Cru on LGBT Issue, MacArthur on Begg, Mike Kelsey on Corporate Apologies, Stuckey on Tradwives

We are now live on the conversations that matter podcast. I am your host, John Harris.

This is an unannounced podcast. So I assume many of you are gonna probably listen to this on the replay tomorrow and it's also a weekend.

So hopefully everyone is having a good time and they have their weekend plans already. My plans this weekend are to have soup and to lay low.

Some of you know I've been sick and I still am. Although my mind is getting a little better because I don't have a fever right now.

And I'm still a little slow, but getting better. But yeah, my stomach and the congestion, not getting so much better.

So I'm just hoping that maybe a little rest this weekend will enable me next week to kind of hit things full steam because I'm gonna see some of you in New Mexico and I don't have the slide up.

I should have had this up. But if you go to johnharrispodcast .com and go to the top, you can find my speaking engagements and information on how to get more info on the

New Mexico. I think it's Albuquerque that I'm gonna be in. So if you live near that area and you want to get more information, go to johnharrispodcast .com.

Anyway, thank you for your prayers. And I have decided a number of days this week, including today, to try to do a podcast anyway.

And I think it's worked out so far okay. I don't think I've said anything too crazy. Let me know if I do in the chat box and I will take that into consideration.

Now, and maybe I'm just crazy anyway though. So, I mean, that may have nothing to do with my sickness. Before we get started today, it's gonna be a news roundup.

And so that's a little easier for me because it's just things that people have sent me from this week and really related to conservative evangelicalism, but things that they've wanted me to comment on and talk about.

So I'm gonna play some video clips. We're gonna talk about them. But before we do, one of the sponsors for this podcast is

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Well, I'm gonna just jump right into it. So I think the first thing that I'd like to do today, if possible, is talk about this

Mike Kelsey thing. Actually, you know what, let's do that second because I just realized the crew thing is not a video.

So I have all my videos queued up, but the crew situation is not a video. It's actually an article. Some of you might've missed this article.

It was in World Magazine. So just came out, I think, today, if I'm not mistaken.

So here it is from World Magazine. And the title of it is,

Taking Sides, A Growing Divide Over the Theology of Sexual Brokenness Threatens to Tear Evangelical Institutions Apart.

And for those listening, there's a picture of a church split in half and you have one half going towards a rainbow flag and the other half staying,

I guess, normal. So if you read this article, it sets the stage. It talks about Rosaria Butterfield and what she said before 10 ,000 people at Liberty University's convocation.

And she called out Crew for supporting revoiced theology.

And we covered this when it happened. In fact, we covered it a few times and it covers someone who heard this news, who worked for Crew.

And so I don't really wanna get into all the details about that. I think that's what kind of personifies,

I guess, the issue. What I'm really more interested in is what Crew had to say about this.

So it says that days after Butterfield's address,

Crew sent an email to its staff linking to its media policy. So here's what was happening.

And I knew about this from people working for Crew, but this is public information now. They sent an email to people in their organization, reminding them about their media policy, right?

Spokesperson resources and communication best practices. It reiterated the message all staffers should share if questioned about the training.

The organization holds a traditional, historical, biblical understanding of sexuality and gender.

And this is no different than what they were saying really before this, but I think they just wanted to remind everyone, you're gonna get a lot of questions and this is how you handle it.

But Crew's leaders, the story says, didn't address Butterfield's accusations directly. The author says,

I emailed Keith Johnson, Crew's director of theological development, to ask about the training and Butterfield's comments.

He never responded. Patrick Martin, Crew's director of communications, told me in an email that the organization would not participate in interviews on the topic.

Quote, there are a number of issues surrounding sexuality and gender that we feel are best addressed in the context of relationships.

So that's really it. There's actually not a lot of ground shaking things in this article.

I think that's the most important thing. And it then gets into describing kind of the broader issue that plagues and challenges

Christian organizations on this topic. It does talk about, and we've already talked about this, but their new sexuality and gender document states, we embrace the goodness of the sexual difference

God created by living distinctly as male and female, which including using pronouns that align with our biological sex.

So they did change some things around. They're not commenting though on using

Preston Sprinkle's material or, well, even their stance. They're just pointing people to, here's our document.

So I would say mixed bag. Like the thing that is good, and maybe this doesn't provide a lot of information for those who have listened to this podcast, you've already known about this with Crew, but at least it verifies that even media organizations don't seem to be able to get firm answers from them.

They can just observe what's happening externally, the documents that they're producing, but they can't actually have a conversation with someone on the record about it.

And so the good part, I guess, is that they are changing some of their documents to align more with what the

Bible teaches about sexuality. The thing that does concern me, and it always has about Crew, Crew is to me one of the most frustrating organizations in evangelicalism that I've ever done any work on, just because there's a very strong sense of hierarchy within the organization.

The people, and it's outside the local church, right? This is a parachurch, but the people who work for the organization, even if they work part -time, they very strongly believe it is disrespectful to ever counter signal or challenge even their supervisors, especially talking to people outside the organization.

It doesn't matter if they've sometimes for years been banging their heads against the board, trying to get somewhere.

They still just feel that that's a dishonorable thing, that that's not above board. And so when they finally did challenge the critical race theory stuff in their concerns document, it did not go well internally.

I mean, the effect of it was that the Lenses Institute was essentially shut down, at least,

I mean, at least as far as Crew's concerned, it doesn't exist in the United States. They're not using that training, as far as I know, in the

United States. And so there might've been a little movement, but there was never any apologies.

There's never any acknowledgement, right? There was never any refutation of the things that they previously taught. They still have stuff on their website that is

CRT infused. And so the main thing that came of that was the people who raised the concern were then punished.

And then you have this issue, this LGBT issue, especially soft -peddling transgenderism and same -sex attraction and these kinds of things.

And the way they handle it is just to kind of edit some of their documents that were getting scrutinized.

And again, there's no public repentance. There's no acknowledgement.

There's no refutation. It's just, it's like they never had that position.

And so I guess it's a good thing to note that big organizations like that, they will bend to pressure, especially from donors if there's enough pressure.

So that's good, but it would be preferable if they bent to conviction and they bent to what the word of God said because they're a

Christian organization, right? That's where I'm not seeing a lot of evidence, the way that they're handling this. So little crew update there.

Now let's get into the Mike Kelsey stuff since that was something that I was asked about. I think this is from last

Sunday. Two people sent this to me who wanted me to comment on it. And this is a clip from a sermon on Nehemiah chapter one,

Mike Kelsey. And Mike Kelsey, for those who don't know, this is at McLean Bible Church. He is now a senior pastor there.

He's just been, I think it's senior pastor or teaching pastor, sorry, teaching pastor there along with David Platt.

And he was the one in 2020 that talked about torching white evangelicals.

He wanted to do that because he was so upset. So that didn't cancel him or any, didn't seem to slow him down in his career.

He's now has a higher office at the church. And here's what he said,

I believe this is last Sunday from the pulpit. Fear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you.

Now, remember, this is why I gave you all that history. Remember, the people of God were taken into Babylonian captivity as a consequence of their own sin.

But here's the thing. Nehemiah wasn't even alive when all that happened.

And yet he's confessing sin that he's never even participated in.

Okay, let's stop right there for a moment. Let's just read ourselves the beginning of that passage in Nehemiah chapter one.

So it opens, says the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hekeliah.

Now it happened in the month Shislev in the 20th year, which I was in Susa, the capital, that Hananiah, one of my brothers, and some men from Judah came.

And I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped and had survived the captivity and about Jerusalem.

So he's in the Persian empire asking about his people. And they said to me, the remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach.

And the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire. When I heard these words,

I sat down and wept and mourned for days. And I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

And I said, I beseech you, O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who preserves the covenant and loving kindness for those who love him and keep his commandments.

And then the passage that you just heard Mike Kelsey read, let your ear now be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant, which

I am praying before you now, day and night on behalf of the sons of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel, which we have sinned against you.

I and my father's house have sinned. Now stop there. Just to set the context so people know what we're talking about.

Nehemiah, I should probably say, for me personally, right?

Looking at what's happening to my own country, I've kind of put to shame a little. Have I ever done this? I don't think so.

You know, wept for days, but that's what Nehemiah is doing. He's weeping for days. He's praying. He's in agony over the situation of his people.

And there's a beautiful thing in that, but there's, it's also sad and tragic, right? And he wants to do something and you read the rest of the book and you find out he does.

Now, in this particular, this initial setting up the stage for him becoming the governor and all the rest of the things he does, he acknowledges the sin that got

Israel to that point that he also participated in. And it says, so I think there's two things to note here.

It says that he was praying, hear the prayer of your servant, right? On behalf of the sons of Israel.

In verse six, he's praying on someone's behalf. He's praying on his own behalf as well, but he's also praying on someone else's behalf because he is, it's like his family, right?

And then it says that the sins of Israel, which we have sinned against you,

I and my father's house have sinned. So there's a participation in this. And you find this in other passages too, that social justice warriors want to use to try to approve of and endorse corporate apologies today for things that happened in the past in the

United States that they're upset about. But what often they miss is that these prayers are directed to God, right?

Not to minorities who are oppressed or anything like that. We're not going to people who are, think of themselves as homosexual and then trying to repent to them.

No, it's the repentance. Whatever evil was done, the repentance is to God, first of all. So the direction's important there.

But then there's always an element of participation that the people who are repenting of these things, they may be repenting of things that have been sin patterns that have taken the course of generations to build, but they're also part of that.

So it's not something that they're excused from. It's something that they're within that they've also taken part in.

So there is a sense of personal responsibility here as well. So it's not quite the same.

It's not a parallel thing to, we need to go apologize and do reparations and do this corporate repentance thing for things that we didn't do.

And of course, the Bible is also clear that the sins of the fathers and the sins of the sons, they bear those themselves, right?

That's not talking about generational patterns though of habits of sin that are then taught and then reproduced and copied, right?

So there's the difference there. In verse seven, it says, "'We have acted very corruptly against you.'"

Okay, against who? Against God, right? How did we do that? We have not kept your commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant

Moses. So, and then it goes on. So this is the stage.

This is what we're talking about. And Mike Kelsey, I'll show you what he does with this.

He's already trying to weave an argument that this applies to America 2024.

We need to have a repentance for sins that might not even be ours.

That sins that we didn't commit, that we haven't participated in from the past. And listen, this is especially difficult to understand for those of us in more individualistic cultures.

But this kind of corporate confession is so important for a couple of different reasons. First, in corporate confession, we acknowledge the sin of the past.

Nehemiah starts by acknowledging the sinful history that has shaped his current context.

He's not. Let's stop there, that's not true. He's acknowledging his participation in a pattern of sin over the course of generations that God judged

Israel for and was continuing to judge them for. So that's different. Taking responsibility for their choices, but he's taking ownership of the consequences.

He is taking responsibility for their choices together. The choices of Israel, well, he's taking responsibility for his participation in a myriad of choices that were made because this is a covenantal relationship

Israel has with God. So they were all, as a corporate body, to honor the law of God and they did not, which is also a different relationship than the

United States has, which is funny to me because the social justice warriors want to go after supposed

Christian nationalists, right? And say that, well, they believe that there's a covenant that the United States has with God and that's off.

But then when they do things like this, they draw parallels and they try to make out like the United States or European countries are somehow in that same relationship and they're not.

So Nehemiah is, in the context here, he is acknowledging there was a covenant that was broken and he was one of the people, a part of a myriad of people, but he was one who participated in the breaking of that covenant.

In other words, he's saying, God, it wasn't my fault, but now it's my responsibility.

Where does he ever say that? He says, he does acknowledge that it's his fault. It's his sins and the sins of his father.

So that Mike Kelsey is just making stuff up at this point. It's really pathetic that this even passes for preaching, to be quite honest with you.

And this theology of corporate confession is so important for us in our own context, particularly as we think about the history of sin in our country, the patterns of sin in our particular ethnic community and the generational cycles of sin in our own families.

We don't exist in a vacuum. There's history that has shaped the context that we're in.

Obviously that's true. Of course, history shapes the context we're in and the choices that were made by previous generations are going to affect us, they come down to us.

I mean, and there's a myriad of things. It's so complicated. We don't even understand 1 % probably of the different things, choices that were made that affect us.

So, I mean, he's right in that, but trying to use that to then say that we need to somehow accept the consequences for everyone else's sin who stands in our lineage, that's the dog that doesn't hunt.

When we confess those sins, listen, when we confess those sins, when we're honest about those things that maybe we weren't even directly a part of, we didn't participate in, but we know these are sins that affect our context or maybe in our own ethnic community, there are patterns of sin that we're often, because of our blind spots, prone to repeat or generational cycles of sin in our families that honestly gives so much explanation for the inclinations and temptations that we constantly battle against in our own lives.

Listen, when we confess those sins, we're not taking the blame, we're taking a stand.

What does that even mean? Where we're not taking the blame when we confess those sins, we're taking a stand.

So, that's not even a repentance anymore. It's, I mean, he's admitting here that it's not even...

So, make sure that everyone is tracking with me. What you just heard Mike Kelsey say is that you're not taking blame for this stuff, you're taking a stand.

If you're taking a stand, then you're just making a statement. That's all you're saying. You're saying, I'm standing against this sin. This is sin that happened.

And in my confession, I'm gonna use this repentance moment, this corporate repentance to take a stand against it, to signal that I'm, it's a virtue signal,

I'm against it. But you're not actually acknowledging that you are to blame for it. So, it's not even repentance anymore.

So, I mean, he just let the cat out of the bag. And there's a difference.

We're taking a stand to say, God, we acknowledge that we have a role to play in correcting the sins of the generations before us.

The sins that have set the table, we're currently sitting at, the sins that caused the consequences we've now inherited.

We're not trying to sanitize that sin. We're not trying to rationalize that sin. We're acknowledging the reality of their sin, and we're taking a stand to say that we don't wanna repeat or contribute to that sin in our generation.

That's what the depth of this kind of corporate confession looks like. And so, listen, in corporate confession, we acknowledge the sins of the past, but we also admit our own sin.

We admit our own sin, and that's what Nehemiah does. He says, even I and my father's house have sinned.

All right, so it's a mess. That's all I can say about Mike Kelsey's preaching here. It's just a mess.

You know, you're not accepting the guilt. You're taking a stand, but then you are confessing your sin, but your sin is now separated from the greater sin of the people, and you have to acknowledge their sin so that you can move forward and not repeat their sin, but somehow your sin is distinct from that.

Just read the passage. It's much easier. They're in a covenant relationship with God that's understood from the beginning.

If you just understood the relationship, Israel, I mean, he even talks about it, but the relationship that God has with Israel, and Nehemiah, him and his fathers, and the people of Israel have all taken part in violating the commandments of God.

It's as simple as that. He's responsible. He's, but he's part of this corporate covenant.

So Mike Kelsey's trying to go in all kinds of different directions on this that the text just doesn't really merit.

So if anyone has any other questions on that, or statements or whatever, then feel free to put them in the chat box, and I can try to get to them a little later in the podcast, but I guess the thing that stuns me more than anything else is how unimpressive

Kelsey's preaching is, and I don't just say that to say it. It truly is almost insulting the intelligence.

It is insulting. It's insulting the intelligence of the people that are there. I don't understand how this kind of thing is allowed to happen.

It's certainly not, it's not even surface level attempts to understand what the text is actually saying.

He's got an application in mind before, it seems like before he's even approached it, and he wants to kind of use the text to cram into his application.

He has, it's a corporate apology, and then it's not really an apology. It's an acknowledgement of other people's sin, and taking a stand, it's a statement that you're making, but then it turns into a different apology for your own sin.

What is he talking about? All right, let's move on to the next thing. What is the next thing?

I think we'll end with the Ali Beth stuff. Let's just, I don't know if I'll show the whole thing. I could probably summarize this in a few sentences, but some of you probably are gonna wanna see some of this.

So I guess, I don't know if this is from last Sunday or what, but John MacArthur was asked a question about this

Alistair Begg attending a wedding with a transgender person situation, and here's what he had to say.

Good evening, Pastor John. My name's Neil MacLeod. I'm a Scot. Yes. They're not -

Let me skip ahead with the, so he, this is the question essentially. I'm gonna skip past the question, because the question is like, how could

Alistair Begg say what he said about attending a wedding with a transgender person, solemnizing that occasion, that kind of thing.

So here's what MacArthur, John MacArthur says. Yeah, that question -

Thank you. Came up and has gotten all over the internet. Let me say, first of all, that Alistair and I have been friends for, well, 45 years.

When I was in Scotland 45 years ago, I was pushing his 45 -year -old son in a pram. You know what a pram is,

Neil. It's like a baby buggy. So we've had a lot of history together, and I have a great affection for him.

I also wanna say that you shouldn't judge a man by his weakest moment. All of us will have a moment of weakness.

Having said that, I have to disagree with the answer that he gave to the question.

A believer should not go to a homosexual transgender wedding. Can I just say one thing?

Because I agree with what he's saying about you shouldn't judge people on their weakest moment. All of us are gonna, we're gonna all look pretty bad.

You think of David, right? You judge him on his weakest moment, he's murdering someone. The thing about Alistair Begg that's different to me though is it wasn't a moment.

It was a, he was confronted many times and he doubled down many times.

And so while I agree with what, you know, John MacArthur saying there, Pastor John MacArthur, I, you know,

Pastor Alistair Begg has given us more than just a moment on this issue.

And it's come to define his ministry because of how resolute he is on this and unwilling to repent.

Now, the hope is still obviously that he would repent and he would say, oh my goodness, what did I do?

And, you know, of course this is wrong, but he hasn't done that. It's just been double down after double down.

So while that might be true, I don't think that applies to the Alistair Begg situation necessarily. It wasn't a moment, not at this point.

So anyway. For a lot of reasons, but he was making the argument that you go out of compassion rather than condemnation.

You go to show love to them as a means to reach them. My response to that is the most loving thing you could possibly do would be not to go and to condemn the relationship.

That is loving. It's not loving to help somebody celebrate stepping into the fury of God's judgment.

No transgender person, feminine, homosexual will enter the kingdom of heaven.

This is not a time for you to celebrate thinking that your affection for somebody is the means of their salvation.

They will come to salvation when the Lord exposes their sin.

That's why the Holy Spirit, John 16, convicts of sin and righteousness and judgment.

And what should be said to somebody is this is wrong. This is against God's order.

This is not marriage. It is not a marriage because you can't have a marriage between two people of the same sex.

It's not a marriage at all. It is defying God who ordained marriage, ordained male and female, and designed procreation.

It is a blasphemy against God as is transgender life and homosexuality as well.

That is the message to give in love. I couldn't, beyond the theological reasons and the biblical reasons,

I couldn't affirm that. If I went, I would affirm that. Not only could I not affirm it,

I don't think I could tolerate it. I don't think I could survive sitting in something like that and feeling like I was supportive of it.

And then to give them a gift, that is to aid and abet the celebration of something that is defying

God's design. And the very, very, I would say, point of the spear currently of the corruption of this entire culture.

So you can't be a part of that. Okay, for those who are just tuning in, there's actually a few more minutes to this, but it's nothing that different than what he just said.

So it's more him reiterating. And you can see there's, I think, a grief there of some kind because he's been friends with Alistair Begg for that many years.

But his answer as far as how he would answer the question is pretty solid.

He's saying that people like that don't inherit the kingdom of heaven. Of course you can't.

So that was the answer he gave. Now, there was a few people who sent me and including there was

David Morrill had told me he knew about this. I think he was gonna write something and I don't know if he did or not at Protestia, but there was a video of MacArthur from a few years ago,

I don't know how many, at a Ligonier conference and someone pulled it back up.

And I think it was a blogger or a podcaster named, well, the channels

I think Biblically, but they found this, pulled it back up and I'm gonna show it to you. And I'm only showing it to you because it's already got brought up and I do wanna address it because people asked me to comment on it.

A number of people actually. So here's the video. So I'm MacArthur at a

Ligonier conference and he's asked a question that's kind of similar. Can a baker bake a cake for a gay wedding?

Here it is. Truly sinful for a Christian business person, for instance, a cake baker to produce a product for a gay wedding.

You're on a roll. No, it's not. I don't know what's funny about that. There's had to have been some context. I don't know what was coming before that, but I can't imagine them laughing at that question.

Sinful for a cake maker to make a cake for a gay wedding any more than it's sinful for a guy who runs a restaurant to serve dinner to somebody who's gay and sits in a booth and eats the food or goes to the market and buys a loaf of bread and you own the market.

So before we play the rest of the clip, just point out something real quick. There's a parallel MacArthur draws here, right?

He says it's in the same category. So baking a cake for a gay wedding is in the same category as you own a supermarket and someone who considers themselves homosexual walks in and buys a loaf of bread.

So you could own a hotel and people come in that you don't agree with their lifestyle, let's say, but they're frequenting your business.

So you're not endorsing their lifestyle. You're not endorsing their sin. You're not participating in their sin.

They're just using your service. That's what he's trying to say here. Now, it's an odd parallel in my mind because if we stop the video there and there's no more context especially, it seems like he's saying like you could have a baker who specifically designs, sets up, celebrates a gay wedding by making a specifically gay wedding cake.

That's what I thought at the beginning of the question. That's what you think he's saying. Of course, it's not a sin to bake a cake for a gay wedding.

But if his parallel holds up, it sounds like what he's thinking about is like a gay couple walks in the store, the cake store or whatever, and they just wanna buy a generic cake and you're selling it to them.

That's what it seems like he's referring to if his parallel holds up. But it's poorly,

I think he would hopefully admit that that's poorly phrased. But let me play for you the rest of it. What the issue is is not whether that's sinful.

It's whether the federal government can demand that people do certain things which goes against their

Christian conscience. The issue to me is more of a political governmental issue.

I actually think that we need to show love to everyone. And particularly, we need to do good to all those that are outside the kingdom as well as inside the kingdom as much as possible.

So a gesture of kindness toward some unregenerate person is in itself not a sin.

But again, if it violates your conscience in some way, then you don't wanna train yourself to ignore your conscience.

So I think it's a personal issue. The issue becomes when people are basically fined or imprisoned for doing things that are religious conscience matters.

And that speaks to the issue of how much authority the government has to make you do that. So it's extra confusing.

This must have been like 2015 or so. That's what I'm thinking. This seems like it's around the time that we had people actually being fined for these kinds of things in places like Colorado and Arizona.

And so he ends the whole thing with like, well, we don't want the government coming and forcing Christians to violate their consciences.

But the issues where they were violating their consciences is where they were celebrating, they're actually participating in these things.

So it's a confusing take because it starts off with you think that he's going down the road of they're baking cakes specifically for homosexual weddings, but then it kind of sounds like he's actually saying, no, it's just couples coming in, they're buying a cake.

And so you've inadvertently baked a cake, but it's not specifically for participating in the sin. But then he ends with an example that makes you think again, this sounds like it's the issue of celebrating a gay wedding by baking a specific cake.

So that's confusing. It's not good, it's not a great answer, but I don't know when that was.

I think it was probably a few years ago. So here's, since then, I gotta show you. The person who

I think brought this up, now it could be wrong. Someone in the channel is saying that, actually a few people are saying that the book chap, is it the book chapter verse?

Seiko Woods, I think, that he brought this up first, BCB podcast, I don't know. So that could be true, but whoever brought it up first, this is the,

I think biblically. And so he did that video, that's where I got that video. That's the only place I've seen that video.

But he did a follow -up on this and there was a statement put out, and I think it was just to him, but he's putting out publicly from Phil Johnson on this.

And it says, within the scope of how he interpreted the question, meaning MacArthur, it's the right answer.

It's not inherently simple for a Christian -owned retail establishment to serve a homosexual. John is applying the principle of 1

Corinthians 5, 9 through 10, where the apostle writes, I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.

I did not at all mean with the sexually immoral people of this world or with the greedy and swindlers or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.

And the statement goes on. It says, nevertheless, it's not the clearest possible answer because it doesn't take into account what is required of a baker in the preparation of a wedding cake.

So at least there's an acknowledgement that that wasn't clear. The cake maker would have to decorate the cake to the couple's specifications, likely with little figures representing a homosexual couple on top, transport it to the wedding, set it up, and help arrange it for display in the reception.

The baker would thus be present and taking an active part in the actual celebration of this illicit charade imitating marriage.

And then it goes on. John raised that hypothetical in our conversation. This is really long, isn't it? He asked, if you were a baker, would you sell a birthday cake to a homosexual?

If that cake ended up being used in a celebration of gay pride, would you feel you did something sinful?

It depends, I said. If a homosexual person bought a generic birthday cake from my cake counter,

I am not responsible for what he does with it. But if he asks me to decorate it with gay pride slogans or perverse imagery that violate my conscience,

I could not do it. That's precisely the proper distinction John said. Producing and selling a product to someone living a sinful lifestyle is not inherently sinful.

Celebrating that person's sinful lifestyle in any way is a sin. And that's a spot on. I think that's the end of it.

So if you wanna know more about that, since I don't have the primary source on it, you'll have to go to, I think, Biblically on YouTube and contact them about that.

But that's the answer as far as I understand. And that's recent to that particular clip. So no, MacArthur did not say the same thing that Alistair Begg did.

And even if he had, the encouraging thing is he never doubled down on it.

And that's why I think what he said about Alistair Begg's, this being a moment or saying we don't judge someone based on their moments, looking at that clip of John MacArthur saying something that was confusing, that's a moment that he then clarified later when challenged about it.

What you saw with Alistair Begg was a continual double down of something that wasn't even confusing.

It was clear when he said it, and it just became more and more clear the more he doubled down. So it's not a moment. So it's sad, keep praying for Alistair Begg on that.

But I'm grateful that Dr. MacArthur was able to challenge publicly someone who he considers a friend on that matter.

All right, so moving on from that one, let's do the, this is,

I guess, the fresh thing. This is what's going on right now. And I don't know how deep I wanna get into this because frankly,

I'm not an expert on this stuff. And I found that out last night very late because I asked my wife, what is this trad wife thing?

I thought I knew what a trad wife or a, you know, like traditional, right? Trad, traditional. So traditional wife, someone who wants to be, you know, stay at home, raise kids, make food from scratch maybe, dress in a more traditional way.

And, you know, they're not following that sort of feminist corporate America view of how women should behave, right?

Well, I guess I'm wrong on that, or I'm partially wrong. I guess that maybe there's some truth to that, but I don't know anything about this.

Apparently on Instagram though, my wife informs me that there are trad wife, quote unquote, pages that are designed to make women really desire to, take this alternative lifestyle, which actually is kind of expensive apparently.

So it's the aesthetic that you're about to hear Allie Beth Stuckey talk about. And they're made to think that this is like, so that they're inferior if they don't,

I guess that's the issue. So it's like, you know, when you were, when we were younger and magazines at the grocery store used to have models on them, at least, you know, models who were better looking than a lot of the magazines today.

And the common thing you would hear is that this is horrible for girls because it gives them a bad body image issues.

They can't compete, they can't compare themselves. They, you know, they'd have to starve themselves to be that thin, that kind of thing, right?

And it's just really unhealthy. That's kind of what I'm getting from this, that like, that you can't really possibly do all the trad wife things, whatever those are.

So if you try and you fail, then it just leaves you in a bad spot.

And to think of that as being also part of your Christian responsibility is not a good thing.

So that's the best face I think I can put on this. And I think that's probably what Allie's saying, but let me play for you the clip.

And now that I've set the stage a little bit and after I play the clip, then, you know, we can maybe talk about it, draw some applications.

And then after I'm done with that, then I'll go through, I'll see what comments, questions are coming in.

I'm looking for the question mark specifically. So here is Founders, Founders Podcast with Allie Stuckey.

Trad wife. Yeah, trad wife. Which sounds like a made up word. It's not. Maybe Allie, you could define trad wife for us.

Okay, sure. Well, this takes a lot of setup. So the context of this was talking about the trend of being a trad wife or having a trad life on social media, which is really less about traditional or biblical values and a lot more about aesthetics.

And obviously there's nothing wrong with living on a farm and making your own sourdough and homesteading and all of those wonderful things.

But because this has become a trend on TikTok and the trend on social media, unfortunately, some people have made the mistake of conflating that so -called trad life and being a trad wife with being a biblical wife or a biblical mom or having a biblical life while homesteading and all of that is wonderful.

It's great. Motherhood for the Christian is obviously much more than a social media trend. It's not just something that you cosplay, put a costume on and play and pretend.

It's not just an aesthetic, it is a calling by God and there are biblical standards, of course, that women are called to, but they're not standards that are set by social media.

They're not standards that are set by a TikTok trend. They're not standards set by whatever social media influencer you follow that says in order to be a good mom, you have to make your own sourdough.

That's a wonderful thing, but you can be a great and biblical wife and mom without doing some of those things, which is good news for me because I like to buy my sourdough.

So that's actually the clip that was on Twitter that people were reacting to, which I guess seems pretty innocuous in a way.

I asked a question about it. I just asked if it was good in and of itself to follow patterns of life that have been laid down that are traditional, that seem healthy and live healthy lifestyle, because the example she keeps giving,

I think she said it three times, was baking sourdough. And so I guess my initial reaction to this was like, or the initial thought

I had was like, well, what if it wasn't trad wife? What if it was just like being fit?

So wives who wanted to be fit. And if someone came along and said, well, hey, that's not like, you can be like a biblical wife without being fit, without taking care of yourself that well, maybe you don't have time to do that.

And you're comparing yourself then to people who go to the gym a lot, but don't do that.

It's an odd thing, I guess, in my mind, because it's like, well, that's a good social trend to encourage that. When it comes to making sourdough,

I think that's a great trend. And I don't know all the ins and outs of the trad wife thing. I'm just thinking like making your homemade bread, that's a good thing for, and not every person can do it.

I understand that, but it's certainly a trend I would want to encourage. And it's certainly just like exercise and eating healthy.

Like I'd want to encourage those things. Those are just good things to do. And they certainly dovetail with biblical responsibilities.

It's not like you are gonna find chapter and verse for like every single thing you do.

Like there's not a verse about putting an apron on, right? But like some of these things are just, they're healthy, they're wholesome.

They're actually honorable too, I think. Like you're honoring your parents, your grandparents, your time -tested things that they've done.

And you're picking the true and valuable and good and the best things from that. And then you're using them for yourself and your own family.

So that's a good thing. But yeah, of course, if you're going to be obsessed over it, yeah, that's bad.

And I'm assuming that's what Allie's talking about. But kind of like the MacArthur comment from years ago when he's talking about the cake baking, like this seems like it probably just could have been a little more clear, what's going on here.

Are we talking about like all wives who wanna be traditional and just bake sourdough? Are we talking about like this very unhealthy trend and that's all it is?

Like, what are we talking about? And so I don't think this is like a big, big thing. I'm just gonna be honest. I know some people are really going whole hog on this and maybe

I'm missing something, but I don't see how this is like super, super big. Let's continue playing it though, because she says something that's sort of interesting the coming up.

And I think Eric Kahn pointed this out. And so I'm just gonna play it and you can draw your own conclusions.

Well, Allie, one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you is because of the way the Lord has positioned you and use you to speak into certain areas, culturally, politically, and to do so with a good biblical thoughtfulness about you.

And to do so as a woman who's not embarrassed by being a woman or not frustrated that you're not a man or is trying to push some kind of agenda that would suggest there's no difference between men and women.

And so I think it's fascinating how you and your husband, Timothy, have thought through this and worked this out and figured out, okay, this is what our lives are like and this is how we fulfill the callings

God's given to us. And I have a husband and he has a wife and we are very much committed to what the

Bible says about biblical marriage and family. So tell us about how you've navigated some of those waters.

Wow, that's a lot to answer and a lot, it's been a lot to navigate. Well, they clapped for you, so I figured that you're the one that would have all the answers on this.

That's totally fine. No, I think this is a great question and it's something that a lot of people are curious about. I started doing what

I do when we first got married. So back in 2015, we were living in Athens, Georgia, and I decided that I wanted to talk to the students in the area about why they should be voting in the election, 2015, 2016.

I had just graduated from college in 2014. I felt like I could relate to these young people in college.

I was actually working in PR full -time then, but I've always loved public speaking.

I've always loved communicating in one form or another. I have been doing this since I was a child.

So I had this desire and had this pull to talk to young people about why the culture wars, why election.

I know this is long guys, just bear with me for a second. Why politics matter. And so I actually started in sorority houses and I would reach out to the chapter presidents and say, could

I please talk to you and give you my presentation about why y 'all should be voting in the elections. And that's really kind of how it started.

And this was a part -time thing. It was really just a hobby that Timothy was always incredibly supportive of.

It certainly wasn't something that I ever intended to do full -time or long -term, but of course it turned into that.

And it's been different in different seasons of my life. There was a season of my life before we had kids when work looked very different than it does now.

But as a wife and a mom, that is my first and my highest calling underneath just being a

Christian. And so my responsibilities look different than they did before, but the

Lord has been very gracious in providing ways and providing opportunities for my husband and I to both of us in one way or another, try to influence the culture and influence the church into navigating the culture wars in a way that is biblical, in a way that is courageous, while still allowing me to prioritize being a wife and a mom and spending most of my hours dedicated to that.

It's really not that my life or really anyone's life as a

Christian is in these neat compartments, but really that they all kind of fit together.

It's a lot of traveling with family. It's a lot of doing things at home. It is a lot of leaning on each other.

And my husband has been such a good and a strong leader through all of this and every decision that we make.

Really everything that I even say is something that we talk about beforehand and something that is just so woven into every part of our lives, really.

And so I don't really know if that answers the question because it's not some neat method that we have come up with to say, okay, this is exactly how we are going to categorize the different parts of our lives.

But my husband and I from day one have been working on this together and brought along our kids with us.

And so, yeah, we just try to do the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God.

That's kind of been our motto. Yeah, and so part of that is coming to Florida and talking to you guys with a newborn.

And that's a lot of what the past few years of our lives has looked like. Okay, I'm gonna stop right there.

So some people, I haven't seen everything on Twitter, sorry. I don't know what everyone's saying on this, but I do know that I did catch that.

I know Eric Kahn was saying that the context was bad in that it seems like Ali's, Beth's husband is kind of like her helpmate,

I guess. Like the roles are somewhat reversed, something like that. I don't know if I really see that here, but let me just, this is me.

I don't wanna necessarily assess what everyone else said since I haven't even seen what everyone else said.

I just know that there's a lot of talk about this clip for some reason. There are two or three things in that though that I think are worth thinking through and outside the box about.

In other words, like the way that we've been used to thinking for the last 60 years, 70 years, it might be good to consider them.

So the whole thing starts off with Ali's going after this trad wife trend because really essentially it sounds like it's this unachievable standard that we shouldn't be killing ourselves to try to achieve because it's not even our primary calling biblically.

Fair enough, right? But the thing is like, this is a new, as far as I know, this is a fairly new trend, right?

So what was, this is the question I have. What was there before the trad wife trend? What was like the universal thing we all grew up with?

And it's still there and it's still way bigger than the trad wife trend. What is it? It's the career woman trend, right?

It's the women can do everything traditionally men have done and maybe even better.

And that has put way more pressure, right, on women. I'm sure Ali would agree with me on this.

It's put way more pressure on women that you can have your family and your career and you can be super mom, right?

And of course you're gonna have to microwave fish sticks because you're not gonna have time for the sourdough because you're doing your career.

And this has been the thing, especially where I live in the New York area, like this is just expected.

You don't even have kids till you've managed to get to a level of financial independence of some kind.

And you're in your thirties before you're having kids. You're getting married. You're having kids in your thirties. And now that, you know, that's why it drives

IVF up and everything because, and there's so many IVF clinics too, because these women who are the high -risk pregnancies now need all this assistance.

It's terrible. And it's such a stark contrast between that and like a more traditional place.

Like I lived in Lynchburg, Virginia for a little bit and it's very family oriented. It's very different, but you still have that.

You still have that pressure, right? And so this is, again, not, it's not a snide remark.

I'm not against Ali or anything like that. But I just wanna point something out that maybe is outside the box. When you heard

Ali then describe her life, you know, and hold it up as like, this is a good thing. This is what I've done. I've been able to pursue my dreams from the beginning.

My husband has been there to advise me, to help me. And I also am a wife. I'm also a mother.

Those are my primary callings. But hey, you know, I'm here at the conference. I have my newborn with me. I'm doing both.

I'm not saying that's wrong. Good for her. But I am saying that that also, just like the trad wife thing can be held up as an example.

How many listeners does Ali have that are young women? I mean, that's the kind of thing when they hear that, what are they thinking?

Like, I can have it all too. Like, I should be able to do this, right? And they might not have the income of Ali.

So I'm not saying that's wrong, but I'm not saying the trad wife thing is wrong necessarily either. I'm just saying that the, like, what's wrong is cutting corners and sacrificing really important things for things that aren't as important.

So the job really isn't, it's not as important as, right, the kids and the husband.

And I've seen this in my own life. I'm going on my own rant now, but I've seen this in my own life of career women in politics, in business, in other fields who thought they could do that.

And I'm just telling you that generally, this is gonna make some people mad. I know there's exceptions, so please,

I'm not saying your situation's like this. In general though, it doesn't tend to work out over time. The kids suffer.

I'm just telling you, the kids tend to suffer. And so it's, that can be a temptation too.

And that's all I wanted to say. The other thing too, I think to maybe, to consider here, and this is, again, not being a legalist on any of this, not saying that there's, you know, the

Bible is saying, you know, one way or the other, you can be a political commentator as a woman, or you can't. I just want you to think though about theologians and, you know, political thinkers, political philosophers throughout the last, you know, 500 years.

Like who do we go and we study? It's men every time, right? And of course, feminists will say that's because of the patriarchal dominance and all this.

No, it's just because they're the ones that actually did work on this stuff. Women really were in, up until very recently, the ones who were taking care of the family, who were doing the things outlined in Proverbs 31, right?

They were still engaged in, you know, certain business things and stuff, but it was men who were making contributions in the political realm.

And the reason for that, I think, is my opinion, is that politics and war are very related.

In fact, politics is, it's war without, sometimes it does have shooting, but it doesn't have to, you know, so it's war without shooting.

It's trying to make sure that your interests or the interests of the group that you represent are taken into account and that they win the day against competing interests.

That's often the case. And there's all kinds of, you know, you have to meet people where they're at and try to come up with resolutions and things and compromises, but that's essentially what it is.

And it's the use of force at the end of the day, because if someone doesn't pay their taxes, if someone doesn't follow the law, you know, who gets involved?

It's police, it's military, it's the force. That's, at the end of the day, that's what the law does, it's force.

And so I think this is something that maybe does deserve some thought somewhere.

And I don't know who, maybe someone's done work on this, but to what extent can, or, and this is a better way to ask it, not can women, because women can, of course, they're very accomplished.

I mean, Allie's accomplished, right? But to what extent is it good for families and for women to be invested in those things on a daily basis?

I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know if there's like a time, I don't, like slot,

I don't know, you know, but traditionally speaking, I do know this, men generally have been, up until very recently, the ones responsible for war, for police actions, for political decisions, that they're the directly the ones in those fields.

So that is something, so when you hear Allie talking about, like this was her, you know, her passion was to go make political speeches at these sororities or fraternity,

I think she said sororities. And then every step of the way, her husband's advising her and she's building this career, you know,

I'm not going to necessarily shoot at someone and say that they're sexist or they're evil.

Maybe they are, but I'm not going to say because they question that, whether that's a good thing.

They may actually have, you know, someone like Allie's best interest in mind and even asking that question. So I'm not making any determinations.

I'm just, I'm really bringing up questions that I think are good to ask, which I'll probably get in trouble for, but there you go.

And I think that was it. I think, yeah, so those were the things that I just wanted to point out about. Those are the only things that I saw that were worth talking about.

You know, maybe I'm missing something, but with the last, we've been going a little over an hour. With the last few minutes,

I'll try to get to some questions. So I certainly, there's a lot of people in this chat, so I'm certainly not going to be able to read everything, but I'll definitely look for those question marks.

And if I see any, I'll try to come to those questions. And let's see, what did

I miss? First question mark I saw. I don't know, 524.

Yeah, you missed a lot. That was a little over 10 minutes ago. You'll have to go back to the beginning.

I'm sorry, Violet. Let's see here.

Proverbs 31, wife. So I'm not sure, maybe Kat doesn't know what the

Proverbs 31 wife is. So Proverbs 31, obviously a passage that talks about a wife who blesses her husband.

And so she does, it can be overwhelming sometimes when women read this, because all the activities she engages in seem like overwhelming, but it's a snapshot of her life, really.

It's the pattern of her life. It's not like this is a whole day. She doesn't sleep. She stays up late, gets up early.

No, I mean, it's just that her priorities are for her family. So she makes her husband, her focus, her orientation is for her husband's success, for helping her husband accomplish things.

And I think that's the biblical pattern that we see, that the wives are to be helpmates to their husbands.

So it becomes more difficult when it's a 50 -50, when you have the wife and the husband and they're in a relationship where they're raising a family too.

They're doing all these activities, but the wife's got her career. She's got her 50 % and the husband's involved, but it makes it hard.

So I'm not saying it's impossible. I don't know. I think that there are people who tend to manage these things better than others.

But the Proverbs 31 wife, her orientation is around the home. It's about her husband.

So that's what I'm talking. And you go read Proverbs 31 and see what I'm talking about there. So other, not a lot of questions, a lot of statements.

The BBC channel asks, I guess this is not, I think this is, I saw the question mark, but I don't know if it's for me.

Bri and Babes podcast, have you done podcasts on MacArthur saying it's not sinful for Christian bakers to make a cake for a gay wedding, yes or no?

I don't know. I don't know if Bri and Babes has done that, but I now have. Let's see other questions.

Let's see. We got Avers Fudge saying,

I'm in the process of getting ready to go to Liberty University for graduate school in history. Oh, this is a great question.

How was your experience there? Is it worth it? Were you a GSA and how is that job? All right,

I'll be personal with everyone. Yes, I was a GSA and I loved it. I absolutely love my experience at the history department of Liberty University.

And I learned so much more there, in my opinion, about studying even the word of God, but just studying in general than I did ever in seminary.

And that includes the three different seminaries that I've attended. And so I would highly recommend going to the history department at Liberty.

And if you can get a GSA, that's great because you'll be able to save a lot of money and you'll be able to get a lot of experience too in online teaching.

And I'm just glad that when I did it, they didn't have the AI stuff yet. So plagiarism was a lot more easy to detect.

Now, I'm not so sure. All right, well, it looks like that's it for questions.

If, of course, if anyone has questions or comments, you can also put them on the video and I might or might not see them, but we've been going over an hour now.

So, oh, one last thing. I wanted to just show people this. Someone was saying before,

I think, I don't know where it is now in the chat, but I happened to, from the corner of my eye, I caught someone saying they couldn't find this.

So if you go to worldviewconversation .com, you can find this, but johnharrispodcast .com

as well. But if that doesn't work, worldviewconversation .com and it's speaking tab. So if you click on that, it'll take you to the speaking engagements and yeah,

March 2nd through 3rd, Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Reclaim Conference, you click on that. Oh, that's great. There's a page that doesn't come up.

Well, it did come up when I first put it there. Let me just real quick see if I just Google Reclaim Conference.

And Albuquerque, if it comes up, maybe that's the way that people need to find this. I don't know if the

URL changed. It looks like it is. Yes, if you go on a search engine and you look for it, it'll come right up.

So new plan, redemptionhillnewmexico .org. Redemptionhillnewmexico .org.

So forget what I said about going to worldviewconversation .com. Go to Redemption Hill, New Mexico.

It's NM, so redemptionhillnm .org, events, and you'll find it right there.

It's only $10 to come to the Reclaim Conference and you get more information there about where it is and all of that.

So with that, God bless. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and more coming, bye now.