00:00:27.000We have Pastor Jürgen and Pastor Russell Johnson.
00:00:30.000If you go to a church and your church is not speaking out, this is the episode for you.
00:00:35.000And I think it will really hopefully compel you to speak out more boldly or have your pastor speak out more boldly, especially for such a time as this.
00:01:24.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:32.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:03:03.000Because I'm sure there's always somebody in your ear, positive, negative, somewhere in the middle.
00:03:07.000I mean, it isn't, you've decided to not take the easy way, but the biblical way forward.
00:03:12.000How and why did you come to that decision?
00:03:14.000You know, the Apostle Paul calls the church the pillar of truth in society.
00:03:18.000And so it's my conviction that when the church loses her voice, the world loses her mind.
00:03:23.000And that is evident in our world and in our culture today.
00:03:27.000And so for me, I just refuse to buy into kind of the ideological narrative that the church best serves society by blending in, not rocking the boat, not saying anything controversial.
00:03:38.000God forbid, we got to protect our platform and our influence.
00:03:41.000And, you know, the net result of that is we actually do a disservice to the people that, you know, we're called the reach and we're called the shepherd and steward.
00:03:48.000So, you know, for me, there's a battle going on for worldview, and it requires competent people to speak in both an intellectual, but also an unashamed and unafraid way to address some of these cultural issues.
00:04:00.000And, you know, if we don't speak up now, we're going to find ourselves, you know, really, like Reagan said, one generation away from losing the freedom and the values that we enjoy here in this part of the world.
00:04:10.000So what I maybe you can help navigate it.
00:04:13.000Why is it most pastors don't have the clarity that you have on this?
00:04:17.000They're unwilling to talk about anything.
00:04:19.000I mean, for example, the fact you have the boldness and the courage, say, I'm going to send out a full-page advertisement in the Seattle Times celebrating, thanking God for his intervention in our land, which I believe was a miracle and was a divine intervention to give us grace so the unborn can live.
00:04:35.000I'm sure you have a lot of pastor friends that disagree with your approach.
00:04:38.000Can you just give me a little bit of insight of what their argument is?
00:04:43.000Yeah, I think, you know, for some folks, you know, they have developed an entire value system around being liked by people who don't share their values.
00:04:50.000And then they have made that kind of the ultimate apex of what success looks like.
00:04:56.000Success in the pulpit looks like being liked and affirmed by people who don't share our values.
00:05:01.000And I'm not trying to go around and intentionally be disliked.
00:05:23.000And I felt like the Lord spoke to me and he said, if you will be a truth teller and if you will guard your heart, I will guard your influence.
00:05:30.000And so we've got to get the order of operations right as it pertains to our role as ministers in the nation.
00:05:36.000And so for me, it's my conviction that if I will do and be what God has asked me to do and be, then he'll open doors no man can close and he will establish my way.
00:05:48.000Scripture says, if you will humble yourself under the mighty hand of the Lord, he will promote you in due time.
00:05:55.000And so for me, it's just like, it doesn't matter how much influence you have if you're not willing to use it on stuff that matters.
00:06:02.000And the devil doesn't care how big your church is as long as you stay inside of it.
00:06:06.000And so for me, I'm like, what are we here to do?
00:06:10.000I'm trying to make a dent on the world around me.
00:06:12.000The culture is going to hell in a handbasket.
00:06:15.000And the church is the canary in the coal mine of culture.
00:06:19.000And if we don't find the strength and the resilience to be voices that point people in the right direction, then we are nothing more than echoes of whatever culture's most popular heresy is.
00:07:14.000But I think that there are, you know, people that are in the region who are looking to be a part of something that was bold, audacious, and unapologetic in our approach to the public square of civic engagement.
00:07:25.000And so, you know, we've got a lot of folks who have come out of the woodwork to say, hey, we're with you.
00:07:49.000You know, I think that the probably top objection we get is: well, if we were just more winsome, and if you were just nicer, and if we would just kind of play it safe, and you don't have to say things the way that you say them, we don't have to comment on the issues of pro-life, LGBTQ plus, so on and so forth.
00:08:08.000If you would just package this in a less abrasive, non-offensive way, you know, we'd be able to win more people.
00:08:15.000But I think oftentimes people are making that commentary based on a cultural era that is no longer existing in the West.
00:08:23.000You know, this is not the Sunday school generation of the 80s.
00:08:26.000This is not the evangelical generation of the 90s.
00:08:29.000This is an all-out ideological cultural conflict for the future of the nation.
00:08:35.000And so for me, I'm just like, yeah, you know, of course, you use wisdom in the way that you say things.
00:08:40.000And of course, you know, you want to cast a wide net and bring in as many people as possible.
00:08:45.000But the reality is, is that if our value system is built around the idea of every time the boat is rocked, something must be wrong, then what you develop is a bunch of people who are scared to death of their own shadows.
00:09:37.000And kind of the, I actually, I love your take on it if you've seen it or not, this Hellsong thing on Hulu, where, you know, I'm not a fan of Carl Lenson at all.
00:09:46.000But I actually think some of the, if you actually, have you seen it?
00:10:10.000I want to talk about that because I feel, and again, we have an audience that is very engaged and very communicative and unbelievably honest.
00:10:17.000And they call me out when I'm not as precise as I should be in my language or whatever I'm doing, is there is a hunger.
00:10:23.000Would you agree that I've never seen the church population congregation so hungry for truth?
00:10:29.000And I think there's a famine happening right now.
00:10:32.000You know, it reminds me of the era in which Samuel lived, where scripture says the word of the Lord was rare.
00:10:39.000And people are starving for somebody who will just be bold enough to tell the truth.
00:10:44.000In a culture built on lies, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
00:10:50.000And we are committed to being revolutionaries in this era.
00:10:54.000And that requires you to be able to tell the truth.
00:10:56.000And the reality is, is that culture is always going to have another heresy and another sound, another hashtag, another flag that you must bow at to gain their approval.
00:11:07.000This slippery slope is proved to be true, especially on the social issues.
00:11:13.000If you want to bow on the BLM, that's not enough.
00:11:15.000You want to bow on the LGBT, it's not enough.
00:11:20.000I want to talk about ReliefFactor.com.
00:11:22.000I want you guys to check out ReliefFactor.com, 100% drug-free, knee pain, back pain, joint pain, elbow pain.
00:12:24.000You know, but Seattle and Portland are in a competition on who can be, you know, more leftist and broke and dysfunctional.
00:12:32.000And so, you know, depending on the week and what legislation they pass, it's an ever-growing challenge there in the Northwest.
00:12:39.000So you're going to be speaking here at our pastors conference, TPUSA Faith, here in Nashville.
00:12:44.000You're going to be speaking to pastors that agree with you, pastors that need more encouragement, and then some pastors that are not yet speaking out.
00:12:54.000Yeah, you know, for me, I think we need to reframe our pastoral roles in light of scripture and in light of historical moments by which God has used members of the clergy to stand up, speak to some of these great cultural issues, and in doing so, shift the spiritual landscape of the nation.
00:13:12.000You know, in the midst of a lot of darkness that's happening in our nation, there are bright spots of moves of God, revivals, reformations, things that are happening that are really incredible.
00:13:20.000And so I haven't lost hope by any means.
00:13:23.000But my encouragement to some of these pastors and leaders is that really the church in America functions as the neck of the nation.
00:13:30.000And as the church goes, so goes the culture.
00:13:33.000And so for me, it's like I want to encourage people to begin to see themselves in light of the scriptural authority that they have to help instruct, teach, develop, and disciple this nation.
00:13:44.000And in doing so, take that role seriously because it has never been more crucial than it is right now.
00:13:50.000Yeah, and so there's, so some Christians say, but this world is not our home.
00:14:11.000But anyways, you know, you can live in a bunker and try to outlast and wait for the apocalypse, or you could operate with a mandate that as long as I got breath in my lungs, I've got purpose here on the earth.
00:14:22.000And so, you know, we have this kind of redemptive mandate is for the redemption of regions and cities.
00:14:28.000And I believe that when a church prospers, a city can prosper.
00:14:32.000And so, you know, I know that there is a blessed hope and there is a reality beyond this place.
00:14:36.000And yes, we are citizens of heaven, but we have responsibility and authority below.
00:14:41.000And so Jesus tells the disciples, all authority I have given you.
00:14:44.000Now go and make disciples of all nations.
00:14:46.000And so for me, there's a reason why you didn't immediately die when you got born again and go to heaven.
00:14:51.000You were left here on earth for purpose, with purpose to do something.
00:14:55.000So I'm not just going to complain about the darkness around me.
00:14:57.000I'm going to do something, light a candle, spread the truth.
00:15:01.000And ultimately, when you get people born again, when you get people spirit-filled, when you get people on track in their relationship with Christ, watch how it transforms their decision-making process, their ability to engage in public policy, the way that they think about issues they're framing.
00:15:15.000If we can win the war for worldview, getting people born again, watch how that will have a downstream effect on all of these issues that we talk about in culture.
00:15:36.000Yeah, you know, for me, engaging them in dialogue and then being able to use case examples, because I think a lot of pastors are scared to death.
00:15:45.000Like, if I speak out on this, I'm going to lose the little that I have left.
00:16:07.000And so, you know, one of the things that I love about what God is doing in the Pacific Northwest is it's proof.
00:16:11.000If God can do it in Seattle, he can do it anywhere.
00:16:14.000And so if God can see it fit to raise up a church filled with young and old alike, led by a pastoral team of people who are unafraid to speak out on these cultural issues, if it can work in the Northwest, I promise you it can work anywhere.
00:16:29.000And so, you know, I love the idea that the church that I lead has, in one sense, become like an encouragement and an example to other churches and other communities around the nation who are saying, hey, you know what?
00:16:41.000Actually, if we speak out on this, I think God will honor us and I think God will bless it.
00:17:32.000And I didn't want to go to those woke banks.
00:17:34.000I, you know, I did previous, my last mortgage we did, it was with a woke bank, and they were just, they were bureaucratic and they donate the BLM and the gay agenda and all that stuff.
00:17:44.000And I said, what can I do to actually, and I said, of course, duh, hello, andrewandtodd.com.
00:19:20.000And again, these other banks that I deal with, it's like, here's 955,000 pages to sign and they don't call you back and they don't work weekends.
00:19:28.000I had a problem with one of the things on the process because it was one thing that wasn't filled out.
00:19:32.000And they respond on a Sunday within minutes.
00:19:34.000You're trying to get a response from a woke bank on a Sunday.
00:20:41.000It's literally when people say, How have you grown?
00:20:45.000Like we were five campuses in 2020 with about 6,000 people showing up on a Sunday.
00:20:53.000And then when the lockdowns shut down, everything, you know, Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, like you name it, when all of that hit, we took a biblical position and lost probably 95% of our friendships, relationships in the ministry circle.
00:21:10.000People would, you know, it was close to begging us to not be strong, not be open, not stand for biblical values, take the safe road.
00:21:41.000And I said to my staff, I said to my wife and my team, I said, we may lose everything, but I cannot back up from the God who has stood with me through thick and thin all these years.
00:24:41.000The chaos, the confusion, the fear, the angst.
00:24:46.000And we found that as we stood strong, yes, the first wave was persecution, but after that, it was freedom, it was deliverance, it was salvation.
00:24:56.000You know, we had 31 people in 2019 in our drug, alcohol, porn recovery program.
00:25:03.000In 2020, with the lockdowns, it went from 31 to 380 people just because people weren't doing well isolated.
00:26:05.000And I think that there's an awakening definitely happening.
00:26:09.000And, you know, I would just say that where we are today is the result of the last two decades.
00:26:17.000Over the last two decades, we, as the church, really switched out a discipleship mantra, an empowering of people, a standing against, or standing up for truth, standing against the spirit of the world.
00:26:33.000What we did was, hey, Jesus is coming back.
00:26:41.000So let's just do away with discipleship and let's just do everything we can to get people saved.
00:26:47.000And then what happened is we began to, the church began to ask itself, well, hang on, what's keeping people from getting saved?
00:26:53.000Well, you speak out on abortion or you speak out against homosexuality or you speak out against this.
00:26:58.000And so we, so the church began to remove all these things.
00:27:01.000So we thought, and then we had, you know, the pop-up churches and literally some of these churches, it's like, you know, you don't even need God.
00:27:08.000You know, you just need clever marketing, a really slick logo, you know, a great team, a beautiful haircut, CrossFit.
00:27:31.000One of the most powerful stories is when the Queen of Sheba comes to Solomon.
00:27:36.000And the Bible says, When she came and she saw the house that he had built, the entryway by which he went up from his house into the house of the Lord, when she saw the seating of the servants and their apparel, there was no more spirit in her.
00:27:50.000And the Bible says she tested Solomon with hard questions, and there was nothing so difficult that he could not answer her.
00:27:57.000And then she responds and she says, You know, what I heard in my country, I didn't believe, but truly the half of it was not told me.
00:28:07.000And she gives him an offering, like an honorarium.
00:28:11.000It's about between six and a half and seven billion in today's terms because she was so blown away.
00:28:16.000In fact, she then takes Judaism back to Ethiopia.
00:28:20.000And to this day, there's Ethiopian Jews.
00:28:23.000Ethiopian Jews because of that encounter.
00:28:25.000But what I love about that, Charlie, was when she came to the house of God, every difficult question that the world couldn't answer, the house of God answered.
00:28:35.000And I think in 2020, what we got caught because we'd so backed up, so lowered the bar, so diluted the gospel that we had no answers.
00:28:43.000We had no answers for gender reassignment, we had no answer for gender dysphoria, we had no answer for, you know, when does life begin and should we stand up for it?
00:28:51.000We had no gender for all the LGBTQ and what if a man feels like he's born in the wrong body and you know, if a man identifies as a woman, can he follow a little child into it?
00:28:59.000And so, and the church was just silent.
00:29:01.000The church was like fearful and afraid.
00:29:03.000And God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, so he cannot bless fear.
00:30:35.000So Jesus says, you know, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
00:30:40.000Revelation says that Michael threw Satan out of heaven and now he's in the earth and woe to the inhabitants of the earth and see.
00:30:48.000But we're meant to on earth as it is in heaven.
00:30:50.000We're meant to drive the devil out of every college, every high school, of you know, every facet of society out of our government, out of our Congress, out of our Senate, out of our FBI, DOJ, wherever we recognize the devil, our job would be given authority, drive him out so that people can come out of darkness.
00:31:08.000I was saying to one of my pastors, Pastor Samuel, I said, the reason we need to do this is because people are in darkness.
00:31:14.000And if we don't preach the word, the word is light.
00:31:17.000Thy word is a lamp and a light unto my.
00:31:19.000If we don't preach the light, people are going to be in the darkness.
00:31:22.000And in the darkness, people make terrible choices.
00:31:41.000TPSA kicks off another Christian nationalist party this week, hosting its second annual pastor summit in Nashville, Tennessee, that touts the aim of equipping and empowering both pastors and their churches to stand for biblical truth.
00:31:52.000Continues by saying that I want to read this one quote for you in particular, Jürgen, because I've been looking for it here.
00:32:02.000Most of this is just kind of the typical nonsense.
00:32:08.000They pick, or they want to say, ah, here it is.
00:32:23.000It's like whenever they disagree or whenever they're, whenever truth enters, truth is a threat to democracy.
00:32:32.000I mean, every time we watch the Democrats, especially on the news media, anything that is truth, you know, wanting to defund or do a deep dive into the FBI, DOJ, it's a threat to democracy.
00:32:46.000People protesting a stolen election, threat to democracy.
00:32:49.000So I actually take that as another compliment.
00:32:52.000But what they're afraid of is they're afraid of people seeing the truth.
00:32:57.000Jesus says, you know, you shall know the truth, and the truth that you know shall set you free.
00:33:08.000And a lie can only exist in a vacuum of truth.
00:33:12.000When the truth comes, it not only exposes the lie, but it dissolves the lie.
00:33:17.000And the reason that this spirit, it's an antichrist spirit, is so threatened and claims that it's a threat to democracy is because Satan has so many people bound today with all kinds of perversions and confusions.
00:33:32.000Whereas when the truth comes, light comes, clarity comes, and freedom comes.
00:33:36.000The reason that we preach the truth isn't because, like, you know, they try and say, oh, Awakened Church spreads hate.
00:33:41.000We had this Christmas production down at the Radies.
00:35:56.000Yes, I mean, people say, oh, I don't like him because of A, B, and C. Dear Jesus, it's like, number one, if you're perfect, you cast the first stone.
00:36:26.000And we are here now wrapping up our broadcast at our TPUSA Faith Pastor Summit, the largest in the country.
00:36:33.000Our goal is to activate and equip the church and pastors to speak out against the heresy of wokeism and be able to articulate courageously and boldly the need for a revival and a restoration of American values in our country.