You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hitler. I'm John Galantis, and happy Independence Day, America. Happy Independence Day, Dr.
Shah. Happy Independence Day, Ryan. Happy Independence Day today, John. Clear view today, audience. We are here in the Clearview Today studio on this happy July the 4th with Dr.
Avadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of Today's Shah. The host of today's Shah. The host of today's show.
Sorry. Dr. Shah, welcome to the studio. It's good to be here. Was that an eagle?
That was an eagle. I think he's coming back. Uh-oh. Oh, he's in the studio.
So that signifies patriotism. It brings a tear to my eyes. Patriotic freedom.
Sound of freedom. Apparently, it's a Patriot. Ed just screeched down. Teddy Roosevelt did not like the idea of the eagle being our... Are they simple?
He wanted the bear. The bear, the bear. I didn't realize that.
Well, he was like a huntsman, right? He was like an outdoors eagle. Yeah, but I mean, the bear is a good eagle. But the eagle could also be. But I like that.
And I'll do, I'm okay with the eagle. Don't get me wrong. No hate mails, please. I'm okay. I'm okay with the eagle.
What are you sharing about the eagle? Teddy Roosevelt, not Franklin, not the other guy. Franklin, no, he could not compare to Teddy Roosevelt. But, anyways, Teddy Roosevelt said the bear, because the bear represents America better than the eagle. I mean, what does the eagle represent?
I don't know. I guess the eagle. That's true. I never really thought about what any of them represent. The eagle, I guess, is like freedom, so he can be like, I just associate that with freedom and patriotism and because any bird can fly.
A bear would have been perfectly fine. Because the reason that Teddy Roosevelt gave for. Bear being a better representative animal for the United States is because the bear is big. The bear is powerful. The bear you can attack the bear from the back or do something that will startle it or You know Throw him off momentarily, but once he turns around, that's it.
Game over, it's time for you to run. You're done. That's it. Running time.
Now, what does the eagle do? Yeah, eagle can peck at you. That's about it. Yeah. They're predators, but like for rodents, for small.
Yeah, but I feel like I could take a like, like me personally, I could take an eagle. I can't take a bear. No. You could take an eagle? Yeah.
Or I could at least escape an eagle. No, maybe escape an eagle. Like, if I've, if a bear's attention is on me, like, that's a confirmed kill. Like, we're not talking about a black bear. Black bears, of course, they're all powerful, just to just to clear grizzly bear.
Yeah, I'm talking about grizzly bear. Yeah, you don't want to run those. We saw one in one of our staff retreats when we were in Wyoming. Yeah. Headed to the Grand Tetons.
Yes, yeah, Grand Tonet. Grand Tetons. And a mother grizzly bear, along with two of her cubs, came just running past us. And we were there watching and waiting. And there were a lot of photographers and people.
Yeah, a lot of wildlife photographers were there. And so we're like, oh, something's happening. Oh, let's get out because I think some animal may be coming. And guess what? It was a bear, a mother bear and uh two of her cubs.
Yeah, it was funny because we that was one of our goals for the trip was just to see a bear. I really want to see a bear. But when we said that, we were like, Because you know, you're driving through the mountains, you just want to look up on the hills and see one way. I never in a million years thought we'd have one just cross the road right in front of us, right in front of our vehicle. Yes, I mean, the park rangers were telling people, I mean, they were periodically as this bear is approaching, there's there's a footage, that's our footage, yes, yes, yes, yes.
And as the bear was getting closer and closer, it's like, okay, guys, step back, please, step back, step back, everybody, and then furthermore, he was like, all right, guys, you may want to get in your vehicle, so step back, step away, please. Look, it's the footage is shaky because we're like really far from the bottom. And then finally, yeah. I mean, the band darted across. There it is.
That's Nicole. That's Nicole taking it. That's my wife. Yep. It's crazy because there it is.
There it is. It's crazy because it it looked like we were really, really, really close. Back up on that. Doesn't that represent America more? Look at that.
Oh, yeah, look at that. A stride on that thing. That's a strange strength. That is America. That's a strength.
He's walking through those woods like this is my home. Yeah, that's right. I own this.
So I make a motion. Let's choose the bear. Hey, listen. I would do that. Hashtag choose the bear.
Hashtag choose the bear. Yeah, let's make that mean something that it did. 10 plus is going to tick off the Russians. Is there a national symbol of the bear? I mean, the Russian bear, you know, the Russian bear.
That's pretty funny. But I mean, how often do you see that? That's right. The bear amongst us. That's right.
Get out of here.
Well, Dr. Sha, today's verse of the day is coming to us from Proverbs 29, 2. Very, very fitting for Independence Day. It says, When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. But when a wicked man rules, the people groan.
And I believe that. You know, the righteous, especially in the book of Proverbs, are those people who put God first and they walk in his way. They fear God. Fear does not mean the fright of God. Fear simply means there's a sense of reverence that God is in authority, we're not.
And wicked are those who reject God and they walk without integrity. They will do whatever they can to further their motives. They will even say, God, God. But still, at the end of the day, they're doing things completely contrary to what God has said in His Word. That's right.
Case in point: President Trump is working on passing the bill. He calls it the Triple B. Yes. And so, we were there at the National Day of Prayer when he mentioned that. I like to call it the big, beautiful bill.
And I was like, oh, I like that. And so just a few moments ago, I was watching some of the other siders who were talking about how this is a terrible bill and blah, blah, blah, and how this is wrong, and this is not What God wants us. I was like, wait a minute, you just said God? You just said gone? Yeah.
Okay, okay. And we should be motivated out of love and they're talking about all the immigration uh policies that you know that are being implemented, which should have been implemented all along. Uh some of the other things that are going on. And they kept saying God, gone, gone. And these are people on the left.
On the left. All right.
Some see there's some of the some of the elected officials. Yeah. And then You see the true colors because, as they're saying that, they're also saying, Hey, and so we need to support the rights, trans rights, and this rights. And I was like, Wait a minute. Yeah, hold on now, buddy.
On one hand, you're talking about God, but on the other hand, you're also talking about something that God explicitly has deemed sinful right from the beginning. Still today is a sinful thing, and you are supporting that, and yet you're invoking the name of God.
So, here's what I would say. When the righteous are in authority, we're talking about people who fear God. But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Wicked man, what does that mean? It means people who are doing things contrary.
to what God has said in His Word. And just because you use the word God and use the word love does not mean that you are the righteous ones. That's right. That's exactly right. Their definition of God is completely different.
If they're saying that if they're holding up God's name, but then saying we need to promote these kind of rights, homosexual rights, gay marriage, transgender, things that God hates, your definition of God has to be fundamentally different than ours. By the way, just to clarify. In America, you have the right to be trans. You have the right to be homosexual. That's the freedom you have.
But you do not have the right to shove that in my face. You do not have the right to teach that in our public schools or be there reading books to little children. I don't know who those foolish parents are, but you're sitting there doing that. You don't have the right to redefine marriage because if you redefine marriage, then it becomes. Illegal for me to preach against it as sin.
So these are things we're talking about. Yeah, the fight is no longer for the right to be trans or to be gay. Those rights have already been there. They're still there. This is the fight to compel people who disagree with you into agreeing with you.
Absolutely. It's a forced compulsion. It certainly is. And when they say, okay, well, we are not going to get the conservatives, we're not going to get these old fuddy-duddy conservatives, we'll go after their children. Right.
It'll start in the schools. That's right. Or social media or propaganda. We're going to use our college professors who will promote this social Marxist agenda so they can get to the second generation, the third generation.
So, grandpa, grandmas, you can believe whatever the heck you want to believe. We'll make sure that you're at your next Thanksgiving dinner, you will find your children looking very different or very different. And that's the goal. But I'm very grateful that God has put us into a country that He's blessed us, I think, with a nation that supports, not supports, but was built on Judeo-Christian values. Yeah, I mean, if you want me to give another example of that, the same group that I was watching, because you know, you always want to watch in here.
It's like, what are you saying? Of course, they talk about immigration, they talked about this, that, abortion. A woman's right to choose, this is her body. And like, um, Michelle Obama, who was not at this event, by the way, I was just watching one of her interviews, talked about. And I thought it was very funny and and and m and and made her look bad.
I hope she realizes that. He said, You know, the reproductive system in a woman's body is not designed designed just to reproduce. Huh? What's it designed for? I thought that was funny.
She kept saying that the reproductive system in the woman's body is not just designed to reproduce. There are more. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. By definition, I mean, she kept using the word reproductive system.
This transportation vehicle is not just for transportation, it's not just for that. Of course, it is. What does that even mean? Yeah. What's it for?
Your circulatory system is designed to circulate things. Your circulatory system is designed to respirate things. Yeah. We can do other things with it, but that means that it wasn't designed for that. Hello.
What? Make it make sense.
So I thought they were bringing up God and love, and at the same time, talking about killing. The infant, the unborn, Psalm 139. Let's go read that. Yeah. It's sad because God has become a tool, it's become a weapon.
And I think they would even say themselves, they don't actually believe. in in the providence of God. They don't actually believe that he's Blessed us with these Judeo-Christian values. But God is a weapon for them so that they can say, Oh, you're saying this. That doesn't sound very Christian because God would do this.
Right. I was going to say, it's interesting to me that they pulled the God card when it looked like they were on the losing side. Exactly. It was very much anti-Christian and anti-Judeo-Christian values until they were losing ground.
Now we're playing the God card. My problem is against those who claim to be Christians, and maybe only God knows their hearts. For them to join hands with people on the left, people like this, who. completely stand contrary to the word of God. For them to then tell us or try to silence us and say, Oh, you shouldn't be doing that, you shouldn't be bringing politics in church, pastors should not be that bothers me more than just flat-out liberal left.
Because you R Our Somehow deluded enough to think that that God is on the other side. Right. Okay. God, by the way, doesn't take sides. Just to put it out there, you know, Joshua, as he was waiting to go into the promised land, standing on this side of the Jordan River, waiting to go and attack Jericho.
And the angel of God came, and his question was: Joshua's question to him was, Whose side are you on? His answer was, as the commander of the armies of the living God, I've come to take over. I don't come to take sides, I come to take over. Yeah, you're now on my side. That's right.
Yeah. And so also with us, the question is not whose side is God on? The question is, whose side are you on? Are you on God's side or against him? Great point.
People have had a problem for a long time with this sort of melding of government and religion. People have held that up. You know, we've talked about it on the show before, but there's a lot of viewpoints as to how these things intersect or even why they should not intersect. Dr. Shah, for our listening audience, can you just walk through some of those maybe incorrect viewpoints and then talk about like how we as believers should think rightly about government, how we should be involved.
Absolutely. Well, my information is coming from many different sources. I've been studying this subject for, I would say, at least 20 years. But in reality, I've been living this subject for since I was a kid. I grew up in India where Christians are a minority.
I mean, I would say they are in a worse situation now than they were before. Wow. Yeah. And the government has become Hindu nationalist and definitely against Muslim in Indian Muslims, but but also coming after Christians. And so we grew up.
With a form of persecution. Our power was cut. Our electrical power was cut in the middle of summer. And summer, and I mean, if you think that it's been we've been having this heat wave all across, you know, on the especially on the East Coast in America, imagine that ten degrees hotter. In the summer.
Yeah, summer in India is nothing to play with. Oh, no. It starts in somewhere at the end of April, May, June. It is horrendous. July, it's, oh my goodness.
I can't imagine.
So it's very, very bad. And they cut the power to your house and to your church. That's right. And, and, The temperature gets up to about 120 degrees. Wow.
That's incredible. 120 degrees. Oh, it's tough. It's very fan. I mean, you are.
In sweat when you're when you're in in your bed. Wow. Wow. I mean you're in sweat. Oof.
And so we would have these uh air coolers and dad would do whatever he can to cover up the windows or to make sure no air escapes so that it'll be nice and cool. But imagine your electricity ha is cut because the Hindu nationalist um person who was um head of that electricity At the time, decided that why should a church, a Christian church, Receive electricity from them. Were you old enough at the time to know the reason? Oh, yes. Yes.
This happened, I would say, in the mid eighties.
Okay. Oh, absolutely. I was like a teenager? No, I was about 10 years old.
Okay, okay. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I was about 10 years old, and so I remember that very distinctly, and it was a tough time so. We've lived Under persecution.
So, my information, of course, is coming from Wayne Grudem's politics. According to the Bible, but also Through many other resources and then personal experience. Just lived experience. Yeah. So there are really six views that I consider are wrong when it comes to the relationship between government and Christianity.
Mm-hmm.
So Six Wrong Views. And we may not be able to finish them all in this one show, but we'll give it a shot. The first one is that government should mandate Christianity. See, I think that's what a lot of people on the left believe that people on the right want. Is a state, a government federally mandated religion, which is Christianity.
I wouldn't even say that they necessarily think that. I think they use that as a. As a tool to silence Christians. Right. It's like a fake argument.
Kind of held up as the negative propaganda. Yes. It's like a, what do they call it? When you construct a straw man. Right.
It's a straw man, really.
So. Here's the point. When you look at history, it is never a good thing when government tries to dictate the faith of any person. It never is a good thing. True.
Um History in India and other places where the government tried to institute Islam or Hinduism, and it It's terrible. Yeah. I think about like the Catholic Church, like them trying, like compelling people to be Catholic or to be Christian. Right. And then people get burned at the stake because they wouldn't, they believed incorrectly or they spoke some heresy or something like that.
Right. So they put them in. Or they stood up to the state church. And so the history of Christianity shows how terrible the conflict used to be between Catholics and Protestants, and even between the Reformed and the Anabaptists, because the Anabaptists were a different group. They had reformed beliefs, but then they also had some aberrant beliefs.
They had some, you know, Christian. Crazy beliefs at times. Right. And so. The reformed went after them, which is kind of a big stigma against the reformed church that you.
were persecuted But then you d desire to persecute others.
So it's never a good thing because thousands upon thousands of people were burned at the stakes. Because of their faith. Wow. This is in Europe, we're talking about it.
So. Jesus set the boundary, in my opinion, when he said in Matthew 22, 21, give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. Kind of an enigmatic statement. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, to God what is God's. But in that statement, he was saying.
Those two things are not And you know, th th you you don't mingle them together. There is a difference there. But that's not the same as saying there's a separation of church and state. Oh, no, no. That's a very different thing.
Because I think people would hear that and they would be tempted to say, but wait a minute, I thought you don't support Sipper. It's not that we don't support it, it doesn't exist. No, I cannot tell you to become a Christian. Right, right.
Well, I mean, you're doing the same thing when it comes to Christian values. Two very different things. Values versus my personal faith are two different things. That's right. Value system is: this is what we agree to live by because we believe this is for the best of all of us who are in society.
You say, well, what makes Christianity better?
Well, what's your alternative? Just agreed upon values? Really? Which ones? Because right now you're trying to force transgender values upon me.
That's not what I want. There's a great book that Dr. Shah gave me a long time ago, and I believe we have done a book club episode on this, so I'll link that. But. It's uh Schmidt How Christianity Changed the World?
Oh, yes, yes. Alvin Schmidt. Alvin Schmidt. Yes. That's a great book, I think, for anyone who asks that question: why Christianity?
I think that book answers all those questions. Yeah, because, and again, nobody is saying for a moment that throughout the history of the church that Christians have been perfect. Of course not. There have been rulers who were wicked, and for their own personal gain, they persecuted other people. Denominations fought against each other.
I just mentioned Catholics versus Protestants. I mean, this has never been a good thing. But overall, Christians have done A lot of good for society. And so we believe. That that System of Judeo-Christian values.
Somebody asked me that, what do you mean by Judeo? Keep saying Judeo. We're talking about the values coming from the Old Testament. That's right. That's right.
The values that were held by the Hebrews, the values that were held by the people of Israel, the values that are held by the Jewish people in time past and even to this day. Right. when they come from the Bible, is what we're talking about.
So that system is what we mean by Judeo-Christian values.
So bottom line, government should not mandate Christianity. You can't force someone to put their faith in Jesus. Right. Neither should government control religion. What is the difference?
Okay, there's a big difference because in countries where Islam or a specific type of Islam like Shiite or Sunni is the government, then you have a state-sponsored religion.
Okay. So also in countries like China, where there is a government sp a sanctioned church.
So they have churches. Yeah. But it's run by the government.
So the government runs the churches. I mean, pretty much to control what's going to be said and done.
Okay. Does this mean that in those countries there is one religion that is legal and all others are illegal, or just one that is. Sponsored. by the government.
Well, Church is a place where You can go and hear the truth. It's a place where you can hear the Bible. When the government uses the church for its agenda, okay. You say, well, isn't that what's happening with President Trump? No, wait, wait, time out.
He is finally telling people.
Okay, thank goodness for President Trump. He's saying, listen, You should not be told to keep your faith out when you come in public. That's perfectly fine. Yeah, because I don't see what he gains from that personally. He's not gaining anything from giving us our freedoms and our rights that were guaranteed to us.
Exactly. By saying that this whole separation of church and state stuff is baloney, it's gone. You're welcome to bring your faith in the public square. Right. He's welcoming you.
He how is that benefiting him? Right. It's not. Yeah, there's no goal that he's trying to do, and then using the church to further that goal. There are rights.
He can do everything that he wants to do without using the church. Right, yeah. And also, those rights were already afforded to us by the Constitution. That's what he's doing is enforcing them. That's right.
Enacting them, I should say. The big difference between, say, countries like in the Middle East or India or Pakistan or China with the state-sanctioned churches versus what's here is because this nation itself was founded upon Judeo-Christian values. It was founded upon biblical values, which means the nation works this nation we call the United States works because of the biblical values.
So when you're telling Christians you cannot bring those values in, That's like an oxymoron. Right. The very thing that gives you the ability to even say that is the values that you're discriminating against, that you're trying to erase. The values that come from the Bible. It's like a beautiful circle.
It originates from a system that's based on Judeo-Christian values, means coming from the Old and the New Testament. That's the very system that gives you the freedoms you have. Right. And so, when you are coming from a Judeo-Christian perspective, to tell you, ah, Don't bring that in here. Uh that that is funny I I wish it was funny, but it's not funny.
Yeah. Is it the fact that you shouldn't do that or you literally can't do that without dismantling what you're standing on? I mean, it's wrong in every way. Yeah, yeah. It's like this.
It's like this. There is a party And let's just say Ryan has funded the party. Ryan went out there from his own bank account. He decided to get all the food, all the slides, and what do we call the rides and the pony rides and everything. Yeah, like all the games.
The clown with the balloons and everything. I mean, he got the whole thing laid out. And then Brian shows up with his kids, and we say, I don't think so, sir. I don't think so. No, sir.
You will not come in as Ryan Hill. You will not come in as one of us. You can come in as one of us. This is my party. I mean You have paid for this thing and all that, but I'm serious.
That's not how it works. The only reason you paid for it is because you stole it from someone else and you hurt people to do that. You're not coming in. You're not coming in. You never did.
So, you see, that's how it works with Judeo-Christian values. It's the very values system that has given us this nation, is the very culture that we're saying, you're not welcome here. Right, right.
That's what is a difference here. In China or in India or Pakistan. Mm-hmm.
That culture was not built On On any of those systems. They're they're Secular governments or dictatorial governments, and whoever is in power is trying to impose their views on someone else. But they, but. Would you say that they understand that religion is a tool that they can use to keep the people from it's a very different thing. Yeah, yeah, makes sense.
Here it works because it is it's birthed from a Judeo-Christian value system, and so it works. And you have freedoms. And for the past few decades, only Christianity was not welcome. Everybody else can come in. But in other parts of the world, like even China, they're not operating from a Christian worldview.
Right. for them to say, we will tell the church. what they can or cannot do. That's a whole different mindset. Great point.
Great point. So. Again, government should not control religion. The third one, and I think we're going to have to do another show on this one, is, and again, this is a wrong view, which is government and Christianity should not mix at all. I think this is what people usually mean when they say separation of church and state.
Like, you have to keep the two completely separate. They belong in separate rooms. Right. The people who say that usually hate Christianity. They hate anything that resembles Christianity.
They argue that there is no place for prayers before a city council meeting or, you know, having crosses at a veterans memorial or 10 commandments in the courtroom. Praise God. Many of those things are coming in. Amen. That's true.
That's true. I mean, we prayed for these things. I don't know. Many of us did not have the faith to believe it would ever come back. Yeah.
And it's such a silly argument, too, because what they would say is, well, you can't shove that down people's throats. And it's like, I'm not. I'm doing this for me. Right. And so The idea that government and Christianity should not mix at all is is so ludicrous in my opinion.
So. And then people say, you know, you're trying to say a marriage is only between a man and a woman, um Here's what I would say to that. No, that's not true. Marriage is not a religion. It is a universal institution, right?
And the Bible also believes that stealing is wrong. And murder is wrong, should we then make it legal to steal and murder? Just because they're Christian values? Of course. Yeah, you can't do it.
So again, we can go on and on. The First Amendment is very important. It says Congress shall make no law Respecting an establishment of religion. It does not mean that Christianity has no say in politics. It simply means that there is no state church.
That's right. It actually works the opposite way that everyone else wants to make it. The government cannot influence the church. It does not mean the church can't influence the government. And it's not a vice versa thing.
The church should influence the government. That's exactly right. You don't have any hope of being one nation under God. In fact, the government was birthed from the church. That's right.
That's a great thing. Values, right?
So, yeah, you cannot say that.
So important for us to understand these things, especially today as we're celebrating Independence Day to understand how we were founded and, you know, how we can navigate the future as one nation under God. I want to continue because there's a lot more views that we didn't have a chance to get to today, but maybe on Monday we can take a look at them. Yeah, I'd love that. Make sure you guys join us on Monday, same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clearview Today show.
Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes if you want to re-listen. And you can always support us financially at Abadanshah forward slash give. John, what do you want to close with? Today, definitely want to let you know there's a couple of free resources on Abadanshah.com.
One of them is our exegetical checklist. This is a checklist that's going to help you exeget any passage of scripture in the Bible with excellence and with the Holy Spirit behind you. We want you guys to download that. It's a free download right now on Abadanshah.com. Also, make sure you follow Dr.
Shah on Pray. We're closing in on 25K. I really thought we were going to have it by July 4th, but I think we're going to get there. We're about at 23,000, 24,000 right now.
So, Monday, let's hit it strong. Let's open up the week with a bang saying we got to 25,000 followers and 30,000 is right on the horizon. That's right. We love you guys. Have a wonderful weekend, and we'll see you Monday.
Hopefully, of you today.
