Should Christians vote in the 2024 election? Some argue that they can't support either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. Others say Christians should stay out of worldly politics. But Pastor Josh McPherson of Grace City Church joins Glenn to explain why he has "a fundamental conviction that we cannot be Biblical unless we ARE political." It's time for followers of Christ - both in the pews and at the pulpit - to stand up, speak out, and VOTE: "When the Church goes silent, a culture loses its conscience and government loses its mind and everyone suffers."
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Josh McPherson is a guy I found online, I don't even know how long ago.
And just I love his sermons.
He's a lead pastor of Grace City Church. Founder of Stronger Man Nation, which is a movement to help men get stronger every day in every area of life, and helping dads raise boys to be stronger men, which is one of our problems, in society today. We are teaching everybody to be weak, and helpless. And that is not the way that God would have us to be. Josh, welcome to the program. How are you?
JOSH: I'm very good, Glenn. Thanks for having me.
GLENN: Yeah, thank you. So I have been hearing from a lot of Christians, that are saying, I just can't vote for either.
JOSH: Yep. Yep.
GLENN: And I don't even know how to -- I don't even know where to start on that.
JOSH: Yep.
GLENN: This is so clear to me, that we are not battling Democrat/Republican.
We are truly battling light and dark. Life and death.
JOSH: That's right. Yep. Yep.
GLENN: Good and evil.
So how do you convince people?
JOSH: It's -- it's -- what COVID revealed in terms of our shallowness in thinking, in relationship to our role as citizens in our nation. This election is revealing it at a deeper level.
I think Christians have been misled and wrongly discipled in relationship to their responsibility, as citizens of heaven, to be engaged here, as citizens of earth.
GLENN: Right.
JOSH: And so with bad teaching.
The kingdom of God is spiritual, not physical. Nowhere in the Bible does it ever say, the kingdom of God is spiritual. The closest it gets is Jesus saying, my kingdom is not of this world when he's speaking to Pilate.
And he's not using that as an excuse to disengage from the world. He's using it as an apologetic to lean into the world.
He's saying, my kingdom is not of this world, which means I'm above your pay grade. And I don't have to answer your petty questions. The kingdom of God does not hover, Glenn, a mile above the earth. It lands in our sex lives, in our marriages, in our dysfunctional family systems, in our relationships, in our entertainment. In our food. And, yes, in our politics. When Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world, what he's saying, is my people have the authority from heaven to step into the broken systems of earth and be salt and light.
The most basic texts of the Bible. Which Jesus explains how to think as Christians.
You're light. Light exposes lies. In darkness. You're salt.
Salt works against the natural decay of sin in the world. And right now, a pastor trying to convince Christians to be salt, while they're still in the box.
GLENN: And people think, that that adds flavor. No. It stops corruption.
It stops the corrupting of the meat.
BIANCA: That's exactly right.
GLENN: That's the way it was used back then.
JOSH: Yeah, there's this demonic gaslighting, that says that Christians should be political.
I have a fundamental conviction that we cannot be Biblical unless we are political. The entire story line of the Bible, is a story of God against governments. Rogue, empiric governments. Tyrannical. Abusive. Heavy-handed, oppressive governments like Egypt, like Persia, like Babylon, like Rome. And the story is those -- because when you remove God from a society. What replaces it typically is that which is biggest and most powerful, mainly government.
GLENN: God calls governments to submit to his rule of law, just like he calls individuals. And it's the church's job to function as the conscience of a society. And when the church goes silent, a culture loses its conscience. And the government loses its mind. And everyone suffers.
GLENN: I can't understand, when we have -- I mean, when we have one party that is putting up abortion vans for free abortions.
I mean, I wouldn't go to a concert that was doing that. Let alone a political party.
JOSH: No. No. No. Here's what I would say to Christians to wrestle with seriously -- I did five sermons to my church. You see them online if you want. GraceCityChurch.com --
GLENN: I'll tweet them out today.
JOSH: Okay. I wrote a small PDF to help people think through three questions. Should I vote? How should I think about politics? And then how should I vote as a Christian. So I can walk through that very quickly.
Should Christians vote? Here's the deal. 40 million Christians didn't vote in the last election. The last election was decided by 42,000 votes. Your vote matters. When the salt stays in the box, the meat rots.
GLENN: Jeez. Uh-huh.
JOSH: When Christians hold their voice back, culture goes into massive decline. Do you people wish the church would have gotten more political when Hitler squeaked through in an election? And 12 years later, 11 million people were dead.
GLENN: And do you know what the church did?
It stayed silent, and then it went into cahoots.
JOSH: The church abdicated its voice. And then aligned with evil out of fear and deception, and millions of people died.
I have a distinct sense that there are millions of people, the over.
Praying to God Almighty that Jesus Christ would wake up his church in America. Because if America goes off the rails, we haven't seen anything like it historically.
GLENN: Oh, I have heard it from a Chinese dissident, that was in prison in China.
Just because she believed in Jesus. She said, what you know we were praying for in China?
We were praying that you would be humbled so you would wake up to who you are.
JOSH: That's right. Should Christians vote? Here's what I would say, God made three spheres of human sovereignty. The family, the church, and the state. If Christians won't lead their home, Satan will.
If pastors won't lead their church, they become synagogues of Satan.
And when it comes to our constitutional republic, we need to almost stop using the word democracy. We don't want a democracy. We're a constitutional republic.
Which means we're guided by the moral absolutes outlined in the Constitution. Then we vote for men and women to represent us.
To make laws that will reflect the values of that Constitution. If we fail to do our duty in this Constitutional Republic, we are failing our children. And we will pass on to them, a social inheritance. That will bury them.
Right? So when I think about whether or not I should vote. If Christians don't -- if godly voices don't rise up, to speak up.
Godless voices will. And we will be held responsible for what happens. Christians need to carry a burden.
GLENN: People don't understand.
JOSH: For what God holds us accountable for.
I look at it like this.
Christians -- and I want to be sensitive to those who are like, well, I don't want to be partisan. Brother, listen to me. Sister, listen to me.
You cannot follow Jesus. And not be accused of following Jesus.
Because Jesus draws lines, and Jesus takes sides.
Look, I haven't asked the GOP into my heart. I'm a Bible guy. I'm a Jesus guy.
That's my lane.
If a political party happens to step into that lane, I am cheering them all the way. If they step out of that lane, I am prophetically calling them to obedience and submission to God's word. So this isn't me cheering on one particular party.
But let's be honest, one political party is explicitly advocating openly for demonic, horrific, perverse sin, and the other is not.
That's the bottom line. That you have to wrestle with.
What I find most Christians. I find very few Christians.
I'm going to vote for -- I hear a lot saying, but I can't vote for their side. But I don't agree.
Here's the deal. You don't do anything else in life. Was your spouse perfect when you married her or him?
No. You married him anyways.
We don't apply the same standard, where you're using Donald Trump to anywhere else in life. So no matter who is running for office, unless it's Jesus. You would have to hold your nose and vote at some point.
So here's what I would say for Christians to consider who are on the fence. Think of politicians in terms of three tiers.
Tier three is in the category of opinions. In this category, we -- we discuss, and we decide.
This is where the Bible is silent on these issues. And this is like, should Taiwan be granted favored trading status.
GLENN: Yeah.
JOSH: Should feds lower or raise interest rates. Should the post office use planes or horses to go to deliver the mail?
I don't know, but let's discuss. And let's decide.
The Bible will speak to it. I won't stick my nose into it. That's tier three. Tier two is in the category of wisdom.
Okay? We should debate and discern. The Bible speaks to it. But not clearly, how we should go about it. We agree on the goal. But we debate. Have the means. Should we care for the poor?
Yes. We should all agree on that. How do we do that?
Let's have a good debate. Let's pull each other on the extremes, walk in the middle, find the path. We can robustly disagree and debate and then go out and have a beer afterwards.
GLENN: Honestly, that's where we were at one point in our nation.
JOSH: That's Reagan and "Tip" O'Neill. Right?
Where it's like, no. Yes. What? Are you kidding me? I'll buy you a drink.
GLENN: Yeah. Because they had the fellow in common. They vehemently disagreed on how to accomplish it.
The goal was the same.
JOSH: That's right. There was a like-minded shared mindset for life. So what's happened now.
And most Christians are working from that framework. Tier three or tier two politics. It's opinions or it's issues of wisdom, which makes them feel uncomfortable to speak prophetically to it.
Here's the problem. There's a third category. Tier one.
And tier one. If the first -- the third -- the second is to have wisdom.
Tier one is, this is the realm of obedience. This is where we declare and divide. This is thus saith the Lord kind of things. Okay? Where the Bible has spoken clearly to it.
And to discuss -- we don't discuss and debate stuff. We submit to God's word. And we say yes, God, and we obey. These are issues. The sanctity of life. The sanctity of marriage. National sovereignty.
The moral law of God. The rule of law.
Religious freedom. Jurisdictional respect. These are the kinds of things, are the grid through which we think as Christians, where God is clearly and plainly without stuttering spoken, where we must say, thus saith the Lord. Not because it's our opinion.
Because of what we're calling the culture to submit to themselves God himself. Right? When we get into that category, tier one.
A Christian is obligated, I believe to engage. Here's the problem. In politics past, most of the ticket represented tier three and tier two.
And so Christians were reticent to say, thus saith the Lord. The Fed should lower their interest rates.
I agree. Don't stick your nose where God doesn't quote clearly. What's different about this election is almost every issue on the table. Representative on the ticket is a tier one issue, thus saith the Lord. And if the church does not step and up speak boldly through this moment, the vacuum we create will be filled, I believe with the godless and the demonic. Then we will be responsible for having been silent, in a moment where we needed Jesus to speak up.
GLENN: So there are two things that come through my mind, almost every day.
One, we will be held responsible for all of -- are these God's rights. Not ours.
We are put in charge to protect them. Or to elect the government to protect God's rights for future generations.
JOSH: That's right.
GLENN: If we lose these rights here, it's not just here.
It's the entire world could be cast into darkness. And slavery.
And we will be held accountable.
What did you do? And say, well, I just couldn't vote for either one.
It's not going to be an acceptable answer.
JOSH: That's right. Think about the moral dilemma, some Christians are having, about who to vote for right now.
It's nothing. In comparison to the moral dilemma, you'll be facing. If we have an openly rogue demonic evil government. That is using the force of law, and military, to -- to make you disobey, God's law. You will have much bigger moral dilemmas to face then, better to deal with these little ones. Hold your nose and vote.
Rather than, do I need to stand up and do something more than just pray in this moment, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer had to wrestle with in 1940s.
GLENN: Yes. Yes.
The other thing is, when people say, well, my vote doesn't count.
For the first time in my life, I look at that, as a completely different statement.
JOSH: That's right.
GLENN: That's saying, I'm not going to be held responsible.
JOSH: That's right. That's right.
GLENN: This time. This is like 1933.
At this time, if you don't stand, and it goes awry.
JOSH: That's right. That's right.
GLENN: He's not going to accept, that I just didn't invoke.
Because I didn't think my voice mattered.
In Texas, if you want to vote for a Democrat, it may not count.
You know, here in Texas. Because it will go, hopefully, it will go red. But it does count in your first citizenship.
GLENN: When I think about, my vote doesn't matter. Here's what I think.
No, no, no. It matters, because I'm not voting to appease a candidate or a party. I'm voting in response to God's commands. I'm voting for a holy God.
I'm voting to be obedient to my duty to be an active citizen of heaven. In the current citizen, I'm abiding here on earth.
When I think about that, Glenn, no, I'm voting for the sake of keeping my conscience clear. But before God, so I can look in the mirror and say, kids, I preach sermons. I talk to friends.
I wrote stuff. I joined my friends online.
I did everything I could, to move the needle for the sake of our nation. Friends, don't vote -- if we take this pragmatic approach, well, it doesn't matter. Well, we already ceded the battle. No, no, no. It does matter. It does matter.
If not only for you to say, I will not be shaken and silenced by the lies.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote -- I'm trying to think of it. Live not by lies.
GLENN: So good.
JOSH: And in the essay, he said, look, here's the deal. You may feel small in the face of this massive, tyrannical, totalitarian regime.
But -- but you're not as small as you think. You're only as small as the silence that you embrace.
He said, so if you stand up, they may shoot you in the head of the street, but only you can secede or turn over your freedom. So you can die a free man in the street, or you can live as a prisoner in your apartment. You could be freer in prison. Than you are compromising your values living at home.
And so what he said was, essentially, silence in the face of lies, is itself a lie.
Silence in the face of lies, is to perpetuate, and participate in that lie.
We are in a spiral of silence right now.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about.
Eric Metaxas talks about it.
Which means, the less we speak up, the higher the cost for the ones that do.
GLENN: We're seeing it right now.
Hang on, I have to take a break. We'll be back in just a second. You are listening to Josh McPherson.
I will, on my social media, put out on his sermons on this. Share it with every Christian that you know.
GLENN: We're talking to Josh McPherson, about why Christians need to vote.
JOSH: Yes, yep.
I will say two things. If there are those that are sitting on the fence, I get it. There's been challenging things to figure out, sift through. I understand. Three things within one. This is from many conversations, your vote isn't a Valentine.
You know, oh. I just get the warm fuzzies. That died with JFK.
Right? So like don't vote for warm fuzzies or personalities. Think -- be more sophisticated in your thinking. Think about policies. Personalities will come and go. We'll be left with policies, for the rest of our life. Don't think your vote is a Valentine. Secondly, your selection isn't a sacrament.
So many Christians, well, if I vote for them, they might do something immoral, and then I'm responsible.
No, no. Your vote isn't a sacrament. You're essentially exercising your right as a citizen, to -- to advance people, in positions of authority, that you think have the best shot of aligning most closely to a Biblical worldview.
GLENN: And if they don't, then your responsibility kicks in to speak out to stop them.
JOSH: That's right. We're in the most important in a moment our history, coming up in our election.
Then the next week will be just as important. Don't vote and then back off. Get more engaged. Speak up. Say things that are true, longer and louder. So it's not a Valentine.
How do I say it? Your vote is not a sacrament. Then lastly, this is crazy.
The ballot box isn't a mailbox. I heard a ton of Christians going, well, I'm not going to vote and send a message.
Why write an email and never hit send? No one cares that you didn't vote. The only outcome that matters is who wins.
So don't think you're sending a big message by not participating. That's a lie from the pit of hell, to silence the voice of the church. In maybe the most critical moment in the history of our nation.
And I will say this, pastors, you must be bolder. You must speak up louder and longer.
It may feel weird to talk about politics and the pulpit to you. But that's because you're living in this weird bubble and moment of history.
You're out of step with the great preachers of history in the past, who have always thundered from the pulpit, how to be engaged in politics.
GLENN: I am hungry for preachers to speak the truth, based on the Bible. I am hungry for it!
How do I apply these 2000-year-old teachings to what's happening right now?
JOSH: That's right. It's disingenuous to expect the pastors in their church to be bold in the marketplace, when they're failing to be bold in the pulpit.
GLENN: It is so great to see you.
JOSH: You too, Glenn.
GLENN: I actually will meet with the president tonight. And I'm hoping to convince him to do something with TheBlaze and Trinity Broadcasting. And I would love to invite you to be a part of it, if it actually comes through next week. I would love to have you be a part of it.
Because I have seen your social media, and you are right, spot-on.
JOSH: Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
Ten seconds. We just started a school. Guard City Academy. There's 286 kids in class, listening right now, learning to become Christians and patriots. I want a huge shout-out to those guys. Go Farmers!
GLENN: God bless you. You guys are great.
Thank you, Josh.