The bible is primarily the revelation of gods plan and principles for humanity. And the best way to know is the keys to living a godly life with intimacy and if you believe in the new testament the son jesus christ. Its one of the most important history books youll ever read. If you want to understand the ancient world there is no better Single Source than the bible. With the babylon to the neo persians to the greeks and their roman empire. Finally even if you dont share my faith for the jewish for Christian Faith and even if you only have a monotheistic view of the world some scripture is timeless and eternal and most important never written. Host how did you come to your Christian Faith . I was raised in the church. My parents grew up in the methodist church. My best friend was the son of my a pastor and then chairman of the board of deacons and elders and my mother was the head of the methodist youth fellowship i grew up going to methodist youth camp and going on going to sunday school i didnt know any other life other than that. But i never really had a personal relationship with jesus christ. And then to go to washington dc after working on campaigns and working at the rnc and long story short i did not find that to beot satisfying and then too come in contact with those christians involved with collegere republicans and more importantly share their lives with me. We became good friends and i saw happiness and the joy i had never known. I was curious where it came from and that ultimately led to driving to a Small Evangelical Church september 18, 1983 and at that Church Service i gave my life to jesus christ. Why are you a conservative . I believe in free markets with a capitalism governed by the principles i referred to earlier about caring for the poor in the downtrodden and the marginalized and i believe free market and together are a freedom in the civic sense and the freedom in the market is the greatest generator of wealth and happiness and peace and stability in all recorded human history. I believe conservativism which is founded salmon the Republican Party in the postworld war ii period is the best way to preserve and guard and protect those free minds and free markets andte unfortunately liberalism has found its omen the modern Democratic Party the post depression new deal context spends most of its time trying to restrict and crush those freedoms in the markets and believes in the redistribution of wealth with the quality of outcome rather than maximizing the wealth and theog progress that comes from free markets and free minds. Overtime because of the way i was raised growing up in a military family, my father served in the u. S. Navy during vietnam. Than a career Naval Reserve officer. I grew up in a household of s faith. Thats the way i grew up make my own decisions and involvement. Host from 1996 book act of faith what is it mean to be a person of faith of the political world . No different than a question in any other vocation it is a contact sport i play hard and try to win but i never hit below the belt. Right. A lot of times i am asked the proper relationship between christianity or our faith and politics. Its a dirty business and cutthroat. First we are called wherever god is one has placed us in the time of the ancient jews to be under subjugation whether the babylonians or the romans in the current context to be a citizen of the United States. Have earthly responsibilities and carry two passports we are citizens one is of the United States and the other is the kingdom of god. And each carries responsibilities as of the heavenly kingdom i am called to obedience to gods commandments to pray or read the bible and to worship and not neglect the coming together of believers there are certain responsibilities in in the earthly context there are certain responsibilities like register to vote, to make ones views to elected officials and to petition our government to address grievances and injustices. If we fully understand our faith we are to be muscular citizensea of both and the reason why we are called to be robust in the earthly realm not only to usher in the kingdom of god, we cant do that. Gods kingdom will only come when christ returns. But until then we should understand our citizenship of the biblical understanding, its effective in two ways. Ff number one, it can protect the innocent and establish justice and redress injustice and evil. Certainly the Civil Rights Movement did that in the 19 sixties, the anti Slavery Movement did that with the antebellum period and through the civil war, the temperancee movement and the Suffragist Movement in the late 19th century. They were not just on their knees praying for jesus to come back but doing everything they could to combat evil in their time. The second thing it does is allow the gospel to spread and rise to the highest and most influential levels of our society because of our Civic Engagement. Another words, other people become aware of our faith and principles and are exposed to tothem in an altogether positive way because we are engaged in the civic process. For example when you read the new testament because the apostle paul was a citizen of room a of rome appealing his case to the emperor which is the right of a roman citizen , the bible says many members of caesars household came to know jesus christ because paul did that he sends greetings from members of caesars household there were governor on governors and roman officials exposed to the gospel only because paul chose to be an effective citizen. Thats the way i approach it. Host from your 2014 book awakening, you talk about a topic that because we have never fully repented for the injustices and wrongs during slavery and segregation, we have never experienced the healing coming to the redemptive process of repentance and forgiveness. Until we do we will not fully experience the spiritual awakening our nation so desperately needs. Yes. That is not a thought that is original to me. In that chapter i quote a beautiful speech that my good friend Mike Huckabee gave when he was governor of arkansas to honor the children who were the first to integrate the high school in little rock that led d to Dwight D Eisenhower federalizing the National Guard to protect those young people from the violence they were threatened with. Mike huckabee said in the fact the same words and that some of the poverty and the backwardness arkansas had experienced in the 20th century was attributable to the sin of racism and segregation and specifically to the failure to fully repented of that sin. I still believe thats true. We both individually and collectively as a nation need to acknowledge this said no kurd, kurd, its a collective sin of commission by those who erected jim crow and subjected africanamericans citizens to be secondclass citizens and deny rights as americans and by omission that allowed it to go on and failed to oppose it. There is no question that its true of a the 1619 project at the New York Times and there has been a distortion in some truth of American History, it is undeniable as a historian row in american slavery and American Freedom that was inextricably intertwined with slavery and its been very difficult for us as a society to disentangle the two almost 400 years after l the first europeans landed on the continent. Host does that repentance include reparation . I have not felt that was the way to go because its very hard 150 years after the end of slavery to figure out who gets compensated and how. It was done for the victims of the japanese internment world war ii. Congress passed a law and made a monetary payment to the family of those who were denied theirre freedom as citizens. And those put in internment camps under the administration of Franklin Roosevelt it be very difficult to do it 150 years later. Needs to be done during the civil war or reconstruction but there are other ways you can ask that one expressed that spirit some of that is personal some of that does take place in Public Policy and without getting into a full blown Public Policy discussion today areas like healthcare, criminal Justice Reform, Economic Empowerment we can build a society that is just based on equal opportunity for everyone and make sure no one is left behind. Particularly those minority americans and africanamericans that have been denied that opportunity and are today they live in neighborhoods that are not safe. Children go to school for they are not safe and cannot learn and do not have the same opportunities as other americans and we should do everything we can to redress that im a supporter of President Trump whether you look at his education reform in School Choice agenda , Economic Empowerment agenda, lowering africanamerican unemployment to the lowest level in recorded history e, his opportunity agenda they have unleashed approximately 5 billion in capital flowing into opportunity zones mostly with disenfranchised minority areas and then you look at criminal Justice Reform to address what i think is a twotier Justice System for too many minority americans. It is possible. Donald trump wants to do it i think and once we get past the election and the partisan season that were in, i am optimistic. Host your most recent book is for god and country. Did you just lay out your question case for trump . Somewhat. Certainly is part of what i talk about. I have proposed in both awakening in the 2014 book, i lay out what i say is not a republican or democrat, not a liberal or a conservative but a biblical agenda for the country. And in some cases like criminal Justice Reform and Immigration Reform, we end up in a different place than the Republican Party traditionally has been. Is generally not understood because people look at conservatives of faith and just think they are reflexively republican but they have changed the Republican Party far more than the Republican Party has change them. They made the Republican Party prolife and i believe black lives matter i believe all black lives matter including unborn lives. And abortion is one of those cases where disproportionately minority lives are lost and taken systematically by what i consider to be a grave social injustice. We change the Republican Party on the issue of criminal Justice Reform. Historically the Republican Party has been tough on crime lock them up and throw away the key. Through our efforts not just ours but largely our efforts this has come through the Faith Community we have called for a more biblical criminal Justice System based on redemption and not punishment giving people a Second Chance at life and focusing on nonviolent first offenders compassionate and humane and tough love alternative to longterm incarceration like job training, mentorships , spiritual programs including those led by prisont fellowship that minister to inmates and lead them to a better life spiritually. And lastly Immigration Reform. Most people focus on Donald Trumps desire for Border Security and building a wall to secure the border. But beyond that we also have called for welcoming the stranger and welcoming the immigrant and making sure that while they abide by our laws, we also treat them with compassion and give them the chance, if they obey our laws and pay taxes and get a job or go to schoo school, being able to have a path to citizenship. We call for eithery permanent residency for the entire dreamer population. Those young people should not be punished for the crime their parents committed. We believe the bible teaches you dont punish the child for the sin of ther. Father. Again, they are violating law laws, trying to get on publicc assistance, thats different. Serve in the military, have a job or getting an education, we think they should be part of the greatness of america and we have called forive as part of a comprehensive system to allow them to have residents. I think there is such an agenda. Thats we work on. Most of the times we find ourselves inhpu agreement with the Republican Party but not always. Host mr. Reid is there some discomfort in evangelical circles with the president because of personal issues . A sure. As i point out in for god and country, there has been a little bit of revisionist history by the media how evangelicals came to support donald trump. I wrote for god and country not so much to defend trump all the way do plenty of that in the book. I wrote it primarily as a defense of the Faith Community because they have been called any one every name in the book advocates, phony, spiritual fraud g, selling out the gospel for 30 pieces of silver, compromising their beliefs for access to power, power, getting items on the policy agenda, smeared, lied and i knew better. I was there and i was in the room with these faiths. Leaders. At the exit poll shows is two thirds of self identified evangelicals voted for someone other than donald trump in the 2016 primary huckabee or santorum or someone like that. For many of them not only was he not their first choice he was in second or third or fourth. I met a lot of people in the Faith Community for whom he was the 17th choice. But once they got to the general election and a b feist faced trump and clinton and he was prolife and pro religious freedom and pro israel and released list during the campaign of respected conservative and prolife judge judges. We should point out at the moment there was a vacancy on the Supremee Court that either he or Hillary Clinton would fill. He said i will choose from this list. Sometimes we are not always aware of the history that is being made in front of our eyes but donald trump was the First Major Party president ial candidate in us history to ever tell us who his pics would be. Nobody has done that before. They voted on faith based on the binaryic choice because when these issues of life and support for the state of israel and the judicial and court pics that would decide those and other issues for their communityh community, these are deeply held moral beliefs that they believe derive from their faith so they voted for trump despite of the reservations they had about his character or background. And keep in mind they looked at Hillary Clinton and they had reservations about her characte character. After all she was under fbi investigation for much of the campaign and that was reopened just ten days before the election. As in 2020, they looked at the two candidates, neither is perfect, but one is making commitments to us based on deeply held moral beliefs and we will vote for those beliefs. Not because he is perfect for everything he says or does now or in his life we agree wit with, but we have two choices and in the case of joe biden in 2020, when you have a candidate in biden advocating abortion on demand up to the moment of birth paid for with tax dollars and as an entitlement under a government run Healthcare System modeled on medicare for al all, these evangelicals believe that is a grave moral evil and they cannot and will not vote for a candidateho who is embracing that agenda. Now at the Democratic Convention, they spent a lot of time talking about what a good guy he was and how much empathy he has for people. We have empathy for the unborn innocent human beings that are losing their lives under the unjust regime of abortion on demand and he not only favors that, he wants to subsidize it with tax dollars and endorsed by planned parenthood the number one lobbying organization of that agenda and wants to make it and entitlement under government run healthcare and then he wants to sue ministries like the Little Sisters of the poor are privately held christian businesses who declined to participate in the evil. Thats why they voted for trump before and thats why they will vote for him and even bigger numbers in two months. Host good afternoon and thank you for joining us on book tv cspan2. Monthly in Depth Program we have one author to talk about his body of work. This month is author ralph reed, the author of eight books beginning in 1995 after the revolution came out how the Christian Coalition impacted america m politically incorrect emerging faith factor in p emerging politics in 1996. And then in 2014 awakening came out. And his most recent book came out this yearisti for god and country. R also the author of three novels, dark horse, the confirmation and ballots and blood. Well ask him about that as wel well. Host mr. Reid people probably know you through yourth involvement with the faith and Freedom Coalition and republican politics perhaps they didnt know yo