Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast, making theology central. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Wednesday, October the 15th, 2025. It is currently 152 p.m. Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, if I'm being honest with you right now, I need to take a deep breath. I need to try to remain calm. I need to try to remain cool and collected. I need to do my very best to try to make it through this episode. in a way that I hope is the most... I need to make it through this episode in a way that I feel is most effective. And there's a part of me that just wants to turn on this microphone and probably just lose my ever-living mind, yell, scream, throw things. But I know then what that will turn into is people just going, He's losing his mind. He's going to stroke out. Oh, this is crazy. So everyone needs to hear this guy. He's losing his mind. And it will become more of a spectacle, right? It'll be more about my yelling and screaming and maybe me saying sarcastic things. then it will be about me trying to articulate something very, very, very, very serious and very important. But at the same time, I'm gonna be honest with you, that's where my emotions are, right? That's my feelings right now. but I know that that's not necessarily effective. So I want to be very real with you and let you know that my emotions is just start, just turn on the microphone and just start screaming, right? But I know that's probably not effective. So I'm going to try to be very, I'm going to try to be very precise. In fact, I've written things out in far more detail than I typically do so, so at times you may hear me reading things almost verbatim because I'm trying to be very, very guarded. Now, my daughter called me and she recounted, expressed, told me about something and all, and a lot of the words that were used in this thing that I'm gonna be talking about. And I was, she was upset and I was just like, this is, this is just unreal. Now I, she was looking at it from maybe a different perspective than I was. I could only think about the church. Christianity. That's the only thing I could think about at the time was, oh man, this is why, this is why. And I'm not going to give too much away right now, but you'll see where I hope you hear my concern, right? I hope you hear my concern. And I'm going to need you to do something for me, right? you are very much a Republican, you're a part of the Republican Party, you vote Republican, you are Republican, Republican through and through, right? You are all Republican. Maybe you even are one of those people who say, if you don't vote Republican, you're probably not even a Christian. I just need you for a for the next maybe 30, 45 minutes, ever how long this takes to take off your political identity, take off your political affiliation, take off your MAGA hat, take off your Trump shirt, take down the Trump flag, forget even about being an American. If you can just for the next 45 minutes or ever how long this goes, just be a follower of Christ Just see yourself as a Christian, not a conservative Christian—and conservative being politically conservative—or a Republican Christian. Just be a Christian, a follower of Christ, a believer in the eternal Son of God who came and died for us. Try to see things from a Christian perspective. I beg of you, all right? If you don't, you're probably just gonna see this as a political discussion and you're just going to fight me and argue with me from a political standpoint. And if you do that, you're missing the entire point. All right? Now, are you ready? Let's go through this carefully. There was a time when the word evangelical referred, I think it's fair to say, primarily to a theological conviction. Evangelical. The Evangelicals. The Fundamentalists. The Independent Fundamentalists. Those were all terms. Fundamental. Fundamentalist. We're referring to the fundamentals of the faith. Fighting for the truth of the faith. An Evangelical was someone who had a theological conviction. These were people who were committed to the good news of Christ, crucified and risen for sinners. But as time moved forward, fundamentalist, evangelical, well, these words became almost completely redefined. They almost took on a completely new meaning. Across decades, and I'm going to really jump in right there in the late 1970s, Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christianity became inseparable from Republicanism. Republican Party. A Republican. Especially in the eyes of the public. So, whether we like this or not, it's just true. Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christianity became inseparable from Republicanism and the public imagination. their minds, Republican and Christianity was the same thing. And many in the church celebrated this and embraced this. And I have been saying for 30, 40 years, I don't know, basically my entire Christian life, no, no, no, no, no. I am not a Republican. I am not a conservative from a political standpoint. I am a Christian. I'm a Christian. I am not associated with a political party. Do not connect me to any Republican president. No, I'm not connected to it in any way, shape or form. And I said that if we are not careful, the church will ultimately be politically hijacked. I've been saying this forever, right? I've even talked to stories of getting frustrated as a teenager in the church about this kind of thing. So whether we like it or not, it just has happened. The phrase evangelical voter now functions less as a spiritual description and more as a political demographic. Those are the evangelical voters. The evangelical voters care about this. The evangelical voters turned out in large numbers to make sure President Trump would become President Trump. Pastors almost begin to preach political slogans. Churches begin to distribute voter guides instead of creeds. Let's give everyone a voter's guide. Nobody can recite the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed or the Athanasian Creed. They can't answer basic questions in a catechism. Their knowledge of hermeneutics, I don't know, but they got a voter's guide. They know to vote for Trump. They know to vote for a Republican. Faith ultimately and slowly started increasingly to be measured by how one votes, not about who one worships. And you would hear things like, if you vote for a Democrat, you're not even a Christian. And so it became, your identity was, no, no, you're a follower of Christ. Yeah, okay, great. But do, are you MAGA? Do you support Trump? Are you voting for those woke liberals?" It became more about that. The mark of Christianity was not Christ crucified. The mark of being a Christian wasn't that you were covered in the blood of Christ, but you were wearing a red hat. Again, faith increasingly was measured by how one votes, not by who one worships. Now, this did not happen overnight. It did not happen overnight. In the 1970s, the rise of the moral majority under Jerry Falwell Sr. reframed Christianity around cultural battles. Abortion, school prayer, family values. That's what Christianity became known for, cultural battles. In the 1980s and the 1990s, that partnership deepened. Republican strategists recognized the church as a voting bloc. Preachers recognized politics as a new pulpit. By the 2000s, evangelical identity was largely synonymous with Republican loyalty. Value voters meant Republican voters. And by the time Donald Trump came down that escalator, Many white evangelicals no longer merely supported a party, they treated that party as an extension of divine will. The cross and the flag were woven together and dissent was labeled apostasy. And then, you know, you see it in churches, big American flag right there in the sanctuary. You know, forget the cross, look at the flag. Now, I know they'll say, well, no, we're just showing that we're proud of being an American. Now, how about we are citizens of heaven? We're not of this world. We're strangers and pilgrims and our focus is on the cross. That's what the church is about. Not pointing people to a political party or even to patriotism, but to Christ crucified for all people. So what happened as this started to move forward? I think a profound confusion of kingdoms started occurring, where the kingdom of God, which is not of this world, became confused with the kingdoms of men, where the church of Jesus Christ was gradually, slowly, methodically hijacked by political identity. and where the symbols of the gospel, the Bible, the pulpit, and even the name of Christ were increasingly employed as tools to sanctify partisan power, to sanctify a political party. The Bible, the pulpit, and even the name of Christ simply became tools to sanctify and to prop up political politicians to politicians and Republicans and conservativism. So that's why this recent expose found at Politico of the young Republican leadership chat is not just another political scandal. It's a spiritual warning. Now, if you have not seen it, you can go to Politico. I think it's politico.com. You can look for the expose on, well, this chat among leaders within the young Republicans was released. pages and pages and pages of this chat that happened on the platform Telegram. My daughter read to me pages and pages of the chat. Now everyone will focus on the scandal of it, the fallout of it, the consequences of it or depending if you're a Republican what you're trying to defend it or you're trying to play it down or you're doing the oh but but but but but what about them? We're going to justify we're not we're going to justify bad behavior by looking at other bad behavior and so that's how politicians are playing it The vice president is trying to, if you're upset about this, it's pearl clutching, I guess. I don't know. It's like all the other politicians are doing their things. I don't care what the politicians are doing. And I don't care what you're doing as a Republican. I care about this from a spiritual standpoint. And I think it's a spiritual warning. Because what we see in this Politico expose It is the fruit of decades of theological compromise, in which Christianity's language of righteousness, of sin, of love, and judgment was traded for the language of strategy, and winning, and politics. When a faith becomes fused to a political machine, it inevitably inherits that machine's corruption. When the church weds herself to the party of power, she loses the prophetic distance that allows her to call all sin what it is. I'm going to say that again and I want you to hear me. When a faith becomes fused to a political machine, it inevitably inherits that machine's corruption. And the church can't figure this out. Donald Trump saying horrific things, horrible things. found guilty or liable of horrible crimes. And the church is like, well, you know, it's no problem. It's no problem. Well, guess what? It becomes a problem because you have fused yourself to that political power so that you inherit that corruption. And that's why many in the world are like, you're a bunch of hypocrites. What is wrong with you? You're supposed to be the the group of family values and marriage and fidelity and godliness and holiness, and yet you run around defending and supporting and celebrating corruption. And you say, but we just care about the politics. You can't do that. When you wedge yourself to it, when you connect yourself to it, that corruption becomes yours because you are so identified with it. When the church weds herself to the party of power, she loses the prophetic distance that allows her to call all sin what it is. And when Christians defend cruelty, when Christians defend mockery, when Christians defend racism, when Christians defend violence under the banner of conservatism, they reveal not the heart of Christ, but the heart of idolatry. And I would like to remind us of a very biblical principle, 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14, "...be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Bilal? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?" And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. We are not to be unequally yoked. We are to separate ourselves. But the church is yoked. They've married Donald Trump. They've married the Republican Party. They're like, I take your name, Donald Trump, and where you go, I will go. Through sickness or health, through poverty or rich, I am with you, no matter what you do. It doesn't matter. We support you. We vote for you. You have our allegiance. You have our everything. And then slowly but surely, we take on the character of that which we support. So that what Christians start doing, they start talking like the politicians. Start calling liberals their little names. Start referring to those who are woke with their names. Start referring to people LGBTQ with our derogatory names. Mocking people. Mocking horrible things. We start acting like we're Donald Trump's truth social account, but we're all doing it in the name of Jesus. But we don't sound like Jesus. We don't sound like Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. We sound like political hacks. Now that's why I'm calling this episode, Republicanism Isn't Christianity. Because the gospel of Jesus Christ should not, cannot be reduced to a voting bloc, a campaign slogan, or a party platform. And what we are about to examine, the horrifying words found in a leaked chat, shows what happens when the church forgets who she is because we become identified with the very horrible chat that has been leaked. Because we are Republicans. No, we're not. We're Christians. We have nothing to do with the Republican Party. We shouldn't even be looking to politics to do anything. We're supposed to be looking to prayer and fasting and preaching and the gospel. But as much as we say that, and we're like, I'm a Republican, we got to get rid of these Democrats. We got to get rid of these stinking Democrats, these liberals. And we act like just, I don't know, we sound like we're, I don't know, we're Glenn Beck, Tucker Carlson, or Fox News. Republicanism isn't Christianity. Yeah, I know, it's blunt. But I think this situation demands a little bit of bluntness, and I tend to just be blunt anyway. We have a massive leak of private messages from leaders of young Republican organizations across several states. Thousands of pages of chat logs. They all surfaced this week. The messages include repeated racial slurs over and over and over again using the N-word, anti-Semitic remarks, open praise for Hitler, jokes about gas chambers and rape, fantasies about torturing political opponents, and language that treats human beings as objects to mock. to degrade, or even to kill. I want to be clear right here that I don't see this as mere political roughness. You know, oh, are you offended? Are you a snowflake? Well, if that's your great response, then you know that, hey, you have that response because you're a Republican and you're not talking as a Christian. And I got that. If you are an atheist or you're an agnostic and you have married yourself to politics as the answer to the world's problems, then by all means, say whatever you want. Say rude things. Dehumanize people. You're an atheist. You're an agnostic. I wouldn't expect anything different. But if you are a follower of Christ, I beg you, please stop talking like that. I don't see these chats as immature bravado. Some of these are grown men. These are not like little kids. Now the content of these chats, they're brutal. There's another way to get around it. It's dehumanizing and it displays an internal and internal culture among some political operatives that when read honestly demands not only your disgust but hopefully it moves you to something. Now, I know some of you can think, oh, it's an overreaction. Well, you can think it's an overreaction. I would ask you to listen carefully to what's being said, to what such speech produces, and a political formation, and what the gospel requires of Christians who are tempted to barter away their faith for party. You can't say, oh, let me sell my birthright so that I can be well respected by Trump and by the Republican Party. I want to be. No. How about stop selling your Christianity for your stinking politics? Okay, I'm going to remain calm. I'm going to remain calm. Going to remain calm. I'm going to try to give you the facts in a very shorthand way. Politico published the chat logs, thousands of private messages spanning many months. Named individuals in leadership roles appear throughout these logs. The language is not an isolated message, an isolated tweet. It is repeated, normalized, and at times praised by others in the group. Here are some of the things that were reported, and I'm going to read them as carefully as I can. I want to read all of them. I want to read them just unfiltered and uncensored, but one, I'd probably get kicked off Sermon Audio, and two, people would be mad at me, but don't be mad at me. I didn't write them, and I didn't say them. but I'm going to try to censor things to the much as possible. They use things like, everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber. Wow. That's, that's great. Jokes about fixing the showers and inviting them in and then boom, they all drop dead. Great. I love Hitler. One jokes that rape, made a joke about rape as being epic. Yeah, that's wonderful. Descriptions of black people as monkeys or watermelon people. Mocking people with disabilities using the R word and I'm not even going to say it. referencing Jews with contempt, fantasizing about psychological torture, and leading people, who is your political opponent, to commit suicide. The messages are vile. They're plainly intended to shock, but they also reveal how a group of people talk when they believe they're amongst friends and unobserved. that private tone leaks into public life. Several people named have lost their jobs or had offers rescinded. One state young Republican chapter has been deactivated. I think maybe two of them have been deactivated now. national and state leaders have been forced to respond. And of course, some on the Republican side, some have shown some outrage. Others are like, well, you know, what about this? And what about that? Well, liberals do this and look over here and butterfly. And no, no, no, we're not going to. How about we all just condemn this as vile, disgusting and unacceptable. But again, I don't care what you do politically. I don't care. Go vote for Republicans all day. Just please keep your stinking politics out of the church. Just don't understand it. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Bilal? Or what part hath the believer with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. There's a basic principle there. I'm not saying that those words are specifically referring to politics, but I'm saying politics is corrupt and messed up. When people joke about gas chambers and rape, about driving opponents to suicide, they're not simply venting, they're cultivating moral cruelty. The repeated use of slurs and the casual praise of genocide are not rhetorical flourishes. They are markers of dehumanization. And once others in the group respond with emojis and smiles or similar comments, these markers become norms. Over time, they become acceptable modes. of thought and action inside a political pipeline that trains future campaign managers, staffers, and elected officials. And these are the young Republicans reaching out to those kids on college campuses so that they can grow up and be good Republicans too, who appear to be nothing but stinking vile racists. And this is harmful. It's obviously harmful to the immediate people attacked or targeted. Black Americans, Jewish Americans, LGBTQ people, to people with disabilities, to anyone they describe as less than human. And I think second, there's an institutional harm. And the institutional harm is the church is connected to the Republican Party. Therefore, its corruption becomes our corruption. Bad company corrupts good morals or something along those lines, right? Just go read it for yourself. My daughter sent me. In fact, I can open up the article right here. It's politico.com. I love Hitler, leaked messages, exposed young Republicans, racist chat. And then it has all these things. Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber. And I can just go ahead and read all of these things. It's just absolutely just... You just read it for yourself. You just read it for yourself. The whole thing is just, it's just horrible, all right? So there's at least, there's a couple of things I think Christians must see, all right? Number one, we have idolatry by substitution. When political loyalty becomes a primary form of identity, it can easily become an idol. The party becomes the lens through which virtues are judged and sins excused. When a political identity demands blind solidarity. We only want true believers. In a political way, it displaces allegiance to Christ. And we've substituted Christ and the Bible for politics. The church has done this over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And again, I traced the history at the beginning of this from the 1970s and the moral majority by Jerry Falwell. The whole thing. And I could... I so hated watching it happen as a teenager in the 80s. I was very young in the 70s, but in the 80s, I was like, what is going on? Church, stop this. I thought we were Christians. We're not stinking Republicans. We're not Democrats. We're Christians. We're followers of Christ. We're not of this world. We're pilgrims. We're strangers. Come on. So we see idolatry by substitution, but we have kind of a hypocrisy here. Many of the people involved claim to be Christians, to attend church, to hold Christian moral commitments. And if you look through the report, members of the Telegram chat, this comes directly from the political report, members of the Telegram chat speak about their personal lives too. Extensive discussions about their everyday lives, including one exchange about how devoutly Catholic some chat members are and how often they attend church. Okay, well, that obviously something is wrong. Why? Because they're not seeing things through the lens of their Catholicism or their spirituality. They're seeing it through everything through the lens of their political identity. Most of the individuals named are known public conservatives operating within Republican circles that consistently present themselves as, I quote, Christian conservatives. Their organizations, state and national young Republican chapters, are routinely described in their own mission statement, even in even their materials and social media materials, as faith-based, pro-life, family values. So see, they want to connect themselves to Christianity while doing everything that's not Christian, and Christians fall for it. Oh, they're good Christians. They're just like me. No, they're political hacks and they're using you and your faith to put forth, in many cases, nothing more than vile hatred by claiming to be Christians. Now, maybe they are Christians. I'm not going to say they are or aren't, but the point is their Christianity has been so corrupted by the politics. Politics corrupts. and it corrupts Christianity. And I think we, so we've seen, I think some of the things we've seen, we've seen an idolatry by substitution, we've seen a hypocrisy of profession, but I think another thing we've seen is kind of a failure of repentance and confession. Christianity calls sinners to confess sin, to repent, and to seek forgiveness. But casual cruelty and the normalization of violent fantasies are admitted not just as sins of the moment, but they're patterns. And Christians, for many cases, this, I mean, I've talked about it before on, you know, I've told people so many times, you can listen to to American Family Radio from about 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and you listen to some of those programs, it's political, political, political, political, and they want to sound like Rush Limbaugh's not with us anymore, but like Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, they want to sound like they're all political and they use the same derogatory, dehumanizing speech about liberals and woke and they mock it. And it's like, there's nothing Christian about it, but you claim to be a Christian radio network. You claim to be doing ministry. That's not ministry. That's political nonsense. So there doesn't seem to be any repentance or the church even wants to acknowledge this. You can talk to Christian men, sometimes in your church, and when they talk about political things, they will use the same kind of divisive, derogatory terms that Trump will or that Fox News will. And you want to say, you're standing in a church for crying out loud. You can't for five minutes stop being a political hack. Can't you not for five seconds act like a decent human being? But nobody will call him out. The pastors won't call them out because pastors are probably having the same kind of garbage political talk when they're not, when other people aren't around. Hey, you see what those stupid liberals did? I've heard that in some sermons. When we read through these leaked messages, the racial slurs, the jokes about rape, the talk of gas chambers, the delight in watching people burn, we're not merely encountering bad manners or reckless humor. We are witnessing words that desecrate the image of God in human beings. Every line mocks the command that stands at the heart of the law and the gospel, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus called that command, together with you shall love the Lord your God, the greatest of all commandments. On these two, he said, hangs all the law and the prophets. That means that to despise, to demean, or to humanize is not a small offense. It's the collapse of the entire moral law. Jesus sharpened that call beyond neighbor to include even the enemy. Matthew 5, 44. I think it's still in the Bible. Maybe it's not in Republican Bibles. I don't know. Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. Now, I know we're all going to fall short of that. That's why we need the gospel. But that's what we're called to at least attempt to do, right? If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him drink. Romans 12 20, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12 21, we are to love our enemy. We are to bless those who would curse us. We should do good to them who hate us. And we should pray for those who spitefully use us. The Christian ethic is not tribal loyalty or self-preservation. It's a crucified love, love that carries a cross for the sake of another. It's the same love that moved Christ to die for his enemies. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He died while they mocked him, while they pierced his hands, while they hated him. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That's the kind of love that the church should be striving for. Oh, we're going to fall short. We have a hard time loving anybody. I've said before, our human love is always wrong and always corrupt because we have a sinful nature. Nobody has perfect human love. Nobody. It's always messed up. But it's what we should be striving for. We should be striving for, instead of handing out voter guide, maybe we hand out 1 Corinthians 13. Instead of worrying about calling liberals names, we pray for them. And not just so they will become a Republican, but that they would follow Christ if they're not. And just know this, that you don't have to be a Republican to be a Christian. And if you say you have to, well then I guess stop listening to me, because I'm obviously the apostate Because I'm not voting a Republican ever! In fact, I think Republicans should be voted out of every office, and there should not be a Republican left in politics. Why? It would be the best thing that could ever happen to the church, because then we would have no political allies to look to. We would have no one. We would have to look to, oh wait, Christ! Oh, that would be interesting. We would have to turn to prayer, because there would be no political party to look to. instead of trying to get our agenda through politically, we would have to try to get our agenda through evangelism, through prayer, through fasting, through discipleship, through preaching, through loving our enemies, serving our neighbors, you know, Christianity, the worst thing that's ever happened is that the church has the Republican Party to lean on. Take it away from us so that we can only lean on the everlasting arms of God. The New Testament never defines love as a sentiment or political solidarity. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. It does not boast. It is not arrogant. It is not rude. It does not insist on its own way. It's not irritable or resentful. It rejoices with truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Love doesn't keep a record of wrong. Love is forgiving. It is compassionate. Love doesn't walk away. Love doesn't push you away. Love is there for those who are even your enemies. There is no line that says love defends your political party. There's no clause that says love mocks those who disagree with you. Love is not proven by owning the libs. Love is not proven by owning an opponent or winning an election. According to scripture, love is the identifying mark of being a disciple. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. John 13, 35, and it does not say in the Greek, by this, all people will know that you are my disciples because of your red MAGA hat. The identity is not our moral superiority. It's not our ability to win a debate. It's not about our patriotism. It's not about our policy positions. It's because of love. Now set that definition of love next to the language in those messages. Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber. I'm ready to watch people burn now. I love Hitler. referring to black people, monkeys, watermelon people. That's horrific. Can those kinds of words coexist with the spirit of Christ? Can a heart filled with that kind of cruelty be filled with divine love? Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness, according to 1 John. Darkness is what consumes when we abandon love. Throughout the New Testament, love is not one virtue among many. It's the essence of Christian identity. Paul writes in Colossians, above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 1 Peter, above all, keep loving one another earnestly. John defines God Himself as love. If God is love, and if Christians are those who live in God, then love is the evidence of our union with Him to some level. Now, I'm not saying it's going to be perfect. It's going to be flawed. It's going to be a mess, and that's why we have to constantly run to Christ. To reject love, to delight in cruelty, to mock the suffering of others, is to renounce the very nature of the God which we claim to serve. It's the cross, which is the pinnacle of an example of love. For God sent his son to die for the most undeserving sinners. He died, he hung on that cross. So it is the cross, not the elephant, not the MAGA hat that defines what Christians are or should be. When we baptize, a political party and claim that somehow we are so identified with it, we crucify our own credibility. So I want to make this very clear. The reason this story matters is because of the church's wetting itself, yoking itself to a political party. The story matters not simply because it exposes the corruption in a political club, but because it exposes how easily the church loses its soul when it trades love for loyalty. When believers excuse hate because it comes from our side, and our side is not the side of Christ, it's a political side, then we crucify our witness alongside our enemies. When pastors bless cruelty with silence, we deny the Lord who told us to love even those who persecute us. The test of Christianity is not how fiercely we fight for power or fight for America, but how faithfully we love those that we could crush. If the words of Jesus mean anything, then the measure of a believer and of a church is not how Republican or how conservative or how patriotic it is, but how much its life tries and strives to resemble the love of the crucified Christ. So these leaked messages should be a mirror to us, a warning. if our hearts thrill and laugh and love the language of hate, we've left the gospel behind. If our church cannot condemn it without hesitation, then our salt has lost its savor and our light has grown dim. Republicanism isn't Christianity. Love is. I think this is a good time, I mean, as we try to wrap this up, I mean, a theology podcast must end with law and gospel. It has to. If it's a theology podcast, it has to end with law and gospel in some way, shape, or form, right? See, the law exposes the truth. We are supposed to love others. We're supposed to love our enemies, and none of us do it. Look, I don't say the things that they say. I don't praise Hitler, do not refer to African Americans in racist terms. I don't do those things, right? Those things and those text messages, I do not do. But I am still a vile sinner that probably has hate in my own heart. Probably, I know it's not about, I know there's hate in my own heart. There's still vileness in my own heart because I'm a sinner. So this should just expose to all of us to look at ourselves and go, what is inside of us? Because those messages, they come from the heart, right? Out of your mouth comes hatred, comes violence. It's what's in our heart. And inside your heart and inside of my heart, if it's exposed, is horrible. And we have to see ourselves in all of this. The law will expose our own cruelty. It will show how we idolize power, how we dehumanize our neighbor. The law should drive us to recognize our own ethical bankruptcy, and we're all ethically bankrupt. So I don't want this just to be about these men who did these things, who said these. It's about all of us. How have you not shown love today? In what ways have you not shown love? Come on, let's go. Today, just look around you. Love or charity suffereth long. How long did you suffer under a situation and continue to show love, or what do you do? Love is kind. Love envieth not. vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoice not in iniquity, but rejoice in truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, endure all things, We love and as soon as something doesn't go our way, boom, then we, no, that's not love. Our human love is frail, it's weak, it's pathetic. So many times our love, it looks like love until, it looks like love as long as the wind is blowing gently. and the sun is shining and the unicorns are running by and I've got a bowl of Skittles then I love but as soon as the clouds grow dark and it gets all then all of a sudden oh no then we don't love. We have to see the lack of love in our own hearts, even though it may not be manifested in an article on Politico about some horrible chat you had. Now, if someone could read your mind and what's in your heart, people would be like, oh, goodness gracious, and I sit next to you in church? Yeah, and I sit next to you. We have to see ourselves in this. Now the gospel offers us hope. Jesus bore the sin of the world, even the sins we find repulsive. So he died for all of the sins of those horrible things said in that chat. The cross does call us to try to turn from cruelty, to try to turn towards love. We should try to seek the good of others, even the others who is politically opposed. The gospel calls for transformation, not shaming. It calls for both justice and mercy. Christianity is not a political party. It's the proclamation of a crucified and risen King who calls us to love our enemies, to bless those who persecute us, and to be agents of reconciliation in a world that prefers outrage over repentance. If you are a Christian who has been tempted to excuse the language in that chat because they're on your side, repent. If you are a political actor who has tolerated or laughed at dehumanizing speech, repent. If you are a pastor who has been silent, preach. The leak of thousands of pages of hate is a scandal, but it is an opportunity to show, hopefully, that the church will not be co-opted by cruelty, that our allegiance is to Christ, and that we will hold ourselves and our political friends to the standards of the gospel. Now, I wish I could have said all of this better. I wish I could have outlined it better, expressed it better. I wish I could have been calmer. But I want to make it very clear. This is about all of us. I reject being politically hijacked, and I reject it, and I reject political labels, and I have nothing to do with that. So good on me, right? But big deal, because I'm still a vile sinner in 5,000 other ways. This is a chance for us to look in the mirror and see our own frailty. What idols do I have? I may not have the idols of political parties, but I got my own idols. I may not use that kind of language, but I have my own vile heart and things that I have said. So maybe this is why we say, Lord God, we confess the hardness of all of our hearts, the ways that we've all sought to identify in power instead of in you. Lord, forgive us for ever excusing cruelty in order to win a political victory. Please grant us repentance and the ways that we've caused harm or the way we've treated other people not in love. May this shame and may our own guilt Lead us to try to seek and pursue a love that's somewhat identifiable to the love you have shown to us. Because, God, you have so loved us that you sent your only begotten Son, who hung, bled, and died for us, the undeserving, the unworthy. And it's in His name that we pray. Amen.