BlazeTV’s Allie Beth Stuckey recently debated progressive commentator and former evangelical Monte Mader on Jubilee’s “Face Off” series. Their hour-long discussion focused primarily on four claims — two from each participant.Allie’s were “Christians must oppose abortion” and “Christians cannot affirm same-sex marriage,” while Mader’s were “America is not and will never be a Christian nation” and “Patriarchy, not feminism, is at odds with Christ’s ministry and teaching.”Allie defended biblical Christian positions on all four claims, and Mader critiqued them from her deconstructed progressive worldview.On a recent episode of “Relatable,” Allie reflected on the debate and shared with her audience advice and tips for handling high-pressure exchanges as a Christian. Tip #1: Back to brass tacksGiven the format of this particular “Jubilee” debate — time allotments for speaking, a shared clock, and a strict no interruptions rule — Allie acknowledges the difficulty of formulating responses to her opponent’s “monologue.”“They make too many claims in a matter of say five minutes that they’re talking. You’ve got to pick and choose what claims you are going to respond to,” she explains.Her strategy in this scenario was to always get back to the “brass tacks” of the central claim.While typical back-and-forth conversations aren’t limited by a ticking clock and allow for interjections and clarifying questions, honing in on an opponent’s core points instead of getting sidetracked on tangents remains an excellent debate strategy.“That’s what I encourage you to do as well because it’s really easy when someone is spouting a lot of information that might seem factual because they’re very confident to kind of follow them down that trail, but that’s called a red herring,” says Allie. “That is making an argument that is actually totally unrelated and irrelevant to the logic and the substance of the main claim. It’s your job to get back to the main claim.”Tip #2: Watch out for the ‘Gish gallop’A Gish gallop, Allie explains, is a tactic where someone tries to “overwhelm” their opponent with a high volume of “rapid fire” claims.The goal is to create a situation where the opponent is literally unable to respond to every claim presented.“If you tried to go through each claim one by one, you would end up going down the trail of a red herring of something that actually doesn’t have to do with the main point at all,” says Allie, “or you end up having this tangential conversation, and then you go off the reservation and you lose the spirit of what the debate is supposed to be about.”But once spotted, a Gish gallop is simple to dodge.“Your job is not to meet them by responding to every argument or talking just as quickly. Your response has to be ‘slow down,’” says Allie.“You could even say that out loud — ‘Slow down. Hang on a second. I want to go back to the claim. I want to go back to what you originally said, and let me get down to what this actually means,”’ she advises. 3. Kindness and compassion ≠ compromiseThe reason Allie says she agrees to do “Jubilee” or other kinds of debates is not to change the minds of her opponents or even their audiences.“My debate is for you,” she says.Allie shares that since the debate with Mader, some people from the “exvangelical’s” audience have sent her vile messages wishing for her and her unborn child’s deaths. But their callousness doesn’t discourage her because the debate was never for them in the first place.“Me going into these situations to go back and forth with these ideas is to hopefully, by the grace of God, exemplify how you can respond with kindness, with respect, with peace, without compromising at all in what is good, right, and true,” she says.“A lot of people, especially Christians, think that in order to love someone, you have to nuance your positions; you have to compromise a little bit; you have to give in in just a few areas in order to relate to someone. You don’t have to do that,” she declares.To hear more of Allie’s debate breakdown, check out the episode above.Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
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