Roy Cooper is running for Senator of North Carolina. When he was governor, he released 3,500 criminals from prison because of COVID. 51 of those criminals were serving life sentences. Why? Why would a governor do this? We'll explain here with a warning from Numbers 4.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. This is where we take the news of the day and we bring it to the Bible so we can walk away with perspective and peace. There are new headlines every day, but Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. Thanks for being here. Let's get to the true story. Soli Deo Gloria. 

Glory to God alone. I know I missed the Super Bowl halftime show. It's now two days after it. So that's old news now. So I apologize that you didn't get my hot take right when it happened. In short, it's degenerate filth that you should keep your kids away from. 

And you. The lyrics are as obscene as you could try to make them. And all the church ladies were right when they said that CBS shouldn't allow Elvis's hips to be on the TV because it's a slippery slope downhill from there to hell. And all those church ladies were right. If we could fast forward the church ladies 50 years from when they were making the argument that Elvis was a bad influence on youth. They'd have a heart attack after they said, we were right. 

If this is what we call normal dancing and lyrics, I'm gonna break. One thing that really annoys me, and then we'll get to the show. It's when people who are talented, they're talented, but then they just sell filth. Lady Gaga, she can sing. She can play the piano. Her little bit she did was lovely. 

She was dressed beautifully and had a nice band behind her that was playing some nice puerto rican music and everyone was dancing nice and it was it was good why can't like why not just be normal why not be good money's in filth i suppose so celebrities and artists just spit out the filth first john 269 the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. All right, let's get to the story of the day. We talked to Michael Watley. Michael Watley is running for Senate in North Carolina. He's running against Roy Cooper. 

Roy Cooper, the Democrat used to be the governor of North Carolina, used to be the attorney general before that. And he's running for Senate. He's got a good name recognition. It turns out that Mike, excuse me, uh, Roy Cooper, when he was running, excuse me, when he was governor, during COVID released 3 ,500 prisoners. Because the NAACP and the ACLU, who've always wanted to release prisoners, said, oh, we can't keep them in prison because they'll get COVID and we don't want them to get the sniffles. And Roy Cooper did it. 

He released 3 ,500 people from prison. 51 of those people were serving life sentences. Why in the world would you release someone who's serving a life sentence? So what's the background here? We should know that one of the reasons why there was a major spike in crime across the country, and blue places in particular, is because in 2014 there was a Supreme Court ruling in California that said California prisons are overcrowded, and that's cruel and unusual punishment, because criminals aren't getting the healthcare that they deserve in prisons. So the Supreme Court said, you've got to fix that problem, California. 

This was back in Moonbeam. What's his name? Jerry Brown's second term. And the state of California, instead of fixing the overcrowding problem by building more prisons, they released a bunch of prisoners into the jails. And then the jail said, well, we're full. So they released a bunch of people onto the streets. 

And then the activists said, well, what if people get arrested? Where are we going to put them? So that's when. the activists in California passed Prop 57, which said, well, let's just not arrest anyone anymore. Let's make it merely a misdemeanor to steal up to $800 worth of stuff. And that was the beginning of the, I shouldn't say the beginning. 

That was a major push forward in the decriminalization movement across our country. And then crime went out of control and then we elected Donald Trump. But in the midst of that, when COVID came along, the NAACP and other prison abolition groups went to governors, blue Democrat governors, and said, we have to release the prisoners. And Roy Cooper did. 3 ,500 of them. And 51 were serving life sentences. 

If you must release someone from prison for whatever reason, you have to release a person from prison. Wouldn't you release the guy who was serving a one -year sentence or someone who was near the end of their sentence, not someone who's serving a life sentence? So now we know who some of these people are. Kids warning, if there's any kids listening right now, but I'll keep it PG. Sean 2 Jenkins murdered a pizza delivery driver. It was an armed robbery inside of a Domino's. 

Life in prison. Simon Janopoulos. He stabbed a person 24 times in the back after he tied him up. Life in prison. Life in prison plus 26 years. Released. 

Shanone McClintock. Convicted first -degree rape and robbery broken broken to a woman's home life in prison released Javier Alexander convicted of two murders unrelated two different unrelated murders life in prison released Eric Johnson first -degree murder murder shot his 22 year old estranged wife in the head Mandatory life sentence for that crime released. I got plenty more. I mean, there's 51 of them you get the idea What in the world so? what's broken here? What's going on? 

How did we get to this point? Now you can go as cynical as you want. The great Jesse Kelly shared a video of a judge in Louisville who let a criminal who was convicted by the jury of his peers, found guilty and recommended 64 years in prison, life in prison. And the judge said, no, no, no, that's too long. I'll give you 30 years. And 30 means like seven. 

for a heinous crime, horrific, horrific, horrific crime to a woman. And unrepentant, like wildly unrepentant, said to the victim in the courtroom, I'll see you in 20 years. Like that level of unrepentant. Why would this judge let this person go? And this is, again, if you want to go down this road, it's great. I'm not going to stop you. 

Jesse Kelly said, everyone would understand this stuff better if they just read about the communist revolutions in China and Russia. You want to kill your political enemies? Who's going to do that for you? Who are you going to get to do that for you? Decent people? No. 

They recruited and protected the scum of every village. So you can say it's that intentional, or you can go down the misguided compassion, the toxic empathy that we've talked a lot about in the last couple of weeks here. Like, oh, poor kid. He never had a chance. Never had anyone love him. Fell through the cracks. 

Oh, he needs to be rehabilitated and all that. And anywhere in between those two. And maybe a little bit of both. What's the Bible say? First, we need to know. that justice is good, is biblical. 

The Bible talks about punishment for evildoers. Proverbs 21 15, when Jesus is done, it is a joy to the righteous. When a person who commits a horrific crime against a woman in this last case that I was just telling you about, when justice is done and that person is put behind bars, that's a joy to the righteous. That's a joy to the woman, the real victim. That's a joy to the rest of us. 

And it's a terror to evildoers when justice is done. Justice protects law -abiding people, and it's very bad for evildoers. It is biblical. for governments to punish criminals. Romans 13 three says governing authorities as God's servants, punish evildoers and bear the sword, not in vain. We had a great caller today who, when I was talking about these horrific things that people did that had been released, he was just lamenting that we've removed God from our society. 

And that's what this all is. And of course he's right. People who commit crimes like this, no question, but also just the whole, just our country in general, that we've created these systems that let people out of jail. That only happens when you have a total disconnection from God and his word. I want to read here a piece of scripture. All of scripture is there for a reason. 

God put it all there for good. This is a seemingly irrelevant one. Those are my favorite kinds. Numbers four, verse one. Numbers four. The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron. 

Sorry, this is my fault. This is numbers four, verse 18. 

The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, let not the tribe of the clans of the Kohothites be destroyed from among the Levites, but deal thus with them, that they may live and not die when they come near to the most holy things. 

colon. Aaron and his son shall go in and appoint them each to his task and to his burden, but they shall not go in to look on the holy things even for a moment, lest they die. " So what's going on here? We have a Levite clan here that's tasked with transporting the tabernacle's most holy items. They're the ones who'd carry stuff on the poles, right? And you couldn't touch them, couldn't touch them. 

If you touched anything, or even looked beyond this curtain into the most holy place, you would die. So here, God said, do these things, do it this way so that no one dies. So what's the lesson we can get from this? First of all, obey God's commands, but also take God's holiness seriously. We are way too casual with God's wrath. We're way too casual with our own justice system here on earth. 

But more importantly, we're too casual with God's wrath. Don't take God's holiness casually. If God says, do this, you better do it. If God says, don't do this, woe to you. If you do it anyway. Now we are sinners, of course, which is why we're going to hell. 

Unless we make Jesus the Lord of our life, then we get to go to heaven forever. But that amazing thing that Jesus did doesn't mean anything. If you don't think you're a sinner and you won't think you're a sinner. If you don't think God is Holy, because you're not, what are you comparing yourself to the guys in jail? Of course you're better than them. You behave better than them, but that's not what you should be comparing yourself to. 

You compare yourself to God's holiness. And if you're doing that, then you won't take breaking his commands lightly. Take God's command lightly. as seriously as the Levites. And the command was don't even look at the holy things. Or else you will die. 

And you will die too. Are you going to heaven? Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website. Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

Don't fall for the left's fake outrages of the day, especially when they are the ones responsible for the genesis of the racism.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. I'm Mike Slater. Thanks for being here. This is where we take the news of the day and we bring it to the Bible so that we can walk away with perspective and peace. There's new headlines every day, but Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. So thanks for being here so we can get the true story. 

Sole Deo Gloria. Glory to God alone. Here's the story of the day. I'm going to bite on this Trump fake racist video controversy. Dumb made up controversies don't work like this anymore. Not like they used to. 

but we'll take a minute on it anyway. So what really happened? The president at midnight last night on Truth Social, which I don't know who's on Truth Social. I think it's like just this MAGA universe thing that Trump supporters are on and Trump himself. And this is a place for him to speak to his base, I guess. I don't see the point of him being there, but he's there and he posts a ton of stuff there all the time. 

He puts only the important things on Twitter and then he goes on Truth Social and posts dozens of things all night long. That's how that worked. And last night, among other things, he posted a 62 second video. And it's a documentary. I don't know what the documentary is from, but it's a clip of a documentary about voting fraud. And this 60 seconds of the 62 second clip is all about how easy it is to hack into voting machines, which, by the way, well, now is not the episode for that. 

But Before the 2020 election, a week before, PBS NewsHour ran a whole 12 or 17 minute piece about how easy it is to hack into Dominion voting machines. But that's not here. 60 seconds of hacking into voting machines easy it is to commit voter fraud. At the end of the video, whoever made the original screenplay of the documentary, in their screen recording, the next video automatically went to another video, but only two seconds of it before that screen recording cuts off. That two second video or two second capture is of a different 55 second AI made video made by a MAGA troll guy. 

And it's the Lion King meme it's like it's like the lion king and all the animals in the jungle are have democrats faces on them and then trump comes in he's a lion right and they all bow down to the lion but the first six seconds of that original video that that 55 second lion king movie the first six seconds has barack obama and michelle obama's heads on monkeys After those six seconds, and it has a weem away, a weem away. And then after that six seconds, it goes to Hakeem Jeffries as a meerkat. Hillary's a warthog. And then AOC and Newsom are donkeys, which aren't in, like, whatever. And then Pritzker's an elephant. And Adam Schiff is a giraffe. 

And Chuck Schumer's a zebra. And Zoran Mamdani is a hyena. And Joe Biden's a mandrill, which is another kind of monkey, but that's not racist. And then the lion walks in and has Trump's head on. Okay. It's very silly video, whatever. 

But because Trump's election fraud video or whoever recorded that originally, whoever screen captured that, that video auto -scrolled into this Lion King video. And for the two seconds of it before the screen recording ended, all people saw were this as monkeys. That's what happened. Now, what's broken? Two things. 

First one's just an aside. My second one's my main point. First one is this uptight pretend being offended at racist tropes that no one thinks is racist anymore. I'm not going to make the argument that Joe Biden is racist. Remember when he called Barack Obama an articulate, clean black man? I'm not going to make the argument that we should be talking about The important issue, this is just a distraction. 

Okay, sure, fine. I'm not going to make the argument that someone in Maryland, a Maryland man, was just charged with attempted murder trying to murder Russ Vogt, the head of OMB. Let me quote this. Police say they were called to a Virginia residence after a witness reported that a man wearing a surgical mask and rubber gloves, who appeared to be concealing a firearm under his shirt, was on Russ Vogt's porch. No one in the media was outraged at that attempted murder of a Trump cabinet member. Only a dumb one -second video. 

Where you can make the argument, I think is a fair argument, is that this is a dumb Trump self -enforced error. And I'll hear the argument that all boomers need to stay off Facebook and stop engaging in all boomer Facebook slop. And that goes for even the press of the United States. Boomer Facebook slop on Facebook. I'm redundant. Boomer Facebook slop is awful and should just be avoided at all costs. 

That's as far as I'll go there. But stop falling for the communist tricks that everything is racist all the time. All the communists want to do is divide. All they want to do is rip open old rules. of racism for their own power. No one is really offended by this. 

It's all an act. It's all pretend outrage. Again, self -enforced error politically? Sure. 

Racist? 

Give me a break. All right. No, here's the real point I want to make. What's really broken here is evolution. Slater, what do you mean? How could you possibly bring the Bible into this story? 

Glad you asked. That's why we're here. Do you know where this racist idea came from that black people are the same as monkeys were that came from evolution. It came from the idea that we all evolved from monkeys, but that black people just haven't fully evolved as much as white people have. This idea, this is evolution. This is the wicked, from the pit of hell idea of evolution that comes not from Christians, but from pagans. 

It sort of started in the early 1800s. There's a scientist named Gregor Johann Mendel. He's an Austrian fella. And he was a scientist, a researcher on pea plants. And he did all the hereditary breeding of pea plants. And he's the one who coined the terms recessive and dominant genes. 

From his research, the eugenicists came and took all that and applied it to their eugenics movement, which is all anti -Christian pagan wickedness, which led to the abortion movement, which said we should kill black people and all undesirables. Margaret Sanger was a leader of that. And she founded what became Planned Parenthood. These racist eugenicists, not Christians, said that in the process of evolution, there was a separation in Africa. white people and black people became separate species and Africans are closer in evolutionary terms to the monkeys that we all came from than the Europeans are. Talk about slop. 

That is pagan, eugenist slop. There were some scientists back then who thought that, uh, maybe they wanted to, even if they wanted to say that man sort of popped out of nowhere, even not from a Christian perspective, but like man started first. Uh, there are scientists that believe like the ancient Greek was the first man, but then as they moved around the planet, man degenerated. So monkeys are degenerate versions of original man. So it was all kind of messed up. And then Charles Darwin came along and Charles Darwin said, no, no, no. 

We are all evolved from a single organism that came about by spontaneous creation. He never even tried to explain how that came about. But that little amoeba turned into a fish, which turned into a frog, which turned into a monkey, which turned into a human. Stupidest idea I've ever heard in my life. None of that's Christian. The Christian view of creation eliminates racism because God made man. 

End of story. We didn't evolve from anything. God made man. Then also God made animals and gave us dominion over the animals. We are not animals. We did not evolve from animals. 

We're separate from animals. And God made man in his image, in God's image. Here's the Bible, Genesis 126. Then God said, let us make man in our image. according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. 

" Genesis 126. There is an unbridgeable gap between human life and animal life. We did not evolve or as some scientists back in the day believe devolved. No, there's no connection. We are distinct. Humans are distinct in our moral, intellectual, and spiritual capabilities. 

And I love it. These evolutionists, they try so hard. 

They'll be like, Oh, well, look, here's a video of a monkey using a tool. 

Remember monkeys made tool. That's it. Monkeys made tools and they broke a stick. off a tree or found a stick and they stuck it in a hole and they eat the ants off the stick. You're like, I don't know. It's not really a tool. 

Show me when monkeys manufacture a miter saw that can challenge the local DeWalt factory. And we'll talk about monkeys can make tools. It's ridiculous. Made in God's image means humans have a soul. Animals don't. We have reason, morality. 

We are a reflection of God's holiness. Now, of course, then Adam sinned. Then we're an enemy of God. But we can be born again and restore that communion. And we all know this. And if you choose not to accept it, then the Bible says you are a fool. 

Romans or worse, Romans 1 .18, actually not worse. We think of a fool is not that bad. We did a segment on this recently, an episode. A fool back in the Bible meant wicked. But Romans 1 .18 says, Invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So they're without excuse. 

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolishness. were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Not the creator. Therefore, God gave them up to their lusts, to their hearts, to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worship and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. 

It's Romans 1 18. The world today worships the teaching of Charles Darwin and evolution. And if you're an idiot, if you believe in the biblical account of creation, but in reality, the fools are the evolutionists and woe to them. I'll quote here, George Whitfield. I saw a movie trailer. He said there's a movie coming out about him called A Great Awakening about the relationship between him and Ben Franklin. 

I can't wait for that. And he gave a sermon about Nicodemus, asking questions about being born again. And in that sermon, Whitefield says, Being made in the very image of God, undoubtedly before the fall, man had no other will but his makers. God's will and Adam's were like unisons in music. There was not the least disunion and discord among them. Now he hath a will as directly contrary to the will of God, as light is contrary to darkness or heaven to hell. 

We all bring into the world with us a carnal mind, which is not only an enemy to God, but enmity itself. Praise God that we can be born again. That comes from paganism and Darwinism that says that man is nothing but a beast as opposed to something separate and distinct and made in the image of God. So if you want to reject monkey and black people tropes, whatever, great, reject them and reject Darwinism and paganism because it's all connected. If we stayed away from Darwinism in the first place, we'd be much better off today. But politically, don't be fooled by people pretending to be outraged by it. 

especially when they're the pagans who believe in evolution themselves, which gave rise to this trope and gives it any ounce of power, whatever it still has today. Rejected entirely and acknowledge that God made all humans in his image. And you can be saved so that you can go to heaven and be with God forever. And for that, I want to play one last clip here. I, I don't endorse Jesse Lee Peterson. 

I don't know enough about him to one way or the other, but his YouTube page where the shorts that make the short videos are hilarious because no one is funnier at repeating the question multiple times, over and over. 

And his guests, I don't know where he finds these people, they refuse to answer his question and he just asks it over and over and it's just great. 

This isn't necessarily one of those clips, but it's still a funny clip nonetheless that I just saw the other day. 

Is a human being an animal? 

No. 

Oh. 

Are you sure? 

Uh -huh. So human beings aren't animals? No. 

Well, I mean, that's not debatable. That's science. Humans aren't animals. 

No, they act like animals when they fall away from God. 

I know they act like animals, you're right, those in that fallen state, but they're not animals when they are God. 

that fallen state. You gotta agree. You gotta agree. 

No, I mean, there's no debating. 

I mean, like you learned this in elementary school. 

Humans are animals. 

Oh, you believe that humans are animals? 

That's not up for debate or discussion. 

So do you believe that humans are animals? 

It is. 

You believe that? 

100%. 

You should go back and beat that teacher. Which one? 

That lied to you about that. I went to the number one teacher. public school in the country. 

No, they lied to you. They do act like animals in a fallen state. 

You believe human beings are in a fallen state? You're taking this to a spiritual conversation, but just on a scientifical, what is platform? Humans are animals. 

Humans are not animals. Unlike animals, humans are created in the image of God, so they're not animals. They do all kinds of crazy things like animals, but they're not really animals. I don't know if you know that, but she went to the number one public school in the country. It's a very scientifical school. Mike Slater dot locals dot com is where we put the episode without commercials and the transcript. Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

The Democrats won a TX state senate race in a district Trump won by 17 points. The lame stream said this is a bellwether for the midterms! In reality, there has never been a less consequential election. But don't forget the Democrat's US Senate candidate and how he justified abortion using the Bible. Woe to him.

Welcome to politics by faith. Thanks for taking time today. I want to talk about this Texas Senate race that happened the other day. And then I want to get to this James Tallarico fella and we'll talk about Mary and Gabriel. That's the plan. So there was a Texas state Senate race last week outside of Fort Worth and a Democrat won it. 

Now Trump won this district by 17 points in the last election and a Democrat won. So the media loved him. This is a bellwether of what's to come for the midterms when the Democrats are going to crush it and the Republicans are going to be crushed. And here we see, even in deep red Texas, we have a Democrat winning this seat that Trump won by 17 points. Would you like to know the full story? Would you like to know what really happened? 

This is a state Senate race that couldn't matter any less. There's no way you could conceive of an election that has less significance than this one. This winner, this Democrat, will not even take office until after the November election. So the same two people, the Democrat who won and the Republican, are going to have another election in November. In the meantime, there will not be any meeting of the Texas state legislature. He will not get sworn in. 

He will not vote. nothing will happen from now until November. He was elected to literally nothing. There was no job that he was elected to. And the people knew that. First of all, there was an ice storm as well. 

So that decreased turnout, but the people knew there was nothing to vote for. He won with 54 ,000 votes. I think she had like 43 ,000 or something. So he won with 54 ,000 votes. The last time there was a real election in this seat, 2022, the winner did not have 54 ,000 votes, but 2 .9 million. And the winner had 2 .4 million. 

So 5 million people voted in this race normally. And in this race, the winner had 50 ,000. There's never been an election in the history of America that has mattered less than this one. Now, what we can gather from this story, and this guy is nothing about Pell Weathers or the Trump administration or anything. What you can gather from this story is that the Democrats are trying to run a new kind of Democrat. We'll put them in the category called bearded white guys. 

Fetterman, now they don't necessarily need beards. It's a little, like Fetterman, I don't think he has a beard, but tough guys, like big, strong, tough guys. Like this guy in Texas was a machinist. You have Fetterman, right? The guy in Maine who turned out to maybe be a Nazi, Graham Platner is running for Senate in Maine. They're running a bearded white guy for Senate in Iowa, Nathan Sage. 

Dan Osborne's running for Senate in Nebraska, another bearded white guy. So the Democrats are trying to shore up their working class white guy union vote play here. Now, is it going to work? Clearly a lot of those guys left when the Democratic Party leaned really hard into the trans queer, right? I mean, they lost a lot of that working class base. Now there's another type of Democrat that that party is throwing out there as well. 

They're trying to run not only bearded white guys, but also Christians. I got to do the air quote Christians. One of these guys is James Tallarico. He's a 36 -year -old state senator in Texas who's running for U . S. 

Senate in Texas, which is great because it's either going to be him or Jasmine Crockett as the Democratic candidate. 

candidate. So the Republicans are going to win in the end, but it's still fun. He, at the top of his bio, he says that he is a Presbyterian seminarian, Presbyterian seminarian. He's leading as a Christian. That's his first, that's my identity is I'm the Christian guy running for the Senate in Texas. I don't know. 

where he's going to seminary or what exactly that means to him. I don't know what he's studying. It's not the Bible. Pro -abortion. So we have a big, big red flag there. And this happened on Rogan. 

He was on Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan's been going to church lately. So Joe Rogan doesn't need someone like this around him spouting ridiculous things like this. 

Here is James Tallarico. But I say all this in terms of, in context of abortion, because before God comes over Mary, and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary's consent, which is remarkable. I mean, go back and read this in Luke. I mean, the angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do. And she says, if it is God's will, let it be done. Let it be, let it happen. 

So to me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create. Creation is one of the most sacred acts that we engage in as human beings. But that has to be done with consent. It has to be done with freedom. And to me, that is absolutely consistent with the ministry and life and death of Jesus. 

And so that's how I come down on that side of the issue. 

Wow. Using the birth of Jesus to justify abortion. Well, Matt Walsh says, this is why I say you cannot be Christian and pro -abortion. Maintaining your pro -abortion position requires you to mutilate the Bible and Christian teaching in unspeakably blasphemous ways. 

This is example 1 ,325 ,000 He's trying to make a biblical argument for abortion. 

Yikes. So, let me play this clip here before we go to Luke, which he said to do. He said, if you look at Luke, and we will, our special that we recorded the other day, that we're gonna come out, I think, tomorrow, here, was about the war on empathy. Hillary Clinton wrote this long article about the conservatives and how conservatives are against empathy. And she quoted Ali Bastaki and Dr. Joe Rigney, and we'll talk to Dr. Joe Rigney, it's great. He was awesome. 

We ran through the whole article with Dr. Rigney. But Hillary makes, in this case, in her article, she makes the argument for abortion from the empathy perspective. And she says, well, why do you conservatives have no empathy for the woman who was raped, who now is forced to have the baby from her rapist? That's always what they go to. I mean, that's like, 0 .00001 % of abortions, but okay, fine. That's what they always go to. 

Here is Allie Beth on the Major Garrett podcast, asked about that argument from Hillary. 

And the moral diagramming of the rape victim who traumatized, feels objectified, criminalized by an offender, does not want to bring a child to term because that would extend all of the things she most felt criminally invasive upon her in the original act of rape. Well, I think all of us would agree that we wouldn't kill a child outside of the womb because he or she was the product of rape. And if we are not killing people outside of the womb because of the circumstances surrounding their conception, then I don't see the moral justification for killing a baby inside the womb because of the circumstances surrounding her conception. The only difference there is time. And are we really killing people based on their location and their age? 

Look, a baby inside the womb is a human being, and he or she should have the right not to be murdered no matter how they were conceived. That's great. Ali Beth is wonderful. There's only one minute left. Let me play the rest of her. 

Let's play her last comment here about empathy itself. The article that Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote had the headline, MAGA's war on empathy. 

Do you figure yourself, do you see yourself as someone who is objectively at war with empathy? No, I don't. I want people to see the vulnerability in what I believe sometimes to be emotional propaganda that gets people to not think about both sides of an issue. And I really want people to approach this as a Christian with this dichotomy of the truth and love. The thing about love that we read as Christians in the Bible is that it is inextricably intertwined with the truth. That's first Corinthians 13, six. 

And so I want us to seek the truth in love, loving other people. while still realizing that order is important, that morality exists, that babies in the womb have value, and that we don't want more Lake and Rileys. 

And so all of this has to play into how we decide on policy. Allie Beth is awesome. First Corinthians 13 6 says, love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. So let's go back to James Tallarico's claim that Mary, excuse me, Gabriel asked Mary if she would be willing to carry to term Jesus Christ. All right, so let's just go. 

Let's see what it says. Luke 1 11. Well, actually, let's go to this. Luke 1 11 is John the Baptist, but let's start here. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled and fear fell upon him. 

But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard. and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son and you shall call him John and you will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. " Now, James Tallarico, this maybe doesn't dispute, debunk what Tallarico said because the angel here is saying that we're going to answer your prayer. So maybe there is some consent here, I suppose. But the angel didn't come down and say, are you sure? Let's jump to the main point. This is also in Luke 1. Now, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee. named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, rejoice, highly favored one. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting this was." Meaning if an angel came to you and said, rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you. It'd be like, why? So she was taken back. 

Then the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary. I'm not skipping any words here. The angel said, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. 

and his kingdom. There will be no end of his kingdom. There will be no end. That's it. There is no asking permission anywhere in this. I don't even know what he's talking about. 

How could he possibly have come anywhere to that conclusion at all? It says, do not be afraid, Mary. He said, do not be afraid, Mary. You found favor with God and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son. Not will you please pretty please with a question mark. Just says you will conceive in your womb. 

What is he reading? Let me read a little more. Then Mary said to the angel, how can this be since I do not know a man? And the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore also that Holy one who is to be born will be called the son of God. Then Mary said, behold, the maid servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word. 

And the angel departed from her. No question marks. The angel didn't say, will you do this? The angel said, you will. She said, let it be. But that wasn't in response to a question. 

That was just her submission. It's really hard to debunk this because that's not what the text said at all. I mean, I guess that's all you have to do. 

He said, well, let me, it's just so crazy. 

God asks for Mary's consent. 

Where? Which is remarkable. 

I mean, go back and read this in Luke. 

We just did. 

I mean, the angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do. 

No, where, when, how, in what way? And she says, if it is God's will, let it be done. Let it be. let it happen. So to me, that is a an affirmation in one of our most 

central stories that creation has to be done with consent. Wow. 

Wow. 

Okay. 

All right. This is interesting. Creation has to be done with consent. 

That's not real because what he's talking about is rape. 

Okay. Now, even if, let's go here. Even if the angel did ask for permission, which didn't happen, just want to be very clear that did not happen, but let's just go with it. That was before Jesus was conceived. What he's talking about is killing God. a baby after it's conceived, after the creation has already taken place. 

Or in Mary's case, she would have the right to kill Jesus after he was conceived, like three months in the womb or something. That is so crazy. 

Listen, all we're asking is for you to stop murdering babies. 

Okay? That's all we want is for you to stop murdering babies. And you really want to do it. and you want to do it so badly you will just make up stuff out of the Bible and that is a dangerous game to play. Woe to you! Now we shouldn't be surprised at this blasphemy at all. 

This Presbyterian seminarian was asked in the New York Times, do you believe Christianity to be more true than other religions? Now the answer is not that it's more true than other religions, it is the only true religion. The proper answer is yes. John 14, six, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the father except through me. I'll never forget this guy who called in my show the other day, like a week or so ago. And he's like a, like a white guy from, he's from California. 

He's like a, like a white guy and he's a Muslim. He said, he's a Muslim. And I said, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. I've never talked to him. 

It's just a guy, like a white guy converted to Islam. 

Right. And, and he said he did it because he couldn't. accept that there was only one way to heaven, as the Bible says. So he went with Islam, I guess. I guess they think there's many ways. I don't know. 

They behead a lot of people who aren't Muslims. I don't know what they... I don't know who told him what that made him think Muslim, Islam is then therefore the way to go. But okay, here's... But I'll tell you, that's what the Bible says. The Bible says there's one way and that's it. 

You may not like it, but I'll tell you this, you cannot reject God's commands. and then expect to go to heaven because that wouldn't be just of God. God says, do this and you'll get to heaven. And then we don't do it and expect that we'll go to heaven anyway. No way. Can't happen. 

Hebrews 10, 26, for if we go now, you may not like what I said so far, but again, I'm not telling you Hebrews 10, Hebrews 10, 26, for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, this is not just, um, you know, you commit a sin. This is like deliberate. I know what the truth is and I'm going to not do it. After receiving the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, Jesus, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse judgment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified? 

and has outraged the spirit of grace. For we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Do you think that Jesus can die for your sins? You then blaspheme his word like you just heard from James Tallarico. 

Not not misunderstand or miss or oh you know I oh I misread that no no no I'm a Presbyterian seminarian and I'm gonna blaspheme his word like that. You are spitting in God's face and you're saying nah I don't I don't have to do what you want. I don't have to read your your word accurately. I'm good. So here's that New York Times that I was just talking about. 

Here he is asked by Ezra Klein. How do you think about the competing claims of different religions? Do you believe Christianity to be more true than other religions? 

Do you believe there to be exclusivity in these beliefs, that they're incompatible with each other? I believe Christianity points to the truth. I also think other religions of love point to the same truth. I think of different religious traditions as different languages. So you and I could sit here and debate. what to call this cup, and you could call it a cup in English, you'd call it something else in Spanish and French, but we are all talking about the same reality. 

I believe Jesus Christ reveals that reality to us, but I also think that other traditions reveal that reality in their own ways, with their own symbol structures. And I've learned more about my tradition by learning more about Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam and Judaism. And so I see these beautiful faith traditions as circling the same truth about the universe, about the cosmos. And that truth is inherently a mystery. And I think the most destructive thing is when religion becomes an end in and of itself. That's when religion implodes. 

My pastor always told me growing up that religious symbols are like aspirin. In order to work, they have to dissolve. They point beyond themselves. 

If you get lost in the symbols, If you get lost in the words, you're missing the reality that we're all trying to describe and talk about. Yikes. Anti here, it can mean opposite of, but it can also mean instead of. It's very important. It can mean opposite of, it can also mean instead of. So there's the Antichrist, but then there's small a Antichrist. 

There's capital A Antichrist and there's small a Antichrists who present themselves and they present themselves as, as Christians, as Christ followers, as Presbyterian seminarians, perhaps as Christian Senate candidates. They're not. People who would distort scripture in such a way, such a way. that they would make up text like Gabriel asking Mary for permission which to therefore come to the conclusion that abortion is biblical and acceptable and good that is antichrist stuff and we should run from people like this or boldly call them out for exactly who they are mike slater . locals . com transcript commercial free on the website mike slater .