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 you want to get that taken care of.

I don't know. 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. As we start off the podcast today,

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Matthew. I guess he's trying to fool with the microphone. Anyway, if you're passionate about helping the church in America, this is really what

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There's so many great names that are going to be there, and we're looking forward to that. I wanted to pitch too, by the way.

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please check it out. Go to TruthScript .com, scroll down, and there's a publish tab, if you will.

Click on that, and it'll give you our guidelines. Anyway, Matthew is back.

Matthew, are you still hearing an echo as you try to talk, or has that been rectified? I think it was on my end.

We're good. Sorry. This is the fun part. Like you were just saying, this is the fun part about live streams, is we get problems on the air and cannot edit it.

No, we're good now. We're good. I think I asked you how you were doing, and then it was the echo thing.

How's everything going? Things are going well. Just a lot of work this week, lots of good things going on.

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.

This is kind of a special episode. As we end, I think, what do we have, and then

Trump will ascend the stage. 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.

We're going to review some of that. I think there's a lot to be encouraged about. Not everything is good.

I would say no administration is perfect, but my expectations have already been,

I would say, surpassed. I want to just say on a personal note, I was traveling this last week.

I'm going to give myself a little bit of an excuse here. Matthew, catch me if I say something heretical.

If I say something off, I have had about an hour of sleep in the last 36 hours.

As a general rule, probably not good to give someone like that a microphone. 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. Matthew was all ready and primed, and Trump was doing the speech, so I said,

I think we could do it. 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 Dorris is a guy who puts that together, and A .D. Robles was there. We had a great time. 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.

I saw those guys. They have a different plots of land in Gainesboro, Kentucky with a vision of Christians in particular,

I would say. I don't think they're 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, 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. Anyway, I just wanted to plug that and say

I was close to where I was in Kentucky, and I wanted to see them and see what was going on.

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.

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. It's confusing, right, because he didn't have sequential terms. His second term, but it's the first year.

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.

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.

Matthew, what are some of the things that encourage you the most as you're looking at the accomplishments over the last two months?

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. 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. 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 on Saturday who experienced this very thing.

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 sort of is upholding a Christian ethic, I believe.

I mean, sort of just looking at reality. You don't even need Christianity to know that that sort of thing would be unstable.

But yeah, I really like 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 it 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 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 about 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, hampers 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.

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? And 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.

And that's something to rejoice about. It really is. So 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, or I don't know if he got rid of all sensitivity training, but at least

DEI specific sensitivity training. And 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.

So with that out of the way, I think this is a big victory for Christians being able to declare

God's truth. You have, and this is, I'm just going to highlight this because this is one of the comments, but you have

Von Breitauf -Gohart saying, I love how Trump and Vance put rat king

Zelensky. Now this is, this is his words, not mine. I'm not calling him a rat king, but apparently Von Breitauf -Gohart is in his place.

And 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. And yeah, that was a cool thing. That's stewardship, right?

So Doge is also part of that efficiency in government, stewarding God's resources.

The remain in Mexico policy, you know, 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's 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, 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.

So like actually enforcing this is good, especially like from a Christian perspective and for Christians, because we don't want to be funding murder.

So that's another one that I noticed. And the Mexico City policy has been now put back in place.

So 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. You know, there's military back pay now and reinstatement if you were targeted.

I mean, that's a crazy switch. So, I mean, we could probably go on and on about some of these things.

This has been like your head spinning. It's been so quick, so fast. I just think it's incredible and it's a great thing to be alive for and to watch.

And so negative things. OK, 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. But what about some negative things,

Matthew? What are some things that you're like, oh, man, you mentioned the IVF thing, which maybe we can talk about. Anything else?

Yeah, I mean, what this gentleman just said with Paula White, like 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.

And 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 like magisterial Protestant, like, 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 confessional. You know, this is what I believe, yada, yada, yada.

And I support Christian nationalism. That's like my big thing. And it's just like, you know, in principle, I think all those, you know, 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, you know, by your favorite author, Stephen Wolf, or by like 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.

And I'm not one to dump on evangelicals. I don't like doing that. I already became Presbyterian like a little over five years ago.

So I kind of had my cage stage where I got to dump on and be like disgraceful for my evangelical upbringing.

And then I learned that that's really not the right way to handle it. So that's not how I want to go about this at all.

I think evangelicals are great. You know, 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.

And so it kind of makes sense that in order to represent this coalition that put him into office, Trump is going to pick someone like Paula White.

And it's unfortunate, but the reality is, like, I wish this wasn't the case, and maybe someone can prove me wrong.

And 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. And that's what we're seeing.

That's how it is. And I think that that's being instantiated through someone like Paula White being popular among the

Republican Party fan base. That's just, 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. So to overstate my answer to a very simple question, yeah, that sort of is what crossed my mind as well, was that 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 matters of, really matters of like federal relationships with religious organizations.

And here's the thing about this. This is, I think this was set up during the Bush years, and 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, and this would involve us.

And we get a seat at the table, but our influence is there, the gospel is going to be present, and isn't this great?

We can be doing things like resettling refugees and getting contracts for that. And now we can see where some of this is gone, and it's not so good.

So the person who is the senior advisor is going to navigate the

Christian landscape for Trump, or the religious landscape, and 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. I mean, that's really the job of Paula White. So 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. And some people seem to think that, that's not what's happening.

She is advising the president on matters related to confinements. And so some people thought that I was very 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 were 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 and Trump's...

I'm like, 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. And 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. 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. So 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 mean, I'm going to push you out and then come back in.

All right. So I think it was 2016,

Trump made this tweet. He said that Russell Moore's a nasty guy. And then there was this backlash against Trump.

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

Trump. And Trump was proven right by all of this. He was right at that point. He's still right. And so 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. But someone like Paula White, who has been extremely supportive of the president's agenda, is going to be in these places.

And 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 to compromise to support the MAGA agenda in general. But I think it's a fair question worth knocking around.

So why isn't it someone else that's more solid? And people were throwing out Paul Washer and John MacArthur.

Those are the two big names I saw. I'm like, OK, John MacArthur, whose his health is not the greatest right now.

We're praying for him. But I mean, he's he's been critical at times.

He supported Trump, but he's not like 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.

I why would Paul Washer be picked? He doesn't really engage in these things. I mean, I'm trying to be the last time

I heard him engage in anything political. He was Paul Washer was in favor of shutting down churches in twenty twenty twenty.

And 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. And I'm not trying to, like, 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 White is. So that's my rant.

But, you know, 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.

So Paul White had it. Paul White had it from the perspective of the administration.

And none of our guys did, which is sad kind of to me. I would think that we should have better guys we can field, you know, on that level.

But anyway, anything to add to that, Matthew? No, I mean,

I agree. I think it's sort of 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 sort of like a nostalgic feeling of young restless and reformed and like 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.

And like you've said, like I'm saying, I don't think that Paul 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 like this, like this female quote unquote pastor.

Like, yeah, I hate it, but like there's a reason she's there. And 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, like, I'm trying to think like who would be my pick.

Anyway, I don't like it just as much as you don't like it, but that means we 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 or tied situation. Now there's U .S.-Mexico coordination against their biggest cartel,

Sinaloa. So that is true. And that's, I understand, you know, 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. And then if I'm not mistaken, it's also 25 % on goods coming from China.

And this is, part of it, 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. And it is possible we will see some economic, some bad economic activity.

Like 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.

Like are we, you know, the fentanyl crisis is the 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 you know, this seems to be the weapon Trump wants to use. And he's using, 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. And it opens up this whole discussion of like, you know, if Trump can just like go in there and make all these executive orders that you look at the constitution, you're like, where does the president have this authority?

What's to prevent, you know, like Biden 2 .0 from coming in and just reversing all of it with it.

And there really isn't anything right. This gets into like, like,

I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it. Like, I don't like it in a sense, but I also like,

I realized 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. Like he has to do what he can within the boundaries that he has.

But like, we are kind of post -constitutional. This is proving the point that we're post -constitutional because the president shouldn't under normal circumstances have the power, the power just to start putting tariffs on stuff like this or, you know, changing social policy, you know, with the flick of a pen.

But, but he's doing it and we're glad he's doing it. So I don't know. 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. OK, 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 know, 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 like that sort of thing is important. So I'm glad to see like that sort of tyranny reversed, even if you want to like, you know, even if you have to use your own authority vested in you to do that, because it's just 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. Like 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. And then like, 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 on to the government over time.

So he still is trying to limit things. So he's just using power to get that done.

And 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.

I mean, 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. So 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 theirs is unwritten, right?

They talk about the British constitution, but it's not like ours. And there's advantages and disadvantages to this.

But one of, I think, the disadvantages is we're 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.

And it doesn't... 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. And 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. And I do admire this sentiment.

I want to get back to a limited government, federal arrangement, and all these things. But 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.

So 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. And 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. And it's a broken world.

So I think he's pursuing the right sets of policies. And he's just using tools that the

Democrats have been using for years to get their stuff done. So, yeah, that's kind of a rant,

I guess. But we have some comments coming in about the whole. So we have. All right, Matthew, what do you think?

Franklin Graham. You Franklin Graham, I think he's a good he would have been better than Paul Light, but I don't know, he was maybe he was tapped and he said, no, who knows?

I don't know. Franklin Graham is is a possible choice, though.

I like that one. Votie Bakum. Now, this is a curious one to me. Votie Bakum has not been in the country for years now.

He just came back. And so there's no reason to expect that Trump would ever make

Votie Bakum, at least during this term, is his advisor in that sense.

I don't think being the fact that he hasn't been in the United States. So so Franklin Graham is really the only alternative we've been able to come up with.

That's a possibility. And Matthew looks like you're frozen. Maybe you should do audio only.

I don't know if you're having an Internet problem. I'm going to remove you and then we'll see if you can come back again.

But but yeah, I mean, yeah, like frankly, David says, why not Franklin Graham? I think Franklin Graham and I said this actually at the time because someone else suggested that I said,

I think that's the only one that I think makes sense. Franklin Graham does have the status and he does,

I think, have the know how and he has been supportive of the president. All those elements are there. He is older and it is possible he may have been on the shortlist.

And who knows, maybe he was even offered it and said, no, I don't know. I'm not saying that. But you know,

I think I think you're onto something. Franklin Graham would have been a great pick. And he is, to some extent, connected to the president.

So, yeah, Matthew, are you? Oh, I don't see the camera. Can you hear me?

Can I hear your audio? See here. Here, can you is this better?

I just disconnected from my hotspot to reconnect here. You just kept cutting in and out. But I did see the

Votie Bauckham comment. I want to say I think Votie Bauckham would make an excellent security guard for President Trump.

Ah, yeah. Well, he he knows. What is it? What form of martial arts?

Is it jujitsu? Now you're silent, Matthew.

I don't know if you're muted. Something's going on with the Internet. You would be an excellent security guard. No, that was my Internet. Don't worry.

That was me being an idiot. I muted my mic. Don't we're good now, I think. All right. I'd like to hope I pray because I've been crashing out this entire episode, hearing you glitch in and out.

I don't know what's going on, but it's OK. We're back. I'm curious. But in the comments, if I'm glitching in and out,

I think they are hearing you. My my Wi -Fi is just being very sped right now.

So it's OK. OK. Yeah. Adam Johnson, there's Greg Laurie, Jack Gibbs, Ed Young, Ed Young.

I don't know, Ed Young. I guess he may be better than Paula White, but Ed Young.

Yeah. Greg Laurie. I don't know. Greg Laurie. OK. I'm going to get in trouble, maybe. I remember, though, Greg Laurie kind of went woke in 2020.

Now, he didn't go as hard woke as some of these guys, but he I remember him making statements about like anti -racist statements, statements about like police shooting stuff.

And he's not as political, guys. I don't think so. Yeah, I would

I would prefer him over Paula White, too. But I'm just saying, I don't know that he's got the chops to advise the president on exactly what that office,

Jack Gibbs. I don't know. Jack. Jack Gibbs is politically. He's out there politically. But, you know, does he have the wherewithal to know about these contracts and so forth?

I don't know. I don't know. Maybe that's a possibility. All right. You've been the whole time,

John. No, Trump isn't going to tap me, guys. Trump is not going to tap John Harris or Matthew Pearson, although that would be superbased if Matthew Pearson was the.

I don't know what Matthew would even do. He'd probably give all the contracts to the PCA. And I'm not sure how the

SBC or anyone else would feel about that. But I could be I could be Trump's pizza guy. I could bring him pizza.

Yeah. Something like that. You could you could. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what I would. What would what would

I be in the White House? I have no clue. I mean, I haven't I haven't thought about a job in the political or the administrative kind of end of things.

But I mean, I have a. That's how you go. No, I was done.

I was done. I was just going to say I do have a friend who I'm so mad because I moved to central

Florida from Tampa to go to seminary. And he's just like, yeah, you're going to love it here at RTS. And he just dropped out.

And now he's an intern for congressman in D .C. So. Oh, I mean, is that the kind of thing that you, you know, in another life would have wanted to do or maybe still want to do?

I don't know if I'd want to get involved in politics, if I'm being completely honest. I don't know if I'd want to.

But I'm cozy and comfy in the room that I'm in right now. So, yeah,

I don't I don't want to get involved in that. I would think like on a local level, I could see myself years ago.

I actually I don't know if you've heard of the Leadership Institute, but they still, I think, supply a lot of the staffers for campaigns and congressmen and so forth.

And I applied for an internship with them and they came back and offered me a job.

I was like, I didn't ask for a job. I wanted an internship. And they're like, well, we're not going to give you an internship.

So I was like, well, I mean, I'm not I'm going to school.

I'm not like I'm not ready for this yet. Maybe I'll do a job. But I wanted to just get my feet wet. And so I yeah, that was my story.

I did. There was a can't a recall an internship in Albany, which is the state capital of New York.

You know how many days I went? One. I went. I remember

I was. So I walked up to the rotunda right where you can look down, you can see or whatever it is like the gallery,

I guess you can look down and you see that the members of the New York State Assembly and they have these bills that are coming before them to vote on the debate.

And I remember I looked down and I saw a bunch of senators at that time. They didn't have smartphones, but they still had games on phones.

And I saw these like these guys, these assemblymen or whatever. They're playing like Candy Crush, like Tetris games on their phones.

And I just remember feeling so disheartened. I, for some reason, thought politics was this high noble enterprise where people debated the first principles of things.

And I got there and I'm watching Candy Crush and I'm like, oh my goodness, this is not what

I signed up for at all. Kind of a rude. But yeah, anyway, that's my little politics story.

I wanted to. Oh, one thing before we get to the article at TrueScript, I did want to say about the

IVF thing. Matthew, maybe you've done more reading on this. So I looked up the access to in vitro fertilization executive order, and it says the order directs policy recommendations to protect

IVF access and aggressively reduce out of pocket and health plan costs for such treatments. As far as I know, and I could be wrong, but as far as I know, this doesn't actually do much.

It is recommendations. I don't think it has the effect at this point, at least, of actually doing anything policy -wise.

I don't think you can go to your insurance company right now and force them to give you a discount or pay for IVF because of this particular executive order.

So as far as I understand, this is maybe things to come, but it hasn't happened yet, which is important because I saw people on X saying all kinds of wild things about what

Trump was doing. And I'm not sure that is true. I think the motive behind this is probably a good motive in that Trump seems to be saying, we need to address the fertility crisis.

People need to be able to have children and have a family. I mean, he's touting this as a pro -family thing.

And I'm kind of like, more or less faulting. I mean, I can fault him and we should,

I suppose, but I'm also faulting though, like the pro -life industry around him that they failed on this issue in so many ways.

If you look at countries like Italy, where they have a lot of restrictions on IVF and how it's used so that it's ethical in a

Roman Catholic country, some people might say, well, it's not ethical here or there, but it's significantly better than the

United States and what they prohibit. And I just think that if the pro -life industry was on their game on this, they would be advising

President Trump on, okay, if you're going to try to put recommendations out there to expand this service, this treatment, then these are the restrictions that need to accompany that.

But I don't even hear talk about it. It's not even a point of discussion. And that's disappointing to me.

I don't know why we're so far behind on this, but that's another example of like, why is Paula White in there?

Why isn't it our guys? What's going on? We need guys who think solid about this stuff in positions of authority to influence the president.

So that's my two cents on that. Tim Bushong's in the chat.

Hey, Tim, how are you doing? Tim Bushong, the great rocker, guitar,

Christian music artist in the chat today. Matthew, you read the article called,

Is Germany's President America's Future by Gabriel Render? Yeah, I was looking at it before I came on and it was pretty good.

He was discussing the culture shock of getting there and meditating on what once was a great light of Christendom and reformational

Christianity has now... I think he said something like how the population of Germany dropped from 98 %

Christian to 54 % with only 2 % identifying as actual Bible -believing

Christians. So it was pretty wild. Did I finish the article?

I don't remember if I finished it or not, but that's what I remember from it. But it was interesting though, from what I had read. I actually thought this was a really good article.

I like all the articles on TrueScript, but this is one of my favorites in the recent past, because I guess it's got that personal touch and Gabriel Render is a pretty good writer and he got some pictures and stuff, but it is a parallel to consider.

Germany, even before World War II, was basically post -Christian.

They were ransacked by higher criticism and then the conservatives were these neo -Orthodox.

I mean, I haven't studied neo -Orthodoxy at seminary in a while, but I don't know.

Are you still there? No, what did you say? I missed what you said. Thank God I can hear you.

Thank you, Lord. Did you study neo -Orthodoxy yet at seminary? Neo -Orthodoxy? No.

Are you thinking of like a Bardianism and stuff like that? Yeah, exactly. Okay. No, I haven't studied much.

I mean, I did have a class on Luther and his reception in my undergrad. It was a graduate level course and we read a small portion of Bart on Romans 1, but we didn't really discuss much of it.

So that's not an area that I'm super familiar with. Yeah. I mean, I had to read some books that at least surveyed it.

And the long and short of it is that it's kind of like the turn that happened in the mainline denominations during the modernist controversy in the

United States. They want to retain the truth of Christianity, but it's this kind of like higher level truth that doesn't need the actual propositions in scripture to be true for it to be true.

And so neo -Orthodoxy guys, and the guys who believe in it are going to say,

I'm not doing it justice because it's so much more nuanced and complicated, et cetera. But basically in a nutshell, that was my takeaway.

They're giving up, they're surrendering to higher criticism. They're saying like, okay, it's not true from like this lower

T truth perspective, but from this higher T truth perspective, it's true because it communicates these timeless truths that you have to kind of like, you have to read into almost,

I suppose. Genesis might be allegorical. It may not actually reflect real history, but there's this deeper truth.

I mean, Jordan Peterson does this kind of stuff, right? Even though he's not neo -Orthodox. So that was the church in Germany, even during World War II, like the conservatives had already given up the

Bible. And I think if there's a parallel between where we're at and where Germany's at, like they're a century, or we are a century behind them as far as like they're way accelerated as far as the secularization is concerned.

And we still have, what is it? Including Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, et cetera.

Like what is it? 80 something percent, higher 80s, 88 % claim to be

Christians of some variety in the United States. I mean, what was the stat?

I think you just threw it out. Was it like 53 % of West Germans even claim some form of...

Yeah, it may have been 54. I don't remember. That was in the nineties -ish. 1960. Okay.

Sorry. Sorry. 1960, 97 % of West Germany claim to be Christian. It's only 53 % now, 2 % recorded as Bible believing evangelicals.

So that's like unreached people status.

You know, it's like, I suppose the only parallel in the United States is maybe some areas of like the

Northeast and Pacific Northwest. And you can see what those areas are like.

All the churches, I just passed one of them today, big, beautiful Anglican church, stone architecture.

And the only thing that they have flying is a big trans flag, right? That's what you see in New England.

So anyway, the parallel he draws here is basically like, look, we haven't gotten to this point yet in the

United States. We need to keep ourselves from getting there. And the way we do that is we have to hold to the fundamentals of the faith, the cardinal doctrines, the confessions.

If you're at a confessional church, hold to that thing. Do not let it go. This is how we, we, we follow the path of Germany is by weakening all of those things and still claiming to be

Christian. And pretty soon you're not, and Islam is going to come and fill the hole. And, you know,

Paul, I think that's why Paula White is significant. You know, this is someone who should not be representing Christianity.

She is not confessional. She is not someone who is orthodox. She is a false teacher.

So she really should have no place, but it's just a symptom of the fact that we are on this slide.

And I think Russell Fuller and I had breakfast before the conference on Saturday.

And one of the things I'll just remember probably for a while, it'll be ruminating that he said to me is like, John, he goes, whatever you do, he just, he said, just stick to the fundamentals of the faith.

Don't give them up. Don't stray. Don't get distracted by every little popular gimmicky thing that comes up.

Stick to what we know to be true. The things that you've always known since you were young, authority of God's word,

Trinity, Christology, who Jesus is. He's the son of God. He is God. He is also man.

Salvation through faith by God's grace. Stick to these things, the Bible, right?

And make sure that you don't give those up because of political victory or something like that.

And I thought it was good advice. I really did. But yeah, any thoughts here,

Matthew, as we kind of like go to the questions and wind down? I mean,

I think that that advice has been given to you is very good, primarily because it's not very complicated.

It's very simple propositions. Of course, some of those are concerning mysteries of the faith, which are in themselves inherently complicated, and that's why they're mysteries, but they're still at the same time, very basic things.

But with how basic they are, though, it still is like, this is almost like, as a

Christian, this is like the very foundation of reality itself. Because in Christ, in God, all things live and move and have their being.

And thus, if you want to be consistent with nature, it's an important thing that you ought to fully submit yourself to the author of nature and not give those things up for political victories or trends or things like that.

And that's part of the problem with the apostasy that we've seen is giving up little bits to the point where people eventually like brush those things aside.

And it's just, it's very important to stick to that which has been handed down to us to receive well and joyfully the faith once we're all delivered to the saints as contained in the apostolic deposit, and to hold firm and fast to those things, just as the apostle

Paul commends Timothy, hold fast to the traditions I've taught you. It's just very important, because if you don't hold fast, you're going to get jerked and just let go real easy.

And so I fully agree with that. And I think that's a good idea. It's very simple, but it's shown to be something which will last, which is just stick to the fundamentals, stick to that which has been passed down to you.

That's one of the reasons that I really wanted you on the podcast on a regular basis, because there are a lot of guys out there, young guys who are trying to speak into the political social world from a

Christian perspective. But having that doctrinally sound confessional emphasis, wanting to protect those things,

I think is super important. And that's one of the things I admire, that you really do spend time,

Matthew, reading theology, trying to understand it. And we're all grateful for that with the attributes of God discussions.

Here's a question for you though, Matthew. So ironically, does that mean you're not supposed to be focused on religious nationalism?

Is that what you're saying? No. I think that when it comes to defining what a nationalism is, and then making that religious nationalism would be essentially caring for your own people, your own nation, that which has been entrusted to you by God, which you have been engrafted into through an intergenerational period of time, through a long lineage of being descended from all these people and coming together, it's fine to seek to put those interests...

It's fine to have those interests. And then at the same time as well, it's also fine to say, okay, this people, this nation, this commonwealth that I love, in the same way that individuals are

Christians by virtue of personal piety and faith and trust in Christ, in the same way you can say this is a

Christian school, same way that if your parents are Christians, you can say this is a Christian family, and the same...

There can be Christian institutions and things. Why would not the nation also be able to be

Christian? And if you have convictions towards a type of nationalism, especially if you have a good idea and understanding of an order of morals, of an order of loves, it kind of makes sense that you can designate this nation as Christian.

And if it's not Christian, seek for it to be Christian. So I have no idea why any of what I just said prior would at all overturn any form of religious nationalism.

I think I misunderstood. So they're saying that this question, I guess, was for me, but I don't know.

I think your answer actually fits though, because I talked about Russell Fuller telling me, basically don't veer from these basics.

But I do think that it's like, is your family, is understanding the nature of your family a basic?

It's kind of like a prerequisite, I suppose, to apply what we know doctrinally to the institutions, one of those institutions being the family.

We have to know what a family is. So no, I think that what you said, Matthew, is spot on.

You have to understand the order that God laid down in creation to apply these things. America is the only true

Christian country left, says John Morrison. This is a good question, I think, or an interesting one.

Washington's Hound, Matthew, asks this question. If we are in a post -constitution era, should we amend it to be in accord to the

Mayflower Compact? What do you think? I don't know.

I haven't thought about it. I don't feel like giving an off -the -cuff answer. I don't know.

I guess the reason I find it interesting is, would the mechanism of an amendment make a big difference in this?

This is the problem, right? You don't follow the rules already in place. Let's add another rule.

I don't know. I guess here's what I'll say, actually. I thought about this. Here's what I will say.

Here's what I want to do politics in the future, especially if we keep winning and losing elections, yada, yada, yada, and we have to keep playing this game.

Out of sake of reverence for our forefathers and for our history, let's just keep pretending the

Constitution has this power, just out of respect for our forefathers, and just keep doing what we're doing.

I don't like the idea of amending the Constitution. I don't know.

That's off the dome. Maybe I'll change my mind in five minutes or tomorrow. I don't know. Let's just keep pretending like it has the power.

We've had income tax. We've had universal suffrage. The 14th

Amendment has given us the right to privacy and so forth. You don't like that?

How could you? No, no. Let's just keep doing executive orders. He follows up and asks if we're heading towards a monarch and emperor, and you can't do that when the program is ending.

You just can't do that, Washington Sound. You're asking as numerous as the area speaker is going to come in.

Watch Dune and realize that the Dune movies are about Barron Trump. There you go.

There's your answer. Oh, my goodness. I thought they were about Islam and why am

I blanking on the founder of Mohammed? Anyway, so it's about Barron Trump.

All right. Let's see. We've got to end here, but question, does any

Christian leader have a more tragic legacy than John Piper? He could have been Trump's spiritual advisor, say for his third -way pietism.

I don't know. Tim Keller has a pretty tragic legacy, in my opinion, and so does

Russell Moore. John says, do you all think

America becomes more Christian by generation? I see Gen Z more religious than atheists. This is your question, Matthew.

Is Gen Z going to restore Christianity? I don't know. I hope so. There does seem to be a turnaround in, or at least the downward trend of atheism or non -religiosity, or at least a decline of Christianity is at least starting to go up a little bit where it's no longer declining, but the questions we have to have in mind is whether it's sustainable or whether it's a phase right now, and Lord willing,

I'm hoping that by God's grace that this is a good trend that people are beginning to realize that in order to actually be conservative or just right -wing in general, that part of that would involve holding onto Christianity.

It's like we don't want to make it cool to just be a non -Christian, but oh, you're also a right -winger.

No. I think that it is possible. I guess my only holdback is what is the sustainability?

Because right now, for example, we have the trends of some Zoomers going

Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic, and it's just like, okay, yeah, it's a fun little trend right now because that's the cool, sexy thing to do.

Back in 2021, it was really, really awesome and cool and epic to be Catholic.

Now, right now, it's really awesome, cool, and epic to be Eastern Orthodox, but you see the trends that go on, and so I'm wondering, there's the trends there, but then there's also, besides that, there's a sliver of people that become confessional

Protestant. Sure, I guess that's me, but then everybody else is non -denom.

Which is going to be more sustainable? I don't know. We'll see. I'd like to hope and pray that God does use this to turn around the tide of atheism that has been sweeping the

West for a while now. Salem asks, how do you respond to people who object to using

Carl Schmitt and the far -right political philosophers who have not so wholly associations?

Actually, you wrote an article called The Friend -Enemy Distinction in American Reformer Matthew in 2023. That I did.

I would recommend people who have that question look at that. I can answer that really quick if you want.

I guess you could say, yeah, Schmitt did not really have the best associations because the association with the

National Socialist Party, but first off, what you have to realize is that regardless, just because association doesn't mean wrong.

Just because he may have joined this political party doesn't mean everything he's ever taught and said is inherently incorrect.

That's not how we do history or political philosophy with anybody, unless they've been involved with that mid -20th century

German party. You go farther back to people who have committed way worse atrocities. We'll learn from people in the

Roman Empire who have done horrible things. I know Christians that will read Marcus Aurelius and gain wisdom from him.

I will admit, some of Marcus Aurelius' meditations have wisdom, but do you know what he did to Christians?

Horrible things. Nevertheless, you can be able to separate certain things in order to gain wisdom.

I think that you can still look at Schmitt and gain insight and wisdom from the ideas that he propounded, even if you yourself do not ascribe to all the tenets of the

National Socialist German's Worker Party. It is something interesting to note that the

National Socialists eventually ended up suppressing Schmitt. They weren't his biggest fans, and they ended up suppressing him anyways.

It's not like Schmitt was the biggest Hitler stan out there.

He was just like blushing and looking at Hitler being like, oh my gosh, sign my copy of Minecraft, please.

I'm sorry, Mein Kampf, my brain rot. Forgive me. It's not like he was doing that.

I think this may be politically strategic to join this party, but I'm not going to be a

Schmitt apologist. I have no interest in defending Schmitt from doing that. I simply thought that his insight into the nature of politics and identifying liberalism for what it is is insightful and helpful, regardless if he was bad.

The same way you can read Karl Marx to get real and genuine critiques of capitalism without ascribing to the solutions that he gave, which is clearly horrible things.

You can do this. You just have to learn how to think. Use it. Just use your head.

Yeah. As soon as you talk about alienation, there's some guys ready to pounce and be like, Hegelian.

Come on, guys. I was going to say, over the weekend,

I did a presentation on the rhetoric of Jesus. I don't mention Schmitt or any of that.

Schmitt didn't motivate me, but Jesus does make these separations between friend and enemy. It affects how he talks to people.

I have a chapter in this book that just came out. This is the first time I'm saying this on American Churchman Against the

Waves, Christian Order in a Liberal Age by yours truly. I want people to notice that on the back here, it says

TruthScript Press right there. Look at that. This is the first maiden voyage of a book from TruthScript Press.

You can find it on Amazon. You can go to my podcast or my other podcast channel,

John. What is it, John? I'm forgetting my own URL now.

I think it's johnericpodcast .com. Wow. You need some sleep, brother. I do. Yeah, check that out.

I wanted to let people know there's some answers in there on friend and enemy. Then also, please come to the

Christianity and the Founding conference, and thefounding .com for more info on that.

Here's the roster who's going to be there. It's going to be great. We'd love to see you there.

There's a VIP dinner as well. This stuff is all a steal. It's because TruthScript is underwriting it.

They're spending money. They're not making money on this. That's the way we want it. We want people to be able to access this good information.

That's why I encourage people to support TruthScript, support what we're doing here at The American Churchman as well.

With that, thank you, everyone who joined us. All 500 of you who are streaming right now, we appreciate it.

God bless. Until next time, go serve the Lord. Take care, y 'all.