Pastor Joel Webbin and Ben Garrett, both Christian abolitionists, argue that voting for Donald Trump is the only strategic choice to protect families from an influx of pro-abortion immigrants under Joe Biden. They reject the "second victim narrative" regarding abortion, insisting on equal penalties for all parties involved, and contend that Trump's policies better safeguard existing households despite his flaws. While acknowledging the ideal of a mono-cultural Anglo-Protestant heritage, they emphasize operating in the "realm of the possible," urging believers to prioritize pragmatic faithfulness over ideological purity to halt moral degeneracy and hold leaders accountable through prayer rather than third-party voting. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Abolishing Abortion Completely00:10:45
Hi, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.
I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries.
In this episode, I'm privileged to welcome Ben Garrett from Ogden, Utah, Refuge Church.
He's a co host with Brian Sauvet on Haunted Cosmos, that podcast that we all know and love.
But today, we are not talking about Fordian subject matter.
We're not talking about the unhinged Bigfoot and Nephilim and these kinds of things.
Instead, we're talking about something that is incredibly relevant, timely, urgent, and practical, as well as deeply theological.
We are talking about the upcoming presidential election.
As it pertains specifically to the context of Christians who are, and rightfully so, abolitionists regarding their position towards abortion.
Both Ben and I happily and proudly wear the t shirt, the hat, the hoodie, the whole nine yards, abolitionists.
That is our position.
We want to see equal weights and measures.
We want to see equal penalties for the murder of the unborn so that we would have equal protections for the unborn child, that it wouldn't be open season on an entire class of people, namely the unborn child.
Because that's the only way to defend the claim that we believe in equal dignity.
You got to have equal penalties so that you have equal protections, so that you have equal value.
The child in the womb is not partly made in the image of God, is not part of a human life, but fully dignified, just as any born person.
The same value, the same weight, the same dignity, therefore deserving of equal protection, therefore mandating equal penalties.
That includes not only the abortion doctor, but also the mother and also a father or anybody else who's involved in coercion.
The second victim narrative is from the pit of hell.
There's our bona fides.
We are abolitionists.
And we're going to make the case for why abolitionists should vote for Trump, who right now is not doing great on the issue of the life of the unborn.
We recognize that.
It's serious.
It matters.
And yet we believe Christians should still vote for Trump.
And we're going to make that case in this episode.
Tune in now.
Applying God's word to every aspect of life.
This episode.
Is Theology Applied?
Welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.
I am your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries.
In this episode, I'm privileged to welcome back to the show Ben Garrett from Ogden, Utah at Refuge Church, also a part of New Christendom Press, and the co host with Brian Sauvet of a podcast called Haunted Cosmos.
Ben, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Joel, for having me.
As always, just good to see you, Ace.
You too.
Wonderful to see you.
Thanks for coming on the show.
Today, we are not going to be talking about unhinged matters, maybe a little unhingedness, but unhinged in a different way.
So it's not the Fordian kind of mysterious Nephilim and Bigfoot and those kinds of things.
We want to talk about something that is deeply theological, but also deeply political, and hopefully be a blessing to the church at large in terms of equipping the saints to think in categories.
And so we're going to be talking about the abolitionist movement.
And the upcoming presidential election between President Joe Biden and former President Trump.
So that's kind of the topic for today.
Ben, do you want to lead off with any thoughts?
I could frame it up for us, but I want to give you a little bit of a background.
I would love to start by saying simply that I am an abolitionist in terms of the end goal of this whole thing, which is that I want abortion completely eradicated from not only the nation, but the world.
And I believe that it will be.
So, this is more a question of methodology and how we apply these principles more than it is of the principle itself.
And so, I would go hand in hand with my abolitionist brothers and say, heck yeah, man, like, keep doing your thing.
It's really good.
I think that most abolitionists do an unbelievable amount of effective work in the political realm, especially at the local level.
Yes.
They know their local magistrates.
They talk to them regularly.
They send them letters.
They organize campaigns to get the right one elected and city council and things like that.
And that's all amazing.
So, I really, I guess, just to start, I'd want to sing the praises of my abolitionist brothers and say that I'm glad to be a co belligerent with you in this big fight.
And so, I want us to all just.
Stay friends.
We can disagree about how we vote in a federal election, and we can both give our defense for why we believe what we believe in that regard, and yet still be like, Yeah, and you're my brother at the end of the day, and I'm going to go to bat with you and get in the shield wall with you.
Amen.
And for those listening, if you are not only an abolitionist in terms of your position, but you are tightly knitted with abolitionist groups such as Abolitionist Rising, Or end abortion now, or some of these different groups abolish abortion taxes.
I think of Bradley Pierce.
I think of Russell Hunter.
I think of Jeff Durbin.
I think of Dusty Devers.
There's a lot of great guys in that space.
And if you're tied with some of them, you might recoil a little bit at one portion of what Ben said when he said, I am an abolitionist in terms of the destination, the goal to eradicate abortion.
But we differ, you said, we differ on the methodology.
And I know plenty of guys who would say, well, then that's.
You're not an abolitionist.
I mean, that's the whole argument is over, you know, how, not just where we're going, but how we're going to get there, the methodology, the strategy.
Is it, you know, incrementalism?
And, you know, the big problem with incrementalism from the abolitionist standpoint to steel man these guys, because I would say that not only are they brothers, but I too would say that I am an abolitionist, whether I'm allowed in the club or not.
I would identify myself that way, whether or not they would identify me in that light.
But I would say that.
The incrementalism problem is that, in terms of the way that it often plays out, it's just splitting the penny a million times.
And so, the reason why both Ben and I are self identifying as abolitionists and the reason why that matters is you might be saying, well, the methodology is that's the whole enchilada.
That is the determining factor between incrementalist and an abolitionist is not where we're going, but how we get there.
However, the reason why I think that it's a little bit more complex than that.
Is because most of Pro Life Inc. has absolutely no desire to abolish abortion.
In fact, they very much have financial and political incentives not to abolish abortion.
Abolishing abortion, America having zero abortion, is actually one of the last things that Pro Life Inc. would ever want to happen because, you know, they'd, well, for one, they'd have to get a job, you know, like they wouldn't be able to continue to milk boomers.
With 501c3 nonprofit organizations that essentially accomplish nothing.
It's just splitting the penny a million times where there is no end in sight.
You talk to most pro life, incorporated, institutionalized pro life leaders and even volunteers, and they abhor the idea of equal protection.
They're very much, as a mantra, they believe the second.
Victim narrative, like guys like Brent Leatherwood, you know, that the mother, she's a victim too, you know, and so she shouldn't have any punishment, much less, you know, should she be treated as though she's committed homicide.
We just want to see, you know, certain penalties, primarily in the form of fines for the abortion doctor.
He's, you know, he's the real monster.
And I would say, well, yeah, he is a monster.
But everybody involved in murder needs to be treated as a murderer.
And that would also involve the serial killer, aka the abortion doctor, the hitman who's paid to murder children by the hundreds and the thousands.
That also involves the mother with intent, that's first degree murder, who goes in premeditated with intent to kill her child.
And for the record, that also involves the father or a grandmother or a grandfather or anyone else in the scenario who might be involved through coercion, who is pushing the mother toward.
That decision, then the father and anybody else likewise needs to be treated under the law with equal weights and measures as though they conspire together to kill a two year old toddler in a back alley.
It should be treated like that.
A life is a life.
Basically, the logic is simple you have to have equal penalties.
Homicide across the board, whether it be unborn or born, needs to be treated as homicide.
If you don't have equal penalties, then you cannot say that there is equal protection.
You have an entire class of people, namely the unborn, Where you have this open season that's essentially been declared.
Like, if you kill someone who's born, you're going to be treated as though you've committed homicide.
If you kill somebody unborn, you will receive either nothing, no penalty at all, or a slap on the wrist.
What you've essentially just said is that there's an entire class of human beings made in the image of God that you're allowed to kill.
Like, imagine if we did that for any other class of people.
You know, you kill a white man and you're in big trouble.
You kill a black man and, you know, maybe you have a slight, you know, penalty or maybe no penalty at all.
People would be enraged.
So, all that being said, I'm saying all these things just to kind of display a little bit of Ben and my bona fides as it pertains to the position of abolitionism.
So, when we say we're abolitionists, we're saying we despise Pro Life Inc.
We think that they're from the pit of hell, that they have no desire to abolish abortion.
Even worse than that, Democrats don't want to abolish abortion, but Pro Life Inc. also doesn't want to abolish abortion and yet wants to lie and deceive.
Conservative voters and donors and take their money as they don't abolish abortion.
So, in some sense, they're worse.
Justice Beyond Standard Bills00:12:56
They're worm tongue, you know, behind the throne of Theoden saying that they're very interested in helping the king succeed, all the while making sure that he stays under Sauron's fist and capable of actually promoting anything good for his kingdom.
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So the line of logic is simple equal penalties.
Without equal penalties for the murder of the unborn versus the murder of the born, if those don't have those two acts, crimes, don't have equal penalties, then you cannot claim to have equal protection.
Equal protection for those who are those lives which have already been born versus the lives of the unborn.
And if you don't have equal protection, then you cannot claim to believe in equal dignity.
That's so that's the kind of the three lines of logic is you know, A plus B, then C.
So equal penalties is the only way, uh, with a clear conscience before the Lord to truly say, uh, by having equal penalties, you've actually set up equal protection, and without equal protection.
Then you cannot claim to believe in equal dignity.
You must, if you're going to be honest, you must say that at the end of the day, we believe that the unborn child is part of a human life.
It has some dignity, some value, but it has a lesser value.
We have decided there will be lesser penalties because we are okay.
We think it's permissible to have lesser protections.
And we're okay with lesser protections because at the end of the day, we believe that there's a lesser value.
That this unborn child has less dignity.
So that's the line of logic.
So if you don't believe in capital punishment for all those involved, including the mother, when it comes to abortion, then it's not just you're not an abolitionist.
You are not holding the Christian position.
You are insane.
You're not being just at all.
You're injustice.
All right.
So those are our bona fides.
In that sense, that's what we mean when we say we're abolitionists.
Now I'll go one step further.
I'll throw a few things out speaking for myself.
And then Ben, you can either say, yeah, I'm with you, or you can say, Yes, but, and clarify your position if there's any way that you differ with me.
Does that sound good?
Sounds great.
All right.
So we've established, you know, first the destination equal penalties, equal protection, equal dignity.
Actually abolishing intergalactic abolishing of abortion.
We want to see it, you know, one day, you know, if Elon gets us to Mars, abortion needs to be abolished there too.
So we're for that, not just in our nation, but the world.
Second, okay, now we're getting to the how, the methodology, the strategy.
I would likewise fall into the abolitionist camp and with some strong disagreements with my incrementalist, even smash mouth incrementalism brothers in Christ in a few regards.
Here's one I believe that at the local level, as it pertains to locally presenting bills, I believe that they must be equal weights and measures, God's standard of justice.
They must be just bills that a Christian cannot propose.
A bill that says you must not murder on Wednesday, but you can commit murder on Thursday.
I would say that that is an unjust bill and that a Christian cannot propose a bill like that apart from it being sin.
Agree, disagree?
What do you think?
Completely agree.
Great.
So now we're talking about methodology, not just the destination, but how we get there.
And we are distinguishing ourselves from your classical incrementalist because the incrementalist, even the smash mouth incrementalist, if I might be so bold, I think this is.
True and a steel man, not a straw man of their position, they would say that you actually can propose unjust bills so long as it's moving the needle in the right direction.
If it's going to result in less murders, then as long as you're, it's not, justice is determined not by the innate position that you present, but merely by comparison.
So long as your position, the bill you propose, is an improvement.
On the last one.
And the problem with that is one, that's not God's standard of justice.
Two, even from a pragmatic approach, and I'm not a guy who thinks all pragmatism is bad.
I think that that's on it.
Let's just be honest the whole attack from Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians on pragmatism over the last 10, 20 years, we should have been clear on that because really what we were talking about was laser lights and smoke machines on the Lord's day.
We're talking about the regular principle of worship, we weren't talking about politics.
Right.
And now, but now there's all these young guys who've been discipled into anything pragmatic is sin, you know, or fleshly, you know, sarks, carnal and not of God.
You know, it's not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord.
Yeah.
David always assembled an army, though.
Right.
Yeah.
So, yes, we, you know, like we don't trust in horses and chariots.
Our trust is in the Lord.
But David still had horses and chariots that were trained and equipped and furnished out of the dowry of the king.
And so, you know, so anyway, so pragmatism is not an inherent evil.
I think being pragmatic at the cost of the regular, of what God prescribes, prescriptive commands for worship on the Lord's day, that is sin.
But there's a distinction there.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Well, especially politically, you want to be as shrewd as a serpent.
You want to be that.
But you also have to be as innocent as a dove.
And so there's a lot of room for pragmatism in the political sphere, not nearly as much in the ecclesiastical sphere, though sometimes there may be some on tertiary issues.
Right.
But when your pragmatism is butted up against a clear standard of God's justice, you can't participate in that pragmatism.
Amen.
Amen.
Okay, so that's so step one was the destination.
What actually are we trying to accomplish?
We're both on the same page, and we would agree that the abolitionists would have no difference with us thus far.
Now we're talking about step two the methodology, the strategy.
How do we get there in terms of bills?
That's the first thing that we're addressing, presenting bills, and we're saying they have to be just bills, bills for the complete abolition of abortion, which again includes equal penalties, therefore equal protection, therefore equal value.
Right there on that step, we again have distinguished ourselves from incrementalists, including smash mouth incrementalists.
And I think we still, our abolitionist brothers would say, yep, so far, so good.
On the same page.
Next thing that I would bring to the table, still in the realm of how.
Methodology, how do we accomplish this goal of abolishing abortion?
Next thing I would say is in terms of local elections, local elections, and primarily in the primaries and selecting candidates, lobbying for certain candidates, running campaigns, working towards, you know, one of the premier examples would be like Senator Dusty Devers.
God bless him forever.
May he live forever, you know, four more years.
You know, and so, That was abolitionists were heavily involved.
Dusty Devers is an abolitionist himself and very outspoken about that.
And that would be a great example of our brothers and sisters in Christ who are abolitionists not LARPing.
I don't think that that's a fair characterization, but actually getting something done.
They got a guy elected as a state senator.
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
Praise God.
Yeah, it's Oklahoma, but Oklahoma is still a state.
Praise God.
And so that's incredible.
So I would say at that level, so bills that you present, they must be abolitionist bills, they must be just.
And then, same with, I think I personally would say the same with candidates in terms of not the final vote for a candidate, but in terms of candidates that you present.
Just like presenting a bill, presenting candidates in terms of your campaigning, in terms of your selection, identifying, lobbying, especially in local elections and especially at the level of primary, local, in the primaries of local elections, same standard.
This guy has to abhor abortion and want to see it abolished.
Okay, so.
What do you think?
Yes?
No?
Yeah, I completely agree.
When a Christian is lobbying actively for a candidate, especially a local magistrate, especially a local magistrate who has a ton of say over his everyday life in the city, he must be able to stand behind that candidate in a way that's more ideal.
Now, the man is imperfect.
There will be sin.
But if the man is directly contradicting God's standard of justice and morality, then at a local level and actively lobbying, For a primary type election, I don't think a Christian should back that man up, should back his play.
If he knows that that candidate is in an adulterous affair with another woman, then it would be foolish of a Christian to say, well, he should definitely be the civil magistrate, though.
Right.
That would be foolish.
Amen.
And so at the primary level, completely agree.
Great.
Okay.
So now let's say still a local election, not federal.
We'll get there last because that's the big thing where I think we would differ is can you be a Christian, an abolitionist Christian?
And vote for Donald J. Trump.
Spoiler alert, you bet your bottom dollar you can.
And you should.
But we'll save that for a little bit later on and flesh out our arguments there.
But so now let's talk about it's not primary.
So we've already addressed bills.
And for the record, the public doesn't vote on bills.
Elected officials, we vote on individuals to be elected to office, both locally and federally.
And then those officials vote on bills.
And that's why the bills presented by these elected officials need to be just.
And the elected officials themselves in the primaries of local elections.
And I would also argue, even at the federal level, in the primaries, we need to be selecting good candidates that meet God's standard of justice.
And I would actually apply here as a general equity theonomy guy, I would apply Deuteronomy 18 as it pertains to the primary, as it pertains to this would be kind of like Acts chapter 7, Acts chapter 6, where the apostles.
So you could do Deuteronomy 18 and think of Moses and Israel, but you could also think of the apostles and the church at Jerusalem.
And a New Testament example, because apparently every evangelical, if it's not in the New Testament, then it's not Christian.
Servant Leadership and Authority00:14:31
So we'll go with that, you know, which is so stupid.
Yeah, Joel, New Testament Christianity.
New Testament Christianity.
Right.
New Testament Christianity doesn't have enemies, even though Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies.
It's, you know, it's weird.
But, anyways, so all that being said, the point is that the church at Jerusalem was commissioned by the apostles to select men to fill the office of what we believe was kind of the origin of.
The diaconate.
And so, but what's noticeable is there's four criteria that is not set by the people.
It's not democratic.
It's not the people and their collective corporate decision, but rather the apostles themselves make four determinations.
One, the timing.
They could have said it six months in advance or they could have said it six years after the fact, but they determined when deacons were required.
We need deacons now.
So they determined the timing of when deacons would be appointed.
Number two, the number of deacons.
Not three men, not 10 men, seven.
We want seven.
Okay, so when deacons would be appointed, how many deacons would be appointed, the qualifications for those deacons.
They need to be men, they need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, endowed with wisdom.
So they need to be qualified.
Here are the qualifications.
So they determine when we need deacons, how many deacons we need, what caliber of men they need to be, the qualifications for deacons.
And then lastly, also the role.
Of that office?
What are their duties?
We need deacons for a particular purpose.
So, you, the church, in a democratic fashion, do not get to decide what the deacons are going to be doing.
So, you don't determine how many we're going to have.
You don't determine when we're going to have them.
You don't determine what their qualifications will be.
And you also don't determine what their task will be.
You don't get to pick seven men filled with the Holy Spirit and then say, and we'd like these seven men to be the party planners committee.
Of the Jerusalem church for conducting outings and fun birthday parties for the families that are members of the church here at Jerusalem.
You don't get to do that.
The apostles have already said, here's the problem, it's urgent, and we need men to fix that, to handle that.
So they also determine not only the qualifications, but their duties.
Do you agree with those four things that the apostles are determining?
Yeah, absolutely.
Anything you would add?
I would add that one of the things that's implicit in that is that because all of those factors are being determined by the apostolic authority, that implies that the diaconate has some level of authority in itself.
And so within the tasks set before them, they have the authority to make decisions, they have agency.
And of course, it's under the oversight of the elders.
They don't surpass the elders in any regard.
But they do have in the church their own authority.
And so you can think of them as a sort of Lesser magistrate of church government within the scope that the apostles or today the pastors and elders of a church have set before them.
Amen.
Yeah, less authority than the elders, but absolutely the office carries authority.
It is not an authority less office.
No office of leadership without authority exists in the civil realm or the ecclesiastical realm or the familial realm with the home.
God always binds both responsibility and rights, privileges, authority together.
It's a package deal, two peas in a pot.
Certain duties without giving the corresponding authority.
So, like a police officer, it's not just serve and protect, right?
They exist to serve and protect, but they're also consequently given a badge and a gun.
You don't just throw them out there.
You shouldn't.
Maybe a Democrat would probably do it, but no sane person, but I repeat myself, no non Democrat would ever have a police force and commission them to go and clean up the streets, but not give them a gun, not give them a weapon.
And so, you're giving, it's always giving power.
Authority is power.
It's always teaming up power and duty, authority and responsibility, always together.
The deacon has responsibilities, and therefore he does have a certain degree of ecclesiastical power or authority to carry those things out.
It is not an authority less office.
Yeah, and if I can add, part of why this is important to the broader conversation, even though it sounds a little more tangential, is because that means that the deacon doesn't have to listen to the members of the church.
For his marching orders.
If a member of the church comes up to the deacon and says, Hey, we really need to fix this, it may be true, but the deacon knows his business.
And so he can say, Thanks for letting me know, no, for whatever reason.
And so when we miss that and we think that that's actually bad, it means that we hate the way that God made the world.
Because what we're effectively saying is that this person who, within the hierarchy of the church, is above me actually should be beneath me.
And so, if you take that to the civil realm, you run into something like this.
I heard that this was going on in Nashville, Tennessee, or Memphis, Tennessee.
The cops there have a no pursuit law.
So, if you run a red light and the cop sees you, he cannot chase you.
What that is is a fruit of a leftist hating the way that God made the world.
They hate hierarchy.
And so, they create these flaccid and useless offices in those Memphis police officers.
That have the title, they have the gun and the badge, but by law, they actually can't do their job.
And it leads to anarchy.
You would have the same thing in the church, but you would also have the same thing in the political sphere if we got so swept up in democracy that we actually started to believe that I was the one who has authority over my city councilor.
No, my district city councilor has authority over me.
That's right.
And him being a servant leader looks like him authoritatively leading me in a beneficent and godly way.
That's the ticket, servant leader.
What you just, I was going to say, you know, one last example, you know, to paint, you know, to show this principle, this bad principle of authority less leadership, you know, to show its danger and how pernicious it is.
We can, you know, we've talked about the civil sphere, we've talked about the ecclesiastical sphere, so with civil magistrates, deacons.
But one last example, and servant leadership is nailing it right on the head, would be in the realm of the family.
Duties and responsibilities to provide and protect, but that he doesn't have authority, right?
When the servant leadership is fine.
The problem, though, is that often in the minds of evangelicals, who 98% of them are feminist, and that's just, you just have to know what time it is.
That's where we are today.
Evangelicals, 98% of them would be horrified if they read Zach Garrison's book.
And a lot of them don't even know it.
No, they don't know it.
Right.
It's like a fish swimming in water and passes another fish and says, Hey, the water sure is nice today.
And that fish says, What's water?
Well, so it is with feminism.
What's feminism?
You've been so indoctrinated and inculcated into feminism that you don't even realize that you're a feminist.
And probably one of the best ways of realizing you're a feminist is to read anybody.
Ever Christian or not before 1945, and see how much you're offended.
If you're offended, then you're a feminist.
If you're offended a lot, then you're an extreme feminist.
And so, um, Allie Beth Stuckey's hardest hit, you know.
So, yeah, I mean, she is a feminist, absolutely.
So, anyways, all that being said, um, compliment I heard somebody the other day they said patriarchy is the view that says that believes in male leadership, feminism is the view that believes in female leadership.
And complementarianism is the view that believes that men should lead in all the ways that their wives tell them they're allowed to.
Yeah, that's really classic.
That's so true.
It's funny because it's true.
Yeah, and it is true.
We were actually talking about this last night at our church's book club.
We get together every couple of weeks, and we were asking the question what is a good definition of servant leadership in the home?
And the answer that we arrived at was me being a servant leader is me telling my wife to wear a head covering.
Amen.
And her submitting.
Right.
That's me being a servant leader because it's me taking the responsibility that God's given me for her spiritual well being, which, by the way, makes me fear and tremble.
And because I'll have to give an answer for that and say, well, you know what I'm going to do is take this seriously.
Yep.
And that means that I say what to do.
Amen.
The servant leader husband, he absolutely can relieve his wife as a pinch hitter.
If it's 8 30 p.m. and the kids just got down, you've got four kids under the age of five, and she's exhausted and had a very difficult day because she's pregnant with your fifth child.
And he can come in as a pinch hitter and say, you know what, go ahead and lie down on the couch, read a book, and I'm going to finish up the dishes.
That's great.
That's that's that's actually, uh, because my wife is pregnant in the mornings.
Yeah, there you go.
And so that's a normal occurrence.
And any husband who would say, uh, there's never a case where I would do that, um, I think is not loving his bride as Christ loves the church.
So that's a part of servant leadership.
The problem is not that we're proposing a servant leadership that precludes that, we're simply trying to get back to true servant leadership that is not, um, that is not.
Exclusive to that.
Most guys today who talk about servant leadership, that's all it is.
And so the problem is that there's two words there servant leadership.
The servant word eclipses the leadership word.
So it's not servant leadership.
They're actually the servant eradicates the leadership.
So there is no leadership.
There's just serving.
The easiest way to express it is like this The question is most servant leadership guys, aka complementarians, aka actually feminists, most of these guys, what they'll say is servant leadership means that a husband leads by serving.
And I would say that's precisely opposite.
No servant leadership means that the husband's leadership is a service.
So if you have a general, the general does not practice servant leadership by going and mopping the bunks and quarters of all the soldiers.
That actually is a detriment.
That's actually not loving them because somebody needs to be spending all of his time.
All his waking hours and staying up late into the night.
Like there was a movie with Tom Hanks.
I forget what it was called.
I think it's called like The Good Shepherd or something like that.
But he's like basically like a captain over this entire, and he's a Christian in the movie.
And it's based off of a true story, but he's like a captain of this warship, a battleship.
And it shows him like he's not, he's foregoing food.
He doesn't have time to eat.
He doesn't sleep.
He's awake for like three days straight.
All this guy.
And the whole time he is, you know, he is, he's not asking like, hey, can I do something for you?
You know, what do you think?
Like he's barking orders the whole time.
So he is giving commands, he's giving orders, he's exercising authority.
But he is absolutely spending himself.
As Christ gives himself up for the church, he is giving himself up for his crew.
And it is only because he's awake for 72 hours straight, doesn't even pause for 15 minutes to eat a meal, and is constantly working and thinking, all from a place of authority and giving commands and giving orders.
But he saves the ship.
He saves, you know, like over a thousand lives are saved because of him.
And all the men recognize it.
And the title is the Good Shepherd.
Like, I love it.
It's like he was, and he's praying through the Psalms any moment that he gets, you know, in between giving an order or that.
Like, it's just, it's awesome.
It's actually, you know, really great film.
And so, but my point is that servant leadership, his leadership is his service.
So it's not I lead by just washing the dishes.
I can do that.
And at times I should do that.
And that's great.
But it's not that I lead by serving.
No, it's that my leadership is a service.
I serve by leading because that's my role.
My wife serves in her role of submission.
And my children, they serve our family according to their aptitude at various ages and development by their obedience and performing certain chores and being involved in the household and in the household's production, overall production, and these kinds of things.
Everybody is serving based off of their office, based off of their capability.
My serving is through direction.
And leadership and through commands at times given in love, but given with real authority, you must obey this command.
And so, anyway, so I am leading, I am not leading by serving, I am serving by leading.
So, all that back to the diaconate, the diaconate, same kind of thing.
You know, deacon means, you know, it's servant, but people think that that just means powerless servant, leadership less servant, authority less servant.
And that is not true.
Now, back to the civil realm and abolition and these kinds of things.
The point is that as it pertained to Deuteronomy 18 and Moses with Israel, I think it's a similar, similar principle there that you have later on in Acts chapter 6 with the seven deacons and the apostles in Jerusalem.
In both instances, it's actually the exact opposite in many ways from our current system.
And here's the thing as you seek to be a Christian, we don't have the luxury.
This is this gets into okay.
So, you've left the realm of pragmatism.
Great.
Uh, pat yourself on the back.
I know you feel really proud of that.
Leaving Pragmatism Behind00:03:11
Uh, but you have entered into the realm of idealism.
We don't need ideologues, we don't need um, principled losers, beautiful losers in our American system.
So, the Christian doesn't have the luxury of doing theology in a vacuum.
We are called to be as faithful as we can in the times that we are given.
Straight up, give us the Gandalf line, right?
What's the Gandalf line?
What does he say?
No one, uh, No one wishes for such times.
But yeah, it's just all we have to decide is what to do with the times that we've been given.
Amen.
Amen.
We don't get to determine the times.
So we don't get to decide the context.
What we get to decide is being as faithful as we possibly can as Christians within a given context.
So it's not the good is often slaughtered by the ideal.
The ideal, you know, it's like how in the world can conservatives and Christians so often, you know, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?
Well, that's actually not all the time accomplished by pragmatism.
Very often, that's actually accomplished on the other side of the aisle by idealism.
Idealism can be just as dangerous.
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Protecting Unborn Children00:09:29
We have so much capacity for this in every other realm except the political.
So often, when you get married, your marriage is an infant, it's a toddler.
And so you have to nurse it and nurture it, and you're more patient, and there's flaws, but you're like, yeah, but we're working towards better, not compromising, but also realizing that sometimes people just screw it up.
And so being gracious and not being willing to just say, well, this covenant doesn't matter because you didn't submit to me that one time.
No, that would be ridiculous.
We do this with our children, we do this with our churches.
But somehow, when we get to the political sphere, we can tend to lose that charity.
That understanding of how the world works, which is through time.
I like to say that providence is perfect beauty worked out in imperfect time.
You're in imperfect time and you have to figure out how to be faithful there.
And oftentimes that's going to look like patience, being patient.
And so part of the point that we have to, and we're starting to get a little bit more to the actual point of where we might disagree with some of our abolitionist brothers, is that you have to be willing to hold in your mind a lot of different.
Priorities and things in the political sphere.
Allow me to give one example.
I don't want a civil war over abortion because I have kids and I don't want them to die in a civil war.
My response to that is.
I've said several times, Ben, I think you're going to love this.
I've said several times that part of natural affections, which is good, right, and biblical, part of natural affections, what that imposes on me as a husband and father is that this is shocking for a lot of reformed, otherwise great Christian men and women.
But I think this is absolutely biblical and right.
Crazy thing here.
I love my children more than I love the unborn children of others.
I love my children more than the.
So if I have two choices and they're both going to murder babies, right?
Like I'm not sitting here saying, oh, Trump is, the campaign he's currently running and the positions that he's currently espousing are really pro life.
No, of course they're not.
I know that.
I know that.
And I also understand that pragmatically, this is an argument, the abolitionists, in a pragmatic sense, they're saying, well, when it comes to abortion pills, you know, and these kinds of things, that at the end of the day, the numbers don't go down.
In fact, you can make an argument from statistics and this, that, you know, blah, blah, blah, that actually the numbers have actually gone up overall.
And so Donald Trump, in a pragmatic sense, in terms of raw statistics, even the ways that he is more pro life than Biden, which isn't much, even in those ways that he is more pro life than Biden, His policies and his campaign, his platform, will not actually save any more babies.
If anything, it might make pregnant mothers even more vigilant to get abortions sooner or to make pills more accessible from pharmaceutical companies and easier to mail in and to order and all these kinds of things.
And so I totally get that.
But here's the deal this is what you can't say.
So I'm not sitting here saying, I'm going to vote for Trump because he's significantly more pro life than Biden.
That's not my argument.
My argument is that he's not worse on the issue of life than Biden.
I think I can certainly establish that.
He's not worse.
So, my position is he's not significantly better.
I'm not saying that, but I can definitively say he's not worse.
So, now what am I able to do?
I'm able to say we're not in a primary, we're in a general election.
I only have two options.
We don't get a veto.
We can't say either one.
We're not the apostles, we're not Moses.
Exactly.
So, and so I don't get a veto.
It's going to be one of these two guys.
And And Trump is better on life, but I understand for all intents and purposes, it's not much, if any, in terms of how it plays out in terms of actual numbers of babies being murdered in a year.
I get that.
So let's just say, and this isn't even true, but I'll steal man as much as possible.
Let's just say they're equal on the life issue, AKA they're terrible on the life issue.
They're monsters.
They're equally evil.
Let's just say that.
And that's not even true, but let's just say that that was true.
Great.
We've established that.
Now, is there any other pertinent issue?
Under the sun, in this temporal world in which we live, besides abortion?
I'll give you one.
And I care a lot about this immigration.
Immigration.
Because I agree with what you said, I care more about my children than any other children in the world, period.
They are mine, they're my responsibility.
I care more about them.
I love them more than anyone else in the world apart from my own wife.
And the threat of immigration to my kids.
Is so incredibly great that I want to do everything I can to stop it.
Amen.
And you live in Mormon town in Utah.
I live in a border state in Texas.
Well, our city just became a sanctuary city, which I know is not the same, but you still live.
That's a big deal.
No, yeah.
And so anything that I can do to say less illegal immigrants, less military aged men, I'm about to have my first daughter.
Right.
I don't want her to grow up in a world where she looks around and she just sees threats.
Amen.
I don't want that.
I have four daughters now.
And so you're daughtered up.
Yeah.
So I have four daughters now and a wife.
Yeah.
And so if I have any say at all, To lower the statistical likelihood of my wife and daughters being raped and murdered, I'm going to use my vote to do precisely that, to increase their safety and lower the likelihood of atrocities being committed against them, aka build a wall.
Aka build a wall.
And to be really charitable, like I want to make clear what I'm not saying is that if a Christian doesn't vote for Trump, it's the equivalent, it's the moral equivalent of voting for Biden.
It's not.
Voting for Biden would be sinful.
Not voting is not sinful, but I think it's foolish.
Yes.
Amen.
Those are good categories.
And it's unhelpful.
And so I would exhort my friends to just think like, okay, the life thing, yeah, it's really ugly.
Everybody hates it.
Moving on.
We'll address that when we can.
We'll keep addressing it at a local level like dogs.
We won't let them sleep.
With bills, with primaries, with local elections, with Dusty Deavers, with all that, with our preaching, with our evangelizing at every level.
Like it says in Isaiah, we won't give the Lord rest.
We will pray and pray and pray and pregatory psalms and all that.
Yes, we don't stop doing any of that.
But you also have to think like there is another thing that exists.
There are other things that exist.
And one of the big ones, one of the most easy ones to conceptualize of its importance is immigration.
And if Biden wins, my kids are going to be threatened.
That's right.
And I don't, threatened more than if Trump wins.
We will likely, if Biden wins, we will likely have another 20 million immigrants.
And most of them illegal.
Some of them legal, virtually none of them citizens.
So even the legal ones would be work visas, student visas, you know, eventually maybe green cards, things like that.
So you're talking about 20 more.
We have 330 million total population.
We've already got anywhere from nine to 20 million just in his first term.
We will likely get that, if not more, in a second term if we have Biden for, you know, for four more years or, you know, he won't live for four more years, but, you know, Harris or whatever it ends up being.
And here's the other thing.
So, one, the protection, natural affections, the protection of our own.
Speaking primarily of our families, our wives, our children.
Second thing to consider, back to abortion and protecting the unborn child, how is it, help me with this, Ben, how is it to our advantage as abolitionists that want to see abortion eradicated from the face of the earth, starting first with our state, our state, and then our country here as these United States of America?
How does it help us to import 20 million more pro abortion voters?
Right.
Yeah, and that is a big deal.
That means the people who are coming.
I mean, it's a landslide.
Yep.
It is a landslide.
It's over 80% of the people who are immigrating in vote for Democrats.
And not even because they're necessarily pro abortion.
I'm not even saying that all these immigrants are pro abortion.
What I am saying Who let you in the House?
Right.
But what I am saying is, I'm not saying they're pro abortion, but I'm saying Democrats are, and they'll vote for Democrats who will see to it that we have more abortion.
And they'll vote for him not because of abortion, but despite abortion, because the one thing that Democrats do that these immigrants want is that the immigrants were let in the House by Democrats.
And so they want Democrats to maintain power so that they'll let their friends and family also in the House in years to come.
Of course, this is basic logic, bared up by statistics.
Building a Protestant Monoculture00:03:11
It's abundantly clear.
And so even at the pro life issue, so one, immigration.
So we're saying Donald Trump is better on life, it's not by much.
And in terms of real statistics and all those kinds of babies murdered, it It not only may be negligible, but there may be no discernible difference at all.
So I'm conceding all that as absolutely reasonable arguments to be made by my abolitionist brothers and sisters.
But then what I want to say is okay, so we've established that.
Let's now pan out to other issues immigration matters for our own wives and children.
So not just caring about the unborn children of others, but caring about the born children of ourselves that we have a moral duty under God to care for first.
And then, ironically, in the providence of God, because God doesn't pit us.
You know, one good thing against another.
God usually makes things fairly clear.
The beauty is that by protecting our own against immigration at the level of an invasion, that also helps on the life issue because it helps on not importing 20 million more Democrat voters.
Right.
But having natural progeny that love the land that they're born in, that have pride in it, and that are Christians.
Amen.
And so they'll grow and be wise.
And Heritage America, just for the record, it doesn't mean a monocolor.
But it does mean a monoculture.
We should have one.
It is not, diversity is not our strength, especially insofar as we're talking about diversity of religion, worship, culture, thought.
That is not our strength.
If we have different colors of people, when we talk about Heritage America, that's what we want to get back to.
Heritage America, it was predominantly Anglo European white, predominantly, but not exclusively.
There are black people in the country that can trace back their ancestry further than I can, that are a part of.
Heritage America, not the first generation Nigerian immigrant, but black people who have been here in their family line for 400 years.
That's a part of Heritage America.
That's what we want we don't want an ethnic cleansing.
We don't want a mono white people, mono color, but we do want mono culture.
And what culture is that?
Well, it's the culture of Heritage America, which was predominantly not only Christian, but it was also Protestant.
We want a pan Protestant mono culture.
Of heritage America, which does include at the level of ethnicity other shades of skin pigment.
That's perfectly fine.
But that's what we want.
We want that because it's true to our fathers.
It's part of the fifth commandment and honoring our fathers.
It also happens to be, it's not just we like this culture better because it's ours.
No, it's not just that.
We like this culture, an Anglo Protestant culture that can have non Anglos in it, like Clarence Thomas is Anglo Protestant for all intents and purposes.
It's been shaped and forged by that culture.
Although he's a black man, praise God for him.
Glad he's on the team.
But this Anglo Protestant culture is the monoculture that we want.
And we want it not just because it's our heritage and it's honoring our fathers and obedience to the fifth commandment.
It's not just because it's ours, it's also because it's better.
Right.
Not all cultures are equal.
Anglo Protestant culture is superior.
What?
You think that your culture is superior to?
Voting Third Party Is Permissible00:15:57
Yes.
Yes.
I think it's superior to Indian culture.
Causes the constituent parts of that culture to flourish more.
Than Hinduism.
Amen.
Of course it is.
All of them.
It just is better.
I'm a Christian and I think that Christianity is better than false religions.
Crazy.
Yeah.
I actually think that I didn't only think that.
I think that they're horrible and like piles of garbage, hot garbage on fire.
One of the things I was going to say.
And when you say there, just for the record, real quick, you're talking about there being the other religions, other worldviews, not the people, the people created in the image of God.
We pray for their salvation and repentance.
Yep.
But those cultures are terrible.
The thing shaping them is a pile of hot garbage that's on fire.
Amen.
And the worldview will burn in hell.
Yes.
To steal a turn of phrase from Stephen Wolfe, it is worth recognizing.
And I know that, you know, I want to belabor the point because I want to show the points of agreement.
Abortion is a civilization level threat, like something like feminism.
Abortion is absolutely a thing that threatens to end society in a particularly vile way because not only does it kill its own people, which it does, but it also brings down heavy judgment from God onto a place.
It does all those things.
It's a civilization level threat.
But there are other civilization level threats.
That's part of the point I'm trying to make.
And one of them is this immigration thing.
And so, as we're trying to work through how we balance these principles, First of all, stay true to your principles and don't sin against your conscience.
But also ask yourself okay, let's say Trump was actually really good on the life issue, except he allowed the birth control pill, which virtually everyone would not bat an eye at.
But those who know, know that the birth control pill is an abortifacin.
Yes.
So would that still demand that you don't vote for him?
Like, where along the line of explicit approval of abortion to implicit approval of abortion through a birth control pill?
Do you say, okay, he can get my vote?
I would encourage people to think through that question because, um, if you do and you say, well, he would just never get my vote, only someone that thinks just like me would get my vote, then I think you are running the risk of being an ideologue.
And ideologues are unhelpful politically, amen.
Um, even at your local level, if you start to take that mindset into local elections, it will be uh, actively adversarial to the end that you're trying to achieve.
So I would just, yep, no, that's good.
So to get back to what we were saying earlier, you said, Ben, that, um, That you believe that, number one, it is not morally equivalent to not vote at all or to vote third party versus voting for Biden.
So we would say voting for Biden would be a sin.
Yes.
And here's the thing just to clear that up because to play the devil's advocate, they would say, why?
Why is it a sin to vote for a Democrat?
Because it's always been said that the reason why it's a sin to vote for a Democrat is because they're pro abortion.
But if the Republican counterpart is, for all intents and purposes, pro abortion also, then why is it not a sin to vote for him?
And I would say, well, I'm glad you asked that.
That's something that needs to be cleaned up, just like the pragmatism thing earlier.
Pragmatism is bad as it pertains to the regular principle of worship on the Lord's day and clear prescriptions in scripture for worshiping in spirit and in truth, not according to the inventions or devices or preferences of men, but what God has written down in Holy Writ.
Pragmatism in that category is sinful.
It's not just less than ideal, it's actually sinful and wrong.
However, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Pragmatism in every sphere of human life is not inherently evil.
It is good to be pragmatic and shrewd and strategic in other realms and Including especially politics.
So that's something that needs to be cleared up.
Well, here's another one that needs to be cleared up.
Because if you're saying it's a sin to vote for Democrats because they're pro abortion, we do need to add some clarifications to that.
It's a sin to vote for Biden in this upcoming 2024 federal election because he's the most evil and unjust candidate.
So it's a sin to vote for the worst.
It is a sin to use your vote to help ensure that the most evil possible actually occurs.
Yeah, because here's the thing.
That's a sin.
Right.
Like you're not voting.
You're not, when you cast a vote in a federal election, especially, you're not saying my vote is an explicit approval of everything about that particular candidate.
Right.
What you're saying is my vote is an expression that says I want this place to look more like he wants it to look.
And Biden is worse.
Right.
It is less godly.
It is less beautiful and good and true.
And it's a sin to vote for the worst candidate.
The thing, like to vote for him would be like, you know, someone breaking into your house.
And they say, Hey, I can either kill you with a gun or I can just threaten you with a knife.
And you say, I'll take the gun, please.
Both are bad, but the gun is really stupid.
And you'd be an idiot to do that.
Right.
Yep.
Amen.
And if there is a wife and kids in the house, and so you're not just jeopardizing your own life, but also the life of your family, then not only are you foolish, but you're actually in sin.
That choice is so foolish and so harmful to others, not only yourself, that you're actually sinning against those that you have been commissioned by God to love and cherish and protect.
So, all that being said, that's why it's a sin to vote for Biden.
Because he is the worst option who will do the most damage, the most harm, the most injustice, bring about the most judgment of God upon our nation.
It is a sin to vote for Biden because of those reasons.
So, all that being said, earlier you were giving categories and saying, like, you know, it's a sin to vote for Biden, but it's permissible not to vote or to vote third party.
And I just wanted to clarify that and say, I agree with you.
And you said, I don't think it's a sin for some of our abolitionist brothers and sisters who are, I can't vote.
My conscience won't allow me to vote for Trump.
We would say, we don't think you're in sin, but we think you're being less than true.
So we disagree with your decision, but we're not going to accuse you of clearly sinning against the word of God.
So we think that that is a permissible option.
So voting for Biden is not permissible.
That is sin.
It's not only foolish, it's sin.
Voting third party or not voting at all, we would say is not sin, but we do think that it is less than wise and that it's not a good decision, but it's also not a sinful decision.
Decision.
And then lastly, we think voting for Trump is also not sin.
It's permissible.
And we think in this, you know, because again, back to what I was saying earlier, we don't get to do the Christian life in a vacuum.
We, you know, we have the times that we were given.
And so we're striving to be as faithful as we can in the context that we currently have.
And so we would say voting for Trump, not only is it not sin, but we think that in this scenario, it is the best option before us.
And so we think it's not only a, by voting for Trump, are you avoiding a sinful decision, but you're also making, in this particular case, the wisest decision.
Decision that you possibly can, given the set of circumstances.
And then all that back to the whole, we don't live the Christian life in a vacuum, but we live in a certain place in a certain time with certain circumstances.
All that as it pertains to Acts chapter six with the seven deacons and the apostles, the church in Jerusalem, and Deuteronomy 18 with Israel and Moses.
Here's my point with the circumstances, we don't get to do the Christian life in a vacuum.
The circumstances that we have, I started to say this earlier and I want to come back and finish it, it's precisely the opposite.
With Moses and also with Jerusalem, the people, so the congregation of the Church of Jerusalem or the nation of Israel, it's the apostles and Moses who are saying, When do we need these guys?
Now.
How many guys do we need?
This many.
Seven in the case of the deacons, the church in Jerusalem or in Israel, if they had whatever, let's say they had a million population at the time.
If that's the case, then we need guys over tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands.
So that's going to give us this many people, 100,000.
You know, over, you know, to be over the tens and then some more to be over fifties and hundreds and thousands.
So, when do we need them now?
How many do we need?
X amount.
And then, what are the qualifications for the guys?
These are the qualifications.
And then, also, what is the task of the guys?
This is the task.
Moses can't, you know, Jethro, his father in law, gives him this counsel.
It's from the Lord providentially, it's good counsel.
You can't be mediating every single conflict in all of Israel.
You need other guys who could exercise wisdom and judgment to mediate the lesser cases and the greatest cases, they come to you, kind of like our court system, you know, in the Supreme Court and these kinds of things.
It's a good system.
Here's the deal, though the people are ultimately, it's the people who are selecting the men.
Who are going to be leaders over tens and fifties and hundreds and thousands.
And then they're going to bring them to Moses.
This is implicit.
What's explicit in the text is the qualifications, the number of people needed for this particular office, the task of what they're going to perform.
That's explicit in the text.
But I think implicitly, almost a necessary inference, maybe not that strong, but implicitly, what we have is that the people, Moses is not going to find 100,000 people.
He'd spend the rest of his life.
The irony is so thick there because the whole council is Moses, you can't do all this as one guy.
You need to delegate power.
You need to designate other leaders to help you with the task of ruling over Israel.
Moses, there's not enough time in the day for you as one man to make all these decisions.
So, Moses, you just need to make one decision.
You need to decide 100,000 times, right?
Guys over 10, there's a million people in Israel, give or take.
Well, that's silly.
You don't have time, Moses, so I need you to spend even more time.
Identifying 100,000 dudes to be leaders to free up your time.
That makes no sense.
So I think implicitly, my point is implicitly, in the same way that the church, the apostles aren't selecting the seven men who will be deacons, but they are saying the timing, the number, the qualifications, and the task.
Likewise, Moses is saying the timing, the number, the qualifications, and the task.
But then it's the church, the congregation in Jerusalem that goes and brings them in to the apostles, right?
And I think it's the congregation in Israel that selects them in.
That is precisely, we need to get this.
Okay, because I'm a general equity, you know, theonomy guy, but we need to understand that's precisely the opposite of our current system here in America.
That's the opposite.
The regime selects the guy, and then the people get to have the veto and vote between two guys when it comes to a not primaries, but when it gets to a general election, and certainly when it gets to a general federal presidential election.
By the time it gets there, and that's what we're debating right now, can a Christian at this juncture This far into the proceedings, can a Christian vote for Trump?
That's what we're talking about.
That's the opposite of Deuteronomy 18.
Deuteronomy 18 is Moses says, Here's the guidelines.
Now you find me these guys.
Right.
No, that's the opposite of what we have.
We have the regime, the oligarchy.
In many ways, we're talking about corporations.
We're talking about money.
We're talking about big pharma.
We're talking about CEOs.
And then we're talking about slimy politicians.
And we're talking about this and that.
And it's the regime that selects the guys.
So this would be like the opposite.
This would be like, Instead of you bring me the 100,000 men who will be over tens in Israel, you being the congregation of Israel, the people, you bring me the guys, and then I'll set them up in positions of leadership.
In our current system, it's we'll bring you the guys, and they'll both be awful, to be sure.
We'll bring you the guys, and then you just get to pick which guy.
So, to apply, my point is to apply a general equity system, and I'm a theonomist.
I would differ from some of the, I'm not as insufferable as some of the hardcore reconstructionist theonomists, but I am still.
That's where, at the end of the day, I would hang my hat, as I would say, general equity theonomy.
But you're seeking to apply a general equity principle of Deuteronomy 18 or Acts chapter 7 or Acts chapter 6, apply it in a system that is precisely the opposite, that is precisely backwards.
We don't get to, you get to do that to a degree in the primaries, right?
So the last thing I'll say is this is Steve Dace, God bless him forever.
I don't agree with him on everything, but he's a friend.
I appreciate him.
And Steve Dace, I think, modeled for us well.
This principle, what Steve Dace did, living in the times that he's been given, recognizing I want to be faithful to scripture, but I also have to recognize what system I currently live in.
And so I'm not being faithful as an ideologue in a vacuum, but I'm being faithful tangibly, practically, really.
You might call that actual faithfulness in the times and the context that I, in God's providence, actually have been born into.
And so what does Steve Dace do?
During the season, heading towards a presidential election where the people got to choose the candidates, aka a primary.
What did he do?
He picked a better man to back than Donald Trump.
Yep.
That's what he did.
Now that that's over and he gave it everything he had.
I mean, Steve Dace, you know, for better or for worse, you know, he pushed DeSantis, right?
And at times, you know, it was a little bit insufferable.
And then, you know, but other times, but I saw what he was doing and I appreciated that was a Christian instinct.
That was a Christian instinct.
And I really, I love that about our brother in Christ, Steve Dace.
And so he said, no, you know, I don't hate Trump.
I'm not a never-Trumper.
I appreciate what God has used him to do, you know, and appointing Supreme Court justices and overturning Roe and all these things.
I don't have a vendetta against Trump, but I do believe that DeSantis is a better man.
I think he's more moral.
I think he has better policies.
I think he's proven himself.
Trump was really good for his first three years, but his fourth year kind of sucked.
DeSantis, when Trump was folding on some things, he didn't fire Fauci.
You know, he's bragging about warp speed operation and, you know, vaccines to his own detriment against his base.
I mean, just, you know, really missing that.
Thread, you know, but DeSantis did the opposite.
You know, he, you know, he opened up, you know, the state of Florida and blah, blah, blah, and, you know, was against the mask, you know, and all this kind of stuff.
He's saying DeSantis is a better man, better policies, better action, better proof in the pudding in terms of how he's actually legislated, how he's governed, and better morals.
You know, he's not an adulterer, you know, as far as we know, these kinds of things.
So DeSantis is a better man.
I'm a Christian.
Vote for DeSantis.
And he said, Vote for DeSantis.
Vote for DeSantis.
And he said it again and again and again for almost a year.
And then we moved past, right?
Being faithful to the times we've been given.
Then we moved past that time.
And then we were all of a sudden in the next leg of the race where it had been determined for us, whether we like it or not, that DeSantis will not be president.
At least not now.
You've got two choices.
And the moment that happened, Steve A said, All right, that's a bummer.
And I'm grieving over this loss.
I know you guys are bummed too.
All right, so get out there and vote for Trump.
Yeah.
That is Christian.
That is so simple.
It's really, this is not rocket science, rocket surgery.
But it's so simple.
But that, I love that.
That is right.
So that was him in the Deuteronomy 18 and Acts chapter 6 phase, where the people actually get to bring, according to the qualifications laid out by Moses or laid out by the apostles in the church of Jerusalem, AKA primaries in our American system, he said, let's bring men who actually fit God's standard.
Yes.
Choosing the Better Candidate00:16:05
Right?
And then the second we move past that and that's no longer an option, And we don't get to be ideologues doing theology in a vacuum, but we have to do it in a certain place in time within the providence and circumstances that God lays out.
Then he said, okay, so now let's do the most possible righteousness we can with the circumstances that we've been given, aka vote for Trump.
Yeah, there's four points that I'd want to make to reinforce that.
One, really simple the political realm is the realm of the possible, not the ideal.
It's the realm of potential.
And it's important to remember that.
You can't have the same level of idealism that you have, say, with a church officer that you do with a political leader.
He ought to be a moral man, an upright man, a statesman, you know.
But at the same time, you also have to realize that the political is the realm of the potential, the probable, the possible, not.
The certain, not the ideal, not the already proven case file of work.
The possible, not the perfect.
Yes, exactly.
It's important to remember that.
Two, it's important to see along the line of American politics where we switch from something that is more Acts 6, Deuteronomy 18 ish, to something that is the inverse.
Just like what you were saying, Joel, when you're at the local level, you can lobby.
The single citizen guy can actually run and win.
He can run for mayor and he can actually win.
That's crazy.
Dusty Devers is an example of this.
It's more local level, and you can lobby and push, and you actually can present a man to the state, the governing state, and then the state can give you a decision on that, whether yes or no.
But then when we switch to more federal level, that changes and it does become the inverse.
And so if you try to approach it in the same way that you approach the local level, you're going to run into brick wall after brick wall because it's different.
And one of the ways in which it's different, this is the third thing.
Is that in Deuteronomy 18 and then implicitly in Acts 6 as well?
There could have been and maybe was, we don't know, a scenario wherein the people presented a man and the apostles said, not him.
They have the power to say, no, you're going to have to just pick somebody else for whatever reason.
Okay, we can't do that at the federal level.
Unless it's this theoretical case in which for a presidential election, nobody votes.
But even then, the electoral college would probably still just pick somebody.
We don't get a veto.
We don't have a veto.
We don't say, not him, not him either.
You're going to have to just bring us two different candidates.
That's not an option.
Right.
And so it behooves us to pick one, whichever one is less bad.
And then the fourth thing because one of them will, as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, one of those two guys will be president in 2025.
Yes.
Yes, unless the only choice we get is we had opportunities earlier in God's providence, it didn't work out.
He does all things well.
At this point, we only have two choices.
We don't have the third choice of neither.
We only have two choices.
One of these guys will be president.
So then the question is for our wives, our children, and our neighbors, is one choice better than the other?
And if so, then the commandment to love our neighbors behooves us to vote for that guy.
Who is not quite as evil as the other?
I was about to say the fourth point is the love your neighbor aspect of this.
Your neighbor, including your children, no, no, you're fine, is really helpful.
Your neighbor, including your children at the top level, your wife and children, and then the people that live right next to you, and then people further out.
Proximity really does bear on how you ought to prioritize which neighbors you love in which way.
Just for the record, the Good Samaritan, because people are, well, he was a Samaritan.
They weren't the same ethnicity or they weren't the same religion or they weren't, you know, whatever nationality.
No, no, no.
That is not only does that not debunk the argument of an order of affections rippling out, a triage of neighbors, but it actually reinforces it.
The reason why it was imperative that the Samaritan help that man was because of his proximity.
It wasn't proximity in the metaphorical light of being the same skin pigment, color, or being the same nationality.
It was the literal geographic proximity.
Why is the Good Samaritan?
Obligated to help this man who's bleeding out and dying because he's there.
He's right next to him.
He's literally in his proximity.
He's right next to him.
Well, likewise, at a national level, there is an order of affection.
So it's like, well, love your neighbor.
Well, who's your neighbor?
Well, yeah, all mankind, all human beings created in the image of God, which is all human beings, are my neighbors.
We live in a particular family, the family of God.
Not everybody's my brother or sister.
That comes through faith in Christ.
But everyone is my neighborhood.
We have a universal.
God is a universal creator and he has placed us in a universal neighborhood, but he is a particular father and we have a particular family in terms of brothers and sisters.
So, God is creator of all and everyone is my neighbor.
And I'm called not just to love my brother, but to love my neighbor.
So, that means everyone.
Here's the problem though we're not talking about sin, the category of sin and fallenness.
We're talking about the category of creatureliness and finitude, not fallenness, but finitude.
And in the realm of finitude, because I am not God, so even if I'm perfectly sanctified, even in a hypothetical scenario where I was perfectly sanctified, here's the deal.
When Jesus finished his earthly ministry and ascended to heaven, were there still sick people?
Well, Jesus failed to love his neighbor.
Yeah, I mean, he even said, you know, there were many widows in Israel at the time of Elijah, but he just picked the one.
Right.
So the point is, there's something to be said for finitude.
And in the case of Jesus, he's God and infinite, but he is also the God man.
He took on flesh, he could only be in one place at one time, those kinds of things.
That's what I'm talking about.
So in the realm of finitude, I, we're not talking about, oh, because you're sinister and you're selfish and you show favoritism and, you know, because of your fallenness.
Because you're a sinner.
No, no, no.
I'm talking even in a best case scenario, like AKA Jesus, right, who was full of the Holy Spirit, impeccable, without sin, all these kinds of fulfilling all righteousness.
Even in the case of Jesus, he did, you know, Joseph Smith, you know, Mormons hardest hit, but Jesus, for instance, did not go over to the Americas and heal all the sick Indians and help them, you know, to kick their peyote, drug addictions.
Think of the Canaanite woman, you know, well, Lord, even the dogs eat the crumbs off the kids' table.
Right.
And, you know, before that, Jesus said, it's not right to give the children's food to the dogs.
That's right.
And then she says that.
And of course, it's her faith that, you know, that then saves her.
But the thing is, Jesus wasn't wrong to say that at first.
Jesus wasn't wrong to say, Yeah, he wasn't wrong to say, actually, I'm not here for you.
I'm here for my people.
I've come for the lost sheep of Israel.
Exactly.
In saving them, I'll fulfill the promise to Abraham.
You will be blessed.
And here's proof your faith has made you well.
Amen.
Amen.
But to kind of like one example is, So, Paul tells us to prioritize the people within the kingdom of God with our charity and our love and our affection first.
Relations.
Prioritize the household of faith.
And then the overflow of that is things outside the church.
So, one practical example is I care much more about the well being of Joel's family than about the immigrants coming over illegally through the border.
Amen.
I would be failing to properly order my loves if I thought, no, they're probably just hurting.
They need some more economic opportunity.
I doubt they're all criminals and racists.
They just really need help.
Just let them come on in.
Let him invade my friend's state.
That would be a complete disordering of loves.
And so I want to tie this back to kind of where I was going with the love of neighbor thing in regards to this general election.
And that is that it's not a matter of me saying that the abolitionist who, because of his conscience, isn't going to vote for one of the candidates isn't loving his neighbor.
That's not what I'm saying.
I believe that they are loving their neighbor by using their lack of a vote to send a message to the political sphere.
That they have to do better.
I'm trying to be really charitable.
According to their conscience, that is exactly what they're doing.
And we understand that.
We appreciate that.
Practically speaking, in real terms, I don't think that's what it accomplishes.
I don't think the message works.
I completely agree, but I don't want to accuse them of not loving their neighbor because I don't think that's what they're doing.
What I do think is that we have to take that stance from them and say, okay, fair enough.
But that's not the only way to love your neighbor.
You could also love your neighbor by voting for one of the candidates.
Or you could hate your neighbor by voting for one of the candidates.
And so it's not so much a matter of, well, you're not loving your neighbor and I am.
It's more a matter of understanding the times and figuring out which thing is more loving to your neighbor, including, again, your wife and kids, the person that lives next to you, literally, the people in your neighborhood, your city, your state, your nation, and then everything else outside of that.
And so I just want people to understand that we're talking about understanding the times and matters of wisdom here.
And you do have to do some mental calculus and figure out, okay, If I'm using ones and zeros, is it more loving to my neighbor to vote for Trump or is it more loving to my neighbor to not vote at all, hoping that it'll send a message to the GOP to do better?
That's the question that you have to ask yourself and eventually answer before it comes time to vote.
Amen.
Yep, that frames it perfectly.
That is the question.
And you and I obviously have a particular answer.
Our answer is that we think that voting for Trump is more loving.
That whatever message you think you're getting across to the GOP, even in the best case scenario, Even if that message does get across, um, you've just now like let's just play it out you've just now signaled to the GOP, um, you must do better, you have to produce for us a better candidate.
So in 2028, uh, we need to see DeSantis or whoever on the ticket for the general election and uh, and not someone like Trump, okay?
Uh, but by sending that message, Biden got elected, and so now you've got a better candidate, but you're going up against potentially 20 million more Democrat voters, right?
So you've you've You've spent the asset of time in order to send that message right now.
And the thing is, it is a message that has to be sent.
Like the GOP simply does have to do better.
They suck.
And they're crisis.
So here's the question.
So exactly, I love how you just said, so you forfeited time in order for quality.
And even to be fair, the potential of quality, because you actually don't know if that message is going to work.
So you're forfeiting time for sure.
That one is definitive.
So you are giving up four years.
To maybe get a better quality candidate four years from now.
So you're saying, I will forfeit these four years for 25 through 28 for a better 29 through 32.
But the problem is, number one, you don't actually have it guaranteed that your message will be heard and that you'll get a better candidate.
And then number two, you just lowered significantly.
And I would argue significantly because it's like, oh, well, 20 million, like that's ridiculous.
You're being hyperbolic.
No, no, no.
It is.
The lowest numbers are 9 million, and that's not even Biden's full term.
Just in the first three years of his term, 9 million, 3 million being legal, give or take, and 6 million being illegal.
Those are the lowest numbers.
There's a ton that haven't been tracked.
The highest numbers go all the way up to potentially 20 million.
And then you're like, yeah, but you keep talking about it being voting and they don't get to vote.
They are pushing legislation right now successfully where you don't have to prove citizenship to vote.
Yeah.
The SAVE Act just got denied.
Like, this is a really real threat.
And there's another piece.
It really is potentially 20 million, if not even more.
And it really is voters.
Shouldn't be, but it is.
This is a.
An opportune election for the GOP.
I'm not going to say that you don't, you know, don't let perfect be the enemy of good because I don't think Trump is a good person.
Right.
But he's certainly less bad than Biden.
So don't let perfect be the enemy of less bad, maybe is what I'd say.
But then, even, even, you know, tying more of these factors together, okay, Biden has said he is going to run, you know, and he is the candidate for the Democratic Party, even after his hilarious debate against Trump.
Wherein he proved himself to be utterly inept.
And even CNN was scrambling to try to find a way to spin it.
And finally, they just gave up and said, oh man, maybe we just need to find a better candidate.
That means that we have an especially good opportunity to get a Republican president now.
So if we spend the asset of time right now to send that message, I understand that's a valid strategy, but I just don't think that it actually works with what's happening, boots on the ground, because in four years, Biden can't run again.
And so, the Democrats are going to get to put forward the person that they want.
Yes.
And whoever.
Yeah.
Like that means that you have given four years for more moral degeneracy in the US at a more rapid rate, which I understand.
Not saying the GOP would be not morally degenerate, but it's less rapid.
And so, people are going to be more enthralled with the idea of this moral degeneracy and this sin.
And then the Democrats are going to be able to put forward the candidate that they really, really, really want.
Which is going to be a person that's probably worse than Biden in almost every measurable way.
And so, if the GOP receives that message from you and they do what they ought to do, which is give you a better candidate, people aren't going to like him because people will be more morally degenerate than they are now.
This is the way that covenant works.
If your covenant head in your nation is wicked, then the people are going to be more wicked.
That's right.
You get Josiah as king and you get a better people that follow.
You get a wicked king and you get a worse people that follow.
And so, by having Trump, you slow.
And we're not sitting here saying Trump is virtuous, but you slow the degeneracy, that progression of further degeneracy among the American populace so that a better candidate, better than Trump, is more palatable to the people in 2028.
So here's the last thing I was going to say.
Here's an option that I think is the correct option that Christians, and I think it falls well within the boundaries of you still hold firmly your abolitionist card.
We started this going, you know, step one, step two, step two.
Here's what I would say you want to send a message to the GOP and to Trump.
If he gets elected, you want your president to get the message of not just give us someone better than Trump four years from now, but also, Trump, you, right now, be better.
So here's what I would suggest you're saying you want to send a message to the GOP, but also what we're advocating for, Ben and I, is saying, but you also want the best four years now that you can get.
So, that message with the GOP, if they do listen to it, you actually have a chance with the populace of having a moral enough people and also just enough voters and not 20 million more Democrat voters to where that better candidate the GOP hypothetically puts forward could actually win.
Winning to Send a Message00:07:03
So, all that being said, you need to send a message, but you also need to win this election.
You need to win this election and send a message for next election.
So, what I would suggest is why not just do that?
Why not vote for Trump to win this one and then give him your vote and don't give him your endorsement?
Do what me and all these other faithful Christians are doing who are abolitionists, who completely despise the second victim narrative, who want equal weights, equal measures, equal protection, all these kinds of things.
Think Brent Leatherwood is unregenerate and going to hell and wicked, all these kinds of things.
Why don't you do what we're doing?
Here's what we're doing we're going to vote for Trump.
And we're going to spend starting right now.
I've already been doing it for months, but we will spend the next four years.
We'll give him our vote.
We will pray that he gets office.
And we'll spend four years saying, Mr. President, repent of your sin.
Protect the unborn.
Don't you dare do that.
That's wicked, Donald Trump.
Do not do that.
Repent.
Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
Legislate righteously.
Enforce righteous laws.
You're building a wall.
You're protecting our border.
Thank God.
Also, don't be a murderer of babies in the womb.
Like, why don't you do that?
Why do you have to send the message by not voting?
Why don't you send the message by literally just saying the message, but also ensuring that we don't get 20 million pro abortion voters over the next four years by throwing your vote into the wind and ensuring another second Biden term?
I think that is a viable option where the Christian and the abolitionist Christian, but I repeat myself, could hold that position.
With a clear conscience before the Lord, it's strategic, it's shrewd, it's also principled, it's pragmatic, but not in an inherently evil way.
It's principled, but without being idyllic.
I just think that's the path.
I think that it's shrewd and I think that it is still innocent as well.
And part of the reason that we're zealous about this at all and the passion and the way that we're talking.
Is because we, again, like just to reiterate, recognize the value in the good work that abolitionists do in the political sphere.
And so, like, the asset that would be there if we had the most committed, dedicated abolitionists, where like God made them, and when He made them, He's like, that's what you're for.
You are for defending the rights of the unborn, you are for defending the life of the unborn.
If we could have those guys, and I know that they'll do this if Trump wins, like, they'll do all of that.
But if they could also make it so that they cast their vote for a man that will maybe, maybe be more likely to hear it, I think that would be a huge value.
And so that's part of why this is even important to address recognizing that there's absolutely no anathematizing going on whatsoever.
There's no accusations of sin going on whatsoever.
It's more of a pleading to say, let's do this and let's do it arm in arm and give them everything you got so that they actually do hear your message strongly.
And it's unavoidable.
Because it is like Trump's life policy and the GOP's life policy right now is unacceptable.
It is unacceptable, but it's less unacceptable than the Democrats.
And maybe there's a chance that we could hold the line and actually have them backtrack and repent for it.
The Democrats are given over.
Their Romans weren't down to the very, very bottom.
GOP, maybe they are.
I'm not God, but maybe they aren't.
But less than the Democrats.
Yes.
Yep.
So I'm with you.
And then that's just all to say.
And then that's just on life, which is a big, massive issue.
And I would argue the biggest, but that is one issue.
And there are other issues.
And the GOP is handedly better on all the other ones.
Economy.
Yes.
I love my neighbors.
I'd like them to not be poor, right?
Immigration, all these other things.
Here's another one foreign policy, foreign affairs.
You love your neighbors.
Here's something that would be unloving towards your neighbors World War III.
Right.
Or even if not World War III, more money going to the Ukraine.
Or it's incredibly unloving to your neighbors.
Billions of dollars to Ukraine and Israel.
Yeah, so yeah, exactly.
Keeping your tax dollars, not love your neighbor means if you have a say in the matter, using your say to make sure that your neighbor is not robbed or robbed less, you know, like so, all those kinds of things.
But there was one thing that you said, and we can land the plane here.
And this is why I think it matters.
The reason why this whole conversation matters is because you said, you said, we are not saying that our abolitionist brothers and sisters are in sin if they disagree with us and don't vote for Trump.
But the reason why I wanted to have this conversation is because not all, I would even argue it's a minority, but some of our abolitionist brothers and sisters, they are saying that it is a sin to vote for Trump.
In fact, they're even saying that it is a sin to the level of pastoral disqualification to vote for Trump.
That has been publicly said.
Any thoughts on that?
I would hope that.
Maybe this discussion between you and I could help them see that that's not true.
This isn't a flippant decision that we're making.
It's one that's being weighed quite heavily, that has a huge bearing on my neighbor, my family, my nation.
And it's not something that I'm hoping to get away with.
And it is something that I've thought long and hard about and believe with my redeemed heart that I can stand before God.
And say with a clean conscience, yes, this is what I did and why.
And I don't think that it's sinful.
So I would ask them to be charitable as we work through how to apply these principles as we are trying to be charitable to them as well.
Amen.
All right.
Any final thoughts for the end of this episode?
I feel like we got it all out, left it all in the field.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me on.
I feel great.
It's nice and hot here and there's no AC, so I'm sweaty and just loving life.
Yeah.
Another reason to vote for Trump.
The president.
President has control over the weather.
We know this.
That's right.
You know, what is it?
The cloud thingy.
What is it?
Yeah, you're doing some cloud seeding.
Trump is against cloud seeding.
No, I don't know if that's true.
All right, man.
Well, thanks, Ben.
Love you, dude.
And thank you for the listener for tuning in and staying with us to the bitter end.