Live Free with Josh Howerton - 4 Megachurch Pastors Discuss Christian Nationalism | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

In this bonus episode of LIVE FREE, Pastors Josh Howerton, Russell Johnson, Ryan Visconti, and Josh McPherson explore the biblical relationship between Christianity and patriotism. Is loving one’s country Christian nationalism or idolatry? They unpack how believers are not only allowed but called to actively engage in politics and culture. Now is the time to advocate for righteousness, turn back to God, and walk in bold obedience. Drawing on biblical examples and historical context, they challenge the idea that Christians should withdraw from political involvement and instead encourage faithful engagement to influence society for good. 👍 Like, Comment, & Subscribe for more life-changing podcasts! 🔔 Turn on notifications so you never miss an update! 📝 SHOW NOTES Subscribe now to receive the show notes directly in your inbox with each new episode. These notes are filled with key insights and scripture to help you reflect and grow deeper in your faith – https://lakepointe.church/shownotes 👇 DON’T MISS OUT! Ready to make a difference? Click the link to join a serve team today! https://lakepointe.church/serve/ ⛪ ABOUT LAKEPOINTE CHURCH: We believe that Lakepointe is a movement for all people to Know God, Find Freedom, Discover their Calling, and Make a Difference. With 7 DFW locations and programs for all ages, there's something for everyone. 🤝 Support this ministry and help us reach more people with the Gospel: https://lakepointe.church/give STAY CONNECTED: 🌐 Website: https://lakepointe.church/ 👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lpconnect/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lpconnect 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lakepointechurchFOLLOW PASTOR JOSH: 👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowertonJosh/ 📸 Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/josh_howerton/?hl=en 🎥 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@howertonjosh GUEST PASTORS: 📸 https://www.instagram.com/ryanvisconti/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/russellbjohnson/?hl=en 📸 https://www.instagram.com/pastorjoshmcpherson/?hl=en 🎧 LISTEN ON THE GO! ▶️ Live Free on Spotify / https://open.spotify.com/show/353ryGdZNlebaiqkCcy3Yc ▶️ Live Free on Apple Podcasts / https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/live-free-with-josh-howerton/id1669321198

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton. We're so glad you're here. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And this weekly podcast is all about helping you do just that. Each episode is a deep dive into the Word of God tackling life, culture, and faith with truth and clarity so you can be equipped to live free in Christ.

Thanks for tuning in. And be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and follow us on all our social platforms to stay connected to everything happening with Live Free. Now, let's dive into today's episode. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Christian Nationalism episode of Live Free. I'm here with a military minister to homeschool Baptist guys and the Hawaiian prophet,

the Hawaiian NAR prophet, Russell Johnson. That's a joke. That's not a joke. The Hawaiian part. Stop, dude. stop we would like to disavow that right out of the joke right and hey just here's what we're going to do it it was I'm too much fun here's we're going to do in the next few minutes we are going to in this pod it is becoming very clear that the quote unquote Christian nationalism conversation is going to become like

the conversation in politics in our nation and I think in the church in like the next two to three years dudes, I don't know if you guys saw this. The Christian nationalism, where we talked about it for the first time on Live Free, that thinks it like almost 400,000 views right now. And it's just, that's the question everybody has. Yeah. Yeah. So let's just, here's what we're going to do in the next few minutes for listeners,

is we're going to talk about basically should Christians be Christian nationalist? Josh, you're just, are you laughing at me or with me? I'm practicing. I'm practicing. Hey, will you go ahead and throw out that picture of my friend Josh? Somebody caught a picture of Josh is really helpful that, you know, we just is somebody, hold on,

I got a picture too. Somebody just snapped this picture of a person and we wanted to. Seriously, we're going to doing that. That's not cool, bro. What do you think, Ryan and Russ? You can picture of Josh? Yeah, chairman of the White Tuse for Harris Committee. I actually got a picture.

Oh, you jerk. No, I'll send this to Carlos. This would be good. Carlos on vacation. Oh, crap. All right, here's what you're doing in the next few minutes. We're going to talk about what Christian nationalism is and is not. Is it something that Christians should be?

And then, as you guys have probably seen, like, dude, once you start talking about this stuff, there's like, seven ways that not just people, but pastors, like just sometimes pretty heavy resistance. And we want to talk about all those things and respond to a couple clips that have gone kind of viral lately. So ladies gentlemen, we're ready? What do we think? Let's do it. Any opening comments here? Let's go. Full sin. All right. I'm working on finding a picture here, so you keep talking. I'm distracted now. Stop, dude. Okay. Let's begin right here because um so the question is let's start here uh i was i did a little debate team in uh in high

school and one of the primary things is whoever controls the terms wins the debate so but we need to define what we're talking about when we say christian nationalism first a lot of misconceptions on this so we need to first say what we're not saying so we're going to toss up a clip here get ready for that uh that that that with the paris to give any quick clip and don't don't toss up yet and by the way i I just want to preface this, this is not a dunk on the clip, because actually what I want to point out is we agree. The stuff that you're going to hear from, this guy's name is Justin Gibney. We've interacted a little bit on X and had like good, I've had good interactions with Justin. But you're going to hear some definitions of Christian nationalism that we would, you know, probably, I'm going to let these guys respond, but we kind of go like, oh, that's not worth saying. Now, this is a quick clip from a podcast called With the Perry's. Okay, let's go ahead and roll. that and then we'll talk about what we'll respond to here real quick. I'll tell you when to cut it. I think a lot of Christians can understand why some Christians have a problem with liberal point of views, but at the same time, they might not have an ability to understand why Christian

nationalism is also problematic in some ways. One of the biggest problems with Christian nationalism is it binds Christianity with America as if they're hand in hand. If America is really God's promised land, then I can't really accept the negative things that America has done. So these are the people that will not accept negative stuff about American history. They'll get mad at objective facts about slavery, Jim Crow and all that because their idol can't live in the same location as the truth. Wow. Wow. And their idol can't live. So they have to throw out. If you wonder why somebody don't like to talk about history and just denies it because their idol can't live there. Wow. And then once you make this God's country.

When we go to war, we're in the right. So you can justify anything America does because we have that connection and, you know, he brought us here and now we're just doing kind of his work. All right, you can cut it right there. Okay. Let's go ahead and start.

Agree, disagree, additional comments. First off, it's like, where did he get this understanding of Christian nationalism is what I, you know, think as a viewer? Like, I don't know about you guys, but I misplaced, my idols. Like, I don't have a little idol set up with an American flag and a picture of Donald Trump that I bowed down before and burn incense before. And this idea that, you know, if you love your country,

you can't admit or acknowledge anything your country's ever done wrong. I don't know anybody who struggles with that problem in real life. So, I mean, I think America was established by God's Providence, and we'll probably talk more about that. But we don't claim it to be the promised land. And we don't conflate America with heaven where everything will be perfect and sinless. I think it's funny that when this dude is talking about Christian nationalism, he brings up things like slavery and the Jim Crow laws. It was the Christian influence on the nation that ended slavery. It was the Christian influence of a minister named Dr. Martin Luther King.

who advocated for civil rights laws and through his death led a revolution and a reformation of the American legislative and legal framework led it in a more equitable direction. And so it's like it's such like a misguided false attempt at interjecting a modigum of like intelligence into the debate, that it completely misses the point. And in doing so, he's bringing up the evidence for exactly why we need Christian influence in civic government. You know, the abolitionist movement was expressly Christian. The civil rights movement was expressly Christian. And so it's kind of like Christian nationalism for me, but not for you. Oh, interesting. Josh. Yeah. I, I agree with all that, nothing to add.

Yeah, I'll just say, so you get, I may be a little more. Here's what I'd say, I just agree with everything he said. If that's what somebody's talking about when they say Christian nationalism, agree. So what we're not saying is, first of all, he said men, people who make Christianity in America go hand in hand. You know, one thing I would say, and I think he would probably say it too, I think, don't we want Christianity in America to go hand in hand? Like, that's kind of our thing.

As a Christian. We want every. Call me crazy. We want, well, we want. Go ahead. And like, nobody has ever committed adultery because they love their wife too much. So like this idea of y ought to be scared to have patriotic or feelings of affinity towards the nation you're in because that is inevitably going to lead to idolatry is just a red herring. It's a, it's an argument that is built on.

false precipice. And the reality is, is not just our nation, but in the history of nations, it has been objectively true that Christian influence, moral influence, leaning in the direction of righteousness, has had a downstream major beneficial effect in the development of a nation or the people. And so to kind of create this straw man definition of what Christian nationalism, is and then attack it because, you know, you've got all these like, you know, crazy conservative white people who are building miniature altars to Donald Trump and waving an American flag. And that's their highest allegiance. And they're not really allegiance to Christ.

And they can't admit any of the wrongdoings. Nobody is doing that. You are criticizing something that only exists within the mindset of like MSNBC contributors. It doesn't make sense. Yes. Yeah, you know, interesting little tidbit about the effects of Christianity on the abolition of slavery. I was thinking of the Christmas hymn, O Holy Night, which is saying, change shall he break, for the slave is our brother. That song was translated into English in 1855, 10 years before the abolition of slavery in America.

And spread across America in churches singing this prophetic declaration of freedom for the captive. Why? because of Christianity, bro. I'm sorry, I'm fired up. Okay. Let me just, so let me say a few things we're not saying because I'm going to go ahead and give away a few things. And I don't know if these guys will agree. These guys are allowed to disagree with me.

We're all big boys here. I'm going to say that correctly defined every Christian should be a Christian nationalist. That's where I'm going to go here in just a second, correctly defined. So let me say a few things that we're not saying. We are saying we want Christianity. to permeate our nation. That's like part of the Great Commission. So we are saying that. We are not saying that America equals Christianity. Okay. So we're saying we want Christianity to permeate America. We're not saying America equals Christianity. To the, you know, kind of the statement

that he made about, man, if you start to believe that America equals God's country, I don't think anybody here is saying that America is the, you know, it's glory breaking in, pre second coming. I don't think any of us are saying that. I don't think any of us are saying that man, we believe that America and God are so interconnected that whenever we go into war or any action that we take as a country, we're automatically in the right. Is anybody saying that? No, nobody's saying that. No. I didn't think in any of you guys were saying that. When you get your citizenship in America, you do not automatically gain entrance into heaven. Like, you know, these are two distinct things.

And when we talk throughout this podcast about the concept of Christian nationalism and Christian influence on society, let me just add one thing we do not believe. We do not believe that being an American or, you know, it equivocates with being a Christian in that we're not trying to legislate faith that saves through the government or the civic process. We know that you can't do that. Faith has to come from the heart, right? And that's one of the big misconceptions, I think, around Christian nationalism. People would say, well, you need change to come from within through the gospel, transforming the heart. And that's absolutely true when it comes to being saved from hell and entering into the kingdom of heaven.

But we're talking about heaven coming to earth. And we'll get more into that, I think, in a minute. Yeah. And I think at it's like foundational definition, Christian nationalism is the conviction that the Christian faith should inform and shape the moral, cultural, and political life of a nation. So when we're talking about the need for Christian influence in the framing of a country, that's what we're communicating.

This isn't like the Mormon theology of Christ returning to Independence, Missouri, and establishing the new Jerusalem. Yeah, I've been to Independence, Missouri. I promise you, Christ is not returning to Independence, Missouri. Missouri. You know, we're talking about the influence of Christianity permeating every sphere of society, including the political sphere. There is not one realm on earth that Christ is not king of or lord over, including the public policy or the political realm. And so when we talk about the need for Christians to engage in the public square of civic engagement, and in doing so, advocate for

Christological values. You know, we're talking about the concept or the idea that righteousness exalt a nation and that this nation is a better, more free nation for all people when we lean in that direction. This is not some sort of top-down, militaristic, convert or die. We're going to outlaw freedom of religion and everybody has to pass a theological test in order to be a citizen. Nobody is advocating for that. And so, you know, you have these people, you know, on the left or at least who think in incorrect leftist ways about this framework, who set up this like scary straw man of what all these Christian nationalists are trying to do and then like pride themselves in tearing that down.

And it's like, what are you talking about? You're fighting a boogeyman that doesn't exist. You know, the bare basic idea that Christians and Christianity should help frame in the moral governance and civic values of a nation is number one, not a new idea. Number two, not a radical idea. And number three, clearly prescribed in the pages of scripture. And then one more thing I'll say is this. You know, nations can't get born again because they don't have souls in the same sense that a human does.

So it's like when somebody says, do you listen to Christian music? It's like, well, I listen to music that is written by Christians that glorifies Christ. But no, a music. label can't get born again. You know, we are talking about Christianity impacting a nation, just like we would talk about Christianity impacting anything else. From art to music to you name it, there's Christian influence all around. And so this is not a radical or new idea. This is a tale literally as old as time. And when people allow like the talking points of the militant left to impact their epistemology, then they come out.

with like, like, these like statements or podcast clips that might sound like revelatory in nature, but are actually just like completely missing the point of what everybody else is talking about. Let me say a few things. Let me add a few things to what Russ just said that we're not saying Christian nationalism is, and then let's move on and define it, and then let's start dealing with a lot of the attack vectors. We're also, I don't think any of us, let me get a head nod on this. no, none of us are advocating for a state church so that, hey, man, there's a unification of state and church. Correctly defined, I think all of us strongly agree with the separation of church

and state correctly defined. Yes or no? Yes. Okay, yes. We're also not talking about, I've seen a little bit of this, we're not talking about overturning the United States Constitution. I think everything that we're talking about in the next few minutes are things that can be accomplished within a constitutional framework. And honestly, as you're going to see, the constitutional framework is an explicitly Christian theologically informed structure. So we're all, we like the Constitution.

Yes or no? I mean, well, yes, and this might get into it later, but you go to, if you go to where Congress gathers and where our Speaker of the House sits and where our president stands to give the state of the union, the state of the union address every year. When you walk into the seat of our legislative body that makes all of our laws, and you ask yourself, where do they, where did our founders think the best source for drawing morality from to shape laws would come from?

If you look in the back wall, I've actually sat in the Speaker of the House seat. If you look on the back wall, do you know what it's sitting there? It's a statue of Moses. and Moses is holding two tablets, looking down on the legislative body of the United States of America and if you're going to ask yourself, where do we think the founders thought

we should draw our ethics and morality from as a foundation for our laws of the land? There's an explicit answer in the Capitol and it's from the law of Moses. If you look at Jefferson, who was arguably one of the most maybe fringe religious founders in terms of like, okay, probably the closest to an enlightened deus you could get.

He also had four bookshelves of Bibles and Bible dictionaries and Bible commentaries. He read his own personal Bible in Greek, in Hebrew, in Latin, and in English, and in his later days became increasingly fixated with the book of Leviticus. That's right. And so when we think about our nation as a Christian nation, are we saying the state should, it should be a state church telling people what to believe. No, no, no, no, not all. What we're saying is the church, the word of God,

the moral authority of the word of God should have a ruling and reigning voice over the state and over the family and over the jurisdictions of society. And so when I hear clips like that, and again, I've waited to comment here because I agree with everything you guys are saying, I don't understand the pushback

for wanting to have a nation influenced by explicit Christian doctrine. Blessed is the nation whose God is Lord. That's a Bible verse we have. And so Josh, honestly, I'm a little lost sometimes. We're like, why are we arguing about whether or not it's a good thing for Christianity, not only to influence, but shape the very center and core of the nation we call home? And I would agree with Russell, no nation, family, or friendship gets better that you hate.

we're called to love our families so they flourish. We're called to love our wife so she grows. We're called to love our nation so that in loving it, it can flourish. I don't understand the problem with patriotism or nationalism unless it's defined in a way that I wouldn't even agree with. I think here's one reason why there's a problem with it. It's because there are people who want the approval of godless people more than they want the approval of God. And so they hear this idea like you're a Christian and you want your Christianity to influence America? They hear this question from progressives and leftists and as a people please or someone

seeking the approval of man. They go, oh, no, no, not me. Like, I don't want a version of Christianity that messes with your sinful life in any way. I don't want a version of Christianity that in any way projects itself onto society. I want like a safe, non-threatening, like politically correct Christianity that allows for all manner of debauchery. And that's what people, I think, are overreacting, what causes the overreaction on some level. Well, so we're going to save it, save it, because we're going to go through some of the kneecaps to this. And then I do want to talk because the vast majority of our listeners, they're not pastors. But the four of us know there is massive pushback from a lot of pastors to this that I think honestly would surprise the average Christian.

And I want us to talk about why that is real quick. So let me say one more thing that we're not saying. And then if there's anything else that's in you guys' heads like, hey, we're not saying this. I'll give you a last word here and then let's move on. We're also not, this is like a super theology nerd thing. So like four people who listen will even know what I'm talking about. At least here, what this conversation is not doing is advocating for like a classically

defined theonomy. Now there are some guys, this is a niche theological conversation. There are some guys, a lot of theonomists are like, yay, Christian nationalism. That's fine. That's a different conversation. but that's not what this conversation is advocating for. Now, is there anything else that you guys would like to go, hey, one more thing that we're not saying before we...

Well, I think McPherson was saying that he sat, he's actually sat in the seat of the speaker of the House of Representatives. Wasn't that on January 6th, Josh, when you were part of the insurrection? You were the guy with the Buffalo Horns, right? I knew I recognized you from somewhere. Oh, my gosh. Let me to say this is the second time as the host of the podcast. I need to say that's not what we're saying. We're canceling out both NAR and Jan 6 participation. Okay, so that's good. Let me corral the troops here. Okay, let's show this. This might be sidetracked, but I'm not sure I agree, disagree what you just said. When you say Theonomy, what are you meaning? So it's kind of the thing of like, hey, not every square is a rectangle, but every, or not every rectangle is a square. I can't remember which way it goes. Not every rectangle is square,

but every square is a rectangle. All theonomists, all theonymous, this is a niche, this is a niche reformed theology discussion. All theonymous are Christian nationalists, but not all Christian nationalists are theonymous. So theonomy is obviously the belief that, hey, it's kind of the old, it's like OG, this is like super niche, OG like Rush Duny, that actually all of the civil laws given in Deuteronomy that we should be having those exact same civil laws translated into society today. Now, there are some guys who would agree with that

that would be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'm a Christian nationalist. But I'm saying the Christian nationalism, we're defining it considerably broader than that. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Can I keep going? Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean interrupt.

I just, I think that would be a fun conversation to go down the hole at some point. I don't think it's as niche as you think. And I do think Christian pastors specifically need to consider more carefully. There is a difference between sin and violating the law. But for a large portion of our history as a nation, many things the Bible called sin were also illegal in our nation. Now, I don't think it should be illegal to covet your neighbor's stuff because who can know what's in the heart of a man. But it should be illegal to steal your neighbor's stuff. Yeah. Of course. You know, it shouldn't be illegal to have lustful thoughts because

who can know the man, the mind of a man, but should it be illegal to sleep with another man's wife? Well, I mean, that's an interesting question, right? I mean, like, do we think that our country flourishes when men sleep other men's wives. It was illegal in America for multiple years. It was illegal for a large portion, sodomy, adultery, stealing. These things were fundamentally illegal in our nation for many, many years, drawing from the laws of Deuteronomy. Now, I don't want to get too far on the route, but it's an interesting conversation to have.

Yeah, totally. I'm not disagreeing with any of that. And it actually is still illegal. Like, for example, if you're in the military, and you commit adultery, it's something that you can, you know, essentially be court-martialed or disbarred or lose rank for, you know, practicing immorality. And so, like, I think the broader conversation here is, is how did our civic law appear? Well, our civic law appeared downstream from the founder's understanding of moral law. And so, you know, certainly,

there is like a connection between those two. The way that our legal system is framed in America is not in some sort of like libertarian vacuum of secularist values where it's just like, oh, these are like common sense things. Well, it's actually not common sense. You know, human nature, unredeemed human nature, goes in the direction of destruction,

goes in the direction of stealing, goes in the direction of adultery, goes in the direction of ripping people off. And so, you know, the founders who kind of frame out the legal or the jurist prudence understanding for the American experiment are drawing expressly on moral law as they see it from the scriptures. And for people who don't understand that or they're just like bad at history, that's why like they have a problem like synthesizing this argument for the here and now because they actually fundamentally misunderstand history. And so like when when people find themselves on the opposing side of Christian influence in a nation, it's not just that they misunderstand the scriptures. They misunderstand history. What what they are doing is they're taking like a five to seven year time span of like current postmodern Western culture and then framing their entire civic life based on that five to seven years.

Instead of looking at the 250 year history of America going, we wouldn't even made it to where we are today without some similar. of connection to a moral law that informs civic law. Yeah, and we're going to get to that here in a second. I think, honestly, for a lot of people, it's going to, it will absolutely stun them how explicitly Christian the founding of our nation and the documents are. Like, literally, I think it will absolutely stun them. So we're going to get to that a second. Go back to defining Christian nationalism, Josh.

Lay that out. Yeah, let me do it. Let me do this. Let's go ahead. And I actually think it's a, let me jump off of a clip. This one kind of viral a few months ago. Go ahead and toss that, the clip from the newsroom. Yep, go ahead and toss that guy up. The one thing that unites all of them,

because there's many different groups orbiting Trump, but the thing that unites them as Christian nationalists, not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalists is very different, is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don't come from any earthly authority. They don't come from Congress.

They don't come from the Supreme Court. They come from God. Okay. So let me riff on this, and let me give a definition of Christian National we're going to work with and then you guys can agree or disagree. So first of all, what we would like to point out is that our founding documents literally say that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed

by their creator with certain inalienable, inalienable rights. So she's saying it's Christian nationalism to believe that your rights don't come from government and they come from God. That's literally in our founding documents. Like, let's just say that. Number two, let's point this out. This is a serious conversation. MSNBC is not sending their business.

best. Let's just get that. They're not sending their best. Let me just say a few things. Number one, what we have to understand is that if the government gives you rights, then the government can take them away. So this is what we really need to understand, is that once you stop believing in any higher authority than the government, then the government becomes God. And if they give rights, then the government can take them away. Number two, we have to understand, this is really important. Number two, we have to understand, but if you believe like we do, that rights don't come from government and they come from God, then here's the question, what's his name? Because different gods, quote unquote, gods are going to bestow different rights.

Like, they're in fundamentalist Islam with a straight reading of the Quran, Allah is going to bestow a right to take sex slaves after a jihad. Right. Okay. In certain parts of fundamentalist Hinduism, those gods are going to bestow a certain inalienable right on a community to burn a widow on her. dead husband's mattress as an offering to the God. So once we say that, hey, rights don't come from government, they come from God, we have to ask the question, what's his name? Because which God is the one that's going to be giving the rights? And we got to define them. Now, let me just riff on this for a second. And then you guys like, add commentary, agree, disagree. It's really helpful to just take the terms Christian nationalism. So when we talk about nationalism, we're not talking about idolatry, where we care about our nation more than we care about God.

We're talking about span of governments. McPherson has alluded to this before. You have three choices. You have tribalism, nationalism, or globalism. Tribalism is a bunch of warring little factions. It's chaos. Globalism is one-world government. We would just point out that in the Bible,

the only attempts at globalism are in, I think it's Genesis 12 at Tower of Babel, when mankind unites the entire world in rebellion against God. And then at the end of Revelation, where most readings of Revelation are that the Antichrist attempts a one-world government. So let's just point this out that in the Bible, God establishes nations, Satan does globalism. And then nationalism is the span of government. That is, the Bible says that God has established nations and their boundaries. And there's a whole reason for that.

So this is what we're talking about. So if you don't like the nationalism part, which one do you want to do? You want to do tribalism or you want to do globalism? Well, I think the four of us are like, well, those are really two bad ideas and one good idea. So then the question is, what kind of nationalism do you want to do? Do you want to do Islamic nationalism? Do you want to do secular progressive nationalism? That's what we've been doing for the last 20 years.

Or do we want to do Christian nationalism. So when we say that, we're saying what Russ said earlier, Christian nationalism is us saying that we treat true things as true. Christianity is true. There is a one true God. And that therefore, that God's morality, morality is the only thing that gets legislated. Let's legislate the morality that doesn't invite the judgment and the wrath of God. Let's legislate and influence our nation based on a Christian perspective.

So that's Christian nationalism, agree, disagree, additional comments. Yeah, patriotism is a word that's very similar in definition to nationalism. And nobody treats the word patriotism like a scary label. So everyone's comfortable saying, I'm patriotic, sure. And when we say that, we tend to mean, I love my country, I'm proud of my country and my cultural and our history. The only difference in the term patriotism and nationalism is a small difference. It's like one phrase.

Nationalism also includes the idea that your nation is better than other nations in some ways. And that's something that I think some tender Christians get a little bit concerned about, like, are we allowed to say that we're better than someone else? Are we allowed to be proud of our country and believe it's better than other countries? And I would just go to a personal level, right? Are you allowed as a man to think your wife is better than other wives? Are you allowed to think that your family is better than other families? It doesn't mean you hate other families. It doesn't mean you hate other men's wives. It just means you You love yours. And I would argue that today, in this world today, it's easier than ever to think, man, America has a superior moral structure, a superior legal system, a superior business environment, not just in third world countries where people are living in huts. You know, I'm talking about other first world countries. Like, look at Europe today where you can get arrested for making an offensive social media

post. Look at capitalist or socialist countries where. They're essentially trying to equalize economic outcomes in society. What does that do to the health care system? What does it do to business opportunity? So is America better than other countries? The only people who don't think it is, it's people who've never been to other countries. Okay.

If you've been anywhere else in the world, you know that America is where you want to be. If you want liberty and the opportunity to pursue happiness. Yeah, I mean, we live in a country that people are trying to break in. not break out of. And so when we talk about, you know, Christian nationalism or the idea of taking pride in the country that you're in, we're really talking about an issue of priority. You're talking about the idea of owning a house and your front door has a lock, not because you hate people on the outside, but because you love people on the inside. And so this idea that in order to really be a well-adjusted, nuanced, empathetic individual, you have to like feign this, you know, modern-day hatred for the country that you're in and completely, you know, bemoan all of its historical inadequacies or tragedies or mistakes.

And then that really makes you, like, above the political fray. I mean, it's like, it's ridiculous. So juvenile. And it's juvenile. And it like misses the point. I mean, we could all sit around and talk for hours about all of the times that America has gotten it wrong or made that wrong decision and tried to course correct and things of that nature. But the idea that you can't or that you shouldn't love the country you're in because be aware, that's going to lead to idolatry. And that's going to lead to, you know, you being an American first and a Christian second. It's like they're addressing a problem. that does not exist. This is not, there is not this wide scale idolatry in the church where people have more faith in their American citizenship than they do in the risen son of God. You know, and so you have all these nervous Nellies who like like, like to point out things like, well, if your church has an American flag, if you say the Pledge of Allegiance, if you encourage people to register to vote, it's because you are idolizing the country that you're in and doing a

disservice to the gospel. And it's a way. It's like, you read the writings of the Apostle Paul, who advocates for fair treatment based on the fact that he is a Roman citizen, who talks about appealing to Caesar because the gospel must get to the center of Rome. I mean, this idea that, you know, in order to appear empathetic and woke to people who don't share your values, you should talk negatively about the country that you live in is complete backwards, juvenile, just ridiculous. Virtue signaling, 100%. Hmm. Yeah, it's like the... It's like the six... I'll just say one thing, Josh. Go ahead.

Well, it's... No, I'm not interrupting. I agree with everything that said. I don't know if anything constructive to add. We could talk for hours. Like, when I watch the Olympics, I want every team that walks out under their flag

to think their country's the best country. Like, I get emotional watching guys from countries that I've never heard of, stand under their flag and weep as their... national anthem is being played. I'm like, that is so, I feel the same way about that as I feel about all the men in my church thinking their wife is the hottest wife on the planet.

It's weird. I mean, yeah, there's just, there just lacks sophistication in this conversation. Josh knows I get frustrated at cooking because I'm like, are we even having this conversation? This is crazy. But it's like Jesus told a man that unless he hates his father and mother in comparison to his allegiance to Christ, he's not being faithful. He also says, be willing to lay down your life and sacrifice it for your wife or you're a deadbeat husband. So we have to be able to walk and chew bubble going the same time. We have to be able to have a kind of love for our family or our fellow citizens or our nation that would lead us to lay down our life and value protecting them over preserving our own life.

And we can do that while we have a higher allegiance to Jesus. And so this idea where we conflate patriotism or nationalism with idolatry and worshiping, I mean, I guess it could happen in one sense, and we want to preach against that. I just don't see that being the dominant problem in the church today. And if it became a dominant problem, we'd preach to it. You know what I mean? You can't be saved if you're an American.

You must be a son of God. We all say that every Sunday. But to say that's like what we're struggling with right now as a nation, I think it's just to miss the point. And underneath it, I think, is a seething hatred for our nation. And that needs to be repented of, because we honestly live in a remarkable nation that's giving the people who are making these claims

kinds of freedoms that the world historically has rarely, if ever known. And so where's the gratitude? Where's the thankfulness to God? Where's the desire to stand on the shoulders of, quite frankly, better men and women who've gone before us, who were more sophisticated, more thoughtful, more reflective, more biblical in their worldview, and then worked with their very blood, sweat, and tears

to build something that we now have an inherited and are benefiting from. And then our response is to gripe and, I won't say the other word, and complain. It's a mind-boggling response to me. It should be worshipful, gratefulness, thankfulness, and then a willingness to spend whatever days God gives us making it better. And right now, that includes clarifying misunderstandings, combating lies with truth, and digging our heels in to keep the woke crazies from pulling our nation off the cliff into full-scale progressive secularism, that will destroy it.

In one sense, Josh, I'll say this. It's not only a misunderstanding of the Bible or history, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of the West itself. And so, yeah, nothing to add there. Russ, and then I'm going to go to move us. If there is one issue that we face in the church as it pertains to this conversation, it is not that people love their country too much. It's that people don't love it enough. That's right.

When you love the country that you're in, you are advocating for its best possible life. It's best possible outcomes. It's best possible legislation. It's best possible governance. If anything, if there's any issue that we face in the church, it's that people have shifted into neutral and taken themselves out of the conversation and they've kind of adopted this like, say la V, it is what it is, you know, agnosticism as it pertains to the destiny of a nation. Exactly.

Like, we shouldn't even care about these things. You shouldn't pledge allegiance. You shouldn't vote. You shouldn't be in the military. You shouldn't be a police officer because, you know, to be involved in any type of national conversation or interest in the development of your nation, you know, be warned. You're going to fall into the trap of idolatry. No, when you loved your nation, you advocate for.

for its best possible outcomes. And the way that we do that as believers is by advocating for the moral law that informs the civic law. This nation has its best possible outcomes by advocating for righteous things. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, let me say something real quick

and then I'm gonna go to Ryan and then move us on. So to what Russ is saying, this is one of my favorite C.S. Lewis essays. C.S. Lewis says that what Satan does in every era is he convinces Christians to be focused on, quote, the fashionable problems of the day. And then he says, what that does is it gets them solving for the opposite problem that they're actually facing.

He uses the analogy of Satan's going to convince you to look over here, look over here, so that you end up, and this is his analogy, Christians end up bringing a fire extinguisher to a flood. So his analogy, let's apply it to this thing, is that Christians get really focused on, let's make sure we don't love our nation too much, love our nation too much, love our nation too much.

When right now, evangelical Christians are, some of the least politically and culturally active people in the United States. Every election, 40 to 50 million evangelical Christians sit out the elections. That is atheist, Buddhist, is a Muslim. Literally, every other religious group in America is more active politically and culturally than evangelical Christians. But then evangelical Christians are the ones that are like, hey, let's make sure we don't have an idol out of our nation.

And what we're doing is the enemy is tricking us into bringing a fire extinguisher to a flood and we're solving the exact opposite net problem we're actually facing. Very simple concept that everyone needs to understand to understand this conversation is what Augustine talked about in regard to rightly ordered loves. Augustine was not an American Christian. He was an early church father. And rightly ordered loves means you need to love the right things in the right order. So for all Christians, it would be God first.

Then if you're married, your spouse, then your own kids, then you're, you know, maybe your church, your nation, other people in your community. You get down to like your favorite football team, you know, so that's the order. Nobody says that by wearing your favorite football team's jersey that you're committing idolatry and undermining your love for the Lord, who's in number one position, right? Additionally, no one has to downplay their love for, you know, let's say their kids. in order to prove their love for the Lord being number one. And that's what a lot of Christians do in this conversations. They think, like, I got to downplay America, bash on America. I've got to talk like, oh, America's not a big deal.

I've got to point out everything it's ever done wrong in order to somehow virtue signal that I put God in number one position. I'm not an idolater, and that's just you're not functioning with the proper framework. It's rightly order loves. Love the right things in the right order. to Ryan's point what we're saying is Christian nationalism we're saying here's what this is it is Christians wanting and advocating for our nation to be guided by Christian principles and in our nation we want it we want hey religious freedom that's that's wonderful

that's actually a Christian idea but we want the true one promoted protect religious liberty wonderful but we want the true one promoted does that feel good yeah I mean Our nation was founded as a Christian nation that Judaism and Catholicism was allowed to build nests in the branches of. But the trunk and the root of our nation is distinctly Christian, and that's objectively verifiable. Yeah, Protestant. Protestant and Christian, very clear. I'll toss this up. Will you toss up that thing about Papa New Guinea this week?

I just thought this was, this is a good example of this. Do you guys see this? Yeah. What they added to their constitution this week? So this happened this week. Papa, I think I'm pronouncing, is that, am I saying the right? Papa New Guinea? Yeah, is that right?

C. All right, good. Officially amended its Constitution to declare itself a Christian nation with a vote of 80 to 4. The amendment adds a declaration to the preamble of their Constitution. This is so amazing, dude. We acknowledge and declare God, the Father, Jesus Christ, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is our creator and sustainer of the entire universe. And the source of our powers and authorities delegated to the people. and all persons within the geographical jurisdiction of Papua New Guinea.

That's amazing. That's awesome. Yeah, well, that mirrors our founding nation. Twelve of the 13 founding colonies had built into their state constitutions, a requirement for anyone who's running for office or serving as an elected capacity, had to sign off on agreeing with and adhering to a Trinitarian perspective of God. If you didn't believe in, God is the Father. Jesus as the Son and the Holy Spirit as God, you couldn't serve in an elected position or as a role in a

role of judge in our 12 of 13 colonies. And so when I read that, I go, that's awesome. They're right on track with where we started as a nation that led to the flourishing, the most flourishing in American, or, excuse me, in human history we've ever seen a nation experience. All right. Now let me do some kneecaps. We're going to quick hitter these. What we've noticed is once you start talking about this stuff, there's like at least six things that people immediately are like, here's the objections. So here's what's coming at you. I'm going to toss them out. We'll quick hit them. Whoever wants to take it first hit it. Number one, whoa, whoa, wait. We shouldn't be advocating for a Christian nation because we're just supposed to be exiles in Babylon.

So we shouldn't really lean in, love our nation, advocate for Christianity, permeate our nation. we're just supposed to be exiles in Babylon and quote unquote go out of her thoughts the israelites were drug to Babylon they did not choose to live there and they were taken there as a result of god's wrath and judgment on them baby babylon symbolizes in the bible ancient idolatry it symbolizes divine judgment whereas america was founded on judeo-christian values if you if you Dennis Prager, he's a Jew, he wrote a commentary on Exodus, and he said that no nation since ancient Israel was more clearly founded on the pillars of liberty and morality ever since. And that's America. So if you were going to compare America to Babylon today, it's completely ludicrous. But that's the exact point. What we're proposing and what we're trying to advocate for is to keep America from becoming Babylon. That's what we really want. That's great. Bro, that's great.

Okay? Let's say for a minute, for the sake of argument, that they are correct, that America is this prototypical modern-day version of Babylon, which of course is nonsense. Well, let's just say that they're correct. They would still fail the test of biblical literacy, because even when you look at the Jewish remnant who got taken to Babylon by force, One of the first things that the Jewish remnant did was immediately involved themselves in the governmental role, the governmental sector to try to steer the nation in the direction of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You look at Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abindigo. You look at all of the prophets from that Babylonian era. So let's say they're correct, which they're not.

It's a brain dead take. But let's say they're correct. It would still fail. basic biblical literacy because all you have to do is read the books of the old testament that talk about the Jewish people who are in Babylon and they are expressly involved in their government and in the legal affairs of their nation to do what they can to steer it in the direction of godliness and so when they talk about exiles and Babylon it's like they read half of one paragraph from a blog from Brian Zond, and then all of a sudden developed brain dead, Anabaptist public theology.

It's complete bull crap. It doesn't even make sense, and it's laughable on its face. Roy's got a day. That's Hawaii rage. Sorry. Josh. You get Russell a little rest, boy. Look out.

Come on, man. Josh. I mean, yeah, I agree with it. everything and I have all these thoughts as they go and then they say what I was going to say. And so nothing really to add other than everything he just said is true. There aren't a lot of examples of Christians getting involved in politics in the Old Testament, except for generally speaking all of Genesis, all of Exodus, all of Leviticus, all of Deuteronomy, first and second Samuel, first and second Kings, First and Second Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ezekiel,

Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, all of the minor prophets, my gosh. All of them were advocating. There's no Christian political engagement. Besides those, there's really no biblical data to work with in understanding a framework where someone submitted to God would actively engage pagan governments of their day working to steer them towards submission to a holy God. And the last thing I'll say is this. I haven't said much actually, so I don't know why I'm saying the last thing.

I'm going to talk again more. But one of the things to add to this is getting involved in politics is one of the ways a Christian can most faithfully fulfill the two greatest commandments, to love the Lord their God and to love their name by others themselves, because you may not care about governments, but governments care about you. And if the government of your nation is not submitted to the God that you serve, that government is going to oppress and choke and regulate and rob and steal and obliterate. your neighbors, including your children. So if you want to do the most good for the most people,

you need to ensure that your government is happily gladly submitted to the moral law of God. Otherwise, it's going to devolve into tribalism, that's utter chaos, or it's going to devolve into globalism and tyranny that's utter oppression where power is concentrated among the elites, and it's just not going to go well for anybody. Okay. Now, Josh, I'm going to come straight back to you in a second, because the objection to what you just said, So I'm going to say something, but then I'm going to come back to you, and here's the objection I'm going to come back to you with. The objection to what you just said is, yeah, Josh, but all the examples of political engagement in the Bible, they were all Old Testament. So in about 30 seconds, I'm coming straight back to you, Josh, with, yeah, but Jesus didn't get involved in politics.

And actually, he actively steered his disciples away from it. And I want to say something before, but I'm coming back to you with that here in a second. So on the Babylon thing, what I do want to say is you'll hear this a lot. from, you know, sort of, I don't know how to say it. There's a certain segment of Christians that are like, hey, let's stay out of the culture war, let's stay out of political engagement because we're exiles in Babylon. The weird thing is, here's what we don't want to do. Let's not use one analogy that Russ has already pointed out is faulty.

Let's not focus on one analogy to the exclusion of every other biblical analogy for how Christians are supposed to relate to the world. So there's a lot more in the Bible about victory being salt in the world, light of the world, seeking the welfare of the city, a little leaven spreading through the whole lump, the kingdom of God coming on earth as it is in heaven. In fact, I just want to point this out. When Jeremiah gives us the command of Jeremiah 29 to seek the welfare of the city, even the word politics comes from the Latin word polis that means city. When he is telling them, so again, just think about this,

when Christians say, hey, exiles in Babylon, so we should stay out of politics. when in Jeremiah 29, he says to seek the welfare of the city, guess what city he's telling them to get actively involved in and seek the welfare of Babylon. He's specifically referring to Babylon in Jeremiah 29. So let's not, it's just, it's like you said, it's just a moot point on exiles in Babylon. Now, objection number two, Josh is going to go first and then we'll open it up.

Josh McPherson, yeah. But Jesus didn't get involved in politics. and actually he actively steered his followers away from political engagement. Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples. He didn't tell them to register voters. Paul didn't lay out a plan for a better Roman empire. He told people to go and plant churches. Josh McPherson, what say you?

It's so frustrating. He literally laid out a plan to change nations for the better by commission them to go and make disciples of all nations. Like that's the whole point. If our Christianity isn't making our individual self better, our family's stronger, our communities more glorious, and our nation healthier, it's not actually working. So I would fundamentally disagree with the premise of that, in that when Jesus said you are the salt of the earth, he's fundamentally encouraging us to be involved in all of life

with our Christianity. If you keep the salt in the shaker, it doesn't help in it. You've got to get it out onto our sexuality and onto our families and onto our politics and onto our laws. You have to get assault into the world. Conversely, as well, he said, in addition, rather, he said, you're the light of the world. So we're to take our light everywhere we go. Light doesn't discriminate where it shines. When you turn a light on, it pierces all of the darkness. It shines everywhere. So when people say Christ didn't tell us to get involved politically, first of all, there's someone to respond to this. We're not living in the same context that Christ spoke in. In other words, they didn't have the opportunity to vote.

They weren't living in a Constitutional Republic. They were living in a globalistic, tyrannical culture where they had no obligations or responsibilities formalized as citizens where they could exercise that. So it's not the same context. We have both opportunity, privilege, and I would say obligation, to be involved in such a way as to shape our government that our government has given us through our Constitution Republic

that is a privilege. second. Oh, we're going to say, say, Ryan? Oh, I lost your train. Let me jump in real quick and then you pop back in. I was just going to point out, I literally, sorry, I think we need to cut you off. When you're in the middle of this just brilliant. He's giving me the little signal to come to him next, Josh. That's what he's done.

I literally heard someone this week to say, someone said, hey, Jesus said to disciple people, not nations. And it's like, no, he literally said to make, to make. disciples of all nations, not all skin colors, not all ethnic tribes, right? Nations. And what do you think happens, bro, when you disciple all the people in a nation? You get a Christian nation. And that's going to affect everything from the top down. And then when Jesus, in the Great Commission said, how do you make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you? how do you teach them to obey everything that Jesus has committed, not just in the church house,

but also in the courthouse as well, in the schoolhouse. That's where you teach a nation to obey all God's commands. When Jesus talked about Caesar and our relationship to him, there was a fundamental assumption in Jesus' teaching that Caesar also bows to Jesus. And who's going to teach Caesar that if the church goes silent? It's the church's obligation and responsibility and privilege to remind Caesar that the government is nothing more than a jurisdiction created by God for the good and flourishing of all people, only in if they are submitted to God's law. And so it's our prophetic job as the church to teach the clear jurisdictions of human thriving, which is the family, the church and government, and to remind the government that they're submitted to God. And then lastly, I would say this.

I think the Pharisees and the Sadducees were a political entity. Yes. Oh, yeah. They were the political entity of the day, and literally the entirety of the Gospels is Jesus combating, is Jesus confronting, and is Jesus correcting the political structures of the day in the Jewish world, which were the Pharisees and the Sadducees that were functioning as a mini-globalistic, tyrannical, elitist government that were actively oppressing people because they were making up rules under themselves, rather than submitting to the rulership of Christ. And so I would argue that literally Jesus' entire ministry

was combating the wicked politics of his day as embodied by the progressive left calling themselves Sadducees and Pharisees. Yeah, I mean, Josh is 100% right. You know, just like last year we had evangelicals for Harris. In the first century, the Pharisees and the Sadducees were evangelicals for Herod. It was like a subordinated political class

that worked in conjunction, with the Roman government and did what they can to, you know, try to better legislate the daily life of the Jewish people who found themselves now occupied by the, you know, superpower of their day, which was the Roman Empire. But, you know, a religion that does not interfere with a social order will soon find a social order more than willing to interfere with them. So you just have to make the decision and the determination about whether or not there. There is real inherent value to the moral claims of your belief system. Because if you believe in those inherent values,

then you have no opposition to advocating for those on a local or a national scale. Secondly, you know, when Jesus tells his disciples, upon this rock, I'll build my church. That word church, of course, in the Greek is ecclesia. That was an expressly political term borrowed from Athenian democracy. You know, Jesus is utilizing these political words on purpose to describe the framework for the kingdom that he has come to establish. Thirdly, it is the express influence of Christians on the Roman Empire that eventually lead to the conversion of Constantine and the Christianization of the Roman Empire. So all you have to do is follow the First Century New Testament framework for about 400 years. you see the power of Christendom to take the world superpower of its day,

turn it on its head, and see revolution, you know, all across the empire in a way that advocates for the greater good and the virtue of the people who stand under the canopy of the empire of that day. And so, you know, when people say things like, well, you know, Jesus never advocated for, you know, a political solution, It's like these red letter Christians who cherry pick things out of the synoptic gospels, and then they ignore the broader context of the New Testament. If Christ is not powerful enough to be king over the political sphere,

then the gospel is not nearly as powerful as we claim it to be. There is a responsibility for believers to find themselves involved in the public square of civic engagement. That has never once been controversial until recent history where all of a sudden people want to renegotiate 2,000 years of Christendom and act as if we should be living in neutral, not involved, completely disengaged, because that's the most moral or Christian thing to do. It's just backwards thinking. Ryan, and I would add to that. Let me finish it. I'm sorry, go. Just one quick note for any like Christianity 101, I would warn a person listening.

to this, whenever you hear people start trying to differentiate the words of Jesus from the rest of the Bible, you get into a very dangerous territory. And that is a specific tactic that heretics used to try to justify sins. They'll take a sin that's explicitly abomination like homosexuality. It's laid out very clearly in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, but they'll say things like Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. And they'll use that to try to persuade people that it doesn't really matter to Jesus, but all of God's word comes from God, and Jesus is God. And so the spirit of God inspired all of God's word, and Jesus supports all of God's word. Yes, you do need to understand the proper place of Old Testament law compared to our guiding principles as New Testament Christians.

But all of God's word is useful for us and helpful. We don't divide the words of Jesus from the rest of the Bible to make an argument that contradicts the rest of the Bible. Josh. And I would just add to that, I would just add to that, Ryan, it's such a good observation, is that when we look at the teachings of Christ in the gospel, we then must combine it with the actions of his disciples filled with his spirit in the Book of Acts. So the Book of Acts is how Jesus understood his commands to be obeyed, because the Book of Acts, if the Luke is the life of Jesus on Earth,

of course, we know the Book of Acts is the life of Jesus lived through his spirit in his church, And the entire book of Acts is the account of the preaching of the gospel undermining and confronting the secular, progressive, godless institutions and politics of its day to the expense of many of the lives who were carrying the message, so much so that when they stood before kings and governors and rulers of their day, and if those rulers contradicted God, the disciples confronted them. And so when Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world, He's not saying it's this mystical supernatural kingdom hovering above the earth that has nothing to do with the elements and actions of our day.

It was an expression and statement of dominion. He's saying, my kingdom is now this world. My kingdom is over this world. My kingdom rules over this world. And what he was saying was my disciples acting in my name have the authority to speak into and speak over the ruling powers of the day. If those powers contradict what I've said in my word. And so when Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world, he's not saying not to be involved in this world. He's giving us permission to speak authoritatively into how this world functions and how it aligns itself and governs itself expressly in relationship to politics and government.

So to put a cap on it, then let me move to the next objection. Hey, pod listeners, coming to you from my bedroom because I forgot to stick to the podcast. I want to invite you to the sermon series we're starting this weekend that I'm really excited about that is answering the question. what is going to happen to you 60 seconds after you die, and how do you receive eternal rewards in the kingdom to come? Answering a lot of end times questions, judgment of Christ, return of Christ questions. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Title of the series is Run to Win, starting at all time, services, and locations. At Lake Point this weekend, see you there. You know, Ryan makes the very strong point, hey, man, you never bifurcate Jesus words from the rest of the words of the scriptures. All scriptures got breathed. So Romans 13 is where we get a lot of our theology of government.

Romans 13 specifically refers to governing authorities. This is really important. It calls them God's servant. It says that that's their divinely designated role. The governing authorities are God's servant. Well, what does a good servant do, obey the master? So you have a theology written right into the language. You're a servant, he's the master.

And so what should we be advocating for? We should be advocating for governing leaders and governing principles and entities that obey the master. Now, I'll press this a little bit farther. Oz Guinness, wonderful theologian, love Os Guinness, really, really helpful. He points out, because he's gotten this objection before, why, there's not as much in the New Testament about how Christians should vote, that kind of thing. And he points out the loophole in that logic. Quote, Os Guinness, we are not under Roman rule. So this is not a imperial dictatorship.

We are citizens of a constitutional republic, and every citizen in a constitutional republic is responsible for the health and the vitality of the republic. So what I want to point out is a lot of Christians, they miss this. In a constitutional republic, guess who's at the top of the org chart only under the Constitution?

You are. The voters of the nation are at the top of the org chart. So according to Romans 13, we have been, it's almost like we are fractional kings. I don't know another way to say it. It's almost like you are a fractional leader of this nation. And God says you are designated by God to be his servant in the governing system here. So you have a divine responsibility to make sure that you carry out that in service to the master. So it's just, it's crazy to say this.

We've lost the art of citizenry as Christians. And if we watch the life of Paul, I will add to Ryan's excellent point, you can't just read the writings of Paul, you have to observe the life of Paul. Because the life of Paul is the hermeneutic for how to understand and interpret the writings of Paul. And so Paul talks about the structure of government, the authority of government, and then he spends half the book of Acts challenging the government of his day. He knew his rights, he knew what he had access to in Roman law, and whenever that was violated, he challenged it.

He was working his way through the court system, essentially working his way toward the Supreme Court of that day, so he could both point out where they were in error and in sin and lacking submission to God's word and to simultaneously preach the gospel to them that they might submit to him, to God, rather, and they killed them for it. And so, Osse Ginnis points out his triangle of freedom,

freedom, virtue, faith. All three are required for the error to exist. For faith to exist, you must have virtue, virtue, virtue produces freedom and freedom allows the free expression of faith. He impacts that it's one of his kind of genius contributions to the conversation in government. I would argue that in that, both virtue and freedom come from the root of faith. That's where it starts. Faith produces virtue that produces freedom that allows a free expression of faith.

And it's that the triangle of freedom that you can't remove one piece from that without losing all of it. And like think about the, like all you have to do is look at the critiques. of Paul's ministry, you know, especially in Acts 19, where the gospel serves as such a disruptive force that the merchants of Ephesus get together and they say, this Paul is advocating for customs and values and laws that are antithetical to the system of this city. And so even the critiques, even the critics of Paul are looking at his preaching of the gospel as a disruptive political force. It's disrupting the normative public policy of our day. Demetrius is the silversmith. Yes. Now he's affecting our economy. Now he's advocating for things that are unusual, saying that

there is one God that is above every other God. And so this idea of like, it's like when people appeal to this like false like miscellological like emphasis where they're like, well, I'm just so on mission that I don't want to cloud the mission of God by advocating for political things. I'm like, it's empty virtue signal. That's right. Paul's preaching was disruptive. The critique of Paul is these men turn cities upside down wherever they go. That's right. And so this idea of like a non-offensive gospel that never disrupts things that never makes commentary or impacts political outcomes or political solutions would be completely unrecognizable to the first century apostles. And then the second thing I want to mention is this. The danger of secularism is not

that it will lead to tyranny. It's that it leads to emptiness. Because in an effort to create this morally neutral society, you are becoming unmoored from the very reason for why freedom can flourish. And it is because it is anchored to transcendent truth. And so when you advocate for this, you know, secularization or political neutrality or just preach to the gospel and it doesn't matter what direction the nation goes into. It's like you are advocating for abject emptiness. That is the net result of secularism. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Ryan. The idea of secularization is like, hey, let's keep God out of the public square, out of politics, which is, in theory, okay, interesting idea. The problem is demons don't play by our rules. So when we push

God out of the public square, Mulek is happy to move right in. Bail is happy to move right in. It's like they come in and then they take over and you don't ever actually get a secular society. You just get a society that ends up following demon gods instead of the one true God. But Ryan. That's right, Ryan. Next objection. But Ryan, Christians are supposed to follow the way of love, not the way of power. We shouldn't be seeking an idolatry of power. In fact, Ryan, Jesus won by giving up his power at the cross, Ryan. So we shouldn't be doing this stuff. Tell me the rest of the story, Josh. It's like, yes, he did. He died in humility, but then on the third day, he rose in power. He told his disciples all authority has been given unto me and then he commissioned them in his authority to go and

make disciples of all nations he told them to wait because they will receive power from on high that would equip them to go and carry out their mission and what is power and you alluded to this earlier josh when you mentioned that we are kind of like fractional kings we're like shareholders in the political process every single person who is a citizen of america and has a right to vote has political power right and so the question is what will you use your power to accomplish? If you do nothing with it, that is the equivalent of the parable of the talents and burying your talent in the sand and saying, well, I don't want to be involved in this. No, God gave you power by allowing you to be born into this nation with this

political system. You're meant to use your political power to seek the good of the city. And then you surely can't use your political power to empower a political party like the Democratic Party, which has explicit sins enshrined into their agenda. So power is not a bad thing. It's amoral, meaning it's neither good nor bad. It's how you use it that is either good or bad. Yeah. And what you said, Ryan, is 100% true. Power takes on the morality of the user. And, you know, the problem is in this kind of modern context, power has become a dirty word because the kind of governing philosophy of progressivism reduces people into these binary identitarian categories of oppressed versus oppressor.

If you have power, it's because you got that by virtue of ill gain. And the most Christian thing that you can do is lay that down to empower somebody else who has been historically oppressed. And it's like, again, that would be, completely new breaking news for the first century apostles. Like, what are you talking about? We have been given power, authority, anointing influence by virtue of our relationship

with God, not only to steer ourselves and our families in the directions of righteousness, but to make a God-sized impact on whatever sphere of influence we find ourselves in. And so this idea of, well, Christ just laid down his power. And if you were a real believer, you would just kind of give up your power. It's like when Charlie Kirk, who I think it's his birthday today or yesterday, they're giving him the medal of freedom. And of course, we honor his memory. But, you know, when he would go onto like college campuses and he would like interview these students who had bought into this, you know, progressive binary of oppressor versus oppressor, he would always, you know, ask them the question, well, are you willing to give up a. the good grades that you have earned to bestow that upon somebody else who has not earned those

in order to prove the virtue of your, you know, powerless position. And of course, they would always object to that. And so this is one of those like philosophical traps that people find themselves in. And then because they are not coherent in biblical literature, they're like, oh, well, I guess this is right. And it's a bad thing. Every time Christians have been in power, it's corrupted the Christian message. And it's, it's just, that is not true. By the way, that is not true. Fundamentally. In fact, Christian influence from a place of power has been the greatest contributing force of good and virtue to the nations of the earth that has ever existed. It's more powerful than capitalism. It's more powerful than democracy.

It's more powerful than republicanism. That's right. Christian influence has been objectively good for the forming of nations. In fact, Let me just say this. I would just add to that. Wait, wait, here's a little fun exercise. If somebody is hearing what Rush just said, and they're like, well, huh, I've always heard the opposite. I've always heard about the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition and the wicked, you know,

Christian colonialists. And so here's an exercise I would encourage that person to do if they're skeptical of what Rush just said. Go to Grock or whatever it is. Ask Grock to tell you what are the nations in the world that had the largest influence from some sort of Protestant Reformation, then fill all those nations in on the map. Then go get another map and ask Grock,

where are the most developed first world in the world and fill in that map? It's the same map. All of this, it's the wherever in the world you have seen the most effect of Protestant Christianity in particular, that's where you've seen the most flourishing, the most human rights,

the most capitalism that led to the most people delivered from poverty. So if you've ever gotten that narrative, you're listening and you've only gotten the narrative that like, ah, everywhere Christians went, it was bad colonialism and imperialism, you have very frankly been brainwashed and lied to. It is the exact opposite in all of human history. The other thing that I'll say here, and let me finish up with Josh here, the other thing I'll say is, if you ever have somebody tell you like, oh, man, actually, you know, you should be willing to give up power and, you know, you just have an idolatry of power. if anyone ever says that's you, you are talking to somebody that has been

disciples in their emotional pathways more by critical theory than Christian theology. The idea that power is bad, this is really important for people understand. The idea that power is bad did not come from Christian theology. Read your Bible. It is full of people of God bestowing power, encouraging them to seek power, them leveraging their power for the good of people. The only way, so Christian, to Russ's point, critical theology divides the world into a oppressor lenses. Christian theology divides the world into, it sees the world through a sin righteousness lens. So power is like money in the Bible. It's, it is, it's not, it's not amoral,

like negative moral. It's amoral. It's morally neutral. It's how you use power that is either good or bad. This is why we have verses in the Bible like Proverbs 292, when the godly are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked are in power the people grown. So here's the big idea. If anybody is still, because honestly, brain dead thinking is, I have no apologies. This is totally brain dead thinking. If godly people will not seek political power and use it for godly means, godless people will. Your choice. Your choice. That's right. Final thoughts. Yep. I was literally going to say that exact same thing. And so I was going to quote that verse and make

that exact same point. So I'll frame it a little differently. The original question, but didn't Jesus lay down his power and act in meekness and humility, blah, blah, blah. We have Bible verses that say the exact opposite. Colossians 2.15, speaking expressly of the act of dying on the cross, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them in the cross. Like that act of humility was actually an expression of power. When we think about power as a whole, it's one of the, it's one of the characteristics of God. God is all powerful. He spoke and creation came into existence. And so power can't be fundamentally evil because power is fundamentally a part of the characteristic

and nature of God. We've been made in the image of God. Therefore, we've been given power to exercise for the good of humanity and the glory of God. So just to make your point, Josh, that you said again in different words, as a man, I've been given power and I can exercise that power by abusing it in a heavy-handed way to abuse women and get what I want, or I can abdicate it like a coward to self-preserve myself, or I can wield it with nobleness and courage and righteousness to protect those around me. So it's not a question of if you're going to have power.

it's only a question of how you're going to exercise it. Are you going to abuse it or are you going to abdicate it? And what we're advocating for, I believe, is a responsible Holy Spirit infused and guided exercise of our God-given power to influence societies, nations, families, and individuals for the good of all people and the glory of God. Yeah, right.

Positions of power will exist whether we seek them out or not. So the question is, if we don't seek them out, who will? It's the wicked. And when the wicked are in positions of power, the nation groans, the people suffer. Innocent babies get murdered in the womb. Children are told that they can transition genders. So of course, if you're allergic as a Christian to the idea of power, you need to go read your Bible again. And read it slower this time. We're more than conquerors. We're overcomers. Right? That's who we are as the people of God. We are people who walk in power. We use it for good. Okay, let me move us to the next objection. This will probably be the most, maybe the most mind-blowing for a lot of people who have

not studied this. Next objection. Yes, but and McPherson, I'm going to start with you on this. Yeah, okay, guys, I see it in the Bible. Christians actually should be seeking political power and wielding it for righteous means. Okay, I see that now, but Josh McPherson. But the idea of Christian nationalism, Josh, it's unconstitutional. The founders of our nation established our nation as a secular nation, separation of church and state. They intentionally set this nation up establishment clause where no one religion could be favored over any other religion. So Josh, even though as a Christian I might be in, it's totally unconstitutional and contrary to the history. of our nation, Josh McPherson. What say you?

I'm glad you ask, Josh Howardson. I bet you are. And I quote, can I read some quotes here? Please do. I feel like, okay. We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and distinctly Christian people.

It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other John Adams. Quote, it cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded not by religiousists, but by Christians, not on religion in general, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom to worship here, Patrick Henry. Interesting. Religion and morality are the essential pillars for any moral civil society and are on that which we have built this nation.

George Washington. The Christian religion in its purity is the basis or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government, specifically our government that we're building. And I am persuaded that no civil government of a Republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence over its government. Noah Webster.

One more. That religion or the duty which we owe to our creator, God, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of their conscience, and it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance,

love, and charity, one towards another, lest we lose our nation's conscience, James Madison. On and on and on and on and on and on we could go, the founding fathers were not generically Christian. They were distinctly Christian, and it's shot through the Declaration of Independence, and it's shot through the Constitution that we call our own. And I'll just give this quickly,

and I'll turn it over somebody else. Evidence or lines of reasoning for why our nation is a Christian nation, the witness of the founding colonial states is case closed. 12 of the 13, as we referenced, had distinctly Christian requirements for any sort of ability to run for office. Two, the witness of the founding declarations and documents themselves,

heavily influenced by Christian doctrine, Providence, natural law, Christian principles, express references to God. Interesting, when they talk about, they use the word providence and God simultaneous, And oftentimes, the irony here is, and I'm working off the top of my head, the accusation was that the founding fathers were deists. And fundamental to deism is like God winds up the earth like a clock, stepbacks, and lets it run. And yet when they refer to God in the Constitution,

they talk about Providence. Providence is God's meticulous interaction with every molecular detail of the world. Oh, that's good. That's good, Josh. And so in calling God providence, they were affirming their fundamental belief that God was intricately involved in all of life expressly politics. Line approved number three, the founding father's cultural and worldview. They were all under the influence of Protestant clergy.

All of them attended Christian churches. Calvin's influence on government couldn't be overstated. The U.S. legal system is built on expressly and distinctly Christian virtues. And then the Founding Father's statements themselves is a case closed. for the reality that we were founded as a distinctly and expressly Christian nation. Yeah.

Okay. So if promoting Christianity is not constitutional, somebody forgot to tell the guys who wrote and ratified the Constitution. Correct. Let me tell you some of the things that were going on in early American history, all right? First off, we already mentioned that there's God, creator, divinity language in the founding documents. Josh mentioned multiple states' constitution. They not only acknowledged Jesus as Lord and their dependence on prayer.

There was public prayer in opening sessions of Congress as a normal thing. Public school systems taught the Bible and used the Bible to teach children moral lessons throughout early American history. They had daily Bible reading and prayer in school into the 1900s. 11 colonies used taxes to support Protestant churches and actually enforced attendance. Now, we weren't here saying at the beginning of this podcast that people should be legally forced to go to church, but they once were in America, okay? In order to hold office in many places, you had to be a Protestant Christian.

Like in many places, you couldn't even be Catholic or Jewish and be in office. the Congress established chaplains for the military so that soldiers going into battle would have spiritual leadership in their presence. There were in multiple colonies and states what are called Sabbath laws or blue laws that made it illegal to conduct business on the Lord's Day, on Sunday. Further, there were blasphemy laws. Really quick. I want to say one quick thing about what you just said, and then I want you to keep going. That's significant. The Sabbath laws thing is significant. I read a book about this last week because Christianity is the only religion in the world

for whom Sunday is the holy day. So the fact that they designated that specific day showed this wasn't just a generic religious thing. This was an explicitly Christian thing. These are just a few biblical sins that were against the law in multiple colonies and states until not that long ago. Adultery was criminalized and still is in some places.

sodomy, which people today call homosexuality or being gay. That was against the law in multiple states until even 2003. Fornication in general, general sexual sin was illegal in multiple places punishable by fines, whipping, and public shaming. Okay, incest and bestiality was illegal. Idolatry was illegal. Witchcraft was illegal in multiple places. Drunkenness and gambling was illegal.

And this is interesting. suicide was illegal. It was considered murder and a violation against God's law to kill yourself. So if you killed yourself, there was going to be a price to pay. But, you know, we could all, we could debate all day about Christian nationalism, but I would just go back to, like, if you're listening to this as a Christian, do you think it's a bad idea for beastiality to be illegal? Like, do you think it's a bad idea for incest to be illegal? I don't know. We could debate, you know, the finer points of this. But the last thing is that some of our most, you know, prestigious universities like Harvard and Yale and many others were founded originally to train

clergy with Bible-centered curriculum. So if we're talking about Christian nationalism and is that a good thing for today? Should we be Christian nationalism? It's like, well, hey, what part of this do you have a problem with? Would it be maybe good for politicians to live for God's glory instead of their own? Would it be good for them to obey God's laws when they're looking to make earthly laws? do you think it'd be good for schools to reinforce biblical truth or to contradict it? Should governing leaders and laws enable the church to do its work or slow the church down from doing its work? Those are just questions a person has to ask. Russ.

I couldn't agree more. I'll add real quick. You jump in here. Oh, go ahead, Russ. I just want to throw this quote up before we move on. John Adams, to your point, Ryan, John Adams, the founding father said this, and I quote, the highest glory of the American Revolution was this, that it connected in one indissoluble bond,

the principles of civil government, with the principles of Christianity. Wow. You can't ignore that. I mean, that's as explicit as it gets. Well, and I think what's interesting about the historical examples that both Ryan and Josh brought up is that if people are accusing us now in the year of our Lord 2025 of being like these heavy-handed Christian nationalists who want to

infuse the ethics of Christianity with the laws of the state or the nation that we're in because like we get on stage and like encourage people to vote and like encourage people to like vote righteously and speak about the moral issues from a biblical framework they would have hated the founding of our country oh do you know because I at least for me, like I'm not here on this podcast saying, let's turn back the clock and you can't run for office unless you sign a statement of faith. And you've got to be Protestant in order to run for office in America. Nobody's advocating for that. But that wasn't by the way, I have no problem with that. But like that wasn't even controversial for the founding fathers. That was just like brain dead.

Like yeah, of course we would do that. So the idea that somehow we have this like radically new position. that would be an affront to, you know, the people who founded this great nation, they would look at us like sellouts. Like, what are you talking about? Where has your courage gone? Yes. And then the second thing I would mention is this, is that, you know, when people say, hey, I agree with everything you're saying, you know, but in America, there's the separation

of church and state and there's the establishment clause. And, you know, that was really kind of the founder's vision. They didn't want religion. I'm going to talk about that in a second. You know, kind of this idea of like, don't infuse religion with the state. Well, what people forget about is this. Everyone is religious. Secularism is just as much of a religious doctrine and a religious idea as is Christianity, as is Catholicism, as is Judaism.

Yes. So when you allow kind of these like well-intentioned but misguided and incorrect theological voices to, you know, talk about how religion doesn't really have a place in the way. the public square actually all they're doing in a backdoor way is inviting subservient lesser desired religious ideals to fill the vacuum where people of faith should have already been in the first place and so the question is not is religion going to be involved in civil government the question is which religion which yes that's great so let me let me say a couple quick things because the objections here are two. Separation Church and State and the Establishment Clause. I want to talk about this and then let's move on and quick at these last few. Number one, I think all of us know this,

but a refresher for our listeners. Separation, Church, and State is nowhere in the founding documents of our nation. That's from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist, this little Danbury Baptist Church. They were congregationalists in a state that, if I remember right, had a Presbyterian government, and they were worried that the government, the Presbyterian government, was going to infringe upon their congregationalist, you know, form of religion. And he wrote them that letter, it's nowhere in our founding documents. By the way, when he wrote it, his point was to assure them not that he was going to keep the church out of the state, but that he was going to keep the state from infringing upon

the church. Okay, so number one. Yes. Number two, what is in our founding documents is, I think it was 1790, if I remember right, is what's called the establishment clause. And this is what it reads. It says, this is very important. The first word is very important.

Congress. Congress. I'm going to pause there. Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof. McPherson obviously knows where I'm going with this. But what the intention of the founders was, and I'll show this by actions that followed here in a second, is they were going, hey, all these states, We have some congregational estates.

We have some Presbyterian states. We have some Anglican states, that kind of thing. And they're going, hey man, states, do whatever you want. We're really good. But we want to make sure, because they were, again, they were fleeing England where there was a state church over the federal government was enshrined with a state church. And they're going, hey, we don't want a national law enshrining a state church

that infringes upon all of the states. Here's how we know what they definitely did not mean. was that, hey, we're trying to keep religion out of politics. We know that. Because establishment clause takes place in 1790. Thomas Jefferson, 10 years later, in the year 1800, he is over the United States Senate. One of the first things Thomas Jefferson does, in his acting role over the United States Senate, is approve a plan for the Capitol Building where Christian church services would take place every Sunday in the hall of the House of Representatives. Thomas Jefferson personally attended those Christian church services nearly every weekend of his entire presidency.

While Thomas Jefferson later was president, a lot of people go, Thomas Jefferson was a D.S. He hated religion. He wanted it out of the public square. You literally have to erase like all of Thomas Jefferson's history to think this. While Thomas Jefferson was the president, this is while he's president. One of the first things he did. did was author the original plan for the public school education of children in Washington, D.C. There were two things he chose to be part of the core curriculum of the public school system in Washington, D.C. The Bible and the Isaac Watts hymnal. That's what he chose to be in the public school core curriculum. We also know this. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson signed a federal

act out of obviously federal act funding Christian missionaries to the native tribes and then last thing I'm going to say we could go on and on and on last thing I'm going to say is people go oh you know it said Congress

and so Congress wasn't supposed to have anything to do with religion Trinity will you pull up the first prayer of the Continental Congress so literally as they're ratifying like literally as they're ratifying our founding documents they're praying things like this, the political leaders of our nation. I'm not going to read this whole thing.

It's too long. I'm going to read you the first sentence and I'm going to read you the last sentence. That's all I'm going to read. You can look it up. They're praying this in the United States Congress. O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty king of kings and lord of lords, who dust from thy throne, behold all the dwellers of the earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the kingdoms, empires, and governments. Look down in mercy. We beseech thee on these our American states. etc, et cetera, et cetera. Now, I'm just going to read you the last sentence. This is how they close their prayer. All this, we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, thy son and our Savior. Amen.

Oh, Christian nationalism. Yes, like, it is, it's his, it's a complete and utter rewriting of history to think that these things meant we need to keep. Any final thoughts here? Russ, you haven't said. much. Josh, I was just going to, oh, sorry, go ahead, Russ. Yeah, it's just, uh, if people are somehow, like, opposed to, um, the Christian influence of 2025, um, they would be shocked and horrified to read the history of our nation over the last 250 years.

If anything, what we're talking about and advocating for here on this podcast is like the ozimic version of what the founding fathers believed in, you know, Like, hey, people of faith should speak up in the public square of civic engagement and be unapologetic to guide and lead the nation in a way that is more righteous today than it was yesterday. It's like, and now that's the boogeyman. That's what we're all expressly afraid of and clutching our pearls and, you know, warning about if Christians were to do that, you're going to be idolatrous and love your nation. too much. It's like if anything, we would be, like, we would be seen, like us on this podcast, we would be seen as like the progressive sellouts to the founding fathers. Like what we're advocating for here is not even a return to like 1776. It's just kind of like,

hey, it's okay for Christians to be involved in civic government, right? All right. Josh, I was going to add, you and I toured a, uh, uh, a mutual friends museum, and we held Bibles. Oh, dude, you can say it. We can just say it, right? I don't know. We held Bibles that were printed as one of the first acts of Congress where they called for the taxation of the people,

and one of the first things American taxes were spent on was to print a Bible to ensure that every school, and they were private schools in the chapel of the, you know, little hamlets and villages, every school had access to the printed Word of God. And when they ran out of tax money to print all the Bibles for all the schools, the founding fathers pillaged their own savings to make up the gap to ensure every village, city, town, and community had a printed Bible available for the schools in that town. Those were the first acts of our nation. Somebody wants to look it up. It's called the Aitken Bible. I tried to. It's called the Aitken Bible. I tried

I was like, oh, dude, I'm going to go buy one. They're 150 grand, so I'm not going to go buy one. You just have to preach for me. It's A-I-T-K-E-N. Just preach for me once. Yeah, I just got to preach for Russ one time. It's called the A-Kim Bible. Okay, Trinity, okay, Russ, I'm coming to you with the next objection,

and I want it to be, we need this one to be short because it's only for theology nerds, and that's not who this. So I'm going to say one last thing, Trinity, I'm going to pull up those three quotes from the Supreme Court. after I read these Russ, I want you to respond to this objection that I've gotten from fellow theology nerds. Hey, if you have a post-millennial eschatology, then seeking a Christian nation is fine. But seeking a Christian nation is incongruent with any other eschatology because all the other eschatologies believe we lose down here. and the government becomes godless, and then Jesus returns.

So let me, that's what you're going to respond to, Russ, after I read these, but to put a bow on what we're saying, and this is really interesting. Look at disgust on Russell's face. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. That's why I wanted Russ to respond to it. So let me read these quotes to put a bow on this last thing we're talking about. In 1854, there was a secular society that protested to the United States Senate that the United States was too Christian in its governance, and they demanded a secularization

of the public square. The following quotes I'm getting ready to read you are from the House Judiciary Committee, United States House Judiciary Committee, as well as some of them were from the Supreme Court of the United States. So here's one. United States House Judiciary Committee 1854. Had the people during the revolution had the suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, the revolution would have been strangled in its cradle. At the time the adoption of the Constitution of the Amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one denomination.

In this age, there can be no substitute for Christianity. That in its general principles is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions. That is an official statement from the United States House Judiciary Committee. Here's another one. United States Senate Judiciary Committee, 1853. We are Christians, not because the law demands it, not to gain exclusive benefits or to avoid legal disabilities, but from choice and education. And in a land, thus universally Christian, what is to be expected, what desired, but that we shall pay a due regard to Christianity.

Last one, and then we're going to you, Russ. United States House of Representatives, official statement, 1856, the great, vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people is in the, sorry, the great vital and conservative element in our system. It's the belief of our people in the pure doctrines, sir. In the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There it is. So there it is. Now Russ, let's go to you.

Objection Russ. Well, that's, okay, all that's fine. But unless you're a post-millennial eschatology person that believes the whole world just gets more and more Christian than Jesus returns, then what you guys are advocating for, It's really, it doesn't jive with any other eschatology because your eschatology believes that governments will get godless and then Jesus will return. So what are you doing, Russ? Yeah, I mean, it's only people who don't understand eschatological positions who would make that argument. These people can't even spell eschatology.

And so, you know, regardless of whether, or not your post-mill, like I'm not post-mill, I'm historic premil as it pertains to my eschatology. but in large majorities in each eschatological camp believe in the concept of dueling revivals, that there's a revival of righteousness and a revival of iniquity. It's the wheat and the tears. They both grow together until the return of the master. And so it's this concept of the light is getting brighter and the darkness is getting darker. And those both happen at the same time until it reaches its apex. and then Christ returns.

So this idea of like the only reason why you would want to advocate for a better nation is because you're post-mill and nobody's really post-mill. And if you guys aren't post-mill, then you're being hypocrites as it pertains to your eschatology. That doesn't make sense. Again, large majorities of whether your dispensationalist pre-mill, post-mill, or somewhere in between, large majorities of all of those camps believe in. both the kingdom of God advancing, the world, the earth, the nations that we are in, coming into the saving knowledge of Christ Jesus, and at the same time, the enemy and the

kingdom of darkness, getting more violent, more vitriolic, more negative. Both of these things grow in tangent until the return of Christ. And so this idea of just basically abdicating your responsibility in society or taking a backseat or even like cheering on things that are negative because it's a sign that we're getting closer to the return of Christ is it's an anachronism. It's not it's not it's not true. What we will see in our lifetimes is the greatest revivals, the greatest moves of God, the greatest reformations that have ever happened in 2,000 years of church history and the most insidious attempts for the kingdom of darkness to advance.

Both of those things happen in tangent together until Christ returns. And so our job is to occupy, take ground, advance the kingdom. And in doing so, you know, that's one of the primary ways we bring glory to God. Ryan, and then I'll move us to the next one. Yeah, this is what Second Thessalonians is about, where the church was starting to live idle lives because they thought the return of Christ was imminent, and they were rebuked for neglecting their daily responsibilities. That's really good.

And he told them, don't be idle, work diligently and contribute to society, and that faith should not lead to passivity, but to active, responsible living. That's Second Thessalonians, chapter three,

verses 6 through 12. Bro, that's, yeah, that's great, man. Yeah, that objection, it's really, it's an accidental category confusion. Just because the Bible adjusts our expectations for the future doesn't mean it should change our goals in the present. Like just because Jesus said the poor you always have always have with you doesn't mean we go, well, they're always going to be here so we don't do anything about it.

No, it's like it doesn't matter what your eschatology is. You should still be working for his kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. That's just a category of confusion. Let's go to the next one. And then we're going to start winding down here. And I'm going to start with you, Ryan. Yeah, Ryan. But man, all of this, if we do this, all of this, it hurts our witness to tie Christianity to a political party.

And Ryan, especially, hey man, you need to know, guys that, you know, Ryan, the Republican Party is just as bad as the Democratic Party. There's no party that moves us closer to Christianity in our nation. So stop hurting our witness, Ryan. Yeah. Okay. So we talk sometimes in these conversations about moral asymmetry. And just to make sure everybody's tracking the term, symmetry means things are like the same on both sides. So asymmetry means things are not morally the same on both sides. And what happens is people will say, well, you guys, you're just like against the libs and you think the Republicans don't have anything wrong with them. And what we would clarify is that every person and every organization has sin in it. and needs God. But there's a difference between a party like the Republicans that has sinners in it compared to another party like the Democratic Party that promotes sin and enshrines sin as a part of

its official party agenda. So everyone who listens to this can go to the Democratic Party website. It's public. You can find it yourself. There are multiple things that explicitly and clearly defy God's ways, his laws, his moral character, and they profess that they're committed to bringing these things about in our country. I'm going to give you a few quick examples, okay? First, as it comes to reproductive rights, I'm quoting this, like, you know, reproductive rights. What they really mean is the right to abortion. They pledge, if you, you know, let's go back to the last election, whether it was Biden or Harris. If you elect Biden or Harris, they will restore Roe v. Wade and protect abortion rights. They want to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which would allow federal funding for

abortion. They want to rescind the global gag rule, which basically it required that the gag rule was that organizations that promote abortion internationally can't receive federal funding, and Democrats don't like that. A huge one is this, and this isn't part of their platform, but this is just a quick little tidbit. There were two house resolutions in the last few years. One was HR 26 and one was HR 21 called the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. And what it said was if you try to get an abortion, but let's say you mess it up and accidentally the baby makes it out alive, you have to give that baby medical care just like if it was any other baby that was born alive. And every single Democrat, except for one dude from Texas, every single one voted against it. What demonic godless

organization would have that kind of value system? Whereas every Republican voted for it and said, yes, if a baby is born alive, we should give it medical care as any other born alive baby would get. Okay, the Democratic Party platform, I'm going to go real quick. They promote LGBT rights and transgender rights and same-sex marriage. They have special laws. They have special laws. that they want to pass that they say protect the LGBT community from discrimination, but actually ends up giving them special status in society. They want to fight book bands that would keep pro-gay books out of

schools. So, like, we as Christians would say, I don't want my kids in elementary school learning about sex acts committed between homosexuals. The Democrats want those books back in school. They also want to enact policies that would keep you from being able to object to same-sex practices based on your religious rights. There's critical race theory that they promote. We can spend all days talking about that. They support reparations, which is an unbiblical concept. Then there's one last thing with religion and separation of church and state. They will say in their party platform

that they support religious freedom, okay? But then they emphasize a separation of church and state. And in the same section, they talk about how they oppose policies that allow religious beliefs to override anti-discrimination laws. Okay, did you hear that? In other words, what they want is they want to be able to keep Christians from using their Christianity to stand up against any type of LGBTQ agenda. You can't use your, hey, we support religious freedom, but you can't use your religion to keep men out of women's bathrooms. We support your religious rights, but you can't use your religion as an excuse to keep men out of women's sports, right? So we recognize here on this podcast, all of us as pastors, all organizations have sinful individuals,

but the Democratic Party's platform promotes and advances policies that promote sin and that oppose traditional Christian views. We don't think that all Republicans are perfect. None of us here think that. We wouldn't say, you know, hey, President Trump is equal to Jesus. Like, none of us are confused about that, as Russell said. It's a boogeyman, this concept. But when you look at the problems of the right and the left, it's like there is no equivocating these parties' problems.

One is imperfect, the Republicans. The other is demonic. They embrace demonic agenda as their own and promise if you vote for us, we will will advance these demonic causes. So it's really there's no, there's no comparison. Russ. Yeah, I mean, to act as if there is like moral reciprocity between the parties is just and intellectually dishonest approach to the conversation.

And it's interesting because third wayism is a kissing cousin of both sidesism. and what you what you have here is like this well you know both parties have problems and both parties are you know evil or have issues with sin it's interesting to me that the people who advocate that line of logic always inevitably and conveniently vote for the left but you know they bring this up kind of almost as like a red herring and you know I think I'm probably the only person on this podcast who has worked officially in the political sphere. I've worked for the Republican Party, for the state party. I was a lobbyist, did work in our state legislature, things of that nature. I would be the first to admit that problems and or in moral behavior

exist all around the, you know, political paradigm. There's a reason why Jesus wasn't born in Washington, D.C., because they couldn't find three wise men or a virgin. So it's like, you know, We're all, we're all, you know, aware of the problems that exist here on both sides. But when people say, either I don't want to vote or how could you vote for the lesser of two evils, it'd be like taking two people who are sick. One of them is an 85-year-old with stage four cancer who's on hospice care. And the other is a 21-year-old who caught a flu. And it is true to say that both of those are sick people. But to create, you know, equivalence between their levels of sickness is intellectually dishonest.

There's only one party that believes in the concept of morally transcendent truth that anchors its values in some sort of kind of cohesive framework and appeals to a higher power or a higher standard of truth that, you know, frames in our understanding of war law which impacts our civil law. And so both sides have problems. Of course, both sides have problems. Nobody's denying that. But to create reciprocity or equivalence between those both sides and then use that as an excuse for why you are not involved in the political process is just dishonest in every sense of the word. Now, that actually leads into, Josh, maybe you can dovetail with what I'm about to. say you can dovetail. So that actually speaks to an objection that the four of us have gotten is that I've seen.

I've had guys text me is, man, you guys are like, hey man, don't coddle left, punch right, but you guys, you coddle right punch left. You guys never critique. You only critique in one way. You only talk about that stuff in one direction. Josh thoughts. I'd actually like to hear your answer to that Josh we've talked about before

I'd love to hear what you think about that what I was going to say to follow up with Russ said that might tie in here and then or do you want to go first? No, you do it and then I'd love to answer your question. Okay, great. As Russ was talking for the three people who are still listening to this podcast,

I know we're going along but it's kind of fun because we're talking about things that are, I think, so incredibly relevant to where we're at today. And so I'm grateful for the people who want to think deeply on these things. It hit me as you were talking, Russ. There was an article written by a very prominent Protestant pastor, large audience, wide influence, and he wrote it leading up to the election five years ago between Biden and Trump. and in that article, he equivocated the two parties as equally morally reprehensive, pointing to this asymmetry we're talking about.

And in that article, I believe personally, and I love this man, I've learned from this man, he made a grave error, and it hurt the church because it got into the bones of the church, and it was this, the policies of the left in murdering babies are as equal. as the personal deficiencies of a guy who tweets in all caps. Right. That was essentially his point. And so then what he said was if you promote one party that has glaring personal errors over the other party that has glaring objectively wickedly abhorrent policies, you're tainted and you have failed in your mission to serve. And then this is the quote.

This is devastating quote. We as pastor serve another king from another world. And I read that and thought, no, no, no, no, Jesus is the king of this world. Yes. And we have to be nuanced enough to understand that a guy who may have some personal deficiencies in some people's opinion because he tweets in all caps is not morally symmetrical with a party that's murdering babies in promoting people showing their genitalia as they protest nakedly in the street

against ICE and its policies. They are not the same, but that article was written by a very popular Protestant pastor, and his conclusion was, therefore, because one party murders babies and another party tweets in all caps, I'm not going to participate in the process.

That was his conclusion. And many Christians followed suit, and I think it's a damning commentary on a faulty misiology that fundamentally misunderstands the role of the church in culture. And it's dumb. So, Josh, what do you say to the people that, what's your answer? So, hey, man, you guys never critique the right. Hey, you do cartel right punch left.

Yeah, you caught a right punch left. What I would say is, man, I'd say a few things. Number one, I do not get into what I want to acknowledge what Russ said. I don't get into dealing with the specific sins of individuals who are leaders and commenting on those publicly. If we got into that, like literally we would do nothing else. So it's just like, hey, I can't deal with that. So what I'm going to speak to is policy. And very frankly, man, like in general, like, hey, show me which policies the right is advocating that are non-debatably overt national sin.

So that's my one question. I think sometimes what people need to do, this is not conjecture to Ryan's point. all you have to do is go to the DNC website and the RNC website evaluate the publicly stated policies they're advocating for and you have about 10 national sins that we're trying to enshrine over here and I'm not aware of anything over here where we're trying to enshrine national sin. Are there things that I wish were different? I wish we hadn't softened a little bit on some of the abortion language that was actually on the explicitly stated stuff. like I'm very staunchly, you know, pro-life, that kind of thing. But as far as who is trying to enshrine national sin, it's like 10 to zero. Yeah.

And we just have to acknowledge that fact. So to use Russ's analogy, you're like, hey, why are you guys giving so much attention over here and not as much over here? Well, if two people roll into an emergency room and one's an 85-year-old lady with terminal cancer and the other guy has a common cold, guess where all my attention is going to go? Yeah. So I want my attention and my volume to match the asymmetry of the problems that we're trying to solve. So is this like, I think that's what I say. If I'm supposed to critique the right, what am I supposed to have a problem with, bro? Like winning, kicking butt and taking names?

Like, what am I supposed to critique? Just please. Hey, real quick, Josh, you originally said, you know, the objection was won't embracing or appearing to embrace one party, meaning the Republicans or the right. Won't that hurt our witness? Let me just read this one passage really quick from Deuteronomy chapter 4. It says this,

see, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me so that you may follow them in the land you are entering. Now remember, they're going to live with a bunch of pagans all around them. In verse 6, it says, observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations

who will hear about all these decrees and say, surely this is a great nation. They're wise and an understanding people. So following godly laws as a nation would cause other nations to look at you and realize there's something special about those people. They're different. They're wise. It's being salt and light and making other people thirsty when they see your Christ-likeness on a governmental societal level. And voting like voting isn't a valentine it's a strategic decision about the type of country you want your kids to inherit and so when people use this language of like the lesser of two evils where else in all of our

world or our lives does that methodology makes sense you know when you made the decision to marry your wife it wasn't the lesser of two evils you understood that you were marrying somebody who was imperfect, just like they were marrying you who were imperfect, but you were willing to make an imperfect choice because you preferred what they represented and who they were versus all of the other choices that you could have made. And so this idea of like, well, how could you lower your biblical standard to vote for a candidate like Trump? I'm not voting in the sense of like I am blind to the problems or to the gaps or to the deficiencies of that individual or to the party platform that they represent. In America, we are in a two-party system.

So when it comes to voting, you are making a determination to make an imperfect choice that best represents a strategic action for the type of country, nation, community that your kids get to inherit. And so lesser of two evils, is that supposed to be some sort of like revolutionary statement? Like, you know, progressives like really operate with that. Like this is like their Trump card, no pun intended. Oh, you conservatives are voting for the lesser of two evils. That is not half as intelligent as you think it is. Of course it's an imperfect choice. That is not breaking news.

Of course it's an imperfect choice. Nobody said it's going to be a perfect choice. What we're saying is that there is not. moral reciprocity between these two. It's like, yeah, I don't appreciate everything Trump tweets either. He's also not publicly advocating for abortion in the night month. And so, you know, to go, wow, you know, they're the same. They've got the same amount of problems.

It's like only an idiot makes that statement. Yeah. He's also not preaching from a pulpit on Sunday. Right. As you were talking, Russ, I was thinking, if both political parties, recognized the Lordship of Christ. If both political parties recognized the value of the nuclear family in creating policies that supported marriage and children,

if both parties were against murdering the most innocent members of our society in the womb, if both parties were checking those boxes, I would have, I want to say less interest in politics, but that's not where my focus would be. But the reality is we have one party that's advocating for the destruction of the nuclear family, one party that's advocating for the destruction of the sexual moral ethic of God, one party advocating for the destruction of the individual in business, and essentially the ability to be fruitful and multiply by living in unregulated life so you can actually grow a business.

The fact that one party is arguing for our national borders to be open and essentially to lose our national sovereignty, the fact that one party is advocating for boys to be able to ruin girl sports, all of a sudden it's rising on my priority list to address as a minister, because this is affecting the people's lives that I'm shepherding in a local community. So I think that's important to hear. If both parties were on the same page on the major moral things, I'd probably be a little less interested in politics.

But because one party is making war against the very foundations of the moral law itself, I have an obligation as a representative of God to speak up. And to Josh's point, there was a time in America where both parties were a lot more aligned on the moral issues. So really, we're debating things like the social safety net and taxation and, you know, Medicare and Medicaid, you know, those types of things. And so to Howardton's point more broadly, what we have is we have people utilizing a 19-19, 95 operating system for a 2,025 dilemma.

To act as if, you know, oh, we're still all have broad-based agreement. We don't even agree on biology. We don't agree on marriage. We don't even agree on whether or not you should have borders. The Democrats think borders are racist. Like, we're not talking about micro differences in the way things get applied. We're talking about macro chasms of epistemolism. of epistemology and morality and just basic like common sense type stuff. And so when when

people talk about moral reciprocity between the parties, they are literally living in the past. They are living in a time in which that was true in America and it is not true now and hasn't been true for several decades. Last thing I'll say and then I'm going to shut us down. Whenever somebody says, hey man, it hurts our witness when you tie Christianity to political party. I object to the framing of the question. My question is, what do you mean by tie? Because if by that, by tie, do you mean notice moral asymmetry? Is that me tying it to?

By tie, do you mean saying something about the moral symmetry of the parties? Or is it wrong for me to notice that when the ideology of one party spreads, Christianity and the Great Commission get a lot harder? And when the ideology of the other party spreads, Christianity and the Great Commission and the building of churches gets a lot easier. Like, is me noticing that wrong? I would say that's not tying Christianity to a party.

That's being honest. All that is, that's just, you're calling honesty tying. That's all that is. That's good. Guys, this has been a long, fruitful discussion. Any final words? I'll add one thing, and we can get to this another podcast, but oftentimes the people that I see commenting on this

and making these statements that I would radically disagree with, they're making them from the safety of Arizona. They're making them from the safety of Texas. They live in the Bible Belt. And at some point, I'd like to speak to that from Mordor, because that's where I live. And what they need to hear is the perspective of someone

who is in a state that has gone full vent into the policies they are kind of tacitly, passively advocating for. And Russ and I could paint a very vivid picture of how devastating it is for the local church. Well, you and Russ, because I advocate on your behalf very frequently. No, no, no, I want you to do it. Would you mind sketching it?

I tell guys this all the time, because it's like, what I notice is this guys in red and purple states or red and purple areas. They're the ones that are like, ah, neither right nor left, ah, let's not talk to a party. And I'm like, dude, if you would hear firsthand what friends of mine like Josh and Russ deal with, when they try to pastor in a bright blue area,

you're saying that from the safety of things that you're opposing. Do you guys mind sketching it, or would you rather do it a different time? I mean, I can sketch it quickly, but I do think it warrants a detailed discussion because, I mean, we could skip over things quickly. I want to work with your time from here, Josh. But I mean, like, I could give you example after example or example.

in the last two weeks that would be very vivid examples of how hard it is to advance the mission of the church because of the nature of the deep blue politics that are antithetical to a Christian worldview working itself out publicly

and so when these guys talk I just think you have no clue how easy you have it and how good you have it you should thank the Lord that your state is currently read because when it goes blue it becomes exponentially more difficult

every day Russ and I wake up it's an alley knife fight just to survive as the local church. And I believe when a government makes it hard for good people to do righteousness, they're violating Romans 13. And so, you tell me, Josh, I mean, we could go into it or not, but it warrants a good conversation, I think. Russ. Yeah, I mean, the reality of pastoring a church that's located in downtown Seattle means that I don't have the convenient option to pretend that politics, politicians, and political ideas have a downstream impact on the gospel, on the ability for the church to advance, and on the ability of a family unit to thrive. So like this is not in theory for me. Yeah,

I'm not blogging from like some academic ivory tower, you know, where I'm surrounded by, you know, a bunch of people who want to pontificate on the, you know, theoretical virtues of red versus blue. You know, it's like I'm in the heart of a city that is routinely ranked as one of the least religious, most godless, and most progressive regions in the entire United States. And so I don't have the option to close my eyes, pull the blanket over my head and pretend that politics does not have an immediate impact on on on on the church and on people's lives and you're 100% right a lot of these people who are

kind of bemoaning and clutching their pearls and it talking about how well it's going to damage our witness if you know we get too political it's like they're they're commenting from you know scotsdale Dallas, you know, and it's like, dude, spend a weekend in Seattle. I've got people who line up outside to go to church who are routinely assaulted, punched, kicked, have water balloons filled with urine thrown at them, their addresses doxed, death threats, you name it. I've been out of my house three different times over the last four weeks because of verified death threats that the FBI has made me aware of.

Like, this is not like theory for me. This is, this is reality. And so when I talk about the need for like Christians to occupy the public square and to have a public witness, this is life or death. And in a democracy, we get the leaders we deserve, which is maybe the biggest indictment on places like the Pacific Northwest. and what has led to the governance issues we have in a place like Washington State is at least partially the responsibility of Christian leaders who have taken a backseat approach because they don't want to get involved in the quote-unquote culture wars. The cultural wars are downstream from the spirit wars.

What are you talking about? If you are not engaged in the public dialogue, you're not half the church nor half the leader nor half the pastor that you think you are. And so, you know, for me and for McPherson, it's like, yo, we've got real life analytical data for what it looks like when Christians don't advocate for Christological views and or public policy in the public square. And you don't want to export what's happening in Seattle across the nation. Yeah. That's great. All right, gentlemen, thank you for a great conversation. This is super helpful. Russ, I just, my final comment is, do you publicly disavow your NAR theology?

I've actually, I'm glad we're ending this podcast right now. I've got a apostolic NAR secret meeting that's happening here in Maui that I've got to get to. And we are releasing a public statement on the reform community. So just that's coming. Get ready. But you're not NAR, whatever that is. I don't even know what that is. I've got the secret tattoo. Nobody knows about it. I didn't want to do this publicly,

but I do feel like it's necessary so people can know where Josh is really coming from. Could Arthur Trinity pull up a picture I found a few days ago of Josh? Harris Walls. I knew it. There is. It doesn't bring me pleasure to do that. but I felt like we needed to end with some reality. Yeah, call them out.

Thanks, Josh. All right, peace, boys. Love you guys. See you guys. Thanks for tuning in to live free with Pastor Josh Howardton. We pray today's episode helped you take a step forward in life, culture, and faith as you live free in Christ. If it encouraged you, be sure to rate, review, and share the podcast, and don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. Join us for Lake Point Church online every weekend and find more resources at lakepoint.church slash live free.

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