518. Clashing With Georgia Legislators & Joel Webbon

Summary

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Apologia Radio Ep. 518: "Clashing With Georgia Legislators & Joel Webbon"

Date: April 8, 2025
Host: Jeff Durbin (Pastor Jeff, "The Ninja"), Luke “the Bear”, Pastor Luke, Zachary Conover
Theme: Gospel-Driven, Hard Hitting, Culturally Relevant Engagement on Abortion, Biblical Apologetics, and Methodology Critique

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Episode Overview

This episode recaps Apologia's recent efforts at the Georgia state legislature regarding an abortion abolition bill, unpacks powerful moments and testimonies from the hearing, and transitions into an in-depth reflection on presuppositional apologetics. The conversation is also framed around pushback from critics—most notably Pastor Joel Webbon—on their apologetic methodology during legislative engagement. The hosts emphasize standing uncompromisingly on the authority of Christ and Scripture in sociopolitical activism, and dissect the strategy of appealing to both common ground and internal critique in dialogue with opponents.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Georgia Legislature Abolition Bill Hearing

• [02:00-06:40] The Scene in Georgia:

  • Huge turnout at the Georgia Capitol for the hearing on Rep. Emory Donahue's abolition bill; record attendance required fire marshal intervention.
  • Christians, pro-choicers, and the pro-life establishment were present—pro-lifers notably opposing the abolition bill.
  • "They had to call in the fire marshal… Christians were singing hymns, pro-choicers tried to answer with 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm.' It was… epic." — Jeff Durbin [04:00]
  • Legislators were reportedly shocked by the level of support for the bill.

• [06:45-10:12] Bill Status:

  • The bill was heard after Georgia’s “crossover day,” meaning it couldn’t be voted on this session but still gained momentum and public attention.
  • "A huge blessing… The hearing showed the unprecedented level of support. 25% of the Georgia House of Representatives was already on as co-sponsors." — Jeff Durbin [09:20]
  • Alabama and Ohio are next, with similar bills moving forward.

• [10:13-12:36] Personal Story – Dr. Coleman Boyd

  • Dr. Boyd, an ER physician and Trump-pardoned abortion ministry activist, shares his story: He and his wife adopted the baby of a 13-year-old rape victim.
  • This child became a living, beautiful refutation to the “what about rape?” objection.
  • "Her mother was a 13-year-old girl who was raped. We took her in, cared for her… She gave this precious life a chance, and now we’ve adopted her." — Jeff Durbin [10:25]
  • Social media post of their story went viral: "14.7 million views." [11:54]
  • On critics demanding to know if he’d adopted children: “Three.” [12:06]

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2. Clash with Legislators: Testimony Highlights

• [14:33-18:33] The Hearing: The Rape Exception

  • Legislator’s closing comment invokes rape as justification for abortion; providentially, Dr. Boyd (with his adopted daughter, product of rape) testifies immediately after.
  • “She’s the exception everyone points to. She’s not an exception, she’s a glorious child. Thank you.” — Dr. Coleman Boyd [18:15]
  • Emotional response in the room; spontaneous applause despite rules.
  • “It was a powerful, powerful moment… I dare you to look into the eyes of this little girl and tell her she shouldn’t be here.” — Zachary Conover [19:05]

• [21:17-22:45] Jeff Durbin’s Testimony:

  • "This bill says what’s in the womb is human from fertilization—a biblical fact, an unassailable biological fact. It says every human in Georgia deserves equal protection." — Jeff Durbin [21:23]
  • Draws parallels to slavery and abolition: "We drew a circle around one group… Christians stood up and said equal protection, and we abolished slavery. We should abolish abortion the same way." [21:50]
  • Calls legislators to conscience and accountability before Christ: "You will answer to Christ for how you acted and responded on this very day." [22:28]

• [23:00-32:00] Distinctives in Apologia’s Method

  • Explicitly “no neutrality”—standing on Christ's authority, not just biology or secular moral agreement.
  • Presuppositional apologetics: “We have a revelational epistemology… Our certainty is not in neutrality, but in God’s revelation.” — Jeff Durbin [24:00]
  • Always calling hearers to repentance and reminding of the Day of Judgment.

• [32:22-41:52] Engaging With Jewish Legislator on Religious Liberty & Abortion:

  • Rep. Esther Panitch (Georgia's only Jewish rep) claims, "Judaism posits that the life of the mother is more important than the unborn… Are you telling me I don’t have a right to my religious liberty?" [33:24]
  • Jeff appeals to the common ground of the shared Scriptures (Law and Prophets): “Scripture teaches, without question, that from fertilization, human life begins.” [37:21]
  • When Panitch asserts abortion is a Jewish value and cites Israel's practice, Durbin counters: "What you're saying is a later Jewish tradition, not in the Law and Prophets." [44:53]
  • "We don’t believe anyone has the right to, with malice aforethought, take the life of another human being in an unjustified manner… No, you can’t kill your baby." — Jeff Durbin [55:52]

Notable Exchange:

• Rep. Panitch: "So Jews who don't believe like you are screwed under your bill."

• Durbin: "All biological science teaches that life begins at fertilization. That’s an unassailable, indisputable fact." [56:24]

• Reaction: Panitch is visibly flustered, pushing her mic away, unable to refute the biological claim.

• [57:37-61:37] On “Imposing Values”

  • The myth of “neutrality” is refuted: “Both sides are imposing values. The issue is life and death—my value leads to preservation of life, hers leads to the slaughter of human beings.” — Jeff Durbin [59:15]

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3. Methodological Critique: Responding to Joel Webbon

• [65:57-83:37] Addressing Joel Webbon’s Criticism
  • Webbon, on X, argued: “You cannot combat this evil by appealing to common ground that does not exist” regarding interaction with the Jewish legislator.
  • Jeff pushes back, defending presuppositional methodology:
    • Common ground does exist—by virtue of (1) shared creaturehood (image of God), (2) professed commitment to the same Scriptures.
    • Paul’s Mars Hill approach is given as a biblical example of appealing to common ground (citing pagan poets, etc.). [71:41]
    • “To say you don’t have common ground is erroneous. Anyone who has studied presuppositionalism knows you start by finding it, then do the internal critique.” — Jeff Durbin [70:19]
    • Example: Same approach used with Mormons and Jews—appealing to shared sources and showing internal inconsistency.

Notable Quotes:

• “If you claim to be a presuppositional apologist but don’t understand this, you should not be teaching it.” — Jeff Durbin [45:41, 78:46]

• “How about we actually bring down every argument that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ, not just call it evil and ignore it?” — Luke the Bear [84:54]

• “It’s not enough to say ‘Judaism is evil, your values don’t matter’—the better apologetic is to demonstrate, for all to see, that her profession isn’t consistent, and the biblical case is on our side.” — Jeff Durbin [82:46]

• [83:37-85:00] Pastor Luke:

  • Cautions that the “no common ground” stance mirrors the thinking behind dehumanization and oppression—undermines the scriptural and moral high ground needed in abolition and broader apologetics.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the power of personal testimony:

  • “She’s the exception everyone points to. She’s not an exception, she’s a glorious child. Thank you.” — Dr. Coleman Boyd (testifying with daughter, [18:15])

• On apologetic approach:

  • “There is no neutrality. We’re standing on the authority of Christ and the Word, not trying to win by secular biology alone.” — Jeff Durbin [23:00]

• On hypocrisy in moral reasoning:

  • “You can’t say, ‘Never again’ about oppression, then turn around and do the same thing to preborn children.” — Zachary Conover [48:36]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00-03:00 — Signature hard-hitting Apologia banter; setting aggressive, unapologetic tone.
• 03:00-06:40 — Overview of Georgia capitol events and the hearing.
• 10:13-12:36 — Story of Dr. Coleman Boyd and his adopted daughter; rape exception debate.
• 14:33-18:33 — Dr. Boyd’s legislative testimony on rape exception.
• 21:17-22:45 — Jeff Durbin’s official testimony to the Georgia House.
• 32:22-41:52 — Cross-examination moment with Rep. Panitch; “Judaism and abortion” debate.
• 57:37-61:37 — Refuting claims of neutrality and value-imposition; defining terms of the moral battle.
• 65:57-83:37 — In-depth response to Joel Webbon; defense and clarification of presuppositional methodology and the necessity of common ground in apologia.

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a comprehensive overview of the Georgia legislative push for abortion abolition, spotlighting both the passion and strategy of Apologia’s approach. The hosts highlight the necessity of unwavering Christian conviction in the public sphere—rooted in Scripture, not mere political calculation or appeals to supposed neutrality. The powerful testimonies, especially from Dr. Boyd, humanize the often abstract arguments and showcase providential moments. Finally, the episode acts as a masterclass in presuppositional apologetics applied in real-life, high-stakes scenarios—insisting that truth, love, and intellectual rigor go hand in hand, while directly addressing critique from fellow Christian leaders for the benefit of the broader church.

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For more content or to support the ministry:
Visit ApologiaStudios.com or endabortionnow.com
Sign up for exclusive content and training, and support the legislative abolition movement.

Transcript

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Non Rockabotus must stop.

[Luke the Bear]

I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it.

[Moderator/Host]

Are you gonna bark all day, little.

[Luke the Bear]

Doggy, or are you gonna bite? Delusional. Yeah, delusional is okay in your worldview, I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

You don't chastise pigs for being delusional.

[Luke the Bear]

So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

She hung up on me.

[Luke the Bear]

Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

[Moderator/Host]

The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding.

[Luke the Bear]

Them for their courage.

[Pastor Luke]

Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies, not to make brosephs.

[Luke the Bear]

Right.

[Pastor Luke]

Don't go into the world and make homies. Disciples.

[Luke the Bear]

I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, Pastor. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not. Take an amazing journey to a place that will blow your mind and move.

[Moderator/Host]

Your heart so you will never be the same again.

[Luke the Bear]

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. That's Proverbs 26, verses 4 and 5. What's up, everybody? This is the gospel heard around the world. Welcome back, everybody, to Apologia Radio. You can go [e-mail] that's a P O L O G I a apologiastudios.com that'S where you guys can go to get hundreds of past episodes of cultish provoked Shiologians. Apologia Radio. All that's there, everybody. And you can also sign up for all access. When you do sign up for all Access, you get tons of additional content, including the Academy, full episodes of Collision, the Ask Me Anything's live stream, private stream with all of our all access partners and much, much more. So we actually have just a lot of great stuff coming up right now on Apologia's Academy. And our app is underway, almost finished. So it's gonna make access and streaming and all the stuff just so much easier for everybody. Very excited about that and a big thank you to everybody who's in this ministry with us. VI Access. Thank you, thank you, thank you a thousand times over. That's Luke the Bear. What up? I'm Jeff the Com Ninja, and that's Agri Conover. Hey, Director of communications with end abortion now. Everybody welcome. We have lots to talk about it, so we're going to get right into it today. So we had an amazing last week in Georgia. Georgia. It was phenomenal. Amazing. We had our bill from representative Emery Donahue get a hearing in the state of Georgia, Georgia capitol on Wednesday. And. And what I was told was one of the legislators had said that in. In. In decades, this is the most people he has ever seen out in. In a hearing, outside of a hearing for any hearing in the state of Georgia. He had never seen so many people there in support. And there were people there opposed to it as well. He had never seen it. They had to call in fire marshal. There were police officers there. They had to try to keep order. The hearing room itself filled up before the hearing with so many people, Christians singing songs and hymns. The pro choicers was there, the pro boards were there. The pro life representatives were there as well to oppose us. And they had to actually have everybody exit the room because it was shoulder to shoulder in there. And Jason Storms was just going. He just got in there, just started fights with people. I love him so much. He just went right in and just started saying things out physical. Just. Just started saying, yeah, intellectual Christian combat.

[Pastor Luke]

Just to be clear.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah, just to be clear. But he just went into. Just saying stuff, just trying to get people into conversations. And it was. It was great. So then they had to move everybody out of the hearing room and into the hallways. And then Christians were in the hallways. Just so many Christians just singing hymns to Jesus. And at one point, this is on my Facebook page, I did record one of these moments where the Christians are singing, you know, all these worship songs. And then they. We finished and the pro choicers wanted to do something to respond, so they started singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm. That was their anthem. Their anthem. Like we're singing, you know, Christ is king and Amazing grace. And their anthem was Old MacDonald.

[Zachary Conover]

Yeah, I'll take him's over Old McDonald.

[Luke the Bear]

Oh, oh. I thought it was just such a great display of their worldview and position. They were like, we got to do something here, guys. What joins us together? Moomoo here and a moomoo there. Noise there. A moo moo moo. Anyway, so it was. It was epic. It was an amazing moment. I want to say a big thank you to everybody in Georgia and from around Georgia that came. You made the trip to show up, to be there to support your presence, made such a dramatic impact on the legislators. And just before we review some of the content from Georgia just wanted to update everybody. This is the first update really I've done on Georgia, so you're the first to hear this. So the challenge was, from my understanding, there were so many bills and so much activity and of course this is such a controversial bill. We weren't able to get the bill to get a hearing before what's called crossover day in Georgia. And so what that means is, is our bill being heard after crossover day meant that it wasn't going to be able to be voted on on the floor in the House in Georgia this year, however, we were still given a hearing and that's what we needed for the legislators to see the support behind the bill and to hear the arguments for it. And so God was gracious to us, blessed us, the pro life establishment wasn't able to kill this bill so that it didn't get a hearing. And so that is a big gift from God that we got a hearing. So it was after crossover day we got the hearing. People are saying, okay, so what was the result? It's actually a good thing. We were confident that we had the yeses that we needed for the bill to pass so that it could ultimately go to the floor. However, there was some question as to one or two of the legislators whether they were going to vote yes on the bill to let it go to the floor ultimately. And so because there was a question, thankfully they didn't put it up for a vote. And the reason why that's a big thing, thankfully, is because if it had gone to a vote and it didn't have the votes that it needed, then it would have been like another two years before this could have been resubmitted to go through the same process again. So what that means everybody is we were able to start the righteous controversy and the conversation in Georgia. It was an epic, epic moment. The pro choicers and the pro life establishment clearly know that they are on notice because this was the first time that I've seen a hearing with one of our bills and where we had so many pro choicers and pro life establishment leaders there to oppose the bill. They are aware that this is happening, justice is coming. And so it was a pretty incredible moment. But so the bill didn't get a vote that day, which means that next session it can come back into the hearing, go to the floor again. We're good to go. So it was actually a huge blessing. The legislators there were able to see the amount of support there is for this bill. It was just an incredible moment in the State of Georgia. Praise the Lord. And I want everyone to know that what God is doing to bless this, you may have heard me say it, but it really is rather incredible in terms of the steps we are. We are getting closer and closer to justice and transformation in the state of Georgia with this bill. Not only do we have so many organizations and so many churches in support of this bill, inundating legislators with phone calls to support this bill, but we had about 25% of the house of Representatives in Georgia on our bill as co sponsors as a part of our bill. So think about that. 25% of the Georgia legislature, the House already on the bill that was being heard. That is unheard of. It hasn't happened yet. And so God's been so gracious to the church to give us a moment like this in the state of Georgia. Big update on Alabama. Ernie Arboro. Representative Ernie Yarbrough just dropped the bill in Alabama today. Yes, today. He just dropped it today. And so Alabama is underway. Ohio is going to be dropped at any moment. So God is doing a powerful thing. Two more if you can everybody go to endabortion now.com two things. One, sign up with your church to go save lives outside the abortion mill. We want to give everything away to you. All the training, all the free resources, everything for you to save lives. Tens of thousands have been saved as a result of that kind of training throughout the United States of America. And really it's happening around the world. But that's the first thing. Second thing is, is please pray and give financially to end abortionnow.com we need to make our budget. Doing what we do costs, costs money, costs a lot going to these various states to fight these battles. It costs money trying to raise churches up to train them to save lives at the abortion mill. It costs money. However, our budget is so, so much smaller in terms of a comparison to the major pro life organizations that are just millions and millions and millions of dollars to regulate abortion ultimately resist the abolition of it. Our budget is for the year is 1.5, I think. So is that okay? 1.5. So that's the budget we had put together. And so help us to get there, everybody. You can see that God is blessing this ministry tremendously. And so let's get into Georgia. First thing I'm going to give you is just this incredible moment you may have seen. Let me pull it up here on the screen. Let me make sure I get the right one here. Okay, you may have seen this. This is from my ex account and here's what I said. See her? Take a really good and long look. I met her yesterday. Her mother is a 13 year old girl who was raped. See him, he's the Christian man who convinced the girl to let her live. Then he adopted her. Take a good look. Pro aborts. This is how you redeem an evil situation. So I just wanted to share that picture because I met her, this is right before the hearing and he told me the story. He actually is a doctor. He is one of the guys that, he's a physician, an emergency room doctor. He's one of the guys that Donald Trump pardoned.

[Pastor Luke]

Oh.

[Luke the Bear]

For the abortion ministry.

[Pastor Luke]

What's his name?

[Luke the Bear]

Oh my goodness.

[Pastor Luke]

I know because I. Coleman Boyd.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah. You know how bad I am with names.

[Zachary Conover]

I didn't even know that fact though, that he was one of the ones that was.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah, he was. He was. He showed me, he showed me the pardon stuff too. That was amazing. So I met him. That was in the, the big area we were singing songs in. And then I got to meet her. He told me her story right before I went in. He said that her, her mother was a 13 year old girl who was tragically raped at a party, actually. And so it was another teenage boy, she was raped. And I don't quite know the story of how he got connected to her, but Dr. Boyd and his wife took in this beautiful, this, this young girl, 13 years old, into their home. They cared for her, they loved her and just blessed her life. And then that girl was, as Coleman says, blessed to give this precious little life to them to adopt. Now, now listen, here's how it happened with me. It's kind of a crazy moment. There's all this activity. People are everywhere singing songs, about to go into a hearing. And then I, I meet her and I'm like, hey, can I take a picture and just share this on social media? Because people need to put a face to, to the argument, right? The argument against these bills is like, what if she's raped? And you've all heard our answer to that. The abomination of rape. That we need to focus on executing the rapist, not the baby. We don't execute the children of criminals, all of that. But here's the face. Look at this beautiful, precious little face. And so I took that picture and I ended up sharing it on my ex account and not where's the numbers? And it doesn't show you on here. 14.7 million views. Wow. And we could do an entire show dedicated to just the comments that were.

[Pastor Luke]

Put under this post, mind numbingly stupid and sinful.

[Luke the Bear]

It was crazy.

[Zachary Conover]

My favorite are when people come in there and they ask how many children you've adopted? And you tell them three. And it was like they thought they had such an airtight argument to dispel these criminal children.

[Pastor Luke]

Like, but then they had to keep like further qualifying it to discredit.

[Luke the Bear]

It didn't matter. That was just. Okay, on to the next argument. But anyways, okay, so just wanted to share that with you. What a beautiful little girl. Praise the Lord for that redemption of that tragic and evil, evil thing that happened to this, this, this precious 13 year old girl.

[Zachary Conover]

Incredible.

[Luke the Bear]

But okay, so I got to play this for you. So we're in the hearing now. They've cleared the room out and now they're letting in everybody like a piece at a time to do the testimonies. Now originally I was supposed to be with Bradley and Emery sitting here, but I was told that they were like being really strict about how to do that. And so we were like, we gotta at least have Bradley there as a legal representative. So this is, what's. This is. I gotta tell you the provenance here, guys. This is incredible. When what Emory wanted was as soon as this was over, the legal portion of it, he wanted me, Jason storms, Brian Gunter, to come and testify immediately, first on behalf of the bill, right? So when the, when the master of arms, I think it was, came into the room with the sheet for testimonies, he comes in and it was like vultures on a carcass. I mean, everyone's running to that paper because everyone wants to testify, including the pro choicers and the pro life establishment types. So what? What? I don't even know how this happened because Emory wanted it to where it was. Me, Jason, Brian, immediately following. That's not what ended up happening. And I don't know how it happened, except of course, the providence of God, this representative at the tail end of the hearing for the legal portion of it here, at the very last part, she brings up the issue of rape. So providential, the whole hearing is happening. Her very last comment before they get to testimonies is on rape. And then as soon as she finishes, they call up Dr. Boyd.

[Moderator/Host]

Wow.

[Luke the Bear]

And he walks up with his little daughter. Wow. It was the providence of God is that she tries to drop an emotional bomb at the very end about rape. And then they go, okay, now for testimonies, Dr. Boyd, he comes up and I'm just gonna, I'm let you all hear it.

[Pastor Luke]

You just have to see I totally missed that.

[Zachary Conover]

I want you to heard it, I.

[Luke the Bear]

Want you to feel it. And so we're going to play through. Here's the. This is the. This is 46 minutes in to the hearing. Okay. And on the video. And this is her very last comment. Okay, here it is. Okay. So. Wow. And do you know anyone that's been raped?

[Moderator/Host]

I do.

[Luke the Bear]

Really?

[Moderator/Host]

Yes.

[Luke the Bear]

Okay.

[Moderator/Host]

It's very, very tragic. However, they went ahead and had the child because the child. Why should they be murdered for the sin of a person or the sin that this child can grow up and have the right to live? And that's basically the way I looked at it. And the people that two ladies I know that were raped, they had their children and they have three other children, one of them and two the other. And with that, the whole concept was this child knows no different. They're loved and they're alive. And that.

[Luke the Bear]

Do you understand that those women will now be forced to co parent with their rapist? Where in the bill does it exclude that?

[Moderator/Host]

This basically says that this goes back to nothing before the bill. Correct.

[Luke the Bear]

Even, even 481 require. Like, I mean, if. Anyway. Okay, I'll let somebody else take over.

[Zachary Conover]

This is pure fiction.

[Moderator/Host]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

Why would the victim of a rapist be forced to co parent?

[Luke the Bear]

Just the, the level of emotional arguments. I've never heard that. It's just insane. Okay, so he. Okay, we're not going to deal with.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

All those things right now.

[Luke the Bear]

We can, but.

[Pastor Luke]

No, I know, I just.

[Luke the Bear]

Long show today. I want to. I'm resisting the temptation to. To refute all that. But I want you, everyone, everyone to see this. Here we go. Now, immediately following they called Testimonies, here comes Dr. Boyd.

[Moderator/Host]

And if you don't mind, introduce yourself. Tell us where you're from and if you're with an organization. I will. I won't count that towards your time.

[Luke the Bear]

Thank you.

[Dr. Coleman Boyd]

Give me one second.

[Luke the Bear]

I'm sorry.

[Dr. Coleman Boyd]

Got my hands full here. I wanted to bring my sweet daughter up here to introduce her today too. Good morning, Chairman Smith and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for allowing me to briefly speak to you today. My name is Coleman Boyd. I come before you today as an ER physician and as a father of 13 children, nine natural and four adopted. I have been practicing medicine for nearly 25 years. From my earliest studies of embryology, we learned that when a sperm and cell come together, it forms a one cell zygote.

[Moderator/Host]

Where are you from?

[Dr. Coleman Boyd]

Bolton, Mississippi.

[Luke the Bear]

I apologize.

[Dr. Coleman Boyd]

In that instant a human person is formed and contains every possibility of his or her future. I also took the Hippocratic oath. I don't think they take it much anymore, but I took it. And in that I gave an oath to do no harm first.

[Luke the Bear]

Do no harm.

[Dr. Coleman Boyd]

And also I gave an oath to not give a plenary to any woman to cause an abortion. That was the same oath that had been taken since 500 BC. In my obstetrics training, I learned that I'm always caring for two patients, the mother and the baby. This practice continues to this day in my practice in the emergency room. It's quite simple from a medical perspective. An alert elective abortion takes the life of an innocent human being, whether it occurs two days after fertilization or six weeks after fertilization, or at 40 weeks as the child is being born. You're going to hear all kinds of discussion about this bill endangering women. As a physician, I've never seen a case where killing the child would save the life of a mother. When a mother's health is in jeopardy, we treat the mother and the child and deliver the baby when needed. We never kill it. I want to close by introducing my youngest daughter, Hadassah. She is the product of race. Her 13 year old mother was raped and she came and lived with us and she gave birth and she was blessed to give this child life. And now she's the delight of her soul. She's the exception that everybody points to. She's not an exception. She's a glorious child. Thank you.

[Moderator/Host]

Thank you. Important question. No outburst from.

[Pastor Luke]

I wish I could have seen that other.

[Zachary Conover]

That ruptured her face.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah. I'm telling you.

[Zachary Conover]

What do you say to that?

[Luke the Bear]

I'm telling you, I'm telling you. Like, it's one thing to watch it on the screen right here, but I was sitting right behind them when it happened. And I. I cannot tell you, the overwhelming feeling in that room at that moment. It. That's why everyone started applauding. Even though you're not allowed to. No, it burst. Allowed in the room. It was just like, you couldn't resist. It was like, boom.

[Zachary Conover]

You know that expression that we use all the time now to say, you know, this is your conduct on social media. You would never actually say that to someone's face.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

Well, how about a situation like this where it's like, I dare you to look into the eyes of this little girl and tell her she shouldn't be here?

[Luke the Bear]

Oh, yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

You would never say that.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah, of course. It was a powerful, powerful moment. And just the amazing providence of God for that to take place in the hearing for the bill, for him to be the first person to come up and testify. Right after that wretched woman says what she says, it was just an incredible moment to put a face on her argument. This is what you're saying. This girl should be executed. And what a beautiful little precious girl that was. I mean, just that moment was incredible. So then the hearing went on. A couple people before me, Jason, I think maybe Brian on a. Brian was before me or after me. But then I had the opportunity to come up and you know this, These are challenging moments because in a hearing like this, you've got, like sometimes 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes to testify. Here they had some so many people to testify, they had to limit the testimonies to only one minute. Wow. And so what can you say in a minute? I mean, it's just the start of, like, introducing yourself. And so I.

[Zachary Conover]

Especially if it's you.

[Luke the Bear]

Right. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, you're right.

[Zachary Conover]

And so I, I could say that because, you know, I know your servants.

[Luke the Bear]

Doesn't bother me at all.

[Pastor Luke]

And you're the same.

[Luke the Bear]

I don't take myself serious. I don't take myself seriously.

[Zachary Conover]

It takes one to know.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We're cut from the same clothes. The disciple should not be above his master student, above his teacher. Right. You'll be exactly the same. Right. And so now I had my opportunity to come up and, you know, in a moment like this, you, you, you hope for the opportunity for the legislators to start asking you questions, and they did. From what I can understand, I haven't seen all of this, but I think I actually had the, the, the most time with the legislators to do some cross examination.

[Pastor Luke]

You had the most, I'd say soon, for sure.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah. At least what I saw. And, and so, so here I'll just go ahead and start playing through and making some comments.

[Moderator/Host]

There's Jeff Durbin here. Come on up.

[Luke the Bear]

Yes, sir. Jeff Dur.

[Moderator/Host]

Okay, go ahead.

[Luke the Bear]

Thank you.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Honorable Representatives, my name is Pastor Jeff Durbin with End Abortion Now. It's an honor to speak to you today.

[Moderator/Host]

Where you from?

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Oh, Arizona. Phoenix, Arizona. Very simply, brothers and sisters, representatives, this bill says what is unassailable, what's in the womb is human from fertilization. That is a biblical fact, an unassailable biological fact. And all this bill does is it.

[Luke the Bear]

Says what we say, we believe as.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

People who believe in life and fertilization, that what's in the womb deserves equal protection. This bill simply says this. Every human being in Georgia from The moment of fertilization deserves to be equally protected. That's the simplicity of the bill. The problem we're seeing right now is the same problem we've seen in history. We did this in the past to our black brothers and sisters. We drew a circle around one group of people and said that I know it's technically human, but it's not really a human. It's a black person. And so we can oppress them. And it wasn't until abolitionists stood up, Christians stood up and said, equal protection for my black brothers and sisters. We abolished slavery in the same way we need to abolish abortion, provide equal protection for every human being. God says in his word, cease to.

[Luke the Bear]

Do evil, learn to do good, seek.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless. I want to call you to do your duty before God. We're all going to answer to Christ one day for how we, how we acted and responded on this very day. And I'm going to call you to be consistent with what you know to be true.

[Moderator/Host]

Thank you.

[Luke the Bear]

So not a lot of time.

[Zachary Conover]

No, that's. That's nothing. One minute.

[Luke the Bear]

It's challenging.

[Zachary Conover]

It's a sound bite.

[Pastor Luke]

It's actually impressive to get that much in it.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah. 60 seconds. Tough to communicate. One of the most important things you could possibly communicate to the people who have the power in their hands to make sure that this injustice stops. It's. It's definitely, definitely a challenge. A little different than, say, Colorado. Colorado. We just were able to sit there and just kind of go back and forth for the, For a while with the legislators. And so. But I was, I was grateful for the opportunity. And then it moved into a few of the legislators having some questions. Now I want to sort of lay something down at the beginning of this. One of the distinctives that I hope that you see between how the church is engaging in this issue of the abolition of abortion and how the pro life establishment has done so, is the distinction, well, the distinctive of approaching this with no neutrality, that is to say, approaching it under the authority of Jesus Christ, with the word of God, without neutrality. We believe that Jesus said, whoever's not with me is against me. And so we don't want to be against Christ as we're arguing against the evil of abortion by pretending some form of neutrality. Right. Or approaching it as oftentimes the pro life establishment does, by way of saying, well, we're doing this by. But on biological terms. By the way, they didn't care about the biology. No, it's a moral issue. They couldn't refute the fact that what's in the womb is human from fertilization, because that's an irrefutable point. You can't refute what is obvious to everybody. I mean, I would say people know that innately as image bearers of God. But also the word of God speaks specifically to what's in the womb uniquely created by God. You saw my unformed substance. All my days are written in your book before there's even one of them, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. There's that kind of creative purpose of God, of what goes into the womb. So we all recognize from a Christian perspective, it's indisputable. But also biologically, there's no running from the point now and the evidence. What's in the womb from the moment of fertilization is a distinct human being, a living human being who is developing like we do when we're 12 months old, 14 months old, 4 years old, 8 years old, 10 years old, 20 years old. We're still developing and growing. But we are approaching this as Christians under the authority of Christ, with the Word of God, with the Gospel always in front of us. And so what we want to consistently do is stand on the Word of God and our commitments and presuppositions, not to pretend neutrality and to challenge the unbeliever. We're trying to, as. As Bonson would say, we're trying to. That's the antithesis. And so from an apologetic standpoint, our apologetic methodology, this has been known for a long time, is presuppositional apologetic methodology. That is to say, when it comes to our epistemology, we have a revelational epistemology. How do I know something is true and have certainty? Well, here's the answer. God has spoken. He's revealed himself. That's where our certainty is. That's where our assurances, full assurance without question, is on the revelation of God. And so the way that the church is approaching this by way of abolition, is on the word of God without neutrality. So hopefully you see that. And that's why oftentimes, as I'm preparing these things to speak before legislators, legislators, is I want to make sure that at some point, if it's 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 1 minute, I am pointing them to the fact that there will be a Day of Judgment and they need to turn to Christ because they will answer to Christ for how they've done this. And so I want to point them to the Day of Judgment and the call to repentance. And faith. And so when in every hearing I pray that God blesses me with the opportunity and the courage to always do so, I want to point them to Christ and call them to repentance and remind them of a day of judgment, because this, this moment is going to be replaying for all eternity.

[Zachary Conover]

That's one thing I've noticed about the way that we've tried to go about this is it's very different when you look at the testimony given by the standard fair pro life movement. When you start with Christ, when you lead with the authority of His Word, it's amazing. You get also the biology and the history.

[Luke the Bear]

Right.

[Zachary Conover]

But when you start with the science, it's amazing. They never end up actually getting to the call to repentance.

[Luke the Bear]

Right. Or the moral issue, or defining it.

[Zachary Conover]

In the sense of this is utterly condemnable. And here's my standard for doing so.

[Luke the Bear]

Right. And the other point I wanted to make, because it's, it's for me one of the big highlights, because I want to, I want to touch the common ground. This is important too, because we're going to get into a conversation just a little bit about some commentary done by Joel Webbin on the hearing itself. And so this, this sort of like lay some groundwork for that. And that is the, the presuppositional approach, whether you've read Always Ready or Presuppositional Apologetics Applied, Stated, Applied and Defended, I think it's called, or if you've read by the standard or any, you've taken any of Bonson's courses and lectures, whether it's a basic introduction to biblical apologetics, all that stuff, this is like bottom level, bottom shelf stuff. Everybody knows this. When you first start reading Presuppositional apologetics, Common Ground and the presuppositional. The presuppositional apologist recognizes that you do have common ground with the unbeliever. But all the ground is God's ground. Right. It's not neutral ground. With the unbeliever, all the ground is God's ground. So, for example, with the, the rabid atheist unbeliever, say the Richard Dawkins type. Do I have common ground with Richard Dawkins? Yes. Not neutral ground, but yes, common ground. Because all ground is God's ground.

[Zachary Conover]

Yeah, we're all God's creatures.

[Luke the Bear]

His appeal to logic, to ethics, morality, his appeal to mathematics, evidence, sensory experience, whatever the case may be, he's reasoning in a world he can't escape from, and that's God's world. And so is there common ground with Richard Dawkins? Yep, because it is God's world and God's ground, but he's not supposed to have those things. And so I approach the common ground with the unbeliever, with my commitments intact and being willing to show the internal critique of his system, stepping into a system, showing you, yeah, there's common ground here, but you're not supposed to have access to this. Now get that and you'll get what happens next. I'm approaching this as a presuppositional apologist, as a reformed pastor, Reformed theologian. My commitments are to scripture and the authority of God's word. And I would say, and anybody who studied presuppositional methodology understands this to the methodology given to us in Scripture as to how we're supposed to argue with the fool. Now, I want to let that hang for just a moment because when I.

[Zachary Conover]

Quoted the verse at the beginning.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah. When I first started getting into presuppositional apologists apologetics, I was stunned. The Bible does talk about these things. The Bible does tell us how to reason, and the Bible does give us instruction about what wise reasoning looks like. And so what I was doing through the rest of this hearing was trying to appeal to the common ground that they say they have access to. So, for example, I said, in the moment here, I was trying to lay down something that is common ground with the image of God in them, and that's this. I said, in history, we've had this problem before. We have all humans, humanity, right? And what did I say about what's in the womb? Human from fertilization. It's part of the human family. And I said, now in history, we've had humanity display that we have a tendency to draw circles around classes of humans. In the case of Nazi Germany, it was Germans in the ss. And then we draw a smaller circle around the Jews, and we say, all humans. But we humans deserve the rights and the equal protection, and we will kill these humans. And then, of course, in other instances, you can bring up a number of instances, truly, there's no end to it, but you can bring up the instances, instance, where there's the common ground we have now because of the Christian abolitionists and Christians in history, of the hatred and despising of slavery that occurred here in the US Where a class of humans, white people, drew a circle around themselves, said, we will have the rights, we will have the equal protection for whites, but over here, we will be able to kidnap and enslave the black people. Over here, and we will dehumanize them, even though they're technically human. We can take this class of people and we can abuse them and destroy them. So what I was trying to do there is point to the common ground that we're supposed to have with everybody in that room as image bearers of God. They recognize these evils of drawing circles around classes of humans to oppress other classes of humans. That was the point. If it's human, then it's worthy of equal protection and value. And we hate the failures in history where we've seen people do those kind of atrocious things to other human beings. That's what I laid down, trying to appeal to the common ground that they're supposed to all be agreeing to in terms of. Is this immoral? Yes. Now, how you can call that immoral is only on the basis of the Christian worldview. But I wanted to try to appeal to that common ground to say, as legislators, you recognize the evil here. These are humans. Don't oppress them. And here's what happened next.

[Moderator/Host]

Appreciate it. Be careful on your way back to Arizona. Yes, yes. Hold on, just. Oh, thank you, Representative Neal.

[Luke the Bear]

Yes. While I do appreciate people that are coming from out of state to support or be against this measure, is there a way we can prioritize the hard working Georgians? I'm not sure if they outlined on the, on the notes where they came from. And then also, too, is there a way that we can ensure we strike a balance so we don't run through all the time with all the people against if we can get some support or just go back and forth as well, just for balance?

[Moderator/Host]

Well, let's see who's in here from Georgia. All right. Okay. I'll tell you what. You got a question for the witness? Okay. Stay right there, brother.

[Luke the Bear]

Yes, sir.

[Moderator/Host]

Go ahead.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

Hi.

[Moderator/Host]

Ribs and pants.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

Good. I'm Esther Panitch. And you're not from here, so I'll assume you don't know, but I'm the only Jewish representative in the state of Georgia. Judaism posits that the life of the mother is more important than the life of an unborn. Are you telling me that I don't have a right to my religious liberty?

[Luke the Bear]

Well, no.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Everyone would appeal to an ultimate authority.

[Luke the Bear]

Over all of us.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

And one of the things that I respect and admire about Judaism is that we share the same scriptures, the Torah, the Talmud and. Not the Talmud, sorry, the Torah and the law, the prophets and scripture does so quickly.

[Luke the Bear]

What I was pointing to there was when she brings up my religious Beliefs. Okay, so she has a. She has a doctrine. She has a creed. My point was that regardless of the doctrine, the creed, everybody at the legislature has to affirm that there is a higher standard above all of us. Now, somebody might say, really? Even the atheist legislator. Yeah, even the atheist legislator says that there's a higher standard. Now, they may appeal to the standard of Demas, right? I don't have a God. I don't have a higher standard. But. Well, then. Well, how do you make judgment calls on what's right and what's wrong? Well, the people need to speak. Okay, so democracy, Demas. The people speak, and so Demas has the ultimate voice. Now, that'll get you in a lot of trouble. If Demas speaks and you must obey, then. Then morality will do this. In history, when Dima speaks, wherever the wind blows or wherever they. That that particular society is at the moment, Demas can be a very, very bad God. But ultimately, I was trying to point to the fact and get her to the fact that you have to recognize the ultimate standard of your professed religious beliefs. And then I said, right, if you have an ultimate standard, you say you're a Jew, right? You say you're a Jewish. Okay, I'll take you out your profession. You're Jewish. And I say one of the things I respect and admire is that we share the same scriptures. And what I mean by that is I respect that you say the scriptures are the word of God. Right? So in her. Whatever her version of Judaism, this is what's important to. As we get to some more commentary later made by Joel, is which version of Judaism. Right. Because there's all kinds of versions of Judaism. I mean, it has to be obvious to everybody. If you're running into the average Jewish person, say, in New York City, be. It might just be a cultural thing. They may not even go to synagogue. And. And which. Which rabbinic tradition do they represent? Is it a modern rabbi that's. That's calling the shots for them? Because if you read early commentary by Jewish rabbis on abortion, they call it murder and they forbid it. And so you can go all the way back to, like, first century stuff, and you're going to see Jewish rabbis making commentary on abortion, and it is not consistent with what now modern rabbis are saying about abortion. So here's the point I was making. You say that you stand on the scriptures of the Old Testament. The. I said the law and the prophets, by the way, in my mind, I.

[Zachary Conover]

Was going the Tanaka Talmud, right?

[Luke the Bear]

I was thinking Talmud. In other words, I wanted to say that you have other traditions like the Talmud, that are not inspired revelation, but my mind wire got crossed there. The Tanakh is what I was. I was going to say the Torah and the Tanakh, but here in my mind, I was going get her to her ground. Right. And if she's a Jew, she's supposed to affirm that this is the inspired revelation of God. This represents God speaking.

[Pastor Luke]

That's her presuppos.

[Zachary Conover]

Yes, that's your God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

[Luke the Bear]

Yes, Right. That's supposed to be your presupposition. These are the words of God. You're a Jewish. Right. Okay. So you hold to the Old Testament, scriptures, law and prophets kind of stuff. That's where I was getting her as a professing Jew. Okay, here we go. More.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Teach without question that from fertilization all human life begins, and that we are uniquely made by God, created in the wombs of our mothers and known by God. And so with that, Judaism as well as Christianity would teach that every human being must be protected and given equal justice. One of the laws of Moses that's repeated over and over is no partiality.

[Luke the Bear]

We treat everybody equally.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

And the point that I was making, representative, and I appreciate you asking the.

[Luke the Bear]

Question, so what am I trying to do there as a presuppositional apologist? I'm trying to bring her to her foundations so that I can do an internal critique. Now, the. The passage I read at the beginning of the show today, which everybody who has studied presuppositional apologetics or is taught presuppositional apologetics knows this like the back of their hand. It's in every introductory level of presuppositional apologetics. If somebody claims to be a presuppositional apologist and doesn't know this, you have a right to question whether they've done any reading on the subject, because it is standard. It is, at the very beginning, the methodology of the internal critique, where God says in Proverbs 26, verses 4 and 5, don't answer a fool according to their folly, or you'll be like them. And then it says, and it seems like a contradiction. It's not. It's. It's a. It's a different methodology. It says, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own critique. That is to say, do an internal critique of the fool's system. Show the fool his feet, answer him according to his folly. So there's two. There's a twofold apologetic methodology. One don't answer him according to his foolishness. Right. Don't go where he goes, don't pretend neutrality, don't stand on his position and, and, and say, I guess we're going to do this now. Right. You don't do that because it, like Bonson says, if you get on the unbeliever's train, it doesn't matter how fast you're running to the back of the train, you're going to his destination. Right, Right. And so that's how Bonson would put it. I think that's a fantastic way of putting it. And so if you, if you go the way of their foolishness, adopt their presuppositions, start reasoning like them, start arguing like them, accepting that neutrality, it doesn't matter. You can try later to run to the back of the train to get to your destination. You're already on your way. Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

You're still on the sand and not on the rock.

[Luke the Bear]

That's exactly right. Get on the rock of God's word. Don't build upon the foolishness of unbelief and their system. So the second point though, in the presuppositional apologetic methodology is the internal critique. That is to say, okay, let's step into your system for a second here and let's see how it holds up. And that was precisely what I was trying to do with a professing Jews system. She's opposing abortion and she says, I'm Jewish. To which I want to say, if I had five minutes, oh, that's great. Shalom. So am I. That's what I would want to say, because scripture does say that we are the descendants of Abraham through faith. We are the true spiritual Jews.

[Zachary Conover]

We are the circumcision.

[Luke the Bear]

Exactly. The circumcision of the heart. And so if I had time, theologically, I'd need time. You're so boxed to build that. But what I wanted to do is basically say, oh, you're a professing Jew. You believe in the Old Testament scriptures. Well, shalom l'. Chaim. So am I. Yeah, exactly. And so that's great. So we have the common ground of the scriptures. Right. And I said so as a Jew who believes in the Old Testament scriptures. Well, the scriptures say image of God uniquely formed in the wombs of our mothers, and we shall show no partiality. That's what Moses said. And so, hey, hey, if we're Jewish here, that's what the scriptures say. Right. So what I was trying to do there is get her to the internal critique to show her Something she can't say. I'm a Jew, and I believe Moses and the prophets, and I also believe that we can execute our image bearers of God in our womb. Because what I wanted to show her by way of an internal critique is you can't have the inspired revelation of God through Moses and the prophets and your Jewish rabbinic tradition together because they conflict with each other. And I say that in a moment.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

To her was the same point that can be used in terms of our Jewish brothers and sisters. Where there was a time in history where there was a class of people that drew a circle around themselves, the Germans, the ss, and said that we can oppress our Jewish brothers and sisters, that we can treat them with abuse, we can kill them. My point, representative, was that we've had this problem in history many times over, where a class of human beings says to another class of human beings, we can oppress you, we can kill you.

[Luke the Bear]

We can murder you.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

And what we're saying with this bill is that every human being is made in God's image and deserves to be equally protected.

[Luke the Bear]

Sure, everyone died.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Women, men, children.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

I understand that. But Judaism does not posit that life begins at fertilization. It says that it's like water until 40 days. And the way you know this is, look at Israel. Abortion is readily available and it's free. So when. Please don't misstate what my religion tells me.

[Luke the Bear]

Okay, real quick. Isn't it fascinating, and I want to say this as humbly as I can, that this Jewish representative who is challenging me on the issue of abortion while I'm using the scripture she says she believes, understood immediately the point that I was making, that I was actually refuting her profession of Judaism, because Judaism has as its basis a profession of a commitment of the Old Testament scriptures, the law and the prophets. So how is it that some people didn't understand what was happening here, but the Jewish person did? How did she catch what I was doing? She understood because she said, don't try to tell me what my religion says. Because she saw. Wait a minute. He's saying that I'm not actually, I'm not believing the right things as a Jew or my. My religion says something differently. Oh, actually, you know, if you were. If you were truly a Jewish who believed in the law and the prophets, you would believe what I'm saying to you. You would believe what I believe because it's what the scriptures say. She caught it. She caught the critique. How come others haven't is the challenge that I have. And we're going to get to that in a little bit here. But more to say here is my duty.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

If I am at risk, if my life is at risk, I may not only be, it may not only be suggested of me to have an abortion, but required of me to have an abortion because a life in being, my life takes priority over something that is not, has not been born yet. So how do I exercise my religious liberty under your bill if it was adopted?

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Well, this answer.

[Luke the Bear]

Thank you for the question, representative, but.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

The answer to two of those main questions. The first one is that when I was referring to Judaism, the Jewish religion is based upon the Old Testament scriptures, the law and the prophets.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

I am well aware.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

There's no question that the view that came later you're describing is not in the law and the prophets, it's later Jewish tradition. That's just the point I want to make to that. The next point is.

[Luke the Bear]

So what happened there? I said Judaism is supposed to be based upon the law and the prophets. And what does she say? I'm well aware of that. Yeah. So what were we trying to do there with a biblical presuppositional apologetic methodology is answer the fool according to their folly. And she sees it. She says, don't tell me why religion, what my religion says. So she saw that I was giving her the internal critique, you're not being consistent. And I said, your religion is supposed to be based on the law and the prophets. And she says, I'm well aware of that. Great. So that's your foundation. And then I said, I'm going to.

[Zachary Conover]

Hold you to that.

[Luke the Bear]

And here's what you espouse, here's what I said. And what you're saying is a later Jewish tradition that is not found in the scriptures. What is that? That is every presuppositional apologist knows an internal critique. That's what we're supposed to be doing if we're reasoning from the scriptures with a biblical methodology of argumentation. That is again basic level. Week one, presuppositional apologetic methodology. If you don't know this, you don't have any business a saying that you are a presuppositional apologist and you shouldn't, shouldn't be teaching anybody how to do it because this is just basic level stuff. This is like when you teach someone to drive a car. You say this is your key and you put it in the ignition and you turn it. That's like this isn't advanced level stuff. This is internal critique week. Everybody gets this. I'll bet if you go to Dr. Bonson's biblical or, sorry, Basic Introduction to Biblical Apologetics or something like that, it's in Bonson U. It's get your Bonsing u account@ apologiastudios.com it's totally for free. Somewhere in there. I'd say it's probably, maybe in the first, I guess, I'm guessing probably five, five lectures. It's probably there. That's a guess. But I think it's probably somewhere ground level stuff. Now what? I thought you made a great comment. It was so wild. Dude, you catch stuff that I do not catch all the time. Like I truly benefit from listening to you all the time because you do catch things that I just get way too mellow headed and I miss.

[Zachary Conover]

Which one wasn't? I need to know.

[Luke the Bear]

You said after all this now, I, I, it happened in the hearing. Like I kept pressing the humanity drawing circles and then right, right, a Jew comes up and says abortion, abortion, abortion. And I go, no, they did it to your, your people. And then after her it's a black woman. And I go, well, they did it to your people too. And I was just trying to just be consistent. But then you posted like the most amazing thing was what?

[Zachary Conover]

Just that point. Like it took me a minute after watching it for it to click.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

I'm like, what did I just witness? Like, you laid down the historical aspect of these specific people groups being oppressed in history. It's undeniable. You can't argue that this happened. There was certain groups of people, they were oppressed and devalued based on genetics, skin color, arbitrary characteristics. And what did we do? We drew circles around ourselves to protect ourselves, but we didn't extend those same protections to our fellow man. That was the point that you made. That was the opening statement that you made. And then what happens right after that? You have two people from those same historical example people groups that you proposed who got up and then drew a circle around themselves in the attempt to say this group of people over here, these preborn children, they're subhuman.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

Just like you had to your people groups done.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

People looked at your group and they said, not worthy of life, not worthy of protection. And then you stand up claiming to morally decry such behavior and then embody the same conviction yourself by looking at this group of people and saying subhuman, not worthy of life, not a person. How does she put it? Not a person in being, a life, in being.

[Luke the Bear]

Right.

[Zachary Conover]

That's not the one we are going to Protect because I'm the life in being. This is a potential life. Or it's water until 40 days.

[Luke the Bear]

Right.

[Zachary Conover]

It's just rhetoric.

[Luke the Bear]

It's just.

[Zachary Conover]

You're just throwing out rhetoric.

[Luke the Bear]

Absolutely. Asinine. Yeah. No, I was so glad you said that, because it didn't dawn on me to, like, the next day when you said that, I was like, oh, that did happen. It was a Jewish woman and a black woman. I didn't like literally doing the very thing that they decry. It was crazy.

[Zachary Conover]

I forgot exactly what I said. But it was something to that effect.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

It took me a minute to realize what had just happened.

[Luke the Bear]

It took me to read your post before I realized it happened.

[Zachary Conover]

Like, you're, you're, you're giving these examples and let me see this. So this is exactly right, what I wrote. Master Ninja, use the historical examples of oppression found in the Holocaust and slavery, examples of dehumanization. Then a Jewish lady and a black lady chastised him by dehumanizing babies in the womb, proving in real time the point that he was making about abortion being the human rights issue of our time. They're so blind, they couldn't even see the connection. They're standing there saying, these humans, not worthy. And then they can't see. They're so blind spiritually that they can't see the connection right in their own experience. And then they look back in the past and say, evil, immoral. Never happen again, Will never allow it again. And then chastise you for taking up the mantle of their people and saying, no, you don't get to speak for my people.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah, right, right. You don't get to do that. Yeah. What are you gonna say?

[Pastor Luke]

Well, I was just gonna say you were in the moment. So being able to connect the dots like that in real time is.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah, I didn't feel it at the moment. I was just. Okay, trying to argue for.

[Pastor Luke]

And the black lady comes later. Right?

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah, she's right after this. Right, right, right. Oh, by the way, I want to make one comment. I saw a few people questioning why was I referring to Jews as our brothers and sisters and just blacks as our brothers and sisters in humanity.

[Zachary Conover]

I'm glad you called, fellow image bearer of God.

[Luke the Bear]

What was I.

[Zachary Conover]

Okay, should we say that instead?

[Luke the Bear]

I, I, I recognize that when I'm speaking to a Jewish person who denies Christ, she is not my sister in, in my spiritual brethren, and neither is any unbeliever. But, however, what was I doing on that day? I'm trying to walk in there to Represent these human beings who are being slaughtered, who are black, white, all kinds of different colors. And what I was trying to emphasize in coming up there is that we are all brothers and sisters in humanity here. We're dealing with humanity. We are all brothers and sisters in humanity. So I just want to make that point. A few people were like, they're not my brother or sister. And I was like, I understand that. I understand that a Jewish person who denies Christ is not my brother or sister in Christ. But in humanity, we're all of the same blood.

[Pastor Luke]

It doesn't matter the skin color.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Pastor Luke]

Or religion.

[Luke the Bear]

We all go back to the same parents. And so what I was trying to do here in this hearing was emphasize our familial connection in humanity. That's why I was referring to brothers and sisters, because we are one human race and of one blood. And so that's, by the way, I might have bothered some people. I didn't mean to offend anybody. Yes, of course. I believe that you have to be in Christ to truly be part of, you know, the brethren, spiritual brothers and sisters. I was just trying to speak in terms of humanity.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

This particular bill says nothing towards the case that you're bringing up where your life is in danger. This bill is about equal protection for all human beings in the womb. It's about the preservation of life. If your life were in danger because of a pregnancy, in very rare instances, very infinitesimally.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

I'm not just talking about physically, emotionally, psychologically. Those are exceptions which allow a Jewish woman to have an abortion if they need one.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

If I may respond to. That's a very good point. We wouldn't in our current justice system, allow a woman who murders her six year old child by drowning him in the bathtub to get away with the argument. I was emotionally struggling. I didn't feel like I could care for this baby.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

You know, that's not the same thing. I'm talking about things.

[Luke the Bear]

Right. Except it is.

[Zachary Conover]

Yeah.

[Luke the Bear]

Except it is the same thing. That's the point I was making.

[Zachary Conover]

You'd say also this is a part of the internal critique.

[Luke the Bear]

Yep.

[Zachary Conover]

This is the story of the world that you're supposed to be believing in. Okay. And all I'm doing is holding you to that.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

You said, I believe this. This is my story of the world. Or this is your story of the world. And now you have to carry that with you. Like you can't contradict it, you can't go against it.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

This is your profession.

[Luke the Bear]

So I'm trying to appeal to the common ground we would have with the mother who drowns her six year old child in the bathtub. I know that if I asked the legislator after the hearing, hey, if a mother drowns her six year old child in the bathtub, but she said that she just was having an emotional day and she just couldn't emotionally handle the 6 year old any longer. Can, can she get away with that in court? Like that excuse to murder the child? She would 100% say, Absolutely not. There's the common ground. Okay, great. Now ready? Take the same human. Same human, biological human. Put them in the womb. All right, can she kill it then? Can she kill the baby then? And she said, well, yes. Okay, so I'm trying to show by internal critique that you're being inconsistent because it's still a human there and a human there. So what's the difference? What's the difference? And so when she says, you know, that's not the same thing, my answer is, oh, yes, it is the same thing. We're talking about a human being in the womb and a human being outside the womb.

[Pastor Luke]

Location.

[Luke the Bear]

It's just location and development.

[Zachary Conover]

Yeah. What you're saying is that we're all equal, just some more than others.

[Luke the Bear]

Exactly. And so, so, okay, there's more.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

An unborn child compared to an un. Let me finish my question, please. An unborn child versus a life in being, which would be, I mean, she.

[Pastor Luke]

Even called it a child.

[Zachary Conover]

Yeah, that's just rhetoric.

[Pastor Luke]

She even called it a child.

[Zachary Conover]

Consider it another euphemism.

[Luke the Bear]

What does that mean, a life and being? Because, ready. The baby in the womb has both life and being. Yeah, Life and human nature both. And so what does this mean, a life in being? That was, I think, I don't know if she made that up on the spot, but I would like to, if, like I said, if I had 20 minutes, I'd say, by the way, the human being in the womb has both life and being.

[Zachary Conover]

I think she translated to say this person that I ascribe value to.

[Luke the Bear]

Exactly, exactly.

[Zachary Conover]

Arbitrarily.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

The mother.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah. So.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

So under your bill, could I exercise my religious liberty? If I felt along in consultation with my rabbi that I needed an abortion, my doctor, that I needed an abortion for survival, whether that's physical survival or mental survival.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

And the point I was making to you is that the human being in the womb.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

This is, this is something you can answer with a yes or no. Under my hypothetical and your bill, could I exercise my religious liberty?

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

We don't believe that anybody has the Right. To, with malice of forethought, take the life of another human being in an unjustified manner. So equal protection for all humans means that no, nobody can say to another human being, I'm going to take your life with malice of forethy thought in an unjustified manner.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

Okay, so your answer is no? I can't. If I believe that, I can't kill your baby?

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

No.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

Okay.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

So Jews and other religions who don't believe in your version of when life starts are. Are screwed under your bill.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

All biological science teaches that life begins at fertilization. That's an unassailable, indisputable fact. It's incontrovertible. It's. It's a biological fact.

[Luke the Bear]

And you see her face there pushes her microwave because she can't respond to that. Brothers and sisters, take note of that. That, when I say is unassailable, can't be disputed. Incontrovertible. That's the truth. That's why all she can do is push her microphone away. Okay. Right. Because it doesn't matter what your religion teaches you. There are all kinds of religions that teach a lot of hot garbage. I mean, there are some weird Luciferian satanic cults that do some crazy blood rituals and even human sacrifices. They have been known to do that. People have gone to jail for it. Can they argue in the legislature or say before a judge, well, you know, the reason I engaged in this child sacrifice or human sacrifice and this blood ritual is because my religion allows me to kidnap people and to slaughter them on the altar to Lucifer. Do we allowed it? Are we allowed to just have that kind of diversity with religion in this nation?

[Zachary Conover]

That's the most concerning thing about the usage of this terminology. Are you saying I can't, I can't exercise my religious liberty? Well, if your religious liberty means committing murder, then no.

[Luke the Bear]

Right.

[Zachary Conover]

Like you, you don't have the religious right to commit a crime. And that's why it baffles my mind that there are some Christians who believe we can still fight this apart from our faith commitments.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

Like we can walk into this environment and be neutral when legislators, not just people sitting down, but legislators, are appealing to their religious liberty to commit murder.

[Luke the Bear]

Right.

[Zachary Conover]

That's where we're at.

[Pastor Luke]

Well, what if your religious liberty says Jews are the scourge of the earth?

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Pastor Luke]

And they deserve to die.

[Zachary Conover]

Right.

[Luke the Bear]

Are they allowed to practice their religious liberty? Exactly. Exactly the point. And that's by the way. There you go. Fantastic internal critique by Pastor Luke there. Internal critique. Take their System, drive it into the ground. Right. Show their car how it can crash. By the way, it'd be also, I think, useful if I had more time to point out to her that, well, as a Jew who accepts Moses, I would think your religion states clearly that thou shalt not murder. I mean, that's what Moses said, is thou shalt not murder.

[Pastor Luke]

Yeah, I would hope she would hold to the command.

[Luke the Bear]

I mean, yeah, if we're going to be Jewish, let's be Jewish all the way. I mean, I think Moses was a good Jew. What do you think? Like, we should probably listen to Moses. And so there's the conversation with her. And it ended quickly right there. And this was the next piece. It's a little shorter.

[Moderator/Host]

But I appreciate, for the sake of moving on, I think both may just have to agree. Disagree on them finer points. If you don't want to talk offline. I respect the member and the gentleman.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

I have no problem disagreeing with someone until they try to put their version, their values on me.

[Luke the Bear]

And now let's bite. Let's try that. What was happening in this moment is you actually had. She says, you know, I have no problem disagreeing until they try to put their values on me. No, no. Let's make sure this is clear. There were actually two values being imposed in this moment. One person's value being imposed was that all human beings should be protected in the state of Georgia from fertilization, no matter their size, no matter their color, no matter their development, no matter their social status. Every human being here needs to have equal protection, no partiality. And that was my value being imposed. There was another value being imposed here. Her value being imposed was that, no, we actually can oppress this class of human beings and we can slaughter them. And so there were two values being imposed. This pretended neutrality of, like, we're not imposing values here, and like, he's just trying to impose his values. That's what happens at legislatures. The imposition of morality is that all legislation is the imposition of a moral ought. You're saying we ought to do this. This is what we're required to do morally to protect these people, to protect this land, to protect this water, to do whatever the case may be. Everything is a love your neighbor situation. It is a moral issue. It is an imposition of value. When the Supreme Court decided that they were going to approve of Gay Mirage, they were imposing their values. So this whole. This. This fictitious world that she wants to live in, like, I don't have any problem, you know, disagreeing, but until someone imposes values. Make no mistake about it, we were both imposing values. She's doing. And what was the. What would be the result of the two imposed values? My imposed value would lead to the preservation of life in Georgia. No murder allowed her imposition of value. Her values being imposed would lead to the slaughter of human beings.

[Zachary Conover]

Second holocaust.

[Luke the Bear]

Right, Exactly. And so make no mistake about it, what's happening in that room is the imposition of values. But she wants to impose her values over all of the residents of Georgia. And it would lead to death. What would my value lead to? Life. Make no mistake about it. It's life and it's death. And we're both trying to impose something. There is no neutrality.

[Moderator/Host]

Yeah.

[Luke the Bear]

Stop pretending.

[Zachary Conover]

Set before you today. Life and death. Choose life.

[Luke the Bear]

That's right. Here we go.

[Moderator/Host]

Represent panich.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

[Moderator/Host]

I don't think there's going to be consensus between the gentleman on this. So if you don't mind, we'll move on.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Thank you for the question, Representative Number five.

[Moderator/Host]

Representative.

[Luke the Bear]

Thank you.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

You mentioned about your perceived history of black women and exterminate the black race. Do you identify as being black or African American?

[Zachary Conover]

Now the question is that.

[Luke the Bear]

Now what do you think I wanted to say here? What do you think I wanted to say here? I. Listen, here's the thing. I promised our legislator that I was going to be nice and as gentle and as respectful, but as bold as I could. What do you think I wanted to say here? I wanted to say that for the purposes of your question, I now identify as a strong black woman.

[Zachary Conover]

That's the internal critique on a red line.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

Like the RPM is like.

[Luke the Bear]

But I didn't. Here's what I said.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Do I.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

Yes.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Well, I think it's pretty obvious that I, I share a different, different kind of count of melanin.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

Okay. So that, that being said, you know, I, I am African American and so, you know, I respectfully disagree with your. Your assessment and, and using our race as, as an argument for.

[Luke the Bear]

I appreciate that.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Which part do you disagree with so I can maybe respond.

[Luke the Bear]

Every single bit of it.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

You don't agree that slavery happened in America, that white people oppress black people.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

What's that got to do with abortion?

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

My point, Representative, thank you for the question was that in history we have drawn circles around classes of people. White people did it to unfortunately and abominably to your ancestors. White people drew a circle around themselves and said, we will be the humans that will have the rights and equal protection, but we will draw a smaller circle around our black brothers and sisters and oppress them.

[Representative Esther Panitch]

You don't get changed the narrative. You just leave to talk about that's what happened.

[Luke the Bear]

Change the narrative.

[Zachary Conover]

It's not a narrative.

[Pastor Luke]

It's.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah, change the narrative.

[Pastor Luke]

There's no narrative changing going on. It's just you're stating history and you're.

[Zachary Conover]

Drawing from that parallels like, are we not all brought up in the school system with a very sanitized view of this whole thing? But one thing we were told was never again.

[Luke the Bear]

Right.

[Zachary Conover]

We can never allow an atrocity like this to happen again. And then here we are. Which is your point.

[Luke the Bear]

Point. Right.

[Zachary Conover]

We've been here in history.

[Pastor Luke]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

And here we are again.

[Luke the Bear]

You don't get to change the narrative. I'm sorry.

[Pastor Luke]

Demonstrated that this woke agenda is done with.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah. Also, what was. What was their point about saying, you know, do you identify as black or African American? What. What the point?

[Pastor Luke]

So you're not allowed to say it.

[Luke the Bear]

Unless I can only speak. So plan only people who own plantations can speak on the issue of. Of slavery. Right, Right. Or could we do that argument as well? Like you don't own a plantation, so you don't get a say in this because that argument was made aid. You know, you don't. You know what I'm dealing with.

[Zachary Conover]

Well, it's the same if, you know, if you're not a woman, you can't speak about abortion. It's the same fallacious reasoning.

[Luke the Bear]

Exactly, exactly. You know, you can try that any number of ways on injustice. I mean, what if the male rapists. What do people said well, to women. Well, you know, you really can't speak against the injustice of rape because you're not the one. You're not the male doing it. You know, really. Does it take gender to speak on issues of justice or is justice, justice, justice? So, okay, here we go. Final words.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Okay, yeah, we. I would just say in final words of that is that I believe that all human beings have a duty to stand for justice, no matter the size, no matter the level of development, no matter the color of another human being. I believe that what made slavery such an abomination was that human beings deserve to be equally protected and show no partiality. That's what's happening in abortion. It happened unfortunately in America with slavery. It happened unfortunately in the Holocaust.

[Moderator/Host]

Okay. Rev. Zev Kander, Revze Kendrick. Remember questions. We'll come back for commentary.

[Luke the Bear]

Right.

[Moderator/Host]

All right. Thanks, sir.

[Pastor Jeff Durbin]

Thank you, sir.

[Luke the Bear]

Thank you.

[Zachary Conover]

And it's what she's doing right now. Partiality.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Pastor Luke]

Yep.

[Luke the Bear]

All right. So, okay, we want to go too much longer here. Pastor Luke and I have counseling sessions right now, so I'm going to try to make sure I do this quickly as possible. All right, so I'm gonna just make some quick comments to Brother Joel Webbin and something he said on X after this was posted. And I, I thought about making commentary on this and I thought, I hesitated at first, and I thought, no, this is actually good for the church because it does teach an important methodological principle and something that we're, we've been all about for over a decade here at Apologia Radio. Well, over two decades, actually, in, in my life. And that is presuppositional apologetics and the presuppositional methodology. And so I thought this would be helpful. So first thing I'm going time is somebody said at the beginning of this show, we put it up in the chat, like, what's the beef between Joel and Jeff? I challenge you to go look through my posts and look through our videos and find any beef between Joel and Jeff. And you will find goose egg. And, and so, yeah, you know, the, the making a commentary off of Joel's public comments doesn't have to be beef or any kind of conflict. And I will have, you know, and I'm sure Joel's going to see this and Joel will affirm this. Joel and I spoke on the phone about two weeks ago Joel and I spoke on the phone about two weeks ago for about an hour and affirmed our love for each other and even affirmed our commitment that we have no problem engaging with each other's public comments. I want to say ahead of time, this isn't about personalities or anything like that in conflict. I affirm my love for Joel. He affirmed his love for me. We do have some significant disagreements right now. I'm very concerned with some of the things that I've seen. And I told Joe that Joel that to his face, and he received that well. And, and we committed that, yeah, we're both fine with making public comments on each other's theology or beliefs. And so Joel and I have already committed that this is how we'll approach this. And so if somebody thinks this is some big controversy, I want to stop you right there in your tracks and say, Joel and I already talked two weeks ago. He and I are perfectly fine with this. Joel made the public comment, so I'm going to address it.

[Moderator/Host]

It.

[Pastor Luke]

Okay, yeah, I say I, I even commented thing because people are like, oh, you're bashing him again. It's like, well, we haven't one and two. And I want to make this distinction. There's. There's a tremendous difference between saying something about Joel and saying something about something he has said.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Pastor Luke]

One is personal, one's objective. We're not engaging in the personal stuff. So you can't, you can't combine the two. You have to separate them. There's a dichotomy, and you have to think and categories.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah. And please make note of this, that what I'm doing here is we posted a public video of the hearing. Joel posted a public comment on X criticizing. And so Joel made a comment first. And so we're going to respond to Joel's perspective here. This isn't about personalities and conflict. This is dealing with. I see what I. With what I see as a failure and an approach in methodology. Okay, so here it is. He said on X, according to this woman and many other Jews, abortion is a Jewish value. Then Joel goes on to say, you cannot combat this evil by appealing to common ground that does not exist. And the first thing I would say to Joel is, joel, I thought you were a presuppositionalist now, perhaps. And I don't know this. I think I haven't talked to Joel about this myself. I've seen him make some comments, and I don't know if he's moved away from his commitment to presuppositional apologetics. And so I don't know. So forgive me, Joel, I don't quite know where you're at anymore on this question, but regardless of where you're currently at on apologetic methodology, to say you cannot combat this evil by appealing to common ground that does not exist. Anybody who has studied presuppositional methodology knows that. Again, one of the first things you learn is to deal with the common ground issues. When you're doing an internal critique, you have to go to that ground. So Joel says, you cannot combat this evil by appealing to common ground that does not exist. Okay, so what I said to this Jewish representative, this professing Jewish representative, was that we're supposed to share the Old Testament scriptures. So here's the question. Ready? Is there common ground between Jews? Yes. To deny that is to deny reality. Jewish people of whatever stripe or tribe will say that they hold to the Torah and the Tanakh, that they believe in the Old Testament Scriptures. To say that we have no common ground with a professing Jew is to deny fundamentally reality. They have the Old Testament Scriptures and they profess to believe it. Now, we're not saying that they do it consistently, obviously, because they reject Christ as Mashiach, of course. But to say you don't have common ground is a denial of reality. And I would say further, Further, I would say that study the Apostle Paul's methodology at Mars Hill, the Areopagus, and do we not see the Apostle Paul appealing to common ground with pagans? Yeah, but wait a minute now. Wait a minute now. You can't combat the evil of idolatry by a common ground with the idolaters. That doesn't exist. Well, according to the Apostle Paul, there was common ground between the Christians and the pagans and the idolaters. Because what does he do at Mars Hill?

[Zachary Conover]

Know, he's quoting their poets.

[Luke the Bear]

He quotes Eradicusia and Epimenides of Crete. He's like, even your own poets say this. What's he doing? He's appealing to the common ground. You guys say this, too. We're supposed to be in the same area on this. Even you guys, your poets, your own people say this. Eradicus of Cilicia and up Minis of Crete, you know them, right? We're all the offspring of God. You guys get this. So was Paul wrong on Mars Hill when he went to pagans and he appealed to common ground with pagans? So again, I just struggle with this because Joel has for years said that he was presuppositional. But the fact that he couldn't see the apologetic methodology happening here is interesting. And to say that we do not have common ground with a Jew is interesting because I can give you two points of contact of common ground with a Jew. Ready? Number one, one image of God. God's world. God's image can't escape God. Common ground. Second point is they profess to hold to the same Scriptures that we do. I'm not saying they are affirming all the things that they ought to from those scriptures, but they say they believe in those scriptures. That's common ground. It is fundamentally erroneous to say there is no common ground. It doesn't exist. It does exist. Christians must become perfectly comfortable responding, your Jewish values do not matter because Judaism is evil. Well, I don't think that I've seen Joel before any legislatures doing anything like this. I know that Joel is a Christian nationalist and he says all these things, but I don't recall. We were in Texas recently. Joel is not far from the Capitol. He knew the bill was going on. Joel wasn't there. I hope that he does show up in the future for the stuff that's happening in his state. To speak to the magistrates. But I haven't seen Joel do any of these sorts of things. I hope that he does start doing them. We need more Christians to go before legislatures and oppress the crown rights of Christ. So I do hope that Joel does. Haven't seen him do it anywhere, but he's making recommendations of how people ought to be doing these things. I would say, joel, I hope you start doing it. And I would say that you're welcome to try this. I don't think that it's effective, and I don't think that it actually follows the call to apologia that we receive in first Peter, chapter three, verse 15. And that is for Christians to always be ready to give a reasoned defense to everyone who asks of us a reason for the hope that's within us, and to do it with gentleness and with reverence. I don't think that going into a legislature where the stakes are so high and the issue is life and death, and we're talking about abortion and a professing Jewish person comes up, I don't think the most effective thing to do is to simply say, well, your question is irrelevant because Judaism is evil. You're welcome to try it. You're welcome to try it. But that doesn't seem to follow the apologetic methodology of the Lord Jesus. When he's fielding questions from people who are antagonists, he deals with their arguments and what they say, and he shows the internal incoherence and he refutes what they're saying. When he gives parables, he gives parables to people to understand, hey, everybody, this is their story. And how do you feel about that? Right?

[Zachary Conover]

And chastises them for not believing the Scriptures.

[Luke the Bear]

What does Jesus do, like, when he gives parables to the Jewish leadership in Matthew, chapters 22, moving through 23 or 21, when he gives the parables, and he starts giving, hey, there's this. There's this guy, he's a landowner and he's sending people to get fruit from the vineyard. And he keeps sending one. They beat one stone one another. Oh, here's the son. Let's kill him and take his inheritance. What do you think the owner of the vineyard is going to do when he finds out, oh, they're going to. He's going to destroy those miserable wretches and give it to others who will bear the fruit of it. And he goes, right, and that's you. So Jesus doesn't just. Jesus gives parables. Jesus gives stories. Jesus shows them the internal critique of their own system. He makes them look at their feet. When Jesus is giving parables, he makes them look at their feet. When they ask questions, he undoes what they're trying to do with their questions by challenging their thinking in the story.

[Zachary Conover]

I can think of a specific example where he's chastising his audience and said he has this line of interrogation where it's like, you're supposed to know these things. Like you say that you hold to these, but you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.

[Luke the Bear]

Right.

[Zachary Conover]

If you had believed what was written, then you would know what's happening. So what is that if not an appeal to. This is supposed to be our shared foundation. God said this would happen and you believe him because you say he's your God.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah.

[Zachary Conover]

And this is his revelation of himself.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah. So I would say that I am opposed to this kind of thinking where you say that there is no common ground. And I'm fundamentally opposed to it because you see it throughout Scriptures, the prophets, the apostles, appealing to common ground in various contexts. And again, I would say as a presuppositional apologist, if somebody. I've taught presuppositional apology apologetics in churches across the world and in Bible colleges and seminaries and universities across the world. I've defended the Christian faith as a presuppositional apologist. And in various contexts, a number of times, university contexts. And I'm opposed to this kind of thinking of there's no common ground. Because I would say as a presuppositional apologist, you should know that there absolutely is. And it's. I find it strange that Joel, who says he's a presuppositional apologist, again, I don't know where he's at currently, doesn't understand that. And so I wonder, I wonder about Joel's commitments to presuppositional apologetics, whether he understood it to begin with. Because every presuppositional apologist should know what I was doing. And watch this. Here's the thing. Ready? I am not the standard. Right. There are much better men than me at the presuppositional apologetic methodology. I've been taught by them. And so I'm not the standard. I've been taught by men that are much better than me, stronger men, more intellectual men than me. But my point is, is we're all supposed to know this. I mean, this is like ground level stuff. And to not understand that or to fundamentally deny the common ground aspect means that you reject some of the foundational things of presuppositional apologetics. Which makes me say, did you understand it in the first place and do you really believe it now? And if you didn't understand it, you should have never been teaching it because clearly. And Joel knows I love him. But this was. If you're. If you're a presuppositional apologist, this statement here was embarrassing. And it shows that you should certainly never be teaching it. And so what I would say is, Joel, if you're still presuppositional apologist, please don't teach anybody right now. I would say go back to the drawing board. Again, I'm not the standard, but this is just basic level stuff. And you should know this.

[Zachary Conover]

I would say just in addition to that, the only thing I would add is we're not the standard. Nobody is. But I find it very encouraging to point out the fact, again, asking the question here, when was the last time we've seen this kind of Christian methodology in the halls of a legislature, used on legislators to account for their perspective? Like, when has that been done in such a way now as we have the gift to actually broadcast it to the world and show people that if you do stand on your foundations as a Christian, then you can be faithful and expose the futility therein with your opponents. And there was one more thing I was gonna say. I think it's the difference also between perhaps there's not an understanding of it, the system fully, but also there's a very, very big difference between understanding it in theory and then applying it in the world, on the street, in the legislature, to witness it for as long as I have to see it in action. There's a difference between understanding the propositions conceptually and then embodying the approach and applying it to the unbeliever. Yeah, that's what I would say.

[Luke the Bear]

And I would say just quickly. I'm sorry, Luke, just quickly. To that point, everybody should Note that for 20 years you've seen the videos from Paul Geostudios of us by the grace of God, being able to go out to do evangelism and actually have a recording device so you can see the evangelism, be blessed by that and see people in those cults, various cults, come to Christ. You've seen us say with just the Mormons applying the same methodology. When someone says, because like, I'll give you another one. Ready? Jews today, the Talmud Jewish tradition says that Jesus is not the son of God, didn't die for sins, didn't rise from the dead, and he is burning an excrement in hell. That's evil without question. Absolutely. But Mormonism says that Jesus Christ is not the eternal God. He's one God among many gods. He's the product of a sexual relationship between Elohim, one of his goddess wives. Jesus is Lucifer's brother, Jesus. We can go on for that. It's. That's also sinful, evil, disgusting, evil stuff. However, when we go to the Jewish Temple, sorry, Jewish Temple, the Mormon Temple and the Easter pageant to talk to hundreds of thousands of Mormons and hand out tracts, what do we do as we talk to them? We appeal to the common ground. So when they say, well, what are you saying is wrong? We go, well, you say in your quad that you affirm the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. Well, yeah, I believe the Bible. Great, okay. In the Bible it says in Isaiah 43:10, before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. What am I doing there with the Mormon? Same thing. Appealing to the common ground. They say they believe these scriptures. They're holding it and they've got it in a quad. So I'm appealing to the common ground and then showing the internal critique and saying, but that statement is inconsistent with Joseph's statement in the King Fallout discourse and in Pearl of Great Price. And so I'm appealing to the common ground there too. I'm not saying that they really believe it. I'm saying that they say they believe it and I'm trying to show them the internal critique so they can come to Christ. There's no difference here in terms of the appeal either to the professing Jewish or to the Mormon. And I would say when someone says again that there's no common ground existing between us and professing Jews, go to a Jewish bookstore. Go to a Jewish bookstore and see if you find the Torah and the Tanakh. I think you'll find it. I mean, to say there's no common ground is absolute absurdity. They say they believe in the Old Testament scriptures. I'm not saying they're doing it faithfully, but that's their profession. And that's always being pressed against this woman. And here's what I would say as graciously as I can, I dare you to go into a legislature and try to pull that your Jewish values do not matter because Judaism is evil. What kind of argumentation is that? How about what I think is better is you demonstrate before the legislature and the watching world that her profession as a Jewish legislature legislator is false, that she's actually not being truly Jewish, that she doesn't hold to what she says she holds to. How about what's better is that as a Christian apologist I refute her position. I bring that that's coming against the knowledge of Christ and the protection of these children. I bring it into absurdity. I refute it in front of the other legislators that you're not truly Jewish. I am, I am. I'm being the true spiritual Jew here. I'm the offspring of Abraham, I'm the descendant of Abraham, not you. I'm the one holding to the Jewish scriptures. You say you're Jewish but you're not, you're lying. I'm the true spiritual Jew here. That's what ultimately I'm trying to do.

[Pastor Luke]

Yeah. And just kind of wrap this conversation but trying to just kind of think through this objectively here. And obviously the whole point of pre sub is to find that common ground and then to point out that the foundation of that common ground is not what they think it is, you know, from an objective perspective. But I think what, what's concerning is what Joel's saying here actually is basically the same as saying that Jew, that person doesn't deserve to live because they're a Jew and they're evil, that person's black, they're evil, they don't matter. It's the same, it's like taking that same mindset, right, that were that you were attacking when it comes to abortion but then applying to, applying that to them because of their skin color until you don't matter because you're a Jew, you don't matter because you're black. And you just got done saying how all life matters regardless of your, your race, your creed. And then, and then to apply that then into this argument, it smacks of the same, the same mindset, the same thought process and that's what's concerning to us. If we start heading that down that direction. And like you said, you can't just, you can't just go in an argument and just say, oh, you're evil, you don't matter.

[Luke the Bear]

Right.

[Pastor Luke]

Your thoughts don't matter because you're inherently evil.

[Luke the Bear]

How about we, how about we bring down every argument that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ.

[Pastor Luke]

Right?

[Luke the Bear]

How about we bring it down.

[Pastor Luke]

Yeah.

[Luke the Bear]

And not just say it's evil. Like the atheist goes, what about this evil? What's this evil? What's this evil? How about we show to the image bearer of God that they know better, appeal to their conscience, their God given conscience and appeal to what they ought to know in terms of this is consistent and that's not consistent. We have to show that their system is bankrupt and foolish. That's the goal. So thank you everybody for watching today. I want to point everyone quickly to ionlayer.com ionlayer.com ion ionlayer.com go research the health benefits, longevity benefits of NAD treatments. Ion layer found a way to do it without an IV treatment. It's not as expensive. It is. It is substantially less expensive. Go research the fountain of youth nad. If you're focused in upon your health well being, longevity, NAD patches, medical patches, over a month it is. It'll bless you. Go research NAD treatments. When you go to ionlayer.com type in apologia in all caps and the coupon code. They hook you up with a discount and they bless apologia so we can continue doing this ministry. Don't forget to also go to the apologiastudios.com store. Get all the tracks, get all the T shirts and swag. All kinds of really good stuff. Luke just put up there as well. And what else, Luke?

[Pastor Luke]

Yeah, so one, we got reformed commerce three weeks away. So very excited for that. We got a lot going on the next few weeks. Trying to get ready for that and very, very excited. Gonna be great. So I of course want to mention I've been talking about Steward Stewart. Sorry, who's a good steward from page 50. He'll be there. He's been partnering with us. Page 50 is a full service marketing and media production company that wants to help Christians recapture the economic and civil spheres. They're doing some great work. Websites, SEO, video production, brand building, all that. You can go to page50.com that's P A G E50.com check them out. He's great. Then of course we got Amtec blades. Glad to be partnering with Bill Rapier, amazing brother and retired Navy Seal dev group.

[Luke the Bear]

Dev grew.

[Pastor Luke]

You go to amtech blades.com check. Get yourself a battle ax or blade to carry on you every day. Put apology in the coupon code, get 5% off and they will match that 5% to end abortion now to help save babies. And then of course Bradley Pierce who's doing all the bill writing for us for for our equal protection bills with Heritage Defense. Again, if you're homeschooling, Please go to heritage defense.org sign up. It's super affordable. Apology and the coupon code gets your first month free.

[Luke the Bear]

Yeah. All right everybody, thank you for watching and make sure you share the episode, especially that beautiful, beautiful story at the very beginning that happened at the legislature such a blessing. We're dropping a conversation tomorrow on Apologia Studios that I had at the University of Texas, Austin. Really great conversation. I think it'll bless you. So be on the lookout for that. That's Luke the Bear.

[Pastor Luke]

Peace out, everyone.

[Luke the Bear]

I'm the ninja. And that's Zachary Conover, director of communications with End Abortion. Now go to endabortionnow.com and sign up. Give there and pray, everybody, for what's coming in the next couple months. Thank you, guys.