Transcription
Trump depicted himself as Jesus healing Uncle Sam on Truth Social. What exactly did he mean by this? Also, is there an alliance between the Catholic Church and Islam? What is going on with this seeming surge in Catholicism and also the attacks on evangelicals? We are going to analyze all of this and more on today's episode of Relatable.
Before we get started, I do have a special announcement. We've got a very special guest in studio on Friday, and that is David French. He has agreed to have a friendly discussion and debate on things like Trump and Christian nationalism, his own cultural, moral, and political evolution. It is going to be fiery. It is going to be productive. It is going to be so good. So, make sure you tune in to that.
Today's episode is brought to you by Keexy Cookies. Y'all, these are the best cookies ever. They taste amazing. Great gift for yourself, for your mom, for Mother's Day, for the loved one in your life. If you go to keexi.com and use code Ally, you'll get 15% off. That's kexi.com. Code Ally.
Hey y'all. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far. If you have not listened to Monday's episode about therapy culture and three of the most popular practices within therapy culture that I think have the ability to deceive and manipulate Christian women, I really encourage you to go back and watch and listen to that. I know there are some controversial things said in there and some of you have left your respectful disagreement and I really appreciate that. But maybe it will just plant a seed for you to kind of think through like what is true, what is not, what is from the new age, and what is actually biblical. Because the things we put in our minds and the things we do with our body really matters.
All right, y'all. We have so much to get to today. I'm going to try to not just like talk really fast because I want to get through all of these subjects, but I am going to try to move as quickly as possible because everything that I'm talking about is so important. It's so important. And things just kept happening day after day, hour after hour over the past few days that I had to add to this document to make sure that we get to all of it.
Let's get to Trump's Truth Social post first. Okay. Trump posted an image to Truth Social a couple days ago. It was widely reported as him "portraying himself as Jesus Christ." We've got that picture right there. Okay. Uh now, Trump later responded saying that he didn't intend it to be a picture of Jesus. got one.
>> Mr. President, did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?
>> Well, it wasn't depicted. It was me. I I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross as a Red Cross worker there, which we support. And uh only the fake news could come up with that one. So, I I had uh I just heard about it and I said, "How did they come up with that? It's supposed to be me as a doctor making people better." And I do make people better. I make people uh a lot better. As an example, uh the 11,000 I understand your husband's going through treatment.
>> Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
>> He's going through some very serious cancer treatment. So,
>> this goes a long way.
>> Yes, sir. It sure does.
>> All right.
So, that's his explanation. Before I even saw that explanation, my original response was, first of all, it was just exasperation. And it was the Ben Affleck meme standing outside of some building with uh you know his cigarette to his side with his eyes closed like why we're so tired. And that is exactly how I felt as well as sad when I saw this because there is a level of blasphemy and just self-idolatry here that I think is really dangerous for anyone. It speaks to a level of pride. I said, "This is what happens when Paula White, who is a prosperity preacher that we've talked about many times, is your personal pastor." I mean, just over Easter, she was comparing him to the Messiah. And literally said to him, "No one has paid the price like you've paid the price." We did an episode on that. I've talked about the danger of that kind of theology, especially when it comes to imbuing that belief in a person. I mean, there are not many people that can overcome that kind of pride. And so my initial belief was that he knew that this was a messiah-like piece of AI art and that he didn't have a problem with it and he posted it because he is prideful and he's been told by a lot of people in his life that he's basically the messiah of Western civilization. That is a deep problem that doesn't absolve him of responsibility because he chose those people in his life, but it does kind of give an explanation for where his theological influence is coming from.
After I saw this clip, I posted this, which I did not expect to be controversial. Okay, I got ratioed to the moon. I don't think I've ever gotten ratioed this hard. So, I reposted that video of Trump on Fox News and I said, I do believe that he didn't think of this as a depiction of Jesus when posting. Still, there has to be more care and discernment here. I had all kinds of people, all kinds of big names on the left and right being like, "You sold your soul. Come on, Ally. I can't believe you know you said this and you are paid to say this." None of those accusations are true. Okay, you might even think it's sadder that I said that for free, but I did say it for free. It came from my mind. I have never been given talking points. I have never repeated talking points that have been given to me. I've never been paid for any kind of political stance or opinion on any kind of political issue or politician. Zero. I'm not on any of those group texts or any of those email chains or any of those coordination efforts that go on in the political media sphere. I am a part of none of that. Literally, these are my original words from my brain. And I just have to say like I do believe them. I still believe that it is very possible. Let me say that. I think it is very plausible that Trump being who he is and you don't have to like this. I don't have to like this. I don't like this that he saw that image, someone sent it to him. It was originally posted by a guy named Nick Adams, but then it was like weirdly manipulated and the people in the sky like I can't even say this with a straight face. The people in the sky turned into like weird demon-like creatures. Okay. And like I think it is possible that someone sent this to Trump and was like Trump like you are the doctor saving America and he saw it and was like this is great. and he posted it and that he actually didn't think of it as a messianic symbol.
Now, you might think, well, that's a problem. That's stupid. How can you be so ignorant? Oh, that's fine. Like, you can say all of that. I think it was probably laziness, lack of due diligence. I don't I just don't know that he knows and is familiar with Messiah uh iconography and imagery. I don't know that he's super familiar with that. Now, do I think that he thought he was being represented like as a Red Cross member? No. I mean, that was just like a little bit too far. The Red Cross, that's just so random and specific. I do believe possibly that he didn't see himself as Jesus in that image. Sorry. Like again, I'm not saying that's a good thing. It just is.
And by the way, this is not the first time Trump has shared something like this. He shared something like this. I think it was before the election, wasn't it? It was like, okay, not exactly like him as Jesus, but he was like writing something on a desk and he had Jesus over his shoulder. I mean, this is like boomer AI Facebook stuff that has been circulating since like 2016 and it's not the first time Trump has reposted it. It's been wrong every time in my opinion. I do think it's strange how some people who have had nothing to say about this blasphemy and idolatry for years suddenly have so much to say about it and are accusing me of being some maggaant which is not true and I'll get to that in just a second.
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So, this is my response to like the 10,000 haters in my replies. Some people, some, not all, but some people angry at me in these replies for "defending Trump," even though I didn't defend Trump and I didn't defend or excuse blasphemy have only in the last few months left the Trump can do no wrong club. Okay, the unconditional sycophancy club. That is a club that I have never been a part of. I have been extremely consistent in my critique of Trump for 10 years. He is better than the Democrat alternative, but he says and does things that I don't like. I wish he would have more self-control, more discernment. I pray for him to turn to Christ and the wisdom that comes from that to infuse his speech and his actions. I am also very thankful for how the Lord has used him to push policies that are good and right and true that have protected the most vulnerable citizens in this country. I am so thankful for an administration for the most part that can define good and evil the way God defines good and evil. We had an administration that supported and subsidized the butchering of the bodies of gender-deceived children. And instead we have an administration who goes along with the science of biology, the morality when it comes to protecting children. He invites people to the White House, children to the White House who are standing up against this ideology in their schools under the Biden administration. Those kids would have been condemned. All of that stuff really matters to me. What he's done on immigration really matters to me.
And while I have never supported Trump in a primary, I got a lot of hate for that when I supported DeSantis and expressed frustration that other people didn't see that DeSantis was super strong on policy without a lot of the issues that we are dealing with right now with Trump's lack of self-control. So, I never supported Trump in a primary, but I am so grateful still that he won and Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton did not. I have people being like, "Oh, you voted for this." I'm like, "Heck yeah, I did. I did." And if it were Trump versus Kamala Harris today, I'd do it again.
For me, however, on the other side, Trump is not strong enough on life and marriage. I think his selection of Paula White, as I've said many times, is a dangerous error. I've articulated these things over and over again over the years. And that's a big reason why I've never been considered MAGA. I've never been accepted by the MAGA crowd because like I'm not unconditionally MAGA even though I voted for him three times and have encouraged a lot of Christian women to do so. It is it's just interesting that some of those who have only recently renounced their unconditional support of Trump have never actually joined me and opposing Trump on substantive issues like taxpayer-funded IVF. Maybe that'll change now. Maybe they'll see the light. They'll link arms with me and pushing back against the Trump administration on some of those anti-Christian policies. We'll see. It seems like they're dictated just by a lot of outrage online and not by substantive policy agreements. Again, not everyone, but some.
Um, I do think that Trump is Trump and almost 80 and thus that it is possible that he quickly posted a meme someone sent him without seeing it's clear to us Jesus imagery. That doesn't make it right. But his excuse is plausible to me and I'm not going to apologize for saying that. That's not an excuse. That's not to say you should love him and be okay with that. I never said that. Um, people, you know, accuse me of like being paid to post that. It's just not true. Um, I saw like David Harris and Graham Allen both like posted the exact same thing, which apparently David got his inspiration from Graham Allen and then posted what he said about uh, you know, Trump being a believer, that they believe Trump, that discernment isn't automatic, something like that. And people accuse me of since I said I believe Trump and I said the word discernment that we all got our script from the same place. I first of all I don't I don't think Graham and David got a script that they were sent. But I certainly didn't. And like I said I've never been paid for any any stance or any position or any tweet that I've ever put out. Not a part of any of those networks. And we shared like two words in a tweet and didn't say the same sentiment at all. So, I think people are just looking for something. People just want something to grab on to. Um, and people want something to be outraged about. But, as I said, I have been extremely consistent on all of this.
Okay, we're going to get into Pope Leo and Trump's battle in just a second. So much that I'm interested in coming together for podcast material. I first want to remind you about Share the Arrows, though. Share the Arrows is happening um in just a few months on October 10th. Believe it or not, it's going to be here before we know it. And we have announced our speakers. So excited about that. It's Shane and Shane, Rosaria Butterfield, Costi Hinn, Alisa Childers, Natasha Crane, Grace, Anna Castleberry, Audrey Brohie. We have one more speaker that is TBA. Y'all, I'm so excited. This lineup is so good. Um, we are going to be talking about all the hot topics from a biblical perspective. This is no fluff. It is gospel-centered. It is worship-filled. I'm so excited about Shane and Shane leading worship. Bring all of your women, friends, your small group, the females in your family. Go to sharethearrows.com, get your tickets, the sharethearrows.com.
All right, let's get into Trump versus Pope Leo. So, Trump took shots at Pope Leo. And this did not come out of nowhere, by the way. Um, Pope Leo has been signaling criticism towards Trump and what he is doing in Iran by saying things like, "God, you know, he doesn't, I'm paraphrasing, doesn't bless conflict. Peace can't come out of military force." We've responded to those statements by Pope Leo. You can go back and watch those episodes to get my response to it. But since Pope Leo is speaking into the political foreign policy realm, he is going to catch the eye. he's going to get a response from political leaders.
Um, Trump said this on Truth Social. He said, "Pope Leo is weak on crime," which is just like a funny a funny line. I mean, he's a pope. He's not a politician. I'm not going to read all of this because it's very long. Terrible for foreign policy. He talks about fear of the Trump administration, but doesn't mention the fear that the Catholic Church and all of their Christian organizations had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, everybody else, for holding church services. I don't want a pope who thinks it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don't want a pope who thinks it's terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a country that was sending massive amounts of drugs into the United States and even worse, emptying their prisons. Um, he said, "Use common sense. Stop catering to the radical left. It's hurting him very badly and more importantly, it's hurting the Catholic Church."
Now, I agree with Trump on all of this. I do believe that Pope Leo is just a liberal, that he has the very Obama sense of foreign policy and good and evil. That's why he reserves so far to me Catholics, you can correct me if I'm wrong, all of his eye and his criticism um towards Western nations for what they're doing and seems to kind of like uh tickle the third world countries and second world countries that are systematically killing and torturing Christians. And so it's a very liberal left-wing Obama kind of way to view foreign policy and war and the world that we are consistently seeing from Pope Leo. doesn't surprise me. He's a Chicago guy. He probably loves Barack Obama.
Um but the Pope responded, >> I I have no fear neither the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the gospel. And and that's what I believe I am called to do what the church is called to do. We're not politicians. We're not looking to make foreign policy as he calls it with the same perspective that that he might understand it. But I do believe that the message of the gospel, blessed are the peacemakers, is a message that the world leads to here, too.
Okay. So, evangelicals out there need to pay attention because we got to slow down. We got to define our terms because the most important thing that I think Pope Leo said there, some of that is true. I understand from a Catholic perspective, if you respect and honor the office of the papacy, I understand what he is saying there. However, so important to see that distinction that we'll get into a little bit more later probably. Um, when he says the message of the gospel, blessed are the peacemakers. When Catholics and evangelicals or Catholics and Protestants say the word gospel, they're not actually talking about the same thing. And you can ask, you can ask a fellow Catholic in your life, what is the gospel? Like if you ask an evangelical that we will give you exactly the formula for what the gospel is, but it's not typically the same thing as what a Catholic will say. And so you heard him say the gospel, blessed are the peacemakers. Well, that's not the gospel. That is something that Jesus said that is very possible. And actually, I'm not sure if I have heard Pope Leo articulate the gospel since he has become pope. Again, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I've heard him say a lot of different things and of course some Catholic doctrine, but I'm not sure has he actually preached the gospel and urged people to be saved as Jesus is the only way to heaven.
Um, then he gets into on X the communion between Muslims and Christians in Algeria. And he's made comments like this several times which I think is interesting. He says, "Communion between Christians and Muslims takes shape under the mantle of our Lady of Africa. Here in Algeria, the maternal love of Lala Miriam gathers everyone as children within our rich diversity in our shared aspiration for dignity, love, justice, and peace. In a world where division and war sow pain and death, living in unity, and peace is a compelling sign."
All right, here he is. We have at least just a voice over a video of Pope visiting the mosque of Algiers, Algeria. He's got his feet, his shoes off um as a sign of respect there. Algeria has a long history of violence between Muslims and Catholics with Muslims attacking Catholics and even right now there is violence against Christians in Muslim-dominated Algeria. Now, you could argue that that's exactly why he's going there to try to promote peace. Although, I don't believe that Nigeria is a stop in his tour of Africa where Christians uh both Protestant uh Protestants and then Catholics are also uh being slaughtered by Muslims. This is a pattern that we see throughout the Middle East, throughout Africa that I just haven't heard him talk much about when he is decrying violence.
And this language of our communion between Christianity and Muslims, it just reminds me of 2 Corinthians 6:14 where we read God through Paul says, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?" I agree of course that peace is better that we want to live peacefully um among people of all different faiths. But this kind of language of our rich diversity as if it is a benefit for Christians and Muslims to live among each other rather than everyone becoming Christian. Um that is just it's it's not a Christ-like or biblical message there. We don't just want communion with Muslims like we are trying to evangelize and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit which is exactly why we can't just have that um okay live and let live mentality.
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Okay. There seems to be a weird alliance shaping up between some who identify as Catholic and Muslims. Like I've I've seen this by popular accounts on X saying like these are the people who are like really allying that um Muslims love Jesus. We're both for like the traditional way of life and then you've got the evangelicals and the Jews over there on the other side of things. I mean it's insane.
Now, my Catholic friends who are solid, you know, they're devout Catholics and they're also saying they're not saying this, like they don't believe this. So, I'm not saying that this is what everyone or even most people within the Catholic Church believes. I'm not even saying that this is what the Pope means by what he's saying. Although I don't like the direction he's going that way. But there definitely are some who see this kind of alliance who start soft-pedaling Islam and to make us believe that Jews are the source of the problem and evangelicals who tend to defend the Jewish people or defend Israel, they're the source of all of our problems politically, morally, it's very strange.
Tucker Carlson has been one of these people that he has just been very um sarcastic when it comes to fears around Sharia law. For example, he has talked about how Sharia law that dominates uh different Middle Eastern countries has actually made better societies in some cases than societies that we have here. Um not completely and totally but some. And he seems to have kind of changed his tone over the years when it comes to Islam and when it comes to the threat of Islam and when it comes to the threat of the implementation of Sharia law here in the United States.
Now, he is not Catholic, but he certainly is someone who has criticized evangelicals, as we'll get to. I was kind of shocked. I was kind of shocked. Maybe I shouldn't have been, but kind of shocked when he went like full mask-off. The Tucker Carlson network um posted this in light of this whole conversation between Islam and the Pope. Uh the Post on X says, "The people in charge, who's that? I don't know. The people in charge don't want you to know this, but Muslims love Jesus. Islam reveres him as a major prophet and messenger of the Lord, believes he performed miracles, and states that he will return to earth to defeat the Antichrist. That's why Donald Trump's painting depicting himself as the son of God offended the president of Iran. It was an attack on his religion as well as Christianity."
Um and yet here they are reposting it. And so today's morning note newsletter covers covers that topic basically. Okay. Muslims love Jesus. Um my response to this was that yeah, Muslims love Jesus so much and they prove that by routinely slaughtering his followers throughout Africa and the Middle East. That's how much Muslims love Jesus. I've heard this a lot uh specifically from a lot of Chad Cath people that oh well the Jews hate Jesus. The Talmud says that he is burning an excrement or whatever and Islam regards Jesus as a prophet and so we have more in common with Islam than we do with Judaism. Well, that's just not true. We share half of our Bible with the Jewish people. Our savior is Jewish. Um, and Islam again routinely slaughters Christians everywhere, almost everywhere where they become a majority. And I don't really care if Islam believes that Jesus is a prophet. He is not just a prophet. I don't believe I don't care if they believe that he was just a messenger from God. He wasn't just a messenger from God. Jesus is God. Judaism denies that. Islam denies that. Okay. So, they're both wrong. It's both both stances are blasphemous. Both standards are out or both definitions rather are outside of the truth. Okay. So, like I don't know why I'm supposed to believe that Islam has some close alliance with Christianity. Have we seen that throughout history? Do we see that in most Muslim majority countries today? this alliance, this tolerance of Christianity by Muslims in charge. Absolutely not.
The biggest source of Christian persecution in the world is from Islam, not from Judaism, not even from atheism, although that absolutely happens in places like China and North Korea, but by and large is from Muslims, radical Muslims. You can see what's happening in Nigeria. And again, a lot of these people will pretend that that's not happening. That Christians aren't really being targeted. That it's every group that's being targeted. That's not true. It's not true. It's mostly Christians who are being kidnapped and tortured in Nigeria by these Muslims. And as if that makes it better that not only Christians are being targeted, but also other people are being targeted too by these radical Muslims in Nigeria. Like tell me why the vast majority of designated terrorist groups throughout the world are Islamic. Do we think that's just a coincidence? No. It's because there is something inherent within Islamic ideology that calls for jihad and domination that lends itself to violence and terrorism.
So, I'm sorry, Tucker Carlson Network. It's not going to work on me. It shouldn't It wouldn't work on any real Christian, by the way. Okay? Because we read the Bible. That doesn't mean that we should say, "Oh, Judaism is fine and we should unconditionally support Israel." Well, that's not the natural conclusion to that. I don't believe that. However, it also doesn't mean that we engage in this stupid war of like I'm aligning myself with Muslims against Jews. I mean, that's just literally insane and irrational. I support Israel to an extent for pragmatic reasons. I'm not a dispensationalist, not because I believe that we have to expand the territory of Israel for Jesus to come back. I don't believe that biblically. I'm an evangelical. I'm not a dispensationalist. So, I don't believe all of the things that people like Tucker Carlson say people like me believe. But they are the closest thing to a democracy that we have in the Middle East. They are one of, if not the most tolerant countries of Christians in the Middle East. And the Palestinian people are treated like trash by their own Muslim government because they're barbarians. And so to me, it's like kind of obvious if you have to pick a side, which maybe you don't have to, but if you have to pick a side, like which side pragmatically we should be on. Theology aside.
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According to the National Catholic Reporter, white evangelicals are the only religious group to overwhelmingly oppose abortion. There's a 2022 survey of more than 11,000 Americans found that 73% of white evangelicals believe that abortion should be illegal. 86% of white evangelicals said that allowing fetuses to have uh to have rights is in line with their religious views. This article also says that white evangelicals are the only religious group that have the majority that believe that life begins at conception. There's also a Pew Research survey from 2016. So that was 2022. In 2016, it showed that 76% of white evangelicals see abortion as morally wrong compared to only 51% of Catholics. The Catholic Church still upholds its original teaching.
But I think we should ask the question like if the catechism and if the magisterium of the Catholic Church is supposed to lend itself to unity, why are the so-called schismatics, as many Catholics say, the evangelicals so much more united on what is actually biblically true? Why are we more aligned with what the Catholic Church teaches? If our um if our belief system has led to liberalism and has led to all of this dissension and disagreement, why are we so united on the issue of life and Catholics are not? I think it's a good question.
When it comes to IVF and birth control, I am very thankful for official Catholic teaching on this. However, according to Pew, 84% of Catholics believe that the church should allow the use of birth control. 84%. That's a lot. 83% believe it should permit IVF. Wow. And again, the Catholic church teaching is clear on this, but again, the mechanisms might not be there to make sure that uh those who identify as Catholic are actually catechized and it should be asked is sola scriptura actually a better mechanism to make sure that everyone actually knows what God teaches about the body and about human life. 60% of Catholics believe that priests should give blessings to same-sex couples. 50%.
believe that the church should formally recognize homosexual marriages. And a 2023 to 2024 survey, Catholics pulled 70% support for a same-sex marriage compared to only 36% of evangelicals. Still too high, but a huge difference there.
Um, and then when you have the acceptance of transgenderism, we've got 36% of Catholics believing that the acceptance of transgenderism is positive. There only 35% believing that it is negative. This is compared to 64% of evangelicals that view transgender acceptance as negative. Only 18% supporting it. I'm like, who are those 18%? That's crazy.
Um, and this is because I think that the Pope typically has been just kind of wishy-washy on these things in some regards. I'm not saying John Paul II, okay? But in 2023, the previous pope, Pope Francis, said of homosexuality, "It's not a crime, but it is a sin." And I think that's a okay, that's a good thing. However, in 2018, he said to a gay man, "God made you like this, and he loves you." Well, God didn't make you um sin. Uh, but of course, he does love you. And he also famously said in 2013, "Who am I to judge?" when asked about a gay priest. He also hosted in 2023 transgender women's lunch. It was the latest gesture, the AP says, of inclusion from a pope who is uh made reaching out to the LGBTQ community, a hallmark of his papacy. There's nothing wrong with that as long as the motivation is evangelism and a call uh to repentance.
60% of Catholics pled say that they want the church to be more inclusive, even if that means changing some teachings. Um, and again, I think this kind of goes to um not the I think this kind of goes to the issue of how things are taught in the Catholic Church, how things are brought down to the actual lay people. Um, maybe it's not a problem in all cases with official Catholic teaching, although I would probably argue that it is. But again, like I would reserve some of your criticism for the dangers of solos scriptura and the dangers of denominations because again, evangelicals are so much more united. So clearly having the Bible as our ultimate authority without a magisterium has led to more understanding of what the Bible says about the body and more agreement about these things.
Now what we're going to end on is this question of is Catholicism actually surging? Is Catholicism actually surging? Because we are being made to believe that it is. We're first being made to believe the lie that evangelicals are the source of all of our problems. I'm not saying that Catholics are the source of all of our problems. So I'm saying people who don't know their Bibles and don't abide by their Bibles will certainly lead usually in a bad direction politically. That is for sure. But first we're being told that everyone or yeah that evangelicals are the problem. Then we're being told that everyone is becoming Catholic. So why we're being told this I'm not exactly sure. I understand from a pro progressive perspective why people would want us to stop being evangelical because that means for a lot of people stopping being conservative. But it's a little strange coming from people like Tucker Carlson and others who claim to still be on the right. I just think it's a little weird.
Um, but let's look at the numbers. Like, is Catholicism really surging? And is Protestantism Protestantism dwindling? Is evangelicalism losing its influence or people leaving low church to go to high church? We'll get into the numbers in just a second. Let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day and that is Good Ranchers. At Good Ranchers, their mission is to bridge the gap between American families and local American farms. They do that by delivering 100% American meat from local farms and ranches straight to your door. And uh we have been relying on Good Ranchers for a really long time. Very thankful for them. We love their better than organic chicken that we cook almost every night in our home because our kids love it. We love their steak. We love their ground beef. And it just makes our life so much easier when all of this shows up on dry ice to your front door in a cardboard box. Um, every month I don't have to go to the grocery store and worry about where my meat is from, what the quality is going to be. I can support this America First, God-loving, family-owned company, and I can also support all of these American farms and ranches that uh feed our feed our families and that feed their communities and really have just been decimated by unfair regulations. They need our support. This is a great way to vote with your dollar and to celebrate America turning 250. If you go to goodranchers.com and use code ally, you'll get $25 off your first order and you'll get free meat with every order, too, when you subscribe. Go to goodranchers.com, code alli.
So, I saw this article from the Washington Post and I thought this was so interesting. And I know that my Catholic followers probably won't like this explanation. And I'm going to give some caveats. I just thought it was a fascinating analysis, this opinion. It's in the Washington Post and this article is titled Why Catholic Converts Are Surging with an Unexpected Demographic. Julia Yost writes, "The age of Instagram and Tik Tok favors Catholicism, an earlier era of the internet, that of the blogersphere was congenial to Protestantism with its biblical and exeetical basis. The result was the young, restless, and reformed movement. mostly male Protestants reading one another's blogs and finding their way from seeker sensitive evangelicalism to high proof Calvinism. Today's internet by contrast is image forward and post literate. This helps to explain why today's online Christians tend to be young, restless, and Roman. She attributes this to the visual aspect of Catholicism. She said, "White steeples, Puritan clothing, snake handling, not much for an influencer to work with. Also, I don't know many churches that do the snake handling. I know that some charismatic churches do not common within Protestantism. Catholicism has icons and incense, rosaries, chapel veils and ashes, priestly black, cardinal red and paper white. Catholic drip content downstream of conclave. The 2024 uh 2024 film enjoys intense engagement. An old stereotype has it that Protestantism is for people who read books and Catholicism is for people who want spectacle. Say hello to Gen Z. I guess we've got uh yeah, some videos of Catholic drip content. Okay. Hadn't heard of this. And it's always like a comparison to evangelicalism. You know, acting like evangelicalism is just like superficial.
I do think, okay, let me say a couple things about this because I know that there are going to be some friends out there who were like, are you saying that there is no substance to Catholicism? And I'm not saying that. I mean, I do think clearly some of these influencers put too much emphasis on the vibe when vibes aren't what saves you and like vibe isn't a faith. It's not a worldview. But I don't think that's what all Catholic converts are doing. And certainly that's not what I think all Catholic believers believe. I think that there is an appeal to something that is aesthetic and there's nothing wrong with aesthetics. There is something actually true and good and beautiful about beauty. And so I don't think all of that is wrong. And I do believe some people are persuaded by Catholic theology, by church history. And so there are a lot of brilliant Catholic theologians and Catholic apologists, some of whom I call friends, and a lot of brilliant Catholic people. So I don't want it to seem like I just think this is superficial, but she is on to something here. She is, this writer of the Washington Post is on to something that in a world that favors imagery and a world that is fast-paced. Catholicism has a better aesthetic and a better vibe and is more likely to get views and to get attention and to go viral and to draw someone in who is used to that kind of imagery um than Protestantism which is based on argument. It is based on word. It is based on persuasion.
It is so true about the young restless reformed movement. I am a product of that. It was around 2008 to 2010 that I started getting into reformed theology. Didn't even know what uh Calvinism was. But someone gave me an ESV study Bible and my mind was just blown. And you know, it really has shaped my theology ever since. But back then, people were reading everything and people were interested in these intellectual theological books and the blogs and the arguments and the conferences and the speeches and the sermons and podcasts were starting and people were starting to listen to sermons on their iPods and there was just so much there. We wanted to consume words and to read words. And that's not to say there is no Catholic scholarship, but there is more iconography and more of a visual element in Catholicism. And it is simply true that people read less now. We're not really reading blogs as much. We're skimming tweets the most part. We're reading less books. People have a shorter attention span. And that does give Catholicism an advantage.
And I think back to the first Reformation. Okay, I know my Catholic friends are not going to like what I'm about to say, but I I think back to the Reformation and Martin Luther. And the reason at the time the Catholic Church was allowed to be so corrupt and why they were allowed to preach things like if you give the church, if you give the Catholic Church money, you can spring your loved ones soul out of purgatory. you can pay indulgences. That was one of the 95 problems that Martin Luther had with what the Catholic Church was doing at the time. The reason that so many Catholics had a wrong view of salvation and a wrong view of Jesus, a wrong view of grace and this belief that you had to earn your way to heaven is because they were preiterate. Okay? So that was a preiterate society where most people could not read. They didn't have a Bible of their own and mass was in Latin. They didn't have any real understanding of what they believed aside from what their priest told them. And when you have darkness, when you are pre-enlightenment and pre-aliterate, you are almost completely dependent upon what someone teaches you. Yes, the Holy Spirit can enlighten you, but gosh, that authority structure that really thrived because so many people were ignorant was part of the problem. And so the fact that the reformation happened at about the same time around the same time as the printing press and lit uh literacy rates started skyrocketing around this time and Martin Luther was able to translate the Bible into the common language. I mean that really I mean that is God's providence. That is God's sovereignty. That was his grace for the church to say no this is the gospel. That fact that all of that happened around the same time when literacy started taking off is just a miracle that can only be explained by God who wanted his will to be revealed to people on their own through the power of the Holy Spirit through his word and for them to understand the true gospel which is that by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone can you be saved. Thank God for the reformation. Thank God for literacy.
But it scares me that we are moving voluntarily into new dark ages. We are moving voluntarily into a post-literate society in which people are susceptible not only to what I believe are some of the false teachings of Catholicism but the false teachings of all kinds of conspiracy theories, the false teachings of nosticism, the false teachings of all kinds of different false ideologies of idolatrous ideologies in some cases because we don't read. We don't read our Bibles. We don't read theology. We don't have an attention span or an appetite for those things. And that worries me. That does worry me.
Now, thankfully, right now, according to the numbers, by and large, Catholicism is not actually surging and Protestantism is not actually declining as much as people say. So, let me give you my spiel on this based on what the facts say. And I think it's important for us to know this because it's easy for us to just watch social media and think that that trend is growing when it's actually not. So Crisis Magazine is a um it's it's a Catholic magazine. Okay, so this is from a Catholic perspective. They note that according to Pew, for every one person joining the Roman Catholic Church, eight people are leaving. This has worsened since 2014 when for every one person that joined, six people left. And this has been sort uh this has been cited by Catholic sources. Crisis magazine says no other religion has nearly as bad of a join leave ratio. For every 100 people that become Protestant, 180 leave. That's bad, but it's not Catholic bad. Conversely, for every 100 people who leave the religious nuns in O nees, uh, a full 590 become a part of the irreligious cohort. Where are the former Catholics going? Of all the former Catholics, 56% become religious nuns and 32% become Protestant. I think we all know, he says from personal experience, that these numbers ring true. What Catholic doesn't have family members who become Protestant or have stopped practicing any religion? It's just part of being an American Catholic these days. You also have Catholic apologist Trent Horn, whom we've had on several times. He published an insightful video uh several months ago about this or I think it was last year about this trend. Um he says Protestantism is winning. Of the major religious groups in America, Protestantism is seeing the least decline. And the truth is this is a global reality. There has been a major religious shift toward Protestantism in South America over the past three decades. A continent that was almost entirely Catholic is now 20% Protestant. More than a third of South American Protestants were raised Catholic before making the switch. The reasons for conversion that they cited were seeking a personal connection with God. They wanted a church that helps members now want greater emphasis on morality among others. And there are a lot of Catholics who have analyzed this unarguable shift, noting that the embrace of Marxism and liberation theology by a lot of the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th and the 20th century led to a weakened church, not just in South America, but globally. And I actually think we're seeing some of that Marxism reflected in the current pope. And that's just a really good lesson for all of us, whether you're Protestant or Catholic. Um that the more like the world you become, the least you are going to attract new members because why go through all of that trouble? just to, you know, learn from church, which you can learn from brunch with your friends on Sunday. Um, it's also because evangelicals are evangelical and according to Pew in every South American country, self-identifying Protestants are far more likely to share their faith than Catholics. For example, in Peru, 38% of Protestants say they share their faith at least once a week compared to just 7% of Catholics. And I believe that if Catholics wanted to change this, then they would face this reality. Like I know that it's very popular on social media right now just to pretend like everyone's becoming Catholic, but the data shows that that is just not true.
Uh we read from someone named Ryan Burge. He is the research director at Faith Counts. Um he says in the 1970s 8% of Catholics became Protestants while only 3% of Protestants became Catholics. In the 2020s 12% of Catholics became Protestants while again only 3% of Protestants became Catholic. So, it's just not likely at all for Catholics to become Protestant or or for Protestants to become Catholic. It is kind of uh likely for Catholics to become Protestant at least more likely. Um and we're hearing the opposite story. So, what is the motivation for this? What's the motivation to try to compel people away from evangelicalism into Catholicism? You know, I don't know. I don't know. I again I understand it from a progressive perspective because and I know that this is offensive to my Catholic conservative friends but the more Catholic America becomes the more liberal she becomes not the more conservative. Every single statistic shows this. The less evangelical become the more we become the more liberal we become. That's just true. And so I mean I understand why you would want the country to become more liberal if you're a progressive. I don't understand from some of these self-professing conservative Christians why you would want that. Why this unfair and untrue caricature of evangelicals and this pressuring of evangelicals to believe that what we have isn't real just because it's not high church. I don't know. It's strange.
But I would just encourage you. This is what I just encourage you. You don't have to listen to me. You don't have to listen to anyone. Catholic, Protestant. I just want you to be in the word of God. I want you to read your Bible. If you've never read your Bible, get an ESP study Bible. It's like, I don't know, maybe 15 bucks on Amazon. Start in the book of John. Look at the notes and go forward from there. Like, I don't care if you listen to me as a source of truth. But I want you to go to the word of God. And if you are an evangelical, that will solidify you in your faith. And you won't be moved just by the superficial imagery that you see on social media or the social contagion that may be happening, but you will be rooted in the word of God. And Catholics, of course, it can't hurt um for you also to join us in reading the word of God. It can't hurt anyone. It can only help, right? It can only bring us closer to the God who made us and the Christ who saved us. Um so that's my encouragement. Just beware, be very wary of the messaging that we are seeing right now. And understand, evangelical Christians, you are in the crosshairs for whatever strange reason. We are in the crosshairs. And it's just time for you to hold strong in what is good and right and true.
All right, I know that was a long episode and I had more that I could say. That's all we have time for. We will be back with David French, y'all. David French on Friday. He is joining Relatable. It's going to be fun. See you guys then.