The American Churchman: How’d Trump Do It?

Hey, welcome everyone. We are live now on the American Churchman podcast. I don't have the intro video because I'm traveling

I'm actually with my brother right now and I was about to say New York. We're not in New York.

We're not in New York. We're in Tennessee. So here here he is so you can he's gonna have his own camera and We have with us today

Matt Pearson as well my co -host for the American Churchman podcast and A first -time guest we have with us

Colby Thielen who is kind of a numbers guy He's paid attention to the election pretty closely.

He actually goes to seminary with Matt so we're gonna talk a little bit about the numbers and why What happened last night happened as best as we can understand and why that was different than 2016

I still have so many questions. Maybe some of them aren't possible to be answered at this point, but We're gonna get into an article the truth script has

And actually David's gonna talk about that and and then last but not least we'll talk about the implications for Christians So that's the format if you have any questions, you can ask them on Let's see.

We were streaming on X. We're on YouTube. We're also on Facebook So look forward to seeing questions or comments on there.

And of course the occasion for this podcast is what what happened? So something happens

Donald J Trump He's a president. He's gonna be Donald J. Trump happened. I actually do have a question before so So Colby, I think we should probably get into the numbers first and answer some of those questions

But I'll just put this out there to get the whole discussion started someone asked me this who's a big supporter of my podcast and She it's actually funny the way she phrased that she said

What if something happens to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris gets in before Trump is inaugurated how much damage could

Kamala Harris do which I thought was funny because I think Joe Biden is also capable of doing damage, but But yeah, that's a

I'll just throw that out there if anyone wants to take a crack at that I mean, I think there's a lot of damage someone could do but I don't know that they would

Any any predictions? No predictions, but if you want the absolute worst possibilities

They are numerous the president can try to instruct the

Capitol Guard to go in there and like keep everybody in the Capitol so that I Mean, I don't know what they would do like Refused to certify the election is kind of the big one that some activists are pushing right now

But that's more of a function of Kamala at this point being vice president as she would oversee the joint session but the reality is

The most damage that Biden could do right now is probably pardoning Whomever might be associated with wrongdoings, but that's about it.

I Don't think internationally the biggest thing I can think of is involving Involving us in an international incident on on the heels of the inauguration or and really any time between now and And January 21st would be you know

Oh, I guess I guess it's war with Russia or it's I don't know boots on the ground in Israel or Iran, whatever

I don't know. That's worst -case scenario that I can think of. I haven't heard what you're saying about left -wingers wanting to Contest the election results.

I I saw a few accounts trying to say that we're better We're bigger because we're like we're not contesting and Donald Trump did four years

So you're actually saying though there are some people who want to challenge this. There's a lot of people on Twitter Yeah, how

I don't even know on what basis the 14th Amendment, right Yes, and I think

To give some context these people live, you know all across America between 5th

Street and 71st Or whichever streets they are in New York City, you know, it's just kind of a

Kind of a bubble, you know, nobody could possibly vote for Donald Trump that kind of thing and that's why

They kind of have that opinion there's a little bit of that in Los Angeles too, but nothing too crazy

Yeah, they just can't believe that literally Hitler is gonna be the next president again So popular vote, yeah, so maybe let's get into that so I saw a chart that showed that his votes were actually diminished from last time

He didn't actually have as many votes as he did in 2020 and yet somehow he won pretty like Yeah.

Yeah. I mean I would we call this I guess you'd call this a landslide some people we don't even know yet But he's won every single swing state so far, right because they called

That was the that's when they called it but I think they've since called Michigan for him they've called Michigan Yeah, it looks like Arizona's going that direction.

So Yeah, so how did that happen? Well, well, so I think it's important to start with the fact that not every vote is counted

And this is going to be a common theme with how leftists are freaking out

I think about the vote counts that Kamala has gotten And that can be part of the explanation for why her vote count is so low

But I do anticipate Donald Trump to cross the 2020 and 2016 amounts that he achieved he's currently at something like 72 and a half million votes and in 2020 he got 74 million and Again there's plenty of outstanding vote remaining even on the left coast.

So You know to me that's not really Much of an issue on the

Trump part on the common part. We can talk about all the different possibilities of why but I Would say if there if there actually is a drop -off and Trump votes

It could just be the case that a lot of people that are MAGA They're gonna be on the older side and so within four years, they just pass away, you know

So that is another possibility But yeah, like Colby's saying it they're still they're still counting because they they're not as efficient as Florida sadly

Florida is an incredible incredible Yeah, we're both

I mean you guys I think I were a little bit younger we're both old enough to remember the 20 the 2000 election and I Don't think either of us were no neither of us were alive because I was born 2001 and I believe me

Colby I'm a year older than you, right? Yeah, so Matthew was born in May of oh one and I was born in November of oh one

Back in the 1990s that it was a nutty. It was a nutty time.

No, we Around right But Florida was a Florida was the swing state, you know

That was sort of like it all every election came down to for like a decade every election pretty much came down to what?

What do we do with Florida? How do we get Florida? And now Florida is so what was like over a million votes, right?

Yeah, oh, yeah there when you look at a if you look at the New York Times Their presidential map and you go to the shifts in 2020 and you go to the state of Florida There's not a single county in the state of Florida.

I don't believe that actually there may be a little bit in the panhandle I believe there's maybe two or three but only two or three counties that actually shifted blue every single other one

And even Even Broward County which did not go for Trump.

It's still shifted, right? So there is still a majority for um, there's still a majority for Kamala, but even that one it shifted it's it's insane

It's actually crazy, right? So so it's important to remember that in 2016

Donald Trump won Florida by some hundred thousand votes Somewhere around there in 2020.

It was three hundred fifty thousand and now it's 1 .4 million and is that just Other parts of the country because they like the

Santas and that's Yeah yes, that's that's the main explanation is that because of how many people have moved here and because of particularly trends among the

Hispanic community All of a sudden what you're seeing is a movement rightward in Florida and that was crystallized in this election

It's also important to note Florida went more red than New York went blue Wow That's nuts

That's a so in other words like the the margin was greater for Trump than it was for Harris Yes, currently

Currently Donald Trump is sitting at fifty six point one percent Kamala Harris is 43 in Florida Harris went fifty five point eight to forty four point two and one

New York by a mere nine hundred thousand votes. I All I cared about in New York was whether amendment two was gonna pass which it did but Unfortunately, but that's crazy

Well speaking of amendments at least in the state of Florida. We did very well amendment three and four

Was abortion three was legal pot. Oh, so the legal pot was defeated. Yes by a larger margin actually

Than abortion They're like they're like well, we don't really want abortion but we definitely don't want pot.

Yeah, I Actually made a mistake on the podcast earlier because I had said that Arizona defeat they defeated the abortion law there

Well last night. They everyone said they all reported that that was true. And then I guess More numbers came in but were you on that like mega contramundum podcast last night or which one are you?

Okay, they asked me about it I was traveling so I said no, okay fair enough. Yeah So we do have someone weighing in on the

Arizona We actually have a bunch of comments coming in Maricopa County won't be finished until February It's got to be the most corrupt

County like and maybe other than Fulton County, Georgia or Maybe Philly As Gordon Sanchez cried tears for the migrant today as he had empathy for the other like David French No one has heard from him.

He's on he went into the wilderness for They did Jewish guys

In Florida, I'm not sure Florida but actually nationally

Jewish voters in 2020 went 68 % for Biden and then 79 % for Harris Oh They which is a why just so strange like That's really weird

Trump like the Republican Party tried very hard to signal their support for Israel Yeah over and above so, huh?

And and it just didn't materialize in the Jewish community So maybe that's a good lesson for next time.

Don't don't try to bend over so far Because they're not gonna reward you with a vote anyway

If I'm running the RNC, that's what I'd be saying. Yeah. Yeah Christians also running the

RNC I Saw Christians were Suppressed not suppressed but like they're they didn't have as strong of a vote this time too.

Can you talk about that? Yeah, so Obviously what you'll have is a varying number of factors there

One of them is that the older population in our country skews more

Christian than the younger population does and so of course you'll have natural kind of death

In the Christian population There with the church triumphant now but then you'll also have younger

Christians that are very passionate about political issues, but They see

Preferences as being principles and so because of that they don't want to vote for particular candidates

Now whenever you actually zoom in on the microscope on how white evangelicals voted

It was actually about the same For Trump as it was in 2016 and 2020, which

I know is very relevant For the purposes of this pod and whatnot, so that's all work you may say

Sorry, I said alone will work you may yes Yeah, yeah, so I'm Stephen Wolfe definitely had a good night

Ben's ice loft did not have a good night, unfortunately You're a hardcore abolitionists are in there and some of them

I noticed today I was I didn't want to like, you know say names because I want to protect the guilty here

I want to get along but I noticed one guy was like issuing Almost ultimatums today about like how you're you're you still need to work with us kind of thing

And I'm like what like, you know, we we got there without your help. So what are you doing eating?

They're going in the crystals Yeah Yeah, but you know Let's take the most charitable

Interpretation here and say that you know, maybe maybe the Republican coalition embracing

Arabs and embracing Jews which didn't pan out the Arab thing did pan out by the way did it but but but embracing other groups instead of white evangelicals is like Not the greatest thing.

Well still look at the actual result in front of your face, you know Excellent campaign go ahead.

Sorry. I was just saying it's coalition. I think that What I've noticed over the entire election cycle is and this is with a multiplicity of groups

But you sort of have your pet issue and there's you know, there's very good reasons I mean abortion would be very high on this.

Obviously. Um, I My conviction is that this election was about whether there is a nation whether there is a country

It's sort of like we either have a country or we don't but If unless you can create some kind of a coalition this late in the game you're talking about like You know, the other side holds almost every single facet of power, which is why it's so surreal and weird

I mean, I just pulled up all a conceding Just prior to this podcast, yeah

Something crazy to think about on this part is that I think the

Abolitionist white evangelicals and the abolitionist evangelicals in general actually in their vote and in their public

You know, you can call it grandstanding about their vote or whatever you want to call it They actually embraced the left's

Framing of the issue because for the left this election was about abortion, right?

but Yeah on the right on the right It's not about abortion

It's more about whether America is a nation if you if you look at JD Vance's speech at the

RNC The main point of this message was America is a nation.

It's a people in a place. Yes right, so So that's kind of something interesting that I saw as a discrepancy so here's the

Kamala we call it Kamala she's Come on Come on That's not what

I expected. She seems pretty she's a she angry. Is that no she actually so the when she came out

She came like to try to look super overjoyed. She was doing her laugh and she's like good afternoon.

Good afternoon Good afternoon, and she said good afternoon. I think like seven or eight times when she came up But there was a lot of people giving her a lot of applause

I listened to it before I before I got on this cast I was writing a reading brief for one of my classes and I'm just like heck, you know

Kamala's about to speak so I had to listen to her terrible Awful, I can't describe it that way

Music before I started playing and so my roommates like why are you listening that I'm like Kamala's about to speak, bro

I gotta hear her concede and so, yeah Yeah, that's stupid

That makes you wanna But uh, yeah, so I mean she tried to have like be very enthusiastic and look like she was you know

But we all know deep down behind closed doors. The joy is gone. I mean you saw Obama speaking

I've never seen that man look so angry. They're oppressed They're trying to keep up this appearance of joy, and that's why they have like Tim Walz, you know

Like that, you know, that's why they have him but the joy is gone. They're done.

All right, we're going right crystals and To be honest, they were expecting the exact opposite.

Oh, yeah If you talk to insiders in the Harris campaign What they were wanting was for white women to show out for them

The reality is that Donald Trump won that demographic outright We love our white women.

Thank you and And I actually have an explanation for this which is that what they weren't accounting for Was that yes

They had perhaps in the polls a raw lead among white women on the issue of abortion the problem is that there are a lot of white women who vote who are married and Married white women are a

Republican demographic and they are not as concerned about abortion, right? Yeah Yeah, I wonder if the you know,

DNC is only allowed to rig elections for like white men or something It's Hillary and now

Kamala we call her common They I don't know like some job is very good at beating women

Better than I'm still not over 2020 something sure.

Well, that's I don't know why they didn't do it again Like why weren't there as many like 3 a .m.

Well, no, no, it's like it'd be more difficult to do it this time without being a Mail -in voting

Literally, they tried guys like like in Pennsylvania. There were multiple fraud operations that were stopped by the

Republicans Which which this is something else too The reason why the Democrats didn't try that again is that they were scared of the

Laura Trump led RNC That we're going to call them out on it every time they did it which was phenomenally superior to Deborah I don't even remember the name of the lady who was running it

That's so interesting that they would be yeah I maybe gave them a little too much credit because I thought well, they're gonna just repeat the same operate now

I know kovat obviously gave them opportunities They didn't have this time but still their early voting and I was like, we're not gonna find out for a while well, you know assuming that Democratic operatives and assuming that Democratic Officials are intelligent.

There's a little bit of a stretch especially whenever you consider Who's at the top of the ticket Kamala Harris who's a basic sorority person and Tim Walz who's?

You know, mr. Magoo Yeah, yeah, maybe not to the

Lord during a debate I mean like yeah They're their performance was disastrous like every step of the way

They just did the dumbest thing like I could I was in disbelief when I saw Tim Walz in that debate

With JD Vance and what he was just kind of like, yeah, like I I just lied basically

Oh Guys some interesting news. They I don't know when this happened, but I just pulled it up looking at the map

They finally called, Alaska Now Trump is sitting at 295

We thought to was it 283 was like the best possible number that people thought he'd get and And Man but that quickly opened up Yeah, how do you not win

Virginia? I don't get how he wins Michigan and like move all the Midwest except, Illinois and he can't win,

Virginia That's weird to me. So you didn't win Minnesota. Oh, you didn't mean women. Okay, you know Okay, I heard that was kind of in play

One thing to keep in mind is that Virginia does have a very heavy population of government workers it's a

Fairfax County and Loudoun County Yeah, which which was basically what swung the state in the first place if y 'all remember in 2014

We were staying up all night to watch Think it was Mark Warner and Ed Gillespie Yeah out in the

Senate race and Eventually it got called at like midnight but they were shocked at how fast it was moving and that's because of government employees and Now what you're seeing is a candidate that represents, you know political upheaval and government employees are not a huge fan

So so that can be a factor. Another factor would be the heavy minority presence in Virginia Trump despite his improvements among minorities still

Minorities just don't vote for Republicans At the end of the day. Although this time some of them

Did and I don't think aggressive numbers, right? There are a couple of notable exceptions to the rule

John. We're going to say something I'm looking I was looking at exit polls earlier and it didn't look to me like it was that big of a break like Florida Significant but In the rest of the country though, like I think the

Latino voters make up what? Latino men like 5 % Latino women another 5 % it was like 9 % of the

Total voter average is Latinos, which I thought was very small. Actually. I was a little surprised I thought

I thought they'd have a better ground game also getting some of these illegal migrants to Who and I know this from living in California who actually do have

Social security numbers and the rest to the polls in states where they didn't require voter ID So they probably did it just wasn't enough

I guess sure Also, also remember that the

Latino come sorry The Latino population is concentrated in several states like New York, Florida Texas it's very urban.

It's a very urban population as well It doesn't mean you intend to later changing that by the end because as I was traveling around like Biden was dumping them people were

Saying in rural communities now it is. Yeah I mean I work in a rural county in Tennessee and for a school district and we got plenty but How much did

Harambee and peanut factor into the selection Harambee had zero effect on this election 2016 election where he really swung it for Donald.

You'll notice in 2020. Well, no, you'll notice in 2020 There was no real animal death that occurred that pulled at the hearts of white voters, but due to peanuts

Sad demise. I believe that this actually very much invigorated a white

American a white American to actually be like, okay We need to elect Donald Trump. So peanut was definitely a large factor arguably the number one issue right above immigration

Probably eating the dogs and cats. I mean it wasn't just of course. Yeah, that's also how you that's also how you invigorate white women

What do white women love more than cutesy little animals? They don't really you know, some some women in this country are fine with abortion

They don't really care about babies, but you give them you tell them they're eating the cats or eating the dogs and way, you know

Their Disney Channel brain kicks into gear and that's how we invigorate Americans you say they're they're not they're doing bad things to animals you see what they did to Peanut and yeah, so they broke hard for Donald Trump Of course,

I say all that in jest but um I do think there is a degree in which some people probably do see that, you know because of the government overreach thing and Definitely not my deciding factor, but it's very easy.

We have people in our fan base here who wrote in Harambee Yeah That's Okay All right

Wow, you already have a Bionic crab in I cannot be president.

I will my group chats will curse me. I can't do that. Yeah So here's a serious question, what do we do is someone like Ben Zeiss loft?

I am NOT a Donatist and this isn't internal to the church, but I think there should be some kind of correction. Am I wrong?

Wow, I don't really want to answer that I think um, you got a set man.

I think I mean With Ben and just with abolitionism in general I wasn't really that aware of abolitionism before because I lived in a blue state until two years ago

So I I didn't you know There's no hope of doing anything about abortion in New York The most you can do is you can try to save lives at a crisis pregnancy center

My wife worked at a crisis pregnancy center. Then when I came south I was like, oh there's like all these different shades of pro -life and I didn't even really

I'd never paid attention because it was just completely irrelevant to So to where I was so now

I kind of get that there's there's all these different Sort of takes on on these different strategies and everything and they're sort of an idealistic

Ideological this is the only thing there is with abolitionism. Is that a lot the German name though? It's gonna have to go back

Well, he you know Zysloft he is a old stock Pennsylvanian, which

I do believe is a lot of Germans But yeah, no, I mean like look I I like Ben Zysloft just as like as a guy, you know

He he actually interviewed me a few weeks back for a little article that he put up So, I don't know maybe we can plug that so he's he's a good guy is yeah, it's just just an issue

I disagree with him on and I think that is Fundamentally incredibly important to get set straight to realize what the nature of politics is what the nature of law is

Whether it an unjust law can be a law at all, you know all these different questions and you know I may put

Colby on the spot here, but I don't really care He's my friend so I can do that to him Colby here actually used to be a very strong abolitionist

And so watching his journey was very interesting because I personally was never that way but Colby I think that you can speak more to your journey since I just outed you the closet as a as an ex -abo

Abolitionist not original Yeah, so whenever Whenever you go to the actual abortion mills

Most of the people that you're going to encounter not all of them But most of them are going to be people that have abolitionist type beliefs

Because they travel around and like go to all these different abortion mills so so, you know ministering in that kind of context is going to also radicalize you a little bit and And especially whenever you see some of the filth that the other side really does promote

However, I think the change of heart came whenever I was thinking through The pre -law training that I had in college and Seeing that the law is a teacher in a lot of ways

Just like we would say what is it the third use of the laws the law is pedagogy You know the law of God is pedagogy and it's also a rule of gratitude

But it is a pedagogy and so civil law can also be a pedagogy Thomas Aquinas talks about this a lot, too

And so basically what I ended up seeing is that Abolitionism Really tries to move all the pieces off the chessboard

Instead of maneuvering and and there's nothing wrong with the heart behind that.

I want to make that very clear There's nothing wrong with the heart behind abolitionism

But at the end of the day Right now

Florida has a six -week abortion ban and It's a sanctuary state for abortions, but there are not many abortions that are going to be performed in,

Florida so, you know, you just kind of got a Take the lens and keep going

Nobody's asking you to be content with what we're regulating

So which yeah that actually transitions well into like the fact that yeah, it's great we won this election

It's good, but that that doesn't mean we stop now. Yeah, what do we do now? You know, there's this is just the beginning, you know, so I think that's important to discuss and think about for the abolitionists that they have a lot of latitude on the state level in places like Idaho deep red states like Oklahoma and And I appreciate

Ben's actually been on the pod my podcast my other podcast I think once or twice and Yeah, I mean

I very strongly disagree with What I see is not really even a politically significant move to to not vote for there really not even be part of the

You know have a seat at the table With the Republican Party for a national election

Like I think we have to try to steer this because it's the only option we actually have of using any power

And exercising it so like, you know to not vote or to encourage others not to vote is just an abdication of any kind of influence

Or power we've been given and have already so it's a step back. But but on the state level

In these deep red states where you do have pro -lifers who say they will do one thing and then they don't do it and the voter demographic is very much in favor of punishing those pro -lifers and you have guys who are more hardcore anti -abortion like absolutely and we have four years with latitude to work on that because Donald Trump has a policy of not actually interfering with that on the federal level

People say his rhetoric, you know has been not good on this and but that's rhetoric

And I don't know if that will even continue. I have my doubts. I think he said that to try to get elected I think policy -wise

He's been pretty consistent on this He's not going to interfere with states where they want to have more abortion restrictions and so forth

So there's a place for even abolitionists who did not vote for Donald Trump on the national level. Of course keep working on those state levels

Yeah, and to be clear a true script does not have an official position on Abolitionism or what is the opposite of that?

Incrementalism Incrementalism We have abolition orientated people on our board and we're orientated

There's a six to spectrum Abolitionists, go get them Work in your states and make abortion a thing of the past and we are with you a hundred and ten percent

But sort of transitioning like Matt like you said into where do we go from here?

We're just gonna plug really quick for a few minutes show it or can you show it? I can show it

Let me just pull it up here. We published this piece a few hours before the election, but it's by a guy named

Jonah Huer. He's a he's a crafts or a I Think he's an electrical worker up in Minneapolis.

He's written written several pieces for us. They're they're all really good. I'd commend commend Everything he's written to you, but he

Kind of addresses this question a little bit. He's politics in the parable And I'll just sort of skim over the beginning here.

He says The case that he's making is that parable the talents includes more than one

Possible application so it is talking about the gospel, but there's also principles there real quick.

You may want to start start Did you see that their chat was saying that they couldn't hear you?

And I thought I was muting myself You know I didn't say anything because I had the stream pulled up on YouTube on another tab

I thought there was audio wrong on my end. I heard y 'all speaking again. So I thought he was still going

You were muted for about three -quarters of that Because of me you muted your mic and mine wasn't muted.

Well, no we were using the same mic so So the parable of the talents has more than one meaning potentially

Just to summarize so in this piece Jonah Hewer talks about the parable of the talents Referring to the gospel talking about the gospel, but also there are principles there's a principle of responsibility for the the things that God has has given you and You know take a look at the piece read it if you have time, but one little section.

I do want to read He said

He has Maybe you feel called to some other political activity be at local journalism volunteering with the campaign or lobbying many

Christians Political activity are simultaneously Doing it that person

Volatrice and tracking us a true mission of the church nonsense. Got a variety of students children.

It's all Given mechanical skill And to some he has given political sense if that's you don't bury what you've been given pray seek wise counsel figure

But now we're in this position where In many ways power is sort of more in our favor.

You know, I don't for me speaking for myself I felt just a massive wave of relief just incredible relief mostly because my life has been

Severely impacted by the last few years. I mean, I I had no gray hair. I'm 33 years old

I had no gray hair in 2020 and I got it popping out everywhere now It it's it's been it has been a rough few years

You know and really it all goes back to the last election because without the last election you don't have vaccine mandates

You don't have a COVID restrictions going on necessarily for as long as they did especially in blue states

My wife doesn't probably doesn't lose her job For not getting vaccinated. We don't lose half our income with like there's you don't have the insane inflation

That made where we lived unaffordable. We probably don't move across the country There's so many things that happen that I can relate back to that that singular event

So now it's sort of like there's we're in a position where it's like, oh, all right Maybe the feds kind of will have our back, you know, you feel a little bit more like you can actually

Accomplish something and go out and do something and build something. So I guess to sort of tie this into real practical stuff

What Like 12 hours on 24 hours on almost 24 hours on you like you guys are both in seminary

John obviously you You do a podcast you do a lot of different things how does this how does this affect your

Outlook on what God has called you to do especially as it relates to like the political realm or you know, whether that's community whether that's

Even what you're doing right now. How does this change or does it change things? Maybe when we go to you first Matt.

Oh, yeah, I would say for me Well, first off this victory is very encouraging

But it's only the beginning you can't just win an election and become passive. It's not how politics works

You have to actually do something. So you have to you also have to continue putting pressure on the people there.

I mean Think about who Trump's vice Presidential candidate is or vice president -elect

JD Vance. This is a guy where if you're on right -wing Twitter There's a good chance one of your mutuals is mutuals with him he has direct access to your account most likely and Posting works.

Remember the whole they're eating the cats are eating the dogs That was from captive dreamer 7 on Twitter Martin because he posted about that That became the thing that the

Trump campaign talked about that became the the meme That became popular all because of one of my mutuals.

We did that. Okay Uh, so actually posting does things you should keep posting some of them we'll see

So there's that I would say that it's also very important to just not just be totally passive If you want you can get involved in local like Republican Party politics, whatever.

I personally am NOT involved in that there's good like a organizations to get plugged into where you are actually with Like -minded men and brothers, so it's good to get involved in real life.

Don't just stay posting It's not sufficient to just have e friends Don't just have online friends meet people in our sphere and circles and organize get things going

And by the way, this is not me advocating for political violence or anything of that nature Of course, you're a good and wholesome American patriot, but get involved with people

It's important to do that in person. Don't just post but don't just stay posting in regard to your question about Like as someone who wants to go in the seminary or who is going in a seminary wants to go into like, you know

The ministry I guess like what about our involvement in politics and whatnot. Um, I Do not believe that a minister should be like a political expert necessarily

That's that doesn't have to be the case oftentimes when they try and speak on politics they speak on it very poorly because what they end up doing is they just end up becoming captive to the spirit of the age and Echoing modern liberal sentiments as being fundamentals of the

Christian faith, and I don't like that But you should know something about what's going on because when you're preaching you're not just I mean

You're not just expositing a book of the Bible and saying this is what it really means Like is that part of it? Yes, but what is like the juice like the meat of the sermon?

What is the time like, you know, you can think of like expository preaching where you're diving into the Texas This is a part where you're kind of you're cooking.

You're preparing the meal. What is the feast though? The feast is application and in order to properly do

Application in a sermon you need to know what is going on in the life of your and your lives of your congregants and guess

What if you are a man if you're a woman if you're a rational creature You are necessarily a political animal things happen around you involving the state involving law

You need to know about these things for the sake of application being able to read the moment which you are living in which is

Exactly what the Apostles did living under the Roman Empire. It's why Paul used his Roman citizenship to his advantage

It's why Peter was able to go to the Jews in their context and things like that it's why Paul the talking to Titus about the people of Crete was able to know about their certain situation how the

Character of the Cretes are or the Cretans are these things are important to know. It's important to look at these things

It's important to be active to want to create a life which is worth living in your own civil polity

So that's that's my spiel Colby if you want to add to that by all means It's Worth showing up to governmental centers to be prophetic towards them and To call the civil magistrate

Toward being a nursing father to the church That has to absolutely be front and center in How we do things politically?

Another thing is that you cannot be unambiguous About what a

Christian ought to believe on certain political topics. So for example my church

Campaigned pretty highly against Amendment for here in Florida, which was the abortion amendment so, you know, you cannot lose the activity of the church against you know political evil and Other than that,

I mean, I really do agree with everything Matthew said personally as as people who want to go into the ministry it is

Important to be around people who are not just seminary students

Also important to be around men who are in your walk of life and Not only are in your walk of life, but who are passionate about the same things you're passionate about and I'm passionate about politics.

It is very important. I cannot underscore it It's important for the

Christian to know that you're not crazy. You're not isolated You're not the only one who has these political beliefs that you have

Even if people at church have a wider rave Political views, so that's that's that's where I'm I Think we have four years that we have opportunities to Do things that maybe we if things had gone the other way would not have so we need to take advantage of that View it as a gift from God Not squander it and I'd see at least in the church

Two things that were confirmed in this to me at least one is that podcasts and you said posting

Matthew but think of like Joe Rogan had a tremendous amount of influence and the final days of this election getting young people to turn out for Trump and I Think of Elon Musk is someone who like how do you know?

He's rich, but you know, it's his Twitter interaction his ex interactions Yeah, and I think

That we are entering an age where we have a different kind of celebrity and it's and I don't want to like Focus on the celebrity aspect of it

It's really more the hierarchical kind of thought leader aspect that I think is important to this particular subject where people are listening to Joe Rogan some of them over their college professors and This is a way to get around The the people who are the gatekeepers of public opinion and It's an easy way to do it because anyone can get a microphone and a camera just about and it's it's cheap

Like there's a lot of downsides to the way social media is and and the pooling of ignorance on podcasts

But there's also upsides and this is one of them is you can get guys who have a little bit better sense in the

The top echelon of forming public opinion So Christians should be engaged in that kind of thing doesn't mean that the

Lord has called you to necessarily form a podcast I find that a lot of people think they can do it and it's not the best use of their talents you have to evaluate what your talents are and where God has put you and Where he might want you to serve, but that could be it.

It could be podcasting There's a tremendous amount of influence now that you can exert on that kind of a platform and then of course this is this might sound like it's intention to what

I just said, but I think that pastors Need to focus on their job of being a pastor

So I think you can have be a pastor and have a podcast But I do think that pastors shouldn't have the congregation as a means by which they can have a public platform

Like they should serve their nation. And yeah, that can go out on the world wide web and all of that But you know preach the word apply morally moral

Ethics and in a righteous way when it comes to politics and that kind of thing be mature though about it and See where that takes you because we have a shortage right now of pastors a lot of churches

I know a lot of churches looking and they can't find them coming from the seminaries and so I see the need for more pastors to step it up and to do what

God has called them to and then to just be men of virtue and character and not be your

Steve Lawson's or other pastors who have fallen recently Because there's a vacuum and I don't know.

I'll just say this in closing. Like I don't know if you've noticed but like David Platt Matt Chandler JD Greer Mark Driscoll used to be part of this crowd a lot of guys who have been in trouble like tooling into it

Yeah, like there was kind of like this whole young restless reform thing and these guys who are like older Millennials Tended to be the the vanguard for that.

They have not been replaced. I haven't seen anyone come back who's like the next big leader in the church they're just dying or disqualifying themselves and That's a real problem.

We need And I'm okay if it's it actually might be even healthier if it's we don't have the celebrity pastors but we actually have like a lot of faithful good smaller pastors in churches, that's a better thing, but But yeah,

I think that God's doing a work and sounds like to me or it looks like to me sifting and Purging leadership that's disqualified.

And so, you know, you might be someone who's an electrician or Whatever your job is, you know evaluate if you have the gifts for preaching and teaching

That may be something God calls you to because we certainly need more people like that to be the leadership class in the new coming

I Guess changes that we're seeing in politics and in social life

Yeah, well Thanks guys so much. I think we're just about out of light here in Tennessee.

You guys have a little bit more than us But thank you Matt. Thank you Colby. Thanks, John. I'm just gonna plug real quick.

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Yeah, we're all an ex but since we didn't get a chance to plug Colby since he's not a regular on this

What's your ex account if people want to follow you Colby? Yeah, it's at happy Huguenot and My first name and my face will pop up and you'll know it's me

And you're Presbyterian, that's correct, okay, it's not really

Huguenot All Right guys, have a good night.