The Michael Knowles Show

00:00:00.000 There is so much to commemorate today. It's Halloween. It's Reformation Day. It's trigger

00:00:05.520 a college student in 2017 day. So festive. We will discuss why lefties are so angry about Moana

00:00:11.500 and then top 10 myths about Martin Luther. Then Donald Trump Jr. trolls Hillary. British

00:00:17.440 socialized medicine bans fat people from getting surgery. And the Podesta group might drop the

00:00:22.580 name Podesta because then they won't be criminals who colluded with Russia or something. I'm Michael

00:00:27.300 Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. I got to tell you, I am so embarrassed. I should make a

00:00:39.540 preemptive apology. But by the time I had bought my eight-year-old Moana costume at Party City,

00:00:46.680 it was only after that that I read the Cosmo article that Moana is racist. It's racist to

00:00:51.660 wear the Disney princess costume. So I'm really sorry. It's just, I guess, a preemptive apology.

00:00:57.180 Obviously, it was too late to get a new costume. So here I'd already had to slit open the back. So

00:01:02.280 really, my sincere apologies. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. According to Cosmo, according to Cosmo and

00:01:09.340 bulletin boards at elementary schools and colleges across the country, but I repeat myself, it is

00:01:14.220 racist for white people to wear Moana costumes. Now, luckily, I am a bit swarthy. So I might get away

00:01:20.560 with it. That is possibly the saving grace is my Sicilian background. But Faith Moore, the daughter of the

00:01:26.040 Lord of the multiverse, Andrew Clavin, has a good piece at PJ explaining how the left completely

00:01:33.280 misunderstands what Disney princesses are. So they say, if you are not Arabic, then you can't be

00:01:40.920 Jasmine or something. If you're not Middle Eastern, you can't be Jasmine. If you're not Hawaiian or

00:01:46.600 Polynesian, then you can't dress up as Moana. And the premise there is that the essential aspect of

00:01:51.940 these Disney princesses is the color of their skin, when obviously that is not the case. The

00:01:57.080 essence of Cinderella, the heart of the Cinderella story is not that she's a white girl. The heart of

00:02:03.220 Rapunzel is not that she's a white girl. Wait, what? Excuse me? I know this is pretty shocking.

00:02:09.000 Even Beauty and the Beast, even Beauty and the Beast, the heart of it is not that Belle is a white

00:02:13.400 girl. Honestly, even Snow White, which is one that it's right in the name, is white, you know,

00:02:18.240 it's a German fairy tale. But even that isn't about the race, right? It's about that she's the

00:02:22.980 fairest one of them all. It's a fairy tale and it's a metaphor. Are you being prophetic right now

00:02:27.820 about Snow White becoming racist? Yeah. Well, it is, you know, it's obviously a metaphor about her

00:02:33.120 spiritual fairness and her inner beauty and her inner fairness compared to that wicked old

00:02:38.060 stepmother. So I think the left as usual misses the point, but they're pouncing on censoring Halloween

00:02:43.540 costumes for a reason. Let's not forget that that craziness at Yale with the student,

00:02:48.860 Gerilyn Luther, screaming at her professor saying, this is not an intellectual space,

00:02:52.880 it's about creating a home. That was over a Halloween costume. That was over an email that

00:02:57.260 that professor's wife had sent out saying that ostensibly 18 to 22 year olds at one of the elite

00:03:03.500 universities in the world can dress themselves. They don't need teachers to hold their hands and lay

00:03:08.400 out their costumes for them. And the reason the left pounces on this is because if you scratch a

00:03:14.020 lefty deep enough, you'll get a totalitarian. They love censorship because at this moment,

00:03:19.300 the leftist view of the world is an unrational one. It's an unobjective one. It borders into

00:03:28.060 relativism and it's one in which different competing groups with competing interests have to yell at each

00:03:33.760 other and whoever's loudest wins. It's not one where we can have follow logic through a dialogue

00:03:39.520 to arrive at a logical conclusion. This is where Shapiro gets the phrase, facts don't care about

00:03:46.160 your feelings, right? It isn't just people who have no recourse to reason and no recourse to logic

00:03:52.560 screaming and bashing each over the head. Now, they try to ban the speakers at college campuses. They try

00:03:57.700 to ban Ben or Charles Murray or Christina Hoff Summers. And they catch a little flack for that

00:04:04.340 because they're shutting down a reasonable lecture. But because Halloween costumes are not inherently

00:04:10.100 logical, they're not really about ideas per se, they try to ban them to flex their censorship muscles

00:04:16.580 and that impulse becomes unrestrained. So, you know, I probably should have thought this through

00:04:21.840 because the rest of the show deals with serious matters, you know, like the Protestant Revolution

00:04:27.620 and Martin Luther and everything that's in the news. But I can't change out of my Moana costume.

00:04:32.980 So, enough about Moana. It is Halloween, but it's also Reformation Day in full Moana attire.

00:04:39.480 I will turn the potpourri up to 11 and delve into the top 10 myths about Martin Luther.

00:04:44.460 Number one, Martin Luther did not set off a reformation. He set off a revolution. This is

00:04:52.280 just a matter of definition. Rather than reforming his own ecclesiastical institution,

00:04:56.900 he didn't do that. He didn't change the Catholic Church. And Martin Luther's actions led to the

00:05:01.460 breakaway of countless churches throughout Europe and the world. G.K. Chesterton described him as one

00:05:06.240 of those great elemental barbarians to whom it is indeed given to change the world. And the excellent

00:05:12.180 historian, Jacques Borsen, credits the Protestant Revolution with initiating modernity, which he

00:05:18.620 describes brilliantly in his book, From Dawn to Decadence. Highly recommended. Number two, Martin

00:05:23.340 Luther most likely never posted his 95 theses to the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenberg.

00:05:29.580 You know that famous line, I got 99 problems, but the Pope ain't one, bang, bang, bang? Probably

00:05:33.560 didn't happen. He certainly sent them to Albert of Brandenburg, the Archbishop of Maines, but there's

00:05:38.520 no evidence that he ever nailed the theses to the door. He never wrote about it. He never wrote about

00:05:42.860 posting the theses. And claims to the effect that he did didn't appear until 30 years after the alleged

00:05:48.380 event. Number three, this is the big one. This one's going to take a little while because people

00:05:53.720 really misunderstand this one. Luther did not cause the Church, the Catholic Church, to end a long-standing

00:06:00.360 practice of selling eternal life through indulgences. That's just a lie. It is stunning how little

00:06:08.520 that is so central to the Protestant Revolution and to the modern era as indulgences. Let's

00:06:15.140 establish a definition. An indulgence is, quote, a remission before God of the temporal punishment

00:06:20.380 due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed

00:06:26.260 gains under certain defined conditions through the Church's help when, as a minister of redemption,

00:06:32.300 she dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfaction won by Christ and

00:06:38.980 the saints. If that was too many words for you, the sins have already been forgiven. And the indulgence

00:06:44.860 that one gets at rare times in history by donating to charities or giving alms, that indulgence is for

00:06:54.180 the temporal relief. It's for the relief of penance. It's not for popping out of purgatory a thousand

00:07:00.140 years early, and it's not for going from hell to heaven. Now, it's true that there were some corrupt

00:07:04.060 professional pardoners who extorted money in exchange for bogus promises. There were forgers

00:07:09.720 who sold fake indulgences, but none of this had any agreement with Church doctrine. In fact, as early

00:07:15.020 as 1215, centuries before Martin Luther, the Fourth Lateran Council suppressed abuses of indulgences

00:07:22.560 by strictly re-articulating the limits of their scope. In 1392, more than a century before the 95

00:07:28.660 theses, Pope Boniface IX wrote to the Bishop of Ferrara to condemn members of religious orders

00:07:34.740 who were fraudulently claiming that the Pope had authorized them to sell the forgiveness of sins

00:07:39.260 to ignorant and hopeful faithful. Now, because indulgences strictly refer to temporal penance,

00:07:47.000 the Rouen Cathedral has been nicknamed the Butter Tower, this cathedral in France, the Butter Tower,

00:07:52.240 because some of its funding came from the sale of indulgences that allowed the faithful to eat

00:07:57.040 butter during the penitential period of Lent when theoretically they should have been abstaining,

00:08:01.660 you know, they shouldn't have very flavorful food, it's a time to kind of do some penance and think

00:08:05.980 about the sinful nature of man and of this world. Even this sale is misleading because no one could

00:08:13.980 ever buy indulgences outright. Rather, they had to give alms to some charity. Of course, it's easy to

00:08:19.600 see how abuses would creep in in that case, but it wasn't like you write a check and you get a receipt

00:08:25.080 and that's it. There is at least, there was always at least the veneer of donating to some charity.

00:08:31.300 Now, even if there's a difference between selling a 40-day Butter Eating Pass and purporting to sell

00:08:36.940 eternal life, Pope Pius V at the Council of Trent forbade all grants of indulgences involving any fees

00:08:44.000 or other financial transactions to severely address any abuses. This was a couple decades, three or four

00:08:50.960 decades after Martin Luther, very shortly thereafter. Martin Luther, this is number four, Martin Luther

00:08:56.780 was not terribly pluralistic. He led to this breakaway of the church and all these various sects and

00:09:05.160 denominations. He himself was not terribly pluralistic, as some might think. It is true, he did say, quote,

00:09:10.880 let the Turk believe and live as he will, just as one lets the papacy and other false Christians live.

00:09:18.240 That's fairly tolerant. He also said, as the Pope is Antichrist, so the Turk is the very devil.

00:09:24.880 Of the Jews, and I'm quoting one sentence out of a long literature describing Martin Luther's

00:09:33.060 thoughts on the Jews, he said, quote, eject them forever from this country, first to set fire to their

00:09:39.160 synagogues or schools, and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will

00:09:44.160 ever again see a stone or a cinder of them. Not very tolerant. Number five, Martin Luther did not

00:09:51.260 unchain the Bible so that the common man could read it. There is a myth that before the Protestant

00:09:55.960 Revolution, Bibles were put under lock and chain. Literally, they were locked up so that common men could

00:10:01.920 not read them. Now, they were frequently attached to a chain, as were all large books at the time, so that

00:10:08.460 people couldn't steal them, because books were very expensive. But Bibles were available everywhere, in whole

00:10:13.220 book form, prayer books, stained glass windows, and artwork. Scripture was everywhere. Number six, this leads

00:10:19.440 directly into number six, Martin Luther was not the first to translate the Bible into a common language.

00:10:25.060 This is obviously true, because St. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, then the common language, in the

00:10:30.040 fourth century. When Luther began his work, when he began his Bible translation, there were already 18 German

00:10:37.060 translations of the entire Bible going around. Number seven, Martin Luther was not a populist. We have

00:10:43.340 this idea, this common perception of him as a man of the people, retrieving Christianity back from

00:10:49.240 oppressive elites, but Luther had fairly harsh words for German peasants. One need only consult his book,

00:10:55.820 this is the title, Against the Murderous Thieving Hordes of Peasants, and his subsequent defense of that

00:11:02.140 book, open letter on the harsh book against the peasants, and we can understand that Luther's,

00:11:07.860 we can understand Luther's guilt and confusion at having inspired the peasant war by his theological

00:11:13.500 proclamations. This brings us to number eight, a difference, I suppose, between Luther and the

00:11:19.220 Lutherans, between Luther and people who followed in his tradition. Martin Luther believed in the literal

00:11:25.180 presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He wrote, quote, who but the devil has granted such a license

00:11:31.440 of resting the words of the Holy Scripture? Who ever read in the scriptures that my body is the same

00:11:38.220 as the sign of my body, or that it is the same as it signifies? What language in the world ever spoke so?

00:11:46.780 It is only then the devil that imposes upon us by these fanatical men, not one of the fathers of the

00:11:53.180 church, though so numerous, ever spoke of the sacramentarians. Not one of them ever said,

00:11:58.800 it is only bread and wine, or the body and blood of Christ is not there present. He fully believed

00:12:05.360 that the Eucharist is the body of Christ, not that there is some, it's a symbol of the body of Christ,

00:12:13.220 or it's some remnant that we have of the body of Christ. Number nine, Martin Luther added a word to

00:12:18.060 the Bible. This is also little known, but while prior and virtually all subsequently revised

00:12:24.040 versions of the Bible translate Romans 3.28 to read, quote, for we hold that one is justified by

00:12:30.100 faith apart from the works of the law, Luther translated that passage as, quote, so now we hold

00:12:36.840 that man is justified without the help of the works of the law, alone through faith. That addition of

00:12:42.760 alone is theologically important. The implications of this creativity would become very important as

00:12:49.220 the Protestant Revolution progressed into our modern era, but quite creative, a little addition

00:12:54.260 there. And number ten, Martin Luther obviously didn't like the Pope very much, he did not like

00:12:59.720 that authority, but he did defer to at least one theological authority outside of the Bible on at

00:13:05.420 least one occasion, and that man's name was Martin Luther. Luther addressed Catholic criticisms of his

00:13:11.100 translation in his open letter on translating. He said, quote,

00:13:15.560 Please do not give these donkeys any other answer to their useless braying about that word sola

00:13:21.400 only than simply this. Luther will have it so, and he says that he is a doctor above all the doctors of

00:13:29.300 the Pope. Let it rest there. I will from now on hold them in contempt, and have already held them in

00:13:34.800 contempt, as long as they are the kind of people, or rather donkeys, that they are. And there are brazen

00:13:41.000 idiots among them, who have never even learned their own art of sophistry, like Dr. Smit or Dr.

00:13:47.420 Snotnose, and such like them, who set themselves against me in this matter, which not only transcends

00:13:54.160 sophistry, but as Paul writes, all the wisdom and understanding in the world as well. Truly a donkey

00:14:00.660 does not have to sing much, because he is already known by his ears. That is all obviously an

00:14:07.140 interpretation of judge not lest you be judged. Okay, I have brayed enough on the topic of

00:14:11.620 Reformation Day. Let's bring on our panel to discuss the news. We have an excellent expert

00:14:16.660 panel today. We have Allie Stuckey. We have Daily Wire's own Jacob Berry, and for the first time on

00:14:21.800 the panel of deplorables, my pal, Kira Davis. Now, I know, look, I know that you want to listen to

00:14:27.900 them. I know you want to see them, especially Kira. You've never heard from Kira on this show.

00:14:31.160 I got to tell you something, guys. This is Halloween. In order to keep me in Moana costumes,

00:14:38.200 these things are very expensive, by the way, even though you have ripped them up to make them fit

00:14:41.960 onto a grown man, you got to go to dailywire.com. We have to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube

00:14:46.800 right now. If you go to dailywire.com right now and you're already a subscriber, you watch the rest of

00:14:50.620 the show, thanks for subscribing, keeping the lights on in this place, keeping me in these kind of

00:14:55.220 cheap costumes and employed, at least for another day. If you're not, then go over there. It's $10

00:15:02.260 a month, $100 a year. You get me. You get the Andrew Klavan show. You get the Ben Shapiro show,

00:15:07.460 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you get this. You get, I got to tell you guys, they were sold

00:15:13.680 out of Moana costumes at one of the stores I went to. There are going to be leftist tears flowing from

00:15:19.180 the heavens. It is going to be Noah's Ark part two, speaking of Reformation Day and new advances

00:15:26.200 into Christianity. So make sure that you go to dailywire.com, get this leftist tears tumbler,

00:15:33.060 the finest vessel for salty, hot or cold leftist tears in the world. Subscribe on YouTube,

00:15:38.340 subscribe on Facebook. We'll be right back.

00:15:49.180 All right, panel, I feel like we have just beaten Moana and poor Martin Luther to death here. So I

00:15:56.080 want to get into the really important news that obviously is changing our country. Donald Trump Jr.'s

00:16:01.520 tweet and Hillary Clinton's stupid comments asked on Monday what she would dress as for Halloween.

00:16:07.620 Hillary Clinton responded, I think I will maybe come as the president. So Donald Trump Jr. responded

00:16:13.840 and he said, that's cute. She can borrow my Donald Trump mask. Jacob, which is scarier?

00:16:21.280 Rather, which is the scariest? Is the Hillary Clinton as president costume the most frightening

00:16:27.780 costume that has ever been posted for Halloween? Oh yeah, most definitely. I saw someone posted a

00:16:34.380 comic strip. I believe it was, I believe it was Michael Ramirez. I could be wrong, but it was a girl

00:16:40.120 dressed as Hillary and she wouldn't leave the house that she got the candy from. And the people

00:16:46.160 passing out the candy were like, oh, that's a nice touch. Yeah, it's especially scary. It's like

00:16:51.400 Hillary Clinton won't go away and now we have to endure all these masks of her and all these blue

00:16:56.220 costumes, all these blue dresses that she used to wore, her famous pantsuits, which by the way were

00:17:02.200 around long before Hillary Clinton ever wore them. Well, fair enough. I also, this is apropos of

00:17:07.700 nothing. I recently learned Winston Churchill invented the male romper, the romp him. That's

00:17:11.980 just a little tie in with the, with the Hillary Clinton suits. Kira, if Hillary Clinton went as

00:17:18.220 Donald Trump for Halloween, would that be culturally appropriative of cantaloupe colored Americans?

00:17:26.440 No, I mean, I think they're both privileged white people. I think as you pointed out earlier in your

00:17:33.320 commentary on the Moana costume, you know, it's really important that we stick to our own race

00:17:37.480 when we're doing costumes. You should never want to be like someone else. You should never want to

00:17:42.880 elevate someone of another race or gender as, as someone you aspire to be. You got to keep them in

00:17:49.120 their place. You don't want to do that. You got to keep those people in their place. So your options

00:17:52.820 for Halloween costumes are very limited. And I think Hillary and Donald, I mean, they're very

00:17:57.200 compatible looks wise. They both ran for president. They're both rich, you know, so, you know, they

00:18:03.020 have a lot in common. I think it's fine for her to go as Donald Trump. I think it's really cute. We

00:18:07.320 all like to pretend. We all like to dream and fantasize. And, and she's still fantasizing about

00:18:12.100 being the president. That's fair. She's staying in her lane. And, you know, Trump was a Democrat for

00:18:16.360 many years, so she's staying in her lane. So much in common. They both like chicks.

00:18:21.400 Yeah. Brutal, brutal, but possibly true. I'll edit that out. It's okay.

00:18:26.560 Allie, Allie, people keep describing Donald Trump as unpresidential. Meanwhile,

00:18:31.880 a losing presidential candidate is parading around the country, stoking conspiracy theories,

00:18:37.140 blaming everyone else on earth for her loss, and questioning the results of an American election.

00:18:42.120 Who is really being unpresidential here? Well, first I want to say that Donald Trump Jr.

00:18:47.100 absolutely wins the troll of the year. I mean, his trolling is like right up there with Michael

00:18:52.260 J. Knowles, which means it's really, really good. Y'all can get together and like teach a

00:18:57.160 trolling 101 class. But honestly, Hillary Clinton makes it pretty easy. She keeps on walking into

00:19:02.680 these cringeworthy situations. I mean, for crying out loud, she, which I am not the person who made

00:19:08.300 this joke. I've seen this several times, but she wrote the first book with the question and answer

00:19:12.320 on the cover. What happened? Hillary Clinton. She keeps on walking into these situations in which

00:19:17.040 people can so obviously point out both her incompetency. Is that a word? I think it is.

00:19:23.460 But that's not what I was going to say. And just her, her complete lack of self-awareness

00:19:29.720 about both who she is now. And I guess, I don't know who she believes people see her as. I think

00:19:38.140 she has a very inflated view of her own, um, her own popularity. No, she seems pretty humble to me.

00:19:45.460 She said, no, you know, speaking of Hillary's cultural appropriation and her inflated view of

00:19:51.380 herself and lack of common touch, this was up until about three weeks ago. You can still find it on the

00:19:57.120 Wayback Machine. On HillaryClinton.com, on her campaign website, there was an article titled

00:20:02.300 Seven Ways Hillary Clinton is Just Like Your Abuela. And it used these various Spanish words. Like it

00:20:10.420 said, Hillary Clinton and your abuela both understand the importance of el respeto, you know, and they

00:20:16.480 keep like going with these little el fontan, the respeto or whatever the heck, you know. And this was

00:20:22.020 up for almost a year after her election loss. The cultural appropriation eventually got us before the

00:20:29.700 2017 Halloween season, but truly, truly out of touch. A local health committee in the United Kingdom's

00:20:36.780 socialized medicine regime has just announced that for an indefinite amount of time, it will ban access to

00:20:43.240 routine or non-urgent surgery for the obese and for smokers. Jacob, isn't universal health care just great?

00:20:51.840 Oh, yeah. I mean, it's wonderful. But my question is, how are they going to, how are they, how are they going to

00:20:58.760 make this happen? Because there are some people who have like legitimate health reasons, and that's

00:21:04.380 why they're overweight. So are they just not going to, are they just not going to give surgeries to,

00:21:09.440 to you just period if you go over a certain weight? That doesn't make any sense to me. I think it's,

00:21:14.880 I think it's very... And the smoking too, Jacob. I mean, sometimes I get a little tired after a day

00:21:18.960 of work. That's my, my physically, I get a little tired. So I need to have a little nicotine and a nice

00:21:23.060 Cuban cigar to relax. Exactly. That's just medicine, man. That's science. Exactly. And like, what next

00:21:28.100 are they going to, or is the British universal health care system is going to say, hey, you have

00:21:31.140 a wrist. That's a pre-existing condition. We're not going to give you a hand, your hand surgery

00:21:35.260 because you have a wrist. I mean, this, this is the logic as far out as it can play out. And I think

00:21:40.860 it's just despicable, especially when you have people like Bernie Sanders saying, we need a universal

00:21:45.660 health care system like Canada and England. I mean, it's just the most ridiculous thing. And that's why

00:21:51.680 a good old fashioned American private health care system is what we need.

00:21:55.940 I did not expect that Jewish New York accent from that man, Jacob Berry. Well done, sir.

00:22:01.560 You bring up this great point of the pre-existing condition. We're now seeing in a socialized

00:22:06.700 medicine regime, the reintroduction of pre-existing condition clauses like obesity to keep the costs

00:22:12.200 down because the costs start soaring. Kira, in a socialized health care regime, is it necessary

00:22:17.700 to ration care like this? If taxpayers are funding someone else's surgery, don't they deserve a say

00:22:23.660 in how that person can live their lives? Well, I have an interesting perspective on this because

00:22:28.020 I'm actually Canadian and I was born and raised in Canada. I moved to the U.S. as soon as I finished

00:22:35.320 high school because I like America better. Sorry, Canadians. But I did grow up under socialized

00:22:45.400 health care and I was a victim of rationing. And I know many people who have been and are. It is a

00:22:51.400 real thing that happens. What happens is when you give the government control over your health care,

00:22:56.380 you give them control over every decision. So everything you do can be under the government

00:23:01.640 purview. It's really like a free ticket to fascism. I mean, if they decide, yes, that sugar is bad for

00:23:08.420 you, then they can start saying, look, we either have to ban sugar or we have to ban people from

00:23:13.780 eating sugar or ban people from getting surgeries if they've eaten sugar. Because this is their

00:23:21.700 justification for everything. Everything is, well, we're all paying for this and it's not fair. And

00:23:29.160 so you're right, Michael, you hit the nail on the head. Like what ends up happening is the

00:23:33.040 pre-existing condition ends up coming back because the government says, oh, well, now that we're paying

00:23:37.560 for it, you know, we can't afford for you to take liberties with the things you eat and drink. And

00:23:43.740 even things like the places you go and how much outdoor time you get, how much time you spend on the

00:23:50.120 couch, like all of those things begin to come into play when you give the government that much power

00:23:54.820 over your life. So I can tell you as someone who has been turned away from a hospital with pneumonia,

00:24:00.120 hey, we have no beds. You can probably get better at home. You know, that this is the end game of

00:24:06.920 socialized medicine. It's inevitable. And I'll tell you, my mom still lives in Canada. She's a senior

00:24:12.800 citizen now. And she is very low on that list of priorities. The government does have an equation

00:24:20.780 that they use to pass out funds and treatment. And she's on the low end of that equation. So there

00:24:26.820 are times when they say, look, we've measured out how much we think you have of your life left

00:24:31.540 versus like what a younger person has. We don't know if this treatment is best for you. You know,

00:24:37.480 we'll go with the cheaper, like Obama said, we'll give you the pill. And she comes here to the US

00:24:42.200 and, you know, I'll be like, I don't feel good. I'm going to call the doctor. And I get in that day

00:24:46.880 and she's just like blown away that I can get into the doctor. And, you know, and my thing is,

00:24:51.620 this is what you get when you pay for it. That's right. And they've got that equation. They know

00:24:55.600 what her health is worth. They know what her life is worth. They just don't worry. Those technocrats,

00:25:01.000 they figured it all out. There's the algorithm. And oops, sorry, we can't give you any medicine

00:25:05.600 whatsoever. A government big enough to give you anything you want is big enough to take everything

00:25:10.280 you have. A wise man once said, Allie, are we inevitably heading down this path towards socialized

00:25:16.360 medicine? Do people people now expect health care is right in the United States? Are we headed there

00:25:20.760 whether we want it or not? Well, if Republicans could just have a majority in Congress and take

00:25:26.820 the White House, then maybe we would get something done with health care. Oh, oh, wait, but they have

00:25:31.940 those things that we're still not getting done. So unfortunately, I don't really have a very rosy view

00:25:37.120 of what we can do with health care because our Republicans have thus far failed us. But if they can get

00:25:43.880 their act together, then there is certainly hope for it actually being repealed or replaced. And

00:25:48.620 maybe we're on the way to that. But then the New York Times might say mean things about John McCain.

00:25:53.720 So I don't think we're going to be able to grab that vote. They might be mean to him.

00:25:58.280 The New York Times loves conservatives so much.

00:26:01.380 They really matter. Their opinions are really credible, right?

00:26:03.760 Yes. Okay. So we all agree that socialized medicine is stupid, that it doesn't really work,

00:26:10.420 that you're giving everyone care as a formality, but the quality of care actually goes down to it's

00:26:15.220 not compassionate at all. We hear the rhetoric all the time. But Michael, I really want to talk

00:26:20.780 to you about the Reformation. All right. We have a little extra time. Bring it on. I did. I was

00:26:26.960 thinking about bringing his eminence Paul Bois on the panel today, but I figured since the first

00:26:32.920 entire half of the show was all potpourri, potpourri up to 11, I'd make it a fully Protestant panel for

00:26:38.720 the second half. Yes. Lay it on me. Yes. Okay. So here's what I have to say, because some of those

00:26:45.580 myths are absolutely correct. It is true that he probably never nailed the 95 feces up on the door.

00:26:53.840 In fact, he had no intention whatsoever of revolutionizing the church or even reforming the

00:27:00.080 church. The letter that he actually wrote to the archbishop that you mentioned was almost, he almost

00:27:05.160 sounded like sycophant. He, I mean, he was sucking up to him so much. He was this very kind of in the

00:27:10.740 beginning, this very humble guy who just said, Hey, just FYI, there are priests and there are people

00:27:17.820 professional partners around these indulgences and they think that these indulgences count for

00:27:24.360 salvation. We probably should fix that. So it wasn't so much that he was accusing the church

00:27:29.980 leaders necessarily of directly saying that, Hey, these indulgences are tied to your salvation,

00:27:36.160 but that they were allowing people to believe that he felt like either intentionally or unintentionally,

00:27:42.880 they were leveraging the guilt of the people to believe that these indulgences in some way paid

00:27:47.780 for their sin. And that was the problem that he presented, which is why he presented the 95 feces.

00:27:54.080 Of course, we also know that Martin Luther wasn't this perfect guy. You read some of his quotes that

00:27:58.380 were also an accurate description of him, but of course we can't use his character to necessarily

00:28:03.260 invalidate his entire theology. I think the best thing that Martin Luther and probably the biggest

00:28:08.580 thing I disagreed with you on, but the best thing that Martin Luther presented were the five solas.

00:28:12.900 Of course, the biggest one being by faith alone. And that was his greatest contention with the

00:28:18.000 Catholic church and also his greatest accomplishment in breaking away from the Catholic church because

00:28:22.800 in his belief, they had been contaminated so much in the 16th century into believing just as the

00:28:28.940 Pharisees did that somehow their salvation was also earned by works or also were earned through

00:28:37.320 sacraments. And he said, that's actually antithetical to what the gospel preaches.

00:28:41.640 If that was the case, if it was faith and something else, if it was by grace through faith

00:28:46.760 and money, by grace through faith and works, then Jesus would not have had to die. He wouldn't have

00:28:52.480 had to die. He would have said, he would have just come and said, Hey, Peter, on this rock,

00:28:57.280 I build my church. Okay, great. I'm heading up now. He would not have had to die a gruesome death

00:29:02.720 and be resurrected. And so what Martin Luther said, even though, yes, he was not the first

00:29:07.080 one to translate scripture for all the common people, he reminded people, you do not need a

00:29:12.640 priest. You do not need sacraments to go to the throne of God confidently. That is exactly

00:29:18.280 why Jesus died because Jesus is your intercessor. No one else, no man in a robe, no one else. And

00:29:24.400 I'm not even saying that Catholics, especially Catholics today believe that, but that's what

00:29:28.440 Martin Luther was standing up for. And now of course he's dragged through the mud for dividing

00:29:32.780 the church and causing this chasm, which he absolutely did, but it was for the sake of

00:29:37.540 salvation because intentionally or unintentionally people were being led to believe that indulgences

00:29:44.180 and paying for their sins in some monetary way or through works was how they were going to gain

00:29:49.700 salvation. And that completely maligned the cross of Christ and Martin Luther raised awareness about

00:29:55.020 that. And for that, I am extremely thankful. There is, I will, I will grant he did change

00:29:59.680 over time, but he did change over time. So earlier on, he was a little bit better, more of a reformer

00:30:05.700 than later on. All of the antisemitic comments came later in his life. They weren't, they didn't

00:30:10.480 come earlier in his life. However, let's not forget that he did add that first sola, that only faith

00:30:16.080 from Romans. He added that. And, and in subsequent translations, but that is not the only place where

00:30:21.980 the Bible talks about by faith alone. And in fact, if you just want to look at the gospel in general,

00:30:26.440 the fact that Jesus had to die, that would not have had to happen if it was faith and something

00:30:34.480 else. He could have just said, Hey, Allie, be a little bit holier, act a little bit better. If that

00:30:39.500 was the case, he would have been totally fine with the Pharisees because the Pharisees were the holiest

00:30:43.820 of them all. But obviously it wasn't about works. It was about faith. Of course. But I think it's a

00:30:48.560 straw man. I don't see anywhere in church teaching where the Catholic church has ever taught that

00:30:54.060 through works, you will earn your salvation. The church explicitly didn't call that a heresy.

00:30:59.120 That's the heresy of Pelagius in the fourth or fifth century. The, and we do know, I'm, I am

00:31:05.020 certain, of course, Christ's sacrifice was perfect. But let's not forget that, that Christ says to

00:31:11.520 Peter, Peter, you are this, you're a rock on this rock. I'll build my church. Here are the keys to the

00:31:16.540 kingdom of heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Whatever you bind on

00:31:20.520 earth will be bound in heaven. He also said, there will be many who come to me and say, Lord, Lord,

00:31:25.120 who will not see the kingdom of heaven. And of course, James says, faith without works is dead.

00:31:31.680 Absolutely. And that's actually exactly what Martin Luther came to preach about,

00:31:35.380 that there will be many who say, Lord, Lord, who actually will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

00:31:39.040 Because what Martin Luther did is he said, this is not about your external proof of whether you are

00:31:47.160 saved or not. This is about your heart. And I'm not saying the entirety of the Catholic faith,

00:31:51.940 faith preaches otherwise, but he felt where he was, that that was the trend that was going on. At least

00:31:57.440 the people in the Catholic church were starting to focus too much on the outer works and not enough

00:32:03.260 on true repentance in their heart. And that's exactly what Martin Luther came to refocus the

00:32:10.040 church on, was focusing on the heart transformation that grace through faith actually accomplishes.

00:32:16.660 Because you're right, faith without works is dead, but works without faith is nothing.

00:32:21.620 Sure. But when has the Catholic church ever taught otherwise? When has the Catholic church ever taught

00:32:26.060 that you'll earn your way to heaven through works? I don't, I don't deny that there were corrupt

00:32:31.280 professional partners. Obviously, many popes condemned them explicitly. But if Martin Luther's

00:32:37.200 problem was with some local bishops and some local priests selling heaven or trying to sell heaven

00:32:43.460 to ignorant people, then that's a political conversation. That's not a theological refutation.

00:32:49.440 Ali just said that. The issue is, the issue is instead of saying, oh, okay, Martin Luther,

00:32:56.600 we'll look this over, we'll talk about this. He was persecuted for coming to his archbishop and

00:33:03.400 saying these things. He was brought and told to say mea copa before him. And instead of, and instead

00:33:08.300 of doing that, he stood his ground. And of course, like, as you said, years later, he seemed to become

00:33:12.920 a little bit embittered, but let's not forget. That's an understatement. Sure. Yeah. Well, as my,

00:33:17.700 as I'm saying, you know, it was because Catholic mobs attacked his followers and, and burned them

00:33:23.700 at the stake and stoned them. Well, if anybody was a proponent of burning at the stake, I think we

00:33:28.740 would all agree that Martin Luther was a, was a proponent. Well, sure. And I'm not going to defend

00:33:32.660 Martin Luther, uh, in his entirety. After all, if there was one thing Catholics and Protestants were

00:33:37.140 united in, it was the persecution of the early evangelicals. Of course, they weren't called that back

00:33:41.700 then. But you know, that, uh, exactly what Ali has said, it's more about by, uh, by faith alone and,

00:33:48.740 uh, and standing up to the corruption of his day. You know, I will bring up this point though,

00:33:53.060 because I am sympathetic to a lot of these Protestant arguments. And I do like a lot of

00:33:57.140 Protestant theologians and apologists. Uh, but it, there is this one sticking point because the,

00:34:03.220 the question here, especially with Luther is, is the church, the church is the Pope in the Petrine line,

00:34:10.340 in the line of Peter. And did Christ institute a real church on earth with a real clergy and real

00:34:16.900 buildings and real windows and real places? Or is it a strictly an ethereal sort of thing

00:34:23.460 that floats about and does not have real, uh, clergy and real, uh, windows and things like that?

00:34:29.300 And it just seems to me that in a, in a religion, which is based on a fact, it's not based on a

00:34:35.140 philosophy. It's based on a fact, the incarnation of the divine logos into a particular person in,

00:34:41.380 through a particular mother at a particular place in a particular time where he performed particular

00:34:46.740 miracles in space and time on real people, and then literally was killed by someone named Pontius

00:34:52.580 Pilate, and then was a literally resurrected, stayed around for six weeks and then ascended into heaven.

00:34:57.620 That it makes sense to me that that guy would have picked 12 real people to be the apostles.

00:35:03.140 And when he said, I establish a church would have established a real institution on earth.

00:35:08.100 It's, it's hard for me to get beyond that. And to think that really, uh, there was, there's,

00:35:14.180 there's all fact, a unity of the symbol and the symbolized of the logos and the creator and the

00:35:19.780 creation. But then it just becomes ethereal after that. I will give, we're, we're going to get to the

00:35:25.620 Podesta group. That's way less interesting than this. And it is Reformation Day. So I will give my

00:35:29.540 Protestant panel the last word around the horn. Kira, any thoughts?

00:35:33.940 Yeah. I mean, I'm a former atheist. I was raised by atheists and I may, I, I made a decision to follow

00:35:40.660 Christ, you know, um, in my teenage years. So all of these arguments about, to me, Reformation Day is

00:35:50.100 nothing more than a historical discussion and always has been just because of how I came to faith.

00:35:56.900 All I can say is I'm listening to you guys talk and I find it fascinating as someone who loves and

00:36:00.900 who loves history and, and theology. I'm, I'm a huge theology nut. I read everything I can get my hands

00:36:08.100 on. Um, but I, at the end of the day, for me, um, everything you're talking about,

00:36:13.700 none of it is a salvation issue. Um, and I didn't not to, I don't mean to, um,

00:36:20.020 you know, condescend or say that these issues aren't important and they're not important to

00:36:24.020 you, Michael, as a Catholic or to you, Alison, as a Protestant. I mean, I guess they're important to us

00:36:28.180 all. And it is important to be able to understand the nature of God and what he did. But I also think

00:36:33.540 at the end of the day, I really truly do believe it. I mean, I pursue a relationship with God

00:36:38.500 because before him, I was empty and before him, I was lost. And before him, I was headed to, um,

00:36:44.260 a life that I don't know if I'd still be living this day. So for me, my only motivation is to ever,

00:36:50.500 is to be closer to Christ and to be, and to learn how to live. I believe that this is the life we have

00:36:56.580 been given. We, we're not waiting for heaven that that'll come, but we shouldn't be waiting for

00:37:00.420 heaven. We should be working on, you know, our relationships with each other and our relationship

00:37:05.460 to God's kingdom here on earth. So for me, I mean, I'm listening to these things and I'm like,

00:37:09.700 I mean, it's interesting, but I don't care that much. I mean, it isn't for me, it's just a

00:37:16.340 salvation. It's all about the Jesus. It is. Yeah. It is a really great job of making the Catholic

00:37:20.660 church seem absolutely perfect. Come on, get out of here. Stop it. I'm, I'm just trying to work

00:37:25.220 out my treasure in heaven. Uh, uh, Ali, any final thoughts? I have too much to say and it's a lot

00:37:32.500 more divisive than that. Although that was very beautiful. And I agreed that it is all of these

00:37:37.620 things. I believe that at least are not central to the conversation about the gospel. I believe

00:37:44.660 that if you believe in by grace through faith alone, that Jesus alone is what grants you salvation and

00:37:50.900 reconciles you to God, then all of this other stuff is it's supplemental. It's secondary.

00:37:56.260 It doesn't actually matter towards one of our salvation. I do think it's important. And it's

00:38:03.300 also very, it's, it's fascinating. I mean, you mentioned whether the church is a real physical

00:38:09.220 church or whether it's some ethereal thing. I think that's actually kind of a false dichotomy. I don't

00:38:14.020 think it's either the Catholic church and some ethereal random thing that Protestants believe in that we

00:38:18.900 don't know how to tie into. We believe that it's the body of Christ, that if it's by grace through

00:38:23.700 faith, whether you're part of the Catholic church or whether you're on a plane in Africa,

00:38:27.140 but you believe that Jesus alone is true for salvation, then you are part of the body of

00:38:32.100 Christ. And to say that the church only exists within the walls of Catholicism is a very small

00:38:37.940 mind's view in, in, in my view of what Christianity and what the body of Christ truly is, which is this

00:38:44.260 living being dynamic thing that is predicated on one's faith in Christ and not sacraments,

00:38:52.020 not being a part of the Catholic church, nothing like that. Because in my view, that just adds

00:38:55.940 something to the gospel. It is by grace through faith. And if all of us believe that, whether you

00:39:00.260 are Lutheran, whether you're a Calvinist, whether you are, uh, whether you're a Catholic, and that's

00:39:06.100 really the only thing that matters. But the question of course is, I'm sorry, go ahead.

00:39:10.340 Go ahead. No, the question is, did, did Christ institute that church? Did he institute those

00:39:15.140 sacraments? Did he say you have the power to forgive sins? Did he say you break this bread

00:39:20.180 and eat it in memory of me? I think that's a, well, it's a disagreement that I think that

00:39:24.580 Protestants and, and Catholics have. And I do believe that there is probably a misunderstanding

00:39:30.740 among Protestants of what the sacraments are for. It's been explained to me by someone who is devoutly

00:39:36.020 Catholic. And he explained it very well, because at one point I was under the impression that

00:39:39.940 sacraments were actually necessary for salvation. He explained that they're not necessary for

00:39:44.820 salvation. And he pointed to the points of scripture in which he believes that they were actually derived

00:39:48.900 from. But it is all about the Jesus. It's all about, that's what's necessary for salvation is the

00:39:53.700 Jesus. All of the other stuff, maybe it's instituted by Christ, uh, but it all follows from that.

00:39:59.220 Matt, that's absolutely right. All right, Jacob, we've just heard excellent points from Allie and

00:40:04.340 Kira. How are you going to end this discussion on a low note? Are you going to hell or heaven,

00:40:09.940 Jacob? Tell us now. I'm going to heaven. I'm sure everybody here is in the body of Christ,

00:40:14.020 but Jacob, I mean, come on, man. I don't know. My whole thing is, I think this is actually really

00:40:19.860 good for Catholics, Protestants, and evangelicals to talk about these things, because I agree with Allie,

00:40:25.620 in the end, it's, and as you also reiterated, Michael and Kira, it's also about Christ and Jesus.

00:40:32.980 And I think, like for instance, the church I went to seminary in, they always invite Catholic leaders

00:40:38.260 and vicars and priests to teach, and they don't issue a letter of correction after they preach.

00:40:43.420 They just let them come, and they let them preach. And I think that if we saw more unity like that in the

00:40:49.780 body of Christ, whether again, like you're Catholic, Protestant, evangelical, all this stuff, all these

00:40:55.140 wounds happened over 500 years ago, maybe some of them sooner, but we need to come together as one

00:41:02.420 body, one faith, and work together. So I think these conversations that we're having, we should have

00:41:08.100 them, because I think it represents a good coming together to talk about our differences, as Peter and

00:41:13.380 Paul did in the Bible. Absolutely right. But the Pope is the Antichrist. And that, and that. We also

00:41:20.660 forget, we have to have that point at the end. Well, to quote Martin Luther, it is because Kira Davis

00:41:27.460 says so, that is why. I believe that. Excellent discussion. Thank you all for being here. An excellent,

00:41:32.980 an excellent reform of the Reformation Day topic earlier in the show. We have Allie Stuckey, we have Jacob

00:41:40.020 Berry. For the first time on the show, Kira Davis, thanks for being here. I'm Michael Knowles. This

00:41:43.620 is The Michael Knowles Show. I'm going to now change out of my Moana costume, so that I don't go

00:41:48.340 trick-or-treating and traumatize, and traumatize everyone in Hollywood who hasn't already been

00:41:52.580 traumatized. Get your mailbag questions in for this Thursday, and we'll see you tomorrow.

00:42:10.020 We'll see you tomorrow.

Ep. 50 - Reformation Day？ Dr. Martin Luther Will Have It So!

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