Discussing Todd Friel's Recent Remarks on Submission to Government (Pastor's Podcast)

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Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.

Todd Friel, Government Submission, and the Vaccine Debate

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist. I am joined today with two of my good friends, Matthew Henson, who has been on the program before and a longtime friend of the show.

And I can't even remember how many times he has joined me. Richard Roden is here with me today. So I've got these two gentlemen here. And you know what I forgot to say? I forgot to say Matthew is my not yet Calvinist friend.

There it is. I'm the token. That's right. You got to put that in there. Matthew is my not yet Calvinist friend, but he's with me today and with us. And we're going to be talking about the subject of a recent broadcast that was put out by Wretched Radio.

Now Wretched Radio is hosted by Todd Friel. Many of you have probably seen through Facebook or other social media platforms that Todd Friel said some things recently that were highly controversial in regards to the Christians responsibility to the government.

And many Christians have responded in the negative, resoundingly negative, regarding what he said. And we are not the first podcast to address this issue. This is certainly not the first time anybody has responded.

In fact, Dr. James White took to the dividing line and he responded to Todd Friel. So we're not the first, probably not the best, but we are going to take the opportunity to give a response because this is an issue that is affecting everyone.

Everyone has to make a wise and informed decision about whether or not they are going to receive a vaccine. And this is going to become very difficult when the government, if the government begins to mandate that we must receive the vaccine.

And I know on Todd's program, he wouldn't even say the word, and I understand why. And if by me saying the word, it may get this podcast kicked off of certain media platforms. Hopefully, at least Sermon Audio will carry it.

And that's our number one platform anyway, as most people who listen to this program listen via Sermon Audio. So we are talking about the vaccine today, and we are not going to give any advice as to whether you should or should not take the vaccine.

The issue is government mandate and even employer mandate. That may come up at a certain point because I know that that has affected some of us. So we can maybe possibly discuss that if time allows. But the big issue is with Todd.

Again, we love Todd. And all of us, even before the program, all confirmed that we consider him to be a brother in Christ, a wonderful voice for the gospel. He is an open air preacher. He's a man who goes out and shares the gospel in some very difficult situations.

So we love Todd and we love what he does with Wretched Radio. So this in no way is intended to be any type of personal attack against him or anything that could be construed as trying to cut him down or knock him down.

Or if anything, I would say, go listen to what he had to say. I'm not trying to get you to not listen to Wretched Radio. Listen to what he had to say. But we're going to give some responses to what he said.

And the thing that was probably the most egregious statement was at a certain point in the program, he did make the statement that when it comes to the government, Christians should, and I'm quoting, do what they're told, end quote.

That was pretty much the quote. Am I correct there, gentlemen? He said you should do what you're told. Even and up to if the government told me this is Todd speaking, if the government told me that I should put pinwheels in my hair every time I go to Publix, I'm going to put pinwheels in my hair every time I go to Publix.

And that was the moment that the entire Christian community said, that does not seem right. And so right away, I'm going to give my guests, because they have been so gracious to give me their time. I'm going to give each of them an opportunity because they both listened to the program.

They both have the opportunity to digest what Todd said. I want to give me give me your initial thoughts as to how he handled scripture, what he was saying and what your thoughts are on this on this particular issue.

And we didn't flip a coin to see who gets to go first, but I'm going to ask Matthew if.

He'll go first. Sure thing. So I was that video came across from what you sent it or the link you sent it out a couple of days ago, and I gave it a listen. I had a notepad out and an open mind. Like you said, I happen to like Todd Friel a lot.

I think I'm willing to say that 90 percent of his takes, I would say I would copy and paste it and say, absolutely. And 10, I would put some nuance behind. But I have no fundamental gospel level disagreements with him.

So I listened, I listened through the video with an open mind and I was writing down timestamps and numerable memorable quotes so I could have a place to go back to. And that was where I stopped the podcast because I didn't know that was coming.

Apparently there have been memes made with Todd Friel and Photoshop and pinwheels. And I'm sure that's very similar.

Have you seen a few? Well, if I can, because I'm going to go and I'm going to edit this when we're done and I'm going to throw one in here. So, yeah, there you go.

Yeah, they exist. I've heard. Yeah. So I didn't know any of that. I didn't know that that was the thing, like the choice meets thing with a certain other Internet apologist that came out, became such a hilarious thing.

I just I didn't know that was coming.

You OK there, Richard? Oh, yes, I'm fine.

Go ahead. OK, I think I'm missing something, too.

What choice meets latent flowers.

Come on, man. I'm lost. I must be.

You didn't see James White respond to latent flowers talking about choice meets. OK, now I got to look that up, too. OK, all right. Well, it was me and Matthew.

Go ahead. It was it was in an effort to make. Anyway, it was latent flowers exegesis. And I'm going to say no more. So anyways, I was willing. You know, that was where I stopped the video and said, hold on, this must be what everyone is is saying, because that is a level of absurdity.

And I get the rhetorical point he was trying to make. His point, basically, or not basically his point, as far as I understood it was if the government requires you to do something, then unless it is explicitly a sin, you do it.

Period. End of discussion. Yep. And.

And I'm a great while that I'm agreeing with your take, I'm not agreeing with. Right. Sure, sure. I'm agreeing with what you said, because I do believe that's exactly what he was saying.

Yes. And while that is a clean and neat rule and it's it sort of squishes it all down and just gives you the the focus, like here's your takeaway. I didn't agree with that. I think there is a lot of problem with that.

I think there's a lot more nuance than that. I think there's a very poor understanding of what is being referred to in the two passages when it says, you know, a government and then it goes on to qualify the type of government that that is.

I think that's a crucial distinction. And then finally, if this is applicable to all men, all times, and we're in 21st century America, then we need to talk about how America's government works. And if in the American governmental system, someone oversteps their bounds or chooses to do something that is does not comport with our system of government here, just because they work in the government does not mean that we should necessarily feel obliged to comply.

If your governor or your mayor or someone does something that is plainly against the law of the land, we have recourse in the court system. But even if we do not, if it is at odds with the founding principles and founding documents and supreme law of the land, then the Christian is not bound by that, in my opinion.

So that would those would be my initial thoughts. And I've got a few more out there, but I'd like to hear Richard's take.

So what you're saying, and you're saying that a king is not the same as a.

President. That's very true. Yes. Absolutely.

Because that actually is, I do think, is a crucial point in understanding even what Paul would have thought of when he referred to governing authorities. The government structure that we are under has an authority, and it's not the president.

It's not any one individual who functions like a king. But that's it. I'm stealing what you're. I'm kind of sure that's fine. But this is. Yeah. But Brother Richard, I always enjoy hearing your thoughts and would like to hear is again, when you were first listening to and I don't put words in your mouth, but I remember you said when you first heard the pinwheel thing, I think you said you wanted to throw your phone out.

Yeah, I shut the phone off and just quit listening and had to come back. I was just like, that's the most ridiculous thing I've heard. And I'm glad Matthew brought up the supreme law of the land and the differing of the government.

I guess we'll get into that later because that's going to play directly into how you interpret Romans 13 and so forth. So anyhow, initial thoughts when I was listening to it for the second time. Is I was mostly frustrated because, OK, as you all pointed out and I agree with you, he's making the point that unless the government does something explicitly or commands you to do something explicitly sinful, then you should do what you're told.

OK, that's the gist. Then I feel like he gets into like a paralysis by analysis. He goes over every teeny tiny scenario on both sides of the issue, giving reasons why you should take the vaccine, giving reasons why you shouldn't.

And so and then but never lands anywhere. And at the end of the day, you're like, well, do I or don't I? And it's just real murky water. And he never gives an actual stance on where he is. He wants you and I understand what he's trying to do.

He's wanting you to do the digging. He's wanting you to research for yourself. He's wanting you to make a biblical decision. But at some point, I guess you got to land what's right or wrong. And he doesn't make any distinction, but it kind of gives himself away a little bit in the beginning with I think he lands on the side of take the vaccine because I don't think he sees it as explicitly sinful.

But he never says that. I'm putting words in his mouth. But it was just frustrating to listen to for those reasons, because it was just, as I said, paralysis by analysis. He goes to the minutia of every little tiny detail.

And I think he misapplies some things, especially when he talks about the doctrine of the lesser magistrate, as John Speed pointed out on his Facebook page. He's friends with Todd. He don't believe he has to believe that Todd doesn't understand what that doctrine truly means, because not two weeks ago, he was lauding the fact that John Speed had did an ignore Roe billboard and with abolished Texas.

And so you have Freel supporting that and thinking that's a great thing. Well, that's ignore Roe is trying to get the lesser magistrate to rebel against the upper magistrate. You see what I'm saying? Anytime you bring up abortion, you stand against abortion.

You are in practice by practice invoking the lesser magistrate over the higher magistrate because of the situation with abortion. So he by practice, he. He agrees with the lesser magistrate, but in word in the video, he said he doesn't.

So there's some things that I think you don't understand, and I think it's some things he misapplies, as Matthew brought up. So maybe we'll get into some of that as we go along. But it was just a frustrate.

It was frustrating to listen to this particular one.

So anyway, and I want to I was actually it's so funny that you mentioned that, Richard, because before you even said lesser magistrate, I had pulled up the definition on Google, and I understand Google is not the end all be all.

But I wanted to see what Google said in regard to the lesser magistrate doctrine, because I don't think that the way that Todd defined it is really how I understand it. Certainly not the way it's defined on Google, because the way that Todd seemed to define it was that an individual being a somewhat being at liberty for himself is able to rebel if he disagrees with the upper magistrate.

But that's not the correct me if I'm wrong, Matthew, isn't that basically what he was referring to individuals? Right. It didn't sound like he was talking about the actual civil authorities.

It seemed to me that he was pressing the lesser magistrates doctrine into a far extreme form. It was a caricature of the position rather than how the reformers actually understood it. And I didn't think that was appropriate.

It wasn't an appropriate use of that category.

I agree. Here's actually what the doctrine as it is written again, this is Google, but this is taken because Google is just pulling from a website. This is actually pulling from the doctrine of lesser magistrates, which is on audible .com.

Apparently, it's a book that you can purchase and listen to. And this is what it says. The doctrine of the lesser magistrates declares that when the superior or higher civil authority makes an unjust, immoral law or decree, the lesser or lower ranking civil authority has both the right and the duty to refuse obedience to that superior authority.

So here's how I would that's in quote. Here's how I would see that. And you guys correct me if you think I'm wrong. It's say let's say there is a city mayor who makes a decree and it is wrong. And the sheriff says, I'm not going to enforce that because I have a position of authority as well.

And me as the sheriff have to enforce your rules. If the mayor makes a rule, the sheriff is supposed to enforce the rule. But if the sheriff says, no, that is a immoral decree, I will not enforce it. Then the sheriff is doing right.

And he's not sinning by disobeying the higher authority. And he's exercising his sphere of authority as a lesser magistrate. And we could go that we could say president, governor. We could say governor to mayor or whatever.

But that's the way it's still a position of authority that's exercising that magisterial.

And do you remember that when Luther was on the run and you had a combination of church, the Catholic church, and had both religious and political power, it was Duke Frederick of Saxony who hit him against the legal order of the authorities of the day to turn him over.

That's right. My man, my man, Duke. Yeah, I just. He's one of my favorite characters because he's doing he is he's saving my hero.

Yeah. Luther's my hero. Yeah. Had had Duke Frederick of Saxony taken Todd Friel's approach, then Martin Luther would probably have been turned over to the authorities and you would not have had the Reformation happen as it did.

And I say that because I can I I can make that case from Todd's point of view. This is the church that God has established in the form of the Catholic church at the time. This is the proper governing authority.

God has, you know, God has placed this person in authority. And I can even make a more critical argument and say, if you don't do this, he's going to rabble rouse people and people are going to die. So if you love your neighbor, you're going to turn this guy in because he's causing so much trouble and there's revolts and riots and all that kind of thing.

And so the Romans 13, first Peter to argument, you have to turn him over. Yeah. And now Todd would Todd would oppose that, I'm sure, and say, well, Luther actually had a proper biblical understanding versus the ones who didn't.

But at the same time, the extension of his position says that that would have been the right thing to do, or at least an option. Yeah, absolutely.

All right, Richard, did you have anything to add to that before we move on? Because I have I want to move on to the next question, but I don't want to leave you hanging if you had something to throw out there.

No, sir. I think you all covered that well enough. Don't even add anything to it.

Romans 13, First Peter 2, and the Government's Duty

Go ahead. OK, good. All right. So here's where I want to move to now, because I did prepare you guys for this. I said before we started, I wanted to ask this question. OK, given the opportunity, you are both teaching men in your church.

You both have responsibilities to teach. Richard, you are a deacon at your church and you teach a Sunday school class. Matthew, are you a deacon or are you I know you're a teacher. You're a teacher in your church.

But yeah. OK.

And so I'm not officially ordained position, just a connect group later. And then I teach middle schoolers on Wednesday nights.

OK, great. So you both have an audience on a regular basis that you present biblical truth to that in there. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because obviously, as a preacher, I present the gospel every week.

I present an exposition of the word. And about a year ago, because of all that was going on with covid, I did preach a sermon about the government's authority. And I and I sort of gave a similar position to what Todd has said.

And so I want to be if somebody could somebody could throw this back in my face, somebody could go back a year ago, pull up my sermon and say, here, you said in your sermon that, you know, we are to obey the government unless they call us to sin.

And that was basically what I said. And that's basically what Todd said. But in that sermon, I was not digging down into the minutia of what is it what are we saying might qualify as sin? Because the way that Todd has described it is, is it would have to be explicit sin that is so clear that it can't be seen any other way.

And I'll give you my like my answer to the pinwheel response. If somebody says, well, what if the government told you to wear pinwheels in your hair every time you go to the store? My response to that, if somebody were to ask me that question, I would say I would not wear the pinwheels because it is an affront to my humanity to to say that it is my responsibility to go and wear to essentially dress as a child or in a feminine way.

And it would be the same to me as if somebody said, you have to dress as a woman when you go to Publix. Well, then I'm not doing it. And because this is an attack against the image of God, which I bear as an image bearer of God.

And and I do think that there is a sense in which things like mass mandates making us cover ourselves. I do think there's a sense in which that was an affront to the the basic dignity of the image of God that we are that we're called to bear.

In fact, I jokingly would say that sometimes if I didn't have a mask on or whatever, somebody say, well, you have to wear a mask. And I say I have a religious exemption and they would look at me funny and I say, yeah, I'm not going to cover the image of God.

And they would laugh because that was but but that was the sort of my response. And again, some would take issue with that. I'm sure you guys have your own opinions. But but because I didn't go as deep as I could have in the sermon, I just want to clarify, given the opportunity to preach that same sermon again, I would I would probably dive deeper, seeing how Todd's message has been responded to.

So just just to be clear now. OK, so when we're talking about the subject of the sermon that I preached, which was telling people we do have a responsibility to obey the government and we but we'd never obey the government if it causes us to sin.

We then have to ask the question, the deeper question of what is it that the government is asking us to do that is sinful? As I've already said, I feel like calling me to humiliation, calling me to, in a sense, devaluing of my life and or my children's life.

I see that as a sinful. So, Richard, when we when you're teaching your Sunday school class, obviously I know because I've listened to you teach and I've I've we've talked about your lessons before. I know that you're very conscientious when it comes to preaching the word, teaching the word, and you want to be right with Scripture.

So what do you think that if you were going to teach on this subject, how would you differ from what from what Todd said in regard to the responsibilities of obedience to.

The government? Well, it's it's complicated, but we'll try. I'll try to simplify it for purposes of this video. Romans 13 says we should submit to the government, the government's installed by God and the government has a responsibility to act as an agent of God for rewarding good and punishing evil.

OK. Otherwise, we don't have to obey. That's how I would look at Romans 13. Because as long as the government is doing what it's supposed to do and rewarding good and punishing evil. We are in acting as agents of God because they're installed by God, then we are to be in obedience to them.

Now, that's written back in a time when, as you mentioned before, with kings, not presidents, not congresses and this whole governmental system we have that is just huge now. So the difference we have now is that we have a and Matthew brought this up earlier, we have a supreme law of the land, which is the Constitution.

We have a founding document by which the government is to act according to. That founding document, which we brought up earlier, gives us life, liberty and property. I have a personal right when it comes to this particular vaccine or any other thing to protect my own life, to preserve my own life, both under the Constitution and biblical.

I have a right to self-defense, I have a right to protect myself and do what I need to do. So when it comes to Romans 13 and whether or not we should obey the government, even with this vaccine or in other areas, our government, by my own opinion, is so far removed from rewarding good and punishing evil and doing the exact opposite.

It's almost to a point now where. Just about in every element of society, the Christian needs to be in some kind of rebellion, we're murdering the unborn, these vaccine mandates, which Todd brought up since we're responding to his video, Todd brought up several times the issue of the body.

If you understand what I'm saying, you probably the issue of the body and that if it's harmful to you or harmful to someone else, things that you should think about, are you doing harm to your friend, to your neighbor, are you doing harm to your children, to your wife by letting them have this vaccine?

So and I know you asked me how I would teach this to a Sunday school class, but responding to a video, so it's kind of hard not to put the two together.

No, I don't have a problem. And you're actually answering, I think that you're doing just what I wanted, because really, you've already sort of said it, the way you understand Romans 13 is the responsibility, the government has a responsibility, too.

Right. And when they're outside of their responsibility, as you see it, when they're outside of their responsibility, then that's when the Christian has to take a stand.

Right. And call them to repentance, call them back into right action, as God has commanded them to do. And since their responsibility is to the Constitution, which is and their whole purpose for existing is protect our rights and our liberties.

That's the whole purpose. They're there. That's the whole purpose of government, protect our rights, protect our liberty. That's it. That's what they exist to do. They're not doing that right now. Now, to get back to, OK, is the vaccine harmful?

Does it cause damage? Well, I have some statistics to give you real quick. I'm not going to go long, but I can make the argument that this vaccine is harmful. It does harm to you and others. The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, or VAERS, as of 7 -23 -21, so it's a month old, out of 518 ,769 reports so far, the vaccine itself has caused 11 ,940 deaths, 40 ,991 hospitalizations, 65 ,000 have gone to urgent care, 88 ,000 have gone to office visits, 4 ,110 have suffered from anaphylactic shock, 3 ,714 Bell's Palsy, 1 ,272 miscarriages, 4 ,800 heart attacks, 12 ,808 permanently disabled people as of 7 -23.

That's just what the vaccine caused upon injection. So that's just immediate effects in that. And I know out of 518 ,000, those numbers aren't a huge percentage, but that's still immediate effects. And we have a vaccine here that is experimental, and we don't know what the long-term effects are because they haven't done the studies.

It's not had two to five years of study like most vaccines do. Now, for those who are fully vaccinated, those are fully vaccinated, a new report came out today, they have 251 times the viral load of anyone else.

So they're actually a risk to the unvaccinated patients and co-workers in the hospital. So all the vaccinated workers are actually carrying more of the virus than the unvaccinated or someone who just caught COVID, therefore, they're actually more infectious than the unvaccinated or someone who just is carrying COVID or comes in with COVID.

Breakthrough cases, so those who have been vaccinated and now have caught COVID, that's what a breakthrough case is. As of August 9th, 8 ,054 resulted in hospitalization or death, and the CDC says the cases are underreported.

So that number is probably much higher. So there's 8 ,000 people have caught the virus that they've reported and either been hospitalized, on vets or died. In Louisiana, the breakthrough cases are 30 percent of all the new case, not Louisiana, but Los Angeles.

The breakthrough cases are 30 percent of all the new cases. And this is a place where they are like mandate crazy with masks and quarantining and all that stuff. But 30 percent of all new cases are breakthrough cases, people who are vaccinated catching the virus.

And in the state of Massachusetts alone, there have been 12 ,500 breakthrough cases reported in Massachusetts and 124 deaths. And that's not an isolated incident, that's happening all over the country.

So you can make the argument whether or not the Christian who is trying to protect himself and protect others, love your neighbor as yourself. This vaccine could actually cause harm not only to you, but to others and your family if you administer it to yourself.

So and if we want to get into and we're not going to go deep into this, but I'm just going to throw this out there, the political elements of this vaccine, the overreaching element of they got to get a needle in every arm.

There's something up with that, that the government wants this to happen so bad, everybody gets a needle in their arm, something else is going on. I think it's a duty to rebel because I think there's some tyrannical elements to it.

And as John Calvin once said, to rebel against tyranny is to obey God, period. So when it comes to Romans 13, I don't think we have to get the vaccine as a blanket obedience to Romans 13 or first Peter two, because the government's telling us to do so because there's many a biblical argument you can make of why you shouldn't do it and going from the Bible all the way to the constitution.

And you can put the two together because Romans 13 is about obeying the government. Well, our government has a constitution that says that I don't have to inject chemicals in my body. The government told me I had to drink diluted poison.

I wouldn't do it. I don't have to put something in my body just because they tell me to, period. The constitution protects us of that. And if we're going to go off Romans 13, which says that the governing body has to obey the constitution they've written, well, they're no longer doing what they're supposed to do.

So we have a right, as you were talking about, we're wearing pinwheels in our hair to rebel, to disobey. So that would be what I would say if I had to present this to the class. Or anyone for that matter, or your listener.

Okay.

All right. So Matthew, if you had your class in front of you and you were having to present the concept of obedience to government and when is it, because the big question is not whether or not we should obey.

It's the question is when should we disobey and when do we have a right, or as Richard just said, a duty to disobey, what, what would, what say you?

So I, I had a, I have a large agreement with Richard on, on what he said there.

Well, that's good. Cause I thought you're the brainiac was fixing to nail me to a wall.

I don't let that reputation get out. But so I, I will, I will say let's start with, let's start with the biblical and then we'll flow into the governmental, because I think we said in, in pre-show let's suppose, and Richard referenced this, let's suppose for a moment that I grant Todd Friel's premise.

Let's assume that, that pinwheels are indeed the order of the day. If so, if so commanded by the government and that, that, that is, that is true that in all cases outside of sin, we must obey the government.

Let's say that that's a proposition that I'm granting for argument. Then the next question would be what is the government? What is the governing authority? And as Richard laid out perfectly, the highest authority in the land, the document begins with we, the people.

And so this type of government was not really in existence. When Paul is writing this letter to the church in Rome, there is Caesar, there is an emperor and he has plenary power to do what he wants to.

There's some sort of, there's a Roman Senate, but not really by this point, they don't really do a whole lot. And so in our system, the way the, the, the government that I believe that God has ordained, as Paul says in Romans 13 that he has set up in this time for these people on this continent has a supreme law of the land called the constitution and before the constitution was even written, the, the very document that established the United States as a independent nation, that a lot of the Romans 13 people came against at the time, the declaration of independence.

And a lot of the Romans 13 people I'll say Romans 13 misusers. We're all Romans 13 people. It's God free scripture, but, but let me clarify the Romans 13 misusers would come to the ones who wrote the declaration of independence and say, you're doing the wrong thing.

You know, the British monarchy, it's God's government and all that kind of thing. But what, what does it say at the start of it? It says the unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitled them.

A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator of a certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to Richard's point in earlier drafts, that was property.

And that was actually the John Locke position was property that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the government of the governed, excuse me, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government.

So the very founding document that established the country said that for the purpose of securing rights, the government must be instituted. But if it, uh, if it becomes destructive to those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

And so that is the, that is the framework. That is the Romans 13 government that we are dealing with. The deck was set from the very beginning that this government is stated to protect rights. Those rights are listed largely in the bill of rights, though there are others.

The ninth amendment, by the way, is a direct line right to natural law. It's straight up says just because we didn't list a right in the bill of rights doesn't mean it doesn't exist because, uh, you know, they had a belief in the natural law, a very Lockean idea.

So I would set that as a premise for anyone saying that a government can impose a particular, uh, you know, vaccine on someone is, I would say that you have to understand that you're in very shaky ground.

If you want to go back to the founding documents, the very, uh, constitutional jurisprudence that was used to decide Roe versus Wade was that there is a, uh, there is a, a woman has the right to, uh, repel the government when it attempts to, and I'll use some of the parlance of the pro-choice movement, um, that when they attempt to invade a woman's reproductive choices or her body, that she has a right to repel them.

And, uh, the justices in the court at the time said, that's absolutely true. It's a very dubious, it's an awfully written opinion. Um, it would not pass a constitutional law class nowadays, but the argument at the time was, yes, you have bodily autonomy in that way, that whether we like it or not, that is the current law of the land.

I think it's a stupid opinion and it makes absolutely no sense, but that is how it is. And so if that is the case, we have to ask a couple of other questions and it's, is the government overstepping its bounds?

Now that is the question we have to ask. Now let's look at a more, I guess what is often brought up as the Christian response. And I've seen this, there was a church in Canada that posted this very, um, let's say interesting, uh, requirement.