Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - The Lie of “Separation of Church and Politics” [Featuring Rob McCoy]

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Should the Church stay out of politics? In this episode, Pastor Allen Jackson talks with Pastor Rob McCoy, Pastor Emeritus of Godspeak Calvary Chapel and former mayor of Thousand Oaks, California, about the Church’s vital role in shaping culture, politics, and the moral conscience of our nation. As pressure grows for Christians to stay silent, this conversation explains why faith and politics cannot be separated, why the Church must engage in the public square, and how biblical truth is essential to preserving freedom.— 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=6805fe488cf64a6dListen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

Welcome to culture and Christianity. There is no shortage of things to talk about. I'm privileged. I'm going to get to introduce to you a pastor, a friend of mine, one of the most influential pastors in the country. But before we get to that part of the podcast today, I want to invite you just to join me in praying for Venezuela. You know, we sent Delta Force to Venezuela remarkable, remarkable outcome to bring Maduro back to the U.S. a lot of chatter about the appropriateness of that. And to be candid, when I first heard that the operation was taking place, I just kind of got quiet and said, Lord, how do we pray for this? We had service on Saturday night. And when I finished service, a couple came up to me. I knew them.

They were from Venezuela. And they walked up and they said, we have someone that we would like you to speak to, a pastor friend. And I thought they were getting introduced me to somebody in the congregation. And they held up their phone. They were FaceTiming. a pastor from Venezuela. And he immediately began to talk and tears streaming down his face, thanking me for what the U.S. had done to bring freedom back to Venezuela and to give the Christian

community there an opportunity that he felt like had been taken away from them. It was really startling to me. He was so unexpected and it seems surreal to be having a live conversation on Saturday night, the day of the operation in Venezuela with a pastor in that country, who was literally emotional with joy and gratitude for the U.S.'s role in that. And so what I want to invite you to do is join me in praying that freedom will come back to the people of Venezuela. They have lived under the authoritarian rule of a Marxist, aligned with Iran and Russia and China, and the people have suffered greatly.

I don't know what the future holds, and we never know how those things will unfold. But from a leadership standpoint, it took a tremendous amount of courage because the upside, while it was real, was certainly fraught with a lot of things that could have simply had a lot of blowback. And President Trump and his team made that decision anyway. So let's pray that freedom will come to the people of Venezuela. And for the church in that part of the world, Venezuela is one of the most oil-rich, petroleum-rich nations, certainly in our hemisphere, a Venezuela that with the freedom of the gospel could become a light that would be a huge asset to this part of the world. So join me in those prayers.

This is not a podcast where we just want to be voyeuristic about what's happening in the world. We want to use our faith and our prayers and our influence to make a difference. So that is the point of culture and Christianity. My guest today is Pastor Rob McCoy. You know him from a variety of ways and roles, perhaps most prominently for the last few years, is Charlie Kirk's pastor. I had the privilege he visited our church, and we got to sit down on a Sunday morning and have a conversation, and that's what I want to share with you. It encouraged me, challenged me, and it reminds me that each of us has to take our place with the truth.

If we will do that, I'm quite confident that the head of the church, and that would be Jesus, if you've forgotten, is overseeing this initiative in a way that will call. the kingdom of God to be extended. It's an honor to welcome Pastor McCoy to the church and back to our podcast. I think you'll enjoy the conversation. I want to take a few minutes. There's some craziness. If you just watch the news and follow the kind of the normal channels,

I think they're very anxious to pronounce the church dead, or at least that we're on life support and they've called hospice. And there's some evidence of clearly obvious of some fractures. but I'm of the opinion that the church is flourishing in the earth. That Jesus is the head of the church. The last directive I saw he gave was that he said he would build his church and hell wouldn't stop it. And he sent us into all the world with a message and the help of the Holy Spirit. So we're the 21st century edition of all of that stuff.

So I'm curious, you live on the other coast. You've got a little different window into this. I'm in the midst of hillbilly world. And you're just in the midst of craziness. Thousand Oaks is just inland from Malibu. Exactly. Such tough duty. So tell me what you see God doing in the church.

I'll be anxious to hear your perspective. Well, I'm in agreement with you. I believe that there is a revival occurring. I was working with David Barton and George Barna. And, you know, you look at some of the news articles. Major universities across the United States, University of Florida, University of Arkansas, Purdue, Ohio State. thousands and thousands of students coming to Christ and coming out for events, and it's just remarkable what's occurring.

In addition, there's been a 50% increase in Bible sales. We've also watched now that 18 to 30-year-olds, which was Charlie's Sweet Spot, these Y and Z generation, they now encompassed and have become the largest segment of the church in America. There's an awakening with young people. And then finally, you know, there's been 10 revivals in America. And all of them had an awakening attached to it up until 1870. That was D.L. Moody. And then following that, every revival hasn't led to an awakening,

which means the church now changes culture. So we had the Jesus movement with Calvary Chapels, and it was during the sexual revolution, and nothing changed. It didn't change culture. I mean, people came to Christ, but we didn't change culture. And this is a different one because Charlie has disciples these young people and he's taught them in areas to contend for culture.

And now that they're coming to the Lord, they're the ones driving this. It's the largest conservative movement in American history for this age group. And that's an imprint of a chick to a mother hen. They're going to vote conservative the rest of their life. So this is an awakening and it's exciting. Amen.

You brought up a point that's been a talking point for us for a while. I believe the church is intended to shape culture, not be shaped by it. And we haven't done that in every generation. We can point out many of us our lifetimes, and we've seen the church concede to culture. But it does seem to me there's a shift. So what are we looking for? How do we recognize that? What are you anticipating?

The shift to me, at least what I've witnessed, is prior to 1870, if there was an issue that that the citizens of your community were dealing with, it would be a topic of a sermon that following Sunday. They would say, what does a Bible have to say on immigration? And the pastor would give a lengthy sermon. You can see these. They're all archived on the eastern seaboard, Jonathan Mayhew and Whitfield. All of these sermons dealt with topics pertinent to the day

and what the Bible has to say about it. But in the 1870s, we went from the Great Commission, which says make disciples of all nations to making converts. We made it all about evangelism, where we, you know, he didn't say make converts, he said, make disciples. And we've avoided the tough topics and we just say, I don't do politics, I just preach the gospel. That's gnosticism. And so now you're watching these young people saying, you know, they go to these churches saying, Charlie taught me all this stuff about transgenderism, homosexuality, abortion, what the Bible has to say about it.

They come to churches, oh, we don't do politics. Well, that's the difference between a revival and an awakening is that we have to disqualification. is that we have to disciple these young people and we've got to make sure that we're contending in the culture. And that's our heritage. The church in America. The Declaration of Independence is a collection of ideas that began in the pulpits of the colonies.

That when the framers of the declaration got together to work on that and then the Constitution, the ideas they put down on paper, it wasn't some political theory that they distilled from Europe. It was biblical world view issues that had to do with, the authority over human lives, that they had learned inside their churches. I know they didn't teach you that in school in your history class.

And for a full confession, it's the Bartons that have reminded me of it. I mean, I took history, but I didn't read all the things they read, and I didn't learn to talk as fast as they do either. It's like drinking from a fire hydrant. It is. But it's our truth. And you see, there's no other segment of our culture. If you tried to separate them from their heritage,

that our culture would stand before that. If you took the Native Americans and said that their culture was illegitimate and shouldn't be recognized, there'd be a hue and cry that would be deafening. And they come to those of us with a biblical Judeo-Christian worldview, and they try to deny it.

They try to separate us from our history. Please don't walk quietly into that dark night. So we should shape culture. We have shaped culture. Breitbart used to say that politics is downstream from culture. Well, the church should be driving culture. which would be driving politics.

Politicians are just actors performing a script written by the audience. We're supposed to be writing that script. And that's so important for the church. The church isn't the slave of the state, nor is it its master. It's the conscience of the state. And we have to push that and drive that. Jonathan Mayhew, the Eastern Seaboard pastor that our second president, John Adams,

attributed the War of Independence to, they were telling him, you know, you can't do this because Romans 13 says we're to submit to all, you know, God appoints all positions of authority and were to submit to them. And they were saying you can't go against King George. Well, he's the one who coined the term disobedience to tyrants as obedience to God because he said,

Romans 13 says that those authorities are there for our good. And he said, when they cease to do good, they cease to be the authority. And that's why you have the Declaration of Independence, not for light or transient causes. They go through all the violations of the Word of God that impelled them for this

break from a tyrant king. that's driving culture. You know, you don't have to look far to see that our economy is in real turmoil. Our nation is $37 trillion in debt. Inflation rates made it hard to buy and sell a house, even a car. We're all feeling it. When you go to the grocery store and you spend an extra dollar or two in every item, that gets personal in a hurry. Well, the most important thing we can do during uncertain times is to invest ourselves in knowing God better.

Read his word, pray. That's the only place we're really going to find stability. we need for the disruption that I'm pretty certain is ahead of us. Beyond that, it's just plain wise to make the best decisions possible in our daily lives with our investments. When you think of all the options out there, gold is an investment that has stood the test of time. That's why I work with preserved gold.

They've treated me with honesty, integrity, kindness, every step of the way. They're offering a free wealth protection kit, and all you need to do is text Allen, that's A-L-L-E-N to 50-505. As a bonus, you'll get up to $15,000 in free gold and silver with a qualified purchase. Go ahead and text them today. You have a unique distinction. You were pastoring a congregation

while you served as mayor of Thousand Oaks. Mayor McCheese. How did that come about? There's got to be some commentary from that. Well, I wouldn't raise an accrued. Christian home. My parents were conservative. My dad was a Navy captain and my mom was president Republican women. I grew up politically, but I never went to church. I don't remember of praying with my folks. And when I came to Christ, I thought everyone's involved in politics

because that's part of being involved in your community. Love your neighbors yourself. And so I started inviting candidates to come in and speak because I understood the Constitution that they rule, it's our authority on loan to them and the Constitution constrains them from usurping that authority. And I'd bring the candidates in because if they're going to represent you, you need to know who they are. Well, they did a front page article. Pastors getting political. I'm like, I thought everyone did this.

I was very confused. And it just got worse. And so I realized I can't take people where I'm not willing to go myself. So I ran for office. I ran for state assembly. I won the primary loss of the general. And then my opponent vacated her seat to take the assembly. And she was on the city council.

So I ran for her seat. And I won by 52 votes. which, you know what they call someone who wins by 52 votes, the winner. And that was me. And I won re-election by thousands of votes, and then I became mayor of the city eight days before we had this horrific shooting where 12-year-old young people were killed in a country dance hall. And then we had fires that encircled the city.

And I remember anyone who felt like a pastor shouldn't be in politics, that day they were grateful. It was, there's a lot of ministry taking place in that moment. And I never faced persecution until I ran for office. So that should tell you something. You know, we think we're not supposed to be there. That's exactly where we're supposed to be as Christians. If you love your neighbor, you're going to want to, good government happens with good people.

So that's why I ran for office. You know, amen, that is so important. We have been so impacted by the lie that our faith should stay inside a Sunday morning event and not be integrated into our lives. that we don't even recognize any longer the great deficit and the weakness it's brought because our faith is not present in the way it has been, in those administrative, authoritative places in our communities, in hospitals, and courtrooms, and job sites,

and any of those places are diminished where our faith isn't alive. Everybody there doesn't have to choose to be a Christ follower, but they should not have the right to say that we don't have the privilege of being there and having an opinion. And that is not politics, folks. That's being an advocate for what you believe. You know, somebody's saying to me, I can't take Jesus into some public setting

is like them inviting me to an event and telling me Kathy's not welcome. That's not going to work well. And we have cooperated with it for so long that we've accepted it as normal. So it always makes me smile when I think about Mayor McCoy. You know, the very first speaker of the House

was a minister, Mullenberg. and then his brother became, I think, a governor or senator. The Supreme, and they used to meet in the Supreme Court chambers, and then the Marine Corps band would lead worship. The very first Bible printed in America was by order the U.S. Congress to evangelize Indians. So, you know, you won't talk about a separation church and state. The point of the first 16 words of the First Amendment, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion,

nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The first 16 words was to keep the state out of the church, not the church out of the state. I don't check my faith when I go, that's exactly where my faith is to operate. And if I might, the last thing is, people call you a Christian nationalist. I go, what's the alternative?

Secular, progressive, globalist. You know, it's, I can love two things at the same time. I can love the Lord and I can love my country. Like, I love my wife and I love the Lord. It's, yes, and God's a nationalist in that he created nations, boundaries, borders, compacts. And so we want this nation, you know, nations will be judged corporately, we'll be judged

individually, but will this nation be judged in a sense that its people had access to truth and freedom? And that's what I strive for every day as a minister and also caring about my community. No, that's such a good reminder. You know, we didn't get in this mess because the politicians flexed. We got in this mess because we retreated. Because we withdrew. We were willing to compromise our faith or diminish our faith or tone down our faith to close a business deal.

Or because we were engaged in some ungodly activity and we wanted to pursue that more than we wanted to be obedient to the Lord. It's been the capitulation of the church, not the aggression of those that hate us. The enemy doesn't have the ability to overcome us. Darkness doesn't overwhelm the light. The light is dimmed and the darkness grows more intense. So if we want to know the way out of this place, it's to turn up the light. And as much as we want the politicians or the pastors or somebody else to do that, if we will do that, I have heard you in multiple settings give presentations of the gospel that were authoritative and convicting and important,

it feels like to me we've got to come back in the church to that core conviction that Jesus transforms lives. He does more than give us a different ticket for eternity. He changes our journey through time. Am I understanding that correctly? You're spot on. When we contended with the governor and the county by keeping the church open during COVID. You were one of those. Yeah.

And when we did that, I didn't know what was worse. The voice of my enemies are the silence of my friends during that time. Although pastors would call me and say, you're in violation of Romans 13. and I'd say, no, you are. Because this is, he didn't have the right to call the church non-essential. It's the bride of Christ. Why aren't you saying something? And pastors think that peace is the absence of conflict.

It's not. It's the presence of Christ in the midst of the conflict. So we would contend, and the interesting thing is, when we would contend and keep the doors of the church open, and then after church, we'd go to the businesses that remained open to support them, they started coming to church. And we watched Jews, Mormons, agnostics, atheists. atheist, all come to Christ. We baptized four times as many people in the church as the attendance

of the church was, you know, a year earlier. The church exploded in attendance. People in this community are looking for a gospel. They're looking for a faith that actually transforms their community and cares about their kids and people who are so moved by the God of truth that they would contend in the public square for the sake of their neighbor. That moved them. And that touched me. It was profound for me. I'm sure you had some people that left, too. Yeah, and then they came back. You know, it's like, blessed subtraction, you are now.

But they always come back. You know, the doors swing both ways. And so, because they've been indoctrinated to believe that's not where the church belongs. We're just supposed to get people to raise their hand, send in the tithe check, and don't do anything controversial. The church is controversial. Jesus said, they didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. It's a sword of truth. We're contending for culture. And they'd come back, and then my favorite was the folks I'd be baptizing. And we do it on Sundays. You know, people coming up, we're just dunking them in the whole

service. It would be about baptism because the line would be so long. And one lady said, you know, I came to church for the politics and I stayed for Jesus. And it's so funny that way, because Charlie used to say, he saw politics as an on-ramp to a faith in Christ. if he could get these kids rowing in the streams of liberty, they'd come to its source. Bible says, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. And that's what happened. We were contending for freedom. We were contending for liberty, and those things brought them into those streams of liberty

and brought them to the source, which was a Lord. And all of a sudden, it just was so exciting for them. It was a community, and it blessed them. I think 2020, in hindsight, was a huge transition point. Right. Now, we'd heard about pandemics before. The bird flu and the swine flu and they kind of fizzled. But COVID had some more momentum to it. But, you know, from hindsight, it seems to have changed everything. There's a whole set of new perspectives that have come since COVID. I mean, our relationship to authority and how we've gathered people and the people we see gather with us. And it didn't stop with COVID. I mean, those changes have just continued right up until today.

It's like a, I mean, you and I have both served the church for a bit, and it's like so many aspects of what's happening today are different since 2020. Do you see that too? Absolutely. I would hear people say that President Trump is a divider. I don't necessarily think he was a divider as much as he was a highlighter. And I think COVID was the same way. You would have pastors thinking that they're doing God's work by submitting to authority, but then they'd realize, and they would, and they would, they would, they would, have the misconception of the separation of church and state, but then they'd watch the church

insert them, excuse me, they watched the state insert themselves into the church. And all of a sudden, they were trying to be compliant, but they kept taking. And rights are like muscles. If you don't exercise them, you lose them. And they didn't know what those rights were. They didn't even know what it meant to be an American. The Apostle Paul knew Roman citizenship. He could contend for it.

Most Americans have no idea how many articles are in the Constitution or how many amendments there are. You don't even, and America is not an ethnicity, it's an idea. You know, you can look around the room and there's every race, creed color, and you're an American based on a set of ideas. I can live in Japan my whole life, become a Japanese citizen, but I'll never be Japanese. That's a difference with America, it's a set of ideas. But if you don't know what those ideas are, what is an American? And that's so critical because we're a nation conceived in liberty.

We have this understanding four times in our birth certificate. We list God that rights don't come from man. They come from God. And that's why we must be diligent to preserve that liberty. And so I think COVID has awakened people to realize they're going to do this again if I don't start understanding what we've been given in a constitutional republic. And I'm watching people we come far more educated in that, especially in the church. You know, I'm delighted to tell you about one of our sponsors.

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You know, next year is our 250th anniversary. And we've already started gearing up. I've started making video stuff. We've got some things coming for you because I think we have to change. You know, we can't keep blaming the coach in high school that didn't teach us history. We may have to actually like open a book

or go ask Rabbi Google or something. But it's our history and we've got to know it. Or we'll, you know, your idea about being an American And it's absolutely right. It's a better set of values. It's not about the way we look or the accent with which we speak or the nation from which we've come or our DNA. It was we were bound together by a set of ideals that have made us the most prosperous, blessed, free people in the history of civilizations. And the church has an essential role in that.

Everybody won't want to be a part. But there's a core of that that we have an assignment to watch over. And I thank you for those reminders. Don't grow weary with that. No, you think about it. America represents 4% of the world's population. And in the 6,000 years of recorded history, we've been on the map for 250 of those years.

And we're the oldest country under one article of incorporation in the history, the 6,000 years of recorded history. But with 4% of the world's population, we have more patents, Nobel Peace Prize winners, more symphonies, more accumulation of wealth of any other nation in the history of the world. Not because we have more natural resources, Canada far surpasses us as is South America.

We were given freedom. I mean, think about it. If you're enjoying electricity, lighting, it was invented by an American, air conditioning, invented by an American, riding an elevator, invented by an American, flying an airplane, invented by an American, enjoy the Internet, invented by an American, not Al Gore. But this is all that stuff. Because with freedom comes the ability for folks to dream, and the American dream.

But a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have. And so the titler cycle of history goes from bondage to faith, faith to freedom, freedom to abundance, abundance to apathy to dependence, dependence into slavery. Anywhere in that cycle, you can insert faith and reset it. And the three legs of the stool of America for us to flourish is faith virtue. and freedom, liberty. Because when you have faith, it provides virtue. Freedom is not getting to do whatever you want. Freedom is getting to do what God wants you to do.

It's absolutely true. And somehow we got convinced in church world, we took away those big rock ideas, and we started arguing about when we take communion and the style of worship we prefer, and what's the dress code for the presenter on the platform. And we stopped engaging. the world we live in. We were made irrelevant by we voluntarily made ourselves irrelevant.

So we've got to walk that back. And it's like starting a workout program when you've taken six months off. That first week is awful because your body doesn't change, but it's screaming at you for changing your habits and behaviors and patterns. And if you decide to be an advocate for Jesus, everybody in your sphere of influence won't cheer for you. And the first few days you start that journey, you may not see the outcomes that you're looking for. But honoring the Lord isn't about comfort and convenience and ease and always feeling good. It's about pleasing the king. And that is the assignment of the church, right? It is. And again, when the Lord said, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on the earth, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing the name of the

Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you and lo, I'm with you always even to the end of the age. The reason why, especially in the 60s, young people checked out of church into Eastern religions and experimental drug use is because a church abdicated its responsibility to disciple young people. And they were watching their young friends die

in hamlets and villages of the name they couldn't pronounce in a country so far away in Vietnam. And all their leaders, you know, Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. Bobby Kennedy was murdered. And so they check out of the church into Eastern religions. They end up a wash on the shores of California, all burned out hippies. And Chuck begins, Chuck Smith, Calvary Chapel, begins to teach the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book, but avoids politics.

Well, there's 10,000 percent growth to Calvary Chapels. There's over 2,000 worldwide, fastest mission movement. But he avoided politics. And the lion's share of those 2,000 churches are in California. So how has it changed the state of California? It started in 1967, Chuck did, in California. Reagan was governor. We had the fourth largest GDP.

We just completed the California aqueduct of marvel and civil engineering, most fertile farmland in the country. And he preaches a gospel, throwing out the net every Sunday, death barrel, resurrection of Christ. I see your hand. God bless you. And they avoid politics.

50 plus years now doing this. How's it changed the state of California? Well, California no longer has a fourth largest GDP. We have the fifth, maybe six. We have the highest gas tax, sales tax, income tax, corporate tax. We lead the nation in debt. You take the next four largest state's debt, combined it doesn't equal California's debt,

where the authors of no-fault divorce that Reagan signed in 69 became law in 70, decimated marriage across the country. And I love Reagan. He said that was a worst piece of legislation. And then you had transgender bathroom bills, a secular progressive, secular education, sex education curriculum, so v. You can't read it in church. But here's a kicker.

Abortion was legal long before Roe v. Wade in California. and we lead the nation in abortion. It's been estimated that California has aborted more children than the current population of Canada. And we don't just rip the baby apart in the womb of its mother and flush its parts in the sewer system of the state. We harvest the organs on the downbeat of the heart. We make Nazi Germany look like Girl Scouts.

And I'm thinking, where's the power of the gospel? The largest churches in America, we're in California. We have the harvest crusades of Greg Gloria. And listen, I'm not belittling evangelism. Please understand that. I'm emphasizing a need for discipleship. And if the pastor can't give you a ready answer and educate you on the topics of the day

where you can profess Christ and insert his truth into the midst of the issues that your neighbors are dealing with, that's problematic. Pray for kings and those in authority. We live quiet and peaceable lives and all godliness and reverence. And the question would be, Pastor, you're praying for your school board and your city council.

And what are the issues they're dealing with in your community that allow your citizens to have quiet and peaceable lives and all godliness and reverence? They don't know their names. They don't know the issues? That's our job. We're to love our neighbors ourselves. Don't you want your kids to grow up knowing there's two sexes? Listen, love isn't lying to somebody. Oh, no, no, you'll be, you can come back on the opposite sex.

No, you can't. That's a lie. And it's not loving to lie to them. You're mutilating them. I'd have to stop now. I'm going, sorry. No, you don't. And they're used to hearing me say it, but it's wrong to feel like we're impotent.

Like our voice is small and we can't do anything. It starts at our kitchen table. We got in this fine mess because we were winking at fornication around our kitchen table. That we were grinning at adultery. We were covering. It was our kids and our grandkids, and we didn't want it to interrupt our holidays. And then we found ourselves where perversion. was being normalized and they're changing genders or saying our biological sex is confusing,

but we lost our moral authority long ago because we quit standing up for the truth. And if we'll bring the truth back to our homes, see, it's illegitimate to demand that the politicians have more courage than we have. If we want them to define their political careers by the worldviews they hold, and we're not willing to define our families by the values that we bring to our homes, then we're illegitimate in our faith. We're trying to offload. We're trying to delegate somebody else to go be the light in the darkness while we shelter our own lives in darkness. And rather than have rage against people that you disagree with, ask the spirit of God to bring a spirit of repentance

and the fear of the Lord into our hearts and our homes. And I'm confident that with that, God will bring the changes we need. You know, around the world, people are searching for truth, and together we're doing our very best to help them find it. When you become a ministry partner with Alan Jackson Ministries, you're joining a growing community of believers

who are committed to strengthening the church and sharing God's Word through every available channel. Television, radio, podcast, books, Bible studies, digital resources, conferences. Your monthly partnership helps us to quit believers, to reach new audiences, and to take the hope of Jesus to people who may be able to people to people who may never have heard the gospel otherwise.

Together, we can stand firm in our faith and make God's truth known. Right here at home and around the earth, wherever God opens a door. Let's keep gathering his people and building his church until the day our king returns. You can find more about becoming a ministry partner at allan jackson.com slash partner. Earlier you were talking about Christians not participating in a sense in the public square, and there's estimated 60 to 80 million evangelical Christians in America. It's the worst voting block in America, largest, but the worst. Of the 60 to 80 million, only half are registered to vote.

And of the half that are registered to vote, only half of those vote in a presidential election. In a midterm, non-presidential election, 11%. You contrasts that with the LGBTQ community, over 90% voter registered. and over 90% voter turnout. And they're driving the narrative. And Christians insert what we call moral pietism, where anyone who steps into the public square as an elected official, we demand perfection,

and we miss the good because we demand the perfect. And politics isn't a perfect sport. You're dealing with flawed people, and it's incremental in everything you do, but we take this moral pietism, I'm done with that, I'm not voting. I'm tired of voting for the lesser two evils. Unless Jesus is running for office, you're always voting for the lesser two evils.

Say that again. You can't write it off by taking a superior moral position as though that's beneath me. Politics is dirty. You've got to get in the thick of it. William Wilberforce contended to lift slavery. 35 years before America did, he did it without a shot being fired in the public square. We lost 650,000 soldiers on a field of battle. every home in America lost a father, a son, a husband, a brother

to lift slavery from the warp and the wolf of the fabric of this country because moral pietism, it was all or nothing. And we have to contend. It's, it's, when you contend in the public square, and that's what was so powerful about Charlie, he built turning point on nothing more than the spoken word. And he'd let his detractors always come to the front of the line. And he treated them with dignity.

and respect. So when you go to a city council meeting and you want to berate them, you're a clanging symbol and a sounding brass. But when you get to understand the issues and you understand what they're dealing with and you come to understand that and work through that and help to volunteer, now you're changing your community and now you have an effect on those folks. And that's the power of Christians participating in what I call the ecclesia, which is Matthew 1618. Upon this rock, I'll build my, doesn't say church, says ecclesia, which is we know etymologically. that's Aristotle defined it as that's where the citizens of the Greek city state would gather aside the welfare of their community. So think about that. Upon this rock, I'll build my public square.

Upon this rock, I'll build my city hall. You're going, oh, pastor, that says church. No, it says Ecclesia. You do your etymological study. Upon this rock, I'll build my public square, and the gates, gates enslave, and the gates of hell will not prevail. When you apply the moral law to civil law, it becomes a wise restraint that make men free. But when you remove the moral law from civil law, the law becomes a weapon to enslave. It's no longer rule of law, it now becomes rule by law, judicial fiat. Your non-essential, shut their store down. Jews are not permitted. You're out. That's rule by law. Rule of law, common law, comes directly from the scriptures. Due process comes from the scriptures. And we're watching people today, especially with the insanity of the lies

being perpetrated on a turning point. And espousing lies that I had something to do, with Charlie's murder. My son and my father, who's been dead 10 years and had Alzheimer's last 15 years of his life. And it's a carnal Christian soap opera. And we're not supposed to participate in that. We're supposed to contend. And this idea of due process is you go and find out the facts. You want it like your burrito. You press a minute and you're waiting for it to heat up and then you pull down this molten and you're burning the roof of your mouth. We want everything now. Be anxious and nothing. but in all things by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to god look i i i'm not an employee of turning point i don't know any of the details but to now

endanger my family by implying that i had something to do with it or my son had something to my daughter-in-law had something to do with it or erika or anyone at turning point i just don't understand that i can't process it that's been the hardest thing for me because i understand the world i don't understand the church participating in that I had to, I don't even know what the question was, I just had to share that. I feel better now, thanks, I appreciate that. Well, since you opened that door just a touch, you know, I was a boy, small boy, when JFK was assassinated.

I remember because they, he and his funeral interrupted cartoons. But I did study history later on and I can tell you this that while his character was, had some weaknesses. I mean, he used a secret service like pimps, to be honest. In the midst of that tragedy, he was very much celebrated and his family. Appropriately so. Dr. King, I was a boy when he was assassinated. And in the midst of all that hatred, his family was celebrated,

and his life was venerated appropriately so. What we've watched since Charlie's assassination, assassination, his martyrdom, is unthinkable to me. And it's a tragic indicator into the condition of the church because we have been a primary component of that. I say church with a big sea. When a tragedy strikes a family like that, as devastating as that is, to imagine you're the muck raker that goes back through it looking for cause and effect is the wrong response in that moment. And we have struggled with this. Charlie was a force for good. He was not a politician nor a preacher, but he went to our college campuses and talked to young people about

biblical worldview issues with the courage that most of our churches would not allow our youth ministers to do. And he allowed people who disagreed with him, as Rob said, to come to the front of the line and treated them with dignity and respect and listen to their opinions. And for that, he was vilified and ultimately hunted and killed. And we need to have the courage to stand up for what's right. And to allow that family to heal without the kind of drama that we have helped create. It wasn't a planned part of this conversation, but I think it's appropriate at that point. Look, the church and the earth matters.

And we have an assignment, certainly, that is attached to eternity. But if the only conversation we have is about eternity, I don't think we'll be on the right side of it when we get there. We're called to impact the world in which we live. Have you read the book of Acts? Have you read the Gospels? John the Baptist could have lived much longer if he hadn't talked about current events. Stephen the same, James the same. Paul could have stayed out of a lot of prisons and would have not suffered physically nearly as much.

He was accused of disrupting the economies of the communities where he preached the gospel because the message he took about Jesus changed how people spent their monies and they beat him almost a death for it. So we have adopted some approach to Christianity that is, it's not about politics, it's not about parties. There's no perfect candidates. But the worldview we hold has to be shaped in the world in which we live or we're abandoning in our children to demonic futures. And I know we don't want to do that. Rob, I appreciate your courage and your boldness and your determination to walk through this rather difficult season.

Well, that's a pot call in the kettle black. Your blessing to me, Pastor Allen, I was telling your wife, you know, it runs in my family high blood pressure. I listen to your pastor just start talking and I just, my blood pressure goes down. I think everywhere he speaks, he should have a fireplace behind him because it's just so comforting.

Your precious brother and a wonderful friend, and I know I've done something right in life that God would bring me a friend like you. So thank you. 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.