You Asked For It: Tough Topics

Episode Transcript
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Pastor Brent McQuay (00:12):
Hey, everybody. And welcome back to another
episode of Between Sermons where we are
continuing the conversation from Sunday. And, man,
what a conversation we had on Sunday.
We've been in a series called you
asked for it. We're answering 250 question
submitted by members of our congregation. And
we. We saved, I guess, the best
for last, where we're going to be

(00:32):
talking about politics and LGBTQ issues and
abortion all in this one conversation. And
so I needed two people to help
me accomplish this. So we got the
lovely Tiffany Hines. Thank you for being
here. I appreciate it.

Tiffany Hines (00:47):
You're welcome.

Bring some balance to this. This conversation.
And then, as always, Pastor Carlton.

Pastor Carlton McCarthy (00:53):
Yes.

I think you're. You're just a permanent
fixture on the podcast. Apparently, people just
want more Carlton in the west.

No, they don't.

So we, man, we are getting into
the weeds today, but I think that
this is going to be healthy. This
is going to be good. This is
the stuff that christians need to talk
about. It's the kind of stuff that
we need to talk about, but we
need to talk about it from a
biblical perspective because these are, all three
of these topics are very emotion driven,
and it can get us into some

(01:24):
weird spaces when we are led by
our emotions. And so we just want
to bring some balance to that conversation.
But before we get into. So we've
got some questions about each of those
topics we're going to look at. But
the first question that I wanted to
address actually isn't about politics or homosexuality
or abortion or anything, but it kind

(01:45):
of ties in. So the question came
in, why does God ask us to
do the unusual and narrow routes? So,
like, why does God ask us to
do. I think another way you could
put this is like the hard thing.

Yeah.

So either of you got any. Any
thoughts or ideas on that? Why couldn't
he just be like, you know what?
Just. Just whatever.

Do whatever you want.

Just follow me? In a really broad
sense.

Yeah. I just think what his standard,
well, he's perfect. And so what he
has deemed as not that everyone else
falls short of that. And so with
that, you have a lot of. It's
easier to just be kind of average
because most people, again, can be led

(02:35):
by their feelings, by their emotions, by
what their desires are, and in God's
uniqueness, in being perfect and wanting us
to be that image like him, his
way is just countercultural. And so as
much as we will want to be
all in to what we want to

(02:55):
do, I just think that the uniqueness
of being a Christian is the image
of what God says. He is. And
not like what other people may say
God is.

So, yeah, I think we get into
a dangerous place when we start redefining
Jesus or redefining what he said. And
I think a lot of people try
and do that because they want it
to be easier to follow. And Jesus
said some just hard things, right? Like
Jesus says, you know, if you don't
hate your mother and father, then you
can't follow me. It's like, okay, let's

(03:32):
unpack that for a second.

Wait a minute.

That's a little tricky. That's a little
tough. And so he repeatedly is creating
this, this idea that, man, it is
a narrow road. I mean, he straight
up says, like, the path is narrow.
Which is interesting to me, though, because,
like, christianity is both inclusive and exclusive
at the same time. Because, like, he's
not excluding anyone from the opportunity. Like,

(03:55):
he's saying, all can come to me.
Like, there's no, there's no division of
gender or ethnicity or anything else. He
invites all, but all have to still
take the same path.

I think he, you know, for us
to be set apart, you know, to
be holy, we have to be different.
And that is not a broad spectrum
of things. And we have to have
a character and a mindset and attributes
that are set apart from the rest
of the world. And since the world
is in sin, you know, that's so

(04:30):
broad that we to be set apart
from that, to be set aside from
that, to be holy, from the world
of sin, we need to take a
path that's narrow, that's not like anything
else. And I also think that Jesus
was so radical when he was here
on earth that he actually gave us
the example of how to be. I

(04:50):
mean, not in the sense that we
need to be as radical as he
was with the religious leaders and the
politics of the time that he was
here, but that his life is so
different than how everyone else lived, that
that's the example that we have to
live by now. Like, our life needs
to be so different than how everyone
else lived. And it's just the way

(05:12):
that he has called us. And, and
it's not like, it's not like our
price to pay for admission into heaven.
But I do think that it gives
value to what we have as christians,
that the value of eternity and the
presence of God is so high that
we need to live a certain way
to achieve that through Christ Jesus. I

(05:35):
mean, he died for our sins and
opened the door to salvation for all
of us that we can freely come
in. But there are some things that
we need to do to ensure that
we are on the path that Jesus
has laid out for us. And I
think that path is narrow, unlike the
rest of the world, in sin.

Yeah, yeah. I could see someone also
feeling like, okay, well, if God wants
all of us to be in, then
why is the way to get in
this holiness? Like, why is holiness such
a big thing? If you want to
welcome everyone in that, why make it

(06:11):
harder to experience that in someone's thought
of, well, I want to, but it's
a lot of hurdles to have this
walk, you know, with God. So I
can't do this. And I got to
make sure, you know, constantly this heart
check according to, like, what scripture says,
like, this can become hard. And I

(06:33):
think in my own thought process as
a kid of, like, so you have
the Old Testament and you have these
different things even in the commandments. And
I used to legit think if I
don't do anything, that I can become
perfect. So even, like, so even if
you say you have your sins, I

(06:53):
can do that, but I'm talking about
perfect. Like, I can even, like, not
trip on a crack, like, and in
the ground that that kind of thinking
and, like, that becomes. And I know
that's an extreme, but that becomes exhausting.
And so I think that the point
also can be to think through is
that God is not expecting, say, perfection

(07:14):
on this road, but he has, like,
laid out that this is what makes
me different than the world. And on
that path of narrow, like, he's not
saying, like, he's not creating, like, the
lines or, you know what I mean,
that you just gotta figure out this
narrow road on your own. Because he
knows that it's hard. And so when
it's starting to feel that exhausting, it's

(07:36):
probably one of those, like, signals, like,
uh oh, I'm trying to make this
happen on my own. And that's just
not what God intended for this open
road or open invitation with this narrow
road to be, is that you walk
it by yourself.

Yeah. I also think, too, that we
only think the road is narrow because
we naturally gravitate to or, like, the
things that are not of Christmas. But
once we understand the, not just the
value, but the, I don't know, what's

(08:12):
the word I'm looking for, the joy
that we have in Christ, the fun
that we have, the fulfillment that we
have, the pleasures that we have in
Jesus, it no longer becomes narrow. And
now we look at the life outside
of Christianity because, like, let's call it
what it is, like we say, okay,

(08:34):
when I become a Christian, I can't
do these things. Well, what are these
things? Because I could do a lot
of things in Christianity. So what are
these other things that I can no
longer do? Oh, you mean sin. So
let's call it what it is. It's
not like I can't have these pleasures.
No, let's call it what it is,
is sin. And so once we identify

(08:56):
the fulfillment that Christ gives us in
Christianity, the road no longer becomes narrow
in my mind. Yeah, the road is
so broad and wide because of the
joy and fulfillment that I get in
Christ Jesus. The pleasure that I get
in him that is no longer narrow.
It's like I can do all these
things in Christ and get so much

(09:16):
fulfillment and joy in. And it's like
if I'm on the outside looking in,
I'm like, oh, yeah, I can't fornicate.
I can't lust. I can't, you know,
lie. I can't do these things in
sin in Christianity. So that road is
narrow. It's like, well, once you jump
over to the other side and you
become Christian and you realize the joy
that you have in Christ Jesus. Like,

(09:37):
I wouldn't want to do anything else.
Like, this is so broad for me.
The joy that I have in Christ
and the privilege and the pleasures that
I have in him are so broad
that now I'm inside looking out at
the world and, like, how could you
live like that? Like, I wouldn't want
to live in that road.

It's funny, I was listening to an
apologetics video a couple days ago, because
I'm a nerd, and so that's what
I do in my free time, is
I just watch your videos about apologetics.
And it was on a college campus,
and one of the students asked, you
know, how come there's only one way
to heaven? And the guy answering the
questions, man, it was brilliant the way
he broke it down, but he was
like, look, if God had given us

(10:15):
a thousand ways to heaven, we'd be
looking for the thousand and first way
to heaven. Like, it's kind of part
of human nature is always, like, bucking
the system. And so when we look
at this, I think from a natural
standpoint, like, it's. It's. It's easy to
grasp or follow that. Like, I celebrated
17 years of marriage the other day.

(10:36):
My wife has some parameters on how
I'm supposed to love her, right? Like,
there's some things that I can't say.
I love my wife and go and
do these other things. Right? There's. There's
parameters to it, and we recognize that
and we honor that as much as
we. We can. But then we see
God do that, and we're like, oh,
well, that's not fair of him. Like,
why does he say, you have to
love me this way? That's not right.

(10:57):
Yeah, it's. It is right. It's. It's
how he set up the system. And
so, yeah, I think it feels narrow
at times, but as you said, I
think a lot of times, it's really
just that we're trying to get away
with things that God doesn't like.

Right. Why does it feel narrow? Because
we want to sin. Okay, so remove
that now. Is it narrow? No. Because
of the fulfillment we have in Christ?

Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know.

For reason. He says it's narrow.

Yeah, absolutely. Because he knows where our
heart is, right? Yeah, absolutely.

He knows, too. Like, I know I'm
asking for your life. You know what
I mean? So he's not like, oh,
once you get on the other side,
like, is broad, but, no, he's.

Yeah, put sin to death in your
life. Says, uh, crucify your flesh. He
says, pick up your cross, follow me.

Like, it's all just constant.

Yeah, fun time. So, yeah. So why
does God ask us to do the
unusual and narrow routes? You know, I
don't know if you meant something different
by that question, whoever. Whoever asked it,
but, you know, from. From my point
of view, it's. It's God's standard. It's.
It's a level of holiness. It's a
level of love. He says, hey, if
you want to love me, if you
want to follow me, I'm giving you
free will. It's your choice. Yeah, but

(12:14):
if you're going to choose me, here's
the path to walk. So. Yeah, cool.

All right.

That was the easy stuff, man.

That was the easy stuff.

Yeah, absolutely.

So we're gonna follow kind of the
same pattern we took with the message
on Sunday. So we're gonna go politics,
LGBTQ, and then into abortion to close
things out.

How much time do we have?

As much as we need.

Okay.

What are you talking about? Sue and
I had the longest podcast episode ever,
so we can just Uber.

Eat, you know, at some point, right?

Yeah. This might be one of those
where you just, you know, chop it
up, you know, listen to us on
your way to work, and then finish
it on the way home or all
week long. All right, so we're gonna
jump into politics. All right, guys, when
it comes to politics. How do you
choose a candidate when neither party follows
the scriptures?

Yes. So what do you do? Right.

I agree with you.

The lesser of evils or the sins
you can tolerate. Like, how does that.
How does that work? Okay, well, this
candidate does these things, and this candidate
does. Does these things, or their position
is here. And this candidate's position is
here. So which of the two are
the lesser evil or the one that
has the least amount of biblical sin

(13:26):
attached to it? Like, then you just
vote that direction. It's very difficult because,
you know, the way our government is
set up, you end the race with
two candidates, and they're usually Democrat or
Republican.

I mean, you could totally vote for
the independent.

Yeah. Mickey Mouse. Or, you know, throw
that one away. I'm gonna put Jesus
in the ballot box.

There are christians that do that.

Yeah. But I really think that it.
You know, one thing I can't eliminate
is the voice of the Holy Spirit,
because the Holy Spirit knows where the
country is going. And, you know, the
divine intervention at the ballot box can't
be overlooked. I need the Holy Spirit
to guide me in how I vote,

(14:10):
because I could have my own political
opinion. I could have opinion for my
culture from my upbringing, how I was
raised, whatever, you know, my christian stance,
you know, my religious stance, I should
say. But the Holy Spirit needs to
speak to me in these times. Cause
we had a, like, a local election

(14:34):
just recently, and I was like, I
don't know who these people are.

No, I never do.

I don't know who all these judges.

And you're just looking for the letter
beside their name.

Yes. And then you get to the
polling place and they hand you a
Democrat card or republican card, and I'm
like, well, wait. Wait a minute. What
if I have a mix? You know,
like, it's weird. And so it's like,
okay, at this point, I need to
rely on the voice of the Holy
Spirit in that moment and be comfortable
with the influence that he's given me
inside and know that, okay, first of

(15:06):
all, I spend enough time in prayer
with the Holy Spirit that I should
be able to recognize when he's speaking
to me or influencing me. And I
have to go on that because I
could be thinking one way about what's
presented to me from the candidates.

Yeah.

And then, as we know, theory and
practice are two different things. Once a
candidate gets in office, that all that
theory that they've been on the campaign
trail with goes out the window, and
you're like, well, what happened? You said
you were going to do.

This faithfulness I talked about Sunday, and.

Then the CIA and the FBI and
the military hand them a folder, and
then they're like, oh, oh, I didn't
know this in the campaign trail, and,
you know, the campaign trail. So all
of these new secret information has changed
how I have to run as president.
Exactly.

And it's like they'll make a promise
and then realize I have to convince
300 other people to agree with my.

Choice or another country or NATO or,
you know, you never know. You. You
know, you want to get out of
the Paris whatever it is.

Paris Accords.

Paris Accord convention or whatever. And it's
like, well, wait a minute. We need
that in order for NATO to be
secure so that we can line ourselves
and border Russia, and we need Ukraine's
territory to be a part of NATO
so that we can have good defense
against Russia. So once you learn all
that information, when you get into office,
it's like, oh, well, what I said
about not supporting Ukraine war goes out

(16:30):
the window, because I actually need to
support this war so I can have
a military base in Ukraine, so I
can fight.

Against Russia, but I can't say that
I can't.

Right, but then you don't know the
details. So.

So, like. So to put that into
terms outside of politics, it's. It's being
that. The armchair quarterback.

Yeah, right.

Like, you're sitting on your couch on
Sunday. Sorry, tiff.

How do you know?

I don't know, tiff. You got. You
got. You got some football in you.

Monday morning quarterback.

I was a cheerleader in college.

That is awesome. But. But, yeah. So
you're sitting there on. On Sunday, and
you're like, man, why did he even,
you know, he totally missed that. Well,
look, there's so much information that you
don't have.

Yeah.

That. Yeah. Sometimes I think we go
into politics in the same way. We're
like, man, it's so obvious. Why doesn't
he just do this thing, right? It's
like, okay, yeah. And if he does
this thing, these twelve things fall apart,
right?

Yeah. And then there's. And then no
one knows the constitution. So a lot
of these decisions have to be backed
by the Constitution. And then the Supreme
Court can come in and say, hey,
that decision is not constitutional, no matter
how much good you think that this
is. Like, for example, you can't wipe
out all of student loan debt without
congressional vote. So the Supreme Court says,

(17:43):
hey, that's a great idea, but you
just went about it the wrong way.
So now it's knocked off and it's
like, well, I voted for this guy
because of this thing.

Yeah.

And now, like, we learn later that
if you read the fine print of
the constitution, you gotta get congressional vote.
And they didn't do it. And so
now I don't. My student loans aren't
paid off, just like, small things like
that. And so it's like, okay, now
I have to eliminate my opinion and
have the Holy Spirit influence my vote,

(18:15):
because the Holy Spirit knows. And it's
not to say that the Holy Spirit
is going to have me vote for
somebody that I necessarily like or whatever,
but I'm trusting God in this process
because there's so much information that I
don't know. And I just hope that
I'm hearing from God in the ballot
box and that he's God in my

(18:35):
hand and my steps there, because you
could flip a coin, man. You don't
know then if you live in a
particular colored state, whether it's red or
blue.

Thank you.

My night.

What you meant by color? Keep going.
Don't pause that sentence where you pause.

I know, right? Red or blue, you.
Sometimes you might think that your vote
is. Doesn't matter because it's like, well,
the majority of the state is gonna
vote this direction anyway, whether I vote
that direction or another direction. So it's
like, oh, what does my vote count?
But I have to rely on the
Holy Spirit in that space.

Yeah. I think for me, one of
the biggest things I do try and
talk about is when it comes to
politics, I think too many of us
were just influenced by what we see
on the news, what we watch on
tv. We're influenced by debates, we're influenced
by all these things, but we're not
influenced by the Holy Spirit. And it's
like we separate what God is doing

(19:31):
and what the politician is doing. But
scripture actually says, and I wish I
had the memory to be able to
give you the references, but scripture actually
talks about that. There's no one in
authority, there's no one in leadership outside
of the will of God. So, like
everyone who ends up in a leadership
position, it's because God allowed that to
happen or even caused it to happen.
We need to follow the Holy Spirit,

(19:52):
follow scripture. I love that the question
said, or actually even makes the statement
that neither party follows scripture. And I
agree with that. But I also think
it's a little bit wrong in the
sense that both parties follow some scripture
and don't follow other scriptures.

Right.

Both parties, maybe even. It's not scripture
that they're following because.

They can have a platform support that's
not in line. Like, they didn't get
it because of their faith beliefs or
from scripture itself, but it's just so
happy just happens to line up.

What I, what I try and do
personally is because I do see that
there's a lot of split on both
sides. What I try and look at
is there are some issues where it's
not biblically supported, but it's not biblically
opposed. And then there's some things where
it's actually biblically opposed. The Bible says,
do not do this.

Right? Right.

And so if the Bible's opposed to
something, I can't vote for it. And
so that's my personal conviction. If the
Bible's quiet on it or the Bible,
you know, encourages something and they're just
not following through with that encouragement, then
I give a little bit more leeway.
But when it's a direct opposition to
scripture, I can't vote that way.

So you were mentioning about the Holy
Spirit. And when there's these political debates,
I just believe because of the divide
that happens among christians often in politics.

Yeah, we're gonna get into that divide
in a second.

Okay. I think that when it comes
to the Holy Spirit, I think we
have a hard time believing that the
Holy Spirit can tell you to do
something and then tell someone else to
vote differently. And so it's like, no
way that there's no way that that's
the case. But I do believe that
there are certain things. So I think
certain things because of media are highlighted.

(21:40):
Like, they're really the most important thing.
And so christians are like, bam, bam,
bam, or like, socially, but then there
are these underlining things that are actually
more important. But the things that are
heightened in media that drive us are
not the biggest things, but because of
news and that stuff is highlighted, and

(22:03):
then you find out later on, like,
oh, there's a bigger issue happening. And
all my attention was drawn to this
specific thing. And here we are saying,
well, you're not a Christian enough because
of this. Well, you're not a Christian
because in their the same topic, when
there's something deeper at hand. And so

(22:23):
when I've heard both sides and seeing
different debates, like, on social media, and
just, there's no way that you can
be a believer and vote for this
person and vice versa. And I'm like,
I just think that both happen.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think that that's a, it's
an ignorant statement to say, you know,
you can't be a believer and vote
for this person. I think that, look,
there may be. There may be a
candidate that's 60% better for believers. The
other candidates, 40% better for believers. But,
man, you can't say that. There's nothing
within them that a Christian could say,
okay, I identify with that. I believe
in that. The Bible supports that. I'm

(22:59):
going to vote for that. It really
comes down to, what's the weightier issue
in your eyes? And I think that
was one of the things that I
wanted to tease out a little bit
more in the message. But Jesus talks
about these weightier issues, and he talks
about justice and mercy. And I don't
know. I think for some christians, they're
just like, but no, if it's in
the Bible, then it carries the same
weight. Like, it's all important. And it's

(23:21):
like, well, yeah, but even Jesus himself
said there's some weightier issues. One of
the best examples I saw for this
is Frank Turek. Says in one of
his videos, he talks about, if you're
living in Nazi Germany and the Nazis
come banging on your door, you're a
Christian. You're hiding jews in your attic.
The Germans come knocking on your door
asking where the Jews are. Okay, scripture
says, thou shalt not lie. So in

(23:43):
that moment, are you like, yeah, there's
four of them upstairs in the attic.
Check under the bed. Cause they're probably
hiding. No, you don't do that. Because
there's a weightier issue in that moment
where protecting life is more important than
the lie. You know, a less serious
version of that would be if your
wife comes to you and says, does
this dress make me look fat? Like,
yes, the Bible says, thou shalt not

(24:04):
lie, but you also have to keep
peace in your home. So. Sorry, guys.
I had to.

Yeah, no, he can't do that, man.
It's like, let me tell her what
she wants to hear.

But do you really think that some
spouses really do want to hear, yo,
does this not flatter me?

I think that's true.

I don't think that's any wife has
ever wanted to hear their husband say,
yeah, babe, that really makes you look
bloated.

But how unhealthy is it? It's a
lie to your wife.

Exactly.

You need to.

Yeah, Carlton, tell her. Tell her. I
hate that lipstick.

Sol, I think you look beautiful. Whatever
you're wearing all the time.

Yeah.

Did I just step into a mess?

Think you need to come out of
that.

17 great years, guys. We had 17
great years. All right, but. Yeah, but
there are, scripturally speaking, there are more
weighty issues. Yeah. And I don't know
that the weightier issues, and maybe they
are, and this is something that I
need to think about or talk about
more. But do the weighty issues, are
they the same all the time, or
are there seasons where, like, hey, this

(25:04):
is a weight, this is a bigger
issue right now, and something else may
become a bigger issue down the road.

Yeah.

And so I think that's where I
lean, but I don't know.

Yeah. I think also we tend to
vote on a person and not a
party.

Yeah.

And it's like, okay, the person's gonna
be in office, but the party bring
their people with them, is making the
decisions, like, and this person is just
not just the talking heads. I think
a president is more than that. I
mean, the president's job is tremendous. You
can see how presidents age in their
term. You know, Barack Obama is a
great example of that, how much he
aged in the eight years that he

(25:41):
was in office. But I do think
that we have to look at Congress
like the House and the Senate has
a majority that leans one way or
the other, and a president can be
in office and make an executive order
that's going to be, you know, brought
down by Congress because the Congress has
the majority of the. The other party,

(26:02):
and then there's veto power. So you
also got to look at, okay, then
there's a cabinet, there's an administration, and
then, like, who's in supreme Court? Like,
it's more than just the person that's
becoming president. The person could become a
president and have no power or a
person could becoming president and now has
swung the power over to their party.

(26:23):
And so now I have to say,
okay, well, what's the party's stance on
these issues? What's their historic stance on
these issues? Who is a longtime person
in Senate that has the influence over
Senate that's going to make everyone vote
in one direction no matter who the

(26:43):
president is. And so we have to
look at the party as well as
we have to look at the cause.
The president is going to give all
kinds of things in the campaign trail,
and the party is just sitting there
like, okay, as soon as you become
president, we've had this in the works
for this many years. And so, you
know, we've been in office for years,

(27:04):
and you're coming into office, but we
just need you to get into office.
And once you're into office, the party
then has their agenda, and they're gonna
lay it out and say, okay, well,
these are the things that you need
to push and make executive orders for.
And so we gotta look beyond the
president, the person that's running for office,
and look at the party as well.
And that could be complex. That could

(27:24):
be very complex.

But it is one of the things
that I appreciate about the US government,
that the framers of the constitution were
brilliant. They were incredibly wise. The setup
of a democratic republic is brilliant. I
think it's shown throughout history that this
is the best form of government you
can have because of the system of
checks and balances. And so it becomes

(27:49):
complicated. And it does mean that we
don't have one guy making all decisions,
even, no matter who's president. So, yeah,
I think we do need to be
careful of being like, man, I really
like the way that guy talks. You
know, he's a man of the people.
You know, I totally can get behind
him. It's like, okay, but what does
party stand for?

Right? Yeah. And having branches of government
is the best thing that you can
absolutely do to keep. Keep them checked
checks and have checks and balances.

It really does make it almost impossible
for one person to really screw up
the country.

It's nearly impossible for one person to
absolutely screw up the country. Yeah.

I guess that's why I'm not always
all that worried about who's president. I'm
like, you know what? I got Jesus.
And I know there's a whole system
here, so we'll be all right.

Yeah, Carlton, you should be like, a
substitute teacher.

No, I was politics. I would vote
for Carlton.

But one thing you mentioned yesterday.

No, don't do that.

And I thought that it was interesting.
So when you were talking about kind
of the measurements that you would kind
of give some thought to. So you
mentioned mercy. You mentioned judgment, justice, mercy,
and faithfulness. Yes.

Those are the three things that Jesus
says.

And so you were saying with different.
So with justice, you would say Republicans
lean more on the justice side, typically.
Typically. And then on the mercy side,
Democrats. And so when you said that,
I was thinking like, man, I feel
like Democrats lean heavy on social justice.

See, social justice is a different concept,
though.

And then I thought about the other
side. So I was like, social justice,
actually.

In a matter of mercy. Okay, we
use the word justice in it, but
it's. It's. Social justice is not trying
to get true justice. It's trying to
get mercy.

Right. But, like, Jim Crow laws being
overturned is actual justice that Republicans voted
for. Like, is that, like, basically what
we're saying? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I thought you were gonna add to
that. Yeah, what else?

Well, there's a whole slew of things,
but this is not a political.

And again, when I made that statement,
like, I preface it by saying this
is generalization.

Generalization. Yeah.

You know, in general, I think that,
you know, both parties have, their emphasis
is probably the best way to put
it. And so the Democrats emphasize mercy.
That's why you get a lot more
from the Democratic Party, more social reform
reforms, and a lot more on, you
know, what do they call it? Like,
care packages and things like that where

(30:25):
it's, you know, it's heavily influenced in
that direction and then a lot of,
like, judicial reform and things like that
fall from the republican side. So, yeah,
there's broad generalization. Emphasis. There is. They
both suck at faithfulness. Just. Yeah, and
that's, that's what Jesus calls the three
weightier matters, at least when he's talking
to the Pharisees. Yeah. Yeah. All right,

(30:49):
next question. Oh, my goodness. What if
Trump wins for president?

Dun dun dun dun.

For some people, though, like, genuinely speaking,
like, I get it. Like, for some
people, that is, like, the worst case
scenario. That's a horror situation back in
office for former years. But the actual
answer to your question, what if Trump
wins for president? It makes him president.

Right?

That's what happens when you win is
you become the president, and so you
treat him like you would treat any
other person in the office. I love,
there's a military code that talks about,
you know, you recognize the position, not
the person. So, like, it doesn't matter
if it's which general it is, it's
the fact that it's a general. It
doesn't matter. You know, I don't like

(31:35):
my major. I don't like my commanding
officer. But he's the major. He's the
commanding officer. So there's this recognition of
it's the position, not the person.

Yeah. And, and again, you, you know,
we all know Trump's bedside manners are
the worst and, well, not the worst
in us presidential history, because Andrew Jackson
was terrible, terrible person. I mean, he
was killing people in his backyard with
duels and, like, he was. Yeah, just
do some research on Andrew Jackson.

It's hardcore, man.

If you can. Some very, very bad
presidents, worse than Trump's.

They just didn't have social media.

They just didn't have social media.

They're real distinguishing.

Yeah. Some of the things that these
presidents have done in their presidency are,
like, atrocious. Anyways, watch the fog of
war documentary if you ever get a
chance. Anyways.

Hire this man, hire this substitute.

Teacher, I would send my kids to
your school.

But we got to look past the
character that he is as a politician
and look at the party. So we
may not like him as a person,
but we got to look at the
politics of the party or the position

(32:55):
of the party or, you know, what
they're pushing. Because as much power as
we think a president has with the
checks and balances and then with them
running, like, when Trump won the primary,
the Republican Party didn't want him at
all. It was. They were looking like
you weren't supposed to win. I remember
Paul Ryan came out in the republican

(33:18):
convention, and he had to endorse Trump
because he won the primary was just
like, ah, this guy, you know? So.
But I think that.

Has that ever happened before where, like,
the person that actually won is not
who the party wanted to win?

I don't know, man. It comes close
a lot. I know Bernie Sanders has
been up at the top of people's
list. And when another candidate wins, people
are looking like, we really wanted Barney
to win, but we, you know, the,
we're not. We have to look more
about voting for the person and voting

(33:56):
for the party. You still may not
like the party at all, which is
fine, but I think we gotta like,
okay, this person is a terrible person,
but what are the politics? What is
he pushing? Like, okay, he's been president
before, so let's look back and say,
okay, well, what did he do as
president? What didn't he do? And then

(34:18):
judge it based on the actual practice
of being president and not on the
person itself, which is extremely hard to
do because you could look at Biden
and say, well, Biden's old and he's
slothful and he's fallen. And they try
to put him on bicycle to make
him look young, and he fell off
the bicycle, and he's always going for
ice cream. And then I gotta look
at. Okay, okay Carlson. Don't look at.

Why you gotta start sleepy Joe. Joe
like that.

Don't look at sleepy Joe. Look at
the politics, like. Cause he has an
administration and a party that's creating and
making the decisions behind him being president.
And I can't look at him falling
up or downstairs. I have to look
at. Remove that from my head and
say, okay, well, what is Joe's politics?
Or what's the Republicans, what are they,

(35:04):
you know, fighting for? What decisions they're
gonna make to kind of determine now
what they, what these parties have presented
in front of us as their candidates
can be, can be terrible. It's like,
what are they thinking? They couldn't find
anybody else. All of these governors, the
senators, like, they couldn't find anybody to
run for president for that party.

Yeah.

Okay, well, this is who they wheeled
out in front of us. Okay. Now,
I have to look at, not look
at them at face value, but look
at the politics that they're pushing.

That'S behind them, I think may also
help, since you mentioned about looking past
the person. So when it comes to
anyone that's listening and just feels a
way, like, about Trump, I think what
could give some ease is how much
power they don't have and more on
the political party. Trump just has a

(35:55):
loud mouth. So he will absolutely rub
everybody the wrong way at some point
and what he's going to say, he
is a brilliant businessman and he knows
how to get people to talk about
him negatively, positively, you know, whatever. And
so, you know, those people that always
have so much to say, but really,

(36:16):
like, behind the scenes, really, you know,
aren't that significant as we may think.
And maybe it would give someone solace
because of how loud he is. But
his political party, like, he can't just
do.

He can't just do anything he wants
to get, right.

Yeah.

So anytime he. I don't know if
he's gonna be able to get his
tweets back, but maybe he's gonna take
over threads, you know what I'm saying?
And then threads gonna be popping. I
don't know. But that stuff that he
opposed and how infuriating people could get
from it to just go back to,
like, the reality that there is a
political party. And so with that, you
know, hopefully people are praying as hard

(36:54):
as it could be, is to just
be praying for this man's tongue and
praying for those flaws within his personality
like any other. I think that out
of anything, I just don't think we
pray enough for our leaders unless it's
someone we want. You know what I
mean? So, like, that's when I see
people, you know, praying about, praying for.

(37:18):
We're not going to even get into
the, the angels situation. That, that pastor,
you never heard of this? Okay, about
the. Did she say african angels? African
angels from Africa. All these different things
that you have. You can have some
extremities, but I just don't think many

(37:39):
christians pray for their leaders unless it's
someone that they want. And so how
much more change could we see happen
within a political party? Okiki, she's one
of the pastors here, and she's nigerian.
And I'll never forget something that she
said that they pray about in politics
in Nigeria because there will be a

(37:59):
lot of corruption. So they always pray
for the leader and pray that the
corruption will stop. And if it doesn't
stop, you pray for the Lord to
take them out, get them up out
of there because this is the person
that's there. But they are praying for
that corruption to end. It won't end.
Let's pray for that person to get
out and that kind of thing. But
they're still praying and it's that part.

Yeah, yeah. I would just, I would
just be cautious there because, and I
agree with, with that prayer. But some
will take that as justification to make
that the only prayer that they have.
So, like, the only prayer they pray
is get rid of them, get rid
of them, get rid of them. Every
morning they're waking up, well, I'm praying
for my president daily that he would
die.

Right? That's not what we're saying.

No, that's not, that's not so, like,
and a lot of people will use,
like, the precatory prayers from, from David
that are, like, it's very much like
David is giving God the ability to
bring justice. Like, he's, he's saying, look,
I'm king. I have authority in this.
I could do things on my own
power, but I'm putting it in your

(39:00):
hands. I want you to bring justice.
And so we can't.

And every time he acted, he asked
God, he consulted God, God, should I
go and do this? Should I move
in this direction? Should I make this
decision?

So please do that. Don't just be
praying for somebody to.

Have a, I mean, the scripture that
I used on Sunday was pray prayers
of blessing. Like, to pray to bless
them and give them what they need,
not what they deserve.

And we also got to check our
hearts, too, because we have, like, party
allegiance.

Yes.

And it's like, you know, Trump just
became a Republican only to become president.
Like he was a Democrat his entire
life. Like, he became Republican by default.
That's part of the reason why the
Republican Party didn't want him to become
president. Cause it was like, you're not
a Republican. Like, I know you're at,

(39:52):
you were at Hillary Clinton's, you know,
campaign fundraisers for years. Like, you are,
you've been in the back pockets of
Democrats your entire life, and now you
want to become president. You, like, you're
not a true Republican. You know?

So it's like, I'm pretty sure the
party allegiance, I'm pretty sure the first
time he picked up a Bible was
after he started running for.

Absolutely. Yeah.

It's like, you're not like.

And so, like, we have a party
allegiance, and so our party allegiance tells
us to hate the other person automatically.
And it's like. It's like when Mitt
Romney ran for president, it's like, you
know, Mitt Romney's more of a Democrat
then. Like, he's so centered that he's
not, like, he is a Republican, but
it was like, he's not really, really,

(40:38):
really a Republican. Like, right wing fully
on, you know, so just different things
like that we got to think about.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I guess so.

I'm sorry.

I can continue, whoever that person is.
What if the president. What if Trump
becomes president? If Trump becomes president, what
are you gonna do if he becomes
president? And to really think about that,
and then you can do those checks
and balances within your heart. Like, will
you commit to pray for this president?

(41:13):
What will you do if he becomes
president? Instead of what their question was,
kind of reflect back on yourself. And
if you already have predetermined some things
that go against the Bible, it's kind
of some time to evaluate.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

No, I'm done.

And last thing, I don't mean to
belabor this here, but Carlton likes politics.
No, but, like, the end times is
coming. Like, it's not gonna get better
necessarily. Like, we. If it. If the
world gets. I'm not saying that Trump's
gonna make it worse. I'm not picking
a side here, but if the world

(41:55):
gets worse, we should be looking up
and we should be anticipating the coming
of Jesus. And so, like, we want
a utopian society, but that's not.

We don't get that this side of
eternity, right.

Absolutely. And so, like, I'm not saying
that we should be looking forward for
things to get worse, but I'm looking
forward for the coming of Jesus Christ.
If there are signs that are laid
out for us to be looking for,
then I need to be recognizing what's
happening in politics and on earth to
know that I'm getting closer to my
savior coming.

So that's good. All right, next question.
As a christian, how can we promote
more unity and less division during the
political season that is approaching, especially since
we're supposed to be one body? I
love that question. I think this is.
This is a question that indicates that
the person's heading in the right direction.
This is how we are, as christians.

(42:50):
Supposed to approach politics is to bring
more unity and less division. But how
do you do that? Solve the problem,
somebody. He looked, I already preached my
sermon. Solve the problem, people.

I think that the first thing we
have to do is check ourselves and
make sure that we're not liking or
responding to negative social media posts or,
you know, videos or different things like
that. That's bringing anybody down. Like we
have to make sure that we're not
commenting or encouraging or promoting the negative
stuff that's already out there on social.

(43:27):
And then the next thing we have
to do is, you know, within a
relationship, because you don't want to go
out and jump into a fire, but
within a relationship, you can bring down
negative tones and conversations and, and you
can shine light on topics and different
things. But, you know, I think that
our biggest power is being able to

(43:48):
shut down anything that comes towards us.
Because if someone is talking bad about
a politician or a party towards us
and we shut it down, that will,
that's a seed that's sown in that
person. And that person will be checked
the next time they talk to someone
or make a post because then they'll
say, wait, Carlton rejected that thought or

(44:09):
that idea. Now I'm careful who I
talk to because I don't know who's
the next person that's going to reject
that thought or idea. And now I
can check myself and say, wait, wait
a minute, why am I having these
negative thoughts and ideas? Carlton put a
seed in me or showed me something
different, like maybe I need to check
myself and play it cool in this

(44:31):
environment or this time of election.

So, yeah, you're about to say something,
I heard. I think so. A couple
things. So when it comes to not
being divisive, I think that we have
to want assume the best about each
other's intentions. So when you see someone

(44:56):
say like, post, like, oh, you know,
this is this, like, oh, this person
is of this party and you've already
assumed everything say about them of who
they are overall, that you're not a
believer or, no, we can't be in
relationship with some people. Like, if you
are a part of this party, then
we cannot be in relationship because this

(45:18):
is what this person stands for. And
XYZ, you have that side of thinking
the best. If you are in relationship
with them, it could literally just be
in having a conversation. If it bothers
you, say that much. Another thing when
it comes to christians being divisive within

(45:39):
this is that I'm trying to get
my wording where it's clear, but it's
direct as well. Clear, direct. But also.

I need a second would you say
it?

I know, but I feel my thought
kind of like leaving me when it
comes to that. Just the question one
more time.

As a Christian, how can we promote
more unity and less division during the
political season that is approaching, especially since
we're supposed to be one body.

Yes.

More unity, less division. One body.

Oh, sorry.

If it comes back to you.

I mean, that's the other thing, too.
Is like, are we talking about within
Christian. Within christians? Yeah, because, like, we're
not one body with a lot of
people that's putting trash out there. And
so I think it's a little easier
for us. I don't. I guess it
is easier for us as Christians because
we have that common thing that I

(46:43):
can go to another believer and say,
hey, you know what? That's not christlike,
that we're trashing this person or putting
this group of people down because half
of the country is one way and
the other half of the country is
another way. So you're saying 150 million
people are all idiots and wrong? We
shouldn't be speaking that way as christians.

(47:03):
And I think that it becomes easier
for us to have an honest, truth
and love conversation with another believer because
we are united as. As one body.
And I think because of that, because
we have the commonality of Christianity, we
can have those kind of conversations where
we bring somebody back and say, hey,

(47:25):
let's be more Christ like in this
area.

So it just came to me.

Okay, then go.

I was about to write down, like,
lord, please don't lose again. But when
it comes to divisive things among christians,
we have got to stop airing out
our dirty laundry in front of non
believers. And that is something within Christians
that happens so much not just in
politics, but we share how divisive we
are to the public. That then reflects

(47:52):
and is not the greatest example to
someone who does not know Christ. This
is what Christians do. They argue about
politics. They argue about the queer community.
They argue, they argue, they argue. This
is why I don't want anything to
do with christians. Cause we are, like,
so unaware of that. Like, you're just
always letting out air in the house,

(48:13):
and that is something that the word
tells us not to do. So just
be careful of how when you feel
your fingers about to go on social
media, that you're very careful of who
the audience is that is around you
that may not be christians. So how
we present ourselves to each other, somebody
is going to see that, and they're

(48:34):
going to make a decision or an
assumption that every time I see this
I see christians arguing all the time.
They're not unified, it seems like, on
anything, because we're just, to everybody always
seeming divisive. So I think one way
that we can even just not in
politics, is that we have to use

(48:54):
way more wisdom with how we talk
and where we are, that when it
comes to being in christian community, in
those debates, do that there. But, like,
on social media, and, you know, you
have all these different people that follow
you. Like, is it making the greatest
witness to someone who doesn't know Christ?
And every time I see that, sometimes

(49:17):
I wanna respond, but I'm like, I'm
not about to go into that space
of somebody else arguing and that kind
of stuff because it's not helpful.

Yeah, no, I can get behind that.
I think that there's, there's definitely what
it's described as in house conversations. Like,
yes, there's some conversations are supposed to
be held within the body of Christ.
The problem with social media is it's,
it's open to everyone. So, like, yeah,
it's social. And so you do have
to be cautious and there's balance to
be found there because there's also, you
know, instructions of scripture that says, hey,

(49:47):
if you got a brother that sent.
So there's, there's conversations about, actually, the
church is supposed to judge the church
more than we're supposed to judge those
outside the church. Right? And so, like,
there is a place for, look, if
a pastor starts going off and saying
things that are just clearly not right,
like, you actually do have a responsibility
to bring correction to that. So, like,
I think there is a balance, but

(50:07):
I think in general, we just, we
air out way too much on social,
which actually, so we've got a member
of the church, older guy, he's white,
and he has voted Republican. And on
social media, somebody saw him promote something
about the Republican Party. It was about
abortion. And he promoted this. And somebody

(50:29):
said, well, I know who I need
to block and unfollow because that's un
Christian.

Wow. And, like, what part was unchristian
Republican or him being against?

Well, and then, and then, like, he
got into a whole dialogue with them,
a debate with them, and they're like,
well, I just can't even listen to
racists like you. And I'm thinking about
this man, and I know this, this
older guy that he was like, part
of civil rights movement. Like, that's how
old he is. And like, he has
promoted union between African Americans and whites

(51:00):
his entire life. Like, if there's a
guy I can look at and be
like, that dude's not racist. It would
be him. And yet simply because he
votes for a political party, now he's
got a label thrown on him as
he's a racist for that.

That's tough.

And that's a Christian attacking a Christian.
And it's like, okay, stop the name
calling. Maybe just have a conversation with
each other, ask some questions. Hey, why
are you voting that that way? You
know, I've got these views about that
party. Why do you not have.

Yeah, because he's old enough to have
a real story.

Yeah.

That he can tell 100% that will
impact somebody.

Yeah. And he could. He could talk
about the things that he's done to
combat racism and to fight against it.
And he's got amazing stories.

Right.

But, man, this person would just cut
him off just immediately. You vote a
Republican, you're a racist. That's messed up,
Carlton. Our Republicans are.

What about the black Republicans?

No, because, like, we make the Republicans
races because of their. The majority of
the south that they have now. This
is part of the reason, though. And,
like, we don't understand the school teacher.
The republican party didn't conquer the south
until the mid nineties. And so all
the time prior to that, the south

(52:20):
has been Democrat. And the civil rights
acts and movements and laws were changed
by Republicans. Like, minorities didn't start voting
Democrat until Lyndon B. Johnson came in
office. And it was a behind the
scenes strategy to get minorities to vote

(52:41):
Democrat. And Lyndon B. Johnson is quoted
and saying, I'm gonna get these n
words to vote for us. And the
democratic party is the party of the
Klan. You can go on forever with
this. Like, if there is a racist
party from inception, it's the democratic party.
But the democratic party in the sixties
had made such. I don't know what

(53:04):
you call it, a campaign or a
push to change the appearance of it,
that now it's become the party of
the minority by strategy and not by
heart. And so we look at the
republican party now, since the nineties being
the majority in the south, we label

(53:26):
them with Confederacy and say that they
are now racist. And it's really new.
But you have to know political history
to understand the parties and their stance.
I'm not saying that all Republicans are
not racist. There's racist Republicans for sure.

100%.

Absolutely. But I think we need to
go.

Back to actually say there's also racists
on the Democrat party.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

It's the reality.

We just gotta go back in history
and look at, you know, how from
slavery how slavery was abolished all the
way up into now and say, okay,
well, there's a party that was consistent
with civil Rights act since abolishing slavery.
And there's a party that's not, and
now the party that's not got to

(54:13):
a place in time where they said,
we need to change our appearance and
get these n words to vote for
us. And they made a beautiful strategy
that has worked tremendously over the last
50 years, 60 years now. So it's,
it's just something that you got to
go back in history and kind of

(54:34):
look at now we're in a place
where both parties have good and both
parties have bad. So, but history will
help you understand that that older white
person has been voting Republican because he's
been a part of a civil rights
act where the Republicans were actually pushing
for civil rights for all people. I
mean, he remembers when the Democrats were

(54:57):
the party of the Klan, and he
probably would not ever have voted Democrat
because he would be voting for grand
dragons to be in Senate. And that's
what actually happened. And so he's been
a Republican, and he probably can't even
fathom himself voting Democrat because of the
history and what he knows and what
he's lived through about the Democratic Party.

(55:18):
And that kind of factual history rolls
people the wrong way because they want
their current democratic party to not reflect
that history that they have. And it's
like, well, you know, I'm not telling
you to vote based on anything that
I'm saying here, but we have to
look at both parties history and determine
where are they now compared to the

(55:39):
history then. And then look at a
lot of older people that may lean
in one direction or the other and
say, well, what's their story when they
were in their twenties, you know, and
dealing with the climate of the United
States and why did they choose the
party that they're voting for now and,
you know, kind of determine that.

So, yeah, I think all this paints
out is that politics is complicated. It's
a, it's a messy, complicated, sticky. And
just don't resort to name calling. Try
and get to understand, you know, why
somebody votes. Because I think ultimately, when
somebody is a Christian, they're approaching this
from, okay, I want my biblical values,
want my godly values to be demonstrated,

(56:22):
and they'll look at somebody on the
Republican Party and say, I don't see
Bible there. Well, somebody else may look
at the Democrat party and say, I
don't see bible there. And so stop
name calling because there's probably a reason
and it may be a bad reason,
but there's still probably a reason there.
And you're not going to correct a
bad reason by name calling or just
by saying you're an idiot. But if

(56:42):
you do engage them in a conversation,
you know, maybe you can find out
more.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, before we move on to
the next category, anything else? You know,
the last question was, actually, the one
we answered on Sunday is, as christians,
how should we approach politics and vote
responsibly? So do we leave anything out?
Is there anything lacking? We need more?

Talk to the Holy Spirit.

Good luck in the polls.

Yeah.

All right, then we're going to move
on to LGBTQIA plus getting on here.
So, actually, these first two questions are
going to be interesting to answer because
they're very accusatory, I think, towards CLC.
And so I want to think we.

Got a lead pastor here.

I want to bring a little bit
of clarity around these two questions, and
then we'll kind of get into some
of the more detailed stuff. So the
first question was, why are gay people
allowed to have leadership roles or to
be part of the ministry or choir
team? So, Carlton, why are gay people
allowed to have leadership roles at ClC?

I don't think gay people are allowed
to have leadership roles at CLC or
anyone with.

Thank you. I was about to. I
was like, can we clarify that a
little bit?

It's like if you found out, like,
I'm the executive pastor of operations, right?
And if you found out, Brent, that
I was accepting of a sin that
I was deep in, you would. I
would hope that you would remove me
from my post as a pastor over
the congregation and say, carlton, we need
to deal with this issue before you

(58:12):
can continue in this role that you're
in. Like, it's not just the queer
community having leadership positions here at church.
Is anybody with a sin that has
accepted the sin and promotes the sin
in their life having any kind of
leadership position here or anything position. I
think that we have a care for
anybody who's in sin. You know, if.

(58:34):
If you found out that a brother
was addicted to pornography and was leading
one of the dream teams, you would
say, wait. Wait a minute now. Not
like you're not striving to be like
Christ, but you have accepted the fact
that you have this issue and you
are living this lifestyle. There's a lot
of lifestyles that we don't agree with.
You would Tiffany, being over a dream

(58:55):
team, would say, I need to sit
you down and you need to work
this out before we can have you
now? Does that mean that everybody in
leadership is perfect? No, but we're all
striving to be like Christ. And the
moment that we've decided that a sin
is going to be a part of
our life and we're okay with it,
then we need to be removed from
our position. So it's not that we

(59:16):
promote homosexuality to be leaders here at
the church. We don't want anybody with
any kind of sin that they've accepted
in their life to be in leadership
at the church. I hope I can
say this. I'm not the lead pastor.

No, you're absolutely right. I was going
to say it's not even hypothetical. We
literally have sat people down for sin
issues. We've terminated staff members who are
committing sins. Absolutely not this.

Non sexual sins. Yeah, right.

Non sexual sins. We've terminated pastors because
we discovered that there was sin issues
that were not being addressed. And so,
yeah, I think that it's interesting because
there's an assumption here that is not
even accurate. And so I don't know
if they specifically want to talk to
the actual person. Yeah, you're a member

(01:00:00):
of the worship team. So because they
go in on worship choir team, which
is interesting. We don't have a choir.

Tiffany Hines (01:00:07):
Right. So that lets me already know
in age demographic. Love you so with
that one. So when they were talking
about even having to let go certain
staff or anything, Pastor Jerry, even in
the past, it's not about because we
all sin. It is unconfessing. So, like,

(01:00:29):
you have unrepentant and you have not
gone to get counsel. So with that,
if you are in a place of
struggle and stuff happens, are you going
to someone, hey, this is where I'm
at now. If we didn't found this
out and you then that's a whole
different thing. So just know, like at
CLC, it's not this just one thing

(01:00:52):
at all. But like, this is what
we have in place. You confess. It
doesn't have to be directly to Pastor
Brent, but like, are you going to
someone for counsel? If you're out here
and we find out and it's sneaky,
like, then that's a whole different situation.
When it comes to the worship team
or anyone that's in a public place,

(01:01:14):
I think that we have to be
really careful of what we can assume
what someone is. And so this is
something that has gone on for years.
Not that it doesn't happen. You hear
historically there are a lot of queer
people that can sing on teams that
are in these different positions. And because
of maybe their personality or how they

(01:01:37):
move their body. Yeah, that's that. And
that person is sat down, and that
person is like, this is in my
life. The pregnant girl is getting sat
down, and the guy's not getting sat
down, but, well, hers is visible. And
so you don't know the walk that
someone is doing. One, if it's true,
if it's active. And then sometimes church

(01:01:59):
people see someone's body and mannerisms. Thank
you. And just assume.

Pastor Carlton McCarthy (01:02:06):
Yeah.

And so.

And the person could have been.

They could have been.

Maybe they weren't. Have been delivered, have
walked it out with pastoral staff and
counseling and got, you know, and have
completely changed their whole thought process and
the way that they live.

Yes.

And they're free from it and we're
judging them.

Pastor Brent McQuay (01:02:24):
Yeah.

Or they could have grown up around
aunties, mamas, sisters, all that stuff.

Absolutely. I got an auntie team.

I understand the thought of stuff. One,
that stuff is heavily pushed on mental
because you can't really tell unless a
girl is giving. I'm gonna just say
stud vibes, which is also. It leaves
an illusion more that it's not happening
outside of you giving stud. I'm doing
the quotes in case someone's listening, a

(01:02:52):
stud thing. And so I think when
it comes to that, it would be
wise. It's great to ask that question,
but there's just a lot of things
that you need to look at and
see. Like, do you know something in
someone's particular life that would say that?
Well, then, if you know that, talk

(01:03:13):
to the leaders, but back it up
with some facts before you come and
be accusatory so that then they can
be walked through. Because I think some
often in growing up, like in spaces
which people have those issues with, is
that they're getting repercussions with no pastoring
and repercussions from based off of what
someone else said. And, like, I didn't

(01:03:34):
even get to speak up for myself.
I've actually been going to counseling for
this. I've actually been walking it out
with this elder. No, I didn't think
I needed to talk to you. That's
why I'm walking this out with someone.
And I was just accused factually because
you see this. And so this means
that kind of thing. And so I
don't know anybody's particular struggles, but I

(01:03:58):
do know how sometimes christians can go
off of mannerisms and be wrong.

Yeah. Yeah. I start off by saying
this is they're making some faulty assumptions,
both about our stance and about people,
and that's a dangerous thing. I guess
we should back up just briefly and
talk about this. We do view that
homosexuality is a sin, like the practice
of it, and we view that because
of scripture. That's not a personal opinion.

(01:04:24):
That's not my feelings on the subject.
It's. The Bible says it is, so
I can't change that. Right. So that's
the foundation of this. So then when
it comes into this. This area, it's
sin, just like there's a lot of
other sins. And so would we willingly
allow anyone that's in a lifestyle of
sin, right. I'm not talking about the
person that slips up, makes a mistake.

(01:04:45):
We all sin on a regular basis.
What I'm talking about is somebody that
says, hey, this is a part of
who I am. I'm okay with this.
My wife and I, we have an
open relationship. And so, you know, adultery.
It's not even adultery because she's okay
with it. No, you have embraced something
the Bible calls sin. So anyone that's

(01:05:06):
in that, if somebody's like, yeah, I've
been embezzling from my company, but, like,
everybody else does it, too. So, like,
I don't know what the deal is.
It's like, no, like any of these
examples, we would remove that person from
leadership. We actually had a situation recently
where we had to remove somebody from.
From leadership. And so, like, there is

(01:05:28):
precedent here at CLC of saying these
things are not okay. I will go
say so far as to say, and
for as the lead pastor, this might
upset some of our members if there's
somebody that is same sex attracted, but
is what's referred to as side B
Christian, which is this idea of they
have the same sex attraction, but they
recognize from scripture this is a sin

(01:05:51):
for me to act on. And so
they have decided to live a life
of celibacy. I would have no problem
with that person being in leadership or
being on the choir. None whatsoever. For
me, it's engaging in a sinful act.
It's not being tempted if we're all
judged by our temptations. Shan, man, I

(01:06:11):
got a.

You can gouge out my eyes right
now.

Here you go, Carlton.

Gouge out both my eyes now.

Right? So, like, the temptation is not
the sin, right? But, you know, I
think, is it Paul? Or maybe it's
j. I forget. Somebody in the New
Testament talks about it. Maybe Peter talks
about when you are led astray by
sin. So, like, when sin, when you're
tempted, then he talks about. Then that
temptation takes hold, and then you are
led away by sin. Like, there's a
separation between the temptation and the sin.

Yeah. Lead me not into temptation.

So, yeah, so I think. I think
to answer this question just directly, we
don't allow that, and we would never
allow that with any sin. If it
turns out I'm sinning in some way
on a regular basis and I'm unrepentant
of it, kick me out of the
church.

Right. And there's a process for that.

So I was looking at a TikTok.
It was either TikTok or ig. And
there was this guy, and he was,
like, evangelizing and just talking about Jesus.
So his caption was scripture, and then
it had, like, a rainbow. So he's
talking about scripture. Oh, he's walking down
the street and he's talking about scripture.

(01:07:24):
And he's talking about at his workplace
that someone had said he wanted to
pray, and they were like, oh, there's
like, a meditation room that you can
go to? And so he's like, meditation
room? And so he's like, let me
find. We got a prayer room and
all of that. And so I see
in the comments, and someone's, like, praying
and stuff because of his personality, I

(01:07:46):
go to his page, and so I'm
trying to figure out, because he's talking
about the word all the time, and
I keep going. And I see even
in his highlights, he's sharing his testimony.
So he's sharing his whole testimony, even
from a kid, how people would just
tell him that this is who he
was and he didn't know. Didn't know
that. But eventually he was like, okay,

(01:08:07):
maybe this is who I am. I'm
just gonna fast forward from all his
person, all his situations, and then him
knowing, like, I don't know if this
is, like, God's best, but he was
active in the lifestyle. He has walked
away from it, and he was sharing
that. And, like, talks very much in
knowing God on that side, which is,

(01:08:28):
I'm sure we'll get to that more.
And when it comes to talking about
this, of knowing God, so he says,
so if you're new to my page,
you may look at me and you
may see some mannerisms. And so it's
like that kind, that kind of stuff
that you won't even give someone an
opportunity. He's sharing. Thank God he shared
because he was getting, like, just ripped

(01:08:50):
in the comments about being gay, and
he was like, you're gonna see this.
But God has transformed my life. This
is what you see outwardly. And so
it's just, again, yeah, and.

The other thing, too. I think that
it's not black and white here at
TLC, where we, like, you're kicked off
the team, and you're no longer a
member of the church. And that's it.
We've been here long enough where Pastor
Jerry has been in meetings with leadership,
and he says, I know that this
is happening, and I want you to

(01:09:24):
get help. There's the path to after
this meeting. This is what we want
to help you with and what we
want to do. We've recognized this, but
we don't want to leave you out
in the streets. We don't want to
just, like, remove you from the church.
We want to bring you in closer
so that we can walk this out
with you. Like, I've seen Pastor Jerry

(01:09:45):
do this, and I think, like, and
first of all, I'm on the edge
of my seat, like, what's the problem?
Like, who is it but Pastor Jerry,
he opens the door for you to
come into a closer intimacy of leadership
with him where he can help you
walk this out. And it's like, when
I. The first time I've seen that
man, it must have been, like, 1112

(01:10:06):
years ago, and I was like, wow.
Like, he knows that this is happening,
and he's not, like, taking off his
belt to give somebody a spanking. Like,
he's actually, like, open his office door
and say, you know, I wanted to
talk to you about this and bring
you in so that we can deal
with this, you know, together.

Yeah.

And it's. It was amazing. Is to
see that from Pastor Jerry for me,
you know, not that I don't know
what I was expecting him to do,
but, you know, you don't.

Hear about this stuff.

You don't hear about it at all.
Yeah, yeah.

No, our first move is always going
to be, how can we restore.

Yeah.

You know, so we got to bring
correction when there's some open sin.

Right.

Or unrepentant sin. But, yeah, we want
it. We want to see people healthy,
not just kicked out people.

We want to see what kicked out.

They do. They want to see a
lot of.

My drama in church. It doesn't make
any sense.

Like, there is a self righteousness thing
going on where it's like. But their
sins. Ugly. My sin is. Okay. Yeah.
Like. Like, the sin that nobody else
knows about, God does, and it's ugly.

It's the visible sin versus the invisible
sin.

It. You mentioned it earlier. The girl
that's pregnant is visible. The guy that
got her pregnant.

Yeah. Right.

Walking through, like, yeah.

Yeah, those mothers want to beat her
down and take her out the church.

Yeah. When I was a. So when
I was a youth pastor, we had
to deal with this probably more than
just about anything else. That teen pregnancy
rates and stuff and all that. But
that was always the first question, who's
the guy? Right? Like, because it would.
It would usually be like the girl
would come to me usually right at
the moment when she can't hide it
anymore. Like, it's like I've been. I've

(01:11:47):
been wearing baggy clothes. But the eating,
we ain't got nothing.

It's not working anymore.

That's usually when they come to me.
So, yeah, somewhere between four and six
months is usually when they would come
to me as their youth pastor. And
the first question is always, who's the
guy? Is he a part of the
church? Because we need to talk. We
need him in this room too. It
takes two to tango. You didn't get.
You ain't Mary anyways. All right, this
is another one that's gonna be really

(01:12:13):
fun to answer because this is straight
at CLC.

Okay.

With some crazy assumptions.

I love the honesty.

Whoever asked this next question, I love
you. I just want to sit down
and talk with you because I don't
know where you got this stuff from.
How is CLCs stance on attending same
sex ceremonies? Not in all caps, a
compromise of gods word. It is troubling
to me that we would be told
to attend celebration of sin to supposedly
preserve a relationship. There are so many

(01:12:42):
other ways to do that. And how
can we trust our pastors when they
tell us to attend same sex ceremonies?
Does ClC perform same sex ceremonies?

Well, that answers.

I could see a little bit of
that they're taking apart where when it
came to like parental of like when
you have a child and say, if
they're getting married and some, you know,
and it's like, do you end the
relationship because your children, you know, are

(01:13:13):
in sin, are getting married and they
know you're opposing things. But you say,
I'm not gonna go, or you go
so that you don't lose the relationship.
And so I think that they're probably
talking within that of PJ mentioned like
preserve your. Your relationship with your child,

(01:13:35):
that there's an open door, that like,
it's just closed because of a wedding
that they already know it's you biblically,
like not.

For, but isn't deliverance can come through
the relationship and if you kill the
relationship, you gonna kill you could potentially
kill an opportunity for deliverance.

And that was. He was saying PJ
when he shared that. So this person
could be like.

And not just your son or daughter,
but the person that they're marrying. Like,
you have your conduit to both of
them now.

Yeah. Yep.

Within a relationship. And it's not. We
not promoting the marriage, but I want
to make sure that I'm there for
my kid, in a sense, that I
need to keep this bridge attached and
not burn it down, because one day,
the holy spirit is going to escort
them across the bridge to deliverance them
and the other person as well. And,

(01:14:32):
no, we do not do same sex
marriages at ClC. Not only that, you
have to. In our statement of faith,
we recognize that marriage is a religious
ceremony between a male and a female.
And so you have to be a
member of ClC. You have to agree
to that, and.

You have to go through counsel, and.

You have to go through counsel. You
have to go through entwined everybody before
you get married at ClC. So it's
only between a man and a woman.

Yeah.

Here.

Yeah. So, this was a very, you
know, weighted question, and I. Like I
said, I love you. I think you've
made some. Some wrong assumptions. Do we
have a stance at CLC on attending
same sex ceremonies? No, we don't have
a stance, and we don't tell people
to attend those celebrations. The one time

(01:15:22):
that Pastor Jerry address it, and I
don't even know if I've addressed it,
I might have in.

I don't think you have.

In his image, maybe? I don't know.
But I would. I would say, if
it's my kid, most likely I'm going
to the ceremony, and when I say
most likely, I'm, like, 97% there because
it's my kid, and my kid knows
my stance. What my kid needs to
know is that I love them.

Yeah.

And what I've seen happen way too
often in christian families is they find
out this is. This is the unforgivable
sin in a lot of christian minds,
and so they cut the child off.
And so, like, if you look at
the stats, like, the stats for homeless
youth that identify as LGBTQ, like, is

(01:16:09):
astronomically higher than any other demographic, and
it mostly comes from christian families that
kick their kid out. That's. That. If
you're gonna be gay, you can't be
gay here. And that is just messed
up. And so there's no doubt in
my mind that my child knows how
I feel, how I believe, according to
scripture, that this is a sinful act.

(01:16:30):
But for me personally, I would be
at that celebration. Am I going to
be at every same sex ceremony? No.
I could have a really close friend
that's like, man, I really want you
at the wedding and be like, look,
man, I just. I can't do it.
You know how I feel about this.

Absolutely.

And I can. I can still maintain
the relationship. I can still maintain the
friendship. But when it comes to my
kid, the last thing I want is
for my child to look out into
the audience and see an empty chair
where I'm supposed to be sitting.

And I think you have to, if
that's your own personal conviction. Cause some
people fully believe you going is advocating
for that marriage. And here we are
again, forcing what people believe. And so
with that, if you automatically believe, oh,
no, if you went to this, then
that means you are for the marriage.

(01:17:18):
No, my family member knows very well
how I feel. They've known the whole
time, all the way up to the
relationship and marriage. Hey, come over. You
want to bring your man, whomever. The
stance hasn't changed. But one thing they
know that is solid is that their
family loves them. They know. I think,

(01:17:39):
again, we think that these conversations aren't
happening and they can't be healthy. Not
everyone's family is, like, damning their kids
to hell. But they're being very clear
on what the word says in those
conversations. Like, okay, so this is what
you believe. So what do you think
the Bible says? Yeah, well, I think

(01:18:01):
the Bible says XYz. Okay, well, if
you think the Bible says this, so
your decision is against the Bible, what
do you say about that? Well, I've
decided that I'm willing to take the
risk. Okay, that's pretty wild. And I'm

(01:18:22):
just talking to real conversations, and so.
But I'm gonna love you. I'm gonna
love you. We are clear on what
that is. And seeing the change and
transformation happen of, like, I was in
a place of, like, I really wanted
this to work out. Almost a delusional
part that I said, well, if I

(01:18:42):
go to hell, then I go to
hell, while also affirming what the Bible
says in a space, but that door
being open of love. And so it's.
Again, I just think, like, if we
brought things down to a human one
on one level with the, like, everybody's
not denouncing what the word says, but
conversation and relationship has happened, and it

(01:19:04):
didn't just go from here. And now
we're getting married, and this is our
first time having a conversation. I'm about
it. So.

And why don't we believe the power
of the Holy Spirit.

Like, to transform lives, you mean?

Yeah, to transform lives. Absolutely. We believe
that the sin is greater than the
power of God.

Yeah.

And so we look at the sin
and say, oh, this person is doing
this particular thing, therefore, they can't be
a part of anything that's related to
Christianity, or I can't be a part
of their lives in any kind of
way. And it's like, well, if. If
we believe that Jesus has saved us,
why don't we believe that Jesus can
save them?

Yeah.

And so. And the path to their
salvation could come through the relationship that
they have with you.

Yeah. Or it couldn't. And that's also
the thing, too. It may not, but
also, if that's what you feel like
the Holy Spirit, it's led you and
your family to do, then you do
it and you work out what that
relationship looks like in the future. Just
don't blanket statement and say that that's
everyone's safe experience.

Absolutely. If the Holy Spirit is like,
I don't want you going to that
wedding. Right. Then don't go to it.
Like, I'm telling you what I would
do in that situation. And if the
Holy Spirit said, brent, I do not
want you at that ceremony, I would
submit to that.

But just also pray when you have
a friend that you know is definitely
cheating a lot and getting married. God,
do you want me to go to
this wedding? Because I already know.

Yeah. Am I endorsing the sin by.
And it's such a. It really is
a silly thing. Cause that's the argument
usually is. If I go, then I'm
endorsing the sin behavior. It's like every
other wedding you went to, there was
somebody in that room that was sinful.
Like, did you endorse that? Like, every
time I go to a restaurant that
has a bar in it, am I
endorsing alcoholism? Like, every time I go

(01:20:55):
to the movies, there happens to be
a movie playing in another theater that's,
you know, all about fornication.

Yes.

Am I endorsing that sin?

No.

Like, it's a weird stance to take
for the one thing. And. And look.
Yeah. Marriage is reserved for one man,
one woman. It is ordained by God.
God created marriage. Man didn't. And so
we don't want to corrupt that.

Right.

But just be cautious with this.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right. How are we that
profess to be christians supposed to treat
our bro? And we did say we
don't perform same sex ceremonies, right?

No, we do not.

Just want to make sure. How are
we that profess to be christians supposed
to treat our brothers, sisters, and family
members of the LGBTQ community. And they
asked specifically, brothers, sisters, family members. I'm
going to broaden this too. How about
just how you should treat anybody?

You said it in the sermon. Yeah.
So your neighbor who just moved in,
your boss, co worker, son, daughter, whatever.

You love them, how do you treat
them? Love them.

Love them.

Yeah. And then different displays of love.
So as things in the spectrum continues
to say, grow the way at times,
like, well, christians, even in me growing
up of like, no, if this person,
say, identifies as this, but they're not
this, I'm gonna still call you a
man. And so those type of things

(01:22:22):
of like, well, if a person decides
and transitions. Oh, my name's not Tiffany
anymore. It's Tom. It's legally. Whatever. Even
if it's not legal, this is the
way that I wanna identify as. And
then us, like, oh, no, I'm gonna
call you Tiffany.

Your mama named you.

Put your name right. Your mama named
you Tiffany. You are called now a
they. No, I'm gonna call you a
he, a she. And those different things.
And yes, it gets confusing. Like, I
be looking over, like, they compelled speech.
Oh, they. It's singular. Okay, my brain.
But also, I think sometimes we think
that that stuff will actually draw someone

(01:23:01):
closer to Christ. And so the way
to love someone is not to say,
like, oh, well, you are a she
him. Now I'm gonna call you a
she. And those are things that I
hear. Those are things that I see.
And you saying by someone's calling them
by their original name or whatever pronoun.

(01:23:22):
And no, this kind of thing, I
guess if the bottom line is to
love and show Christ, that is not
validating or, like, agreeing with someone's decision
that they've made, but it is respecting.
And so a door to open a
door of relationship and respect is, I

(01:23:43):
may not agree with your new name
and your new body that you have,
but hello, Timothy. Timothy or Tom. You
know what I mean? Whatever the case
is. And so just. That's a way
practically, if you can just debunk in
your mind of even that as it
grows. Cause it can get challenging new

(01:24:06):
names. But, like, the defiance part, right?

So if you're stripping, do I call
you diamond? Or how does that work?

What if my pronoun, that's your name.
If I want to go by diamond?

That was too far.

People change their names all the time.

That's true.

How do you know my stripper's name
is diamond, though?

I mean, the whole church calls me
that. She got you on that one,
Carlton.

She did. Let me. Shut up.

Where'd you hear that, Carlton? I was
just gonna say, you know, everybody at
the church calls me Brent, but technically
that's not my name.

Yeah, but Brenton James.

My name is Brenton. You learn something
new every day.

There you go.

Do you feel respected when people call.

Me Brent over Brenton? Yeah, I prefer
it. It's weird when people really.

So I can't call you Berenson?

No, you're fine. Yeah, actually, people are
like, oh, I'm sorry, pastor. Pastor Branson's
like, no. Like, every time somebody gets
on stage and I, man, I hope
Carlton hasn't done this before, else I'm
throwing him under the bus when they
get up there and they say, hi,
my name is pastor so and so,
like, no, your name is not pastor.

(01:25:17):
Your title is pastor. Hi, my name
is Brent.

Yeah, I think we try to go
with, hi, my name is Carlton. I'm
one of the pastors here at CC.
I think that's what we say. Moy
says what I say. I'm way one
of the past.

Yeah, yeah, I think they got that
from me.

Yeah.

Once a while, somebody's gonna get up
there and say, hi, I'm pastor, you
know, Jason. And somebody listen to this
podcast, gonna be like, oh, he did
the thing he's not supposed to do.

We're fine.

How do we get on this tangent?
We're supposed to be talking about something
totally different.

Yeah, I think it's just respect and
love.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, loving somebody is not helping
them promote their position and their lifestyle
or their position in that particular sin.
You know, love overcomes all sin. I
think that it's by love that people
can start to see the love of
Jesus that they can have. And the

(01:26:17):
only way that they can see Christ,
and they're not the only way that
they can see Christ in life, but
one major way that they can see
Christ in their life is seeing Christ
in us. And Jesus loved. And so
we all said we have to do
the same. I mean, Jesus hung out
with the most deplorable people in society,
and, you know, the Pharisees and the
religious leaders talked bad about him, about

(01:26:38):
who he was with all the time.
And he said that it's the sick
that need the hospital. And so, you
know, I'm not saying that you go
out and do missionary work and deplorable
places, but if you have relationship with
people who have a lifestyle that you
don't agree with. You have to love
them like Christ did.

And there is. There is a very
complicated balance to be found within Christianity,
and it's what Jesus modeled, it's what
Paul teaches. And this is to speak
the truth in love. And so, you
know, I see sometimes people on the
side of man. Can't you just let,
you know, queer people just do their
thing? Well, love rejoices in truth. It's

(01:27:21):
the most quoted scripture in the Bible.
At weddings. Right. Every wedding you've ever
been to quotes one corinthians. What is
it, 1313? Or. It walks through what
love is. Well, one of the principles
of love is that love rejoices with
truth. So, like, you cannot love somebody
by giving them lies. Like, you have

(01:27:42):
to speak truth, but you also have
to do it in love. So, yeah,
Jesus hung out with sinners and they
walked away, changed, like. Like tax collectors.
The repentance that he makes in that
moment is I'm gonna give back everything
I've stolen and more.

Right, right.

Like, he has a repentance moment. So,
yeah, he hangs out with prostitutes, adulterers,
with tax collectors, all these people. And
they all leave different.

Right.

How they were. So. So as christians.
Yeah, we should be loving people. We
should also be teaching truth. We need
to say, hey, sin is sin. But
that doesn't happen on social media. That
doesn't happen with blanket statements. That happens
in the context of relationship. Jesus had
dinner with people, and then they went
away, changed. He didn't just walk down

(01:28:32):
the street saying, tax collector, you're a
sinner. Woman in adultery, you're a sinner.
Like, he actually, he's like, hey, let's
eat. I love Jesus too, because he
was like, hey, let's eat at your
house.

Yes.

He didn't have a place to invite
anybody to. He's like, hey, he didn't
bring Carlton. We're gonna have dinner tomorrow
night at your place. What are you
cooking?

And I think too, like, when we
see the stories about Jesus, we are
not Jesus. So the speed that Jesus
can just have dinner with somebody, and
then they change. We are not Jesus.

It takes time.

It's gonna take time. And so thinking
that you have to right away say
something, I think we just have to
just on the wide side, like, you
are not Jesus. No one is coming,
and Jesus is coming. Encountering with Jesus,
and it's not leaving change instantly. So
with that, give yourself the grace to

(01:29:27):
be led by God and learn what
it is to walk in love and
truth with this person.

Yep.

This person.

Yeah, I just want to jump in
and just tell to everybody listening, like,
people are not projects.

Yeah.

Right. And I think that there's been
a danger done in evangelism in the
past, in the history of the church,
where it was like, well, I'm gonna
befriend you so that I can evangelize
to you, but if you reject my
evangelism, I'm no longer friends with you.
I'm gonna move on to my next
project.

Right.

It's like, okay, can you be friends
with this person? Can you be friendly
with them? If they never.

Yeah.

Convert. If they never say, you know
what? I've been. I've been hanging out
with you for 20 years, and you
know what? You're right. I need Jesus
in my life. Can you still treat
that person well? Can you still love
that person? And if you can't, then
you've turned that person into a project.
We don't do that.

Who was it, Paul, that they wouldn't
allow a guard to be with him
for more than 4 hours because he
was converting?

Everybody had to put him on rotation.

Yeah, they had to put on rotation
because all the guards are becoming christians.

Grow in the church one prison cell
at a time. Just come on now.

So, question.

Yeah.

What do you say to I believe?
So it's with believers, if, say, someone
sins and continues to sin and they
are a friend or in a relationship
and they choose to not change, then
the Bible is saying that you then
have to, like, remove yourself from the
friendship. So would you say that that

(01:30:56):
applies to believers and not for clarity,
to believers and not just to someone
that you don't know that knows Christ,
that does not know Christ.

Yeah. That scripture that you're bringing up,
it is specifically within the church, so
it is believers. So, like, it does
talk about, like, don't even eat with
that person. Right. But this is somebody
that knows scripture, that knows Jesus, but
is rejecting the relationship. And so, yeah,
in that case, knowing the difference.

That part.

Exactly. So, like, so if my next
door neighbor is not saved, I can.
I can keep having them over to
my house. We can. We can build
this relationship. We can do all that.
But if there's somebody in my church
that is like, nah, man. Like, I'm
a Christian, but I love committing whatever
sin, and it's. It's my favorite. At
some point, you know, we make attempts

(01:31:48):
to say, hey, that's not. Okay. That's
not right. Here's the scripture. Let's pray.
Let's talk. And. And honestly, I can't
answer what length of time. That is
right. That may be a week. That
may be five years. I honestly, I
just. I don't know. I think it's
different for every case.

Yeah.

But at some point, you do enter
into a place where you're like, you
know what? I'm really sorry, but you
can't. You can't be here.

Like, we can't have friends.

We can't continue this relationship because you
are rejecting something.

Yeah.

And then there's. There's a threat that
you could fall into the same thing
that they're in.

Yeah. It's like, so, like, I wouldn't
allow somebody to be a. Like, a
life group leader that I know has
opposing views. Like. Like, stark opposing views.
I'm not talking about, like, they believe
in a different tribulation time period, but,
like. Like, we had somebody that was
trying to promote black hebrew light, uh,

(01:32:43):
black Hebrew israelite doctrine right. In their
small group, and we had to go
to them and say, you can't. They're
not teaching a small group anymore. Uh,
because it was like, no, what you're
teaching is actually contrary to scripture. It's
contrary to our stance at CLC, but
really not even just our stance. Like,
it's just. That's just bad doctrine. So,

(01:33:03):
like, we will absolutely cut things off
and say, this is not okay.

Right.

But those conversations, they happen in relationship.

Yeah.

One of the. One of the best
things I can say is, how are
you supposed to treat them the way
you would treat anyone else? Like, with
love, with respect. Like, I would rather
invite somebody to coffee to have a
conversation than to just make blanket accusations
against them or even just from a
distance, try and be like, you need
Jesus. It reminds me, we were in

(01:33:32):
New York City. We were walking down
the street, and there's a street preacher
that grabs my son, didn't grab him,
but, like, got in my son's face
and was like, you are a sinner
going to hell unless you repent right
now. And Jaden was just like, he
didn't even know how to respond. I'm
like, all right, first of all, that's.
That's my kid. I'm a pastor. He's
a Christian. He's been baptized. He put

(01:33:54):
his faith in Jesus a long time
ago, buddy. Like, you did not just
help his faith at all. If anything,
he's like, man, christians are weird.

After that interaction, Hebrew is like, cut
me up. Walking downtown one day, I
wasn't interested in what they were saying.
Cussed me out, called me all type
of, like, names. I'm like, I thought
that I was your sister.

What happened?

Now?

I'm all kinds of things, you know,
and those genes. I just was like,
this is embarrassing. And.

Yeah, sadly, there's a lot of christians
that give Christ a bad name. Yeah,
Gandhi was right. I like your Christ.
I just don't like your christians.

What would you say to. And I
know we're moving. No, you're good.

Go for it.

So when it comes to the queer
community, and I'm just saying queer because
the spectrum is.

Yeah, so many.

There's so many things. But I think
at this point now it's just under
the queer world. And so when it
comes to. So you have. You're non
binary people who don't identify as male
female there. Sometimes they feel like a
male, sometimes they feel not. You're transgender

(01:35:09):
people and are affirming churches that have
a strong stance that it's okay. I
haven't dove very deep in. I've. I
follow some people that maybe used to
be a pastor in one way, and
then they've come out as another pastor

(01:35:30):
and started, like, a church or an
affirming church for the whole community. And
so I think I've just always been
interested, especially as it continues to be
named, how can churches affirm being transgendered

(01:35:50):
in someone fluidity of male female today
or, like pansexual, like those different things
that when you say that you are
affirming of the queer community, now, you're
getting into, like, a lot of extensive
expression.

Yeah. So I don't know how much
time we have to address that one.
That's a big one. But I would
say, you know, there are way more
passages in the New Testament than I
think people realize about false teachers. Like,
there was actually, I think it's nearly
every letter in the New Testament, besides
maybe two or three, that in some

(01:36:31):
way address false teachers. I put this
into that category of false teachers. There
is no way to properly look at
the scriptures and come away with an
affirming stance. It's just, you can't do
it. And so I spent a lot
of time. This is for the. In
his image series, spent a lot of
time doing the research, listening to Brandon

(01:36:52):
Robertson's arguments and several others of this
is. This is the. It's queer theory.
It's how do we approach the Bible
in a way that allows this? And
there's just. There's bad historical claims, there's
bad exegesis. So it's taking scripture out
of context. There's manipulation of language. There's
claims of, well, you know, homosexuality wasn't

(01:37:13):
even a word invented until, you know,
the late 18 hundreds. So it wasn't
even in the Bible. It's like, yeah,
but they're still describing two men having
sex. Like, you don't need the word
homosexual.

Paul was not an idiot. Yes, he
was a scholar. He knew exactly what
he was talking about.

Exactly. So, like, so it is, you
know, they call it the six. Some
will only call five because the 6th
one is the story of Sodom and
Gomorrah. And so some, some will eliminate
that one, say, well, there's all kinds
of things going on there, but the
five passages, then, if you even accept
that, I still think there's six. But
if you look at those five, they're
referred to in queer theology as the

(01:37:49):
clobber passages because it's the ones that
Christians use to beat people in the
queer community. And that's not right either.
We don't use scripture to attack scripture.
It's called bread. It's something we're supposed
to eat that gives us life. It's
not a weapon to use against people.
But you cannot approach those other five
passages with any other conclusion other than

(01:38:10):
this is a sinful act. Jesus says
marriage is between one man and one
woman. Jesus affirms sexual immorality as sin.
So that means anything outside of marriage
is sin. Anything outside of marriage between
one man and one woman is sin.
Having said all that, there's a church
just down the street from here that's
part of. Part of the affiliation of

(01:38:32):
churches. So, like, when we do our,
like, pastors lunch and stuff, they're affirming.
They got a big old banner outside
in rainbow colors and declares how affirming
they are. And I've sat at lunch
with them, had great conversations. I choose
not to address this issue with them
because we don't have real relationship. I
see them once a month. If we

(01:38:54):
were to ever try and do anything
more than that, then we would have
to have a deep conversation because. Yeah,
the theology that supports it is bad
theology. So it falls under the category
the umbrella of sheep and wolves or
wolves and sheep's clothing. Said that backwards
at first. Wolves and sheep's clothing. It
falls into the category of false doctrine,
false teaching, because scripture is. It's. It's

(01:39:16):
direct.

Yes.

Issue. But people, I think part of
your question was, like, how. How do
they come to that conclusion? Or how
do they embrace that? Well, we're led
by emotion, right? All it takes is
for you to meet one person that
you're like, man, this guy's a great
guy. He's so nice. He's so kind.
I can't tell him he's going to
hell just because of who he loves.
Like, that's not right.

He loves God.

Yeah. And I get it. And I
get it. It's just. I can't change
the requirements. I can't change the definition
of sin to include somebody that's in
open sin. I might meet the nicest
guy, and. And he's like, yeah, you
know, I just. I love kicking puppies.
Like, hey, but you're, like, so nice.

(01:39:59):
Besides this one thing, like, I can't
just ignore the one thing, right? Like,
the one thing is sin. And so,
like, ultimately, though, I'll just. I'll kind
of close this. This rant with. I'm
not the arbiter of good and evil,
right and wrong, heaven and hell. So
you are accountable to Jesus, and there
is a judgment that comes where you

(01:40:20):
stand before him, and you are judged
based on your knowledge and what you've
done. That's what we see that in
scripture.

Yeah, I was just reading two. Peter.
I think it was chapter six where
he goes into what happens to false
teachers. And it's like, man, you need
to be extremely careful what you teach
and promote as a teacher of the
word of God, because if you are
actively promoting something that's false, what's spelled

(01:40:48):
out for you and the furnace that
you're going to be put in and
how Peter describes how the earth is
preserved to be set on fire as
judgment for false teachers, it's like, man,
you do not want to be a
part of that. Be extremely careful what
you teach and promote.

100%. But, yeah, the background for it
is just. It's people that want to
love, and they get rid of truth
in the process. And I'm. I appreciate
the desire to love people. I want
to love people. But if your love
eliminates truth. No. Love rejoices with truth.

Yep.

All right. Beat that one to death.
All right. This is a good one.
Can you be a Christian and be
a homosexual?

Yeah, it's. It's for me. I can't
be a Christian and have the title
of an affirming sin. Right. And, you
know, you guys can help me with
this, but I can't say I'm a
Christian and wear the flag as an
alcoholic.

Yeah.

Right. So I could have. I could
be susceptible to alcoholism or to, you
know, to drinking, but I've come to
salvation, and I believe that God has
delivered me from that. I may still
struggle in that area, but I've been
redeemed, and I'm no longer a slave

(01:42:13):
to that sin. I'm a slave to
Christ now. And so now I'm a
Christian and not an alcoholic. I'm a
Christian and not a name that thing,
homosexual. You may have same sex attraction
and may have that temptation and may
struggle in that area, but I can't.
For Carlton, I can't affirm that title

(01:42:36):
over my life as a homosexual because
I've now removed myself from being a
slave to that. Even though the temptation
is still there and the attraction is
still there, I've removed myself from being
a slave to that sin, and I
no longer carry that last name of
that sin. I carry the last name
of Christianity. I am now a Christian.

(01:42:57):
I say last name because when you're
a slave, you take on McCarthy, you
take on the last name of the
owner of you. And so I can't
have that title from that sin. I
need the title that I'm now in,
Christ Jesus. So I'm a slave to
Christ Jesus. The temptation's still there, the
attraction's still there. The struggle's still there,

(01:43:17):
probably, and I'm working towards coming out
of that and overcoming that sin and
all of that. But I can't label
myself as that sin now because I
have Christ. I have to label myself
now as a Christian.

Yeah. Yeah. So I would say, to
answer this question, it depends on what
you mean by you are a homosexual.
Right. So, like, practicing or non practicing?
Yeah, like, are you saying, can you
be a Christian and have same sex
attraction? 100% absolutely, yes. Yes, you can.
I would caution, and this kind of

(01:43:53):
goes back to yours. I would caution
anybody that says, well, I'm a gay
Christian. I just don't act on it.
I don't like anything before the word
Christian. So, like, I want Christianity to
become my primary identity. So I'm Christian
first. So I'd be a Christian that
has same sex attraction, not a gay
Christian, if that. If that makes sense.

(01:44:15):
Can you be a Christian who embraces
and has ongoing, you know, I'm not
even talking. Okay, so somebody that's same
sex attracted and is, like, I looked
at. At gay porn, and I'm man,
I knew I shouldn't have. Pray for
me. I need to repent. Or, man,
I was, you know, I downloaded grinder
again, and I was looking at these

(01:44:36):
guys and, okay, like, that's.

You're still a Christian.

Fell into temptation. We confessed it. You
recognize this is a behavior I don't
want to engage in.

Yeah. And you're working to repair the
two.

Absolutely. You're a Christian at that point.
Can you be a Christian that says
homosexuality is not a sin? God affirms
my relationship with this person of the
same sex. It's become your identity, and
I'm going to continue worshiping God, reading
my Bible and loving Jesus, and be
in a same sex relationship. No. That
is, you might claim the title of

(01:45:09):
Christian in that case, but it's not
any more than, like, I can't say
that I'm a Muslim. I just don't
like following Muhammad.

Right?

No, you're not at that point.

Right.

And so are you a Christian at
that point? No, you're not.

I think as humans, we are constantly
looking to belong and looking for identification.
It may be places that could feel
and legit have voids. And so I
feel like when it comes to that
title, it's because this longing and attachment

(01:45:48):
to an identity of belonging outside of,
like, it's okay to just be a
believer in Christ. And so with that
taking on that belonging within that community,
I guess I would ask the question,
well, why do you feel the need
to do that if you're not, say,

(01:46:08):
like an active Christian? And probably the
first question would be then what is
your take on being a gay Christian?
Because that varies of you can be
active, a christian believer in a gay
marriage. You have people that. That's their
take on that with theology within marriage,
since it's marriage, you know what I
mean? Like, then it's okay. But like,

(01:46:30):
what. What is your definition of being
a gay Christian? And then that title,
it just can kind of get tough
because we're belonging or wanting to belong
in some space that we're say, like,
accepted. And if you're not being accepted
just as a Christian, then I'm sorry
that that has not been a safe

(01:46:51):
space in this wrestle that you're having.
That that is something that you're still
say, like, attached to. And I think
also it plays a heavy role within
queer community of. But this, there is
no separation. Like Tiffany, Tiffany, gay Tiffany.
Like, those two go together kind of

(01:47:12):
how people like, if you are indian
and Hindu, there is no separation of
the two. But that's not what it
is to be like a follower of
Christ. So then in that mindset, you
have to kind of change it. And
I think that's where the fight will
come in between of, like, when people

(01:47:33):
will argue, well, black rights are the
same as LGBTQ rights. And it's like,
no, it's not the same. It's not
the same. Sure, there may be some,
like, bad treatment and you can see
and identify, but they're not. But they're
not the same. And so that attachment
to, say, like, identity of belonging, I

(01:47:55):
feel that's where people's hearts may be
in that attachment. But it's okay, like,
to be a Christian. Even if I
never called myself a black Christian, I'm
black. I identify and was born black.

You know what I mean?

Some people are brown skinned and then
say they identify, like, you know, as
white. Biologically, my roots go back to
Africa, but just I think that the
part of that wanting and desire to
belong is it's okay to be a
Christian.

Yeah. Especially when there's a comfort there
because you're born in sin. So we
have a natural gravitation to identifying in
something like that because it's comfortable and
it's uncomfortable to be transformed and to
identify as Christ when everything. Not, not
everything, but most things about being Christian

(01:48:52):
can go against your natural way of
living or experiencing your life.

Yeah. Can I be a trans Christian?
And that's that question, when it came
to that spectrum of when it falls
within the church, is that then someone.
I'm a trans Christian. I'm a non
binary Christian. Like those different things. Like,
I guess it's like, I don't think
you hear yourself that, like, yeah, yeah.

Paul says now, therefore, there's no longer
jewish or greek slave or free male
or female. Like, our identity, pre Christ,
is washed away. It's put aside, and
you can still celebrate differences. You can
still celebrate things. Your racial identity and
all that. Got no problem with that.
But your primary identity in all things
has to be. So I don't even

(01:49:39):
like it when somebody's like, well, I'm
a republican Christian, or I'm a democrat
Christian or conservative Christian, or, like, I
don't. I just don't like that. Like,
it feels so wrong to me to
put any kind of qualifier to the
type of Christian you are. Yeah, it's
like, no, no, no. I'm just a
Jesus loving, Bible reading Christian who also
happens to do other things. But this

(01:49:59):
is my primary identity. But you mentioned
some. There's a couple questions that didn't
get asked, but I get asked all
the time that I wanted to tap
into. One of them was, you know,
people ask, well, is a monogamous relationship
okay, then, like, can, if I get
married to somebody that's the same sex
as me, is then that okay for
me to engage in homosexuality? And the

(01:50:21):
answer is no, because that doesn't absolve
the fact that scripture says sex between
two people of the same gender is
a sin doesn't absolve the fact that
in the Bible, technically speaking, that's not
even a marriage. Like marriage was ordained
by God between one man and one
woman. So you may have had a,
what was called a marriage or called

(01:50:41):
a wedding, but that was a government
thing. That wasn't a bible thing.

Right.

That wasn't a God thing. That was
just, you know, the government around you.

It was recognized by the state.

Yeah. It's not recognized.

You're not in covenant with God.

So that comes into the next question
that I've been asked before. Okay, I'm
married to somebody of the same sex.
Now, I realize this is sinful. I'm
convicted by it. But I also read
that the Bible says that divorce is
bad. Am I supposed to divorce this
person?

Well, you're not divorcing if you're not
married. Exactly.

And that's my answer to that question
is yes, you absolutely need to separate.
And that's, you know, you might have
to go through legal filings as divorcing,
but from a christian perspective, from a
biblical perspective, it wasn't a marriage. So
it's not technically a divorce. You are
just recognizing that this is not a
good union. This is not appropriate according

(01:51:33):
to scripture and to God. So I'm
going to step out of that sin.
So, so I don't. It. And it's
sucks, like, to have that conversation with
somebody, and I wouldn't. I'm making this
broad statement on the Internet, but if
I'm talking with somebody that, that's right
in front of me dealing with this,
there's a whole lot more I'm gonna
talk about. This is gonna be a
long conversation, but we're ultimately gonna get

(01:51:53):
to the same place that says, look,
I. You've been married to this person
for 20 years. You've got kids in
the home together. I get that this
is messy, this is ugly, this is
sticky. But you cannot justify sin by
saying, well, I just, I don't want
to. I don't want to do this
other thing. It's like, no, you have
to separate.

And maybe they didn't know Christ before
him and then they're in his space.
And then it's interesting, even. So, talking
about with the same sex marriage and
then that's biblical. But then, oh, but
the Bible also is not say pro
divorce. And I know Carlton and I
have had this conversation and I've had

(01:52:32):
it with a few other friends. Is
that like God cares even though he
hates divorce, he cares way more about
your soul than the marriage. He doesn't
want marriages to be out here, like,
ending, but, like, your relationship with God
is top priority. And so coming from
it, of that lens is that he

(01:52:54):
would rather you spend eternity with him
than you spend the rest of your
day with your spouse. You know what
I mean? And then, you know, then
it ends. And so in looking at
things, even when you say, when you
look at scripture, also taken into place,
those different things, one is between man
and woman, and then we are at

(01:53:16):
a place of, like, your eternity being
at risk divorce, right?

Yep. 100%. And look, that doesn't mean
that we're saying that you don't love
that person. It doesn't even. And this
is. This is where it gets really
sticky. We're really complicated. It doesn't mean
that you can't have relationship with them.
You can't have a sexual relationship with
them. I could still be your best
friend. That could still be the person
that, you know, you. You go to
the movies with, you hang out with.

(01:53:43):
You just have to be real caught.
And this is where it's like, I
need a real conversation with you, not
just a statement on podcast, because we
also wouldn't advise you to, like, step
into tempting situations.

Yeah, that would be tough.

Like, what do we say, like, to
teenagers? Like, don't hang out after dark.
Like, nothing good happens there. So, like,
there's a caution.

Group settings only, right?

There's a caution there. But it also,
like, I get it that you love
this person. And the Bible is. Is
pro friendship. The Bible is pro, you
know, loving people, caring for people, carrying
each other's burdens. You just can't add
sex to that equation.

I love the complexity of this stuff,
all of it, because these are real
stories. Like, you don't have to make
up any of this stuff. It exists,
so it needs conversation.

So it's questions I've been asked just.

In the last is recent, right? Yeah,
like 2024. We've been having these conversations.

Yeah, 100%. All right, so the final
question was kind of the one that
I answered on Sunday. The way they
worded it, though, was, what is the
biblical view of homosexuality? One once and
for all? There are so many mixed
messages out there, and I just want
to make sure I'm following God's way
and not the culture's. And so just
real quick, look straight at the camera,
look at you right now, and say,
I love that you are desiring to

(01:55:00):
find. To follow God's way and not
culture's way. Culture is very promoting of
sin behavior, not just this one. Sin
culture's pretty promoting, pretty positive honor. I
don't know what pro, they're very pro
sin in general. But when it comes
to this issue of homosexuality, once and
for all, according to the Bible, six

(01:55:20):
direct passages, lots of indirect passages that
talk about sexual immorality, all of it
combined tells us homosexuality, the practice of
it, is sin. Is it a sin
to be attracted to somebody? No. But
what you do with that attraction can
be sin. So a pretty girl can
walk by and I can be attracted

(01:55:41):
to her, but if I act on
that, that's sin. Okay. And so the
same thing here. Homosexual. The practice of
homosexuality is sin once and for all.
It's definitive according to the Bible. If
you need to talk more about that,
let me know. Cool. Anything you guys
want to add before we move on
to abortion?

Oh, what the heck.

I hear my phone ringing in the
other room.

I would say that that in knowing
that as well, because that is the
take that the word has on one
for everyone. But as Christians, this is
the lifestyle that he held us up
to. So that doesn't mean go and
try and be down a non believer
with the Bible, right? They don't know
and they don't feel yet that the
Bible is the standard. And so with

(01:56:26):
that in mind, as a believer, it's
not your job to go out here
and start smacking, like, people who do
not even believe in the sacred sea
of the Bible with that. But as
a believer wanting to know, and as
they said, wanting to honor God, this
is what God says.

Yeah, yeah. The greatest need in that
person's life is Jesus. Not for somebody
to come and tell them what sins
they're committing. Right. Just. It's a blanket
statement. We are all sinful. Come to
Jesus. Jesus works out our sin, not
us. You don't get clean before you
go in the shower.

Absolutely.

Right?

Yes. Some kind of magic.

All right, here we go. Abortion. What
is the church's stance on abortion versus
the right to choose? Or are there
biblical references? So in the message, I
kind of walked through some biblical references
to why we would view abortion as
wrong passages. David talks about it. Jeremiah
talks about it. There's others that talk

(01:57:29):
about life in the womb. Right. Then
we've got the Old Testament law. Don't
murder. We've got the Old Testament law
of if two guys are fighting and
a pregnant woman miscarries, has the baby,
if the baby's okay. So I guess
that wouldn't be a miscarriage but just
premature delivery, then there's a fine, because
it's not good to hit pregnant women
if the baby dies or if there's

(01:57:51):
harm. It says, you pay life for
a life. Actually, it goes on to
say, you know, life for a life,
eye for an eye, arm for an
arm. That goes on to list like,
so if that baby comes out damaged
in any way, the same punishment applies
to what would happen to an adult.

Right. So the value of the Life
in the wound is equivalent to the
value of Life outside of the Womb.

Correct.

That's basically what the Scripture is saying.

Exactly. 100%. There's no difference in God's
eyes, that is life. And that's why
we walk through what David says about
it, what Jeremiah says about it, because
both of them are pointing to Life
is within this Womb. So. But what
are the Biblical References? Because we didn't
get into this. Of the right to
choose. Does the Bible say anything about
it should be a right to choose?

I'm not sure if the Bible says
that there's a right to choose. I
know that we now live under.

The Government that says there's a right
to choose.

Yeah. Our government says there's a right
to choose, but our Kingdom, right governance.

Yeah, I can help you out there,
isn't there? There's absolutely nothing in the
Bible that would. Would give anyone the
assumption that in. In matters of things
like this, it's right for someone to
make the choice. Right. Even in matters
of, you know, crime and punishment, like,
even in matters of justice being enacting,

(01:59:13):
it's always group. Like, no one person
can make the decision to just go
kill this guy.

Right. I mean, God even told the
Israelites, I don't even want you associated
with this group of people. Because they
kill babies. Yep. Like, I mean, as
Joshua and the. And the Jews are.

Yeah.

I mean, it's one of the promised
land. God's like, do not have anything
to do with this group of people
because of this particular scene.

I think it's like the Canaanites, where,
like, so many people get upset because
they're like, man, God told them to
wipe out everyone. It's like, well, do
you know what they were doing? They
were taking newborns and they were laying
them on this bronze altar that they
had set on fire and watching the
baby sizzle to death.

Yeah.

Like, terrific.

They would take the babies out of
the stomachs and smash them against walls.
It was unbelievably tragic what they were
doing. And God didn't want his people
to have anything to, to do with
that.

Yep.

They are two different things, though. Abortion
and then inside the womb and then.
Yes. What they are doing. Killing babies.

Yeah. They were taking the baby out
of the.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess it's like, yes,
abortion happens inside the womb. Yes. Versus
that.

Yeah.

Some of that would still, I would
still categorize that in abortion language, though.
Like, some of what they're. Some of
what they were doing, they weren't waiting
for the woman to give birth and
then killing the baby. Yeah. They were
removing, like, there. It was like a
archaic c section.

Yeah.

And then murdering the child. But yeah,
it's.

I would love, so I would love
to really talk this out, like, when
it comes to this, because I know
we didn't have a whole lot of
time.

Yeah.

Yesterday. And so as I was thinking
through this and preparing since, you know,
asked yesterday, I'm like, who this is?
Heavy day, but to talk about. And
so, because I know we have scripture
and that and, but I know we
had. You probably had like, I don't
know, 10, 12, 15 minutes to share
within that.

Yeah. I think where you're gonna go.
I think we're gonna. We're gonna address
that in this question in a moment.

I can't see it.

Specific cases.

No, I guess so. That's part of
one of it. Yeah. So I guess
overall, when it comes to this topic
and even in sharing with scripture, because
I think our church laid its foundation
of what it believes, but just in
the spectrum of, say, what it is.
Because when I think about even say,

(02:01:56):
legislation and how so with the roe
versus Wade and that happening, then Alabama,
all this stuff that was going on
with them, even saying like, that it
is a child, even pre conception, which
then brought this. Well, so it's the
child even at an embryo. And so

(02:02:19):
those things that kind of, like, it's
like once you say one thing, then
it opens up these wider conversations that
I think are needed even within christian
spaces, because again, it's real life. And
so if we're talking about like in
conception, when an egg and a sperm
come together, then a baby is conceived,

(02:02:42):
but then you have an embryo. And
so you say you have people maybe
freezing their embryos for a potential chance
to have a child. Maybe that embryo
gets damaged or anything like that. And
so iv, I remember IVF clinics pausing
because they didn't want to get in
trouble and lose any license because now

(02:03:04):
we're taught, we're not talking just about
conception, we're talking about embryos pre. That
it is a baby as an embryo.
And so with that, I'm like, I
feel this conflict.

Define embryo because I think. Is it
embryo when the sperm and the egg
are together? Like, get joined? No, they're
talking about a egg without a sperm.

Yeah. Yes.

What did it. How did he. I
missed this news article. So what happens
when you menstruate, when you, like, you
dropping all the time? Like, that's. Yeah,
I don't want to get into the
weeds here.

I'll just jump in here. So the
catholic church pushes some of this conversation
because for the Catholic Church, it's the
potential of life that has to be
protected.

Potential of life.

So they'll even say, like, you can't
use contraceptives. So that's a stance that
we don't advocate for at CLC. So
in the sermon yesterday, we specifically said
life begins at conception. That's because anything
before that. Sure, there's a potential for
life, but if there isn't this combining,
then it's just my sperm and her

(02:04:13):
egg. Right. Like, it's not an actual
life that's formed yet. We put it
at conception because at conception is when
DNA is created. So it's a unique
human being. And so the reason why
we set life there is because from
there, then you could walk through. I
don't think we have time to go
through the sled argument of when is

(02:04:35):
a life a life? Is it based
on its size? Well, then Carlton's more
alive than I am because he's bigger
than me. Is it about the level
of development? Well, then there's a lot
of people walking around living right now
that have, you know, underdeveloped parts of
their anatomy. So are they no longer
alive? Is it based on location? Does
that mean that my value in my
life changes when I go from work

(02:04:56):
to home and when I go from
inside the house to outside the house?
No. Location doesn't determine life. And then
what did I miss? That was environment.
The error. I don't know. It's. There's
a whole thing.

Right. But our stance is that life
begins.

Our stances, life begins when it's created
life. A new life is created. So
that DNA strand, it is. It is
a human being. It has. It has
life.

And it happens the moment a sperm
and egg.

Yeah.

Get together.

Yeah. At that moment. So we're actually.
Our technology is actually getting to the
point where we can almost, like, take
that DNA cell at that. At that
stage and determine eye color, hair color,
all of it, because it's present in
the DNA. We're just getting the technology
to be able to identify this combination
or this sequence in the DNA correlates
to this facial feature. Right. But we're

(02:05:44):
actually getting to the point where we
can determine those things. It's wild.

Right. But overall not just ClC, Stan,
because legislation is happening within christian morals.
So as it continues say to even
so you have Catholics with that. But
even pre to that, if a Christian
is like, okay, if we decide like
in legislation now embryos count. But CLC's

(02:06:13):
stance is no. When sperm and egg
come together, I guess as things continue
to evolve and the Christian is trying
to figure out whether it's them trying
to experience fertility or a doctor having
to do that and have those freedoms,
where does that, where does that line

(02:06:35):
happen? Within that. So that then you
have within that some choice.

Yeah. So I think that that for
me it's a less complicated issue than
it may be for others. And I
think for me that's because I want
to err on the side of life.
So I would rather take a more
extreme stance of when life begins, even
if I believe it starts here. I
would rather back that up than move

(02:07:03):
that forward if that makes sense. Like
I would, I would rather say, okay,
life begins at conception, but this legislation
is going to deem that it's, it's
actually life doesn't begin until the 6th
month.

So you find a heartbeat or something.

Right? So yeah, heartbeat law, right. I
would actually, I wouldn't be in favor
of that. I think that you're moving
in the wrong direction. If somebody is
like, well, you know, let's protect sperm
and eggs. I don't agree with that,
but I would rather go that direction
than this direction. Does that make sense?

I know it makes sense what you're
saying, what you believe. So sure. But
I guess you can disagree.

That's fine.

Yeah, I guess if going back. So
going in that extreme then that's saying
anyone who can't, and let's just.

Be clear, that is absolute extreme.

Yeah, yeah. But if someone is having
an issue with fertility then that means
that, well based off of this, then
you, I.

Mean like if the law tells them
that they can't freeze their eggs, like
they have to go to another state
and do it there. I mean like
I think that if they're having issues
with having children and they need to
do some things before the life has
begun, before the sperm and the egg

(02:08:16):
meet in order to preserve an egg
or sperm to have children later, like
I think that's fine. And if your
particular state doesn't allow that then, you
know, you should have the freedom or
that you should have you. I think
you currently have the freedom to go
to another state and do it. And
I think that's why this part of

(02:08:36):
the reason why the Supreme Court pushed
it down. I think that we look
at the Roe v. Wade thing as
the supreme. The Supreme Court denied abortion
in the country. They didn't deny abortion
in the country.

And the proof of that is that
there was more abortions in 2023 after
that declaration than before.

And I think the language behind what
the Supreme Court did, like the media,
was so wrong that they didn't deny
abortion. What they did was they gave
the power to your local government where
you can vote in your state whether
or not you want this to be
in your state or not, because it
being on a national level, that doesn't.
That kind of removes the ability of

(02:09:16):
the voter to say what they want
locally. Right. So if you live in
a red state, for example, and you
don't want abortion, but you have a
president that promotes abortion, then you are
stuck with the decision of the national.
You know, the national government. But what
the supreme Court did was they said,

(02:09:37):
okay, we're going to take it out
of our hands and put it in
your hands kind of on a local
level. So now you and your, you
know, the people in your state can
vote this at a local level, which
would be different from Illinois. So if
you live in Illinois, you're probably like
minded in Illinois and can vote one
direction. If you live in Indiana, you're

(02:09:58):
probably like minded in Indiana and can
vote in another direction. And I'm not
pro abortion, but to me, that would
seem like a win for people who
are pro abortion because now they have
the authority at their local level to
determine if their state can have abortion
or not. But it was, you know,
looked at as the supreme Court is

(02:10:20):
denying abortion across the board, which wasn't
the case.

And I will say, I think that
one side of the argument has done
a great job of framing the language
around choice. Right. Because it. It's so
sexist of me to say, no, a
woman shouldn't have this right to choose.
But what we're negating is the fact
that this is a life. So it's.
It is. Okay, so you're saying that
the woman has a right to choose.

(02:10:43):
Well, what if she's pregnant with a
female? It's a. It's a girl baby.
Okay, so which women? And Taisha's rolling
her eyes. I mean, she's like this.
You're such an idiot. But look, go
with me on your lot. It's. It's
the logic of the side, right? Like,
so which woman gets the right to
choose? You get to choose to kill
the baby? Does the baby get to
choose to live? Like, I've got a

(02:11:04):
hard time with any kind of legislation
that says it's okay to kill babies.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that there's a.

Listen, your mic a little bit.

I know.

Yeah. Break the mouth. The mic in
front of the mouth. I think that
the thing is, is that it's. I
want to say this, you know, with
some delicacy, it's easy for us to
get to the decision because of what
our faith says, what our Bible tells
us. And I believe that the Bible
is the infallible word of God and

(02:11:38):
that it is absolutely true. And so
we can come to a conclusion based
on scripture. But I think that walking
people out to that conclusion needs to
be dealt with cautiously. I think we
need to be really careful of how
we get people to that place, because

(02:12:00):
the same way we can't beat a
homosexual over the head with scripture is
the same way. When someone's making a
tough decision about abortion, can we just
say, oh, no, the Bible says, that's
wrong, you shouldn't do it, and then
going about your life, have the baby,
and then that's the end of it?
I think that care. Love, the redemptive
power of Jesus Christ, the provision of
Jesus, like, all that needs to be

(02:12:23):
shared and brought to the person that's
making that tough decision in their life,
because it is a tough decision because
they're looking at their own life and
their ability to get through pain and
trauma and whatever else, whatever the story
is that got them to the place
of having an unwanted pregnancy. And I

(02:12:45):
think that we, as a church, we
can't just give the answer. We have
to walk somebody out through that tough
decision. Yeah, through the. Through that story
that they have care.

For them all the way through.

Care for them all the way through
that. And then there could be options
for them after the birth of the
child that we need to be able
to share and promote and help with
that decision. And I think that what
we can't do is just come to
the conclusion straight away and say, all
the Bible says that it's a life
and you can't abort it. End of

(02:13:20):
the story. That's the conclusion that we
hold in our hearts as believers in
Christ, but also as believers in Christ.
There is tremendous trauma and pain and
hurt that may have happened for them
to get to this point where that's
even an option for them. And we
have to be very careful in walking
someone out in that story and in
that process because we could do more

(02:13:42):
damage to a person with that conclusion
than we could if we cared for
them properly.

Yeah, that was very pastoral, Carlton.

But I think you couldn't. You couldn't
say that in the eight minutes that
you had.

And we're going to get to a
couple of things with this. You know,
please jump in.

No, I agree. I think also, even
with the state of culture. And so
I know we're getting to the questions.
One thing I think that you did
well in sharing what and putting scripture
to. One thing that I thought during
the message, because it's such a sensitive
and you have all these stories within

(02:14:23):
there is that because male voices are
so high within this subject, I'm like,
I wish soul was on the stage.
I do. Because you almost have to.
Not almost, you have to amplify male,
male, not idea, but male experience into

(02:14:47):
this. Because once you start getting and
talking into abortion, that conversation, whether consciously,
I would say subconsciously, more consciously, is
targeted towards women. And so with that,
I feel men can kind of check
out this is a women's issue. And
so since it's a human rights issue,

(02:15:10):
then I think having women to be
very vocal and present within that really
helps. And also men's voices or men
being brought to this, men grieve abortion
as well. Also, men have been historically

(02:15:31):
pressured, like they pressure girls, young girls.
And so I don't think. I hope
a guy didn't leave. Somebody did. Left
that room thinking that we were talking
about women because we kind of talked
a little bit at the end. But
of men, you are very much a
part of this abortion space, too. If

(02:15:52):
in the conversation of us pushing, say,
human rights, because in that a lot
of times women are left alone or
the focal point within that based off
of the person carrying the baby. So
that was just something that I thought
of. And I know we'll get into
more detail.

One of the coolest comments that I
got from a guy after the service
was I always just view this as
a woman's right to choose. Like it
is a woman's issue. So I'm just
gonna stay out of it. And he
said, I never once considered what does
the Bible actually say about this? And
so I don't know if, you know,
I think that soul and I being
up there together probably would have been
great because I think you do need

(02:16:30):
both perspectives. I think that there are
probably people.

In the auditorium, how many women checked
out?

That's what I was like, because I'm
a guy on the stage, because it's
been narrative culture has said, like, this
is, guys don't have a right to
talk about this. And so I think
that there probably were people that tuned
me out because of it, but I
think there's also people that needed to
hear a guy stand on the stage
and talk about this. And so, yeah,
it's just, it's sticky, it's ugly. But

(02:16:56):
I. So the question, the specific question
we were at was, are there biblical
references for the right to choose? And
there just isn't. Like, I actually did
hear a preacher. It was a progressive
Christian, which we can get into all
of those details that tried to use.
What's the verse? It's in the Old
Testament where God is basically, it's through

(02:17:16):
one of the prophets, and God is
saying, I give you choice today. Choose
life or choose death. He's like, see,
God is pro choice. And I'm like,
you are. Somebody should take away your
Bible because you don't know how to
read it. That's just so messed up.
That is not a pro choice scripture.
There is no pro choice scripture.

I think also, especially in the Old
Testament, there are so many examples because
women were not looked at as prizes,
that there is no way a woman
would have been able to have a
choice of keeping a child. So when
Tamar is raped, you know what I
mean? Those situations where the reason why

(02:17:57):
it's not in the Bible, because it
was written by men, and she wouldn't
have even been able to make that
decision on her own. And so I'm
not taking away from the, from what
the Bible says, but I'm also looking
at historically, what happened in the Old
Testament often is that, like, women definitely
were not, like, viewed in a way

(02:18:17):
to have an opinion.

Probably more in the New Testament than
the Old Testament.

Well, I would just. I would push
back on that because the Bible is
actually very proud women. And there is
a progressive argument against that. It fails
exegesis. I mean, the fact that Deborah
is a leader, there's several of these
stories in the Old Testament and the
New Testament. So I think that if
this was a stance that God wanted
to say, something about the fact that

(02:18:42):
the Bible was written by men does
not play into, like, I'm sorry, but
that that shouldn't even be part of
the conversation because it does not apply
in this scenario. Because it is. Yes,
scripture was written by man at the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So if
God wanted to say a woman should
have a right to choose, there's a
lot of law that was given to

(02:19:02):
Israel, the one that we talked about
in Exodus, where if a woman gets
hit, like, all of that was a
woman's right. So, like, if God wanted
to say something on this, that choice
was up to the woman, he would
have said it.

Yeah, in pertaining to. I wasn't saying.
In pertaining to. Say.

You were given evidence of evidence that.

There are plenty of. There are plenty
of things. And it's not just pregnancy,
where women, like, they're just their voices
of what they would have chose are
not, like, if you get pregnant based
off of a rape or anything, like,
yeah, you. You have to keep that
baby, and you're gonna be looked at

(02:19:46):
as. Yeah, definitely, like, no value if
that happens to you. So. But you.
Yeah.

All right, let's. Let's get to the
questions. Or back to the questions. So
why are believers pro birth but not
pro life? And then they clarified that
by saying they don't support laws to
provide insurance, et cetera, for children from
birth to 18. It to me. So.

Insurance.

Yeah, I love insurance. Carlton's about to
jump in all. All over this, but
I just want to say that it's
really. It's really love you. Whoever asked
this question, you can't connect those two
things. Those are two separate issues. So
somebody can absolutely be pro life. And
even saying that they're pro birth, that's
part of a narrative that's being proposed
by the opposing side. We're not pro

(02:20:34):
birth. We're pro life. 100%. Christians are
pro life. Pro life and universal healthcare
are two different conversations. So I just
want to throw that out there, but
I do want to get into why
some people will have that view of
they just care about the birth happening,

(02:20:54):
but they don't care about the kid
after the birth. And I think that
there's a. There's a negative narrative around
that that is both false and true
at the same time. And so I
want to address that.

I think somebody. Maybe somebody needs to
correct me, but universal healthcare is predominantly.
The argument is for adult having the
right to healthcare, because kid care has
been a staple in the United States
for a very long time. Like, chip
in Illinois is not even a Democrat

(02:21:25):
Republican issue at all. Like, children get
health care almost immediately. Like, no matter
what. Like. And I'm not sure about
the argument. Like, somebody may have to
give me a little bit of history
behind it, but I think universal health
care is adults healthcare issue and not
a child like, children's healthcare goes beyond

(02:21:47):
when Obamacare or healthcare dot Gov became
a thing. I mean, I had chip.
I was born in 1982, so I
think that was it. Maybe because I'm
in Illinois, maybe. I don't know. But
from what I understand, healthcare for children
has been a universal thing in the
United States since whenever. I don't know
when that started, but.

And then you can go to an
emergency room regardless of what you.

Oh, absolutely. You can go to the
emergency room. A child can see a
primary care doctor at any age up
to 18 with no issues of needing
money or insurance or anything. And some
of the best, you know, a lot
of people argue some of the best
insurance is faith based insurance. Like, what
is it?

I don't remember the name.

Yes, there's a faith based insurance. That's
a collective.

Yeah.

That you give money. Yeah. Samaritan's purse.

There you go. There you go.

Samaritan's purse. You. You give collectively towards
a pot. And people who are in
need can receive out of that pot.
And you give. You give based on
your needs or your ability to give.
And you get, you know, the details
of whatever the sickness is or know
whatever, and you get an opportunity to

(02:23:03):
pray over the people, and it is
really cool. And I believe that that
promotes the fact that christians are for
insurance for children after.

Yeah, that's. That's what I say. I
would say that there's, when I said
that there's truth and there's lies on
both sides of that claim, the lie
is that christians have actually been. So
if you look at the stats for
orphanages, for adoption rates, for all that,
christians are always proportionally higher on that
list than anyone else. So, like, that

(02:23:36):
christians are leading the way in care.
The problem is not all christians are
doing that. And there's plenty of christians
that are like, abortion is wrong. I
ain't helping you after the baby's born.
And so, yes, we need to take
a more active stance. I mean, Bible
tells us to care for the widows
and the orphans. Right? And so I
think that applies in this conversation. So

(02:23:57):
we need to push for the life
of the child, but we also need
to care for the life of the
child.

And I also think that that question
is assuming that Republicans are Christians and
Democrats are not Christians or that christians
aren't Democrat or don't vote in that
direction. Like, I don't think that that's
true at all. I mean, Obamacare came
from Mitt Romney's Massachusetts universal health care.

(02:24:26):
Like, he took that as the blueprint
the base for it. And that's a
Republican. Like, I don't understand where, where
that's coming from. Like, universal healthcare is
not necessarily the answer for children having
insurance. Like I said, children been having
insurance longer than universal healthcare has been
a topic.

Yeah, I just brought it in there
because that was the, that was their
clarifying statement. But it is. It is
a problem that, that. What do we
talk about? We talk about the appearance
of evil a lot, right? So, like,
if you look at believers and you're
like, but believers aren't caring for, for
kids after birth, then maybe we need
to step up our game. Maybe we

(02:25:06):
need to be doing more of it.
I think I would argue that we
are doing a lot if it might
just not be enough. And so what
can we do more in that regard?
That's why I love that we partner
with pregnancy aid south suburbs, because a
lot of their programming is actually post
care. Right. They do counseling with people
essentially to say, hey, don't get an
abortion. Right. So that's part of what

(02:25:28):
they do. But a huge part of
what they do is actually the after
birth care. How do they care? They
do prenatal stuff for the woman during
the pregnancy. They care for the woman
during the pregnancy, then even post. And
then we work with, like, together we
cope. And love Inc. Both in this
area, are very active in. How do
we care for a mother after birth?

Yeah.

Tiff, anything to add?

No.

You're waiting for this next question.

No, it's not that. I just don't
really have. Yeah.

All right. Should christians get abortions under
circumstances such as rape, too young or
if the father doesn't want the baby?
And so there's, there's. It's a really
weird grouping of categories there. Rape, young,
and daddy doesn't want a baby.

Forget the dad.

Yeah, yeah. Daddy doesn't want the baby.

Right. Like, he doesn't want the child.

But what I. What I do want
to add in there and what. We'll
talk about this in a second. Cause
I had a request from Jordan, so
this one's for you, Jordan. What about
life saving measure? Should christians get abortions
under. Are there any circumstances in which
a Christian should get an abortion?

I do believe so.

Okay. What would those be?

So I was trying to think through
this. Well, one, the life altering thing
of, you gotta choose if, hey, it's
either you or the child. And so
that being the fact, if I choose
myself, then I'm gonna choose myself because
I can't take care of this baby

(02:27:11):
if I'm gone. But when it comes
to.

And usually that argument is even. It's
bigger than that. Like, if the mother
dies, the baby dies too. Like, so
a lot of times when they're talking
about like the life saving measure, it's
like, well, if one of them dies,
the other one's gonna die. Right? So
you can choose two deaths or you
can choose one death.

And so when it comes to. So
I was thinking about this earlier. So
we come to like, the end goal
of saying that abortion is murder. When
I think of immediate. So I could
think broadly, and I think this pertains
also when we were talking about even
with, like, gay marriage, walk with me.

(02:27:51):
Marriage, life, I know that they're different.
If your immediate family, we're going to
say your sibling or your child or
your mother, I don't know, but someone
immediate to you experiences, say gang rape.
And so this woman or this young

(02:28:12):
woman has experienced some. Something very, very
brutally happened to her. And from that
she is now pregnant. And so here
she is pregnant. She has extensive trauma
that, sure, you can get to the
end goal and say an adoption would

(02:28:33):
be good, like, this is too much,
but this mom has to now walk
through ten months of trauma to no
end. Suicidal thoughts, things that put her
actually in a lot of harm mentally
and emotionally for ten months based off

(02:28:56):
of involuntary. And so, yeah, involuntary conception.
And so those questions of. Because I.
It would be easy from afar. Yeah,
it would be tough. But what can
a person do? Because you can CLC,
like, we have grief share and we

(02:29:18):
have like, lay counseling where we can
connect someone like we to a therapist.
But when it comes to, say, someone
in your immediate family, how do you
walk that through with someone that is
close to you? That is, you see
them beat, bruised, all these different things,

(02:29:38):
and walk them through this. This ten
months of trauma so that they do
not abort the child, but could within
the process end their life.

Yeah. So that is a. It's a
very heavy scenario. It is one in
which, though I would say it's still
not a justification for abortion, that even
in the cases of rape and incest,
man, there are horrific stories out there.

(02:30:13):
You know, twelve year old girl getting
raped and is pregnant, that is absolutely
horrific. I still would not be in
favor of that twelve year old getting
an abortion. I think that family has
to walk that very, very painful, very
difficult road with them. But if it's
life that's growing inside of her, it's.

(02:30:34):
We don't have the right to terminate
that life because of the sins of
the father. If that makes sense. And
so, yeah, this is probably a really
unpopular stance to take, and I get
that. And there's probably people listening to
this that are really upset at me
for it. But I do not believe
that rape or incest or being too

(02:30:55):
young or the father not wanting a
baby is justification for murder, because that,
this is what we're talking about. And
I think it's. It becomes easier to
talk about it for people when they
remove that murder language. And that's why
the. The side that's in favor of
abortion has tried to change this to
the language around this to make it
not feel so definitive. But it's. It's.

(02:31:17):
If it's life and you're killing it,
that's murder right there. There's no other
language for that.

I think that there's. I think that
we have to lean on the power
of God with these stories.

Yeah.

Like, I don't think that there's a
story that humanity can come up with
that is greater than the redemptive power,
the love and the care that Jesus
has for us. And so for that.
That person that's going through that. Yeah.
That experience is traumatic and it's life
changing. And suicidal thoughts can certainly come,

(02:31:55):
and there's a risk for that as
well. But I don't think that there
is anything that we can go through
on this earth or at any time
that's greater than God's love for us.
And God can help us get through
and come out of absolutely anything, including
the absolute worst possible thing that could

(02:32:17):
happen to us. And in the depths
of that story that a person could.
Could go into all the way to
the point of suicidal thoughts. I think
Jesus can reach down in any depth
of your life, of your hurt, of
your trauma, and struggle and pull you
out of it. And so the. I

(02:32:38):
guess the argument would be that is
there anything that can happen to you
in life that God can't redeem you
from? And for me, that answer is
no.

And not redeem you from, but redeem
the situation.

Yeah.

Bring healing.

Bring healing to it. Right. Yeah. So
I don't think that there's. Because you
can. You can have horrible stories like,
like that story. I mean, that is
absolutely.

Yeah. My. Is absolutely worst. Worst case
scenario.

Yeah. But I believe that Jesus is
greater than any story or anything that
could happen to us.

Yeah. And that's where faith community has
to step in and walk with that
child.

That takes work to walk with that
woman. That's not easy at all. It
takes a lot of care and a
lot of work. And is the church
equipped for yes and no? Prayer needs
to happen. Like, support needs to happen.
Like, there's a ton of work that
needs to happen, and it's, it's not

(02:33:38):
without trying.

Yeah. And I will just add that
there are, there are a lot of
stories out there where I was actually
going through Reddit the other day in
preparation for all this, and somebody had
posed a question on Reddit of, is
there anyone here that is the product
of rape or incest? And hearing the
stories like it was, it was both

(02:34:00):
heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time.
Of people that talked about how. Yeah,
there was, one of the top comments
was about somebody. It was, their grandfather
raped their mother. So it's rape and
incest. And they talk about the trauma
of going through that. They talk about
how their mother handled it with them
and teaching them about it. But, like,

(02:34:21):
this is a person that's living a
life that's impacting the world, that's doing
incredible things. And so, like, to say
that it's okay to just remove that
potential from the earth just because of
something traumatic, I just, it breaks my
heart. But I have to say, no,
don't, don't get an abortion. Even in
those extreme cases and even the two

(02:34:42):
young thing, this is Joanie's story. She
shares it openly, so I don't think
she'll be mad at me for talking
about it on the podcast. But she,
I think she found out she's pregnant.
She was either 14 or 15 years
old, and there was people in both
sides of the family involved that were
saying, you need to go get an
abortion. And she's like, I thank God
that at that young age, I still

(02:35:03):
said, no, that's not right. And now
she's got an amazing daughter in college,
and she loves her. And even the
family members that were telling her to
get an abortion now love the daughter.
And it's one of those things where
it's like a beautiful life came from
this, so don't ruin it kind of
randomly. I was looking some stuff up.

(02:35:24):
I didn't even know this before. Jesse
Jackson is the product of rape.

Really?

Yeah. His mother was raped. So, you
know, for those of you that really
like Jesse Jackson.

Right?

Yeah, I believe. I haven't met a
person who has not, not decided to
do that, even after that, that they're
like, I'm so happy to be here.
And if that didn't happen, that I
wouldn't be here. And now I have
this child that is doing amazing things.

(02:35:56):
And so I personally if anything happened,
I would hope that people will walk
me through that so that I can
overcome that. And so I'm for that.
I think that just in conversation for
someone in the acknowledgement of. I don't.
It's. I'm saying extreme, but it happens

(02:36:21):
a lot to people. And so it's
more common than may be said. And
so how to. When it comes to.
Especially when you don't have a lot
of time to share of these different
scenarios. Like you mentioned, parents forcing you
to have abortions, that's really hard. I
didn't even want this. You know what

(02:36:42):
I mean? My parents made me do
this. Or all those different scenarios that,
like.

Feeling pressure from the guy.

Feeling pressure from the guy, and so.

Cause he's a bond.

I'm not the one that made that
sin. I'm not the one that made
the sin. My parents are the ones.
But that's not geared, like, they're not
taking that message in. I'm the woman
who can see the baby is taking
that message in. And so how to.
Within those community spaces, how to really
walk through something, like, unbearable with someone.

(02:37:14):
A kid that I grew up with,
his mom, she was 16, and she
was raped by a family member, and
so she had him. I'm so happy
that he's here. He's probably a year
or so younger than me. Me. But
the abuse his mom gave him, because
anytime she saw him, she thought of
that guy. And so that longing and

(02:37:37):
that is an example of someone not
being walked through in a good way,
that her son felt all of that,
him getting physically abused by her verbally,
all those different things, because of no
proper way to be walked through from
a situation like that. That happens.

So, yeah, we've got to care for
people. Ultimately, that's. That's really what it
is. So I. This is the part
for Jordan, so if you're listening, I
do make the exception for life saving
measures. So. And that's. I don't know
if that's a popular opinion or not,
but it is. So if this is

(02:38:19):
a lifesaving measure, though, I don't even
categorize that as abortion, because the goal
of an abortion is to terminate a
life. The goal of that procedure is
to save a life. It's to preserve
life. And so. And it really does
come down to, okay, without the abortion,
most likely we have two deaths, or
I shouldn't even call it abortion, because
I don't think that that's what it

(02:38:39):
is, but. So without the procedure, you're
gonna be too dead. With the procedure,
there's probably going to be one death.
And even in that, the goal is
to keep the child alive.

Right.

So, like, my mother was. Was approached
with that. It was, you know, 39
years ago. I don't even think they
were. They were categorizing it as abortion
at the time, but her blood pressure
was so high, there was. There was
a complication in the pregnancy. And I
was. I don't know how many weeks
I was, but it was. I wasn't
very viable. And so the doctor said,

(02:39:12):
we need to. We need to take
the baby or you're going to die.
And she got the entire church praying.
Her grand. My grandmother started praying, got
a whole team of people, and it
was like, the doctor was like, we
have a set time. If your blood
pressure isn't down by this time, we
have to take the baby. And they
came, they checked her, and at that
moment, everything dropped back into normal levels.

(02:39:34):
So, like, I was saved, but even
in that moment, like, it was, they
were still gonna do everything in their
power to keep me alive. Right. It's
like the goal of it wasn't, we're
going in there to kill Brent. The
goal was, we're going in there to
save Chris. And so I think that's,
for me, that's the goal of the

(02:39:54):
life saving measure. And so I personally
wouldn't categorize that. And maybe somebody corrects
me, maybe it's the proper language for
it. I wouldn't categorize that as a
boy abortion, because in my eyes, the
purpose of abortion, the purpose of that
are two different things. But, yeah. So
I absolutely 100%, if it's a life
saving measure that's acceptable, that's okay.

Yep.

Someone asked me because of the specific
words, like with murder, and they were
asking, well, what is the Bible stance
when it comes to war?

Yeah. So that's the interesting thing. We
don't get into this very often, but
there's some that try and use the
Bible to say, thou shalt not kill,
when the language used is, thou shalt
not murder. And so there is this
unlawful termination of life. So killing and
war would be justified. It would be

(02:40:46):
lawful under biblical stance. And we see
that because God commands them to go
to war, God commands them to fight
their enemies. If you're. If you're killing
somebody as an act of war within
a sanctioned war, like, we're not talking
about terrorism or anything, or if you're
killing somebody in an act of self

(02:41:06):
defense, again, to preserve life of others.
So there's. There's been some mass shooters
that they're killed. The person that killed
the mass shooter is not a murderer.
So that that would be the distinction.
So, yeah, the Bible is okay with
killing. It just has to be done
the right way, justified. I don't know

(02:41:27):
what the right language.

For that is under the authority of
God.

Yeah. Yeah. Not murder, not unlawful.

Yeah.

That help at all with that question?

Yeah, there's a man, I don't know
where it is. In the, in my
Bible reading, God tells the Israelites to
wipe out a group of people, people
because they have sinned against him. So
this was their punishment. That God was
using the Israelites to enforce that punishment.

It was an act of judgment.

So there was something that's outside of
the scripture detailing something that they did
against God, that God says, okay, you're
going to get punished in this way.
And he used, I'm reading the story
of the Israelites, but you see this
story veer off into eliminating this group
of people, and it's very quick in

(02:42:18):
scripture because they didn't follow my instructions.
And then it just goes back into
the story of the Israelites and it's
like, whoa, whoa, God, I want to
know that story. Like, what did they
do wrong? What happened? What did you
tell them to do that they didn't
do? And then it's like, you know,
but that kind of thing is ordained
by God. Something that.

Yeah. And honestly, that one's, that one
even goes, goes beyond that. Like, there's
so much we could talk about within
this, this context because, like, some of
those passages that talk about, go in
and completely, utterly wipe them out. The
very next verse says, don't marry their
women. If, if you do the first
thing, that was the second thing, even

(02:42:56):
a, even a part of the conversation.
And so there is a talk, you
know, in theology of, there's some language
that's used that is, it's like, man,
the bears slaughter the packers, right? This
year. Do I mean that? So, like,
literally kill every single one of them?
No. And so there's, there's hyperbolic language,
there's military language. Military terminology and language.

(02:43:18):
And so, like, there, that's a whole
apologetics course that we could do on,
on that. But that has nothing to
do with abortion.

There you go.

So stay on subject, Brent. I'm just
double checking to make sure that we
got all of this.

It's a tough subject, though.

Yeah.

And it's something that we have to.
We know what the conclusion is. We
know what the answer is. But like
I said, getting to that place. We
have to be very careful in walking
people out in that decision and that
choice and the potential trauma and hurt
that they have experienced to even for
that question to even be an option

(02:43:54):
for them, the fact that that's an
option for them means that there's more
to. To this story than just that
decision. And so we, as a church,
as a body of Christ, really have
to be careful, and we have to
be helpful in walking people through the
trauma and hurt that they're experiencing.

Yeah. The only other question we had,
I think we've already answered, what does
God's word say about life in the
womb and abortion? It doesn't talk about
abortion. It does talk about not killing,
and it does talk about the value
of life.

He needed me, and my mother's wrong.

And the one law that we have
that even revolves around this, it was
an abortion. It was an accidental termination
of the pregnancy. But it shows us
the value of that.

It was an equivalent value of life.

Yeah. And even just the fact that
the scripture there uses the language, you
pay life for life. So that child
was life, but it didn't become life
when it was prematurely caused to evacuate
the womb. It was life before that.
So, yeah, only thing that I want
to add to this, and we'll wrap

(02:44:56):
this up, and I think this is
now, nobody put a timer on the
screen for me, so I don't know.
But I think this is probably our
longest podcast in history. The only thing
I want to say is, for anybody
that has had an abortion that's listening
to this, and here's my language. Here's
me talking about how this is wrong,
this is bad, this is murder. I

(02:45:16):
do want you to know that I
love you. I'm not condemning you. I
do. I recognize that everybody's story is
complicated, it's messy, it's difficult. Who you
were at that point and who you
are now may not be the same
person that may have been pre faith
in Christ, that may have been post
faith in Christ. I don't know. I
don't know your story, but I do
know that God's grace is bigger than

(02:45:37):
all of it.

Absolutely.

His love, his mercy, his forgiveness. That
in every one of these stories, every
one of these situations, there is redemption.
That's the gospel message. Now, as Paul
said, because of grace, should we keep
on sinning so that grace can abound
more? No, I do say just because
God's grace is there doesn't mean you
should go out and do more of

(02:45:59):
it. One of the things that broke
my heart this past week is, I
found there was an instagram post that
I guess got really popular a while
back. I didn't even see it, but
it was a woman wearing a t
shirt that said, I've had 27 abortions
or 28 abortions or something like that
on the shirt. And it was just.
She was proud of it. And it
was like, I can't. My mind can't

(02:46:19):
even wrap around that you would do
that thing not once or twice or
three times or a dozen times, but
that many times like that is just
heartbreaking for me. So I just. I
plead with everybody that there's other options
out there. This is not the one.
And I will say that there's a
beautiful, redemptive story. One of the people

(02:46:40):
that actually works with past that was
a member of our church. She had
had multiple abortions in her life to
the point where she felt like she
couldn't be redeemed from this and then
had an amazing encounter with God. God
restored her, healed her, and she went
on to become a counselor for women

(02:47:00):
that are facing abortion. And so she
used her own personal story, her own
personal pain to bring health and healing
to others and to help them not
make the same decision. So that's. It's
just one of those cool moments of
what God can do in. In these.
In these situations.

So that's great.

All right, so politics. Keep Jesus focus.
You know, stop being a jerk to
other people that vote differently than you.
LGBTQ, it's sin, but we love you,
and we need to treat people with
respect and honor and love, and we
balance truth with love. And that's complicated.
That's messy, and abortion is murder. Don't

(02:47:39):
do it. And if you need help
in that area, come talk to us.

Yeah.

And how would they get a hold
of you?

Yeah. So you can email me directly.
Brentlc TV. And I'd be happy to
answer your questions or direct you in
the right path. You can, if you're
in the area, past pregnancy centers, pregnancy
aid, south suburbs, you can google them.
They've got a location here in Tinley
park, but they've also got. What do
they got? Like country club Hills, Richmond

(02:48:07):
park, somewhere around there as well. They've
got a few different locations in this
area, and so they provide a lot
of ongoing care. But you can start
with talking to me. You can email.
Counselinglc TV. We've been promoting our counseling
ministry here at CLC a bunch in
this series. We just talked about mental
health last week, so I'm pretty sure
Kiana's gotten lots of emails from from

(02:48:28):
that, but counselingLC TV or Brent TV
or just call the office and the
number there, 708-429-7729 or wherever you're watching
this video, if they've got a comment
section, drop something down there and somebody
will get that over to me. So
cool.

Brilliant.

Well, thank you both for hanging out
for the last like 8 hours.

I'm gonna pass out as soon as
this is over.

Oh.

My eyeballs was starting to be.

Like, I hope we didn't leave anything
unsaid that needed to be said. I'm
sure there's plenty more we could say,
but yeah, no, not at all. I
am answering the final 20 questions this
week. On Wednesday, we're recording on Monday.
I'll have that video of answers on
Wednesday. I'm not sure when this podcast
will live, but look for that. Probably

(02:49:16):
at the same time you're listening to
the podcast. Those 20 questions will be
available to you as well. And yeah,
good times. All right, thanks for hanging
out. Next week we're going totally cerebral.
We're gonna jump into your heads and
talk about the trinity.

Heavy to heavy.

From feelings to thought. So, yeah, we're
gonna talk about one of the most
complicated and one of the most essential
doctrines of Christianity, the Trinity. So hope
to see you there. God bless.

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