If the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist, then perhaps the greatest trick he's pulled on Christians is convincing them to stay out of politics.
In last week's episode of "1819 News: The Podcast," host Bryan Dawson argued that Christians should not just be involved in politics but take the lead in today's culture wars, letting their religious beliefs guide them.
"[F]or some reason, we on the right create categorical separation between our belief in Christ and our political beliefs. And it shouldn't be that way," Dawson said. "...If the word of God speaks about a certain subject, you have to speak where the word of God speaks. And by doing that consistently, you will actually create opportunities to bring people, specifically in all this cultural chaos, by speaking boldly the way that God speaks about these cultural issues, you will actually be able to evangelize."
Dawson pointed to the late Charlie Kirk as a shining example of how to marry political ideas with religious beliefs.
"Everyone knows Charlie Kirk now because of what happened to him. He's an actual, real-life Christian martyr… And what made him so effective is that he brought the word of God to bear on the political realm. He did not separate his faith from his politics. His politics were inseparable from his belief in Christ. In fact, his entire political worldview was informed by what he believed Christ taught in his word."
Kirk also showed what can happen when you refuse to stay neutral. But Dawson argued that staying neutral, or the "myth of neutrality," ultimately does more harm.
"When we believe that schools can be neutral, when we believe that the church can be neutral on political things, when we believe that our laws can be neutral, we're falling for the trick of the secularists," he said. "… They couldn't bring communism to bear on the West through tanks, planes and traditional warfare. They had to do it through culture. And so what they did is they went in and hijacked the culture-shaping institutions and took them from being Christian institutions and then made them secular, OK? They secularized our institutions, which ultimately means they brought in their God-hating world view and their ethos, and it's replaced the Christian ethos in our nation."
Dawson said the goal for Christians engaging in the culture war is to restore the nation to its righteous roots and shatter the "progressive monopoly" that's overtaken society.
"We want to break up the progressive monopoly on the flow of information," he said. "We want to break up the progressive monopoly on education. We want to break up the progressive influence in to the church that's caused the church to become effeminate. OK, and that's caused the church to think that they shouldn't talk about politics. OK, we want to break up the progressive monopoly on all these institutions. That is where the war is happening. And if we can break up that progressive monopoly, OK, the vacuum will be filled, guaranteed, with a Christian version of that which will bring a Christian ethos, because there is no such thing as neutrality."
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