Jeff Durbin vs. VICE's Jamali Maddix | Abortion & Christianity

Lord, sit in my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

Psalm 110 and Christ Reigning at the Father's Right Hand

What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio.

This is the gospel heard around the world. I'm Jeff. They call me the Ninja.

That's Luke the Bear.

What up?

And of course, and I'm going to pause here for a second just to get to the microphone.

There you go.

That's Joy the Girl.

Hello.

And Marcus King Ginger on the ones and twos.

What's up, y 'all?

We're back.

We're back.

We're back.

Yeah, I'm back.

Yeah.

Three weeks, man.

It's been long.

It's too long.

Big time. So that was Psalm 110. One y 'all. That's the most quoted reference from the Old Testament in the New Testament. Psalm 110.

One.

The Apostle Paul. First Corinthians 15 gives a portrait, a picture of history. Where are we going? He quotes Psalm 110. One says, that's what's up right now. Jesus is king. He is reigning on his throne and all of history is God putting all things under Christ's feet and then total victory.

Jesus delivers the kingdom over the father.

So that's what's up with that verse.

Abortion Now, the Kauai Church Plant, and the EndAbortionNow Kits

And we're back doing some of that stuff actually in the island of Kauai. You want to talk about that for a sec? Just for a minute?

Let's do it.

So I headed out a little bit early to Kauai and took a little bit of a sabbatical and then actually met up with the team afterwards and we spent a week with the team on the island of Kauai for our church plant.

We God willing are planning a church January of 2018. That's our first worship service somewhere in there. And so this is our last trip before we actually send the families out to plant a church there.

So the island of Kauai has huge problem with drug and alcohol addiction, alcohol and methamphetamines. Actually a significant suicide rate. A lot with the youth of course, but there's other age in that too.

But I mean a lot of youth suicide. So living in paradise and still not happy.

But so that's what's up.

So they're also heavily, heavily impacted by the cults, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, you got a lot of Roman Catholic influence there, Church of Christ, those sorts of things. And we actually ran into some Latter-day Saints, some Mormon missionaries.

Yes, we did.

In Hanapepe. That's the name of the town, Hanapepe. Ran into four missionaries out there, actually got a chance to record the conversation. You can see that at Apologia Studios on YouTube.

Hey guys, I got to make a quick interruption here. Can we not have the music because it can't be cleared for our special guest?

Yeah, I'll turn it down.

All right.

There you go.

Okay.

All right.

I love your like announcer. Broadcast voice.

Very professional.

Try to sound very professional.

I'm not going to. I didn't want to give away who our guest was.

That's right. We have a special guest in the studio today and we're going to introduce you to him in just a minute, but I'll give you guys a chance.

We're going to make him wait.

Keep him on ice. He's good. He's good.

All right. All right.

And so what's up?

What happened when we were gone?

Joy?

Anything happen in the studio? Anything special? I think I know something. One thing special happened.

It stayed really, really clean.

I see that.

Yes.

And I got a lot of work done because no one was bothering me. And that's it.

That's all.

Wait.

What was your one special thing?

Well, the one thing that we finally got done. It actually finally happened.

We started, I think about the day after you left, we got our first kit sent out. And then sort of got in a swing of that. We have a process for it now. So now they're going out quite a bit faster. So as of right now, I think we have 101 kits out.

Sent out. Yeah.

So if you guys don't know what that means.

Some of you probably haven't. Actually, by the time they're listening to this, everyone may have gotten theirs already that were sent. So and then we have a few more and we're at the end of our list as far as it goes right.

Now.

Good.

So endabortionnow .com is the site that's launched right now. So local churches across the United States are going to endabortionnow .com, getting linked up with the movement and getting the training, getting all the video and the resources.

And what we do as a church is we actually send out to these churches a kit. And in the kit, you have signs to communicate with the mothers and fathers going into the abortion mills. We also have tracks and information you guys can hand out.

So some of you guys have been sending us pictures of your kits arriving. I want to tell you how much that means to us. We're grateful for that. So I'm so happy to see that happening. We've been looking forward to that.

Like actually seeing the kits in your hands and out of our garage.

Right.

Basically.

So. Yeah.

Absolutely.

If you haven't signed up yet, go to endabortionnow .com. You guys can get connected over there. If you have questions, you guys can send a message to either, probably to Zach first and he can answer any questions you guys have.

But Joy and Zach, thank you guys both actually for all that work.

You guys are doing.

So let's introduce our guest.

Vice Visits the Studio and Jamali Maddix Joins the Conversation

Right.

So we're in the studio right now. Apology of Studios, underground bunker in right outside of Phoenix, Arizona in our makeshift studio because the set for next week with Jeff Durbin is in the other room and it's basically done.

It's polishing, polishing stuff right now. We're in our makeshift studio and we have a very special guest. We actually have guests.

Plural.

Yeah.

Vice is here.

We love Vice.

We do.

I watch Vice all the time.

It's true.

It's like my favorite documentary crew.

Yeah.

Right.

I mean, I don't know who's better, Shane or our guest in terms of like host and I don't.

Know.

Shane has been in North Korea.

So.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

Not as scary as maybe this is.

Yeah.

I would like to go to North Korea.

Yeah.

North Korea.

Yeah. North.

North.

North Korea.

Sorry.

I'm just trying to get my voice now.

Okay.

So anyway, Vice is here with us filming a documentary around Apology of Church, Apology of Studios and Abortion Now and we have a very special guest, somebody we've watched and we know who he is, Jamali Maddox.

And welcome to the show. Jamali.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah.

I'm really, really happy to be here.

This is like the most epic voice to have on Apology of Studios. So now like John Samson.

No, you put John Samson to shame.

Completely. John Samson is basically a totally American now.

Who's John Samson?

Is he a British dude?

He's a British dude.

A long time ago.

He lost his way.

Yeah, he's lost his way. He came to minister to the colonies.

Damn shame.

He came to minister to the colonies. He's lost a bit.

He still drinks his tea though.

No, you can keep him now. We don't want him back.

Yeah, we don't want him back. So I'll ask you a question.

So Jamali, what are you doing connected with Vice? What do you do?

Who are you?

Well, I'm a comedian. I've been doing comedy since I was, well seriously since I was about 20, maybe 18 on and off. And right now I make documentaries. I've done one series last year where I want to spoke to various groups around the world.

And this year we're centering more in like America.

Yeah.

Sort of alternative ideas maybe and, you know, sort of different perspectives.

So we've seen some of the old season stuff. And so I have to ask you the name of the series, which almost stopped us from actually agreeing to do it was hate thy neighbor. Do you hate your neighbor?

No.

It's because that is like, uh, uh, did it actually really need to stop you make doing the film?

Well, we look as we would. We abhor the idea of our neighbor.

So the name of the series, it wasn't literally, it wasn't literally.

And did Danny and then they were like, no, no, no, no. We understand. It's not about that.

Yeah.

So tell us about the series.

I mean, the, the, the first series, uh, I want to spoke to, uh, various groups, uh, do you have very strong opinions about certain things? Uh, so I spoke to, uh, uh, some consider hate groups, some considered not.

And it's just, uh, uh, uh, just a bunch of people who sort of have a very strong ideals, which, uh, the larger population maybe don't agree with or don't understand. And it's just trying to get a more of understanding of their perspective.

So I saw the one with the black supremacist.

Oh, you did. You did see that one?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We did a, we did a show on black Hebrew Israelites.

Yeah.

Um, and it exploded.

Dude.

I mean, it, it was like instant, instant. As soon as, as soon as one person found out about the show, it just, it flew, went crazy. Now we have so many videos online about us because we, we did a show on black Hebrew Israelites.

So they're pretty intense.

Have you, uh, have you debated with them?

I've never actually, I think one time when I was like 17, I was traveling the country, like competing in martial arts. And I think I remember one time running into one on a street corner and he wasn't too abusive with me.

It was just like a moment. It's just said something kind of weird to me. And he was like, Jesus was black. And I was like, that's cool.

Yeah.

All right.

Not fine with that. But I mean, never got really into a conversation with one.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's the black Israelites, the strange one. I'm not, I'm not too versed with a biblical matters, but, um, I mean, to say that Jesus was a dark skin man, isn't an insane perspective. I mean, you know, he grew up, you know, from that part of the world probably would be of a darker skin, a woolly hair.

Uh, but he says, you know, the other stuff and the other interpretations I think is where people have the real problem.

Right.

It's where they think, you know, white people going back into slavery and all these type of things.

Jesus is coming back to put his boot on my neck.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh yes. Yes. Yes.

That's, that's, that's, that's, that's one of them.

When they say Esau, right?

Yeah.

Big hairy Esau.

Yeah.

So, so there are different tribes. So they, they break down the 12 tribes into the lost people of Israel. So it's like, but they think it's not the people who claim to be Jewish now.

Right.

They think it's a claim to be sort of like native Americans, uh, various people when they, they claim it from people who have suffered slavery in the modern world.

Right.

Is my, from what I understand.

Right.

Right.

But it's weird cause you ask them about like the aboriginals in Australia and they go, well, you know, and it's like those people have, you know, gone, like had their land stolen and different, but they don't have that.

So it's a, it's a very, uh, it's a very complicated sort of, uh, and then it's, it's, you can't really, uh, unless you, I think unless you join it, you can't really understand it. So I never really left with a more of understand that said why people got into slavery, right?

Because it's, you know, you have to sort of like be versed in the Bible like they are.

Yeah.

It was powerful because, uh, when we did this show just with it, with a buddy of ours that knows a lot about it and is engaged with them a bunch, it created this firestorm and I have never seen so many racist comments about white people come my way.

And I was just like, well, that's interesting.

Not as bad as the flat earth people though.

Yeah.

They're not as, yeah.

The flat earth people are really.

They do not want to mess with the flat earth people. I've spoken to, I've spoken to bad people, the flat earth people. I don't want them trolling me man.

Cause they will troll you forever.

They're unrelenting.

And you can't really even debate it because it's like, you go, yeah, I mean we're, we're both not scientists, but we know it's not. And they go, but how? And you go, yeah, because it's not. I mean, it's, we know it.

Yeah.

Cause I'm not stupid. Um, but yeah, a buddy of ours, uh, he's a well respected scholar and theologian, uh, he actually got because of that into, into a dialogue with a leading black Hebrew Israelite and got it.

And it was really interesting cause you saw like a lot of claims being made, um, that are anti historic, uh, historical. They just false, just patently false from the Hebrews, the Hebrew Israelites. And, um, so that was interesting to see like this, this, this movement, this cult kind of rise up around a lot of things that they proclaim to people that just aren't true about.

History.

Uh, but I just saw like in the end it was always about like this, this hatred just for the white race in many ways. So, uh, that was, that was interesting, but you did, so you did the series, I've seen some of it.

I thought it was actually really well done. So what are you doing with us?

I'm trying to get, cause I, I know, uh, um, especially by the abortion debate is, uh, it's this sort of idea of, uh, trying to get a more wider perspective of why you think it's murder. Do you know what I'm saying?

Cause it's like, that is a very debated subject and it's like, I know, especially with, uh, you know, with the new president now and he sort of, um, seeing it more of that perspective cause you just come from a sort of more, uh, maybe a liberal idea with Barack Obama about, you know, and it's a sort of a, cause the pro, I think the pro choice and the pro life debate is such a, uh, a complexed idea.

And I've heard a lot of perspective of the pro choice, you know, being, being in media, being, you know what I'm saying? Sort of being like living in London, very liberal place, being in comedy around a lot of liberal people.

Right.

And it, and you know, and it's sort of, and it's like, it goes through so many faceted ideas. It goes, it's sort of that. It's been a sort of churn through so many machines of sort of like, you know, the feminist ideas and you know, all these different perspectives, it's just trying to get an understanding of, of, uh, of, of why you don't agree with it.

Right.

No, I appreciate it. We're glad. And we love vice. And so we think you guys are, are, are very skilled and good at what you do. Um, and, and, you know, and interestingly, uh, someone like Donald Trump, what bothered us initially is I know I grew up, uh, hearing about Donald Trump, I was born in 1978.

So I mean my whole life, Donald Trump's been on the news and television, everyone knows who Donald Trump is. So I knew what Donald Trump, uh, had believed before. And so when he started running for president and he started coming out as pro-life and saying the things that he was, I was very leery of myself personally because I didn't know if I could buy it.

And at this point in, uh, where he's at today with what he's, um, uh, not done, uh, concerning the area of abortion, I felt like my concerns were warranted. I don't think that it was, it was a genuine commitment to, to ending, uh, the slaughter of children in our nation, to, to doing anything about abortion because it's interesting too.

And in the, especially near the tail end of his campaign, you saw like Donald Trump using a lot of the pro-life rhetoric and pro-life language, uh, talking about overturning Roe versus Wade and putting judges in that would end, uh, uh, Roe.

Uh, but now here we are, what are we now? Six, seven months, seven months into his presidency. And it's almost seems like radio silence from president Trump on the issue of abortion. So we were very concerned ourselves that it just seemed like it was just a big.

If you think he's just using it for populist, uh, sort of, uh, just to get people to vote.

For him.

Who do you need to vote for you? Uh, you need, well, you got to get the Christian vote.

Yeah.

That's huge. You got to get the evangelical vote.

Yeah.

You got to get the conservative vote and you know, here are the key issues for the conservatives, evangelicals. You've got abortion pro-life. And so I think that Donald Trump latched onto that and made promises that I don't, at this point believe that he has any, um, commitment to actually see through.

But do you think that's due to the political system? Because I mean, it's sort of, if we're talking about like, and I know you believe from a biblical perspective, but if we're just talking about the, the, the, the political system we live in today is democracy and sort of, uh, this, this sort of a structural political system, uh, you can't just change the law tomorrow, you know, cause he has to go through certain, uh, systems and certain, uh, facets to, to get to that.

So, uh, would, so do you think that he has, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, intentions to do it or do you think that he fully just like totally uncommitted to it? Do you think that that should be his, his, his, uh, goal every day is to wake up and to try and end abortion?

Yeah, I think that that's, so you've got these major issues of injustice that I think we should address with like an immediatist mindset. We should immediately stop the slaughter of children, right? Like if somebody said like, well, how do you want to end the Holocaust with, you know, Jews being killed?

Do you want to do it over a period of, you know, 30, 40 years? I would say, yeah, we can do that immediately. Let's try to, let's do that quickly. Um, but in terms of abortion, uh, in, in terms of how the United States government system works, you have, um, a system of government that was essentially created, um, from Geneva.

I mean, the most popular study Bible in the time of, um, the American revolution was the Geneva study Bible. Uh, Calvin's Geneva produced so much of what we see in the American political system and governmental system.

So we have checks and balances. Of course, we have a process through which the people can get representation and they can hold their government and check and accountable. However, we also have the, the part of our system that allows for a lesser government to oppose a tyrannical government, right?

Uh, we have the ability of, uh, somebody who say a sheriff or a local city or governor to say to a higher government or to a cousin government. I don't, I'm not following that. I reject that great example right now.

Perfect is say Washington and Colorado, uh, federal government says no marijuana, right? It's against the laws against federal law. Well, what these lesser magistrates have done in Colorado and Washington is they followed what is legal in our country.

And they've said, we don't agree with that law. We're not going to obey that law. And so we're going to legalize marijuana in our state. I think they had every right to do that. And I think it was completely, completely right to, to, to do that from their perspective for their state.

Um, the lesser magistrate can resist in that way. And our government system allows that. But in this case of abortion, from our perspective, Jamali, um, abortion Roe versus Wade is not a law. Our, our system of government doesn't give the Supreme court the rights to create legislation.

So our, our constitutional system says that, um, that it is up to the Congress to legislate,.

Right?

Not to the Supreme court. So we'd see in 1973 that Roe versus Wade, the Supreme court gave a court opinion based upon false, false premises. They said that what's in the womb is potential human life. We know biblically and biologically speaking, that's false.

Um, but they, they had a decree that we believe this about abortion. And so all the states have essentially bought into a lie. And that is that Roe versus Wade is actually a law and it's not. So any state in the United States now could criminalize abortion immediately at the state level by saying, we reject Roe and we're going to hold to the laws we have even in some cases in place today.

So great example, Jamali is in Arizona today. There's a current law on the book books that criminalizes abortion. It's never been changed. It's never been altered. Nothing's ever, it's, it's current on the books.

And the reason it's not actually upheld is because we're under the false assumption that Roe versus Wade did something to those states laws when in fact it didn't. So we would actually be of the perspective that, um, we don't need to work to overturn Roe versus Wade because it's not a law.

Um, what we need to do is have state governments uphold though their legal right as lesser magistrates to resist the opinion of the Supreme Court, um, and uphold their state laws.

Just like marijuana laws.

Right.

Just like the governments are ignoring them.

Federal government is marijuana.

Oh, sorry. Sorry to cut you off. Do you think that, uh, it should go down to a democratic vote of say, cause if we're going to break it down to state level, say if we're talking about America, we're breaking it down to every state's individual country.

Uh, just cause it's such a big country.

Right.

So we're talking about individual states.

That's how it's supposed to be.

Yeah. Yeah.

So do you think that each state should vote on the law? So say, say, say if, uh, Arizona one don't want abortion and everyone's voted and it's got a higher percentage on votes, no more about abortion, but then New York state, it overruled that, that they're, that they want to have a legal abortion.

Do you think that the government should still get involved in New York if they want legal abortion?

I think that it should go down to states themselves to govern themselves. As a matter of fact, um, the government system in the United States was built in such a way as to be a Republic.

Right.

So the way you described it as perfect, like these almost individual countries in a union, like what they meant when they said union, they didn't mean what we have today, where it's really a federal government really running everything.

They meant this is our thing, right? We're all individual sovereign states, but this is our thing. So I do think the states have the right responsibility just to say, this is what we're going to.

Do.

And I do believe Jamali, I think that if you in the United States of America today, I think if you said, put it to a vote, yeah, let's let each state vote. I think that you would see abortion banned in virtually every state, except for the, except for the known liberal ones.

Yes.

I do believe that.

Are you quite libertarian in your political approach?

Very.

Yeah.

I think that if you took like the law of God and you applied the general equity of it to today and said, let's make our system look like what this is, it would be, it would look very libertarian.

Yeah.

It would look very libertarian. So yeah.

Yeah.

But I think that.

Part of like libertarianism as well, like freedom of choice.

In a sense, except libertarianism, this is where libertarianism dies. Well, libertarianism dies because it's got the right ideal of personal freedom and personal responsibility and self-governance, right?

And small limited government, that kind of stuff is like in principle, it's absolutely.

Right.

I think that comes ultimately from Christian worldview to have that kind of idea. However, where libertarianism dies and it will never get off the ground is it doesn't have an objective moral standard because you can say personal freedom and responsibility all you want, but if you don't have an objective standard of what is actually right and wrong, you're just in a sea of confusion.

And so I think that's where libertarianism will always just fall dead.

Christian Law, Objective Morality, and the Image of God

So do you think that, because I'm assuming, correct me if I'm wrong, do you want to see America's law based on a Christian system of law and justice of what you perceive to be law and justice, right?

Yeah.

If me, say if I'm a non-Christian.

Yeah.

Do you think I should have to live under the guidelines of a Christian morality if I don't believe in it?

Well, it's a good question. And I think that if we were to ask it the other way, same assumptions, we would see that we're talking about the same thing. So for example, I know that you're not a believer, not a Christian, but you would probably want more of a secular society, right?

Democracy.

I prefer democracy to a theological law and justice system.

Right.

And the thing I would point to is that every system is a theocracy. Every system is a theocracy.

So for example.

We took elements of it.

Yeah.

Because, I mean, obviously, you know, ideas of Christianity, Islam, whatever, you know, just from years and years of, and they were like the powerhouses politically for so many years.

Yeah.

And they're going to have certain parts of their theology or their philosophical thought that we're going to take, like, you know, don't kill people. Yeah, we'll have that.

We'll take that, yeah, yeah.

Don't steal. Yeah, we'll have a bit of that too.

We love that, yes.

You know what I'm saying? So, you know, we are going to take certain elements of that because there is a certain.

You can't live without it.

Yeah, there is a certain moral standard that I think even an atheist and a Christian would.

Share.

You know, I think if you get two decent people who are Christian and one's an atheist and you say, what do you think about murder? Or what do you think about, you know, robbery? You probably both agree we don't like it, right?

But it's, you know, it's the other things because there's other nuances.

Right.

I think that people would disagree on.

Of course.

I probably wouldn't want to live under.

So what's interesting is that the way that you illustrated that is actually really interesting. You talked about Christians and atheists and even atheists borrowing saying, I like that from the Christian worldview.

We'll keep that.