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Live Free with Josh Howerton
Megachurch Pastor Reacts to Tucker Carlson on Trump, Iran, and Islam | Live Free with Josh Howerton
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- [00:00]
Pastor Mike
So here's the warning. There is a difference between a conservative Christian and a Christian who's conservative. When your conservatism and your Christianity are at odds, does the conservatism trump your Christianity, or does your Christianity trump your conservatism? If your conservative trumps your Christian, you're going to end up defending things that the Lord Jesus Christ does not want you defending.
- [00:23]
Podcast Host
Well, hey, Lit Free Nation. Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Pointe 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 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.
- [01:12]
Pastor Mike
All right, welcome Live Free Nation. Let's try another bonus episode I'm going to be taking a second to react to. It's a Tucker Carlson clip where he has significant indignation at the president's tweet mocking Allah on Easter. There's a lot here. So the reason I wanted to do this specific one is to help Christians think because it's an intersection of really three things. I want to just say a few things just about Tucker, because a lot of Christians in the last couple decades have listened to Tucker. It's an intersection of him, Islam, some things about Islam, and then how to think about Trump tweets when a lot of Christians voted for President Trump. So there's a lot here. Now, let me just say this. Um, these bonus episodes are really. They're kind of test drives. So if this is helpful to you, if you could, like, comment, share, honestly, especially comment, that helps me know, oh, this is actually helpful to people and we may keep giving it a try. Okay, now before I dive in, two quick things. Here's why we do these react episodes. We need to Christians should with their Bibles. We need to learn to use our Bibles as two things. Mirror and a lens. And if you do One without the other, bad things are gonna happen to you and your family. And here's what I mean. One, we use the Bible as a mirror. The book of James says to hold it up because it shows us like man, where am I falling short as a disciple? So the number one thing we do is we use the Scriptures to analyze ourselves and go, dude, how do I need to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ? That's awesome. But then we also gotta learn not just to use it as a mirror that we look into, but as a lens that we look to analyze and evaluate what we see in the world. Now let me give you just real quick, let me give you two heads ups. If you use the Bible as a mirror to analyze yourself but not a lens, then here's what's going to happen to you. The scriptures warn, it says we are not ignorant of the devil's schemes and, and that Satan is quote, the God of this world. So if you use it as a mirror to like, okay man, I'm going to evaluate myself as a disciple. But you don't learn to use it as a lens through which you analyze what you see in the world. What's going to happen is if you don't biblically analyze what you see in the world, you're going to be unbiblically influenced by what you see in the world. So that's one mistake. I also want to give one quick heads up, especially, especially live free listeners. There are some guys and gals that they use the Bible as a lens through which they analyze the world, but they don't use it as a mirror by which they evaluate themselves as a disciple. And so I just want to say this one quick thing and then let's get right in. Okay. There's a certain type of dude that knows exactly what he thinks about every current event that happens, every political issue. He knows exactly. He's got strong opinions on foreign policy and wars in Iran. But that dude doesn't know the sins that so easily beset his own heart. He doesn't know that his daughters are out of control. He doesn't understand that his wife is beaten down and his family's in a good spot. We're not going to be that guy. So first what we do is we use the word to evaluate ourselves and then we use it to analyze the world. Okay, now that said, quick attribution, pastor Doug Wilson did a react episode to this exact same clip. I saw it and found some things that are very helpful. About 15% of the things that you're about to hear I heard from him. And so we're going to have the link in the show notes. And if you want to go watch that, you probably find that helpful. So there you go. All right. That said, let's talk about Tucker Carlson, Islam and Trump tweets. This can be very interesting. Ladies and gentlemen, let's begin.
- [05:17]
Tucker Carlson
Who do you think you are, Josh Howerton? You're tweeting out the F word on Easter morning.
- [05:25]
Pastor Mike
Okay, let me just. We're going to be pushing back on a few things that Tucker says throughout these next couple minutes, but I will say he ain't wrong about that. And I do want to give a quick warning to everybody that's listening. It is simply a reality that Christians have to deal with. And as a pastor, I'll shoot you real straight. It is very uncomfortable and missiologically awkward. Is simply a reality that in 2026America, Christianity maps generally conservative on the modern cultural taxonomy. There's kind of a thing that pastors used to say about 10 years ago where they'd say, hey man, the gospel is neither right nor left. And in one sense that's true. But we gotta be honest. The gospel is neither right nor left, but it is about right and wrong. And I'll keep saying this gets me in bit of trouble, but it's simply a reality that there's more wrong in the publicly stated proposed policies of the left than the publicly stated proposed policies of the right. Every now and then people freak out on me and go, how do you know that? Well, honestly, man, they both put all their proposed policies up on the RRNC and the DNC website. If you go to the DNC website, I think there's. I counted them one time. There's somewhere between six and ten policies where they are seeking to institutionalize and legislate, like extremely egregious national sins. Very frankly, if you go to the RNC website, I. There's not anything that is an undisputable. Like, there's just not things like that. So that's just a reality. But here's my warning and here's where I want to agree. Let's start with some agreement. I am not trying ultimately to pull you left or right, but as pastors, what we want to do is pull you up to the kingdom of God so that the Holy Spirit can fall down on your life. So here's the warning. There is a difference between a conservative Christian and a Christian who's conservative. The question is when your conservatism and your Christianity are At odds, does the conservatism trump your Christianity or does your Christianity trump your conservatism? And I'll just say this. If you're conservative trumps your Christian, then you're going to end up defending things that the Lord Jesus Christ does not want you to defending. I'm not a big fan of national leaders tweeting F words just in general, so I'll just say that. Okay, now that said, let's keep going.
- [07:56]
Tucker Carlson
You'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. So obviously you're mocking the religion of of Iran. Okay, if you seek a religious war, that's a good idea.
- [08:14]
Pastor Mike
Okay, look, I want to point something out here again. There are things that are uncomfortable to say, but they're simply true and reality is undefeated. So can I just point something out? He says, if you want a religious war, mock Islam. That's a great idea. I simply have to point out that Islam is generally. It's the only religion I'm aware of that people are very scared. They will kill you if you mock them. Now, again, obviously not all Muslim. There are millions of sweetie pie Muslims that are very moderate. Very frankly, in my opinion, from what I've seen, they are more peaceful and a little more moderate in spite of what their book says, not because of it. But we do got to got to acknowledge that. That said, it is simply a historical reality that there is one religion and one religion only that responds violently to mockery. If you think I'm making that up, I'm going to give you a little homework assignment. All you got to do is do this. Here's a question that I groked. You can really stick it in almost any AI that is not politically influenced if you just ask the question. Grok list for me, the 20 largest religious terrorist organizations in the world. Rank them by size, list what religion they generally adhere to, and do not provide additional commentary. Last time I did that, 20 out of 20 of them were all adherence to some form of Islam when I was in high school. I'll give you another example of this. When I was in high school, the creator of South Park, a show that I was not allowed to watch growing up because I had a good mom and dad. The creator of south park, if I remember correctly, they made an episode where they mocked Jesus all the time. Notice this, TV shows and art, they mock Jesus Christ constantly. Christ and Christians, you do not see the same thing in mockery of Muhammad or Muslims. Have you ever asked yourself why? Well, when I was in high school, creator, South park it was right after a dude named Charlie Hebdo. I think he was a French political cartoonist that made some political cartoons mocking Muhammad. And, and he, and he was killed. He was assassinated by French Muslims. The creator of south park noticed, I think they tried to make an episode of south park that mocked Muhammad and it got pulled or that some of that content got pulled. I'm going to read the quote. He said it sucked to watch them basically say, no, we're not going to do it because basically we're afraid of getting bombed. So it's not super comfortable to point out. It's just a reality that when Tucker says, well, if you want a religious war, mock Allah, well, it would be wise of us to at least pause and acknowledge there is a disproportionate amount of violence that comes from one religion. There you go.
- [11:17]
Tucker Carlson
But by the way, no decent person mocks other people's religions. You may have a problem with the theology.
- [11:24]
Pastor Mike
Okay, first of all, let me say a few things here. I do not recommend you going, you know, full jerks for Jesus. They will know us by our love. The greatest Christian apologetic is love. We are commanded by the New Testament to respond to opponents with, quote, gentleness and respect because that will lead some of them to embrace the faith. That said, there is something a lot of people never notice in the book of Proverbs. There are back to back verses in the book of Proverbs where one of them says, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you become like him yourself. And then the very next proverb says, answer a fool according to his folly and it gives a reason. The reason Proverbs does that is it is pointing out that there are some moments when you don't want to engage in foolish mockery. And actually there are rare moments when you do. So I just want to point this out. Tucker here says, by the way, quote, no decent person mocks another religion. Here's your problem. The Bible is actually gives us multiple examples of godly people, including Jesus mocking false religion. A couple examples. The big one is Elijah in 1st Kings 18 when he has a little showdown with the priests of baal. And I'm just going to read it. It says at noon and I'm just reading the Bible. Elijah mocked them. It's like, hey, the Bible's got a problem with the concept that no decent person mocks another religion. We got it right here. Elijah mocked them saying, it's kind of hilarious. He says, cry aloud for he is a God. He's mocking the prophets of Baal either he's musing or. And what most of your Bibles say, they say, or he is covering his feet, which is a Hebrew idiom for. Think about it. When you put your pants down, your feet are covered. He's literally saying, maybe your God's in the porta potty or he's on a journey. Maybe he's asleep and he must be awakened. So you got it there. Another one. Jesus actually mocks the Pharisees religion. Actually repeatedly says, you whitewashed, bro. You guys are a bunch of whitewashed tombs. You know, you're throwing a thin coat of spray paint on death. He calls him a brood of vipers. People don't pick up on this. He's referring back to the book of Genesis when Satan appears as a serpent and he's like, hey, man, you know what your religion is? You're actually like sons of Satan. He mocks them in the Sermon on the Mount. They make their robes long and their phylacteries large and their tassels long and they stand on. So Jesus does this. And I'll just point this out. We should not do it very often. But here's the thing. Sometimes it works. People don't love this, but if you've been paying any attention, in some ways, man, the Babylon Bee has driven more widespread cultural change for the tearing down of evil ideologies than many other Christian organizations in our culture. And you know how they do it? With prophetic mockery and humor. So is it always the best strategy? No. If you're working on sharing Christ with your one more. Is that your strategy? No. Is it sometimes biblically acceptable? Yes, it is. So I will just say Tucker's simply wrong when he says, quote, no decent person mocks another person's religion. There are moments when I am real, real okay, with mocking, with extreme derision, demons that are enslaving and deceiving people and leading them to hell. Yes, there are some times when I'm very okay being rude to that. All right, now let's keep going.
- [15:22]
Tucker Carlson
But by the way, no decent person mocks other people's religions. You may have a problem with the theology. Presumably you do if it's not your religion and you can explain what that is.
- [15:33]
Pastor Mike
Okay, now hang on. He says, you can have a problem with the religion and you can explain what it is. Essentially, I want you to notice something really close here. And what you need to learn to do is, is when somebody is making religious and especially biblical truth claims, what you need to pause and learn to do is evaluate the person that's speaking to you. And watch closely. There's a reason in the New Testament, there was a church in Berea that when Paul preached there, they didn't take the Apostle Paul at face value. What they did is every time he would preach, it says that they would examine the scriptures diligently to see if what he was saying was true. And Paul didn't go, ah, why aren't you trusting me more? He went, he called them noble. He said, man, that's noble because you're testing with the word of God what you're hearing in the world. Okay, so I want you to notice something about Tucker that I'm at least starting to go like, huh? Because a lot of Christians listen to this guy. You need to pay attention to this. What I want you to notice is when it comes to Islam, Tucker wants calm, rational explanation and argumentation and mockery and derision are out of bounds. Okay? But for some reason, and honestly, I would like to ask him this. He spent the last like 8 months on x saying things like he hates Christian Zionists, calling them heretics. I'm not saying that's me, I'm just saying how he's treating religions that he views different than his own, that he hates Christian Zionists, that they're heretics. Actually, he said he hates them more than anyone else and mocking and misrepresenting a lot of their beliefs. So it is interesting to me, why is it that when it comes to Islam, mockery, completely out of bounds, calm, well reasoned argumentation is the only thing that's acceptable, but he's okay personally engaging that type of mockery with certain groups of Christians. That's very interesting. Now here's why I just wanna again give you a warning. And I do not think, think we need to treat Tucker right now as somebody that's not a Christian, or as an apostate person or a false teacher, anything like that. You know, maybe I don't actually qualify. Just keep your eyes open. But I've been doing this pastor thing a minute and I just want to tell you something I've seen too many times for it to be a coincidence. Whenever I've seen pastors, tragically, and it actually makes some emotion, makes my eyes start leak a little bit thinking about men that I've known do this. Whenever I've seen pastors either go apostate, deconvert from the faith, or actually gravitate towards actual biblically defined heresy and go like super progressive. And all the things, here's what I noticed, they don't tell you that they're doing that. What they do first is they spend two or three years becoming like the Christian that hates all the other Christians. So here's what I'd say. Here's a principle in general. If you want to know what team somebody is heading towards or what team somebody's playing for, don't necessarily watch what they say. Watch which direction they fire their bullets, and that will start to tell you which side of the battlefield they're actually fighting for. I'm just saying you should be wise in evaluating the voices that are influencing you when they got a Bible in their hand and claim to be interpreting how Christians should behave themselves in the world. Let's keep going. Actually, before I move on, I would be remiss to point this out. I want to give one example of this from Tucker. This is actually from two days ago. All right, I'm going to give you an example. So this was two days ago Tucker posted this. And it was the first time that made me go, hey, brother, where are we right now? I'm going to read it. He said this is his tweet. I think we're going to show it. The people in charge don't want you to know this, but Muslims love Jesus too. That was what Tucker tweeted. Now, again, I'm trying to help you evaluate these things because stuff like that gets real confusing. Okay. Muslims love Jesus too. What you need to know in Islam, basically every major world religion, they have an understanding or interpretation of who Jesus was. I'll just pause and note this. Jesus Christ is basically the only religious world figure that every religion takes time to give an interpretation of who he was and he wasn't. There's a reason for that. In Islam, they. They call Jesus the Prophet Esau. That's what they call him. And here's a few things that they believe about him. So basically what they do is they redefine who Jesus was and then they say, we love that Jesus. So in Islam, Jesus is the Prophet Esau. They believe he was not God. He was not crucified. He was not raised from the dead. He did not pay the penalty for our sins. He worships Allah. He preaches the Quran. He is a Muslim. And in the end, he will help violently oppose Christians in the Islamic eschatology in the end times. Now, can I just tell you something? I'm a read. Here's a Bible verse that is exactly what 2 Corinthians 11:4 warned against when it said this. It warned that false prophets would come that will Quote, preach to you a Jesus other than the Jesus we preach to you. And then he says about these Corinthians that are being demonically deceived. He says, when they preach to you another Jesus, in other words, they're redefining Jesus and getting you to accept a totally different demonic person just with the same name. He's saying you put up with it readily enough. Can I say something to you? Christians do not put up with anyone who redefines Jesus Christ. Jesus defines Jesus as he has revealed himself in the written and infallible word of God. And listen to me. Heaven and earth will pass away. Not one word of that book will ever pass away because it was written by Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday, today, and forever. So there you go. Have your head on a swivel. Swivel. Here we go.
- [22:27]
Tucker Carlson
But you mock other people's faith is to mock the idea of faith itself.
- [22:32]
Pastor Mike
No, it's not. So mocking one faith is not mocking all faith in any sense of the word. Okay, now here's what you get. I want you to watch out for this. There are forms of American sort of sentimental Christianity that, honestly, they're a lot more like chicken soup for the soul than they are the Bible. And here's a lot of times what it sounds like. It's kind of this vibe of like, hey, man, it doesn't really matter what you believe as long as you're sincere. Well, no, that's not true. You can be sincere and sincerely wrong. So what I want to say is there's a type of, like, chicken soup for the soul Christianity that kind of says, like, you know what? Just, you know, faith is a good thing. We're just generally for faith. No, faith is not necessarily good. In fact, some faith is evil. Faith is either good or bad. Listen, depending on what or who you have faith in, in fact, go a layer deeper. You will notice there are parts of Jesus teaching where he is consistently combating the idea of that just faith is good. And actually it's just the strength of you having faith that saves you. So when Jesus does the whole faith the size of a mustard seed thing, he's combating the idea of, hey, man, you're saved by faith generally, and it just needs to be real strong. And he's going, actually, it's. Let me just pull my punch. He's going, actually, it's not the strength of your faith that saves you. It's the object of your faith that saves you. So to put it in the words of, like, Reformation theology, it is actually not true that Christians are saved by faith alone. Not true. People are not saved by faith alone. People are saved by faith in Christ alone. And faith in anything else will not lead to salvation. It will lead to damnation. Because there is one name under heaven by which men must be saved. So again, here's a point. It's not faith that saves you. It's what your faith is in that saves you. To apply to what Tucker said, faith in general isn't good. It depends on what your faith is. If you're drowning and somebody throws you a life preserver, faith in that life preserver that caused you to grab it, that's good. That's gonna be a good thing. If you're drowning and somebody throws you a bowling ball, it does not matter how much you believe, grabbing onto that bowling ball will save you. You can grab on with all your might. You're gonna sink. Okay? So it's not the presence of faith that saves you. It's not the presence of faith or the strength of faith that saves you. It's the object of your faith that saves you. In the words of the Puritan Richard Sibbes, to encourage your soul, a weak faith may lay hold on a strong Christ. So faith in Jesus and faith in demonic false gods are not in the same category. And to mock one is not only not to mock the others. Actually, having faith in Christ will sometimes cause you to mock the others, like Jesus and Elijah. All right, let's go.
- [25:50]
Tucker Carlson
And we should never mock that, because at its core is the acknowledgment that we are not in charge of the universe. We did not build it. We won't be here at the end of it. We can destroy life. We cannot create it because we are not God. The message of all faith at the biggest picture level is the message in our Bible, which is, you are not God. And only if you think you are, do you talk this way.
- [26:13]
Pastor Mike
Okay, in some ways, I want to say amen. There are some things he just said I agree with, but I do want to give a heads up. The message of the Bible isn't just, you're not God. It's. It's also. And Jesus Christ is the only way to God, and all the other gods are not gods. They're demonic false gods. Side note, I do like to point this out every now and then. If you're a Christian, you'll have an atheist do this thing where they throw at you. Hey, man, there's hundreds of. They'll throw a number at you. There's 217,756 claimed gods in the world. Which one do you believe in? Whenever somebody does that to me, like on an airplane or something, my response is always, all of them. I actually believe in either all of them or almost all of them. Because the Bible, the apostle Paul says that when I think he says it in, it's either 1 or 2 Corinthians. He says that when they were offering sacrifices to idols, he says, oh, actually you're offering sacrifices to demons. So all the other gods of all the other religions, I actually think almost all of them are completely real. They're just demons posing as gods to deceive people. So here's the Watch out. The watch out is there's a tendency that Tucker does it right here to boil down all the religions to, like, the lowest common denominator. There's a God that created the universe. See, we're all on the same team. There's a tendency to boil down all the religions to lowest common denominator and go, see, we're all on the same team. And it's really just important. You're a spiritual person. No, Satan would actually love for you to be a spiritual person. Because if you're a spiritual person and you're open to all spirits, then you're not just open to the Holy Spirit. You're going to be open to unholy spirits. The Bible calls demons. Okay, so here's the question for discerning Christians. If it's true that all the other religions are led by, or at least most of them demonic false gods that are actual, real spiritual entities that are principalities and powers, the question is, hey, man, we don't want to just. We don't want to boil it down to where we put the demons on the same side as team Jesus and team Holy Spirit. So the question is, well, how do we know, you know, who's on Team Jesus of the spirits? The Bible actually specifically answers that question. Okay, I'm just going to read this to you, then we're going to move on. This is First John, I think. First John, chapter four. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets like Muhammad have gone out into the world. By this you will know the spirit of God. Okay, here's. This is going to answer our question. How are we going to know which spirits are from the Holy Spirit and which spirits are demonic, unholy spirits? Here's how you're going to know every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. So here's how you know it. Does what that spirit and that religion say line up with what that book says about how Jesus Christ is God incarnate? That Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh. That's what that verse just said. And verse three. Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. Watch. Check this out. Watch this. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, my friend. That is First John, chapter four. That verse is literally saying, hey, man, if there's ever a false prophet that comes along, Maybe sometime around 600 A.D. just for example, and he comes along and he actually redefines Jesus as he was actually just a prophet and he wasn't God, and he wasn't raised from the dead and he wasn't crucified for your sins, and he's not coming back to judge the living and the dead. If there's ever somebody that does that, here's what you need to know. That's not from God. That's from Satan. And they're empowered by the Antichrist. That's what First John just said. Okay, don't believe every spirit. Test the spirits. All right, let's keep going, Tucker.
- [30:33]
Tucker Carlson
But it's not just mockery of Islam, and no president should mock Islam. That's not your job. This is not a theocracy.
- [30:42]
Pastor Mike
Okay, I want to say something about this, because this comes up a lot. We're not a theocracy in one sense. You have to understand that every government is a form of theocracy. By the way, the word theocracy, the Greek word for God, is theos. So theocracy just means, like a political system that God is over. Okay, what you got to understand is, in one sense, I'm going to talk about a sense in which this is not true here in about 30 seconds. But in one sense, every government is a form of theocracy in one sense. So this is a concept that philosophers will sometimes call an inescapable concept. Douglas Wilson will sometimes talk about this, that the question isn't whether, but which. The question isn't whether there's going to be a higher power in authority over the government. The question is, which higher power is it going to be? Okay, so for the Islamic regime that was in power in Iran, the God over the system is Allah. In a pure democracy, by the way, the United States is not a pure democracy. We are what's called a constitutional republic. That's a big deal. You need to know the difference between those things. But in a pure democracy, the People are God. They're the ones that are at the highest power in authority over the system. The founders of our nation. In the way that I think Tucker is defining theocracy and in the way that most people define theocracy, very frankly, the founders of our nation set it up where the God of the Christian Bible was, the God over the system. Now you can debate that all you want. You need to go read some source material and understand that is very frankly what they had in mind. Okay, I'll give you an example of this. So obviously our founding documents say this. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created, hello, they are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. So our founding documents, notice this, of our nation were set up under the authority acknowledging a God over the government. And then the way that they worded this, they structured our governmental system where the role of the government in their minds in one sense was to walk in submission to the things that were self evidently created by the Creator. Now here's the question. If there's a God over the system, what's his name? Because if the God over the system is Allah, well, Allah is going to confer certain, quote unquote inalienable rights to people that are very, very different than the Christian go God of the Bible. Very, very different. So Tucker says we're not a theocracy. Well, actually in one sense there's always a highest power over the system. So yeah, actually in one sense we are.
- [33:29]
Tucker Carlson
Don't go to war with other theocracies to find out which theocracy is more effective. We are not a theocracy.
- [33:35]
Pastor Mike
Yeah, we are. In one sense we are.
- [33:37]
Tucker Carlson
God willing, we never will be.
- [33:40]
Pastor Mike
I think by your definitions, not only were we, we are and we will be. Our question is just to decide as a nation, choose this day whom you will serve.
- [33:49]
Tucker Carlson
Because theocracies corrupt the religion.
- [33:52]
Pastor Mike
Okay. Depends what you mean. This is really, really important. Christians have not done a good job of developing a clear political theology here. And that, I'm not saying this is what Tucker's trying to do. What he just said, theocracies corrupt the religion. You're going to get that thrown at you a lot by particularly, particularly secular progressive people as a way to gaslight you into something that you don't realize they're smuggling into the conversation. So you'll start to go, man, I vote for this set of policies because of my Christian beliefs. And they'll go, oh, theocracies are wrong and theocracies Corrupt the religion. What they're non verbally saying is it's okay for me to advocate for my religious values, my beliefs in the public square, but it's not okay for you to advocate for your values in the public square. Now, now, when he says theocracies corrupt the religion, in one sense I want to agree with him. In one sense I want to disagree with him. Here's why I want to agree with him. It is true that correctly defined Christians should want and actually insist upon a separation of church and state as correctly defined. When Thomas Jefferson used that phrase, he coined it in a letter to the Danbury Baptist in, I can't remember what year he was the one that coined that phrase. What Christians mean and what Thomas Jefferson meant when he used the phrase separation church and state. We mean we want a separation of governments. We want the organizational leadership structure of the church to be very separate from the organizational leadership structure of the civil government. We want those very, very far apart. So we don't want the same dude, that's the president to also function like a pope of the church. This actually, this is a little side note. A lot of Christians don't know this. That wisdom is actually derived from the wisdom of the Old Testament in how God set up the governmental system for Old Testament Israel. Here's your little homework assignment. You'll notice this if you go back to the Old Testament. I think it's Deuteronomy 17 and Deuteronomy 18. You'll notice the way the Old Testament governmental system was set up in Israel was a separation of governments between the civil leadership and the religious leadership. So Deuteronomy 17, there's all these instructions for kings and civil leadership. And then Deuteronomy 18 is like it's setting up the priestly religious ceremonial system and they're separate systems. So you'll notice this in the Old Testament, God sets it up where Moses, the Judges and the kings, they're over the civil leadership of the nation. And then Aaron, the high priests and the Levites, they're over the spiritual leadership of the nation. So I just want to begin by saying we agree, ardently agree with separation of church and state as correctly defined. And I would like to acknowledge what Tucker is saying in one sense is correct. When those two entities, the civil leadership and the religious or spiritual or church leadership, when those organizational structures are combined and merged, the government has always, I mean always historically corrupted the church. That's how, for instance, by the way, that's part of how we got our nation. We're like, hey, dude, we don't like this whole state church thing over here in England. It always ends up with you oppressing congregationalists and all these different people. So we're going to go do our own thing across the pond there. But what I want to point out is, again, what I said is when the organizational structures of church and state get merged, that's how you get stuff like what's going on in England right now. So England merges them. They don't have a separation of church and state in the way that they should. And that's how, for instance, you get stuff like the Church of England just installed a lady archbishop Church of England who supported things like LGBT History Month. She's advocating for the, quote, inclusion of openly practicing LGBT people in church life. She has openly said that she favors abortion rights. Now, let me ask you this question. Why? In part, because England failed to practice the biblical. The biblical concept of separation of church and state, correctly defined. So when the government is the one that's organizationally influencing the leadership of the church, what it will do is influence the leadership of the church to pick leaders and eventually doctrines that align with government policies. So if you get a government, a godless government, and it's in control of the church, you're going to end up with a synagogue of Satan. Okay, now, so that's where I want to agree with Tucker, on the other hand. But if by quote, unquote, theocracy, you mean a government treating true things as true, I just want to keep saying this. People always flinch about this one thing, guys. We should want the government to treat true things as true. We should want the government to treat true words as true. We should want the government to treat the one true and living God who will judge the living and the dead. We should want governments to treat that true God as the true God. In the words of the Scriptures, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. And that means we should want our nation legislating from the moral viewpoint. Now, side note, this is a whole other podcast in the Bible, there's a difference between sins and crimes. That's a whole different conversation. But yes, every Christian should want their government legislating from the moral viewpoint of true morality as revealed by the one true God. Again, the question is not whether morality will be legislated. The question is whose morality will be legislated. And we should want to legislate the morality that does not invite the judgment and wrath of the one true and living God. So if by theocracy, Tucker just means hey, man, you don't want your government treating one religion like it's more true than all the others. Well, my brother, that's what Romans 13 means when it calls the government the servant of God. That's what Jesus meant. In fact, this drives me nuts. A lot of people throw out the render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and render unto God the things that are God's. A lot of people naively throw that out as, oh, see, Christians shouldn't want the government to have anything to do with God. Jesus point is literally the opposite of that. He does this whole deal in that parable where he holds up a coin and he goes, hey, whose likeness and inscriptions on that coin? And they go, caesar's. And he goes, that's great. Render to Caesar what Caesar's and to God what's God's? And every Jewish dude within walking distance would have gone, oh, dang. What he just did is he just referenced Genesis 1 through 3, where it says that God made man in his likeness, inscription, and image. And Jesus point was, hey, guess whose likeness and inscription and image is on Caesar? God's. Jesus point was Caesar. Every president owes Jesus Christ the Lord of the Universe. They need to bend their knee to him because they are made in his image. This is also why Jesus is called the King of Kings. So if he means that by theocracy, then actually, yeah, we do want that. Let's keep going.
- [41:28]
Tucker Carlson
No, this is a mockery. Not just of Islam, it's a mockery of Christianity.
- [41:32]
Pastor Mike
No, it's not.
- [41:33]
Tucker Carlson
To send out a tweet with the F word on Easter morning promising the murder of civilians and then saying, praise be to Allah.
- [41:40]
Pastor Mike
Okay, I do want to say this first of all again. Let me go back to the beginning of this. Your job as a Christian man or a Christian woman is to have one name above every other name. And no one gets your highest allegiance but Jesus Christ himself. So this right here is where I want to call back to what I said at the beginning of this podcast. Hey, man, there is a difference between being a Christian that's conservative and a conservative this Christian. You gotta choose this day, whom you will serve in your heart every single day. Whenever the Christian and the conservative, the general conservative movement are at odds, you gotta decide which one wins, and it better be the Christian one. Okay? So we want to be people who are like, hey, man, I'm on Team Jesus. I'm on Team Jesus. And when you're aligned with him, I'm for you. And when you're out of alignment with him. I'm not. I'm on Team Jesus. So listen, when he's correctly going, hey, man, I don't want my president tweeting the F word on Easter. And, you know, calling for now, he unfairly says killing civilians. That's not what the tweet said. I'll just. I'll get to that in a second. But what I would just say to you is don't defend things that Jesus Christ wouldn't defend. I'm not a big fan of. You know, I would rather my presidents not be tweeting F words. I would rather, you know, when a couple days before I'm recording this, that President Trump posted that meme that it looked like him as Jesus. You can call me an idiot all you want. I'll talk about this here in a second. I think I do. Genuinely, he took it down. I think it's because it was genuinely an accident. Misunderstanding. But accidental blasphemy still comes across as blasphemy. We don't defend things that we shouldn't defend. So really quick here, let me take 30 seconds and help, because a lot of Christians voted for President Trump for very good reasons. Okay, let me just give you a quick warning about how you as a Christian need to think about this, because here we all know what happens. Your buddy that knew who you voted for, whenever he tweets stuff like that, all your friends are going to light you up and be like, so you support that. Okay, let me just help you think about this. Okay, two things. I'm going to harken Back to my 2024 election sermon. There are three types of leaders in the Old Testament. There are Josiah leaders who are righteous leaders that do righteous things. There are Jehu leaders that are imperfect and flawed leaders that are used to destroy greater evils. That was Jehu. And then there are Jezebel leaders who are evil people who do evil things. What I said in my election sermon is that I viewed the President like a Jehu man. Imperfect, flawed leader that's being used to defeat some greater evils. I'll just say this. Don't treat Jehu's like Josiahs. And if you expect that you lack discernment and you're going to be disappointed, honestly, just from having spent a little time around the administration. Here's how I think you really ought to think about President Trump and faith is he's kind of like your blue collar grandpa that you're like, I think he might be saved, but I'm not sure. But I know this he at least respects Christianity. He's kind of like your blue collar grandpa that grew up in the 1950s that like, yeah, man, I'm kind of for all that God stuff, you know, that's kind of how to think of it. So he's gonna, he's gone. You're not gonna see theological sophistication there. I will take a little issue at what Tucker said here. He said that he was tweeting to kill civilians. That's actually not what he said. He said, quote, an entire civilization will die. And it was either the post immediately before that or immediately after it. It was talking about their plans to target infrastructure, bridges, roadways and power plants. So I don't, I don't think that was what was happening. But you just need to know that. Here's my Watch out. Okay, one, one watch out is don't defend things that you shouldn't defend. And make sure you're not treating a Jehu like a Josiah. Okay, that's, that's awesome. Okay, here's the other Watch out. There is a tendency for Christians, especially pastors, to have level 10 responses to things that might be level 6, 5, 4 mistakes out of insecurity. Because, you know, the people around you, they don't like that leader and they know who you voted for. And so you get lit up. So you support this. And then out of your insecurity, especially pastors, they'll go like level 10 denunciations, forceful public on things that are level 6, 5, 4 transgressions. Now here's the problem with that. I'm just going to give a quick watch out. You may be going, well, isn't that okay? Isn't that good? Here's a quick watch out. What I've noticed is that a lot of those same leaders and for my fellow pastors, we got to watch out for this is like you didn't say anything and you had a level 0 or a level 2 response to like actual wicked national sin legislation. That's like treating Romans one like a to do list. So you had like no public response for things like Obergefell actual legislation that will remove children from Christian homes that weren't trans affirming or school curriculum that's going to indoctrinate an entire generation of children into queer theory stuff like that. And what pastors will sometimes accidentally do is when there's a progressive leader in power that actually enacts like extremely overtly wicked, damaging evil that will destroy and degrade an entire generation, pastors go, well, you know, we're just exiles in Babylon and Babylon's going to Babylon, and you expect lost people to, you know, act like Christians. But then when there's somebody like this in power and he just does like a bad tweet, it's like level 10, forceful public response. Let me just gently give you a watch out. We have to maintain the ability to keep moral proportionality in our heads and our hearts. So we need to respond, you know, level six to level six, six things, Level nine to level nine things, and level two to level two things. And let me just say this. Here's the warning. If the pastors in America have this thing where when progressive leaders enact actual legislation that will enact national sins for generations and destroy generations, and we don't say anything because Babylon's going to Babylon. But then when there's somebody else, a conservative that's in power and he misses it on a tweet and it's like forceful public denunciation. Get the public statement out. Just pause for a second if that's what we do. Two seconds of reflection is going to tell you where those emotional habits are going to lead our nation over time. And we are determining the cultural inheritance that we are going to hand our children and grandchildren and the future of the church in America. I'm just giving you a watch out. Okay, let's keep going.
- [49:19]
Tucker Carlson
Without explaining any of it. You are mocking me and every other Christian because we're Christians.
- [49:24]
Pastor Mike
No, that's not what happened.
- [49:26]
Tucker Carlson
We can't support that. That is evil. That is an intentional desecration of beauty and truth, which is the definition of evil.
- [49:35]
Pastor Mike
I'll just finish by saying this. There were things that every Christian should go, ah, that was a sin. Shouldn't have done that. There were things just like man. That's not what I want my president doing. Very frankly, though, it was not blaspheming all Christians everywhere. And I will simply finish by pointing this out. Tucker here may be having a Level 9 response to a Level 5 issue, and I think it's fair for you to ask why.
- [50:06]
Sam
Sam.