Pentecostals and Politics: An Update
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Romans 16:23, Romans 13, 1 Peter 2

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--pentecostals-and-politics-an-update
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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yes the nacc uh the website is nc.org so you can go there and get lots of information it stands for National Apostolic Christian leadership conference the idea is to bring together the apostolics United Pentecostals and others of similar faith we estimate approximately 4 million constituents in the us to bring them together for common interest and common concerns so we do not promote political parties or political candidates but there are things that are very important to us number one freedom of religion freedom of speech um and moral values so uh I can give you some important examples of things that we're working on in some cases they're lawsuits and we are asked to join the lawsuit by presenting what's called a friend of the court brief uh amakai curier which that simply means we write a brief saying we support one side because of these reasons so we've joined a number of those trying to add our voice along with a number of other Christian Conservative Christian groups so here are the kind of things we're addressing uh they're usually related to some aspect of freedom of religion but some of them are very PR iCal uh and some of them are court cases but also we're working with legislative issues in States but also the US Congress if there's a law that we feel could adversely affect churches um then we're trying to meet with legislators to explain our position and explain the support that we have so for example a lawsuit um and these are all recent examples a lawsuit in Indiana which would say a child decides they want to be transgender um that saying the parents cannot have any um say so in the matter and so we're supporting parental rights that you parents has to be have to be involved um another example is donor privacy where some states are warning if you support any kind of um moral values or position they want to be able to disclose all the donors to churches for example for the purpose of attacking them harassing them um or just uh we have Tupelo Children's Mansion which operates under all state regulations but there's legislation that would try to nationalize this where all homes would have to meet some federal criteria which means things like homosexual rights transgender rights you could no longer have Christian values to be an influence in adoptions or placements you know things like that so we're trying to defend our rights there another example of Christian colleges there's a lawsuit where uh the government right now they say they're not not going to enforce it for religious colleges but you can't really trust a promise like that but they tried to pass regulations that um colleges would have to again uh respect homosexual and transgender right so a Christian College dorm if um someone says I'm homosexual they can have a right to continue being the student of the Christian college or if someone says I'm transgender I want to go to the opposite sex dorm and live there um then the college would have to accommodate that so we're trying to fight against those kind of legislation there's another case we're working with that's trying to deny uh federal income tax tax exemption for churches saying churches should not have the right for an exemption so these are the kind of issues that we are working with and in some cases we have been successful in dealing with those um you know I do to the larger issue you know I I don't think the church should support candidates and political parties directly because we should be open to everyone we shouldn't send a message that you have to belong to this party or support this candidate to be accepted Among Us no we we want to be a church for Democrats Republicans Independents all of the above however we want to support religious freedom and we want to support certain moral values now in a pluralistic society we recognize that you can't impose all biblical values upon secular people so for example in America um a 100 years ago they tried prohibition to outlaw alcohol and a moral position well that didn't work it failed it caused more problems crime and so forth so obviously in America adulter is legal fornication is legal homosexual behavior is legal transgenderism is is legal so we're not trying to fight the battle that say non-christians or unbelievers have to follow Christian teachings we're not trying to impose you know Christianity upon everyone however it comes to moral values where at what point do you want to defend the life of unborn people at what point do you want to say miners it's one thing for an adult to choose a surgery that mutilates part of their body but should we allow miners children to have life altering permanent hormonal treatment or surgery that will change their whole life and should we allow that without the parents even being involved and so obviously we're going to try to defend our values in those context where they where it affects Society or it affects individuals and so I made a list of some of the things uh and we can't we don't generally take policy positions because there are nuances there so as a church we don't but we encourage our people to get involved I think everyone should pray for our government that's biblical in Bible times they weren't living under democracy so they couldn't really vote but since we are under democracy I believe it is our respons responsibility to have influence and one way we do that is a vote so I encourage every U Christian to register to vote and to vote and to vote for people they think will best fulfill these important principles and no candidate is perfect that's why we can't necessarily unreservedly support any candidate because they may say or do things we disagree with and so as a church we have to reserve our influence to speak with moral Clarity regarding any situation even it's a candidate that we generally think is doing a good job if they say or do something contrary to our values we need to be able to say that doesn't represent us we don't agree with that or that's not the church so we have to have enough distance to say that but I think you know even in the Bible we find people getting involved in society in the sent they could so in the Old Testament we had people like Esther Daniel Shadrach meach Abednego Joseph all involved in high positions in government in the New Testament we had Cornelius uh a Roman Captain uh we had um uh you know Paul asserted his rights as a Roman citizen his legal rights as a citizen you have the Ethiopian unic who was a treasurer of his country which is a pretty notable position and then also you have an interesting reference uh arus was a church member who held a high political office in Corinth according to Romans 16:23 it's variously translated NIV says the City's director of Public Works or the NLT the city treasurer so Christians can have influence in positions of influence they can be in government well that would indicate they could also vote they could support candidates and so forth and so when it comes to us uh preaching involvement and when it comes to us choosing involvement or choosing who to vote um here here are some of the things that I feel that would be important issues so freedoms of religion speech press peaceful assembly we should support those rights because they're fundamental human rights and also we need them in order for the church to function uh civil rights for everyone every race and ethnicity Equal justice under the law for everyone every race and ethnicity uh when we are able to have influence we will support pro-life positions and we will support our ability to advocate for pro-life and for our medical personnel to act only in accordance with their conscience not be forced to violate their own conscience uh protecting the moral stance of churches and chrisan institution so again orphanages children's homes Counseling Services churches schools universities we should be able to we're not trying to impose our morality on secular people but we want to preserve our ability to live a moral life according to our own teachings and for our institutions to uphold our own moral teachings that's important and therefore we want to appoint judges who will uphold our rights and uphold the Constitution as originally written uh of course we're interested in defending our nation against terrorism and state aggression uh supporting the rule of law supporting law enforcement officers of course with accountability they're not above the law but we the Bible teaches us to in uh Romans 13 also First Peter chapter 2 that we should be law-abiding citizens and support the rule of law that doesn't mean every uh political decision is correct or every law officer is correct but the principle of supporting Law and Order uh is important for Christians uh we support Israel's right to exist again that doesn't mean we have to support every Israeli government or every policy of every Israeli government but we do support the nation of Israel to exist economic freedom and opportunity including opportunities for minorities and assistance to the poor improving schools and educational choices fair and effective immigration policies that's a big subject medical and health insurance reforms less government regulation and more local Freedom reasonable Environmental Protections that's a a broad thing and policies to support marriage and families so the NLC is not going to deal with all those but we are going to particularly focus on things that are important for our religious freedom and for our churches and other Christian institutions to operate according to our own moral values so as I said in conclusion we are forging an alliance to support legal cases with the alliance defending freedom and other groups uh to protect our uh political rights as Christians and then also working with legislators to make sure that our rights are protected in any legislations that passed on the state and National levels and we have seen some success in these Endeavors um and it's important for us to pray for our nation and to support these efforts as we're able

well to this point I haven't actually constructed them but I am connected to a network that they will send me cases and uh I consult with the leaders of the nacc we decide which cases we want to make as our priority uh so while I don't write them I do read their briefs and decide whether we think it's something we want to support or not