When You're Winsome, But Have Had It Up to Here - Part 3

All right, let's get started today. We're going to go back into this pro -life good faith debate, but before we get started,

I was just, I had my feelings hurt this morning. It was like a delayed reaction feelings hurt. I was thinking about the last debate that we covered where Sean DeMars, you know,

American gospel guy, Sean DeMars was talking about Calvin and how

Calvin, you know, he would defend Luther, you know, and stuff like that. But then privately he was like,

I'm ashamed of him, you know, because he was boisterous and argumentative and stuff like that.

And whatever, I mean, you know, whatever, whatever. And then Sean DeMars is like, so many of my conservative friends who

I agree with on this, I'm ashamed of you. And at the time, you know, I didn't really care, but this morning my feelings got hurt like a week later, maybe two weeks.

And it's like, look, look, dude, like Cal, even in the example you gave, like Calvin was talking publicly about how much he appreciated

Luther. And then privately he was like, yeah, but I'm kind of ashamed of this and that. And Sean, like you're, you're not doing that though.

You're just publicly rebuking us again and again, you're right, but you're not right the right way.

And it's like, when are you going to defend us though? Like Luther was being defended by Calvin and privately was,

I'm ashamed of him. You're just ashamed of him. You're always, you're just ashamed. You're ashamed of us. My feelings got hurt in any case.

This morning, maybe they just got hurt because this morning it was a horrible fishing day. No, but nothing was biting.

I did get one little brook trout. It was the smallest trout I've ever caught. I luckily got this one.

I don't even, it was a spot that I didn't think there would be a fish. It was actually a miscast. And I got one.

But no, but that's the only bite, like not a single other bite. I was there for like an hour and a half and nothing.

So maybe that's why my feelings got hurt. In any case, let's get back into this.

The Klusendorf just finished his, uh, his defense of pro -life organizations, which I found very odd and weird.

Klusendorf really does look a lot like Bill Gates, at least in, in blurry, in blurry, this could be easily be

Bill Gates, but, uh, all right, so now comes the spicy part, the question and answer. Let's dive right in and make this happen.

Hopefully this will be over quickly. He really does look like Bill Gates.

Well, I appreciate both of you and your arguments. And before I ask any questions, I just really want to say thank you for the ways that you have devoted your life to the unborn.

Our church actually has an abortion clinic almost directly across the street. And so hearing you two speak, it just really,

I'm really thankful for the logic and the effort and the prayers that you bring behind this movement.

Karen, I'm going to start with you. You did a great job of fleshing out what a consistently pro -life position means for the unborn based on the doctrine of the

Imago Dei being made in the image of God. You said at the end of your argument that failure to apply these principles consistently to other issues fundamentally undermines principled opposition to abortion.

Can you give some examples of what this kind of failure looks like and explain, maybe flesh out a little more how that undermines a pro -life ethic?

All right. Well, Jim Davis, I have to say thank you for asking the obvious first question. I was

I was really worried that you weren't going to ask these this question because in a bizarre, like weird quirk of fate, you know,

I know that that that Karen Pryor's position on this, there's a bunch of nonsense in it. But in her opening statement, she just basically ignored all the details.

And so it's just a very weird way to start. I think it's to get the maximum rug pull effect when she does spring the trap, so to speak.

So let's see what she says here. Thank you, Jim, for that was a very good question to ask.

I'm going to give you credit where credit is due. Sure. Well, I think I gave some negative examples.

Why does she look like a Sith Lord? I mean, I have to continue talking about this. Why did she wear all black?

She looks like that woman in the new the Obi -Wan Kenobi series. She's a

Sith Lord. She she knows that she's got this reputation of being a kind of a dark, shadowy figure in evangelicalism.

And she comes to the debate dressed like a Sith. In the beginning in my in my talk about how you can be opposed to abortion for reasons that are not based on a view of human beings being made in the image of God.

And I think that, you know, I actually Scott kind of took away my my first point that I want to make that I so agree with him.

I do think that that even just rhetorically, if we link these issues, you know,

I teach English. So for me, it's not just rhetoric. Right. Words have meaning.

They have power. And so it's not just rhetorical to make those links. I think there's a great deal of power in the way that we speak about the lives of anyone that is inconvenient, is a burden, is an alien, is a stranger, is need something from us.

And that's not just the unborn. That's many people in the world, in our neighborhoods, in our communities.

We all have have different ones who might in our circumstances meet those definitions. And I think that the way we talk about any people who have a need, whom we don't understand, who is a burden or a potential burden or a threat, if we don't put at the foremost of our concern about them, our concern about issues connected to them, the fact that they are beloved by God and made in his image, then we've already lost all of these battles.

And so I do think in many... They're two separate battles, though, because let's say you knew somebody that, you know, they just didn't like black people.

Like, you know, they they've met them. You know, they they don't they're they're scared of them. They just don't like black people.

Right. And so, you know, they go about their lives and, you know, sometimes it bubbles up to the surface. But for the most part, they just kind of avoid black people if they can.

They don't like them. They avoid them. And then, you know, sometimes they'll say something racist or they'll think something racist and all of that.

That is completely different that that solving that problem, and that is a problem.

Right. That is a problem that needs to be solved. Right. But it has to be solved through repentance and faith.

It has to be solved through preaching the gospel and preaching the Imago Dei and stuff like that. That is a problem.

But solving that problem is nothing like the abortion problem in the United States, because in the

United States, it is legal to kill babies. If you kill a baby, you just don't like babies and you kill one.

Nothing happens to you. In fact, you're celebrated in some circles as a hero. In fact, you're paid by our government.

In fact, you're it's a fundamental human right. You're a crusader to kill those babies.

If you just don't like babies, you might you might pretend you're a doctor, but if you just don't like babies and you're an abortionist and you want to kill babies, nothing happens to you.

Nothing. It's totally different than the guy down the street who just decided, I don't like Puerto Ricans.

Right. They're both sins, but they're nothing like each other. One is a fundamental justice issue that is a tremendous problem.

And the other one is a matter of sin in the heart. And yes, that that matters, too.

Right. But but it's totally different. And so to pretend like rhetorically or any other way, it's the same thing is completely preposterous and bogus ways.

This is a rhetorical battle. I think that many people who see pro -lifers as being inconsistent and and being hypocritical, not the ones who won't be converted, because I know that there are many like that.

I've always said that there are two kinds of pro -choice people, ignorant and wicked.

And so there are the ignorance are wicked as well, because you would never let that fly,

Karen Pryor, in slave times or even now. Right. Because there are probably some races that just ignorant.

You know what I mean? Ignorant. That's how they grew up. You know what I mean? They're ignorant. But the thing is, like, that doesn't excuse the wickedness, though.

Right. So if you are in a trailer park and you grew up and your grand pappy's racist and stuff like that,

Karen Pryor would never give you the pass. Oh, you're just ignorant. No big deal. You're being led astray.

No, it's still wicked, though. Right. Yes, you are ignorant, but you're also wicked. People who are who are who are ignorant or who have been misled or led astray or are confused or haven't thought through the issues.

I know I was one of them. And I think that the way we talk about. And you were and you were wicked at the time.

Right. So your ignorance is no excuse. It doesn't change the wickedness of it.

Like like and she's right in a very important way. This is a rhetorical battle. And so you need once you see wickedness, you don't excuse it.

You say, look, here's what the Lord says. And this is the just punishment for murder. And just because you don't think you're murdering someone or you don't think it's a human being again, you would never let this fly with someone who just didn't like black people or Puerto Ricans or Chinese people or white people for that matter and was killing them.

Well, I didn't even think they were human. You would never let that fly. It's still wicked. You might maybe they're right.

Maybe they are just ignorant, but they're also wicked. And so we need to call it what it is. And and yes, it's a rhetorical battle, which is why you do not soften the wickedness.

You want to you want it to be spoken of as a horror. And it is a horror. And being who is, you know, facing one of these issues or having an effect on our life that we we fear or don't know how to deal with that, we we lose the battle for abortion when we treat any of these people without the dignity, even even in our rhetoric, in our posture.

That matters a lot. And I, you know, I work with young people. I'm out on social media.

I'm seeing a rising generation of Christians who are who are skeptical. And I think that, you know, we can still win them over to this issue, but we have to show them that we really believe what we say.

Right. Right. Exactly. And so to win them over, you don't pretend abortion is something that it's not by saying, oh, well, you know, some people are just ignorant.

They've been led astray. And so we shouldn't make it illegal, punishable as a murder. I mean, obviously not.

That's that would be too harsh. I mean, Donald Trump said that that's evil. That's like, you know, it's evil because Satan himself said that you might potentially maybe potentially should punish women.

Yeah. You know, I I hope that. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's fine what she said, but it doesn't really answer the question.

On that thread, just a little more, because you gave some some examples, like you said, euthanasia and some others in the recent years, people have really pushed into the racial conversation as a part of being a pro -life part of the pro -life holistically movement.

What do you say to that? I mean, I think that that's central. Scott brought up slavery, which our country that was the pressing issue for our country a century and a half ago.

And there are obviously huge differences between these two issues, but there are some strong parallels.

So, for example, if one were simply against the institution of slavery, but not for the image of God, of these

African -Americans that were. What is she talking about? What is she talking about?

There was a lot of people out there, you know, I don't like slavery, but but blacks aren't made in the image of God.

Who is she referring to? I just like he's pushing for examples and she's just like refusing to give the ones that are real, the ones that exist right now, like you're not pro -life unless you support welfare for everybody.

You're not pro -life unless you support universal health care. You're not pro -life unless you support free housing or whatever it is like that's what it actually is.

And she's just pretending she doesn't know what it is. Oh, yeah. You know, there's a lot of parallels with the African slavery, because if you were against slavery, but you didn't believe that blacks had the image of God, then, you know, you're not really pro -life.

What is she talking about? And by the way, she's right. A hundred and fifty years ago, this was the issue.

It's no longer the issue. Either, you know, kidnapped and brought here or were born here because of earlier kidnappings.

If we just simply oppose the institution of slavery and set these people free with no care for them, no love for them, no concern for what happens next, then we would be in the same situation that we're in about abortion.

If we just want to outlaw abortion and not provide any support.

And I think that we are actually seeing some of the results of opposition to slavery that really wasn't holistic.

We're still dealing with those ripple effects today. That's helpful. It's not helpful, though. It's not helpful at all, because, again, he asked her to be specific and she really wasn't.

But it seems like what she's talking about, it's like welfare and it's like, you know, reparations maybe or something like that.

And, you know, we can't just outlaw abortion and not provide any help. And as Christians, of course, we ought to help people that can't afford, you know, things for their children or for themselves.

We ought to give charity and stuff like that. The issue is that lots of these people and I don't she hasn't been specific.

So who knows? Lots of these people want the government to steal money from people in order to provide that.

And that's not allowed, according to the scripture, if we're going to be holistically biblical. The Bible doesn't give the government authority to do those kinds of things.

And so, yeah, you know, I guess if if abortion were outlawed and all of a sudden there was a lot more poor women who needed assistance raising their children, you know, first they should go to their husband.

If they if they if they don't have a husband, go to their family for support. If they don't have a family to support them, then they should go to their local church, their friends, their neighbors, stuff like that.

And that's how it should be. It doesn't mean you're not holistically pro -life if you're against welfare for women, because that's also a violation of the of the word of God.

And so who cares if you're pro -life or not? If you're violating the word of God to do what you think is pro -life, then you're wrong.

If you're violating the word of God in order to be holistically pro -life, then you're in sin and you must repent because nobody should want to be that kind of pro -life.

Nobody. So, Scott, you differentiate, and I thought really effectively, between what it means to be pro -life organizationally and what it means to have a

Christian ethic. And you distinguished those two things, and you did that, as you explained, to maintain the main purpose of the pro -life movement and the purity of that of that purpose.

And I appreciate that. There are people who use that argument to avoid wading into other

Imago Dei issues, things that you might put under the Christian ethic, not wanting to wade into race issues or other kinds of injustices in this world.

I mean, because that argument is used, what would you say to that? Well, I've never heard that argument. Yeah, I've never heard that argument either.

Jim, what are you talking about? What is anybody talking about in this? Scott, Scott, I have to give him some props here because if it was me,

I'm not that winsome, I would have said, Jim, what are you talking about? Can you make the argument that as you've heard it?

Because that sounds crazy to me. Now, Klusendorf over here is a much more winsome, eloquent person than your boy

AD. And so he says, I've never heard that argument. Good for you, Scott, because you just call them crazy in a nicer way.

So good job. But the thing is, like, who's making that argument? Well, because, you know, pro -life is is seriously, what is what even is that?

OK, so so pro -life organizationally is different than Christian ethics.

Therefore, I don't have to care about blacks. What? What?

Honestly, if anyone understands that, maybe I'm just dense and maybe me and Scott Klusendorf are just are just idiots.

But like I have I don't even know what he's talking about. I don't even know what he's talking about.

Before I let Scott Klusendorf answer, I wanted to say this about Scott's presentation, because I think.

I think what he what he did with the pro -life organizationally thing, it actually is effective, except I don't want to make it the pro -life organizations.

I thought that was weird that he was defending them like like that. That was the big issue. I don't think that's the big issue.

I think the issue, though, is pro -life, according to the government. Right. So the government should treat abortion as if it were murder of any other person, the way it would treat murder in any case, because that's a human being in the womb that's being killed by that doctor being paid by the mother or the government.

Right. So so according to the government, being pro -life means that babies should get the same protection as as any person against murder.

Right. And justice should be the same. That's what that's what people are focused on when they're talking about pro -life.

At least that's what they should be focused on. Right. And then the Christian ethics stuff. See, that's stuff that's actually not the purview of the government.

And so we don't want the government involved in many of those things. Welfare, charity, health care, things like that.

That's all private. That's all for the church and your neighbors to disperse amongst themselves.

Like people have asked me for money in the past and to help out with certain things. And I've given them money to help out with certain things.

I'm not going to talk about how much I spend or how much I do. But but but but, you know, I would imagine that if I needed help with, you know, a bill or something like that, and I asked someone for help with that bill, then

I would probably be able to find someone that would help me. Christians are very good at this kind of thing. Right. And so that Christian ethic, when it comes to helping mothers, helping blacks, helping whoever it is, that we're really good at that.

But we just don't want the government to do that because that's a violation of the government's role. The scripture is very clear that the government is for executing justice upon the evildoer.

That the government is an avenger. It's a revenger of God. That's what its role is. It's not your mommy to take care of you.

It's not your daddy. I see so so many of these big evil goons. They reveal that honestly, they think that government's their daddy.

That's where their help comes from. Right. The government is there to make sure everybody's OK. And that's not why the government.

That's what your daddy's there for. That's what God is there for. When I need help, I pray to God because I know my help comes from God.

The government is a servant of God to execute revenge upon the evildoer. And that's it.

That is it. And so so I actually like Klusendorf's presentation if he kind of switches that a little bit.

No, pro -life is about insisting that the government, civil governing authority, does its job before God.

And all this Christian ethic stuff, that's important, too. But this is an issue about the government failing to do its job, protecting innocent lives in the womb.

And we must insist that it does that. This is a matter of justice, not charity. That's separate.

And Christians ought to do that stuff, too. But this is laser focus on saying civil governing authority, you're abdicating your responsibility before God to execute justice upon these murderers and these murderous women who pay other people to murder their children.

You need to do your job. Anyway, let's let Klusendorf answer this question again.

Jim, what are you talking about? Because you raised it.

Look, if there's a Christian out there who says, I don't have to be concerned about real racism.

I'm not talking about attributed racism that is part of a worldview that doesn't match the biblical view.

I'm talking about. Scott, Scott, I got to.

Wow, this is Scott's got it. He's got it. I wonder if Scott had watched the the debate with Sean Demers and he's like, yeah,

I'm talking about real racism, not the nonsense that Rebecca McLaughlin and these people over here.

I wonder if he had seen that before. He's like, well, this is real racism. Scott's like if there is. And the thing is, he's going down this line again.

He's winsome in a nice way. He's saying, I don't know what you're talking about, Jim, but let's go with this crazy, wild argument that allegedly people are making.

If you don't think you need to real racism, not that fake stuff, Jim, before you get all crazy on me before real racism, you know,

I don't like black people, that kind of racism. If someone was saying that, let's see what he says.

Real racism. Look, if there's real racism, we need to do two things. Number one, repent of it and address it.

That's a given. If you are a Christian and you don't care individually about sex trafficking and you don't care about the fact that there's refugees with kids who have diseases that can't be treated at our border, something's wrong with your moral compass and your heart needs help.

We can say all that, but here's the real debate. What's being said by our critics is not that individual pro -life

Christians are not being holistic enough. They're blaming our movement as a whole for not being that.

And I am not going to go for that. I am open to somebody saying, Scott, I'm not seeing lived out in you your pro -life convictions the way

I think biblically should be. And that's why we all need to be part of a local church, because we all need to be open to that kind of correction.

We are blind. We don't see things we ought to see. But to say to a movement dedicated to saving children, you're not doing enough.

To say to people, in some cases, who for 50 years at great personal expense have lost their homes because they were praying in front of a clinic, they're not allowed to earn an income.

To say to them, well, you're not really pro -life because you're not taking on all these other issues. I just find that supremely arrogant.

And I'm not talking here about what Karen said. I'm talking about our critics. Right, because Karen won't actually say what she really means.

I mean, she hasn't really said anything here, to be honest. Where's the debate? I mean, it's

Scott Klusendorf, though. Listen, I understand, like, this weird thing about the organizationally, you know, the movement.

And he's saying that individuals aren't being accused of this. No, individuals are accused of this all the time. I'm not sure why he's making that distinction.

But I got to be honest, Scott Klusendorf has done a good job here. ...side who really level this kind of charge.

So I can make that distinction. And maybe there are some who abuse it, who use it as an excuse.

But it doesn't follow that the distinction isn't a good one. There aren't anybody that uses an excuse.

Jim made that up. Jim made that up. There's nobody that says, well, I'm pro -life. And pro -life is only about ending abortion.

Therefore, I don't have to help anybody. There's nobody that says that. No Christian says that.

Jim made that up. But you see, what Jim is not making up, though, is because what's really going on is people saying, you don't vote

Democrat. You don't support welfare. You don't support free housing. You don't support free health care. Therefore, you're inconsistently pro -life.

That's what people are saying. This is about politics. And every single person on this stage is pretty much ignoring that.

Maybe Cluesendorf isn't ignoring that. Maybe Cluesendorf is waiting for someone to bring it up because Jim and Karen both believe that and they're pretending like they don't.

And so they say stupid things like, what about all those people who say I don't care about racism and blacks because pro -life is only about abortion?

And Scott Cluesendorf's like, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? And maybe Scott's baiting him. Maybe he's like, can you explain what you mean?

Do you mean like because they didn't vote for Biden? Is that what you mean? Because they voted for Trump? Is that what you mean?

Maybe Scott's just got, because the thing is, maybe Scott's just smarter than me.

Because if I went out on a limb and said, here's what you're saying, it would be rhetorically pretty good.

But he'd be very, I didn't say that. It'd be very easy to sidestep my attack if I did that. So maybe

Scott's just waiting for them to make the first move. But the problem is we're more than halfway through this stupid thing and nobody's being honest with themselves.

And that's the thing about these good faith debates. It's like, it's such a opposite land kind of a thing. It's not good faith to not be honest.

I'm not saying Scott's not being honest. I'm saying these two over here are not being honest because that's why his example sounded so stupid because he wasn't being totally honest.

What he was talking about was how they vote and the people they support and Trump basically is what

Jim was talking about. Well, I appreciate the way that you've, that you identify that those in the pro -life movement, even if a woman in some cases chooses to go through with the abortion, they will walk with them to try and help them.

That's every pregnancy center in the country. Every, yeah, again, this is Scott.

Scott's not letting Jim get away with nonsense here. And I got to applaud that. Scott, good job.

I have a feeling you may watch this, brother. And let me just say, I appreciate what you've done here.

I might not agree with you being against abolition and stuff like that, but I appreciate what you've done here, man.

I really do. Yeah, you know, some people might, some

Christians might walk with women after they decide to get an abortion. All of us do. All of us do.

Everyone who's involved with, listen, I used to be the president of the board of a pregnancy center, and we had tons of services helping women after, even after, if they wanted them, they got an abortion.

If they needed, let's say they have kids, right? Let's say they're poor and they have kids, and they decided to get an abortion against what we would recommend, against what we would want them to do.

We begged them not to do it. We prayed. You know, we pleaded with them, we'll help you. And they did it anyway.

And then they came to us. This has happened. They came to us and, you know, they need formula for the other kid, or they need clothes for the other kid, or something like that.

We would give it. Every Christian would do that. Just because I want it to be illegal, just because I, because look, look, if abortion was illegal, most of these, many of these women wouldn't kill their baby, because they wouldn't want to risk going to prison over killing their baby, right?

But in my perfect world, in my ideal situation, it should be punishable by the death penalty. So even less women would do it.

But just because some would do it anyway, and I would want them to be executed according to the law, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't pray for their souls.

It doesn't mean that in the here and now, when there is no punishment for it, I don't walk with them. Every Christian does this.

Maybe not every Christian, but most Christians do this. Jim's making it seem like, oh yeah, you know, there's a few wackadoodles that are pro -life, but they don't walk with those, but they'll walk with the women even after the abortion.

I mean, I read it in the Atlantic, they hate women. It's like, these guys, they really just do believe the press.

They believe the pagan press about Christians. And it's like, Scott doesn't. Scott clearly doesn't believe the pagan press about Christians.

And he's like, no, that's every pregnancy center. Literally every one, Jim. And he says it, of course, in a nice way.

I'm ashamed that you pointed that out. Karen, one of the arguments that Scott made, he said that -

I think I have to stop. Let's just hear the question and I'll decide whether or not to continue. Changing pro -life to whole life, which he takes to be your position, appeals to a false sense of moral equivalency.

Do you agree with that statement and why? All right, I'm not going to continue. Yeah, this was a good episode.

I just wish that these two on the screen would be more honest.

I mean, Jim ended up sounding like an idiot with his question because he wasn't fully being honest with his question.

There is nobody that says pro -life's about abortion, therefore I don't care about blacks. There's nobody that says pro -life's about abortion, therefore

I don't care about poor. That's not what it is. It's about the vote. And because he wasn't being honest about it, his question sounded stupid.

And Scott called him on it in a very winsome, nice way. Good for you, Scott. And she's just not being honest at all about her position.

She's not giving any details, which is basically what I would expect from a Sith Lord. Yeah, people were mad at me for making fun of how she was dressed.

I wasn't making fun of it. I mean, it's fine if you want to dress all in black. I'm just saying it's an odd choice, especially for this thing.

It's not a funeral. She's not a Sith Lord. This is a Christian good faith debate with weird villain lighting.

And she looks like a villain. Again, she consistently presents herself as a villain.

And we're supposed to think she's not a villain. It's interesting because these are all choices that she's making.

And if you look at her other content online, she's often in this weird dark lighting that makes her look creepy and all kinds of stuff.

And these are conscious choices that she's making. And I just find that if you get mad at me if you want, but I don't understand it at all.

And or maybe I do understand it. I understand it all too well. In any case,