Christians vs. Cancel Culture | Guest: Dr. Christina Crenshaw | Ep 364

[Music] [Music] hey guys welcome to relatable happy thursday so excited for you to listen to this conversation that i am about to have with dr christina crenshaw of baylor university who is the latest target of a small but loud mob of cancelers who are trying to take her down and get her fired simply because she tweeted skepticism about biden's executive order to expand title ix so that boys will have access to girls restrooms and locker rooms and sports teams and she simply questioned the implications of that and also um if the feelings and if the opposition of the majority of americans even matters when it comes to policies like this and when it comes to this kind of activism she's got a lot of insight for us a lot of encouragement as you can tell it's a longer conversation because so much is packed in but i know that you are going to leave this dialogue feeling edified and feeling challenged and feeling built up so i'm really excited to end the week with this conversation without further ado here is dr crenshaw [Music] dr crenshaw thank you so much for joining me could you tell everyone who you are and what you do so thank you so much for having me so i teach as a professor technical lecturer at baylor university i have been in education for 20 years taught as a high school english teacher and then moved into the higher ed side and i have taught as a professor out in california and then we moved back to waco teacher baylor i have taught everything from educational leadership to social issues in education most currently teaching a faith and writing class in the english department and then i also teach an anti-human trafficking class through the honors college okay gotcha and you were here not just because you sound like an awesome professor which i'm sure you could teach us a lot of things considering everything that you have studied and taught over the years but you're also here um because you've gotten kind of unfortunately and unintentionally in the middle of some drama and maybe in some hot water with some students at baylor because of something that you said on twitter about the expansion of title ix so can you just give us a recap of what happened sure you know it was just um a week ago so still kind of reeling from it but i would say um it was a small group of students with a very loud voice yeah and that is often the case but because i want to accurately represent the student body i have felt overwhelmingly supported by colleagues and students yes so about two weeks ago um i would call my like-minded colleague dan darling posted um his own tweet that said you know we need to be concerned as people of faith about the mexico city cancellation with the executive orders by biden and this title ix expansion that we should be concerned about this and so then i replied and said you know what about the rest of us do we have a voice on this you know essentially saying we are catering we are appeasing the one percent really at the expense of the 99 the rest and that isn't to you know imply that that everybody shouldn't be protected but my concerns what i was really raising with just 140 characters is the idea that are we penalizing biological females at um the ex you know in order to cater to again to to kind of acquiesce or peace you know the the small percentage who really want to occupy these spaces and if you you know kind of look at the language of the tweet i use it in terms of children because when i was tweeting i was not thinking at all of my identity as a professor you know i i certainly have you know a constitutional right as a professor to solve this opinion but i'm looking at it through the lens of being a female of being a mother and anti-trafficking work that i do i think that those are all places this is a place of real concern and we start allowing biological men whatever their sexual identity that is sort of like a nuanced and tangential relate you know conversation if we allow biological men to have access to spaces historically reserved for biological women we are going to have that's it could be problematic i think that there's enough data and enough reason to be concerned about about that yeah and so you raised concerns about that and just it's i think everyone listening probably knows exactly what you mean by the mexico city policy and the expansion of title ix but just to clarify for people who who may not know the mexico city policy biden reversed and what that actually does is it sends our tax dollars to fund abortions worldwide this has kind of gone back and forth between republican and democratic presidents republican presidents have said yes the mexico city policy stands our tax dollars are not going to fund abortions worldwide democratic presidents including bill clinton obama and now biden have said yep your tax dollars are going to fund abortion worldwide christians should obviously care about that those of us who are pro-life and then the expansion of title ix is talking about um allowing boys who identify as girls into girls exclusive spaces so locker rooms bathrooms sports teams and your tweet raised a concern about that which i think is a totally legitimate question what about those of us who don't want our daughters to share a bathroom with a boy like do we matter do our concerns care does our eff does our offense matter if we're offended by this if we're worried about the safety of our kids or just the fairness of for competition for our girls why don't our voices have a say and i think the fact that you got so much backlash for raising that concern shows that the opinion of some people even if it's a minority of loud people is that your voice and your opinion and your concerns they don't matter at all and not only that but they're bigoted would you say that's an accurate assessment of the reaction that you've gotten from some absolutely um again i would say you know here's what i think is also really fascinating about this is i didn't realize how organized um the the backlash would be so uh you know a good week goes by and nobody really you know people like the tweet or whatever but there there was not an immediate reaction to it mostly because within my then small it's tripled in size and since small twitter community it is full of like-minded people so i think it's you know similar conversations that i have been having but there is a group on campus who is working to become an organized official sanctioned group on campus that would support lgbtq rights so they would be part of the university campus recognized groups and they've they've been on this mission for a while you know i was doctoral student there and i remember you know they were fighting for um to be part of the university even then and i'm not really privy to all of their conversations i have not really been paying attention i just know it's been at least if not longer a 10-year battle and apparently there has been a very organized effort as of late to make this happen so the baylor lariat which is the student paper ran an article recently but you know before my tweet yeah really advocating for this group to become an officially recognized group and this was just fodder for i think their agenda because then from here they ran an entire student in a student paper it's not baylor official but you know it's on campus a story about and and the title of it was dr crenshaw you know our baylor lecturer tweets homophobic rhetoric and so you know it's even that language that is homophobic you know i'm looking at our children and what this means for women and suddenly this has this this label on it that looks to shut down conversation that looks to to really label somebody to pigeonhole them it it shuts down it makes the conversation polarizing and it's no longer a conversation it's it's it's a label and it's it's hate speech which is part of you know what they had called it so a petition gets started to get me fired you know there's a whole change.org petition to get me fired finally the university weighs in and they do it in a very diplomatic way which is to be expected and they say hey this is the right to free speech this wasn't hate speech it's within the constitutional right we need civil discourse that then enrages the students this small group on campus how many signatures where were there at the time that baylor responded honest ali i can't bring myself to look so friends with like screenshots are coming to my defense they're like did you see this comment and i always thought it was odd when you know people of notability celebrities or you know politicians would say i don't i don't read the news on me and i'm like yeah you do yeah you do but i know you understand a little bit your soul can only take so much totally so i would estimate that between you know social media and my emails and this is a fascinating case study social media is where all of the hate speech is coming nobody will write that in an email like it's either overwhelmingly supportive or they'll say hey i support you but maybe if you're going to raise this question just needs to be a little more sensitive like fair that's fair but on social media between the two i've probably gotten 300 responses if i had to quantify it 75 is probably supportive and then 25 you know there were some who wished ill will to my children and i um you know there was a day last week where every time a car would drive by the house i'm like wait you get nervous yeah i get nervous which i've never ever had a reason or you know struggle but the the amount of just hateful words just venom that i think people would say and i understand they they believe they're fighting for justice with these words it's what i think it is you know they're they're young they're in college this is their activism and i don't think that they realize that i have been doing this two decades longer and you know that i have actual things that you can point to to say this is what activism looks like even if you want to you know i approach life through a christian worldview lens everything i do is very gospel-centered but i think even as an agnostic or an atheist or in a pluralistic society you could look at that and say she's doing really great work and just because you disagree with this one tweet doesn't mean you have the liberty to paint her as transphobic yeah so i think that that has been the majority of the rebuttal to the situation yeah i what probably intensified it is i don't know if you've noticed but almost every christian network picked it up [Music] all right quick break from that conversation to tell you guys again about annie's kit clubs this is a subscription box for boys and girls that comes with a woodworking kit every month so you'll get a new box every month with the new woodworking kit and your child gets this kid-sized hammer easy to follow instructions and so they're able to create this awesome craft project with very little supervision a very great alternative to maybe some of the other more digital electronic uh forms of entertainment that a lot of our kids uh use this is a way for them to develop real life skills and to do something that is actually intellectually challenging rather than mind numbing they also have annie's creative girls club which is also a subscription box that comes every month it sends two fun craft projects complete with easy to follow instructions so like painting beading and things like that again just a super cute and super sweet and super challenging way to keep our kids entertained uh you can go to annie'skitclubs.com ally that's a-l-l-i-e annie's kit clubs.com ally and save 75 off your first shipment that's [Music] annieskitclubs.com because i think it's because not that there's you know this entire thousands and thousands of people mob that's coming after you it might just be and it typically is a small minority of loud voices that are speaking up but it's happening at a christian university you echoed a concern that a lot of very rational people have people who believe as you and i do that we are called to love our neighbors and that we are called to treat people equally we also believe that you know we live in a pluralistic society where we have to balance rights and religious liberty and all that so rational people right you and i from my perspective anyway um but we have some concerns right we have some concerns with the expansion of title ix we have some concerns for our for our girls for kids um for what this means for safety and trafficking and all of that and i think that's probably why it's caught on because you said something in a very simple way that you probably i mean not that you did it thoughtlessly but you probably didn't think that much about it before i said no idea the firestorm it would cause it was just a simple reply to a friend like we were having a conversation absolutely yeah so i think that's yeah that's why it's kind of um picked up and it's become something especially when they're students even if they're just a few hundred or a few thousand students trying to get you fired i mean we say that we live in a society that has free speech and technically that is true because we have a first amendment but i've talked a lot before that yeah you can have a first amendment but if the institutions and the people around you will not allow you to safely state your very rational opinions then do you really have free speech what do you think yeah you know so it's interesting i didn't have a reason to really dig into my first amendment right to tweet before you know mostly i have i'm a pretty you know safe centered person online uh but also i just you know i think we all assumed we lived under these rational reasonable protections uh but it turns out that there are actually you know some criteria under this and that i would was within my first amendment right but um you are protected to free speech if your speech is contributing to a concern in the public square so essentially if it's something on policy if it's something socially and if it's something within the local community so if you are expressing concern which i was that's protected speech you are also protected if your speech is not if you are not representing any official organization so i could not say you know on behalf of baylor university on behalf of but you're not talking about what the first amendment allows you to say you're talking about under the first amendment there are these employer rights employees okay so you're talking about under the umbrella of employees you're not talking about in general as an individual because obviously the right to free speech expands much farther than just genuine concern and correct correct but under if you are an employee and your employer wants to look in to investigate you know potentially have some sort of you know retribution for your actions then the questions that they would look at and there's been some cases who have gone you know to the appellate courts on this they look at okay is this person contributing to a conversation at large in the public square yes is this person representing the organization for which they work no i mean at perhaps you know like indirectly but as i am not claiming to say this is the standard right so this within completely within my constitutional right to free speech on all levels right so i think that that's where you know if baylor had to land on that but it does raise concerns you know i have gotten some requests to be parts of groups behind paywalls and these are groups that i would never think did not feel comfortable speaking in public because they have very large public platforms but i think this was really eye-opening experience to realize that people don't necessarily feel comfortable speaking freely even if they can root their stance and data i think a cato study came out recently saying that two-thirds of americans don't feel like they could share their opinion in public without some sort of backlash or persecution and now i don't know if it looked i imagine the demographics were bright broad across the spectrum i would like to think on the study i haven't looked into it but i do remember reading that and thinking so that's that's you know people from both ends of the spectrum are feeling if i lend my voice to any conversation in the public square i could potentially be risking my livelihood if not worse and when i would hear studies like that prior i would think well that's a little bit of an of a rash reaction that surely we still live in an america where we can say things like i disagree with biden's 30 executive orders that he assigned within the last 10 days without having to have and you know the a university that has historical baptist tradition roots disagree and slander and so i think that's what's been alarming for people to say wait if this christian professor at a christian university cannot even express christian orthodox traditional views without any sort of persecution or backlash what does that mean for the rest of us and i think that that was really what was raised in all of these articles that have been written right and baylor though they have they've done a pretty good job of making you feel supported is that true i would say that that is true largely um i will go on record saying i have not personally heard from administration i think that they're maybe just hoping it dissipates but the provost who is the second in command right under the president did write a really great response about free speech civil discourse brought up this example and said these are not this does not constitute hate speech it is not grounds for reporting somebody to title nine to question title nine yeah and um we're not going to fire her over this and so it was it was a stance yeah um again that just enraged the small group further because then they took their you know backlash out on me so yes and i in my experience it does typically dissipate you'll you'll get probably a trickle every now and then of people who will message you and and things like that um but it is probably more encouraging than you realize for people to see someone like you raise a concern and you know state something that so many people feel and you know we talked about a couple weeks ago there was this baby sleep trainer her name is kara dumaplin and she was found out that she voted to or she uh donated to the trump campaign and you know they tried to cancel her put all their her paid for content for free online and all this terrible stuff and you know how she reacted to it was very kind very gracious and she didn't apologize and that's the thing that i think people need to see is that if you say something that you really meant and then the mob even if it's a small mob they come after you they try to take you down unless you really regret what you said don't apologize and i appreciate that you have it yes maybe you've taken some what you feel like it's constructive criticism or whatever but not apologizing not then adding caveats not then backing down that actually gives people a lot of courage don't you think yeah you know i have found that'd be true well one of the things i said to someone who reached out there you know a really big christian organization and and they had written about me and he said you know thank you for your bravery and i said you know just very honestly i was like well bravery is hard i mean bravery it's really difficult it's not easy to be on this side i can see why people would cater or what people would cave and retract a statement i could understand that now i haven't and i stand by what i said you know i'll say it again biological males do not need to be in biological women's spaces that that really is not the best for the for the majority yeah you know like i'm putting it in very simple terms because it's it's hard to believe that is a polarizing statement in this day and age i know right um the you know i would you my husband asked me after dave's like if you could do it again would you and i'm like gosh that always it's such a hard answer yeah hard thing to answer but i would say yes i would maybe take off the cool at the end i think that made it a little snarkier than i had intended you know in the moment again just between you know colleagues or small little twitter circle but i think you know otherwise no i feel comfortable with what i said i stand by what i said i don't apologize for what i said and i i'm sorry if it hurts a few people's feelings i'm not looking to be cruel i'm not looking to hate anybody i am simply looking to protect the interest of everybody but in this case the majority you know like we have not stopped to consider how sometimes policies we make actually hurt more people than they help and i'm just asking can we ask the question about whether this is really a good idea whether it is with funding overseas for abortion and or whether it is allowing biological men to compete in sports or to participate in girls clubs that have been exclusively for girls and we have to remember that title ix 1972 was really created to protect women to create space for them to compete in education for them to compete in sports for them to have equal opportunity and equal access and so this is the first time you know a really obama administration that we see he you know was the first one to include um you know rights of people who were not biologically of their gender that we've always defined it by but i think when we look at what defines sex like that's also a conversation i've had people who are not necessarily faith-based but are scientists who are you know biologists who who work with anatomy and they're like this this is really ridiculous for the sciences yeah the hard scientists are having a hard time with us as well absolutely and we've had some of those people on this podcast there are a lot of people it's interesting how this whole not just cancer culture but i would say how far leftism has moved to the left how it has created strange bedfellows it has united people in common cause you know i have conversations on this show with atheists about the dangers of critical race theory agnostics about the dangers of um you know erasing erasing women radical feminists they would call themselves who disagree with the expansion of title ix and biden's executive order and the bostak case um that apparently biden's executive order was uh based upon and so there's a lot of people i would say the vast majority of people when they really think about the issue not just well do you believe transgender people have rights well yeah of course i believe everyone has rights um but when you dig past it well do you think that men should be able to enter girl spaces in prisons in women's shelters in locker rooms in bathrooms and girls sports most people say well no that that's that's not fair but i think when we've allowed kind of post-modernism in this post-truth world in which we live to infiltrate every area of our lives then right what is science what is biology right what is it all becomes very arbitrary yeah but the the ironic thing in all of that is that in the midst of all that relativism our people the people who carry that relativism are so dogmatic about being right yes and you have just been on the on the bad end of that which is right right and i think what i'm finding too is you really cannot um enter any kind of a civil discourse or conversation with people who are dogmatic and hostile and refuse to have a conversation about it you know if they're if they're not willing to be reasonable about it if they're not willing to bring in any kind of facts or data if it is completely what we call you know with within writing pathos you know you logo space pathos ethos if it's basically just a feelings based emotional argument then you can only take that conversation so far yeah because really this is a conversation that requires that we look at the logos that the facts involved in this the data you know do we really think this is in the best interest of everybody and that isn't to say that we don't look to protect everybody and to extend rights but perhaps that looks like single stall bathrooms or can we at least have a nuanced conversation about what this will mean when biological men want to compete in track and sports because we already have some examples some case studies of when biological men have competed in women's sports as a trained and they identify as transgender then they they obliterate the field you know they end up winning all of these competitions and you have these women athletes who are saying wait a second this is not fair this is not right we have worked too hard to get here you know first and second wave feminists worked to establish equal space and then we have these third and fourth waves coming in saying well anybody who wants to identify as one as a woman is welcome to join the table in the conversation so i think there are a lot of us left so you know saying can i raise my hand and ask a few questions about this because it feels it all feels a very anti-woman to be quite honest okay another break to tell you guys about gabby insurance i've talked to you about gabby before they really are uh an awesome service if you would like to keep 961 dollars a year in your pocket then you need to use gabby they make sure that you have the best coverage for the lowest price possible all you have to do is you go to gabby.com and you link your current insurance account and adjust minutes you'll be able to see quotes for the exact same coverage that you currently have but for competitive prices and if they can't come up with other options for you for again the same coverage for a better price then you can just rest assured knowing that the coverage you have you're getting at the best price possible like i mentioned earlier gabby customers save an average of 961 dollars per year that can make a big difference for you and your family especially if you are trying to save money in these crazy times gabby insurance is totally free they don't collect your data you're not going to get hit with spam calls or telemarketing emails or anything like that they just want to help you save money on your insurance so go to gabby.com relatable that's g-a-b-i dot com slash relatable and in just a few minutes you will able you will be able to see uh competitive quotes for car and home insurance to make sure that you are getting the best deal possible and saving as much money as possible that's gabby.com relatable [Music] yes it definitely does i was just posting about um on on instagram i listen to you know i'm pregnant so i i listen to some pregnancy podcasts some birthing podcasts and things like that and the insistence upon saying people birthing people instead of women or pregnant women are moms it really grinds it really grinds my gears and it's it's offensive to me or when i hear the term chest feeding or something like that i'm like this amazing miracle that i so uniquely get to experience what a privilege it is that god gave women this amazing ability to be able to to birth life and then sustain life you're saying that that has nothing to that's not unique like that's that's not a a special characteristic that god gave me that i can't relish in the beauty and the uniqueness of being a woman through birth that i have to say no this just applies to all people i'm offended by that and kind of going back to your original tweet that got some people mad does my offense not matter right right like can i be offended that you're offended or does it not work that way yeah yeah so i can't be offended so right the the vast majority of of people who give birth i mean they're all women but the vast majority of us identify as women and you calling that into question it offends me it bothers me it feels like i'm being it feels like women are being erased right and so we've gotten so far like you said in women's rights and i definitely i don't consider myself famous i don't agree with a lot of the so-called logic of feminism i think it helped get us here but we have gotten so far in so many ways for women's rights only for me to not be able to say like that women have unique capabilities it all just seems so counterproductive well and it all seems very it's all very circular and i think to your uh question earlier i mean if your listeners want to do a deep dive into critical theory because that is where critical rates we do this a lot on our podcast well and i did a podcast through um actually our church we did one has a podcast and we did one on critical theory and the dangers of it and really this idea of deconstructing you know like specifically with uh with theology deconstructing two thousand years of church history in order to fit into your post-modern secular humanist narrative like that just just seems ridiculous like there's a lot of hubris involved in that right the amount of the amount like hermeneutical gymnastics you have to go through in order to make something fit your post-modern narrative is it it's exhausting and it's embarrassing and i don't think that they see the circular thinking within it you know like well i'm offended but i'm offended but you don't get to be offended okay got it you know and i think also the irony so for example within the article that the slanderous article that the baylor student paper wrote this a student of mine a former student of mine said essentially like i really like dr control she was on our safe list for the lgbtq community well so i was on her safely on monday but then they had like take me off on tuesday and i'm like nothing about me unsafe right you know so whatever it was about the way that i taught or you know like my life is a pretty open book you can go to my website you can see i'm you know overtly faith-based you know i i've associated with a lot of faith-based things if that made you feel safe on monday but then i tweet something on tuesday and suddenly it negates the whole of everything else that i stand for that is on you not on me right you know so i think that that has been really interesting too is is to see all the logical fallacies within this progressive thinking that says you have to wholesale except our narrative or you you were either with us or against us you know and and um it's disheartening but i think before it felt more like theory and to actually live through it you're like no really i do think that we need to be concerned about free speech even if you run in you know christian circles i think that you need to be concerned about you know your right to express orthodox traditional views right because there are going to be people who question that i think that we also need to be concerned about how much of a voice we give to youth you know i i have said often before on social media yes all voices matter but not all voices carry the same weight yeah definitely you know look to the experts it goes back to the ethos pathos you have to have i mean obviously appeal to authority is a can be a logical fallacy but knowing where something is coming from and if that person has any significance totally matters i would go to dr fauci to get my epidemiology but i go to a lot of people listening to the podcast would disagree with that okay compared to from my theology i would go to dr timothy keller right like i don't you know you go to the expert in the field i'm not necessarily saying that i agree with everything about you says so i'm saying you don't take advice exclusively there's to be people who also don't agree with timothy caller on everything so just in general people have you can disagree on all that that's perfectly fine but yes they are experts and you wouldn't go to dr fauci for theology exactly or keller for epidemiology right like you you go to the people who have done the hard work in this field and that is you know really my point there so wherever you land if you you know gospel coalition or whatever you know is where you go for your source but the point is go to people who do this for a living don't just take advice from groups on the internet you know like you have to go to people who have the clout and credibility as really as where i'm coming from and that and so i think that that has been interesting because we live now in this in this world the last 10 no more than 15 years where everybody has a voice and everybody has a seat at the table and we want to you know hear every voice and every voice counts and i think that we're starting to realize there's a danger in that that that is not the the the most reasonable and the and then the best interest of everybody to allow so many voices to be present at the table yeah so yeah and you have to look at actually how many voices are there there was someone who i've had on this podcast abigail schreier who she wrote the book irreversible damage and she talks yeah well she talks about this subject about how there's actually a social contagion involved with these teenage girls suddenly saying that they identify as the other gender some of them go through surgery or procedures and they regret it so she's written a book about that she's really been a champion um of that issue of advocating for these young girls who are kind of being tossed aside by the medical community and just given hormones and forgotten about but someone one person random person on twitter complained about target selling her book one person random again like i don't know how many followers they had but it wasn't some journalist or activist or anything target immediately responded took her book out of distribution now thankfully she noticed this and the rest of us it's i mean this is what it always is the rest of conservative twitter got loud started writing stories about it interviews on it and they put it back on distribution but it seems like just one tiny voice of opposition when it comes from the left is enough to make major corporations and sometimes universities universities cower in fear right and kowtow for no reason i just think it would make such a statement if more people did what you what you said and said okay hmm do i need to respond to this where is this where is this coming from is this just one random troll that is angry okay that's not worth responding to it's when the universities respond or when the corporations respond and when they count out to these demands that it becomes this whole big thing just say no yeah yeah you know and i think there are very there's only a few examples that i can point to where i have seen corporations stand up to into an angry mob i remember this summer hearing a story about that there was a group some probably change petition online to get trader joe's to cancel their their items and trader joe's was like you know we don't listen just to the views of a few like we make corporate decisions within corporate and we feel fine with these names we're not going to change them because you woke up today and chose to be offended by this that is not how it works and you know that's really interesting too because when a student reached out and was like we're reporting you to title nine i gotta tell you ellie my first thought was actually not fear because i went to that place of my mind i was like okay probably baylor's gonna get this and think this is ridiculous you know she is you know a graduate of our school she's won awards she has a great teaching record she really at the end of the day makes us look good like this is what we want to be able to say our professors are doing great research great work and from a place of christian mission you know check check check but i thought to myself okay so baylor gets this you know what it what if they do decide to do an investigation because that's what they were trying to trigger they were trying to initiate these students some sort of an investigation into this twitter post and um i thought okay let's say i lose my job let's say i can never teach there again i can't ever go to you know a m or ut or any other school you know i'm i'm blacklisted i guess i just pivot and i do something else i had to go there in my mind which is really sad and disheartening but i say that to give people courage because i think these are places we have to think through particularly as christians particularly as believers we have to say i'm going to count it all loss what does that look like to count it as a loss um it's it is disheartening that i had to count faith as a loss within a faith-based circle i mean it really brings tears my eyes to even think about that that i you know didn't feel completely protected and within tradition and orthodox and biblical perspective amongst this group of students that loving my neighbor looks like loving my transgender neighbor but it also looks like loving all of the women and all of the daughters and all of the people that i would be concerned with you know when this title ix policy is implemented or or implemented back from the abiding administration because trump had rolled it back and then biden just reinstated it is essentially what happened um so i think that on this side i would say coming out of this that we have to count the cost you have to be able to say worst case scenario what would my plan b be because i don't want to allow the world to negate what i know to be true true about science true about scripture true about morality all the things that we have historically said this is a truism and we have upheld it through the test of time we can't just allow a post-modern narrative to obliterate that like that there has to be space for a conversation and not just a cancellation yeah absolutely [Music] all right just one more break for you guys to talk to you about a new sponsor an awesome sponsor and that is score master 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scoremaster.com ally [Music] i i like what you said about the importance of loving everyone loving your transgender neighbor loving all kinds of neighbors but we cannot not but to you but but to this idea of love that is projected um on us or is dictated to us by the world we don't get our definition of love from the world so loving your transgender neighbor your gay neighbor whatever it looks like doesn't mean to the christian saying yes we're we agree with you on everything we agree with how you live your life that's just that's not what god calls us to we see a perfect depiction of love and truth in jesus that he never compromised in what is true that he always relied on the truth of god's word and his mission from the father even while loving so radically and intentionally throughout his life and that's what that's what christians are called to do too i mean martin luther said truth at all costs peace if possible right and we're not to make peace with the world james tells us that you know enmity with the world is peace with god and vice versa friendship with the world is enmity with god and so i think that christians also need to not lay down and be okay with it but get used to the cancellation that's coming because jesus says that we're going to be canceled for saying things that to us are so obvious that hey boys and girls are different and in some places they don't need to be sharing spaces and hey like this is what we believe about life inside the womb people want to make you feel like that's radical people want to make you feel like that's fireable like that's cancelable in matthew 10 jesus says well don't fear the people that can hurt your body fear the god that can destroy both your body and your soul in hell that's our response to cancel culture yeah is that there's nothing you can do to me that is worse or bigger than what god can do right and that's and i think that that would be you know yeah sort of my overall synopsis that you know my my key takeaway lesson learned from this for everybody else um is that you really do have to go into a situation where you are speaking up for truth uh again you know biblical truth scientific truth just things that we know to be little t truths and big t truths and to say okay but i have to count the cost of standing up for this because if i don't then what is the legacy i am leaving for the generation behind me i am constantly thinking that if i acquiesce to a postmodern secular really relative narrative here what damage am i doing to the gospel what damage am i doing to my children who are coming up behind me to my to my christian witness and to the the precedent i am standing for them and so i think that that is it's definitely true it's it's a little disheartening because i think we all we're we're all working as believers towards a place where we can engage our faith in the public square and i have been a fierce advocate whether i am doing that through anti-trafficking work because i see redemption and restoration in that whether i am joining you know christian women's leadership boards i am doing that because i believe that the gospel is the answer to brokenness and it sometimes looks like overtly christian work and sometimes it looks like common good work right but i am nervous for the first time after this experience saying wait it is getting harder and hostile when people have been warning me about this i see it i've experienced it and this isn't coming from a state school you know this is coming from in a school that associates and and um their rhetoric says that they're unapologetically christian right and so to the one side who is saying well being christian looks like accepting everyone being christian looks like loving everyone being christian does not necessarily mean look like acquiescing to everyone when you are having to acquiesce what god says to be true right and i think that we are entering into this new era where we are going to have to navigate those nuanced conversations as believers with such care and caution you know i mean it doesn't mean that we shirk back that we aren't bold about it but i think that this is where culture may not be as much on our side as it has been historically yeah and i'm i'm seeing that absolutely and i you know that's scary for a lot of people um but we you know we did an episode on cancel culture the other day and said so much of what you're saying now is one of the pieces of advice that i give to myself that i give to everyone that's looking at this wave of hostility that they know and feel is coming whether or not they've experienced the way that you have um to number one count the cost it's time for us to count the cost ahead of time don't wait until you've been cancelled to count the cost decide now is it worth living for christ and i'm not trying to say that means we have to agree on all things politically but there are some basic things that to the christian are not political gender is not political to the christian abortion is not political to the christian these are theological issues primarily um and so it's time to count the cost and then another thing that i think that i encourage people to do is that when they see someone like you or someone that they know we're just standing up for what is true getting the brunt of this mob to stand up with them to be willing to share the arrows be willing to share the heat i think that's part of loving people as you you know treating people as you want to be treated i would want someone to stand up in my defense and say hey this person's character is not what you're saying it is this person is not a hateful person just because you disagree with them and you know what i agree with them i think if we had more people willing to publicly say i know i'm gonna get canceled i've counted the cost and it's worth it and when i see someone being unfairly maligned for something that i know is true and i agree with i'm gonna raise my hand even i could stay hidden for a really long time but i'm gonna raise my hand and say you know what i agree yeah that's really powerful maybe we won't change culture maybe we won't change politics but we'll at least be united under a banner of of truth while all of this is happening right and i think too you know it's interesting because it actually you know it brings tears to my eyes i got teary-eyed when a student reached out and said i just want you to know we have a group chat with 188 students in it and we're praying for you i didn't even know you could put that many on chat i mean i just got really tired it was a male student that i actually have never even taught and i think this has been a red letter moment for this this micro example i would love to believe is going to be true at the macro level that when we face opposition that like-minded people with similar values will rally around us and say this is not okay you don't get to cancel somebody because they have a dissenting opinion and that is true of the right and the left but i think that most of us would agree with the statement that we see it more strongly on the left there was a study that came out of harvard recently i don't know if you've read this uh not long ago within the last two years that looked at cancel culture and it found that both sides do it but it indicated that the left does it more and that the consequences are more dire yeah and i you know and so i read that i remember thinking well i can i can see that but i think here like i really see that it's very rare that i see conservatives trying to ruin someone's livelihood it happens the incidences are much more rare and yeah typically i see it with something like hey i'm gonna boycott netflix because they had cuties exactly you know we talked about that too the distinction between saying hey i'm gonna take my business elsewhere which everyone is totally you know free to do on the left or the right fine vote with your dollar um that's very different than saying hey this small business owner this or this one person this one person who said something i don't like or this florist who won't service a gay wedding because of her belief in you know biblical traditional marriage i'm gonna ruin her life and i'm going to go after her in court those two things are they have very different repercussions right right very different motives yeah and very different uh repercussions yes yes and so i do think so again i you know i see this happen on the right or the left i see it happen more on the left and i and i do see that the consequences are more dire and there is actually a study that that supports that so i you know we we can point to some data there but i think yeah that is the the thing that um i think as believers we're going to say you know we're this is a red letter moment for all of us micro example on what we need to do at the macro level when we experience cancer culture when you know somebody is trying to negate our right to free speech to ask valid questions in the public square to say that we disagree then we have to be able to rally like-minded believers to say she's not alone he's not alone we are concerned too and that's not okay um and i i think that in a way that we have not historically had to because we shared the majority belief i don't know in this culture i i don't know that we have the loudest voice and that is the thing i think that we have the shared majority values um across the you know the spectrum of christian dumb and people who you know believe in christianity but i don't know that we have the majority voice anymore and so it is going to take a rallying of people who say hey that's not okay yeah you cannot just bully somebody into submission yeah yeah and i think the refusal to be bullied into submission also is i mean both of those things play together other people encouraging you and saying hey don't be bullied hey everyone else don't bully her and also that person hey i'm not i'm not going to be bullied and i actually think there's a lot of encouragement i remember a pastor um a few years ago saying something that's just always stuck with me and has just become more and more significant as the years go on and as i hear about different situations like this is that the church actually thrives on the margin so we are the church is in america being pushed out of the mainstream into the margins and the way that that's happening right now is it's been really just evangelicalism in general is being conflated with things that it is not white nationalism white supremacy hatred bigotry being told that it's dangerous that it's inciting violence and domestic terrorism that it's a threat to national security and so of course any kind of speech that is even similar to any kind of traditional conservative christianity whether or not that person is a republican whatever is going to be pushed to the margins and that's scary for a lot of people because we have had this exceptional respite from religious persecution as christians in the west and in particular as amer as americans but the it's the it's the rule not the exception that the church has been persecuted and jesus promises us that the gates of hell are not going to prevail against the church that includes true believers in america so yes there's going to be pruning to the vine yes there's going to be people that we thought were believers that at the slightest bit of pressure fall away yes there's going to be compromisers who then come come back and repent and we might be pushed to the margins to where we don't have the cultural megaphones anymore to where we are everyone's called a bigoted and a racist for believing that the bible is the word of god whatever it is but the church doesn't die on the margins the church thrives on the margins the church is not destroyed by fire it's refined by fire yeah and it's good in all of these instances that you might feel maybe you feel like this is so small that you just had a tweet that wasn't even necessarily theological yeah and you know it's not going to make it might not go to fox news it might not go to certainly not going to go to cnn um you know it might not be this viral story this small instance actually does matter it actually does matter and people listening to this conversation it actually does matter it is just another fortification of people's spirit to say you know what i am going to count the cost and it is worth saying this thing that people think is controversial do you have any just last words of wisdom or encouragement for people who are facing you know the same kind of anxiety that a lot of people are feeling right now with our views yeah i would say take heart and knowing that even if you feel that the church is being pushed to the margins and not really welcomed you know in public spaces um that there are still you know people who are willing to stand for truth and you're not alone i would say to take comfort knowing that the global church is growing you know the global church i think more than ever the last few years have made me look to what is god doing globally sometimes i can become a little you know ethnocentric just what's going on in the american church and i forget i have brothers and sisters in christ all over the world and um and we're facing far greater persecution than americans ever have right i might you know i could have lost my job as a professor or been canceled at universities um i wasn't thankfully but there are people being persecuted in prisons for their faith the underground church in china i mean there are places you know where people do not feel like in the middle east that they can profess to be a christian and so i think you're you're not alone in your persecution but you're not alone in your hope either you know that that yeah for 2000 years the church has been growing and it has withstood the test of time and it will and so i think that's where my hope is you know i know that um that the lord is is never ending you know that his promises are true and um that i can rest in that i can trust in that i can trust that you know those promises are going to come to fruition even if i don't see it in the moment those are going to come to fruition and i would say the last thing um a litmus test for me you know because sometimes people don't know well what voice do i trust what you know who do i listen to these are my quick litmus tests for people i would say i ask myself would i trust this person to raise my children would i trust this narrative to raise my children as i'm listening to you know particularly i am trying to find voices for racial reconciliation within the church because i want to find people who love jesus and who are pointing me to truth and to say you know i i trust the fruit in your life you know the love joy peace patience kindness faithfulness gentleness and self-control i see that in you and i would trust you to raise my kids and then i see these other hostile cancer-cultural narratives and i think i wouldn't trust you to babysit my kids i don't want that anywhere near so if you wouldn't let your kids touch it you probably shouldn't touch it either and then another thing i say is okay creation fall redemption restoration do i see this idea that the the biblical narrative creation we're created in god's image we've all experienced a fall we all have a fallen sinful nature whatever that vice is you know it needs to be redeemed and restored and do i see redemption and restoration in this story in this narrative in this person and if you cannot point to that you probably ought to run from it yes amen and make sure that we are defining sin and wrong and right and good and bad and true and redemption and restoration and reconciliation in biblical terms not in worldly terms and thankfully the bible does give us the answer for so much and if anyone is wondering okay wait how how is your connection between talking about gender and you know your faith and persecution and all that that's something we've talked a lot about on this podcast before biblical telos of gender is an episode that we did um a few weeks ago that makes that connection in case you know anyone's new to the podcast and hasn't heard it but um i just want to thank you so much for all the encouragement that you've given us for the insight that you've given us today um is there any way for people to support you just pray for you can they reach out to you or what yeah so i've finally made my social media accounts public again i had to go private in order to like just protect myself from the onslaught but you can follow me on instagram uh you can follow me on twitter um i you know am not all that active maybe i will be now but um yeah so you can find me on social media i have a webpage would love to connect with anybody who is like-minded and you know wants to establish a friendship in that we love that awesome well thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us okay thank you thank you ally you

Channel: Allie Beth Stuckey

Views: 17,689

Rating: 4.9319563 out of 5

Keywords: politics, conservative, republican, Allie Stuckey, Allie Beth Stuckey, Allie BlazeTV, allie, faith, faith podcast, theology, religious freedom, christianity, relatable with allie stuckey, relatable with allie beth stuckey, christina crenshaw, baylor, baylor university, cancel culture, cancelled, cancel culture explained, blaze tv, blazetv, interview, the blaze, the blaze tv, conservative woman, blazetv live, blazetv youtube, conservative podcast, blaze, blaze media, theblaze, blaze live

Id: MSwhfKvFfpg

Length: 57min 33sec (3453 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021