← Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Ep 1153 | The Men on 'Love Is Blind' Need to Stop Compromising
01:08:37
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- [00:01]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Love is Blind Got Political. This season we are going to respond to the viral clips of liberal women leaving their conservative leaning fiance at the altar and talking about what it means, about where we are as 2 genders and where culture is in America. Also, I will be giving some free dating, relationship and marriage advice within that. Also, 1946, the documentary that claims that homosexuality is not actually forbidden in Scripture is making its rounds online. Again, we will be debunking its claims with the full thorough biblical response on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com code ali that's goodranchers.com code Ali hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and is having a wonderful, stressful start to your spring. I absolutely loathe the spring Ford time change. I just don't like it and I know every year people talk about legislation that would make a change on this and I just hope that one day it actually happens. Like do they not have the momentum? Do they not have the numbers? Every year we complain about this and I just appreciate the state of Arizona because it's really, really nice when it's so light so early and then we change it and then it's dark when you wake up and it's very demotivating, especially on a Monday. And so I just want you to know legislators out there, I am with you if you want to pass a law to make this silly time change thing that we do go away. Anyway, I apologize for the sound of this. We are recording remotely today as I'm sure you can, especially if you are watching it. But I appreciate how gracious you guys all are when it comes to that. We've got a lot to get to today. I just want to remind you if you haven't gotten your tickets for share the arrows 2025, do that now. October 11th we will be having our speaker drop very soon. Francesca Battistelli, Grammy Award winning artist will be back leading worship. It's going to be amazing. Even bigger than last year but we're keeping the simplicity and of course always keeping the hard hitting, clear, biblical, challenging teaching for women. Bring your small group, bring your family members. This is a women's conference only. If you've got different questions about the venue, about the logistics, all of that, we will put out an FAQ very soon. You can always reach out to customer service. But so grateful to you guys who have already bought your tickets who are planning to be there I am so pumped. It seems so far away. The fall seems forever away, but it's really going to be here before you know it. So go ahead and get your tickets because if we do sell out, we sell out. It's not one of those things where we have like an overflow room or anything like that. Go ahead, make your plans, book those flights, book those hotel rooms so you can get a good deal and join me at Share the Arrows 2025 in Dallas, Texas, October 11. I am so pumped about it. All right, let's get started on today's topics. You guys have been sending me these clips from Love is Blind. Love is Blind is a Netflix reality dating show. I think I watched season one few years ago. Was this like, was this born in during COVID if I remember correctly. I really could never get into it. I've never really liked dating shows. I mean, I think I watched the Bachelor a little bit in middle school when it started. I think maybe a little bit in high school. I think I watched one season in college and I've caught clips and the news about the Bachelor and the Bachelorette here and there for the past few years. It's just not my cup of tea. And neither is Love is Blind, but it's still going on. I didn't even know that it's still going on. And this past season have had some political moments. So this is what happens if you don't know anything about love is blind. 32 singles look for love without seeing the people they are getting to know. So they're talking through a wall. They recently aired its finale. So this is this Season eight aired its finale, which saw two liberal women leave their fiances at the altar because the men did not share their progressive values. That's the one weird thing about so many of these dating shows like the Bachelors that at the end of it, you are expected to propose or to get married to this person. Why can't you just say, yeah, we're going to date? And actually, it does seem like the contestants that have their heads screwed on right, who say we're not actually going to get married or get engaged right now. We're just going to date. See, if we really like and love each other, then we can move to that stage. Those people not only seem healthier and more stable, but they also seem to be more successful. I will shout out, though, that what's her name? Trista and Ryan from, I think season one of the Bachelorette, if I remember correctly. Or is it the Bachelor? I don't even know, but they're still together to this day. I think they've been married 20 plus years and they have kids and I think that's amazing. So I shouldn't hate on all of this unconditionally. I guess it can work for the right people, but it did not work for these couples. So this season of Love Is Blind is in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Over the first few episodes, this is roughly two weeks in real time. The singles have dates where they're separated by this wall. They can only hear each other, so they're asking all of these questions to each other to try to get to know the other one. 10 of the 32 cast members formed strong enough relationships to get engaged without ever meeting face to face to get engaged. See, I just think that that's so silly. After the five couples got engaged and saw each other for the first time, Netflix followed them as they vacationed together, met each other's families, and planned a wedding, all within a few weeks. So the premise is usually that the couples make it all the way to the altar and then each person decides whether or not to get married on the spot. But they're all dressed up like they're about to have a wedding. And if the premise is really that you haven't totally decided, but you're going to decide when you get to the altar, I think that makes a mockery of the seriousness of marriage. It's also just not good for you emotionally. You're supposed to only do that, make that huge investment emotionally, mentally, financially, spiritually, to get to the point of getting to the inception of your marriage when you really know when you're serious about it, not when you're still deciding. So there were only four couples who ended up actually making it to the altar. So five who said I wanted to get engaged, but four couples who made it to the altar. And the two that we're going to talk about today, Ben Mazinga and Sarah Carton and Virginia Miller and Devin Buckley. There were some political issues among these two couples that aired that caused a lot of discussion on X. And that's why you guys have been sending me these clips, to hear my thoughts about it. So this is Sarah during her blind date with Ben. She told him that social justice causes are important to her and that she doesn't like Ben's answers, that he just doesn't have strong opinions. Here's thought nine.
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Unnamed Participant
Like, I really didn't get into politics or like, I didn't get interested until Trump took office. And George Floyd, I'm like, kind of.
- [07:53]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Ignorant towards that stuff. Like, I didn't vote in the last election.
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Unnamed Participant
Like, as long as I don't know, it's not gonna, you know, do much. So that is so annoying.
- [08:02]
Allie Beth Stuckey
I'm sorry.
- [08:03]
Unnamed Participant
So George Floyd, that obviously hit home because George Floyd happened in Minneapolis. What are your thoughts on Black Lives Matter?
- [08:14]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Like, I'm not one way or another.
- [08:15]
Unnamed Participant
I just kind of keep out of it. I've just kind of been staying out of it. I don't like those answers, to be honest.
- [08:25]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Okay. To be fair to homegirl, I don't like those answers either. And if I were her, that would rub me the wrong way. Now, obviously I am the opposite of where she is. As we see later, she is not talking about, oh, I got interested in politics because I like Trump or because I am against the fraud that is blm, but because she believes in progressive causes, social justice, so called causes. And his response was, well, I don't really know what I think about that. I don't blame her for bringing that up. If that is something that's important to her. I think it is really important that she brought it up. And I think that he's a coward. I'm sorry. It is really. It would not be acceptable to me if I were on a date with someone and thank the Lord I have not had to go on a date in so long in over 10 years. And I brought up something that was that important to me, that was within the realm of morality and even spirituality. Since your politics is really going to be driven what you think about God and right and wrong and who created all of this and placed us here and made things for a purpose. And the person sitting across from me didn't have a good answer, basically was apathetic. I would be upset about that too. So don't blame her for bringing it up. And I don't blame her for saying that those answers were annoying. I do think that he should have had a position on these things. And I think that he does have a position on these things. I think that he liked this girl. He read the room. He knew probably that she was leaning left. Just reading in between the lines from what she said. He didn't want to lose it. And so he said, yeah, I just don't really care. To me, that's probably conservative coded, that he probably does lean to the right. He is at the very least center right. And so he says, well, I don't really care. That's something that conservatives do or people at least who lean right do when they don't want to offend the other person, but maybe they're not very strong in their convictions. I have heard guys before who are conservative, but they will put on their dating profile that they are moderate or that they are left leaning because they don't want to scare away the liberal girls. I think that's a horrible idea because if you don't really believe that, like if you are not really left leaning, if you're not really moderate and you end up dating someone who is, the values are going to clash and you're going to end up being miserable. I know that as a guy you're thinking, I can fix her and that is possible. I absolutely think that the best thing to happen to a liberal girl is to marry a conservative guy and move to the right. That's good for her. But I would never wish that upon a conservative guy. I would never ask or tell a conservative guy to do that because he is potentially signing up for a lot of heartache, especially when it comes to choosing a church, especially when it comes to raising children. Marriage is already hard between two people who are really similar with the same value systems and the same politics and the same background. You still have to work on it just because you're talking about two sinners. But if you're talking about two sinners who have completely juxtaposed worldviews when it comes to things like abortion and gender injustice, that is a recipe for chaos. And you get married to be a stabilizing force for the other people, for the other person. The stabilizing force for children. A stabilizing force for your community and for the nation. And if you don't have stability within your home, there's no way that you can lend stability to those outside your home. Alright, okay, so that's the first couple. That's where they started. And we'll talk a little bit about where they end up in just a second. Let me pause and tell you about our next sponsor for the day. And actually our first sponsor for the day, I meant to say. And that is America's Christian Credit Union. It's not just a bank or credit union. It is a grassroots movement of believers pooling resources to support each other and a God glorifying worldview. ACCU offers financial solutions that empower Christians to reach their financial goals. Plus, when you bank with accu, you support causes that align with your faith, like Christ centered education, ministry, building and better lending rates for borrowers and returns for depositors. They also have an amazing opportunity going on right now. When you start an account with accu. They're offering a new member certificate with amazing and competitive rates. It's one of the best ways to grow your savings with your faith in the driver's seat. So you can start with as little as a thousand dollars, as much as $100,000. Get your new member certificate. The high rate is locked in for a full 12 months. Plus, your money is federally insured up to $250,000 through the NCUA, with additional coverage for qualifying accounts. Go to AmericasChristiancu.com Alli to learn more. Open your account today. That's AmericasChristiancu.com Alli America's Christian Credit Union is federally insured by the NCUA. Okay, so I guess Sarah started internalizing all of that. She started thinking about it, but for whatever reason, they both decide that, yes, this is the one. This is the one for me right here. And we are going to keep going and we are going to go to the altar. Now, I don't know entirely how all of this works. Do the producers decide beforehand? Hey, these people are going to get together and they're going to make it to the end because they've got interesting stories. Did the producers want to create this kind of tense moment that would then go viral on X and then people like me would be talking about it because it's good advertising? I think that that is likely. I don't know that for sure. Maybe this is a genuine disagreement and this kind of breakup that we're about to see was totally organic. I'm not sure. Here's sod 11.
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Unnamed Participant
I love you so much, but I've always wanted a partner to be on the same wavelength. And so today I can't. Like, I asked him about, like, Black Lives Matter, and I'm no expert, but, like, when I asked him about it, he was like, I guess I've never really thought too much about it. That affected me, especially in our own city. Like, how could it not? I asked him too, like, what his church's views are, and he said he didn't know. And so then I watched a sermon online from his church about, yeah, sexual identity.
- [15:20]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Okay.
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Unnamed Participant
And it was traditional. Sometimes I did wonder if it was surface fun, carefree love that we had. Equality, religion, the vaccine.
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Allie Beth Stuckey
Ah, okay, so, bro dodged a bullet. And I hope that this is radicalizing for him in the best way possible. I hope that he realizes that compromising, at least outwardly, when it comes to these really important things actually doesn't win you anything. This would have hurt way worse in the long run if he would have decided to go through with this marriage. And then they really get into where they disagree when they're raising children, when they're picking a church dude. I am so glad that actually I'm going to give her a little credit that she was the one that had the courage to say these things are too important. And I'm walking away now. I think her worldview is completely insane and it's wrong and it's nowhere close to Christian. The fact that she was like the sexual identity sermon was traditional. You mean biblical. It's not rooted in tradition. It's rooted in creation. That God created us, male and female, and that is the definition of marriage. Okay, so it's not like tradition is kind of arbitrary, but when something is based in creation, there's no wiggle room on that. So I'm glad he goes to a church that apparently preaches the Bible, but he needs to stick to his guns. And he should not be apologizing or being wishy washy on the things that God calls good and right and true. And that includes the definition of justice, the definition of marriage, all of these things. He should be strong and bold. Look, he's a cutie. He's going to find a conservative Christian girl. Now, you might have to get out of Minneapolis and move down south, but you can find one. However, a girl who is strong in her faith and knows what she believes would not marry a man like that. All right? So it's time for him to buck up. It's time for him to get stronger. It's time for him to be more resolute and outspoken about what he believes and to not compromise. Because you want to marry a woman who is also not compromising on those things so you can raise children who are not compromising on those things. Hear me again. Marriage can already be hard at points. It already is going to take work that's just baked into again, two imperfect people living together, sharing all of your time and your space and your resources. That's why marriage can be so sanctifying. One of the best things that you can do is find someone who is like minded with you on all of the things that really matter. On all of the foundational, generally religious and moral and even political things. Sure, there are secondary tertiary issues that could be fun to discuss and debate and disagree on, but the more you can agree on when it comes to those important things, the better. I mean, chief related, bro and I, we don't come from the exact same upbringing. I was raised in the suburbs of Dallas, he was raised in a small town, Georgia, but we both had Southern Baptist upbringings, explicitly Christian biblical upbringings, and we didn't have big disagreements when we got married. And I think that set us up really well. So that's the advice that I would give any of these people, including Virginia and Devin. And so this is another kind of conversation that the couple who's laying in bed, why are you all laying in bed? You're not married. They were living together though, leading up to their wedding after Love is Blind. They were living together when they had this conversation. Okay. It seemed like this should have already happened. Devin asked Virginia if she votes with her faith in mind when she brings up abortion. Because she brings up, yeah, I believe in abortion rights. And he was like, well, how does Christianity factor into that, girlfriend? Here's thought 10.
- [19:27]
Unnamed Participant
But I do think that I make decisions from my faith, you know what I mean? So that just might be a different view than like how Republicans that are conservative feel about it. Right? I think people should have abortion rights, you know, that type of stuff. I think gay people should have rights, all those things. So. And it's hard because all of those things are like becoming political, you know what I mean? Conversations again when it's like, I thought we were so far past that, but we're not.
- [20:00]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Gosh, these girls are just so ignorant. They are just imbibing the left wing, toxic empathy propaganda that is targeted toward women that tells them in order to be a good compassionate person, you have to be for progressive causes. And she believes that as a Christian she can support so called abortion rights, which is just the legal ability to be able to poison, dismember a baby inside the womb. You can't. I mean, those two positions are completely irreconcilable. And by the way, no one believes that gay people shouldn't have basic constitutional rights. The question is, does the state, which was created by God, by the way, which the founders recognize, as we see in our founding documents, does the government have the ability to redefine marriage? The government didn't create marriage. America didn't create marriage. So why does it have the ability to redefine it? We also know that that has had a profound effect on child creation and childbearing as children are forced into motherless and fatherless homes. So we are forcing them into a place of vulnerability and oppression all because, quote, unquote, love is love. And yet again here you can see that it's the guy who is being so, like, he's trying to be so respectful and deferential and listening to her, it ends up being the girl who leaves the guy here's at 12.
- [21:24]
Unnamed Participant
I love you so much. What? I didn't like that we had differences in politics. I don't think that was a deal breaker for me. It was how the communication around that was handled. It wasn't that we saw things differently. Devin said that he was raised in a conservative household and he just asked me if I like voted with my faith in mind. And that was off putting because I do vote with my faith in mind.
- [22:08]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Why was that off putting? If you vote with your faith in mind, that seems like a totally legitimate question to ask. And Devin didn't really say that he doesn't agree with her. He just said he was raised in a conservative household. He also said, well, he thinks that men should have a say in abortion. And apparently that was just too crazy for him to say. Again, that's conservative coded. I guarantee you he has more conservative views and he just didn't want to say. But look, he also should have said that he should have been stronger. I don't know if he's a Christian. I didn't watch the. The. I didn't watch the whole series and so or the whole season. So I don't know. But there's no reason that they should have been living together. And for her to get to the altar and say that she's not ready to get married when they've already been playing house together, that's wrong. So everything there is just disordered. Her worldview is disordered. His priorities are disordered. But again, he dodged a bullet. He will be able to find a conservative Christian woman if he is looking in the right places. But that's probably not going to be on Love is Blind. Some people on X are talking about this. So one viral I can't read everything. One viral tweet has 4.8 million views. This person says LMAO. Conservatives getting mad at Love is Blind because they realize they are, I'll just say unmarryable. They also say un somethingable, but I will not say that. And this seems to be a popular take from some left wing users when obviously that's not true. I mean left wingers really do live in an alternate reality that is void of statistics, that is void of logic, that is void of facts. I mean, conservative Christians are far more likely to be married, happily married, kids, happy with kids than progressives are. I mean even if you just look at the proportion of Americans that are on SSRIs, you will see That a huge percentage, a disproportionate percentage of that is progressive women. Every statistic that we have that is looking at all of those factors points to that, that left wingers are far more likely to be on SSRIs, they're far more likely to be single. They're far more likely to be childless. They're far more likely to be in therapy. Now, I'm not saying that going to therapy is always an unconditionally bad. I'm pointing to the fact that they actually tend to be, again, not always, but tend to be statistically less happy and lonelier and more unstable. And they comfort themselves with this idea that everyone who is married with kids, who pretends to be happy on the right really is just pretending that it's just an act, that they're all just women or foot soldiers of the patriarchy, and that the all the men are just cheating. Like we live in the 1960s Mad Men world, when that's just not true. Of course, some of that exists because neither side is perfect. But when we are looking at generally who is the most stable, who is the happiest, who is the most attractive, it's certainly conservative young people. It's certainly conservative women that tend to be more attractive and appealing to conservative men. Or I would just say men in general. But thanks, love is blind for giving us a little peek into the liberal woman's mind. Because really, it's not the men that are like, unmarriable. It's these women who are probably going to be single for a long time. However, just to repeat, I do give them kudos for being the ones willing to stand up and saying, you know what? The gap between our values is just too wide. And I can't do this. It should have been the men. They shouldn't have been so passive just standing there and allowing that to happen to them. They should have been the first ones to stop it and to say, no, I'm not going to continue down this road. All right, now we are going to talk about this 1946 movie. We've talked about this before, but we're going to get into a little more detail about this documentary. The 1946 documentary claims that the word homosexuality was added into the Bible and biblical translations in 1946, and that before that, the Bible didn't actually explicitly prohibit consensual relations between two men or two women. That actually when politics and sexuality kind of started to converge or politics and religion started to converge, that is when the demonization of homosexuality and LGBTQ People began really in mid century. The idea is that before that, people really were neutral towards homosexuality. They were neutral towards cross dressing. And it wasn't until the modern evangelical movement that people started hating gay people and thinking that homosexuality should not be a normal part of society. That is all a complete and total lie. But there are certainly people who don't know better and are not thinking very clearly and simply want to justify their sin who will watch a documentary like this. And because it kind of feigns sophistication and feign some kind of academic rigor, they will be taken by this. And so you need to be equipped to speak against a lot of the lies that they are, that they are spouting in this documentary. But first, let me pause and tell you about our second sponsor for the day and that is Cozy Earth. Okay. If you like to sleep like I do, I love to sleep. I could probably sleep ten and a half hours a night like my ideal, if I did not have the life that I have, which is wonderful and I love it so much. But like my body tells me, Ali, you should sleep from midnight to 10:30am Now, I have not done that in many, many, many years, probably since college, maybe right before I was married on a Saturday. But I love to sleep and I will get whatever sleep I can, even if it's only six to seven hours a night, which means I really have to make it count. Which is why I love my Cozy Earth so much, because they are so comfortable. They are so breathable. I also love my Cozy Earth pajamas. I mean, the combination of my Cozy Earth sheets and my Cozy Earth pajamas, it is just like maximum luxury and comfort. These make amazing gifts. Mother's Day gifts. Related bros out there. Get your wife some Cozy Earth loungewear and pajamas and I will give you a discount so you can do that. Go to cozyearth.com use code relatable. Right now they have this huge deal going on with my code. You can get 45% off March 14th through 16th. Don't miss it. That is cozyearth.com code relatable. Okay, in 2022, this documentary came out. So we've talked about it a couple times. But the reason why we're talking about it right now, because it is circulating. They've got a web series going on right now that they are trying to get the word out yet again about this 1946 documentary that they are claiming will shift the culture and shift the Christian church back to the theologically proper place of accepting homosexual unions. I mean, it is so laughable. It is so extremely laughable. But just let me play you some clips from this so you can see when your friends send it to you, you can say that you watched some of it and that you understand their position. I'm going to try to be as accurate and generous as I possibly can in explaining and explaining the position that they are trying to take in this documentary. And I'll show you these kind of lengthy clips just so you can get the proper context. Here's thought three. 1946 is the first time in any language, in any translation, the word homosexual ends up in the Bible. Right?
- [30:15]
Unnamed Participant
Who made this decision? Why did they make this decision? How did they make this decision? Part of the problem that translators face is that Bibles don't often come with explanations. I was wrong, or I think I'm wrong about what the Bible says. I believe that my family and anybody who oppresses the LGBTQ community, I believe that they are victims of bad theology, just like we are.
- [30:40]
Allie Beth Stuckey
All right? They tie having a. What they would call traditional, a mistranslated view of marriage as only between one man and one woman with, of course, Christian nationalism. So that tells you exactly where they're coming from. All of these people are on the left. All of these people vote Democrat. And whenever you have something like this that says that they are simply being academic, that they are simply trying to translate the Bible accurately, that they're completely unbiased, they're not politically motivated, whenever you have people saying that, but they all fall under the same exact ideological and political umbrella, then you should, at the very least, question the veracity of their claims. That might not in itself discount what they're saying. We have to dig a little bit deeper to do that. But you should ask yourself, when you hear them using modern political language without actually defining their terms like Christian nationalist or Christian nationalism, then you should ask yourself, are they really thinking and speaking as critically as they think they are? Because for a documentary that is all about defining our terms and translating things correctly, they don't actually translate these political euphemisms that they're throwing out there so indiscriminately. Here's an example sought for.
- [32:08]
Unnamed Participant
I was pastoring during Trump, or maybe right before Trump got in, and I remember, you know, talking to one of.
- [32:19]
Allie Beth Stuckey
The church members, and I had quoted Jesus, and he called me a socialist, and I was like, wait, I just quoted Jesus? Why are the words of Jesus becoming so effective, offensive to Christians?
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Unnamed Participant
And it's just the whole play into.
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Allie Beth Stuckey
Christian nationalism, you know, you can't really.
- [32:44]
Unnamed Participant
Quote a whole lot of Jesus when you're a Christian nationalist.
- [32:51]
Allie Beth Stuckey
And again, when you hear people say Christian nationalists, they are almost always simply talking about a conservative Christian. They're not actually talking about someone who believes in putting the Old Testament system of governance in the United States today. I literally don't know anyone who believes that. Even the people who unapologetically label themselves as Christian nationalists don't believe that we should put Old Testament law in America today. And so when people say that, it's, again, it's just a manipulation tactic to get conservative Christians to shut up. They believe that they can use their faith to push their political message and their progressive agenda. But if Christians say, hey, my conservative views are supported by the Bible, then that's Christian nationalism. Okay, you understand what's going on here? And by the way, when people say this, oh, the words of Jesus are so offensive to conservative Christians. I don't know the part of the sermon that this person was referencing. When she said that she quoted Jesus, someone called her a socialist. I guarantee you she wasn't just quoting Jesus. She wasn't just saying, love your enemies. She wasn't just saying, forgive those who trespass against you. She probably was misusing, misapplying the words of Jesus to support socialism. And I would ask her, are you a socialist? She probably is a socialist. She just probably is. I mean, she's a female pastor. She's a part of this progressive documentary. There's not a chance in heck she's ever voted for anyone except for Democrats straight down the ticket. She probably loves Bernie Sanders. Are you a socialist? And do you think the Bible supports socialism? Because a lot of these people will misuse, for example, the passages in Acts that talk about the early church giving to others out of the outpouring of their hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit they gave to everyone according to their need. Except that's not socialism. Socialism is the forced giving, surrendering of your money, others. And that is not what the early church practiced. The early church practiced cheerful giving, as we are commanded to do by God through the power of the Holy Spirit, freely, without compulsion. Socialism says, you give us your money, you give us your stuff so we can distribute it, or you're going to go to jail or we will kill you. Please face wall. That's different than what the early church practiced. So I would love to know, does this woman think that Jesus words support socialism? If so, then the person who criticized you was probably correct. And what she says about, oh, they don't you can't quote Jesus if you're a so called Christian nationalist. I would love to know what they believe. And this really dismantles the entire premise in general. I would love to know what they believe about Jesus. Words in Matthew 19. It doesn't have any of the Greek terms or Greek words that they take issue with that we'll get to in just a second. It just lays it out very clearly. He is responding to a question from the Pharisees about divorce. And instead of just saying, yeah, God doesn't like divorce. God allowed divorce in the Old Testament because of the hardness of the heart of the Israelites, because of people's sin. But he doesn't love it. He could have just said that. But instead he goes all the way to creation. He says this in Matthew 19:4. 5. Have you not read that? He who created them from the beginning, made them male and female and said, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So in a matter of just two verses, three times, Jesus reiterates the gender binary that existed at creation. The definition of marriage between one man and one woman. The man will leave his father and mother, not just parents, and hold fast to his wife. So three times right there. God defines marriage. Jesus defines marriage in Matthew 19:4. 5. You are probably not surprised to find out that in the entirety of this documentary, they never look at Jesus's words there. They never look at any passage that positively define marriage as this. They hone in on these Greek words that they say were mistranslated to mean something that they didn't actually originally mean. And we'll get more into that in just a second. Really, what is underneath all of this? What these so called red letter Christians, the Christians who, or they're not really Christians, but professing Christians who say, well, let's just focus on Jesus's words. And the rest of the stuff can be missed, you know, can be translated differently, reinterpreted however we see fit. But let us use the words of Jesus to bolster our communistic or progressive worldview. These people, in essence, even if they don't explicitly through their words, do this, they in essence deny the godship of Jesus because they want to separate Jesus from the rest of God and from the rest of Scripture. But we can't do that. If you were just to take the Gospels and to say, okay, I'm only going to believe in the Gospels, which you really can't do because of what I'm about to read. But even if you are only to read the Gospels, you will run into John 1:1:5, 14. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. And without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life. And the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And so read that passage. It is obviously describing Jesus. In the beginning was Jesus. Jesus was with God. Jesus was God. He was in the beginning with God, as God, everything was made through Him. So we cannot separate the entirety of God's Word from Jesus because everything God says throughout Scripture, Jesus says also. So a little bit more about the background of this documentary, why it's being made. It's being made by a gay filmmaker. He grew up in a Christian household, or she grew up in a Christian household where her father, who was a pastor, held to a biblical view of marriage, disapproved of her so called sexual orientation. Her name is Sharon Rocky Rogio. She said this to glaad. She said biblical literalism has led to the marginalization of innumerable human beings, not just within the LGBTQIA community. I hope this film starts the necessary conversations that rid this bad theology from the church and from our homes. We must address this mistake with compassion and consideration, as often our loved ones are our oppressors and the perpetrators of persecution because of this information. Look, these people don't actually believe in sin. They don't believe in true holiness. They believe that the only sin is saying that there's sin. Especially if what we are saying is sin confronts their desires. They don't want their lust, they don't want their disordered passions to be confronted. And look, we were all there at one point. So I have compassion. I am no better in and of myself, in my flesh, than any of these people. All of us have gone to great lengths at one point or another to justify our sin. If we read Ephesians 2, if you've been listening to this podcast for a long time, you know this is one of my favorite passages. I've memorized it because it is such a good depiction of the gospel. I encourage you to memorize it too. But we were all once dead in our sin, following the Prince of the Power of the Air, Satan who is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we are all once walked in the passions of our flesh. And so I have sympathy for them, understanding that they are lost as I was once lost. What is sad, though, is that they are trying very hard to tie a millstone around the necks of others who might be able to repent and receive God's grace and to walk in true holiness. And their judgment because of that will be very great unless they repent themselves. So the documentary really focuses on three different people and their upbringing. And one of the people that they focus on, her name is Kathy Baldock. So Kathy is the author of Walking the Bridgeless Canyon, Repairing the Breach between the Church and the LGBT Community. That's what she calls it. She says there's LGBT persecution in the church. Kathy developed a friendship with a lesbian woman who made her reconsider what the Bible says about marriage. And when the friend told her, I'm a woman of color, I'm a Native American, I'm a lesbian, and not even God loves me, that is when Kathy started rethinking what the Bible has to say. And that is when, I mean, she's basically admitting that it was a relationship with someone, that someone said something that hurt her emotionally or made her feel something that made her re evaluate and reinterpret scripture. So rather than allowing scripture to inform what she told this woman, she allowed what this woman told her to re evaluate scripture and to motivate her study of scripture. So that's really where this starts. What that poor woman needed to hear, who believed that God didn't love her, Was that how God loves you so much? God loves you so much that he sent his own son to die for you. And he wants what is very best for you. And look, we are all called to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and to follow Christ. And that means we all have to defy or deny the desires of our flesh, the lust of our eyes. All of us have these carnal passions that have to be bridled and killed as we serve the Lord and he frees us from enslavement to our sin. Like this woman who believed that God didn't love her, needed to hear the good news, not for the so called Christian in front of her to say, oh, okay, you're right. Maybe God was wrong. Now, here's what's interesting about Kathy Baldock, who is a part of this radical documentary, who has been pushing this lie that actually all forms of sexuality are fine. The reason why her name stuck out as I was looking into this documentary is that I remembered her from an episode that we did a couple years ago on Andy Stanley's church and a conference he was hosting called the Unconditional Conference. He hosted and has endorsed a couple named Greg and Lynn McDonald. They wrote a book and have an organization called Embracing the Journey. They really aim to get conservative Christian parents to kind of put their biblical theology about sexuality and gender on the shelf and just embrace their LGBTQ identifying child. Greg and Lynn have been promoted by Andy Stanley. They spoke in 2023 at the unconditional Conference. That's Andy Stanley's conference again, along with other LGBT affirming, professing Christians. And this was a conference that was praised online on X by LGBT affirming progressive activists who were in attendance. And I will link to the past episode that I did on Andy Stanley in this conference. But the connection here is that Kathy is one of the endorsers that is listed on Greg and Lynn McDonald's book Embracing the Journey, which again, has been promoted by Andy Stanley. So just for you to get a sense of one where I think, personally, just based on his comments, Andy Stanley is going where his church is going, what some of the conferences that he is promoting, the people that he is promoting, the direction they're going, but also how this is seeping into the evangelical church, this idea that homosexuality is not really a sin, that it's different than the other things that are prohibited by the Bible, and we actually need to embrace it. Okay, so here is their main argument, the thrust of their argument, and that is that the word homosexual was mistranslated by those creating or translating the RSV or Revised Standard Version in 1946, they translated Greek words wrongly. So, for example, in First Corinthians 6, 9, when it says, do you not know that men who practice homosexuality among other sins will not inherit the kingdom of God? They argue that it should have been, as it reads now through other revisions of the rsv, sexual perverts. Not homosexuals, but sexual perverts. But they said after this translation happened in 1946, and they wrongly misinterpreted this Greek word. The translators at the time, well, then it spread like wildfire. And all of these other versions started to say homosexuals too. So the Greek words that the documentarians claim were mistranslated were malakoi, which they argue means lazy, decadent, lack of courage, and arsenicoitai arsenokoitai, a combination of two words. Arson means male, coitai, which means bed, or Lying. They claim that arsenicoitai is a word not often used during the time period because Paul made it up. But it likely meant some kind of rape, abuse or exploitation, not homosexual behavior. This person, Kathy Baldock, claims that no one can know what is meant by this word because it's not defined. And so it probably means some kind of predation. Here's top five.
- [47:11]
Unnamed Participant
So this 1581 Greek to Latin lexicon is the oldest book I have in my collection. The word arsenal koitai is what has been translated as homosexual. It says pedico. Pedico is oy molester. This word is one of Paul's made up words. So we don't exactly know, but we know the system. System. And because we know the system, we can make an intelligent guesstimate that he's talking about a particular system of domination where you have a powerful man over a less powerful young man.
- [47:53]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Okay, so this is what they're claiming, that they're really talking about pedophilia. In some other parts of the documentary they claim it could be prostitution, but it's a power imbalance here, which really goes to their critical theory claimwork which is all about oppressor versus the oppressed. It's all about the victimizer versus the victim. And so that is the lens through which they are trying to interpret scripture and apply scripture. It's not really that they care about what the original Greek was. And also you see there that they're making a big jump because they don't know what that word really means. Or it was kind of a new word, arsenicoitai, that it must have meant because of the so called system of the time, some kind of domineering, predatory pederasty relationship. They claim that prior to this change in 1946, there was no malice towards homosexuality in the Bible at all. That this is when it all started. And Even though in 1971 a group of translators who were translating in revising the RSV changed this verse back to sexual perverts, that the damage had already been done in evangelicalism. They note that Billy Graham began recommending the living Bible in his crusades, which helped spur the popularity of that translation, according to the filmmakers. And that is what spread the disdain for homosexuality among evangelicals. They also accuse evangelicals of teaming up with Republicans to wage a culture war on homosexuals. Kathy says that during the 1980s, conservative Bible translations and conservative politics jump in bed together to form an un sacred illicit abuse of church and Bible to control people. Because before this America was super progressive and Christians had no opinions on politics at all. It couldn't be that Christians are actually responding to the liberalization of America that occurred so quickly in the 1960s and 70s. It must just be this newfound hatred for homosexuality among Christians. Here's thought 6. Conservative religion and conservative politics unite at.
- [50:09]
Unnamed Participant
The election of Ronald Reagan when homosexuality.
- [50:14]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Was DE pathologized in 73. If politics had not gotten involved in.
- [50:20]
Unnamed Participant
Unison with religion, religion, gay people would.
- [50:23]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Have just organically grassroots come out of this wrong teaching of who they were all these years. Overnight they're no longer sick. Right? De pathologized. But then religion and politics get together.
- [50:38]
Unnamed Participant
And gay people become politicized.
- [50:42]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Okay, again. Could it have been that Christians and conservatives are starting to talk about this because homosexuality had become much more accepted, had become much more rampant. And the push for things like civil unions and later the complete redefinition of marriage, the redefining of gender altogether, has actually caused a response and a reaction among Christian conservatives who believe, as Christians have always believed and as Jews believed before us, that God made us male and female in his image. But of course, they always claim that it's actually the reverse. And she also goes on to say that the ESV is the worst translation. It's the most demonic, most evil translation. And of course that is the best translation. I believe that is my favorite translation. I like the nasb. I also like the nkjv. I think those are fine. I like the ESV because it is a word for word translation while also remaining pretty colloquial. Not as colloquial as the niv, but the NIV is a thought for thought translation. So it's just not quite as exact. I like the NA or the ESV just because it's easier to read. But I also can really trust that this is an accurate and thoughtful interpretation. In my opinion, it's the best. So that's what I've been using. The ESV study Bible is incredible. And she of course demonizes it. So let's go ahead and debunk this. And a lot of people have done really good work. And so I have taken some of the work of Denny Burke and stand to reason, they have both debunked a lot of the, specifically the lies about the Greek words and the interpretations. They have debunked those. And so I want to go through some of the things that they have pointed out. So throughout the 2000 year history of the Christian Church, all Christians from every tradition, so we're talking about Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, have recognized that The Bible forbids sexual activity outside of marriage, including and especially activity between persons of the same sex. This firmly held belief has been in place well before the word homosexuality was coined in the English language. And I will get to my take on that in just a second. But here's what's important. We actually do know with this word that these documentarians say that we don't know what it actually meant and what Paul meant when he used this word arsenicoitai. And this is based on today's best scholarship of the Greek word. This is according to stand to reason. It literally means according to context and everything we know about the Greek language and historical context of the time. It means men who lie with a male. It is not surprising that the most prominent English translation, the NIV 2011 revision, translates the Greek as men who have sex with men. Also, the two words that make up arsenokoitai, arsen and koiti appear close together in two Greek Old Testament verses in what is known as the Septuagint. These verses are Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, the very two verses in the Mosaic Law that condemn homosexuality. Leviticus 18:22. You shall not lie with a male as a man lies with a woman. That's an abomination. Leviticus 20:13, if a man lies with a male with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. Not just adultery, but abomination. They shall surely be put to death, their blood is upon them. And so again, you don't actually see this documentary going into those verses and explaining the mistranslation there. They are only focused on this one word, homosexuality. But when you look at these passages in Leviticus, for example, that forbid this, they say a man lying with a man, as one would lie with a woman. So that's not rape, that's not pederasty, that's not pedophilia, that's not prostitution. That is having sex with a man as a man would and should be having sex with a woman, AKA according to Scripture, just his wife. The reason why homosexuality was not seen translations pre1946 is not because the concept was not there in the original Greek, but because this word homosexuality is fairly new in our lexicon. Really. We don't see this word homosexual until like the late 19th century. And so of course, it took the revisers of these different versions of Scripture time to catch up to the cultural lexicon. That is always what happens. That is still something that's happening. But very faithful theologians and scholars, New Testament, Old Testament, Greek, Hebrew scholars have taken pains for centuries now to ensure the proper interpretation of these, of these passages. So in other words, according to these organizations, Paul invents a new Greek word that literally means men who lie with a male. And the two words that he used to create this new one are found together are the ones found together in Leviticus. Also in the documentary, they talk about clobber passages. These are parts of the Bible which seem to forbid homosexuality. I have also heard Andy Stanley use that term, clobber passages. That these passages are just used to clobber gay people. In the documentary, they of course say that Genesis 19, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom, that's where we get the term sodomite. They argue that this, that their sin in Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't actually homosexuality, but it was actually a lack of hospitality or it was actually a desire to rape, had nothing to do with homosexuality, which is not true. All you have to do is read the passage in Genesis 19 also again, Leviticus 18:22, you shall not lie with a man that's an abomination. Leviticus 20:13. And then Romans 1:26 through 27, they say this is the clobber passage. However, they do not attempt to reinterpret this because that word homosexuality isn't actually in Romans 1. And so the entire premise for their argument doesn't even apply. So they just call it a clobber passage. They say this is what Romans 1:26,27 says, which they just dismissed. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions, for their women, exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. So we don't even have any kind of translation issue there. They would just have to back up into that verse and say, yeah, this probably had to do with some kind of pedophilia or rape or some kind of system of power, oppressor versus oppressed. But we don't have any evidence for that in this passage. It is very clear we are talking about adult females, we are talking about adult men that they had disordered passions because they worshiped the creature rather than the Creator, and because of their disordered love, the rest of their lives were disordered as well. And we saw that in their sexuality. That is, Romans one is talking about. The Bible is not confusing pedophilia with Homosexuality. We actually see a guard against pedophilia in the very first chapter of the first book of the Bible that God created them, man and woman. The words that are used there denote that these are adults. And we know that they're adults because they are also charged with being fruitful and multiplying. So right there we see that at the very least, a woman has to be of childbearing age in order to fulfill one of the purposes of marriage, which is to have children. The Bible is not confused about that. It is extremely clear that homosexuality is a forbidden kind of love, is a forbidden kind of desire, is a forbidden kind of romantic interaction. And here's what I always go back to when I've responded to the premise of this argument over and over again. Even if you were to take out every single verse that prohibits homosexuality, even if you were to give in to this false idea that they were misinterpreted and that the consensual relationship between two men or two women is not explicitly forbidden throughout Scripture, even if you were to say wrongly that that is the result of some kind of political wedding between evangelicalism and Republicanism, you are still left with how the Bible positively defines marriage throughout Scripture. There's only one way that the Bible positively describes sexuality and marriage. Intimate relationships throughout Scripture, and that is between one man, one woman. That's it. So even if you don't look at any of the negative passages towards homosexuality and you're only left with how God positively defines these things, that is the only definition that you get. That is the only kind of marriage or sexual union that God calls holy. And I'll finish with my alliteration that I've explained many times in just a second. Let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day. Our last sponsor for the day is my Patriot Supply. You've seen it before. When disaster strikes, grocery store shelves go empty overnight. The worst time to prepare for a situation like that is in the aftermath or when it is actually happening. You want to make sure that you are better safe than sorry. Go ahead, get a three month emergency food supply kit from my Patriot supply and make sure that your family is taken care of in this way. These are 2,000 calorie day meals that will be good for three months and they're good in storage for up to 25 years. So hopefully you'll never need them. But if you do, you will be so glad that you have them. You want to get one kit for every member of your family. So it doesn't cut it. Just get one kit for everyone to share. You're not going to get enough nutrients that way. Get one kit for every member of your family. Go to preparewithally.com when you do, you get a really good discount. This is a four week emergency food supply. Sorry, the discount is for four week emergency food supply. Go to preparewithally.com so here's the problem with these documentarians, with everyone who hold these positions. They want to find a way to fit their sin into Scripture. And so they are looking for every possible way that they can get around the sanctification process, that they can try to subvert the call to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and to follow Christ. I mean, just like everyone has at one point, they want to try to be okay with their sin. They want to convince themselves that God is okay with their sins. And so this is a valiant effort to try to redefine what God calls good and holy. And here's what I like to remember. This is the alliteration. I think I first said it in 2019, and it's been really helpful for me, and hopefully to you guys as well, to remember how God defines marriage. Even if we are to put away all of these so called clobber passages and all of the questionable passages that aren't really questionable at all. The definition of marriage as between one woman and one man is rooted in creation. We see it in the very first chapter of the first book of the Bible. These documentarians don't take issue with this, or they don't say they take issue with this. They don't say that this was misinterpreted, but we see it right in Genesis 1:27, that God created man in his own image, in the image of God. He created him. Male and female. He created them, and God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Then we've got Genesis 2:24. A man shall leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife. The two shall become one flesh rooted in creation, reiterated throughout Scripture. And so again we see in Genesis 2, we see in the Ten Commandments that you are to honor your father and mother, not just your parents, not just the grownups in your home. These are not arbitrary distinctions. These are sex, distinct distinctions. Your father and mother, husband and wife, man and woman. All of these are very specifically and purposely defined and reiterated throughout Scripture. So rooted in creation, reiterated throughout Scripture, repeated by Jesus himself. We already read Matthew 19, 4, 5. So he goes back to creation. In response to a question about divorce, he goes back to the definition of marriage itself. The reality of the gender binary and its purpose, not just physically, but also spiritually, which brings us to its spiritual significance. Representative of Christ and the church. And this is an incredible passage that we read in Ephesians 5, specifically Ephesians 5, 22, 33, where Paul says, I know that this mystery is profound, but I am saying that this refers to Christ and the church. So just as the church is to submit to Christ and Christ takes care of and sanctifies the Church, so the wife is to submit to her husband, and the husband is to care for and help make holy and sanctify his wife. And that reality that the earthly bond between one man and one woman signifies represents the eternal marriage between Christ and the church, shows how deep and purposeful and profound those gender distinctions are. That submission and headship dichotomy that is supposed to reflect Christ in the church cannot be reflected between two men or two women. This also bucks up against their entire egalitarian idea that men and women are all called to the exact same things. And then, as it is representative of Christ in the church, it is reflective of the Gospel. The Bible starts with a marriage between a man and woman. It ends with a marriage between Christ and his church. That's how important the definition of marriage is. Nowhere in Scripture do we see homosexual unions or gender bending of any kind described in a positive way. And all of the negative passages about these relationships or about this behavior are not coincidentally the ones that these people take issue with. But listen, if you love God, you are not just reading the Bible asking, what can I get away with? You are reading the Bible asking, how can I glorify God the most? How can I most closely align my life to what he says is good and right and positive and holy? And that's not the mentality that these people have. Because. And I don't think that this is difficult to say. I don't think this should be controversial. These people don't love God. They don't serve the God of Scripture. They serve the God of self. And the God itself is a very cruel God. And it wants you to sacrifice everything on its altar. It wants you to sacrifice all that God says is good, right, and holy on its altar. It will do whatever it can to get what it wants. And it leads people to hell. This documentary absolutely will play a role in further enslaving and oppressing people in their sin. Look, no matter what you feel your orientation is, or your identity is, or your feelings are, God does love you and he sent his son to die for you. And you are no worse than me. You are no further off than any of us were before we came to Christ. God's grace is for you. It can transform you. It can release you from the power of your sin, the addiction that you have to lust or whatever it is in your life that you feel like you can't escape from. God has the power to release you from that. His redemption is also for you. So I encourage you, buy you an ESV study Bible, really read it, join a local Bible preaching, Bible believing, Bible teaching church and get plugged in and taste and see that the Lord is really good and he's not good because he allows us to do whatever we want. That he is good because he is the satisfaction that you trying and failing to find everywhere else. So that's the good news. Not that God is okay with your sin, because he's not. I thank the Lord for that because sin is bad for us and it leads us to hell and it separates us from God. All right, that's all we've got time for today guys. We will be back here tomorrow. Sa.