Transcript
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And welcome back to Pastor Plex Podcast.
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I'm your host, pastor Plex.
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I'm so glad all of you are joining us, and in studio with me is none other than Eastside Community Church Pastor Holland Gregg.
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Welcome, holland.
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Thanks so much.
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You know we got a question from our people and, as you know, we are here to answer questions.
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So we do.
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On Pastor Plex podcast and Holland, I got a question that only probably you can answer, but no, here it is.
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How does the church address the upcoming election, specifically voting according to Christian principles, and you and I had a little bit of discussion about this this week and I want to kind of talk about like, as we're approaching November 5th, I believe, the Super Tuesday we are going to be voting for either President Trump or Vice President Harris to take over the country and lead the charge into the next four years, and so how should we, as Christians, sort of deal with that reality?
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What are your thoughts there, holland?
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Yeah, I think this is an issue that there's not well, I would say there's not a lot of teaching on what the Bible actually says about government and rulers, what God's expectations for rulers are, how we should think about government as Christians.
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Yeah, Because I think there's this reality that aren't we not supposed to talk about that?
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You know, I feel like there's-.
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Yeah, that's what we're told, yeah.
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There's this like unwritten rule You're not supposed to talk about politics or mix religion and politics or something along that lines, and I think, for the most part, you could say that you or something along that lines, and I think, for the most part, you could say that you would say Christianity isn't political.
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However, I think one of the things I love that you've said over the years is that Jesus is king and so therefore clearly political.
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Yeah, absolutely, and the Bible speaks a lot to lesser kings.
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Jesus is the king of kings, meaning all kings, all rulers obviously are accountable to him for how they rule.
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And God's word has a lot to say about what the expectations for rulers are, the idea of not mixing church and politics and stuff.
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I think there's some misunderstanding around where that idea comes from, what it means, what the Bible has to say about that.
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A lot of it comes back to that idea of the separation of church and state.
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What does that mean?
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And, yeah, I think there's a lot of confusion about that, and so most talk about politics is just kind of like hey, love the people that you disagree with politically and have unity, you know, and not actual teaching and discipleship about how to think biblically with regard to government authority, rulers, that type of thing All right, so let's talk real quick.
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I know you did a sermon series on this recently which I was privy to see.
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I think one of the messages but there is God has a unique relationship.
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God and the government, god and the church, god and the family, and I love the way that you broke those three things down.
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Talk to me a little bit about how you see that breaking down, where you got that thought process from.
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Yeah, the idea of God establishing three institutions of the family, the church and the state or the government is something that's been acknowledged or recognized throughout her church history in a lot of ways and that was what our sermon series was about was understanding what God's will for each of those institutions is, and that each one has a unique mandate from God and there is some overlap between all of them.
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But they're not the same, and so God has meaning, like God has a specific purpose that the family fulfills.
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That is not the same as the purpose that the church fulfills or that the government fulfills, even though there's some overlap.
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God's called the church, for instance, to make disciples practice.
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You know church membership, church discipline, administer this, you know when you practice, like the Lord's supper, baptism, sacraments or ordinances, whichever one you call them.
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And the government Romans 13, talks about the institution of the government is designed by God, instituted by God.
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That God has given the government the sword to, essentially to promote what is good and to punish what is evil.
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That's the government's mandate from God, and so that's not what the church is called to do.
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But there is some overlap in the sense that you can have people who belong to the church or belong to a family that are also part of a government.
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Or if there's an issue, let's say, of abuse in a family, the church is going to speak to that from a disciplinary standpoint.
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The state might speak to that from a legal standpoint, from a legal standpoint.
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So there's overlap in these three things, but they're distinct institutions that God has a specific call for.
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And this is what I'm saying.
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I think doesn't get much teaching today.
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Yeah, so here's, and this is, I think, the idea of church, and I don't want to call it separation of church and state, because I think we understand maybe that premise.
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But how about toleration?
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Religious toleration where you don't promote one religion over another, has not been a thing really.
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The United States, really coming in to its existence, where it didn't have like the Anglican Church in England or whatever, maybe the Catholic Church in France, where there wasn't a primary religious institution, it was like just generally, they made laws initially that said like, hey, we're going to you, you know, saturday and sunday are off, um, but for the most part, up until, uh, the american revolution there, whatever the religion of the monarch was was religion of the entire state for the, for the most part, yeah, um, and.
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And then when you saw with christianity, it was this or sorry, christian, with democracy, uh, and a republic, democracy at that is now, instead of, like you just kind of are you're receiving the religion of the state and the laws that that uh monarch are putting forward, for example, uh, you know the the monarch may implement, you're going to be catholic and anybody not catholic you're off with your head.
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You know that sort of reality where the morality was the faith tradition of that monarch to then a democracy where there isn't a faith tradition that's supported by the state in any way other than freedom of general religion.
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And so how do we, as Christians lean into that, and what should we be looking for as people who now have?
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We may not be the monarch, but we have a role in deciding what is law for our country.
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Yeah.
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So I would even just to back up a little bit.
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You know, when the separation of church and state thing you're saying, I think we for the most part kind of get that, I would say I think that's an area that a lot of people don't understand what that phrase means or where it comes from.
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It has to do with what you were just describing Originally comes from, I believe, a letter from Thomas Jefferson talking about a wall of separation.
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But the purpose was to protect the church from government overreach, from saying, you know, hey, you have to be Catholic or you have to, you know, be Anglican or whatever it is.
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The freedom of religion was originally intended, the freedom to worship God according to your conscience, but it was in the context of the Christian faith still, so it wasn't.
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Religious tolerance was about, you know, different expressions of faith in God.
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I think he wrote in that letter what does it matter if there's three gods or 20 gods?
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It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
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And I think that's the reference that he gives to the sort of like why are we so worried about something that, uh, in a sense you couldn't prove, I guess, is where he was going with that, as he was a theist and clearly not a Christian.
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but yeah, yeah, yeah, and I mean the the overall, um, religious, um context of the day, though.
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Like, if you look at the state constitutions, um, original colonies, even our state, every state constitution today, I think, if not every, then like 48 out of 50 references almighty God, or supreme judge of the earth, or like a supreme deity, like all still make reference to God.
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My point is saying that separation of church and state is not about separation of God and state.
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Right, and so there's still and that's something that people misunderstand today because now people are saying, hey, don't bring religion into politics at all, keep God out of the government.
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That is never what separation of church or state was intended to mean and it's not how all the founders of our country thought about that idea either.
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Right.
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I mean, it was a primarily Judeo-Christian In fact.
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This is probably why I probably should get my sources right.
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But there's uh, without the Judeo-Christian backdrop, construct a, a nation of freedom of religion that we're talking about, isn't possible.
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Um, I think it's kind of where that that came.
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Yeah, and you know, the idea of having being able to enjoy freedom and liberty requires I posted some quotes about this recently requires moral, requires right, religion, requires virtue, otherwise that freedom devolves into destruction.
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And like, if you don't have a source that you're accountable to as a government for morality, a standard of truth and justice, morality, then, um, essentially, the government becomes God, you become, the government becomes the ones who are the arbiters of truth and morality and justice, deciding what's right, what's wrong, what's love, what's hate.
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And so there will always be a, a God of a particular people.
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Um, if it's not the God of the universe, the true God, then it's, um, some God, then, yeah, it's either an idol, a pagan God, um, uh, or it's or it's.
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The government itself fills that role socially.
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Okay.
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So this is the part I think that we all.
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The part where this gets messy is, uh, I'm gonna throw out the the the messy topics.
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It's messy is I'm going to throw out the messy topics abortion, gay marriage, like those are things where that is a moral thing.
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That Christians would say abortion is murder.
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Like that's where our generally we're going to go.
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Abortion is murder, is murder.
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Like that's where our generally we're going to go.
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Abortion is murder.
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Then we're going to say same-sex marriage is outside the will of God.
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That is sin, all right, so, or you know, adultery or whatever, whatever sin word you want to put on that.
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So then how do we as Christians sort of talk about that amongst a pluralistic society where people don't have that same viewpoint on that being sin?
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Yeah, and so a lot of people will say, as Christians, we shouldn't try to force our beliefs on other people.
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Take that to the issue of slavery, though, and everyone's going to go well, you know, you say okay, so if you should people not have forced their idea of abolishing slavery on this, you know, and so there's some people that might.
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Who knows what answers you'll get with that, but for a lot of people, they're going to go oh well, yeah, that was one that it was good that we fought to abolish, right, that we fought to abolish Right, so people actually understand this idea of if a culture has bad morals, that does not love your neighbor, that does not help your neighbor, that hurts people, right, and therefore superior morals need to be taught and legislated into society, even when it's counter-culture.
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We know that deep down but we don't think about it deeply and so people say these surface level platitudes you know about don't force your, legislate your um morality yeah but that's all that you can do.
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All legislation is inherently moral.
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you are saying this is moral, uh so, and maybe the the problem is, you know, does everything get the death penalty?
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Probably not, but I do feel like, like, even like jim crow, laws are separate but equal.
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We would say that is immoral, based upon the dignity of each human being, regardless of um red, yellow, black or white.
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Yeah, I, I think that's the part where, um, I think we've said don't legislate morality for so long that we didn't realize that Makes no sense, because, like, oh, some things you can legislate, except for the things that I disagree with.
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Yes, and I think that's the problem.
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So I think, as Christians, we are called to then sort of vote, probably in a way that would legislate morality.
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Exactly, there's the only possibility when it comes to voting.
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Voting, you know you're essentially Okay, so, before voting, the less civilized way was war you would have no, I don't want the land, I don't want these to be the laws of this land, and if you disagree, we will fight you.
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And voting is a way.
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Is war by proxy right to be the laws of this land?
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And if you disagree, we will fight you.
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And voting is a way.
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Is a war by proxy right.
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You cast your vote instead of draw your sword and um.
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But the same premise is there of we want to establish the best morals, that if God's purpose for government is to promote what is good and to punish what is evil, that is an inherently moral thing.
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You're talking about good and evil, okay, and so we want laws that promote good and punish evil.
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And that's when you're voting.
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You are participating in an inherently moral activity.
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Yes, Okay, so how do you just Now?
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This is where we know not all All sins are equal, in that every sin prevents you from getting to God.
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However, equally damning, not all all sins are equal, in that every sin prevents you from getting to God.
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However, Equally damning, not equally destructive.
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Thank you, they're equally damning.
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That's man.
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Thank you, that was really good.
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Stole it somewhere, I can't remember where.
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Yeah, but it sounded like it was you, so it was genius.
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So, as Holland said, equally damning, but not equally destructive.
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So a white lie and murder are equally damning but not equally destructive.
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And I think sometimes we throw this verbiage around meaning one thing, but then we apply it to another, kind of like don't legislate morality.
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That doesn't make sense.
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We say all sins are equal, so why are we lifting one up?
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And we're not making a law about white lying, but we are making a law about abortion or gay marriage, about abortion or gay marriage.
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So let's, how do we, how do we sort of differentiate when we're looking at candidates, let's just like talking presidential candidates how are we to differentiate?
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Because it's not like right now we have Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
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It's not like either of these people really like beacon of hope, of righteousness and talking about Jesus and all that.
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So how do we then, from the standpoint of like I don't have someone that's clearly uh, for Jesus, but I can make a decision that's best for my country with the options that I have, and let's just talk through what those options are.
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Yeah, Um, can we do.
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Can I bring a couple of Bible verses?
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Yeah, please, okay, I think the whole Bible verse thing it's actually a win.
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You guys are into that here.
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Yeah, we like the Bible around here.
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It's good.
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Um, yeah, so let's go.
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I think, first of all, romans 13 talked about this earlier.
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Yep, um, verse three rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
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Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?
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Then do what is good and you'll receive his approval.
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So approving of what is good is one purpose, and it says verse four, for he is God's servant for your good.
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So again, that's the role of the government you serve God.
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Same word deacon, a deacon of God for your good.
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That's why we get the word minister like a minister of defense or minister of whatever it's the same thing From that yeah.
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So a servant of God for the public good, to approve what is good.
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And then the next part it says but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God.
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Now, instead of approving what is good, it says he's a servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
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And so, and earlier again, it says there's no authority except from God.
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Those that exist have been instituted by God.
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So you do have this sense that God created the government approve what is good, punish what is evil.
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So, when it comes to voting and assessing candidates, I think the options that you have are well.
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Ideally you would have Christian candidates.
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That's not even something people would agree with, though you know.
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Again, keep religion out of politics.
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But again, you can't when politics is inherently moral, when government is God's servant for the public good.
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Ideally you would have a Christian candidate who rules according to God's law.
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One more verse Can I bring up?
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one more, you get one more.
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Psalm 2, verse 10 through 12.
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Now therefore, O kings, be wise, be warned.
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O rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear.
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Again, this is not Israel.
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He's not saying Israelite Rulers of the earth, all the kings, that's what he's talking to.
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Rulers the Christ, and we know Psalm 2 is about Jesus from its allusions in the New Testament as well.
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So you have this expectation that all rulers are accountable to God.
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Daniel gives you examples of Gentile rulers that are accountable to God.
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Daniel gives you examples of Gentile rulers that are judged by God for their arrogance and their refusal to fear him, their pride, their injustice that they were responsible for.
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I think of Nebuchadnezzar, right off the top.
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Yeah, belshazzar.
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So you have these examples of pagan Gentile kings that are judged for their refusal to fear God.
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So when it comes to the president of the United States, they're accountable to God, whether they want to acknowledge it or not.
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Whether they want to acknowledge it or not, and so that's why it's terrible that presidential debates and stuff, no scriptures brought up.
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You know nothing about the fear of God, nothing about what the Bible says about justice, and that takes politics and government out of the context of what it's designed for, which is why, you know, a lot of us think no, we can't bring God into the government.
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You know we're talking about policy, but again, it's all.
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It's all under God and all accountable to God.
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So if you don't have Christian candidates to vote for, I think your, in my opinion, I think your options are either one don't vote at all, to say I'm not going to cast a vote for someone who I think is unfit for this role, someone who's not going to fear God, not going to cast a vote for them.
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You can write in a third party Write yourself in.
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Write yourself in.
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Do you know?
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I was voted most likely to be president in high school hey.
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Holling Craig, this is your year 2024.
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Or your other option is to vote for the one that you think will either two sides of the same coin do the most good or do the least harm.
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Not necessarily the ideal, not a Christian, not someone who's going to rule in a fear of God, but someone who will do the most good, who will be most fit for approving things that are good and punishing things that are evil.
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And so I think you have to look at the track record of the candidates and what things they approve and what things they punish.
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And if they're not someone who acknowledges God, they themselves are essentially taking that position of deciding what's right and wrong, what's good and evil, what they're going to approve, what they're going to punish.
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So that's one way, I'd say, to think about it.
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So Martin Luther had a nuanced view of this, like back in the day, he had the two kingdoms.
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View One was that you'd have a secular.
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It was established by God to maintain order and justice in society, regardless of personal faith.
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And then you had the sacred rule of the church and the two would overlap, but the church wasn't to have power over the government, but it should be able to speak into the government as a whole, and I think that's where we're at government as a whole.
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And I think that's where we're at.
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But I guess I think the problem for us we don't live in a monarchy as, or with the princes or however you know the feudal system of the 1500s.
00:20:52.928 --> 00:20:55.434
We live in a republic democracy, which is challenging to understand in and of itself.
00:20:55.434 --> 00:21:09.346
And so here we are because, as I listen to you, it's like okay, not vote best of or the candidate that promotes the best well-being for the country, or the candidate that would hurt the least or do the least evil.
00:21:09.346 --> 00:21:15.864
And so how do we know where the candidates are as far as good, evil, like?
00:21:15.864 --> 00:21:20.512
How would he even process that to know?
00:21:20.512 --> 00:21:25.155
Kind of like, okay, I want to have the candidate that's going to promote the most good.
00:21:25.155 --> 00:21:27.304
I want to have the candidate that's going to promote the least evil.
00:21:27.304 --> 00:21:28.769
Yeah.
00:21:31.470 --> 00:21:32.422
A couple of things.
00:21:32.422 --> 00:21:34.484
You look at their history.
00:21:34.484 --> 00:21:37.247
Trump served as president.
00:21:37.247 --> 00:21:50.525
You can assess what he did, what he accomplished, how he led, his character, his policies, kamala, vice president last few years, other political roles that she filled.
00:21:50.525 --> 00:21:51.346
You look at those.
00:21:51.346 --> 00:21:59.082
You look at the policies that they claim to, that they're claiming to move forward, with which there's no guarantee that'll actually happen.
00:21:59.082 --> 00:21:59.703
But you do have.
00:21:59.703 --> 00:22:03.436
Like you know, the Republican platform is posted online.
00:22:03.436 --> 00:22:06.094
Trump gave an updated one recently.
00:22:06.094 --> 00:22:12.121
Kamala posted hers recently for the democrats and you can look policy by policy and assess it according to the word.
00:22:12.702 --> 00:22:24.772
Okay, what's their status, their stance on, like you brought up abortion, marriage, immigration, how, what, how are they approaching, how are they justifying their positions?
00:22:24.772 --> 00:22:30.679
How does that line up with the Bible?
00:22:30.679 --> 00:22:48.032
And I think another verse I'll bring up 1 Timothy 2, we're commanded to Paul says I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
00:22:48.032 --> 00:22:51.396
So that's what Paul says to pray for when it comes to rulers.
00:22:51.396 --> 00:22:59.346
I think that makes sense, to vote in the same direction that we're commanded to pray.
00:22:59.346 --> 00:23:03.773
What is going to lead to us being able to have a peaceful, quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
00:23:03.773 --> 00:23:08.545
Quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
00:23:08.545 --> 00:23:14.505
What policies are going to interfere the least with our ability to gather for worship, our ability to raise our children in the Christian faith?
00:23:14.505 --> 00:23:17.432
What is going to hinder that the least or help that the most?
00:23:19.847 --> 00:23:19.948
Right.
00:23:19.948 --> 00:23:20.650
So let's think that through.
00:23:20.650 --> 00:23:29.263
I think the peaceful and quiet life thing is probably something that nobody thinks about, and, in general, I don't think our social media feeds are full of peaceful and quiet.
00:23:29.263 --> 00:23:48.442
Where they're more, full of, like, you're the worst, my team's the best Um, like I think you know, as I, as I look at the vitriol that comes across social media from candidates and, uh, their supporters, it just it's like not a godly space, and so that's where it gets to be a struggle.
00:23:48.522 --> 00:23:51.230
So let's just kind of parse through some of this.
00:23:51.230 --> 00:23:53.083
Um, I don't even know where we'd start.
00:23:53.083 --> 00:24:00.969
Like I think that's the part where you go, okay, like I think usually the thing that most Christians look at is like who's the most pro-life candidate?
00:24:00.969 --> 00:24:07.605
Uh, and that's where and even even that's changed over time on where people's stances are.
00:24:07.605 --> 00:24:15.297
Yeah, like I think donald trump and kamala harris at one time uh probably were aligned, and then another time trump shifted and another time trump shifted again.
00:24:15.297 --> 00:24:27.734
So it's kind of one of those things where you look at I think at one point you know he's the one that nominated the most pro-life supreme court of all time, that reversed Roe v Wade, and you look at that and you're like well, he must be a pro-life candidate.
00:24:27.734 --> 00:24:31.702
But what I've seen is that he's actually sort of backed off that position.
00:24:31.903 --> 00:24:56.570
Yes, yeah, majorly, and is in the recent, like the policy platform, republican platform doesn't say really anything in a pro-life position other than trying to avoid late-term abortions, which is, I would say, kamala is very vocal about.
00:24:56.570 --> 00:25:03.653
I mean, she's a champion for abortion, trump is not, but he's also not a champion for the pro-life cause.
00:25:03.653 --> 00:25:12.979
He backed up I don't know why, maybe to try to gain some moderate voters or something like that or win some people over, but he totally backed off on where he was years ago.
00:25:14.319 --> 00:25:27.157
I mean years ago he was like— there's not a pro-life candidate right now Speaking at pro-life events, I think when the Million Woman March or some sort of thing, where they had it on the Capitol and he went to it and spoke at it and and Roe v Wade was overturned at some point after that, which is sort of wild to think about.
00:25:27.978 --> 00:25:34.161
Um, okay, so then, uh, so you can take an issue like that, I think, and you go okay, what does the word say about this Before, before?
00:25:34.161 --> 00:25:36.384
It's a political issue, it's a theological, moral issue.
00:25:36.384 --> 00:25:46.076
That um, there's political, um, ramifications, effects, decisions that need to be made, but at the core of it there's a theological and moral issue, right?
00:25:46.076 --> 00:25:53.354
So you know abortion is is it moral to terminate the life of an unborn child?
00:25:53.354 --> 00:25:57.131
And you can look to the word and it's pretty clear to me no, it's not.
00:25:57.131 --> 00:25:58.526
It's the work of God in the womb.
