June 29, 2016 Show with Ray Comfort on “Fat Chance: Why Pigs Will Fly Before America Has An Atheist President” PLUS David C. Innes on “Left, Right, and Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics”

Iron Sharpens Iron

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September 23, 2016

00:02: Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
00:08: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
00:16: Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:23: Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
00:31: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:46: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:56: Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon
01:05: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth listening via live streaming.
01:13: This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 29th day of June 2016 and we are doing a program on faith and politics today.
01:35: Obviously it's always a relevant topic but it's especially relevant in the middle of a very heated and nasty presidential campaign between Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and we have two people to discuss this issue on the program today.
01:58: We are supposed to be joined by Ray Comfort first. Ray, are you on the on the line?
02:03: I think I am. Great, well Ray, it's great to have you on the program.
02:08: Ray Comfort is our first guest today and he is the founder and CEO of Living Waters and he's the co -host with actor
02:17: Kirk Cameron of the award -winning TV program The Way of the Master. He's also author of a number of books and today we're going to be discussing
02:26: Fat Chance, Why Pigs Will Fly Before America Has an
02:31: Atheist President. Our second hour, we will be joined by Dr. David C. Innes, Chair of the
02:37: Program in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and Associate Professor of Politics at the
02:42: King's College in New York City and he's going to be discussing his book Left, Right and Christ, Evangelical Faith and Politics.
02:49: But first of all, let me welcome you for the very first time to Iron Shepherd's Iron, Ray Comfort. Well thank you, appreciate being on.
02:56: Yeah and I've been wanting to get you on this program for a long time, since 2006 when we launched actually, initially.
03:04: And let me also introduce you to my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor. Hello.
03:10: Hi Buzz, how you doing? Just great, thanks. Well, so I know that you have to leave us earlier than our guests normally do today, so I will at a future date go into more detail about your ministry and all those things for our listeners who aren't familiar with Way of the
03:31: Master and Living Waters. But this book, Fat Chance, Why Pigs Will Fly Before America, has an atheist president.
03:39: That's kind of an interesting book for a man who devotes most of his life to evangelizing the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ and warning the lost about hell and warning men and women that they cannot fulfill the law of God and therefore they need a savior.
04:00: And also, on top of that, you're an Australian. So why on earth did you write a book about American politics?
04:08: First of all, I'm Australian, I'm actually from New Zealand. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's okay, you can't have me against heaven.
04:14: You've got Solomon 51, you can't repent. We're about a thousand miles apart and Australians talk more like this, don't they?
04:23: I apologize about that. In fact,
04:30: I know somebody who's going to New Zealand to speak at a Bible conference in the very near future,
04:36: James Renahan and my friend Joe Thorne, who was just on our program yesterday.
04:42: But anyway, so to answer the question, why this fascination with American politics and obviously in light of the fact that there are even
04:53: Christians, even very conservative Bible -believing Christians, who think that evangelists should just stay clear of that subject altogether.
05:02: Oh no, we've got to be involved in politics, we've got to be salt and light, and part of that being salt is keeping a moral standard within the community.
05:11: And what's happened in our nation is the church has lost its ability to be salt, and as Jesus warned, we trample on the foot of men.
05:18: We despise that, certainly as the church is not the place that the politicians run to for moral guidance.
05:25: We've lost that effectiveness. But we're also called to be light, so it's very important to understand there's no point in becoming involved in politics unless we take the light with us and preach the gospel to every creature, because we're not out to change the nation, we're out to change the hearts of men and women.
05:40: And if we did change the nation through politics, we'd just go back to being a moral nation as we were the 1950s when
05:46: God's wrath still abode upon the nation. So we need the gospel in one hand and we need salt in the other.
05:52: Great. Well, as far as the content of this book is concerned, you have some documentation in here that is quite fascinating.
06:06: Why would 50 % of United States voters prefer a presidential candidate to be a politically inexperienced marijuana -smoking adulterer rather than an atheist?
06:17: It's because you can't trust an atheist. You know, there's never been an atheist president, despite what atheists say, none of them have been atheists.
06:26: There's no atheist in Congress, it's illegal in seven states for an atheist to even hold office. And polls tell us that most
06:32: Americans trust an atheist as much as they trust a rapist. And there's a reason for it, and the reason is this.
06:39: As I said, you can't trust an atheist because he's got no moral absolute. For him, it's not wrong morally to lie, not absolute, not wrong to steal, it just goes over every field.
06:50: So if his conscience is okay to steal, he can steal. And that means he will even kill you if he can get away with it, as what's happened in the past.
06:57: You know, I don't know if you've heard atheists say things like religion has caused more wars than anything in history.
07:05: That's just actually not true. The Encyclopedia of Wars, published in 2004, says there's been 1 ,763 wars in history up until 2004.
07:17: Only 8 % of those wars were religious wars, and two -thirds of the 8 % were in the name of Islam.
07:23: That means 92 % of the wars in history were actually more political in nature, like the First World War, Second World War, Korean War, Vietnam War.
07:32: And while we're talking about atrocities in history, and what atheists have done, Mao was responsible for 40 million deaths,
07:41: Stalin 70 million, both of them were atheists, Pol Pot was an atheist, 1 .7 million deaths, and Vladimir Lenin, 5 million deaths, all by atheists, because they've got no moral accountability.
07:54: And when I say that, I've got a lot of friends who are atheists, atheists are nice guys, and everyone's nice until they get into a place of political responsibility, and when they can carry out their own agendas.
08:05: So that's one reason why atheists aren't that popular in America, and why they're not in politics.
08:10: Do you actually think that a charlatan who claims to be not only a theist, but a
08:19: Christian, is in any better standing to be trusted than an atheist?
08:25: Like, for instance, we both know that Bill Clinton professed to be a
08:31: Christian. In fact, as far as I know, he's still a member in good standing with the Southern Baptist Convention.
08:37: I don't think he was ever put on any discipline of any kind, even though he militates against very core beliefs that every
08:44: Bible -believing Christian embraces as truth. And we've had many other presidents that have claimed to be
08:53: Christian. In fact, probably most of them did. In fact,
08:58: I'm pretty certain most of them did, but I don't think that the majority were truly regenerate people.
09:04: Is there any advantage to a charlatan professing to be a Christian of wolf in sheep's clothing over an open atheist like Bernie Sanders?
09:16: You know, actually, Bernie Sanders isn't an open atheist. He was said to be. When he was on the
09:22: Bill Maher show, they twisted his words, and he came back in his biography and said, I'm not an atheist. So it's in the books.
09:28: It's in the books, so that's nice for you to know. There's no atheists that are in the political arena, because if they say
09:33: I'm an atheist, they're going to go downstairs and pretend to be theists. Most atheists are actually idolaters.
09:41: They have their own image of what God is like. A wise man once said, most I fear
09:47: God, next I fear him who fears him not. Adolf Hitler wasn't an atheist.
09:52: He had his own perception, his own image of what God was like. His God didn't like the
09:57: Jews. His God had 12 commandments that Hitler was in charge of. He had his own
10:03: Bible, and his image of God was one of giving him inspiration to start the
10:08: Aryan faith or bring in a purified race. So the ones to be feared as much as atheists are idolaters, and that's what we see in Congress, and that's what we see so much throughout
10:18: America. And nowadays, people who have got an image of God is more like a divine butler than the God given to us in Scripture.
10:24: He comes running when they click their fingers, and it's idolatry, and the Bible says idolaters will not inherit the
10:31: Kingdom of God. In fact, if you study history, and especially of the Jews of Israel, you'll see their big problem was always idolatry.
10:38: They strayed into it again and again, because when you're into sin, you can create a
10:45: God that doesn't mind sin, and you can feel comfortable in it and not feel a sense of guilt.
10:51: God saw fit in the first two of the 10 commandments to address idolatry, and that's the sin of America, because we have a
10:58: God in the minds of most, including politicians, who don't mind the killing of children in the womb, who don't mind blasphemy, adultery, fornication, pornography, and homosexuality.
11:07: That's not the God we have to face on Judgment Day, and that's what we have to do. When it comes to our nation, it's what
11:14: Moses did when it came to Israel when they're into sin. He took those 10 commandments, and he threw them at the feet and smashed them at the feet of Israel, and we have to do the same with our country and say, you've broken these commandments into a thousand pieces, and we desperately need to save it to avoid the damnation of hell.
11:30: And by the way, I want to quickly give our email address. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Ray Comfort, you better do it very quickly, though, because he is only going to be with us for about a quarter of an hour.
11:42: Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.
11:50: Why are there no atheists in Congress? Because you cannot be a politician and say
11:57: I'm an atheist. You've got to be shot down, and the reason for this is not only because an atheist can't be trusted, but if you study what's been happening in the last few years, mainly through an organization called
12:08: Freedom from Religion Foundation, they've been suing the shirts off many fellow Americans for things they hold dear.
12:15: I mean, as Americans, we hold dear the flag, God and country, and the cross, and God bless
12:23: America, and all these things we just love. Well, if you put a cross on a property, this government property, these people will sue you for it.
12:31: If you're a judge in a court of law and you've got the 10 commandments in your law, they will sue you, and there's been over about 80 or 90 frivolous, silly lawsuits by these people, and it's causing atheists to become odious in the minds of many
12:44: Americans because they've been highly publicized, these lawsuits. I mean, they've sued people for kindergartens for taking up collections of food for kids that are wanting, and they've taken them to court for it because there was something about Christianity involved in it.
13:00: They've sued schools because some kid saw a cross on a property, and he was mentally affected because he saw this cross.
13:08: Just silliness like that. And it really shows what's happening to a nation that we're surrounded by markers, and people have got no fear of God, and we certainly need a revival, and that'll come about when
13:21: Christians stand up and proclaim the gospel and pray that God blesses it according to his promises.
13:28: Well, we have a listener who has a question. Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, do you think the reason why we don't have an atheist president is due to the fact that the majority of Americans consider themselves religious according to most polls?
13:45: Yeah, an atheist is someone who believes that nothing created everything, which is scientifically impossible.
13:50: So when someone says I'm an atheist, they're virtually saying I'm a fool. And they're not a fool in the sense of a clown, but they're a fool in the sense of denying the inner light that's given to every man.
14:00: No painting was ever painted without a painter. No building was ever built without a builder, and creation cannot create itself.
14:09: It had to have a creator. When someone denies that, they're saying I'm an idiot, I've got no brains, I may profess intelligence, but I haven't got common sense.
14:17: And that's one reason that I'm not going to be elected, is they are so foolish just to say that all things came into being because of nothing bringing it about.
14:25: By the way, Tyler, you are getting a free copy of this book we are talking about today, Fat Chance, Why Pigs Will Fly Before America as an
14:33: Atheist President by Ray Comfort. Nice cover on the book too. And we have
14:39: William in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, who is asking a question that nobody has ever asked before.
14:46: He is asking, today is my birthday, and it would mean a lot to me to hear Ray Comfort say happy birthday to me.
14:51: I'm a big fan of his, and he has helped me immensely during this political season. I have the following encouraging story for him.
14:59: Your Trump -Hillary million dollar bill tracks are fantastic and easy to pass out.
15:04: If you are shy about passing out tracks, just the other day I gave one of these to a young lady at a local hamburger stand.
15:12: As my wife and I sat inside, she came in with it and read it to all her co -workers.
15:18: We enjoyed listening in on this young lady unknowingly taking her co -workers through the law and gospel.
15:25: Do you think you could do our listener a favor and wish him a happy birthday? Could you remind me of his name? William in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.
15:33: William, happy birthday to you. Happy both birthdays. God bless you for your love for the lost and the concerned.
15:40: I want to reach out to them and I'm very encouraged to hear that story. I hope you have a great birthday.
15:46: Buzz, we're running out of time, so go ahead. You had mentioned right at the beginning that it's illegal to run for office.
15:55: I guess my question would be, the fact that these laws are in the books doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be enforced because don't the states also have laws against homosexuality that are not being enforced?
16:10: Yeah, I think they're going to try and force this one because they're in states that still have a respect for God and they're going to try and hold on to this one with gritted teeth.
16:20: I really don't think we're ever going to see a president who's an atheist in the United States.
16:25: Well, God forbid. Well, Ray, I know that you could only be with us for about a quarter hour.
16:33: I really want you to close out the program with what you most want etched on the hearts and minds of our listeners today.
16:39: Yeah, I'd like them to realize this book was written for the unsaved. It's an easy book to give to unsaved people because it's got a funny looking cover.
16:47: It's got Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in caricature form with pigs flying over the top of the
16:52: White House. And with both of them on there, it's not offensive. If you're just pushing one and not the other, then it'll be difficult to get out.
16:59: So this book has the gospel in it. So please feel free to take advantage of getting this book and giving it out to unsaved people because that's why our ministry exists.
17:07: Great. And I know that your website is livingwaters .com, livingwaters .com.
17:14: And for anybody interested in purchasing the book, Fat Chance, When Pigs...
17:21: Well, my co -host took the book from me. Fat Chance, Why Pigs Will Fly Before America Has an
17:27: Atheist President by Ray Comfort. You can go to the New Leaf Publications Group website, nlpg .com.
17:36: That's N -L for New Leaf, P -G, publishinggroup .com. And Ray, I hope that you could return to the program and spend at least an hour, maybe two, with us the next time you're available for an interview.
17:49: I appreciate having me on, Chris, and you too, Buzz. God bless. Bye -bye. All right. God bless you.
17:55: And by the way, William in Wisconsin, you are getting a free copy as a birthday present.
18:02: You're getting a free copy of the book that we just mentioned, Fat Chance, Why Pigs Will Fly Before America Has an
18:09: Atheist President by Ray Comfort. So I am happy to have that shipped out to you, and happy birthday to you.
18:17: I know that means absolutely nothing to you that I'm saying it, but I'm glad that Ray Comfort granted your birthday wish and wished you a happy birthday.
18:26: That is probably the shortest interview that we've ever conducted on Iron Sharpens Iron, but unfortunately
18:33: Ray could not be with us for the full hour as we were originally hoping, and hopefully he will be back very soon to conduct a more thorough and lengthy interview.
18:48: But when we return from our station break that we're going to, we're going to be joined by our second guest today,
18:58: David Ennis, who I have known probably most of my Christian life.
19:04: I got saved in the mid -80s and I probably met David somewhere in the late 80s to early 90s because his pastor,
19:14: Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, has been a very crucial part of my life for nearly my entire
19:24: Christian experience. Although I was never a member of his congregation, he's always been a dear friend and has stood with me through thick and thin, during good times and bad, was very instrumental in being used by the
19:42: Lord as a tool to restore me to repentance and a right relationship with God and a good standing with the church when
19:50: I had fallen back into the wickedness of alcohol abuse. And just a wonderful brother in Christ, Bill Shishko, and I've heard him preach many times and visited the congregation there in Franklin Square, New York, many times.
20:06: And along those travels, I had met David Ennis and become acquainted with him and have wanted to get him on this program for a long time.
20:14: And something always came up that prevented us, and I'm so delighted that we have the opportunity to have him on the program today.
20:23: And when we come back from the station break, God willing, we are going to be interviewing him.
20:29: And if you would like to join us on the air with a question for David Ennis, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
20:40: chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the
20:50: USA. And it's unlikely that this kind of a topic will require that you remain anonymous, but you never know, there is some reason that you may feel more comfortable remaining anonymous.
21:06: That's fine if you feel compelled to do so. So we don't want to, you know, keep anyone away from emailing us questions if they feel more comfortable to remain anonymous.
21:20: And the email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.
21:26: So when we come back from the break, we're going to be joined by Dr. David C. Ennis, the Chair of the
21:31: Program in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and Associate Professor of Politics at the
21:37: King's College in New York City, and co -author of Left, Right and Christ, Evangelical Faith in Politics.
21:45: Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Dr. David C. Ennis. Hi, I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a
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25:29: Thriving Financial. Obviously, we had a little faux pas there with the technical situation that's running the ads there.
25:40: But anyway, it's great to have
25:46: Dr. David C. Innes finally as our guest today after trying on several occasions, and God must have wanted today to be the day for some reason that we don't know about.
25:57: But we are very happy to be speaking about left, right, and Christ, evangelical faith and politics, and also just his assessment of the political climate that we are witnessing as Americans.
26:13: And in fact, the whole world is watching with bated breath to see what's happening here in the
26:19: States. But it's my pleasure and my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Sharpens Iron for the very first time,
26:25: Dr. David C. Innes. Thank you, Chris. The honor is mine. And let me introduce you to my co -host, the
26:36: Reverend Buzz Taylor. Hello, David. Hi, Buzz. Pleasure to meet you. And once again,
26:42: I am outnumbered two Presbyterians to one Baptist. I'm glad to be here on this historic occasion, not only because you're outnumbered, but because if it's been this difficult getting
26:52: Brother David on the show, then I guess there must be a very good reason for it.
26:58: That didn't sound good, Buzz. Well, here we go.
27:04: But anyway, David, first of all, tell us something about your background so our listeners know exactly whom is giving them this information that we'll be discussing today.
27:16: Something about your own coming to faith in Christ, the church where you are a member, the
27:23: Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and how you came to be on the faculty of the
27:28: King's College in New York City. Well, Chris, I was raised Canadian. I was born in Toronto and raised there.
27:36: I came to faith at Knox Presbyterian Church in Toronto. I thought that the world would be a better place if more people went to church.
27:45: I thought, well, that must include me, so I started going to church. And it was in God's Providence, an evangelical church, and I came to understand the gospel.
27:56: And it's been a journey since then. I came down to the United States to go to graduate school at Boston College, study political philosophy.
28:05: And after that, I went into the pastoral ministry after a couple of years teaching. I pastored a small church in Iowa that ran a boarding school.
28:15: And the Lord brought me back into academia, where the pastoral and theological side could marry the political and philosophical side.
28:27: And that is the King's College, where these two things come together very nicely. And I have my dream job teaching at the
28:35: King's College, political science, political philosophy, here in New York City. Great city, great school, and wonderful students.
28:44: So I live on Long Island, where I first met you. Yes. And the
28:51: Orthodox Presbyterian Church, why don't you tell our listeners something about that, so we could give a plug to that fine congregation and denomination?
29:01: Oh, sure. Well, I came into Presbyterianism, again, for the sort of logical reasons
29:07: I started with. I thought, well, I'm Scottish, and Scots are
29:14: Presbyterian. All I knew about denominations was ethnic, right? So I must be Presbyterian.
29:19: There's a Presbyterian Church. I'll go there. And again, the God's Providence, it was an evangelical church.
29:25: But so Presbyterian Church in Canada, Presbyterian Church in America, PCA, when I came down here, and that's where I served in the pastorate.
29:34: When I came to New York, the PCA was a little loosey -goosey for me.
29:42: They do wonderful work. Tim Keller is doing things in New York City that nobody has ever been able to do, and I praise
29:49: God for him, but it's not a place where I could be comfortable being a whole lot more confessional than...
29:56: I hope I'm not offending anyone. And I doubtly I will. But anyway... Hey, I'm going to talk about politics.
30:04: I'm going to offend people. Well, I know that you're speaking the truth about the
30:10: PCA being loosey -goosey, because my co -host is a member of that denomination. I don't know how they can accept him as a member if they weren't loosey -goosey.
30:19: Well, that took a turn I wasn't expecting. By the way, that was a joke. Is that a foul remark?
30:27: So when we moved to New York, we thought, well, where are we going to go to church? Where are we going to live? Well, we'll live where we go to church.
30:33: And I looked around the websites, and we found Bill Shishko's Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You said a lot about him before.
30:40: By the way, Bill Shishko would smack you if he heard you say, I found Bill Shishko's Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
30:46: He would, he would indeed. Yeah, Bill... I found the Orthodox Presbyterian Church where Bill Shishko is pastor.
30:52: Yeah, there you go. He looked at it and said, this is what we want. This is our church. But since then, we've planted a church on the north shore of Long Island, where Ben Miller is the pastor.
31:05: And that's closer to where we live, and we're at that now. So we've had no regrets.
31:11: It's part of my beautiful life. So has politics always been a great source of fascination for you?
31:22: Oh, yes. From the time I was like 15 or 16, reading the newspapers,
31:27: I would clip out stories and file them in a geeky way. And I worked on political campaigns up in Canada.
31:35: So it's always been important to me, because it struck me that there are two parties, well, there are three, who are appealing for votes.
31:46: And they have different views of life, the purpose of life, the good life, the just life.
31:52: And it gripped me that this is important. Will we live in a justly governed country, a justly lived country, or will we not?
32:02: And I said, well, those folks, they have their view of the country is more just, more effective, and so forth.
32:12: That was my heart, to appreciate those things. And here
32:18: I am, 40 years later. Great. Well, by the way, the next time, before I forget to tell you this, when you, the next time you speak with Gregory Thornberry, the president of the
32:30: King's College, we had to schedule an interview with him some time back. And I had to postpone it because I had to run a rerun that day.
32:39: I could not do a live show. And I've been trying to get him rescheduled.
32:45: Greg Thornberry, he, I don't know if he knows this yet. I did tell his assistants, his assistant this, but his dad,
32:55: John Thornberry, who is a very globally known Baptist historian and author, he has been a guest on my program a number of times.
33:08: And I've known him even long before I had my own radio program. I've known his dad,
33:14: John Thornberry, since the 1980s. And we have been very good friends.
33:20: And my favorite biography that I've ever read was by his dad,
33:27: Pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cohn. I highly recommend it. But anyway, tell
33:33: Greg that I want to get him on the program soon. Well, that would be a great show. He's a wonderful man.
33:38: Yeah, I'm sure he is. Well, since the 2012 election,
33:46: America has seen major setbacks for religious liberty. Why don't you break down some of the ways that you believe we as Christians are having our liberties robbed from us?
33:59: It has been remarkable how fast things have developed.
34:05: I didn't say progressed. The Christians have gone from...
34:11: Think of 1980, the moral majority and the sexual revolution, the new left coming out of the 60s.
34:20: Things were changing. We had gay lib. We had the Equal Rights Amendment, what we called the women's lib and so forth.
34:29: And Christians were very alarmed at this. They formed the moral majority, locking arms with morally conservative people, not just Christians.
34:41: And you remember, that was the focus of American politics, the values voters they were later called.
34:47: And this went absolutely nowhere. We lost on every front. Cal Thomas, in his book, points this out, blinded by might.
34:56: And he was actually a part of it, wasn't he, initially? Yes. Oh, yeah. And this was his reflection back on it.
35:02: So, the gay rights, homosexual, the normalization of homosexuality, let me put it that way.
35:12: Feminism is now the universal orthodoxy. It's not even an issue anymore. And issues like that.
35:21: And so we've lost on every front. Abortion, we're now defending against partial birth abortion.
35:30: But so now, not only have we lost on these things, but we find ourselves in a defensive position for religious liberty itself, which is explicitly protected in the
35:45: Constitution. And it's amazing that in the last few years, we have been under assault on various fronts.
35:55: The Obergefell v. Hodges decision, the same -sex marriage decision, was just the culmination of a process.
36:03: Remember, there was Bernard Eich, who was an executive with, oh, what was that company, big tech company in California.
36:15: He had quietly, privately donated money in support of the
36:22: Proposition 9 cause in California. Somebody discovered this.
36:28: They put it out there. He got fired from his job as an executive for having supported an anti -gay, pro -marriage cause.
36:39: And other people we've seen, I think with the Benham brothers, were going to have a reality TV show.
36:44: And somebody found something they said somewhere. They were realtors or something, right? Pardon me?
36:50: The brothers were realtors, right? Yeah, realtors. They were going to have some realty reality show.
36:57: And so that was canned because they were discovered to have had political sin in their hearts and to have voiced it somewhere privately.
37:06: You saw a police chief in Atlanta, a decorated police chief, a police chief of the year, a tremendous fellow, a university celebrated, and an
37:19: African -American. And he lost his job because he was found to say something disfavorable toward homosexuality in a
37:29: Christian book he had written. And so this is where things are these days.
37:35: And to say nothing of the bakers who wish not to participate in gay nuptials.
37:41: And the couple with a wedding to plan still have time to prosecute the baker, even though there are other bakers they could have used.
37:53: The baker, and I'm not thinking of a florist, who Alliance Defending Freedom has taken on as a client.
38:00: She had homosexual friends. They've been clients for 10 years. Good friend.
38:07: But when she declined, graciously declined, to supply flowers for their wedding,
38:13: I assume it meant showing up and designing the whole thing. You have to really get your fingers into it.
38:20: They tore at her with a vengeance. And this is the sort of thing we're finding.
38:26: And that baker was fined $135 ,000, plus the legal fees.
38:34: This is just ruinous. So what we're finding is that Christianity, orthodox, morally serious
38:43: Christianity, is becoming an object of scorn and vilification in,
38:54: I hesitate to say the culture, certainly amongst the cultural elites. That is, the political elites, the corporate elites, the financial and cultural elites, including the universities, of course.
39:08: People are, I've heard the phrase recently, well, I'm in favor of religious liberty, of course, but not as an excuse for discrimination.
39:20: So this is the rhetorical way they are hoping to get around the Constitution. The Constitution protects religious liberty, which should include not only your freedom to worship, but also your freedom to live out your faith as you see fit in good conscience.
39:42: And they say, but it's not an excuse for discrimination. So there's officially sanctioned religion, and there is hate crime, there's thought crime, there's, you know, hate.
39:55: So that can't be religion. So this is how they will strip us of our religious liberty if the
40:03: Supreme Court agrees with them. And who knows what the Supreme Court will do, but we know what's happening there.
40:10: I guess I could talk about what's happening there. Yeah, in fact, we will when we come back from another break. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
40:19: chrisarnson at gmail .com. And we already have a few people waiting to have their questions asked.
40:26: So I hope that you don't go away, folks, because we're going to be right back after these messages with David C.
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43:43: This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the remainder of our broadcast until 6 p .m.
43:50: Eastern time is Dr. David C. Ennis. He's on the faculty with the
43:56: King's College. And we are talking about the political climate in the
44:01: United States today. And we are also going to be, in a moment, have him talk a little bit about left, right, and Christ, evangelical faith and politics.
44:15: If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
44:21: chrisarnsen at gmail .com. You were speaking about the Supreme Court right before we came into the break.
44:28: Yes, the Supreme Court is a... Every issue in American politics eventually becomes a judicial issue.
44:38: And the politicians like it that way because then they can't be held to account for difficult decisions.
44:45: So these difficult decisions, and partly because we have a written constitution, these decisions tend to...
44:51: These issues tend to make their way to the Supreme Court. And so... And if they were all just technical jurists with no political opinions, maybe things would be simpler.
45:04: And many of the decisions are, like, 7 to 2 or unanimous.
45:11: But the most controversial decisions are... tend to be split between liberal and conservative justices.
45:19: These issues, because they're issues, they engage the heart, they engage the passions, the moral passions.
45:27: And these justices are flesh like us. They're human beings with moral convictions.
45:35: And so they tend to divide between left and right, between liberal and conservative.
45:42: And there's been a delicate balance on the court. Justice Kennedy has been a swing vote in many respects.
45:54: So many issues, gun rights, abortion, religious liberty, hang in the balance with the appointment of the next
46:04: Supreme Court justice. Antonin Scalia died suddenly. Why, Lord, we ask, why?
46:09: But he has his good purposes in these things. But so he's a very conservative jurist.
46:15: He died. The Republicans have declined to replace him.
46:21: The Republicans in the Senate, that is. The president nominates a candidate and the Senate must confirm.
46:28: The Senate has said, we'll wait for later. I think they're hoping that a Republican is elected president and they get a different kind of nominee.
46:36: So this is the controversy around the Supreme Court. And that makes it a presidential election controversy.
46:43: Now, what can you tell? OK, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I don't know if I've wandered off topic.
46:50: No, no, no, not at all. Why are we talking about this? Well, obviously, there was a
46:58: Texas law struck down by the United States Supreme Court just very recently.
47:05: Yes. That is going to make it a lot easier for women to have their unborn babies murdered.
47:13: And if you could let us know about that. Yeah, it was a Texas law which required anyone performing abortions at an abortion clinic also to have admitting privileges at a hospital that was no more than 30 miles from the clinic.
47:35: The idea being no more Kermit Gosnels. Kermit Gosnels is an abortionist in Philadelphia who was a butcher and was working under extremely dirty conditions.
47:47: And women were losing their lives and so forth. And so it was somewhat a response to that.
47:54: And if something should go wrong, they wanted a hospital nearby. And maybe it was all just a way of making abortion less accessible, less frequent.
48:09: But on the face of it, maybe, maybe not. But on the face of it, these are all reasonable health of the mother, women's health concerns.
48:20: And the Supreme Court, a vote of five to three, there are eight justices right now, five to three struck down the law.
48:30: And on the basis that it was overly burdensome on the exercise of this fundamental right, the court distinguishes between fundamental rights and not so fundamental rights.
48:43: And they regard abortion as a fundamental right, even though it is never mentioned in the Constitution.
48:50: And the case establishing this right is still highly controversial.
48:56: Nonetheless, in a fundamental right, it is overly burdensome on the exercise of that right.
49:02: So they struck it down. So even if Scalia had lived, assuming he would not have persuaded one of those other five, and that was a possibility, it still would have, that side still would have won five to four.
49:17: But this is, these are life and death issues. So who gets on the
49:24: Supreme Court? Thus, who is president and who controls the Senate is a life and death issue in this regard.
49:32: And we are in a difficult situation. I'll just take it to Trump, the Trump -Hillary question.
49:38: It's not as if there's this strong pro -life candidate and this rabid pro -choice candidate.
49:47: You know, we have Hillary Clinton, who is reflexively pro -choice. And we have
49:53: Donald Trump, who says he's pro -life, but he has no history of it.
49:59: People are rightly suspicious of him. He tweets on everything, but this decision comes down in Texas from the
50:07: Supreme Court, not a tweet from him, has some people scratching their heads. But he did put out a list of very conservative jurists that he said he would probably draw from.
50:20: Of course, with Trump, everything is a negotiating position. So you just never know. Nonetheless, with Trump, there's a question mark.
50:28: With Hillary, there's a certainty. So there is a difference there. But that's how the
50:34: Supreme Court bears upon religious liberty, the life of the unborn, and many other issues.
50:42: In fact, we have our listener who had already asked a question of Ray Comfort, Tyler in Mastic Beach sent in another question that is very relevant to something that you just said.
50:55: Tyler asked, Do you think that it's okay for a
51:01: Christian, I'm assuming he means this, not to vote for either candidate this time around, since Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both are not in agreement with God's authoritative word?
51:17: Okay, well, that's a big question. And I was anticipating it. The last part, not in agreement with God's authoritative word,
51:26: I can imagine... God's authoritative word says a lot of things.
51:34: Should a Presbyterian not vote for a Baptist? And how fine do you want to draw the lines?
51:41: That sounds good to me. Obviously, a president would have nothing to do with the ordinance of baptism.
51:53: So I guess that issue wouldn't even be relevant. Yeah, okay. So let's take the broad question.
52:03: Can I imagine circumstances in which somebody would not vote for either candidate?
52:10: Is there a moral obligation to vote one way or the other? Reasonable people disagree on this.
52:18: They say, you have it in your hands, at least one 150 millionth of the decision is in your hands.
52:28: And to help elevate this person or that person, and one or the other is going to get into power, you have to choose one or the other.
52:38: Not voting is a way of voting. Et cetera, et cetera. On the other hand, there's others who say, well, no, not voting is also a statement.
52:48: Voting is a statement. I support this one. I support that one. Strategic abstention from voting is a way of saying,
53:00: I'm not happy with any of you. Like, I'm really unhappy with all of you. And so I'm going to withhold my vote.
53:07: And if enough people in your demographic category do that, that sends a message.
53:13: And if that message can be heard before the election, you can sway things ahead of time.
53:21: Maybe candidates start appealing to your demographic, your, let's say, white evangelical demographic, and start making promises to which you can hold them.
53:32: So I can imagine somebody, obviously
53:38: Hillary Clinton doesn't hold up much hope of getting the white evangelical vote. But I can imagine if a lot of evangelicals start saying, we're going to sit this one out because we have this, that, and the other complaint about the
53:53: Republican nominee or presumptive nominee, then that nominee would take notice and start giving us what we want, paying attention to our issues.
54:10: Now, we've seen that, sort of. We've seen him currying favor with evangelical groups, health and wealth types.
54:18: Bob Jones III, I think he is, at Liberty University.
54:24: These folks have been enthusiastic for him. But your ordinary evangelical, not so much.
54:33: But will ordinary evangelicals think as evangelicals?
54:41: And the thing is, evangelicals are like everyone else. They think as working class people.
54:48: They think as middle class homeowners. They think as people afraid of losing their jobs.
54:55: They think as gun owners. They think as a number of other things instead of seeing themselves fundamentally as citizens of the kingdom of God with kingdom priorities and bringing those to the fore in the political debate.
55:11: So many people would say we have a candidate problem.
55:17: But part of the reason for that is perhaps that we have a voter problem, an evangelical voter problem.
55:24: Now, I've always been baffled by this. And I am not the most savvy person when it comes to the political realm.
55:33: In fact, I'm probably not savvy about nearly anything. But I've always wondered, why is it in this country with millions of people and in a country with the privilege of having access to education like very few other countries on the earth?
55:56: I mean, there are people from all over the world who prefer to be educated here in the
56:03: United States other than the lands where they live for a reason. And yet, every election cycle, we have a handful of people running that most people are just like, is that it?
56:20: I mean, I don't like any of them. So I guess I'm going to do what
56:26: I always do, the lesser of two evils route. Because it's just ridiculous.
56:31: I mean, I was shocked when I watched a debate with the
56:36: Libertarian Party candidates because I have some Libertarian leanings in a conservative way.
56:44: And it was a joke. I mean, it was like they had released people from an insane asylum to participate in a debate.
56:55: I couldn't believe it. But why is this that we have such ridiculous and horrible choices every time it seems?
57:03: Well, we had this round, we had 17 major candidates.
57:09: There were others, of course, but major candidates on the Republican side. And there was quite a variety there.
57:17: But now there's one standing. And who do you blame for that?
57:24: Your neighbors. Your neighbors are quite excited about this candidate. So if you're unhappy with the candidate,
57:31: I direct you to your neighbors, your Republican neighbors. Hillary Clinton is virtually alone on stage because she's
57:40: Hillary Clinton. And who knows what's going on behind the stage. But she has this powerful machine and historical air about her.
57:52: This guy from Vermont had the audacity to challenge her and exposed her weakness on the left flank, which was very interesting that we've all found.
58:03: And she's essentially become him as far as she can. So that's a different story over there.
58:10: So yeah. Do you think that being president for the more brilliant and insightful and even beyond brilliant and insightful, but even wise, because there is a difference, person that the thought of running for office or even being elected as president of the
58:35: United States is just too distasteful.
58:42: There's something about it that repels people who would be more ideal or more ideally suited for the office of the leader of the free world, as we call them.
58:56: Because even you say there were 17 Republican candidates, but did you really, were you blown away with enthusiasm by any of them?
59:05: I mean, Ted Cruz was, from where I am theologically, even though he's not, from what
59:14: I understand, a Calvinist, he's from a Pentecostal or charismatic background. He had a lot of things that I agreed with, but there is some question about some of the bizarre beliefs that the strain of Pentecostalism that he is from adheres to.
59:33: And even there was some question about integrity and honesty and that kind of a thing. And, you know,
59:39: I mean, there really wasn't anybody that I was jumping up and down and thanking God that we had a man like that running for president.
59:48: Yeah, I'll take you back to what you said, the sort of person you described that you would like to see.
59:53: You used three words, insightful, wise, and there was another one.
59:59: Brilliant and a person of integrity, I guess I could say. Brilliant, integrity, wise, which is not the same as insightful.
01:00:06: So, yes. And I'll bring you back to Plato's Republic, a book written in probably about 400
01:00:13: BC. And in that book, he described the ideal government as a philosopher king, a philosopher being defined as somebody of absolute moral integrity.
01:00:26: Why? Because he loves the truth. He loves justice. That's what a philosopher does. And he can't be tempted by money and cars and properties and so forth.
01:00:38: He's not interested in that. He's interested in understanding these things and so forth.
01:00:44: And the philosopher would be somebody who understands and loves justice and so forth.
01:00:50: But he says you'll never have a philosopher king except by complete accident. One is born to the throne or something.
01:00:57: Because philosophers don't want to rule. They're busy philosophizing. They're interested in understanding the world.
01:01:05: And there's always more to understand. And the people don't want them because the people think they've got their head in the clouds.
01:01:12: The philosopher is strange. The philosopher has weird opinions and so forth and so on in their view.
01:01:20: So, there's a difficulty getting somebody with absolute moral integrity and wisdom and so forth into power.
01:01:27: People don't recognize them as such. And they're not terribly interested in it. You bring that problem up to date and you have a...
01:01:38: Oh, and Plato mentions this part as well. The storm and swirl of politics and the politics of personal destruction and negative campaigning.
01:01:49: And there was quite a rowdy scene for that in the 19th century, I'm told. But today, there was a time in the 50s when you just didn't dig that deeply into candidates' pasts.
01:02:02: And there were things that were just not... It was not appropriate to mention. And after Watergate and after Bill Clinton, all that disappeared.
01:02:13: And so, with social media and the technologies we have to throw stuff out there, scurrilous things, that there's no time to respond to, it's just very difficult to run for president.
01:02:28: So, politics itself draws a certain kind of person.
01:02:34: A certain kind of... Somebody who enjoys the rough and tumble.
01:02:41: Somebody who likes seeing his or her name out there on the headlines. And somebody who is a schmoozer, somebody a glad hander, a networker.
01:02:53: There's a certain kind of person that it draws. And I'm not saying they're all like that. There are some noble exceptions in Congress and in the state houses.
01:03:04: But by and large, that's who you get. And typically, lawyers. So, it's just the nature of politics on one level.
01:03:15: And then you add the screwiness of the 21st century, the technology screwiness, cultural screwiness.
01:03:24: And here we are. And so, we pray. We pray that the Lord who raises up and brings down leaders, that the
01:03:31: Lord would, through all of this, raise up somebody whom we can admire and who will govern for the common good with integrity.
01:03:43: And we have to go to a break right now. We got a few listeners still waiting to have their questions asked.
01:03:49: One of them about the John Birch Society. And I know that my co -host, Reverend Buzz Taylor, is no stranger to that because he was raised with that kind of a background,
01:03:59: I think. But we'll be right back after these messages with Dr.
01:04:04: David C. Innes on faith and politics. So, don't go away. Hi, I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
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01:09:03: And welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today, for the majority of the time today, has been and will continue to be
01:09:14: Dr. David C. Innes. And he is Chair of the Program in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and Associate Professor of Politics at the
01:09:24: King's College in New York City. And he's the co -author of Left, Right and Christ, Evangelical Faith in Politics.
01:09:32: If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own regarding faith and politics, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
01:09:41: chrisarnsen at gmail .com. We do have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who has a question about the
01:09:50: John Birch Society, and we'll get to him as soon as possible. But I first wanted to let you,
01:09:56: David, describe this book that you've written, which is actually coming out, I understand this fall, in a new edition,
01:10:04: Left, Right and Christ, Evangelical Faith in Politics. Yes, it is just as it says.
01:10:11: It's what are Christians to think about politics and the issues of our day?
01:10:17: And it's co -authored by me, who gives what I hope is a lot more than just right -wing talking points, but I do come from a more politically conservative point of view.
01:10:28: Pretty darn conservative point of view, actually. And my co -author, Lisa Sharon Harper, works for Sojourners, which is a left progressive evangelical organization associated with Jim Wallace.
01:10:41: And she gives an alternative view, and you, the reader, can make up his or her mind.
01:10:47: And we have got chapters on liberty and justice, on the role of government, capitalism and poverty, on the role of business, and then various counter -proposals on health care, abortion, same -sex marriage, immigration, war and terrorism, and the environment.
01:11:05: So if you want to know, if you want to be persuaded either by the left or the right among evangelicals, this is a good conversation starter.
01:11:18: Also good for midweek Bible studies, if you want to take subject of politics. And yes, it's being reprinted this fall for the coming election.
01:11:28: Now, you described your co -author as somebody who identifies as an evangelical, and yet is liberal and progressive.
01:11:38: How could a person who is evangelical, and I'm assuming the definition of evangelical would be connected to at least the inerrancy of scripture, how could someone, and of course the pillars of the faith, the virgin birth of Christ, the
01:11:59: Trinity, Christ's deity, his bodily resurrection and ascension, the justification by faith alone would be some of the core things that evangelicals would adhere to.
01:12:16: How does a liberal, progressive evangelical try to justify the issue of abortion and same -sex marriage?
01:12:28: Well, just two of them, there's many others obviously, but how would they go about in those two huge issues?
01:12:36: Yeah, well, Lisa does affirm the fundamentals and the way you describe them, the authority of scripture and the way of salvation.
01:12:45: She worked for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship many years ago. But yeah, those right there are a difficulty for that position.
01:12:57: And she, when it comes to the abortion chapter, she says she retreats into a legal position.
01:13:08: Well, it's the law of the land and so forth and so on. On other matters, she doesn't retreat into the legal position.
01:13:15: She condemns the legal position on this and that. And same -sex marriage, she takes a very, it seems to me, a very sentimental position, trots out some sentimental stories.
01:13:28: She follows Tony Campolo on some of these things. And centers it around compassion and so forth, but sentimentally understood, not biblically informed.
01:13:41: And I must say, I was very disappointed to see those arguments.
01:13:47: We're all influenced by our emotions more than we realize.
01:13:55: And the challenge in being a biblical Christian is bringing your sentiments, bringing your culturally -informed views under the
01:14:06: Word of God to be judged by and informed by the Word of God. And that is a lifelong process.
01:14:14: And I'm open to having any of my views critiqued from that point of view.
01:14:21: And my hope is that people will buy this. People on the left will buy this book and read my arguments and say, oh my, he's right.
01:14:34: I've changed a lot. And of course, since we're Calvinists, we believe that a miraculous work of the
01:14:40: Holy Spirit has to be done first. If it depends on my arguments. Yes.
01:14:48: But by the way, I don't want to forget this. I want to give a plug to a fellow
01:14:54: Orthodox Presbyterian that I'm going to be interviewing that has a lot to do, who's going to be speaking on a subject that has a lot to do with a portion of our topic today.
01:15:08: Dr. Calvin Beisner, who you may be familiar with. Oh, yes. He is returning.
01:15:13: I believe this is the third time we've had Dr. Beisner on the program. And he's going to be on July 25th,
01:15:19: Monday, July 25th, 4 to 6 p .m. to continue his discussion on how environmentalism has been taken to such an extreme by leftist totalitarians, not only in the
01:15:35: United States, but globally, that the very people, those who are the underdogs, the weak, poor, and impoverished, indigenous people of not only this country, but of foreign lands, how they are typically the greatest victims whenever these leftist environmentalist laws get passed, which prevents people from actually earning a living and feeding their starving families.
01:16:09: So he's going to be returning to discuss that.
01:16:17: But we have a listener in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Harrison, and he wants to know,
01:16:29: I have heard from friends of mine in the John Birch Society that the political elections, especially when it comes to the
01:16:38: President of the United States, have been rigged. Do you give any credence to this?
01:16:43: Now, I have friends who are in the John Birch Society, and a lot of people think that the
01:16:49: John Birch Society is just a bunch of nuts, but they're not, because I've met and have friends in the
01:16:54: John Birch Society who are brilliant people who aren't nutty, but I'm not fully persuaded by some of their conspiratorial ideas.
01:17:04: But I know very articulate and brilliant people, even some on genius level, in that organization.
01:17:13: And Buzz, I know that you have had some kind of background with your mom and maybe even your dad.
01:17:18: Yeah, my parents were members of the John Birch Society and very involved in politics when I was too young to understand what was going on.
01:17:25: And they left that eventually, or? Oh, right. They got tired of, well, like they went for years doing nothing with the
01:17:33: John Birch Society, and they finally went back to another meeting and she said, they're still fighting the same battles. They're still talking about the
01:17:38: Panama Canal and all this stuff. Now, this was like 20 years ago that she said this to me, so I mean, I have no idea what they're doing now.
01:17:43: Yeah, the thing that I have, one of the biggest critiques I have of them is that they tend to look at the efforts of men in the realm of politics as being the messiah that will be the cure for all of our ills.
01:18:04: And they are very ecumenical in that, like you have Mormons and people of all kinds of religious backgrounds joining together.
01:18:14: Even though they would never claim it's a religious organization, it has an appearance of the religious fervor that they all are working together for a better America.
01:18:26: But if you could comment, if you have any knowledge of the John Birch Society, David, if you could comment on that.
01:18:32: I've had the occasional encounter with John Birchers, and I'll say two things. One, regarding conspiracy theories in general, and two, to address people in that position with those views.
01:18:48: First of all, the problem with conspiracy theories, and it's not to say that there are no conspiracies, but it usually involves something that involves a universal conspiracy amongst all the high points of politics and economics and finance and so forth.
01:19:10: And with the number of people we have in this country, the number of, particularly today, the number of news outlets, information sources, to think that you could keep a conspiracy that broad under wraps this long so completely is incredible.
01:19:29: The world doesn't work that way. But if it is true, if it is true that the presidential election with all the power involved and all the competing factions and interests and people hungry to get into that position, if that were all just cooked, if it were rigged and the word was just not getting out somehow, what is one's response?
01:19:56: I would say your response is to withdraw from the whole thing and work on your personal spiritual life, work on the life of the church.
01:20:08: That world up there, let's say, is all rigged. It's the world. It's people clinging to power against their neighbors.
01:20:17: Fine. Well, above and beyond that is the Lord God who governs the nations of the world, who raises up leaders and brings them down.
01:20:26: Those people can think that they are rigging leaders into power. It's the Lord who's doing it.
01:20:31: But he is the Lord of the church and it is the church that is the main event in human history.
01:20:37: So if we cultivate strong churches, strong families, strong relationship of love, outreaches of love, ministering to the poor and the vulnerable, you will find that the power, the influence that the
01:20:58: Lord unleashes from that will sweep aside these rigged elections. So I would direct them there.
01:21:06: And if they're Mormons, well, tough. You've got nowhere to go. You've got no hope in heaven or earth.
01:21:13: Yes. And if you're a Christian, focus on building that God's alternative society,
01:21:20: God's project, which cannot be rigged. And love your neighbor, love your family, love your wife, and focus on what cannot be rigged.
01:21:32: That would be my advice to them. And by the way, Harrison, I don't know if our guest right now has any familiarity with Ray Comfort's book,
01:21:43: Fat Chance, but we still have some copies left over because he was only on a very short period of time.
01:21:50: And you are getting a free copy of that book as well. I don't want to connect David Innes with a book that he has not read.
01:21:58: He may disagree with something in it or maybe a lot, I don't know. But in fact, I'll make sure that David gets a copy of it as well.
01:22:05: Oh, super. I saw Ray Comfort in a video on YouTube proving to evolutionists that they didn't have a leg to stand on.
01:22:14: And I thought it was marvelous. So I'm a Ray Comfort fan ever since. Oh, great. Well, I am as well.
01:22:21: He does a remarkable job, by God's grace, for the kingdom. And he is great with face -to -face evangelism out in the street and very quick on his feet with responding to arguments against God and the gospel.
01:22:39: And I think could rightly be considered a modern -day hero of sorts.
01:22:44: And I was pleased to have him on the program. You have a question? Yes, I don't want to add to the conspiracy theories here at all.
01:22:54: But just, I think it fits the discussion we're having. I listened to a recording years ago of a fellow, a very well -known
01:23:04: Christian, speaking to a graduating class, evidently at a Christian school.
01:23:10: And he made a remark to them. I think pretty much the theme of his speech was that you think you're going to graduate and you're going to go run for president and all this.
01:23:22: And he said, you're not. You know, you have to go through a particular rite of passage to really get up that far.
01:23:29: And if you are really going to live by your convictions, you are going to lose that rite of passage.
01:23:35: Do you have anything to say about something like that? That is a debate that's been going on for many centuries.
01:23:42: Machiavelli, in his little book, The Prince, basically said, if you're going to live in a world where so many people are not good and you're going to determine to be good, you will lose.
01:23:54: Nice guys finish last. That's not the word he used. But nice guys finish last.
01:24:00: He said that if you're going to accomplish anything, if you're going to be prince, if you're going to rule, if you're going to beat out everyone else in this jungle called human life, you're going to have to do some dirty deeds.
01:24:11: And without dirty deeds, you don't get things done. And the debate has been going on since then.
01:24:19: So is he right or wrong? Is it true that, I mean, you know, when I was a kid, they had a song, you know, any boy can be president.
01:24:26: Is that really true? Well. Well, as David Letterman said, when
01:24:33: Donald Trump, as I said, the Lord raises up people and brings them down.
01:24:40: And if you're, there's a lot of people out there, as I said earlier, the political world is a storm of power hungry people.
01:24:50: And I'm told in Washington DC, you can, you can taste it in the air. It's just everyone backstabbing it.
01:24:56: The Republicans against the, the, the Democrats and vice versa. And then even within an administration, you've got people on the
01:25:03: Hill against the people in the White House. In the White House, you've got people who are, let's say in the state department against the people in the defense department and people on different parts of the
01:25:15: White House. They're all stabbing each other, trying to climb over each other and get to the top.
01:25:20: So there is that. That's, that's there. On the other hand, there are some fine people and I'm thinking of Tom Coburn of Oklahoma with the, there's a fine man and there's other fine people.
01:25:34: They, they got into the positions they're doing, the positions they occupied. I take it with moral integrity.
01:25:42: I don't, I wasn't there every step of the way. I see things from a distance, but it just goes to show that you can, you can get to where you, well,
01:25:50: Ronald Reagan. I haven't heard anything nefarious about Ronald Reagan and how he got into office.
01:26:01: You have to know how to make a deal. But so, so I don't think it's necessarily the case in the
01:26:08: Lord's mercy. I would add that in the Lord's mercy, I don't think it is necessarily the case. But if you go into that world, there's, there's a lot of temptation to evil and there's a lot of evil people ready to hijack you.
01:26:23: Like going into the world of dance or theater and so forth. You know, those are seedy worlds.
01:26:31: So politics is a seedy world because there's a lot of money and a lot of power and that attracts a certain kind of person.
01:26:38: But, but I don't think it's necessary, necessary. You have to do dirty deeds. And as David Letterman, the retired talk show host, said recently, well,
01:26:50: I was always told as a kid that anybody can be president. And with Donald Trump getting close to being elected,
01:26:57: I guess it's, I guess it's true. And I'm, I'm no fan of David Letterman's leftist political views, but I thought he was pretty humorously accurate on that one.
01:27:10: But let me, let me point out, it is not true that anyone can be president. Right, right, of course.
01:27:16: Because not everyone is called to be president and not everyone is gifted by God with the gifts necessary to be president.
01:27:24: I mean, even if I were born here, I couldn't be president. I just don't have the personality for it.
01:27:30: The, the, the, the skill set and so forth. So this, you can be everything, anything you want to be.
01:27:36: That's just nonsense. That's, that's secular, secular nonsense that thinks we're all, says we're all what we create ourselves to be.
01:27:45: No, you can be exactly what God is calling you to be. Now go out and search for God's calling.
01:27:52: He's gifted you in certain ways. He's positioned you in certain ways or opened up positions, look for them.
01:27:59: That's what you need to be looking for. God's calling, not your personal ambitions. Well, to dovetail in on your...
01:28:05: We'll dovetail when we come back from a break because we're going to our final break right now. And if you'd like to join us, you are running out of time.
01:28:14: So shoot us an email as soon as you can. We've got about a half hour left and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
01:28:22: chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't forget your thought, Buzz. Write it down or something because I don't want the commercial break to throw you off track.
01:28:30: And we're going to be right back after these messages with Dr. David C. Innes and our discussion of faith and politics.
01:28:38: So don't go away. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, give yourself unto reading.
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01:30:53: Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you've just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes, we're about close to 90 minutes.
01:31:01: We had Ray Comfort on to start off the program, but our guest for the majority of the time has been
01:31:07: Dr. David C. Innes, who's on the faculty at the King's College, and he is the author of a book on faith and politics, and we have been discussing that very issue of faith and politics, and before the break,
01:31:20: Reverend Buzz Taylor, you had a question. Yes, we were talking, well, I like the way you answered my previous question, and I do understand about calling, having pastored a few churches myself, and I want you to speak to the pastor.
01:31:36: Okay, like here we are, you know, we're talking about evangelical faith and politics. What about politics and the pulpit?
01:31:42: Because there are many who understand their calling is to preach the gospel, and I certainly agree with that, and a worship service isn't the place to have birch society meetings and things like that, but what can pastors do to help?
01:31:55: How can they be involved without, shall I say, compromising their calling?
01:32:02: Well, I think pastors can address the election every four years best by preaching and teaching for those four years on a full
01:32:16: Christian view of the world and giving their people, training their people in the sort of wisdom that goes into making daily decisions in raising their kids as well as the daily decision of electing a president or a congressman.
01:32:36: That's their role. I mean, when I was, I had a PhD in politics when I went into the ministry, and I never preached party politics.
01:32:48: I just gave them a biblical way of looking at the world, biblical principles for all the decisions of life.
01:32:55: I think I preached a 9 -11 sermon, a couple 9 -11 sermons after that, and maybe
01:33:00: I preached a Romans 13 sermon or something along those lines, a
01:33:06: First Samuel sermon leading up to the election, but there was never, and I would never come out in favor of one candidate or the other.
01:33:14: So it's really about teaching your people from the pulpit in counseling, in conversation, in other teaching opportunities.
01:33:24: Sunday school, taking Sunday school, that unique opportunity to address topics in life from the
01:33:33: Bible as opposed to, well, we're going to do Ephesians in Sunday school, and we're going to do Colossians from the pulpit.
01:33:39: Well, fine if you want to do that, but it's a great teaching opportunity to talk about economics, to talk about business, talk about marriage and family and so forth, or whatever the topic is, or being a good neighbor.
01:33:54: So that would be my advice to pastors, and that's no small thing.
01:34:01: You'll accomplish more that way and more deeply than by trying to give the congregation your opinions.
01:34:10: Yeah, now what if you just want to motivate your people to be involved? Well, that's a broader question.
01:34:16: I mean, you could get the same sermon from a Democratic -leaning or Republican -leaning congregation.
01:34:24: You would, that's one of his or principles of life. God is sovereign. God appoints government.
01:34:31: God tells us to support the laws and our government in our country.
01:34:37: How does the Lord raise up government? He does it through the people. He does it through backroom dealings, but he also does it through the people, an informed and active electorate.
01:34:52: Therefore, you should be informed, A, B, active. You should cast an informed vote on Election Day.
01:35:00: You can teach them all that, maybe in an Election Day sermon, Sunday prior to Election Day or something of this sort.
01:35:09: Alerting them to their responsibility. We talk about the responsibility of parents to children, the responsibility of employers to employees, of those of means to those who are destitute, and of citizens to their government and government to their citizens.
01:35:27: Life is full of obligations, so teaching them those obligations relative to election time.
01:35:35: Now, I have heard from men who are theologically in alignment with both of us in regard to the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, Calvinism, Reformed Theology.
01:35:48: They are very conservative, very serious Bible -believing
01:35:54: Christians. You would never in a million years listen to a sermon by them and think that they had any, a single drop of liberal blood in them.
01:36:10: But they would say that it is very wrong for not only a pastor to be actively involved in politics, but it would be very wrong for a local church as an entity to be involved politically.
01:36:27: But having said that, it seems that the issue or the line that they do not want crossed is the church or the pastor being publicly and actively involved, but not the individual members.
01:36:43: Do you have any comment about that distinction? Well, do you mean pastors as pastors shouldn't be involved in politics or pastors as...
01:36:55: In their role. Yeah, because obviously they wouldn't say that a pastor shouldn't vote or anything like that or have conversations amongst friends and so on.
01:37:06: But they're talking about pastors who are really politically motivated to get specific candidates elected.
01:37:15: You have Pastor Jeffress in Texas who has really been a huge spokesperson for Donald Trump, for instance.
01:37:26: And you have this kind of thing going on. I think people like that discredit themselves.
01:37:34: They lower their office to that of political campaign or political...
01:37:42: What do we call them? Politics. I forget the word.
01:37:49: People go out and speak for the candidate. This is wrong, and this is what
01:37:56: I've been speaking against. The pastor's job is to bring the whole word of God to bear upon the whole of life.
01:38:05: And whether this candidate or that candidate is the right one is a judgment for people to make.
01:38:11: Now, having said that, there are moral evils that beset the country, and some are quite prominent, like the fact that we view it as a constitutional right for mothers to kill their babies.
01:38:27: This is just gathering the wrath of God on our country, which he may be letting slip in various ways upon us.
01:38:39: So I think it's perfectly fair for pastors to speak directly to an issue like that and say, this is an evil.
01:38:48: We will be held accountable for this evil. And even to say, not from the pulpit, but to make available to the congregation these are the candidates who are against abortion and are for stronger laws against it, and these are the candidates who think it's just a wonderful and beautiful thing, abortion.
01:39:11: I don't think there's anything wrong with that. So in other words, you think that a pastor can appropriately do that even from the pulpit?
01:39:20: I wouldn't mention candidates from the pulpit. I would think it's fair for people in the congregation to make that available, information available to people in the lobby or something.
01:39:34: But I wouldn't mention candidates from the pulpit, because then it looks like you're campaigning for particular candidates.
01:39:41: But to speak very specifically on issues of marriage and abortion and sexual chaos and things of this sort.
01:39:52: This is the education of one's children. These are biblical subjects and matters of great moral moment for our nation.
01:40:03: And I know that there is very intense disagreement amongst even theologically like -minded brethren about a lot of what we're saying, because I even know that years ago on the old
01:40:15: Iron Sharpens Iron radio program when I was interviewing a very strong Calvinistic author and public speaker,
01:40:24: I don't want to identify him because I can't exactly quote things he said, so I don't want to misrepresent him.
01:40:32: But I agreed with much of what he was saying. And he was basically drawing a hard line that pastors and churches as entities should not be politically active in the public arena where they are diluting their main purpose of proclaiming the gospel.
01:40:55: And I got a nasty email from a very well -known conservative, another
01:41:04: Reformed individual who said that it was people like my guest who made the
01:41:14: Holocaust possible because the Lutheran clergy did basically the same thing during the rise of Nazism in Germany in the early 20th century when
01:41:27: Lutheran clergy just kept their mouth shut and didn't do anything or say anything.
01:41:34: Obviously, not all of them. Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave his life opposing
01:41:39: Hitler. And of course, a lot of us would have theological differences with him, but he certainly was a heroic figure.
01:41:46: But if you could comment on that. That's interesting. So, the
01:41:53: Nazi party was a party fundamentally organized against God and Western civilization and everything good and holy and true.
01:42:11: So, I can imagine that situation like that where it's not like, well, there's these two parties, people of good faith can disagree.
01:42:17: No, there's one that is just evil. And so, how is that in any way relevant to our present situation?
01:42:25: Might someone say, well, this party is organized against nature and God and religious liberty and so forth and presents, in human terms, an existential threat to the
01:42:43: Church of Christ. If one could make that case, I can imagine one taking more of a
01:42:51: Bonhoefferian approach.
01:43:02: I mean, there's an argument that can be made for that under those circumstances, right? Other than that, we're talking about candidates who are a mixture of policies and some you might agree with, some you might disagree with.
01:43:17: You know, their policy on war in the Middle East, their policy on the welfare state, their policy on abortion, their policy on these things.
01:43:27: But no, I can imagine if a party really dug in its heels and declared war on the
01:43:34: Church of Christ, then it'd be perfectly fair for the ministers of Christ to say, there is a war, there is one side, and we have, the
01:43:48: Church has to rise up and be the Church here. But in that case,
01:43:53: I would say it is not just a matter of voting the top of the ticket. It's also a matter of, as I said before, cultivating family, marriage, church, relationships of love and mercy.
01:44:11: You've got to do it both ways. You can, it's idolatry to think that you can, you can defeat an unjust candidate, an ungodly candidate at the highest heights of power, and then everything will be, everything will be fine.
01:44:32: As though, as though the president controls all the multiplicity, the complexity of the land and the life in the land, as well as the
01:44:46: Church. It's just not true. Idolatrous to think that it might be true. Well, before we run out of time, and I know already that we need to have you come back on the show, because obviously we, there's a lot we could have, we could cover that we don't have time to.
01:45:02: But I want you to give your own personal opinion about the candidacy of Donald Trump, because you have the body of Christ more sharply divided over our conservative
01:45:19: Republican candidate, not to equate Republicanism with Christianity, but it seems as in my lifetime, anyway, the majority of Christians tend to gravitate towards a
01:45:34: Republican candidate, especially because of the pro -life issue and the
01:45:40: Democratic party also being such a zealous advocate for homosexuality and other sexual perversions entering into every arena of life and every aspect of it.
01:46:00: And so therefore Christians find it very difficult to, or at least many of them, if not most, find it very difficult to side with a
01:46:08: Democrat candidate. But anyway, to give us more of your thought on Donald Trump, there are people who are,
01:46:17: I've even spoken to, who are amazingly, totally convinced he's a Christian, which I find that amazing when he said publicly without any embarrassment that he's never even asked
01:46:26: God for forgiveness. If you could just comment on this candidate and your thoughts.
01:46:32: Well, first of all, you've done the Hillary side of it for me. I was going to say it's not as if the alternative is in any way acceptable.
01:46:41: And you did a good job of that. Before going on to answer your question, I think it's important to take the
01:46:49: Trump voters seriously. Why are all these people so excited about Trump? Because of the disaster the government has been the last several years.
01:46:57: The corruption, the incompetence, you just look at the
01:47:04: VA hospitals, take over the healthcare system, the way they took over the healthcare system.
01:47:10: They didn't just take it over, they did it incompetently with the website and so forth. And the ballooning of the deficit, which is taking money away from hardworking people to blow it.
01:47:26: People are concerned. They look at his questionable life and they say,
01:47:33: I don't care. I want a kick -butt candidate with a strong hand who's going to defend me morally against charges of bigotry.
01:47:43: I just want to be myself without being called a bigot. Defend me economically against the globalization that is taking my jobs and denying me pay increases and so forth.
01:47:54: And defend me personally against just whoever strolls across the border. So they're very concerned about these things.
01:48:00: And politicians need to take this seriously. However, Donald Trump, this is a guy who spent his life not just in business, that's a perfectly noble calling, but in avarice.
01:48:15: He said after his Nevada victory that he had spent his life doing in grab, grab, grab.
01:48:23: And he wants to make America great by bringing us in on the deal. And we can all grab, grab, grab.
01:48:29: That's his view of what great America is. And I don't see the
01:48:35: Lord blessing electing an extremely and overtly avaricious person.
01:48:45: His multiple wives, well, I guess we could mention that. I don't know the circumstances.
01:48:51: I don't read the tabloids. Well, at least they were one at a time. At least they were one at a time.
01:48:57: The Democrats would have us a right to marry them all at once. His coarseness.
01:49:04: You remember the Clinton years, how there was a coarsening of our culture because of all the revelations about Monica Lewinsky, what he did with her in the
01:49:15: Oval Office, and he was shameless about the whole thing. Donald Trump would be a coarsening, a further coarsening.
01:49:22: You heard what he, in his exchange with Marco Rubio and his hands, talking about himself on stage in front of the country.
01:49:30: And he has no qualms about this. His disregard for the rule of law. If the man won't uphold the rule of law, the
01:49:39: Constitution, laws against torture, or whatever, if he won't do that, he is not going to fight for me because the laws are my protection, politically speaking.
01:49:51: And just his complete indifference to the mind of God in everything. Can you trust a man like that?
01:50:00: So, but it's not like I'm recommending anyone flee into the arms of Hillary Clinton.
01:50:07: Because, you know, out of the frying pan into the fire, somebody might say, well, I prefer the frying pan to the fire.
01:50:14: Well, people can make that judgment. But I shared a meme that somebody posted that I thought was not only humorous, but accurate.
01:50:24: A little boy is crouched by an electrical outlet on the wall, and he has a fork in his hand, and it says,
01:50:33: Trump or Hillary? And basically, either way, you know, he's going to get electrocuted.
01:50:42: But I'm sorry, but I interrupted you there. But, you know, on the other hand, you know, at the
01:50:49: King's College, we're not a wingnut factory. You don't give our students opinions. We show them the complexity of the world, and we try to help them to understand
01:50:57: God, themselves, the world, and everything. And that it's difficult to understand and to navigate.
01:51:05: And on this question, one could say, well, we know who Hillary is.
01:51:11: We know what she's going to do. Trump is more of a question. So should
01:51:16: I vote for the question mark or the exclamation mark? Where the exclamation mark affirms evil.
01:51:25: So I can imagine somebody voting for Trump rather than Hillary. But it's not over yet.
01:51:31: There's still a convention to come. It's been a bizarre election season. And you never know, principle seems to be in hyperdrive at the moment.
01:51:42: Yeah, the strongest argument that any of my associates or friends who are enthusiastically wanting to see
01:51:52: Donald Trump elected is the Supreme Court appointments. But I'm just amazed at,
01:52:00: I really think, I can't help but think that their imagination is titillated by the thought of a pit bull being let loose on Hillary Clinton.
01:52:13: And that is what they are viewing this situation to be. Because we are, a lot of us are sick and tired of the genteel behavior of those in the political arena who act like this is some kind of a game or exercise in intellectual babble.
01:52:37: They want somebody who's going to take the gloves off and just say, you know,
01:52:43: I don't care about your rules of politeness. I'm going to call somebody a liar and a thief and a criminal if that's what they are.
01:52:51: And in fact, I'm sick and tired of Republicans refusing to call abortion straight out murder.
01:53:02: And the cowardice of many in the Republican Party when it comes to that issue.
01:53:09: And very often you'll see the candidates who are running for office embarrassed about their pro -life stance.
01:53:17: And they just want to say it as quickly as possible and get it out of the way. They really don't want to dwell on that issue.
01:53:24: And they really don't want to... What I want to know, I would like to hear your opinion on this, David. I think that the
01:53:32: Republican Party, at least those who are pro -life in the Republican Party and even
01:53:38: Fox News, I'm not sure why Fox News hasn't done this because they claim to be some kind of champions for conservative ideology.
01:53:50: Why don't we have at the beginning of or during every election cycle that these candidates are saying, we insist that on a major televised event with the candidates present that we show a film of an abortion.
01:54:10: And then after that film is completed, the candidates comment on what they saw. And I remember when
01:54:18: Pat Buchanan was running for president in the 90s for the Reform Party. And I called into a talk show that he was on and I brought up that idea and he said to me, well, we wouldn't want to do that.
01:54:31: That would be like televising an execution. And I said, yeah, that's my point. People didn't realize the horrors of the
01:54:40: Holocaust in Nazi Germany until they saw with their own eyes the films of these things. Chris, what you're suggesting would be in very bad taste.
01:54:48: And I think it's a great idea. Yes, and I think that sometimes things in bad taste are required.
01:54:57: The Republican Party is, people are flocking to Trump because the Republican Party has disappointed them.
01:55:04: They have not stood up for the things they have promised to do. You just look recently, the
01:55:11: Republican leadership supported drafting our girls into the army.
01:55:18: I've got two teenage girls. They could be drafted into the army. Should we re -institute the draft?
01:55:23: That is a part, that's not why, that's a complete denial of the cultural agenda that Christians are supporting.
01:55:31: So when you, to just backtrack from what I said earlier about reasons one might vote for Donald Trump, if you're a
01:55:37: Christian, you are voting as a Christian. And Christians need to practice the art of the deal.
01:55:45: They're dealing with these candidates. And if you've ever bought a car, and I assume you have, if you can't walk away from the table, you will lose.
01:55:57: And you will give the other side everything they want. Christians don't seem to have the guts to walk away from the table and say,
01:56:05: I'm taking my vote with me until you start giving me what I want. There's a lot of Republican politicians up there, the leadership and so forth, who just take us for granted because they know we're not going to walk away from the table.
01:56:18: We have to be able to say, I'm sitting great numbers. I'm sitting this out because you're not giving me what I want.
01:56:24: And then they'll start taking us seriously as, you know, they did in 1980 because they wanted our vote and it wasn't to be taken for granted.
01:56:33: So that is, I think, the bottom line for Christians. Amen. And I really want to have you back very soon.
01:56:40: One last comment I have, I think it's somewhat bizarre that people keep referring to Donald Trump as an outsider to politics when he, according to his own admission, his own frequent admission, he has been buying politicians all of his life in the business world.
01:57:05: He's, you know, the politicians have had their hands in his pocket. He's been buying favors from them.
01:57:12: But anyway, we obviously, we don't have the time to continue addressing everything that we would love to address.
01:57:20: So I want to definitely have you back on the program in the near future. Could you please, in two minutes, just summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today?
01:57:32: Above and beyond politics, earthly politics, which is good. God has instituted for our good.
01:57:38: But above and beyond that is his sovereignty, his kingship. And we need to align our hearts with his commands and trust.
01:57:47: It's so hard. Trust in the sovereignty of the unseen God. And a lot of problems will clear themselves up.
01:57:56: But when we panic and trust and we look down at our feet and our politics follow, then we're in trouble.
01:58:06: Well, thank you so much, Dr. David Innis. And I know that the King's College website is tkc .edu,
01:58:13: thekingscollege, tkc .edu. Do you have any other contact information that you care to provide?
01:58:20: Oh, follow me on Twitter, DCInnis1, or friend me on Facebook and follow what
01:58:27: I put up there. Lots of interesting stuff. My stuff, other people's stuff, jokes. So Twitter and Facebook are a good way to stay in touch with what's in my mind for what that's worth.
01:58:38: And Innis is spelt I -N -N as in Nebraska, E -S as in Sam. And I thank you so much.
01:58:44: And I want everybody who is listening to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater
01:58:52: Savior than you are a sinner. And we look forward to hearing from you and your questions for our next guests here on Iron Sharpens Iron.