Mr. Barton, your

material, your stuff.

So it was always weird when people would say, well, we don't mix politics and religion.

Or two things you don't talk about, politics and religion.

And I always thought, those are like the two most important things, right? So why wouldn't we, A, talk about the two most important things and mix the two most important things because the one flows from the other? And so it was always strange to me.

But then as I, you know, you put your head down, you plant a church and you're young and you're just trying to do good, get a family going, buy a home, build something meaningful and beautiful and something that contributes to society.

I really wasn't, politics didn't interest me.

But Josh, when you walk through some of what you did in that declaration and why you thought it was so important that every man of that conference who was willing to come put their name on the line.

Why is that so needed right now?

Well, you hit on a lot of stuff there, Ryan, that I agree with and affirm wholeheartedly.

I think we're at an inflection point in our nation.

We saw that happen at the birth of our nation 250 years ago.

We saw that with the Civil War.

And I think we're coming into it again.

And what we see before those two historic moments of the birthing of our nation and the Civil War is in the doing away of slavery, preceding those historic moments in our nation was spiritual awakenings.

That message is still needed today in America.

Yeah

... and it is happening in small, rural, agricultural, red county towns like Wenatchee, Washington, and I have the stories and receipts to prove it.

This isn't just happening in Seattle.

And so we've become a sanctuary state for m- uh, Muslims and, and Islam.

We've now recognized all of the, the Muslim, um, holidays as official state holidays.

What real, what I dawned on me a month ago, Tim, is that Washington State has become the demonic stronghold for our nation.

What Mondame is trying to do at a city level in New York, we've been doing at a state level for 41 years.

[laughs]

Jumping back in with Tim Barton and Josh McPherson.

When my parents were gone all weekend doing marriage seminars, and we were home alone, and they'd come home and share about the victories that God had won, we felt like we were a part of that, and we didn't feel like we were missing out.

We felt like we contributed it to it.

And so m- my, my parents, um, brought us along in that, and so I would...

I just never grew up bitter or jaded, uh, towards ministry.

I wanted to give my life to ministry.

Now, I say all that to say when I tell parents or pastors, "If you sacrifice your family for ministry, you'll lose both."

Mm-hmm.

So, so for everybody who doesn't know you, will you walk us through some of your own story?

Absolutely.

Uh, born, uh, to Greg and Canon McPherson in the heart of Washington State.

I have one brother, and we were homeschooled.

And, and my parents, oddly enough, they started homeschooling us right, right at the time when it was not quite legal, almost barely legal.

I mean, it's hard to imagine, but in 1979 it, like, wasn't legal to homeschool kids.

And so, uh, my mom had a very deep conviction that God gave her and her husband children to raise, not the state children to raise.

I'm gonna be a pastor"?

Yeah.

So the funny story about Instagram is, um, uh, my, my high school, uh, buddy, Sean Kelly, uh, he grew up in the same small town.

We played with, we played, uh, Little League together and high school baseball together.

And then we, we, we, we grew apart i- you know, life, and then we reconnected because his marriage was on fire.

He was not following Jesus.

Both he and his wife ha- had, had been not faithful to their vows in different ways.

He, he tells all this publicly.

... intentional hard work and responsible, making responsible financial decisions to be able to afford a home at that price.

You take it away, bro.

Well, interrupt me when you want.

I'll, I'll just, I'll riff off stuff.

Th- th- what you're pointing out the challenge of is, is faithfully preaching the gospel and shepherding a church and leading a church on mission is not just preaching the gospel.

I was talking to a guy yesterday, and he's, he's like, "Churches shouldn't get involved in politics 'cause the gospels are, are our haymaker, man." Well, and he, and he listed off, "We need to preach the truth, fill it with the Spirit, get them saved." And I was like, "Yes, yes, yes, and yes." He's, he's like, "Well..." And then, and then my, my answer was, "And then what?"

He's a good man.

WallBuilders, incredible.

You gotta go check 'em out.

Yeah.

We see this in Romans 13He gives government a very specific role and a very specific responsibility and a very specific authority, like God has given to all of the human jurisdictions.

To the individual, we're responsible for ourselves and our actions.

The family, educating the welfare of our children and, and the elderly.

The church, administration of word, word and sacraments.

And the government, the protection of a nation's border- Mm ... and the punishing of evil and the rewarding of good.

That's the job God's given government.

Good

Yeah

... that, that I would, I would be alive during the day when we lost our nation's values, we lost our nation's foundation, we lost the, our sons.

And so i- it's just, I want to do everything in my power, bro, just like you're doing, to use whatever influence and energy and time God's given me to move the heart of men, to stand up, to show up, to stand up, to speak up, to, to preserve the vision of our nation as an experiment in freedom, the greatest experiment in freedom in the nation, I believe.

Which it leads to all sorts of conversations like, well, are you arguing for a theocracy? And this is probably not for this time, but bro, I think we gotta do better thinking in relationship to what our nation was actually intended to be.

I believe our nation was the founders' attempt at a theocratic expression from Old Testament roots in a New Testament context, a new covenant era, because every nation, brother, at some point, has theocratic roots.

Y- y- you're, the laws you make, and the morals that you promote, and the ideologies that you endeavor to uphold or live by have their root in some form of worldview that has a god.

Yeah.

And so we're gonna, like I say, you've already noticed or noted the speaker lineup.

Hmm.

He wants families to be strong, churches to thrive, and for people to have the same opportunities that he was afforded as a young man to build wealth and, and, and, and to build culture, and to be fruitful and multiply.

And so in doing so, he has charged the White House Faith Office with rooting out any discrimination they see in our nation institutionally, and then codifying into law those laws that will protect Christianity in particular, but religious freedoms in general for our nation.

And when I've been in the White House and had the afforded the opportunity to listen to high-ranking administration officials talk of what they uncovered during the Biden-Obama years, it was egregious, Frank, egregious, the kind of, uh, discrimination that was being intentionally wielded against Christianity and Christians, from Christian colleges to Christian leaders to Christian nonprofits.

So they've, they've been uncovering that and then trying to undo that, and then to codify into law really those values that are at the foundation of our nation, uh, allowing people to, uh, express freely their, uh, their religion.

And of course, we believe that w- America is a Christian nation, distinctly Christian nation, that had branches of Judaism and Catholicism, uh, uh, grafted into it, but the foundation is distinctly Christian.

And I believe President Trump understands that and is working toward that.

Yes.

Josh McPherson, what say you?

Oh, it's so frustrating.

He literally laid out a plan to change nations for the better by commissioning them to go and make disciples of all nations.

Like, that's the whole point.

If our Christianity isn't making our, our individual self better, our families stronger, our communities more glorious, and our nation healthier, it's not actually working.

So I, I would fundamentally disagree with, with the premise of that, in that when Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth," He's fundamentally encouraging us to be involved in all of life with our Christianity.

If you keep the salt in the shaker, it doesn't help anyone.

[laughs]

Mm-hmm.

And just the brilliance, I thought, of that, just washing that place with the Spirit of God and the Word of God and the praises of God, I, I, I was, I was like, this was tactical.

This str- this was strategic.

This was, this was doing as much important work to keep the people safe as the incredible law enforcement and, and Secret Service work.

And then you're looking around and, and it's like, it's like, and I'm not kidding, 50 feet away Elon Musk is sitting right there, and then, oh, there's Tucker Carlson, and oh, there's Ted Cruz, and oh, there's, um, Grant, uh, uh, um, Cardone, and oh, there's J.D. Vance.

And oh...

And you realize, like, like, Trump's entire cabinet's there.

That's right

Yeah, Jo- so that, with people having that in mind, say what you were gonna say, Josh.

Okay.

Um, John Frame, um, uh, pointed this out and, and helped me think about this.

Um, there's two ways to view the gospel, gospel as center or gospel as boundary, and the irony is the gospel-centered crowd had turned the gospel into a boundary, meaning, um, to be gospel centered meant you could only talk about those things that make up the gospel, uh, grace, repentance, faith, um, uh, you know, the, the, those kind of things.

And what that does then, it walls off what a pastor can address or talk about, and so a pastor ends up just kinda saying the same things every week from a different perspective.

So every sermon is about, uh, salvation by grace through faith alone in Christ.

Every sermon is about justification, and even conversations about sanctification become oddly about justification, and it's just kind of this weird gospel echo chamber where the gospel never gets out.

[laughs]

What would you say to the person in that situation?

Mm.

Uh, well, d- depends if it's a husband, it's a wife.

There's details there.

Jump in here, baby- Yeah ...

if, if you want.

But, um, you know, at, at our church, w- you know, there would be pastors, uh, involved, church leadership involved, and then, uh, we're looking for repentance.

Wow.

Loved being a pastor's kid.

I wanted to be like him when I grow up.

Yeah, it was incredible.

It was the best in the world.

Frontline and watching God restore lives and marriages and redeem the story.

So but I n- I realized those, those boys felt abandoned and betrayed, like their dad had sacrificed his relationship with them for his lust for ministry.

And I, I understand that, and that's horrible and wrong, and that, that puts a father wound in the heart of a boy, so I, I, I get it.

Go.