The Gospel Comes With a House Key & The Fairness For All Act

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris, and it's been about two weeks since I recorded an episode, so as you can imagine, a lot has happened in those two weeks.

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The House of Representatives has decided to create a precedent in which arbitrary preference reigns over principle, and I live in Virginia, so there's a battle right now in Virginia to enact some legislation that will trample over the

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Second Amendment. And then there's the church stuff, and I gotta tell you though, watching all this, trying to, it's obviously always overwhelming because there's so much of it, but the church is the most important facet of society.

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I mean, it's the most important institution, and for me, I mean, I do these videos for you all who

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I imagine you as mostly working class, busy with probably kids and grandkids.

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You love your church, you just wanna worship Jesus, and you turn on CNN and you hear talking points that sound unfortunately similar to talking points you're now hearing maybe in your

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Sunday school class. And I've tried to expose, explain what's going on, encourage you as much as I possibly can, compare what's being said in the social justice movement to what the truth of the gospel is, what just common reason, as Martin Luther said, says, and I just,

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I don't see it slowing down. I don't see it slowing down. And even if on the federal level and on the state and local level, politically, things go south, the church is still the most important thing to me because I think that's where, that's

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God's plan. It's God's plan A, and there is no B for carrying out the

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Great Commission. It's the only hope to be salt and light in this society, as long as the church is true and orthodox and following Christ in every way.

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And so there's no perfect world, there's no perfect church, but the Lord has said that he will preserve his church.

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We have that promise. And I do these videos because I believe in the church.

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And I gotta tell you, there's, we're in trouble in some ways right now.

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That being said, there's some really encouraging things happening behind the scenes. And I wanna give you a quick update before I get into the main course of this video.

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I was down in Naples, Florida last week, for much of the week. That's one of the reasons I didn't do a podcast.

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And that was on your generous support, those who are Patreon supporters of mine. They're actually one of the

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Patreons paid for my plane ticket, which I am so grateful for. And I was able to go down there and without getting into details, because we had a film crew and we are going to come out with a video within the next few months that fully will show what's going on and has gone on down there.

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But without getting into the details, it's heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking to see men and women who some of them served for years at this church, were baptized as a kid there, involved in ministries and ministries and outreaches to be told that they're racist because they didn't go along with the social justice message and the church is playing nasty with them.

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Don't come on our property, serving cease and desist orders, these kinds of things. And we have uncovered that there are ties and shouldn't be a surprise to, we'll just say entities within the

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Southern Baptist Convention. And what we know will be coming out.

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I don't wanna say any more than that right now, but I'm just really appreciative that y 'all sent me down there.

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And I think we were able to encourage some of them. Cause you get to a point sometimes you think I'm crazy. I'm crazy,

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I'm being disciplined for my church. What's wrong with me? And then to have someone from the outside come in and say, no, you're not crazy.

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What's happening to you is crazy. And we were hopefully able to do that.

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So that was my Naples trip in a very, very small nutshell. I will be talking hopefully more about it soon.

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I actually have a whole slideshow with all kinds of information. And it's just, it's not the time right now for me to release that, but I will be doing that.

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Also, oh, this is great. The Founders movie came out and I watched it and I've already used it in this way.

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And this is how I think the Founders movie can be really useful. One of my supporters on Patreon messaged me and they're looking for a church, having a hard time finding a church.

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And they have a pastor now potentially, but they're concerned about some things.

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I said, why don't you send them the Founders trailer, the Buy What Stand, not trailer, the movie,

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Buy What Standard, and just see what they think, get their reaction. And that'll really tell you kind of where they're at.

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And they said, that's a good idea. Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do. And so I'm really happy that this was made. I noticed some of the clips, if you watch my podcast, some of the montages from enemies within the church of the professors at Southern who are into critical race theory, and then

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Walter Strickland at Southeastern, who's into liberation theology, that those made it to some of my exact clips.

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So I think I know where they got those, but I was kind of happy when I saw that. I was like, oh, that's awesome. They used some of that material.

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Felt like I was part of it, I guess, in a way. And I gotta show you, this is the best, it's sad, but this is the best clip, in my opinion.

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I just got a kick out of this clip. So here it is. What do you think makes the

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SBC the best denomination in America? Our stances on, just, I'm gonna put it, just simply put that we stick to what the scripture has to tell us.

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We don't budge from that. I'm grateful that I'm not seeing the

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SBC do what some conventions are doing in terms of stepping away from their values and stances on biblical hot -button topics.

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I'll put it that way. So speaking of biblical hot -button topics, that leads right to my next question and talking about,

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I'm sure you've seen the chatter on Twitter and just conversations that have been going around about women pastors and women preachers and the woman being the president of the

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SBC. What are your thoughts on that? How do you feel about a woman being president of the SBC? I don't know that I have a comment on that, honestly.

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Yeah, what do you think scripture speaks on women preachers or pastors? Would you be willing to talk about that at all? I'd say the

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Bible does speak upon it. Since I'm honestly representing Lifeway, I'd rather let

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Lifeway answer that question. Absolutely, I appreciate your time so much, Rob. Thank you so much, it was great to meet you. So yeah, after he's like, yeah, we're conservative, like we're such a good denomination because we're so firm on our conviction.

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And then a simple question like, hey, what about women pastors? Like, I can't answer that one, I work for Lifeway. Like it's just, oh, it exposes so much.

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That's where we're at though. And so anyway, if you haven't seen that, I would recommend it.

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I think it's a pretty good documentary. And so, and I think more is happening.

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I just gotta say this. More is happening behind the scenes that I can't really share a lot about, but I wanna say something encouraging, not just to say it, this is real.

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Like this is actually happening. There are at high levels, people who are concerned about the trajectory of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. And well, I'm talking to some of them about what could be done potentially.

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And that's exciting. So without saying anything more, I'm just gonna leave that there. Y 'all who have, again, contributed with, not just financially, but your prayers, that has meant so much.

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And it's enabled me to do this. And I see God's hand moving, and he will preserve his church, whatever that looks like, come what may.

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So I do have some things I wanna talk about today. I was gonna talk about this.

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Well, yeah, I'll mention it real quick, I guess before I get to the main course. I'm looking at, I have a bulletin board over there, and I wrote some things down on it.

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I have, I was gonna mention that there's pastors leaving. Oh, Harry Reeder is leaving the

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PCA. I just saw that headline right before I started recording. That's a big church,

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I believe in Georgia. I used to listen to him on the radio. Leaving the PCA, it's over the sexual stuff, it's over the

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LGBTQ stuff. There was another pastor just recently, this was intriguing, this is an

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SBC, but it's the same reason. It's Pastor James Pittman Jr. He's leaving the Southern Baptist Convention, Chicago pastor, and not that I care about this, but social justice people do, so I figured

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I'd mention it. He's a black pastor, and so he breaks the stereotype for who's supposed to be concerned about social justice, so on and so forth, but he's leaving over J .D.

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Greer and his recommendation of using preferred pronouns for LGBTQ people.

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So that's going on, and he's also hosting, he's a pastor that's hosting his church,

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New Hope Community Church of Palantine, Illinois. It must be outside of Chicago. He's hosting a conference for the

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International, I think it's called the International Association of Christian Apologetics, and a former, well, the president of that organization who used to teach,

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I should say, at Southeastern, Bill Roach is gonna be speaking there. Tom Askell's gonna be speaking there.

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Look, that's a conservative direction. I can tell you that. I know Bill, and so anyway, some lines are continuing to form, and it saddens me, and I know it saddens people in the

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PCA and SBC to see conservatives leaving because they wanna take it back, but how do they do that?

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And I think on that vein, last thing before we get to the main course,

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I promise you, on that vein, I was planning on, up till yesterday morning, to do an episode on Albert Mueller because I think we're at a breaking point right now, and we need to figure out, if you're in the

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Southern Baptist Convention, you need to figure out, are you gonna vote for Al Mueller? Are you not gonna vote for Al Mueller? Are you gonna nominate someone else to run against Al Mueller?

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And we wanna give him, I think, as much benefit of the doubt as charity would allow. He's a fellow brother in Christ, and I believe in that with my whole heart.

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We also, though, need to come up with a paradigm for understanding some of the confusing things he's done within the last year. And I think

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I've come closer to understanding what that might be because I've narrowed it down.

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I've eliminated some possibilities. And I talked to Dr. E .S. Williams, so he'll be joining us for that episode.

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But I also, I decided not to do that right now because we're entering the holiday season, and I think this is a topic

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I just really, it's important. Some of you are already at your destinations for celebrating

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Christmas and New Year's, and I'm gonna bring you something that is important, but I want you to enjoy that.

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Let's not think about that as much yet. It's important, so let's talk about that in January.

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And I have a few more episodes, by the way, before we get to that during this holiday season. We're gonna talk about Walt Disney.

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Believe it or not, a book that I just read in the next episode, I'm doing an interview with the author for the

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Trojan Mouse, and it was a good book, guys. Like, I don't just say that. Like, this was a good book. I think every family needs to read this book.

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So, preview of coming attractions. And I'd like to talk about some Christmas books and movies that I really like, maybe show you a few clips.

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So, we will see. But now for the main course, right? Let's get to the nitty gritty.

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If we were gonna put a label on the various things I'm gonna be talking about in this video, it would be under the umbrella of how to interact with LGBTQ plus people on a personal level and a political level.

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And we're gonna start with the personal level. There's been a controversy that's been going on for two weeks,

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I wanna say. I've been a little out of it, because I was in Naples and, you know, the

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Twitter wars, I'm new to this. I've been on Twitter for about a year now. And it's because of the podcast.

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But the Twitter wars sometimes are silly, in my opinion. And sometimes, you know, they're sort of important, but there's a lot of other more important things.

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And usually, I think of my audience as folks who probably aren't on Twitter. You're just, like I said, working class, trying to, you know, understand what's going on while you're trying to be involved in your church and lead your family.

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And so I try not to bog you down with things that I don't think are important.

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And there's a controversy that's arisen over Rosaria Butterfield, who's an author, former lesbian, and she's considered to be one of the more conservative sort of speakers on this topic.

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And there's a whole genre right now. You have, like, Greg Cole's book I read about a year and a half ago.

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And there's, I think it was called Single Gay Christian. There's Gay Girl, Good God, which

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I read. And, you know, there's a bunch of them. And it's everything from Matthew Vines to Rosaria Butterfield.

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Like Matthew, a good example would be, like, the new book that Karen Swallow Pryor put out, Cultural Engagement, in which, you know,

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Matthew Vines is the liberal. She says he's orthodox, right? This is kind of where we are in Christianity right now, in evangelicalism in the

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United States. Supposedly he's orthodox, but he's full -on gay Christianity all the way.

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And then you have someone like Rosaria Butterfield, who's, like, has a family, has kids, rejected that lifestyle, and she writes on this.

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And so she's considered to be, like, the conservative. I was actually with a bunch of younger Christians the other day riding in the car, and this topic got brought up, and one of them was recommending

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Butterfield to me. He's like, oh, yeah, she's good. And I hadn't really read her, so I thought I'd have to check her out at some point.

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But that was before this controversy came up. And this controversy came up, most of you are probably not aware of it, and I thought to myself, this might be one of those

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Twitter things where I'm just like, you know, I'm at Naples. I'm seeing real victims. I'm talking with folks about some big things going on behind the scenes, and I thought, well,

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I don't know if I'm gonna get involved in this. It's a lot of time. I don't wanna read all these books.

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But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, you know what? I'm gonna say something, and I'm only giving you a little piece of the pie. This is not, like, the definitive position on Rosaria Butterfield, but I did happen to read one of her books.

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It's called The Gospel Comes with a House Key. It was written in 2018, and I was told by someone who's read a number of her books that, yeah, this is the one you need to read if you really wanna understand her.

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So I said, okay, I'll read it. I'll see what's going on here, because, look, she's come highly recommended to me, and so I do have some concerns.

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There's some good things in this, and I'm gonna give you both of those, but I do have some concerns, and I think the takeaway from this is that we need to be discerning, and even those things that sound good, we should think more into it, not to be jerks or conspiracy theorists or any of that, but just, like, think through the words that you're hearing and match them up with scripture.

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What's biblical language? Is this biblical language? Because even those who have some good things to say, and, look,

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I'm part of this. Compare what I say to scripture, but even people who have good things to say can be blinded by things, and I think that's sort of my takeaway with Butterfield.

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I do see some things that she says that they make me cautious.

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They concern me, to say the very least, and I want you to know what those concerns are, and also what some of the positives,

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I think, are. So I'm gonna just give you the purpose for the book here. She says, and gospel comes with a house key, she says, my prayer is that you will grow to be more like Christ in practicing daily ordinary radical hospitality, and that the

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Lord will bless you richly for it, adding to his kingdom, creating a new culture and a new reputation for what it means to be

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Christian to a watching world. She says, radically ordinary hospitality is this, using your

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Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors and neighbors, I'm not sure, that seems like a typo, a daily way that seeks to make strangers and neighbors family of God.

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So here's the thing about this, right? I don't have a problem with any of that, like in and of itself.

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There's a tendency, though, right now in Christian publishing, and I've seen it quite a bit, to want to put secular

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Americans in the driver's seat for, and they should be dictating to the church kind of like what the church should do, and kind of defining the terms on how they wanna be approached.

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And the term she's using, radical ordinary hospitality, and these are words that are, I mean, I immediately thought of Radical by David Platt and Liturgy of the

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Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren. I mean, these are the ordinary, radical, these are terms that are being used, and there's a reason they're being used a lot right now, and they're popular.

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And so this is sort of part of a canon of books, like right now in the 2010s, that it's like a genre.

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I think we're gonna look back years from now, we're gonna be like, oh yeah, those were the 2010s books, they were like radical Christianity, and even when you're brushing your teeth, like you're worshiping, and it's in the ordinary, though, that it's radical, like there's a push sort of in that direction.

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It's a Neo -Cyperian, Abraham Kuyper's theology, I think, coming out, because he's kind of like a hot topic.

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And so she's in this vein, and what she wants to do, though, is do something like, she wants to start a new trend within Christianity.

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And the question I had, and maybe this is just me looking at things from my narrow perspective, but I don't think it's that narrow.

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I mean, I've been to a number of, lived in a number of states, and my dad's a pastor, met so many,

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I know a lot of Christians, we'll put it that way. Like, hospitality's been done for a long time, 2 ,000 years.

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I mean, I grew up in a home that was very hospitable. I'm used to it. In fact, while I was reading this book,

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I was even convicted a little. I was like, ah, I probably should be more hospitable. But it's something that I was used to,

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I've lived in it. And so she makes it out like this is like this radical new thing, almost, like the watching world is, we're gonna get a reputation with him, a good reputation, because we're gonna start to be hospitable again.

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And I'm just kind of like, number one, the world's not gonna be appeased. Like those who love their sin, at least, like if you, like, they're not gonna like love you because, oh, they're hospitable.

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Like, I mean, that helps, not being a jerk helps too. But like, there actually is a conflict.

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And I think Butterfield knows this, but she does know this, you know, but there's a conflict between the world and the church, like at a very primary level.

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And so all that to say, to try to create a new movement, like this is, it's a book of correction.

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And to say that the church has been doing it wrong, the church has not been doing it, and we're gonna show you how to do it right.

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It seems a little presumptuous to me. And I was a little confirmed in that when I read this statement.

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She goes, if Mary Magdalene had written a book about hospitality for this post -Christian world, it would read like this one. Like, I would never write a book and be like, well, if, you know,

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Titus was around, this is what he'd write. Like, how do you know that? So anyway, it's maybe a little too big for its britches.

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We'll put it that way. Like, this is so revolutionary. It's like, well, it's not, having people over for dinner, being there for them, like that shouldn't be that revolutionary.

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That should be something that the church has been doing, but she sees a problem in the church. She thinks the church has like, you know, dropped the ball when it comes to this.

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So she's gonna show us a better way. And so she talks about diversity, inclusion, and acceptance as elements of this radical ordinary hospitality.

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Now, I want you to think with me for a moment real quick, because these are buzzwords that we hear in our culture a lot, but what does politically correctness rest on?

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Like, as far as principles? It rests on those things. It rests on diversity, inclusion, and acceptance, right?

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Like, why is it wrong to say like, something that's considered hate speech? Well, it's, hey, it's not being diverse.

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It's not being inclusive. You're not accepting. And so what's happening right now in the

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Western world, and in the United States in particular, is we're moving from 10 Commandments, Christian principles, to these like, diversity, and inclusion, and acceptance being like the new groundwork for creating a new moral order.

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And this is a result of modernity in a way. David Wells, I just read a book by him called

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No Place for Truth. He talks about this. I'd recommend that book. But those words, the sticky thing is, those words aren't bad in and of themselves.

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Like, they could be actually good terms if defined in a biblical way and according to biblical parameters.

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The problem is, in our general culture, they aren't defined that way. And most people reading them are going to bring their understandings of those terms to them when they read those terms.

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And I don't think that Butterfield does a great job explaining them that well.

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But they become more primary. Like, these are the things that should mark a Christian. And I don't see that in scripture.

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I see graciousness in scripture. I see love in scripture. But we're too often equating love with diversity, and acceptance, and inclusion.

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And there are limitations to those things. Those aren't, you cannot build a moral framework based on those things.

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They're really more like empty concepts until you charge them full of the worldview that you're a part of.

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And so, this is, it's dicey to start trying to base your whole approach to evangelism, which this is, based on those kind of hard -to -define or most often secularly -defined terms.

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And she does this, though. Those are the terms that she uses a lot. And there's other terms in here.

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But those hit me. Those stuck out to me when I was reading this book. Now, it is an evangelism strategy.

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We're supposed to build bridges. It can't be rushed. Which, by the way, I don't think it's right to rush an evangelism encounter.

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But Jesus often had very short encounters. Like the woman at the well, the rich young ruler.

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It's not like he's getting together with them every week for a year and slowly introducing

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Christianity to them. He's right up front with them about what Christianity is and their need to repent.

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And I think that's important for us to remember that. Because I think Rosaria Butterfield has kind of this more progressive way of sort of this lifestyle evangelism where you bring them over and you wanna make sure they're comfortable.

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That's really primarily important. Don't discuss politics, she says. It doesn't get dug in over politics or culture.

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Or someone stands on current events. And listen, those things can actually be your biggest gateway into evangelizing.

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To talk about, let's say abortion. Let's pick an obvious one. You can talk about how people are made in God's image. They're different than animals and plants.

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And it's part of your worship for God and those who do it have broken God's law. But there's a savior who can take away their guilt and shame and bring them back into a right relationship with God.

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Boom, gospel encounter, right there over a controversial political issue. Like, that's

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I think the way that we should be looking at. We should be looking at everything for how do we swing from the natural to the spiritual?

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Like Jesus did at the well. Hey, can I have a drink? Next thing you know, he's talking about living water.

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So I think that Rosaria Butterfield is, she's less comfortable bringing up things that would be considered controversial.

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And there's discernment that's needed here, for sure. You don't wanna be a jerk. But at the same time, you don't wanna just avoid those things because it will make someone uncomfortable.

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Like people don't get into the kingdom of God without some discomfort of some kind, all right? There's gonna be some dying to self.

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Like death is never comfortable. So I have kind of an issue with this. And it's gonna play into what we're gonna see later regarding the

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LGBTQ stuff. But she says, radically ordinary hospitality serves Ravioli with redemption life.

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It's fearless, it is faithful. And as Russell Moore writes, describing another context for spiritual engagements with culture, it doesn't blink before power, but doesn't seek to imitate it either.

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I wanna respond to Russell Moore and Butterfield because they're writing on two different fronts. Russell Moore saying in his book,

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Onward, that the church shouldn't be seeking power. And I agree, the church shouldn't be seeking power if, big stipulation here, if it's power in and of itself.

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But go with me on this for a minute. Should not the church be seeking power for the sake of love?

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What do you mean by that? Well, what I mean by that is, is not God love? Yes, he is, right? So are not the moral principles of God enshrined in his law?

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Do they not flow from who God is? Yes, they do. It is loving. The whole law can be summed up with love, right?

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That Jesus said that. Loving God with all your heart, loving your neighbor as yourself. This isn't like a new law in the sense that like, oh, this has never been thought of before.

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Jesus is implementing something completely new. No, it's a summation of the first two tables of the law.

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It's been there since the beginning. The concept of this is how you love people. Here's how

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God has shown you to do it. And we can see it in the Old Testament primarily.

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God gives us examples of that. Now, if you're comfortable going with me on all that, which you should if you're an

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Orthodox Christian. If you don't, there might be a problem. God being love, his commandments being reflections of that.

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Then shouldn't Christians seek to implement love, which would be reflected in God's law in a political process?

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Well, yeah. That's not seeking power though. That's for the sake of power. That's seeking power for the sake of loving others.

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Now, apply this to a personal situation here. Apply this to the situation that Rosaria Butterfield's writing about.

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She's talking about serving people, hospitality, ravioli, right?

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And someone's sitting across from you at your table. Like, is it loving to neglect what will bring her or that person life?

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Is it loving to just say, well, that's controversial. I'm not gonna talk about it. I mean, you shouldn't be a jerk.

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You shouldn't be like forceful because you don't have the right to be forceful if you're not acting in a governmental capacity of some kind or you're not an authority figure.

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But you should at least be adamant that no, like there's a right way to do things and God has implemented that way.

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And don't back down from it. And yeah, use discernment, of course. But to vilify the seeking of power, empower especially when it comes to implementing

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God's law or making your standard the law of God, like that makes me uncomfortable. I'll be honest.

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Like it really does. And so I just have this concern in general that the non -saved, the pagan, the person who doesn't know

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Christ, is they're given a lot more power in the conversation to direct it and steer it than the person who is a

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Christian. And I could see that being a problem. Now, maybe Rosaria Butterfield, she navigates this fine.

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I'm just saying that her book, I don't think, is very clear on this in showing what that might look like.

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And I'm gonna show you more examples of this as we go forward and why I'm saying that. If you look at her language,

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I think it makes us feel very comfortable as conservatives. She says, check this out. She goes,

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Freud first introduced the cultural idea of sexual orientation, right? So she's saying, that's not your identity.

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That's just something that came from Freud. I mean, look, the whole evangelical world is bending over to this idea. They're bowing to it.

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They're saying, yeah, your sexual orientation, that's part of who you are. And she's saying, nah, that's Freud. I mean, that's awesome.

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She says, gay clubs are dangerous and dark, where dangerous and dark sins are, and there's counterfeit hospitality there.

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Like, amen, right? Amen. This is the thing that would offend feminists the most. She goes, she's telling a friend that she's a stay -at -home mom, and that's the way that it ought to be done, and that godly patriarchy is not my enemy.

29:16

And she goes, the kitchen is my kingdom. So when you hear Rosaria Butterfield say things like this, and I put a very traditional picture of her playing a guitar with her dog there, looks like a golden retriever.

29:29

I love golden retrievers. Anyway, it makes, I think, you feel comfortable. I mean, if that's all

29:35

I knew about her, I'd be like, oh yeah, this person looks great. I would trust what she says, probably,

29:41

I mean, if she's willing to take that stand. And I think that would be a mistake in this case, to trust everything.

29:47

We still need to read with that discerning eye. But I want to say, I agree with that stuff, for the most part.

29:54

That's really solid stuff she's saying. And so I don't think that she's, based on this book,

30:01

I haven't read her other works, but based on this, I don't know that she's a willful person, like a wolf, trying to come into the church and steer them away from godliness.

30:14

I mean, she could be, and I'm not aware of it, but she's stepped on the taboos, some of the taboos, that are just no -nos.

30:22

You don't say those things. Even in the Christian world, to say that the kitchen is my kingdom, like that,

30:30

I just gotta say, that's pretty bold stuff, to say that. But lest we feel too comfortable, let's see what she says about social justice.

30:43

So she talks about her race and class privilege, which is kind of thrown in there as a categorization of herself.

30:50

She talks about a situation where there was a meth lab across the street, and the police come, they take those who made the meth lab, and they spray them off, they're in hazmat suits, and they treat them like subhuman trash, is what she says, and that they throw them on the ground, and this is a process by which image bearers become prison numbers, lost people, nobodies.

31:09

And so, I wanted to just take, go on a tangent here for a moment, because Russell Moore uses this language all the time about immigrants, that hey, if you deport them, that's violating the image of God.

31:19

And the thing about this, and illegal immigrants, specifically, the thing about this is, where do we find the parameters for treating someone in a humane way?

31:33

That word is very humanist. God is the one who gives us, through the image of himself on us, our worth.

31:43

So God is also the one that gets to define the parameters of what's abuse and what's not, what is a violation of his image.

31:50

Murder is a violation of his image, right? He sets forth those things in his law, and we see in the Old Testament examples of this.

31:57

I don't think stoning is viewed as humane in our culture. Even conservatives would say, ah, it's pretty inhumane, but that is the way, in the

32:06

Old Testament, that's the way God wanted certain crimes punished. So you die by bruising.

32:12

I mean, is that humane? So this is what I wanted to ask, and I would wanna hear

32:18

Butterfield's response, I wanna hear Russell Moore's response, but how do you figure out what's humane and what's not?

32:23

What's a violation of the image of God? It is a vacuous statement to say that simply because the police were rough with someone who was a criminal, who did something that could've,

32:33

Butterfield admits this, blown up her kids' rooms with a meth lab.

32:39

I mean, it's vacuous to say that that's just inhumane to treat a criminal according to their crime.

32:48

Now, maybe she's saying they went above and beyond, this wasn't punishment fitting the crime, but what should the punishment be then?

32:56

It seems like this comes from a sentimental, it's very feelings -oriented, it's the way that people grow up, children watch

33:04

Disney movies and they read books that have these underdog characters, these oppressed characters, and your heartstrings are tugged, and you feel like you wanna give them aid and mercy, and this transfers itself,

33:15

I think, into this, you know, when you get older, this idea that, well, that's just not Christian, that's not right, and you're pretty firm in it, but it's an emotionally kind of gut reaction that a lot of people have.

33:29

I don't think it's an argument, and so, all that to say, this is a tangent, obviously, but the social justice movement,

33:36

I think, operates based on this, they take advantage of people that have compassion, and this is maybe, perhaps, misplaced compassion, because if you think about this for a minute with me, put yourself in her spot for a moment.

33:50

You have neighbors who have a meth lab, it could have completely destroyed your house, let's say, and, of course, we know what, they're probably selling it, they're affecting other people's lives with this, making your community more dangerous, and for the police to come there, and be a little rough with them, throw them on the ground, would you be up in arms about, well, they're image bearers of God, like, it's a curious thing to me.

34:18

Now, to have compassion on them, which is what Butterfield tries to do with, hey, there's other choices that brought them to this point, and there's other needs and spiritual needs, like, absolutely, right?

34:28

But it's a curious thing, because it's probably, like, they deserve a lot more than just being thrown on the ground and sprayed off, right?

34:36

Jail seems mild, like, even, I don't know, maybe I'm just coming at this from more of a justice bent, and I'm also a male, and I think of my family, and I want to protect them, but that should be, that's a good thing, that's a good thing to want, that's a good thing to be outraged, you know, when someone has threatened your family, you should want to protect your family, and you can still, at the same time, have compassion on them,

35:04

I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive, but anyway, I thought I'd point that out, that's social justice language right there.

35:11

She also points out, and this is a perfect example, let's tease it up for me, she likes the New York Times, she talks about this, and she quotes the

35:18

New York Times, and the New York Times are talking about refugees, and how on the other side of the border, the people there, so like in America, in the

35:27

Western world, they do not see refugees as human at all, as human at all, so someone like myself, right, who doesn't think that we should have legal migration, do

35:38

I look at someone in South America and think, well, they're not human, or someone that should be deported and say, well, they're not human, no, that's absolutely ridiculous, it's completely vacuous.

35:46

The only way this works, and I'll show it to you, there's one way that this works, and here it is.

35:52

If you believe in diversity, in the sense that every single person, no matter who they are, right, regardless of anything, should deserve inclusion and acceptance, then that's the only way it makes sense, and that's what our modern world believes, that's the new paradigm, and that's the paradigm she offers for what radical ordinary hospitality looks like.

36:17

So here's what I'm pointing out. She applies what radical ordinary hospitality looks like in a way that is consistent, it seems like, with the world's definition of those terms, and I warned about that earlier, that you have to be careful.

36:35

Borders are a good thing. The way things worked in ancient Israel, you had to, if you were the stranger, the sojourner, you had to abide by even the religious laws of Israel while you were there, right?

36:47

The cities had walls around them. In the New Testament, I mean, Acts 17,

36:53

Paul even talks about the boundaries God has ordained. Having national boundaries is not a bad thing.

37:01

It's about security, okay? More than anything else, there's other reasons, but this is interesting, because the only way that you can justify that being something that's not wanting a legal migration or that's somehow like you're treating them as not as human or whatever, the only way you justify that is based on the new secular paradigm, which as Christians is not compatible.

37:29

She also says, and this is so interesting to me, this is like, she says in January of 2017,

37:35

President Trump closed the border to refugees for four months. All right, let's stop right there. He did not close the border to refugees for four months.

37:41

He closed the border only to a list of certain countries in the Middle East that had been given to him from the

37:48

Obama administration, right, and they were certain countries that had vetting issues, and they thought terrorists could infiltrate our country.

37:59

He closed that down to specific countries. So it's wrong, the way she phrases this, and if she reads the

38:05

New York Times, maybe it's not a surprise, but that's how she phrases it. Then she says, all hell broke loose, both nationally and in my neighborhood.

38:12

My neighbors and I grieved differently over this, but we met over a meal at our houses to discuss. We already broke ground on hosting.

38:19

So when a crisis was presented, my neighbors knew it was safe to ask and safe to come and safe to cry. This is a crisis.

38:26

She goes on, I didn't put the quote there, but she talks about, and we talked about this a little earlier, that you don't want, you know, she didn't vote for Hillary.

38:34

She didn't vote for Trump. You know, they're neutral in some way, and they have a safe place at their house for both sides of that debate.

38:45

And so she's trying to act like she's politically neutral. That's part of being the winsome hostess that she is to get people to come and hear the word of God, which is okay, she can do that, but she's putting it out there as an example for us, like we need to do this.

39:01

And she's not politically neutral. She acts like that's like something you should achieve is some kind of like political neutrality so people feel comfortable.

39:09

But in her area of North Carolina, wherever she's in Durham somewhere, her neighborhood, I guess, they're all on the left.

39:16

If they're grieving over this and they think that's what's going on, that Trump has just closed it for four months to any refugees, they don't know what they're talking about.

39:25

And then I guess there's no conservatives in her neighborhood, I don't know, that thought, hey, we have a vetting issue and it's good that he did this because at the time, conservatives were saying like we need to ramp up our vetting.

39:40

So anyway, why do I bring that up? It's not to bash her, it really isn't. The reason

39:45

I bring it up is to say, look, she has some language of social justice and she also at the same time has some very conservative sounding language.

39:54

Both of these exist in Rosaria Butterfield and they're exemplified in this book.

40:01

Now, does that mean if a leftist looked at her, could they say, well, she's an agent for the patriarchy?

40:07

Or if a conservative looked at her, could they say, well, she's an agent for the left? Because, well, both of them could,

40:13

I guess, make the same argument if they wanted to pick certain things about her to highlight. What I would suggest, and this is just based on my little slice of the pie and looking at this book, all right?

40:24

I haven't read everything she's written, so there may be more to it. But in just looking at this, what

40:29

I would suggest is there is a sort of a group of writers who are writing pop

40:38

Christian books that have come at this as converts to Christianity or from outside of Christianity in some way.

40:47

And she's part of this group. And it reminds me of you know, the whole neoconservative versus paleoconservative debate, which some of you might not be familiar with.

41:00

I'll explain it briefly. But you have these neoconservatives that came over that they love this country.

41:07

Some of them like FDR kind of like voters. And they came over into the Republican Party because the

41:13

Democrats just started going socialistic. And they were like, we don't wanna go that far, no. But they brought some of their ideas with them.

41:20

And one of them was like the propositional nation that like you could go to Iraq and set up the United States of America there because it's just a bunch of abstract principles and you can have democracy.

41:30

And paleoconservatives say that's ridiculous because we have a, you know, kind of a British English heritage that came to us through common law.

41:38

We have a religion. You can't just put the American system anywhere and make it work. So that's one of the things that now is enshrined in supposed conservatism.

41:50

But it actually came from like a neoconservative understanding because these neoconservatives brought with them some of the ideas they had when they were

41:57

FDR liberals. And I think that's probably the best explanation for what's happening here is you have a group of writers and she's one of them,

42:09

Rosaria Butterfield. But there are others who do the same thing. I think of another author that would fit this bill would be the

42:19

BD Annabelle or Jackie Hill Perry. You know, they weren't Christians, but they became

42:26

Christians and then they became writers in the Christian community. And they kind of bring their ideas with them, their assumptions that came from those previous communities.

42:36

I think we're dealing with that a lot right now. And this idea that we should kind of platform people that are converts that came from outside because they have some knowledge,

42:46

I guess. They have some insight that is valuable to us. And so anyway, so that's how

42:54

I understand her at least based on this book is that, you know, there's some good things she's realized that she's brought some baggage with her.

43:00

And here's some of the baggage. On the lesbian community, this is what she says. When I was in a lesbian community, this is how we thought of our homes.

43:08

I learned a lot in that community about how to shore up a distinctive culture within and to live as a despised but hospitable and compassionate outsider in a transparent and visible way.

43:19

She says that she learned that our houses, our hospitals and incubators, something that she learned in my lesbian community in New York in the 90s.

43:29

She says out of desperation and fear and banding together in spite of our differences, a community was born.

43:34

She's talking about her days as a lesbian. And she wonders, you know, what if the church had gotten involved in the AIDS epidemic?

43:39

And what if they had been open and practicing hospitality? And here's the big thing.

43:47

Here's the big thing she says. She says these lessons learned as far outside the walls of the church as possible are instructive key words for Christians.

43:56

So I've thought about this a little bit because it strikes me as strange when

44:02

I first hear it. The idea that Christians have something to learn from the lesbian community, first of all, that term community is kind of strange because would we say that there's a racist community or a community of robbers?

44:22

I mean, I guess there's a brotherhood among thieves. There's things like that where what keeps them together is the crime or the sin or the lifestyle that is deviant that they are involved in, but that's the glue that keeps them together.

44:37

They're violating God's law in some way. And to call that a community is a little weird to me.

44:43

God created community. It comes down to a man and a woman and a family. And I mean, that's the way it's traditionally been used.

44:50

But I recognize today, sometimes you could talk about different hobbies like the hunting community or whatever.

44:55

And maybe she's using it that way. I'll try to give her the benefit of the doubt there. It is strange though.

45:01

I just wanna point that out. But the idea that we could learn from these communities, I mean, think of it this way.

45:08

You know, what if you were into a pornographer you filmed pornography and you become a

45:16

Christian and you come to the church and they wanna make Christian movies, let's say at the church you're at and you get involved with that.

45:21

Would you then write a book or try to show them what making a film is according to the principles you learned while a pornographer?

45:32

I guess there's some technical things there that you could say, yeah, I know how to point and shoot a camera. But like, this is something that God cares about.

45:41

We're not talking about a technical skill. We're talking about something that's like fundamental to the requirements to be a church leader.

45:47

Hospitality is important. Do you learn hospitality in a deviant community?

45:54

The argument she seems to bring is that it was during the AIDS epidemic that they were helping each other. So if you provide emotional and financial aid, that means it's a community,

46:03

I guess, under those terms. And if that's true, then

46:08

Christians, I would think, if she says, where were they during that crisis?

46:14

But I mean, I happen to know that Christians give more than any other segment of American culture as far as charity is concerned.

46:23

I mean, think about this for a minute. This is kind of crazy to me. And this is, I think, two years ago that I remember looking at this stat.

46:30

But Mississippi is like the most charitable state in the whole country. Mississippi, which is also,

46:35

I think, the poorest state. Just, and why would that be? Well, it's also got the highest church attendance.

46:42

And so it's like one of these enigmas where it's like the Christians are generous people in general.

46:51

So I don't know why, don't they have something to teach the lesbian community about hospitality?

46:58

I know they have the gospel, which she admits, but no, I'm talking about like hospitality specifically. If that's something that God cares about and has required for church leaders to have as an attribute, then the church should be the place to learn those things.

47:12

And even if you learned certain technical things, maybe, or certain things that you picked up about compassion while people were dying, right?

47:21

Like to then say, well, like the church needs to be more like those people who are sinners, but they went through this hard situation and they learned these lessons.

47:30

I would wanna keep my mouth shut about that probably, or I would wanna relearn those things in a context in which the spirit of God is at work, not in just a common grace way.

47:41

That's her argument is that common grace makes it so that even non -Christians can operate in biblical ways according to God's law.

47:50

Here's what common grace is. Common grace is when you, you're not a

47:56

Christian, let's say, someone's not a Christian and someone operates according to God's law in so far as they do not plummet to the depths that they could have.

48:06

God is restraining them from plummeting to those depths because of from the outside, there's legal ramifications, there's a law that's coming to bear.

48:15

And from the inside, there's a conscience. That's common grace. And common grace enables even non -Christians to make some sacrificial decisions and actions at times.

48:28

But ultimately at the bottom level where it counts, there's an ungodly motivation.

48:35

I mean, that's just biblical theology. Righteous deeds are filthy rags. There's nothing good in someone before they are redeemed in Christ.

48:43

And when they are redeemed, yeah, they can sin, but they have the option. You know, Christ is changing them and changing their motivations from the inside out.

48:51

And so it's a weird thing. It is a weird thing. You know,

48:57

I can't imagine any other sin being treated like that. I was in a community of robbers and that's where I learned hospitality and so I'm gonna teach the church because the church needs a new direction so that the world who's watching will feel comfortable and they'll have a good reputation with the world because I'm gonna show you what

49:16

I learned when I was a robber. Doesn't that sound weird? It just, it's strange.

49:22

And, you know, Russell Moore did this, not to bring him up again, but I am. He did this whole article not too long ago on Sesame Street.

49:31

And he talked about how the church can learn from Sesame Street. And I'm seeing all these articles out there where it's the church is always learning from something in the world.

49:39

And it's like, isn't the Great Commission, like we're going out, like we have something to share the world and it's salvation, but it's also, it's keeping the laws of God, right?

49:47

Teaching them what I have instructed you. Like, that's how it should be. Not the world has something to teach us.

49:56

And I keep hearing that and it's very dangerous because where's the power of the gospel then?

50:02

Where's the power of Christ? If that's the case, if the church can't get it right, the church is fumbling around and they're relying on someone who learned it in a sinful community to come in and show them.

50:12

That's kind of what's happening here. And I would be curious to hear

50:17

Butterfield respond to that because, you know, she's got, like I said, there's some good things she says in this. I was even getting convicted that I need to be more hospitable, but that's not the source.

50:27

That's not where you want to learn that. That's not spirit filled. That's not, they're not operating on biblical principles, you know, from a biblical motivation, from a godly motivation in those places.

50:40

So why would you want to then bring that into the church and say the church needs to learn from it? I've said enough about that.

50:47

The next thing is how she views, this is a contrast. How does Rosaria Butterfield view the evangelical

50:53

Christian community? So we just saw how she viewed the lesbian community and she does have some negative things to say about the lesbian community.

51:01

You know, they weren't diverse enough. They, you know, there's, obviously she doesn't agree with their lifestyle at all.

51:07

She thinks it's sin. But she thinks, you know, on the topic of her book, that they have some good insights.

51:14

Well, what does she think about the evangelical Christian community? Well, here's what she says. And I'm going to summarize this, but she talks about Christians who do sneaky evangelistic raids into their sinful lives of their neighbors.

51:29

And she says, maybe our own lives are actually more sinful. Maybe our own lives are more sinful than your neighbors who are not

51:38

Christians. Maybe your Christian life is actually more sinful than theirs, is what she says. Okay, that's another example of what

51:46

I just said. Like, where's the contrast then? What can the church offer the world? I mean, salvation, but that doesn't affect anything.

51:54

Okay. Is our lack of care for the refugee and the stranger an innocent lack of opportunity, or is it a form of willful violence?

52:04

Willful violence, if you don't care for the refugee. And in the context, it's a political context.

52:11

So it was right after, I believe, the New York Times article I quoted earlier. So it's like, so if MI is a conservative who believes in betting, believes there should be a quota, not everyone should come here, we can't sustain that kind of thing.

52:25

Does that mean I'm committing willful violence? We have seen many people depart from an orthodox view of scripture in favor of a progressive one.

52:35

I do not believe that all these people have sold out. And I gotta ask, well, what are they doing then?

52:42

And the reason she says that they haven't sold out is because she says that I believe that many of them are sick and tired of seeing their friends and family members who identify as LGBTQ made into straw men or women or reduced to political enemies or caricature on Facebook or in a conversation after the sermon, or even more horrifically in the sermon.

52:58

They wish to be an ally, the desire to stand in the gap for their friends. They don't wanna be a bigot, et cetera.

53:03

They don't wanna associate with bigots, so they become liberal. And that's somehow justifiable in the sense that she says it's wrong that they've done this.

53:11

She goes on to say, hey, they're going in a bad direction, that's not the answer. But she doesn't think they've sold out because their motives are they don't wanna be a bigot.

53:20

And it's wrong somehow because in sermons, pastors have somehow made out their homosexual friends to be political enemies.

53:31

There's some conflation I think going on here perhaps. And there could be pastors who conflate.

53:37

But I think Butterfield's also being sloppy because it is just true that there has been over the last 10 years, a lobby in Washington that claims to represent

53:51

LGBT, now the Q and the plus and everything, but they claim to represent that group of various different sexual deviancies.

54:03

And they want political rights of some kind, Uber rights, over above and beyond with the

54:09

Bill of Rights guarantees to everyone who lives in the

54:14

United States of America. They want special privileges and so forth. And this group has enshrined itself in now a

54:24

Burgerfell decision, hate crimes legislation being the other big one, the

54:30

Equality Act, I think they called it. These things have come from a certain community.

54:37

Now that community doesn't, and I'm using the word community loosely here, by the way, that's the word they use, so I'm using it, but loosely as it's a group of people.

54:46

And they're after these objectives. Now, that doesn't mean they represent everyone who's a homosexual or a lesbian or transgender, et cetera, but it does mean that there is a very loud, very influential group and a whole lot of those people who do those lifestyle things are in this group advancing this cause.

55:05

So if a pastor got up on a Sunday and said, the gay lobby or homosexuals are trying to change the definition of marriage,

55:18

I don't necessarily think that's a wrong thing to do. That's a generalization, because maybe there's some homosexuals that don't wanna change the definition of marriage.

55:26

I'm sure there are, but that pastor is not, they're talking about a group that we all identify and we all know who he's talking about.

55:36

We know the group that the media presents to us when that's said. And so she's blaming pastors for doing that kind of thing.

55:44

And for, she says, creating these characters. And look, I am fully aware of like Westboro Baptist, which

55:52

I don't even think is a Christian group. I'm fully aware that there are pastors out there who have done some things that are wrong.

56:00

They've misrepresented homosexuals as if it's the worst sin. And those kinds of things happen and they exist, right?

56:09

But she's being broad about this. The example she gives could include an innocent pastor who's just talking about a situation that his congregation needs to know about.

56:21

Furthermore, even in the most extreme examples, if someone leaves Orthodox Christianity because they're just fed up with the hate or whatever, that's selling out.

56:32

It doesn't matter if their motivation is pure. So there's a sensitivity Butterfield has that she just really, really wants to make sure that people know that she's tolerant.

56:46

She wants to bend over backwards for people who have left Orthodoxy in order.

56:52

She thinks those are like a good motivation in a sense, or I should say an understandable, not good.

56:57

She doesn't think it's good, but an understandable motivation for leaving. And I just don't think so.

57:04

Truth is true and you don't give up on something that you believe to be true and you know to be true if you're a

57:11

Christian, simply because it makes your friends look bad or something like that, or people who believe the same thing have said mean things, which is, that's essentially what this boils down to.

57:26

So curious that she brings that up, but look how she portrays the evangelical community in this.

57:32

I mean, these are examples given, and I think this is what she's trying to correct. This is what the book is against.

57:38

Don't do it this way. Do it the way that I want you to do it, which is this new radical, ordinary hospitality.

57:47

So here's how you interact with the LGBTQ community, according to Butterfield. She goes, too many of us are sidelined by fears.

57:56

We fear that people will hurt us. We fear that people will negatively influence our children. We fear that we do not even understand the language of this new world order, least of all its people.

58:05

We long for the days gone by. Our sentimentality makes us stupid. We need to snap ourselves out of the self -pitying revelry.

58:14

The best days are ahead. Jesus advances from the front of the line. It's not wrong to look back at the past and say we've missed some things.

58:28

We've lost some things, all right? There's nothing. I mean, look, the longing that David expresses in the

58:36

Psalms of wanting to be in the house of the Lord. You look at when Israel's in captivity, the longing to want to get back to the land.

58:45

There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with being a patriotic American who looks back and says, we have a good heritage.

58:52

I'm really, yeah, there's some stains, but we've missed something. We've lost something. I wish we could get back to it.

58:59

And she seems to think that's not good. That's a sentimentality that makes us stupid. I think it's a sentimentality that makes us strong.

59:09

No, it means we know what we're rooted in. We know our principles. We can look back and say we've missed something.

59:17

And she says that we fear that people will negatively influence our children. Yeah, yeah, we do.

59:23

That's part of being a parent. It's part of being a protector of the home if you're a father. And a mother, you should be protecting your kids.

59:30

You should be teaching them according to God's rules. And so, to belittle that, she says, with my unbelieving friends,

59:44

I tread carefully. Carefully for her children or carefully for the LGBTQ community.

59:50

She does what she says. For example, I respect the rules of the LGBTQ community. I know these rules well.

59:55

I help make them. I remember the right names so that I don't confuse the children raised in LGBTQ homes.

01:00:05

I know who the mama and who mommy is and I teach my children to get it right.

01:00:11

I speak to my neighbors with respect. Are you wives to each other or partners? I ask these questions because I care.

01:00:17

I ponder, have I made myself safe to share the real hardships of your day -to -day living?

01:00:23

Or am I still so burdened by the hidden privileges of Christian acceptability that I can't even see the daggers in my hands?

01:00:32

Am I safe? If not, then why not? Even in a post -Christian world, we can claim unlearned privileges rooted in sentimentality for days gone by.

01:00:41

We can yearn for the 1950s in America or a medieval monastery, but sentimentality will lead only to discontent.

01:00:47

Best stay right where we are with eyes of faith wide open. That paragraph is a minefield.

01:00:54

Exposing your children to the rules of the LGBTQ community, legitimizing those rules by asking who the mommy, who the mom is.

01:01:03

I mean, what if it was a couple that the woman, let's say it's a lesbian couple, wants to say,

01:01:09

I'm the daddy. What do you do then? The logic of this would say, you respect the rules of the

01:01:16

LGBTQ community, right? So she doesn't say that's what you're supposed to do. She brings up a kind of a more tame example, but how far do we take this exactly?

01:01:31

And do we consistently do it? Let's say it's a transgender person and they were born Bob and they wanna be called

01:01:37

Sally. Okay, do you call them Sally once, but then have a conversation and correct it?

01:01:42

Or do you just always call them Sally? I mean, look, names are a little more subjective because there's weird names out there now, that feminine names for boys, masculine names for girls, and you can never, and some of them are either or.

01:01:56

So I realized those lines have been blurred somewhat, but I have to ask though, where do you, if you're gonna make the

01:02:06

LGBTQ community your standard and their rules your standard, then you have to be very careful here because you're gonna quickly get into dicey compromising territory and you're gonna teach your children to do that.

01:02:20

And you're gonna teach your children that that's respect. To call someone something that they are not is somehow respectful.

01:02:27

And this is not, I think, biblical because it's not truthful. You're engaging in the delusion with them.

01:02:35

And I'm gonna tell a story here in a minute, but she talks about the

01:02:43

Christian community here again the hidden privileges of Christian acceptability that I can't see the daggers in my hands.

01:02:49

I mean, this is violent language. If you don't abide by those rules, there's daggers in your hands.

01:02:56

That's pretty radical, not in the good way radical. Like that's like, if you refuse to abide by their rules, like this could be a lot more clear.

01:03:06

I'll put it that way. This could be used as a weapon, wielded like a sword, for someone who likes revoice stuff.

01:03:16

And obviously she contradicts the revoice narrative. She even says revoice is a different religion, which I agree with. But they could use a paragraph like this and go to town with it.

01:03:25

There needs to be a lot more qualifications here. And I'm gonna tell a little story here real quick.

01:03:33

So I lived near where Rosaria Butterfield lives in Durham, North Carolina.

01:03:40

And when I first went to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, the first person I met, we'll call him Mark, was a guy who worked at a gym.

01:03:46

And I went into the gym and I gave Mark a track. And Mark read it.

01:03:52

And the next time I came in, I said, Mark, did you read the track? What did you think about it? And he's, oh yeah, we got into this discussion about religion and Christianity.

01:04:01

And I invited him to church. And I gave him my number and he texted me. And he said, I can never go to your church, John, because I was born this way.

01:04:09

What way? Well, homosexual. And I knew that about him.

01:04:15

I didn't ask him what way, but I knew he was. He presented it to me like I didn't know. And I was like, yeah,

01:04:22

Mark, I knew that. And he said, well, they won't accept me. And I said, yeah, they will. They accept all different kinds of sinners, all different degrees of sin.

01:04:30

And so before I even progress with the story, I just want you to realize, number one, I identified what he was engaged in as a sin or what he thought of himself.

01:04:40

I didn't even know if he committed a homosexual act. I still don't know. But his identity, I identified that as sin.

01:04:47

So we have all kinds of sinners, right? I included myself in that. I gave him a track right off the bat.

01:04:56

So I didn't do this whole like, well, let's woo him over time and step on eggshells.

01:05:01

No, here's the gospel, repent. So this opened the door though, to talking with him more.

01:05:08

And I decided I'd just talk to him the next time I went to the gym. And he texts me the next day.

01:05:14

He goes, John, do you think I could change? Do you think I could have a wife and children and live a normal life?

01:05:20

It blew me away. I was like, what? This is the guy yesterday who was saying he was born this way, he'll never change. And come to find out, he was abused as a child in a men's restroom and had a strange relationship with his father.

01:05:34

And there's a lot of things going into this that didn't know what a man was. Was always asking me what a real man did with various things.

01:05:41

And I'd try to give him biblical answers. So I tried to be smart about it. Instead of doing the radical hospitality thing and inviting him into my house immediately, we met at neutral locations.

01:05:52

And part of that was, he's saying he's homosexual. I don't wanna put him in a compromising situation where he, if he's,

01:06:00

I don't know what he thinks about me. I don't want him to unnecessarily have desires to be welling up within him because he thinks he has an opportunity in a private location or something like that.

01:06:10

We went out to breakfast and those kinds of things. And I would just, I'd share the gospel with him over and over.

01:06:18

He got it in his mind that he needed to be heterosexual on his own strength. And I had told him,

01:06:24

I said, Mark, I think, I didn't tell him what some of the Revoice guys would have told him, which is, you're a homosexual, you were born that way, but live a lifestyle of celibacy.

01:06:33

You know, come to Christ, you know, that's a great sell. No, I told him the truth that God's will is for humans, which you are one, to be living in a heterosexual relationship, to leave father, mother, cleave to wife, have children.

01:06:51

Yeah, I think with God's grace, that's possible, Mark. And he wanted to do it on his own strength to make himself acceptable before God.

01:06:59

He thought that he needed to kick a habit. I'll put it this way, a habit that is common to a lot of young men, heterosexual or homosexual or whatever, but he felt like he needed to kick that habit before he could be presentable before God.

01:07:14

And I kept saying, Mark, he accepts you where you're at if you repent and if you put your faith in Jesus Christ.

01:07:21

And he wouldn't do it. And there's a sad ending to this. He told me that he couldn't kick the habit and that he was trapped because of that and told me bye.

01:07:33

The day, it was the day I left for the semester, I was leaving school, heading back to my home, and he said,

01:07:40

I can't do this. And I called him back and I reiterated what I had reiterated every time, it's the grace of Christ.

01:07:46

But here's the thing, he knew during that three -month period that I cared for him, he could call me anytime, that I would drop things to talk to him, to answer questions, he knew that about me.

01:07:59

And he didn't reject me, he rejected Christ. I was very clear in the last message he sent to me that it was the lifestyle that he couldn't kick.

01:08:10

And it wasn't even homosexuality, it was this habit that he had formed and he couldn't kick the habit.

01:08:18

And so all that to say, I did not abide by the rules of the LGBTQ community. I didn't tell him, well, that's one of the rules, right?

01:08:25

You're born that way. I didn't say, yeah, you're born that way. I didn't abide by that. And when you say that we're gonna abide by the rules, it sounds like you're gonna hand a blank check.

01:08:35

I think you should be mindful of the rules in a way, you should be mindful of the way they view themselves, but you're gonna have to be truthful and it's better to be truthful early on.

01:08:44

Because if you try to form a relationship with someone and then, hey, by the way, I'm a Christian and this is what

01:08:50

God thinks about your sin, that seems like the bait and switch, in my opinion.

01:08:57

So I think being upfront is the best thing to do and it doesn't contradict being hospitable to someone.

01:09:03

You can be upfront and hospitable. And upfront meaning you use language that does not accept the sinful lifestyle that they've engaged in.

01:09:13

And so I don't know if that blesses folks out there. I hope it does, that's why I shared it.

01:09:18

But I don't have a problem, all that to say, with going into these situations.

01:09:24

As a Christian who's also conservative, who's an Orthodox Christian who believes that I don't wanna compromise biblical truth ever,

01:09:34

I can engage these kinds of conversations and be confident. And I think there is a respect that Mark had for me because of that.

01:09:42

The whole time he asked me so many questions, you could tell just looked up to me in a way and it was because he didn't believe in grace that he couldn't accept grace, that he went his own separate way.

01:09:55

And I don't know where he is now. But look, I have had the privilege over the years of knowing more than one former homosexual who was engaged, some of them, one of them in particular

01:10:07

I'm thinking of, engaged in the lifestyle as far as you can take it, pretty much, and has a wife, has kids.

01:10:18

It's gone, doesn't view himself that way.

01:10:24

And it wasn't because Christians had approached him and they were abiding by the rules of his community and trying to kind of walk on eggshells around him or not bring up things that would cause him offense.

01:10:38

And at some point, that hard conversation needs to come. Now, Rosaria Butterfield has an experience where she was kind of attracted to Christianity because of hospitality she received from a

01:10:50

Christian and praise God for that. But don't think that's the only way it's done.

01:10:55

God can use even imperfect things to bring people to Christ. Look to the examples of Christ, look to the examples of the apostles, look to the examples of the prophets.

01:11:05

Prophets weren't having people over for tea, I guarantee you that. There's a pattern and multiple,

01:11:12

I think, examples of how to engage sinners in scripture. And that's my encouragement, really.

01:11:20

I think Butterfield thinks she's got this insight that she gained partially when she was in the lesbian community that she wants to share.

01:11:29

And she wants it to kind of be a one -size -fits -all, like, this is how hospitality is done, everyone needs to do it this way.

01:11:35

And I think a lot of what she says is probably good as far as she's very sacrificial.

01:11:42

People can come, all kinds of people that are home and feel comfortable, and they can, and she will, she makes it a point in the book, they do bring up the gospel at some point.

01:11:52

At some point, it is brought up. I think that's all great, I really do. But I think there's a danger in thinking that the way that she does it is the best way, the only way.

01:12:07

And some of the language that I've already discussed, I think, is very problematic. At the very least, for an

01:12:12

English professor, she's vague on some of this stuff. And there needs to be more clarity.

01:12:18

And I haven't read everything she's written. So there's that. But if you're looking at this book, which is the most recent book she's published, that's my takeaway.

01:12:27

There's some good things in there. There's some really dangerous things, if taken to their logical conclusions, or at least they're vague enough that you could certainly read into it things that maybe even

01:12:39

Butterfield wouldn't agree with, but she's left herself open to them. So that's my take on that book.

01:12:46

So it's not my full take on Rosario Butterfield, but it's my take on the book that she published. And I'm gonna talk about another issue, if I may, that's going on right now.

01:13:00

And we're switching gears a little bit, but not really, because it's along the same lines.

01:13:06

There's this bill, HR 5331, called the Fairness for All Act, which was introduced to the

01:13:14

House of Representatives on the 6th of December. And basically, from what

01:13:21

I can tell, I skimmed the bill and I went to the website where the

01:13:26

Political Action Committee that was promoting this. And from what I can tell, basically what this bill is doing is it's not the

01:13:35

Equality Act, which would have forced non -profits, religious non -profits, to abide by these hate laws and so forth, anti -discrimination measures, so -called, for the

01:13:49

LGBTQ community. It's trying to create sort of a way for religious organizations to be exempted.

01:14:01

They have an exemption from that. But businesses will be hit by it. And so here's the thing.

01:14:08

Here's the bottom line for me. It says on the Political Action Committee's website that, which is,

01:14:16

I think, if you Google Fairness for All, if you just search it, you'll find it, Fairness for All Act, it'll come right up, that they hint at that this will help the

01:14:26

Christian, even businessman, who doesn't wanna participate in a wedding or something.

01:14:31

I looked at the bill, though. I don't find any language. I find the exact opposite. What's going on in this bill?

01:14:39

From where I'm sitting is it will end up creating a situation in which folks like photographers and bakers who don't wanna participate in same -sex weddings, or they don't wanna hire a transgender person, or, you know, whatever the case may be, individuals who have religious convictions, they will have a hammer come down on them because now they are not allowed to discriminate based on sexual orientation and that whole panoply there, the

01:15:15

LGBTQ identities. Religious organizations supposedly will have this exemption.

01:15:23

So this also creates a new problem, though, a bigger problem, because it actually, the freedom of religion in our

01:15:31

Bill of Rights, it actually redefines it in a way. It comes with an understanding that freedom of religion is you in your religious institution practicing your religion, but it doesn't mean you can go out and practice your religion as an individual in a public square, which is exactly what the

01:15:47

Founding Fathers thought of when they were conceiving of religious liberty. So it is a complete perversion of religious liberty.

01:15:56

Now, I'm gonna play for you, this is a video that the AND campaign put out, I'd like you to watch it. What does it look like to love someone you disagree with?

01:16:06

Society tells us that if we love LGBTQ people, we must reject the historic

01:16:11

Christian sexual ethic. But so many of us have LGBTQ friends and family who we love and who love us, and so we know that's not true.

01:16:21

Love and compassion don't demand agreement, but they often demand social action.

01:16:26

The church hasn't always fully demonstrated compassion in relation to sexuality. It's time that we repent and that we do better.

01:16:33

Saying we love our neighbors can't just be empty words. We have to advocate for policies that protect the

01:16:39

LGBTQ community, while at the same time standing for our Christian convictions. You should know about the

01:16:46

Equality Act. While it sounds good and moves to protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination, it would be devastating to faith -based institutions like churches, colleges, and hospitals.

01:16:58

The Equality Act is an example of LGBTQ rights being used as a weapon against religious liberty.

01:17:06

Religious liberty and LGBTQ rights should be shields, but the Equality Act allows

01:17:12

LGBTQ rights to be used as a sword against the church. Destroying the communities we disagree with is not the answer.

01:17:20

There's an alternative, the Fairness for All Act. The Fairness for All Act comes from a

01:17:25

Utah policy where Mormons and the LGBTQ community came together to protect religious liberty and LGBTQ rights.

01:17:33

The Fairness for All Act protects all religious groups, not just Christians, from the financial and institutional burden of defending lawsuits that falsely claim their faith policies are discriminatory.

01:17:44

And it also protects the LGBTQ community from unlawful discrimination when it comes to areas like housing, workplace protections, social services, and financial credit.

01:17:54

Disagreement is not the same as discrimination. Refusing to serve an LGBTQ couple at a restaurant is malicious and discriminatory.

01:18:04

However, a faith -based hospital who serves everybody and saves lives is not discriminating if they decide not to do a sex reassignment surgery.

01:18:12

A Muslim organization not hiring a Christian or somebody who disagrees with their sexual ethic is not unlawfully discriminatory.

01:18:20

They've made a reasonable choice based on their values and their mission. Unfortunately, while the

01:18:26

Equality Act does advance some important LGBT rights, it inadequately addresses religious freedom.

01:18:32

The AND Campaign holds to the historic Christian sexual ethic. We also hold to the Christian ethic of love.

01:18:38

We want what is good for other people. The AND Campaign supports the Fairness for All Act because it applies the compassion and conviction that we talk so much about.

01:18:48

This really comes down to two questions. Should faith -based organizations have to surrender their convictions to keep their doors open?

01:18:56

And should LGBTQ people face discrimination in getting or keeping employment, housing, social services, and financial credit because of how they identify?

01:19:06

If your answer to both of those questions is no, then support the Fairness for All Act and send a message to D .C.

01:19:12

that we're ready to work together when we can, and they should too. All right, so the way that this presents it is you can be happy, and LGBTQ people can be happy, and Christians can be happy, and Muslims can be, and everyone's just happy.

01:19:29

And that's just not the case. This actually, this turns the idea of religious liberty on its head.

01:19:37

There's some hidden assumptions in it. Like, for instance, you know, didn't Jack Phillips, the guy who baked the cake, or he's a baker, but he didn't wanna bake a cake for a gay wedding, and he got in trouble.

01:19:49

It was national news. I mean, didn't that happen? Didn't the Clines in Idaho, didn't that happen? Wasn't there a

01:19:54

Bed and Breakfast in New York that got shut down because of this? I mean, and these are just little examples. There's tons of examples of this.

01:20:01

And somehow, I mean, these are the folks, these are folks that are getting persecuted, Christians, right?

01:20:08

They're losing their businesses. And instead of protecting them, we're just gonna protect their churches, apparently.

01:20:16

And so they're still out in the cold. And we're gonna say that the actual, the real victims right now are like LGBTQ plus people.

01:20:27

They're not, you know, getting hired at the same rates or, you know, whatever. They're the ones that need this legislation to protect them.

01:20:36

Now, I don't wanna get into the weeds on this because we don't have a lot of time in the video, but I tend to think that the

01:20:41

Bill of Rights was enough, and I don't like adding things, really, to it. I don't like, I should say, adding things to the

01:20:47

Constitution to force businesses to do certain things with their private property.

01:20:54

And that creates, I know, a whole lot of other questions. We're kind of, we're told over and over that, like, the

01:21:01

Civil Rights Act created the situation of integration, right, in the South, and that we hold that up as kind of like federal government imposing itself stomps out local bigotry and so forth.

01:21:16

And I've studied that situation enough to know that that's not exactly an accurate picture, that the wind of culture was already starting to blow in a direction of integrating businesses and so forth before that legislation came down the pike.

01:21:36

There was already pressure. There was already kind of an awareness. There was already a guilty conscience among folks in urban areas where this kind of thing existed.

01:21:47

And, you know, all that to say, I mean, I'm glad. I'm glad, you know, that some of that stuff is in the past, right?

01:21:57

But at the same time, there are other principles that I think were trampled on in that process.

01:22:03

And it's not, you can rejoice that a disease is cured, but you can also say, sometimes, you can look at the cures and say, well, that cure might have been worse than the disease.

01:22:11

And I think we've kind of adopted this idea that there needs to be like a federal intrusion into local businesses in order to make things fair.

01:22:22

And even if it is the case, I just don't, I don't understand what world these folks are living in, where they think that,

01:22:30

I mean, people are afraid of getting sued because of discrimination already.

01:22:36

And so, like, I don't see what they're trying to promote in this film.

01:22:42

Like, there's this massive discrimination going on. But look, if you're an employer and, you know, you're hiring, you know, waitresses, waiters, whatever, and you have someone who's transgender, right?

01:22:54

Who you know that, you know, you're in middle America somewhere and you know that the way they carry themselves will be, you know, offensive or whatever to the people that you're serving.

01:23:07

As an employer, why wouldn't you have the right to at least tell them, okay, you need to dress this way, or you can't present yourself that way in my restaurant, right, there's uniforms and stuff.

01:23:20

But you're gonna get into a problem now, though, because that's gonna be viewed as discrimination. I'm a man, I should be able to wear a dress, right?

01:23:27

So there's a lot of areas in which

01:23:32

I think people aren't thinking clearly about this. It's not this simple. You know, restrooms, what do you do about that?

01:23:39

What if a business has a ladies restroom and a man walks into it? And they don't want men in their restrooms.

01:23:46

Now they can't do anything about it, potentially, right? So these are the problems that people aren't thinking through and there's more of them that I'm sure if I thought about it,

01:23:56

I could bring up. But this will really change the fundamentals of the culture.

01:24:02

And how long do you think it will be until religious organizations are forced into the same thing?

01:24:09

Because if you think about it for a minute, they're saying in this ad, this and campaign ad, it's morally wrong to discriminate, for businesses to discriminate on the basis of LGBT identities.

01:24:21

If that's morally wrong, why is it okay for churches to do it? If it truly is morally wrong?

01:24:27

I ask you, there are competing moral systems going on here and you cannot straddle that line.

01:24:33

This video is a pipe dream, it's smooth the way they try to sell it, but it's an absolute lie. And I don't know if you noticed,

01:24:39

Michael Ware, who is behind the and campaign and also was Obama's religious strategist, he is speaking in that video.

01:24:50

And here's something interesting. I figured I'd bring this up because it's weird. Someone pointed this out to me, but there's some opposition from Russell Moore, of all people.

01:25:03

And in the Baptist Messenger, he says, placing sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in this kind of legislation would be harmful.

01:25:11

Amen, Russell Moore. I totally agree with you. But the weird thing to me is that Michael Ware works with Russell Moore.

01:25:22

And I'll show you that in a minute, but the civil rights group, the human rights campaign, rather, human rights campaign says this legislation would create a double whammy for anyone at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities.

01:25:34

So a black lesbian or transgender Jewish woman, for example. So they're against it because it's not intersectional enough.

01:25:41

So they're against it for totally different reason than Russell Moore's against it. So the human rights, so let me get this straight because it's gonna be important for what

01:25:48

I'm about to say. Human rights campaign against it. ERLC against it for totally different reasons.

01:25:53

Now, watch this. This is where things get a little weird to me. I'm just pointing that out. And I put the title.

01:25:59

I said, is this a game? Because I looked up some stuff online. Paul Singer, okay, is his organization, which is the

01:26:10

American Unity Fund that he funds, it has endorsed this legislation.

01:26:19

He's also a major donor to the Human Rights Campaign. Okay, so let me get this straight with you.

01:26:25

Human Rights Campaign against the legislation, right? Singer funds

01:26:31

Human Rights Campaign. The American Unity Fund for the legislation.

01:26:41

Singer funds the American Unity Fund. Now, look, I realize you get to these levels and sometimes people are funding all sorts of things.

01:26:46

That may be in diametrical opposition to one another. But Singer's a political animal.

01:26:52

He's supposedly conservative. I mean, he's donated to Ben Sasse and all sorts of big, wig Republicans. He's definitely not conservative on social issues.

01:27:02

Supposedly he's conservative. He's not conservative on this stuff. And so he's got groups that he's pumping tons of money into on opposite sides of this.

01:27:13

Well, not to put on my conspiracy theory hat, but then you got Michael Ware, who writes for the

01:27:22

Gospel Coalition and is a contributor to the ERLC, Russell Moore and Daniel Darling. And if you go to the

01:27:27

ERLC and you Google Michael Ware, search him, 100 results for Michael Ware, 100. That's how integrated he is into the

01:27:34

ERLC. So Russell Moore's against it.

01:27:40

Michael Ware's promoting it. But Michael Ware, he was just with Russell Moore in an event in Washington on immigration.

01:27:47

He's big at the ERLC. They're friends, clearly. Why are there people on opposite sides of this?

01:27:57

And what's going on? And that's the one thing I ask is, is this a game? What's going on here?

01:28:02

And so I'm not trying to bring that up to be a conspiracy theorist, to be like, oh, they're just trying to put one over on us.

01:28:10

But it does seem really strange to me. And I don't know how to quite make sense of all that, to be honest with you.

01:28:18

But I figured I'd put it out there. Someone pointed it out to me and I verified it. And I was like, yeah, that's true.

01:28:24

You got some folks at very high levels that are playing both sides of this, both for and against it for different reasons.

01:28:33

So it would be a disaster if it's passed. I hope it doesn't get passed. So there you go. I hope you enjoyed that.

01:28:38

And in the next episode that's coming up, Christmas week, I will be talking to the author of the

01:28:46

Trojan Mouse. And we're gonna talk about Disney. We're gonna talk about a few of my favorite Christmas movies. And hopefully you enjoy that as well.