Transcript of Should Christians Try to Legally Stop MOSQUES Being Built in Their City?! | Live Free with Josh Howerton

One of the most frequent questions that I've been getting in emails and DMs from just like Christians in the Dallas area: should Christians organize to legally try to stop a mosque from being built in their city? There's a bigger tension here than you might think. Hey guys, welcome to a bonus episode of Live Free. Very frankly, I am always trying to figure out if the time investment that it takes to do these is worth the time investment. And so if this is helpful to you and you would like to see more of it, if you could, especially on YouTube, like comment and share. Very frankly, that lets me know that it is actually helpful and that people actually do want to see more of it. So if you could do that, that'd be awesome. Without further ado, welcome to a bonus episode of Live Free. Let's talk about mosques. All right, let's go for it. All right, we realized that there was so much here that we needed its own bonus episode. So by the way, I'll keep saying this. These bonus episodes, I'm going to shoot y'all straight. They're extra work. And so if you're like, hey, this is actually helpful, we like it, keep it coming, like, comment, share, especially comment, like on YouTube.

I'm going to shoot you real straight. It is extra work. And it's like, I'm always like, is the juice worth the squeeze? So that lets us know that it's actually helpful.

There you go.

All right. Now, does one of you guys want to set up what precipitated the episode we're about to do?

No, you go, man. It's like the Spider-Man scene where everybody's pointing at each other.

Great.

All right, let me do it. I got it.

Okay. Okay.

All right, I got it. All right, go ahead and toss up the picture. Toss up the picture, Trinity. So for those who are unaware, one of the most frequent questions that I've been getting in emails and DMs from just like Christians in the Dallas area is— here's a question: should Christians organize to legally try to stop a mosque from being built in their city? I'm going to tell you where this episode's kind of going because there's a bigger tension here than you might think. Some of you are going to listen to this and you're immediately going to be like, well, of course not. We're religious liberty people. The whole thing is that Islam is the religion of imposition and Christianity is the religion of invitation. Of course not. First Amendment. I'm going to talk about that here in a second. Others of you, honestly, even as I say it, I'm going to get to what precipitated this here in a second. Others of you, you're going, Duh. You're going like, I'm a dumb rural Kentucky kid with a Bible on my lap and we're kind of against demon worship and overtaking cities where my grandkids got to grow up.

Like, duh, idiot. So let me just start out. There is actually a tension here that I think Christians are trying to figure out, what the heck do I think about this? And it precipitated things like this. So I'll read the headline and then Carlos, I'm going to voluntold you to explain what precipitated.

Yeah, of course. Would love to.

Okay.

So this, what happened in McKinney, which we may or may not have a campus coming in McKinney soon, may or may not recently literally has become national news, which has precipitated in people asking this question. Here's what it is. Now here's how it was framed by a very sort of progressive secular outlet, how, quote, anti-Sharia, that's in scare quotes. It's like mocking the people who said that. Crusaders, another word that's a bit of a scare word, turned a city council meeting into pure chaos. The subtitle: City council members unanimously approved the expansion of a nearly 30-year-old mosque over the— yeah, that's mostly true— over the objections of angry residents riled up by by right-wing messaging. That's how it's framed. Now, Carlos, you want to give the quote, or do you just want me to go to the clip that explains it?

No, no, go ahead. Keep going. Hold on, hold on, bro. Freaking Grok is not loading.

He was like, yeah, I was like, great.

I'm ready to give it to you.

I'm going to give it.

I'm going to get him. Freaking Grok's taking forever. My script is not loading, guys.

I mean, I could try, but you know, Man, you know, that's how I write all my sermons. Yeah, that's right.

That's not true.

That is a joke. Heads up, that is definitely not true.

That is a joke.

Okay, actually, I'll just—

here it is. Go ahead.

So this is CBS News. I'm not going to play the whole thing. Here's just a quick setup.

That's a great setup.

Yeah.

We're starting McKinney tonight. This is where neighbors argued tonight full-throated over plans to build a new mosque. And it all kicked off when a U.S. congressman chimed in. You heard him at the top there. The property, as it's proposed, would sit right near Virginia Parkway and Crutcher Crossing. The McKinney Islamic Association says it wants to build a dedicated prayer area, gym, classrooms, cafeteria, and a community space. The group wants to develop the new property to accommodate their growing community, they say.

All right, now pause. So that, I mean, that's a good general overview. Now wait, Trini, I'm going to ask you to click forward here in a second, so just stay right there. So what's happening? What happened that became national, like Megavirus, very much national news. I'm going to let you just honestly click to wherever you want about 3/4 of the way through the video because I just want to show people how contentious it became.

Yeah.

5.6 acres, 3 buildings. It was going to be a mosque. It is going to be mosque, classrooms, gymnasium. At this city council meeting, which you're going to see in about 30 seconds, became extremely contentious. And let me just get this out there. There were some Christians there who did not conduct themselves like disciples of Jesus Christ.

Hmm.

Let me just get that out there. I watched some of this stuff and I'm like, hey man, that is not, that's not Team Jesus character, even if you had convictions that you felt were on the right way. It ended up there were over 100 speakers at the thing. It lasted for 4 hours. And the background on it is this, no, actually just, I don't know, like right there. Do it right there. American Muslim Nation. Now really quick, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. You're gonna see a video. Sorry, Trinity. You're gonna see a video. Look at the dude in the front row. Front row left, white shirt, long hair. I'm going to play a video of this guy. That guy is the thing that went the most mega viral. That guy came to this meeting because he is an Iranian Christian that escaped some Islamic leadership in his home country. And what he said, it honestly shook folks. So just watch that guy as this guy that's talking, I'll watch this whole clip. The guy that's talking is actually speaking in favor of the, of the proposal. Now just play a couple of seconds. We don't need to play the whole thing.

There's the McKinney Islamic Association. Sharia is understood as a personal religious framework that guides prayer, fasting, charity, marriage, family life, and personal ethics. Watch the Iranian guy. He's saying that's a lie.

That's a lie.

And every culture have its extremists and radicals, and they should be condemned wherever they exist. But that is not who we're talking about. That's enough. You can kind of get the vibe like —got a little rowdy. And let me just say, we just covered in our last episode, I do just want to gently say to Christians, we are commanded in the book of 2 Timothy to, quote, "Correct opponents with gentleness and respect and to be people who conduct ourselves with a spirit of power and of love and of self-control." So that's just a gentle thing. Okay. Now, the reason, if you're not from Texas, some people are going to even wonder why they do an episode about this. If you're not from Texas, because of significant Muslim immigration— somebody look up—

go ahead, go ahead.

Uh, go ahead, look up the estimated number of, uh, of, uh, immigrants from Islamic countries, like, I don't know, do like the last 20 years in the DFW area. Um, good luck with that. I got it. The reason that this is becoming a big thing, especially in Dallas— go ahead and toss that picture up. I've showed this on the Raymond Ibrahim episode, which was fascinating. The reason it's becoming a thing is all that is, that's the number of new mosques in the Dallas area. From what I understand, those are just the ones that have been constructed or renovated in the last 3 years. So it's becoming like a thing. There are actually 2 church buildings that once were significant churches that had been purchased and then had become mosques. So This is resulting in a bunch of people asking a bunch of questions. What you got?

Yeah, so population estimates, uh, there's technically no official census regarding this, but this is what data says. 2000, roughly 115,000, uh, people in the DFW area in 2015. And the year is 2000. Then in 2010, uh, 400,000. Uh, 2020, 300,000. Current range between 340,000 and 500,000 depending on the source.

Now Let me put that in perspective. So let's say it's half a million. Yeah. To put that in perspective, the total estimated population of the DFW area is 7 million. So that's 1 out of every 14 people if my math is correct. And my mom's a math teacher, so hope I got it right. Okay, so here's the question. The Christians that showed up at that meeting, did they do the right thing or did they do— Posture aside, the question we're trying to answer is, did they do the right thing or did they do the wrong thing? Now, I do have a spot I'm going to land, and I'm not an idiot. I know that wherever that is will be a smidge controversial. So can I just take a few minutes and kind of walk through some of the tensions? Do you guys want to set up any of the other tensions that you think are here?

I'll let you do it first. But you hit the tension well in terms of, man, there's religious liberty, and that's not just because of, obviously, First Amendment. Again, this is a long-standing Christian conviction. Like you said, We're a faith that does not impose, we invite. And so there's that stuff there. But then also, again, I think the posture is, man, we've seen, in addition to just the fact that we should oppose any kind of demonic worship or any kind of false worship, man, we have seen now thousands of years of history of what happens when Muslims do eventually become the majority of a nation because they then do impose. And so, but I also see this, not just this sense of like, man, should we take a stand because we want to stand against false worship, but also just practically and strategically for our kids and our grandkids and great-grandkids, kids' future and so on and so forth. So there's some tensions here and it's how do we resolve tensions.

So yeah, Pastor Josh, you also talked about the difference between the role of the individual and the role of government.

Yeah, this is gonna be another huge thing right here, what you just said.

But then, uh, what we're talking about right now, it, it feels like there's a little bit of also like an overlap between those two roles. And so this is where the tension happens is like, well, you know, should Christians, uh, in some ways, uh, leverage government to help in this case, stop the building of or the expansion of these mosques or not because of what you're about to explain.

Yeah, let me just set this up and let me start. I'm going to start working through some concepts. And let me just say, if you're a Christian, whether you like it or not, you are going to have to learn to think about things like this in the next 20 years. Yes. You are no longer afforded the luxury of not having an answer to this question. It's interesting, dude, I was talking to I won't say his name because I don't have permission, but I was texting with one of the, honestly, one of the most prominent pastors in America in the last, let's say 20 years last night. And he was saying to me, he was like, hey man, when I first started doing this thing 30 years ago, pastors weren't, they didn't even know really how to preach a sermon about somebody that struggled with same-sex attraction or do I go to a gay wedding? They didn't even know. Nobody, that thing wasn't a thing. And he said, man, when I started doing my thing in the pulpit, He was like, what I realized was pastors were answering questions nobody was asking anymore, and they weren't prepared to answer the questions everybody was asking now.

And honestly, man, I kind of feel like we're at a juncture in our culture where there's some new questions getting thrown at you. You do not have the luxury of not having an answer to these questions anymore. So let me start walking through these things. Okay. Number one, We're going to begin here with a legal question on this. And I did more research for this little bonus episode than probably was healthy. I just got interested. First of all, principle, the question isn't only what is legal for a Christian when they're evaluating things. I will point this out. Both slavery and abortion via Roe v. Wade federally were legal for enormous parts of our nation's history. Christians did not just sit around and go, well, you know what? Give to Caesar what's Caesar's, submit to governing authority. No, no, Christians wisely went, oh, that's an unjust and ungodly law. Martin Luther King Jr., by the way, in the letter to— it's Letters from Birmingham Jail, he specifically correctly points out that laws are only valid to the degree that they reflect the laws of God. So with Roe v. Wade and slavery, we worked for 50 years to overcome what was federally legal, and we fought a war to overcome what was federally legal.

So for Christians, the question is not only what is legal. Now, anything there? We good? Perfect. Okay. You're in a spot. You guys interject when you would like. Now here's the misconception. What makes this legal? What goes into this? So here's a misconception. What some people would say is, man, Josh, this is the United States of America. We have the First Amendment, which I'm going to read here in a second. And in America, we believe in religious liberty, which means we treat all religions equally. Let me just go ahead and get this out. And this is where people will disagree with me and they can be wrong. That is not what the First Amendment originally was intended to say. So let me read this to you. This is the First Amendment. So what I'm doing right now is I'm trying to logically walk you through the progression of thought that leads to an intelligent Christian answer to this question. Okay? The First Amendment reads this, It says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Okay, now the misconception is, oh, hey Josh, that means in America we have to treat all religions equally with no favorites.

Okay, now if you want to deep dive on this, you need to go listen to the two episodes with Tim Barton. The concept of the United States government treating all world religions equally with no favorites My brother in Christ, that is simply ahistorical. It's not a thing. And we could spend entire episodes just on this. I'll just rapid-fire some things. These are after the establishment of the First Amendment. 11 of the 13 states in the original 13 colonies had official state churches. 11 of the 13. I'm just going to— I'll just do this for— this is just fun for me. For instance, Delaware, Uh, Delaware State Constitution. I'm going to read it to you. Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house or appointed to any office or place of trust shall make and subscribe the following declaration. Bro, this will blow your mind. I, name, do profess faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ his only Son and the Holy Ghost, one God blessed forever. And I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testament, to be given by divine inspiration. So in order to hold public office in Delaware, you had to do that.

Here's Pennsylvania, and I won't belabor this. To hold public office, you had to swear, I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I acknowledge the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by divine inspiration. By the way, Benjamin Franklin helped write that. I'll just say that you got stuff like what I'm trying to do here in just a quick riff is help a Christian listener understand the government had has all caps NOT historically interpreted the First Amendment to mean we treat all religions equally. It has not done that up until, dude, I think it was the mid-1900s, or actually, I think this actually went up past World War II. We had blasphemy laws on the books that prosecuted people for blasphemy against Jesus Christ. They did not prosecute people for blasphemy against any god. For Jesus Christ. We had what, uh, like, bro, like, some of us, like, we were alive when some of this stuff happened, or our parents. There were what's called blue laws. Do you know what a blue law is, Paul?

It's about alcohol. Well, Sabbath laws. Now, there obviously we still have pro— he's lying.

Wait, hold on, hold on. I just want to take a moment where I knew the answer to something about U.S. history that Paul— oh my God, Cunningham did not know. Go ahead, keep on.

Grok working a little fast before you left in.

I didn't even use Grok. I'm joking.

I'm joking. I'm tired of you, Carlos.

Okay, keep going. There were laws on the books still, actually not when I was alive, but our parents, 1961, legally prohibiting. And dude, I think some of these things, residual things are still around for this. Legally prohibiting people from being open on the Christian Sabbath. In our nation. The Supreme, bro, this is the one that blows people's minds. I love telling people this. It blows their minds. The Supreme Court has ruled multiple times on the basis of the United States, quote, being a Christian nation. If you want a fun little Google, go Google the Holy Trinity versus the United States. It's a Supreme Court case, and they literally based their ruling on the sentence, this is a Christian nation. The Supreme Court of the United States did that. We could do this all day. In the Treaty of Paris that established the United States as a nation, that was our treaty with the British. The Treaty of Paris literally begins, "In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity." The United States government commissioned Christian missionaries to Native American tribes. Thomas Jefferson's school board, after the establishment of the First Amendment, chose the Bible and Isaac Watts' hymnal as the primary text they would use to teach kids how to read.

So anyway, all I'm pointing out is the First Amendment was not— What are you smiling at?

No, no, I'm learning. All right, thank you. That's good stuff, bro.

All right, that's good. Keep going. The First Amendment was— That's not what it meant. Yeah. Okay. So here's my point. The key to understanding, again, all this, I'm trying to walk you through this as a Christian. How should I understand legally and biblically? How do I answer this question? Should Christians legally oppose mosques being constructed? Okay. The First Amendment reads this. The first word is Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. That amendment is about jurisdiction. Okay. Here's what's important. It does not say the state of Texas shall make no law respecting establishment of religion. It does not say the city of McKinney shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. So if you zoom out, here's how it's been summarized. The founders of our nation, they wanted religious tolerance for all, but religious preference for Christianity. It was just sort of like the background assumption that why are there laws about the Christian Sabbath and not— why are there blasphemy laws about Jesus Christ? And why is the United States Supreme Court saying this is a Christian nation? Religious tolerance for all, but a generalized religious preference for like, hey man, this is kind of obvious.

Look around. This is kind of a Christian nation. That's kind of what they're doing. Now, all of that changed in 1947. Okay? Now, I don't have time to go into the details of this. By the way, in what I'm getting ready to say, dude, this is not— we're not trying to get— people accuse us of getting political. We're just trying to ask biblical questions. And we should apply the whole word of God to the whole world. And that includes the civic realm. Right? Okay. What I'm getting ready to explain to you is why when people roll their eyes at you as a Christian for caring about elections because presidents appoint Supreme Court justices, if somebody's ever rolled their eyes at you for that, what I'm getting ready to explain should make you very firm in your conviction. That you're thinking correctly. All right. So until 1947, people generally understood, in general, if I understand correctly, that the First Amendment was just like, hey man, we don't want to establish a national church. We seceded— seceded is probably the wrong word— from Britain because we didn't want a state church and we didn't want Presbyterians fighting wars against Baptists.

Like, hey, 9 of the 13 states have state Churches, we don't want Delaware to start fighting Pennsylvania as an Anglican versus Presbyterian thing. And I don't know if those were, but you get what I'm saying. All right. Now, there was a court case in 1947 called Everson versus the Board of Education. I became a total nerd this week and read all about this. There was a deal where in the state of New Jersey, they were using state money to help transport kids both to public schools and Catholic schools. And some guy who just had a sideways thing. He sued the government like, I don't want my tax money. No establishment of religion. Our tax money shouldn't be going to get kids to Catholic schools. And basically what they did is the Supreme Court in 1947, by the way, there was a Democratic president, the party, I'm talking about party, FDR. FDR did some good, awesome things. Winning World War II, that's kind of a big win. Like, big fan of that. But then, hey dude, there's some things that maybe weren't as awesome. Hey, for you US history buffs, the New Deal thing, like radically escalated welfare state.

FDR appointed, from what I understand, 7 of the 9— this one president appointed 7 of the 9 Supreme Court justices that did the Everson versus Board of Education thing. Okay, now what that Supreme Court did is in this ruling, they re— for the first time in American history, they reinterpreted what the First Amendment meant, and they reinterpreted the jurisdiction of where the First Amendment applied. So number one, they reinterpreted the First Amendment to mean now, from now on, we're going to treat all world religions equally And the government will have no favoritism toward any world government. Now, if you're a Christian, I'm just going to speak in a very blunt way. What that now means is that your— what they thought that meant is that your government is now legally required to treat religions of demons that are very, very bad for people in societies in the same way that it treats the true religion inspired by the Holy Spirit that is very good for people in societies. And then it also reinterpreted the jurisdiction and it applied the First Amendment to every, basically to every level of jurisprudence in America. So it applied it to states and even local governments.

Now that one thing, dude, shaped the religious future of America more than almost anything in US history. Now let me pause. Any thoughts or questions here? What year did you say that was? 1947. 1947. 1947. Okay, we good so far?

Just a small detail to help people even understand of like what's going on McKinney and other places, because really this, that is about zoning. It's about zoning. Yes. And so the idea is, is like, not that they're going to say you can't worship, but specifically where you can build what things. And so there's this thing, I looked it up earlier, called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Way too long of a thing. They got to shorten these kinds of things.

It's like, it's, yeah, abbreviated RLUPA or something like that.

Basically, it's a law that prohibits local governments from imposing land use regulations that substantially burden religious exercise or treat one religious group less favorably. Bingo.

All that stems from 1947 Everson. Exactly. So before 1947, people would have generally been like, yeah, of course, of course the state can decide. Because the concern— because we'll be back—

because the concern of McKinney, like maybe rightly so in terms of legally, you'll get to this here in a bit, is they're like, well, hey, if we decide against them and people have made it simply because they're Muslims, we will get sued for that. We'll probably lose. We might as well approve it. That's what I just wanted to kind of give that context of why this is an issue in McKinney and other places. That's correct.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Actually, I'll go ahead and pull my punch now. As you're going to see, I'm going to have a little more to say, but I'm going to go ahead and pull my punch. And from what I understand, there was probably not any currently legal grounds by which somebody could keep that from happening. So I'm just going to say that now.

Hence the 7-0 vote.

Yeah, it was a 7-0, 7-0 vote. And you even had city council members, from what I understand, saying things afterward like, guys, like, I'm not sure that's what I wanted, but I have to follow the laws that I'm supposed to, you know, do that kind of thing. All right, now, so there's a legal question, but then there's the second question that Christian has is the biblical question, like, what should we want? Okay, this is where I'm just going to start pointing out some things that are a little uncomfortable for a 21st century American who has never lived under anything other than radical pluralism. We treat every religion the same way, religions that worship demons and religions that worship Jesus and are actually true. So let me point a couple things out. It is interesting to me that in the Old Testament, God grades kings by the buildings they permit. I'll just point this out. You have Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Amaziah, Azariah, and Jotham, who it specifically says this, "They did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but the high places were not taken away." God specifically judges and disapproves how those kings governed on the basis of, "Hey man, You allowed the construction of things that facilitated the worship of false gods in the nation.

Not awesome. God goes, not awesome. Now take it a step further. Now I'm going to have a counterpoint here in a second. So just track with me. Also, you got two kings. In fact, the only two kings, if I remember right, that essentially were like, hey dude, they crushed it. Where God goes, they crushed it. Hezekiah and Josiah. And what is specifically mentioned as one of the reasons God goes, they crushed it, they quote, "Removed the high places." In other words, they made sure that the worship of false gods was not facilitated in the nation. Okay? Now let me say one last thing. And again, dude, pastors don't have to try to be controversial. They just got to read Bible verses. And this is one of those. But let me just, if you're a Christian, I just want to encourage you with something. You need to decide in your heart You will never apologize from something God says in his word. Mm-hmm. Yes. You're not embarrassed of it. So I'm not embarrassed. I am not embarrassed. You just need to decide that in your heart. A third thing that kind of goes into this is we need to speak plainly from the New Testament.

Other religions are demon worship. I'll just read the Bible verse. Okay. In fact, let me say it like this. Other religions are demon worship. Here's what sometimes this will kind of shock people. If you were to ask me, "Hey Josh, of the 18,000 different gods people in the world claim that there are, which one do you believe in?" Honestly, my answer as a Christian is all of them. All of them. Because check this out, whatever God creates, Satan counterfeits. God is a Holy Spirit and Satan counterfeits God's Holy Spirit with thousands of unholy spirits the Bible calls demons. Now check this out. 1 Corinthians 10 specifically says that the gods of other religions are absolutely real. They're really demons. This is 1 Corinthians 10:20. What pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons and not to God. It's like, hey dude, you may need to rearrange some emotional furniture in your heart and in your mind. That's just what the Bible says. And we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, and spiritual forces of evil in high places. Okay. Now, Anything here? How am I doing? Keep going. Doing great. All right. Now let me give a counterpoint.

There is a distinction between, I think there is a distinction, there is one view that would disagree with this, between what God says to the nation of Judah in Israel and the kings in the Old Testament and what he might say to the city of McKinney or the United States today. And it's that Judah and Israel were a covenant nation. In a way that we are not a covenant nation. Okay? So for instance, in Judah and Israel in the Old Testament, you had a God-given civil law, land. You had a priesthood that was intertwined with the— God formed the nation, created the nation. And so this gets into— we talked about this last episode. I was thinking that. This gets into Old Covenant and New Covenant discontinuity. How some people have said this. Now, if you're a Christian, keep your thinking cap on and track with me. This is where theology becomes actually important right here. Some people say it like this. They'll say, hey man, old covenant, new covenant discontinuity. In the old covenant, God's people were one people in one nation state. In the new covenant, God's people are— 1 Peter uses the motif of exiles, and there's stuff you can say about that— that are scattered among every tribe, tongue, nation, and language.

There's a difference. There's a difference. Now, this gets into the— so now you're kind of getting into the deep end of the pool. This gets into the question, how should New Covenant Christians think that Old Covenant laws and commands, for instance, that forbid things like idol worship happening in nations, how should we think about whether or not or how those laws should apply in nations in the New Covenant era? Yep. Okay. Now I'll just, for our Presbyterian friends, I'll just go ahead and get to this. For instance, I'm going to quote the Westminster Confession. We're going to be nerdy. We're going to be nerdy here for a second. What almost everyone besides— there's a theological position. Actually, go ahead and toss that chart up here, Trinity. These are the 5 different kind of generalized positions. Starts with something called theonomy. Theonomy is— and basically what I have right here is the theological camp, the core claim of the, a summary of the claim of the theological camp, and then how it would apply to should a nation allow the construction of a mosque.

That's great. That's helpful. All right.

So what you got is under theonomy is kind of the view, by the way, Theo is God, nomos, law. So it's basically just, hey, all of God's Old Testament laws are still in per— even the civil law. Are still in perfect effect under the new covenant era. So obviously they would go, well, no, man, duh. God forbade the worship of false gods in ancient Israel, and all those laws still apply exactly the same today. It actually should be a civil crime. And then there's kind of like a spectrum you got here. You got classical Protestant, two kingdoms that goes all the way back to Augustine, Baptist, Catholic, and then Catholic integralism, all this stuff. So for listeners, or if you're listening, I encourage you to go YouTube, this is actually a really helpful study because I'm just going to tell you right now, this question is— this theological question right here, in my opinion, is going to become one of the most pressing issues for the church in America in the next 20 years. So let me just say, this is something on which you are not going to have the luxury of not having an opinion on.

I'm just going to go and get that out there now. Even if you do not fall in the, what's called the theonomic camp. Now let me just, again, I'm going to keep caveating this. I am personally still getting my head around this stuff. I'm going to tell you how I'm thinking about this right now. I am personally still getting my head around this stuff. I've been for the last 2 years been doing as much reading as I can to get my head around it. I'm not there yet. So I'm figuring it out with you. But what I will say is even if you don't fall in what's called the theonomic camp, Old Covenant laws apply under New Covenant era to all nations. What the Westminster Confession says, and the Westminster Confession is not theonomic from what I understand. No. I'm gonna read it. It says, man, even if we wouldn't take the Old Testament civic laws and apply them in New Covenant nations, we should still learn from the wisdom of the way that God gave civic laws because God's probably better at building a country than you. That's like the dumb Kentucky kid version of the Westminster Confession.

I'm just going to read it to you. To them also, as a body politic, this is fun. He gave sundry— that means many in Old English. He gave sundry judicial laws which expired together with the state of that people. That's talking about old covenant, new covenant discontinuity, not obliging any other now. So in other words, those civic laws, are not binding on nations in the New Covenant era. This is Westminster Confession. But watch this. Then it says, further than the general equity thereof may require. And when it says general equity, again, I'm just dumb rural Kentucky kidding this for you. What it means is, hey, God's probably smarter at setting up countries than you, and we probably ought to learn from even his civic laws in how Christian we're being theologically nerdy for a second, especially in the reform tradition. They'll talk about the civil magistrate.

That just means— Every time I hear that, I'm like, I know what camp you're coming from. I know.

I'm like, dude, can you just say governor? Somebody that's in the government, bro, just talk normal. Talk normal. So that's what it's saying. Hey man, if you're a Christian in government, you ought to still be opening your Bible and reading how God established a nation and trying to glean wisdom, which, oh, by the way, let me just say this. The founders of our country quoted the book of Deuteronomy in their reasoning for a lot of the things they set up in our country more than any other source combined. What they were doing is gleaning from the, quote, "general equity" of the way that God established his nation in the Old Testament. Okay. Are we having fun or is this— are we boring the heck out of everybody? What are we doing?

We're going deep. We're going deep. Peanut gallery.

Is this all right? We don't— okay, we're going deep. They're just— they're at least, at the very least, they're lying to me in a cursory way. I know, I'm just telling you this. Listen, bro, I'm nerding out on this stuff because I'm telling you, dude, I'm telling you, these are the questions people are going to be asking our country for the next 20 years.

And real quick on this, help it like 2 things and then keep going. So number 1, when you see these different views, when we're talking about— and part of this is to help people understand that there isn't only one Christian perspective on this answer. Because again, some people think, oh, this is obvious. Like, hey, there's multiple camps. And it's not that they're not reading the Bible, it's that they could be reading it differently. So part of this is if we're going to have better conversations amongst Christians, we got to understand that there's different perspectives on this. They're like, there's very big different perspectives on this. But then the other thing is really what we're doing is going back to what we said at the beginning, is we're trying to struggle with these tensions. Of these competing tensions. And basically what you're walking us through is these are the different tensions, but we're going to eventually get to a place of, hey, cut and dry, here's some things that we'd say. But I just wanted to connect those dots for people.

Keep going. Thank you. Okay. Now I'll say one other thing. I'm going to give you another chart. Oh, another one. I got charts. Come on. I got charts, brother.

Chachi Paul, see you right here.

Oh man. All right. For instance, people have pointed this out. Now another thing, Paul or Carlos alluded to this in the beginning of the episode. I'll be very honest with you. I'm going I'm going to cut to the chase. I'm going to go to the end and then come back to the middle here in a second. One thing Christians are really, really bad— and I'll be honest, this is one reason I think people like listening to Live Free. One thing Christians have become extremely terrible at is thinking in categories. And what I mean is, and if you listen to the pod, you hear us say this a lot, we are doing repetition for emphasis, not repetition out of laziness. These are the questions Christians are going to be wrestling with in our country for the next 20 years. If you don't figure this next thing out, you're not going to know how to think about all the big questions in the next 20 years. It's called Kuyperian sphere sovereignty. Okay? We say this consistently, but let me apply it to this issue. God has created, so there's individual Christians, like what are we supposed to do as disciples?

But then what the Bible teaches is that God has established 3 institutions, each with their own unique roles. And that when those things stay in their lane and function in God-given ways, that results in the blessing and flourishing of the world and society. The three institutions are the family, the church, and the state. Now let me apply this to this, like the Muslim Islam mosque thing. What some Christians do is they'll take the role of the individual and the church, which, oh, by the way, that's the Great Commission. Our primary job is to share Jesus Christ, the love of Jesus Christ with everybody everywhere. Send missionaries all over the place. There's a reason Lake Pointe's giving away $8 million a year on mission. We are all in on the gospel to the nations. I don't care who you are, dude. You're worshiping a demon. I want you to worship Jesus Christ. We love you. I want to see you in heaven forever. Amen. So as a Christian and a church, that's our main role. Now, obviously the church does have a role as quote, "The pillar and buttress of truth in society," and all that.

But I'm talking about primarily. We're being super theologically nerdy. Just stay with us. Now, the role of the state, Romans 13, is again, is to, hey, we need to reward the good and punish the evil. Then the obvious question is, well, who gets to define good and evil? God does. Romans 13 talks about how the state, quote, bears the sword as the servant of God. So there's a lot we could go in here, but what I'm saying is, here's what some Christians do. Now, let me just— don't do this, and then I'm going to keep going. What some Christians do is like, man, these horrible people, who would ever think about trying to oppose a mosque being built through legal means. We're supposed to be about evangelism. So that's the only thing Christians should ever think about is just evangelism. Well, actually, no, that's actually not true. As Christians and as a church, we should go, what's the role of a Christian and a church? Evangelism, yes. But then we're also, we have to become, stop being children in our thinking and become mature in our thinking, Paul says. We also have to wisely ask the question, what is the role of the state.

So what you have is you have some Christians who only think about the role of the individual in the church and they're like, evangelism, nothing else matters. Look at these horrible Christians. Then you have other Christians who are more politically and culturally minded. And the only thing they think about is, hey man, Islamification and hey, what does the First Amendment actually mean? Hey, the general equity of the Old Testament is, hey, maybe demon worship spreading in our country isn't great for our country. And what about migration policies? And that's what I think of. And let me shoot you really straight. Those Christians, they never develop the heart of Jesus Christ for the salvation of Muslim people. They become crusty, angry hearts. They just don't got it. So what I would say, if you're a Christian, you're listening, stop being children in your thinking. Let's grow up and be mature. You can't let one lane of the spheres eat all of your thinking. Does that make sense? Makes sense.

It's basically like you can ask two questions or go at two things at once. I can both say as a Christian, how do I slow or prevent the Islamification of my society? As I also try to make disciples of Muslims. Yes. It does not have to be an either/or. In fact, it can't be. It has to be a both/and, pretty much what you're saying.

100%.

I mean, it's like, hey, we've got to do both. We've got to do both. Yeah.

Not only can you, you are required by Jesus Christ to do so. I think on both points. 100%. On both points. So you got stuff like this. Let me keep going. A couple of biblical observations people have made. For instance, in Acts 17, I've actually stood where Paul was when he said this. Acts 17, It's Mars Hill, Areopagus. That's stinking cool, man. Bro, you got to go. Y'all got to see this. Lord willing. Lord willing. You're going to make it 2.5 weeks. It says Paul, he looks out at Athens and it's really awesome, dude, because you're on the Areopagus and you can literally see the Parthenon. And I think I took an iPhone note. I think you can see 22 places where there would've been statues to demonic false gods. From where he was standing. And it says, "Paul's spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city was full of idols." Now note this, Paul's response to that moment was share Christ and plant churches. That's important.

And that provoked, it literally means he was angry. Angry. He was angry. Angry. But that's his flinch.

His flinch is, okay, share Christ, plant churches. Now here's the counterpoint. Counterpoint is, well, Well, how are you going to ask what a Christian ruler's duty is if there is no Christian ruler? So that's fair. That's fair. Okay. Now let me start getting down to brass tacks and then we can start landing on this episode and everybody can be mad at us. Everybody. It'll be great. It'll be great. Y'all going to love it. Yeah. All right. So here, if I start applying this whole thing, actually, let me say one last thing and then I'm going to start applying it, So in a second, Trinity, I'm going to call for that last chart and then I'm going to show some stuff. This exact same thing that happened in McKinney, the opposite of it. Actually, let me show the chart first. Let me show the chart. Okay. Here's the chart. And here's where I'm like, right now I'm figuring this out at the same time as you. I reserve the right to kind of go like, hey man, I'm going to keep studying, try to figure it out. Here's where I land. Actions that Christians should take.

Number one, we have to be honest that Islam is false. Our goal is to share Christ with Muslims, warn people, hey man, be reconciled to God. Yep, that's your duty. Every Christian everywhere should do that. We got a dude named Shariq Khan that I've been texting with. He's awesome. That's how you pronounce his name, right? Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, thanks. Former Muslim dude in the DFW area, had Seems awesome.

Yeah, I'll meet him next week. Yeah, dude.

Oh, really? Yeah. All right. We may need to have him on at some point, but that's his thing. He's like, hey dude, I was converted to Christ out of Islam. Hey bro, let's get the gospel to these people. Yep. All of us. Number 2, say publicly that a mosque harms your city. And I got to be honest, if you're a Christian who actually like, hey bro, there's a lot of Christians who they say they believe this stuff, But at the emotional level, you're like, no, you don't. If you actually believe that Islam is the worship of demons and that it's bad for people and societies, in one sense, with obviously there's some caveats, you got to bring in some other thoughts too, in one sense, opposing the, like you said, the Islamification of a society, if nothing else, that is a love your neighbor issue. Yes, it is not good for people and societies. So say publicly that, hey bro, this is not good for our city. Yeah, like, you should probably be honest about that. All right, number 3.

Also, Josh, I would say, uh, false religion, uh, is not morally neutral. Like, at some point, ideas have consequences. We'll say this often, right? There's a reason why, again, this is not just, uh, Christianity is not— it's not just a religion of like intellectual exercise. Like, it flows out in your behavior. Same thing applies to a different religion that believes something completely different. At some point, that's going to affect how men engage with women, that's going to affect how families operate, that's going to affect society, work. And hence, uh, Islam being a religion also that at some point it's not a private— if at its core, if you go back to the Quran, if you go back to Muhammad, at its core is not just a private devotion. No, dude, hide at home. It's something that pervades every single aspect of society.

So go ahead. Yes, dude, hang on, I'm gonna try to find something here in a second. Uh, dang it, I probably saved it too long ago. All right, I won't be able to find it. Yeah, in fact, let me point this out to what Carlos just Now what we're trying to do is what is the intersection of faith and politics, of theology and nation? Now I'll just point out to double-click on what Carlos just said. Okay. So what's the first line say? It says that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator. We hold these truths to be self-evident by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Okay, great. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. But watch this. You can't just stop there. If everybody's endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, two questions arise. There's a creator. What's his name? And then number two, depending on your answer to that question, that leads to your answer to the question, which rights? Yes. I'm going to shoot you really straight. Good question. If his name is Jesus Christ as God, there's a specific, for instance, we're getting brass tacks. There's a specific definition of marriage that Jesus Christ has elucidated.

Yep. Okay? If his name is Allah, well, you can have up to 4 wives. So like, bro, you start getting, hey man, if there's a creator, what's his name? And his name is gonna have implications for what you believe are the quote, certain inalienable rights that are endowed to people in a society. Yeah. All right. Now, so number 3, should a Christian object at a hearing on— watch this, this is important— on Land Ground's traffic drainage parking? I'm going to get to this here in a second. Where I'm at is I believe that it is appropriate. A Christian with good— in good conscience could— and I'm actually going to tell you how here in a second. That's what may actually get me in trouble, uh, that a Christian can in good conscience oppose, legally oppose the construction of a mosque based on things like land, ground, traffic, drainage, parking, zoning issues. I believe a Christian can do that in good conscience. Yes, the law permits this. But here's the question number 4, and this is the strategic mistake a lot of people probably made in McKinney. Number 4, can a Christian ask the council to refuse it because it is a mosque?

No, you can't. That's illegal now and you're going to lose.

All you did was lose passionately.

That's right. You lost in a blaze of glory. That's exactly right. I'm a big fan of winning. I like winning. Me too. Now let me just point this out. And here's why I say this. In my, again, I've got way in over my head. I just got super interested in all this this week. This exact same thing happened in reverse. In January 2026, so this year, in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Literally the exact same thing happened and the city council did the opposite. So exact same thing happened. Bunch of people show up and they're like, "Hey, we don't want a mosque in our city. We don't want Sharia law in our city." And the city council there refused the mosque 4 to 1 on the basis of, it came out in emails, on the basis of it's a mosque. The Department of Justice opened an investigation. By the way, that's the Trump administration, the White House Faith Office, who is generally doing really good work. Open investigation, and then the Islamic Society of Tulsa sued, and they're almost certainly gonna lose. Okay, so here's the point, is like, hey man, we need to be both wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Yes.

Did they oppose it on the legal ground of zoning?

If I understand correctly, they were requesting a zoning change, if I understand it correctly, and the city council, if memory serves, They sided with the people against the mosque, but they did it. It came out in emails on the basis of it being a mosque, Islam, what we've seen Islam do in other nations, that kind of thing. And right now, let me just point this out again. Right now, because of the Supreme Court's interpretation of Everson in 1947, I'm going to keep emphasizing this, bro, Supreme Court matters. For the societal inheritance you will hand your children and grandchildren. It matters. Because of the interpretation, reinterpretation of the First Amendment in 1947, right now there's no legal grounds for somebody to oppose something simply on the basis of, "It's a mosque. Can't do it." Now, you got anything else to say here? Not yet. Okay. Now, number 5, let me just point this out. Should Christians work on immigration policy? And again, I'll just point this out. Yeah, you should. And again, people, you can, And this is one of the things that I obviously get blasted for online sometimes, but hey man, that stuff matters.

Yes. It matters because again, via mass migration, Dallas now has 1 out of every 14 on average residents of Dallas is somebody from a predominantly Islamic nation. Now, do we want them to hear the gospel? Of course. Yeah. Is it civically wise for a nation to just dilute the nation with an anti-Christian presence that will actually undermine— actually, hey, Chris, text me one of those things you sent about Muslims vote with Muslims. Text me one of those things real quick. Is that wise to import millions of people who in many ways they are fundamentally opposed to historic American norms and Christian consensus? Is that wise? No, it's not. And it's not a non-Christian thing to say that. Does that make sense? Yeah, makes sense. All right. Yeah. Trinity, can you toss that up real quick? Now let me show you why this kind of stuff matters. All right, so this is what I'm talking about. Thanks, Trinity. So I just want to point this out. CAIR, it's Center for American Islamic something that ends with, what's this ends with? R? What's the R stand for? Relations. Relations. So I just want to point this, they put this out.

So this is one thing I'll be honest, dude, Americans are not awesome at thinking this. People don't like Americans don't, it's not in generally in, well, I'll just say it like this. Muslims vote with Muslims. I just spit everywhere. You're importing massive voting blocks. That vote specifically for people who embody their religion. Yeah. Makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. It's human. It's a human impulse. It's normal. See, but so I mean, you see it like 97% of New York City Muslim voters, Zohran Mamdani, 86% for the Spam burger person and all these. So you're just seeing it like, man, it's extremely high concentrations. Extremely high concentrations. Okay. Okay. So working on immigration policy. Yeah. Christians should do that. Now go back to that chart, Trinity. And then here's the biggie. And this is the long play. It's kind of like overturning Roe took 49 years. This is the kind of thing that would take— it's going to take a minute. And there are people working on this. I ran across it this week. Overturning Everson to return the question of these things to the states. Yeah, dude, that's something that that if Christians get a chance, yeah, we should probably shoot for that.

Okay. If I'm understanding all this correctly. Now I'll just land on it here and I'll just say a couple things. If you're like, ah, I don't know. There are two things I saw recently that made me like, yeah, dude, we have to learn to think wisely from a spiritual perspective. So Philip Anthony Mitchell, he's a preacher I listen to every now and then. Honestly, dude, if people think that, man, that Howard guy, he's really on an island over there talking about the Islam thing a lot. Phillip's been on this for a minute. It's like Phillip posted this a few months ago. He said, it's one thing to invade a nation by force. It's another when that nation invites her future persecutors into positions of power. Oh America, our children will suffer the painful consequences of our blindness and spiritual apathy. If we don't wake up. Lord, stir your bride. A religious takeover is coming and time is running out. That's Philip Anthony Mitchell. Now, if you won't believe a dumb rural Kentucky kid or Philip Anthony Mitchell or your Bible, I do just want to play this and I'm going to play it. It's like a minute and 15 seconds.

I'm going to play it in its entirety. This will send a chill down your spine. So that guy that I pointed out at the very beginning of the episode, white shirt, long hair, who had some emotion responding to the guy. He got up at the end of the night and he was an Iranian Christian that escaped the Islamic regime in Iran. And this is what he said at that city council meeting. Check this out.

Hello, my name is Eddie Issa. I'm a Sharia law survivor from Iran, and I'm here to tell you this is a dangerous ideology belong in their country. Every country that is Islamic now, it used to be a Christian country. And we'll be— pause.

That's a generalization, but it's all— it's— that is basically true. So a lot of people don't know this: Egypt, Turkey, North Africa, all of North Africa, etc. Bro, all those were Christian countries. Like, when you go visit the 7 churches in Revelation, they're almost all of They're in Turkey, which is an Islamic country now.

And they didn't become Muslim because they thought the faith was really compelling.

That is not exactly what happened. I'm going to talk about that here in a second. Spain was under Islamic control for many years. Greece had to fight wars to get it back. So this is what he's talking about. That guy is— that dude ain't— he's not shooting from the hip. He's not an idiot.

Okay, now keep going. Theology, you're wrong in their country. Every country that is Islamic now, it used to be a Christian country. And we were soft Christians and we allowed these people to come in, bring their Sharia law.

Pause. Now, some people would look at that and they'd be like, "Oh man, look at this guy. He's way over the top." Dude, there's just a few. What are you talking about, man? We're talking about like a tiny concentration, just a few, that kind of thing. I'm going to read you something here in a second that's going to help. Actually, I'm just going to read it right now. I'm just going to read it right now. Christians tend to think in terms of decades. Muslims tend to think in terms of centuries. Okay? So check this out. Now, before we go any— keep it right there, Trinity. So what he's talking about when he says the word slowly, he's talking about the fact that yeah, man, world political conquest is endemic to the ideology of Islam. That has always been the thing. Shocking. Ran across this this week. For instance, in 2004, the FBI grabbed this. They raided this thing and they found a document from the Muslim Brotherhood that's now been labeled a terrorist organization by the American government. And they found this expl— it was an explanatory memorandum. Now, again, Do all Muslims think this way?

No. We're talking about what happens at the macro level when huge numbers of people are imported into a society with general mindsets. What happens at the macro level over centuries? That's the question we're asking. Okay, so the FBI finds this, uh, uh, it was called an explanatory memorandum, and this is how they described it. On the general strategic goal for the group in North America. So basically for Muslims in America, this is what they said. I'm going to read it. This is their document outlining the strategy. The process of settlement. So it's talking about mass Islamic migration. The process of settlement is a, quote, civilization jihadist process with all that the word means. The Ikhwan, which just means brother, must understand that their work in America Allah is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion— talking about Allah— is made victorious over all other religions. So some people might laugh at a guy like that and be like, you, what a dumb little fella. We're just talking about just a couple just that kind of thing.

That guy has a home country native experience of, no, no, there are certain people who, they don't think like you. They're not thinking about the next 10 years. They're thinking about the next 300 years. And he's, so when he says, he's saying, that's what they're talking about. Now keep going.

Watch what he says. Allah into their countries and slowly kill us off left and right. Let me make it very clear to you, Christianity Christianity is a personal relationship with God where it says, he's a Christian, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, render unto God what is God's. Islam is Sharia law, deen wa dawa, religion and state, which is not even compatible with the American thing.

Now what he's saying, and I just want to keep pointing this out, he's pointing out the fact that Islam is not— we just have to say it— Islam is not just a religion, it's also a political ideology. Yes. So the thing I like to say sometimes is progressivism is a religion masquerading as a political ideology. Islam Islam is a political ideology masquerading as a religion. So I— there's more I could say here. That's what he's talking about. There is no such thing as Islam that does not have a vision for what it wants to do, take, infiltrate, take over, and do at the political governmental leadership level.

People will use taqiyya to lie to you, to manipulate you, because whenever Islam is little, they will lie to you and tell you they come in peace. This is a bad idea, and you're gonna regret not listening to people like us who lived under Sharia law.

Thank you, Eddie. You can stop right there. So I'll just say, here's how you might say it: unrestricted and falsely interpreted concepts of religious liberty plus mass migration plus Muslims are being discipled into clear political activity and strategy while Christians are often being discipled away from clear political activity and strategy. That combination, my friends, is a national suicide pact. That's what he's pointing out. Okay. Now let me just land. You guys got any questions here? We good? You got questions, comments, snide remarks or otherwise?

You want me to share thoughts now or do you want to wait till after you're done cooking?

Share some thoughts now and then I'm going to say— Sure. Then I'll finish just by like, here's what you can do and here's what you can't do. That's good.

I'll just say just a few comments. One's an encouragement and then just a few things I'm wrestling with and just kind of even pack some different things that you've hit on. Man, just one encouragement, and we've said this before, but probably not frequently enough, is man, I think Christians have gotten better at engaging in politics on a national level over the last 4 to 8 years. Where we have a lot of ground to make up is doing it on a state and local level. And that is actually where culture is formed in a real way and things things like these. And so that's just one thing is just to encourage Christians that yes, by all means, vote in national elections, make your voice heard. But man, actually it's in local school boards and city councils and votes like this where you need to be just as active and involved. Because this is where if I'm playing a long game, I actually might work more at a local or state level than at a national level. To your point, a couple of things I got to see even as I've been wrestling this week, Carlos and I've talked some offline.

It's like, man, I've been wrestling with this. It's like 50/50 either side because a few things that I've been asking myself. So I'm not trying to impose this on anybody. This is just things I've been wrestling with this, man, there is just some— I don't call it simplistic, but there's the straightforward argument of like, man, we should oppose demon worship. We should. The thing I've been wrestling with is, hey, if I was going— if I'm going to do that with Muslims, would I also do that with other groups? Because if I wouldn't, then I'm like, oh, there might be some hypocrisy in myself. It's like, I believe Jehovah's Witnesses is a false religion. Would I also oppose their zoning? And if not, I have to ask myself. By the way, it doesn't mean I shouldn't oppose it. I'm saying that's more just a gut check in myself. If I'm going to use that argument, I should use it consistently.

Yeah, this is not disagreeing with you, it's adding. What I would what I would say is that different forms of false religion have asymmetrical outcomes in how destructive they are to society.

So that's where I was actually going next. You hit it. Because then I thought, okay, if there is something to me, then I'm like you, it's a strategic thing and it's about the common good thing kind of a thing. Then what I've wrestled with is like at a local city kind of a thing, like, oh, should I oppose? I'm like you, do it wisely, do it in a way that wins. But here's one thing that I had to tell myself this week is, hey, if I were to go and do that, I have to also know that then they can play that game with us. So then what if a place that has majority Muslim population, a city council opposes a church being planted?

Or very frankly, we have the Strategic Launch Network that plants— we've planted 100 churches in extremely secular progressive cities. I'll shoot you real straight. They very frequently play the quote unquote zoning issues game to keep churches from being built in those cities. Listen, very frequently.

And by the way, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it. I'm more just saying that, hey, if we're going to play that game, we just got to know they may play play it back with us. And we can't be like LeBron or Luka where everybody fouls us, but we never foul other people. We got to be like, hey, we're going to play it. We just got to know it may go back and vice versa. And that's fine. Again, I'm just talking about things that I'm wrestling with.

We're all trying to figure this out.

I'm trying to figure it out. And that's why it's been so hard is I can see all the arguments, but that's where I'm like, hey, if we do this, we just got to know it may happen back. And are we willing to? And if we are, great. We just got to know that. But I think again, for me then it's like saying, hey, we got to keep the tension. We've said this already, but I think just repeat, then I'll let you get back to it is saying, Man, it has to be a both/and. I have to think, I love the strategy laid out, the things that we can do to take practical steps towards slowing or reversing the Islamification of society, because we do need to. And I want to reach them with the gospel and reach my neighbors. It's a both/and. So that's just where I'm at. I just want to share where I'm at, the things I'm wrestling with, and let you get back to it, man.

Yeah, we were talking about, you know, one, again, a lot of people are getting probably wrestling with this point to the New Testament, and they would argue, hey, But that's not what you see in the New Testament church especially, right? And I, I think I have an answer to that, uh, because they couldn't, right? Like, they just, like, they literally couldn't. Um, and you don't ignore the other parts of scripture that you've laid out so clearly about the responsibility of a Christian. Again, to— we are Christians not just in our private little sphere on Sundays, but every single aspect of society. That's our responsibility. Um, and, uh, at the same time, when you look at history I was going to ask you, Paul, would you just give us like a quick— like, when you look at Christian history, have they been involved? Have they not been involved? Christians all throughout history? Yeah, Christians.

We had this little thing called Christendom that we did for like 1,000 years.

Yeah, this is really, this is really simplistic, but I'll do this fast for you. It's like, because, yeah, because to your point, when the New Testament is written, they didn't have an option. But the thing that was always the thing is we're going to make disciples, and guess what? We're going to disciple people to obey Jesus and live out their faith in every sphere of their lives, including in their homes, but also including their workplaces. Well, guess But guess what happens all of a sudden when a Christian emperor becomes a Christian? He begins asking, "How do I live out my faith as an emperor?" You're talking about Constantine. Constantine.

300s.

And I'm, again, I'm way simplifying. But then all of a sudden, when you do have people in power who love Jesus and if they're going to live out their life as a disciple and as a follower of Jesus, that includes then there's the role. And so they're beginning to think, "Well, hey, if I'm running this nation and this empire, I want to do it in a way that aligns with my faith and values." And that builds over time. But then here's the thing, what's different today is that we don't have an emperor, but man, I exert influence and political influence because I vote. I'm a citizen of a constitutional republic. And so I should be asking you as a Christian, if like, hey, as a disciple of Jesus, how should I wield my influence and how I vote as a disciple? It's not a separate thing. It's part of being a disciple. So basically it's like Constantine got to do it. Eudoxio Lattery and others. Now as Christians, we carry that responsibility individually. That's kind of how I would work.

Yeah. Let me say, I'm going to riff on what you just said, Carlos. And then I'm going to finish this episode telling you like, hey, If you're a Christian in a city where this is a thing, here's what you are allowed to do, because I actually worked on this with a lawyer. So I just, if you want to answer your question, 'cause a lot of Christians are like, "Hey, that's not what they did in the Bible." And you're like, your response is the right one, bro. They couldn't. There's 120 of them in the Roman Empire. So what I would say is a couple things. Jesus specifically predicted that the kingdom of God would grow in the world like leaven through a lump of bread. So it's gonna start really, really small. And then over the centuries is gonna work and work and work and work and work. Okay? The other thing I would point out is Jesus specifically commanded people in the Sermon on the Mount to be, quote, "The salt of the earth." He did not say, "I just want you to be the salt of the church. Just keep the salt in the salt shaker and just don't apply your Christianity in the public square.

Don't ever do that. We lose down here," kind of vibe, kind of thing. No, no, no. He was, "Hey man, go out." Jesus' actual title in the New Testament is King of Kings. That's like his name.

It's tattooed on his thigh. That has more authority than a president and a government.

The implication is all the presidents should be bowing to me and doing what I want. That's a good point. And then, I mean, I could keep going. You got the— I won't keep going. Temptation of Jesus, all the kingdoms, all the things. I could keep going. All right. So let me just land on this. Here's what I think. I think it would not be inappropriate it for Christians in a city to, by legal means, if there is a legal and ethical means to oppose it and keep it from happening, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. There's two ways you can do that. I'll just tell you. Number one, it's called in the state of Texas, it's called a formal property owner's protest. You just got to get a land use lawyer. You got to find somebody who owns 20% of the contiguous land with the proposal. This is when something needs a zoning change is what it needs, and you just file a formal property owner's protest, but it cannot be on the basis of, well, it's Islamic, or, ah, it's— no, you have to be able to, with integrity, say, hey dude, you know, traffic flow and da da da da.

You have to, with integrity, be able to say those things and file it on that basis. Okay. So that's number one. If a zoning change is required, formal property owner's protest. Number two, if I understand this correctly, I think this is national, I think federal, but I'm sure that it applies in the state of Texas. I was texting with somebody in government leadership that would know the answer to this question, who shall remain nameless, that he just honestly pointed out, hey man, a significant number of potential mosque developments are connected in some way to one of the two organizations, the Muslim Brotherhood or CAIR, and that's C-A-I-R, them. And any affiliate, those two organizations and any affiliate is banned in Texas from owning land. So if someone can establish in any way, hey, there's an affiliate relationship right there in any way, that is not allowed to own land, done, it's done. So from what I understand, what you do is you file a public records request on the potential development's paperwork, nonprofit status, nonprofit status, and any connection to care of the Muslim Brotherhood. And if you establish it, boom, done. Then you file that complaint with the Texas AG's office and it's done.

So that's a little nerdy and wheezy. Now let me finish. I'm going to finish by reading our brother Shari Khan, the guy that converted out of Islam, is a Jesus follower now, because he said something about this that I think needs to be our final note of emphasis. I'm going to read what he said. I like what he said. Everyone is suddenly paying attention to McKinney because of a mosque, a 7-0 vote, and a political controversy. I work in McKinney twice a week, and here's what I'm actually seeing on the ground. The biggest problem isn't— so notice he's saying the biggest problem. He's not saying there's no other problem. He's saying the biggest problem. The biggest problem isn't that Muslims and Hindus are moving here, 300% more Hindus, by the way. It's that the church is largely absent. Now, he's not saying there's no good churches over there. And listen, we know, I know there's some great dudes over there. Yes. So I just want to get that out there. People have moved here, built businesses, bought beautiful homes, raised families, and become part of the community. Community. And too many Christians only show up when there's a political controversy.

We have literally outsourced our evangelism, which is our strongest assimilation system, to a single morning where we storm a meeting and get really loud for 5 hours. The question I have is, where were the other 364 days? Talk is cheap. And so I would just finish by saying, do not merely be hearers of the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. —now I'm gonna go take Jana on a date. So Jesus, please give us wisdom. I have now prayed. The episode is over.

Get out of here, man.