Trump's 2 Month Report Card

And welcome once again to another edition of the American Churchmen podcast. On the American Churchmen podcast, we aim to encourage men to fulfill their God-given duties with gentleness and courage. I'm John Harris, and my co-host is Matthew Pearson, and we have a lot to get to today.

It's an unlimited amount of things we could talk about regarding the Trump presidency and Christians and how they're reacting to it, how they perhaps should react to it. But first, Matthew, how are.

You doing? I'm doing good, John. I do want to let you know there does seem to be a weird echo in the audio right now, so maybe we'll get that taken care of. I don't know if you hear that or not.

Do you hear it on your voice or is it just on my voice? These are the things that you're supposed to get ironed out beforehand, but we're going to be doing this live. I just hear it on mine,.

But I can mute my mic and maybe nobody else hears it, so it may just be me. Okay, I'll work on that.

As we continue the podcast here. There is an echo cancellation feature that StreamYard has. That's the program we're using, and I have it on mine. I'm not sure if you have it on yours. That might help, but we'll figure this out.

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Or has that been rectified? I think it was on my end. We're good. Sorry. This is the fun part, but like you were just saying, this is the fun part about live streams, is we get problems on the air and cannot edit it.

But no, we're good now. We're good.

Trump’s First Two Months and What Christians Should Notice

So I think I asked you how you were doing, and then it was the echo thing. So how's everything.

Going? Things are going well. Just a lot of work this week, lots of good things going on. So I'm happy. Seminary classes are going well. Like I always say, I'm just excited to be here. But because of some of the little hecticness going on recently, no attribute of God today.

I did request for you to not do that, so we will resume next week. No worries, gentlemen.

We kind of have a special episode. As we end, I think, what do we have, an hour? And then Trump will ascend the stage, and he will talk about... It's not technically a State of the Union. I don't know why they don't call it that for the first year of a term, but it's basically a State of the Union.

He's going to address a joint session of Congress. It's only been two months, and it's incredible to see what's happened in those two months. And we're going to review some of that. I think there's a lot to be encouraged about.

Not everything is good. And I would say, no administration is perfect, right? But my expectations have already been, I would say, surpassed. But I want to just say on a personal note, I was traveling this last week, and so I'm going to give myself a little bit of an excuse here.

I mean, Matthew, catch me if I say something heretical. But if I say something off, I have had about an hour of sleep in the last 36 hours. So as a general rule, probably not good to give someone like that a microphone.

But we had two weeks where we didn't have the American Churchman recently because I was traveling. I've just been traveling a lot, and I didn't want to do it again. And Matthew was already imprimed, and Trump was doing the speech.

So I said, I think we could do it. But I want to let everyone know, and some of you may know, I was traveling in Kentucky. I was in Shelbyville, Kentucky, at Reformation Church for the war room they do.

Jerry Doris is a guy who puts that together. And A .D. Robles was there. We had a great time. And then I traveled down to Gainesboro, Tennessee, where Josh Abatoy and I'm trying to think who else is involved with this project.

I mean, it's names some of the audience might recognize, like C .J. Angle is down there, and Andrew Isker is down there. And so I saw those guys. But they have different plots of land in Gainesboro, Kentucky, with the vision of Christians in particular, I would say.

I don't think they're like saying they're not limiting it to Christians, of course. But I think in their minds, they'd love to see conservative-minded Christian people take advantage of a high-trust, kind of thick community where people still leave their doors unlocked.

My area is not like that. I don't know if yours is, Matthew, but that's a unique thing today. And yeah, anyway, I just wanted to plug that and say I was just close to where I was in Kentucky, and I wanted to see them and see what was going on.

And it's an encouraging thing. I love the fact that there's guys who are dreaming and thinking and planning for the future. We need more of that, especially as men who need to rise and meet threats and protect our families and so forth.

So anyway, Charlie Dale says first. I must have already said something that didn't make sense because of my fatigue. First year, right? I think I said first year of second term. Okay, so it's Trump's.

It's confusing, right? Because he didn't have sequential terms. His second term, but it's the first year. And I don't know why, but I heard on the radio, we don't call that address the State of the Union.

It's just Trump speaking to a joint session of Congress. I don't know why, but that's just how it is. So on that note, Matthew, I think maybe a good way to kick it off, since we could get into a lot of different topics, is to just start naming some of the accomplishments that the Trump administration has achieved that should make Christians positive, that are good for Christian values and ethics and this kind of thing.

And I'll just say anyone who's streaming on X or on YouTube or on Facebook, please feel free to participate in this. Give us your list. Tell us what things you like, what things you don't like, why you don't like them, why you like them, and we'll make that part of the show.

So Matthew, what are some of the things that encourage you the most as you're looking at the accomplishments over the last two months? John, if you... Oh, I lost Matthew again. Okay. We're having some technical difficulties here.

I guess I'm going to start with my list and go from there. So let me know, guys, if you're having a hard time hearing me because I think that was on Matthew's end, but I'm not sure if maybe I'm having a hard connection time here as well.

But I'll just start with a list of things that I think are really important here. Trump had an executive order against anti-Christian bias within federal agencies, and that was pretty early on. I was really positive to see that.

I mean, this is like something... It might be more symbolic in some ways. I think it does have some teeth, but it is something just to reinforce that over the last, especially four years, the opposition, the Republican Party, is recognizing, you know what?

There was some real anti-Christian bias in our federal agencies. There were barriers keeping Christians from achieving powerful positions. And I think this is important because as Christians, we want, in the name of loving our neighbor, with the purpose of loving our neighbor and loving God, we want to wield power for good.

And if we're being prevented from that because of gatekeepers in the federal government, that needs to change. And I think that's what this executive order does, at least in the executive branch. It says, you know what?

We're not doing that anymore. If we sense that you are going to tip the scales against Christians getting a job, then you're in trouble for that. And I actually, funny enough, met someone in Kentucky, in Kentucky, that's where I was, on Saturday, who experienced this very thing.

They were, or actually, it was a father of someone who experienced this very thing. They had stellar grades. They had a great record for military service. And I think they wanted to get into intelligence.

And they were prevented from doing so, even though it was a no-brainer. They had letters from congressmen and so forth. And it's just because they were Christian. And so that's going to end. So that's mine.

I have more, but I asked Matthew. Matthew,.

Can you hear me and everything? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I think my Wi-Fi on my end is being crazy. So I just joined back, connected it to my phone's hotspot. So hopefully that's a little bit better. I can now hear you crisp again.

You were being robotic-y for about a minute, and then it just shut my screen off. So we're back.

Good goodness. Okay. Well, I just mentioned the anti-Christian bias executive order, but I had asked you before, what are some of the things you think that.

Trump has done that are positive for Christians? Yeah. So yeah, I guess things that are positive for Christians, I definitely think that there have been a few things that he has done like that anti-Christian defamation bill.

But also just in general, you've seen, I can't remember what bill it was, but I think it was something that was preventing, I think it was transgenders from serving in the military and things like that.

That was recent. And that is upholding a Christian ethic, I believe. I mean, just looking at reality, you don't even need Christianity to know that that sort of thing would be unstable. But yeah, I really liked the one that you just mentioned.

Other things that I can think of as well, this may not have a direct connection with Christianity, but I think the stuff on immigration, it can be better, but it's nice to see ICE actually doing their jobs and things like that, even if we do want to crank those numbers up.

And I know that Trump has spoken about wanting to do that. But sometimes, like I just said, this doesn't have a direct connection with how is this helping Christians. But when you think about how mass immigration impacts this country, what usually happens is that these people vote for anti-Christian policies, most likely.

So in preventing something like that, Trump is helping Christians. And that was the primary reason that I had voted for him was because of immigration and things like that. But obviously, we can get into this here as well, but there are, of course, certain things that we as Christians may disagree with that he has done, such as expanding access to IVF.

But all in all, I would say that he was obviously the better choice. He was honestly a good choice to make. It's not like he was just the lesser of two evils. I would argue that he was a good choice in general, and I have been enjoying seeing what he's done.

So I'm happy, I'm enthusiastic, but we can't get drunk off victory, because even if we get drunken off victory, the enemy still remains sober. And so you have to also be on your feet as.

Well. Yeah, absolutely. I frame this as a victory for God's order, God's design. And it doesn't mean that Trump acknowledges every dot and tittle of how Christians would conceive of God's design. Maybe we can talk about the IVF thing in a moment briefly.

But in general, we were going in a direction where God's order was being denied in almost every way. The fact that nations now are just, I guess, economic zones that have nothing else to them. This isn't God's understanding in the Bible of what a nation is.

So we're just rejecting his order, or we're going to let transgender people into our military. We're going to allow women to compete with men under the guise that these men are actually women in sports, in federally funded schools.

These things are against God's created order. You could look at even some of the environmental stuff that really, I think, encampers economic activity and man's dominion over the earth based on just really one metric, carbon.

Not looking at a full understanding of all the things that contribute to pollution and the rest. But this really, I think, oversimplified false narrative that allows governments to take more power and stop economic activity.

I mean, all this stuff is really related to that. Are we going to live in the world God created with the intention that God made it for man to have dominion, or are we going to start playing games with God's rules?

Trump, I don't think he's born again, but he is coming in supporting and trying to, I think, conserve at least aspects of God's created order that are reflected in our laws or have been. That's something to rejoice about.

It really is. A few other things. I'll just mention these. Obviously, the border issue, which way Western man says they look, the border is significant. Eliminating DEI in the administration, which way Western man also points that out, all the DEI and sensitivity.

I don't know if he got rid of all sensitivity training, but at least DEI specific sensitivity training. I think which way Western man makes a good point. DEI in the workplace stifles Christians from speaking up by making them fear for their job safety.

With that out of the way, I think this is a big victory for Christians being able to declare God's truth. I'm just going to highlight this because this is one of the comments, you have Von Breitauf-Gohart saying, I love how Trump and Vance put Rat King Zelensky.

Now, this is his words, not mine. I'm not calling him a rat king, but apparently, Von Breitauf-Gohart is in his place. I will say it was pretty glorious last weekend to see a president care about my money and where it goes.

I was blown away. I felt like for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I thought the vice president and the president actually cared where the money I give them goes. That was a cool thing. That's stewardship.

DOJ is also part of that efficiency in government stewarding God's resources. The remain in Mexico policy, back to border security, there's an almost 90 drop in crossings. That's just doing the job that the Biden administration wouldn't do.

The laws were already there. Pulling the United States out.

Of the Paris Climate Agreement, he scrapped Enforcing the Hyde Amendment was also a good one that I had seen where basically through that, or the way that it has it written is it says, for nearly five decades, the Congress has annually enacted the Hyde Amendment and similar laws that prevent federal funding of elective abortion, reflecting a longstanding consensus that American taxpayers should not be forced to pay for that practice.

Enforcing this is good, especially from a Christian perspective and for Christians because we don't want to be funding murder. That's another one that I noticed. The Mexico City policy has been.

Now put back in place. With foreign funding, we're not paying NGOs to go into places like Africa and sponsor abortions, essentially. The American taxpayers aren't going to be footing that bill. But rejecting the COVID regime, that's another thing.

There's military back pay now and reinstatement if you were targeted. That's a crazy switch. We could probably go on and on about some of these things. This has been like, your head's spinning. It's been so quick, so fast.

I just think it's incredible. It's a great thing to be alive for and to watch. Negative things. Okay, we already have that coming in. Michael says, who else is excited about Paula White being pastor of America?

I don't think it's technically the term is pastor of America. What about some negative things, Matthew? What.

Paula White, the White House Faith Office, and Evangelical Representation

Maybe we can talk about? Anything else? Yeah. What this gentleman just said with Paula White, the establishment of the White House faith office. In principle, the establishment of a White House faith office sounds great.

But this is something that we have to reckon with. I think a lot of our listeners have to reckon with this sort of thing as well. Many of us who are Protestant may consider ourselves some form of magisterial Protestant.

Oh, I'm a confessional Presbyterian. I'm a confessional Lutheran. I hold to the 39 articles as an Anglican. Or I'm a London Baptist, 1689 confessionary. This is what I believe, yada, yada, yada. I support Christian nationalism.

That's my big thing. In principle, I think all those... That's fine. I love confessionalism. I think that confessionalism is good. But at the end of the day, what you do have to realize in America is that when there is something like a president who establishes the White House faith office, it's not going to be led by your favorite author, Stephen Wolf, or by a lot of these guys who read the reform scholastics or whatever.

No, it's going to be trying to appeal to a broad coalition of evangelicals. I am not one to dump on evangelicals. I don't like doing that. I already became Presbyterian a little over five years ago. I had my cage stage where I got to dump on and be disgraceful for my evangelical upbringing.

Then I learned that that's really not the right way to handle it. That's not how I want to go about this at all. I think evangelicals are great. We love our lone bulwark. But at the end of the day, what you have to remember is that in broader evangelicalism, that which is the most popular is a form of non-denominational Christianity with the rock band, with the laser lights, with the inspirational Ted Talks.

It makes sense that in order to represent this coalition that put him into office, Trump is going to pick someone like Paula White. It's unfortunate, but the reality is, I wish this wasn't the case and maybe someone can prove me wrong.

I would love to be proven wrong on this. But the future of Christianity in America, it's not Catholicism, it's not orthodoxy, it's not confessional Protestantism, it's non-denominational Christianity.

That's what we're seeing. That's how it is. I think that that's being instantiated through someone like Paula White being popular among the Republican Party fan base. That's how it is. Something I would like to see though is I would love to see polls from evangelical Trump supporters on what percentage support someone like Paula White.

That would be interesting because I think that would give us a little bit more of a grasp of what is going on with the future of Christianity in America. But at the end of the day, I think that non-denominationalism, I don't know if it's sustainable, but I think that that's going to be the most powerful form of Christianity is this disinstitutionalized form of evangelicalism that has Paula White as the leader.

To overstate my answer to a very simple question, yeah, that is what crossed my mind as well, the establishment of the White House Faith Office.

I think that's a good analysis because there is a symbolic element to this where she is the senior advisor to the president in really matters of federal relationships with religious organizations. Here's the thing about this.

I think this was set up during the Bush years. There's been corruption, I think, in this endeavor. Initially, Christians were pretty positive about this that, look, George W. Bush is going to let Christians do some of the things that the federal government was or was going to be doing.

This would involve us. We get a seat at the table, but our influence is there. The gospel is going to be present. Isn't this great? We can be doing things like resettling refugees and getting contracts for that.

Now we can see where some of this is gone, and it's not so good. The person who is the senior advisor is going to navigate the Christian landscape for Trump or the religious landscape. Who should be getting contracts?

Who shouldn't? What organizations, denominations, et cetera, are going to be in line with the MAGA agenda? Which ones aren't? That's really the job of Paula White. I think what you said is absolutely true.

She does have a position of influence and status, but I think that people do need to realize her job is not to give good theology to the rest of the country. She's not being platformed to preach. Some people seem to think that.

That's not what's happening. She is advising the president on matters related to confinements. Some people thought that I was pro-Paula White. Not many. I think people who were able to read in context did not take some statements I made this way, but there was a few people who thought that I was pro-Paula White because I tossed out the question online to people who are very critical of this decision.

Like, okay, if you're a pastor, why wasn't it you? Just think with me for a moment. Obviously, there's multiple elements that go into this. A lot of people just assume, oh, it's because she's blonde and she's a woman.

I don't know if that's quite it. I think they had somewhat of a relationship before this, but there's something bigger here. Paula White has been very pro-Trump. I give one example. If you look in, I think it was 2016, Trump had made a tweet against Russell Moore, called him a nasty guy.

Do you remember that? Or have you seen that tweet, Matthew? You know what I'm talking about? I think you froze. All right, Matthew, you might have to come back. For those who don't know who are out there, okay, you're breaking up though.

I don't know what's going on. I'm going to push you out and then come back in, all right? I think it was 2016, Trump made this tweet. He said that Russell Moore's a nasty guy. Then there was this backlash against Trump.

How can you say this? You're slandering a brother. It was a lot of guys we respect. If you go to that tweet, it was like who's who of conservative evangelicalism coming out of the woodwork to rebuke Trump.

Trump was proven right by all of this. He was right at that point. He's still right. I was trying to use that to say, look, if you've been really critical of Trump or the MAGA agenda, or you're there ready to pounce on him, he's not going to probably pick you.

You're not going to even be in the room. You're not going to be considered for any of these authoritative positions. Someone like Paula White, who has been extremely supportive of the president's agenda, is going to be in these places.

One of the things I think we ought to be doing is, as conservative evangelicals who aren't heretics like Paula White, we really do need to be figuring out ways that we can be wise as serpents and acquire the status and power necessary to get into these places, not compromising at all.

I don't think you need a compromise to support the MAGA agenda in general. I think it's a fair question worth knocking around. Why isn't it someone else that's more solid? People were throwing out Paul Washer and John MacArthur.

Those are the two big names I saw. I'm like, okay, John MacArthur, whose health is not the greatest right now. We're praying for him. He's been critical at times. He supported Trump. It's pretty obvious to me why John MacArthur would not be picked to help Trump navigate these kinds of contracts, which is what the job really is.

Someone like Paul Washer, why would Paul Washer be picked? He doesn't really engage in these things. I'm trying to think the last time I heard him engage in anything political. Paul Washer was in favor of shutting down churches in 2020.

He was cautioning Christians that if they were saying this was tyranny or something, that it wasn't. That's the last thing I remember from Paul Washer. I'm not trying to knock him. I'm just reporting to you.

That's what he said. Why is he going to be in that position? He's not really that political. Paul the light is. That's my rant. I don't know exactly what that looks like in every church, but I do know preachers would have to have some status.

They'd have to be political, and they'd have to be in general supportive of the president's agenda to get into a position like this. Paul the white had it. Paul the white had it from the perspective of the Trump administration, and none of our guys did, which is sad to me.

I would think that we should have better guys we can field on that level. Anyway, anything to add to that, Matthew?

No. I agree. I think it's wishful thinking when people say that it should have been someone like John MacArthur or a Paul Washer, because there really is nothing that they have done to put themselves out there for a position like that.

What I think a lot of it is is it's a nostalgic feeling of young, restless, and reformed, and this idea that, oh, because this guy has preached really good sermons that I liked and written good commentaries, he should be in this position.

Like you've said, like I'm saying, I don't think that Paul the white is at all qualified to do this. I'd rather her not be there. I hate the symbolism that it communicates. I hate this idea that the representative of evangelicals is this female, quote unquote, pastor.

Yeah, I hate it, but there's a reason she's there. I think that wanting John MacArthur or a Paul Washer there is wishful thinking because you think they've had a few good sermons. I don't really see why you'd.

Want that. I can't even think. I'm trying to think who would be my pick. I don't like it just as much as you don't like it, but that means we've got some work to do, I would imagine. Washington Town says, don't forget Mexico is cracking down on cartel operations.

Prior to Trump, it was viewed as our hand-for-thigh situation. Now there's US-Mexico coordination against their biggest cartel, Sinaloa. That is true. I understand this is a big motivation for these tariffs that just went into effect today, 25 on imported goods from Mexico, Canada, and then I think 10 on energy from Canada.

Then if I'm not mistaken, it's also 25 on goods coming from China. A large part of it is Trump doesn't want the border problems continuing to plague our country and he's blaming Canada and Mexico and China for allowing fentanyl to come into the United States.

It's interesting that he's using tariffs as his negotiation tactic, which I think that's what it is. It is possible we will see some bad economic activity. We may see prices go up and so forth. I don't know how we can't see some of that with this, but it's all cost benefit.

The fentanyl crisis is a real crisis. Is this a tool that will work to get these countries to stem the tide of that coming into our country? I don't know, but this seems to be the weapon Trump wants to use.

This is another discussion maybe to have. He is using emergency powers to do this. This is not something that normally a president would be able to do through executive action. It opens up this whole discussion of if Trump can just go in there and make all these executive orders that you look at the constitution, you're like, where does the have this authority?

What's to prevent Biden 2 .0 from coming in and just reversing all of it? There really isn't anything. I don't know how I feel about it. I don't like it in a sense, but I realize a lot of the crap that we're dealing with came in through executive orders and Trump has to reverse that somehow.

He has to do it. He has to do what he can. The boundaries that he has, but we are kind of post-constitutional. This is proving the point that we're post-constitutional because a president shouldn't under normal circumstances have the power just to start putting tariffs on stuff like this or changing social policy with the flick of a pen, but he's doing it and we're glad he's doing it.

I feel tension on that.

Do you feel that, Matthew? Yeah, I understand. I kind of feel that. Let me know if I sound fine or I'm cutting out or not, by the way. Okay, excellent. No, I definitely think that this is proof that we're sort of in a post-constitutional age, but at the same time, like I said, I'm happy about it because at the end of the day, what conservatives have been failing at for the longest time is how to use power because politics does involve the use of power.

You need to be able to get things done and part of what that requires is the use of power. We no longer know how to use power. That sort of thing is important. I'm glad to see that sort of tyranny reversed, even if you have to use your own authority vested in you to do that because it's very important and we can worry as much as we want about, oh, well, what if they do this to us?

What if they do this to us now? Yada, yada, yada. They're already going to. They've been doing that. They've been using power in this way and we're the ones who have been like, we can't do that because they could do, guess what?

They've already been doing it. Nothing has changed. We've been the ones stagnant, so it's time to finally fight back. You already know they're going to use this power anyways. There's nothing you can do.

Then think about it like this. He still is limiting power. I mean, that is what the Department of Government Efficiency is all about is using, creating something like another, expanding the government in order to reverse a lot of these things that have been added onto the government over time.

He still is trying to limit things. He's just using power to get that done. That is why this is so good is that we're finally beginning to understand the use of power. It has always been what politics has been about is the use of power because there's been a certain authority invested in rulers to be able to use power.

Paul in Romans 13 talks about how the ruler has the right of a sword. Guess what a sword is used for? When you use a sword, you're exercising a particular power upon something. Congrats, you now have politics.

I'm fine with it. I get how many can be cautious about it because we're nervous that if we do this, then they'll do this, but they've already been doing that and that's why.

We're doing this. That's all you got to know. Well said. One of the things that separates us from Great Britain is the fact that we had a written constitution and there's this unwritten, right? They talk about the British constitution, but it's not like ours.

There's advantages and disadvantages to this, but one of, I think, the disadvantages is we're now downstream from that moment and we are under the illusion that the constitution is a static. I got to be careful how I word this because this might be clipped and used completely against the intent that I have here, but we think of it as a static document, which it is.

I mean, obviously, the words aren't changing, right? I don't believe it's a living constitution. The constitution itself is not a living part, but the way it's interpreted by courts and the way that it's been even interpreted by the executive branch and used has changed and we have to face reality.

I'm not saying I like this or want this. I'm saying this is how it is. We have, at this point, an unwritten constitution like the British in a way, even though we have a written one too, I understand, right?

It's sitting in the National Archives, but effectively, how we function is under this bureaucratic regime that has taken that document and used it for its own ends and interprets it according to its own.

Chevron deference aside, this is just the way that it is going to be. The bureaucracy is too vast. The history of how executive orders have worked over time and the executive power expanding, the judicial power expanding, the way that this has happened over time, the precedents are there and they're not being challenged, so they continue to remain.

That really just means you have an unwritten constitution too operating here, side by side this written one. This is part of the problem, I think, as you were saying, Matthew, with power. Conservatives have traditionally, at least over the last 50, 60 years, post-World War II, they look at the constitution, the piece of paper, and they say, let's get back to that.

Let's get back to those principles, but let's get back to this arrangement and try to cut things back. Let's not use the power that we're not supposed to use. I do admire this sentiment. I want to get back to a limited government, federal arrangement, and all these things.

Oftentimes, they don't do the things necessary to ensure that there's power enforcing that. They just do it voluntarily. You would have to have a system that punishes people for going outside the boundaries of that document, but we don't have it.

Now, you're letting them fight you with tanks and you're just using knives, basically, because you're giving yourself a handicap. You're saying, I'm not going to touch that executive power that they're going to use against me in the very next term.

It's a problem. Maybe what Trump's doing is he's just facing reality. He's just telling us, look, these are the conditions we actually live in, so let's make good decisions given these conditions. It's a broken world.

I think he's pursuing the right sets of policies. He's just using tools that the Democrats have been using for years to get their stuff done. That's a rant, I guess. We have some comments coming in about the whole

All right, Matthew, what do you think? Franklin Graham. Franklin Graham, I think he's a good He would have been better than Paula White, but I don't know. Maybe he was tapped and he said no. Who knows?

I don't know. Franklin Graham is a possible choice, though. I like that one. Votie Bauckham. Now, this is a curious one to me. Votie Bauckham has not been in the country for years now. He just came back.

There's no reason to expect that Trump would ever make Votie Bauckham, at least during this term, his advisor in that sense. I don't think, being the fact that he hasn't been in the United States. Franklin Graham is really the only alternative we've been able to come up with.