Dispelling the Myth: Should Christians Stay Out of Politics?

There really something in the scriptures that says that Christians should not get involved in the political realm? Many think that, but today we may dispel that myth on The Rap Report.

Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your.

Church, go to strivingforeternity .org. Well, welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rapoport, the executive director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member.

We are here giving you biblical interpretations and applications for the Christian life, and we're gonna give some application, as I said in the intro, to things that people have a myth about, and that is Christians in politics.

I am with, well, I don't know, I'll say he's a friend. He may decide to disagree with that. We'll see. But Branton Reiling, you and I met at, I think it was Fight, Laugh, Feast conference. Yes. And so we were kind of online talking to each other a bit and got to know each other, and then you and I ended up having a conversation through a mutual friend, and I found out a little bit about some of the things you're involved in, and I was like, dude, when can you come on?

Let's talk about this. So introduce yourself to folks, let them know a little about you, and then there's really two areas, two things you're working on that we want to talk about. Yeah. Yeah, well, first and foremost,.

Andrew, I absolutely consider you a friend as well, so let's just make sure that's very clear. But yeah, name's Branton Reiling. A little bit about me. I'm a pastor's kid and a missionary kid. I live in central Virginia.

Moved here about two years ago. Actually lived all over the country growing up, but we've found our roots here, and we're very, very happy here. We live about 30 minutes away from Liberty University, which a lot of people have heard of.

And yeah, beyond that, I attend a local CREC church, and I'm very involved in entrepreneurial ventures and efforts, and I'm very passionate about Christians taking dominion in every sphere of life, and that, of course, includes economics and politics.

And more and more projects that I'm getting involved with these days are.

Very focused in those spheres. Yeah, and this is something, again, folks, when I've said this before, we had, you know, Gabe Wrenchon, who is one of the organizers of He's also with the same denomination that you're in, which folks may not be familiar with it.

It's a denomination that Doug Wilson's involved with. He's probably the biggest name, I think, that people know of with that. And it'd be fair to say that, you know, your views, my views would be a bit different, just like Gabe's and mine.

And yet, folks, we could actually, I know this is crazy thought, we could actually talk, have good, friendly conversations, disagree theologically on things, and still work together and find ways we can serve God.

I know, crazy thought. Wild. But I say that not to cause issue where people go, oh, we shouldn't listen to someone, but the very reverse. I'm so against, Brandon, the tribalism that I end up seeing, where, well, if you don't agree a hundred percent with me, I got to throw you out.

And then they wonder why the church is anemic in our culture. Well, maybe because we're too busy fighting one another, and the world is happy to fight with us, against us, right? So, so let's talk about some of the, some of the work you're doing, which is, you know, you're in two realms, right?

You're working in the realm of, of politics, but you're also, as you mentioned, entrepreneurialism, some things you, projects you've, and that's how you and I got to know each other, had someone you partnered with, Chance, who was doing 16, he does, he's known for 1689 cigars, but he's doing the 1689 coin, and that's, we had him on talking about that, and that's how I got to know you through, through the coin.

So talk about some of, let's start with some of the entrepreneurial work, and then I really want to hone in on the idea of whether Christians should, or, or even if the Bible allows us to be involved in politics, because there's some that think the answer to that is no.

Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, well, I really kind of got my start into some of the projects I'm working on now, just by, two years ago, starting a marketing agency, and some guys, you and I are both very well acquainted, are involved in my agency.

As I was doing that, I started listening to more podcasts in the reform world, realizing there's all these great sponsors who share our convictions and our worldview. And again, you know, sometimes some distinctions theologically, but I would say overall, the mission is so aligned, and so similar, even if the application sometimes varies, that realizing there's, there's a lot of room for work, to work together here.

And so what that ultimately led me to is a project I started about a year ago called the Reform Business Alliance. And that is meant to be a, it started out as a directory where all these cool companies that were sponsoring podcasts like yours, could be listed publicly on a directory that people could find.

So if you want to go spend your money on a company that makes soap that wants to glorify the Lord, you can find Indigo Sundries on there, for example, instead of just buying soap from the grocery store.

And it's very competitively priced, it's very high quality, it smells amazing, you know what I mean? But so we've got almost 70 companies on there now, all different spheres, whether it's legal, whether it's contracting at the service level, whether it's a national retailer, you know, all chances brands are on there, all over the sphere.

And really, the goal there is for just to just to create networks and coalitions of men who are creating and growing businesses, so they can work together, whether it's to dominate their local industries, and to be the absolute best at what they do.

Or so they can perhaps even in some cases, pool resources to help drive policy in their local regions and even at the state level. So a lot of that's still early, but it's growing quickly. And the platforms opened up tremendous networking opportunities to get to know guys all over the country to become friends with some of my heroes and find ways that I get to work with them.

So yeah, that's that's the Reform Business Alliance. So it's online directory, it's also private networks, you can make an account and go in there. And there's a private social media platform in there, basically, where you can connect with guys and work together on various projects.

Is there a URL for that?

Yep, it's just ReformBusinessAlliance .com.

Pretty easy. And when you say you have, you know, chances on there, it's like all 12, 13, 15, 18 companies he has or.

There's a new one every couple of weeks. But yeah, for sure.

It's a chance is kind of one of these guys like, Oh, what are you doing this year? Oh, I created a new company.

Yeah. Yeah, he's always he's always got something cool that he's working on and something that he's building. And yeah, it's been it's been extremely rewarding. He's become a dear friend and somebody that I really enjoy getting to work with, both on a professional level, but also just on the friendship level.

Yeah. So, you know, when we think of when we as far as Christians, you know, there's a lot of folks who are Christians who really don't think we should be investing time in entrepreneurial work because it does.

Look, being an entrepreneur takes time. It's not. I used to. I had a guy I worked with when I worked at Bell Laboratories and he and I and a couple others, we'd go out for sushi once a month. And typically what we do is one one of us would come up with an idea and we'd bang it around.

We'd be like, this would be really good. We work out a business plan. We'd sit there over sushi, talking back and forth. And and then at some point, one one of us would just turn and say, OK, you really willing to sacrifice the family to go and do this?

And we'd be like, yeah, no. And then we'd drop it and then we'd watch people like I had the idea of what became TiVo about three years before TiVo. And they they never had what I had. I actually had the idea of using us, you know, swappable hard drives so that you could just you could download everything onto a hard drive and you want to go to a friend's house, just pull your hard drive out, put it into their device or even, you know, take it from your hard drive to a flash drive, you know.

But the reality is it's a lot of time, you know. And and some people think like, well, Christians should be more focused on just church and family and just get a job that's nine to five, which I don't know if those actually exist anymore.

I don't know anyone that's working nine to five anymore. But but I've I have heard people that talk of it like that when it comes to entrepreneurial type stuff with Christians. So if someone was to make an argument like that to you, I know you're you're with your background, the idea taking dominion.

Right. So but do you think we have a call to more than just as as I'm going to say more men? Because I personally think that men should be the ones working. I mean, but, you know, do we as men have have a responsibility if we're so gifted in the sense of not everyone can run a company?

Some can run it into a ground. But it should we be trying to do more than just working for someone else?

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, if someone were to try to make the argument to me that, look, you know, just focus on your family, focus on your church, just work a stable job. Don't take any risks. You know, I would tell them that you you're you're not completely wrong in the sense that your family and your church should be an incredibly high priority.

Right. Those should be things that you care deeply about. Those should be probably your highest priority. Definitely. Your family should be your highest priority outside of your walk with the Lord. But yeah, absolutely.

You should take you should take the pouring into your children, pouring into your wife. Those should be very, very high on your list. And there's there is always a tension there, especially if you are trying to build a company or companies.

In many cases, there are there are sacrifices that had to be made. But the thing is, those sacrifices can often be managed properly with good communication. You know, I'm blessed to have an extremely supportive wife.

She's always supportive of me when I have to travel for my venture. She's supportive if I need to sacrifice time with the family to do things. But we that took time to figure out. Right. That wasn't something we had figured out day one.

It it took some some some kind of learning lessons to get there. And we have a pretty good system now where, OK, we know this night's the week. I'm it's all about family. Right. When five p .m. comes around, I shut down for the night, hang out with the wife, the kids, hang out with my wife after the kids go to bed.

And then a couple of nights a week, these are my work nights where I can put it in extra five, six hours after the kids go to bed, sometimes staying up till two, three a .m. But but we were able to create some routine around it.

So that way there's predictability. So I would just start by saying, like, yes, there are sacrifices that have to be made, but that doesn't mean that it's wrong. And I think if we look at just the idea that you should only work a nine to five in an ultra stable environment where there's no risk involved, I'd say, for one, there's still risk layoffs happen all the time.

You know, I was talking to someone who I respect deeply about this recently. And he's saying, like, well, why don't you just focus on a nine to five instead of building a business? Because that could all collapse in one day.

And I told him, it's like, well, I guess it could. But a nine to five job could just be suddenly taken from you as well. And if you're running a business and building it up, there's usually going to be signs that are coming in the market and your your books and whatever that things might not be going so well.

So you can either pivot or you can make a plan to maybe exit if you need to. So in a lot of cases, there's actually more stability there once you've built it up. And then on theological grounds, I just think it's unquestionable.

Absolutely.

Men should be doing everything they can with all of their skills, all their gifts to further Christendom. Right. We want to see Christ exalted in politics, in the economy, in our in our local communities everywhere.

And I hate to say it, this is not a really pretty truth, but a lot of times politics, politics is downstream from economics and it's downstream from morality, which is the church's job to help that. But the people who are getting funded for campaigns, that's coming from real people who are giving them real money.

If you don't have any real money, you don't have the means to actually help finance the campaigns to get the right people in office who are actually going to advocate for Christ honoring laws and the actual enforcement of those laws.

So and it's very possible that the company you're working for, if it's a stable nine five, it's very likely that they're making money off of your labor and donate the things that do not honor Christ. And how many times have we seen that?

And so if if it's on a theological grounds, I would argue that in many cases it's more theologically right and good and true to build something where you control the flow of finances and the things that bring honor and glory to Christ, that bring additional tithe to your church, rather than just doing something that's, quote, safe for a big fortune 500 company who's absolutely funding things that go against everything you believe in.

Yeah, because the reality is that so when I got when I had to ask my in-laws to marry my wife, I was a contractor making good money, self self, you know, independent contractor. And the agreement I had to make was that I would I would get an employee job.

And I'm like, I remember saying, do you realize that employees get fired before me? Yeah, right. It's not about like it's about being good at what you do. Right. But my mother in law didn't understand that.

And she was like, no, that was her rule. That was the one thing she wanted. So I'm like, well, I want to marry her. This is what I'm going to do. So I did that, you know, but I still went out, still did other things and went out on my own.

Of course. And but the thing is, is that. I think that people think that they're going to have safety. As you brought out, and there's no guarantee of that, in fact, one of the things you said is that if if you're a wise entrepreneur, a wise businessman, right, you you're looking for the signs to figure out when to pivot.

But there is a flip side of that. There's a lot of people that they may even see the signs, but refuse to accept because it's something they created. Yeah, I think of there's a bunch of founders that come to mind.

But right now, I'm just thinking I listen to some podcasts on businesses and the guy who started, I think it was Lululemon, which is a clothing company. And he basically almost ran it into the ground because he was making bad decisions because he he couldn't let go of it.

And it was like, you know, you know, you think of Apple, Steve Jobs. He ran that into the ground because he couldn't let go of his baby. And it was only when it was taken away from him and really run into the ground that he came back.

And but he had a totally different perspective when he came back. Right. And so I think there is a flip side to it as well, is that we have to be cautious going into an entrepreneurial type of thing. You got to look at the signs and know when to jump or pivot and not just say, well, I can if I because I think an advantage of of entrepreneurship.

Right. My son has his own business. He actually started it when he was 15. Wow. OK. Started it in high school just because I cut him off financially.

He he had expensive taste.

He's like, yeah, we gave him like we he goes to sneakers every year. So it was like, all right, we'll give you twenty five bucks for sneakers. Right. And he wanted name brand sneakers. You don't get that for twenty five bucks a year.

Right. Right. So we just gave him all the money for the like we had set aside for clothes and sneakers. Here you go. It's yours. You figure out how to make it work. Well, it didn't work. So he he started figuring out ways to make money.

And one of the things he ended up doing, he started fixing phones because everybody has phones that break. Well, he's turned that into a big business. He's got employees in, I think, like three different states now.

Wow. And so, you know, and he's making like three times what my wife and I made when when she used to work. You know, both of us were working. The kids were out of the house. So it was like I really can't complain that I paid for him to get a college degree that he hasn't used.

Right. But but the thing is, you got to know, you got to know when to change. Like he's always taking on new things. He's he's trying different, you know, different types of businesses and trying to get into other things because he's like, hey, the economy, the phone's not doing well.

People aren't buying phones. OK, we'll do something else. Yeah. So, you know, with what you're trying to do with this alliance, I mean, how can that help folks who say, you know, I do have ideas. I want to create business.

I want to because the nice thing about having, especially if you're a successful business, you're hiring other people. You know, I mean, to those listening in the audience, just ask yourself, how many people do you know in your church that need a job?

And you're thinking of someone already, right? Wouldn't it be good to have someone that's in church who has a business, can hire them, and you're working for a fellow believer? Right. Although if you do that, work double hard because you're working for a believer.

Don't be one of these Christians are like, oh, it's a believer. So I can I can be lazy. Right. So so how can how can your alliance how's that help out with folks?

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, and this actually comes down to something that an alliance member asked me about recently. And he's saying he's a pretty prominent businessman in his area. And he's got a company that hires people.

And he's saying, I would love to be able to hire guys locally or guys from my church or find other people who are connected to this network in their church and hire them as well. How can I do that? And so we actually started putting together functionality for that that mostly is live now, but where people can create what are called coalitions within the alliance.

And those coalitions can be regional. They could be topical. They could be industry specific. And it's a means by which you can basically pull together guys who are interested in that particular topic of that coalition and coordinate and talk to build relationships.

You know, the higher the trust and the more relationship there is there, it's you know, a lot of times it becomes an easier decision to potentially hire somebody or at least try try seeing how it goes.

So the the benefit of the alliance is it's a place where people can go. They can get involved. They can have access to other members in the network and they can put out posts and messages saying, like, hey, looking for this kind of work, these are my skill sets or I'm offering this kind of a service for free.

Is anyone interested? Things like that. And they can start building out their portfolio, whether it's a new venture or if they're just looking to maybe find a new job. We do also have job board functionality on there.

So people can post jobs to the job board and people can apply to those jobs from the job board. So we're really trying to build out a full ecosystem of where employers can find employees. Business leaders can connect with one another and work together.

And also, you know, they get a benefit from being on a public directory because Google likes that. Google likes those types of public directories. And that provides some additional term called domain authority to their website, which helps them rank better in Google.

So there's a bit of a marketing benefit there as well.

So I'm just curious with this because I hadn't thought about this question beforehand. It's not in my notes of things, but I'm listening to you. I've had Gabe wrench on with his business makers network.

And so it seems like some of you guys are trying to do some same things with helping businesses in a different way, though. Is there are you familiar with his network? Are there things you guys are doing that, you know, that that's kind of similar or that you can may even work together?

Yeah, I'm actually a member of his network through my marketing agency. So, yeah. So, no, I'm part of it. I think the biggest difference between business makers network and the Reform Business Alliance is that the Reform Business Alliance is really targeting men of the reform tradition in its various expressions.

Right. But it's looking for guys who might subscribe to the 69 or the Heidelberg or the the Westminster Confession of Faith, specifically business makers network. My understanding is it's a little bit more of a Big Ten approach.

So it does require consistent church attendance. It does require that you would confess the the lordship of Jesus Christ. And that's all great and wonderful. And I think it's actually substantially larger than the Reform Business Alliance as well.

It's been around for quite a bit longer. So they're way ahead of us in many fronts. But Gabe's doing good work there. They're holding conferences. We haven't held a conference yet. We've also only been around for about a year or so.

But still, Reform Business Alliance is growing quickly and it's been exciting. So but yeah, so those are the main differences is RBA is focusing more on confessional, covenantal expressions of the Christian faith, where business makers is a bit more Big Ten.

OK, now, so they would have to hold to the confessions because like would you have someone that is solid Christian but doesn't hold to it? Well, like if you had someone like me who's dispensational, you know, would it would it be open to that?

I'm just curious if you were able to affirm the 68 .9 or the Heidelberg. Yes.

Well, yeah, with I for the most part, I can. Yeah. Right.

I mean, yeah, I have an issue where it's like, look, you know, it's the kind of thing to where it's like if this is not something we police super strictly, but if someone like you could look at that and say, like, yeah, you know, I agree with like 85, 90 percent of the 69 confession.

I would say, generally speaking, with a bit of nuance, I'm on board. Then that would be fine. If you are like just strictly non-denominational in terms of like what your confessional view is, you don't like creeds, you don't like confessions, you don't even consider yourself necessarily Calvinistic or reformed in any capacity.

It's probably not the right place for you. But if you generally find that you fall into that camp and you'd be willing to say that, generally speaking, I affirm the 69 London Baptist confession, then that wouldn't be a problem.

Yeah. And I mean, I'm just and by the way, website reformed business alliance dot com. Yeah. I mean, you have a map here. You got like 68 businesses that are that are here. So it's not. And this is one of things Gabe said, like with his thing, it's it's hard to get going until you have enough businesses to really start working together.

It's hard to say, hey, we're going to, you know, we're here to help you work with other businesses when there's only three businesses.

Yeah, for sure. And that was the initial challenge, for sure.

Yeah. And so it takes it's it's it seems like with just as I'm scanning through here, you have enough businesses, even if you exclude all the ones that chance started. There's still a lot. We've got to give chance a hard time.

But, you know, it is something where, you know, it starts to being able to have more of a benefit to folks to join if they have a business. And when you say business, I'm just looking. I mean, here's Trinity Painting.

So it's not always an entrepreneurial thing of, you know, it's some of the, you know, like I'm looking at some of the others, but there's a physical therapy. You know, construction company. So a lot of different multiple coffee companies.

But, you know, I'm sorry to Lex Coffee, but Squirrelly Joe's. It's just I even know I didn't try the other. I'm just saying Squirrelly Joe's is as a previous sponsor of this show. They're superior. That's I'm just saying.

They are. They are both fantastic coffees. I've had both. I have both in my house right now. I love them both. That's a line I have to walk carefully, because both of those men are men who I highly admire and do fantastic work and are also both members.

So I try to be fair in how I promote them as members. But I do. I dearly love both of those companies and the guys that run them.

So that's where what you do is. You do a coffee challenge and have both of them and get a whole bunch of people together at a conference, have both of them there to have a taste off that they both get to.

There. There are different kinds of coffee, though, like Squirrelly Joe's. It is an absolutely excellent, fantastic kind of all purpose coffee. You know, it tastes great with a pour over. It tastes great in a coffee maker.

Kind of, you know, you just think you're typical with the coffee filter. It tastes great there. Lux is a bit more artisan. They're more of like, I don't know if you heard the term third wave coffee, but everything is roasted in-house.

He imports as being he roasts them himself. It's a much it's just a different kind of approach to drinking coffee. Where he has a lot. As far as I know, I could be wrong. I don't think Joe does his own roasting.

Maybe I know he does. Yeah. Oh, he does. Oh, OK. Yeah. Wrong then. Yeah. He's OK. That's amazing. Yeah.

Because he's he he's got it.

Like he was because I had actually had him on and he explained. It's all like timed and like to get the right flavor. Yeah. I did not realize how much is we're totally off topic now, but how much is involved with making a good, you know, roasting a good coffee?

Like he's got it.

You know, it's got to be where it's the right temperature. They all you can't have it sit too long because it's got. They have to be all get roasted, you know. So there's there was a lot to it.

Yeah. I've known a bunch of owners of coffee shops over the years, and I've seen them in the roasting process. I've gotten to learn a little bit about it over the years. And it's very, very involved. But yeah, needless to say, that's very cool that he roasts some beans.

I wish I knew that earlier. I feel dumb now. Well, my expertise, they're both fantastic companies that people should support.

My expertise is in drinking the coffee that's that I can handle.

So, all right.

You get people who start their own business. You mentioned earlier, you got to you got to arrange the time with family. And that's really important. Having, you know, especially setting it up, if there's folks who are listening and they think they want to get started, I think something you said you got to have agreements, especially with the spouse or with your wife, to be like, OK, like if we're doing it, we're doing it together because it's going to be a big problem if she is the type who needs you home every night with her.

And because the time commitment in running your own business is a lot. Yes. So as we look to that. Like, what advice would you have for someone that's starting out that's young? They think, hey, you know, I can conquer the world and they just go out and start something.

What advice would you have for a young person like that that wants to be an entrepreneur?

Yeah, well, the first thing I would say before you even go out and start something is do some market research, you know, and with the tools that we have available to us today, technologically speaking with AI and things like that.

I mean, there's no excuse not to anymore, but do some market research about what people are actually wanting and what they're willing to spend money on. I've seen it many times. You'll have guys who they have an idea that they're excited about and they will then pour enormous amounts of time, energy, money, the leverage of their entire network into trying to build something.

But it's not really something that the market is asking for. And what will happen is that they'll invest all this time and energy and money and leveraging their network and their resources. And it just doesn't really go anywhere.

Now, so that would be the first step is just make sure what you're doing. There's a market demand for it. It's even OK if the market's somewhat crowded because that just proves that there is a need for it.

But make sure when you go into it, it's something that's very unique, very different. But even within those intricacies, it's something that is needed or wanted that people are willing to actually give you money for.

That's the first step. Beyond there, I would say, you know, you just you got to be willing to put in the time, you know, and this is where the tension comes in, especially if you have a family, little kids.

I've got two toddlers at home. And fortunately, you know, God's been kind to us. We can afford to live without my wife working and she can be home full time with our kiddos. And she's an incredible mom and incredibly supportive wife.

But you got to be willing to put in the hours. And so what that means is you might be working a full time nine to five job and you might be building something on the side, which means you're getting up at 4 a .m., you're putting in several hours of work, taking a shower and then going doing your nine to five.

And then after you're done with your nine to five, putting in several more hours of work in the evening. And that might be once or twice a week. That might be every single day. You know, it's not uncommon a couple of times a year.

I just have to have a conversation with my wife and say, hey, I'm coming up on a big work stretch here where most evenings I'm going to be tied up for about two or three weeks and then it will be done.

And then we'll go back to our normal routine. She's totally fine with that as long as she has a little bit of notice and I follow through with that. And it doesn't go from two, three weeks into two, three months, because that's happened before, too.

And I've had to horse correct. So you have to have a good idea that people are actually willing to spend money on consistently. And then you also have to be able to put in the work because you have to do the job of anywhere from two to six people for a while until you can afford to start bringing on help.

One of the best things that has happened to me in my my marketing agency is bringing another partner who's able to who's able to help dramatically adjust my workload and also be able to hire some some ten ninety nine staff as well, who are able to get even more off of our workload.

So that way I can focus on running the business growth sales, you know, account management and less on all of that. Plus the nitty gritty details of operations. So find a good idea. Put in the work, communicate properly with your wife and then just go all in and do everything you can to make it happen.

Yeah, I mean, I remember when I started the ministry, I was putting in 40, 50 hours a week at a secular job, Bell Laboratories, putting in about 60 hours a week in starting striving for eternity. Still very active in church.

I was in the leadership of the church, putting in probably 20 hours there and then being a father of young kids. Yeah. The problem is I didn't sleep much. And yeah, I say it's a problem. Like I mean, I used to go when my bride and I met and she actually made me her agree.

I told you my mother in law's what I had to do to get my mother in law to say yes. For my wife to say yes to marrying me. The agreement was I had to sleep every night. Because I used to sleep every two, three nights.

And sleep could be as little as 15 minutes to as most as three hours.

It's impressive. I wish I could do that.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I got a lot done, but I pay the price now. Right. And so I would say, don't you got it? You got to make sure you get enough sleep. It is important. I'll just say that and say, you know, look, if if you are struggling, if you even if you're working, if you're not an entrepreneur, if you are, if you realize, you know, you realize as you get older, how much important the sleep was when you were younger.

So let me just say this. If that's you, if you're like me, maybe what you could do is start by getting yourself a great pillow from my pillow, because that's where I get mine from. And I get their mattress topper, which helps tremendously in getting a good night's sleep, because I could tell you.

And those who are regular listeners, you know, that I talk about some of my health things that I've gone through. Sleep is like the number one thing that people take for granted. And yet it is the biggest thing to help with your health.