Interview: Your Politics Should Follow Your Faith — Not Replace It

0:00Bem Dunthey Kurt Skidming Jo tossin Majiyorsun Joining us now is Jeff Samus. He's a pastor of 21 years you'll be in a very political area. He knows I know saturated DC. It's not more than that anymore! Now we talked about how do you walk on the line between getting too political meaning or ignoring it altogether? Then how do you keep people together who are already very divided? politically. So his book is Walk This Way, Political Engagement for Bible Believing Christians. Thank you for joining us, sir. I'm so interested in talking to you and getting your advice and experience and all of this. And of course, I didn't mention in the introduction that you've also been in the foreign service. Tell us a little bit about that exactly what you did. Yeah, I was in the US Foreign Services for a number of years. That was my first career. I started that right out of college, got my degree in political science and then did that. I

1:03did served as a consular officer at the US Embassy in Singapore, and which is where I ended up meeting the woman who would be my wife, not at the embassy. That was a church. And then I also did served at the embassy in Bogota, Colombia, and South America. Okay, and you say that with the appropriate accent too, congratulations. I just want to show you a lot of experience with that. Let's talk a little bit about the two ways that people can fall off of this horse. And whenever we have an issue, you can fall off one side or the other, you can get too far forward on one side or the other. How do we balance this thing? What do you say to people? I mean, is it something that we just completely ignore? Or is it something that becomes the core and dividing issue in our life? Well, what are the points that I make in the book and walk this way is that it's really important to remember who you are as a Christian when you're approaching these issues. And you've got to have that as as front and center, as the

2:04motivating and guiding principle in your life. If you get to the point where politics has become the thing that takes over and just, you know, it's your first and only concern and only later you start worrying about how it's going to be a Christian. That's problematic, not just in terms of your faith, but it's also going to be problematic in terms of how Christianity and Christ is represented to the world. I like to say that, you know, I wrote the book to put politics into the context of Christian faith and life where it belongs because too many people are doing or are encouraged to do what is taking Christian faith in life and trying to fit that into one's politics. I agree. Yeah. And of course, with my program, which is basically focused on news, I do want to try to keep that balance in it. There's something I really struggle with. And, you know, there's so much noise as being thrown at this point in time, so much noise,

3:06it's constantly, you know, conflict that is there. And so you want to talk about that and react to that. And of course, there are very important things in our life that we just can't ignore. As I've said many times, you may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. And so we have to talk about this. And I worry that I spend too much time on politics and not enough time on what really matters. And so I don't want to just give people the bad news. I want to give them the good news as well. Yeah, it's a, that tension is I opened the book in the introduction with a few vignettes of how I just kind of showing different ways that this tension between politics and Christianity can show up in people's lives. And the first of those is a case of a baker who is just found out that the government's going to be changing its taxation policies. He's going to have to pay a lot more and that that may be enough to put him out of business. And he's dealing with, his wife on one side who was saying, Oh no, you know, you're a Christian, just stay out of all this.

4:13And then his mother-in-law on the other side saying, Well, no, actually, this is something that matters. You should be doing what you're going to do. Then I've got another vignette in there about a man or two church members, one of whom has gone all out for a particular candidate to the point where he's forgetting his Christianity. And then the other trying to kind of calmly bring him back on that. And so it's so easy to lose sight of things of what's really important. I agree. That is a struggle all the time, isn't it, to keep things in priority. And that is especially true when government has become such a big footprint in our life. It really, you hardly can escape it anymore. It's always there in one form or the other. You know, when I I looked at your book, one of the things I always think about is Augustine's City of God. And we talked about how we are citizens because the time he's talking about it, Rome and all these

5:13different things that we think of as nation states are basically just cities. And you were a citizen, right? And so he talks about being a citizen of the city of God, but you also live in the earthly city. And he responded to, he wrote it first part of it, really, as response to people who are critics of Christianity saying, it's Christian softness that has destroyed Rome and caused the fall of Rome. Of course, his idea was that it was really the moral decay of Rome that caused it. So there's that discussion that's there. But really to understand who we are as Christians, I think, is a key thing. And it's a really comforting thing if that is how you see yourself. It puts it in a different perspective, doesn't it? Exactly. It's the comfort that we have knowing that God has everything well in hand that no matter how out of control things may feel to us right now, he's got a plan. He's got you, you know, safe in his hand. You don't have to freak out.

6:15And there's a lot of Christians who see what's going on politically in the world and they are inclined to freak out. And there's a lot in scripture that I'm pretty sure if you do a Concordant Search, you're never going to find the phrase freak out in scripture. But there's certainly plenty that certainly plenty that addresses that idea, particularly in the sermon on the Mount when Jesus tells us all about how not to worry. But I say one of the important things is that this doesn't mean, and you're alluding to some of this earlier, that it doesn't mean that as a Christian, you just shut it all out, that you just say, well, I'm not going to pay any attention because this disturbs me or I come across that a lot as well, yes. Yeah. Or to take the attitude of, well, this is beneath me as a Christian. This is all too dirty to something or other, too polluted or corrupt for me to be concerned about. But as you said, you know, politics is interested

7:17in you. You are a member of this. And one of the things I appreciate about you're bringing Augustin or Augustine, however you choose to announce. I'm always confused about that myself. Yeah. Is that a lot of American Christians, and I didn't write the book just for American Christians, but it's obviously written in an American context, they really see these questions only in terms of their American experience. And looking back into history or looking into countries elsewhere in the world and thinking about, well, how would this be different if I were confronting this issue in another place where I didn't have a vote or where the prevailing government is entirely anti-Christian in some way or another. It both helps you to appreciate more the blessings that we do have living in the nation that we're in, but also puts into perspective just, okay, what's really

8:18important here? And how can I make the best use of the blessings that I do have? I agree. And I think that, you know, come back and we see so many times the message, fear not, of course, brought by angels. And I was thinking, I should talk about this. Well, if the angels show up and say, a freak not, you know, that's probably the new living translation of what it was like. Yeah. But yeah, if you think about it from that standpoint, it's like, a dude chill out, you know, it's, it is kind of interesting to think about that in a popular context. But when we look at one of the things I think is kind of pacified people is almost kind of fatalism, nihilism. And I don't think we're called to that either. Certainly, the Apostle Paul was not called to that. He wasn't passive. He insisted on his rights as a Roman citizen, didn't he? Yeah. And that's actually one of the things that I bring out in one of the early chapters of walk this way that what we see of Paul in the book of Acts is it really interesting lesson in

9:26the two citizenship that we have. You know, this Christians, the citizenship as part of God's kingdom and citizenship as part of the kingdom of what's called the kingdom of the left in some cases, the, you know, this earthly world, you know, the nation that were citizens up. And there situations where Paul got in trouble, you know, he was harassed, he was opposed, he was stoned. And he never put his hands up and say, hey, you can't do this to me. I'm a Roman citizen, because those were the times where what was at stake was the gospel itself. And he was saying, no, if I do not submit to this, it's going to mess with my witness in this case, my testimony. But there were other cases. Now, we see this particularly when he's arrested and he and Silas are arrested and imprisoned in the city of Philippi. And then we see it also when he's arrested in back in Jerusalem, when he managed to get the whole of the Sanadrian man at him.

10:29And in those cases, he takes a stand. You can't do this to me. I'm a Roman citizen. And in those cases, this is where it serves the purpose of the gospel to make that stand. And, you know, to use that. And so it's just a really interesting lesson for us, I think, in terms of valuing what we have in both with both of our types of citizenship. I agree. And we look at this passivity, you know, one of the things that Jesus prayed, he said, I pray that you would, you know, protect them, not that you would take them out of this world, but that they would not be of this world. And I guess that's really what we're talking about. We can't get out of politics, but we don't want to be of politics, do we? We don't want that to be the only thing that we're doing. Right. You know, if somebody asks you who you are, the first thing you say is, I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat or I'm a, you know, it's a political identity. Okay, maybe as a Christian, you should take a step back from that, realize, no, that's not

11:35really my essential identity. My essential identity, first and foremost, is going to be as a redeemed child of God as a follower of Jesus Christ. You know, granted, that's not always going to be you know, the appropriate thing to bring into every conversation where somebody might ask about, about you. But we want to be careful not to let politics be the thing that takes over our lives. Because it can't. I agree. Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about the tension with people about Christian nationalism, you know, and everybody's got a different definition for that, of course. And I don't know. Maybe there are some people self-identify as a Christian nationalist. I think it's mainly a label that has applied to other people when you want to characterize them. But talk a little bit about that. And you know, what is the involvement that we, if we're going to get involved in politics, how deeply should we go at it? And so you have the two different approaches with that. Do we want to have a government that is going to openly endorse the basics of our faith and the gospel?

12:40Or is it something else? Do we want to have them to embrace some fundamental principles? How do we then change the government other than just praying for the people in power, hoping that there will be some kind of a moral awakening at some point in time? But how do you divide that aspect of it? Yeah. As you mentioned, one of the problems with talking about Christian nationalism is that everybody has their own definition of it. Some people, all that really means is, I'm a Christian and I love my country and I want it to be more Christian. For other people, I want a theocracy. I want this to be entirely run on Christian principles, by Christians, and so forth. And of course, most people are going to end up somewhere in between in there. And there's a whole range and gradations of the things. And there are some people who actively advocate for a kind of theocracy as well. Right. And that's the point at which I say, in addition to knowing scripture, it's really helpful

13:45to know some history and know something about the rest of the world. Because there have been plenty of nations that have been established as officially Christian nations and have had established religions. And when we look at how that has worked out over time, it usually hasn't gone so well. That's absolutely right. And it's confusing the kingdoms. I use this language in the book. It's got a long theological history of the idea of, you know, there are the two kingdoms in this world, the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of, the set what we might call the secular kingdom or something like that. But when one intrudes upon the other problems come when you've got either the church telling the state what to do or the state telling the church what to do, there are conflicts. There are things like that. And as Christians, we may cheer when, you know, raw, raw when it looks like the church is telling the

14:50state what to do and we're finally getting our way. But usually what that ends up meaning is that it can turn around just as much and the state can end up influencing what's going on in the church, which we don't like, which we're not going to cheer. And so it's always going to be intention. There's always going to be a balance there. But I think the way that it works out best for us as Christians, particularly living in a democracy, which we thank God for, is that what we want is Christians in government. We want a Christian influence on things. We want people who know what the right thing is, making the decisions about what's going to be and not be in the United States, or any other democracy. But to make the government itself a Christian in some official way, then you have to ask, okay, who's defining what is Christian here? Yes. And what's the recourse

15:54when the government is doing something and they're doing it in the name of Christian, but it's not quite right. What do we do in that case? And it's a case of looking at what could go wrong before jumping forward with all the things that we think could go right. I agree. Yeah. I think if we're going to have a Christian nation, I think it has to be a grassroots organic thing. I don't think that it can be imposed from the top down. And as you point out in history, we've seen that type of approach tried over and over again from the top down. It's always worked best when it comes from the grassroots. I think even the founding of this country, it was coming from the grassroots up and this founding of this country, speaking of history, I think was a large motivating factor of that was the fact that you had a unified church and state in England. And it was weaponized against many people's consciences and their faith and beliefs. And they were sick of it. So they came here for that type of thing. I often think when we talk about these different areas of life, often think

16:58about a guy, I think it was in the Netherlands. You probably know his name better than I do. Abraham Kuiper or Cooper, I don't know, it's pronounced different ways I hear it at different times. He was he was a pastor. I think he became prime minister and he talked about different spheres of authority. And you know, we've got this sphere over here of government. We've got another one of family, got another one of church. We've got another one of the individual. And we need to keep people in their lanes or in their spheres, I guess. Are you familiar with his work? Not in depth. I'm familiar with the basic concepts there. And for the most part, those are things that I think most of us, if we look at that and say, oh yeah, that makes good sense. That's the way we want it. The problem is that there's, you know, it's like a Venn diagram. These things don't exist completely separate from each other. There are intersections and overlaps. And it's managing those intersections and overlaps that that's where the conflict comes. I agree. Yeah. And of course,

18:03he was looking at it mainly from the standpoint of, you know, what is the controlling authority here, you know, in this particular sphere. And we look at that in terms of, let's say, you know, keeping government intrusion out of your home or your family. And so we say, well, wait a minute, we have this institution here that these two things can coexist. They can interface with each other. But unless there is something seriously wrong in one of these spheres, there shouldn't be an intrusion from the other sphere into it. And I think that was kind of what he was talking about. But let's talk about the other thing that is always something that comes up when you talk about government and Christianity. And that's the Romans 13 interpretation of people have. Many times, I have seen people who are very passive in terms of what the government does. And they will appeal to Romans 13. No matter what the government does, I should just go along with it. What is your understanding of that? Well, if we lived in the Roman Empire at the time that was written,

19:04that would be pretty much our main option. Because we didn't have a vote. We didn't have a, you know, really an ability to appeal anywhere. I mean, we do have the example of Paul appealing his death sentence, you know, appealing to the emperor. He was taking advantage of his citizenship in that way. So there wasn't exactly, you know, Christians were exactly powerless. They could always appeal to the law. But it's difficult because we have gotten so used to our American system of government that we kind of take it for granted that we can influence things. And what complicates things is that, you know, the idea of government of the people by the people for the people, that means that we have some authority. We are to a certain extent the government. And so to a certain extent, when we say, okay, well, I'm going to respect the ruler of my nation as

20:07an American, we're saying, I'm going to respect myself. But at the same time, because, you know, the majority chooses who the rulers are, that also means we have to respect the decisions that are made, you know, even if they are not the decisions that we would have made. It's also, again, one of the reasons why we are so thankful for the Bill of Rights and such that we have here in the United States that protects the minority, which Christians do well to see themselves as a part of most of the time. I agree. And we look at Paul, essentially, what he was doing when he pushed back against the government, he was standing on his Bill of Rights as a Roman citizen. Wasn't he? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I look at that, and, you know, far, I've lost so much confidence and elections in general. That's where my involvement with the government comes. It's like, you have sworn to this objective standard, the Constitution, and you need to abide by it. And if you don't, I'm going to make some noise about this. That's basically my perspective on that. But,

21:10yeah, it's kind of interesting. So when we have this situation and you're a pastor or, let's say, you're a family event, right? And you've got all these different political issues that come up, because we're starting to approach the holidays in just a couple of months here. And people will be faced with this, even if it's not an issue within a congregation, but it will always be an issue whenever you get a group of people together. I had one pastor who said we're going to make these decisions will be made by me and the elder in terms of the way the building is. I've seen too many churches have church splits because they can't decide on the color of carpet. And so it's kind of minor things. We're going to make those decisions. But how do you keep the peace when people will tend to fight even over the color of the carpet, maybe they want a red one or a blue one? Yeah, it's difficult. It's one of the advantages to keeping the practical edge of politics out of the church. And by that, I mean the, okay, who are you voting for? What's going to be, you know,

22:19the party that we like to the extent that it's possible, particularly as a pastor or a leader, to try to keep that out there while still preserving the ability to talk about issues. And particularly even deeper than the issues, talking about the principles that are involved. For instance, on pro-life issues, you want to make sure that the people in the congregation understand, well, this is what's at stake. This is why this is important to us. This is what scripture teaches us. This is what when we look at, you know, what science and the world and history teaches, you know, it tells us this is how this applies in this case. And therefore, when you go to the ballot, this is going to influence how you choose to vote without actually coming out and saying, okay, well, John Smith is your candidate, he's our candidate, he's the one that we're going to support. When you approach it in terms of principles and then issues as applications of those

23:20principles, it's a lot harder, you know, that impossible, of course, because we're all sinful human beings, but it's a lot harder for the individual members to get up in arms about, you know, you're bringing politics into this or you're bringing your politics in and it's opposite to my politics. It helps ensure that, you know, to the extent that people engage within the congregation, you know, person to person about these issues, it's done on the basis of those principles, rather than on the basis of what political party you're a part of or what candidate you're supporting. I agree, because if you start to take it to the candidate, now you're starting to talk about personalities and things, and that brings a whole new dimension to it. And we don't want to be somebody, I think, who is focused on a particular personality or person that we start to follow. That's the kind of idolatry, in my opinion. We want to focus on those issues. And if people really understand the core issue, and if it is something that is fundamental to Christian beliefs, they should understand that core issue and pastors should not avoid that, right? But if

24:24they understand it from an issue standpoint, you'll be able to apply that. And I think that's the key issue. Again, it's as opposed to, well, we're going to have this political party and we're going to set up a theocracy or something. We're not going to have a top down imposition of stuff. We need to make sure that people are genuine Christians, that they embrace these principles, that they understand these principles. If they understand that, and if we have a Christian nation, then we will have a Christian nation, because it's got to be Christian before it can really bubble up, you know, out of the heart, the mouth speaks, but it's also out of the heart that the nation turns, I think, as well. Yeah. Yeah, just, you know, getting into my biography, a tiny bit. One of the reasons that I decided to leave, excuse me, leave government service and study to be a pastor, it's something that had been in my mind for a very long time. But one of the reasons I did that was I realized that if I really wanted to make a difference on so many of the issues that I was concerned about as a young man, the place to do that was at the heart level. I wasn't going to do it

25:31by getting into politics as a, I recognize that that was not going to be my burial where I would serve. But addressing it at the heart level of, okay, this is what's important to us as Christians, because of who we are, because of what God has done for us, because of what we know about him and his will. These are things that matter and therefore take this out into your life. This is how you, as a Christian, are going to bring this into the voting booth and all the other areas of your life. Today, it's like, how are you going to be talking on social media? How are you going to be talking to your neighbors? What are the things that you're going to support? What are the things you're going to like and dislike? Address that at the heart level first and the other things will flow from that. I agree. Now, when we take a look at some of the headlines, let's just use an example of this. You've got to, you say, calm it down when we look at some of the things. So,

26:32let's take some. Let's just take the economic news, for example. A lot of people are concerned about rising inflation and the cost of gas and food and these other things. Rather than fretting and worrying about that, what is the Christian to do and how do we calm that down? Yeah, it's a good question. First of all, we don't just ignore it and particularly with inflation, that's something that's hard to ignore. Unless somebody else handles all of the money and purchasing in such in your house, you're going to notice that. Maybe the show for your fills up the limousine. Yeah. But when you see something that see or hear your read or experience something that hits that discordant note, you just say, this is not right. This is not the way things should be. You don't ignore it, but you notice it and you process it and you see it. Then as a Christian, you don't jump to a response. You may say, I don't like this, but you don't jump to a response right away. Instead, you center yourself as a child of God. You'll pray about it. You say, Lord,

27:38this is something that's disturbing me. I think there's something wrong here. What do I need to know? What do I need to do? Then that next step would be to assess it. What do I actually know here? The prices have gone up, but what do I know about the rest of the situation? Do I know why they've gone up? Is this something temporary or is this something permanent? What's responsible here? Then you learn what you don't know. That's the next step. I realized what the holes in my knowledge there's obviously something more here. What should I learn? Then once you've got all that, then you measure it against the word of God. I don't think you're going to find much in scripture that directly addresses inflation, although there are actually a few passages, I believe, in Proverbs that condemn the idea of dishonest weights, which kind of releases to some... Accord does some of the money changes. You have learned against God's word. What does actually

28:44influence things here? It's like, maybe this inflation is just going to happen, and I'm just selfishly upset about it, and that's all that's going on here. Or maybe there's some core issue that's really involved here. This is something I... There are Christian principles that apply to, and I'm going to address... I want to address that. Then after you've done all of those things, then finally you move to implementation. I say, okay, what am I going to do? You make the plan. Just how you're going to vote in the next election. Maybe it's going to be the letter that you write to the editor, the thing that you post on Facebook, whatever it might be. But then whatever it is that you act on, then as a final trust, which I think is really key for us as Christians, and it's too often forgotten, you trust. You simply say, I've done what is within my power to do. Now I leave it all in God's hands. You trust the outcome of whatever it is to him. Even if what he

29:48ends up making happen is completely opposite to what you thought was supposed to happen, you trust that he's got a plan. He's infinitely wiser than you are, and he's going to work things out because he's got you safe in his hand and he's looking out for the interests of his church in this world. I agree. That's a great way to put it. Of course, speak to the difference between happiness and joy. We hear that all the time as Christians. Happiness is something that happens to you based on your circumstances. What is it that brings us that kind of joy? That's actually a topic that has been near and dear to my heart for a long time. Happiness is a surface level thing. It can be affected or by things, it can disappear in a moment, it can come in a moment. But joy, that's bedrock stuff. Our joy is in Christ. Our joy is in knowing that our sins are forgiven because

30:48Jesus Christ took them all the way, washed them away with the blood he shed on the cross. That is permanent. That is fixed. There's nothing changing that. It's mine. It's yours. It belongs to every believer. That's joy. We know we're going to heaven. We know that whatever happens, he's got everything well in hand and he's looking out for us. We've got that deep down. Sometimes it bubbles up to the surface. That's just the most wonderful thing in the world. Other times, we're going through bad things. Just because we're not feeling the joy at that moment doesn't mean it's not there. It really is. It's down deep in our souls. We look forward to the day when we're in glory and that's going to be all that we feel. But it's still ours in the present. We can tap into that at times to help us through the bad times. I agree. Many times we start to pray to God. Usually we start with a thankfulness about what is

31:52there. I think it's that thankfulness, that gratefulness, understanding, going back and recalling the good things that have happened to us in our life, the good things that are happening to us right now, no matter how bad these other circumstances are. I think that is the key thing that keeps us centered. It reminds us that God is good that He has a plan and it reminds us that we're not abandoned that He's with us even in the valley of the shadow of death, isn't it? Right. Yeah. That gratitude really is key. Keep that in mind and it helps ground us spiritually for sure. It also helps ground us politically. Be thankful for the things that you have before you start rushing and grabbing and running after the things that you think would be better to have. I agree. Quote from you in this book, the feeling of being a stranger or an exile in the world of politics is not unreasonable. The sense of differentness and separation that a believer has is a strength,

32:53however, not a weakness. I think that's a great quote. Talk a little bit more about that. Of course, we know there were strangers and pilgrims in this land and I guess as we look at the directions that society is going, perhaps we don't have the kind of influence that we should have in the society because we see it getting stranger. It's natural as human beings to just want to fit in. And we want the rest of the world, at least our little world that our community to be like us. We don't like standing out. We want the sense that these are my people and they're not going to rub me the wrong way. I'm not going to rub them the wrong way. It kind of rubs up against sometimes our innate sinful selfishness that wants to stand out. Everybody look at me. But as Christians, we are different. It's simply the reality of things. And if we're focusing

34:00on the idea of, okay, well, I want to fit in with the rest of society that usually means that we're downplaying the things that are essential to us as Christians. The other approach, the right approach is to be thinking, okay, I'm going to be a witness to the world of a better way. I'm going to be a witness to people who don't yet know Jesus that following Jesus is what they really want. They may not appreciate it. They may think it's awful or dumb or even evil. But it's not. And I'm going to live in such a way and I'm going to do my politics in such a way that people see that there's something different in a positive way about me. And that's what makes me, you know, it doesn't mean that I have to run as a Christian Republican, Christian Democrat, whatever it is, I don't have to put that, say, this is me as the Christian, which often then

35:03gives the impression, well, then that means everything else is un-Christian. No, no, but it means that this is the way we live. This is the way we talk. This is the way we engage with the world. So that people can see Jesus in the way that we deal with the world. I agree. I agree. Yeah, it's a very, very powerful thing. And of course, psychologists have understood this, the idea that you want to get in line under authority or the peer pressure that you feel from people around you, both of those things combined, we see those being pushed towards us in media that we concern, that we consume and in social media and things like that. But again, we don't want to fall off on the other side, do we? We don't want to be intentionally abrasive. And I've got all the answers and you don't have any answer. That should be, that should be tempered with I think a humility that we don't have all the answers. And that we are not some special, we're not above and beyond everybody else around us either. And so I think that that is a key thing. How do we balance that? Yeah, well, one of the chapters in, in walk this way

36:09is focused on, I believe I call it a compendium of Christian character. And it's basically, a survey of what scripture says about, this is the way you are going to be as a Christian. One of the things that I think a lot of people just kind of take it for granted that they know what it is. And we tend to think, well, the way I am, that's the Christian way, which has things very much reversed in terms of what the way it should be, you should be thinking about it. And so it's just a survey, the various areas of Christian life. And okay, this is how you are going to be as a Christian. And then I don't get too deep in the weeds on it, but I encourage the application of, okay, what's that going to mean for you when you engage with politics? You know, if you mentioned, you know, being abrasive, well, where is being abrasive going to come off as a Christian virtue?

37:10It's not there because it's only going to be turning people off. And if people are turned off to you by your behavior, that means they're also going to be turned off to Christ whom you represent. I agree. And no matter what sphere of life you're dealing with, that's not something that any of us is going to want as a Christian. I agree. Yeah, I think there's some moral principles that are there that we drive that stake into the ground and we're not flexible on that. But then on other things, we need to be a little bit flexible and giving as you pointed out. We don't want to come across as though we have everything figured out. And we are absolutely perfect. And so there needs to be that devotion to the truth and these core principles needs to be tempered, I think, with humility. I think that is a very difficult thing. It's easier to say than to do it, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it sounds like a very interesting book. And you've got some wise advice in this again. We're talking about the name of the book is Walk This Way by Jeff Samuelson. Let me give the

38:12subtitle here. Political engagement for Bible-believing Christians. And that's what we want to bring that back to. Thank you so much for joining us, sir. Very good discussion. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. And if anybody's interested in finding out more, you can find it at my website. It's Jeff Samuelson.com, SAMELSON, and it's available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and just about any digital format that you might be interested in. It's released on October 6th. And we've got your name up there under name key there. I might have been saying Samuel Sen. I apologize if I did, but it is Samuelson, SAMELSON. And Jeff Samuelson.com is where you'll find information about that. And do you have a substack and things like that they can find at that website? I have a newsletter. It's completely unrelated right now to the topic. It's called Five Star Monday Mornings. And it's basically just

39:16some stuff for Christians to start off their week in the best way possible. That's great. That's great. Well, I'm sure people would like to see that. Again, they can find that at JeffSamuelson.com, SAMELSON.com. Thank you so much, sir. And again, the book is Walk This Way, Political Engagement for Bible Believing Christians. Thank you. And good luck with your book. It sounds like a very important topic. Want to be very appropriate for the times that we live in right now, especially. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. The Common Man. They created Common Core and Dumb Down Art Children. They created Common Pasts, Track and Control Puffs. They're Common's Project to make sure the Commoners own nothing. And the Communist Future. They see the Common Man as simple, unsophisticated, ordinary.

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