Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - How Our Culture Was Transformed [Featuring Dr. George Grant]

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

In this time of profound deception, many within the Church have chosen silence or passive observation—waiting for Jesus' return instead of engaging in the spiritual battle around us. "It's time for us to take our biblical responsibility seriously again and become salt and light in the local communities in which we live," Dr. George Grant told Pastor Allen in this podcast. A pastor and an author of over six dozen books, Dr. Grant offers insight on how our culture descended to this point. He also provides four practical ways believers can bring hope and light into their communities and stand against the onslaught of demonic ideologies.__ It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

Revival is something only the Holy Spirit can do. We can't manufacture it. You know, God bless Finney, but there's no methodology to get there. So what we've got to do is we've got to say, okay, let's renew things and then pray down the Spirit, pray that the next generation will arise and make a real difference. You and I are building for a day that we may never see. That's the truth. That's the truth.

But that is good biblical work. It's worthwhile work. Amen. Welcome to culture and Christianity. Our understanding, our awareness, the reason for this discussion is we believe that our faith has to live outside the walls of a sanctuary. It has to extend beyond worship time on Sunday morning. So we talk about culture and Christianity. and our assignment as Christ followers to be culture builders.

To be clear, it's not about politics. Our faith may have some impact in the political arena, but it's not primarily about choosing candidates or parties. I've been encouraging you for months, years now, to watch, to listen, to think, and to act. And I think that is more important now than it's ever been. We have a new administration in Washington taking up new policies and new ideas,

some of which I celebrate, many of which I celebrate, honestly. But the truth is, if there isn't a corresponding change in the hearts of the people of faith, I don't believe any of the executive orders or the political actions will be sustainable. In fact, I probably carry a bit more anxiety, even apprehension about what's happening, because I think there's a great temptation right now for us to sit down. And imagine we've elected some people and they should go do the battles and fix our problems when in reality the roots of these problems started around our kitchen tables and our

holiday tables and along Main Street in Middle America. And we're going to have to use our voices and come back into the discussion with our biblical worldview, with our biblical values, and stop segmenting and compartmentalizing our lives. And imagine we go to church on Sunday and then live like secularists the rest of the week and enjoy the blessings of God. I'm very grateful for those that are leading right now for President Trump and those people that are working to implement some policies that reflect a more biblical worldview. But it's going to retake a determined voice from the people of faith in flyover country and all those places that people want to overlook to be advocates for the kingdom of God.

If we'll do that, I believe we can see the blessings of God extended to our children and our grandchildren. If not, I'm quite confident they'll see his judgment. It's an exciting time. Not a time to retreat. It's a time to go forward. And I'm very excited about our guests today. He's not new. We've done this before with Dr. Grant.

Dr. George Grant, I'm going to read your bio. It's so lengthy, I couldn't commit it all the memory. You're the author of more than six dozen books. I am an underachiever. On history, politics, theology, social issues, including the best-selling grand illusions, the Micah Mandate, Keystones, make disciples. You're the pastor of parish Presbyterian Church,

the founder of Franklin Classica School, the director of Kings Meadow Study Center, and your podcast, Resistance and Reformation. Our first introduction was really through Seth Gruber. Right, right. And his White Rose Resistance and his work on behalf of the babies. But thank you for coming back to our podcast. Oh, it is my delight.

We always have a great time. And we could talk for forever. We could. We really could. So warning on the front end, this could go a little longer than normal. I guess I want to just start with the obvious. It feels to me, well, neither of us are beginners. So we've lived a bit.

we've seen changes come. And it feels like there's a very intentional assault on a biblical worldview. No doubt. Dismantling that in our culture. I don't think that's hyperbole, is it? Not at all. You know, the devil has no stories. The devil doesn't even have his own playbook.

The only way that the devil can win is to steal from our playbook. So one of the things that's happening right now is that the radical progressives, the secularists, the revolutionaries that are attempting to undermine Western civilization, have taken a page out of the biblical playbook of discipleship and cultural transformation. Essentially, what they've come to realize is that they can't usher in the revolution by mere politics or economics. They have to capture homes and hearts. And so, that's what they have done. They've turned their attention to the culture. And because so many Christians have ignored the culture, they have a huge beachhead that now must be confronted and

dealt with. So the kinds of things that you're doing over and over again every Sunday and with your podcast and your broadcast, that's the kind of thing that it's really going to to take, awakening and alerting people to their responsibilities, their callings, right in their neighborhoods. It's time to make our local areas great again. Not just America great again. If we can't make Murfreesboro, Nashville, Franklin, Poughkeepsie, if we can't make those places great again, we'll never see greatness in our nation again.

Yeah, I think I heard the phrase from a politician that we have to think globally but act locally. Yes, absolutely. And what that means is we've got to actually be involved in the institutions of our local community. We've got to go to city council meetings and school board meetings. We've got to make sure that we show up at Main Street festivals that we're the ones who are exercising our voice of influence and authority in the places that really matter. And it isn't that we just go to those places to protest. No, no.

We want to be present at community functions advocating for our worldview. And volunteering. You know, one of the things that has set America apart from so much of the rest of the world is that the institutions that really make a difference in a time of disaster, when storms rage, when neighbors lose their homes because of tornadoes or fire, We step in as neighbors and we volunteer, we work, we labor side by side together, we create community. That's what makes for a strong, strong nation when local communities are really engaged. But that simply means that we've got to stop, put down our phones, turn off the TV, and actually get to know our neighbors, get to know our legislators.

course. You know, a great thing for an ordinary Christian to do is simply make an appointment, go sit down and have a cup of coffee with your mayor, with your city council person, and talk to them about the things that really matter. It takes 30 minutes of time to sit down and have a cup of coffee and make a difference. It's time for us to take our biblical responsibility seriously again and become salt and light in the local communities in which we live. Because those people will take your call. They want the appointments. They do. They don't just want your letters. They don't want your protests. They want to see you face to face. They'll make time for you and you can bring them. You can bring them books.

You can say, oh, this is a podcast that I listen to. I think you would really like it. That can make a huge difference. Absolutely. Whether I'm reading one of your books or listening to one of your messages or having a conversation, I very much appreciate your understanding of history. I think we are doomed to repeat it if we don't understand it. Marxism has an enormous impact on the world we're watching today. And I think the church, for the most part, is unaware. It is not so much as a political movement, but an ideology that's infected our churches and our world. you. You understand that far more deeply than I do, I'm sure. Can you talk about it a minute? Yeah, you know, Karl Marx was known for his economic theories. He wrote the massive three-volume

Das Kapital, which is almost an unreadable mess. But it's had a huge impact. But the reason that it had a huge impact was not because the economics make sense. They don't. It's not because the economics are appealing. They aren't. It's because lying beneath all of the economics was a great hatred for Christianity and Western civilization. So wise Marxists picked up on that notion. People like Antonio Gramsky, the great Italian Marxist, whose translator was Joseph Boudegedge, Pete Buttigieg's father, professor at Notre Dame. He translated the prison diaries of Antonio Gramsky, and the whole idea behind Gramsci's scheme was to usher in the Marxist revolution,

not by politics, not by economics, not through protests, not through shutting down universities and occupying president's offices. it was through the transformation of culture. When the culture and you have ushered in the revolution. Well, that's the playbook that people from the Frankfurt School, the Bauhaus movement, the National Education Association, and a whole host of other progressives have followed, and it's been a tremendous success.

The remarkable thing is that Gramski was, was simply copying the mandate that Jesus gave his disciples to go out and make disciples and to go to all of the nations of the earth. That vision of cultural transformation Gramsky understood was the only way to change the world. And so he stole a page from our playbook and we've been standing watching

as the progressives have dismantled our great experiment in liberty. You know, for a thousand years or more, the primary influence in the West, at least, for the arts, was Christianity. Right. Our great music, our great art, I mean, and we lost that. We turned it over to a secular culture. We were chatting before, and you mentioned Gramsci's idea about capturing the robes, and you could change a culture.

Right. Can you tell the listeners about that? it's worth them. Yeah, he called his whole vision the strategy of the robes. And what he meant by that was if you can capture the robes of the judiciary, the robes of academia, the robes of science, the robes of the clergy, you will have won the entire civilization over. So almost immediately, the strategists from the Frankfurt School and from the Gramsci and Marxists, they began to concentrate

on winning over judges and professors and people in the sciences win them over to this radical progressive anti-Christian worldview in the hopes that once they gained power they would slowly seed the ideas of the revolution.

So, you know, I know that in our church, one of the things that I hear constantly is, how did things change so fast? And my honest answer regularly is they haven't changed fast. That's true. This has been a long, slow progression. It's been in the works for a very long time. Look at the agenda that Woodrow Wilson put into place just prior and just after World War I. Look at the five peace treaties that redrew the map of the world after World War I.

Look at the strategy that the Marxists had between the world wars. And you start to realize everything that we're seeing right now was well planned and well prepared for long ago. So if it's taken decades for this cultural shift to take place, it's probably going to take more than a week to reverse it. You know, we live with this kind of fanciful notion of a revival week. Right. And the whole community is going to be transformed. I think history would suggest something different from that. No doubt.

You know, it's been sort of amusing to watch and follow conservative media talking about the Trump administration and the vibe. shift that seems to have occurred all across the nation. Well, vibe shifts are good, but that's not the transformation of a culture. That's a mood, and moods change quickly. In order to bring about real and substantial change, in order to change institutions, it's going to take more than Elon Musk, defunding a few programs. It's going to take more than Christy Noem export. back to their home countries, a few terrorists.

It's going to take the transformation of our hearts and minds right in our local communities. It's gonna take local churches and pastors with courage to speak the truth in love and to proclaim the good news of the gospel that changes everything. Absolutely. And the attitude in that, I think is one,

resistance is an important word. We have to recognize there's an ungodly attitude that has really become invasive. Right. And we don't have to be angry or belligerent, and we certainly don't have to be violent, but we have to resist that ungodly set of values that has really crept into almost every aspect of our lives.

Yeah, you know, the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 12, after this soaring study of justification by faith and by faith alone, He comes to the end of chapter 11, and he goes into this sort of anthem of praise. And at the end of the anthem of praise, he says, in light of all of that, I urge you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as living and holy sacrifices, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And then he talks about resistance and reformation. He says, do not be condemned.

informed to this world. Resistance. But be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may be able to prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. That's reformation. Resistance and reformation. It takes both. And what we've got to realize is that it requires a great deal of courage.

And it requires a great deal of hard work to implement either one. Well, I know you travel a good bit and work with the church in our nation and beyond. What do you see as evidence that there is an awakening, some transformation taking place? Well, one of the things that I am most encouraged by is a new generation of young men and women who are really taking a bold stand. You and I both know Seth Gruber, a dear, dear brother, who is really shaking up the entire pro-life world, which has slumbered for the last four decades. It's needed an awakening, and it's receiving it. Likewise, I am so grateful for people in the United States Congress and the United States Senate,

people like Josh Hawley, who are standing up for biblical values, and virtue, and then creating policies to make it possible for local churches, local communities, local pastors to actually make a real and substantial difference on their hospital boards, in their school boards, in city council meetings. That's where the real change is going to take place. I'm seeing real renewal in local churches. I hesitate to call it revival. because revival is something only the Holy Spirit can do.

We can't manufacture it. You know, God bless Finney, but there's no methodology to get there. So what we've got to do is we've got to say, okay, let's renew things and then pray down the spirit, pray that the next generation will arise and make a real difference. You and I are building for a day that we may never see. That's the truth. That's the truth. But that is good biblical work.

It's worthwhile work. Amen. Hey, I've written the new book, Angels, Demons, and You. I believe, I believe in angels, I believe in demons, and I believe they impact you and me. We better have a plan for that. You know, I meet Christians all the time. He says, well, I just don't believe in that, pastor. I don't like to talk about that.

That's a novel approach. I like to eat chocolate. Suppose I said, I just don't believe chocolate will make you fat. I don't believe that. It wouldn't make me thin. Denying the truth of Scripture will not make us safer, happier, are our lives more fruitful? We need to take counsel from the Word of God so we can live victorious lives. Angels and demons are real.

The demons oppose the purposes of God for you. The angels will help with the purposes of God for you. We need a plan for how we can engage in a meaningful life. engage in a meaningful way. This book is taken from scripture intended to help you flourish in your journey through time. You can get a copy at allanjaxon.com slash warfare. You know, I love your observation because sometimes I lament that some of the pulpits are silent. But there's this remarkable generation of young people who are using their voices and technology and new ways to communicate and having an enormous impact. Seth Gruber, Ali B. Stucky, John A. R. A. B. Stucke, John

and Chuku. I mean, it's a remarkable list. All of those are dear friends, and they are making a difference. And they're young and visionary and so gifted by the Lord for just such a time as this. I feel like in some ways you and I are Mordecais looking out at the esters coming along and saying, you go, girl. Absolutely. But I want to distill it down one more layer. It isn't just the pulpits and these voices of influencers.

it seems to me that for the awakening to truly become transformational, everybody listening has an arena of influence, a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. Amen. And you have to take your voice into that arena and stand against cultural relativism and say, my biblical worldview has a place here. You don't have to demand that everybody honor it.

But you do have to come in and say, it will be respected. Because I feel like we have retreated for decades. If someone said they were offended, then we just quietly withdrew. And don't we have to reverse that pattern and come back into whatever arena, whether it's health care or education or the legal community

or the construction job site? It doesn't matter to me. Jesus has a right to be there. And each of us has that influence, but that's going to take courage beyond Sunday morning. That's right. You know, this last year I had an opportunity to sit down and spend some time

with Dr. Ben Carson, one of the great heroes of our day. And he made this comment. He said, I know how cultures can be transformed. All I have to do is look at my mama. And he tells the story of his single mother, who worked three jobs and raised two boys, constantly pushing them to achieve, constantly making them achieve good grades in school, he did not know until he was a young teenager that his mother couldn't even read. But she was constantly pushing her sons, working her fingers to the bone,

sacrificing constantly, pouring into them, a biblical worldview. And he says, that's what it takes. It takes those kinds of mamas who will actually live out their faith and believe, for something that is so far beyond their own capacity to achieve, that only God can do it. Well, I hear this theme in you of leading a life that sees beyond ourselves. Amen. That it's more than just what I'm going to wrap my hands around. Covenantal succession. That's our job.

My job as a pastor has always been to work myself out of a job. My job as a pastor is to make sure that it's the guy. that come along behind me that will then eventually pass me up. I want them to stand on my shoulders so that they can see further than I've ever been able to see. I want them to reach higher than I could have ever reached. I want them to achieve things that I could have never done. And the only way that I can do that is to pour into them unselfishly, stop grasping for my place and my authority and just equip, equip, send. So it's Joshua,

taking the former slaves of Egypt into the promised land. Amen. Or David, in the cave of Adullum, you know, working with the tired, the poor, the indebted, the embittered, and he turns them into giant killers. That's our job. I want to take it a slightly different direction, but not particularly. And I don't want to get really into eschatology, but I think there's an idea that flourishes that because things are difficult, it must be the end of the age. Right. It has to be

Christ returned. And I'm an advocate for that. I hope it's this afternoon. I'm all good. Amen. Having said that, the history of the church and biblical history is filled with this ebb and flow. It's not just an exponential line climbing from paganism to godliness. And I think when we see that battle in the midst of a culture, it's too easy just to default to Jesus is coming. Right. And if you adopt that in its extreme, you abandon your assignment to really influence culture. You know, we just need a cave and a good enough supply of food. Right.

We'll wait for the trumpet. You know, it's really interesting. Whenever Jesus talked about eschatology with his disciples, he always used it as motivation. He always used it to remind them of their responsibilities. Eschatology does matter. It matters in terms of the way we look at our world. But it should never be a reason for us to sit back and relax. It should never be anything more than what Jesus intended,

which is motivation to do our job, to be faithful until he comes. Absolutely, and that's a daily process. It is a daily process. It's an hourly process sometimes. It's believing the promises of the gospel, believing that our labors actually matter, that God can use those. However minuscule our gifts may be, he uses those gifts for his purposes and his glory, and he doesn't waste a bit of it.

So as long as we trust him for that, walk in that, and do what we are called to do, be what we are called to be, we will see the fruit that the Holy Spirit will bring. You know, I'm always a bit bemused. There's an overwhelming desire. I spent most of my adult life in the church world. There's this overwhelming desire to learn. If we'll post a new seminar, there'll be a new line. Right. But I read years ago that the opinion that we could achieve heaven if our systematic theology was imperfect. But it was, was improbable we would do so if we didn't have courage. Amen. And if I reflect on what you are saying, it really seems to me about the courage to live out our faith and not simply retreat into

academia. I'm always tempted to do that, but it's the point of the spear is where my faith engages with the world we live in. And that includes eschatology and history. Yeah, we've got to live as if people matter. You better say that. again. We need to live as if people matter. Well, I can speak to the church world. Pastures want to hide in their green room. Right. Or avoid all the interfaces, you know, as soon as I can get enough staff, I don't have to talk to the people anymore. It's, we've got the wrong imagination. Right. We're called to live in the midst of people. You know, on Sunday mornings, before the service starts, I just wander around with, with the people. I just, and oftentimes

somebody will come up to me and they'll say, I know I shouldn't talk to you about this right now right before you're about to preach, but, and I always stop them and I say, why do you think I'm here? I'm here because of this. You know, if this is going to stop me from preaching or throw me off, then I've not done my homework in the first place. No, I'm here because I want to live as if people matter. And then those people whom we serve go out into the community, and they live in midst of the people as salt and light. We need both sides of that equation. Absolutely. It's not just that you're available for a cup of coffee anytime somebody wants one.

No. But they take that opportunity to learn together than to go live it out in the places God has given them an assignment. Absolutely. And part of our charge is to constantly remind our people that that, that, is their job. Out there in the work-a-day world, that is the mission field. Right there in their family, around the dinner table, that is the mission field. So go to work, do your job, walk in Jesus, trust in his grace, believe in his mercy, and rejoice in his love. I like it a lot. Well, there's a lot of things happening in the world, a lot of turmoil, a lot of

confusion, a lot of fear. What are the most hopeful things you see? Among the most hopeful things that I have seen is that after COVID, bad churches died, great churches grew. That's hopeful. Another thing that I have seen, since COVID, people have rediscovered dinner time, families gathering around the table together. Since COVID, we've seen new interest in things like literally baseball. You know, dads and moms out there with their kids, screaming and yelling and cheering and crying together, that kind of thing is what makes for great communities, great hope. I believe that we needed the radical reset that COVID brought. We can talk all day about the bad policies and the crazy lockdowns and all of the economic damage. And, and the, and the

economic damage and even academic damage that it did to so many of our youngsters. But the truth is, is that we needed that old normal to die. And we need to build a new normal that's built around the things that matter most, those enduring things, those permanent things, that truly make life flourish and flower. I agree completely. I think God was in the midst of COVID. I mean, I know hundreds of thousands of people died, and I understand the horrors of it,

but I've used the biblical language of a shaking. Amen. And it seemed to begin to start to make things more visible. Right. Things that were true were more visible and those that were false crumbled. Yeah. I think October 7th, the Hamas attack,

to me, was another episode of shaking. It was a wake a call for all of us. Absolutely. It exposed the anti-Semitism that I would not have imagined existed to the depth that did. I was astonished, and yet I shouldn't have been. because this is an age-old issue, but it has awakened and alerted the church in a way that I haven't seen it since the 70s.

It's the best evidence I see today that God is moving in these dramatic ways. And it's incremental. They're like when there's an earthquake and there's the aftershocks. I think the election last November was another expression of shaking. I mean, it left things in disarray.

and we're trying to build a new future. And I think we have to stay nimble enough to learn and grow and have enough humility to change. We always like to wrap these sessions up with what can we do. So I'm going to expand your parish for just a minute and ask you to provide a little pastoral counsel to all those people listening today. It's easy to be frightened or uncertain.

The markets this week are a little crazy. A lot of things going on. Up 3,000 points yesterday. had down 3,000 points the day before. Buckle up, buttercup, we're in for a ride. So what is your best invitation to the people listening and what we can do? Number one, open the word of God,

spend time in God's word, hear from God. Number two, get on your knees and cry out to the Lord of all mercy to do a work in our day. Number three, love your spouse, love your children, cherish them like never before. I just came from doing a funeral in Texas, a couple that had been married for 69 years. And watching this couple, this is my wife's aunt and uncle, watching them walk faithfully all those years, And knowing that in their 90s, their days were numbered, and the shock at the loss of Karen's uncle caused me afresh to realize how precious every moment is with those that we love.

And then next, get involved. Get engaged in your local church. Get engaged in your local community. Go to work. Roll up your sleeves. Make a difference. Use your gifts. If you know how to make things, fix things, find widows and orphans who need your help. If you know how to solve financial problems, sit down with a single mom and help her with her finances. Show her the pathway to financial freedom. Just serve. I love it. You've got a new book. I mean, it's literally hot off the press. The ink is still wet.

The untold story of Christopher Columbus, the last crusader. Where can people find it? They can find it pretty much anywhere. Should be in bookstores, Amazon, books a million, Barnes & Noble. I'm assuming you're not of the opinion that our histories should be forgotten and destroyed. No, statues should not be torn down, heroes should not be erased, and history should not be forgotten. When we remember, we begin the process of building for the future. We can't know where we're supposed to go until we understand from whence we have come.

Dr. George Grant, thank you for your voice, your effort, and your faithfulness in serving our Lord. Well, likewise, thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for being a stalwart of the faith. It's an honor to stand with you. Culture and Christianity, not optional, folks. We want to leave our children something more than an economic reminder of who we are. We want to leave them a living, vital expression of faith. That's the best gift we can give them, and it's the most important assignment we have with our lives.

Thank you for spending a few minutes with us today. Live your faith out. It'll change our world. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.