How Much Power Should Christians Have in America?

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So, how much power should Christians have in this society? 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. Thanks very much for joining us. On The Line of Fire broadcast, Michael Brown.

Delighted to be with you today. We're going to talk about something very practical, very important, a natural follow-up to yesterday's broadcast, which stands on its own. I'm not going to get back into the content and interact with it.

It stands on its own. You can listen to it. I've sent the broadcast from yesterday to various folks, colleagues, others that were quoted by Matthew Taylor on the broadcast to say, hey, as promised, here's the broadcast. Listen to it. If you feel you were quoted unfairly or you want to come on the air and talk or talk with Matthew privately, go for it.

So, hopefully there'll be further interaction. But I want to do a follow-up subject, namely, how much power should Christians have in America? What's healthy? What's unhealthy? What's biblical? What goals should we have?

What are extremes you want to avoid in either direction? If you want to weigh in on this or weigh in on yesterday's broadcast, because we're always happy to hear from you, 866-34-TRUTH. 866-348-7884. And if you want to talk about January 6th, we can. I knew just that subject coming up alone is going to be controversial. But you can weigh in on that as well.

866-348-7884. So, if you missed yesterday's broadcast, Matthew Taylor is a research scholar. He specialized in Muslim-Christian relationships and various aspects of Islam and began to study Peter Wagner's new apostolic reformation, the NAR, which is distinct from the NAR of the critics, which does not exist. That is basically a boogeyman putting together all types of charismatic areas, extremes and misunderstandings, rolling it all into one and calling it NAR or NAR.

But there is the real NAR that we've talked about for years, spearheaded by Peter Wagner. And that's what Matthew Taylor was focused on. And as this theology then began to think politically as well in terms of how the church influences the culture or how the church should have a ruling authority in the culture or whatever concepts there were, then he believes that that then led directly to the support for Trump and that led directly to the events of January 6th, even though key leaders were not espousing violence and would not call for a violent overthrow of the government. That, in Matthew Taylor's view, these theological views as they merged with political views now result in something very dangerous and he's concerned about what will happen in 2024. We didn't talk about 2024.

Yesterday we talked about things up to January 6th and some comments that have been made since, but we didn't talk specifically about 2024. In my book, The Political Seduction of the Church, I have a whole chapter, is the church called to take over the world? Is that what God wants us to do? In other words, is that a purpose of the gospel, that through the spread of the gospel and the rise of Christians to ascendancy, that ultimately Christians take over the society? And if we do and follow the principles of Jesus and biblical principles, that will benefit in the well-being and help of everyone. It will be in the best interest of everyone except for the rebels and the God-haters, etc. But should that be our goal? Should we be saying, no, no, our kingdom is not of this world, we're seated in heavenly places in Christ, and our goal is to win the loss, make disciples, help the poor and the needy, and eternally, when the kingdom of God comes, then the Lord will rule and reign on the earth.

Right now he rules and reigns spiritually, he'll reign on the earth at that time. Or is it somewhere in between those views? One, that we don't really interact that much with society and culture aside from we live our lives and we win people to the Lord, and we seek to bring them into right relationship with God so they can have eternal life. The other is saying that our goal is to dominate and take over culture, to Christianize the world, and then to make Christian religion basically the ruling religion in the country. Or is it somewhere in between those extremes? Or does it vary from country to country? For example, one country, you have a king, and the king is Christian, and says our country will be Christian, and another is democratic, and people vote.

How does it work out? What guidelines do we have scripturally? Now, my answer is going to be a very, very simple answer.

A very, very simple answer. But before that, I want you to realize that many of us who would say that there were many Christian roots to America, although it was never a complete, perfect Christian nation, obviously, and to the extent we can return to biblical roots, that the nation turns in that direction, that's positive. That if we could be more God-fearing, and loving our neighbor more, and not committing adultery, and not stealing, and murdering, and following these principles, that to the extent we do that, America would be better. That's my belief, as I wrote in Saving a Sick America, the Bible, not a theocracy, is our answer. So, many of us who hold to those views would be called Christian nationalists by some. And for some, Christian nationalists is a good word, for some it's a bad word, many don't understand it, and it really is a question of who means it in what way. But there is a Christian nationalism that I find very dangerous and destructive. There's a Christian nationalism that wraps the gospel in the American flag. It's a Christian nationalism that conflates the kingdom of God with America. It's a Christian nationalism that thinks that somehow, by taking over politically, that we can then enforce Christianity on the nation.

Those concepts I find very, very dangerous. If you want a specific breakdown as to what I believe about apostolic ministry today, what tenets of NAR I agree with and differ with, I'm talking about the real NAR, not the mythical NAR of the critics. If you want to know where I stand on that and the subject of Christian nationalism, just in a simple, systematic, bulleted place, Dr. Joe Matera and I wrote this together, got some input from others, go to narandchristiannationalism.com. NARandchristiannationalism.com.

You can see what we affirm and don't affirm, what we believe and don't believe. I have colleagues of mine who say, let's wear this concept of being Christian nationalist. Let's wear it.

Let's take it on. That's a good thing. Just like when Hillary Clinton spoke of Trump supporters as being a basket of deplorables, Trump supporters said, that's us. We're the deplorables. So we're getting accused of being these radical Christian nationalists. We just want to see Christian principles in America.

We believe it's best for America. Hey, let's take that on. I've advocated not to take that on because of the destructive concepts with it, because of how many people do own that title that are destructive, many of them racist as well.

So because of that, I would distance myself from it. Matthew Taylor read Political Seduction and said he would see me as a soft Christian nationalist, but based on his definition of Christian nationalist, that would fit many of us. So that didn't faze me knowing the broader definition, but I don't like the word because of various associations, because of various misconceptions, because of those who wear it proudly. Now, maybe the most extreme example of this that I know is Nick Fuentes, and you can call him a white supremacist Christian nationalist.

Obviously Christian doesn't fit with white supremacists, but professing Christian, professing Catholic using the Christ is King mantra. So here is some excerpts from one of his recent broadcasts where he talks about his views, and this is put together by Right Wing Watch. So Right Wing Watch is no friend of mine either. You know, they blasted me for my conservative views and biblical views, et cetera. However, there are things that they report accurately, and these are excerpts. There are excerpts, but the overall message is one that Nick Fuentes holds to.

So put your seatbelts on, and listen to this. There is an occult element at the high levels of society, and specifically among the Jews. So many of the people that are perpetrating the lies and the destruction on the country, they are evildoers. They are people that worship false gods.

They are people that practice magic or rituals or whatever. And more than anything, those people need to be, when we take power, they need to be given the death penalty straight up. And I'm far more concerned about that than I am about even non-white people or mass migration. These people that are communing with demons and engaging in this sort of witchcraft and stuff, and these people that are suppressing the name Christ and suppressing Christianity, they must be absolutely annihilated when we take power. This is God's country. This is Jesus' country. This is not the domain of atheists or devil worshipers or perfidious Jews.

This is Christ's country. Yeah, so that type of demonic rhetoric, that type of destructive rhetoric, that type of misrepresenting biblical values, that must be categorically rejected, denounced on every level. You might say, well, no one believes that. Well, some do.

That's the problem. Look, there's radicalization of various elements of our society, be it white supremacist, be it black supremacist, be it Jew hatred, whatever it is. There are radicalized elements within our society that are undeniable.

And we as followers of Jesus must in every way distance ourselves from that. But just so you know, just so you know, after January 6th, that was all that was needed for the secular media and in particular for those on the left to oppose our views. That was all that was needed to brand us all white supremacist Christian nationalists.

That was all that was needed. The events of that day, whatever is behind them, whatever, all the dynamics of them, whatever all the dynamics were, whoever the players were, I have not studied it in depth. I have not sat and watched hundreds and hundreds of hours of archived films and looked at eyewitness reports. I have not done that, okay?

So you can come in and challenge my views, but I'm not presenting views in detail about it because I have not adequately studied it. But the fact that it happened, the fact that it happened in conjunction with the Trump rally, the fact that it happened in conjunction with hundreds of thousands of Christians gathering together to pray for the overturning of their election results, the fact that many were saying this is the last gasp of hope for our country or the elections are about to be stolen for us, our future is about to be stolen, the fact that this was some of the rhetoric. One of my colleagues got word from a pastor that he knew him from a distance, but as far as he knew, he was a good guy, knew him from a distance. And he gets a note from this guy.

He's got pictures of AK-47. And this pastor tells my colleague, tells my colleague, January 6th, watch, it's all going to come down on January 6th. We're heading to D.C. So my colleague told everyone he knew, don't go, don't go, don't show up that day. So there are these wackos out there. There are these sickos out there. There are these people that are smashing and trashing what the Bible says in the name of Jesus.

Really dangerous stuff. You need to be aware of it. And we need to say categorically that it's not who we are, that it's not what we believe. Those are not our ideals. They are not our goals. It is contrary to the very spirit of the one that we follow. So should we have no power then? Should we not even vogue?

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Triveda.com. Use the code BROWN25. All right, if you want to weigh in on today's subject, if you feel that the goal is to establish biblical law in America, in other words, that we come into political power, and then we establish Sabbaths, whether you believe it's Saturday or Sunday, but we used to have blue laws on Sundays.

Restaurants run open, different stores run open, things like that. We should go back to that or maybe even have it more strict. No work can be done. Or you believe that just like we have the death penalty for murder, we should have the death penalty for adultery or other things where there's a death penalty in the Old Testament, that's your view. Call in and we'll have a healthy discussion about it.

866-342. It's not my view, but feel free to call in and share your own. All right, so I'm going to give you my simple answer to the question, how much power should Christians have in society? Be it in the courts, be it in the White House and the Congress, be it in the school system, be it in the media, be it in other aspects of society, the business world, how much power should Christians have in America? My answer is very simple. As much power as we can through the democratic process and the influence of the Gospel. That's my simple answer. How much power should Christians have in America? As much power as they can through the democratic process and through the influence of the Gospel.

What do I mean by that? Well, we're like everyone else, we're individuals, we're voting blocks, we have ideals, we have values, your atheist neighbor may have certain values, your Buddhist friend may have certain values, your atheist friend may have certain values, your Muslim colleague may have certain values, your liberal daughter-in-law may have certain values, we're Americans, we get to vote. You have candidates you prefer. Let's say, for example, that you were to the fairly radical left.

Let's say that you were staunch supporter of Bernie Sanders. You really liked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This would be the more left-wing members of Congress, the Senate and the House. You really liked their ideas, you really liked their values, you'd like to see more and more of them elected. If you ended up where you had a majority, let's say you had 70 members of the Senate that were either all left or radically left, and you had 280 members of the House that were all left or radically left, you'd be pleased with that because you think that's a good agenda.

Agenda for the environment and for the economy and etc. Right? So, whoever we are, if our group, if we feel conservative values are much better for the country, much better for the protection of life, much better for family, for well-being, for national security, etc., and you can have more people in, you'd be pleased with that if the numbers were reversed.

Now, here's the other thing. If, let's say, 10 straight years, 10 straight elections, Americans put liberals in the White House and Congress. So, Democrats controlled both houses, Democrats were in the White House.

Right? Or, conversely, Republicans for 10 straight elections. All during this time, they're going to be court appointees. It's going to be logical that if it's Democrats in, the courts are going to shift further to the left, and if there are Republicans in, the courts are going to shift further to the right, and neither group is going to say, well, let's balance it out.

Let's make sure we elect someone totally contrary to our values. No, because the American people would be voting in this direction. Therefore, the elected officials would be carrying out the will of the people, and the courts would shift accordingly. What normally happens is it goes back and forth, so the courts are more balanced out.

Right? But, we're just using the democratic process. Should Christians not do that? Should Christians not vote?

Should Christians not advocate for their values? Now, if we substitute our faith in Jesus for our faith in a candidate, we're deceived. If we put our trust in a political party rather than God, we're deceived. If we put our greatest emphasis on voting and not on prayer and discipleship and winning the lost and serving the society, then we make a mistake.

But, it's both and. So, we vote. We advocate. Whatever happens through the democratic process that's fair and good, wonderful.

Good. May the best ideology win. May that which is best for America prevail. And, we each have our views. We each think our views are best for America. We get to vote.

It's a democratic republic. So, we should have as much power as we can in that regard and through the influence of the gospel. By which I mean, through evangelism, through discipleship, through living out our values, through serving the poor and the needy, and then through the gospel, living out our values in the school system, living out our values in the universities, living out our values in the business world, living out our values wherever we are in social media, etc., that we now seek to have influence through that. Just like some TikTok influencer encouraging kids to transition and say, hey, if you're really trapped in the wrong body, I can help you.

I went through the same thing. They have their values. Someone's saying that what Hamas did is justify. And, they're influencing young people on TikTok. They have their values. We have ours. And, we advocate for those values. We seek to live them out. And then, we pray for God to work at hearts and change lives. We pray for the mercy of God to be poured out on a sinning nation. And, we seek to champion our values and show the sanctity of life within the womb or the beauty of marriage as God intended it. And, that's what we do. That's how we bring about change through the gospel. And, that's how we bring about change through the other societal means. So, if there's anything nefarious about that, then I'd say it applies to every group the same way.

Right? If you're, you know, someone that Rush Limbaugh used to ridicule as an environmentalist wacko, but you're convinced that that's the only way to save the planet and that we're going to have a cataclysmic event unless we do some radical things to stop man-made global warming. That's your viewpoint. Where are you going to advocate for that?

If you're in the school system, you're going to say, hey, we need to have this taught. If you're a political leader, you're going to vote accordingly. You're going to campaign on that platform.

Right? Those are your values. Yeah, and you have every right to do that.

You have every right to do that. And, if you're a Buddhist, you understand that we don't have a state-imposed religion. But, if you think the values of Buddhism are best for America and you share that on social media or you're a teacher and you share those values with your colleagues, you have every right to do that. And, if there was a candidate that really espoused to some type of Zen philosophy that you liked and you vote for that candidate, you have every right to do that.

That's how things work in America. So, how much power should we have as much as we could rightfully gain through the fair democratic process and through the influence of the gospel? Remembering, though, remembering that the call of the gospel is not to dominate and forcibly change people from the top down.

The role of the gospel is to serve and change hearts and minds and lives while at the same time advocating for righteous laws and for good laws and for justice and things like that. So, we can never get intoxicated by power. We can never think that we can Christianize America from the top down. No, that is contrary to the gospel on every level and utterly destructive. But there's no reason why we can't have massive influence through the gospel, through living out our lives, and through involvement in every sphere of society. Why not? That's what everyone else tries to do.

Why is it okay for everybody else except followers of Jesus? I said my answer is going to be pretty simple. There it is.

866-342. I'll take some calls on the other side of the break and a little clip I want to play for you as well. Michael Brown here, friends, with a very, very sober announcement. We're living in different days. We're living in different times. The battle has come to us and like it or not, every single one of us, we are in the line of fire today. And friends, there is an all-out war today against the Jewish people.

There is an all-out war like there was before the Holocaust to annihilate and destroy Jewish people. And God has positioned us with the line of fire on the front lines to do two things that are very, very critical. One, to speak the truth about Israel, to speak the truth about anti-Semitism, to push back against the destructive lies, to push back against false theologies, to stand strong and tall and say this is what the Word says and this is what reality is. And then with that, friends, we also reach out to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

It is a key role that we play. We are equipping Jewish evangelists around the world. We are equipping the church to share the good news.

We are directly involved in winning Jewish people to Jesus, Yeshua. So we are fighting on these two critically important fronts in unique ways and I want to call on each of you to stand with me. Stand with our support team. Become a torchbearer today. These are urgent days and you can make a difference.

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You get access to many free online classes, exclusive video content, all other benefits. Read about it at askdrbrown.org. Join our support team today. 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.

We are going to go to the phones momentarily, 866-34-34, well shortly, momentarily, slightly misleading, but very shortly, 866-348-7884. You get to weigh in what I have to say. Some of you are listening. You feel very threatened by Christians. You think that there is this white supremacist Christian movement that wants to suppress all of us who do not fit that narrow mold and you're terrified by what I'm saying. Well, let me know why because what I'm saying is just part of being an American, part of living out your values in America, whatever your values may be.

This is what we get to do. And look, there are laws passed. For example, do you have an opinion on whether pot should be legal, marijuana should be legal? Do you have an opinion on that one way or the other? Maybe you do strongly.

Strongly yes, strongly no. Okay, well that influences other people, right? We have speed limits. I don't like speed limits. Okay, those can be changed.

Those can be kept. There are all kinds of other laws that are on the books. What if you don't think drinking should be legal? We had prohibition for a while. But the point is, there are laws. And those laws affect other people. And we get to vote for candidates and candidates appoint judges and different things like that. We get to vote for judges in some cases. And they make decisions. Those decisions affect other Americans. So that's the reality.

That's the world we live in. What I'm saying is, as followers of Jesus, yes, by all means, get involved. I think the presence of God-fearing people in our universities would be a great help. I think the presence of people who had biblical values and were morally based in business would be a great help.

I'd go down the list. We are called to be the salt and we are called to be the life. Absolutely. So let's do that. Let's live that out together in Jesus' name, in every sphere. Do I believe that we must conquer the mountains of education and conquer the mountains of media and conquer the mountains of entertainment industry? And that's how we influence the nation. No, I don't believe that at all.

Not for a second. What I do believe is that we have to influence. We have to infiltrate in a godly and good and holy and positive way so that we can be salt and we can be light. This world's always going to be a fallen world. There's always going to be conflict.

There's always going to be good and bad. I'm personally not post-millennial. I appreciate the optimism of post-millennialism, but I don't believe that the whole world will be Christianized before Jesus returns. That's not my understanding of scripture.

In fact, I see scripture strongly against that, although fine theologians of history have held to it and fine brothers hold to it today. It's not my view. There's going to be conflict right till the end. On the other hand, I don't have the view that some do, that it's only getting worse. And from here until the end, however far that is, a day, a month, six months, ten years, a hundred years, that it's only getting worse. So why bother?

I don't hold to that view at all. So there's always going to be conflict. There's always going to be light and darkness. There was going to be people doing things that we differ with. There was going to be people breaking good laws.

That's going to happen. We do our best to advocate for what's good and best for all. So not just our particular religious beliefs, but we really think, hey, this is in the best interest of all. We really believe that a ban on abortion is in the best interest of all, and ultimately it will produce a more healthy culture. We believe that. And we believe in care for the baby in the womb and care for the child outside the womb. What can we do to help with education in the inner cities? What could we do to help set things right where there's so many children born into families out of wedlock?

And how can we help in constructive ways rather than just sit back and point a finger? These are things that are important. We don't believe, when you say we, people like me, that marriage is the union of just two people, or three, or one, marrying themselves, it's a log of me. Rather, marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and for many reasons we hold to that. We believe that's in the best interest of society.

Others differ, and that's what we work out through our democratic process. All right, to the phones, 866-34-TRUTH. Let's start with Jonathan in Jackson, Missouri.

Welcome to the line of fire. Hey Dr. Brown, it's Jackson, Mississippi, though. Ah, yeah, yeah, okay. Got it, yes sir. That's all right.

Of course, of course. The abbreviations for the different states that start with an M, you can get them confused. Yeah, yeah, that's my bad, though.

MI is Michigan, M is Missouri, MS is Mississippi. I agree with you, the term Christian nationalist, it sounds like some extreme right-wing hate group to me, you know, but as far as some of the principles, like you're talking about, our country was founded, you know, I mean, it's a historical fact that it was founded on Judeo-Christian values, and I think everybody should, like, read things like the Federalist Papers and the writings of our founding fathers, because there's so much wisdom that they had, but I don't think we should be trying to rule from top down, but from bottom up, like you've been saying, by getting people born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit and changed for God, and then people won't be committing crimes and doing terrible things, and then they'll vote for righteous legislation, because you can't legislate morality, as they say, you know? Yeah, I mean, you can pass good laws, but you can't force people to be moral. Right, that's my point, yeah.

Exactly. Yeah, so look, we know that the founding fathers presumed that Christianity would be the primary religion in the country, but wanted to make sure that there was no state church like there was in England, so that Congress could not impose religion, and the whole idea of separation of church and state, that got really changed a lot in the last, what, 60, 70 years or so, and initially the greatest goal was to keep the state out of the church, but for sure, the founders did not want there to be a mandatory state religion or a religious test where you had to be Protestant versus Catholic or something or Reformed or Baptist in order to serve, but it was presupposed that the nation would be primarily Christian. I mean, that was the reality, and what's clear is the the founding fathers in their documents quoted the Bible more than any other book. That's been documented, and other law books, they quote, were also very much influenced by the Bible, and then just the Declaration of Independence, which I talked about when I gave a talk in India impromptu over at a university there last week, is that, where's it start? We hold these truths as self-evident that all men are created equal, so create it, and then explicitly says that they're endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, so these are considered to be foundational principles, so where do we get that from?

There is a God consciousness, whether it's a specific God of the New Testament, God of the Old Testament, God of providence, is clearly a God who creates, and who creates with certain standards, and who creates with certain gifts to humanity that must be prized. That is at the foundation of our thinking, and of course we've often quoted John Adams that the Constitution was only set up for religious and moral people, right? It's just like you don't let a three-year-old drive a car because you have to have a certain maturity, so the nation would have to have a certain maturity to function with a Constitution like this, otherwise we wouldn't survive. Yeah, so that's all we're saying, that we believe these values are good and right, and you know, I don't know anyone, the leaders that were quoted by Matthew yesterday, and he's a careful scholar and giving verbatim quotes in many cases or paraphrases, I don't know any of them that believe in a top-down takeover, but when we talk about getting involved politically, that's what many people hear and misunderstand. Some do believe that we are supposed to ultimately dominate, that's the democratic process though, and then others believe that ultimately we're supposed to dominate and destroy or drive out or eliminate those who are not Christian, which is, I mean, that's the horrific rhetoric we heard earlier.

So what we have to do is what you're saying, Jonathan, let's not be reactionary, let's not care too much about what someone means by a term and let's say, okay, this is what we believe, this is who we are, and if being a Christian nationalist means I love Jesus and I love my country, wonderful, but for most it doesn't mean that, for most it means much more and often in dangerous ways. Hey, thank you for weighing in, I appreciate it. Thank you, Dr. Brown.

You are very welcome. 866-34-TRUTH. Let me play a clip for you from a concerned woman, concerned mother, speaking at a school board. This is not from the last few days, it's a bit older, but she speaks for many, many other mothers, parents, grandparents, educators in America, and I'll tie this back in with our discussion today.

Let's listen to what she had to say. I'm very concerned about the time being spent on LGBTQ plus issues and resolutions instead of that time being spent on reading, writing, and arithmetic for so many reasons, but because I believe that you've already received so many emails listing the pros and cons, I'm going to simply pick one reason why this time, this time is not well spent. I would love and so appreciate that Rochester school system to remain within the core competency of safely educating our children well. I don't believe we're currently doing that and need to refocus. Can we stick to reading, writing, arithmetic, science, history, gym, music, and art, just to name a few classes, without getting into all of the grand political issues of the day?

This Rochester school board entertains every single political issue before it assures that our students are well educated and safe. I'm sure that you're all thinking that we do that every day, that we can walk and chew gum, that it won't take much to write, edit, and approve the LGBTQ plus resolution, that this is not political, and that we must do this so the kids can learn all the lies you tell yourself to justify addressing a politically charged LGBTQ resolution. The truth is, it's not your business. It's not your core competency.

You can't be everything to everybody. What about a resolution to baptize all the children that are not baptized? It's the parent's job to address LGBTQ plus discussions with their child, just as it is to baptize their child.

So with all due respect, I think you really need to butt out and stay in your lane. If you think Rochester schools is doing such a great job safely educating our children, then consider what the parents, students, and teachers are talking about. Rochester community schools are slipping in reading and math proficiency. Rochester schools isn't doing well as they could be to prepare children for college. Little Sarah isn't learning how to read, write, and do arithmetic. The assignments have more to do with her feelings.

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Call 1-800-771-5584, 1-800-771-5584, or online at trivita.com. 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. Sorry I had to cut off that testimony before a school board. You got the impression, and these things have been going on endlessly now, school board after school board after school board.

Excuse me, that's almost a rare first, a sneeze. What? And it happened.

It was a punctuation, exclamation point, something. In any case, you've heard similar testimonies like that before school boards as parents are upset about indoctrination of their kids, and we feel we should push back. We don't like that. You don't send your kid to school to learn that you could be trapped in the wrong body, or maybe you're genderqueer and non-binary, you don't fit in either the male or female category. You don't send your kid to school for that. You send your kid to school for other reasons, right? So they're going to learn socialization skills, hanging out with others, and they may be taught, you know, bullying is bad. But bullying is bad is a far cry from celebrating gay or celebrating queer or talking to kindergartners about concepts they can't possibly understand or grasp. You don't send your kids to school for that. So when we say, well, there are culture wars, and people are after our kids, and we say enough is enough, why is that wrong? Why are we not allowed to do that?

Why is one part of society able to infiltrate schools with a radical curriculum? And we say, no, we don't like that. No, we're not saying everyone has to read the Bible.

That's not the counter argument. Some may want to introduce the Bible as literature in school. Wonderful. Great. That makes sense by all means. And you may even want to have for those that want religious studies.

Okay, great, fine. But that's not what the school is required to do or part of the role of the secular school. If the country was overwhelmingly Christian, just like in a country that's overwhelmingly Muslim, we're going to be reading from the Quran and the one and the Bible from the other. It's common sense, right? Even in a public school, that's what happened in much of American history up through the 1800s.

The Bible is widely used as a textbook or read from or quoted from where the readers used it or used Christian theology with more pluralism. That shifts. Understand that. So you have specialized Christian schools and Jewish schools and Muslim schools where you get your religious training.

Fine. But if people are going to introduce their agenda in the schools, why can't we push back? We're not saying that everyone has to pray a prayer to the Father in the name of Jesus. Even those that advocated for prayer in schools, everyone knew you could opt out. Well, people pray, you don't have to pray.

That was the rule even with the 22-word generic prayer that was prayed for years. You can opt out, right? But even putting that aside, that's not the big issue here. The big issue is there are radical things being taught to kids. There are middle schoolers that are, if you get little ones around, I'll try to say this in different ways, but I remember a sex ed class in New York City that was introduced 10 years ago maybe?

It's been there for a while. And they were going to teach middle schoolers how to buy certain products. Here's your little lesson.

You're going to go to a store to find out how to buy certain things to prevent pregnancy or little demonstrations in class, how these things are used. Middle school? That's not the rule of the school. So when parents say we're outraged over this, it's not that they're trying to force everyone to be Christian or Muslim or Jewish, whatever the case would be. They're saying, number one, don't indoctrinate our kids with your radical ideologies that we differ with.

That's number one. And number two, at the very least, like in Montgomery County, Muslims and Christians together said at the very least, let us opt out. The school board said no.

No? You're going to require my kid to be there? That's when you just pull everybody out of the school system and let the school system collapse under its own weight, a folly.

And that's the right thing to do. No one has the right to force your child to sit in on certain of these things. It's one thing if you said, well, I believe that math plays a role in the raising up of the Antichrist, and therefore I'm going to withhold my child from math classes because I don't want them influenced by the Antichrist. Okay, you're going to have people with crazy ideas. I've never heard that in my life, by the way. I just made that up. Something stupid. Crazy. You're going to have people with crazy ideas.

I get that. But it is the role of the school to teach math. It is the role of the school to teach history. It is the role of the school to teach English and grammar and reading and composition and things like that.

And to teach them certain thinking skills. It's not the role of the school to teach some type of intersectionality or to isolate one group as the oppressors and the other as the oppressors. It's not the role of the school to do that. It's not the role of the school to indoctrinate kids ideologically in these ways.

So when parents push back, when we push back to the university, I'd be very pleased to see a racist, if there was a racist president of a school, of a university, someone who was an outright white supremacist. That person has no business being there. They should be out instantly.

Instantly. Period. End of subject. And if courses like that were taught by professors, those professors should be out. Period. We don't accept that. Or if you had professors who said the slave trade was beautiful and wonderful and we need to bring it back, or the Holocaust was not enough, those people should be out. There are lines that you can't cross, even with academic freedom.

Things like that. So I would love to see those with a radical, destructive leftist ideology who are ruling our schools. I'd love to see them replaced, be it administrators or librarians, be it teachers or principals, be it presidents or provosts or chancellors. I'd love to see them replaced with God-fearing people.

I'd love to see that. I believe it would be better for everybody. And if they had true Christian values and they were the president of a secular university, then they would introduce values of civility and tolerance and fairness and justice. They would introduce those. I mean, tolerance in a healthy way.

Not anything goes. The more perverse, the better. The more radical, the better.

No. But you would instill principles of respect for one another, of loving your neighbor, of love for study and love for learning. Those would be instilled in the university.

They would be enhanced by it. That is not, we're going to take over a secular university. We're going to take over MIT and force everyone to wear a cross and read a verse from the New Testament.

And those that will not, will be kicked out of school and those that defy will have their tongues taken up. No one's, the only people talking like that are fanatics. I don't know anyone saying any of that, but it's fanatics.

It's crazies. So by doing the right thing, by doing the good thing, by espousing something righteous and a value to all that would only enhance the atmosphere of the university, we're going to do that. I don't care what the crazies say on the left or the right in terms of how that's going to influence me. I want to stay with what I believe is right in God's sight, whether I get called the fanatic or whatever, a homophobe or a transphobe or whatever I'm called, a hater.

Call me what you want. I believe these things are right. So I'm not going to be influenced by extremism on either side except to say that I disagree with it and I want to work against it. So we need to do what's right and what's good and pursue that, friends, and do it to honor the Lord and for the good of our country through the democratic process and through the spiritual means that we have. Yes, spiritual weapons like prayer and shining our life and doing good and preaching the good news of Jesus and modeling godly lives.

Those are the weapons with which we fight. All right, complete shift in topics, but please give me your best year for the next couple of minutes. I was on a broadcast with a Christian brother, interacted with him a good number of hours in the last year or two. Not sure if it goes back two years, but interacted a lot privately and then some broadcast, interacted with him again last night talking about Israel's war with Hamas, a Christian brother, a devoted Christian man, and I told him flat out I was scared by some of his positions, scared. You know, wanting to give a context to what Hamas did. He calls it damnable, but wanting to give a context to it. I said there is no context to it anymore. There's a context to what Hitler did to Jews in Europe or what slave traders did to slaves. There's no context.

I don't care what the background is. No one does those things. There's no justification of any kind ever for those kind of acts. And then he wasn't really sure that the rapes happened or were babies or children really beheaded. It's like how?

Forensic evidence, eyewitness testimony, the video of it. It's overwhelming. And he said he wasn't sure about that. And then our theology is radically different.

He doesn't believe that Israel today is connected to biblical prophecy at all. And on and on. And I'm sure he was, well, I mean, we know our views, but I didn't know all his views. I was. I was no hyperbole. I was shocked. I was concerned.

I guess that's how he felt about my views. But all this to say, friends, we've got to amplify this message now. America must hear it. We've got to push back.

I'm not calling this gentleman an anti-Semite transition now. We've got to push back against the rising tide of anti-Semitism. We've got to. We've got to push back against wrong theologies.

And yes, I believe he holds to wrong theology. We've got to push back against the misinformation. God's called me to be on the front lines and do this and to help equip you to stand. But I can only do it with your help.

One of my colleagues said he knows no ministry in the world that he's ever dealt with in over 50 years that has the reach and impact we have with the small amount of funding that we have. So I'm inviting you to join me on the front lines. Become a monthly supporter.

Become a torchbearer. It's an urgent hour, and we need to be on the hour. And we need to spread this message. Go to AskDrBrown.org. A-S-K-D-R-Brown.org. Click on donate monthly support. Donate monthly support. Join us today. Another program powered by the Truth Network.