Voting and Politics: Podcast Q&A with David Bercot and Dean Taylor :Christians and Politics Part 4

We are thrilled to present "Christians in Politics: A Challenge from History," now available as a free Historic Faith course. You can watch it on the Historic Faith website and right here on the Sound Faith channel. In these unprecedented times, it's more vital than ever for Christians to stand firm and reflect on the kingdom we are called to serve. Today we're going to be talking about the topic of Christian citizenship, specifically voting and politics. All right, so we're going to start off with a question by Trey Brickley. Thanks for sending this in, Trey. The question is, "I currently serve in the Army. I am a conservative who takes the founding philosophy of our country seriously and votes accordingly.

According to a JW friend of mine, the early Christians were not involved at all in politics but refused to serve in the Army or even vote. I've yet to do my own research on this. Can you speak to your understanding of the early Christian attitude towards serving in the Army and voting from your knowledge, both as a prior JW and a scholar of early Christian writings?" Basically, what your Jehovah's Witness friend is saying is correct, although not maybe to the degree that he has said. The early Christians, as far as the Army, they definitely did not participate in war. If you were to join the Army as a Christian, you would have been put out of the church.

They had a lot of soldiers who converted, and there was no way to get out of the Army back in those days, so they had to agree to never use the sword or to take an oath, which often meant they were the ones who got martyred the first because that was difficult to do, although it was the Pax Romana. A soldier could serve his whole life and do nothing but build walls or build roads, etc. But that was as far as the Army. Of course, today we have the option, so we're in a different position. Voting didn't occur in the early church, so that's why it's not quite correct to say they were against voting because that wasn't an option.

It wasn't a democracy. You had the Roman Empire, and Caesars were appointed or followed their father, something like that. They stayed out of politics. I think we can definitely say that. The quote I like I've used often from Tertullian, he said, "All zeal in the pursuit of glory and honor is dead in us, so we have no pressing inducement to take part in your public meetings, nor is anything more entirely foreign to us than the affairs of state. We acknowledge one all-embracing commonwealth, the world." Christians stayed out of the political issues of their day. Even though they didn't have voting, they definitely had politics involved in who would be the next Caesar, who would be the governor of this province, who would be the king here and there.

As he said, that was entirely foreign to them. They were citizens of another kingdom, so they stayed away from all of that. So that just as a brief introduction, the early Christian position on both of those, and they came from being citizens of another kingdom. Thanks for that. Dean, did you have anything you want to speak to that? Yeah, I like it. And I love that Tertullian quote. That's excellent. To look at the whole world as this commonwealth, was that the word you used? Yeah. That's excellent. I also think that, right, since we're just framing sort of a big thing from the beginning, to look at the fact, and this is a really important part, is that there was not just a negative sense of not being involved in the politics of the world, but there was a positive creating of the kingdom of Christ through the church.

We can look at this strictly as a not involvement or non-conformity type issue or something like that, but it does miss a really important element that I think is missing today. It was a great quote by John Howard Yoder, for what it's worth, and he talks about the word non-resistance, for instance. It kind of applies to some of these things. And he said, using the word non-resistance, it'd be like calling marriage non-adultery, so that you're just looking at it from its things you're not involved with, but the love and the proactive parts of that are missing and using the term non-resistance. I thought that was a great quote. It's a great way to look at the early church.

They were incredibly involved with world change, helping the social structure, helping to change the world and plant the kingdom of Christ, and just didn't have time for the politics of this world. So it's both of those back and forth. I really like that. In fact, I think, David, you speak to that in your lesson of, I forget who it was, but the quote included something like, "Those who have the ability to speak well, to act well, or great orators, that their service is needed in the church, not in the world." I'm butchering that, but. Yeah. No, as far as leading, yeah, that was origin, and it's exactly as Dean said. It wasn't so much a teaching in a negative sense.

It was there just as a default. We've already got our kingdom. We're involved in that. That's our concern. Why would we get involved in the affairs of this world? That's a different kingdom. It's not the kingdom that our citizenship lies in. And yeah, we have our hands and our minds focused and our hearts focused on a different kingdom. Yeah, I like that. Thank you both for that. I would encourage anyone that hasn't listened to either the Christian Citizenship course or the Change of Allegiance course that we have on the platform to go through those. David and Dean dig into a lot of the background and why they hold to these views, grounded in Christ and his view of the world, but then inspired by early Christians.

So the next, we had a lot of questions referring to lower apophasis of state. But I'm already questioned here by Ernest Evie. Some kingdom Christians vote for local offices or for local referendums issues, but they do not vote for politicians whose duty is to carry the sword. Is this a legitimate differentiation, or is all voting for public office matters a no-no for Christians? It's a great question, and it comes up in Anabaptist and Kingdom circles a lot. I mean, I think even George Brunk II, maybe even the first, I can't remember, specifically talked about that in their setting in Virginia and everything.

And it's helpful to frame this in a couple broad things, and then I'll just give you my take on it. First of all, I think Brother David and I both do not view voting as a sin in and of itself.

And I think that's an important thing. We're not going to be able to point to a command of Christ and say, "Oh, if you give your hand to voting for this, then that's necessarily a sin." Most of our caution comes from two different directions, and the caution comes from the leaven of what we've seen in looking at historical theology and looking at what's happened to the church, what's happened even to our own people with the Anabaptist and the Kingdom people through ages, and what's happening to us today, and the idea of us being involved, so involved with another kingdom that this is foreign to us, and then how that all mixes and everything like that.

So that's an important thing. So a lot of times this question comes kind of like as a pinpoint. It's like, "Well, if you can give your opinion on whether or not they should build a new sewer out in the street, well, then why can't you vote for president?" And then it kind of smears. It's sort of like the same discussions that oftentimes come with non-resistance is, "If I can hold someone back from killing my grandma, well, then I can condone atomic warfare or something." And it's just false dichotomies and things like that. But it's still a very good question. And here's my take on it. In the world of people who have drawn this line, and I'll speak specifically to that at this point.

So we're talking about Kingdom people, Anabaptist people, people who have a strong sense of the two kingdoms, usually are pretty strong on, let's say, not voting. Let's say this is the only area where you would allow yourself to have some leeway with different things. So I imagine this scenario where somebody comes in and says, "So what would it take for you guys to make it to the polls?" So what do you mean? Well, let's say, you know, the Islam was coming against America and we had to vote on an atomic strategy on how we're going to deal with them and bomb them and everything. Would you Anabaptist and Kingdom people come and vote? No, you wouldn't vote.

All right, well, what about for president? That's a pretty important thing. Would you come out and vote for president? No, you wouldn't vote. What about, you know, and you can imagine all these different scenarios where they're bringing us down to the very important things that would take us to the polls. I said, "No, no." And you can imagine the guy just saying, "No." So what would it be? Well, it would be if whatever they're asking us would cost us money, then we would go out and vote. Because what I have noticed, what I have noticed is usually, not always, but usually this question comes to play that someone wants to build a new school, someone wants a bridge, someone wants to help a hospital, somebody wants to help this over there, and they're having a referendum and they're trying to have to gather some money and they're saying, "Okay, well, what are we going to do?

Are we going to help out with this?" We're like, "We better get to the polls." You know, and so we get to the polls and then start voting for these things. And I just think that's a poor reason to be the one thing that drags us to the polls. Is it some sort of sin, just in your opinion, on this referendum or not? I can't say that it is, but I'm just saying that it's a leaven. You have to register to vote. That brings you into the whole leaven of things. And I have a feeling it may represent that there's something in your thinking that could be off and that's motivating some of these things, but I would not pass any big judgment on it.

So that's kind of my thought as I've seen it played out in my life in our circles. To that, because it happened in my own life as the first question brought up, I was raised Jehovah's Witness who neither go to war nor vote. So when I left the Witnesses, these were things I was raised with. I mean, the Witnesses are absolutely correct on their view of the two kingdoms. They didn't call it the two kingdoms. They called it neutrality, but that's definitely one teaching. They're absolutely correct. But when I left them, yeah, I was going to start from scratch and I was going to examine everything, which I think was a good idea. Yeah, I remember asking myself, "So if I'm supposed to pay taxes, which is what Jesus commanded, well, okay, Caesar says I get to have a say whether I want to pay taxes for this bridge or for this stadium, yeah, I should be able to vote on that."

And so I did. So that's how I got involved in voting was, and it ended up being a slippery slope. And six years later, I was voting in the presidential election. You know, from that, and I finally then backed out of the whole thing because I saw, yeah, my toe in the water and it sucked me in. I'm not saying it's going to always work that way, but I realized, yeah, that's somebody else's world. Let them make those decisions. I'm going to pay my taxes as Jesus commanded us to do. It's hard to be just a little bit involved in politics. You end up getting sucked into all of their thinking. Just those two introductions you gave, Clark, to me are the epitome of the whole problem.

Both of those men who are outspoken, quote, Christians, each one trying to encapsulate what a particular political party stands for, and neither one has anything to do with the Bible. The United States is not the sit on the hill.

That's, wow, that's something God's kingdom is, not the United States. Yeah, as far as the Republican Party being this whole Satan embodiment, that's just a total misrepresentation. But that's what happens when you start believing all of these lies. You put a halo on one side and a devil and horns on the other, and it's just not that simple. It is a mixture of evil and good, and you can't get involved with either party without getting involved in that mixture. Thanks for that. I appreciate that. I think that this next question, but from Jeremy Martin, does the prohibition on voting in earthly kingdoms only apply to politics and government, or would it extend to shareholder voting for corporations?

Shareholders normally vote on candidates for the board of directors and shareholder resolutions. It's really a question: is voting evil all the time? Yeah, thanks, Jeremy. Right. And then this is the try to look at, and I think where he's going with that, it must be, is looking, is there something in the act of giving your consent to a vote of something that's wrong? And we're saying no. It's no, we do this in the church. Well, of course, in the church, we do that. But, you know, in those types of things, it's okay to give us our votes and those sort of things. But what we're the biggest problem we're seeing in all this is that, number one, I see this as a symptom.

When we get involved with politics like this, it's a symptom that we're already losing in our kingdom. You're even starting to think you don't have the cures in the kingdom of God. And so you're starting to see some of these kingdoms are either listening to the Shane Claiborne camp or the MacArthur camp, and you're starting to see it that way, and you're losing already. So it's a leaven thing. It's a loss of our priority thing more than it is there's some sort of evil just in the act of giving your consent to something. So I think this is a very practical question from Maelon Fisher. My work brings me into contact with educated people, some of them professing Christians, some unbelievers.

I plan to attend a training event in November right around election time. I would like to be better equipped to explain and engage in meaningful ways why we do not engage in politics without coming across as uncaring or disconnected. I'll defer to you, Dean. It's great. Thanks, Brother Maelon. It's good to hear from you. You know, this is a great question, and I think one of the biggest cautions in all this is that we keep a respectful, honoring attitude for our government. And this is no matter who's the president. And then this is through my years of dealing, walking through this. You know, I've lived through this through Democratic presidents, and I've lived through this with Republican presidents.

And so many people get involved, either the left or the right, in this very American-hating kind of a thing. And this never needs to be named among us. You know, there should always be a love for our country, a love for our leaders, and that should come out of us. And then as we have that mature discussion then, and they see that respectful opinion to us, politics is a great place to segue. And I've dealt with this. My parents are very, you know, I don't care who's president, they're going to go. Well, I guess they don't have levers anymore, but, you know, my dad would go to the poll and click the R lever, and I'm done.

And that means it doesn't matter, no matter who it is or what the agenda is, he's going to hit the R lever and turn around and go home. So a lot of times we'll come up with these issues, and I'll just ask, I remember one time it was during, well, maybe when Obama was going, or I can't remember the issues that were one of those. And some of the biggest things were border control, healthcare, things like that. And I just said, "Well, what would you think Jesus would answer to that would be? What would be some verses we could see that Jesus would apply to whatever these politics that are getting thrown around?" And he just looked at me and said, "What does that have to do with it?"

And I said, "Yeah, that's kind of the problem." I said, "I think he does have some things to say about these." And it goes both ways. It goes to the Democratic side and it goes to the Republican side. But bringing in these very hot issues and casting it into the way of Christ is a good way to do it. And you can pick it depending on who you're talking to on what issue you could bring up in that way. But we are concerned about these issues. We are concerned about abortion. We are concerned about border control. We are concerned about healthcare and all these things. And we may differ even in this room on how those should be.

And we do believe the Kingdom of God gives answers to humanity's problems. And so we want to use these times to engage in those discussions, but we believe the Kingdom of God is the answer to those and not the politics of this world. So I would encourage and get them talking and then just kind of take that and take it a different direction. I've tried to use that. Amen. One of the things I guess I've said before, I'm plugging the platform a little bit, that going into conversations, it's helpful to have a baseline of knowledge in yourself and a conviction within yourself. And both the Christian Citizenship Course and Changeable Agents Course are great ways to gain knowledge about this topic.

Like Brother Dean said, taking that knowledge in a way that is in care and love for another person, rather than just being right, I think is the tendency that or where we need to be, where we need to be leaning on and applying wisdom to the knowledge that can be gained here. So appreciate that, Brother Dean. All right, so next, I think this is a very interesting question. And actually, I've had this question asked to me in a different context. This is from Marvin Yoder. Thank you for sending this in. On several occasions, the Apostle Paul used his Roman citizenship to receive special treatment. I suspect if he were a citizen of the U.S. today, where we have the privilege to vote, that he would vote.

Your opinion? I've heard this used in the context of taking someone to law or to court, that Paul used his rights. Therefore, you can use your rights to sue someone and get what's due you. But what is, do either of you have any thoughts on this in context of voting or politics? Go ahead, David. Yeah, because I've heard that argument a lot, a good bit of my life. And I don't think it's an accurate analogy. What Paul did, Rome had some very specific laws, and it's where we get our Western system of justice, you know, the right of a trial that you don't just get punished without a trial. Yeah, he just insisted that the law be followed.

These officials were breaking the law. And yeah, that's very different. I mean, to jump from that of saying, "Hey, if I point out that you're breaking the law, that I'm entitled to a trial, well, then if you're going to do that, then you might as well elect the president." Well, I'm sorry, that's a big jump between the two. You see no involvement with Paul on any kind of political issue. Even on that one, to me, is a good point that shows the opposite. Paul didn't hesitate to take advantage. Okay, I'm a Roman. You can't flog me without, of course, he got flogged a lot without getting a trial. And he didn't make any big bones of it.

He didn't go and sue those officials. He didn't try to get them removed from office. He did call it to their attention. But, you know, in the end, he got beheaded by Nero because he was a Roman citizen. Peter got crucified because he wasn't a Roman citizen. But Paul didn't really, I mean, he didn't get involved in that. It's like, okay, I've got some advantages as a Roman citizen to the extent I can use that for the Kingdom of God. Great. But whether Jews are being treated fairly under the Roman system or not wasn't Peter's concern, and it wasn't Paul's concern. They were both Jews. Their whole concern of both of them was the Kingdom of God, getting out the message of the Kingdom of God, changing people's lives, pulling them out of this system into a different system.

And so it's one thing to say, "Hey, I have a right to have a trial and not just be put in jail or be flogged without having a hearing." It's another thing to get involved in politics. They are two entirely different things. Yeah, amen.

Amen. All right, so we'll move on to the next question here. Dean, did you have any follow-up on that? I thought that was well said. You know, it's, you know, I will say that those, again, it helps many times the things that I think confuse both non-resistance and two kingdom talks in general is actually the oftentimes a progressive or a liberal representation of pacifism. And it smears these things because it doesn't portray a clear two kingdoms. One of the things that early church and biblical two kingdoms does is that they do clearly recognize a kingdom of this world has been given by God to govern this earth and govern the non-Christian components of this earth.

And that's a really, that kind of phases over a lot of these things. And so with pacifism, it messes that up. For clarity example, in one of John Howard Yoder's books, who really kind of was one of the main people that kind of smeared this into pacifism, he looks at Justin Martyr. There's a quote from Justin Martyr where Justin says, "And everything but this particular issue, I forgot what it was, we obey you or honor you, O Constantine, or not Constantine, O Caesar, whoever it was." Yoder called this proto-Constantinianism. And so him seeing that just this submission in this respect of Caesar was proto-Constantinianism because it showed this respect, totally disagreed. And he misses the two kingdom concept.

And in this way too, we recognize an authority on this earth, and we respect it, honor it, and pray for it. And I think pacifism also brings in confusion into topics like this also of that question. If I can comment on something you said, Clark, it's not that the book of Acts is political. It's that there were a lot of political things happening in the background, and you'd never know it from reading the book of Acts. That's what it was, yeah. Christians couldn't care less. They were concerned. Their only issue was, what does this have to do with the Kingdom of God? And most of those things didn't have anything to do with it. And so that was so much their focus that even though Paul cared so much for the Jews, he never talked about all of the political issues going on in Palestine because they were of no issue to him.

He was interested in getting Jews into the Kingdom of God and getting Romans into the Kingdom of God and getting everyone into it because the Kingdom of God is the answer to man's problems, not Judea or Rome or any of those other political entities. Yeah, that's what I was recalling. Yeah, it's amazing. It's remarkable that in Romans 13, when Paul calls for a submission to the government and that he does not bear the sword in vain, as it says, that very sword cut his head off. So it's always good to keep in mind. Yeah. All right, so the next questions are regarding praying for specific leaders. So Grant Miller asked, "I spoke to a man recently who told me he is praying Trump will win the election."

This made me wonder, when we pray for our nation, should we pray that a specific person wins? Should we pray that certain pieces of legislation get passed? Another question by Charlton Sweezy that I think sums that up in a different sense is, what is wrong with the statement, "We don't vote, but we pray Republican"? And then Charles said is looking for maybe just your own experience with praying for leaders. I'm not looking for a word-for-word prayer to recite, rather I'm looking for some godly principles to help guide such prayers regarding praying for leaders of the land.

Yeah, it's a great question, Charlton. I appreciate that. Again, I honestly think that the fundamental problem is not having enough confidence in your, you know, in your own kingdom, the Kingdom of God and its answers to this. I like the phrase, if it wasn't so true, is it okay to, what does he say, accept God's will for president, but yet to pray Republican?

How someone prayers if God puts a burden on your heart to pray for a particular agenda or issue or something, you know, I don't think David and I are going to, you know, come and say there's something wrong with that per se. But again, what I've seen over and over again, and from my experience of spending basically almost 20 or 28 or 29 years in the Kingdom, Anabaptist world, is to see so much of this is a, is a levin that leads the wrong way. And it's bizarre to me how we get caught into it. Typically, and particularly in Anabaptist history, it has a longer legacy of this. Getting involved in conservative politics, fundamentalism, and things like this has repeatedly taken the Anabaptists off course into some pretty bad areas.

If we get into it, I have some slides prepared to show and some different things like that to see that. And it starts from this. I mean, you can see it happening historically. You can see it happening where people just get involved, involved, involved with supporting this. The thing that I have noticed that many times, maybe not even most times, the Antichrist comes from the right. Now, that doesn't mean in any way that we should condone the left and their anti-Christian attitudes or whatever. But the Antichrist comes as an angel of light. It comes with the vocabulary of things. And when we start getting involved with that and starting to think this is the way to go.

So let me share this slide. And this was written by the Mennonites in Germany about 1938, I think, or something, when they were hearing some very good things that were coming from Hitler. And so they really were getting excited about this. They were getting, you know, thinking this was the way to go. And the background's made up, but just this is the part that's real. But he says, "With greatest excitement, we German Mennonites of the Paraguay and Chaco follow the, oh, no, I'm sorry, this is the one in Paraguay. This is the same time I have another one from the Prussian Mennonites. This was the group from, this is from Paraguay. With greatest excitement, we German Mennonites of the Paraguay and Chaco follow the events in our beloved motherland and experience in spirit the national revolution of the German people.

We are happy that in Germany, after a long time, a government that freely and openly professes God as creator stands at the head of the nation. With special sympathy, we hear that our current government takes seriously the realization of Christian principles in social, economic, and cultural life, and especially emphasizes the protection of the family." And so it goes on. This is the one in a telegram written September 10th, 1933, representing the sentiments of the Church Council. "To Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Berlin, the Conference of East and West Prussian Mennonites assembled today in Hergenhagen, sorry if I butchered that, Free State of Danzig, feels deep gratitude for the powerful revival that God has given our nation through your energy and promised joyful cooperation in the upbuilding of our fatherland through the power of the gospel.

Faithful to the motto of our forefathers, no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is in Jesus Christ." And you know, I say on here is I don't think Hitler probably had time to answer every telegram, but this one he did. "For your loyalty," this is to the Mennonites, "and your readiness to cooperate in the upbuilding of the German nation expressed in your letter to me, I express my sincere thanks, Adolf Hitler." So the thing is this, is that of course, well, yeah, they didn't know. They didn't know what was going on and all these things. And I have a lot more I could show you with all that. That's the point, is that this language that they woo us and get us into their camps makes us end up supporting, vocally supporting an Antichrist.

And I think you could perhaps view, under frame this into what's happening today. And we could end up the Kingdom Christians supporting an Antichrist. And then when it comes out, we're left there with egg on our face. And if you look to see the, and it wasn't just the Mennonites, all the conservative Christians of Germany did this. As when you read Bonhoeffer's biography and you hear what's happening with the Confession Church and how many people Bonhoeffer lost to Hitler constantly, after all that was over, look at the devastation that happened in Europe of radical Christianity. It was done. And so, not completely done. But so with that, I would just say that this is a grave mistake for us to just, a grave warning for us to watch out of us praying Republican as we start getting involved with these different things.

No, yeah, that was great. I appreciate you having those slides, Dean. It's scary what can happen when we get involved in politics thinking we're going to use that to usher in godly things. I would probably just add to that, Satan appears as an angel of light in both directions, left or right. The whole left-wing political party here in the United States, political parties, I should say, it started with the churches, the social gospel of the 1800s is what ushered in the whole thing.

And it sounded so good. We're going to bring in the Kingdom of God using the government to do it and all of these wonderful programs. And in the end, where has it ended up? Well, one thing, it's ended up with abortion that a million unborn babies a year here in the United States are killed every year. I mean, it dwarfs anything that Hitler and these other people did. And that comes from the left. And so it's like, choose your poison. Either side, both sides present themselves as angels of light. I think Satan is equally behind both sides. And so, yeah, we don't want to be voting or praying Republican. I don't think we want to be voting or praying Democratic.

I mean, these are both just two sides of Satan's kingdom. And Satan doesn't care which one he ensnares you in. He's got you either way you go. Is it consistent for a Kingdom Christian to lobby or petition for certain rights or privileges? For example, when Mennonites sent a committee to Washington to establish CO status or exemption for school students to abstain from saluting the flag. This might fall into a little bit of the, you could potentially argue this from the sense of Paul's statements there. Do either of you have any insights on this idea of trying to protect certain rights? Go ahead, David. Yeah, I would see a pretty clear distinction between voting and petitioning.

When you vote, you are part of the government. You know, we the people, you are the government. You're the one running things. You're putting in, you know, your particular person. When you petition, you're a third party. You're asking a request. Joseph of Arimathea went up to Pontius Pilate and requested, could he have the body of Jesus to bury it? You aren't the government when you are asking the government. You are acknowledging, I'm not part, I'm not you. I'm asking this as a favor. And so, yeah, I think it's always all right for a Christian to ask the government, particularly for godly things, not for political things. I don't know if the term lobby would be the right word to use with regards to the Mennonites talking to the government about conscientious objector status.

That was a request, a petition. Lobby, I mean, you might get technical on this, but normally that word is used to mean trying to influence political legislation, to influence how a congressman or woman is going to vote or something like that. I think I'd be afraid of crossing the line into lobbying, but making a petition, hey, we don't believe in going to war. We think it is wrong to kill. Could we get some kind of exempt status? We're willing to do alternative service, whatever. And the Mennonites did that. They did it with all due respect. And it was successful. I think God blessed that. So I do see a big distinction between being part of the government and being a third party asking the government for a favor.

I think that's really well said. Yeah. And also there is something also, and it kind of usually gets tied up into this discussion, is the church should always have a prophetic voice. And it is okay for us to call, as John the Baptist did, you know, the government's to repentance. Now, that usually doesn't come out right for us as far as the life that we live here. But I don't think we are supposed to lose the prophetic voice. But it doesn't mean that we take part in the government, but that we should be speaking to the issues of the day. Yeah, that's an interesting, interesting way. Do you see a balance between having a prophetic voice and honoring the emperor, you know, giving respect for respect is due?

Absolutely. And usually, usually this comes out in very simple ways, is that so much stuff is just belittling. You know, when you hear the things against President Trump, think about all the things said against him and then how many things are actually said against his different political things. Or, you know, it's usually his ridiculous tweets or it's something he did or whatever and all that stuff. If we're going to talk about some of the issues that he's doing with war or with, you know, terrible things that are happening that are sin that are bringing into our country, we talk about those things, but we never partake of the belittling of it. It'll be the same thing with the Democratic president.

There'll be all kinds of terrible things about his past and his life and all those things. And unless we're speaking to the sin of what's happening in their life, and I think there's a place for that. But it should always be loving our enemies. We're loving them and we're wanting them to be in the best light as possible. The other problem with left and right in the world, they're so over each other, never listening to each other's arguments. If we stop and listen, oftentimes the left and the right are both having both good things to say and bad things to say. And we have the beautiful position to be able to be in there and listen to these and say, yeah, guys, can you see the Kingdom of God has an answer that can help both of you?

But respect and honor has to be pouring out of us through that, I think. You don't really see any documentation of John the Baptist saying Herod was a jerk. Yeah, the closest you get is Jesus calling him a fox. So I don't know what to do with that, but that's the closest you get. I think every single president the United States has ever had lump them all together and all of their wickedness together wouldn't even be one iota of the wickedness of Nero or Caligula. And I think God inspired the scriptures to be written when they were. When he's telling us to honor the emperor, we're looking at horrendously wicked people that even the pagan Romans were saying these men are wicked.

And you know, you had to be pretty wicked back then to cross that line. So I think he was making it clear in all settings. We should be thankful that, you know, somebody like Trump or Obama or Clinton, whatever, they're saints compared to the kind of rulers the early Christians had. And yet the early Christians were so respectful to the very ones who were persecuting them. We should always remember on John the Baptist, he was dealing, again, it's two kingdoms. He was still part of the old, one of the cross there, but he was talking to a fellow Jew. Herod was a convert to Judaism. He was breaking the law of Moses that he was supposed to live on.

They did not, John nor Jesus, neither of them said anything about Caesar and what was going on in the realm outside of that. So I think we should always remember that. It's one thing in Judea speaking of a fellow Jew under the old law versus, yeah, the two kingdoms and a different government. Yeah, that's good. Well, one verse that I think helps me a lot, and I'll share it here if I can share my screen again. This one really puts it in perspective. Okay. When we talk about who's who's who is going to win the election or who's who do we pray? This is from Daniel chapter 4, verse 17. And it's a really fundamental passage.

This matter is by the decree of the watchers, that's the angels, and the demand by the word of the holy ones to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will and set it up over it, the basis of men. And so if you if you think about is God, who is God going to get his man in power? That kind of puts it in a different perspective. Yeah. Well, thank you both for all of those, for all that discussion and responses here. I think that there's endless directions we could go with this and we could spend all day. It really helps us out a lot if you share the historic faith with others.

We're continuing to desire to grow this platform to be able to put more resources into more courses, more trainings, more activities. So we would really, we'd really be blessed by that. So we appreciate you all taking the time this morning. Bless you all and have a good rest of your day. Join us in earnestly contending for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.