ON TODAYS SHOW 8-4-26

the hypocrisy of Zohran Mamdani when it comes to the government grocery stores, as even Marsha Blackburn pointed out. We'll have our sports monster segment of the day later on. In the next, I'll speak with Victoria Coach. He's a national security foreign policy expert with the Heritage Foundation. So Trump yesterday, by the way, said in terms of Iran, we'll see what happens. So I guess I'm going to call this operation. We'll see what happens. That's what we're going to call it now. I don't know what you call it. I, yeah. We know what you want. We've changed our mind. Exactly. Let's call it that. Operation, we've changed our mind again. We've changed our mind again. Also, we'll talk about how states now want to go after Dr. Anthony Fauci. We'll see if they can be successful. And yeah, I think I need to talk about this issue in the WNBA, which you want to talk stupid again. I mean, it's another thing where I'm going to be like, The people who disagree with Sophie Cunningham, they're just stupid, I guess. Well, there's a lot of that going around. Yeah, it's an epidemic. You want to talk about a real pandemic? Stupidity. It is going around. By the way, we'll on the show with the Effie's Monster Rewind. We'll take her text messages on the text monster, 423-2671023. And Captain Max, he's here as well, producing Max. How are you today? I'm great. People on 24 are not so great. If you're headed toward Nashville, it's backed up past Cummings Highway to the state line, and it's crawling. Yeah, it's funny. It looks like it's better over by Rossville. Remember yesterday it was over Rossville Boulevard. Now that's good, but going towards Nashville. It's not good. I don't know what they're doing in Georgia, but it's something they're doing has got it all messed up. Yeah, there is construction a little bit close. A little bit further down, so maybe they have some. Who knows? Who knows what's going on? If I didn't have to go west toward Nashville today, I'd stay home. Yeah, I don't blame you. Or if you just want to listen to this show more so you don't really care about sitting in traffic? Yeah. You know, you can do that, I guess. Or you might want to stop get you a sandwich before you get on the other state. Right. Right. Right. All right. So let's talk about this. I know they've talked about in the morning show. I'll read some of this from the Times Free Press. We'll get your take on this because I'm sure people will disagree with me on this, which is fine. It's free country. One, well, let me read it. It says local Chattanooga Church backs Monty Fritz for Tennessee Governor. Calvary Chapel distributes or distributes pre-filed sample ballots during the service. Experts say activities like this are in violation of federal law, which I'll go over that in a moment. But local Chattanooga Church, Calvary Chapel, is promoting Monty Fritz as the Republican pick for Tennessee governor. Now, full disclosure, I don't go there. I know people that do, they seem very nice. I'm sure they do a lot of good things for the community. I'm not like attacking this church or anything like that. I just want to talk about what I believe personally is the right thing to do in a situation like this. Now it says here, this story, by the way, tries to make it more about the tax issue, which... I'll explain why that's not going to be an issue. But it says despite a longstanding tax law that prohibits political activity at the pulpit, the Chattanooga megachurch has continued to campaign in support of Republican candidates in midterm elections. Most recently, the church has weighed in on the Tennessee governor's race, throwing its support behind Fritz, who in the most recent poll has closed the gap significantly against Republican primary opponents, U.S. Senators. Marsha Blackburn.

Oh, and Congressman John Rose. It says, look in your seat back pockets. The civics and culture ministry leader told churchgoers during the service that could get a sample ballot and they even filled in, you know, Monty Fritz and the sample ballot for people. It says, you're going to scan this code. It's going to show you the ballot for every district. So it's going to be four pages and every single district is included. And they've been pre-filled out. So of who the church is endorsing. Now, Moni Furtz responded and said, I appreciate it. I think our churches need to get engaged. I think that we so mischaracterized the separation of church and state. Many people have it backwards today. Yada, yada, yada. So when it comes to the tax issue, I'll tell you the main reason why you're probably never going to see a charge against this church on this. Because once they start going after Calvary Church, They're going to have to go after other churches. And let's be frank, there are many minority churches, I'm sure in Tennessee, that do this very same thing, just for Democrats, but they do this very same thing. And I guarantee the lawmakers, they don't want to do that. They don't want to start going after those churches. So if they start going after Calvary Church here, it's going to open up Pandora's box. And I don't think any of the lawmakers here or any of those enforcing the law, actually, I don't think they want to go down that road. I really don't because they don't want to open that box. So the tax issue thing, whatever, here, there. But people I respect tell me this is what the church should be doing. The church should be out there endorsing candidates in the Republican primary. This is what we did at the founding. I heard that the church was very involved in the Revolutionary War, encouraging people to declare, to support the patriotic effort, declaring independence. I will say this. I don't mind when a church talks certain issues or the pastor. There are some issues that are pretty clear-cut biblical, not biblical. abortion is one of them. The Bible is pretty clear abortion's wrong when they're talking about issues of marriage or the family or whatever. Stuff like that, the LGBTQ stuff. The Bible is pretty straightforward on those things. So I actually do think more pastors need to stand up against those problems in our culture. That is the role of the church. But when it comes to this, this is a little bit different because they're not just talking the issues. They're not just talking the Bible or spiritual issues here. They're endorsing candidates. And I'm not even saying they're endorsing candidates against the Democrats. You know, you can make an argument that if you're a Christian or whatever, you know, I'm not making this argument. I'm just saying. There might be some that say, okay, at least support them against the Democrats because the Democrats support those unchristian things like abortion, whatever. But what this pastor is doing and this church is doing, they're supporting candidates in a Republican primary. Now, on this show a lot, I talk about the role of government, right? And I say the government's too big. We need to ask the question, what is the proper role of government in our lives? I talk about that all the time.

I also think it's true of the church. What is the proper role of the church? What is the proper role of a pastor? What is the proper role of a Sunday service? They might have freedom of religion, freedom of speech. They can do what they want. I'm not saying they can't. But if I'm going to a church and they're starting to tell me from the pulpit in a Sunday service, which candidate to support in the Republican primary? In Tennessee, to me, that is taking away time from preaching the gospel, which is the job of the pastor, especially on a Sunday morning, to preach the gospel and to convert people. You're supposed to set your mind on heavenly things, not earthly things. That doesn't mean the church shouldn't be involved in earthly things. But what we're doing here is beyond that. Are you trying to imply in some kind of way that if I support Marsha Blackburn instead of Monty Fritz, it's not really the Christian thing to do? Well, the church is supporting Monty Fritz. You should get on board with the rest of us Christians in the church. That seems stupid to me. I'm sorry that my church is telling me that. Why? Now, if you're an individual pastor and you have your own opinions and you want to express those opinions somewhere, I have no problem with that. I really don't. But this is the church. This is the pastor. This is coming from the pulpit talking specifically about candidates in a Republican primary election. I just think that isn't the proper role of a pastor. By the way, it's one of the reasons why I got into radio. I was going to be a pastor. But I wanted to be able to talk a lot about politics and news and culture. And I didn't think it was really what we should be doing from the pulpit. Now, if a pastor wants to talk about it on his own time or his own social media in an interview, whatever, that's fine. But when we start doing it during a worship service and we make a worship service about endorsing specific candidates in a Republican primary, I just don't think that's the proper role because it distracts from the true message of the gospel. And that should be the main focus. Now, you can tell me if you disagree, if I'm taking this too far, but just like we look at the proper role of government, I think we also should look at the proper role of the church. And I'm just not a huge fan of this. I got to tell you. So if you want to wait and you can, we have the text monster, 423-267-1023. 423-267-1023. All right, coming up in a little bit, we'll get to the Tennessee bullet points. And talk more at the bottom of the hour about socialism, I guess. You are listening to, Yef, you lie. The U.S. Soccer podcast. These players are battered and exhausted, but you don't hurt like this if you don't care about this team, about this country, about this game. I think you can feel the intensity, the goals, the energy that, wow, look at us. Here in the U.S., I have got some news for you. There's so much more to come. My name is Megan Klingerick, and we're just getting started. The U.S. Soccer Podcast.

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