Oy Vey Maria! Why the “gods” of Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh can’t end abortion.

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Oy Vey Maria! Why the “gods” of Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh can’t end abortion.

My brother and Gospel Spam co-contributor Jon Speed alerted me to a 5 minute video clip of Daily Wire editor Ben Shapiro’s recent interview with Matt Walsh, Daily Wire employee and contributor, citing a contradiction that he urged me to deal with. Not even a minute into the video I could see what Jon was talking about. Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew had asked Walsh, a Roman Catholic, how he separates religion and politics when making arguments in his writings.

Walsh admitted to struggling in that area but went on to say: “I do know that when it comes to these great moral issues in our society like abortion, marriage, gender, we have to be able to engage on those issues without throwing the Bible at people, especially if we are talking to people who don’t believe in the Bible.” His rationale for not going the Biblical route? “Well then just you put an extra step in your way which is; first you have to get them to believe the Bible.”

Imagine if someone were to attack Matt and his family, and Matt pointed a gun at the attacker. Now imagine that the attacker shouted: “I don’t believe in your gun!” Does anyone think that Matt would worry about the “extra step” of getting the attacker to believe that his gun was real? Would Matt throw down his weapon based on the objection of his attacker? Of course not! Yet that is exactly what Mr. Walsh says he would do when arguing with a person who didn’t believe the Bible; He would discard his authority!

Surely Ben wouldn’t let Matt get away with such a ludicrous position? Well, of course he would, and does. Why? Because Ben holds the exact same position.

On Feb 6, 2017 in the Q&A session after his talk at Ferris State University, Mr. Shapiro stated: “I never cite to the Bible. The reason I don’t cite to the Bible is because that’s an argument from authority. Okay, you may not believe the authority to which I’m citing.”

This is a terrible understanding of the argument from authority fallacy. An argument from authority is only fallacious if the authority you are citing is NOT an actual authority.

If Matt and Ben were working on a car and they ran into some problem they could not solve, I’m pretty sure that if Matt cited the service manual for the solution, Ben would not deem doing so to be fallacious.

Now, Ben is one of the, if not the, quickest person on his feet that I have ever seen. One might think that the question caught him off guard, except for the fact that the clip was featured on their YouTube channel with the thumbnail heading: “Against The Argument From Authority.”

Further evidence that this was not a mistake made in haste was his repetition of the argument in the Q&A session after his talk at the University of Connecticut on Jan 24, 2018 where he stated: “This is one of the reasons, even though I’m an Orthodox Jew that I never cite the Bible in defense of my position because I know that a lot of people don’t believe in the Bible so we can’t have a conversation on common ground here.”

And again on the Jacob Ropp podcast on Feb 20, 2018 where he stated: “Every argument that I make I believe has to have a secular rationale.” The reason? “They don’t share the same basis of authority that I do.”

If not the Bible where are we supposed to go to ground our arguments against the likes of abortion and transgenderism? According to Matt Walsh we go to “natural laws” and “fundamental moral truths” and also “logic and reason.”

The problem is that the notion of abstract reason doesn’t exist in this universe. If you’re a scientific materialist as so many of the atheist community purport to be, then all reasoning is, is just the firing of neurons in a particular order. Well what makes certain firing of neurons better than other firing of neurons?

It is at times like this that I wish I had enough notoriety to be able to have an audience with Matt Walsh or Ben Shapiro and explain that very basic concept to them. Problem is, I don’t have to, that quote was from Ben Shapiro himself from his talk at Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church & School on Oct 9, 2018.

Matt states that he always cringes when the topic of transgenderism comes up and he hears a Christian quote Genesis: “Male and female He created them.” He says that while this is true, “You don’t need to bring Genesis into this” and “You should be able to explain that (the basic logical distinction between male and female) without quoting Genesis.”

Well, as Ben knows, you can’t even get logic and reason without God. But even so, if rationality is arbitrary why should anyone comport to the other person’s arbitrary rationality?

That takes you pretty quickly to: “Okay, whose rationality?” “Well my rationality, not your rationality, you’re just wrong.”

Yup, Ben again:

Ben and Matt both suggest abandoning the absolute authority of Scripture and appeal to the authority of the person they are engaging. Without God though, where does that person get their authority?

See the thing is that a lot of these secular humanists, who believe in individual human value, they’re still living off the fumes of Judeo-Christian religion, they just refuse to recognize it.

You guessed it:

Ben and Matt both abandon Biblical authority in favour of logic and reason while at the same time coming from the position that the God of the Bible is necessary for logic and reason.

I was quite happy to tackle this glaring contradiction for my brother Jon that came up in the first 2 minutes of that video clip. Then I watched the rest of the clip.  That isn’t even the contradiction that Jon was referring to. I didn’t think it could get worse. It did.

Ben then lamented the fall of religious leadership and the fact that churches and synagogues are emptying out. He said: “Too many religious leaders have decided to give sort of rote general statements about the Bible rather than some of the hard-nosed truths about the Bible. What do you think the religious community is doing wrong? What can we do better?”

Matt condenses his response by saying: “Churches and church leadership, they’re trying too much to look like secular society, and they’re thinking that’s the way to bring people in”

These men state that the problem with the church today is that we avoid “hard-nosed truths about the Bible” and “we’re trying too much to look like secular society,” when they both just advocated for arguments that avoid hard-nosed Biblical truths and try too much to look like society!!!

Now Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh are not stupid men. The fact that they do not see their absurdity is troubling. Even more troubling is the high percentage of positive comments under the video clip. This is what happens when you give up the God of the Bible as both Matt and Ben have done. Not only in their argumentation, but in the worldviews they hold. The reason the “gods” of Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro can’t end abortion is because their “gods” don’t exist. Jews lower God to a being that can be appeased without the blood sacrifice He demands (Leviticus 17:11), and Roman Catholics elevate Mary to be equal with God when they put her to on par with the Sacrifice that God offered once for all (Hebrews 10:10). We read in 1 Timothy 2:5 that Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and man, but the Roman Catholic Church in their Catechism (CCC969) elevate Mary to the position of “Mediatrix.”

The 5 minute video clip of Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro is only part of an almost hour long interview. Foolishly I watched the rest. This article is already too long to get into the myriad of problems that exposed the non-existence of the “gods” these men espouse. You can watch it here, and if it doesn’t max out your discerno-meter – examine yourself.

I know this article will be viewed as an attack on non-Christians. I know this because I have seen how my brothers have been attacked for advocating for a gospel centered attack in the fight for the unborn.

I don’t write this to attack these men. I love Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh. I love them in that I want the best for them. The best for them is that they repent and put their trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation.

As I said, the article is not meant to attack anyone, I just hope and pray that it shakes some Christians out of the slumber of advocating for men and methodologies in their fight for the unborn that are contrary to God at their core.

Please pray for Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro. Know that they need Jesus. Also know that except for the grace of God, they are you and I. Please also pray for revival. As Jon stated in his last article “Without a commitment to the true gospel and to the true and living God, these babies have no hope.

Sye Ten Bruggencate
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