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I love when pagans criticize Christians for not being "Christian enough" or the right type of Christian that they would prefer. Obviously, don't listen to them, but what does the Bible say about the words we speak and the tone we should have?
Welcome to Politics by Faith. It's where we take the news of the day, we bring it to the Bible. The point of this is we need to walk away with some peace and perspective because there's new headlines every day and it's all very anxiety inducing, but Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. So thanks for being here to get the true story. Story of the day, J . D.
Vance making the rounds and doesn't like his tone. Got a mean tone. Got to watch that tone. The tone police are out. J . D.
Vance is making the rounds because he's got a new book out. and he is also a great spokesperson for this administration. So where Trump can sometimes be maybe rough around the edges, Vance is smoother, more polished, if you will. I don't know if that's entirely true. I think Trump is pretty smooth and polished, too, in his own way. But maybe the biggest advantage that Trump, excuse me, that Vance has over Trump is he's not Trump.
So as much as much TDS people have seething through their veins, pulsing constantly through their entire body and soul, they don't yet have the same hatred for J . D. Vance. They will, don't worry. But right now, there's no such thing as J . D .
D . S. That's right. One day there will be. Aw, he's even worse than Trump because he actually believes what he's saying. That's what's gonna happen.
But there's certain places where I would much rather have the president be. Like negotiating with Iran, for instance. Trump's great at these big press conferences. Obviously, he's the best at the rallies. But when it comes to one -on -one with adversaries, I choose Vance all day on that one. All day long, you put Vance in that battle.
big press conferences, Trump with another world leader, you put Trump. Someone versus, you know, meet the press lady or whatever, you send JD on. No question. JD Vance did great with the Ladies in the View, for instance. We played the entire 25 minutes or so he was on on my radio show. My one critique, if I had to have, critique's not even quite right, a nitpick, is the women on The View, they would hit him with like 48 questions at one time, and he'd have to think in his brain, okay, I have 12 seconds to respond.
How can I possibly combine all of these questions? How am I gonna be able to find a cohesive thread, coherent thread to your incoherent questions, and somehow come up with an answer that can best encompass everything that's been said here? with a 12 second response and a smile. So there's times when he would say, okay, um, let me say this. You can see his brain. I try to put the pieces together.
That's my one critique. My goodness. He did as good as any human can do in that unenviable situation. But I want to pick out this moment from the New York times podcast. Russ Dothat as this guy's name or an unpronounced or sign. He's very upset that the administration is not nice enough with their tone.
Here's what he said. We could have a longer argument about the economics, but I just want to let's let's stipulate that the Trump administration has in some way a kind of vision of rebuilding the working class that's connected to Christianity. Was that hard to say? Was that hard to say, Ross? I'm stipulate for the sake of argument. and the fact that you have not given us three hours to have this discussion, we're stipulating it.
It also seems to me like the administration has distanced itself in different ways from some other sort of obvious expressions of Christian influence on politics, some of them more sort of liberal coded, some of them more conservative coded, right? Like, the administration has been more hostile than any prior Republican administration, to say nothing of Democrats, in the last 20 years to the way we do humanitarian aid. It has kept religious conservatives, pro -life organizations especially, at arm's length in a way that has led to a lot of criticism. And then, you know, let's be honest, the tone of the administration is not consistently a Christian tone. there is a tone of aggressive uncharity to people who aren't on board with the administration's policies. So I would describe those as three areas where the administration has felt functionally post -Christian to me.
And I'm curious what you think. Well, so on the first point, well, sorry, the third point. You can work backward. So on the tone thing, This is it's it's very hard to rebut this because it's like fundamentally unfalsifiable because for every clip that you could show me of me or the president or some cabinet secretary saying something that in your view is unchristian i could show you another few clips of us doing something or saying something that is like very christian the nature of political communication in the era of mass media is that sometimes people are going to say jokes that are taken out of context sometimes people are going to say I'm not saying I make mistakes. I talk about this in the book a little.
In my book, Communion, available where books are sold, I talk about the own mistakes that I've made as a Christian reader in America. There is an apology to childless cat ladies. We don't need to get sidetracked by that. Go on. But my point is, I'm not saying we're perfect because we're not. My point is that the tone argument is in some ways, I think, people see what they want to see.
And I also think that tonal arguments are ways of, frankly, policing working class ways of communication and covering them in elite preferences. So let's talk about what's broken in this scenario here. So yes, the Bible, God, talks about the way we should speak. Proverbs 51, a soft answer. turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. " President, we've talked about this before, his game theory approach to talking with people and negotiating, but just everything, he will always start positive.
He'll start kind every time, always. He will always start with a soft answer and a soft response and a soft initiation, always. 1 Peter 3 .15 says, make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect. The fruits of the spirit. One of them is kindness. Another is gentleness.
Also, we are told to speak boldly. Acts 4 .31 says, and when they had prayed, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. " So what do we think boldness, what would boldness mean today? I bet based off of the New York Times editorial board, if they heard a preacher today speak with boldness, they might say, Oh, that tone makes me uncomfortable. That's not very inclusive sound. And we talked about this just the other day.
The Bible says there is one way to get to heaven. Oh, that's. I don't like your tone. Paul speaks about boldly proclaiming the gospel. First Thessalonians 2 .2. But though we had already suffered, we had been shamefully treated at Philippi.
As you know, we had boldness in our God to declare you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. How were they treated shamefully in Philippi? Or I should say, why? Is it because the people loved so much what they were saying and how they said it? No, that doesn't make any sense. They were treated shamefully, but what does that mean?
Does that mean, uh, they, they, they preached the gospel boldly. And then people went on Twitter and said, I don't like your tone. No, they were stripped and beaten with rods, all without a trial, of course, then thrown into prison and placed in stocks while bleeding from the beating they just took. And they weren't treated this way because the people of Philippi liked what they were saying. And then all of a sudden, these are two different things. There's what's being said.
And then there's how it's set. And. Progressive could make the argument, and it's not accurate, but they could make the argument that, oh, they don't mind what the administration's saying, they just don't like how it's set. No, that's you trying to get around. That's just a trick. They don't like what the administration is doing, and they're trying to tone police it as a way to seem like they're morally superior.
So let's go over the four options though, right? I mean, there's four options. We can make like a chart of these four options. You have bad tone, mean words, good tone, nice words, bad tone, nice words, or good tone, mean words. So maybe this example work, we'll see how it goes. Bad tone, bad words.
I hate you. Good tone, good word, nice word. Good tone, good, good, good. I love you. Well, let's mix it up. Bad tone, good words.
I love you. I love you. That's almost like too passionate. How do you do it like hatred? I love you. Good tone, bad words.
I hate you. The New York Times guy. thinks it's best that we say or do bad things, but in a nice way. That's like the Democrat way. Do bad things, but with a smile. Let's give a political example.
Maybe this'll make more sense. So the Democrats, they were so nice when they opened up our borders to millions of illegal aliens, many of whom went on to murder and steal and destroy neighborhoods and take jobs and do terrible things. I just saw a story of, it was like 1 ,700 maybe illegal aliens who were arrested in I think like the Houston area. And they went through all their crimes, five murders, 170 burglaries, 78 sex offenses, like 50 against children, 40 domestic abuses, 500 DUIs. Just go down the list. But it was all done with a smile.
It's so nice. And the poem on the statue says, it's great. The poor, tired, huddled masses. We were so kind when we did this. That's the binary. Bad things, but nicely.
The Trump administration comes in and says, I actually think they'd said it quite nicely, but they say, you have to go. Oh, that's so mean. Your tone. But that's not even true what I'm saying here, because the real argument is it's the right people. And this is what J . D.
brought up, right? J . D. after that, where the clip stopped, he said, let me just take a classic example. So the Biden administration had a very humane way of talking about immigration, about illegal immigration. It was very charitable.
And some of the words that it offered to people who were coming into our country, I would say that it was not particularly charitable to the people who were living with the consequences of mass migration into our country. So at a certain level, what I think matters much more than perceived tone is actual conduct. " Well said, J .D. Vance. There was a similar moment on The View as well. So the questions from a bunch of them at the same time was, the first question from Whoopi was, what did black people do to this administration? that you treat them so terribly." And J . D. was like, what?
And Whoopi said, she's like, what are you talking about? And they went around the table and they were all like, well, like erasing black history. And he's still like, what are you talking about? But it was all like a tone argument. They were all toned, like the ladies didn't like the tone of this administration or whatever. And J .
D. says, all right, we've taken over the police department in D . C. , the law enforcement in D . as many murders. Last year, there were Last year, there were 42.
This year, at the same time period, 20. And that's just murder. I mean, that's like all quality of life crimes are way down. People can go outside. Kids can walk to school. It's a safe city again.
And it's a predominantly majority Black city. So these are Black people's lives that have improved. So you may not like that we removed a Black history overreach from the Black Lives Matter era. at the Smithsonian. We removed like a sign that was in the Smithsonian about Thomas Jefferson's slaves or something. Is that the most important thing or do you care about actual black lives in DC?
So that's like, that's a, I think that's like a perfect example of content and tone. So the tone would be, Oh, you're erasing black history. Like, no, they're not. But like, even, but the content is, yeah, but we're saving black people's lives. Don't you care more about what's actually happening? All right, let me go to the Bible.
So Jesus didn't always have a nice tone. We can't tell the tone really what Jesus was reading, right? But I can't imagine him having a great tone when in Matthew 23, Jesus says to the Pharisees, woe to you, hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. I don't think he said that like politely or something. There's seven of those, by the way. Woes to you.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people. bones and all uncleanliness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you, you're full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. I don't think the people around were like, Oh, he's got such a nice tone. Listen to his tone.
Wow. Or John 8 44, you are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning. and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. That's not very nice, Jesus.
Revelation 2 .20, speaking about Jezebel. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her. I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works. And I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searched mind and heart. And I will give to each of you according to your works.
Yikes. What is, what is Ross Dothat from the New York times? Think about that. Paul said in Galatians 1a, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we've said before. So now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you receive, let him be accursed.
The accursed in Greek is anathema. And the definition is devoted to the direst of woes. It's not very lovely sounding. Paul in Galatians 1a. Eric called the Galatians foolish. He calls people liar.
He calls false preachers ungodly, wretched wanderers. Micah said that people hate good and love evil. That sounds judgmental. I think we need more of a strong tone from Christians. And I don't really care if Ross Dothat or whoever at the New York Times, they don't like it. We need strong tones when confronting hypocrisy, when guarding the truth, when protecting the church, when warning of judgment, and every time love requires it.
True words and a strong tone is not bigoted. The truth demands nothing less. youtube . com slash at politics by faith. If you're listening to this on podcast, thank you. You can watch it as well on our YouTube channel, youtube . com. So if you could please subscribe, we've got youtube . com slash at politics by faith.
