The Anchormen Show EP 77 - Duty Beyond the Pulpit w⧞Bishop Art Hodges
Episode Stats
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Summary
Pastor Art Hodges has served as a church leader in Southern California for more than 40 years. He is now running for the state senate in California, and has been a fixture in the faith community for decades. In this episode, Pastor Art talks about his life as a pastor, his retirement from the church, and his political service on the horizon.
Transcript
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now it's time for the anchorman podcast with matt gates and dan ball
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welcome back to the anchorman show i'm matt gates host of the matt gates show every week
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night nine o'clock eastern 6 pacific here on one american news and on anchorman we get to
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have a more in-depth discussion with someone we're interested in and i'm so excited i've been
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waiting to get to the guest today on the program for some time we ran into each other on probably
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one of my worst days on our way to charlie kirk's funeral and memorial service in arizona and i
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learned that a very prominent person here in the san diego community in the faith community
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is running for the state senate and so i thought a great opportunity to talk about where the church
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stands in america today where the intersections are between politics and our faith and the inner
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workings of a campaign that sometimes will appear behind enemy lines here in the people's republic of
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california bishop art hodges thank you so much for joining me we were just chatting before we came
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on air about your pastoral service coming to an end your political service on the horizon before we get
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into everything i want to discuss just what was that like delivering your your final sermon uh at
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the church where you've pastored for some time and and continuing uh to be a source of mentorship
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to so many other faith leaders in southern california thank you matt great to be with you by the way
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and uh yeah i'm i'm in a transition time in my heart my mind my soul my spirit uh i have pastored
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been a senior pastor for more than 40 years and that came to an end on july 19 at i would say my
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decision let me say god's decision god's leading i actually put that in my heart uh two years ago he
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said 40 years and that'll be it and uh and so july 19 was my last day as a senior pastor locally here
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in san diego however i still still serve as bishop i oversee 350 other pastors and ministers and churches
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here in southern california um so plenty to keep me busy there but that's a major thing i didn't
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realize how impacting it would be you know when you do something 40 years it really defines you and
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and that's just you you think that's the norm in fact i speak out a lot and i've been speaking out
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since july 19 and everywhere i go to churches especially i'm saying listen i never fully appreciated
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pastors until now yeah i thought my life was normal now that i'm not the pastor i realize that was not a
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normal life i was not living a normal life and uh but but i'm i'm gratified that god gave me that
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opportunity to serve people um my dad always said son here on this earth you don't love things there's
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only two things you can say i love you know so i love that pasta dish no no no no you can like it
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very much but you only can love god and people and uh so the lord has really put a love in my heart for
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people and you have to for that for that life's calling because definitely yeah so often when i
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talk to my pastor it's on a tough day for me you know it's when something hadn't worked out and i need
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to lean on my pastor for a little encouragement emotional support spiritual guidance and if that's
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what you're doing all day every day it's got at some point uh become very real that you're carrying
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the weight of so many others leaning on you you are that that's that's in fact uh dr archibald hart
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who was the head of psychology over 50 years at fuller theological which is the largest seminary in
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the world up the freeway from us here in los angeles uh he's the expert um he's written over 40 books
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on stress and here's what he said he said the number one most stressful job in the entire world
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is to be a pastor's wife and number two is to be a pastor and number three is to be president of the
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united states of america and you know when he said that i thought wow okay you know you know pastoring
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doesn't really fourth is the chair of the building fund probably i thought you know what i don't know
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how to retire as a pastor like you don't you don't make a lot of money right so what do you do with
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retirement i thought wow now i know i'll just run for president i only have to work four years and
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i'm set for life there you go i pastored 40 years well you'll learn that um that public service can be
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on that list in a variety of ways uh if you're elected to the senate i can't wait to hear your
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vision for that but you know i did want to reflect for a moment on the degree to which prayer really
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does interface with decisions in government i was surprised by that in the toughest moments in
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congress and these highly consequential decisions about who the speaker would be or are we going to fund
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the government or war powers uh people should take some comfort in knowing that folks are praying
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and they are praying humbly and seeking guidance from god and i'm sure we made plenty of human errors
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along the way but uh there was there was something that created unity in a town of such division
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what role do you see prayer playing in uh how decisions are made in government and and how you've
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you've guided your life well for me personally obviously prayer is the primary thing in fact that's
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what that's why we're here sitting about to talk about my next venture in life um i never saw this on the
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horizon at all but uh february of this year i was uh tag teamed by senator brian jones he's a minority
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leader in california and senator shannon grove kind of ganged up on me and uh in february they asked
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me to run for the senate and at first i said now you're joking right they said no we're not joking
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i said listen i said you hear me speak i've spoken the last four times at the state gop convention
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and brian jones has followed me on two of those occasions i said you hear my speech almost every time
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i say i'm a preacher i'm not a politician and and now you're asking me to be a politician
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and and uh shannon said well you will pray about it right and i said well of course i pray about
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everything she said well that's all i ask i said okay but don't get your hopes up well four months
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later yes i feel that god has spoken to me and he's called me to this and and you mentioned
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washington dc um and the role prayer plays i want to say i appreciate i think with this current
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administration and i'm not disparaging any other administration at all but i think with the
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current presidential administration remarkably i have seen more emphasis on prayer more actual
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praying i was speaking in dc just uh two years ago right after mike johnson was elected leader
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and he and i were about to speak and pray on the national day of prayer and repentance we're
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backstage i never met him before and someone came back said we've got a 10 minute delay it left us alone
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for 10 minutes in the back and i got to have a great conversation with him and i was so impressed
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mike johnson out of the spotlight away from the crowd nobody there was praying and he had his bible
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and he was praying and i'm i just am so relieved by that prayer is vitally important in america no
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matter what the sphere is whether it's politics whether it's religion whether it's anything prayer
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is just vital it's just vital and i appreciate the re-emphasis on prayer yeah uh caroline levitt very
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famously prays you know before her briefings to the country and to the press uh the republican
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conference begins you know with prayer probably can't ever do it enough but absolutely you think
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about washington as such a soulless and empty place it it does have that but we've also noticed
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at times a real fear from people in pastoral service to kind of tiptoe into political discussion
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and uh at my first baptist church that's not a problem in in in uh florida but what do you think
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about that and what what counsel would you give to somebody leading a congregation and and also feeling
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you know compelled to speak about issues that oftentimes are also at the forefront of our politics
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that is probably the number one challenge right there and of course as a pastor and and as a bishop
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that serving other pastors that is the big challenge um the truth of the matter is here
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we are in california i think you mentioned it the people's republic of california although i'm not sure
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it's the people but anyway yeah yeah but anyway um uh and and i am told that there are 15 million
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evangelicals here in california alone and in fact in fact this is that you can look this up i looked up
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it's the truth that in the last presidential election president trump received more votes
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from california than any other state now that gets downplayed because he didn't win california but he
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received more votes from california than texas or florida so there's a huge constituency here um
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and and i am told that with the 15 million evangelicals only half of them are registered to vote
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and of those registered to vote only half of those actually vote so think about that if the
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evangelicals who are eligible to vote would register and if they would vote godly biblical values literally
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we could change the state from top to bottom in a single election it's just a matter of the people of
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faith voting so why is that well i know why that is because pastors are afraid to bring division
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into their congregation and because politics has become so divisive in our lifetimes more than i think
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ever probably in america in this regard when i was a kid growing up one side of my family one
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grandparents were democrat the other side were republicans never conflict or problem not at all
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because at that time the difference between democrat and republican was the difference in right versus left
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well yeah it was like where did you think the marginal tax rate should be and you know what
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should be the conditions for union formation it was very different than it is absolutely the things
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mattered more in in our neighborhood whether or not you were a gator fan or a seminole fan whether you
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were a republican or a democrat right things that are not absolutes right you're not going to die on that
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hill but but that's all shifted now and today it's not right versus left it's become right versus wrong
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and and it's become actually good versus evil it actually has and and i'm not again putting a
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painting a whole party in one way or another but i'm just saying that's that's the direction you know
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the way you describe it pastors not wanting to bring division into their congregation
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in a way that's almost acting more like a politician than a pastor well i mean imagine if imagine if paul
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you know would have thought that way right there are a lot of times uh in our in our faith where
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a moment of division is also a moment of clarity good point so let me tell you how i address that
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my congregation okay 2016 trump versus clinton hillary clinton donald trump and and i'm laying in my bed
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now my congregation is very diverse if you talk racially i'm a minority i've always been a minority
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my congregation i'm here in southern california and and we're a great mixture um and and our
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congregation is very diverse and very diverse politically as well in fact the the head of the
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long sherman's union member of my church um so i mean we're just very diverse congregation
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but i'm thinking i've got to speak out on this election i've got to speak out across the pulpit
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hundreds of people come up to me privately who are you voting for and why like why not just state it
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publicly but how can i do it without being divisive i'm laying in bed and a thought comes to my mind now
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i know it's god that put the thought there but a thought comes to my mind and it says why don't you read
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the party platforms and i thought okay i'm laying in bed i i quickly look up the party platforms on
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my phone and and i read the democrat and the republican party platform as i recall 66 pages
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and 52 pages and when i did a light bulb went off i thought oh my goodness am i seeing what i think i'm
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seeing i got out of bed i went in the living room so i wouldn't bother my wife i downloaded them into a
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word processor to my computer and i did a word study and a word search and indeed i was seeing what i
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thought i was seeing and from that i wrote a little article didn't publish it but i made a
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personal video of it just a few minutes video played it in my church during the offering time
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shared it with a few pastor friends could we use it okay it went viral across the country the next
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thing i know i get a my office gets a call from a group called a salt and light council
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and uh they're the number one uh website a biblical voter.com number one website for biblical
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voters they got guides for every state in the nation and we had actually found them just online
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and we're using their voter guides to give members in our congregation didn't know who they were where
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they were from they contacted my office they said we saw this video we want to use on our website can
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we i said no it's not professional it's just made on my phone and they persuaded me to do it they
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persuaded me to give them the script they persuaded me to allow them to publish it and so now this is a
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little booklet that they published they were publishing this already but now my article is the
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centerfold and it takes up most of this booklet and just two weeks ago they decided we're going
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to print it as its own booklet so that's in process right now but anyway what it is it is a non-partisan
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view of the two-party platforms let me just give you a quick sample i won't read it all to you there's
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66 contrasts here but this will give you an idea one party platform mentions the bible the other does not
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one mentions divine the other does not one mentions creator the other does not one mentions prayer the
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other does not one mentions praise the other does not one mentions pastors the other does not
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one mentions preaching the other one does not one mentions fathers the other one doesn't one
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mentions morality the other one doesn't one mentions strong families the other one doesn't
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one mentions religious liberty and on and on it goes look at this stat one mentions christian
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uh eight times a muslim now this one was from i think uh four years ago i've updated it since
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one mentions christian eight times a muslim one time the other mentions christian one time and muslim
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eight times. That's changed now. The new party platforms, one mentions Christian,
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I forget, multiple times. The other mentions it zero times. And the one that mentions Christian
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doesn't mention Islam or Hindu or any other faith. The one that doesn't mention Christian
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mentions all of these others multiple times. Look at this stat here. This is amazing. One
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mentions God 15 times and LGBT zero times. The other mentions God one time and LGBT 26 times.
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Jeez. So I'm not even mentioning which platform is which. No, but you're showing where people can
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be comfortable. That's exactly right. And I think it's not partisan. Oftentimes we would love to
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probably think that where people arrive at their church home is based on some really precise view
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of the doctrine at that church. But probably a lot of the times it's comfort and we hope God brings
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people. Most of the time it starts that way. Yeah. We hope God matches people with their right church
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home. Right. And that'll be different for different folks. But, uh, you know, what,
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what politics is about is giving people comfort that they're on the team that is going to advance
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their interests. Yes. And I think that exercise you just went through really showed that the left is
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quite unwelcoming to Christians. In the party platform it is. And, and here's the power party
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platforms. Uh, congressional Republicans vote in alignment with their party platform 89% of the
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time. Congressional Democrats vote in alignment with their party platform 74% of the time. So if
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you don't know the candidate, most people don't. Yeah. Even if you have heard the candidate, you still
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don't know the candidate. Too many candidates will say whatever they think they need to say to get
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elected. But the truth is when they actually start voting in their official capacity, that's the truth.
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So is, have you provided a guidepost here maybe for other pastors who don't want to come out and say,
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vote for Donald Trump or vote for a particular candidate, but to be able to walk through where
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people in a congregation would feel comfortable based on the shared values of the congregation.
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Absolutely. Is that a, is that leading the, leading the congregation to water maybe without
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dunking their nose in it? Absolutely. And, and, and these are available. Go to biblicalvoter.com. I'll
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put in a plug. I got to get zero dollars off of this. Sure, sure. But, but I'll put in a plug for
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them. It's a great resource. Biblicalvoter.com. Biblicalvoter.com. We'll put that out on our social
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media as well. Now I have a theory as to why Christians don't vote that may be a little different.
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Okay. And, and, and I want to, I want to test it because I've, I know some of these people. These
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are a lot of the people I grew up with in North Florida. And when I would go to their house and say,
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hey, I noticed you haven't gone and like voted in the election, you know, for me, sometimes even
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people I knew would say, man, that is a very worldly thing. This got, we are in a big battle
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between good and evil right now. It is a celestial battle. And we are, we have read the book. We
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know the ending. We know we win in the end. And this stuff where you toil back and forth in the
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dirtiness and ugliness of politics and win, lose campaign. We're sick of all of it. That's not
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really the contest we're a part of. We're a part of a far more significant contest. And,
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and that's going to draw our attention. And, and some even believe that the participation
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in something as unholy as politics diminishes the holiness with which they try to live their
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other lives. What, what would you say to a voter or a non-voter like that?
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Well, two things I would say. Number one, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray,
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he said, pray on this wise, our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,
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thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as in heaven. We have a responsibility to help establish
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God's kingdom here on earth. He never intended, he never intended for unrighteous rulers to be an
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authority in the world. That was never his intention. That is the result of, of evil. So
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we have a responsibility to stand against it. Totally. We have, we've seen it throughout scripture.
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How do we reconcile that? Totally. We have. But the reason that you see it in the scripture
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is because the people of God, what we're talking about right now, abdicated the responsibility.
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They quit doing things God's way and God said, well, okay, if that's what you want,
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that's what you get. And it was a judgment and a punishment, but it was not God's ultimate will
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for them. God's ultimate will is good for everybody, not evil at all, not bad at all.
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So they brought that on themselves here in America, especially. I mean, we are the most exceptional
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nation ever. Now Israel's exceptional in its own right, for sure. I wear this flag pin as an
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acknowledgement of that, but we're exceptional in America because we literally choose our leaders.
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And the Bible says when the righteous rule, the people rejoice. When the wicked beareth
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rule, the people mourn. We are, like I said, in California, people of faith could change the
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election in one, one cycle. So it's our responsibility. Absolutely. It's our responsibility.
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So that's the first thing that I would say. I think I've lost track of what the, uh, no,
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no, no, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My, my, my principal concern is that politics has become
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so unsavory. It drives people of faith away from even basic participation in a campaign
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in a neighborhood, uh, door to door Saturday, uh, calling voters and asking them to return
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ballots in the, in the eighties and nineties. This was the core of the Republican base,
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evangelical Christians, uh, doing a lot of the tactical campaign work that got people elected,
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particularly throughout the Bible belt where I've lived most of my life. And I, I sense we have
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seen a withdrawal at times, uh, from the faith community. You, I've identified it as a core issue
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in California. And I don't know if I have the diagnosis for it. And, and I do worry that, uh,
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kind of the dirtier politics gets, the harder it, it is to draw people in, uh, and, and to show them
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this is a virtuous thing to do. This isn't, I, I know many people who viewed their public service
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as their ministry. Yes. And, and I think they, they were some of the best public servants.
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Well, my life has been ministry and now I'm entering this arena. I don't need another job.
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I just retired. My wife said, I thought we retired. Well, yeah, I don't need a job. I don't need a name.
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I don't need popularity. I don't need money. I I'm, I'm at the retirement time of my life,
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but I'm doing it as a calling and as a ministry. In fact, that's one thing Brian Jones and Shannon
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Grove said. They said, well, don't you think we need a pastor and a bishop and a preacher in the
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Capitol? I said, yeah, you, you need that for sure. And that California, especially the Republicans
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in the minority need to do a lot of praying. Exactly. In Sacramento. Well, let's, let's get
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into that vision you have for California, because, uh, a lot of our viewers around the country will
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look at this and say, well, uh, art seems like a really nice guy, but what is he doing on this
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quixotic effort to try to change a place that, that has drifted so far left? Uh, what,
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what's the message of hope that you give people that this place can be better?
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Well, here's my message of hope is now, first of all, to people of faith, to people of faith,
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every story in the Bible that we value and treasure that we learned in Sunday school,
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Daniel in the lion's den, uh, Joseph in the pit, David and Goliath, every single one of them,
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the good guy was in the minority. Yeah. The good guy never had the advantage. He was always at the
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disadvantage. So take heart. That just comes with a territory. God never favors a majority because of
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majority. All right. He favors even one. If it's just one, we'll stand for right. God's on his side
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and if God's for us, who can be against us? So that's, that's number one. If we're doing it for
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the right mode. So embrace the challenge. Absolutely embrace the challenge. And, and it also speaks to
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the topic we just came off of why people need to get involved and they need to step up, which is
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another reason I think God has called me to do this. Not, not for me, but for a movement nationwide
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for others to step up. I mean, I just declared just, just, you know, weeks ago, but, um, I can't tell
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you how many have contacted me from around the nation saying, you know what? We've been following
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you since COVID. That's a whole nother story, but we've been following you since COVID. And now we see
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you're doing this. You know what? I think God's calling me to do something. And I think that's
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the real key to stand up all over the nation. So back to what we were talking about. Why should
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we get involved? I think COVID should have taught us that March 5th was the last Sunday that was
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normal in America. And in California, we were the first in the nation to close the state.
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I don't know if you were all that normal in California, even before March 5th.
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Well, we weren't, but we're, but we're less than that after March 5th. And, and long story short,
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it took me going to the U S Supreme court three times, three times to reopen churches in California
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and across America. And it's a whole story of how that even came about. But, uh, when Gavin Newsom
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gave a public press conference, he was going to reopen plan for California, locked everything down.
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He left churches out of the equation and a reporter asked, what about churches? He said, well,
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we're not sure they're in the, you know, TBD to be determined. We don't know. Uh, but he said,
00:23:08.780
one thing I'll tell you for sure, they'll never go back to normal. Well, that same afternoon,
00:23:12.600
we filed a lawsuit in federal court, long story short in 15 days, we were for the Supreme court.
00:23:18.060
I mean, fast tracked, we lost that first decision and we stayed in court every month. We had 11
00:23:23.840
federal court rulings in less than a year, four at the ninth circuit court of appeals. I started
00:23:28.660
calling them the ninth circus court of agendas, but, but, uh, and three at the U S Supreme
00:23:33.980
court and our final two were February 5, 2021 and April 26, 2021 resounding victories, the nail in
00:23:40.240
the coffin. And here's what the Supreme court gave us in all churches in America. They said,
00:23:44.180
never again, no matter how emergency a situation, how exigent a situation is, if it requires everything
00:23:50.360
closing, churches will be the last to close and the first to reopen, which is what we asked for in
00:23:55.700
the very first place. But that should have taught us a lesson. The only reason that happened is because
00:24:00.720
of politics, it's because people of faith and biblical values stayed out of politics. And we've
00:24:06.880
got people ruling who are not righteous rulers. And now people are being oppressed as a result.
00:24:12.200
We've got to retake America for the values America was founded on.
00:24:16.900
Here's some, some say, because so much of the craziness started in California,
00:24:21.620
you have to go back to the root of it. That's what I believe.
00:24:24.400
If you fight this thing out in the Midwest, in the, in the Bible belt,
00:24:27.880
you don't really ever defeat it until you defeat it here in California. And we, we got news today of
00:24:35.720
this corruption indictment regarding a governor Newsom's former chief of staff. There was a
00:24:41.920
campaign account that allegedly had gone dormant and Javier Becerra's chief of staff and governor
00:24:48.280
Newsom's chief of staff created a series of no show jobs and, and lobbying contracts that weren't
00:24:54.840
really for anything under the, under the allegations in this indictment. And I just wonder when you've
00:25:00.680
had one party rule for so long that people, if these allegations are true, feel a comfort level,
00:25:07.880
just putting their hand in the, in the piggy bank and taking out resources for themselves.
00:25:13.680
Do you need something like a, like an ombudsman to go after the corruption? Or what do you think the
00:25:20.160
solution is if you get elected as a minority member of the state Senate, uh, to give people a sense
00:25:26.480
that they're, at least they're getting an honest bang for their buck out of the government?
00:25:30.900
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00:25:57.360
Matt G for 15% off your first order. Well, you mentioned the word honest. That's the key right
00:26:02.820
there. The Bible says truth has fallen in the streets. And, and that's where we are, where truth
00:26:08.720
is not valued. To have truth, you've got to have absolutes. And we're in a generation that doesn't
00:26:13.600
want to believe in any absolutes. They want to believe their God themselves. Well, we don't
00:26:17.000
believe that we believe there's a creator God and his word is absolute. It doesn't change. It's the
00:26:21.460
only thing that doesn't change. Everything else changes, but not, not the word of God. And this
00:26:25.360
nation was based on that, you know, statement I made during COVID, during the trial and the lockdowns,
00:26:30.000
I said, America was designed as a nation so that people would never have to make the choice between
00:26:36.320
obeying God or government. Think about that. That's why America was founded. That was the similar
00:26:41.740
reason. America was birthed. But for the first time, at least in my lifetime during COVID, we were
00:26:47.940
forced to decide, will I obey God or government? That should not be. So we've got to have leaders
00:26:53.680
who understand that and leaders who understand that the values that made America great in its
00:26:59.100
beginnings are the values that's going to keep America great. We've got to get back to those
00:27:03.160
values. That's what I'm going to bring to the state Senate in California. And yes, I think you've got
00:27:08.460
to go right to the source. And as goes California in a lot of respects, so goes the nation. I mean,
00:27:14.260
we could go down the political team player list in Washington, D.C. And look at the ones that came
00:27:19.240
out of California, right? To Washington, D.C. The worst ones. You said it. Exactly. And so we've
00:27:26.420
got to do a better job. It starts right here. I think California is the key. California is key
00:27:31.420
spiritually. It's the home of the Azusa Street revival in 1906. Next year will be the 120th anniversary of
00:27:37.680
that that just swept the nation and the world and just renovated Christianity as we know it,
00:27:43.440
you know. Unfortunately, it's also the home of pornography, the largest pornography purveyor
00:27:49.120
in the world, home of entertainment, home of tech, Silicon Valley. I mean, it's number one in so many
00:27:57.340
things, but it's a bottomless in many other things, which is incongruous, right? How can you
00:28:02.280
be the wealthiest state? I think if we were a nation, they say we'd be number four or something like
00:28:07.360
that in GDP or economy, wealth. How can you be the most wealthy and yet have the most people
00:28:13.180
at a poverty level? How can you be the most wealthy and yet you have people that can't afford
00:28:17.820
a home? My own kids. I've got three grown married children, three grown married children ranging from
00:28:24.560
46 years old down to 33 years old, all with college degrees, one with a master's, all the rest with
00:28:31.080
master's, some universities here in California, and all in wonderful fields. One in the medical field,
00:28:36.160
one in the, well, was in the legal field, but now a pastor's wife, and the other one in the finance
00:28:43.480
world. And all married, all with children, and not a single one have been able to buy a home yet
00:28:49.820
here in California. Do they struggle with affordability? I mean, not like struggle,
00:28:54.240
like don't have a roof over their head, but is affordability something pressing in the minds of
00:28:58.160
your family? On everybody. Yes, it is. I mean, we're making, we're not complaining,
00:29:01.980
we're not complaining. Yeah. But, but with what we earn, if we lived anywhere else in this nation,
00:29:09.300
almost, with what we earn, they would have all owned their own home for the last 20 years.
00:29:14.000
Well, all over the country, people are facing these affordability challenges. You do seem to
00:29:18.200
make it harder on yourselves in California with so many registrations and fees,
00:29:23.520
highest regulations, mandatory tests, highest regulation of any state. Yeah. Highest taxes,
00:29:27.840
highest income taxes, highest gas taxes. Tell me why with the highest gas taxes, we have the worst roads.
00:29:34.360
It just doesn't make sense, right? I mean, these things don't make sense. In Florida, we don't have
00:29:39.040
our state government root around in our cars to do like a smog test. You do that here. It drives up
00:29:45.820
costs for regular people. I don't know that your air is any cleaner than it is in Florida as a
00:29:50.560
consequence. Like, would you vote for a bill to get rid of the smog test? We need to, we need to
00:29:55.740
lower regulations for sure. A few regulations are needful, but we are over-regulated. Yeah. And I,
00:30:03.160
you know, they say, follow the money trail. In my mind, the regulations are just a way of making more
00:30:07.600
money. Look, California. But then you give it away to the illegals on, on, on your Medicaid. Like,
00:30:12.840
that's the problem. The whole deal was you guys were stacking up big reserves and you were having
00:30:17.460
state sponsored innovation at the highest level. But $68 billion deficit now. Yeah. You're,
00:30:22.200
you're tens of billions of dollars in the hole because you allow people who just jumped the
00:30:26.740
border to get a full suite of healthcare services that working, hardworking Californians don't have
00:30:31.920
access to. Not just healthcare services. You can get housing, you can get food assistance,
00:30:35.940
you get all kinds of assistance, things that most normal Americans don't get. What do you think
00:30:40.300
those policies should look like? We need a secure border, a secure border that is safe and fair
00:30:47.000
and just good immigration policies. We're a nation of immigrants. I'm married. My wife is Mexican. We're
00:30:53.840
a nation of immigrants. Her grandparents came over the border. We're a nation of immigrants. We're built
00:30:58.860
on, that's our strength, but we're built on good. The Bible says, do things decently in order. We're
00:31:04.400
built on good legal immigration. You can't just have an open border and anybody come in whenever you want.
00:31:10.320
That's what we've done for the last four years. And now we're paying the consequences.
00:31:13.700
One of the big issues in California is that the state government has been really recalcitrant to
00:31:18.080
the deportation efforts that ICE and President Trump have worked on. Do you fully support those
00:31:22.780
efforts? And, and, uh, do you think state government should stand in the way of, of what the Trump
00:31:27.840
administration? I don't think state government should stand in the way. What if I was Trump's advisor,
00:31:31.720
I'm not, we've never met, I've never talked with him, not, not yet, but, uh, but I would advise,
00:31:37.220
you know, follow the plan that you laid out, start with the worst criminals, hunt down every single
00:31:43.620
one of them and get them out there as quick as you can. And then start, you know, going down the
00:31:47.420
list, working your way backwards, uh, give people a path, which I think there are paths. I've got
00:31:51.600
great immigration attorney friends. Uh, Esther Valdez is one, uh, Gonzales in Colorado is another
00:31:57.300
one. And, uh, and there, and there's a path for people to do things right, do things legally,
00:32:01.140
but it's not fair. It's not fair to, to, to my family or any family who have people trying to
00:32:07.100
legally immigrate to America and they're following all the rules and steps. And you're constantly being
00:32:12.020
told, no, you got to back up in the line because we got an illegal we're going to put in front of
00:32:15.320
you. I mean, that's not fair at any level, not at any level. So we need to have fair immigration
00:32:19.820
policies and we need to enforce those policies. Absolutely. Does part of that enforcement mean not
00:32:24.840
putting illegal immigrants on Cal Med? Well, absolutely. Absolutely. If, if someone is here
00:32:30.600
illegally, now, if somebody is going to die, we're going to, I know you look at me like it's a silly
00:32:35.020
question, but it's actually a very controversial thing. I mean, there are a lot of people who would
00:32:38.820
say we're hateful for that. And I don't think that, that, that we, uh, wish ill health on anyone,
00:32:44.840
but there are people who've paid into that system here their whole lives. And then when they can't
00:32:51.180
get access to a specialist or a doctor or a nurse, because you've got, uh, you know, you've got all
00:32:56.720
these millions of illegals that you've welcomed here, that just doesn't seem fair to them.
00:33:00.600
Right. It's pushing everybody to the back of the line. Who's trying to do it right.
00:33:04.360
Everyone, whether they're here legally or illegally feels at the back of the line when it comes to your
00:33:08.320
state's emergency response. And that's what I want to talk about next, because in a campaign like
00:33:12.800
yours and in the statewide Republican campaigns, you've got to be able to convince people who don't
00:33:18.680
like Republicans to vote for one. And that's really not easy, but I would imagine it would be easier if
00:33:24.740
the Democrats can't get the fire hydrants to work. If the voters agreed to indebt themselves
00:33:30.020
for reservoirs and the Democrats didn't build them. Could you talk maybe about just some of those
00:33:34.600
not red versus blue issues, but just like practically speaking, making the state work
00:33:40.440
for everyone who's here, however they're here, uh, for, for a better quality of life.
00:33:44.780
The purpose of government is safety, service, and welfare. That's the whole purpose of government.
00:33:51.800
And so it's our police, it's our fire, it's our ambulance, our hospitals, our first responders.
00:33:57.760
That's the primary role of government is to protection of people, safety of people, welfare,
00:34:03.120
keeping, keeping order, and so on. Um, we have money for that. Our state has more money than
00:34:08.320
any other state flowing through its coffers, but we're finding out that our state is sending money
00:34:14.720
to other nations to promote, uh, like LGBTQ things. Wait, what? I've never heard of this.
00:34:21.220
Oh yeah. California is sending money to other countries? They have sent money. It's not enough
00:34:25.480
that you've invited everyone from every other country to California. You're actually sending
00:34:29.440
your money. What other countries? Well, that's, that's, we need, we need a doge in California.
00:34:34.960
That's what we need. So that's what I will push for. We need transparency. We need transparency
00:34:39.640
and we need, we need to do it. We need to cut out wasteful spending, right? Uh, priority.
00:34:44.180
You just need a brain for that. I don't think you need doge.
00:34:47.360
Prioritize, prioritize. You prioritize the people who are citizens, like you said, are paying into
00:34:52.320
the system, prioritize that. And, uh, and, and if there's money left over, we can talk about what
00:34:57.940
to do with that money. But right now we've been in deficit for years.
00:35:00.260
You're nowhere near that conversation of what to do with the money left over in California.
00:35:04.320
Well, no, we're not there yet. You're, you're, you're, you're, you're nowhere near that. And,
00:35:08.680
um, you know, do you think that some of the impacts people felt from these fires and natural disasters
00:35:14.360
were worse because some of the leaders valued the, the DEI, uh, virtues of promotion based on
00:35:23.460
immutable traits rather than having people in, in these positions as a consequence of their merit?
00:35:29.240
I'm sure that that has some consequence. Um, I think the greater consequence, frankly,
00:35:34.000
is, is the governor and, and those that are, you know, with him and serving with him and not
00:35:39.600
allowing the local leaders to assess and, and, and, and have the resources that they've been
00:35:47.600
But there were like three lesbians named Kristen who were running the LA fire department
00:35:52.280
in the name of equity and they might be wonderful people. I have nothing against people named
00:35:55.840
Kristen. I don't, I try not to, you know, um, cast terrible judgment on people based on how they
00:36:00.500
live their lives. But at the same time, it seemed like something might've been more important than
00:36:05.860
who was a good firefighter. If that was, uh, what we were seeing in this time of great crisis.
00:36:11.560
Yeah. I don't personally know the direct cause and effect and the situation you're mentioning,
00:36:15.760
the fires and, and DEI, uh, personally, and, and, and you'll see this on my website,
00:36:20.340
uh, art Hodges for Senate.com. Um, personally, I'm not for favoring any special group of people.
00:36:26.940
Right. I'm for equal rights, equality. Uh, all such a controversial tank.
00:36:32.500
I think I got it from the constitution. All of us are created equal. So, um, uh, let's not,
00:36:38.780
let's not have inequality in any of these things, whether it's, whether it's a university,
00:36:43.140
you know, insurance acceptance, um, whether it's jobs, whether it's whatever, I mean,
00:36:48.540
God made all of us. It doesn't matter what your color is. It doesn't matter what nation you're
00:36:53.040
born in, what your primary language is. We're all of equal value in God's eyes. And as a government,
00:36:58.600
we should have the same. Everyone's of equal value. Like I said, I pastor a church that I'm a
00:37:03.300
racial minority in. We've never had a single racial issue in our congregation.
00:37:08.780
That I know of in all of my life. I mean, we can do this thing if we just erase all of this
00:37:13.580
inequality by giving special groups, special attention. It's such, uh, an eloquent distillation
00:37:21.320
of how Christianity is inherently, uh, an affront, uh, an attack on racism, right? Because racism,
00:37:29.520
uh, and, and I consider DEI a feature of racism says that it's, uh, your immutable traits. It's the
00:37:36.500
things you, you know, you can't change about yourself. But the core tenant of our faith is
00:37:41.040
that there is, there is God making each person in God's image. There is a part of God reflected in
00:37:47.960
you. And if that's true, you couldn't possibly treat someone as lesser because of their immutable
00:37:52.640
traits because, because what's ultimately the most immutable thing is that we're all created in God's
00:37:58.200
image. Absolutely. In fact, the Bible even says further than that, it says, prefer one another.
00:38:02.960
Yeah. Right. Prefer one another. I mean, the golden rule doing to others as you would have them
00:38:07.140
doing to you. I mean, those are really the answers for good governance. It really is.
00:38:11.280
And a society that's healthy. Well, I hope that's a unifying message. We have a lot of people who
00:38:15.860
watch this program who are, uh, political operatives, political hacks, aspiring candidates or campaign
00:38:22.900
managers, young people who think they might do what you're doing now and run for office. And so I'd
00:38:28.260
love you to take us inside like a campaign itself for the state Senate. Uh, I've run for the state
00:38:33.500
legislature. I know oftentimes it's like you and your 10 best friends, you call to, uh, gather together
00:38:40.980
for community meetings or to go to parades or, uh, contact their network of supporters to, to be a part
00:38:47.860
of your effort. Um, what advice would you give people who are thinking about making that decision?
00:38:52.920
You have to become a candidate and what you have to do to prepare yourself organizationally,
00:38:58.360
spiritually, and physically. Yeah. Well, I'm just getting started in this myself. So I'm,
00:39:03.060
I'm a neophyte here. I'm learning as I go, but God has brought some incredible people into my life.
00:39:08.540
And, uh, right now where we are right now, we have a weekly, I call it my, uh, my Senate strategy team.
00:39:16.360
We have a weekly strategy team meeting and I've got, I won't name any of the names, but I've got
00:39:20.740
several on that, on that group. Um, and a couple of them, not even in the state of California,
00:39:25.560
they, they zoom in from out of state. Um, and so we're building that, you know, from within,
00:39:30.500
uh, now I was actually, I've been an independent. I wasn't registered with any party for many years.
00:39:35.740
Uh, I did register with the Republican party just three years ago. And again, like I said,
00:39:40.240
they're the ones that approached me about, you know, running for the Senate seat, the significance of
00:39:44.440
the Senate seat district 18, which by the way, is all of South County, San Diego, uh, the entire
00:39:49.940
border all the way to Arizona. So it's all of South County, San Diego takes in part of San Diego
00:39:54.540
city, all of Nassau city, all of Chula Vista, all of Imperial beach, all of Otay and everything going
00:39:59.820
East and South. Um, and then all the way North, it's all of Imperial County. And then going North,
00:40:05.920
it takes in part of Riverside County and part of San Bernardo County. It's a huge, it's a huge area.
00:40:10.600
And, um, and, uh, so that's, that's Senate district, uh, 18. Uh, again, this is my first foray.
00:40:16.960
What are you looking forward to most in the campaign? The campaigning itself, meeting people,
00:40:21.020
meeting people. And I'm already meeting great people, amazing people, you know, whatever it
00:40:24.540
comes out of the campaign, whether I win, whether I don't win, I'm believing I'm going to win, but
00:40:28.060
whether I do or not, it's not a loss because I'm, I'm meeting people, people that want to make a
00:40:33.740
difference, not just for themselves, but for other people. I mean, that's what it's about. Like,
00:40:38.700
you know what? I'm okay. I'm at the point of retirement. I could just say, okay, I'm done.
00:40:42.740
I'm not working anymore. I'm good. So why am I doing this? I'm doing this for my kids and my
00:40:48.940
kids, kids and my neighbor's kids. I'm doing it for the future. I want them to have the childhood
00:40:54.300
I had, which is not available here in California today. A lot of people who grew up in California,
00:41:01.400
uh, say to me that they're too hurt to even come back and see what's happened to this place
00:41:07.100
of such wonderment, boundless natural resources, beautiful state, beautiful resources.
00:41:11.940
You talked about the creative class of, I mean, throughout all of human history,
00:41:15.380
people are drawn to others who are making and building. And that has happened here in the arts
00:41:21.140
that's happened here from, from a, uh, technological standpoint. And I, I wonder where you see it going
00:41:28.380
if some of these conservative and Republican efforts aren't successful, like paint a picture
00:41:34.060
for my viewers of what California looks like in five or 10 years, if the current slide continues.
00:41:40.320
Well, if it, if it continues in five or 10 years, we're going to look like a third world country
00:41:46.720
that's under a tyranny. That's what it's going to look like. We've had one, you mentioned it,
00:41:50.880
we've had one party role here for nearly two decades. Uh, the significance of this coming
00:41:55.120
election in 2026 and my seat in particular, my seat, which is for the first time in play in nearly
00:42:01.460
two decades, uh, which is amazing dramatic shift. Uh, Trump lost my Senate district by 40 points in
00:42:09.600
2016. He lost it by 13.5 points last year. Oh, so the swing is coming. The swing. Brian Jones said
00:42:17.560
this might be the greatest shift of any district in the state of California. So for the first time,
00:42:21.740
it's in play. There are two other Senate seats that are in play. If I win my seat and the other two
00:42:27.900
in their seats for the first time in 14 years, we'll break the Democrat supermajority in California.
00:42:32.880
That's why people have been outside our district. Then they have to allow debate. So for our viewers,
00:42:37.600
a voice, one of the, one of the frustrating things about the people who do get elected is
00:42:41.220
when you're in this super minority, there are no rules because if you start to make progress on
00:42:46.760
anything, they just waive the rules and steamroll you. And so breaking that supermajority at least
00:42:53.620
means that in these moments where government is steamrolling people, you have the ability to stand
00:42:58.560
up and force a discussion and put facts on the table. That could be, that could be very significant.
00:43:05.140
It's huge. It's huge. Yeah. So we do need support even from outside the district.
00:43:10.440
Yeah, sure. And if folks see that and see the broader strategic picture, where can they go to
00:43:15.600
donate or otherwise contribute to your campaign?
00:43:18.640
Yes. Yeah. Go to arthodgesforsenate.com. There's a donate button there and arthodgesforsenate.com.
00:43:23.980
Love for you to follow us there. Love for you to help. And I'm getting, I am getting calls and
00:43:27.360
messages from around the country and people starting, again, we're just not getting started,
00:43:31.200
but people starting to donate. And it really is going to make a difference. Again, I'm not,
00:43:36.260
I don't need another job. God knows that. I'm not in it for that. I'm not in it for anything
00:43:41.460
other than to try to make a difference. And I believe there's a hope and a chance for the first time
00:43:46.440
in nearly two decades to actually accomplish that.
00:43:52.660
Politically. And it, it focused people's activism on a lot of these policy questions. And I really
00:43:58.580
get the sense that it may have been a part of guiding your life.
00:44:05.100
And it, like you mentioned earlier, Christians felt persecuted and under attack. We unfortunately
00:44:10.720
are still seeing that in the world. Christians persecuted. We've been covering on our program,
00:44:15.900
what's been happening in Africa, tragic, tragic cases in Nigeria. Do you have a thought or
00:44:22.060
perspective as to why Christians face this persecution around the world and what the antidote
00:44:28.300
Yeah. And my thought's not going to come across as political. It's going to come across as
00:44:32.640
All right. But absolutely. I mean, we are living in what we call the end times.
00:44:37.760
Prophetically, we don't have time to go into all of that, but I'm a, I'm not going to consider
00:44:40.960
myself an expert. Some would probably consider me that I won't say that, but, but I, I, I
00:44:45.520
love the study of, we call it eschatology. It's just a fancy word for like end time events,
00:44:50.760
but let me just boil it down in a nutshell. Um, you know, I'm a, I'm an adjunct professor.
00:44:55.240
I'm a chancellor of a college and so on. And this is one of my, my subjects that I teach
00:44:59.680
and study. Um, we believe biblically that it was prophesied many years ago. In fact, in
00:45:06.460
the old Testament, that there would come a time when Israel, the nation that has a covenant
00:45:11.040
with God, the only nation with a covenant with God, everlasting covenant, that Israel
00:45:14.760
would be blinded for 2000 years. That little tiny prophecy comes from the book of Hosea,
00:45:21.440
a small little book in the old Testament, that Israel would be blind in part for two
00:45:25.140
days. And the third day, God would raise her up to live in his sight. Well, in the Bible,
00:45:29.020
prophetic day prophetically is a thousand years. So for 2000 years, Israel be blind. Israel
00:45:34.940
was blind when they did not recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah. And then he turned
00:45:40.940
to the Gentiles. We're the Gentiles. If you're not a Jew, you're a Gentile. And so that's where
00:45:45.680
we are. We call it also the church age. The church was birthed in Acts chapter two. So we're
00:45:51.640
living at the end of that. We're about 2000 years since Jesus' death. So we're literally
00:45:57.400
at the end of that 2000 year period, which means everything's going to shift. There's going
00:46:03.180
to be a catching away of the church. We call that the rapture, the world as we know it.
00:46:07.460
So you think the persecution of Christians is a signal of that end?
00:46:14.440
It just seems like a terrible price for people to have to pay for that cosmic and-
00:46:21.200
You mentioned the connection we have with Israel, and it's a place with a 4,000 year connection
00:46:26.240
to our faith. Of course, you want to see, we all want to see Israel survive.
00:46:32.600
And at times that is challenging. I think maybe some of these worldly political things
00:46:40.120
really jamming things up. But one thing did bother me. When I saw that Israel's government
00:46:48.040
had filed paperwork where they were geofencing Christian churches, like, you know, drawing
00:46:54.540
almost a digital line around them, and then plowing message in to churchgoers specifically
00:47:00.600
for whatever their political goal was. I didn't like that. And I probably would have also not
00:47:05.620
liked it if it was Burger King or McDonald's or Cocoa. You know, just the notion that you would
00:47:11.720
ever target worshiping Christians for a commercial or political propaganda campaign. Does that concern
00:47:22.700
So, I'm not aware of that. I wasn't aware of that. I guess it would depend on the messaging, maybe.
00:47:32.740
I mean, if it's- Yeah, I think it would depend on the messaging. I mean, geofencing is available
00:47:38.580
to anybody and everybody. True. And everybody's doing it. Even if we don't know it, they're doing
00:47:43.540
it. I mean, you know, I think they're listening to us sometimes. Probably happens if you go to the
00:47:49.560
Costco next door, you're geofenced. Well, that's what I'm saying. But should foreign governments
00:47:52.640
be doing it? Well, I don't think they should be doing it for government purposes. No, I don't think
00:47:59.360
so. But here's the question is about Israel specifically. While I support Israel, I'm not saying
00:48:05.420
Israel's always right. And when they're not right, we need to call them out on it, that they're not
00:48:10.600
right. And in fact, there's a great rabbi here in San Diego. He and I have lengthy conversations
00:48:14.200
all the time. He just called me a couple of days ago, another lengthy conversation.
00:48:18.020
And we have a great rapport. We consider each other friends. In fact, I think we might have
00:48:21.900
either been interviewed together during COVID, maybe on One American News down at the County Edmund
00:48:25.720
Building. But we have these kinds of discussions. And the reason I support Israel is because in the
00:48:34.380
Bible, Israel is the only nation that has what's called an everlasting covenant. And that's so
00:48:39.800
important. God said, whoever blesses Israel will be blessed. And whoever curses Israel will be cursed.
00:48:46.400
That's why America has got to remain the friend to Israel. Because Israel is going to survive.
00:48:52.520
They're not only going to survive, they're going to thrive. They are. And if we will stand with Israel,
00:48:57.940
again, that doesn't mean that we condone doing wrong. We need to call them out when they're doing
00:49:02.640
wrong. But we need to stand and support them regardless. Look, if you're a parent,
00:49:07.620
and your kid does wrong things, you're not going to condone that wrong. But neither are you going to
00:49:13.780
Yeah, I think that's actually, I think actually comparing some of the current features of the
00:49:17.980
Netanyahu government to a child that is frustrating you or wayward or misbehaving is actually an apt
00:49:25.580
comparison. And loving the people of Israel, the Jewish people, I think is something that probably,
00:49:32.640
rewards us all in the end as loving our neighbor is something we're compelled to do throughout our
00:49:38.860
faith. Bishop Hodges, I wish you well on the campaign trail. I'm excited for you. I think that
00:49:44.480
oftentimes we're able to make points in these really swing districts that do dictate the future
00:49:52.820
of our politics. And I also hope that this path you've been on from faith into government service
00:49:58.600
is one that's more well-traveled because it will only make the decisions in government better.
00:50:04.760
And hopefully we'll never have to endure kind of the bizarre COVID stuff that we have before.
00:50:10.520
But thanks for taking the time to come by and chat with us. One more time, your website,
00:50:15.120
if folks are interested in following you on the trail.
00:50:16.880
It's arthodgesforsenate.com, arthodgesforsenate.com. If you forget that, just type in Bishop Art Hodges.
00:50:23.740
There's many Art Hodges out there, but there's only one Bishop Art Hodges.
00:50:26.560
Well, we will follow the campaign closely and we wish you good travels and that God's will is
00:50:34.340
done in this incredible part of your mission that you're on.
00:50:37.720
Thank you, Matt. We appreciate this opportunity and thank you everyone for listening.
00:50:41.120
We'll be back next week on Anchorman. Thanks so much for joining us. Leave us a five-star rating
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