What a fascinating response to a church shooting from the Democrats. And they've doubled down on attacking prayer! Why is this their approach?
Welcome to Politics by Faith. I was shooting in Minnesota the other day. It's been encouraging to hear people calling it demonic and not just as an adjective, but as a actual description of what took place. People acknowledging the presence of demons. New York Post, the headline was demonic. This morning on the show, Alex Marlow, the editor in chief of Breitbart .
com. He asked me why the left is taking this approach against prayer. Have you heard this? The mayor of Minnesota, right after it happened, press conference at the site, I interpret as sneering at Christians and that the kids who were praying saying it's now is not the time for thoughts and prayers. These kids were praying when they were shot. Gavin Newsom echoing that exact thing he wrote on Twitter yesterday.
He said these children were literally praying as they got shot at as a way to mock prayer. So like a Christian is saying prayer is important. We need prayer. And then JD's like your prayer Gavin Newsom's prayer. What's the point of prayer? Prayer doesn't work.
The kids were praying when they got shot. Jen Psaki, who used to be the White House press secretary, she now is at MSNBC, she said, prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does not end school shootings. Prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back.
Enough with the thoughts and prayers.
J . D. Vance, the vice president, wrote back. He said, we pray because our hearts are broken. We pray because we know God listens. We pray because we know that God works in mysterious ways and can inspire us to further our mission.
Why do you feel the need to attack other people for praying when kids were just killed praying? Of all the weird left -wing culture wars in the last few years, this is by far the most bizarre.
How dare you pray for innocent people in the midst of tragedy?
What are you even talking about? It's J . D. Vance. It's our vice president. So there's this tactic from the left right now to mock prayer.
I look forward to seeing how it turns out for them. But Alex this morning asked me why this is their tactic and I had a couple of thoughts. So first was, all right, so here's how it all started. Something terrible would happen and someone would say, let's pray. And they would pray right now, right there on the spot. Then it turned into, oh, you're going through something tough.
I will pray for you. And they pray later or usually don't. Then it turned into thoughts and prayers. We got throwing the atheists in there, right? We got, we got to throw in thoughts as if those are the same thing. They're not.
But do you see how that was thrown in there? It's sort of like from a coexist bumper sticker sort of way. So we have Christians who believe in prayer, and then we have atheists who believe in thoughts, and they're the same. So let's put them together. Thoughts and prayers. No, no, not the same.
Thinking about something is not the same as a prayer to our heavenly father, but they had to equate them as one in an effort to cheapen prayer. Thoughts and prayers. No, no, no, not the same. But they did that for a while and that worked. And then they say, thoughts and prayers aren't enough. So now they throw them both out.
See what they did? They combined them. And then because everyone knows thoughts are stupid and meaningless, they threw them both out. But now they, because they hitched thoughts and prayers together, now we're able to throw both of them out. I believe this effort is also demonic. It's also Satan leading that, of course.
He's the great deceiver for a reason. 2 Corinthians 11, 13, For such men are false prophets, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it's no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
A demon could cause you to kill children.
It can also cause you to spread lies about prayer. I forget if we quoted this yesterday. To be honest, I'm gonna do it again.
Either way.
This is Antonin Scalia, former Supreme Court Justice. He was doing an interview with someone at New York Magazine. And Scalia leans in and says, I even believe in the devil. You do? Of course. Yeah, he's a real person.
Hey, come on. That's standard Catholic doctrine. Every Catholic believes that every Catholic believes this. There's a wide variety of Catholics out there. If you're a faith, if you're faithful to Catholic dogma, that's certainly a large part of it. Have you seen evidence of the devil lately?
You know, it's curious in the gospels, the devil is doing all sorts of things, making pigs run off cliffs, possessing people and whatnot. That doesn't happen very much anymore because he's smart. So what's he doing now? What he's doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. It's much more successful that way. That has really painful implications for atheists.
Are you sure that's the devil's work? I didn't say atheists are the devil's work. Well, you're saying the devil is persuading people to not believe in God. Couldn't there be other reasons to not believe? Well, there certainly can be other reasons, but it certainly favors the devil's desires. I mean, come on, that's the explanation for why there's not demonic possession all over the place.
That always puzzled me. What happened to the devil, you know? He used to be all over the place. He used to be all over the New Testament. What happened to him? And then the reporter says he just got wildier.
And Scalia says, he got wilier. The reporter said, isn't it terribly frightening to believe in the devil? And Scalia says, you're looking at me as though I'm weird. My God, are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the devil. It's in the gospels.
You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the devil. Most of mankind has believed in the devil for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil. Someone responded, every single generation of every single culture on earth throughout all of human history knew demons to be real until about a hundred years ago. Somehow, without any proof or even evidence to the contrary, we all assume we know better now. C .
S. Lewis in the Screwtape Letters, which you have to read, of course. So we have Screwtape, who's writing letters. So he's like a head demon. He's writing letters to his nephew, Wormwood, advice on how to keep the patient, a human, from believing in the enemy.
From his perspective, that's God. God is the enemy. So here is Screwtape speaking. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way, meaning towards God. The enemy, God, of course, was at his elbow in a moment, meaning like God was boom, there.
Before I knew where I was, I saw my 20 years work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defense by argument, I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The enemy, God, presumably made the counter -suggestion, you know how one can never quite overhear what he says to them? That this, the strain of thought, was much more important than lunch.
At least I think that must have been his line. For when I said, quite, in fact, much too important to tackle in the end of a morning, the patient brightened up considerably. And by the time I had added, much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind. He was already halfway out the door. Once he was in the street, the battle was won. I showed him a news boy shouting the midday paper and a number 73 bus going past.
And before he reached the bottom of the steps, I had him into an unalterable conviction that whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of, real life was enough to show him that all that sort of thing just couldn't be true. It was time to get back to real life, the boss, the newsboy. He knew he'd had a narrow escape and in later years was fond of talking about that inarticulate sense for actuality, which is our ultimate safeguard against the aberrations of mere logic. He's now safe in our father's house, the devil. He's now safe in our father's house. One of the most important jobs of the devil is to convince people that prayer doesn't work, to get them to think that it's just a silly thing to do.
are silly enough, or a waste of time. One of the acts of the devil is to convince people that prayer isn't action. That's what they're saying. Now's not the time for prayer. Now's the time for action. What action?
Well, the government, the real God. Come, come, worship Baal, the government. He'll save you. Come pray to government. Prayer is silly. Don't waste time.
Come to me, the government. Here's the last paragraph of that first letter from Screw Team. You begin to see the point. Thanks to processes which we set at work, In them, centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. We're all focused on what's in front of us, what we can see. And the unfamiliar, the unseen, the spiritual realm, it's too weird.
I can't. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things. Above all, do not attempt to use science as a defense against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can't touch and see. So if you can't, so like science has caused you to see more of the unknown. So no, no, don't touch on that.
There have been sad cases among the modern physicists, meaning there's been a lot of physicists who have become Christians. If he must dabble in science, keep him on economics and sociology. Don't let him get far away from that invaluable real life where you can see, touch, feel the materialism that we've been talking about on this radio show about the materialist of the left, where there is no spiritual realm and where there is no sin. So the cause of bad things happening isn't sin, it's structural racism or not enough money, not enough programs. It's not sin, never, because there is no such thing.
There's only the real life.
But the best of all is to let him read no signs, but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all. And then everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is the result of modern investigation. Do remember, this is so good, do remember you are there to fuddle him, meaning to confuse him. From the same way, or from the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach. That's so good. So the way you young little demons are talking, you guys are talking like your job is to teach.
No, no, your job is not to teach. Your job is to confuse. So brilliant. From time to time on the radio, I just say from time to time, I'll get an email and I can feel it too, but I'll get an email. from someone saying that on the radio we talk too much about the soul. Slater, you're always talking about the soul.
And we did it here with the shooting. The left, they talk about the guns. Conservatives will talk about the brain, mental illness. And I talk about the soul. And, okay, too much soul. Slater, too much talk about the gospel.
Too much, too much gospel. And it's so funny to me because, like, We're just so inundated with it everywhere else. You just can't stand it in one more place, right? Like I get these emails like, like, oh, Slater, I turn on the TV. There's the gospel. I turn on the news and there's the news people talking about the gospel.
I turn on Fox news and there they are. More Jesus talk. I turn on my favorite TV show and there they are. My favorite sitcom, my favorite comedian. Every movie I watch, it's just gospel, gospel, gospel, soul, soul, soul all the time. Everyone's talking about it.
I just can't take it on my morning show too. When I tune in to Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM Patriot, I need someplace where they're just not talking about the gospel and not talking about the soul. And here I am turning in and there you are talking about the gospel and talking about the soul. Like that's your reality? People complain when I talk about the soul like I'm talking about Taylor Swift. Everybody turns to Taylor Swift here, Taylor Swift there, Taylor Swift everywhere.
And then I tune into Mike Slater and there's more Taylor Swift. By the way, we've never talked about Taylor Swift. But that's my point. In reality, you never hear about the soul anywhere. No one ever talks about it. So why are you so annoyed when I do?
The world tells me. you there is no spiritual realm, but we know the truth. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Goodness, we should go over every single word of that. Now listen, it's fine if you don't believe that, but if you're a Christian, you have to. You must believe that.
You must believe in the spiritual realm. Our founding fathers did. They were the product of the great awakening, 1730. Many people much smarter than you and I have believed that to be true. I was just reading this morning.
Not even kidding, I was reading this morning.
Opened up to Matthew 12. This is where Jesus says, Jesus says, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and no city or house divided against itself will stand. That was the inspiration that Abraham Lincoln used for a nation divided against itself cannot stand or a house divided against itself cannot stand. He quoted that talking about slavery. That's it. Matthew 12 verse 25.
Do you know what the context is for Lincoln quoting Jesus? Let's start with Matthew 12 verse 22. Then a demon -oppressed man, who was blind and mute, was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed and said, Can this be the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this man cast out demons. Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and no city or house divided against itself will stand.
And if Satan cast out Satan, he's divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? But if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it's the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. " That's what Abraham Lincoln knew, wrote from, was inspired by. Isn't that amazing? But only in the last like 50 years or so, we remove all of this stuff. That's all silliness. My favorite spiritual realm story has to be Elijah, Elisha, excuse me. I love this scene. Second Kings six, start verse 15. When the servant of the man of God, Elijah, uh, rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army of horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servants said, alas, my master, what shall we do? So the servants freaking out, they're surrounded by the enemy. And Elijah says, Elisha says, do not be afraid. For those who are with us are more than those who are with them."
And the servant, think about the servant's reaction. The servant must be like, what are you talking about?
It's you and me and all the enemy that I see.
Use your eyes, Elisha. Look, look, we're surrounded. And Elisha's like, no, no, man, there's more of us than them. Imagine the servant's reaction. What are you talking about? Then Elisha prays.
and said, Oh Lord, please open his eyes that he may see. So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. That's the spiritual realm. It's around us all the time. This is why I don't quite know how to do it, but I also think it's the work of the devil that the left used the word woke, right? Amazing grace, I was blind, but now I lost, now I'm found.
was blind, now I see. There's a lot in the Bible about being awakened and left. Satan took that imagery of now I'm see, like scales off my eyes, now I see as I'm now awake to the oppression of racism and America to me. I'm awakened, I'm woke. And I believe that that is much, that is a Christian imagery that we need to take back. And we need to see the spiritual realm and the spiritual forces that are working against us. We need to be awakened to them.
We need to be woke and we need to be awakened to the spiritual forces, not only against us, but for us as well. And the power of prayer. Mike Slater dot Locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website. Mike Slater dot Locals dot com.
