Ripping the mask off the Democratic Party's 'woke Christianity'
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Summary
Dr. Frank Turek is a dynamic speaker, an award-winning author, and co-author of four books, including "Combating Atheism." He is President of the Council on Secularism and a frequent speaker on college campuses defending Christianity against all comers, from atheists to agnostics. In this episode, we discuss how the left is now using religion to advance a progressive agenda in America via religion, specifically Christianity.
Transcript
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Welcome to this episode of the John Henry Weston Show, where I'm going to be speaking
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He's a dynamic speaker, an award-winning author, and co-author of four books, Combating Atheism.
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But what I find most impressive about Dr. Turek are his powerful presentation at college
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campuses, where he defends Christianity against all comers, from atheists to agnostics.
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He does it with vim and with vigor and with a lot of wit.
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But what he's written about recently is very fascinating.
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He's written about how the left is now using religion.
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It's a deliberate plan to quickly advance the progressive and socialist agenda in America
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Dr. Frank Turek, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the John Henry Weston Show.
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Let's begin, as we always do, with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
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So, Dr. Frank Turek, you've got a real heart for atheists.
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You've written several books addressing atheists.
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We show this awesome clip of yours of addressing a young man who was really questioning your heart,
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What really drives you to have a heart for conversion, a heart for getting to the truth,
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especially to people who seem to be so far from the truth?
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Well, as you know, John Henry, the Lord gave us the Great Commission to baptize nations
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in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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And so, we are all tasked as Christians to bring that truth to everyone,
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regardless of where they are in their spiritual walk.
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Now, when I'm on a college campus or in a debate and somebody gets up for Q&A,
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Look, I didn't agree with my own thoughts, you know, 30 years ago.
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I didn't agree with myself, my current self, 30 years ago.
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So, why would I expect somebody who is on a college campus to agree with everything I say?
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So, when someone comes up and even asks a hostile question,
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I just want to figure out why they believe what they believe and why,
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and then ask them some questions about that and then offer the Christian point of view.
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So, I don't take offense when people don't agree with me.
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As they say, I didn't even agree with me many years ago.
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Well, you have a very particular gift for doing just that, reaching hearts and minds
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in a way that really I haven't seen many people be able to.
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I wanted to talk to you, especially today, about something that I've seen you've written
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about, and it's about this new approach to Christianity that's being pushed, especially
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Well, if you notice, when Amy Coney Barrett was going up for a court position, this is
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even before the Supreme Court confirmation hearing, it was a previous hearing, the senator
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from California, Dianne Feinstein, knowing she was a pro-life Catholic and really believed
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it, said to Amy Coney Barrett, the dogma lives loud in you.
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However, when Joe Biden becomes president, the left treats him as a devout Catholic, even
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though he does not agree, at least when it comes to policy, with the Catholic Church,
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with the scriptures, or even with natural law on the issue of life, the issue of abortion.
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You know, he tried to take a middle-of-the-road view before as a Roman Catholic saying, well,
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you know, I'm personally opposed, but I can't impose that view on others.
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Now he's dispensed with that, and he actually wants the government to pay for abortion.
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And yet the media is lauding this as Joe Biden being a devout Catholic.
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Yeah, they'll laud somebody who doesn't agree with the Catholic Church and call that person
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But if somebody does, like Amy Coney Barrett, they're going to say, oh, the dogma lives loud
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And I think, John Henry, the reason for this is in the midterm elections, they're going to
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have to get Christians to vote for them to stay in power.
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And so what they want to try and do is get Christians to believe that somebody like Joe
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Biden and his Democrat Party are for Christian policies in the sense they're pro-life and
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pro-family and all these things when they're really not.
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It's actually very much like a new religion or something else.
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And you had this beautiful term of a woke Christianity.
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I think that's great because it's a false Christianity.
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Well, let me ask you this question, John Henry.
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Let's suppose you and I were at the base of Mount Sinai when Moses came down with the
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And he comes down to us and he says, hey, look, here are the Ten Commandments from Yahweh.
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And we look at him and we say, you know, Moses, we don't like those ten.
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We have people claiming to be Christians who are disagreeing with Jesus.
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But many might respond to, well, you know, they had certain practices in those days, certain
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Jesus couldn't possibly choose a woman to be a minister back then because, you know, it
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So, you know, also with slavery, he said, slavery, be a good slave.
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He didn't confront slavery because he was stuck in his own time period and had to conform to
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Yeah, the problem is, first of all, they don't understand slavery when they say that.
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When we hear the word slave today, we think of the kind of slavery that was in America
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The kind of slavery in the Bible was indentured servitude.
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If you owed somebody money, you could put themselves or you could put yourself in their service to pay off
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And there was a point where you were going to be let go.
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And many of them didn't want to get let go because they had a good arrangement with the
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In fact, if we followed the biblical commands on slavery, particularly kidnapping, 160 years
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ago, slave traders would have been punished by death.
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OK, the Old Testament punished slavery or slave traders, I should say kidnappers by
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The kind of slavery we had 150, 160 years ago in America is not the kind of slavery the
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Secondly, when it comes to life, the Bible is quite clear that thou shall not murder is
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And that applies to children unborn in the womb because they are human beings as well.
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In fact, if you look at Luke chapter one, when Mary goes and visits Elizabeth, she's pregnant
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It says right there in chapter one, verse 41 or so of the Gospel of Luke, it says that
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when when Mary greeted Elizabeth, the baby in Elizabeth's womb leapt.
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The Bible is quite clear that what's in the womb is a baby.
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And of course, science is quite clear that what's what's in the womb is a baby as well.
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And thou shall not murder applies to unborn children, just like it applies to born children.
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The move to have the Christianity sort of adopted into the democratic left, or even more broadly
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speaking, because it's not only an American phenomenon.
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The move to sort of transform Christianity into some kind of a leftist religion, if you will.
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It is a different religion, but still under the same nomenclature.
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So, you know, Bill Clinton running around as a Southern Baptist with the Bible under his
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And really, the the I guess the effort to make this new Christianity, I've seen it increase.
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Yes, I think it's it's so because they want to make sure that they get the Christian vote
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as much as they can, because if they really revealed the truth about what they believe
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as they spoke and as they governed, many Christians, of course, would not vote for them because they
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are pro-abortion, they're anti-family, they're pro-borderless, you know, no borders, open borders.
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The Bible talks about borders and borders are something that that is certainly part of the
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By the way, everyone believes in borders, John Henry.
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But so these people who are saying they're for open borders, actually, if they were consistent,
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they wouldn't have a border around the White House.
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They wouldn't have a border around the Capitol.
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So I think what they're trying to do is they're trying to get people who are not really paying
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close attention to think, hey, these people are Christians, too.
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I should just vote for them when they're when they're not really voting for Christian policies
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They're voting policies that are against Christianity and against the natural law.
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If you're not thinking that carefully about it, a lot of it sounds good.
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Of course, we want our borders open for the poor because it's the poor that are coming
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And they have to get into actual reality to see what's happening on the ground to be able
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But it's also not only protection for ourselves, it's protection for those families from whom
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some people are being taken away and all sorts of rather nasty things that perhaps we've protected
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Because the sentiment of we just want to help the poor, we want to be open to the poor, that
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Yeah, the problem is, is you have to look at the results.
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You see, the intention is good, but not every intention results in good results.
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The question is, what's the best way to help the poor?
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Now, generally, conservatives believe that if you help an economy, a rising tide lifts all boats
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and everybody, including the poor, will benefit.
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For example, in the last four years, the lowest unemployment rate for minorities was accomplished
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in the Trump administration because the economy was so good, it helped the lowest people in our
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economy in terms of their socioeconomic status.
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Now, liberals generally want to help the poor through government handouts.
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Conservatives think, hey, you know, that's just going to create dependency.
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The question is, what is the best way to help the poor?
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But we shouldn't be saying, oh, if you don't like my policy, you're not for the poor.
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The naming or calling of names and using false terminology, I found it incredible, particularly over racism.
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This last little while since January 6th, even before that, but since January 6th, everybody's racist.
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And as a person who's at least somewhat colored from a lot of people who were no color at all,
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but calling me racist, I thought was incredible.
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Everyone's a racist now, as long as you disagree with leftist ideology.
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And actually, you can get away with saying the most racist things if you agree with leftist ideology.
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Yeah, yeah, now math is racist, John Henry, and that just doesn't add up, okay?
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And critical race theory says, just like Marxism does, that there's a list of oppressors and a list of oppressed people.
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And if you're an oppressor, like if you're white, or if you're a Christian, or if you're heterosexual, or you're rich, you're automatically considered an oppressor of other groups, like peoples of color, like the LGBTQ people, like poor people.
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You're automatically considered an oppressor, which means if you say you're a white, heterosexual Christian man, you're automatically a racist.
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You're automatically someone who, regardless of your behavior, is going to be somebody that can't be trusted.
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You're judging people without even looking at their behavior.
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You're judging them based on the color of their skin, which is exactly the opposite of what the Bible says.
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It's exactly opposite what the preacher Martin Luther King said, that I'm a dream of a day.
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I have a dream that one day my children will be judged based on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
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Yet critical race theory comes along and starts judging people based on the color of their skin.
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That's exactly the opposite of the way it should be.
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If you can tell me, Frank, what really does the left use in terms of terminology to get its will through?
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Who can be against freedom to choose, John Henry?
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Everyone's for freedom and freedom to choose, right?
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The problem is if you ask them to complete the sentence, there's a problem.
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And you're going to say that a woman has the freedom to choose the death of her baby.
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Why doesn't she have the freedom to choose where that baby goes to school if she decides
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Another phrase they use is inclusion, tolerance, and diversity.
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If you don't agree with us, if you have a diverse view, you will be excluded in the name
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You see, those words sound good, inclusion, tolerance, and diversity.
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The problem is they exclude anybody who disagrees with them.
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The word that's being thrown around now is equity.
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Well, newsflash, you will not have equity or equality of outcome even coming from the same
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household, much less people coming from different households in the country.
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And he says, you know, if you look at the data, firstborn children tend to do better than
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He says, out of the 29 Apollo astronauts, 22 were either firstborn children or from only
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born children, you know, single child households.
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And he said, look, if you're not going to get the same result, the same outcome from kids brought
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up in under the same roof with the same parents, how are you going to expect the same outcome
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from children brought up by different parents in different circumstances?
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You're never going to get equity of outcome in any society.
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And newsflash, it's not even going to happen in heaven.
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Jesus says when he talks about the parable of the talents, he actually takes the one
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And he gives it to the one with 10 who did something with his.
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So no, there's no place in the history of the world that has ever had equity of outcome
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and it won't even happen in heaven if the Democrat party is trying to make it happen here.
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One of the things you said that's very, very powerful is about the, you know, the statement
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that the need for inclusion and so on, and yet you're excluded when you disagree.
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That I think people should be seeing in spades today.
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This kind of acceptance and inclusion and love one another, except when you disagree and then
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you're hated, you can be called all sorts of names.
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You can be canceled as everybody knows who watches our YouTube channel or used to watch
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It is an absolutely unbelievable thing, but it's being done in exactly backwards fashion
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because they have, they use all this terminology and they do the exact opposite.
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It's not inclusion, tolerance and diversity at all.
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Putting up with ideas with which you disagree, right?
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And yet their new definition of tolerance is that you must celebrate what I believe and
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In order to tolerate something, you have to disagree with it.
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But they've changed the language to make it sound good.
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Look, they don't necessarily tolerate our view that, say, a child in the womb should be protected.
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As you found out, they'll take down your YouTube channel over something like that, right?
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They are the people who claim to be fighting for tolerance while they're excluding anybody
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That's not the right definition of tolerance, quite obviously.
00:19:08.400
Now, I actually have a problem with some tolerance.
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And I honestly, conservatives have been way over tolerant.
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In every single sphere, conservatives tolerate the most intolerable things.
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And it's so bad that elected conservative officials will leave in office, in place, the former
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administrations, even though it's the opposite track, all their people, all their staffers.
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Conservatives think, no, no, they're all good people, which they likely are.
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But they're totally opposed to what you're doing.
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And the left has no tolerance whatsoever, but they talk about it all the time.
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And conservatives live it, even to ways that I would disagree with.
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Well, let me mention one thing about that, because I think the Christendom in general is
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Tolerance says, hold your nose and put up with them.
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And if you truly want to love somebody, sometimes you can't tolerate what they're going to do.
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You see, love does not require tolerance or approval.
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Paul says that love always protects, that love rejoices in the truth.
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If you tolerate everything your kid wants to do, you're not loving.
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To be loving, you've got to stand in the way of evil.
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You've got to say, I don't care that you want to do this.
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I'm going to stand in your way because you're going to hurt yourself and others.
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In order for us to love you, even if you're going to hate me for it,
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I can't approve of something that's going to destroy you and others.
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So part of the journey, if you will, of having adult children is a difficult one because they
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often will do things that you know are wrong for them.
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And we nonetheless, as Christians, have to confront them when they're doing something
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But sometimes we have to stand firm and disagree with them.
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And that might have consequences and hard consequences for the family.
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Have you dealt with such things or have you given counsel to parents?
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The way that you love people, even your own children, is to tell them the truth, even if
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And so, yes, we've had to do that even recently because that's the way you love people.
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However, you actually have to tell them the truth.
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Now, how you tell them, yeah, that can be problematic, but you still have to do it.
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And what advice would you give to, well, parents, but anyone in that situation where they have
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to confront was required to knowing exactly what to do, how to do it?
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Because these situations are often very confusing.
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A lot of parents out there, they pull their hair out.
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They don't know what to do, what to say, where to go, because they're dealing with, well, lots
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of different things, but they're dealing with a daughter's decision to perhaps abort her
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child, God forbid, or they're entering into homosexual relationships, or they have no
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problem with pornography, or they're going into marijuana because it's now legal.
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Where do you get the inspiration on dealing with these things?
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Well, I think what you have to say to them is something my first pastor said to his kids,
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and that is, there's nothing you can do that will make me stop loving you.
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And so what you tell them up front, but you know that that also means for me to love you,
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that I have to tell you things that you might not like to hear because it's the truth.
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You know, if you're about to be hit by a bus, I'm going to yell at you to get out of the
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And so there are going to be times when you're going to want to do something and it's wrong.
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And I have to tell you why it's wrong and that you ought not do it.
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And if I didn't love you, I wouldn't say a word.
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In fact, I might even approve of it in order to keep peace.
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In fact, I think it was Thomas Sowell who put it this way.
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He said, if you tell people what they want to hear, you're helping yourself.
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If you tell people what they need to hear, you're helping them.
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In terms of what we can do in our culture today, because it is way, way off the track,
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And what are the best ways forward, in your opinion, to restoring the culture for Christ?
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You know, I'm reminded of the parent who once said, you know, the big problem in our country
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today is we've gotten the Ten Commandments out of schools.
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And one of his kids said, the Ten Commandments, name them.
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And the father was speechless because he couldn't name them all.
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I mean, we should be worried about the schools.
00:24:58.500
And if you're still going to lose your kids to atheism or agnosticism, is that really worth it?
00:25:08.200
We have to bring up our kids to know the Lord and to know why Christianity is true, which
00:25:14.660
That's what we do at our ministry, crossexamine.org.
00:25:17.040
We go to a lot of colleges, a lot of high schools, and we present the evidence that Christianity
00:25:21.260
Because, as you know, John Henry, they go off to college, and they're going to run into
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And unless they're really grounded in the truth, they're going to get picked off.
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In fact, 75% of kids leave the church after they leave the home.
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And the number one reason they do is intellectually, they don't know why Christianity is true.
00:25:46.640
And if we bring up the home right, the rest of the culture eventually will follow.
00:25:51.080
Now, in a parallel way, we also have to be involved politically, quite obviously.
00:26:00.280
And we have to hold these politicians to the truth of our Constitution, which is one of the
00:26:06.800
greatest documents ever written when it comes to governance.
00:26:13.320
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created equal and endowed by their
00:26:19.140
Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
00:26:23.200
Because life is the right to all of the rights.
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If you don't have life, you don't have anything.
00:26:27.280
So we have to really stand strong for the truth, not only in the home, but in the public
00:26:35.380
Tell us where folks can get in touch with you, with your materials.
00:26:39.740
Because I know you've got a lot of great material, especially to form young people.
00:26:44.540
And what I mean by young people is sort of the high school age and college age and so
00:26:49.080
Because those are crucial ages where they start to question a lot of things.
00:26:56.320
Where can they get resources to really fight the culture that way?
00:26:59.360
If they go to crossexamined.org, that's crossexamined with a D on the end of it, .org, it'll be the gateway
00:27:06.380
We have a podcast called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist every week.
00:27:11.180
We have about 900 Q&A videos on our YouTube channel, cross-examined.
00:27:16.400
Most of them are Q&A videos from the college campus.
00:27:20.240
Many of them are very short, you know, two or three minutes that go into all these different
00:27:23.680
issues that kids are asking on a college campus.
00:27:26.140
So those are some resources they can avail themselves of.
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We have a app too, cross-examined app, two words in the app store.
00:27:45.000
Frank is a great speaker and really awesome with answers.
00:27:49.720
All those hard questions that you can't answer for your teens and your early 20s, he's got
00:27:57.320
Frank, thank you so much for being with us on this episode of the John Henry Weston Show.
00:28:07.140
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00:28:12.900
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we are removed from our current platform as well.
00:29:42.340
Additionally, I really encourage you, as I said before, to make it a regular habit to
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While all of these different platforms are an excellent way to curate your news, going
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directly to our website means that you will never encounter any censorship or sudden loss
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We founded this organization with the mission to be the life, family, and culture source
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We have established a track record of honest reports, and this will never stop, even with
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Again, I'm encouraging you to join us on Parler, MeWe, Rumble, and on our email list.
00:30:34.060
You can find all the direct links in the description of this video.
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May God bless you and keep you, and we are so thankful that you've chosen to follow and
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I'm John Henry Weston, co-founder and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.