EPISODE 0359 | If you Don’t Vote, You’re a Fake Christian? Secularism, Marxism & the Church

One Nation Under GodBiblical WorldviewReligious PersecutionCultural Marxism

Sep 9

THESE NOTES ACCOMPANY EPISODE 0359

What if the cultural chaos we’re seeing isn’t random—but the predictable result of cutting ourselves off from the roots that made the West flourish in the first place? Pastor Nate sits down again with Dr. David Landrum to go deeper into secularism, Marxism, truth, politics, and the role of the Church in rebuilding culture. Using the picture of a cut flower slowly dying after being separated from its roots, Dr. Landrum argues that the West is trying to hold onto ideas like freedom, justice, equality, and human dignity while rejecting the biblical worldview that gave those ideas meaning. But this isn’t just a conversation about what went wrong. It’s about what comes next—and why restoring a culture will require Christians who can recognize false ideologies, recover a biblical worldview, reject apathy, and think beyond the next election toward generations yet to come.

Main Topics Covered

✅ The “cut flower” problem of Western culture — Dr. Landrum explains how the West continues to enjoy the fruit of its Judeo-Christian heritage while increasingly disconnecting itself from the spiritual and moral roots that produced it.

✅ How secularism gets inside the Church — From “my truth” and individualism to assumptions about freedom, love, morality, and government, Pastor Nate and Dr. Landrum discuss how Christians can unknowingly think more like secular culture than Scripture.

✅ Marxism, cultural division, and the battle over language — The conversation explores how Marxist ideas move beyond economics into culture, identity, race, oppression, and social justice—and why Christians need to recognize when familiar words are being used with entirely different definitions.

✅ Why Christian engagement requires more than being “winsome” — Loving our neighbors means serving people in practical ways, but it also means being willing to speak biblical truth, vote, confront harmful ideas, and refuse the apathy that secular culture encourages.

✅ Christian nationalism, the Kingdom of God, and rebuilding for generations — Pastor Nate and Dr. Landrum wrestle with the controversial label of “Christian nationalism,” the difference between theocracy and applying biblical principles to public life, and why Christians need to think beyond quick political victories toward long-term cultural renewal.

Main Takeaways

The West cannot indefinitely keep the fruit of Christianity while rejecting its roots. Cultural renewal requires recovering the biblical foundations that produced freedom, justice, dignity, and human flourishing.
Christians need to examine their own worldview because secular assumptions can become so normal that believers no longer recognize them as secular.
Ideas have consequences. Christians must learn to identify ideologies like secularism and Marxism, understand how they redefine familiar concepts, and respond with biblical truth.
Christian faith cannot be confined to Sunday. Proclaiming the gospel and demonstrating the Kingdom belong together, affecting how believers serve, lead, vote, speak, build, and engage culture.
There is no cultural reset button. Rebuilding will require courage, education, leadership, discipleship, and a willingness to pursue “a long obedience in the same direction” across generations.

Key Scriptures

📖 Jeremiah 2:11–13
Jeremiah describes a people exchanging their God and abandoning the fountain of living water for broken cisterns—a picture Dr. Landrum uses to describe what happens when a culture rejects God and replaces Him with other ideologies.

📖 Romans 1:18–25
Paul describes humanity rejecting the Creator and exchanging the truth of God for idols, providing a biblical framework for understanding secularism as more than simply the absence of religion.

📖 Genesis 1:26–27
Human beings are created in the image of God, establishing an objective foundation for human dignity while also existing alongside the biblical reality of mankind’s fallen nature.

📖 John 14:6
Jesus doesn’t merely claim to know truth—He declares that He is the truth, giving Christians an ultimate reference point beyond personal experience, cultural consensus, or political authority.

📖 John 18:36
Jesus declares that His Kingdom is “not of this world.” The episode explores why this does not mean His Kingdom has no implications for this world, but instead points to a Kingdom whose authority and origin come from God.

📖 Matthew 28:18–20
Jesus commissions His followers to make disciples of the nations, reinforcing the call for Christians to carry His truth and authority beyond private faith and into every sphere of life.