and other things. And what I'm finding is that, um, those
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teachers are now finding very fertile ground to teach all the stuff that they want to teach within
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these networks and home co-ops, because the parents and the kids are on board with the same ideas.
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So it's scary to leave things, you know, and you're familiar with, and maybe there's the sure paycheck.
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But I think at the end of the day, like if we keep going down that road, where will it lead?
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Our children. Um, I, I think we know where it ends. Um, public education, Horace Mann style
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from the very beginning is, uh, all fueled by the humanist manifesto and a design of removing
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biblical Christianity from the hearts and minds of children. That is the goal. And, uh, you begin to
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sexualize children in schools with materials like I've been talking about here coming from Scholastic
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that further separates children from their parents and gets them going down roads that are, um, not
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just about liberty to choose what gender I am, but it's actually leading to the destruction of these
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children in body, mind, and spirit and, and the institution of the family. I believe. Yeah. Yeah.
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Let's talk about that a little bit because obviously I've talked quite a bit on this show about the
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importance of Christian education, whether it's a Christian school, traditional Christian school,
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or it's home education and the importance of discipling our kids in that way. It's really
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a choice of whether you want your kids to get 40 plus hours a week of anti-biblical education or 40
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plus hours a week of biblical education. I mean, that's the choice really that we have. There's not
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really a middle ground, especially today, but some people say it's not that bad or my district isn't
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doing that. My district, I know all the teachers and all the administrators in my district,
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and they're all on the same page and they would never introduce some of this, you know, gender
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stuff or anti-biblical ideas. I know what I would say to those parents, but what would you say to
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that? So I don't want to tell anybody what you should do with your children. Just, I wouldn't
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want anyone telling me what to do with my kids. Um, but the government will tell you what to do with
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your children. That that's the inevitable, inescapable reality. If your kids are going to a school
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that's being funded by the government and the, what's what I, what, if you've got a great district
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and a great, and you know, your administrators that that's good. But here's what I've found.
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I'm looking at all the videos of the moms and the dads at the school board meetings,
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yelling at the leadership on the board of education there at their school going this material. And they
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got the big, you know, the big cardboard cutout of the pages that are obscene and sexual in nature.
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And the cop comes over, shuts them down and says, you can't show this stuff. Right. Right. Or you're
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a domestic terrorist for even, even saying these things. I'm thinking to myself, well, where's this
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material coming from? I mean, who's publishing this stuff? Is, is, are these just bad district,
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you know, superintendents? Are these just bad librarians who are slip, sneaking this stuff in?
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It turns out many of them don't even know that it's in their own libraries and schools because
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there's a wolf in sheep's clothing that is the world's largest publisher and distributor of
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children's books and curriculum. And it's called Scholastic. That's that company we've all grown
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up with and loved their book fairs. You buy your favorite books for summer reading. Schools love
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them because they're easy, they're inexpensive, and they get a kickback from the sales of the books
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to help with their school budgets. So this is all a win-win for Scholastic and the school and the
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library, except these benign looking book covers are, are actually laced with obscene, sexually
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explicit, pornographic material. And I'm not exaggerating. That's why I bought the books.
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I've read them. I saw it with my own eyes. We're talking about nudity, sex acts, young minors
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books, showing off, you know, uh, top surgery scars and in the middle of the act, uh, asking to please
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treat me like a boy, not like a girl this time. In these books that are in libraries and schools,
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accessible to children. They're marketed to children, eight to 12 years old. That's second to sixth grade.
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12 years old. And younger. They're, they're encouraging littles to explore the world of drag
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in movies like Julian is a mermaid. Um, this one is called welcome to St. Hell, my trans teen
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misadventure, uh, written by a girl named Lois, who now goes as Louis, uh, Alex Gino. This is Rick.
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You wrote another one, Melissa stars in their eyes. These are all books that are morally dangerous.
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They're gender confusing. And, um, some of them are sexually explicit to the point where
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when we put an, uh, an ad for the alternative we're offering to these types of books that
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contain these pictures, Meta shut down the post because it violated their obscenity guidelines.
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Wow. Now the conservative Christian company Meta, uh, no, they're not. And they shut it down
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because it violated their adult standards of inappropriate obscenities. And this stuff is
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Yes. And just for people who are only listening, you can't see the covers. It's very obvious that
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this is trying to target children because they're cartoons. They've got the bright colors. I guess
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they're supposed to look innocent. And if you're a kid who doesn't know what the rainbow stands for
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or what these things are, maybe you would grab it. Or maybe, you know, it's a little bit
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different than what your parents would allow you to read. And so you'll grab it and read it. And then
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those images, those words are stuck in your mind. That's what porn does.
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That's right. And, and if there's any question, uh, you can read the reviews of these books and
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you'll find that children say, I didn't even know what trans was. Now I am trans because of this book.
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It's grooming. It's a hundred percent grooming.
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What we've done is we've created a PDF that you can go to on the website, download it for free,
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and it documents all of the book covers, the pages and the images and descriptions of, uh, you know,
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how to use hormones as your own personal manual to grow your own male sex organs. If you're a girl,
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uh, all of this stuff is in the PDF so that you can see it with your own eyes,
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then show your, your, your, your mom, friends, your dad, friends, what's going on inside of your
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school. And I guarantee you that it's there. Why? Because scholastic is not just the thousand pound
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gorilla in the book space for kids. They are the space they're they've monopolized it. Hardly anyone
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can compete, uh, until now we've, we've got an alternative that, uh, over 700 schools are already
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participating in. Yeah. Tell me about that. So what's the website and, um, how can they access
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the PDF? The website is sky tree bookfares.org. So sky tree is a brand new nonprofit that was really,
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uh, inspired out of this, uh, library reading tour that I did this last year where I was reading books
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in public schools, uh, contra the drag queen story hours. And, and one concerned mom said,
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Hey, let's create an alternative to this, these harmful scholastic book fairs. And it's called
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sky tree book fairs. So if you go there, there's the PDF that you can download and instructions on
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how to replace harmful scholastic book fairs in your library or school with wholesome sky tree book
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fairs. And, uh, our first one is next month. It's in Spotsylvania, Virginia. The superintendent of
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the district is thrilled out of his mind that we're finally able to do this. And this is a public
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school. Wow. We have 700 of them already in the process, filled out the application and they are
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going to be turning things around in their district, in their school. And you can too.
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Wow. Okay. So this is the competitor to scholastic who has never really had a competitor,
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right? Not really. There's a few here and there, but the books are expensive. Scholastic is cheap,
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right? Everything's printed in China for pennies. And then the schools get kickbacks from them when
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they sell them. So it's a no brainer to go with scholastic. Right. So scholastic, just so I
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understand, is publishing the books. They're publishing the books and distributing the books.
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Right. And do we know how scholastic, maybe this is something that someone can investigate,
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how scholastic got to this point? I mean, I'm sure just like everything else in the past 20 years,
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it's changed a lot. I mean, to go from, you know, just something that I guess was innocuous.
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James and the giant peach. Right. Stuart Little, all of it, all these great books.
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Yeah. To this, to pornography for kids, to encouraging girls to chop off their healthy
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breasts when they're between eight to 12 years old. I mean, that's evil.
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It really, it really truly is. And, um, they've been around for over a hundred years. They're a
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billion dollar company. They're publicly traded. And guess who their two biggest stakeholders are
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for scholastic. I can guess, but why don't you tell me?
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Vanguard and BlackRock. Oh, wow. Really? Those little guys? Shocking.
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So for those who aren't familiar with them, these are massive, uh, you know, they have massive amounts
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of money and can put massive amounts of pressure on companies like Target, like Bud Light, like whoever,
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including scholastic, to go down this road of wokeness that includes SEG, DEI, all this stuff.
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And ultimately, what does this end up doing? It's billions of dollars behind separating children from
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their parents by sexualizing them when they're young. We have federal laws against the distribution
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of pornographic and obscene material to minors that's punishable by fines and imprisonment.
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And just because you put that material and label it educational with, with colors and rainbows and
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cartoons doesn't make it any less obscene or any less harmful. I'm very concerned about child
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trafficking. I'm very concerned about, uh, males in, in, in girls' bathroom showers and locker rooms.
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All of that is being normalized by books like this. Yeah. You know, something that really just
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disappoints me and discourages me while there are so many parents and so many Christians that are
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speaking up about this stuff and I'm very thankful for it. It's very often the Christians that I get
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pushback from saying, it's not that big of a deal. We don't need to, you know, we don't need to raise a
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ruckus about this. We just need to be a kind of quiet presence in the public school system, or they just
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deny that it's happening and they're afraid that it's unloving to talk about these issues. I mean,
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that makes me really sad. Yeah, that, that, that gets, that, that lights my fire when I hear things
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like that. And when you say that, because I know the hard work that you're doing, I mean, let me,
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here, here you are, Allie Beth Stuckey, you're, you're a mom, you have your priorities straight and
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you're taking your time to have these kinds of conversations about things that you'd rather not even
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be talking about. And why? It's because all that it takes for evil to advance is for good people
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to do nothing. And I think that I know that eventually people wake up from their fogginess,
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their stupor, that's often driven by apathy or complacency, or they don't want to ruffle any
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feathers with their family members or their peers. They don't want to lose their job. And I get it. I
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don't want to, I don't like any of that stuff either, but you know what I'm more afraid of than losing my
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job or a friendship. Uh, I'm more concerned about my children being in grandchildren being taken away
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from their parents by the government and injected with things that they say they need to have and
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educated in worldviews that make them hate God, hate the family and hate this country. That's a
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reality. Just look at China, just look at North Korea, just look at countries that are getting away
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from a biblical worldview and moving toward, um, is honestly what, what scholastic is leading us
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toward. And that's nothing more than following the public school trail as it started from the
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beginning with Horace Mann and the humanist manifesto and John Dewey and all of these. Um,
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the whole plan was to get, get your kids for seven hours a day under the discipleship of
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trained professional teachers because you mom and dad are not equipped to educate your children.
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And that's just not only wrong and, and, and it's, it's evil.
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And that's exactly what it is. It's discipleship. I think sometimes we forget that, that all education
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is discipleship. So it just comes down to who do you want discipling your kids and what do you want
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them discipling them toward, um, or, or, or with, and all education is also indoctrination. You are
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putting doctrines in someone's mind when you are teaching them. So good. And so true. And so it just,
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it depends what, what doctrines do you want placed inside your child's mind that will lead you to the
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right choice about what education they should have. Yeah. Allie, I'm so glad you're, you're,
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you're helping us to, to see that because we've been duped by letting people, um, have control over
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words. So you're right. Every, all education is, is putting doctrines inside of somebody's mind.
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And that sacred task of nourishing and protecting our children's hearts and minds was given to
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parents, parents. So why are we outsourcing the most important part of parenting to a government
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institution that we know is often not telling us the truth and are fundamentally trying to usurp our
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position as the authority in their life? They're not here to help you. They're really not. Now that,
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that doesn't mean that government is bad. I think that government is critical and we need men and
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women of character and faith in those positions because evil is real. We need to restrain and hold
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back evil so that the good can flourish. Um, and that's why we need to be involved in all these
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things. But the family is the fundamental building block of a good society. Your public school can't
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create virtue in your children. It's about more than data and information. Siri has lots of knowledge
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knowledge, but she has no wisdom. Moms have wisdom. Dads have wisdom. Your kids need the fear of the
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Lord. Without that, they're toast in this world. But with it, and a mom and dad who lead by example
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in a family, man, there is so much hope for your kids.
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Going back to something that you said about me having these conversations, even though I would
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rather not be talking about this crazy stuff like what's in those books, but I think that's even
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truer about you. You've had a very successful acting career and yet here you are talking about
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these things. Your kids are, your kids are grown. You said, I think your youngest is, is 19 and yet
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you are dedicating your time and your energy and your wisdom into an issue that affects,
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you know, kids, uh, my kids age. And so why, why are you traveling the country fighting against
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things like Scholastic and drag queen story hour when, you know what, you didn't have to do that.
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Cause it's important. I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to be the, the out of shape couch
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potatoes sitting around just watching Fox news with my head in my hands, crying in my Chick-fil-A soup
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while the world crumbles waiting for the rapture. That's just not going to be me. I don't want to
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rust out in these years that I have on this earth. I want to burn out. I want to, I want to go,
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go out as a ball of fire. And, um, and, and I just recognize more and more that, that our hope
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is, is not in who governs us or the laws that we make as a nation. Our hope is in the power of God
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working in the hearts of moms, moms and dads and grandparents. And that that's, that's what I want
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to do. Uh, there's a quote that I, I love. Um, there's a couple that I've committed to memory.
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One is, uh, from, uh, middle earth. May I quote Gandalf, the gray from Lord of the Rings. He says
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this after great evil has come upon them. He said, other evils there are that shall come for even
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Sauron himself is a servant or an emissary. Yet it is not our task to master all the tides
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of the world, but to do what is in us for the help of those years, wherein we have been set
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uprooting the evil in the fields. We know so that those who live after us will have clean earth to
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till and what, whether they shall have is not ours to rule that puts into perspective and frames for
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me, my task. I can't stop the world economic forum from doing what they're doing. I can't stop big
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food, big pharma, big books like scholastic. I can't, I'm a guy. I'm one, I'm one man, but I can do
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everything in my power while I have breath on this earth for the help of this generation and uproot
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some evil in the field. I know through the media and I can plant some seeds of goodness and truth
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and beauty. That's what we're doing right now. That's what you're doing every single day on this
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podcast so that those who live after us, that's our kids and grandkids will have cleaner earth to
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till and build on. They can build worlds that may only be possible because of us pulling up some
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rocks of, of, of, of garbage and evil. And they'll be prepared for the weather that God sends their
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way politically, economically, morally, and spiritually. Why? Because they grew up with moms like you
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and dads like your husband and they're reading good books and they're benefiting from the faithfulness
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of people who didn't sit on the couch and rushed out.
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But kicked it into gear and said, let's do everything we can.
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That's so good. I'm going to remember that. I'm going to have to print out that quote.
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Whenever you see a guy with a long gray beard and a wizard hat.
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Listen, and that happens a lot. I run into those wizards a lot. Um, it reminds me though of Jeremiah 29.
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And a lot of people know Jeremiah 29 11, for I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and
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not to harm you. But really the whole chapter I think is encouraging. Talking to Israel who was in
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exile in Babylon at the time. And while they're in exile, God is telling them, seek the welfare of the
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city that I have placed you in. Have, have children, build things, do good, seek the good of your
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neighbor. Well, we and Chris, we who are Christians are in exile in this life while we are here on earth.
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And we are to seek the welfare of the city that we are placed in. We can't control everything is
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exactly what you said. I love that. Can't control everything that happens in the world.
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And something about social media and the 24 minute news cycle that we're in makes us feel like
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we have to. So there's some burnout. There's some overwhelm because we are constantly bombarded with
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every horrific thing that's happening in the world all at once. And the only person, the only one that
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has the capacity to handle all that is God. The omnipotent one, the omniscient one. He is the only
00:25:07.560
one that can handle knowing everything that's happening and caring about everything that's happening at
00:25:11.660
once. We can't. And so I think remembering our finiteness, remembering that we have a limited
00:25:17.060
capacity, that we were placed on this tiny speck of eternity for a purpose, for a reason that our
00:25:23.720
birthday was not arbitrary, and that we can only do the next right thing in any given moment and maximize
00:25:33.540
and beautify the tiny space that we've been placed in. Like that is really encouraging. And then that the
00:25:40.120
victory is God's. It's already been won. We know that the victory is Christ. So there's a lot of
00:25:45.320
confidence that comes from that reality. Yeah. We're having church y'all. Yeah. Pass the offering
00:25:52.500
plate. I'm ready to get out my... Yes. Yes. Isn't that so good boy? That's like, that's like that kind of hope,
00:26:01.680
that kind of optimism about the future because of the faithfulness and goodness of God is air in our
00:26:12.020
lungs. We need it in order to breathe. And I'm so glad that you said that.
00:26:17.660
I meet a lot of people, especially in the conservative space. You know, there's all
00:26:34.400
the progressives who think that we're just progressing wonderfully as a culture right now,
00:26:37.660
moving down these paths, which are really not progressing us. They're actually very regressive
00:26:43.400
back to pagan ways before the world was blessed with something called Western civilization and the
00:26:50.620
Bible. Yes. But I know I'm preaching to the choir here with this. But many of the conservatives say,
00:26:58.260
oh man, it's getting so bad. This is just the worst thing ever. I can't believe how,
00:27:01.320
how do we get here? And I'm thinking, hold on, take a pause and step back and say, okay, look,
00:27:08.820
let's just look through the wide angle lens of history for a second. If you were a Christian
00:27:13.180
conservative person in the Roman empire, it was a thousand times worse. They're not feeding us to
00:27:21.180
lions yet or burning us on a stake to illuminate gladiatorial games. This is not being exiled in
00:27:28.480
Babylon. This, this is not that it gets far, far worse than that. So what I say is that, and then
00:27:36.700
you have a tiny band of people 2000 years ago who believed in somebody who was a crucified criminal
00:27:42.260
and they end up preaching a message that overthrows the most powerful empire in the world, the Roman
00:27:50.300
empire. And that ends up spreading a message that leads to unbelievable opportunities and liberties
00:27:58.460
educationally, economically, spiritually, morally, the Bible, Western civilization, all of this out of
00:28:04.320
what appeared to be what appeared to be no hope at all. And we've had great awakenings and great
00:28:09.800
revivals throughout the world and even here in America. So what I say is that the only reason this
00:28:17.220
stuff looks so bad, this pornography, obscenity, uh, children being aborted and all that is because we
00:28:24.360
have, we, we're not as pagan as we used to be. We're much more heavenized, civilized, Christianized,
00:28:36.820
Westernized because of the scriptures that we consider things like what scholastic is doing
00:28:42.700
to be offensive and obscene. But go back to the Roman empire. This is like, this is normalcy. This is,
00:28:49.960
this is the way everything was. And how blessed are we to be here right now? And what we're
00:28:56.520
experiencing is the result of our apathy, complacency, unfaithfulness, uh, turning away from
00:29:02.300
God. But I see it not as the perfect storm that's going to destroy us. I see this as a little tiny
00:29:09.740
turbulent white cap on the edge of a giant tidal wave tsunami of the victory of God and his
00:29:19.840
faithfulness that has been washing over the land for 2000 years. And it's unstoppable because he
00:29:28.920
doesn't lose. He wins and the kingdom is growing. And we went from a tiny little band of, of scared
00:29:37.620
people 2000 years ago to 3 billion people on the earth who named the name of Christ. And we have more
00:29:45.860
opportunity, resources, and manpower than ever before. Could it be that we've simply lost our way
00:29:53.540
and our vision and we have, we just need to get back to first principles and say, Oh God, open the
00:30:01.120
heavens, revive my heart, bring me back to what really matters and show me how to do my part where
00:30:08.780
you've placed me. Yes. And amen. That's so good. I was thinking as you were talking about the
00:30:14.440
Christians who were burned at the stake, the Christians who were fed, fed to lions, God used
00:30:20.300
that for the very thing that you're talking about. God uses the persecution and the difficulties and the
00:30:25.760
trials and the martyrdom of Christians to glorify himself and to advance his kingdom. So I think when we
00:30:32.040
see persecution of Christians, which it's not the same as it was 2000 years ago, but Christians
00:30:36.740
certainly face adversity here today, I think we see that as losing. We see that as us losing our
00:30:43.980
influence and Christianity dying out. But when has that ever been the case? When Christians were
00:30:48.600
burned at the stake, it wasn't that Christianity then died out. It was actually that people saw the
00:30:53.720
faithfulness of the martyrs and were spurred on to then share the gospel. And when you were speaking,
00:31:00.240
I thought of this quote by Hugh Latimer, I believe it was, and he was a, he was a martyr. I believe it
00:31:07.040
was in the 16th century. And I always think of this quote as he was being burned at the stake with
00:31:12.280
another person who was, who was also a Christian. He said, be of good cheer, Master Ridley and play the
00:31:18.280
man. We shall this day light such a candle in England as I hope by God's grace shall never be put
00:31:24.420
out. So even as he is being burned at the stake, he realizes, yes, that the flames of his martyrdom,
00:31:32.800
that God is going to fan those flames with the power of his Holy Spirit to then spread the gospel.
00:31:37.160
Same was true of many of the reformers during the Protestant Reformation, that God used their
00:31:42.480
adversity and their persecution to spread the gospel. And he'll still do that today.
00:31:46.800
Yeah, absolutely. 100%. This is our faith. This is, this is what we know to be true.
00:31:51.980
Um, here's a really encouraging truth. Uh, in history, great awakenings and revivals have always
00:32:04.000
come during times of moral decline, spiritual apathy, economic collapse, and political corruption.
00:32:13.580
I think we're due for another one. Yeah. And they seem to happen about every 50 years.
00:32:19.460
Um, we live in a really exciting time right now. Um, I think that we could be on the cusp
00:32:26.940
of a turning point. What if, Allie, what, what if instead of having weak knees and lamenting this
00:32:41.640
world that our children have to inherit, assuming that Jesus must be returning by Tuesday because things
00:32:49.080
are so bad, what if this national setback is really a divine setup for a spiritual comeback led by the
00:33:00.700
family of faith? What if, what if this is like it has been in the past where a couple faithful people
00:33:14.080
start a prayer meeting that catches fire on a college campus and spreads to become a revival
00:33:23.200
that starts the entire missionary movement and the gospel now gets spread to more places in the world.
00:33:31.240
And not only that, do you know that in Africa and in Asia, in South Korea, they're sending
00:33:38.100
missionaries now back to the United States because they recognize that we're in trouble. We've strayed.
00:33:47.540
So now you have the daughter coming back to save the mother. This is a beautiful thing.
00:33:53.440
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And you're right. That's so like the Lord. If you, I mean, if you look at
00:33:59.560
really any story throughout scripture, that it seems like God purposely stacks the odds against himself
00:34:06.940
before he comes through. He doesn't have to, for example, tell Israel and Joshua to round the city
00:34:15.180
seven times before they blow the trumpet and the walls fall down. I mean, he didn't have to take
00:34:21.280
Israel through the Red Sea. He didn't have to lead them through the wilderness for, you know, 40 years.
00:34:27.540
But it seems like he purposely stacks the odds against himself so that when he shows up and does
00:34:33.920
what he has always been providentially planning to do, that people can look to that and say,
00:34:40.360
that can only be God. That can only be God. It's not because we're so good. It's not because we built
00:34:45.720
this wonderful tower that actually reached the heavens. It was only the Lord. He is the only one
00:34:50.920
that could have done this. And so maybe that's what he's doing. Maybe he is stacking the odds against
00:34:56.200
himself so he can come through the way that he always has. And giving us a Red Sea moment,
00:35:02.000
backed up against the wall, armies in front of us, no way out so he can part the sea again.
00:35:09.580
And it's so good. I'm so glad God does that because you're right.
00:35:13.060
Mary didn't have to be a virgin and conceive the Messiah, humanly speaking, right? But that's the
00:35:26.440
way God chose to do it, which forces us to say, God is in this. This is a miracle. This can't happen
00:35:33.580
apart from him doing it this way. And I think that's so important because our tendency, and I know this
00:35:39.460
is my tendency, is to think, man, I got this. I can do this. I'm smart enough. I'm talented enough.
00:35:47.860
I've got enough connections. I can make this happen. And pride is the very thing that cuts us off
00:35:54.380
from knowing God, enjoying God, valuing God, and living the life that he created us to live. And so
00:36:02.960
he creates scenarios that, um, like you say, you, you, you, you phrased it, he stacks the odds against
00:36:08.360
himself. Um, and what I think, what I see him doing is he actually lets our prideful preferences
00:36:15.500
play themselves out against ourselves. He lets our desires, uh, like Romans one, uh, you know,
00:36:23.780
we become so consumed and intoxicated with our own wisdom that we make stupid decisions. And he just
00:36:30.520
hands us over to them and says, okay, if you want that, go ahead, take that. Then your heart becomes
00:36:34.200
darkened, your mind, you're, you become a fool. You exchange the truth for the lie. And then he lets
00:36:39.560
you go down that road. And then all the odds are stacked against us. They're stacked against him.
00:36:44.660
Everything looks like it's not going to work. And boom, that's where he shows up in mercy and kindness
00:37:04.240
I love what you said about making good soil for our children. And as a mom of a four, two and zero
00:37:13.020
year old, it's really easy for me to be anxious. Like as much as I talk about the importance of
00:37:19.520
courage and remembering Christ's victory. Yes. I try to remind myself of that. But in the day to
00:37:24.840
day, when I see some of the stories that I do, I see some of these books, I see just the predatory
00:37:29.620
nature of these institutions coming after the minds and the bodies and the souls of our children.
00:37:34.720
I mean, it scares me. It really scares me and it makes me anxious, but I try to remember,
00:37:40.700
I try to remember that really like I have a choice. I can either try to create children who
00:37:47.220
will hide from dragons or create children or raise children that will slay dragons.
00:37:52.420
And if I want to raise children that will slay dragons, then I have to show them what it means
00:37:58.460
to do that. And I have to be courageous. I can't just protect them from everything. Of course,
00:38:03.260
I want it to be us, my husband and I, who are teaching them about these things and not public
00:38:07.620
education. But like, we have to show our kids how to fight battles, not just protect them from all
00:38:13.200
the scary stuff. And I'm still learning how to do that and knowing exactly what that looks like. But
00:38:17.660
I want my kids to go out there and slay dragons too. And I think Christians have done that throughout
00:38:23.760
Ellie, I have a question for you. I've got six kids. And one of my children says, Dad,
00:38:30.020
I get concerned about you sometimes because you're so focused on what's happening in Washington DC or
00:38:36.260
what's happening, you know, in Europe or in the Middle East. And you're, you're, you're talking
00:38:40.760
about the constitution, you're talking about the Bible and you've got, you've got these big,
00:38:44.880
you know, macro, you know, things going on inside of your head. Um, are you taking time to like
00:38:53.800
savor the sunshine and just be present with your kids and with mom? Right. And I go,
00:39:02.940
Oh, I know you're right. You're right. Cause I mean, that that's why I'm fighting. Cause I want
00:39:07.540
to protect this. But then sometimes I lose sight of the micro, the right here, the right now.
00:39:12.700
How do you do that as a mom? Because you are a warrior. You're, you're one of the ones who are
00:39:17.940
out there doing this. We, but I know what your heart is really like you, you, you, you struggle,
00:39:24.260
I think between wanting to save the world and savor the world. And that can make planning the day
00:39:32.540
very difficult. Yeah. How do you balance those things? How do you frame those two different
00:39:37.380
things? Yeah. I think the answer that I give when people ask me, how are you not just like
00:39:43.480
depressed and anxious all the time because of the things that we talk about, the things that we have
00:39:47.920
to look at, to talk about the things that we talk about. And it can be very tempting to kind of
00:39:52.060
just wade in the sadness and hopelessness as we, as we discussed. And I think it is my family and just
00:39:59.960
the very, uh, normalness, if I can say that of our life, of our church life, of our friends,
00:40:07.180
of our day to day that keeps me sane. Now, obviously I don't do that perfectly. It's really
00:40:11.980
easy to kind of doom scroll and to get sucked into whatever story that you're reading about and
00:40:16.460
completely ignore what's happening around you. So I have to try really hard with the help of
00:40:20.880
my husband, with the help of my parents, as we talked about, they live close by to savor just
00:40:25.780
the normal, the every day, as you know, with six kids, you were talking about how your kids are
00:40:29.960
grown. It goes by so fast, just like that. And I, I don't want to look back in 10 years and say,
00:40:37.860
wow, I didn't savor those moments enough because I was so worried about things outside of my control.
00:40:43.680
At the same time, I do have to care about those things because those things affect
00:40:48.300
people. I do have to care somewhat about, you know, or I have to care about what's going on
00:40:53.320
in some places in the world, like Israel and things like that. But I think it's doing exactly
00:40:57.900
what you said, focusing on doing the next right thing with what God has given you. I'm not going
00:41:05.360
to save the world. You're not going to save the world. That's not our job. Therefore, I don't have
00:41:09.660
to know everything that's going on in the world at once. And it helps that my skill set is very,
00:41:15.240
very limited. My talent is very limited. So really the only thing I can do is talk.
00:41:20.440
So I, I really, that's the only skill, the only talent that I have. So thankfully I can just do
00:41:25.240
that in the morning and the podcast, and then I can just go home and do all of the other things that
00:41:30.520
I'm called to do. So I think it's that, but I hope it doesn't sound like I think that I do that
00:41:35.740
perfectly. There are seasons that I, that we do that better than others. Yeah. I, I, I, I've never
00:41:42.720
heard anyone accuse you of, of being arrogant or overstating your talents. If anything, you're
00:41:48.960
understating all of it and we all, we all know it. I think, I think you're right. Another metaphor
00:41:54.040
that the Bible even gives us, Paul talks about, we're all members of one body. And some of us think
00:42:00.960
like, Oh, I wish I could talk like Ali Bestucki or I wish I could, um, you know, um, play football
00:42:07.040
like Tim Tebow, or I wish I could make movies like whatever. Uh, but you know what? You know,
00:42:12.620
it's like, well, wait a minute. What if the hand said, uh, you know, uh, I wish I could be
00:42:15.660
the foot or what are the foots? Like I wish I could be the ear. No, no, no. We need all the
00:42:19.800
different parts. And the mind is what controls them all and coordinates them. I have, if you
00:42:25.200
asked me, let me ask you, whoever's listening to this.
00:42:30.960
Do you know how to convert your carbohydrates into glucose? Do you know how to make sure
00:42:38.540
that when you have a baby that the spleen is working properly and that oxygen is properly
00:42:44.960
getting into the blood through the lungs? You don't have a clue, but there is a God who designed
00:42:51.280
all of these things. And you have a mind that's able to make all the different members of your
00:42:56.800
body work together miraculously. Um, I think that same God can take someone who has the gift
00:43:05.200
of speaking, someone who has the gift of tackling people and someone who has a gift of making movies
00:43:11.960
and having us all work together as his body to accomplish what he wants to accomplish.
00:43:18.820
And I think that is the, among other things, the amplification and reproduction of truth and
00:43:25.240
goodness and beauty. I think we are his conduits from heaven to earth and he knows what he's doing.
00:43:33.980
It's just, we have to submit to the mind. You know, the, the, the, the pancreas can't go,
00:43:41.580
I got this. No, no, no, no, no. You just, just do what the mind's telling you to do. And God in
00:43:46.880
his word has given us really straightforward and clear instructions on love God with all of your
00:43:52.260
heart. Love your, love others as yourself. Start with your family, double down on loving your enemies
00:43:58.900
and those who hate you. And God works through those things in miraculous ways.
00:44:04.240
Yeah. I think it's especially difficult for creative people, for entrepreneurial people,
00:44:11.620
people with an entrepreneurial spirit. And there are different kinds of leaders, but one kind of
00:44:15.320
leader is like a visionary leader who likes to cast the vision and everyone execute it. I don't know
00:44:19.800
exactly, um, you know, what you are and all the different aspects of your character. I know that
00:44:24.980
you're the Enneagram, figure all these things out. I know that you're creative and I know that you're
00:44:28.920
entrepreneurial. I think it's even more difficult for people like that, which I fell into that category too,
00:44:33.100
to stop sometimes and to take a step back. Um, and to make sure that we're not just going,
00:44:38.780
going, going. I know a lot of people can relate to that too. You have just created something else.
00:44:43.840
You have not stopped creating. You just created a new book, right? Yeah. Yeah. This is about it.
00:44:49.020
So, um, I, I connected with this great company called brave books and I just sort of, um, was really
00:44:55.140
impressed with what they do. Um, they create these books about important issues with beautiful pictures
00:45:01.720
and stories for kids, uh, with pro God, pro America values. And they've got all these different
00:45:07.260
authors. Uh, so I'm one of their authors and this is a book. It's actually the third one that I've done
00:45:12.620
with them. It's called the Fox, the fair and the invention scare. And it's all about loving your
00:45:17.920
enemies. So, um, Ali, the first one I did was called as you grow and it was all about, uh, growing the fruit
00:45:25.700
of the spirit. We talked about that one. And then the second one was called, uh, pride comes before
00:45:32.060
the fall about humility. And we released that on June 1st pride month, uh, in Seattle, Washington,
00:45:38.680
uh, public library that, that was, that was perfect. And then this one is about loving your enemies.
00:45:44.840
So I'm, I'm hoping to do, to do just what you said. Um, I want to take the opportunities God's
00:45:53.420
given me with, with whatever abilities that he's given me to make a difference. And, uh, what I'm
00:46:01.360
hoping is that this will just be like a spark that lights a fire in the hearts of other people
00:46:05.380
who can then spread, spread that like a grass fire in their communities, 0% contained, moving all
00:46:13.440
across the nation through the family, through the church, through civil government. And we get to see
00:46:18.400
something beautiful happen in our lifetime. Well, Kirk, I'm very grateful for you. And I know
00:46:24.140
that you give all the credit to the Lord and as you should, as we all should, but I mean, I know
00:46:28.960
marriages that are still being helped from fireproof. I mean, you have done so much by the grace of God,
00:46:35.160
through the power of the Lord and creating things that help Christians be courageous and obedient.
00:46:40.660
So thank you for that. I, I really appreciate all of the effort that you've put in and how much of
00:46:46.400
your time and energy you've dedicated to the church. So thank you so much.
00:46:51.200
Thank you for the kind words and the encouragement. Thank you for encouraging, uh, all of us with all
00:46:55.960
the good work that you're doing, uh, you know, as, as, as a mom and, uh, with this podcast. And, uh,
00:47:03.640
again, I think we just need to stay blown away that God is kind enough to use people like us to do good
00:47:09.700
things. Yes. And amen. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, guys, I told you that you are going to
00:47:20.180
love that conversation. If you want more encouragement, then you need to go out and see
00:47:25.840
the blind. So the blind is the true story of the Robertson family. If you don't already know the
00:47:31.400
testimony of Phil Robertson, it's so amazing how he went from what he was and living the life that he was
00:47:37.480
living to who he is today, a man who shares the gospel daily and unapologetically, who loves
00:47:44.020
scripture and shares that love of scripture with so many people on a daily basis. You've got to go
00:47:49.460
watch the blind. You will just be so encouraged. You can buy it today by going to blazetv.com slash
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the blind. You can buy it for $19.99. Really good deal. blazetv.com slash the blind. blazetv.com slash the
00:48:02.920
blind. Okay, that's all we've got for today. Thank you guys so much for listening and watching and we