The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Church & State -Liberty Legend Spike Cohen from Freedom Fest

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

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Pocan Valley could become a sanctuary city of a different kind. Native Councilman Caleb Collier says that this proposal... I'm proposing that the city of Spokane Valley issue of proclamation stating that our city is a Second Amendment sanctuary. Today on Church and State, the Man, the Myth, the Legend, Spike Cohen. Hello, Christian Patriots, and welcome to Church and State where we drive morality and religion over tolerance and apathy. And I'm your host, Caleb Collier. Once again, your favorite far right, shock jock. And the show that talks about politics and religion, Jesus Christ is our referees.

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He played the tick and the live action. Oh, okay, I remember the T. Did you ever see the Emperor's New Groove? I don't think I saw the whole show, but I don't know. He's got this dry wit about him, and he's just like, Yeah, weird. That sounds like the tick. Yeah.

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A new one, Faith in Freedom, Television, newscasters. I mean, there's so many great ones in the National Syndication through AMFM Radio. Obviously, with doing what we do and coming at you five days a week. You know, Chris, I hear a lot of people that are like, oh, you do a podcast,

you know, how many times are you on? And I'm like five days a week. And they're like, whoa, you're doing five of these a week? That's actually unusual. Yeah? Yeah, well. I can see why. Yeah, because it's a lot of work.

It's a ton of work from me and from, Chris. So hey, you want to support us? Hit the Donate button for us. I always tell you. No amount is too little. If it's 10 bucks, guys, that's awesome and we appreciate it. So please hit the donate button for us. Lastly, if you want to get hold of us, Church and State 1776 at Proton.com. With that, let's go ahead and start the interview. Hey, this is Caleb Collier with Church and State. I'm over at Freedom Fest. And I've got with me a man who shouldn't need an introduction. Spike Cohen, I've been following for years. Man is a giant. within the libertarian movement and it's just a pleasure to have you i'm happy to be your kill awesome

yeah we've already been having some fun uh talking and um you recently about a year and a half ago um you just decided dedicate your life to jesus yeah surrender my life to jesus in uh november 20th of 2024 i'll try to it just such a you know when you're 44 years old every life story's long but uh i grew up in what i was told was a messianic jewish tradition jews who believe in jesus and In retrospect, it was more of a mildly Jew-scented, non-denominational Christianian evangelical tradition, whatever that is. And it meant that we were non-denominational Christians who used Manashevitz for communion. And we had our worship service on Friday night. So anyway, so I grew up in that tradition.

And when you're a very young child, and I get what Jesus says about having, like, the faith of a child. I had the faith of a child. My parents told me, and so I believed it. And the older I got, the more skeptical I got. And I think also it's true like, you know, you get skeptical and also if God's not real, well, then you can do all these things you're told you don't have, you shouldn't do. And so I, you know, very early on, I kind of like strayed from the faith. And I wanted to believe, but it just, it was like there was just something there that was just missing.

And it's funny because I even, I knew I needed to marry a Christian woman. So I went and married a Christian woman, not Christian, not a married Christian woman, in a Christian church, even going to church with her at one point. But it just wasn't, it just wasn't settling. And it actually came to, for with that full, kind of full circle in 2018, 2017, I told my wife, Tasha, I said, I don't, I don't really believe. Like, and I don't want to lie about it. I think that doesn't make it any better if I'm lying. But I don't believe this.

And part of why I didn't is because we were going to this, like, Word of Faith Church. Yeah. And I'm, my MS, which I'd recently been diagnosed with, is aggressive. It was aggressive. Now it's been in remission for nearly a decade, but it was aggressive. And I'm going to a church who says, if you pray these prayers and if you believe, you will be healed. You will be healed because here are all these cherry-picked verses proving it. And so I'm hearing these verses, and I'm praying that. I remember I'm sitting in a car sobbing, reading these things and saying, God, please heal me, please heal me.

And he didn't. And I go to the pastor and I say, you know, you said if I believe that he'll heal me, but he's not. why is that? It's like, I honestly don't know. At least he didn't try to say like, oh, you're a bad Christian or whatever. But he said, I don't have a good answer. I just know the Bible says that he will always heal. And he will always heal. And I said, well, but for that matter, like, when my mother-in-law died a couple of years ago of cancer, she was a faithful Christian, why did she die? He said, I don't really have the answer. And then when I got home, I'm like, everyone dies of something. So this isn't true. And unfortunately, I went and said either I'm just not a real believer and God's not going to save me or heal me or God's not real. So anyway, so I told my wife that and her response was what any Christian wife would and should do. She said, I'm going to pray for you. And so fast forward many years, I realized, you know, this MS has actually completely changed my life, made me relook at everything and made me take my health seriously. If you like any of the stuff that you see me doing, it's because I got MS.

I would still be in a very financially successful, but unrewarding in every other way career of web design and entrepreneurship that was just sapping me in my life. And I'd be like probably dead because I'd be like 200 pounds overweight at this point. And instead, I got MS, which forced me to do all these things and now look at what I'm doing.

And at one point I thought, this feels like someone moving me in a direction that I would have never chosen through a means I never would have chosen. And that sounds a lot like the God that I've read about in the Bible. And so that took me on a journey. And so long story made not quite as long. I, in November 20th of 2024, I surrender my life to Jesus. At 547 p.m.

Fast forward a couple months later, my father passes away. We're going through all of his Bibles. He had all these Bibles that he would write notes in them like he, like it was a hostage letter. Like you open these things and it was just, you know, like the Pepe Silva meme? where he's like like this and he's got all this stuff around him that's what my dad it was all these different colors

highlights and notes had him scribbled all through these Bibles somehow my mom found the one page she needed to find and she said when did you give your life to Jesus it was November 20th right yeah November 20th last year he said that's when your dad did

November 20th of 1974 my dad surrendered his life to Christ 50 years later to the day I did now the following year one year anniversary of me giving my life to Christ I'm talking on the phone with my friend a tub warbaw. I was a pastor who kind of helped me through this, talk me through this to do this. And so I call him. I said, hey,

around this time a year ago, we were having our conversation, told me to shut up and get off the phone with you and pray to Jesus. And I said, wow, that time. And I had written it down. I said, yeah, 547 is when I did it. And he went, wow, amazing. Congratulations. My mom, again, happened to be there. She goes, did you say 547? PM? I went, yeah. She said, that's when you were born. So I don't know, like, I mean, you know, is that all coincidence? Very possibly.

It's not proof of anything, but yeah, that's my story. That's a pretty incredible story. And not just that. We discovered that we're both part of the same denomination. You know, there's a good wing of the Lutherans and a bad wing. There's the Lutheran wing of the Lutheran. And then there's the increasingly not really even Christian wing of the loose. Exactly.

Yeah. So, and me, and I don't know, have you ever read the book, has American Christianity failed Brian. Brian, I haven't read it, but I'm a huge fan of, uh, Pastor Brian. I, I, I watch a lot of his YouTube Theologians content. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the guy. I read that book and I highly recommend it. Okay, okay. But just when he was talking about this, this endless cycle of piety and despair of fail and then coming back to the Lord. And that was that just keeping between the eyes. It was like, that has been my entire Christian walk. And that's what got me to convert to Lutheranism. And so what for you, you know, specifically, what, what attracted you to that? Well, so, you know, again, I, I, the last

time I had been going to, the Christian churches I had gone to were basically our home church, where my, my father was our pastor, rabbi, whatever you want to call him. And, you know, I would ask him questions. And the thing is when a, when a very difficult and more than likely autistic kid is just constantly asking his father questions, eventually they just get tired of it. And I'm sure at some point he's just like, listen, you either believe or you go to hell or something like that. I'm like, I don't believe. And whatever. It was the wrong person to ask my theological questions at the rightful age of eight.

And so I always just had that kind of skepticism. Then for a while, I actually went, my mom was going to a Methodist church. I was now in my late teen, early 20, something like that. And I actually enjoyed that quite a bit. And that's more of like a high church experience, more liturgical and whatever. But it didn't really, again, I wasn't there. I was trying to go and be a, you know, live whatever lifestyle I wanted to. If I wanted to have sex, I was going to have sex.

If I wanted to do drugs, I was going to do drugs type of thing. Nothing more salacious than probably the average person, but that's the problem, is that that's actually terrible and average. And so, you know, we went, we actually went to a church that I now know was a oneness church. I didn't even realize we were going to our heretical church at the time. I just do it with Pentecostum. and or apostolic and or that's what they call himself and I went with my wife to that that's actually the pastor who married us in the Methodist church interestingly enough and I'm not sure how that kind of passed him but and then that were to faith church and all those experiences the Methodist church wasn't actually a bad one but all those experiences were like something's off here and then when I when I gave my life to Jesus I tried a few different like non-denominational churches which at the time I thought were neutral And I'm like, okay, well, I don't really know what denomination I am, so I'll just go to something kind of neutral.

And they're Baptist. Or one was a Baptist, one was kind of evangelical, which I guess is the type of Baptist, really. Believers baptism and memorialism of the Eucharist is your Baptist. And then at one point I was going to a church that was part of Church of Bob, was like Pentecost. Actually, not a bad church. but they all felt like they were a scene. Like people were going there because it's the church to go to it. And the pastor is really cool.

And the music's great. There's nothing like bad about those things, but it wasn't a theological experience that I was trying to have. Because I still, even now I still occasionally have lingering like, yeah, hey, but what about this? And, you know, that's sort of lingering, like, sort of like how we're never perfectly sinless. We're also never perfectly faithful.

There's always these lingering doubts and questions. And they weren't getting answered there. I was being invited to have an internal. experience of am I really feeling this to show that that's how I know I'm saved? Well, I am highly mercurial and anxious, and I'm trying to figure out what I believe, and that's not, I'm not having the tearful experience that you guys are having, and this is not making me feel any closer to God. I actually feel like maybe I'm off here because the rest of you are all crying, and I'm not.

And so I just, it wasn't, and I wasn't really being fed, theoretically, and I ended up, so your pathway was Brian Wolfmuller. Mine was hands finy, Lutheran satire. I started watching his stuff, and I'm like, I kind of like this. And I actually reached out to him with some questions. And he encouraged me to go to an LCMS church in my area. And I'm like, man, they closed communion to outsiders, and they, you know. And I think they're the ones that I'll at least pray with you, the Wells ones.

Well, but then I found there was one like a few minutes up the road for me. I driven by it a thousand times. And I'm like, okay, I'll go there. And they were so inviting. And they were so welcoming. And at the time, I had so much anxiety about so many theological questions about assurance of salvation and all these things. They were so patient. And they spent so much time talking with me.

And the church is full of a bunch of retired pastors. There's like seven of them because this is like where I live in Myrtle Beach is a retiree area. And they all moved there. And so I'm like, man, there's just a lot of people here are going to hit the site for me. And so I've been going to risen Christ Lutheran ever since. I still have yet to go through the full Catechicism. Catechises process, however you say that.

I haven't been fully catechized yet, so I'm not officially a member, but I've had the conversation with them. I'm like, the real presence of the Eucharist is the thing that makes most sense to me, because that's what he said. Like Martin Luther, putting the, you know, writing with a chalk, the Latin for, this is my body. or is and then like covering it up and every time Zwingling would stop talking you'd pull it back and go ah like that because and it's like it's it's what it says so whatever that deeper mysterious meaning

that it means that we may not understand that's what it says and we know it doesn't magically we know it doesn't transform into like it's not transubstantiation but then that means it's it still is and how is it is and so I had that conversation with my pastors and they went yeah that's faithful enough understanding of real presence. And so I actually do commune with them. Still going through the, I still, honestly, every time they have new member classes, I travel so much, I haven't been able to do it. But I will soon be a member, an actual member in good standing, but I'm already an attendee in good standing. We have that is that similarity once again as well. My wife and kids are not so much on board. I'm like, I'm Lutheran now. They're like,

wait, what? Great news, everyone. We're Lutherans. And so, you know, I'm also, I haven't gone through the whole process yet but I I call myself the Lutheran I 100% everything that they teach uh you know what you were talking about like a Eucharist and what a beautiful thing that is too when coming from you more that non-denomination sense that this is just

symbolic yeah and here's this way further that's like styrofoam out of my gosh yeah to go to that to what the litreins believe it's it's a beautiful mystery yeah yeah yeah so you brought up word of faith and I want to talk to you about this because I've been seen

trend and I'm not the only one I'm sure you've seen this as well yeah younger men in particular did I turn this off accidentally is it green I don't know oh yeah it's green on this I'm sorry we're good to say it's I touched you that one point so I just want to make sure I can turn off go ahead so younger men um are in droves moving towards more that high church model but you're talking about we're seeing Catholicism orthodoxy a lot of people go and reform yeah there is even some within the Lutheran as well yeah yeah the Presbyterian um Word of faith, prosperity gospel, the new apostolic Reformation. I think people are getting tired of what I would call heresies.

Oh, and if I have to name one person who isn't even Lutheran, but I'll still name him, who has been at the absolute forefront of exposing themselves. And he himself is charismatic, Mike Lingner. Yes. Who has just been like, listen, we are to mark and avoid. This is not like, this whole like don't accuse the brethren. Like, no, no, don't accuse the brethren wrongly. but like test the these people are giving prophecy every day and it's wrong like and it's and it's

deceptive and we can prove they were lying and if we're supposed to test this against scripture and it's not happening so I think part of why people are turning away from it is like the same reason people are turning away from like some of the more schemy MLMs and stuff like that like it's so obviously a scam and I think that Mike Winger's been a big part of this he's kind of doing the whole like accountability movement. What was he called it? Cover up culture and like exposing it. And it's it's amazing. It's so good. And I do think it's going to lead a lot of people towards the more high church denominations. The purpose of denominationalism for all of the issues that come with it,

the purpose of denominationalism is to make sure that you don't fall into rank heresy accidentally or through deception. And so you have very set ideas on what you believe and on what don't believe. And if you have disagreements on non-essential issues, okay, then we can still be in Christian fellowship together, but we're not going to be in, or we shouldn't be in, what is it, altar and pulpit fellowship. Like, we're not going to commune together because your concept of communion is different than ours. We both believe that we're supposed to do it and that it is for the forgiveness of sins and in remembrance of him. We have different ideas of it, and there's something in the officials that's talking about how we need to have perfect unity.

faith. And so to be on the safe side, it's not to say you shouldn't be doing it and we shouldn't be doing it. We shouldn't then be working together as Christians and loving each other and loving each other and all of that. But let's just be on the safe side. And if you're saying we don't baptize babies and we say we do baptize babies, okay, you're going to not baptize babies over there and we're going to baptize babies over there. And I think that that's just a healthy. It's like a good, good barriers, make good neighbors type of things. And we end up not fighting each other on. We can disagree on it. We can have debates, but I think it's a good thing. At some point, people went, we're going to throw all that away because denominations are what's getting in the way. And it's like, no, what's getting in the way is our own sinful human nature.

And now what happens is instead you're now going to the church of Bob, and Bob has a new word for you from the Holy Spirit every day, and they're all lies. And of course, if anyone says that, then, you know, they're accusing the brethren and getting in the way of the man of God. And that's a cult. And so that's why I think people are turning away from it. I'm glad because it's not. Word of faith says you are a magic spellcaster.

And God is your genie. And if God's not doing what you're telling them to do, well, then you're not spellcast and good enough. And that's putting everything on you. Bad enough how some of these more low church traditions, even though they say you're saved by faith, nothing works, unless you support, like you believe in that.

But there's a lot of like, look inward. Are you being Christian enough? And yes, we should examine for fruits, but I feel like they move too far that way. These people say not only that, but if you're not like getting everything you want when you pray for, well, then you're definitely not saved and you're not a good enough wizard in the spell casting. And it's just, it's disgusting. It establishes a caste system in Christianity. Yep.

And based on life. Yes. And it encourages people to fake it. The amount of times that I've seen people either fake tongues or fake prophecy because, you know, they don't want to be looked at. you know, they don't want to be in this lower caste system. It's really quite tragic, actually. And so I'm so thankful for my own personal journey. I'm thankful for yours as well.

I didn't know you lived in Myrtle Beach. I don't want to move there, actually. Really? I feel like you're a long-lost brother over here. Our experience is very similar. Similar in a lot of ways. But, yes, South Carolina is an absolute beautiful state. Just incredible beaches and great people.

So I'm going to get out of Washington State where I'm behind enemy lines. That's fair. Yeah. Now, libertarian, it's a lot. And all out myself, you may think I'm a statist here, but I am a minarchist. Okay. Yeah, and, you know, like, I joke there, right? Yes, yeah.

Yes, yes. You're a micro-timer. I love it. Libertarianism and Lutherans, you know, I mean, here we are. We're two, libertarian Lutherans. It could be a podcast, oh, my gosh. But how does that work with your faith? So that's actually something I'm, like, working through and reconciling,

because Martin Luther was not a well-known libertarian. He was also a product of his time. And he was very much from the end of the medieval era. We had Divine Right of Kings. The concept of democracy would have sounded like anarchy to him. Yet the people rule? What are you talking about? That's a mob uprising, right?

So I actually wrote this like, it was both way too long and also not nearly comprehensive enough. I wrote a post called Why We Should Thank Martin Luther for the Fourth of July, even though he'd hated. And it talked about how, so I'm going to try to do this even to scale even more. So Martin Luther had a concept of the two kingdoms. And one kingdom is the kingdom of the kind of the temporal kingdom. And that's the governing authorities. And they protect us from harm and they carry out, you know, God's wrath through justice and so forth.

And I should say they carry out the sword to do, you know, to basically everything, Romans 13 since. Then you have the kingdom of heaven. You have the church. And so it's basically the church and the state. It's a church and state. And so he very much believed in, you know, those things should be separate. But he also believed that, like, you should submit to the governing authorities means anything they tell you to do, you do it.

You do not question it. You do not ask differently. And if they tell you to, like, blaspheme, your response is, I can't do that. And if you have to punish me, that's fine. But you never resist. Then when the emperor, the Holy Roman emperor was basically going to force in Germany in the German states, forced them to submit to Rome, he had quite a conundering. well, we're not going to submit to Rome. Are they going to just kill all of us?

Because I don't see where we can do anything other than submit. And he thought he was going to be martyred. He thought he was going to be martyred. And he was like accepting it. And so he actually met with theologians and princes and attorneys who kind of worked with him to develop the, he realized something. Well, he's not an absolute monarch. He is the constitutional head of a empire that's also made above lesser magistrates. And they're all bound to this agreement.

and he's not keeping it. And so if the greater magistrate isn't, I'm trying to still listen to much again, if the greater magistrate, because I find this fascinating, if the greater magistrate isn't keeping up his end of the bargain, the lesser magistrate, it's actually, at the very least,

they're permitted to resist to the extent that he's disobeying. It's the doctrine of the lesser magistrate. And they continued expanding upon it, and the reform tradition took it even further. But that's where it started. Now, that would not have meant like the American Revolution. Nothing like that.

It would have had to be strictly theological and it would have had to come from lesser magistrates to basically just back him up to say, don't do that. But over time, his doctrine, the lesser magistrate, went from, well, the lesser magistrate has the permission to do this to actually, they have the duty to do this. Now it's a big change because now it's you actually have to do something about this. And there are many other changes, but the real change happens, the lesser magistrate were the people who declared the Declaration of Independence. they were elected officials under the at the time the parliamentary and colonial system that the crown had set of these were not like you know a wild-eyed you know like the french revolution were just the bluep the peasants stood up like these were the aristocracy doing it but in the declaration of independence they did a very interesting thing they made the people the greater magistrate they said yeah we're still the lesser magistrate but our rule comes from the consent of the governed and not only do that they have the ability to declare their consents, but they have the ability to withdraw their consent and abolish or alter the government.

Now Martin Luther, I am almost certain, would have hated this. And what he probably would have hated the most is that it is the logical conclusion of his doctrine of lesser magistrate. The lesser magistrate is completely in control. And they can choose to just make the people the greater magistrate.

And so that's ultimately what ended up happening. So go back to your actual question. What I am squaring is that I am realizing that using that doctrine, libertarianism is a way of saying that we, the people, the greater magistrate, are exercising our authority by the means of saying that individual people should be free to make decisions for themselves, broadly speaking, and that if there's any kind of outside governance trying to curtail us, it's only in any time that we try to regress upon one another. And obviously, you've got to unpack that way more,

I'm not going to bother getting into all that. But that's kind of where that's settling on. I'm also on a journey on what submission of the governing authorities looks like. I feel like we do that a lot with you or the power. We're not threatening anyone. We're just saying, hey, we think you're doing this wrong. We would like you to do it this way. And we've had a wild success rate doing that.

So I know I just ranted for a long time, but that's, that's how I'm reconciling. And I'm still in an active thing because something I told, I told God, I said, look, I don't want to be a libertarian who shoehorned Christianity into it. I want to be a Christian who. You know, maybe I have a bias in this way, but if you are leading me towards something else and that that's the undeniable truth, then that's what I want to do. I don't want this to be about my ego journey and about me going, well, so I was always right. And I was a Christian.

I know I'm right. No, I am a sinful. I am Joshua with the, you know, filthy rags. And if Christ tells me, if God tells me, this is the truth, well, then that's what I'm going to. As it stands right now, I think I'm actually reconciling this pretty well. Yeah, I would say that you were. You brought up your organization, and I know we're probably running out of time. I can probably talk to you further.

I can probably talk to you for a lot of the past. But I want to be comfortable. I mean, I want to be conscious of your time, and I want to direct people to your movement. Sure. Because it's a great one. Thank you. So please tell people how they can find it and tell people about it as well. So at you were the power, we protect people from abuse.

by state and local level government officials. State and local, we don't really, we don't, at least not yet, we don't do federal stuff. But what that looks like protecting, oh, and in addition to protecting people against abuse by state and local government officials, we also then try to implement changes to ensure that that type of abuse never happens again. That looks like all sorts of things. It looks like parents who have been wrongfully accused of abuse and had their children taken from them and, you know, face never seen their kids again, face decades in prison for abuse that never happened. It looks like us stepping in, getting those children return, getting those charges drop,

getting them in the nightmare behind. We've done that at scale all across the country. Hey, this is Caleb Collier with Church and State. I'm here to tell you about Hunter's Blend Coffee. I got to tell you, I absolutely love this stuff. I'm all about the dark roast. Hunter's Blend Coffee, black powder. Doesn't that just sound like deliciousness and rebellion?

I got to tell you, in America, we don't drink tea. No, we drink coffee. It's the food of the gods. and I endorse and support Hunters Blend Coffee. Got to tell you, it tastes like freedom. So I need you to go over to church and state. dot media, scroll to Hunters Blend Coffee and use the promo code Church and State to help support us.

When you go to Huntersblendcoffee.com, not only will you be getting a great cup of coffee, but you also, if you use the promo code Church and State, be supporting Church and State in our dogged pursuit of truth. And we're back and thank you for staying with us. You're over at Churchandstate.Media, or at least I hope you are. And we're going to go right back to this incredible interview. But real quick, let's talk about one of our awesome affiliates. And really, any time I get around libertarians, I genuinely want to go to Mark

3-7, because this is such a natural fit for any of those who like liberty, who like the Bill of Rights. And the Fourth Amendment has really taken on some great interest within Patriots all across this country with the rise of these flock cameras and these data centers, the idea that, hey, our government's not necessarily the good guy, and they're spying on us constantly. We'll do something about it. Do something about it that's really, really easy, actually. And perhaps that's one of the things I like best about Mark 37 is it's easy. It's so simple for you to switch from a regular phone to a ghost phone.

And this Marine did it. Chris, am I tech savvy? Like, back me out. Yeah. Not at all. No, I'm not. I'm like pounding on keys over here like work, do something. Like the magic box isn't working, Chris.

Fix the magic box. That's how I feel. That's how I operate kind of. I'm probably not that bad, but I'm pretty close to that bad. Okay, so I'm talking to you, the people who, you don't know, you just want your phone to work. It works. And it doesn't spy on you. I love that.

So go check them out. Get a ghost phone for yourself. They're even cheaper than the ones that you're going to find it, the big three markets. that's a nice benefit as well. A phone that doesn't spy on you that's cheaper and easy to use? What's the negative here? I'm not finding one. So go check out mark37.com, get a ghost phone, get a ghost laptop,

and use that promo code church and state. You're going to get a discount and you help support us. Speaking of support, hit the donate button for us. Once again, please, we need it. I'm not opposed to begging. I need help. I need financial support to continue doing what we're doing. So please, if you like the show, even a little bit, you saw an episode you liked.

All right, please hit the donate button for us. Keep us alive. All right, with that, let's go ahead and finish this interview with Spike Cohen over at Freedom Fest. I hope you're enjoying it so far. So at You Were the Power, we protect people from abuse by state and local level government officials. State and local, we don't really, we don't, at least not yet, we don't do federal stuff. But what that looks like protecting, oh, and in addition to protecting people against abuse by state and local government officials. We also then try to implement changes to ensure that that type of

abuse never happens again. That looks like all sorts of things. It looks like parents who have been wrongfully accused of abuse and had their children taken from them and, you know, face never seeing their kids again, face decades in prison for abuse that never happened. It looks like us stepping in, getting those children return, getting those charges dropped, getting them there behind. We've done that at scale all across the country. That looks like people who are facing losing their homes to eminent domain, getting, keeping their homes. We've done that at scale across the country. We're doing more of that. That looks like people have been charged with crimes they didn't commit or brutalized by the police and the police won't admit to what they did or won't release the body cam footage.

It looks like us getting involved. The body cam footage being released, charges being dropped, and officials resigning in disgrace. And it looks like a many thing. It looks like charities that were threatening, being threatened in jail time for feeding people being left alone because you should be able to feed people like that. If I, if I, if I, I give you a burrito, there shouldn't be anyone stepping in and saying, hey, where's your license for that? So that's the kind of things that we do. We do them all across the country. In the past three years, we've taken on nearly 2,000 cases. And as impressive as that number sounds, that's children return home. That's people still living in their homes. That's grandfathers not being removed from their grandkids house because they're trying to populate a state-run senior center. sorts of you know horrific things that people are facing us stepping in and just

ending it and restoring people's lives and in that three and I love asking this question so in over that three years around 2,000 causes if I said to you Caleb and in those 2000 roughly 2,000 cases we've only lost X percent of the time what would that number how high could that number be for you to still feel like we are a successful working in everything I mean for me and I'm probably going to be a bit of an I don't hire, but my perspective on this is if you just say one, you're successful. If we've won one, yeah, yeah, we've lost one. Okay.

We've lost one. We have had a roughly 99.9% success rate over the last three years. And I will tell you something. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a clown. And it's very clear that for a clown like this to be the head of, not just involved in, but the head of an organization that has been so wildly successful in just just a short period of time. I think that God is intentionally using me for his glory

because you can look at a clown like me and see what I'm doing. And the effect that it has is similar to like a donkey talking. You look and you go, well, that's clearly supernatural what's happening there. And so, and I will take it. Praise God that he would choose me of all people, broken sinner that I am to do these incredible things.

Not only, so it's, let me tell you, out great Jesus. So not only infinitely before he created the universe, not only did he know all literally infinitely before he created the universe. He knew every single terrible thing I do, including things that I haven't even done yet. He knows. And his response to that was not to never make me or to smite me soon after, but to thousands of years before I was even born, dive to atone for my sin because that is the only, the death of God himself is the only thing that can atone for the sins of all of us. To do that, to forgive me for the stuff that I have yet to do,

to set me free not just from the consequence of my sin, but from the condemnation of it, and to set me free to do good works I could never do on my own, in his name and for his glory, I'm going to cry. And to witness to his goodness and mercy. What an incredible valence of capable of God. Amen. I mean, honestly, like, I'm getting a little bit emotional here. I love your part in all of this.

And, you know, returning back to Lutheranism, I think that's one of the things that's so attractive to me. Because I'm also, I'm in the same boat as you. Like, I am wicked wretched me. Yeah. Right? But that grace, that emphasis on grace and Lutheranism, was so refreshing for me to say, you know,

it's not about me. I am a wretched person. I don't need to look to myself. That just makes me anxious. Yeah. It's him. If I look to myself, I just get a lot of question marks and

exclamation points. I get very concerned. And can I see the fruit? Can I see the concept with like the path? Yeah, I can see that. But I also see all the times that I just like that I'm not, I didn't put them first. I haven't done my Bible study today. And it's like, you know, and it's because well, I got these other stuff to do. I could have done it. Like it's and it's, it's little things, it's big things. It's, you know, looked a little bit too long and a nice lady walking. Like, like, it's, it's, it's even the smallest things that it's like, how does that go to heaven? How does that go to the perfectly just heaven? Here I am. I know. I know. I No, I'm forgiven.

He has already said, my sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more and I go, well, I'll try. And, and, and he still forgives me. And the only way that makes sense is if I'm not looking to myself, yes, can I examine my fruits? Can I see that there's a journey happening in a red? Yeah, absolutely 100%. That's good.

But is that the main source of my confidence? I would be in an endless panic attack if I look to myself. That's me personally. You know, when they're like, well, just think about how the feelings. My feelings are all over the place. Double-minded is not a terrible way to describe sometimes how I feel, okay? Anxious and all sorts of stuff. I am not the person to look to for my own anything.

What only all that makes sense is that that perfectly just God is also perfectly grace and perfectly merciful and perfectly merciful and perfectly loving. And that only he can save him. And it is a, you know, I don't know if we also use the term total depravity or something similar, but it's like, yeah, I am. Is it that there's nothing good in me? No, Luther said this. We are just and sinner. We are, there are Satan sinner with the, what is it, the snow covered turret? Martin Luther. They're one of the best explanations for us. Martin Luther has some of the greatest. I love how like just, I have a lot of say. I'm a big fan. But he, uh, he's, I look forward to meeting. But he is, he is, it's true. It's one of the things I love about Lutheranism is we make it very clear with no, and it's not intonomianism, but it is very much a, this is 100% God, zero percent you. The fact that you even want to move towards God is a gift of grace from God. And I love it. It is, it's brought such assurance, such peace.

I'm not saying I'm never anxious, but like it definitely is like, yes. It's like that's the only thing that makes sense is the self. And let me add some more clarity and perhaps some confusion as well. Yeah. We're not Calvinists. No. Well, Luther was there before Calvinists. So we're not Calvinist.

We don't believe in what's described as double predestination. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And so, and you know, I mean, that's a whole other conversation. It's a fun one. I can sum it up very quickly. This is what I love about Lutheranism. We go, God wants all of us to be saved.

He is the source of your salvation and even your faith. You can choose to reject him. No, we're not going to try to figure out how to square that. That's what the Bible says. And we aren't nearly intelligent enough, much less infinitely intelligent, to square that circle. So no, we're not going to try to create a doctrine of double predestination. We're not going to try to create this Armenian, like, well, free will thing. Brian Wolf Mueller says it great.

Salvation to us, salvation to the like Catholics is like a bank account. You know, every time you do something wrong, you're taking out, and every time you do penance, you're putting back in. And if you've got a square away balance, then you either go to heaven or you go to purgatory or whatever. In like evangelical tradition, it's like, who are you taking on the date? You know, Jesus wants to take you to prom. So does the devil. And, you know, they're both pretty cute.

And, you know, which one do you want to do? We hope you take Jesus. and we hope you stay steady with Jesus. And it's like, I am a horrible person. Like, you know, the things I think, like if God said, Jesus says, and I love that he did this, you know, you heard it said, don't commit adultery and don't commit murder.

Well, if you're even having these thoughts, if you're even mad or lustful, you've done it many times. Well, then I'm like one of the worst adulterers and mass murderers ever. So who am I, what am I going to choose? Lutheranism says, no, your salvation is a trial. Satan is the prosecutor saying,

Here are all the horrific things that you do. And Jesus is the defender who walks up to God the father, the judge, and says, I paid from this. It's paid in full. Tell us died. And God goes, that mark. And then you're safe. And that's the only thing that makes sense.

If he is perfect and we are what we are, then it only makes sense that it's 100% from him. And no, we're not going to try to square the circle between being told about stuff that sounds like free will and being told about stuff that sounds like everything is his and this suit. We're not going to try to square away. We just brought some tears to him. That's bad. It was a beautiful breakdown of what we believe. Yeah. I appreciate you sharing the audience there. Thank you. Once again, you know, Congress in their time, how do people follow you? And please, I don't think you shared the website.

Oh, yeah. You were thepower.comnet. If you need our help, if government is harming you, you're the power.net slash help. We will look at your case. We can't, I can't promise anything other than we will look at it. And if there's anything we can do to help, we will. If you would like to become a part of what we're doing, go to you were the power.net slash join you. We become a member, be at the tip of the sphere of the work that we're doing. Incredible stuff that we do, and we don't even have time to unpack it, it's amazing. If you say, I don't got time, but I got money. And we need help keeping the lights on.

You were the power.net slash donate. And if you just want to check out what we're doing broadly, just go to you or the power.net. And we'd love to have you be a part of this. Like I said, we are helping people who are having their lives destroyed and restoring them and putting an end to it, getting legislation passed to make sure it never happens again. I literally we spend hours talking about what we do. It's just, it's incredible. We love you to be a part of it with Empower.com.

And Caleb, thank you so much about it. It was awesome. I appreciate it. Awesome to having you all. So thank you so much for joining us. All right, there you go, ladies and gentlemen. Please go to you're thepower. Dotnet.

You actually can go to dot com, but it took us along to get the dot com that all of our branding already said.net. So either one, you were the power.net or dot com. Excellent. Okay. Hey, thanks again. Thank you. God bless, guys.

All right, there we go. Ladies and gentlemen. What a fantastic interview with. Spike Cohen, I love this man. Not only as a libertarian brother, but also a brother within the L-CMS, right? That's right. We're both part of the, well, you heard it in the interview, both part of the L-CMS, the Lutheran, the good side of the Lutherans. So I hope you enjoyed it, share it with friends, family, and neighbors, and get involved. Get involved, find a good local church, get involved with politics, policies that promote liberty. Church and state is brought to you in part

by Colonial Life, Spokane, Independent agents, finders insurance, and mark37.com. I'm Caleb I was born for a storm. Welcome to the fire. Hey, this is Caleb Collier with Church and State and I want to tell you about a great product, Liberty Cigars. I know for myself, there's nothing grander than sitting around a campfire, having a great theology discussion with a group of men while smoking a cigar. That's why I love Liberty Cigars. Every cigar has a story to tell.

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Use that promo code, church and state. You'll get a discount, and you'll also be helping to support Church and State with everything that we do. Hey, this is Caleb Collier with the Church and State podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, I want all of you to go to Galileo.com. You need to stay connected, comes our way. Whether it's government intrusion or a meteor falling from the sky, Galileo has you

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