Speaker | Time | Text |
---|---|---|
President Trump and I was there. | ||
I was literally negotiating between the White House and Congress. | ||
The president had me here and then I would go across the street and speak to Speaker Pelosi. | ||
Speaker Pelosi would tell me to go back to the White House. | ||
So I was negotiating between the White House and Congress on this. | ||
There was a great deal. | ||
President Trump even surprised me! | ||
With the number of dreamers, he increased it times two. | ||
He went from 800,000 to 1.6 million dreamers. | ||
Pastor Sam, we're going to give dreamers a pathway to citizenship as long as I get my wall and protect the border and stop all illegal immigration. | ||
And I went back to the speaker. | ||
We negotiated something and then Chuck Schumer came along and said, we're not going to give President Trump a win. | ||
Do your due diligence on this. | ||
It's been extensively covered. | ||
I'm Dave Rubin and joining me today is the president of the National Christian Leadership | ||
Conference as well as the author of Be Light, Reverend Samuel Rodriguez. | ||
Welcome to the Rubin Report. | ||
Thank you for having me. | ||
I'm glad to have you, because there's obviously a lot going on in your world, not only just past Easter and the Passover season, but obviously there's a ton going on on the immigration front, and many of the things that I've been seeing you talk about, mostly on Fox lately, are a lot of the things that I talk about on this show, and you made some sense on cable news. | ||
That's a pretty rare thing these days, so I thought I could have you on. | ||
For the people that don't know you, can you give me a little bit about your backstory first, and then we'll move into I'm a kid from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. | ||
Hence Bethlehem. | ||
unidentified
|
I have a messianic complex. | |
My dad was a Mack truck worker. | ||
My mom was a homemaker. | ||
I graduated from Lehigh University. | ||
I was raised in an evangelical home. | ||
My parents are not preachers. | ||
I'm a faith and science guy. | ||
Ronald Reagan inspired the living daylights out of me and just prompted | ||
this commitment to changing America and the world with a value system that's | ||
Judeo-Christian base but this radical idea of God over man and man over | ||
government and so that's what we did. | ||
My commitment is to reconcile Billy Graham's message of Dr. King's march. | ||
I call it the Lamb's Agenda. | ||
It's doable. | ||
So you said a faith and science guy. | ||
I know my more skeptical audience members, their antennas just went off. | ||
What does a faith and science guy mean? | ||
Yeah, I'm an evangelical Trekkie, so I'm a faith and science guy. | ||
I believe that science is the wonderful horizontal expression of the reality of a living God. | ||
I follow everything from quantum physics. | ||
My encounter with God at the highest level took place in my undergraduate studies at Penn State University in a quantum physics course. | ||
So I did not come through the normal, you know, watching a television Christian broadcast. | ||
Can you explain that a little further? | ||
That's pretty interesting. | ||
Yeah, math and science. | ||
It blew me away. | ||
The Newtonian laws, Leipzig, the ever-increasing reality of a universe that continues to expand, the beauty of the Big Bang, the intricacies of the minerals that are out there in the universe, likewise on this planet, likewise in your bloodstream and my bloodstream, the mathematical probability of that happening by chance, it requires you to have more faith. | ||
Not to believe in a designer. | ||
And I'm sorry, I don't have that crazy cuckoo for Cocoa Puff faith. | ||
It does require you to have more faith to believe this happened by chance. | ||
And just the math and the science all adds up. | ||
I'm a student of a guy named Francis Collins, who oversees the National Health Institute right now. | ||
And he has been for a number of presidents for Obama and Trump. | ||
So again, He discovered to a great degree, unpacked better yet, the human genome and he is a believer. | ||
So again, I don't create a dichotomy between faith and science. | ||
I think it's beautiful. | ||
It's one metanarrative stream that speaks to a wonderful architect, a designer, a God. | ||
Do you think that one of our biggest problems discussing this is that too many people do, oh, it's just either or. | ||
You're either a believer in God or you're a believer in science. | ||
These things can't touch. | ||
Right. | ||
That is a false dichotomy. | ||
Because I am a believer in God, I'm a believer in science. | ||
Absolutely. | ||
And because I'm a believer in science, I'm a believer in God. | ||
It's one continual stream. | ||
I think we suffer from cognitive dissonance, like we're lacking the sort of cerebral bandwidth and Wi-Fi to really look at the big picture. | ||
And if we do adhere to, succumb to, or acquiesce to the idea of a designer, then everything else becomes a little bit more palpable. | ||
And if that designer has a plan for the universe, does he have a design and a plan for individual lives? | ||
And then it becomes more personal. | ||
And that's where I come in as a pastor and a preacher and dissect that and bring it about every single Sunday. | ||
Yeah, so speaking of your job as a preacher, in this last year where we've had lockdowns and pandemic and people out of work and all of that stuff, have you noticed people looking for something different spiritually or from the church? | ||
You know what, you would assume that a global pandemic would catapult the measurement or the metric of agnosticism, right? | ||
Just from a logical continuum. | ||
If there's a God, how can he permit, you know, that it is the quintessential query, right? | ||
If there's a God, why does he permit evil to happen? | ||
That sort of thing. | ||
So a global pandemic, you know, over 500,000 deaths in America, Well, guess what? | ||
Every single survey, including one I just read four days ago, the level of spiritual hunger has increased exponentially. | ||
Now, I'm not saying it's for organized religion. | ||
I'm saying the level of spiritual hunger has increased exponentially. | ||
So people are hungry for a relationship with God, for greater spirituality, spiritual awakening, awareness. | ||
So that's where we come in. | ||
And that's why I thought back when Governor Newsom in California, in our collective state, you and I are part of that. | ||
You are in California, you are in California, yeah. | ||
I didn't want to out you, you outed yourself. | ||
I outed myself. | ||
When he deemed casinos and liquor stores essential, but churches and synagogues, not. | ||
Are you kidding me? | ||
You know, guess who gets the call for health issues? | ||
We do. | ||
When young men and women, right now, greater numbers in California, as it pertains to, it's unfortunate, the suicide rate, drug abuse, alcoholism, depression. | ||
We've never seen these numbers. | ||
Guess who they call? | ||
They don't call the guy in the liquor store. | ||
So Jack Daniels, You should not trump Moses and Jesus. | ||
It's illogical, but that's what Governor Newsom did while he was having dinner at the French Laundry, and that's another story for another day. | ||
My audience knows that story well, so fear not, we don't have to dive too much into that. | ||
But you mentioned sort of the role of God, of government, of man, all of those things. | ||
You've been able to piece something together that's pretty holistic that sort of forms your political views as well, it sounds like. | ||
God over man, man over government. | ||
That's the pecking order. | ||
That's American exceptionalism. | ||
That right there. | ||
God over man, man over government. | ||
And when government grows, it's gonna sound a little bit naive, or, you know, here it is, government grows, it pushes man and God out of the way. | ||
This uber-dependency on government And this unbelievable obsession with Uncle Sam, it's not part of the ethos of our Founding Fathers. | ||
It isn't. | ||
It's anti-American. | ||
This obsession with God, with government, instead of our God-ordained giftings and abilities, Uncle Sam is an uncle. | ||
He'll never be our Heavenly Father. | ||
He's just an uncle. | ||
So we respect the uncle, unless the uncle gets drunk in that family party. | ||
We respect the uncle, but we worship God. | ||
And right now, and even the recent proposals from the Biden administration from the not just the 1.9 trillion, but now the infrastructure bill, all of this. | ||
This unbridled growth of government, ladies and gentlemen, government is becoming our God. | ||
And we are what we tolerate, so we're tolerating it. | ||
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure the uncle is drunk at the moment. | ||
He's drunk and he's spending a lot of other people's money. | ||
Do you view that obsession with government as just the next step down the road because of the God-shaped hole? | ||
That if basically you are not a believer, You gotta believe in something, and then government just kind of fills it in. | ||
Do we have measurable elements that we can dissect historically so it's not hype and it's not rhetorical exuberance? | ||
Can we measure it? | ||
Let's measure it. | ||
Right after World War II, 76% of all Americans attended a church or synagogue. | ||
76%. | ||
That number, according to last week's survey from Gallup, is now 48%. | ||
For the first time, What does this mean? | ||
Let's not forget what we were fighting back in the 40s and 50s. | ||
Communism. | ||
This idea of unbridled government being God. | ||
Stemming out of the USSR, through China, all around the world. | ||
Here it is. | ||
It's 2021. | ||
Government is growing. | ||
God, God meaning the belief in God, is decreasing in America. | ||
It's directly parallel. | ||
It's directly proportional. | ||
The more we get away from God, the more government plays a role in our lives. | ||
I'm telling you, it's replacement theology. | ||
It's not like we're doing away with God and then there's this great vacuum. | ||
There is spiritual hunger and there's hunger. | ||
This is going to seem a little bit difficult for me with my worldview. | ||
This issue of dependency. | ||
So who do we depend on? | ||
God or government? | ||
And we are replacing God and his abilities, giftings, his wisdom, his preordained institutions of family, and so forth. | ||
We're replacing that with government. | ||
It's big government. | ||
Big government is anti-Christian, it's anti-Jewish, it's anti-Judeo-Christian value system, it's anti-American. | ||
And right now, we are drinking the Kool-Aid all under the guise of a pandemic. | ||
So how do you blend that with what I know you believe, which is a separation between church and state? | ||
What should the role of religion in state be then? | ||
Is it just up to the individuals? | ||
Should the state be fostering it somehow? | ||
And I know you've done this before, and just let me, for the audience's sake, that separation of church and state, that Jeffersonian letter, to that amazing church. | ||
We have totally taken this on the ideological left. | ||
They have taken that out of context. | ||
And it's church should not have a place in the public sphere. | ||
Quite the contrary. | ||
Please do your diligence on this. | ||
Jefferson is writing saying government should never have the right. | ||
We have to separate government from thinking it even has the notion or the right for a moment to quelch silence limit to somehow hinder obstruct the free expression of worship and faith. | ||
So Jefferson is saying government better not touch faith and religion. | ||
Not the other way around. | ||
Not that religion and faith shouldn't touch the public sphere. | ||
We have a place in the public sphere. | ||
People of faith. | ||
Even that beautiful faithful expression, George Washington referenced it at the latter portion of his presidency, about this commitment to faith is the backbone. | ||
of this new American experience. | ||
Abraham Lincoln reiterated that. | ||
Dwight David Eisenhower again. | ||
Ronald Reagan, of course, elevated it to the stratosphere. | ||
Yes. | ||
So I do believe that we, and right now that's not happening. | ||
Right now, government is telling me that I have to change my theology in order to accommodate cultural shifts that are generational specific. | ||
I mean, are you kidding me? | ||
There are laws as we speak, including the Equality Act, which is not equal. | ||
Other attempts to diminish my ability to speak what I believe is truth, eternal truth, truth that stems from a natural law, from a moral compass that's way beyond your generation and my generation, that is the backbone of civilization. | ||
And somehow I'm supposed to sacrifice truth on the altar of political or cultural or generational expediency. | ||
So yes, there is a separation, but to protect the free expression of faith. | ||
How much of your time as a pastor is devoted to that? | ||
I mean, basically inoculating your congregation from the whims of the day. | ||
Because I hear from all sorts of faith leaders that social justice is creeping into their synagogues, creeping into their churches, et cetera. | ||
And again, even the notion of social justice, I believe in biblical justice, which, biblical justice, which is Micah 6a, do justice, love mercy, walk humbly. | ||
It's Psalm 89, 14. | ||
It's Luke chapter four. | ||
So I believe in biblical justice and biblical justice is an extension of righteousness. | ||
So, when all these things happened last year, I looked at my church. | ||
Here's an interesting thing. | ||
My church is 40% white, which is code word for Caucasian, 40% black, which is African American, and 20% Latino and Asian. | ||
I am blessed to oversee a very beautifully multi-ethnically diverse congregation. | ||
When everything happened last year, I approached the podium and I said, ladies and gentlemen, Biblically speaking, address any and all vestiges of bigotry, and we'll do it with the authority of Scripture, but we won't do it in the name of any movement that runs counter to the values that you and I hold near and dear. | ||
We will not do it in any movement's name. | ||
As a Christian, we're going to do it in the name of Jesus. | ||
So, again, we can separate, but when churches begin to drink the Kool-Aid of social justice as interpreted by the ideological left, it's not just troublesome, it's the beginning of the slippery slope. | ||
I would even argue the biggest problem in America right now is not even moral relativism or cultural decadence or even big government. | ||
The problem in America is a lukewarm church. | ||
It's a church in a religious community that's drinking the Kool-Aid and we're bowing? | ||
We're bowing at the altar of race? | ||
Somehow race just became God. | ||
Do you realize that there are pastors that speak more about race than they do about Jesus or Moses or Abraham? | ||
So race and sexuality just became idols. | ||
And we are worshiping on the altar of the gods created by culture. | ||
Created by individuals who are inclined to a morally relativistic worldview, who embrace anarchy and chaos. | ||
And we're bowing to this, and that's the problem in America. | ||
So what do you think the flaw was in the leadership of either the churches or the temples, or probably in the mosques as well, that allowed the people that are supposed to be the leaders, like you, the pastors, To allow it in? | ||
Was it the fault of the pastors for allowing it in? | ||
I mean, if enough people are coming to them with something... It's leadership. | ||
It always does. | ||
It always falls on leadership. | ||
It always falls on leadership. | ||
And we are all, and I'm part of the collective leadership motif here, we're all to blame. | ||
We are. | ||
We need to repent. | ||
It's a 2 Chronicles 7, 14 moment. | ||
We need to repent. | ||
We really do. | ||
We've permitted this. | ||
And by the way, it's this. | ||
unidentified
|
Like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like. | |
We are more committed to likes and followers than we are to truth. | ||
And when we're more committed to likes and followers than we are to truth, we begin to water down truth, acquiesce truth, surrender truth, and then our children will reap the consequences of our complacency. | ||
Today's complacency is tomorrow's captivity. | ||
And right now we are complacent and we're comfortable. | ||
And it's a shame because our children are watching and they're going to pay the price of secular totalitarianism, of socialism, of communism, of anti-science. | ||
There's no biology. | ||
Human physiology doesn't matter. | ||
Science doesn't matter. | ||
They're going to reap the consequences of our activities in our generation. | ||
Yeah, I can now see that my audience will get why I wanted to have you on because you're hitting so many of the topics that I talk about all the time. | ||
I want to talk to you about immigration in just a bit, but what else did you find in this past year that people were coming to you? | ||
Because I do sense what you hinted at there about a spiritual awakening. | ||
I've been saying for a while, you know, at a micro level, I think an atheist or an absolutely perfect secular view of the world can work, meaning individual people can do that. | ||
I think it takes a certain type of person, but I think it's possible. | ||
But at the macro level, it just simply can't work. | ||
It can't work. | ||
And even the atheists and agnostics, who I have some as friends, when we have these conversations, these sort of metaphysical and cosmic conversations of the big picture, I call it the extension of the Big Bang. | ||
It's still happening. | ||
And they even allude to the fact, many of them, even some of them that are pretty prominent, have referenced the fact that for society to function, we need a set of morals, mores, a value system that has a viable religious spiritual component to it. | ||
They don't negate that. | ||
It's part of who we are as human beings. | ||
It's part of our spiritual genome, without a doubt. | ||
So yes, I have seen in the past year, not only just spiritual hunger, but I have seen likewise This fear of what's next, of the immediate sacrifice of our ability to express ourselves spiritually as it pertains to faith and religion at the drop of a dime. | ||
How we have surrendered so much and how government is so much more powerful than we ever, ever would have conceived or thought of. | ||
That fear is there. | ||
Are you shocked how quickly everyone just kind of put their hands up and said, okay, I'm not going to go to church anymore. | ||
I'm not going to go to temple anymore. | ||
I'm not going to go to work anymore, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
I am blown away intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. | ||
We just surrendered everything. | ||
I mean, everything. | ||
unidentified
|
And it wasn't even proof, meaning it was theoretical back then, right? | |
We had no idea. | ||
So you could argue because we had no idea, we had the right. | ||
I don't know if you had the right. | ||
I really don't. | ||
Here's what I discovered, Dave, that my constitution is only as good and viable as long as we don't have an emergency. | ||
So my God-given rights come to an end when a virus or any other government deemed emergency. | ||
Yeah, whatever is that. | ||
Yeah, they're not absolute. | ||
They're not eternal. | ||
Because government can take away. | ||
Scary times. | ||
It's revealing, it's exposing some weaknesses in the collective of what we call the American experience and the global human experience for that matter. | ||
Yeah, so first off, I normally don't ask a guest to come back in the middle of a show, but I'd love to have you come back when we do some more panels on religion and I'll get you on with some other religious leaders, because I think we can unpack a lot of that stuff. | ||
But I want to shift to immigration, because that's sort of how you got on my radar. | ||
So there's obviously a lot going on at the southern border right now. | ||
I'll just sort of give you a vague question here, which is how should we be thinking about what's going on here? | ||
Because it's getting very, very difficult to even understand what's remotely true. | ||
Meaning, okay, did Obama start the cages and are the cages worse because of Trump? | ||
And then they got better. | ||
And now it's like everything feels like just such a mess. | ||
So I can, I can give you not anecdotally, but I can give you from being involved since George W. Bush. | ||
I worked with the Bush administration matter as an advisor. | ||
I worked with Karl Rove directly. | ||
And I worked with Obama for eight years on this matter. | ||
And I worked for President Trump on this matter and other matters, by the way. | ||
So here it is. | ||
Wow. | ||
This is chaotic on multiple levels. | ||
Let me lay it out for you. | ||
We have the ability to solve this. | ||
We can solve this. | ||
The immigration crisis is just the outcome of political expediencies on both sides of the aisle. | ||
George W. Bush had a great proposal, should have passed, didn't pass. | ||
A couple of people from the Republican side put a halt on that, and that's a shame. | ||
During the Obama administration, President Obama made healthcare a priority, sacrificed immigration, and that's a shame. | ||
And he had two years, by the way, to do it. | ||
Yeah, he could have done whatever he wanted. | ||
So this is the fault of, again, healthcare trumps immigration. | ||
President Trump and I was there. | ||
I was literally negotiating between the White House and Congress. | ||
The president had me here and then I would go across the street and speak to Speaker Pelosi. | ||
Speaker Pelosi would tell me to go back to the White House. | ||
So I was negotiating between the White House and Congress on this. | ||
There was a great deal. | ||
President Trump even surprised me. | ||
with the number of dreamers. | ||
He increased it times two. | ||
He went from 800,000 to 1.6 million dreamers. | ||
Pastor Sam, we're going to give dreamers a pathway to citizenship as long as I get my wall and protect the border and stop all illegal immigration. | ||
And I went back to the speaker. | ||
We negotiated something and then Chuck Schumer came along and said, we're not going to give President Trump a win. | ||
Do your due diligence on this. | ||
It's been extensively covered. | ||
So what do we do now? | ||
Right now in the border we have a crisis. | ||
Guess what? | ||
The cages were built by President Obama's administration. | ||
It's just a fact. | ||
It's just a fact. | ||
They were from the Obama administration. | ||
That's a matter of fact. | ||
Even the pictures that were used against President Trump were from the Obama administration. | ||
So that's a lie that became, not truth, that was perceived to be truth by mass media. | ||
Currently right now, they're in the same places that President Biden and Kamala Harris spoke against in every single debate. | ||
They are actually putting young men and women, boys and girls, in the same identical places. | ||
I kid you not. | ||
The same identical facilities with the same identical conditions. | ||
It actually seems far worse, aren't they more packed now? | ||
It is. | ||
It's way more packed than I should know. | ||
I've traveled to these centers. | ||
I've been there. | ||
I've interviewed custom border patrol agents. | ||
Many of them attend our churches. | ||
So I even did some sidebars. | ||
I went, hey guys, tell me the truth. | ||
Just as people of faith, Please tell me the truth. | ||
Off the record, they went, hey, Pastor Sam, we're not like setting this up to try to convince you of anything. | ||
This is the reality. | ||
So I've been there. | ||
The reality is right now under the Biden administration, there is a greater crisis than ever during the Trump administration as it pertains to children coming in. | ||
It is tragic. | ||
I mean, the stories are heartbreaking. | ||
Babies, toddlers, we're talking about toddlers. | ||
As a pastor and as a dad, It's heartbreaking to see the images. | ||
And this is because the Biden administration gave a wink and a nod for people to come over. | ||
They did. | ||
They can't deny it. | ||
They did. | ||
And now we're reaping the consequences. | ||
But there is a solution. | ||
And here it is. | ||
Here's a proposal. | ||
Number one, We need to secure our border. | ||
We're a sovereign nation. | ||
Open borders doesn't work. | ||
Open borders invites sex trafficking. | ||
The drug cartels, they are smiling. | ||
The cartels are smiling right now. | ||
This idea, this notion is so anti-American. | ||
And as a pastor committed to ending human and sex trafficking, I repudiate what's currently taking place at the border. | ||
We need to secure the border. | ||
Stop all illegal immigration. | ||
We want people coming here legally, not illegally. | ||
And we can't have it both ways. | ||
We can't permit more people coming here illegally, breaking the law, and then we're telling people they must wear masks. | ||
Which is it? | ||
Right. | ||
So there's a segment of society that has to adhere to the law, yet there's a group of individuals that don't have to adhere to or obey the law. | ||
That lack of continuity subconsciously creates a construct which leads to behavior that produces chaos and anarchy. | ||
A lack of coherency, right? | ||
So we have to make up our minds. | ||
Let's protect the border, stop illegal immigration, and we can do it even, not just through a physical wall, infrared technology, satellite imaging. | ||
Come on, we could read the license plate from a car in Afghanistan from a satellite. | ||
We can stop thousands crossing over the Rio Grande with backpacks. | ||
So we have the technology to do it. | ||
Let's do that. | ||
Let's stop all illegal immigration. | ||
The second thing we must do is get the dreamers on a pathway to become citizens. | ||
Just the dreamers now. | ||
Because I still believe the kids should not pay for the sins of their parents. | ||
Some of your audience would disagree with that. | ||
I just find it to be logical. | ||
If you were brought over when you were 3, 4, 5 years old, I mean, come on. | ||
Right, and now you're 20 years old. | ||
Are you kicking these people out of the country? | ||
Yeah, and you grew up here, you don't even speak Spanish. | ||
You know, you grew up in our educational system. | ||
Let's find a pathway, as long as you're not involved in various activities, you're not involved in gangs, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
Let's have these individuals become citizens. | ||
But their parents, that's where I differ, where I'm even maybe too conservative for some of my friends on the right. | ||
I don't think that the parents who came here illegally should ever become citizens. | ||
So what do you do with them? | ||
There's a price to pay. | ||
We give them a green card. | ||
So this is what we do. | ||
If you're not living off government entitlement, if you're not living off welfare, and I know that you're probably using false social security numbers. | ||
That is a crime. | ||
You're going to have to recognize the fact that you broke the law. | ||
That you have been breaking the law. | ||
You should be paying some fines, but you've been here for 20, 25 years working, and some of these individuals are some of the hardest working individuals I know. | ||
I live in California, so that's just giving freaking truth to power. | ||
And they attend our churches, some of the most beautiful people on the planet. | ||
They should have come here legally, by the way. | ||
All right. | ||
Did that ship sail? | ||
Yes, but there's a price to pay. | ||
We're going to give you a green card. | ||
Stay in America. | ||
You no longer have to fear being deported, but you're never going to become a citizen. | ||
There's a price to pay. | ||
How in the world can we compensate people that came here illegally with citizenship for crying out loud when there are people waiting in line legally in nations attempting to come into this country the right way? | ||
It's just wrong. | ||
So my proposal, which I gave to President Trump, and I gave it to a number of senators that are just close friends, I said, here, here's the proposal. | ||
I call it a just integration solution. | ||
And I think the vast majority of Americans would embrace this. | ||
As a matter of fact, I know because we did some polling and they actually would, including members of the Freedom Caucus, the most conservative individuals who say that sounds fair. | ||
That sounds fair. | ||
All right, there's a lot of different ways we could go here. | ||
So what do you think the wink that you're talking about, the Biden administration wink, what do you think it really is all about? | ||
So if they're telling, you know, cause they're kind of like, don't come, maybe come in a few weeks, you can kind of come, but what do you think they're actually trying to accomplish with the wink? | ||
Are they trying to get all these people there? | ||
And do they have any intention of actually doing what you said, which is we've got to secure a border and it's the right of every sovereign nation to do so. | ||
I don't think, and I say this with great due deference, I don't think the current administration has any viable commitment. | ||
I can't measure it. | ||
If you can't measure it, then it's not legit as it pertains to this outcome. | ||
I don't see any sort of evidence that this administration is committed to protecting the sovereignty of America. | ||
None. | ||
There are many open border operatives that come from the hard ideological left. | ||
And right now, unfortunately, they seem to have the ear of our president. | ||
And it is unfortunate. | ||
It is. | ||
So I think the objective is, there's twofold. | ||
There are those, and I can't judge everyone across the board. | ||
I'm looking at political outcomes. | ||
There is a group of individuals that really, with a great heart, would love to see America, you know, emerge as the phrase on the Statue of Liberty, the place of refuge and hope for people that are broken around the world. | ||
But that's utopia. | ||
We can't open up for the entire world. | ||
We just don't have the bandwidth. | ||
We're not the new Jerusalem, if you're an evangelical or a Christian. | ||
You know, this is not heaven. | ||
This is not the new earth, whatever you want to call it in your theological worldview. | ||
We're not there. | ||
So we can't, we have to protect our borders. | ||
The second thing is, and this seems a little bit more complicit, but I know there's some conversation with leadership on the hard left, There is an attempt to change America with more voters. | ||
There is, and it sounds, oh, that's just wild, Sam. | ||
No, it isn't. | ||
Again, some people are doing it with good intentions, yet Pollyanna-ish, a bit of an utopic sort of worldview. | ||
And then there are some that have a more, I would call it wicked sort of imperative, which is, let's change the demographical landscape to such a degree That we're going to secure power for generations to come. | ||
That's wicked because you're dealing with human lives, beautiful people created in the image of God that are seeking a better day. | ||
We want them to do it legally. | ||
I believe immigrants are a blessing and not a burden if they come here legally. | ||
But I believe it is wicked and morally reprehensible to use human beings as political pawns. | ||
So did you get any sense that Trump just could not, or I guess this is the sense you got, | ||
Trump just could not get anything done because no matter what he was gonna offer, | ||
that at the end, even if Pelosi kind of nodded to it, Schumer was gonna blow it up, | ||
or I don't even have to blame Schumer, but just that the machine was just gonna say, | ||
"We're not gonna give the guy a win. | ||
Sure, he's gonna double the amount of dreamers, but we're not gonna give him a win on the wall." | ||
And this is just how bad politics is. | ||
That deal was one of the best deals that I've seen since working on this since 2006. | ||
It really was. | ||
And I met with POTUS, with President Trump on this, and I met with General Kelly, Secretary Nielsen back then, and I was blown away. | ||
I'm going like, what just happened? | ||
Like, what? | ||
And his commitment. | ||
Amazing. | ||
And even when President Trump would speak to Hispanic Americans, to Latino Americans, He would repeat that, you know, and I'm going, whoa, this is not part of the collective sort of media exacerbated narrative of a racist president. | ||
It's not. | ||
I mean, you know, which is it? | ||
Right. | ||
And what he offered was a great deal that should have. | ||
And again, Democrats have said no, because we can't give him a win with the Latino community and we can't give him a win on immigration. | ||
I mean, that just destroys our narrative. | ||
And it's a shame because again, they're playing politics with human lives. | ||
Yeah, so speaking of the Latino community, I wonder either within your congregation or just in your life, you know, there's a lot of people saying that the Latino community that has come here legally and thrived for now generations, that they're actually more anti-illegal immigration than the average white liberal because they did it the right way and they're sort of being bucketed in with this whole thing. | ||
That's actually, that's not like hype or theoretical. | ||
That's proven through surveys time and time again. | ||
And even recently, in the past 48 hours, the Latino community wants to stop the crisis at the border and wants to stop illegal immigration. | ||
Yeah, without a doubt. | ||
The assumption that Hispanic Americans and Latinos are this just part and parcel group of a left-wing ideological worldview? | ||
No, quite the contrary. | ||
I can tell you firsthand, and the numbers don't lie. | ||
So 36% of Latinos supported an agenda of what I call life, religious liberty, biblical justice, limited government in the 2020 election. | ||
And in Florida, that was close to 50%, which was the game changer in Texas. | ||
So, and by the way, 44% of all Latinos voted for George W. Bush in 2004. | ||
So the idea that Latinos will probably become the future of the conservative movement in America, if I were a betting man, which I'm not, Yep. | ||
I would, I would put some money on that. | ||
The future conservative leaders will probably be Latino because we're committed to faith, family, hard work, and limited government. | ||
So when you hear AOC and others elevating the notion of socialism, Hispanics are going, are you kidding? | ||
We have cousins in Venezuela who are literally starving. | ||
I don't mean like, I mean literally starving because of socialism. | ||
In Bolivia, in Nicaragua, in Cuba with communism, and you're telling me that socialism is the next for America? | ||
So when Latinos see government growth, we get anxiety attacks. | ||
It's acid reflux. | ||
Yeah, well, I can tell you, I was just in Miami and the Cubans of Miami, trust me, these are the most pro-America people you have ever, you can't even imagine a group of people that would be more pro-America, actually. | ||
Indeed. | ||
That's why I do believe, let me tell you who's in more danger, the ideological left is in more danger because of the demographical shifts in America. | ||
Again, all we need to do is if we are committed to God over man, man over government, to limited government, to personal responsibility, to our Judeo-Christian value system as it pertains to morality, to nurturing family structures that are just flourishing, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
If we're committed to that, then we have to engage the Latino community at a different level. | ||
And all of us must have a greater conversation and understand that, Dorothy, we're not in Kansas anymore. | ||
How do you blend your ability to lead a congregation, but to also be a public figure, to talk about politics, but also talk about religion? | ||
I'm sure when you're given a sermon, you're trying to be as careful, well, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but I would imagine you're as careful as you can be to not be overtly political, and yet so many people now, because politics is in everything, come to you for some sort of political leadership, and because you've also worked with at least three administrations. | ||
Correct. | ||
I think that the legitimacy of working with three administrations, and I did not vote for all of these presidents. | ||
I did not. | ||
I am staunchly pro-life and I'm not ashamed of that. | ||
So I made a commitment to God and to my family that I would never vote for a candidate that's not pro-life. | ||
I just believe in the ethos of life and what it means. | ||
But with that being said, it gives me that sort of legitimacy. | ||
Number two, I just want to speak truth with love. | ||
So I never come out with sort of anger, on occasion righteous indignation hopefully, but speak truth with love and love people even when I disagree with them and respect them. | ||
So I just don't tolerate them. | ||
It's going to become very hippie-ish now, California hippie-ish. | ||
So, I love people that I disagree with. | ||
Because I'm a Christian, I'm called to love, not just tolerate. | ||
So, I disagree with you, but I respect you and recognize that you're created in God's image. | ||
So, I love you, even though I disagree with you bitterly. | ||
And that's the sort of way that I look at things and approach things from preachings to sermons to public platforms on the most critical and divisive of issues. | ||
I think you slightly just answered this, but because it's the Easter season, because we just passed Easter, can you just talk a little bit about how Easter, the message of Easter, is important right now? | ||
Yeah, you know, as a Christian, again, that message to me is just powerful. | ||
And coming out of this COVID-19 pandemic, the fact that Jesus came out of the tomb, enables us to come to the reality that with that resurrection power, Romans 8, 11, the Apostle Paul writing said, the same spirit that resurrected Jesus lives in you. | ||
We can come out of despair. | ||
We can come out of anxiety, fear, confusion, chaos. | ||
We can come out of brokenness. | ||
We can come out of the most dire of circumstances. | ||
Jesus came out of the tomb. | ||
You and I can come out of the most precarious negative of circumstances by faith. | ||
That's the resurrection message, that there is eternal life to the vicarious atoning work of Christ. | ||
And there's life even beyond this life. | ||
But when we're on this side of eternity, we can be light and live out that life where I just don't ask God for a blessing. | ||
I ask God to make me a blessing, where I ask God to make me the answer to someone else's prayer. | ||
I really believe that through that resurrection message, we can change the world. | ||
Do you ever have doubts anymore? | ||
Yeah, absolutely. | ||
And to say I don't would lack integrity. | ||
Yes. | ||
And this is going to sound awkward. | ||
I embrace them because it reminds me of my humanity and it prompts me to have a continual conversation with God, with my thoughts, to prune, to test my ideology, my belief system. | ||
I think it's beautiful. | ||
And I don't think God is ever afraid of our questions. | ||
Ever. | ||
I think we have a God who welcomes queries and questions. | ||
I love it. | ||
I just absolutely love it. | ||
Hey, Adam and Eve, Genesis. | ||
God turns around and says, after the fall, hey Adam, where are you? | ||
Like he didn't know, right? | ||
It's just a question of, find yourself. | ||
Do you know where you really are? | ||
Really, in life, with me? | ||
With purpose. | ||
Where are you? | ||
So I love questions. | ||
Doubts don't bother me. | ||
I welcome them. | ||
As long as they don't Put a lid on my faith. | ||
I'm curious, did you track the rise of Jordan Peterson at all? | ||
Were you paying attention? | ||
Full disclosure, I'm a fan. | ||
unidentified
|
Oh, OK. | |
All right. | ||
Well, then that's a perfect segue because, you know, as you bring up Adam and Eve and we can talk, obviously, about biblical stories, you know, he did so much on these biblical stories. | ||
And what I saw that was so fascinating when I was on tour with him was that people who were not religious, They were either atheists or agnostic or just sort of a-religious or hadn't really thought about it much. | ||
Suddenly they're hearing him talk about these stories that they kind of know through culture or maybe some religious teaching or something and it was changing them and it was just incredible for me to see night after night. | ||
Now these narratives of scripture are full of truth and virtue and life lessons that are eternal. | ||
Eternal. | ||
To this very moment is very our. | ||
If we pass these teachings down from one generation to the other, there's hope for the next. | ||
Indeed. | ||
What else is on your mind right now, sort of as, not only as a preacher, but as a leader, as someone involved in the political world? | ||
unidentified
|
I mean, what else are you thinking about right now? | |
I am concerned. | ||
I actually spoke to my wife about this before we came together for this interview. | ||
Last night I said, honey, I need to be careful. | ||
I find myself on the fence dipping a little bit on, not drinking the Kool-Aid of despair, but things are just going to hell in a handbasket legislatively as it pertains to values and rights that we have. | ||
I'm concerned about the next generation. | ||
I don't want to go into a pit. | ||
So what's in my mind is instead of focusing on the darkness, turning on the light. | ||
And how do we do that? | ||
Let's mobilize people. | ||
Let's message and mobilize for the purpose of not drinking the Kool-Aid and tolerating this reality as if we could do absolutely nothing to build a firewall. | ||
I want to build a firewall of righteousness and justice. | ||
I have this crazy worldview that we can do this. | ||
We can push back. | ||
Moral relativism, cultural decadence, big government telling me there is no such thing as gender and truth and science and faith and God. | ||
We can push back against anarchy and chaos. | ||
That's what's on my mind. | ||
A multi-generational, multi-ethnic movement of righteousness and justice, truth and love. | ||
That's what's on my mind. | ||
Well, with that in mind, do you think we can recall this Gavin Newsom guy or what? | ||
I sure hope so. | ||
I sure hope so. | ||
We need to flip California because it's just crazy. | ||
This is secular totalitarianism. | ||
It's crazy. | ||
It's nutty. | ||
Are you shocked? | ||
Are you shocked that so many, I mean, the thing that always gets me with Californians, especially I'm in LA, it's like they always know something's wrong. | ||
If you ask someone, how's it going in LA? | ||
Everyone's like, oh, there's homeless people everywhere. | ||
The drugs, the taxes are high. | ||
And then, and then you're like, all right, well, you do realize we've just voting for one party endlessly forever. | ||
And they can't seem to put that together. | ||
Yeah, and by the way, that's Pete Wilson. | ||
God bless him. | ||
He did that, I kid you not. | ||
California, listen, folks. | ||
Dave knows this, Sam knows this. | ||
California, you've got to engage the Latino vote. | ||
unidentified
|
You have to. | |
It's the demographic of reality, right? | ||
And way before. | ||
This is not just now. | ||
That's just California. | ||
So when he came along and just alienated, flipped off the Latino vote, boom, that was the beginning of a downhill sliding cycle that he gave California to one party. | ||
And it's dangerous, one party rule. | ||
However, the level of frustration right now and angst It's up here. | ||
So we have moderate Democrats and what I call thinking Democrats that don't drink the ideological Kool-Aid, but are centrist and more moderate, more common sense. | ||
The JFK, that remnant, that's still around, minority, but still around, that John F. Kennedy sort of Democrat, they're waking up and going like, what is this? | ||
So I think California could actually change. | ||
It's doable. | ||
Just requires a lot of different coalitions, very unique coalitions. | ||
You know, you've given me a lot of hope here, but I feel I should give you one last moment of hope to go out on. | ||
It's real simple. | ||
At the end of the day, love over-overcomes hate. | ||
Truth defeats the lie. | ||
It may take a cycle or two, but at the end of the day, I still believe that every single time light stands next to darkness, light always wins. | ||
So regardless of whatever emerges, using the Old Testament as a context here, Pharaoh, Goliath, Nebuchadnezzar, Jezebel. | ||
God, for whatever reason, always appointed men and women to rise up and push back. | ||
So for every Pharaoh, there must be a Moses. | ||
And for every Goliath, there must be a David. | ||
For every Jezebel, there must be an Elijah. | ||
For every Nebuchadnezzar, there must be a Daniel. | ||
And in the New Testament, for every Herod, there must be a Jesus. | ||
Let not your heart be troubled. | ||
There's always going to be light and light will always overcome darkness. | ||
All right. | ||
Well, on that note, I mean, I'm trying to do more of these types of shows to give people some things that aren't just in that horizontal world that we have, but also in that vertical world we have. | ||
So I hope you'll come back. | ||
And one of these days we'll meet somewhere in SoCal when they let us out of our houses. | ||
Will do, honored to be with you. | ||
Thank you for having me. | ||
Sam, it was a pleasure. | ||
Thank you so much. | ||
If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about spirituality instead of nonstop yelling, check out our spirituality playlist. | ||
And if you want to watch full interviews on a variety of topics, check out our full episode playlist. | ||
They're all right over here. |