118. CHUMP TALK: The One Where the Guys Talk About Christian Nationalism

If there's a more loaded or controversial term in politics right now than 'Christian Nationalism,' well I'll be honest, I don't wanna hear about it. But it's an idea that's on the hearts and minds of Christians all over the nation. 

So what's the deal with it? How can we define it? And how do the three of us (as all-powerful podcast hosts with limitless wisdom) believe that faith and government should interact with each other? 

Wonder no more! We'll talk about it all, right here. Do you have thoughts on Christian Nationalism? We'd love to hear them! Share them in the comments!

Transcript

Jim Salmon (00:00.981)
Hey everybody, welcome to Chomp Talk. This is John, we have Taylor and Thomas, how you guys doing?

GOBBA GOOL (00:10.958)
I'm sick, according to you, Dad.

Jim Salmon (00:14.197)
You're s- you are sick, dude. Like, you've been like honking like a freakin' goose all day.

GOBBA GOOL (00:18.124)
So, okay, so first behind the scenes, we just recorded the last episode on Godfrey. And before we started, John was like, what's up, bud? Are you not feeling well? I was like, I don't know, I'm not sure. And John's just like, I said, maybe I'm coming down with something. And John's just like, no, you came down with it, dog. You.

Jim Salmon (00:25.622)
Yes.

Tom Bombadil (00:31.739)
cause this is Taylor into the mic

Jim Salmon (00:34.465)
I sound like he gave the mic to his dog.

Tom Bombadil (00:44.999)
haha

Jim Salmon (00:45.033)
I just said like dude with all love I need you to not sniff into the microphone Thomas you were about to ask something and then I

Tom Bombadil (00:49.093)
Yeah. Captain America is about to walk into your room to say hey to you, buddy. That's, that's where we're at.

Jim Salmon (00:57.001)
no, gosh, that's real dark. That's a good a visit from John Cena. Thomas, I hit record right when you were going to suggest something. Do you want to still ask or what are you thinking?

GOBBA GOOL (00:57.678)
that's dark.

Can you send Spider-Man instead?

Jim Salmon (01:16.949)
was LM, which I think stands for...

Jim Salmon (01:22.899)
I don't know, I was gonna think of something snarky, but it sounds like...

Tom Bombadil (01:24.878)
Lagoon.

GOBBA GOOL (01:25.031)
Larry Larry Marnsby

Tom Bombadil (01:28.635)
Nice.

Jim Salmon (01:29.089)
Well, I don't know. think it sounds like someone who wants to break up the podcast because he knows that this is something that we land on different sides of the spectrum on. But, regardless.

Tom Bombadil (01:38.503)
Well, that's what I was going to suggest for the start because John's got a nice little set of questions that we can work through. But I think it might be helpful if like the way we started, if we each took maybe like two minutes or less to try to get our cards on the table. OK.

GOBBA GOOL (01:38.766)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (01:50.625)
What about one minute? See, I was, I was actually thinking that. So, ah, this is the good thing about having a video podcast now is what if we do like a 60 second, like define what Christian nationalism, maybe like what it is to you. Cause I think we've all three said that anyone who believes in the wellbeing of their country and is a Christian is by the loosest definition, a Christian nationalist.

GOBBA GOOL (02:20.27)
Is your ethics is your ethics based on Christianity then you're

Jim Salmon (02:20.329)
So maybe it's like, what does it mean to you?

Jim Salmon (02:25.755)
or don't know paganism. That's a good question. Who wants to go first? Okay. All right. Gosh dang it. All right. Let's see. Start. Okay. I'm going to hold this up. Christian nationalism.

GOBBA GOOL (02:32.163)
John.

Jim Salmon (02:47.659)
I think, like I said, everyone in some regard is a Christian nationalist if you just love your country and if you believe that your country should be guided by Christian ethics. I think that the problem is that liberals and leftists are using Christian nationalism like a slur. Most right-wingers are using Christian nationalism with a lot of caution. And then there are some people

who are using Christian nationalism as a term for essentially theocracy or theonomy or whatever. And I think all three of those are kind of lame. I think we need to address it on the right, which is where I would say I stand. I think the far right should be cautious of their allegiance to this and liberals need to be more wise to definitions. Boom, one minute.

Tom Bombadil (03:39.025)
Wow! That was a minute and fairly reasoned and balanced. Also, like how John, that was such a classic John, like John talking about Christian nationalism on a timer, spent 10 seconds sighing at the beginning.

Jim Salmon (03:42.065)
one minute. Fairly reasoned.

Jim Salmon (03:57.077)
First 10 seconds is always prep, man. It's always preparation. All right, Thomas, you're up next on three, two, one, boom.

Tom Bombadil (03:58.905)
Yeah, that was good.

Tom Bombadil (04:05.863)
So I would agree with everything John said as far as the way that the terms are being used. I think that those who are cautious about the term Christian nationalism tend to be aware of the fact that nationalism means something in particular. If we're talking about political theory, a lot of people who are using the term on the right are using it to describe the fact that politics is not neutral.

and that has a religious component to it, and that nations shouldn't be neutral when it comes to the question of whether or not Christ is Lord. I've been cautious about whether or not I use the term Christian nationalist to describe myself. I would, if I had to, I would want to define it as an ecclesiocentric Christian nationalism, but even then I'd be a little...

reluctant and I could define that more.

Jim Salmon (05:03.668)
Time! Alright, well done. Alright, Taylor, you need a few seconds to get ready? Just kidding, time.

GOBBA GOOL (05:11.15)
No. So I tend to be more, not tend to, I am, I guess.

against Christian nationalism, and I love Tommy dearly, and we can disagree. I'm against what he just said wholeheartedly. I think no one can be forced to believe something. No one should be punished by the government for sincere religious belief. And most importantly, faith must be voluntary, not compelled. I think we've gone a long time in our history of our planet where this was not the norm and the government was intermingled with the church in

different ways and we have something very special in the fact that we can all worship as we see fit and I think it's very dangerous to want to throw that out because we're dealing with some issues right now that can be dealt with in other ways that don't involve handing the state the sword to police the church.

Jim Salmon (06:10.784)
Well done, Taylor.

Tom Bombadil (06:12.337)
Can I make one responsive statement to Taylor before we go?

GOBBA GOOL (06:14.41)
No! No!

Jim Salmon (06:16.512)
You, if you do, I'm going to give you 30 seconds, because this is going to be nothing but responses. All right. 30 seconds starting now.

Tom Bombadil (06:19.569)
Okay.

Tom Bombadil (06:24.529)
So I think that I'm not sure I'm even aware of a single person who calls himself a Christian nationalist who would say that what they want is for Christianity to be enforced and that everybody has to be a Christian. The most sensical voices out there who are talking about what gets called Christian nationalism, whether they're calling it that or not, are still wanting religious tolerance.

Jim Salmon (06:50.0)
I think that's a reasonable distinction to make. My understanding too is that Christian nationalists tends to be more so that the church should have special preference. The benefits that the Christian church...

GOBBA GOOL (07:07.608)
Correct. Which church?

which Christian church?

Jim Salmon (07:14.804)
Yeah, I don't know. Does it count Unitarians? Does it count, you know, NAR people? Does it count Mormons? Does it count Jehovah's Witnesses? Yeah, that's a great question. I think one of the general, just historical caveats I have about that is, I mean, and this is a fact that I think we sometimes gloss over. I think that pagans have killed fewer.

GOBBA GOOL (07:21.452)
We count Mennonites.

Does it count re-baptizers?

Jim Salmon (07:44.576)
Christians, then Christians have killed Christians historically.

GOBBA GOOL (07:52.744)
I... I mean, okay, how are you defining Christians?

Tom Bombadil (07:52.801)
I'd hard disagree. yeah.

Jim Salmon (07:54.387)
You think so?

Jim Salmon (07:58.964)
Well, I'll say since the Reformation. So yeah, over the past 500 years I'll say that.

Tom Bombadil (08:10.031)
No.

Do you know about the Bolshevik Revolution? How many people died?

Jim Salmon (08:17.042)
Yeah, that's fair. That is fair.

Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (08:21.842)
I- John, I don't know, you might take an L on that point.

Jim Salmon (08:24.862)
No, no, no, that's fair. That's fair. I got, got, I was a little off the dome, but, I think Christianity in a modern sense is very reactive to the reality that when the church and state co-mingle, it's often the church itself that suffers. and I think even in early Christendom, we see that because when the Aryans were behind the empire,

GOBBA GOOL (08:30.091)
Yeah

Jim Salmon (08:54.654)
they were persecuting the Nicenes. And when the Nicenes were behind the empire, they were doing the same. So I don't know. It's like to be a Christian magistrate, you have to define what you are, but you also have to define what you're not. And usually what you're not is an opposing form of Christianity. And I think that creates a problem for the universal church. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (09:03.448)
Yeah, and when.

Tom Bombadil (09:23.943)
So there's a book I read recently that I really appreciated. It's small, it put out by Founders Ministries called King of Kings by a PCA guy by the name of James Baird. And he is doing some political theology drawing on both the Westminsterian theological tradition and the American colonial tradition political theory. And he doesn't use the word Christian nationalism to describe what he's talking about.

even once. But he has... I would really recommend that people who are interested in this topic read his book. I've had the opportunity to get to know James a little bit, and he's just super chill, even keeled dude. He's not talking about ethno-nationalism at all, which is an important distinction we should make. There's some who are espousing Christian nationalist ideas who want an ethno-state. That's not...

where I'm at at all. I think that it's good for a nation to acknowledge who their God is and if you refuse to do that then you just made secularism your God and secular humanism will take over. He has a syllogism in his book that I think is helpful whether or not you agree with it.

The first premise is government must promote the public good. Second premise, as the only true religion, Christianity is part of the public good. Conclusion, government must promote Christianity as the only true religion. And immediately I note, you know, Taylor, as he's already said, you know, has questions of like, okay, but like which church are we talking about? I'm not convinced that those questions are as complicated as we make them out to be. When...

We do know the difference between Orthodox Christianity and Mormonism. All Trinitarian Christians understand the difference between themselves and pseudo-Christian cults. And I think that what a lot of people on the right are asking for is we should have a nation that acknowledges God as the Lord, and we should make sure that Christianity isn't being persecuted, but that

Tom Bombadil (11:47.611)
But what we don't need is the government to police doctrine. I don't think that's what people are talking about here.

GOBBA GOOL (11:54.968)
OK, you can't have both. You can't have both. the government, you have to define Christianity. So how do you define it if you're going to say, we are a Christian nation, you now have to define what that means?

Tom Bombadil (11:57.691)
What do mean?

Jim Salmon (12:14.868)
Well, I'll say for an example. So, no, no, no, Thomas. So I saw a video. It was actually really cringy. And I think it's showing that politics is going down the toilet again. but it was basically like, it's this lady who's running for some kind of office in Texas. And she literally stood up in the back of an Episcopal church and said, you guys are preaching a false gospel. well, but this is, this is relevant.

Tom Bombadil (12:35.355)
That lady's cringe. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (12:39.552)
She's like you guys are preaching a false gospel. I don't believe that you guys should have any tax breaks for what you're doing This is not a real church and like certainly we would agree that there are some major dot was serious doctrinal differences between us as conservative reformed evangelicals and mainline very progressive denominations like Methodists Episcopalians, but she's essentially saying that because of your doctrine

you should not be considered a church. So I think what Taylor is saying checks out. And again, a big stance that evangelical Christians have is about sexual ethics, which is something that left-leaning, mainline churches have a very different viewpoint on. So that does kind of require a Christian magistrate to take a doctrinal stance.

Tom Bombadil (13:31.163)
I don't know if it requires that necessarily. I think that what you find when you have godly rulers throughout history performing well, we saw this, I mean, obviously it's complicated, but we talked about this with Constantine where Constantine was less interested in turning the wrenches of doctrine as much as he was interested in creating safe space for the bishops to work it out.

I think that that's important. That's an important feature of what the Bible teaches that the role of the government is to protect the innocent and to punish the evildoer. And so if you have people who are persecuting the church, that's the responsibility of the government to protect the church. And we can get to it.

GOBBA GOOL (14:26.368)
I agree with that. Don't they do that? They do that now, right? Like, I agree with you.

Tom Bombadil (14:32.391)
Mmm

Jim Salmon (14:32.928)
I mean, if someone stood in front of the front doors of my church tomorrow morning and said, you can't come in, that would be breaking a law. They're forbidding me from my First Amendment rights, like my freedom to worship. So that is illegal.

GOBBA GOOL (14:33.346)
Like I agree with everything you just said.

Tom Bombadil (14:46.929)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (14:49.942)
I mean, Don Lemon just got, Don Lemon is in big trouble for impre, yeah. So like Tommy, I agree.

Jim Salmon (14:55.826)
And absolutely he should be for that because that was clown behavior. I want to make sure this conversation doesn't become just like a two on one. So I want to get away from the negative and more towards the positive. No, no, dude, it's all right. It's all right. It's okay. I want us to be a little more productive. So I want to share and then Taylor, I'll ask you the same question. Like what is your framework as far as how politics and faith should co-mingle?

GOBBA GOOL (15:05.037)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (15:06.105)
I don't care. We're fine.

GOBBA GOOL (15:07.968)
Tommy's like, I'll defend myself. Yeah, ask, yeah, let's ask the questions.

Jim Salmon (15:22.616)
And Thomas if you want to jump in and clarify or share more about yours, think that's fine But just like so it's not just what we don't believe what we do believe Okay. All right, so we'll let you go but I'll just share mine real quickly because mine really comes big part from Abraham Kuyper Dutch theologian this idea of sphere sovereignty, which is essentially that within civilization we see different spheres from things like

Tom Bombadil (15:27.281)
Yeah, yeah, I feel like I haven't gotten to define what I believe yet, but yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (15:32.918)
Well... Yeah.

Jim Salmon (15:52.255)
government to education to the church to the family and each of these spheres have distinct needs and have distinct responsibilities and should have distinct authority figures who rule over those but who do so in such a way as to maintain the integrity of that sphere. having a government that tells the church what to do would be unhealthy. Also having a government

over-infringe on how a family runs, if they homeschool their kids, if they raise them a certain way, should also be forbidden. So in all of these spaces, to be Christ-like is ideal, to be a Christian is to be ideal, but I think we all know you can have a really good teacher in school who teaches well.

nurtures their students, loves well, but may not be a Christian. Of course, that's not the ideal because we want all people to be saved and to follow Christ, but not all roles presuppose that need and that you can fill those roles and have a meaningful society rolling with Christian ethics, but not necessitating Christian faith. So that's kind of my view. Taylor, what do you think? And then Thomas, I'll let you go.

GOBBA GOOL (17:13.646)
Well, I agree with what Tommy last said, which is it's the government's role to protect people's right to worship, to work that out, what they believe. I think that's what Tommy said. I think that the government, like, yeah, there's no question that all beliefs are not equally true, right?

So an individual's conscience can be fallible. And I acknowledge that right now we're in a time of hyper secularism. we need to let, the government needs to protect everybody's ability to sort of work that out. And as beliefs change and go, and which they do, right? Beliefs come and go, cultural zeitgeist change.

Eventually, you would hope that we could get to a place where we have good God-honoring Christians in charge that are making decisions from a godly place, but...

You can't have either a Presbyterian model more where the church is over the government or the flip side where the government is kind of over the church. It's a recipe for disaster. And we've seen that happen time and time again through church history. And honestly, the last thing I'll say is I acknowledge the pitfalls in this liberty of conscience. Under a Christian state, you wouldn't have to worry about

trans bathrooms. Like, I'm aware of that. There's things that are, we're witnessing that wouldn't happen.

Jim Salmon (19:01.866)
Well, they would. They just would be policed. Like, you're not gonna take away trans people because you're a Christian nation. You're just gonna take away people who do it publicly.

GOBBA GOOL (19:13.282)
Well, I'm depending on how you want to go about leading, right? Like, yeah, I mean, because Tommy, and if I could give you one question to kind of frame your answer around, like, where's the slippery slope and for you? Because if I say

Jim Salmon (19:18.908)
I mean, yeah, yeah, but...

Tom Bombadil (19:22.428)
So thank you.

GOBBA GOOL (19:35.756)
The government, what was the framework? was like the government should put the good of the public. Christianity is the one true religion. Therefore, the government should support Christianity. So that means now homosexuality is not good, therefore illegal. So we're going to punish homosexuals that we catch.

Tom Bombadil (19:43.185)
part of the public good.

GOBBA GOOL (20:03.914)
Or is that is that too far or like where's that where's the slippery slope end?

Tom Bombadil (20:07.493)
No, I mean, that was how things were up until about like 10 years ago.

GOBBA GOOL (20:13.059)
I wasn't aware that it was illegal to be.

Tom Bombadil (20:13.809)
So, sodomy is illegal on the book. Yeah, sodomy is illegal on the books of like, if you just go look at like any municipality anywhere in America, it's like still on the law books.

Jim Salmon (20:25.406)
Yeah, but how long ago was it actually enforced?

Tom Bombadil (20:28.901)
Not, I mean, I don't know off the top of my head, but I mean, in certain places, yeah, sodomy is illegal and has been enforced relatively recently. I don't feel like that's like the bottom of a slippery slope, personally. I think sodomy should be illegal.

Jim Salmon (20:37.406)
Right. mean, counties and states have dusty laws from a long time ago.

Jim Salmon (20:49.214)
Well, where do we... I mean, think Taylor's like... What's next though? Like, is fornication also illegal?

Tom Bombadil (20:53.581)
So this gets, so let me define where my political vision here, I think maybe that'll help. So I'm interested in what I would call ecclesiocentrism, which means that we view the church as the primary nation in history, and other nations will either prosper or struggle and potentially even go away.

Jim Salmon (21:02.954)
Sure. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (21:26.983)
depending on how they relate to the church. I'm influenced a lot by Psalm 2, which has a lot of instructions for kings. It starts off, it says, you why do the nations plot in vain? And the kings of the earth, you know, are raising themselves up against Yahweh. And then Psalm 2 has instructions for kings, and it says,

Here now, O kings, be wise. Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and he break you with his rod of iron." I think is what it says. And all throughout the entire biblical story, we see that this is always the situation that the kings of the earth have in front of them. Are you going to acknowledge that the God who made all things is the Lord? And are you going to structure society in a way that brings about biblical justice,

human flourishing. And you see kings like Nebuchadnezzar turn their hearts to God and acknowledge God publicly as the Lord of all of the earth who has authority even over them. And then they do their best to structure the laws of their land in a way that is good. And that's always going to be like a mixed project because

you still have flawed human beings trying to run things. That's why I think the American system is a really good one as far as like our three branches of government that are checks and balances for each other. So what I'm in favor of is the Westminster Confession of Faith talks about like how do you apply God's law to the law of your land? All three of us would agree you can't just take the law of God ripped out of

you know, the Old Testament and apply that to your civil law today. I think that was one of the questions that you had. Should civil law remain religiously neutral? The answer to that question is the work that is before Christian politicians is to, the way the Westminster puts it, is to apply that, the law of God, or the general equity

Tom Bombadil (23:50.735)
general equity thereof. And what that means is, for example, laws about what do you do if you accidentally kill your neighbor's cow? The law of God has an answer for that, but to just put that right on our law books the way we read it in the Bible wouldn't cover all of the issues that might get covered like today. For example, like if a corporation pollutes a river that ruins the water source for

a town. Christian politicians, Christian lawmakers in that area should look to the law of God and go, okay, what does restitution look like? How do we make this right? And then do the work of doing their best to applying the law of God to the place in which we live. God's law is perfect, it's good, but it has to be applied in thoughtful ways wherever people live, depending on the culture.

depending on all sorts of different factors. And so I don't know... To me it doesn't feel like a slippery slope at all, to be honest, because it's like all I want is for more Christians in government looking to the law of God, looking to God's Word as their guide, as they are trying to legislate how to have a structured and well-ordered society.

GOBBA GOOL (25:18.55)
So to get that all we have to do, we can have that in our current system right now. We don't have to change the thing.

Jim Salmon (25:24.416)
I'd say in many ways compared to other systems, we do have that.

Tom Bombadil (25:27.911)
So do you do with Psalm 2? Do you think that... So do you not like it then if a Christian politician says, I am looking to the Bible as my guide as I govern in the area that I'm in? You don't like that?

GOBBA GOOL (25:28.141)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (25:46.165)
think I'd look at the question, I think my first question would be, in what way are you doing that? Because the Bible, I mean, this is where it's important, I think, to distinguish the hermeneutics of what the Bible is written for in different areas, and whether the law that it's referring to is a civil law, or if it's the laws and like the character and command and call of Christ of how humans are supposed to function. But I don't think that

It's one-to-one that because God has called his people to act in a certain way, he has also called the government to enforce behavior in that kind of way. I think that's not a one-to-one jump.

GOBBA GOOL (26:27.374)
Well, and I would also say that Paul makes it very clear that we are not to expect unregenerate people to act the same as us. So.

Jim Salmon (26:40.388)
I mean, we're saying that we don't want Christ, we don't want to enforce faith, but it almost feels strange that you would create a society that will impose all Christian ethics except for faith in Christ. It seems like the full intellectual end is to be

Tom Bombadil (26:41.617)
But you can still.

Tom Bombadil (26:56.871)
I think that we're getting lost. It's not imposing Christian ethics in the sense like you have to be loving, you have to be compassionate. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about taking the civil law, or the moral law and the civil law, and figuring out how do you apply that to a modern nation. And on top of that, want to ask Taylor. So Taylor, on

Jim Salmon (27:20.936)
Right. Right, but I-

Tom Bombadil (27:26.343)
So like considering Psalm 2, considering King Nebuchadnezzar and other gentile kings throughout history, would you have a problem with a like the president of the United States calling for national repentance and saying on a mic, God, we have sinned against you and I'm

leading our nation in repentance and we're not doing it perfectly but we acknowledge you as the Lord of all of the earth and we seek to obey you.

GOBBA GOOL (28:06.858)
Absolutely not. He's operating within his own conscience. I think that would be fantastic.

Tom Bombadil (28:11.633)
but he's a representative head of the people.

GOBBA GOOL (28:15.372)
Yeah, so right now we have, you know, love him or hate him, the Don, doing the opposite of that. And that doesn't, nobody likes that. Secularists don't like that. Well, let me answer your question. So he's operating within his, in that hypothetical, he's operating within his own conscience. He's not imposing any laws that change anything.

Tom Bombadil (28:30.183)
So I think a lot of the reason why I asked that is... sorry, go ahead. Sorry.

GOBBA GOOL (28:43.414)
So the people voted for him, knowing that that's his platform. And he's just, that's a general call to repentance. That's not the same as, that's not the same as intermingling of church and state.

Tom Bombadil (28:58.897)
So what standard do you want laws made by?

GOBBA GOOL (29:03.246)
That's a very complicated question. I think that's a good question. I think ideally you want to sort of you pull your truth and principles from the scriptures, but at the same time and you can call me I'm not a moral relativist in the sense that I don't think that You know right is right wrong is wrong. There's there's a lot of objective answers in there, but I think that Ultimately like the people have to vote and agree on things

to even make it sensible. So as you said, sodomy was illegal, but then it wasn't enforced. So it doesn't matter that it was illegal, right? So we have to, as Christians, do the work of the church and win people's hearts over and disciple them to see the changes that you want.

Tom Bombadil (29:45.989)
Yeah, 100 % agree, 100 % agree. And that's where I think like the ecclesiocentric view is like, if we are not fostering repentance among the people of God, if we are not finding regeneration through conversion, then yeah, we're not legislating our way out of this. Like that's not happening. But along the way, if we see our nation's laws and the way that our society is structured to be

reflecting biblical justice, I'm not going to cringe away from that.

Jim Salmon (30:21.22)
but I think that there's a lot of generalizing and there's a lot of broad brushing that I feel like you're using for a lot of these terms. Biblical justice is great, but I mean, again, one of the things that we talked about earlier was what is the relationship... If America should function as a Christian state, then what then becomes of the relationship between the actual church and the government? Because again, like...

if we like we will like the most impact would be seen by the church because it is the church and its wisdom that is informing the government but in the same way the government is all hold on hold on man let me ask my question in the same way the government is also overseeing the church because now they have the power to

Tom Bombadil (31:04.731)
Yeah, but there's some really, there's some.

Jim Salmon (31:16.522)
build churches, raise churches, offer tax breaks, deny tax breaks. And it just like, it seems like it's creating a government that now has this higher, like, episcopal leg over the top of the church that I think is problematic.

Tom Bombadil (31:34.151)
That's fair, I think that, yeah, I those are valid concerns. I don't think that that's what most people are actually talking about. I think that you don't have to have a mingling of church and state occur to make adultery a criminal offense, for example.

Jim Salmon (31:55.957)
but you do for homosexuality because the church is not united on that issue. So then it's not, I mean, the institution of Christianity in this country, the churches that get to check Christian on their tax forms, like I agree with you, but that's not blanket Christian nationalism. That's Christian nationalism that follows a tradition that caters towards different denominations and

Tom Bombadil (32:01.243)
Yes it is.

Jim Salmon (32:24.586)
that splits the church down the middle.

Tom Bombadil (32:27.857)
So you're saying that we can't make homosexuality illegal because we can't get all the Christians to agree on it?

Jim Salmon (32:34.472)
I'm saying that it's hard to call it Christian nationalism when I mean, what I'm saying is that Christianity. All right. Okay. Now I'm getting frazzled. I don't, I don't know, man. I mean, like I said, this, this is not a question of what's right or wrong. It's a question of what role the government is supposed to have with what's right or wrong.

Tom Bombadil (32:47.205)
No worries. Yeah. Take your time.

Jim Salmon (33:02.022)
All people should profess Christ and bow their knee to him. That is the greatest ethical good that any human being can make. I do not believe it is the government's job to impose that. Now I know that's not what you're saying, but I think if you agree with that, then you would say that there are certain ethics that the government is not to hold people personally accountable for.

Tom Bombadil (33:27.845)
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I'd agree with that.

Jim Salmon (33:30.612)
then if that's true, then I don't think I'm being inconsistent by saying that churches should deny funding to Muslims because we see them as, or that government should deny tax breaks to Muslims because they're seen as pagans, because I don't think that it is the government's job to impose every area of morality.

GOBBA GOOL (33:54.594)
The problem that I see is if you start enforcing something that is what you would say a personal matter, you begin the process of now restricting and restricting and restricting. I don't think homosexuality is good. I think it is.

morally bad for the individuals and for society. I just, I don't think that the government can actually get to a place where it can consistently and safely condemn it. Does that make sense?

Jim Salmon (34:35.232)
Well, and another thing is like a big conservative ideal that I think I sympathize with is the idea of a small government that isn't overly involved in your life. I mean, if we're going to criminalize homosexuality because it's a bad ethic, then, you know, we can also criminalize spanking children because that could be a bad ethic. And then before you know it, or not spanking, and then all of a sudden this Christian informed government

GOBBA GOOL (34:58.222)
Or not spanking. Or not spanking.

Jim Salmon (35:04.952)
is very hyper involved in the personal lives of its people and it can always say that it's doing so in the face of for communal prosperity but that feels a little tyrannical to me that feels over involved and i don't think that i'm really interested in a government like that

GOBBA GOOL (35:18.786)
Well, it just doesn't work. That's the problem, is it doesn't work. mean, New England was not separation of church and state when it started. And they kicked out people that were heretics. then Roger Williams went and started Rhode Island. And other people went and joined him that believed in liberty of conscience. it didn't work when.

they wanted everybody to baptize their babies. And then you had these early Baptists say, no, we're not going to do it. And then they had a tax on people that weren't going to baptize their babies. then Obadiah Holmes said, I'm not paying the tax. And they whipped him publicly. like that, I'm not saying that's what you want to do, Tommy. I'm just saying like government, right, for different reasons.

Tom Bombadil (36:13.383)
I want to do that to you, but nobody else.

GOBBA GOOL (36:17.998)
There's no, I don't know, there's no consistent way to do this. Now, if all the people had their hearts changed enough in a nation, you wouldn't have to outlaw certain things, right? Like,

Jim Salmon (36:35.552)
I don't know about that, like I think we're generally not in favor of murder, but I'm also glad that not murdering is a law.

GOBBA GOOL (36:43.416)
Well, there's some serious distinctions between murder and homosexuality. So that's what I'm trying to say is that when it comes to, call it more libertarian, if you will, but just when it comes to a grown man making his own decisions, we got to be really careful. We got to be really careful. And I know that there's

Jim Salmon (36:50.496)
Sure, Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (37:09.186)
There's arguments on both sides because, hard drugs are illegal. So we've decided that that's bad enough to outlaw. OK, that's fair. But we just have to be really careful. And we're getting into a mess of political theory. But Tommy, sounds like all you're saying is, why don't we just elect Christians that are Trinitarian and believe in the authority of scripture?

Tom Bombadil (37:34.865)
Yeah, at a minimum I want Christians who... I want our political leaders to be acknowledging Christ as Lord and operating out of a Christian framework.

Jim Salmon (37:49.567)
I don't disagree with that. I just don't want that to be a requirement. Like, I don't think it's a role and prerequisite for the same thing I mentioned earlier, because you can be a Muslim and a good librarian and you can be a

GOBBA GOOL (37:50.124)
it. Yeah, I don't. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (38:04.975)
Do you think it has to be a requirement, Tommy?

Tom Bombadil (38:08.441)
I think that there's certain things that we could do that would be stopping short of making a certain denomination requirement. I don't think that Muslims should be allowed to serve office in the United States of America.

GOBBA GOOL (38:22.466)
Yeah, but why?

Tom Bombadil (38:24.455)
because their political and religious framework is antithetical to Americanism, to Western civilization, and to... I mean, we have, as soon as they get in office, it's not long before they want to impose Sharia law, which is completely antithetical to our American justice system.

Jim Salmon (38:50.656)
think that's a bit of a generalization there, man. I- hey, I'm just- alright! Okay, go ahead.

GOBBA GOOL (38:50.816)
Okay, so hold on. me, let me. So a Muslim, a Muslim says, no, no, no, I don't believe in Sharia law. And he says, here's why. And like, okay, so how do you stop him? How do you stop him from being elected? The people love him.

Tom Bombadil (39:09.819)
I mean, this is so theoretical at this point.

Jim Salmon (39:12.98)
Well, mean, homeboy mayor in New York City, mom run, whatever, dude's a socialist. He's like the most millennial, like, Western white kid out of California who happens to be a Muslim. He's not into Sharia law.

GOBBA GOOL (39:13.236)
I feel like you need to...

GOBBA GOOL (39:25.005)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (39:26.876)
Right.

Mamdani I think is a good example of like this... I haven't come up with a word for it, but I feel like there's this new religion that's not secular humanism, but it has vestiges of human... it's like very humanistic, but is also like super pro LGBT, also Muslim. And I don't know how to wrap my head around it.

Jim Salmon (39:53.002)
Well, it's because they believe that Muslims are capable of assimilating. Which, for a long time, they have!

GOBBA GOOL (39:53.176)
Okay.

GOBBA GOOL (39:57.964)
So you hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. you're telling him, you're telling, you're telling mom Donnie that he's not a real Muslim.

Jim Salmon (40:04.574)
Also, five minute warning, five minute warning. Sorry, guys.

Tom Bombadil (40:13.447)
I don't know enough about him to say, but he doesn't seem like...

GOBBA GOOL (40:18.796)
I don't think he's real Muslim either, but I'm also not proposing that he's not allowed to run for office. So how do we determine that he can't run for office?

Tom Bombadil (40:34.223)
I mean, I think I already articulated it. I think that the tenets of the Muslim faith are antithetical to what we have in America.

GOBBA GOOL (40:44.354)
Well, that's your reason. I'm saying how do you enforce it? How do you say you're not a Christian so you can't run for office? How do we do that? And what is the Constitution going to say to guarantee that only Christians can run for office?

Tom Bombadil (40:51.601)
Constitutional amendments.

Tom Bombadil (40:59.38)
I didn't say that actually.

GOBBA GOOL (41:02.542)
I thought that's what you had said.

Tom Bombadil (41:04.807)
I said, you don't

Jim Salmon (41:05.032)
It's not really about what you'd add to the Constitution, it's probably what you'd to take away from the Constitution, which is...

Tom Bombadil (41:09.831)
Well, I mean, we have, I think, it a constitutional amendment that says you're not allowed to run for office and you're not allowed to hold political office at the federal...

can't remember at what level it is, how far it encompasses, but if you belong to a communist or socialist party, and Mamdani does, and he was elected, I think that it's actually illegal for Mamdani to hold office right now based off of his political views, not necessarily the religious side.

GOBBA GOOL (41:41.506)
Well, I mean, the law would have to, if that's true, then either they'll change the laws or they'll enforce the laws.

Tom Bombadil (41:47.633)
Part of maybe the disconnect that we're having right now is I'm not fully convinced that the freedom of religion that was enshrined in our Constitution was a any religion ever freedom. I think that firstly what they had in mind was freedom. They were protecting each other from what you were just describing where you have different Christian denominations persecuting each other.

free exercise of religion, Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Presbyterian, Anglican. Now, I've fully acknowledged that the way that we operate and have operated in America for a really, really long time is that, we don't consider religion to be any sort of prerequisite for whether or not you can hold

office. But I think that if your religious commitments are antithetical to God's law in a really clear way, I would be in favor of figuring out a way to protect against that. If your religious commitments put you in a spot where you... I'm trying to think of an example.

Well, is a good example. If you're religiously committed to Islam, Islam's view of women, for example, is antithetical to the Christian worldview. there's Sharia law would encode in our law system acceptable ways for treating women that are untenable to me.

GOBBA GOOL (43:39.447)
You sure do it?

Jim Salmon (43:39.518)
But again, we're kind of monolithizing Islam because just as all Christians aren't created equal, there's us and then there's the blue-haired lesbian pastors.

Tom Bombadil (43:51.099)
Aren't they pushing for Sharia law in Dearborn, right now?

GOBBA GOOL (43:51.509)
I mean...

Jim Salmon (43:54.74)
Well that's, I mean, yes. I mean, first off, I don't know that, but also...

GOBBA GOOL (43:56.416)
I mean, okay, so first off, who's they? Also, Il- yes, okay, but then Ilhar is like the little poster child for Muslims in office and she's like in direct contradiction to Muslim teaching. So it's just like with Christians. Right. That's-

Tom Bombadil (44:00.967)
the Muslims in office in Dearborn, Michigan.

Jim Salmon (44:03.476)
but are there not?

Jim Salmon (44:14.676)
as are the majority of American Muslims. That's what I'm saying.

Tom Bombadil (44:19.591)
They're also allowed in the Quran teaches that they're allowed to do that in order to gain favor. This is part of what we're studying in the Crusades right now. They do this all throughout history.

Jim Salmon (44:29.416)
Yeah, I mean, that's a... That's kind of a crypto distrust of Islam that like, as someone who has befriended Muslims, I'm not thinking they're working for Papa Satan and making reports back to the homeland.

GOBBA GOOL (44:46.606)
I think Tommy wants, I think you do want what's best for the country and your fellow countrymen and your family and your churchmen and for me and for John. I just think what happens is if we go about enforcing any of this, the sword gets turned eventually, much quicker than you would think. So we...

If we added some sort of requirement for Nicene Trinitarianism to you have to believe in this to hold public office, what happens now is when someone there's tons of Nicene Christians that sleep around. There's tons of Nicene Christians that are that are gay or insert bad moral things. I mean, you know, we.

Jim Salmon (45:35.162)
There's Christian leaders who are objectively immoral people who pass bad laws.

GOBBA GOOL (45:39.086)
Right. There's yeah. So I think what this is, if I could put a little bow on this, is that we ultimately have to accept this is something I've been processing my personal life. We have to accept how little power and control we actually have over anything. And I think if we look to Christ, he had all the power and you know, that's Philippians, right? Refused not to use it. He humbled himself.

Jim Salmon (46:05.278)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (46:07.418)
And I I've been struggling with that too. What does it look like? What's enough power? And I think at the end of the day, man, like all the church can do is win the hearts and minds and disciple the people that God puts in front of us. Other than that, like we have no way of bringing about human flourishing through the sword.

Jim Salmon (46:34.974)
Yeah. And I believe, I mean, like I said, Tommy, the three of us are clearly not standing on the same ground here, but I do believe in our equal intention of trying to formulate what is best for our nation, but also what protects the innocent, what preserves what God cares about. And I think that's important to say that we are standing on equal ground as far as that, even if we don't agree what that looks like. Yeah, that's all I'll say there.

Tom Bombadil (47:02.151)
Yeah, my hope would be first of all that Elam got what he was looking for. Second of all, that all of us, the three of us and our listeners would continually submit our hearts and our minds, the intentions of our hearts, what we're willing to put forward as a vision for the places in which we live, that we'd submit all of that to the Word of God.

Jim Salmon (47:32.321)
And I just want to say as we close because I'm gonna hit stop as soon as I finish saying this I did ask AI and AI said that Christians have killed more Christians than pagans. Thank you guys. Have a wonderful night

Tom Bombadil (47:43.803)
No, no.