Ep 1264 ｜ Muscular Christianity： Debunking the Manosphere's Lies
Episode Stats
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Summary
What does Christian Masculinity actually look like? What does it mean to be a Christian and a father? In this episode, former Virginia Delegate Nick Freitas shares his story of how Christian masculinity has shaped his life and how it has shaped the life of his family.
Transcript
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What does biblical masculinity actually look like?
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A lot of people want to give us a different definition of what it means to be a man, but
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we need to know, what does Christian masculinity really look like?
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Nick Freitas is here to tell us that today he has been an incredible mentor to so many
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When it comes to your faith and fatherhood, we will talk about how this healthy view of
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masculinity can shape how we raise our daughters versus how we raise our sons.
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You are going to be so educated and encouraged by this incredible conversation with Nick.
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It's brought to you by our friends at Keksi Cookies.
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Nick, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.
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If you could tell everyone who might not know who you are and what you do.
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Well, at least until January of this year, I'm still in the Virginia House of Delegates,
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But other than that, I'm a reasonably nice guy.
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A couple tours in Iraq with First Special Forces Group.
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Was doing defense contracting for a while, then got asked to run for office.
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So I've served in the Virginia General Assembly for 10 years.
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And several years ago, we started getting more involved on social media.
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Initially talking a lot about politics, and we still do, but a lot more about faith, about
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family, about being a girl dad, about raising a boy, all of those things.
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And so there's never a time I can remember not being a Christian.
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But I will say that as a young adult, it was not active in my life.
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If you would have found me, or even earlier on, again, I would have claimed Christ.
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I certainly would have defended Christianity and an intellectual argument and all that good
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But I was definitely not being the spiritual leader of my household like I should have been.
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One is I had a couple of other men in my life, my neighbor, a friend, a team leader that I
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And these guys represented for me both bold Christianity, but also very strong masculinity.
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Because I'd had this thing where I felt like a lot of men in the church were weak, and I
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And meeting these guys really demonstrated that, no, being a strong man for Christ was
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And then I will never forget my youngest daughter, who was, I think, three at the time.
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My wife and I were talking about going back to church, and my youngest daughter said,
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And then another thing that really struggled with was another gentleman I went through the
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special forces intelligence sergeant's course with.
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And he goes, Nick, I really think you need to study Christian apologetics.
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And that was essential for me because I had grown up in a faith that I would say was very
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But if you want to have a complete relationship with God, well, then you got to love him with
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all of your heart, with all of your mind, with all of your spirit, with all of your
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And so understanding the intellectual side of my faith and being able to effectively
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understand it and defend it logically, historically, that was essential.
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I want to go back to something that you said, because I'm sure that there are a lot of men
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They look in the church, they see church leaders, and they say, well, that person's
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cowardly, or that person's feminine, or maybe they feel like the whole church experience is
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And it's funny, because whenever I talk about biblical masculinity or the importance of Christian
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men to be strong, I always get this pushback on this idea of, well, they need to follow
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But I also recall Paul saying, follow me as I follow Christ.
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So there's this idea that, no, we do have an obligation to live up to the biblical standards
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And I think feminism made its way into the church.
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Kind of the caricature of this is the Mother's Day sermon is all about how women are wonderful
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And the Father's Day sermon is all about how men suck and we need to do better.
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And I think that there's this idea that instead of modeling for men what proper masculinity
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to look for, and by the same token, also modeling for women what proper biblical femininity looks
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like, we decided to be so seeker-friendly and we didn't want to upset the culture.
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And the result was, is we weren't relevant to the culture.
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And part of the reason why we weren't relevant to the culture is because we weren't relevant
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And if you actually want to disciple young men to be the sort of leaders that God expects
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and that our society and our country and our families really need, then that needs to be
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Now, that doesn't mean they're going to stay, but young men are starting to push back on a
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trend that has been going since the 70s, which is the United States being less and less religious.
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What an opportunity to demonstrate in the church.
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And when I see a lot of the men in the church, whether it's people like John Lovell or Chad
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Robichaud, Victor Marks, I see a lot of these guys that are, I think in many cases, representing
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a truly faith, a commitment to Christ, which manifests itself in proper biblical strength.
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I think that's something that young men are looking for desperately.
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And I think if they continue to find it in the church, they're going to continue to grow
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and allow themselves to be discipled in the way they should be.
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I think that there's a mistaken mentality among some people.
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You know, you mentioned that for women, and I've been talking about this for a long time,
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that the biggest problem women are told we have, both in and outside of the church,
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And that the solution to that is to love ourselves more, to be told that we're beautiful,
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Our biggest problem is everyone's biggest problem, that we are sinners in need of a
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It didn't actually attract more women to Christianity, because you can hear that at
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Why would you go to church and sacrifice your free time if you're going to hear the same
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So I think that there is a propensity to tell people what they want to hear and the thought
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Do you feel like that also might be happening among the Andrew Tate acolytes of the world
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who say, okay, in order to attract these young men, we have to not be like Jesus was.
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We have to be crass, and we have to be rude, and we have to be arrogant, and we have to
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be materialistic, and we have to be promiscuous, and we have to talk about women like they're
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That seems to me to be a simple reaction to feminism over here, and shouldn't be a solution
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So I think there's two things that we have to recognize whenever we talk about what we
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Andrew Tate, Justin Waller, some of these other guys, Fresh and Fit, some of these other
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The first thing that we need to recognize is the reason why they resonated so much with
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young men was not simply because all of these guys have admirable accomplishments
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in their own right, along with a lot of other problematic things, right?
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But they tend to be strong, they tend to be wealthy, and women tend to be attracted to
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So these are all things that if you're a young man without a spiritual basis in your life,
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you're looking at these things going, I want that.
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The most important component, though, is a lot of young men felt like those guys were sticking
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And one of the ways, if there's one thing that I could really convey, I think, to just people
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in general, is men associate loyalty with love.
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And so when somebody, everybody has that friend where they got that one friend that they're
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still holding on to where you're like, why do you hang out with that guy?
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Almost guaranteed there was some moment in their past where they needed that person and
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And so that kind of loyalty is very, very strong with men.
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And so a lot of young men look at guys like Andrew Tate and they say, that guy had my
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back when none of you people in the church were mentioning any of this.
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And now the first time you want to come up and talk about the problems with masculinity,
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you want to bash Andrew Tate, the one guy that had my back?
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And so the way I think we need to approach something like that is certainly not by excusing
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what I believe is disastrous, sinful, and ultimately not genuinely masculine behavior.
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But I think we need to recognize the source of the problem and from whence it comes.
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The other thing I think we need to understand is that that sort of masculinity, a kind of hedonistic
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masculinity, which says that you should dominate and you should dominate for the sake of your
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own pleasure, that that's essentially your will to power is the highest moral standard
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The sort of leadership, the sort of strength that we see within Christianity is the kind which
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It is a kind of servant leadership, but it isn't this boy band version of Jesus that a
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It's like, yes, Jesus was compassionate and Jesus was loving and Jesus could be tender.
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He was also strong, bold, courageous, willing to die and suffer for what he loved.
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And I think we need to get that full, complete picture of what masculinity within the biblical
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viewpoint looks like, because ultimately the worst form of depression anyone can ever experience
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is not being denied the things that you think you want.
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It's fully realizing all the things that you thought would bring you meaning and purpose
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And the thing that I would tell young men is I can appreciate that Andrew Tate is fit,
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I can appreciate that Justin Waller is financially successful.
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But if you really want something that's going to give you ultimate meaning and purpose,
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the sort of thing that can cause you to do, I'll put it this way.
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For a while there, there was all these memes going around social media.
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There was all of these gifts and whatnot where it was always showing, it was one thing after
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It was showing some sort of environment, whether it was a battle, whether it was just defending
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your loved ones, whatever it was, but it was motivating music next to a knight or a soldier
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or somebody just at the last full measure of human devotion, giving everything for what they
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believed and what they found to be beautiful and true.
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You get that when you recognize that there is a God, he has a meaning and purpose for your life,
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and that he requires you to be strong because it is a difficult world.
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And so if that's what you're looking for, you're not going to find it in achieving
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capability just so you can get whatever momentary pleasures, that doesn't mean you can't get
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I get a tremendous amount of pleasure from being a husband and a father, but I've never
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I've never had to question my meaning or my purpose because I always know it was found
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And then he gives me these daily reminders in the form of my wife and my children and
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And so when I see those videos, I completely understand what it means.
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And if they really want to find it, that's where they're going to find it.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I also think that men and women, but maybe especially men, like
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And one thing, because I've heard Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes say things that are true and
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they'll just say it and they won't caveat it and they won't apologize for it and they won't
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Now, people who are in my audience know that I am no, no, no fan of either of those people
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because, you know, in addition to some of the clarity that they have, it's a lot of
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hedonism, a lot of paganism, and just a lot of godlessness.
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But I just wonder if that is an attraction that we have a lot of pastors who are just
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They're just afraid to say, hey, a man can't become a woman and it's bad.
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And then you've got this like hedonist over there who's just willing to say it, not for
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any religious reason, but because it's just true.
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And that I think is stirring for a lot of people, especially a lot of men who are like,
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And when you have pastors who just won't say it, I could see how that's a turnoff.
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I think the church, I think a lot of pastors misread Romans 12.
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And when they see, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good, they translate
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that as niceness or tolerance or accommodation.
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Well, Romans 12 verse 9 says, I'm supposed to abhor evil.
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And so the difference is, is that they've seen a bunch of people that are not theoretically
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being led by Christ to say a bunch of things that are absolutely 100% true.
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And then they go into their churches and they find pastors which are scared that they might
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Now, listen, I'm, I'm a big believer that we're supposed to attempt to speak the truth
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Love means a devotion to truth because you recognize that this, this person made in the
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image of God is doing something that is, is dangerous and destructive and harmful.
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We need just men in the faith in general, not even, not even just pastors that are willing
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I'm not going to caveat it to try to make you feel better about evil.
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I'm going to, I want evil to be uncomfortable in my presence.
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It just means I need to boldly and unapologetically stand for the truth.
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And if I do that, then yes, of course, nobody wants to, nobody wants to follow a coward.
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Nobody wants to follow a thousand caveats into battle.
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They want to follow decisiveness, but that decisiveness has to be rooted in the truth
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It's, it's very easy to say something that is technically true, but then lose the plot
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And I think that's the problem that we see in the secular world.
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I think people get confused between meekness and weakness, which are not the same thing.
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Weakness is weakness, but meekness is power under control.
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And so power, masculine power, strength, power of the Holy Spirit, obviously these things aren't
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They're supposed to be controlled by something.
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The Christian should have power that is under control of the Holy Spirit.
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And then we see over in the secular, maybe conservative manosphere, power completely untethered
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And we've seen throughout history the battle between those two things.
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Well, I think, so was Jesus utilizing self-control when he was flipping the tables in the temple?
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There's a couple different ways that Jesus could have approached that situation.
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He could have nicely and politely explained why this was inappropriate and it shouldn't
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But they already knew why it shouldn't be happening.
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They were proud in the fact that they were doing something that was a desecration.
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He also didn't haul off and start chopping people up, right?
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He used the appropriate level of force and violence to achieve the outcome,
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And so another thing that he could have done is he could have just walked away and it's
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And we have a Christianity in the West that doesn't want to cause a scene.
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So I think we need to understand that a lot when we look at the fruits of the spirit in
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Galatians, we're not talking about something that, we're not talking about the secularized
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versions of these attributes or characteristics.
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We're talking about the biblical application of these things.
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And we also, of course, need to understand that we're not God.
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But I do think, again, it's this idea of its strength with discipline and self-control,
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which again, these are attributes that the secular world appreciates, that they can see
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But that's also the problem when you don't assign the truth to the author.
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Nick, I love what you have to say about being a parent, or I love what you say about politics,
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Because then I'm prescribing something, but I'm not telling you who actually came up with
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This is stuff I've discovered, not stuff I invented.
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Tell me what you think about this concept of muscular Christianity.
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I talked to a historian a few weeks ago named Raymond Ibrahim.
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Yeah, he specializes in Islam and his books are incredible.
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And he talks about how the Christians who were pushing back against Islam, who were and
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still are just so brutal, they saw their conquest as a form of agape love, that they were literally
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laying their lives down for their wives and for their children, as the Bible calls them
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Today, it seems like we see that as the opposite, that the sacrifice that men are supposed to
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do is supposed to be being a doormat and allowing evil to run rampant so they're not divisive
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That is a departure from what Christianity has traditionally been in pushing back against
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So I don't think, again, we cannot spread the gospel through the sword.
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We have no mandate to do that within scripture.
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By the same token, we're not called to simply be beaten up, destroyed, or having our wives
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carried away or our children sold into slavery.
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So this idea that there's no martial mandate within Christianity, I don't think that's accurate.
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So I think you do have a duty, again, as a Christian man, to stand up before your faith and to properly
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And that could, under the right conditions, require you to go to war.
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And I think that one of the best ways you can prepare for that is, one, making sure that your
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relationship with Christ is where it needs to be, but also preparing for things.
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I've noticed that the more you've prepared you are for conflict, the less you end up getting
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Because people don't like to mess with somebody that they know can fight back.
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But if we're projecting a very, very weak and docile Christianity, again, I don't think it's
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I don't think it's an accurate reflection of scripture.
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You talk a lot about parenting, the differences between raising boys and girls.
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What are the main differences between parenting boys and girls?
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Well, first thing I'll say is you think you're a tough guy, and then you have a little girl,
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and you find out what an absolute sap you really are.
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I had days where first part of the day, I'm at the range with a bunch of green berets,
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and I'm running shooting drills, and we're doing some pretty cool stuff.
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And later on in the evening, I'm wearing a tiara and a little feather boa, and I'm drinking
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And so I think one of the things I used to, well, I still say, three things I learned
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raising daughters, which is somewhat unique to them, is I said, you need to tell your
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But a lot of times what fathers don't seem to understand is we do things like go to work,
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We work 70-hour weeks, and we think that's translated in their minds as love, but it isn't
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And so it does have to be verbalized as well as acted out in your day-to-day life.
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And in fact, that advice came to me from a buddy of mine in the military who was probably
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one of the biggest part of the expression man whores I had ever run across.
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And I had asked him, I said, how do I keep my daughter from ever falling for a guy like
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And he said, tell her you love her, because if you don't, someone like me will, and she'll believe
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Another thing too that I would say, and this is true with all of your children, the relationship
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and the bonds you build start when they're infants.
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I think men sometimes have this idea that as my kids get a little bit older or whatnot,
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they come more into my domain of responsibility as they get older.
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It's like, no, from the time that they're little, you need to be holding them and building
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Um, your, your daughters need to know, uh, that you will tell them the truth, but you
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tell them the truth from the position that you love them.
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So if they've, if I've already established and they are just so positive of my love, when
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I tell them the truth to include hard truths, uh, they'll listen because they know it's
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coming from a place of wanting them to succeed.
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They also need to be able to tell you the truth.
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Um, there's going to come a moment in everybody's and every father's life where, uh, your, your
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child catches you not living up to the standard that you told them was the standard.
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And in that moment, what you do is very, very important because if you aren't able to look
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them in the eye and say, you're right, I'm wrong and I'm sorry, then what you've taught
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What you've taught them is an authority structure and the authority structure is rooted on who
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I always wanted my, my girls to know that if I was telling them something, it was because
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And if they caught me not applying it and they respectfully brought it to my attention,
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then it was my obligation to admit it because I wanted him to base.
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And I want them to stand up for truth to authority if necessary.
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Um, but if there's one thing I could tell men specifically with respect to daughters,
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and I've been through this phase now where I've, I've, my oldest daughter's married,
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The first one is fathers sometimes again, think that when they're little, do they really
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Um, your five-year-old remembers what you did when they were three, your seven-year-old
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remembers what you did when they were five, your 12-year-old remembers what you did when
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And what ends up happening is by the time they're in those teenage years, which a lot of people
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I thought they were the easiest and you will have established a pattern of love, interest,
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trust, and compassion that she will use as the standard for everyone else, every other
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man in her life that she's going to interact with.
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And so take the time to form those bonds because they will pay massive dividends when they're
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in years where they can start to make decisions with or without your approval that could have
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Uh, the other thing I would say on that is when my, um, when my oldest daughter, uh,
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first had a boy that liked her and, you know, she's nine or 10.
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Um, one of the things that I, I told her was, I said, look, I, I, daddy's always going to
00:26:49.780
tease you about wanting to, you know, make your boyfriends disappear.
00:26:52.960
I said, but I desperately want you one day to have what your mother and I have.
00:26:58.540
And if, if you will trust me to help you discern between the man that God has for you and the
00:27:07.820
other ones that might try to interlope, um, I promise you one day I'll say yes.
00:27:15.800
But what I want you to be thinking about is I want you to be thinking about that kind of love that
00:27:20.580
And I want you to think about how much you might have to explain to them.
00:27:25.200
And it was amazing how simply laying it out that way to where I'm not, I'm not giving you a bunch
00:27:33.360
I'm not even giving you a bunch of well-explained rules that just protect you from danger.
00:27:37.800
I'm setting you on a path that is going to get you what you want.
00:27:41.560
And then the last thing I would say is that in order to prove all of that, um, she's going to
00:27:48.160
And if you treat her mother with the sort of love and respect that she deserves, uh, that will be all
00:27:54.580
the standard that she needs for when the other guy comes around that doesn't behave that way,
00:27:58.800
or there's something slightly off, um, you will be the reason why he rejects him or why she rejects
00:28:06.040
him because I always tell guys, you can say all day long, he better ask my permission.
00:28:11.360
The only one that gives that real power is your daughter.
00:28:14.780
Um, probably the best compliment my son-in-law gave to me was he, he asked me why I said yes.
00:28:27.440
And he goes, honestly, I was, he goes, I wasn't at first.
00:28:32.740
We, we, I've been dating your daughter for a year and a half.
00:28:34.640
I'd spent almost the entire time over at your house.
00:28:42.080
But as a joke, I asked Lily, what would happen if you're, if I asked your dad for your hand?
00:28:47.060
And he said, no, he goes, she stopped deadpan, looked me right in the eye.
00:28:51.660
And she goes, I would be heartbroken because it would be over.
00:28:56.740
Because if my dad says no, there's something he's picked up on that I haven't.
00:29:03.660
And again, I think that was, that was probably the greatest compliment I could have received from my son-in-law.
00:29:10.660
And, and, and, and if I could just say too, this is another one of the things that I think is demonstrative of God's grace is that as flawed and imperfect as an attempt I made at being a godly husband and father, he blessed it disproportionately to my efforts.
00:29:30.700
Um, when it comes to raising boys, I think men need to understand, I said this once and it bothered some people and I don't particularly care.
00:29:41.080
Um, I looked at it as I'm, I'm raising my replacement in the world.
00:29:45.300
Um, now, obviously he's not going to have the same, um, obligations to my wife or to his sisters that I do to them, but he's also learning the standards, uh, for what his obligations are to God, what his obligations are to his wife one day.
00:29:59.560
What his obligation is to his children one day.
00:30:02.900
And there's a legacy, um, that he wants to be a part of and he wants to protect.
00:30:10.880
And I, I saw it as very important that my son not only see me as, um, providing, but my son also see me as strong because the bottom line is that if I do this right, um, then my daughters will one day be protected and provided for by a good godly man.
00:30:30.440
And so the challenges that he's going to face are going to be different and I need to adequately prepare him for that.
00:30:35.940
And I need to not hide that that's what I'm preparing him for.
00:30:38.440
Every Life is America's pro-life diaper company and they are just amazing.
00:30:53.280
And I love that they don't donate our hard-earned dollars to abortion organizations, which unfortunately a lot of the big diaper companies do.
00:31:11.840
And it's all really high quality, really good for your body.
00:31:15.740
And again, you're supporting a company that actually supports women and life inside the womb.
00:31:29.000
When it comes to just kind of like basic, basic parenting of little boys and little girls.
00:31:42.400
Well, from what I can tell, I've got a lot of nephews.
00:31:45.040
We've got all girls ourselves and I've got a lot of nephews.
00:31:47.820
When they're young, the relationship management with girls starts very young, I've noticed.
00:31:52.920
You know, it's a lot of relationship management.
00:31:54.940
With little boys, it's a lot of injury management.
00:31:57.420
You know, injury management versus relationship management.
00:32:03.540
But I do wonder when it comes to boys, what is the balance in protecting them from injury,
00:32:10.220
but also allowing them to take those necessary risks, which I think could be important for boys and girls.
00:32:15.980
But it seems like especially boys, you don't want to baby them.
00:32:23.740
So what does that look like on a practical level?
00:32:28.560
My job was to protect them from scars, not bruises.
00:32:34.620
So when it comes to anything that could have permanent life-altering consequences, I'm on guard.
00:32:41.220
And my job is to protect them from that, both spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
00:32:44.640
But when it comes to challenging their surroundings and going out and seeing what little things that they can conquer or do,
00:32:53.220
it's to provide enough runway for them to get hurt.
00:32:56.800
And then when they get hurt, to say, okay, get up.
00:33:02.260
I used to joke that with my little girls, raising little girls was relatively easy when they were small
00:33:08.820
because it was simple as like, sweetheart, don't do that.
00:33:12.440
With my boys or with my boy, it was like – I used to joke that the – raising boys is a lot like raising puppies.
00:33:21.120
The commands are almost exactly similar, right?
00:33:28.160
But they need to be a little bit more rough and tumble.
00:33:30.420
They still need to know there's a safe place to go.
00:33:34.520
But one of the things that I had a mom ask me once, she goes, how do I help my little boy become a man as he gets older?
00:33:41.040
And I said, well, keep in mind some of the things that you do when he's very, very little that make him feel safe and loved as he gets older and make him feel weak.
00:33:49.740
And so there's – it doesn't mean that moms still don't have an important role to play.
00:33:54.460
But I remember the first time I had to tell Tina, no, he's going to handle this problem himself.
00:34:00.360
Because he doesn't want the bully to be afraid of you.
00:34:04.440
And he can't do that unless he goes out there and he faces some of this.
00:34:10.420
And there's supposed to be, again, a mother and a father providing different things at different stages.
00:34:16.400
Because there's been plenty of times where I've looked at my wife and been like, how do I deal with this with my daughter?
00:34:23.740
But, yeah, that's – the one thing I'll say is age-appropriate challenges and then you don't rush to them the moment that they get hurt or that they fail.
00:34:33.960
Because they have to learn how to deal with getting hurt and they have to learn how to deal with failure.
00:34:38.400
The most entitled little brats you've ever met in your life never learned how to hear no, whether it was from a parent or just from reality.
00:34:48.080
There's times when reality tells us no pretty hard.
00:34:50.800
And those are really, really good life lessons if we allow them to be.
00:34:55.440
Allowing that character development sometimes in the form of – sometimes in the form of pain.
00:35:00.980
And that is like – that's a hard thing, I think, especially for us moms because we are hardwired to protect our kids from every kind of injury.
00:35:09.780
And there is a time and a place for that, like you said.
00:35:14.760
And I remember Jordan Peterson, he wrote in one of his books a long time ago, like you can either have brave kids or safe kids.
00:35:28.620
And then the older they get, it seems – my oldest is only six – but it seems the bravery starts outweighing the safety or it should.
00:35:41.180
And again, I think it's like whenever we're talking about something that really could cause like long-lasting damage, yeah, my job is to protect them from that.
00:35:49.340
But a lot of times that's not what we think it is.
00:35:51.040
A lot of times that's like, no, you don't get a smartphone because I'm not giving the internet access to you.
00:35:57.360
But by the same token, there's other challenges where it's good for them to kind of figure it out and then for you to guide them through the process.
00:36:05.080
Okay, tell me what you've learned from being a politician.
00:36:07.580
What are some main takeaways that you've learned?
00:36:12.680
So people ask me what was the thing that most prepared you for politics?
00:36:16.360
And I was like, oh, that's easy, being a Green Beret.
00:36:18.580
Because being a Green Beret, everything we do in Green Berets is by, through and with the local population.
00:36:22.880
So you're constantly trying to figure out local incentive structures, cultures.
00:36:28.220
You're regularly dealing with people that would just as soon shoot you as they would the other guy, except the other guy is a greater threat right now.
00:36:34.000
And so you learn how to kind of view the landscape and the various incentive structures and the various motivations.
00:36:41.660
And then you do your best to operate through that while at the same time maintaining true to the principles that you care about.
00:36:47.640
So the first thing that I always tell people whenever they want to get involved in politics, they want to run for office.
00:36:55.900
I'll just say, what are you willing to lose your seat over?
00:36:59.200
And then as they start to think, I'll be like, let me back up there for a second.
00:37:02.240
I said, I want you to imagine that you've just spent the last nine months doing a series of things that you probably don't like.
00:37:09.140
You've spent a good part of your life begging for money, which is just absolutely horrendous and horrible, but you had to do it in order to get your message out.
00:37:15.240
You've done all of this just to win this seat because now you're going to go do good things.
00:37:21.460
And now the vote comes up on a bill, which you know is bad, but you know could cost you everything you've just worked for.
00:37:28.940
What's the bill that you say, nope, I'm voting no and I'll go home happy.
00:37:33.600
Because if you don't know the answer to that question, then what it says is that you don't have anything you're willing to lose everything for.
00:37:41.120
Because this environment, there is an element of healthy compromise, but not on one's principles.
00:37:47.300
And if you're not willing to say, I'm willing to give it all up for this vote, you don't need to be here.
00:37:53.240
Because once you start doing that, you realize that there is no line.
00:37:57.260
Because you'll be able to convince yourself, well, I can't do anything good if I can't keep the seat.
00:38:02.340
So I would just say the moment you start getting your identity from the elected office you hold, it's time to leave.
00:38:09.060
The other thing I've learned is that, look, politics is obviously not a perfect environment.
00:38:18.120
And again, there is necessary and appropriate compromise.
00:38:24.500
But be very, very careful about where those lines are.
00:38:27.080
And once you've set them, then you've set them.
00:38:30.580
It's another thing, too, that kind of blows my mind is that I feel like we have a kind of a Christianity in the West that has convinced itself that as long as nobody hates us, then we're properly demonstrating the love of Christ.
00:38:41.700
You do realize that Christ was crucified, right?
00:38:45.380
Like a totally innocent man was crucified because he offended the local political leaders, among others.
00:38:52.140
So stop with this idea that if you just do everything right, everyone's going to like you or be okay with you.
00:38:58.960
In fact, if you're standing for truth, I promise you, you're going to develop some very, very powerful enemies, and you need to be comfortable with that.
00:39:04.860
In fact, your response should be, thank you, God, that I should suffer something for your name.
00:39:12.580
Jesus literally says, woe to you when all people speak well of you.
00:39:16.900
It's bad when everyone's saying something nice about you.
00:39:20.100
So you're probably doing something wrong, probably a shapeshifter.
00:39:24.380
You're compromising in some area where you shouldn't.
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00:40:20.620
So what would your – you kind of just gave it, but if there's maybe one word of advice that you would give to a Christian who's thinking about going into politics and they're like, okay, I really want to make a difference.
00:40:37.120
You need to remember – well, first of all, if you really feel – if you've got a strong relationship with God and you really feel that you're being called into this particular environment, you need to remember you're being called into it for his purposes, not yours.
00:40:51.580
He will call you into it and he will call you out of it.
00:40:57.260
Maybe you'll get to be there for 20 years and accomplish all sorts of wonderful things and leave on your own terms and isn't that wonderful.
00:41:01.740
Or maybe he'll call you out of it in a year because you had to stand up and do the right thing.
00:41:06.120
Your job is to be obedient to the purpose he put before you.
00:41:14.780
It's not to get that bill that you're owed so important for.
00:41:16.840
Your job is to be obedient to the purpose that he gives you in the time and place that he's placed you.
00:41:21.500
And if you can just remember that, then you're going to have a certain level of peace that just baffles everyone else around you.
00:41:31.100
I took a vote, a hard vote, and somebody looked over me and goes, aren't you running for Congress?
00:41:43.660
And theoretically, it could have cost me the election, but I was confident.
00:41:57.560
We absolutely believe that God called us into it when he did.
00:42:01.060
And we absolutely believe he called us out of it when he did.
00:42:04.200
Thankfully, I'm being replaced by someone who's absolutely phenomenal, Karen Hamilton.
00:42:12.840
Her and her husband, Cameron, are just wonderful people and will do an incredible job.
00:42:27.680
And we had a bunch of people calling us up and offering us all sorts of things to run.
00:42:34.400
But if you want me to do it, can you please make it clear?
00:42:37.140
I don't want to do it, but I will do it if that's what you want.
00:42:52.680
Because running for Congress in one of the top five congressional seats in the country was – that was a full-time job for 10 hours a day, 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week.
00:43:04.820
They got mad at me because I said, no, Sundays I'm spending time with my family because they're going to be here long after y'all are gone.
00:43:21.480
We literally had a thumb drive show up in a county that had been mismarked with 15,000 votes on it in the bluest county in the district.
00:43:28.360
And it completely evaporated our lead, and we lost by less than two points.
00:43:31.820
And I remember my wife and I both looking at each other and praying like, God, what was the point of that?
00:43:44.720
And two years later, two years later, I'm sitting around the table as we're talking about all of the work that we're doing on social media.
00:43:53.520
And the very first project that we had done where a donor had come to me and asked me if I would take over this program called The Wine Minutes.
00:43:59.580
And my business partner and producer, Nick Hamilton, who I want to work with now, and then one of my main editors and co-host, Christian Hines, and one of our main video editors, I'm looking around the table.
00:44:12.920
It's like I had to run to meet all of these people that I did because I met them on the campaign trail.
00:44:20.040
So I had to meet them in order to gather all the right people together for what we're doing right now, but I had to lose in order to do it.
00:44:26.680
And it was one of the biggest lessons in obedience for us because my wife and I, we were frustrated.
00:44:31.760
We were a little bit frustrated with God, inappropriately so, but frustrated nonetheless.
00:44:37.600
And so the thing that we learned from that is it's obedience.
00:44:44.220
And that's actually like a big relief is that you're just doing the next right thing and God is in charge of the rest and it might not look like the picture of success that we have, but he's got that.
00:44:57.920
That's like a huge relief off of our shoulders.
00:45:00.860
Oh, waking up and realizing that God is not in heaven going, I really hope Nick comes through for me on this.
00:45:06.400
That is not, he doesn't, he doesn't require me to do these things in order to achieve his will, but man, he invites me to come along and that's pretty powerful.
00:45:17.920
Don't pick some noble mission and ask God to join you.
00:45:20.860
Ask God what he's doing and ask if you can join him.
00:45:23.420
And so I think that's relevant for, I think it's very relevant for any Christian that wants to enter into the political realm because it becomes so easy to get obsessed with the office or the next office or the bill or whatever else it is.
00:45:38.220
We always say God's eternal plan of redemption is always going off without a hitch.
00:45:46.600
And tell me for maybe the few of you out there who don't already follow Nick, where can people follow you?
00:45:55.340
So we, Nick J Freitas across the board, we made it easy.
00:45:58.260
So if you want to find our YouTube channel, we do a lot of long and medium form content there.
00:46:02.020
We have our two, we have our one podcast, the why, excuse me, making the argument.