Transcript

American Family Radio focuses on religious freedom and promoting the gospel of Christ

Jenna Ellis in the morning on American Family Radio. I love talking about the things of God because of truth and the biblical worldview. The U.S. constitution obligates our government to preserve and protect the rights that our founders recognize come from God, our creator, not our government. I believe that scripture in the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raised up each of you, and God has allowed us to be brought here to this specific moment in time. This is Jenna Ellis in the morning.

Jenna Ellis: Good morning. It is Friday, May 15, and, even though there's a lot going on with China and Trump and the CIA and whistleblowers and, so many other things, we need to also turn our attention to religious freedom and simply promoting the truth of the gospel of Christ.

Franklin Graham urges Christians to pray for Pastor Clive Johnston after Northern Ireland conviction

So a retired Pastor who is 78 was convicted and fined for preaching a Bible verse near a Northern Ireland hospital. This is reported by Fox News and other outlets as well. the retired pastor Clive Johnston was reacted after being convicted for reading Jon 3:16 outside a hospital in Northern Ireland. He said, At 78 years old, I never imagined I would leave a courtroom with a criminal conviction for preaching the Christian gospel. He says the case raises serious concerns about free speech and religious expression. And Franklin Graham warns after the pastor's conviction, quote, every demon in hell has been unleashed. He's, Franklin Graham is urging Christians to pray for Pastor Clive Johnston, in Northern Ireland after this conviction. Graham said that Pastor Johnston, quote, didn't even mention abortion. He just preached the gospel in a public space. But Graham believes the case reflects a much larger spiritual battle. He said there is an Antichrist spirit that is prevailing in our world today. And it is though every demon in hell has been unleashed. Graham warned that religious freedom is under attack in the U.S. uK and Canada and also the United States and around the world, and called on believers to stand firm and pray.

Father Calvin Robinson says there is hostility toward Christian truth today

So let's welcome in Father Calvin Robinson, who's a parish priest and also a radio host and one of our favorite guests here for Speaking the Truth. And so, I think that, Franklin Graham is right that, there is a posture of not just concerns about religious freedom and free speech, and, you know, all of those things are very important, but fundamentally an overt and palpable hostility toward Christian truth.

Calvin Robinson: Yes. Good morning, Jenna. You're absolutely spot on with this. A retired pastor, an old man just speaking the truth, not even reading controversial parts of the gospel. And yes, some of some parts of the Bible are seen as controversial today. But he was reading the most popular, the most common part of the Bible Jon 3:16. And for some reason people have taken offense to this. So we have to conclude that it's not actually the verse, it's not the scripture that they're offended by. It's the truth. It's the truth of Jesus Christ. It's the living word of God they're offended by, not just the written word of God. And so what this is, it's an affront on Christianity. If they can arrest and charge and convict a retired pastor, an elderly man for quoting the most common parts of the Christian scriptures. They can arrest any of us at any time for being Christian. Now we are living in persecuted times for Christians. It's astonishing because Great Britain is still technically a Christian country. You know, ah, our ah, head of state, our monarch is the supreme governor of the Church of England as well as the head of the armed forces and the head of the government. And our government, our legislative, our judiciary are all explicitly Christian in the constitutions. We have Christian prayers before Parliament opens every day. It's like if we are being, if we are persecuting elderly men for quoting the Bible in a Christian country, who's safe? And the matter of fact is that nobody is because we don't have freedom of religion, we don't have freedom of worship, we certainly don't have freedom of speech. And as you and I have discussed in the past, we don't even have freedom of thought and expression because we've got Christians who've been arrested for silently praying in their own head. So things are ramping up, things are getting worse. But this isn't political. This isn't just woke liberal progressive ideologies, you know, combating Christianity. It's not even Marxism or communism, it's not even Islam. It is just satanic, it's demonic, it is the enemy, the dark one fighting against the light. And that's what's been going on since the dawn of time, obviously. But we are caught up in this spiritual war. And what we must do is, as Franklin Graham rightly said, we must pray. Pray for Pastor Clive Johnston, pray for all Christians in oppressed lands, including Great Britain. But also we must boldly proclaim the gospel. Must not, it must not let this make us afraid of the world. We ought to be more afraid of God than we are of the world. And that means we are to speak his truth at all times, in all places. We're called to go forth, to multiply, to disciple the nations, to proclaim the gospel. We must do these things boldly, unashamedly, whether they Arrest us and convict us or not.

Jenna Ellis: Amen. And amen. And I love the fact that you rightly say that this is a spiritual battle, it is demonic, it's Satanic, and it's been going on since the dawn of time. This isn't just a political battle. And this is why the framing of, you know, religious freedom, free speech, I think is too narrow. because if we only focus on, well, we have constitutionally protected rights in this country and, you know, look at what's happening across the world, that is absolutely important. And obviously the founders of the United States recognized that. But ultimately, it's not just our constitutional liberties that ultimately we're seeking to protect. As you and I just spoke about a couple of weeks ago, this program, this is ultimately about, the. The freedom for Christians to follow God and ultimately, to proclaim his truth. And this is about the Christian life overall. And this is about the spiritual battle that the Apostle Paul warns us in, of course, in Ephesians, other places, in Scripture. And. And so to confine this just to a political conversation, I think is missing the inherent, bigger battle that's at stake here. And that's where I think even some Christians are actually fighting at opposite purposes to Scripture. When they're actually advocating for religious pluralism and suggesting that somehow that's religious freedom. I think they're missing the point.

Calvin Robinson: Yeah, it is an interesting point there, because it seems that we've forgotten what it means to be Christian. We seem to think these days it means to be nice, to be meek and mild, and to some extent it does. But that's not the wholeness of what it means to be Christian. It means to repent of our sins and follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It means to adhere to the sacred scriptures, which we believe to be inerrant and God breathes. And that means that everything in the Bible is true. But we don't just have to believe that. We have to speak that. And in the modernity, people have forgotten that because they seem to think that, well, as long as you believe in something or as long as you believe in someone, that's okay. As long as you're a nice person, that's what matters. No, that's not what matters. What matters is your. Your soul. Whether you go into eternal heaven or eternal fire, that's what matters. We're on this earth, for the blink of an eye. You know, maybe 80, 90 years is nothing. Time goes so quickly. And we have that time. If even if we have, you know, we May have shorter than that, but we have that time to. To work hard, to find the truth, to pray, to follow Christ and to receive the sacraments and to repent of sin, to head in the opposite direction of the dark one, to head towards the light one. And our job as Christians isn't just to be selfish and to worry about our own soul, what happens to us. It's to lead other people to Jesus too. It's to love people by helping them get to heaven with us. We don't want to be there on our own. We want to be there with all the people that we know and love and even the people that we don't like. We want everyone to be with us in heaven. And so it's not okay for a Christian to ever sit by and leave people in the darkness. And, what I mean, I don't mean darkness as in, you know, demonic and evil. I mean just anything that's not the light of Christ. And so if people have a different faith, people have pagan gods or foreign gods or different ideologies or religions, that's not good for their soul. Our message is Jesus Christ is the only way. The sun is the only way to the Father. The gate to heaven is a narrow gate, and we have to lead people toward that narrow gate, and hope that they walk through it. And you can only lead a horse to water. You can't force him to drink. So we are not a faith of subjection. We don't force people to become Christians, even in Christian countries. But we do teach the truth, that there is only one truth, and that is Christianity. Universal, objective truth. And so if we say, well, it's okay, those people over there are Hindus.

David Frum: The pluralism of modernity is a problem

Those people are Sikhs. Those people are Buddhists, Those people are Mohammedans. That's not good on from us. And the pluralism of modernity as well, you know, who am I to say? Well, you're Christian. That's who you are to say. And it's not coming from you, it's coming from Jesus Christ. Either believe him or you don't believe him. If you think he was just a meek and mild nice guy who said, just be nice to people, then you don't know who Jesus Christ is. And that's the fundamental problem of modernity. He sometimes he was meek and mild and nice. Other times he got his whip out and went into the, temple and turned up the tables of the money changers and said, not in my father's house. Get out. Other times he said, get thee behind me, Satan. Other times he Said, go from me and sin no more. You know, he was very upfront and truthful at all times, and people forget that part of him because it's easy to pretend. Well, we just have to be nice people. And to be nice person means ignoring sin, ignoring darkness, just getting on with your own selfish little life. And that is not Christian.

Jenna Ellis: Yes, so well said. And absolutely, I mean, and this is not to be loving and to be Christian is not to be accepting of false worldviews and, and falsity that goes against the fundamental truth of not only Scripture, but also the reality to which God has presented us. And this is why we can and must in policy require our government, especially here in the United States, because we actually have the authority of our highest law in the land, telling us that that's the only thing that we're authorized to do, is to, have policy and laws in furtherance of the laws of nature and of nature's God. But we have to require that in any Christian nation or even moral and upright society, like the uk, that once upon a time at least recognized that, even though they're, they're going completely off the rails, just like, the United States is in, we have to make sure that our law and policy follows the laws of nature and of nature's God. And this is where Christians for too long have been, in our comfort and kind of our, our just ease really with saying, well, we're a Christian nation. And that means that I can exercise my faith in my religion, however, the God requires of me. But that means that I need to also just allow everyone else to follow whatever higher path or non path that they prefer in their lives. And the practical reality of that is that you don't have a cohesive society and you don't have people that then are following the same values and ultimately have the same understanding of right and wrong and good and evil. And so you have people, who, like here in Northern Ireland, who will punish a pastor for simply, reciting a Bible verse outside of a hospital. Or you have, people here in the United States who believe that, you know, certain moral atrocities are okay, or you think that, There are some people here that think that we can redefine marriages between two men. Or you can commoditize children and say that it's okay for a single parent, to create a child intentionally motherless or fatherless. I mean, these are the worldviews, foundations that then when we get to policy, have implications that mean we can't just as the bumper sticker says, you know, coexist, when we all come from a completely different perspective on the fundamental truth of reality. And I think that clash is what we're experiencing. And we're experiencing the obvious fruit, the bad fruit of pluralism.

Calvin Robinson: Yeah. And I think there is some nuance in all of this that people don't want to see and that in Christian countries we don't persecute people for not being Christian. And so if someone does believe in same sex marriage or if someone does believe that Muhammad is the, is the last prophet, we're not going to persecute people for believing that. We're not going to oppress them for believing that. But we're also not going to support or promote it because we believe it to be false. So there's, that's the nuance there that people think, oh, well, in a Christian land you have freedom of religion. That means that I can do whatever I like and promote these things in public. No, it doesn't, it doesn't mean that in a Christian land you can promote that two men can get married because that's not true in the Christian sense. We believe that marriage is a lifelong, indissoluble union between one man and one woman united under God. And so anything else is a lie or it needs a different word. And so two men getting together, two women getting together, or three men and women doesn't matter. Whatever it is outside of the bounds of one man and one woman is not marriage. It's not holy matrimony. And so we don't promote it and we shouldn't allow it under our law. Doesn't mean we should tell people they're not allowed to believe it or persecute or oppress people that do believe it. That's their choice to believe what they like. But it doesn't mean we're allowed to implement it in public life. And it's the same with all things. You know, people could come to America and follow Mohammed. We're not going to say we're going to oppress you for being, Mohammedan, we're not going to persecute you for being a Mohammedan. But I think it would be fair for America's say, but we're not going to build any mosques because this is a Christian country. We build churches here. And so, you know, you have a decision to make. You can continue to follow Muhammad if you want, but you're not going to do so publicly and you're not going to promote him publicly because we don't believe him to be true, much like the Satanic clubs we've seen pop up over the last 10 years. Like no university or college should ever have a Satanist club. We believe Satan to be the darkest force in the, in the known universe, and therefore it's not anything we want young people to be around. Now, someone can believe in Satan in the privacy of their own home if they want to, but we, we should. We as a good Christian people should not allow it to be encouraged and promoted or institutionalized. And that's the nuance of it all. We're not, we're not brainwashing people, and we're not also not telling people what they must think, but we're telling people what is good and right and proper. They can choose to believe in Jesus Christ or not, but in the public square, we're not going to promote evil or things against Jesus Christ.

Jenna Ellis: Yes, absolutely. And, and m. That is exactly what the founders of this country intended. And the, the nuance of it is that those who are against Christianity and against, Christians being involved in civil society and policy and the public square, will not recognize that nuance. And they will say, if you are promoting Christian values and policy, therefore you must be oppressing and persecuting those who don't believe in Christianity. And what, and what's so fascinating is that they don't say the same thing about Muslims or secularists or Satanists. You know, those people are totally fine to promote all of their objects of worship, to even go as far as having, you know, separate courts of Sharia law, which thankfully now Congress and other states are paying attention to and saying, no, that's antithetical to the US Constitution. It's always only explicitly Christians that somehow we are different. And it's because they recognize that Christianity and the truth claims that we make as Christians are, by definition and necessarily exclusive. If who Jesus is as, as Messiah, the Son of God and Lord, if he is who he claims he is and the truth of the gospel of Christ genuinely is true, then necessarily every other worldview is by definition false. Where other religions don't claim to be exclusive, they say, you know, this is the path for that that best suits my life. And it's all centered around what's best for the individual rather than what is true. And so this is where even some Christians have falsely interpreted Christianity either as not exclusive and they say we can coexist with other false religions or, and they try to water it down, or they suggest, if they're anti Christian that every other religion can peacefully coexist, but we must exclude the Christians. And we have to take a break here, but I want to come back and talk about that. So specifically how Christians in this country are actually undermining that nuance and the necessity of having a foundation of truth in our policy. So my special guest this morning is Father, Calvin Robinson. You need to follow him on X. You also need to read his brand new book, and remind me the title about, about Jihad.

Calvin Robinson: Silence Jihad.

Jenna Ellis: Yes. So definitely, read his book, we'll talk more about that as well. But, but we'll be right back on Jenna Ellis in the Morning.

Jenna Ellis: Father Calvin Robinson says American society needs a common law

Calvin Robinson: welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.

Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. And I'm here with my special guest, Father Calvin Robinson. You need to follow on X and read his brand new book, the Silent Jihad. And we are talking about truth in society, which should be actually the definition of politics, is that our community, together, we have to live and interact with each other under a common law. And that necessarily must reflect truth. Otherwise if it is subjective and depending on the whim, the preference, the viewpoint or even the religion of specific individuals, and we all have a different opinion on that, we end up in chaos. And that's really where we're at in American society and I think overall in the west. When we look at this headline that we've been Talking about a 78 year old pastor who was convicted in Northern Ireland just for preaching a Bible verse near a hospital. And of course he has the religious freedom and the freedom of speech and he should to do that. But when we live in such a chaotic society, that we don't recognize truth versus falsity and we're not willing to stand up and say our common law must be based on truth, it must be based on natural law, on biology, on empirical truth, and also the truth of what the Bible teaches because that is the only religion that actually is consistent with the truth of the reality to which we are presented. The truth of the Gospel of Christ is the only internally coherent, consistent explanation for the human condition and explaining who we are, why we're here, our purpose, where we're going, and also the condition of sin and corruption in the world. I mean the only reason we need a common law is because there is evil in the world and humans are bent toward evil. And some of us need more external civilization, pressure or justice in order to comport with a moral and upright society than others. I mean there, it's just like with Kids, you know, every parent would know. There are some kids, all you have to do is tell them, and they obey the rules. There are others that need a little more punishment. And so this is where the common law has to be common, but it also has to be based on a common worldview. And this is where, Calvin Robinson, I think so many Christians have been conditioned and frankly dis. Conceived in the modern United States, framework that pluralism, secular pluralism, is the pathway that our founders intended. And the only way to protect religious freedom for Christians is to allow and actually support the religious practice of others and to live in this chaotic society instead of requiring that our common law is based on truth and based on biblical principle. And we saw this, play out actually in the last, show that you and I did together when you were a guest on the show, there was a clip when we were talking about secular, ah, pluralism, talking about religious liberty. And Right Wing Watch, which is of course this group that loves to come after Christians. And I love that they listen to this show because it's probably the only place that they'll hear truth. So haters are welcome. But, they posted this clip and thought, you know, how dare you suggest that that American society is founded on the biblical worldview and religious freedom was meant to preserve the Christian way of life. And I'm going, I'm not apologizing for that. That's true.

Calvin Robinson: Right. I, love that. By the way, Right Wing Watch is fantastic. I find all the best people on there to follow. They think they're exposing people for being found or something, I don't know. But you're absolutely right. It comes down to, do we believe in an object of truth? All of this does. I just, I'm sat here while you're on the break. I pulled out my Bible. I've opened it up and I love when this happens, but I opened it up to a random page. Psalm 51, verse 6. Behold, thou desires the truth in the inward being. Therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. And that's what we should all be praying at all times to give us that, that one true living truth and deny all lies. And I think that's what the foundation of this country was built upon. I really do. When I look at the founding fathers and their writings, it seems to me that freedom of worship or freedom of religion was actually about the freedom to worship the one true living Christian God in any way, shape or form, I. E. Catholics would not be persecuted. Pentecostals would not be persecuted, Methodists would not be persecuted. It doesn't matter your denomination. And there'd be no official United States denomination because everyone gets to worship the one true living Lord Jesus Christ in, in the tradition that their family comes from. And I think that's a beautiful thing because obviously in England at the time different people were, you know, Catholics were persecuted, for example, after the Protestant Reformation and the Puritans were driven out of England and they m, most of them came over here to America. And so we lived in times of persecution of Christians by other Christians. And so in America that was like, no, this won't be the case. Christians can be Christians however they see fit. And that's beautiful. I don't think the founding fathers were intending for a vast swathe of Muhammadans to come over and start building mosques and pushing Sharia law because you rightly pointed out that the foundation of common law, which obviously was inherited from England is, is based on the Christian Ten Commandments. Now let's give an example. The fifth commandment, Thou shalt not kill. Now murder has always been illegal for Christians. We, we deem it to be moral, absolute. Murdering a person, murdering another person is seen as wrong. But that's not the same in all ideologies and faiths. For example, in Islam it's quite okay. In fact it's promoted that you murder another human if they become apostate. So if a Muhammadan leaves the Muhammadan faith, you can kill them and that's a good thing. In fact you should kill them. That's a good thing. Now that's clearly contradictory to our teachings. But in their moral compass that's a good thing because they're leaving their so called truth and therefore should be be their life should be ended. Now in our Christian lands we would say that that should always be illegal to murder another human being. But what they have in their own system is they have Sharia courts. In fact in Great Britain there are 85 Sharia courts now where they operate on Islamic law above the law of the land. They are the police, their own communities. And for example, if, if a wife wants to leave her husband, she'll go to the Sharia court rather than the, the law, the, the law courts of the land to get a formal divorce. So she'll go to the fellow Islamic community and they'll say these words three times and that's it, you're divorced. Whereas actually in the law of the land you're not divorced. These things matter. you know, we all have to have a common legal system. We have to have equality under the law. And if we don't, we have preferential systems. My, my issue there is that actually there's nothing wrong with the preferential system if you deem which one it is. And in a Christian land, the preferential system should be Christianity. We should, expect the Christian moral compass to take precedence over any other moral compass. The Christian laws should take precedence over any other laws. In fact, and that's the problem. We're seeing, we're seeing a two tiered system, especially in Britain and Western Europe, where Islam is treated in a special way. In fact, they're pushing Islamophobia right now, which is basically blasphemy laws for Islam. Whereas if you criticize Islam in any way, you could be arrested and charged for it. or if you offend Islam in any way, such as Pastor Clive Johnston who was quoting from the Bible and Mohammedans take offense to that. And other people have taken offense to. Very recently there have been other pastors that have been arrested because Muhammadans have taken offense to the Christian Bible. And so we have preferential treatment for a foreign faith in a Christian land. And I think the point that we got called up on our conversation was we were saying there should be preferential treatment for Christianity in Christian countries. And I absolutely adhere to that.

Jenna Ellis: Absolutely. And, and just logically it makes sense because the leftists are even arguing for that. They are suggesting that the preferential law is secular pluralism.

The left has gutted the US Constitution, and we're now following Supreme Court opinions

And so they're arguing for a supreme law that governs everyone and requires Christians to conform. But then when we suggest no, it should be based on, truth and Judeo Christian principles, then suddenly, well, you're not, you know, you're not for equality and you're asking for preference and suddenly, you know, this is unconstitutional. But they're actually arguing for the very same thing, just a different supreme law. And that's where we can't let them get away with pretending that somehow they're not advocating for the very thing that they're condemning us for advocating for. It's just a clash of which system ultimately is best. And, and I've always said, even in, in my book, years ago, I mean this is 11 years old now, the legal basis for a moral constitution. I mean every society has laws and every society says these are things that we permit and things that we prohibit based on a worldview based. I mean all laws are inherently legislating someone's morality. It just depends on what morality are we legislating. And here in the United States Unlike some other countries who don't have as clear a founding documents as we do here in the United States, the left would actually have to change our entire legal system, undermine the US Constitution if they actually wanted to implement secular pluralism. But they've done this surreptitiously by, by, twisting and warping the definitions of things like the establishment clause and the, the free exercise clause and, and genuinely bastardizing them and perverting them, saying that we, that these definitions are no longer what the plain meaning is, we're going to fabricate them to mean secular pluralism. And so they've gutted the US Constitution, and we're now following a series of Supreme Court opinions instead of the U.S. constitution. And if we really want to get back to being a moral and upright society, we need to reverse all of those, terrible opinions. We need to go back to what our system actually requires, which is laws that comport with the laws of nature and of nature's God. And who is nature's God? Our founders identified him as the God of the Bible, Jesus Christ.

Calvin Robinson: I love that. That's so spot on. It's fascinating to me to watch what's happened in this country. You know, Roe v. Wade was exactly that, what you were just talking about. Somehow they twisted and manipulated the law and the language to say that, yeah, you have a right to abortion through a right to privacy. Like, in what way does a right to privacy enable a woman to kill her own unborn child? And any Christian country would say, no, you don't have a right to murder the unborn. That is infanticide. It's evil. We don't want any of it. But the liberals didn't change the meaning of the, of the law. They didn't change it from Christian to secular. All they did is twist the meaning of it. And that's how the enemy works, isn't it? The enemy twists the meaning of things, and it always has done. Back to our point of, religious freedom, that the word religion originally meant worship of God, a, form of worship of God. And our religion has evolved or be manipulated into a set of beliefs. And those are two very different meanings. It sounds nuanced, but it's almost black and white in that A belief in God implies that there is this one true living God who we know through, through our Lord Jesus Christ. whereas a set of beliefs could be anything. And now we have people saying I believe in the universe, you know, fluffy, stuff like that. Or people who genuinely do believe in Satan, or follow, follow him, as we see in Hollywood and all the, the elites with their horrible demon worship, or people that believe in false prophets like Muhammad, or people that believe in false gods like Buddha and, and, and things like that. And so what has been assumed is that anyone could believe in anything as long as you believe in something. Whereas what it used to mean is that you can believe in the one true God however you see fit. Those are two very different things. But it's a slight manipulation over time. And that's how the enemy works. You know, when I first started speaking publicly on political stuff, I used to speak against critical race theory because it was just everywhere pernicious. but one of the words they changed was racism. And that was, that's a very recent one because when I was growing up racism used to mean discrimination or hatred against a group of people based on their immutable characteristics, based on their ethnicity or their race. And I think most people would agree that's, that's bad. We should hate people because of the way they're born. You can't help the way you're born. But it got evolved into actually it's a power dynamic struggle between white people and non white people. And this is how the enemy works. He twists many place language over time to change something from a Christian nature into a secular nature, from something good into something chaos. That is all the work of Satan.

Jenna Ellis: Yes, absolutely. And that's the definition of perversion is taking the truth and twisting it and manipulating it. And then it becomes so distorted that it doesn't look anything like the actual truth and what it once was. And that's what Satan does best. It's not just a completely different model or object. It's, it's taking the truth but perverting it. And so something like racism in the actual definition of a preferential treatment, based on an immutable characteristic that obviously is wrong. But then when you get into those power dynamics and then you get into actual discrimination, you know, based on, based on appearance of people or their demographic, then that has become used as a tool of the left and ultimately a tool of Satan to then divide. Because then it does become that power dynamic which it was never intended to be. And that's actually what's happening right now as well in the context of religious liberty. There are so many Christians that are actually advocating for a false definition of religious freedom based on a false understanding and a perverted twisted notion of religious freedom to think that religious freedom equals secular pluralism. And so they think that Christians are actually wrong. If we say no, we shouldn't have Sharia courts, no, we shouldn't have mosques, no, we shouldn't have a public common law that is based on any other history, tradition or religion other than Christianity. And that we can rightly say that here in the United States and it has to be based on natural law. They are actually advocating against truth because they have been taught and they have been so deceived into this distortion. And where do you think that the US and maybe the UK or just, you know, the west in general got off on this? Because it was very clear at the founding of America and it was clear for a while, throughout even, you know, Europe's history in the UK. But it seems like in 2026, the, the west writ large has bought into this false, perverted notion of religious freedom.

Calvin Robinson: Yeah, I'm trying to think, where did this come from? And I'm thinking the first commandment is very clear that thou shalt have no other gods before. Before me. no strange gods. There is only one Lord God. and so people. Krish, all Christians first and foremost follow the Ten Commandments, and the entirety of the scriptures. But the Ten Commandments are very, very clear. And so where did it come from that actually, no, we should be supporting the idea of multiple, multiple gods, multiple religions, as long as we're enabling people to have freedom of religion. Because even that's m not supported by the Constitution. So even if people were not truly Christian and they were secular Christians and they were just pushing, making an idol of the Constitution, even the Constitution isn't on their side. That's on our side. So I don't know where it's truly coming from other than, as you pointed out, the perversion of the truth. So people have stopped looking at the Ten Commandments. People have stopped reading the scriptures and started listening to what the world is saying around them. And the world around us doesn't teach us about the cardinal virtues, doesn't teach us about the theological virtues of faith, hope and love or charity, doesn't teach us about the gifts, the Holy Spirit. The world around us teaches us about virtue, signaling, and, that's all about appearance. It's all about image, which actually just leads to vanity and pride. The two cardinal sins. Two of the cardinal sins. But actually what it's teaching us is that we don't need to do good works. We don't need to have good faith. We just need to appear good. We have to be nice.

Calvin Robinson: Being a nice person will not get you into heaven

And to be nice can be good, but it is not inherently good. And that's the problem, is that we've been convinced, I'm using the raw we, obviously, but we as a society have been convinced that all we need to do to be a good Christian is to be a nice person. And being a nice person will not get you into heaven. It won't get the people you love into heaven. And so we've got to do away with this somehow. Those of us who recognize the truth have got to start speaking even louder. Especially when these, so called Christians, these liberals, start questioning, you know, calling us fundamentals or whatever they like. We have to get even louder and double down because the onus is on us, because the rest of them are too afraid to speak it. And so we haven't. We have an obligation and a duty now to continue to do it, to scream it from the, from the rooftops, that if you want to get to heaven, you've got to be repenting of your sins. Have faith in Jesus Christ. That means being a good person, not being a nice person. It means being able to admit that no, sharia is wrong and Muhammad is not a true prophet, neither is badr. being able to admit that two men can get married, that a woman cannot become a man, that white people are not inherently racist, that boys should not be dressing up as girls, that drag queens shouldn't be reading stories to your children. Being able to say these things loudly and boldly because we believe there is a universal truth. His name is Jesus Christ. And he teaches us that we are made male and female, because God knew us before we were knitted together in the womb. And that, he is the spark of life in us, he is the light. And we have to head towards him in all things. That means following his teachings, those passed on through his apostles, through his holy Bible. And the rest of the world does not like it, but that's fine, because he taught us that we would be hated because he was hated before us. And in fact, if the most perfect man that ever existed in human history, who was fully God incarnate, fully man, yet fully God, if they killed him, they're gonna hate the rest of us too, aren't they? And so we should accept that and come to accept the fact that we will never be seen as nice by the world. But that's okay. We're not called to be nice. We're called to be Christlike.

Jenna Ellis: Preach. Mic drop moment. Absolutely. Absolutely. We've got to take one more break here, but I'll be right back with my special guest this morning, Calvin Robinson. And this is so essential and so important before we even start advocating for policy that we understand exactly what we're talking about here on, what is truth? And to rightly divide truth from error, as the Bible requires and admonishes us to do. We'll be right back.

Jenna Ellis: Calvin Robinson discusses religious freedom in the context of truth

Calvin Robinson: Welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.

Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. And I'm here with my special guest, Calvin Robinson, who you need to follow on X and also get his brand new book, the Silent Jihad. You can go to his X page, for all of the information there. And we've been talking about religious freedom in the context of truth and how we all are under a common law and a system of law that's just required to live in a civil society, one that is ordered, that isn't just, you know, completely arbitrary or anarchy. If you have a system of laws, then it has to be based on some view of truth and morality and what is prohibited and what is permitted in a civil society. And Christians can and must advocate for our law to be based on truth. The laws of nature and of nature is God. And we've been talking about how we've gotten off of that largely as a Christian community, by suggesting that we can only advocate for Christian truth within the confines of our own homes and our churches. But we're seeing that the result of that is simply persecution of Christians because we can't all coexist actually with very different views of the world, views of truth, views of what is right and wrong and good and evil. Our law necessarily will reflect some version of morality. Do we want it to reflect truth? And, what we empirically observe of the laws of nature and the measurable difference between right and wrong, good and evil, do we want it to comport with reality or something different? And so we've been talking, Calvin Robinson, about, you know, kind of where, Christians got off on this. And I think, you know, there's kind of been a, A, parallel kind of, you know, working in tandem, the court system and an overly secularized view of jurisprudence. When, you know, you look at, things that began like Everson vs Board of Education and some of the things, even in the early 1940s, that Supreme Court decisions that started to say that, even public schools, you can't teach truth, you have to teach secular, pluralism. We started excising God from society. We started doing that under the auspices of government legitimacy, which was wrong. And then, of course, in 1965, with Griswold, versus Connecticut suggesting that the Supreme Court even had jurisdiction over family and social issues. And that of course has led to the redefinition of marriage in Obergefell. It led to, initially under Roe versus Wade, allowing abortion. I mean, all of these things that the Supreme Court never had any business constitutionally weighing in on anyway, all that is going on at the same time that the church became very watered down, became very woke and started buying into this sort of corporatized mentality of the way that we measure success, which churches shouldn't do anyways. But the way that we measure success is based on a corporate, workplace mindset of bigger buildings, numbers, monies, the other of those metrics. And they also started going woke. As you mentioned earlier in the program of Christians just need to be nice, we need to be accommodating. We just need to love everybody without also speaking truth in love and requiring our society to be moral and upright. I mean, what made the founding so great was that there were preachers who were part of the revolution. They stood up for morality, they were part of the founding. And there was an in, there was an intertwining of religion and truth with an understanding of how civil society must be built on that truth. And so as our society went secular and became more illegitimate, then our churches also became more woke and pacifist and watering down the truth of the gospel. And so of course Christians then aren't even engaging in civil society because they're not even engaging Christian truth in their own homes and their own lives. And so, you know, I think that the solution, obviously we need to still be, be advocating and you know, warriors in the civil society part. But I think that the restoration of America has to begin with a church.

Calvin Robinson: Yeah, I think it is a restoration as well. You mentioned the Supreme Court had no business being in abortion or seems it's marriage or any kind of family life in that regard. And you're so right. And I think that the restoration has begun. You know, Dobbs, kind of repealed Roe v. Wade and now there's conversations about repealing a Burger fell and these things need to happen to get the government out of our lives. But in terms of how do we govern our lives, well, of course Christians should be voting for Christian politicians based on Christian policies so that we have Christian governance of a Christian land. But that the law of the land, human law, doesn't need to be derived purely from natural law. Like we, we can work out what's good and evil through reason, based on divine intervention, or divinely inspired works. But we don't need to, because as Christians, we have divine law. We have God's revelation in the Holy Scriptures. So, you know, secular countries, liberal countries can try and work these things out. We don't need to work them out. We have the book. Look, we have the information. We've been given it. And so we just have to revert back to that. What we've been told is good and what we've been told is sin and shape our laws around the Holy Scriptures. If we did that, we'd all be better off and we'd be a better country. But, of course there are people that would, would object to that, which is fine only if they're not the ones in power. And so I think we need to, remember that there are enough Christians in this country that if every Christian voted for a Christian, there would only ever be Christians in parliament. And if Christians in power only governed based on divine law and the Christian scriptures, they would only have Christian laws and Christian policies. Like, there is no reason for secularism. There's no reason for Islam invading. Like, we have the numbers. We are here. We need to try and advance the kingdom in the here and now and stop pretending that church is just something that we do on Sundays or potentially on a Wednesday evening. Like churches. Us, we are the church. We are the body of Christ. We are the bride, he is the groom. That is why we have marriage in the real world to remind us that we are married to our Lord and that we need to submit to him as a wife submits to her husband. We have to submit to his ways, to his laws. And if we did that, we'd all be better off. That's the only reason. He gives us laws, he gives us commandments, because he is essentially God is our Father and He is a good father. He wants the best of for us, like any father does. And so he sets these good rules for us to follow, and then when we don't follow them, he forgives us because he is merciful and just and righteous. As long as we repent, we show contrition. You know, as long as we are sorry, as a good child, the Father will say, it's okay, I absolve you. And so, yes, getting back to our laws being shaped around divine law, not just natural law. Getting back to our, judiciary, our legislative, looking to the, the Holy Bible for inspiration rather than just other secular liberal nations. Getting back to this idea that Christianity is the one universal objective truth, that we don't need any plurality of truth, and we don't need to support anyone that believes in other truths or false truths. And that we can have preferential treatment for Christianity because we know it to be the one objective truth. And that's a good thing because people of other faiths are protected under the freedom of religion under a Christian country in ways that Christians are not protected under freedom of religion in non Christian countries. Any, any non Christian country around the world, Christians are persecuted to some extent, some worse than others. but in all Christian countries, people of other faith are protected. But that doesn't mean we should promote their false ideas, their false ideologies, their false religions and their false faith. It means we should always promote Christianity first and only. But we shouldn't persecute people for other faith. And I think that's wrapping, up pretty much where we should stand as Christians. And people that have an issue with that, aren't fully committing to Jesus Christ.

Jenna Ellis: Amen. Absolutely. And we absolutely should not be basing our laws on anything other than truth. And we need to stand firm for that. And anyone who doesn't agree with that and calls themselves a Christian, I agree that you're not fully committing to the Christian way of life. And there are so many people. I mean, the Bible even says that there will be those who say, lord, Lord, but I did this in your name. I did that in your name. And he'll say, depart from me. I never knew you. I mean, there are some people who will use, use the Lord's name in vain. And they have understood the truth, but they denied the power.

Calvin Robinson: We need to stand firm on the truth of Christianity

And they ultimately are denying the finished work and restoration of the truth of the gospel of Christ. And so we, need to make sure that we fully understand what the Christian life requires for not only the, the individual first and foremost, because we are the ones who are in need of a repentance and ultimately salvation and then what is required in the family, in the church context, and also civil society, these things absolutely matter. And we have to continue to stand firm instead of watering down the gospel and promoting a false Jesus and a false Christianity, that perversion. We need to stand firm on the truth. And we need not take it from a secular culture that tells us, like, my favorite thing is, the haters who don't believe in God, but they are certainly convinced on what a God they don't believe in requires of me, the Christian right. And I go, I don't take what, what the Bible says from you who don't even believe in it. I take from God himself what he requires. And if we are truly living as Christians then we will understand what the Bible says and we will also promote this and we will, we will perfect our policy before things even get to arresting a 78 year old pastor in Northern Ireland. I mean we can't just treat the symptoms of all of this after the fact. Otherwise we're always on defense. This would have never happened if Northern Ireland had a system that was morally upright and righteous under the law. And that's where in the United States, in the United Kingdomnomics we absolutely have to make sure that our law comports with the laws of nature and of nature's God before for the Christian persecution and we're already there. We just need to wind it back but Calvin Robinson, we're already out of time. Thank you so much. Follow him on X and get his brand new book the Silent Jihad. it goes into a lot of detail about a lot of this and is so incredibly important and timely and as always you can reach me and my team Jenna F r dot net.