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

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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, askyourbrown.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. 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 or 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, think of it like this. World War II, you're fighting with the Allies against the Nazis. You're fighting against 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 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've 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. But 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 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 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 makes herself attractive while the husband's away and how this young man without discernment gets pulled in, not knowing the consequences. And look, there's always going to be a smile. There's always going to be an appeal.

There's always going to be something that looks good, that feels good. That's why someone gets pulled in. Here, you're not going to get knowingly conned. If you go to used car dealership, especially in the old days before there was accountability and before you could check on cars and things like that, if you went in there and the car is all rusted, right? And the inside is a total mess and the tires are completely worn.

And you go to start the thing and it doesn't start until the 10th try. And the guy's telling you, no, it's really, it's a good deal. Okay, you can look, obviously it's not, but if outwardly it looks good and the dealer knows there's something in that car that's going to go within the next couple of weeks, the transmission or something major, that's how you get conned, right? Or the guy's appeal is such that he's such a good talker, you get conned. I've commented that I've been around the world and seen lots of interesting names of churches, uh, uh, Nigeria, I think had the longest, most interesting names I've seen, but I've never seen a church called the first church of the deceived. Why? Because no one is knowingly deceived. Someone doesn't call you and say, Hey, I'm going to con you out of your life savings.

Would you like to be part of this investment? No, of course not. So think of, of actual physical seduction.

Think of, think of what happens. All right. You're a pastor, you've been in ministry for many years. You've counseled many couples. You have your, your guidelines of propriety and things like that. You never counsel someone of the opposite sex alone. You don't interact with them privately.

It's always with couples and certain cases, your spouse there as well with you. So you're, you're counseling a couple, but this couple knows your secretary really well. So your secretary is kind of giving them an inside track and you're the pastor, you're, you're counseling and then you're doing some emailing with them. But if you email them, you're always blind copying your wife, especially with, with the other wife so that she can be aware of what's happening and what's going on. She's, so there's, she's, and it's good accountability, right?

It's good coverage. Say, Hey, no, she read every word of this, right? All right. So let's, let's just say that you're, you're going about your business, you're doing this. And then little by little you think, you think, you know, I, so many emails, I don't need to copy my wife. That's like boring her, you know, to do that all the time.

And, and, um, and you know, your secretary's just said, Hey look, you have access, you know, you have a need, just reach out. And well now the, the wife's really telling you, the other wife, how the counseling sessions are helping her and, and what a great sermon you preached on, on Sunday pastor that really ministered to me. Maybe initially everything starts innocently, but after a while she's, she's got an angle. She's, she's starting, her husband's bad.

He's just lousy. It just doesn't respond properly to her needs and, and, but the pastor's so attentive. Another pastor, even though he knows better, he's like, oh, it's like, wow, she's, she's, my wife's so busy with ministry and with the family and she, but this is, she enjoys my messages. She's telling me and well, it's over a period of time. It could be months and months and months before lines are crossed, lines are crossed and then they're in adultery.

It didn't happen overnight. The actual final act or fall may happen overnight, but it takes, it could take three years to get to that point because people only know better and unless they're looking for trouble, the thing has to happen little by little or I'll give you an example that this may be something that more can relate to if they've never fallen into sin and that way, right? Maybe, maybe here's another scenario and, and the word warns about these things so many times and I've talked to people about things so many times and I know my own life and the need to walk in the fear of the Lord. So these are, these are things we think about.

So how about this? You, you feel called to ministry. You've been in the business world. You don't have a lot of formal Bible training, but you feel called to ministry.

You've already got a bachelor's degree in business administration. You're doing some ministry within your church. You're teaching more and more and the pastor says, you know, I, I really see a calling on your life. I could see you being a pastor one day, but I think you need to get some more training and, and learn the biblical languages and so on. It's like, pastor, absolutely. So you go to seminary, so you go to seminary, godly professors love the Lord, esteem the word of God, right?

People of integrity, all good, all good. And you're growing in your knowledge of God, theology, things are falling into place, good classes on principles of pastoral ministry, leadership, epistles of Paul and learning from that. But over time, you get so into the studies that the studies become an idol.

I mean, that happened to me late 70s, early 80s. I got so into this that something that God had called me to, these academic studies in Hebrew and ancient languages, became an idol in, in my life. Became something that, that rather than being a tool, became an idol.

So it happens and before you know it, 20 years have gone by and your prayer life is not what it used to be. Your devotional time in the Word is more academic study. You actually end up as a professor and maybe a professor of Greek and on the one hand, some people are called to be professors of Greek or professors of Hebrew or professors of theology. That's their calling. They're called to be teachers in the body.

That's their calling. But you were actually called to be a pastor. You're actually called to be pouring in ministry in a different way, using these things as tools, but you got so into them that you become assistant or you just got so caught up with theology, you forgot about people.

These things can happen. Or you, you feel that the Lord wants to use you in the world of sports. You love Jesus. You love Jesus and he's also gifted you in athletics and you think, what, what an opportunity for me that I could, I could excel in athletics. I can be the champion in this sport or gold medal winner here or top athlete in this league and people know who I am and, and I'll just be a Jesus person, you know, and, and people will know about my testimony and I'll be unashamed about my faith and it's just a platform. And if it's for a year or five years, I have that platform, I'll glorify the Lord, then I'll just go out and do other things. But along the way, when the competition starts to get stiffer, when your dreams are not being fulfilled and if I just had a little extra help, then I could, I could get to the top and then my testimony would be even more powerful and now you're taking performance enhancing drugs and you end up in a scandal.

It didn't just come through the front door. That's what happened with so many of us politically and that's why I have been praying for surgical precision as I talk about these things because we are so used to reacting in everything in black and white terms and there's very little nuance these days. Would you agree? I mean, there's very little, okay, let me explain this in more detail to help you better understand. No, we just, boom, we just polarized, we just have our fight, we just have our argument.

So, it takes a lot for godly people who love the Lord and who put Jesus first, it takes a lot for us to get politically seduced but it happened to many of us. Understanding how it happened is the way to prevent it from happening the next time around and you know, if let's say you're a boxer and you get knocked out, you know, you didn't see, okay, so jabs, this one's going to come to the right, you didn't see that overhand right coming over your jab, you get knocked out. Unless you correct that, you're going to get knocked out again, right? Because you're going to fight better fighters and you're going to watch the tape on you because you've got a bad tendency, you throw the jab and you don't bring it right back to protect your face, right?

You throw it and you kind of leave it out there or as some say, you admire your work, you just got like posed after doing it, you're going to get knocked out. The same way, if you've fallen into sin in a certain area, unless you correct the patterns, you fall into it again because human nature is going to repeat the same errors. If you keep having splits in your church and you don't figure out why this keeps happening, it's probably going to keep happening. The thing with politics and getting seduced into politics as opposed to righteous godly involvement within politics, the problem is this is not so much an everyday thing. This is something that is more cyclical because of the election fever every two years and especially every four years.

Because of that, we may not realize that we're repeating the same bad habits from the past. So, how is it that so many of us went in the wrong direction? I want to talk about that when we come back on the other side of the break as well as once again ask, what is Christian nationalism in the bad sense of the word? What is it not?

What do we mean by these things? Again, we're talking about content from my new book out September 6th but you can still pre-order on our website AskDrBrown.org, The Political Seduction of the Church, one of the more important books I've written especially in this hour, in this moment. We'll be right back. 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. Thank you so much for joining us on The Line of Fire. I will probably get to some questions on YouTube, even Facebook, so if you're watching on YouTube or Facebook and have a question, go ahead and post it.

If you put at Ask Dr. Brown first, it will stand out. We can see that more easily, so go ahead and do that and we may take some calls as well. 866-34-8784 if you want to weigh in on what I'm saying, if you want to push back on what I'm saying or ask a question of any kind, but let me paint a picture for you, alright? And why am I doing this?

Because I love Jesus and because I love his body and because I love America and it's out of love and out of concern. That's why I'm addressing these things. We do not sit around as a team and as an individual before the Lord. I do not do this, but we do not sit around. I do not do this. Think, okay, what topic can we talk about that's going to generate the most controversy and get all kinds of reactions?

That's carnal. There are people that do that, you know, there's the PR saying, all publicity is good publicity, so everyone's maligning you and attacking you, hey, as long as your name's out there. My goal is not to get my name out there. My goal is to see Jesus exalted. My goal is to see the church healthy. My goal is to see God's purposes accomplished on the earth. That's the goal.

So there are many things I address I would rather not address because I know it will alienate certain people or they'll be misunderstanding or they'll be hurt, but if I'm convinced it's the Lord, then it's a non-negotiable issue. So be it. You give the message. If you live, you live.

If you die, you die. You give the message. So I have no ulterior motive here.

Let me give a little hint. What you see is what you get with me. I don't do things with ulterior motives.

Brown's very clever. He's doing this to get, no, I'm doing stuff without guile in that regard. I have my faults and shortcomings like everybody else, but I'm a what you see is what you get person. There's no secret agenda going on. Some, oh, he's saying this because he wants, no, I'm talking about these things because they're issues of concern and burden, and I believe the Lord has laid it on my heart to address these things. So I want to paint a picture, all right? I want to paint a picture for you. This is straight out of the political seduction book, so everything I'm about to read to you is in the book. So back in the time of the Antifa-BLM riots, and some of them are spilling over into private neighborhoods, right?

So I wrote this. What will happen when one of these mobs comes storming into your community and threatens your family? If the Democrats are in power, you might not be able to defend yourself, which means that your only defense is to keep them out of power, and they may want to disarm America. And the only way to do that, to keep the Democrats out of power, is to vote for Donald Trump, right? Only he could stop this onslaught of evil. Only he could stand up to the forces of the left. Only Trump could save America.

That's how it felt to many. It was just that simple, and tens of millions now believe that if you wanted freedom and order, you voted for Trump. If you wanted anarchy and chaos, you voted for Biden. If you cared about the future of America, you cared about the kind of world your children or grandchildren would live in, you voted for Trump. If you wanted to throw away our countries, you knew it, you voted for Biden. If you wanted to stop the slaughter of the unborn, you voted for Trump. If you wanted the blood of those babies on your hands, you voted for Biden.

Hey, many of us felt just like this. And many would say, hey, look what's happened in America since, it's confirmation. If you wanted peace in the Middle East, if you wanted to continue to push back against Islamic terrorism, if you wanted to stop communist China from taking over the world, if you wanted to give hope to persecuted believers around the globe, if you wanted economic hope for America's poor, if you cared about biblical values, you voted for Trump. Only he could get the job done, only he could save us. And that's how Donald Trump, with all of his glaring failings and flaws, went from president to superhero to political savior.

In the moment, it seems so right. I mean, what alternative did we have? So my issue, friends, is not whether or not you voted for Trump. That is not my issue. My issue is that this became the focus.

This became the obsession. And I started to get more and more concerned leading up to the 2020 elections as I saw more and more believers making Trump the issue, not Jesus. In other words, you were right with God if you voted for Trump or if you were against Trump. It was one or the other that either loyalty to God was shown by loyalty to Trump or loyalty to God was shown by rejecting Trump. It's like, how did Trump become the dividing force? As I've said many times, when you stand before God, his question will not be, what did you do with Donald Trump? But what did you do with my son, Jesus?

That's going to be the question. When I saw believers getting so hostile and profane and ugly with each other and their social media pages now just look like political hate spots or attack ads. And we were vulgar and coarse and nasty with each other. And all the prayer was about the election. I'm thinking, man, if we prayed for this much for a revival, America be revived overnight.

Maybe a little hyperbole there, but that's how it felt. If we prayed for our lost neighbors that we were praying for the elections, our neighbors would make them be saved. And then with all the profits that were public saying the same thing that created more concern. And then people believe in the craziest conspiracy theories.

I'm, I'm talking to pastors and leaders are telling me, yeah, if, if, if Biden gets in, he will be removed before inauguration. We know we have sources that tell us there'll be a military presence and the military is going to do this to take this out as this is all. And they're believing all this. I'm saying, this is Q and on this Q and on. I never heard of Q and on. It's like, you're giving me Q and on talking points. What do you come on, please?

Men of God, women of God, what's going on? So I became more and more concerned and grieved over that. And then when the election results came in and there was concern that the election was stolen and my concern is not whether or not you believe the election stolen. Maybe you've never looked into it and you have an opinion or no opinion. Maybe you've looked into it in depth and you have an opinion. Either way, my issue is not whether you think the election was stolen or not. That's not the issue. It was that some people's whole world collapsed.

This is it. It's over. Not even the fact that it was allegedly stolen.

I said allegedly cause I don't know for a fact any more than you know for effect. But that was part of it. The other part, the other part, the bigger part was Trump law. It's over Trump law. When you thought he just lost legitimately it was over.

Thinking what is going on? And then as the talk got closer to January 6th and there are Christians, I mean I'm watching this with my own eyes. One guy makes a statement that he believes there's been election integrity and some lawyer gets on. He should be drawn and quartered for saying that's treason for saying that. And I'm saying to Christians, okay, would you just repudiate this? Would you just say we should not use that kind of rhetoric even if it's hyperbole?

It's the New York lawyer the whole bit. People should not use that kind of rhetoric and say that this elected official should be drawn and quartered. I'm getting flood of posts from Christians. That's not severe enough. It needs to be worse.

That's treason. Thinking what? What happened?

How did this happen? And if I dare to dress anything, it's the wounds are too great. Don't talk to us now. Okay. Then after the inaugurate, no, no, don't bring it up anymore.

So it was immediately after. Don't talk to us. It's too soon. Okay.

So I wait. Why are you bringing that up now? Because we never learned our lesson.

Because we never recognized what was happening here. I'll give you an analogy. All right. Let's say I have anger management issues and you come in one day, you're a colleague of mine. Come in one day and I flip, you give me some report. I get really angry. I start pounding the table.

I start screaming and we've got employees in the building, right? And, uh, and, and you say to me, Mike, you got, he's got you issue. You've got issues with anger management. You got to deal with, and I'm pounding the table script.

Oh, I do not have issues with anger management. And I throw the computer off the table and I, and I throw a bottle of water. Don't you dare.

Excuse me that ever again. And then you walk out of the office like, Oh man, I pray for Mike. What in the world is going on?

And then I see it, you know, a few weeks later. Hey man, how's everything going? Good to see you. Yeah.

Things going well. It's like, aren't you going to bring up your wrong behavior the last time? Aren't you going to say, man, I am so sorry for making a fool out of myself and embarrassing you and hurt.

I've gone through the whole office building. I've apologized publicly. I've redoubled my efforts to deal with this. Hey, would you hold me accountable, man? I'm so embarrassed and so sorry I took so long. Yeah, I should've reached out and said, okay, that's what you want to hear.

You don't want to crush me or condemn me, but you want to make sure I've dealt with the root issues that I'm getting help friends. For the most part, we did not. The vast majority of those who prophesied falsely never publicly repented. Some of them went after us, attack those of us who lovingly called for accountability.

Many others got politically obsessed and justify it. Well, who else are I going to vote for? That's not the issue is not who you're voting for. Your votes are important and there's certain candidates. No, I could not vote for and I'd rather sit out an election than vote for them. Period. If I didn't have an alternative, I remember a pastor friend in Louisiana said Christians shouldn't vote. They shouldn't be involved in politics at all.

So we were having a friendly debate about it. He goes, okay, the two candidates for governor, the one guy just got out of jail for corruption charges. The other is there's a former leader in the, in the Ku Klux Klan that's never reputed. They just passed. Who do I vote for? It's like, well, you may have to sit that one out there only at least we have a choice here and there, you know, but, but here's the thing that wasn't the issue. The issue was politics became central. Who's in the white house became central.

And that's how we got politically seduced. Are the stakes high? Yes. Are the stakes high in the midterms? Yes. Are the stakes high getting to 2024?

Yes. But that is ultimately not the big concern. The big concern is the state of the church. The big concern is the church being revived. The big concern is that we encounter the Lord in such ways that we are changed. And as we are changed, we will see the world around us change as we shine like lights, as we get involved, as we are the moral conscience of society and preservative society as salt, as, as we love our neighbors, as we do acts of, of, of goodness and perform acts of compassion, as, as we stand up for what's right, as we get as we get involved in every sphere of society as witnesses and as godly people, America will be impacted. But if we stay politically obsessed, we will never do what we're really called to do and fight with the spiritual weapons we've been given.

Because we're fighting with worldly, earthly, carnal weapons. I hope you're hearing this friends. I say what I say in love, not to condemn, but to help.

We'll be right back and take a few questions and give some brief comments on Christian Nationalism. Stay here. 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 again for joining us. Are you getting my emails? No? Oh, come on. We've been talking about it every day for months and months just to be sure that we can be here to equip you and help you and serve you.

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Sign up for our e-blast and we'll put you on our welcome tour, which I think you will really, really enjoy. Okay, before I answer an interesting question that's been posted on YouTube, I want to read some excerpts from an article I wrote a couple years ago. Beth Moore had posted something on Twitter that got a lot of attention and there was a lot of controversy concerning it when she talked about Trumpism and Christian nationalism. So I immediately wrote an article in response and in the articles, December 2020, I said this, are you a Christian nationalist simply because you love and appreciate America? No. Because people said, what do you mean by Christian nationalist?

Well, trying to define it, trying to clarify. Are you a Christian nationalist simply because you are patriotic and serve in the military? No. Are you a Christian nationalist simply because you believe Trump was better for America than Biden? No. Are you a Christian nationalist simply because you believe there was electoral fraud and are doing your best to fight for a free and fair election? No.

You can genuinely feel that was the case. You care about the integrity of elections. You don't want the fate of our country stolen by certain people in power. It doesn't make you a Christian nationalist. Are you a Christian nationalist simply because you believe that America must protect our religious liberties? No. All right, making ourselves clear so far. Are you a Christian nationalist simply because you believe that God raised up America for special purposes in order to bless and help the world?

No. You can believe that and not be a Christian nationalist, but you are a Christian nationalist if you confuse loyalty to your country with loyalty to the kingdom of God. You are a Christian nationalist if you wrap the gospel in an American flag. You are a Christian nationalist if you merge Christian and American identities. In fact, I came across another definition of Christian nationalism that I found very, very useful. And let me get that here because I did a poll on Twitter. I've talked about this and over two thirds of those responding who are largely Christians, largely conservative, largely Trump voters felt that the term Christian nationalism was negative.

And I agree. And less than 20% found it to be positive. But here's how one Twitter user responded quoting from another article. Christian nationalism can be reasonably understood as a movement that seeks to preserve or promote a Christian national identity.

Let me read that again. Christian nationalism can be reasonably understood as a movement that seeks to preserve or promote a Christian national identity. So what exactly does that mean, a Christian national identity?

That the identity of America is a Christian nation, meaning it should be run by Christians, meaning that Christian values should be the rule of the nation, and that it is our job as Christians to then take over America and impose these values on the nation. And therefore, it's not just voting for a better candidate. Here's a pro-life candidate. Here's a pro-abortion candidate. I prefer the pro-life candidate. Here's a candidate that recognizes Israel, Israel's right to exist.

Here's a candidate that thinks all of Israel's occupied territory right now. I'm going to go with the first candidate. Here's a candidate that is very concerned about caring for the poor and the needy, and another says we need to focus on the wealthiest Americans.

Okay, the first one is going to have my sympathies. That's one thing to prefer one candidate over another. It's another to say, as Christians, we're going to get brother so-and-so elected or brother or sister so-and-so elected, and because they know the Lord and they are now going to take the gospel into DC. Okay, some of that take the gospel preacher, but no, no, no. What they are going to do is they are going to purge out the non-Christians and we're going to get the Christians in so that we can put as re-establish Christian values in America and make that the law of the land.

Well, some of that I agree with. Let's take the gospel everywhere and preach everywhere, yes. Let's take gospel values in our own lives and live them out everywhere, yes. Let's advocate through our democratic system for laws that are in the best interest of humanity, laws that are in the best interest of all Americans, because whoever's leading the country has to be the president, the leader of the whole nation, of Christians, Muslims and Hindus and atheists and Jews, of black and white and red and yellow, of rich and poor, has to be the president, the leader of the whole nation, and then ultimately we're establishing a law. Well, the Bible says this, and because of that America is a Christian nation, that the Bible needs to be imposed on the nation. No, no, that's a theocracy.

That will destroy us and it will bring terrible reproach to the gospel and drive people away from Jesus and end up with a reaction that pushes back so intensely that we end up in much worse shape than we started. That's not what we're advocating. In fact, most of the laws that we're going to advocate for, even though we may recognize biblical foundations, ultimately we're saying that it's based on natural law that we are saying for the whole nation this should be the law. Like, for example, the reason that we have laws against murder is not because the Ten Commandments say don't murder, but because murder is wrong in society.

Why that distinction? Because we are not Israel with a covenant that God made where we're under the Ten Commandments in the same way. Should we esteem and extol and honor the ethics of the Ten Commandments?

Absolutely. It's for the good of the nation. But when you make them law, you can't make them law because the Bible says. Now, in the church we can say we live like this because the Bible says, right? I live like this because the Bible says you raise your kids. We live like this because the Bible says. But in the nation, you can say now the Bible says this, let me explain why this is good for the whole nation. We believe based on the Bible that human beings are living creatures within the womb. It's not just a clump of cells, they're human beings with destiny.

We believe that, right? But now to advocate for it as law through the country, we need to explain why everyone should see this based on science, based on humanity, things like that, and why we should advocate for it. Anyway, I hope this is helpful. If this of interest to you, by all means get the book and get it to your friends.

Get multiple copies. Get copies for your pastors and leaders because they're under pressure and I believe this will really help bring clarity. Alright, one question I'm going to answer.

How's that the last two and a half minutes? On YouTube, are rabbinical Jews saved today? Rabbinical Jews are saved the same way that everyone is saved. Through the blood of Jesus, through recognizing their sin and recognizing that God sent Jesus as the Messiah to die for us. There's no atonement outside of that. If a rabbinical Jew recognizes Jesus Yeshua as Messiah, asks God for forgiveness through the blood of the cross, that rabbinical Jew is saved the same way as a Muslim would be saved or a Hindu or an atheist or anyone else.

Recognizing their sin, turning from false religion, false gods, whatever the case would be, putting their trust in the one true God to save them through the blood of Jesus. Does a rabbinical Jew have another way, maybe another covenant because God made the Sinai covenant with Israel? No, God sent the Messiah because the Sinai covenant had failed. Not because of God's failure, but because of human failure. God sent his son to establish a new and better covenant.

If there was a way that you could if there was a way that Jewish people could be saved without the cross, if there was a way for anyone to be saved without the cross, God would not have sent his son into the world to die on our behalf. Who were the first ones that heard the gospel and that heard it over and over? Jewish people and then religious leaders. So, these are the very ones that are hearing the message and many rejected the message and then taught their children a way of life that may be very devoted, very sincere, but also rejecting the message of the cross. So, God is the judge of every individual. I am not the judge of rabbis that I know, kind of missionaries that I know, some are dear men, some I hold in the highest esteem in the midst of our differences, but I'm not their judge, God is their judge. But, according to everything I understand in scripture, that unless they consciously recognize who Jesus is, confess him as Lord and ask for forgiveness, no, they are not saved any more than anyone else. Some of them are fine people, but they're fine compared to you and me, they're not fine compared to God.

We all fall infinitely short. We all need mercy and there is no mercy and atonement outside of the cross. That's why I've spent so many decades of my life sharing the good news with rabbinical Jews. That's why when I pray for the Jewish people, the main ones I pray for are rabbinical Jews. And again, some of these people have my esteem, I honor them, I respect the way they live. If you can be saved by your own righteousness, they'd be saved, but who can?

So, God's their judge, not me, but salvation comes the same to all people. That's why we preach the good news to all people. All right, friends, we've got a great interview coming your way tomorrow, God willing, with Ron Luce. You don't want to miss it. Another program powered by the Truth Network.