Christians cannot afford to be passive spectators in the political arena. With our voices and our votes, we must stand up for biblical truth and defend our nation before it’s too late. In this episode, renowned Christian apologist and author, Alex McFarland, discusses the importance of getting Christians involved in politics. He delves into the history and current state of American politics. He explores the role that Christians can play in shaping the future of our nation. He delves into socialism’s ascent, the importance of biblically responsible political participation by young people, and pastors’ responsibility to urge their flocks to engage politically. Tune in and gain a fresh perspective on the intersection of faith and politics.
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Interview With Alex McFarland
In this episode, I’m honored to be joined by Alex McFarland. Alex is a Christian apologist, author, evangelist, religion and culture analyst, and advocate for biblical truth. He has preached in over 2,200 churches throughout North America and numerous more internationally. He is the Leader of Alex McFarland Ministries and a noted youth culture and religion expert. He’s also the Creator of Viral Truth Clubs and has co-authored more than twenty books including The Assault on America: How to Defend Our Nation Before It’s Too Late! and co-author of 100 Bible Questions and Answers: Inspiring Truths, Historical Facts, Practical Insights.
He directs biblical worldview and teaches in the School of Practical Government for Charis Bible College located in Woodland Park, Colorado. McFarlan co-hosts Exploring the Word on the American Family Radio Network, airing daily on nearly 200 radio stations across the United States. He’s also the host of The Alex McFarland Show, which airs weekly on NRV TV. Alex, thank you so much for being on the show.
Thank you, Terri. It’s a great honor. I appreciate all that you do for God and your country and it’s an honor to speak with you.
I’m going to jump right in. Approximately 64% of Americans identify as Christians and yet, according to a study conducted by the Christian Broadcasting Network in 2022, as many as 40 million failed to vote in presidential election cycles and 15 million Christians are not even registered to vote. Alex, what are your thoughts on this recent study?
My thoughts in light of statistics like that are one of grief because Christians not only have a call and a stewardship obligation to be self-enlightened in the culture. We have or at least we have had the numbers that had churches been engaged and Christians be informed and vote. As many say, “Vote Godly,” we’ve abdicated our role and our responsibility. We’re seeing what America looks like when the church has retreated from the public square.
That’s why I’m so excited about what God is doing through your life. You’re calling people to do what the Lord expects us to do, which is to be salt and light in our culture. For far too many American evangelicals, Christians, Protestants, Catholics, what have you. We’re not doing what we could and should do, which is to keep our nation on the path of righteousness.
Why do you think Christians are needed now more than ever in politics?
Christians are needed now more than ever in politics because of not only the specifics of a biblical worldview but because Christians have the basic moral code that our nation was built on and made our nation great, truth, a work ethic, not the attitude that the government owes me anything but life is a sacred gift and I am to get up every morning, go to work, and contribute something.
Generally, Christians are not lazy, except for senior pastors. They often are. By the way, I can talk smack on senior pastors a little bit. I’ve pastored two churches. I’ve spoken in 2,200 churches and I’ve debated literally hundreds of pastors that don’t speak about political issues but generally, Christians have a good work ethic and we are to be leaders. We have the raw materials of godly leadership but sadly, we stay sequestered within four walls of the church so very often that our voice and our influence that could make a wonderful difference is not heard.
According to a 2019 YouGov poll, 70% of Millennials said that they would vote for a socialist. Let’s talk about the rise of socialism in America. Why do you believe socialism is dangerous for America? Why should Christians in particular be concerned?
Terri, what a great conversation and the mere asking of the questions that you have, show your insights and I commend you. What we’re seeing, honestly, to adequately understand it, we have to understand some social trends and spiritual trends, frankly. Social and spiritual trends have been coalescing for a number of decades. We’ve seen since 1970, the breakdown of the family, no-fault divorce. California and New York were the first two states to implement this.
There are 4 to 5 generations into an America where the majority of kids have not grown up under the same roof with their mom and dad. To compensate for this, there were what we call participation trophies. I am a child of the 1970s. I remember this coming along by the late 1970s. I’m old enough to remember when the very first little league games, there was no winner and there was no loser.
You played 7 or 8 innings and everybody shook hands. The whole idea is that everybody gets a trophy merely for showing up. If nobody loses, that means nobody wins. I remember in the 1980s, there were cap and gown graduations from kindergarten. Kids are at the point now that, “You are special. You deserve accolades. Kudos for waking up in the morning.”
I was in Arkansas and a pastor of a pretty good, large church asked me to meet with his son who at seventeen believes he’s an atheist and smarter than everybody. He was raised in the church and doesn’t want to go to college and work. This teenager very angrily dripping with vitriol and sarcasm, looked at me. He said, “I will never trade my time for money.”
I said, “I believe that. I truly believe that you will not trade your time for money. I also truly believe that any employer who’s got a thimble full of discernment wouldn’t offer you a job for money.” Here’s the thing. We’ve got these millions of Millennials, Gen Z, and younger, but not all. There are some that are wonderful and have a vision for life and they want to accomplish something.
We’ve witnessed 120-hour undergrad programs be shaved down to 85 to 96 hours. 100-hour to 96-hour Master’s Degrees are now 30 hours and everything has been dumbed down and truncated. It’s responsibility-lite and we’re seeing part of our loss of God has translated into a loss of work ethic in the sense that I’m supposed to become something for my creator. It’s very sad. One of my favorite historians and sociologists, twice Pulitzer Nominated Rodney Stark down at Baylor said America was built on “the iron Protestant work ethic.” We’re losing that because we’ve lost the family and a lot of other things as well.
We’re living in the world of the participation trophy and I’m due an income. Whether it’s the insanity of reparations, $5 million reparations in San Francisco, and BLM activists say, “That’s not enough.” The government owes me $5 million because I exist. It’s insanity. If there’s anything more puzzling than why would America be at this point now, it’s puzzling why are there not tens of millions of voices shouting, “Enough, it stops here?” It’s crazy.
Alex, what can be done to inspire youth to become engaged with politics in a biblically responsible way?
The starting point is to help youth understand the reality of the Christian faith but also the wonderful, glorious reality, which we still have an opportunity to save and that’s the reality of the United States of America. Terri, it is a tragedy that so many youths and even adults have never grown up in an America that was at her best, an America that was praised and affirmed. We talk to youth in our viral truth clubs and in our conferences that we do, number one, about the Lord and having a relationship with the true and living God.
We talk about the fact that you do live in a country where you can be poor and in a few short years, you can be a business owner and be wealthy if you’re willing to work hard, live right, say your prayers, and not quit. Kids resonate with it. Even though kids have spent their entire lives steeped in this echo chamber of liberalism, they’re not stupid. They seem to intuitively know there’s a part of the story they’ve not been told. We tell them that part of the story. It’s about God and country and the opportunity that lies before them.
I know that you host The Viral Truth Campus Clubs, which is such an amazing thing. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and the conference that you do that brings youth and leaders together from all over the country once a year?
We start clubs and we provide kids with talking points. You would appreciate this, Terri. It’s like leadership development and I’m so excited for all that you’re doing. As you have time, I want to get you plugged into our conference tour and clubs but the Viral Truth Clubs are for middle school and high schoolers. I’ll put it this way. We’re trying to woke-proof America’s kids. We teach them about biblical worldview but we teach them about America and about what it means to be a citizen, the stuff that we used to learn in school and church but don’t anymore.
We empower young people to lead clubs. We say these Rs. They’re Real, Relevant, Respectful, and Relational. We say, “Your lives are influenced incrementally. You make friends, model truth, speak the truth, and show that we have reasons why we believe what we believe,” and little by little, a youth at a time, lives are being changed. One brick at a time, the foundations of our country are being restored.
That’s amazing. We’ve got the 2024 presidential elections coming up. When you look at the numbers of what we spent, which was over $16 billion on the election cycle in 2022, it was the most expensive cycle on record, and 2024 is expected to be even higher. We’ve created a new growth industry in this country and the cost of running for office keeps getting higher.
I’m curious, as Christians, we need to be more engaged, running for office, and participating in those processes, and even if we’re not called to run ourselves, we need to help those who are called. What are your thoughts about political spending and Christians getting more involved in not only running for office but also supporting those who are called to run?
Terri, what’s so interesting is you’ve got the people that seem most passionately invested in elections are the people that don’t believe in God, moral truth, the sacredness of life, and traditional family. You look at people like George Soros or Bill Gates or any of the liberal overlords that love to use their billions of dollars to influence this country, to build some utopia that they envision because everybody has a God.
Even the people that don’t believe in the true and living God, have a God, these utopian police state that they envisioned building. C.S. Lewis many decades ago said, “The worst despot is the person who’s enforcing their worldview for your own good.” It’s like the woke world wants us to be woke because we’ll get enlightened if we’re suddenly believing that toddlers need to sit under the tutelage of drag queens.
Even the people that don’t believe in the true and living God, they have a God.
We’ll someday see the socialist liberal light if we will be okay with gender mutilation for children and all these things. Here’s my point. For a lot of decades, some of the greatest corporations and the most prosperous people have been people of faith because they prayed, worked hard, engaged in deferred gratification, stayed out of debt, were willing to save their money, live within their means, and had the capital to build businesses and corporations that became quite prosperous.
I’ve met a lot of believers that have what I call the anointing for businesses and businesses anointing from God and the anointing of giving. Christians, hands down, are the most philanthropic group but it looks like the pie is shrinking and the reigns of great wealth, at least in many circles, seem to be going away from the hands of Christian conservatives and into the hands of liberals.
We get to the election cycles that you mentioned and we know that politicians can buy votes. We know that politicians that have the vision for this woke utopia get on ballots. Think about this, Terri. Chicago, months ago, was fortunate enough to extricate itself from a woke train wreck of a mayor, Lori Lightfoot. I was in the front lobby of O’Hare Airport months ago. It’s like a homeless encampment and there’s no point of order. Flyers have to get around the panhandlers in the lobby, people sleeping on the floor, and the stench of BO and human waste, and Lori Lightfoot would do nothing about it.
People like myself have a choice. We know we’re not going to fly through Chicago. What do they do? They get rid of Lori Lightfoot and they get a mayor who is at least as woke and they say probably more socialist than Lori Lightfoot. It is cultural suicide and then there’s the other matter in the 2024 presidential election, irrespective of who the candidates might be. Here’s the question that every freedom-loving American ought to ask, “How do we know we’re going to have honestly tabulated elections?”
We are in a place where the Christian patriot’s absence has created this opportunity for people of ill will to step into the position of leadership and encourage civic engagement. Whenever I say something like this, pastors email me, as I’m sure they probably will in the aftermath of this program. They’ll say, “Alex, we’re called to populate heaven, not earth. We’re to build the city of God, not the city of man. Government is some human tower of Babel and I don’t sully myself with the dirty business of politics.”
Today, the Christian patriot’s absence has created this opportunity for people of ill will to step into the position of leadership and encourage civic engagement.
Fair enough but how are we going to serve God when Christianity is illegal? How are we going to serve God when we’re not in a pulpit to influence people but we’re locked in some jail cell? I’ll say this. This is why Christians need to be involved. You can do evangelism anywhere. Chained to the wall of a cell, you can talk to your cellmate about Jesus but you can only do missions in a context of liberty, stability, and prosperity. Do you see what I’m saying?
Part of the reason that for two centuries America has been the great engine driving the great commission is that we had prosperity, liberty, and stability. Those things are being lost. Pacifist, unengaged pastor, you can witness to your cellmate in a Gulag concentration camp but you’re not going to do missions and you’re certainly not going to have your membership at the golf club, as so many now do. It’s time to get in the fight and save our nation, Terri.
You led into my next question for you, which is, as a pastor yourself, Alex, what would you say to pastors who have shied away from politics, who have basically almost discouraged Christians from being involved in the mountain of government in the past? Why do they need to change their thinking and how can they do that?
Many pastors have gone through schools, even religious schools, and denominational schools that are woke. They’ve never been taught the sacred calling of civic engagement. If you look at our nation’s history, the American Revolution happened because of the pastors in Colonial America. I’m sure you’ve probably heard of what they call the Black-Robed Regiment. They were pastors who motivated their congregants to be involved and the shot heard around the world at Lexington were men coming out of a sanctuary.
The Brits fired on congregants coming out of the church because the churches were the place where pastors were conscripting men to get into the Continental Army. The country was birthed to a large degree at the hands of activist clergy. A lot of pastors now have never heard this. They’ve never heard that civic engagement is a sacred calling and you, the pastor, lead by example. You’re engaged, you’re informed, and you vote.
Apprise your people of the issues. Let’s use our megaphones to try and save America while we still have an opportunity. Let’s forget that I only do the right thing if it’s safe. Jesus leaves his church here to be vocal and visible. Terri, I don’t want to ruffle any feathers. The time to play it safe and to quietly lurk back in the shadows as a believer and, “I’ll just live and die and go to heaven one day,” is not what Christians are called to do.
It’s an occupational hazard of being in the service of truth but we’re supposed to speak bold, life-changing truth. Some people are going to like it and some people aren’t. They’ll say, “If you raise your flag up, some are going to salute it. Others are going to throw rocks at it.” I want to meet my Lord, as 1 John 2:28 says, “Meet the Lord unashamed.” There are going to be a lot of pastors sheepishly embarrassed because they could have made a difference but they wouldn’t.
This is no time for the fuzzy Jesus bunny Christianity. We’re to be bold, be vocal, make a difference, and stir up the forces of darkness in anger. Satan doesn’t have to bother so many pastors because those pastors are not bothering the forces of darkness. I want to be an enemy of darkness and therefore, a champion of truth. There are a lot of people that are finally getting that vision as well.
The mountain of government is one that Christians have shied away from and yet the thing is, if we’re not the ones running for office, if we’re not the ones serving in government, somebody else will be. It may be someone that we don’t align with, that doesn’t share our values, that is not the person that we want in those types of positions. We have to get involved. This is the time. It’s more critical than ever in many ways with where we find ourselves in the country. Alex, as we wrap up here, what is one final thing that you’d like to say to our readers or thought that you’d like to leave with them?
There is hope but the window of opportunity is not unlimited. There is hope but we’ve got to get involved. The other thing and I hope you and I can maybe in another show converse about this. The thing that nobody is talking about, that everybody should talk about is natural law. When Jefferson wrote, “We owe these truths to be self-evident,” that’s natural law.
There is hope, but the window of opportunity is not unlimited. There is hope, but we need to get involved.
What I would say to the woke left is the greatest worldview or presupposition that would give freedom and true justice for the largest amount of people is natural law. There is a right and a wrong. Everybody knows it. You can be free to work and achieve anything you want to achieve but your entitlements and rights end where my natural law rights begin. It’s what C.S. Lewis talked about in his book, The Abolition of Man, that we all know right from wrong.
Anyway, I call it the most important topic nobody is talking about. Natural law implies natural rights, not artificial rights. We’ve got to help those running for office and understand that what our nation was built on is not rights, big spending, and the redistribution of wealth but the idea that there is a self-evident truth and there are these natural rights. Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not artificial rights.
Let me make it practical. We need people that will run for office who understand that the epistemic foundation of our country is natural law and the rights of free speech, rights of conscience, the rights of parents, property ownership, and the right to keep what you earn. We’ve turned into this incredibly dark, statist machine because we’ve deviated from the thing that held us in check for 245 years and that was natural law. Maybe we can talk about that in-depth on another program.
Alex, where can our readers find you if they want to learn more about what you’re doing?
God bless you. A couple of places. For one thing, our radio show is on AFR.net, American Family Radio. We’re live, Exploring the Word, 4:00 to 5:00 Eastern, Monday through Friday. It’s heard all around the world. We have a live five-night-a-week God and government show called Truth and Liberty. TruthAndLiberty.net is that great show. We have amazing guests. I need to get you on at some point, then Truth for a New Generation with Alex McFarland is heard on the American Family Radio Network, Salem Radio, and NRB Television. You can go to my own website, which is AlexMcFarland.com.
Thanks so much, Alex, for being on the Running into the Fire, and thanks to our readers for tuning in. I look forward to seeing you again soon.
Thank you. God bless you.
Important Links
- Alex McFarland Ministries
- The Assault on America: How to Defend Our Nation Before It’s Too Late!
- 100 Bible Questions and Answers: Inspiring Truths, Historical Facts, Practical Insights
- Exploring the Word
- The Alex McFarland Show
- Christian Broadcasting Network article
- YouGov poll
- The Viral Truth Campus Clubs
- The Abolition of Man
- AFR.net
- TruthAndLiberty.net
About Alex McFarland
Alex is a Christian apologist, author, evangelist, religion and culture analyst, and advocate for biblical truth. He has preached in over 2,200 churches throughout North America and numerous more internationally.
He is the leader of Alex McFarland Ministries (alexmcfarland.com), and a noted Youth, culture and religion expert. He is also the creator of Viral Truth Clubs, and has authored or co-authored more than 20 books, including “THE ASSAULT ON AMERICA: How to Defend our Nation Before It’s Too Late,” and co-author of “100 Bible Questions and Answers: Inspiring Truths, Historical Facts, Practical Insights”
He directs Biblical Worldview and teaches in the School of Practical Government for KARIS Bible College, located in Woodland Park, CO.McFarland currently co-hosts Exploring the Word on the American Family Radio Network, airing daily on nearly 200 radio stations across the U.S. He is also the host of the Alex McFarland Show, which airs weekly on NRB TV.