00:00:20.460Let me give you real quick the vision of this podcast, Theology Applied.
00:00:24.920One of our concerns is that there are many in the conservative, biblical, evangelical camp today in the church that they are more than happy, praise God, to acknowledge and recognize the authority of Scripture, the inerrancy of Scripture.
00:00:46.240And yet there seems to be a disconnect between the inerrancy of Scripture and the sufficiency of Scripture.
00:00:53.280And so what we want to do is we want to help provide people with a Christian worldview.
00:00:58.360We want to help people begin to take their theology and not just have the right doctrines,
00:01:05.240but learn how to take these correct biblical doctrines and begin applying them to all aspects of life.
00:01:12.040And so one of my concerns as a pastor is that there's not always a lot of application in the church,
00:01:17.620that we would take a text, even in expositional preaching, we would take a text,
00:01:21.700we would exegete the text in the pulpit, the minister on the Lord's day, and then we would
00:01:27.320say a prayer and be done. But I think that preaching is composed of three primary parts.
00:01:32.720There's revelation, interpretation, application. Revelation, interpretation, application. The
00:01:37.780revelation is not a revelation of man. It's not, I have a dream. I have a vision. I have an idea.
00:01:43.100But the minister of God stands in the pulpit on the Lord's day and says, I have a text.
00:01:47.380I have a revelation that is truly a revelation from God.
00:01:52.320It is a passage of his infallible word.
00:01:56.040And so we have revelation, then we have interpretation.
00:02:31.960And I think we've so steered clear of that because of that moralistic therapeutic deism that we experienced as the church in the 50s and 60s and maybe even 70s.
00:02:42.320this idea of meriting our salvation by being good, moral people. And because of that, we just
00:02:48.040don't want to tell our churches, we don't want to tell our congregants what to do, because we're
00:02:52.720afraid that it's going to lend towards legalism. But the Bible always tells us what to do. And it
00:02:58.520doesn't tell us what to do in order to merit salvation, but it does tell us what to do precisely
00:03:03.020because we have freely received salvation as a response to the free gift of salvation that we
00:03:08.520have by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. And so that's what this podcast is
00:03:12.380all about. Theology applied, not just exegeting text and not just explaining the workings of
00:03:19.740doctrines, but trying to get hands and feet on the ground in real, tangible, practical ways,
00:03:25.920applying the scripture, applying theology to all of life. And one final concern for me as a pastor
00:03:33.280is that when we ever do muster the courage to enter the realm of application,
00:03:39.600we usually regulate that application to two primary areas,
00:03:47.280the church and the home, the church and the home.
00:03:50.800And so we seem to be willing as the evangelical church and evangelical pastors
00:03:55.840to apply the scripture to marriage, to parenting,
00:03:59.440to that, you know, that Lord's, not even Lord's day, but Lord's hour Sunday morning when we gather
00:04:06.420as a church. But I think the Bible has a lot more to say about human life besides just the church
00:04:12.540and the home. And so it brings me great, great pleasure. It's a great privilege to have as our
00:04:20.060very first guest, Gabriel Wrench, because he is a deacon at Christ Church where the preaching
00:04:27.240pastor there is Pastor Doug Wilson. And for a very long time, several decades, Doug and Christ
00:04:34.760Church and Gabe and all these guys have been really faithful with their mission statement,
00:04:40.140which is all of Christ for all of life. And I think that's so desperately needed by the church
00:04:46.140today. We want the whole Bible, right? All of Christ and His authority is executed through
00:04:52.220the agency of His Word. So the whole Bible, the whole Christ, and not just for family and the
00:04:57.560church, but for everything. And that includes our topic today, which is politics. What does the
00:05:04.600Bible have to say about politics and how should Christians take their theology and begin to apply
00:05:10.300it in the political sphere? So that gives you an idea of the podcast. That gives you an idea of
00:05:14.780our guest, but I want you to not just take my word for it, but I want him to be able to have
00:05:18.500an opportunity to introduce himself. So I'm here with Gabriel Wrench. He's a deacon at Christ
00:05:22.760Church, and he's one of the hosts for a podcast called Cross-Politic. And so this is an expertise,
00:05:29.320area of expertise for him. So Gabe, could you just take a few minutes and tell us about yourself?
00:05:34.020Thanks for having me on, Joel. Really appreciate being the first guest on Theology Applied. So
00:05:38.680thank you for having me on. I was born and raised in Texas, came from kind of a blue-collar
00:05:45.520family, but a dad who worked hard, and he actually was influenced by Rush Dooney,
00:05:52.860Gary North, and David Chilton, and just kind of the old guard of kind of reformed theology,
00:06:03.300Reconstructionism, and so forth. And so with that background, my dad actually became a Christian
00:06:08.240when he was in college, led my mom to the faith. My mom came out of the Catholic Church and wasn't
00:06:12.460a Christian until she came to the Lord through my dad, both around the college time frame.
00:06:19.340And my dad kind of being a new convert, got connected to Greg Bonson. He was in limited
00:06:28.340California, Rush Dooney, and so forth. Well, anyways, fast forward, we get to Texas. And my
00:06:33.820dad in the 90s, when the kids started getting a little older, my dad wanted to put us in a
00:06:42.240Christian education Christian classical education situation and so we actually started a classical
00:06:47.380my dad helped start a classical Christian school with a with our pastor in in Dallas Texas and so
00:06:53.320that's kind of what got us actually on our journey eventually to Moscow Idaho because after my
00:06:58.800brother graduated college we were living in Eugene Oregon and my brother came over to go to
00:07:04.660New St. Andrews here in Moscow Idaho which is the liberal arts college that's was started by
00:07:09.600pastor wilson so long story short i i went and played basketball in california actually played
00:07:14.900in the bay bay area at a college in the bay area and my brother came and talked to me in the finish
00:07:19.680of my school here at university of idaho and that's what got me here so since uh kind of my
00:07:24.780my college journey growing up in texas you know uh everyone's a christian in the south i think i
00:07:31.540might have mentioned this before but uh the southern christian culture regardless if you're
00:07:37.040believer or not there's very few atheists in the south now it's growing of course but that all had
00:07:43.100a huge impact on me when i moved to oregon so we moved from literally from texas to eugene oregon
00:07:48.980and it's like going uh you know from cowboys and indians to vw buses and hippies i mean it's just
00:07:54.560two different worldviews two different places i i met my first atheist in eugene oregon uh and and
00:08:01.760that really had a huge impact on me because growing up in texas you know everyone's a christian but
00:08:06.240By the time you get to Oregon, I'm 18 years old, and I'm, you know, what do I believe about God?
00:08:11.940There's actually people in this world that don't believe anything about God.
00:08:14.900And so I started praying and reading the Bible like I meant it.
00:08:18.060You know, for my first time, I always grew up a Christian, so I never abandoned or left the faith.
00:08:24.640But, man, God really used Eugene to kind of wake me up.
00:08:27.820And so I had this big disconnect between who I was as a Christian and how I applied that to the world and how I applied that outside of my own mind.
00:08:38.540And that is a real, you know, it's a bad, bad place to be in.
00:08:42.360And so by the time I got to Moscow, Idaho, God really used our church and our community.
00:08:47.780I was discipling with our college pastor to really kind of wake my faith up and put some meat on my faith and how it not only applies to my own life, but also to the world.
00:08:57.360So I'm basically I'm an entrepreneur. I host CrossPolitik. It's a TV show and podcast. And we've expanded what we're doing into a bigger network. And so we have we actually have our first Fight Life East Network conference coming up this fall. And so I'm kind of a, you know, political host of a political Christian TV show. And then I do a bunch of entrepreneurial work to to make it all float and work together.
00:09:23.060Mm-hmm. That's great. So what first got you? So that's kind of a little bit of your testimony.
00:09:29.060That's what helped you recognize that I can't allow my Christian faith to be severed and
00:09:36.360divorced from all of life. But there's a lot in life. There is the church. There is the home.
00:09:42.360There's family. There's media. There's entertainment. There's vocation. But specifically
00:09:47.080politics. What got you interested in the realm of politics?
00:09:53.060Yeah, I think it was kind of a work in progress, obviously. I've lived in Texas, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Colorado, and now Idaho. So I've lived in a variety of states. I attended churches in every one of those states, some of the PCA, Presbyterian Church of America, some just Bible, evangelical churches.
00:10:14.060and i don't recall yeah i i don't want to you know i wasn't the best uh student in the pulpit
00:10:24.160so this doesn't throw shade on all my pastors you know but i don't recall hearing from the pulpit
00:10:29.280uh you know sermons regarding how to apply our faith into the political square yeah and and then
00:10:37.900you've you've seen this this just the church is just being maneuvered and pushed and you can see
00:10:43.380the trajectory uh you know i was born in 79 so the 80s i was very much aware of kind of starting
00:10:49.640to become aware of things in the 80s and of course 90s uh and you see this trajectory of the church
00:10:54.560just fading away and losing its influence in culture and in politics yeah you know the moral
00:11:01.620majority in the 80s was kind of like the uh you know the last hurrah in some sense for uh christians
00:11:08.480having an influence on politics. And so there's over 45 million Christians here in the U.S.
00:11:16.240Some surveys say there's up to 70 to 80 million Christians, but let's work with a more concentrated
00:11:22.540number, 45 million Christians in the U.S. And there's about 3 million, maybe on a high day,
00:11:30.340six million lgbt uh people in in communities in the u.s and who has more of an impact who has
00:11:38.920more of an influence on our culture it's not it's not the church that's right you know it's the one
00:11:43.960percent lgbt community that's getting all the legislation passed getting transgender bathrooms0.91
00:11:48.260pushed and forced on us getting you know businesses de-platformed getting i mean you just go down the
00:11:55.080list. And it's really that the church's influence is very impotent in all this. And so I think
00:12:02.580it's kind of a convergence of watching the church or not me myself, not knowing how to apply the
00:12:08.260word of God to politics and watching the church lose its influence and its ability to impact
00:12:16.580culture. Yep. So why you mentioned, you know, like pastors, this disconnect with the pulpit
00:12:23.200and politics and this disconnect, you know, in a larger sense, just between the church and
00:12:28.620politics. Uh, what, what, what do you think is, uh, the response, the source of that? Why,
00:12:33.760why do pastors, cause I, you know, I've had people even leave, um, my local church and cite
00:12:40.700as their number one reason, uh, because I'm making too many political applications. Now I don't do
00:12:46.720that necessarily in every sermon and certainly not the lion's share of my preaching. Um, but what I
00:12:51.880try to do and you know just in this kind of revolving rotation is i'm trying to take a text
00:12:57.900every lord's day by god's grace and apply it to every arena of life and so probably one out of
00:13:05.160every three sermons or so there's some kind of political application and um and that bothers
00:13:11.780people to the point where you know people have left our church over it uh people that i loved
00:13:16.440and it was sad to see them go, but they got that, right?
00:13:19.660That sentiment, that idea that I was doing something,
00:13:22.680I mean, for them, they felt like I was doing something immoral.
00:13:26.560So where did that sentiment come from?
00:13:28.220How were people, who discipled people into that?
00:13:30.400And why did that come about, this idea,
00:13:32.940not just a disconnect between the church and politics
00:13:35.720and preaching and politics, but that for a pastor,
00:13:39.540for the church to be engaged in politics is immoral.
00:13:43.640Because I feel like that's the sentiment, that it's wrong.
00:13:46.140What do you think? How did that happen?
00:13:48.500You know, the nice answer, the initial nice answer here is I do think pastors don't want to be partisan in the pulpit.
00:13:56.380And I think that I think it's becoming harder and harder not to do.
00:14:02.760But I think I think there there is a desire to not be partisan and draw lines where a pastor should not draw lines.
00:14:11.720And I think that's important to an extent that a pastor needs to consider that.
00:14:17.920I think the negative or the problem I think is really driving this is not wanting to be partisan, but I really think there's a lack of courage in the pulpit.
00:14:29.400I mean, even if you think about certain sins that you know if a pastor preaches on this sin in the pulpit, he's going to get in trouble.
00:14:37.600right and so even pastors avoid you know talking about the sin of homosexuality yeah um or you
00:14:44.700know talking about the sin of you know uh a husband divorcing his wife and church discipline i mean
00:14:50.980kind of think of a number of hot topics that you could bring up spanking your children disciplining
00:14:55.000your children knowledge of the lord uh there's so i think pastors have uh kind of lost courage in
00:15:02.420the pulpit. And that's connected to, I mean, I think our seminaries are a real problem here in
00:15:09.380the U.S. Our seminaries are training, you know, educators, not preachers. Our seminaries are
00:15:16.020putting out men who want to do some sort of academic analysis or an academic, where they
00:15:23.080think preaching is an academic exercise. So I think there's some problems there. And then in
00:15:27.980addition to all this, you also have the church kind of canceling the church. So the church,
00:15:33.880you know, my community, my pastor was canceled from broad evangelical conference circuit long
00:15:41.560before, you know, the church was canceled in our culture, you know, from having an impact in our
00:15:47.840culture. So the church is not created. Just to hear you correctly, are you saying that your
00:15:53.220pastor doug wilson is not appreciated in a broad sense by the evangelical church that because
00:15:58.720that's news to me i i that that's shocking uh well you know so uh i mean pastor wilson used to get
00:16:07.560invited to speak at ligonier's conferences i know you know um back in i mean google the google rc
00:16:13.920scroll and pastor wilson they're speaking on the same stage and all that stuff uh so uh you know
00:16:19.000pastor wilson thomas nelson used to publish our books and all this stuff and but uh you know you
00:16:23.900take on i mean we we we went through me too racism charges um lgbt blowback because we're in a liberal
00:16:33.620town here at university of idaho we went through that back in 2001 2 3 4 5 6 and we went through
00:16:39.760some huge controversy then and if you fight it and don't apologize well guess guess who disowns
00:16:45.200is actually the broader church. You're right. You're right. That's sad. All right. Well,
00:16:53.240then let me just press in a little bit more. Do you think any of the sentiment, the idea of
00:17:00.440politics staying out of the pulpit, Christians feeling like they shouldn't get involved in
00:17:05.820politics, do you think any of that sentiment comes from just this idea of the separation
00:17:10.140of church and state. So I'll just show my hand up front, just so you know. I do believe in a
00:17:16.440separation of church and state, but I don't believe in a separation of Christ and state.
00:17:22.700And so I do see these as two separate spheres on equal plane. The church is not under the state,
00:17:28.160nor is it over the state. But just that Venn diagram, I see them as two separate spheres,
00:17:33.600but both as ministers of God. So ultimately under Christ, and there is some overlap. But
00:17:39.900this idea of separation of church and state, I take that to mean that we shouldn't have a state
00:17:44.800regulated church, like Presbyterianism, you know, being the, you know, the state, you know,
00:17:51.740denomination of, you know, of the entire nation, you know, the United States of America. That's
00:17:56.340what I take that to mean. But I think a lot of Christians have heard this idea of separation
00:17:59.900of church and state. They see it as a positive thing, but then they take it way too far to mean
00:18:04.740that basically the church and the people of God in general should just have no concern,
00:18:10.420no involvement, no thought when it comes to state issues.
00:18:15.180And so could you explain and correct, push back on me if I'm off here, could you explain
00:18:19.460a little bit what does it mean to actually have a separation of church and state?
00:18:22.700And is that, right, so I see it as a good thing, but maybe I'm wrong here.
00:18:29.880I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
00:18:31.360Yeah, so this goes back actually to kind of the founding of our Constitution. Let's start there, and then you might have to remind me where to go from here. But first of all, the phrase separation of church and state is found in the Constitution. It was found in a letter of one of Thomas Jefferson's letters. And so that's been kind of a co-opted phrase that has become a phrase that people think is constitutional and it's not.
00:18:55.100So the separation of church and state. So here's the first 10 amendments for Congress and the Bill of Rights is Congress shall make no law. So it's restricting Congress. So Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion. Congress shall make no law restricting free speech.
00:19:17.500You know, it's Congress shall make no law. So it's actually the Constitution was set up. The first 10 amendments was set up to actually restrict Congress's authority. And so I don't believe the federal government has any say in what if I should be Presbyterian, Anglican, you know, and so forth.
00:19:37.700So when the Constitution was set up, that idea of separation of church and state, it was really a separation of federal government and people, okay, and states.
00:19:52.540So when the Constitution was ratified, there was actually nine out of the 13 colonies had their own established religion, their own established denomination.
00:20:21.800If Massachusetts wants to be Congregationalist or Presbyterian or Evangelical, whatever, and Rhode Island wants to be, you know, or New York wants to be Methodist, there's no conflict.
00:20:35.060So yeah, whatever your state wants to do, that's fine.
00:20:37.060But if the federal government said, oh, we're Presbyterian, and then Massachusetts is Anglican, and New York's Methodist, whatever, then all of a sudden you have a conflict starts to come in because the federal government, when they take a side that should be reserved to the states, well, now you're introducing conflict.
00:20:59.240So the whole idea of separation of church and state is not constitutional now. With that said, I believe the states have the right to identify by a denomination, but at the same time, I don't believe religion is never forced on anybody.
00:21:19.020And so I don't believe a state should be in the business of coercing religious participation or certain religious beliefs and so forth.
00:21:28.320So even then – and all the states – like the culture of the states knew this.
00:23:04.140So I think there's more conversation that can be had here.
00:23:07.180But I would at minimum want a state to say, yeah, we're a Christian state. Idaho is a Christian state.
00:23:14.660Now, again, like I said earlier, when states were – had established denominations, it wasn't a church – it wasn't a state-sponsored scenario.
00:23:27.220In fact, a lot of the laws that were put – tried to be put in place where the state would maybe send some money to churches so the pastors could get paid kind of thing, a lot of that ended up getting shut down, turned over.
00:23:40.540Everyone – because remember, the context was everyone just came from Great Britain where they had a state-sanctioned religion, Episcopalian, right, Anglican.
00:23:50.620And that caused huge problems in the country. And so that's what they were rejecting. So they were rejecting the concept that there is a church and state partnership in a way that was unbiblical.
00:24:11.740So they rejected that, but they also – the founders didn't have a problem with – or the states didn't have a problem with having kind of their own denomination as a confession of their Christian belief.
00:24:24.120More along the lines of what it was like.
00:24:38.820Yeah. So with that, like just fleshing that out a little bit more, this is something I learned from you guys.
00:24:44.660There was one episode, I can't remember the name of it, but there was one episode where you and Chalk Knox and Toby were talking to, I can't remember who it was,
00:24:52.020but you were, you know, you were basically what, what you guys threw out there that was just so convincing for me was you said,
00:24:57.940okay, like the church has just said, well, our, you know, our marching orders, our job description is just the great commission, right?
00:25:04.480Go into all the world, make disciples, baptize them into the triune name.
00:25:08.820And we always forget this last part, but it is a portion of the Great Commission, an important portion, teaching them to observe or to obey all of Christ's commands.
00:25:18.600And basically what you guys did in that episode that was so thought-provoking for me is you said, like, but what if we're, like, have we ever considered what it would look like to actually be successful?
00:25:29.240like what if the church actually succeeded in the great commission because because then like so
00:25:35.860because you kept mentioning earlier you were talking about a christian state a christian state0.73
00:25:39.760and i think people are like well no that the state should be it shouldn't be muslim it shouldn't be
00:25:45.480you know hindu it shouldn't be atheist you know but it also shouldn't be christian and i think
00:25:49.780some of that just comes from this idea about the myth of neutrality we just we actually think that
00:25:54.620neutrality is a real position that we can take. And so first, I think we have to debunk that.
00:26:01.040Christians have to recognize there is no such thing as secular doesn't equal neutral. Secular0.94
00:26:05.700is hostile towards God. It has an agenda. It has a position. It's not neutral. So neutrality is a1.00
00:26:11.580myth. And so having a Christian state is not the alternative to a neutral state because a neutral0.95
00:26:19.220state is a unicorn. It doesn't exist. There's no such thing. So a Christian state is the best that0.97
00:26:24.020we can do. And when we say a Christian state, I think what, knowing, you know, some of your
00:26:27.780previous material and following you guys for a while, I know that what you mean by that in a
00:26:32.500Christian state is you're saying, look, yeah, the church is called to make disciples and in making
00:26:36.960disciples to teach them to obey all of Christ's commands. But what does that look like if a
00:26:42.220politician, the gospel is preached to him that you're doing the work of an evangelist. He comes
00:26:48.660to faith in Christ. He now joins in membership at your church and you are now teaching him
00:28:31.120But we haven't, there's certain things that we haven't even, because there's a train of logic.
00:28:34.900And we haven't even seriously and thoughtfully considered the end of the road because we don't even think we're going to get there to the end of the road in this train of logic.
00:28:45.800You know, the end of the track, I should say, if it's a car of logic, train of logic, the end of the track because of our eschatology, because we just, maybe just because we've gotten our butts handed to us the last two, three decades by, you know, the secular culture, whatever it is.
00:29:03.260Could you talk about that a little bit? Could you relate it in real terms to how Christians' involvement in politics and legislating God's law is the inevitable outcome if we actually are committed to the Great Commission with a little bit of a positive outlook that we might be successful in doing so? Could you talk about that?
00:29:26.060Yeah. I think there's some foundation that needs to be laid there first.
00:29:31.600You know, when we talk about, you know, I would love for a state to confess Christ.
00:29:36.580I would love for a state to be a Christian state.
00:29:38.740I would love for a state to have that kind of confession.
00:29:42.160One of the things that we need to, you know, clear the room and do some legwork, do some groundwork and understand how God has set up the different governments that he's given us.
00:29:56.060So we know, Romans 13, that God has given us a civil government.
00:31:29.600And so health, education, and welfare, well, that's dad's job.
00:31:34.620He's responsible for the health of his family.
00:31:37.000He's responsible that his kids get educated.
00:31:39.660he's responsible for to make sure his family's provided for and they have clothing and they have
00:31:46.060food on the table and so forth uh and so that's the mom and dad's job uh health education welfare
00:31:51.520uh the church's job is to preach the gospel disciple the nations as you already alluded to
00:31:56.900and and to um you know serve uh serve the uh elements and and to practice church discipline
00:32:03.100so that's that's the lawful authority that god has given the church uh and to be prophetic to
00:32:08.920the world, right? And then the civil government's job is to wield the sword righteously. And so
00:32:17.500you think of civic punishments. Someone murders someone. Well, that's the government's job
00:32:24.480to have it, to hold the trial, to allow for fair witnesses and testimony and so forth,
00:32:33.580And then to bring a verdict. And then the verdict, if the guy committed murder is guilty, then the civil government needs to wield the sword well in the punishment of that murder.
00:32:45.000And so each of those governments that God has given us, church government, civil government, and family government is central to how we work these things out.
00:32:53.760So I said earlier, it's not the government's job to bring church discipline. It's not the government's job to force, to coercively force beliefs, denominational practices, whatever on you. It's the government's job to abide by God's word and to wield the sword righteously in a city or in a state.
00:33:17.000Now, I think the other important topic, you've heard this on our show, talk about this a lot. Here's another, I think, bedrock principle that needs to be thought out before we start talking about, okay, on the surface, what should Christians' engagement in politics look like? Or why are Christians failing in engaging in politics?0.56
00:33:35.280Before we get there, the other, I think, bedrock principle that we need to understand is that there's a difference between sins and crimes.0.93
00:34:39.400And the government has no authority for them to come in and tell them how to deal with this congregant who's maybe struggling with pornography.
00:34:48.560Now, there's a point where there are sins that are crimes where both the church and the government are involved.
00:34:56.880A guy in the congregation murders another congregant.
00:35:03.180And, of course, you hand that man over to the civil authorities, but the church is still very much involved in ministering to the sheep through that whole process.0.79
00:35:10.900But now that's where the government has the authority to step in and say this is our area.
00:35:16.100This is our sphere of where God wants us to govern.
00:35:18.480So I think understanding the different spheres, civil government, church government, family government, and then understanding the difference between sins and crimes, I think really helps Christians kind of begin to think, okay, this is how my faith applies to the public square.
00:35:35.380And all the charges that unbelievers want to bring against the church and say, oh, you just want a theocracy.
00:35:41.680You just want to control our state or our federal government or whatever.
00:35:46.520And it's actually, well, I want everyone to believe in Jesus.
00:35:49.780So in that sense, yeah, I absolutely want a theocracy.
00:36:03.760At no point do I want the church to force to be in a situation where they're wielding the sword or manipulating the sword of the civil government
00:36:17.140So once you kind of understand the different spheres and sins and crimes,1.00
00:36:22.060I think that takes pressure off Christians in a lot of the maligning
00:36:27.580or a lot of the arguments that come against us out there.
00:36:30.880And we aren't arguing for any sort of church dictator,
00:36:35.000civil government ship kind of situation.
00:36:37.300So now I think to get to your question about why the church has failed
00:36:41.200or why the church is losing this battle.
00:36:44.580And I mean, really, our nation is dealing with lack of discipleship
00:36:54.380for not just decades, but over a century.
00:36:58.160And we've slowly been discipled away from the bedrock of God's word
00:37:04.060that applies to all of life, to every situation, to every context in this world.
00:37:10.340And so we've been kind of catechized over time that God's word does not apply to every area of our lives.
00:37:18.460And so eventually you get to the point where you're kind of helpless.
00:37:22.640And as a Christian, you're going to church and you go home and you pray and that's it.
00:37:27.520And you get kind of cowered into a corner where you don't want to apply your faith anywhere into the world, your work, in politics, in the voting booth or whatever.
00:37:37.520and it's ultimately because you've been slowly catechized over time
00:37:42.480not to stand on the word of God in these areas where it feels uncomfortable.
00:37:47.860And so there's certain muscles that Christians have stopped working.0.73
00:37:52.460There's certain muscles that Christians have stopped exercising
00:37:54.960and we need to repent of not applying God's word to all areas of our lives.
00:47:36.680All right. So I've heard that New St. Andrews College has been under fire from the mayor, specifically, and a lot of people, but the mayor in your town of Moscow, Idaho, for a particular video advertisement that they aired, an advertisement for people to become students, and that you, Gabriel Wrench, were very involved, if not the guy who actually made the commercial. Is that true? You made the commercial?
00:48:01.740Okay. And so it's a very controversial, shouldn't be, but very controversial commercial. And you guys have gotten some political backfire in your own town for this college. And so I would love for you to give our listeners a little bit of the inside scoop from the guy behind the camera.
00:48:22.060And then the second question is that I've also heard from you that you are currently running for local political office in Moscow, your city.
00:48:33.440And so I wanted to hear a little bit of your story about why you're running and what that looks like.
00:48:40.060And maybe you could offer just a couple really practical, simple steps that our listeners could take in order to get more involved in as being a Christian in politics at a local level.
00:49:26.100Thanks for tuning in to Right Response Ministries.
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