It's always Pride Month, it seems. How did we get to this point in our culture? Where trans fake nuns are honored at baseball games and men are sexually dancing in front of little girls? One reason is that we confused affections with emotions and let our feelings run the show. Esau is the clearest example. We see it around us every day.
It seems I am unable to post the audio here at the moment. I am reaching out to the fine people at Locals, they're usually quick to get back. Here is the link (it'll be available tomorrow), but you still get the transcript here
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/politics-by-faith-w-mike-slater/id1645424449
Hey, welcome to Politics by Faith. I'm Mike Slater. Thanks for being here. Friendly reminder that the transcript of this and every episode is on MikeSlater.Locals.com. So if you're interested in that, you can check out that website, MikeSlater.Locals.com. Today's episode is about the month of June. Get ready for Pride Month. You already see it everywhere. Ford, trucks, Adidas. It's only the middle of May. This is like going to Home Depot in October and seeing Christmas decorations. Like, wait a second. It's not even Thanksgiving. We're not even in June and we're getting inundated with Pride everything. It's not just June. It's all year. There's always something. It's always like Transgender Awareness Day or something. They've taken over every day in the calendar. We don't need to go over and bud light right now, but it's amazing.
0:01:02
Their sales are now down 26%. We're on like week five or six. That's the longest sustained conservative boycott I've ever seen. The Los Angeles Dodgers got in a bit of trouble the other day. So they've had a Pride Night for 10 years. But 10 years ago it was just a couple gay guys. Now the entire alphabet train is jumping in on Pride Night. It's the L's, the G's, the B's, the T's, and the Q's. So the Q's started coming out and the Q's are a very different deal than the Gs. So there's this group called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and they are a group that mocks the Catholic Church. If I were to describe them in the best light that they would like to be described as, this is a group of men who dress in very elaborate drag to bring awareness against the guilt that is caused by the Catholic Church for who you are.
0:02:08
And they started in the 80s during AIDS when the church abandoned gay people who had AIDS. So this group was created to help the people who needed help. That's the best description. A worse description, or not as charitable, I think, you decide which is more accurate, is that this is a group of heathens blaspheming the church with not just drag but their open attack on Christianity entirely. So they're gonna honor all these LGBTQ groups and then the Catholic Church said we don't want you honoring this one group and the Dodgers said okay you guys are uninvited so now it's a mess. But this is what happens right and it's the Dodgers fault. When they started Pride Night 10 years ago, it was 2013, a lot's changed in 10 short years. That was before the gay marriage Supreme Court decision. That was in 2015. So gays still couldn't get married. Now the gays have nothing left to fight for. But the train has gotten bigger. The alphabet train's gotten bigger. Now there's the Qs. So the Dodgers still have their Pride Night, which was originally the Gs and the Ls. But now it's the Gs, Ls, Bs, Ts, and Qs and the pluses. And the Qs and the pluses aren't messing around. By definition, their queerness never ends. They will always and must always because their entire identity is based on pushing boundaries and the Dodgers are in a real pickle because if you say no to the Q's and the and the pluses and the T's like you can't you can't be like all right G's L's and B's whatever you are even you guys are allowed in but no T's or Q's you guys are too weird can't do that and the Dodgers don't even know it yet, but in just a couple years, three years maybe, they're going to have the P's, the minor attracted persons, the pedophiles.
0:04:11
Right now, they're in the pluses right now. They're kind of hidden down there, but they'll come out. What are you going to say? They're wrong. You can say it's wrong to be a minor attracted person. How could you? I just think what the Dodgers are going through right now is such a, what they brought upon themselves is such a nice metaphor for our entire country right now. When you have no lines, you can't then start to draw lines.
0:04:34
Well, I take that back actually. There is a line. The line is anything outside of this country, every brand of the month of June is gonna have a rainbow logo. They take their logo and they make it rainbow. Every company except for their divisions in the Middle East. So Mercedes is gonna have a rainbow Mercedes logo, but not Mercedes Dubai. So they know how to draw lines, just not anywhere in America.
0:05:01
And don't even get me started on Target. Target is unreal. And they've been doing this for a couple years. A lot of people are just discovering it now, because it gets worse every year, but the front of a Target, the display right there, is this huge private, and now they're really leaning into the transgender kids. So they're selling the girls' bathing suits now, have extra area in the crotch to help little boys tuck.
0:05:26
It's like insane in Target. But it's insane in our country. In 2012, 3.5% of Americans said they were gay, 3.5. Now it's over 7%. But that's because what percentage of Gen Z do you think says they're gay? Gen Z is 19 to 26 year olds. What percent of Gen Z? 20%! 20%! That's crazy! That's insane! But not surprising. This is what happens when you just have a concerted PR effort of sexual deviance to young people at a younger and younger age. Why do the drag queens not want to read at nursing homes? Have you ever wondered that?
0:06:07
Why are the drag queens not going to read to the old people? Hmm, why do they want to read to the kids? And this won't stop. Years ago, I was pre-kids, so it was at least six years ago. I went to the San Diego Pride Parade, and we did a couple things. First is we had a couple quotes against gay marriage and we said which bigot said it. And we had a couple choices of Republicans and it was either Hillary or Obama who said each of the quotes.
0:06:38
So that was the trick of Rueben. But then we also asked people what percentage of Americans do you think are gay? And they were like 40%, 60%. I'm like, what are you out of your mind? It's four. But they're getting closer. They're getting closer. So what's really going on here? What's at the root of this? Well, it's not hard to figure this one out. They literally call their entire movement Pride. It's called Pride. That alone is quite astounding, if you think about it. So let's explain a couple things. So one thing we need to know about the LGBTQ movement is that in our modern world today, you are defined not only by your desires, that's your identity or your desires, but not only your desires, your sexual desires.
0:07:32
So way back in the day, and Carl Truman does an amazing job of explaining this, he says way back in the day, if someone asked you your identity You would say well, I'm Mike Son of David my dad over there From here, that's where I was born Where I'll live forever my dad's a blacksmith, so I'll be a blacksmith and I'll go to that church that's been there for a thousand years. Your identity was the external things in your life. You defined yourself by external things and then of course you defined yourself by your virtuous, righteous, proper behavior. But then we Then we internalized our identity.
0:08:28
Now it's all about how I feel. Then you throw in the sexual revolution that says the most important desires that you feel are your sexual desires. And then you throw in a bunch of perversions after that. So now here we are in America where a six year old can say I am gay. Even if they never had any homosexual interaction in any way whatsoever, I am gay. It's an identity statement. That's an important thing about this whole thing that a lot of people miss. It's an identity statement.
0:08:57
I am. So if let's say a baker denies to bake a cake for a gay couple's wedding ceremony, it's not just this baker denying this couple food, it's denying denying their very existence. This is why you get trans activists who say, trans people exist. And we're like, I mean, yeah, I know you exist, don't want you to go in my daughter's locker room. Oh, you're denying my existence. I'm like, what? But that's what that is.
0:09:31
Because their identity is that deeply rooted in their sexual desires. It's never been that way. It's very new. There's a term called emotivism. It's this idea that because we threw truth out the window, there's no such thing as truth, who are you to say? We need to come up with another way to determine who's right and wrong. So it's all about who can perform and express the most emotion.
0:10:00
Let me give you an example of this. This is a state senator in Nebraska. Nebraska just lowered their abortion laws to 12 weeks and also passed some, you know, you can't do sex change operations on kids and no puberty blockers, stuff like that. So there's a bunch of trans activists and allies in the Capitol building in Lincoln, Nebraska, right? So this is a Democratic state Mr. President, trans people belong here. We need trans people. We love trans people. That's what they're saying out there. They're standing in a circle in the rotunda saying that over and over again. Trans people belong here.
0:10:47
We need trans people. We love trans people. Trans people belong here. We need trans people. I'm just going to skip ahead here to like, let's go a minute in. trans people trans people belong here we need trans people we love trans people trans people belong here we need trans people we love trans people trans people belong here we need trans people we love trans people trans people belong here we need trans people we love trans people trans people trans people belong here. You matter and I am fighting for you and I will not stop. I will not stop today, I will not stop tomorrow.
0:12:05
You are loved, you matter, you belong here. So it's quite obvious there that there was no argument. It's not an argument there, but she was very emotional. So the activists and the allies, they love it. They think it's great. They're like, oh, it's beautiful. It was moving. It was stunning. It was fierce. It was brave.
0:12:27
It was all right. It's like, well, you didn't make an argument, but they don't care. I'm interested in logic. So that is emotivism right there. Why is she right? Well, she's the most emotional about it. That's not how we should behave. That's not how we should think. That's not what we should value in America. Kevin DeYoung wrote a nice article giving some graduation advice, very opposite of the world.
0:13:05
All people ever hear is, follow your dreams, march to the beat of your own drummer, be true to yourself. He said, I'd like to offer different advice. Do not follow your dreams. Do not march to the beat of your own drummer, and whatever you do, do not be true to yourself. We see this attitude of being true to yourself, we see it all the time.
0:13:24
I saw this clip the other day of the great Lila Rose, she was on, she's the head of Live Action, wonderful pro-life organization, she was on this podcast, sitting next to, let me describe this guy, he's like an Andrew Tate, kind of like modern day macho man, I can do whatever I want and I can sleep with as many women as possible and all that, and that makes me a man, that kind of nonsense. So here's what she said to him, and listen to how defensive he gets, and the only argument he can come back with is I'm gonna be me.
0:13:54
Can I ask you one more question? Fire away, honey. Okay. If you have only one place in your heart for one woman, or you want to have one woman in your heart I think you said why don't you just commit to one and she's to be faithful to her I'm just not wired that way I spent my whole 20s trying to fix myself you work out you do business you can possess your own your own power and she's not directed to the way you want to direct it. It's not how I am. You think that might be a limited mindset? I think it's none of your business but I don't want you to think I'm triggered by you I'm not I saw somebody say that I think that's interesting I think you're annoying You are you're annoying in like this goody-two-shoes type way and that's fine I'm gonna live my life on my terms Unapologetically like truly so you can ask me this 85 different ways at the end of the day I'm gonna walk out of here the same man. I also think of Elsa from frozen that let it go song Frozen, the Let It Go song. This author, DeYoung, he makes the point that it should be no surprise that Elsa in this movie is a favorite in the LGBTQ plus community. The song, Let It Go, no right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free. That is a nice anthem for it all. Let's lament this for a second. I just hate that we are so broken in our country, that all of this is even such a thing.
0:15:15
Isn't that a shame? I think of that scripture in Isaiah, woe to those, always be careful, woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Because we're not even like, oh, it's normal, it's nothing, it's neutral or tolerate. It's not even, oh, this is a good, you have to affirm the goodness of this. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
0:15:42
What a shame we're here. What a shame we have such a broken culture where this is even such an appealing thing to so many. I saw this interview the other day. This is with one of the directors of The Matrix. The Matrix was written, directed by two brothers. Both of the brothers are now living as women. Isn't that amazing? They're both living as women. And listen to one of the guys talk about his experience as a child.
0:16:12
To be honest, like for me, the people that I saw, the first images that really struck a chord with me were, you know, trans women and pornography. And there was something that unlocked in my brain that I saw these wonderful, fearless performers becoming desirable. And in my head I could take the leap where I felt like, well, if I could be desirable, then maybe I could be loved. And for me, that's like one of the keys that trans people have to like struggle through, you know, will somebody love me? And that clip is so sad to me when he says, yeah, I want to be desirable.
0:17:02
Then I can be loved. And if only he was loved in a healthy way growing up. Well, one thing that's really interesting about this is a lot of girls young girls transition to boys to Desexualize themselves they see an overly sexualized objectifying of women's bodies world and they don't want anything to do with it Or maybe they feel like they don't They're not Beautiful enough and they just don't want to play the game So they think that if they could just become a boy Then that will all go away and a lot of men are the opposite.
0:17:38
Their goal is to be desired in some way. And they think that transitioning to a woman will bring them some sort of sexual, like people will find them attractive or desirable and then that will make them loved. And I mean, he said it right there. Like that's it. And this is all just chaos. That's the theme of all this is just chaos. Chaos.
0:18:03
Now let's get to some history and Bible here. The word homosexual is a modern invention. Isn't that interesting? It was first used in 1869. I found this article, Livius.org. In ancient Greece, there was not a word to describe homosexual practices. They were simply part of aphrodisiac love. I've read a decent amount about ancient Greek people's view on homosexuality. I get a lot of conflicting reports. I don't know what to do with it. And it's very hard to tell exactly what is the cultural norms of a society from thousands of years ago based on looking at drawings on a pot, for instance, right?
0:18:48
But it seems like there's some sort of coming together this idea that there was no concept of homosexuality. It was just this very animalistic have sex with whatever. Man, woman, animal, this you feel it you do it. And it wasn't a part of your identity. So your sexual acts were whatever you felt like doing which is kind of like today. But it wasn't then your identity like I am. That wasn't a thing back in ancient Greece but it is a thing now. In the Christian era there's been a distinction between affections, this is something we're actually talking about in the morning motivation this week, affections and passions. The great theologian Jonathan Edwards, he wrote a book called Religious Affections. Let me quote this from John Rigney.
0:19:42
He does a good job of breaking down the difference. Understanding what Edwards means by affections requires understanding a bit about his view of humanity. As a human being, you are made up of a body and a soul. Your body has five senses by which you take in impressions from the external world. Your soul has two fundamental faculties or powers. The first is the understanding. It's the faculty by which you perceive, discern, view, and judge. It tells you what something is. The second faculty is the will by which you like or dislike, love or hate, approve or reject, what you perceive with your understanding. Right? So your body, your senses, take it in. Your first, then the next level is understanding.
0:20:26
So we perceive, discern, view, right? And the next level is you judge. Like, don't like, love, hate, approve, reject. So if you go to a football game, it is by your means of your understanding, so it's your physical body that sees the game. Then it's your next level, your understanding that you identify the team in purple and gold as the Vikings and the team in green, yellow, the Packers. But it's by means of your will that you shout and cheer for the Vikings and boo and hiss at the Packers. Crucially, it's the inclination of the will that governs our actions. Now, some inclinations of the will are mild and minor. They barely register at all, like choosing what socks to wear today, but other inclinations of the will are vigorous, persistent, and lively, like choosing whom you're going to marry. Only the latter are teamed are termed affections.
0:21:15
They are the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the will. Why are affections so important? Affections are often the spring of man's actions. They make the world go round. Without lively affections, few of us would do much of anything. What animates our actions is our loves and hates, our fears and desires, our griefs and joys. More importantly, affections reveal the fundamental orientation of the heart. When you see what a person loves or hates, fears, desires, rejoices, and grieves over, you are seeing the bent and tendency of his heart. So if we want to know what kind of heart we have, we need to look to our affections.
0:22:05
Affections are rooted in the soul, in the heart. It's an inclination of will. Emotions are fleeting surface caused by external things. So your affections are internal, they're internal come out and emotions are external and they kind of come in, like something happens and then they cause you to feel a thing, right? And so they come from different places. Now, our western tradition has always said that our lower appetites emotions have to be constrained by reason. And also the grace of God, of course, working within us. Now, here's the key term.
0:22:43
This is it. Total depravity. This is the premise that all of our passions are misleading. All of our emotions are misleading. They're not reliable. It's the idea that this is what I feel like, so this is what I'm going to do. And if you tell me I can't, then I'm going to want to do it even more, and I need to be me. And if you tell me I can't, you're attacking my identity and my personhood.
0:23:10
But that's not what Christianity is. Christianity is about not following those base emotions. It's about rightly ordering your affections. This is what Paul is talking about in Philippians 4.8. Brothers, whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, worthy of praise, think about these things. Get your affections rightly ordered. But our modern culture today says, whatever fleeting emotion you have, that's fine. Just go on that. Let's go to the Bible.
0:23:41
A great story about self-control and not becoming a slave to your passion. Esau. So Esau was the oldest son. He had the birthright when dad passes away. And he went out to go hunting, came back and he was hungry. So let me read it here. Genesis 25, starting with 29. Once, when Jacob, the younger brother, was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted.
0:24:14
Jacob said, sell me your birthright now. Esau said, I'm about to die. Of what use is a birthright to me? Jacob said, swear to me now. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. So a couple things here. I read someone say that it is depicted in the Hebrew like Esau is an animal. He can't control himself. He says, let me eat some of that red stew. Some translation call it red stuff, but in the Hebrew it's written twice.
0:24:43
A-D-O-M, I don't know how to pronounce it, but Adam, Adam. He says it twice. He's a, give it to me, give it to me. I need it, I need it. He's salivating starving he's dying here. But he's not really dying. He's dying like a kid has lunch and then a snack in the car and then so I'm so hungry. I'm starving like that kind of starving. You saw was being dramatic, emotional, impulsive. He was defining himself by his fleeting emotions in the moment. He was like an animal, a complete slave to his desires and therefore made very bad decisions. Let me quote this Bible commentary from Dr. Barnhouse, early 1900s. He said, history shows that men prefer allusions to realities. They choose time rather than eternity and the pleasures of sin for a season rather than the joys of God forever.
0:25:42
Men will read trash rather than the Word of God and adhere to a system of priorities that leaves God out of their lives. Multitudes of men spend more time shaving than on their souls, and multitudes of women give more minutes to their makeup than to the life of their eternal spirit. Men still sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. Same sentiment here, but this is from Thomas Adams. This would be late 1500s. He was called the Shakespeare of the Puritans. He said, And what, O you Esau-lites! That's you, you're an Esau-lite.
0:26:16
Worldlings are momentary delights compared to eternity. What is a mess of gruel to the supper of glory? The belly is pleased, yes, but the soul is lost. Never was any meat except the forbidden fruit so dearly bought as this broth of Jacob. The great hymnist John Newton, he said, Too often, dear Saviour, have I preferred some poor trifle to Thee. How is it that Thou dost not deny the blessing and birthright to me. No better than Esau I am, though pardon and heaven be mine, to me belongs nothing but shame, the praise and the glory be thine." Instead of being slaves to our emotions, instead of letting our emotions drive the ship, which is what our entire culture is doing and telling young kids to do as well, we need to be slaves, no question, but not to our emotions. We need to become slaves to Jesus.
0:27:14
Paul refers to himself as a doulos to Jesus, and it's often translated as servant or bond servant. It's slave. You are a slave to Christ. Then you won't be a slave to your desires because you can't serve two masters. So what do we do, Sider? What's in my control? First I want to tell you about Patriot Gold Group. Grateful to Patriot Gold Group for sponsoring this podcast, being with me for many years and believing in what we stand for here.
0:27:44
When we talk about eternity and eternal things, that's what matters the most. There's no question. I believe we're also called to be good stewards here and now on this earth. Lots of decisions can be made about money. I have made many okay decisions. I've made many very bad decisions doing the best I can. When I feel bad about financial decisions I've made that turned out not to be good ones, the best piece of advice I got was, well, did you make the best decision you could in the moment? And I think almost every time that was true.
0:28:19
See if gold is one of those decisions that you should make for your family, knowing everything we know now and doing the best we can to see where we're headed economically. You're not alone in thinking things are bad. Poll I saw was like 23% of Americans think Joe Biden's doing a good job on the economy. Like who's the 23? Things are bad. Gold may be a proper hedge for you.
0:28:43
Call for a free investor guide today, 1-888-617-6122. To me, it's just about being a good steward. This is not your eternity. This won't save souls, but you have a family to provide for. So let's make some good decisions. 1-888-617-6122 or patriotgoldgroup.com. So what's in my control? If you have little kids, you're going to see rainbows all over the place. So my kids are seven months, three, five, and six. So they don't know what gay means, they're not in public school. To them, to us, to our family, the rainbow means God won't destroy the world in a flood again.
0:29:29
We need to reclaim the rainbow. If you see rainbow flags everywhere, depending on the age of course, if they ask any questions, tell them it's about the Bible. Here it is. It's Genesis 9, 12. And God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations. I've set my bow in the cloud and it shall be as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
0:29:54
When I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature and all the flesh and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the rainbows in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between god and every living creature and all flesh that is in the earth. God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth and isn't that amazing that the bank has rainbows all over it, son. If they're old enough to know that this rainbow has been taken over, remind them of the story about how people disobeyed God and God destroyed them all except for the one righteous man, blameless in his generation.
0:30:39
God saved his life and his family, but even he wasn't perfect, which is why all of us need Jesus today. Just remind them of the true story. You control the narrative in your home. Stop sending your money to these places. Stop going to these places. Stop watching these TV shows. I'm not calling for a boycott. A boycott implies, oh, I really want to go to this store, but no, I just won't. Maybe, no, no, no, it's a boycott.
0:31:07
No, we need to not even want to go. I'm calling for a total rearrangement of priorities in our lives so that we don't even desire to do these things anymore. Romans 12, 1, I appeal to you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Here it is. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. So what's in your control?
0:31:41
Everything in your home and the stories you tell so that your kids know what is true. Final thought to think about, 1 John 2.15, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father but it's from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever.
0:32:21
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0:32:49
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0:33:20
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