Christians Engaged

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This is Peter Burger. Glad that you are with us. 866-34-TRUTH.

866-348-7884. If you want to be a part of the program, you just heard at the top of the hour the statistics on Christians and voting. We've had this conversation for several weeks here on this program. And I am firmly convinced that we as Christians have got to get out and vote and be a part of what's going on in our society and our culture. We need to be salt and light. And on that note, by the way, I don't know if you know this or not, but elections day is coming up Tuesday. You may have seen this in one of your post office box mailings or on the television.

We're going into extra innings of crazy, y'all. But that said, I wanted to bring someone who's an expert in this field of talking about this and mobilizing Christians to vote. I don't know why Christians have set this one out. The last several elections out, but I've really been dismayed by that. Well, Peter, it is a crucial moment in our nation's history, and it's crucial that every believer do their civic duties. You know, sometimes we aren't talking to God about what's happening in our nation first and foremost.

Prayer absolutely shifts things. So I hope everybody listening today would get on their face and cry out to God for what's happening in our nation. Pray for our elected officials. It's time for us to start voting in every election, not just the presidential year, but local elections and primaries as well, and start engaging.

You know, we should be the leaders in the room, in our school boards, our city councils, our Chamber of Commerce. And that's what we do every day is try to teach and mobilize and activate Christians to be what God's called us to be. We're not really not getting in the Word of God.

We're not really walking in intimacy with Jesus. And so we forget who we are. And I want to remind our listeners, if you call on the name of Jesus, if you're a born-again believer, the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives in you. And that is a powerful force.

And so when you walk in the room, everything's supposed to change. If you are constantly going to the Word for wisdom and discernment and asking God for his thoughts, his desires, what happens is you become the leader that you're called to be. And so sometimes we underestimate the power of who we are. And then we also, Peter, have a weird concept of the sovereignty of God. I don't know how many people have listened to these words, you know, God is in control. You know, it doesn't matter if you vote, it doesn't matter if you engage, because ultimately God is sovereign and he's going to put in kings and all this stuff. Yes, but didn't he limit his sovereignty to us, meaning we are the hands and feet of Jesus? Didn't he give us dominion over the earth?

Isn't the fullness of the earth his dominion? And you know, it says, the Apostle Paul says, how will they hear unless there's a preacher? How will they be sent unless they're sent? We have a responsibility to do something. It's just not going to magically happen. And what happens is when the righteous sit out of elections, the wicked, people that do not have a biblical worldview, fill that vacuum.

And that's what we've seen over the last 60 years of American history. Well, people get into a little bit of a snit over things and they think, you know, God doesn't need me to do this. Well, God doesn't need anything. But he invites and he commands, and he has told us to be salt and light. He's told us to be a part of this. You see this throughout all of scripture.

Paul speaks about this, but in the Old Testament as well, there's this constant theme of being appropriate citizens and praying for the peace of the town or the city or the country that you're living in and so forth, and being model citizens. I mean, that's a repeated theme. And somehow we've gotten this, well, this fatalistic thing. Well, God's going to work it out.

Well, he does. Somebody said this the other day. I said, do you wear a seatbelt when you get in your car? And they said, well, yeah. I said, tell me why, based on the reasoning you just gave me for not voting. And that's when the conversation usually takes kind of a weird turn.

But that's just me. How did you get involved in all this, Bunny? I was a homeschooling mom that started listening to a woman named Laura Ingram on talk radio many, many years ago and really caught a vision for the safety of life issue, working to save the unborn. And that turned into me going back to college, getting my degree in political science and going to work for a member of Congress named Jeff Hensarling. Congressman Hensarling was a sophomore when I started working for him as his campaign manager, and he went on to become conference chairman in the House and financial services chairman and then became started running my own consulting firm with 32 clients and nine people in my office and then ran for Congress.

So, you know, kind of my story, Peter, is my one little yes as a little homeschooling mom turned into a whole bunch of yeses I did not know was coming in the future. And I just want to inspire Christians to take one step. You know, first it's praying, you know, crying out to God, praying for your member of Congress. Believe me, they need prayer after working for them for 20 years. They need your prayers, you know, and then it's showing up, making a commitment to start showing up at this presidential election, but also your local elections next year and the primaries and your constitutional amendment elections or propositions elections.

There's usually, you know, two elections a year in most states make a commitment to do that and then follow your heart. What is the burden of your heart? For me, it was, you know, trying to save the unborn and getting into the pro-life movement. Other people, it's freedom of speech or it's technology issues or foreign policy or Israel.

So we all have these burdens and we allow God to move us into our place of influence. Absolutely. Well said, Bunny. We're going to talk with her some more when we come back. And if you want to join the conversation, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. This is Bunny Pounds, Christians Engaged, President and Founder, and she's author of Jesus and Politics. And this is Truth Talk Live. I'm Peter Rosenberger.

We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to have you with us. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884.

I'm talking with Bunny Pounds. She is the founder and president of Christians Engaged, author of Jesus and Politics. And while we're on that subject, by the way, Trump just came out with a tax credit for family caregivers. As you all know, I host a radio program on this network and others every week for family caregivers. And he said something that was rather extraordinary at Madison Square Gardens. He said, you know, that caregivers for too long have been ignored and overlooked.

And he said that's going to change. And as a caregiver for four decades, I would say thank you for that. I appreciate you doing that because it's hard enough being a caregiver. And it's nice when government hopefully has a plan to alleviate some burdens as opposed to causing more burdens. And if you want to see my thoughts on this, you can go to my Substack page, caregiver.substack.com, or just search for Peter Rosenberger under Substack. Bunny, that was my yes. I loved what you said in the last block about you took a yes to getting involved, and it just led to a bunch of other yeses.

In my case, it did the same thing. I didn't set out necessarily to have an outreach to family caregivers. But I said yes that I would because I understood how important the issue was, and that sounds like what happened with you. You started seeing how important the issue was, and you lent your voice to it, and here we are. Tell me a little bit more about Christians Engaged, and what does a day look like for you all? Yeah, well we set out about five years ago to build a get-out-the-vote system, a voter mobilization system for Christians from a non-partisan perspective, really giving them civics and the Bible, and allowing the Holy Spirit to do his work. And so we do that now. We have built a system that actually reminds people through four texts and four emails around every election in the country. And we were at 225,000 Christians this summer, and we merged with Family Policy Alliance that was started by Dr. James Dobson out of Focus on the Family, that has 41 state family policy groups around the country, and now the whole social conservative movement is pushing in the same direction. And we're almost to 900,000 Christians now.

I think we're going to get close to a million before the presidential election. But we do that, and we also build on-demand video curriculum, which we have eight projects to help Christians get involved in government and politics, and also learn topics like biblical economics, biblical justice, and even how to run for office as a believer. Well, I love civics. I remember studying it in 10th grade at my high school. Did you ever see that movie Radio with Cuba Gooding Jr.? Did you ever see that movie? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. I remember that one. That was my high school.

Wow. I went to school with radio. I have four brothers as a sister, and we all went to school with radio. But my civics teacher back then was just a wonderful guy, and I kind of wonder, what kind of civics are they teaching now? And I hear people, I mean, people who supposedly should know better on television, and they refer to things like the electoral college. And they don't know that we're a constitutional republic. They always know we're a democracy, right?

We're not a democracy. And I'm stunned by this, and I would imagine you are as well. Yeah, it's one of the reasons I wrote my book, Jesus in Politics, One Woman's Walk with God in a Mud Slinging Profession. I wanted to share my crazy stories of walking with members of Congress and trying to disciple people one heart at a time. But I also wanted to teach people the basics of, you know, why are political parties important?

What's a platform? How do we advocate for our values? How do we actually get to know our government officials? And how do we pray for them, encourage them, but yet hold them accountable? And we also have an on-ramp to civic engagement class that people can take on our website. We've had almost 1,500 people go through that class alone, and all of our classes, almost 2,300 Christians have gone through one of our six-to-eight-hour classes.

So that makes me really excited. If somebody listening right now wants to get involved, what's the best place for them to go? Where do they start? Yeah, go to ChristiansEngage.org. That's Christians with an S, Engage with an D.org. Take the pledge to pray, vote, and engage, and you'll get prayer reminders every Monday, voting reminders. We're even doing an election prayer call with the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, on Sunday night. So you can register for that, along with incredible pastors and ministry leaders. And then get in one of our classes. We always tell people, take the pledge to pray, vote, and engage, and get in one of our classes, and let God move you into your place of influence. We want to help mentor you into that place.

And we've seen God do it all over the country. That's ChristiansEngage.org. And for those of you in MacDuncan, that is not a dating site.

That is not a dating site. ChristiansEngage.org. And if people want to get your book, Jesus and Politics.

Yeah, they can get it on the website or on Amazon, ChristianBook.com, wherever you get your books. Just type in Bunny Pounds, Bunny with an I, and yes, that is my real name. I was named after Billy Graham's daughter. And Bunny Pounds and Jesus and Politics.

It's a fun book. Well, I think that's marvelous that you've done this, and you're trying to mobilize one million Christians. Okay, they're at 900,000. And some change. How about we help them push that over? Okay? Yeah, you can reach a Christian for two dollars. Yes, so help us.

Yes, please. It is a worthwhile – and if you listen to this network at all, you hear these various ministers talking in between the breaks, and they're saying all the same things about being involved. And back to the representative form of government. Did you know that the whole foundation of how God deals with us is through a federalist, a representative, if you will, a government? Whereas in Adam, one man sinned.

People say, you know, it's not fair. I wasn't at the Garden. Well, you weren't at the cross either. Because as one man sinned, one man also bore the penalty for that sin and imputed his righteousness to us, and so this is how God functions. And the founders of this country understood this. They came out of the Reformation, and they understood these principles.

They also understood that the heart of man is exceedingly wicked. And, Bunny, you've been around the political world for a long time. I think you'd probably get an amen on that one. Amen. And we do this for us, Peter, every day. We do it to protect liberty in the country, to see the body of Christ rise up in this hour, is to protect our liberty, our economic prosperity, for the purpose of the gospel to go to the ends of the earth. I mean, I'm not just doing a civic engagement ministry just for fun.

I believe America is crucial for the world evangelism and for Jesus to come back. I have never seen such stark differences in this election season as I have in this election season, particularly when I was watching Michelle Obama speak the other day and then, of course, Kamala Harrison. And they just keep driving home how important abortion is to them, even though the number of abortions has not gone down since Roe versus Wade was sent back to the states.

And this is the seminal issue that they're pitting families against and husbands against wives in this new commercial and so forth over this horrific issue. And, Bunny, I want you to know how much I appreciate the work you're doing. You're working hard. And I thank you for being on the program. Will you come back after all the election season is over, okay? We would love to report. Thank you, Peter.

Alrighty, Bunny Pounds, BunnyPounds.com, or you can go to ChristiansEngage.org. Thank you so much for being a part of this, Bunny. And, listen, don't go away. We've got more to go. This is Truth Talk Live.

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