Faith Under Fire: Legal Challenges and the Christian Response with Davis Younts

Sounds good. Welcome to the RAP Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeeternity.org welcome to another edition of the Rap Report.

I'm your host, Andrew Rapaport, the executive director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member. We are here to give you biblical interpretations and applications for the Christian life. And with that, we're going to get into a more interesting topic today. For some, it is going to be the issue of where our faith and the legal system reside.

Because some people tend to think there's somehow a difference, that as Christians we shouldn't get into making laws or fighting what laws may be made, but we should just accept them. Well, yeah, some have differing views of Romans 13. My guest today is David Yance. Now, I met David at the Fight Laugh Feast conference. We also were on the Dead Man Walking podcast together. And David is. Or Davis, sorry.

Is a distinguished scholar and thought leader at the intersection of Christianity and the American legal system. With a robust background in both theological studies and legal theory, Davis has dedicated much of his career to exploring how Christian values have historically influenced and continue to shape our nation's legal framework. His work delves into constitutional principles, ethical jurisprudence, and the challenges of maintaining a balanced legal system in a pluralistic society.

Davis is known for his rigorous analysis, his ability to draw on historical context, and his commitment to fostering meaningful dialogue about the role of faith in public life. His insights provide a unique perspective on the dynamic relationship between enduring Christian principles and evolve. Involve evolving the demands of modern legal and ethical challenges. Davis, welcome to the RAP Report. Thanks, brother. Really looking forward to it. And you know, you're.

Give folks a little bit of a background first, on, you know, what is, what's your, your journey? How did you. First, how did you become a Christian? Second, how did you get into law, into the legal system? Yeah, I appreciate that opportunity to do that. So I was fortunate to grow up in a, in a Christian home. So I was exposed to the gospel at a very young age and accepted Christ, was baptized and raised in the church.

I went to Liberty University for my undergrad and I was, I was homeschooled most of the time, my last two years to a public high school. But otherwise I was homeschooled, went to Liberty, thought I was either going to be called into full time service as a pastor or as a lawyer. I know most people think those two would be diametrically opposed, but that, that's. I didn't know, I didn't know what God was calling me to do. And there was this moment that I'll never forget.

I was a sophomore at Liberty. It was second semester, and it was the day that I had to decide was I going to, for my junior and senior year, was I going to go the religious studies, the Bible path, or was I going to go continue the pre law path that I was on? And the last class I had was a psychology class. And the, the professor asked for prayer before the class started. And one of the girls in the class shared the story of a need for a pastor in her town to have a Christian attorney.

And they were just having tremendous difficulty finding someone who was an attorney and a Christian that understood the issues that were at stake. And I just remember looking around the room and realizing that the other guys in this classroom, all the other men in this classroom, were all biblical studies or religious studies majors. And I just realized in that moment I had this sense of, okay, I don't know exactly what God is calling me to do, but I'm going to stay on the pre law track.

So after undergrad at Liberty, I went to Dickinson School of Law in Pennsylvania. While I was at Dickinson, 9, 11 happened. So I raised my hand and I joined the United States Air force as a JAG, as an attorney, did active duty for 11 years before leaving active duty, moving with my wife and two daughters to Pennsylvania. And in 2015, I went fully into private practice and started my own law firm in 2019. So that's interesting.

Why do you think then that it would be important for someone to understand both Christianity and law there you. Obviously they were looking for a pastor that understood both. I, I put, I, I kind of think I have an answer, but why not just say, hey, if you understand law, that's good enough. Yeah. You know, there is so much that God has taught me because I've been practicing law for, for 22 years now. And there is just. There are so many things we could spend a lot of time talking about that.

But, but the most important thing I think is that, you know, the world is. We live in a fallen world that is cursed by sin and the world. And there's a spiritual battle. Everything we're dealing with is a spiritual battle. And the world is in a spiritual rebellion against God and God's law. And so if we abandon God and God's law, what we get is the chaos that we see around us. But beyond that, you know, Christians, when they're facing the system, when they are facing legal battles, they.

They realize very quickly if they don't have someone beside them that understands faith as a primary motivation, it can impact the legal services they get. That can be everything from a criminal case to a Christian small business. And understanding those motivations, so there's this shared understanding of God's law and shared purpose that comes in working with a Christian attorney. So there's. There's a lot to unpack there, but that's certainly part of it.

Yeah. And I would say that for folks who may be listening and thinking for their own church, I'll say this. If your church doesn't have a Christian attorney to look at the bylaws, go get one quickly. There's been yesterday. Yeah, yesterday, exactly right. Because look, when, when we were going through things, it was a question of, with the transgenderism, you need to have very specific language in there.

Because now you just say that a pastor has to be a male, and you don't restrict it to a biological male. Anyone that thinks that the people who are enemies of Christ are not going to be willing to infiltrate the church to pretend to be something so that they could try to undermine it, well, that's just nuts. I mean, maybe you have a story on that or two. Oh, unfortunately, many.

I mean, and it goes for know for churches, when you talk about bylaws, it has to do with, you know, facility usage and all of those things. Unfortunately, in the environment that we live in today, churches are extremely vulnerable. Different parts of the country, they're more vulnerable. But there are absolutely people just looking for an opportunity to come into a church, especially a church that's having an impact on the community.

If you're involved in, you know, abortion clinic counseling or adoption services, supporting, you know, crisis pregnancy centers, if you're doing things like that, you know, God forbid you're praying outside of a library that has a drag queen story hour, your church becomes a target very, very quickly. And people will try to exploit loopholes in a constitution or bylaws and even hold themselves out to be something they're not in order to get into a position to do damage to a church.

So it's a, It's a reality of the world we live in. Absolutely. Yeah. I remember hearing about a church, the pastor was someone who would go onto local college campus and evangelize. So college campuses, you're dealing with the issue of homosexuality, transgenderism, day in and day out if you're going to do that kind of evangelism there. And so what ended up happening was they had bylaws that allowed the public to use their church for weddings.

And what ended up happening was two people of the same sex decided to, they didn't both come. It was, they were very deceptive in it. And so it was a man and a woman that came and asked for use of the building. And on the wedding, it was, they discovered that it was two people of the same sex. And the church basically canceled the wedding and got sued because their bylaws were not specific enough.

And that's why I encourage people the, it should be things, everything should be with special exceptions. So like, you know, in our church, we, we had a thing of that the, the church would only be used for members of the church except for special exception. And so that way we could always say no to everything. But if there was a special case, we could, we could look at it. Right? Right.

No. And I've advised a lot of churches when it comes to facility uses, you know, limit it to members of the church. And then, yes, you know, there are special exceptions that can be granted, so you can do that. But you know, one of the things we've, we've had to do and people, people say I'm crazy when I advise pastors of this, but one of the things we have to think about, and this is just the way we have to think in a fallen world is, is this question.

You know, when a pastor performs a marriage ceremony and they're signing off on the marriage license, there is an overlap between a spiritual function and a magisterial function that's authorized by the state. Right. This is fascinating. Right. So one of the things I've, I've warned people to be very careful of when it comes to being a pastor is at some point your state could say, well, you're performing a state function by signing a marriage license.

So you can't, you know, not do a same sex wedding or a wedding that you don't want to do. You, you have to do it because we say you have to do it under our state law. Now that's not something that's been challenged a lot, but it's a warning that I've given to pastors. And you know, quite frankly, I, I say, what does the church care about that marriage license? It's a spiritual covenant between the, the members of the church and the families and the people involved there.

If that's a concern in your state, they could go and get A marriage license from a justice of the peace or however they want to do it, and then you can perform the spiritual ceremony in your church. But some people look at me like I'm crazy when I say that, but we came very close in Pennsylvania to having to, to do that. And I was a pastor elder at a church and I said, look, there's, this is something we have to think about. Nobody wanted to hear it then.

But it is something that's on the horizon that we don't, we don't think through. But that's, again, we live in a world that is. There are many, many people engaged in a spiritual battle and they're hostile towards churches, particularly those churches that are involved in the community and actually acting out on their faith. Well, yeah, most people don't think about it until it gets in the news and they realize, oh, and we don't want to be the guy in the news.

You know, I, I remember when New Jersey was looking to do same sex marriage. And so I went to the, they had an open forum. We could ask questions. You only had like 30 seconds to ask a question. What not. But I asked, I asked every one of them, do you believe in a separation of church and state? They all agreed to a separation in church and state. To which my response is, then why are you discussing a church issue in the state?

Marriage is a, is a religious ceremony to, to which they all, none of them gave an answer. They just were like, thank you very much for your opinion and voted for it anyway. But it just showed the hypocrisy of it. Right. Marriage, Marriage is a state issue. It's not a state issue, it's a religious issue. But they want to be able to say how the church should do marriage. Absolutely. So. Absolutely. So you got, you know, you have a, a background with, in, in Christianity, law, history.

So I mean, how do you view the, you know, the Christian principles that we have? How do they influence, you know, the, the early American tradition as far as our legal system? Yeah. So what is fascinating about our Founding Fathers is they really. And it gets brushed over way too often in modern history. But there were two books that were cited more by the Founding Fathers when it comes to the Declaration of Independence.

And you look at the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention and it was Montesquieu. They were heavily influenced by Montesquieu. But the other single book that was most quoted, most cited, most talked about was not just the Bible, but very specifically the book of Deuteronomy. Now think about that. That's that's wild from our modern perceptions to think about how cited that was.

So the reality is the founding fathers not only looked to biblical law and biblical principles and what they did, they understood English common law, which is very, very important because English common law was, really did come from a biblical perspective. And, and it looked at the common blessings of the law and how there are principles that go beyond written statutes that are commonly applicable, that should apply to all people.

And it's not that they're ever carried out in England necessarily justly or equally, but that's what they were looking at. But the other thing is, look at the entire idea of separation of powers in a federal system. And that comes from this idea that men are corrupt, men are fallen, men are sinful, and if there isn't a check and balance on that fallen nature, then one branch will inevitably, you know, gain power and people will be tempted to abuse power.

And so everything about our system was set up with this recognition not only of a creator God, but also of man's sinful nature and how government corrupts that and power corrupts that. So there's really no way to take away biblical principles, biblical law, from everything about our founding documents and the intent that our founding fathers had when they set up our nation.

I've heard a reporter argue recently that, well, the Constitution, you know, our founding documents didn't mention God all that much. I think she said, well, the Constitution only mentions God four times. To which I was thinking in my head, well, there's not a whole lot of words in the Constitution, so if he's mentioned four times, that's actually a lot. But how much of the principles are in there that you get from the Bible? And they did. I think that.

So do you think that so much of this secular world misses that because they don't even understand the Bible? I think that they do. And, and a lot of it too is just, you know, there is this idea and it's, it's a, a myth, of course, but there is this fundamental lie from Satan that there is such thing as spiritual, religious, and such thing as, as secular. Right. So there's this concept that you could even conceive of laws or a system of government that is divorced from worldview or from faith.

And, and you and I know that that's just, that's a lie. That's a lie that Satan tells. And it really comes from this idea that people fail to recognize. We all worship something. We are created in the image of God, and we're going to worship something we're either going to worship the creator God, the one true God, or we're going to worship man, which is what Satan wants us to do.

And all idolatry, all false religion, all of it really is, comes from that idea that what we do when we don't worship God is we worship man. And it always ends in, you know, chaos and tyranny. And that's really what people fail to understand because they, they don't mind. You know, they'll say nice things about religion and they'll say that's fine, just keep it in church on Sunday morning. Don't bring it into the public square, don't bring it into the secular world.

But, but everyone is influenced by worldview. Everyone is influenced by who they worship. And so it's not a question of, you know, moral law, it's a question of what morals, what standard is, of informing the law. And that's where we get into some of these really, really interesting debates. But as Christians, we cannot continue to cede the public square to secular humanists because their religion is creating the chaos.

And we cannot allow, you know, secular humanists world to define these things because that's how we end up with the chaos and the tyranny that we see today. How do you see the legacy of Christian thought impacting, you know, the contemporary legal debates?

Especially when we look at things like religious freedom, civil rights, you know, there's a lot of ethical decision making when it comes to things like abortion, social justice. People might have heard of things like that or, or Covid. I don't know what, maybe not everyone's heard of this thing called Covid, but I mean, there were a huge number of legal issues and I would say legal overreach into Christian life during some of these recent, you know, decade.

How do you see that, that Christian thought should be having an impact on, on these debates? So one of the things we have to do is we just have to get a little bit of a historical perspective on, on the American system of law and, and what's happened. Because one of the things that happened was Darwinian ethics, right? Darwinian evolutionary theory and ethics have, have woven their way into so much of society, people don't even realize, right?

And you know, some biologists now will be like, oh, we're not really Darwin. We just, but there is some merit to this whole idea of evolution and other things. One of the things that happens, happened is, you know, at the most prestigious schools like Harvard and Yale, you had professors like Christopher Columbus Langdell who wanted to apply evolutionary Theory to the law. So what happened in law school, and it was true, the law school I went to, they abandoned studying the law.

Not just God's law, but they abandoned really studying the law. They abandoned studying the Constitution and replaced it with case law theory. So this idea that the most important thing in the law is really just case law and precedent, and that comes from this idea that as society involves evolves and people get smarter and smarter and people get better and better, the case law will be our way of evolving as a society and bring us, you know, utopia when it comes to the legal system.

So, you know, look at the overturning of Roe versus Wade, right? And what was the cry from secularists is, oh, they're overturning years and years of precedent. Well, that goes right to the heart of much of our legal system today, which is case law based, which is precedent based, not principle, or really even law based. It's just, you know, bad decisions leading to, you know, precedent moving forward. So that's one of the things you hear.

So, so many of the legal questions and the legal battles we see going on are really based on this idea that the law is evolving. So we have this Darwinian concept and, and so we don't really care what the statute says. We don't really care what the Constitution says. We don't really care what the abiding principles of the common law are. What we're going to look at is where we have evolved societally.

And then we can just sort of pick and choose and, you know, know, maybe a judge comes up with a novel legal theory, but it's. It's new and it's current, so we're going to place more value on that. So again, so many of this, these issues you want to talk about come from that basis, and then they're just, they're underlined with the idea of secular humanism. So when you look at Covid, it's really easy to see how they would say, well, you know, our.

My safety, my personal safety means that, that, that you have to do what I tell you to do. And if that means the state's going to order you to take an experimental medical product and inject it into yourself or wear a mask everywhere you go or you can't leave your home, then that's. That's an evolving notion of society. We have to protect people. So since we worship man, that's what we're going to do. And it's the same.

You know, the same is true of social justice or transgender issues issues, or Other things, just look at this concept of the old, the past. Just like in communism, the past is evil. They were Neanderthals, they were foolish. We're much more enlightened now and we can evolve and the, the law should evolve with us. I mean, are there any examples you have from cases maybe that you, you've worked on that can that show this?

And also, I mean, what you're making a distinction between the Constitution and case law for folks of us who, who don't have the background, like what is, what is case law? And then how's that? Because you're saying it's, that's different than I guess, constitutional law. What would be those differences? So two part question for you. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So, so the Constitution is the, the foundational law of the American system.

And then Congress patches passes statutes which become the legal code for our system. And then came case law is simply the outcome of specific cases. So it could be a Supreme Court case, an appellate court case, or even a local court case that forms a precedent. And then what all lawyers are taught to do in law school today is not so much read the Constitution, not so much look at the statute, but simply look at some case that supports the position that you have that you're advocating for.

And we rely on that precedent from a more recent case. So the more recent the case, the better. Which I think logically you could flip that on its head and ask a question, why is there a recency bias when it comes to case law? But it's really this idea that, you know, whatever the most recent decisions are from some court is what you should apply to your case. And that means more than the statute, that means more than the Constitution.

So that's what I'm talking about when I talk about case law and case law theory. There are a lot of different ways to apply that, but you see it a lot just in the logic that is applied to how our government looks at issues. So one of the big examples that I could get into because I dealt with it a lot was in Covid and we could apply it to a lot of parts of society.

But very specifically cases that I had involving military members and Covid, the simple fact is there's federal law under Title 10 of the United States Code that says the military cannot mandate that a service member take an emergency use authorization or experimental medical product. It's a very simple statute. It's very straightforward. That's what it says. You cannot mandate that on a military member. The only way you can do it is if The President issues a very specific exemption.

Congress passed that in the 90s because the military had a history of experimenting on military members. There were some horrific experiments that were done on military members. And so Congress made that very clear. In the 90s during COVID there was never an FDA approved vaccine, medical product, whatever you want to call it, that was available to give to military members the bottles themselves. And at a lot of these cases, the bottles themselves said eua.

And it was clear even in the applications for approval, the vaccine manufacturer said, hey, the emergency use authorization product that we have billions of doses of sitting out here is legally distinct from the FDA approved formula which we haven't started producing yet. So it's very simple. So I would simply go to the military chain of command and I would say, this is not a lawful order. You cannot order someone to do, do this.

The President has not issued an exemption, the President has not issued an exhorter, an order to exempt anyone from, from this statute. And the military simply said, yes, but we're going to do it anyway and you're going to have to follow that order. And it was just. The reason that I bring up that example is there's this concept that while it's for the greater good, or we're in a crisis, or this is what the President is telling us to do.

And it was a simple fact that the military was ignoring federal law and statutory law. And believe it or not, the first court to actually rule, consistent with what I've just said, first federal court to do that didn't do make that ruling until December of 2024 when they actually outlined the law and made that ruling and finally verified everything we, we were fighting for in that.

But that's, that's just an example of how this logic of, yes, that's what the statute says, yes, there's constitutional rights in there, and yes, it's very clear. But you know, we're, we're going to ignore that because we feel like this is for the greater good. And that happens in the law all the time. And it's particularly, we see it a lot. Anytime you're dealing with a federal bureaucracy.

People don't always think of the military as a bureaucracy, but it is, it's one of the largest bureaucracies. So that's, that's where you see these concepts playing out constantly. Yeah, I remember when a friend of mine got arrested for, he was doing open air evangelism outside of a mosque, one of the more funnier cases. When it finally went to court.

The reason I think it went to court was because when the police officer showed up, the one female officer saw someone that was filming and grabbed the camera out of his hand. And so that was. Would have been on film if they didn't erase it. Like, they. They literally did a long road back to the police station where you could actually see the. The video is just black. You could see where they, like, went back to the beginning and hit record. And you hear the blinker in the car.

You. You hear the road. So. But. But what was interesting was when they went there, the. The. The lawyers were. Instead of arguing based on freedom of speech, as you're saying, with case law, they were arguing on all these recent cases. Now, I say it was a funny case because I was sitting there in the courtroom, and I think the judge realized basically before the defense attorney started to make his case, he. He already saw where this was going.

Like, he's sitting there doing paperwork, shuffling paper. And so that made. That made my friend's attorney, like, even more nervous, like, thinking, oh, no, it's going against me. So he was trying to argue even harder. But it was really kind of funny because it, like, it was. They had. They brought in all these witnesses from the mosque, and their argument was that he was right in front of the mosque, and it was. You know, it was the face act, and they were. They weren't letting people in, and.

And they had mosque security, and the mosque security was like, oh, yeah, they were kind of. They were so far away. We didn't even. We couldn't hear them inside. We could, like. Like the. The folks that were at the mosque where they were preaching to the people coming in and out of the mosque, and the people in the mosque were giving a better defense that what we're. My friends were doing was fine. It was. It was like.

I'm like, yeah, these guys, these prosecutors really didn't vet the people before they put them on the stand. Like, you should have thought about that. But you know, so much what. What you're bringing up is a Romans 13 issue. And, you know, during COVID this was a really interesting thing, how people were interpreting Romans 13. Right? Now when we look at it like, okay, across the other places of the world, I. I could say it might be different.

But what a lot of people don't understand, in America, the president is not the law, the Constitution is. And it's a hard concept for people to realize because they just think, well, if the governor says something, if the president says something. But in. In our country, at least, and you could I want you to speak more specific to this. But it's the Constitution that's the law, the land, not the president. They're supposed to be submitting to the Constitution. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's, that's absolutely right. And, and you, you can even take it a little bit farther back than that, that. And understand what, what the Constitution sets up is an elected form of government. That is a representative form of government. So the ultimate law, the ultimate authority really is the people and the voters who have established a Constitution.

So again, you know, a lot of my examples in this come from the military, but I think when we, when we look at them, there's this interesting applicability that goes across. So an individual military officer like I was, swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is completely unique. There is no other nation that ever had a military oath like that. The Roman legions would swear an oath to the state or to Caesar.

You know, Hitler brought in military leaders and made them all swear an oath to the Fuhrer. But our sense says not to the, not to the country, but to the Constitution and to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. So what, what we have to understand is the reason Covid was such a crisis in so many ways in the military as well is, is President Biden and the leaders that had sworn an oath to the Constitution literally ignored federal law.

They ignored the federal law from 10 USC that talked about experimental use, but they also intentionally ignored the Religious Freedom Restoration act, which is based on religious freedom in the Constitution. But the religious freedom restoration access, you have to make room for religious accommodations. And they simply chose to deny religious accommodations as a blanket denial rather than evaluating the individual cases. And they admitted that in federal court.

They said, well, we don't have to abide by this. We're not required to abide by it unless somebody sues us. And then we can be ordered to, but otherwise we don't. I mean, imagine that the executive branch, under the authority of the President, saying, we don't have to follow. We don't have to follow that statute if we don't want to. We don't have to follow that. The only time we have to follow it is if a judge tells us to. It just exists out there. There's no enforcement of it.

It holds no power over us unless a judge tells us we have to abide by it. So that's, that's really the issue. So that's where Romans 13. You know, the analysis of Romans 13 might be different. If there was just a monarch or a king or something else. But the reality is, there's the Constitution, but it really is an elected form of government where the people are, you know, of the people, by the people, for the people, that, that means something.

So when we look at Romans 13, we do have to look at the principal principles that are there. We can't divorce those principles from the rest of Scripture. And we have to understand what, what is our, what is our government? What is our system of government? And we, we vote for these leaders, and we can vote them out of office as well. Wait, I, I, I, the media makes it really clear that it's Donald Trump who's destroying the Constitution. You're saying it was Joe Biden? You know, it was.

I mean, that's, you know, people, people laugh at me. I mean, I, listen, I, I had to get an injunction in federal court to get to 20 years of military service as a reservist because I failed to comply with an order to get a vaccine after, you know, after my religious accommodations myself, personally had been denied. But, but I, you know, I tell people this really is a form of a constitutional crisis because the executive branch is intentionally just ignoring a statute.

They're ignoring two statutes when it comes to this, and they're just choosing that those don't apply. And they're just saying, well, if the courts stop us, maybe, maybe then, maybe then. And it's fascinating, but that, that was, you know, that was the Biden administration that did that. Wild. When you look at it. And I don't think, as, you know, the dust settles and we move into the Trump administration. I don't think history is going to treat very kindly what happened.

I think there were going to be a lot of law review articles, articles and other things that talk about what happened in the military during that time frame. Well, more than just the military. I mean, we now know, since, you know, people are now admitting it, we have the X Files, we have the, you know, there are Twitter files, we have the, you know, Zuckerberg all coming out saying, yes, the government was violating the First Amendment, right. They were censoring speech.

We, we know, we know now that, yes, the government, you know, Biden was looking for any kind of loopholes for the Second Amendment, like going into FFLs and just, you know, the number of FFLs, I think that were shut down prior to Biden was about like 8 to 12 a year, and it went up to like 800 a year. You know, it's like, and they just shut them down. Then, you know, they force everything to go through an ffl.

And what this, what people don't know when an FFL is basically, you know, how you're going to transfer weapons, guns and whatnot, and where you going to purchase from. And the thing is that when they would shut them down, they then take over all of the, the paperwork. And so now all of a sudden they have a gun registry with everyone that they shut down, which they're not allowed to have a gun registry. And these are all the things that.

So glad that the Biden administration is over, but we're only in a reprieve, in my opinion. I think the Marxists have not finish. They're, they're waiting to come back stronger, in my opinion. What do you think? Oh, absolutely. I mean, we are in a, we are in a temporary pause of the long march through the institutions. And it is, you know, there's a lot of good being done.

But I just, I, I don't think most people understand unless you've been exposed to it or you've been crushed by it personally. The, the tyranny of the bureaucracy. I mean, that really is this all, all powerful fourth branch of government that's supposed to fall under the executive. It's supposed to fall under the authority of the President. And Congress has just ceded their authority to these regulatory agencies. And, and constitutionally, they all are part of the executive branch.

So, you know, I think the constitutional analysis is very simple. Trump can fire them all. They work for the executive. I mean, that's pretty simple concept, but that's, you know, that's only a starting place.

But yeah, I mean, there's so much to untangle because in these administrative processes, whether it's a federal firearms license, whether it's so much of what's done in the military, so many other things dealing with eminent domain and all of these issues, it's all handled by these pseudo courts, these tribunals in these bureaucracies where you only have at best, due process light.

And there's so much to tyranny because they have so much authority and nobody really regulates them because Congress just, you know, lets them do most of the rulemaking and the lawmaking. And most presidents and executives don't have the guts to come in and, and blow it up and start to tear it down. So it is really, really encouraging to see everything that's being done. It's just the tip of the iceberg. It's just the start.

But dismantling the federal bureaucracies is, is going to be huge if there's going to be a return of freedom in our country for sure. And folks, if you want an example of what Davis is talking about, just go and look at what is happening right now where you have, you know, them shutting down usaid, all the slush funds that they, they just handed that over to non elected people to run however they want and they can go, oh well, we had nothing to do with it in Congress.

We just gave them the money, they did this. But now you look at everyone losing their, their, their ripping their hair out because well, we're going to just stop all this or you know, the fact that Trump is going to be like, yeah, we're going to fire people that haven't read their work emails for over a month. They didn't even get the email. Like they didn't know that they were being asked. Can you give me five things you did last week?

I mean I, I really think this side note, but I think this, this is just going to be so funny to watch that you have. The left and the Marxists are, are trying to defend the people who, who are not working. They don't have to explain what they do. They shouldn't, they shouldn't be forced to lose their job, they shouldn't be forced to have to give an account of what they actually do with taxpayer dollars. And they want people who have to do that every day to sympathize with them.

Like, I mean every job I've had that I know of in the, in the, you know, working in a non religious aspect, I've always had to give a weekly status. Here's what I did this week, right? So the fact that they think like that's so wrong, I'm like, do you really think that's gonna fly with America? Like they, do you not realize that every single person that has a job has to do something like this? Right.

Well, and, and the average federal employee, I mean the average salary for a federal employee is $144,000 a year. Oh, I'm in the wrong line of work. I saw this year. I mean, so yeah, so imagine that. I mean that's the average salary, obviously not everybody makes that. But, but that's your average salary. And people are up in arms about having to go in physically into the office or come up with five things that they did.

I mean it is, yeah, the waste that's there, the waste that I saw in my time in the military would, would blow most taxpayers minds. So it is nice to see just a tiny little, I mean a tiny Little drop being, you know, being attacked on this. But it is wild to see it. Absolutely. It is kind of fun. You know, I thought it was interesting. Trump was.

Was asked about all these things he's cutting, and he says, you know, I think we might be able to balance the budget just by cutting all the wasted spending. How. How funny would that be if, you know, by March they could come up with a balanced budget just by cutting all the. The nonsense. I mean, just. I mean, even just the things we're seeing in. In Medicare and Social Security.

But, I mean, you know, we're told Social Security is essentially insolvent, but then all of these, you know, thousands and thousands of people that are 150 years old are receiving Social Security checks, and we're not doing anything about it. Like, we're not even trying. It is just, you know, and we can talk about incentives and the difference between public and private incentives and all of that, but it is just wild to see how inefficient the government is. And it's, you know, it's.

It's monopoly money to our federal government because they just print more. But, yeah, just. Just starting to cut some of this waste, could make a huge dent on the deficit. Yeah. I think that a lot of the. The issue is, is that the arguments being made by the left and the media today no longer matter. People are not taking them serious for good reason. We've watched them lie to us over and over over again. And so this is the thing, the arguments of, well, you're a racist.

Well, you're going to do it. It falls short now on the ears of people. And the reality is, folks, you know, if you want to get something that, you know, you got to make sure that we have truth, but we also have to make sure that first thing in the morning, we're nice and awake. And to do that, let me suggest, if you're going to fight the battles for truth in our society, that you start your day with a good cup of Squirrelly Joe's coffee. Because, well, we want to be awake and not woke.

And the best way to do that is with Squirrelly Joe's great coffee, also provided by a Christian. Therefore, you're not only getting great coffee. I mean, you can go to that other company that wants to say that they're not woke coffee, but you're just, yeah, you're helping maybe defend the Second Amendment. What's better, defending the Second Amendment or defending a fellow brother and sister in Christ? So go to Squirrelly Joe's.

Just go to striving for eternity.org Coffee to get your cup of Squirrelly Joe's coffee. And if it is your first purchase, use the promo code SFE stands for Striving for Attorney. That will get you well, it's either 20% off or a free bag. I forget what he has set up because he changed, but you'll get one of the two. Just go to Striving for Attorney.org Coffee. Get yourself a nice cup of joe from Squirrely Joe. So let me ask you, son Davis, the we think about the U.S. constitution.

We're talking about the U.S. constitution and religious freedom. We have seen. I mean, I think it is, well, I thought it was really interesting that Trump created this group to be able to look at persecution of Christians, that he's trying to bring the idea of Christian faith into our, our government and people are, you know, having, you know, losing their hair over it. I, I wish it wasn't, you know, I wish he actually put a Christian in charge instead of Paula White, who. Right.

Isn't a Christian and isn't a pastor. You know, so that's the two problems that I have. When he introduced it as pastor Paula White is going to run it because she's neither. But, and if anyone doubts me on that, email me info striving for attorney.com I would love to dialogue with you because if you think I'm wrong on that, you're wrong. So, so, I mean, but the U.S.

constitution defends our religious freedom. And we're seeing, we saw so much of the, you know, the push against that from, you know, well, from the Marxists. Right. So, you know, how do we reconcile these two, the, the two facts that we have a religious freedom and, and yet there's, there's so many that argue that, you know, Christian values.

Well, you said it should just be left in the church, you know, which would, because, I mean, I just find it interesting the way you worded that because we, I go back to many years ago, think back to the 80s, and the argument was for homosexuality. You shouldn't say anything about what I do in my bedroom. You know, you should keep your laws off my bedroom. And many of us said back then, well, the problem is you won't leave it in your bedroom. And sure enough, what do we see?

They've now not come out of the bedroom. They're coming into the church and saying, you must accept us. And then at the same time saying, well, you must keep your views in your building. Right, right. How do we deal with what the Constitution guarantees and the society that is trying to force us into accepting their anti Christian views. So I think one of the things we do is we just have to do a historical analysis.

And it is very clear that in, in the history, the known history of the world as we understand it, the one nation that has had the most religious freedom and has allowed for the most religious freedom has been the United States. And it is because of the Christian principles that the Constitution is founded on. So again, some people engage in almost a level of. It's kind of like the KJV only debate, right.

It feels like some of our brothers want to elevate the KJV to the point where, you know, that that's. That's almost an idol, right? And it is a great translation. But, but people tend to do that with the Constitution sometimes, and they almost Constitution worship. The Constitution has to be understood that it, it rests on the Bible. The Constitution can only be understood from a Christian worldview and an understanding of that.

But that allows for religious freedom because it is a question of individual responsibility before God. That's what's there. So all of this taken together and brought forward is, is the world wants us to tolerate sin, right? That's always where it starts. Well, just, just tolerate it. And then it moves from toleration to celebration. We have to celebrate it. We have to, oh, isn't that lovely? Isn't that wonderful? Love is love. And then it becomes participate. So that's the path.

Just. That's how sin works. That's the lie that's given. But, but that's what the world has done with all of these issues, from homosexuality to transgender. It's, it's tolerate. And after we tolerate it for a while, then we have to celebrate. We have to have Pride month. We have to have pride parades. We have to talk about it, we have to celebrate it. And ultimately the goal is participation, grooming, and otherwise. That. That's how it works. So that's the balance that we see.

And the Constitution allows for religious freedom, freedom and disagreement. But ultimately our, the world wants us to remain silent. They do not want Christians to participate in the public square, and they want to close off our faith. And again, I see this all the time. I mean, religious persecution during the Biden administration was at a huge high. I can give many examples of it.

But, but Kamala Harris and I said this publicly, and it's one of the reasons, reasons why, you know, I really, really, you know, prayed Trump would be elected is Kamala Harris was one of the most anti Christian, anti religious Freedom candidates that has ever run for federal office in our history. When she was a senator, her first piece of legislation that was a big deal that she pushed was essentially dismantling the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

And she was pushing hard for all of those things. So, you know, the world does not want, it's okay for you to go to church. For most people in the world, for you to go to a church is fine, but don't live your life like you actually believe that. And you know, I have, I mean, I have a client right now in Idaho. It's just gone into federal court where he was fired from his position in the military in Idaho.

Think people think of that as a conservative state in the Idaho National Guard because a year prior to being hired into his position, he had run for public office. He had espoused traditional biblical views on marriage and human sexuality. When he got hired for this position, a homosexual man that worked for him, he hadn't even met yet, hadn't had any interactions with, filed a complaint and said his, his religious beliefs create a toxic environment for me. And they fired him.

They fired him that day. Impeccable career. And there's that that went on throughout the military. I mean, I represented a chaplain who, he had Bible Bibles in his office that he would allow people to come in and take if they wanted one. And people said he didn't get it properly authorized as a chaplain. I had a military commander who do the same thing. People would ask him, hey, what book have you read that's, that's most, you know, impacted you as a leader.

That's a common thing we ask in the military, right? We ask leaders that you say it's a Bible if you want. There's, there's a couple extras on my shelf. You can take one. I won't even watch whether you take it or not. But as you walk out of my office, office, if you want to grab one, great. And the Navy tried to say he can't do that because it wasn't purchased with the right funds when it was purchased with his personal funds.

So there was so much religious persecution and it really came down to no one. They didn't care if you were a, you know, a liberal progressive woke Christian. That was tolerating. It's the idea that you would actually believe in and act consistent with biblical principles or even talk about, talk about basic biblical principles. That was offensive and had to be, you know, pushed out of the military. And that's why you had a military with anti extremism policies. And they haven't been revoked yet.

I'm sure they will be. But there are anti extremism policies in the military today still on paper that say things like, and they use great legal language when they say this. You'll, you'll appreciate this. They say things like, you know, an extremist organization is an organization that advocates to limit the rights of others. Examples of that include a desire to limit the reproductive marriage or sexual rights of other individuals. Now think about that. What are they saying?

They're saying an organization that advocates for pro life and an organization that advocates against gay marriage. And you know, that, that advocates against transgender theory, you know, gender dysmorphia, that advocates against that, that doesn't embrace that as an extremist organization.

So if I was in the military and I donated money, I tithe to my church and my church advocates those positions and participates in ministries related to those positions, then I could be deemed having provided support to an extremist group as a military member and be kicked out or be prosecuted for that.

And then we see slides that have been revealed, they've been released to the public of, you know, military briefings where training on extremist groups included pro life organizations, like mainstream large pro life organizations. And we're shocked by that. So I can't emphasize enough how big of a problem this is throughout the bureaucracy and how so rapidly this problem exploded during, I mean, it started during the Obama administration.

There was a slight reprieve, and then all the groundwork was laid for just an explosion under Biden and Harris would have been a nightmare for the church. Absolute nightmare. So does that rule that you, or law that you just described in the military, does that restrict Christians in any way? I'm just wondering if that's an extremist position. Right, right.

But see, see, you know, but again, this is where, this is where people, you know, have to remember that, that the, the secular humanists, the, the communist progressives with things like critical race theory. You, you can't, you know, you can't be a victim if you're not part of an oppressed class. So, you know, Christians don't get any rights under, under secular humanism, under the secular religious system that so many have adopted.

Christians have no rights because, you know, their, their, their beliefs are not tolerated. Those are acceptable. They're, you know, those are, those have, you know, aren't part of an oppressed minority group. So you rate much lower. You're like 10th on the scale. And when I teach the social justice, once you say you're Christian, you're. There is not. You're. You don't count that. You don't have any intersectionality points with that.

So yeah, you know, and you were talking about the homosexuality as a preacher. When I talk about it. Right. That shift where I have to literate. So it went from a curse. Homosexuality they said was a curse, that they're cursed with this. They just can't help it. It went from there to. Instead of being something they're cursed with that, well, this is just a cross they have to bear. They have no choice. They were born this way.

It went from that to now a crown that they get to wear because now look, they're. They have sons to. That makes them prideful. That makes them different. And now we've gotten to where you said now, now it's celebrate. You must celebrate their crown and you must, you must partake with it. So, you know, this is the, this is the culture that we are. We're now facing and it is one that very clearly. I agree. If Harris had gotten in, it was so. For folks that don't know. Right.

So I used to, I used to work, you know, for federal government. I quit under Barack Obama. There were just things that, that were done that just. Yeah. Illegal. But so, but the thing is, is that when what did you know, if folks don't know one of the things that Barack Obama did and every administration will have things to define their terms like what a domestic terrorist is now domestic terrorism under Barack Obama included anybody who was in a, you know, part of a pro life organization.

If you supported pro life, you were a domestic terrorist. Joe Biden and I did an episode go back in the early part of the Joe Biden administration. I read through the document on this podcast. Just go and look for, I think just search rap report.org for domestic terrorists. I'm sure you're going to find it was the national document that they put out. But it was basically, if you, if you didn't believe the.

In the COVID vaccines, if you believe that there was any kind of hanky panky played in the 2020 elections, if you basically if you don't have your, you don't secure your email and text messages, if you don't, if you, if you encrypt them that put you as a domestic, you must have something to hide. Right? The fact. And this was the one that I thought was interesting. If you meet regularly, if you meet weekly with other people that think like you, that pretty much should define every American.

But they, they're very Specific who they mean with that, then you're a domestic terrorist. Right. But they don't think they could possibly, I mean, there's no way they could be racist or, you know, be just because they're saying only blacks should get certain jobs now, that can't possibly be racist. But we just redefine what racism is. That's right. I mean, so looking at this, Let me just ask you, I mean, what, I'm curious what you think the future looks like. I mean, we, we have this reprieve.

Do you think legally we're going to be able to push back against this secular humanist system enough that we can make a difference long term? You know, I, I, I hope so. I think there's some things that are happening in the courts that are going to dismantle some of the really problematic precedent. Right. We talked about precedent. There's some really bad precedent that has occurred and I think if that can be further dismantled, then we have a chance to see some real structural change.

So one of the things that's already happened, the Supreme Court has already done it is somewhat pushed back on what was called the Chevron doctrine, just to understand that comes from a case. But it was really this idea that if Congress, you know, had ambiguous legislation, a federal bureaucracy could really interpret it however they wanted to. Right. And there was really no limits on how they could interpret it because basically Congress was ceding their authority.

So broad regulatory power to, you know, induce tyranny against the people came from this. And the Supreme Court properly and rightly dismantled that and said, no, these federal bureaucracies do not have the authority to make law that comes from Congress. Only Congress can make law. You're exceeding your mandate and you're not going to get discretion. You're not going to, we're not just going to assume that's what Congressman, or you had that authority. There are other things that are happening.

You know, there are federal employees that are going to sue because they've been removed from their positions. And I think what's going to happen with the current makeup of the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court's going to say no, this, this case law that prohibited the President from firing these entrenched bureaucrats is, is bad case law. It's unconstitutional. It undermines the constitutional authority of the executive.

So I think we have a real chance for the Supreme Court to take up some of these cases and really dismantle this bad precedent. Precedent and go back to a much more constitutional system where you have, you know, Congress passes the laws, the Executive branch enforces it. And all of these bureaucracies work at the pleasure of the president, and that's how it's supposed to be.

So you can end some of this political patronage and you can really end this fourth branch, this monolithic federal bureaucracy that is just a parasite on society and really is the biggest problem in our federal government. And, and if we can root that out. So I do think there is hope just from a legal future standpoint.

But at the end of all of this, you know, we are, we are in an age where we need revival, we need true revival, and we don't, we need the church to stop seating its place in commenting on what's happening in society. Because most churches, and I'm, I'm highly critical of churches.

I mean, I was a, I was a pastor elder of a church during COVID and after Covid was done, I, I resigned from that position because the majority of the elders had no desire to even address public issues from the pulpit or otherwise in the church. It was just, it was not something they were willing to do. And those fault lines were exposed during COVID But we have to have a church that's willing to speak into these things. And it's not, you know, it's not about legalism. Right.

That's sort of the name that some of this gets. It's a, it's about love. Do we believe in the common grace, the common blessings that come from God's law or not? If we believe that, if we're Christians who believe that, then we're going to share that with the people around us and they will be blessed, as our nation has been blessed in the past, from the common grace that comes from these principles.

And if we don't, and there's not revival and there's not that desire in the church to actually comment on society, and we keep seeding that to, you know, secular humanism as a religion, it's only going to get worse. Yeah. So you said at the beginning, folks, I want you to hear, because this is where I think we're going to see the irony in history. I, I, I'm not being a prophet.

I just think this is going to be the case that the irony is going to be the more the Democrats are trying to sue to stop Trump from everything he's doing. Yeah. Because one thing, one thing we, I am against this idea of that Obama really, really started was legislation through executive order, taking it out of the hands of Congress. We need to put it back in the hands of Congress. The problem is Congress is too wimpy, just point blank.

But I think what's going to be beautiful is as they're suing Trump on all the things he's doing in executive order. That's going to actually make for, for, you know, make the legal standard, the very things that we want to be legal, you know, so it's going to be like, hey, you can't do this. Yup, yeah, you can. That's the law. So it's like, I think it's going to backfire on them big time. And I'm happy to see it.

But let me ask this because this is really, you got to the heart of where I, you know, where I think we, as Christians, those in the church should be with this. I mentioned that I think it's a reprieve. We might have four, maybe more years of a reprieve on the Marxist agenda. I think they would come back. But it is what, what I am frustrated with and what I fear is that far too many Christians and Christians make up the churches.

So Christians slash churches are so, just so happy that there's this reprieve that they're sitting back on their laurels and relaxing. I mean, I just came back from the Built to Conquer conference and this is kind of how, you know, I ended, you know, when I spoke is, is the fact that we can't sit back on our laurels, folks. This is the time to act, if there was ever a time to act.

Because if we don't act now, we can't wait till the, the Marxists get back their power and then, you know, completely, you know, throw us just in prison. Like then it's going to be too late to go, oh, we should do something. Now is the time.

While we have the reprieve, while we have the, the momentum, now is the time to get up and, and that, and, and this, I don't know, you may disagree with me on this, but I'm not saying we don't use legal means, but I, I personally think that the solution to the problem is Christ. We need the gospel to go forth. It is not time to go, well, hey, let's reprieve. We could, I could go buy that car. I could do those repairs on the house. I can get myself a nicer.

Things are going to get better economically. Hey, all that's fine, but if you're not out sharing the gospel and pointing people to Christ and strengthening the churches, I think then we've wasted this reprieve. From the background of legal, how do you see what is the future. What, where do you think is going to be the church's responsibility during this time?

And then a final question I'd have is, what would you say to people that might want to be down a path you've gone between legal or ministry? Yeah. So the thing I would say to the church that we have to understand as it impacts the rest of society is, and I just saw a study on this there, there's plenty of studies in coming out that Gen Z, right, this, and I don't necessarily love generational stereotypes, but Gen Z is, is buying Bibles. They're, they're, they're googling Jesus.

They're wanting to understand what this is. They're not necessarily turning to the church to do it right, which is, which is wild when we think about it. So, so much of what we have traditionally thought of as the church and the church's role in society and all of that has fallen apart because, you know, we, you know, our parents, our, our generation have, have lost relevance in society. And, and our children see that. Right? So the younger generations see that.

And what we need is a church that matters. We need a robust church, a church that teaches young men to be. Young men, to be leaders, to be, you know, Vodi Bachman would say, you know, the, the protector, the provider, and the priest in the home. We need to be teaching our young men to do that. We need, we need to be building Christian communities. We need to be building up that. And the church needs to be relevant. We have a lost and dying world that is so embedded and embodied in chaos.

You have what we would think of as normal, rational people advocating to have grown men pretending to be little girls, changing in the locker room with our daughters. I have two daughters. I mean, that is the kind of thing that would get people, you know, locked up. That's the kind of thing I would never want to tolerate. And yet the church isn't even speaking into that in a powerful way.

So I can't emphasize enough if, if we want to reach our nation, if we want to reach our children, we cannot be hypocritical. We cannot put comfort first. The churches have to be willing to speak truth into all levels of society and to the government. And, and that's going to, to, that's going to make a difference as we move forward. And we need, you know, to speak to the next part of your question. We need young people. We need young men to serve in the military.

We need young men to be involved and engaged in government. We need people coming into the legal profession. But what we have to be doing is we have to bring our faith with us. We cannot buy into the lie that we don't bring our faith. Faith into it.

And so, you know, I mean, the stories I could tell you from, from my law school, and this is going back over 20 years now, but I mean, when I went to law school, I went from Liberty University, which was a great Christian experience, great government teachers. I mean, we had, you know, we spent an entire semester and the only textbook was Greg Bonson's book by the standard in one of my government classes, at least Liberty.

And if you don't know what that book is, pick it up and read it because it, it's, you know, a fundamental way to look at the law and understand law. And then I went to, to law school and it was all case law theory. My constitutional law class was one of the worst experiences I've ever had. That nothing to do with the Constitution. It was just how many different ways you could argue for government control over everything in life.

That was the only, that was the only thing about, about the final in law school. And there, I mean, the, the faculty in conservative rural central Pennsylvania, where your student body was like 70% registered Republican, there wasn't a single conservative on the entire faculty. Not, not a single one.

And when I say not a single one, I'm talking like the, the professor that worked on the McGovern campaign when McGovern ran for president was probably one of the most conservative faculty members at the law school. And so, you know, what happens then is the Christians in that environment are, are silenced just by virtue of the culture. And we can't allow that to happen. We have to be willing in a loving and gracious way not to put, to put our faith on the side.

And we have to understand, and this is what I learned and God has taught me as I matured in my faith is my vocation as a lawyer is not as important. And as my walk with Christ, and only when I am in right relationship with Christ and striving for that can I be effective as God wants me to be as an attorney. And when I do that, then I have the opportunity to share the gospel with, you know, my clients. So I've learned, you know, and my, my law partner and I do this on a regular basis.

We pray that God brings us clients that either are Christians that we need to partner with or people who need the gospel and we can share that with them for how we do it. So whether, you know, whether you're involved In a podcast, whether you're in a small business, whatever you're doing, whether it's roasting coffee like Squirrelly Joe's, you know, doing it to the best of your ability.

And you know, I'm not a, I'm not a commercial guy for Squirrely Joe's, but I met those guys at the Phyla Feast. It's a family business and you could just see generationally, the father teaching his son, who was the best salesman he had, you know, how to live out his faith in business and bless people through what they were doing. And that was just such an encouragement to me. That's what we, we need to see. So I could go on about that.

But whatever it is God is calling, calling you to do vocationally, the purpose of your vocation is to be a part of the church and to bless the people around you. And that, that is how we see long term generational revival in this country. So don't ever let the world tell you not to bring your faith into it because your world view will control your, your destiny. And we have to remember that when we interact with society. Amen. That's exactly true.

I mean this, that's, that right there folks, is what we must do. We, we, it's, it's not enough to just go to church. Just isn't. Davis, if folks wanted to get a hold of you, if they might need, you know, legal counsel, where, where could they get a hold of you? So I'm on X. It's just at Davis Yance on X law firm. The website website is y law.com we also work with a nonprofit called Stand with warriors. Standwith warriors.org is a nonprofit.

It was started by pastors during COVID So that's another place to look for help if you need it. But certainly, you know, whether it's a church, whether it's a Christian small business, folks in the military or otherwise, if you reach out to us, even if we're not the right fit to help you, we can certainly try to get you connected, connected with like minded folks in your area to try to help.

And one of the things we learned, you know, I learned personally during COVID is how important it is to build community around you. So we're always happy to try to help, help do that. And there are good solid Christian attorneys out there. It may seem like few sometimes, but they're there. And I think it's a growing number that are becoming bold and understanding how important it is to bring our faith back into the law. So with that folks just remind you that this is something.

If you've got some value out of this episode, would you mind sharing it? Maybe you could just grab five friends that you might think need to listen to this. Just text this to them right now and we will with that. That's a wrap. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a. Speaker or seminar to your church, go. To Striving for eternity dot org.