Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central Podcast, making theology central. 1863. 1863. Four score and seven years ago. 1961. Ask not what your country can do for you, know the rest. 1963. I have a dream. September the 10th, 2024. They're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating the pets. What? Let me go through those again. 1863, four score and seven years ago. 1961, ask not what your country can do for you. 1963, I have a dream. September the 10th, 2024, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating the pets. What do we do with that? What am I supposed to do with that? Am I supposed to just ignore it? Am I just not supposed to talk about it? I don't really know what to do, but I do know this. Well, good morning, everyone. It is Wednesday, September the 11th, 2024. It is currently 1135 a.m. Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, maybe you haven't been paying attention and you have no idea. what I'm quoting there about, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating the pets. You may not have any idea who I'm talking about. I'm sure most of you do. I am referring to Donald Trump last night in the presidential debate. That is what he said about immigrants supposedly coming into our country and they're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating the pets. He said this during the debate and one of the most bizarre things I think I have ever heard, I have ever seen. The reactions have been strong. Obviously it's turned almost into a joke. My, the family chat that we have literally blew up when this was going on. They were sending me memes and jokes and it was just like, what is happening? What is going on in our country? This is insanity. This cannot be. be happening. Contrast that four score and seven years ago, 1863, 1961. Ask not what your country can do for you. And then 1963, I have a dream. And then we get to September the 10th, 2024. And we have someone who wants to be the president saying they're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. Like what is going on? Like, I don't, How do we even process this? What do we even say? What do we even do? I don't know. I really don't know. But here's what I'm going to attempt to do. Yes, we're going to address this a little bit. I have no choice. I feel like I have no choice, right? And let me make this very clear. My issue has always been, this is a foundational principle. the world is doing with politics, what they're doing about the culture that is outside of the church. And for the most part, I don't really care what they're doing. The church's responsibility is prayer, fasting, preaching, proclamation, discipleship. We have a responsibility. We call people to repentance. We may speak out against sin, but we have a very specific mission. We are to equip saints for the work of ministry. The church has a specific focus. So when the politics and the cultural craziness is outside of the church, then just continue on living out our Christian life, growing in our faith, growing closer to God, looking at our own sin, fighting against our own sin. growing in our theological understanding, growing in our study and understanding of Scripture. It's pretty simple and pretty straightforward. But when the politics and the cultural madness now basically walks through the front door of your church, and now it's inside the church, and Christians are speaking that way, thinking that way, and their politics is corrupting their Christianity. And their political leaders and their political parties have now become idols. And we've got political idolatry sitting in the sanctuary. We've got political idolatry being promoted from the pulpit. And our Christianity is being slowly but surely corrupted by political nonsense. That's when I have a problem. And I've been warning about this forever. So let me just lay down two very simple scriptures that all Christians should be able to understand, all right? The first one is Exodus chapter 20. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. So whatever political party you are affiliated with, whatever your politics are, You can't allow your politics to have you abandon such a simple principle within Christianity. Don't bear false witness. Don't be out there making accusations and saying crazy things with no basis in fact, or it's conspiratorial thinking, it's rumor, it's misleading, it's wrong. Christians should be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no bearing false witness. We are going to speak the truth. We are not going to speak lies. In fact, let me just read the second scripture, Ephesians chapter four, Ephesians chapter four, verse 25, therefore put away lying. Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor for we are a member of one another. We're supposed to love our enemy. We're supposed to love our neighbor. We are not to bear false witness. We're to put away lying. We're to speak the truth. But so much of politics is false accusations, misleading information, lies, exaggerations, disinformation. It's become the norm in politics. I mean, it used to be stated, how do you know when a politician is lying? It's when they're moving their lips. That used to be the idea. But now it's like, no, no, no, no. Those politicians are lying, but the politicians on our side, they speak the truth no matter what the claim is, no matter how wrong it may be. Now again, I don't care what the politicians are doing as long as it remains outside the church. Once it comes into the church, then you have to address it. So what do you do when the rest of the world is waking up going, what in the world is going on in American politics? Someone running for the president of the United States is up there yelling that they're eating the dogs! The people that came in, they're eating the cats! They're eating the pets! And what world? I don't even know what world. It's like, I don't even know what has happened. It's like something has just so broken in our world that it's insanity. Insanity rules and reigns at this point. How did we get here? I don't even know. I don't, like, it is so crazy. It is so crazy. So there was a part of me that says, you know what? Just ignore this. Just ignore it. Just ignore it. That was what I wanted to do. Just ignore this and then just open up my Bible and go, and that's what I wanted to do. But I made the mistake. In fact, I was struggling with it all morning. I went to ChristianPost.com. ChristianPost.com. There's an article about the presidential debate and I looked at the comment section, professing Christians doubling down on the eating dogs idea, posting things that are just completely fraudulent misinformation. It's just lies and they're doing it in the name of Christ. They're doing it in the name of Jesus. That's where I have a problem. live it outside the church. I don't care what the world is doing. They can run around saying everyone's eating dogs. They can save the cats, save the dogs. They can say whatever they want. You don't expect the world to follow, don't bear false witness, and put away lying. You don't expect them to do that. But inside the church, Christians get caught up in this. They get caught up in it because they have bowed their knee to political idolatry. So I was like, I have to address this. So what we're going to do is we're going to listen to a little bit of a news podcast, just a little bit, just so that they can kind of explain a little bit of, well, how we ended up there. And they kind of ended up there because, well, in the debate, basically a trap was laid and Donald Trump just walked right into it. It's kind of like basic debate technique and Donald Trump just fell right into it. Okay. So we will at least address this. But what I'm going to do is I want us to turn—prior to the debate, 300 pastors got together and they put together basically a confession of faith that seeks to remove the church from its political idolatry. So what I want to do is take this crazy moment in the debate that everyone's talking about. It went viral. It was trending all night. They're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats. It was everywhere. There was memes, there's videos. It's turned into a joke. It's just, it's been absolutely everywhere, okay? These AI created images, generated images, making fun of the entire thing. It's just been everywhere. It's one of those kind of like a cultural flashpoint, right? Will it change anyone's political affiliation or their mind? No. The people who support Trump are going to support Trump no matter what he says. He can say the most outlandish, horrible, it doesn't matter, no matter how bad it is, they don't care. They're going to vote for him. And the reason I'm, and I know I'm gonna get emails, so let me just get this out of the way. The reason I focus on the conservative candidate, the Republican candidate, is because it's the conservative Republican party that has infiltrated and hijacked American evangelical and fundamentalism. Conservative churches that have good, sound doctrinal statements, good confessions of faith, they are the ones who, balvany to the conservative Republican idol, right? Many of the very liberal politicians or liberal political ideology, many of those would be accepted by churches that are so liberal in their theology that they've already abandoned historical Christianity. They may deny the inspiration of Scripture, the deity of Christ, etc., etc., etc. So they've already left Christianity. I am worried about conservative churches. Conservative churches with good doctrinal statements bowing their knee to Donald Trump. That's my problem. My issue is what this is doing to Christianity. I've said it so many times, the best thing that could happen to the church, the best thing that could happen to Christianity from a purely theological perspective is that every Republican is voted out of office all the way from a school board, all the way to the president, every level of government. There's no Republican party left. There are no Republicans. Then the church would turn and say, well, where do we look? Where is our hope? Well, some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, some trust in political parties. But at that point, there would be no place to look except to God. Then the church would have to get back to scripture, prayer, proclamation, fasting. There would be nowhere to look. and in your hope of supposedly changing the culture, would have to go back to the gospel, prayer, discipleship, loving your enemy, because you would have nothing else left. Now, when I say that, Christians lose their mind, but it would be the best thing theologically. I'm not saying how it would turn out from a political standpoint. I'm saying theologically. This podcast is called Theology Central. So let's listen to a little bit of discussion. that happened early this morning, probably I think this dropped around 5 a.m. I think, and I mean, there was discussion all night about it, everywhere. I mean, and it's sad to say, whatever you think about the, whatever policies could be addressed in those little two minute answers, which you couldn't get to too many policies, whatever you think about the policies, You literally have someone running for the President of the United States saying some of the most outlandish, ridiculous things in the history of mankind. They're eating the dogs. The people that came here, they're eating the cats. Of all the problems in the United States of America, of all the problems in the world, Russia invading Ukraine, the situation with Israel and Gaza and Hamas and all the things happening in the Middle East, things going on domestically with the economy, all the issues going on. it turns into they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats. I like, it's hard to wrap my mind around this. It really, it really is. But so here's a little bit of the discussion as it played out early this morning. She also laid out something of a debate trap for Trump. You will see during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about when mills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. But from the conversation about what goes on at Trump's rallies, Trump took it to a very strange place. People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That's because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost. We're a failing nation. He started litigating the new online controversy over whether migrants in the town of Springfield, Ohio, are eating people's household pets. In Springfield, They're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating. They're eating the pets of the people that live there. Can you walk us through this? Because this felt like the moment that had people blowing up my phone in real time, being like, what what is he talking about? And I was like, if Listen, if you haven't been paying attention to far right blogs, you wouldn't understand. It's like this false discredited theory that is now somehow being repeated by a presidential candidate. Can you explain it better than I, Steven, please? Yeah, this comes right out of the right wing echo chamber online. The bottom line is that there is a concern in the town of Springfield, Ohio, where members of the community have come to public meetings to talk about the arrival of migrants from Haiti. And they say that those migrants have caused quality of life problems in this town. And among the problems that have been mentioned is this idea that animals have been taken out of a pond or even possibly out of people's homes. I just want to clarify here. You bring up Springfield, Ohio, and ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there had been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community. here. This is the people on television. My dog was taken and used for food. So maybe he said that. And maybe that's a good thing to say for a city manager. I'm not taking this from television. I'm taking it from the city manager was eaten by the people that went there. The city manager in Springfield, Ohio, says that there's nothing to back up these claims. But Trump insisted that he's heard otherwise. Well, and this might be a good moment, Stephen, to talk about because you saw the reaction from Kamala Harris in some of these moments. And that was like the thing I hadn't expected was how this kind of muted microphone situation actually affected. Then we were watching these candidates closer as they reacted to each other. What did you make of all that? And did that make a difference here? Well, remember, even though the. So there is some of the discussion about it. One of the things that I keep seeing people post to somehow support this claim that they're eating the dogs or eating the cats is about an Ohio woman who was accused of eating a cat from Canton, not from Springfield. The ongoing court case of a 27-year-old Canton resident accused of killing and eating a cat has become unlikely part of the debate over presidential campaign issues, at least among some people online. A Cincinnati Enquirer story posted online Monday said some people are conflating her August arrest with the unsubstantiated rumors alleging that Haitian immigrants in the southwest Ohio city of Springfield are eating pets. A video posted on YouTube falsely purports to show police officers confronting a Haitian woman in Springfield about eating a cat. In reality, the video actually shows police department body cam video of Canton officers at the scene of the August 16th incident in Canton. The video posted by the Fake News Network carries the title, Haitian Woman Eats Neighbor's Cat in Springfield. In response to the rumors spread on social media, Springfield City Manager Brian Heck, through his office, released a statement Monday saying there's no evidence of any cats or other pets being harmed or eaten by Haitian immigrants. This was in response to rumors spread on social media, including by Republican Vice President candidate and U.S. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio. And this woman who was arrested was not from Haiti, has no connection to Haiti, was my understanding a lifelong resident of Ohio, I don't know if Canton, but it did not happen in Springfield. So they're conflating, they're exaggerating, they're misrepresenting, they're bearing false witness, they're lying, they're spreading rumors. And I don't care if it happens in the culture. I don't care. But when it comes inside Christianity and Christians start defending it, that's where I get ticked off. This can't be going on. So what do we do? I've been saying forever, Christians, get out of politics. Stop it. Politics is not the answer. If you want to be a Christian, you're not of this world. You're a pilgrim. You're a stranger. You're passing through. This is not our world. What we are called to do here is preach and teach and to be light and to be salt. We are to live out our Christian life to the best of our ability, confessing our sins, striving to live our Christian life out, loving our neighbor, loving our enemy, turning the other cheek, blessing them who would persecute us, doing good. I could go from scripture to scripture to scripture to scripture to scripture, where to be putting off the old, putting on the new, all the things that we're supposed to be doing. We've got plenty to work on, looking at ourselves, looking into the word of God as a mirror and seeing our own faults, our own flaws, and striving to live out the Christian life. what we're called to do. And we're called to invite the world, hey, you're out there fighting and arguing all of these political things, and you're fighting this in a fleshly way. Come and put your faith in Christ, be forgiven of your sins, and let's approach this from a spiritual perspective. Our weapons are not carnal. They're not fleshly. We're fighting a spiritual battle. This is not political. It's not about political parties. It's not about political tribalism. It's not about a commitment to a political party. It's about commitment to Christ. Get out of politics! But the church is so caught up into this, this Christian nationalistic way of thinking, wanting to make everyone live as a Christian by somehow political force. We have enough problem living as Christians as Christians. So what do we do? What do we do? I mean, I could sit here, go through all the rumors, go through every unsubstantiated claim, because I know I'm going to get emails. Oh, what about this? And what about this? And what about... And you've got to go through, research it, find out if it's true, try to find out if it's false. Even if you find that there were three people who kidnapped a dog and killed it. Even if you found that there were three, well then address those three issues. Don't turn, oh, the immigrants coming in are going to steal your cats and steal your dogs as if there's a, there's a, the, the immigration issue now is about protecting cats and dogs. Are there real issues to immigration? Yes. Do they need to be addressed? Yes. In a reasonable, rational way where you do not dehumanize the immigrant. You treat them as a human being created in the image of God. They're still people. You don't dehumanize entire races of people. You don't do this. You don't get rid of this nonsensical, racist trash. That's not loving your enemy. That's not loving your neighbor. There's nothing biblical with this. But Christians, many Christians eat this stuff up. They start talking like Trump, sounding like Trump, acting like Trump. We're not supposed to be like him. My understanding is we're supposed to be pursuing Christ-likeness. Oh, we do it imperfectly. But that's our goal, that's our desire. That's what we're pursuing. Not to sound like Trump on social media. Are there real issues? Yes. Address them rationally, logically, biblically. Not reducing people to dehumanizing them, stripping them of their humanity, stripping them from being created in the image of God. This nonsensical, it's non-Christian. So, I could sit here and just pursue this, and it would just be one broadcast after another broadcast after another, because I'm gonna get emails, oh, what about this, what about this, what about this, what about this, what about this, what about this? I saw the same thing with the election being stolen. I got people, oh, what about this, what about, and when, After it was clearly proven that the election wasn't stolen, those people don't come back and apologize and say they were wrong. People were saying crazy things about COVID. They didn't come back and apologize and say they were wrong. No, they just, they throw out their conspiratorial way of thinking. They make their false accusations and then they run and hide and just move on to the next thing when facts ultimately destroy their concepts. And Trump's still out there. Well, we won't even go to things Trump is continuing to claim, but yet Christians will continue just to be right along. It doesn't matter. I don't even understand the Christian world anymore. It's like, I don't get it. I don't even understand it. I've said it before. I'm no longer welcomed in Christianity. I'm somehow outside of, well, we'll call it churchianity, or this mainstream form of Christianity that's taking place. It's not biblical Christianity anymore. It's been ripped away from the biblical Christianity. It's been even ripped away from Christ, and it's turned into something, I don't know what it is, but I'm not welcomed in it. And many people feel welcomed in it. And that's why many people are leaving the organized corporate church, because they're sick of it. It's been so politically hijacked. And you hear people walking into church seeing some of the most ridiculous, conspiratorial things, and then pastors are scared to say anything about it, because they'll lose half of their congregation. I don't care if I lose 99% of my audience and nobody listened to this podcast anymore. I'd rather go down trying to say, stop this than just allowing it to continue. It's ridiculous. It's crazy. So then what do we do? What do we do? Well, here's what I'm going to try to do. On September the 9th, 2024, at 6.50 p.m., the following article was published. A diverse group of over 300 pastors and evangelical leaders have released a public declaration challenging Christians to turn from false prophets and idolatry of political power in advance of Tuesday's presidential debate. So they released this prior to the debate. Now, I probably should have addressed this prior to the debate, but what I was hoping is that the debate would just occur and then everyone would just move on. It wouldn't even matter. But then when you look at the Christian Post and you see Christians defending some of this nonsense, you're like, I can't take it anymore. So then I have to address it. But this statement that they released is entitled, Our Confession of Evangelical Conviction. It affirms seven core beliefs framed to reject evangelical as political rather than a theological label. want you to hear that again. So their goal was, they've released this thing called a Confession of Evangelical Conviction. It affirms seven core beliefs framed to reject evangelical as a political rather than theological label. And I can't stand when the world, many in the world now, because they hear the term evangelical and they immediately a Trump supporter." And it's like, no! Christian, Trump supporter. No, evangelical has a theological meaning. We need to steal it back from the politicians. Tell the politicians to go take a walk and get away from the church. You're not welcome in the church! Get out! Now, you can come to the church to worship, but you're not coming here to give me your political nonsense. We got to go back and steal these terms and tell people, no, no, no, evangelical does not mean Trump supporter. Evangelical does not mean Republican. Christian does not mean Trump supporter. Christian does not mean a Republican. Evangelical Christian has theological meaning and we're going to get back and fight for the theological explanation and understanding of these terms. According to the press release, The statement marks the largest and most unified evangelical effort in decades, bridging denominational and theological differences. So here are basically 300 pastors and evangelical leaders who came together and said, hey, we've got to stop this. We got to stop this political idolatry. We got to stop this political hijacking of terms like evangelical. We've got to stop this. So we're going to release basically a confession of faith, that tries to fix it. I'm not saying the confession of faith is perfect. I'm not saying it's not perfect. But here's what I want to do. I could sit here and go through these conspiratorial thinking, take the debate apart, and look at who said what and who said this, and we could go on and on and on and on and on and on and on. But that just gets us right back into the politics. And I hate the politics. I'm sick of the politics. I don't want the politics anywhere near the church. I hate politics! So what can we do? Well, maybe we can look at this confession of faith and see if it's beneficial. So are you ready? Let's look at this confession of evangelical conviction. What I will do is when this broadcast is over, I will try to send out a link to, I will try to send out a link And when I send out this link, it'll be via the ChurchOne app. And then I will also, if you go to sermonaudio.com, look for Theology Central, look for the article section. I will try to publish this in the article section as well. I will try to get to all of that as soon as possible. And I want you to look at this confession of faith. And while everyone is running around yelling and screaming about the debate, who they're going to vote for, who they're not going to vote for, Trump is better than Harris, and just all the back and forth, and while everyone is just, The world is, it's turned into a dumpster fire while the world is burning down. Maybe Christians, we can say, well, let's, what about this confession of faith? And what if we adopted this? And now you may want to adopt it. You may not want to adopt it, but this is far better than the other. All right, so here we go. The title, Our Confession of Evangelical Conviction. In this moment of social conflict, and political division, we confess the following Christian convictions. So basically, we're in the midst of a time of heightened social conflict and political division. Everyone should be able to say amen to that. So we could run in, get involved in the social conflict, or get involved in the political division and take a side. They're saying, instead of doing that, let's confess Christian conviction. Number one, we give our allegiance to Jesus Christ. We give our allegiance to Jesus Christ. And then they add the word alone. We give our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone. We affirm that Jesus Christ is God's son and the only head of the church. No political ideology or earthly authority can claim the authority that belongs to Christ. We reaffirm our dedication to His gospel, which stands apart from any partisan agenda. God is clear that He will not share His glory with any other. Our worship belongs to Him alone, because our true hope is not in any party, leader, movement, or nation, but in the promises of Christ's return when He will renew the world and reign over all things. So, number one, we give our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone, and what do we affirm? That Jesus Christ is God's Son and the only Head of the Church. No political ideology or earthly authority can claim the authority that belongs to Christ. We reaffirm our dedication to His Gospel, which stands apart from any partisan agenda. God is clear that he will not share his glory with any other. Our worship belongs to him alone, because our true hope is not in any party, leader, movement, or nation, but in the promises of Christ's return when he will renew the world and reign over all things. We reject the false teaching that anyone other than Jesus Christ has been anointed by God as our Savior or that a Christian's loyalty should belong to any political party. We reject any message that promotes devotion to a human leader or that wraps divine worship around partisanship. They affirm something and they reject something. It's about Christ. It's not about party. It's not about politics. It's not about nation. That's why I can't stand when sanctuaries are decorated in the American flag. The sanctuary is where we come to focus on the cross, not the flag, not the country, not the nation. The church is where we lift up Christ, not America. It's a form of idolatry. Get the flag out, lift up the cross. So we give our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone. That's number one. Number two, we will lead with love, not fear. We affirm that God's saving power revealed in Jesus is motivated by His love for the world and not anger. Because God has lavished His love upon us, we can love others. We acknowledge that this world is full of injustice, pain, but we are not afraid because Jesus Christ has promised to never abandon us. Unlike the false security promised by political idolatry and its messengers, the perfect love of God drives away all fear. Therefore, we do not employ fear, anger, or terror as we engage in our mission, but instead we follow the more excellent way of Jesus, which is love. We lead with love, not fear. It's not exaggerated claims. It's not everything, the end is near. Everything is burning down. We lead with love. We reject the stoking of fears and the use of threats as an illegitimate form of godly motivation, and we repudiate the use of violence to achieve political goals as being inconsistent with the way of Christ. read that again. We reject the stoking of fears and the use of threats as an illegitimate form of godly motivation, and we repudiate the use of violence to achieve political goals. It's incongruent or inconsistent with the way of Christ. So, number one, we will give our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone. We will lead with love, not fear. And many Christians buy into the fear and to the hype and to the exaggerated nature of the threat and that they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats, they're gonna come get your pets. The dehumanizing of people, that's not love. Number three, we submit to the truth of scripture. We submit to the truth of scripture. We affirm that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, authoritative for faith and practice. We commit to interpreting and applying Scripture faithfully. They say guided by the Holy Spirit. You know how I reject that concept, so I would remove that. We commit to interpreting and applying the Scripture faithfully. guided by hermeneutical principles and rules of interpretation, is what I would put there, for the building up of Christ's people and the blessing of this world. We believe any true word of prophecy must align with the teaching of Scripture and the character of Christ. Likewise, to lie about others including political opponents, is a sin. Therefore, we commit to speaking the truth in love, knowing deception dishonors God and harms the reputation of His Church. So we submit to the truth of Scripture. Scripture is truth, and we do not lie and bear false witness and spread misleading information. We should be busy spreading the truth of Scripture, not fraudulent conspiracy theories. or half-truths, or partial truths, or taking maybe one true thing and completely misrepresenting it. We reject the misuse of Holy Scripture to sanction a single political agenda, provoke hatred, or sow social division, and we believe that using God's name to promote misinformation or lies for personal political gain is bearing His name in vain. You're using God's name in vain. Let me read that again. We reject the misuse of scripture to sanction a single political agenda, provoke hatred, or sow social division. And we believe that using God's name to promote misinformation or lies for personal political gain is burying his name in vain. 4. We believe the Gospel heals every worldly division. We affirm the unity of all believers in Christ, and that through His sacrificial death on the cross, He has removed the barriers that divide us, making people from every nation, tribe, people, and language into one new family. We are called to be peacemakers, and the counter-cultural unity of the Church is to be assigned to the world of God's love and power. We reject any attempt to divide the church, which is the body of Christ, along partisan, ethnic, or national boundaries. And any message that says it is God's desire for the human family to be perpetually segregated by race, culture, ethnicity, is a rejection of the gospel. All right, so number one. We give our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone. Number two, we will lead with love, not fear. Number three, we submit to the truth of scripture. And number four, we believe the gospel heals every worldly division. Number five, we are committed to the prophetic mission of the church. We affirm that Christ's kingdom is not of this world. Therefore, the Church necessarily stands apart from earthly political powers so that it may speak prophetically to all people, the society, and governing authorities. The Church has been given a divine mission of reconciliation. First, we call everyone to be reconciled to God through the proclamation of the Gospel. We teach people everywhere to copy the way of Christ. Secondly, we seek to reconcile people to one another by addressing issues of justice, righteousness, and peace. We accomplish this by loving our neighbors and by engaging our public life with humility, integrity, and commitment to the common good and defend our faith in Christ. We reject both the call for the Church to withdraw from societal issues out of the fear of political contamination, as well as any attempt to distort the Church into mere vehicle of political or social power. Now, I say we don't withdraw from societal issues, but the way we deal with societal issues is by simply proclaiming the gospel and the truth of Scripture to those societal issues, not by getting involved in those societal issues, but trying to fix it through political involvement. That's what I would say. 6. We value every person as created in God's image. We affirm that all people bear God's image and possess inherent and infinite worth. Jesus bestowed dignity upon those his culture devalued, and he taught us that our love, like God's, must extend even to our enemies. Our faith in Christ, therefore, compels us to act with love and mercy towards all from the very beginning of life to the very end, and honor everyone as an image-bearer of God, regardless of age, ability, identity, political belief, or affiliation. We commit ourselves to advocate for the value of everyone our society harms or ignores. We don't devalue people. We don't dehumanize people. We don't reduce them to their sexual identity. We don't reduce them to a pronoun. We don't reduce them to a country of origin. We see them as people created in the image of God. We may disagree with their choices. We may disagree with their practices. We may disagree with their ideology, but we still value them as a human being created in the image of God. And we show love even to people we perceive as our enemy. We reject any message that employs dehumanizing rhetoric, that attempt to restrict who is worthy of God's love, or that imposes limitations on the command to love your neighbor that Christ himself removed. 7. We recognize godly leaders by their character. We affirm that the character of both our political and spiritual leaders matter. Within the Church, we seek to follow spiritual leaders, those who display evidence of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Jesus warned us to be on guard against false teachers who come as wolves in sheep's clothing. These voices will tempt us with flattery, bad doctrine, and messages we want to hear. They serve the false idols of power, wealth, and strength rather than the true God. Outside the church, we will evaluate leaders based on their actions and the fruit of their character, and not merely on their promise of political success. When any leader claims to have God's approval, whether in the church or in politics, we will not confuse effectiveness for faithfulness, but carefully discern who is truly from God. We reject the lie that a leader's power, popularity, or political effectiveness is confirmation of God's favor, or that Christians are permitted to ignore the teachings of Christ to protect themselves with worldly power. Conclusion We stand united in our confession of faith in Jesus Christ, resolved to uphold the truth of the gospel in the face of political pressure and cultural shifts. We commit to being a light in the world and faithful witness to the transforming power of Christ's love. We pray that God's Spirit will revive our church and strengthen Christ's people to be agents of His presence and blessings in this turbulent age. to Him who is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy, to the only God our Savior, be glory, majesty, power, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord before all ages now and forevermore. Amen. Jude chapter 1 or Jude verses 24 through 25. And that is Confession of Evangelical Conviction." Again, it's the Confession of Evangelical Conviction. And it was written and released prior to the debate to try to get the church to remove itself and not be distracted, in a sense, have our Christianity choked out by the cares of this world, by the social conflict and the political division. that we could pursue the right course through all of that. Now, I will, again, be sending out the link to that confession of faith. via the Church One app. If you don't have the Church One app, go to your app store of choice, Google Play, Apple App, and just do Apple App Store. Do a search for Church, O-N-E, Church One, all run together, and then download the app. Once you download the app, do a search for Theology Central, have your notifications turned on, and you'll get a notification with a link to this Confession of Faith. Also, if you can go to the sermonaudio.com website, look for Theology Central, look under the articles section, I'll try to get it posted there as well. And then you can look at this Confession of Faith, you can read it, you can consider it, you can talk to other people about it, you can meditate on it, you can think about it. But I plead with you, I beg you, Get rid of your political idolatry. Get rid of your political corruption. Remove it. It's a cancer. It has to be removed from Christianity because it corrupts Christianity. And this Christianity that arises that's politically hijacked, it's not truly Christian. It's something other than. It's a corrupted, contaminated, fraudulent Christianity. As you let the world just, in a sense, spiral out of control. Let them fight and yell and scream and false information. And at some point, maybe when they look around and everything's on fire, they'll go, where can we find something different? And then we can raise our hands and say, well, the church offers something different. We're not of this world. We're different. We are pursuing something completely different, a completely mindset, a different mindset, a different philosophy, a different agenda, a different purpose, a different everything. But now the world looks to the church and they're like, evangelical Christian? Oh, that's just a Trump-supporting Republican. That's not a, they don't see us as Christ followers. They see us as Trump flag, red hat waving, you know, MAGA. That's what they see us as. And you say, well, that was not my intention. It may not be your intention, but when the world perceives you that way, because of your political nonsense, all you've done is hurt the name of Christ. You've become a stumbling block. All right, I took the insanity and my frustration with the insanity and pivoted towards an actual confession of faith. Seven points. Number one, we give our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone. Number two, we will lead with love, not fear. Number three, we submit to the truth of scripture. Number four, we believe the gospel heals every worldly division. Number five, we're committed to the prophetic mission of the church. Number six, we value every person as created in God's image. And number seven, we recognize godly leaders by their character, which is what Christians used to say back when Bill Clinton was in office. Character matters. Oh, how quickly we abandoned that. and we abandon it for political power. Thanks for listening. God bless.