The Glenn Beck Program - April 02, 2021


Best of The Program | Guests: Bill O’Reilly, Todd Bensman, & Shannon Bream | 4⧸2⧸21


Episode Stats

Length

35 minutes

Words per Minute

148.7516

Word Count

5,207

Sentence Count

391

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the podcast. Today, we listen to a little Joe Scarborough. Remember him?
00:00:03.860 You might remember him from when he used to have Donald Trump on the phone all the time,
00:00:07.360 and they were really close friends. And then he just totally flip-flopped on him and is now
00:00:11.600 saying he's the worst person on earth. He goes into another randomly bizarre rant about how if
00:00:17.000 you don't want a vaccine passport, you don't like Jesus or something. I don't even know. It's hard
00:00:22.440 to follow, but you should hear it because it's that bizarre. Bill O'Reilly joins us today to
00:00:27.680 go through the news of the week on this Good Friday. And Shannon Bream is here as well
00:00:32.540 from Fox News Channel. She has a new book out. It's going to put you in the Good Friday
00:00:36.960 spirit a little bit. And to ruin that spirit, we'll talk about CNN and how they can't quite
00:00:43.080 figure out if there's any characteristic that would determine someone's biological sex at birth.
00:00:49.040 No scientists apparently have no consensus on that. I was not aware of this, but CNN does know it.
00:00:55.320 By the way, you can subscribe to BlazeTV at blazetv.com slash Glenn. The promo code is
00:01:00.060 control. You get 20 bucks off your subscription to BlazeTV. Glenn has a new show today as well
00:01:04.560 as a new Stew Does America. Make sure to click on over to Stew Does America in this podcast app
00:01:09.320 and click subscribe. It makes all of us feel wonderful about ourselves. And that's really
00:01:13.760 the most important thing you can do for this country. Here's the podcast.
00:01:24.500 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:01:31.620 Bill O'Reilly from BillOReilly.com and also author of the book Killing Crazy Horse and Killing the Mob is
00:01:39.320 coming out next month, just a few weeks away. Order your copy now wherever you buy your books.
00:01:45.200 I want to talk to you, Bill, about a couple of things here. One is the corporations that are coming
00:01:53.700 out against Georgia and now Texas because we're trying to protect, you know, voting integrity.
00:02:03.280 Every corporation seems like it's coming out against Georgia. I'm so glad to see the Georgia
00:02:10.360 House passed a bill stripping Delta Airlines of their tax break because apparently, you know,
00:02:16.740 they are opinionated and they don't like the Georgia government for what they're doing. Fine.
00:02:21.700 You lose your tax break, too, on jet fuel. I hope that costs them. I hope that costs them just a
00:02:28.200 buttload of money. In fact, you should raise taxes on jet a fuel for Delta. The the same thing is
00:02:36.060 happening now in Texas and it's all based on lies. All of it, Bill. Well, when I first heard this story
00:02:44.760 in Georgia, I went over the Georgia bill and I read the bill and I was a simple man, as always.
00:02:52.280 And I posed the question in this bill. Please tell me one thing in the entire Georgia bill
00:02:59.720 that constricts voting, that makes it harder to vote. I didn't see one thing. All right. Now,
00:03:09.380 then I went over to the CEO of Coca-Cola, the CEO of Delta, the CEO of Merck. They're the three that
00:03:16.060 are criticizing Georgia. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Wait, you've got Bank of America,
00:03:20.820 you've got Citigroup. Okay. Okay. I mean, you got. Yeah. Okay. All right. Those are the first
00:03:26.520 out. Okay. With statements. They made statements to CEOs, but the statements don't say what they're
00:03:34.200 objecting to. They just say they don't like the bill. It's Jim Crow. All right. So I had my staff
00:03:42.000 call them and say, can you give us one specific in the bill that prevents people from voting or makes
00:03:50.560 it harder? None of them could. So what this is, is a virtue seeking play based upon the threat of a
00:04:00.580 boycott, which has not been made public, but I know it's there. Media matters, you know, the usual
00:04:07.320 suspects are going to say that if you don't get behind civil rights in this area, we're going to
00:04:15.460 call for a boycott of you. And of course they folded in 30 seconds, which is what corporations do.
00:04:21.960 But if you look at the statements, there isn't one specific that they can point to
00:04:30.520 that these new laws that just certainly tighten up. That's all they do. They just tighten up the
00:04:36.220 election so that they're the prospect of fraud diminishes, which is what you would want, right?
00:04:43.360 I think everybody would want. They don't want fraud. You sure would. This is again, the political
00:04:51.080 correct virtue seeking on the part of CEOs who have no blanking idea what's going on, but they are
00:05:00.260 afraid that they are fearful and they have to get on the side of the New York Times, the Atlanta
00:05:07.480 Journal-Constitution. They have to get on that side because they're afraid if they don't, they'll get
00:05:13.560 fired by their boards. That's what's going on.
00:05:19.200 So what's the best way to handle that, Bill? What does the average person do?
00:05:25.140 I don't drink Coca-Cola because it has a massive amount of sugar in it.
00:05:29.200 And as you get older, the more sugar you use. That's why I've always loved it.
00:05:33.860 Yeah. But as you get older, Beck, and you're ancient, the more sugar you have, the faster
00:05:39.660 you're going to die. I mean, it's just something like that.
00:05:43.100 That's another point in its favor.
00:05:45.720 Okay. You know, look, I'll be there at the funeral singing whatever songs.
00:05:52.520 Danny Boy. I want you to sing Danny Boy.
00:05:55.340 It'll be Glennie Boy, but I will sing it. Right.
00:05:59.060 But I don't drink Coke because there's too much sugar in it.
00:06:02.480 Delta, I always like Delta. They're all right. But now if I have a choice,
00:06:06.780 I'll take whatever it is. I'm not calling for a boy.
00:06:09.820 Well, American Airlines, American Airlines is doing the same thing now to Texas.
00:06:14.760 And, you know, Delta and America, American, you don't have any idea,
00:06:19.620 but you have closeted conservatives. You have closeted conservatives that are so afraid of saying anything.
00:06:28.660 They have secret meetings in both of your companies.
00:06:32.260 And that is, they do, I know for a fact.
00:06:37.540 And it is, that should, shame on you. Shame on you for creating such an atmosphere.
00:06:44.480 It's all about them. It's all about the CEO. It's all about, I don't want them attacking me.
00:06:50.380 I don't want it. I don't want it. I mean, look, it's getting so bad with the airlines
00:06:54.380 that I'm going to have to take the bike lane if I want to go anywhere now.
00:06:57.200 Let me play something from CNN and Chris Cuomo.
00:07:04.260 We watch it, so you don't have to. Listen to what was said last night.
00:07:09.520 It's clear to them that the vaccine is the ticket back to pre-pandemic life.
00:07:14.280 And the window to do that is really narrowing.
00:07:16.260 I mean, you were mentioning, Chris, about how all these states are reopening.
00:07:19.340 They're reopening at 100%.
00:07:20.980 And we have a very narrow window to tie reopening policy to vaccination status.
00:07:26.640 Because otherwise, if everything is reopened, then what's the carrot going to be?
00:07:30.960 How are we going to incentivize people to actually get the vaccine?
00:07:34.020 So that's why I think the CDC and the Biden administration needs to come out a lot bolder
00:07:38.060 and say, if you're vaccinated, you can do all these things.
00:07:41.760 Here are all these freedoms that you have.
00:07:43.740 Because otherwise, people are going to go out and enjoy these freedoms anyway.
00:07:47.340 Wow. So we've got to make it so they can have the freedoms.
00:07:53.000 That way we can leverage those freedoms.
00:07:56.260 I don't think they've ever been more clear.
00:07:59.840 Your thoughts on the...
00:08:01.340 No, they're not hiding it.
00:08:02.360 I know. Your thoughts on these vaccine passports.
00:08:05.780 Okay. It's illegal for the government to do it because it's an invasion of your medical privacy.
00:08:12.900 So the government can't do it.
00:08:14.300 State government can't do it.
00:08:15.780 Federal government can't do it.
00:08:17.040 So it's not going to happen.
00:08:18.620 Private business can do it.
00:08:20.440 So if you own a concert hall and you book in the Rolling Stones
00:08:25.500 and you say, if you want to come, you've got to show us proof of vaccination,
00:08:33.140 they can do that.
00:08:34.840 That's a private concern.
00:08:38.020 I will tell you, I'm a libertarian, but there is, with the Great Reset,
00:08:45.560 there is collusion going on with public-private partnerships, NGOs,
00:08:52.800 and the government with corporations.
00:08:56.080 And I'm telling you, Bill, that if you get an app,
00:09:01.100 if you have a piece of paper that shows I got COVID
00:09:04.000 and they want to check that piece of paper, but they're developing an app,
00:09:08.140 and if that app is open and has to be open to tell you where you can go in
00:09:14.180 and can't go in, stores, shopping malls, whatever,
00:09:17.660 you now have a social credit score ready to happen.
00:09:22.340 You have it, all the groundwork is there, and Americans will all be carrying it.
00:09:29.020 The next thing is, all you have to do is just shut down PayPal.
00:09:32.380 No, you can't pay anything for anything here.
00:09:35.600 You can't access this.
00:09:37.200 You can't access that.
00:09:38.440 All social credit score.
00:09:40.420 It would already be there.
00:09:43.260 I don't think that's going to happen.
00:09:45.360 I don't think that.
00:09:46.580 What I think is going to happen is that certain private businesses,
00:09:52.020 and where I live, there are signs in every private business,
00:09:55.660 you're not allowed to enter unless you have a mask.
00:09:57.760 Okay?
00:09:58.060 And they can do it.
00:10:00.200 They can keep you out.
00:10:01.640 Yes.
00:10:02.120 This is a private.
00:10:03.380 I don't think it's going to get to the level where the government is going to
00:10:09.280 be able to harm you if you're not vaxxed.
00:10:12.540 It will be an inconvenience if you don't get it.
00:10:15.740 And by the way, the government cannot force you to take a vaccination.
00:10:20.720 But schools, for example, if you don't take the measles shot,
00:10:25.320 your kid can't go.
00:10:26.500 So there's a lot of this that has to be worked out.
00:10:30.800 And I would tell people I took the vaccination.
00:10:34.800 I didn't have any problem with the vaccination.
00:10:37.180 I hope as many people as possible come to the conclusion that I came to.
00:10:42.040 All right?
00:10:42.320 I want to protect my family and friends.
00:10:44.380 I got to run three businesses here.
00:10:46.680 I got to be able to travel.
00:10:48.280 So I took it.
00:10:49.500 And it works for me.
00:10:51.640 So that's all I can really say.
00:10:53.980 All right, Bill O'Reilly.
00:10:55.260 Are you nervous about killing the mob?
00:10:58.560 I mean, I know you've kept it secret and kept it away from me, so I couldn't read it.
00:11:03.000 Well, I'm nervous.
00:11:04.040 I might get whacked.
00:11:05.560 Yeah, I couldn't.
00:11:06.220 But I can get whacked by a lot of people.
00:11:08.680 Right.
00:11:09.000 But I want to tell people it's Good Friday.
00:11:10.900 And if you really, really want something worthy today, the movie Killing Jesus, which was nominated for an Emmy for Best Television Movie a few years back, that's $3 on On Demand.
00:11:25.700 That is a very worthwhile film to watch on Good Friday.
00:11:31.540 And I appreciate it.
00:11:32.780 I hope you have a happy Easter, you and your family.
00:11:35.600 And I always enjoy the Fridays on the Beck program.
00:11:40.340 Thank you very much, Bill.
00:11:41.200 I appreciate it.
00:11:41.800 Have a good Easter.
00:11:42.380 This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:11:47.600 Good Friday.
00:12:17.580 Yeah, I'm sorry.
00:12:18.400 And you're wearing a tie and everything.
00:12:20.480 I mean, wow, you cleaned up for this interview, and now I really feel bad.
00:12:26.160 Trim the beard and everything.
00:12:27.960 Yeah, yeah.
00:12:29.000 So, Todd, tell everybody your background here just a little bit.
00:12:34.100 So, we know you're a guy with credibility on this issue.
00:12:38.360 23 years as a journalist, newspapers, recovering reporter.
00:12:43.000 And from, including for the Dallas Morning News here in town for 10 years.
00:12:51.040 And then I was recruited to join the Texas Department of Public Safety's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division.
00:12:59.160 And in 2009, and I went into intelligence business, I guess, in the state's multi-agency fusion center in Austin, where I worked on it.
00:13:12.240 Explain what a fusion center is, because this is a really important aspect.
00:13:18.520 Fusion centers, there are 50 or more across the country.
00:13:23.020 They were built after 9-11 as sharing, houses of sharing.
00:13:28.680 So, you have, like, all the federal agencies are all under one roof with state and locals.
00:13:36.760 So, there's FBI and ICE and DIA and every possible agency.
00:13:43.400 We had 15 different federal agencies under our roof.
00:13:46.940 We all had security clearances and all worked on the same issues and problems, including here in Texas, of course, the border.
00:13:55.540 And who's coming over that border?
00:13:57.740 And then I did that for nine years and left in 2018 to join the Center for Immigration Studies as a senior national security fellow.
00:14:07.660 So, I've been there for a couple of years.
00:14:08.880 I've been out of the business, out of the intel business.
00:14:11.820 All right.
00:14:12.680 So, you have a book out called America's Covert Border War.
00:14:18.080 And it details what is really going on and coming across our border at any given time.
00:14:25.720 And the details are actually quite terrifying because we just think, you know, American, I guess, once the news stops talking about it.
00:14:36.800 Like, we only seem to have a problem with rising gas prices when the news tells us we should have a problem with rising gas prices.
00:14:44.940 And they're not telling us what's coming across the border.
00:14:47.580 So, give us a look into what's happening at any given time on our border and who's coming across.
00:14:55.440 Sure.
00:14:56.180 Well, to start with, all year, every year, there is a stream, a flow, a river of migrants who are coming to the southern border from countries of national security interest.
00:15:08.900 People from the Middle East, South Asia, think Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, northern Africa, Somalia, all of the Muslim-majority nations.
00:15:22.440 That is not a gigantic population coming across, but it's significant.
00:15:29.540 These days, it's probably right around 3,000 to 4,000 a year being apprehended that we know of that get counted at the border.
00:15:35.860 And that flow of people has given rise to a national security enterprise and counterterrorism programs that were built to deal with it, to try to detect jihadists in that flow and to neutralize them.
00:15:55.480 And that's not just at the border, but it's also throughout Latin America, South America, where those are the passageways, the routes to the border.
00:16:08.660 And it gets pretty complicated about how they are able to do that.
00:16:12.260 But for sure, it is a topic that is taboo in the regular media.
00:16:17.880 Nobody ever wants to talk about it.
00:16:19.380 And when anybody does, man, look out.
00:16:23.360 Well, I will tell you that nobody in the media even wants to talk about the drug cartels.
00:16:28.480 I know.
00:16:29.640 I've been at CNN and I've been at Fox, and no one wants to discuss the obscene amount of the worst kind of horror movie violence you could imagine.
00:16:43.120 Am I right on that?
00:16:44.000 Oh, yeah.
00:16:45.360 I mean, the cartels are one of the greatest scourges on the planet.
00:16:50.300 They do a great deal of pain and damage to especially Mexico, but also the United States with the drugs that they're moving in and the sex trafficking and indentured servitude and other forms of violence that are unspeakable almost.
00:17:12.560 Yeah, I have pictures in our files from something that I was never allowed to show until I started the blaze, and they were files that I just thought people should see of warnings being sent to people in the small border towns by the drug cartels.
00:17:34.540 Don't screw with us.
00:17:35.560 And in one bowling alley, the drug cartels came in and had a bag and like bowling balls, they just threw these severed heads on the bowling lanes to let everybody know your friends are gone.
00:17:52.000 You don't need to be.
00:17:53.000 You don't need to be.
00:17:54.000 But don't screw with us.
00:17:55.060 Oh, yeah, that's right.
00:17:57.240 It's that's about propagandizing their strength and control.
00:18:06.420 So it's not it's not that unlike what we saw ISIS doing in Syria when they were holding territory there and they would have big public executions and do terrible things and burn people and it sends a message and it tells people you're going to obey us and stay out of our way to this propaganda and it's incitement to.
00:18:33.260 Let's talk about the the actual border crisis.
00:18:41.860 Everybody, all the kids that are from Mexico, from Mexico proper, they are all turned around at the border, right?
00:18:50.280 They're not part of this count.
00:18:52.000 I just saw a count from the Department of Homeland Security today about all the numbers of the people, but they're none of them are Mexican.
00:18:59.720 They say the Mexicans are turned right around and sent back to Mexico or not on the children on the Mexican children.
00:19:08.320 I'm not sure definitely Mexican families that are coming over with that would be adults with children.
00:19:16.400 And that's part of the inconsistent application across the border of policy that's going on right now is very confusing, not just to those of us who are down there spending time with the migrants,
00:19:30.320 but the migrants, the immigrants themselves often have no idea which given day in which area they might be able to get across.
00:19:38.320 But what we do know is the numbers tell us that many, many tens of thousands are getting across and being put right through the turnstile of the American turnstile and onto buses and being transported across the country.
00:19:56.620 I was on some of those buses just last week and saw it.
00:20:01.080 There's a conveyor belt of buses that are moving from the border to throughout the country, dropping off foreign national families that have just been paroled in.
00:20:14.020 And we're paying for this with our tax dollars?
00:20:17.540 Well, the buses are actually the immigrants are, I'm told, are paying their own way.
00:20:22.800 It's not like it's a huge expense, but we are certainly enabling it, facilitating it, arranging it, and providing the legal documents.
00:20:35.020 Remember that illegal immigration is not something that is reversible.
00:20:39.340 In almost all cases, it's permanent.
00:20:41.980 So whatever damage is being done now in terms of just mass numbers of people being shipped into the country, it's permanent.
00:20:50.560 They're not going to be able to remove, but maybe a fraction of those at any point.
00:20:56.560 So I've heard people in Bill O'Reilly makes the case, and I think he makes a pretty good case that Joe Biden has no idea what day it is at this point.
00:21:08.020 But he says, you know, people don't understand in the administration and Joe Biden doesn't understand what the consequences are and how bad it is.
00:21:17.220 I don't believe that for a second.
00:21:18.900 Do you?
00:21:21.040 Well, you know, I'm not there.
00:21:24.160 I'm not his.
00:21:25.020 I don't have access to his doctors, but his administration.
00:21:29.880 Taking the doctor thing.
00:21:30.500 Yeah.
00:21:30.900 Taking the doctor thing out of it.
00:21:32.980 His administration surely understands what they're doing.
00:21:38.200 All of the people around him.
00:21:39.940 And he has to understand what's happening as well.
00:21:42.900 There is a mass migration crisis underway that I believe is going to turn out to be historic in the nation's history.
00:21:51.960 We will never see any numbers like this.
00:21:55.620 I don't think we've seen numbers like this.
00:21:57.460 Already we're looking at March is looking like it's going to come in probably at around 150,000 apprehended that we know of.
00:22:07.980 The numbers aren't out yet, but I'm told it's going to be right up in there.
00:22:11.660 If you were to attack 40,000, 50,000, 40% rise from month to month, that's historic.
00:22:24.140 That is something we have never seen, that type of a rush, of a crush of humanity over the border.
00:22:31.520 By the end of the year, we could be at 2 million that have crossed the border in just this year.
00:22:38.800 And when you're down there, I mean, it's like a D-Day invasion.
00:22:41.920 I mean, it's raft after raft after raft, four or five abreast, just washing up on our side, dumping their load, going back for more day in, day out.
00:22:52.120 That's what it's like, and those are just the families and children, rafts filled with children, infants.
00:23:00.640 And then you have adults who are supposed to be individual, non-family adults who are supposed to be Title 42 back.
00:23:10.940 A great many of those are being sent back, but they keep trying because they know that a lot of them are making it through.
00:23:17.840 The Border Patrol is babysitting, processing children and families, and it certainly doesn't help when the President of the United States goes on an internationally televised press conference
00:23:30.300 and says to the entire world, we will leave no child behind.
00:23:35.640 Nobody stays in Mexico.
00:23:37.460 All of you come.
00:23:39.000 So they are, and they will, and that's a message.
00:23:41.980 Tell me, when you say rafts of children, are we talking of 15-year-olds?
00:23:48.080 I mean, you just, and I assume that you were using descriptive language, not necessarily accurate language.
00:23:57.960 When you said infants, rafts and infants, full of infants, that's not happening, is it?
00:24:05.820 Rafts filled with infants.
00:24:08.380 Yes.
00:24:08.860 Yep.
00:24:12.420 So like one adult or a couple of adults in a raft, and then, I mean, I've seen some of these rafts, maybe 10 infants, 15 infants?
00:24:21.340 Yeah.
00:24:21.760 I mean, you can see there's video out there.
00:24:24.040 You can find the video, and if you talk to Border Patrol like I have, you will hear these stories of just rafts filled with infants,
00:24:32.840 and you can see the video out there, too, infants, but also six-, seven-year-olds and five-, four-, three-toddlers.
00:24:42.080 And that's because the administration has messaged, we're taking children.
00:24:48.300 What kind of family turns their infant or three-year-old over to a drug cartel to get them across the border?
00:25:03.460 And what does that mean?
00:25:05.660 Well, I mean, the obvious, you know, rationale behind that is that they absolutely hate where they live.
00:25:15.320 They feel that there is an open door.
00:25:18.880 They don't know how long the door is going to be open, but they see it open, and there is a desperate rush to get in before it closes.
00:25:26.800 And that is not my speculation.
00:25:31.620 That is from many, many interviews that I've done with the immigrants themselves in Mexico.
00:25:38.380 I last week had six or seven Central Americans in front of me, and I asked them all.
00:25:44.300 I said, hey, if you are coming here now, if you made the decision to come here now because of something Joe Biden said or did, raise your hand.
00:25:53.980 And every one of them just went like that.
00:25:56.800 They're all coming because now, because they're able to.
00:26:01.820 They've been invited.
00:26:02.500 They've been invited.
00:26:03.260 Yeah, of course.
00:26:04.000 Yeah.
00:26:04.420 So, Todd, thank you very much.
00:26:07.280 I'd like to have you on again and specifically talk about the book, America's Covert Border War, because right now, Voice of America, which is a lie, Voice of America is telling us, no, no, no, these people aren't coming across.
00:26:23.400 Right?
00:26:24.300 Am I right?
00:26:24.880 There's no terrorist problem.
00:26:26.800 According to Voice of America.
00:26:28.320 Well, according to, like, all the regular media, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who came back from a trip a couple weeks ago, saying, talking about three Yemenis on the terror watch list, and everybody said he was a liar.
00:26:42.320 Stop saying that.
00:26:43.220 But it's true.
00:26:46.380 So we'll talk some more about this.
00:26:48.620 Thank you very much, Todd.
00:26:49.640 Todd Bensman, author of America's Covert Border War, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.
00:26:57.980 This is the best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:27:04.900 This is the Glenn Beck Program.
00:27:17.240 It's Friday, but also Good Friday.
00:27:19.620 I would be a very ungrateful son if I didn't mention what our dad did for us on this day by not intervening when his son is being crucified 2,000 years ago.
00:27:44.680 So, um, I owe everything, I owe everything, I owe everything, everything, everything, uh, to his, uh, dedication and, and sacrifice for me.
00:28:00.040 I lived my life one way for a long time and really blew it and, uh, really didn't, really didn't think I was worth anything.
00:28:11.380 And, uh, because, uh, I was, uh, dating a very wise woman who said, we need God in our lives, uh, I found him and the forgiveness that you can allow yourself to accept, uh, and clean up your life and start over is, is the greatest miracle.
00:28:38.740 I think one can receive and the greatest miracle in my life today is Good Friday.
00:28:46.080 Um, and as you know, I took, when I went to, uh, college, I took early Christology from the history department and I learned what it was really actually a like, um, you know, at that time.
00:29:02.960 And it was a brutal, brutal, uh, world.
00:29:07.960 I wanted to bring Shannon Bream in because she is the author of the book, uh, the women of the Bible speak.
00:29:13.660 You probably know her from, uh, Fox.
00:29:16.920 She's an anchor there.
00:29:18.300 Uh, but she is much more than just an anchor.
00:29:21.560 Her, she has really led an impressive, uh, life.
00:29:25.640 And she wrote the, um, the book, the women of the Bible speak, trying to find the, the lessons for today in, in the wisdom of the women in the Bible.
00:29:38.460 And Shannon joins us now.
00:29:39.900 Hi, Shannon.
00:29:40.380 How are you?
00:29:41.500 Glenn, it's such a joy to join you.
00:29:43.640 Thank you.
00:29:44.340 Thank you.
00:29:45.020 Thank you.
00:29:45.720 So I, I wanted to spend a few minutes, uh, just on Mary since it is Friday.
00:29:51.260 I cannot imagine, uh, seeing this happen to your child and what that must have been like and, and how, I mean, I, I've, I've thought just recently, my daughter, Mary went in for brain surgery and we had a scare and thought we might lose her.
00:30:12.780 And it was devastating, just the thought, watching crucifixion.
00:30:20.120 Tell me about what we can learn from Mary.
00:30:23.800 I mean, she was there at the foot of the cross.
00:30:26.420 I can't imagine, as you said, seeing your child wrongfully accused, um, being tortured and beaten and watching them crucified to death.
00:30:36.220 It's almost too much, but I feel like it's important always.
00:30:39.920 And especially this time of year for us to allow ourselves to think about what that was.
00:30:44.800 I've been reflecting on that and reading through the crucifixion a lot these last few weeks and thinking you have to come face to face with that and know the enormous, beautiful sacrifice that was made for you.
00:30:56.580 That is just to me, an incredible message of redemption that Christ knew what he would face.
00:31:03.040 He could have walked away from it.
00:31:04.940 And we see his anguished prayers where he says, your will, not mine.
00:31:09.500 And he goes through with that to save all of us.
00:31:12.560 And Mary has to be a witness to that.
00:31:14.520 And it's something I included in the book because I'm so used to studying her on the front end where she's this faithful young woman who gets visited by an angel and finds about her divine appointment.
00:31:23.260 But we wanted to follow her story all the way through, um, unable to really get my mind around what it must have been like for her to sit there at that crucifixion.
00:31:33.120 But to know that in the days following, she was with the disciples praying in the upper room.
00:31:37.960 She was a faithful early part of launching the church as we now know it.
00:31:42.460 Um, and she never shied away from the enormous pain that her son suffered all through his life, especially during his ministry in those final, final hours.
00:31:52.080 Women did not have a place really, uh, at the table.
00:31:56.420 I mean, Jesus, I think, and I have nothing to, uh, to go on.
00:32:02.560 I took, uh, I took Christology through the history department.
00:32:05.940 And so we just looked at the history of those times and what it must have really been like.
00:32:11.800 And I know when we got to Mary Magdalene, uh, it's, it's, it might have been a, uh, you know, the fact that she was a prostitute might have been, uh, a fudge just because of what was happening in the year 200.
00:32:29.640 You know, as they were, as they were assembling everything, um, it may be absolutely true.
00:32:35.940 But one of the reasons why it may be, um, not accurate is, uh, for political reasons at the time, or she may have just been called that at the time because she was following Jesus and women didn't do that.
00:32:53.020 Unmarried women did not follow a pack of men.
00:32:56.360 Otherwise you would have been considered a whore.
00:33:00.260 Correct.
00:33:01.720 Yeah.
00:33:02.160 I mean, it's so important to look at the context of the time and there is debate with theological scholars who are much more well-trained than I am, but we know she had been delivered from a number of demons and that she was following Christ and Christ included women in his inner circle.
00:33:17.380 They were his friends.
00:33:18.460 They were taught, they were allowed to teach at his feet and learn at his feet, which was an amazing thing because that was not the norm back then.
00:33:25.960 But we see it not only with Mary Magdalene, but Mary, uh, the sister pair, Martha and Mary and other women who were close to him.
00:33:33.520 Um, and think about the women he went to who were not accepted in society, the woman who was going to be stoned for adultery or the Samaritan woman in a well living in shame.
00:33:41.740 And he, he, he never judged or condemned those people.
00:33:45.320 He would say, go and sin no more.
00:33:46.900 Leave that part of your life.
00:33:48.140 But I don't condemn you.
00:33:49.600 I accept you.
00:33:50.560 You are my equal.
00:33:51.600 You're in the image of God.
00:33:52.720 And I think that's such a beautiful thing.
00:33:54.240 I don't want people to miss.
00:33:57.520 So, so tell me, let's, one of my, one of my favorite, uh, women of the, um, um, of, of the Bible is, um, Esther.
00:34:09.960 I just love the story of Esther.
00:34:14.680 Tell me her story and how you, what, what lessons you take from her.
00:34:20.920 You know, she was part of the dispersed Jews were all over the place.
00:34:24.520 We didn't have their own homeland at the time.
00:34:26.320 And so she was an orphan.
00:34:28.140 She was taken in by her uncle Mordecai who raised her.
00:34:31.440 And at one point the King of Persia gets very mad at the queen.
00:34:34.860 She will not show up and obey him.
00:34:36.380 And so he gets rid of her and he sends out this search nationwide for a new queen.
00:34:40.780 And at that point, Esther goes in and Mordecai told her, don't talk, don't talk about your Jewish background.
00:34:45.760 But all through this process, she had so much favor.
00:34:48.640 Everybody immediately loved her as a favorite.
00:34:50.860 When the King saw her, that was it.
00:34:52.620 She was the one for him.
00:34:53.800 So she is chosen as the queen of Persia now.
00:34:57.140 And during this process, there's Haman, this bad guy who is.