The "AND" Campaign

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I want to talk to you today about the

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AND campaign. The AND campaign has been brought to my attention from multiple sources and I've waited to comment on this until today because there were so many other things going on,

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I thought, I just really want to give this the full treatment and I'm ready to do that now. The AND campaign,

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I believe, and I'm going to just say this off the top, is a dangerous campaign to persuade evangelical voters,

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I think, to think in progressive terms and categories and ultimately to vote either for Democrats or progressive

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Republicans who will say the same things that Democrats are saying. And I'm going to show you that as I walk through this.

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The deception is that they market themselves as very pro -life and pro -family and they try to merge those understandings with progressive understandings on immigration and healthcare and minimum wage, etc.,

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etc. So I'm going to walk through their purpose statement and just show you what concerns me. But first, let's look at this.

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Who's behind the AND campaign? This gives you a little bit of a sense of why I think this is important.

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If we go up here and I click, if you're watching, on the leadership, you can go down, you can see

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Justin Giboney, who was a Democratic operative. You can see, and I don't know all of these people in depth,

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Michael Ware, as well, has ties to Democratic politics, and we're going to hear more about both of these men later on in the program from the wannabe

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Anglican who has done more of a deep dive on them. But, you know, I thought this was interesting.

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For those on Twitter who know about the social justice stuff, there's

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Kyle J. Howard right there. Yeah, so he's in leadership. There's Lisa Fields.

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Do you remember Lisa Fields? She's the one that recently said at a conference that the original sin of Adam applies to everyone.

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Why doesn't the original sin of slavery apply to America? So she doesn't understand federal headship very well. There's Alan Noble.

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He is the disruptive witness. That's his book. I've seen just some things from Alan on social media, and it wouldn't surprise me he's more progressive that he's on this list as well.

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We have D .A. Horton. D .A. Horton, you remember the book, it's called

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Gospel. Yeah, it's just called Gospel. But he promotes theobonics, and I think I've talked about this on the program.

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Check this out, right? You go to the, and I know people who have, I know people who have seen this play out in evangelism encounters.

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It doesn't work too well. You go to the ghetto, even if you're a guy from the country or suburbs and you just don't even fit in, and you use eubonics to proclaim the gospel, and you try to use that language mixed with theology, and you try to meet people where they're at.

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So if they're concerned about police brutality, you may try to start with that as being your in, and then work yourself to the gospel, and just contextualization.

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That's D .A. Horton. So anyway, I am not familiar with every single person on this list, but there were enough people here that I was like, okay, this is progressive.

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I know a little bit about some of these guys, and I don't see anyone that I would consider theologically conservative. This is like,

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I mean, look, if you're going to have the Dallas Statement guys on one list, and let's say you were doing a football game or something, you'd probably, if you wanted like the opposing team, like the diametrically opposed in every way group of people, you might pick this list.

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And they probably wouldn't have a problem with me saying that. Maybe not the Dallas guys, but these guys,

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I'm sure, I would be curious to see if any of them signed the Dallas Statement. I probably already know my answer.

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But yeah, these are some of the guys behind it. These are the leadership. This is not just guys who signed the statement.

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These are people that are in leadership at the end campaign. Now let's go to the overview of what this is about.

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I want to go directly to the 2020 statement. This is where rubber hits the road. And you can sign it, kind of like the

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Dallas Statement. You can go online, you can sign it. And it says that it's a statement on the 2020 presidential election.

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I'm going to read for you some of this. I'm just going to comment on it for you. Here's the preamble.

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The upcoming presidential election marks a significant decision point for our nation. The moral moment requires principled convictions from politicians, but even more so from the

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American people. Christians have a particular obligation to provide this moral leadership. No candidate will be perfect, but Christians can hold both parties accountable to a vision for the common good.

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And check this out. That is not fully represented in either party platform. So the common good is not fully represented.

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Now, you know, that may sound good, especially for someone who's like, doesn't want to be labeled. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. And I mean, look,

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I would put myself, I don't like a lot of things Republicans do. I think their platform could be much better. I think

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Democrats are like literally the party that boos God. And, you know, I mean, we can get into all that at another time, but I don't see them as morally equivalent.

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But Democrats have issues that far surpass the issues Republicans have in their platform. But neither platform is perfect.

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I agree with them on this. But I think starting out that way makes it sound like this is the third way.

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This is evangelicals need to think outside the box and not go with either party platform.

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So this kind of neutralizes any opposition someone would have who, let's say, is a Republican or even is a

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Democrat who wants to quibble. Really, I think the quibbling would come more from Republicans. But if you want to quibble, then you're already kind of neutralized a little bit because what they're saying is like, don't you want to be reasonable?

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Don't you want to just realize that there's nothing perfect in either of these party platforms? And that's part of the thing, guys, is that sure, there's nothing perfect, but there's no perfect world, right?

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That's actually a Christian understanding, like there really isn't going to be a perfect party platform.

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In fact, I know some people on the religious right have even said in the past like the Constitution, almost talking about it like it's inspired by God.

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No, it's not. It's not. You know, it's a brilliant document. It really is, but it is not inspired by God.

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And there is no platform. There is no document. There's nothing that is inspired by God except revelation from God himself.

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And so here's the thing. If you're looking for a perfect party platform, you're not going to find it.

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You're not going to find it. You can do your best. And if you look at the Republican Party platform, you know what?

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Pretty good. As far as mirroring a lot of the biblical understandings of government and the responsibility of government, it's pretty decent.

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Democratic Party platform assumes exactly anti -Christian ideas. So yeah, the

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Republican Party platform's imperfect, but I just wanted to point out, this is how they start this whole train going down the tracks is, you know, they're almost like equally bad.

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Republicans and Democrats, both bad. We got to reject both of them. So now once you've kind of rejected both party platforms, you're going to read that our

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Christian faith calls us to recognize the image of God in every person and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

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And, okay, so these are very general, right? And so this means promoting social justice and moral order.

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And we have that spiritual responsibility. We got to seek the common good. We are obligated to protect the vulnerable and defend human dignity.

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And look, guys, these are the very things that are used to smuggle in a social justice narrative where there isn't one in scripture.

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I've heard these sermons so many times where someone starts off with a general principle like people are made in the image of God and then off they go into illegal migration really isn't that bad.

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Or you know, something like we're supposed to, justice should be rolling down like waters. You know what that means?

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We got to really end mass incarceration. And it's like, is that what the verse is talking about? Where is that in the context?

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So they smuggle in these social justice assumptions using broad categories.

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And you see that in this statement, they start out with these broad categories. And then there's some guilt.

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You know, look, the mechanisms of government, they failed to disassemble slavery and later Jim Crow. Now, I'd like to point something out.

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Governments disassembled the slave trade and slavery. Whether you're talking about, you know, this is Chateau slavery, right?

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We're not talking about civil slavery or generational welfare, which some people call slavery or debt.

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We're not talking about those things, which Proverbs calls slavery. We're talking about Chateau slavery. And we're talking about Jim Crow.

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1808, that's the date that the constitutional gave for the ending of the slave trade. Even the Confederate constitution ended the slave trade.

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But look, there's an army that came down, conquered a region. And there was an amendment passed that got rid of Chateau slavery.

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I mean, this happened. So that did happen. And maybe it wasn't as soon as some people would like, but yes, governments did act.

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Jim Crow, you know, it says here in the statement that the mechanisms of government failed.

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It's not like Jim Crow is out there floating in a vacuum and government needs to come and destroy it. Jim Crow was instituted by government.

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It was from the North, came South, especially after the war, the urban areas adopted Jim Crow. And that's why in the middle part of the 20th century, you see people of color coming from rural areas to get jobs in the city and they run up against segregation laws.

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But look, blacks and whites in the South lived together for generations, side by side. The government had to impose this kind of barrier between the two of them.

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Because if they didn't, they were worried that they would mingle too much and all the concerns they had about intermarriage and all that kind of thing.

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So here's the thing. This is inaccurate. And I know maybe that sticks in my craw more than others because I like history, but this isn't accurate.

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They're painting the government like they failed so much in this. And look, the government is downstream from culture.

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And there were cultural changes that led to the disassembling of these things. Church -led movements shocked and recalibrated the conscience of a derelict nation.

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So here's the thing. They're drawing a line. They're saying that the 19th century reform movements, especially in the North, those need to be championed again.

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That kind of sentiment, at least, needs to be championed in today's church. There's a reason we don't want to do that.

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And the short answer is those social reform movements were often championed by heretics.

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And there's a reason for why that happened the way it did, and I don't have time to go into it all now, but that's the line that they're trying to draw here.

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And they're saying, when the church has failed, this is their quote, failed to act or has imposed its own injustices, the nation and the promise of a democracy suffer deep, clearly.

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They're very concerned about democracy. So look, this is done very well. It's very strategic.

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The preamble to this thing sets it up this way. Starts off with general principles, moves to, yeah,

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Republicans and Democrats both can't trust them either, really, and we're our own thing.

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So it has this illusion of moderation. And then it appeals to our sense of wanting to overturn injustice and evil.

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It talks about systemic injustice, and it says that the church has this call to do this.

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Don't you want to be part of the crusading, moral, church -going heroes?

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Of course you do, right? So what are you going to do? What's the first plank in this? Plank number one, the health of our democracy.

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By disregarding standards of decency and good faith, the current administration, wait a minute, wait a minute, the current administration, that would be

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Donald Trump. The current administration, I thought we were just done saying Republicans not good,

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Democrats not good. Well, okay. I'm sure that if we keep reading, we're going to find they must criticize the

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Democrats in this statement, right? Of course, I'm being sarcastic here. They're already taking on Trump.

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First sentence of the first plank. This administration has significantly lowered our nation's discourse and endangered the political process.

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The president's callousness, especially towards non -white Americans and vulnerable citizens, his fomenting of chaos as commander -in -chief, and his cavalier attitude towards the rule of law and basic norms of civility all undermine social cohesion, civic trust, and our very democracy.

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Now, I got to ask a question. Which party is trying to impeach a president who was elected by an electoral college fair and square?

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I mean, look, the Russian collusion stuff has been tossed out the window at this point, but even if you still believe that, you have to admit there's another side to this whole thing.

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I mean, there happens to be a party in the House of Representatives that wants to impeach a president that was elected by the people through their representatives.

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We're a republic. We're not a democracy. But if you want to talk about representative government and you're using democracy to carry that notion forward, why not mention that?

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Why mention Trump? Their gripes are very general. They're very charged with very high -sounding moral language, but they're very general.

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The only thing I can think of is his Twitter account must offend some people. Offends me sometimes.

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But they're invoking these charges that they're bringing are for the whole administration. So the whole administration is subverting the very foundation of our democracy.

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No specifics. All right. Yeah. I'm not seeing the fair and balanced part of this.

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Race and voter rights is the second one. America was built by enslaved people and immigrant workers who brought the country closer to its founding ideals through their sacrifices and protests.

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All right. Look, there's so much packed into that. It's a mix bag, guys.

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It's not like enslaved people and immigrants are... They're people too. And they're not just pure as the driven snow.

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And they brought us closer to our ideals, which by the way, that's invoking this propositional theory of America that America is an idea.

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So that's in opposition to the theory that America actually has traditions in it and cultures from Europe that have set up their own communities and created the country that we live in.

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The propositional theory says, no, no, we're actually an idea. It's very ideological, not very traditional.

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I tend to believe more the traditional route that people brought ideas from Europe and created what they knew in Europe here in the

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United States. It wasn't brand new in every sense of the word. And look, I know, I know, I know that there are people on the right wing who think that America is just, it's

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God's gift to man in every way. And look, I understand this is a wonderful country. I'm so grateful to be here.

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But that's not exactly accurate to say that they were just this departure from every single idea that had ever been concocted at forming a government.

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No, they brought over these ideas, especially ideas from England that influenced the way that America was formed.

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But I digress. Again, the historian in me is jumping out ahead of myself because really the root issue in this isn't so much that.

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It's this idea that America is characterized by racial discrimination.

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It says racial discrimination has pervaded American public policy and the law since our nation's inception. And here's the key part.

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Its effects continue today. Its effects continue today. And so you appeal to all these things and some of them very legitimate that happened in the past that we would be right to be morally upset about if we lived in those times and oppose.

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And then you connect them to modern political movements and issues. And so that's exactly what they're doing.

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So, you know, you don't like slavery, right? You don't like Jim Crow, right? You don't like some of the horrible things that have happened in our country's past in regards to different people groups who are here, like maybe the

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Native Americans. You don't like that stuff. OK, well, let me tell you what is happening today that is very similar.

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People of color still haven't fully recovered from the war on drugs and a myriad of other government sanctioned efforts that have devastated communities and weakened families.

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We must address racial disparities in education, poverty levels, health care, environment quality and the criminal justice system head on.

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Central to that effort must be the vigilant protection of voting rights. Voting should be fair, accessible and convenient for all the eligible

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American citizens. And enfranchisement should extend to former felons who have paid their debt to society.

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Felons should be allowed to vote. Now, if you heard that and you didn't know where it came from and I said, choose which party said this, that we need to address these things.

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It was at one of the Democrat National Convention or Republican National Convention. This was said at one of the conventions.

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Which one would you think it was? Probably the Democrat National Convention, because it's starting off with disparities that have to be addressed.

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And and then the issues that they want to bring up are, well, there's, you know, education. That's one of the categories for disparities, poverty, health care, environment quality and criminal justice.

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Now, look, disparity in and of itself is not bad. I know that's like heresy today.

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Disparity can be bad. It can be there can be something behind the disparity, like something artificial that's creating a disparity from the government.

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That's possible. The governments can do that kind of thing. But disparity in and of itself isn't necessarily bad.

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And we already looked at how they're committed to this idea that America is this propositional country.

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Oftentimes going along with that is this idea that we live in a modern state and some people call it more the nanny state.

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But everyone needs to be equal. All the services, all the political mobility, all every single thing that one person has in California needs to be available in Florida, needs to be available in Alaska, needs to be available in New York.

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Everyone must be equal in urban, rural communities that have different industries.

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They must all have the same kinds of education. And so here's the thing, guys, that's not the real world.

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Different communities have different needs, different industries, different values. And it's not wrong to have like,

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I'll just put it this way, as a conservative and a Christian, especially, I believe that local communities and local responsibility and especially personal responsibility is more important than an all powerful government imposing something that should be protected.

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It's up to parents to educate their children. And if they want to do that in an arrangement with local parents who in a local community where they're overseeing their education and personally involved, that's great.

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But a Department of Education that has its hands into every single pot and we're saying, well, look, the

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Department of Education is not working because look, look at this area, look at this region. It's different than this other area because the cultures are different usually.

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And the Department of Education needs to step in and put some money in there to get rid of this disparity. That's what

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Democrats typically say. And that is not a conservative and is not a

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Christian at its core, I believe, assumption about how education. Now, that's just one example. There's a bunch of disparities given here and I don't have time to go through all of them.

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But the way that this sounds, the way that it's framed is very left leaning. This is not how conservatives talk about education reform, but they don't start with disparities as the big problem.

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Usually that's changing. I think the people who call themselves conservatives. How about this one?

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The poor and pro family economic policies? That sounds good, right? Pro family. We want that. Right. We're Christians.

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Well, what does that mean? Well, we can't disregard poor people and that's good.

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We shouldn't disregard them. But remember, this is a voting guide. This is a voting guide. It's very important for you to remember this.

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We got to make a separation between family, individual, state and church. This isn't a guide for how your church should function.

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This isn't a guide for how you should function as an individual. This is a guide for how you should vote and how the government should behave. So what they're saying is the government can't disregard poor people.

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OK, on the federal government specifically, I would think in the way that it was all national stuff at the beginning.

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I mean, they're mentioning this administration. So national government can't disregard poor people and policymaking.

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Well, I mean, look at the Constitution and figure out what it has to say about welfare. I mean, that's more of a local issue, guys.

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Again, modern state assumptions. We need creative anti -poverty policies that work in tandem with these other institutions like family and church.

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OK, well, family and church do have a responsibility. I'm sort of glad to see that's acknowledged, but let's keep going here.

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We believe in the dignity of work and that workers should receive a livable wage. Boom, boom, right there.

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Minimum wage should be a livable wage. Education should be equitable, paid family leave and enhanced child tax credits.

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Look, you know, the child tax credit, that's a little, I sort of understand that a little more.

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There's another way I think to do it that's better. But either way, livable wage just is at the center of this whole paragraph and it keeps staring at me.

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And I'm like, hold on. That is not a that's not even a biblical principle that the government has to come for someone that goes against the whole parable of the vineyard.

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This is this is so outside of Christianity and even the concept of private property and that it's unreal.

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But this is what is championed. And of course, there's no versus backing any of this up. Look at the end of this section, in order for families and indeed the nation to thrive, women must be free from discrimination, harassment and abuse.

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I agree. Absolutely. This is a voter voting guide, essentially, for national issues.

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How is the national government supposed to address that? There's no specifics given here.

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Is this just virtue signaling, like what is that even doing in there? Immigration is the next section.

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Trump administration, well, they called him by name now, has failed to treat undocumented immigrants with dignity and care.

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And it goes on. There is nothing in here about a strict border, nothing.

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And in fact, it says that the Trump administration's willingness to use draconian manipulative measures to stoke fear in immigrant communities and pit family members against one another is reprehensible.

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And yeah, I know I'm getting a little animated, but look, guys, they want to protect dreamers. They want refugees to keep coming here.

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Nothing about vetting, nothing about a border. It's just so what's the assumption here? What am I supposed to take away from this?

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So without any border, without any vetting, we're supposed to treat the alien and the sojourner, as the statement calls them, with this dignity on a federal level.

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And I'm not supposed to inform my vote. This is a playbook for the Democratic Party. Yeah, the church individuals, we need to be doing that.

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Absolutely. Is it the government's job without vetting immigrants and refugees, even to make sure they're legitimate refugees, to just on the broad principles of treating people with dignity, just kind of let everyone in and just take care of them?

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Is that the government's job? That's what this would have you believe.

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It seems like, I mean, look, if you want to make a balanced statement, you at least have to include what the

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Bible says about borders. I mean, Jerusalem had walls in a city. I mean, what's the book of Nehemiah about?

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There's a reason that vetting is important. We see when that even happens. Remember that story when the children of Israel are met with these supposed refugees from a faraway land and they make their clothes look like they're all horrible and dirty and stuff.

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So they've been on this long journey. And then God said, these are the folks you're supposed to wipe out. And they fool the

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Israelites into letting them in. And they weren't vetted properly. And now, of course, that's descriptive, not prescriptive, but it's in there to teach some kind of lesson.

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Right. And walls are important. Borders are. You can see in Acts 17, God has established boundaries between people groups.

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So nothing about that here. You'd expect to see it. How about health care and abortion?

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Now, this is where you think, all right, they're going to toss some something to the pro -lifers and the

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Christian social conservatives. Not really. Not really like you'd think. And the reason

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I say that is because look how it's headlined, health care and abortion. Let me ask you this, how does

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Planned Parenthood, when they want to present their case for abortion, how do they present it?

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What words do they use surrounding abortion? Health care, facility.

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Abortions take place at health care facilities. Remember, there is a movie that Marcus Pittman was a director for,

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Babies Are Murdered Here. He just came out with a second one. And there's a sign, Babies Are Murdered Here. And Planned Parenthood responded with, health care happens here, with their sign.

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They make the two on the same level. That's what's going on. Abortion is just a subsection of health care.

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That's where it belongs. That's a category it fits in. We know as Christians, that's, you know, what would you say about like the

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Holocaust? That's health care? No, we know as Christians, that's murder. We don't categorize that in health care.

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You're not caring for anything. Interesting how they tied these two together, isn't it? We believe in building a society that respects human dignity at all stages of life.

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Okay, including the unborn. Now, that's good.

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But what do you mean by respecting human dignity? If you mean by that, not murdering people like euthanasia when they get old or when they're young, abortion, well, good.

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But what else does it mean? This includes accessible and affordable health care for everyone. All right. There you go.

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Free health care right there. That's socialism. Americans should not go bankrupt because they get sick or die because their medication is exorbitantly expensive.

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Oh, this does not look. We agree on that, too, as Christian conservatives, we just don't think it's the federal government's job to be providing these things.

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Well, hospitals are required to treat someone when they come in. All right. And it used to be there were a lot of charities out there and there still are some that help with these kinds of things.

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But now it's like the government is God and we look for the government, the federal, the national government for everything.

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And they're treating the government the same way here. This includes policies that support maternal health and address our nation's high rate of maternal mortality, especially among black and Native American women, includes vigilant prosecution of pregnancy, discrimination, education in the workplace.

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All right. We haven't even gotten to abortion yet. It is essential that the sanctity of human life at every stage, again, that this all encompassing every stage, in particular in the womb, is defended vigorously.

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Abortion is a tragedy, not a social good that should be should be vehemently discouraged rather than promoted.

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Abortion is a tragedy, not a social good. That statement has absolutely no teeth in it.

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Like Donald Trump's policies towards immigrants are called draconian.

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I mean, look at the language that's used about other issues and you get to abortion and well, unfortunately, yeah, it's just not a social good.

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How about it's a social evil and it's murder. And like, why is that language not in there?

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It's soft in this and it's under this big, broad umbrella of health care, including free health care for everyone.

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This is a statement, I believe, crafted to funnel evangelical

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Christians into supporting democratic policies. And it's because of where it's coming from.

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This isn't an official arm of the Democratic Party. Now, I'm going to talk to someone here real soon who's going to show you some connections to the

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Democratic Party. But this is coming from people who are calling themselves evangelical. They're saying that they're for biblical values.

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So that group of people typically very concerned about sexual ethics and abortion.

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Right. And not just that. I mean, they're concerned also about they want to make sure that the government stays in the lane that God has ordained for government, which is protecting the innocent, punishing evil.

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But that group of people is not accustomed to thinking in terms of socialist policies.

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But that's what you find in here. A livable wage, free health care for all. That's part of being pro -life.

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It's part of biblical values. The only party knocked in this is the

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Republican Party because that's the current administration and that's who they go after. Listen and hear what the wannabe

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Anglican has to say about all this. I think you'll find it fascinating. Today, I am joined with Mark, who goes online by the title

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The Wannabe Anglican. And you can check out his website if you're interested. The link is in the info section.

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It is the wannabeanglican .blogspot .com.

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I want to talk about your blog that you wrote on wannabeanglican .blogspot

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.com. And the title of your blog is Is the AND Campaign a Democratic Front Group?

31:16

What did you mean by that? Well, you know, leftists for a long time have had what you have, front groups, groups that seem that put up a nice front.

31:30

But they really have a leftist agenda behind them, of course. And I'm not saying that let's not equate and with the

31:38

Soviet Union, OK? But it's said Soviet Union did this with any number of groups where they had front groups that always just happened to push the agenda of the of the

31:48

Soviet Union. And I'm not pleased. I'm not saying and communist or anything like that, please. But I'm just saying that's what

31:54

I mean by the Democrat front group, that they put up this nice front. But the agenda they're pushing is a

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Democrat agenda. And and what prompted me now,

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I gave them the benefit of the doubt, even after reading this 2020 statement,

32:15

I gave them the benefit of the doubt. And, you know, one of my besetting sins is usually not being too nice.

32:23

But I may have been too nice. But anyway, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. But then and actually

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I was I got I was tipped off by Reformation Charlotte because they mentioned that Michael Ware is being hired by the

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Gospel Coalition. And in that article, Reformation Charlotte, it said that he was the chief strategist for the

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Ann campaign. And the light bulb went off inside my head, you know, I need to see who's leading that.

32:48

And I should have done that first. OK, but hey, I'm not perfect. And so I went over and I looked at the leadership and the top two leaders are the president and co -founder.

33:00

I'm sorry, Justin Gaboney and the chief strategist, Michael Ware. But what

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I mean by front groups has a nice front, but there's really just the there's an agenda behind it, a party agenda behind it.

33:14

So bring us through that a little bit, though, because you put in your article some information on Justin Gaboney.

33:22

Right. What ties him then to the Democratic Party and what makes you think that that makes the

33:29

Ann campaign a Democratic front group? OK, well, you look at and this is all from the Ann campaign site.

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And let's give them credit where credit is due. They're they're transparent, at least to this extent.

33:42

And you might have to do a couple of clicks, clicks to find this, but it's there on their site. He's mentioned in his biography as a political strategist in Atlanta, Georgia, and he's managed successful campaigns for elected officials.

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And that doesn't say if they're all Democrats, but they probably are. And then is where it gets interesting.

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He says in 2012 and 2016, Georgia's fifth congressional district elected him as a delegate to the

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Democratic National Convention. Now, in 2012, that was Obama's reelection year.

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So he's right. Surely, almost surely a delegate for Obama. Well, it says that it says he served as the co -chair for Obama for the

34:23

I don't know, maybe this is different. The Americas, Gen 44. Yeah. Obama for America.

34:28

OK, so he was a co -chair for Obama for America, or at least their Gen 44

34:34

Atlanta initiative. And then in 2016, when he was a delegate, I did some little look sniffing around the

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Internet and he was a delegate for Hillary. So we're supposed to trust the judgment and wisdom of someone who is a delegate for Obama and a delegate for Hillary.

34:52

OK. Remember in 2012, Obama had already been president for four years.

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I can, you know, I can give I can give a pass to people who voted for Obama in 2008 because, you know,

35:04

Obama, he seemed nice and all. And the news media wasn't telling us much about him. But he 2012, he'd already been president for four years.

35:11

We already knew what he was. And yet he still supported him. So and then as far as supporting

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Hillary, I mean, come on. Remind me again, Justin Gaboney's position in the and campaign.

35:25

He's the president and he's one of the co -founders. The president and the co -founder and a delegate for or a co -chair of Obama's Atlanta initiative and a delegate for Hillary.

35:38

Correct. And before that, a delegate, a national DNC delegate for Obama.

35:45

And I think you had mentioned to me as well, there's a book that he endorsed, right? Anticipating the birth of Jesus.

35:52

Right now, this book, I haven't looked in the book. The book might be fine. And I don't want to judge a book from it by its cover.

35:59

But the book is by a man. Hey, we're giving we're giving this book a little promo. So, hey, there you go. Ron Bell Trevino.

36:05

And it's Anticipating the Birth of Jesus, an advent devotional on immigration.

36:11

That's the that's the book. And the interesting part is it's put out by the Immigration Coalition. And I look them up and they are affiliated with Immigration Roundtable, which is

36:22

Soros money is connected with that. So without knowing a lot about this, you know, you start tying, you know, making the connections.

36:34

And it doesn't sound like this guy is very objective, unlike their 2020 statement, which is supposedly this objective, not

36:43

Republican, not Democrat. Their leadership, it sounds like at the highest levels, very

36:49

Democrat, according to them. You get to the chief strategist. All right. Talk to me about the chief strategist.

36:55

Yeah, let's look at Michael Ware. OK, and again, this is from the end campaign site.

37:02

He's he was as one of President Obama's ambassadors to America's believers.

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Michael directed faith outreach for President Obama's historic 2012 reelection campaign.

37:15

Now, let's just stop right there. Again, I'm not the most tactful guy in the world, but let me just put it that way.

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That the the faith outreach, directing faith outreach for President Obama's historic 2012 reelection campaign.

37:32

That's a nice way of saying that his job was to con Christians into voting for Obama. OK, and that's perfectly legitimate.

37:40

You know, hey, we have political campaigns. There's free speech. And let me just say the end campaign has the right to do that.

37:47

They have the right to do everything they're doing. I'm not disputing that they have the right to do everything they're doing. I don't think it's right, but they have the right to do everything they're doing.

37:56

That's what his job was. So so I mean, I think, frankly, now what he's doing is he's still trying to con

38:03

Christians into voting for Democrats. I think that's what he's doing. But anyway. Now, I'd like to just point something out here.

38:09

Yeah. Michael Ware has written the book Reclaiming Hope. Mm hmm. On the front of Michael Ware dot coms, his website, the first quote for endorsing the book, it is the most prominent, you know, biggest font right there in the center.

38:25

Michael Ware dot com says an important and extremely timely book. Get it, read it and talk to others about it.

38:33

Tim Keller. Oh, dear. Did you know that? I did not know that.

38:39

So Tim Keller apparently is familiar with him enough.

38:45

Michael Ware, who's this Democratic strategist, Obama. Well, that's exactly what he was to the faith community for Obama.

38:52

He's familiar enough with him to endorse his book. That's fascinating to me.

39:00

I wonder if you start uncovering rocks and stuff. Here's here's something by Russell Moore again.

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The this is on Michael Ware dot com. Michael Ware is part of what I think a new generation can bring and a new shape to American public life, one in which we can disagree without tearing each other apart.

39:21

We can hope and and this book can help us. Russell Moore. That is his endorsement of his book.

39:30

So Obama was the most unifying president of all time. Yeah. But that's just you know, and I didn't even know this when

39:36

I started doing the interview with you. I just figured I'd Google him as you were talking. And that's what came up.

39:44

So, man, man. Right. So we got Michael Ware, who's

39:49

I'll just say this Anglican praise for you, Southern Baptists all the time and you

39:54

Southern Baptists as Anglicans. We need prayer, too. So, yes, yes, you definitely do.

40:01

That's for sure. Well, you know that I don't even know how you follow that up. I mean, that's kind of a that is a slam dunk case.

40:09

Is there anything else you wanted to say about either of these two guys? That's probably the biggest thing from from that.

40:16

Yeah. OK. Anything else you want to say about the and campaign? Well, again, they have the right to do what they're doing.

40:27

But. I think they are. I think they're deceptive in some ways, and I guess all political campaigning involves a little bit of deception.

40:37

You want to bring people's attention to what you want to bring people's attention to and distract them from what you don't want them to see.

40:45

But, you know, again, they say that Christians can hold both parties accountable.

40:54

Well, not only are they not holding the Democrat Party accountable, they're they're kind of I think they're pushing their agenda.

41:02

I really do think they're a Democrat front crew. Yeah. If I'm wrong, God forgive me. I've been wrong before, but I think we can see that this has all the signs of being a

41:11

Democrat front. Well, Mark, I wanted to just thank you for sharing some of this.

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I did not know this. And we both learned together some things that we didn't know between both of us during this recording.

41:25

I appreciate what you're doing and people can go. I've seen other blogs from you, which I've appreciated as well. And if people want to read more, they can go to wannabeanglican .blogspot

41:34

.com and that link will be in the info section. And are you on Facebook or social media?

41:40

I don't see those links here. On my blog? No, I'm on Twitter. You're on Twitter.

41:46

OK. As the wannabe Anglican. On Twitter under wannabe Anglican, yes. All right.

41:51

Well, I have to ask you one last question. You've been sporting a cowboy hat this whole time. Is that just a style thing or are you a rancher at all or a country music singer?

42:04

There are some cattle. I used to run cattle myself. I now run some cattle for a friend. She's mainly keeping an eye on them.

42:10

They're real gentle. I don't ride around on a horse. No, I've been in Texas.

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Matter of fact, both sides of my family have been in Texas before Texas was even a state. Oh, wow.

42:23

I'm about as Texan as you can get. So. Well, praise God for that. I'm thankful for the. Yeah, for better or for worse.

42:29

I'm about as Texan as you can get. Yeah, I'm grateful for the state of Texas. I'll tell you. And, you know, keep holding firm.

42:36

I'm I'm I'm not disappointed that your boy Beto, though, is out of the running.

42:42

So that just broke my heart. Yeah, well,

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I'm more thankful for like Ted Cruz coming out of Texas and some of your Rick Perry and some of those other guys.

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And they're not perfect, but a little better than than Beto. Anyway, well, God bless you.

42:59

And, you know, I hope this was helpful to everyone watching. All right. Have a good day. Have a good day.

43:05

All right. Bye now. Well, that was interesting and enlightening and scary, and I know a lot of the topics

43:11

I bring up are. And you can't live in that. You can't breathe that all the time.

43:17

You have to live in the love of Jesus Christ. As Romans 8 says, nothing will separate us from that love.

43:23

But at the same time, you can't retreat from the public sphere. And. I think what that looks like is as you're doing your quiet time, as you're reading the word of God, don't just apply what you're reading to your personal circumstances, apply it to your vote.

43:42

Ask yourself the question, what does this mean about even the government that I live in? Because we are getting secular categories coming at us from people who claim to be pastors and they're totally off.

43:54

They're not biblical. And so you need to understand for yourself what the Bible says about these topics.

44:00

And I'll give you a really quick example. If you're reading in the Gospels and you've come to the passage where Jesus says, you know what?

44:05

It's not what goes into a man that corrupts him. It's what comes out of his heart that corrupts a man.

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What does that mean for politics? What does that mean for your vote? Well, I know what it could mean on a personal level.

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I mean, you're evil. It's not that you have an excuse because outside things are corrupting you.

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I mean, they're only corrupting you because there's something evil inside of you that is allowing yourself to be corrupted.

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It's actually the thing corrupting you. There's responsibility. Well, if there's personal responsibility and evil comes from within, what does that mean for the role of government?

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Well, it ought to punish evil and evil comes from individuals. More than,

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I mean, individuals can certainly erect systems and laws that are wrong. But evil at its core comes from individuals.

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What does that mean about the role of government if government's job is to punish evil? So I'm not going to answer that.

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I'm just going to let that hang there and say, there's a deeper thought that you can have about a passage like that.

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And I would encourage you as you walk through the word of God to ask yourself these kinds of questions all the time.

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Because we are getting to a time where apologetics is going to include, unfortunately, combating those who claim to be pastors, church leaders in evangelical institutions, denominations, etc.

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And they're the ones bringing in postmodern critical theory, all kinds of ideas that come straight from the world.

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And we need to be vigilant in this. We need to, if you're a pastor, you need to protect your sheep from this kind of thing.

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And unfortunately, fortunately, the word of God is sufficient. I believe that with all my heart. So hopefully you found that encouraging.