No Reason To Hide Interview Part 3

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. American culture is now marked by propaganda, perverted justice, the rise of LGBTQ, and preferred pronouns. Also, we have a church largely impotent in the face of a rising tide of socialism and communism.

Today, more on what to do about it. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win, with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. With Larry McCarthy, here is Pastor Lutzer to discuss further his new book, No Reason to Hide, Standing for Christ in a Collapsing Culture. This is Pastor Lutzer.

Welcome to a special edition of Running to Win. We're discussing my new book, No Reason to Hide, Standing for Christ in a Collapsing Culture. If you've been with us in previous episodes, you know that we talked about issues of racism. We spoke about some of the pressure points that are existing in our culture.

And today we come to a number of different subjects that we need to cover very quickly. With me here in the studios is Larry McCarthy, one of our pastors here at Moody Church. So Larry, we're beginning with propaganda. Larry McCarthy Well, propaganda. I think you need to give us an in-service on what exactly is propaganda.

We know that it wants to make a lie appear to be true, but in the context of your book, we're not supposed to hide. What does propaganda mean? Dr. Larry McCarthy Well, propaganda is to so shape people's view of reality that even when faced with a mountain of evidence, they will not change their minds. Now in this chapter, I go into detail regarding the realm of emotion, why that is important for propaganda fear and of course also anger. That plays into the whole propaganda experience. But in addition to that, I actually give six different ways that language is used today in propaganda.

And for lack of time, I'm only going to give one or two of these ways. One is this. You have, for example, speech codes at our universities. I quote one of the universities that says that words that are in effect banned are picnic, trigger warning, freshman – after all, you can't have a man, a freshman – and a disabled person. As a matter of fact, this speech code says that if you go into a barbershop, you should not tell people that he takes walk-ins because you might offend people who can't walk.

After all, there are people who are in wheelchairs. Now Larry, what's so important is to realize that the purpose of these speech codes is not to elevate the debate. It's to silence the debate.

It's to bring about a situation in which you are afraid to say a straightforward sentence because you might say the wrong word. And so what I do in this chapter is to show how language is used to narrow the realm in which we are allowed to think. So really it becomes a means of oppression. It becomes a means of censorship. That's the whole point that we find today going on in our universities.

Of course there's a lot of other things that I discuss. I talk about the fact that we must counter propaganda by peeling back the labels because there are many various slogans that we need to look into when we consider propaganda and ask what actually lies behind these slogans. Robert Higgs it seems to me that you're suggesting that it's more than just suppression even though that's significant in and of itself. But propaganda is being used to control the way people think and that if you can control their thoughts, you can control them. Is that really what you're suggesting?

Robert Higgs Yeah. It gets to the point where you so limit the realm of speaking that you limit the realm of thought so that you can't even be critical of what the university is doing or what the left is doing because you have no vocabulary for it. And so it's really trying to narrow the realm of thought. I also point out though I like to talk about cultural streams. As you know, I have studied Hitler some and his view of propaganda which is very important. I quote Goebbels, his propaganda minister. Hitler says that if you have a stadium with 100,000 people all shouting the same slogan, if you come there as an unbeliever, you will either be converted or you will be silent. And so that's one of the reasons I wrote the book No Reason to Hide is because in the midst of this confusing culture, you and I, we cannot be silent. We can't hide. We have to speak the truth and we need to take the consequences.

I want to end this discussion of propaganda by simply giving a quick illustration. Here at the Moody Church, there was a pastor and his wife who were having their first baby and the pastor was in the room with his wife and suddenly you have all this commotion in the room. And he began to realize that things were in trouble. His little daughter apparently her shoulder was caught in the birth canal. And so he of course was absolutely in disarray emotionally. I mean he's sitting there and he's trying to take this in and he is fearful. But a doctor comes over and looks him in the eye and says this, in a minute, this room is going to be filled with 20 people.

There will be a lot of buzz but I want to tell you two things. First, we've been here before and everything will be okay. And you know in the midst of all of the voices that are angry and shrill that are vying for our attention, there are times when we must simply go to the Word of God and remind ourselves that God knows what he's doing and everything is going to be okay.

Dr. Darrell Bock Amen. So pastor I know because of time we have to keep moving. So I want to talk about chapter 7 and in this chapter you speak about how the Christian left is compromising the gospel. I think this is the first time I've really seen this term, Christian left. What are you talking about and how are they compromising the gospel?

Dr. Gerry Breshears When we speak about the Christian left, we're talking about those who many of whom would think that they have a biblical view but yet at the same time they are giving the culture what the culture wants. They are submitting to the culture. Many of them might have very optimistic views as to why they are doing it. They might say, well, we want to be relevant. We want to reach the culture.

But in the process, in my opinion, they are actually compromising the gospel and they do it in two ways. Dr. Darrell Bock Okay. Dr. Gerry Breshears The first way that I discuss is through social justice. Now you must understand as I'm sure all of our listeners do that justice is not an option for Christians. We all must be involved in justice.

You know, what does the Lord your God require but to deal justly and we should all be interested in justice. But when we talk about social justice, that's something very different. Social justice is a whole world view. Oftentimes, it involves issues of sexuality, not only issues of race and everything can become a justice issue. I show this as a matter of fact in the chapter where I discuss propaganda and the use of language where the word justice can be used in various ways. For example, we can have such things as environmental justice.

We can have marriage justice which means same-sex marriage and on and on. A biblical view of justice says that you need a biblical world view to define justice correctly. Here's one of the most important verses in all the Bible regarding justice. Isaiah 59, justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away for truth has stumbled in the public square and uprightness cannot enter, truth is lacking. And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

In other words, if you don't go along with the cultural stream regarding how the world defines justice, you can be in trouble. So that's one way that the Christian left begins to compromise the gospel is social justice. The other is very directly the acceptance of same-sex marriage, buying into the whole LGBTQ community and doing so Larry under the guise of love. And what I like to point out is that love can be evil. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they didn't stop loving.

They just started to love all the wrong things, lovers of pleasure, lovers of money, lovers of themselves. So the point to be made is just because something is loving in the eyes of the world, it doesn't make it right. Herein is love, said Jesus, that you keep my commandments. So my point is that when we talk about issues of justice, when we talk about social justice, when we talk about sexuality, we always have to go back to the word of God and it is so important for us to speak the truth lovingly and this generation has to be told and to understand that love and truth are not opposites. They are not enemies.

We must do both but that's difficult, isn't it, Larry? Yes, it is. And so would that then be your response to what we say to Christians who want to deconstruct their faith? You know, in the book I discuss that and many want to deconstruct their faith because they've had a bad experience in the church for one reason or another.

Yes. Sometimes it's because of the self-righteousness that they experience. Sometimes it's because of the rejection of some of their friends in a very unprofessional and unbiblical way.

They all have various issues. Usually it's not so much an issue of truth as it is a matter of heart. I frequently say that students today oftentimes are not talked out of their faith. They are mocked out of their faith.

So many who deconstruct are doing so in response to an emotional experience that hurt them. So what can we do? Well, one of the things we can do is just listen. We have to listen in a non-judgmental way. We have to understand where people are coming from but we must lovingly remind them that there are certain truths in the Bible that they must accept.

And we must accept these truths in a balanced way. Wow. You know, you touch on so many things there and just that statement of the hurting hearts in the house of God and certainly one of those areas where we see confusion and hurt is the myth of a gender-neutral society. Well, you're leading right into the next chapter, which is what we're supposed to talk about. Last time I promised everyone who was listening that I would answer a very critical question and you remember what the question was, Larry?

Certainly. And it is my child comes home and asks his parents or tells his parents, I think I'm transgender. What are those parents supposed to say? Larry, before I answer your question very specifically, I want to tell you that recently I had a discussion with a teenager. Now, he was not interested in becoming trans but he was defending the point that we should call people by their preferred pronouns because after all, only they know who they are, all right? I was taking the point of view as I do in my book that names aren't gendered. So your name is Larry. Good name.

Good name. If you have a Larry and he says, I'm transitioning to become a girl and I want to be called Linda, I will call him Linda. But what I will not do is to call him a her. I see. Okay.

Because names aren't gendered but pronouns are. So here I'm having this discussion and this young man is arguing that – and of course he's a product of today's society and today's schools. He's arguing with me. We're having a wonderful discussion. It wasn't really an argument. And finally I said to him, okay, are you willing to say men can have babies too? And he paused and he rubbed his brow and he said, you know, you have me cornered. You want me to answer that question. He could not bring himself to say that men can have babies too.

But I said that's the end result of what you're arguing. Yes. And in a moment, I will tell you what else I told him. But before we get into what I told him, Larry, in George Orwell's book 1984, a man by the name of Winston is taken into a room and in this room, he is convinced – he's supposed to be convinced that two plus two is equal to five. Yes. And the person speaking to him says two and two is actually five.

Sometimes it's three and sometimes it's both. Now, they didn't expect Winston necessarily to accept that, but they wanted him to learn to live by lies. Everybody who says men can have babies too know that they are lying.

Yes. But they want us to feel comfortable… With a lie. … with a lie. And that's why this happens. Now, I would say to a young person, first of all, you should honor the body that God gave you because he actually determines who we are, whether male or female. And recent studies show that we are hardwired male or female. But furthermore, this is what I put to him and he understood it well because he was able to articulate this back to me. Here's the issue. If there is not an alignment between my self-perception and my body, my gender assigned at birth, if there is not an alignment, why is it so right that I should mutilate my body to try to put it in harmony with my self-perception? And why is it so wrong to say that your self-perception should be brought in line with your body?

Okay. That's really the seminal issue. The other thing that you need to point out to them, because teenagers oftentimes don't see the consequences of their decisions, you have to point out to them that they can never be a parent. The only way they can be a parent is to adopt. If you, for example, are a boy and now you say that you are transgender and you are a girl, is there a biological boy who's actually going to fall in love with you?

And even if it happened, you could not have a child. So you have to think of the long-term consequences of the decision that you are making to have irreversible surgery and all kinds of issues. You know, one of the points that you make in the book that I just thought was just so impactful is that many of the people who have this irreversible surgical procedures are now regretting doing that. And I think in the years ahead, we'll gather more statistics on that. But that that is surfacing is that people have taken this irreversible step based on feelings and they regret now doing it.

Absolutely. As a matter of fact, there are those who have transitioned who would say to themselves, we need to get the message out here because of our regrets. But you'd be surprised at the number of people, and I've read about this, who want to go online and tell their story and they are blocked. There are doctors today who say that they believe that they don't even have the right to tell a patient that transitioning or becoming transgender is a bad idea for them because if not, they could lose their license or that would be found out and so forth. So we have a trend here. And if you ask the other question, why do so many young people say that they are transgender?

The reason is because it's almost a fad. But more than that, Larry, you and I have to think back when we were teenagers. All of us looked in the mirror and wondered where God was when we were put together. There were times when we didn't like our body. So today, children are told, oh, you don't like your body? You're probably trans. And it's almost a status symbol to say, well, really, you know, I'm trans.

It's the trend. Now, there are some people genuinely who grow up with this feeling that they are the wrong gender, but they are a great minority. And in that case, I point out that they need to lean into Jesus Christ even if there isn't full alignment. Still trying to mutilate their body to bring about this alignment oftentimes has disastrous effects. Well, Larry, we were supposed to cover the next chapter, which has to do with whether or not our children are going to be indoctrinated by the enemy.

But we really don't have time for that except to summarize this. Parents, God is going to hold you accountable for the education of your children. And in this chapter, I talk about what is being taught in today's schools. I reference a book about sexuality for 10-year-olds and up that refers to every form of aberrant sexuality that you can visualize.

And this book actually is illustrated. This destroys young people. It causes guilt. They are told you have to make up your own mind, but of course their mind is being molded and made up by their curriculum, by their teachers.

If you cannot send your children to a private school or home school, you must stay in touch with your teachers, what your young people are being told, because God is going to hold you responsible. Well, there's a lot more material, of course, in the book. We've only mentioned the chapters. But you can get your copy of No Reason to Hide for a gift of any amount. And I have to say that when you get your copy of No Reason to Hide directly from Moody Church Media, you'll receive a unique invitation to a live town hall conference call when I'll have the opportunity to share my heart with you about the culture, about what we must do to stand against it.

Thanks in advance for helping us. And by the way, get on the phone and let your friends know that next time on Running to Win, we're going to be discussing the great COVID reset. And we'll talk about what is happening oftentimes with the World Health Organization, how it might play into end times, but more importantly, the need for Christians to understand that we have to reject these trends through the word of God and even as the book of Revelation points out, by the word of their testimony and by the blood of the Lamb. Thank you again for joining us.

Remember the name of the book, No Reason to Hide. God bless you. And I will see you right here again next time on Running to Win. And the topic will be the great COVID reset. Thanks for joining us. Pastor Erwin Lutzer with Larry McCarthy discussing No Reason to Hide, standing for Christ in a collapsing culture.

Next time on Running to Win, the truth behind the pandemic, globalization, uncontrolled immigration, and the death of our money. We must learn from the early church. We must learn from the New Testament that suffering for Jesus Christ is an honor. And I point out how it strategically positions us for a special blessing. It's an opportunity for us to witness to the supreme worth of Christ. Yes.

Because we know that we live our lives in terms of eternity and not time. Amen. Don't miss this crucial final program in a series of four. The book No Reason to Hide will be sent as our gift to you when you give a gift of any amount to support Running to Win. Just call us at 1-888-218-9337. That's 1-888-218-9337. Online, go to rtwoffer.com. Or write to Running to Win, Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.