Russell Brand and Carrie Prugin dissect the "cancel culture" backlash Prugin faced for opposing Christian Zionism and conflating anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel's military actions. They debate AIPAC's political influence, Trump's shifting alliances toward figures like Laura Loomer, and the theological tension between a single covenant in Christ versus dual paths to salvation. The conversation extends to sexual morality, where Prugin argues for equal censure of all sins while maintaining traditional marriage definitions, leading Brand to reflect on compassion for marginalized groups. Ultimately, the dialogue challenges listeners to balance doctrinal fidelity with empathy in an era of intense cultural polarization. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Russell Brand's Awakening Message00:07:46
Ladies and gentlemen, Russell Brand, controversial conspiracy theorist.
Trying to bring real journalism to the American people.
Hello there, you awakening wonders.
Thanks for joining me today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
On the show, we've got Carrie Prugin.
You may have seen her before on a bunch of stuff.
She's an outspoken Christian Catholic, specifically, who's been cancelled a couple of times, once for her views on same sex marriage, and now she's well outspoken on AIPAC and Israel, and she's really willing to.
Go there.
In addition to this conversation, I want to let you know that this book, How to Become Christian in Seven Days, is out now.
May take 50 years of sin and serious fuck ups.
Oh, no, I swear.
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See, I'm still doing it.
Click the link in the description.
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We're going to go straight to this interview.
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And that's no small thing these days.
Here's me and Carrie Prugian.
Check it out.
Carrie, thanks very much for joining us.
It's really lovely to speak to someone who's in faith right now.
Thank you for having me.
You dealt with a lot of controversy, you've been cancelled, you've dealt with a lot of intensity.
I suppose that means that we're in Romans 13, aren't we?
We're meant to obey the state and the system, unless the state and the system conflict directly.
With following Christ.
That was preached on at the church I go to this past weekend, to quote the name of one of my favorite podcasts.
And I said to the pastor afterwards, don't you think our whole culture exists in that margin right now?
Almost the whole culture is, except for where it doesn't, except for where it contradicts the teachings of Christ or the word of God, say.
So, like, it sounds like your life and your walk has brought you into odds with that.
And I'm starting to feel that maybe that's going to be part of my path.
So, where do you see that as most significant?
And do you agree with that premise?
Yeah.
You know, I've been in this fight for almost 20 years now.
You know, I don't think a lot of people remember, but I was Miss California in 2009.
And I dared to say that my opinion is I didn't believe in gay marriage.
And I said, I believe marriage is one man and one woman.
And obviously, when you do that at a large scale, on a public platform, in front of millions of people, I think that was a big test for me.
And I think that I passed the test in the Lord's eyes, obviously.
But I was only 21 years old.
So Donald Trump owned the pageant.
And that was when it started.
I was really, Russell, I was really one of the first to be canceled.
And so I say now, you ain't cool unless you're canceled because I've been canceled twice now.
And I'll tell you what, I take it as a badge of honor because it means that I'm actually doing something right.
And it means that I'm actually standing against evil when they try to cancel you.
But it's been very difficult, I'll be honest.
It's been hard.
And I was canceled at 21, and now I'm 38 years old, and I'm a mom and a wife.
But I'm still standing.
I'm still fighting, and I'll never give up.
One of my teachers said that when they were doing police work, when they came out of a hot situation, they'd say to each other, We're still alive, okay?
We're still alive.
You're alive, right?
I'm alive.
I think that's how we've got to do it.
Like, I really feel like that these days that I'm in a spiritual war and I reckon I'm not doing it perfectly.
I can sort of really see my errors.
I can see my errors real clearly.
I'm making a lot.
I wonder then, what was the next time that you were canceled, may I ask Carrie?
So, the next time I was canceled was pretty recent.
So, I served on the Religious Liberty Commission.
So, I thought that I was being selected to protect religious freedom here in America.
And I spoke out against the definition of anti Semitism.
So, the hearing was on anti Semitism.
And I just couldn't continue until we define.
And really, who gets to define the word anti Semitism?
And so I was pushing back and I said, Is anti Zionism anti Semitism?
Which we all know Zionism is a political ideology.
I have every right not to be a Zionist.
I'm not a Zionist.
And they said, Yes, if you're an anti Zionist, you're a hateful bigot.
You are an anti Semite.
You're a Jew hater.
And so it's just, I've been down this road before, Russell.
I'm sure you've, you know, recently been down this road too.
It's like, They try to put you in this box and they try to just slam the door and close it and then cancel you, smear you, label you, and throw away the key.
And I am not going to allow that to happen.
So I'm pushing back and I'm saying, I am not a hater of any kind.
I don't even entertain that idea.
As a Christian, as a Catholic, I love all people, but I will tell you right now, I do not support the political state of Israel.
And that does not make me a Jew hater.
That makes me a proud pro life Catholic.
And we have a duty if we call ourselves Christians.
To speak out against the evil that we're seeing in Israel and the genocide that they are committing against the Palestinians.
Right.
You live then in that area that I've, like, the one thing that I read in the Bible that I thought, well, I'd like to take that out was when I got to Romans 13, when it was saying stuff like, you know, obey the government.
And I was like, I don't like this.
I don't like this at all.
You know, and I've been trying to find loopholes ever since.
Now, one of the good loopholes I found was like that Paul was likely in chains when he wrote it and certainly spent a lot of time.
In chains.
But see what you're saying there.
Do you find it hard to, in both of those issues that have led to controversy in your life and challenges in your life?
And I reckon, in a sense, I applaud your bravery, even though I've got a lot of questions to ask when it comes to sexual conduct, say.
Like, I'm really trying to work that out at the moment because I feel like there's so much stuff about sexual immorality and I really am learning a great deal about it.
Right.
And I want to stay in a place of love when talking about other people's identity and other people's, you know, their identity in Christ fundamentally.
That's what I sort of want to believe in mostly.
And prioritizing my own duty to be non judgmental over other people's fallenness because I know I've got enough fallenness of my own.
That's for sure.
We all do.
Yeah, we all do.
And so I wonder how you managed that in the first issue, the 2009 issue.
And then when it comes to, I really liked what you said, the political state of.
Israel, because I suppose one of the great challenges of talking about politics these days is the conflation of a political entity with a religious entity, a historical and a theological entity with a contemporary militarily expansionist entity.
All of those, there's a lot of questions to be asked.
But for you, you were on a kind of free speech governmental White House committee that was like, we've all got to make sure we commit to free speech.
Free Speech Dwindling in America00:11:50
And then you, somehow, surely knowing in your heart of hearts, you were stepping in a different direction.
Terrain said, I'd like to challenge you all on what you mean by anti Semitism.
Is that how your current challenge began?
Yeah, you know, I was selected by President Donald J. Trump, and he selected me along with 12 other incredible, you know, very important people on this commission.
And I had a duty.
I had a duty to stand up for people of not only my faith, but people of all faiths.
And so I wasn't going to sit there and allow them to define a word that, well, really, they didn't want to define the word.
They just said, if you are against the political state of Israel, you're a Jew hater.
And that should have been the story.
I think everyone should have been speaking out against that.
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Obviously, that's crazy.
That's insane.
That you would say if you're, that'd be like saying if you're against MAGA, then you're, uh, you know, an anti-Christian.
I mean, it doesn't even make sense, but that's the box, that's the box that they want to put you in.
And so they want to make it so that if you're critical of the state of Israel, you therefore are now a hater, a hater of Jewish people.
And I reject that.
In fact, I requested four Jewish American, um, witnesses to speak at that hearing.
One of them, Norm, Norm Finkelstein, which who better than him, um, to speak on this, on this matter of anti-Semitism.
I even, uh, requested a Jewish rabbi who he and I have become great friends.
In fact, he came out recently and said, I've been fighting against Zionism for 40 years.
What does that make me?
A rabbi is now an anti-Semite?
And I read his statement from the stage and the people speaking that day, they said, yes, that this Jewish rabbi is an anti-Semite.
So that's where this is going.
It's, it's crazy.
It's insane.
And they're just throwing around words.
And unfortunately, Russell, if everyone's an anti-Semite, no one's an anti-Semite.
Just like if everyone's a racist, no one's a racist.
Um, if everyone's a bigot, no one's a bigot.
And that's really sad.
And a lot of Jewish people are speaking out against this, and we have a duty to do that because words matter.
How far did you get in that hearing, and where do you think the conversation is currently with the conflation of anti Semitism and, as you describe it, objections to the actions of the political state of Israel, which is obviously a position that a lot of people share now?
Yeah, I think anyone under the age of 60 does not support Israel.
I mean, they tried to get us to believe that God's chosen people are the 1948 state of Israel.
We all know if you're theologically literate, you know that that's crazy and that's not true.
But they've been pushing that theological perspective, especially these Christian Zionists that serve in our government.
They believe the Paula Whites, the Ted Cruises, the Mike Huckabees, they believe that 1948 Israel is some biblical prophecy being fulfilled.
Therefore, we must bless Bibi's bombs.
We must bless Bibi at all costs because he's God's chosen person.
Ordained by God, I guess, according to these theological heretics, in my opinion.
But once you start pushing back, you realize that most people are not pro Israel anymore.
And I am very grateful that people are speaking out because it takes that.
It takes more and more people to speak out and push back against this because it's wrong.
And I will not stand for it.
We in the United States, we have our First Amendment rights, we have our religious freedom, and this theological supremacy, we have to stand up against it because our founders did not intend for.
There to be one specific denomination of Christianity.
We are founded on a Christian nation, but it wasn't one denomination.
And so we're seeing this theological supremacy overtaking our government.
And that's where I have to stand up and speak out because I have two kids and I don't want to leave them a country where they don't have their First Amendment or their religious freedom.
How do you think it is we find ourselves in this position where it sounds like you're characterizing the way that the current administration is?
Utilizing Christianity is sort of unconstitutional and not spiritually righteous, certainly.
How do you feel that that's happening under someone that, based on what I've heard you say so far, Andy, in other interviews and other public materials about yours and available that I've seen, happening under like a person that you and a president that I imagine you still admire?
And isn't it sort of kind of surprising that MAGA and Trump is leading to.
Something that I feel that many people thought might be exactly what Trump would protect America and Americans and people of the world in some ways from.
Yeah, it really makes me sad.
I honestly feel, I was telling someone the other day, Russell, that I feel like it's sort of like a divorce.
You know, you believed in this person, you trusted them.
For me, it was 20 years I supported this president.
I lost friends.
I wore that red Make America Great Again hat proudly when it wasn't safe, when it wasn't popular.
I lost, you know, Um, money from it.
I lost business from it, but I stood by this, this man because I believed in him and I believe that he wanted to make America great again.
And he was going to put the American people first.
And then all of a sudden he completely betrayed us and completely, um, betrayed MAGA really, which is make America great again.
And he is putting a foreign country before his own people, unfortunately.
And I think people are realizing that now.
And it's, it makes me sad.
Like I'm not angry about it.
I was angry at first, but now I've accepted it that he is not the man that we elected.
I don't know what's going on with him.
I don't know if he's blackmailed.
I don't know if he's fully compromised, what's going on.
But this is not the Donald Trump that we all voted for.
He promised us no foreign wars.
And we're seeing now that really Bibi Netanyahu is who's really running our country, in my opinion.
Do you wonder then if this illustrates a position that I had?
Before becoming Christian and before coming to live primarily in your country, and really before I had any right to make such assumptions, that political power is ultimately controlled by institutions that are not visible or accessible through the means and methods of democracy.
Your dog just walked past then.
I don't want to get too distracted, but just so that people know the level of autism.
And observation that I operate at.
If your dog walks past in the corner of frame, that will stop me asking questions about global imperialism.
He just there went down the corridor.
It sort of looked like a labradoodle to me or a cockapoodle or one of those kind of things.
It looked like a kind of hybrid hound.
Anyway, my point is this like, don't, like, if Trump, with all of his idiosyncrasy and all of his brilliant bluster and his individualism and his fortitude and his ability to confront and drain swamps and say, well, I was taking advantage of the very same tax loopholes and you think we don't kill people and all that stuff that made us.
Or feel like, oh man, whether you like this guy or not, he's a wrecking ball in the sort of glass houses of these stone throwing liars.
Now it seems like, oh wow, even that amount of individualism and variety can be accommodated within a global system that's long clearly been in control of the most powerful nations in the world.
And then, Carrie, as a Christian, don't you think that when it talks biblically about the world being in the thrall of the evil one, he is the prince of this world, he's in control.
Do you feel that this is just evidence of that, that powerful individuals, charismatic or otherwise, unless they introduce significant systemic change, are going to end up getting involved in foreign wars, whether their name's Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom, JD Vance?
Pick a name.
That's the way.
And indeed, how can you have a nation or an institution or a force like America, and America since its ascendancy over the British Empire, which sometimes I wonder if the true power.
Sort of moves like a ghost.
We've got this place in the UK, the city of London, right in the middle of London proper, that can't, you can't, is not subject to the rules of the rest of the country.
It's got different tax laws.
It's got dragons at all of the points where you enter it.
It's like a really weird kind of place.
Anyway, I wonder if there are sort of a second set of institutions, whether they're obvious in plain sight bureaucracies like the WHO or the IMF or whatever, or even more occult than that, that.
You know, even just to have a Henry Kissinger style America where you have 20 year plans and 30 year plans, you couldn't have that sort of stuff disrupted by elections, could you?
So, were we not all mad to think that anyone, Trump or anyone, could do anything other than what these empires do, regardless of who leads them?
Yeah.
I mean, I mean, you look at like the White House today posted a picture of the king of England and him and Trump, and it said two kings.
And it's like, that's not funny.
Like, To me, as an American, I know Trump wants to be king, but he's not king, and Christ is king.
And so it's funny because at that hearing, when I spoke about anti Semitism, I brought up, and this is very, very important.
So, I don't know if you're aware, but under the IHRA definition of anti Semitism, it says that if you say that the Jews killed Jesus, which is in scripture, which is in Holy Scripture, sacred scripture, that is actually anti Semitic.
So, where this is going, and it's scary, and I want people to understand this free speech in the US is dwindling because they want to make it so that if you say Christ is king or the Jews killed Jesus, You will be labeled anti-Semitic and where this is going to go.
Electing People Not Bought and Paid For00:02:40
I don't know.
I don't, I don't know if people, if they're going to be police coming and knocking on people's doors, um, because they're saying things that go against the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.
But that's where this is really, really scary.
And back to your point that you made earlier, you know, Trump ran on draining the swamp.
I'm going to drain the swamp.
And there's all these, you know, corrupt politicians and in DC.
And he used to laugh.
I don't know if you remember, but he would laugh and call little Marco.
Rubio, you know, little Marco and Lion Ted, and all these people who were not MAGA are now all of a sudden his best friends.
And they're standing right beside him.
You got Laura Loomer, you got Mark Levin, you have all these never Trumpers are now all of a sudden the face of MAGA.
And you have people like Tucker Carlson, who I was just on his show, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens.
You have all of his most loyal supporters from the very beginning.
Marjorie Taylor Greene are now considered the enemy of MAGA.
I have a big problem with that.
And so now we're seeing that there is this divide.
I mean, I think MAG is dead, in my opinion.
I think MAGA is dead.
I think MAG is dead.
And really, moving forward to save this country, we are going to have to elect people who are not bought and paid for.
I mean, truly, that's what Trump made fun of these politicians for.
He would say, Marco Rubio is bought and paid for.
All these politicians are bought and paid for.
But what we're realizing is that once he took the 230 million from Miriam Adelson, things changed.
And that's politics.
And it's unfortunate.
And so we really need AIPAC out of our government, in my opinion.
So nobody running for nobody that's going to be winning another election.
I won't be voting for anyone that takes money from AIPAC moving forward.
Well, I mean, do you like MAGA?
I started to think this, and I don't want to be cynical because what's the point?
Where does that get any of us?
But like, and I really, really love Bobby Kennedy a great deal.
I think he's an amazing person.
But do we not, in a way, think that MAGA and Maha are campaign entities?
That fulfills a purpose to galvanise people for an election.
And then once elections are done, the business of government begins and the business as usual, it appears to be.
And in a way, even though it is bold of you to say in public, you know, get rid of APAC, I wonder, Carrie, if we're not willing to say, don't have anyone making donations ever or lobbying and.
Technology for a Candid Democracy00:04:53
Maximize subsidiarity, empower the states maximally, and each state should empower towns and communities, and each town and community should empower the individual, and then we should have a democracy worthy of the founding fathers.
And that kind of anti Second Amendment argument that people often use oh, well, if they'd known about the firearms that you have these days, semi automatic ARs and this, that, and the other, you know, they would have passed different laws and made different amendments.
Yeah, you're right.
I think sometimes that we have a technology that means we could have a democracy that's much more candid, transparent, open, mobile, and agile.
So, if we're going to have conversations about how a very, what do I want to say, kind of fascinating and exciting political figure like Donald Trump is ultimately being sort of inured and castrated in office, why are we not then looking really seriously at what the systemic problems are?
Recognizing that it's obviously the ability of non governmental institutions to influence policy, whether that's AIPAC, as you have said, and as Thomas Massey's been saying for as long as he's out of mouth, as far as I can tell.
And all of, but like, why stop there?
Why stop there?
Why not say if we're going to meaningfully change America or the world, we have to start practicing what we preach and instituting real democracy maximally and investigating and interrogating this system in a way that actually.
Offers change.
I think most people in your country, if there was a yes no referendum on war with Iran or no war with Iran, people might press no.
So we don't have a democracy anyway.
Certainly, as you've already observed, my country is absolutely out of control.
Crazy.
Like, you don't even, like, you can't even tell.
I mean, when you're there, it's still nice.
People are still British and fantastic and lovely.
But you certainly don't feel like, oh, the British people are very happy with the way things are going.
It's like actually a land of dismal despair with not even.
I don't think that because we live now, you might say, in the beginning of the post Trump era.
And by post Trump, I mean even the optimism engendered by his ascent among those that adore him.
And that ascent was accompanied with a good deal of loathing, let's face it, and division.
All the people that didn't want Trump are saying, We told you, we told you, World War III.
So my point, finally, is to say, Don't you think we should be advocating for real change and outlining what that is and to start with something like get money altogether out?
Politics in when solving all of these issues as best we can, as much as possible.
Should that be what we're doing?
Yeah, yeah.
I think that it's really sad how, when you want to run for office, you know, you see people going in and thinking, okay, I want to run for office because I want to give back.
I want to, you know, help my country.
I want to make things better.
I don't just want to complain.
I want to do something about it.
And then it's almost like once they get in, they're given a choice.
You know, it's a choice between like selling their soul or risk not even getting elected.
And what we're seeing now is there's so many powers at play.
Like, for instance, we'll just take APAC, for example.
If you don't take money from APAC or if you criticize APAC, they will run campaign, like campaigns against you.
They will fundraise.
They will literally try to destroy you.
And so a lot of politicians are like, I don't want to deal with it.
I'll just take money and sell my soul.
Therefore, look what happens.
You know, I think everyone other than Thomas Massey and just a couple others are the ones that are not You know, taking money from APAC.
And I just met with Thomas Massey and I love him.
And I know he has an election coming up and I hope everybody votes for him.
But there's a real, you know, risk that he's taking by saying, no, I'm not going to take money from a foreign country.
And we shouldn't allow that.
You know, look at JFK.
He wanted to have APAC register under FARA.
And then look what happened to him.
So it's very real.
It's very serious.
And now finally, we're able to talk about it.
Maybe five years ago, 10 years ago, you couldn't talk about it.
You would be told to shut up.
You're an anti Semite.
Put you in your box and slam the door.
But now we're seeing that, you know, we see people like James Fishback, Thomas Massey, Dan Blitzserian, I think that's his name.
He, you know, not vowing not to take any money from APAC.
So now we're seeing candidates that are standing up against this big monster that's really trying to destroy our country, in my opinion.
You think that that's the one, huh?
You think that's the one.
Fighting the Monster Destroying Our Country00:11:55
You don't think there's like a global imperialist thing that's to you, I'm European, how you know this about me.
I'm English, in fact, specifically.
You don't think that there's a kind of a, My references are from like literature, autodidacts that I am.
Like, part Orwell 1984, a boot stamping on a human face, centralized control, big brother, ahistorical, rewriting it as we go.
Part Aldous Huxley, i.e., it's a kind of a Steve Jobs aesthetic.
Everything kind of looks nice and sanitary.
iPhones and things are sort of neat, and at least on the surface, kind of well branded and logos, and it's all sort of super rational.
And we're here to help.
You, we're here to care for you, and then the only non British writer of the free Franz Kafka, who a Czech writer who sort of felt the horror that's in bureaucracy like the bureaucracy is inhuman.
I noticed when I've been doing this recent round of press that the building, one in particular, where I did that Piers Morgan interview, was in the Associated Press building downtown New York, and I noticed that it was exactly the same type of building as News International's building in London, UK.
I mean, the turnstiles that you show your lanyard or your pass at, that there are no people, that there are no windows in the upper floors, at least.
The lobby area, I think, may have had windows.
But an eerie and inhuman feeling is in there.
When you call an elevator, like I suppose you get this regularly in big buildings, but you can't call the elevator yourself, you're summoned up from the floor.
There are no buttons.
And when you reach the floor itself, windowless.
And this being the Associated Press, they proudly show those photographs as if it's Man Ray or something that the AP have acquired over the years.
And firstly, me as a person that's worshipped the culture for a long time, I see those images and think, ah, prestigious images.
But when you actually look, it's like that famous, I think it's a Cambodian or Vietnamese guy getting shot in the head at point-blank range, and you can see the impact of the bullet, famous picture, most people know it.
Or other images of war and violence.
And you realize that bureaucracy presents itself as neutral, but it's the kind of neutrality that's always present in sin, certainly in the Greek definition, a kind of neutrality that's waiting to be infused by evil.
And this system that presents itself to us as kind of neutral always migrates through managerialism and bureaucracy to a kind of evil principle that's prevailing in this world.
And I find it very interesting that C.S. Lewis, when he depicts the realm of the devils and the demons and the tempters in his book, The Screwtape Layers, which is super funny, of course, that they are members of a bureaucracy, of in fact interconnected bureaucracies.
Because what do bureaucracies do?
They strip away our Humanness, our humanity.
They turn everything.
And what is it like when, just on a personal level, you're on the phone to your service provider or your Wi Fi network or whatever?
I'm sorry, hold please.
You know, firstly, you'll be dealing with machines for a long, long time.
And if you eventually get a human, it's a human with no power.
What's it like at the TSA?
No one's got no power.
We're being denied and stripped of our humanity.
It's pervasive.
It's down at the molecular granular level of our lives and it's right at the heart of our lives.
We are living.
In a simulation of the world, a counterfeit world.
This isn't the America that your founding fathers intended, where people are communicating with one another.
Then democracy could be.
What is it you people want?
You want this, do you?
Well, okay, I don't think, I think you might be wrong, but it's what you voted for.
You know, like that, that's not being offered.
No one, not the Democrats, not the Republicans.
And now we know for a fact, not even populist MAGA under a charismatic and exciting leader are offering anything other than you can mess around with the ornaments on the surface while we get on with the business of power.
Now, the people that I know from the liberal left, they are saying, oh no, look, Peter Thiel and Larry Ellison, they're instituting technocratic centralized control.
There'll never be another free election.
And then the people on the right, Before.
Oh no, the Democrats and Joe Biden and Dominion voting machines, they're going to control us through technology like never before.
And isn't it becoming clear, dear Carrie, that these ghosts that pass through, President this, President that, however bombastic they are, or innocuous and decrepit like the previous incumbent, it doesn't matter.
There's a machine, a very powerful machine, and it can only be opposed by Christ, the Christ in us, the Emmanuel Christ.
And I think that sort of pulls something so deep from us.
That most people have been switched off.
I see that in the world.
Most people are dead in sin already.
They're already switched off.
Their life's over.
They're going to their grave.
And a lot of them don't want to be woke up, it seems to me.
It seems to me too.
So, firstly, Dan, isn't it our job to be bold in our rhetoric?
Oh, yeah, that was my original question 100 years ago when I started talking you think that Israel and Israel's financial interest is the bullseye in the middle of all this.
And I know you're not alone in thinking that.
Because I. I'm not sure.
I reckon you're right about AIPAC, and there's no question.
I'm not going to try and do things that you can do better than me.
But, like, do you think that's the one you take that one out, everything improves?
Or do you think it's because I sort of think it might be more insidious and deeper than that and beyond that?
Well, I say we start with that.
Let's just start with that and see how things go.
You know, we have people.
I live in San Diego, California.
Where do you live, Russell?
Florida Panhandle.
Oh, you're in Florida.
Okay.
So I live in California.
And I don't know about Florida, but here, our state is really suffering.
You have people that cannot afford anything.
You have college students that aren't getting jobs as soon as they graduate.
They're going to college getting degrees in gender studies and ridiculous things that aren't even going to give them an opportunity to make money and succeed in life, financially at least.
You have homeless people.
San Diego downtown is completely, you can't even go down there.
I mean, the restaurants have closed.
It's, it's really, really sad.
And I'm born and raised here.
I'm born and raised in San Diego.
And I look around and I say, Oh my goodness.
We have veterans that can't even afford, you know, health insurance.
Everything costs a gazillion dollars.
But yet here we are giving all this money to a foreign country and we get nothing in return.
In fact, we get, we get bad things in return.
We get wars in return.
We literally are in this war with Iran on behalf of Israel.
Everybody knows that by now.
We had no business going there.
And because Bibi wanted it, Bibi got it.
So let's just start with there.
I'm open minded, okay?
Let's start with defunding Israel and let's see where things go in America.
Let's start with that.
Let's see if our country improves or gets worse.
Because what I'm seeing now is a lot of money going there, and those people in Israel, they live great.
They have free health care.
They have their, you know, everything's free there.
They're taken care of.
There's no homelessness.
So you look at the two and you go, wait a second, we were promised to make America great again, right?
The forgotten man and woman.
Trump ran on that.
I'm going to think of you, the forgotten man and woman of this country, the blue collared worker.
How are their lives improving?
I don't see it.
I don't see it in California.
Well, yeah, I hear you.
When you have that conversation or make those points, you said when you had that hearing about the definition of anti Semitism, like rabbis and prominent Jewish intellectuals or public figures or whatever, how do you, like, how, In the instance of the ones you know, how are they dealing with what you just said then about like, we should defund Israel?
How, how are they, how are they?
They agree.
They agree.
They 100% agree.
And they've been saying that for 40 years.
In fact, the Jewish rabbi who's become a friend of mine, we talk regularly and he said, Carrie, I, we are in exile.
That Orthodox Jews believe that they are in exile right now and that they are not supposed to be brought back to that land.
And so he's, imagine him, a Jewish rabbi that's been preaching this for 40 years.
And then it takes this, you know, outspoken Catholic woman at a hearing to finally get the world's attention about it.
I mean, he's grateful for it, but, um, yeah, he's against it.
You know, he, but he said, he'll say to your face that he thinks that it's a racist, um, you know, um, extremist, terrorist, uh, organization, the, the Israeli government and what they're doing to the Palestinian people and how they operate.
I mean, I don't know if you've been seeing these things that have been coming out of Gaza.
I mean, it is horrific.
And yet you see pro-life Christians here in the U.S. silent, because they know that as soon as you speak out, if you dare to speak out against that, against the Israeli government, they know that you're done.
You're done.
You will be canceled.
You'll be labeled an anti-Semite and you'll be kicked off of everything.
And that's why more people have to speak out because this is wrong.
It's absolutely wrong.
And what I've realized as a Catholic is that it's theological.
You know, these Christian Zionists and I'm willing to speak out against my own faith as, you know, these Christian Zionists believe that this is A biblical prophecy, like I said earlier, coming to fruition.
That 1948 Israel is some biblical prophecy being fulfilled.
And it's wrong.
And for 2,000 years, the church has never taught that.
And yet we're allowing this new idea, this bad theology, to literally overtake our government and our country.
And it has deadly consequences.
And as soon as you speak out and criticize the government of Israel, you're labeled a Jew hater.
That's the goal.
Because they know what happens.
They know what happens when you're labeled that.
You're canceled.
You're done.
You can't get a job in Hollywood if you criticize, you know, Zionism.
You can't.
Everybody knows it.
And so everybody's quiet.
And I thought we were free here in the United States.
But what I'm realizing is we're really not.
We're really not that free, unfortunately.
But we have our First Amendment rights.
And so it takes people like me, people like you who are speaking out and standing up, people like Tucker Carlson, you know, and saying, wait a second.
I'm not a hater of anyone.
I just don't want people being killed.
I just don't want innocent people being killed.
And that doesn't make me a hater.
In fact, it makes me a lover of people.
It makes me a compassionate Christian to say, wait a second, innocent human life is being taken at the hands of a government that we're funding and we have to be okay with it because some Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee told me that they're God's chosen people.
Therefore, we have to bless the bombs that they're putting on the Iranian all-girl school.
What?
So, um, yeah, we have a duty.
We have a duty as Christians to speak out, especially as Catholics because this is not what the church has taught for 2,000 years.
I wonder more broadly what the position of a Christian is when dealing with non Christians.
You know, look, I mean, it's interesting because what you've just described there, like we should start there with the APAC and this is the position.
And man, like the recent post October the seventh phase of this ongoing, deeply historic complex beginning in 1948, but you know, because I suppose one could say historically going back a lot further, this has been.
Yeah, definitely before that.
Yeah.
Living Honorably Beyond Sexual Identity00:15:16
Like the challenge has been that coming into this contentious.
Urgent space of online conversation that seems to create a lot of fragmentation and fracture everywhere, bringing almost the ultimate issue when it comes to creating division, when it comes to creating censorship, when it comes to creating hatred and confusion, and that unique flavor of irresoluble, irresolubility, if such a word could be possible, something that could never be resolved.
That's the feeling I have.
And a kind of an exhaustion.
And it's happened at a point in my own life where, you know, like for the previous years, I've been very focused on trying my best to tell the truth online, tell the truth online, tell the truth online, do your best, come up with stuff, commentate.
And, but because I've been dealing with so many contentious and difficult things personally, I felt like, oh man, I don't, this is heavy.
And anything, you know, like that gets into devastation, genocide, dead children, all of that, you, it's a, there's a kind of, What I want to say, you can only really call it a lack of courage in the end, and I mean that in the literal sense heart, like the heart, the heart, and the belly are gone.
You know, it's been like I had some interesting and very interesting personal challenges last few years, is how I would put it, and some pretty radical changes.
And so, it's been like this issue, which is obviously the dominant and defining issue of our time, or at least is the window, the sort of into it, because where it leads is, how hold on, what is real power?
Is going on?
What are you allowed to say?
What are you not allowed to say?
But let's face it, before October the 7th, things were exacerbating pretty nice anyway.
People were worried about free speech.
People were worried about corruption, hypocrisy, all of the sort of things we generally worry about and get concerned about were hot in right up.
And I feel this is going to take us pretty close to the brink, maybe even to it.
Maybe this is the end times indeed.
But like, I guess as a new Christian, Carrie, what I've been thinking about and trying to understand, because I'm reading these books now, I'm reading the Old Testament, I'm reading the New Testament, I've been around once or twice, one and a half times, or sometimes I skip.
Bits of numbers or little bits when it gets like double boring, you know, like the lists of begats sometimes, or very long instructions of how to build a temple.
Sometimes I'm like, Oh, come on, I get the idea.
Cubits.
Like, it seems that the tension between the Jewish people and the Christianity that emerges from it is, of course, some of Paul's letters are describing those tensions.
The book of Acts is describing those tensions.
And of course, the gospels are describing the climactic.
The climactic departure that the crucifixion and resurrection represents.
And of course, the Christian position is that Christ is God personified.
And it may be, and I wonder where you stand on this, that any personification of Christ in the Old Testament, excuse me, any personification of God in the Old Testament is Christ, whether that's a burning bush or the appearances in prophetic visions of Ezekiel or Daniel or obviously the servant songs late in Isaiah, that this is all our Lord being.
Prophesied, and I know that I heard recently that no, because the Jewish Messiah has very, very specific Davidic and sort of I don't know, theological there's bullet points of like, unless he does that, that, and that, that ain't the Messiah.
And I think some of them are like, the temple's got to be reestablished, and the people have all got to get back together.
And you know, I don't remember that's not something I've been super hyper focused on, but like, I see the book that you know of Revelations that the Grafting back on of the branch, you know, the grafting back on of the branch and some kind of reconciliation.
And if, as Christians, we believe that Christ is the Messiah, and surely that's the central point, then there is something kind of pivotal and difficult to reconcile specifically between people of Jewish faith and Christians.
So, how does one ever sublimate that?
Obvious conflict.
Yeah.
The way I would answer it is there is one covenant that the old covenant has been fulfilled by the new.
Jesus in Matthew, you know, predicted the destroying of the temple, and it actually happened in 70 AD.
So he said, Not one stone will be left untouched.
And look what happened in 70 AD, the temple was destroyed, the veil was torn in two, and we are seeing now that the new covenant is open.
We're open to anyone coming into that new covenant.
You could be Jewish.
You can be Christian.
You can be whatever you want.
But coming into that new covenant, you must come in by faith.
So you must come in.
Once you come into that new covenant by faith in Christ, you're in.
You're in.
And we believe as Catholics that we are the new Israel, that we are the fulfillment, that Christ fulfilled the old law.
Um, and now there is one covenant in Christ through faith in Christ.
And it's, it's very simple.
And I'm, I, I feel sad for the Jewish people that they think that there is this dual covenant.
Even Christian Zionists believe that there's this dual covenant, a dual way to, you know, to heaven and to God and that there's one path for the Jews and one path for the Christians.
And it's just, it's just nonsense.
Um, there's one covenant through Christ and it's by faith.
And so all are welcome into that.
And so it's, it's a beautiful thing when you see Jewish, Jewish people convert to Christianity.
And, um, I encourage more and more people to go out there and try to make disciples and get more people to, To come into the faith and to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, He is our Savior, He is King over all, and the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
So, it doesn't make us anything hater, it just makes us Christians.
And so, I reject anybody that's trying to put labels on us as Christians and to deny the truth that Christ is, in fact, King, He is the Messiah, He is God incarnate.
And those who are in Christ are in that new covenant, and we welcome all.
Oh, that was beautiful.
It was really good hearing that.
I felt like a relief.
That's like some of the nicest stuff I've heard for days and days.
It was really a real balm to hear you say those things.
Thank you.
Can I say this?
I've got some friends that are gay that love Jesus, a few actually.
And I'm trying to understand this.
Like, you know, your 2009 was about marriage, and I see marriage is a particular thing.
You know, I understand that.
I understand that.
Now, and also from my own reading, I'm looking at how much censure there is around immorality, sexual immorality.
And, like, I myself, gosh, fornicator, promiscuous, idolater, I can see even in a scriptural sense.
Now, like, do you, what I wonder and what I sometimes feel is that this is a very broad generalization, obviously, and it's actually not particularly being applied to Catholics, actually.
I'm thinking more what I'm experiencing of Christianity living in America right now, is that there's a particular interest.
In same sex relationships, that I would characterize as a little bit prurient, a little bit, ooh, a little bit sort of an intrigue that's unconscious.
Whereas I feel, and this is just my stuff, I can't back this up with scripture, certainly not yet, that all sexual immorality is under the same deal.
Like, that's it.
Don't do anything except that.
And what I really want to understand, Carrie, and I want your help with, is I would like to be able to say to.
People that are same, well, what I am saying in my own conversations, right, just to let you know where I'm at the moment, I'm like, I can't see how a same sex couple living together and loving one another is significantly different than a heterosexual couple.
Like, see, me, I'm married and that.
It's not like Eros is the very center of my marriage 10 years in.
You know, that's not what it's all really about, huh?
We love one another.
And I get the impression from certain, from a particular, Woman that I'm talking to, I go, I asked her outright how much of your relationship with your partner is about sex, really?
And she's not really that much.
We love each other and we're with one another.
When it gets to that, you know, like people that are living honorably with one another, that love one another, rather than making sexuality the apex of your identity, which I did for a long time, sex, my sexuality.
And you could even say about a very macho guy or even you as an ultra feminine looking woman.
I don't know what you're like on the inside, but.
You know, you're identifying, it looks like, with being a beautiful woman.
So, what do we, what do you have to, tell me about that?
Because I want to feel that the love and the compassion.
And I try and think, you know, whether it's the, look at the two issues we're discussing today same sex relationships and Israel.
If you imagine him here, or have faith in him here, I don't know, of course, what he would say or what he would do.
I just sort of have a feeling of what it would feel like, like loving acceptance.
And I sort of have the feeling that he would put himself right with the people that were most marginalized.
And most maligned by whatever we consider to be the Pharisaic class of our time.
And I suppose that's the most powerful cultural voices.
And in your country and in mine, that sort of shifts a little bit.
It shifts around.
But so, yeah, I guess it's not really a question, but I've said a load of things and I just wonder what you think.
Well, I would like to ask you, you know, when people, because remember during 2009, the whole gay marriage thing, people would say, well, love is love.
Love is love.
You know, you should be able to just marry who you love, right?
I think that's what you would say, right?
Is that your stance?
Well, I'm not sure about marriage because you could say that marriage itself.
Is like a very particular thing, maybe.
But yes, I would not.
Okay, let's go with that.
I wouldn't want people that love each other, that are living good lives, to feel like they are somehow unacceptable to Christ.
I don't like that feeling very much.
Okay, I understand that.
But the way that I would look at it is okay, let's just talk gay marriage.
So marriage is a sacrament.
Are you Catholic?
I don't know.
Are you Catholic?
I wasn't sure coming into the.
I'm doing rosaries and I love it.
I love the Holy Mother and I love the saints, but I've not become Catholic.
I think mainly because they wouldn't let me be Pope one day, even though at the moment I do have other priorities to deal with ahead of the fact that I can never be Pope.
So I'm not going to be Pope.
So, what do you consider yourself?
I consider myself that I want to be so, he must become greater, I must become lesser.
I want to die on the cross so that he can be reborn in me.
I want nothing between me and him.
Oh, that's beautiful.
I'm so happy for you.
I'm very, very happy for you.
What I would say is, Is, you know, hearing this love is love.
We have to define the terms.
We have to define the terms because if I love a man and a woman, say I love both, why can't I marry both?
Well, I don't, I don't, I don't know.
Like, I don't see that that's as a favorable position.
I don't like agree really with bigamy and polygamy or anything where it's, because this is what I'm identifying as the challenge.
Have no other gods before me.
That's what I'm sort of, what I'm recognizing as the sort of, Theological problem is that if you put your pleasure ahead of God, then that is not cool.
But I feel like there are so many people that are just in the church having the time of their lives condemning same sex attracted people or gay people.
I feel like, well, you know, we're in plank spec territory, you know, like in terms of get that plank out your eye.
Well, no, I just think when you really love someone, when you really, really love them, you want what's good for them.
And I think that seeing, seeing a society, I mean, throughout the history of the world, uh, societies are built on men and women and coming together.
God created male and female perfectly to be together.
I mean, you look at Genesis, you can't deny that.
And so to say, well, I think God now would, is a liar.
And I think that he wants two men to be together.
And that's the ideal relationship.
I think would be a lie.
And I think that when you really love someone, you, you shouldn't lie to them.
And you shouldn't just say, yeah, you can get married because we, as Christians, at least as a Catholic, I believe marriage is a sacrament, you know, a sacrament by God.
And it is a man and a woman.
And you could call it whatever you want to call it, but it doesn't redefine holy matrimony.
That is sacred.
I agree with that, too.
I definitely agree that marriage is a sacrament.
But also, this is like that America is not, you know, there's Christianity in its foundation.
But I don't think that any countries are living in alignment with the principles of God and living in a sacrament.
Sacramental, holy.
I don't think that's the kind of societies that we're living in at all.
So, we should be.
We should be.
It would help our country.
Yes.
And I feel like that threshold, and I'm not talking about decadence or hedonism or promiscuity or infatuation with sexual identity.
Indeed, a person's sexual identity should not be at the apex of who they believe themselves to be, regardless that your identity is who you are in Him, fearfully and wonderfully made.
When Peter recognizes.
That he is God, God recognizes who he is and gives him his name.
I recognize that, that, I get it, and it makes sense to me.
But you can't take that.
Yes, but you can't take that part and then forget that part.
Like, you have to have all of it.
You can't just be like, okay, I just want the Jesus that tells me that he just wants me happy.
Like, I hear that from Christians a lot.
Like, oh, Jesus just wants me happy and peaceful.
And, you know, I just, you know, I just want the Jesus, the hippie Jesus that gives me everything I want.
All of the desires of my heart.
Like, no, I struggle with anger.
I struggle with a lack of temper.
I have a temper, you know?
And so I struggle with that.
Addressing Sin as a Whole00:08:37
That's sinful.
And so I can't just be like, oh, I'm just going to go around being angry all the time and living in that sin of, you know?
But what I'm trying to say about the sexual stuff is you can't say, you know, one thing about, okay, I believe this part of the Bible, but I don't believe this.
You know, we see in Genesis, it's very simple God created male and female.
Yeah, how do you argue with that?
I'm thinking about it this way.
I'm saying, like, I'm thinking about it this way.
You know, he created them in his image, he created them male and female, he created them.
I like that because that sort of suggests that God's image contains both maleness and femaleness.
God's image is beyond that, it's beyond it because Adam's in his image, Eve's in his image, male and female, he created them in his image, he created them.
I like that.
I like how sort of mystical that starts to become and outside of our framework as human beings.
You didn't want Adam to be alone.
He didn't want Adam to be alone.
So he created Eve for Adam to be the helpmate, to be the partner.
And so I don't know how anyone can justify and say that God now changes mind and that men and men can be together.
I don't understand that.
Well, in a way, I'm not trying to discount any scripture.
I'm not trying to.
I'm just actually much too early in my relationship with the word to even begin that kind of stuff.
What I'm actually trying to Do is sort of triage, actually, Carrie, a kind of a triage of the like.
I don't think Christ's like, hey, I just want you to be happy.
No, I think Christ wants you to die unto the world and be reborn in Him and repent, and nothing should get in your way of being an absolute expression of Christ.
And when you fall, you're going to need to turn to other Christians or in order to be held up and to be in community for us to collectively represent what He, you know, and, you know, the marriage of.
As a sacrament, and by your definition of a man and woman, be a representation of his relationship with us collectively.
But what I suppose.
Well, and his relationship to the church, which is the bride, the bride of Christ.
I like that.
I like that.
And again, I'm not trying to say I pick this and I don't pick that.
What I'm trying to, I suppose, say is that I feel that the love of him has to be paramount.
Like, love God with all your heart, love one another as I have loved you, as I have loved you.
And I feel that in that.
Charge, you know, listen, it's not something I can really level at you because you have chosen it seems as your priority as a Christian woman.
I want to deal with this APAC issue.
That's no small issue.
That's no small issue for a person to choose as the hill they're going to die on, you know.
But what I'm saying is, the question I'm trying to ask is, what should be, as loving Christians, how do we not, like, I sense, do you think it's reasonable?
Do you accept what I'm asserting?
I sense that people are prioritizing censure around same sex over some guy jerking off the whole time over porn.
And I think them things both need some attention because anything where you're not fully giving yourself over to God is where you're personally going wrong.
And I also think that, you know, and I'm talking about the words of Christ rather than the broader book and the letters of Paul, et cetera.
It's so urgent, it's so clear that what he wants us to do is.
Be in the kingdom.
The kingdom is all about us.
We are in him, he is in us.
Like, I'm talking about some John stuff.
But, like, do, yeah, my question is do you think there's an undue prioritization around same sex relationships rather than sexual immorality in a broader sense, which includes heterosexual immorality, pornography, all of the other things?
Yeah, I think, yeah, I think it's wrong.
I do.
I think that pornography is completely destroying our men, especially our young men.
And it's truly evil, I believe.
And it's handcuffed.
It's handcuffed so many of our men.
It's destroying marriages.
I know many couples who, um, it's been the reason of their divorce.
Um, and it's, it's really, really wrong.
And unfortunately, it's legal here in the United States.
Um, and so, you know, a lot of men are, are slaves to it.
They're not free men.
They're complete slaves to pornography.
And I, I condemn it.
I do.
Um, but I also think that we have to address, you know, sin as a whole.
I mean, like you said earlier, there's, there's a lot of sin.
There's heterosexuals that are living in sin currently.
Sex before marriage is a sin.
Um, not just, you know, in my, in, in what I believe, you know, homosexuality is a sin.
Um, you can disagree with that, but, um, you know, I just think that we have to do a better job of just calling out sin.
And that's really the goal is to get people, like you said, to repent.
And, and thank God that we as Catholics, we have the, the sacrament of confession.
So we get to go to a priest and be able to lay it all out there and confess our sins.
My husband was just confirmed last weekend and he had his first confession.
I said, how was it?
And it was like a weight lifted off of him, you know, to have that sacrament of confession.
And you look in the Bible and you see that Jesus told his apostles, you know, whatever sins you are for, you forgive are forgiven.
And basically whatever sins are, you don't forgive are not forgiven.
So, um, people like to say, oh, it's not in the Bible that you, you know, can confess your sins to a, to a priest.
Well, yeah, it is.
It's, it's the succession of the apostles that give us, give them that authority.
And so with that sacrament of confession, you know, you're, the weight is lifted off and that you're free from that sin.
And then maybe the priest tells you in your penance, you know, hey, check in with me next week and make sure that you're not watching that on the internet or you're not, you know, committing adultery or whatever that is, you know, it's sin and it separates us from God.
And if more people realize that, that when you're living in mortal sin, you are not with God.
And so to have that reconciliation is a beautiful gift.
And I think if more people had that, they would try to live holy lives.
And that's really the goal.
I tell my kids every day on the way to school, I'm like, what are you striving for today?
Holiness, holiness, you know, and we're going to fail, we're going to fail, but just to strive for that.
And Christ is the example of it.
And just because something feels good doesn't make it good, doesn't make it right.
You know, just because I want to go around being angry at everybody, that doesn't make it right.
It's still sinful.
And we have to be, you know, recognize our sins, whether that's living, you know, in a homosexual lifestyle or committing adultery, watching pornography, being angry, being, you know, lustful, whatever that is.
It's sin and it keeps us from God and it keeps us from living holy lives.
I think the real hero is your husband who's managed to presumably stay married to you up to this point and only convert to Catholicism a week or so ago.
Because I can see you're a woman who can handle an argument and you admitted to the temper and the anger.
So he's done very well to withstand before yielding.
It's funny, I just converted to Catholicism last year.
Oh, I see you confirmed.
Yeah, this is what it's like, huh?
Like, people just come in, like me, like, I became Christian two years ago.
And then, sort of, after that, I'm like, oh, how can everyone not understand that Jesus is actually real?
How can they not get this yet?
And like, it's like, well, remember two years ago, you, oh, yeah, that.
You know, that's all that's, you know, I have a good reference for it.
Hey, Carrie, thank you.
You've really put some complicated things over very, very well and helped me to understand my own faith and my own challenges as well as what seems to be an extraordinarily complex political matter defining geopolitics right now.
Thanks for your bravery.
Thanks for this conversation and thanks for your time today.
Thank you and congratulations on becoming a Christian.
It's better, isn't it?
It's better, isn't it?
We've got somewhere to go now, eternity.
Yes.
Amen.
Stay in touch and let us know if we can do anything for you ever.
You too.
Thank you, Russell.
God bless you.
Thank you, Carrie.
God bless you.
Thank you.
Well, thanks very much for joining us for that conversation.
We will be back next time, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.