Show Notes:

Matt: Welcome. J.D., here’s a softball… What are your thoughts on the 2024 election? It’s now officially decided through primary votes that we’ll have a re-match of Trump v. Biden in November.

J.D.:

We as the church didn’t respond well last time… we are getting a gracious mulligan
I have a handful of pieces of counsel to that end, 

Let me give a CAVEAT before I share them: Some of you will try to interpret these thoughts as me urging you to vote one way or the other—oh, he means that we should definitely not for this person or that we definitely should vote for this one. That is precisely what I’m not doing. Some of this counsel will pull in different directions. Politics is an imperfect process—we are trying to hold different things in tension and weigh out what is overall the wisest or most moral course for our country.


So, my counsel to Republicans: 

 Don’t equivocate about character. Righteousness exults a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.
Don’t equate your secondary strategies with biblical imperatives. Don’t draw straight lines where they should be dotted lines. 
What is your proactive solution to help the poor (if you feel like the great society was a failure, where the greatest argument against progressive politics is the state of progressive cities, what is your solution? 


My counsel to Democrats: 

There are several things in your platform that are expressly evil. Speak out about them. 
Be careful not to equivocate about things that are not equal. What I mean by that is you hear some say, “Oh yeah, well we get abortion wrong but Republicans get poverty relief wrong, as if those things we equal. Many Republicans, whether they are right or wrong, believe that the economic policies they embrace are what’s ultimately best for the poor—they might be wrong, but abortion is the state-sanctioned murder of the unborn. It is wrong to equivocate and act like those things are morally the same. They are not. There may indeed be reasons in certain elections that you think make voting left or abstaining from voting is the wisest choice, but be careful of moral equivocation. 
Realize that someone can share your compassion for the poor, but disagree with your methodology. 


John 17 matters. It was one of the last things Jesus prayed before he gave his life, as he prayed for the unity of the church. I realized that there are things that are deeply emotional. There are things that are clear issues of justice, and we need to talk about them thoroughly and passionately, and we need to never compromise where the Bible teaches clearly. But I also realized that the same Savior that gave us these commandments and the Savior that gave us these moral imperatives, He also He also prayed for the unity of the church and said that this is what he wanted. This is how the world would know him. The apostle Paul, taking a cue from him, was willing to say about a lot of things that, you know what, I know Paul felt like my convictions are correct in this area, talking about eating meat, you know, Romans 14, but he would not hold that position or push that position in ways that disrupted the unity of the church unnecessarily.

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