A Review of David Platt's Before You Vote

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We're gonna do a quick overview and response to David Platt's book,

00:08

Before You Vote. It's popular, he's a popular author, wrote Radical many years ago, which was kind of a pre -social justice movement book.

00:16

Kind of felt guilty for the American dream afterward, but wasn't full on, you know, full on socialism or anything like that.

00:24

But he did write that book. He was president of the IMB, International Mission Board for the Southern Baptist Convention. He pastors

00:29

McLean Bible Church now in Northern Virginia. And influential church, highly rated book, popular book, and the logic used in this book is employed now everywhere.

00:39

I just see it all over the place from more progressively minded evangelicals especially. And so I wanna address it.

00:45

I wanna go over it, address it. I think the main Achilles heel, the main issue is

00:50

God's law seems to be almost left out of the equation in this, in my opinion. God's law, this isn't a pastor giving good clear instructions from the

00:58

Bible about how a Christian should steward their boat based on the moral law of God, which has been laid down. It is more a book on how can we have some kind of unity amid the political strife?

01:10

And we can all, you know, make sure that we don't fight because we're justifying our votes in various ways.

01:15

You can vote for Biden and do it for a poverty alleviation, let's say, and that's fine. And you vote for Trump because you're pro -life, and that's fine.

01:22

I would say the logic he's employing though is a switch. The religious right has, you know, that kind of organization has characterized the

01:31

Christian vote, that they're gonna vote more conservative Republican. That's changing, and I think the elites in these denominations want to change that.

01:38

This is a book I think that will be looked at in years in the future as one of the books that was attempting to do that.

01:45

And so it's important that we talk about it. It's a historical moment, if anything else, trying to peel Christians away from voting for Trump.

01:52

Now, David Platt doesn't say he's doing it. Maybe he doesn't even think he's trying to do that. I'm saying that's the effect something like this will have.

01:59

So let's, oh, let me say one thing before we get into it. One thing I was rejoicing at that David Platt said, this is, hey, some people think

02:05

I'm always negative about, you know, these social justice teachers, et cetera. Look, David Platt said we shouldn't be using the word gospel issue about things that aren't the gospel in this book.

02:14

Amen. Let's stop that. Let's stop accusing people of not being fully gospel

02:20

Christians or not understanding the gospel, et cetera, if they don't line up with you politically because they don't believe that socialism is part of the gospel, right?

02:32

That kind of thing. So amen to that. All right, let's go over this, though, and talk about the logic employed.

02:38

So the problem is that politics is causing disunity. That's the problem in the book. He kind of opens with that and he kind of closes with that.

02:44

And here's some quotes. He says, there was turmoil among the people and it broke my heart. As a pastor who cares for every member of our church,

02:50

I knew I needed to communicate what had happened when I chose to invite President Trump to the stage for public prayer. And this is an incident that happened,

02:56

I think, a year ago. Donald Trump came to David Platt's church to receive a prayer. This was not something that David Platt had planned.

03:04

It happened, kind of foisted on him, which I feel almost sorry for, and that's kind of a hard position to be in. And I thought David Platt did a pretty good job, prayed for the president, prayed for just,

03:14

I think, the salvation of his family, but also just that the Lord would protect and give him wisdom. Great prayer.

03:19

Well, it created a firestorm, and in his church, he's saying, hey, there was turmoil among the people there. Now, that shows you,

03:25

I think, where his church is at in some ways. I mean, if Obama came on the stage at the churches

03:31

I've been a part of and the pastor prayed over him, I don't think there'd be a concern, or, I mean, I think that we think this is great, that we have an opportunity to pray over a leader, even one we disagree with.

03:40

Not the case in Platt's church. This was controversial because people thought he was endorsing Trump by praying over him, having him on stage.

03:48

As I watched everything unfold, he says, I couldn't help but draw one conclusion about the church amidst the political climate in our country, we are sick.

03:56

He's saying the church is sick. So he wants to address that. The church is sick because they're divided politically.

04:02

That's a sickness, and the way in which they're divided, the emotions. So what's the solution?

04:07

Well, he says, if we are only attracting people from one political party or perspective to our church, then we are likely overemphasizing our convictions and, by default, underemphasizing that which is clear in God's word for every

04:18

Christian. So what he's saying is that if you've got a church and they're mostly right -wingers and mostly left -wingers, hey, that's a problem.

04:24

Basically, the church should be above politics. It should be, it's in another sphere, dimension.

04:31

This is what Tim Keller has been saying recently on his Twitter. He's saying, hey, this transcends politics, the church.

04:37

So, I mean, this is a great thing for the guys who wanna grow their church. Hey, I can get people from both political ends and they can both be giving to the church and be part of the church.

04:45

And, well, once you have a church like that, then you're gonna have arguments and you're gonna have problems because you have people that they're not just politically divided over what the capital gains tax should be.

04:57

They're divided over really fundamental things. But parties are so far apart at this point, the Democrats keep going way far left, that,

05:04

I mean, you got communists, I'm just gonna say it, you got socialist communists, and then you got people that are, you get the rest of America in this one kind of group that ranges from libertarian more to traditional conservative, constitutional conservative, to neo -conservative, and they're all kind of in this other group.

05:23

And so, yeah, you're gonna have problems if you have those people in a room because these are fundamental philosophical and ethical divisions that they have between themselves.

05:33

In fact, I would argue that the Democratic Party is adopting a civil religion at this point, and not the kind that Republicans are accused of, where, oh, you just love

05:41

America so much. No, the kind that actually has their own priests, their own holy books, their own understanding of what it means to be born again, get woke, their own,

05:51

I mean, it's a different understanding of reality. It's two different worlds.

05:57

So to trivialize that is dangerous, I think. These are really, really, these are earth -shattering divisions.

06:06

And the scripture should have something to say about that. We have 66 books. We have ethical instruction in this book.

06:13

You would think that as Christians, we'd be able to adjudicate these differences. David Platt tries his best, but he kind of sidesteps it because at the end, his conclusion is that, hey, we need to be attracting people from all political perspectives because the gospel's for everyone, and this transcends politics.

06:31

So let's get into it. Let's see if that's true, if this fleshes out, if his arguments work.

06:38

And this is the problem he sees in America. So my first kind of my response to him is,

06:44

I think he's guilty of some category mixing when he does, when he tries to make his arguments work.

06:49

Here's a quote from him. He says, having Jesus as our king also means that our ultimate allegiance belongs to him and his kingdom.

06:56

Well, no one disagrees with that as a Christian, right? While we may vote or even advocate for a political party or a candidate of party, particularly during an election season in our nation, we steward our voice and spend our lives proclaiming the gospel of Jesus' kingdom among all the nations.

07:10

Okay, those two things aren't at odds with each other. They shouldn't be, at least. I mean, every Christian should believe that Jesus is king, and that shouldn't interfere with the mission of the church, to go into all the world, preach the gospel to all the nations, right?

07:24

So, I mean, this is, I often hear the language in more progressive circles that, especially conservatives in the church, they're mixing politics with religion, and they have idolatry of state and these kinds of things.

07:36

But I don't really know of anyone who's a Christian, who's conservative, who mixes those things.

07:41

They don't think that when they're voting, this is something that is propagating the gospel anywhere, or this isn't part of the missions of the church.

07:49

They may think that there's ethical considerations here that will make sharing the gospel possible.

07:55

The Democrats don't want Christians to share about certain sins. That's their hate crimes legislation. So, I mean, there's overlap here.

08:03

Of course, churches meeting is a big issue right now. Can churches even meet? Or does the state have the authority to just shut down churches arbitrarily?

08:12

So, of course, there are issues here, the ethical considerations, but I don't think there's any Christian who thinks that's the same as spreading the gospel in the nations.

08:21

Now, I shouldn't say any, but most Christians, that's not what they're thinking. He says this, but consider the rights we claim, or even demand as Americans.

08:29

We claim the right to do what we wanna do, go where we wanna go, live how we wanna live, and achieve what we want to achieve.

08:34

We claim the right to love who we wanna love and marry whom we wanna marry. We claim the right to eat, drink, watch, wear, study, listen, or to say whatever we want, so free speech.

08:43

We claim the right to organize our schedule, use our time, choose our career, make our money, spend our money, take our vacation, plan our retirement.

08:50

We claim rights of safety, security, health, happiness. In a country saturated by claims to rights, Christianity is a completely counter -cultural way of life.

08:59

Just listen to Jesus' invitation. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, follow me.

09:05

In the world of full of rights, Jesus says, if you're going to follow me, you must die every single day to the rights you claim in order to do anything and everything

09:12

I call you to do. This is a category confusion, I think, because what's

09:19

Jesus talking about? Is he talking about the kinds of rights that Americans would claim are inalienable?

09:25

In fact, those are tethered to responsibilities. There's a whole episode I did on the founding fathers' rights and responsibilities.

09:30

Go look it up and watch it or listen to it. The rights that we have as Americans, the inalienable rights, right, are rights that are exercised in connection to their responsibilities that God has given to us and to civil institutions.

09:46

The government, let's say, has a right to punish crime. That is part of the responsibility of government. Individuals have rights as well, and they have the rights to practice the commands that God has given them, whether they're a parent or a child or in a relationship, a labor relationship of some kind or a wife or a husband or a church and the leaders and the hierarchy within a church.

10:09

There are different stations that people have in life and we have the rights to fulfill the stations and the responsibilities attached to those

10:16

God has given us. And so to infringe on those rights would be wrong because God has granted those rights.

10:23

And in voting, we are actually defending the rights of not just ourselves, but our neighbors and our children to practice and obey the responsibilities

10:31

God has given them. Let me give you a quick example of that to flesh that out a little bit. Is it the right of a parent to care for their child?

10:40

Very basic thing, right? Yes, that is the right of a parent. It's the responsibility of a parent too to care for their child, to teach them.

10:49

Yes, that's something that's commanded. Children are to obey their parents, to receive the instructions of their fathers and mothers.

10:56

Now, if the government came in and said, no, it's up to us now, you don't get to school your child. So homeschooling, we'll take that example.

11:02

As in Germany, you have to send your kids to school. Is that an infringement on the rights of parents? It is an infringement and does it have a detrimental effect?

11:09

It does on the children, yes. They're taught into a Darwinian civil religion that is humanist and they are taught things that are antithetical to Christianity often.

11:20

And so this is something that is very detrimental to them in the minds of the parents who are responsible for their education and raising them and providing for them.

11:29

And so in that sense, the government doesn't have that right. Parents have that right.

11:34

Now, I understand we're not getting into all this today. What if there's negligence or there's some kind of abuse and what do we do in those situations?

11:41

I'm saying the rule, not the specific breaking of the law or breaking of that rule in some area, but I'm saying the rule itself, not the exception, is that parents have the responsibility to raise their children, to educate their children, those kinds of things.

11:58

And we understand this as Christians. We understand that as believers because we understand the commands of God. We understand the command of God towards husbands and wives, right?

12:05

Towards labor relationships, towards the church. And the government doesn't have the rights to interfere with those things.

12:13

Anyway, all that to say inalienable rights, pursuing life liberty, pursuit of happiness, which means, it didn't mean happiness in a superficial sense like we mean today, but happiness in the sense of being able to, with what you've been given in education, in finances, material blessings, et cetera, you're able to invest those things to the best of your ability to promote the best kind of profit from those things.

12:42

So you're able to expand and build upon what you've been given. That's the pursuit of happiness.

12:47

Well, those kinds of things are things that God, those are blessings from God. Government should not be interfering with those things.

12:54

We are called to work. Those who shall not work shall not eat. We are called to provide for ourselves.

13:03

And so life liberty, pursuit of happiness, there was an understanding kind of birth from a Christian understanding that governments were instituted to protect rights.

13:13

So if someone steals from you, the government is the one that's going to punish and be the avenger in that sense, because you have a right to your stuff.

13:22

You shouldn't have it stolen, right? All right, I've waxed long on that. The reason I waxed long on that though is this.

13:28

When David Platt is talking about this, and then he gets to Luke 9, 23, talking about rights, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, is

13:37

Jesus saying that you gotta give up your right to let's say free speech? Is that what he's saying?

13:43

Or is he saying something else? Is he saying that you need to be willing to sacrifice for me?

13:51

And that means dying to your own selfish motives and desires.

13:58

Is the right to free speech a selfish motive or desire? Or should that be a general rule in society defended with a vote for those who don't have it?

14:09

We're dangerously close to losing some of our civil liberties right now, I believe. Even if you don't want to exercise your right to free speech you should still vote so that people are able to exercise their right to free speech, defend their rights, defend their

14:25

God -given rights. It's not a selfish thing. In Luke 9, 23, I think we're talking more about selfishness.

14:31

Talking more about, we're not talking about someone laying down their inalienable rights. Now look, you may lay down things that belong to you.

14:38

You may sacrifice materially for the gospel, but that's not what's at issue when you go and vote. When you go and vote, what you are doing in regards to rights, you are ensuring that you live in a society that values those rights for all, not just you.

14:56

And so it's actually a just and right thing to do, to go and vote to make sure that those civil liberties remain intact so that people can fulfill their responsibilities to God.

15:06

He summarizes, Jesus says, hey, if you're going to follow me, you must die every single day to the rights you claim in order to do everything, anything and everything

15:12

I call you to do. Well, this doesn't mean we chuck away our civil liberties. That's not what that means. Far from it.

15:18

In fact, in order to follow Jesus, it would be helpful to have some civil liberties.

15:23

Would it not? In order to exercise this command, it'd be helpful to have free speech and freedom of assembly and freedom to worship and of religion.

15:34

So this is kind of backwards right here. And I think it's category mixing. I think he's just, he's conflating something here.

15:41

He's conflating the sacrifice we should make in following Jesus with the defense of rights, rights as Americans.

15:52

And so it's not at odds to vote and to be politically involved and to also have

15:58

Jesus as king and to believe in the propagation of the gospel. These are two different things. And they're related, yes, but they're different.

16:08

David Platt seems to just kind of, everything's flatlined into everything's about the gospel and everything's about Christianity just about.

16:16

And I realized, I told you, he says, hey, we shouldn't make gospel issues, things that aren't gospel issues. But he still kind of has this almost assumption that he brings to the issues of rights and voting.

16:29

You're not, when you're voting, and this is maybe some people think this is a two kingdom thing, but I'm saying when you're voting, you're making decisions based on the society that you want to live in and the principles in that society.

16:41

And you're informed by the law of God on that. This isn't, you're not thinking about, okay, what's gonna make

16:51

Jesus king more when you vote? Jesus is already king. So how do we reflect his law is the question.

16:59

The motive for voting. He says, I'll never forget the day that I share Patricia's, who was escaped refugee from El Salvador, story in this book about voting.

17:08

Because if we are not careful, people like Patricia will be far from our minds when we cast our ballots. Instead, we'll only have our own interests on our mind.

17:16

So it's bad to have your own interests on your minds. And of course, that was on page 30. It's page 31 when he starts going into the rights talk.

17:23

So it's bad to vote when you have your own interests on your mind. If you're thinking about your rights, even right to free speech, that kind of thing, then you got your own interests on your minds.

17:31

What you need to be thinking about is a refugee from El Salvador who, why would she wanna be in the

17:37

United States? You wonder why, right? Such a crummy place to live. Why would she come here? Well, she's coming here for a better life.

17:43

And it's because we have the civil liberties we have, we have the rights we have. That's why she's here in the first place. She wouldn't be coming here if we didn't have that stuff.

17:50

That's why you vote. And it's not a selfish thing to vote to defend your rights. That's why Patricia from El Salvador is in the

17:56

United States in the first place. David Platt doesn't even seem to, he creates a distinction here.

18:02

Well, you can either think about your rights or you can think about this poor person from El Salvador when you vote.

18:08

How about you vote for preserving your rights because it will not only preserve your rights, but this person from El Salvador who wants to take part in the prosperity of this country, afforded to it by keeping the law of God, not perfectly, but enshrining the law of God in much of its civil laws, at least historically in the beginning.

18:30

That's why there's a connection. It's not selfish. I mean, this is impugning people with selfishness for voting for their rights.

18:37

Be careful of that. So David Platt does. He says, consider how political campaigns are designed to appeal relentlessly to our personal preferences.

18:45

Candidates and parties woo crowds with promises of a better life for you and your children. Is that so bad?

18:51

Is that so bad? With an air of nationalistic pride, electioneers paint a picture of a superior and more prosperous country in which you can achieve all your individual dreams.

19:00

Man, is it so bad to have a pride for your country? To think that, look, you can get selfish, sure.

19:07

You can start to say, well, I just want to fulfill my lusts. But if you have dreams of things you'd like to accomplish within what

19:15

God has allowed you and blessed you to have and to be able to accomplish, then why not go for it and be thankful you live in a country that values that and allows you to do it?

19:25

As voters, we are inundated with the message about our rights, our opportunities, all the privileges we are entitled to possess and our comforts we deserve to enjoy.

19:34

By the way, all those things are not the same. Rights, opportunities, privileges, comforts. But do we ever stop to wonder if these election messages are actually dangerous for our souls?

19:45

So he's getting into second guess now. After all, where in the Bible does Jesus beckon us with all the privileges we are entitled to possess and all the comforts we deserve to enjoy?

19:54

Where does Jesus woo us with the promises of everything we want in this world? Where does Jesus ever encourage us to promote our nation as superior or prioritize our preferences as supreme?

20:02

This is a straw man. This is a straw man. There's a lot of things Jesus doesn't talk about. We have four books,

20:08

Gospels, where Jesus talks and he gives us information. And he had a specific mission to seek and save that which was lost.

20:16

And things outside of that specific mission were not always talked about in Jesus.

20:22

And I could ask David Platt, where does Jesus say that we need to do some kind of social justice effort?

20:27

Well, you could see he heals people, okay. But he also gave parables about slavery in a context in which the

20:34

Romans were oppressing the Jews and doesn't seem to really combat that at all.

20:39

I guess Jesus is fine with oppression. Is that an argument that we should go with? I don't think

20:44

David Platt would accept that. And I don't accept his argument here that because Jesus doesn't specifically encourage us to promote our nation as superior or woo us with promises of everything we want.

20:55

Well, that wasn't Jesus's mission. And of course, there never can be a situation where we get everything we want, not until our desires are changed and we're in heaven and Jesus is there.

21:09

He is everything we want. But Jesus gives us principles for understanding how to vote.

21:16

And maybe more importantly, God has laid down principles in other passages. He's given us

21:21

Romans 13, but he's given us the whole Old Testament full of civil laws to, and not to apply perfectly in our day and age, but to understand the heart behind it.

21:31

What's his character? What's his moral character? What's he trying to say that these laws are supposed to be a light to the nations? David Platt doesn't talk about that.

21:38

He narrows it down to what did Jesus specifically say about certain things? Well, Jesus did say this.

21:45

He said, evil comes from within man, not from outside of man, within man.

21:53

That actually has consequences. If you believe evil comes from within man, we need a state to curb that evil.

21:59

If you believe it comes from outside of man and it's the environment that's enslaving man, you're gonna come down with a whole different political philosophy.

22:06

Why not talk about what Jesus said that applies to politics instead of just saying, well, he doesn't specifically, he doesn't specifically say anything about promoting a nation as superior, or he doesn't specifically say anything about the privileges and comforts that we deserve, and those kinds of things.

22:26

I mean, this is a word salad. This language is vague. For a pastor who's supposed to be giving instruction, why not start with what

22:33

Jesus actually did say instead of, well, he didn't say this, argument from silence. Because Jesus didn't say this, start with what he did say and see where it leads you.

22:41

That would be what I think a responsible practitioner of biblical truth would do. Someone who's studious, someone who believes the word of God, wants to apply it.

22:51

Here's the key question. What about, and this is what he asks. This is the key question. Everyone's on the social justice side seems to be saying this.

22:59

I'm saying everyone in a loose sense, not every single person, but I just see it frequently. He says, what about the scores of Christians, including overwhelming percentages of African -American

23:07

Christians who consistently vote for Democrats because of the party's record on other issues that they deem also biblically important?

23:14

All right, so abortion is bad. Democrats like abortion. They like sexual anarchy, but hey, there's all sorts of other issues.

23:22

So what about African -American Christians? And of course not every African -American

23:27

Christian does vote for Democrats. And the assumption, look,

23:36

I don't even assume when you say Christians, everyone you're talking about is actually a redeemed believer. A lot of this is cultural stuff, especially in the

23:43

Southern United States and the Midwestern United States or the Bible Belt areas. A lot of people are going to church. They're not

23:48

Christians in the sense of being redeemed. There's a lot of people in ethnic congregations of different kinds that they go to church because it's what you do.

24:00

I know, look, my grandfather, his whole family comes from Mississippi, and that's what you do.

24:05

Church is what you do. It's not necessarily because you have a new relationship with God that you go to church.

24:11

It's because your mom and dad went to church. That doesn't mean you're a Christian. So I challenge the assumption at the beginning.

24:18

Do an overwhelming percentage of African -American Christians vote for Democrats? Is that true? I don't know that that's true.

24:24

I don't accept that as truth. Why assume that? Now, if he's saying as a social category, they call themselves

24:31

Christians and they go, okay, okay, a majority does, but I'm just not going to grant that assumption that they're acting within a, that it's a

24:39

Christian logic that they're using. Could be a different kind of logic. We want to make sure when we're voting, we're trying to use a

24:45

Christian logic, right? Not just, hey, this Christian does this, this Christian does this, so it's okay to each his own.

24:52

No, we want to, what does the Bible say about ethics? And then what political party, what agenda seems to be more close to that?

24:59

So he says this. He says, can you really conclude that they, African -American Christians, lack faith in Jesus and are on the road, on a road that leads to everlasting suffering because of how they weigh those other issues?

25:11

Well, no, it's not solely based on, it's not that. That could be an indication. And it's not about how they base, how they weigh other issues.

25:19

It's what they're ignoring. So if you're someone who votes for the Democrats, knowing they're for sexual anarchy, knowing they're for abortion, and they're going to expand and help

25:28

Planned Parenthood as best they can, knowing that they are socialists and their biblical, their ethics do not comport with the

25:37

Bible, and you know this and you vote for them, then yeah, I'm gonna question, what kind of Christian are you?

25:43

Jesus said, you love me, you obey my commandments. So his commandments are clear on this. So what kind of Christian are you? Will you really exclude them from the church because they voted for a

25:52

Democrat? It depends what logic they're using to get there. It depends why. Did they knowingly do this?

26:00

David Platt, would you ask a rhetorical question? Would David Platt, during times of, let's say the

26:08

Nazis or something, would he have said, well, you voted for the Nazi party and you know that they're for the killing of, well, at that point, they probably didn't know, but you know that they're anti -Semitic.

26:17

You know that they, you know, Kristallnacht and all that. You know that they're for restricting the freedoms of Jewish people.

26:25

You know, how could you do this? Well, I guess it's fine because, you know, Nazis have good environmental policies and good really, you know, policies that are making

26:34

Germany better and so forth. And I mean, there was a green movement in the Nazis. They had their own green movement.

26:41

You could use that logic. You could use the logic David Platt is employing here to make that argument. Who are you to question those

26:47

German Christians who voted for the Nazis? It's not me, it's this.

26:54

That's what I'm using, using the Bible. There is a prioritization.

27:00

I don't care how good you are in the environment. If you're for killing people, if that's where your policies wind up unjustly, not for breaking the law by killing someone else, but because of the fact that they are a certain ethnicity, then hey, that's a deal breaker.

27:18

Can't vote for you. You're a moral monster at that point. Your party is justifying moral monstrosities.

27:28

So anyway, that's what's going on in the United States of America with abortion.

27:33

I mean, we've killed more than the Nazis killed and we've allowed to be killed. And it's

27:39

God, you know, God has been very gracious with us, but we're on borrowed time at this point.

27:45

Here's some of the principles Platt lays down, because this is what we want to get to. What are the principles? How should I think? I'm a Christian who wants to know how to vote.

27:52

Give me guidance, pastor. Here's the guidance. Doing justice means addressing laws, regulations, structures, and systems to better help those in need.

28:03

Well, that can mean a lot of things. And that really does play into the structures, I guess. I mean, that kind of language has been used by a lot of critical theorists lately.

28:10

Does that mean that doing justice, this is doing justice, means addressing structures?

28:18

What do you mean by that? This is so intentionally vague. How about doing justice is treating people equally before the law and making sure that justice is carried out.

28:25

Penalties are carried out on those who break the law. It is giving someone their due, not addressing structures.

28:35

And let's by what you mean by structure is there are certain laws or policies that are working somehow to,

28:44

I guess, in a sense, make sure that the law isn't carried out.

28:51

I mean, that's the only thing I can think of. If there's some structure that's preventing the law from being carried out, then yeah, that'd be wrong.

28:59

But something tells me that that's not what he's talking about here. Systems to better help those in need.

29:06

Welfare systems, is that what we're talking about? Are we talking about reparations? Are we talking about, what are we talking about?

29:14

Foreign aid? That's doing justice? For the civil government to do justice?

29:19

That's what that means? To visit orphans and widows. This will flush it out for you,

29:24

I think. To visit orphans and widows then means to seek them out with a deep concern for their wellbeing and a clear commitment to care for their needs.

29:32

It means using everything at our disposal to care for them. And if we might, does that also include our votes? There you have it.

29:39

James talks about pure religion as visiting orphans and widows in their distress, trying to meet their needs.

29:47

Charity, charity. Doing something that you don't expect anything back in return for.

29:54

Is that what the civil government is supposed to be doing? Is that what James is saying? Well, the civil government needs to come in and create a system whereby we can allocate resources from one group to another in order to make sure that poverty is alleviated.

30:06

No, that's not James. That's not James at all. So how would that inform our vote?

30:12

It would inform our vote in this way. We need to have a country where our civil liberties are not threatened and we don't want socialism so that we have the money and the disposal income to go out and to meet the needs of others.

30:28

That's what it would mean. If you really wanna try to say that, how does this include our vote?

30:33

That's how it would include our vote. Government get out of the way and let me go and take care of the needs of widows and orphans.

30:38

Stop taking my money that I need to use to help them. I don't think that's what

30:44

David Platt's talking about here, but that would be the more faithful understanding of how to apply that to a vote.

30:51

But it's not about a vote. It's about charity. Every follower of Jesus who votes in an election must inevitably acknowledge and embrace some level of trade -offs.

30:59

So here we're getting into pragmatism. Consider two factors that Christians might use to weigh political options, biblical clarity and practical consequences.

31:09

So consequentialism. So that's true. There's always trade -offs.

31:15

That's true. And you need to weigh them. That's true as well. But how far are we going to take that?

31:25

Are we going to allow something like that is a moral monstrosity, like abortion, like sexual anarchy, or are we gonna say, well, those things, we can just put those on the back burner, and it's okay to vote for some socialist scheme, which isn't biblical anyway, but we're gonna say it is, and that will trump those other concerns because, well, consequentialism, we have a greater shot at getting free healthcare implemented than we do overturning abortion.

31:50

I mean, that's where this is going to lead you, essentially. And so no longer are you now voting based on your principles.

31:57

You're voting based on your moral calculation of what's gonna happen, what the practical consequences could be.

32:05

It's not about necessarily as much what's right or wrong. I'm saying the shift is happening.

32:11

It's getting you off that onto, well, what's the practical outworking?

32:17

What do you think the practical outworking of your vote is? And of course, if you're being informed by the mainstream media, you know Trump's gonna be a train wreck, and you just better vote for Biden.

32:26

I mean, it's, you know, how about instead getting back to the principles of scripture? Like a pastor, you think would.

32:32

A pastor would talk about scripture and say, hey, this is what the scripture says about this. What are our principles?

32:39

And yeah, it's a problem. If someone has a principle and they don't, and they say they're gonna do something, they don't do it, then they're a liar.

32:45

They're, you know, maybe something prevented them, but if they tried their best, you know, and they didn't get it through, we can understand.

32:57

But if you're a politician, you make a promise, you don't try your best, and you don't care about the issue, you're just saying that as a platitude, that's a problem.

33:04

That's a real problem. And so that gets factored into the character of the person that you're voting for.

33:10

So I'm not saying that you just, you know, believe everything a candidate says, you need to test those things. But, but it doesn't mean that you're now projecting into the future, well, what could possibly happen?

33:21

And I can now justify voting for a moral monster on their civil ethics, because, you know, they may do one thing that I like, and they may have a chance of happening.

33:35

This is like foreign thinking to me. This is foreign thinking to Christianity, but this is kind of, this is the trail that David Platt's logic could lead you down.

33:45

As we listen to each other's diverse perspectives in the church, we learn from one another. How about listening to one perspective, this one?

33:54

How about this perspective? And our perspectives should be all trying to match this one.

34:00

To go back, hey, I'm gonna help you, you help me figure out what God thinks about this.

34:07

What are, what's his morality? What political parties line up more with that morality? What candidates line up more with that?

34:13

How about that? Not, well, you have a perspective, and I have a perspective, and we're gonna talk about those perspectives in a vacuum.

34:22

No, word of God is a perspective, and it gives us a law, it gives us things to consider. Here's what

34:28

David Platt says. Now let's consider Christian Z. So here's where the logic can lead. She weighs biblical clarity on abortion just as Christian Y does, but when

34:35

Christian Z considers the practical consequences on this issue, while she desperately wants to save children in the room, she doesn't believe voting for a

34:42

Republican candidate will change the law of the land. In fact, based on history, Christian Z is suspicious of the idea that a

34:48

Republican candidate will be able to put a stop to abortion. She believes that even if Roe is overturned, the issue might still go back to the states where locations that already have a high number of abortions will continue to perform them, so she weighs the practical consequences of voting for either a

35:03

Republican or Democrat candidate much lower than Christian Y does on the issue of abortion. This is the Phil Bisher logic.

35:09

Well, it's only gonna save thousands of babies, not as many as we thought.

35:15

Well, really, those babies, we shouldn't save them? How about it sets a moral precedent that now we can take the battle to another arena?

35:25

We won on the federal level, now we're gonna take it and all our resources and we're gonna apply them to the states that still have abortion legal and we're gonna fight in those states to make it illegal.

35:34

How about that? But, oh, it's all about overturning Roe v.

35:39

Wade and if we can't do that, then, you know, I don't know what to say to this. I mean, look,

35:44

I understand the abortion abolitionists are very upset about the game Republicans often play.

35:50

I get that. I'm an all of the above guy. I'm gonna say, we gotta end this thing. However, whatever it takes within the legal and moral framework that we have as Christians, we need to try to end it.

36:01

And if it's just so happens that we get enough Supreme Court justices in,

36:06

I'm not saying I'm relying on that, but if that's one of the consequences of voting for a president, then so be it.

36:12

That's a good thing. Imagine if Hillary Clinton were president. How far away would we be from ever getting

36:18

Roe v. Wade overturned from the Supreme Court? And I think states should just nullify it, but we're a little closer with Trump.

36:25

How about regulating Planned Parenthood? How about what some of the states have been able to do, like Alabama and their regulations against abortion?

36:33

I mean, look, the needle, Republicans are trying to move this needle, even if they're not doing it the way that we want it done, even if they're not doing it quick enough, there is an effort underway.

36:44

And to minimize that and say, well, it's not gonna really do a lot of good, so I guess

36:50

I'll vote for the socialists because I want free healthcare. I mean, that is moral ineptness.

36:56

And I've said this before, there is no part of the democratic platform that I think I would agree with or a

37:01

Christian should agree with. Maybe there's a few gray areas. I don't even know what those would be. But just about everything in that platform is against biblical principles.

37:12

So this just doesn't work. And this isn't a reflection of a pastor who's giving us moral principles by which to think about this.

37:19

This is a pastor who wants to have, I think what amounts to a superficial piece. He says he doesn't want that, but that's what

37:25

I think this would end up in doing gymnastics to give us logic by which someone could vote for the

37:30

Democrats, the party of murder and sexual anarchy and stealing and envy.

37:38

Here's the Achilles heel. This is interesting because Platt gets so close to giving us some helpful information here.

37:45

And then he, it's in the footnotes. In the history of the democracy, every political party has possessed both strengths and weaknesses.

37:52

As products of human invention, political parties inevitably have idolatrous trajectories and trend towards positions that do not honor or reflect

37:58

God's character. No human policy political party has a monopoly on justice. Okay, so he says that.

38:05

He says in the footnotes, in this statement and the paragraphs that follow, I do not mean to imply that all political candidates and parties stand on equal moral footing.

38:15

Inevitably, different candidates or parties will align more or less with biblical foundations in ways that will and should affect a

38:22

Christian's vote. So close, so close, Pastor Platt. He said here that there are candidates and parties.

38:32

He's insinuating it, that line up more with biblical foundations. Really? Because which ones are they?

38:39

Could you flesh that out for us? As a pastor, could you give us some moral guidance? And of course, none is to be found.

38:49

The moral guidance that we're given in this particular book makes for a superficial piece that actually winds up kicking the can down the road.

39:02

Because as you expand your church, and we're open to all political positions, you're going to have people that fundamentally disagree with others and fundamentally disagree with this.

39:12

And that's a problem. And you're gonna have, you're gonna say peace, peace, there's not gonna be peace. There won't be.

39:20

It doesn't answer the specific questions Christians really have, but it does give almost,

39:26

I would say there's this one section there, I didn't take the quote, but there's almost an air of superiority that can take place.

39:32

I've seen it with others. I think Platt might be tiptoeing into that when he talks about, it's almost like a badge of honor when he says that how he offends both sides.

39:41

And you must be doing something right if you offend both sides. Or maybe you're doing something wrong.

39:47

Maybe there's actually a side that's more in the right. So it doesn't give clear instructions to Christians and it's lack of clarity, it's vagueness, it's pragmatism and consequentialism.

40:01

Failure to start where we probably should start, which is the law of God. What did Jesus actually teach?

40:07

What did the law of God actually lay down? Let's then compare that to the principles of the various parties, et cetera.

40:13

Look, I'm not telling you, I haven't, I don't even know if I've said Trump's name in this whole thing. I'm not telling you to vote for Trump in this video. I'm not.

40:19

In fact, I would never tell you that you have to vote for Trump as a Christian, but you can't be voting for Biden.

40:26

Not at least knowingly. I mean, there's people that ignorantly vote, but look, if you know what these guys stand for, you can't vote for Biden.

40:36

And it's as simple as that. If you don't feel like you can vote for Trump, I get that.

40:42

I understand. Vote for a third party. Vote for someone who's more in line with what you believe.

40:48

But you can't vote for the Democrats, all right? Unless you're in some local community where the Democrat doesn't believe what the party platform says.

40:54

Look at the Republican platform, look at the Democratic platform, compare them. I've done it on this show. It's my encouragement to you.

41:01

Now, I will say this at the end. I am planning on voting for Trump. I am.

41:07

And I did not vote for him in 2016, and I've been planning for a while on sharing why that is.

41:12

And I'm gonna start that process, I believe, next week. There's a book that I just am almost done with now called

41:19

Among the Deplorables by Sam Smith, a professor at Liberty University. It's an excellent book, well -written. And he gives some of his thinking on this.

41:27

I might be a little different, but I think there's a lot of similarities there. And I'm mulling this over of how to present this to you guys, because I am well aware of the idea that Trump, his moral character has not been good, especially before he became president.

41:48

Policies don't all align with biblical morality. For instance, I don't see evidence that he's pushing the

41:54

LGBTQ plus agenda from his vantage point in his capacity as a president, but he certainly winks and nods at them, and how proud he is to be a transgender -friendly president and these kinds of things.

42:08

Those are concerning things. I get that. I understand that. I really do. I totally do. I've been thinking about it, though.

42:15

And I do think that I have chosen to steward my vote that way. And I'm gonna give you the argument in what

42:25

I think in another video, but I just wanna put that out there for those who freak out whenever I say, hey, you don't have to vote for Trump, because the reality is, guys, you don't have to.

42:34

And consequences do come into play in some ways, but we don't wanna be consequentialists. We don't wanna fall into that trap.

42:41

We want to keep, we want to hold on to the law of God and the morality that God has given us, knowing that no candidate's perfect and no party ever will be perfect.

42:51

But we know that there are things beyond the pale. And when God sent the Israelites into the land of Canaan, he had them exterminate some of the tribes that were there because they were doing what

43:04

Planned Parenthood does. They were offering their children to Moloch, killing their children.

43:10

This was, and sexual anarchy as well. Bestiality was involved in their cultures. There are things that God considers an abomination, and you cannot vote for people that are pushing policies to help those abominations become more mainstream, protected, et cetera.

43:27

Hope that was helpful for you guys, at least in thinking through, if you read Platt's book, kind of what the problems with it are, and maybe even some of the good points.

43:36

Looking forward to being with you guys, hopefully next week, and we'll talk more about voting, and we'll see what happens.