Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In this episode of Wake Up Look Up, Pastor Zach examines a controversial New York City decision involving protest buffer zones around schools and places of worship. As debates over free speech, safety, and self-expression continue to grow, this conversation asks a deeper question: What happens when personal expression becomes more important than loving our neighbor?
Have an article you’d like Pastor Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!
Creators and Guests
What is Wake Up, Look Up?
Check out new episodes of our daily podcast, Wake Up, Look Up, with Zach Weihrauch as he interprets what's happening in our world through the lens of the gospel.
Foreign. Hello, everyone, and 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 Weirock, and today's episode, we're asking the question, are protesters more important than kids? This is prompted by an article I read in the Washington Post, Actually an opinion piece by Binyamin Kraus, who leads. He's a rabbi, and he leads SAR Academy in the Bronx, which currently, as one of the five boroughs, is under the leadership of Mayor Zoran Mamdani, who recently. Well, let me set the context. There was a vote in the New York City Council over whether or not to provide a buffer or around places of worship. That was one vote. And schools, that was a second vote for protesters. In other words, not saying you couldn't protest outside a place of worship or outside a school, but you had to be a certain distance away to provide safety for the people who go there. The vote on places of worship won overwhelmingly. I mean, it was. The gap in the yeses and the nos was so great that Mamdani didn't have veto power. So everyone agreed on city council. You shouldn't be able to be super close to a place. People are going to worship and protest in a way that makes them feel unsafe. Uh, and I agree. But the vote on the school was overwhelmingly a yes vote, but the gap wasn't big enough. So Mamdani had veto power, which he used. In other words, Mamdani said, no, you should be able to get very close to a school, but that kids are going into to protest. If you want to, that's your right. In other words, saying the rights of protesters not to protest, but to get very close to the building they're protesting is more important than the feeling or reality of safety for school children and schoolteachers. Now, Kraus is a Jewish rabbi who leads a Jewish school, and he makes the point that there have been 30 instances this year of hate crimes or alleged hate crimes pointing to Jewish people in New York. No other group is even in the double digits. So he's saying, well, hold on a second. For Jewish students, this is a real problem because they're the ones being targeted. And he's saying he can't believe that Mamdani would say the right of a protester to get up to a building is more important than the safety and security of. Of school children. Now Mamdani says, hey, it's a First Amendment issue. You have to protect protest rights. But Kraus rightly points out buffer zones already exist in A number of other contexts, including places of worship in New York City. I think what's really going on here is that in the liberal worldview, the most important thing is self actualization, the feeling that you are able to express yourself. If you're born a man, but you want to be a woman, you should be able to do that. Sleep with who you want, say what you want, do what you want. What matters the most is self expression, even over and against the security of children. Of course, this couldn't be more at odds than the biblical worldview, which says actually what matters most is that you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. You get to yourself. Third complete opposite. Listen. Leviticus 19:5 says, do not pervert justice, do not show partiality. But that's what Mamdani is doing. He is. He is building in a legal code or protecting a legal code that protects his political tribe. Because who is it that would protest outside of a Jewish school? It is the pro Palestinian crowd that wants to blame Jewish school children for what they view as atrocious acts by the nation state of Israel. As though those two are really connected at all. Except for they are connected by ethnicity. Which means when you scream at ah, Jewish kids going into school, you are saying simply by existing as a Jewish person, you are morally culpable of. Of what another country you do not belong to is doing. That's what we're protecting. And by the way, no one's suggesting that you take away the right to protest. Just maybe you make them stand far enough away that little school children can't hear what they're saying. But again, the liberal worldview can't accommodate that because it flies in the face of self expression. I want you to see that the real divide here is not political. It's not about Republicans and Democrats. It's about worldviews. It's about who is at the center of the universe. You or God and others. That is the distinction here. And when elected officials like Mamdani are elected and enabled to advance their worldview, this is the world you get understand that the real battle here is spiritual. It's not political. It's for the heart and soul, the moral conscience of our collective society. Self expression is not the most important thing. Love for God and love for neighbor. And if we were building that into our systems, man, what a better place New York City and our country would be. 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.