When Culture Hates You: Persevering for the Common Good as Christians in a Hostile Public Square with Natasha Crain

[00:00:00] Thanks for being here this evening. My name is Kevin Conover and you’re listening to Educate for Life radio. We’re broadcasting down here in Southern

[00:00:06] California on K Praise 12:10 a.m. as well as FM 106.1 in North County. And if

[00:00:14] you haven’t heard, uh there’s a popular phrase being used recently. It’s causing a lot of controversy. Uh it is Christian

[00:00:23] nationalism. Uh Netflix is actually coming out with a documentary um this

[00:00:28] summer called Apocalypse in the Tropics. If you haven’t heard about this um you

[00:00:33] will soon. And I’ll just read the description here. It says, “Apocalypse in the Tropics, a powerful Portuguese

[00:00:40] language documentary feature about the rise and impact of Christian nationalism

[00:00:45] in Brazil with eerie echoes of its rise and impact in America will be eligible

[00:00:50] for recognition during the 2025 26 awards season despite having screened at numerous major film festivals.” And it

[00:00:58] goes on to describe this and talk a little bit about uh Christian nationalism. It says uh this is a quote.

[00:01:06] Um it says, “I am thrilled that the world will soon see Apocalypse in the Tropics, my new film that explores how

[00:01:12] spiritual longing can become entangled with political ambition.” Um through Brazil’s unfolding

[00:01:19] story, I invite viewers to reflect on the fragile line between faith and power and what it means for democracy when

[00:01:26] that line begins to dissolve. And uh I thought it would be um important to discuss this issue because it’s come up

[00:01:32] so much and people have a lot of different opinions about how whether Christians should be involved in politics um how much they they should be

[00:01:39] involved in culture. There’s a lot of opinions and um my guest today Natasha

[00:01:44] Crane has come out with a book, a very timely book about this issue. Her book is called When Culture Hates You. And

[00:01:50] just real briefly about Natasha, she’s the author of five books. And she is passionate about equipping Christians to

[00:01:56] think more clearly about holding to a biblical worldview in a secular culture. She’s a frequent guest on podcast and

[00:02:02] radio shows across the United States. And she lives in Southern California with her husband and three teenage

[00:02:08] children. Natasha, thanks for being with us. Hey, it’s great to be with you. Awesome. So, um, this book is really

[00:02:16] interesting. Um you know you’ve written uh three books for aps on apologetics

[00:02:22] and the necessity of apologetics and um what made you decide to write this book

[00:02:28] um specifically when culture hates you? Why what was the motivation behind this

[00:02:33] and the need for this? Yeah. So I started my writing and speaking career with like you said

[00:02:40] teaching parents specifically apologetics. So, how can you equip parents to equip their kids? And that was my focus. And then when 2020 came

[00:02:47] along and I decided to write a few articles outside of my parenting lane on my website at the time when we started

[00:02:54] to see the rise of the secular social justice issues and how a lot of Christians were supporting movements that they shouldn’t have been, those

[00:03:01] blog posts went viral and I had more traction on my site at that point than any time that I had before. And I

[00:03:07] thought, wow, okay, there are a lot of people who really care about this topic and want to talk about how do you more

[00:03:12] clearly separate a biblical worldview from a secular one. And so, uh, long

[00:03:17] story short, that led to my last book, book number four, which was called Faithfully Different, Regaining Biblical

[00:03:23] Clarity in a Secular Culture. And this is kind of the sequel in a way to f to

[00:03:28] faithfully different because this book is really looking at the fact that okay once you have your biblical clarity once

[00:03:33] you know what your biblical worldview is that biblical worldview should be leading you to be salt and light in the

[00:03:39] world around you that part of your love for others is going to be caring about the quality of their lives in the

[00:03:44] context of the societies in which they live. So what does that look like? And when you do that people are going to

[00:03:50] hate you for it. people are going to think that you are mixing your faith and power just like you just gave the

[00:03:56] example from that documentary. Now, I don’t know exactly what’s going on in Brazil, but these are the same kinds of things that you hear about here in

[00:04:02] America. And so, really, that’s just the heart of the book is to get Christians to think more clearly about what does it

[00:04:08] look like to engage in advocating for righteousness in our societies, for the moral health of the world in which we

[00:04:14] live, knowing we’re going to be hated for it, and just understanding why that is.

[00:04:20] That’s fantastic. Um, it is a it is a issue that a lot of people are very uh

[00:04:25] tentative about dealing with. Um, and family members that are, you know,

[00:04:30] dedicated Christians, strong Christians can have very different opinions about um, how much a person should be involved

[00:04:36] in things like politics or government or whatever the case. I think a really good place to start is this phrase uh,

[00:04:44] Christian nationalism or a Christian nationalist. It’s been in the news several times and it’s very derogatory.

[00:04:50] It’s not people aren’t at least people on the left or secularists or those who are not believers um are not speaking

[00:04:56] positively about it and even many Christians are not speaking positively about it. Can you expl explain that phrase and um what the definition of it

[00:05:04] is and uh your view of this particular issue? Sure. So if somebody ever asks you, you

[00:05:11] know, well, what is your view on Christian nationalism? You always have to ask, what do you mean by that? That’s the number one question because there’s

[00:05:17] not a standard definition we can all point back to. It’s been used in so many different ways over time that there’s

[00:05:22] really not something that we can point to and say this is what we’re usually talking about because everyone uses it in a different way. So, what I did for

[00:05:29] purposes of my book, since we do see the mainstream media continually talking about Christian nationalism in terms of

[00:05:35] it being this dangerous and theocratic and anti-democratic thing, I wanted to see specifically how the media is using

[00:05:41] the term. And so what I did is look through hundreds of pieces of content,

[00:05:47] both video content and written content online to see, okay, when the media is talking about quote unquote Christian

[00:05:53] nationalism, what are the examples that they give? Because that’s going to tell you how they define it. Because of course, they don’t always stop and say,

[00:06:00] here’s our definition. They never do that. So we can only look at the examples they’re giving. And what you find when you do this is that in the

[00:06:05] overwhelming majority of the cases, Christian nationalism to the mainstream media simply means that Christians are

[00:06:12] advocating for unpopular views that are typically conservative in nature, associated with conservative causes from

[00:06:19] a biblical perspective. It’s a pjorative. That that’s all it is. And and to see that, all you have to really

[00:06:25] ask yourself is, have you ever seen someone who says, “Hey, I’m using my faith to advocate for what I believe is

[00:06:32] right for society, and they’re advocating for progressive causes.” Have you ever seen that person be labeled a

[00:06:37] Christian nationalist? Never. You don’t see that. See, it’s a double standard. You’re only a so-called Christian

[00:06:43] nationalist if you’re advocating against the popular moral consensus. And so, that’s really the way in which they’re

[00:06:50] using the term. If you look at an article, for example, that says, you know, there’s this dangerous Christian nationalism that’s sweeping across the

[00:06:56] United States, you’ll probably find some examples of how Christians are advocating for pro-life laws, how we’re

[00:07:01] advocating for quote unquote anti-trans bills, which are really bills for the good of trans people and for everyone

[00:07:09] else. And those are the kinds of examples that will be given. So they’ll say that it’s dangerous and it’s

[00:07:15] anti-democratic because they think that we shouldn’t mix our faith and politics that that’s somehow not within the realm

[00:07:22] of the democracy. So a couple of things that we should note about that. Number one, we live in a constitutional

[00:07:27] republic and in a constitutional republic, everyone has the right to bring their views to bear in the public

[00:07:32] square. It doesn’t matter what’s motivating those views. You know, as I say in the book, you know, if we were going to start saying, well, did that

[00:07:38] come from a religious perspective or, you know, how did you come to that? may be psychologically profiling people all

[00:07:44] day long. When you live in this form of government, everyone brings their views into the public square and everyone has

[00:07:49] the right to do so. So, as Christians who are advocating based on biblical values, when we do that, that’s not

[00:07:56] anti-democratic in any way. It’s actually using our constitutional republic exactly as is intended to be

[00:08:02] used. So, we’re not going around our form of government to push our views in. We’re using our form of government as

[00:08:09] it’s intended. And that’s a really important distinction. And when they say it’s theocratic, a theocracy is to

[00:08:15] formally recognize a specific deity as being the head of your country. And

[00:08:20] there are not Christians in that the mainstream media is who are they’re addressing who are advocating for that.

[00:08:26] You can find corners of the internet where people are advocating for all kinds of things. But that’s the irony in this. Those aren’t even the cases that

[00:08:32] the mainstream media is addressing. They just don’t like it when Christians advocate for unpopular conservative causes.

[00:08:38] So essentially what you’re saying is that this is just name calling is really what it is. Um when somebody it’s to

[00:08:45] it’s to somehow put somebody down who is uh actually believes what they believe

[00:08:53] to the extent that they think it should actually impact culture um in a in a

[00:08:58] significant sense. Yeah. Exactly. And unfortunately, Americans tend to have a woeful understanding of civics and

[00:09:05] history. And so they don’t really understand, well, how am I as a citizen allowed to bring my views into the

[00:09:11] public square? And so they become Christians have become so convinced by the secular culture saying, “Oh, that’s Christian nationalism. You’re bringing

[00:09:18] your faith in.” They become so convinced that they become silent. And then, like you said before, we start seeing Christians who are saying, “Well, I

[00:09:23] don’t want to be a Christian nationalist.” And by that they only mean I don’t want to bring my views in the

[00:09:28] public square and quote unquote impose my values on others. But that that doesn’t make sense from either a civics

[00:09:34] perspective or a biblical perspective. No, it’s a method of silencing somebody

[00:09:40] uh using basically manipulation and fear uh as if you’re doing something wrong when in fact there’s nothing you’re

[00:09:45] doing wrong. uh our founding fathers actually were many of them were very

[00:09:50] adamant Christians who were committed and actually uh believe the things they believe based on um and set up the

[00:09:58] government in a way because of their Christianity and you talk about this in the book too um how does a Christian

[00:10:05] historically how has Christianity impacted culture for good um how would

[00:10:11] you say hey this is something we want this is not something we you know how would you make the case before, would

[00:10:16] you use the word Christian nationalism or how how would you phrase that if you were out and about speaking and you said

[00:10:23] you said would you say I am a Christian nationalist or would you use another term? There’s so much confusion around

[00:10:29] the term that I don’t personally use it. No, I don’t think that it’s it’s helpful just because everyone uses it in such

[00:10:35] different ways and then you have to go down a whole conversation of what do you mean by that? Instead, I like to use the

[00:10:40] terminology that I that I use in the book that I talk about um from the very beginning of the common good. We’re

[00:10:45] advocating for the common good. So, no matter what the context is, whether you’re talking about your local community, a county, a state, whatever

[00:10:52] level it is as Christians, we want to advocate for what is going to be the best for human flourishing in that

[00:10:59] context. And so, I think that’s really the heart of what we’re trying to do. And the even the term common good has

[00:11:04] been used in some really bad ways over time. So, I’m aware of that also. But I think that we can that’s a term that we

[00:11:10] can reclaim and really get back to defining what is good. And to your point about Christians advocating for good

[00:11:17] throughout history, I mean there are lots and lots of examples of that. You know, Christians starting the first uh

[00:11:23] public hospital and welfare center for example way back in the in the I think it was in the 300s that you see that and

[00:11:29] Christians were rescuing babies off of streets in the Roman Empire when no one else wanted them because you know they

[00:11:34] were just considered to be something you could discard. I mean, we can go back through history and you can see time and time again that there were Christians

[00:11:41] who advocated for good. There are many Christians who were uh advocating for

[00:11:46] the abolition of slavery, for example, not all. And in fact, when we look back and we see that there were Christians who didn’t want to get involved with

[00:11:52] that issue, now we lament that that’s the fact. And so, I think that’s a helpful lens to remember when we talk

[00:11:58] about these issues today. And I talk about that in the book as the quote unquote slavery test. when you hear

[00:12:03] these objections today like the one you mentioned about uh you know power that I think was in that Brazilian documentary

[00:12:09] like oh you Christians you just want power and this is the scary thing well fill fill this in and say Christians

[00:12:14] shouldn’t have advocated to end slavery because and then fill in the objection like we shouldn’t have wanted to seek

[00:12:20] power we wouldn’t say that right we intuitively understand today that of course we’re glad that people who had

[00:12:27] the power to do so abolish slavery there’s nothing inherently wrong with power. It’s just the ability and the

[00:12:33] authority to execute a governing role. So, it can be used well or it can be used poorly. We want to steward the

[00:12:39] powered well. And Christians throughout history have done that in many different ways.

[00:12:45] Uh it it’s interesting because it seems like what are people afraid of? Uh it’s

[00:12:51] almost as if they’re thinking like, you know, that word theocracy is one that used to be a real uh popular word that

[00:12:57] people would use in order to um say, “Here’s what we’re afraid of. We’re afraid you’re going to establish a

[00:13:03] theocracy. That’s what you want. You want a theocracy. You want to take God’s rules and you want to apply them to the

[00:13:11] United States.” And um and it seems like this is what people think is going to

[00:13:17] happen. Um, but you’re arguing that we are looking for the common good. We’re not trying to set up God in the White

[00:13:24] House. Uh, how would you respond to people’s fears that for example uh are

[00:13:32] we is is the goal here to as a Christian nationalist to for example um get rid of

[00:13:38] uh the the ability to be homosexual for example? I think people are afraid of that. They’re afraid of things like,

[00:13:45] “Well, you’re going to ban transgenderism. You’re going to ban homos homosexuality. You already banned

[00:13:51] abortion, and where are you going to go next?” Um, what would you say to people

[00:13:56] that are afraid that the church I mean, I think another one that always comes up, you know, is people will they’ll

[00:14:02] reference something like the Salem witch trials or they’ll reference something like the Inquisitions.

[00:14:08] Um, and when they speak about Christian nationalism, a lot of the things that they’re bringing up are these these

[00:14:14] ideas. How would you respond to somebody who says, uh, we don’t want to have to go through historically what people went

[00:14:20] through in the past when Christians got in control and started forcing their will on others?

[00:14:25] Well, there’s a lot that could be unpack in all of that, but I would say it comes down to the fact that, you know, you’re not seeking to legislate religion when

[00:14:33] you’re advocating for your values in the PL square. are seeking to legislate morality because that is the nature of

[00:14:39] all public policy. So, we’re not advocating to make Christianity a established state religion. And when I

[00:14:45] say we, I mean the majority of Christians who would be called Christian nationalists by the mainstream media. Like I said, I’m not going to speak for

[00:14:51] those who might call themselves Christian nationalists and have some very different views because they’re not even the ones the mainstream media is

[00:14:57] talking about. So for the mainstream Christian who’s just advocating for

[00:15:02] unpopular positions against the popular moral consensus, we’re just advocating for what we think is the best for

[00:15:09] society. We’re not saying we want to make Christianity an established state religion because we have the

[00:15:15] constitution. We have the first amendment, right? That is protecting our country from having an established state

[00:15:21] church. That’s completely different than saying that we want to advocate for a

[00:15:26] certain morality based on biblical values. Everyone is looking to impose a

[00:15:32] certain morality on others. Whether you are coming to it and you’re saying, you know what, I’m pro-choice and I think

[00:15:37] that we need to give everyone the right to choose, or you’re saying, I’m pro-life and I don’t think you should be able to choose murder. Both of those are

[00:15:43] moral positions. So, the nature of public policy is always going to be that one group’s views are going to be

[00:15:49] imposed on another group’s. And so the way that our form of government works is that we’re all bringing those ideas to

[00:15:55] the public square. We hash them out. We vote accordingly. We elect representatives. And that is always

[00:16:02] going to be based on each group’s view of what the common good is. You know, I like to think of it like this. It’s not

[00:16:07] that you have one group saying, “Hey, I want what’s good for society.” And another group saying, “Well, I want what’s bad for society.” Everyone thinks

[00:16:15] they’re advocating for what is good for society. The question is, what is actually good? And as Christians, we

[00:16:21] have to be so clear that we have the answer to that. That even if other people call good evil and evil good,

[00:16:27] we’re going to be the ones hopefully if we have a biblical worldview and we’re clear about that, who are advocating for what is truly good based on God’s

[00:16:34] standards for both individuals and collections of individuals as a society. So when it comes to things like abortion

[00:16:41] and gender and sexuality and and all the trans issues like you mentioned in all of those cases, yes, we are advocating

[00:16:48] for what we think is best for society based on Christian values just as anyone else is going to advocate for what they

[00:16:54] think is the best. The question is what’s actually best and we work that out through our constitutional republic.

[00:17:02] and um your book, you know, when culture hate hates you. For those of you listening, by the way, my my guest is

[00:17:08] Natasha Crane. You can um look at this book and also her other books, Natasha

[00:17:13] Crraane um.com. And uh the forward here is by Frank Turk. Everybody knows who Frank Turk is. So, uh if he’s endorsed it, uh

[00:17:21] it’s got to be good. So, um that’s pretty awesome. And then

[00:17:27] so why when culture hates you, do you are you seeing within Christianity that

[00:17:32] people are afraid to speak up? Do you think that um that fear is strong enough that

[00:17:41] people are keeping silent in situations where they might otherwise speak up?

[00:17:48] Absolutely. I mean, I hear this firsthand all the time, which is a a big reason why I wanted to write this book,

[00:17:54] is that Christians seem to have the wrong expectations. Uh, I think that a lot of Christians think that, well, if

[00:17:59] I’m just nice, if I I’m really like just kind and nice, then I’m not going to

[00:18:04] offend people, and that’s what I’m supposed to be doing as a Christian. But that’s not what being a Christian is

[00:18:09] about. And so we have to we have to really get back to true Christianity and understand that Jesus said to his

[00:18:16] disciples, his followers, if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the

[00:18:23] world, the world would love you as its own. But because you’re not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,

[00:18:28] therefore the world hates you. He set up the right expectations. And somehow we have lost that today in large part. And

[00:18:35] people are surprised when the world hates them. They’re surprised when they get cut off by family members. And we’re

[00:18:40] living in a culture now where you don’t have to actually do something or say something about what you believe. That

[00:18:46] if someone just knows that you’re a Christian and that you personally hold beliefs that are based on what the Bible

[00:18:52] teaches about things like gender and sexuality and the the sanctity of life, you’re going to get cut off by people. I

[00:18:58] I’ve experienced it and I hear it from people all the time who didn’t even say anything. They didn’t even do anything.

[00:19:04] So it doesn’t even if you wanted to stay silent, it’s not going to get you much further because people today have a

[00:19:11] hatred against biblical values to the degree that if they know that’s what you believe, they think you’re toxic and

[00:19:17] harmful and oppressive and they want you out of their lives. So it’s not a solution even practically speaking to

[00:19:23] say, “Well, I’m just not going to speak up about it because people are going to come after you anyway.” But it’s also not biblically correct that we are

[00:19:30] called to be salt and light and those are inherently public activities. That means living out our faith with others.

[00:19:37] That means sharing the gospel, yes, but not only sharing the gospel, caring about the moral health of our societies.

[00:19:43] It’s part of how we love others. And so, I think a lot of Christians have become silent because they’ve seen the negative

[00:19:49] consequences that are going to happen and they they don’t want that to happen, which is natural. But if we go back to

[00:19:56] what Jesus said, then we have to understand our expectations have to be realigned. That people will hate us for

[00:20:01] it. And that’s okay. That’s what Jesus said was going to happen. Yeah. Yeah, it

[00:20:07] seems like sometimes people think, well, if I am causing somebody else to not like me, then I I must not actually be

[00:20:14] representing Christ well because somehow uh that’s the test for whether or not

[00:20:20] I’m being a good Christian is do people like me and feel like I’m loving? And

[00:20:26] the crazy thing about that is that like you said, if everybody likes you, there’s actually a problem. That means

[00:20:33] you aren’t in line with Christ. you’re not speaking truth. You’re actually uh

[00:20:39] capitulating to the world and the world is not going in a good direction. So, uh

[00:20:46] that’s got to change. So, what would you say to somebody who says, um, I’m just too afraid. Like, I’ve had students, I

[00:20:52] teach 12th grade students, and they go off to college. I’ve had many students who say in class, this particular

[00:20:58] professor, it was like a Christian bashing class. Like, this is pretty much all that happened in my class. Um, day

[00:21:04] after day they said things about it and they’ve asked me, “Uh, what do I do, Mr.

[00:21:10] Conover? Do I confront the teacher? Do I raise my hand in class? Um, I’m really afraid.” Uh, how does a person start to

[00:21:18] push back against that fear of being rejected or not being liked or even on

[00:21:24] social media, um, you know, you say something and you know you’re going to get a negative response from people. Um,

[00:21:32] how do you how do you overcome that fear? Well, first of all, I think that you

[00:21:39] have to have conviction. And in the book, I have a chapter on how to persevere. And I give this acronym ACT,

[00:21:45] ACT. The A is for know your biblical authority. The C is for strengthen your

[00:21:51] conviction. And the T is for maintain tenacity. And I think the first step in

[00:21:56] that knowing your biblical authority is so key because for a lot of Christians, there’s some doubt there. They’ve never

[00:22:02] studied biblical apologetics, for example, to understand why there’s good reason to believe that the Bible is

[00:22:07] truly God’s word. Why we can look at the New Testament documents and understand that they are reliable sources of

[00:22:13] knowledge about who Jesus is and what he did. They they don’t know. So, if you’re not convinced that the God of the

[00:22:19] universe has told you to do the things that are going to put you in a position to be really hated by people, you’re not

[00:22:26] going to. And so it really starts with that is just being very convinced that

[00:22:31] the Bible is God’s word. So if people are listening and thinking, well, yeah, I don’t I don’t know about that. I would

[00:22:36] say that’s your that’s your first step. Absolutely. A book I always recommend to people and that is Cold Case

[00:22:42] Christianity by Jay Warner Wallace. I think it’s a really good starting resource to start thinking about how would you even know if the New Testament

[00:22:48] documents are reliable. It’s just a really excellent book as a starting point. The the second part of that

[00:22:53] though is to strengthen conviction. So, I know a lot of people who would say, “Well, no, I totally believe that the Bible is God’s word. Yes, I’ve got that

[00:23:00] one down.” But then when it comes to individual issues, they don’t feel totally clear that they understand what the Bible says on those issues. So, an

[00:23:07] example of this uh that I saw a lot of was when the uh Dobs decision came out and Roe v. Wade was overturned. I saw a

[00:23:13] lot of Christians online in Facebook groups, for example, who were saying, “Okay, um I don’t I’m totally pro-life.

[00:23:19] I totally believe that’s what the Bible says about it and and that’s my authority.” But when people are saying

[00:23:25] women are going to die or I’m forcing women to carry my, you know, rapist

[00:23:30] baby, I don’t know what to say. People had this like sense of like I don’t know how to respond to those. Like maybe we

[00:23:37] should, you know, be okay with those exceptions. So it’s a it’s a matter of conviction about the individual issues

[00:23:42] that you understand what the Bible teaches and how to respond to the objections that you’re going to hear from the culture. So I spent a lot of

[00:23:49] time in the book and when culture hates you really helping people to understand those objections from the world’s

[00:23:55] perspective so that we can engage at their level and respond from a biblical perspective. And then the final letter

[00:24:01] of that is to maintain tenacity. Meaning okay you know your biblical authority you’ve strengthened your conviction on

[00:24:06] all these individual issues. You you understand them but then you just have to have the courage to do it. And you

[00:24:12] know there’s no one who can just hand you courage. You’re going to have to be the one who is taking that step out. And

[00:24:17] I I think the most important thing that I can say about that is to reset expectations. And I I really dig into

[00:24:24] that in that chapter just to know that yes, this is what Jesus said. If Jesus said this is what to expect, then if

[00:24:30] you’re not experiencing that, maybe you’re not doing what you should be doing as a Christ follower. You know,

[00:24:35] there’s a reason why progressive Christians aren’t hated. It’s not that all people who self-identify as a

[00:24:41] Christian are hated whatsoever. If you’re a progressive Christian and you don’t believe in the authority of the

[00:24:46] Bible, so you’re going to be your own authority on what is true and what is good and bad and right and wrong and

[00:24:51] harmful and helpful. If you’re your own authority ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you call yourself, the culture is

[00:24:57] not going to hate you for that because they’re going to say, “Oh, well, you want the same things we want. You also

[00:25:02] want to be pro-choice. You always want to be you also want to be protransgender policy. You also want to be all of these

[00:25:07] things. So, we’re not going to hate you. You’re only hated when you stand up for what’s not popular. And that’s why if

[00:25:14] you’re a Christian who’s holding to the historic Christian faith, you’re going to be hated. So, um, on a practical basis, I

[00:25:22] mean, I love what you did there with, um, that acronym and the importance of

[00:25:27] people having conviction. Uh, I talk about that with my students too, which is that, uh, you know, if you’re I call

[00:25:34] it a 51% Christian. Uh I I believe in God, you know, uh because I think he’s

[00:25:40] 51% more probable than not and I and the Bible. Um but but you don’t really do

[00:25:45] anything because your convictions are so weak. Uh you say you’re a Christian, but you’re you’re not that convinced. And so

[00:25:51] you’re not going to, you know, tithe or anything because well, is it worth it if I’m only

[00:25:57] at 51%. And so the conviction is such a critical component of somebody who’s

[00:26:03] actually going to live out their faith. I think um CS Lewis said, “Those who do the most for this world are those who think most of the next.” Which I thought

[00:26:09] was a really interesting quote because if they have that conviction, then yes, they’re going to go out and they’re

[00:26:14] going to live for it. And I I always think of William Wilberforce when you talk about slavery, how he says that his

[00:26:19] conviction uh that all men are created equal ultimately is what caused him to fight so hard against slavery. And um so

[00:26:27] that’s really awesome. Um, so what would you say are some of the issues? You

[00:26:33] know, you you bring up the abortion issue, the transgender issue. Um, what would you say are maybe the top three or

[00:26:40] four issues that people need to be informed about to be able to dialogue

[00:26:46] about with the people around them when it comes to maybe political issues or

[00:26:51] because there’s so I feel like sometimes people are overwhelmed. There are so many uh areas that you can research and

[00:26:57] you can spend time trying to study and find the resources for. Um where do you think people should start if they want

[00:27:03] to engage culture and be that salt and light? What where should they focus do

[00:27:08] you think? Well, I I guess I I would say two things. Number one, there are

[00:27:14] certain issues that are really big at the cultural level. If I were going to pick say three of those, I I addressed

[00:27:19] five issues individually in the book that I think are the most urgent. That’s the second half of the book. Um, and

[00:27:25] three of the ones that I would point to as the most urgent would be abortion and gender issues and uh, social justice,

[00:27:33] false notions of social justice based on a secular viewpoint, based on critical theory. And we have to really understand

[00:27:38] that because those come up all the time and I think that Christians are pretty unprepared in a lot of cases to actually

[00:27:45] address those. So th those would be the three biggest ones that that I would say in terms of sense of urgency. But on an

[00:27:51] individual level, people deal with different uh issues to different degrees. So the biggest issue for you as

[00:27:58] an individual might be something different because it might be something you’re dealing with with a family member. It might be something that

[00:28:04] you’re dealing with in your place of employment. You know, if you’re if you’re working somewhere where they’re having a ton of DEI stuff going on and

[00:28:10] you don’t know how to deal with it, well, that your understanding of justice and the false notions of justice needs

[00:28:15] to be your number one priority because that’s what you’re dealing with at a given time. So for any people who feel

[00:28:20] overwhelmed by these topics, I would say start with just one thing, one thing that either you’re confronted with right

[00:28:27] now and need a in a very practical way to start going after or something that

[00:28:32] you particularly feel a passion for. You know, maybe it’s the sanctity of life that you really feel a heart for that

[00:28:38] you need to understand better that you realize how big of an issue this is. You want to stand up for it. You want to get

[00:28:43] out there. So start there. You don’t have to know everything about everything. Start with something you’re passionate about and or something that’s

[00:28:49] confronting you personally and then go forward from there. But do something. That’s ultimately that’s what I hope

[00:28:55] people will take away from my book is that we need to do something and we can do something given that we live in the

[00:29:02] wonderful country that we do. Yes. Yes. Hallelujah. Um, so you know, people I

[00:29:09] think have a basic understanding of transgender, the transgender issue, um, with it being in sports and everything.

[00:29:16] It’s in the news a lot and the abortion issue, you know, people have a pretty basic understanding of that, but can you

[00:29:22] just explain to our listeners what is the social justice issue? What what um, you know, it sounds like a good term.

[00:29:28] It’s about justice. Uh, what why is social justice not a good thing?

[00:29:35] Well, it it’s tricky because it sounds good. Like you said, everyone wants to do justice. Everyone wants a just world.

[00:29:42] And it’s actually a good starting point for talking with non-believers that they have this sense that there are things

[00:29:47] that are broken in the world and that we want to make them right. And that’s actually the definition that I think is

[00:29:53] most helpful to start with when we’re talking about justice to see the differences. Justice is making right that which is wrong. Okay. So, let’s

[00:30:01] just start with that definition. If you’re making wrong things right, that presumes that you’ve had some kind of

[00:30:07] standard to define what is right and wrong. As Christians, our standard for defining what is right and wrong is

[00:30:13] going to have to be God. He has to be the standard, right? Because he’s the authority. He is our moral standard. He

[00:30:19] has revealed these things in scripture. And so, he is the standard for determining right and wrong. Now, if you

[00:30:24] use any standard other than God’s standard, you’re going to get justice wrong sometimes. Not all the time.

[00:30:30] Because sometimes whatever standard you might use in any given culture is going to happen to line up with what the Bible

[00:30:37] says. There are going to be those things. So I talk about in the book, for example, if you today as a Christian go

[00:30:42] to serve uh food to the homeless, no one’s going to hate you for that because right now that standard that the world

[00:30:48] is using to determine what is good and bad when it comes to serving the needy happens to line up with what God’s standard would be. We can all agree on

[00:30:54] that. But when you’re using another standard other than God’s standards, there will be times and some very

[00:31:01] important times where things don’t line up in the same way, where right and wrong are defined differently. And so

[00:31:07] today, the predominant theory that underlies the way that the world is defining right and wrong is critical

[00:31:12] theory, which basically looks at what groups have power in society and lack

[00:31:18] power in society. And so when we look at these according to race and gender and sexuality, the world is overwhelmingly

[00:31:24] looking at that and saying, “Okay, these are the oppressor groups because they have the power in society and therefore

[00:31:30] they’re in the wrong.” And then you have the oppressed groups who don’t have the power in society and they are the

[00:31:36] victims. They are the marginalized and we need to look out for those groups. Now, of course, there’s there’s some

[00:31:41] truth that’s in there, but you can’t use the social binary, as it’s called, to define what’s right and what’s wrong.

[00:31:48] This is how you get to ideas like reproductive justice. Reproductive justice is the idea that a woman’s right

[00:31:54] to choose an abortion is actually a matter of right and wrong. That it’s a justice issue. That if you can’t choose

[00:32:02] to have an abortion, that that is an injustice toward women. How do you get there? Because women are supposedly the

[00:32:08] group in society who don’t have the power. Men have had the power according to this view traditionally. And

[00:32:14] therefore, a man should not be telling a victim woman, a marginalized woman from

[00:32:20] this social group what to do with her body. And so they have justice wrong.

[00:32:25] They understand that justice matters, that things are broken and need to be made right. But they’re using the wrong

[00:32:30] standard of the social binary according to these power dynamics. And when you do that, you’re going to get ideas that are

[00:32:37] very much in conflict with a biblical definition of justice and social binary.

[00:32:43] um explain that term. So the social binary means that everyone is basically divided into these groups of the

[00:32:50] oppressor and the oppressed. So the oppressor group is going to be the group in power. So for example, men and then

[00:32:56] women would be the group that doesn’t have the power. And all of this goes back to Markx. I mean critical theory is

[00:33:01] just the evolved version of Marxism where Markx taught that all of all of history was basically one long economic

[00:33:07] class struggle between the halves and the have nots, the oppressors and the oppressed. And so you fast forward into

[00:33:13] the 1900s and you get various leaders and thinkers who say, “Hey, we we kind of like this whole lens through which to

[00:33:19] see the world of oppressor and oppressed, but let’s extend that now to issues like race and gender and sexuality and make everything about who

[00:33:27] is the oppressor group and who is the oppressed.” Boy, that is just a

[00:33:32] nightmare. Uh so that’s interesting because this is why you can have that

[00:33:37] reverse racism, but it’s a moral uh issue. It’s a it’s morally acceptable

[00:33:42] because uh the oppressor uh is whatever race is in the majority and the uh the

[00:33:49] morally right righteous is whatever minority is in regardless of what they’re doing. Uh which is wild. Uh boy,

[00:33:58] you couldn’t you couldn’t get farther from a from a unbiblical standard.

[00:34:03] Whereas we have the biblical standard which is a rock uh which Jesus said uh

[00:34:08] he who hears my words and puts them into practice is like a man who built his house on the rock. It’s a firm foundation that doesn’t uh just waffle

[00:34:15] all over the place. Right? You know power has nothing to do with whether or not the group in power is morally right

[00:34:22] or wrong. You have to be able to evaluate whatever a given group is saying according to God’s standards. I

[00:34:28] think a really good example that helps people kind of open their eyes on this is is the fact that a lot of people hate

[00:34:33] the nuclear family. They do they believe that the nuclear family, this idea that there should be a dad and a mom and kids

[00:34:40] living together in a household, they think that this is an oppressive notion. And part of the reason for that, there’s

[00:34:46] a long history of the reason for that, but part of the reason is that that has an association with what people would call whiteness. Because white people

[00:34:54] historically in America have been the ones in power according to this model. And white people have historically been

[00:35:00] predominantly Christian. And so if you are a Christian society predominantly,

[00:35:06] again, not everyone, but if you were a predominantly Christian society, you were going to value the nuclear family because the nuclear family is what

[00:35:13] represents God’s design for how things should look. That you have one man, one woman coming together as one flesh and

[00:35:18] having children and you have this family unit. But if in critical theory you use

[00:35:24] race as the defining uh factor between who is in the right and who’s in the wrong, then you’re going to have people

[00:35:30] who think that the nuclear family is inherently a bad concept because it’s associated with the racial group in

[00:35:37] power. So you but you can’t you can’t look at that. You would have to look at it and say, well, okay, white people,

[00:35:42] we’re I say we I’m a white person. we’re, you know, an oppressor group. And

[00:35:48] whatever white people have traditionally believed about things, whether that’s right or wrong has nothing to do with

[00:35:54] the fact we’ve been in power. It has everything to do with whether or not it has met God’s standards. And sometimes it has met God’s standards in terms of

[00:36:00] the nuclear family. And sometimes it hasn’t when when people who were in power put slavery as an institution into

[00:36:07] our society. And so it just has nothing to do with power. And it’s it all comes back to God’s standards. And if you use

[00:36:13] the wrong standards to define justice, you’re going to get justice wrong in major ways. And millions of lives are

[00:36:20] actually at stake in this because people think that reproductive justice is a justice issue. It should be a justice

[00:36:26] issue for the pre-born babies. You know, it’s interesting because you say um non-Christian views of reality are not

[00:36:33] only wrong but are often destructive when taken to their natural conclusion in the political domain. You know what’s

[00:36:38] interesting is um you know the social science regarding the the nuclear family

[00:36:43] is overwhelmingly positive. Uh which has nothing to do with a person’s race at all. Uh it’s the fact that uh the the

[00:36:52] social science is incredible. It’s uh uh that when you take a the family apart,

[00:36:59] the disadvantages that that child growing up in in the broken family um is

[00:37:05] overwhelming. And this has become so clear and so there’s that the there’s the fatherhood initiative the the um

[00:37:12] Tony Dunie and many other people who are advocating for um fathers to stay

[00:37:18] committed to their their families and to their wives. And uh I even in San Diego

[00:37:25] there was actually a billboard up uh that said fathers are needed in the home

[00:37:30] which I was like whoa who put that up? Um, I was like, “Whoa, that is a very

[00:37:36] Christian biblical uh message.” And so I was like, I just prayed for that person.

[00:37:42] Whoever got that billboard up, I was like, keep that person in in a position. But but uh if you were to be like, well,

[00:37:50] the the majority of people like the nuclear family, and then you were like, therefore, I don’t like the nuclear

[00:37:55] family because they’re in power. You’re shooting yourself in in the foot. I mean, you’re I think they call it what?

[00:38:03] cutting cutting off your nose despite your face or whatever that phrase is. It’s you’re not doing yourself any

[00:38:08] favors. And so, just like you said, um that ends up being destructive when

[00:38:16] when somebody moves in that direction. Uh it’s pretty wild. Um, which and

[00:38:21] that’s why I think and that’s why I think Christians really just fail to understand the the significance of it when we’re silent because we think,

[00:38:28] well, we just don’t want to get involved in the quote unquote culture war, for example. Uh, you know, we don’t we don’t

[00:38:33] want to be seen as fighting with people. But the culture war, all that means is that there are passionate disagreements

[00:38:39] over what is good for society. Why are we going to step back from that? Do we really think that everyone else who

[00:38:45] every non-Christian has a better understanding of how to run society and how to define what’s good and evil than

[00:38:50] the Christian does? I mean, that’s an unbiblical idea in and of itself. And I think that we fail when we take on that

[00:38:57] kind of perspective. We fail to realize that there are consequences for people’s lives when we are silent. It’s not just,

[00:39:03] oh, should I, you know, should I speak up or not? When we don’t speak up, there are people who will die. But quite

[00:39:10] literally, there are human beings who will die because if we’re not speaking up and we’re not doing what we can to

[00:39:15] protect pre-born lives, well, there are babies, more babies who are going to die. Now, that’s not to say that this is

[00:39:21] completely in our control, but we are called to be obedient and then we leave the results to God. But we have to

[00:39:28] realize that there are consequences for staying silent. Amen. Uh, you know, it’s funny. We we

[00:39:34] keep bringing up the issue of slavery, but um one of my favorite movies is that movie with William Wilburforce, Amazing

[00:39:39] Grace. And in it, um, uh, Wilburforce’s,

[00:39:45] I believe it’s his best friend, um, ends up saying, uh, because he’s

[00:39:51] trying to get his friend to serve in the government. He’s trying to get William Wilberforce to serve in the government. And William Wilberforce is like, I’ve

[00:39:57] become a Christian. I need to go join a monastery. and his friend is like, “Uh,

[00:40:03] are you going to use your voice to praise the Lord or to um, you know, help

[00:40:10] eliminate slavery? What are you doing?” And and then the the pastor tells him, “You can do both because that’s what

[00:40:16] you’re doing. You are praising the Lord through your advocacy against um against

[00:40:21] slavery. That is, right, a life, a living sacrifice.” Um, you know, you you

[00:40:27] wrote in your book that um when you finished writing it, you felt the weight of evil in the world more than ever. Um,

[00:40:33] why why did you make that statement? Well, I really wanted to write a book

[00:40:39] that was not just outlining biblical views on these issues because of course

[00:40:44] there have been many books that have done that and I wanted to address the biblical views on these but I wanted to

[00:40:49] go beyond that to really get into the mind of the culture itself to really understand why from their perspective

[00:40:56] that the biblical views on these things are not just intellectually wrong in some way but are so harmful and

[00:41:02] oppressive and toxic. all these words that we hear all the time. Why is that? And so, in order to get into that

[00:41:08] mindset, I just immersed myself in the content that was produced by people who were passionately advocating for a

[00:41:15] non-biblical view over the months that I was writing this. And it really was

[00:41:21] quite difficult after a while because you just can see, as I I say at the end of the book, you just can see that this

[00:41:27] is a culture that is in deep rebellion to the creator. And you can just feel

[00:41:33] that and you can sense that in everything that you do. It’s all about self autonomy and self authority.

[00:41:40] Everything comes back to the self. It’s just it’s a hatred for any kind of authority outside of me. That’s what it

[00:41:47] comes down to. You know, whether it’s about abortion and wanting your own ability to choose whatever for yourself or whether it’s about being transgender

[00:41:54] and having the ability to be the authority on saying who you are regardless of how God apparently made

[00:42:00] you. whatever it is, it comes back to me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me and it is it is such a feudal way of thinking and we

[00:42:08] understand that as Christians, right? And so it’s just it is very dark. And and some of the the content that we

[00:42:14] didn’t get into today, but I talk about in the book too is that in the final chapter, I talk about the sexualization of children that we’re seeing today and

[00:42:20] how there are activists who are not just looking to introduce content to kids at

[00:42:26] earlier ages, but are actually looking to get kids to participate themselves. And it’s extremely dark. And yet it at

[00:42:34] the same time, it’s absolutely the next step of where our culture is going. And for Christians to think otherwise is

[00:42:39] incredibly naive. A lot of times people will say, “Oh, you know, that’s always there have been always been predators on kids.” And fortunately, that’s still,

[00:42:46] you know, in the fringe of society that it’s just the next step in the sexual revolution. It’s the fruit of the same

[00:42:51] tree that’s produced everything else that we’ve already accepted as a society. It is coming and it um it is

[00:42:57] particularly dark. So, yes, it it was difficult to write this book, but I pray

[00:43:02] that it will help help to open people’s eyes to what’s going on and why our voice is so important.

[00:43:09] Yeah, it’s it’s awful. Uh, you know, the the whole thing with getting um

[00:43:14] homosexuality was in the DSM4 prior prior to 1970 and it was removed um as,

[00:43:22] you know, something that should be normalized or acceptable or there’s nothing wrong with it. Um, and yet, uh,

[00:43:29] male homosexuality is one of the most devastating lifestyles you can possibly live from a health perspective as well

[00:43:36] as an overall social perspective. Um, and then like you said, there’s there

[00:43:41] are groups now trying to make it so that uh, relationship with a minor is because

[00:43:48] it’s considered a a mental disorder. It’s in the DSM, the psychology manual of mental disorders as a mental

[00:43:54] disorder. And there are people trying to get that out, taken out. And like you said, it is the next step. And uh I

[00:44:01] can’t agree with you more that uh if Christians don’t get involved, stop being afraid and get the conviction to

[00:44:07] actually speak up because I think you’re completely right that a lot of people don’t speak up just because they are

[00:44:13] uninformed about the issues. They don’t know what to say. And so rather than casting judgment, they decide um you

[00:44:20] know what, who am I to say what’s right or wrong? I don’t live a perfect life,

[00:44:25] therefore why should I speak up about this? And then you have this horrible devastation. Um I remember very

[00:44:32] specifically a long time ago um a movie came out uh that was put out by the

[00:44:38] Discovery Institute called Expelled. Ben um was it

[00:44:43] Ben Stein was in it. He was the host and there’s a scene in there that astonished

[00:44:49] me. He’s walking through a um he’s walking through one of the gas chambers

[00:44:56] over in uh over in in Europe where they the Nazis put in um people that were

[00:45:04] handicapped, put them in there and killed them. And as he’s walking through, there’s a girl that’s giving

[00:45:10] him uh that’s guiding him through this thing. It’s just it’s a personal tour through this thing. And he says to her,

[00:45:17] “What do you think of these people and what they did?” He says to the tour guide. And she

[00:45:23] says, “Who am I to judge?” And I was just like,

[00:45:30] “What? Who are you to judge? You’re a human. Are you kidding me? you. But she

[00:45:36] was so unsure of her own convictions and she lacked any kind of moral standard or

[00:45:43] position that she was not even willing to condemn what the people had did to these innocent people in the gas

[00:45:49] chamber, which I I feel like that’s what your your book is a cry for is um stop

[00:45:55] being that person who has no standards and can’t stand up for truth because

[00:46:00] you’re the one that’s going to let the innocent people die. You’re the one that’s going to stand by while evil goes on and people are going to suffer for it

[00:46:07] because you chose not to get involved, not to have conviction, not to know what you believe. And you said, “Yeah, I

[00:46:15] believe it for me, but who am I to force my beliefs on somebody else? I don’t want to be called a Christian nationalist.” Uh,

[00:46:24] which you know, the Bible said God is going to hold people to account. And as a Christian, that’s not something we

[00:46:30] want to have to face God on judgment day and say, “What the heck were you doing? Why did you not stand up for the

[00:46:37] innocent?” Anyway, that’s kind of a woo. And ultimately, we’re not the ones to judge. It’s God who has already judged.

[00:46:44] He has already told us what his standards are and what is right and wrong and good and bad and harmful and helpful. We have scripture. We that’s

[00:46:51] why I say, you know, it comes back to knowing your biblical authority because when you understand that, then you don’t have to feel like you’re in the position

[00:46:57] of making judgments somehow. I mean, you are functionally making a judgment. You’re but you’re making the same

[00:47:02] judgment hopefully that God has already made. So, you’re the messenger. You are looking to go as the ultimate judge who

[00:47:08] has already delivered his judgments through the scripture in terms of what is right and wrong. And you are the

[00:47:14] messenger. You are passing that on. So, you know, Christians have taken this on from the culture around us. The culture

[00:47:20] says, you know, oh, don’t judge. That’s the ultimate sin, right? And we believe it. We believe so many mantras that the

[00:47:25] the culture around us want us to believe. We don’t think deeply. We don’t think biblically. And when we don’t do

[00:47:31] that, then people are hurt. Well, thank you so much for writing this book. For those of you listening, again,

[00:47:36] the book is When Culture Hates You. Um really it’s a call to action and a call it’s meant to inspire you and motivate

[00:47:42] you and um help you get away from that fear that’s keeping you from speaking out in the face of things that somebody

[00:47:49] has to speak up and stand up and not just look the other direction. And so um natashraane.com you can get it there. Um

[00:47:57] and I just encourage you to do that. Thank you so much Natasha for writing this book and for all the books you’ve written and and for your own

[00:48:04] perseverance. So really appreciate you. Thank you so much. I appreciate that and thanks for all you do too. Absolutely.

[00:48:10] Uh for those of you listening, um educateforlife.org is my website and we have some fantastic shows coming up

[00:48:16] right around the corner. Actually, tomorrow we’re going to be talking about Lucy, the most famous missing link um

[00:48:23] and what’s called the Pygmy Human Hypothesis with Dr. Chris RP. And we have a bunch of other amazing shows

[00:48:29] coming up um that’ll really encourage you and just help you to walk uh more closely with the Lord. Thanks for being

[00:48:35] with us. I hope you have a fantastic evening and we will see you next time.

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