A Spiritual Health Checklist Before the Midterm Elections

The following is a pre-recorded program. It's time for our pre-election spiritual checkup. It's time for the line of fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity.

Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on the line of fire. And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Hey, friends, Michael Brown, thrilled as always to be with you. We've got a very special week ahead, and then next week, of course, the midterm elections here in the US, as folks are watching from around the world.

Yes, it's our election season, the midterms, so not the presidential elections, every four years, but the ones that come in between, but they're also very, very consequential. So let me tell you what's coming this week. We're gonna start with a spiritual checkup. I'm going to give us 17 points, 17 points, and ask, how did we do the last election season?

How would you evaluate how we did as believers here in America? That's today. Tuesday, Wednesday, we're gonna have some fun. Ask Me Anything shows all kinds of interesting subjects. We got so many interesting questions on social media. We decided to devote a couple shows to that.

I know folks always enjoy those and tell us about that. And then Thursday, thoroughly Jewish. Thursday, we'll play almost the entire debate, one of the classic debates I had with Rabbi Shremulli over 10 years ago in New York City, on did Jesus die for our sins?

Of whom does Isaiah 53 speak? Oh yeah. So that'll be Thursday, God willing. And then Friday, as always, phone lines open. You've got questions, we've got answers. Now, next week, my plan is to talk about what is happening with the elections, the consequences, talk before and after the elections, where things stand, what it means for us as believers. So we'll have a greater focus on that.

But today, today, we're gonna do a spiritual health test, a spiritual checkup, all right? If you don't have my app, make sure you take a moment to download it. It is a great tool, many, many months of work by our team, by a special team consultant to really get it right and finally get it out on Apple after years of trying and then vastly improve what we had on Android.

So it's Ask Dr. Brown, ASKDR Brown Ministries on either Apple or Android. Download it and please, tell a friend. If you enjoy it, tell a friend to get it, share it with them.

And if you're liking it, rate it as well. Just helps other people get it. Our goal is to get the message out, to get the gospel out, to get the truth out, to be a voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity to the maximum number of people, all right?

So that's how we share together. Okay, in my book that came out in September, The Political Seduction of the Church, the last chapter is entitled, Have, excuse me, How We Failed the Test, Retracing Our Steps and Learning the Big Lessons. So that's chapter 14, if you have the book, it's page 287 in the book.

All right, so 247, excuse me, I knew that was too high, 247. So here's what I wrote, and then I'm gonna explain in this checklist, the 17 items, okay? In my October 2018 book, Donald Trump is Not My Savior, an evangelical leader speaks his mind about the man he supports as president. I devoted a whole chapter to the subject of evangelicals and Donald Trump, which I wrote, I am personally thrilled that President Trump has a faith advisory council. I am thrilled that he has a largely evangelical cabinet, some say the most evangelical ever, plus there is Vice President Mike Pence. I am thrilled that he seems steadfast in his pro-life, pro-liberty, pro-family, pro-Israel convictions.

All this is wonderful, representing a pushback against a dangerous swing to the far left in recent years. Yet, when it comes to national transformation in the best and highest sense of the word, we must not put our hope in President Trump, even less can we put our trust in the Republican Party as a whole, let alone in the political system. We must remain more committed to the advancement of the gospel in America than to quote, making America great again. Put another way, we must be more concerned with the spiritual and moral transformation of our nation than with our world prominence and dominance. Then in the last chapter of the book, Evangelicals and the Elections, where do we go from here?

I noticed that these years with Trump have been a learning experience. And if we will seize this teachable moment, just reading from the book here, we'll be able to build on our positive actions and learn from our mistakes. Here are seven final points for consideration.

And then I presented these, I'm just gonna give them to you in bullet form. In the book, Donald Trump is Not My Savior, I expand on these. But these are seven points I laid out that we've got to get this right to move forward.

Well, I wrote this in 2018 as a Trump voter. One, we must rise among, excuse me, rise above the political fray. Two, regardless of party affiliation, we must remain independent. Three, we must stay involved. Four, God uses unlikely vessels, but character still matters. Five, we must stand for the issues near and dear to the Lord's heart. Six, sometimes we must function as the president's loyal opposition.

Seven, our calling goes beyond patriotism. And I close the book with these words. As the title of this book says, Donald Trump is not our savior, but he is our president, and is such one of the most powerful men in the world. Let's not scorn him, let's not glorify him. And by all means, let's not give up on him.

All right, let me step back from the book for a moment, then I'm gonna come back to it. That's what I was saying in 2018. Some people said, well, you were against Trump. When he wasn't the candidate, then you were for Trump. When he was the president, then you were against him.

When he lost, no, that's not accurate. I was against him in the primaries when we had other candidates, and I didn't trust him at all. I always said if it was him versus Hillary Clinton, I would evaluate again at that point. Then I felt clearly on the issues that were most important to me, despite my reservations about Donald Trump, that he would do a better job than Hillary Clinton with abortion, religious liberty, standing with Israel, things like that, opposing radical trans agendas, et cetera. So I voted for him, but always with these cautions and concerns, always saying we have to be careful, otherwise this.

This could be a problem. I don't like when the president does this, but I appreciate this. I'm supporting him.

I'm encouraged by the good he's doing. I'm always grieved by the bad. That never changed.

That never changed. Then when I saw the degree that we had put him in this idolatrous place of only he can save America, and if he's not in, the country's gonna completely collapse, and there's no other Republican that can do it, and so on, and I saw some of the fanaticism and other things that happened, then I was even more deeply grieved, and this is someone who voted for me again in 2020 for the same reasons, him versus Joe Biden. So my position has remained the same, except from the beginning when I totally opposed him during the primaries.

Once it was him versus a Democrat candidate, I voted for him, I supported him both times, but always with caution, always with concern, and then when the cautions and concerns became realized, my voice became louder on those issues, but you can see from what I'm writing here, what I'm saying today is nothing new. All right, so I wanna get on to the rest of the checklist here, and then let's do an honest evaluation. Let's talk it through together, and let's see where we stand today.

Fair enough? My goal is not Republican Democrat. My goal is not to support a candidate here. My goal is to help us be healthy, to help us be thriving. I am absolutely convinced to the core of my being that the only hope for America moving forward is a healthy, revitalized church preaching a true gospel in the life and power of the spirit. If that does not happen, America is in freefall.

America is collapsing and crumbling in front of our eyes in so many different ways, and each of you could bring your area of concern about what's wrong with the nation. When it's really dark, what do you need? Light, light, that remains my issue.

Every time I check into a hotel, I think of the illustration I give, because the first thing I do, generally speaking, I'm checking in in the evening. Generally speaking, the room is dark, and even sometimes in the day, the shades may be closed. Either way, most of the time I'm checking in, it's dark. The first thing I do, I open the door, I push the door back, I reach in with one hand, and I look for the light, and if I flip the light and nothing happens, what's my question? What's wrong with the light? I don't get mad at the darkness. I don't call the front desk and say, my room has darkness in it. No, where's the light? Oh, the light's out, the light's not working.

Get the light working, the light will take care of the darkness. All right, so here's what I wrote two years later. This is now July 2020. My book, Evangelicals at the Crossroads, will be passed to Trump test, was published. I'm reading again from the political seduction of the church. If you don't have the book, by all means, get a copy on our website, Amazon, wherever you get your books.

I'm reading on page 248. Two years later, in July 2020, my book, Evangelicals at the Crossroads, will be passed to Trump test, was published. And by the Trump test, I meant two things. First, could we vote for him and support him without losing our testimony in the process? Second, could we disagree about Trump while remaining united as followers of Jesus? In my view, we failed miserably here, compromising our testimonies by our over-the-top support of Trump, no matter what he said or did, and as followers of Jesus, deeply dividing over Trump rather than uniting around our Lord. The last chapter of that book was titled, 10 Essential Keys for Passing the Trump Test.

There, I listed the following 10 points, again, simply cited here, without the commentary provided in the book. One, we must clearly and emphatically put the cross before the flag. Two, we must proclaim that Donald Trump is our president, not our savior.

Three, we must put greater emphasis on spiritual activity than on political activity. Four, we must not get caught up with election fever. Five, we must not justify carnality and unchristian behavior. Six, we must regain our prophetic voice. Seven, we must be holistic Christians truly pursuing justice and righteousness for all.

Eight, we must walk in love towards those who vilify us and oppose us. Nine, we must unite around Jesus rather than divide over Trump. 10, we must lead the nation in repentance, knowing that repentance prepares the way of the Lord, opening a path through revival, visitation, and awakening. And I ended this 2020 book with these words, let us then lead the nation in private and public repentance, in confession of sin and wrongdoing, of turning to righteousness, of turning to God. That is the great hope of America, not four more years of Donald Trump or any political candidate, but a heaven-sent revival and awakening. Until that time comes, we pray, we reach out, we serve, we speak, we love, when we get involved in the political process, but with our focus in the right place and our hopes firmly rooted in the Lord and the Lord alone. If we do this, we will pass the Trump test with flying colors. And who knows, perhaps he too will be mightily touched by God and help lead the nation into deeper repentance and awakening.

What is impossible with people is possible with God. When we come back, I'm gonna go through these 17 items with you and let's talk them through. I mean, you can be musing on your end and agreeing with me or disagreeing with me or evaluating based on the world in which you live, the experiences you've had, what happened in your church, your community, your families, your social media circles. I'm gonna give my perspective and how we scored. And I'm doing it to say, how are we doing now?

How are we doing as a body now? I'm here as a spiritual doctor today. Let's do a checkup on our spiritual pre-election help. It's our resistance, you can't resist us. This is our Realize-O. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

Get on The Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us, friends on The Line of Fire today.

Michael Brown, always delighted to have this time. And thank you for taking time out of your schedule to listen to the broadcast, to watch the broadcast. There's so many radio stations. There's so much going on on YouTube. There are over two and a half million podcasts.

I think some number like that. So thanks for finding time in your schedule to squeeze me in because I believe what we have is important for your health. I believe every day that you listen, every day that you take this broadcast in, that you'll get a dose of truth, of sanity, of inspiration, of information, of impartation, of encouragement, of exhortation, of challenge. So here we go. We are evaluating how we did as believers in the lead up to an aftermath of the 2020 elections. Now, I gotta be brutally honest. It's very easy to forget how we felt, how we acted in the past, that we can kind of downplay it or we can exaggerate it.

And if we could go back and watch the video in each case, we'd realize, oh, it's not really the way things were. I journal every day. Most days, it's just a short entry, you know, radio today, good time in prayer, caught up with Nancy on some things, did some writing, you know, just basic stuff. Good ministry in this state or that state. But anytime anything of significance happens, God's dealing with me.

I have serious questions. Stuff comes up in prayer. The Lord speaks to me about something.

Something exceptional happens in ministry. I'll journal that. And often when I look back, it's like, whoa, I remember it happening, but not that intensely. So let's just say that you had a problem with your temper in the past. And something happened, oh, six months ago when you got madder than you got in the wild, really yelling, screaming. And well, you know, right afterwards, you felt absolutely miserable and terrible.

Oh, I can't believe I acted like such a jerk. But you know, a year or two later, it's like, yeah, I got a little upset. You might not remember how intense it was. So even reading political seduction, which came out in September, but which I was writing a lot in the previous year, in the beginning of this year, I'm remembering that things were more intense than they are right now.

And sometimes more intense than I even remember. You have to go back to that moment. You know what I'm saying? Okay, so here we go. And I put all 17 points together and ask, how did we score?

How did we score? So the first point in my seven was, we must rise above the political fray. Do you think we did that as a church? I understand the body of Christ in America, Messiah's people, there are tens and tens of millions of us. I understand that. I understand that we're in very, very different circles. I was talking to a very astute political commentator the other day, right in the thick of the battle. And he said, basically he knows nobody that fell into this whole political seduction thing that everybody that he's worked with was afraid to speak up and was going woke and so on.

I said, man, it's the exact opposite on my end. And we both know that this is what we experienced in the midst of the worlds in which we live. So everyone's gonna have a different perspective, right?

But generally speaking, when it came to the 2020 elections and the America, yeah, it's just, it's just, it's just every Trump, for Trump against Trump. It's over, it's done. I mean, it was frenzied, right? Did we rise above the political fray? To me, no, big, big fail there.

Absolutely not. We got caught up. We were on the front lines of the political fray. And our social media pages did not look any different than worldly social media pages. Maybe not as much profanity, but I'm talking about ugly, divisive, attacking judgmental. All right, number two, regardless of party affiliation, we must remain independent. How'd that go?

My view, I don't think that went well at all. I think once again, we became more identified with a party than with the kingdom of God. Here, I was talking to a pastor in a conservative state, and this pastor and his church are very politically active. And they work with the Republican party. They are conservatives. They share our values about family, about abortion, about Israel, other things like this. And they have even had people run for political office. They have influenced elections around them by getting their people out to vote local elections and things like that. They are politically active, as well as super active in humanitarian work, helping those in need, caring for the poor, standing for righteousness, working for racial reconciliation.

So they're very much holistic. I was talking to the pastor of this church the other day, and he said to me, oh, the right, the Republican party here in our state, they're evil. Now, this is someone who is staunchly Republican in terms of voting. When people within the church have been involved in running for political office or lobbying, it's on the Republican side, okay? He would absolutely categorically never vote Democrat because of the current Democrat because of the radical leftist ideology of the current Democratic party.

And yet he said, oh yeah, the party itself is evil. I talked to a gentleman who ran for local office in New York, talked to him a few weeks back, and he was telling me that as he ran, he was a solid Christian running as a Republican. He was running to unseat the incumbent guy, and he had values that we would share. The fellow who was running that I spoke with, he went to a church that was pastured by a colleague of mine for many years, a former student. And I'm talking about someone that would be rock solid with his Christian conviction. And he said, oh, what the local party did to keep me down was evil.

Use that word as well, or something very close to it. So in my view, in my view, we became much more polarized as Republicans versus Democrats or Democrats versus Republicans than as staying independent, saying, we are children of God, we belong ultimately to his party, and whichever party we see is more in harmony with what is best for America, according to God's perspective, we're gonna vote in that direction. No, it's seen we became as partisan as anyone. My perspective, feel free to weigh in on Facebook, on YouTube if you're watching there, or email us if you're really mad, you wanna get it out, go ahead.

And most days you can call as well, not today, but call me one day, tell me why you think I'm wrong. All right, number three, we must stay involved. How'd we get that? Good, we got a good scar on that, right? We stayed involved, we were definitely involved.

That was not an issue. Now, there are some who didn't vote at all. I wanna reiterate that when I was doing a broadcast, recording shows on the political section of the church for James Robison a couple weeks ago, to air in mid-November, so maybe a week and a half from now, two weeks from now, James said to me, Michael, I believe the greatest political seduction of all is for Christians not to be involved, not to vote. So many didn't vote.

But in the circles in which I traveled, associated team, everybody was voting, everybody was involved, everybody was focused on issues, so we did stay involved. We got that, so two down against us, one up, right? So two fails, one pass. Number four, God uses unlikely vessels, but character still matters. We kind of put that aside. Wouldn't you agree that because we looked at this as so existential, the fate of the unborn is at stake, the security of the nation is at stake, international security is at stake, the wellbeing of the family is at stake, the education of our children is at stake. You know, real existential issues that we not only look the other way with Trump's character failings and crudeness and meanness and throwing people under the bus, ultimately through Mike Pence under the bus could have been terribly dangerous, could have gotten much worse than it did on January 6th. We not only look the other way, we kind of defend it. We need somebody like that.

I mean, didn't we say that? As opposed to, boy, we thank God for his courage and his steadfastness and his refusal to back down and toe in the line, but he could do a whole lot better if he would temper his speech. He would do a whole lot better if he could just be a more decent human being. You can be strong, you can be firm, you can be immovable, you can be unshakable. I mean, think of Ronald Reagan and tear down this wall, right, with Mikhail Gorbachev in Berlin.

You can do that without being crude and cruel and vulgar. In fact, the truth be told, some of us not only justified it, some of us liked it. Some of us cheered him on. That's my take.

Just giving you my take on this as your doctor today, all right, then you can go to another doctor if you don't like the evaluation. So in my view, right now we are at three fails and one pass. Number five, we must stand for the issues near and dear to the Lord's heart. I believe in many ways we did.

I believe in many ways we did. Now, we missed it on other areas because unity is important to the Lord, right? And walking in love towards one another is important to the Lord. And loving our enemies is important to the Lord.

And there are many things that we failed to do, but so many of us really were passionate to see the protection of the lives of the unborn and to see a pushback against international terror and threat. And even for those, oh, Trump was a racist. No, in my most critical anti-Trump days, I never looked at him as a racist. And people, black friends that were close to him and friends are friends and they all said the same thing. He's not a racist and when they brought to him some of what was happening and gave him more understanding of inner cities and some of the injustice and some of the inequality, he acted on these things, prison reform he acted on, standing with historic black colleges in historic ways. That's where he was actually gaining more black support, Hispanic support as well. Yeah, so there are many issues, you might say, well, he was weak here.

Oh, okay, I understand that. No one's gonna hit right on each one. But I believe in many ways, we got this. Okay, we must stand for the issues near and dear to the Lord's heart. So maybe we're three fails, two passes.

So far, we got 12 items to go. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Now, you may be scoring very differently than I am today, which is okay. I'm just giving you my evaluation. If you wanna get more in depth, get the book, The Political Seduction of the Church, which not only lays out what we got wrong, but it also lays out what we got wrong. It not only lays out what we got wrong, but what our high and lofty and glorious calling in Jesus is, that's the biggest thing. Friends, if we could see ourselves the way God sees us, not just that which needs correction and rebuke, but who we are in him and what we're called to in him and what our potential is in him, if we could see that, we'd act differently. Yeah, let me give you an example, all right?

I'm not taking calls today, but let me give you an example. Let's say that you're a baseball player, thinking of our grandson, Andrew, our second of four grandkids, who's now in his first year of college and is playing baseball, pitching on the team, went to a specific school for that reason. And let's just say he thought, well, yeah, I'm a freshman. It's a two-year school.

This goal is to go from there to a good division one school to play. But it's a two-year school. Let's just say, hey, I'm a newcomer here. I'm a freshman.

I'm in my first semester. And nobody's gonna pay me any attention. Nobody's gonna care about what I have to say. No one's gonna listen to me. No one's looking at me.

I'm just gonna kind of sit in the corner. And let's just say that because of the way God's gifted him and blessed him and anointed him and his red hair on top of it, let's just say he stands out. And let's just say that people are looking at him to lead. People are looking at him to shine.

People are looking at him to show the way. Well, once you know it, you don't put an act on, but you say, okay, I gotta be even more responsible. I remember in 1985, Nancy and I flew to Virginia. I was speaking at a church on a Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday morning. So here we are in 1985, just 30 years old, right? The pastor and his wife, probably in their sixties. I mean, at least in their fifties, but I'm remembering that they were in their sixties. Of course, in those days, people that are younger looked older, right?

But I remember they were like twice our age. So they'd been pastoring. They were generous, maybe 150 people in the church. I remember they were very generous with their offering, which really blessed us and surprised us. And, you know, cause it's their early days of traveling. In fact, everywhere I traveled to preach for years, I just driven just, you know, local states around me and things like that. This was one of the first trips where we were flying out, so on and so forth.

So I just remember a lot of the details. And Sunday we finished the last meeting and now we go out to lunch together. There was a diner they loved going to. So we go to this diner and I'm just chatting with them. You know, we finished the meeting just chatting and I'm done preaching and here I'm half their age, right?

So I'm not thinking like I'm the man of God and they're waiting for something from the man of God. So when we finished lunch that day, Nancy said to me they were expecting something. In other words, they were waiting for me to share, okay, having been with the church, hearing my thoughts, hearing my impressions, or I felt the Lord was saying this, I wanted to share this with you. I didn't, even though I was the guest speaker, I didn't see myself in that way, especially being half their age.

So from then on, ever since I remember that. Now, sometimes people just wanna hang out and chat. But when I go to minister, especially as the years have gone on and God's giving me stature and people will look at me as an elder and a father, that I will, when I'm having a meal with someone, I'm thinking, okay, this is an important time. What does this person wanna share with me? What do I need to hear? What can I give them? What are they expecting from me? All right, we got their entire leadership team at the table with 20 people here. And it's not just to hang out and have a meal. So what do you want?

What can I give you? So many times we downgrade who we are in the Lord. We don't realize how many people are looking at us. We don't understand the lofty nature of our calling in Jesus. That's why chapter two of the political seduction of the church deals with the transcendent calling of the church.

I felt early on, God wanted me to put a picture there of who he has called us to be and how we are to conduct ourselves. You know, it's one thing at the rehearsal to the wedding, right? Everybody's dressed casually and messing around and laughing and joking and somebody gets a line wrong and the bow is like, oh, everybody's laughing. It's a whole different thing. When the groom is in the tux and the bride's in her white gown and the building is packed with family and friends and all of that.

It's like, you may still be smiling, having a good time, but there's a whole awe about it. It's different, it's different. If we can understand who God's made us to be and called us to be and how transcendent we are to be in terms of not getting in the mud, but rather bringing light and truth and grace, wisdom into the midst of chaos, instead of throwing dirt at each other, that's our calling.

All right, so number six in the checklist. Sometimes we must function as the president's loyal opposition, did we? For the most part, no. You know who did? Some of the faith advisory council, numbers of men that were on that told me, we were not yes men. And James Robinson is on record for saying that probably 75% of his communication with the president, sometimes once or even twice in a day, 75% was rebuking correction. And yet Trump loved him when they'd see each other, put his arms around him and understand James was not looking for anything from Trump. And James and the men there knew that they were gonna get hit and be attacked for standing with the president because everyone would think, oh, you're just yes men and that's all you are. Whereas they were there to call him to do what was right and to challenge him when he did that was wrong.

So I failed to mention that in the book in terms of, in this context, elsewhere in the book, I talked about their role, all right? But I was looking at the bodies, all those of us who were considered Trump supporters, how many would openly and vocally differ with him? Very, very few.

Why? Well, because he was being so savage by the left and so misrepresented by the secular media and because the stakes were so high and we didn't wanna give fuel to the fire of his opponents or we just got so partisan, we became blinded, but either way, we really failed there in my view. So in my view, we've got four fails and two passes so far. All right, number seven, our calling goes beyond patriotism. I think we knew that, but we merged them. Again, in my view, if I have to do a pass or fail here, in my view, we got so absorbed with America first or make America great again or if Trump's done in America collapses that we deeply merged our national identity with our Christian identity. And the two are not the same. The two are not the same. And remember, when you say MAGA, make America great again, it means one thing to a white Christian audience in America, another thing to a black Christian audience in America, another thing to a Native American Christian audience in America, or forget the Christian part, make America great again can mean one thing to white Americans, black Americans, Native Americans, something very different to each, yes? I mean, look, what was the best part of our history? We look at the founding and there's so much good and so much wonderful and so much excellent and so much Christian and so much unique and so much from God and so much that wasn't, right? Those are just realities. Those are realities.

So it depends on what lens you look at things. And please hear me, I risk offending everybody here, but please hear me, I'm not trying to be offensive. And the last thing I'm trying to do is stir controversy to get more people to listen or watch. I don't do that, that's carnality.

That's the flesh, that's the flesh. If I say something that stirs up controversy, either it's because it needs to be said, it's truthful, God's burdened me, or because I'm not even aware that what I'm saying is controversial. That's happened as well, but please hear me. You can either write off your brothers and sisters as ignorant, as unspiritual, as stupid. How can you possibly be a Christian and vote Democrat? How can you possibly be a Christian and vote Republican? Now, I was talking to a black colleague and this brother said to me, Christian brother, said to me, how is it that there are pastors, black pastors who preach against homosexuality, who preach against abortion, and yet they are in the Democrat party, some of them are politicians in the Democrat party, how is that? My perspective, they're hypocrites, right? I don't know who he's talking about specifically, but generically speaking, my perspective, they're hypocrites because I'm not seeing why they're Democrats.

Now, please hear me. I cannot for the life of me understand, in today's climate, with the stakes at hand, how a Christian could vote for Joe Biden. I don't get it.

I don't see it. If you're a pro-life biblical Christian, I don't see how that's possible. And right now, with President Biden saying if he gets a majority in the Senate that he wants to codify Roe v. Wade, so he's put that on the table.

And with the radical trans activism that he's pushing and the assault that's gonna be on religious freedoms and on and on, let us put aside issues of inflation and international security and all those things, put that aside. I don't see how someone could vote Democrat. However, I know there are godly Christians, people who love Jesus, who are Democrats. I don't understand it, but either I just have to condemn my brothers, just say, nope, can't be wrong, period, either I have to do that or I have to say, okay, let's interact.

I wanna understand why. I still may not agree, but I'm not gonna condemn you. Conversely, I remember being in New York City getting ready to launch our radio broadcast on the biggest station that we had, biggest Christian station in the city with vast reach. And the network set up a meeting with some of the key local pastors, bishops, and things like that. And one black brother really thrilled to have me in the city and loved my voice and what I was saying and the stands that I was taking for righteousness and things like that. And he gave me this newspaper.

He had a political newspaper that he put out from his church and he was a major leader in the city. And I was reading one thing and it was mocking the idea that you could be Christian and vote Republican. He was mocking that idea. And I've heard people have called my show and said, it's not possible that you could be a Christian and the right thing to do is vote for Donald Trump, him being the kind of man that he is. Now look, I've explained why I voted for him and I've explained my reservations, but why do I say this? We could either judge each other and say, you can't be, there's no way that a Christian should vote here. There's no way a Christian should vote here. I'm not talking about an issue. I'm talking about a candidate, right? Or a party, party affiliation. We can either condemn each other to hell or we could sit down and say, okay, I don't get it.

I don't see it. I'm strongly convicted, but I know you love the Lord also. I've walked with you. Let's just say you put politics out of the way for a while and you just fellowshiped together and read the word together and prayed together and did outreach together. You'd say, well, we love Jesus together and you worship together and the spirit moves. And then you say, by the way, how'd you vote? What, what?

You're both shocked. So I'm not justifying a vote either way. I'm saying that what we must do is come together, doesn't God wants to do this, and sit down across the aisle with our brothers and sisters in the Lord and say, please explain why you voted like that.

Cause I don't get it. I don't see it, but I know you love Jesus. Can we do that? This is how we rise up. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I've got 10 items to go. I better dive in right here as we continue our spiritual health checklist for the 2022 elections. Again, to get this in greater depth and in full perspective, grab hold of my book, The Political Seduction of the Church. You can get it on our website, askdrbrown.org or wherever you buy your books online. All right, so here are 10 items.

Let's check these out. Number one, so on the first seven, I gave us two passes, five fails, maybe different with my evaluation, but that was my evaluation. Number one, we must clearly and emphatically put the cross before the flag. No, I don't believe we did that. I believe we got so caught up with the attacks on a nation and the attacks on where we felt America was going. And these elections are critical for the future of the nation that the cross got secondary. My view, what I experienced, what I saw, or the cross got totally merged with the flag as if the two were one.

So that's another fail. Two, we must proclaim that Donald Trump is our president, not our savior. We did that on the one hand, but on the other hand, the sentiments were only Trump can save the nation. You know, we didn't mean spiritually. We did not mean spiritually, right?

But certainly in terms of politically, even to this day, there are people saying nobody else, nobody else can do it, only he can do it for whatever reason. Now, what did most people hear from us? Did they hear us proclaiming Jesus our savior and Trump our president?

Not always so loudly, not always so loudly. I got a question mark next to that one. Number three, we must put greater emphasis on spiritual activity than on political activity. I don't believe we got that right. Then the spiritual activity we had was praying for the elections, wasn't it? I wasn't praying for revival in the church. It wasn't praying for great commission. It wasn't praying for repentance in our midst. It wasn't praying for the salvation of our lost neighbors. It was praying for a righteous outcome of the elections. And then when we thought Trump had the election stolen, it was praying for those to be overturned. That's the big prayer movement. I saw that's the big emphasis that I saw. So now I don't believe we got that right. It's my opinion here. Number four, we must not get caught up with election fever.

Do we even need to wonder about that one? We got very caught up. We got either, I wrote the words and I had to fight it every day. I wrote these words. We must not get caught up with election fever. I wrote them. I published them in a book.

I talked about them on the air and I had to fight it myself. You say, yeah, but it's major. Okay, here's the deal. Today is today, right? Today, you gotta hang out with kids, go to work, do our jobs, do the laundry, work out at the gym, go to Bible study, right?

Spend time with God, do whatever you do, whatever your job is, whatever your vocation is, whatever your student, whatever you, training as an athlete, practicing as a musician, whatever you are, that's today, right? The elections are next week, right? So nothing you can do about that right now. And look, the polls, looking at the polls doesn't change anything. It's just like Jesus says, by worrying, you can't add an inch to your stature.

You can't turn a hair from gray to white, right? Oh, he's gonna really just think about it. It doesn't do anything. So why not focus on what we must focus on today, right? And then pray for righteous outcome in the elections for God's will to be done.

And vote, encourage your friends to vote, be informed. But the fever, that doesn't do anything. It doesn't do anything except distract us from focusing where we need to focus. Number five, we must not justify carnality and unchristian behavior.

Oh, we blew that. Not only did many of us justify it, as I said, we often enjoyed it. Yeah, I like it when he talks like that. It's profane, it's nasty, it's degrading. It's not just pushing back against a political opponent.

It's not just standing strong. You don't need to call someone a dog because they cross you or disappoint you. You don't need to defame someone. You don't need to attack someone's wife or, oh, here, somebody's got to fight. There's a right way to fight. Look, even a sport as violent as mixed martial arts or as brutal as boxing, they're rules. They're rules, right? How much more, when you're voting for someone because of righteous issues, and now they act unrighteously, but fighting for righteous issues, there's a better way to do it. Or do you believe that the only way to have backbone is by being cruel and insulting and degrading?

Here's the worst thing. We didn't just justify it. We practiced it.

We got carnal. Some to this day, they think that it's doing God's work by posting some meme, whether it's mocking Donald Trump for being fat or Joe Biden's apparent failing mental acuity. I mean, we mock it.

And that's Christian, and that's holy, and that's godly. Number six, we must regain our prophetic voice. Oh, we didn't do well on that either. The world mocked us. The world laughed at us. The world just saw us as partisan, in bed with a political party, and as defenders of the political party and political candidate, as opposed to having a prophetic voice to the nation.

Look, I've said this before. I had never endorsed a candidate in my life. And I'm not some big shot that everyone's running to me, oh, Dr. Brown, can we have your endorsement?

It's just not the nature of the beast. We have our voice, thank God for that, but people are clamoring coming to me for endorsements. But when I met with Raphael Cruz, Ted Cruz's father, and he asked me if I would consider endorsing his son, and I talked to him about my vision for a gospel-based moral and cultural revolution, and how if we could work with the president if he got in and be a faith advisory council in that regard on moral and cultural issues that I would absolutely consider doing it.

And yeah, that's something they would wanna do, and so on. So I endorsed him. And he says some very kind words about me publicly.

I remember someone said, who endorsed who? He says some very kind words about me as well. But my problem was, not that my view of Ted Cruz changed back then. In other words, he didn't do anything that stopped me from believing that he would have done right things if he was elected. But the moment I would say anything about any other candidate, everyone now filtered that through, well, you're a Cruz guy. And I realized, whoa, the most important thing is my voice to you, and my voice to the nation.

That's the most important thing. And I just compromise that. So I should never do that again. Now, God could tell me to do it, but I don't think he will. From my viewpoint, no, I won't endorse a candidate again. I've said who I'm voting for, because people have asked and explained my reasons if that's helpful, but sometimes, I don't even wanna make that known just because the most important thing is being a voice to you. Well, and the same way as a pastor of a local church, we have to really weigh these things, right?

And you know that better than I do. But how did we do nationally? We lost our prophetic voice in so many ways. Number seven, we must be holistic Christians truly pursuing justice and righteousness for all. Maybe we got some of that right. But I don't know that those issues were really focused for us because we reacted against the negative extremes. For example, I don't think many of us were adequately sensitive to real issues that still remain obstacles for black Americans because we reacted against the extremes of BLM and Antifa and those kinds of things. So I don't know that we had a heart for justice, righteousness on a wider level because of the caricatures. But again, there are many things that we did pursue, justice, righteousness. Eight, we must walk in love towards those who vilify us and oppose us. Blew that one, blew that one big time.

We vilified them right back. And if I wouldn't, it's because you're weak, Brown, because you're weak, you're a rhino. Of course, I'm an independent, so how can I be a rhino? I vote Republican, but I'm an independent. Vote Republican wherever it's appropriate to, but I haven't voted Democrat. In any case, hard to be a rhino when I'm not a Republican.

Republican in name only when I'm not a Republican, but you're owned by the left, you're a Democrat. You're this, you're that, you got no backbone. Well, it actually takes a lot more backbone to walk in love towards those who hate you than to just go nah, nah, nah, nah, right back. Number nine, we must unite around Jesus rather than divide over Trump.

Need I say giant F there? On all sides, those who hated him, those who loved him. On all sides, we didn't unite around Jesus, we divided over Trump.

And number 10, we must leave the nation in repentance, knowing that repentance prepares the way of the Lord opening a path for revival, visitation and awakening. Did we do that? No, because we were so caught up with election fever and we were so caught up with the elections were stolen, they weren't stolen. We were so caught up with Trump's gonna be inaugurated, Biden's gonna be replaced, it's never gonna happen. No, God removed Trump and we didn't lead the way there. So friends, big, big failing grade overall in my evaluation.

Even if you were more generous than me on a few points, I think still out of the 17, you'd have to give us a failing grade. Us, us, I'm including myself in the us, we're part of the same family, yes. When I stub my toe, my body hurts, right?

When you got a real bad abscess and a tooth, your whole body suffers, right? When you're overtired, you're not as strong, your mind doesn't think is what we're one body, we're one family, we, regardless of which side of the political aisle we're on, I believe we largely got things wrong. Good news is we can do better. Good news is we're still here. So what do we do? Be informed, vote, but once again, don't get caught up in the election fever. Let this be a time of really praying for God's kingdom to come to America like never before.

He knows how to sort out the specific issues. And then pray that we God's people would lead the way in repentance. We God's people would lead the way in righteousness. We God's people would lead the way in acts of mercy. We God's people would set an example that transcends political parties and candidates and show the world a better way. Let us be so healthy that every yoke, every bondage, every oppression is broken. And we declare Jesus savior, Lord, let us give ourselves to the great commission for the good of the man. Another program powered by the Truth Network.