The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 195 - Sex Abuse Crisis In The Southern Baptist Church

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, a sex abuse crisis in the Southern Baptist Church.

00:00:03.580 We will discuss all the details on this latest and horrifying report of sex abuse in the church.

00:00:10.220 Also, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is trying to backpedal and come up with excuses for her, 1.00

00:00:15.960 for some of the insane stuff that was in the Green New Deal proposal that she unveiled on Thursday.

00:00:21.820 But the excuses are pathetic and dishonest, so we'll get to the bottom of that today as well on the Matt Wall Show.

00:00:30.000 Thanks for being here, everybody. 0.94

00:00:34.640 Thanks for watching.

00:00:36.360 I hope you had a great weekend.

00:00:37.600 Remember, if you want to get the whole show, to subscribe on iTunes or become a premium member of The Daily Wire.

00:00:44.540 And that way, if you're watching on Facebook, you only get 15 minutes.

00:00:46.880 If you want the whole thing, you can do that on iTunes or on The Daily Wire.

00:00:50.800 The Grammys were last night.

00:00:52.620 I just wanted to briefly mention it.

00:00:54.240 I only know that they happened because The Daily Beast sent out a tweet outraged that the wrong race had won Album of the Year.

00:01:03.360 So the tweet said,

00:01:04.880 The Grammys were a glorious, confounding mess. 0.63

00:01:07.680 But worst of all is how a black person still hasn't won Album of the Year in over a decade. 0.98

00:01:13.560 Now, I read that and I thought,

00:01:15.160 Wait a second.

00:01:16.360 I don't pay attention to this stuff very closely.

00:01:18.040 But I'm pretty sure minorities and women win the big Grammy Awards all the time. 1.00

00:01:24.000 I mean, that's just my general impression.

00:01:25.840 So is there really a diversity problem with the Grammys?

00:01:30.020 So I went and looked it up just out of curiosity.

00:01:32.980 And first of all, a black man won Song of the Year this year, which is a big award.

00:01:37.520 But apparently that doesn't count.

00:01:40.080 A Puerto Rican man won Album of the Year last year.

00:01:43.760 Three black men or groups have won over the last 15 years.

00:01:48.520 Women artists have won seven times over that time span.

00:01:53.040 White men have only won four times. 0.79

00:01:54.860 So is that really not enough diversity?

00:01:57.520 I mean, you're still finding a reason to...

00:01:59.660 Is that not...

00:02:01.400 What exactly is the...

00:02:03.880 What percentage do we have in mind?

00:02:06.340 Like, what are we supposed to hit?

00:02:07.680 Is that not good enough?

00:02:09.620 By the way, whoever wrote this article for The Beast,

00:02:11.620 I just want you to think about the process here, okay?

00:02:14.520 They...

00:02:15.040 So they saw that a white person...

00:02:16.660 So a white woman won this year. 1.00

00:02:20.200 A country artist, I think.

00:02:21.940 So they saw that a white person won.

00:02:23.840 And they thought, okay, how can I turn this into a race thing?

00:02:26.660 We've got a white person winning an award.

00:02:28.440 Obviously, there's a race issue.

00:02:29.980 How can I do this?

00:02:31.300 So then they thought, let me go check and see

00:02:33.220 how long it's been since a minority won Album of the Year.

00:02:37.540 And then they went and they checked.

00:02:38.520 And they saw that, oh, wait a second.

00:02:39.480 A Puerto Rican guy won last year.

00:02:41.400 So maybe... 0.94

00:02:42.620 And then they would have seen that, oh, a black... 1.00

00:02:45.460 You know, black people have won three times over the last 15 years.

00:02:49.440 And rather than just say, okay, never mind.

00:02:51.740 I guess there's no issue here.

00:02:53.040 Not a big deal.

00:02:53.980 Okay.

00:02:54.320 Actually, there's a lot of diversity.

00:02:56.020 No, instead, they decided to structure their complaint

00:02:58.480 in such a way as to get around those facts.

00:03:02.300 So rather than complaining about a lack of minorities winning,

00:03:05.680 they singled it out to black people in particular.

00:03:08.580 And rather than complaining about the last 15 or 20 years,

00:03:12.280 they chose arbitrarily the last 10 years.

00:03:15.820 And if a black person had won, say, nine years ago,

00:03:18.780 they would have said, well, no one...

00:03:20.640 There hasn't been a black person winning in the last eight years.

00:03:23.740 You know, so they just...

00:03:24.560 Whatever it is, they're looking for.

00:03:26.180 This is basically how the identity politics sausage is made.

00:03:31.220 And it's pretty...

00:03:31.800 It's pretty annoying to see.

00:03:35.260 All right.

00:03:36.260 I want to talk about something else, something much more important.

00:03:40.240 The Houston Chronicle published a report over the weekend

00:03:43.520 about widespread sex abuse in the Southern Baptist Church.

00:03:49.400 The story and the details are eerily familiar to anyone

00:03:53.460 who has followed the scandals in the Catholic Church,

00:03:57.000 which I have very closely, as I think you know.

00:04:00.940 So let me read now a little bit from the Huffington Post article on this.

00:04:04.580 It says, according to the three-part investigation,

00:04:06.520 the first installment of which was published on Sunday,

00:04:08.420 about 300, 380 Southern Baptist pastors, ministers, youth pastors,

00:04:13.720 Sunday school teachers, deacons, and church volunteers

00:04:15.700 have faced allegations of sexual misconduct since 1998.

00:04:20.160 More than 200 of them have been convicted or took plea deals,

00:04:24.360 the newspaper reported.

00:04:25.640 Nearly 100 are currently in prisons across the nation.

00:04:28.880 The victims of the accused number more than 700, the report said.

00:04:33.060 They include teenagers and children, some as young as three,

00:04:37.660 who were molested or raped inside pastor's studies and Sunday school classrooms.

00:04:42.580 Many victims said their stories of abuse were ignored or silenced by church leaders. 0.86

00:04:46.680 One victim, who alleged she was raped and impregnated by her pastor when she was a teen,

00:04:51.180 said her church leaders had urged her to get an abortion.

00:04:53.880 When she refused, they threatened her and her child, she said.

00:04:56.780 Dozens of pastors, employees, and volunteers were reportedly allowed to return to work

00:05:01.460 in Southern Baptist churches despite being dogged by sexual abuse allegations.

00:05:07.920 Let me give you some more, just some sort of bullet points.

00:05:11.100 This is now from the Houston Chronicle, which, as I said, they had the original report about this.

00:05:17.040 It says at least 35 church pastors, employees, and volunteers who exhibited predatory behavior

00:05:22.420 were still able to find jobs at churches during the past two decades.

00:05:26.100 In some cases, church leaders apparently failed to alert law enforcement about complaints

00:05:31.280 or to warn other congregations about allegations of misconduct.

00:05:34.740 Several past presidents and prominent alert leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention

00:05:37.960 are among those criticized by victims for concealing or mishandling abuse complaints

00:05:44.580 within their own churches or seminaries.

00:05:46.980 Some registered sex offenders returned to the pulpit.

00:05:49.560 Others remain there, including a Houston preacher who sexually assaulted a teenager

00:05:54.660 and now is the principal officer of a Houston nonprofit that works with the student organizations,

00:06:00.480 according to federal records.

00:06:02.120 The name of this nonprofit is Touching the Future Today, Incorporated.

00:06:07.140 Many of the victims were adolescents who were molested, sent explicit photos or texts,

00:06:15.620 exposed to pornography, photographed nude, or repeatedly raped by youth pastors. 0.64

00:06:20.140 Some victims, as young as three, were molested or raped inside pastors' studies 0.98

00:06:26.400 and Sunday school classrooms.

00:06:28.480 A few were adults, women and men, who sought pastoral guidance

00:06:31.560 and instead say they were seduced or sexually assaulted.

00:06:34.480 Okay, now keep something in mind here.

00:06:40.320 When you have a widespread scandal like this and you have efforts to silence victims,

00:06:46.560 which is what is happening here, and which is what always happens in these kinds of cases,

00:06:53.240 you can be sure that there are going to be more victims, a lot more victims,

00:06:57.700 than initial reports indicate.

00:06:59.680 Okay, because only the victims who were not successfully silenced are counted.

00:07:04.860 But any victim who was successfully terrorized or intimidated or humiliated or shamed into keeping quiet

00:07:14.000 will not be counted in the statistics.

00:07:17.800 Now, if the Catholic Church scandals have taught us anything, it is that.

00:07:21.760 In fact, Catholic Church scandals have taught or shown us quite a bit.

00:07:27.320 Speaking of which, anyone who's followed me for any amount of time knows that I have been very, very, very,

00:07:39.520 very vocal about sex abuse in the Catholic Church.

00:07:43.720 I have written thousands of words about it.

00:07:46.020 I have spoken at rallies denouncing bishops for their inaction.

00:07:50.040 I have called as much attention as possible to this issue.

00:07:54.640 I have spoken in the harshest imaginable terms about the guilty parties and those who aid and abet the guilty parties.

00:08:01.740 I've called out the Pope, the bishops, the cardinals, everyone.

00:08:04.500 Okay?

00:08:05.640 Now, I only point that out so that you understand.

00:08:07.980 And as I said, if you've been following me for a while, you already know this, that I am not someone who's looking to deflect from the Catholic scandal, who's looking to ignore it.

00:08:20.060 No, I want to call attention to it.

00:08:21.640 In fact, you know, I reached a point where people were complaining to me and saying, will you stop talking about this issue?

00:08:27.700 It's like all you talk about, you know.

00:08:28.940 I went through a period of like a month where I felt like I was writing about it every day.

00:08:33.680 But I thought I needed to because this can't be ignored and it needs to be exposed.

00:08:42.020 So I'm not someone looking to deflect or change a subject or, you know, a whataboutism, nothing like that.

00:08:47.640 I'm not looking to do that.

00:08:51.640 So when I point to what's happening now in the Baptist church, that's not my point.

00:08:56.840 My point is, I don't want those in the Southern Baptist church to make the same mistake that Catholics made for so long, which was to be in denial, to insist that it's not so bad, to claim that anyone pointing to the problem must just be anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, they must just have a grudge, whatever.

00:09:17.040 However, I don't want to see those same mistakes made, and it looks like they are being made.

00:09:25.320 And not just in the Baptist church, by the way.

00:09:28.020 As I've mentioned in the past, this is not just a Catholic problem.

00:09:32.240 It's not just a Baptist problem. 0.95

00:09:33.360 This is a problem in the Christian church.

00:09:36.200 This is a Christian problem. 1.00

00:09:38.820 The three largest insurance companies who insure many of the Protestant churches in the U.S. have reported that there are about 260 sex abuse claims made against Protestant church leaders every year in this country.

00:09:52.400 And it's been going on at that rate for years.

00:09:59.120 So, not Catholic, not Baptist, not Protestant.

00:10:03.380 This is a problem in the church, in Christianity.

00:10:07.260 Now, it's obviously not just a Christian problem either. 0.75

00:10:10.760 It's a sin problem.

00:10:12.060 It's a society problem.

00:10:13.900 It is a human nature problem.

00:10:16.420 It is a we're a fallen species problem.

00:10:18.560 All that is true.

00:10:19.280 Yes, there's a sex abuse crisis in the public school, in the universities, in Hollywood, in the media, even in our doctor's offices.

00:10:27.140 There's a big problem there, too.

00:10:29.420 But the churches should be an exception to that.

00:10:34.560 Now, I'm not saying that churches should be a place where only perfect people go, because if they were only for perfect people, then nobody would ever go to church, right?

00:10:42.760 But there's a pretty wide gap between perfect person and sex predator.

00:10:47.800 Okay, there's a pretty wide chasm, and there's a lot of room in between.

00:10:53.940 Churches should be a place where you can go and be safe and be away from all of that.

00:11:00.360 And so it's not good enough.

00:11:01.740 Yeah, we can look around and see, oh, every single institution where there are adults and children, it looks like there's a sex abuse epidemic.

00:11:09.040 And that's true.

00:11:11.460 But we can't use that to deflect and say, well, you know, it's happening with everyone.

00:11:15.300 I mean, it's just it's unavoidable.

00:11:17.320 The churches should be different.

00:11:20.020 But they aren't.

00:11:22.020 And no denomination is exempt, not one. 0.95

00:11:27.040 You know, I tell you, I was I was pretty troubled yesterday.

00:11:29.020 I sent out a tweet yesterday calling attention to this issue because this report just came out over the weekend.

00:11:37.120 And I think it's something we all need to look at.

00:11:39.840 And here's here.

00:11:40.480 Here's the tweet I sent out.

00:11:41.500 I said, a new report finds that over 300 Southern Baptist church leaders have been accused of sexual misconduct since 1998.

00:11:46.560 To put that in perspective, the Catholic sex scandal in Pennsylvania implicated 300 Catholic clergy over a period of 70 years.

00:11:55.600 My point here was obvious, I thought.

00:11:57.840 Yes, Pennsylvania is a smaller area, fewer churches.

00:12:01.300 But that scandal stretched back 70 years.

00:12:03.740 Most of the cases were from decades ago.

00:12:05.660 Many of the predators are now dead.

00:12:08.120 The issue in the Southern Baptist church is more recent, more immediate, which isn't to say that it's worse.

00:12:13.780 This is not a competition for God's sake.

00:12:17.960 I was simply trying to highlight the urgency and the immediacy of the problem in the SBC.

00:12:25.100 And the point is, people were viscerally outraged, instinctively outraged about the Pennsylvania scandal.

00:12:31.600 And rightly so.

00:12:32.800 OK, the fact that it was that a lot of it was old, that a lot of it was from years ago.

00:12:36.860 That didn't stop anyone from being from being extremely angry and demanding action.

00:12:42.320 And it shouldn't have stopped them.

00:12:44.000 And it didn't stop me.

00:12:46.160 And so what I'm hoping is that that same kind of visceral reaction, the same level of anger and outrage and calls for change will arise also over this issue in the SBC.

00:12:57.160 That's what I'm hoping.

00:12:58.580 That's what I think should happen.

00:13:01.180 Because if you wanted to, when you looked at what happened in Pennsylvania, it was a huge story.

00:13:04.620 Everyone was talking about it.

00:13:05.960 Christians all across the spectrum were outraged.

00:13:08.060 They were, you know, if you wanted to, you know, if you want to find a way to really split hairs and actually look at what was being reported and you wanted to find ways to diminish the severity or, you know, deflect, you could have because you could have said, well, most of these are, you know, they've already put things up.

00:13:25.440 But most of this stuff is from, you know, we're talking about a lot of these cases happened 40 years ago and blah, blah, blah.

00:13:29.840 You could have done that.

00:13:30.880 And there were some Catholics who did try to do that.

00:13:35.240 But most people didn't.

00:13:37.120 Most people said, yeah, you know what, but who cares?

00:13:39.400 Okay, the fact is, this is a problem.

00:13:41.440 It's an epidemic.

00:13:42.680 Even if something happened 40 years ago, it still happened.

00:13:45.380 It shouldn't have.

00:13:46.560 So there needs to be accountability.

00:13:51.380 And so the same thing should happen here.

00:13:53.300 The problem is, you know, the tweet that I sent out, it did engender a lot of outrage, but at me.

00:14:01.200 Lots of people took the time to lecture me on my inappropriate comparison and to scold me for my wording and to insist that, no, the Catholic thing is so much worse and let's still talk about that.

00:14:12.980 How dare I compare them, et cetera, et cetera.

00:14:16.480 You know, a lot of people were getting mad at me about a tweet I sent out.

00:14:19.240 And so just out of curiosity, some of them, I went to their pages to check to see if they had tweeted anything about the SPC scandal at all, aside from just lecturing me about the way in which I called attention to it.

00:14:30.420 And what I found, of course, is that a lot of people who were taking time out of their day to lecture one guy for the manner in which he called attention to this crisis had not themselves taken any time to call attention to it themselves.

00:14:42.960 And this is something I've found, you know, not just yesterday, but any time I've tried to call attention to the sex abuse problem in other churches, I have found that a lot of people are very resistant to it.

00:14:59.360 They don't want to hear it.

00:15:01.420 They want to think that it's just a Catholic thing.

00:15:04.140 You know, my church is different.

00:15:05.560 It doesn't know it's different here.

00:15:06.860 That's not the same.

00:15:07.880 It's different.

00:15:08.500 We're different.

00:15:09.060 Today, I posted a link to the Houston Chronicle article with a, you know, this time just a link with a simple caption saying this is the tip of the iceberg.

00:15:17.540 You know, there's, there's, so just keep that in mind.

00:15:19.800 That's all I said.

00:15:21.140 Here are some of the responses I received.

00:15:24.180 Did you make a similar comment after the Catholic scandals emerged? 0.96

00:15:28.120 I know you're embarrassed about the Catholic Church's decades of abuse, including thousands of innocent children, but to point to another denomination and saying, hey, look, guys, we're not the only ones that like raping little boys is pretty sad. 0.99

00:15:38.040 Clean up your own house first. 0.99

00:15:40.780 You should pipe down.

00:15:42.660 This humbling moment for American Protestants could bring Catholics and Protestants closer together and possibly even help end anti-Catholic bigotry unless Catholics like you continue doing whataboutism.

00:15:53.460 I'm neither Baptist nor Catholic, but seriously, what's your point, Matt?

00:15:56.920 Whether it's one or one billion doesn't matter.

00:15:59.380 Sin is sin.

00:16:00.020 Okay, Matt, what's the next move then?

00:16:03.260 What are you suggesting with these tweets?

00:16:04.820 Shut down SBC?

00:16:06.040 End Christianity? 0.88

00:16:07.000 I don't understand the direction you're heading with these tweets.

00:16:10.860 Do you understand why SB leaders decline to act?

00:16:13.540 They don't have any authority to act on this.

00:16:15.680 Each church is governed by its congregation.

00:16:17.580 Headquarters mostly direct creation of event content.

00:16:21.000 Could you drop the subject already? 0.98

00:16:24.140 Don't be silly. 0.99

00:16:25.240 They are human like any other group. 1.00

00:16:26.980 They're going to have problems like any other group.

00:16:28.860 Are you biased against a Baptist church for some reason?

00:16:33.040 Excuse making, deflecting, pipe down, don't talk about this.

00:16:37.660 No, let's talk about that over there instead.

00:16:39.480 Not this.

00:16:40.080 No, this is different.

00:16:41.280 This is why it's different.

00:16:42.620 Oh, no, they didn't have any choice.

00:16:43.840 They had to hire the predators.

00:16:45.500 What are they supposed to do?

00:16:46.660 There's nothing else they could do.

00:16:48.120 Excuses, excuses, excuses. 0.99

00:16:50.740 People are cowards. 1.00

00:16:52.920 I mean, this is just, you know how pathetic that is? 0.99

00:16:55.680 That I could post an article to, hey guys, look at this crisis going on. 0.91

00:17:00.640 And those are the responses?

00:17:03.020 Don't talk about this.

00:17:04.460 Pipe down.

00:17:05.500 You're biased against Baptists.

00:17:09.700 People don't want to face it.

00:17:11.920 They don't want to think that these things could be happening close to home.

00:17:14.660 It's the same reason why no one wants to hear about the sex abuse crisis in the public school.

00:17:19.380 I've talked about this many times.

00:17:22.020 I mentioned recently how, you know, I wrote an article a few months ago about the sex abuse

00:17:28.300 crisis in the public school because that's a problem, I would think.

00:17:32.880 Tens of millions of kids are in that system.

00:17:34.700 And thousands of them are being sexually abused, according to every statistic you'll find.

00:17:43.580 It's a problem.

00:17:44.760 Huge problem.

00:17:45.520 Epidemic.

00:17:46.480 Crisis.

00:17:48.900 Tried to write an article about it, and a lot of the responses were, why are you talking about this?

00:17:53.120 Why, no, let's talk about the Catholic Church instead.

00:17:56.220 Why are you trying to deflect?

00:17:57.860 No, it's not the same.

00:17:59.060 Oh, you're exaggerating.

00:18:00.280 No, no, no.

00:18:01.120 Well, we've got to be better than this in the church, in the Christian church. 0.99

00:18:08.120 We've just, we've got to be better than this.

00:18:12.240 And if we continue having this attitude, nothing will ever get better.

00:18:17.240 And like I said, in the Catholic Church, this is the attitude that a lot of Catholics had

00:18:23.040 in the beginning.

00:18:24.340 You know, these scandals first erupted back in the early 2000s, back, I don't know, 15 years ago or something.

00:18:32.080 And, or whenever it was.

00:18:34.600 And I was a kid back then, but I remember, I remember how a lot of Catholics reacted to it.

00:18:42.300 And it was, they were pretty defensive.

00:18:44.240 And it took a while.

00:18:45.620 Now, you're not going to find that now.

00:18:47.220 Most Catholics you come across are not so defensive about it anymore.

00:18:50.320 And they're going to be the first ones to bring up this problem and to demand change.

00:18:55.120 And, and, but it did take a while to get to that point. 0.95

00:19:01.500 But that is inexcusable and cowardly.

00:19:03.740 And now we're seeing the same thing with this.

00:19:09.280 All right.

00:19:10.960 Let's check in briefly with the saga of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal.

00:19:18.500 You remember last week when the proposal, the plan was released and we had a glorious time

00:19:24.820 making fun of it.

00:19:26.960 The thing was just so fantastically insane that it almost had a certain charm to it.

00:19:32.720 You know, it was, it was kind of cute in a way.

00:19:34.900 But it's like when my two-year-old, the other day, my two-year-old came up to me to present

00:19:40.740 me with a gift of pocket lint.

00:19:43.240 And he said, here, daddy, for you.

00:19:46.180 And so I took the pocket lint and I said, oh, wow, thanks.

00:19:49.460 This is great.

00:19:50.800 And then I threw it away as soon as he turned his back.

00:19:52.800 Right.

00:19:54.600 And so you were tempted to do the same thing with the Green New Deal because it was, 0.78

00:19:58.320 there was something almost, almost adorable about it, that it was just so childish.

00:20:04.220 And so you were almost tempted to say, oh, wow, really good, good job, nice, nicely done.

00:20:09.640 And then, you know, just chuck it in the bin.

00:20:12.540 But then you realize that the people who came up with this deal are actually adults in Congress

00:20:20.340 proposing this thing in a serious way.

00:20:25.320 And then once you realize that, suddenly the whole situation becomes quite a lot darker.

00:20:29.120 Um, so the nuttiest part of the plan was this FAQ, Frequently Asked Question, sheet that

00:20:37.160 was published by Cortez's congressional office.

00:20:39.820 And it contained all the stuff about, about giving money to people who are, quote, unwilling

00:20:45.040 to work.

00:20:45.780 And it had stuff about farting cows, getting rid of farting cows and so on.

00:20:51.460 Um, so then mysteriously on Friday, the FAQ sheet was gone from the website, taken down.

00:21:00.060 And Cortez and her, and her people started claiming that it had been doctored by Republicans,

00:21:06.140 that this was some sort of conspiracy.

00:21:07.900 And Republicans had managed to doctor the document and somehow post it on their website.

00:21:12.780 Um, that's what they originally claimed anyway.

00:21:15.620 And then, which of course was insane and people were making fun of that.

00:21:19.040 So then they backpedaled and they said, oh, no, no, no, that was our proposal, but it was

00:21:22.740 a draft proposal, not the real one.

00:21:25.100 And somehow it ended up online by mistake.

00:21:27.900 But there are still some problems here.

00:21:30.580 Problems remain, even if it was just a draft proposal.

00:21:34.300 First of all, the rest of the plan is still insane, even without the farting cows and the

00:21:39.620 income for people who aren't willing to work.

00:21:41.320 It's still insane.

00:21:43.900 Um, second, this rough draft excuse, that just means that if this is a rough draft, then,

00:21:50.660 then it just, it gives us a look at what they really have in mind and what they really want

00:21:56.940 to do.

00:21:57.960 So in many ways, if it was a rough draft, which I don't believe for a minute, by the 0.96

00:22:02.620 way, that it really was, uh, I think they're just lying to, to, to cover their butts here.

00:22:07.020 I think they put this thing out in all seriousness and people just, it got such a reaction and

00:22:12.300 everyone was just laughing at it, which is really the last thing that you want, right?

00:22:16.060 When you, when you put out a legislative proposal, it's, if people disagree with it or angry about

00:22:22.520 it, okay, that's one thing.

00:22:23.600 But if people are just laughing hysterically at the, at the proposal, well, then, you know,

00:22:28.460 you've, you know, that's a problem.

00:22:29.840 Um, so I think that happened and then he just took it down and now they're lying to

00:22:33.120 try to find a way around it.

00:22:35.020 But even if it were true, okay, even if this was a rough draft, then it's actually worse

00:22:40.620 in some ways because it would mean that they unintentionally revealed their true plans and

00:22:47.340 actually showed us, they actually showed us the difference between how they present the

00:22:52.660 plan to the public or how they meant, how they wanted to present it to the public versus

00:22:57.080 what they actually want to do, which doesn't make them or the plan look any better.

00:23:04.440 So if you're hearing that, oh, that everyone was freaking out about it, it's a rough draft,

00:23:08.920 don't worry about it.

00:23:10.460 Uh, no, you should still be worried about it.

00:23:12.800 That doesn't change anything.

00:23:15.860 All right, before we wrap up, I want to look at a few emails, um, check the inbox.

00:23:19.940 If you want to send a message, email to the show, you can do that at mattwallshow at gmail.com,

00:23:26.140 mattwallshow at gmail.com.

00:23:28.300 All right, this is from Josh.

00:23:29.900 He says, Matt, I recently got into a debate with an atheist about how God doesn't exist

00:23:34.160 because if we do not believe in God or Jesus, we cannot make it into heaven.

00:23:38.040 He proceeded to cite the Bible by saying in John 14, 6, no one can come to heaven but through Jesus.

00:23:44.080 His proof then that God does not exist is, uh, what about people who never heard about Jesus,

00:23:49.400 Native Americans, Aztecs, et cetera, um, being damned to hell for eternity because they were never given 0.90

00:23:55.340 the moral compass that is Christianity, and how can God damn people to hell without hearing the word of God?

00:24:01.600 I tried to explain that, one, he was not there among those natives who he is referencing.

00:24:06.140 How can he know they were never given the moral compass?

00:24:08.820 Two, Western civilization is founded on Christianity and is more successful than any other civilization 0.96

00:24:13.000 ever conceived, including natives and Aztec civilizations.

00:24:16.340 I didn't feel satisfied with the explanation I gave him.

00:24:20.160 What rebuttals do you have after hearing his argument?

00:24:23.100 Uh, thanks, love your show.

00:24:23.980 Okay, hi, Josh.

00:24:25.040 Thanks for the message.

00:24:26.280 I'd say a few things to your atheist friend.

00:24:28.140 Your second point about, your second point about the success of Western civilization is true,

00:24:33.360 but that really doesn't have any bearing on whether or not God exists, right?

00:24:36.200 Um, but, also, this isn't really an argument about the existence of God.

00:24:44.280 Um, your friend is not making an argument that has anything to do with the existence of God.

00:24:50.480 Because even if he were right, and it's unfair or unjust or whatever for people who've never heard of Jesus

00:24:57.160 to go to hell, that would do nothing to disprove God.

00:25:01.040 Um, you know, maybe if, if, if he were right about that, and that does nothing, does nothing at all about,

00:25:09.380 about the existence of God.

00:25:10.520 So it's, it's, it's got nothing to do with the subject.

00:25:13.340 Um, but I think the more important point here is that no serious or thoughtful Christian 1.00

00:25:19.120 believes that all of the millions or billions of people who existed and died in parts of the world

00:25:26.040 where the gospel never reached automatically went to hell, um, a serious or thoughtful Christian

00:25:31.780 is not going to make that declaration as if they know, right?

00:25:37.640 Now, you may have unserious and unthoughtful Christians who will say stuff like that, 1.00

00:25:41.480 but I think your atheist friend has a responsibility to engage with the serious Christian arguments,

00:25:48.480 uh, not the unserious ones, because that's called a straw man otherwise.

00:25:52.760 Um, now the gospel didn't make it to this hemisphere until 1400 years after Christ.

00:26:02.780 Um, and it took another several hundred years before it had reached every corner of this part

00:26:07.360 of the world.

00:26:07.840 And it absolutely is not a Christian teaching that all of those people went to hell for all

00:26:14.540 eternity for, because they didn't hear something that they never had a chance to hear.

00:26:19.400 Now, scripture teaches us that no one goes to heaven, but through Christ, which means that

00:26:25.880 Christ decides he is the, calls himself the doorway.

00:26:29.660 He's the door.

00:26:31.160 Um, he decides who, who, who is going, who, uh, the gates of heaven will be open to and,

00:26:38.760 and who not.

00:26:39.960 He separates the sheep from the goats.

00:26:42.060 So are we going to sit here and say that Christ cannot, is not allowed to, doesn't have the

00:26:49.340 power to admit someone who didn't fully know him in life into heaven?

00:26:55.720 Um, are we going to say that Christ can't put such a person with the sheep?

00:27:00.480 No, I certainly won't say that.

00:27:01.780 And, and, um, that's not the traditional Christian teaching and most Christians won't say that.

00:27:05.800 Third thing, people are judged based on the information available to them.

00:27:13.420 Okay.

00:27:14.540 So what that means is, uh, yeah, if nobody ever told you about Jesus and you weren't there to

00:27:20.840 see it for yourself, then there's no way you could possibly know unless he appears to you,

00:27:24.540 but it, you know, it's in some sort of vision, but outside of that, which would, which would

00:27:29.060 also be, you know, in that case, you're still being told about it.

00:27:32.140 So if nobody tells you about it, then you're not going to know.

00:27:35.500 Um, but everybody has a conscience.

00:27:38.840 Everyone, everyone knows basic right from wrong.

00:27:41.660 And this is called natural law.

00:27:43.460 This is the natural law that God has written on our hearts.

00:27:47.040 So that even an Aztec could follow this law, could live by it, even if they don't know fully 1.00

00:27:53.060 what they're doing or who they're obeying, they still have it there in their heart.

00:27:57.400 Um, so while a person can't be blamed for not believing in Christ, if Christ has never

00:28:02.620 been presented to them, they can be blamed for committing objective acts of evil because

00:28:08.300 they did know better.

00:28:10.640 Um, they are without excuse as far as that goes.

00:28:14.540 And as proof of this fact, just look at any civilization that's ever existed on earth.

00:28:19.840 It is a remarkable fact that they all have the same fundamental kinds of laws, all of them.

00:28:25.640 Um, okay, they all outlaw murder, they outlaw rape, they outlaw theft.

00:28:30.380 Um, they, as a society, they encourage heroism, they encourage courage, generosity, virtue.

00:28:39.180 Every society is like this.

00:28:41.480 Now you might say, well, what about the Nazis?

00:28:43.860 Or what about those Aztecs who were committing human sacrifices on such an enormous scale?

00:28:48.340 Well, yes, that's true.

00:28:51.980 But murder wasn't legal in Nazi Germany.

00:28:55.760 Um, neither was it legal in the Aztec empire.

00:28:58.640 No, it's just that it wasn't considered murder to kill a Jew or, or to, you know, commit a human

00:29:05.040 sacrifice.

00:29:06.480 Now, does that make it okay?

00:29:08.080 Of course not.

00:29:09.880 Uh, it, was it still murder?

00:29:11.960 Obviously.

00:29:12.400 They, they might not have called it murder.

00:29:15.320 They might've tried to pretend that it wasn't, but it still was, objectively speaking. 0.71

00:29:19.040 My point is only that the Nazis, even the Nazis, as depraved and evil as they were, they still

00:29:25.060 felt the need to kind of work around this natural law that was on even their hearts.

00:29:32.580 So even they weren't going to come out and say, yeah, you know what?

00:29:35.260 Murder is fine. 0.64

00:29:36.040 Do what you want.

00:29:36.580 Instead, they tried to rationalize that murder wasn't murder.

00:29:41.620 We do the same thing with abortion. 0.55

00:29:44.160 Murder is illegal in this country, but you can still kill babies.

00:29:47.680 But isn't killing babies murder? 0.88

00:29:49.240 Yes, it absolutely is.

00:29:51.060 But the people who do it feel, feel the need still.

00:29:54.140 You know, no one is going to come out and say, yeah, you know what?

00:29:55.880 Let's murder base. 0.99

00:29:56.620 Fine. 0.99

00:29:56.920 Murder's fine.

00:29:59.100 No, they're conscious because they have, they have that, they have a conscience.

00:30:02.100 They, they, they recognize at some level that it's wrong.

00:30:04.440 And so they feel the need to kind of rationalize, work around it.

00:30:07.880 And the rationalizations are crazy.

00:30:10.840 But the fact that they feel the need to make those rationalizations at all really tells you

00:30:15.920 something.

00:30:17.460 So ironically, you know, the Holocaust and abortion, they really only prove the existence of the 0.88

00:30:24.440 moral law, the natural law, because even the propagators of those kinds of evils still

00:30:30.800 felt the need to work around it.

00:30:32.580 And if there was no such law, if there was no natural law, if there was no fundamental

00:30:38.340 moral truth, which by the way, also proves the existence of God, because what is that

00:30:45.220 moral truth grounded in?

00:30:46.360 Where does it come from?

00:30:47.660 And if it was really totally based on society, it was completely arbitrary, completely subjective.

00:30:52.900 Then when you look around the world, especially when you go back 500 years and you find that

00:30:57.440 the two, you know, that the two hemispheres were separated and there was no contact between

00:31:02.580 them or hardly any contact, what you should find is vastly different laws.

00:31:07.620 I mean, you foot, you should find civilizations where murder was okay.

00:31:11.800 Rape was fine. 0.99

00:31:13.720 It was explicitly fine.

00:31:15.000 Like there was no, you know, it was, but you don't find that, which is pretty incredible

00:31:22.720 when you think about it.

00:31:24.480 So that's what I would say to your friend.

00:31:26.420 All right.

00:31:27.080 From Daniel, he says, Dear Matt Walsh, I wanted to take a moment to thank you for what you

00:31:31.200 do in your daily podcast.

00:31:32.180 I'm a Christian who has often been impressed by the genuine thoughtfulness and insight

00:31:35.420 on your daily show.

00:31:38.840 I'm just reading this to compliment myself, I guess.

00:31:41.360 Sorry about that.

00:31:41.940 Uh, you recently recommended reading The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis.

00:31:46.020 Being that C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors, I gladly picked up the book.

00:31:49.700 I enjoyed following Lewis's reasoning throughout the book and especially found my thinking shifting

00:31:54.840 on how I look at God in that he is the creator and I am the created object desperately in need

00:31:59.840 of him.

00:32:01.040 I am a mechanical engineer working at a firm which designs power plants.

00:32:04.960 What I am daily struck by is the pretentiousness of those I work with.

00:32:08.240 I am unsure of how often you've been around engineers, but they like to act as if they

00:32:13.460 have the whole world figured out.

00:32:15.120 Speaking as a professional engineer myself, I can assure you that the engineers truly do

00:32:18.420 not know everything.

00:32:20.520 Being a conservative-minded Christian in the workplace, I have found that I am treated

00:32:23.560 as ignorant when bringing up anything dealing with God or politics.

00:32:26.960 This is frustrating and disappointing in that my faith is not a blind faith, but rather

00:32:30.320 a reasonable faith.

00:32:31.720 However, even when presenting a perfectly reasoned, thorough argument, it is quickly dismissed

00:32:36.380 as brutish and uneducated.

00:32:38.360 Encountering this on an almost daily basis, I am reminded of Psalm 119, I have more understanding

00:32:43.840 than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation.

00:32:47.360 I understand that the only way to truly know the world around us is to understand and know

00:32:52.060 God.

00:32:52.780 However, since my co-workers refuse to know God, they quickly dismiss and deride views

00:32:56.900 that do not line up with their narrowly constructed and logically inconsistent mindsets.

00:33:01.040 I want to thank you for exposing and seeking truth and to let you know that you are a

00:33:05.040 daily encouragement to me.

00:33:06.160 Well, thank you, Daniel, for that.

00:33:09.720 And we certainly need Christians like you who are in those environments as hostile as 1.00

00:33:16.240 they might be to your faith.

00:33:18.660 But I appreciate your courage in any case.

00:33:24.620 All right.

00:33:25.720 Let's see.

00:33:26.260 We'll read one more.

00:33:27.360 I wanted to get to this one.

00:33:28.260 Okay.

00:33:28.440 This is from Alana.

00:33:29.820 She says, Alana, Elena, I think.

00:33:31.700 She says, Hi, Matt, you raised a question on Twitter a while ago about what would happen

00:33:35.540 if we split a brain in two and transplanted it into different bodies.

00:33:40.360 I've been thinking about it ever since.

00:33:42.060 Fascinating question.

00:33:43.260 But you never gave your own answer.

00:33:45.120 So what do you think would happen?

00:33:46.560 Okay.

00:33:46.800 So this requires some explanation.

00:33:48.540 I raised a question a while ago on Twitter.

00:33:51.420 It's a question originally posed by a philosopher whose name I cannot remember at the moment.

00:33:56.400 But the idea is to kind of get at the nature of consciousness and to understand consciousness.

00:34:04.440 And so it goes like this.

00:34:06.360 We know that a person can survive with half a brain.

00:34:09.360 We also know about the split brain phenomenon where something goes wrong in the brain and

00:34:16.480 essentially the two sides disconnect from each other and then you end up with a literal

00:34:20.620 split personality, almost like two sides of a personality that don't recognize or even

00:34:26.040 know about each other because the two halves work independently of each other.

00:34:30.600 So we know about those cases.

00:34:31.820 We also know, theoretically, that it will probably one day be possible to perform a brain transplant.

00:34:40.440 Taking a brain out of one body, putting it into another.

00:34:43.660 We're a long way from that, but hypothetically, theoretically, it could be possible.

00:34:49.460 So here's the question.

00:34:51.440 What if you were to take half of my brain and transplant it into someone else's head?

00:34:57.280 Where would I be?

00:34:59.140 Where did my consciousness go?

00:35:01.820 My identity.

00:35:02.680 Where am I?

00:35:03.800 Am I now in two places?

00:35:06.140 So that's the thought experiment.

00:35:08.040 And yes, I know I've opened myself up to jokes about how I only have half a brain to begin

00:35:13.220 with, so I don't have much to spare.

00:35:14.700 I get that.

00:35:15.500 But once you've gotten those jokes out of your system, what's the answer to the thought

00:35:21.060 experiment?

00:35:21.960 Now, I'm not exactly sure how to answer it.

00:35:24.040 I would have to say, this is why I posed the question and didn't answer it because I don't

00:35:28.240 have one.

00:35:28.620 I would have to say, I would have to assume that, well, this is kind of a cop-out answer,

00:35:35.460 but I guess the answer is that it just couldn't ever be possible to do that.

00:35:42.020 And even if it's theoretically, medically, scientifically possible, it wouldn't actually be possible.

00:35:48.300 Because it's not possible to split a person's soul into.

00:35:55.320 And we know that in this life on Earth, our soul is somehow inextricably linked with our

00:36:01.720 brains.

00:36:02.260 Now, we don't understand that relationship exactly.

00:36:05.320 The mind, the soul, whatever you want to call it, the soul and the mind, the soul and the

00:36:10.640 brain are not just dualities, but also a harmony.

00:36:14.420 So we know that.

00:36:15.320 We know the soul is immutable, you know, indissoluble, cannot be cut in half.

00:36:24.880 So I would have to say that God would not allow something like that to work.

00:36:29.860 I guess another way of putting it is that this is something that even if it were physically

00:36:36.780 possible, it's not metaphysically possible.

00:36:40.640 And so it just couldn't happen, which is a totally lame answer.

00:36:47.340 But that's all I got.

00:36:50.160 If anyone has an answer to that question that doesn't require you to compromise on the idea

00:36:56.200 of a soul and yet is a better answer than mine, then I'd be interested to hear it anyway.

00:37:01.820 All right.

00:37:03.960 We'll leave it there.

00:37:04.980 Thanks for watching, everybody.

00:37:05.860 Thanks for listening.

00:37:07.140 Godspeed.

00:37:14.200 Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, a new Democratic fresh face comes out as a blatant anti-Semite

00:37:19.480 AOC lies about her own Green New Deal and Virginia settles into place.

00:37:23.480 That's today on The Ben Shapiro Show.

The Matt Walsh Show - February 11, 2019

Ep. 195 - Sex Abuse Crisis In The Southern Baptist Church

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