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 Hill. I'm John Galantis, and welcome to another great week here in the Clearview Today studio with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show.
Dr. Shah, got another great week of content coming out for our fans. It's gonna be a great week. Great, great week. It's good to be here.
I'm looking forward to it. It was good to see you guys as well. Absolutely. I want to start the week off right as we always do. I want to give my good friends a million dollars apiece.
That's two million buckaroonies right here. All right, I got to pull my checkbook out. It's actually been looking pretty dry lately. All right, million dollars, Dr. Shah.
But anytime you spend over a thousand or If you authorize someone else to spend a thousand, so if you're like, hey, I'm not gonna spend the money, I'm gonna let someone else go spend it. If you spend over a thousand or you authorize someone else to spend a thousand, one of your four kids. gets harassed by an angry goose all day long. Oh go for it. A goose sound?
They're violent.
So wait a minute. Tell me again. If you spend a thou if let's say you're let's say you're out and you see something, like a like a camera or something that you want and it's like, it's over $1,000. If you spend it, if you spend $1,000, or if you say, hey, Nicole, you go spend it. A angry goose will harass one of your four children all day long.
Just one? Just one. I would do it for all four of them to get harassed. All right, you do that, you get $4 million. Absolutely.
I'll take it. Yes. A goose is violent. They've harassed me enough. Would you do it?
100%. A goose with your kids are little. That's okay. They're pretty quick. Nicholas, I feel like Nicholas could take a goose.
No problem there. Thomas could. Thomas could either. I think he could outrun a goose. Abigail could take a goose.
A goose is a violent bird. Abigail would take a goose. 100%. No problem. She would not have any problem.
For reference, I wouldn't fight a goose. I would run from a goose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
If it's multiple purchases, yeah, then there's another goose. Absolutely. There's nothing with a goose. You would. $5 million.
I don't think you would do it with your five kids. Yes, I would. Absolutely. My kids would probably fight a goose for fun. I actually went on a walk one time with Abigail, Rebecca, Ellie, and your kids.
And they had a duck. A duck like walked up to Asher, and when I say panic, I mean dude panicked. Yeah, he didn't, he wasn't, he wasn't like like flapping at him or nothing. He just walked up to him, and Asher freaked out and like almost got away from Abigail. Yeah, well, they don't have to beat the goose, they just have to be harassed by the goose.
Yeah, the goose, the goose will follow them home. The goose will like quack at them. You're doing it? Absolutely. Like I said, for just that, I would go for all four of them being harassed at the same time.
All right, how about this? How about this? Same, same scenario, but it's your wife. The goose is going to harass her. I don't know.
I don't know. I have to think about that one. Like the goose sprays graffiti on her car. Why is the goose a vandal? All right.
I actually probably would take the money as well. I was saying, you got not just two boys anymore. You got three now. Yeah, one of them is barely a week old.
So I don't know if he would. I don't know. He might not even clock that the goose is harassing. He wouldn't. He wouldn't.
There's been screaming, fighting, wrestling, slamming, jumping in the house. He doesn't wake up.
So he's wow. Yeah, he's good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's a check-in today, Dr.
Shaf, from that. I actually thought this one was really cool, and it kind of went along with what we were talking about on Friday's show, although it was related to another show entirely. He did not give his name, but he said, Hi there. I'm writing to you from Pakistan. I just finished watching your episode with Alvin Kalicharan on YouTube, and I felt I had to reach out and say thank you.
For those who don't know, Dr. Shah, do you want to let people know who Alvin is? Yes, Alvin Kali Charon. We became friends through a mutual friend of mine who is a pastor, a friend of ours, who's a pastor, and he introduced me to Alvin Kali Charon. For those of you who do not know, he's a world-famous cricketer from West Indies.
Wow.
So, for instance, that's like someone saying in the basketball world, he's like Michael Jordan. He's like Jacoby. He's that good. Very well known.
Now, keep in mind, he was very famous back in the 70s into maybe 81, 82, somewhere there. And then since then, he's been retired, but he's. Been very active. When I say retired, it's not like he stopped playing cricket. He was very active in playing in clubs or whatever in the 80s.
And then, you know, of course, he is, he is, he lives no more than maybe 45 minutes from where we are. Yeah, that's true. And that was one of our very first episodes on YouTube that got a huge spike. Yeah. Yeah.
We'd been doing the show for like a year, maybe a year and a half. That's right. When we did that episode, we got a huge spike in views.
Well, his name is one that draws attention. That's right. You hear Alvin Kali Charon and people who know who he is, I mean, they're going to flock. He was given an award by the Queen of England. Wow.
Yeah, he was, he made that's that's a big deal. That's incredible.
So, yeah.
So he says, as a Christian living in Pakistan, it can often feel isolating. There aren't many safe spaces where we can openly talk about our faith or hear others speaking about theirs without fear or pressure. The episode with Alvin Kali Charing got me to watching your show, especially this episode, was deeply encouraging for me. Hearing him speak so openly about his journey, his faith, and his love for Christ was refreshing and uplifting. And it reminded me that even when We're few in number, are facing challenges.
We're not alone in our walk with God. That's right. Amen. And maybe you can kind of speak to this, Dr. Shah, because we've also had other guests from Pakistan and from India on the show before.
And one of our goals is really to get the gospel into the East. That's right. More so than it is already.
Well, the gospel actually began in the East and it made its way to the West. And then unfortunately, the West either became apathetic or with the coming of Islam, a lot of things changed in the Middle East. And now you look at those countries as, oh, we need to reach them. But that's where the first missionaries came from. Right.
They were the ones that were doing the reaching first. That's right. And so now, in a sense, we are returning the favor in a good way. That's a great way to put it. That's it's exciting to see, you know, people like this person who wrote in, people like Avankalichair and others that we've had on the show, living out their faith in the public sector, you know, especially in other countries where faith is almost marginalized or even criminalized at times.
It's encouraging to see believers standing up for what they believe in and making their beliefs public. I'm a Christian, I'm not going to be ashamed of that, and I'm going to stand up for the gospel. It makes me grateful that we live in the nation that we do. A lot of times I take what we have in America for granted. I guess just being born here, never knowing anything else.
That's why I like having you as the host of the show, Dr. Shah, and then even having guests from the East come in because you really do take for granted how accessible Christianity is here. Even though it's, yes, it's in some ways it's under attack right now. At the same time, we have a very, very good in this nation. For those of you who may not know, I grew up in India and I grew up in the 70s and the 80s.
And I remember back in the 80s coming home one day, and this was right before summer was about to begin.
So we We were still in school, maybe somewhere April, May, and it became very clear that the lights were not on. I mean, our power was out. That happens a lot because in some of those third world countries, that happens. And they call that power shedding. I don't know what that means, but anyways, power shedding.
Sort of know what that means.
So I thought that's what it was. And then come to find out later on in the day that the power had been cut because we were a church, because we were Christians. And this person who was the head of that area in the sense of the railway area, and our church is in that railway area, he felt like the railway has no business giving electricity to a church. Wow.
What does that have to do with the railways? But his motivation was different because there were other entities all across this region, this area, that were also benefiting from the electricity or the power company. But he felt like Christians don't deserve it.
So his motivation was to harass Christian. And he had the authority to do that just unchecked.
Well, he did not have the authority to do that. He means he has to check with other people, but he unilaterally decided to just do it. Just do it. Yeah. Who's going to stop me?
And how long did it last? Oh, I would say about a year. Unbelievable. Wow.
Unbelievable. And so it was a rough time in our lives. I remember. having to sleep with, um You know, the windows open and the heat there gets to about 120 degrees. Yeah, that's that's unreal.
So, waking up, like you're like in a swimming pool. I mean, that's how it feels like. It wasn't really, but you're sweating so much. And so, that's the experience we had at night.
So, we were able to get a power line from the mission bungalow, which was next door, which was on a different grid, which means they were getting power from a different power company. It just happened that way. Right. So, we were in the railway. Power grid.
The mission bungalow was with the MSCB, which is Maharashtra State Electricity Board.
So it just kind of happened that you were either on the very, very edge of your grid. Right. Wow.
And so, but it's not as easy as saying, okay, why don't we just get the power? You cannot do like that. You have to have power poles and all this kind of run.
So we were able to get a drop cord and get power enough to have. Have a just a bulb, like one of those, those Edison bulbs. Wow.
Imagine that. That's how I studied at night, just with with an Edison bulb. Uh even then we had to close the windows because we were afraid somebody would report and then if they reported Seeing light in our home, then they will. You know, cut that power off.
So we had to, the windows were blacked out and stuff like that, just so we can have a fan. Goodness. Just a fan. Yeah. And so it was a rough time.
So we understand persecution.
Now, there are Christians out there who are harassed way more than that. And so I don't want to make it look like, oh man, we went through a lot. No, we went through a lot, but compared to what many others go through, it was not as bad. Right. Do you think that if left unchecked, if Christians do nothing in America, that form of persecution is coming for us?
Yes. But praise God right now, there's a good, good wind blowing, a wind of revival, I would say. I mean, we're talking about prayer in the White House. We're talking about the gospel. We have political leaders who read scripture.
Okay. And I know there are a lot of people who are like, what? They're doing that, but they also do this or whatever. I'm sorry, you may disagree with certain policies. And that is something you need to really.
Research and ask yourself the question, is that really just to accuse them of hypocrisy? Right. Okay. A nation that does not have borders, a nation that does not have laws, a nation that fights for the unborn and not just for the woman's right to her body. Come on.
I mean, there are other issues involved. That's right. So don't make it so simple as like they're heartless people and they're using the scripture to get the evangelical votes. I don't think it's that simple. I don't think it is what you're making it out to be.
That's right. Everybody, at the end of the day, everybody runs on their values. I think that even if you try not to, you can't avoid putting your values in your platform. And I think it's very telling who you stand up for and who you fight for. At the end of the day, like Dr.
Shah said, anybody can say, oh, well, he's just doing it to secure the vote. I mean, number one, I didn't feel like he really needed to secure that vote. That vote was pretty much there regardless. But at the end of the day, people are going to stand on their values. Yeah, all values come from somewhere, too.
And, you know, we're talking about the values that our nation was founded on. In the previous episode, or in Friday's episode, we talked about wrong views that people have where it comes to Christianity and politics and how religion should impact government and how government should impact religion. People believe wrongly about this statement, the separation of church and state. And Dr. Shaw, you began that conversation about some wrong views that people have when it comes to the relationship between Christianity and the government.
Do you want to recap that? Absolutely. Well, for centuries, that has been the question: what is the relationship between government and Christianity? I mean, we can go as far back as the revolutionary period, where people were asking that question: how much influence will our faith have in the political realm? Nobody was arguing should Christianity have a role?
Right. The question was, which denomination will be in charge? Really? Yes, of course. I didn't know it was a denominational thing.
I thought it would be like to what degree, but it's really which denominations are going to be right. The state church would be, of course, Anglicanism, which now would become Episcopalian denomination because that's the state church.
So will we continue that support? Will we continue to tax people in order to pay for the employees of the church, the pastor, or whatever else that goes on? And so those were the big issues. And thank goodness that our founding fathers had enough wisdom to say, we're not going to have any state-sponsored religion.
So they did not want any one denomination to be. the the state-sponsored uh denomination. Uh and and in in a sense Then other denominations like Baptist or Methodist or whoever else you have will be sort of persecuted because Baptists were being persecuted just Right up here in Virginia. Right, yeah, in our backyard, that was happening. And that was happening, and that's where the whole separation of church and state thing came in because they wrote to Thomas Jefferson, right, and asked him to please intervene, get them off.
And he's like, I can't. The Danbury Baptist who wrote to Thomas Jefferson and said, Hey, speak up for us. And he talked about the wall of separation.
Now, there are several ways to take that. I take the view that when Jefferson said that to them or wrote that to them, he was not saying that Christianity will have no say in government or there will be a complete separation between church and state. What he was saying is, this is a state matter. Right, right.
Okay, this is a state matter. I cannot come in and interfere in the state matter. On a federal level. On a federal level. Which actually, I think, was more likely that what was happening here, that federal government does not have that power.
The states have the right to decide what they need to do about your. Status. That's the same as it is today. Right. Yeah.
It constantly amazes me, and I guess it shouldn't at this point, but just the wisdom that our founding fathers had in thinking long-term, like, what kind of precedent is this going to set? As our nation is still new and kind of getting its footing and sort of in the initial stages, what precedent will this set down the road? Like, if the federal government intervenes at this point, what's going to stop them from intervening in much more minute details and coming in and controlling religion and taking one denomination and leveling that up above the other ones and holding that one out as the state religion? I mean, just the wisdom that they have in balancing those decisions. And it's also really funny, like the, what's the opposite of wisdom, the foolishness that people have taken.
Like that was a letter that he wrote. Imagine like President Trump sending you an email or sending me an email, and you get the email, he's saying something, and I'm like, this is constitutional now. This is in the Constitution, and for hundreds of years, America. America. Policy based on this email from the president.
Like, even if, even if. Thomas Jefferson was saying, Hey, yes, Christians can't influence the government. I put it in this email. I put it in this letter. It was a letter.
That's not the Constitution. That's not binding. It's just a letter there. It's a letter. And even then, the intent of the letter was very different.
It was written by people who were saying, Please make sure that you don't. You know, place the Anglicans at a level where we will be persecuted because we are being persecuted.
So two very, very, very different issues.
So that kind of leads us into s uh sort of the last couple of views that we brought up. The first view we talked about was government should mandate Christianity. Absolutely not. False view. Second is government should control religion.
Again, we know that's a false view. And again, these do overlap. That's right. Third one was government and Christianity should not mix at all. Again, that's also a false perspective.
This is where we talked about the Dan Berry Baptist last week. Then comes government is evil and Christians should have no part in it. Kind of extreme. I feel like... Of the views, this may be the one that I hear the most often.
Really? Yeah. Or at least the sentiment. Like that's the thing. Anything political, anything political, anything to do with the government is all worldly and we're to be separated from the world.
Wow.
We're going to be separate from the world. Or they even talk about how they are so disappointed, disillusioned by politicians because politicians have done this and they promised this and promised that. They all claim to be good Christians. And then they do things that are so not really anti-Christian, but their moral values are no different from the lost. Depraved world.
So, how can you now tell me that this is the Christian like like you hear about politicians having affairs, or politicians on the take, or politicians Drinking and driving. And next thing you know, they claim to be Christians or they claim to be evangelicals. And how can you now and and I understand what they're saying. And I sympathize with that because that is also what we sometimes have to face as church leaders when people say, Hey, you know, in your church you have hypocrites.
Okay. Yeah, sure. Sure. Does that mean you don't go to church anymore? Exactly.
Yeah, that's what it means. I don't want to go to church anymore because you're full of people who pretend to be what they're not. And then to be around those people with my family or myself, when I need help and I need guidance and I need to be closer to Jesus, and then I'm dealing with people like this around me, I don't want that. That's the attitude they have. Regarding politics and politicians, that they are all corrupt, and we just need to wash our hands.
But that is Mm-hmm. Both with regards to church having hypocrites and politicians being fake and and corrupt What we don't realize is is That may be true. But church is still church, and politics is still essential. To a proper functioning of a society. Yeah, it's this false idea that I can, that washing my hands of either the church or politics is even possible.
Like, you. The like politics alone controls most of your everyday life, yeah. Uh, it in or maybe influences is what I should say. You can't wash your hands of it, it's not something that you can just say, Okay, we're just gonna do our thing as the church. Like, what happens in politics, what happens in the government is eventually going to get to you.
Absolutely, people hold up that phrase, like, we're supposed to be in the world, but not of the world. But the first part of that phrase is that we are supposed to be in the world, yeah, it's going to be hidden away and tucked up in a corner somewhere. I mean, Jesus gives the example of being the salt of the earth and the light of the world, those are ineffective if they just either salt stays on a shelf or light. The light bulbs never turned on. You know, church, yes, has had its problems.
It began in the book of Acts. You see Ananias and Sapphira. You see Peter with his hypocrisy.
So the church has had its problems. You've seen the Hellenists and the Hebrew. Widows fighting with each other over food. I mean, of all things, over food. Food, some as common as food.
Something as simple as food.
So, yes, church has had its problems, but church has also been a great, great, great source of blessing to the world. to Christianity, to believers, to the glory of God. It has done some amazing things because it is the bride of Christ. And by the way, that's a good point there. The church is a bride of Christ.
So, yes, the bride may at times not be the person. that she is supposed to be, but she is still The bride of Jesus. You're right. And he takes it very. Seriously, when we You and I or that Christian out there or the lost world that Takes a shot at the bride.
Christ, as the bridegroom, will stand for the bride. Absolutely right.
So, Yes, the church may have problems, but the church does a lot of good. And the church is the bride of Christ, and the church is God's force for good in this world. Right. And he's given the church a mission. Absolutely.
He said, go out and win the world, win the lost. You can't do that. I mean, you can do that with a government against you, but it doesn't have to be that way. You know what I mean? And so, same argument for politics.
Yes, politicians are corrupt. They can be.
Some have done some horrendous things.
Some pretend to be one thing, you know, all Christ-loving, Jesus-loving, church-going, wonderful, sweet, family. Man or family woman, whatever, and the next thing you know, you hear something bad about them.
So I get it, it's it's horrible. At the same time, Politicians and politics have also done a lot of good in this world. That's right. I think about World War II.
Okay? On one hand, you have Hitler, who was The tool of the enemy of Satan to cause. Havoc all across Europe, all across the world. And of course, talk about the. The Holocaust of the Jewish people.
This is Satan behind all of this. He used Hitler. But at the same time, think about. The Allied forces. Behind them were politicians who were also making sure that somebody would fight back this force of evil, this antichrist of the moment of that time.
That's right. And so. Yeah, politics is bad, but also politics was good. It saved the day. And skilled politicians are the one that have to get the support of the people to make sure that, because you know, the yeah, what was happening during Vietnam was not happening during World War II.
An entire nation rallied around the Allied forces going and helping in Europe. And that was because of these politicians who were doing their job.
Well, God hasn't called us to escape the world around us. He's not called us to, you know, set aside it up in a cloister somewhere and not be a part of what's happening.
So we can't afford to take this view where, like, government exists over here. We're not going to get involved because it's messy. Yeah. Or to extend what you just said, Ryan, that Christians should only focus on saving the lost. You have no business in promoting any kind of policy, just be in the business of going to all the world, preach the gospel, make disciples of all nations.
Don't worry about policy, that's not your business. This is not your turf. And that also is a false view. It is a false view. That is sometimes the view that people hold up to silence a pastor or a church.
Moment we speak against say A candidate. Or we may not mention them by name, but we're talking about, you know, if a candidate is supporting abortion, if a candidate is supporting homosexual marriage, we should not be behind them. That's right. Oh, listen, you need to stick to saving the lost. Do not bring up those things because that's you're you're you're no.
I am supposed to speak out on those issues because it's all connected. Right. Saving the lost is not disconnected from standing for the rights of the unborn. Or standing up for a traditional marriage. They're all interconnected because sooner or later it's going to infringe on the right to share the gospel.
It's the exact same argument that we use with our doctrine. There are no secondary or tertiary doctrines because at the end of the day, all of them are going to feed back into the main thing. Yeah. Exact same situation with politics. 100%.
In the Old Testament, you had Daniel. Who stood before the kings of Babylon and then the kings of Medo-Persia? You had someone like Esther who spoke up and saved her people. Remember what a powerful story, right? Yeah, but she shouldn't have done that because it's you're stepping out of your lane, Esther.
Come on, Daniel. You know what her uncle told her, Mordecai? He said, Look, the help for the Jewish people is going to come somehow. One of my favorite lines. God's going to help them.
Who knows? You may have come to this kingdom for a time such as this. But even if you don't help, no problem. God will save them, but you and your family will surely die. Yes, tough love.
Mordecai dropping some wisdom on Esther. That's some wisdom, but I mean, that's wisdom for us today. You know what I mean? Like, the country is going to go in the direction God wants it to go. That's right.
But it's up. I mean, if it's up to pastors and it's up to clergy in the sense that the blessing is yours if you're willing to take it. That's right. If I can also add one more false views, because what we're saying right now so far are false views of the relationship between government and church. And the last false view is that the Christians or churches should only focus on politics, should only focus on government.
I mean, that's all we do. There are churches who think that. And again, I would say categorically, you are wrong. That's not our only job. That is a big mission of the church, but our main mission should be to reach the lost, to share the gospel, to glorify Jesus Christ, to love the body of believers, to make this place a better place with truth and mercy.
But then also impacting policy so that we can keep practicing our faith, that we can keep sharing the gospel.
So, only focusing on politics is not right either.
So, here's what I would say. is the balanced view on the relationship between church and government. Christians should have a significant influence. on government. Yeah, I think that's that's it.
Christians should have a significant influence on government. And that's what we've tried to do through clear view. That's right. If you look at the Bible, whether it is Joseph. Esther Paul, look at the history of Christianity through the ages, how Christians fought for the rights of the unborn, how they fought against gladiatorial games, how they even go up into recent times, try to ban Sati, which is the burning of the young bride in India after the husband would die, or the footbinding among the Chinese.
I mean, on and on. Christians did a lot of things in the past laws to help. uh society get better. to bring Moral values, ethical values into the culture in which they live. And that's the way it should be.
That's the way it should be. Amen. Yeah, such a great reminder for us, especially as we're just coming off of Independence Day and thinking about the relationship we have with between government and Christianity. What is the impact that we as believers should be looking to have on the world around us? And it's something that I think a lot of people don't say is that, yeah, Fourth of July is great, Independence Day is great, but thankfulness is not enough, right?
There's still work to be done. There's still a mission that God has called us to do. That's right. Make sure you guys join us tomorrow, 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. And you can always support us financially at Abadanshah.com forward slash give. John, what do you want to close with today? There is exclusive content over on Pray.com, particularly Discerning Doctrine.
That is Dr. Shah's exclusive series over on Pray.com. We're getting lots and lots and lots of followers, pushing 25K. There's also a new podcast coming. We're going to be talking about that in the next couple of weeks.
Also, a new book is on the horizon.
So we want to. Let you guys know as soon as those details are out, how you can be supporting and giving and following in that way. That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on ClearB Today.
