This Week in Witchcraft - S1:E6

Welcome to this week in witchcraft. The elements have been conquered with intense heat and witchcraft has become more cosmopolitan. Can you spot it out in the wild? I'm, andrew hudson and joining me today are michael. Durham and kyle smith and kyle has spotted witchcraft in the wild.

A Surrogacy Story and the Celebration of Same-Sex Parenthood

Okay, so a little bit of background to this oftentimes during my free time I tend to not doom scroll like michael likes to say from the pulpit. But just meander through twitter a little bit. Um, is it fret scrolling.

Not quite not quite. No, no, no, no, uh. Several years ago google readers stopped offering their product and so I started to get my news through twitter. Of course now all that news is labeled as misinformation unless it comes from the left, but that's another story.

Anyway about a week ago going through twitter and noticed kind of a video clip from one of the conservatives that I Follow not necessarily because I agree with everything that he says or does but a guy named dave rubin and he was being Congratulated by several conservatives prominent conservatives that i've trusted some of their material in the past.

And I thought well wonder what he's being congratulated about. For those of you who don't know dave rubin is a practicing homosexual with his quote unquote husband david in their mirage of a marriage.

But anyway, they are having two babies. They would say a very natural process. But last I checked two men can't have babies. So he was uh being congratulated and I I thought I need to check into this a little bit more.

Well come to find out he started to get some backlash from christians saying this is not something to be celebrated and uh. If you don't know this already if you're conservative that doesn't mean you're necessarily a christian just fyi.

So in looking into it a little bit more I went to his youtube channel the rubin report. He actually had a segment where he was responding to some of these and went into fairly significant detail on how this all Uh came about with he and his husband David they essentially are trying to as best they can Recreate the natural process of a man and a woman conceiving a child.

When that's not actually the case here. There are women involved but basically they are impregnating the harvested eggs of a single woman who those eggs have been gathered and and then separated out and they both contribute their seeds to to this formula and then The embryos that come about some of which take and some of which don't.

Of course the ones that don't what are you going to do with those? Well, you can either freeze them and they become What are often called snowflake babies for somebody else to use in the future? Or they just get flushed but the ones that do take they implant into.

Two surrogate mothers. So if we're counting here How many people are we talking about we have two surrogate mothers we have a mother who has Donated her egg. So now we're up to three. And we have two men five people.

Creating life. This is some kind of abomination to me and yet it's celebrated so He is Rejoicing in the fact that he's going to become a father his friends are rejoicing With him saying oh, it's going to be so great.

You're going to be such a great dad. They're also saying well enjoy it. Enjoy it while you can because you know life's about to get a whole lot harder and you know Live it up as much as you can. No, you're not going to be able to have Margaritas and steaks like you could uh in the past the cavalier attitude That's on display here is just Mind-blowing and and not only that I mean there's the potential for You know eugenics when he's talking about this the selecting process of this egg donor.

Swiping through faces like you would on tinder looking for a date and yet a lot of these people who are I guess congratulating him. On this are the same people who cast shade on Pete budaj and his husband When they were caught on camera in the hospital bed With their baby that they obviously didn't have together.

It was done through surrogacy. And so there's this Completely double standard that's going on. So that's my example of witchcraft that we can unpack today. Wow.

There's a lot there.

Yes, so that's his. Um, that is a lot of witchery in one story so obviously the big picture is that dave ruben is doing these things and the. The basic approved cultural response is congratulations. Right.

This is great. We are affirming this as family. We affirm this as Good. We affirm this as wholesome so on. And The play. Of course the reason to politicize this is to try to show that you can be a fiscal conservative a a political conservative of limited government.

Maybe even supporting, you know libertarian values and so on. But just because I vote red doesn't mean that i'm a prude doesn't mean that I only see family one way doesn't mean that i'm a xenophobic or or homophobic or.

Things like that, you know. And look, you know, I I fully affirm all of these different scientific ways of reproduction and so on. There's a lot of marketable value in this for conservatives. They really want to push this because they want to.

Recruit.

All kinds of people to their cause. So there's a political angle to it but kyle, I think you did a great job of Just kind of identifying the moving parts here rather than just looking at this vague event.

And then having something to say about it either Congratulations, or oh my Breaking it down because that's what the word of god does. The word of god breaks things down into its individual parts and says Okay, this is what's going on and essentially what is going on is their sodomy the sin of sodomy between These two men and of course, they're lying and calling it marriage.

They're taking the word marriage and enchanting it with a new definition. They're seeking approval from everyone about what they're doing because they say well, we're married. They're trying to say that they're sexually faithful when in fact now We have a fornication between two men and a woman by default.

Okay, uh by medical operation. We have an involvement of this woman and then At the cost of what we don't know how many human lives two humans are Planted into these other two women who are to give natural birth.

To.

These babies that they carry within them. And yet they don't get to be their the mother of these children and I know a lot of people have differing views about surrogacy, but Don't quite see this being what the lord wants.

In the scriptures despite the fact of what it does to the babies to be separated from their mothers Whom they were a part of for these nine months what happens to the women who have to give these children up?

Who were inside of them?

Okay.

That needs to be dealt with that needs to be wrestled with very deeply as well. And then at the end of this having five adults two infants and how many more infants left behind or who have died. That at the end of this we're supposed to say congratulations.

We're not to look too closely. What just happened here exactly? What just happened here when when these two men have chosen? They have chosen what god has forbade they have decided to engage in what is heinous to god and barrenness.

Barrenness for them that they cannot have children and in order to try to overcome the barrenness. How many more sexual sins are involved? How much more death is involved in order for them to feel as if?

They have overcome the punishment the judgment of choosing sodomy and at the end of the day. They want to say this is right. And this is this is good. It reminds me of a protracted story at the end of the book of judges.

In which there was a levite who was not really much of a levite and he was traveling To go reclaim his concubine not his wife. But at least one of the women that he had in his life for sexual satisfaction.

And so he goes to go get his concubine, okay, because she ran away from him back to her father's home. And so he goes back to uh claim her and the father delays him and delays him and delays him and finally they have to leave and they end up in a city of benjamin that was full of sodomites and they did not receive a protected welcome there and They all find out there's a strange man in town with his concubine.

Uh, and all they want to do is rape the stranger and so they demand that their fellow townsmen who has hosted them they throw him out there so that they can. They can have their way with the stranger because they're so eager for new flesh.

And to save himself this levite casts his concubine out to them and then they destroy her. And in the morning, it's not quite clear whether she's dead yet but the the levite divides her into 12 pieces and then sends her body parts throughout the uh, Area to try to draw up support for the fact of let look what this town did.

Everybody here deserves to be judged. He was righteous. This levite is righteous. Uh, look how sinful these guys are. And so this ensues a civil war where benjamin comes on the side of their crew. And all the other tribes come against benjamin and they get into a civil war.

And it's it's bloody and it's messy. By the end of it, there's only a few hundred men of benjamin left and now everyone's like, oh now. What are we going to do? And now we have the problem of barrenness again.

We have a sexual issue again uh, how are we going to get wives for these men and so they stage a. Uh, they had vowed not to give any of their daughters to these to these benjamin's in their rash vows and so they stage a big dance where these Girls are dancing around and available And these men spring up from cover and they steal them and take them off and force them to be their wives.

And then they said oh good solve that problem. And after all of this mess that they they engage with verse 25 a judge is 21 in those days. There was no king in israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

The Real Divide: Fear of the Lord or Fear of Man

Yeah.

Uh when there's no king. When there's no ultimate authority arbiter of what is true and false and right and wrong and good and evil beautiful and ugly. Everyone just does what's right in their own eyes.

And to be expected to be congratulated. What dave rubin has done is as twisted a tale as what we read at the end of judges. And everybody says congratulations. But there's nothing congratulatory about it.

The interesting thing is is near the tail end of his I guess recounting of these details he admits.

This.

Really would have been a lot easier if it were just a man and a woman. And he says This was an expensive process this was a hard process. It cost my husband and I a lot not just in terms of money. But time agony over potential miscarriages and things.

And yet he won't admit That what he is doing.

Is.

Against the natural order. It's against god's design. Not just the fact of ease here that we're talking about.

Yeah, but it you know, it's interesting. Is he allowed to say that? Right. Politically he can't say that. Especially if you're trying to recruit members of the lgbtq plus community to be conservatives.

To be Libertarian. Appeal right to be libertarian. But politically conservative let's go for a smaller Government and let's go for reduced spending and let's be libertarian. I mean if that's your view and you want everybody to come to that point of view then we're going to recruit anybody we can.

Right, yeah. Big a big tent, right.

Um.

But.

In the. Uh, right versus left red versus blue.

Debate.

There's a whole lot of people on both sides that are basically just the same and when you have the libertarian versus authoritarian debates either side. People on both sides are yeah. Hey, look, they're pretty much the same.

The real distinction as the scripture hands it to us the real distinction is between those who fear the lord. And those who fear man and death. There are those who fear the lord, which is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom and understanding.

Versus those who fear man and death, which is a snare and slavery. And that's the real distinction is wisdom and folly righteousness and wickedness. Those who who know the lord and those who rage against his christ and.

That's that's the real distinction that we have to keep in mind no matter what Branding somebody has on their.

Social media. Yeah when you talk about politics just in general. We may have heard the phrase politics is downstream from culture. It's the effect of whatever the culture is. Well, what's culture downstream from the cult?

Yeah from the cult from whatever. These people are worshiping correct and just like we've talked about in a past. You know witchcraft episode self-love. Okay, if we're worshiping ourselves. And then that flows into the culture and then that flows down into politics.

Hey the red that was red a couple years ago. Ain't as red anymore. But that's because of some decisions that we've made with regard to Who we are and who god is?

The liberty of libertarianism then also becomes autonomy and not theonomy. The order of Liberty for me and my rights and doing what I will as the self become primary.

Right. So when people you know, and again When people want this libertarian Movement to succeed and we're all against those authoritarians. You know depending on who they are, you know we have to remember that when everybody says Everyone should be free to do whatever they want to affirm whatever they want, you know that that kind of thing.

Pretty soon it becomes clear that there is There is not the freedom for everybody to believe what they want and to do whatever they want. But in fact even those who who claim That you know, you should be free to do whatever you want sexually there's still.

There's still a law. There's still a rule. There's still something that applies to everybody. And it's not whether or not we're going to have an overarching rule of god. It's which god are we going to worship?

It's which god's which law of which god are we going to have? It's not whether we're going to have that it's which one. By what standard? Yeah by what standard, you know, Andrew, you're right. I mean, it's about uh, theonomy.

It's about god's law and we have uh god's law.

Completely.

Revealed and manifested in fulfilled in written by executed by fulfilled by upheld by christ. So that he is the end of the law for all who believe and to righteousness. And so we follow him. We follow the lamb wherever he goes and everywhere he goes is Leading us in paths of righteousness for his namesake.

And it's good. And it's good as we follow christ. We follow the the full essence of of god's law. And it's it's a beautiful and it's a good thing and to be celebrated. And in the in the law of christ there is.

Liberty.

There is liberty. He's the only one who can pull this off. He's the only one who ever pulls this off where there is law and liberty. And the exact complete mixture that it needs to be. And and everybody else's attempt to do that is is a very very usurping.

Media Recommendations and Closing Thoughts

Yeah, it's a usurping of the son. Yes, it is. It's a trying to put somebody else or something else at the right hand of god. And trying to put the self at the right hand of god, you know. Well, everyone should be free to do what they want until their freedom.

Keeps somebody else from doing what they want and then who's who's going to decide that is it the state? Is it the state that arbitrates? Is it public opinion? How I mean, how does that when it's just chaos?

It's chaos. So the instinct of course is you know, everyone needs to congratulate everybody else for what they do. But you'll notice there were lives lost. Lives altered. Harrowing things happened in that story, uh, which do not need to be celebrated at all.

Well, what have you been reading or listening to or watching.

All right. Well, i've got a book by herman bavinck who's my favorite theologian. Herman bavinck christian worldview. And i'm just going to read a little quote from it that is relevant to what we've been talking about.

Christianity stands antithetically To all that is brought before the market today under the name religion and that of course would include The religion of statism and paganism and so on. Bavinck says if we understand christianity's warrant and maintain a desire to preserve her essence Then we can do nothing else but take a resolute position Against the systems of the day and the worldviews of its own invention and fashioning.

There can be no question of Mediation by that he means taking a middle road. There can be no thought of reconciliation. The times are too grave to flirt with the spirit of the age. The deep sharp contrast Standing between the christian faith and the modern person Must provide us with the insights that picking portions of each is not possible And that deciding between alternatives is a duty.

However, lovely peace would be the conflict is upon us. So that's one reason why he's my favorite.

Mine is actually something that i've been listening to and listening to fairly recently. Came across this. We were having a family dinner for somebody's birthday. We were over at my parents house and i'm actually talking about this podcast and how much we're enjoying.

Listening to it, but somebody brought up the fact that sometimes words are brought up in it. And we don't immediately know what the definition is. Which obviously we need to seek that information out um.

But we got to talking and they're like surely there's a podcast that explains that. And within about five seconds, my brother had pulled one up. He didn't even know about it. So, you know by god's grace, he found it but it's from ligonier ministries.

Called simply put and it's perfect in the sense that between four minutes and eight minutes. They take a term a theological term or point of doctrine. And they break that down with some good illustrations some good examples of what that term means.

Within protestantism. And it's just been really good just a bite-sized Thing of you know, what does repentance mean? What does atonement mean. Five points of calvinism? There's a ton that you can just listen to and they put out.

On a weekly basis, so I would commend you to listen to simply put by ligonier ministries. Great. That sounds like a great resource.

So.

I'm going to talk about the household and the war for the cosmos by sierra wiley. It was influential in my life with an understanding that the words piety and duty have many connotations but are found Chiefly in the christian faith.

As.

Actions. Duty is not just a feeling piety is not just warm feelings of feeling pious. These are actions to do and in this book it talks about how. The household is a microcosm of god's government over all.

And it's as one might put it one of the spheres of government.

It.

Helped as I said helped me inform me of The role that I I play as husband as father as lord over the household and not in a Way where it's domineering or anything like that, but a christian household has specific ways of operating so the household and the war for the cosmos.

Is.

And that wraps it up for today. We are always very thankful for our listeners tuning in every week and for supporting us by rating Reviewing and sharing the show and we hope you can join us again for another week of uncovering and rebuking witchcraft in the modern world.