What Is the Nature of the Political Seduction of the Church?

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network.

So, we talk about the political seduction of the Church, but what exactly does it look like? 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. Are you ready to get infused with faith and truth and courage? Are you ready to get built up, edified, strengthened?

Are you ready to have your thinking clarified and sharpened? Then you are in the right place. Michael Brown, welcome to the broadcast. Let me give you our number to call. I'm going to open the phones to all questions on all subjects like we do on Fridays. The reason is that I've got another important interview coming your way tomorrow. We had fabulous interviews yesterday.

It's rare that we'll have full interviews a couple different days in the week, so it doesn't give us enough time to take calls. So, you want to talk to me about anything, you want to agree with what I'm saying today, you want to differ with what I'm saying today as we talk about what the political seduction of the Church actually looks like, by all means, give me a call. But any subject is welcome, 866-348-7884. I have had people see the title of my new book.

It comes out September 6th, but you can still order an advance, signed, numbered copy of the first printing at our website, AskDrBrown.org. I've had people see the title of this book, The Political Seduction of the Church, How Millions of American Christians Have Confused Politics with the Gospel, and thank me, and say, what a timely book. This is exactly what we, this is what I've been thinking about and talking about.

Thank you for writing it. I've had others see the title and say, the Lord rebuke you, Dr. Brown, for writing this book, right? So, I've seen these polar responses. So, what I want to do is clarify terminology.

What I want to do is give understanding to the things of which I am speaking. Every copy of the signed, numbered books that I'm sending out, I'm putting in a scripture verse, and the verse I'm putting in is 2 Corinthians 10-3, where Paul says to the Corinthians that we live in this world, the weapons we fight with are not earthly weapons. They're not worldly weapons.

They're not fleshly weapons. We live in this flesh, but we are not fighting with fleshly weapons. It's similar to Ephesians 6-12, where Paul says we don't wrestle with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, with these demonic strongholds and high places.

That's what we're wrestling with. So, as we look at the state of the nation, as we look at the state of our community, as we look at the state of our family, as we look at the state of our own lives, the ultimate solution is always a gospel solution. It's always gospel first, right?

You may be having marital problems that are very serious, but if husband and wife will live by biblical principles, will follow the teachings of Jesus, will seek to honor God and one another, that marriage can be not just saved from disaster, it can be blessed. The same thing with your local community. If everything is in chaos and haywire and the crime rates are off the charts and violence is on the streets, you can't walk the streets at night, and the schools are falling apart and kids aren't getting educated, well, if the people in that community would turn to the Lord, if many would, many of the leaders would turn to the Lord, then things would turn around, because as we get right with God, other things fall into place. Same principle for the nation, same principle for the world. When we look to politics to do what only the gospel can do, we're making a dire mistake. When the church becomes an appendage of a political party, I don't care if one party clearly espouses more biblical values than another party, when the church becomes an appendage of a political party, that is trouble. When there is an unhealthy marriage between the gospel and politics, that is trouble.

Now, I've talked about some of these things before, but I want to bring further clarity, and please hear me. I am not saying that you got politically seduced if you voted for Donald Trump. I did in 2016 and 2020. I am not saying that you got politically seduced if you love Jesus and you love your country. We should love our country.

As followers of Jesus, we should love our country and pray for God's best for America. I'm not saying you got politically seduced if you got politically involved and felt it was important, hey, we need to change our local school board. Boy, we've got someone campaigning for mayor that really holds to a lot of our values, and the other one is so hostile, and so you encourage folks to vote. I'm not saying you got politically seduced if you got involved politically.

If it wasn't an obsession, if it did not become a substitute for the gospel, well, great, we should be involved. We should be salt and light in every area of life, including politics. You may even be called in a primary way to get involved as an elected official. So be it. There may be other ways that you're called to be involved. So be it. That's not being politically seduced. So again, don't throw the shoe out yet until you find out if the shoe fits.

If it fits, then wear it. Then own it. Then say, okay, how can we do better? Because friends, we're about to come in to the midterms, right? We are approaching September, October, November. It's just a few short weeks, and before you know it, we'll be in the midterms, and then all talk day and night is going to be a 2024, and what's coming, and what's going to happen. It's going to be very easy to get consumed. It's going to be very easy to get caught up in election fever.

So what I want to do is give you some symptoms to check, some ways to examine yourself. Pastors, leaders, please hear me. This could apply to your church, your denomination, your movement, or to yourself. Individual believers, please hear me. So I'm going to put this out in an article, maybe around the time that the book comes out, September 6th, and hang on, let me just scroll down here.

Somehow my screen froze, not sure why. Okay, there we go. There we go.

All right. In the book, The Political Seduction of the Church, you'll have this all laid out in great detail, with great clarity, and I explain how seduction happens. Friends, just like the problem with deception is that it's very deceiving, the problem with seduction is that it's very seducing, okay?

That is reality. It comes in through the side door, not through the front door, and it comes in subtly, and it comes in in such a way that looks good until you get brought in further. And I'm going to give you some examples of how seduction can happen in many, many different ways in life, even with something that in itself is good, and we can end up seduced in a wrong way. So let me give you this little checklist here, okay?

Are you ready? Here's some telltale signs that you've been politically seduced. When you're more concerned with winning elections, when you're more concerned with winning the elections than when winning the lost, you've been politically seduced. You've been pulled in so that your heart has gone too far into the world of politics.

Let me say it again. When you're more concerned with winning elections than winning the lost, you've been politically seduced. When you wrap the gospel in the American flag, when the cause of Christ is now equal with the cause of America, that's a sign of being politically seduced. When you blur the distinction between patriotism and the kingdom of God.

And friends, it can often be subtle, but here, here, think of it like this. World War II, you're fighting with the allies against the Nazis. You're fighting against the, the evil ones within Japan, right?

So you're in battle for the future of the world, for the freedom of the world. What would happen if the Nazis won? What would happen if the Japanese with their imperialistic goals, if they won? The world would look very different than it looks today. How would America look? How would Europe look?

How would Asia look? It's almost incomprehensible. Maybe you're a Christian and your whole family is praying for your safety in battle and praying that God will be with you.

Yeah. God bless America. God, God bless you as you're going as a Christian. Obviously the two things are going to feel very, very much united, but ultimately America is not the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God must come to America. America is another nation like the rest of the world. It is a fallen nation like the rest of the world with fallen people. And within it, the kingdom of God is advancing.

Within it, there are tens of millions of believers who make up the church and are part of the worldwide church. But America is not the kingdom of God. When you compromise your ethics to keep your party or man or woman in power, when you have certain standards by which you live, but well, you know, we're not electing a pastor, we're not electing a Pope. Our governor is not going to be the pastor of the state, but the governor of the state understood. But one year you vote against one guy because of his compromised ethics and the next year you vote for somebody with compromised ethics. Well, you know, we got to be pragmatic, but then along the way compromise can come in and understand we're always going to vote for imperfect candidates.

Sure. Well then we don't put our trust in them the way we put our trust in God. When your church or denomination or ministry becomes an appendage of a political party, you've been politically seduced. When you put more trust in earthly means than in spiritual means, you've been politically seduced. When you make one political party the party of God and the other the party of Satan, you've been politically seduced.

Even if one party holds many more values in harmony with yours and the other not, you're still dealing with just a flawed system as a whole, a system that's flawed because of the flaws of human beings, and politics is not the gospel as we've declared over and over. When you become as vulgar and rude as the candidates you follow, you've been politically seduced. When you look to the White House, more than to God's house, you've been politically seduced. When you make a human being into a political savior, when you equate loyalty to God with loyalty to a party or political leader, when you do any of these things, let alone all of them, you've been politically seduced. And that's what I saw happen to multiplied millions, multiplied millions of American Christians in the last election cycle. And my concern is because many did not properly learn their lessons, because many of us just kind of went on with our ways as if everything was fine, and then you add in all the false prophecies and the fervor of that without massive public repentance by so many of these quote prophets, that's that's trouble.

If you don't fix the thing, get down to the root issues, that's trouble. So friends, America needs the church to be the church. America needs you and I to shine the light. We've got to get this right for the good of the nation and for the glory of God.

We'll be right back. 866-34-TRUTH. You have a question of any kind or you want to comment.

Phone lines are open. 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 friends for joining us on The Line of Fire. Hey, we still have room on our Israel trip, but it is filling up very quickly.

Go to the website, Ask Dr. Brown, A-S-K-D-R Brown. You'll find it right on the home page after the slide about the political seduction book. Find out about it if you want to go.

Now is the time to get your deposit in and I'll just talk to my colleague that sets the trips up, talking to him last night, what excitement about being back in the land after all this time out because of COVID. All right, so let's talk about the nature of seduction for a little while, all right? Read Proverbs 7. It's probably the clearest picture of seduction anywhere in the Bible. The picture painted of this adulterous woman and how she made her life a better life.