John Winthrop preached a sermon in 1630 about this country they were starting. One day, this sermon needs to be given again and our country rededicated to these eternal truths.
Thank you for listening to Politics by Faith. We are recording this the morning of Trump's State of the Union address, but it's not the State of the Union, they're calling it Joint Session of Congress, whatever. So I want to build to that. I want to get to what I think one day we should be saying in our country. Now would be a good time too, but eventually we should definitely get around and do it.
But I want to start here. Speaker Johnson was on Meet the Press this weekend about cutting Social Security.
You say there won't be any cuts to entitlements, but on Friday Elon Musk, who President Trump has of course put in charge of making cuts all across the government, called Social Security quote the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. Mr. Speaker, is that a sign that Social Security is Elon Musk's next target?
Is it a sign? Is it? The panic in her voice.
No, well, I've met with Elon about this multiple times. We meet late into the night in his office and we've looked at that. What he's finding with his algorithms crawling through the data of the Social Security system is enormous amounts of fraud, waste and abuse.
So it's a target.
We need to target that.
Oh, look at her. It's a phony panic. It's not a real panic. It's a phony panic. Oh, you don't. Wait, so it is?
She's pointing at the camera. She's got big eyes pointing at her. Oh, you said it is. So it is?
Is enormous amounts of fraud, waste and abuse. So it's a target.
We need to target that.
The American people want us to. No, no, Kristen, do not. Don't put words in my mouth. What I am saying is we have a moral responsibility to ensure that those programs are conducted in a way that does not allow for this this massive fraud and abuse and that would a
total hack okay will it work that's the question so when doge finds a hundred billion dollars in let's say social security fraud, outright fraud. Like, here's the example, in California during COVID, California, the unemployment office, it's called EDD, Employment Development Department,
I think that's what it is.
The unemployment office admitted that $55 billion in this COVID unemployment money, gone. No idea where it went. Whoops. 55 billion. That was a one time expense. The California is gone.
Poof. Gone. So imagine the fraud that's in Social Security for the entire country. Now of this 55 billion in California COVID fraud, 42 million of it went to people in other states. In prison. 42 million went to prisoners in other states. Are you with me? Now, you think,
okay, geez, 42 million went to prisoners in other states. How many went to prisoners in California? Well, I'm glad you asked. One billion. One billion dollars of COVID relief money was given to prisoners in California, including 133 death row inmates. Yes, those death row inmates really feeling the effects on their employment because of COVID. 133 death row inmates in California received COVID unemployment relief money. So if, let's just say Trump were to say, hey, we're going to cut COVID relief money by a billion dollars because we don't
want prisoners to be getting it anymore. Would the media come out and say, oh Trump is cutting unemployment money. Now yes they would of course of course they would. The question is will it work? So when Doge says we're gonna cut whatever a hundred billion dollars five hundred billion dollars of straight fraud from Social Security, like payments to death row inmates or dead people, people don't exist, whatever. Will the media say, oh so you are cutting Social Security?
Now yes they will, but the question is will it work? Something so basic, so transparent, so easy to understand what they're trying to do, how deceitful they are, will that fool the American people? In the past, the answer has been yes. I'm hoping things are different now. We had someone call into the radio today, Alicia, I believe, from New York City.
She said 30 years ago, she worked at a bank and a woman would come in and cash welfare checks. And then she would come in with a wig on and cash more welfare checks. And then come in with a different wig on and cash more welfare checks.
And the bank would call all the different welfare offices in the city and no one cared. This is what Elon talks about when he says, one of the, it's two things he says, he says you need bureaucrats who are competent, I think it's like competent and care.
And no one cared.
Like these people at these welfare offices, they don't care. They don't care.
It's like, well, whatever, I don't know.
Just got a check, let her cash the check, who cares? They don't care. We just need people to care. Now that scam that that woman 30 years ago was running on her own, that would never happen with a charity. Meaning if she went to a church or went to a charity and asked for money and the church gave her money, there's no way she could roll back in later that
afternoon with a wig on and get more money from the church. That's the one-on-one personal interaction of charity is the safeguard. One of the reasons why government welfare doesn't work is because it's a nameless, faceless bureaucracy and no one cares. So people can take advantage of it. Very different from what our founders ever envisioned. I want to pivot into John Winthrop's sermon.
It's called a model of Christian charity. It was a sermon delivered in 1630 to the Puritans on their way to New England. And it's about how to, what are we doing here? Like, what's this model Puritan community that we are seeking to make here? This is the sermon that has the line in it, shining city upon a hill, which was made famous by Ronald Reagan's farewell address.
And Reagan said the past few days, I've been at this window upstairs and I thought a bit of the shining city upon a hill. The phrase comes from John Winthrop who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. He goes on and it's a very pretty line and sentiment from Reagan. It's very nice. But if I may, when you read Winthrop's entire sermon, Reagan's use of it doesn't cover how wonderful Winthrop's vision was. Is that a nice way to say that?
Reagan misses the mark of it. Fine for what Reagan was trying to do in that farewell address, but I just encourage us to understand deeper what John Winthrop was saying beyond just Reagan's farewell address mention of it. So a couple things from this sermon that I think are noteworthy and then I want to tie this into the State of the Union address that is tonight. First the opening line of Winthrop's address says
of the sermon says that there will be inequality. The very opening line. God Almighty in His most holy and wise providence hath so disposed of the condition of mankind as in all times some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity, others mean, of low rank and in submission. Then he gives three reasons why this is the case. And I think this is the one that we can just focus on here.
He said, thirdly, why did God do this? Thirdly, that every man might have need of others, And from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection." So the inequality, it's good. It brings us together. It gives us opportunities to serve, help, and love each other. And then Winthrop says, this community we're making, this is our chance to be a model for the world. He said we must love brotherly without dissimulation so without hiding our character like we need
to openly proudly love each other we must love one another with a pure heart fervently we must bear one another's burdens we must not look only to our own things but also on the things of our brethren so it's all about unity true unity in Christ he says now the only way to avoid this shipwreck and to provide for our prosperity is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God.
For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our our surplusities, our superfluous things, for the supply of others' necessities. This is all charity. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and
liberality. We must delight in each other, make others' conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us as his own people, who will command a blessing upon us in all our ways." What a beautiful message of unity, of all the things that matter in life. You know, today it's all about diversity. It's like, no, no, unity is the point here. And unity was the founding vision of this country.
He goes on and says, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us as his one people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways so that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power, goodness, and truth
than formerly we have been acquainted with. So the closer we are together, the more united we are, the more we will know of God. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies I love that when he shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding
plantations the Lord make it likely that of New England like oh god please make us like New England for we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present hell from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.
We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God and all professors for God's sake. So this is bad. If we move away from God, then we're up on this hill and people are gonna see it and they're gonna speak bad about God and about all other Christians.
We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land where we're going. So we're gonna be cursed. If we turn away from God, then everyone's gonna curse us
and rightfully so, but if we stay with God, then he will bless us. So what Winthrop is saying in this sermon is that we are not the same and that's God's plan. It's opportunities for us to love one another as God wants us to do. So we need to work together as one. Real unity in the name of Jesus. If we follow God's commandments, he will bless us and we will thrive and his
glory will increase. We are a shining city or a city upon a hill. Reagan added the shining. We are a city upon the hill for all the world to see, good or bad. If we follow God's commandments, we'll be for good. If we don't, then we will bring shame to saints everywhere across the world. Winthrop ends this sermon with Deuteronomy 30. Let me go back a little bit from what he quotes.
This is where I want to bring it into the State of the Union tonight. So, Winthrop quotes this. I'll jump back, this is Deuteronomy 30, 15. So this is part of Moses' final speech to the Israelites before they enter into the Promised Land. And the people he's talking to don't really remember being in Egypt, and they're about to embark into the Promised Land.
So Moses' final plea, see, I've set before you today life and good, death and evil. Same thing Winthrop was saying, here's your choice. Life and good on one side, death and evil on the other. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in His ways, by keeping His commandments and His statutes and His rules, then you shall live and multiply.
And the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. If, but if, your heart turns away and you will not hear but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them I declared you today that you shall surely perish you shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I've set before you life and
death blessing and curse therefore choose life that you and your offspring offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice, and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days. And you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to give them." This is Winthrop's exact parallel that he used.
Just as Moses told the Israelites before they walked into the promised land. You must obey God's commands, and when you do, good things will happen. Winthrop said the same thing to the Puritans. And if I may, we need to have the same sermon given to the American people today.
If we want to thrive, and that's not just economically, I mean all the other soul metrics of life, thrive, families, the joys, the virtues, all the wonderful things that really matter. And GDP is great, too. Gross domestic product is great, but that will fall into place. If GDP is your goal, you're missing all the other stuff.
But if all the other stuff is your goal, the GDP will probably come, too. But if we follow God's commands, just like Moses told the Israelites, just like Winthrop told the Puritans, if we say the same thing to the American people today, it is just as true, and we will be blessed or cursed. We spoke of the curse of Moraes a couple days ago. This is the revolution,
you can call it a revival, that we need in America today. The Doge stuff is our first focus and that's okay. Maybe it's kind of like more obvious things. I say obvious, hasn't been done in many, many decades at all ever.
So it's great, let's save money, smaller government, awesome. But very soon, like yesterday would have been a good day, the second best day is today, the third best day is tomorrow, but like, okay, like as soon as possible, we got to get on the truer message,
the deeper message. It's time we get to the root of all this, and that is unity in Jesus to glorify God in all that we do. All that we do as individuals and all that we do as a nation. Oh, you're a Christian nationalist. I don't really know what that means.
It's like an insult, I guess, you're a Christian nationalist. I do know that we are obviously founded as a Christian nation and I want to be a thriving nation with Flourishing people and as Moses gave his final commands and plea to the Israelites into the promised land and as Winthrop Founded New England. This is the answer today as it's always been And I don't know when we're ready to have this from a State of the Union address Or I don't know what it looks like how it comes when it's delivered by whom I don't know. But the message is, I've set before you today life and good, death and evil. And as Moses said, choose life and evil. Mike Slater, dot locals dot death and evil. And as Moses said, choose life and evil. Mike Slater, dot locals dot com. Transcripts are commercial free. Mike Slater, dot locals dot com.
