Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - The Christian Blueprint for Saving a Nation [Featuring Nick Freitas]

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

What kind of Christian does this moment require? Pastor Allen Jackson sits down with retired Green Beret and former Virginia legislator Nick Freitas for a conversation about the character, courage, and conviction needed to follow Christ in today's culture. They discuss biblical manhood and womanhood, raising strong children, America's Christian foundation, engaging the public square, and why believers were never meant to retreat. If you want to stand firm in your faith while helping shape the next generation, this episode is for you.

I'm not here to defend the West. I'm here to defend Christendom. Once you understand that Western civilization is things like tradition in classical liberalism and representative government sitting upon a Christian moral framework. Then all of a sudden you can understand, gosh, why is it that other parts of the world don't want to embrace these sorts of cultural and political institutions?

It's because they're built upon a completely different moral framework. The American lie is that the most important thing is being able to do what you want. And I would say that that's a perverse version of the the American dream. Will I fight for freedom? Absolutely. The freedom to do what? The freedom to do whatever I want or the freedom to actually go out and pursue what God has for me. Well, welcome to culture and Christianity. I'm excited today. I get to introduce you to a new friend of mine. In fact, we're going to get acquainted together with cameras rolling. But Nick Freitas, welcome to culture and

Christianity. Oh, thank you very much for having me. For those that don't know my guest, he's a veteran. We'll talk more about that. U.S. Army Special Forces Green Beret, impressive credentials served in the legislature in Virginia. So you've been in the political arena, the military, podcasting world. You are a tough guy.

Politics is like war, but without any honor. That'll work. And just so I don't get busy and forget, you've got a new book. It's called The Man Book. What's it about? So I basically talk about a lot of things. things I've kind of learned as being a man, a husband, a father, a soldier, an elected office.

And I didn't design it to be like, here's a 10-step guide to being the best man. It was more of these are just things I've learned, oftentimes the hard way about being a man and stuff where if I had to do it all over again, these are the sort of things I'd want to know. You looked at all your buddies and made a book about what not to do based on their lives. No, no, no. Did you tell their names? That's what I want to know.

No. I'm generally praising the people that I thought were good. good influence. There is one guy in there who I don't name, but his story or his advice that he gave to me about raising daughters, I found to be very, very helpful, very useful. All right. Yeah. Well, after 9-11, you joined the Army Special Forces, Green Beret? Yeah. So I'd actually enlisted in the Army right out of high school in 1998, and I thought I was going to get out. I I had been in the 82nd Airborne Division, which was a great unit, but I didn't have a great deal of love for the peacetime army. A lot of running around, a lot of painting rocks when I thought I was going to be doing other things.

And I remember I was going to get out of my wife, who's the sensible one in the marriage, was like, well, we really haven't saved any money because you're a private. So there was no money to save. She goes, what if, she was, what would happen if we were enlisted? I said, well, if we reenlist, you know, your first one, you can kind of go anywhere you want. I said, you want to go to Italy or Hawaii? She said, I'm going to go to Hawaii. So re-enlisted, got to Hawaii, and about four months later, 9-11 happened. And I looked at her and I said, well, I know what I'm doing now.

And ended up volunteering for special forces after I saw the operations they were conducting in the early days in Afghanistan. And, again, had the privilege of serving in First Special Forces Group. Did a couple tours over in Iraq. But, yeah. Well, with that background in the Middle East, we got to stop for just a minute and talk about what's happening now with Iran. How do you do you do? I mean, I know Trump is the ultimate dealmaker. Yeah.

But making a deal with the knuckleheads in Iran? Yeah. They don't intend to keep their word, do they? No. No, they don't, they, in fact, they're, in some ways you could say that they're morally obligated not to. Here's the problem. There's a lot of people, there's a lot of people that have critiques of what Trump has done

in Iran that I think are perfectly legitimate. I actually think Matt Walsh did a good job of saying, look, I've supported Trump's foreign policy, but I don't see. the cost-benefit analysis adding up in this one. What I had hoped early on was that there was some sort of intel that suggested that there was a significant armed element within Iran that was willing to rise up against the government, perhaps members of their army. And again, you need to distinguish between their army and the IRGC, which is the Islamic

Revolutionary Guard Corps. That's their enforcers, their version of the Gestapo. Which terrify the people, which abuse the people. Oh, yeah. But are happy to murder the people if they don't fall in. in accordance with the Ayatollah. And so that is not materialized. And so the question now that you have to ask

is from a practical standpoint, regardless of we will, I would like for the Ayatollah to fall, I would like for a pro-Western government to establish itself in Iran. Having fought in Iraq and having a lot of friends that fought in Afghanistan, I realize that that's not easy to, that's not easily to manifest in that part of the world. And so the only way that you're gonna be successful

for a long-term regime change strategy over there is if it's organic. And the question is, do they possess the current capabilities in order to facilitate such a regime change. It doesn't appear likely in the next several months. And so now going into midterms and gas prices being high and everything else, I'll put it this way.

I trust Trump, probably more than any other president in my lifetime, to be able to negotiate and negotiate well. But the idea that we're going to get successful regime change, I just don't think is in the cards right now. And if we lose really, really badly in the midterms, it won't matter because they'll control the budget and they can shut it off regardless of what the deal looks like. So I think this is one of those times where there's what I would like to see happen. And by the way, I don't want U.S.-led nation building and regime change. I want it to be organically led and U.S. supported, assisted,

sure. I think we learned that lesson. Yeah. We've seen enough purple fingers after they voted. We've arrogantly assumed that everybody wants to be Westerners. And what's fascinating is we don't even properly, we can't even properly explain what that means anymore in part because we have too many people trying to explain it separate from Christianity. And I don't think that's, I don't think that's possible. There is no Western civilization, as we have known it, apart from Christianity. No, I was just at the art conference, which is the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. This was started in a large part by Jordan Peterson and other people. And when I got up, I said, I'm not here to defend the West. I'm here to defend Christendom. And there's a lot of people that

like that. I'm sure there's some people that were a little bit uncomfortable with it. But once you understand that Western civilization is things like tradition and classical liberalism and representative government and property rights and capitalism sitting upon a Christian moral framework, it doesn't sit there in midair. Okay. Then all of a sudden you can understand, gosh, why is it that other parts of the world don't want to embrace these sorts of cultural and political institutions? It's because they're built upon a completely different moral framework. So I'm not supportive of us trying to, you know, through the force of arms, convert everyone to what we want.

By the same token, Iran is a threat to the United States. The people that claim that, oh, this is just Israel or this is just oil, that, no, Iran is absolutely a threat to the United States. They have an ill intent toward the United States. And there will be times where we have to deal with that through force of arms. But when it comes to achieving long-term regional stability, that's going to be a much larger effort. that's going to take something very different. And what it should not take is massive deployment of U.S. ground forces in order to achieve regime change. Yeah, I agree.

I agree. If we can keep the straits open, find a way to get petroleum flowing, keep Iran from intimidating the civilized world. The biggest question that we have right now is, is it possible? So far it has not proved possible. Is it possible to somehow maintain, to open the straits and maintain control of the straits without the deployment of a significant U.S. ground contingent. And the answer so far has been no.

And that's where things get really, really tricky. Because once you deploy it over there, okay, does that now achieve success? And how many casualties are you willing to take in order to do it? And so those are all the unknowns at this particular point that I don't think are going to be solved before the mentors. What about with the agreement we've signed now with Lebanon? Is that giving the Israelis the green light to go in and do something about Hezbollah?

Is Iran weakened enough that they can't support them? Because Hezbollah is an adjutant. If we leave them right there on that border, they're going to be a pain in the... There's no question. A combination of Iranians supported Hezbollah and Palestinian refugees that went into Lebanon, destabilized that government

and then use it as a base of operations against Israel, as well as a base of operations against other governments as well. I don't know. That's the... I try not to give... I try not to be too confident about things in the Middle East because history and personal involvement has taught me that it's none of it's ever as clear. So the thing that we're going to have to, the thing that we're

I have to understand is that, one, U.S. foreign policy and Israeli foreign policy, I think, oftentimes overlap and have similar objectives. There are certain times that they don't necessarily, and in those cases, we have to go with what is important, what is best for U.S. foreign policy. Well, two sovereign countries. We're not always going to be fully aligned. Exactly. But Israel, I also recognize Israel has a right to protect itself. And if Hezbollah was doing to the United States, what Hezbollah is doing to Israel, we would be taking names and doing a lot of other things that included a lot of violence. But we're just going to have to understand that this is going to be a difficult, this is generational issues that we're fighting here. We're talking about conflicts that are as old as Abraham. So the idea that we're going to arrogantly fix all. of these with air power or whatever else, I think is a little bit naive. I agree. You don't win wars from the air, ultimately.

It's an important component. One of the reasons why you're seeing, you know, if you look at the war in Ukraine, it's fascinating because Ukraine was the side of the largest tank battles in World War II. And now it looks like World War I trench warfare. Well, why is that? Well, technology has changed. But it also has to do with neither side being able to achieve air-superview. superiority. And if you don't have air superiority, your tanks are a lot more vulnerable. But then

also with the evolution of drone technology, well, now if I can blow up your $20 million tank with my $500 drone, the cost-benefit analysis doesn't add, maybe not $500,000. They seem to have gotten that drone thing worked out. Yeah. You know, this podcast is made possible because of sponsors. And one of our sponsors is preserve gold, and I appreciate their partnership with us, and I pray it's a blessing to you. You know, one of the things that I hear most often right now is this, that people are doing their best plan for the future, but they're not sure what to trust anymore. You know, the headlines, they change every day, and the economy, it feels pretty unpredictable. And that uncertainty, it's unsettling to all of us. But as people of faith, we're not called to live in

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This administration and Secretary HXF. Yeah. It's funny because we, you know, J.D. Vance was a, I think, an E4 when he left the Marine Corps, which is a corporal or a specialist in the Army. And we used to refer to the E4 Mafia in the United States. And there's a lot of things J.D. Vance will do every once in a while. We're like, that's E4 Mafia. Right there.

And then Pete, too. Pete, Pete very much. had his experience in the military shaped by being a junior officer and then I think he got out as a major and being an infantry officer. And so that's a combat-focused M-OS. And that's why you see Pete

focusing on things like you're going to be in shape. And our job in the military is to kill people and break things, right? We're not a petri dish for social engineering. You know, ultimately that's what we do here. I like clarity. It's good. Oh, it won't. I don't want a military that's an expert in D.E. That doesn't help anybody.

No, no. And I remember watching General Millie, who, I got to say, when he was Chief of the Joint Chiefs, you see the Special Forces and Ranger and all that, and you're very impressed. The thing that was shocking to me is that Special Forces is a fairly small community. So if you don't know someone, you know someone who knows someone. And he was the first guy that I ever went into our kind of like Special Forces chat rooms and asked, who served with this guy and does anybody have anything nice to say about him? And typically what you'll find is someone saying, well, you know, when he was a team leader,

a pretty good guy or when he was a company commander, I thought he was pretty decent, but then he got political. Everyone is like, nope, he was political from the beginning, and that's what he is, a political creature. But now, when Pete got in there, he ruffled some feathers, but then you saw these articles, it's like, well, senior leadership is lost faith in Pete Hedgeseth. I'm like, oh gosh, senior leadership, you mean the people that oversaw the withdrawal from Afghanistan? Oh, golly, gee, I hope they're not mad at him. Like, no, I'm thrilled that those guys are mad at him because we need to clean house. whenever you're cleaning house,

are there things that you do or things that you save that potentially ruffle other feathers that, you know, are actually decent guys? Sure. But my response to them would be like, how about you put on your big boy pants and recognize that we have a huge problem to solve right now?

And sometimes you might get offended in the course of actions that are required to follow it. And the proper response there is to say, I support what's going on, but sir, maybe we should consider this or sir, maybe we should consider that, not to, you know, do anonymous calls to the Washington Post so you complain about the new Secretary of War telling you to get in shape.

So anyways, on the whole, I've been pretty happy. By the way, you'll do the workout with you and kick your butt if the cameras are rolling. When you saw this other thing that they lied about where they said, oh, look, Pete Huggseth, can't even bench press, you know, two plates or what, no, Pete was actually engaged in a, in a multiple exercise, multiple level event where you're supposed to reach muscle. failure. And yes, when you reach muscle failure, you can't bench press as much. But again, this just goes to the links that they're trying to defame this guy. You don't think the media would report something that wasn't completely accurate or unfla. That would be against their journalistic

integrity. No, I learned a long time ago. People asked me, how did you get involved in social media? And it's like, I learned the hard way in the legislature that the press will deliberately lie about what I say or what I do. And so the only way that I could explain what I actually believe, was to go directly to the people. So no, if the press is trashing, if the mainstream press is trashing you, there's a good chance you're doing something right. And I think on the whole, Pete has been excellent

for the military and restoring its sense of mission and purpose and camaraderie. How long, you know, it seems to me it's going to take more than Trump's administration to really bring the full change that needs to happen. You know, so it's really important what happens in the midterms and then in 28 to keep the momentum that we've started to establish? Oh, yeah, no, the midterms are going to be essential because if we lose control of the House, then all we're going to see for the next two years is essentially a bunch of, you know, tribunals against the president and, you know, calls for impeachment. You're going to see probably active measures because the House controls the budget to defund DHS, to defund, um,

ICE specifically to probably try to, again, hold a bunch of committees and hearings against individual ICE agents in order to, even if they can't convict them, what they'll do is they'll try to create a culture to where law enforcement is afraid to actually do its job if it looks bad on TV. And the whole purpose of the left and things like with Renee Good or Alex Preti was to elevate the temperature to a point where they could get something to look bad on TV so that they then come back and say, oh, my gosh, look how horrendous this is. And so, yeah, if we don't, if we don't have good conservative leadership past the midterms,

then you're going to see a very, very different next two years. I've had multiple conversations across different departments in the last few weeks where there are either executive orders or Pete signed some order, but the bureaucracy is doing everything in their power to not comply. Yeah. And, I mean, they have a tremendous impact. They can slow things down significantly. Well, that's why the slaughter decision that you just saw in the Supreme Court was so essential,

because what it actually did is that reinforced what Trump was saying through what they call Schedule F. So to give everyone kind of like a quick purview here, and again, I say this is someone that served in an elected office and saw how influential bureaucracies can be. Most people have this impression that, oh, well, the president is the chief executive. So anybody in the executive branch, he can hire or fire. No. He has hiring and firing authority over a minuscule amount of the federal government. And what Trump was trying to do with one of his executive orders was say, look, I can't run the federal government if I can't fire people that refuse to actually do what the president says.

And so it's not like he was opening up the entire federal government to be hired or fired at will. He was largely opening up like GS-15 positions, which there's 15, positions in the GS scale. Like he was talking about senior guys that had the ability to impact policy by essentially not doing what they were told. I was going to say who were given a directive. Yes. Refused to do it.

Yeah. And yeah, you can't touch them. Yeah. And the whole reason they set up this civil service thing is because once upon a time, people would run for president and they would offer people federal jobs as favors to get elected. But this was back when the number of federal jobs was like minuscule. Well, now it's obviously hundreds of thousands, you know, millions of positions.

And what Donald Trump is essentially saying is like, look, if I'm the chief executive, I get to hire or fire people that are essential to me carrying out my duties and responsibilities. And thank God we had people like Justice Alito and even Justice Roberts, who essentially said, yeah, the executive branch falls under the purview of the executive. Now, a lot of people are going like, oh, no, the spoils system. It's like, you're right. That is a legitimate concern. You know, it's a really good way to make that not a legitimate concern.

Significantly reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy in accordance with Article 1, sectionated of the Constitution, and the limited and enumerated powers of the federal government. If you do that, all of a sudden, you get what the founders intended. By the way, I'm so sick of the, oh, my gosh, the poor federal bureaucrat. The federal government is way too big. And what Dogen covered was not, I wish the only thing. Doge uncovered was fraud, waste, and abuse. The most pernicious thing that Doge actually uncovered was that our tax dollars were being used

in wholly inappropriate ways to push left-wing ideology, not just in this country, but around the world. And now that all of a sudden that funding has gone away, oh, what? You're telling me that super popular Planned Parenthood can't keep their clinics open unless they get to steal my tax dollars in order to use it to kill babies. you're telling me that all of a sudden, oh my gosh, who will fund the trans operas in Columbia? I don't know, but it shouldn't be me. So I'm thankful for all this.

I have a question. How can Christians be so stinking naive? Because then they look at us and say, well, you know, we have to separate the church and state. And we go, oh, thank you. And we kind of quietly and demurely withdraw from the stage. And they're taking our tax dollars and funding an ideology that's every bit as much of religion as Christianity. It's same kind of adherence. Same, I mean, but somehow Christians,

it's like their brain turns to mush. Yeah. Or we don't have the courage to stand up for what we believe or some combination there. Christians send their kids off to be educated by leftist elites who train the faith and the conservatism right out of them.

And then we're sitting here, Voddy Bakum said it best, right? You can't send your kids to Caesar for their education to be surprised when they come home as Romans. Well, it's the same thing here. Whenever someone, Separation of Church and State.

I like to look and be like, who told you that? Right. Was it God? Did God say that he's not interested in the civics? Did you learn that from the Hebrew prophets? I don't think so. Wasn't from the prophets.

Wasn't from God. Wasn't from Christ. Wasn't from Paul. Wasn't from the disciples. So who did you learn it from? And the response will be, well, isn't it in the Constitution? No. What the Constitution says is the federal government shall not make any law establishing a religion,

which is true because, again, when I look at it, God himself, God is the only entity in the universe that has the moral authority to command you to believe in him. And yet, he gave you the agency to choose otherwise. So yes, government should not assume for itself a power that God does not grant to government and that God does not exercise on his own behalf. So yes, that's absolutely true. I don't want the government to impose religion. Does that mean religion cannot play a part?

in the civil civics. No. One of the dumbest things I will hear people saying, oftentimes it comes from Christians as well, Nick, you can't legislate morality. I'm like, oh, is that a fact? Because 10 years in the legislature, Louis, let me see how many bills I voted on

that were not predicated on a moral premise. Zero. They were all predicated on a moral premise. So are you honestly telling me that Christians are not allowed to have a say and what the moral premise constitutes? Who do we hand that off to? secular atheists? Oh, that sounds like a great idea. That's who I want. I want the people that have

no objective standard for determining truth or morality to be the sole people that can issue opinions on what our laws should look like. I mean, that is so mind-numbingly stupid, right? And you wonder, like, how do Christians come to this place? Because we've been cowards. Yes. I mean, I spent my life in the Christian world. Yeah. We'd really go have a polite Bible study about Paul and first century culture, then talk about the 21st century culture and our need to stand up. Yeah. Well, and I look at it this way. You know, Christians, again, there is a Christian culture which still exists within the United States that I think, especially older Christians,

believe still has authority within our culture. And the part that I want them to look at is like, okay, go read Antonio Gramsci. Antonio Gramsci, Italian communist in the 30s. and he essentially said, look, I want what Karl Marx wanted. I want a stateless, classless society where no God and atheism and no traditional. I want all of that. But Carl Marx clearly got something wrong because it's not happening in the way Marx said it would happen. And so what did Gramsci offer as an alternative?

He said, well, if you want to overthrow Christian, bourgeoisie capitalist culture, you need Marxist culture. Okay, great. What's Marxist culture? Well, it's the sort of society where the culturally shaping institutions elevate Marxism as opposed to Christianity. Great. How do you do that? You infiltrate the culturally shaping institutions and you either utilize them for their social capital that they possess, but then you manipulate them to either do one of two things. Demoralize the culture as it currently exists or to reshape the culture in the direction you want it to go. So you're either trying to subvert the cultural norms or take, but with all. both of them with the eventual goal of taking over the culture.

All right. Okay, so this is the part I always look at Christians that I ask. If we look at the culturally shaping institutions, which are generally associated with the family, the church, politics, arts and entertainment, media and academia or education, because we look at those ones, is the church dominant? Is Christian theology or Christian moral principles dominant?

Biblical worldview. Is it dominant in education? No. Is it dominant in journalism? No. Is it dominant in Hollywood? No. Is it dominant in your kids' public school? No. Is it dominant in politics? No. Is it dominant in the family? For a fraction of the families? Is it dominant in the church for about 60% of it? So then why are you confused that you're living in the sort of country now where grown men and women can dress down, can throw off their clothes, get naked in front of children and dance around in a fountain in front of them in Seattle and face zero criminal. charges. Well, I'll tell you why. It's because, well, you were telling your kids that it's not

polite to talk about religion and politics and society. They were telling their kids to the extent that they had them, that no, that's all you have to talk about. And because they don't have enough of their kids, they realize something. They can't win elections unless they educate your kids. And so now we find ourselves in this situation, and I'm still looking at Christians that think, well, this is just not our province. Well, you weren't taught that by scripture. Almost everybody I know wants to be healthy or healthier. And I think most of us would like it to happen to us by accident. But that hasn't been my experience.

So what do we do in a world where there's so many options and diets seem to be like fashion trends? They change with every season. How do we respond? Well, I want to tell you about something that I trust, something that has worked in my life. Ancient nutrition gives you a whole menu of supplements, sources. for protein and collagen that I have found made a difference in my life. You know, I decline most of sponsorship invitations. But this isn't something that is just an invitation to be a sponsor for something.

I've actually used it in my life and it's made a difference. Jordan Rubin happens to live in the Nashville area, so he and I have become friends long before I was doing this podcast. And his coaching has helped me lead a healthier life. And I have found those ancient nutrition supplements to be very valuable, whether it's the multi-collegin or now the new multi-protein. It's hard to eat enough protein sometimes as you age to maintain the muscle that we want to maintain. And those supplements have been very helpful for me.

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and we can be a part of it by what we put on our fork and not just the pills we take. Well, let's do this differently. Rather, because I get agitated when we start down this road and it's easy to sound like I'm scolding. And I don't think that's where we are.

I don't think we need to get all the Christians in a room and shake our fingers at them. No. I think we've got to get in a room and say it's a new season. Yeah. You know, Noah built a world, the boat and had a temporary zoo. But God doesn't call all of us to do that.

Moses went up a mountain and came down with the law and had to shape the people into a crew. We don't all do that. You know, Samuel was the leader of Israel. As a judge, I tenor traveled around. David was the leader of Israel, and he was a king with a palace and a capital city. Isaiah had a message for the king of Israel that said the Assyrians are coming, but I'm going to send them back home. You don't have to worry about him. Jeremiah said the Babylonians are coming, and there's not a dan. thing you can do about it. So the messages aren't the same in every generation. No. The gospel is the same. The gospel doesn't change, but the messaging around the gospel has to change for the season.

We're in a different season. We don't live in a culture any longer dominated by a biblical worldview, a Judeo-Christian set of values. We can't huddle in our churches and have polite Bible studies and expect the world to stay on an autopilot and be okay. We have to engage in a more aggressive, assertive, intentional way to take back higher education, the public square, entertainment. Hollywood used to make movies that taught you to love your country. Now we don't even have politicians that love our country. So I think your message is spot on. To me, we've got to start saying to the Christians, I'm not condemning you.

I'm telling you it's not that season anymore. Yeah, no, it's know what time it is. Yes. Know what time. And guess what? Be encouraged. Because 70% of young men right now. And get your butt up and do something.

Yeah, 70% of young men right now. And this is always the, this is always the indicator that you want. 70% of young men right now are saying, all right, I realize that I've been lied to. I'm looking for truth. And many of them saw Charlie Kirk as, that's a guy I respect. And when Charlie Kirk was murdered, those men were saying, I'm ready to give church a shot. I'm ready to give the Bible a shot. But what they were really looking for is what is the truth?

And am I going to find men that actually believe in it or are willing to fight for it and die for it? the way Charlie was willing to die. And so what I tell pastors is, this is a great opportunity for you. You should be thrilled that you are living in such a time as this because you now have the opportunity to shift the direction of an entire generation because we've been on cruise control way too long.

So is there a little bit of what the heck are you doing? Absolutely. But I'm doing it because it's not just because I'm angry about what's going on. I'm encouraged about what's possible. I feel like God has given us an opportunity. that's it. God has given us an opportunity, and I don't want to miss it, right?

Because God will use whoever he needs to use in order to achieve his objectives. But insofar as he invites us to join him, are you really telling me that a desire for comfort is going to dissuade you from doing what God wants you to do? Well, if you worship the idols of comfort and convenience, it will. Yeah. Because serving God is not comfortable or convenient. No.

But I love you. I think that's exactly it, that God has given us an opportunity. And the question is, what will we do with it? And if we say no, I think we'll respond to us the same way he responded to the generation that said, yeah, the promised land is wonderful. But it's really hard work and we don't want to do it. Yeah. Well, I think there's also this idea where there's been this modern gospel in the West that treats Jesus like he's nice guy, Jesus. Like, Jesus is nice, and your job is to be nice.

Group hug, Jesus. Yes. And then you also see this idea. the social gospel, that really what Jesus was about was bringing heaven to earth by providing for the poor and doing, it's Marxist Jesus. And I'm like, okay, but when I read about Jesus, and Ray Comfort, I think, did an excellent job of describing this. He goes, when I read the way Jesus preached, I see grace to the broken and judgment to the proud. Right? When Jesus is talking to the woman caught in adultery, that's one tone. When he's talking to Mary Magdalene, that's one tone. When he's talking to

the Pharisees. When he's talking to the political leaders of the day, you brood of vipers, you whitewashed tombs, when he's breaking out the weapon, he's clearing the temple, this is not boy band Jesus that we've all been fed in the West. Right? So what I'm hoping that we're going to see is this resurgent of biblical masculinity and biblical femininity because we need both. We do. But if you want more biblical femininity, the biblical masculinity is the leading indicator. And there's a lot of hope right now. They actually did a survey of young men, 18 to 29.

Young men, young women, those who voted for Trump, those who voted for Obama. And they give them 13 criteria for success. How do you define success in your life? Their number one criteria for young men that voted for Trump was to have a family. It was number six for young women that voted for Trump. It was number seven for men that voted for Harris. And it was 12 out of 13 for young women that voted for Harris. Now, what does this mean?

What this means is, is that we are primed right now to once again convince young men and young women that they have been lied to about masculinity and femininity. And they've been lied to by both the left and the right. There's a right-wing lie that has also taken hold. The left-wing lie is pretty obvious because it's pernicious. It's just ubiquitous within our culture, right? For men, it's you need to be more feminine. And for women, it's you need to be more masculine. I always say that.

The joke here is that it's not that it's not that the left doesn't like masculinity. They just wanted to be displayed by women. Right. So that's the left-wing lie. But then there's also a right-wing version of this lie. The right-wing version of the lie is no men. You should be strong and you should be powerful. Why?

So you can sleep around, take what you want and have nice cars. And then the same thing for women. No, no, women. You shouldn't be a girl boss. You shouldn't be this ultra-feminist. I don't need no man. What you should be is a 1950s trad wife. the really what you should be is this aesthetic that we've held up.

Yes. It's like what does the Bible say about what men are to do. Men are to be strong. They are to be capable. Why? So they can honor God, love their wives, take care of their children and raise up a generation to honor God and do the same.

They are the builders, protectors, and advanceers of civilization. Right? And then you look at what does God say about femininity? Well, it's not, it certainly isn't girl boss and it certainly isn't a 1950s trad wife.

It's Proverbs 31, which my wife describes is the most intimidating women you'll ever read about. I'm going to say it's not like a shrinking violin. Oh my God. She's strong. She's capable. She uplifts and builds her family. She's called blessed. Right. She's a formidable woman. And that's what I want to see. Because the more men and women that we get to embrace this idea that God has a story here that you're a part of. It's encouraging. And it's, and it's one of those things where once you start to truly find your identity, meaning, and purpose through it, all of a sudden, the things that the world say are important or dangerous don't look the

same to you anymore. And I, and I've, again, part of what I talk about on my book is I've seen this as a man, I've seen this as a husband, I've seen it as a soldier, and I've seen it in politics. The moment you start to get your identity from anywhere else other than Christ, of course you're going to be confused. It's true. And we've got to unwind this notion about Christianity that it's primarily focused on eternity, that you get saved so you don't go to hell. Yeah. But you've done all of your significant God business. Yeah. So how you live your life really isn't, you know, God wants to make you happy and upgrade your car and let your kids go to a better private school. And there's no real challenge left. There's this, there's this one,

there's a Bible study. My wife and I recently went through that I loved called the story formed life. And that sounds like, what the heck does that mean? The thing that I loved about it was the whole idea of this story was that it's reoriented this idea that when we talk about Christianity now, it's all about what God did for you, what Jesus did for you. You are the main character in the story. No, you're not. God is the main character. God is the main character. He's the author. And you get to be a part of God's story.

And you get to play this incredible role. And you are so important to him that he did create something for you, but it was also for him. And that he went to these incredible levels to both give us agency and to save us from ourselves. And once you start to embrace that, no, no, no, I'm a part of God's story. He's not a part of mine in the sense that I'm the,

controlling figure. I'm the main character. It is a much cooler story. And I think once again, we find in that a sense of identity, meaning, and purpose that people are hungry for right now, that Christianity offers in a way that nothing else offers. But if we don't even believe that, if we don't even project that in the way that we live our lives or the way that we preach our sermons, well, then why should we expect anybody else to? The greatest honor of our lives is being invited to serve the Lord. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing that could be extended to us that can supersede that. Well, and this also gets me into the American lie. There's also the American lie. The American lie is that the most important thing about your life is being able to do what you want,

is being able to achieve a certain level of economic success and reaching self-actualization or whatever else it is. And I would say that that's a perverse version of the American dream. I am not, I love my freedom. I think political freedom is worth fighting for. I think it's worth dying for. But there's so much more to existence than getting to vote for elected leaders every two, four, and six years. What I really define myself by is not my freedoms. It's my responsibilities. Come on now. Right. We've lost that portfolio. We buried it someplace else. Yeah. It's all about the freedom. And our rights. Yes. We have all the rights, but we don't have any responsibilities. And I think about this. Do I love

of the things I get from my wife in my marriage. Absolutely. Absolutely. But the things that get me the greatest sense of meaning and purpose in my marriage are the things I do for my wife. Right. So in any relationship that has any kind of meaning, genuine meaning to it, there's a part where you take and there's a part where you give. There's a part where you get, right, and receive, and there's a part where you're the one pointing into somebody else. Absolutely. Like I can't imagine a relationship with my wife where it was all, oh, I have the freedom to do everything because she's giving me stuff, but I don't represent anything for her with respect to her needs, wants, or desires. And so what does that mean?

It means that the biggest part of my marriage that gives me meaning is the obligations I have to her. But we treat obligations or duties and responsibilities as if it's a dirty word when in reality, it's what gives us a sense of meaning. And so I'm, again, will I fight for freedom? Absolutely. the freedom to do what? The freedom to do whatever I want

or the freedom to actually go out and pursue what God has for me. So I can do that, by the way, I can follow God regardless, whether I have freedom or not. See Daniel. But I certainly want to live in an environment. I want to foster an environment

where I do have the freedom to pursue his will for my life regardless of what the circumstances around me might be. That message needs to be shouted from the house top. There's a fascinating part about this because, again, one of the ways that so many people try to appeal to the youth is about what I'm going to give you or what sort of conditions I'm going to create for you. But one of the things I use to not necessarily push back against that, because obviously we want positive economic development and things like that. But there was this clip going around social media for a while, and then there were several renditions of it. And in each one of these renditions, it's some sort of like power.

music that just invokes this sense of like honor and courage. And it's all these clips from video games that are really, really popular with young men. And the characteristic that was unique among all of them, right, or the shared characteristic of all these clips, was it was either a man or a group of men about to engage in a last stand. They were about to die for something that they believed in. Why is that the most popular thing around?

Why does this have millions of views, millions of likes? Why is it? Because every young man wants to believe that's the sort of man they would be in that situation. That's not about freedom. There's nothing in there about freedom except for the freedom to choose to do the honorable thing in difficult circumstances. But I think we've got to make an adjustment in how we think about family. Because for too long, we've been coached that to be a good family, we pour everything into what the kids want. Yeah.

And I don't want the kids to be ignored and I certainly don't want them mistreated. But they have to be taught that they have to contribute to the family system too, that it's not about adults making their life okay. I think the reason we have so much depression and all the things that come with that, one of the reasons is they've been taught it's all about them. Getting on the right team, having all the things. And you're never going to be fulfilled if it's about what satisfies me. Let's look at this logically.

for a second. What a depressing worldview that you've just taught your children. Because what you've taught your children is it's all about you while you're a child. Then one day you're going to get married to someone that you think you love and you're going to have kids, but then it'll all be about them. It's not about you. It's not about the marriage. It's not about anything. The rest of your life sucks because now all you've got to do is porn to your kids. And what do your kids really want? Apparently 14 soccer practices, three, you know, ballet recitals and 20 trips to Disney World. And what I tell parents all the time, like, you know what your kid needs more than any of that to know that mom and dad love each other? How can you do that if mom and dad have alienated one another in order to make the kids the priority for everything?

I mean, obviously when your kids are little, they need more attention because they can't do anything. They'll die without you. Right. But what your kids need as they get older is to know they're not the center of the universe. Well, if responsibility is what makes you feel valuable as a man in your home with your marriage and in your family. Don't we have to teach our children as age appropriately, age appropriate ways to understand that. Yeah. And learn that feeling that comes with that and the outcomes. Because there is no magic switch. If you don't do that until you're 30, it's really hard to go find that button. Yeah. Oh, I love

this idea that, oh, they'll grow out of it. No, they grow into it. If your kid's a little pill, if they're a little brat that screams and yells in the middle of the grocery store when they don't get the toy, they don't grow out of it. They become the sort of of politician that believes that everything belongs to them and they can steal it from people using the power of government. Why? Because they were always taught. You scream it at authority figure long enough and they give you what you want. Right? They become little terrorists. So no, but if that same kid at three having a meltdown gets a little bit of a SWAT and gets told, no, it's not all about you and you won't behave this way. All of a sudden, now they are growing into something better because they got

disciplined out of their antisocial behavior. So no, you're at, you're 100% correct. And it's just, It just seems so blatantly obvious when we put it into the proper terms and context, which is the biblical framework. What a thought. Yeah. Let's get our Bibles out. This year, we celebrate 250 years of God's faithfulness to our nation. From backyard picnics in ball games to laughter shared with family and friends,

we've been given so many blessings to enjoy together. And in a world that feels increasingly divided, These moments remind us of what matters most. Faith, freedom, family, and community. Alan Jackson Ministries wants to help you carry that message with you wherever you may go. This outdoor blanket and canvas tote bag are simple reminders of God's goodness and a way to spark meaningful conversations about faith and the hope we have in him. Request your limited edition tote bag and outdoor blanket today with your gift of $100 or more

at allandaxon.com or call 800 8805102 all right we could do this for a long time but july fourths around the corner yeah president trump is inviting us to celebrate our 250th anniversary you have born arms for our country i assume you think this nation's worth celebrating so what do you say to all the people that say it isn't and we shouldn't be and i'm tired of the artist that won't sing. Oh, look, you are, one of the things I fought for was your freedom to be wrong. And the thing that I would like to say is for everybody that despises this country, it thinks it's horrible or thinks we're a racist, sexist, hellscape, or whatever else it is. There's a lot of people that just came over from the World Cup that think we're awesome because

of free referrals, AC and Buckees, right? Free peanuts. I would be happy. You want my immigration policy. here's the Nick Freitas Immigration Policy and Celebration of the 250th Anniversary. If you're the sort of person of the things that we have something wonderful here that you would like to be a part of, I would love to do a one-for-one exchange with somebody that really wants to try real socialism. Right? Like that, I will sign that deal anytime you want, right? Because for me, it's not about skin color. It's about what do you believe?

And one of the things that's made this country so incredible is that we do have as close as any government or civilization, I think, has ever come to to a truly meritocratic society where we have our flaws. But if you look at what being able to come, been able to overcome, it all goes back to not only what was said in the Declaration of Independence

because we say it now as if it's a foregone conclusion. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unilible rights. Among these are life liberating the pursuit of happiness. That was a radical concept.

in 1776. The vast majority of human history would have looked at that and said, you're out of your mind. But the reason why we were able to say it with conviction is because it was rooted in a Christianity that said that there's neither Jew nor Greek, no male nor female, that you're equal before Christ.

That doesn't mean that you have the same roles and responsibilities as men and women. It doesn't mean you all have the same talents or capabilities. That's where we talk about the body of Christ and the various functions that we play. And living in a free society allows you to figure out what part of the body of Christ am I? Amen. And so what I would like for this 250th anniversary is to not just look at the wonderful heroes that we have and there are plentiful

within the American Revolution. I would also like to look at who did they look at as their heroes. Who did they look at as their inspiration? And Tim Barton and David Barton, I've done an excellent work on this. Brand new book. There is no question that when our founders were trying to conceive of the sort of society, civilization, government that we were going to have. Where did they go through for inspiration? Did they read Montescu? Sure. John Locke, absolutely. Blackstone, yes. But they all paled in comparison to the amount of time that they dedicated toward truly understanding scripture and Christianity and their duties and responsibilities to Christ when they form this nation. And if we can get back to understanding that all of the social institutions

our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, federalism, all these things, wonderful, wonderful. But they were built on something. They don't stand firmly planted in minare. They were built on something. And if we can remember their dedication to that, well, then I think we can see not only a revival of patriotism that I think is desperately needed in our country, but a Christian revival that is actually going to be necessarily to truly frame what proper patriotism looks like. Because ultimately that's the sort of thing

that I think people are willing to fight for, they're willing to die for, and most importantly, they're willing to live for. And so that's what I hope people will use the 250th anniversary of our country to truly appreciate and understand. Amen. Well, Nick, if somebody, I know you do a podcast daily five times a week, So if somebody wants to find that, where do they go?

You can just go to YouTube. It's called Making the Argument. But my YouTube page is actually just Nick J. Freitas, which also happens to be my page on X and Instagram and Facebook and everywhere else. So we tried to make it easy. But if you go to that one spot, you can find everything. But our podcast specifically is on YouTube and Rumble. Well, I love the way you use sarcasm and humor to say some things that aren't always easy to say. Yeah, I try.

It is not a boring listen. So if you've got a few minutes, check. it out. I think it will give you hope. It has me. It's a wonderful reminder that we don't have to apologize for our faith and for our heritage of faith, and we need the courage to stand up. It was only about less than a third of the culture when the Founding Fathers signed that document that were willing to stand up and fight for it. And they carried the day. We don't need the majority. We just need to know we've got God on our side. Well, and the good news is this, is the enemies of what we believe,

don't have enough kids or big enough families to actually win this thing long term. So if you want to save your country, honor God, get married, have lots of kids. They're fun to make, right? And they're fun to raise, right? And we win this whole thing in one generation. So be encouraged, but understand that scripture is the foundation for what we believe. Our identity comes through Christ and our commitment to God. And man, if we live that out, you can't lose.

Nick Freitas, thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. Keep up the good work. We'll do. That's culture and Christianity. You've got an assignment. It's the 4th of July. Take time to thank God for his goodness to us.

He has blessed us, folks. Life's not perfect. Our nation's not perfect. But we have so many blessings. Don't forget to stop and say thank you to the Lord. We'll talk soon. 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 and subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity Podcast. You can do that on Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith. We can change our culture. I'll see you next time.