Should You Be Worried About PASTORS in POLITICS?

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Is it true, Mike, that the general public does not want church leaders to talk about politics? If you're a youth pastor, if you're someone in ministry, you know that's not true.

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They are almost begging you to address the culture issues.

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Taylor Swift, right? M &M, Andrew Tate. If you're fine with those individuals discipling your congregation, then

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I would say stay out of politics. Do Christians want their pastors to talk about politics from the pulpit?

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Well, depending on how old you are, your answer might be yes or no. Which is fascinating to me, so I'm Gen X.

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So I grew up in an environment left over from boomers, where you don't talk about politics all that much.

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And if you were a pastor at a church, and you did, it was so vague that it was almost not even worth mentioning.

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You know what I mean? Well, there may be a changing of the tide when it comes to younger generations.

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So I was talking to a friend of mine named Mike Lusso. He's an independent journalist and a Christian. And he says, yes,

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Christians absolutely want their pastors talking about this stuff. And I think I see that from my circles as well.

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But then literally yesterday, I got an article from Barna saying the exact opposite. Look at this.

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So this is from Barna. It says, November 12, 2024, the tricky mix of politics and pastoring.

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Take a look at this. For the most part, the general public does not want clergy to weigh in on political and social issues.

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One quarter of respondents, ages 13 plus, say they would be uninterested in learning about this topic from a pastor or priest, making this the top issue they do not want church leaders to cover.

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Right? So wait, the general public doesn't want pastors to talk about this. But wait, that doesn't seem to fit in with this article from Lifeway that shows the exact opposite.

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Look at this. So this is a Lifeway research article. It says churchgoers want to hear pastors address these issues.

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They expect it from the pulpit. Look at this. Four in five U .S. Protestant churchgoers, 80%, believe a pastor must address current issues to be doing their job, according to Lifeway.

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Few, 16 % disagree and 4 % are not sure. This came out October the 22nd this year.

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What the heck is going on here? We're going to get to the bottom of all of this. Before we go any further, welcome back to Wise Disciple.

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My name is Nate Sala, and I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be. Make sure to like and sub. And if you are a pastor or a church leader or you know one, you're definitely going to want to watch this and then share it around.

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All right, here we go. All right, Mike. Well, thanks so much for joining me. So here's the deal. I saw this article from Barna like yesterday, and I immediately texted you.

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So and here's the thing. I've worked with a rep from one of Barna's research teams in the past.

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And this one just quickly got my attention because I've had this conversation with you recently. As a matter of fact, there's a podcast coming out on your channel.

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So but I'm noticing that more and more Christians want their church leaders to talk about politics.

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They want help thinking through how to see what's happening around them biblically and where else, but to go to their local pastor and get that help.

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But Barna just dropped an article that suggests the exact opposite. And this just blew my mind.

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It says, for the most part, the general public does not want church leaders to weigh in on political and social issues.

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So this is why I brought you on. Help me and my viewers think through this.

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Is it true? So let's start here. Is it true, Mike, that the general public does not want church leaders to talk about politics?

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Before I kind of, you know, we address the data and the statistics. I mean, even if you are if you're a youth pastor, if you're someone in ministry, you know, that's not true.

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You know, talking to your students, you know, talking to people who attend your church, you are well aware that they are almost begging you to address the culture issues, whether it's, you know, ideologies, you know, you know, different candidates and whatnot, especially, you know, this time during the election cycle, right up to the election.

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You know, that's not true. So I know studies come out, articles come out, people, experts, right?

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But then there's also the reality of the day -to -day, what's happening on the ground.

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And if you're someone who is active in ministry, you're active in, you know, this spiritual, political, cultural conversation, you just know right out that that's not true.

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Now, maybe once upon a time, I think for sure it was true. I think,

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Nate, we had a conversation where, you know, that wasn't a thing, like you weren't supposed to talk about politics in the pulpit or, you know, in church.

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But we also know culturally, let's say post -2019, 2020, right, post -pandemic, there's been a huge cultural shift.

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And even before that, I would say in 2016, when Trump came into power, there was a huge cultural shift on how involved should people be when it comes to politics.

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And obviously, we're talking specifically church folk. Now, could

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I press you, like, or can we press into the details on that a little bit more? Because, like, why?

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What, was there something, was it just that Trump stepped into the White House in 2016? Like, what caused this shift, do you think?

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Two things kind of happened in 2016. Obviously, with the defeat of Hillary Clinton, people often forget that Bernie Sanders' rise to power and him basically being stifled by the

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Democratic Party. And that's not a conspiracy theory. He openly talks about it, like, everyone,

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Democrat, Republican, they openly know that, you know, they push—Bernie Sanders should have been the

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Democratic nominee, but they chose Hillary Clinton. Now, Bernie Sanders was kind of the bastion of progressive thinking.

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He wasn't as radical in certain ideologies, but he was, you know, he was the older generation of progressive ideologies.

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Now, behind him were people who also came into power in 2016. Like, there's a group called the

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Squad, right? That was people like Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez, Rashida Tlaib.

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There's another individual, I'm forgetting her name. But they came, like, a lot of progressive congressmen and senators also got elected in 2016 and in 2020.

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So while there is obviously a tendency to focus on just, like, the two main political candidates, right, the

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Democratic nominee, the Republican nominee, there's also the Congress people and the senators and just other political people coming into power as well.

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Now, if you're a Christian, I know a lot of Christians are, you know, they're upset with the

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MAGA movement. They don't like the MAGA movement. They want the old Republican Party. Well, it's like the old Republican Party is almost rooted out.

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The old Republican Party is what people call neocons, people who will gladly send your children to war on a dime, who love regulations.

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They love government overreach. The Republican Party, through Trump, whether you like them or not, through Trump, they basically uprooted a lot of those individuals, first in 2016 and then in 2020.

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Obviously, Trump lost the 2020 election, but there were a lot of congressmen, congresswomen, senators who were of the

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Trump faction who still took power in those seats. Now, on the

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Democrat side, right, those progressives also were coming to the power.

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And with those progressives came people like Kamala Harris, right? Kamala Harris in 2020, she was probably the most extreme version of all those very radical progressive ideologies in one, right?

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That's why she spent her entire campaign this past election season recanting, digressing on,

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I think it's 13 to 15 political positions that she held like just a few years ago, which it's kind of insane for a political, like imagine

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Trump changed his mind on every single one of his political policies just within a couple of years.

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You'd be like, what the heck just happened? That was essentially Kamala Harris when it came to banning fracking, trans ideology, transgender surgeries, just like everything.

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And that's when all of those ideologies creeped into the culture based off of legislation that liberals and Democrats put into play.

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So that's why now you have things like if you're a parent and you have children in school and you have an activist teacher that's talking about trans ideology, and then your kid gets that in their head, and then they change your kid's gender, and they're not required to tell the parent, and then six months go by and your kid's trans, and you had no idea.

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Those things have been happening under the Democratic platform. So obviously once you start affecting the youth, it creeps into places that the youth aren't, right?

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When it comes to sports, church, just wherever they are, that's where you see those ideologies become more present.

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So if you're a youth pastor and you're teaching sixth, seventh, eighth grade graders, they're being taught those things.

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They're being taught those things in school, and they have an influence of Christianity, Christ, their faith from their parents, from church, and now they're showing up to Tuesday night

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Bible study, Wednesday night Bible study, Sunday service, and they're asking you as a youth pastor these questions because that's what all their friends are talking about.

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That's what their teachers are telling them about. And the world will try to tell us that these are just social issues.

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These are just social issues. And in a lot of ways, they are just social issues.

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But once you start making laws and pushing legislation and doing all those things, it's inherently political.

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And once you start doing those things, right, the byproduct is that it will affect your children, your family, your social life.

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So there is, it's kind of like the Venn diagram where it blends.

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This happened in 2016 though, because I guess what I'm hearing you say is that this was a confluence of events right around 2016 where Christians are feeling the centrifugal force of all of these moving component parts.

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And it's almost like they're forced into having to know more about politics in a way that they never have before.

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Is that what you're saying? Yeah, because the people who are pushing these laws, these legislation are in politics.

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They're Congress people. They're senators. So now you have to, and I tell, this is my assessment is that the has been strong armed into the political conversation.

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Because there was an, let's say, there was the mindset of, hey, politics is here.

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The kingdom is here. We do our thing, crisis on the throne, crisis king. But now that's obviously

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Christians are a part of society, right? Our citizenship is in heaven, but we also have a second citizenship, a dual citizenship that is in whatever country you're in.

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So you, in a lot of ways, don't have really have a choice to be involved because once they start making laws and start pushing legislation, it's going to affect you.

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And we saw that during the pandemic when the closing down of churches and the strong arming of what

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Christians should and shouldn't do. Yeah. It's funny. I, cause we were talking about this.

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There was a moment, the whole, you could say the whole reason why wise disciple exists in the first place is because I was a pastor along with my mentor and senior pastor and a pastoral staff.

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We were preaching to a, to a real congregation. And then overnight we're preaching to a camera. Why? Cause the church was shut down.

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I mean, yeah, like I, this is, this is really this is really fascinating what you're saying.

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Now I'm trying to filter this all through the lens of this crazy article that I just saw that threw me off here.

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So I guess what I'm hearing you say, look, I've relied on Barna in the past to get me data on issues that I'm thinking through.

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Okay. But I know that Barna is not the only one out there trying to collect data in this way.

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You've got also got like Lifeway, you've got Pew and others that are also doing these types of surveys. So maybe you can help us here at like, how did these polls and surveys even work and how much stock should we actually put in these things?

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I personally would never just look at one study, one article. I would always try to cross reference in the same way.

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Like if you're, if you study scripture, you're, you're cross ref, you're cross -referencing, you're, you're looking at the whole council of God.

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I think a lot of times we fall into the trap of when it comes to media literacy and consuming internet products is that we just consume it and we will read the headline.

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We'll see a cool Instagram post with a nice graphic that says, 90 % of Christians don't want politics.

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A lot of times those posts are fake, right? That show up on social media.

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Especially if you have high media literacy and you're well read, you can, you can kind of call things out.

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Now, to my knowledge, when I, when I looked at that Barna article, it, that article looked like it was kind of like a promotional article that of an ongoing series that they're doing of like a political conversation.

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Cause the article was short. It had, it was like two, three paragraphs and made like very vague points.

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And then even when it said what it was basing the study on, it was based off of a 2015 study that they had done.

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Now, I, I, I'm, I'm sure I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure

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Barna has more up -to -date studies, right? And I'm questioning why they didn't use more.

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It's 2024. It's about to be 2025. I'm sure they've done more current studies and I'm sure they're aware of Pew research and they're aware of Lifeway.

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So I'm wondering why, I'm wondering if they have other content on their website that speaks more to that, because that one piece of content that they made was just extremely vague.

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So I'm wondering if there's something else on their website, a part of that series that they're doing that speaks more to it.

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Now, my personal opinion that is like, it's kind of, um, uh,

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I don't know. It's kind of bad work ethic. Just put up that one small piece and then that's it.

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And especially if you, they didn't really link to something else, right? They didn't link to another, like,

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Hey, this is the next chapter. This is the next conversation. They just put that out there and that was it. So 2015 study is very old.

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And if you even look at the timeline I brought up, I said, Hey, this started in 2016. Um, obviously there's probably inklings of it right beforehand under the

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Obama administration and whatnot. But 2016 is, is a, is a good, um, kind of anchor.

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I would say it was like, Hey, when all this madness has really started and their study is a year before that 2015.

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So you were so quick. So, so here's what happened behind the scenes. Uh, just so my viewers understand,

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I literally saw the article and I was like, I got to know what Mike thinks about this. So I literally sent the link to you and I'm like, dude, what's your take?

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Within, I don't know, 10 minutes, you had already pulled up all of this other data that sort of, uh, contrasted what

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Barna had produced. You were already like just with it like that.

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And so I think you're, and you're probably, what you just said is already touching on the answer to this question, but I'm you mentioned this phrase, media literacy.

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Like I suspect that this is what we Christians, including myself, we need today.

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But what do you mean by media literacy? Can you help us understand that a little bit better? You kind of talked about the quickness of pulling up, uh, additional data.

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And it's like, if you're a pastor, if you're someone in ministry, if you're theologian, you know,

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I'm sure you've had friends who was like, Hey, I have questions about the, this verse, or, uh, I'm confused about this.

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Or I heard this person say, you know, something really wonky about Paul or Peter or something like that.

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And a bunch of verses just immediately come to your mind, right? So you start sending them verses and they're probably,

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Oh, that was quick. So that's, that's basically the epitome of what biblical literacy is like you're well read on the text.

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You're well read on scripture. So when people bring stuff up to you, bring up, topics to you, um, just besides like, right.

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Obviously there's the, there's the aspects of the, uh, office of the Holy spirit and how the

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Holy spirit plays its part, um, on, uh, bringing things to the forefront of our minds when it comes to a scripture.

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But then there's also like, if you're just, you're, you're studied, right? So obviously you just, there's just versus you just think of just because you're in your element right now, the reason why

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I use that as an example is because it's nearly the same thing when it comes to media literacy.

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Um, most people aren't well read when it comes to, uh, and when I say media,

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I'm just saying like articles, just, just information on a said topic. Right.

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So, um, this specific topic I've looked into it before. That's why, I mean, we've, when we met, we, we had a conversation about it.

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Um, and I was, I was regurgitating a study I had read, uh, I don't even know if it was weeks ago or months ago.

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Right. And I've seen other people talk about it. So I knew I, I, it was, I knew it wasn't a made up study that I, that I'm, I'm just, you know, talking about.

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Um, but if you're someone who you don't, you're not regular, you're not regularly looking at studies, not regularly reading articles, you're not regularly, you know, going looking into these things.

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And when I, when I say read, I'm not just talking about like, you read the headline and then you read the first two paragraphs. I'm talking about you actually, in the same way you would like dissect, like write exeg, eiseg, like texts, uh, in scripture,

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I'm picking up art, I'm picking apart articles. I'm, I'm looking at it and I'm saying, what, what is not being said here?

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And then I go and find that missing piece of information. So with the case of the Barna study, it's like, what is, what is, what was that article not saying?

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And then I go and try and find, uh, that the counterpart. And in a lot of ways, right, this is the scientific method, right?

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You're trying to prove something wrong. It's like Barna made a case. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go try and prove it wrong. A lot of ways we try, we kind of do that with, with scripture, right?

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We see something that's okay, let me go and like try to prove, um, is this right or is this wrong? So it makes a claim.

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You know, you hear a really wacky biblical claim. You're like, all right, let me, let me go look into that. Cause that's, I've never heard that before.

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And that's pretty crazy. So it's the same thing where, um, so like Chris, we as believers, we are, we are in an interesting position because, um, we have the

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Holy spirit, we have discernment, we have wisdom. So we should be able to, at the very least when you hear something, when you hear something in the news, when you hear something political, sometimes, sometimes

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I'll see an ex post, I'll see, uh, uh, someone will send me an Instagram post and they'll make some kind of claim.

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And to me, I'm just like something, something's off about this. I'm like this, it's most likely fake. It's most, this most likely didn't happen.

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Um, and I think a lot of people don't do that. A lot of people will just see something crazy.

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Right. Um, uh, right now there's a lot of stories on when it comes to, you know, healthcare and reproductive rights.

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And, uh, the Democrats put out a lot of stories of women dying because they don't have access to certain things.

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And my first thought is when I hear those stories is something's not right.

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So like there, this is obviously a narrative because news and media is narrative, um, almost to the equivalent of, you know, if you pick up Lord of the

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Rings or the Chronicles of Narnia, you should look at it in that aspect where people are trying to quote to you fictional

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Harry Potter stories and you need to do your due diligence to go see if that actually happens.

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So there's a lot of crazy stories, um, that the media will pull, put out.

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The media will say, Trump did this, Trump did that. Uh, Kamala Harris is this, Kamala Harris is that.

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And if we don't do our due diligence to say, Hey, did Trump really say that? Did Trump really say what the media is saying?

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He said, did Kamala Harris really do what the media is saying that she did? And I think a lot of people, and in this case, specifically the church,

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I think a lot of Christians don't do that. They don't go past that and they just consume whatever is happening in front of them.

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Well, so how do we then, cause I would imagine the answer, I'm trying to anticipate what people watching might say, you know, as to why this is the case, why, what you're bringing up is true, which

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I think it is. And probably the answer is going to be something like, well, there's just an oversaturation of information.

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There's just too much coming at me. So how do I, I don't know, like I don't have that Spidey sense like you,

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Mike, you know, where I can read something and go, Oh, that's not real. Oh, that's probably didn't happen. Like, how do you develop that Spidey sense?

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Is there some kind of test? Is there a question that you're asking yourself, a kind of a diagnostic series of questions to determine, you know, that this is true or not?

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Is there a criteria? How do you do this kind of a thing? There's more of a spiritual element to this than people might think.

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And obviously in this specific case, we're talking to believers. And I, so my case

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I'm making is that at the very least, you should have certain sirens going off in your heart, in your mind, in your soul.

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I think as Christians, right. Just look at the things we're taught when it comes to, right. The Christian ethos, right.

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The past is gone. The new is here. Like we're not, we're not so quick to hold onto people's past.

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Right. So it's like, in that sense, how many of us are very quick and are very adamant about holding on to certain things about Trump's past.

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Right. Or looking at certain political leaders and thinking that this person's perfect, this person's evil.

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Not based off of what they've actually done, but just based off of what people are kind of just telling them to do.

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So I think there's more of a spiritual element to this than we might think. Because to me, even before, like I was saying, even before I even look into it,

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I'm like, dude, this is weird. This is just a very weird post that they're making.

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This is very, something weird that they're saying. I think there's a lot of critical thinking that needs to be had.

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I think even if you look at the average reading level in the

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United States is like, let's say fifth grade. Right. At the lowest. Reading level, it's comprehension.

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Right. Comprehension is understanding. If you don't comprehend and understand what you're reading, you're going to come to a different conclusion than what you ought to actually come to.

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So that's another thing. Right. So it's like, hey, what's your reading level? Are you actively in the word?

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Are you actively discerning what is right and what is less right?

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Not necessarily what is right or wrong, but like. Yeah. It seems like, I mean, as you're saying this,

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I'm reminded of things that we used to go over. So, I mean, before I was a pastor, before I did this, I was a high school teacher and we used to teach when you do research, when you write essays, there's a criteria that you need to follow in order to determine that you're using reliable sources.

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I mean, even when this comes to like debates and researching for getting up on stage, there are just some certain questions that you should be asking, such as what is the track record of this source?

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You know, have they been reliable in their reportage in the past?

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I don't know, stuff like that. Like what could be a motivator for this particular story?

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You know, and I like what you said to a moment ago, which is what are they leaving out? It seems like, so I think I've maybe identified three or four there.

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There are some unspoken questions that maybe even the church is already asking whether they realize it or not, because I think there is a, there is a sense in the zeitgeist that we cannot trust the mainstream media.

26:22

Wasn't that one of the sort of the takeaways, the big takeaways from this election is that the mainstream media is dead.

26:28

Yeah. I mean, the mainstream media for sure got it wrong. Every outlet was saying that Kamala Harris was the clear winner, or they were at least saying that it's going to be the closest election ever.

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The media by large, and the reason why, if you look at studies of trust in the media, it's getting lower and lower, specifically for anyone that's not a liberal or Democrat.

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So I think if you're a Democrat, it's like 75 around there, 70 to 80 % of Democrats still hold trust in the media.

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So if you're a Christian, you have to look at that and say, okay, why are only Democrats trusting the media? Republicans is the lowest, independents is right behind in trust.

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And if you look at every mainstream, I'll use the term legacy media, right?

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Because mainstream, the definition of mainstream is kind of changing right now. But if you look at legacy media,

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MSNBC, CBS, ABC, basically all of them besides Fox, all of them basically were mouthpieces for the

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Democratic Party. There was a study that came out that said, I think in the few or couple months right before the election happened, before November, at least 80 to 90 % of coverage on Trump was negative, right?

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And not just negative, but focused solely on his personal controversies, not his policies, not what he intends to do for the country, on his personal controversies, and also on things that didn't happen.

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Biden mentioned it in the debate. He mentioned the very fine people, Charlottesville quote, which has been debunked.

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Even Snopes, seven years later came out and said, yeah, he didn't call those individuals very fine people.

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Barack Obama regurgitated that same talking point in his speeches when he was campaigning for Kamala.

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And then the mainstream media repeatedly pushed out those narratives over and over and over and over again.

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Talking points that has been... It's seven years later since the

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Charlottesville event, and they're still talking about it now, despite most people knowing, well, maybe not most people, but despite people who've looked into it, and even fact checking organizations saying

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Trump did not say that those people are very fine people.

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He did not say that. So in a sense, it's slander, right? I think I was reading this morning,

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Trump is suing CBS, ABC for $10 billion for defamation.

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Because at this point, it's slander, right? And then it was like 80%, back to the original study, it was like 80 % was positive coverage of Kamala Harris, right?

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So Kamala, she's joyful. She's nice. She's the candidate everyone wants.

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Tim Walz is your father, is your dad figure. And he can fix your car, and he was a football coach.

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That's all narrative, people. That is all narrative. They're painting a very specific narrative.

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So even one, if we go back to media literacy, when I'm reading articles, when

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I'm reading maybe not so much studies, but articles in general, I'm trying to find out what is the narrative that they're playing?

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What is the story that they're trying to tell you? Because at the end of the day, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy.

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And whatever we do, whatever we say has to fall in line with that caricature of who

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Trump is. So even if you look at his Trump's cabinet picks that he's nominating, the mainstream media is saying, oh,

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Matt Gaetz loyalist, right? They're loyalists to Trump. And the reason why they're using the word loyalist is because, oh, he's loyal to Trump and not

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America because Trump is a dictator and he's a threat to democracy. They're painting a picture. Well, in reality, if you work a normal nine to five corporate job, if you're a manager, if you're a

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CEO, you've never hired anyone that you don't like. You've never hired anyone that's not a fit for a company.

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You've never hired anyone that you think is not going to be loyal to the brand, that is going to help you further the company, right?

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In the same way, Democrats too. Democrats have never put people, aligned themselves with people who aren't loyal to the democratic party.

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But the narrative, that adjective, that word loyalist is only being used for Donald Trump's picks because they're trying to paint a picture.

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Well, so what I'm hearing you say then, so trying to tie it back to the original issue at hand, which is what is going on in the church?

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Do churchgoers want church leaders and pastors to be talking more about politics?

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And maybe this is just another major component in that answer, which I'm hearing you say is, yes, that's what they want.

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And then there's been this shift, right? We talked about 2016 being pivotal and it seems like just continuing to build over time.

32:10

I mean, 2024, my goodness, was highly contentious in terms of the election. But I'm hearing you say too, this, this, what would you call that erosion of trust with the legacy media, as you said, is probably also a component into this, this bigger picture of churchgoers looking away from them and to somebody else.

32:31

They need somebody else to help them think through these issues. And so, well, okay, let me ask you this question.

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It seems like your answer is, yes, this is what churchgoers want, but oftentimes we desire something that is really, truly at base, not good for us, you know?

32:48

So this is an opinion question now, should church leaders talk about politics at church?

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Is that even wise for them to do? And if so, what can that look like, you think? I think the question is simple.

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And I had a friend, John Rush, he, he, he said he puts this position in front of pastors.

33:06

And I think it's actually a good reason. Either, if you are fine with Andrew Tate discipling your students, then don't talk about politics.

33:19

And I think that is the perfect way to put it. If you are fine with Taylor Swift, right?

33:28

Eminem, Andrew Tate, highly controversial people, right?

33:37

If you are fine with those individuals discipling your congregation, then

33:43

I would say stay out of politics. Now, if you're not fine with it, I would say you need to do your due diligence and be informed.

33:51

There's a difference between endorsing candidates. People aren't asking you to endorse candidates. They're asking you to be aware of what's happening in the culture and use scripture to guide them in how they should act and live in a pagan world, right?

34:09

Live in a Babylon. And that's not political. In a lot of ways, that's standard

34:17

Christian living, right? If you look at practical Christian living, your congregation, your congregants are asking you, how should we live in Babylon?

34:28

And to say that, oh, we should stay out of politics, well, your church members, they're police officers, they're firefighters, they're on the city council, right?

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They're teachers. So it might be easy for you as a pastor to stay out of politics, because your job is in the church.

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Your job is in the four walls of the church. But the people who are attending your church, they're in the world.

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When they leave Sunday, when they go to work Monday, they're going to their corporate job. They're in sales.

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They're interacting with people. They're interacting with people who are in this pagan world, in Babylon.

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So you kind of have to shift your paradigm and understand that. And I'm using,

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I'm gonna use language, but it's like, outside of your prayer closet exists an entire pagan world that other people are forced to interact with.

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It's easier for you to avoid that world, because your job is in the four walls of the church.

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But it's not as easy for everyone else. So you have to understand that.

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While you're studying for Wednesday night, or Saturday, or Sunday service, you're spending every day in the world.

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Your church folk are forced to constantly see pagan imagery every single day.

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So now they're coming to church, and you're given a sermon that has nothing to do with what they're going through in their daily lives, because you're out of touch, because you're not seeing what they're seeing.

36:21

So yeah, I don't know if that answers the question, but it's like, they're not asking you to endorse a candidate.

36:27

They're asking you to at least have a bare minimum understanding of what's happening in the culture.

36:35

Now, some people I do think are called more than other pastors to be more politically involved.

36:44

There's a lot of Christians who get upset when pastors are invited to the White House, right? And it's like, hey, when

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Nebuchadnezzar called Daniel, he showed up. He didn't.

36:58

He had no choice. Yeah. So I think there is an understanding if you're a

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Christian, if your world leader calls you, why say no? Who else is going to pray for them, right?

37:10

Who else is going to pray for them? Who else is going to be able to give them the counsel of God? And if the

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Lord has called that individual to be that person, it doesn't really matter if that person is Putin or Donald Trump or Kim Jong -un or Kamala Harris.

37:27

It doesn't matter. If I have the opportunity to pray for a world leader, which the

37:33

Bible arguably says that we should be praying for our world leaders, that's what we should do. Now when it comes to the bare minimum, it's like, hey, you should at least know who your city council members are, what's going on your board of education in your city.

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If you're a pastor and you don't even know who sits on the board of education in your city, the city council, stuff like that,

38:00

I think start there. Start there because that's where obviously your community is. That's probably where locally it's affecting them the most.

38:08

And I think if you start there, you'll start to learn and understand more so what's happening in the culture and what's being pushed, what ideologies are out there, what's the new thing.

38:20

Well, and then something too, because I think I mentioned this in a previous video, but we are not

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Christians living in Rome. We do have the text, we have the scripture, and there are many passages that were not originally written to us, but they are definitely for us.

38:37

And so there's a bit of contextualization that needs to take place for people like us, 2000 years removed from, say, the original authorship of the book of Romans or something like that.

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And then we look at Romans and we see all the historical context there, and we realize that Paul is writing to a different political climate altogether.

38:55

And then we sort of stop. It's almost like, well, no, there's a bit of work to do here in trying to translate this for our 21st century context.

39:06

And the thing is, we are citizens of heaven placed in a geographical location for a reason.

39:12

And the interesting thing about America is we are invited into the political process. We are invited to have a voice from our

39:19

Christian convictions into the political scene. And so again, it's almost like there's this implicit suggestion that there's a separation between this realm of politics and our

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Christian lives, and that doesn't exist. You hit it right on the head. I think a lot of times we think there is an understanding or there is kind of like within the

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Christian ethos that America is a Christian nation. This is sort of like a

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Disneyland. Christians are free to do whatever they want. And there is those similarities to Rome and Constantine, but Christianity is not the established religion of the land.

40:04

So that kind of Christian nationalist aspects aren't happening. But yes, we can participate, and I think we should participate.

40:14

I think to who much is given, much is required.

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And even if you look at the parable of the talents, each person is given a different measure.

40:31

So it's like we are able to do more, obviously, than Christians in the underground church in China, Christians in North Korea, Christians in Russia, Christians in America are arguably the most free.

40:46

We're able to do the most. So not taking advantage of that, there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of it. Christians and other nations would love to be able to participate in their democracy and their voting elections.

41:01

However, contrary to that, I personally do think that Babylon is a more accurate description of the current

41:15

Christian living situation. Just because it's like,

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Daniel, he had rights, right? But to an extent, his opinion was valued, his voice mattered, but he still had to abide by the laws of the land.

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And the only time there was tension was when the law of the land specifically attacked his

41:50

Christian life, right? Or his relationship with God, with Yahweh. So me personally,

41:58

I think that is like a great, I mean, I love the book of Daniel. I've read it over and over and again, just on repeat.

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And I just think it's a good book to use as an example, like, hey, when things happen politically, what should a

42:13

Christian do? How should a Christian respond? Well, so to wrap up here, just a quick sort of 30 second takeaway for the viewers.

42:23

Now, you've piqued their interest. They want to remain informed. How should they do that?

42:29

And what should they do after this conversation to maybe be more active, particularly when it comes to their church, talking about politics or whatever?

42:42

When you consume media, when you can, I mean, in my personal opinion, I would just say turn off all media, mainstream media, like even

42:48

Fox News, CNN, just don't even watch any of it, in my personal opinion. And then kind of look more into, unless you're actually going to like look into these things.

42:59

Like if you're watching, you know, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, like you watch

43:04

The Office, turn it off. I don't think it's a productive way to consume mainstream media.

43:14

Now, if you're looking and you're watching these, like I watch clips from CNN and I watch like these news desk commentary shows, but I'm watching it for context, not as an original source.

43:29

Mm -hmm. So I would say do a little more than you think when it comes to consuming news.

43:37

That headline you read, don't just read the headline, go past it, read the actual article.

43:43

Don't just read the article, find the original sourcing. Like where is this article coming from?

43:49

What's the source of this? Sometimes articles don't even link sources. Like this is legacy media and no links to anything, or they just link themselves.

43:59

They just source themselves. It's like, who's your source? I am. I'm the source. Trust us, bro.

44:05

Yeah, basically. And it's like, do your due diligence, like go a little further than you think when it comes to consuming these things.

44:14

Now there's also a lot of independent news sources that people like to consume.

44:24

I also have a newsletter. I mean, I guess a selfless plug. I have a newsletter where I cover things that are going on in the news weekly.

44:33

So I'm happy to provide that link for you if you want to throw it in your bio or anything for them. So things like that where you're able to do a little more and understand a little more on what's happening.

44:45

I also would say, follow those accounts that you might not necessarily follow, right?

44:53

So I hate follow a ton of accounts, right? I lean more conservative, but I follow a lot of progressive, liberal

45:04

Democrat pages because I want to know what they're saying. I want to know what they're saying so I'm aware.

45:12

I also have independent, liberal, progressive friends, right?

45:18

So it's like expanding your bubble, not just only... If you're in an echo chamber, get out.

45:24

Get out of the echo chamber immediately and have conversations and listen to,

45:30

I guess the word is alternative facts, but not for the sake of just... You know, not for the sake of just believing it, but for the sake of, hey, this is another piece of the puzzle.

45:42

This is another piece of the puzzle and I'm trying to put the whole puzzle together. And the only way

45:47

I can do that is by seeing the entire paradigm, the entire full circle of the cup, not just one angle of the cup that I'm looking at.

45:58

I love it. I love it. You make me think of... Right now, the people and I on Patreon are going through the

46:04

Gospel of Matthew together. We're in chapter 25 where Jesus is saying, look, at the end, when I come back, when

46:09

I return, I expect to find you as sheep among the goats, you know? And not to sort of conflate these things that we're discussing right now to be a gospel issue necessarily, but it certainly connects.

46:23

It's certainly interconnected, you know? In other words, what I'm hearing you say is, don't just be a sheep hanging out with the other sheep.

46:30

Go and find those who don't think like you and walk among them, live among them, because there's great benefit, not only for gospel opportunities and conversation, but then also just understanding these folks, really getting in and learning who they are, loving them well, you know?

46:47

Not getting easily triggered. I always saw people who were so easily angered by people who don't agree with them as those who just don't know how to step outside their little bubbles, you know?

47:01

So I really appreciate this. There's so much more that we could discuss, and so I would love it if you would come back on and just continue to keep us informed,

47:11

Mike. But anyway, thank you so much. Mike Lusso is an independent journalist. He's just keeping track of things for us

47:17

Christians. For more from Mike, check out his YouTube channel, All Things with Mike Lusso, and he's got an

47:22

Instagram as well. I'm going to put the links for all of those things below. Mike, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, I appreciate it.

47:29

Glad to be here. All right. Well, now it's your turn, okay? What do you think? Should pastors and church leaders talk about politics at church?

47:36

Weigh in yourself and be part of the discussion. I can tell you this much. We as Christians need to remain informed on the issues, and we do need help thinking through whatever is happening all around us, which includes our own government's leaders and policies, but through the lens of our

47:52

Christian worldview. Who better than church leaders to help us with that? Amen? That's what

47:57

I'm trying to do here on this channel in my own small way, and I'm praying that more can join the fight.

48:03

Hey, if you made it this far, you definitely got to check out my Patreon community. We're doing so much over there. We're going to the

48:09

Gospel of Matthew, which actually is free, but if you want to jump in on a support tier, which actually helps me to make these videos, well, then you can get access to these videos before they go live.

48:19

You can jump into exclusive live streams and do a Q &As with me. You can also just meet up with me one -on -one.

48:25

The link for the Patreon is below. I will return soon with more videos, but in the meantime, I'll say bye for now.