Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch and in today's episode we're asking the question, should we feel bad for Jimmy Kimmel? Now this is prompted by an article I read in the Atlantic this week and really by the media firestorm that has been set off, uh, through the actions of Jimmy Kimmel and then of Disney, his parent company. If you haven't been paying attention, here's what happened. In response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Jimmy Kimmel on his late night show alleged that the killer of Charlie Kirk was himself a, uh, conservative. He basically blamed the MAGA movement for now turning on its own people. That is a claim that has been proven false. It's also, uh, pretty inarguably a cold and insensitive comment in the immediate aftermath of a very public assassination and murder. Uh, it was a way of turning something so quickly political that at its core probably should have been moral or at least decent in the moment. As a response to that, the FCC chair of Brendan Carr, working for the Trump administration a threatened ABC's parent company Disney and that they would be facing some sanctions and some regulations because of what Kimmel said. In response to that, Disney and Another company called NextStar, that gets convoluted, you can read about it, actually decided to indefinitely suspend Jimmy Kimmel. In other words, to take him off the air, even potentially to fire him because of his comments. Now that kick started a whole nother storm about free speech and the role of government in telling comedians or uh, media personalities what they can and can't say. Now, uh, Disney has since reinstated Jimmy Kimmel, but the question is still out there. How should we think about free speech? How should we think about government involvement and even about moral responsibility? What does the Bible have to say? Well, it's a little nuanced as it usually is. Uh, let's just start with this. Uh, the government can never be in position of ruling over our conscience. In other words, the government is not the arbiter of what's moral or immoral. That is God. In Uh, Romans 14:4, Paul says, who are you to judge another servant? What he's saying is we all ultimately answer to God. God is the determiner of right and wrong. And when the government is agreeing with God and disciplining or punishing people for doing what God has said wrong, then it exercises its God given authority. But if it oversteps, if it steps into what God has Not said is wrong or even is telling God and us what is wrong. It is overstepping. And when the government starts criminalizing thought or criminalizing speech, it is exceeding the boundaries that God has given it. And the reason why this matters, as evangelical Christians, should be pretty obvious. A core tenet of our faith is that we talk to other people about Jesus. Romans 10 says, how will they believe if they've never heard Acts? The whole book of Acts is about the proclamation of the gospel to the world and even the opposition that they would face in the form of government. So that in Acts 5:29, you have the apostles saying, uh, we must obey God rather than men because they had been beaten and threatened with prison for preaching the gospel. If the government can regulate speech, then over time, that is gonna mean they can tell us whether we're allowed to talk about our faith, whether we're allowed to share our faith, and we'll do it even if they criminalize it. But we shouldn't want them to criminalize it. Free speech for one person means free speech for all. Free speech not for one person eventually means limited speech for all. And as people who believe the gospel moves forward on preaching, free speech has to matter to us. Now, let me say this. I think there's an argument to be made here, however, that we're not actually talking about free speech. The government wasn't threatening to throw Jimmy Kimmel into prison to criminalize his behavior. Uh, instead, Disney as a company was weighing whether they wanted to deal with the Trump administration or simply move off of Jimmy Kimmel. And there's a larger conversation here, I think, about moral accountability. Because one of the things the Bible does make clear is each of us are accountable for our words. Proverbs 18:21 says that death and life are in the power of the tongue, meaning, uh, we all can cause damage with the things we say, and we should expect to be held accountable. In fact, Jesus says in Matthew 12:36 that each one of us will give an account to God for every careless word we say. And that should terrify us all. Look, the Bible tells us two things are true. The government cannot tell us what to think, should not tell us what to say, and at the same time, we are accountable for what we say. So in this conversation about free speech, as Christians, we have to be careful. Is this a free speech issue? Then we should support the right of people to say what is on their minds because the gospel proclamation demands it. But is this actually just a case of someone being held accountable and responsible for the thoughtless, careless, harmful things they said. Well, when that happens, none of us should be surprised and none of us should go pleading to God as though we are the victim. The Bible tells us we are responsible for the things that we say. Again, here's another example of rejecting the polarization, the tribalism of our culture, running to free speech on one side or accountability on the other and say, hey, as Christians, as I always say, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Freedom of speech is a God given right, but moral accountability for the things we say is a God given promise. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

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