VIEWPOINT with Chuck Crismier
THE "GOD GAP"
This is viewpoint with attorney and author Chuck Chris Meyer. Viewpoint is a one hour talk show confronting the issues of America's heart and home. And now with today's edition of Viewpoint here is Chuck Chris Meyer. It has been estimated that approximately 30% of those Americans who claim to be born again evangelical Christians did not vote in the 2020 presidential election. Why is that? Can you imagine why that might be? Well there are a variety of reasons why people might not vote. Maybe they're discouraged, maybe they just don't like either candidate. There are a variety of reasons why people decide not to vote and some just don't decide to vote. So today on Viewpoint we might just ask the question to vote or not to vote. That's the question. To vote or not to vote, that's the question. Do Christians have any biblical mandate to vote? Is there anything related to our professing faith in Christ that would cause us to think that it would be very important for us to vote? And there are those who think, well that's just the reason why we shouldn't vote. Well today on Viewpoint we're going to discuss all of that and I'm glad that you've joined this conversation with ever increasing conviction talk that transforms. Before me on the broadcast desk are a whole variety of articles discussing the various viewpoints of those who have tried to research the matter of elections where people are voting, why they're voting, the various demographics of voting and so on. We're going to take a look at some of those here today on Viewpoint before our special guest joins us later on in the program. But for now Donald Trump and Joe Biden both looked to rally support among religious Americans in 2020 but the faith vote largely broke along familiar lines. In other words they didn't break along faith votes at all. They broke along other lines. Like Christian voters tended to support Republican candidates and Christians of color and everyone else including the religiously unaffiliated tended to support Democratic candidates. In this particular report going through all the words, all the language and a political science professor Ryan Burge came up with this conclusion. The God Gap is more and more the narrative when we think about the parties. Half of white liberals today identify as religiously unaffiliated while the right is staying very Christian. The God Gap. I thought that was a great title for today's program, The God Gap and I think we'll just use that and indeed the God Gap is a very real issue. In fact if we look at things from a political standpoint not just the votes but just generally across the country, we find the country pretty much divided. Everybody knows that, they're admitting that. Perhaps never has our country been so divided as it is today but in what way is it divided? Is it just divided along party lines, partisan politics? People, the division is much deeper than that. In fact I think that the political observer who titled this the God Gap had it right. That's really where the issue is. It's not necessarily the issues, it's the God Gap and it's the God Gap that defines the issues that are important to those who are voting. Some say well the problem is really just a split along ethnic lines. Well it's true, there is a major split along ethnic lines but why is that? Is that also part of the God Gap? And then it becomes rather complex when you find that George Gallup says that the black community is the most Christian community in the country and yet continually votes democratic by an overwhelming proportion. Why would that be since all of the atheists and the agnostics are voting Democrat also? You see it becomes very complex. So then we begin to wonder if the issue is just whether we have an R or a D behind our name? Well apparently that itself isn't definitive, there are other factors that are more definitive. And so today on Viewpoint as we begin to explore some of these other factors, it's a matter of fascination, it's information but bottom line it should lead to some sort of decision making transformation in each one of our lives. We'll begin to ask the question why people vote the way they do. Why do you vote the way you do? Why do you not vote? Why do people not vote? Why do professing Christians not vote? Why is it that mainline Protestants vote one way and traditional evangelical born again believers vote a very different way? And why is it that atheists and Jewish people tend to vote completely opposite of why evangelical Christians and even of mainline Protestants? There's something going on here and it has to do with religion and it has to do with the God gap. So as we say regularly here on the program, Viewpoint determines destiny. It does. Our Viewpoint determines destiny regarding voting and basically I would say that voting actually is very important because using a vote as somewhat of an acrostic, it's a very opportune time to engage. Voting is a very opportune time to engage and what if you don't engage? What if you decide not to vote? Is that also not a vote? To not vote is also a vote. You're voting for the majority of those who do vote. You understand that? When you don't vote, you're voting for a majority of those who do vote. Because you're neutering out any possibility for you to make a difference. And what if you don't vote? Well, then not only have you not taken the opportunity to make a difference, you actually have kind of thumbed your nose against the very opportunity that you were given not only by God but by the Constitution to express your Viewpoint. So voting is a very opportune time to engage. And we have nothing to complain about if we don't engage, right? So we have to engage. The question is, why do we engage? How do we engage? And what is the significance of my individual vote? A lot of people will say, well, you know, my vote really doesn't matter. It's just one among millions, so it really doesn't matter. Are you aware of how many elections have been won by just a very few handful of votes? Yeah. And even on the national scale, by maybe a hundred or a thousand votes. In other words, your vote would have counted. But it couldn't be counted because you didn't vote. Now, of course, we're not even considering all of the fraud and the misuse of the voting system and so on. We're not even talking about that. That's not the focus of our program here today. The focus is voting. And so today on Viewpoint, when we get back, we'll take a look at the split on ethnic lines. What is it that's causing this split along ethnic lines? Is it a religious split or is it something else? Is it the color of your skin? And if it's the color of your skin, is that not a biased vote? Is that a not a racial vote? We'll be right back. Stay tuned. Once upon a time, children could pray and read their Bibles in school. Divorces were practically unknown as was child abuse. In our once great America, virginity and chastity were popular virtues and homosexuality was an abomination. So what happened in just one generation? Hi, I'm Chuck Chrismeyer and I urge you to join me daily on Viewpoint, where we discuss the most challenging issues touching our hearts and homes. Could America's moral slide relate to the fourth commandment? Open the Viewpoint on this radio station or anytime at saveus.org. Again, I welcome you back to Viewpoint. I'm Chuck Chrismeyer. As conversation is always with ever increasing conviction, talk, the transforms, even as we talk about voting today and the God gap. According to the Gallup group, religion was a more prominent issue in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election than in any other recent presidential election. Fascinating. Religion. Religion. Well, you had Joe Biden, who was claiming very publicly to be a very devout Roman Catholic. And then you had Donald Trump, who was aligned with many evangelical leaders and voters. And even though he himself did not demonstrate any particularly strong personal churchgoing allegiance, he nevertheless stood very boldly for issues related to religious freedom, related to other aspects that Christians, professing Bible-believing Christians, were interested in. Biden made no such calculations, in fact, promoted abortion and promotes abortion today more than anything else in his agenda. So if abortion is the number one aspect of your campaign because you believe that that's the only way you're going to capture the young people and the young vote and many women, then how does that relate to a religious concern? How does that relate to a spiritual concern? Just asking. Now, before we go further into the religious or spiritual or as our guest who is scheduled to join us, the faith vote, we're going to talk about the split along ethnic lines. Believe it or not, in the 2020 election, nine out of ten Bible-believing, born-again, professing born-again Christians were registered to vote. Nine out of ten were registered to vote, but did they vote? No. We're told that only maybe 30% of those who were entitled to vote as professing evangelical or born-again Christians did not vote. They did not exercise the franchise to vote, and therefore their voice was not heard. Their voice was not expressed, and in some instances the numbers were so close in certain states that it might have changed the election, but all that is passé because the election is over. And again, we're not talking about issues of fraud or abuse. That's a whole different broadcast altogether. But evangelicals, by belief, are also twice as likely to identify as a republic that 51% as opposed to Democrat, 23%. 20% of professing evangelicals claim to be independent, not aligned with the R or the D behind the name. But how about in the black community? Americans with so-called evangelical beliefs overwhelmingly voted for Biden, 69% to 19%. 69% among Americans of other ethnicities, though, Trump had a 58% to a 32% lead. In other words, Trump had a definite lead among other ethnicities other than white evangelicals and black churchgoers. Ethnicity and political parties seem to be more powerful in predicting the vote of someone with evangelical beliefs than their shared religious convictions. Wow. So in other words, what the Bible might have to say about your life, about the life of the country, and so on, becomes relatively irrelevant when you start looking at ethnicity, for instance, particularly the black vote. Not so much interested in what the Bible has to say, but more interested in what the party has to say about doing favors for that particular ethnicity. And that actually has been seduced. That's been intentionally seduced since the days of Lyndon Bain Johnson, who purposely set out to seduce the black vote. He acknowledged it, and he did that by providing all sorts of welfare benefits. And so he lured the black community and their pastors in order to gain political power to vote for the D behind the day. That's how it happened. African American churchgoers are solidly today behind Biden, 86% to 9%, at least they were in 2020, but now we're told that that's shifting, because many within the black community or at least a significant number are actually discovering that the party that they trusted and the president who represents that party could not be trusted and has betrayed them, has not provided what they expected, has not provided what they thought. In fact, they discovered that they were far better off under a president who had an R behind his name, i.e. Donald Trump. So these are some of the facts that we're dealing with when we're talking about the matter of the vote, among evangelicals by belief registered to vote. The candidates position on abortion and ability to protect religious freedom were more likely to be the top priority compared to those without evangelical beliefs in 2020. In other words, those that did not have traditional, strong Bible evangelical beliefs born again, Christians and so on, they did not seem to value religious freedom. Religious freedom wasn't particularly important to them. Are you beginning to see now how the God gap actually has real impact upon our voting patterns and habits? More than one in ten with evangelical beliefs voted for the candidate they thought would bring and protect religious freedom. One tenth, that was their biggest issue. One tenth, religious freedom. Well, that makes sense, doesn't it, when the First Amendment says that religious freedom is the first of our freedoms, not freedom of speech, religious freedom. In other words, without religious freedom, all the other freedoms are at risk. That's how our founders saw it, and that's how strong, born again, evangelical believers tend to see it. Well that's understandable, again we find it's the God gap, isn't it? The God gap. And how about younger voters? Well younger voters, especially Generation Z now, are said to be the most God less generation in American history. In fact, their numbers have exceeded the baby-boomer generation, have exceeded the millennial generation, and therefore are going to be very, very strong and pronounced in perhaps the 2024 presidential election and elections thereafter. Well, since they are deemed to be observed to be the most God less generation, you can see how the God gap then will continue to increase. The God gap in the election is going to be the biggest definitive issue of all, and already is. We saw it in 2020, and in 2024, when we have more generation Z voters who will potentially be involved, if they are indeed the most God less generation, as we're told, we can see the tensions building and the divide in our country growing. Well, those are some of the preliminary things that we needed to face here on viewpoint today. As we set the stage for voting, you see, if we don't vote, we actually refuse the very opportunity and time to engage. Voting is the very opportune time for you and I to engage. If we don't run for office, if we don't do anything else, our vote is what stands in the gap between religious freedom or not, between whether we will kill our young or not, whether we will have certain attitudes concerning finances, the economy, and yes, even Israel itself. In other words, our vote may very well be the hinge of history for our country. And so it's a delight to have you here on viewpoint today, our special guest joining us. He is, let me just share a few thoughts with you concerning this gentleman. His name is Jason Yates. And after spending two decades working as an executive at Fortune 100 companies, he discovered that in one in three, Christians does not vote consistently, one in three. His statistic prompted him to leave the corporate world and become the founding CEO of my faith votes. It's about equipping Christians to think biblically about the issues to pray for our nation and to vote consistently in every election. He says an estimated 25 million Christians who are registered to vote fail to vote in presidential elections. Friends, from my viewpoint, that is an absolute travesty. It's almost as if we're thumbing our nose against the very God who gave us liberty, who has protected our country up until now. Maybe we're just getting the kind of government we deserve. We are failed here to vote is actually a profound vote that is getting some very negative responses that we don't like. Our special guest today, Jason Yates, joining us, Jason, it's good to have you on the program. Hey, thanks for having me and I just agree with everything that you've said and I love how you put it, especially as we look at voting as an opportunity. Galatians 6'10", it says, "As we have opportunity, do good to everyone, but especially those of the faith." That's exactly what the way I think about voting because it is an opportunity to bring good into our nation and our communities. Well, it's the one thing that you and I are, it's the one thing. If there's nothing else, it's the one thing that we are privileged to exercise. It's called the franchise and it's the one thing that we are privileged to engage in and if we don't do that, we have ourselves to blame, I think, for what the results are. Well, and I think you alluded to this as well, when you don't vote, it's a vote. It's a vote that you've basically ceded to those who you disagree with. It's a vote that you've ceded to a culture and a lifestyle and an agenda that is in direct opposition to your biblical values. One of the things that we're finding is that people's values seem to differ. We talk about biblical values, but then we have massive division within the country according to ethnic lines, even among so-called Christians. In fact, George Gallup, the pollster to the nation, has said in the past that the black community was the most Christian of all communities in the country. And yet they vote 90% Democrat and Democrat stands for today, especially almost everything that is contrary to the word the will and the way of God has declared it his word. So how do you understand this? It seems that maybe we're not voting our faith. Well, we asked a question right after the midterm elections in a national survey that we were part of and said, "Did your faith influence your vote?" And amazingly, 6 out of 10 self-identified, born-again, evangelicals said no. Wow. Their faith did not influence their vote. I wish I had done additional follow-up questions to understand why you're going to explore that. You and I are going to do some surgery on this after this break. Stay tuned, my friends. You're listening to Viewpoint. Remember, Viewpoint does determine destiny, your Viewpoint concerning voting, and how you vote, why you vote, is determining destiny will be bad. There is so much more about Chuck Chris Meyer and Save America Ministries. On our website, SaveUS.org. For example, under the marriage section, God has marriage on his mind. Chuck has some great resources to strengthen your marriage. First off, a fact sheet on the state of the marital union, a fact sheet on the state of ministry, marriage, and morals. SaveUS.org, marriage, divorce, and remarriage. What does the Bible really teach about this? Find all of this at SaveUS.org. Also, a letter to pastors, the Hosea Project, SaveUS.org, and many more resources to strengthen your marriage. It's all on Chuck's website, SaveUS.org. Again, you can listen to Chuck's Viewpoint broadcast live and archived, Save America Ministries website at SaveUS.org. [music] Voting, again, the God Gap. That's what we're talking about here today on Viewpoint with our special guest now, Jason Yates, joining us. Jason, what you did not know because of when you came on is that as a good trial lawyer, I laid the foundation before the jury of our peers that are listening to this program. I laid the foundation for all of the various kinds of issues that are involved, whether it has to do with our faith, whether it has to do with ethnicity, and the various percentages of voting, and so on. We laid all that out before you ever joined us. And here was the statement from Ryan Burge, a political science professor. He was analyzing all of these things, and here's what he said. The God Gap is more and more than narrative when we think about the parties. Half of white liberals today identify as religiously unaffiliated, while the right is staying very Christian. In other words, the drift is away from God, and the more the drift is away from God in the culture, the drift is away from God in the votes of the people. That's not even a mystery. It shouldn't be a mystery for us as Christians if we're thinking about it, but it just seems to be. Why is that? Well, clearly, there's a drift away from biblical knowledge, and we know that biblical knowledge leads to right choices and good choices when it comes to voting. We look at it, we see even people who attend church regularly tend to vote more conservatively. The statistics do show that, except among mainline Protestants. Among mainline Protestants, it's split. Well, I think you need to look at whether or not there's a commitment to biblical truth in mainline Protestants. So here's the problem. It's not just what we know or what we think we know. That's information. It's the unwillingness to apply the information in a transformative way for application in our life practices, including our vote. So this is our problem. For instance, years ago, I had a gentleman on this program, he had written a book that we were a nation that was totally evangelized, but almost completely undecipaled. In other words, we knew about the faith. We knew about the Bible. We knew about salvation, but we just didn't embrace the truth that would change our lives. There was no transformation. And isn't that what we're seeing in the culture, carte blanche? You don't even have to look at the people's votes. You look at the designation, what we have called red states and blue states. The red states from a political standpoint are primarily God-fearing people. The blue states are primarily those who are not God-fearing people. There we have the God gap again. So the God gap really is defining the voting gap, isn't it? It really is, and another thing I came across some research that showed the percent of people in bi-state that have ten church regularly. And I said, this is an interesting study, so it had all 50 states, and the percent of people that have ten church regularly, I said, I wonder what would happen if I laid that alongside the voter turnout in those states? Interesting. You know what I found is that they were inversely proportional, so related. So you have states where you have high church attendance and low voter turnout, and you have states with low church attendance and high voter turnout, you know what I thought about Chuck is scratching my head trying to understand that, both from the perspective of those who don't attend church regularly and in those states where they do. And the thing that I came up with is those who don't attend church regularly in those states and those people, their faith is politics. They lean into politics. That's why they show up and they vote consistently. You got that right. All right, let's take that and apply it now to many within the broader so-called, born again, evangelical group. They think, some of them, many of them think that their vote really is not important to God, that to vote is putting their trust in politics, therefore, why should I vote? My trust is in the Lord. How do you respond? Absolutely, I think that's the mentality, and I think that is a lie that is coming to us through many different things. It manifests itself in that praise we hear, which is separation of church and state, and we have even, you know, some attempts, even from our own government that has tried to increase that wedge and create even a bigger divide, and we saw that with the Johnson Amendment, right? That was a deliberate approach to say churches, pastors, we don't want you talking into politics, because that upsets what we're trying to do. So we're going to put this little tax code thing in there, and we're going to say, don't do that. When pastors and churches stop doing that, it was a message to Christians to say, I shouldn't be involved in politics. And I think that had a huge impact on the church believing that lie that this is something they should avoid and just trust God. All right, I want to follow up on that, because I think that those statements, those beliefs are based on a false premise, and here's what I mean by that. The moment we say that's political is the moment we already lost the battle, because the reality is almost every issue that is troubling America is spiritual, not political. It's only political because we, the people, have to respond to it, and the way that we can respond to it other than individually is politically. So the reality is, for instance, let's use the term, take abortion, for instance. Abortion is not a political issue by itself. In fact, fundamentally it's a spiritual issue, because God says that shall not kill. It's a fundamentally spiritual issue, and the moment we try to convert it exclusively into a political issue is the moment we have divided God from our government. We're dividing God from our government. Christians are dividing God from their government because we're yielding to a false premise. It's spiritual. The same is true with regard to homosexuality, transgenderism. All of those things are a direct and open and notorious tack on the creation ordinance of God, right there in Genesis chapter two. So it's spiritual. The moment we continue to talk about it as political, we lost the battle. So pastors, I'm going to reinforce this now, pastors need to understand that it's not political, it's spiritual, and they're going to deal with it on that basis. You don't have to deal with it on a political basis, you deal with it on a spiritual basis. Then the people are equipped to deal with it politically when they vote. Give me your response. I couldn't have said it better. The issues that our nation is dealing with right now are very much tied to biblical principle principles. Just about everything. Everything. And it starts with life and how God created us and knit us and how we should respect that. It's the family and the structure that brings goodness. And frankly, you think about it, the family is the future of the nation. If we don't have families that are procreating, that are bringing up smart and wise kids that are kind and doing the right thing, then we are just going into a moral abyss. This isn't about political issues. This is not right versus left, but it's good versus evil, enough versus down. So you're absolutely right. When we talk, when we use the term politics, I often say, you have politics anytime you have two people trying to decide what to do about it. No, wait a minute. That means you and your wife are involved in politics every day in your home. Every day. And so we have politics in church. We have politics in a fantasy football league when we're trying to figure out rules, right? But so let's not be turned off by that term politics, but let's lean into this idea that God has called us to steward his creation and to lead others to good and right ideas and solutions. The Bible calls it righteousness, that's right. The Bible calls it righteousness. And in the book of provinces, righteousness exaltination, but sinners have reproach to any people. So what we want to promote is not political goals. It's righteousness. And then once we're doing that, it necessarily devolves into our decisions politically to vote righteousness. We're missing the boat. We're not doing it God's way. We're doing it. We've yielded to the political seductress and it's really about righteousness. We'll be right back. Have you ever considered what the early church was like? Many people are developing a heart longing for greater fulfillment in our practices as Christians. A recent study showed 53,000 people a week are leaving the back door of America's churches in frustration. What is going on? Why has there not been even a 1% gain among followers of Christ in the last 25 years? Could it be that God is seeking to restore 1st century Christianity for the 21st century? Jesus said, I'll build my church. Is Christ by His spirit stirring to prepare the church for the 21st century? The early church prayed together and broke bread from house to house. They were family and it was said by all who observed, behold how they loved one another. Incredible. But the same can be found right now. Go to savers.org and click sell church. We can revive 1st century Christianity for the 21st century. It's about people, not programs. It's about the body, not a building that's savers.org, click sell church. Welcome back to viewpoint. Does your faith vote, my friends? Does your faith vote? You see, the vote is secondary to your faith. The vote doesn't precede your faith. It reinforces the essence of your faith. So if we don't have our faith intact, if we're not seeking 1st the kingdom of God and His righteousness, our vote is going to be all over the place. No wonder we don't have much confidence in our vote. We don't see ourselves ambassadors in the kingdom of Christ. If we did, we'd realize our vote is one expression of that ambassadorship. But apparently we don't see it that way. Why don't we see it that way? Maybe we're not as committed to our relationship with Christ in His kingdom as we think we are. What do you think, Jason? Hebrews 11, 6 says, "Without faith, it's impossible to please God." I ask a lot of people, I say, "Do you want to please God with your vote? Do you want to please God at election time?" Yeah. And it requires faith. But faith is acting on the Word of God. Faith isn't just some esoteric kind of thing out there, "Well, I have a religion. This is my faith. That's your faith." No, that's not what faith is from a biblical standpoint. Faith is acting on the Word of God. It's acting on the Word of God and it's acting, right? Both of those are important. It's doing something and doing something that's grounded in the Word of God. When I think about the parable of the talents, I think about the people who did something with what God had given them, and they were rewarded because of their faithfulness. When you look at the Scripture in that parable, it says he's rewarding and recognizing them for their faithfulness. So we've got to be oriented in that way to make a difference. That's exactly why my faith votes exist. The organization that I lead is to do just that and to help people understand and make that connection, that this isn't about politics, it's about your faith. And as you mentioned before, I mean, the discipleship side. I look at this really as a sense of discipleship. How do we grow closer to understand the Word of God, how we stand strong in it? And how do we help a country or a city or a nation move incrementally at least more toward what God requires in our lives? That's right. How do we do that? And it starts with faith. We've got a little formula at my faith votes. We say we want to help people pray, think, and act. I think that's a formula for the Christian life, but what are you doing to increase your relationship with Christ and come to Him every day? What are you doing to grow in your biblical knowledge and to think biblically about the issues of the day? And then how do you put that into action and do something about it? And ultimately, we want to help people vote as an action that really does make sense. Yeah, it's not the only action, but it is an action. You know, it's kind of like Edwin Burke said, he said, I can't do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I should do, and by the grace of God, I will do. So it's not that you and I can save America with our vote or save our particular state or any other location, our school board or anything, we can't save anything by our individual vote. But it's an expression of who we are of salt and light in a society where we're given the unique privilege of religious freedom and expressing that in the context of our vote. So if we don't have a biblical vision, I'm not talking about a worldview now. I'm talking about a God view. I think we make a mistake by talking about a worldview all the time. It's a God view that we have to have. It's the God view that changes our worldview. And if we really have an accurate God view and we're seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then we're going to be doers of that in every way that we can. We're going to seize the opportunity, Carpe Diem. We're going to seize the opportunity to vote when we're able to vote, realizing that our vote in and of itself is not the salvation of anything. It is an expression of our responsibility before God, isn't it? Well, I think it's also an expression of our identity, how we see ourselves. You think about it, everything we do, how we act is ultimately motivated by how we see ourselves in relation to the world. And if we see ourselves, I love how you said it, you know, a God vision. If we see ourselves in that vision and understand how God uses people, he doesn't invite us just to be saved and hang on for dear life until he returns. Right. No, he's given us an opportunity and an assignment to be engaged in the world and to bring goodness to represent his righteousness in this world. Why for his glory, first and foremost, it's to glorify him, yes, and to bring others to an understanding of who he is. But we have to see ourselves in that vision and that then motivates us to act. To me, it's a travesty, it's an ultimate travesty of to fail to vote. I just can't imagine why I would fail to vote. I may think that I don't make the total difference, but I am one person and I need to do what I need to do. We all need to do what we need to do individually and we need to vote not for a D or an R behind the name. We need to vote for a G behind the name God. That's what we really should be voting for. And if the things that we're voting, the people that we're voting for, are not aligned predominantly with God's clear expression in his word, we ought not to be voting that way. Are we going to find any person who is perfect to vote for? Absolutely not. We're not. So we need to find the very best situation that in the predominance is in line with the word, the will and the ways of the Lord. I think just there's times when people look at the options that they have to vote for and they scratch their heads and they look at it and just don't know what to do because they don't see a in their minds a good choice. What I often say to people is sometimes you have to make the least worst choice. That's true. To do what ultimately God's given us a brain, he's asked us to impart wisdom into and discernment into the decisions that we have in life. And in our vote, we've got to make sometimes a good choice, sometimes a least worst choice, but ultimately something that's going to do the most to restrain evil and to promote good. That's exactly right. That's the purpose of government, to restrain evil and to promote righteousness, to restrain evil and to promote righteousness. All the other stuff is that best secondary and perhaps not even part of God's intent for government. That's why our founders gave us limited government. So one way to look at this is do we have a democracy? No. So those who continue to promote our democracy or democracy, the loudest voices promoting our democracy, our democracy, our democracy are the greatest enemies of democracy because they hate the Republic. They don't want to do restraints. They want an ungodly people unrestrained to be able to amass power to govern everybody else. And that's exactly what our founders feared the most, isn't it, Jason? Absolutely what they feared the most, you're right that there is such a focus on that word democracy in reality were a democratic republic, not a full democracy, before the very fear if you will, of an ignorant populace that would not bring true righteousness and moral decisions into electing leaders. You know, it's interesting. The 75th anniversary edition of forms magazine, you're a businessman, former businessman and the 75th anniversary of forms magazine 1992 was devoted exclusively to one issue. You know what it was? Whatever happened to virtue in America. The whole magazine was about a half an inch thick. Whatever happened to virtue in America, you know what our founders said? If we lose virtue, we've lost the country and yet virtue is a despised word today, particularly in one of the political parties that is doing everything it can to undermine every aspect of biblical virtue known to man. Should that not make a difference in the way we vote? It should and when you look at the, I mean, you can look at the party platforms. One way to look at the, and decide who to vote for is to simply say, you know what? These people are going to make decisions on legislation and policy based on their platforms. And to your point, there's one party that has literally removed the word God from their platforms and elevated choice over life and done some other things. Now the other party is moving in that direction and so we have to be wise and discern what's really happening. Absolutely. But that's a great way to look at your choices is to say what are the policies that I most support between these types of candidates. Good point. You have a website, don't you? I do. You can certainly get equipped to vote. We have a section called my voter hub and for upcoming elections get all the information that you need there, including voter guys. And if you want to help others vote, other Christians, we have a great campaign called Right Now, it's WRITE right now sending letters to other Christians who are not likely to vote and giving them some encouragement to do so. We'd love it if some of your listeners would join with us in that effort. All right. So we need to ask ourselves the question. What's at stake if Christians don't vote in the 2024 president's election? What's at stake? The very first thing that's at stake is religious freedom. Believe it or not, that's the very first thing that's at stake because the powers that be are doing everything they can to undermine and strip away that freedom. And that's going to lead to persecution friends. Now you know why I wrote the book when persecution comes. Comparing our hearts, prepare us times. Your vote can help stay off the development of that event. I would hope it would. We've got to do the best that we can. Remember what James said, "Be you doers of the word and not yours only, deceiving your own selves." Let's be doers of the word. Let's seize the opportunity as ambassadors to vote when we should. Thanks for joining us. And thank you to you, Jason, for joining us. Lord bless you as you continue to press on. Thanks for being there for us and fleeing the cause in Jesus' name. God bless, my friends, and be a blessing. You've been listening to Viewpoint with Chuck Chrismeyer. Viewpoint is supported by the faithful gifts of our listeners. Let me urge you to become a partner with Chuck as a voice to the church, declaring vision for the nation. Join us again next time on Viewpoint as we confront the issues of America's heart and hope. of the world.