State of the Union Review

Public Square, Humanism, and the Christian Right to Speak

I would say if the authorities didn't want us involved in the public square, they ought not to have crucified Jesus in the public square. Use humanistic principles. It's the same idea.

I would say what's the problem with stardust. Bumping into stardust?

In the cosmic picture, none. There's no problem. In the cosmic picture, it won't matter.

No, Mr. President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom. You are authorizing the destruction of freedom for one million little human beings every year. I'm sorry, my friends, but I am tired of seeing Jesus presented as a weak beggar.

He is a powerful savior, and the gospel is not a suggestion. It is a command.

Reverend Moeller, don't you sympathize with that?

I sympathize with every single human heart wishing to know the one true and living God, but I believe there's only one way that that can happen through Jesus Christ, and the gospel is about repenting of sin, not celebrating it.

You're the spiritual abyss. You have not experienced this before.

Apologia Radio, the State of the Union, and the Cultural Moment

What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. This is the gospel heard around the world. Apologia Radio, A-P-O-L-O-G-I-A studios .com. Apologia Studios .com is where you guys go get all the past episodes, the podcasts, the radio shows.

That is Luke the Bear.

What up?

And I'm Jeff the Combinator Ninja. And, of course, we are joined today by King Ginger.

Hello.

Marcus Pittman.

Did you get the sprinkles out of your beard?

I did.

Good.

I did.

We had cupcakes today.

Yeah.

From Sprinkles.

Yeah, for Isaac's birthday.

Best cupcakes.

They were white sprinkles all on that big old ginger beard.

It was.

They're the best.

It was like decorations.

Isaac Bangas.

Isaac Bangas.

Isaac Banegas. Our man on the back.

Not today, though.

No, he's not. He's gone because it's his birthday, I think.

El Carmino's back today.

That's right.

Hey, Carmen, you want to come in and say hi?

Tell everyone hello?

Hi.

Carmen. Has he been set up so they can hear him? He's probably not. He's like, I don't want anyone to know who I am. All right, guys. Welcome to another episode of Apologia Radio. Guys, important year ahead of us.

This is my favorite. Actually, in all the years we've been doing Apologia Radio, close to like a decade now, one of my favorite times was the election last season. The election season was just the greatest.

So much content. So much to work with. So much was happening.

I had a fun day yesterday, let me tell you.

I know, sharing all those amazing memes.

There were some good ones.

Of Grandma Gugu.

Grandma Gugu.

Grandma Gugu.

Did you make that up, or is that?

No, I got it from Dennis Miller.

Dennis Miller called it.

He used to come on Hannity and stuff. What's his face? The guy canned. Anyways, he used to come on there and talk about Grandma Gugu. Grandma Gugu.

Grandma Gugu.

Petty Pelosi.

Petty Pelosi.

You guys, the thing that was I was watching it live, and I think I even messaged Luke in the middle of watching it.

Her face.

It's worth watching the entire State of the Union address. Listen to what President Trump is saying, but watch Grandma Gugu. It is amazing.

She can't control herself.

She's talking to people. It's like, who are you talking to?

I don't think Mike Pence is having a conversation with you.

She's making these weird eyes the whole time.

Playing with her dentures.

Yeah, it's really something else, man, just to watch.

Suddenly preparing to rip the

Yeah, did you see her?

That's the best part.

Hold on.

Zach Morgan, I'll cut you.

Who?

He's trolling us.

Is he?

He's in the other room. That's why I yelled.

What's he doing?

I saw someone coming in here talking about our satanic symbol on Flat Earth, and I was ready to bam when I see a Zach Morgan.

Buster.

Our fellow pastor.

He's in the other room. That's why I'm yelling.

Nice.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Nice, nice, nice. We're going to review it today.

Today, you're here.

Welcome to Apology Radio. We're going to do the State of the Union address, talk about some stuff, and we're going to talk about the Iowa caucus debacle, the Democratic situation happening. We're going to try to figure out who's going to run against President Trump.

Of course, we want to talk about

You mean who's going to lose to President Trump.

That's true, yeah.

We're going to talk about all this in light of a biblical worldview. We're going to try to address these cultural issues from a Christian perspective with a grounding in the word of God, but we're also planning to have some fun because this is some neat stuff.

I mean, you have to admit, as much as it's like the most awful display of just a breaking of decorum and just the most adolescent, asinine behavior with Grandma Gugu, it was very entertaining.

It's reality television.

It is reality television, but she's the president. State of the Union address, and the woman leader, the woman ruler in the back can't control her emotions enough where she starts preemptively tearing the thing.

Her face, this is the best thing. If you get a chance, don't do it now, but do it later. Go watch it when she tears it.

You see that

They were big stacks, though.

She really struggled.

The fact that she had to pre-tear it, I'm really concerned for her health.

Well, she's also, what, 105 years old?

It's probably hard.

But she pre-tears it, but if you watch, when she does tear him, she looks over at her team,.

Too.

Big Gugu eyes come out, so she tears it, and big Gugu eyes like, you guys see what I'm.

Doing?

You see what I'm doing?

And this is why we don't want women rulers.

That's true.

I said it.

And if you guys are like, oh my gosh, that's so That's so counter-cultural, and Christians aren't supposed to speak like that. Well, I'd like to talk like Isaiah in Isaiah 3, 12, where it says, oh my people, their oppressors are children, and women rule over them.

It was considered a judgment of God to have women rule over a nation, and that's just, you know, we've got to ask the question, do you want to be biblical, or do you want to placate to the culture, the current culture you're in?

We're Christians. We're Christian pastors.

We love the Lord.

Whoa.

Did we lose it? Am I still on?

You're on. I just get really quiet.

Can you guys hear me? Am I in your ears?

Yeah.

Okay.

Nope. Maybe.

Nope, you're not.

Nope.

Well.

Maybe push it in some?

Well, how about that?

There it is.

There? Okay.

All right. Is that better?

Okay.

Time to replace the cable.

That's right.

We need new cables. These are about 10 years old. No big deal. Well, so the culture we live in today has been overrun by feminism, the feminazis, and cultural Marxism, and just so much cultural decay and transformation that even evangelical Christians, people who would once be seen as fundamental Christians, that word has changed even in itself, have essentially succumbed and yielded to the culture in the area of gender roles.

And one of the things that's clear in Scripture is that it's a judgment of God to have women rulers over a nation.

Right.

And I want to say, look, we're all sinners. Men are going to sin as rulers as well. So this isn't to say, like, if you have men, you're going to have a sinless society.

No.

Proper roles will be in place, but here's the problem. Look, when you have a woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, sitting in the back behind the president, there's a certain amount of decorum, a certain kind of decorum that should exist there.

She's rolling her eyes in the back. She cannot contain herself.

Yeah.

As an old grandma, she can't contain herself in the back to not, she misbehaves the whole entire time. She's not paying attention.

She's rude.

She's disrespectful. She can't contain.

It could be the alcohol, too.

Who knows what's going on? So then she tears it up. I mean, when in history, in the American history, has something like that happened, it's just a terrible, terrible thing.

I saw something that's actually illegal. I don't know if that's true or not. I saw it.

I read that, too.

Yeah.

To destroy documents in that room like that.

Of course. If any one of us were to run up there and grab it and rip it, we'd be arrested for destroying.

You wouldn't make it up there, but. Yeah.

I don't know. Maybe now I can.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

With your new heart stuff.

I'll make it at least halfway.

Well, I was thinking, like, even in a situation, like, in a smaller version, you've got to, it's just a ministry like this. If any of us in this ministry had done something that was a violation of proper decorum or just something that was bad, it was just altogether, you don't do that, you don't behave in that way, we'd get checked.

Yeah.

Within this little realm right here. We'd be like, you can't do that. You can't misbehave like that. Stop doing that. We would check one another. This is like, this is the State of the Union speech. This is like the highest level of government.

In the world.

She needs to get spanked.

The best tweet I saw was, it said, Donald Trump's superpower is making people behave the way they think he is.

That's hilarious.

Yeah.

Oh my.

It really is incredible. If she doesn't get in trouble for it, it's It'll be interesting. It'll be surprising.

I had a lot more respect for Mike Pence now. He, like, he sat there like she didn't exist the whole time. I would have been, like, throwing her, like, backhand. I don't know, I've been doing something.

I have to admit that I'd probably be looking at my jaw going, like, the whole time. Like, what are you doing?

I told Charlie, like, you know how he calls his wife mother? Like, he took a lot of heat for that when they won and stuff. I feel like he always sits back with his grin like, we did it, mother. Mother, we did it.

And, you know, the thing that people say about the beginning of Trump, like, snubbed her with a handshake. I want to be fair because we have to always be just. Okay, so I want to be fair. So I looked at it and I was like, wait a second.

Like, he handed it to Pence and to her and he didn't shake Pence's hand.

No.

And, like, also he handed it to her and he goes to turn around when she put her I don't think it was like a

But I think, I could be wrong on this, but I heard that he absolutely did ignore her at the prayer breakfast today.

Oh, he did. Okay.

So I think it's just a thing of, like, he's the president and one of the worst things you could do is just ignore somebody.

Right.

Especially somebody who wants power.

Well, keep in mind that she also just tried to impeach him, like, earlier the other day or so.

I mean, she can't control herself. So, hey, just for fun, I want to play this for everybody. I think this is a really cool little clip here. This is from years ago. This was when Palin was running alongside, why am I losing it, McCain.

And so this is CNN and this is Pastor Voti on CNN. I want you to hear, this is a hero. This man is a hero on CNN saying this.

Last time on CNN.

Yeah, he wasn't So he said, we'll have you back.

They did not have him back.

Yeah, here's Pastor Voti when Palin was brought into the race.

But she'd be banned from leading many congregations. So why does Sarah Palin seem to be winning over so many evangelicals? Let's bring in two people who may have some answers for us. Whitney Bauckham is a pastor at Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas.

And Margaret Feinberg is an evangelical speaker who lived in Alaska for five years and saw Palin get elected to governor. Good to see you both.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Margaret, let's start with you. I want you both actually to touch on this quickly. Why does her faith matter? Her faith matters because it says a lot about who she is as a person and her outlooks on life and the policies that will come to play in our nation.

Reverend Bauckham?

I agree completely. Political ideology is really an outgrowth of our religious beliefs. You can't separate what a person believes from how a person will govern. So I think it's incredibly important that we know where people stand on religious issues.

So, Margaret, why do you think she's winning over these evangelicals that have been so skeptical of McCain? I think on one hand, she's known for her conservative values, and that's translated in her leadership and her time in Alaska.

But I think also for younger evangelicals, there is a hunger to see a more exciting ticket. There was kind of a ho-hum factor for McCain, but when Palin came on board, she added the vavoom that was so needed in order to garner the attention and the excitement for young evangelicals.

And here's what's interesting, Reverend Bauckham. She's winning over church members, church leaders that don't even allow women to preach at the pulpit, yet she could be leading the country.

What do you make of that?

Well, it's interesting. The bottom line on that is people look at this ticket and their fear is that we will have Barack Obama as our president, that we will be moved toward a socialist agenda, that we would have the most radically pro-abortion candidate ever to run for president to serve in that office.

And that is an untenable position for evangelicals. And so they look at this, and they're trying to decide this based on what's best for the nation in the here and now, and oftentimes overlooking some of those other issues.

Do you think that that's something that—are you saying that shouldn't be overlooked? I mean, do you think that women in evangelical circles where women are not allowed to preach—let's say that Palin and McCain do win, and here you have this woman that could possibly be leading the free world, and yet there's evangelicals voting for her that don't even believe that a woman should preach at the pulpit.

Could this change the face of how evangelicals believe in the woman's role?

I don't think it'll change the way evangelicals believe about women's roles. I think it has sparked a discussion, and quite frankly, feminism has gained a foothold in many evangelical churches.

Do you think that's a good thing?

No, I don't. Not at all.

Why not?

Well, because we're about the gospel. The culture doesn't dictate truth. The gospel dictates truth. My job is not to be a political pundit or political activist. My job is to be a pastor and proclaim the truth of the gospel as clearly as I possibly can.

Well, wait a minute. What about the Old Testament and the prophet Deborah? I mean, she was a political leader. She was a wife. She was a mother. She was one of the biggest forces in the book of Judges, so that's the gospel right there.

She certainly was. And the fact that something happened doesn't mean that it's normative for the church. In Isaiah chapter 3, for example, one of the signs that a culture is under judgment is that women are in leadership in their nations.

So Deborah was actually a sign that things were very bad in Israel, not a norm for the church.

He derailed that whole interview.

Take it back. Catch your breath.

And also, too, in Deuteronomy, for the requirements for electing officials, it says choose from among you men who are trustworthy. Don't take a bribe and fear God.

Oh, man, you're in trouble for saying that today, guys. Isaiah chapter 3 is not quoted very often in a lot of evangelical churches today. And, you know, I know in principle what the Bible says. There are women rulers, but there are also practical reasons of why you don't want women in ruler leadership positions like this.

And I think a great premier example is what just took place at the State of the Union address with Grandma Gugu.

Trump, Late-Term Abortion, and the Pro-Life Movement

Yeah, absolutely. I think we should say, too—.

Sounds like a spaceship's coming in the studio.

The train's, like, coming through the wall. I don't know if you all can hear that or not. We should say that we're not—.

Is it coming through the studio?

It may be, yeah. We're not Trump apologists.

No.

By any means. I will go on record and say that I feel like he's—I didn't vote for him the first time. I feel like he's done—he well exceeded my expectations, and I will be voting for him this time. But we're not Trump apologists.

There's plenty he said in his speech that we were talking about.

We're going to address.

Yeah, we're like, I didn't agree with that. So that needs to be said because I had a blast yesterday sharing, like I said, the old memes of Grandma Gugu. And, you know, I had people come on, liberals, you know, just saying stuff like we just take everything Trump says for a fact.

It's like, no, I'm not saying that at all.

I don't know if I would vote for him, mainly just because he's not the husband of one wife. But I don't think there's ever been a president that I genuinely love and have an affection for like him. That's the crazy thing.

I remember when I was sitting in that room during election night, and he won, and I was like, oh my goodness. What is going on? And then for him to be as good of a leader as he's been is no—.

It's mind-boggling.

It was the first State of the Union speech.

Probably more of a Nebuchadnezzar figure. He has this moment.

He's eating grass? No, no, no.

Am I picking the wrong—.

I'm kidding.

I think you're right.

Nebuchadnezzar had a moment where he repented.

Yeah, you're right.

I will say that this was one of the first State of the Union addresses where I was actually into what was being said the whole time. I think he did a great job of going through everything that's happened, and it was very emotional.

I had tears in my eyes several times.

Oh, yeah.

So there's some powerful moments in the State of the Union address. I think the nice thing about—I mean, this is all politics. We have to understand there's always political stuff and manipulation going on at the highest level.

But I do like how President Trump is making at least his appeal to this is about the American people. He's demonstrating it in many ways in terms of what he's done for tax cuts and all the rest. He's trying to say it is about the American people, building businesses and those sorts of things.

At the same time—you've got to hear this now, because I like what Pastor Luke says. We're not Trump apologists here. We need to be biblical and Christians. On the one hand, you can't say you're fighting socialism.

And in the very same speech, you're talking about all the government programs you want to institute.

The Space Force.

All the different things. If there's a spectrum of biblical libertarianism, right, and then there's Marxism and socialism kind of on this side over here, the conservatives—you understand the conservatives have just moved over the last four decades all the way over to where—.

I mean, conservatives today would have been seen as radical leftists back in the 50s and 60s.

That's right.

In terms of what they're willing to do, the government intrusion, control, those sorts of things. We read today, or I saw Marcus post it today, a very popular local political pundit and leader of a Christian conservative thing trying to get funding for pro-life stuff from the government.

No, it's more than that.

It's the government to dictate certain pro-life organizations. It's like government control of pro-life organizations.

Right, and we're against abortion and we're for the pro-life stuff and we're saying that's evil. The government has no place in that area.

That's why, as a conservative, I can't support regulations on abortion just like I don't support regulations on health care or the taxicab industry or any other industry.

Right, right.

All right, hey, so let's play something. How about it? Okay, so I got lots of people watching right now live across them internets. Make sure you guys share across the internets. We got a lot to talk about, so let's just go ahead and play this.

This is a portion from the State of the Union speech. This was a very moving portion where he actually had the mother and the daughter, the little girl who was born premature, and she survived. It's a very moving moment, and I just want to play through this to say, in one sense, praise God, and in another sense, this is not enough.

And we need to pray for our president and pray for consistency. Because if he has the courage to say what he says here, he needs to go all the way in terms of consistency. So go ahead and play it for everybody so you guys can hear what we're talking about.

This is President Trump calls for a ban on late-term abortions. 2020 State of the Union address.

That is why I'm also calling upon members of Congress here tonight to pass legislation finally banning the late-term abortion of babies. Whether we are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, surely we must all agree that every human life is a sacred gift from God.

As we support America's moms and dads, I was recently proud to...

Okay, so let's do it. Ban the late-term abortions, right? And we have to all agree that every human life is a sacred gift from God. And everyone's like, yes. Okay, so let's go all the way with it. Every human life is a sacred gift from God.

Everyone applauds, and every... I'll talk to the other side. The Republican pro-lifers are there cheering and applauding.

Yes, every gift is a sacred gift.

It's like, well, then what are you banning late-term abortions for?

Right.

Shouldn't it be all of them?

Right.

Because every gift, every one of them is a gift from God.

Right, exactly. I think it's pretty simple.

It seems rather obvious. Here's the thing that also drives me bananas, and I'll shut up and let you guys jump in here. But no, you don't talk about this. This just shows the amount of give and yielding that's taking place in this area.

Because you've got pro-lifers that are sitting there applauding, and they're like, oh, thank God for banning late-term abortions. And I'm going to say, okay, yes, praise God for stopping killing this segment.

Right.

But how about consistency? Because you don't talk like that about sex trafficking.

Right.

Can you imagine? The president goes up there and says, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to officially ban all sex trafficking of 11 years old and younger. Everyone goes, oh, yay! I think everyone would go, wait.

Wait a minute.

Hold on.

Wait a minute.

Why are you saying that? Because if it's an evil act, if it's a criminal act in the first place, then what are you doing selecting a segment and saying, well, not 11 years old and under.

That's just deplorable.

How can you do it to little children like that? It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Sex trafficking is evil anyways. You've got to stop it, period. It just shows the amount of slippage that's happened morally, ethically, in the area of the pro-life movement, that people actually are applauding and thinking this is like a praiseworthy thing, that we've decided that this segment, well, we certainly don't want it to be that gross.

We'll stop the cruel practice of late-term abortion. It's like, no, guys, you can't in the one hand say every life is precious and it's a gift, and you just can't do it. It's a complete mess. And it's a mess, I'll just say, created and helped by the pro-life movement.

The pro-life movement has helped with this mess because they're constantly in the ear of all the presidents and Republican leaders and all these people that are pro-life, and they're like, good job, good job with that 29-week ban and good job with that heartbeat thing and good job.

You're working your way. It's like, no, just say it is evil. Stop it.

Or the worst ones right now, I think the worst legislation is the Infant Born Alive Protection Acts because they're already protected by law. It's called murder.

Yeah.

And so they spend all this money and try to get all these votes to ban something.

Yeah, it's all vote-getting.

But it's all so they can say, well, look what we did.

Exactly.

Jeff Leach is really huge on that, the infant born alive. It's like the law already exists. It's called murder.

Yeah.

It's already a statute. Any other person that kills an infant, there doesn't need to be special protections.

And call it out where it needs to be called out. We, of course, want to see victories. We want to see the pro-life movement reform and change in these areas. But you have guys like Jeff Leach who are just absolute phonies.

A guy like Jeff Leach, I have to say, I want to show as much love and respect to the man as possible, but I almost threw up in my mouth when I saw him doing a live stream at the March for Life in Washington, D .C.

I'm like, you're the guy that stopped a bill to criminalize abortion, and now you're at the March for Life?

Yeah.

Pretending like, you know.

Jeremiah Thomas, he's a hero. You should be so proud of your son. All this stuff.

Yeah.

And then goes around and, you know, makes deals and just, it's corrupt.

It is so.

And then mocks people on the Facebook page that's holding him accountable and calls him trolls.

Yeah.

He's calling him trolls. Everybody's saying, hey, didn't you stop a bill to criminalize abortion in Texas? Didn't you have that opportunity? He's like, oh, a bunch of trolls.

You're a bunch of trolls? The sun is out and the trolls are out.

Or they could be the people who are praying for you and maybe even voted for you and then saw that you're inconsistent here in this area.

Yeah.

I'm going to start saying late-term sex trafficking.

Yeah.

Late-term sex trafficking.

But I was going to say.

That's awesome.

To Trump's credit, he's done amazing things against sex trafficking. I don't know if you've seen the numbers. He's arrested more sex traffickers this year than Obama did in eight years of office.