Exploiting Christian compassion: A conversation with Allie Beth Stuckey

LINDSAY MAST: Welcome to a special weekend interview from The World and Everything in It. I’m Lindsay Mast.

We recently had the opportunity to talk with Allie Beth Stuckey. She’s a podcaster and author of two books. The first … You’re Not Enough (And That’s Okay) … and her latest … Toxic Empathy … which hits the market next week. Both are published by Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Allie Beth Stuckey is also a WORLD Opinions contributor.

Over the last few years she’s built herself a reputation as a truth-teller … and as an outspoken conservative millennial. She’s built a significant social media following through her podcast Relatable, sharing her thoughts on everything from current social media trends … to all things politics.

ALLIE BETH STUCKEY: Motherhood is not an aesthetic. It is a calling that God places on our lives and He sets the standards, not social media.

My pastor’s wife is now the pastor at my church after her husband died?What should I do? Switch churches.

I really don’t believe any minor should be on any social media. I don’t think they should have smartphones. It’s not an option.

We are going to unapologetically fight for what is good and right and true. Everybody has the right to do that… but our arguments are better.

Allie Beth’s latest book … Toxic Empathy … seeks to help Christians understand how left-wing activists use Christian values to manipulate people into supporting progressive agendas.

Today, we’ll talk about what Allie Beth means by “toxic empathy” … and how that relates to current policies … and her thoughts on today’s political climate and the 2024 presidential candidates.

So, let’s dive in. Allie Beth Stuckey, welcome to the program.

ALLIE BETH STUCKEY: Thanks so much!

MAST: Fill us in briefly on your background–how did you come to be a speaker, podcaster, thought leader? What motivated you to start writing and talking about these cultural issues?

STUCKEY: Sure, so I could say it goes all the way back to when I began to talk. I’ve always loved to talk. Always loved to communicate. My mom was a teacher. My grandmother was a teacher. My grandmother lived with us until I was 13. That was very formative in my life. My parents are both great communicators, great writers, and in a way, I think they passed that down to me, not just genetically, but also in how they raised me, and of course, the values that they raised me with. I was very blessed to be raised in a Christian home with an emphasis on Christian education, and I always loved to speak.

I didn't love school all that much. I got by, but I loved English. I loved literature. I loved applying theological concepts to literature and writing and analysis, and thank the Lord, I went to a school that helped me develop that. And so I didn't know exactly how I was going to apply that in life. Of course, when I was growing up, the thought of having a podcast or speaking to organizations, it wouldn't have been something that I could have formulated in my mind. So, I thought maybe I would go to law school. That seemed like something that I could do that would apply the things that I love, and I've always had a very strong sense of and desire for justice and a desire to persuade people into what I believe is true. I ended up studying communications in college and decided not to go to law school. The thought of going to school for three more years after college wasn't really appealing to me, but I continued to love to write, to love to communicate.

I gave the commencement speech at my college graduation, and I just remember there being a moment when I was looking out into the crowd and I thought, yes, this is it. This is what I want to do. I don't know what that looks like, but this is what it's gonna be, hopefully, by the grace of God. And I ended up going into PR after college, because, again, I didn't know what exactly my life would look like. But as I was in that kind of post-grad period, I moved to Athens, Georgia for my job in PR and social media. This was 2014. I started leading a Bible study of young women. They were freshmen in college. And of course, around this time is when this very contentious election started picking up speed. And by 2015 it was Trump versus Hillary. It seemed like it was all anyone was talking about, even in this college town. And as I started engaging with these young women in this Bible study about the election and about the issues surrounding the election, I realized that most of them—as godly, smart young women—hadn't really thought about these issues, certainly not from a biblical perspective. And one of the young women who was, I think, the wisest, the most mature, and most biblically literate of the group of young women, told me, yeah, I love Bernie Sanders. He's my favorite and let me tell you why. This, of course, was during the primary. But as I started talking to her about something like abortion, I realized that it hadn't really connected to her faith, which was genuine, and her political views. And of course, I believe that she kind of held on to some false ideas surrounding what we'll probably talk about, toxic empathy, about the role of the church and the individual versus the role of the government as far as compassion and health goes. And that kind of inspired me. That kind of inspired me to start trying to talk to young women more about these issues.

So I actually started reaching out to sororities. I was living in Athens, Georgia, so I was right off Sorority Row. This is 2015. I started asking, “Can I come speak at your chapter meeting about the election and about the issues?” And so I did that, and again, I just had that same feeling that I did when I was giving that commencement speech of, yes, this is it. This is what I want to do. So I kept working full time, but then I just started a blog, and I started posting on social media. I started reaching out to other student organizations to see if I could come speak—even local businesses. And over time that just grew. And in 2017 I joined the Blaze and then that turned into CRTV, and then it turned to Blaze TV, and I started my podcast in 2018 and started writing books, and just continued to speak. And that’s kind of long story short of how it grew into what it is today.

MAST: Well, you mentioned it. Your new book is called Toxic Empathy, so I want to go ahead and jump in on that. Can you tell us what you mean by that? And also, if you could give us some examples?

STUCKEY: Yes, so toxic empathy is the use of empathy as a kind of a mallet of manipulation. So a tool by which those in power in media exploit and extort people into taking on a particular position by saying, in order to be a good person, in order to be a compassionate and kind person, this is the stance that you must take. And they do that not through good faith persuasion—because that's one thing—but through what I would say is emotional manipulation, or telling only one side of the story, or completely misrepresenting an issue to make you believe that the only righteous position is their position.

And I argue that it is primarily, if not exclusively, the progressive side of the aisle that's doing this, mostly because they are the ones who are in the most prominent positions of influence, in the media, in academia, public education system, of course, most of our federal government, even if you look at international institutions like the UN and some of its subsidiaries, even the WEF. These are dominated by progressive ideals, and they use toxic empathy to convince, I would say, even Christians—and especially Christian women—into believing that their progressive stance on a particular issue is the righteous, compassionate, kind, empathetic stance. And they will use Christian language and Christian ideas like loving your neighbor, and welcoming the foreigner, and loving mercy and justice to convince you that, for example, opening up the border, or affirming someone's so called gender identity, or affirming the redefinition of the family, or affirming a woman's so called right to choose that these are all not just kind and compassionate positions, but actually biblical positions, because this is what it means to love. And they do this by falsely conflating empathy and love. And so we hear this word empathy a lot. I would say, increasingly over the past few years. It's even kind of like the keystone of SEL—social emotional learning curriculum—that we see in a lot of public schools. And we've heard this a lot in conversations about the election over the past couple election cycles that empathy is our highest virtue. It is our highest value.

And if you're truly empathetic, then, again, you will be progressive. But empathy means to put yourself in someone else's shoes. And the truth is that in itself is not a value. That in itself is not a virtue. That in itself is neither good nor bad. I could put myself in your shoes to feel your pain, and that could be fine, but if in your pain, you are trying to get me to affirm something that is not true. So for example, that a man can become a woman. Someone who is confused or deceived about their gender says, put yourself in my shoes, feel how I feel. You can do that. But then toxic empathy says that you not only feel someone else's pain, but feeling someone else's pain must convince you to also affirm all of their choices, to affirm their perspectives, and to affirm whatever policy prescriptions they say will alleviate their pain and their discomfort.

And the point is really that empathy and love are different things. You can feel how someone else feels, but love is inextricable with the truth, because love never rejoices in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth, as 1 Corinthians 13:6 tells us. And the God who is love 1 John 4:8 gets to define that for us. And so we as Christians are obligated not just to feel how someone else feels, but to actually look at the policies and the so-called culture war from the perspective of what is actually true.

MAST: So the empathy becomes toxic when it’s driving to an end that is not in line with God’s love and God’s truth. Is that it?

STUCKEY: I think that’s a great summation.

MAST: Okay, I have a question about your definition. You use the word progressive in the subtitle, which is how progressives exploit Christian compassion. This is something that comes up here at WORLD quite a bit. I’m interested in how you define progressive.

STUCKEY: Yes, progressivism, I would say that I typically use to mean leftism. And, of course, it's not progress in the Christian sense of progress, but it is a journey towards something, that's for sure. And I would argue that it's a journey towards utopia, or a leftist vision of utopia, which I would say, and you would probably say, is actually a dystopia. That's what I mean by progressivism. I really mean leftism, and I use those terms pretty interchangeably. There's certainly an argument, a semantic argument, to be made that if it's not really progress, as Christians and righteousness defines progress, should we use the term progressivism? But I think most people recognize that when we say progressive, it is kind of their euphemism that they've chosen to describe a very left-wing movement.

MAST: So going back to empathy, what’s the better way to view the role of empathy in the life of a Christian, in your opinion?

STUCKEY: I think that empathy can be a powerful tool to love those around you. I use an example in the book of before I had kids, when I would go on a flight and I would hear babies crying. You're like why do parents do this? This is just bothering me, all about me. And then after I had kids, I'm like what can I do? What can I carry? Can I help you? Because no one wants this baby to stop crying and screaming more than you do like I get it. And that can be powerful. That “I get it” can be powerful.

However, it is not necessary to do the right thing, because my problem when I had that mentality about babies crying in the plane before I had kids, was my own selfishness, that was my own self-centeredness, and Christ can sanctify us of that no matter what experiences we have had. So empathy, putting yourself in someone's shoes, can be a powerful tool, but it is actually the love of Christ that compels us to be compassionate and other-centered and loving. And so I think really the emphasis that our culture puts on empathy in general is kind of just like misplaced and misguided. But in itself, it is really neither bad nor good. Because empathy can also if I put myself in the shoes of someone else, and I am so staunchly in their feelings, and I am exclusively blinded to every, you know, I'm blinded to everyone else's perspective because I only feel what that person feels, well, then I can't make very good decisions. Because if I only feel what the media's designated victim feels, or the progressive side’s designated victim feels, well, then I'm not paying attention to the rights and the rights and the needs of the well being of other people.

So if I am only focused on, for example, this teenage boy who says he's distressed about his body, and he wants to become a girl, and he wants to identify as a girl, of course, we know that that's not true, but using their language, and he wants to go into the women's locker room, and he wants to go he wants to play women's sports. If I am only thinking about his feelings, which is what we are told is true empathy, then, of course I'm going to affirm, oh gosh, it would be so hard to be uncomfortable. You're telling me that your happiness and liberation and comfort and fulfillment will come from going into the locker room and playing on women's sports? Then of course you're going to affirm. But I have to get out of those feelings. I can't only focus on those feelings. Because there are other people whose rights and well being and privacy matters. And even more than that, the truth matters. The truth that he cannot become a woman, that he can't become a girl, that matters.

And so that's why empathy can actually be very blinding. It can be very damaging. We heard during kind of like the racial reckoning moment of 2020 that we should all be leading with empathy, that we should be making policy by empathy. Well, no, we shouldn't, because if you decided on policies based on your empathy, based on just what, say, certain social justice activists were telling you, then we all would have been for defunding the police. Defunding the police has led to a rising crime, violent crime. Would that have been loving? Would that have really sought the best interest of my neighbor? It would have been empathetic, but would it have been loving and good and right and true? No.

MAST: And then we'd have to switch it all again towards the new empathy later, when it's not based in truth. Zooming out a little bit, I talk to young adult Christian women quite often and I’ll be honest, many of them seem unmoored—if not in their faith, certainly in the apologetics realm. So I’m curious, why do you think that is (if you do) and is it a gender problem or a generational problem? What’s your thought?

STUCKEY: Oh, this is a great question. I have so many thoughts on this, and this is actually kind of why I wrote my first book. You're Not Enough (and that's okay) because I see that a lot of content that is geared toward young Christian women is just repackaged self esteem stuff. It's just self empowerment stuff that has Jesus's name and like a couple of Bible verses attached to it. It's basically just telling young women that your biggest problem is that you have low self-esteem, and your antidote to that is to love yourself more. And once you love yourself more, once you realize how awesome, beautiful and perfect you are, then finally, like you will be happy. All of your goals and dreams will come true. You'll finally find the right relationship, and that's really like New Age self-help stuff that has been around for a long time—this message to women that there's an inner goddess inside of you who has been trapped by societal expectations and the patriarchy and capitalism, and once you release her, then you'll finally be happy and free.

I think that young Christian women are fed the same thing, but the truth is that our biggest problem as women is not our self-esteem. It's not our lack of self-esteem. It's not that we don't love ourselves enough. Our biggest problem as women is the same problem that everyone has had since the dawn of time, that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and that we need Jesus to become our righteousness and to empower our sanctification, that we need to become holy and righteous through Christ, and we need to get our satisfaction and fulfillment not from inside of ourselves, but outside of ourselves.

You mentioned unmoored. That is the entire like self-love, even so-called Christian self-love movement. It is telling you, begging women to worship the god of self. And the god of self is unmoored. Like, it has no foundation. It is completely dependent upon our own whims, our own feelings. And so is self-love, by the way, it's completely unsatisfying because it's dependent on our mood. And who wants the love that we feel or we have, or that's supposed to ground us to be dependent on ourselves and our moods and our feelings? Really, our love, our confidence, our identity, should be founded upon the solid rock that is Christ that is outside of ourselves, who does not change, who is not superficial, who is the same, yesterday, today and forever. And so unfortunately, I think young women are being fed this god of self-nonsense, and are being told that it's the gospel. They're being told that the gospel is that you are perfect the way that you are, and Jesus is your cheerleader and wants you to feel really good about yourself. And once you feel really good about yourself, then you've made it. And that is not the gospel, and that's not good news. That's my take. I'm sure there's a lot of analysis about that out there, really good analysis, but that's kind of my sense of things.

MAST: Sure. You deal with all manner of culture and current events on your podcast. I hear a lot of American believers who say that since our kingdom is not of this world, or since God is in control, we need not concern ourselves with matters of culture or politics. So, I don’t think you agree with that and I’m curious as to what your defense of Christian involvement in those areas is?

STUCKEY: Yes. So I get asked this all the time. I have been asked this for years, and so I came up with an alliteration, I guess, probably six years ago that I use almost every day to explain to Christians like why politics do matter and it's politics matter because policy matters, because people matter. Politics affects policy. Policy affects people, and people matter. People matter to God, therefore they matter to us. They matter because they're made in His image. And God did not place us here arbitrarily or accidentally. He placed us where we are, on this tiny spot of the universe, on this limited speck of eternity, purposely, providentially, specifically, deliberately, intentionally, however many synonyms you want, God does nothing spontaneously or accidentally or haphazardly. So he placed us in this temporal, physical context here in the United States in 2024 knowing exactly the obstacles that we would face. And I don't think any Christian would contend with the fact that we are commanded to love our neighbor, those who are around us, and yet they tend to forget that politics is not the only way, and it's not even the primary way, but it is a way to love our neighbor, because the policies that we vote for have a real effect on people, especially vulnerable people.

I think about, for example, in one of my chapters in Toxic Empathy is about immigration, and it surprised me as I was writing it, how passionate that I got about this subject as I was listening to people who, unfortunately, have been murdered and have been victimized by people who crossed the border, who should not have crossed the border. They crossed the border illegally. And they were allowed to cross the border specifically because of policies, because of sanctuary city policies. Laken Riley is dead today because of those policies. Kate Steinle died in 2015 crying out to her dad, “Daddy help me,” when she was 32 years old because of the sanctuary city policies of San Francisco. Their refusal to comply with ICE. Policy matters because people matter. Policy affects people.

I think about the FACT Act that Kamala Harris, as she was attorney general of California, this would have forced pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise prominently for abortion, and I think about what an effect that would have had on the lives of those unborn children had their mothers walked in and instead of first hearing the gospel, hearing how they are totally capable to parent, hearing the truth about adoption and the life inside the womb, had they only seen an advertisement for abortion, walked out, had their baby aborted by Planned Parenthood? How many lives would have been lost? Thankfully, the Supreme Court overturned that law because it was such a clear violation of the First Amendment. But that policy would have mattered. It would have had a real effect on people.

And so you don't have to care about every issue. You don't have the capacity to do that. I get the fatigue. We are finite. Only God is infinite. We don't have to care about everything and everyone at all times. We do not. But the issues that affect your community, the issues that will affect your children, that will affect your children's children, I do believe that as a citizen of the United States, while we still have the right and the responsibility to exercise our right to vote and to influence elections and to raise a respectful ruckus for the things that matter, I do think that we are obligated to do that, just as, you know, Israelite exiles in Babylon were tasked by God in Jeremiah 29 to seek the welfare of the city in which you live, because in their welfare you will find your welfare. We are exiles in this world. Our citizenship is in heaven. And yet, here we are. Here we are. And so in the welfare of the community around us is our welfare, too.

MAST: Allie Beth, you are very opinionated and well-spoken and not afraid to use your platform to talk about the conclusions that you’ve come to. And you’ve been accused by some of lacking empathy. So I’m curious, what do you say to those criticisms?

STUCKEY: It's funny, the people who tell me that I lack empathy always disagree with me. And then the people who will leave reviews and comments and messages saying, Thank you so much for balancing grace and truth. Thank you so much for how gently you talk about this, or how loving you are when you talk about this. Thank you for not being too harsh. All of those people seem to also agree with my conclusion.

So I'm not really sure if those who accuse me of lacking empathy are really listening to my episodes and reading the articles that I'm writing, because I have a lot of feelings. I don't think feelings are a bad thing. People who have been listening to Relatable know that we span all emotions. I have sobbed on my podcast when the little kids from Covenant Christian School were senselessly murdered in Nashville. We laugh. We have very serious conversations. We have light hearted conversations, and so we certainly span the spectrum. And so I'm not sure if those critics, if that's a really good faith criticism? Maybe it is.

And for that, I will say that at the end of the day, I am much more concerned with truth than I am feeling how someone feels. I think it's good to see other people's perspective, but I hope, I pray to God that, by His grace, I will never allow my feelings to get in the way of what is good and right and true. Because, gosh, that is just, it's a losing battle. There are too many people with too many different conflicting feelings, too many victims, and too many subjects for us to try to have empathy for every single person. That's actually a problem with empathy is that you, literally, because you are finite, cannot have empathy for every person. You can't have empathy, full empathy, equal empathy for every single perspective. So thank God that we have the truth of God's word that gives us so much clarity, that at the end of the day, no matter what anyone feels, no matter what I feel—I have to look back and say what is true? Because not only do I not want to be guided by other people's feelings, I don't want to be guided by my own feelings, because our hearts are wicked. And so I'm okay if there are some people who have that criticism. I'm not trying to say that all of my critics are in bad faith. There, of course, are plenty of critiques that are completely justified and valid and substantive in all of that. But at the end of the day, I want to choose truth and love over superficial empathy.

MAST: I want to spend the last few minutes that we have together talking a bit about politics. This political climate really seems to tend toward mean-spirited insults and name-calling. How do we as Christians stay above the fray when that's going on and swirling around us?

STUCKEY: Yeah, you know it's always tempting to do. And I certainly haven't always been perfect. There are times that I look back and I'm like, Gosh, I wish I had a little bit of a different tone. Not that I think tone is everything. I think some people tone police too much, but it's something. It's not nothing either. Like, it's not everything, but it's not nothing. It's kind of like the difference in texture in food. It's like, I want banana pudding. I don't want banana soup. At the end of the day, they're both bananas, but one texture is better.

It's the same thing with tone. Two people might be saying the same thing, they might be speaking the same truth, but one person has kindness in their voice and the other person only has snarkiness in their voice. I'm probably going to take the banana pudding over the banana soup. And so tone is something. Keep that in mind, even as someone who does not like the tone police and how we say something actually does matter. I wish I could say I was perfect in this, but I'm not. But I try. And I think I've gotten better by the grace of God and just over time and understanding that you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. And so that's one thing.

And I also—because I get trolls, okay? Of course, everyone online does. It's just part of it, and mean-spirited things. There's substantive criticism, and then there's just the mean, mean, mean stuff. And you could definitely block those people. But also, if people are just angry, maybe they're not mean. They're just angry, and they're going back and forth with you. A kind word turns away wrath like no other. Responding to someone instead of in kind, but in kindness makes a really big difference in those conversations. And just remember you do not have to engage in every argument that you were invited to. You can turn down that invitation, and you can choose your battles. That doesn't mean you should turn down every invitation. Some invitations matter. My mind has been changed through social media back and forth sometimes. So there's a way to do it and a way that is constructive, but I try to shift my perspective of what will change this person's mind versus what makes me feel good? Because what makes me feel good is to prove myself right in that moment and to make that person feel bad for being wrong. In my flesh, that's what feels good. But will that change that person's mind? Will that person become pro-life if I do that? Will that person change their perspective about the Bible and the reliability of scripture in Jesus by satiating my fleshly pride? No. And so I think that's a perspective change, too.

MAST: Do you think there’s a way back from the divisiveness going on today? And what do you think it is?

STUCKEY: You know, I actually think in some ways, believe it or not, that our online dialogue about politics is a little better than it was in 2020 and in 2016. I don't know. I think some people—now, maybe it's not a good thing. Maybe some people have just checked out because it is not worth losing anymore. Or I just don't I'm fatigued, I don't care about this anymore. But I actually think that we had a moment in 2020 where things were really bad, like among evangelicals. It was bad, it was really hard, it was really divided. You had all kinds of people saying, this person's not a Christian, that person's not a Christian, and we had really substantive disagreements. I don't want to make light of that.

But I do feel that in the past four years, we've kind of backed away from some of those things, and that a lot of us who were divided over, say, critical race theory or something like that, they’ve kind of come back together a little bit and been like, okay, like, Can we agree on the basic principles here and like what we're against and like what we're for?

So, I actually think the conversations are a little better than they were a few years ago. I would say, stick to policy. Stick to what the Bible says. I hope my book, the reason why I pushed so hard for it to come out before the election—that was a very hard feat—is because I give as much as I can, the history, the logic, the biblical arguments that will equip the Christian to have these conversations from a factual and biblical perspective, not an emotional perspective, in a from, in a way that will hopefully preserve the relationships that can be preserved, while also not compromising on the truth. That's why I wrote Toxic Empathy because I want it to be a toolkit for women to say, okay, I can have these conversations. And I think the word of God is on my side when I do, and that gives a lot of confidence.

MAST: I have one more question, if you have time for it, because I read this as I was reading your book, and I thought, man, I bet Allie Beth Stuckey has some thoughts on this. This is from the New York Times. It was in a David French article, and I’ll skip to the end and just read it to you because it’s really where he makes his case. So the question is, how would you respond to these arguments for a Harris-Walz presidency?

He winds down by saying, “It strikes me as bizarre if people make the argument that as an evangelical Christian, you have to support the man who watered down the pro-life platform in the Republican Party, the man who oversaw the first increase in abortions in decades, the man who has been found liable for sexually abusing a woman, and a man who’s bragged — bragged — about his sexual exploits. That that’s the person that Christians have to support or they’re not being faithful strikes me as not just destructive, but also laughably ridiculous.”

So given that he’s got a fair amount of influence, I’m curious as to what you would say in response?

STUCKEY: There are plenty of things that I disagree with when it comes to Donald Trump. Donald Trump personally, the morals that he has championed over the decades of his career, and also some of the policies that he has proposed that I don't think are pro-life enough. Now, I think that some of those things are misrepresentations purposely, to try to get people to, of course, say that this is not actually the more pro-life ticket. Oversaw the only increase in abortions that, of course, has nothing to do with Donald Trump or any legislation that he passed. And David French actually knows that, the influence of the executive versus the legislature or the state legislatures, and what actually can affect not only abortion policy, but how many abortions are performed.

Now, what he also would like us to ignore is who Kamala Harris is, that we've got a binary choice. David French could choose not to vote for Kamala Harris. He could choose to vote third party. I know people doing that. He could choose not to vote the top of the ticket. I'm not saying that's what I would do or agree with, but I understand that argument more to not vote for any candidate. Again, I'm not endorsing that, but I understand that argument more.

I would rather him explain to me why, based on the two choices that we have, that he would vote for someone who was unapologetically championing abortion through all nine months, for any reason, who voted against the Born Alive Survivors Infant Protection Act in 2019 which would just provide health care for babies who survived abortions, who tried to push the FACT Act as attorney general of California, which I already explained, who went after David Daleiden in the pro-life reporter who reported on the pay-for-play scheme allegedly that Planned Parenthood was engaged in and did not investigate Planned Parenthood, who does not have a better personal moral track record than Donald Trump, going all the way back to the beginning of her career, of course, having an affair with a married man when she was 29 years old. And so if we're going tit for tat on morals, we've got two people that are really going head to head on that.

So if I have to move that out of the way because they're both personally very flawed people, then I have to look at policy. And at the end of the day, I wish Trump was more pro-life, but he is more pro-life than Kamala Harris. Her and Tim Walz are the most pro-abortion ticket that we've ever had. We can see that by their record, and I know for a fact based on the people that are close to Trump, who have talked to Trump, and based on who he was as president last time, Donald Trump can be influenced towards life. His mind can change. His mind did change, or his rhetoric changed on Amendment 4 in Florida. First he said, Oh, yeah. Well, he paraphrased. It seemed like he said that he was voting for Amendment 4, which would allow abortion through all nine months in Florida. And then he got pushback. And I know he got talked to by a lot of pro-lifers, and then he changed. He said, No, I'm not going to vote for this, because this is radical. Do you think Kamala Harris would ever change in that way? I mean, she's funded by Planned Parenthood. Of course not.

So I'm not saying that your vote is salvific, because it's not, of course not. Jesus transcends our political binary. But at the end of the day, I do think Donald Trump and the policies that he represents will lead to more order and the greater well-being of our neighbors than Kamala Harris is, and that's what it comes down to for me.

MAST: Thank you very much, and thank you so much for being generous with your time. Allie Beth Stuckey, we appreciate you being with us today.

STUCKEY: Thanks, Lindsay.

MAST: You’ve been listening to an extended interview with author and podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey. This is the full version of the edited conversation you heard earlier this week on The World and Everything in It.

Let us know you’re listening. You can do that by dropping us a line. Email us at editor@wng.org. That’s editor@wng.org. Or you can subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. We'll talk to you Monday. Have a great weekend!

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