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Podcast 18 - Those Yankees
0 Playsin 3 hours
Join us as we discuss a recent event in The Big Apple
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:09
Speaker
Hey, welcome back to Grove Hill Church and our podcast. We are excited to have you back in the conference room here. If you haven't figured it out, this is our conference room on a daily basis. We have all kinds of meetings here and we use it for our podcast studio. Thanks to our fantastic engineer, Jeff Tracy. Hope your new year is off to a great start and excited about just getting
Zoran Mamdani's Election and Ideology
00:00:31
Speaker
back into this. Great conversations with my friends Kyle and John here. We thought we'd talk about something a little bit more in the news lately for the last, I guess, several weeks. Ever since his election, and a pretty overwhelming election in New York City, I think primarily young people pushed him over the top in that election.
00:00:51
Speaker
Mamdani, Zoran Mamdani, I think is how you pronounce his name. I'll go with that. Sounds good. And just got inaugurated, of course, on January And lot of people were alarmed about him being elected as not only I mean, by his self admission, a socialist Democrat, but also active Islamic person, a Muslim.
00:01:13
Speaker
But when he came, on the inauguration day back on January 1st and got sworn in on the Koran, becoming the first person to have done that in the United States in a position of that esteem. That that stirred the pot even more. yeah So we thought it would be a cool idea just to talk a little bit about maybe why those passions are so high regarding that. what it could potentially mean, and maybe more important, what a Christian response is to that kind of news. Because I think we're all going to recognize it before we before it's all over with, that it's going to become an increasing issue to confront in our country. Yes. So let's just start off by just stating the facts. Mamdani was elected, popular election, all true and fair as far as we can tell. There was nothing illegal, unethical about the election. He was sworn in as the mayor becoming the city's first Muslim and the first, as I said, self-described democratic socialist mayor.
00:02:11
Speaker
ah His agenda was built around all the popular progressive ideas, free universal child care, free universal health care, rent freezes, all the things that help balance society, if you will. And he he made no bones about it. He explicitly put it out there for everybody. um It made it I mean, even though it is, is it still like one of the top 10 largest cities in the world, New York City? I'd say that's pretty accurate. Yeah, I mean, i know some other places like Mexico City and all are bigger, but it's one of the biggest cities in the world. So, of course, it grew not just attention here in the United States, it grew international attention.
00:02:49
Speaker
um So let's be real transparent here. What was your first reaction? I was pretty upset okay because that's the same city that received one of the biggest terrorist attacks from that religion that we've ever seen. And so ah you said the younger generation was one of those that kind of pushed them over the top and probably 90% of those weren't born.
00:03:11
Speaker
when 2001 happened. And so yeah um I look at it remembering that day from the intention of those people that that try to attack us intentionally. And now we're inviting that exact same religion into a position of authority into our country. Yeah, for sure.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's my biggest take on is kind of appalled that like, hold on, do y'all not remember? And it's such a transient place that There's so much turnover there and there's so much of a confluence of nationalities and different people.
00:03:46
Speaker
ah So in some ways I was appalled, in some ways I wasn't. In other ways, you know being familiar with the place, having friends that live there, ah I'm not appalled that...
00:03:57
Speaker
you have places like that where God's not present almost to ah a minimum, then guess what? You know, whenever you talk about your politics or any other way that you live life, there's probably not going to be a whole lot of god God involved. Yeah, it really has nothing. It doesn't have a lot to do with him. It has a lot to do with the heart of the country or the heart of that city. yeah And the city requested that. Yeah. and so yeah yeah I will admit I was obviously very, very upset for the same kind of reasons you're talking about. Um,
00:04:25
Speaker
And of course, just being a student of history, I love history and I love following the track of history. We've gone in and out and we have toyed with communism
Socialism vs. Biblical Communal Living
00:04:33
Speaker
slash socialism ever since its outbreak, probably, especially in the 1950s after World War II. We saw the whole thing of people toying with that idea. Is it a better plan?
00:04:47
Speaker
over the course of years there have been Christians who have stood in defense of it trying to argue that that's what Acts chapter 2 teaches when it talks about them having everything in common so what I'd like to do is kind of talk and dismantle a little of some of that thinking but also let's keep this to borrow the the phrase from Fox News keep this fair and balanced what is our response what is our obligation as Christians how should we react to And I think what what we're going to wind up and we get to the end of this conversation is we're going to come up to some very blatant differences between how Muslims would react versus how Christians should react in this situation. Yeah.
Critique of Progressive Policies
00:05:27
Speaker
Okay. um So let's let's talk a little bit about Acts chapter two. Acts chapter two is talking about the ideal church from the very beginning. It's talking about how the the spirits moving among them. They devoted themselves to specific things. And it talks about them having everything in common. and that they sold things and they brought money where people had need.
00:05:48
Speaker
What's the difference there? why Why is that not communism as we hear that word thrown out? Yeah, so their intention was to further the gospel. And so it was all to bring together so that they could live and do work at the same time. um Current modern-day socialism is put in place, and you have a whole rash of people who do nothing and receive. And so um the the basis of what they were doing in Acts was that they... you know what, I don't care about my life anymore. I want to sell all these properties, give to the church so that we can further this mission. And it was an active thing that they were doing.
00:06:20
Speaker
Socialism doesn't do that. It creates inactivity. Right. Right. I would argue one of the major differences there is that those people willingly gave what was theirs. Correct. Whereas when socialism, communism, it is the government that directs you. You don't have a choice. Right. You're giving this up so that we can make sure everything's fair and balanced all the way across the line.
00:06:40
Speaker
um and And to your point, what that does is it produces this whole section of culture that says, well, if I don't have to work for it, why would I? Right. You know? Right. what is now a very lazy country becomes even lazier. Yeah. Whenever we see in scripture where if a man doesn't work, he doesn't eat. Like there's the element of that to your point, Kyle, there's such a heart moment that happened in acts two.
00:07:05
Speaker
i mean, the Holy spirit intersected into their lives. And so they said, we've been benefactors, like we've been benefiting of the grace of God. So this is how far we're going to go so that the gospel can go out. And it means even letting go of all the worldly possessions, the the voluntary, voluntary keyword. Yeah. would You would even see something like currently you would see something different. Say, say our church went into full obedience mode yeah and that happened. Spirit led, everybody just started selling their things, putting it towards the goal of spreading the gospel. um That still doesn't look like modern day socialism, right? Like you said, It's a willing thing.
00:07:42
Speaker
There's a goal. There's a a purpose and involved. This is a power. This is a a financial thing. And there's just a huge difference. You go let me talk on the streets of Nashville and ask where a person puts their money and I can tell you where their heart is. Right. And that's exactly what we're seeing in Acts 2. You can say all day, you can give me lip service, but unless you, you know, that wallet starts to really give a ah a telltale sign of where your heart's at. yeah so Let's talk about some of the policies that that he specifically has addressed, that socialists also address in their their way of thinking. Things like universal free child care. I hear people go, well, who could get upset about that you know that? That allows people to go to work, right? right um Well, couple of things that I have a problem with there. Number one, there is no such thing as free.
00:08:35
Speaker
Somebody's got to pay for that child care. Well, guess who it is? It's the people who are working the jobs. yeah Typically it's the whole, we got to tax the rich more. Well, then that becomes unfair towards the rich. Right. yeah you know um Why punish them for what they've been blessed with? They worked hard to get to that place? yeah I mean, it's just... That's a a crazy idea to me. The other problem I have with it is I feel like we already turn our kids over to the government too much and let them brainwash them. Why would you want to hand a one-year-old to some person who's going to literally teach them to walk, talk, do all those things because you're at a job?
00:09:12
Speaker
um So I think... This is the conspiracy theory guy inside me. I think it's an intentional effort to say, give me your kids early enough and I will indoctrinate them so we don't vote the way I want to the rest of our lives. right So, yeah' just my thinking. And I think we don't look at history enough. I mean, you could look at the welfare system. um Welfare, the idea of it, perfectly fine. If someone's someone's down on for a time, they need some assistance, and then bring them back up, there was ah a good intention behind it, but now it's just out of control, and people are just using and abusing it. See how many kids I can have so I can see how much money I can get without marrying my spouse, because then I'd be a joint, and there's a game behind it to receive money for free. Again, producing a sluggard, right? And the Bible tells us all about sluggards. And so... um
00:09:59
Speaker
Yeah, there's the intention behind things sometimes is good, but the actual reality of how it plays out doesn't always work the way we think. Yeah. You could go line by line through some of the other policies, like the grocery stores they're talking about to help out people who are under-resourced. um free public transit, those kinds of things. Again, nothing's free. It winds up costing somebody somewhere along the way. And oddly enough, if you go look at other countries, any place where socialism's been put into place, whether you start with Russia or go to places in South America now, like Argentina and places like that, the reason things have gotten out of control is because they have removed the individuality of capitalism yes and instead i have a government that's controlling and setting prices and controlling production.
00:10:44
Speaker
I challenge anybody out there listening to our podcast today, send me an email and tell me one government program that's made anything better. Right. Yeah. And you just can't find it It's because the government wasn't meant to run the world for us i'm I'm totally in agreement with that that. The government, ah we see that God has given us the government and politics. so like It's inevitable. But the weight that has been put on the shoulders of government they were never meant to carry that load. like It's gotten way too heavy. like When we start throwing things on the government, like you know how how they should help college football run, give me a break. like You can't even do the other things well, like yeah creating you know proper highways for us to drive on. There's cracks in those big pillars of our country.
00:11:30
Speaker
And then we're getting the weeds over here and we're saying, oh, yes, we're going to devote a billion dollars to send to 20 different countries for transgender affirmation of, you know, their mental.
00:11:42
Speaker
It's just so bazonkers, like for anything that we think government has done in the benefit, now you know, it's it's not really benefited. Very
Religious Freedom and Governance Concerns
00:11:50
Speaker
much bazonkers. If you look new word of if you were look at the the the ideals of his platform, the things that he's putting forth, all of them sound good on the surface. though um Moving away from the socialism side of it to the Muslim side of it, being a part of the Islamic faith. um We live in a country that promises freedom of religion, right not freedom from religion. That's ah another entirely different story, but freedom of religion, which means we should be guaranteed the right to practice our faith according to our own determination without the government's interference.
00:12:23
Speaker
um For years I have heard people say, when I elect somebody, I don't expect them to bring their faith and get it involved. Well, that's stupid. That saying, please be hypocritical. right okay If I'm a Christian and you vote for me, I should bring my Christian values. That's what makes me who I am. yeah By the same token, you just elected a guy who lives by what is known as Sharia law. If he's a good Muslim, he lives by what is known as Sharia law. There's a lot of misconceptions out there about it.
00:12:52
Speaker
but not very many. In fact, I think if anything, mainstream media and progressives have probably done a really good job of trying to cover up a lot of the stuff and part of the teaching. So John, I know you went and did a little bit of research on some this. Just little bit. Some of that, and I've been fortunate to be around some friends that had taken part in the Muslim childhood growing up, being around it. We're actually in young adults. We are... this next Monday night getting to meet with a young lady that walked through that as a child and has converted to Christianity. But some of this Sharia law, the fact that Mom Donnie is going and saying, hey, we're supporting the LGBTQ.
00:13:34
Speaker
You go throw LGBTQ in Afghanistan, they throw you off ability they'll kill you. yeah absolutely And so to say that some of those are getting ah put up as a platform of, hey, we're going to support this.
00:13:48
Speaker
It's first of all, it reminds me of the scripture that, you know, a double minded man is unstable. You know, we're seeing someone they're saying this and they're doing that. It's we've got to be able to look at the areas where he's not even appealing to his own faith. He he may have a faith of ah the Muslim kind, which is no faith at all. But there's just so many contradictions and holes that are getting poked and the things that he is displaying. And I think that that's showing evident, obviously, in some of the the laws and some of the policies. Yeah. If I'm remembering correctly, the word Islam actually means submission.
00:14:30
Speaker
And that's that's literally their goal. Making the world submit to them. That is part of their teaching, part of what they advocate. That's what they're they're pushing for. um So a guy like Mom Donnie comes into office and says, hey, it's not my goal to implement Sharia law.
00:14:47
Speaker
He might possibly, there's theres there's a chance that he could be telling the truth. Not very likely. right But
Cultural Shifts in America
00:14:55
Speaker
everybody who voted for him knows he's Muslim. You aren't going to tell me those people don't have in mind the end goal of making New York City a Muslim city. right That's their whole goal and their agenda for for things. yeah um We're seeing it in places like Minnesota.
00:15:08
Speaker
with the Somalian population up there where there's large sections of Minneapolis and St. Paul where people are told don't come here unless you're Muslim. yeah um Michigan, large population. Texas has experienced it too, right? Texas has experienced it where they're trying to build an entire community built around a mosque.
00:15:25
Speaker
So how do we walk that fine line here? You and I were kind of talking about a little bit before we went on online, Kyle. that fine line between I want to be a devout follower of Jesus Christ, I want to be a good American. right There's some principles we stand for in America that really cause us turmoil in our Christian walk. Yeah, so I struggled with this about five years ago. Some things were going down with the government and everything was happening. And and I was like, man, you know I love you know American flag hats on right now. um I love America. I love what it was originally built on. And so it's changed since then. And so the the American flag still represents to me the founding father's idea of the american the America, which was built on scripture, right? so And we went from building our nation on scripture to swearing someone in on the Koran, which is against everything that we believe, right? You look at history, how many nations make it past 200 years?
00:16:20
Speaker
barely any, right? But we have because of the standard that has been kept. And now we're taking that standard and throwing it out the window. yeah And so do you want to see the demise of America? You're watching it happen by voting in these types of people in these types of areas, because mayor now, it's going to be president in the future. Oh, absolutely. yeah Absolutely and right now there are large sections of major American cities that are woke up or Interrupted five times a day with the Muslim call to prayer Yeah, if you ever heard it first time I heard it live was standing in Jerusalem at the wailing wall man you talk about sound and
00:16:54
Speaker
eerie sound But listening to that sound, so five times a day, entire portions of large cities are falling on their knees, sometimes in streets, blocking traffic in order to do this. Have you seen the ACLU showing up saying, hey, stop that mess because we're supposed to be separating church from state? No. no Tell me that that evil isn't going hand in hand. No.
00:17:13
Speaker
I mean, ah it just really... I mean, if you stopped to... Never mind. I call it devout insanity. Oh, that's good. The Muslim, the Islamic principles... I need to that one. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to make my own hat. Devout insanity. And I think as Christians, we're put on the stand to say, what are you going to do about Because I think there's... And I was actually there in New York City in October, and I saw that it was almost kind of like
00:17:43
Speaker
Where's our city going to go? And I saw that from Brooklyn where you have such a large concentration of Jewish culture. And they were saying this as, this isn't a joke. Like this is a legit war that is happening and it's starting in the homes because you've got some of these children that they've been Americanized and you have this, who we going to follow? What are we going to do? And man, if we don't stand up on this platform that we have right now,
00:18:10
Speaker
it's going to continue to slip one way. I think you mentioned it in a sermon a couple weeks ago, the things that we tolerate in this generation become accepted in the next. It's just so much of ah a factual thing that we will follow into a deep demise if we don't stand up on the platform.
00:18:27
Speaker
There's a cultural truism. I guess that's the word. I didn't make it up, but cultural truism that whatever you see happening in Western Europe comes to California and what happens in California happens to the rest of the country years later. Yep.
00:18:39
Speaker
You look at what's happening in Western Europe, you will see where America's headed if we don't pull our act together. ah Young girls getting raped on a regular basis and them getting off the guys that do it getting off with no punishment. Government's afraid to tell Muslim populations you're going to abide by our rules instead of catering to them. um Obviously, large sections of communities taking over and and actually implementing Sharia law in countries saying it said yeah this won't happen. One of the interesting things to me is that communism and Islam have become strange bedfellows. yeah
00:19:16
Speaker
Both of them want world domination. both of them for different reasons. um It's just an odd mix to me, though, because one is so devoutly based on the idea that there is no religion, there is no higher being, there is no faith, versus one that's willing to die for that, but they do. And they have come together
Communism, Islam, and Spiritual Warfare
00:19:38
Speaker
somehow, and I guess this is the point where, in the podcast, where we point our finger at the real issue, which is the enemy. Satan. Right. right And what he is up to. Yeah.
00:19:47
Speaker
um Years ago, I read a book. I recommend people all the time. I think it's about time for me to pull it out and reread it. It's called The Naked Communist. In The Naked Communist, this guy who was a former FBI agent and and worked you know trying to uncover communism in America, he goes through the Communist Manifesto and then reveals the American version of that that was written back in the 1950s.
00:20:11
Speaker
And it is scary how much they have already implemented in our country. It is their plan for America's takeover. And it's things like undermining the family, introducing homosexuality into the culture so that it's introduced and accepted, the undermining of American values through media and entertainment. I mean, just down the line and not just general statements, but in detail how they're going to take over this country.
00:20:37
Speaker
um Quite frankly, if I didn't know Jesus, I'd be real scared right now yeah of where this is headed. Mm-hmm. So yeah you have things like organizations you just mentioned the ACLU but ah BLM you have all those that that is their m mo and they take those manifestos, you know, and ah you have certain guys like ah oh Malcolm X and you know, even back to Muhammad and the Islamic, you know influence that He had, you know in pushing that in the mid 1900s you will start to see some of these
00:21:10
Speaker
ah evidences of, oh, I don't believe in anything. The human heart wants to believe something. oh yeah It's going to gravitate to something. And so even the the mass amounts of culture and people that say, I don't believe in anything. No, you're going to. And I think the Muslims are saying, we're going to give them something. yeah you know And they're they're attaching to something along the way. It's
Christian Response to Socialism
00:21:31
Speaker
part of the reason why it becomes such a dangerous mix. Yeah. yeah You're right.
00:21:35
Speaker
ah So as a Christian, how do we respond to this? what Where do we start? I think for me the first thing is the teaching of Scripture that we still have a responsibility to pray. yes Pray for those who are putting authority over us.
00:21:47
Speaker
Again, he won by a fair election. Not sure what the people were thinking, but it was a fair election. they were We need to pray for Mom Donnie. We need to pray for New York City. um We need to pray for him because...
00:21:59
Speaker
You hate to use these terms, but he is an opponent of ours. He's an he's an enemy of ours. Why? Because he stands against American values and Christian values. both Both are very important to us. yeah Where do we go from there? what else What else do we have a responsibility to do? Yeah, so if you look at the Islam as a whole, it's hard to love that, right? You can't.
00:22:17
Speaker
ah But Scripture says for us to love our enemy. And so the individual person, if you're in contact with any type of Muslim or Mormon or whatever, Love, right? um i had I was going to a conference up in Nashville and the night before I was at a church thing here in Chapel Hill and this guy had been talking to me about Islam and how he's learning how to witness to them. He said, you don't try to debate them. You don't try to share your side of the story. You don't try to share scripture with them.
00:22:44
Speaker
You love them. yes Because once they experience love, because it's not a huge thing in their culture, it's all, you know, it's forced conversion. It's it's intensity. But if you show them love, they experience something they haven't experienced before, and then they want to hear what you have to say. And so, ah i mean, Jesus laid it out for us pretty simple that we are to love our neighbors, love our enemies, yeah to pray for those who persecute us. And so on an individual basis, if we come in contact with an Islamic person, it's it's all love, right? But absolutely as a whole, we should be against the Islamic community trying to take over.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's important we make that statement here. The enemy is not the Muslim. right The enemy is the God of this age who has blinded them to truth and led them to that that belief. You have any other thoughts you want to add to this? I do. I think we can't be afraid of the the conversation. You mentioned loving them, but we can't stand back on the sidelines and be like, oh, you know, let's...
00:23:42
Speaker
I would even encourage you, hey, go grab, you know, we're in the Nashville area where there's a huge concentration of Middle Eastern ah people that have the Muslim faith. go find yourself a way to intersect with their culture. By the way, they've got some good food. but absolutely I usually find a way throw that in there. But you you're able to walk into those one-on-one conversations. You gain trust with them. You're able to show them love. So don't be afraid to intersect your life with theirs yeah whenever the opportunity arises.
00:24:17
Speaker
I think on the political side of things, one of the reasons why Gen X was such a big supporter of him is because there's this entire generation and I get get what they're feeling. They are overwhelmed by economic concerns. They're overwhelmed by the cost of housing, by the cost of food.
00:24:34
Speaker
And they're looking for answers. right you know And quite frankly, Democrats, Republicans, those who are capitalists, they're not offering answers. no yeah They're too busy playing political games. They're too busy pointing fingers. They're too busy being hypocrites. They're not offering answers. And most Americans, quite frankly, are fed up with it and going, okay somebody's gotta be, some you know. So I think that generation, Gen X, because they've never seen capitalism work the way it's supposed to, they're probably going, okay, we'll try anything at this point. yeah Because right now I'm still living in my mom and dad's basement. I don't see any potential ever getting out of here because i just can't afford it. Right.
00:25:09
Speaker
um What we're really looking at is the deeper longings of every individual. yeah Wanting to belong, wanting to find a purpose, wanting to have an identity. And the good news that you and I know is that Christianity deals with all those things.
00:25:25
Speaker
And if we keep pointing people back to that as the the source of their hope, It's not automatically going put money in their bank account. It's not going to answer all the economic questions they have, but it will begin to give them a hope that extends beyond who gets elected in the next election.
Closing Thoughts and Listener Engagement
00:25:39
Speaker
So good stuff, as usual. Stuff I feel like we probably anyway we probably went longer today, didn't we? Yeah.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yeah, Jeff's grinning at me. Hey, make sure you follow us, like, share whenever you have the opportunity. We love doing this. Again, if you want to con continue into this conversation or other conversations you want to throw out for us, we'd love to do it. I don't i don't think we're scared of anything yet, are we? No, not yet. We're not going to talk about our wives. But but ah yeah, follow us and like us. And thanks for joining us today. We'll see you next week. Bye.