Sounds good.
Speaker BWelcome to the RAP Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.
Speaker BThis is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast community.
Speaker BFor more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeeternity.org welcome to another edition of the Rap Report.
Speaker BI'm your host, Andrew Rapaport, the executive director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member.
Speaker BWe are here to give you biblical interpretations and applications for the Christian life.
Speaker BAnd with that, we're going to get into a more interesting topic today.
Speaker BFor some, it is going to be the issue of where our faith and the legal system reside.
Speaker BBecause some people tend to think there's somehow a difference, that as Christians we shouldn't get into making laws or fighting what laws may be made, but we should just accept them.
Speaker BWell, yeah, some have differing views of Romans 13.
Speaker BMy guest today is David Yance.
Speaker BNow, I met David at the Fight Laugh Feast conference.
Speaker BWe also were on the Dead Man Walking podcast together.
Speaker BAnd David is.
Speaker BOr Davis, sorry.
Speaker BIs a distinguished scholar and thought leader at the intersection of Christianity and the American legal system.
Speaker BWith a robust background in both theological studies and legal theory, Davis has dedicated much of his career to exploring how Christian values have historically influenced and continue to shape our nation's legal framework.
Speaker BHis work delves into constitutional principles, ethical jurisprudence, and the challenges of maintaining a balanced legal system in a pluralistic society.
Speaker BDavis is known for his rigorous analysis, his ability to draw on historical context, and his commitment to fostering meaningful dialogue about the role of faith in public life.
Speaker BHis insights provide a unique perspective on the dynamic relationship between enduring Christian principles and evolve.
Speaker BInvolve evolving the demands of modern legal and ethical challenges.
Speaker BDavis, welcome to the RAP Report.
Speaker AThanks, brother.
Speaker AReally looking forward to it.
Speaker BAnd you know, you're.
Speaker BGive folks a little bit of a background first, on, you know, what is, what's your, your journey?
Speaker BHow did you.
Speaker BFirst, how did you become a Christian?
Speaker BSecond, how did you get into law, into the legal system?
Speaker AYeah, I appreciate that opportunity to do that.
Speaker ASo I was fortunate to grow up in a, in a Christian home.
Speaker ASo I was exposed to the gospel at a very young age and accepted Christ, was baptized and raised in the church.
Speaker AI went to Liberty University for my undergrad and I was, I was homeschooled most of the time, my last two years to a public high school.
Speaker ABut otherwise I was homeschooled, went to Liberty, thought I was either going to be called into full time service as a pastor or as a lawyer.
Speaker AI know most people think those two would be diametrically opposed, but that, that's.
Speaker AI didn't know, I didn't know what God was calling me to do.
Speaker AAnd there was this moment that I'll never forget.
Speaker AI was a sophomore at Liberty.
Speaker AIt was second semester, and it was the day that I had to decide was I going to, for my junior and senior year, was I going to go the religious studies, the Bible path, or was I going to go continue the pre law path that I was on?
Speaker AAnd the last class I had was a psychology class.
Speaker AAnd the, the professor asked for prayer before the class started.
Speaker AAnd one of the girls in the class shared the story of a need for a pastor in her town to have a Christian attorney.
Speaker AAnd they were just having tremendous difficulty finding someone who was an attorney and a Christian that understood the issues that were at stake.
Speaker AAnd I just remember looking around the room and realizing that the other guys in this classroom, all the other men in this classroom, were all biblical studies or religious studies majors.
Speaker AAnd I just realized in that moment I had this sense of, okay, I don't know exactly what God is calling me to do, but I'm going to stay on the pre law track.
Speaker ASo after undergrad at Liberty, I went to Dickinson School of Law in Pennsylvania.
Speaker AWhile I was at Dickinson, 9, 11 happened.
Speaker ASo I raised my hand and I joined the United States Air force as a JAG, as an attorney, did active duty for 11 years before leaving active duty, moving with my wife and two daughters to Pennsylvania.
Speaker AAnd in 2015, I went fully into private practice and started my own law firm in 2019.
Speaker BSo that's interesting.
Speaker BWhy do you think then that it would be important for someone to understand both Christianity and law there you.
Speaker BObviously they were looking for a pastor that understood both.
Speaker BI, I put, I, I kind of think I have an answer, but why not just say, hey, if you understand law, that's good enough.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AYou know, there is so much that God has taught me because I've been practicing law for, for 22 years now.
Speaker AAnd there is just.
Speaker AThere are so many things we could spend a lot of time talking about that.
Speaker ABut, but the most important thing I think is that, you know, the world is.
Speaker AWe live in a fallen world that is cursed by sin and the world.
Speaker AAnd there's a spiritual battle.
Speaker AEverything we're dealing with is a spiritual battle.
Speaker AAnd the world is in a spiritual rebellion against God and God's law.
Speaker AAnd so if we abandon God and God's law, what we get is the chaos that we see around us.
Speaker ABut beyond that, you know, Christians, when they're facing the system, when they are facing legal battles, they.
Speaker AThey realize very quickly if they don't have someone beside them that understands faith as a primary motivation, it can impact the legal services they get.
Speaker AThat can be everything from a criminal case to a Christian small business.
Speaker AAnd understanding those motivations, so there's this shared understanding of God's law and shared purpose that comes in working with a Christian attorney.
Speaker ASo there's.
Speaker AThere's a lot to unpack there, but that's certainly part of it.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BAnd I would say that for folks who may be listening and thinking for their own church, I'll say this.
Speaker BIf your church doesn't have a Christian attorney to look at the bylaws, go get one quickly.
Speaker BThere's been yesterday.
Speaker BYeah, yesterday, exactly right.
Speaker BBecause look, when, when we were going through things, it was a question of, with the transgenderism, you need to have very specific language in there.
Speaker BBecause now you just say that a pastor has to be a male, and you don't restrict it to a biological male.
Speaker BAnyone that thinks that the people who are enemies of Christ are not going to be willing to infiltrate the church to pretend to be something so that they could try to undermine it, well, that's just nuts.
Speaker BI mean, maybe you have a story on that or two.
Speaker AOh, unfortunately, many.
Speaker AI mean, and it goes for know for churches, when you talk about bylaws, it has to do with, you know, facility usage and all of those things.
Speaker AUnfortunately, in the environment that we live in today, churches are extremely vulnerable.
Speaker ADifferent parts of the country, they're more vulnerable.
Speaker ABut there are absolutely people just looking for an opportunity to come into a church, especially a church that's having an impact on the community.
Speaker AIf you're involved in, you know, abortion clinic counseling or adoption services, supporting, you know, crisis pregnancy centers, if you're doing things like that, you know, God forbid you're praying outside of a library that has a drag queen story hour, your church becomes a target very, very quickly.
Speaker AAnd people will try to exploit loopholes in a constitution or bylaws and even hold themselves out to be something they're not in order to get into a position to do damage to a church.
Speaker ASo it's a, It's a reality of the world we live in.
Speaker AAbsolutely.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BI remember hearing about a church, the pastor was someone who would go onto local college campus and evangelize.
Speaker BSo college campuses, you're dealing with the issue of homosexuality, transgenderism, day in and day out if you're going to do that kind of evangelism there.
Speaker BAnd so what ended up happening was they had bylaws that allowed the public to use their church for weddings.
Speaker BAnd what ended up happening was two people of the same sex decided to, they didn't both come.
Speaker BIt was, they were very deceptive in it.
Speaker BAnd so it was a man and a woman that came and asked for use of the building.
Speaker BAnd on the wedding, it was, they discovered that it was two people of the same sex.
Speaker BAnd the church basically canceled the wedding and got sued because their bylaws were not specific enough.
Speaker BAnd that's why I encourage people the, it should be things, everything should be with special exceptions.
Speaker BSo like, you know, in our church, we, we had a thing of that the, the church would only be used for members of the church except for special exception.
Speaker BAnd so that way we could always say no to everything.
Speaker BBut if there was a special case, we could, we could look at it.
Speaker ARight?
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ANo.
Speaker AAnd I've advised a lot of churches when it comes to facility uses, you know, limit it to members of the church.
Speaker AAnd then, yes, you know, there are special exceptions that can be granted, so you can do that.
Speaker ABut you know, one of the things we've, we've had to do and people, people say I'm crazy when I advise pastors of this, but one of the things we have to think about, and this is just the way we have to think in a fallen world is, is this question.
Speaker AYou know, when a pastor performs a marriage ceremony and they're signing off on the marriage license, there is an overlap between a spiritual function and a magisterial function that's authorized by the state.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AThis is fascinating.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ASo one of the things I've, I've warned people to be very careful of when it comes to being a pastor is at some point your state could say, well, you're performing a state function by signing a marriage license.
Speaker ASo you can't, you know, not do a same sex wedding or a wedding that you don't want to do.
Speaker AYou, you have to do it because we say you have to do it under our state law.
Speaker ANow that's not something that's been challenged a lot, but it's a warning that I've given to pastors.
Speaker AAnd you know, quite frankly, I, I say, what does the church care about that marriage license?
Speaker AIt's a spiritual covenant between the, the members of the church and the families and the people involved there.
Speaker AIf that's a concern in your state, they could go and get A marriage license from a justice of the peace or however they want to do it, and then you can perform the spiritual ceremony in your church.
Speaker ABut some people look at me like I'm crazy when I say that, but we came very close in Pennsylvania to having to, to do that.
Speaker AAnd I was a pastor elder at a church and I said, look, there's, this is something we have to think about.
Speaker ANobody wanted to hear it then.
Speaker ABut it is something that's on the horizon that we don't, we don't think through.
Speaker ABut that's, again, we live in a world that is.
Speaker AThere are many, many people engaged in a spiritual battle and they're hostile towards churches, particularly those churches that are involved in the community and actually acting out on their faith.
Speaker BWell, yeah, most people don't think about it until it gets in the news and they realize, oh, and we don't want to be the guy in the news.
Speaker BYou know, I, I remember when New Jersey was looking to do same sex marriage.
Speaker BAnd so I went to the, they had an open forum.
Speaker BWe could ask questions.
Speaker BYou only had like 30 seconds to ask a question.
Speaker BWhat not.
Speaker BBut I asked, I asked every one of them, do you believe in a separation of church and state?
Speaker BThey all agreed to a separation in church and state.
Speaker BTo which my response is, then why are you discussing a church issue in the state?
Speaker BMarriage is a, is a religious ceremony to, to which they all, none of them gave an answer.
Speaker BThey just were like, thank you very much for your opinion and voted for it anyway.
Speaker BBut it just showed the hypocrisy of it.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BMarriage, Marriage is a state issue.
Speaker BIt's not a state issue, it's a religious issue.
Speaker BBut they want to be able to say how the church should do marriage.
Speaker AAbsolutely.
Speaker BSo.
Speaker AAbsolutely.
Speaker BSo you got, you know, you have a, a background with, in, in Christianity, law, history.
Speaker BSo I mean, how do you view the, you know, the Christian principles that we have?
Speaker BHow do they influence, you know, the, the early American tradition as far as our legal system?
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker ASo what is fascinating about our Founding Fathers is they really.
Speaker AAnd it gets brushed over way too often in modern history.
Speaker ABut there were two books that were cited more by the Founding Fathers when it comes to the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker AAnd you look at the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention and it was Montesquieu.
Speaker AThey were heavily influenced by Montesquieu.
Speaker ABut the other single book that was most quoted, most cited, most talked about was not just the Bible, but very specifically the book of Deuteronomy.
Speaker ANow think about that.
Speaker AThat's that's wild from our modern perceptions to think about how cited that was.
Speaker ASo the reality is the founding fathers not only looked to biblical law and biblical principles and what they did, they understood English common law, which is very, very important because English common law was, really did come from a biblical perspective.
Speaker AAnd, and it looked at the common blessings of the law and how there are principles that go beyond written statutes that are commonly applicable, that should apply to all people.
Speaker AAnd it's not that they're ever carried out in England necessarily justly or equally, but that's what they were looking at.
Speaker ABut the other thing is, look at the entire idea of separation of powers in a federal system.
Speaker AAnd that comes from this idea that men are corrupt, men are fallen, men are sinful, and if there isn't a check and balance on that fallen nature, then one branch will inevitably, you know, gain power and people will be tempted to abuse power.
Speaker AAnd so everything about our system was set up with this recognition not only of a creator God, but also of man's sinful nature and how government corrupts that and power corrupts that.
Speaker ASo there's really no way to take away biblical principles, biblical law, from everything about our founding documents and the intent that our founding fathers had when they set up our nation.
Speaker BI've heard a reporter argue recently that, well, the Constitution, you know, our founding documents didn't mention God all that much.
Speaker BI think she said, well, the Constitution only mentions God four times.
Speaker BTo which I was thinking in my head, well, there's not a whole lot of words in the Constitution, so if he's mentioned four times, that's actually a lot.
Speaker BBut how much of the principles are in there that you get from the Bible?
Speaker BAnd they did.
Speaker BI think that.
Speaker BSo do you think that so much of this secular world misses that because they don't even understand the Bible?
Speaker AI think that they do.
Speaker AAnd, and a lot of it too is just, you know, there is this idea and it's, it's a, a myth, of course, but there is this fundamental lie from Satan that there is such thing as spiritual, religious, and such thing as, as secular.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ASo there's this concept that you could even conceive of laws or a system of government that is divorced from worldview or from faith.
Speaker AAnd, and you and I know that that's just, that's a lie.
Speaker AThat's a lie that Satan tells.
Speaker AAnd it really comes from this idea that people fail to recognize.
Speaker AWe all worship something.
Speaker AWe are created in the image of God, and we're going to worship something we're either going to worship the creator God, the one true God, or we're going to worship man, which is what Satan wants us to do.
Speaker AAnd all idolatry, all false religion, all of it really is, comes from that idea that what we do when we don't worship God is we worship man.
Speaker AAnd it always ends in, you know, chaos and tyranny.
Speaker AAnd that's really what people fail to understand because they, they don't mind.
Speaker AYou know, they'll say nice things about religion and they'll say that's fine, just keep it in church on Sunday morning.
Speaker ADon't bring it into the public square, don't bring it into the secular world.
Speaker ABut, but everyone is influenced by worldview.
Speaker AEveryone is influenced by who they worship.
Speaker AAnd so it's not a question of, you know, moral law, it's a question of what morals, what standard is, of informing the law.
Speaker AAnd that's where we get into some of these really, really interesting debates.
Speaker ABut as Christians, we cannot continue to cede the public square to secular humanists because their religion is creating the chaos.
Speaker AAnd we cannot allow, you know, secular humanists world to define these things because that's how we end up with the chaos and the tyranny that we see today.
Speaker BHow do you see the legacy of Christian thought impacting, you know, the contemporary legal debates?
Speaker BEspecially when we look at things like religious freedom, civil rights, you know, there's a lot of ethical decision making when it comes to things like abortion, social justice.
Speaker BPeople might have heard of things like that or, or Covid.
Speaker BI don't know what, maybe not everyone's heard of this thing called Covid, but I mean, there were a huge number of legal issues and I would say legal overreach into Christian life during some of these recent, you know, decade.
Speaker BHow do you see that, that Christian thought should be having an impact on, on these debates?
Speaker ASo one of the things we have to do is we just have to get a little bit of a historical perspective on, on the American system of law and, and what's happened.
Speaker ABecause one of the things that happened was Darwinian ethics, right?
Speaker ADarwinian evolutionary theory and ethics have, have woven their way into so much of society, people don't even realize, right?
Speaker AAnd you know, some biologists now will be like, oh, we're not really Darwin.
Speaker AWe just, but there is some merit to this whole idea of evolution and other things.
Speaker AOne of the things that happens, happened is, you know, at the most prestigious schools like Harvard and Yale, you had professors like Christopher Columbus Langdell who wanted to apply evolutionary Theory to the law.
Speaker ASo what happened in law school, and it was true, the law school I went to, they abandoned studying the law.
Speaker ANot just God's law, but they abandoned really studying the law.
Speaker AThey abandoned studying the Constitution and replaced it with case law theory.
Speaker ASo this idea that the most important thing in the law is really just case law and precedent, and that comes from this idea that as society involves evolves and people get smarter and smarter and people get better and better, the case law will be our way of evolving as a society and bring us, you know, utopia when it comes to the legal system.
Speaker ASo, you know, look at the overturning of Roe versus Wade, right?
Speaker AAnd what was the cry from secularists is, oh, they're overturning years and years of precedent.
Speaker AWell, that goes right to the heart of much of our legal system today, which is case law based, which is precedent based, not principle, or really even law based.
Speaker AIt's just, you know, bad decisions leading to, you know, precedent moving forward.
Speaker ASo that's one of the things you hear.
Speaker ASo, so many of the legal questions and the legal battles we see going on are really based on this idea that the law is evolving.
Speaker ASo we have this Darwinian concept and, and so we don't really care what the statute says.
Speaker AWe don't really care what the Constitution says.
Speaker AWe don't really care what the abiding principles of the common law are.
Speaker AWhat we're going to look at is where we have evolved societally.
Speaker AAnd then we can just sort of pick and choose and, you know, know, maybe a judge comes up with a novel legal theory, but it's.
Speaker AIt's new and it's current, so we're going to place more value on that.
Speaker ASo again, so many of this, these issues you want to talk about come from that basis, and then they're just, they're underlined with the idea of secular humanism.
Speaker ASo when you look at Covid, it's really easy to see how they would say, well, you know, our.
Speaker AMy safety, my personal safety means that, that, that you have to do what I tell you to do.
Speaker AAnd if that means the state's going to order you to take an experimental medical product and inject it into yourself or wear a mask everywhere you go or you can't leave your home, then that's.
Speaker AThat's an evolving notion of society.
Speaker AWe have to protect people.
Speaker ASo since we worship man, that's what we're going to do.
Speaker AAnd it's the same.
Speaker AYou know, the same is true of social justice or transgender issues issues, or Other things, just look at this concept of the old, the past.
Speaker AJust like in communism, the past is evil.
Speaker AThey were Neanderthals, they were foolish.
Speaker AWe're much more enlightened now and we can evolve and the, the law should evolve with us.
Speaker BI mean, are there any examples you have from cases maybe that you, you've worked on that can that show this?
Speaker BAnd also, I mean, what you're making a distinction between the Constitution and case law for folks of us who, who don't have the background, like what is, what is case law?
Speaker BAnd then how's that?
Speaker BBecause you're saying it's, that's different than I guess, constitutional law.
Speaker BWhat would be those differences?
Speaker BSo two part question for you.
Speaker AYes.
Speaker AYeah, yeah.
Speaker ASo, so the Constitution is the, the foundational law of the American system.
Speaker AAnd then Congress patches passes statutes which become the legal code for our system.
Speaker AAnd then came case law is simply the outcome of specific cases.
Speaker ASo it could be a Supreme Court case, an appellate court case, or even a local court case that forms a precedent.
Speaker AAnd then what all lawyers are taught to do in law school today is not so much read the Constitution, not so much look at the statute, but simply look at some case that supports the position that you have that you're advocating for.
Speaker AAnd we rely on that precedent from a more recent case.
Speaker ASo the more recent the case, the better.
Speaker AWhich I think logically you could flip that on its head and ask a question, why is there a recency bias when it comes to case law?
Speaker ABut it's really this idea that, you know, whatever the most recent decisions are from some court is what you should apply to your case.
Speaker AAnd that means more than the statute, that means more than the Constitution.
Speaker ASo that's what I'm talking about when I talk about case law and case law theory.
Speaker AThere are a lot of different ways to apply that, but you see it a lot just in the logic that is applied to how our government looks at issues.
Speaker ASo one of the big examples that I could get into because I dealt with it a lot was in Covid and we could apply it to a lot of parts of society.
Speaker ABut very specifically cases that I had involving military members and Covid, the simple fact is there's federal law under Title 10 of the United States Code that says the military cannot mandate that a service member take an emergency use authorization or experimental medical product.
Speaker AIt's a very simple statute.
Speaker AIt's very straightforward.
Speaker AThat's what it says.
Speaker AYou cannot mandate that on a military member.
Speaker AThe only way you can do it is if The President issues a very specific exemption.
Speaker ACongress passed that in the 90s because the military had a history of experimenting on military members.
Speaker AThere were some horrific experiments that were done on military members.
Speaker AAnd so Congress made that very clear.
Speaker AIn the 90s during COVID there was never an FDA approved vaccine, medical product, whatever you want to call it, that was available to give to military members the bottles themselves.
Speaker AAnd at a lot of these cases, the bottles themselves said eua.
Speaker AAnd it was clear even in the applications for approval, the vaccine manufacturer said, hey, the emergency use authorization product that we have billions of doses of sitting out here is legally distinct from the FDA approved formula which we haven't started producing yet.
Speaker ASo it's very simple.
Speaker ASo I would simply go to the military chain of command and I would say, this is not a lawful order.
Speaker AYou cannot order someone to do, do this.
Speaker AThe President has not issued an exemption, the President has not issued an exhorter, an order to exempt anyone from, from this statute.
Speaker AAnd the military simply said, yes, but we're going to do it anyway and you're going to have to follow that order.
Speaker AAnd it was just.
Speaker AThe reason that I bring up that example is there's this concept that while it's for the greater good, or we're in a crisis, or this is what the President is telling us to do.
Speaker AAnd it was a simple fact that the military was ignoring federal law and statutory law.
Speaker AAnd believe it or not, the first court to actually rule, consistent with what I've just said, first federal court to do that didn't do make that ruling until December of 2024 when they actually outlined the law and made that ruling and finally verified everything we, we were fighting for in that.
Speaker ABut that's, that's just an example of how this logic of, yes, that's what the statute says, yes, there's constitutional rights in there, and yes, it's very clear.
Speaker ABut you know, we're, we're going to ignore that because we feel like this is for the greater good.
Speaker AAnd that happens in the law all the time.
Speaker AAnd it's particularly, we see it a lot.
Speaker AAnytime you're dealing with a federal bureaucracy.
Speaker APeople don't always think of the military as a bureaucracy, but it is, it's one of the largest bureaucracies.
Speaker ASo that's, that's where you see these concepts playing out constantly.
Speaker BYeah, I remember when a friend of mine got arrested for, he was doing open air evangelism outside of a mosque, one of the more funnier cases.
Speaker BWhen it finally went to court.
Speaker BThe reason I think it went to court was because when the police officer showed up, the one female officer saw someone that was filming and grabbed the camera out of his hand.
Speaker BAnd so that was.
Speaker BWould have been on film if they didn't erase it.
Speaker BLike, they.
Speaker BThey literally did a long road back to the police station where you could actually see the.
Speaker BThe video is just black.
Speaker BYou could see where they, like, went back to the beginning and hit record.
Speaker BAnd you hear the blinker in the car.
Speaker BYou.
Speaker BYou hear the road.
Speaker BSo.
Speaker BBut.
Speaker BBut what was interesting was when they went there, the.
Speaker BThe.
Speaker BThe lawyers were.
Speaker BInstead of arguing based on freedom of speech, as you're saying, with case law, they were arguing on all these recent cases.
Speaker BNow, I say it was a funny case because I was sitting there in the courtroom, and I think the judge realized basically before the defense attorney started to make his case, he.
Speaker BHe already saw where this was going.
Speaker BLike, he's sitting there doing paperwork, shuffling paper.
Speaker BAnd so that made.
Speaker BThat made my friend's attorney, like, even more nervous, like, thinking, oh, no, it's going against me.
Speaker BSo he was trying to argue even harder.
Speaker BBut it was really kind of funny because it, like, it was.
Speaker BThey had.
Speaker BThey brought in all these witnesses from the mosque, and their argument was that he was right in front of the mosque, and it was.
Speaker BYou know, it was the face act, and they were.
Speaker BThey weren't letting people in, and.
Speaker BAnd they had mosque security, and the mosque security was like, oh, yeah, they were kind of.
Speaker BThey were so far away.
Speaker BWe didn't even.
Speaker BWe couldn't hear them inside.
Speaker BWe could, like.
Speaker BLike the.
Speaker BThe folks that were at the mosque where they were preaching to the people coming in and out of the mosque, and the people in the mosque were giving a better defense that what we're.
Speaker BMy friends were doing was fine.
Speaker BIt was.
Speaker BIt was like.
Speaker BI'm like, yeah, these guys, these prosecutors really didn't vet the people before they put them on the stand.
Speaker BLike, you should have thought about that.
Speaker BBut you know, so much what.
Speaker BWhat you're bringing up is a Romans 13 issue.
Speaker BAnd, you know, during COVID this was a really interesting thing, how people were interpreting Romans 13.
Speaker ARight?
Speaker BNow when we look at it like, okay, across the other places of the world, I.
Speaker BI could say it might be different.
Speaker BBut what a lot of people don't understand, in America, the president is not the law, the Constitution is.
Speaker BAnd it's a hard concept for people to realize because they just think, well, if the governor says something, if the president says something.
Speaker BBut in.
Speaker BIn our country, at least, and you could I want you to speak more specific to this.
Speaker BBut it's the Constitution that's the law, the land, not the president.
Speaker BThey're supposed to be submitting to the Constitution.
Speaker BIs that correct?
Speaker AYeah, that's, that's absolutely right.
Speaker AAnd, and you, you can even take it a little bit farther back than that, that.
Speaker AAnd understand what, what the Constitution sets up is an elected form of government.
Speaker AThat is a representative form of government.
Speaker ASo the ultimate law, the ultimate authority really is the people and the voters who have established a Constitution.
Speaker ASo again, you know, a lot of my examples in this come from the military, but I think when we, when we look at them, there's this interesting applicability that goes across.
Speaker ASo an individual military officer like I was, swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Speaker AThat is completely unique.
Speaker AThere is no other nation that ever had a military oath like that.
Speaker AThe Roman legions would swear an oath to the state or to Caesar.
Speaker AYou know, Hitler brought in military leaders and made them all swear an oath to the Fuhrer.
Speaker ABut our sense says not to the, not to the country, but to the Constitution and to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Speaker ASo what, what we have to understand is the reason Covid was such a crisis in so many ways in the military as well is, is President Biden and the leaders that had sworn an oath to the Constitution literally ignored federal law.
Speaker AThey ignored the federal law from 10 USC that talked about experimental use, but they also intentionally ignored the Religious Freedom Restoration act, which is based on religious freedom in the Constitution.
Speaker ABut the religious freedom restoration access, you have to make room for religious accommodations.
Speaker AAnd they simply chose to deny religious accommodations as a blanket denial rather than evaluating the individual cases.
Speaker AAnd they admitted that in federal court.
Speaker AThey said, well, we don't have to abide by this.
Speaker AWe're not required to abide by it unless somebody sues us.
Speaker AAnd then we can be ordered to, but otherwise we don't.
Speaker AI mean, imagine that the executive branch, under the authority of the President, saying, we don't have to follow.
Speaker AWe don't have to follow that statute if we don't want to.
Speaker AWe don't have to follow that.
Speaker AThe only time we have to follow it is if a judge tells us to.
Speaker AIt just exists out there.
Speaker AThere's no enforcement of it.
Speaker AIt holds no power over us unless a judge tells us we have to abide by it.
Speaker ASo that's, that's really the issue.
Speaker ASo that's where Romans 13.
Speaker AYou know, the analysis of Romans 13 might be different.
Speaker AIf there was just a monarch or a king or something else.
Speaker ABut the reality is, there's the Constitution, but it really is an elected form of government where the people are, you know, of the people, by the people, for the people, that, that means something.
Speaker ASo when we look at Romans 13, we do have to look at the principal principles that are there.
Speaker AWe can't divorce those principles from the rest of Scripture.
Speaker AAnd we have to understand what, what is our, what is our government?
Speaker AWhat is our system of government?
Speaker AAnd we, we vote for these leaders, and we can vote them out of office as well.
Speaker BWait, I, I, I, the media makes it really clear that it's Donald Trump who's destroying the Constitution.
Speaker BYou're saying it was Joe Biden?
Speaker AYou know, it was.
Speaker AI mean, that's, you know, people, people laugh at me.
Speaker AI mean, I, listen, I, I had to get an injunction in federal court to get to 20 years of military service as a reservist because I failed to comply with an order to get a vaccine after, you know, after my religious accommodations myself, personally had been denied.
Speaker ABut, but I, you know, I tell people this really is a form of a constitutional crisis because the executive branch is intentionally just ignoring a statute.
Speaker AThey're ignoring two statutes when it comes to this, and they're just choosing that those don't apply.
Speaker AAnd they're just saying, well, if the courts stop us, maybe, maybe then, maybe then.
Speaker AAnd it's fascinating, but that, that was, you know, that was the Biden administration that did that.
Speaker AWild.
Speaker AWhen you look at it.
Speaker AAnd I don't think, as, you know, the dust settles and we move into the Trump administration.
Speaker AI don't think history is going to treat very kindly what happened.
Speaker AI think there were going to be a lot of law review articles, articles and other things that talk about what happened in the military during that time frame.
Speaker BWell, more than just the military.
Speaker BI mean, we now know, since, you know, people are now admitting it, we have the X Files, we have the, you know, there are Twitter files, we have the, you know, Zuckerberg all coming out saying, yes, the government was violating the First Amendment, right.
Speaker BThey were censoring speech.
Speaker BWe, we know, we know now that, yes, the government, you know, Biden was looking for any kind of loopholes for the Second Amendment, like going into FFLs and just, you know, the number of FFLs, I think that were shut down prior to Biden was about like 8 to 12 a year, and it went up to like 800 a year.
Speaker BYou know, it's like, and they just shut them down.
Speaker BThen, you know, they force everything to go through an ffl.
Speaker BAnd what this, what people don't know when an FFL is basically, you know, how you're going to transfer weapons, guns and whatnot, and where you going to purchase from.
Speaker BAnd the thing is that when they would shut them down, they then take over all of the, the paperwork.
Speaker BAnd so now all of a sudden they have a gun registry with everyone that they shut down, which they're not allowed to have a gun registry.
Speaker BAnd these are all the things that.
Speaker BSo glad that the Biden administration is over, but we're only in a reprieve, in my opinion.
Speaker BI think the Marxists have not finish.
Speaker BThey're, they're waiting to come back stronger, in my opinion.
Speaker BWhat do you think?
Speaker AOh, absolutely.
Speaker AI mean, we are in a, we are in a temporary pause of the long march through the institutions.
Speaker AAnd it is, you know, there's a lot of good being done.
Speaker ABut I just, I, I don't think most people understand unless you've been exposed to it or you've been crushed by it personally.
Speaker AThe, the tyranny of the bureaucracy.
Speaker AI mean, that really is this all, all powerful fourth branch of government that's supposed to fall under the executive.
Speaker AIt's supposed to fall under the authority of the President.
Speaker AAnd Congress has just ceded their authority to these regulatory agencies.
Speaker AAnd, and constitutionally, they all are part of the executive branch.
Speaker ASo, you know, I think the constitutional analysis is very simple.
Speaker ATrump can fire them all.
Speaker AThey work for the executive.
Speaker AI mean, that's pretty simple concept, but that's, you know, that's only a starting place.
Speaker ABut yeah, I mean, there's so much to untangle because in these administrative processes, whether it's a federal firearms license, whether it's so much of what's done in the military, so many other things dealing with eminent domain and all of these issues, it's all handled by these pseudo courts, these tribunals in these bureaucracies where you only have at best, due process light.
Speaker AAnd there's so much to tyranny because they have so much authority and nobody really regulates them because Congress just, you know, lets them do most of the rulemaking and the lawmaking.
Speaker AAnd most presidents and executives don't have the guts to come in and, and blow it up and start to tear it down.
Speaker ASo it is really, really encouraging to see everything that's being done.
Speaker AIt's just the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker AIt's just the start.
Speaker ABut dismantling the federal bureaucracies is, is going to be huge if there's going to be a return of freedom in our country for sure.
Speaker BAnd folks, if you want an example of what Davis is talking about, just go and look at what is happening right now where you have, you know, them shutting down usaid, all the slush funds that they, they just handed that over to non elected people to run however they want and they can go, oh well, we had nothing to do with it in Congress.
Speaker BWe just gave them the money, they did this.
Speaker BBut now you look at everyone losing their, their, their ripping their hair out because well, we're going to just stop all this or you know, the fact that Trump is going to be like, yeah, we're going to fire people that haven't read their work emails for over a month.
Speaker BThey didn't even get the email.
Speaker BLike they didn't know that they were being asked.
Speaker BCan you give me five things you did last week?
Speaker BI mean I, I really think this side note, but I think this, this is just going to be so funny to watch that you have.
Speaker BThe left and the Marxists are, are trying to defend the people who, who are not working.
Speaker BThey don't have to explain what they do.
Speaker BThey shouldn't, they shouldn't be forced to lose their job, they shouldn't be forced to have to give an account of what they actually do with taxpayer dollars.
Speaker BAnd they want people who have to do that every day to sympathize with them.
Speaker BLike, I mean every job I've had that I know of in the, in the, you know, working in a non religious aspect, I've always had to give a weekly status.
Speaker BHere's what I did this week, right?
Speaker BSo the fact that they think like that's so wrong, I'm like, do you really think that's gonna fly with America?
Speaker BLike they, do you not realize that every single person that has a job has to do something like this?
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AWell, and, and the average federal employee, I mean the average salary for a federal employee is $144,000 a year.
Speaker BOh, I'm in the wrong line of work.
Speaker AI saw this year.
Speaker AI mean, so yeah, so imagine that.
Speaker AI mean that's the average salary, obviously not everybody makes that.
Speaker ABut, but that's your average salary.
Speaker AAnd people are up in arms about having to go in physically into the office or come up with five things that they did.
Speaker AI mean it is, yeah, the waste that's there, the waste that I saw in my time in the military would, would blow most taxpayers minds.
Speaker ASo it is nice to see just a tiny little, I mean a tiny Little drop being, you know, being attacked on this.
Speaker ABut it is wild to see it.
Speaker AAbsolutely.
Speaker BIt is kind of fun.
Speaker BYou know, I thought it was interesting.
Speaker BTrump was.
Speaker BWas asked about all these things he's cutting, and he says, you know, I think we might be able to balance the budget just by cutting all the wasted spending.
Speaker AHow.
Speaker BHow funny would that be if, you know, by March they could come up with a balanced budget just by cutting all the.
Speaker BThe nonsense.
Speaker AI mean, just.
Speaker AI mean, even just the things we're seeing in.
Speaker AIn Medicare and Social Security.
Speaker ABut, I mean, you know, we're told Social Security is essentially insolvent, but then all of these, you know, thousands and thousands of people that are 150 years old are receiving Social Security checks, and we're not doing anything about it.
Speaker ALike, we're not even trying.
Speaker AIt is just, you know, and we can talk about incentives and the difference between public and private incentives and all of that, but it is just wild to see how inefficient the government is.
Speaker AAnd it's, you know, it's.
Speaker AIt's monopoly money to our federal government because they just print more.
Speaker ABut, yeah, just.
Speaker AJust starting to cut some of this waste, could make a huge dent on the deficit.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BI think that a lot of the.
Speaker BThe issue is, is that the arguments being made by the left and the media today no longer matter.
Speaker BPeople are not taking them serious for good reason.
Speaker BWe've watched them lie to us over and over over again.
Speaker BAnd so this is the thing, the arguments of, well, you're a racist.
Speaker BWell, you're going to do it.
Speaker BIt falls short now on the ears of people.
Speaker BAnd the reality is, folks, you know, if you want to get something that, you know, you got to make sure that we have truth, but we also have to make sure that first thing in the morning, we're nice and awake.
Speaker BAnd to do that, let me suggest, if you're going to fight the battles for truth in our society, that you start your day with a good cup of Squirrelly Joe's coffee.
Speaker BBecause, well, we want to be awake and not woke.
Speaker BAnd the best way to do that is with Squirrelly Joe's great coffee, also provided by a Christian.
Speaker BTherefore, you're not only getting great coffee.
Speaker BI mean, you can go to that other company that wants to say that they're not woke coffee, but you're just, yeah, you're helping maybe defend the Second Amendment.
Speaker BWhat's better, defending the Second Amendment or defending a fellow brother and sister in Christ?
Speaker BSo go to Squirrelly Joe's.
Speaker BJust go to striving for eternity.org Coffee to get your cup of Squirrelly Joe's coffee.
Speaker BAnd if it is your first purchase, use the promo code SFE stands for Striving for Attorney.
Speaker BThat will get you well, it's either 20% off or a free bag.
Speaker BI forget what he has set up because he changed, but you'll get one of the two.
Speaker BJust go to Striving for Attorney.org Coffee.
Speaker BGet yourself a nice cup of joe from Squirrely Joe.
Speaker BSo let me ask you, son Davis, the we think about the U.S.
Speaker Bconstitution.
Speaker BWe're talking about the U.S.
Speaker Bconstitution and religious freedom.
Speaker BWe have seen.
Speaker BI mean, I think it is, well, I thought it was really interesting that Trump created this group to be able to look at persecution of Christians, that he's trying to bring the idea of Christian faith into our, our government and people are, you know, having, you know, losing their hair over it.
Speaker BI, I wish it wasn't, you know, I wish he actually put a Christian in charge instead of Paula White, who.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker BIsn't a Christian and isn't a pastor.
Speaker BYou know, so that's the two problems that I have.
Speaker BWhen he introduced it as pastor Paula White is going to run it because she's neither.
Speaker BBut, and if anyone doubts me on that, email me info striving for attorney.com I would love to dialogue with you because if you think I'm wrong on that, you're wrong.
Speaker BSo, so, I mean, but the U.S.
Speaker Bconstitution defends our religious freedom.
Speaker BAnd we're seeing, we saw so much of the, you know, the push against that from, you know, well, from the Marxists.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BSo, you know, how do we reconcile these two, the, the two facts that we have a religious freedom and, and yet there's, there's so many that argue that, you know, Christian values.
Speaker BWell, you said it should just be left in the church, you know, which would, because, I mean, I just find it interesting the way you worded that because we, I go back to many years ago, think back to the 80s, and the argument was for homosexuality.
Speaker BYou shouldn't say anything about what I do in my bedroom.
Speaker BYou know, you should keep your laws off my bedroom.
Speaker BAnd many of us said back then, well, the problem is you won't leave it in your bedroom.
Speaker BAnd sure enough, what do we see?
Speaker BThey've now not come out of the bedroom.
Speaker BThey're coming into the church and saying, you must accept us.
Speaker BAnd then at the same time saying, well, you must keep your views in your building.
Speaker BRight, right.
Speaker BHow do we deal with what the Constitution guarantees and the society that is trying to force us into accepting their anti Christian views.
Speaker ASo I think one of the things we do is we just have to do a historical analysis.
Speaker AAnd it is very clear that in, in the history, the known history of the world as we understand it, the one nation that has had the most religious freedom and has allowed for the most religious freedom has been the United States.
Speaker AAnd it is because of the Christian principles that the Constitution is founded on.
Speaker ASo again, some people engage in almost a level of.
Speaker AIt's kind of like the KJV only debate, right.
Speaker AIt feels like some of our brothers want to elevate the KJV to the point where, you know, that that's.
Speaker AThat's almost an idol, right?
Speaker AAnd it is a great translation.
Speaker ABut, but people tend to do that with the Constitution sometimes, and they almost Constitution worship.
Speaker AThe Constitution has to be understood that it, it rests on the Bible.
Speaker AThe Constitution can only be understood from a Christian worldview and an understanding of that.
Speaker ABut that allows for religious freedom because it is a question of individual responsibility before God.
Speaker AThat's what's there.
Speaker ASo all of this taken together and brought forward is, is the world wants us to tolerate sin, right?
Speaker AThat's always where it starts.
Speaker AWell, just, just tolerate it.
Speaker AAnd then it moves from toleration to celebration.
Speaker AWe have to celebrate it.
Speaker AWe have to, oh, isn't that lovely?
Speaker AIsn't that wonderful?
Speaker ALove is love.
Speaker AAnd then it becomes participate.
Speaker ASo that's the path.
Speaker AJust.
Speaker AThat's how sin works.
Speaker AThat's the lie that's given.
Speaker ABut, but that's what the world has done with all of these issues, from homosexuality to transgender.
Speaker AIt's, it's tolerate.
Speaker AAnd after we tolerate it for a while, then we have to celebrate.
Speaker AWe have to have Pride month.
Speaker AWe have to have pride parades.
Speaker AWe have to talk about it, we have to celebrate it.
Speaker AAnd ultimately the goal is participation, grooming, and otherwise.
Speaker AThat.
Speaker AThat's how it works.
Speaker ASo that's the balance that we see.
Speaker AAnd the Constitution allows for religious freedom, freedom and disagreement.
Speaker ABut ultimately our, the world wants us to remain silent.
Speaker AThey do not want Christians to participate in the public square, and they want to close off our faith.
Speaker AAnd again, I see this all the time.
Speaker AI mean, religious persecution during the Biden administration was at a huge high.
Speaker AI can give many examples of it.
Speaker ABut, but Kamala Harris and I said this publicly, and it's one of the reasons, reasons why, you know, I really, really, you know, prayed Trump would be elected is Kamala Harris was one of the most anti Christian, anti religious Freedom candidates that has ever run for federal office in our history.
Speaker AWhen she was a senator, her first piece of legislation that was a big deal that she pushed was essentially dismantling the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Speaker AAnd she was pushing hard for all of those things.
Speaker ASo, you know, the world does not want, it's okay for you to go to church.
Speaker AFor most people in the world, for you to go to a church is fine, but don't live your life like you actually believe that.
Speaker AAnd you know, I have, I mean, I have a client right now in Idaho.
Speaker AIt's just gone into federal court where he was fired from his position in the military in Idaho.
Speaker AThink people think of that as a conservative state in the Idaho National Guard because a year prior to being hired into his position, he had run for public office.
Speaker AHe had espoused traditional biblical views on marriage and human sexuality.
Speaker AWhen he got hired for this position, a homosexual man that worked for him, he hadn't even met yet, hadn't had any interactions with, filed a complaint and said his, his religious beliefs create a toxic environment for me.
Speaker AAnd they fired him.
Speaker AThey fired him that day.
Speaker AImpeccable career.
Speaker AAnd there's that that went on throughout the military.
Speaker AI mean, I represented a chaplain who, he had Bible Bibles in his office that he would allow people to come in and take if they wanted one.
Speaker AAnd people said he didn't get it properly authorized as a chaplain.
Speaker AI had a military commander who do the same thing.
Speaker APeople would ask him, hey, what book have you read that's, that's most, you know, impacted you as a leader.
Speaker AThat's a common thing we ask in the military, right?
Speaker AWe ask leaders that you say it's a Bible if you want.
Speaker AThere's, there's a couple extras on my shelf.
Speaker AYou can take one.
Speaker AI won't even watch whether you take it or not.
Speaker ABut as you walk out of my office, office, if you want to grab one, great.
Speaker AAnd the Navy tried to say he can't do that because it wasn't purchased with the right funds when it was purchased with his personal funds.
Speaker ASo there was so much religious persecution and it really came down to no one.
Speaker AThey didn't care if you were a, you know, a liberal progressive woke Christian.
Speaker AThat was tolerating.
Speaker AIt's the idea that you would actually believe in and act consistent with biblical principles or even talk about, talk about basic biblical principles.
Speaker AThat was offensive and had to be, you know, pushed out of the military.
Speaker AAnd that's why you had a military with anti extremism policies.
Speaker AAnd they haven't been revoked yet.
Speaker AI'm sure they will be.
Speaker ABut there are anti extremism policies in the military today still on paper that say things like, and they use great legal language when they say this.
Speaker AYou'll, you'll appreciate this.
Speaker AThey say things like, you know, an extremist organization is an organization that advocates to limit the rights of others.
Speaker AExamples of that include a desire to limit the reproductive marriage or sexual rights of other individuals.
Speaker ANow think about that.
Speaker AWhat are they saying?
Speaker AThey're saying an organization that advocates for pro life and an organization that advocates against gay marriage.
Speaker AAnd you know, that, that advocates against transgender theory, you know, gender dysmorphia, that advocates against that, that doesn't embrace that as an extremist organization.
Speaker ASo if I was in the military and I donated money, I tithe to my church and my church advocates those positions and participates in ministries related to those positions, then I could be deemed having provided support to an extremist group as a military member and be kicked out or be prosecuted for that.
Speaker AAnd then we see slides that have been revealed, they've been released to the public of, you know, military briefings where training on extremist groups included pro life organizations, like mainstream large pro life organizations.
Speaker AAnd we're shocked by that.
Speaker ASo I can't emphasize enough how big of a problem this is throughout the bureaucracy and how so rapidly this problem exploded during, I mean, it started during the Obama administration.
Speaker AThere was a slight reprieve, and then all the groundwork was laid for just an explosion under Biden and Harris would have been a nightmare for the church.
Speaker AAbsolute nightmare.
Speaker BSo does that rule that you, or law that you just described in the military, does that restrict Christians in any way?
Speaker BI'm just wondering if that's an extremist position.
Speaker ARight, right.
Speaker ABut see, see, you know, but again, this is where, this is where people, you know, have to remember that, that the, the secular humanists, the, the communist progressives with things like critical race theory.
Speaker AYou, you can't, you know, you can't be a victim if you're not part of an oppressed class.
Speaker ASo, you know, Christians don't get any rights under, under secular humanism, under the secular religious system that so many have adopted.
Speaker AChristians have no rights because, you know, their, their, their beliefs are not tolerated.
Speaker AThose are acceptable.
Speaker AThey're, you know, those are, those have, you know, aren't part of an oppressed minority group.
Speaker ASo you rate much lower.
Speaker AYou're like 10th on the scale.
Speaker BAnd when I teach the social justice, once you say you're Christian, you're.
Speaker BThere is not.
Speaker BYou're.
Speaker BYou don't count that.
Speaker BYou don't have any intersectionality points with that.
Speaker BSo yeah, you know, and you were talking about the homosexuality as a preacher.
Speaker BWhen I talk about it.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BThat shift where I have to literate.
Speaker BSo it went from a curse.
Speaker BHomosexuality they said was a curse, that they're cursed with this.
Speaker BThey just can't help it.
Speaker BIt went from there to.
Speaker BInstead of being something they're cursed with that, well, this is just a cross they have to bear.
Speaker BThey have no choice.
Speaker BThey were born this way.
Speaker BIt went from that to now a crown that they get to wear because now look, they're.
Speaker BThey have sons to.
Speaker BThat makes them prideful.
Speaker BThat makes them different.
Speaker BAnd now we've gotten to where you said now, now it's celebrate.
Speaker BYou must celebrate their crown and you must, you must partake with it.
Speaker BSo, you know, this is the, this is the culture that we are.
Speaker BWe're now facing and it is one that very clearly.
Speaker BI agree.
Speaker BIf Harris had gotten in, it was so.
Speaker BFor folks that don't know.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BSo I used to, I used to work, you know, for federal government.
Speaker BI quit under Barack Obama.
Speaker BThere were just things that, that were done that just.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BIllegal.
Speaker BBut so, but the thing is, is that when what did you know, if folks don't know one of the things that Barack Obama did and every administration will have things to define their terms like what a domestic terrorist is now domestic terrorism under Barack Obama included anybody who was in a, you know, part of a pro life organization.
Speaker BIf you supported pro life, you were a domestic terrorist.
Speaker BJoe Biden and I did an episode go back in the early part of the Joe Biden administration.
Speaker BI read through the document on this podcast.
Speaker BJust go and look for, I think just search rap report.org for domestic terrorists.
Speaker BI'm sure you're going to find it was the national document that they put out.
Speaker BBut it was basically, if you, if you didn't believe the.
Speaker BIn the COVID vaccines, if you believe that there was any kind of hanky panky played in the 2020 elections, if you basically if you don't have your, you don't secure your email and text messages, if you don't, if you, if you encrypt them that put you as a domestic, you must have something to hide.
Speaker BRight?
Speaker BThe fact.
Speaker BAnd this was the one that I thought was interesting.
Speaker BIf you meet regularly, if you meet weekly with other people that think like you, that pretty much should define every American.
Speaker BBut they, they're very Specific who they mean with that, then you're a domestic terrorist.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BBut they don't think they could possibly, I mean, there's no way they could be racist or, you know, be just because they're saying only blacks should get certain jobs now, that can't possibly be racist.
Speaker BBut we just redefine what racism is.
Speaker AThat's right.
Speaker BI mean, so looking at this, Let me just ask you, I mean, what, I'm curious what you think the future looks like.
Speaker BI mean, we, we have this reprieve.
Speaker BDo you think legally we're going to be able to push back against this secular humanist system enough that we can make a difference long term?
Speaker AYou know, I, I, I hope so.
Speaker AI think there's some things that are happening in the courts that are going to dismantle some of the really problematic precedent.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AWe talked about precedent.
Speaker AThere's some really bad precedent that has occurred and I think if that can be further dismantled, then we have a chance to see some real structural change.
Speaker ASo one of the things that's already happened, the Supreme Court has already done it is somewhat pushed back on what was called the Chevron doctrine, just to understand that comes from a case.
Speaker ABut it was really this idea that if Congress, you know, had ambiguous legislation, a federal bureaucracy could really interpret it however they wanted to.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AAnd there was really no limits on how they could interpret it because basically Congress was ceding their authority.
Speaker ASo broad regulatory power to, you know, induce tyranny against the people came from this.
Speaker AAnd the Supreme Court properly and rightly dismantled that and said, no, these federal bureaucracies do not have the authority to make law that comes from Congress.
Speaker AOnly Congress can make law.
Speaker AYou're exceeding your mandate and you're not going to get discretion.
Speaker AYou're not going to, we're not just going to assume that's what Congressman, or you had that authority.
Speaker AThere are other things that are happening.
Speaker AYou know, there are federal employees that are going to sue because they've been removed from their positions.
Speaker AAnd I think what's going to happen with the current makeup of the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court's going to say no, this, this case law that prohibited the President from firing these entrenched bureaucrats is, is bad case law.
Speaker AIt's unconstitutional.
Speaker AIt undermines the constitutional authority of the executive.
Speaker ASo I think we have a real chance for the Supreme Court to take up some of these cases and really dismantle this bad precedent.
Speaker APrecedent and go back to a much more constitutional system where you have, you know, Congress passes the laws, the Executive branch enforces it.
Speaker AAnd all of these bureaucracies work at the pleasure of the president, and that's how it's supposed to be.
Speaker ASo you can end some of this political patronage and you can really end this fourth branch, this monolithic federal bureaucracy that is just a parasite on society and really is the biggest problem in our federal government.
Speaker AAnd, and if we can root that out.
Speaker ASo I do think there is hope just from a legal future standpoint.
Speaker ABut at the end of all of this, you know, we are, we are in an age where we need revival, we need true revival, and we don't, we need the church to stop seating its place in commenting on what's happening in society.
Speaker ABecause most churches, and I'm, I'm highly critical of churches.
Speaker AI mean, I was a, I was a pastor elder of a church during COVID and after Covid was done, I, I resigned from that position because the majority of the elders had no desire to even address public issues from the pulpit or otherwise in the church.
Speaker AIt was just, it was not something they were willing to do.
Speaker AAnd those fault lines were exposed during COVID But we have to have a church that's willing to speak into these things.
Speaker AAnd it's not, you know, it's not about legalism.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AThat's sort of the name that some of this gets.
Speaker AIt's a, it's about love.
Speaker ADo we believe in the common grace, the common blessings that come from God's law or not?
Speaker AIf we believe that, if we're Christians who believe that, then we're going to share that with the people around us and they will be blessed, as our nation has been blessed in the past, from the common grace that comes from these principles.
Speaker AAnd if we don't, and there's not revival and there's not that desire in the church to actually comment on society, and we keep seeding that to, you know, secular humanism as a religion, it's only going to get worse.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BSo you said at the beginning, folks, I want you to hear, because this is where I think we're going to see the irony in history.
Speaker BI, I, I'm not being a prophet.
Speaker BI just think this is going to be the case that the irony is going to be the more the Democrats are trying to sue to stop Trump from everything he's doing.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BBecause one thing, one thing we, I am against this idea of that Obama really, really started was legislation through executive order, taking it out of the hands of Congress.
Speaker BWe need to put it back in the hands of Congress.
Speaker BThe problem is Congress is too wimpy, just point blank.
Speaker BBut I think what's going to be beautiful is as they're suing Trump on all the things he's doing in executive order.
Speaker BThat's going to actually make for, for, you know, make the legal standard, the very things that we want to be legal, you know, so it's going to be like, hey, you can't do this.
Speaker BYup, yeah, you can.
Speaker BThat's the law.
Speaker BSo it's like, I think it's going to backfire on them big time.
Speaker BAnd I'm happy to see it.
Speaker BBut let me ask this because this is really, you got to the heart of where I, you know, where I think we, as Christians, those in the church should be with this.
Speaker BI mentioned that I think it's a reprieve.
Speaker BWe might have four, maybe more years of a reprieve on the Marxist agenda.
Speaker BI think they would come back.
Speaker BBut it is what, what I am frustrated with and what I fear is that far too many Christians and Christians make up the churches.
Speaker BSo Christians slash churches are so, just so happy that there's this reprieve that they're sitting back on their laurels and relaxing.
Speaker BI mean, I just came back from the Built to Conquer conference and this is kind of how, you know, I ended, you know, when I spoke is, is the fact that we can't sit back on our laurels, folks.
Speaker BThis is the time to act, if there was ever a time to act.
Speaker BBecause if we don't act now, we can't wait till the, the Marxists get back their power and then, you know, completely, you know, throw us just in prison.
Speaker BLike then it's going to be too late to go, oh, we should do something.
Speaker BNow is the time.
Speaker BWhile we have the reprieve, while we have the, the momentum, now is the time to get up and, and that, and, and this, I don't know, you may disagree with me on this, but I'm not saying we don't use legal means, but I, I personally think that the solution to the problem is Christ.
Speaker BWe need the gospel to go forth.
Speaker BIt is not time to go, well, hey, let's reprieve.
Speaker BWe could, I could go buy that car.
Speaker BI could do those repairs on the house.
Speaker BI can get myself a nicer.
Speaker BThings are going to get better economically.
Speaker BHey, all that's fine, but if you're not out sharing the gospel and pointing people to Christ and strengthening the churches, I think then we've wasted this reprieve.
Speaker BFrom the background of legal, how do you see what is the future.
Speaker BWhat, where do you think is going to be the church's responsibility during this time?
Speaker BAnd then a final question I'd have is, what would you say to people that might want to be down a path you've gone between legal or ministry?
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker ASo the thing I would say to the church that we have to understand as it impacts the rest of society is, and I just saw a study on this there, there's plenty of studies in coming out that Gen Z, right, this, and I don't necessarily love generational stereotypes, but Gen Z is, is buying Bibles.
Speaker AThey're, they're, they're googling Jesus.
Speaker AThey're wanting to understand what this is.
Speaker AThey're not necessarily turning to the church to do it right, which is, which is wild when we think about it.
Speaker ASo, so much of what we have traditionally thought of as the church and the church's role in society and all of that has fallen apart because, you know, we, you know, our parents, our, our generation have, have lost relevance in society.
Speaker AAnd, and our children see that.
Speaker ARight?
Speaker ASo the younger generations see that.
Speaker AAnd what we need is a church that matters.
Speaker AWe need a robust church, a church that teaches young men to be.
Speaker AYoung men, to be leaders, to be, you know, Vodi Bachman would say, you know, the, the protector, the provider, and the priest in the home.
Speaker AWe need to be teaching our young men to do that.
Speaker AWe need, we need to be building Christian communities.
Speaker AWe need to be building up that.
Speaker AAnd the church needs to be relevant.
Speaker AWe have a lost and dying world that is so embedded and embodied in chaos.
Speaker AYou have what we would think of as normal, rational people advocating to have grown men pretending to be little girls, changing in the locker room with our daughters.
Speaker AI have two daughters.
Speaker AI mean, that is the kind of thing that would get people, you know, locked up.
Speaker AThat's the kind of thing I would never want to tolerate.
Speaker AAnd yet the church isn't even speaking into that in a powerful way.
Speaker ASo I can't emphasize enough if, if we want to reach our nation, if we want to reach our children, we cannot be hypocritical.
Speaker AWe cannot put comfort first.
Speaker AThe churches have to be willing to speak truth into all levels of society and to the government.
Speaker AAnd, and that's going to, to, that's going to make a difference as we move forward.
Speaker AAnd we need, you know, to speak to the next part of your question.
Speaker AWe need young people.
Speaker AWe need young men to serve in the military.
Speaker AWe need young men to be involved and engaged in government.
Speaker AWe need people coming into the legal profession.
Speaker ABut what we have to be doing is we have to bring our faith with us.
Speaker AWe cannot buy into the lie that we don't bring our faith.
Speaker AFaith into it.
Speaker AAnd so, you know, I mean, the stories I could tell you from, from my law school, and this is going back over 20 years now, but I mean, when I went to law school, I went from Liberty University, which was a great Christian experience, great government teachers.
Speaker AI mean, we had, you know, we spent an entire semester and the only textbook was Greg Bonson's book by the standard in one of my government classes, at least Liberty.
Speaker AAnd if you don't know what that book is, pick it up and read it because it, it's, you know, a fundamental way to look at the law and understand law.
Speaker AAnd then I went to, to law school and it was all case law theory.
Speaker AMy constitutional law class was one of the worst experiences I've ever had.
Speaker AThat nothing to do with the Constitution.
Speaker AIt was just how many different ways you could argue for government control over everything in life.
Speaker AThat was the only, that was the only thing about, about the final in law school.
Speaker AAnd there, I mean, the, the faculty in conservative rural central Pennsylvania, where your student body was like 70% registered Republican, there wasn't a single conservative on the entire faculty.
Speaker ANot, not a single one.
Speaker AAnd when I say not a single one, I'm talking like the, the professor that worked on the McGovern campaign when McGovern ran for president was probably one of the most conservative faculty members at the law school.
Speaker AAnd so, you know, what happens then is the Christians in that environment are, are silenced just by virtue of the culture.
Speaker AAnd we can't allow that to happen.
Speaker AWe have to be willing in a loving and gracious way not to put, to put our faith on the side.
Speaker AAnd we have to understand, and this is what I learned and God has taught me as I matured in my faith is my vocation as a lawyer is not as important.
Speaker AAnd as my walk with Christ, and only when I am in right relationship with Christ and striving for that can I be effective as God wants me to be as an attorney.
Speaker AAnd when I do that, then I have the opportunity to share the gospel with, you know, my clients.
Speaker ASo I've learned, you know, and my, my law partner and I do this on a regular basis.
Speaker AWe pray that God brings us clients that either are Christians that we need to partner with or people who need the gospel and we can share that with them for how we do it.
Speaker ASo whether, you know, whether you're involved In a podcast, whether you're in a small business, whatever you're doing, whether it's roasting coffee like Squirrelly Joe's, you know, doing it to the best of your ability.
Speaker AAnd you know, I'm not a, I'm not a commercial guy for Squirrely Joe's, but I met those guys at the Phyla Feast.
Speaker AIt's a family business and you could just see generationally, the father teaching his son, who was the best salesman he had, you know, how to live out his faith in business and bless people through what they were doing.
Speaker AAnd that was just such an encouragement to me.
Speaker AThat's what we, we need to see.
Speaker ASo I could go on about that.
Speaker ABut whatever it is God is calling, calling you to do vocationally, the purpose of your vocation is to be a part of the church and to bless the people around you.
Speaker AAnd that, that is how we see long term generational revival in this country.
Speaker ASo don't ever let the world tell you not to bring your faith into it because your world view will control your, your destiny.
Speaker AAnd we have to remember that when we interact with society.
Speaker BAmen.
Speaker BThat's exactly true.
Speaker BI mean this, that's, that right there folks, is what we must do.
Speaker BWe, we, it's, it's not enough to just go to church.
Speaker BJust isn't.
Speaker BDavis, if folks wanted to get a hold of you, if they might need, you know, legal counsel, where, where could they get a hold of you?
Speaker ASo I'm on X.
Speaker AIt's just at Davis Yance on X law firm.
Speaker AThe website website is y law.com we also work with a nonprofit called Stand with warriors.
Speaker AStandwith warriors.org is a nonprofit.
Speaker AIt was started by pastors during COVID So that's another place to look for help if you need it.
Speaker ABut certainly, you know, whether it's a church, whether it's a Christian small business, folks in the military or otherwise, if you reach out to us, even if we're not the right fit to help you, we can certainly try to get you connected, connected with like minded folks in your area to try to help.
Speaker AAnd one of the things we learned, you know, I learned personally during COVID is how important it is to build community around you.
Speaker ASo we're always happy to try to help, help do that.
Speaker AAnd there are good solid Christian attorneys out there.
Speaker AIt may seem like few sometimes, but they're there.
Speaker AAnd I think it's a growing number that are becoming bold and understanding how important it is to bring our faith back into the law.
Speaker BSo with that folks just remind you that this is something.
Speaker BIf you've got some value out of this episode, would you mind sharing it?
Speaker BMaybe you could just grab five friends that you might think need to listen to this.
Speaker BJust text this to them right now and we will with that.
Speaker BThat's a wrap.
Speaker BThis podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry.
Speaker BFor more content or to request a.
Speaker ASpeaker or seminar to your church, go.
Speaker BTo Striving for eternity dot org.