America at 250: What Does It Mean to Be a Christian Citizen?

As America approaches its 250th anniversary, we explore what it means to be both a Christian and an American citizen. We discuss the blessings of living in a representative democracy, the importance of honoring governing authorities, and how faith shapes political engagement. From voting and civic responsibility to trusting God in uncertain times, this conversation encourages Christians to approach politics with gratitude, wisdom, love, and humility. Join us as we reflect on patriotism, freedom, and the responsibility of living out our faith while remembering that our ultimate citizenship is in heaven. 

Transcript

What Christians Neglect Most

SPEAKER_01 0:00

On today's episode.

SPEAKER_00 0:01

What do we most neglect as Christian citizens? I'll just say in America, but I think it's generally true for everyone, but it's trust. Trust in God. We let events or pundits or politicians or influencers make us afraid. And then we forget that God's in control. No matter who's in office or what he or she is doing or deciding. And either or, you know, it might might be, you know, at the same time, we think and act as though everything is up to us. And that uh the nation will fall and Christianity will be condemned unless we do X or Y, and we get all the other Christians in the country to also do X and Y. And again, forget that God's in control.

America’s 250th Anniversary Explained

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Welcome to the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Our world today presents people with complicated issues of life and death, marriage and family, health, and science. It can be a struggle to understand or deal with them. We're here to help by bringing good information and a fresh biblical perspective to these matters and more. Join us now for life challenges.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Hi, and welcome back. I'm Krista Potratz, and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samelson. And today we have a very special episode for you. We are going to talk about America and the 250th anniversary. I think it's got some really fun name. What is it?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Oh, that that whole wonk. Go ahead, Jeff. Well, it's the uh the one that I think has been most settled on is the semi-quincentennial.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

It can also be called the Sestercentennial. And there's another one that's even less common. It's like Cisquit centennial or something like that. But basically it's a fancy Latinate way of of saying 250 years.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Yeah, yeah. And you know, I mean, we've done a a lot of episodes on America and and just different things here too. But just thought, I mean, especially like with the Fourth of July and this big anniversary type of day, to also just revisit some of these things that we've talked about before, too. So yeah, I mean, Jeff Bob, I mean, can you give us a little maybe introduction here as to this the celebration?

SPEAKER_02 2:25

That'd be a good Jeff Jeff thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

He's the poly sci guy here.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Okay, well, if you count back 250 years from this year, you get to 1776. And it was in seven set 1776 that uh the uh Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia, assigned uh the Declaration of Independence. We celebrate it as July 4th. I believe the actual uh date, getting really technical about it, is the second, but it doesn't really make that much difference. It's something to celebrate. And this was something that was not done lightly. It's uh I think it's perhaps helpful to remember that this was after we'd already been fighting with the British for a while, and there was still a lot of resistance. Should we really be doing this? This is an awfully big step. And it took a while of some years of war for the uh American colonies to finally uh say, yeah, this this can't continue. The only uh way out from this conflict that we have is is through independence.

Is America A Creed Or A Country

SPEAKER_00 3:30

And I don't know how many people would be aware of this. There's there is actually a bit of a controversy mostly on the right these days in America about whether it's proper to talk about uh America as a belief or that we're a nation unlike others and that we're founded on a creed, not creed in like the Christian sense, but creed in the sense of a set of beliefs that set us apart. These are the things that we are all committed to. But it's really you know something because the uh the Declaration of Independence for a long time wasn't really considered the foundational seminal document for America that we look at it as now. It was the Constitution that was the more important thing. But largely a lot of it actually had to do with uh Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address really raising up the uh Declaration of Independence. This is this is what we believe. This is what it means to be American. And so those values, those beliefs, those principles became the thing that changed us as a nation in many ways, identified us as a nation. And because of that, it's had a lot to do with the difference that we have made existing in in this world of ours. And so, you know, all this large reason for why we're celebrating.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

It's unique because we'll and we'll get into the a little bit of the minutiae of of what it means to be uh America, but uh it has raised a lot of questions, especially lately, again, about Christian nationalism, freedom of religion, the establishment clause, and all those kinds of things, and we'll we'll get into that. But we enjoy freedoms in America, and sometimes American patriotism almost becomes a religion unto itself. To be honest, I've ha I have a a flag waving in front of my house and it it waves out there all the time because I there's a lot about America that I love, the ideals. I have um somebody else in the subdivision during the month of June uh had the uh the gay rights flag, the pride flag hanging out there. And okay, so that's what they believe in, you know. And so sometimes we just hang the flag out because it's it's a cool decoration, you know. And uh but we're you know, hopefully in this episode we'll talk a little bit kind of what it what it means now today, you know, for us.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

One of the areas, maybe just to kind of start with too, is just I mean,

Government In Scripture Versus A Republic

SPEAKER_01 5:58

I think we've kind of talked a little bit about this in the past as well, but uh how this form of governing is different than what we the than what uh is described in the Bible.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Well, I'd like to start just by uh affirming what is similar in and it's the most important way. The powers that be, whether they're we're talking presidents, congressmen, kings, emperors, or judges or whatever, the powers that be still derive their authority from God. Romans 13 1 says, No authority exists except by God, and the authorities that do exist have been established by God. That principle stays through no matter what form of government you're talking about, no matter what what time they're and no matter how good or not good they are.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Yeah. You know, even the bad governments, the fact that they're bad is not the fault of God.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. But the dissimilarities are uh you know are are probably the uh the easier things to point out. If you look at the Old Testament, Israel, there there's um in that, there's direct involvement of the Lord in choosing who's going to lead, whether it's the the judges or the uh the kings, or at least you know choosing the family line from which the kings are going to come, sometimes even kings of foreign nations, uh you know, other than Israel. That's not what we have. There's no direct involvement of the Lord in choosing our leaders here in uh in the United States. If you look at the New Testament time, there we didn't see the Lord directly involved in choosing the leaders, but we have a Roman Empire governing everyone and uh Caesar at the top of that, and that's that's not what we see here uh in America either. What we have in the U.S. is a representative democracy. It's also called a republic, uh as a form of government, you know, a small R republican government. And this means that the people vote for the leaders who will make the decisions about the nation's laws and policies and practices and uh etc. Uh a pure democracy would mean that every decision that is made is put to a vote, and that is unworkable. Uh you might be able to do that in a small town, uh, but you can't do that in in a nation, especially not one the size of ours or with complex issues that we have to deal with. And in a representative democracy, the leaders that are elected have authority, but in systems like ours, that authority is understood to derive from the fact that they were elected by the people, which means that the power that they express is the people's power, and it's exercised on their behalf. And that's the basic idea of a representative democracy. One last thing there, that the idea of voting, or at least, you know, people getting together to reach some kind of agreement, that does exist in the Bible, so it's not like that is contrary to scripture. It's just that there are really no situations in the Bible where we see a nation governed by those principles. But if you look in the Old Testament, there are various times where you know the people are gathered and uh, you know, the leader asks, so what are we going to do about this? And something like that. And we see some bad examples of that too, with the Sanedrin voting to uh convict Jesus and uh Pilate asking the crowd, you know, what what shall I do with this man Jesus? And well, they were the loudest, you know, calling to crucify him, so I guess that's what we'll do. That would be a bad example of kind of a democratic impulse. But the mere existence of those things doesn't mean that there's anything uh contrary to scripture about the system that we have.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

And I think it's important to remember that when we're trying to navigate the challenges of a republic form of uh governing, that we don't have an exact parallel in Scripture. The Roman government was uh a representative form of government, but the Jewish people had no voice in that, you know, to speak of. There's uh more of nobility and so forth, so it was representative on a limited basis. So w there is a uniqueness to our form, and I think as we continue to wade deeper into understanding our responsibilities of getting involved in doing things, it isn't like we could point to the second Jude and point you know, it says Second Jude three says that we must be doing this. We're basically applying. And I think Jeff correctly uh pointed out the number one governing principle is that the government's established by God and uh even its various forms. And uh so we accept that.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

You know, and looking at our form of government that we have, what specific blessing uh with our government should Christians

Gratitude For Stability And Freedoms

SPEAKER_01 10:31

be especially thankful for? Um what kind of stands out as something that we as Christians um can be thankful for?

SPEAKER_00 10:40

This is a really important point because I think it it's it's foundational for so much else uh as as we as think Christians think about this. It's with thanks. It's about gratitude. It's looking at things that we have as blessings, focusing on that rather than on problems or deficiencies and things like that. I think something that's often not appreciated is simply the fact that our form of government has endured as long as it has. You you look all over the world, and there are nations that uh we look at as, oh yeah, that's a good uh democratic country or whatever. Oh, how long have they been been that way? Uh five years, fifty years, maybe seventy-five. Nation of France, I forget what it is, they're on some, I don't know, someone like their sixth constitution. We we would think of them as you know pretty bedrock of you know uh Western values and things like that. And so the mere fact that you know our system has endured, uh, and it's not just an accident of history. It's not like, well, we were too lazy to do anything else. No, it's it's because I I'll say God blessed the people who were designing our system with wisdom in in doing that. And so we set it something up that's uh uh has has lasted. Uh we withstood a civil war, probably the single greatest crisis this nation has ever uh had to deal with. And with the Union winning that war, it really established that the principles of our democratic republic uh you know they're they're that much more firmly rooted for us. We said, okay, this was something worth fighting for, that was something worth winning, and and you know, now that we've done that, this is who we are, and this is what we're we're we're standing for. I think there are also some surprising things, again, if you compare it to the rest of history and much of the rest of the world. Generally, when things don't go your way, Americans don't respond with violence. Or not supposed to. Yeah. And and and generally, when things do go your way, you don't respond with violence to wipe out the other side, which is again pretty common throughout history. There've been no really serious attempts at revolution beyond what we were talking about with the Civil War. And yeah, just simple things. You know, after uh the Revolutionary War, Europeans looked and they were really surprised that like Washington didn't want to be king. Um, they were even more surprised when he stepped down after two terms as president. It's just like, yeah, why why why would somebody do that? And it just showed that there were principles involved uh that uh the nation really valued and said, we're we're gonna stick with these.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

You know, and I I was just gonna say too, that uh I think it was about a year ago that we had Joe Lee on the podcast and uh your friend Bob from China. And I think, you know, one of the things that really struck me was I think you even kind of asked her, like, how do you c basically like follow the Great Commission and go and make disciples when your government doesn't want you to do that? And so I mean, I I think like as a Christian, that is really a wonderful thing with our government, too, that we do have the ability to do that.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

I I've often wondered, have we thought deeply about what the government's supposed to be doing? It's interesting because, of course, my reading, my study goes into the area of ethics and future trends and technology and so forth. And there's an incredibly strong, deep financial interest in longevity and so forth. And oftentimes government was designed to sustain people for their lifetime on the earth. And I I've sensed over the um you know the last uh especially maybe the last half dozen years, that government's beginning to take on more of the nature of truly trying to create heaven on earth. You know, it's

When Government Tries To Make Heaven

SPEAKER_02 14:26

it's we're not just trying to make uh you know a uh a safe place for people to live and a prosperous place for people to enjoy, but now we want to make it for a long time. And uh so you begin to find, you know, some bad players in different different fields of technology beginning to choose, you know, what what are the kind of people we want to endure and what are the kind of people we don't want to endure, which is uh you know, I've often said that I kind of believe in a cyclic cyclical view of history where things tend to keep going around and around and around, but it it looks a little bit different because we get more technical about it. So it's maybe not the eugenics during the Nazi period in Germany, but it's a different kind of eugenics. We begin to to justify picking and choosing the kinds of people we want and the kind of babies we want and so forth. And we begin to justify it by, well, they wouldn't want to live like that. So we're not gonna be as bold as to say a life not worth living, which was a mantra during the eugenics movement uh during the World War II era, to now saying, well, they probably wouldn't want to live like that. And for uh Americans, Christian Americans, it puts us at a crossroads. You're gonna have to start figuring out what are we still after, what are we trying to hold on to, and then how do you how do you navigate that cycle?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Yeah, you know, another kind of difficult thing to navigate, I think, is scripture calls us to honor governing authorities while remembering, though, at the same time that our ultimate citizenship is in heaven.

Honoring Leaders You Did Not Choose

SPEAKER_01 16:00

How does that tension really play out for us, you know, when you think about America and especially America 250 here?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yeah, there are many different answers to that question. I'll I guess I'll just start by saying I I think that one of the challenges of being a Christian in a democracy like ours, particularly if we're politically engaged, is that we're inclined to think probably more subconsciously than consciously. But we think that, well, if I'm exercising authority when I vote and I'm voting Christianly, then when people I didn't vote for end up in office, somehow they must be illegitimate. Because I didn't approve, and I I did the Christian thing. So if if they're illegitimate then because of for that, then then I don't really owe them honor or respect or obedience. And then you end up with Christians, uh people who call themselves Christians being uh disrespectful, being disobedient and and and contributing to bad things in society and standing as though they're doing something heroic.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

And that's on both sides of the aisle, too.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Yeah. And it's uh well, no, that's that's that's not the way the Bible is written. You know, uh, you know, again, we we point out always that you know Romans 13, where it talks about you know the duty we we as Christians owe to the government, that was written under Nero. He was no friend to Christianity. And so duly elected representatives, even or even if they're just effectively installed, they they hold positions in government, and so therefore they are God's representatives, whether I approve of them or not. That doesn't mean everything they're doing is right. That doesn't mean that uh you know I can't criticize it or or try to work against it. But the relevant passages in scripture don't carve out exceptions based on our opinions of who deserves our submission and who doesn't.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

Well, and we saw that with Jesus when they they tried to trap him with should we be paying taxes? Jesus essentially endorsed giving to Caesar that which is Caesar's, which was going to pay the salaries of the people who are going to execute him. When you think about it, I mean it's just pretty profound, but but that's because he saw a higher principle at work. And that is that you respect uh those in government even when uh it doesn't like to have said it doesn't turn out your guy, I first of all I like the word Christianly. I'm sure I'm sure that's in my dictionary somewhere. But we do that a lot. You know, we we think that we have thought carefully, we have judged spiritually correctly, and and then our guy loses, especially when when the other side has almost you know, just shy of renounced Christianity or has chosen to go in a different religious route altogether. Even when they are elected, they are God's representatives. The fact that they don't know it or acknowledge it is their issue, but our issue is we do know it.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

One of the mental exercises that I think is really helpful is uh when you start thinking in terms of this is the way it should be, I think, okay, what what would it be like for a Christian living in Pakistan? At least in theory got a democratic government, but it uh everyone in power is Muslim. You may have certain constitutional rights, but you dare not exercise them in the same way you would as a Christian. And think about okay, what would I consider proper there? What what wouldn't my options be in there and things like that? And that that does two things. One, it helps give you perspective on the situation here in terms of okay, what is actually democratic, what is actually Christian here, what are the things that I must do because I'm a Christian, and what are the things that I'm just able to do because I'm a Christian in America? And it also then makes you appreciate that much more what we do have here in the United States, the rights and the uh um the the privileges and things that are are are in guaranteed to us in the in our uh um constitution and such. Uh we appreciate those more. But that perspective, I think, helps us appreciate more what we've got, but it also helps us appreciate more as like, okay, what's the Christian thing here and what's the uh the citizen part of being an American here? How do those balance or work together?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Mm-hmm.

Responsibilities Christians Avoid In Politics

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, no, that's true. And you know, I mean, we've talked too about like how we live in a representative form of government, and there are basic responsibilities that we have and can have like as a Christian citizen. Um, for example, it may be like voting, praying, speaking up. Do you see any of these things, any of these responsibilities that maybe as Christians we often neglect or maybe maybe don't think that are our responsibilities?

SPEAKER_00 20:48

You know, I give this a lot of thought. I'd love to hear from you first, Krista.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Yeah. From me? Yeah. Um boy, I I guess like I think people sometimes just think somebody else is gonna do it. Because we live in a government where anybody can do it, right? Like somebody else will will vote for that candidate that I want. Or, you know, we think, oh man, I live like in an area where everybody's gonna vote for the other guy. Why would my vote matter or something, or somebody else will speak up about that, or there's just so much out there already with social media, why would I contribute to that?

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Aaron Powell It's kind of like the big church problem.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

And and when you're in a big church, you know, a lot of people sit back now.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Right. Where it's like, oh, I mean, really, it is our responsibility, and and as Christians, we should feel uh uh you know, uh empowered, emboldened to do those things. But maybe it's like that mom mentality where yeah, somebody else will do it.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Aaron Ross Powell Well, and you know, uh like I said, it's like the big church. One of the problems when I was in a small mission church, you knew everybody, you knew everybody And then you get into a country of, you know, 300 plus million people, you know, you you do feel like, you know, who am I? We can leave it to somebody else. And yet, I think the answer is oftentimes found in the story of the Good Samaritan. In a re representative form of government, you have an opportunity to be a friend to a to a neighbor in a different way. You actually have a voice. Now, do you use the voice by walking by to the other side of the road, or do you get down and do something? And it's interesting because I am always troubled that people are trying to make governing and everything kind of like a heaven on earth. But at the same time, I think it's wonderful when strong Christians who have good sense, good judgment, uh run for political office and and are willing to to navigate the the challenges of representing people. My my problem is not everybody who aspires to it necessarily have the good judgment. They don't always understand that when I choose to serve uh a community that's a mixture of Muslims and Christians, or a mixture of Republicans and Democrats, or stuff like that, you know, how to navigate that in a responsible way, in a way that's that's Christianly. So I've got to use the word now.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Well, and I you know, and uh that's just kind of a good point too. I think sometimes, you know, we maybe even just put weight on like the people represent, like that those are the people then that have all the power. And, you know, I it it makes me just think about like somebody like Charlie Kirk, right? Who was not, I mean, he didn't represent, I mean not in like a political sense, right? Like he wasn't anybody's senator, governor, that type of thing. But he really seemed to carry a lot of weight politically with the the things that he was saying too. So I don't know, just kind of interesting to think about.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yeah. Well, I'm really I I tell you, I'm really big on Christian citizens engaging with politics. I you know, I I think it's something that, you know, if they are able, they should do it. Aaron Ross Powell Are you gonna announce a candidacy? No, no, but it's it's something that um it's gonna vary according to your situation, according to your knowledge, you know, all sorts of things like that. But there's there's so many things you can do. I mean, just simply saying, oh, this is a matter that concerns me. I'll pray about it. That's engaging with politics. But it can go all the way from that to you know getting involved in a campaign. Obviously, your your vote, you know, could even be as as Bob talks about, running for office yourself. But I'm gonna take a slightly different tack in answering this question about what do we most neglect as Christian citizens?

Trust God And Reject Political Panic

SPEAKER_00 24:41

I'll just say in America, but I think it's generally true for everyone. But it's trust, trust in God. We let events or pundits or politicians or influencers make us afraid, and then we forget that God's in control, no matter who's in office or or what he or she is doing or deciding. And either or, you know, it might might be, you know, at the same time we think and act as though everything is up to us and that uh the nation will fall and Christianity will be condemned unless we do X or Y, and we get all the other Christians in the country to also do X and Y. And again, forget that God's in control. Forget that nothing happens without his knowledge and that he works all things out for the good of his people. Related to this is a sense that um they I'll just say a misuse of the idea of, you know, do you know what time it is? Which is something you you may have you may have heard around. It's this idea that, okay, well, this moment right now is unique and that we have to act decisively, even if it means that we we set aside all the norms of of you know Christian character or de democratic principles or whatever, we need to do that because this moment is unique. Okay, so you're saying that God's stepped aside right now or something? It's like, no, so so we need to when we do trust to God as as Christian citizens, our calmness and our confidence, um, because we know he's got it, you know, that's not saying we're not gonna do anything, but it's saying he've he's got it. Boy, what a positive witness to the world that is. Everyone else is freaking out, we can stay calm. And it also means we can be that much more effective politically because we're we're better able to process, to strategize, to communicate when we're at peace and not freaking out ourselves. That allows us to focus better on the bigger picture and on long-term solutions, and as as Bob was getting to a little earlier, seeking to serve not just our own people, our own side, but all of the citizens who are all our neighbors whom we are called to love.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Well, and of course, the mantra for Christian living is to honor God in all things. We are created to glorify God. That's Old Testament, Isaiah, Paul says it in 1 Corinthians 10, 31. Whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we do it all to the glory of God. That's to be our focus. So, uh, and I've been in those meetings, you know, uh, with a being in a pro-life organization, you know, we get into these deep strategy meetings where, you know, we've got to get this candidate in, we've got to get this candidate out, we've got to introduce this legislation, but we've got to do it at the right time. And there there's nothing wrong with with planning and strategizing and so forth, but a Christian always uh does so with the preface as God wills. And so I'm I'm seeking to glorify God, I'm seeking to accomplish His will. And I I l I was listening to a podcast uh about a month ago, and they were talking about you know the issue of should we post the Ten Commandments, like in classrooms or courtrooms and stuff like that. And I I remember the one argument was made, um, absolutely, and of course I I'm immediately going, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you know, uh you know, this could be a problem and everything. But he he raised an interesting argument. He said, you know, and and I've I've heard preachers make this point too, and that is, you know, everybody's operating with some set of standards. And if it's not going to be Christian standards, what standards is it going to be? You know, and you know, when I first got involved in the 70s, uh, we always said we followed the Judeo-Christian ethic. It wasn't the Jewish ethic, it wasn't the Christian ethic, it was the Judeo-Christian ethic. It was a set of these common things. Now, if you go into Pritchard's um book of laws and regulations, you know, where he talks about other cultures, the Babylonians and the Assyrians and so forth, you'd be stunned to find how

Love Of Country Without Idolatry

SPEAKER_02 28:36

some of those same ethics are in those other cultures, you know, about the way you treat your neighbor and that kind of stuff. See, and um when you begin to identify that a nation that's founded on some strong Christian or Judeo or solid, you know, sacrificial type ethics, they tend to endure. And um, you know, like the United States, I think has endured because we were founded on some of those same ethics. And the countries that endure are the ones that recognize that uh some of the basic foundational principles that permeate, you know, the Jewish Old Testament and permeate the Christian New Testament. And so you get those that that basically well, can you imagine if a nation actually were founded on a principle that says, I think more of others than I do of myself? Yeah, I mean it would be a profound thing, and you never had to mention Christ once, other than Christians know that he was the perfect example. But I think a lot of that has been lost uh over time, especially in these last years. And so, of course, in pendulum swinging, Christian nationalism is trying to force it one way, and then of course uh the separation of church and state people are trying to swing it this way and and both sides lose.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

I mean, as we wrap up here, um uh I mean any any other things that you would like to just mention here?

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Aaron Powell Well, I I want to build off of what Jeff said, and that is you gotta get involved. I still believe in getting involved, but you gotta get involved with the understanding that you are not getting involved in the great Christian religion called the United States. You're getting involved in government. Well, it's really no different than church in many ways. You have strong Christians, you have weak Christians, you have people who are there every week, you have people who are hardly there on the holidays, and you've got a nation that way. And I think encouraging people of sound judgment that recognizes you you can't be an absolutist, but you can't turn your head turn your back on everything that's happening. There's a way you walk it, and sometimes people will disagree. And sometimes the people who disagree will not be nice, uh, but you gotta keep doing it. And I have such high admiration. Uh we had Rick Gundrum on a while back, and you know, Rick, Rick is a a solid Roman Catholic, uh good friend, personal friend. Uh there's a lot I admire. When he used to tell me when we would get together for lunch or breakfast, and he would tell me the horrible things that were written to him and stuff like that, and I'm thinking, and yet he hung in there. I admire that because I'm not sure I I'm that strong. I have to put up with a lot and the position I have, but not like that. And yet those people earn my admiration.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

I I guess just as my final thought is is just a uh encouragement for us as Christians, as American Christians, to not forget about love. This 250th semi-quincentennial um it's okay to love your country. You know, sometimes there's a message out there, and I think particularly today in certain parts of our polity are are saying, oh, yeah, this is a horrible country or whatever. It's okay to love your country. You're not loving it because you think you are better or that Americans are better than everyone else. You're loving it because of the way God has blessed you through it. And that's that that's that's that's a good thing. But don't forget love in the sense of that's what everything is about for us. Bob mentioned the importance of you know love for God as it shows through it there. But everything we do politically as members of the nation, as you know, as Christians, we're doing out of love for our neighbor. If we're fighting against some evil in society, we're fighting against that because there are real people who are being hurt by that evil and and we're loving them by by doing that. If we're uh we're working to make something better, it's because we want better for our neighbors. We want better for our fellow citizens. It's love for our children who are coming coming after us and all those kinds of things. It's just to keep that front and center as Christians, it it helps elevate your uh attitude toward your nation and uh gives this celebration that we're about to have a much, much different feel.

How To Reach Us And Closing

unknown 32:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Well, thank you. Thank you both for this discussion today, and I think all of our listeners too. And if you have any questions on this, I am sure Bob and Jeff would love to get back to you with all this um as well. So, but please uh feel free to reach out to us um anytime at lifechallenges.us. We'll see you back next time. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Thank you for joining us for the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it, and sharing it with friends. We're here to help. So if you have questions on today's topic or other life issues, you can submit them as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes at lifechallenges.us, or email us at podcast at ChristianLiferesources.com. You can find past episodes and other valuable information at lifechallenges.us, so please check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit Christianliferesources.com. May God give you wisdom, love, strength, and peace in Christ for every life challenge.