Ep. 229 - White Guilt On Parade
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
168.25594
Summary
There's a petition to shut down my speech at Baylor University, and I explain why I don't care. Also, a pro-life movie is getting an R-rating, and a bunch of white people confess to their white privilege.
Transcript
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Today on the Matt Walsh Show, there's a petition to shut down my speech at Baylor University,
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which is coming up next week. We'll talk about that. Also, a bunch of white people on Twitter
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were confessing over the weekend to their white privilege. And it's pretty absurd,
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but also kind of hilarious. So we'll discuss that. And a pro-life movie came out over the
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weekend, did very well at the box office, but the powers that be are conspiring against it,
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including giving this movie an R rating. And we're going to look at how this movie earned an R rating
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and whether or not it makes sense. It doesn't make any sense, but we'll get more into that today
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on the Matt Walsh Show. So I will be speaking at Baylor University on April 9th. I'll also be at
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Boston University on April 4th. That's this Thursday. But the speech at Baylor has a supposedly
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Christian school, by the way, is attracting some negative attention. There's currently a petition
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underway to get the speech shut down. So far, over a thousand people have signed it, last I saw,
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calling for the cancellation of my event there. And I'm hearing from some students on campus that
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the outcry is pretty severe on campus. So I could be walking into a bit of a chaotic situation here,
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but we'll see. Let me just be honest with you about this. I really take no pleasure
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in this kind of thing. I know that the impression that people have is that conservatives come to give
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these talks on campuses, hoping for these kinds of reactions, hoping for the big outcry. And then
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the conservative enjoys the outcry and loves the publicity and the attention. And really, that's what
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this is all about. It's about the publicity and attention. And that may well be the case. In fact,
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I'm convinced it certainly is the case with some conservatives. And I'll admit that there was a
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time when I did get a kick out of this kind of thing, where, oh, they started a petition against me.
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Oh, awesome. Right. Well, I really don't feel that way anymore. And I haven't for a long time.
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I would actually like to just have a rational and thoughtful dialogue. I'm not going to Baylor
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for that, for this, that, that I would be much happier if there was no petition and none of that.
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And it was just a normal, calm, rational dialogue, because that, that, that is actually what I'm
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interested in. I have no interest in the theatrics. I have no interest in, um, I have no interest in a,
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in a Q and a session that really becomes an excuse for one person after another to get up there and
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call me a bigot and go for the applause line. And then we go back and forth and somebody puts it on
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YouTube and blah, blah, blah. Uh, that's probably what I'm walking into, but it's not what I want.
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Um, I'm not going to be scared away by it, but it just becomes a hollow spectacle after a while.
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And it's just sort of useless and it's a waste of time. You know, if I, if I go down there and no one
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is really interested in listening and it just becomes a spectacle, then it's, it's a waste of my time.
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I would rather not go. Uh, it's a waste of everybody's time. You know, anyone that comes
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to the speech hoping for a rational dialogue, uh, it's a waste of their time too. So here's what
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I'm going to try to try and do with, with the speech. Originally, my plan was to talk about,
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uh, the left's efforts to redefine life, marriage, and gender, which is why I think in the petition,
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it says that I'm giving an, an anti LGBTQ presentation. And I guess that's what,
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that's why they're calling it that is because I was going to talk about, uh, the left's efforts
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to redefine life, marriage, and gender, and then to discuss the effect that that effort has had on
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society. I wrote a book on the topic, the unholy trinity. Um, so it's just basically that,
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but I suspect that many of the people in attendance will be of a leftist persuasion and therefore a
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speech that sort of presupposes the premise that it's bad to redefine life, marriage, and gender
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won't be as useful. So maybe I won't do that. That doesn't mean I'm going to avoid these topics.
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No, no, don't, don't think that for a second. Instead, I think it may be more worthwhile
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if I were to talk about and explain on a more fundamental level, why these things should not
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be defined, redefined. Um, so that if you come to the speech, uh, even if you disagree with me,
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you'll have an opportunity to at least learn why a person might oppose abortion, uh, and might believe
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that biological sex is not subjective and is an immutable, unchangeable characteristic of a person
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and so on. You can at least find out what it is exactly that you oppose. Um, if you're going to
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continue opposing it, you might as well know what the argument is that you're, that you're against.
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And I think that you'll discover if you listen with an open mind that what is at the root of, of,
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of this belief system, if we want to call it social conservatism, whatever, what's at the root of it
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is not actually bigotry. Uh, that's not what it's about. It doesn't mean that you'll agree at the end.
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You don't have to agree, but you should at least listen so that you know what you're disagreeing with.
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And so that's, that's what I plan to do. I'm going to tackle these three topics, life, marriage, gender,
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and, um, and just talk about them on a, on a really basic level, which, as I said, considering
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that this is supposed to be a Christian school, uh, you know, in an ideal world, it shouldn't be
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necessary to explain these kinds of things at a Christian school, but I think that, uh, it apparently
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is. So that's what I'm going to do. All right. Um, I signed on to a Twitter over the weekend to find,
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uh, that the hashtag my white privilege was trending. And I discovered as you would have
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discovered too, if you got on Twitter over the weekend, that the, uh, the hashtag my white,
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my white privilege, uh, it, it was not a bunch of people making fun of the idea of white privilege.
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Instead, at least initially, it was a whole gaggle of guilt-ridden white folks, um, solemnly confessing
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to all of the many ways that they had been benefited from this, uh, mysterious racial privilege. So they
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would talk about a way that they benefited from white privilege and then, you know, hashtag my white
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privilege. Um, so let me, I'm going to read a couple of these tweets to you, a few of them, uh, just to
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give you an idea of, of what these guilt-ridden white folks were, were tweeting. Uh, so one of
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the tweets says, I got caught stealing multiple times as a teenager and they never called the cops.
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They just let me go with a warning every period, single period, time period. Hashtag my white
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privilege. Another one says as a white woman, when I get back from the beach, my newly darker tan skin
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will be praised as making me prettier. It will be used as an opening to ask me about my vacation.
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No one will criticize me. Hashtag my white privilege. I don't even understand what, so
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when, when people compliment you on your tan, that's because of white privilege or could it just
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be that they're being nice and you should just take it at that rather than, you know, implying that
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they're actually racist. No one will criticize me. Okay. Well, who does get criticized for a tan?
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Are you suggesting that if a black person goes to the beach and comes back and their skin is,
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is darker, that they, that people criticize them for it? They go, they walk into work and they're,
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and people are openly criticizing the shade of their skin. I mean, what, no one will criticize
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you for your tan. No one criticizes anyone for a tan. What does that even mean? Of course that no
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one would do that. What? That's white privilege. All right. Um, another one says got financing to
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buy a house as a 30 year old pizza cook. I've never been denied a line of credit, actually hashtag my
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white privilege. Okay. So if it's someone in your exact same financial situation, everything is
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exactly the same. Uh, except that if you had darker skin, you're suggesting that you would not have
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gotten that line of credit. They would have said, no, we're not going to give it to you
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because your skin isn't light enough. Uh, another one says sitting in a swanky hotel lobby using their
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wifi all night as a non-paying guest hashtag my white privilege. I don't even know. First of all,
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what are you doing sitting in a, in a hotel lobby all night using their, using their wifi? I,
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why are you even, what, what would be the scenario where that would even come up? I mean, get a room
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if you're in the, if you're going to be in the hotel all night using their, uh, using their wifi.
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Um, another one says I gave birth in a hospital twice and everyone believed my pain and offered
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relief, uh, hashtag my white privilege. So giving birth in a hospital. So what part is white privilege
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giving birth in a hospital or you got pain medicine when you were giving birth and that,
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so if you were a black woman, they wouldn't have given you pain medicine. I'm going to need a
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citation on that. I mean, that certainly would be rather shocking, but, uh, another one says called
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the police in Massachusetts. When I lost the key to my bike lock, white firefighters showed up.
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Didn't ask for any ID proof that the bike was mine or proof that I lived at that address
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and cut the U lock off without question. Hashtag my white privilege.
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Who, who, why did you call the police? Because you lost the key to your bike lock. Uh, that's,
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you know, that's, that's just, I don't think that's a white thing. That's
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a rather absurd reason to call the police. That to me just strikes me as a spoiled urbanite thing.
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That's what that is. Um, upper spoiled upper class urbanite, which we'll talk about this in a minute,
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but that's more of a socioeconomic thing. It would never occur to me if I lost, lost the key to my bike
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clock to get on, to call 9-1-1. Um, but that's what she did. And she did that. And the police responded
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helpfully and, and, uh, and nicely apparently. And so her, her reaction is to accuse them of racism,
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but really nice. Good, good stuff there. Now the hashtag has since become mostly just jokes,
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but, uh, uh, thankfully, but such as the fate of all hashtags in the end, um, hashtag either fades
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off early or it lives long enough to see itself become a joke. But initially this is the kind
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of thing you were getting. Um, so, and it's all, it's all pretty ridiculous. Now I don't deny that
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racism exists. Uh, I don't deny that there was certainly a time in our country when white privilege
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was very definitely a thing. Um, though not a thing necessarily enjoyed by all white people,
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uh, certainly not an equal measure, but I think today much of what we consider white privilege
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and much of what we chalk up as racial discrimination has a lot more to do with age,
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gender and socioeconomic status. I think that's some of the confusion you're seeing with this.
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For instance, as far as gender goes, there were a whole lot of tweets from white women saying,
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uh, talking about all the times that they've been pulled over and they haven't gotten a ticket or
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whatever. Well, I can tell you that every single time I'm pulled over for something, I always end up
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getting a ticket. Um, now I don't get pulled over that often anymore. I'll talk about that in a minute,
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but if I get pulled over, I get a ticket. I don't get out of tickets. I've never gotten out of a ticket
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ever. Um, my wife gets out of tickets all the time. So we're both white. So what's really going
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on there? No, you see, that's not white privilege. That's female privilege, especially if you're a
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young, uh, attractive woman. I don't think it really matters what your race is. You're going to
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have an easier time dealing with police than you are. If you're just a, an ugly guy like me now.
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Um, but so, as I said, I think, I think what we've got here is age, gender, and socioeconomic status.
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So for instance, there were these, these white people saying things like, um, uh, you know,
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I have white privilege because I've never been stopped by the cops for no reason. Uh, I have white
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privilege because I can walk into a store without people looking at me like I'm going to steal
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something. Um, I, I have white privilege because I'm not prejudged at job interviews, regardless of
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my qualifications and so on. And as I, as I, as I was reading those, I thought to myself, well,
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wait a minute, all of that has happened to me, not much anymore, but it did. When I was younger,
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when I was a teenage to early twenties, I was pulled over frequently. Um, for, for dubious
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reasons. I had my car searched a couple of times. I had sobriety checks, even though I was exhibiting
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no signs of inebriation because I was not inebriated. Um, as, uh, I can remember when I think
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it was about, I was maybe 21 or 22 and I got pulled over and, um, and I had like an hour before had
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one beer at a restaurant and then I drove home and I was perfectly fine. I was not, I wasn't
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swerving or doing anything crazy. Um, but the cop pulled me out, had me do the whole sobriety
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checkpoint thing. I passed, you know, got an A plus. I was good to go. So that kind of, even though
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there was, there was no indication, I think he pulled me over for going like 11 miles over the
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limit. And then next thing you know, I'm doing the sobriety checkpoint. Uh, it didn't appear to be
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any real reason for it, but that's what happened. And as a teenager, I would definitely be watched
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suspiciously when I went into stores. Um, in fact, I remember one time specifically,
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I went into a, uh, uh, into a store, I think it might've been a Rite Aid and I was walking,
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you know, towards the back of the store. And I distinctly remember, and I could hear the guy at
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the register call back over the, over the radio, um, intercom, whatever, uh, not the intercom, but
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you know, um, he, he called back to someone who I assume was in the back of the store and another
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employee. And he said, uh, watch the guy with the hat. He was telling the other person to keep an eye
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on me because he was afraid that I was going to shoplift. Uh, there were when, you know, when I was
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growing up, there were some restaurants around town and other establishments where my friends and I
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weren't even allowed to set foot inside after a certain hour. Um, that wasn't a rule that was
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singling us out specifically, but teens in general, there were, there were places where, um, if you
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were under the age of 18, you couldn't go in with a group, uh, unless you were with an adult after a
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certain, after a certain time. And, but of course, none of this was, was racial. Um, this was really
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about age and I think to some extent gender as well. So when you hear how young black males are
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treated, I think oftentimes the young male part is far more relevant than the skin color part.
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I think it's young males, uh, young guys who are teenage, early twenties, they're treated a certain
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way by society and by businesses and by police officers. Um, because certain assumptions are made
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about them and not entirely without basis because young guys tend to do stupid, destructive, dangerous,
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illegal things. And that's just the reality. And I think that's where a lot of this comes from.
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Um, now these days I rarely get pulled over, um, unless I really am speeding because usually I'm,
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you know, usually I'm, I'm, I'm driving my wife and my kids and, uh, I'm dressed like a nerd and
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we're listening to like the Wiggles soundtrack or something in the car. Um, and I tend not to attract
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a lot of attention from police that way. Now, why do you think, why do you think cops are not so
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suspicious of me now, but they were when I was 16, 17, 18? Like why, why do I hardly ever get pulled
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over now? But I got pulled over a lot at that age, especially if I was driving in a car with four
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or five of my friends who were also my age, we tended to get coincidentally pulled over a lot.
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Why do you think that is? I was white back then too. Okay. This isn't a Michael Jackson situation.
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Now, who do you think is more likely to be pulled over a black, a black man, my age,
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who's also driving his kids and his wife around in a minivan, also dressed like a nerd listening to
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kid songs or whatever, coming back from, from church or wherever else, or a 17 year old black
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teenager in a car with other teenagers dressed like teens, dress acting like teens act, uh, listening
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to, you know, having the music blasting and all that. Who is more likely to attract attention from
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police? And in this hypothetical, the race is the same, but I think we all know that the 17 year old
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with the other 17 year olds, he's going to attract more attention, uh, because of his age and his gender.
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So age and gender are factors also socioeconomic status status is a factor. If you're a white
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person living in a trailer park where half of the residents are on meth, um, people are going to make
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unflattering assumptions about you. They shouldn't, but they will. And I know the response to that is
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people will say, well, well, a white person, uh, may be treated unfairly, but it won't be because he's
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white. Well, affirmative action seems to blow a hole in that theory. But even aside from that,
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where do you think the term white trash comes from? A poor white person who lives in a trailer
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park is going to be called white trash, actual trash. His existence is being compared to trash,
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to a heap of garbage. So that really seems to not only be discriminatory, but discriminatory
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in a racially specific way. What else could you call the term white trash?
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So there's socioeconomics, uh, element to this as well. But when we talk about white privilege,
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we talk about racism, you see all these tweets, none of those factors are even considered. It's just
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And that's what jumps out at you when you read some of these tweets that, um,
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or anytime this topic of white privilege comes up, it's just, there is automatically an assumption
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with no evidence, just an assumption that race is the reason. So that woman says that,
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well, I, you know, I, as a white person, I'm able to sit in a, in a hotel lobby and use the wifi all
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night. Well, again, that to me seems pretty weird. And I think she should be kicked out because,
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you know, if you're not a paying customer, um, but if you're, if you're assuming that you're allowed
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to do that because you're white, then what you're really saying is that the people working there,
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whoever's behind the counter, who's not kicking you out, you're just assuming that that person is
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racist. You're assuming that that person would kick someone out if they were black.
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Black. And based on what first to make such a, an unflattering, uh, accusatory,
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insulting assumption about someone, you better have some evidence for that.
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But you have no evidence. You have no idea whoever that person is behind the counter.
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You have no idea how they would react if you were a different race. You're just assuming you're just
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making that up based on nothing. And meanwhile, that person is being nice to you. They're, they're
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letting you sit there and use the wifi and you're sitting there stewing over how racist they are for
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not kicking you out. It's the same thing with these stories about, oh, the police, that the police were
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being nice to you. They were, they were, they were being helpful. And your response is to assume that
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they're racist to say, oh yeah, well, I bet you wouldn't do this if I was black. How do you know
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that? It's, it's a, it, these are assumptions with no evidence. That's the problem. If you're going to
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accuse someone of racism, you need to have some kind of evidence for it. But of course, no one feels any
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need for that anymore. All right. Um, the movie, uh, unplanned came out this past weekend. It's the
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true story of Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood clinic director who, um, left, uh,
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Planned Parenthood and became a pro-life advocate. And the movie shows how this conversion happened.
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I haven't, haven't seen the movie yet, but I've heard good things about it. The film did remarkably
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well at the box office. I think it finished in like fourth or fifth place, um, for the weekend,
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which is impressive. Uh, when you consider the small budget for movies like this,
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uh, and also the fact that various TV stations refuse to run ads for it and some funky things
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are happening with social media, uh, with Twitter, apparently it would seem preventing people from,
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from following, uh, uh, unplanned on Twitter and other, uh, anomalies happening as well.
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On social media. So the, the, the deck is stacked against the movie as you might expect with a pro-life
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movie. And yet it's still being as successful as that, but the most striking way that the powers that
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be have tried to interfere with this movie and prevent people from seeing it is in the rating.
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Okay. Now this movie was given an R rating. Why was it given an R rating? Well, uh, Abby Johnson
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wrote an article explaining the two scenes that earned it in our rating. Uh, and it's really these
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only, only these two scenes. It's not like this movie has, uh, is filled with profanity or sex or
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anything. I, I can pretty much guarantee you there's none of that, um, uh, on either, on either score,
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but there were two scenes that earned it the R rating. And, um, let me read Abby Johnson's
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explanation or description of those scenes. And you tell me if you think this earns it should earn
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it an R rating. Um, so it says, she says, uh, so why the R rating for two scenes, the two scenes that
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the movie team was determined to recreate accurately and my insistence, because they are important for
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people to see. The first is a CGI recreation of what I saw on the ultrasound screen. When I assisted
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in the abortion procedure that convinced me of the humanity of the unborn, you will see what I saw a
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baby of an ultrasound on an ultrasound screen in black and white 2d. You will see the abortion
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instrument, which looks like a big straw in real life and like a dark line on the ultrasound introduced
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into the screen. You will see the baby struggle against it. You will see the baby first slowly,
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then quickly disappear into the instrument as it does what it is designed to do. It is important
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for you to know that this was a CGI recreation and not footage from a real abortion, but it sure
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looks like what I saw. I think this scene is so important for teenagers and older children to see
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because it feels, it tells the truth about what our culture keeps trying to insist is a right
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and a freedom. No one will be able to see this scene and then, and then say they don't know the
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truth about abortion. The second scene was, uh, that was cited as a reason for the R rating
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is a scene that recreates my awful experience with the abortion pill. Ashley, the actress who plays me
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did a fantastic job capturing both my physical pain and my fear. I won't lie to you. The scene does
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show some blood in real life. I hemorrhaged so badly. I thought I was going to die. The movie captures
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that without gratuitous or, uh, without being gratuitous or gory. I think the producers walked
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that line well. Okay. So those are the two scenes. Um, and they certainly sound like intense, um,
00:25:53.460
harrowing, difficult, upsetting scenes, but they're not gory. Um, it sounds like there,
00:26:03.720
she says there's some blood in the second scene with the abortion pill, but, um, it sounds like
00:26:09.720
there's not a whole lot of blood, but see, here's the problem though. Uh, the only way you could
00:26:20.660
possibly justify giving a movie an R rating, uh, based on the two scenes I described there is if
00:26:29.220
you're admitting that abortion is an act of violence against a human being, that's the only
00:26:37.100
way you could justify it. In other words, only a pro-lifer could, could possibly agree with the R
00:26:43.360
rating and I am pro-life and I don't agree with it. But if you're not pro-life, you, you couldn't
00:26:48.860
possibly agree with that because according to non-pro-lifers and, and, and by the way, I think
00:26:53.800
the MPAA, the, you know, the, uh, motion picture association, uh, I, I don't think that they are
00:27:01.000
stacked with pro-lifers. I could be wrong, but I tend to doubt it. So what not, what, what pro-abortion
00:27:07.020
people tell us is that abortion is just, it's, it's a, just a medical procedure. It's like going
00:27:12.680
to the orthodontist. It's like getting gallbladder surgery. Now, let me ask you if there was a movie
00:27:19.420
that, uh, had no profanity, no sex, um, no violence, except it did show a gallbladder surgery.
00:27:28.700
Do you think that movie would earn an R rating? It might earn PG-13, but even that, I, who knows,
00:27:35.020
maybe it wouldn't even get that much. So how does that work? If it's just a normal medical procedure,
00:27:44.700
which is what pro-abortion people say, then how could you possibly give that an R rating? In fact,
00:27:50.540
uh, you should be, as a pro-abortion person, you should be saying, yes, you should be encouraging
00:27:54.780
people to watch the movie. You should, because, because, hey, it's just a normal medical,
00:27:58.940
there's nothing upsetting about it. Yeah, go ahead and see it for yourself. It's, it's, it's no big deal.
00:28:06.180
That, that, that's how you know, that's how you should know that something is up with the pro-abortion
00:28:09.640
side is because they talk about abortion in these dismissive, uh, terms saying it's no big deal. It's
00:28:17.520
just a medical procedure. Um, or even though they'll even paint it as a, as a, as a positive and joyful
00:28:23.280
and good thing. So they say all of that, but it's so conspicuous that in spite of saying that they
00:28:30.620
don't want you to see it. That's odd, isn't it? They don't want you to see it. Uh, they don't,
00:28:36.700
they certainly don't want to give graphic descriptions of it to the women who are seeking
00:28:41.760
abortions. They don't even want to show ultrasounds. Uh, they get very, very upset at the graphic
00:28:48.020
photos of abortion that some pro-lifers will, will, um, you know, will show. But again, what are you
00:28:58.540
upset about? What are you afraid of? That's just, it's just medical procedure. And that's just a,
00:29:02.880
it's a clump of cells, right? It's not a, not a person. So who cares? I mean, if you're pro-abortion,
00:29:09.940
you should be the one showing the graphic photos because they're not even really graphic according
00:29:14.320
to you. It is again, no big deal. So there's a, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect there.
00:29:25.820
Somebody wrote into the show last week and made another great point, um, talking about
00:29:30.500
disconnects and contradictions that, um, you know, uh, if, if a movie's rated R, then that means that
00:29:40.040
under the eight, what is it? 17 or 18. Um, that means under the age of, uh, I think it's under the
00:29:44.420
age of 18, right? You're not allowed to go watch the movie without parental, uh, you know, consent.
00:29:53.440
Yet in, in, in most States, um, you can actually get an abortion under the age of 18 without parental
00:30:02.880
consent. So you can't watch a movie about it, but you can actually do it. Um, does that make sense?
00:30:13.660
No, clearly it doesn't. So if you had any, any doubts at all about, about this issue, um, and,
00:30:23.820
and who exactly, which side is being forthright and honest, then just ask yourself, why is it
00:30:32.340
that the depiction of an abortion, which is done as, it seems like it's done as, as, uh,
00:30:41.460
as non-gratuitously as possible, um, given what it's portraying while, while at the same time being
00:30:48.580
honest? So why is it that that would earn an R rating and why is it that pro-abortion people,
00:30:53.920
uh, don't want you to be exposed to those kinds of images when they say that it's just a medical
00:31:02.260
procedure? I'm, I'm, I'm certain that I've, I have on more than one occasion heard, uh, in abortion
00:31:11.320
getting an abortion. I've heard it compared to going to the dentist. Well, I am quite certain
00:31:18.520
that if a movie depicted a person going to the dentist, uh, they would, that would not earn it
00:31:24.860
in our rating. That wouldn't even get it above G. Okay. So there's something going on here.
00:31:30.980
All right. Let's go to emails. Um, Matt wall show at gmail.com, Matt wall show at gmail.com.
00:31:38.520
This is from Nathan says, hi Matt. On the Sunday special yesterday, you said that all someone has
00:31:43.240
to do is love their spouse to get to heaven. I was shocked to hear this coming from you as it is
00:31:48.160
heretical. The Bible says that the only way to heaven is through faith in Christ. Your statement
00:31:53.400
is false and dangerous. Uh, yeah, I got several emails like this, so I thought I should address it.
00:31:58.520
I was on Ben's Sunday special show yesterday, thought it was a fun conversation, good conversation.
00:32:04.280
And in the course of the conversation, we talked about, um, the afterlife, which actually was just
00:32:10.840
an extension of a conversation we were having, having off the air before the cameras were rolling.
00:32:15.340
Um, and then they said, just save that for the, for the show. And so we did, we kind of just picked
00:32:20.840
it back up when the cameras were rolling. And he asked me about my ideas of heaven and hell.
00:32:26.360
And, uh, so we, we talked about it from that starting point. At one point I posed the question,
00:32:32.980
not a statement really, but a, but a question, can someone who has love in their heart,
00:32:41.300
someone who loves, who truly loves, not someone who just has the emotional experience of affection,
00:32:49.040
but someone who really loves, can that person go to hell? Now notice I, the question I'm asking is,
00:32:55.780
can they go, it's not even do they go, but, but can they, is it even possible?
00:33:09.440
Now I've always understood hell as a place that is devoid of love. And I think, I, you know,
00:33:16.420
I, I don't think anyone would, would, would disagree with that. Um, that's how it seems
00:33:25.080
like everyone describes hell. It is a, it is a, a place we don't, we don't know exactly.
00:33:29.520
We can't go into great detail describing it, but it does seem that it would be a place
00:33:34.060
completely devoid of love. There is no love or joy in hell. Um, now if love were a place where love,
00:33:44.880
if, I mean, if hell were a place where love can exist, then the whole idea of hell is just monstrous
00:33:52.300
and I think untenable. If hell is a place where even the loving and virtuous may be tortured for all
00:34:01.000
time, then, well, I, I just, I find such a thing very difficult to believe. Um, but if we agree
00:34:10.320
that hell is a place where love cannot and does not exist by definition, that is, that's what hell is.
00:34:19.140
It is the absence of love and joy. Um, if that's the case, then what about a person who never comes
00:34:29.240
to explicitly believe in Christ for whatever reason, but who really does love their spouse
00:34:36.080
or their child really loves again, not, I'm not talking about emotional affection, which we often
00:34:43.500
excuse, we, we often confuse with love. I'm talking about actual love. Can that person
00:34:49.120
go to hell is the question? If so, then we're back at this problem where, well, that means that love
00:34:55.040
exists in hell and that's not how any of us think of hell. And, and, and by the way, if a, if a person
00:35:02.380
with love in their heart can go to hell, then that means that, um, not just love is existing in hell,
00:35:08.720
but then also other things as well, because think about it. If someone goes to hell and they love
00:35:14.720
their spouse, let's say a man, a man who loves his wife goes to hell. Okay. Uh, and then let's say
00:35:19.640
that his wife does not go to hell. Well, the man is still going to love his wife and not only that,
00:35:27.260
but he's going to find some joy in the fact that his wife is not with him, that his wife is in
00:35:32.740
eternal paradise. Um, so that means that now you've got love in hell, you've got joy in hell and you've
00:35:41.000
got selflessness in hell. And it's all happening inside a person who, you know, it starts to seem
00:35:48.660
is, is pretty out of place in that environment, right? A person who has this selfless, joyful
00:35:55.640
love in their heart. Well, what are they doing there? Um, and, and again, how can they even be
00:36:02.740
there? Now, I'm not the first person to ask this question or to try to deal with it. C.S. Lewis,
00:36:08.920
as I mentioned on the backstage special, um, C.S. Lewis dealt with this and, uh, that's the great
00:36:16.300
divorce, the book, great divorce, which I mentioned on the show is really deals with this a lot.
00:36:21.360
And, uh, his solution to the problem was he, he basically said that, um, if you have love in your
00:36:28.740
heart, uh, any amount of love for anyone, then God can take the embers of that love and he can
00:36:36.720
fan them and ignite them. So he can, he can work with it. Even if you come to him just with those
00:36:45.240
little embers, he can work with that. He can take that. He can do something there.
00:36:48.460
The people in hell are the people utterly devoid of any love, any virtue, anything. They've,
00:36:56.820
they've, they've got nothing going on. It's, it's complete emptiness and God has nothing to work
00:37:02.780
with. And so they're in hell. But if, even if there's just that little, little spark, that little
00:37:10.540
spark of love, then not only is that something God can work with, but that, that spark, it just can't
00:37:17.800
be in hell. It can't go there. And that's what great divorce is really all about. And, and, um,
00:37:24.860
that's, you know, there are all these scenes in the book, the great divorce where you've got, um,
00:37:31.020
these conversations between people, a person who's coming from hell and in the book, you know,
00:37:40.140
you've got the, the people in hell have this opportunity and it's, it's obviously all very
00:37:45.080
allegorical and poetic and everything. Uh, he, he's not suggesting that this is literally how the
00:37:51.140
afterlife works, but in the book, um, you've got these souls in hell who essentially take a bus to
00:37:58.260
the, to the outer rim of heaven. And then someone that they knew from their physical life who is in
00:38:04.980
heaven comes out to meet them and essentially tries to convince them to come to heaven. But in almost
00:38:12.520
every case, the person, even though they're heaven is being opened up to them, they, they decline it
00:38:19.800
and they say, I don't know. I don't, they, they come up with reasons why they don't want to go to
00:38:23.540
heaven. Um, and the reason why they decline the invitation in every case is because they have no love.
00:38:33.700
They, they, they don't, they're hearing these descriptions of what it's like to be in a place
00:38:38.100
full of love and selflessness. And it just doesn't appeal to them. They don't want that.
00:38:42.520
So, uh, again, uh, not a, clearly not a literal description of how the afterlife works, but it's
00:38:49.560
just dealing with the concepts of, well, what does it, what does this mean? And, and, and, and we all
00:38:54.240
say that people who go to hell choose it. Well, how does that work? Why would anyone choose it? How
00:38:57.980
does it work to actually choose hell? And that's what, uh, that's what C.S. Lewis is trying to deal
00:39:02.620
with. I think it makes a lot of sense. So yes, the Bible says that we only go to heaven, uh, through
00:39:06.820
Jesus, but that means that Jesus decides who goes. So who are we to say what criteria he
00:39:12.420
makes, he uses to make that determination. And if you think that the only criteria is
00:39:17.700
just the intellectual acknowledgement of Christ's Lordship, um, that the only thing you need to
00:39:23.280
do is go, Oh yeah, yeah. Jesus is God. Sure. Um, and, and you get to go to heaven and everyone
00:39:28.480
who fails to make that statement doesn't go, then you believe in a scenario where there are
00:39:33.420
a lot of really terrible, awful people who happen to believe in Jesus in heaven and a lot
00:39:38.580
of virtuous, loving people who happen not to, uh, in hell. And by the way, along with every
00:39:44.420
single baby who's ever died, because none of them believe in Jesus. I find that vision
00:39:48.680
of the afterlife to be completely demented, frankly, and I don't accept it. And I don't
00:39:53.200
think it's biblical. And let's also remember that if God is love, which I believe he is, then
00:40:01.180
anyone who loves, loves God, even if they don't know it, all love is love for God. Even if you
00:40:09.680
don't know, that's what you're doing. So if somebody loves God without knowing it, is God
00:40:18.160
going to eternally hold that against them? Or is he going to take that and work with it
00:40:23.620
and set it right? That's the question. Uh, let's see here. This is from Phil says, uh,
00:40:31.740
saw you on the Sunday, especially yesterday, you were talking about homosexuality and sexual
00:40:35.180
abuse in the priesthood. What do you think of priests marrying? Do pastors marrying solve
00:40:40.300
the problem, uh, in the churches? That's an interesting question. That's one I've been,
00:40:45.120
I've been thinking about wrestling with. Um, if you'd asked me three years ago about the idea
00:40:51.160
of priests marrying, I would have said, absolutely not. It's a crazy idea. And still today, I, I,
00:40:56.480
I don't think it would solve the problem, uh, as it were, but it would maybe address the problem
00:41:02.200
partly for this reason, that there are a lot of decent men with, uh, sexual appetites that are in
00:41:12.420
line with Christian teaching, but who would never want to be priests simply because they also want
00:41:19.860
the companionship of a woman, which is a perfectly healthy and good desire to have. So the church is
00:41:27.200
losing out on a lot of good men who have all of the qualities you want in a priest, except for the
00:41:33.940
fact that they, they don't want to be alone and celibate for their whole life. Uh, they've got
00:41:37.900
everything else going. They, they, they just don't want that, which, which, which is perfectly
00:41:42.840
understandable. Uh, they want the love and affection of a woman. So maybe it's not a good idea, uh, you know,
00:41:49.300
on second thought to reject all of those men. Maybe it's not a good idea to rule all those guys out.
00:41:55.380
And there's also something to be said for the fact that celibacy is a really, really, really,
00:42:01.320
really difficult thing. Um, but for a priest to break his celibacy vows is considered a grave sin.
00:42:10.720
It's like adultery basically. So we've set up this dynamic where a priest has to either have
00:42:17.380
superhuman self-control to be celibate his entire life, or he's going to fall into grave sin
00:42:27.380
and serious scandal. And so those are the two options basically, uh, right now, either you're
00:42:34.220
going to have a superhuman priest, uh, or he's going to fall into grave sin and scandal.
00:42:39.760
Whereas if you let priests marry, um, then you're expecting them to have just sort of
00:42:46.040
normal self-control in marriage. You need self-control too, but not superhuman. You don't
00:42:49.640
need to be a superhuman to remain faithful to your, to your wife. Uh, but you do need to have
00:42:55.460
some self-control. The problem with ruling out the guys who have just normal self-control,
00:43:01.180
maybe not superhuman self-control is that you end up with a priesthood populated by some
00:43:06.820
superhuman men, but then also a lot of men who are not superhuman. So then they fall into
00:43:11.700
deep sin and then it just, and they fall deeper and deeper by the minute. And so you end up
00:43:16.500
almost with this dichotomy where a priest is either going to be a saint or Satan. There's
00:43:22.340
kind of like no room in between. Um, but there should be. Maybe it's okay to have priests who
00:43:29.860
are, who are normal, just normal, you know, they have normal desires. They want to be with
00:43:35.540
a woman. Um, and, and maybe they should be allowed to fulfill those desires in a way that
00:43:42.980
is moral and biblical in the context of a marriage. Um, so, you know, I, I think that's the argument
00:43:50.060
you can make for it. As I said, I, I just think there are a lot of, of decent, good men, uh,
00:43:58.180
who the Catholic church is losing. They're losing out on because there are a whole lot. I'm telling
00:44:05.900
you, there, there are a whole lot of guys who, uh, would certainly be priests if not for that one
00:44:12.980
little thing, which is not so little. All right. Um, we'll see. We'll do one more. This is from
00:44:20.040
Brendan says, Hey Matt, big fan. In fact, I, I lately, I think I, uh, might enjoy your show
00:44:26.200
more than the Ben Shapiro show. Although I don't tell him I said that. Well, I just,
00:44:30.280
I put it out there. Uh, I know you sometimes like to answer questions outside of politics.
00:44:35.480
So I have a football question for you. Do you think teams punt too often in the NFL? Does it
00:44:40.260
make any sense to you that teams ever put punt on fourth and two on their own 40? It seems to me
00:44:45.300
that teams should be more statistically minded when weighing their fourth down options instead of
00:44:49.820
instinctively sending out the punt unit thought maybe you'd have an opinion on this as your team
00:44:54.520
has one of the best punters in the league. Also as a Browns fan, I'm wondering what fans, uh, of the
00:44:59.560
other AFC North teams are thinking or dreading about the Browns this year. P.S. Can I get a
00:45:04.400
shout out to Christendom college? Uh, yeah, shout out to Christendom. Actually I have two, two of my
00:45:07.840
siblings went to Christendom. So great school. Um, yeah, I think I've talked about this before in
00:45:13.540
the show with punters. I, I totally agree with you. In fact, I think, um, it would make a lot of
00:45:20.740
sense to just have a policy as a, as a, as a head coach in the NFL that you're never going to punt
00:45:29.760
once you get past your own, say 35 yard line, once you're past your own 35, never punt.
00:45:36.600
It just, it, as you say, it doesn't make sense statistically when you punt the ball. Now fourth
00:45:41.180
down is still a, that's a down where you have the ball and you can do whatever you want with it.
00:45:45.040
You could try to score, you know, every time you have the ball, it's an opportunity to score.
00:45:49.840
Well, when you punt, there's zero, basically zero chance of scoring unless there's a fumble
00:45:54.020
or something on the return and you're, you're, you're just giving the ball back. You're saying,
00:45:57.920
all right, you can have it. I think that only in the most extreme circumstances in a football game,
00:46:04.420
should you ever willingly give the ball back to your opponent? I think that's the basic principle
00:46:09.460
here. I know that it's, it seems unorthodox because we're so used to people punting,
00:46:12.860
but the game has changed a lot also over the, over the years. And so I think this goes back,
00:46:19.180
you know, punting may have made sense, uh, you know, 25, 30 years ago, but now,
00:46:25.300
especially with these high powered offenses and these quarterbacks who can basically make any
00:46:29.860
throw on the field, um, to willingly give the ball back to your opponent, I think should happen
00:46:34.360
a lot less often than it does. As for the Browns, I think, uh, they put together a good team,
00:46:41.000
but the thing about the NFL, it's one of the reasons why I like the NFL is that it's very hard
00:46:46.420
to buy a championship team. I know they do it in the NBA all the time, but in the NFL,
00:46:51.700
it's difficult to do. And there have been many teams that have gone out and free agency spent
00:46:55.560
all, you know, a whole lot of money getting all these high powered, uh, fancy free agents.
00:47:01.920
And then they win four games in the, in the, in the season, because just because you get all the
00:47:08.600
pieces together on paper, that doesn't mean it's going to come together on the field. Uh, so
00:47:14.740
maybe if you're a Browns fan, you could have a little bit of optimism. I wouldn't try to take
00:47:20.700
this from, take that from you after so many years of misery, but also there's reason for caution.
00:47:26.300
All right, we'll leave it there. Uh, thanks for the football question though. I always enjoy those
00:47:45.460
Today on the Ben Shapiro show, creepiness finally comes back to haunt uncle Joe Biden.