Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / When Prayer is Illegal, Are We Free? || SLP482

Transcript

When Prayer is Illegal, Are We Free? || SLP482 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello and welcome back to the Speak Life podcast, episode 482.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Thomas Thurrogood, media producer at Speak Life.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Recording at my house today because we've been advised to work from home due to the intense stormy conditions outside, which you might be able to hear over this microphone.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're on the south coast of England, so if any of you are caught up in these storms or worse, I mean, looks like uh most of ESpawn is still intact, but uh I imagine elsewhere it's a lot worse.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: So sending love and prayers, hope you can stay safe during this time.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: The podcast I have for you today is a reaction that Glen recorded last week.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: We put it out on our YouTube channel.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: When prayer is illegal, are we free?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's Glenn reacting to abortion buffer zones.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if you caught the news last week that a woman called Isabel Vaughan Spruce, she was praying silently outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham, and then the police started to question her.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's happened to her a couple of times before.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: But it's especially interesting in this context because what was happening elsewhere in Birmingham last week, all sorts of protests, many of them peaceful, of course, but among them some protesters explicitly calling for jihad and the annihilation of the State of Israel.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it raises the question: what are we free to say, do, and think in a democratic society?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in this episode, Glenn will get into some of those issues.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Glenn does play a lot of clips in this reaction, but it should all come across over the audio.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to watch the clips that he's reacting to, you can find the video on our YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash speaklifemedia.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I will hand straight over to Glenn.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm Glenn from Speak Life.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of protests are allowed in a free and democratic society?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure we all agree that these protests in Iran should be allowed.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: In September of 2022, Masa Amini was arrested by the morality police in Iran.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: You heard right, the morality police.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: She was not wearing a hijab.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: She was taken into custody where she had a heart attack and died.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Since then, there have been hundreds and hundreds of protests, with women taking off their hijabs and cutting their hair, and there have been many arrests by the morality police.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Are those sorts of protests the sorts of things that we should allow in a free and democratic society?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should all say yes.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: But then in the last month we've had other protests, protests where people have been calling for jihad.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Should you be allowed to protest in that way?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Should you be allowed to call for jihad for pogroms, to say things like gas the Jews?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Many people, even if they ordinarily are big fans of free speech and the right to protest, will usually say, no, you are not allowed to support a terrorist organization, and many people who ordinarily are on the side of liberty say that these people should be deported.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: So what kind of protests should be allowed in a free and democratic society?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what you think about just stop oil.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: They have been very disruptive in their means of protest, and there have been many arrests made.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Earlier this summer, Johnny Besto was policing Lord's Cricket Ground as he played there against Australia.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: He stopped one of the Just Stop Oil protesters and made sure he was in the right place.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Later in that game, the Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey also policed the ground and made sure that Johnny Besto was in the correct place.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well done, Alex.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: So what protests are allowable in a free democratic society?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love this article by Ben Six Smith in The Critic.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: He notes twelve things more arrestable than calling for jihad, okay?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And these are the ways in which the police are now being asked to adjudicate in matters of rights and freedoms, and what speech is acceptable and what speech is not acceptable.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they they might be making some questionable judgments, shall we say.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And Ben Sixmith notes twelve things more arrestable than calling for jihad.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Number one is silently praying near an abortion clinic.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: But he's also, and and check out the links in his article.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, misgendering someone in public, that could see you arrested.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Misgendering someone online could get you arrested, being uh calling someone a lesbian, burning a Quran, making nasty jokes in a private group chat, calling Islam an aberration, publicly denying that gay marriage is biblical, reimagining the new LGBT flag as a swashticker, that'll get you arrested, protesting against the murder of women, carrying rape alarms in a public place, posting a racist tweet about football players.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: We are calling on our police to enforce uh a judgment, a moral judgment about what people say on Twitter.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, I am gonna call it Twitter, not ex, okay?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So arrest me.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna dead name Twitter, okay?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, don't arrest me.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Please don't arrest me.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, police don't arrest me.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: But we are asking our police to make these adjudications on moral and even spiritual matters.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is this what should be happening in a free democratic society?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: But the question remains, what kind of protests are allowable in a free and democratic society?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yesterday a group calling itself ADF, the Alliance Defending Freedom, released footage of a woman, Isabel Vaughan Spruce, who was confronted by police after her silent protest.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is how it went down.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_04: Are you here as part of an organized protest?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_04: You're not.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_04: Are you part of a pro-life organization or pro-choice organization?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_04: Or pro-choice organization.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_04: I am, but I'm not here in that capacity.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_04: Are you protesting?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_04: Are you here to pray for the lives of unborn children?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Are you here to pray for the lives of unborn children?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: So um this poor police officer, um, she has had to go through a script in which she is asking these questions about the internal thought life, indeed, prayer life, of somebody standing within 150 meters of an abortion clinic.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And she's been asked not only are you praying, but what are you praying?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Are you praying for the lives of the unborn?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: What what next?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Is she going to be asked?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, are you praying in the name of Jehovah?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Are you praying?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like how specific are we going to get as we pry into the thoughts and intentions of people?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And why are the police enforcing not only moral codes, but even spiritual codes, asking people about the content of their prayer lives?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it's a little bit leading, but no, I'm not.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: She's not praying.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_05: She's later she says she is.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's interesting.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Could she do it elsewhere?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is because of legislation that was passed earlier this year uh called PSPO uh legislation in the UK, public space protection orders, in which the space around abortion clinics is um cleared of protesters.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: You are not allowed to protest within these buffer zones.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, those who are in favor of them call them buffer zones, uh, others who do not like them call them censorship zones.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: But within these 150 meters of buffer zones, you are not allowed to protest, either directly or indirectly.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as the legislation was passing, people were trying to pass amendments to say, well, surely we're not going to criminalize people who are just silently standing there.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're surely not going to criminalize people who are just standing and praying, are we?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh those amendments um did not get up.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so in in the end, the legislation passes in which you are not allowed to protest either directly or indirectly, such that your prayer, even a prayer silently for the unborn, is prohibited.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so the police officer is asking, can you pray elsewhere?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Can you can you remove yourself another 150 meters from this site and pray elsewhere?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, yes, I guess Isabel Vaughan Spruce could do that.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting, though, how these laws are being interpreted.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Earlier this year, uh a grandmother was walking and praying with headphones in and a mask on.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: She was by herself, she was actually arrested by a policeman for praying, and the police officer said to her, Um, that's what churches are for.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we have got are there are certain places in our society where you are not allowed to pray, and in a sense, they are sacred spaces.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: They are the most sacred spaces in the most secular sense.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can pray anywhere in the United Kingdom, but you cannot pray within 150 metres of an abortion clinic.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what's the saying?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like you you know what the ultimate value is in a culture when you figure out what you cannot protest.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: What you cannot oppose is God for you.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And what cannot be opposed in our country, I'm an Australian living in the UK, but what cannot be opposed in this country is abortion.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because we have got a highest value that is called choice, choice with a capital C, and everything else must be subordinate to that highest value.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so there is a sacred space in these areas, but it's a sacred space that orbits around abortion clinics.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: There are those who are allowed to go into the abortion clinics and to do their thing.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we are not allowed to get close to that centre and and raise any kind of objections, no matter how peaceful, no matter how silent, no matter how prayerful.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Is this the kind of protest that we should be prohibiting in a free democratic society?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_05: I can pray elsewhere, but I I want to pray here today.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Good point.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_05: Why have you chosen a location here to stand?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_05: You know this is an abortion center that I'm standing outside of.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um are you aware that there is a public space protection order in place here?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I am.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's worth saying that she has had at least two other um run-ins with the police.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um charges were dropped in at least one of those cases, so she is very aware of this.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: The people around that area are very aware of this.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the police are ready.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they've got their printout of the of the script to take her through.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um none of this is a surprise to anybody.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And for those who are saying, Oh, she's just doing it as a publicity stunt.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, a publicity stunt is one way of characterizing it.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: She is certainly testing the limits of the law and showing the absurdity of certain legislation.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And hopefully, we can see that the legislation, even if you want uh a PSPO in place, surely you can see that we've reached an absurd place where silent prayer is being criminalized, can't we?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um Are you aware that you're breaching the public protection order?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not, no.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um will you move from here to outside of the exclusion zone?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_04: I I don't believe I need to.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um if not, why are you not willing to move outside of the exclusion zone?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I so I so feel for this police officer.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because clearly she's got like a little flow chart.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And okay, Isabel said no no.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So will will you move outside of the exclusion zone?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and like she joined the force to fight crime, right?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: She she joined the force to make society a better place.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: She did not join the force to police the thoughts, the intentions, and the prayers of people who are silent and all by themselves.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: She she didn't join the force for this, did she?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I like I feel for the police, I feel for them being politicized because we want to enforce an area in which there are no alarms and no surprises, in which we can just calmly and without distraction or harassment affect the choices that we have made because choice is all important.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And a police officer who is in the same force as those police officers who were not able to criminalize the calls for jihad, a police officer in the same force is saying, No, we will not arrest calls those who call for jihad.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: We will arrest, or at least fine, uh, those who are praying silently outside an abortion clinic.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you come to see that there is no neutral space that the police are kind of protecting.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's become a politicized thing in which certain speeches are allowed and certain speech isn't.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Certain protests are allowed and certain protests aren't.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: You can call for the the annihilation of the State of Israel and not be arrested.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can silently pray for the unborn who are about to be killed, and you can be criminalized.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Unbelievable.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_05: Because I don't believe I need to, I believe I've got a right to be here.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um If you believe that you're present to protect in any form, um obviously we're going to need to issue with a fixed penalty notice.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you believe that you're here to protest, we're going to have to give you a fixed penalty notice.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And Isabel asks for it again.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_04: Can you explain that again?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um Say it louder for the recording, please.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_04: If you believe that you're present to protect in any form.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_04: If I'm if I believe what, Sally?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_04: If you believe that you are present to protest, and you're I'm not here to protest.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not here to protest.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: She's not here to pro you know, in a sense, I'm sure there are other motivations at play with Isabel Vaughan Spruce, but I but at least one thing she is doing is testing what this law looks like on the ground and how it is being enforced by the police.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: She's not there to protest.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: But is she being caught up in a piece of legislation that says even indirect protest is um uh a a criminal offense?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um well you're in the PSPO, you're you you're breaching it.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_04: I'm in the zone.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm not protesting.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: But she's not protesting.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to be given a fixed penalty notice today.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and this is the way in which it's being enforced on the ground.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what's fascinating to me is that a number of months ago, on the unbelievable program that Justin Briley uh hosts on uh YouTube and on Premier Christian Radio, he got uh a couple of different people into conversation about this very thing.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he had Anne Faradi, who was once the head of B Pass, which is Britain's uh biggest abortion provider, and Lois McClatchy, uh who I think works for ADL.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and in this debate about buffer zones, the legislation had not yet passed, and Anne Faradi was talking about the possibilities of what this legislation might look like.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Anne Faradi thought it was a ridiculous idea that this would criminalize prayer, silent prayer.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: We would never get to such a state of affairs.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Anne Faradi said that.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this was back ten months ago.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Let's have a look.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: I think you're very unlikely to have anyone be arrested or certainly convicted if they are on the street in the vicinity of abortion clinics, but they are doing nothing that interferes with women because it's that interference, isn't it, that we're really concerned about here, not what's going on in your head between you and God.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: It is absolutely absurd that that would be the the case of the law, and I wish that it hadn't happened, but there's been several people over the last few months, weeks, uh, that have been uh contacting our organization uh because of this incident of praying silently.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: So this is this Anne Faredi thought it was laughable.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Did you hear the scoff that she began with?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's no way we're going to be criminalizing things that you know go on between you and God just because you're in the vicinity of an abortion clinic.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Anne Farrady said it would be ridiculous if that happened, and Lois McClatchy had to say, well, it's already happening now, and the legislation that is about to come out will criminalize exactly this.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So here is the question: what kind of protest is allowed in a free democratic society?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I keep using that word free, don't I?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think all of this goes to show that we have a really attenuated, a really anemic vision for freedom that actually ends up turning on itself.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: So when we say that there are certain freedoms that we have, we tend to think, oh, that just means a freedom from inhibition, okay?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: A freedom from things that will get in our way.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're a woman who wants to access an abortion clinic, then we think freedom means having no friction between that woman and her notion that she will have this child aborted.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like and and she is most free if she is allowed to fulfill that desire.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: But freedom is is not like that at all.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Freedom always has a context to it.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um I always think of uh The Simpsons, you know, the episode where Homer goes into space and uh they have an ant farm in zero gravity because they want to do tests on ants in zero gravity, and for some reason Homer gets out of his seat and he's careening through the spacecraft in zero gravity.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: He crashes into the ant farm, and uh the ants are chirping to one another, and they say, you know, protect the queen, and the other body, the the other ant says, uh, which one's the queen?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then as he smashes into the ant farm, the ants are released into zero gravity, and one of the ants just says, Freedom! Horrible, horrible freedom.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it gets at something um really interesting.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: A modern Western sense of freedom is actually much more like a biblical sense of being lost.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: A modern sense of freedom is just the freedom of the individual to fulfill their own desires in the present.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we all know that that doesn't work.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: The ant that feels it would be more free if it could just throw off the shackles of its ant farm does not find itself more free as it is careening around the spacecraft in zero gravity.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the goldfish who thinks it will be more free if it got loose from the fish tank does not find more freedom spluttering around on the carpet.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we do not find more freedom simply by maximizing our pleasures and minimizing our pains, simply by pursuing our own individualized sense of well-being.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Biblically, the idea of freedom is much more uh associated with the idea of coming home.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: You might know the famous story that Jesus tells there are two sons.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of them says to his dad, I want my share of the inheritance now, so he takes his dad's money and runs.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he's essentially saying to his dad, I want you dead.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: I want the fruits of your death now, so I can get as far away from you as I possibly can and enjoy myself in wild living, and that's what he does.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the money runs out because the money always runs out, and he ends up in a pigsty because you always end up in a pick style and he's hungry, and he thinks to himself, Look, even my dad's servants get a better deal than I've got.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'll go home and apply for a job with my old man.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so he decides to go back to the the father's house, and he's got this sorry spiel in his mind as he trudges his way back to the father's homestead.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've sinned against heaven and against you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Make me like one of your hired servants.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And as his father sees him in the distance, his father just runs to him, flings his arms around him, puts the best robe on him, says, Kill the fattened calf, we're gonna have a feast, for this son of mine was lost and now he's found.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: He was dead and now he's alive, and they begin to celebrate.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's this idea that that boy was not more free when he was in the far country, and he was certainly not more free when he was in the pig sty.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: He was most free when he was in his father's arms, still stinking of pig, but he'd found home.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: He hadn't found himself, he hadn't found independence.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're not made for independence, we're made for dependence.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he's never more free than when he was wrapped tight in his father's arms, because that's the context for which he was made.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Ants are made for the ant farm, goldfish are made for the goldfish bowl, we are made for the arms of the father.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's where we're free.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the Bible has always built this sense of we are free when we are home.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next morning, I imagine like the the prodigal son the next morning, you know, he can say to his dad, Dad, let's go work on the farm.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like full of confidence and assurance and the security of the love of his father.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: He's free, he's liberated, he can be who he truly is.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're made for that kind of freedom.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the Bible has a sense of freedom that's much more like the family home.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, look, we sit down at table with one another.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you you might know Galatians chapter three is this famous uh part of the Bible that's built so much of the Western world.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: The Apostle Paul in Galatians chapter three says, In Christ there is no longer any male or female, slave or free, um, Jew or Greek, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's this idea that we are all equally welcome around the table of the Lord, and nobody's better than anyone else.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: There is there are no lords except Christ Himself, and we're all brothers.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And sisters incredibly equal, and our liberation is actually coming home to the Father's love in Christ.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: What we have nowadays in the West is we have the remnants of a memory of Galatians chapter 3, the remnants of a memory of Luke 15, which is the prodigal son, and yet we have individualized this idea of freedom so that freedom for us now and equality for us now is no longer we're all equally welcome around the same table.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's we are all individuals and we have a right to getting as high up our own individual ladders as we possibly can.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we try to equalize in a totally atomized sense.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to get up this ladder, and you're able to get up that far in your ladder.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: I should be able to get up this far in my ladder.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we pursue our desires.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And society today is not so much about family being woven together in bonds of interdependence.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's much more about individual citizens who consent to be in the same society.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is why we have elevated choice, because by my choice, okay, I am consenting to be uh part of this society in which I'm an individual and you're an individual, and we're all we're all allowed the same stuff, and nobody can interfere with me.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: And if I want to go into that abortion clinic, and if I want to abort my child, no one should get in the way.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, my freedom is expressed in having untrammeled access to every single choice, even if that choice is to deny family and to deny interdependence and to deny the bonds of love that make up life, right?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so we've got a real clash, don't we?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: We've got Isabel Vaughan Spruce, who is a Catholic believer, silently praying.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: That is one vision for what human flourishing looks like, and we've got another vision for human flourishing, which is let us create a sacred space around abortion clinics and allow everybody untrammeled access to every single choice, and you are not allowed to condemn anybody's choice ever.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Even if it's for the sake of life, you are not allowed to deny or oppose or impede anybody's choice.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, here's the irony of that: these like zones around the abortion clinic are not pro-choice, are they?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: They are no-choice zones.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're totally no-choice zones, because the only choice that we will allow is really the choice that ends itself up in the abortion clinic.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: And if anyone wants to, you know, put up a sign and just say, if you want help, you can seek help.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just this week on Twitter I saw in Washington, DC, there was uh they they call them sidewalk counselors, uh, a group outside an abortion clinic, and they just say, we will help you if you want to keep your child.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, and a husband and wife said, Yes, please, can we can you help us?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we we we won't go through with your abortion.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and a life was saved, okay?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems to me that that sidewalk counseling team was offering more choice, weren't they?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: But but choice that is in the context of family, in the context of a bigger vision for flourishing than just you fulfilling your individual choice.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let me finish with John chapter 8, because Jesus has built the modern world, right?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you're pro-abortion, you cannot help but use the language that Jesus has given to you.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot help but uh appeal to the moral intuitions that have been given to us by Christianity.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because you know you believe in choice.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's Jesus who gave us the sense of consent and and and the sense of bodily autonomy and the sense that a woman has a right to choose.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And like if you don't believe me, I've written a whole book about it.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's called The Air We Breathe.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can find it online.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: But the very ideas that support the pro-abortion side have also been given to us by Jesus.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think they've been detached from Jesus and detached from the story in which those values make sense.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: G.K.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Chesterton said that we've got Christian virtues running amok in the world, but on the pro-abortion side, we've we've still got this sense of there's the equality of the sexes, and so a woman's right to choose and a woman's bodily autonomy, and abortion is health care.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Christians like founded hospitals and those sorts of things.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: There are some profoundly Christian-ish elements, even to the pro-abortion side, but uh I'm not for abortion.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm very much on the pro-life side of things, and the pro-life side of things wants to tell you you know what?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: True freedom does not come from maximizing your individual choices, it comes from submitting to the life that God gives to us, and we just receive it as a gift, however awkward, however inconvenient, we welcome life in our midst.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's the the life of an unborn child, or whether it's Christ Himself coming to the world, we welcome life in our midst, even though that means we have to deprioritize me and my choices and my individualism, and I have to receive the life that is given to me for free.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus has absolutely built the modern world, and in John chapter 8, he says words that'll be familiar to you, whether you're a Christian or or not.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says to the Jews who had believed in him, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, then you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know that line, don't you?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps perhaps you know it from the truth shall set you free.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: But do you notice how Jesus puts truth and freedom together?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: Freedom is not independence from every kind of constraint.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: We are made for truth, okay?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: We are made for teaching.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: There are constraints, there are limits on us.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: There is a grain to reality, and you're not more free by going against the grain, right?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: You are to go with the grain of the truth of reality.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus calls himself the truth.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: We are not more free if we go against truth.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: If I climb to the top of a six-story building and I say, I'm free to jump off and fly, right?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yo, you are free to do that, but you're you're not free to choose the end point of that particular tragic tale, because the truth is you will sink like a stone and splat you go, right?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: You are not more free by ignoring the truth.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, truth and freedom come together, which again is why choice with a capital C cannot come top of the hierarchy of values.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's got to be teaching, there's got to be truth.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: And why don't we listen to Jesus?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Fascinatingly, in John chapter 8, people listening in don't like what Jesus says.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just modern people who want to be independent.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's a human trait, not just a Western trait.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: They answered him in verse 33, we are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: How can you say that we should be set free?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Which is hilarious because there are some Jewish people in the first century.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if there was a Roman centurion overhearing them saying, We've never been slaves of anyone, he would have chuckled to himself and thought, Who have you not been slaves of?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're slaves of the Egyptians and then the Philistines for a bit, and like Moabites, and then there was the Babylonians and the Assyrians and the Persians and the Greeks, and now the Romans, like, who have you not been slaves of?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: And yet we always think that we're free.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: When actually we have been trapped and enslaved by higher powers.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of higher powers?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus goes on.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin, right?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: We think we choose sin.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Sin chooses us.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the story, I'm sure it's an apocryphal tale about how you catch monkeys.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever heard this?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: How you catch monkeys in a jungle?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: You put uh a jar down in the middle of a jungle clearing, and you put an apple inside the jar, and the aperture in the in the mouth of the jar is just wide enough for the monkey's hand to go in.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: But once the monkey grabs hold of the apple, he can't release himself from this heavy jar and he's stuck, he's trapped.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then the hunter comes and gets the monkey.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the monkey would be free if only he lets go of the apple, but he never lets go of the apple.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, those who sin are slaves to sin.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's what we're all like.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: We all go after things, which is why simply maximizing your choices will not make you free.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because we have hearts that look for love in all the wrong places and look for fulfillment in all the wrong places.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: We look for flourishing in all the wrong places, and we're like that monkey, you know, grabbing onto whatever it is sex, money, power, power, fame, whatever it is, we're grabbing onto this thing and it's trapping us.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need to maximize our choices.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Freedom cannot be the highest ideal in a culture or in a person.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Whoever sins is a slave to sin, and that's all of us.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: But a slave has no permanent place in the family, right?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: But a son belongs to it forever.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is constantly bringing us back.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know where you find freedom.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's not in independence, it's in interdependence in the family for which you are made.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 36.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: So if the sun sets you free, you'll be free indeed.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Here's where I'm gonna finish.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the son of the ultimate family.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: He is the one who is truly free.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to see somebody who's free, oh my goodness, he walks around planet Earth like he owns the place, the poise, the dignity, the he he will not be cowed.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: He will not be deterred from his mission.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: He is just he is freedom on legs, isn't he?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he, the son, comes from that family.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: He enters into our slaveries.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're enslaved.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm afraid of what people will say and think and do, and I I am I I am imprisoned by my own desires, and I choose them, but I don't really choose them.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: They choose me, and they've got their hooks into me.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: And whether it's I want career success and then all of a sudden I'm on the treadmill and I can't get off, or I want fame, and then all of a sudden I've got to keep feeding the beast on social media, and I'm not free, right?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus comes to set us free, okay?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: He is the one who descends right to our pit, right to our pig sty, to take all our sins on himself on the cross and rise up again.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: And he's got his arms wide open for us.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: They were nailed open for us.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Come home.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Come home, then you'll be free.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: And listen, you might just think, okay, Glenn is a preacher and he's just taken a massive detour to do a little bit of scriptural exposition when we were quite happy thinking about a cultural hot button issue.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Why did he take that detour?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a detour.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, literally, what I've just told you has built the culture war that you're fighting right now.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, literally, this is the message that has given us our moral sensibilities about what freedom is, about what love is, about what life is truly about.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um personally, you will not find freedom anywhere else than in Jesus.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: But also culturally, I don't see how we can continue to police this neutral space where everybody's allowed to do whatever they want to do without a higher vision for what the good life actually is.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because we'll be we'll be confronted with okay, are you allowed to protest about hijabs?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Are you allowed to protest about climate crisis?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Are you allowed to, you know, shout, you know, calling for jihad?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Are you allowed to misgender somebody in public?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Are you allowed to pray silently outside of a uh of an abortion clinic?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: We have so many things we're just not sure where we should land on any of these issues because we don't have a grander vision for what people are allowed to do or what the good life really is.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we just end up enforcing what on a surface level reading looks like neutrality.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: But when you see police officers criminalizing prayer, you recognize there is no neutrality.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: We all have highest values, we're all already religious, we're all enforcing sacred spaces.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you might laugh at the Iranians for having morality police.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: The Iranians, oh, that's what happens when you have a theocracy.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: We have a theocracy, it's just we have a different theos, okay?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: A different God, okay?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we are enforcing sacred spaces in modern secular Britain.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you think that's not a sacred space.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: It to when you when you're not allowed to pray in a space, you've just you've just made the ultimate religious claim in society.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you might think we need to be able to navigate these issues without the Bible, without Jesus.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: No dice.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Can't do it.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: These are all spiritual issues, these are all theological issues.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: So get back to your Bibles, people.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Get back to your Bible and start reading about where true freedom comes from.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many more things I could say, but why don't you let me know what you think in the comments?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: We love to hear from you.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we are a channel that is devoted to seeing all things through the lens of Jesus.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Have you tried out our course called 321?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's a way that you can get an introduction to Christianity.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's completely free.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you'll have all sorts of content that you can uh download and watch and and explore a vision for life according to Jesus.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you go to 321course.com and figure out more there?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Or just give us a like and a subscribe, and we'll see you again on the next video.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much.