Harison Butker

In this episode of the 110 show, host James Black reads a passage from Galatians 1:9-10, setting the theme for the podcast. He discusses the controversial commencement speech by Harrison Butker, criticizing the secular left's reaction to it. Black emphasizes the importance of viewing everything through the lens of God's calling and having a biblical worldview. He argues against the misconceptions of feminism and defends the biblical design of marriage. Black concludes by stating that God's point of view on love is the only one that matters, and that we will all be judged by our beliefs and actions. Good evening and welcome to this episode of the 110 show. My name is James Black and I'm your host this evening. Before we get started I want to read a passage that is going to serve to be the inspiration of this series. Galatians 1 verses 9 through 10. The Apostle Paul writing out the Galatians, as we have said before so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims the gospel contrary to what you receive let that one be accursed. Am I now seeking human approval or God's approval or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people I would not be a servant of Christ. And so the reason why this passage of Scripture is going to serve as kind of the guiding theme for this podcast, at least with these first beginning episodes, is that you're going to hear a lot of truths, a lot of beliefs, and a lot of positions stated on this show and they are mostly not going to line up with the prevailing opinion of popular culture and what's considered to be socially relevant, politically correct, and you know relevant so to speak. And so people may call these things bigoted, out of touch, not according to the way the world works, and so my response as a Bible-believing Christian is I count all these things as loss compared to the surpassing glory awaiting me in Christ Jesus. And Paul goes on in Philippians 4.13, I can do all these things through Christ who gives me strength. That's one of the most misquoted or interpreted out of context passages in Scripture that's maybe a subject for another podcast episode. But tonight we're going to talk about the commencement speech heard around the world delivered by none other than Mr. Harrison Bucker, the ticker for the Super Bowl winning Kansas City Chief. This was the commencement speech delivered for Benedictine College, which is, I will point out, a traditionally Catholic school. Not a secular school, not a Mormon school, not a Jehovah's Witness school, not an atheist school, but a Catholic school. And so before we get started, I want to point that fact out. Harrison Bucker said a lot of things in his commencement speech which have riled those on the secular left and including some who are supposedly conservative and who are Christian. He said things along the lines of fight against the emasculation of masculinity. Do things that are hard. He used his wife Isabella as an example of celebrating motherhood. And he talked about how for many women what they were truly excited about was not about pursuing their careers, but by being a mother and having a family and raising children. He also went on to rail against the disastrous policies of the Biden administration, including their desire to make abortion legal without limits. He spoke out against the dangers of same sex marriage and other LGBTQ plus ideologies and beliefs. And he did so in a forceful way, consistent with the beliefs of the school at which he was speaking. And so my initial reaction to the speech is it fundamentally comes down to God's calling for your life and that we have to be able to take everything that we hear through that lens. And so for people who want to say, you know, he shouldn't have addressed motherhood in those terms, well, we should be able to listen to a speech and not allow it to rile up our emotions such that we see it as an attack on our beliefs. That shows insecurity. That shows a lack of trust in our belief system. And it shows that we are not on firm ground and we're not on the solid rock of truth in terms of our worldview. And data from Barna backs this up. Only 4 percent of Americans today have a biblical worldview. And that's even a decrease from 6 percent measured before or around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. And so what that tells us, as more Christians have attended church remotely, there's been a decline in the biblical worldview. And so we see here that church is essential and having church in person matters. And so for me, the content of Buckner's speech itself was not the tell. The tell is how the culture has reacted to it. And the culture has reacted in this way because our idols are being threatened. The things that we cling to, the false belief that we should have total reproductive freedom, and that that freedom even extends to things like unborn humans that actually aren't another person's property. They're God's property. You know, the idea that we can have unlimited sexual freedom with no consequences because we also have this false belief in reproductive freedom that we can punish those who don't deserve to be punished, like unborn children. And so it's one of these things where one sin, the sin of having sex outside of marriage, whether between homosexual couples or heterosexual couples, which then leads to another sin of having an abortion in many different cases, right? Sin gives birth to sin. The Bible is very clear on that. And so we need to remind ourselves that there is no freedom without responsibility and that having unlimited freedom is basically equal to a universe without structure and without order and without chaos. It's anarchy. And so a lot of times we as humans, we complain about rules. We complain about regulations. We complain about restrictions to our behavior. Well, these restrictions have to exist or else the world as we know it would fall into chaos. If we have unlimited freedom without responsibility, then we don't have freedom. We have the tyranny of the anarchy or chaos. And so the exact same thing is true on the opposite side of the equation. If you have no freedom at all, that also leads to anarchy and chaos. And so there's a healthy middle ground that's laid out for us in scripture where we find freedom, the most freedom through that structure and through that order, and that we know that our God is not a God of chaos, but one of order. He created the universe. He created our lives and he meaningfully ordered our lives in such a way they would have meaning. And so in the content of Mr. Butker's speech, he was not asserting that every woman has to be a mother and that they cannot pursue a career because motherhood and having children and getting married is the only thing that matters. No, that is a feminist mischaracterization. And I want to speak about this because I truly do believe that feminism has done so much harm to our society, particularly modern feminism. I do believe that the original brand of feminism championed by the suffragettes of the late 19th, early 20th century had a lot of good ideas. Obviously, I believe that women not having the right to vote was fundamentally unfair. You know, there are a lot of people, you know, who I've heard talking about repealing the 19th Amendment. First off, that will never happen. It just won't ever happen. And secondly, you know, I do sympathize with those who felt that, you know, women not having the right to vote was fundamentally unfair. You know, I agree with that position. Right. And so I do think that the suffragettes of part of that first wave feminist movement or feminism or however you want to call it, they did have some genuinely good ideas, some of which I agreed with. Right. But the feminists of today are not about that at all. They are about not about collaboration or collaboration between the sexes, but they are about domination. They're about essentially painting women as the superior gender to men and kind of portraying men as useless and attacking and attempting to undermine the origins of the nuclear family because they see it as a way that the so-called patriarchy is enforced. Guess what? Reality is patriarchal to a degree. And some people don't want to accept it, but that's the reality that we're all headed for when Christ establishes his kingdom. Right. And so in the same way that Christ is supposed to be the head of the church, the men, the man is supposed to be the head of the household and he is supposed to love his wife by serving her. And the wife is supposed to submit to that by respecting her husband. That is the biblical design for marriage, and it is a reflection of how Christ loved the church. And when Paul says this is a great mystery, that is what he is referring to. He is referring to marriage and how the husband is supposed to love his wife in that self-sacrificial way in the same way that Christ self-sacrificially loves the bride of Christ, the church, which is us. And so that is the mystery. It's a beautiful portrayal and that we know what love is because Christ loved us. And that gives us a whole new way of not only understanding marriage and romance, but also of understanding just how we love people in general. You know, we love by serving just as Christ did for us. We read also in other places in 1 John that love is pointless unless it's action followed by truth. And so we as Christians should embody that and want to live that out because we know that what love is because Christ first loved us, 1 John 4.10. And so back to the to the Butcher speech, people want to have this societally constructed view of love. But it's a myth, right? People have conflated tolerance with love and tolerance is not love because at the end of the day, God's point of view on this issue is the only view that matters. The view of other organizations that are promoting an LGBTQ plus approved view of love, a feminist view of love, a Black Lives Matter view of love are just inconsistent with what love actually is. And the truth of what love actually is, is fundamentally the only point of view on this issue that ultimately matters because all the other points of view are going to fade away with time when Christ establishes his kingdom. We have the freedom to believe whatever we want now, but ultimately, we're all going to have to face God with what we believe. And he is going to judge our character. He's going to judge our hearts, but he's also going to judge how we acted and did we act in accordance with the truth. And in 1 John it also says, according to 1 John a lot, tonight it's kind of funny, in 1 John it also says, or maybe not 1 John, but it's in one of John's epistles, he says, I have no greater joy than hearing that my children are walking in the truth. And so in the same way, it doesn't matter how popular we are, how many likes we're getting on social media, how trendy our views are, if we are not walking in the truth, it's pointless. And so the culture's view to conflate love and making it into something of tolerance, it just ultimately, while we have the freedom to indulge in whatever we want to do in the short time we're alive here on planet Earth compared to eternity, ultimately that's not going to fly in the face of God. It's written that it is appointed for man or woman to die once and after that comes judgment. So we're not only going to be judged for our actions, but also for what we believe. And tolerance is simply an acceptance of someone's lifestyle. You know, when a person says, this is who I am, you know, tolerance is an accepting of that position to a degree. And listen, I do believe there is value for tolerance. I believe that, you know, when a gay person comes to church and says, this is who I feel that I am, I do believe that there is value in welcoming that person and making them feel respected and appreciated, listening to their life story and finding out why, you know, why are who you say that you are and wanting to, you know, in a way meet that person where they are, but not approving or accepting of the things about their lives that run contrary to the gospel. And so for me, tolerance is not even half the story. It's just a gesture of kindness, right? And so love is not just accepting someone. If God accepted us with our sin, that would not be loving because God cannot accept us in our simple nature. Love also has repentance as a part of it. And again, there's no real difference between biblical love and non-biblical love. There's just the biblical version of love. And then there's sin. There's no middle ground. There's no gray on the essence of what love is. It's just there's the correct way of loving and there's not loving. And so to not preach the gospel to someone and encourage repentance on all of these issues, whether it's Black Lives Matter or feminism or sexuality or other issues, if you are not preaching repentance as a part of your gospel, you are not loving them because ultimately the short span of life that we have on earth, maybe a hundred years, maybe you're one of those lucky people who is old enough to see the next total solar eclipse in 70 or 80 years and you live to be 108 or something. But for most of us, it's under 100 years. And that is not even the blink of an eye compared to eternity. And so if we are focused on the way the world works, the way life is now, but we're not focused on eternity, first of all, that's idolatry because we're prioritizing our world above God's. And secondly, we are not loving that person because we're not actually preparing them for the ultimate reason they were created, and that's to have unity with Christ. And so if that's not what they're seeking, if they're seeking unity with a partner who it's not in gospel for them to be with, if they're seeking unity with an unbiblical view of race and diversity, if they're seeking unity with an unbiblical version of feminism, which seeks to destroy the nuclear family, then we are being totally unloving if we don't preach the gospel and preach repentance. And we're not worthy of the very gospel that we claim has saved us as Christians. And so that's why I really am more critical of those who claim to be Christians on this issue and those who claim to be Republicans and conservatives who don't agree with these elements of the Bucker speech. And listen, you can disagree with elements of the speech and not lose your mind over it. I really admired what Samantha Ponder said. She's a very prominent ESPN analyst. She basically said, look, I love Harrison Bucker's elevating motherhood to the level that it's supposed to be, but I personally don't agree because I think that a woman can still have just an exciting life if she doesn't become a mother and her life can be just as special and just as valuable. That's the right response, not the people losing their minds and feeling like, oh, women are not meant for men. This is an attack on women, etc. It's nonsense. He was not attacking women at all. He was simply saying that to deny the role that God has given to women, the calling that God has given to women is demonic, diabolical and wrong. And I stand by that statement. And, you know, I've had people say in discussions on social media, this wasn't the right place for him to be making these comments. No, with respect, y'all are wrong. It was absolutely the right place for him to be making these comments. He was speaking at a Christian school. He was at a Catholic university. And if people want to disagree with his take on the motherhood issue, that is fine. You know, there's total room for disagreement. You know, I personally don't buy into those disagreements. I think that a woman can believe that motherhood is very special and very sacred and still take a different path with her life based on what God is calling for her to do. Now, here's the thing. It all comes down to God's calling. It doesn't come down to your opinion or your preference or what you want. It comes down to what is God calling you to do for the women out there? Is God calling you to get married or is he calling you to have a gift of singleness? If he's calling you to get married, obviously, there's a high correlation between that and being called to motherhood for a woman. And if God hasn't called a woman to get married, then he's probably called her to have a gift of singleness. And it's a special gift each way, right? People who are single can do things that people who are married cannot do. And people who are married can do things that people who are single cannot do. It is a win-win situation either way. All that matters is are you following God's calling for your life? And I've had people say, oh, this is what he should have said. And I don't agree with that approach just because what he said was fine. It's the way people are reacting to it that it just shows just how fundamentally our beliefs are just not rooted in the truth. It's rooted in whatever popular culture is. And this is what cultural Marxism teaches people to do. It teaches people to reflame their beliefs and their worldviews in light of what the culture says rather than what the gospel says. It teaches people to believe in this oppressed versus oppressor dynamic. And the reality is, is that women aren't really oppressed at all today in the United States. They may be oppressed in other countries, in, you know, Saudi Arabia and other places where women aren't given equality and equal rights. But the reality is that the data shows that women have more opportunity, particularly in college and in really high tech career fields, than they have at any point in history. And they have more opportunity and more advantage than men does. And this is something that a lot of people don't want to hear because it goes against the narrative. More women are going to college more than ever before. They're getting more advanced degrees and due to structural changes in the economy, they're filling these jobs more easily and more quickly than men are. And they're making more money as a result. They're moving to high tech population centers like on the eastern seaboard, you know, the New York, the D.C., the Boston Corridor, California, L.A., Arden, Washington, etc., Chicago, Colorado, all the big blue areas. Right. And so women are advantaged now in a way that men aren't because of educational polarization. And it's the most powerful force shaping our politics right now, along with maybe religion. Because what's happening is single college educated women are rocketing leftward because of some of these dynamics. Right. Because colleges are indoctrinating students left and right, according to these liberal, culturally Marxist ideologies, which kind of suggests that white people are evil. White people are responsible for all the destruction we see today in society, that it's a good thing when 300,000 out of 300,000 jobs hired by the S&P 500 in one year, that 94 percent of those went to non-white people or non-white men, I believe, you know, that it's okay for the student departments at colleges to make fun of men because they were supposedly the oppressor for so long. And it's a good thing to make single white straight men pay, you know, a life cost or a social debt to elevate women because they were the oppressor. And so it's that kind of culturally Marxist thinking that not only is destroying our country right now, but has fundamentally reshaped our political demographics to where college campuses are bastions for leftism right now. And the few colleges that aren't, like the college where Butler spoke, well, look out because the firestorm is coming because that is a threat to what this culturally Marxist order and all these other secular colleges and universities believe nowadays. Right. And so that's why a lot of these places like Northern Virginia and Colorado and other places are moving so far towards the Democratic Party. And it's why Planned Parenthood is building so many clinics around college campuses because they know that the single college educated women, there are more of them at colleges than there are married women and men. And when women get married and have kids, they are far more likely to express values that are either politically conservative or consistent with elements of the Judeo-Christian faith. Right. And so they don't want that to happen. They see that as a threat. And that is why you see a huge outcry against Herrick and Butler's speech, because it's a threat to the left, because once women get married and have kids and start being mothers, they're far more or less likely to support abortion. They're far more or less likely to support same sex marriage. They're far more or less likely to support Black Lives Matter and all these other positions. And they're far more likely to vote in a way that is not consistent with someone who's very liberal. And so that is why you're seeing this outcry against Harris and Butler, because they see him as a threat and they're right to see him as a threat because he spoke the truth. He fundamentally spoke the truth. And the current feminist worldview is based on a bunch of culturally Marxist lies, which paints the world in this false oppressor versus oppressed dialectic. And it's not about Christ. It's not about the saving power of the gospel. It is about one group trying to hold power at the expense of others. And all of these organizations, whether it's the LGBTQ plus organizations, whether it's Black Lives Matter, whether it's hardcore feminism or any of these other identity politics groups, they are all trying to boost one particular group and give them power at the expense of the other groups. That's essentially what cultural Marxism is. It's a tearing down of the old creative order and elevating a false utopia and destroying our country's traditions, our values, our norms and our institutions in the process. And we as the church cannot afford to be on the sidelines. We cannot afford to worry about our friends who don't agree with us. We cannot worry about the jobs that we might lose. We cannot afford to worry about being disinvited to an elite social dinner gathering at the Washington Post or the New York Times or all these other elite left wing news organizations. We as Christians have a duty, and particularly in the church, the church is becoming woe to. We have a duty to stand on the Bible. We have a duty to stand on Christ because the Apostle Paul said, if Christ is not resurrected, we are of most people to be pitied. And guess what? Christ is coming with his kingdom. He's coming to abolish these lies. He's not going to be tolerant of all of these things I just mentioned. He's coming to abolish them. We read in Scripture that Christ came not to abolish the prophets, but to fulfill it. And so the law in the Bible is going to be fulfilled. It's going to be upheld. And the law of God, his pure, holy and perfect law, is not compatible with all of these lies that I just mentioned in this podcast episode. And so there will undoubtedly be people who listen to this show who do not agree with it. But guess what? I'm confident. I'm not insecure. And I can handle things. I can handle people who don't agree with me because I am basing my worldview system not on something that is shaky and uncertain and built on the culture, like many of the things I just mentioned, including the modern interpretation of feminism. But I am based on, I am basing my worldview as one of the four percent of people in the country who actually has a biblical worldview. I am basing what I believe on Galatians 1.9, which says, if anyone proclaims a gospel contrary to what you received, let that person be accursed. And I would rather be crucified by the world. I would rather be ridiculed. I would rather face professional adversity. I would rather face social adversity. I would rather lose everything that I know if I can keep Christ in the process. What does it profit a man if he can gain the whole world but yet lose his soul? I'm not going to do that. I'm going to stand on truth no matter how poorly it is received by the culture because I'm not concerned with how the way the world works. I'm not concerned with temporary things. I'm concerned with Christ coming and establishing his kingdom. And I have the courage that so many people don't have right now. And I'm thankful to God because so many people in the church, in business, and in the Republican Party, including our likely GOP nominee for president, do not have the courage to stand on the issues that matter. And I'm praying for them every day. I'm praying that Donald Trump changes his tune on abortion because I am voting for him. I'm praying that other congressional leaders change their tune on these issues. And they speak with courage and they vote that way. And they don't serve the beltway lobbyists and donors. They don't serve the consultants, but they serve the American people and the Constitution upon which it was founded, which states in the Declaration of Independence that government must secure our laws. Government is here not to add to our laws or to take them away, but to secure those laws. And that concept of inalienable rights, that government cannot add or take away from what we have because these rights were given to us from God, that came from the Bible. That did not come from any other religion. It didn't come from Islam. It didn't come from Buddhism. It didn't come from any other religion. It came from the gospel. And so I'm closing the show today, reminding you that if you are a Christian or a conservative or a Republican or conservative, independent in any way, shape or form, or even someone who is not a Christian, maybe you're Jewish and you agree with the principles of the Judeo-Christian religion, we do not have an option. We must stand for what we believe and we must fight the culturally marxist principles of the far left. And we must do what we can to preserve and protect a better America, a better nation, not only for us, but for our children and for all those who are to come. And one way we can do that is by reminding people that just because we do not agree with something, that does not make that thing the enemy. And we need to learn to be discerning and to be wise and to take in the whole of something and discern what we know is good, what is alignment with God's word, or what is in alignment with Judeo-Christian values and build on that. So even if, for example, you are a woman and you don't feel called to motherhood right now, motherhood is still a beautiful thing. And even if that's not the path God has chosen for you, that is still praiseworthy. And to deny that thing is not something that any of us Christians should tolerate. Thank you for listening. God bless. And I hope you have a great day, whether you agreed with this episode or not.