← Stay True with Madison Prewett Troutt
Stay True with Madison Prewett Troutt
Faith, Politics, and the 2024 Election with Allie Beth Stuckey
01:00:55
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- [00:07]
A
What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Stay True podcast. I'm your host, Madison Pruitt Trout, and I am here with a very special guest. I'm so, so excited to have Ali Beth Stuckey on my podcast. Welcome to Stay True podcast.
- [00:23]
B
Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here.
- [00:25]
A
Oh, my goodness. This is like a dream come true because I have my mother in law, like, loves Allie, and I've just been watching Ally from afar and truly have been so inspired by the way you were so unashamed and your faith, the way that you stand firm in truth and share it and speak it in a world that is very intimidated by the truth and very confused by what is true. I'm very grateful that we have you in our world and that I'm able to learn from you and just really excited about this conversation. For those of you listening or watching, we are going to be talking all about faith and politics on today's podcast and a little bit about Allie. So she is a writer and she has a new book that just came out called Toxic Empathy, which I want to touch on a little bit in this podcast today. I'm really excited to talk about it and excited to read it. But you also have your own podcast called Relatable.
- [01:18]
B
Yes.
- [01:18]
A
And you talk all things culture, politics, all through a biblical lens. And so you guys need to go and check that out. It's been so fun to watch. And Lear learned from you, and you're also a mama. And so I'm just going to be. I'm learning from you in every way. She's a wife and a mama. So I'm just excited to learn from you. And this is a podcast where this is all based on, like, stay True. It's all based on truth. And, you know, we are headed into an election, and so there's lots of conversations around faith and politics. But I also think that what I've at least seen, and even the tension I felt, and I want to get into this too, is a lot of Christians are scared to speak out about truth and speak out about what our role as Christians should be in this election and fear of kind of mixing religion and politics. But I just want to say, guys, like, this isn't as much of a political issue as it is a biblical issue. And what we're looking at in our world today is there's some things that are biblically, like, you know, at stake here. And so this is going to. I don't want anyone to leave thinking we're going to sit here and endorse a candidate, that's not the heart of this podcast as much as it is to endorse the truth and to endorse Jesus. And so we're going to be jumping into that. But I would first love to just hear, like, how did you get into faith in politics and in what you're doing today for those of you know, who are listening, who may not know a lot about your story?
- [02:52]
B
Sure. I grew up knowing that I wanted to speak. I've always liked public speaking. I've always loved writing. So that aspect of what I do doesn't really come as a surprise to my parents or the people who knew me growing up. But of course, I couldn't have expected exactly what it would look like or what this media landscape would turn into. I loved Megan Kelly when I was in high school. She was like the person that I looked to and thought, wow, I would love to do something like that one day. But I didn't go into broadcast, and I wasn't studying journalism when I was in college. I didn't really know what that was going to look like. I just knew that I liked to communicate. So I took a job in PR after college, and I liked that, but I knew that I wanted to kind of scratch the itch of talking about the things that I really cared about. That's culture, that's politics, and really how theology shapes those things. But I didn't know what it was going to look like. So this is 2014, 2015. Graduated from college in 2014. I met my husband a few months after college. He's a UGA guy. I was living in Athens, Georgia, working, and we met. We got married right after we got married. This is the 2016 election season. I'm leading a Bible study of young women. They're freshman girls at uga. I'm freshly out of college, and I'm talking to them about the issues at stake in the election, just asking them what they think about it. These are very sweet, smart, godly girls. And I think the most biblically literate girl in the group was saying how much she loved Bernie Sanders and how much she loved his policies. And I was like, hang on a second. Let's talk about this. And so we did, and we started kind of working through it. Well, what do we think is the role of the government versus the family versus the state? What about Bernie Sanders's position on abortion? Let's talk about that. And I just realized in those conversations that I love this. Yeah, this gives me a lot of energy. And there's just something almost rumbling in me, telling me, go do this. Go do this. And so I started reaching out to. I'm still working full time. I started reaching out to sororities. I lived. My husband and I lived, like, right off sorority row because it was really close to where I worked. This is, like, Millage Avenue. And I started reaching out. I was a KD in college, so I reached out to kd. I reached out to these other sororities and said, can I just come speak at your chapter meetings? Like, obviously, I'm not asking to get paid. I just want to come speak, and I want to talk about why y'all need to vote and the issues that matter. And I also wasn't going up there and saying, vote for Donald Trump, or this was actually the primary, so I wasn't saying who they should vote for, but this is how we should think about issues. And I started getting emails from these students asking, okay, my professor said this. How do I think about this? And I don't know. Something just hit me that this is what I want to do. So I started writing, and I started speaking to kind of little organizations that were asking me, still working full time, but in the beginning of 2017 is when I was like, okay, I want to. I want to try to really do this. So, obviously, Trump had won the election. That wasn't something that a lot of us expected. It shifted a lot. And I just felt a pull to try to navigate the craziness of our culture from a Christian perspective. Not that I think I'm the arbiter of that, but to do the best that I could. So that was 2017. 2018 is when I actually started relatable. And then it's just grown, you know, since then. There's a lot of providential details that I could include in that story, that God's grace and his provision and his, you know, specific sovereignty in so many stages of this path, they're just so obvious, looking back now. But, yeah, that's kind of what it's turned into. And now we've got, you know, two books, and I'm trying to figure out how to do all of this. While, of course, you know, putting my kids, putting my family first. But it's been fun.
- [07:04]
A
It's amazing. It's truly amazing. I love that you started with just reaching out to some sorority, and you're like, let me come talk. And that just shows. I mean, that you had so much passion and conviction for this. It shows, like, you're like, hey, this is really important and we need to talk about it. So who can I reach out to? How can we start these conversations? And it is so important because I think, like, what I feel and what's confusing to me is, and I think you address this a little bit in your new book, Toxic Empathy. But what's confusing to, to me is that there aren't a ton of conversations happening even within the churches. And so a lot of people are looking for clarity. Like in the same way that they're like, hey, my professor said this, or you know, in today's world, it's like, well, I saw this on social media. How, how should I interpret this? What should I feel about this? And for a lot of us, we're being informed and discipled through social media. And so we don't, like, we don't know what's right, what's true, what we should feel. And I think it can be extremely confusing, especially when you, our pastors and our leaders and our Christian influencers aren't speaking out. And I'll be the first to say, like, I even can feel the tension sometimes too, of like, yeah, what do I say? And I'm not this, you know, politician who has all of this knowledge and information. And so I'd love to even just like, from a very general standpoint get into, like, what? One, like, why aren't like, pastors and a lot of leaders speaking out like we should? And two, like what, what is our role as Christians in all of this, in government, in policy, in election season, and just as citizens in the United States? Like, what is our role?
- [08:50]
B
Yeah, well, you're absolutely right. People are looking for clarity. And clarity is a gift that you can give people. It's actually a gift that God gives us through His Word. Not every single nook and cranny of policy is explained in God's Word, of course, but we get a lot of fundamentals from the Word of God that we can build the basis of our worldview on and also our policy decisions on. Really, when we look at the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, many of our so called culture war questions are answered in Genesis 1:27. God made them male and female, in his image. He created them. And so right there we get the definition of the gender binary, we get the definition of marriage, and we get the reality that we are made in his image because we are human, which logically means from at the moment of conception, when we become human, we're made in God's image, we are ensouled we're special, we are different and higher than any plant or animal. And so really, if a pastor is preaching through the word of God faithfully, even if he doesn't wade into specific electoral politics or endorse a candidate, which I am not encouraging a pastor to do, he is going to get, quote, unquote, political. It's because our politics today have become theological. It's not because our theology is getting political. And so if a pastor is simply being faithful, he is going to preach on these controversial issues, which are really created order issues which are fundamental to how Christians see our faith, but more importantly, see the world. And that's going to affect how we vote Inevitably.
- [10:36]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And what do you think it is? Like, why are they afraid to address their congregation in a way of approaching some of these issues like abortion, like how to view policy, how to vote, even if it's not endorsing a candidate? I. I feel like it's still rare for a pastor to get up on the pulpit and talk to their congregation about. About it.
- [11:03]
B
Yeah, I think that just like any of us, because pastors are people, I think that they are afraid in many cases. I don't want to assign that motive to all of them, but I think some of them are afraid of offending people. Now, most sermons are, you know, they're simulcast and uploaded to where everyone can see them so a moment could go viral. They're going to receive backlash and they're going to receive criticism. And to be honest, I see this more from pastors who are afraid of progressives than pastors that are scared of conservatives. And so typically they'll do what I call punching right and tickling left. And so they'll go hard after, say, Donald Trump or some right wing policy or position, and then they'll kind of say, well, yeah, the left is bad too, but I don't really want to get into that because they understand most of the mainstream media is dominated by progressive ideology, academia, most of the federal government, most of our national and global institutions are progressive. And so it can be really scary to go up against the zeitgeist. It can be really scary to go up against the prevailing ideology of the day and say, blatantly, abortion is demonic. And so I think it's a lot of fear. And I think a lot of pastors, I believe, erroneously think that their responsibility is to simply tell their congregation both sides are bad, then leave it at that. I think it's true. Obviously, it is true that neither side is salvific and that God is neither Republican nor Democrat, and that your vote doesn't save you. All of that is true. But we don't have to pretend that both sides are morally equivalent. Just say what is true and let things fall as they may and let people be thinkers based on the clarity that you give them. But you don't need to go up there and equivocate and say both sides are bad and that's the end of that, because that's not the full story.
- [13:03]
A
Yeah. Or I think, too, there's the kind of just, hey, I, you know, I don't want to get into politics because I'm just here to preach that God is love and, you know, all are loved here and all are welcome here. And I'm just here. And. And I do think that, yes, God is love and God is truth, and God is a God of justice. And, you know, we're told many times throughout Scripture what God loves and what God hates and how we should not only, you know, live that out and walk that out, but also share that and speak that and, you know, be a part of that. And so, yeah, I think that a lot of times what happens is, you know, because I saw some crazy statistic. I don't even know who shared this. And you probably know the actual number, but. Of how many Christians don't vote.
- [13:54]
B
Yeah, it was a George Barna study. He's at Arizona Christian University, and he conducts all these studies, and he found that there are tens of millions of Christians who attend church regularly who are not voting. And it's not because of some kind of, like, moral position that they have that they don't like either candidate. The reason that these tens of millions of Christians cited most of them, was that they are disinterested, that they're not interested in politics, which means they probably just don't really know what's at stake, which is a really big problem, which is why I think it's so important for pastors to simply say, look, here's what the Bible says about these issues. Here's what each party stands for. Here is what is at stake in this election. I think people are smart enough at that point to put it together right.
- [14:44]
A
Without you're still not saying, hey, go vote for this person. It's just like, hey, here's what's at stake. So can we dive into that? So what is at stake in. In our world today with this election, with these two different parties, and with all the division that's happening in our nation right now? What. What is at stake?
- [15:04]
B
Yes. So I. It's hard to talk about this without talking about specifically the two different candidates, because that's who we have on the ballot.
- [15:13]
A
Totally.
- [15:14]
B
I am completely pro life. And when I look at these two candidates, I see that neither candidate is as pro life as I am. Were as pro life as I want them to be. Trump has kind of equivocated. He's gone back and forth some of the things that he said, some of the things that Melania has said, like, what are you guys doing? You're alienating and demoralizing a lot of pro life Christians that you need to vote for you. But then we've got Kamala Harris on the other side, and she is for abortion through all nine months for any reason. Now, some people might say, oh, no, that's an exaggeration. That's never happened. All you have to do is look at her record. And I'm not just talking about her record as vice president or even as senator. I'm talking about her record when she was Attorney General of San Francisco. I'm talking about her record when she was Attorney General of California. And what we see is that she has had it out for pro life pregnancy centers and pro lifers from the very beginning of her career. When we look at her record as Attorney General of California, she tried to enforce something called the FACT act, which was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court because it's a clear violation of the First Amendment. So that goes to show, I think, what she thinks about the Constitution, too. But this would have forced pro life pregnancy centers to prominently advertise for free abortions. They wouldn't have had to perform them. But if a pregnant woman walked in destitute and said, hey, I just want a free pregnancy test or I need resources, rather than just providing those, this pro life pregnancy center would have had to say, well, here's where you can go get an abortion. So she tried to compel the speech of pro lifers in the state of California to advertise for abortion. And like I said, praise God, that ended up being overturned. When she was senator, she voted against something called the Born Alive Infant Survivors Protection Act. That was a bill that was authored by Ben Sasse, a Republican in the Senate, that simply said, hey, babies that survive abortions, babies outside of the womb, they have to be given the same health care as other babies. She voted no on that. That didn't regulate or restrict abortion at all. She still said no. Obviously, in Tim Walls in his state of Minnesota, he has signed the most radical legislation in the United states allowing abortion through all nine months. He got rid of any requirements to even report if a baby had been born alive before he signed that bill getting rid of those requirements. We know of at least eight babies who survived abortions and died in the state of Minnesota. So we're talking about infanticide here. We are talking about full term abortions. Those are happening. You can look in the Atlantic, you can look in the New Yorker. They recently profiled an abortionist named Warren Hearn. He does abortions through 36 weeks, at least in the state of Colorado. He's very proud of this. He said the vast majority of mothers that he sees are having abortions for no medical diagnosis, but simply because they want to. So that's something that's happening in the United States that is right now fully endorsed by the Democratic Party. So while Trump is not as pro life as I want, the Harris Walls administration has promised that if Democrats control Congress, they are going to pass a ban on abortion restrictions. So that would mean that no state, whether you live in Tennessee or Kentucky or Florida, can have any restrictions on abortion whatsoever, whereas Trump is not as pro life as I want. At least I know that states will be free to restrict abortion as much as possible and protect the legal right of those babies to live. So I could go on and on, but just on the abortion issue alone, I could go into a million other issues. That is really what is at stake.
- [19:00]
A
Yeah, yeah. And can we dive into just because, you know, I think a lot of what is, I guess, being shared or preached from a lot of the mass media is, you know, like, women's rights and, you know, a woman's body. And, and, and I'm, you know, I'm reading through my word, this, the Bible this morning, and I'm just, I'm reminded of, I think it's in Isaiah 5, and it's saying, like, woe, woe to those who call evil good and good evil. And I, and I think we just, and it talks about this in Romans 1. We live in a culture today where the truth of God has been traded for a lie. And there's been this idea that what is what seems loving, what seems right, is actually wrong. And I want to get into that a little bit more, just from a very, like, biblical perspective. Just, like, talk to me about, like, a woman's rights and like, womanhood. And, you know, when we're talking about abortion, if that's what is argued, is that it's, it's my body, it's my, it's my rights as A Christian, what should our perspective be and how should we approach that kind of conversation and topic?
- [20:20]
B
Yeah, so as Christians, we understand that all people are made in the image of God. That means all human beings are made in God's image scientifically. At what point do we become human? At the point of conception. We've got our own DNA there. If we decide that some human beings are not made in the image of God, that they're not full people, that they don't have rights, that becomes a very arbitrary standard which then opens the door to categorizing all kinds of people as not really made in God's image, as not really deserving of rights. So if we decide that any point after conception that it is justified to kill a person, then why stop at 12 weeks or 16 weeks or 40 weeks gestation? Why not a baby or a toddler, why not a teenager? Because all of the reasons that I hear as justifications for abortion, if we applied those justifications to people outside of the womb, everyone, including pro choicers, would be against it. So size, location, age, sentience, the ability to defend itself, not being wanted, possibly having a hard life, the circumstances surrounding his or her conception, all of these are given as reasons why abortion should be okay. But a toddler is also smaller than a teenager, has less of a mental capacity, is less developed. There are children around the world today who are not wanted, who are abused, are in impoverished homes. There are children walking around today who were conceived in rape, who are even conceived in tragic situations like incest. Do we use any of these reasons to justify killing a 5 year old that fits into those qualifications or a 15 year old that fits into those qualifications? And if not, then why not? And typically the response is, well, the baby is in the woman's body, so it's different. And I say, so you're telling me that the location of where someone resides is what determines whether or not they can be murdered? Surely you don't believe that that's a very arbitrary standard of whether someone can live or die. And if it's because they depend on their mother to survive, while there are people outside of the womb that have to depend on all kinds of people and all kinds of things in order to survive. Like an infant also needs its mother and needs someone to feed him or her in order to survive. So you're saying that dependence is a reason that we should be able to legally kill someone. When you start going through it, what you realize is that this is just a certain kind of murder, that people turned a blind eye to. Because we can't hear the cries of those babies. They don't vote, they don't have power, they don't have capital. It's been whitewashed with euphemisms, which is how you know that the pro abortion side is wrong. Because they have to lie to convince people. They say euphemisms like bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, women's choices. They'll even say terminating a pregnancy, clump of cells. They'll use the term fetus, not because they think it's more medically accurate, because it's just Latin for small childs, but because it dehumanizes the baby. And so if abortion were really that great, if it were really something to celebrate, if we should be shouting our abortions, as the organization shout your abortion does, then Planned Parenthood would be advertising what an abortion is. They would be the ones showing the baby body parts. They would be out there saying, this is how we do it. Here's how an abortion works. But they do everything they can to hide the reality of gestation, to hide the reality of what an abortion is. That is how you know you're on the wrong side. If you have to lie.
- [24:19]
A
Yeah.
- [24:19]
B
To defend your position, you're on the wrong side. What do you see pro lifers do? We're just showing you this is what happens in an abortion. No exaggeration needed, no dramatization needed. This is what a baby looks like at this point of gestation. This is what a severed baby body part looks like. And there's a time and a place for those kinds of presentations and strategies. It's not always, but that's all pro lifers are trying to do, to show you this is a baby, this is an abortion, you make your decision. Because even Planned Parenthood knows that the law of God is written on the human heart. And if they showed everyone what happens in an abortion, if they showed the baby on the sonogram flinching from the pain of the needle that is injected into her heart, that people would stop supporting them. Because even those who don't know God know that killing his image bearer is wrong. And so that's just our job to stay true, to tell the truth about this. And that's what God has tasked us to do.
- [25:21]
A
Oh, I have like, tears forming in my eyes. And I think, one, I'm pregnant. But two, like, I mean, and not just because of pregnancy hormones, but genuinely, like in getting pregnant. And when you hear the heartbeat for the first time, you know, and you start, like I've started in the last few weeks, like feeling her little kicks and her little movements. And it's just, it's such a miracle. Like life is such a miracle. And we serve such a good God. And I just like in reading all throughout Scripture, it's like he, he knew us before we were even formed in our mother's womb. Like we, we, he had a plan and a purpose for us. And you know, it says in his word in Psalm 139, like, we were fearfully and wonderfully made and he saw our unformed body. Like that's when we were unformed. Like he, he knew us and we had a purpose and there was a reason for our existence. And he set us apart. And it's just like, and from the moment, like you're saying of conception to all the way full term, it's like that is a human being, that is a child. That is a child of God. That is a child who bears the image of God.
- [26:25]
B
And I love that you pointed out the unformed part. That's such a good word to highlight because you see that personogram, like, you know, you go in at eight weeks and it's like a jelly bean.
- [26:36]
A
It is like a little, a little tiny thing.
- [26:38]
B
Yes. And you see the heartbeat. And then, you know, by 12 weeks you've got this like, kicking, moving, little fully looking like a human child in there. So that unformed part, that's so important.
- [26:50]
A
It is. And when you look at just who, like you look at, we're in such a spiritual war here, guys. And so like, you just look at the two kingdoms that are at war against each other. And so you look at the kingdom of life and you look at the kingdom of light, and then you see the kingdom of death and the kingdom of darkness. And it's like just even thinking about that in and of itself, that God himself is life, that he is the creator of life. And it says it again and again, especially all throughout the book of John, you know, I have come to give you life. I am the way, the truth and the life. He is life. And he is the creator of life. And so he's for life. He is pro life. And so to be against that is to be against God. It's to be against God's design. And so I'm just wanting everyone who's listening to really understand the way weight of this from a very, very biblical perspective too, of just like this is like this is the word of God. Like this is, this is the truth. And so thank you for sharing all of that. And oh, that just that Got me all emotional. But I'd love to also just jump into, like, when, you know, we're telling them to, you know, those listening, to be informed and to know, like, when they're heading into an election, to have all the information and to be informed and to have this awareness. Like, I feel like sometimes I don't even know where to get the information. I don't know what sources to trust or who, like, who all to listen to and where to get it all. And so how can, you know, those listening, be informed and aware of all of these different policies and of all these, these different things? Because when we're talking about abortion and we're talking about, you know, transgender and, you know, love. Love is love and same sex, really, all these different things, it's like mass media. Like, we're saying, you know, woe to those who see, you know, evil is good and good is evil. I think, like, it can be really confusing to know what is good and what is true and also where to turn to.
- [28:54]
B
Yeah.
- [28:54]
A
For that information and how to find that.
- [28:58]
B
Yeah.
- [28:58]
A
With all the mixed messages of mass media today and so what would you even encourage, like, those listening, how can they be most informed headed into this election and know their part in it?
- [29:10]
B
So I know I'm a conservative, and so some people might just be like, well, you just want people to agree with you or just listen to your right wing perspective. But the truth is that I don't have to tell you to go out and follow a bunch of left wing activists for you to know the progressive position, because you see that everywhere. You see that in every Netflix show, you watch, almost every mainstream media source. The algorithm is feeding you progressive content. You're hearing it from your professors and from your teachers and most of your friends. The left wing perspective, you don't have to hunt that out. What I do encourage you to do, because that's kind of like the default of our culture is to actually seek out specifically conservative Christian voices. Now, I'm not saying you have to agree with everything they say, but for example, when you hear from a lot of people, even those who profess to be Christians, that, well, they're not against abortion, but you have to vote Democrat in order to protect miscarriage care or women are dying because of these pro life laws, that's the prevailing narrative, you're going to see that from the Washington Post, from the New York Times, from npr, and you might just think, well, if I'm seeing it from all these sources and I'm even seeing Christians repeat it Then it must be true. It is your job to ask yourself, is this true? And to look for other resources that are telling a different side of the story. A really great example is this terrible and tragic Amber Thurman story. This was a woman who lived in Georgia. She was pregnant with twins. She already had a six year old son. She wanted to get an abortion in the state of Georgia. She couldn't because of Georgia's pro life laws. She went to North Carolina to get an abortion while she missed her appointment. So they said, without even seeing her, here are some abortion pills, we'll call them in, you can pick them up. So she didn't even have to get confirmation of how far along she was. She took these abortion pills and unfortunately, as is often the case, there were complications. It was an incomplete abortion. So there were parts of her babies left inside her. She went to the emergency room in Georgia and through, I think, a series of just complete negligent steps. They didn't do the dnc, they didn't do the antibiotics. She unfortunately died. And of course her twins passed away too in the abortion. But what we hear in the debates, what we hear from the media, what we hear from the Democratic campaign is that this is because of pro life laws, that this is because of George's Law. But that's just not true. It's because of the abortion pill. Because if the abortion pill had been illegal, she and her twins would be alive. We'd have three image bearers of God still alive right now. And that's the thing, that's. This is why I wrote the book Toxic Empathy. Because the media uses our natural compassion to manipulate us into when we're talking about abortion, specifically forgetting about the babies involved. Yes, it is a tragedy that Amber Thurman died, but it is also an equal tragedy that her babies were killed.
- [32:12]
A
Yeah.
- [32:12]
B
And if we really got rid of abortion, all three of them would be alive. And it's not the fault of pro life laws that unfortunately some doctors and nurses are being negligent. There is no law in the United States that restricts miscarriage care at all in any way and actually makes ample exceptions for various reasons. There's no law that restricts miscarriage care. And I just want people to know that because they manipulate our rightful compassion and empathy into believing that we have to be pro choice to be pro woman. And it's just not true.
- [32:49]
A
And why do you think women have been so targeted in all of this? Like, and, and what are some of the lies that women believe? And how do we Fight them.
- [32:57]
B
Yeah, it's because we're natural nurturers and we do operate out of emotion in general more than men do. And that's not always a bad thing. I think God created us that way. Not all emotions are bad. We see a lot of emotions that God demonstrates throughout Scripture were made in his image. It's not all bad, but we also live in this, like, therapy culture, seems to have permeated every part of our lives. And so we hear things like, all your feelings are valid. Well, valid. If you look at the. The meaning, the definition of that, that means rooted in truth. And while all of our feelings may exist, not all of our feelings are valid. I mean, Jesus was out there saying, it's not enough not to murder, don't even hate someone in your heart. It's not enough not to commit adultery. Like, don't even think lustfully about a woman. So obviously not all of our feelings are valid and neutral. Like, some feelings are wrong, some feelings are right. But we live in a culture that tells us that all of our feelings must guide us. And one of the most powerful feelings, and I argue for better or for worse, is empathy. Because when we feel how someone feels that can, it has the propensity to blind us to reality and morality. It doesn't have to, but it can. So, like in my book, I tell a story of. I was traveling by myself, and I saw this mom who was struggling with her toddler in her suitcase and her. And trying in her stroller and trying to figure everything else out. And I saw her and I was like, I have been there. I have been there, so I will be there shortly. And yes, and I knew exactly what she needed in that moment because I had been there and I knew how to alleviate her burdens. And the same thing had happened to me. I had been struggling one day in the airport with my toddler in my bags and my stroller by myself. And this woman came up to me and said, I'm a mom. I get it. So that can be a very powerful form of empathy. When we put ourselves in someone's shoes and we say, I'm going to lift you up and I'm going to relieve your burdens, because I can feel what you're going through, and I know what you're going through. But also, if we are so in someone's feelings that our empathy leads us to affirm sin, to tell them lies, or to support behavior, or in the case of politics, policies that are wrong and destructive, that's when empathy has become toxic. So our empathy for a pregnant woman who is struggling, who feels like she is alone and that she can't do it, if our empathy leads us to the conclusion that abortion is the best option for her, then we're not really being loving. We might be being empathetic, but our empathy has turned toxic because we are affirming sin and we are leading her down a path that is not only deadly for her baby, but spiritually and physically harmful for her. And so that's. It's. My book is not about killing all empathy. It's certainly not about killing compassion. It's not even about negating all of our feelings. It's about saying empathy has a place. But the Christian is called to truth in love. And we read first John 4. Eight, God is love. And so he gets to define it. He gets to say what it is. Love is love doesn't mean anything. God is love.
- [36:24]
A
Yeah.
- [36:25]
B
Amen means that he is the authority and definer of it. And he tells us in First Corinthians 13:6 that love, among other things, never rejoices in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. That means I cannot love someone and disagree with God. I can't out love God either by saying something that he doesn't say or saying something is true that he says is a lie. So I can't love someone by affirming that they are the opposite sex than what I know they are. I can't love someone by telling them that it's okay to engage in homosexual behavior. I cannot love someone by affirming the choice to have an abortion. I can't love someone by going against God's created order. Because God is love and everything he says is good is good and everything he says is bad is bad. So I just want us to replace this superficial and sometimes toxic empathy that can dupe us with this truth in love dichotomy.
- [37:24]
A
That's so good. Because the truth is loving. And it's not loving to tell someone something that's not true. And that's only going to lead to more confusion and depression and separation from all things good in God. And I love that you spoke to that. That's so, so good. And yeah, what, what gave you the title of toxic Empathy? You kind of talked about that a little bit. But what. Where did that come from? I love that title.
- [37:49]
B
Thank you. It's called Toxic Empathy. How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. And it was really, it was a few years ago, the summer of 2020 was a convergence of a lot of things and it was admittedly, like a confusing time. You had the George Floyd riots. You had Covid. You had an election season. And I kept on seeing this mantra over and over again, especially when it came to Christians telling us to vote against Donald Trump specifically. And it was, lead with empathy, lead with empathy, lead with empathy, think with empathy. And I'm like. But it seems like empathy in this case is actually leading people to make a decision that I think is harmful. It's leading them to affirm choices and to affirm behaviors that God calls sinful. Not just when it comes down to who to vote for, but really just progressive ideology in general. When it comes to abortion, when it comes to gender, when it comes to sexuality and identity. I even argue in the book, when it comes to the definitions of justice, when it comes to issues like immigration, I see progressivism as chaotic. And that's not to say that conservatism is salvific, but progressive ideology, the prevailing ideology of the day when it comes to these controversial subjects, are very harmful to image bearers of God. They create moral and societal chaos. And if empathy is leading us that direction, then we have a problem. We got to put the brakes on it, or we have to define it. And we have to make sure that our empathy, just like our autonomy, just like our authenticity, are in submission to God's word. When empathy runs amok, when our authenticity runs amok, when our autonomy runs amok without submission to God's standard of truth, well, then we're serving the God of self, and we're not really serving the God of Scripture. And we know from the Garden of Eden how that ends. And so that's kind of when this started percolating. And I kind of broke it down into the five big issues of the day that I see as the biggest kind of lies that tend to trip up Christians. Abortion is health care. That's lie number one. Trans women are women. Lie number two, love is love. No human is illegal. And social justice is justice. So, as you can imagine, it's, you know, it's controversial, but I've been kind of talking about these issues for a while. And so, yeah, I just wanted to help us help Christian women in particular try to navigate this craziness and all these complexities, which is with as much clarity as I could.
- [40:21]
A
Well, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful. And I have, like, so many questions that are coming to my mind.
- [40:26]
B
Yeah. And.
- [40:27]
A
And one, I just want to start off by saying, like, because we hit really, really hard on the abortion Topic. And I want to say, too, for those who have had an abortion in the past, like, the most amazing good news ever is that we serve a God who redeems and we serve a God who forgives. And I have some really yucky things in my past and sins in my past that he has completely set me free from and forgiven me from.
- [40:52]
B
Yeah.
- [40:53]
A
And the good news about following Jesus is that he makes us a new creation. He completely redeems us, not because of anything good we have done, but fully because of his mercy and goodness. And so I also want to speak to. If anyone's listening, the last thing I want is for there to be any feelings of shame. But the good news is, is that from this day forward, you can make a decision to honor God with your body. And one reason being, it says in scripture that, you know, our bodies are not our own. And so the terminology of, you know, my. My body, my choice as followers of Christ, it's not our body. Like, we've been one. We've been made one with Christ. We've died to ourselves. Like, we are now alive with Christ, and so it is now his body. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. And it goes on to say in that first Corinthians 6 verse, you are not your own, and you have been bought with a price. And so it's not our body. And we don't just live however we want to live and do whatever we want to do. As Christians, we are, like you said, we are submitted to the. And we are submitted to the word of God and to the truth of God's word. And I just wanted to speak to that. For anyone feeling any type of shame, There's. There's no room for that here. You have. There is no shame here. There is no judgment here. And God calls us to a standard of living, and God calls us to truth. And it's in that truth that we actually experience freedom. And so it's in that truth that we experience life and life abundantly. And so I did want to speak to that really quickly, but, you know, kind of shifting gears, too. I would. I would love to just, like, jump into for a second. Like, how. How can we, like, in moving forward, just know how to approach, like, these kind of conversations with people that maybe disagree with us. Like, you know, I know I. I have friends and I have people who may even be listening to this podcast who. They're like, maddie, you never speak out about all of these things. And, you know, honestly, some of it is because of fear of Man. And some of it is just. I didn't know necessarily how to. And I think that that is the case for a lot of people that we live, you know, trying to please people rather than trying to please God. And Galatians 1:10 is very clear about that. Like, you cannot be a servant of Christ if you're living for the approval of people. And so we do have a role and a responsibility as Christians to one, first and foremost, please God, but to speak the truth and to speak the truth in love. But how do you do that with someone who disagrees with you and with someone who doesn't see the way that you see? Because I do want, you know, to be compassionate. I want to be gentle, I want to be kind, and I want to be truthful, and I want to point people to the truth. And so how do I speak the truth in love and help people who are going into, you know, this election season who may disagree with me? And how do we have those kinds of conversations?
- [43:52]
B
Yeah, there are so many different ways that I could answer this. First, I think it's amazing and rare that you acknowledge that they're like, there is fear of man that you feel. And I felt that, too. I talk about that in my book, that I have been duped by toxic empathy and plenty of cases. And there have been many times that I have been scared to say the thing that's true, even though I know the Bible says it because of how people are going to react. When I first started talking about what God says about the definition of marriage a few years ago, I used to be on Fox News all the time, just as a. As a guest. Fox News is conservative in some ways, but very liberal in other ways. And I remember being afraid that if I started talking about this, then I would no longer be on Fox News. And I decided, because I was just getting so many questions about there was a celebrity, a Christian celebrity, who really had kind of fumbled the answer about homosexuality. The United Methodist Church had fractured because of this disagreement on lgbtq. And so I was so nervous when I did my first episode about that. And I think I had, like, a lot of apologies and caveats, but then I said it, and I did it, and it was out there, and I realized that, wow, I was trying to be nicer than God. Like, I was trying to take God off the hook by saying, yeah, I know God says it, but we don't. I don't want to be mean. But again, if God is love, then everything he says is loving.
- [45:29]
A
That's good.
- [45:30]
B
That means Romans 1 is loving. That means Genesis 1:27 is loving. That means everything he says in his Word is loving. And who am I to think that I am more loving than him by pretending he doesn't say something that he says, like, extremely clearly, too. And so I've been there. And so if any of you out there is like, oh, I wish I were bolder and braver, that's a muscle. It takes practice.
- [45:53]
A
Yeah.
- [45:53]
B
And courage is also contagious. And I'm not saying that I am, like, the most courageous of anyone ever. It's something that I still have to practice and ask for grace to be. And just. I just. That's just why I love the word of God so much, though, because it just gives us so much clarity. So when you're speaking to a Christian and you both say that you share the basis of believing in God's authority and believing in the authority of His Word, the best thing is to go back there. And I love the approach when you're in a conversation with a friend, because I have friends that I disagree with, too, of asking questions, okay, you believe this. What do you think about this? What do you think about this verse? Or. This is one of my favorites that really gets down to brass tacks. When you're talking to someone, what do you mean by. So you were talking earlier about, like, a woman's right. People are talking about abortion. When I'm talking to someone who says that this is a woman's right, I want to know what do you mean by right? And where do you get that definition? Because here's the definition that I know. And also remember, in these interpersonal conversations, your goal in that conversation is not to win right there. It is to push the ball a little bit further down the field. There is a great book called Tactics by Greg Kokel, and he talks about this approach that your job in every conversation is to plant a seed. And then God has art in his sovereignty. He has already lined up the next 100 people to have that conversation with that person and plant the next 100 seeds. You are just a small part in changing that person's heart or mind. God is the one who waters and gives growth to those seeds. And so asking questions, clarifying, defining the terms, going back to the word of God as a Christian and then saying, have you thought about this? What about this? Where did you hear that? I would love to read your resource, if you're willing to read mine or listen to mine. Having that kind of exchange of ideas, a really easy thing to do. Is throw it off on your favorite commentator. So, like, listen to this podcast episode. Tell me what you think, or read this article or this book, because then you can really have a dialogue. Yeah. Asking questions, even if it's not really even to understand the other person. Although that's a good part of it. But it's really just to make sure that you're starting from the same foundation, because if that person doesn't believe in the word of God, then you're starting from it. You gotta start. You gotta start. You gotta. You gotta start there. But for Christians, we should be able to start at that basis. And really, I just ask, like, why do you think killing some innocent people is okay when it comes to abortion? And so wrestling with that and you might make people angry. That's, like, another thing to remember. Yeah, I think it's so easy for us to judge our faithfulness or judge our effectiveness by how people react to us, but we should not be expected to be treated better than Jesus. We should not be expected to be treated better than Stephen or the apostles or the martyrs who came before us. And I'm not saying we're facing martyrdom right now. We're facing, like, social media bullying, which I'm not saying is nothing. It hurts. I get that. But we're facing name calling. We're not facing, you know, being fed to lions. But that is the legacy of Christians speaking truth to the prevailing ideologies of the day, sharing the gospel, even to angry people. Acts describes Stephen as full of grace. He shared the gospel and he was stoned to death. And so we can't judge, like, our effectiveness by people's reaction to us. Yeah, they will get angry. That kind of comes with the territory, man.
- [49:37]
A
That's really good. We can't judge our effectiveness by other people's reaction. Reaction. That's really, really good. Because I think that is so true that a lot of times we. It's like very perception management. We want people to like us. And so everything is centered around, like, how can I get them to like me? I want to be liked, of course. And it's like, well, we want to be truthful because that's what's loving. And you can still do it in a gentle way. And like you said, with asking questions. I think that's such a good. That's such a good way to approach it, because it's not coming in, like, listen to what I have to say. You need to feel this way, you need to think this way. But rather just, yeah, here, let's turn to God's word, first and foremost. If. If we're on the same page with that and. And then asking questions, which is. I'm. I'm taking advice. I'm. I'm taking notes, guys, because I'm like, I have friends that. Yeah. In the same way, I'm like, we. We differ on some things, and it's hard. It creates tension. Like, it creates this, like, divisive feeling.
- [50:39]
B
Yeah.
- [50:40]
A
And so I think that's. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. And I would love to just wrap up this conversation just as we kind of started out, just talking about our role in all of this as citizens, as Christians, because I. I do think that a lot of times we can become super dismissive and we can become super just silent, you know, which is still action in a way. It's still consent. And I think people forget that, you know, and so I. I would love to just end this with really, like, charging, you know, those listening and those watching of what it does look like to take action and what it looks like as a Christian. You don't even have to see it as a Democrat and a Republican thing. It's like, just see it as a Christian thing. It's like, hey, what is God's heart towards children? What is God's heart towards family? What is God's heart towards marriage? What is God's heart towards, you know, the world and our country and life and all of these things? And so I think even when you just take a step back and see it from a Christian biblical perspective, that should shape even how we go into the voting polls. But, yeah, I would love to just kind of end with that. Of just talking about how they can view, you know, the policies and go into voting with just a Christian biblical perspective and kind of leaving them with a little. A little charge.
- [52:01]
B
Oh, yeah, Yeah, I love it. Okay, so every election for all of history has been a choice between the lesser of two evils. Always. This is not unique in that we are always choosing between the lesser of two evils, because every ballot for all of history has always had a sinner. There's only one perfect person that's ever lived, Jesus Christ, and he is not on the ballot. That doesn't mean that someone's character doesn't matter at all. But if I'm to be quite frank, both people on the ballot have character flaws. I hear a lot of people say, well, yeah, Trump's policies might be better, but his character is terrible. Look, Kamala Harris's character is terrible, too. It is. I'm sorry, but her background is just as sordid, if not more sordid and corrupt than Donald Trump's. Okay, so we could go tit for tat all day on who is worse and who we have more moral qualms with. At the end of the day, the personal issues with them and even their personality, all of that is going to fade. Policies are going to last a really long time into your children's lives, into your grandchildren's lives. So when I'm looking at the set of policies, I want to know which is going to stem the tide of evil more, which is enabling evil more. When I look at the Harris Biden administration right now, they are in a tear of putting pro life protesters into jail. We've got Bevelyn Williams, we've got Joan Bell, a 74 year old grandmother. They blocked the entrance to abortion clinics peacefully and they have been placed in jail bevelin for three and a half years in federal prison. And so that is a good is evil, evil is good set of policies that is not investigating or jailing those who are dismembering babies inside the womb, but are imprisoning those who are trying to stop that. So I look at that and then I look at Donald Trump and the fact that he is most likely going to pardon all of those imprisoned. So that is doing what the government, according to Romans 13, is supposed to do, which is rewarding those who do good and punishing those who do bad. Even when I look at the border, the sex and drug and gun trafficking that is incentivized and exacerbated by open border policies, when I see the lawlessness and the chaos that has been enabled by the progressive policies implemented in every major city in the United States, I say because I love my neighbor, because I love the most vulnerable, not only the child in the womb, although that really is the only life and death issue on the ballot, but also all of these other vulnerable people. I want to vote for the policies that best protect order. That because God is a God of order, he placed us in a garden, not a jungle. He's a God of order from the beginning. And so I want the set of policies that is best going to protect order. Do I want Donald Trump to be more pro life, more pro natural marriage? Yes, I want all of those things. But he can be influenced towards that. Kamala Harris cannot. She is for abortion through all nine months without any limitation. She is for the destruction of the family, the destruction of the gender binary. She just came out and said her the clip came out of her a few years ago when she was talking about being Attorney General of California, how she pushed for the policy that allowed taxpayer funded sex change surgeries for male inmates to then go into female prisons. That's happening in Democrat states right now, much thanks to Kamala Harris. And so I know that I'm not supposed to say like, you know, this is not, Nadia is not out here saying let's endorse a candidate. I'm just telling you from my perspective, this is what I see. This is what the difference is. We are stewarding our citizenship and our responsibility when we vote. You are not endorsing everything Donald Trump has ever said or Kamala Harris has ever said. It's not endorsing everything a candidate has ever done. Which set of policies is going to best and the tide of evil, in my opinion. That's clear.
- [55:59]
A
So good. So good. I love that you spoke to basically like the, the, the difference between choosing personality over policy or policy over personality. It's like we're not electing a person because of their personality or their character. It's like we are electing a person and leadership that is going to create policies that are going to affect us today and our children tomorrow. Like they're going to affect our world and the state of our nation and for us as Christians, you know, having the perspective of I need to vote the person in who is going to help this nation become a nation under God again, like to get this nation to be back to what it was founded on. Freedom and freedom of religion and faith and all of these amazing things that it was founded on. And so just going in with that perspective and also not doing a throwaway vote to an independent party, but taking the two actual most likely candidates who are going to be one of them is going to be elected into office and taking that seriously, registering to vote, getting out there doing your part and pray like I do want to encourage every single person listening. Just the power of prayer. It says in scripture, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, I will hear from heaven, I will heal their land, I will forgive their sins. And that is a role and a responsibility that we have as well. And so just the power of intercession, the power of prayer and then, and then speaking the truth in love, having the conversations, being informed, like, you know, make sure that you're not just taking whatever media is saying or, you know, watching a really secular worldly podcast out there that's endorsing some crazy things and just taking that and running with it. Like, take it up with scripture, turn to the word of God, and what does God's word have to say about it? Talk about it with your community, pray about it, and pray for this election and pray for this country. But thank you so much for coming on this podcast. I mean, it was a blessing to me. I was moved. I was inspired. I feel more informed and just ready to charge those around me and also just know my role even in going into, into this election. For those of you who have made it this far, also go and check out her podcast, Relatable, and read her new book, Toxic Empathy. I'm so excited to read it, actually, and learn more about those five topics that you were talking about and that you address in your book. But you've been such a blessing. So thank you for coming on.
- [58:32]
B
And the good, the good news is, and your audience knows this, but I like to remind myself of this, too, is that Jesus wins.
- [58:40]
A
Amen.
- [58:41]
B
He wins in the end. And so we operate as people who know the outcome of all of this. One day, there will be no more elections. There will be no more media manipulation. There will be no more abortion. There will be no more sin or sadness or sorrow because Jesus will rule in perfect, perfect peace. And we have hope in that. We have joy in that. The joy of the Lord is our strength. And so we should know what's at stake. But we don't have to be paranoid. God is completely on his throne. He is never surprised or thrown off. He's got it. And I love your charge to pray because the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. So never think, even if you feel like your vote doesn't count. Your prayer definitely counts. But your vote does count. But sometimes it can feel like. Sometimes it can feel like, oh, my gosh, am I really making, making a difference in this political process? Which, of course you are. But one thing we know for sure is that our prayer gets to where it needs to go.
- [59:36]
A
Amen. So good. I'm so glad you ended with that, because it can feel like when you're seeing all the division and all the chaos in our world today and all the opinions and things, it can feel alarming and hopeless and scary and like what's happening is the world ending. What do I do? And. And you can become paranoid, and you can, but having heaven is your hope and knowing who the anchor of your soul is and that it's not in the outcome of an election, although we should fight for what is godly and what is right. And what is true, we also can sit back in peace and in hope knowing that, yeah, there is a day coming where there will be no more tears and no more sorrow and Amen. And everything will be made fully right. And so thank you for reminding us of that and of that good news. So thank you so much for coming and I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. We love you so much and we just want you to know your voice does matter, your vote does matter, and your prayers definitely do matter. And so hear that from us and let that be our charge to us. But as always, guys, be sure to stay you and stay true. We love.