Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - The Way Forward Begins with Faith [Featuring John DeBerry and Brandon Tatum]

Episode Date: May 11, 2024

“In a culture that’s determined to create hatred and division, you have both used your voices, your lives, and your strength to bring cooperation, unity, and respect,” Pastor Allen told John DeBerry and Brandon Tatum in this podcast, where they talk about race, politics, family, gender confusion, and standing for truth. DeBerry represented the 90th House District of Tennessee from 1995 to 2020 and now acts as the senior advisor to Governor Bill Lee. He shares stories about growing up during the era of segregation and offers a powerful perspective on the situations we’re facing today. Tatum, the host of The Officer Tatum Show, provides candid observations on racism, forgiveness, and the important role our faith plays in unifying people. --More Information about John DeBerry and Brandon Tatum:John DeBerry: https://www.tn.gov/governor/about-bill-lee/cabinet/senior-advisor.htmlBrandon Tatum: https://theofficertatum.com/--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

Americans by birth could learn a lot from Americans by choice. And they understand the American dream that some of us seem to have forgotten while we're fighting over stuff that is ridiculous as gender. I mean, come on, gender. We got five genders now. You said 70. We got genders. You have folks who set on in high positions who will say on.

on camera that they don't know what a woman is. I mean, come on, let's be for real. These folks are coming in and they're looking at us and guess what? They are going after the American Dream Fool's thing ahead. Hey, I'm Alan Jackson and this is our Culture and Christianity podcast. But today's a special day because we're doing a culture and Christianity seminar.

And I have two, dear friends is an understatement, two remarkable men with me today. John DeBerry was a state legislature in Tennessee for almost three decades. And John currently serves as the senior advisor to our governor. John, welcome. We're glad to have you today. Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

And also joining us is Brandon Tatum. I met Brandon, I don't know, almost two years ago, I guess, at NRB. And it took about five minutes to decide I want to be his friend. And we ended up going to Israel together last. summer. And it just feels like every time we're together, I feel like there's a stronger bond in the Lord and a sense of mission in what we're doing in the earth. So I'm honored to have you today, Brandon. It is absolutely my pleasure. You were two of the most courageous men I know. And you live it out. It's not a theory. It's not an idea that you share. But in a culture that is

determined, it seems to me, to try to create hatred and division, you have both used your voices in your lives and your strength to bring cooperation and unity and respect. So I want to go to school today and see if I can learn a little bit. John, you grew up in the civil rights, all that activity in the 50s and the 60s, and your father was a strong voice in that. Maybe just talk a little bit about your journey through that. I mean, it brought tremendous change to our nation. It was worth the sacrifice.

Well, having had the privilege of living in the decades that I did, I had an opportunity to live in the 50s after World War II. I'm a baby boomer, of course, and had an opportunity to see many of the things that the younger people read in the history books. I remember the colored and white water fountains. I remember the restaurants that had the colored and white doors, and the door in the back. We went to the zoo on Tuesday. Tuesday was the day that black folks went to the zoo. It was fine with me. We went to the zoo on Tuesdays.

And there are many things that I remember, but I remember them in respect of the way the world was. My parents, my father especially, always raised us to understand that the things that were happening right then were temporary. that in the history of the world, everybody has owned everybody, everybody has fought everybody in the history of the world. He never boiled it down to what was just happening right then, but he always gave the reasons why human beings do certain things when they leave the will of God. I remember an occasion to where my grandmother and myself were going downtown.

And I wanted to drink of water. And so we were at the water fountain, and of course there was that white porcelain water fountain that had colored over it. And then there was that water fountain with the cooler. And, you know, you could see the cool water on it. And I wanted that water. And my grandmother said, no, Nick, this water over here, this fountain right here. I may have told you this story before. And I said, no, ma'am, I want this.

She said, no, you drink right here. And when I protested, she took me by the ear, she leaned me down in between those two fountains. She said, you see that pipe coming out of the wall? I said, yes, ma'am. She said, you see this pipe going over to that water fountain? I said, yes, ma'am. You see this pipe coming over to this water fountain? I said, yes, ma'am.

She says it's the same water, Nick, get a drink of water so we can go. That was the way that race was handled in my home by three generations. I had my great-grandparents who were the children of former slaves. I had my grandparents who had migrated from Mississippi to Tennessee and my mother and father. And all of them talked to us as though we were the future, that we were going to do better. We were raised to believe in the nation, to believe in the opportunity. We had a wonderful education. We had a wonderful church.

My mother was a renowned switchologist. Some folks don't know what a switch is. My mama had one that would turn corners. So there was discipline in our homes, and because of that, our perspective was always, love your brother, love yourself, believe in yourself. Don't make excuses, especially using race as an excuse. Use it as a reason for motivation. And that's the way I was raised in that era.

It's amazing to me, in spite of the hatred and all of the things that characterized that season of our history, you're one of the most powerful political figures in our state today. That's a remarkable journey to make. It is a remarkable journey. I have been blessed by the Lord. He has given me the opportunity to do what I always wanted to do. He's given me the opportunity to stand up and proclaim his word. He's given me the opportunity to sit on the floor of the House of Representatives,

which only a selective group of men and women over the history of this state have done. But the main thing is, Alan, he's given me the opportunity to stand for him to be a light, to show the difference between the holy and the profane when it comes to hatred and race and prejudice and division, and that these things don't have to be. I think that one thing most folks forget, that we all gravitate to that which we are comfortable. So black folks, African Americans are just as likely to be comfortable around folks who look like them as our white people are. The principal at the school that we integrated in 68, if you don't mind me saying, he said this to me when I graduated.

He had told me when I went to school there. He said that I had signed up for physics. He said, no, not physics. You need general science. I said, no, sir, I want physics. He says, no, no, no, John, you take general science. Now, he was a good man. But everything that he knew and believed about a young black man, a colored child at his school,

said that I could not do physics at his school. So I needed general science because he wanted me to pass. He did not want me to fail. He meant well. I said, no, sir, I want physics. And I took physics. And no matter what else I studied, I studied physics. I made a B in physics.

I want a ribbon in the science fair. I represented our school. When I graduated from his school, he was man enough to come to me, shake my hand. And he said, John, everything I thought I knew about colored children, you have changed in two years. And that statement goes right back to what my father said, be a man. He said, if you are a man, you act like a man, you conduct yourself like a man, you give respect, you'll get respect. And that's the way we change the world. We don't change the world by hating each other, which you so very well said during your presentation.

We changed the world by showing love. Darkness doesn't drive out darkness. Light drives out darkness. Amen. Amen. Well, I think you didn't only overcome racism. You served for almost three decades in the state legislature as a Democrat. Mm-hmm.

That was something to overcome them. And now you're the senior advisor to a Republican governor. Yes, sir. So people that want to be an antagonist to this, you've served on both sides of that aisle. That's right. When I, my district, District 90, did I serve for almost. three decades, had been a Republican district for 100 years. It had always been a Republican district.

And because Democrats at that particular time in 1994 had the supermajority, they re-drew the lines. In other words, reapportionment turned it from a Republican district to a Democratic district. Well, people came to me, a group of Republicans and Democrats. They came and said, we want you to run for the Democratic. this office because you're the one person that we believe will work for everybody. And so I ran for the office in 1994. I won. I took the oath of office in 1995. And from that point on, I did what was right for everybody. I didn't make democratic decisions. I didn't make Republican decisions.

I made decisions based upon what was right, what was just, what the Lord would want me to do. And because of this as the Democratic Party evolved from what it had been in the days of Kennedy, in the days when my father and mother were Democrats. Before then, everybody was an Eisenhower Republican, but my parents were the first to be Democrats. The party changed so much because of policies and positions that I no longer was allowed to represent them. And they said they decertified me. as a Democrat, took me off the ballot, even though the people in my district had put me on the ballot, they took me off and said that the people of my district basically didn't have enough sense to choose their representative, so they did it for them.

That's crazy. That's crazy. Brandon, I'm not ignoring you. I wanted to get that part of the story on the table. All the advances we made through the civil rights movement and the six years. and Dr. King and people like John and we still have hatred. We still hate one another based on how we look. I mean, we've made some significant progress, I think.

But I also feel like Jesus is less welcome in our communities. And I think we've lost good men like the fellow sitting next to me, John. Right? I got your name right. Yeah, make sure I got it right. We lost good men like that. that nowadays men are so filled with hatred and revenge and not forgiveness. I think the reason why we still see racism still be a consistent topic is because people have not forgiven. You know, my grandmother, I think, forgave.

But I think there's a generation of people that still have not made the decision as Christians to say, I'm going to forgive the people who I felt wronged my ancestors. And therefore, they're living in turmoil. They're living in dread. they're living every moment in this constant situation where they feel like that they need to get back at another person because of something that happened to people that's not even live anymore.

And I think that we need to return back to valid points of leadership that Christ showed us no matter what color you are. And that's why I stand up so hard against some of these things is because I think that the same spirit is passed down. I always give this analogy of when God is, he's sending out a text message. Some people don't get that text because they don't have a relationship.

But when people hear from God, they get the text message and we all can see the writing on the wall how we should participate moving forward to make our country a better place. And I think it's up to me and other young men that have come along beside me to change a generation of thought processes. We are overcomers in Christ. Even if you're not a Christian, I still tell people, you cannot live a life of success and prosperity if you are constantly viewing yourself as a victim.

I get so sick and tired of people pushing this racial crap all over our schools, all on social media. I saw just recently, I forget his name, he's a superstar R&B artist. And he was talking about how Donald Trump is so racist and that he wanted the National Guard to shoot black people who wanted to protest

against George Floyd. I mean, complete lie, delusioned, and they're perpetuating this idea to young people and it's causing them to live a life, not the way God has told us to live or we got to set it up for us to live, the American dream, but to live in dread as if they don't belong to this country.

I think it's a sin and it's terrible what the leadership is doing to our young people. I listen to your podcasts, and honestly, I'm amazed at your courage and your boldness. I mean, you do it with a lot of humor. Yeah. But you are honest about what you feel

and you don't bow down to conventional wisdom to try to get more clicks. If you're not familiar, it's the real Officer Tatum. Oh, the Officer Tatum. The Officer Tatum. It's worth the time. Right.

It's not very hard for me. I hate to take credit and act like I'm this big, bold guy that's just, I've always been like this. My mom raised me to say whatever I feel like saying. At the time, I was saying stuff I shouldn't have said. And then God can still use that same kid to do us right. I always been opinionated.

I've never cared about what people have to say if it wasn't right, if it wasn't true. And I feel like God had, he knew he could use somebody like me to be bold in the kingdom. And so then when I got saved and I knew the truth, you cannot convince me of nothing else. I'm going to tell the truth no matter what. And I've had experiences with God enough to know that God still have my back, even if they go and get tough, even if I have to have tough conversations with people or walk away from this situation or proclaim this online, they may come after me. But God has always had my back.

And at the end of the day, men will always turn on you and fail you. God will never change. There is people that hated me when I came out, even in my church, when I said I'm a conservative in all these things. And some of those same people are now texting me, messaging me, hey, man, I agree with you now. So men can be fickle. That's why I don't really get too caught up

in how people feel about me the day or tomorrow. I really rely on, okay, is Christ happy with what I'm doing? Is you happy with what I'm saying? Am I doing the right thing? And if I am, I can live with that at the end of the day. And if things go south for me in this life, I know that Christ still got me in the end. That's good preaching. It's also why we need the Bible.

We need that authority of scripture because it gives us a foundation, a grounding point, to determine right and wrong. Because if we just get swept along by our feelings, or conventional wisdom or what the leading whomever today says will be in deep weeds. So I think there's a tension that exists.

I know there's a tension to exist. One of the worst things you can be accused of today is being a racist. And it brings tension to conversations. Because if you love people, you want to tell them the truth. But if somebody gets mad at you and labels you with something,

so it tamps down conversation and relationship any wisdom, suggestions, coaching, perspectives. You've both lived through it in very different times and seasons, but you've not only overcome, you've flourished in the midst of it. It's very difficult because I've never been called a racist, and it mattered, right? I mean, somebody called me a raise. I just laugh at them. Or somebody called me a name of Uncle Tom, a Coon, Sellout, Boot Liquor,

and all this of the stuff that they call me because I don't tow the line. You too? Right. It's just like somebody calling you ignorant and you know that you're a very intelligent studied person. It's like, I don't care what you say. You're a fool. I'm hoping that people will internalize that theology of saying, it doesn't matter what you say about me. You're wrong.

And I'm confident enough to know that you're wrong. However, I will say that you can't let people get you down when they do call you names like that. If you are confident in yourself and you know you're not a racist, challenge that person and say you are a liar. and I'm against what you said because it's not true. I'm not a racist. You don't have a definition of racist. And when you call me a racist

for something that's not racist, you're watering down the term and therefore real racers are getting away with murder. And I think people have to combat it. You can't just let people say it to you. In some cases, you should just let it go, right? If somebody doesn't matter to you. But if grandma call you something

or somebody that's a close friend of you, then it's up to you to challenge their narrative and not just let it slide. I think that one of the things that all of us are aware of these days is that it's a crutch. It's a crutch. I call you a racist. I call you some other racial slur, not because I believe it's true, but because it diverts from the facts of the matter. As he's so very well said, the principles of the issue.

Now, instead of dealing with what you said, which. was felonias without facts and basically within itself a stereotypical. Now we're dealing with the fact that, no, I'm not a racist. Why? Because it's a good diversion away from where we ought to be. Because of these tactics these days where we have weaponized race, we have weaponized division, conversation is attacked called hate speech. because I say I disagree with you.

That's hate speech. I don't have those feelings toward you. And I appreciate the olden days. I know that's when when folks said something, they meant it. If you made racial slurs, because I know you probably really believe that. These days, that's just not the case. What we see right now are those who have, tactics to where this is divisive.

This makes my point. This makes my living. This gives me my 15 minutes of fame. This gives me the opportunity to get before the camera and demean you and talk about things that are irrelevant rather than talk about the relevant issues. And as long as we allow ourselves, my dad used to tell me, and I'm sure I ventured that someone in your family or your family told you the same thing. My dad said if someone call your name, just laugh at them and say, you don't know me bad.

You don't know me well enough to hurt my feelings. You really don't. You don't know me that well. The only people that can hurt my feeling are the folks that I like and the folks that I know love me. But you don't know me well enough to hurt my feelings. And in a time where we have social media, where kids actually go on social media and search around the world to see what people are saying about them. and at a time when the suicide rate in this country, self-murder is advancing at a rate that is alarming, and the ages of kids taking their lives is getting younger and younger, recently a six-year-old,

a first-grader took their life. You have to ask, what in the world has a first-grader lived through to where they take their own lives and feel like there's nothing else to live for? Those of us who are adults, we need to take an introspective. examination of ourselves because the mess we're making for our children, for our posterity, that it's going to be beyond their ability to handle. And we are really jeopardizing their future by filling them with all of our adult, anxieties, stereotypical beliefs and behaviors.

We've got to do something about that. We're betraying our responsibility. We are. We are. You described a time when character mattered more than being a character. Right. You know, now we reward you if you'll act like some foolish character. Once upon a time, we would reward you if you cultivated good character.

But I think about what you're saying. And I had to make a decision because labels are one of the public punishments of the day. And I had to decide that I would tell the truth or say what I thought was right no matter what label came. If I say men and women are different, that we're not the same. Right, right. It doesn't seem too radical to me, but then you get labeled the sexist. Right, right. When I say, I don't think the borders should be open so that just anybody could come.

Let's have legal immigration. Let's put a process in place. Then people say, I'm xenophobic. Yeah. I mean, they come up with all these labels. And I just had to decide, you know, you can label me whatever you want. My identity's in Christ. We've been talking about that today at the conference.

I know at the foot of the cross, we're all the same. The blood of Jesus justifies us and sanctifies us. whether we're male or female, black or white, or whatever. And if our identity is rooted in that, then I will find the way to work through life with you, treat you with dignity, and ask you to treat me with dignity. And if people don't want to do that, they're going to label us all kinds of wicked things. That's exactly right. And they'll come back around.

That's one thing that I realize is that you don't get too bent out of shape when people are saying those things. Because what happened is when truth hits you, it hurt a little bit first. and therefore people begin to act out. They get hurt so they say hurtful things to you. But then once in a while, after that seed has been planning, they hurt the truth. I see this on campus all the time. They confront individuals.

They yell at you. They get mad. Charlie Kirk is one. And they get mad. They scream at them. You're a devil. They do that in front of the comfort of these other people that they think endorse it. When they go home, they're not saying that.

They're going home and saying, wait a minute, I've never heard of that before. and they begin to change. So somebody that called me a racial slur, say I was working for the devil and all this stuff, now they're turning around and they can see because the law can only go so far before people begin to realize that it's completely out of control.

When they say that you are crazy for saying that there's two sexes, two genders, it sound crazy and they were able to get away with calling you whatever, homophobic, transphobic, or whatever, but now it's gone so far that the average person is looking and said, now y'all out of control.

Y'all crazy. There's no way in the world. You're letting women compete against, or you're letting men compete against women that call themselves women. That's insane. They're always winning. They're always number one at the podium.

It's clear that it's wrong. And now people can see it. Same thing with the gender thing. How far are you going to go? There's 700 genders now. That is insane to me. because when you die, they're not going to go and pick up your skeleton

and test your DNA and say that you were some made up gender. You're either a man or a woman. You're either male or female, X, X or XY. That's what the truth really is. When you go, and I'm not going to say that because I'm trying to be a good Christian today. When you go and get checked,

they're going to check one or two things. You're going to go to OBGYN or you're going to be doing something else, right? And when you go to the hospital, you get injured when I was a cop. I'm not concerned of what you think you are. I need to address your medical concerns based on if you are a male or a female. But it gets to a point where it ebbs and flows

and people have to understand that. We live in a time where in 20 years from now, we're going to realize how idiotic people were pushing this leftist agenda. And so don't get weary and will doing. I may be a misquoting the scripture. But if you are doing right by God, you're going to be all right in the end.

I had an individual one time that just went up one side me and the other, as my dad used to say, with every demeaning slur and title that they could think of that had to do with homosexuality and lesbianism and all the various in the alphabet alphabet suit. And they called me homophobic. I said, well, you're heterophobic. They stopped for a minute because they never heard that. I'm a what? I said, you're heterophobic. I said, you're afraid to be what you are. You're afraid to be what God made you.

I said, you want to call me a homophobic? I said, I'm not afraid of anything. I know who I am. I know what I am. I know whose I am. I know who made me. I have enough common sense to know exactly what gender that I am. I said, but somewhere on the line, you are afraid to be what God made you to be.

I said, you're heterophobic. And they left me confused because I had the gall and the nerve to create a term just like they did. And that's all it is. They create these terms and attach them to something, to some belief in society. The fact of the matter is there are folks coming to this nation right now. You mentioned the open borders a moment ago. There are people who are coming to this nation that are so happy to be here. Lady Liberty still stands in New York Harbor,

said, give me you're tired, your poor, your health of masses longing to be free. She's still there with that bronze attachment, inviting folks in the front door of our nation. There are 16 African nations that are represented around Nashville and Murphysboro and other areas. Many of them have come in, they have studied, they have worked, they have passed,

tests. They have raised their right hand. They pledged allegiance to the flag and to the Constitution and to the nation. And I was with a group that were in tears when they got that piece of paper that said that they were American citizens. It was the proudest day of their lives. Americans by birth could learn a lot from Americans by choice. And they have come, they understand the American dream that some of us seem to have forgotten while we're fighting over stuff that is ridiculous as gender? I mean, come on, gender. We got five genders now.

You said 70. We got genders. You have folks who set on in high positions who will say on camera that they don't know what a woman is. I mean, come on, let's be for real. These folks are coming in and they're looking at us. And guess what? They are going after the American dream full sting ahead.

They are buying businesses, buying homes. Their children are serving in the military. They are living out the dream while many of us are criticizing it. And this is why I don't fall for the rhetoric of this racism that they claim exists that's perpetuated in this country. That can stop a person of color from doing anything because the immigrants who come over here that are black are doing better than some of these people who are born here. And it's because they're spoiled brats. They're spoiled.

They've gotten a good so long. They've been able to pull the race car so many times. They've been able to bludgeon people that disagree with them. Nobody tells them no. They've been able to act in a way that's not pleasing to God. Men land with women and not taking care of their responsibilities, leaving them to be single mothers. They're doing all of these things with no repercussion.

And then when the rubber hits the road, they can just go to the left politician to rescue them with some fake policy that destroys America. But the thing is, is that I tell them all the time, I say, when you look at America and you think that America is racist, look at these other individuals. The Hispanic people are coming over here and having tons of kids. They're not at the abortion clinic. They're having tons of kids.

And some of these African Americans are not realizing that they're going to be replaced. The political people are already setting this up. They're going to have as many illegal aliens come from the southern border or wherever they come from to be in this country. They're trying to convert their minds and brainwash and manipulate them almost like they've done black people in this country. In the 60s, with welfare,

and all of these other things they offer, they're saying, abandoning God, abandon your responsibility, abandon your husband because the government is now your God. The government is now your husband. The government is your baby daddy. And they're going to do the same thing to unsuspecting immigrants that come in this country.

They lie to them about the dream that they lie to them that they're going to be able to come in here and just get everything free. And they're essentially giving it to them up front, but at some point, they're going to come to collect. And the collection is going to be, you vote for me,

you get amnesty, and then the people who they once manipulated, which were African-American people in this country, you're going to be left out to dry. Harriet Tubman said something one time. You probably have heard that statement that's reported and given to her. She said, I freed a thousand slaves.

I could have freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand. more if they had realized they were slaves. And when you look at our time right now, think about how many folks that she would look at today, not realizing as you just so very well described, a psychological and emotional slaves. The government did to poor people, black people, and folks who were in need what slavery and poverty and the Depression era and Jim Crow couldn't do. it broke up the family, tore the family apart. When I finished college my first time around, my wife and I, we managed an apartment complex. And in that apartment complex, about 200 apartments.

And you would be surprised. I mean, I felt like I was in church every day because there were so many immaculate conceptions around that apartment. Because men were not allowed in the complex. They were not allowed in the home. There were no men allowed in the home, but everybody was pregnant. And what happened here? What you just mentioned? The government said we'll give you free health care, free housing, free food, free transportation, free education, on and on and on.

We will hand out all of this to you, but you can't have a man in the house. You can't try to have a family. You can't have that child's father around them. And what did we do? We created this Frankenstein. monster that we've created in this nation now where the family is divided, the father is just someone on the outside. Of course, you cannot get rid of personal responsibility, as you just well said.

But that's been contributed to. And if we say it, if you and I say it, we're Uncle Tom. We're Uncle Tom's for saying something like that. Because, you know, this is, this goes back to slavery. Well, I say all the time, black folks. did real well after slavery because they pulled together with a determination and a grit and a toughness and a courage that they overcame so many things that were against them. They built Black Wall Street. They built many cities and companies. There were black millionaires all over the country. There were black politicians. And we have to go back to the woodwork.

Wilson era to see where this was turned around and upended by many of the Jim Crow rules and laws. So when we start looking at that, what we see is the black family being disenfranchised and torn apart. And that's why we have some of the problems we have today. Well, tragically, it isn't just the black family. The government's tearing apart family and general now, redefined in marriage, all around. Which really gets us to the root of this, I think, and that's the significance of the church. None of this happens if the church is where the church should be. It's the church that unifies us.

That's right. It's the church that brings us liberty and freedom. That doesn't come from governments. And the church has got to find its voice. You know, there are folks in the church that say we shouldn't even have this conversation. But John has been, he has a political career of three decades and a pastor. Five decades. So you kind of, you kind of annihilated.

violate that whole conversation that we've got to separate these things. And it's because, as we said here, we are never, this is America. You've got the right to disagree with me. I've got the right to disagree with you. That's the beautiful thing about America. I've got the right to agree with or disagree with whomever I choose. And the beautiful thing is we find that when we sit down as individuals who understand, God created this world, God created us, God gave us,

rules and laws on how we are to treat one another and love one another and respect one another. When we understand this, it makes us realize, okay, what I think is not greater than what God thinks. And my rules are not greater than God's rules. When those men wrote that document, which is one of the greatest documents ever written by man, because it's based on the greatest document ever written, the scriptures, within that document, they place the fact that our rights are given to us by God. Now, you can build on that, and you can build a great nation on that. Once you say our rights are given to us by God, from that point on,

we can find camaraderie and brotherhood and agreement with one another. Our way out of this place we're in, and it's a difficult place. I think has to begin with faith and that leads us to the church and we've got to have the courage to say the church is in trouble the country's in trouble because the church has been doing so many foolish

I heard you do a piece other night on a church with a stripper pole in it oh yeah we don't have to go into that but the failures of the church in our country are pretty we failed the church didn't stand up against slavery

no we were quiet when we should have had a voice and been making a difference but we can't stop there the church failed when we've talked about abortion. We've lost 60 million children of every color. That's right.

And the church has dithered and hadn't been able to find a voice. And now they're mutilating our children. And the church isn't willing to step up for the most part and say anything. Because somebody says, well, that's political. It's not political. You take your hands off our kids. You don't have a right to mutilate them. So we desperately need the people of God and the people of faith to find their voice.

We will all get to a better place. A thousand percent. You couldn't have said it better. When I was coming here, the other day when I was thinking about what I wanted to say, it all boiled down to judgment starts at the house, and it's our responsibility to do the things necessary to make this a great country. I am frustrated with the modern church. I said in one of the videos I made recently that the church is failing.

It's in such a decline that similar to the situation that you had mentioned, what are we doing arguing about something stupid like this and going behind the pulpit and making these phrases of coming after somebody that we have a personal disagreement with? We should be preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. The reason that I got saved because I went to a church that actually preached the gospel.

These things are incredibly important. And then people, the church does not receive power like it used to, in my opinion. Because they get up on Sunday and they play church. They have a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. They're doing religion.

They're doing, you know, these traditions, and they go to church, and they go home, and they go to church. Where is the power of God that transforms people to when they go out in the world, they're so on fire and in power that they begin to change the world? I see churches today. They're in a community, and a community is trash. Well, how do you have a church on every corner

and a community is worse than where there's no churches? That's because people have turned church into a business. It is a business to make you famous and to make you popular. You write a book. You become a millionaire. You wear a designer clothes. And now you live in a secular life you always wanted to using the church as leverage. Instead of us, you know, being on our knees and saying, Christ, come and help us.

Let your will be done here on earth. I'm willing to sacrifice it all to have a relationship. And young people like me, I'm hoping that God is allowing them to see an example of saying, I can still be sold out to Jesus and still do well in life and still be financially successful. I don't have to be foregoing the great things that God has created in this world just to serve. I can serve and have a great success. Amen. In Memphis recently, there was a advertisement in elementary schools.

I may have sent that to you or you may have seen it. where the kids were invited to the meeting of the Satan Club. We're going to have fun. We're talking about elementary students, the Satan Club and fun and refreshments and so on and so forth. And this was prominently displayed by the school, allowed to go to the students. The students were allowed to go to the Satan Club meeting. Now, the same school system that bans the Bible. Bible that removes prayer, that won't let the children talk openly about Christ, that

uh, uh, uh, a downs and berates Christianity allows the Satan club to be established among elementary students. And that, that sends a message that should alarm and wake up parents. That is not religion that they want to ban. It's Christianity that they want to ban. Because Christianity changes things. The words that Jesus said, the words that are in the scripture, change the world. Matthew 5, 6, and 7 change the world. And that's what those who are our distractors and our enemies do not want our children to believe. Amen. Two of the finest leaders I know, John DeBerry and Brandon Tatum, you have used your lives to make a difference in our nation, in our communities, and I thank you for it. But you've got to be a lot.

given us an assignment today. I've heard you say there's something we can do. And that's use our voice and go into our spheres of influence and stand up for our faith and tell the truth. We love one another, not because we look the same or sound the same, but because we're bound together in Jesus. He's the one that's changing our lives. And I think we have been quiet in the face of this avalanche of messaging that comes at us that tries to attach a label to us. so maybe we'll follow your courageous pathway. I can listen to your podcast. I can call John.

Between the two of you, maybe I can stay on the straight and narrow. Thank you for your voices in our nation. Don't stop, please. God bless you, Pastor. Thank you, man. Don't you stop? No, sir.

God bless you, man. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture.

I'll see you next time.