The Rise of the Evangelicrats

This is what crew has been saying through their lenses Institute. And you're gonna need to buckle your seatbelt cause this stuff is crazy.

Welcome once again to the conversations that matter podcast. My name is John Harris. True to what I said on Monday, this is the third podcast of the week.

I know some of you thought I couldn't do it. He couldn't make a podcast that was under an hour, but lo and behold,

I did. And I will continue hopefully to do that. Sometimes, I'm like the Puritan preacher that I got to get it all out.

And if there's a lot of conditioning or misunderstanding about the topic that I'm addressing, sometimes you got to peel that onion layer back.

And I like to peel the whole thing back. So yes, I'll still do some mega additions, but I'm trying something a little new, a little more frequent podcasts.

So three this week, an hour or less, we're trying to keep it there. Next week, we'll see if I can keep that up.

I'll be traveling. So might be two next week, but we're doing my best to get you some good material.

And this week, we have an important topic. We do. We're gonna talk about the rise of the evangelicalocrats.

Now, I may have not coined that. Someone probably has already talked about it. I've never heard anyone mention that term.

So in my mind, I coined it, but I haven't copyrighted it. So you can go ahead and use that. I call them broken conscience voters.

And I've talked about them before, so I won't beat the whole dead horse, but we'll talk a little bit about why I disagree with the evangelicalocrats.

And why are they rising right now? That's a good question. Why in the world, when religious liberty is under assault, more than it's ever been, are there

Democrat elitists in evangelical circles? If we even know what evangelicalism is anymore,

I mean, what, what is it, a third of evangelicals now don't even believe the Bible's true or something like that?

What's an evangelical? I don't even know anymore. But it used to mean something.

And the traditions that did exist, the organizations are, some of them are still in existence, and many of them now are running cover for the

Democrats, telling you, easing your conscience if you want to vote for a Democrat, or blatantly saying, yeah,

I'm voting for the Democrat. They're signaling that. So we're gonna talk about that a little bit. In fact, there's so many examples.

I was remembering, I forgot to even include some screenshots. Like for instance, I took some screenshots of Jamar Tisby supporting

Joe Biden. And now I'm like, you know what? He's so radical that it doesn't matter. I'm just gonna show you the mainstream evangelical stuff, the stuff you've likely been donating to, supporting, praying for.

You need to know that these are the organizations that are now signaling their support for Democrats. I'm gonna show you like even CREW, like Campus Crusade formerly, right?

I'm gonna show you what they're doing. It's insane. It really is insane. And if you're donating to CREW, you gotta stop.

Or, well, yeah, you gotta stop. There really is no way to mince words at this. If this is what your money's going to, then there's no reason to be giving to CREW anymore.

And I say that knowing some very good CREW missionaries who are holding the line and they're in areas where they're not seeing this as much.

But, and, you know, I've been told at least there's some attempts to try to retake

CREW. But Steve Sellers is now the guy at CREW19 who is, you know, talking about basically white privilege.

He's now the president. So good luck with that. I don't know how they avoid being split if conservatives wanna remain with that organization.

But I digress. We're gonna talk about not just CREW, but other organizations that are running cover for the

Democrats, in my opinion. So this is where it's all been leading up to politically. It's evident in this election cycle.

And we need to remember this, especially if Donald Trump wins, we need to remember those organizations that took the stance that they did or the personnel working there.

Personnel is policy, guys. You can't just separate it and say, oh, well, they work for that organization, but they don't represent that organization.

There are times that's true, yes. But when you have a train of abuses and there's nothing correcting any of them, and this becomes the flavor of the organization, then personnel is policy.

It is. Like at Southern Seminary, right? You can have all day long a good statement of faith, good policies, but your personnel who are teaching, they're the ones that control the narrative.

Anyway, let's talk about this a little bit. I'm gonna make some observations as we go. And we're gonna actually back up here.

The evangelicals, here are some examples for you of what I'm talking about. Susan Condon. Now, Susan Condon is not a big name.

You may have never heard of her, but she has been platformed by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention. So they're behind her, and that is a mainstream evangelical organization.

She says this on the 20th of last month. This is during the Democrat National Convention. I've never been a

Democrat, but over the last two nights, I felt like a secretly relieved teenager discovering the grownups were back. No idea how to vote this year, none.

Hmm. Looks like she does have an idea of how to vote, right?

I mean, if the vote is chaos and your teenage friends versus the parents, probably vote for the parents, right?

Wouldn't you? I'm just saying. Sounds like she does know how to vote. TheBDAnnabuile retweets

Chadwick Boseman. Now, Chadwick Boseman was the actor who played Black Panther, recently died from cancer, claimed to be a

Christian. Very sad. I actually love Black Panther. Little tangent here. Love is a strong word.

I like it. I'm not big into Marvel, to be honest with you. I'm sorry for those who really like the Marvel stuff. But Black Panther, in my mind, was what

Superman used to be. Superman has been ruined by DC. Superman has a baby out of wedlock with Lois Lane and they made him all grungy now.

And this clean -cut Superman, American way guy is dead. They killed him. And now there's other superheroes that are kind of filling that mold.

Captain America, perhaps, to some extent. But I really think that Black Panther is one of the most honorable

Marvel characters. And I really like the character he played. So it's sad that he died from cancer, the guy who played him.

But it looks like he supported Camille Harris on some level. There he is with a picture of her with a black fist in the background, black and white.

When we all vote. Hashtag vote 2020. So he's supporting her. And there's the beady Anna Buile.

And he's retweeting it with an H -U. I'm not sure exactly what

H -U is supposed to mean. In fact, I'll look it up real quick online.

Says that it should mean, hmm. Hook up.

Okay, so I guess that's his support. Hook up. Exclamation point, yes.

Good job, Chadwick Boseman, for your endorsement of Camille Harris. And is there any doubt in anyone's minds who the beady

Anna Buile is voting for? I mean, really. The Anne campaign, right? This is the brainchild of two

Democrat strategists, Michael Ware, Justin Gaboney. And they are Democrats. They worked for the

Democratic Party. Michael Ware was Obama's, one of his faith advisors. Justin Gaboney also,

Democrat strategist. And they formed this. Tim Keller, he was on the board like a month ago.

I don't know if he still is, the elder board for the organization. But there's other mainstream evangelicals who are part of this.

And they retweet Michelle Obama endorsing Joe Biden. So is there any doubt who they're for?

They're on the Democrat side. Yes, they're evangelicals, if you wanna call them that.

Or broken conscience voters, if you wanna use the term that I used for one of my videos a while back. Now this is the dream.

This is like 40, 50 years after Ron Sider, Jim Wallace, Richard Mao were getting their start in 70s radical movements, coming out of that and bringing them into evangelicalism.

They're finally getting what they wanted. They wanted a holistic pro -life ethic. Meaning, well abortion, murder, that's one pro -life ethic.

But there's a bunch more. Disparities between ethnic groups. And well, what about the environment?

I mean, smoking, that's a pro -life issue, right? Ron Sider said for the ERLC two years ago, black lives matter.

Yeah, it's pro -life movement. There's so many other pro -life movements. Free healthcare, access to healthcare. That's what the end campaign says.

That's a pro -life thing. Well, no, no it's not. Because those are quality of life issues.

And pro -life means that you're against murder. Murder and quality of life, like trying to be healthy, two different things.

I mean, to put it in perspective, that would mean that you're putting a holocaust that happened under the

Nazis, right? On the same level, morally speaking, as going to the gym and the importance of working out.

That's insanity, it's moral insanity. And it's not taking into account God's laws. There's another ethic that is being brought to bear on this.

But that's what we have. And that ethic is now reigning. It was fringe before, but now it's reigning.

And we are seeing it. We have Thomas Kidd here. Thomas Kidd, by the way, historian, mid -Western

Baptist Theological Seminary now. I've read his book on the Great Awakening. It's actually very good.

And one of the things I like about Thomas Kidd, which separates him from a lot of other historians, history, by the way.

You wanna talk about a field that is completely captured by critical theory. History is completely captured.

I mean, sociology just bleeds right into history. And it's been taking that for a long time.

It's just now mainstream. It's in the public sphere. But no, history is a hard field, in my opinion.

Thomas Kidd, evangelical historian, well, he'll write, in my experience, the book

I read of his, which is the Great Awakening book, he'll write what happened, and then he'll kinda let you know when he's giving his opinion, when he's bringing his moral understandings to bear on a situation, like when he talks about George Whitefield and slavery, for instance.

I appreciate that about Thomas Kidd. That's nice that he does that. Because you don't always have to agree with every angle he takes.

Or you can also realize, okay, Thomas Kidd is talking about his opinion, morally speaking, about this issue.

And you're examining it from an ethical standpoint instead of a historical standpoint. And most historians fail to make those delineations.

So, kudos to Thomas Kidd for that. But Thomas Kidd gets it way wrong on this and shows that he's a bad historian on some level.

Because, here's a quote from this article, The White Evangelical Alliance with Donald Trump. Here's the quote.

This was a grievous disappointment to many traditionalist Christians, especially women and people of color. It generated memories of white evangelical passivity in the eras of lynching and civil rights.

Hmm, what does that mean? It means if you vote for Donald Trump, it's just like evangelicals who didn't care about lynching.

That's what it's like, yeah. Now, I should probably do an episode on this at some point because it's complex and we would have to peel the onion layers back.

But there's a number of reasons a lot of evangelicals did not participate in the marches that took place during the civil rights era.

And let me give you four or five reasons. Reason number one, there was an ecumenical element to it.

Martin Luther King Jr. would say things like, with Jewish, religious Jews, with Catholics present, he would say, this is a third great awakening.

And Christians, evangelicals, especially fundamentalists at that time who were more separatistic, which probably, we probably need a little separatism today to be honest with you.

They'd hear things like that. And they're not gonna go marching with, I mean, this is before even the pro -life movement.

They, those guys probably wouldn't have even marched with Catholics in a pro -life rally. They were very, they did not want any fellowship with darkness in their minds.

And Roman Catholics were that. Remember, JFK even had issues because he was a

Catholic with Christians in his country. So you think they're gonna go march with these other religions? No, no, that's not gonna happen.

Another reason was this, if you ask most people who grew up during the 1950s and 60s and you say, what was a bigger issue, the

Cold War or civil rights? They'll probably tell you the Cold War. That was the issue.

And in fact, there's some polling I can even show you on that. But people were much more concerned about what the

Soviets were doing in this country and their activities than they were about civil rights legislation.

And it's because we're literally talking about nuclear war. We're literally talking about the destruction of the country. And there was, it was commonly well -known and documented that Soviets, there were

Soviet operatives in the civil rights movement because they saw it as a way to create moral destabilization in the

United States, social destabilization. So there was Christians who, they didn't wanna get involved because they thought, well, maybe that'd be helping the

Soviets. Now, right or wrong, you may disagree with that, but here's the deal. That doesn't mean that their motive is that they're just racist.

Yeah, it could be very well for the civil rights legislation. In fact, history has shown that most people seem to have been.

There weren't big outcries when it happened afterward. You know, it was, there was some fights for a few years and people just accepted it.

Another reason is 90 % of the country at the time was quote unquote white.

So this was a tangential issue unless you're in a region where integration, so it's a really more of like probably in a

Northern city or a Southern town or city. It might be an issue in those places.

Otherwise, not really a big issue. You're not gonna be encountering forced busing or any of those kinds of things.

And so for a lot of Americans, it just wasn't even on their mind. It was a regional issue. It wasn't, in their minds, a national issue.

And today we have assumptions about the modern state. We think everything's a national issue, right? Everything.

The modern state must have its prying eye on everyone's business and local news is national news.

So part of the reason I think actually that the news cycle is so crowded is because of this. So we don't, we're not looking at our local newspapers.

It's not as important to us what happens in our local town. We're looking at the federal level. And what does

Trump have to say about even local issues? So there's that. That's another reason that many evangelicals were kind of, well, not even apprehensive.

They just weren't, it wasn't relevant to them. And they weren't, you know, they'd have to get in their car and find the march.

And it was maybe even thousands of miles away from where they were. So those are just a few reasons.

I said I'd give four or five and now I'm, I can't remember the other ones, but those are just off the top of my head. All that to say, don't assume that evangelical passivity.

They were just, they were, I guess, didn't care about lynchings. Were there evangelicals, quote unquote, who didn't care about lynchings?

Were there evangelicals who were absolutely racist? Yep, yep, there were evangelicals who could sign statements of faith and also held at the same time evolutionary views even about race that were incongruent with a statement they just signed.

That's always been the case. There's always been people, like today, you have evangelicals signing statements of faith and they adopt critical race theory.

There's really not a huge, huge difference there, except critical race theory is even in some ways more complicated and gets more at base level assumptions about reality and God.

Classical racism, evolutionary racism, is a little more surface level, so it's easy to get at and you can bring the word of God to bear on it easier, in my opinion.

It's not as, it's not as pervasively a worldview issue, though it is a worldview issue, but it's not as pervasively a worldview issue as, say, critical race theory, which you have to put on these glasses and you see everything in terms of power dynamics.

So evangelicals, though, had many reasons for why they didn't get as involved as they did, and some evangelicals did get involved, but you hear this line all the time, so I figured

I'd take a moment and I would talk about it. Now, he's saying that voting for Trump is like that.

He compares it to white evangelical passivity in lynching, in lynching and civil rights.

So evangelicals, they didn't care about people of color back then, and so voting for Trump shows you still don't care about people of color.

This is just, this is terrible, Mr. Kidd, Dr. Kidd. This is just terrible analysis.

Examine the motivations, look at the primary sources for why people are saying they're voting for Trump, who are evangelical, their stated reasons, and then go back and look at the stated reasons for, you can even pick, if you want, the most ardently racist evangelical imaginable and why they failed to support the civil rights movement.

Look at, although it's not the most racist evangelical you possibly can, a lot of people like to cite

Jerry Falwell's sermon of ministers and marchers. Go look at Falwell's reasoning for why he didn't think, oh, that was another thing

I was gonna mention. This was actually probably the biggest stated reason evangelicals, some evangelicals didn't get involved with civil rights or were skeptical about it, was because they actually believed it was revolutionary, and they believed that there was a better, more gradual way, culturally gradual way of approaching this issue because the pendulum was already favoring,

I mean, there wouldn't have been a civil rights movement politically if the culture wasn't already starting to favor this. You had the

Rockabilly guys integrating their concerts, and it wasn't even something, I mean, Billy Graham did that at his crusades.

You had rules that were in place and the rules were all being torn down. Culturally, it wasn't like a law had to be instated, and there were evangelicals who were afraid if you push this too far, if you just cram this top -down, down people's throats, you're gonna actually just cause bitterness and harm, you're gonna make an opportunity for the

Soviets, and so if you read of ministers and marchers or some of Billy Graham's early comments about this, the concern is that Jesus wasn't a revolutionary, and if you start condemning the police, which there's a lot of quotes out there about that that sound very similar to what's happening today, start condemning the systems in place and wanting to overturn those systems instead of working within the systems legally and peacefully, then they thought that spelled trouble, right?

So this is just their opinion. I'm just representing to you what they thought, not defending it, not telling you that I agree with all of their rationale, how they thought about this, but all that to say it wasn't because they were ardently racist or they don't care about people of color, et cetera.

They had actual reasons, and Thomas Kidd is just conflating all of that, but he's not being a good historian.

That's ultimately what it is. He's not looking at the primary sources and comparing motivations, which is what a historian's supposed to do.

He's thinking that he can get in their head in some way. Now, I beat that dead horse right there.

Let's talk about some groups that have been conditioning us for this evangelical turn towards the

Democratic Party. We got Paul Miller here, who is the lead researcher, a lead researcher for the

Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention led by Russell Moore, and he put out the Faith and Healthy Democracy report, what, about a year ago, and I think there were 60 or so interviews in there.

Two of them were from Trump supporters. Now look, you have, what, 89 % of evangelicals supporting

Trump, and then you do a analysis and only two of 60 people,

I think it was, are Trump supporters. Something's weird about this, and I think

Stephen Wolf did a great article. He did two articles in Mere Orthodoxy about this if you wanna know more. Well, here's Paul Miller recently posting an article, and here's a clip from it.

One of the most helpful ways of viewing American politics today is to understand that white evangelicals have a history of moral crusading and that anti -progressivism is their latest crusade.

Implications abound, and this is something you need to see this, guys. This is important. I've noticed this in historiography.

The George Marsden, the Nathan Hatch, Thomas Kidd, to some extent.

People have come from them. Mark Knoll. These guys love to study evangelicalism, and I've noticed if you study a lot of their bios, they start out in fundamentalist, evangelical, conservative homes, and they tend to go towards more of a liturgical tradition or they change that.

They switch to something else within Christianity, but then they want to study evangelicalism. Richard Mao's a good example of this.

Raised in a very kind of fundamentalist Bible camp, Billy Graham type of environment, but then has a crisis of faith, goes the

Dutch Reform route, goes to Calvin, and then he puts evangelicals under the microscope. Now, you gotta ask a question. Why do so many of the progressive evangelicals who are more on the

Democrat side, why in the world do they love putting their ancestors, theologically speaking, even maybe just in their family, why do they love putting them under the microscope?

What's up with that? It's interesting. Not saying it's wrong. It's interesting, though, because I don't have a lot of primary sources to back up what

I'm gonna say here, so I'm at least letting you know that. I don't have quotes of people saying, well, you know what?

I'm just so much smarter than my parents. You don't find that, or I'm just morally superior to my parents, but what is the message they're trying to get out so often when they put their parents and their grandparents under the microscope?

That they've transcended the world of their parents and the views of their parents. They're more morally enlightened, perhaps, than their parents and their grandparents.

I find that flavor when I read a lot of these guys. I'm just telling you, and this feels like it.

Paul Miller, he's looking at evangelicals, his own tradition under the microscope. He's paid by these people.

They pay his salary, but yet he's still bashing them, saying the people that pay my salary, the white evangelicals, yeah, they have a history of moral crusading and anti -progressivism.

It's just their latest crusade. No, not the fact that religious liberty has never been hanging by more of a thread.

No, that's not it. No, it's just that they just have a history of moral crusading. That makes them sound like they're insane.

They're crazy. They just go and they rage against stuff. That's projection, too. Isn't that what social justice warriors do?

They get a little bee in their bonnet about something, and we're gonna go protest that, and they go from thing to thing protesting.

But he's saying, no, that's the evangelicals. That's what they do. Now, look, there is a virtue tradition in this country since the second

Great Awakening. Northern evangelicalism, especially, has been very big about trying to maintain public virtue by electing people of virtue into public office, and that seems to be one of their, has been one of their main criteria.

Does the candidate pray a lot? Do they attend church regularly? Now, that's changed. I think it's changed because it's a life -and -death struggle with the left now.

You'll never find that analysis in the evangelical industrial complex, though. But that has been a thread.

But according to Paul Miller, no, it's just what they've always done, and there's nothing new here.

Voting for Trump, it's just, basically, there's no reasoning behind what they're doing. It's just a crusade.

They just like crusading. What does this set you up for? This makes you, it diminishes the argument of people voting for Trump or Republican or against progressivism.

It just diminishes their argument because the implication is, well, they don't have any backing for this, really.

It's just their habit. It's just what they do. Gospel Coalition a few days ago, yesterday, actually, put this out, the election.

This election season invites Christians to consider, listen to this question, is our certainty found in our

Savior? Or, here's the false dichotomy, are we more certain of our politics?

Are we more loyal to Jesus and animated by his mission than we are loyal to a candidate and animated by their campaign?

Wow. You got two options here, guys. You can either have Donald Trump or you can have Jesus. You can either have a

Republican party or you can have the church. Can't really have both. Coming from the organization that loves to have both when it's a cause of the left, that will incorporate any cause of the left into a gospel issue, the ones they choose.

Kyle Rittenhouse being the last example, right? This is something we need to talk about, the

Gospel Coalition. Listen to the name of the website. This is something that is within our mission, to talk about this horrible thing that happened.

It's just like Dylann Roof. It's, in fact, the author of that article saying that my spiritual birthday doesn't even get me as excited because the month of August is so terrible because of all the racial things that happen.

I mean, talk about contradictions here. That's such a priority.

But then when it's, I mean, you could say that this is Republican or Democrat. But that's just the thing about this.

When they're talking about Democrat issues, they talk about it in such a way that they incorporate it into their gospel message.

But when they want to knock Republicans, generally the Gospel Coalition is vague in their language.

And it's a shotgun approach. It's like they're shooting both sides, right? And so you should feel guilty if you're too excited.

This is a piety argument. You're just too excited about politics. And you gotta check that.

Make sure that, what about the guy, what about the author who just wrote about Kyle Rittenhouse? Was he too excited about politics?

Couldn't even celebrate properly his spiritual birthday? Moment of salvation because he was so upset about racial trauma, et cetera.

Well, I guess it doesn't apply to him. And this is the hypocrisy of the Gospel Coalition. But what is it conditioning us for?

Think about it. It's telling Christians, they're telling

Christians, you know what, you're just doing this stuff because that's your habit. You know what,

Christians, you don't wanna be like that, just intellectual, you're just anti -progressivism because you like to moral crusade.

You don't wanna just be unhinged emotionally and supporting a candidate when really, put your time and effort into Jesus, et cetera.

As if Jesus doesn't care that babies in the womb are being murdered every single day.

Speaking of pro -life, here's someone who's very low on the totem pole. You'll probably never hear about him again. But I just wanted to show you, this is getting into even the lower rungs on the ladder of the evangelical industrial complex.

Guy named Marty Duren, who's the communications director for some missions agency. Anyways, he says he's seen calls to address other life issues as regularly met with the butt abortion line, as if no other concern can possibly have priority for any reason.

Well, what are the other life concerns? Life issues, what are the other life issues, Mr. Duren?

I mean, you have murder and it's illegal in every case, except if it's a baby in the womb, then it's okay.

That's what the pro -life movement is about. They're against that. What are these other life concerns? You have

Phil Vischer here from VeggieTales. He was the creator of VeggieTales.

And he's now saying, well, you know, getting rid of Roe v. Wade, it's just a carrot that people put in front of their voters. Doesn't do it much.

I mean, you're still gonna kick it back to the states. Democrats are gonna be controlling the liberal population centers.

Not gonna save many lives. So Josh Dossery tweets, I thought this was a great answer. He says, voting pro -life will only save 86 ,000 lives, so why bother?

It's quite a take, Phil. Here's another take for you. You remember a time when homosexuality was, homosexual marriage,

I'll say, it was not legal. It was not, now, as a

Christian, homosexual marriage, it's just a nonsense kind of term. Those two things don't go together. It's not a marriage in the eyes of God.

But in a civil way, the civil magistrate now, in every state because of Obergefell, has decided that they're going to honor those who are claiming that they're married, even though they're married to someone who's a same -sex member of their own gender.

Now, I remember, wasn't that long ago, a time when homosexuality was kind of embarrassing.

You didn't talk about it much. You kind of hid it. It wasn't morally acceptable.

In fact, when I was a kid, teenager playing sports and stuff, I remember, I didn't really engage in this, but the other kids,

I remember sometimes, they used to say, well, that's so gay, about anything negative, which I didn't think was really right because you're taking something that, it was actually,

I think, part of one of the steps in making it more acceptable was talking about it, even if it was in a negative fashion, but it was laughing about things, oh, that's so gay.

Well, so that was used a lot, what, 15 years ago, by kids, teenagers.

And now we live in a new world, though. We live in a world now where not only is it accepted, but it's promoted, and you get special points in the eyes of the cultural elites if you are a member of a homosexual or other sexual deviancy category.

In fact, I saw in, what is it, California now is pushing the envelope on underage sex, on pedophilia.

They just had, overwhelmingly, both houses, both representative chambers there voted to accept a bill, which would,

I guess it was decriminalizing or giving it to the judge's discretion whether to punish someone right away or put them on a sex offender list if they were homosexual and had certain sexual acts, which

I won't describe for the sake of people listening, but if they were of a minor, they, of a certain age, it was like 14 to 18 or something, 14 to 17, they would not go on the sex offender list.

I mean, this is insane, this is crazy, but we're pushing the envelope now even farther in that direction.

Now, why do I bring this up? It's because when the government signaled their approval for this in Obergefell, when we found that state governments would just comply with it, it changed the culture.

The culture was already changing, but this, it helped, it made it happen faster, made it go faster, and it,

I mean, it was a free fall after that decision, it really was. The battle, the conservatives gave up, which if they didn't give up, maybe we'd still be in the battle, but the government on all levels decided pretty much, yeah, we're just gonna cave to this.

And so, why did that all happen? Well, it's because the government has a job on some level to uphold civil virtue, civil morality.

They, and when they give their consent for something that is immoral, this is the kind of thing that happens.

Now, how does that relate to this? Well, if you overturn Roe v. Wade, Mr. Bisher, if you kick it back to the states, you're not just kicking it back to the states.

That's a symbolic move, that is a moral move to say, well, why was it overturned?

Well, maybe because the baby's a human. And by that logic, you can also now, it gets into case precedent, you can go into the states and you can fight it on the state level as well.

That's the goal. The goal is not to just get rid of Roe v. Wade. The goal is to say abortion is murder and we're gonna get rid of it wherever it is found.

This is one step. It amazes me, the moral, the blinders, the broken consciences that people have, just amazes me.

This is about much more than Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade though, if that would be a monumental step and it would save lives and it would be the rocket to get us to the next step of, okay, we fought it here, now we're gonna fight it on the local level, we're gonna fight it on the state level.

We can take our resources and we can now put them in the areas, the urban areas where this is a bigger problem.

This is so big. And I mean, this is the same logic that abortionists use when they want to legalize abortion.

Well, they're gonna do it illegally anyway, so how many more lives are really dying? Yeah, a lot more. It skyrocketed after it became legalized because that's what happens.

So I mean, this is the guy who created VeggieTales, guys. This is amazing to me. We're in free fall.

Here's a quote. This was from a North American, no, sorry, what was this?

This was a Southern Baptist Convention group chat from June, I think it was. And on politics and COVID and stuff.

Al Mohler, you can see, is part of it. Danny Akin's part of it, got a bunch of big wigs from the Southern Baptist Convention that are all part of this.

And no one seemed to have a problem with Kevin Smith, Maryland and Delaware representative for North American Mission Board.

Here's what he says. It is fine to say the most important political issue for me is the life of an unborn baby, but it's also biblically fine for me to say the most important for me is politicians who don't call me the

N -word. And don't think I'm the N -word, said Smith, who is African American. You can't say, well, one is more image of God than the other.

So we need a little bit of liberty in how we come into these discussions of politics because they don't have exegetical definites.

And we need to act like that's the case. Let me give you an exegetical definite, Mr. Kevin Smith, thou shalt not murder.

It's an exegetical definite right there. And you're upset because maybe someone called you a name or thought of you in a certain way.

And that's equivalent to thou shalt not murder. I'd even like to see the evidence.

I mean, did Trump call you an N -word because I haven't even heard that word come out of Trump's lips.

But if it did, how does that compare to thou shalt not murder again exactly?

This is broken conscience voting. It's exactly what this is. And all these men that some of you have looked up to, if you're giving money to the

SBC, this is where it's going. These are the guys handling it. They're not gonna contradict this. Al Mohler's not gonna contradict this.

He's gonna sit there. Defies the moral reasoning.

So what's the third way? Where is this all going? I think it's going towards this.

There's some evangelicals that are blatantly supporting Democrats. There's some evangelicals, though, that are promoting a third way, that Christianity transcends these discussions.

And in a sense, because this has been the default for so long, evangelicals vote Republican, vote conservative. This is a way to undermine the evangelical vote.

Here's a good example of it. Recently, Jacob Denhollander. It's un -American to propose a religious test for who should hold an elected office.

Really? Un -American to propose a religious test? In fact, the Constitution has its own religious test.

Did you know that? The oath of office. The Constitution is not this brand new idea that's never been tried before in the history of the world because we are, it's an

American experiment and founded on these, no, no. The Constitution comes from assumptions derived from British common law.

That's all it is, guys. And it is special and it is great. It's not perfect, but it's great. But it comes from, it's tradition, guys.

And one of the traditions in there, the oath of office would have been understood as a religious test.

You don't have an atheist taking an oath of office. Why? Because it assumes a system of divine rewards and punishments.

It's a Christian concept to say, I'm gonna be the highest office in the land, but I'm still accountable to something higher than me.

That's why George Washington took the oath on the Bible. He didn't come up with that out of nowhere. That's what you did.

Nine of the 13 states at the time had religious tests for public office that were more blatantly religious, that were actually, you have to agree to a certain statement of faith of some kind to be an office holder in that state.

Nine of the 13, the majority of the states had this at the time that did not conflict with the

First Amendment. So Jacob Denhollander does not know what he's talking about. And it is unchristian to propose a vote for an

American politician as a test of Christianity. Okay.

Is there someone saying that, I don't think anyone's actually said that. I think, here's what he's probably getting at.

If you don't vote for Trump, right, then you're not a Christian, right? But what's that,

I've never heard anyone say that explicitly but what people usually say when it's articulated, sophisticated, more, more sophisticated fashion, like when

Tom Buck says these kinds of things, Tom Buck loves to go this route. What they're saying is basically, you can't support murder and be a

Christian. So it's more so like you can't support a Democrat who's for murdering babies and say that's consistent with your

Christianity, which I would agree with, yeah, that's true. You can't, I don't see how the two would go together.

Anyway, at least they don't go together with God's law. That's a very, anyway, we won't get into a whole longer ethical discussion about it but Jacob Denhollander goes on and he says,

I cannot sufficiently express my disappointment at those who treat politicians as the last hope of preserving

Christian values and ideals. Well, let me bring some reality to this situation.

Russell Moore at the ERLC is not preserving Christian values and ideals. Who is preserving

Christian values and ideals? Is there anyone out there in the evangelical industrial complex who on a political level is going to stem the tide that is coming from the

Democratic Communist Party, because that's what it is at this point, that wants to wipe away the freedom to worship, freedom of religion.

They want to do it through this expanding the civil rights protections, but they're going to expand them on steroids to make it so that if you don't hire someone who's transgender, et cetera, then you're in big trouble.

They want to squash the statement of faiths that Christians have believed just for years. The beliefs that they've had for 2000 years about gender and sexuality, they're going to squash that.

That's the Democratic Party. At minimum, that's the Democratic Party right now. That's the storm that's coming.

That's the gathering storm, Mr. Mueller. And who's actually on a political level opposing this stuff?

Who is? I mean, they want to shut down churches in so many states. You still have this problem.

And so many pastors just rolled over with this. So many pastors incorrectly abused Romans 13 and bought the logic.

Well, this isn't going to be the first time. There's going to be other things that are going to come up. This is the government taking religious freedom and saying we can do what we want because we're the government, we're

God now. Who's standing against it? Well, who's defending

John MacArthur? Is it Jenna Ellis or is it the ERLC? So when

Jacob Denhollander says, well, you know, to treat politicians as a last hope for preserving

Christian values and ideals, Trump is one of the only ones out there that's actually saying we're going to protect, we're going to defend

Christianity. That's the sad part, guys. This should be the part that makes us weep almost.

It's like Donald Trump is the guy who's defending Christianity. What, all these other people should be doing that?

They should be raising a stink and instead they're virtue signaling to the left about how advanced they are and tolerant they are and inclusive they are and diverse they are and don't come after us on the

LGBT stuff because we were with you on the race stuff. I mean, that's what's going on. That's why people have so much hope in Trump, so many

Christians. That's why they look at him to preserve Christian values and ideals because he's one of the only ones that wants to stand up against the bully who wants to take him away.

It's a complicated election. Really, Mr. Den Hollander? It's really that complicated? Now, if you buy into a binary choice, which most of these people have, it's not that complicated.

There's one side that wants to murder, there's one side that doesn't. If we take the main issue, which that is the main issue, there are other issues, which the

Democrats are also wrong about, but if we want to take the main issue, not that complicated. He said, I would not necessarily say any vote or abstention is inherently sinful, though I think certain motivations for casting those votes could be, but to say true

Christians will vote X, legalism and binding consciences. Ooh, binding consciences. Yeah, when we were told all that we had to wear masks and shut down church to love neighbor, was that binding consciences?

Anyway, we need grace more than ever. Here's David Platt.

David Platt is coming out with a book in, I think this weekend, called Before You Vote. I'm suspicious this is another third way.

Listen to this. How can I honor Jesus with my ballot? The back of the book. Our current political climate represents unique challenges for Christians, particularly in election season.

Research shows that Christians already divide into churches based on political opinions, and that division is even greater as everyone from prominent

Christian leaders to ordinary church members begins voicing their support for opposing candidates, parties, and positions. Some Christians know exactly how they'll vote and can't imagine why any

Christian would vote differently. Other Christians struggle with how to vote or even whether to vote. In the end, elections in our country tend to be a time of confusion and disunity among many

Christians. Well, let's listen to David Platt here. As we approach a presidential election in such a polarized political climate,

I am zealous to promote the unity of the church and the supremacy of Christ in the middle of it all.

As a pastor in Metro Washington, D .C., one of the most politically divisive cities in the world,

I long for every member of our church to wake up on election day with deeper love for Jesus, deeper trust in Jesus than they have ever experienced before, experiencing deeper unity in the church than we've ever experienced before, all with a clear conscience before God for how each of us can best steward our vote that day for His glory.

I long for that, not just for the members of our church, but for every follower of Christ in our country.

So, I've written this short book that walks through seven questions that I'm convinced are critical for every

Christian to ask before we cast our ballot. I wanna be clear, like at no point is my aim to even hint toward supporting or denouncing a particular candidate or particular political party.

Like, my aim is much deeper than that. I'm concerned about our relationships with Jesus and our relationships in the church amidst a world that wants to pull us away from both

Jesus and one another in the church. Some of you, I'm guessing, have already decided who you're gonna vote for.

I would encourage you to at least take the time to ask these questions before you cast your ballot.

Others of you have no idea who you're gonna vote for. I hope this book will be helpful in directing you toward the

Spirit of Christ and the Word of Christ as He leads you in your life. Regardless, my hope, my prayer in this short book is that you and I, us together in the church, we might grow in our relationship with Jesus and our relationships with one another in a country that desperately needs what no political candidate or party can give.

We desperately need what can only be found in Christ. Okay, so here's the question.

If it's just so much deeper, if, you know, he doesn't really even care who you vote for as far as, like, he's not gonna take a stand about a party or a candidate and, you know, it's just so much deeper, it doesn't matter why you're writing a book on how to vote.

I mean, really, if it doesn't, if it's just so much deeper and what his concern is, what he's talking about in that whole video is, and you saw it in the back of the cover as well, is he's concerned that Christians are just, they're not unified.

Right, there's some Christians who are voting Democrat and there's some Christians who are voting Republican. That's true, I think there's

Christians who vote Democrat. They don't, you know, if they're voting for a Democrat who is pro -abortion and a socialist, they're not seriously taking their

Christian ethics into account when they do that. They could be a new Christian, they could be just ethically not developed enough or strong enough to understand those issues, but okay, that happens.

But the goal should be to give, to help people understand biblical ethics so they can make a biblically ethically informed choice.

That's not gonna bring you to the Democratic Party. It's just not, there's no way. Will it bring you to every

Republican candidate? No, but it's at least, it's not really in conflict with the

Republican agenda. So there's a seat at the table for evangelicals in the Republican Party, definitely.

If you watch the convention, you'll definitely see that. So there's a third way.

Oh, politics is just so much deeper. David Platt's not the one to come up with this. This was talked about by Jim Wallace, by Ron Sider, by Richard Mao, but Tim Keller talks about this all the time.

Every time he criticizes, like the last article he did on critical race theory, it's nothing in this secular world ever measures up because Christianity is just so much deeper and Christianity has the answers for the capitalism, socialism divide because Christianity gives you principles.

He never flushes out what that means. There is, it's just a blah principle. There's no actual rubber meets the road.

Here's the policies that we're gonna support. It's worthless, absolutely worthless. From a political standpoint,

Bruce Ashford kind of does this as well. He's a lot of these guys who wanna just transcend the

Democrat Republican thing. Now it's attractive if you're a church planner or a pastor because you can attract people of different political parties by saying,

I'm neutral on this, but I care and we need to have unity. Look, it's not unity.

If you have one side that is against murder and one side that's okay with murder, and you're just not fighting about it because our relationship with Jesus is so much deeper, you don't have unity.

You can call it whatever you want, but it's not unity. Is North and South Korea, are they unified in some way?

There's peace there because no one's firing. No, North Korea hates South Korea. And you don't get rid of those divisions, those fundamental ethical divisions, those fundamental biblical ethical divisions by saying, calling for a fake superficial unity.

You know how you do it? You gotta let the chips fall where they may. Thus saith the

Lord, thou shalt not murder. This is what it says. Let's compare God's command right here to these political parties.

Okay, what does the Republican Party say about this? What does the Democratic Party say about this? Who values life? And that's just step one.

Thou shalt not steal. Let's look at the political party platforms. Okay, which party says that they have the power to take or it's permissible morally to take your stuff?

The things that God has entrusted to you. Hmm, Republicans, Democrats, go through the list.

Go through the moral imperatives of God. You could even just use the 10 Commandments. It's that simple at this point.

It's not that complicated. They're playing you guys. They're playing us. They're trying to.

It's not working like it used to work. So this will ease the conscience of people,

I predict, who wanna vote Democrat. And I challenge someone, get the book. Show me in the book if he takes a stand against the

Democrats, if he shows that they're pro -murder. And if he calls it what it is and doesn't try to equivocate it with some other holistic pro -life issue like disparities the

Republicans don't wanna address. So it should be interesting. Should be interesting to see. And if I'm wrong, I'll eat it.

But based on the back of the book and this trailer, I kinda doubt I am. It's funny to me, a lot of this stuff, and I keep saying it sounds like Jim Wallace, Ron Sider.

These guys were not accepted in, well, Jim Wallace wasn't accepted in evangelicalism for a long time. Here's a video by Jim Wallace.

Let me ask you, how much different does this sound by some of the rhetoric I've been talking about? So this isn't left, right, liberal, conservative.

This is what Jesus is saying. And I think to love our neighbor, the one who's different than us, is the most key question of choice for America's future.

All right, third way, Jim Wallace, right there. Here's evangelicals for social action. This is from 2017.

I didn't do a lot of research on what they're saying now. I'm assuming it's the same. But Christianity is neither Democrat nor Republican. It's better than both.

And we recognize evangelicals for social action, sojourners, leftist organizations, no doubt about that.

They support Democrats. Well, what's their rhetoric been to evangelicals? Oh, it's not Democrat or Republican.

And Jim Wallace was a faith advisor for Barack Obama. He votes for the Democrats. He's pro -LGBTQ stuff now.

Jim Wallace is very liberal on everything. Yeah, pretty much. And Ron Sider, very close behind him.

He voted for Hillary in the last election. And Christianity Today took his position.

He was able to write for Christianity Today and articulate why a Christian should vote for Hillary Clinton. And this year he wrote a book against Donald Trump.

So morally indignant about Donald Trump, wrote a whole book against him. These guys are not neutral.

They are for the Democrats. But when you look at their rhetoric, it's, well, it's not

Republican or Democrat. It's not right or left. In Tim Keller's words, it's not red state individualism or blue state individualism.

But then you look at their actions and Tim Keller sits on the end campaign, or at least he did.

He punches right and he converses with and spends time with the left in positive, constructive ways, forwarding their agenda.

I'm asking you not to buy this rhetoric. And if you find this in any organization that you've given money to, then you need to call it out.

I said at the beginning of this that we were gonna talk a little bit about Crew. And I wanna do that. This is what

Crew has been saying through their Lenz's Institute. And you're gonna need to buckle your seatbelt because this stuff is crazy.

This is the Lenz's Institute, which is part of Crew. And I have been in contact with Crew staff who have been threatened or forced to go there because it's their sensitivity training, essentially.

I did not include all the screenshots that I have. Some of them were crazy, but they weren't political as much.

Here are some of the ones that are more political. They're retweeting Jamar Tisby. Now you think, oh, that's radical.

I'll just wait. Jamar Tisby, it's past time to rethink racial reconciliation in the church if it doesn't include discussion of politics, especially the concern of historically marginalized groups.

Then we're not talking about justice, power, or repair, and we're not talking about reconciliation at all. They retweeted someone named

Ava DuVernay who said, America was never great. There was always someone at the bottom, someone being oppressed, enslaved, and turned caged, deported.

How did those people survive? Family bonds, both genetic and family. Community is family.

That's what Queen Sugar is about. Our family is back. Okay, so this is against Donald Trump, I think.

America was never great. Make America great again. It was never great. Lenz's Institute retweeting. This is a Christian missionary organization supposed to be spreading the gospel, especially on college campuses.

Here's another one, Mark Charles, 2020. This is the guy who you saw in that video

I did with Iljin Cho who was speaking at Trinity, Evangelical Divinity School, and just saying crazy off -the -wall things.

I mean, you can be as sorry as you want about white privilege, but if you're white and you're individualistic because you're white, then you just gotta sit in that guilt.

Well, this guy is running for president, and the Lenz's Institute retweets and comments, thanks, Brother Mark, for faithfully serving your nation and your people.

You are a leader to be followed. Yeah, that's who they think a leader to be followed is, Mark Charles. Here's another one.

They retweeted Dick Durbin, Senator Dick Durbin. White supremacists were responsible for every incident of race -based domestic terrorism in the

U .S. In 2018, every single one. Yeah, okay, Dick Durbin. They retweeted

Sean King, Sean King. This is basically supporting Colin Kaepernick taking a knee.

Yep, that's part of the mission of Lenz's, I guess. Sean King, the guy who is basically just supporting violence recently in a controversial tweet.

Here's some more stuff. Retweeting Mark Charles. What does white supremacy look like?

The real Donald Trump is judged presidential in spite of the content of his character. Barack Obama was judged unpresidential because of the color of his skin.

So slander. Lenz's Institute retweeting the slander. Defund the police.

Yes, the Lenz's Institute retweeting a defund the police with the F -bomb in it.

With the F -bomb in it. Is this what you guys are contributing to when you contribute to Campus Crusade?

If they don't issue an apology for this, what reason do you have to ever give to them again?

Even if they do issue an apology, they let someone get their Twitter control who's gonna retweet F -bombs and defund the police?

Here's another one, Matthew Gertz. President urges officers to commit acts of brutality. Officers laugh and cheer wildly, beginning to think problem isn't a few bad apples.

Lenz's Institute retweets. Yeah, that's not what happened. More slander being retweeted by the Lenz's Institute.

Crew, crew. When I say Lenz's Institute, think crew. They're retweeting Camilla Harris right there.

Oh goodness, Drew G .I. Hart, PhD. People say to us, just don't break the law, but they ignore the fact that the law was intentionally designed to break us.

Slander against the United States. This is crew.

This is the Lenz's Institute. It's a big part of crew now. I've been in contact with crew staff. This is a big part. It's eating crew up.

It's not the only problem in crew. This stuff is other places, but this is horrific. This is way past third way thinking.

This is just pro -Democrat, but pro -Communist thinking. It's the current version. It's not classical

Marxism. I know that, guys. This is the current version of the Communist Revolution, and crew is right behind it with their

Lenz's Institute. What are you doing? Giving to crew. I mean, I shot a warning bow in a sense when

I just showed you, here's what they said at their crew 19 conference, and that was now almost a year ago,

I guess, that conference, about a year ago, more than a year ago now, and they've had time to correct things, and things have not been corrected, not even close.

So make your decision if you're donating to crew. Make your decision wisely about what you're gonna do, how you're gonna do this.

All right, last but not least, I just wanted to show you something about the platforms here. If you're gonna evaluate these things, it's not that hard.

Take your basic Christian ethic, and go and look at the party platforms. You can access them very easily online.

So here's the Democratic Party platform. Let's just do something fun here. Let's, well, it's not really fun because of the content, but let's type in abortion.

Okay, here we go. Five mentions of abortion. Every woman should be able to access high -quality reproductive healthcare, including safe and legal abortion, okay?

Democrats oppose restrictions on medication abortion care that are inconsistent with the most recently developed scientific evidence, et cetera.

We want, Democrats believe every woman should be able to access high -quality reproductive healthcare, including safe and legal,

I think I read that one already. Let's see, what else do they have here? Comprehensive healthcare systems, including access to reproductive care and abortion services.

Free healthcare for abortion. We will support the repeal of the global gag rule and measures like the

Helms Amendment, which limit safe access to abortion. All right, what does the Republican Party say about abortion?

Abortion, how many times is it? Oh, 35 times it's mentioned, okay? 30 times more than in the

Democrat platform. We oppose the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion. It's diametrically opposed language.

Let's see some other quotes here. There's so many of them there, because they're pro -life. Let's see, we applaud the

U .S. House leading effort to add enforcement to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

There's a lot of language here. The Democratic Party is extreme on abortion. Democrats' almost limitless support for abortion and their stride in opposition to even the most basic restrictions on abortion put them dramatically out of step with the

American people. This just goes on and on and on about it. We support state and federal efforts against the cruelest forms of abortion, especially dismemberment abortion procedures.

We call on Congress to ban sex selection abortions. What else?

I mean, it's mentioned 35 times. So this is an important issue. Talk about Obamacare and abortion, curbing that.

American taxpayers should not be forced to fund abortion. Yes. All right, so there's, you can go through and do it yourself if you want.

There's 35 mentions here. That's just one area. That's, I think, the most basic area is life. And it's really, it's not even life so much as it is, the state should protect citizens from murder.

It's a negative, it's you have the right to not be murdered and the state should be protecting you.

You can go look at the other issues, look at what they believe. I mean, you go right here, we could go capitalism, right?

Type in capitalism, capitalism. We have four mentions and let's see, they're against crony capitalism and they're for entrepreneurial capitalism.

Okay, good. That's inconsistent with biblical private property. So when we evaluate these things, we should just be going probably to the party platforms if you're gonna try to decide which party to register under and then compare it to what you know the

Lord God has spoken. It's not that difficult, guys. It's not that complicated. It's there's not a third way where, you know, it's just say faith is so much deeper than this.

So you don't have, it's not an important issue. It is an important issue. This is our

Holocaust when we talk about abortion. And then there's other issues we can talk about too, but the

Democrats are wrong on all of them, just about. Can't think of anything they'd be right on. They've become the party of anti -God at this point.

And it's time evangelical leaders recognized it and stopped running from it or embracing the Democratic Party or trying to get favor from them because you're never gonna get it.

Won't happen. So, all right, that is maybe a bit of a strong word today, but that being said, all of that,

I hope you have a good weekend despite this. And I hope if you're someone who was on the fence,

I hope you're gonna reconsider. But most of all, I did this video because I hope those who are supporting evangelical organizations can hold them accountable or withdraw your consent.

Don't listen to them. Don't give them your money. This is not faithfully applying the biblical standard, the law of God that we've been given as set forth in scripture.

And that should be the authority for Christians ultimately. God bless. And until next week, have a good weekend.