Theology in the Raw - Politics, Charlie Kirk, and How the Black Church Can Leads Us out of the Culture War: Justin Giboney

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Join us for the Exiles in Babylon conference! April 30-May 2, 2026. Justin E. Giboney (JD, Vanderbilt University) is the cofounder and president of the AND Campaign, a Christian civic organization focused on raising civic literacy, promoting civic pluralism, and equipping Christians to engage politics with the love and truth of Jesus Christ. An ordained minister, attorney, and political strategist, Giboney has been featured in publications such as the New York Times and Christianity Today and is the coauthor of the book Compassion (&) Conviction and the author of the recently released: Don’t Let nobody Turn You Around: How the Black Church’s Public Witness Leads us Out of the Culture War (IVP 2025)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The culture of war is white progressives versus white conservatives. Nobody else really has a say. And so they use other people as chess pieces within their battle between one another. You think they're on your side until they tell you, hey, you can't say that. If you're on the right, you can't say anything about American history not being what I have created it to be my romanticized version of it. On the left, it's like, yeah, just talk about race. Because guess what? That's what we need to fight against those guys on the other side.

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology and Rob. My guest today is Justin E. Gibney, who has a jurist doctorate from Vanderbilt University. He is the co-founder, president of the And campaign, a Christian civic organization focused on raising civic literacy, promoting civic pluralism and equipping Christians to engage politics with the love and truth of Jesus Christ, which I love everything about that. Justin is like my go-to person. when I want to have a healthy, balanced Christian perspective on our political moment, and that's what we do in this conversation. Justin is an ordained minister, an attorney, a political strategist has been featured in publications such as the New York Times and Christianity Today. He's a co-author of the book, Compassion and Conviction, and the author of the recently released, I have it right here

in my hands. Don't let nobody turn you around how the black church's public witness leads us out of the Culture War published by InterVarsity Press. Oh, my word. Justin is the man. I would give anything to have his voice because there's no better podcast voice than Justin Gibney. Always intelligent, always loving and balanced, wise and compassionate.

I think you can enjoy this wide-ranging conversation. Also, Justin will be at the Exiles of Babylon Conference, April 30th of May 2nd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He's going to be doing a breakout. Cannot wait for this conference. We're talking about artificial intelligence, mental health in the gospel. We're talking about should Christians support war. We're talking about the historical reliability of the Bible.

And oh my gosh, it's going to be an amazing conference. Check out all the info at Theology and the raw.com. You can still take advantage of the early bird special, but that expires January 15th. So you want to sign up before January 16th to take advantage of the early word special. So without further ado, please welcome back to the show. show the one and only justin gibbony all right jesus gibbity welcome back to the algernah this must be number three or four i think for you something like that pressing it's always going to be on though man thanks for opportunity i think the first time we talked was i think it was during covid you helped this

yeah you know what it was right after george floyd was killed i think that was the first time the first or second yeah yeah man we cut a long way since 2020 um what you so I was just telling you offline, man. It can be easy to be freaked out, anxious about a political moment. So much is going on. So many news outlets, once you get anxious, wants you to get angry, wants you to get fired up. Whenever I want some sanity, I turn to Justin Gibney, the church politics podcast, which is outstanding. I think we share a lot of listeners.

And you're a co-host. I'm blanking on his name, dude. So you're talking about Chris Butler, yeah. Chris, Chris, isn't on as much anymore. Yeah. Still, still very good friend, but he had some professional stuff to do. So it's mostly me and I bring on different people, you know, here and there. That makes sense.

Yeah, okay. Yeah. There's a, yeah, but several listeners. I'm like, where's Chris? Okay. Yeah, that's right. Help us. How are you thinking through our political moment?

I know that's a huge question, 30,000 foot, but you got, you know, foreign policy. We're blowing up boats in the middle of the Caribbean. We have immigration stuff. We have ICE stuff. We have Epstein. You know, I almost want to talk about like politics in a post Epstein world. have you covered much of him at all or i don't know just start there but i just did a civic update which folks can find on instagram about the epstein files yeah so it's like a five minute you know overview i mean it's you listen to this stuff and it's like all right there's so much cover up going on right i mean it's like we can't we've got the most intelligent no we may not most intelligent, the most like technologically savvy intelligence agencies, FBI, CIA. I mean, we could, we could find a robo out in the middle of Pacific and we might even bomb

it. But I mean, but you tell me that this guy was connected with almost every high level person. We, we don't know. Like, yeah, I don't know. Like, he rubbed shoulders with prime ministers, government officials, both inside the states, outside the states. He had prime of Israel, this house for weeks on end and like, oh, yeah, nothing to see here, nothing to see here. Like, go on. It's fishy. And that's kind of what I was getting at. I think this is mostly an issue of public trust where people know, you know, if you wanted to get to the bottom of it, you could. If you probably, if you wanted to stop him from committing suicide, you could have. But somehow, when this very high profile case, you know, where the footage has been altered

and, you know, it's just, it's a public trust thing where people need to know, no matter how much money you have or who you know, you'll be held accountable. And when that doesn't happen, I think people are right for pushing as hard as they can to get, to get justice in this particular case. And then Trump and a lot of people, or his administration, they ran on, we're going to release the files. That was like a big, huge, one of the reasons why especially like QAnonon type people were like all excited about it.

And then a few months ago, he's like, Jeff, who? Jeffrey Epstein? Wait, what? Why is that a big deal? Well, it was a big deal when he said you were going to run on it. But something, you know, they'll run on something and say, we'll deal with it. When we get to it, let's just get in office and we'll handle that later. That's kind of what happens.

This is not going away, man, especially with all the emails, all the people know, like 10,000 different emails released. And it's, I do, I read through several of them. And oh, my word. Yeah. Oh, my word. To let it go away. I think you're right. It's not going anywhere.

We'd be remiss to let it go. And it just needs to come out. Just let it's, it's time. I mean, it seems so obvious that. that the reason why the Democrats didn't release them to if it was all about Trump is because there's Democrats involved. The reason why Trump's not releasing is because there's him and Republican. I don't know the specific names. I don't know the involvement. But the reason why when each party had the power to release them, why they didn't is because both are

indicted. And there's people with tons of power on both sides that would really not fare well in these files. Obviously, I don't have anything to back that up. seems like that's the, it just seems like that's the best guess why people have not, when they could have released it. Both sides had an opportunity to release it. And some people were like, well, you know, somebody, I saw somebody say that Biden didn't release it because, you know, he didn't want to force the DOJ to do something. I'm like, dude, they forced the DOJ do stuff all the time.

Like, yeah, I got to stop just buying these partners and theirs. They both had a chance. And I think you're right. Chances are that they didn't do it because they were close to people who were probably going to show up in those files. Because, I mean, let's be honest, if it was just about Trump, then Biden would have very quickly put that out there and tried to end the campaign. Yeah. It had to be deeper than that.

Oh, yeah. 100%. Oh, man. Okay. Well, I did not plan to wake up this morning and talking about some world-renowned pedophile. But, yeah. Okay. So along with Epstein, how should we navigate our political moment as a Christian with all of the different opportunities?

to be discouraged, anxious, mad, furious, pester us through this cultural moment, Justin. So the one thing is we do have to be honest and realistic about how bad things are, right? We would be remiss to act like, oh, that's no big deal. We've had issues before. We'll get through it. Don't worry about. No, there's several things to be concerned about, seriously concerned about, specifically

when it comes to our neighbors and how our neighbors are being treated or whether we're talking about ICE, where we're talking about constitutional crises or whatever. these things need to be taken seriously. Now, from there, what I tell people is even within that and the rivalries that come with all the things that are happening and how we treat our opposition, we can't be arrested by the moment, right? There's a difference between saying, hey, this is bad. I need to focus in and make sure that I'm responding in the right way. It's another thing to be completely taken by the moment to where your actions are purely dictated by what's going on. on in that moment. And I talk a lot about moral imagination, but it's the ability to see beyond

the moment. And I see a lot of Christians in the turn to Christian nationalism on the other side and the turn to identitarianism, just being arrested by the moment. I want to get out of this because this will end. We know how all this stuff ends at the, you know, when it's all said and done. I want people to be able to look at Christians and say, man, did you see how they reacted in the midst of all that was going? Did you see how they still treated their opposition, even after what they're opposite. I want people to look and say, that was different. And the way that we're responding right now, nobody's going to think is very different at all.

And so that's where I want to get because we know, we know, you know, we don't know exactly what happens, but we know that God's in control. Do we act like that during the tough times? I don't think that we do in many instances. Why do Christians get so swept up into the polarization of everything? is it yeah well i think for one again because the issues are real real people are getting hurt so it's you know when you see something bad happening you say oh man whether it's you know somebody on the right um seeing something they don't like or on the left you can get caught

up in it and then an addition to why we're getting so caught up in it in this way is i think our algorithms are we're being disciples by our algorithms 100 and in our algorithms one of the things i've been talking about a lot preston is these conflict entrepreneurs who are all who've made an industry out of division and we follow them and they will you will eventually hate your enemy you will eventually hate your neighbor if that's the people that you're listening to and a lot of us are listening to those folks yeah dude it's great the technology is insane the algorithms i literally talked about possibly doing a triathlon the other day and now i'm kidding every other ad is like triathlon bike and somehow it popped up here i don't even know

know if I clicked on anything. Yeah, man. I, I've done that before. We're all like, you know, like, yeah, research some health product or whatever. Next thing you know, I'm going to, you know, just getting flooded. I don't know. Maybe I'm pretty sure I didn't click on it. Yeah. All I know is like it, it, it, my phone knows me better than I know myself. It knows what I'm thinking. It knows what I'm, where I'm thinking about going on vacation. I mean, it's, it's, but yeah, they, yeah, I feel like everybody knows that too. I've never talked to anybody in an informed person who doesn't say. like, yeah, the algorithms are rigged. The whole things are like, you know, the whole system is trying to, it feeds on anxiety and anger and polarization. It's just going to keep doing that until you think people that don't think just like you are absolutely insane, if not evil. And I just don't know. Do we just lack the self-discipline to, like, rise above that or click off the news from

time to time? I think it's part of it. But the Bible talks about, you know, we like to have our, you know, our ears tickled and all, right? Like we want to hear a certain narrative. And so even if we know this might not be completely accurate, we just want to hear what's going to boost our narrative. And that's hard to push away from.

So yeah, in a way, it's self-control. Again, I think one of the big things that we have to talk about is what does it mean to be impartial in this moment? And what does it mean for me to have a whole algorithm and social media feed full of partiality? What does that do to my spirit? we get you know it's worth investigating that yeah yeah from time to time i just go and click on a bunch of otter videos to just kind of like scramble my feet a little bit that i get all

that's bad idea otters and big wave surfing always a little bunch of those um you you so the subtitle of your recent book well the title is don't let nobody uh turn you around um which is a line from that spiritual by uh jackson what's her first name um oh are you talking about myelia jackson myelia jackson yeah right that's where you got so that's not her that's i don't know that she she's saying that one but it's one of the one of the important ones in there yeah okay okay um don't let nobody turning around the subtitle is provocative and intriguing how the how the black church's public witness leads us out of the culture war great great uh cover by the way. That's that okay so let me let me how how can the black church's public witness lead us out

of this very situation that we've been talking about. So another another way to put it would be how would the civil rights generation react to this moment. Okay. What I want people to know is their practices, the way they applied their faith can be incredibly hopeful to what we're going through now because they went through something a lot worse. And I think there were a lot more faithful. I also want people to know, though, this isn't an exaltation of the Black Church, though. This is taking one of the best examples of engaging politics from a faith perspective and challenging everybody, even the present-day Black Church. And so that's what I mean, because you maybe could get thrown off a little bit by the title. I think when you

start reading it, you see it's not just about an exaltation to say, hey, here's a standard black Christian, white Christian, Asian Christian, whoever, are we meeting this standard? And that's what I want to get at. How, you know, and how they looked at their neighbor and how they looked at themselves and how they connected their faith to social engagement, are we meeting that standard? And if not, why not? And what's the consequences of that? Yeah, you mentioned clear.

I was just looking it up on page 27 and 28 that Black Church has its own problems. You had moral failures. You had people that didn't, you know, live up to what they're calling other people to. Just like any movement's going to have, it's, it's, you know, it's less than perfect people. So I do appreciate that you weren't trying to, you know, glorify, like, whitewash. That's an interesting phrase. Whitewash to apply church. But just give an honest evaluation.

But they, from what I'm reading, I mean, I love how you retell the history and show how they live. than a space of this kind of in-betweenness. I don't think you use that phrase. But, like, you know, resonated with some of the social concerns that might be more typically on the left, but held to a moral fabric that was maybe typically, you know, promoted by some portions of the right. So they didn't really fit within this nice and easy political box. Is that, it seems like today, though, well, is that true today?

Because when I think of the majority, well, I don't know. And now I'm, yeah, I guess it's kind of both in. I do hear leading black Christians kind of protest more the abuses on the left. And so there is that in between this. But when you think of like, you know, the black church as a whole, you would think, well, most of them are going to vote, you know, Democrat. But that is, is there a misperception that they are Democrat? or is it just like because of some social concerns

am I leading that way? Yeah, one of the things I want to do with this book was dispel some misconception. So when it comes to the civil rights movement, we know that conservatives and progressives kind of try to co-opt it. So conservatives try to co-opt it for some colorblind, you know,

um, uh, version of society that they want to promote. Progressives have for years, I think, launder their a lot of their social issues through a civil rights movement lens to some extent, but without any kind of respect for faith. And so what I wanted people to understand is that the civil rights movement and that

whole tradition did not fit into this culture war, conservative versus progressive binary. In fact, if you read the book, you'll find if you were reading through their, you know, periodicals and all this things from the black denominations, they were looking at the split in the 20s and even beyond between white progressives and white conservatives. They were watching it. So this was not something that they were oblivious to. They were watching what was going on in that split, this one where the culture war starts and you start seeing conservatives and progressives, it's kind of split in the church.

They see it and they say, we don't want to go with either of them. They basically say that if we go to the right, we lose our bodies because there's no justice there. If we go to the left, we lose our souls because they're not following the authority of scripture. They looked at it and said no. Now, as time has gone on, I think especially for parts of the black leadership class, has very much kind of leaned further left, at least in its representation, than you would see your average African American Christian do. But I think it's a call for all of us to say, do I need to fall in one of those two categories. Or do I need to take the right position on every given issue, which are two very different things?

Could it be, I'm just thinking out loud, like, I mean, 50, 60, 70 years ago, almost every black person in America grew up in a church context. Would that be fair? Or, I mean, is at least as a kid or, I mean, the overwhelming majority. Not everybody. I mean, there's, you know, we've always, you know, had a Muslim community. Right. things. But a far greater number than you see today, for sure. That's what I was getting at. So I wonder if now it wouldn't be uncommon for a black political

leader, influencer to not really have it, not even be committed, a committed Christian, but not even have that kind of Christian background. Maybe their grandmother brought them the church or something like that. But it wouldn't be as pervasive now, whereas the political concerns are maybe much more front and center. Yeah, I think you see some of that. If you're anything like me, then you know what it's like to frantically search last-minute gift ideas online, hoping that everything will arrive in time for Christmas. This is super stressful.

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Everyday Dose. Right now, you can get 61% off your first coffee plus starter kit, free peppermint mocha creamer, perfect for the holidays, and over $100 in free gifts. Plus, you can enter for a chance to win $100 cash or get your entire order refunded. Just visit Everydaydose.com forward slash TITR or use code TITR at checkout. I'm only in Chapter 3. This is where you're you're getting into, yeah, how kind of some of the progressive left has kind of co-opted the original heart of the civil rights movement. Yeah, you're so, you're such a diplomatic writer. I love it, but it's like scathing in a really non-aggressive way, but your

critiques are really sharp. Yeah, the new left. let's see yeah as charles you write as charles marsh explained the new left is never quite able to hide the quote modernist conceit that what black people do and say in church cannot possibly be taken seriously the actions and speech of black christians must be recast in terms amenable to enlighten secular interest that's pretty that's pretty yeah can you unpack that a bit Yeah, well, I think when you look at the civil rights movement, while this was a Christian-led movement, a black church-led movement, it was also brought others in and teamed up with the political left and the ideological left to some extent. But that partnership has always kind of been a little shaky, right? because you had these agnostic atheist, leftists coming into these spaces and appreciating some of the things that they were doing, but not necessarily respecting their faith.

And so there's always been kind of a tension between the left and the black church in that, do we need to take this faith seriously? Or can we just do all this other stuff and ignore it? Can y'all just leave the face stuff out, out of it? Traditionally, we've said no, but it's always been a tension there between those two. Did, like, in a civil rights movement, did black leaders feel like almost used by the white liberal elites, you know? It's not different than what goes on today with some, you know, people of, you know, people of color who are coming out of evangelical spaces where in that space, progressives had, they had a lot of the resources. And so you do see quotes from a lot of black leaders saying, hey, why are these people on the left choosing our leaders?

Why are they having so much say in what we do? I don't feel comfortable with that. And so I get into the book how some leaders really did question the amount of influence the left was starting to have on some of the things that they were doing. And again, I don't think it's all that different than a lot of folks who are kind of pushing away from the evangelical side of it to say, I am feeling a little bit used. This is wrong. But that's not the first time that's going on. You think about, I mean, I'm just, whenever people talk about this, I just immediately think of LaCray and his tweet on Fourth of July years ago and how he grew up and was really kind of a poster child for reformed, young reform, black evangelicals. But then he started to ask questions about race and discuss race.

And he kind of had a falling out from a lot of leaders. And then I've talked to several people who had similar trajectories. And that's the nature of the culture war, right? The culture war is kind of white progressives versus white conservatives. Nobody else really has a principle in it. Nobody else really has a say. And so they use other people as chess pieces within their battle between one another. And that's kind of where you end up.

So you think they're on your side until they tell you, hey, you can't say that. You know, if you're, and I talk about it in the, I mean, if you're on the right, you can't say anything about American. history not being what I have created it to be, my romanticized version of it. I don't want to hear anything about that. Now you're being divisive if you even talk about historical facts. That's what we get on the left. On the, on the, I mean, that's what you get on the right. On the left, it's like, yeah, just talk about race and we're good. We don't need you talking about all your more conservative social values and how you feel about, you know, sexual ethics and how you feel about transgender stuff or abortion. Just talk about race because guess what? That's what we need

to fight against those guys on the other side. And I see, so I think black, black, people who have kind of gotten caught up on one side of the other have experienced that that pushback when you're not going along with the narrative. So you're saying what has happened to the broader culture war is similar to what has happened with black people in the evangelical church. It's all part of the same thing. I think what's happened to them in the evangelical church to some extent is connected to the culture war.

Interesting. Where do you put yourself in all that? I mean, you've never been on kind of a clear like this side, that side, you know? So I don't know what kind of behind the scenes or forces are trying to pull Justin Gibney in a certain way. I mean, I'll be honest with you. I've always been in progressive spaces. I was raised in Denver, Colorado, very progressive space. Go to Vanderbilt University is very secular.

End up in Atlanta, Georgia, the same thing. However, because, you know, my grandfather and I talk about this in the book was a bishop in the Church of Living God, PGT Nation, which was he was very much a civil rights preacher. But when I learned about the sanctity of life, I learned that from him, him, my mom, my grandmother, right? Like I didn't learn that from white evangelicals. I learned about, you know, pro-life and why life was important from that group. So I always, again, there was just never that fit with progressives, even though I understood it. And I was always in that space. And I did, you know, was in democratic politics for a long time.

So I would say in a way I kind of was on the left, but not fully especially. And I think the book explains why, especially when it came on. came to social issues. Okay. Do you feel, do you feel people trying to pull you into one camp or another? Is that or did people not touch Justin? Of course. And I think that's natural because for many of us, that's the only way we know how to explain politics. The only way we know how to explain politics is conservative versus progressive. And so for me, on a particular issue, they could be right. There are, there are issues. And so to explain where I stand, if you want a clear explanation of who I am, I'm probably center left on economic issues, although I do like

the Michael Lens and the orange casses who are kind of on the right and doing that. And I'm center right on social issues. But again, I don't just settle for letting somebody else tell me where to be. I'm still going to look at every issue and decide where I think is the best position. Yeah. What do you think about Mamdani elected mayor of New York City? There's people calling him, you know, across the spectrum from like a communist to somebody's going to make New York City, you know, for Sharia law, which is just absolutely stupid. All the way on the other side that this is a populist, you know, he's finally somebody who's here for the people and going to institute policies that are going to save New York from itself. What do you're, and I don't,

I don't have a dog in this fight at all. I don't live in New York. Yeah. I think him winning is New York are saying these things are unaffordable and the establishment hasn't been paying attention to that and it's time to get to pay attention to how unaffordable most large cities are. I think that's how he comes up. Yeah. To say all the Sharia law stuff like he, you know, he calls himself Muslim, but that's, you know, if he's Muslim, Rob Bell is Muslim, right? Like he doesn't, he's not a devout Muslim, right? And so to say he's going to bring Sharia law and he's one of those folks that says it, but they're not really, you know, they're not devout from what I can tell. He's hanging on. So that Gay bars talking to people.

He doesn't uphold any of the, you know, those convictions. So that's one part of it. And then he, I mean, to the same point, if you hear him talk about some of the leftward social issues, he sounds completely absurd. So we'll see what he can do. I mean, I hope he can make New York more affordable. I don't, I'm not convinced all his ideas are going to work. But something needs to change.

And I think the people sent a message, if nothing else, that it needed. chain. He's a democratic socialist, like Bernie, right? Like AOC. That's, can you explain what that is? Because when people say communist, from the tiny I know, democratic socialism is in the different ballpark as commune. They may chef's share some things, but to call them a communist seems to be just factional act. The common communist is just, it's just over. It's, you know, it's when you want to, it's just like everybody being called a Nazi, right? It's the other side of that. Like, you call me a Nazi. I call you a communist because I'm running out of things. to explain how extreme I want people to see you as big.

But a socialist is more government control, right? It is government stepping in on economic issues, not even close to as far as you would go with communism. Now, the specific definition of what a democratic socialist is is always kind of tricky. But in general, you're going to want the government to step in on health care. You're going to want the government to step in on housing and, you know, things of that nature. Okay. So you're more interested in kind of the, kind of the,

what this says about our cultural moment, why he got elected, then whether or not he's good or bad or whatever, like, just kind of let's see, whatever policy, let's just see if it's better for New York and if it actually works. If not, then... No, I mean, I care. I hope, you know, I hope he can do what he says going to do. I just understand why he came in there and the rest of big city politics needs to respond to that very real concern. Whether or not I agree with how he's going to get it done is different, but it's a legitimate concern. Okay.

I mean, he's got an electric personality. This is where, I don't know, all these old, like, 80-year-old, like, politicians that are, you know, I heard, like, Bill O'Reilly give an interview. I'm like, you're so out of touch. Dude, so out of touch. Like, here's a guy with an electric personality, a likableness about him. Absolutely. Communicate well. And, like, and that doesn't look.

I mean, the devil can do that. So I'm not, that doesn't mean he's morally or whatever good, but it's like, then I look around at all these like old school politicians that are just so out of touch with the people. And, you know, he's, he's definitely in touch with people. So, um, yeah, it was, it was fun to kind of watch from the outside and see everybody get all upset. Yeah. And the interesting part is like the establishment folks or folk, really conservative folks are

super super upset. Don't want them there as Sharia law, all this other crazy stuff. And then the people who don't like them automatically love Mom Donnie. even they don't really know it's policy or how I love him because they hate him so he must be great I'm behind him they get mad at us for crit critiquing him like that's just how it is man

people are not really necessarily thinking through this stuff and some of the anti-Semitic accusations were so ridiculous I mean he for some reason they keep asking what's your position on Israel Palestine he's like I'm running for mayor of New York I'm not like why they keep trying

to drag him into it and then when he says like what do you think about you know Israel is a Jewish nation. He's like, I think any nation should have equal rights to all of its citizens, Arab and Jewish, 80%, you know, 20% of people in Israel are, you know, Arab and let alone the West Bank and Gaza, you know, whatever, but I think everybody should have equal rights. Anti-Semitic. I was like, wait, what? Yeah. They were trying too hard, and I think you come to the place where people just aren't responding to that the same way anymore. And that's another thing. I think people don't realize the average person, like, sees right through

that stuff. You can't just throw these accusations that have no justification and the average thinker. I mean, some people will be like, you know, I mean, he won like I think half the Jewish vote in New York, which says something at least. But anyway, yeah,

it's kind of a circus. All right, let's go to the other coast. What do you think about Gavin Newsom? Is he going to run for president in 2028? And I think he is, right? And does he have a shot at things? Oh, he's definitely going to run.

You know, I, I mean, I would hope he's going to run. It seems like he's running harder now than he's actually governing his state. But, I mean, yeah, he is, I mean, he's just a, he's a good retail politician, I think. He knows how to talk to people. He's willing to do anything or say anything that he needs to do. I'm not a huge fan of him because I just don't think what he's done in his state has been that great. And he seems kind of like an opportunist. I don't understand

elevating somebody to the next level who hasn't done all that well where they're at. And I don't think he's done a great job if we look closely on a number of issues in California. But people seem to like him. He's playing the game the way that kind of Trump is playing it.

And the people that really dislike Trump, a lot of them, not all of them, like that somebody's punching back, I guess. And so, yeah, I think he'll run whether or not he can stay in the lead, you know, over, you know, a year, you know it's going to be it's going to be difficult no more than the year over several years a few years is going to be difficult but hey he's going to give it the shot and I think he's the front

runner yeah for whatever that means at the moment so you think you think you right now he would be the front runner yeah whatever I mean for what it's worth nobody else was really jumped out there the same he is a very talented politician and I don't mean that as a compliment like he's like it'll almost be like saying this guy's a really really good used car sales man like Oh, my word. He can sell a beater to, you know, anybody, you know. But he's, yeah, he has that social, just that savvy to him. He's, he's good at a debate.

I've seen him wiggle out of stuff where he was clearly, like, being nailed on something, and he somehow wiggled out of it. No one knew, you know, it's like he seemed to give a good answer, even though it was a non-answer. Like, I think the stuff during COVID just seemed to crush him, but, man, but it didn't. It didn't stick for some reason. I mean, him whining and dining.

And there's more where that came from. I mean, they're going to light them up when the time comes. We'll see how he handles it. Okay, I'm turning 50 years old next year. I can't believe it. And I'm already feeling the effects of aging. I mean, our bodies simply make less energy as we go older. But now you can help recharge the batteries of your cells by taking

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need to sort through this. Because on, you know, if you go over to this news site, it's like, you know, you have MS-13 gang members who are killing people here and feeding drugs to our kids, you know, they're being arrested and deported. And it's like, all right, well, maybe that's good. You know, on the, you flip the channel and there's like kids and zip ties being tied up and actual like citizens being arrested and like, all right, I guess you're a citizen. But you had brown skin and, you know,

had an accent so we weren't sure, you know, it's like, oh, my word, what year is this, you know, like, is it all the above? I mean, what's your thought on ice rates? I think the situation when it comes to immigration in America is kind of like a, um, just a small part of the disorder in our whole system altogether, right? Nobody wants to actually put the legislation out there to have comprehensive reform. So we have this piecemeal nothingness that eventually hurts people. And so to answer your question straight forward, this to me is as bad as it seems. You have the Trump administration, from what I can tell, who's going about this in the kind of violent showmanship.

Yes. And that they want to look tough. They want to look like cowboys. But at the same time, you're dealing with real people, real children, real, you know, folks with families. I don't know how we root that on. There's a. And here's my biggest. thing. They told us that immigration enforcement was about order. And I agree.

Biden did a terrible job. There was there was no order. But then they go about the enforcement in the most disorderly manner. Yeah. That is not acceptable. I'm almost certain that when Obama deported far more people than Trump, that it wasn't all cute, right? I'm sure that there were some stories that weren't being shown that were ugly. I don't think anybody was going about it in this, you know, just dangerous. Let's make a show out of it. Let's make it, you know, let's show our power and pull people from any, any and everywhere and then not really even do our homework on who we're put, you know, so sometimes

it's American citizens, sometimes as kids, these are verifiable stories and it's just unacceptable. There's a much, much better way to, and responsible way to go about it. And they haven't done that. So I think they deserve all the criticism they're getting on that, which is, again, and not a compliment. This is our system. It's not a compliment to Biden because he wasn't doing what he was supposed to either.

So I've heard that before. And in this day and age, unless I do a lot of deep dive of my own research, I don't know what to trust. But I heard that Obama deported a lot more people than Trump has. That's true. During the Obama administration, a lot, and you can look at a lot of immigration advocates. We're calling him the deporter-in-chief. I mean, he did. And here's the thing. It wasn't being covered the same way. But at the same time, he wasn't, from what we can tell, he was not going about it in such a harsh way as Trump was. He was getting more people, but not trying to be showy with it and just kind of running like a bull in a China shop all around the country.

I mean, it seems like during the Obama years, virtually every news out, unless you're a far, you know, a Fox News, News or New York Post or something like a really conservative outlet they had the kid gloves on with the bomb it seems like I mean is that would that be fair whereas the same I mean I don't you know I consider Fox News mainstream and so I know they were far from having click kid glows from Obama for oh no I'm saying they I'm saying they didn't say they didn't have the key club by everybody else yeah yeah I will say I think what's covered I think there's there has been a bias and I think it's covered differently but to me that doesn't give Trump an out because the way that they almost want everybody to see the way they're doing it and is extremely

harsh and inhumane. Yeah. Yeah. So during Biden, what's the number? Something like 10 million. Is that immigrants or undocumented immigrants or there's some huge flood of immigrants coming into the States? And what do you, well, first of all, what was it?

Was it documented, undocumented? And what are your thoughts on on that? I think I don't have the numbers on me. So I'll be honest with you there. But I think most of them were undocumented, undocumented immigrants kind of coming in. And the question was, you know, before they come in, do they need, can we, do we let them in before they go through the process or do we leave them out? And a lot of them were coming in and they couldn't find them and all this other stuff. And it was just disordered.

And to some extent, maybe even by design for people who just didn't want to enforce, you know, the law. Okay. So, okay, so the Trump administration's aggressive immigration crackdown right now is not in a vacuum. It's sort of responding to a, I'm just trying to analyze it as objectively as I can. It's responding to a mess. It was partially created by the Biden administration, but the manner in which they're going about it 100% is wrong, let alone, I don't know. Like, what are your thoughts on somebody's came in as a dreamer? They've been here for two decades. You know, they don't have documentation, but they're paying taxes. They're working hard. They're not criminals. Like, should they be sent back to where they came from when they, you know,

were carried over the fence? There's a five-year-old or whatever. I mean, or maybe they're protected, but even like an adult. I don't think so. I think we can find a solid solution to that. You know, I'm pretty much right where the gang of eight, which is Marco Ruby and all those folks years back, they had a bipartisan group that came together to get bipartisan consensus on immigration, like immigration law, because they wanted comprehensive immigration reform. And they were getting close. And then you have somebody like Ted Cruz.

And this really started a lot of the polarization that we have now, uses it against a Rubio that he even spoke and had conversations. conversations with Democrats when it came to that. So then it became to even try to come together on immigration became a bet, which is why I really, and I don't want to just be calling out with folks. I really just don't like Ted Cruz because that moment did shape how we handle immigration right now. And it's one of the reasons we don't have comprehensive immigration reform because at that point, no conservative could ever say, hey, how do we have, how do we let some of the people here stay? Like, it doesn't make sense to kick everybody. It's not going to, it's not going to happen. and how do we thoughtfully do this

and to even try to be thoughtful about it Ted Cruz and some other folks made that, you know, kind of a third rail. Yeah, Ted Cruz challenges my commitment to love my neighbor and enemy.

I just, I just, I, he's trying to run again. I heard that today. So maybe him and Gavin. They're the same thing. I'm there, I would say, they're kind of, Two heads of the same piece. Two sides of the same point.

Yeah. I mean, but his, I mean, all the neocons, I mean, Lindsay Graham, oh my word.

Who's, who's the ambassador? I think their time is up, though, man. I don't think you're going to find a majority of Americans who are voting for that.

I mean, I, I don't think. I, when I hear these people talk, it just, it doesn't, it does sound like evil.

It's just said, not wrong. Like, oh, that policy won't work. It's like, this seems almost demonic the way they talk about.

Yeah. The other day, Lindsey Graham said, I like this administration because they're doing what they're supposed to do. They lowered our taxes and they're killing the right people. Yes, I saw that. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah.

Unbelievable. It's, and I hate, it just, I get, it, the worst thing is that a lot of these people say they're Christians. And I'm not, maybe they are somehow on the side of Jesus. I find that hard to believe. But to me, it's like, oh, if you would just, please just renounce, like say, if you think you're a Christian, don't publicize that. Like, it just gives such a bad rap for the church when you have all these war mongers in the White House and just anti, ah, it just, it drives me insane. The guy who is the ambassador to Israel, he's, he's one of the worst.

Oh, Huckabee. Oh, my gosh. Oh, him and Lindsey Graham and a few others. They're just like, just bad theology, bad, bad communication, all that stuff. Yeah, it's really bad. All right. I purposely did not listen to your episode on Charlie Kirk because I wanted to talk to you in person. So I don't know what I'll go back and listen to it after this. But I would love your thoughts. You know, things have simmered down a little bit. I mean, it's been a couple months now. And you always give such a thoughtful balanced analysis just to kind of set it up. I mean, I don't need to talk about his assassination. Everybody knows about that. But the responses were obviously across the spectrum. Some people on the far left celebrating it.

Some people on the far right, you know, saying he's a martyr of all martyrs and almost like picking up arms to fight back. Like the response was, you know, to fight evil with more aggression. I thought his wife's response at the memorial was pretty profound. that she forgives the guy who assassinated Kirk. I thought that was pretty brilliant. And then, of course,

Trump comes up and says, I don't think we should love our enemies. I kind of hate my, you know, like the blend of the political right and Christian conservatives at the memorial was, hopefully it was a little bit disoriented. When I see it saw, I'm like,

does anybody see how contradictory these two perspectives are? But they're trying to blend them together. You know, it's like, these don't fit. They just don't fit. But we'd love for you to pastor us through how we should think through this as a cultural phenomenon for. Yeah. So one of the things I said was I was actually on a plane coming back from an event in St. Louis when it happened.

So I was trying to figure like, did he get what happened? You know, you'll scroll down and you're trying to get to like, where is it at now? And so it shocked me when I first saw it because I'm somebody who kind of, and most people had no idea who he was. So let's keep in mind, most of the people going crazy about this, didn't even know who he was before. But not really before he, you know, before he gets assassinated. So I had been following him just because, you know, I'm going to follow anybody who I see as a thought leader. I want to know what they're thinking and know why people are following what they're thinking.

And the first thing that hit me was, man, this dude had kids. I go out and I go speak at places where people don't like me. You know, like there was there was that personal kind of like, man, this is, this is rough. Right. And I think one of the keys to moral clarity in a time. tough situation like this is prior ordering your response the right way. And one of the sad things about many of the responses was they were improperly ordered. The first thing people needed to hear, I don't care if they were on the left or the right or wherever was that this

should not have happened. Right. Full stop. That nobody gets shot because of what they believe. Right. He had every right to say what he was saying. In this, in this instance, he's being very civil that should not have happened because of what he believes. That's a violation of democratic principles. It's certainly a violation of Christian beliefs. That's where it needed to sit for a second. But of course, everybody's looking at the scoreboard. So in our culture war and our battle,

within the polarization, nobody can just say, if he's an opposite side of me, this shouldn't have happened. Let me just leave it there for a few days. It was, this shouldn't have happened, but I didn't like this. He made me feel this way. And the first thing I wanted to say to people who were just super going crazy,

praising him and criticizing the left and people who were automatically critical of it was, this isn't about you. Not everything was about how you, well, this made me something he said here or there may be, okay, we can get to that. Right now it's not about you. And that's one of the hard things for our culture to understand. we're so hyper-sensitive and so self-centered. We make every issue about us.

And I told that to some friends. I was talking to a friend. I said, well, these people were hurt by the church's response to and this response. I was like, talk to them, care for them, but also let them know this moment's not about, it's not about me trying to police how you respond to it. Yeah. This man shouldn't have been killed. This man had a family.

Let's stay there for a second. Yeah. And that was my big thing. So even on, you know, on the left, for the left side of things, or even come from parts of my tradition when I hear see people talk about how he wasn't saved and he wasn't like the first Sunday after it just happened. Dude, is that really the message that's going to edify your congregation? People who probably didn't like him either anyway. Is that what they need to hear? Or do they need to hear, hey, even if you disagree with somebody, what does it

mean to love somebody in this moment? What does it mean to want to see redemption? That's the message that you preach, not trying to go viral. So I had a problem with that. and I did think even the kind of like the lionization the again half these people didn't even know who he was now all of a sudden he was the hero of everything that you've ever like dude y'all didn't even know him yeah so I thought that I don't think that was about him either I think that was about this is a moment where conservatives can get some points yeah and it was it was about the points it wasn't about what actually happened and that so that was my general criticism I wanted my audience to know this should not have happened I had issues with him this is not my moment to go deep into what the issues I had were. Yeah. Yeah. I love your thought on it. But whether I thought he was saved and all that.

Like that, you said, so that was my response. People could not take themselves or their narrative out of a tragedy. And that's part of the one of the biggest problems we have right now. Going back to your algorithms and people not knowing who he was, like I really wonder how many people have listened to a single long form. unedited talk from

Charlie Kirk hour long, two hour long, or listen to a full afternoon of him debating without the clips because if you if you clip, because the clips are sourced from people who either hate them

or love them. And if you just clip here, here, go to everything I've said on stage the last 10 years and if you want somebody that wants to take me down and clips the worst and just kind of starts building a narrative, I would be the devil. I would be saying all kinds of sloppy things.

You know, like, and vice versa. I would be Jesus if people clipped all the amazing things I said. And, you know, so like, just don't build a perception based on clips. I've seen some pretty horrible clips. Things he said where I'm like, oh, you know, mocking dead gossens and stuff. And like, that was really, I was like, wow. And other times when he was like engaging in somebody. and seemed to be pretty, like, demeaning.

And then I've seen a lot of other ones where it's like he is dealing with what seems like in good faith. He's being yelled and screamed at and he's, like, being kind back. Like, you put yourself in a context or somebody is just yelling at you obscene, like triple X rated slurs at you, you know, and you're just, you know, holding your cool. So there's almost like, so it's like who is even Charlie Kirk apart from the guy who none of us really actually. knew personally. I did, you know, I listened to several commentators who did know him personally

that people I trust, I don't always agree with, but, you know, they give a fair assessment. They all unanimously said that behind the scenes, he was incredibly, incredibly kind, even when people were like, hey, man, that person was yelling at you. He's like, you know what? We need to pray for him and like, you know, would never like speak ill of people. Even though he, you know, he was, he was a aggressive debater, not my style at all. Not my. You know, I don't, I don't like that style. But whatever, I mean, people who are good at debating, typically debate in a way where, you know, I don't like that style in general. It's not just Charlie Currick.

It's most debaters. But anyway, yeah, I, would you say, would you say he's a Christian martyr or a political martyr or does it matter, maybe? I don't know that I've gone so far as to say that. Um, here, here's the trickiness of the algorithm. Some people saw all the good stuff. Some people saw all the bad stuff. Right. So their opinions are going to be different.

And that's why for Christians, we need to step back and say, is there more to it? But we're so trapped in those algorithms. We, we don't, we don't really step back. Here was some, let me start by saying this. Some of the things he was doing, I could appreciate. Yeah. Because what I do know about academia is that it was complete, is completely captured by secular progressivism.

Yeah. And so for kids on these campus, for people, they're not kids, for people on these campuses who believe in the Christian sexual ethic or, but there's no space for any of that. And I experience that myself. So I'm not just talking. I'm talking from experience. There's no space for coming at hookup culture the way that he did. So for him to go into these spaces and talk about marriage and talk about the sanctity of life

and go against hookup culture and all. all that, I can appreciate that because a lot of people were not doing that. And I can, and I, if I'm one of those people at the, if I'm one of the students at that one of those universities and I'm more conservative on those issues and then I see him doing that, that's probably going to play different. I'm going to be like, man, this dude does seem like a hero to me because he's speaking on something that my professor won't even let me really, won't even honestly debate me on. Right?

And he's forcing them to do it. Yeah. I think, I think I can, I can appreciate that. There's something to that. right um here's the other side of it one of the issues that i took with him is i understand that we're in an era in an era where if you're not provocative you only go so far so probably one of the biggest issues and campaign has maybe we're not bigger because i can't be provocative just for the sake of being provocative that's good i don't think he drew that line right i think

that he was provocative on issues that you just can't do that on so for for instance the way he talks about black women, you know, saying Michelle Obama and other black women didn't have the brain capacity. Given the historical, first of all, that's false, but also given the historical context of America where certain groups of people, especially black women, have been told how inferior they are, what they can't do, have been kept by the law, longer than the laws allowed them to do certain things, have been kept from doing that, you don't play you don't play provocative with like you don't play games with that and so for me that makes it very hard

for me to just say oh yes this I mean no because those type of things he didn't have to choose to do and I think that I think that's tough to reconcile in my opinion so that that's where I would push back on that but that doesn't mean that I didn't see anything that he did as hey man that took some you know that took some courage to go into that space and do that nobody else was doing it as I don't know anybody who did that as effectively yeah would you say he was like said things that were outright racist or was it just insensitive or how would you describe specifically with with like the black community because i've heard different perspectives on the one hand he had like huge black supporters and and and black groups from that turning point USA and stuff and

I think he even said he had the largest like black led student group of any organization or don't quote me on that. It was something like, you know, I wasn't aware of it. But on the other hand, yeah, you hear him say things and it's like, or that comment about the black pilot,

like if he was going on an airplane and he saw a black pilot, he'd be like, oh, I hope he's- Well, keep this in mind. Not every, not every black person,

their number one issue is, is our racial issues, right? So if I'm somebody who I'm more focused on the same thing of life or I'm more focused, I might be able to dismiss some of the things that he said that I would say were racist. Okay. So I think when people,

people say, well, he had black supporters. Well, I mean, Thomas Sowell has white supporters who are probably pretty racist, right? But then he's a black guy. It depends on what you want to hear from the person. That's what you emphasize about what they're saying. Okay. And so I think that that could have been the case that they were more, you know, those folks were more focused. And I don't think every black person has to be mostly just focused on race either. For me, in understanding how racial justice is important, I think he stepped over the line too often. Uh, It doesn't, but I'm, but here's a very important point, not making my book, that does not mean, just because somebody is wrong on my biggest issue, doesn't mean they didn't have anything else to contribute. Right.

And that, and that, I think that is the difference. I can say, no, he was wrong on that. That doesn't wipe away everything else he had to say. Right. And I just think our culture does not allow for that. Right. Once you're wrong, once you're against me on my, my number one issue, you're done. You have nothing to contribute.

you, I don't have to listen to you. I can hold you in contempt. I love that. I just disagree with that. I love that so much. And you and the end campaign do that so well. And you're swimming upstream because nobody, not nobody, a few people are really striving to do that.

Yeah, for me, for me, it was, you know, I don't know. I'm a pretty resilient person. So like when he said stuff that was kind of like obnoxious or just like a little bold or whatever, I'm like, you know what? Yeah, I wouldn't say it that way, but, you know, whatever, you know, like I just, right before you came on, Justin, I interviewed a guy from Voice of the Martyrs talking about, you know, Chinese Christians being just beat nearly to death every day in prison and rejoicing and preaching the gospel to their guard that just beat the crap out of them and coming out so thankful that they have an opportunity to share Jesus, you know, it's like, when you open your eyes a little bit, it's like not to minimize what's going on here, but when you do have a more global perspective it's like but he said mean things during his debates i'm like he did and i wouldn't do that i don't celebrate that but it's like i don't know like can we get over my sense is similar to that though yeah my stance is similar to that i didn't nothing he said made me cry myself to sleep

it's not because it wasn't bad it's just because i don't let people who i think are saying something ignorant have that impact on me but that's not what we do like we replace resilience with this hypersensitivity that i'm looking for to be offended and once i find what i've been looking for. I'm just, my whole world is in it. I'm going to be talking about this for the next 10 years. Again, you didn't even know the guy. It didn't affect you when he said it because you didn't even know he said. Yeah. For me, it's, it's, I do think his blending of politics and conservative Christianity, this is my perspective. And this is, again, I'm going to compartmentalize this. Again, everything you said, there's so many things I would celebrate with them and resonate with and be encouraged by. and other things, I'm like, I wouldn't do it that way, but whatever. I think the blending of right-wing kind of conservative republicanism with the Christian faith, which I don't think that's disputed that he clearly seemed to do that.

I think that's incredibly toxic. Like, if I can isolate that part of his kind of, like, theology, I'm like many good, and I can celebrate all the good things he did. I think this is a pretty toxic thing that I, And that perspective was almost galvanized in the wake of his assassination. And we see how even in the memorial event, you see how that can be manipulated. Oh, right? Because you make it seem like conservative theology and conservative ideology are the same thing.

The people who only have the conservative ideology are going to use that theology to try to pull people in. And that's exactly what I saw happen. Yeah. Well, Justin, I always love talking. can do about political politics. Again, the book, Don't Let Nobody Turned You Around, How the Black Church's Public Witness leads us out of the culture war. As I was telling you offline, it's not only a well-researched book. The content's great, but you're writing. I love the way you're right. It's just a very sharply written book. So thank you for your

work, Justin. Always appreciate you. Keep up the great ministry you have, man. Thanks for having me, brother. You keep it up as well, man. The way you're breaking down things, I know you get some criticism, just like I do. But the way you're breaking it down, man, keep doing it. Not everybody's going to hear it, but the ones that do greatly appreciate it. So I appreciate you. Awesome. Appreciate you, man. Take care.