Ideas Have Consequences
Everything that we see around us is the product of ideas, of ideologies, of worldviews. That's where everything starts. Worldviews are not all the same, and the differences matter a lot. How do you judge a tree? By its fruits. How do you judge a worldview? By its physical, tangible, observable fruit. The things it produces. Ideas that are noble and true produce beauty, abundance, and human flourishing. Poisonous ideas produce ugliness. They destroy and dehumanize. It really is that simple. Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of Disciple Nations Alliance, where we prepare followers of Christ to better understand the true ideas that lead to human flourishing while fighting against poisonous ideas that destroy nations. Join us, and prepare your minds for action!
Ideas Have Consequences
Policy Won’t Change a Pro-Abortion Culture with Naomi Smith
In the fight to end abortion, changing policies is necessary, but it falls woefully short of solving the problem. Today, we have a culture that worships sex, and unless this changes, abortion will be an inevitable consequence of this lifestyle. To end abortion, we need to shift our target upstream to the root lies behind this worship, specifically to the lies surrounding what it means to be human and God’s design for the sexes and family. For the discussion, our friend Naomi Smith joins us in unpacking each of these lies. Ideas have consequences, and right now, our culture needs better ideas that will not lead to abortion.
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I think it's important to realize how deeply and how many layers of ideas have been built demonically in the minds of women to cause them to think that this is a great idea. Like I need abortion in my life.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, welcome to Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God, christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Scott Allen:Well, welcome again to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I'm joined today by Luke Allen and Dwight Vogt, and we're honored and blessed today to have as our guest Naomi Smith. You've heard, if you listen to our podcast regularly, you've heard Naomi before. It's great to have you back, naomi, thanks for having me. It's an honor to have you back.
Scott Allen:Naomi is a really dear friend of the DNA for many years now. She's what we call a kingdomizer. She's living out biblical truth in profound ways, especially in the home and with her children and husband, and doing amazing things. She's also been helping us in recent months with a lot of our writing, and so it's been just great really to have you really on the team in many ways, naomi. So, anyways, we are going to talk today, and this is partly why we wanted to have Naomi on, because she thinks deeply about a lot of these topics we're going to talk about.
Scott Allen:Well, I think the way to get into our discussion today is just by putting on the table the topic of abortion. It's something that we've talked about a number of times, you know, in recent months, a number of times, you know, in recent months, we've had a number of guests on from pro-life advocacy organizations and we still, you know, I think where we are at today, at least in the United States, is in this place, this kind of strange place where the goal for the pro-life movement for almost my entire life, you know, has been to overturn Roe v Wade. That was done successfully, by God's grace, over a year ago, and yet since that time there's just been kind of one disappointment after another. The issue of abortion goes back to the states, and state after state, essentially, are choosing to enshrine in their state laws the equivalent of Roe v Wade or some version of it. They want to keep abortion accessible, legal. I mean not all states, but a lot of states, and a lot of states that have been kind of surprising, you know we would think of as more conservative. So, and even this last week, guys, we heard news that the United States Supreme Court did not you know I can't remember the framing of it, but it had to do with the abortion pill and outlawing that. You know they refused to do that based on standing, I believe it was so yet another disappointment on the abortion front. So we're facing, you know, just kind of setback after setback, and I think what's coming clearer now is that you can, you know, abortion is an issue that you know is not disconnected from this a lot of other issues, and in fact you know it's a natural consequence.
Scott Allen:I would say this is ideas have consequences. It's a natural consequence or fruit of a whole lot of ideas, deep ideas and lies that have been really deeply ingrained into our culture now for over 100 years. You know, around the sexual revolution, around issues of marriage and sex and procreation and family and children and human dignity, and all of these issues have been just so deeply, deeply redefined and so many lies around those issues have been sewn into the culture. Because of that, you have abortion. Abortion is essentially a consequence.
Scott Allen:So to you know, it seems to me to make a difference. We have to change the culture around these. You know this set of ideas, you know that revolve around these really basic things that God built into creation right at the beginning, right in Genesis 1. Guys, help me out as I set this up, because I think that's where we want to go. We've got to see some change. We've got to roll back essentially a lot of the sexual revolution, as hard as that, or as impossible as that might seem, or else we're just not. You're not going to make much of a difference on abortion, because it's going to be an inevitable consequence of these ideas, is that? Do you think that's a fair statement? What are your thoughts?
Dwight Vogt:You know, I was the one that broached the subject and I think I've just I realized it was happening, but I just alarmed. Before this podcast, we talked about the changes in our society and just how abortion has become so politicized. And I'm thinking, yeah, because the election season is upon us and, you know, you turn on the TV or even watching videos on YouTube and I get all these ads from people saying you know, I am going to make you know young women running for Congress saying I'm going to make abortion freedom, you know, for everybody, and we're going to keep it. We're going to have abortion to the last day, you know, before birth, and there's going to be no restrictions. And these are young women with husbands and a child in tow. And I'm just like wow, what have we come to? That? It's just become the absolute right and almost divine right.
Dwight Vogt:You know so it's alarming for me and I'm thinking this is the culture. I'm looking at the culture. I'm not looking at politics. Now, I'm looking at the culture and going, whoa, we're really in trouble.
Luke Allen:Yeah, recently I was struck by, speaking of the culture, a guy that I listened to, matt Fradd.
Naomi Smith:I know Naomi you like him as well, I do.
Luke Allen:He was just explaining how our culture has recently taken a lot of words. He called them ugly words and we've put nice little labels on them to normalize things that should be ugly, things that should be ugly. And just reading through the list I was struck by how much these words have changed people's perceptions. And like, for example, sleeping together or having a hookup, you know very casual sounding words that used to be called fornication, so we took that word and we threw a nice little label on it. Or you can say cheating, when we used to call it adultery, or gay, which used to mean happy, is taking the place of sodomy or what we used to call sodomy. You know, gender affirming care is actually genital mutilation or reproductive freedom. It's just a different way of saying abortion. Um, and we're we're trying to reframe the language around this to normalize it and it's working.
Luke Allen:I mean you watch, you watch most movies, most shows out there that have come out since the nineties or eighties, and they're all about expressive individualism. Essentially, just do whatever you want, as long as it makes you happy. That message is pushed down our throats nonstop and when you live that out, when you walk that message out, it's going to lead to exactly what our culture sees today and just all the sexual libertinism that is wreaking a ton of havoc Upstream. You know changing the words, saying expressive individualism to kids and preaching that and you know, just do whatever you want and be happy. That all kind of sounds benign and fine and happy, but then the result of that is abortion. That's what it often leads to and the consequence of that is a culture of death.
Scott Allen:And Luke, why don't you? You've got some just before you jump in, naomi, just give us. Let's just set the table here a little bit with that. You know that culture of death. Luke, you've got some stats and I think it's always good to just remind ourselves of what we're talking about here, just how dark and I mean we're talking about genocide, levels of murder. This is not some small social issue. Yeah.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I mean this is going to be an issue that 200 years down the road, when kids are reading history books, they're going to be shocked by, I would assume. I would hope, because it's unbelievably evil. 1973 was the year Roe v Wade was passed. Since then in the US there have been 63,459,781 abortions in the US alone. As we know, we have a global audience here on the podcast. Abortion has spread and it's available in many places around the globe, and a lot of the reason for that is because of the US's influence in other countries. So it's not just a US problem. But the numbers I have here are from the US. That giant number equates to about 2,800 abortions a day, which comes out to one child killed in a Planned Parenthood center every 90 seconds, which means if this podcast lasts one hour, then that's going to be 40 deaths during this hour of our discussion. So just to break it down to the ground level, that's what we're dealing with in this culture of death.
Luke Allen:And it hasn't stopped, it hasn't slowed down. Interestingly, after that Dobbs decision two years ago, a lot of people were expecting abortion rates to really plummet. They didn't really change much, as far as I know. I think it was the year after they actually went up in the US. So policies do matter, but they don't change a culture overnight and there's a deeper, deeper lie that is contributing to this culture of death. That has not been addressed and we're trying to get at that today.
Scott Allen:I just think it's always important to let those numbers sink in again and just be horrified just anew. You know, at what's happening in the world right now. You know, kind of on our watch, as we say. You know, kind of on our watch, as we say. You know, we always look back at these atrocities in human history. We always wonder, you know, how could the church, right, how could you know, how could they just stand by when this was going on? Well, it's happening right now, you know, and so I just always think it's important, when we talk about this issue, to put it, you know, to be scandalized and brokenhearted yet again. Naomi, you were about to say something, yeah.
Naomi Smith:Yeah, I mean, I think that the hard part is is that it's not like the Holocaust and that six million Jews were pushed into trains and put in internment camps with like, apart from against their will. It's women who have been trained to think that this is a good idea, that I want this, that I even deserve this, and so they've. I have a lot of compassion for the women who think that this is a great idea for them, that they really think that this is like my saving grace. You know, abortion is and I have a story of a woman Austin, my husband and I we lived in Kansas City and we worked with inner city kids for a while and I had this one girl who taught me so much just about love and about just walking with her. But she wanted me to take her to get a depo shot, which is like a birth control shot, and so while we were in the doctor, I was talking to the doctor and I was like, is this a good birth control shot, you know, like that kind of thing? And she's like, oh, it's really good. It can even sometimes prevent women from having kids at all. And I was like, what Right, I'm with it there with my friend and she's getting a shot, and this is government sponsored.
Naomi Smith:And so, anyway, I got in the car with her and I was like, hey, did you hear what she said? And she's like well, naomi, I need it. And I said, well, you know, there's other ways. There's other ways to not get pregnant. It's called don't have sex. And she was like well, naomi, I can't do that. And I was like, who told you that?
Naomi Smith:How, in your mind and in your thinking, do you think that you are so in some ways subject to your own impulses that you can't control yourself and not have sex?
Naomi Smith:Cause I know for you, being a single woman who's from a poor family, that getting pregnant would probably be at without a wedlock, would be really hard and really, you know, it'd be tough. She watched her mom be a single mom there's like this continual cycle of single moms in her family and so she's just trying to avoid that at all costs. But in her mind, like she did not believe as a human that she could say no and not have sex, and that for me was like a wake up call, to like how deep she's been discipled into this kind of Darwinian idea of I'm just an animal and I'm subject to my whims and impulses, and so she's taking a shot that could sterilize her. You know, I mean, that's just that's important to realize how deeply and how many layers of ideas have been built demonically in the minds of women to cause them to think that this is a great idea, like I need abortion in my life, you know.
Scott Allen:Yeah, absolutely. You put your finger right on it. I think, naomi, when you talked about this lie, that she had believed I mean, we're talking about a real person and the essence of it was I have no say in this matter. You know there is no agency here. You know, and you're right to say, that the source of that lie, you know, goes back 150 years to Charles Darwin. Back 150 years to Charles Darwin.
Scott Allen:A lot of the source of these lies that are awash in our culture right now go back, you know that, far to the mid, to the early 1800s, and to key thought leaders. And Darwin's contribution to this was essentially to say you know, more or less, there is no God. You know we are all evolved, and that changed the understanding of what it means to be a human being, right. We no longer are created by God in his image, with dignity, with worth and with choice or freedom or agency. You know Now we're animals, right, and so we look to the animal kingdom. Animals, you know they just. You know it's all instinct and they don't have a say in it, so to speak, and we are no different. And that's been taught now for years, I mean decades in public school. That is the basis of what is taught, you know, in our sex ed curriculum, which comes from Planned Parenthood.
Scott Allen:So of course the upshot is that she's absorbed that completely. You know, and that's just one lie. You know we can go down and it might even be good for us to just touch on some more of these lies that have shaped the kind of the ecosystem of lies you know that we find ourselves in now Again that make abortion kind of inevitable. Right? Unless you get back to these lies, you're not going to find ourselves in now again that make abortion kind of inevitable, right? Unless you get back to these lies, you're not going to really see a change, right, you know? You know this is where I think again you can overturn Roe v Wade, but if the lies are still capturing people's minds, you know we still, you know we're not going to see what we want to see.
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Dwight Vogt:I think choice is one lie which you know Naomi alluded to we talked about, but I think another one that's growing is the idea that there has to be a perfect baby with a perfect parent in order to be valid. And my I was just sharing earlier today with some friends, you know my daughter's at a Young Life camp, for it's called Capernaum this week, which is for disabled. There's about a hundred hundred, so campers and and they have downs or they have some kind of challenging situation in their life. Yet in Sweden there's fewer of those people, because they can test before birth and they can abort those children.
Dwight Vogt:And it's the idea that if that child's not perfect, then you're doing yourself a favor and you're doing the child a favor. The child, whatever that is, you're doing it a favor by not letting it be born into this awful, hurtful world, and yet it's also then undermining what it means to be human and are you valuable as a person? And so it doesn't stop at well, I don't have downs, I must be valuable. Well, what if you have this learning challenge? It seems like it's a slippery slope.
Scott Allen:It is a slippery slope and, yeah, you're right. I mean, we're entering into a time.
Dwight Vogt:Which one of us is going to be valuable in 20 years? None of us.
Scott Allen:You know, with the advances in this kind of transhuman technologies and you know the creation of designer babies, I mean we're really entering into this. But I think that the root of that lie, dwight, is the same. You know we are animals. Let's say, eugenics is what you're talking about. You know, which is kind of weeding out the weaklings and whatnot. It's really animal husbandry applied to human beings. Right, we're animals, you know, and you know we do this with animals. We cull the herd from these weak, you know ones so we can have a stronger herd.
Scott Allen:You know it's the same mindset. It's the lie that we're animals, that there is no God, that we're evolved, we're no different than the animal kingdom. We are animals. And if you think, if that's your starting point, all of these things are possible, you know they're not only possible, they're, you know, inevitable. I would say you have to have a different starting point. We're not animals, you know we are like animals in that we're created by God. Both of us, we and animals, are created by God. But we're different from animals because we are uniquely created in God's image and you have unique value and dignity.
Scott Allen:If you don't believe that, then you're going to treat people like animals. Yeah, go ahead, Dwight.
Dwight Vogt:But to be consistent, then I'm an animal and you're an animal, and the answer is survival of the fittest, so I can kill you. Right, that's right, yeah, right, that's right, yeah.
Scott Allen:And people that will say no, that there's some kind of ethic against that are being. You know they're essentially being in. You know they're not being consistent with their worldview. That's right, yeah.
Naomi Smith:I kill a fly. I don't like it, I just killed it. A lot of my friends who have bigger families get is this idea that people are consumers and that we're kind of that's all we are. As Dara would put it, we're a stomach. What does he say?
Scott Allen:It's a mouth and a stomach. We're basically a mouth and a stomach, a mouth and a stomach.
Naomi Smith:Yeah, we're just a consumer. We're a consumer of scarce resources, right yeah.
Naomi Smith:Right, and so it's better if there's less humans on the earth, like it's just better. You know, like that kind of a thing, and like you kind of get this, this look of disdain when you have more than two kids or something like that. You know, and um, I think that's another um, probably evolution, I don't. You guys could tell, tell me where that really comes from. But of course it's not true in that people have creativity and can innovate and can solve problems and if we look in history, that's just simply not all that humans are. But it's a lie that's going around right now.
Scott Allen:You're absolutely right and yeah, I think the root is the same. Naomi, I think you know there's so many of these consequences from this lie that you know we are not made in God's image but we're just evolved animals. And I think yet this is another one. You know, because you can see this in the natural world, you can have. You know we've got to cull a herd. You know if they're destroying the environment, you know you've got to keep things in kind of balance.
Scott Allen:And so people apply that very same thought to human beings, right? There's too many of us where you know the herd needs to be culled, and you literally hear people talking that way. You know the herd needs to be culled, and you literally hear people talking that way, you know today, and they mean it. I mean, I take them at their word. They would if they could figure out a way and they can, you know of culling the herd. They will, and, as you say, some people voluntarily do it because they bought into the lie. We're not animals, though, and part of what it, what it means to be a human being, is that we don't just consume, we create, because God creates, he's the great creator, and we can actually leave this world more prosperous than we found it when we were born. It's an amazing thing, but that never gets factored into this Darwinian lie, because we're just animals. Animals consume. That's what they do, you know.
Dwight Vogt:You keep saying Darwinian lie and I've heard two reputable people scientists in the last week say if Darwin was alive today he would not write Origin of the Species because they thought he was honest enough in the way he handled the data that he had at his time. You know, back in the 1800s, that today he would have said I don't have enough data. I mean the supporting data doesn't support me writing Origin of the Species. Does that make sense?
Scott Allen:I mean because he may, he may. That may be true, Dwight, but all I know is what the culture's done with what he's done.
Dwight Vogt:Right, right. But it's interesting that these two guys I said you know he seemed to be honest enough as a scientist, because he did put in that one caveat. He said if the fossil record doesn't support graduated development, he goes, my theory is done, it's toast development, he goes, my theory is is done, it's toast. Well, he had never even possibly explored the possibility that within the cell was dna and all these molecular mechanisms and machinery. He had no clue what was going on before life even was created in the cell. That couldn't have evolved, you know, through mutation and random selection, because he just didn't know about it. He just he couldn't see it. So they were saying, you know, if you, he probably wouldn't even he wouldn't support his own theory.
Naomi Smith:And yet the whole world says darwinian evolution, because that's a fact well, it's interesting to think about science actually supporting the idea of intelligent design and creation. It totally makes sense because it's reality being studied, you know, and God is reality, god made reality. But it's interesting to think about the level of denial that people have to be in now to actually believe that we evolved, believe that we evolved.
Scott Allen:Yeah, and yet you know this is a lie.
Naomi Smith:that's you know again, regardless of what Darwin would or wouldn't have said it's so deeply spread into the culture in the West.
Scott Allen:It's so deep and you know, and it and it. Basically the upshot of it is there is no God. We're all evolved, you know. We're all matter, we're animals. You know. Essentially, as it relates to this discussion, it's deep, but it's also getting.
Dwight Vogt:The roots are getting thinner and thinner.
Scott Allen:I agree. I mean.
Dwight Vogt:I heard somebody the other day that says no, he would say the majority of modern scientists, biology scientists, whatever would look at Darwin's theory and go no, that's probably not true.
Scott Allen:And I think we have to fight.
Dwight Vogt:But they would believe the modern synthesis. Well, what's the modern synthesis? There's like a hundred, and I'm exaggerating. There's a bunch of ideas that have been added to Darwin or replaced Darwin, you know. Anyway, I don't know what they are, but they're called the modern synthesis, but none of them hold water either. Anyway, it's just interesting that people are struggling because they know Darwin doesn't work anymore.
Scott Allen:And now they're struggling, but we're living, but they haven't given up the lie. Zero talks about how culture changes from. You know you have these intellectual leaders and you know their ideas begin to shape culture over long periods of time as they filter down through the arts and institutions into the common person. That's where we're at with these Darwinian lies. Now all of that can change, but it's going to take another, you know period of time for that to filter down as well. So it's good that people are challenging these Darwinian lies at the scientific and academic level, for sure.
Scott Allen:But we still have to deal with the consequences of the lie that's filtered down over the last hundred years.
Naomi Smith:I think. Go ahead, naomi, on another, in another vein. I think the lie that for women that convinces them that abortion is good is the modern feminist lie that my value comes from what I do out in the world, how much power I have, how much money I make and, um, you know, babies are just gonna shackle me in a horrible way and so you know I want to be free to be all I can be, and I totally bought that lie for a lot of my life.
Scott Allen:So I have a lot of compassion for those women too. Where does that one come from, naomi? How would you trace back the roots on that, because that's a little different. This is not Darwin here.
Naomi Smith:Yeah, so I think I mean, from what I understand, and you guys please help me but there was this modern feminist movement that happened in the 70s, 60s and 70s where, um, there was a book, there were many books that were written, but there was a book called the feminist mystique, uh, by betty friedan for dan, um, that basically said that the home for women is like a comfortable concentration camp right and it painted all of this maternal work that women had done for literally millennia, by the way, as bondage for women, and so the lie became that, in order for women to really realize their full potential, they need to strive to be like men in the workplace and in the marketplace and
Naomi Smith:I think also there's a lot of pressure there because of um, maybe some uh, like dara was talking about this even in korea, how there's like this big boom economically and so there's lots of pressure for women to move into the workforce and if not corrected, then it will lead to a population winter or, you know, people not wanting to have babies because they're fully convinced of this lie that particularly women, that they will fulfill their full destiny really by being out in the marketplace and, in essence, trying to be like men and deny the fact that God made them as life givers.
Scott Allen:Yes and yeah. So there's a feminist root to it and there's probably an economic root to it as well. Right, you know we can earn money and babies cost money. You know, it's kind of that simple economic type of calculation. I'd rather be earning money, you know. But it's much deeper than economics because I think, yeah, it's value. You're valued in the workplace and you have friends and you know there's this whole.
Scott Allen:You know incentive structure around that I I would put another one too, if I, you know, if you, if I could, just on the table and that's. You know, we haven't talked about freud and just all that he did to this discussion as well. Um, you know, just, uh, uh, all of the problems essentially in the world, you know, all of the, you know all of the brokenness that we face at some level, according to Freud, can be, you know, rooted in the fact that we've been, we haven't given free reign to our sexual impulses, right, you know? So just kind of unencumbered sex is going to be the key to this happy, flourishing, healthy life, you know. So he added a whole contribution, you know, in addition to Darwin and the feminist movement, you know, to this whole discussion. All of these lies have been, really, they've created a fabric, right, that people have. You know that people live in, they put on and very much dominate the culture and, again, abortion is the consequence.
Scott Allen:When you, when you add these things together, right, yeah on these things too and just lay that out, because I really think that you know that's what's got to be recovered. Right, we've got to recover truth about a variety of things that are all very closely related in Genesis, chapter one. But before we do any further thoughts on just this, you know this set of lies that have really shaped the culture and have led to those horrific numbers that Luke was talking about earlier.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I mean one quick thought. We keep pointing back to Freud, darwin, sexual revolution, modern feminism and, yes, I think we are living in the consequences of a lot of the ideas that came directly from those. But it's not like these ideas that these guys presented were new in any way. These ideas have been true throughout all of history because sexual urges are very strong urges. It's one that we should have dominance over.
Luke Allen:But throughout history people have always been looking for a way to live out those sexual urges without having boundaries put on them. Yeah, they just want to live it out freely. But the problem with that was the natural consequence of that throughout all of history up until very recently was, if you live out sexual license or libertinism, you're going to have the consequence of babies that come from that, which is an amazing consequence that God generously gave us. But a lot of people don't like that because they just want to keep living free and not be, you know, burdened, as some people would say, with children. You know, I think back to the Roman Empire. They were very sexual libertine people at that time and they tried to find workarounds, but their workaround was mostly just infanticide, and they just keep living out their hedonism, as did a lot of empires throughout the world history.
Scott Allen:Yeah, that's kind of pagan sexuality.
Luke Allen:Yeah right, yeah, just give in to those urges, yeah, and if you've got the power, and you can kind of coerce if you're a male anyways, and you can coerce these females, you'll do it of power. So it was very much a class divide. You saw that in Roman empires, you saw that in, you know, um, I mean the English and Monarch family throughout history. And but then, you know, here comes Margaret Singer, who is essentially just trying to live out the same thing.
Luke Allen:All these guys are doing this, uh, hedonistic sexual desires. And then she invents this pill that can make it easier for people not to have the consequence that they were trying to avoid, not to have the baby, uh, and then we have abortion. Come along, you know, and now we have the abortion pill. How easy is that? I can, I could literally hop on the internet right now and order an abortion pill to my house and it would be shipped here in a few days. So now, via technology, uh, sexual hedonism is available for anyone, any class, anywhere in the world, and for the first time in history, we can live out this, you know, fleshly desire, uh, with you know perfect freedom.
Luke Allen:Uh, so we're. We're in the wild west of the sexual era, right now. And uh, this is new territory throughout history that you know. We consequence-free territory, you know, as some people would say. So yeah, we just have to look at it with different lenses.
Scott Allen:It's definitely not consequence-free.
Luke Allen:Luke as we were talking about no, no, no, I was putting air quotes in, but I guess, this is audio only.
Dwight Vogt:In terms of the physical manifestations, whether it's STD or HIV AIDS, we're pretty much conquering those consequences, but the one that probably never will be conquered is the soul. I mean, what do you do with your heart, your emotions, your personhood? Yeah, that one. Yeah, there's just Maybe there will be some kind of drug we can conquer that with Go ahead, naomi, yeah that one.
Scott Allen:Yeah, there's just maybe there'll be some kind of drug. Yeah, go ahead, naomi.
Naomi Smith:Yeah, interestingly enough, I'm reading this book called the Case Against the Sexual Revolution, by a woman named Louise Perry, who is not a believer. She's actually she. She talks really more from a Darwinian platform, you know basis, but her whole thing was that she worked at a I think it was a sexual violence center and she and she started to realize like wait, the sexual revolution has really just ruined the lives of a lot of people, and particularly lower class women, and so like in her mind. So in this book she's kind of making the case that like actually monogamy is, lo and behold, you know, the best for just general human thriving and flourishing. Although she's not even a believer, which I find so interesting and kind of like her foundation isn't really biblical, it's just more statistical and looking at kind of who's really benefited from the sexual revolution and who really hasn't from the sexual revolution and who really hasn't?
Scott Allen:Yeah, I've heard that book too, naomi, and I'm encouraged when nonbelievers look at you know, are honest enough to look at just the horrific consequences and say this isn't working, you know and so good for her right.
Naomi Smith:Yeah, it takes courage. Yeah, it does it does.
Scott Allen:But it's true, these things are facing us. It's hard to, it's really hard to deny at this point that the sexual revolution, meaning the sum total of all of these lies and that fabric that it's created in our culture, have led to just utter kind of destruction, not just of human lives from abortion, but just broken people, right, broken people. I just yeah, you know that just broken people, right Broken people.
Scott Allen:I just, yeah, you know that famous line. You know you don't break God's law, you just end up breaking yourself against it you know if you just broken people because we just keep bucking God's created order and design.
Scott Allen:Let's go there now, and I want to just lay that out. I know we know that well, but I don't think that—here's my contention. I'll put my cards on the table. I think the church has gone along with these lies way too deeply and if we're going to see a change in the culture around these issues of marriage, sex, procreation, children, human dignity, the truth about human life, it's got to start in the church, right? How can we expect the broader culture to change on these things if we meaning the people of God, you know aren't really knowledgeable in embodying this kind of countercultural way of God when it comes to these issues? So really, it's got to start with us. We've got work to do in the house and I think that's really what I would like to say on this is that we've got work to do, but that has to start with just attacking some of these lies with truth right and getting back to truth, some of these lies with truth right and getting back to truth.
Dwight Vogt:So you know— how do we do that?
Scott Allen:Well, let's just put some of these down and I just think some of the basic building blocks of this— to me it's this incredibly beautiful mosaic that God, you know, establishes in Genesis, chapter 1. You know, it starts with Genesis 1, 26 and 27, when he creates us human beings in his image, in his likeness, male and female those two, by the way with incredible dignity and purpose and worth, and the ability to create, the ability to, and you know. And then he says and this is the first job description, be fruitful. The ability to, and you know. And then he says, and this is the first job description, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. God wants the world to be full of these people that bear his image. You know it's, it's these, these, you know, people that bring him glory because they're his image bearers, right, and can create goodness and truth and beauty.
Scott Allen:So these are very basic things that God's created and that's why he created the first social institution of marriage right Between Adam and Eve in the garden one man, one woman. Sex is created right then as well, and it's intricately tied to procreation. Right, there's no separation as we have today, and it's intricately tied to procreation. Right, there's no separation as we have today. You know those are intricately tied and all of these things, all of these relationships, are so intricately tied, I would say, and woven together in this beautiful ecology you have. You know, sex, marriage, procreation, human dignity, again, all of these things created by God for a purpose and for a good purpose, right, you know these basic institutions. So a lot more to say. What would you guys add to you know, just building out a little bit more of these basic biblical truths and you could pick any one of those topics of sex, procreation, family, children, whatever it is. You know they all fit together.
Naomi Smith:What I was going to say is I just think that like it sounds like okay, coming from where I came from, from a family that did not believe the Bible, from a family that was pretty resistant to getting into any Christian or Judeo-Christian roots, it sounds like this really nice kind of fairy tale that happened and it's like, oh, that's nice for you. That's not where I live, you know, like that's kind of like I mean, I'm just trying to think like a person in in the, in the real world. You know, like that's just not where I live and I, I like what you're saying, scott, but you know you're so out in la la land as compared to where I am.
Naomi Smith:You know what I'm saying right and so, um, what I think people need is vision, and the reason that I say that and they need vision like boots on the ground. Vision, and I remember when I first came to Christ, I had a friend who told me all these stories of people who, like, waited on God for the right person. And I had never heard of that before in my entire life and I was like people do that. That's crazy. But, that sounds actually really amazing that God could orchestrate and bring you into the right marital relationship.
Naomi Smith:It's not like you just sort of get married and have some kids or whatever. And so I decided I'm going to do that because I got the vision for what it was. You know what I mean. And so I think people need, they need vision like they need vision that's real and it's like that that it's incarnated really. I mean, we've lived the vision and we can give it to others. You know what I mean.
Scott Allen:Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah, and they need to have a vision and they need to see the beauty of it. Like you say, it seems like almost too good to be true and it should it, should you know uh God created.
Scott Allen:God created us um male and female. He created marriage. Two people can come together in this permanent, lifelong relationship of love and fidelity and God can work through that, through sex, to bring new human life into existence. And that's the beginning of family and just the goodness of that, of raising children, of having grandchildren and great-grandchildren, of building, building I mean you're building something that's beautiful and lasting.
Scott Allen:In some ways it's a legacy, some of the most important things that you could ever do in your life. It does sound too good to be true, because it's a great gift from God. Now, too good to be true because it's a great gift from God. Now I get that non-believers that have been just so deeply steeped in these Darwinian Freudian you know, margaret Sanger, you name it, you know feminist lies this is going to sound like just not even close to being something that they can wrap their heads around. But it shouldn't be that way. For the church, sure, this should be basic discipleship and you know, we should be challenged to live in this way and we should have that vision.
Scott Allen:So, again, I'm not right now thinking we've got to convince the unbelieving world, but we've got to start in our own house. Right? Do we believe in God? Do we believe in his word? I think part of the problem for the church is that you know we've had. You know, as Daryl often says, you know there's four main chapters to the story, this beautiful story, this transforming story. There's creation, there's fall, redemption, consummation. The church has limited it to two chapters fall and redemption. And you know they've left out creation.
Scott Allen:All that's in Genesis chapter 1, and that's where a lot of this is laid out so that it's just not of interest to them, like that's not something we need to focus much attention on. Well, fine, just talk about people being lost and fallen and they need to be saved. But if you don't have much to say about sex and marriage and family and human dignity, guess what Freud does. So does Darwin, so does you know? I mean, somebody else is going to tell a different story and that story is going to come into the church and that's what's happened. I think so.
Naomi Smith:And I think it's sort of like redemption. How far does redemption go? Because it's one thing to say redemption is your soul is redeemed. It's another thing to say that your entire family line is redeemed. And I think about I love Rahab, the story of Rahab in the Bible, and I think about her, who? She was a prostitute, but she believed God and she believed that he could turn her life. And so she, you know, she made herself an ally of the Jews, of the people of God, and she was absorbed into the people of God and she married, you know, a Jew and became, and her whole line was redeemed as a result. So she was a prostitute, but then her whole line was redeemed because her faith didn't stop with. Well, my soul just needs to be redeemed. It was, it was much more than that. It was a whole life, it was a, it was a whole legacy really.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, yeah, she's I. I'm going to jump back a little bit, because what you said naomi and scott uh I thought for me, normally you're talking about your family background and mine's the opposite and, uh, I was raised on the fairy tale and I believe the fairy tale.
Dwight Vogt:I mean, I think the bible was my first pillow and you know, and Scott, you alluded, you talked about Genesis 127, made in the image of God. Yeah, I knew that really really early on. But I think, just reflecting on my own life, I don't think that I grasped how smart God was until I grasped how smart God was, until I was 30. I hadn't made the connection between science and the complexity of the world and creation and a very highly intelligent God. Somehow that was science and God was in the Bible and, yeah, I know he created it, but I never made the connection just how smart he was and how good he was in his smartness. So you know that he can redeem us through redemption, fix things that we've screwed up. I mean, that comes because he's good and he's really, really smart. But I hadn't made that connection. Honestly, I hadn't.
Dwight Vogt:I didn't know he was so brilliant, but I hadn't made that connection. Honestly, I hadn't. I didn't know he was so brilliant and his brilliance. If you think about I was watching a video last week about a fly and the wings on a fly and how incredibly they're. Just it's like you've taken 40 different flying creatures and put them into one thing called a fly and orchestrated its wings so that it can do what it does, so it can't swat it very easily. The scientist that's studying says I don't even swat flies anymore, not because I don't like them, but because they're so amazing.
Dwight Vogt:You know, and I'm thinking, an amazing God makes that. You know, that's one tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny bit of his creation and I'm doubting him, I'm doubting his intelligence, I'm doubting his goodness. How could that be? Yeah it's amazing, unless he didn't do it, unless it just happened.
Scott Allen:I think, when you look back historically, you know, and where this truth of human sexuality and marriage and family and children, human dignity, where the truth of those things has shaped cultures through the church, where the Judeo-Christian set of ideas these are Jewish ideas. Right, they come from the Bible and Genesis. Right, it's been revolutionary, right, really revolutionary. Luke alluded to kind of pagan sexuality, the ancient Greek world, right, you know, where you didn't have strong families and you know there was just rampant sexuality, there was essentially infanticide you know, you name it I mean, that's a norm in all cultures throughout history.
Luke Allen:It is Except for Except ours.
Scott Allen:You know where the fruit, the consequences, have been what Strong families, strong marriages, high value on children, you know, high value on women, the protection of innocent human life, these incredibly good consequences that have been really revolutionary. We've lost that in our generation. I think the church has sadly kind of we've reverted back to that fallen pagan kind of norm of sexuality, you know, in a different guise, a la Darwin, sanger, etc. But we've reverted back to it. So we've got to say, hey, you know, you know this can change again, right, but it starts in the house of god, with the people of god.
Scott Allen:You know, recovering the beauty of this vision, that, the intricacy of it, as you said, dwight the and it is intricate, right, it connects, it's so connected, you know, right, sex is connected to procreation. In the pagan sexuality they're disconnected through the pill and abortion and whatnot. Right, Sex is connected to marriage. Right, it's intended for marriage. Right, it's not to be practiced anywhere else because of the power that it has to bring about human life. And human lives aren't just animals or, you know, they're image bearers of God with incredible potential, right. So we have to recover the beauty and the intricate connection, interconnectedness of all of these things and this is something, by the way, that we all can do, right, this is like, naomi, you're a good example of this. You just said we're going to do this in my own little realm here of my own life and my own marriage. You know, we're going to start making some choices here to live faithfully, truthfully, you know.
Naomi Smith:So you know it's really applicable, right it's very applicable, and I guess the thing that I think I see mostly in Christians that I talk to is that they by and large believe what you're saying, scott, but the lie that I think is more is an undercurrent that they are maybe not aware of, is kind of this idea of the relativism of truth.
Naomi Smith:Well, that's my faith and I'm choosing to go this way and this, as for me, in my house, this is what we're going to do, but who am I to tell you, you know, what you should do, like you need to do you that kind of a thing, and so so, and I don't think that they, many of the Christians that I talk to, really realize how unloving that is yeah to an uncompassionate, that is to just say you do you and I'll have my little private world over here sidelined.
Scott Allen:You know, I think you know it's really good for you to put that on the table, neema, because I do think that that's true. That's yet another lie. That's this kind of postmodernism lie that truth is all small t. It's what I believe and you believe something different, I'll respect that. But there is no capital T truth. That's out there, right?
Naomi Smith:Yeah, no no, and I think we need like a.
Scott Allen:This is capital T truth, this is not just true for Christians, this is true for everybody, because God is the God of the universe and this is his universe capital T truth.
Naomi Smith:And so if we really believe that, then what we would say to someone who does not believe with as much grace and kindness as we can is that I'm contending for your best. I want you to line up with reality and something that's really good it's going to be really good, okay.
Scott Allen:I mean, yeah, we live in a fallen world. There's always, you know, things that can go wrong and bad, but this is good, this is really good. As you said rightly, this is kind of a fairy tale. If you really, it's CS Lewis, that's what he said. This is like a fairy tale. That's actually a true fairy tale. It is because it's so good and that should be the appeal to the non-Christians is that they see something in our lives, in our families, in our children, that they go. This is good, like something.
Dwight Vogt:But I think we really do just. I think the majority of Christians believe it, but don't know it.
Naomi Smith:What do you mean by that?
Dwight Vogt:I mean? Well, I'm thinking of, you know, thinking relativism as a relativist. Yeah relatively. I was wondering you added ICA on it. Why did that? It's the idea that, well, yeah, I don't want to impose my beliefs on you, because you have your beliefs and I have my beliefs, but we would never do that with gravity If somebody was standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and we'd say you know you have your beliefs.
Scott Allen:I happen to believe in gravity, but if you don't, that's fine.
Dwight Vogt:You know, good luck, we don't have to do that either with issues around banking and money and things like that. Right, there's, there's, but so in a sense, we're relativists, you know, with our own faith, because I believe it really strongly, though but do we really?
Luke Allen:yeah, exactly that's what I was thinking is. Yeah, I don't know if we really believe that God's way of living is the best way. You know, sometimes we talk about God's way of living, the biblical worldview, as the handbook for how to live.
Luke Allen:I don't know if we fully believe that that it's the one that actually leads to flourishing, actually leads to joy, actually leads to freedom, the only one that leads to freedom.
Luke Allen:I don't know if people are convinced of that and it's.
Luke Allen:It is hard to convince people of that because the joy or the, the, the thing the world's trying to offer here to you know, like that high schooler who's pumped up on hormones is you can just fulfill your sexual hedonism however you want and do whatever you want, and that's pretty appealing even for kids in the church. So I think, like you were saying, naomi, we have to take this out of the thought world and out of the you know, read Genesis 127, that's it right and then actually live it out, because living it out is beautiful and other people see it and it's contagious and I know for myself when I was a teenager. You know you hear all these things. You're like, okay, cool, I get it, but you know I'm hearing other things and I'm confused. But then you see someone who's maybe 10 years ahead of you or five years ahead of you and they're living it out and it's beautiful A committed marriage that has children and a place of love and flourishing for those children. It's beautiful and it's countercultural and it sticks out and it's attractive.
Naomi Smith:Well, and that means that our witness actually has to be real, and that's a lot of work on our part. You know what I'm saying. It's easier to get swept up in a political movement where you know I don't have to actually deal with, like my marriage. You know what I mean. That's where I think the rubber meets the road it's like do you have a? Marriage or do you have a family that someone could walk into and be like? That's beautiful, it's real and it's obviously not perfect, but it's beautiful.
Scott Allen:No, that's right, that's right, it's good enough.
Scott Allen:This is really, you know, rubber meets the road kind of stuff for all of us. I mean, these choices that we make about sex and marriage, and I mean this is these are basic decisions everybody has to make, and I think, at the end of the day, you have to just ask yourself the question do you believe in God and do you believe in his word and do you love Jesus? Jesus says if you love me, you'll obey. Right, you'll obey because you love me, right? This is what our pastor talked about yesterday in a sermon. So you're going to love somebody and you're going to obey somebody, right, you know so who is it? And, uh, you know you, you have to make some basic decisions about these things you know and it's not.
Luke Allen:It's not yeah, it is yeah Boots on the ground it's. It's difficult. Um, I heard a guy recently say, I think, um think you know being pro-life is like Christian virtue signaling. It's easy to say but and you look good and people applaud you, but living it out it's a little more difficult and more complicated. So it's good to dig into. How do we actually do this?
Scott Allen:I do think it's one of the most radical things we can do, you know, to live out the truth as best we can, in God's strength and grace, you know, with the help of brothers and sisters, to live out the truth of these things sex, marriage, procreation, family. It's one of the most radical things we can do, one of the most powerful things we can do as well, if we really, you know, if we want to be salt and light in this culture right now and be a light to this world.
Naomi Smith:So I agree, yeah, and I um.
Naomi Smith:I listened to this podcast recently about the early church and how revolutionary they were and one of the things that they did was take those babies that people were just leaving out to die in the Roman Empire and they said, no, give us your babies, we'll take your babies. And I was just thinking about, well, that's, that's hard. I mean, let's like not sugarcoat that. And I was thinking about, okay, so now I have a friend who got pregnant and early, early on she found out that her baby had Down's and she could have aborted but she didn't. And now she's raising a baby with Down's syndrome and like that's hard and it's kind of like mundane. And how is she really changing the world? But she is Like her. That choice that she made and that she makes every day is completely countercultural to what people, what we've talked about in the beginning today, of like this having this ideal kind of human and all these things, and um, and it is revolutionary what she's doing on a day-to-day basis.
Scott Allen:It. You know, and you know people that make choices to adopt. You know, I mean, these are lifetime choices and I just applaud that because these aren't small things. This is a choice.
Naomi Smith:They're hard, it's hard, they're hard.
Scott Allen:But here's the deal, and it's also a complete act of faith in the sense that I, like you know, I don't know how I'm going to make ends meet if I make this decision. I don't know how this is all going to work out, but I'm going to trust God that he's going to, if I'm acting in faith, that he's going to help. And here's the deal In my own limited experience with trying to be obedient to some of these things, I've always seen God help, and then what that does is it strengthens your faith. Right, you know, you actually have a stronger faith at the end of it because, you see, you know that, yeah, these are hard decisions, these are really consequential decisions that require a lot of faith, but your actual faith can grow too as you see God being faithful. You know in that too, as you see.
Luke Allen:God being faithful. You know in that. Yeah, that willingness of Christians to save lives and to put in the years of hard work to protect children's lives is amazing. I think that's one of the ultimate, you know, pro-abortion versus pro-life arguments is instead of aborting that child, give it to me, I'll raise them.
Scott Allen:Mother Teresa always said that.
Luke Allen:She always, you know, give those babies to me, you know.
Naomi Smith:And it was amazing.
Scott Allen:You know she's just like there can never be enough of them. You know she saw them like flowers on a hillside, like what are you talking about? There can never be too many of them, you know. So well, yeah, that's it, guys, and I do think that we I think back to the beginning of our conversation the issue of abortion really is a consequence of a whole fabric of lies. If we want to, see an end to this abortion regime.
Scott Allen:You've really right, you've got to change that entire fabric, you know, as opposed to just going after that one fruit of this tree, this deadly tree, and that seems huge. How in the world do you do that? But again, I'm just kind of paraphrasing our discussion. Well, it has to start with us actually on this one, like are we making the choices that align with the truth of God? Are we living that out? It's hard, it takes faith. Are we doing it as a church, as a people of God? Right, I just think that's really where it has to kind of start. Any final thoughts as we wrap up our discussion on this today. Dwight, I know this is something that you've, you know, in particular wanted to talk about.
Dwight Vogt:I'd love to hear your thoughts as we wrap up no, I wholeheartedly agree with your summary. I just think that, yeah, we trust God is good in his original design and his plan and we also trust him, as, naomi, you've said, in his redemptive work. And that's the hard part when things go wrong and things are bad and things are hurting, you wonder where's God and you say no, he's involved in redeeming this situation. And he will and he does, and he can.
Scott Allen:And I think it shows, you know, as important as it is to change laws we talk there's so much talk now about you know how do we have a Christian influence on culture? And it revolves around politics and law. And, as important as that is, I think the Roe v Wade should be a reminder of us that that's a pretty weak thing too. Right, you know, just this idea that we can change laws, change, you know, uh, culture. You're not going to change a culture if you change laws. You have to go, you have to do much more, and you know, and, and, and it makes it much more personal. Right, I can advocate for changing a law. That doesn't really mean anything for me personally. Right.
Scott Allen:But now this is like very personal, right, but this is where it starts. This is where you have to kind of start to change a culture. You have to start at that level of now. I know some people would disagree with me. You know culture changes from the top, from the kind of the elite culture. You know, influencers that are out there, the powerful I'm like, yeah, but you know, I also think it starts with every one of us making some decisions about these things.
Dwight Vogt:You have to have root truth that you're holding on to not just the law, you have to have root. Truth.
Luke Allen:I mean back again to the early Christians in the Roman Empire. That's what brought the Roman Empire to its knees eventually was.
Scott Allen:Christians, just a few of them, living it out, living it out and it's so powerful when people see it, it's so good and this is, again, I'm convinced this is the way we change people's lives and change cultures that we show them the goodness Again, back to that idea of that. Just this is almost too good to be true. The goodness of it, so that it appeals to people, their hearts, they want to, they want to be a part of it. It's not coerced or compelled in any way. This is like something I want. Well, how do they, how are they going to want it? They've got to see it, you know, somehow they've got to see it. The you know, somehow They've got to see it. The beauty of lived out Well yeah, go ahead.
Luke Allen:Luke, Just as a general principle. It keeps popping into my head, but a lot of these things just don't come easy. No, you know, we're always looking for shortcuts.
Luke Allen:We're always looking for the instant gratification but beautiful things the more beautiful it is, the more time and effort it usually takes to create. And yeah, usually, as just a general principle, we shouldn't be looking for shortcuts or instant gratification. As Christians, there's a lot in the Bible that talks about discipline and a lot that talks about pick up your cross daily and follow me, deny yourself. Just as a general principle, it's always good to be wary when people are offering you the golden carrot and saying you know, here it is. You know we need to have more of a long-term vision than that. As Christians, and even as young people back to the young people they need to embrace that vision of the beauty of family and generations. It's amazing, you know, I'm at the early, early stages of family life right now and it's awesome.
Luke Allen:And it's only you know it's only going to grow and it's going to get better and you can you can already kind of foresee where God might lead you in the future. And it's such a fun and beautiful ride to go on and it's absolutely miraculous and beautiful.
Luke Allen:You know, we were having an ultrasound two weeks ago, my wife and I and it just struck me when the nurse was looking at our baby and said that's beautiful. And I was like, yeah, that is beautiful. That's a new generation on its way and it's so exciting to see and everyone recognizes it. It's, it's intrinsic Human life is beautiful. Generations, loving generations are beautiful. So it's you know, we're not saying this is an impossible task because it's, it is self-evident in a way. You know, and it's we're kind of lying to ourselves when we say that a beautiful family of generations and the grandpa playing with the grandchild isn't beautiful.
Naomi Smith:We all kind of know. It is, you know Well, and I think, in true DNA fashion. I think we have to think through how we can perpetuate, how we can think like 50 years down the line, 150 years down the line, how can we inject ideas? Because I was thinking about the idea the show Friends, like they just had sex, sex, everybody had sex, and like there were no consequences. I'm like that discipled my generation in a way. It was just kind of like oh yeah, it's just no big deal, hook up culture, you know that kind of a thing. And so I think, um, just thinking through how can we use the talents and gifts that we have to perpetuate these ideas, whether it's in our neighborhood or you know, if we're communicators, then we learn how to make, tell, you know and introduce this good and beautiful reality, I guess, back into our culture yeah, yeah, I.
Scott Allen:I like what you're saying about tea. She's such a sweetie if you're just listening. We've got naomi and her beautiful daughter.
Scott Allen:They're sitting on her lap, and so a great little object lesson here, as we're talking about family. So, thanks, naomi. Yeah, no, this is something that requires— I think the people that have been the drivers of the sexual revolution it wasn't just—you know, there was a lot of thought, a lot of strategy, a lot of you know desire to see those outcomes that we're seeing right now, as destructive as they are, and I don't think we're going to see the reverse without some same level of. There's got to be, you know, a real desire to see the change and there's got to be a level of strategy and thinking and care to see that as well, which means people that are involved, like you say, in arts and entertainment. You know, christians, how do we communicate a different message than the hookup culture that you see on Friends? That's got to be intentional. You know. These things don't just happen by accident, right, you know?
Naomi Smith:I don't know if you guys ever saw that Did you guys see, that movie Juno. Did you see the movie Juno? It came out like a Juno. Yeah, it came out like a long time ago.
Scott Allen:Yes, I did. Yeah, I do remember that movie. It was about a girl. What's her name? Yeah, right, yeah.
Naomi Smith:Anyway, I just thought that movie portrayed a compassionate view of a girl who got pregnant and didn't know what to do and considered abortion.
Naomi Smith:And then you know, she was at the abortion clinic and one of the her friends who was protesting abortion said your baby has fingernails. And then it was like she started seeing fingernails everywhere and you know, it was like it became real that her baby was real. But I guess what I'm saying is that movie, I feel like, did more for the pro-life movement than a lot of other things, because it was a compassionate story and it was a real story like of someone wrestling and someone in real life having to make this choice, this hard choice of life, and she ended up giving her baby up for adoption. But I just think that it's those types of things that really grab people's heart you know, and really begin to like disciple on a heart level.
Scott Allen:Absolutely.
Naomi Smith:These lives matter.
Scott Allen:Yeah, the, the, the whole, you know, and the change of culture pyramid that Dara talks about. You have the intellectuals at the top, but then you have the artists and and because they touch the beauty, the, the, the. They touch the heart. You know it's. You know it's a whole different way of reaching people and it's much more powerful.
Scott Allen:Yeah Well, guys, it's been a really good discussion, obviously a long discussion we're going to continue to have, but I just I hope that those of you who are listening like us, you know us are just again reminded of the powerful truths that the Bible has on these things and that we need to live them out, this basic creational truths from Genesis, chapter 1. We need to understand them deeply, we need to make very personal decisions about living them out to the best of our ability, with God's grace and strength. And that's yeah, you know, if we are not, how can we expect to see change out there if we can't see it in here, so to speak? So, guys, luke, dwight, naomi, thank you for your really wonderful thoughts and I always learn so much just being a part of these discussions and thank you who faithfully listen to this podcast. We're so grateful for every one of you. This is Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations.
Luke Allen:Alliance. Thank you for joining us for this episode with our good friend, Naomi Smith. As always, to learn more about our guest or find any of the resources that we mentioned during the episode, make sure to head over to the episode page, which is linked in the show notes, and again on that page you can learn more as well about the Grand Design, which is a free online video training course.
Luke Allen:Ideas have Consequences is brought to you by the Disciple Nations Alliance, which, for those of you who are new, is a ministry that has worked around the world for the last 27 years, training over a million Christians in over 90 nations with the transformative power of the biblical worldview. If you'd like to learn more about our ministry, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, or on our website, which is disciplenationsorg. Thanks again for joining us. Please share this show with a friend or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcast or wherever you're listening, and we hope you'll be able to join us again here next week on Ideas have Consequences wherever you're listening, and we hope you'll be able to join us again here next week on ideas have consequences.
