Privileging God (and the Truth) over Politics: A Conversation with Denise Grace Gitsham

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, and I'm joined today by Denise Grace Gisham. I said it wrong. I said I wasn't going to say it wrong, and I said it wrong anyway. I have the worst pronunciation skills ever. So Denise is an on-air political commentator, strategist, attorney, speaker, and author of Politics for People Who Hate Politics. And that's the book we're going to be discussing a little bit today. And so Denise has worked at the highest levels of federal government from the White House, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Senate, and now runs her own public affairs firm. Denise is passionate about healing a divided nation through restoring civility and respect in political discourse, you know, without compromising truth. And in addition to regular cable news and other media appearances, she speaks at conferences, churches, and political events. And that's actually where we met at the Politics in the Pews event by Christian Post. So Denise, welcome. It's great to see you again on Zoom. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so honored. Yeah, absolutely. So at the Politics in the Pews event, you gave me a copy of your book. I read through it and I found, you know, aspects of it really fascinating. You and I resonate on so much of the way we think about, you know, Christians participating in the political realm. But I think one of the areas where we differ is I've never been involved in politics. I'm just sort of an academic geek, right? And so I was really fascinated by your story about how you sort of got involved in politics, particularly the George W. Bush campaign and how that influenced you and how you came out of that. So I'm wondering if we could maybe start there and just give people a little bit of that background as a context for what we're going to be discussing in the book. Absolutely. So I am the daughter of immigrants. It starts way before I got involved in politics. Early as I can remember, my parents taught me what a blessing it was to be an American citizen. I have a real appreciation for the really just the freedoms that we have in this country because my mom escaped from communist China. And so I really understood the differences between other forms of government and what we had in America. So my earliest memory, political memory, was sitting on my dad's lap at the age of three cheering on Ronald Reagan. I'm a lifelong Republican, just as a disclaimer. And, you know, as soon as I graduated from college, I was one of those kids who didn't want to do what everyone else did. I was always kind of a contrarian. I really wanted my life to count for something. And I always was drawn to politics. So a professor sent me down to Austin, Texas, where I worked for chief strategist Karl Rove on the Bush campaign. I didn't have any clue who he was. I didn't even have a TV. I didn't read newspapers in my senior year in college. I lived on an island in Maine, blissfully unaware of the world next to a lobsterman. That's how removed I was. But I went in and there was just something in me. I felt like God kind of came alive in him. You know, I felt his pleasure coursing through me when I was involved in that arena. And, you know, I always was a believer. I became a Christian when I was 15 years old. So I went into politics for all the right reasons. It was because I wanted to help America just sort of embrace the principles that I think actually enable us to continue living in freedom and policies that allow us to flourish, which I think are all rooted in the truth of Scripture. But when I was there, as soon as I got there, being 22 years old, knowing nothing, I looked around me to kind of understand what culture I was entering. Right. I moved from Maine, where I'd been in college as a California girl. I didn't know anything about Austin, Texas, and I knew nothing about politics. So as I looked around, I started conforming to what I saw modeled around me. You know, I was trying to, like, fit in with the culture of the campaign and sort of understand how to do politics. And even though most people on that campaign were believers, and I didn't even really notice this as a red flag until I looked back in retrospect, but people were very politicized because, obviously, you're on a presidential campaign. When I say that, it sounds like, duh, like, of course, they're politicized. They wouldn't be, you know, working for nothing to go on a political campaign, right? A presidential campaign. But it wasn't about doing politics. It was more about sort of having a political spirit. And that never raised a red flag for me, even as a believer. Like, the things I would say about Al Gore or the things, the way that I would campaign and the sort of win-at-all-costs mentality was always justified in pursuit of a good and godly outcome. So, really, anything flew. Like, anything was justifiable. And I learned how to do really destructive things and think about people I disagreed with in a manner that I don't think was honoring of God's heart for people or who I was as a believer. That really continued through my time in the White House, even when I worked for Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was the godliest man who lived out his principles, like, in every way, shape, and form. I mean, I was still a political hack, even when I worked for him and admired him so much for not being like that. And it wasn't until I ran for Congress in 2016 in San Diego and I declared myself as a Christian that I really felt like God said, okay, you're now a witness for me. And I always had been. I just hadn't thought of myself that way. But when I was actually on stage and I was saying, I'm going to campaign with civility, honor, and respect, I realized that everything I did would be as a reflection. It would be a reflection on who Jesus said he was. And it took on a different, it made me put on a different identity, which is my true identity as an ambassador of Christ. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. I mean, when you tell your story and when I read through it, all I was thinking was, I think I had that same experience in higher ed. Interesting. It's not political. Yeah. You sort of get yourself, you immerse yourself into a professional environment and you start to take on the characteristics of that professional environment and think that this is okay. Everybody else around me is doing it. This is just the way this works. You kind of tell yourself those things. It's just politics as usual. Yeah. Right. And so you do get that sort of, I don't know whether I'd call it drift, right? You start to get those blurry boundaries where it's like, no, I'm still Christian, but also I'm in higher ed. And so this is just what we do. Right. And it's like, well, no, we've got to rethink that. We've got to recalibrate because we should be Christ in whatever setting we're in. And so I just appreciated the self-reflection there because I think as I was reading it again, I was just like, I resonate. I get it. I've never been in politics, but I get it. It's easy to get lost in those things. It is because this book, even though I wrote it about my experience in politics, and I think it's timely because politics is one of the most divisive issues that we deal with. It's really more a book about discipleship. Like, what does it mean to really want to please God and not man, right? What does it mean to live a life of integrity where your external self is aligned with who God says you are, right? And I feel like I read a book by Henry Cloud a long time ago, probably over a decade ago, called Integrity. And I remember it just seared me to the core because I felt like, man, like, I want to be the person God says that I am in every aspect of my life. And I don't know how to get there. Well, it's really easy, actually. You just do it. And I'm like, I don't even know why that's like, how do I get there? How do I live this godly, you know, obedient life? I'm like, just do it. I don't really know what else to say. And it has to be meaningful and important enough to you to please God and not man and to be willing to upset people, especially me as a three on the Enneagram, kind of a people pleaser. I like people to like me. And so it's God taught me such an important lesson to really be more in awe of him than in awe of people around me and what they could potentially do to me and to really put my hope in him for trusting him for outcomes that were honoring to what he was trying to do in this world and in our nation. So when you think about the title of your book and the, you know, politics for people who don't like politics, where were you really addressing? And this is just a, I guess, maybe a question after reading the book. What I found myself wondering is, is this about politics or is it about partisanship? You know

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Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. ...to like a talking point or a candidate or a platform or a party, and we identify as Republican, Democrat, Independent, or anything in between, over our identity in Christ, we start losing our way. But being partisan, so as long as you're, I think as long as you're aligned and you have your priorities straight, it's fine to be partisan. What's not fine is when we engage in a manner that in partisan banter or conversations or whatever it is, like I'm on TV every day. I talk about, you know, partisan issues. I'm a Republican contributor on the news. And so I have to be partisan. I am partisan. They pay me to do that and I actually am a conservative. So most of the time I align with the Republican Party. I'm very strong in my beliefs because I believe that the principles that I stand for are ones that help human beings flourish. I don't think our party's right on all the issues, but I definitely feel like I'm a Republican because I'm a Christian. And so, no, our party doesn't get it right. No party does. No human institution does. But I never wanna compromise God's principle, like kingdom principles. I'm okay with throwing my party under the bus. I'm okay with disagreeing with platforms, even when I am 80% to 90% of the time aligned with my party on what I say and think. But what we can't allow ourselves to do is allow partisanship to take over our allegiance to God and his principles. So I don't know if that answers your question or not, but for me, being partisan is natural. We all have biases based on our life experiences that draw us to one way of thinking or another. It doesn't make one more right than the other. All it does is it exposes like how God can use people wherever they are in any party that they exist in to bring about his plan for this world. So I don't have a problem with partisanship at all. It's all about how we engage in politics, whether we're doing it in a manner befitting of Christ, that matters. Yeah, and I appreciated that emphasis in the book. I mean, you talk a lot about what I would call the posture that we approach these issues with, right? So unoffended, inoffensive. I mean, those two chapters were fantastic, I thought, to putting them together sort of unoffended and inoffensive. Maybe we can talk a little bit about that because I think you move, if I'm remembering the title progression right, you go unoffended, inoffensive, and unshakable. Yes, I do remember. I can grab my book behind me, but you're probably right. And that makes a lot of sense. The editor did a lot of shifting. But, you know, it was interesting is when I sent the draft over to the editor, they said, isn't unoffended and inoffensive like the same thing? And I said, not at all. If you look at Scripture, you know, being unoffended is in Scripture says, like, woe unto those who cause offense or an offense is inevitable in this world, but woe unto those who cause offense, right, through whom offense comes. That's Jesus's words. That's like words in red. And so the Lord highlighted that Scripture to me when I was writing. I'm like, Lord, I feel like we're just walking around like victims. I mean, I was just listening to Donald Trump speak at a rally, and I'm, you know, I'm for him winning because I believe he embodies more of the principles that I believe in than Kamala Harris does. But I listened to this victimization, the self-victim mentality, like, and it kills me because everything God says about the truth of who we are, it flies in the face of walking around offended all the time. And it causes a lot of Christians to kind of wander down that path right over a cliff, you know, of offense that really Jesus warns us against. And then, you know, inoffensive means, okay, so if offense is inevitable in this lifetime and we can resist it, but, you know, woe unto those through whom offense comes. Well, I definitely don't wanna fall into the woe camp because that is pretty rough. So let me not be offensive in the things that I say. And then unshakable really speaks to what I found a lot on the campaign trail when I was running for Congress and what I hear a lot now resonating in amongst people of faith, which is that somehow, somewhere their faith in God is shaken because if we don't get this president, then our country is going to hell in a handbasket. And that kind of chicken little thinking is so anathema to who God is and really to our faith in him to bring about what's best for our nation. Of course, we pray for godly leaders. Proverbs 29 says, you know, when the righteous rule, the people rejoice and the wicked rule, the people groan. And so we want good leadership, right? But to say that somehow this person, this human being is gonna determine whether our world comes to an end is absolutely theologically false and ludicrous. And it speaks to where we put our faith, which is really in people so often instead of in God. Yeah. Yeah, I just love the way they flowed together. A lot of my work has been on the Exodus narrative in the Old Testament. And so you see the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. He's in a fairly precarious position, right? He has to care for the nation of Egypt and he's only got his own resources to do it because he doesn't understand who God is. Because he doesn't know Joseph, he doesn't know that blessing. And so then what starts to happen? Well, you see him exhibit this like, he clamps down, he becomes, he does these aggressive acts toward the Israelites. You can tell that he doesn't like the temerity of people pushing back on it. Like he starts to exhibit this, not vulnerability in a good sense, but an insecurity that sort of breeds being offended, that breeds being afraid, that breeds being then ultimately offensive and acting out and trying to rearrange the world in the way you want it to be arranged so that you can feel some sense of security. And for those in Christ, we don't really have to worry about that. I mean, we are, what is it? Hebrews 12, 28, I think it is, be grateful that you have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Just a beautiful passage. And that's the position we speak from. So I just saw three chapters really folded together really well. I think you're the only one who's ever said that. Usually people go to the practical application, but understanding your heart for really, like my heart, and I feel like yours, is really for how believers show up. Like what do we believe in, right? Like it's for the body of Christ to not be all the things that Jesus tells us not to be and to be the things that God calls us to be so we can be leaders in this world and not react, but respond in a manner worthy of Christ. It's really about our soul and like our wellbeing as opposed to just looking around us and determining how well off we're going to be based on what happens in this world. Can you imagine if we went through life, imagine if we took that thinking and applied it to any other part of our lives, right? Imagine if you were like walking around and you're like, oh, I'm gonna get laid off and therefore I'm gonna starve and die. Well, guess what? Your employer is not your provider. God is. God uses people to provide for you. Now I'm preaching to myself because like there's been many times when I feel like I've experienced this. We do apply it to other parts of our lives. We're just embarrassed to say it out loud because we've heard these things in church and people would be like, put your faith in God. For some reason, even church leaders tend to do the same thing. It's like the memo hasn't gotten into the political arena yet in regards to people of faith. And we too buy into the lie that we would never apply to any other situation or even repeat or allow ourselves to believe. So it is a blind spot, I think, for the church because I think we just see like these as existential issues. And when you believe that an issue and a government leader is an existential crisis if the wrong person's in, as opposed to like what God's thinking about us as the sort of existential threat, like being more concerned about him and his glory and how we're serving him than just what's happening in this world. I mean, I firmly believe that like anything that doesn't shimmer with hope, like, is really not rooted in the truth of who God is. Even in the worst situations. Yeah, yeah. There was an interesting, Augustine wrote City of God, and I don't know if you've ever read that,

One, there are certain regimes that are going to get you closer. Right. They're still going to pale in comparison. Right. They're still going to pale in comparison, but they're going to get you closer. Right. And so we're never, like as Christians, and this would be interesting, I'd love to hear you interact with this. In my view, it's like, yeah, we should be voting for the closer. Right. Why would we vote for further away? That makes no sense. Let's figure out whatever that semblance looks like. And the closer we can get to it, that's what we need to be supporting and encouraging. Yeah But then we never lose our sense of this still isn't good enough. It still needs more. There's still a critique here that I need to offer. There's still an encouragement that I need to offer for it to be better, to push it. How do you think about that in the political realm? I could be so jaded from working in politics for 25 years that I, and I also know that I'm not the Holy Spirit in somebody else's. All I can do is pray for the situation, and I believe God can prosper me in the midst of even the worst. Right. I believe that in the midst of the most liberal slash communist slash socialist regime, yeah, will I suffer? Probably. Like, it won't be pretty. Right. I'll probably be thrown in a gulag or something because I'm educated. But do I believe that God's hand is still on me, that there is, I mean, it's going to be a lot harder, you know, when I'm in a prison cell somewhere. But it's, I still believe, like, either you believe in those moments that God is your Savior and he is the one that's going to, and all of his truths are still for you, like, you are still a victor and not a victim. You are more than a conqueror. Either those things and he's given you, you know, he's for you, his plans are good for you, he prospers and not to harm you. Like, well, who are we if we don't believe those things in the midst of those moments? Right? Like, in the midst of the worst season when Nero was prosecuting the church more than ever before, like more Christians died under Nero. I'm not here are the academics. I'm not going to like take, I'm not going to like hold that up as an absolute fact, but I know it was really bad for Christians then. Yeah, it wasn't good. Yeah. And people, you know, Paul was still saying, like, consider it all joy, right? Like, consider it all joy when you face trials and tribulations of all sorts, because our hope is in God. And so I, I don't even know what your question was, but I hope I addressed it somewhat. I think just the, maybe, maybe the real question is this. What's our role? You know, you're, you're a lifelong Republican, right? Um, what's, what's the Christian role once a Republican is elected? Like, let's say Donald Trump did get elected. Yeah. And, and it's like, okay, we can, we can be happy about that, but we also need to be sober about that. Absolutely. And we need to, we need to understand that our job as a citizenry doesn't end at the ballot box. Never. It extends afterwards, and we need to be offering that sort of, I think there needs to be a consistent pressure, maybe. Absolutely. From Christians to sort of like, hey, you said you were going to do this, do this. Does that make sense? We, we don't usually think about it like that, but I, maybe you know more than I... Obviously, you know more about the political realm than I do. And so, how does that happen? What does that look like, you know, post-election? Your guy gets in, your girl gets in, whoever. Yeah. What happens after? I mean, our job is not to rubber stamp anything, right? I mean, I am a Christian first and everything else last. I mean, it's not even a close second. So, when the Holy Spirit talks to me about things that are wrong or off about any party, I don't have a bias as to, in fact, I'm actually harder on my own party. Like, people are always surprised. They're like, Democrats are always agreeing with me on TV, which is never like a good thing when you're paid to disagree with them. But they're like, that's so fair. Yeah, you're right. And I'm like, because I actually care so much about my party and our country that I want to see us like take the logs out of our own eyes first before we look at the speck in others. Like, I really believe that everything begins and ends with us. If each of us as believers takes stock of and responsibility for the things God's called us to be in this world, then we wouldn't have to, we would be setting examples that people would want to follow, as opposed to pointing out what other people need to fix. And so I believe that even in the midst of, like, getting your guy in, and let me be clear, I am not like, I'm not one of those Trump people who's like, yay. Like, I'm actually traumatized by the fact. I mean, I followed amazing, like, Republicans that I truly think are godly men. And I don't think Trump is one of them right now. I don't know him personally. I don't want to judge on him. But like, based on what I've seen, a lot of the words that he says to me are really distressing as a believer. When he says bad things about people, I want to counter by saying, that is not who God says you are. That is not, even if it's Kamala Harris, who I disagree with on every issue, almost. Sure. She's still a child of God. And that's why scripture says to love your enemies. So, you know, one area in this that I think Christians could be stepping up in now, and I certainly have been speaking out about it every opportunity that I get, is on the issue of life. Donald Trump has basically written out the issue of life in our Republican Party platform, which is so central to everything else that we are given as, like, that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, like, our Declaration of Independence, It's all built on the concept of life, and then liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So, if you don't have life, you don't get a shot at the other two. And that's really what our... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. The entire government is meant to facilitate for us. And those rights were endowed by our creator, and that's not something that our founding fathers have to tell us. That's something we know as believers. So if we're abdicating the issue of life based on political pressure, well, this is one really easy area where believers can step in and say, you know what? I mean, if we had half the gumption that the people on the left did about Gaza and sort of pro-Hamas slash pro-Palestinian, whatever you want to call it, in the Democratic Party, I mean, Biden completely shifted his policies on a longstanding pro-Israel platform. He changed them to moderate because of political pressure. Imagine if Republicans, or really, Christians, but anyone of faith, anyone who stood with us on the issue of life, were willing to say, you know what? I'm not voting for you because this is murder, and this is so disgusting to my belief system, so anathem to everything I stand for, that you've effectively rendered me without a candidate or party. That would send a signal to say, I care more about the principle than I do about the politics, and I'm going to let God deal with the politics. A lot of people call me dumb for saying that. I've been in politics for 25 years. I've been in a lot of winning campaigns, and I can tell you people buckle to pressure, especially in margins as narrow as this election is going to be, and we just haven't found the backbone to do it. Yeah. Well, for what it's worth, I don't think you're stupid. I think that's the right position to take. You know, from my perspective, what we've seen in that change, which has been a linchpin of why Christians voted Republican for a very long time, the abortion issue has been sort of the pinpoint issue. It's been almost a single issue voting block for a very long time. I know there's other things that people believe, but abortion has at least been the most prominent, we could say. Absolutely. And I think with Dobbs v. Jackson, what you saw was not necessarily a Christian decision, right? You saw a Democratic position, and I don't have any problem with the Dobbs Jackson decision. But then the change in the Republican platform was, I don't know, it felt like a

On all these issues that were closest to my heart. Right. And that's really what drives me to be in politics. If you care about what people think or you care about offending somebody or you care about your relevance more than you care about standing for truth, well, A, you're going to lose all your spiritual authority in the political realm. But B, people aren't going to respect you very much because they know they can use you. So it's actually not even that effective playing cute with politics and principle. See, I just find that you're going to have to deal with the consequences of it way after we're out of here. So I don't want to do any of that, right? Like, I don't want to lose my influence. I don't want to be disrespected. And guess what? I don't want to have to answer to God about things that I had something that I could have done something about. Well, I think it's interesting to think about what we're doing to ourselves. And when I say that, I mean the church is doing to itself. By continuing to advocate for this or giving justification for this, not pushing back on this, I think it's probably the biggest issue. You sit back and you say, well, then what is the church? Now all the characterizations of evangelicals as sort of people who just want to control the culture, who want to implement some system of morals that everybody has to live by, those start to ring truer. Right, yeah. Because we've abandoned the position of principle as principled people. We have. This is what we were standing for. We're still standing for it. We could care less whether we lose the election. We're standing for this principle. We've lost that sort of cachet. And whether it's the rhetoric previously was too strong and now we're coming to a more moderate position, or whether it's like an abandonment of truth, or however that works itself out, I think there's some self-examination the evangelical movement could do. But to your point, it hasn't seemed like that big of a deal. That's the scary part. I just haven't seen a lot of people say anything. So I know. I posted something immediately when that happened on my Instagram. And I don't have nearly the platform that the people who are in charge in D.C. do. But I did send a screenshot of that and asked a lot of leaders in the Christian political world, like, what are you going to say about it? And to my dismay, so many of them said, well, here's an explanation for why that happened. And they really pushed back on me like I was the dumb one. I'm like, well, first of all, you haven't been winning campaigns for 25 years. You're just like the leader of this organization. Let's talk about strategy here a little bit. But all of that aside, that's just my pride. All of that aside, that's the smackdown. That's the lawyer in me saying, okay, well, let's go head-to-head on those facts. But all of that aside, like, is that what you want to be telling God when he asks you about that? Is that what you're going to be cute about? Because I don't like to play cute with God. I do think there's a lot of course, like, again, I hate the victim card, but of course the liberal media is going to come after you. But I really think that as believers, we have to live a life above reproach. And that means, like, our rhetoric and our actions and kind of everything we do, we're ambassadors of Christ. So how do we want to show up in the political arena is just an extension of all of that. Yeah, and I think, you know, you do reference this, I believe, in the inoffensive chapters where I read it. But, you know, let's make sure that we're offensive because of the gospel. Let's make sure that we're offensive because of Christ and not because we're doing something crazy that is actually offensive. Right. And I'm like, don't be dumb. Basically, like, don't heap punishment on your own head because you have an attitude problem or because you're not good at, like, expressing the politics of what you believe or because you have hatred in your heart that's coming out through your rhetoric, right? That is self-inflicted wounding. That's not the reason people, like, people, it's merited if people hate you based on your own stupidity. Right. But because I have, believe me, I've done it. Like, as a candidate, like, I did stupid things. I'm speaking about myself. I'm not pointing the finger. I'm telling you, I'm in the same camp. But there's a difference when you're hated for the right reasons. That's good. That's a good thing, right? I want to be hated by people who disagree with me on the foundation of, like, what I believe because it's based on godly principles. And that is completely separate from heaping, you know, punishment on your own head because you're too, you know, prideful or whatever because you're just, like, you just, you're human, I guess that's what it is. You're being human instead of, you know, really tapping the Holy Spirit's ability to rise above your base instincts to hit that. Let me take a little different angle on the news bit because you referenced the news a few different times in the book and how, you know, the social media is sort of one way that we can be distracted. Again, another thing we really resonate on. You know, social media is not where I usually go to to get my news. It's where I go to look at pictures of my kids or see people's trips to Italy or whatever, right? You know? And so, like, that's great. But, man, I think it's a little scary that, number one, we're, we've sort of lost in a lot of ways authoritative news. It's now become influential news. And so we've lost our grip on reality somewhere in there where the news just isn't what it, at least what I remember it being. And so you make a few references to the news. So I'm just interested in you kind of talking a little bit about maybe the lack of nuance that's often conveyed in the news. And then also maybe giving some of your practical tips out of the book. How do you, how do we deal with all this information that's coming at us? Yeah. Well, first of all, we have to ask the Lord to help us sort of weed out things that are killing us, right, from the inside. It's like eating too much candy. It's like, if that is where you get, you know, going and it makes you angry when you watch the news and you're watching a bunch of people who are screaming all the time, that's probably not super great for your spiritual life because it doesn't help you live out the fruits of the spirit. You know, and I, I see that as somebody who like binge watched the news, partly because it was my job when I was in the White House, but also because I don't want to be caught flat footed, you know, like not knowing something when I'm in politics. It's especially true now that I'm a political commentator and mainstream, you know, cable news. I have to be on the news all the time. It's exhausting sometimes. I just want to cut off the whole world. And the only time I get to do that and justify it to the producers and the people at the network is when I'm on vacation. So I really, you know, I think it's really important to either consume the news in a manner that lets Jesus and the Holy Spirit be the filter for us and protect and guard our hearts, or we need to cut ourselves off if it's not essential to what we're doing every day. In terms of like what you were asking in regards to bias in the media, look, I'm biased. I just told you I'm a Republican. Like I see things through a Christian biblical worldview. I hope, I'm sure I'm off on a lot of issues, but that's my goal. And I'm a conservative because of how I grew up. Like I grew up in a military family. My mom escaped communist China. I mean, it's really hard to imagine me being a leftist if I like have a mom that literally told me all about how bad communism is. And I can see for myself. So, and a lot of things just don't make sense to me. But again, each of us has a perspective based on our unique life experiences. And I would never even pretend to tell somebody who came from a different perspective that they were wrong for believing the things that they did just because I don't understand it. Right. I want to understand it. And if it's rooted in logic and reason, which, believe me, so many people on the other side of the aisle, they have good reasons for being Democrats. And it's not unless I put my pride down and ask in humility, like, why do you believe the things that you do? And I mean it not in a probing, like, pointy way, but like truly to understand that I can get a perspective that I think is more well-rounded and probably a little more aligned with how Jesus would want my heart to be. It helps me to be less judgmental and more thoughtful and more compassionate and loving. And so, yeah, that's I think we all have to acknowledge that we're partisan. We have some bias or we're independent. We have just a mean independent streak in us, which is fantastic. Like, I wish I was that way. I'm not that objective. I think that it's interesting. I'm going to write a book about truth next because being in the news makes me realize that what you said is true. Nobody believes in the news. They know what they're getting when they go to Fox, MSNBC or CNN or any of the other channels. How do we acknowledge that we all have biases and still say, like, this is what I believe the truth to be.

of information. I think it was Aldous Huxley, he wrote an interesting line. I'll kind of butcher it, but I'll paraphrase. He says, abbreviation is a necessary evil, and the abbreviator's trick is really to say something in a short form without making it false. Yes. And so that nuance, right? How do we cultivate that nuance so that it's not just all sound bites all the time in the news? Yeah. You know, do we even have the, I appreciate, I agree with you 100%, the appetite aspect of this is crucial. But I would also say then we've got to deal with the attention aspect. Oh, gosh. I am struggling. I'm like, literally told my best friend the other day who is ADHD, I was like, I actually think that I might be developing it based on social media. My attention span for a movie has been becoming like, what is this movie about? Can we get to the end of this? Like, I have a hard time reading. I'm a voracious reader and I'm struggling to read because I'm like, there's all this designer dupes on Instagram that I really want to look at because I want to save some money on my next dining room table. So I am definitely, and being in the news, I know I have 30 to 60 seconds, maybe 90 if I'm really saying something impactful to land a point. I think you can do it. I think it's possible. I'd strive to. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. And ask the Lord every time I go on TV, Lord, speak through me and help me to speak the truth, like your truth. And I believe he's doing it pretty well. There's days when I know I'm not listening to him and I'm just doing my own thing. But when I ask him to, like, nothing is impossible with the Lord. So I think it's a matter of us wanting to speak the truth. That's more of an issue. I just recently read something. Oh, gosh, it's called Intimate Friendship with God by Joy Dawson. It's an old book and it's out of print, actually. I read it on Kindle or something. And she talked about deceit and what deceit is. Deceit in terms of biblical definition. That deceit is, you know, not telling the whole truth, right? But it's also, it's like leaving out important facts. It's just as much as it is exaggerating, right? Yeah. And striking that balance is really important. Now, your role as a commentator on TV is to share your perspective on it. So that makes it a little easier because everyone knows that you're coming from a biased perspective. Right. But actually getting news news that's balanced and actually presents just the facts, that's something I think the whole industry needs to work on if Americans can find the appetite for hearing something they may not agree with. Yeah. Well, and I think you deal with a lot of this in your chapter on why is it serpents. And so you deal with sort of vetting candidates. And I know it's a little separate from the news, but I appreciated the way you talked through one of the things you said was you look back at their past record before they said they were going to run for X office. It's like, well, that's great. But what have you actually done? Right. What's the fact of the matter, not what are you telling me versus, you know. We're so quick to fall for things, aren't we? Like in a rush to like pick a side. Like we just want to like pretend that nothing in the past matters and only what's in front of us does. And that's because people are busy. They don't have time to research. They're not nerds. They're not academics. Like they're not people who people have lives. Like 67% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck right now. Like it's a full-time job for two thirds of Americans to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. I don't blame them. It's not that they're not as smart. It's that they don't have the ability or attention span to go and do things that people like you and I like are paid to do, which is think about things. Right. And so, yeah, it's like being, you know, getting wisdom is something King Solomon talks about so much. Like wisdom is not a byproduct of our salvation. It doesn't just fall into our laps. We actually have to seek it. And he says, sell everything and get wisdom. Yeah. Seek it. Pursue it. It's proactive. We have to ask for wisdom from the Lord in everything that we do or we end up, our salvation is not at stake, but like the quality of our lives and maybe our government will be. And so asking the Lord to kind of weed through all the nonsense and all the manipulation. We all know campaigns on every side of the aisle are about making you afraid, manipulating you, and really painting their candidate in the best light and the other in the worst. We know that. So if we're not asking the Lord to help us discern what's true in the midst of all of the different lies, then we're really not doing our job. We're just buying into the hype. Yeah. I know we're coming up on time for the episode and I want to get to this because I thought it was one of the best chapters of the book. Your third option. I love the idea of the third option. You know, we live in a country where you basically have just a couple options. I know other countries have a lot more options than we do, but the third option, describe it a little bit, talk through it, and give your best pitch on why Christians should develop it. Yeah. So I can't take credit for that title of that chapter. It was actually a book that I worked with with my pastor, Miles McPherson, of the Rock Church in San Diego on. It's the name of his book. And it's a fantastic book, which I don't say just because I helped him write it, but it's actually just a biblical perspective on how to bridge the racial divide in America. And from a truly a biblical perspective. And basically Joshua 5 lays out the third option. In Joshua 5, he's getting ready for the Battle of Jericho. And he's prepping and he sees this man, this messenger of God it is, that comes at him. He doesn't recognize him as such. And he pulls out his sword and goes, basically, are you with them or are you with us? Is it, you know, pick a side. Tell us who you are. Which side are you on? And basically the man says, neither for you or against you, but as a messenger of the Lord, I come. And then Joshua's response is really what struck me, which is that he then laid down his sword and he laid down before this man of God and this messenger of God and just said that I am your servant. Like, what do you want from me? And what I realized was that society, culture loves to put us in camps of us versus them. But our job isn't to be with either us versus them, except for as an ancillary issue based on whatever worldly beliefs we have. Our first priority is to be like on God's side. Are we on God's side? That's what matters. And that's the third option. And I think that when we stop thinking about each other as are you on my side or on, you know, on theirs, I think that it enables us to really posture our hearts in a manner of humility and start seeing people not as enemies, but as people that God saved, like the character and identity that God calls into people, either prophetically because it isn't true yet. Right. Or the potential that people have that every person has. But this is true regardless of whether they're becoming that person or not, that they have innate value so much so that Jesus died on a cross for them. That central tenet of our faith is so indisputable that you couldn't go in any church and argue with that about anyone in the world, even the worst people in history. And yet when we get to politics, we cast that belief system aside and immediately start pointing fingers and telling people they're bad. And that's my heart for anyone reading the book is just listen. We have to make sure we're on God's side all the time. Let's us, let's start with us. It is up to each of us and it's up to me to make sure that I'm aligned with God on everything and like really nothing else matters. Right. Nothing else matters. Let's save our own souls. And I just want to emphasize one more theme that God brought into kind of clarity as I was doing my last edit on the book, which is God has such a heart for unity in the body of Christ. There are 179 scriptures, according to Francis Chan in his book, Until Unity, also a great read, that speak to the importance of unity of the heart of God. And John 17, 21 is the verse we always quote.

And just in regards to unifying with other believers and not allow things like politics or different belief systems to get in the way of that unity. And so I think that's worth fighting for. It is according to God's word, and therefore it has to be in our own minds if that's who we follow. Yeah, I think that's a really good word. And I think it's crucial at this point in time in America and the politics and all that kind of fun stuff. But we see division in the church all over the place. And so this isn't just a politically polarized issue. It's so many other little things that we decide that our unity in Christ is far less important than, you know, a paper cut we receive from a friend. And it's like, no, it's way more important than that. We remain in the body, we remain unified, and we fight for that unity and try to keep it as strongly as we possibly can. I actually think the unity of the church is one of those things that allows us to coordinate together so that when there is some sort of a spiritual or a moral issue that we need to address, we're together on it. We have the same mind. And without that unity, without that coordination, we're just, you know, individuals left to our lonesome. And that can be a really lonely experience. And I feel powerless. And I mean, if you want to change the world, whether you're really a strong Christian or someone who just adds it on to whatever their goals are and just ask God to sprinkle a blessing on it, whether that's your operating system or not, as a person, if you're a person of faith or not, I think you all want, everyone wants to win. They want to make sure that their life counts for something. And so whether you take the spiritual principles and apply them or not, the principles that I feel like God gives us are actually effective in and of themselves. You'll just be lacking the spiritual authority behind it if you're not operating in the Holy Spirit's power. But that doesn't mean that they're not effective in the world. These are winning strategies for influencing people, which is what politics is all about and which is what life is all about, whether you're in business world or academia. So, yeah, yeah, it's a good, these are good principles to live by regardless. Well, Denise, thanks for being here today. This is awesome. Thanks for having me on. It's such an honor to have such good questions asked, such thoughtful questions asked. Thank you for reading the book. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for writing yours. I mean, when I saw the title of your book, Serpents and Doves, right? I just thought, oh my gosh, like this person gets it. I could just tell you were going after the heart of people. And I'm so grateful for that because sometimes it does feel like a lone, you know, you're like a lone ranger. But I know that so many people are yearning to see the hearts of believers just rest in God first and foremost before anything else. And I definitely support you. So thank you for being that leader. Yeah. Well, thanks. I think as I was reading through the book, what I will leave people with and just encourage them to get it, Politics for People Who Hate Politics. What I resonated with, I think I just found a kindred spirit who wasn't as concerned about the politics, but was much more concerned about the posture with which Christians engage those politics. And I think that that's something that, it's a message that isn't proclaimed loudly enough in today's world. And so I just, that was my big takeaway from the book that I loved. And I was like, wow. Yeah, we agree on so much. We resonate on so much. I knew we'd have a great conversation. But yeah, I really appreciate you being here. And hopefully we can meet up again at another conference. I hope so. Thank you so much. All right. Well, take care, everybody. The link to the book is going to be in the show description as usual. Just encourage you to get it, Politics for People Who Hate Politics. And we will be back on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Thanks, y'all. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Are you seeking to deepen your faith and embrace your identity in Christ? Then tune into the Bawton Beloved Christian podcast hosted by me, Kirby Kelly. Join me each week as we dive into God's word, explore its truths, and learn how to live out our faith boldly. Whether you're new to the faith or looking to grow closer to God, the Bawton Beloved podcast offers insightful discussions, heartfelt encouragement, and practical advice for your spiritual journey. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform and let's walk this faith journey together here on the Bawton Beloved podcast.