The CHRISTIANing Podcast
The CHRISTIANing Podcast
Ep.67 - What Should Christians Do About Trump?
Surprise, surprise, Donald Trump finds himself yet again on the wrong side of major news headlines as he makes rude and offensive comments regarding fellow Republican' Mitch McConnell's wife. In a time when many Christians were ready to turn the page from this challenging chapter of Trump and evangelical politics, Trump's influence seems stronger than ever. With a potential presidential bid in 2024 looming as well this chapter may not be ending any time soon. In this episode, live from Wisdom, Kirk interacts with guests from the audience asking the question, "What should Christians do about Donald Trump?" What followed was an engaging conversation including several different perspectives. Enjoy!
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SPEAKER_01:right,
SPEAKER_00:everyone, and welcome in to another episode of the Christianing podcast. Today we're live on wisdom. Thank you to all the wisdom folks for Following along and jumping in to always be great guests. Always love everybody's perspectives and really helps the conversation. Today, we've got another great question we're going to try to answer together. What should Christians specifically, we'll be talking through that, not so much the lens of politics and what your political preferences are, but Trump continues to be, Donald Trump continues to be a bugaboo of sorts for the Christian culture, the Christian community out there as such a, you know, as we are well aware by now, polarizing and divisive figure that is causes extreme reactions on all sides, but particular within the religious community, specifically the Christian community in America, as he finds himself in the good graces due to a lot of policy prescriptions that he favors. But then at the same time, due to the content of his character and things that he Speaks just out of his own mouth and stuff that people just know about his lifestyle causes Christians to have concerns and clear reactions to him as a person, to him as a man. So we made it through four years of a presidency to, I'm sure, a divided... response as far as people loved him, hated him, things of that. Biden gets elected, and you kind of feel like you turn the page on Trumpism, and especially in the evangelical community, you get a sense that, okay, maybe turn the page, get focused, and maybe more unified around other political characters, political figures, and Trump might be still as relevant in the political stratosphere as really maybe ever before as his hands and influence are not just in a single national race but through this midterm process and now these midterm and the primary season his hands are in a lot of states almost every single one where there's um a a trump supportive candidate you know so it's almost like the the kind of symbolic image of donald trump is is more prevalent than ever before so most recently kind of what would cause me to kind of re revisit the Trump conundrum in my own mind, again, looking at it through a lens of faith. Christianing podcast, we want to lead Christians and show them how to Christian well. And Trump kind of puts us on, kind of puts the pressure on us as faith leaders as to how to react biblically, appropriately, culturally, to such a force in in American cultural life, you know, so, but most recently, uh, Trump made headlines, um, referring to Mitch McConnell, who's the Senate minority leader. He's a Republican leader and has been kind of a stalwart in, in congressional politics for a long time. Um, he has, uh, He has a wife, Elaine Chao, I believe is her name. She's a former public servant herself, like transportation secretary, something like that. I don't have all the details there, but Trump, again, went on one of his rants, one of his tirades, and referred to Mitch McConnell's wife as a China, Mitch McConnell's China-loving wife, Coco Chow, misspelling her name to C-H-O-W instead of the proper spelling of her name, and said that Mitch McConnell has a death wish for the Democratic bills that he's sponsoring. And so, again, as a Christian leader, someone who loves to see the Christian culture as a whole, really just be advocates for what is good, what Philippians would say, what is pure, what is lovely, what is noble. Those are the things that I know all of us true, well-intentioned Christians... Those are the things that we much, much rather see going on in the world, and those are the things we wanna advocate for, but here we are again with Donald Trump doing his thing where I know you can look at these comments about Mitch McConnell's wife, and depending on how you feel about Trump, we'll definitely filter how severe your reaction is. If you already walked into the headline really on the Trump hate bandwagon, you're going to see those comments as deeply racist because he definitely leaves the door open for that. If you're a Trump lover, you're going to see him as just kind of fair game in the political landscape as stuff that you know campaign fodder just you know rile up you know the base obviously china is a is a huge global issue right now for the united states and um you know you know so trying to draw those distinctions and using colorful language you know to cater to everyday folk you know you know you're gonna you're gonna see those comments um much more sympathetically okay so Please understand that. Please understand that that's just the way people are going to respond to Trump. They're either going to see his comments as deeply, deeply more evil than what maybe they would be at face value, or you're going to see them as completely fine when there is much, much that the door is open to in terms of you know, inappropriate, racist, you know, dialogue, you know, things of that nature. So all that, again, just, you know, kind of got me thinking again. So here we are again. It's 2022. Trump is, again, leading the headlines, even though he's not active in any race himself, potentially setting up a 2024 presidential bid again. know so this this character that we thought maybe we turned the page and we're able to put our attention somewhere else still there still very much alive and maybe even more so than ever you know so um i just there's a couple a couple thoughts that came to my mind that i think could be helpful specifically for us in the christian community and um If you're listening in, I'll go through a couple points of emphasis I have. If you're listening in, please jump on. We'd love to get your Trump takes as well, wherever you land on it. I'm not here to tell you how to feel about Trump, but really just some important things for us all to think through as we consider these things. So first thing overall before we get into the logistics of Christian response to Trump is we have to understand that kind of what's clouding all political discussion right now and Trump falls right into this is there's a toxic partisan bias that kind of overlays our public political discourse. You know, so that's the first thing I'm coming to realize is, you know, for four years, we were kind of trained to believe it's just a Trump problem. It's just a Trump problem. And if, you know, and once we can do away with Trump, either impeach him or get him, you know, not reelected or whatever, then this kind of, you know, hyper-partisan issue will be gone, will be done away with. What I have found clearly and what I encourage us all to open our eyes to is that's simply not the case. Yes, Trump does provide his own unique brand of scorn and criticism just based on how unorthodox he is and how offensive he doesn't mind being. Put it that way. But once Trump was out of the limelight for all of five seconds, that hyper-partisan, kind of hyper-toxic partisan bias just got applied to whoever else tried to step in that void. And so that's the one thing I want to just kind of caution all of us, whether you love Trump, you hate Trump. It's Our problem here in America has grown far, far beyond Trump. You know, there's different theories on that. A lot of people believe that it was growing and Trump was kind of the outgrowth of that, of kind of what was already happening in the American political discourse. And Trump was kind of, Trump being elected was kind of the reaction to that. Some people believe that Trump was the one who started, I'm not, here to get into that, but I think at this point it's clear that there will be a time when Trump is no longer part of this, just either he can't be reelected or whatever, he passes on, whatever it may be, and that kind of just hyper demonizing hatred will just be applied to somebody else. Because it's just kind of where we're at in American politics right now. Both sides do it. Both sides over-exaggerate the faults of the other opponent's hero in order to make their arguments, make their cases. And it is. It's at a level that I haven't seen in my lifetime. So that's kind of the overall thing. that I think it's just so important for us to just understand that we don't have just a purely Trump issue anymore. We have an American political kind of discourse issue that we can all kind of have, you know, I'd love to see people have ideas and thoughts of how to kind of ratchet it down. So that's kind of my first overall, but I don't, we have... Cool Yo and Dee Jones waiting to jump in. So I have a couple other thoughts I want to get into, but don't want to have you guys sitting around waiting too long. So bring you in. Would love to kind of hear your thoughts, your take on what you believe Christians should be doing about Donald Trump. So welcome in. We'll give you five good minutes. Love to hear your take. Thanks for joining.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you for having me. I won't be for the whole five minutes. It's when I saw the topic, as a Christian, believe in God, right? And God is who you surrender yourself to. So my question is, since that's who you surrender to, then the question I have is, are you here to serve politics or God? That is the question that is... really important to ask instead of bringing because you cannot serve both masters you're gonna lift up one and put the other down so that is where you need to understand who you truly serving because we know the politics serving one agenda one goal so if you are someone that claim to believe in god follow politics and get yourself wrapped up in that life, then you already choose that over God. And so that's where we need to be careful. As someone who believe in God and standing for God, I have to shed that light for anyone that claim to believe in God, to understand that you have to leave the world. That's what we read. That's what the scripture encourage. Leave the world because the world is filthy. So you don't want any spots from the world to be on you because it will drag you down. So politics is of the world. So we need to encourage everyone that says, Oh God, because the moment you said you believe in God, you already said God is your president. That's what that is. in that instance you choose God, you're already voting that God is your president.
SPEAKER_00:So are you, just so
SPEAKER_03:I can,
SPEAKER_00:yes, thank you. First of all, that perspective I think is a super important thing. I'm glad that you're the first to jump on here. One just clarifying question. From a practical application of what you're saying, would you advocate for Christians not to participate at all, not vote. Is that kind of where you're
SPEAKER_03:coming from? Yes, exactly. That's why I said the moment you believe in God, you already vote God, not your fellow man. That's you choosing God over your fellow man. Instantly, when you say you believe in God, that is it. That's the bottom line. That's what the scriptures say. You choose God when you say you believe in him. So if you go into politics, then you'd say, oh, well, I got not doing what I want. I'm going to turn to my crooked fellow man to lead me in my crooked ways that I want to get out of so I can bury myself more into my crooked ways and dive deeper into this crookedness. Then the problem is not solving. I hope you understand and get that in.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So that's all I
SPEAKER_03:needed to share. And thank you for allowing me. I love you.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. No, thank you. Thank you so
SPEAKER_03:much. That's a good topic. So thank you.
SPEAKER_00:No problem. Thank you so much for jumping on. That's a great perspective. So I'm just going to kind of respond real quick. Just kind of my perspective on that is our guests there, you know, saying, advocating that as a Christian, we've already cast our vote. It's for God. It's for Christ. It's for his kingdom. And I completely understand and completely agree with, with this, with the scriptural kind of exhortation there. Me personally, I would, I would say we have more freedom than that as Christians. And the reason I say that is, first of all, to be clear, I think when you publicly proclaim Christianity, you publicly proclaim faith in Christ, your lifestyle, to Kulio's point, your lifestyle needs to reflect a clear priority for Jesus and his kingdom. That I will never disagree with. I think that's scriptural. People need to look at you and say, okay, this is a kingdom of God prioritized person. This person believes in the kingdom of God well before a geopolitical national government. But at the same time, I think when you look at Romans 13, that there's two kingdoms at play in this fallen version of earth at the same time. We have the kingdom of God that Jesus came to establish, and as Christians people have been redeemed by his blood, we are now participants in that kingdom, and we have a clear objective to grow that kingdom as best we can, representing Christ. Now there's this other side. There's this other side of it that Romans 13 clearly says that there's other kingdoms that God has established, that he has ordained. And you can call these, say, secular kingdoms because all of God's creation, the Bible is very clear, isn't going to be Christian in this fallen version of reality. Like there's going to be those that by faith trust Christ and those that don't. So God in his grace has established government systems for all of creation, for all of creation. And so here in America, we are participants in two kingdoms at the same time. Again, biblically, we wanna make sure there's a clear priority to the kingdom of God, but at the same time, we have been asked by our constitution here to participate We're a democratic republic, so we've been asked as citizens of this secular earthly kingdom to participate. Now, we have freedom to choose how to participate, but I don't see a biblical mandate that says zero participation, like you're not allowed to participate. So what I always advocate for is prioritize the kingdom of God, And then through that priority, through the convictions of faith that we have, you're allowed to participate in the secular kingdom in a way that does not, that still honors the Lord, but in a way that you see fit. We have an opportunity as Christians to use the truth that we know about God and we can have some influence, not ultimate influence, but we can have some influence in the laws and the ways the secular kingdom works. And so Christians that feel compelled to use that influence in a certain type of way, as long as that influence still lines up with the kingdom of God priority, I don't see a biblical prohibition to such a thing. So that's me. That's kind of just, thank you so much for that. That's kind of where I come, you know, and that's why I don't, have an issue talking about politics as an unapologetic Christian. My goal is, because I know, number one, I know a lot of Christians are active in that sphere, and I don't see a biblical mandate prohibiting, provided, again, that their clear lifestyle priority is the kingdom of God, and they're engaging in such a way that still honors their testimony in Jesus Christ. So thank you, thank you so much. That's... So understand where you're coming from. That's kind of where I come from on that. So please, people listening in would love to hear your takes. We have another guest waiting. I've got two more kind of perspectives to bring to bear before we finish. But again, don't want to keep guests waiting. too long um we have looks like eldge hopefully i'm i'm pronouncing that right you can could you can uh correct me in a minute but we got eldge ready to to jump in but uh eldge would love to kind of hear your take on specifically from the christian community uh what do you think we should be doing about donald trump uh got give you five minutes would love to hear what you think gotcha hey kirk how you doing great man
SPEAKER_04:That's great, that's great. So I've been on quite a bit of a journey throughout my spirituality. I don't consider myself Christian anymore, but my baseline of religion has been Christian. I dedicated my life and rededicated my life, but traveled around the world and learned some different things and concepts. very applicable to the experience of believing that, you know, obviously it falls in line exactly with Christianity. But I would say, and you'll probably understand as I continue, is that I agree with your last statement. I think a belief is very important. I did quite some time in the Middle East. So I got to learn a little bit about Islam and Buddhism. I lived in Japan for two years as well. And what I would say is that over my time, I've learned that it comes down to the person and what gets you going. Because I now understand that if beliefs are what drives humans. Without beliefs, we have very little to live for. We kind of, we lose it. It's our why, right? It's what makes us, it's what drives us. It's what makes us feel just. I don't think that if you consider yourself a Christian and understand that there is a, if you consider yourself even a deeper spiritual person, I don't think there's any way forward with fashion that you should be ultimately too concerned with with the way the earth is moving, but still speaking and understanding from their principles is the absolute way to, you know, because it's a constant battle. It's good versus, it's been good versus evil. It's been positive versus negative since the dawn of time, right? So if we stopped speaking what we believe, If we stop interacting or stop bringing our truth to the table, then that allows more time for the opposing will, right? Because you got to make a choice at some point. And most people who have been through any journey in general, they decide, hey, I'm going to follow. I'm going to take myself as an example. I chose good. I chose the greater good, uh, positive, right? I'm not nice. I'm kind. Okay. I am very kind. I make a choice to be, uh, interacting, uh, show myself friendly by choice, right? Because the choice, every time we wake up, every time we do something, it's, it's a choice, you know, we were given free will. So I do believe that, um, politics is, is something that is a ruling source, especially where we're from. Um, but in our deeper spiritual journey, our deeper journey, I do think that if we deviate from understanding that it was all written and if we do our part in our purpose and our understanding on our journey, we will certainly make a difference in our communities and our environment, which creates a greater good. Trump is just a person on board with a plan that was way, way, way bigger than him. I don't think that persecution has been allowed, redesigned. In fact, it's a lot of what the Bible is, the story is tailored to, that persecution. And so feeling bad because you don't go with the narrative is absolutely nothing you should feel sorry for. You know, I, I, I truly believe that if you're following the, the, if you're following what you believe as a, as a biblical follower, as a, whatever, you know, as a spiritual, you know, you are on the right track to, to, you know, making, making the best out of the life that you have, because ultimately we don't know if, if judgment is here now, because there is time in between, right? If we go today, we don't know how long it's going to take. So that's just my take.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you so much, Elge. And yeah, I echo kind of your sentiments. Really, you know, you're coming from someone who no longer claims quote unquote Christianity, you know, but at the same time, like really advocating for whatever your convictions are and you have an opportunity to bring your convictions to bear, um, in, into governance, into, you know, the way, uh, your, your community, your country operates, then, you know, kind of what if I, what I'm hearing you is, is take advantage of that opportunity. And that's really, um, you know, one of the things that you know, I do, I still feel from a biblical standpoint that there's for us, you know, that are publicly professing Christians and really trying to honor the faith. We have freedom. We have freedom to do that, especially in this country. We got to understand again that the Bible was written in a completely different political environment. This American experience is experiment is very, very new. It's something that the biblical writers would not understand, kind of a democratic republic where people get to vote. like that was just unheard of, you know what I mean? So a lot of the political commentary from a biblical standpoint, you have to understand, you have to take that through a lens. They're speaking through a very either theocratic, you know, nation of Israel, theocracy, or, you know, Caesar, authoritarian, tyrannical, you know what I mean? That was when they're talking about submit to the governing authorities. They're not talking about the fact that you might get to participate, um, in, in what those decisions are all about. So that's kind of a, that's always a fun thing for us Americans to try to think through. Jason, I'm going to get you in a minute, but, um, I want to set you up a little bit because if I, if I remember your, uh, You're a past guest and you can clarify for yourself, but if I'm remembering correctly, you're not a huge Trump fan, but I got two takes. I'm gonna get one out, Jason, before you jump on. I've got just kind of a comment to the never Trumpers or the Trump haters. And then I got kind of a comment for the Trump lovers, just from a Christian standpoint for us to be thinking through as you're evaluating this. But Jason, this might set you up well. Kind of my comment to the never Trumpers sort of Christians that can't get past his character flaws and just kind of his offensive rhetoric. And trust me, I understand all that. I'm not trying to minimize or... that I do think it's important when it comes to Trump specifically. My question to those that look at us Christians and say, how can you support a man who says this stuff and does this kind of stuff? There's just a question that I would ask them to consider, and that's, what can you reasonably expect Christians to do when there's only two choices that that's, I'm not saying that's the way our Democratic Republic was set up to be such a binary two party system. But that's where we're at today, where just the practical reality is, you can support the Democratic or Republican candidate and maybe see your see your vote have some sort of impact. Or, you know, you can do what I've done plenty of times, which is just, you know, kind of voted my conscious and just, you know, did the third party or did a write-in or something just so I felt good about my vote. And that's perfectly fine. We have freedom to engage how we want. But for those that just can't get past any Christian who would support Donald Trump, I understand the reasons why, but I still think it needs to be understood that when you only have two options and there's very important policy convictions from a Christian standpoint that say a Donald Trump might be likely to support, where the other party would be vehemently against. You know what I mean? It just, it puts many Christians in a tough spot, because they wanna use their vote to advocate what they believe is best for, for, you know, their community, their society. And all they have is, all they have is these two choices from a practical standpoint. I understand that, that there's, there's more choices, you know, you, you, you have freedom to go a lot of different directions here, but a lot of people are like, they, they want their vote to, to actually mean something, you know? So it's either I vote for, you know, someone with, with public issues, questionable character, you know, all these things. But, he's going to stand for some important policy prescriptions that are connected to deeply held religious beliefs, or I can go with the other person that is openly against some of those policy prescriptions, and they're pro a completely different worldview. So I would just caution people, kind of the never-Trumpers, how can you just... Christians are in a tough spot when it comes to this situation, especially those that are passionate about some policy prescriptions that are connected to some deeply held religious beliefs. And you can tell them that they shouldn't have those religious beliefs, but I think that's a fool's errand. In this country, they have freedom to have those religious beliefs just like any other. And so they want their vote to represent some of that stuff. So that's That's how a lot of people feel about it. So that's kind of my first take, just kind of the question I would ask those that just can't understand why any Christian would ever support Donald Trump. But Jason, I've kind of kept you waiting. You're always a great guest. So give me your five best minutes on how you think Christians should handle Donald Trump these days. Thanks for coming on. Okay,
SPEAKER_05:first of all, thank you. Thank you. I think it's useful for us to have peaceful conversations regardless of if we disagree. I'm a descendant of slaves and I don't know how far back your history goes. That doesn't matter. I think that we should always remain peaceful and Trump doesn't. He's a criminal. He's violent. He's caused people to die. He lies. And I do not believe that the best strategy to obtain to show your support of Christian values. And listen, I could be like Paul. Look, I haven't done the baby-making thing. I'm 45. I started reading the Bible December 1st, 1986, okay? I challenge anybody. I'm
SPEAKER_02:reading
SPEAKER_05:a book about American history right now. I'm not American, first of all. I find most Americans know very little about other countries, very little about world history. I have stats behind it, like 30% can't... There was one stat that said about 15% couldn't... Couldn't find the United States on a map because they thought it was the whole world. The education system, look, I can add that stats, it's facts, okay? And I know it's not you. You know where the United States is on a map, but it's facts, okay? So there's some Americans that are so ignorant and in the hundreds of years ago, and I'm reading about reconstruction right now. A lot of people don't read. I'm on 114th book, okay? And it's about reconstruction. And it said the Southern slave owners First of all, Abraham Lincoln only set the slaves free to preserve the union. A lot of people don't know that. I didn't know that at first. I thought he was a righteous guy that thought that I was an equal person, even though I was dark. He was like, whatever. If slavery, if allowing slavery will preserve the union, then I'm for it. If keeping slavery will preserve the union, then I'm for it. Whatever is to preserve the union. We should be whatever is what Jesus said. would like, and this is the thing, right? I understand people saying, well, you know, the Democrats are for same-sex marriage, and I'm not for same-sex marriage. I'm not for same-sex marriage either. But listen, okay, and I, you know, the reason why I don't, I expressed my view on abortion by not doing the baby-making thing before marriage. And all the people that did all sorts of foolish, evil things like having sex with women before they're married and all sorts of things and excuse it, like Hershel Walker, right? And he held a gun to somebody's head, right? And those Republicans are still going down and supporting him, right? So the thing is, people died on January 6th because of Trump. He was okay with his vice president, right? being assassinated and hung on the gallows, okay? Now, if somebody says to me that a Christian can support that, and listen, I do understand that if you're voting for the alternative, it's some things that are not biblical, but listen, with wisdom, this is what I would say. Trump does not support the democracy. So it's the height of hypocrisy to say that because the other option, that more babies will be aborted, because the other option, men can marry men and women can marry women, because of the other option, you're gonna put somebody in there that's like Hitler. I would quote Dietrich Van Hopper, right? And I learned this today, right? He was a German, right? He said,
UNKNOWN:,
SPEAKER_05:okay? Born February 4th, 1906, okay? And he said, that he was opposed to Hitler. He said, you can't support that as a Christian, right? People can Google him. It says he was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, an anti-Nazi dissident, who was a key founding member of this confessing church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have been widely influential. His 1937 book, The Cost of Discipleship, he said, no, you can't do that because the person is not supporting what, what christian values stand for in terms of other things like hitler so the thing is yes i comparing him to that because he's not for democracy okay it's a height of hypocrisy to say because you want certain uh outcomes you want um you know world versus weight overturned you're not going to look at the character of verses when listen carefully, when the person's character will result in no further democracy. So if it'll be your last vote, and then the person's going to do what Putin does, and you're not going to be able to vote again, then it's not a question of, well, this person is, this party is, because there won't be any more voting. So it's the high democracy. I don't believe any Christian. that says that this is a better strategy because he will not have another election. He has other things. This is not like other things. This is not like other past elections where you say, oh, the Republican Party is a party of Christian values. What Christian values? They believe in power, okay? Power. And Jesus said, when they said about the politicians, it's not about politics, right? It's about the kingdom. And you can't support somebody that will not have any more votes because it'll come like Russia. So if you want to be like Russia, then go ahead, vote for him.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Jason, always. Thanks for jumping on. Appreciate your perspective. Yeah, I think you articulated very well the frustration of what we'll call the never-Trumpers on the Christian side that just can't get past the doors that Donald Trump opens sometimes for interpretation and then sometimes for just clear, just quote it. You know what I'm saying? It's not really open for interpretation. Completely get that and yeah, I think that's always a perspective that needs to be heard and needs to be understood. The only, and it's just from a, it's not even pushback, the only conditioning I would put on that is there's a lot of people that interpret the actions done on the other side of the aisle as anti-constitution, anti-democracy, trying to cram down. The authoritarian kind of criticism you know, gets thrown to both sides. And for the Republicans, it's usually packaged in fascism. For the Democrats, it's usually packaged in Marxism. You know, they're different paths to kind of the same thing, an authoritarian kind of top-down power, you know, supreme power from above. You know, and both sides walk into those paths. oftentimes walk into those critiques. And I think Donald Trump's a great example. So I would just say, though, again, the issue, though, remains. The statements Jason believes about Donald Trump, I could bring countless guests in here to make their statements. their moral claims and anti-democratic claims to the left side of the aisle about Joe Biden and my state. I'm from California, Gavin Newsom. He's really a great exemplar of where the left is at right now from a policy and procedure and it's There's a lot there to be critiqued. That's all I would say. That's what I've become mindful of. Again, we're not making this Trump decision in a vacuum. It's either Trump or everything lines up perfectly from a Christian standpoint. That's not the situation we're in. It's either Trump or this other person that has a lot left to be desired also from a Christian standpoint. Maybe from a different kind of lens, but still we're left in, and that's just all I would kind of hearken all Christians, especially those really struggling with Trump to just realize that we're not making this decision in a vacuum. We're trying to do the best we can with our own perspectives, our upbringings, our cultural understanding, all this stuff. I really hearken all people to be like, a vote against Trump isn't a vote automatically for Christ and his reign and his rule. It's just a potential vote for a completely different type of set of problems, set of issues for those of us with faith. That's why I just choose to have a have a lot of grace on people from their perspectives. And I love to hear those perspectives, you know, because it just helps me, you know, kind of understand where people are coming from. So I kind of gave my question to the Never Trumpers, asking, what can you reasonably expect Christians to do? There's only two choices. This choice isn't made in a vacuum. And now kind of my my comments to the trump lovers out there or you know others would say you know trump worshipers which obviously that's a that would be biblically wrong you know we worship christ and christ alone um you know so no other human should uh replace that position on the throne of our hearts um so that's that's clear regardless you know if you're pro trump or not um and my comment to to my Christian friends who are Trump lovers is I would say this, you can politically support and publicly correct at the same time. We seem to have a tough time with that these days. I get it, but I don't. At the same time, your political support doesn't have to be unconditional. It shouldn't be unconditional. I believe that that's a healthier place, and I believe we Christians are more capable of this than maybe our secular counterparts, where we're so used to repenting ourselves, or we should be as Christians, because that was our path to the cross. Jesus very clearly said, you know, repent and believe that that's that's that's the path you know so we should be very well versed in humility and being able to um publicly announce our faults that you know we shouldn't be afraid to you know asking our public leaders and our public figures to to demonstrate the same thing um even though we seem to have trouble we're afraid that if we publicly correct then that will kind of lose the argument of the day and i would just really christian i would really employ christians to implore christians to just understand that what we're not after winning the argument of the day we're after um you know representing you know representing our kingdom priorities first and foremost and um we you can support uh Trump politically, from a policy standpoint, for the things that he brings to bear that you believe help our nation from your faith perspective. And at the same time, when he says and does very, very unchrist-like, dishonoring to Christ things, we publicly correct and we call Maybe even, you know, because Donald Trump, from what I understand, has publicly, you know, professed Christianity. I have no idea. Only God can judge what that means as far as the salvation standpoint. But he has publicly, you know, and maybe that's just, you know, to kind of appeal to a conservative evangelical base, you know, whatever, whatever. but since he is proclaiming to be part of the team, it's very biblically appropriate for us to, as a Christian community, to call a self-proclaimed brother in Christ to repent and to correct. I think the biggest example for me is that I would love, and I think maybe we just weren't prepared yet as a Christian church. That very first, before he was even elected president, where that audio recording of his just lewd and terrible talk about grabbing women's genitals and things of that nature, I mean, it was on tape. We all got to hear it. I would love to see you know christian leaders you know making sure that the american public knows that that for professing christians that is that is far far out of bounds and because of the grace of the gospel um we have an opportunity to to any one of us would have the opportunity to repent of that um go to Christ and seek and receive his forgiveness since he is in a public office. Obviously, that would be appropriate to be done publicly. But again, I'll give us a pass because maybe we weren't quite ready for Trump as the candidate in 2016, but now we're well-versed into what we're facing, what we're dealing with in Donald Trump. You don't have to withhold your political support, but I would love to see us, you know, when these issues like, you know, most recently where Donald Trump, you know, Coco Chow and, you know, Mitch McConnell's China loving wife, Coco Chow, just these like wide open doors for just offense, you know, and things like that. at best, racist at worst, and telling people they have a death wish for backing certain bills and things like that. It's okay. It's okay for you to rise up and say, I support this person as a candidate from a policy prescription standpoint, but I'm just calling on him to repent of this clearly unchristlike behavior and ask him to seek restoration in Christ and forgiveness in Christ, but to turn the other way and to change these ways for sake of the Savior that he publicly claims. And so I don't have a problem doing both. I'm not saying, I'm not here saying that I politically support anyone, but I don't have a problem with an even mind, kind of equal headed Christian leader having both go on at the same time. You don't have to bow to kind of maybe the left wing call for for complete banishment from public life, but I do believe you do have to make it clear. When we profess Christ, we do have to make it clear what we're for and what we're against. That should be commonplace in the church. We should be comfortable with this because we do this for ourselves all the time. We don't want to see ourselves banished from anything But at the same time, we understand that we bring a sinful flesh to bear and it rears its ugly head. And so we have no problem telling people, I repent. I'm sorry. That was sinful. That was wrong. Please forgive me as Jesus has forgiven me. And I will, by the power of Christ, I will get better. I will be better. So anyways, that's kind of... comment i would share to the trump lovers out there so yeah man that was good good good uh thanks everyone for joining this good conversation um great uh great comments that came in thank you always for participating and um you can jump on as i have other content on the christening podcast and that's christian-ing.com christian-ing.com that you can find all podcast episodes there. Write, like, review, follow on Wisdom here. Love to keep the conversation going as we help everybody to cushion well. Hope this conversation maybe helped you think a little deeper about, you know, this highly kind of divisive cultural reality that we're dealing with right now as Christians. So, hope it helped, and thank you all.