God and Politics

Hey, this is Jim Graham from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explore relationship instead of religion every week. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. He's with a ministry called Faith Wins. I've known this guy forever. He's an author.

He has spoken to and presented to pastors all over the country about getting involved. Chad, it's good to have you on Truth Talk, my friend. It's been a while since you and I have been together on this show. Well, it's an honor to be with you again, Stu.

Man, I appreciate you. I appreciate your memory and the book, and we go back about 20 years. But yeah, man, I spent the last 18 or 20 years of my life just speaking in churches and trying to tell pastors, it was since the book and before, tell pastors you need to engage this culture. And there's no restriction on the First Amendment anywhere, but especially not in the pulpit.

And we've been lied to by the media and the left, and it's scared a lot of people. Let's face it, some of the seminary, some of the educational institutions have taught our folks out of the arena. And I think it's a little bit like they've been too successful in saying, oh, you Christians, you shouldn't be involved.

You're going to offend somebody. We're the very ones that don't want to offend anybody. But we put on our turn the other cheek, Jesus, and we back away. I think times dictate we better find our turn the tables over Jesus.

Yeah, and that's interesting that you have Christ as humble, meek and mild, but he did drive the folks out of the temple, and he was very firm and he was very strong. But you have this myth, I guess, of the separation of church and state, which we toss around and your token pagan will bring that up to get Christians to shut up and go away. Can you talk about that and maybe also address the Christians who are maybe over-excessive in politics.

They think that by electing their guy that it's going to be heaven. And sometimes it might be the opposite of that. But will you speak to both extremes?

Absolutely. Well, look, let's face it, that whole lie of separation of church and state has been so taken out of context. It's one reason I've taken David Barton around and Bob McEwen. They're two of the greatest Christian historians in America. I mean, Barton owns wall builders and they've got like 160,000 pieces of artifacts, 120,000 are pre-1820. And there are real stuff when you're holding a Bible that one of the 12 signers of the Declaration, he has 12 different signers, Bibles, and you're reading their notes in the margin. These were not detached people. These were Bible thumping, Jesus free Christians in today's vernacular because they love the Lord and they executed what he did. They were not just reading it and saying, I'm a Christian like a lot of people do. They were actually trying to follow his will and his way and his steps. And so that whole separation of church and state, as you know, has been taken out of context.

I would send people to wallbuilders.com looking at David Barton stuff because that was a private letter. Jefferson never intended that. And in fact, for 150 years, it wasn't even used as an excuse.

That was found in the late 40s in an Everson case that they decided, oh, we can use this to split this off. And we see how it's been just been rung dry, so to speak, because they overuse it. And then you've got the people that they're scared, right? They buy into that and they don't want to get involved. And then on the other hand over here, you've got people that think they need to endorse. They think that politics is going to be our answer.

No, no, no, no. It's part of the biblical worldview. My God's big enough to be in everything all the time, everywhere. And as I said a little bit ago, I think we've been guilty of being two thirds Christians. God gave us the institution of the family, the church and the state.

And we've been really good at the first two and we've ignored the third one to our peril. And so I think we've got to be three thirds Christians to do everything. But I'm not for endorsing candidates. I don't think that and I think our people, they don't necessarily want to be Rs or Ds, but they do want to vote biblically.

And I honestly just do. I don't think that life is a political issue. It's a spiritual one. I don't believe that traditional marriage is a political issue. It's a spiritual one. I don't believe religious liberty or Israel or even secure borders and nation's national sovereignty. Those are spiritual issues. Now, they've been politicized. I'll grant you that. That doesn't remove my responsibility as a dad, a deacon, a Sunday school teacher to tell the truth. So I think we've got to teach people to engage without thinking that the party is going to come save them.

But they need to be influential and permeate society with our thinking. You and I heard a speaker yesterday who is from India. He's a first generation American.

And he said this. He said, my parents came in the front door. They came in legally. They had to pay a lot of money.

They had to arrange a lot of things. They had to go through a season of vetting and customs and all that. But now they are American citizens. And then he said, my sister and myself were raised in America as first generation Americans. He said, but we're a nation of laws and there has to be absolutes. There has to be the right and wrong.

And so if the law says you can't come in illegally, you can't sneak through a border or sneak through. What message do you give to thousands, hundreds of thousands that, you know, President Obama, you know, or whoever, you know, he's kind of architected there in the country. What message do you send? Is he sending to these people as we're a nation of laws to say, well, just come on in and have at it. There's a it's immoral again. And everyone's like, well, you're being soft. You're not being soft enough. You're not being sweet and compassionate.

I mean, Christians are the most compassionate people on planet Earth. But speak to that in that in that balance there, too, and what that communicates. I thought what he said, this speaker we heard we both heard last night was pretty profound on that.

He was profound. And let's face it. Isn't it interesting? I'm sympathetic people who want to come to freedom. I mean, look, you can't kill freedom.

You and I know that. And people want to come here to have a better life. But isn't it interesting? They leave a place for one of the various reasons. And probably one of the big reasons is the rule of law. There is no rule of law. There's anarchy.

There's chaos in the streets. There's no structure. There's no you know, we all like limited government if we're conservatives. But we like four way stop signs because there's a boundary there. And it helps to create order. Our God's a God of order, not a God of disorder and chaos. And so that rule of law is one of the main things that makes a long line of people come into America. And I would say to them that that rule of law, if they want to keep that intact, they got to seek to do it right by the rule of law. And throughout the Bible, it talks about structure, about national sovereignty, about borders and defined places. And so we need to execute that, too.

Our founders set our nation apart and the rule of law was central to that. Yeah. And so going back to stewardship, going back to you've got the three institutions, the family, the church, the government, the state. Colossians three, twenty three, whatever you do.

Right. Do it with all your might, as under the Lord, not in the men. So we make these great divorces and we have maybe some pastors that are a little afraid to speak out about pro-life. They're a little afraid to say, hey, go vote, but vote your faith. And they're a little afraid to register their people to vote. When, in fact, I mean, if you are a citizen of this country and you are given a vote, this is an ancient Rome. This isn't a communist country where you have no vote, where the tyrannical government is going to decide everything for you. Which is what our government is trying to do right now. They do not want this. They don't want this show on.

They don't want anything we're doing because they have a totalitarian way. This is I'm a hater where hate speech and all that. But as believers, we have a citizenship that God's given us in this country. So isn't it a function of stewardship that, hey, as a believer, if I run for office, that's my job. I'm going to work my heart out for the Lord to honor him in that.

As a voter, I'm going to vote and I'm going to do everything I can in this process. I'm not idolizing it, worshiping it. And that's where we cross that line. Folks get so excited and they forget their faith and they're yelling down people of the opposite party. And that's sinful.

That's wrong. But speak to that like this is a real stewardship issue. And how's that message resonating when you're speaking to these pastors all over the country? Well, it's working. And one of the lines I use with them is it is inconceivable that the God who created human government would want his very own people not to be involved.

That didn't even make any sense. Of course he wants us involved. You know, I was in Wisconsin just before the election, and this pastor let me host my meeting in his church. And it was a luncheon.

We had about 45, 46 pastors there. And he came up, he said, Chad, I guess I'm just skeptical. I said, what are you skeptical about, pastor? He said, well, you know, I just don't want to be political. I said, do you think I want you to be political? He said, well, I thought so. And I said, no, no, I want you to be biblical.

It is a stewardship issue. I want you to be biblical. And he said, what do you mean? I said, can you stick around? He said, well, I really can't. And I noticed as I did my 15 or 16-minute talk, he stayed the whole time. As David Barton did his 40-minute talk, he stayed the whole time. He comes up to me afterwards, too. He grabs him by the arm very firmly. He said, Chad, you sold me.

I want to be center stage for everything you do in the state of Wisconsin. So there was a guy who listened to us, heard the truth, saw and connected the dots that it was his responsibility to execute that stewardship and not to give it up. I don't believe it's a political issue. I believe these are spiritual issues that we've been taught out of by people who hate our God, who hate our nation, who hate our way of life, who hate the rule of law. And we can't let them define how we worship God.

Of course. Well, I think Luther said, one way God punishes his people is to give them wicked rulers. And that's what we have right now. And that's also, people need to, and you talked about lesser of two evils when you spoke earlier, which was quite profound as well, because every candidate on that ballot, even if it's Billy Graham, is going to be a sinner.

You're going to find something in the closet. But find the one that's closer to the biblical worldview. Your ministry is Faith Wins. Chad Connolly, thank you for what you do. Give us a little shout out for your website. Pastors, other folks want to get involved.

Find out more about what you're doing. And by the way, everything we're talking about, this freedom thing, this isn't to make America this big church, this big Christian nation. You know what it does? This makes America a free place for Muslims to build their mosque and worship.

Hindus, Orthodox Jews. This is called freedom. This is called freedom of speech. And the left is censoring that all over the place.

They own the media, they own social media, and all that. And so we're simply trying to honor our neighbors and bring people in to let them worship. And of course we're going to evangelize them, they're going to evangelize us.

But this is a great American experiment. And so your website, more information real quick as we wrap up. Yes, FaithWins.org. Please go there, find out about our meeting places. We're going to be in a bunch of states this year doing pastor meetings.

We want to invite you too. I love it. And I have a daughter named Faith, so I won't have a hard time remembering that. And she usually does win in argument.

She's a sharp young lady on the basketball court, on the tennis court. And of course having friends like you involved in my life helps influence me to help her to win in life. And ultimately, you don't win if you don't have Christ, right? So we need him desperately more than ever. And all this counts in the truth that we need to pray. Take us out of here why we need to pray for our country. And not as much to save America, but to save Americans. You know, these are people that we need to lead to Jesus.

People that think just like you do, Chad Connolly, politically. But they're unsaved. They need Christ.

If they don't have him, it's eternity in hell. Challenge us as we get out of here to pray. Scripture says when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked rule, the people groan.

And there's a lot of groaning going on right now. So Father, we just come to you right now. We give our land to you. We give our nation to you. Forgive us for the national sins.

Forgive us for corporate and for personal sins. Guide us and lead us in every way. Help us to be the reflection of Jesus Christ. Help us to be the hands and feet. Show us what you have us do to engage this culture. To engage our community, our state, our nation, for you, for the kingdom.

Not that you need us, but we have been given a stewardship of responsibility in this land of freedom. In Jesus' precious, most holy name we pray. Amen. And ironically, I have my daughter Faith Epperson's name tag on me because she stole my coat.

And I had to have a name tag for access to our event. And you have your Faith Wins little pin. I love that.

We'll take a picture and we'll post it so people can meet and see the face of a true Christian statesman, Chad Conley. God bless you, man. God bless you, man. Love you, brother.