Faith and Presidential Politics: Can the Two Ever Meet?

Faith and Presidential Politics: Can the Two Ever Meet?

Oct. 8, 2024

Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell

Guest(s): Hon. Mark Walker, Dr. Craig Schaller

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 10/4/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Jamie Mitchell:  Well, welcome again to another episode of Stand in the Gap Today. I’m Jamie Mitchell, director of church culture at the American Pastors Network and your host today, and we are exactly one month away from what might be known as the most consequential election of our lifetime. I know that we say that in the past, but the stakes are high and the future of our nation is literally hanging in the balance. The question I like to ask is this on November 6th or seventh or maybe even the first week of December, who knows when We’ll really find out what the final count is, but what will we discover when we begin to analyze the election? What were the winning factors? What really affected the vote? Obviously the women’s vote will be important. How about minorities and even that elusive independent vote? All of those groups in the segment of our population play a major role, but what I want you to think of is this, what would be said of the Evangelical Christian vote.

Jamie Mitchell:  In recent history, we have some data. In 2016, evangelicals were solidly behind President Trump and many said it landed him the victory even with many of his character flaws and moral indiscretions, Christian supported him. Yet the facts are clearly that many evangelicals stayed home in 2020. Many pastors were silent on the election, avoiding it like the plague. Where are we right now and does it matter and is there a history of faith playing a role in presidential elections? That’s our focus today and to navigate these issues, I have two guests with me During the second half, I’m going to introduce you to Dr. Greg Eller of the John Jay Institute, but starting off this very important topic is a friend of this program. He’s been with us many times, former Congressman Mark Walker. Not only is he a seasoned candidate and public servant, but Mark also bears the wonderful badge of being a minister of the gospel. Mark, welcome back to Stand in the Gap.

Mark Walker:     Jimmy, thank you so much. It’s an honor to be with you. I appreciate the clarity of which you speak on a weekly basis, making sure the truth is getting out there, so thank you for having me today.

Jamie Mitchell:  Well Mark, we love having you. In a month we will have election day. Early voting has started. The movement towards this election is coming to a crescendo end. It will be a close election by every count, and right now you are involved serving as a faith and minorities outreach director encouraging those in the GOP. Mark. From your perspective, how will evangelicals play a role in this election and what are you seeing right now?

Mark Walker:     Yeah, I would say how they’re going to play a role or how they’re not going to play in a role or play a role in looking at the analytics. I’ll give you one example. Even though I live here in North Carolina, I’ve been looking at the Georgia election candidates and all the different things that are going on there. Lemme give you a number real quick not to bore your audience, but right now we know of 350,000 what we call regular church attendees. These are classified for people who attend church two to three times a week, mostly evangelicals who are not even registered vote in the state of Georgia. If I remind your listener, if I could just for a moment, that state was lost, you have two Democrat senators, one of the most liberal senators in so-called Reverend Raphael Warnock, but also John Ossoff and President Trump also lost election.

Mark Walker:     If just 10% of those 350,000 would show up, register and show up to vote, it would make all the difference in the world. I’m out here trying to beat the bush on this. Best I can. I know you are as well, but the Bible tells us specifically that we are to be involved praying for our rulers, praying for those in authority. If God has asked us to pray for those, I don’t know where these pastors and where others may think that they can take a pass on being part of the process and I think that is something that’s the message that we tried to continue to get to pastors, to ministers and people of the faith to please be involved to understand exactly the level of the spiritual battle that we’re facing currently in America.

Jamie Mitchell:  Mark, so many Christians and I talk to a lot and I talk to a lot of pastors in my role here at APN, they just dislike politics. They avoid it like I said before the plague and I know that’s not good for them to be disengaged. Why from your perspective, why do they shy away and what do they need to know to reengage themselves?

Mark Walker:     That’s a great question and I appreciate what you guys are doing here. I just recently met with a most recent president of the Southern Baptist Convention and I would say you were debating this topic and I told him, I said, look, this is at 60 years ago where you had one nightly news program for 30 minutes. That was pretty straight down the line, just sharing facts. The people of your congregations, your parishioners, the people that are involved in your church community, they’re inundated. There are seven or 8, 24 hour news networks. Everything on your smartphone, these families and people are going on is constantly a false narrative, constantly attacking our faith, our religious liberty. So my question is this, pastor, if you don’t lead the battle, which you will agree is even sometimes an evil battle that we’re facing, who do you expect to lead it? Who do you expect to be on the front line? Because any great movement that started in this country did not start out of Washington DC or your state capitol. It started with men and women, faith god’s people coming together, drawing a line in the sand. That’s what we’re missing right now, that level of leadership to make sure that these pastors are encouraging their bodies of believers to be involved, to be registered, to vote, to stay informed on the issues, and that’s a great void in our American culture right now.

Jamie Mitchell:  Mark, one of my favorite preachers, Alistair Begg uses this phrase when there is mist in the pulpit, there is fog in the pew that really speaks of right now where I see the evangelical voter. They’re in a fog and part of the problem is the silence from the pulpit and giving clarity, not telling them who to vote but giving them clarity. Is that what you’re seeing as you interact with pastors out there?

Mark Walker:     100% perfectly articulated. It’s articulated and I love the quote, yes, I don’t know that people fully understand. I remember in Congress, I served in the house when Vice President Harris was in the Senate and the other day as I watched her in the debate flat out speak one line after the other, I remember the vote, we finally got the bill, the legislation through the house that would mandate for healthcare providers that they would have to sustain the life of a baby that survived a botched abortion. We identified 1500 adults that had done so that had survived. Kamala Harris was a strong advocate against that. She voted against that baby being allowed to stay alive and the same thing for vice president candidate Tim Walz. He was one of six pro-lifers left in the house when I was there or he said he voted to save the life and then two days later he wrote a letter to that time speaker Paul Ryan asking him if he could change his vote where a baby would not be allowed to live. This is what we’re dealing with right now.

Jamie Mitchell:  Hey, I want to dig deeper into why and what is at stake when we return. Mark and I have discussed what issues should be the Christian’s greatest concern. He’s mentioned one, abortion, there’s others. Join with us as we continue this important discussion of faith and presidential politics here at Stand of the Gap today. Well, welcome back.

Jamie Mitchell:  We’re discussing presidential politics today and the role of the evangelical in our elections. Mark Walker is not a stranger to stand in the gap. Mark discussed this year’s elections and what’s ahead of us. I want to talk about issues that should be on an evangelical Christian’s radar. You mentioned one of them, abortion. That’s always the one that probably takes the highlight. It’s so clear to us that abortion is wrong, but I don’t want to be a OneNote. Johnny, what are some other issues Christians should have on their radar this year as they sort out who to vote for? I think we might have lost Mark Walker maybe.

Mark Walker:     Am I there?

Jamie Mitchell:  There you go. I got you back. Mark. What are the issues other than abortion you’ve already mentioned, what are some other issues that evangelical Christians should be concerned

Mark Walker:     About? Well, great question. I will tell you this, and certainly abortion is important as you stated, especially when you’re dealing with people who have no ceiling on abortions like Tim Walz and Kamala Harris, but something that was said recently that did not make a lot of press clippings or media got a lot of immediate attention, but something that shocked me to my bones was when Kamala Harris, and this is one of the places or issues that she has not waffled on, she said this, that she promised to use the DOJ, the Department of Justice to go after those that she deemed would be sharing misinformation. Now, to me, of all the things that have been said, I don’t know if there’s been a more frightening statement by any presidential candidate who’s telling you upfront that she will use the federal authority, specifically the Department of Justice if you as a private citizen are saying something that she deems is misinformation. Now for me, coming from being a pastor son fighting for religious liberty and holding this government accountable, I don’t know of anything that should be more shocking whether you’re a Christian or whether you’re a believer or not, that this should frighten us all. This is the first candidate in the history who’s ever made that promise and it’s on video from just five weeks ago when she declared such. I think that’s incredible scary to all of us. Jamie,

Jamie Mitchell:  Mark. One of my criticisms of evangelicals and I really challenge pastors with this, you probably do the same, is that understanding issues like the economy, like immigration, like you’re mentioning, free speech, religious liberty, and even be able to articulate issues like what’s wrong with Marxism, and when I was a kid, some of these things, pastors understood these dangers and even dialogued on them, but they didn’t have to be as fervent because the culture was not as far gone, but Christians need to start really digging in and having some clear biblical worldview clarity on these issues. Isn’t that one of the problems that we’re seeing with Christians and how they vote today?

Mark Walker:     There’s no question. It’s almost like we are ignoring our history. God has blessed this country since the day it was birthed out of Judeo-Christian Foundation and these principles, these standings has allowed America to not only be such a powerful economic force, but because of such America has shared the gospel in more places. In Mour villages has brought healing and hope in the gospel message of Jesus Christ than any country that’s ever existed since the beginning of time. We know that the enemy is going to do everything and use anyone to begin to put a lid or try to restrict that to me, not to be too conspiratorial. That’s at the bottom of this basis here where someone is knowing they’re being utilized or not. When you have candidates that are basically being bold in pushing back on the religious freedom or the very Christian principles that many have paid ultimate prices to be able to ascertain what’s at stake and for the life of me, why believers, why pastors will not look at this as a whole of what we’re at stake here. I struggle with that and that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing with the RNC making sure these folks understand what’s at stake here.

Jamie Mitchell:  Mark, here’s the question I think is really begging some kind of clarity. I want you to speak to the struggling Christian who feels handcuffed. They hear these issues, they know these issues, they know where the parties and the candidates stand. They understand the moral and biblical issues at hand, yet they find it hard to vote for people whose characters are questionable or there’s something in their spirit that says there’s something not right. How do we reconcile some of these conflicts? At the end of the day, we normally have two people to vote for and most of the time most have their own personal issues. How do we reconcile, how do we help Christians grapple with this and not just sit at home in a stalemate position?

Mark Walker:     I know it’s a fair question. It really is, and I know and have talked with, I’m sure you have, of people that are struggling with this and I would, I guess the short answer would be this is that you have one potential administration that’s going to protect your family and your religious liberty and you have one administration that’s pretty much declaring that what we believe in our Christian Judeo ethics, our family, our religious liberty, that’s up for grabs. I’ve seen the legislation in many cases, it’s already written. They just need someone to fast track. If they had the majorities in the house, the Senate with a Democratic administration, the difference between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is Joe Biden is just a long-term 50 year politician like a, weather vane blows whichever way the crowd, when you have someone like a Kamala Harris, this is fundamentally her religion. It’s what the ideology is, what she believes, and that is something for that person maybe in the middle of the road. Yes, you have to decide sometimes between a flawed candidate versus flawed ideology, and I think understanding those differences will help many people decide which way to go when it comes to November.

Jamie Mitchell:  Mark, we have just a couple of minutes left and while I have you on here, you just mentioned something that’s important. We’re talking about presidential politics today and how to sort that out, but let’s face it, we could elect somebody to be the President and be somebody who holds to our values, but if he doesn’t have support of the house or the Senate, he can be in a stalemate. I mean, we’ve seen that here in North Carolina where we hold super majorities in our house and in our Senate and we’ve been able to hold back a very liberal governor from doing some damage. What do we say to people as they go to the polls? Many are going in early voting already, but it’s equal important for them to be on their game when it comes to some of the, as we say, bottom end of the ballot elections that may be happening both nationally and in their states.

Mark Walker:     There’s no question and sometimes shame on us for forgetting to mention that. I’m so glad you brought that up. There are good godly people that are working to serve down ballot from your local school board to your state reps, to the judges North Carolina Supreme Court. That’s been huge having a conservative group there. You have members of Congress, the house is in the balance on the federal level, all of these from the top to bottom. I would certainly encourage the people listening to us today to do their homework, to be informed. These are critical moments. We are at a crossroads in this country and sometimes even that local position is going to be crucial on how it impacts us as believers, and I hope the audience will do that and we’ll do the due diligence and make sure that we’re putting in there. Look, there’s a lot of things that are set out there. Find the people that they base their lives on substance. There’s a lot of character that they run their home, their business, their family in a godly manner. That’s the people that I would want to support because what they’re getting ready to face. You have to have strong people who I believe are people of faith that are able to withstand all the different storms and the temptations and the trials that will even the persecution that will come after them. We need those kind of people standing in the gap.

Jamie Mitchell:  Mark, we got about one minute left. Would you take a moment and would you please lead us in prayer? Would you pray for the evangelical today? Who is grappling with these things and we want them to vote, but we want them to vote according to God’s will and how God leads them and would you just take a moment and pray for them right now and pray for pastors as well?

Mark Walker:     I would be honored, father God, without hesitation. First of all, we want to praise you and thank you that we can in a moment’s boldly come into your presence. Lord, we lay our heart to you today. Our country is in need of your work. In many places we’ve lost our way in many places on us. It’s on the believers, it’s on the pastors, Lord, that we have gotten silent in too many areas. I pray first for boldness and courage for people who will be willing to get out there not in a vindictive or ugly way. Yes, we’re called to love our neighbor, but that comes along with speaking the truth. Lord, help us to be able to stay close enough to you to be led by the spirit, to be able to divide that path. Lord, you gave us a promise in Proverbs three that when we trust in you, you make our path straight.

Mark Walker:     We pray that today. Lord, I pray for the voter that’s processing this, that’s looking at making decisions. Lord, I pray that you would provide wisdom and guidance there as you told us that you would. Lord, I pray for people like Jamie that are out there that are working hard to communicate the values and the beliefs that we need in this country. Protect us as we go forward. Lord, I pray for Israel situation and all the things that are going on there. I pray for the people of Western North Carolina as well that you’ll provide the needs and meet those as we go throughout today and next week. God bless as we go. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.

Jamie Mitchell:  Amen. Mark, bless you for taking time to be with us. We always glean tremendous insights each time you join us, God bless the work that you’re doing. Friends, when we return, we want to consider the history of presidential elections and how evangelicals have played a role. I want to introduce you to a new guest to stand in the gap and so come back in just a few moments after our sponsors share some word and we are so thankful for their support.

Jamie Mitchell:  We’re here on Stand In the Gap today. Well welcome to the second half of Stand in the Gap. We continue this important discussion about the evangelicals role in presidential politics and really in elections in general. I’m thrilled to introduce a new guest to Stand in the Gap, Dr. Greg Shaller. He’s the director of the John Jay Institute, which equips and prepares the next generation for public service and proclaims a biblical worldview and public policy. He also is a professor at Cairn University, my Alma Mater. Greg, welcome to Stand In the Gap today.

Greg Schaller:     Thanks, Jamie. It’s a pleasure to be on with you.

Jamie Mitchell:  Greg, I’m not sure how much you heard of Mark’s comments and we may address some of them, but I would like you to look at the whole idea of presidential elections and evangelicals and when we became an important segment of that electorate. Can you give us a quick overview of the history of Christian involvement, especially presidential politics? When did that become important when it comes to the presidential elections and were there any turning points where our vote really began to matter and people really took note of it?

Greg Schaller:     Sure, yeah, I mean it’s a really interesting question and thinking about this historically big picture Christians have been, America has been largely a Christian nation made up of people who identify as Christians… If you go back to the American founding, we’re talking about 95, 90 7% of the entire population and at that time, and for much of the nation’s history, there was not a clear demarcation of evangelicals identifying with a particular political party as a broadly Christian nation. There were divisions over policy issues of policy preferences and that continued through much of the nation’s history. There were other factors that would be more important. A lot of times geography, levels of education, family and all those things would be more significant in kind of predicting how a person would identify and which party they would be more inclined to vote for. So as a broadly Christian nation, we can see that Christians would vote at time, vote for a Federalist party or a Democrat Republican or a wig party or the Democrat and Republican parties.

Greg Schaller:     It’s really much more recent that we begin to see this divide and of religion being a predictor of how a person would identify which party they would be aligned with and who they would vote for. Political scientists have been studying this for many, many years, and again some of those factors, those key variables would be geography, family race, region of country, vocation type of vocation. The job that a person has as being a key predictor in how somebody is going to vote is really not until we get into the sixties and more recently the seventies and eighties where self-identified evangelicals began increasingly aligning with the Republican party and voting along those ways, and there’s several issues I think we can look to that sort of seize this alignment happening. Obviously things like the sexual revolution in the 1960s, Roe v Wade in the 1970s and the important issue of abortion, other sociocultural issues, keep in mind that the Democrat party was largely a pro-life party in the 1960s and 1970s.

Greg Schaller:     I was just thinking about former governor of the state I live in Pennsylvania, Bob Casey Sr. Was a pro-life Democrat. He was actually denied the ability to speak of the 1992 Democratic National Convention because of his views on abortion. So the Democrat Party increasingly adopted liberal positions on social issues and the Republican party has increasingly adopted more conservative positions on those, and so as we can see, this has grown and the divide between the parties on these has grown and at the same time, evangelicals have increasingly identified themselves as conservative on social issues, but even on economic issues and in general government authority. The Barna group, which does a lot of research on people’s religious views and their positions on things found in a survey done about three and a half years ago that white evangelicals identify as conservative 82% of the time. That’s a fairly recent phenomena that that has happened. If you think about this big picture of American history

Jamie Mitchell:  As we have been discussing politics and Christianity at times, I have to tell you it’s like oil and water. It doesn’t mix well, especially recently. From your vantage point, how can Christians navigate an election year when you have some very important issues on the table, but you also have very flawed candidates?

Greg Schaller:     Yeah, that’s certainly the case. I guess one thing I would suggest is that we recognize the importance of our votes and voting for president and for other elected officials. It is important, but I think we shouldn’t exaggerate the importance of that and exaggerate the statement that I’m making by who I cast my vote for. One, I think we should be, as Christians have a much broader view of our involvement in politics in our communities, in our civil society. We shouldn’t just be voters. We should be engaged citizens 365 days a year, not just on election day, and I think that provides us a better perspective. If I’m focusing on being a good neighbor, being a good citizen in my local community, that’s going to have a far bigger impact than who I cast a vote for. I think we also ought to step back and say that my vote for a candidate is not an endorsement of everything that they stand for or their own personal character.

Greg Schaller:     We are voting, it’s a snapshot, it’s a one day decision that I make of this person is more aligned with me than the other. This person, I agree with their character more than the other. We are flawed people. I guess another thing I would suggest is that we should be careful not to view politics as extraordinarily worse than any other institution in our country. We are flawed citizens, we’re flawed people, and all of our institutions are going to reflect that. So I don’t like the idea of as Christians saying that we should not engage in politics because the mess that it is at times or the dirtiness of it, all of our institutions are. That’s just the reality of a post-lab world. We as Christians should do well as be models, try and reflect the life of Christ in our engagement with politics, to engage it with great integrity, but also with great humility, recognizing that we are flawed people and we make mistakes.

Greg Schaller:     We’re going to make mistakes in our engagement with politics just as we make mistakes with all of the things that we do. So I think thinking less about, yes, indeed voting is important and I don’t want to diminish that, but I think we should have a much broader and more holistic view of what our engagement is. I don’t know that we’ve done a good job of educating on this. We focus so much attention on this one day, this one vote for a president, and I think we ought to again sort of take a broader approach to this. I think there’s a long history of Christians not doing well in thinking about politics, instructing on politics, instructing on the importance of our engagement in civil society. Prior to coming to the John J Institute, I taught at Colorado Christian University out in Lakewood, Colorado, the suburb of Denver.

Greg Schaller:     I was hired in 2009. I was the first politics professor at that university, and at the time it was 95 years old, and that stems from a long history of Christians saying politics is dirty. We should not be engaging in that. Politics is of this world. We shouldn’t be engaging in that. I don’t think that’s a biblical approach. We are called, we are commanded to have care for the city, for the welfare of the city. We are engaged, we are called to be engaged in our communities and to care for our fellow citizens. So I think we need to have a better approach in thinking about this and again, recognizing that in a flawed world, the politics, the institutions of politics, yeah, they’re going to be messy at times, but I think we can be salt and light in that realm, in that institution as we should in all realms of our society.

Jamie Mitchell:  And I think too, Greg, one of the mistakes that Christians make over the years is that when I cast my vote, it’s saying something about me personally. Obviously I want to vote my values, I want to vote those beliefs and things that I feel strongly about, but I’m never going to vote for somebody who believes or holds. They’ll say, I’ll use the same convictions I have. But sometimes Christians say, well, I’m casting a vote. It’s a reflection on me. That’s kind of a mistake, isn’t it?

Greg Schaller:     I think so I think put that well in explaining that a lot of times elections, we have one of two choices to make, and it’s likely that these candidates are not going to reflect all of my values and not going to share all of my values. So sometimes we are in a position where we’re choosing not in favor of somebody, but even against, there’s a lot of people who vote not because they agree with everything that a candidate or even most of what a candidate stands for, but they are preferable to the alternative, and that’s less than ideal. I mean, I think we should as Christians want to have candidates who do reflect our values, who are going to be advocates of what we stand for, but we have to recognize at times that’s not going to be the case. I still think we are called to engage and to vote and to vote for the best person, even if it is at times sort of the lesser of the two evils.

Jamie Mitchell:  We also, as you mentioned there, one of my favorite passages, Jeremiah 29, that we’re to seek the welfare of the city. An election doesn’t mean that that is now taken care of. Seeking the welfare of the city is engagement in your community, having a good job, being benevolent, growing up, a good family, praying for the people who lead your city, your community. I love what you said and I just think it’s so important when we come back friends in our final segment, and Greg and I finish up this conversation on presidential elections, how do we affect the younger generation? Greg is teaching in college. He’s going to give us some insights that I think will be very helpful to us as we wrap up this discussion on presidential elections and faith. How does it play a part?

Jamie Mitchell:  Well, we’ve been trying to gain some insights and understanding on how to be a good citizens uphold our biblical values when it comes to the presidential elections and really vote. We want to see people vote and be engaged. Greg Shaller is the director of the John Jay Institute. Greg, as you know, my college classmate was involved in the founding of John Jay, and so I know a lot about this amazing organization before our listeners who may be new to hearing the term John Jay Institute, what is John Jay and what are you attempting to accomplish? Share with our people a little bit about your ministry at amazing Institute.

Greg Schaller:     Great. Thanks for the opportunity. Yeah, Alan Crippin, your classmate is the founder of the John J Institute and he led it for many years prior to me taking over in 2017. So we’ve actually been around as an organization for almost 20 some years. Alan had a great vision. I think he had amazing ability to sort of interpret the times when he was thinking about this, and unfortunately what he was observing was that a lot of college students were graduating and they were failing to have a solid biblical worldview, a solid knowledge of history, not just of American history, but global history and history of the church, and even those who had attended good Christian colleges, they still have been significantly impacted by a secularist progressive worldview because many of their professors, unfortunately, had adopted a lot of those positions. So Allen was working with college graduates.

Greg Schaller:     There was a program that preceded the John Jay Institute, which is called the Witherspoon Fellowship, and it was actually based at Family Research Council. The fellowship was more of an internship and less academic, and Alan believed and was correctly assessing it around 2004, 2005, that we needed to do the important work that unfortunately, college graduates college education, unfortunately, their K through 12 education, unfortunately, the instruction they got through many of their churches and even unfortunately what they provided by their parents was insufficient. It was lacking. And so we believe that a person is well prepared to engage in civil society, has to be well-grounded in a biblical worldview. That’s the only way they’re going to be able to become future leaders, to become effective at engaging in our culture. So Alan changed the program less of an internship focus and more of an academic focus, and he left Family Research Council and FRC wanted to keep the Witherspoon name.

Greg Schaller:     So in redesigning this program and coming up with a new name, he chooses John Jay. Some people may be familiar with Jay. Jay was one of the authors of Federalist Papers. He held many government positions. He was the first chief justice of the United States Supreme Court nominated by President Washington. Again, he served in many capacities in New York state government and also federal government. He was involved with the treaties that helped to end the American Revolutionary War and settle other international disputes. And after his full-time work in government, he actually became increasingly involved with the American Bible Society and was actually the second president of the American Bible Society. So in looking for a model of Christian statesmen, Allen thought there’s not a better choice than John Jay. So that’s why he is our namesake. Our program is very rigorous academically. My fellows read 150 pages a night and we do a three hour academic seminar the following morning.

Greg Schaller:     We do that four days a week, Monday through Thursday. So we draw really bright students, people who care greatly about being good citizens and good leaders, future leaders, and they recognize the importance of having this grounding of a biblical worldview. So our curriculum includes things like Christian engagement with culture, ideas of the natural law, the American founding, the wrongness of the progressive political philosophy and how it is contrary to a biblical worldview, and then what is the Christian response to thinkers like Rousseau and Hobbes and Nietzsche and Sartre and the like, and how we can respond. We recognized how significant a lot of those philosophers have been on our culture and how we have a Christian response to them. We have a couple other components of our program. We have some hospitality events. My fellows host a formal dinner every Thursday night and we invite area academics, clergy business people, philanthropists to be their dinner guests.

Greg Schaller:     And part of our philosophy there is we’re trying to habituate young people of the importance of hospitality, of opening your home to friends and stranger and engaging with them. And then on Fridays, our fellows do what we call field studies. They go to historic places. Our program is based in southeastern Pennsylvania, which is obviously rich in history, so we take them to Valley Forge to the battles along the Delaware, to the Brandywine Battlefield, to Independence Hall, so the places where history truly happened in America, and so that’s experiential learning is also a big part of our program. We use the book of common prayer and we begin every day with morning prayer and end every day with the evening prayer. We do that together. We focus a lot on building Christian community in this house and recognize the importance of iron sharpening iron, of holding each other accountable, so we think it’s habituating well young people and preparing them for what’s next. Many of our fellows go under graduate school to law school, many go to Washington, work in think tanks and work on Capitol Hill, but also many go back to their hometowns and get engaged in those local communities. We have alumni who are chiefs of staff for members of Congress, and we have alumni who are homeschooling moms of six or seven kids, and we cherish and value each of them and know that each of them is having a significant impact on the communities in which they live.

Jamie Mitchell:  Wow. I’m so glad you shared that. I wanted the people to hear because it gives us hope that there is a bright spot out there that we’re raising up a generation. Greg, we got just two minutes left. Will you give me a quick read on where this generation is, gen Z, the new alpha generation, you’re dealing with them, how do they feel about this elections and what do we need to do so that they don’t become cynical and disillusioned like many of their young people today?

Greg Schaller:     Yeah, yeah. No, I think it’s a real danger. What we try and recognize again, and something I emphasized in the earlier segment is that we recognize we’re in a fallen world. That is the reality, and so there’s imperfection. There’s great imperfection. We don’t hold up government as an idol. We don’t hold up politicians as idols. We recognize their flawed citizens as well. All that though still means that we have to be engaged. We have to have a care for our fellow citizens. So in spite of the difficulties, in spite of the many problems, in spite of the ugliness of this, we can’t become cynical, but we have to engage it where it is and be salt and light in all of those communities and trust that with God’s help, his providence, we will have an impact. Each generation is going to face its challenges. We have to, I think having a realistic approach and recognition of where we’re at.

Greg Schaller:     We are still called by God to be engaged to care for our fellow citizens, and so we must, and that’s not always going to be politics. There’s other institutions in which we can carry this out, but politics is one of them and politics is an important one. So if we become cynical, we’re just handing this over to people who don’t share our worldview, so it’s difficult at times. I think we can be winsome. I think that we have winning arguments. I think that we’re going to see this. I think we’re going to see movement because I think there’s a frustration that the progressivism has promoted a lie. It’s promoted many lies, and I think we can see that the biblical worldview is the correct worldview, and ultimately when people give up on so many false worldviews, Christianity is going to be standing there and it’s going to be attractive to people.

Jamie Mitchell:  Greg, thank you so much. I’m going to have you come back. I want to talk more about the next generation friends. Thank you for entrusting another hour. Be praying for the elections. Be engaged. Make sure you vote until tomorrow live and lead with courage. You’ll need it for these coming days and this coming elections. Have a great day. Thanks for joining us at Stand In The Gap Today.