Empowering Christian Voters: Overcoming Disengagement and Fostering Civic Faith- With George Barna

Discover why nearly half of Christian voters might skip the polls this election season with insights from our special guest, George Barna. We're tackling the pressing issue of political disengagement among Christians and examining the ripple effects it could have on the nation's future. With Barna's latest study as our guide, we confront the disillusionment that drives many away from voting, exploring how it's not just about picking a candidate but selecting a team that will shape leadership and judicial appointments for years to come. This episode promises to offer a fresh perspective on the civic duty that aligns with Christian values and the significant role church leaders play in motivating their congregations to take action.

Conversations with family and friends may hold the key to mobilizing the untapped potential of 41 million born-again Christians who are currently sidelined from the electoral process. We emphasize the importance of these personal connections and explore how historical narratives from America's founding presidents can reignite a passion for participation. By shedding light on the reluctance of Christians to engage in political discussions, we aim to foster a culture of informed voting that's rooted in truth and honesty. Tune in as we uncover strategies to overcome political apathy among Christians and reinforce the critical importance of voting in shaping a democratic future.

Chapters

• 0:07 Christian Voters' Impact on Election
• 7:37 Christian Responsibility in Voting
• 17:48 Christian Influence in American Elections

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Today, we're somewhat picking up on where we left off yesterday. Chad Connelly was our guest yesterday. If you missed that, go check it out today at WallBuilders Dot show. That's WallBuilders.show. And we had mentioned yesterday George Barney's study that he did for WallBuilders recently. And I forget how many he actually polled during this, but man, the data was some of it shocking, some of it, unfortunately, we've seen in the past. But we're going to dive a little further into that today is George Barna will be joining us later in the program. By the way, I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And guys, first of all, thanks for even thinking about doing this study because it really put to paper actual data. You could back up what a lot of us knew in our gut was going on. Half of people of faith, 49% saying it's just too much trouble, it's too controversial, or I don't like the candidates or whatever other excuse. 49% of people of faith saying they're not going to vote. That's a big deal. 

Tim Barton [00:01:05] It is a big deal. And, you know, guys, we've known for a long time that a lot of Christians have not been engaged in the process. What we did not know or maybe even see coming, at least I didn't, dad you might have that this is projected to be the lowest Christian voter turnout in basically kind of our memory for presidential elections that this with when we have election this crucial we're literally the candidate on the Democrat side was when they were in the Senate with Kamala Harris from the Senate. She was the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate. Bernie Sanders is an open socialist, and she had a more liberal voting record than the open socialist. The reason I point this out is because we really are talking about socialism, Marxism, communism being part of the package that's on the ballot, that that when you look at the ideology, when you look at the policies, even though they're not always clearly defined by certain candidates. The things that we see are things that would take America in such a fundamentally different direction we've ever been. It's one thing if you have an FDR, a Bill Clinton kind of president, someone that we disagree with on so many areas, we think you may like a Bill Clinton morally not a great leader, not the person you want leading your nation, etc.. But but Bill Clinton was not a pro socialist, Marxist, communist, right? FDR was not necessarily a pro socialist, Marxist, Communist. Kamala Harris seemingly is far more supportive and certainly her policies are reflective of that. And so the idea that now Christians would say, well, yeah, but both candidates are really bad, so I'm just not going to do anything. So I don't want to take away from what George might get into because I want to give George some some flexibility out of. So I don't want to give away a lot of what he's already talked with us about with his polling things that we're already starting to tell people. But it is, in my mind, surprising that this is projected to be the lowest Christian voter turnout we've had in a presidential election in kind of a memorable history for us. 

David Barton [00:03:08] And there's something to that I think is important. This and George has it in the poll, but one of the things that we find is there was about 65% of the Christians who said they were not going to vote said they didn't like either candidate. And this is a complete misunderstanding of elections and civics. You're not voting for a candidate who voted for a team. I just did some recording today for Considered probably the largest the largest faith network in United States television. And I pointed out there that, look, these guys were this Kamala or were this Trump. They're going to be able to make 9000 schedule see appointees. In other words, are going to put 9000 leaders in over agencies. So you're not just picking a Trump or Kamala, you're picking 9000 people. They will appoint. Who would you rather have appointing the head of the EPA or the head of all these other agencies that are regulatory that you want out of your lives? They want to stay away from. And so it's not a matter of whether I like the personality or agree with Trump or Kamala, is they're bringing a whole team with them in this also to actually senate and the house as well. And by the way, who would you rather have appointing justices that have now lifetime appointments? Which philosophy would you like to have in office for the next 30 years after this president leaves office? Yeah. And that's what that's what you're looking at. So we have done a really lousy job of doing civics and government classes in America. There are states like Oklahoma who are bringing civics back. Good for them. And so hopefully in future elections, we'll have a better understanding of how the process works. But this is really big. And for people who have a value system that is purported to be on the Bible to say, I don't want to express those values or choose a candidate that might be more or less favorable, those values. That's like saying, I don't care what direction the nation goes. That's really a selfish position. You have an opportunity to influence the value direction of a nation. And it's selfish to say that I don't care. It can go wherever it wants to. Whatever happens to the rest of the nation. It doesn't happen to me. Yeah, it will happen to you, that's for sure. So you can't sit this one out. And George has got lots and lots of insight that he'll be able to bring forth and polling that he did for us on this. 

Rick Green [00:05:17] Well, let's dive into those details with George. We'll find out what the results were and most importantly, how you can possibly change some of those people that are saying they're not going to vote and encourage them to do so. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Onthe WallBuilders Show. 

Break [00:05:28]  

Rick Green [00:06:36] Welcome back to the WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Always good to have George Barna with us. Thanks for taking some time, George. Appreciate you coming on today, man. 

George Barna [00:06:43] Always great to be with you, Rick. 

Rick Green [00:06:44] Well, once again, you've you just finished a major study and I guess there's good news in here and bad news, obviously, the bad news, as always, when Christians say they're not even going to show up to vote. But you always drill deep as well and finding out why and what to expect from them. So tell us about this latest survey coming up for the November election. 

George Barna [00:07:04] You know, essentially what we were doing was trying to look at turnout and understand who's going to vote, who's not going to vote, why they're not going to vote. Could that be changed? And so that the bad news is we've got tens, literally tens of millions of devoted Christians who decided they're not going to bother voting in November. And the the essence of that, the upshot of that is that it's essentially handing the election to Kamala Harris. So if that was their intent, that they didn't actually want to vote for Kamala Harris, but they want her to win, staying home will accomplish that objective. However, I don't think that's really what they had in mind because when we looked at which candidate they would prefer to have win, what we found is that by more than 30 percentage point difference, those people who call themselves Christians regularly attend churches and planned not to vote, which is about 32 million of them. What we find is that by more than 30 percentage point difference, they would prefer that Mr. Trump win the election. But of course, by staying home, that's not going to happen. 

Rick Green [00:08:22] And, George, that is I mean, I only have anecdotal evidence, but but your data proves it. I mean, I keep running into people that that just try to explain it to me. They try to back it up biblically, but it all comes down to a feeling for them that, you know, intellectually they know she's a disaster for their values, for biblical values, for for the country. But they feel bad if they cast their vote for Donald Trump, like they feel like they're contributing to whatever negative things they know about him. And there's just this disconnect that by staying home, they're actually helping, as you just said, what they what they even they see as the worse off to it. And yet I don't know how to get through to them. What do you say to somebody like that? 

George Barna [00:09:05] It's a difficult thing because it goes back to worldview. And when we look at how people are facilitating their worldview through their decisions, what we find is that they don't believe in truth. They believe that there are no facts. They believe that it's all about feelings. And so they don't feel right about Mr. Trump. They don't feel right about Mrs. Harris. And so they've chosen to feel right about saying, well, I wash my hands of the whole thing. It's not on me, you know? And by the way, these are the very same people who are going to get back in line with everybody else to complain when the country continues to go downhill. Yep. Do you understand that biblically you have a responsibility to influence every aspect, every factor of our society? Biblically, you are called to be salt and light. Biblically, you are called to make tough choices. And that's why we have the scriptures to help us make those tough choices, to point us in the right direction, to get us on the right path, to give us the courage and the strength to do the things that are difficult. But of course, most Americans, even most churchgoing Americans, don't read the Bible. They don't know what's in the Bible. And so they cannot act biblically. But one of the things that this survey also pointed out is that it goes deeper. The problems go even deeper than that, because we're finding that our church leaders are pastors and other church leaders don't want to have anything to do with the election either. In fact, barely half of them have even done the kind of tiptoeing into the water activity of simply encouraging congregants to vote. Half of them aren't even willing to do that. Wow. And so when you've got. You know, your spiritual leaders essentially telling you, yeah, I don't think this is that important. And then they're not teaching what the Bible says about the key issues in the election. You know? Well, I guess in some ways it's no wonder that you've got tens and tens of millions of regular early church attending Christians who are saying, Yeah, I'm not going to vote, that I don't feel bad about it. 

Rick Green [00:11:38] Well, that means it comes back to a topic we've we've talked about with you before. And that is, you know, Charles Finney was right. If the culture's decay in the pulpit is responsible, if the media is corrupt, if the government's corrupt, if if the culture you know, if people aren't doing living out, you know, biblical citizenship or they're not living our biblical lives, the pulpit is responsible for. You're basically saying if we're not teaching it from the pulpit, if we're not saying these things from the pulpit, most Christians are are going to check out and they can use that as an excuse. 

George Barna [00:12:08] Yeah. And, you know, one of the things that the survey dug into is, well, if you're not going to vote, why not? And what we discovered is that with about two out of three of them, they said, I'm just not interested in politics. Not interested in this election. About six out of ten of them said, you know, I don't like either of the major party candidates. Almost six out of ten of them said, I don't think those candidates are really reflecting my views on the most important issues. Though half of them said, you know, I don't need to vote because my one vote isn't going to make a difference anyway. About half of them said, well, you know, the election is just too controversial. I don't want to get involved in that. Half of them were saying, it doesn't matter if I vote because the election's going to be rigged anyway. Half of them are saying, and I don't want to vote because I don't really have enough information about these candidates. You know, essentially what they're saying is it's really uncomfortable for me. I don't want to do the tough things that need to be done to be an educated, informed voter who can actually use that privilege that people have died to give us. And I don't want to use that because it's too tough. And, you know, all I can say to them, say, get over yourself, okay? Yeah, yeah. Go back, read the scriptures. First of all, look at the tough stuff that Jesus did that he certainly didn't want to do. And we know that because of the nature of his prayers. Lord, take us away from me if you can't. But you know, if you don't, I'm willing to do your will. That's our role model. That's what we're supposed to be following here. And so, you know. 

Rick Green [00:14:02] It also sounds like, George, the whole, you know, the cycle of nations thing where tough times make tough ment of men, good times, good times make soft, weak men. And that leads to tough times again. What I just heard you described is soft, weak people that are just like, yeah, can't be bothered to deal with this because I'm uncomfortable a little bit. 

George Barna [00:14:20] Yeah. And, you know, I've got to believe God doesn't really care if you're comfortable about that. Right. I think I think maybe a lot of us are not comfortable with either candidate. That doesn't matter. We've got to pick some gay and hip because somebody is going to fill the presidency. Come next January. That based on the vote on November 5th. So we've simply got to do our homework. Figure out who is the best choice. How do we do that? By looking at the issues that matter to the heart of God. How do we know that? By going back into his word and taking a look at what does he say about all the things that are happening in our culture today? And how would each of the major party candidates represent themselves in relation to those issues? And then you make your choice. You pull the lever and you sit back and wait. You know that you did your job. You have a commitment to serve God in this election. If you're not going to be active in any other way, and you should be. But if you're not going to be active in any other way. At a minimum, you need to vote intelligently and biblically on November 5th. And if you're not willing to do that, don't ever open your mouth complaining about what's happening in America. When your taxes go up, when your freedoms are taken away, when your children are indoctrinated in the public schools are grandchildren, when all of your freedoms are being eroded because of who you allow to get into the White House, you've got to be quiet because you chose not to participate. 

Rick Green [00:16:05] Man, I. I mean, everything you just described spot on. And by the way, just a reminder, everybody out there listening, what George just said is you're doing what you can with what you've got. That's all you can do. And you've been given this freedom. You've been given this, right. You absolutely have a responsibility to do it. George, you also found that there are some things that would motivate non-voting people of faith to vote. What were some of those that that you think your listeners could kind of put in their hip pocket to be prepared for some of those conversations to try to win some of those folks over? 

George Barna [00:16:39] Yeah, these are such simple things, Rick. I mean, that's one of the encouraging things that we find. You know, top on the list was people who regularly attend churches said they're not going to vote. They did say, well, you know, if my church actually talk, the voting is actually a political responsibility, then I would feel compelled to vote. I was like, well, yeah, every church should be teaching that. And so if you are attending a church that hasn't said that, a church where the leaders in the church are not encouraging people in the pews to do their homework and to vote, well, get on get on your pastor's case, get out your elders and deacons case, whoever it is that's leading in that church. Let them know. You know what? We come here because we want to make a difference through our faith. And now we've got evidence that says, look, if we simply remind people that scripturally we have a responsibility to vote, that's going to make a difference. You ought to be telling people that. Another thing that we found is if your family or friends, you know, if your family or your friends with somebody who's, you know, a Christian and by the way, it's not just, you know, this this broad group of self-identified Christians who regularly attend church. You know, 32 million of them said they're not going to vote, but theologically defined. Born again Christians, 41 million of them said they're not going to vote. Whoa. Now, pastors tell us that that group is what they consider to be the backbone of the church. So if pastors read their Bible, they should know that every Christian has a responsibility to vote. And if they know that more than 40 million theologically defined, born again Christian, not just people, hey, yeah, I'm born again then. I know people say that when I die, I know that I'm going to go to heaven only because I've confessed my sins. I've accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. That particular group, 41 million of them. Look, family and friends can convince them to vote. They'll listen to the people they trust. Maybe they don't trust their pastor. Maybe that's why they go to church. But they're not going to vote. But they'll trust their families. They'll trust their friends. So if you have a born again Christian who's a good friend of yours or a family member. Talk to them about the election. Now, here's the interesting thing, Rick. One thing that I discovered in my surveys and we've been seeing this for, gosh, I don't know, probably the last dozen years is an election after election after election. When I do the postmortem on what happened, we find that the single least likely segment of the population in America to talk to people about the election if they believe those people had different ideas about the candidates, about the issues than they did the people least likely to talk to, those folks are born again Christians. 

Rick Green [00:20:03] Wow. 

George Barna [00:20:03] My gosh. 

Rick Green [00:20:04] The one with the answers. The ones with the answers are the least likely Use the answers. 

George Barna [00:20:09] It's like, do you realize that you're on the front lines with the army? And by doing that, what you're doing is you're retreating from the battle. Yeah. Yeah. My gosh. We can't have that. So, you know, these kind of conversations also, you know, we found that a lot of people, millions of Christians, church Christians, said they would vote if somebody would give them an unbiased, objective briefing or report or insights into what each of the major candidates supports and opposes. I got to tell you, that's pretty easy to find. These candidates are opening their mouths every day. Right. So we get the opportunity to know what they believe, what they say they're going to do. Both of them have a long term track record in public office. You can find out what they believe by what they've done. They're going to keep doing what they've done. That's how politicians work. So that's easy to put together. You know, somebody who says, yeah, you know, I don't know what they would do if they get in office, take an hour and put it together. You can probably already find it online. I mean, I've seen it a lot of places. You know, I'm sure you can find the things I find. Yeah, but, you know, put it together, bring it to these people and talk to them about it. This is the thing. We've got to have these conversations. Yeah. And you say, Yeah, but they make me uncomfortable. So. Right. That's right. It doesn't matter. You're not here to be comfortable. You're here to serve the living God with truth, with honesty, with all the energy that he gives you. He gives you that energy not to feel comfortable. He gives you that energy to fight the good fight. 

Rick Green [00:21:55] Amen. Amen. So, so much. So much that can be done. Must be done. Seek discomfort is the sign my son has over his in his office. Seek discomfort. This whole comfort thing is killing America. It's the safety ism and comfort zone. Hello, George. God bless you, man. Thank you for all this. Good, good stuff. We've got a link at our wallbuilders.com resource page with graphs and everything else from Georgia study. It's it's really, really good stuff. Keep it up, brother. Look forward to having you back soon. 

George Barna [00:22:26] Thank you, my friend. We're in the altogether. Let's go. 

Rick Green [00:22:29] Man. Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton. 

Break [00:22:31]  

Rick Green [00:23:40] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Back with David and Tim Barton, our thanks to George Barna for coming on. Always good to have him. And what insight, guys? I mean, I was I was surprised by a few of those categories, you know, and by the movement that you can move the needle with a significant percentage of those who are saying they're not going to vote if a pastor says so, or if a friend or family member is just convincing about the importance. I mean, there some there's some golden nuggets in there on how to change these numbers. 

Tim Barton [00:24:06] There really are. And especially when you consider whether it's 14%, 17%, depending on whether it's a pastor or a friend, whatever it is, it asks somebody when when he points out that when you're talking like big picture Christians, so not the act of churchgoing, but like big picture Christians, there's 41 million that aren't going to vote. If you're talking 17% of 41 million, I mean, you're talking 6 million. And that is enough to significantly change the outcome of elections. And and this is something that every one of us should be interested in, because all of us will know people all of us will have friends who will be on a verge of thinking, you know what, I really I don't like it. These people, I'm going to sit this out or whatever it might be, that we can encourage them. And then also we can talk to our pastors and encourage our pastors to speak out, recognizing the influence and power they have. And Tim, I'm going to pause on that because you said, you know, 6 million a pastor say something. But also in that poll in was if you say something, your friends would take up another 4 million. We're talking 10 million more voters. If pastors and of Christians, of Christians, of their friends that are pastors talk to a congregation that's 10 million vote. That would be a mandate election. That would not even be a close election if that extra 10 million showed up. And there are speculation already where nobody really knows what to think about the polling and how to trust the polling, but just that the feel you have when you have a liberal news stations that are going into some of these restaurant, some of these major Democrat cities are saying, hey, who you going to vote for? And either nobody or like only one person in the restaurant will say they're voting for Kamala Harris. You do have the feeling that there is already a pendulum swing. And it's really crazy that so much of the world chain or and world being relative to America, so many Americans recognize the the reality of the danger of a Kamala administration because of what we're seeing with Biden when she says there's nothing really that fundamentally change. And then on top of it, recognizing how much better it would be under Trump and so many Christians, so many pastors have yet to recognize that we have to make sure we speak up promoting biblical values, encouraging them to get involved. 

Rick Green [00:26:22] Well, here's some good opportunities for people out there. You're always looking for things to do. People sometimes say, Man, I want to do something. I don't know what to do. Well, here you go. Use your voice. The weapons of our warfare today. It's our voices. It's our votes, it's our dollars. And George Barna just shows you your voice matters. People will listen and they'll take action if you'll speak up. What a great show. Thanks to George Bronner for joining us. Thank you for listening to The WallBuilders Show.