3 Megachurch Pastors Reveal Why They've Decided to Get "Political" | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Summary

Podcast Summary:

Live Free with Josh Howerton – “3 Megachurch Pastors Reveal Why They've Decided to Get 'Political'” (May 13, 2026, Lakepointe Church)

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Episode Overview

This dynamic and candid episode features host Josh Howerton (Lakepointe Church) in a roundtable with fellow megachurch pastors Josh McPherson (Washington State) and Ryan Visconti (Phoenix/Generations Church). The three leaders dissect the evolving relationship between the church and politics, explaining why a once-established pastoral neutrality is increasingly impossible—and, in their view, undesirable. Rooted in biblical principles, practical leadership experience, and current political realities, the pastors reveal why they believe active engagement in civic affairs is now a gospel imperative, not a distraction from the Great Commission.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Why Pastors Are Getting Political (01:14 – 06:12)

• A “Seismic Shift” for Pastors: The episode opens with Josh Howerton calling out a radical change underway: “There is probably nothing that … at least me, probably you guys too, have taken more bullets from other pastors than this specific thing [getting political].” (01:44)
• Pastor Josh: Details how 2020’s cultural chaos “revealed the problems with [avoiding politics]. … Avoiding these topics actually lets you have a false sense of peace and unity.” (05:13)
• Application to the Great Commission: The hosts agree the old rule—“pastors should not get political”—is outdated. They note this mindset has shifted as culture and policy began to directly affect the church’s ability to fulfill its mission.

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2. Political Engagement as Biblical Discipleship (06:21 – 10:50)

• Ryan Visconti: “First of all, I don't get political. I teach the Bible. … I'm walking out discipleship and showing people how it touches politics.” (06:46)
• Biblical Spheres of Responsibility: Visconti explains the Bible speaks more about government than marriage or family: “If you were preaching on marriage and you on parenting and me on government, I would have 50x the amount of biblical data to pull from than you would.” (08:37)
• Pastor Josh: Politics today is about identity—one of the most critical aspects of discipleship. “Telling pastors to not talk about politics is telling them you can’t disciple your people in a really significant part of their lives.” (09:36)

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3. The Real-World Impacts of Policy on Churches (13:57 – 19:54; 23:02 – 29:29)

• “Living in Mordor”: McPherson describes the challenge of pastoring in blue states—exorbitant housing costs, anti-Christian counseling laws, school policies that undermine parental authority, sky-high taxes, attrition of businesses and families.
  • “$163,000 of every new house built in the state [is] directly connected to permitting ... government ... $30,000 more for the process. Affordable housing crisis 100% created through bureaucracy.” (15:12)
  • “If you're young, you can't start. If you're old and established, you can't stay.” (15:56)
  • “We have no Christian counselors in our town because a law was passed ... if you say, ‘Let's keep you married,’ you lose your license, fine or jail time.” (16:31)
• Direct Impact on Ministry: “What happens when half the men in your church leave and take their business and resources with it? You die. When the business leaves and the men leave, the church dies and the state dies.” (18:42)
• Other Pastors’ Denial: Many pastors unconcerned with politics are, McPherson argues, living in “the Shire,” unaware of how policy sets the context for ministry, especially in progressive states.

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4. Politics that “Make Evangelism Harder” (29:29 – 35:54)

• Pastors have found that biblical clarity on “political” topics like sexuality, identity, and abortion does not hinder outreach—it can clarify and energize evangelism.
• Pastor Josh: “People who are hard-hearted ... will go away like the rich young ruler did. … [But] your Christians who stay will grow … and [will] better equip … to carry out the mission.” (28:55)
• Not Just “Preaching to the Choir”: They push back on the claim that boldness only attracts conservatives. Today, “A lot of conservatives are not Christians … And they don't have Christ.” (31:11)

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5. False Equivalency & Party Platforms (56:29 – 67:52)

• Not “Two Wings of the Same Bird”:
  • “On the left, there is sin and a commitment to wickedness codified in the Democratic Party platform. … Commitment to abortion, funding abortion, LGBT ‘rights,’ ... DEI … These are enshrined, they are codified.” (57:06–65:26)
  • “A Christian cannot in good conscience be faithful to God and vote for a Democrat ... On the right, there are no policies in the Republican platform that would objectively be sin.” (67:12)
• Republican Failings: “Some of the most corrupt, godless, lost people I have met have been at Republican conventions.” (55:24)

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6. Cultural Transformation & the Mandate to Lead (42:23 – 49:59)

• The Kyperian Sphere Model:
  • “God has instituted three institutions: the family, the church, and the state. When they all stay in their lanes and function according to the scriptures, society flourishes.” (22:00)
  • If godly people don’t lead in government, “Satan will step in and say, ‘I would be happy to.’” (43:30)
• “Leave it Better Than You Found It”:
  • “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.” (43:59)
  • “I want to go down fighting so the record will show he was trying. I have an obligation before God to do whatever I can.” (45:26)

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7. Call for Christian Statesmanship & Freedom Con (49:17 – 54:27)

• Rise of the Christian Statesman:
  • Visconti: “We want to reignite the conversation around Christian statesmanship because it was Christian statesmen who founded this nation, and it'll be Christian statesmen who preserve it.” (54:09)
• Freedom Con 2026:
  • A new conference “to unpack this idea of Christian statesmanship … historically, biblically, theologically, personally.” (53:17)
  • Hosts and guests include high-profile Christian leaders such as Graham Allen, Mark Driscoll, Eric Metaxas, and more.
  • “If you use the promo code ‘live free,’ 50 off.” (54:45–55:00)

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8. Objections, Pastoral Hesitations, and Calling for Change (69:36 – End)

• On Racial Reconciliation:
  • “We don’t judge the righteousness or truth of an assertion by the racial makeup of who supports it. We just judge truth from error.” (78:38)
  • “Grace bows to truth. Let God be true and every man a liar.” (79:40)
• On Not Alienating People:
  • “If you don’t help think about it, Tucker Carlson is going to help them think about it … There is a more pressing responsibility for shepherds to protect their flocks … by equipping them and arming them with truth.” (87:54)
• Practical Steps for Pastors and Members:
  • For members: “Just look at candidates and their view on abortion and marriage. … These are the most easy to identify issues.” (89:32)
  • For pastors: “If your church would be disrupted by clear biblical teaching, that is a problem … The thing to do is not to justify it. It's to repent.” (90:36)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

The Core Arguments & Punchy Lines

• “I care about the Great Commission … and the cultural inheritance that I’ll hand my kids more than I care about my reputation with you.”
  – Josh Howerton (95:32)
• “Christ may be our refuge, but Christianity is not escapism.”
  – Ryan Visconti (00:07, repeated at 40:07)
• “If godly people won’t, godless people will.”
  – Josh Howerton (43:36)
• “On my watch, I want to go down fighting so the record would show… he tried.”
  – Josh McPherson (45:27)
• “We’re not just reaching lost people from me in the pulpit, it’s our people going out into the community.”
  – Pastor Josh (28:56)
• On false neutrality:
  “The problem with trying to stay in the middle … is that the window keeps moving to the left.” – Pastor Josh (81:41)
• “I literally made a preaching helmet and I started bringing it out … to warn people.”
  – Josh McPherson (30:17, on controversial sermons)
• Regarding Democratic policy:
  “Their mission statement: we are committed to sin. … Today ... a Christian cannot in good conscience be faithful to God and vote for a Democrat.” (65:26; 67:12)

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Useful Timestamps for Key Sections

• Episode Theme Introduction: 01:14–01:44
• Defining Political-Discipleship Link: 06:21–08:55
• Pastors' Experience in Blue States (“Mordor” analogy): 13:57–19:54
• Direct Policy Impacts on Ministry: 23:02–29:29
• On Conservatives Needing Jesus: 31:06–35:54
• Explaining Party Platform Differences: 56:29–67:52
• Biblical Rationale for Civic Engagement: 42:23–49:59
• Freedom Con/Christian Statesmanship Vision: 49:17–54:27
• Rapid-Fire Objections, Billy Graham Quotes: 81:01–86:11
• Practical Next Steps for Pastors/Members: 89:32–92:00
• Closing, Data Correlation, Final Word: 92:01–96:16

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Tone & Style

• Direct, bold, and frequently passionate; deeply biblical and pastoral, but unflinching in political analysis.
• Self-deprecating humor and candid, “insider” commentary.
• Heavy reliance on practical illustrations and biblical allusions.
• Advocacy for clarity and courage: “Stop teaching with the fear of man, start teaching with the fear of God.” (90:50)

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Summary Takeaway

The hosts compellingly argue that for today's church, active engagement in political and civic affairs is not a distraction from discipleship but a requirement of loving one’s neighbor and fulfilling the Great Commission. Political realities, especially in progressive areas, have direct, often devastating effects on the capacity of churches to minister, grow, and even exist. The panel urges pastors and Christians to reject neutrality, root themselves in scripture, lead courageously, and hand down not just faith but a thriving society to future generations—making a strong biblical and practical case that the gospel speaks to, and shapes, every sphere of life.

Transcript

[Josh McPherson]

Here's my big idea, man. I care about the Great Commission and the future of the church and the cultural inheritance that I'll hand my kids more than I care about my reputation with you.

[Ryan Visconti]

Christ may be our refuge, but Christianity is not escapism.

[Pastor Josh]

I think today we're going to have a lot of pastors get to the end of their life and say, my greatest regret is not getting more involved.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's right.

[Lake Point Church Announcer]

Well, hey, Live Free Nation. Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. But the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this. We want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for Church Online. Every weekend, we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform. And it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you and people all around the world worshiping together in prayer real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, church Online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend and now enjoy the podcast.

[Josh McPherson]

Ryan and Josh, welcome to Livery. Welcome to Livery. We're live. We're live, brothers.

[Ryan Visconti]

Okay, we're going now.

[Josh McPherson]

We're going, dude. All right, so here's what's getting ready to happen. You're about to, you know, as. As the catchy clickbaity kids title it, three Mega Church Pastors discuss. Yeah, Two and a half Stop, man. So here's what you get ready to hear. There is a pretty seismic shift I feel like is happening right now with pastors and their relations, relationship to politics, and especially, honestly, this we want to talk about as that relates to the Great Commission. Okay, so, like, and this is honestly a radical shift from how pastors thought about things 30 years ago. All of our churches are seeing these things. I'll shoot you really straight. I'll just be really honest. There is probably nothing that at least me, probably you guys, too, have taken more bullets from. From other pastors than this specific thing. And we want to help pastors get their heads around it. And then a bunch of Christians can listen, and it's gonna be awesome.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's interesting to point out. Not. Not. Not our. Our. Our parishioners pastors.

[Josh McPherson]

No, no, actually, church Members in general are like, thank you.

[Ryan Visconti]

Finally. They're like, because that's the world I live in.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Visconti]

Thank you for coming out of the ti built bubble to speak to the world I live in. So that's helpful for pastors to note.

[Josh McPherson]

All right, so here's what we're going to do for this listening. This going to be really interesting for everybody. So first of all, let me introduce these guys. Pastor Josh, Me first. And this guy's reaching thousands of dudes up in Washington state. We're going to talk about this in a second. It. It ain't easy to plant a church and build a great church in Washington state. That's a good man. That's a great dad. That's a great pastor, and he's a great friend.

[Pastor Josh]

Amen.

[Ryan Visconti]

Thank you, sir.

[Josh McPherson]

So we're glad to have you, man.

[Ryan Visconti]

Good to be here.

[Josh McPherson]

Glad to have you. Bishop Ryan Viscont. These are the. You know that he's. He's our. Our military minister. And then after doing. How many you did a tour doing in Iraq?

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, just one.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah. And. And then it was a lot easier

[Pastor Josh]

than being a pastor.

[Josh McPherson]

For real. Would you say that?

[Pastor Josh]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

Seriously.

[Pastor Josh]

I felt way more stress coming into being a pastor than I felt when I was deployed. Having rockets and mortar shot at me

[Josh McPherson]

every day at some point. I like. Actually that's why I talk to you about that. That's a podcast by itself, but. Okay, well, respect and we're thankful. Absolutely. But this guy. Church is absolutely exploding.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yep.

[Josh McPherson]

In the Phoenix area, you guys were like 10,000 on Easter. Yeah. Boom, bro. And baptizing. I mean, let's like thousands of people. It's. It's.

[Ryan Visconti]

Let's go.

[Josh McPherson]

It's the Jordan river out there at Generations river in the desert.

[Ryan Visconti]

It's all the people we're sending down from Washington.

[Pastor Josh]

Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you for contributing to the cause.

[Josh McPherson]

All right, so. And then we're all speaking at a conference. I want to talk about that later. We're all speaking at a conference together.

[Ryan Visconti]

Freedom Con.

[Josh McPherson]

Freedom con, man. Which ties into a bunch of this stuff. So let me just set the table on this. This is for all Christians because we really want to talk about. A lot of Christians also have an ick factor to like, how do I apply my faith in the political realm. Shouldn't the church really avoid this? Aren't we supposed to be about the Great Commission? And man, it's. Honestly, isn't this a distraction? So we want to talk about that. But then, honestly, all three of Us in different seasons, like, we've realized, like, oh, man, I gotta lead. I gotta lead my church in a new way because this is new era. So, dude, can I just. Let me just go right at it and then let's. Let's just start. All right? In the era in which I was growing up ministry, and probably you guessed too, in some ways here was kind of the vibe. It was like, hey, man, pastors should not get political. You should be neither right nor left. The gospel is neither right nor left. But it does two things if you get into that stuff. One, it's probably going to hurt. You know, a lot of times just you straight, this, this may feel awkward, but I'm going to circle back to it, man. It's going to hurt racial reconciliation. And if you go there and honestly, man, like, hey, everybody needs the gospel. And so if you start, you know, making applications in the political realm, you're going to cut off half the people in the country from hearing your message. You know, you're not going to be baptizing anybody, Ryan, if you're doing this stuff. And so it was kind of that kind of vibe. So honestly, let me just start right there and then we'll roll the ball. I just rolled the ball out. That's what we all grew up in ministry. Why are you thinking different now?

[Pastor Josh]

Living through the chaos of 2020 and the cultural upheaval it revealed, the problems with that thinking. I thought I had a healthy unified church, but when the stress really came from COVID and from blm, all of the fault started to crack. And I realized, oh, we're not as healthy as I thought. We're actually a lot more divided under the surface. But avoiding these topics that we're talking about today, it actually lets you have a false sense of peace and unity because you don't talk about the thing that exposes the division. And so when BLM comes up, all these factions start happening within my church, and I'm like, what's happening? There's people here who I loved and had great relationship with, and now we've got conflict, and they're asking me if I even love them and value them. And it just made me realize my approach to leadership, the same kind of leadership that we were mentored by and coached into. It wasn't actually right for this era. There were a lot of problems with it.

[Josh McPherson]

Okay, McPherson. Agree. Disagree. Additional comments Totally disagree.

[Ryan Visconti]

That was well said. Well, I, I think, I mean, there's lots of ways to go with this, but when people say, if you get Political, you're going to short circuit your ability to fulfill the Great Commission. There's like seven false premises in that sentence that are assuming things I wouldn't agree with. And so, first of all, I don't get political. I teach the Bible.

[Josh McPherson]

There you go.

[Ryan Visconti]

I teach the Bible. And so I want to teach how the Bible connects the dots to all portions of life. So, so, like when we talk about in my churches, I'm not going. I'm not running past discipleship to do politics. I'm walking out discipleship and showing people how it touches politics. That's very different. And so. So when someone or something says, you can't talk about this section of life that touches all of us, if I agree to that one, I'm agreeing to run the enemy's playbook, to silence me as a man of God, to speak authoritatively from the word of God, how my king is king over all of life. When I think about the spheres of human sovereignty that God teaches us in the word of God that we're to address as pastors, you have individuals who are called to be responsible for their own actions, and they're supposed to live according to the word of God. You have families that are responsible for educating the welfare of the children and caring for their own. You have churches that are responsible to preach the gospel faithfully, administer the sacraments of word and baptism. And then you have government that God create. God created government. By the way, it's a good thing. I'm not a scofflaw. I'm not a libertarian. I'm not anti. No, no, God. Actually, government is God's idea to organize large group of people in such a way that they can flourish. God's called the government to protect its borders and to reward good and punish evil.

[Josh McPherson]

Romans 13.

[Ryan Visconti]

We're in immoral categories now. So when I think about those different spheres of human sovereignty, if, if someone's saying, yeah, you can't talk about the government sector or you're being political, I'm like, well, then I have to stop being biblical, because there's actually more biblical data to teach from in relationship to the sphere of government than there is marriage, family, and Israel put together.

[Josh McPherson]

Right? Whoa, whoa. Say that again. That sentence is easy to roll past. What you just said is really significant. I want to see if we agree. So say what you just said one more time.

[Ryan Visconti]

Well, if you were going to preach a sermon on marriage, and you were going to preach a sermon on parenting, and I was going to preach a sermon on God's ideas for Government marriage on Ephesians 5. Yeah. If you were preaching on marriage and you on parenting and me on government, I would have 50x the amount of biblical data to pull from than you would.

[Josh McPherson]

Because you're counting all the Old Testament law, all the way that God structured Old Testament Israel, and all that is stuff that we should be gleaning wisdom from is what you're saying for governance. Is that what you're saying?

[Ryan Visconti]

We have entire books of the Bible in the Old Testament dedicated to setting up government. And then you have this really pesky command to do justly and love mercy. Right. And so almost all government legislation has to do with working out that government's definition of justice and mercy.

[Pastor Josh]

And so many of Jesus's teachings was about. They were about the kingdom of God, which was a governance that was established by Jesus.

[Josh McPherson]

But Ryan, Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world. Ryan.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

What are you talking about?

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, that's crazy. It's crazy. What was I thinking? You know, it's like it goes back to discipleship, making disciples. When we teach people to receive Jesus as Lord and say other Lord and Savior, Jesus is lord over every part of your life. And that affects your relationships, marriage, relationship, parenting, relationships. It affects your career, your finances, what happens in your bedroom. But most of all, your identity. And politics today is really about identity more than anything. So telling pastors to not talk about politics is telling them you can't disciple your people in a really significant part of their lives. The truth is that politics affects people's lives more than many other things. The policies that are established by politicians have real impact on people's lives. So if we're going to love our neighbors, as Jesus said we should, then we have to do everything that we can do to elect govern. Government officials who will enact policies that are loving towards our neighbors are in an actual biblical way of thinking about what is love. Right? Love is not just affirming everybody and whatever they want to do. It's actually helping to bring about what's in their best interest.

[Josh McPherson]

So if you're listening to this, you're kind of listen. This is kind of like insider baseball. You're kind of listening in on like a conversation that's happening in every pastor group text in America in violently different ways, by the way. Yeah, I'll just say, you know, I don't know. I feel comfortable saying this. This what we're talking about right here is what has gotten me uninvited from a decent number of conferences. Oh, yeah. It is what has gotten me to lose out on honestly, sometimes like pretty lucrative potential teaching contracts. I've had well known guys recuse themselves from speaking, from appearing at conferences with me, all because it's just like, I just started getting clear a few years ago, like, no, no, like we actually have to apply the whole word of God to the entire world. Yeah. And that, and that actually includes the political realm. Yeah. So it's like if you're listening, you're about to listen in to. It's the insider conversation that pastors are having that is the most hotly debated one in our culture right now.

[Pastor Josh]

It's true.

[Josh McPherson]

We need you.

[Pastor Josh]

It's true.

[Josh McPherson]

Now let me, I want to riff off something you said and then first I want you to talk about this. So, dude, what you just said, Ryan, is like, hey, man, like it or not, and it may give you an ick factor, but the policies radically affect people. People matter to God. We're supposed to apply the whole word of the whole world. And then we're going to get into this a second. I'm going to go ahead and give away my cards. The mantra of pastor world for the last, I don't know how long, maybe 40 years has been. Don't mess with politics because it distracts from the Great Commission. What I want to talk, I don't want to go there yet because it's probably the most incendiary thing. We'll talk about what we're saying. I think we're all saying this, that actually long term, it nets out the opposite.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's true.

[Josh McPherson]

And I want you to talk about it because you're the one to actually experience it the most. That actually long term. And I have data to show this because it wigs. People lose their minds when I talk about this. Is that actually long term? Actually, if you want to make the Great Commission really, really hard for the church, just let Christians sit out politics. And that's an easy way to do it.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

So anyway, let me go to this and first let me kick to you because, dude, the guys, both Christians and pastors that oppose this convo the most, in my experience, I'm not trying to take anybody off. It's. It's either red state pastors who, they're kind of in the comfort of policies that end up being a wind at their back that they don't realize are a wind at their back.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

Or as purple state guys who are still there and they're like, oh, this isn't too bad. Like, yeah, I don't understand. What are you guys Talking about this isn't too bad or. And dude, I just want to speak honestly. A lot of times it's like, it's blue state pastors who really. Their fear. And I actually understand this is. Dude, man, I don't want to alienate the people I'm trying to reach. So, like, let's just cut to the chase. And I want to disabuse those three groups of people of what I believe I lovingly would say this is the dangerous illusion you are living in.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

So, Josh McPherson, can you just talk really quick about like, hey, man, you guys who are living in the shire,

[Ryan Visconti]

wake up.

[Josh McPherson]

You guys are living in the shower. So here's what happens to Christian families and churches in Mordor, in states like Washington where you are, when secular progressive policies actually get enacted. So I'm. You take it away, bro.

[Ryan Visconti]

Well, interrupt me when you want. I'll just, I'll riff off stuff. What you're pointing out. The challenge of is, is faithfully preaching the gospel in shepherding a church and leading a church on mission is not just preaching the gospel. I was talking to the guy yesterday and he's like, churches shouldn't get involved politically because the gospel is our haymaker, man. Well, and he lists off, we need to preach the truth, fill with the spirit, get them saved. And I was like, yes, yes, yes, and yes. He's like, well. And my answer was, and then what? So they get saved, they have to go out and live life. And so. So what do you do then? And when Jesus in the Great Commission, teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. There's a lot included there, including Romans 13, including Genesis. Including Genesis. And so as.

[Josh McPherson]

As a, as a dominion mandate. Yeah, yeah, let's keep going.

[Ryan Visconti]

Speaking of that, one of the things we're doing, the Freedom Conference, because I got a small business with a buddy, we build houses on the side, and it's become impossible. $163,000 of every new house built in the state is directly connected to permitting and permission you're getting from the government to build that house.

[Pastor Josh]

How much?

[Ryan Visconti]

162,000 of every house.

[Josh McPherson]

What?

[Ryan Visconti]

There's another six and a half months of permitting process. That adds about another 30,000. The process. So we have this affordable housing crisis in our. In our state, and it's 100% created through bureaucracy and red tape. Well, now that means that my son, who just got married, can't afford to buy a home. And that means that my older relatives who have done well in their life, can't afford to stay. So if you're young, you can't start. If you're old and established, you can't stay. Because we have 64 different taxes on the books. That hits people at every level. So I'm looking out, trying to pastor a group of people who are unable to flourish because of the weight of bureaucracy and government on their back. For instance, here's some examples. There's, there's, we have like no Christian counselors in our town because a law was passed. Political, political law policies where if you're licensed by the state, which is every counselor in the state, if you're going to practice as a professional, you are not. Say a guy comes in your practice. I'm married, but I'm struggling with, with desires for dudes. If you say, let's keep you married, let's reject those, those desires, those are wrong. Those are simple, those are unbiblical. And, and he turns you in, lose your license, fine or jail time.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah. There goes your whole career.

[Ryan Visconti]

There goes your whole career.

[Josh McPherson]

It is.

[Ryan Visconti]

And so now, because I live in a deeply blue, progressive state, I have almost none, if any Christian counselors in my city. That drastically impacts my ability to shepherd and pastor our people.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Visconti]

Another example.

[Pastor Josh]

Talk about people moving out of state.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah. The state passed a law that said it's illegal for teachers to share with parents that a child in a state school is expressing gender confusion or interest in their gender. They are allowed to take that student off site. They are allowed to take them to a gender therapy center. What they aren't allowed to do is say, hey, did you know that Hudson is blah blah, that they can't do that. And so I've had two families move to Montana because they had both had mentally handicapped children that they felt were being groomed in a state school. And they were afraid if they stepped in and said, quit telling my son you think he's gay because he's not.

[Josh McPherson]

Wow.

[Ryan Visconti]

They would take their son from him.

[Pastor Josh]

That's crazy.

[Ryan Visconti]

My state just passed an income tax, millionaire income tax. It's camouflage for coming for all more of your money. So in my state, when I started, when I started building my campus 10 years ago, since I started that process, in the last 10 years, I've just had my head down trying to build, build a church. In the last 10 years, state revenue tax has doubled from 20 billion to 40 billion. So think about that. In 10 years, it's doubled. I put my head down. Look up, most regulated state in the union to build a home. Most regulated state in the Union to build a commercial building. So quite literally, the state is inhibiting and preventing men and businesses from being fruitful. That's a dominion mandate. That's almost impossible. Worst state in the union to start a business. Worst state in the union to buy a new home. Worst state in the union to start a family. Worst state in the union to make money. Worst union to die. So what's happened is 40% of this. Check this out. They passed the income tax in. In this last legislative session. Since they passed that, like, less than a month and a half ago, the Washington association of Business took a survey. 48% of businesses in Washington said they will move out of Washington in the next 16 months before the income tax goes into effect.

[Josh McPherson]

48%.

[Ryan Visconti]

Now, what pastors aren't paying attention to is what happens to your church and your ability to hire staff, build buildings, serve the poor, reach the lost, grow the church. What happens when half the men in your church leave and take their business and resources with it? You die. When the business leaves and the men leave, the church dies and the state dies. And so pastors aren't connecting the dots fast enough because it's not in the heart of a man to just bend over and take it every day from the state. They're going to stay and fight, which is almost impossible to fight, or they're going to leave to go somewhere where the state doesn't make war on them as a man, but actually appreciates the contribution they're making to the garden without

[Pastor Josh]

giving away any identifying information. A pastor we know in your state had a majority of his church board members say they're going to resign and leave the church because they need to leave the ridiculous tax policies of the state. Think about what that does to a church to have the church governance and leadership undermined like that and just essentially disrupted, pulled out from under your feet when you're trying to minister to people that's so disruptive to a church.

[Ryan Visconti]

I talked to him last week. Four out of five as board members. We love you. We love this church. We can't stay. Wouldn't be good stewardship to say we're moving the next 16 months. You need to get ready for that.

[Josh McPherson]

So I'll be able to.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's happening everywhere, by the way.

[Josh McPherson]

So, dude, I. Cars on the table. Like, for a long time, I was the guy that I described at the beginning of the podcast.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

So you know what changed me? One, it was a relationship with you guys. But before that. And by the way, I am not speaking on behalf of Everybody in this network, because I guarantee there's people who view it different than me. It was when I started helping lead a church planning network that only plants churches in secular, progressive urban centers. And when I started watching what happens to these guys, they come into the city, they come in here for our national conference, and they will walk in and they start telling me stories about how hard it is to plant a church, disciple families and build buildings, that kind of stuff. Honestly, dude, that's what made me start going, like, wait, the accomplishment of the Great Commission is connected to righteous governance? This is like a big deal. So let me bullet point some stuff that's connected to this, like, and then you guys chime in if I'm missing, because you've been around this. All right, so. So for pastors and Christians that are listening in, how does actual political policies make the job of the church harder or could be a win at your back? Okay, well, in a state like yours, most of this is Washington state. State stuff. Number one, which we're talking about is taxation policies. Okay? Now, what I have grown up hearing, and I have read many books like this, even within the last year, that of pastors talking about how we really should avoid this stuff. And pastors will typically say, man, actually things like tax, you know, marginal tax rate, man, that's something that really, the Bible doesn't speak to. And really, there's no, you know. Well, actually, the Bible actually says a lot, you know, about wealth redistribution and private property rights, property ownership.

[Ryan Visconti]

Stealing.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah, that kind of stuff.

[Pastor Josh]

Stealing is a big one.

[Josh McPherson]

Stealing.

[Pastor Josh]

Kind of a beat in the Ten Commandments.

[Josh McPherson]

By the way, this whole sermon, this whole sermon, it is possible for governments to commit theft.

[Pastor Josh]

It is just.

[Josh McPherson]

You can. Just because you're committing theft and calling it taxation, that doesn't make it not theft. Right, so that's a whole.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah. Unrighteousness smeared with the language of law doesn't make it not unrighteous.

[Pastor Josh]

Right.

[Josh McPherson]

So what you got is. Here's what we know. So what you were doing earlier for our listeners, Josh, is talking about, it's called Kyperian sphere sovereignty. So what you got is God has instituted three institutions in the scriptures. The family, the church, and the state. When they all stay in their lanes and function according to the scriptures, society flourishes. When they get out of their lanes, they start eating each other. So what you're talking about right there is, hey, man, Charlie Kirk actually started talking about this at the end of his life is, man, actually, when the government gets really big, the church gets small. Because the government has to take the resources people and churches would have used. Because the church and Christian individuals are supposed to be ones helping the poor. So when the government goes, actually, we're going to do it, one, they're terrible at it. Number two, they actually incentivize actions that lead to more poverty. So anyway, I'm making this long. What we're talking about is, number one, in states like yours, government gets bigger, makes the church's job smaller because the resource is smaller. Number two, to your point, it's little stuff, dude. It's like, hey man, you have this little phrase you'll say, in our state, they don't make it illegal to build churches, they just make it impossible.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yes.

[Josh McPherson]

So think about this. Like this is. I could copy and repeat this a million times, stories I've heard is, hey, we're trying to build, we're a church trying to build a building. But every time we try the entire city council of people who hate Christians because they're secular progressive people, we can't get anything approved. Or they're constantly, you know, sticker, sticker, shocking us or making us do this.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

So you got that, you got situations like our. But I think I can say it if I can, I'll edit it out later. Our buddy Russ Johnson up there in Seattle holds a worship rally in the middle of Seattle. And then you get, you know, people who have been trained by secular progressive ideals, government, schools, all the things to view Christians as the bad guys, immoral pastors as Darth Vader, and they roll up and they start throwing water balloons filled with urine at Christians worshiping, violently attack them. I think they put six people in the hospital, if I remember right.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

And then the government, the mayor actually says that Russ and his church, actually, you were the problem. You instigated it. So you got that, you got the situation. I know you're trying to solve this. And when deep inset blue policies all of a sudden, well, now the government schools, they're actually reverse discipling children into moralities that are actually in direct opposition of all these things. So now when you're trying to disciple your kids, you're fighting all these things. So anyway, this forms this little web of things that begins making it really much harder to make disciples. Build churches. What would you add?

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah. And when we talk about being political, when pastors think churches shouldn't be political, when Christians say pastors shouldn't be political, they're usually not talking about foreign trade policy. Right. They're talking about three big things that come up, that get people fired up. These are the things that cause people to walk out of our church services angry sometimes. And they'll tell, they'll go on the Internet and say, I don't want to go to that church. That's too political. We're talking about sexuality and the identity that goes along with that, as well as abortion, which will get labeled as reproductive rights and DEI policies. Those are the things that are most pressing in our current time that we need to speak to as pastors. But they get labeled as you're being political. When you look at those issues, they're all connected to deeper heart issues, right? Sexuality, identity. There's such sensitive heart issues. The concern that you brought up, the pastors have is if I get talking about politics, it's going to inhibit my ability to reach lost people and fulfill the Great commission. And then when I started to realize that was wrong was when I was reading the Bible and started to pay attention to what there's this book I read, amazing book, bestseller of all time. I noticed a couple key things like that Jesus did when he was encountering seekers. There were a couple seekers who he encountered. One was the woman at the well who asked, where can I get this living water? I mean, that's a seeker, if there ever has been one. She's like, I want to know more. And what does he do? He says, go get your husband. And he pokes at her sexual sin issue. It's like probably her core issue, the core of her trauma, her pain. And he, he goes to the thing that is least sensitive because he knows that at the root of that, that's where there needs to be a transformation for her to experience salvation. And then with the rich young ruler who asks, you know, what do I need to do? He gives him this ridiculous. It seems ridiculous to us if we're like modern day seeker sensitive pastors, we would say, you know, the modern day secret sensitive pastor would say, bro, you can belong before you believe. Just come on. But Jesus said, go sell everything you have. Okay, so and then with both of these guys, he went to like core heart issues. Money is a core. I mean, it's where your treasure is. Your. Your heart is also. So in those situations, one person went away, left sad, the rich young ruler, and then the woman at the well went and got her whole village and brought them to Jesus. It shows us a couple things that reaching lost people does not require avoiding the thing that is sensitive in their life, even maybe the most sensitive in their life. It also teaches us that Just because we talk about things that cause people to walk away angry and reject Jesus, that doesn't mean we failed as pastors or as Christians. That means that we probably actually represented Jesus in a biblical way. And we just see the reality is some people are not going to receive him and some people are. That's not ultimately our fault. That's the Holy Spirit's job to work on them and transform them and draw them. But I found that over the last couple years by being more clear on what the Bible says and how it relates to political issues, a couple things have happened. People who are hard hearted and they don't want to receive Jesus as their king. Maybe they like Jesus as savior, but not necessarily king. They'll go away like the rich young ruler did. And I don't want them to leave. But that's just the reality is they leave. You could say, you know, this is biblical truth, you could present it in the most loving way possible. But there are people who will leave. On the other hand, your Christians who stay will grow. They'll become more disciples, which better equips them to carry out the mission that Jesus gave us and reach the people in their community. Because we're not just reaching lost people from me in the pulpit, it's our people going out into the community. If they're discipled, they're going to do a lot better job reaching the lost. And then additionally, when you speak clearly to biblical truth pe the Holy Spirit, I think blesses that there's a special anointing.

[Josh McPherson]

But that's a fact.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, when you represent God's word in a way that's true to God's heart, God blesses it. And he there's an anointing on that kind of preaching. And what I have seen in my church is even though I'm getting labeled sometimes as being political, I don't really think I am. I think I'm teaching biblical truth. But we've had more people getting saved each year than the year before. Now, you know, we're. Our church isn't as big as yours, but we're getting to the point where it's over a thousand people a year getting saved.

[Josh McPherson]

Let me just pause like it's like a megachurch year. Like just stop and think about that. Say that one more time.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, we've got, I've seen it go, you know, 500 salvations. Now we're up over a thousand, 1200, you know, so it's not hindered us reaching lost people. What's happened is we're Reaching more lost people than ever. And the people who get saved and stay in our church are more unified. We have a common love for scripture and for each other, and we focus on first things first, what matters most. And it's a joy to be with my church, and it's a joy to be the pastor of my church. I'm not having to walk on eggshells. And when I get up to you guys know what it's like. Five years ago, when we were going to preach on a controversial issue, man, I was like, you put your hat on your cup.

[Ryan Visconti]

Your cup.

[Pastor Josh]

You like, here goes.

[Josh McPherson]

I literally made a preaching helmet and I started bringing it out. The hard to warn people. Yeah. Yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

And honestly, now it's kind of like, this is going to be fun.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

We're going to get down to some real talk. And you don't get that overnight, because I know there are.

[Josh McPherson]

You do not. We're going to talk about that, about how to do this. Yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

But it. Talking about the things that people label as political today, it does not hinder your ability to reach the loss. It actually helps us accomplish what we all want to accomplish.

[Josh McPherson]

All right, so, like, shoot me. I didn't tell you I was gonna ask you this, but shoot me straight. Because here's what I think a lot of especially pastors would say is, of course, man, but you're just. You're just reaching a bunch of red guys. Yeah. You're just reaching a bunch of the people who already agreed with you. I mean, honestly. True, false. What would you say?

[Pastor Josh]

Well, I think today there are a lot of conservatives who aren't Christians.

[Josh McPherson]

A lot.

[Pastor Josh]

And that wasn't always the case. We used to just associate political conservatism with Christianities, hence the phrase cultural Christianity. Today, a lot of conservatives are not Christians. They like God in a sense. Like, in a, you know, ambiguous kind of sense. They like freedom trucks, football, barbecue.

[Josh McPherson]

I believe in Jesus, NASCAR and SEC

[Pastor Josh]

football, you know, and so. And then on the other hand, if we were to look back, 30, 40, good combo.

[Josh McPherson]

Country music.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah. What's wrong with that?

[Pastor Josh]

So, well, today, you know, a lot of these people, they have these kind of, like, values that they don't even realize are rooted in Christianity.

[Josh McPherson]

Fact.

[Pastor Josh]

And they don't have Christ.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh]

So it's like, these are people that I think Jesus would look at and say, you are not far from the kingdom of God. They're not in it yet, but they are, like, flirting right on the border. And if we can just. And this is what happened in My church a couple years ago, Charlie, I brought Charlie Kirk in to speak on at a men's night. And we just talked about a lot of things, you know, whatever. At the end of the night I just said really quickly, hey, if you, if you're a guest and if you love Charlie Kirk and what he talks about and what he stands for, you need to just make sure you're clear on this, that Charlie's ideology and his beliefs are rooted in the person of Jesus. And Charlie, Charlie sitting right next to me. Amen. That's right. And I said, if you don't yet know Jesus, you know you need him. And we had dozens of people receive Jesus that night, you know, at a

[Josh McPherson]

church, at a night with Charlie Kirk,

[Pastor Josh]

at a night with Charlie Kirk. And you would think, well, you're just trying to appeal to a bunch of people that already believe anyway. It's like there are a lot of conservatives who are going to these NASCAR races and pickup truck, you know, whatever. These guys still need Jesus. And because of the way the over 10 window has shifted people who are left today, nobody's beyond God's reach, right? Even the, the Saul can become Paul with one encounter with the Holy Spirit. But today, the way that left ideology works and exists, it leads to very hard heart heartedness towards the Lord. So when we're just looking at, if we were looking at the fields objectively, as a farmer who wants to bring in the harvest, right? Where is the harvest ripest? I've only got so of my life, I've only got so many hours in the day. I want to bring in the harvest, I want to be a good and faithful servant. Where am I going? I'm going to the ripest harvest fields. And if it so happens to be that those people are more. I'm not even trying to cater my message to reach those people. I'm just teaching the biblical truth straight down the middle of the fairway. And it happens to resonate with those people on the right sometimes more often because the way that the world is

[Josh McPherson]

today, like shoot, like shoot me straight. Do you think? Like true or if it's man, you may just say, yeah man, actually it's true right now that's fine. Like would you say man in general, what would you say to the guy that's like, yeah, it is easy for you. You just kind of, you're just reaching a bunch of conservatives. So you're not reaching anybody else. You're not reaching.

[Pastor Josh]

Well, it's not true that we don't reach people that come from the left. What would I, what I would say is true though is that if a guy comes to my church who's kind of conservative and he's not yet a believer, he, it'd be easy for him to sit in for six months to a year and just go, I kind of like all this. I don't know if I believe yet, but a lot of what this guy says is straight talk and I appreciate it. If you're, today, if you're like left wing and you come to my church, we're going to have a decision point really quick. You know what I mean? If you come today to my church, you're going to be welcomed, you're going to be loved, whoever you are. But if you have strong left wing political ideology, you're either going to quickly repent of it, be convicted by the Holy Spirit, receive Jesus. And we have that. We have people in our church who used to be trans and now they've de. Transitioned and they're living for Christ, getting married to, you know, opposite sex and they're glorifying God. You're going to either get saved quickly or you're going to get mad and leave quickly because you're hard hearted. And if that's the case, either way, it's better for it to happen sooner than later. It's better for the church.

[Josh McPherson]

This is interesting. I don't know, as you say, that's it's not true for us at Lake Point. Maybe it's because of strategy. You know, we can talk about strategy a little bit in a minute. But that, you know, there is a very wide, very wide range of person that gets saved here that has not hindered us in evangelism. Josh.

[Ryan Visconti]

Nope. Hasn't hindered us. Josh. What?

[Josh McPherson]

No, that's. Yeah. You just answered.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah, I mean, I guess one of the things I would add. I agree with all. That's very good. If you have, if, if you're intentionally bending what you're saying in order to hopefully keep people that are in the category of secular, godless, progressive, whatever you'd call it, at some point you're going to have to make decisions about compromise that just go too far to be, to be considered being faithful. Because to Ryan's point, they're going to be, there's going to be flashpoints very quickly in relationship to the worldview you're teaching. And this is maybe what I would encourage pastors with is people are like, people have said, like, man, you're getting so political recently. I thought you used to be like the Family guy and the marriage guy and the men's guy. And I'm like, yeah, I am. Yeah, I still am. I've just realized now at 47 that with a 20 year old that's trying to live on her own and a 19 year old who's married and trying to buy a home and a 16 year old is trying to get a job and pay for car insurance she can't afford and I can't afford as a grown man and a 14 year old son who's looking out, trying to get a job in the world, I'm like, if I don't step into that noble role of statesman where I'm caring for more than just my family, but using my years of experience to draw from whatever wisdom I've gained to apply it to the broader community for the flourishing of not just my family, but the broader community through policies that are made and enacted, that are coming from a worldview that have anchored in some morality are either going to hurt or cause a flourishing. If I'm not involved in that, I'm actually being selfish. I'm not being Christian. And so part of it might be like a season of life thing where you don't have kids who are old enough to see how much bad politics bring about bad policies or hurt real people. But when your kids are like trying to get married and start families and you realize they can't because your state's on fire because of not just foolish. I'd even be okay with incompetent bureaucracy. It would still drive me nuts, but I would be okay with it. But like objectively wicked bureaucracy. I have a moral obligation before God

[Josh McPherson]

as a man because people who aren't from states like yours, they don't even know what you're talking about. Like just rapid fire. Like when you say overtly evil legislation, like what are you talking about?

[Ryan Visconti]

Well, I, I, I, I, I just, I just name some. It's illegal. So our attorney general and head of ospi, which is head of education for the state, State education just came out and said if a girl is old enough to get pregnant, she's old enough to make her own decisions and her parents can butt out of her business.

[Josh McPherson]

Dude.

[Ryan Visconti]

Now that's a violation of a very clear biblical principle that when a parent.

[Josh McPherson]

So she can kill their grandkid.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

Without them knowing if she gets pregnant with their knowledge.

[Ryan Visconti]

And the state will help and the state will like, so when the state says if you try to stop Johnny, your son from becoming Susie, we're going to take Johnny from you. Now, the only time the state can take a child from a home is if the state views that home as abusive. Which means the state in Washington has categorized classic orthodoxy Christian belief as abusive in the home.

[Josh McPherson]

Yep.

[Ryan Visconti]

It's not easy. No, that's immoral. And it's happening at every level. Government, education, it's everywhere. But back to my original point, when people say, gosh, I thought you're the family guy, you're being the political guy. What I'm saying is if I don't get involved politically, one, I think I'm failing to do my job as a statesman. Two, the job of the pastor is getting exponentially harder because, and this is what I'll say is, I don't even like talking about politics. I don't even like politics. But what I'm realizing, none of us do.

[Pastor Josh]

None of us are like waking up geeking about. But you care about our people.

[Ryan Visconti]

I think it's the breach in the wall right now. And Luther, someone made the quote where if you claim to defend Christ but fail to defend the one breach in the wall that's currently pouring, the enemy's pouring through, then you're not being a faithful defender of the gospel. What I'm saying is there is a massive breach in our biblical worldview in relationship to public civic duty as a Christian. And so I'm saying, like, let's go there and patch the wall up, because Christianity is not a one dimensional sinner's prayer. And now I'm in. Christianity is a comprehensive worldview where we take the word of God and we show how the king and his truth touches every factor of life. And so I tell our churches, Christ may be our refuge, but Christianity is not escapism.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, it's not.

[Josh McPherson]

That's good.

[Ryan Visconti]

We're not retreating into this cave and like buttoning the hatches. We're joyfully.

[Josh McPherson]

We're just exiles in Babylon. Let it stay. Babylon.

[Pastor Josh]

My kingdom is not of this world.

[Josh McPherson]

What would you say to that? We're exiles in Babylon, Josh. Aren't we supposed to just return, retreat and Babylon's always going to be Babylon, right?

[Ryan Visconti]

Here's what I would say. What does the word politics mean? Politica. Affairs of the city. So. So what I would say is when you get in involved in politics, it's as if you're caring to work for the welfare of the city.

[Josh McPherson]

I've heard a verse about that.

[Ryan Visconti]

And we've got a verse about that that was spoken.

[Josh McPherson]

Who, Tim Keller?

[Ryan Visconti]

No, no, no, no. Jeremiah wrote it.

[Josh McPherson]

Popular. He popularized Keep going, keep going, keep going.

[Ryan Visconti]

You're trying to mess with my blood pressure. No, you were quoting like we're supposed to be exiles. That was a prophetic word from Jeremiah. Given to who?

[Josh McPherson]

People in exile.

[Ryan Visconti]

The people in exile.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Visconti]

And so we have a system of government that I believe was set up in the context of an overtly Christian worldview that was created and Christian atmosphere was created by vocal, bold, courageous pastors who were preaching a very public theology. They were saying where the spirit of the Lord is there as freedom, and it starts in the individual, and it works itself out through all of society. And then they built a framework for a constitutional republic that we're getting the benefit of living in as this experiment in freedom that I believe was their best intent of working out a new covenant theocracy where there's a government that's built for the. For the express purpose of benefiting the people and causing their flourishing as submitted to a higher authority, namely God Almighty in. In his Word.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Ryan Visconti]

And so when we fail to address these issues as pastors, I think we're. We're selling our people short to see the. The goodness and the beauty and the comprehensive nature of the word of God and how it speaks to all of life.

[Pastor Josh]

Let me add something to that.

[Josh McPherson]

Okay, let me. Yeah, I'm coming to you. So that what I'll say. Let me just put theological categories on what you just said. So, like, here's a massive light bulb moment for me. So you take the Kyperian spheres, family, church, state. All right, well, there's. There's this pattern to riff on a little Driscoll thing and make it a little different. Whatever God creates, Satan tries to commandeer. So check this out. All right, no, I'm doing commandeer. He does counterfeit. I'm doing commandeer. Whatever God creates, Satan tries to commandeer. So watch this. God creates the family in Genesis 2, right?

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

Okay, so what you get is if the husband, Adam refuses to lead his family and stands passively by, then Satan walks in and goes, hey, you won't lead your family. I'd be happy to. I took care of that sphere. Okay, well, then God creates you. Go church. Okay, God grace church. Obviously, Christ church. In Acts, chapter two. Go to Revelation, chapter two and three. Obviously, you got letters to the seven churches. And remember, there was one church in particular that had passive elders that refused to lead the church. And there was that one. One church, passive elders refused to lead. And what does Jesus say? He's like this. I have against you. You tolerate that Woman, Jezebel, who sets herself up as a prophetess and leads and seduces my people to practice sexual immorality. Here's the case in point. If godly elders won't leave their church, Satan goes, I'd be happy to.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's right.

[Josh McPherson]

Well, let's apply that to the third category. Whenever Christians, who, by the way, have been given the historically unique, unprecedented privilege of living in a constitutional republic.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's right.

[Josh McPherson]

Where we actually have been given fractional leadership of our nation. If. If godly people go, man, actually, I'm going to stay passive. And they refuse to lead, then guess what Satan does. He go, I'd be happy, too.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, 100%.

[Josh McPherson]

So here's the big idea, man. If godly people want, godless people will.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's right.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

Now, what were you.

[Pastor Josh]

There's actually a lot.

[Ryan Visconti]

Well, I was gonna say there's a biblical text that speaks to that, but you got a thought.

[Pastor Josh]

Well, a lot of Christians are going, you know, I just want to tell people that Jesus loves them and focus on all the good that we as Christians can do in our world. And I don't want to talk about politics. What you were describing, Josh, as I became a dad and I want my kids, bro.

[Ryan Visconti]

This changes everything.

[Pastor Josh]

So Proverbs says, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. That means we as Christians, as husbands, as dads, and as pastors, we have a responsibility not just to leave our children money in the bank, but an inheritance of a society where they can flourish and where the Church of Jesus Christ can do our job without the government interfering with it. That's the inheritance that we have a responsibility to leave our children's children as a good man, not just US Dollars, but a US Society where they can actually live their lives in freedom and love Jesus without the government interfering with it.

[Ryan Visconti]

So here's what moved me to. To. To parlay off your point, Ryan, is there's a. There's something my dad taught me when I was young. I'm sure your dad taught you and your dad taught you and that it's leave it better than you found it. Yeah, it started in my bedroom. It. It moved my dad's car. If I borrowed my dad's car, brought it back with a gas tank half empty and wrappers on the floor. It was the wrath of God.

[Josh McPherson]

My dad was not happy with it.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah, it just doesn't work. It won't fly. You don't bring the shotgun back dirty and muddy and jammed up. You bring it better than you found it because that's, that's what McPherson men do. And when I realized that that little McPherson code was really springing from the garden mandate to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth to do it, to take what I've given you, to take the talent I've given you. Take one talent, turn to five, take one talent, turn to ten, take what I've given you. And then we get to enter into the joy of joining the Creator in creating, managing, labeling, naming, building, growing, shaping. It's just incredible expression of God in the image of man. We've been made in the image of God, right? What I realized was, and I'm 47, and I think their trajectory is still going the wrong way. There's a very good chance that in my lifetime, both my state and America would have gotten objectively, measurably worse. And what I realized was history would look back and go, hey, who, who, who, who are the pastor? Who is the pastors in Washington state when it went to the dogs, who are the pastors in the country when it, when they, when they were mutilating children who, like, was like, huh, Josh McPherson, I wonder, did he do anything? And it just, I was just overwhelmed with the sense of like, dear God, if I don't do anything, there's a very good chance that this incredible expression that is unique to history, this experiment in freedom we know, it's, this constitutional republic, would have gotten objectively worse during my watch. And that's on me. And there was just a sense of obligation where, like, I have an obligation before God to do whatever I can. And even if I lose, I want to go down fighting so that the record would show. Well, he was trying. At least he tried. I don't know where it's going to go, but I want my voice to be so clear and so loud. I do not consent to wickedness being funded by tax dollars. I do not consent to the most weakest and vulnerable among us being mutilated, manipulated, murdered. I do not consent to good, hard working men and women being punished, objectively punished with tax laws that are tantamount to thievery. I do not consent to looking the other way. I do not consent to bowing to the mob. I do not consent to, to cowardly pulpits. I do not consent to the church abdicating its responsibility to be a nation's conscience. And so for me, it's become a matter of like, I'm going to do whatever I can to leave it better than I found it. And it's not Looking good right now, but we're trying. We're in the game. And what I was going to say to your point earlier, if godly men and women won't lead, Satan will step in and follow. There's this crazy parable. I was talking to Tim Barton. He pointed this out to me. There's this crazy parable in Friend of the pod.

[Josh McPherson]

Shout out. Oh, he's a good man.

[Ryan Visconti]

Tim and Dave are national.

[Josh McPherson]

He's a good man.

[Ryan Visconti]

Wall builders, incredible. You got to go check them out. Judges, chapter nine is a parable. And it says, the tree went to the olive tree and said, would you come and plant your tree? And all of tree said, why would. Why would I do that? And said, no. He went to the vine and said, would you come plant. No, why do I do that? He went to the fig tree, would you come? No, why do I do that? He went to the briar patch and the bramble patch, said, I'd love to plant my gardens.

[Josh McPherson]

And so the analogy was, I see where that's going.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah. Like, the good trees refused to grow. The bad trees were all more than happy.

[Josh McPherson]

We're thrilled.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah. And so he connects it to Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry was governor for eight terms. He only ran twice because the people kept writing his name in.

[Josh McPherson]

Wow.

[Ryan Visconti]

And he felt it was his moral obligation to sacrificially step into the civil magistrate to serve his broader community, to draw on his years of wisdom experience, to help love his neighbor through godly policy. He kept saying, literally in several elections, please stop voting for me. I want to go home to be with my family. I want to go be with my family.

[Josh McPherson]

No more. No mas. No moss, no mas.

[Ryan Visconti]

But they kept voting for him, and he felt it was his noble obligation to sacrificially step into service. And that's what I want to hear, Christians. I want Christians to hear it and pastors to hear.

[Josh McPherson]

What you're talking about is a theology of Christian Christian statesmanship.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's right, Christians.

[Josh McPherson]

And by the way, this is something I think all of us are feeling right now is, hey, man. At least you know, that's not something I have grown up in pastor world hearing about is hey, man. Calling men and women of God to be Christian, Christian statesmen and Christian stateswomen. Now, real quick, dude, you're actually doing something about it. And actually all of us are involved in this. You're doing it. Actually. It's one of the best little lineups I've seen. Freedom. So you're doing this thing called Freedom Con this, it's the first thing I've literally ever heard of. Like it, and it might be meeting the most significant need in the church in our nation. Coming up on this Father's Day Freedom Con. What's the. Tell me about it real quick, by the way. Strongly, if you're listening, if you can, if you can do this thing. You want, you want to do this thing?

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah, it's gonna be incredible. Friday, Saturday, Father's Day weekend. The Gorge Amphitheater in George Washington, which

[Josh McPherson]

by the way, I've heard is literally one of the most gorgeous places in America.

[Ryan Visconti]

It's the most iconic outdoor venue. It's like Live Nation's like number three producer, all time. It's massive. You're looking over the Gorge. It's stunning. Dave Matthews is his all time favorite venue to play in. It's. It's legit.

[Josh McPherson]

It's incredible. Flashback.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah. Yeah. He does like a four day concert there every year.

[Josh McPherson]

That's awesome.

[Ryan Visconti]

They got like 8, 000 camping sites, 30, 000 showers.

[Josh McPherson]

Didn't he record an album there one time? Yeah, dude, I had that album.

[Ryan Visconti]

Heck yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

Okay, I just clicked on.

[Ryan Visconti]

So we're doing it at the Gorge and we wanted to do something big for. It's. It's the 205th anniversary, bro. This is a big deal. I'm like, oh, I want to do something big. We have our annual strong man nation conference. That combined with the fact that our, our state is just in the toilet politically. Thinking more about what's wrong. We went to Olympia and I realized Olympia is just dark. And Olympia is dark. Not because Christians aren't waving their like magic potion wand over and praying prayers that no, Olympia is dark because the spirit of God's not there. And here's what I realized. You don't pray the spirit of God over a place like a wand. You send men and women who carry the spirit of God into darkness. So if Olympia is going to shift from dark to light, we have to send men and women who carry the spirit of God into the dark places. And that led to like Pastor Adam James. As you know, I'm feeling called to go into politics. And so he's running for state representative now, which is a whole nother story. The point being is the whole conversation around Christian nationalism, like that boogeyman word, that's just. We've all joked about it.

[Josh McPherson]

Nobody knows what it means.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah, there's no definition. But if they stick it on you, scare label, it can label you and write you off. To which I respond if you, if you're accusing me of being a Christian

[Josh McPherson]

and loving my nation, loves our nation, I'm in.

[Pastor Josh]

Guilty.

[Josh McPherson]

I'm in.

[Ryan Visconti]

So sue me. Sold. Yeah. But to move it away from like the boogeyman buzz phrase of Christian, Christian nationalism to Christian statesmanship, because that is a noble sacrificial endeavor that requires a man to draw from a lifetime of wisdom experience to now, then leverage it in generous others oriented service in the years when he should be mailing it in, enjoying his wealth and retiring. He's saying, no, I'm going to step into the fray. And guys, it's going to get messy. It's not fun. It is dark, it is corrupt. And I literally had a pastor text me the other day, something happened in the White House. And he's like, this is exactly why Christians should be involved in politics. I was like, all due respect, this is exactly why we should be.

[Josh McPherson]

How are we going to influence it?

[Ryan Visconti]

Where is the salt supposed to go? Oh, to the things that are rotting. Right. Light goes to dark places. Salt goes to preserve. That's what's rotting. So I get it's going to be messy. It's corrupt. That's where God's calling us to go. Imagine a government that wasn't corrupt. Imagine a government that bowed its knee to the sovereignty of God. Imagine a government that aligned its policies with the principles of God. Would that not work for the flourishing of your people? Would you rather have a governor who prays, acknowledges Jesus as king and submits his life to the word of God or a government who doesn't? There's no question. Because we believe the Christian worldview brings the most flourishing for the most people, even those who don't believe it.

[Josh McPherson]

So you're doing this conference.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

To essentially give a, like, it's a vision for. And honestly, dude, I've never even heard of that before. And it's like, I'm in Rise of the statesman. So that's the conference. Who's going to be there? What's going on?

[Ryan Visconti]

I asked the greatest man in the country I know to come and put their mind to this idea of Christian statesman. So it's Josh Allerton, it's Nick Freitas, it's Nate Schatzline, it's Ryan Visconi, it's Russ Johnson, it's. I got their names in here. It's. Who else?

[Pastor Josh]

Mark Driscoll, Graham Allen.

[Ryan Visconti]

Graham Allen, Eric Metaxas, Chad Robichaw, Tim Barton. I mean, it's just this massive lineup of guys and I've asked Them to. I want to talk about statesmanship historically, biblically, theologically, personally, pastorally, ecclesiologically, philosophically and personally. And so there it's going to take a different angle and we're just going to unpack this idea of Christian statesmanship because it's my hope to shape the conversation so that pastors and churches once again see civic service as noble. We used to call them civil servants, not politicians, because it was a noble act of sacrifice and generosity and service. It was an expression of loving my neighbor as myself in a broader sense. And so we kind of want to reignite the conversation around Christian statesmanship because it was Christian statesmen who founded this nation, and it'll be Christian statesmen who preserve it.

[Josh McPherson]

Wow. Wow, bro. It's gonna be awesome. By the way, if anybody's interested, we had a bunch. I've heard there's a bunch of dudes from Lake Point that are gone. You can stick. We'll stick the link to it in the show notes and, and in the little sub right below the YouTube video so you can get it there. And then. Is there a website? Then go to.

[Ryan Visconti]

There's a. It's freedomcon26.com. It's got trailers, info, media packets, explanations, the whole nine yards. And today my team just texted me for your listeners, if you use the promo code live free.

[Josh McPherson]

Come on, man. Come on, man.

[Ryan Visconti]

This is gonna be good.

[Josh McPherson]

Come on, man.

[Ryan Visconti]

50 off. All right, man, it's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be epic.

[Josh McPherson]

Now let me back up, Ryan, because honestly, dude, I want to try to help, help people who are listening. Like, ah, I'm with them, but I gotta hang up, man, because I'm seeing a lot of bad things. There's just some bad people on the right too. You guys are acting like it's just everything's pure on one side and then it's all impure on the other side.

[Ryan Visconti]

Let me just say this. Some of the most corrupt, godless, lost people I have met have been at Republican conventions.

[Josh McPherson]

Okay, so let's talk about that.

[Lake Point Church Announcer]

Well, hey, guys, as you know, Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Christ, live free, and change the world for God's glory. But here's the thing. Movements, by definition, move. And so if you're not moving, then the question is, are you really being a part of the movement? In fact, somebody once said that too many churches are like football games. 22 people on the field in desperate need of rest, being watched by thousands of people in the sands in desperate need of exercise. Hey, listen, we refuse to be a church like that. And so if you come, call Lake Point Church, your home church, and if you have not yet joined a serve team, I want to invite you to take your next step right now. Text the word serve to 20411 and we'll help you find your spot where you can serve in person or online on whichever serve team you are being called to serve. Hey, thank you for being obedient to God's calling in your life. And let's keep doing this together.

[Josh McPherson]

So, I mean, like, let's talk about

[Ryan Visconti]

that crisis concern helps nobody.

[Josh McPherson]

That's right.

[Ryan Visconti]

Helps nobody.

[Josh McPherson]

Okay, this is a big deal right here. So honestly, man, this right here is what used to trip me up the most. Ryan. Honestly, you said something that made like 11 things click into place for me. So, okay, for somebody that's listening, like, hey, dude, I'm with y', all, but man, there's like corrupt people and I just see bad people and stuff on the right and then I see some, you know, seemingly kind and well meaning people on the left. You guys are making it sound like, like it's just, you know, what? So, Ryan, what would you say to that person? Like, ah, you guys, it's not really both sides bad. Both sides.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, Two wings of the same bird.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

Right. So we will readily admit that there are conservatives who are sinners. All of us, we're all sinners. But like, there are. Yeah, there are, there are conservatives and there are Republicans who do bad things, who do sinful things. For sure, we know that. But, but on the left, there is sin and a commitment to wickedness codified in the Democratic Party platform. And so what am I talking about? There's a big difference between on the right, people who do bad things versus on the left in the party's platform, which is their written document which expresses what they're committed to, what their agenda is, what they're trying to accomplish. They have written out in their things that are objectively, no room for debate, sinful and unbiblical, that a Christian could not support in good conscience and be faithful to Jesus at the same time. So some of the, the big things would be like a commitment to abortion, funding abortion, Max.

[Josh McPherson]

Boosting it, by the way.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, if you want to say it that way.

[Josh McPherson]

Cheering it as a positive moral good.

[Pastor Josh]

Cheering it, paying for it, using tax dollars to pay for it. The Hyde amendment essentially forces other countries to do the same as well if they want to get free trade and federal tax dollars.

[Josh McPherson]

About that.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, Go ahead.

[Josh McPherson]

All right, let me. I'm sorry. I mean, so, dude, we had a. This is no joke. We had the pastor of the largest church, I think it was Peru, come and speak at Lake Buen Espanol. It was leading up to the 24 election. And this is when a lot of these dominoes start clicking my head. And he goes, hey, man, this whole conversation about USAID was coming up, and he started explaining to me that in his South American country is a very traditional country. Very traditional. So traditional family, man, woman, marriage, the trans stuff was like abhorrent to everybody. And he was like, dude, you know, what's happening is our government schools all started teaching that. And he like, with kind of was half joking. He was like, hey, dude, and it's because of your country. And I was like, what are you talking about? And he started explaining that we give that country, I think it's billions, billions of dollars this was happening. We gave him billions in usaid. And he said, what happened is that the previous administration literally told them, a prerequisite to you receiving our foreign aid is you have to align with these ideals that are considered moral things for our administration. And they required the public schools in this country, who all the actual citizens hate and reject, reject those ideas, to start teaching all the LGBT and all the things. And they were forcing it on the nation in order to receive public assistance. And honestly, it was one of the first times in my whole life when I went, wait, are we the baddies? Yeah, yeah, you keep going. So that's one.

[Pastor Josh]

So abortion is a huge one. And then lgbt, what the Democratic Party platform expresses, it's committed to is LGBT quote unquote rights, transgender rights, things like same sex marriage. The Equality act is. Is really wild because it forces health providers to affirm gender, you know, gender affirming care and support that.

[Josh McPherson]

By the way, if you don't know what he means by quote, unquote, gender affirming care is if somebody wants to self identify as the opposite of gender, opposite gender, which, by the way, is a biological impossibility and it's a rebellion against God's created order.

[Pastor Josh]

Yes.

[Josh McPherson]

Then what you mean by that is that provider has to affirm them in that thing that will actually, we know. That destroys them. Yes, that destroy. Dude, I get emotion that destroys you and your children.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's right.

[Josh McPherson]

So that's what you mean by that. For people who didn't know you keep going.

[Pastor Josh]

And they have policies that essentially make it impossible for Christians to object to those ideologies as well. The Democratic Party platform also is firmly committed to critical race theory. Dei, we call it what they would call equality. But for example, some of the, the negative things that come from that are things like prioritizing, appointing diverse quote, unquote judges at all costs rather than the most qualified judges, which sound, I think

[Josh McPherson]

for most Christians at first they're like, wasn't that good?

[Pastor Josh]

Isn't that nice?

[Josh McPherson]

I mean, honestly. Right, Good.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, it's not, it's, it's unequal weights and measures.

[Josh McPherson]

So this is important. So what Ryan's talking about right there, this is really important. The biblical. So here's what Satan does. The Bible says what Satan does. Father Elias is he's really good at calling good things evil and evil things good. So what he does consistently is he packages evil things in good labels. So what he does is he's going to package injustice under the label of justice. Why? Because he's a real good liar. So check this out. What Ryan's talking about is the biblical definition of justice. Just if you're not a Bible nerd out for 10 seconds and just go to a little website and Google the phrase equal weights and measures, that's consistently the Bible's definition of what's justice? Justice is. It's Martin Luther King Jr. I don't judge you by the color of your skin, but by the content of your character.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, it's a good example of equal weights and measures.

[Josh McPherson]

Equal weights and measures. I do not. When you're applying for a college admission, I don't care what color you are. I'm applying equal weights and measures. That's what you're saying. As far as those things are actually some people I think are well meaning but naive in supporting them. And they don't realize, hey, you're actually supporting the advancement of injustice that's being packaged as justice.

[Ryan Visconti]

I mean, I was at the White House a few weeks ago and talking with the administration and things they were uncovering under the Obama and Biden administrations. And one of the things they found was all of the medical schools that were getting dollars from the US Government were requiring their medical students to perform an abortion in order to move through their clinicals.

[Josh McPherson]

Bro, that's like a, that's like a blood ritual.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah. So Moses. What they found was all of these Christians were hitting, you know, year three, year four of their clinicals and like, wait, I gotta do what you gotta do? Abortion. I like to opt out. You know, conscience and objector. Yeah, you can't. And so now it's forcing Christian medical students to either a, violate their conscience and perform an abortion or watch this, this get out of the medical field.

[Josh McPherson]

Right? So it's an, it's an bro, that's sinister. So think about it over time. It screens out a Christian.

[Ryan Visconti]

So you put 10, 15, 20 years on that. That's why the only people you have in the medical field are godless people that have no problem with their conscience murdering a baby.

[Pastor Josh]

That's wild.

[Ryan Visconti]

And so this administration, any school that was taking the money, boom, remove the money, remove the mandate. And that's been shifting now. But there's things, there's thousands of things like that, that, that can happen at a, at a policy level that can filter, shape and change entire landscapes of cultures and pastors. Like, wait, wait, what happened?

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, that's wild.

[Josh McPherson]

We keep giving commentary. That's okay.

[Pastor Josh]

One more thing would be like, in the Democratic Party platform, it talks about religion and a separation of church and state. Like, it'll use a phrase like that, which you would read on the surface and a lot of naive people would just go like, oh, that sounds good. But when you actually get down into what they say in their platform, they actually want to oppose policies that would allow our religious belief to override their anti discrimination laws. Meaning, you know, we think of things like, a Christian school should have the option to not hire a teacher who, for example, is gay. And they, they should, A Christian school should be able to say, hey, you go, do you? But we can't hire you to teach our kids because your lifestyle doesn't align with our values. The Democrats, when they talk about separation of church and state, they actually want to take away a church or a Christian school's rights to object to unbiblical practices based on their faith. So all that kind of stuff that we talked about being said, Reaper, abortion, lgbt, dei, those things are enshrined, they are codified in the Democratic Party platform and Democrats.

[Josh McPherson]

On the website.

[Pastor Josh]

On their website. It's not, you can go read it yourself. It's their website. It's Democrats align with the party platform. If they want to get funding, if they want to have any kind of, you know, a success in coalition building, they have to toe the line. So they, they very rarely, if ever deviate from the objectives of the party platform. You can think of the party platform as like, this is our team, our team's mission statement, basically. And in their mission statement, they've got, we are committed to sin. So when a Christian votes for a Democrat, they are voting for abortion, lgbt, critical race theory. They're voting for those things and the advancement of those ideas. Now on the other side of the aisle on the right, there are no, last I checked, you know, this could change someday in the future. But right now there are no policies in the Republicans party platform that would objectively be sin according to the Bible. Some people could maybe debate some fine, fine tune things but there's, there's, it's not the same on the right. So yes, there are people on the right who do wrong things. Where we as Christians go, hey, that's not good, that's not right, you shouldn't have done that. But on the left, like the institution is wired and committed to doing what God calls wicked. So we are not dealing with two wings of the same bird here at all. This is not two sides of the same coin today. This wasn't the case 30 years ago. You know, my, my grandpa voted for.

[Josh McPherson]

This is important what you're about to say. This is important what you're about to say.

[Pastor Josh]

My grandpa voted for a Democrat and my dad and my grandpa would sit around having like good natured debate about some of their policy differences. But these realities did not exist back then. You could be a faithful Christian, a godly man and you could vote for a Democrat in good conscience. But the Democratic Party moved, moved further to the left. So today the way that, that things stand, a Christian cannot in good conscience be faithful to God and vote for a Democrat. Now that doesn't mean that we have strong, that's a very strong statement. But it's, I would say it's indisputable. On the other hand, I think as pastors we should be careful how far we take our guidance. I think one of the things we have to be careful about is I don't know if as a pastor I want to get into like, like endorsing candidates and I'm not going to go,

[Josh McPherson]

I don't, I don't want to do that on that.

[Pastor Josh]

I don't, I don't want to go to campaign for a guy necessarily. Or I would maybe do it with exceptions, but not necessarily as a rule. I, we don't want our churches to feel like this is a, a constant overwhelming theme coming from the pulpit.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah, actually, can I pause? I want you to keep going. For anybody that doesn't listen to our preaching, like I'm not joking. And honestly this, I actually may have failed in what I'm about to say. In my entire preaching ministry, I've used the words Republican or Democrat in one sermon ever. And it was my 2024 election sermon.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

So if anybody's listening, like, dude, this is all these guys talk about. You simply don't know what you're talking about. Like, when I stand up on the weekend, I'm preaching verse by verse through books of the Bible.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah. I mean, I've been preaching for 12 years now. I've probably done seven or eight sermons that are related to politics in 12 years, and then a whole lot that aren't smart.

[Josh McPherson]

There you go.

[Pastor Josh]

You know, so you were.

[Josh McPherson]

Sorry I interrupted. You're just like, hey, man, don't. We're not talking about making it a disproportionate emphasis.

[Pastor Josh]

This is. We talk about this, you know, an episode like this, because this is the thing that a lot of pastors are hung up on this. A lot of Christians have just been kind of indoctrinated into a wrong way of thinking, like we were when we were younger, that, hey, those things are kind of like, Christians shouldn't go there. We should cringe, kind of cringe. It's a distraction. It's going to hurt our ability to reach the loss. It's going to split my church and cause problems. So if I, If I talk about that stuff, it's going to. It's going to cause a lot of. Of pain. But in reality, avoiding these issues ends up causing more pain, more pain for the church, for the families in the church, and for the society that the church is supposed to be in. As salt and light making better

[Josh McPherson]

now. So here's my objection to everything you just said. Said. Yeah, here's an objection to it.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, do it.

[Josh McPherson]

All right, so this is a little sentence that was like an anchor axiom in pastor world for a very long time. Anchor axiom. Ryan and Josh, the gospel is neither right nor left. And that is evidenced by the life of the early church. Here's what I mean. Ryan and Josh, the early church did not match onto a political party. Think about this. I won't say who I'm getting this from. The early church cared about sexual fidelity and the definition of marriage, and they opposed abortion and infanticide. Those things sound right, but politically right. But then Ryan and Josh, they also opposed racism and cared deeply for the poor. Those things map political left today. So Josh and Ryan see, obviously the gospel is neither right nor left. And the church, you know, it just doesn't map onto a political party.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, it's a false framework is what I would say. We, as Christians, we should do both. And all of the above. We should care about the poor. We should also care about the unborn, we should care about loving our neighbors, and we should care about the definition of marriage. So I wouldn't let someone frame those issues as being only right or left. But then I would disagree. You would disagree too, with the premise that the left actually does have policies that are in the best interest of the poor. I think the left's policies are actually designed to keep the poor poor and keep them voting for people who will help them stay poor.

[Josh McPherson]

That's a big deal. So I'll tell you how I respond to that, and you can riff on it if you want to. Man. How I respond to that is, hey, man, that's a very unfair framing of only one side. So, for instance, if you go to a person, a progressive person, that aligns with their publicly stated policies, and you say, hey, man, are you for the redefinition of marriage to include, quote, unquote, gay marriage, and are you for abortion? They're going to say yes. If you go to somebody that's conservative and you say, are you for racism? And do you oppose caring for the poor? Obviously we're gonna be like, what the heck are you talking about? Of course not.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

Of course not.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

Further, I would just do gently say this, but if you accept that framing, I think you radically need to investigate your assumptions. Because very frankly to what you said, Thomas Sowell would constantly say, this actually is Milton Friedman, he said, you do not judge a policy. Do not judge a policy by its intentions. You judge policies by their outcomes.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's right.

[Josh McPherson]

And when you start talking about there are legitimate. I just want to acknowledge this. There are some people that they lean left genuinely because they care for the poor. And they, I think, very mistakenly, they genuinely think this cares for poor more. But very frankly, as I've heard it said, the best argument against progressive policies is progressive cities. And all of notice this. If you disagree with what I'm saying right now, just pause and think. Think all of the cities and states, because you can give some stats on this, that they throw millions and billions of dollars to, quote, unquote, solving homelessness. Have you ever paused to think about why are those the cities and states that end up with, oh, wait, the most, homelessness? Because you're not solving the problem, you're incentivizing the problem.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's exactly right.

[Josh McPherson]

Which is why first Thessalonians says, hey, man, what's the policy God puts in place if man will not work, work, not eat.

[Ryan Visconti]

You want to eat, you got to

[Josh McPherson]

work, you want to eat. So God understood The way that humans are wired is incentives. I would also say the man. Honestly, dude, the data simply shows that people identify as politically conservative give three times more of their personal income to help the poor than people identify as progressive on three times more.

[Pastor Josh]

Right.

[Josh McPherson]

This is just simply. I love the person who said this. I radically disagree with him. It's simply a false framing.

[Ryan Visconti]

Well, it's a false framing which creates a false premise, which gives you wrong outcomes. And so I agree with 100. I think everything you guys have said, and I would only add that the left tries to solve legitimate problems with the wrong jurisdiction.

[Josh McPherson]

Oh, this is good, Josh.

[Ryan Visconti]

Right?

[Josh McPherson]

Tease it out. This is good.

[Ryan Visconti]

Well, that's all I want to say, other than the fact that it's not that conservatives don't care about poor people. They want to create as much possibility for opportunity for any poor person to work and earn so they can make their own living. That's actually a biblical response to the problem of poverty as opposed to the unbiblical solution to poverty, which is, let me punish the productive man and forcibly take from you, steal from you, and give it to the man who's lazy. It's back to what you said earlier. It's taking that which is good and calling it it bad and taking that which is bad and calling it good. It's taking that which is good and saying you work hard. And so you. I'm not talking about you, but I mean, you know, like, like you. Yeah, if, if you work hard and you make money, we're going to take it from you to give to those who aren't willing to work. And, and because they have not. And so.

[Pastor Josh]

And just as a caveat, we all know there are people who legitimately need welfare. We're all for a legitimate safety net.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah, we're talking about people that abuse

[Pastor Josh]

the, the system because of incentives.

[Ryan Visconti]

Well, I think Driscoll's categories are super helpful. Righteous poor and unrighteous poor. Righteous rich and unrighteous rich. So those who are rich, who are unrighteous with it, they've gained it illegally or unscrupulously. There are those who are righteously rich who've earned it through wise investment and hard work. There's those who are righteously poor, catastrophic events beyond their control. And there are those who are unrighteously poor and willing to work. So I had a guy running for commission in my town. He went down to the. All the, the drug, the druggies and the homeless folks under the bridge in my town. Ask every one of them, every one of them have family trying to help them. Many of them had owned homes or jobs. And to the man, their answer was, I like it better down here. I want to be here. I get free food. I get free drugs. City gives me needles. Why would I want to leave this city?

[Josh McPherson]

Literally?

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah. That's unrighteous. Seattle.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Visconti]

Are you kidding me? Seattle's a hand and stuff out like candy. The state of Washington has more. Six times more homeless people, people than New York City. It's insane. It's insane. So to your point is. Is I would. I would say the left solution to a legitimate problem exacerbates the problem. It does not solve the problem. And that's part of the nature of bureaucracy. Roll around in the problem, not fix the problem. Because you fix the problem. There's. You have no reason to be.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah, right.

[Ryan Visconti]

And so if we keep the problem going, then I can legitimize me being here because I need to. And so there's all sorts of problems with the framing of that, the categorizations there that create false premises, wrong outcomes, and bad thinking in the church.

[Josh McPherson]

Let me rapid fire some objections to what we're saying, and then let's land the plan on practicals. Okay? So number one, and I'll be. I'll just shoot you through this. I don't know how to do this without. Is emotional. It is emotional. There's no way for it not to be emotional. But one of the things that you kind of get. I've gotten this.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yes.

[Josh McPherson]

With dudes I love. Hey, Josh, man, when you start making clear political applications, man, you're really hurting. You're really hurting racial reconciliation efforts because, man, you're marginalizing minority communities that largely. Man, a lot of those minority communities, they largely vote the other way. And so you're hurting. You're hurting the racial reconciliation efforts of the church. What would you say?

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, there are certain.

[Josh McPherson]

Do you want me to respond to.

[Pastor Josh]

I think there are certain.

[Ryan Visconti]

That doesn't make sense to me, I guess. What would you say to that? Because it makes no logical sense.

[Josh McPherson]

Oh, you started.

[Pastor Josh]

You want to start? Yeah. I think there are certain groups who have unbiblical, ungodly allegiances to the Democratic Party, and they've been conditioned to believe that that's the party that's for you, you and the other. And that's your only option, is to vote left. And in. In all honesty, that is what. That's what really is a political idol is voting for this. This Democratic Party on the left, even though it promotes wickedness you're placing a political desire and affinity above your identity in Christ. If that's the case. So if that hurts what someone would call an effort, racial reconciliation, or I would just say, so be it, so be it.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah. So first of all, this is, you

[Ryan Visconti]

know, how would you answer it?

[Pastor Josh]

Well, you probably got a better answer.

[Ryan Visconti]

I don't know.

[Pastor Josh]

I don't know.

[Ryan Visconti]

I'd like to hear what you think, because. Because I don't understand it.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah, well, what I would say is anytime I have this conversation with somebody, it I. I feel like it's more awkward for them than me just because my family, you know, everybody know I got. I got two African Americans pretty reconciled.

[Ryan Visconti]

Pretty reconciled to me.

[Josh McPherson]

Well, and honestly, dude, it's like every conversation that makes you're kind of your normal white guy squirm, I have those conversations every night at dinner. Whatever is the weirdness and awkwardness around that. I don't got it anymore. So it's not awkward for me anymore. What I would say is, hey, man, we don't judge the righteousness or truth of an assertion by the racial makeup of who supports it. We don't do that. We just judge truth from error. And so what I would gently say to somebody is. What I would say to somebody is, hey, man, if 90% of white people in Georgia or South Carolina in the 1700s were pro slavery, then they're all wrong. And I would say, well, then they're all wrong.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

And if in 1790, somebody said, well, yeah, but, Josh, that hurts racial reconciliation, I would say, I don't care.

[Ryan Visconti]

Who cares?

[Pastor Josh]

So be it.

[Ryan Visconti]

They're wrong.

[Josh McPherson]

I don't care. So what I would say is, grace bows to truth. Let God be true. And 90% of white people in Georgia in 1790 be a liar. We have verses for that. And, man, you apply that to today, man, Honestly, I'm just like, man, I feel like it's honestly, a bit of. I'll just say it like a bit of an immature, emotional manipulation tool to keep people from just, dude, let's just be Christian men and women and go, man, we have a higher allegiance than anything else in our life to Jesus Christ. He saved me. It's like, dude, I don't. I really don't care what percent of people who look a certain way do something. It's just like, what's true and righteous? And I'm for that. I think about it.

[Ryan Visconti]

Not only that, all my black buddies, it's insulting to them. They're like, why would you think because of the Color of my skin. I have to think a certain way. I'm submitting my race to the king because my worldview isn't driven by the color of my skin. My worldview is driven by what Jesus says is true.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah. That's the way it should be.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah. All right, let me rapid fire a couple others. I'm going to make you all disagree with Billy Graham. I'm going to go. I'm going to bounce back and forth, and you got to do it fast. Okay. I'm going to bounce back and forth. You got to do it fast. I'm going to give you Billy Graham quotes.

[Ryan Visconti]

I'm going to assume that I'm wrong. If I. If I disagree with Billy Graham, obviously, I'm not seeing something here.

[Josh McPherson]

All right, Ryan, I'm going to start with you.

[Ryan Visconti]

So good.

[Josh McPherson]

Billy Graham preachers can't be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle and preach to all people, right and left, left.

[Pastor Josh]

I'm going to identify with whoever, whatever political leader is going to best represent Jesus and my faith and bring about the worldview that's most biblical. I. That's more important than keeping myself in the middle. Because the problem with trying to stay in the middle, neither right nor left, is that the window keeps moving to the left.

[Josh McPherson]

That's right.

[Pastor Josh]

So if you try to stay in the middle, neither right nor left, left. The window keeps moving left. And in order to stay in the middle, you have to keep moving left with it. And that's one of the reasons why so many churches have become apostate and so many pastors have gone woke and so many Christians have deconstructed. It started with a good, you know, a well intentioned desire to just be neutral and stay in the middle.

[Josh McPherson]

I'll add one thing, because I'm allowed to do that as a moderator. Yeah, do it. I'll add one thing. When Billy Graham said that that was probably true. I was just, I was just gonna say in 1960.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh McPherson]

Actually, I heard this from you on a little reel. One of those D reels that we do is that, hey, man, it used to be that the differences between the parties were like tier two and three issues, you know, that kind of thing. How many roads we gonna build?

[Ryan Visconti]

You know, that kind of thing.

[Josh McPherson]

Now they're like moral, doctrinal, tier one issues. So what I would say is when Billy Graham said this, sure, it might have been true. Might have been true. It's a little different now. Josh, let me do another one. Billy Graham, at the end of his life, had a personal regret. He said, if I had to do it over again, I would avoid any semblance of involvement in partisan politics. What do you say?

[Ryan Visconti]

I don't know.

[Pastor Josh]

That's how we got here today.

[Josh McPherson]

Oh, what?

[Pastor Josh]

There's a lot of pastors who did that, and that's how we got here today.

[Josh McPherson]

Wow. Okay.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah. I mean, it's tough to comment on a man's quote without knowing the context, because I have a great amount of respect for Billy Graham, so I'm not.

[Josh McPherson]

Of course, by the way, we all do.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Josh McPherson]

The man's election, arguably the greatest preacher in American history. If anybody is interpreting this as us being down on Billy Graham, you're wrong. The reason I'm doing this is because. Because of his statesmanship and his influence, man, those are things that. It's like they. They've imbibed themselves because of our respect for him. They've imbibed themselves, and they're like, man, you know, I can't disagree with that. You know, that's why I'm doing this. I can tell it's making you uncomfortable.

[Ryan Visconti]

Well, not uncomfortable. I just, like, I got to be in the East Room in the White House at lunch with. With. With potus, like, a month ago, and Billy Graham's son came in and laid a hand on our president, prayed for him, and, like, took a picture. I'm like. I'm like, I feel better about the world when there's a Graham praying for my president.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Ryan Visconti]

And so, like, I'm not sure what he meant by that, but I'm like, I disagree. Whatever. Like, thank you for being involved in every president's life. Thank you for coming to the White House every time they called. Thank you for praying for them. Thank you for pastoring them. Thank you for speaking the gospel to them. Him. So I'm not what. Sure, he means by being less partisan, but, like, Mike, that guy was, like, the least partisan guy. No. He would pray for every. Any president. He would meet with him. So I'm like, yeah, I'm grateful for his life. And I think that's like. Like the earlier quote I think I would probably agree with. Because we don't primarily identify with a political party.

[Josh McPherson]

Yes.

[Ryan Visconti]

Important, we identify with King Jesus.

[Josh McPherson]

That's right.

[Ryan Visconti]

And King Jesus calls all political parties and all governments and all magistrates to bow their name. And my beef is with any magistrate, no matter what they call themselves, who wants to make me violate my Christian conscience, to obey their law as if they're higher than Jesus. And they're not. Whenever a government starts acting as if they're God, I have a prophetic responsibility to remind them that they're not God, that Jesus is the king of all kings.

[Josh McPherson]

That's great.

[Pastor Josh]

And dude, go ahead.

[Ryan Visconti]

No, it's just a storyline of the Bible is government trying to replace God, God as God. And so when governments forget that there is a God who they're submitted to, they start acting like a God and that's bad for everyone. And so I wouldn't say I'm partisan. I wouldn't say I align right or left like I align with the king. And I, I'll align with anyone who bows their knee to the king or

[Josh McPherson]

slows societal decay the most, to use your language.

[Pastor Josh]

I think today we're going to have a lot of pastors get to the end of their life and say, my greatest regret is not getting more involved.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's right.

[Josh McPherson]

Wow, dude, honestly, this clicked for me and then I'm going to move on to the last one is, honestly, man, if you're listening to this and you're a little, little out on it, especially if you're younger. Honestly, dude, this changed for me when I had kids because all of a sudden I'm like, I have a duty and responsibility as a man to hand my children leave things better than you found it the best cultural inherits I can possibly hand them and I have a duty as a Christian to leave the future church in America. The best possible conditions for disciple making the accomplishment of the Great Commission is I humiliate. Can let me throw one last one at you, Ryan. Billy Graham. He warned that aligning faith with any with politics often leads to manipulation and damages the credibility of the gospel. What do you think?

[Pastor Josh]

I mean, yeah, I think it could, but I, I do think that the answer is similar to the last point, which is we're not trying to align faith with politics. We're recognizing, you know, God's word is our, our true north. And we can look at God's word and what it says about right and wrong. And we can objectively say, hey, you know, today one party, one of the two major parties is imperfect and flawed and the other major party is absolutely wicked. So now taking God's word, what do we do? We teach Christians to apply God's word to their everyday lives and that affects how they raise their kids and how they handle money and how they vote. That's what we're doing. We're not trying to get a certain party in power. We're trying to teach Christians to be faithful disciples and live every part of their life as if Jesus is their king and their worldview is shaped by that reality.

[Josh McPherson]

Last one for all of us. Your normal pastor or maybe church member that hears that and they're like, dude, honestly, okay, fine, the penny's dropping. All right, I get it. You're right. But they're like, dude, I, I don't know what the heck to do do. And honestly, if, if I, if I did what he did, I did what he did, I blow my church up in a moment. What would you say to that guy?

[Ryan Visconti]

Well, I would say it's probably false fear because I think if you do it in a wise way, in a biblical way, in a gentle way, in a clear way, in a biblical and practical and spirit filled way, the only people that you would drive away are the people that don't want that most people I think are looking for. Would you help me know how to think about this?

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Visconti]

Because if you don't help think about it, Tucker Carlson is going to help them think about it and fill in the blank with these talking bobbleheads out there that may or may not be helpful. And so because of the access to podcasts and information, there's more of a, There's a more pressing responsibility for shepherds to protect their flocks block, not just from keeping things from, because you can't, but by equipping them and arming them with truth so they know how to think about everything in their life. And that's what it's coming back to. Like, there is so much in the word of God, truth, goodness and beauty that applies to every sector and sphere of society that's beautiful and incredible and amazing. Let's do the hard work of taking Christianity out of this one dimensional flat, that sinner's prayer, and apply it to the three dimensional world we all live in, relationship to family and church and yes, politics, because for me, like, I go out the, I go out my door and I want to do the most good for the most people in loving my neighbor as myself. And I immediately run into policy and I immediately run into legislation and I immediately run into politics that are hurting people. And so I don't wake up going, I want to be political today. I wake up going, I want to be a faithful disciple of Jesus, working for the most good for the most people, people. And there's wicked legislation and policy that are hurting people. So I guess I got to get up there and address it. And so that, that's how I, I think about it. And I would just encourage pastors. I bet you'd be shocked at how many people would say, thank you, that was so helpful. I've been wrestling with how to think about that, and if you don't answer it for them, someone else will.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

I've got two practical pieces of guidance. First, one is for Christians. Second is for pastors for Christians. What do I do with this? When it comes to voting, I would just say to make it very simple, just look at candidates and what is their view on abortion. And then also look at what is their view on sexuality and marriage. Those are the most easy to identify issues where there is no dispute about how a Christian should think and how a Christian should vote for a pastor who would say, hey man, if I started talking about these things, I'm going to lose half my church and it's going to be a total nightmare. I would say, first off, I'm really sympathetic to that guy's situation as a pastor, but I think the first thing you gotta do is really stop and think about if your church would be disrupted by clear biblical teaching. That is a problem. You have to first ask what caused that problem and who caused that problem. The thing that caused that lack of unity was unclear teaching. A lack of clarity allowed division to grow. And the person who's responsible for that is the Bible teacher. So the thing to do is not to justify it. It's to repent of that failure. And I believe that God honors humbling ourselves. He said, if you humble yourself, I will lift you up. Humble yourself. And just like I. I admit I look back on some of my sermons from five years ago, even when I thought I was starting to get this, and I'm like, I disagree with a lot of this now. Like, I was terrible. I was still, like, really wrong and how I was describing these things. But if you'll repent of where you have failed to do your duty and you stop fearing man in your preaching, stop thinking about what people is this teaching going to upset? And start thinking about, how can I teach the Bible in a way that will please the Lord? Stop teaching with the fear of man, start teaching with the fear of God. Lead your people towards what's actually best for them and trust God with the outcome. What you'll find is you lose the people who honestly, the people that you lose. It'll be addition by subtraction, action. But what you'll gain is you'll gain a church that is hungry for God's word, that loves Jesus, that's unified and That's a joy to worship with. Trust God with the outcome for your church, good buddy.

[Josh McPherson]

All right, I'll finish it. I'll give two little practicals. One, just make sure the penny drops for you all the way. So, Trinity, I'm going to run through that data real quick. So, man, if. If the last however many minutes, 90 minutes or whatever has not helped you get there, hey, God bless your heart. I don't know, you know, that's the

[Ryan Visconti]

Texas way of saying you're a moron.

[Josh McPherson]

Bless your heart. But seriously, like, I just want to. If that won't do it, let me just run through some data real quick. Okay. This is Ryan Burge. These are just researchers. I'm just going to read it. People who go to religious services more often are less likely to identify as liberal. I know this is awkward to talk about. It's just like, dude, reality is undefeated. Let's just be honest about reality. This is a fundamental fact of American religion and politics. It's not just white people, it's every single racist racial group. Higher attendance, less liberal. It is. It is a basic data fact that the more that somebody attends church, the less that the more they move away from those policies. Go to the next one. Let's go to the next one. Ryan Burr. Share of liberal college students who attend a house of worship weekly, 8% for liberals. Share of conservative college students who attend a house of worship weekly, 32%. So it's a 4x60% of liberals attend less than once a year. Only 25% of conservative. So you should start seeing a correlation which should make you go, huh, I wonder what the causation is. Basically, what I'm trying to do is help you go, man. Honestly, I have to bury my head in the sand to pretend there is not a correlation between these things.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's right.

[Josh McPherson]

Let's keep going. Go to the next one. If I, Ryan Bird said this again, this is an impartial data researcher. If I were to guess someone's religious affiliation and I only get one question, it would be, what's your political ideology? 12% of political conservatives id as non religious compared to 50% of political liberals. So the data's starting to stack up. And let me explain. I won't deep dive this. What happens is this is not just political ideology. It's competing worldviews. It is a competition of worldviews. And what modern progressivism does is it installs a plausibility structure that teaches people and emotionally calibrates them to view many good things as actually Evil and many evil things as actually good, which over time makes them view the church, Jesus, the gospel and Christianity as bad guys and bad things. If you allow that to progress, wherever you are, listen, I love you. You are actively aiding the advance of things that will make the advance of the gospel harder. Wherever you are, go to the next one. Okay, now, Ryan Burge, I know this dude via X. We've interacted. So I asked him, I privately messaged him, hey, man, but which way does the causation go? Yes, because maybe Ryan is actually just. It's not that progressivism leads to lack of faith. Maybe it's just that lack of FAI faith leads to progressive.

[Ryan Visconti]

Chicken or the egg?

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah, chicken or egg. He says, I can't. I'm summarizing this. Ryan says, I'm going to quote it right here. There's a raft of social science research that points to the fact that religion is downstream of politics. So I know this is really weird and it's counterintuitive. Here's why. Because those political ideologies, again, they're installing plausibility structures that either make the gospel of gospel easier to believe and morally intuitive for a person or make the gospel way harder to believe and morally oppositional to a person, repulsive to a person. So the last thing I'd say, because, man, I'm not an idiot. If you're a pastor listening to this and you're like, Josh is unselfaware. No, no, I'm very self aware. I know exactly that. I've been uninvited from conferences. I know what text message I've been sent screenshots of what people say about me in past after group texts. I know the guys who have said, man, I can't appear with Josh at conferences anymore because he gets too political. I'm not an idiot. I know all these things. But here's my big idea, man. I care about the Great Commission and the future of the church and the cultural inheritance that I'll hand my kids more than I care about my reputation with you.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's right.

[Josh McPherson]

And here's the big idea, man, is if you're going, that guy's crazy. Every pastor in America and especially church planters, you know this. Show me a map of the states and cities with the least churches and the least Christians, and then show me a map of the bluest cities and the bluest states. It's the same map. That's right, it's the same map. So, man, as uncomfortable as it is for us, reality is undefeated and reality is if you want making disciples and the accomplishment of the Great Commission and building churches to get much, much harder in your region and for your children in the future, all you got to do is let it go blue. That's all you got to do.

[Ryan Visconti]

That's right.

[Josh McPherson]

You got to get to another podcast. We're done here. Peace.

[Ryan Visconti]

And we're out.