In Depth Program with father and faith and Freedom Coalition founder ralph reed. The books include politically incorrect, active faith and for god and country the christian case for trump published earlier this year. Host when we ask you what your Favorite Books are the first you list is the bible. Is the bible a political book . Guest i dont think of it that way. Politics and how we order our society is, the bible is primarily the revelation of principles for humanity. The best way to know the keys to living a godly life with intimacy, with him and if you believe in the new testament as i do his son jesus christ. I think of a trained historian it is one of the most important history books you will ever read. If you want to understand the ancient world there is no better Single Source than the bible. It is there, the rise and fall of empires, babylon to persians to the greeks to the roman empire and then finally even if you dont share my faith or the jewish or Christian Faith i think it is one of the most important books of philosophy ever written. If you read the psalms, proverbs, even if you dont have a monotheistic view of the world, the philosophical belief that are found in scripture are some of the most timeless and eternal and important ever written. Host how do you come to your Christian Faith . Guest i was raised in the church, my parents grew up in the methodist church. I grew up in the methodist church, my best friend growing up was the son of my pastor, my father was chairman of the board, deacons or elders, my mother was head of methodist youth fellowship. I grew up going to methodist youth camp and grew up going to sunday school. I didnt know another life other than that. It was the way i was raised but i never really had a personal relationship with jesus christ. When i got excited about politics as a teenager i kind of went off on the track and worked on campaigns and went to washington dc, working at the Republican National committee at long story short i did not find that to be satisfying. Did not find it to fill the void that was inside me. I came in contact with some Young Christians who were involved, republicans who share their faith with me but more importantly just shared their lives with me. They loved me, we became good friends and i saw a happiness and joy in them i had never known. I was curious where it came from and that ultimately led me to drive to a Small Evangelical Church outside washington dc on september 18th, 1983, and at that Church Service i gave my life to jesus christ. Host why are you a conservative . Guest i believe in free markets. I believe in capitalism, not unfettered unhinged capitalism but capitalism that is governed by the principles i referred to earlier about caring for the poor, caring for the downtrodden, the left behind, the marginalized, i believe free markets and free minds are the together, freedom in a civic sense, freedom in the markets has been the greatest generator of wealth of happiness and peace and stability in all recorded history and i believe conservatism, which has found its form in the Republican Party in the modern context, the post world war ii period is the best way to preserve, guard and protect those free minds and free markets and unfortunately liberalism which has found its home in the modern Democratic Party in the post depression post new deal context spent most of its time trying to restrict and even crush those freedoms and those markets and believes in the redistribution of wealth, trying to create equality of outcomes rather than maximizing the wealth and progress that comes from free markets and free minds so over time because of the way i was raised, my father served in the u. S. Navy during the vietnam conflict and was a career Naval Reserve officer, i grew up in a household of faith, that was the way i grew up but over time i made my own independent decision based on my own study and my own involvement. Host your 1996 book act of faith what does it mean to be a person of faith in the political world, no different from being a christian or any other vocation, politics is a contact sport, i have a job to do, it involves having to advance my agenda. I play hard and try to win but i never hit below the belt. Guest right. A lot of times i get asked the question what is the proper relationship between christianity and our faith, seems to be such a dirty business, so cutthroat and first of all there are two answers, the first, we are called for men and women of faith to be involved in polity wherever god has placed us. In the time of the ancient jews that sometimes mens being under subjugation of an occupying power, babylonians or persians. In the current context it means for me being a citizen of the United States and i think we have civic responsibilities and heavenly responsibility as we carry two passports. We are citizens in two realms in two kingdoms, one is of the United States, we are american citizens and the other is of the kingdom of god which is both here today and still to come and each carries responsibilities. As a citizen of the heavenly kingdom i am called to obedience to gods commandments, to share the gospel with others, to pray, to read the bible and to worship, not collect the coming together of believers, certain responsibilities and in the earthly context there are certain responsibilities which i believe are registered to vote, informed, to vote, to make your views known to elected officials, to petition our government to redress grievances, and injustices and if we understand our faith we are to be muscular citizens of both and the reason we are called to be muscular and robust citizens in the earthly realm, by electing the right person or passing the right law. Gods kingdom will only come when christ returns but until then we are to occupy until he comes and if we understand our citizenship, it is effective in two ways. It can protect the innocent. And and in the antebellum period, and not just pray for jesus to come back, in their time. It allows the gospel to spread and rise to the highest and most influential level of our society. Because a Civic Engagement. In other words other people become aware of our faith and principles that are exposed to them and in the civic process and the new testament, the apostle paul was a citizen of rome, to the emperor which was a right of a roman citizen. Members of caesars household came to know jesus christ, in semi pistol paul wrote later he sends greetings from members of caesars household, governors and roman officials exposed to the gospel only because paul chose to be an effective citizen. That is the way i approach it. Host from your book awakening, how america can turn from moral and economic destruction back to greatness you talk about a topic we are talking about today, because we have never fully repented for the injustices and wrongs during slavery and segregation weve never experienced the healing that comes through the redemptive process of forgiveness. Until we do we will not fully experience the spiritual awakening our nation desperately needs. That is not a profit original to me. In that chapter i quote a beautiful speech my good friend Mike Huckabee gave as governor of arkansas to honor the children who were the first to integrate the high school in little rock, arkansas that led to Dwight Eisenhower federalizing the National Guard to protect those young people and Mike Huckabee said, and backwardness experienced in the Twentieth Century is attributable for the sin of segregation to the failure to fully repented of that sin and i still believe that is true and individually and collectively as a nation we need to acknowledge this sin occurred, that it was a collective, elected jim crow and subjected africanamerican citizens to be secondclass citizens and deny them their rights as americans and by omission, those who allowed it to go on and failed to oppose it, no question, there is a lot of controversy about the 1619 project, there has been a distortion of truths about American History and that project it is undeniable as the historian Edmund Morgan wrote in american slavery american freedom, was inextricably intertwined with slavery, it has been difficult for us as a society to disentangle the two, almost 400 years after the first europeans landed on the continent. Host does that include preparation . Guest i have not felt that is the way to go because it is hard, 150 years after slavery to figure out who gets compensated and how, it was done for the victims of the japanese internment during world war ii, made a monetary payment to those who were denied their freedom, in an internment camp, of franklin roosevelt, it is difficult to do it 150 years later after the civil war. You can express a repentant spirit. Some of it is personal, some of it is spiritual and some of it does take place in Public Policy without getting into a fullblown Public Policy discussion today i think areas like healthcare, criminal Justice Reform, Economic Empowerment, education reform and opportunity we can build a society that is just and we can build a society that is based on equal opportunity for everyone and we can make sure no one is left behind particularly those minority americans and africanamericans who have been denied that opportunity and still are in many cases today. They live in neighborhoods that are not safe, their children go to school where they are not safe and cannot learn and do not have the same opportunity, we should do what we can to address that. Im a supporter of donald trump but when you look at his education reform and School Choice agenda, look at his Economic Empowerment agenda, lowering africanamerican unemployment to the lowest level in recorded economic history, look at his opportunitys own agenda where they have unleashed 5 billion in capital that is flowing into hundreds of opportunity zones mostly in disenfranchised minority areas of urban and rural centers, and, Justice Reform, historic to address what i think was the two tiered Justice System for too many minority americans. Donald trump wants to do it and once we get past this election on this partisan, to be able. Host your most recent book is for god and country the christian case for trump. Did you just lay out your christian case for trump . Guest somewhat. That certainly is part of what i talk about. I have a proposed in both awakening, the 2014 book and for god and country the christian case for trump i lay out what i say is not a republican or democrat, not necessarily liberal or 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 has traditionally been. It is not generally understood because people tend to look at conservatives of faith and think theyre reflexively republican but they have changed the Republican Party far more than the Republican Party has changed them. They made the Republican Party a Prolife Party 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 being lost and being taken systematically by what i consider to be a great social injustice. We have also changed the Republican Party on the issue of criminal Justice Reform. Historically the Republican Party has been a tough on crime pretty, lock them up and throw away the key party and through our efforts, largely our efforts this has come through the Faith Community. We called for more biblical criminal Justice System based on redemption and not simple punishment, giving people a Second Chance at life and focusing particularly on nonviolent first offenders, compassionate, humane, tough love alternative to longterm incarceration like job training, mentorship programs, spiritual programs including those led by prison fellowship and others administer to inmates and leave them to a better life spiritually and the last one is Immigration Reform, most people focus on Donald Trumps desire for Border Security and building a wall to secure the border but beyond that we have also called for welcoming the stranger and welcoming the immigrant and making sure they apply by our law we also treat them with compassion and give them a chance if they obey our laws and pay taxes and if they get a job or go to school, they get a path to citizenship, we call for permanent residency and dont oppose a path to citizenship for the entire dreamer population because we dont think young people should be punished for crimes their parents committed. We think the bible teaches you dont punish the child for the sin of the father and so if they are violating laws, if they are trying to do that that is a different deal. They have a job, getting an education, we think they can be part of the greatness of america and we called for part of a comprehensive solution to the immigration system allowing them to have residence. I think there is such an agenda, that is what we work on. Most of the time we find ourselves in agreement with the Republican Party but not always. Host is there a comfort in evangelical circles with the president because of the personal issues that have been reported on . Sure. As i point out in for god and country the christian case for trump there has been some revisionist history by the media about how evangelicals came to support donald trump. I wrote for god and country the christian case for trump not so much to defend trump although i do plenty of that in the book and happily so but i also wrote the book primarily as defense of the Faith Community because they have been called every name in the book, hypocrites, spiritual frauds, phonies, selling out the gospel for 30 pieces of silver, compromising their deeply held spiritual beliefs in order to have access to power and get a few items on their policy agenda, they have been smeared, lied about, i knew better because i was there. I was in the room with these faith leaders and what the exit polls show is two thirds of self identified evangelicals voted for someone other than donald trump in the 2016 primary come mostly to cruise, marco rubio, santorum or someone like that, for many of them donald trump is not only their first choice, their second or third or fourth choice. As they get to the general election, there is a binary choice between donald trump and Hillary Clinton and he was prolife and proreligious freedom and proisrael, he released a list during the campaign, we should point out there was a vacancy on the supreme court. If you elect the president i will choose from this list. Sometimes we are not always aware of the history 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 is court pics would be. No one had ever done that before. They voted on faith based on this binary choice because of these issues of life, support for the state of israel, judicial and court pics that would decide those and other issues, deeply held moral beliefs that derived from their faith and they voted for trump on faith in spite of these reservations they had about his character, and looked at Hillary Clinton and had reservations about her character. She was under fbi investigation for much of the campaign and that investigation reopened 10 days before the election. As in 2020 they look at the candidates, neither one is perfect but one of them is making commitments based on deeply held beliefs and we are going to vote for those beliefs not because he is perfect, not because everything he says or does even now or in his life we necessarily agree with but because we have two choices and in the case of joe biden in 2020, when you have a candidate in biden who is 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 all, evangelicals and faithful catholics believe that is a grave moral evil and cannot and will not vote for a candidate who is embracing that agenda. At the Democratic Convention they spent a lot of time talking about what a good guy joe was and how much empathy he has for people. We have empathy too, we have empathy for unborn innocent human beings who are losing their lives under an unjust regime of abortion on demand and he not only favors that, he wants to subsidize it with tax dollars, endorsed by planned parenthood, the number one Lobby Organization of that agenda and even wants to make it an entitlement under government run healthcare and wants to sue ministries like Little Sisters of the poo