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In this episode Trent shares highlights from his recent debate with NotsoErudite on the Whatever podcast on the topic of Christian Nationalism.
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Trent Horn (00:38):
So we’re talking about Christian nationalism today, a lot of things under that umbrella. And the problem with talking about Christian nationalism is that nobody can agree on what it means. The critics of the idea often define it as like handmade’s tail fever dreams of religious leaders directly controlling the government and instituting evil policies like turning women into slaves. And defenders of the idea exist across a wide spectrum with probably a few crazy people in the mix. But the most prominent defenders of Christian nationalism put forward a fairly reasonable definition of it. Stephen Wolfe defines it as a totality of national action consisting of civil laws and social customs conducted by a Christian nation as a Christian nation in order to procure for itself both earthly and heavenly good in Christ. Andrew Torba says it is a spiritual, political and cultural movement comprised of Christians who are working to build a parallel Christian society grounded in a biblical worldview.
(01:36):
As a Catholic, I agree with these goals. So I would lean more towards Catholic integralism, which would root authority on moral matters in the Catholic church’s teaching than just amorphous principles. Though I also lean towards libertarianism, so I’d want a kind of limited Christian government that still respects the rights of all people. Does that mean I want a theocracy that oppresses other religions? Not at all. The Second Vatican Council taught that religious freedom, quote, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore, it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one church of Christ. When Pope Leo recently visited the European nation of Monaco this year, he said the following to them, “You are among the few countries in the world to have the Catholic faith as a state religion.
(02:25):
This faith places us before the sovereignty of Jesus who calls Christians to become in the world a kingdom of brothers and sisters. A presence that does not cast down but raises up, that does not separate but connects always ready to protect every human life with love at any time and in any condition so that no one is ever excluded from the table of fraternity. So what kind of Christian state would I want to live in? How about one where it’s illegal to dismember babies in the womb or create them in labs and sell them even to unmarried men through commercial surrogacy? A state where sperm donors don’t father thousands of children who will never know their father, where porn that destroys children’s minds and their families is basically illegal, especially AI content involving people who are not adults. Even when some judges say that should be protected under the First Amendment.
(03:15):
Above all, it’s a state where the highest value is not liberty, but the good itself, God. Now we might disagree about where to draw the line between outlawing evil and merely using social customs to shame evil, but we should agree society is better if our goal for people is to live good lives and not merely pleasurable lives. So here’s a simple argument that I would propose. There’s three premises and a conclusion. Number one, all laws are based on ethical systems. Number two, some ethical systems are better than other systems. And number three, Christian ethical systems are better than secular systems. So laws should be based on Christian ethical systems. I think one and two are obvious. We might disagree about number three, but I would say that this premise is true because Christianity provides the best explanation for why there are any moral obligations at all, why all human beings have equal dignity and it produces the best outcome for avoiding grave and debaucherous evils that harm men, women, and especially children.
(04:14):
So there you go. My concern is that there’s no such thing as true state neutrality on several issues. I will give you two examples. So the state cannot be neutral on the question of who is a person with a right to life or when-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (04:29):
What do you mean by neutrality? Do you mean like moral neutrality or like
Trent Horn (04:33):
They
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (04:33):
Just-
Trent Horn (04:34):
Moral and legal as in the state can’t be agnostic? The state doesn’t talk about that issue. So for example, which religion is true? In America, the state is neutral on that. The state doesn’t tell us which religion is true, but the state does tell us who is and isn’t a legal person. So one example would be who is a person and another example would be what is marriage. The state can’t be neutral on those. So some value system is going to be imposed. And so I think that if secular liberalism can be imposed, we can critique it. And if there’s something better, we should impose that and I think Christian ethics are going to be better there. So I’ll give you an example. So in the 19th century, there was a Supreme Court case called Reynolds versus United States. It dealt with Mormon polygamy. Do the Mormons, it’s their religion.
(05:23):
The guy can have as many wives as he wants, I guess. And should they be allowed to have multiple wives because that’s their religion? Can we impose our laws on them? And in Reynolds, the Supreme Court said that if religious liberty means you can do whatever you want because your religion says so, the law would exist in name only. I mean, think about, I mean, if you had people who were like, “Well, I’m going to be an Aztec. I’m going to sacrifice my children for the corn crops this year.” So would you agree we’re always going to be limiting people’s sincerely held beliefs
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (05:55):
To some degree, yeah. That’s the nature of a state.
Trent Horn (05:58):
Okay.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (05:59):
My question to you would be, what do you think would happen with Christian nationalism? Do you think that Christian nationalism in America day to day, if Christian nationalists had what they want, do you think that it would look like the America James Madison was envisioning or that Americans are thinking about? What do you think it would look like?
Trent Horn (06:16):
Well, I think it’d probably look a lot different because people wouldn’t be enslaved. That would be nice. It would be a lot
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (06:21):
Different. What do you mean
Trent Horn (06:22):
By that? Well, in the time of James Madison, there was a large portion of the United States population that were enslaved.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (06:28):
They
Trent Horn (06:29):
Didn’t have a right to liberty, for
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (06:30):
Example. Yeah, I don’t think Christian nationalists would roll back that, for example. I’d agree.
Trent Horn (06:34):
But there were people who were arguing foreign against slavery with religious arguments foreign against. And so the state can’t be neutral on that question. I think to answer your question though, what’s hard is, like I said in my opening, Christian national is just such a broad thing as to what it is doing. I think on the far end where you try to get the church to replace the state, I think things would go poorly and that would be theocracy. Yeah, theocracy is when the state is directly controlled by religious leaders.That might be popular amongst some Christian nationalists, but I don’t even think very many of them.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (07:09):
Well, theocracy is two things. It’s when it’s run by religious leaders, but also in the definition is that the legal system is based on religious law. And I do see Christian nationalists, for example.
Trent Horn (07:20):
There’s where I would draw a hard line that I would consider that more like Catholic integralism or Christian nationalism in the sense that we have to have some kind of way to judge our laws to make sure they’re just. And we might use Christian principles to do that.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (07:34):
Sure. My argument to this would be you shouldn’t use only Christian principles if you’re a statesman. So I’ve kind of two prongs of why Christian nationalism in America is concerning. One, I think the inevitable conclusion of current American Protestant evangelicalism is theocracy. I think actually a lot of Christians, I think just recently they said they think that Trump is the second coming and they actually are okay with him being the king. There’s many Christian nationalists that are Protestants that are just okay with that. I would be the best
Trent Horn (08:03):
King that you ever had
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (08:04):
So
Trent Horn (08:04):
Much better than those other kings.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (08:06):
But terrifying because it’s not just like- Even
Trent Horn (08:07):
Better than that King George.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (08:08):
Yeah. It’s not just like small time people. There was large Christian speakers on stages. I was watching, I can’t remember his name. It’s got this blonde, golden, beautiful hair and he wears glasses. He was talking to a stage of thousands of people watching talking about how he wants Trump to be the king. And so I think that’s really concerning because you and I can agree theocracies are bad, not good. But the second thing is I actually think that Christians ought not make moral compromises. And I think political leaders must a lot of the time. And having a state in which, for example, well, you have to basically be a Christian to lead. I have very huge concerns about that because I think that there are many choices that certain political leaders will need to make for the goodness of their state to be a good leader of the state that maybe a Christian ought not make.
(08:58):
And that would be a huge concern as well is that I don’t think that it leads to a good system.
Trent Horn (09:05):
Well, okay, so I have two thoughts on that. First, I think that Christians should absolutely be involved in politics. I wouldn’t-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (09:12):
Didn’t say that I …
Trent Horn (09:13):
Right.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (09:13):
Is that a rebuttal to me?
Trent Horn (09:15):
Yeah. Were you concerned about Christians being involved in politics?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (09:17):
Nope.
Trent Horn (09:18):
Then what was your-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (09:19):
I said Christians ought not make moral compromises, but political leaders must.
Trent Horn (09:24):
Right. But that sounds like if you’re a Christian political leader, you’re going to have to make compromises.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (09:29):
Probably. Yeah.
Trent Horn (09:31):
So if you don’t want them doing that, it sounds like you’re saying you don’t want Christian leaders in politics.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (09:35):
Nope. I think they can be in politics. I think it’s really hard. I think frankly, it’s really hard. Can I imagine a world where you’ve got kind of a senator, he doesn’t get involved in everything, he focuses a lot of his policy and billmaking on only the things that are aligned with his Christian ethics and stuff like that and that’s about it. And he uses logic and reason and compelling to get the votes for it. I think that that’s actually fine. I have no problem with that.
Trent Horn (09:57):
Why can’t he just vote for the things that don’t contradict his
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (10:01):
Moral
Trent Horn (10:02):
Principles and then he works against the other things. I don’t think it has to be that limited. So I’ll give you an example. In John Paul II’s gospel of life, he wrote encyclical on abortion and other offenses against human life. In paragraph 73, he talked about as a, what do you do if you are a politician who is against abortion, you want to ban abortion, but you can’t fully ban it. So could you vote for limited laws? Let’s say, oh, we’re going to just ban abortion for birth control, but leave it for the hard cases. Can you as a faithful Catholic do that? And so what the Pope said is, yes, as long as people know you’re personally opposed and your goal in the law is to limit evil not expand it because politics is the art of the possible. Sure. Sometimes you don’t have enough political capital to get everything you want.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (10:49):
I think a valid critique of that would be going, well, you’re still necessarily enabling to some degree the poor behavior, because you’re compromising on it a litle bit. You’re still allowing it somewhat in edgewise.
Trent Horn (11:02):
But that’s like saying if there was a hundred drowning children and I only have the resources to save 90 of them, I shouldn’t save the 90 because I’m somehow complicit in the other 10. I don’t want the
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (11:16):
Other- I don’t think that’s analogous. It would be more like you have, in order to save 90 children, you might have to shoot one in the head. That would be more of the type of compromised situation.
Trent Horn (11:24):
No, it isn’t
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (11:25):
Because- Or you have to let somebody torture that child a little bit. And it’s like, I want the political leader to make the choice to torture the child a litle bit. I think the Christian gets very, very stuck.
Trent Horn (11:34):
I’ll make a better analogy. So it’d be like there are a hundred children drowning and 90 of them are being drowned by super skinny, scrawny guys. And so I can easily beat them up and save those kids. The other 10 are 300 pound jiu-jitsu black belts. So it’s like, I know some jiu-jitsu, not enough to be- You’ll be fine. I’m only a blue belt, not enough for a 300-pound black belt. Absolutely. So it’s like I’m not letting them … So when I choose to intervene to save some of the kids and stop the people killing some of them, the others, I’m not letting them. It’s just, I don’t have the power to stop them yet, but I hope one day I will.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (12:10):
Sure. What’s the same with abortion? But I would say that in that instance, I think it would be- I don’t have the power
Trent Horn (12:13):
To save all the babies, but I hope one day I will.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (12:15):
But perhaps the Christian argument would be, maybe in this situation, you should throw yourself at them anyways because it would be the right thing to do, to try to save them even if you’ll fail because the glory is the kingdom of God. It’s not just the outcomes. So I think what you need to do-
Trent Horn (12:28):
But of letting them beat me up so the other 90 kids die anyways- Not radio. But I want to be rational and save as many as I can without doing evil. Sure. And I’m not doing evil by just recognizing I don’t have the power to stop these other people yet.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (12:42):
Sure. Here’s the
Trent Horn (12:43):
Other thing I want to bring up about theocracy. What I also worry about from your critique, this is just a critique of any value system because secular liberalism will always try to make the president a king to do what they want. I mean, people treat Trump like a king. People also did the same with Obama or Biden trying to … I mean, maybe not as gold, fancy and flourish, but they’d want them to just put in as many policies as possible that they support. Everybody gets that way.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (13:11):
Sure. I think that selfish voters typically just want what they’re self-interested in to have. But I think the founding fathers are Christians and deists who made the nation who were very intentional about building separation of church and state. And I think there’s a lot of people, secular and Christian who recognize the values of these things. And so I don’t think that this is a critique of the secular system necessarily. What I’m saying here specifically is that Christians shouldn’t make moral compromises and necessarily politically leaders must. And I think the example you give is a good one because I would agree as a leader, you should make the rational choice to not throw yourself with the 10 men that can kill you. I think that that’s totally fine. Or throw your nation at it. Because
Trent Horn (13:50):
Of that, it will stop me from saving the other 90.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (13:53):
Sure. I
Trent Horn (13:54):
Just can’t fight them yet,
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (13:55):
But one day I will. But I think that God put in every human being a desire towards his goodness. And I think whether you watch Christian ethics or other ethics, there is a trundling towards that. I just think Christian ethics are the best at it, but we can acknowledge- But that’s something I
Trent Horn (14:07):
Said earlier. Yeah, Christian ethical principles, they’re the best to
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (14:10):
Suck. Do you agree with that? Yeah, of course. Of course I agree with that. The issue is a Christian ethical system, for example, doesn’t insist on political power. It actually doesn’t. No,
Trent Horn (14:22):
I don’t.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (14:22):
Of course not. Otherwise, why would Paul say, render unto Caesar while Caesar is murdering Christian babies? Why would he say this?
Trent Horn (14:30):
Are you talking about when Jesus said, give to Caesar, what is
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (14:33):
Caesar and give to God to highlight said to honor the authority?
Trent Horn (14:36):
Well, yeah, Paul, he does say that, but we have to also remember in the Book of Acts when Peter and John are brought before the Sanhedrin, which basically had political authority over the apostles and they said, “We told you not to preach the name of Jesus.” And what Peter and the Apostle said to them, they said, “We must obey God rather than men.”
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (14:57):
Of course, if your state insists on you doing something wrong, if our state made a law that said, not only is abortion legal, but you, Trent, have to get one if you are under the age of 24, like some crazy state. Of course, yeah, Christians should resist against that. A state should not compel you necessarily to personally act in sin, but that’s a very big difference between making policy and law that is only justified by the Bible and telling importantly non-Christians that they must comply to that as well. That’s my concern.
Trent Horn (15:28):
But what I would say though is if, yeah, you’re right. If it only relies on the Bible, I think that that is not a sufficient way of arguing in a pluralist society, but I want you to agree with me that I would say Christians have a moral duty to rid the world of unjust laws.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (15:51):
I don’t know. I haven’t thought about that before. Do Christians have-
Trent Horn (15:54):
Well, let’s think it through. Christians have a moral duty to rid the world of unjust laws.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (16:00):
Probably, yeah, but unjust is going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Trent Horn (16:04):
Of course.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (16:05):
Because I think I certainly operate in this way. I do my best to be pretty loud and political about things that I think are unjust and wrong, but also about things that are unpirical.
Trent Horn (16:12):
So for example-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (16:13):
But I just don’t know if I’d confer that to all Christians, but sure. Let’s for the sake of this conversation, I just will.
Trent Horn (16:17):
So for example, the civil rights movement, so what would it be now? It would be about 70 years ago in Alabama and the South, you have the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC. That was the movement working to end legal racial segregation in public accommodations. And so there were a lot of people who were saying that Christians shouldn’t be doing these things as where does the Bible say we should be doing this kind of stuff?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (16:47):
Those Christians were wrong, right?
Trent Horn (16:48):
They were wrong. But Christians were operating under the principle. No, God made all human beings in his image and likeness.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (16:54):
That’s to my accounting though. This is my view. This is what I’m already presenting. I have no problem with Christians using both their Christian ethics and rationality and logic, which you know philosophy probably better than I do. Lots of original philosophy comes out of Christianity. Yes. And it’s beautiful. Well,
Trent Horn (17:11):
What I’m saying is
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (17:12):
We
Trent Horn (17:12):
Agree they’re permitted.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (17:13):
We
Trent Horn (17:13):
Agree
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (17:14):
They’re- They don’t just point to the Bible. And that is my- Fine. Well, that’s my whole point on Christian national.
Trent Horn (17:19):
Good. Because I do think a lot of people who are identifying know Christian nationalism. No, I am against- My definition
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (17:25):
Of Christian
Trent Horn (17:25):
Actually. Sure. But I don’t think that applies to … There is a huge spectrum of people who identify as that. Just like there’s a huge spectrum of people who would say that they’re secular. Like you said, there are anti-theists on the end of that spectrum that are not false. All of these groups
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (17:39):
Are heterogeneous, of course.
Trent Horn (17:40):
Exactly. The Christian nationalism I would agree with would say that there are major Christian principles that Christians have not just that they can, for example, vote to outlaw abortion, Christians have a moral duty. Every single Christian has a moral duty to rid the world of these unjust laws. If they are capable of doing so, they might
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (17:57):
Be- And if they’re compelled by the argumentation, because a Christian argumentation for certain abortion unjust laws is, well, while we agree that at some point we are killing a person and that is wrong, unquestionably wrong, we are also necessarily setting up a system that we can look at the outcomes and go, we know increases child poverty. We know increases child sexual … Sorry, child … Can I say the ADC- Child
Trent Horn (18:25):
Harming-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (18:26):
Child harmony. …
Trent Horn (18:26):
By grown by bigger people. I know what you’re
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (18:28):
Getting at here. Child harm. It increases mother poverty. It increases mother’s death and infant death. So when we look at that type of system, we might go, “Okay, well, abortion is something we definitely want to decrease.” And I’m with you on that one. I want les abortions too.
Trent Horn (18:42):
Wait, why?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (18:43):
Because I think that abortions at some point necessarily are a tragedy, something evil is happening. And I don’t know where that point is, but at some point it certainly is. The Christian answer is to be most conservative, but the state answer cannot be to just be most conservative on moral issues.
Trent Horn (18:58):
Okay. Do you want les abortions because it’s just possible a person is being killed?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (19:03):
Well, no, at some point there is unquestionably a person being killed.
Trent Horn (19:05):
Well, but you don’t know that point.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (19:07):
No one knows when insultment happens.
Trent Horn (19:10):
I’m not talking about insultment.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (19:11):
That’s what I’m talking about. When I’m talking about a person, the person I care about is obviously the insult person. If we make a meat human that isn’t insult like a clone, something like that, do I care about it being killed? Probably not. But if there’s a soul in it and if God goes, that’s my creation, then yeah, I really care because I’m not oposed to animals.
Trent Horn (19:29):
I think we have different concess what the soul is. For me, the soul is the principle of life. It’s what makes a living body different than a corpse. In fact, all living things have souls, but non-human living things have material souls. That principle disappears once they die. The soul doesn’t survive the death of the non-human body.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (19:49):
So what’s insulment?
Trent Horn (19:50):
Insulment would be the principle of an immortal principle of life or an immortal soul animating the human body.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (19:57):
Do we have one of those as well?
Trent Horn (19:58):
Do we have one of those?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (19:59):
Humans, yeah.
Trent Horn (20:00):
Yes. Human beings have that.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (20:01):
What do you call that? Just because I want to use the same language. That’s what I’m calling a soul. Is that immortal metaphysical? Yeah. You
Trent Horn (20:05):
Can just say insulment in relation to human beings.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (20:08):
Okay. When I’m talking about soul, just so it’s clear, I’m only trying to talk about this metaphysical magic soul that is infinite that we can’t test for. I’m not talking about consciousness or life. Right.
Trent Horn (20:18):
And I agree that principle of the body that survives, your soul will goes to heaven when you die, goes to be judged, your intellect goes with it and then you’ll be reunited with your body at the resurrection of the dead. My point though is that all human beings, all individual members of the human species, irrespective of the question of whether they have a soul or not, because I can’t empirically locate that, all of them are made in the image and likeness of God. And so my position is that Christians have an obligation to protect each and every one of them. Those human beings, just a member of the human species from evils like slavery or abortion or different kinds of abuse.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (20:58):
Unless God orders it.
Trent Horn (21:00):
Unless God orders you to do that.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (21:02):
Yeah, like if he orders you to kill babies.
Trent Horn (21:04):
Okay. Well,
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (21:05):
That’s happened with the Amalekites, right?
Trent Horn (21:08):
That gets into difficult issues about biblical interpretation.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (21:11):
I agree, right? I view that as allegorical as well,
Trent Horn (21:13):
But a lot of crystals don’t. Yeah, but I would hold it that’s non-literal warfare rhetoric because saying all the Amalekites were slaughtered in Joshua, well, they happened to come back and judges, they obviously weren’t literally all wiped out. That will take us …
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (21:29):
Of course. And you don’t need to sell me on alignor- My point is that
Trent Horn (21:32):
God has authority over us in ways that we don’t.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (21:34):
Sure. But the issue is you’re championing along a lot of US Christian nationalists who take all of this literally.You’re already advocating for a theological system that you don’t even fully align with.
Trent Horn (21:47):
I just don’t want babies to be killed. That’s
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (21:50):
Not that part of the thing. And I think you do a really good job of exercising everything that I’m talking about that Christians can do and I have no problem with that.
Trent Horn (21:57):
But I’m saying that if you care about divine command theory, doing what God wants, being a moral person, you would go to the voting booth with me and vote for abortion to be illegal too.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (22:05):
Well I’m a Canadian immigrant, so I can’t vote for it.
Trent Horn (22:07):
Well, come here. Well,
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (22:09):
The issue is I wouldn’t because of certain outcomes, for example. So I want-
Trent Horn (22:14):
We’ve got nicer weather and you won’t end up being an assisted suicide if gets sick or something. Which is a
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (22:21):
Difficult thing
Trent Horn (22:22):
In Canada.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (22:23):
I’m fine with Houston Asia.
Trent Horn (22:24):
Well, that’s a separate thing we
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (22:25):
Can do. Sure. But if we go into it again, you’re saying like, well, abortion, the ending of that human life, whether it’s insult or not, is the greatest evil. And I’m saying, well, even- I’m saying killing- Even in a future like ours creates a lot of issues with this because for example, if the life promised not even just to the infant, but to the mother is not necessarily a good life, then we have complications of saying, okay, well, what’s a system politically that can lead to the most flourishing and the least amount of abortions? Okay. One thing is way better access to contraceptives and way more education about it, but as a Catholic, would you allow legally contraceptive access or would you ideally politically advocate against it?
Trent Horn (23:03):
I think in an ideal world, contraception would be illegal. It was illegal at one point and the world didn’t fall apart. Pope Paul II, for example, predicted in Humana vitae that with the greater spread of contraception, there would be greater degradation of the status of women. There would be an increase in adultery. He made many predictions. There would be an increase in divorce and many of that did come to pass. But I want to go back to making abortion decrease one way, like in Texas, we have a huge decrease in abortions because it’s illegal.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (23:33):
We also have a massive spike in child poverty, mother and infant death and child abuse.
Trent Horn (23:39):
No,
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (23:39):
You don’t. Yes, we do.
Trent Horn (23:40):
Even if there
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (23:41):
Was- I think it went up by 11% in six months alone of children being surrendered to foster care system, infant and child mortality I think increased by 36%. Okay. Well,
Trent Horn (23:52):
Is it better for a child to be adopted or to be killed?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (23:56):
Well, once a child’s doing a lot of heavy lifting, right?
Trent Horn (23:59):
Right. But you agree though, it’d be
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (24:02):
Better for a child to be adopted better. Of course.
Trent Horn (24:04):
Or a one-year-old.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (24:05):
Or a one-year-old.
Trent Horn (24:06):
Or a newborn.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (24:07):
Or a newborn.
Trent Horn (24:09):
How about nine
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (24:09):
Months from the womb? How about two weeks old in the womb?
Trent Horn (24:12):
To be adopted rather than killed? Sure. Don kill him. That a human being. Don’t directly kill this person. All members of the human species should be protected from being directly killed and human embryos and human thesis- Except for death
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (24:26):
Penalty or are you anti-death
Trent Horn (24:27):
Penalty? I’m anti-death penalty.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (24:28):
Okay.
Trent Horn (24:29):
Okay. Do
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (24:30):
You reject the Don Marquee argument because Don Marquee is for … Sorry, that’s future like
Trent Horn (24:35):
Ours. Yeah, our market. Yes. The future like ours argument says that what makes killing wrong is that it’s wrong to deprive someone of a valuable future, a future like you and I might have. And I think that explains- Which is
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (24:45):
Good, which is the reason the future matters is because of the goods of that future. But that’s a really big part of the argument. It’s not just a future. It’s a future like ours, which begs into an assumption that it’s a good future. That’s what it argues. And so again, I’m not saying that-
Trent Horn (25:00):
I think that Marquis’s argument explains the wrongness of killing in many cases but not all cases. And so it’s part of a cumulative case about why killing human beings is wrong, but I think there’s an overarching because for example, if somebody jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge to-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (25:16):
But you’re not opposed to war. Wait, you’re for the crusades though. No, hold
Trent Horn (25:18):
On. Let me
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (25:19):
Finish please. I’ll write a pin on it. I’ll
Trent Horn (25:21):
Ask them about it. If somebody jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge to end themselves, I can’t use a sniper rifle to pick them off midair to show I’m a great shot, even though they don’t have a valuable future like ours, but they are a human being made in the image and likeness of God. And so I am making an argument. I just really would like you to be pro- life and on fire with protecting the unborn like I am.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (25:44):
I believe you that you would really like me to do that. I would
Trent Horn (25:46):
Very much like that. And I
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (25:47):
Think
Trent Horn (25:47):
These are solid rational reasons. I don’t see a good
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (25:49):
Reason to reject them. Well, the issue, I don’t reject preserving human life as much as possible. What I reject is the process legally by which you want to do that because I think all of the goods of the future matter too. And so what I like a world as well where abortion basically doesn’t exist anymore because there’s no grape and there’s no incest and there’s no…That one’s fine. There’s no all of the things, all of the tragedies including poverty, including single motherhood, including deadbeat dads. My dream world is obviously that abortion doesn’t have to happen and we can be aligned in that. The actual difference here is that the way I go about targeting it is going to be different and the reason why we go about targeting it differently is logic and reason, right? My logic and reason is harm to mother, harm to baby, harm to society, increasing poverty, things like that.
(26:46):
Your reasoning is you have a very strong ant-killing position, which is totally fine. It’s just like my hierarchy of things like suffering might be significantly higher than what yours is, for example.
Trent Horn (26:59):
And I would want you to see that I think you have the same level of opposing killing innocent human beings when it involves born people or harming innocent human beings. It’s not either or. It’s not like we’d say, “Well, should we outlaw marital grape?”
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (27:15):
Well, and for euthanasia, so it’s not obvious that I just grant that …
Trent Horn (27:19):
Well, let me finish. When it comes to marital grape, we wouldn’t say, “Well, let’s just work on all the factors that lead husbands to do something like that and ameliorate this and poverty and this or that. ” You can do that, but we can also just make it illegal and you don’t do that. And it works really well to stop these things from happening. But it has a whole bunch of other sequelae attachments. Or child labor. Take child labor. We might say, “Well, let’s just improve the economy so kids don’t have to go work in coal mines, their parents will feel like they have to send them.” Well, we can do that, but also if you just make it illegal to do that to kids, it turns out people don’t do that anymore.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (27:50):
Exactly. This actually goes-
Trent Horn (27:51):
So we should do it for abortion.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (27:53):
So I think you’re fine to make that argumentation for abortion. And what you’re actually pointing to is the modus operandi of why I think the state is good when it’s separated from the church, right? Because what you have is moral issue X.
Trent Horn (28:04):
No way, because the Catholic church started the pro- life movement in the United States of America. Even Protestants were late to get on board. And so I am grateful the reason that you … Well, first, abortion was generally illegal in this country. In the 19th century- They’re not
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (28:17):
Very accessible.
Trent Horn (28:18):
Well, the American Medical Association in the 19th century called abortionists modern day Herods in reference to King Herod who killed massacred the innocence. Then it was liberalized partly due to the work of increasing contraception, infidelity, greater migrations to urban areas leading to women becoming pregnant without social support like they had in the towns and rural country areas.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (28:42):
Then
Trent Horn (28:42):
Abortion proliferates from there becoming made legal in the 1960s. Then Roe says, everybody has to make it legal for all 50 states. It was the Catholic church that started the National Right to Life Movement in the early 1970s to help to restore the right to life unborn children once had. And I gave the example of MLK and when it comes to racial segregation, you had Christians who were involved in abolition. When the church is acting authentically, it makes the state good and virtuous. And I think that’s a good thing.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (29:13):
I agree, but it does it through engaging in the political system the way that every other person is allowed to participate. It doesn’t do so by using laws to preferentially prioritize certain Christian values. This is why James Madison … Do you know what James Madison was opposing in his memorial Remenstance? His biggest everything for separation of church and state? Do you know? And it’s esoteric. It’s fine. I
Trent Horn (29:35):
Thought you were talking about the supporting churches financially, but is there something else you’re referencing?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (29:40):
Well, it was specifically a tax that was going to be taken from all Virginians to just fund religious teachers. James Madison, a Christian, was vehemently opposed to this because he said that this is just one step towards tyranny of church, which we just left guys. We’re not going back there. This is why he says in his argumentation that we … And Any sort of policy that gives extra preferential treatment to Christian ideology or Christians themselves over other people is not only against what we want in our state, it’s also anti-Christian in this type of situation. And so what I’m saying to you on Christian nationalism is I think it’s totally fine for Catholics and all Christians to speak out against abortion and all these sort of things. I think it is all in your operandi as citizens to do so. What I am not okay with is Christians going through the back doors using lobbying systems, paying off politicians to get their favor, to force through abortion without convincing the populace of that vote.
Trent Horn (30:36):
In that argument, why not replace the word Christian with the word people?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (30:39):
What do you mean?
Trent Horn (30:40):
You’re against people lobbying and backdooring and using these deceitful methods to achieve public policy.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (30:46):
I’m agains Christians doing it distinctly. Rather
Trent Horn (30:47):
Than establishing … Well, you’re saying it’s okay for atheist to get together?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (30:51):
It’s not okay. It’s wrong. It’s wrong. Okay. But again, I hold people to their own moral standards typically.
Trent Horn (30:56):
Okay. Well, some people have the moral standard. I don’t care. I just want to win and I want to get my way.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (31:02):
Yeah. But even most atheist systems would look at that person and go, yeah, that’s not a very good person. This is maybe something I’m curious. You talked about this a bit before. Would you grant me that Christian ethics, many people can have Christian ethics without having a Christian faith?
Trent Horn (31:15):
Yeah, they can have
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (31:17):
Some aspects of Chris.
Trent Horn (31:18):
Yeah, they can have aspects of the Christian ethical system.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (31:20):
Yeah, they’re very informed by that.
Trent Horn (31:22):
Well, I would say many people-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (31:23):
In fact, the founding fathers were very informed
Trent Horn (31:25):
By their Christianists. They make people’s opposition to things that they find in the Bible that are regulated in the Old Testament or other things like this comes from living in a Christian society that values things like the intrinsic dignity of every human person, that they’re raised in this Christian mythos, even if they don’t explicitly affirm it. And so it guides them in the decisions that they make.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (31:46):
Okay.
Trent Horn (31:47):
Yeah.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (31:48):
Sure. Sorry, I feel like I’m not connecting that to this broader conversation, but I
Trent Horn (31:52):
Also agree with that. You think people have Christian ethics even if they’re not Christian. Yeah. And I would say if you are raised in a society that was founded by Christians and has Christian principles written into law-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (32:02):
Well, not written into law.
Trent Horn (32:03):
It’s actually explicitly written out of law. They were what motivated people to-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (32:07):
Exactly.
Trent Horn (32:09):
And so that’s to my point. For example, for example, Catholicism was instrumental in being opposed to the divine right of kings. That was more of a Protestant idea. Catholic said you saw- Earn Protestant thing. Well, you still had to listen to the Pope. Yeah. You still have to listen to him, but the idea that the king had a divine right to rule. And it was an idea the church said no, that the state not only will men be judged, but states will be judged. I mean, if you think about it, obviously no state can go to hell, but it can dissolve. But we can look to see different cultures and states have more or less unjust laws and practices. And Christians, when they go into societies, work to reform them to make them just. They go to India and outlaw Sati. They go to East Asia and they outlaw foot binding.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (32:57):
But they also came here and they stole indigenous children from their parents and pierced their tongues with rods if they spoke their natural language. So I agree that Christian ethics, as somebody who’s a Christian ethicist, I love Christian ethics. Good. The problem is that when the state blends with Christianity in a removal of separation of church and church and state, what happens is that what is Christian ethics is very tied to power. And I think power is not a pursuit of the good. Power is a pursuit of power. And I think that that’s where the Christian church goes so wrong is when it gets blended with the church and state. I think that it typically, especially in the American institution, does not lead to good outcomes and corrupts the faith.
Trent Horn (33:40):
Should our laws be based on the best ethical system?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (33:45):
Some of them, like the laws that are about morality specifically, yes. But there’s lots of laws that are amoral and completely new.
Trent Horn (33:53):
Sure. And the best
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (33:54):
Ethics- Should taxation system be based on Christian ethics?
Trent Horn (33:56):
It should be based on the best ethical system, right?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (33:58):
The principles of it.
Trent Horn (33:59):
And there’s
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (34:00):
Going
Trent Horn (34:00):
To be cases where the ethics is-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (34:02):
But that’s my position, just so it’s clear. The Christian nationalist position would say, no, it should be what is said, especially because you have to still deal with all your Protestant fundamentalists. They would say, no, it has to be what’s literally in the Bible.
Trent Horn (34:12):
Yeah. And I would tell them, let go of solo scriptura. It’s not even in the Bible.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (34:16):
I agree. Good. Okay, based. Protestants, look, okay, we can say many things about the branches. The Catholics are the soulless ones, the Protestants are the stupid ones and the Eastern Orthodox. What kind of Christian
Trent Horn (34:26):
Do you identify yourself as?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (34:27):
I’m a Protestant because I’m protesting the church, but I love a lot of protesting. Look, many Catholics are trying to convert me. You guys are compelling, but I’m still protesting the church. I have some issues with it.
Trent Horn (34:38):
We could work through that. We can work through it,
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (34:41):
But I’m not supposed to do that. Look who you’ve been
Trent Horn (34:43):
Complaining about.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (34:44):
Protestants.
Trent Horn (34:44):
Yeah. But I think that’s
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (34:45):
Who you want to work alongside and your argument.
Trent Horn (34:48):
No, I actually don’t.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (34:49):
Okay. Then your argument enables it.
Trent Horn (34:51):
No, it actually doesn’t because I’m arguing from our principle that the Catholic church has had a lot more practice in having a relation between church and state. So for example-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (35:02):
This is why the founding fathers hated the Catholics.But it’s important because- The Catholics are like, “No, guys, we can do safe.” St. Ambrose. So St.
Trent Horn (35:09):
Ambrose called for the emperor of the Roman Empire to repent of his slaughter of women and children at Thessalonika, for example, that saying that, no, maybe in ancient Rome the emperor was above all, but you’re not above God and you have to be held to account. So we’ve had a long period in history of trying to understand, okay, how do we apply our principles with a common good? So for example, Augustine and Aquinas were open or supported the idea that prostitution should be legal to prevent greater evils. And I would say that at least that principle is incorrect today given the harms, empirical harms we know a prostitution with sex trafficking with things like that. Sure. But there’s going to be things where as Christians, we have to investigate, here’s the principles, how do we apply them? But we know when we do apply them overall, it makes society better.
(35:59):
I know the study you’re referring to. There were headlines all about it saying that maternal mortality in Texas went up six months before abortion was banned. So it’s like it can’t be abortion that’s causing that. That’s a post-hoc rationalization.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (36:14):
Well, it’s not post-hoc. The only criticism you could offer it is maybe this is correlation- Correlation, not
Trent Horn (36:20):
Causation.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (36:21):
The issue is that the study that came out from Texas after the ban specifically was comparing and contrasting times before the ban and after the ban. And we did see the increases of foster care utilization. We saw increases of infant and child mortality and mother mortality, because one of the issues that a hard line weak law imposes into a medical care system is that the moment it’s past whatever week you set it as, now there’s this difficulty of investigation because if, say for example, she is under the awful situation where she’s miscarrying, there needs to be a verification that it is a legitimate miscarriage and not a potential attempted murder. And so this is what runs into a lot of issues why mother mortality tends to increase because usually the window to intervene on a woman who is miscarrying and not developing things like sepsis is a pretty narrow window and it’s very important that you be able to move and investigations are not particularly fast, especially in the case of investigation on potential murder or attempted murder, which is what it would be classified as.
(37:23):
All right.
Trent Horn (37:24):
Here’s my problem with two problems with that. Number one, if the argument is, well, we ought not pass this law because it has negative consequences, you couldn’t pass any laws or do anything at all. Anything that you do on negative consequences.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (37:35):
Is that my position?
Trent Horn (37:36):
Your position was we should not outlaw abortion because it modestly increases maternal mortality rates or rates of children being placed in foster care.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (37:46):
Right. And I also don’t think it, I guess I’ll add to that. I don’t think it actually addresses the core of the problem, which is abortions happening because-
Trent Horn (37:52):
Does it decrease abortions?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (37:54):
It decreases legal abortions for sure. It also increases illegal abortions.
Trent Horn (37:58):
In Texas overall-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (38:00):
There’s probably less overall. Yeah.
Trent Horn (38:01):
There’s less overall. Okay. So that’s a positive outcome.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (38:03):
Sure. And then there’s a number of negative outcomes. Right.
Trent Horn (38:05):
Which
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (38:05):
Is the ones I’m listing.
Trent Horn (38:06):
In the same way that if you build highways, more people die in car accidents. If you spend more on education, suicide rates go up.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (38:14):
We
Trent Horn (38:14):
Know that one,
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (38:15):
But
Trent Horn (38:15):
These are still good things to do and making it illegal to kill children is just as worthwhile as building a road or building a school.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (38:22):
So is it accurate to summarize my position though, which is the thing I was challenging you on, that I just think we shouldn’t make policies and if there’s negative outcomes. Oh,
Trent Horn (38:30):
No, I think you- Because
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (38:31):
That’s how you summarize my question.
Trent Horn (38:32):
Your position would be that the negative outcomes do not balance out the positive outcomes.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (38:38):
No, my position would be that the negative outcomes of one policy is actually superseded by the negative outcomes of another policy. That’s actually what my position is.
Trent Horn (38:47):
What are the two policies you’re weighing
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (38:49):
Here? Say we do a 20 week abortion ban versus a decriminalization. I think that decriminalization has a number of cons that come with it, but I think that they are lesser and I think the strict abortion ban has greater. But I’d be open to flex. If possible, you could show me evidence that actually 24 weeks we basically get out of this window of miscarriages because of some medical stuff and I’d be like, “Oh, okay, cool. Well, it sounds like we can make
Trent Horn (39:10):
You scale that. ” But you can just have laws with exceptions. In Texas, you have if a woman’s life is in danger or if there is a risk to her bodily health. And here’s the thing though. If you say, “Well, look, we’re going to- “
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (39:21):
Why is there a risk to her bodily health, we can now murder that child.
Trent Horn (39:24):
If you guys can let each other finish- Sorry. Well, you were going to let each other. Just saying, look, if you’re worried about someone not being able to get care for a miscarriage, then we can allow the physician exception to be wide enough so that no one has ever denied miscarriage care, but it might maybe result in a child being killed when they normally would not have. That is something we have to do with laws here and there. But that’s different than abortion just being used for birth control, for example. But what I worry about is when you say, “Well, if we make abortion illegal, women could be prosecuted for miscarriage, they didn’t do anything wrong.” Well, look, if you make child abuse illegal, there are people who go to jail for shaken baby syndrome when their child died of natural causes, right? That happens.
(40:09):
But is it better to have laws against child abuse than to decriminalize child abuse, that way no one’s ever falsely imprisoned for child abuse?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (40:18):
Isn’t it possible just as well with your abortion carve outs, couldn’t we just make decriminalized carve outs as well and outline specific types of things that we can investigate to being criminological? So say we say as a nation, personhood begins at 15 weeks, let’s say that’s the consensus right now. Isn’t it posible that in a decriminalized state, if we have sufficient evidence to believe that after 15 weeks, a woman saw an abortion, not because of medical emergency, but because of just, I don’t really want it anymore, that that individual could be properly investigated. Couldn’t we just do the inverse and just make these political carve outs to account for the issues, the valid issues that you raised? No,
Trent Horn (40:52):
Because I would just make the presumption being that it is wrong and illegal on the face of it to directly end the life of an unborn child, just like it would be on the face of it wrong to directly assault a child or a woman without decriminalizing and saying, “Well, maybe he had a good reason to hit that child or hit that woman.” I start from the presumption it’s wrong unless a physician exception is put into place. But I just think in general that people want to call it the Christian nationalist boogeyman or not. I would say that it’s totally rational and that people have a moral duty and if they fail to heed to that moral duty, they’re morally responsible if they did nothing to prevent these children from being killed. Now you might say, “Well, we’re going to decrease it. I’m doing all these things that are fine to decrease it, but I also think people have a moral obligation to rid the world of laws that are designed to exploit other human beings.”
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (41:46):
This is kind of like the legalistic piece that I’m concerned about. The Christian ethical principle should be concerned about life, let’s say preserving of life as much as possible and to act ethically towards to have sanctity towards human life as much as possible.
Trent Horn (42:02):
Oh, keep going.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (42:03):
Oh, okay.
Trent Horn (42:04):
But once you finish, I’m just going to let two chats come in right back.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (42:07):
Oh, absolutely. So yeah, that’s the Christian ethic. The issue is that now you’re saying, and this is how Christians must act towards that ethic. And I’m going- Absolutely. Well, I’m going, well, if a Christian is doing … Let’s say you’ve got somebody who’s very concerned about abortion, but they’re not really on board with decriminalization. However, they’re doing everything else. They’re involved in better education for students. They’re involved in abortion. They themselves, sorry, an adoption. They themselves are adopting. They’re doing everything possible to be reducing abortion, but they’re not willing to decriminalize it. It feels like, and I could be wrong, what you’re saying is that person is still kind of acting immorally as a Christian. Yes. And I would say- Because they
Trent Horn (42:47):
Are morally on par with someone 150 years ago who said, “I don’t like people being enslaved. So I am working round the clock to make a cotton gin and free labor that will drive slavery out of business. I know I could have voted at the ballot box this year to end slavery, but who’s going to employ these people? There’s going to be all kinds of problems I don’t want to deal with. I consider it on par that those who, why I’m glad they have a heart to want to end slavery.” I would say they ought to be brave and do the right thing and cast a vote to free their brothers and sisters who are in bondage, just like Christians should cast a vote to free their brothers and sisters in the womb from being directly killed. We have common ground. We both identify as Christians.
(43:29):
We both believe in God. We believe in the Bible. We believe in Jesus. We believe God wants people to act in a certain way, Christian politicians should institute good laws.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (43:38):
Would you grant me … Let me see if you would grant me some of my worldview then.
Trent Horn (43:42):
We’ll see. All
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (43:42):
Right. Would you agree that a lot of Protestants absolutely would like to establish policy that will go in the direction of a theocracy, such as repealing the 19th?
Trent Horn (43:54):
Oh yeah. Well, there’s a lot of them. One reason I am skeptical of full-blooded Christian nationalism, I know there’s been arguments here on the podcast before that the states should get to have a state religion, even if the federal government doesn’t have a federal one,
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (44:09):
You state should do that. And all states opted to not eventually.
Trent Horn (44:12):
I’m very skeptical about that because it hasn’t worked out well for Catholics in history.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (44:17):
Protestants.
Trent Horn (44:18):
Well, especially for Catholics though, they tend to be the minority in a Protestant country.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (44:22):
Well, if you go to medieval Europe, it’s artwork.
Trent Horn (44:25):
We’re talking about America.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (44:26):
Okay. Sure.
Trent Horn (44:26):
So in America you have- Yes, Catholics were very persecuted. In Oregon, there was a Supreme Court case saying whether the state could force Catholic kids to go to public school. And that went the Supreme Court said in Pierce versus Society of Sisters, no, you can’t force them to do that. Because public schools then were Protestant schools.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (44:43):
Yeah. I think when I was researching for this, I found this crazy case in Massachusetts, I believe, where it was illegal basically to be a Catholic priest. They could arrest you. It’s
Trent Horn (44:52):
Called the Poplish Act.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (44:53):
Yes. And then if those people escaped and came back, it was justification to kill them. And in Massachusetts for Quaker priests, I don’t know if they call them priests or what they call
Trent Horn (45:03):
Them. Pastors probably.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (45:04):
Pastors. For Quaker pastors were actually
Trent Horn (45:06):
Killed as a part of this. I am for people having the freedom to practice their religion within limits, but I also recognize Catholicism is true. And so I think society can in very soft ways point people towards that, which is true. Now in hard cases, I think the law should mostly be used to keep people from gravely harming others or gravely harming themselves. I think there’s a good case to be made that the state should outlaw online gambling.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (45:34):
But you also want to ban contraception.
Trent Horn (45:37):
But let’s take things that I think are more or take adult pornography, explicit content. At the very least the state should require rigorous age verification.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (45:50):
Sure. So we still bypass.
Trent Horn (45:52):
I don’t know. Well, the PHUB website doesn’t work in Texas because it has age verification.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (45:57):
There’s a lot of- And that just uses other-
Trent Horn (45:58):
Well, but the point is, but there are
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (46:01):
Sites that don’t …
Trent Horn (46:02):
There are many sites that are shut down because they won’t comply with age verification.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (46:06):
Yes. The issue is all that happens then is that you have the same … And so this is going back and- But
Trent Horn (46:12):
You could do the same for online gambling, but we could say, Hey, this really harms people. It’s really, it’s an addictive vice. It’s bad when people have unfettered access to it. So I think I am in favor of the state mostly using its power to promote Christian virtue to prevent grave harms. I think it can also be helpful if the state … Ideally, I think you could have a Christian state that doesn’t oppress people. Yeah, it has different religions, but- Theoretically, but the holidays are actually holy days. You get the Christian holy days off.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (46:38):
Theoretically, of course, theoretically this is top.
Trent Horn (46:39):
Because
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (46:40):
It
Trent Horn (46:40):
Promotes it as the state religion while accepting there’s pluralism.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (46:43):
Well, I would probably still refute that because I’m very concerned about what happens to a religion when it is blended with a state. I think it corrupts it.
Trent Horn (46:49):
I love getting more days off though.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (46:51):
Sure, but you can get days off. But again, of course Christians can engage politically. Of course, Christian can vote on what they feel as Christians are voted for. What they cannot do is make laws where the only justification that they can point to for that law is the Bible says so. And I’m okay. And if you grant me that, then that’s the Christian nationalism I’m talking about that is rampant in North America. And then we just need a new word for Christians like you or just being like, “Can’t we just be Christians and have our ethics and vote based on what we think is right and good?” Of course, you should do whatever you want as a voter.
Trent Horn (47:26):
I’m going stronger though to say that Christians have a moral duty to shape the state so that grave evils are avoided or ameliorated.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (47:36):
So shape the state insofar as they can use- Like to
Trent Horn (47:38):
Vote
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (47:38):
To ban slavery. But also using logic and argumentation to convince
Trent Horn (47:43):
Non-Christians. Because I believe there’s four kinds of laws. So there’s eternal law, that’s God’s mind saying, here’s how the universe should be. There’s natural law, which is when rational creatures participate in that, we use reason to be like, oh, God made the world and it should be this way. We can look at our bodies, we can look at the world, it should be going this way. Natural law, we could see that. Then there is positive law. So God didn’t reveal in the Bible what the speed limit should be. We kind of have to deliberate. It’s
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (48:09):
Pretty imoral too.
Trent Horn (48:10):
Well, it’s not immoral because if you didn’t have any speed limits, a lot of bad things would happen. You could say it’s immoral.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (48:16):
Well, bad things happening doesn’t mean something immoral is happening, right?
Trent Horn (48:19):
Not necessarily, but if you could intervene to prevent the bad things with a simple law, it could be immoral that you failed to intervene.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (48:26):
Maybe, but you just have to make the logical case for it. And that’s all I’m saying
Trent Horn (48:29):
To Christians ought to say that it’s not in the Bible. It’s not in natural law. We have to use prudence to arrive at that. Yeah. Christians would have to convince me. You have positive laws and then you’ve got ecclesial laws, divine laws. So you have divine law too. Like for example, worshiping on Sunday, that’s not in the natural law.That’s an artifact of history based on Jesus rising from the dead and God communicating to people, I want you to worship on this day. And so because it’s a part of divine law, which is funny, do you know the national Sunday law conspiracy?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (48:57):
No.
Trent Horn (48:57):
So the Jesus seventh day Adventists for a long time have said there is a giant conspiracy for Catholics to take over the government and make everyone worship on Sunday and put people to death if they worship on Saturday. So it’s their conspiracy attlebrains thinking that’s going to happen. I’m like, “We got a lot more to deal with in the Catholic church right now than if we’re going to pass a law, there’s a lot of other things down the list we want to get to. ” But no, I’m not going to make people worship on Sunday or go to church or follow the divine law, but there’s clear things in-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (49:26):
Common law illegal. Common
Trent Horn (49:28):
Law what?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (49:29):
Common law living together.
Trent Horn (49:30):
Oh, I might make it illegal. No, because there are some things that you can recognize. So like the natural law, you can tell that- Or civil unions between gay men. Well, the natural law, you can see there are things that are wrong that are minor evils, like breaking a promise. Yo promise to do something and you fudge on the promise. I’m going to help you move. And I knew it was lying when I said that and then I don’t show up and leave you in a lurch. That’s immoral. We can know from reason you shouldn’t do that. Am I going to make a law about it? No, probably not. Just figure it out amongst yourselves. So it has to be a grave enough evil to justify the weight of the law stepping in.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (50:05):
Yeah. I think that’s a totally evil position. The grave
Trent Horn (50:08):
Enough evils would especially be directly killing innocent human beings.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (50:13):
Then make the case to secular people so they agree with you and then has them.
Trent Horn (50:16):
I am doing
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (50:17):
That. I know you are. I think you, this is why I’m saying I’d like maybe for us to find different words because when I’m talking about Christian nationalism, what I’m not talking about is Catholics and Christians who feel some sort of way for sound reason, both from their religion and from logic, why they feel some sort of way. And here’s
Trent Horn (50:34):
The thing, when it comes to abortion-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (50:35):
If I could finish- Yeah, go ahead. What I am saying is that if you want to do things like ban porn and your reason for it is, well, the Bible says so, and you mostly have to post hoc other stuff or you have to be like, “Well, there’s lots of these negative sequelae.” And it’s like, well, as we said, negative sequelae is insufficient to ban certain things because we have to look at whether or not banning it has other worse negative sequelae in the case of drugs. Alcohol is legal, even though addiction is awful substances.
Trent Horn (51:06):
Right. Banning it causes more harm. Well-
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (51:09):
More harm. You
Trent Horn (51:10):
Know what though?
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (51:10):
During
Trent Horn (51:10):
Prohibition, the per capita drinking rate was actually prior to prohibition was three times higher than it is today.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (51:15):
Yeah, but you also saw an explosion of mafia activity.
Trent Horn (51:18):
Sure,
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (51:19):
But it wasn’t a
Trent Horn (51:20):
Totally outlandish thing to do because drunkenness was a problem then that was a scale we’d be totally
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (51:26):
Unfamiliar with today. I didn’t say that it was outlandish to do. I actually said what the state did was the reasonable thing. What the state goes- And then
Trent Horn (51:33):
Saw
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (51:33):
It didn’t work. Oral issue is X. And
Trent Horn (51:34):
They also want to tax revenue.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (51:36):
That was the other
Trent Horn (51:36):
Reason.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (51:37):
They wanted tax revenue. They generally stays agnostic and reactive to moral issue X. We say, “It’s bad to kill fetuses in the womb.” And the state goes, “It could be. It’s definitely possible that it could be. ” But if we start seeing a whole bunch of causes that are outcome from problem X, moral issue X, whatever it is, then we make a policy based on analysis and consensus, which is how the state should work. And my argument is Christian nationalists want to upend this. They want to say moral issue X, so we ought to do the most conservative thing and they don’t do any retroactive analysis of the outcomes because the moral thing is what matters the most and only the moral thing. And that’s not how statescraft works.
Trent Horn (52:16):
I agree and disagree. So I agree with you that some Christian nationalists who are far Protestants, solo scriptura, well, I want all the laws to reflect the Bible that bites them in the butt because the Bible doesn’t have an explicit prohibition on abortion, doesn’t have an explicit prohibition on pornography. In fact, the reason Protestants were late to banning abortion, I did an episode of my podcast called When Protestants were pro- choice, that back in the ’60s and ’70s, even the Southern Baptists were moderately pro- choice because they couldn’t get from the Bible, we need to outlaw all of this. And the same thing with things like pornography is not directly in there. So for me as a Catholic, I would say, yeah, the reason I’m going to pass laws is only from those things where the natural law informs us in ways that I could communicate it to any person- Practical worker.
(53:04):
Even if they don’t believe with my divine law. Perfect. And that’s fine. That’s totally good. Yeah. Where I disagree though is I’m not going to approach issues and say, “Well, I’m not going to approach it this way. Enslaving people is bad and we’re going to have a debate about the practical effects of freeing slaves or not freeing slaves.” Well, the rhetoric we can talk about. And I say enslaving people is wrong and it ought not happen. So it’s not killing fetuses are bad. For me it’s killing human beings is wrong. And in some cases you’re allowed to start with the moral principle and the sequelae or
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (53:36):
Whatever follows. I never said that you can’t start with them. In fact, even this case- I want to
Trent Horn (53:38):
Start with that.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (53:39):
I wish we had gotten into evangelical Protestant bashing together a little bit more. I think that we would have a lot of grounds on that because I very much view fundamentalist Christian Protestantism as a heretical faith that has created a golden calf called Republicanism and it is destroying the church. It’s bad for the nation, but it is destroying the church. The amount of people that hate Christians is sad and they hate Christians for good reasons, not always good reasons, but a lot of good reasons because Christians are nasty because all these Christian viewers that are Andrew Wilsons are going to be in my DMs wishing me death threats, whichever fan of his is signing me a fake AI porn of me being like essayed and stuff, gross. And so we have this disgusting behavior of people putting their hatred, their bigotry and their politics before God.
(54:31):
And it’s really sad to see. And I think that American Christian nationalism is that. And I guess I’m a little concerned that Trent will walk away from this debate getting in trouble for me praising him and appreciating him because- From who? From hateful Christians.
Trent Horn (54:46):
I’ve been in their bullseye for a while now and what matters to me is just doing the right thing and it used to be it was people who were not Christian that would get the most mad at me. But in the past few years, the people who are just the most vicious towards me and my family spreading lies about us, horrible things. It is a strange form of Christianity. Paul writes in his letter to Timothy, those who claim to the form of religion but deny its power. They like a Christian costume,
(55:24):
But to me they’re no different. Someone who would go online and claim to be a Christian and send you death threats and pornography of you is no different than someone who wears a cross who goes and does hardcore pornography. It’s like you are wearing your Christianity as a costume at this point when God wants us to be convicted. And the thing that makes Christianity great is the greatest teaching I think is this. It has been said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (55:58):
I said-
Trent Horn (55:59):
But I like that we’re not enemies. We disagree.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (56:01):
Put your hot coals on your enemy. What that actually means when you look at the original text of hot coals that’s saying, give your fire to even your own.
Trent Horn (56:08):
And here’s the thing, I have hope I’ll get you to come around. We just got to talk
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (56:13):
Of them more. Tell you what, if the Pope ex- communicates J.D. Vance, I’ll convert like that. I’m just kidding. Not actually, but it would be pretty faced. Got to say, be kind of awesome.
Trent Horn (56:25):
Be careful what he … I mean, we’ll
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (56:28):
See what happens. Look, if that happens, look, there’s a lot of things the Catholic Church does really well. I’m still protesting it for a couple of reasons, but I definitely appreciate that you do not dress up your hatred as God, because man, it feels good when your hate is God justified. Oh, of course. It’s very,
Trent Horn (56:48):
Very dangerous. The greatest evils aren’t lust. Hate is more likely to kill your heart. But no, I have hope and for those who are on the fence too, a lot of people are on the fence. My hope is to present reason, to pray for them and let the Holy Spirit take it from there. And the conversation you and I, it’ll continue.
Kyla Turner (notsoErudite) (57:11):
Yeah.
Trent Horn (57:11):
Yeah. Thank you all so much for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day.