Politics Is Downstream From Culture But The Church Must Lead Upstream
Former Indiana State Senator John Crane guest-hosts today’s Todd Huff Show with a message that challenges Christians to think bigger about leadership, culture, and politics. Drawing on his years in public service, Crane explains why politics is always downstream from culture—and why the Church must engage upstream in the battle of worldviews.
Crane recounts his own path into office, his decision to voluntarily term-limit himself, and the conviction that Christians are called to be a catalyst for redemptive good in the public square. He warns against the sacred-secular divide that discourages believers from seeing politics as a legitimate mission field, urging pastors and churches to raise up biblically grounded leaders who are thoughtful, principled, and courageous.
With biblical insights from Romans 12, stories from the Indiana Senate, and a call to discipleship that doesn’t stop at the church door, Crane makes the case that if Christians retreat, darkness fills the void. But if believers shine light upstream—through worldview, leadership, and cultural engagement—everything downstream begins to change.
This is a conversation about purpose, influence, and the role of the Church in shaping culture for the next generation.
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📝 Transcript: Politics Is Downstream From Culture But The Church Must Lead Upstream
The Todd Huff Show – September 25, 2025
Special Guest Host: John Crane, Former Indiana State Senator & Leadership Consultant
Guest Host John Crane:
Hey everybody, this is actually John Crane sitting in for my good friend Todd Huff. I received an invitation a couple weeks ago from Todd asking if I'd be willing to sit in the big boy chair. And obviously I wanted to be able to do that whenever he reaches out. It's always a great opportunity to get on here and share a little bit about what's on my mind lately. And to have the chance to reflect on where we are as a country.
And so I'm grateful to be with you today and to talk a little bit about what's happening. And particularly I decided this time, I've been on here before and it's been a little while. But I have had the privilege of serving as a senator in the state of Indiana from 2016 until last November of 2024. And then I term limited myself, which shocked a lot of people. Because when it comes to politics, usually the trajectory is assumed that it's always up and to the right. You either stay where you're at or you're always kind of looking for the next opportunity to keep moving up.
And so for somebody like me or whoever to voluntarily term limit themselves when they didn't need to came as a big surprise. And so I get the question often, well, why did you do that? And it's a fair question because obviously just like Todd and so many of our other guest hosts on the Todd Huff Show, I think politics is very, very important.
I'm blessed to come from a very political family actually. I had a couple of uncles that served in the United States Congress from the state of Illinois and one of them, Phil Crane, served for 35 years and actually ran for president in the 1980 Republican primary, lost to Ronald Reagan, but he was involved in politics for many years. My dad ran for Congress three times in the state of Indiana. He did not win, but when I was born that was kind of the family business and so for those that understood that and knew my history, my ending up in the Senate in the state of Indiana came as no surprise.
But it was a bit of a surprise for me and then of course it was a much bigger surprise for everybody else when I decided to step away. And so what I wanted to do today is to share a little bit about that journey because there's some important things that I think we need to be thinking about as people of faith and as conservatives who care about our families, our communities, and our country.
And so I wanted to share a little bit about that because I had the opportunity just yesterday actually at our state capitol to speak to a group of pastors who were down there. They had come in for the afternoon, had the opportunity to meet with our lieutenant governor and some other distinguished people, and then I was invited to be part of a speaking lineup. And so what I wanted to share today is a little bit of what I shared with them.
My journey into the Senate was one that I hadn't planned on, and yet God opened the door for me to consider it. There was a phone call that I received in September of 2015 from a friend of mine and she said there's some folks in the community that think you ought to consider running for the Senate. She said, well, you've probably thought all about this. And I had to remind her, no, I hadn't actually been thinking all about that because my real focus is on leadership development and trying to come alongside leaders and help them get better at being their best. And we're privileged to be able to do that through our JBC Leadership Strategies, and so leadership has always been a part of my passion.
And so the idea of getting into politics—I wasn't opposed to it, but it wasn't something that I was pursuing despite my family background. And so when she called I told her, well, I'll prayerfully consider it. And to make a long story very short, we spent about six weeks praying and fasting and ultimately determined that that is something that God wanted us to do.
Guest Host John Crane:
However, it wasn't an open seat. It wasn't unoccupied. In fact, there was a sitting state senator who was there, who some folks in the community had decided wasn't quite as conservative as we needed him to be. And so I challenged him.
And we ended up winning that race by almost 11 percentage points. The heavy lifting was in the primary. We ended up winning that race and went on to win in November of 2016, 82 to 18. And so all of a sudden, I'm a senator.
And I'm beginning to think about, all right, what am I supposed to be doing? How am I supposed to be approaching this? And I remember sitting down with my good friend, Matt Barnes, who is the chaplain at our state capitol. In fact, I've had him here on the show previously.
And I sat down with him and I said, Matt, I'm not actually here to be a senator. I'm here to be a catalyst for redemptive good in the political arena. And he said, well, that's interesting. Tell me more about that.
Well, that comes straight out of Chuck Colson. If any of you are familiar with the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, I am blessed to be on the National Board of Directors for that. And Chuck Colson has had a significant influence in my life prior to his passing. I tell people that aside from my parents, Chuck Colson and his emphasis on the Christian worldview has had the greatest impact on my understanding of the full implications of worldview than anybody else other than my parents.
And so my comment to Matt Barnes about being a catalyst for redemptive good in the political arena comes straight out of that philosophy. I told him my goal is to try to be on mission in this place and to try to not only bring good public policy, but also to treat people the way they should be treated.
It's about being what I call thoughtful in terms of how we think about the issues. We should have critical thinking going on all the time, but also thoughtful in how we should act and interact with the people around us.
And so we need to be thoughtful leaders, but also principled and courageous, which is obviously so needed in our political space.
Well, I will never forget my very first day in the Senate. I was a mixture of somewhat nervous, but also kind of excited, trying to figure out what this new venture was going to be. And I remember sitting in my office, I looked at my watch. I didn't have my next meeting yet.
And so I thought, well, you know, I want to kind of just get my mind right. So I reached on the shelf, grabbed my Bible and decided to open it up to my favorite passage in Scripture, which is Romans chapter 12, verse two.
The apostle Paul says, Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will.
And so I took some time to read through that, got done, looked at my watch, realized I still didn't have a meeting yet, and so I thought, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and read through the rest of this passage.
Now I've read the 12th chapter of Romans, I don't know how many times in my life, and I've even memorized huge chunks of it. But on that day, in my office, it was the very first time that I'd ever actually read it as a senator.
And so it was a very, very different lens through which I was evaluating many of the things that Paul says in there. It's a fantastic chapter on leadership and how we should be conducting ourselves.
And one of the things that it talks about in there is the different gifts that we each have been given, including the gift of leadership, and it says further down in verse 8, If God has given you leadership ability, then take the responsibility seriously.
Guest Host John Crane:
If God's given you leadership ability, then take that responsibility seriously. Now for many of us, we may assume, Well I'm not really a leader. I'm not a senator, I'm not the CEO, I'm not the coach or the captain of the team, and so we may mistakenly assume that the only way that we can have leadership ability is when we get a certain position or title.
But the reality is that leadership is about intentional influence, and what that means is that leadership is a choice, that we have the ability to be able to make that choice. I am not one who believes that there are leaders and non-leaders. I simply believe that there are leaders and potential leaders, and those who go from being potential leaders to actual leaders have made that conscious choice to say, I am going to exercise intentional influence today.
Well, I'm reading through all of that, and realizing, man, this is a great primer for preparing yourself for this role in the Senate, and of course it precedes Romans 13, verses 1 through 7, which talks about God establishing government and raising up and pulling down different leaders throughout history. And so I tend to interpret all of that as kind of a message for all of us in leadership, and particularly those who are in political leadership.
And the key idea that I want to emphasize to start this conversation can be summarized in that second verse of Romans 12: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
In the New Living Translation it says, Don't copy the behaviors and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. That's why the thoughtful element of leadership is so important.
How we think shapes what we believe, and what we believe determines then how we live. So we could summarize this verse as don't conform, transform. Don't conform, transform.
In politics this is especially true. This is why we almost despise in many respects so many politicians—because they say so many inspiring things on the campaign trail, all the things they're going to do, all the principles they're going to stand for, all the courageous positions they're going to take, and then they get into the political mire and they end up becoming a political chameleon who blends in with their political surroundings.
And so it gets so frustrating for those of us on the outside.
Now I will tell you, having spent the better part of a decade, that it's a very, very difficult environment. So, I used to be one of those that would look from the outside in through that little keyhole as we're evaluating the decisions of our political leaders. I would think to myself, Why are they doing that? If I was in charge, then I'd be doing this, or I certainly wouldn't be doing that.
As I tell people all the time, I was one of those that when it came to politics, I used to have all the answers. Then I got elected to office, and I began to discover that it is an extraordinarily complicated process.
But we still need leaders who are thoughtful, who are principled, who are courageous. We need leaders who do not conform to the patterns of this world, but who seek to genuinely be agents and catalysts of transformation.
That's what we should all be in every space in which we are.
Guest Host John Crane:
So to me, this pursuit into politics was so important. God had called me to it. But I've also discovered since then, for example, I speak probably 100 to 120 times a year. I speak locally, I speak nationally, I speak internationally, and yet, when I was a senator, I didn't go and speak in churches very much.
And it wasn't because I didn't want to speak in churches. There's plenty of things that I have to say that I think have some value. It's because I wasn't getting invitations to churches—even churches where I had spoken before I became a senator. And the reason I was not getting invitations is because now it was “Senator Crane” who was coming in, and people were getting a little nervous going, Well, you know, we don't really want to get too involved in politics. We appreciate the fact that you're there, but we don't want to get too political.
Well, that's a tragedy. That's a tragedy because the entire culture is political. Our country is political. The world is political. And the irony is that God has something to say about everything—including politics.
However, the church has largely left the politics up to the politicians. How many of us believe, for example, that we need more Bible-believing political leaders in government? I'm sure if you're listening to this you could probably be nodding your head or raising your hand and saying, Yeah, I absolutely agree. We do need more biblically grounded leaders, political leaders in our government.
But then the key question that I think exposes where we are is the follow-up question, which is: How well do you think we as the church are doing at empowering Christian leaders to follow God's call to serve in the mission field of politics?
Well, in my experience I don't think the church is doing a very good job of that. I think where the church is strong is recognizing that we can't save ourselves, that we're sinners in need of grace and that only by God's saving grace through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit can we be saved.
We recognize that we're supposed to love God and love people, but I think we tend to create this insulated view where it's just about me and Jesus—or maybe it's me and Jesus and my family, or my neighbor across the back fence. The church is strong in sending that message, strong in sending the message that we need to try to serve the poor.
But where I don't think the church is as strong is developing the full menu or the full complement of Christian worldview application in every aspect of our lives.
That God has something to say about our work, our vocation, about not just how we should be approaching our work, but where is the balance between work and rest. God has something to say about our recreation. God has something to say about politics. He has something to say about AI and technology, something to say about medicine, bioethics, all these different things that have become so challenging—and we're all faced with it. Our kids are faced with it. Our grandkids are faced with it.
How do we navigate these challenges in our culture? Well, there are a lot of voices trying to give us answers on how we should be navigating that. The question is, is the church, through a full understanding of the Christian worldview, one of those voices that is speaking clearly, that is providing counsel, direction, and empowerment to people to help them understand what I call the good path to the truly good life?
Guest Host John Crane:
Not just the good life—the culture tells us what the good life is, right? We want lots of money. We want wealth, we want power, we want a new house, we want the best spouse, all those different things.
But is that the truly good life? There are so many who have aspired to that, who have pursued it and actually achieved it. And then they get to the top of the mountain and realize, Wait a second, is this it? You know, I've strived so hard. Is this it?
And I would argue, no, it's not. There's so much more—that if we follow the good path to the truly good life, we can find that path to the flourishing life, to the kind of life that brings meaning and value not only on this side of heaven, but also ultimately for eternity. And so we've got to be able to show people that God's way is the best way.
Well, we can't do that if the church stumbles along and doesn’t provide that kind of direction and counsel. And so we either try to figure it out on our own, or we challenge our pastors and our church leaders. And if we are a pastor or a church leader, we challenge our team to say, Okay, how can we do this better?
So when people ask me, Well, why did you leave the Senate? I give them a couple of answers. One, there's this idea—well, let me give the second one first—and that is that as I was contemplating all this, I began to wrestle with my own journey, right? I'm not getting any younger. Ironically, most of my years are now in the rearview mirror and fewer years are in the windshield as I move down the road.
And so I began to weigh, Where is the best use of my best contribution? I could continue to be a senator, which has significant value, and I've been able to do some good things. Or I could step away and try to focus on some things that I consider even more strategic. And so I was getting older.
The other thing that happened around that time was that my father passed away on his 86th birthday. And so anytime somebody passes away, you begin to think about your life. You begin to think about legacy. You begin to think about, What's it all for and why does it matter? And so those variables were at play.
But the other thing that was significant is this idea that politics is downstream from culture. I've heard the late Andrew Breitbart talk about this. There's others who have talked about this—that politics is downstream from culture. And I tend to agree with that.
I think politics is downstream from culture. I think media is downstream from culture. Art and entertainment is downstream from culture. Education is downstream from culture, in the sense that it is actually a reflection of the upstream culture. And politics certainly fits that bill.
Well, if politics is downstream from culture, then it begs the question: What is upstream?
And I firmly believe that what is upstream in the culture is what I call the war of worldviews. Or we might call it the battle for thought leadership supremacy, right? So whoever wins the idea war gets to influence everything downstream.
Guest Host John Crane:
And that battle is going on all the time. There's all kinds of competing philosophies, competing ideas, competing values, and whoever wins gets to influence everything downstream. We see this happening from the left all the time, and frankly they're very good at it. They don't ever quit.
We could learn a lesson from that. No matter how many times they get knocked back, they keep pressing forward because they firmly believe in their worldview. They firmly believe in the things that they value.
Well, do we have that same level of tenacity and perseverance? Do we understand why we believe what we believe? Do we understand why we value the things that we value? Because only until we understand that and then believe it are we in a position to actually have greater influence downstream.
Well, I've spent the better part of 30 years doing leadership development, Christian worldview training, apologetics, cultural engagement, all these different things. And yet, when you become a senator, it becomes a very consuming job. You're on all the time. And so I continued to work on the things that I'm really passionate about—leadership and worldview and all that.
But frankly, the job demands of being a senator turned the rest of that into a side hustle. And so as I'm wrestling through all these things, I thought, well, I can continue to serve in this role, or I can voluntarily step away, and I can go all in upstream to try to help influence leaders to be their very best, to live out the values that are going to actually make a difference, not only in their lives, but in their families' lives, in our community, in our country.
And so I made that decision. I surprised a lot of people. And now here I am, not even a year out, I'm only about 10 months out, and finding that I'm as busy as I've ever been. But I get to control my schedule a little bit more, and my meetings are a lot more fun, I will tell you that.
So I just want to kind of begin to cast that idea, because it's the same thing that we all have to wrestle with, which is, Where am I spending my focus? Do I have a clear understanding of how my worldview shapes the things that matter?
And we're going to continue this conversation right after the break as we begin to unpack some of this, and the role that the church has to play, and the role that the church needs to play in helping people understand what God has to say about this really, really important area of government and politics.
So don't go away. We'll be right back.
Guest Host John Crane:
Hey, this is John Crane here on the Todd Huff Show. It's so wonderful to be with you today and I always appreciate getting the invite from my good friend Todd to be able to come and share a few thoughts that I have.
We've been talking about my journey. As many of you may know, I served in the Senate in the state of Indiana for about eight years, two terms from 2016 until late last year in November. And so I wanted to share a little bit about that story because I get the common question when people find out that I'm no longer serving and that I had voluntarily term-limited myself—they're understandably surprised and say, Well, why did you do that?
And so before the break, I was talking a little bit about my decision in doing that, in the fact that there were a couple of things that went into play. One was kind of the legacy issue, the stewardship issue in terms of God's only given us so much time here on the planet and how are we maximizing the time that we've been given?
I tell young people all the time in particular who aren't thinking about their longevity that time is one of the greatest gifts that we've been given. It's the asset that no matter how hard we work, we can't recreate it. You can recreate money if you give money away, but you can never ever recreate time.
Guest Host John Crane:
So every second, every minute, every hour we have is a gift and should hopefully increase the urgency with which we try to steward the gift of life that we've been given and so that was one part of it.
And the other part, frankly, was this idea that politics is downstream from culture and it's a common idea, but I don't often hear enough people asking what to me is the obvious next question which is okay, if politics is downstream from culture, then what is upstream?
And it's that war of worldviews. It's that battle for thought leadership, supremacy, the idea war. It's this battle of philosophy. We talk a lot about it when we talk about what's happening on our colleges and university campuses across the country. What are the ideas that are being foisted upon our young people as they sit in these classrooms?
And yet, we don't always talk about it as frequently as we should in terms of the other influences that are shaping not only the minds and hearts of our kids but even our own minds and hearts. And so this idea war that's going on to me is absolutely critical.
Now, why does this matter? This matters because, as I mentioned before the break, I don't get invited to speak in churches as much because I'm a political. And so for far too long the church, and I'm going to speak in kind of broad generalities. I know there's some a few exceptions and I know that there are a lot of pastors and church leaders that believe strongly in applying God's principles to the political arena, but I think generally the church has struggled with recognizing the importance of the political space.
It is absolutely critical. Politics influences every single aspect of our lives, whether we realize it or not. And so, as I said before, God has something to say about everything, including politics, and if we look at Scripture, not every single nuanced issue is going to be outlined directly, but there are some really critical biblical principles that can be applied to every area of public policy.
It can also be applied to how we treat one another within the political space. And Christians should be leading the way when it comes to thoughtful engagement on these things, and yet we haven't been challenged or encouraged or discipled enough to know how to do that.
I think the church has truly stumbled with what I call political discipleship in this way. And so, what you end up having is you have a small group of people that populate the state capitals, that populate the county councils, and populate our federal government. A small group of people who are committed to their faith, who feel called into this space, and yet who recognize that they're about ready to step into the lion's den, and don't always have the level of support that they need.
And yet, they have the courage to say, I'm going to follow this call. I believe that this is something that God's called me to do. Imagine if the church got really serious about identifying those young people who have that call.
Because what we typically see, and I've seen this over the years, and I don't think it's always intentional. I think it's unintentional, frankly. I'm going to give people the benefit of the doubt. But I think we've bought into the sacred, secular divide.
I think that we've determined that, yes, there are parts of our lives that are sacred to God. Certainly our Christian life applies on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, if you still have Sunday night church, or Wednesday nights, if you still have Wednesday night church, or maybe you're involved in a small group. But in terms of Monday morning at the office, a lot of people are struggling to see what their Sunday morning faith has to do with their Monday morning life.
And so I think we've unintentionally created this sacred secular divide. And here's how I've seen it. Typically in the spring you'll have graduation Sunday, right? So you'll have all the young high school graduates and we want to honor them for all of their hard work and we want to celebrate that accomplishment and send them off with our very best wishes and support as they move on to the next chapter of their life.
And so we line them up on the front of the stage and we ask them, you know, give them a mic and ask them, tell us your name, tell us where you're going to go to school, and tell us what you're going to study. And so one by one they go down the line and they talk about, I'm going to go to such-and-such University and I want to study nursing. And we politely clap. That's fantastic, you know.
And we get to the next one, the young man, and he says, well, I want to go to the the business school in my city and I want to study business and we politely clap. Then we get to the next young man and he says, well, I'm going to go to XYZ Bible College and I'm going to go into full-time Christian ministry. And we clap so enthusiastically because he's going to go into full-time Christian ministry.
Then we get to somebody like John Crane and he stands up there and he says, well, I feel called to go into politics and we kind of look at each other and lean over to the person next to us and whisper, you know, I thought he was a Christian, you know, because we have this subconscious assumption that yeah, we know we need Christian influence, but politics is so dirty. It's you know, it's a den of iniquity. There's corruption. There's all these things. How could you possibly want to go serve in that area?
And so what we've done is we've created this this scenario where those who are in quote unquote full-time Christian ministry are those who are either pastors. They are on staff at a church or they're full-time missionaries in a third world context somewhere. Maybe they teach at a Christian school or they lead a Christian nonprofit. And then there's 95% of the rest of the body of Christ.
There are the nurses. There are the doctors. There are the the teachers. There are the the, you know, business leaders. There are the sports coaches. And then there are actually the lawyers and the politicians right there at the end of the end of the line because we look down on them so much.
And yet politics is a serious mission field. I speak from experience. There is serious darkness. There is serious need for the light and influence in that space. There is serious need for a thoughtful and robust Christian worldview to be applied not only to the public policy decisions that are informing the laws that are being passed, but also in the engagement that we have one within another.
How are we going to expect people to be civilized with each other if Christians aren't leading the way? Because I'll tell you, in my humanness, I do not want to be civilized to the opposition. In my humanness, I want to beat them and beat them down. But then I have to step back and go, okay, but what would Jesus do if he were a senator in this space?
And then I get checked in my spirit and realize, well, wait a second. That isn't the approach that I'm called to be as a Christian leader. But I don't know that if I haven't been equipped to understand that. I don't fully understand that if I don't understand the Christian worldview and its full implications.
And for me, it then gets to a point where you have to realize, like, look, I have to be on mission. What does it mean to be on mission in this space? When I open those doors and walk into the Capitol building, what does it mean to be on mission? For me, there was a prayer that I prayed every time I got out of the car. It was a four-part prayer.
The first part was thanking God that I had the privilege to be able to serve in that space, even on the bad days. The second prayer was for the leadership in our Senate, who were in the meetings after the meetings, that God would give them wisdom. The third part of the prayer is that God would give us all wisdom to know the path forward and the courage to follow it.
And then the fourth part of that prayer was, help me to be a blessing to whoever it is I come in contact with today, whether it's our governor, fellow colleagues, or the janitor, or anybody in between. And then you open that door and you get on mission.
Well, guess what? That's no different than where you are today. Because God's placed you in that space. And so the goal is to say, okay, what is the mission that God has for me? Yes, there's a particular context that I'm serving in or leading in, but how does that mission fit with the larger mission that God has for us? That's a huge question. We're going to unpack that a little bit more as we round out this conversation. We'll be right back here on The Todd Huff Show.
Guest Host John Crane:
Hey, this is John Crane here on The Todd Huff Show. We've been having a conversation about what does it mean to apply God's way of thinking, godly principles, the biblical worldview, to the political space, because obviously we recognize that politics is so critically important, and yet I don't think the church has always done a great job of helping her people understand how to think biblically when it comes to politics.
How to equip ourselves to be thoughtful in how we select elected officials. Or if you feel called into that space, how to equip yourself to go in and serve well without becoming part of the problem, without becoming corrupted or compromised in some way.
And I've been sharing a little bit about my own story, having served in the Senate, in the state of Indiana for two terms, and then voluntarily limiting or term limiting myself because of the recognition that I want to spend my best time not just being Senator Crane, but hopefully raising up the next crop of leaders. The political space and the business space, anywhere that we have leaders that are doing their best to try to be everything that God's designed us to be.
And so as we think about this, I was talking before the break about the fact that we have created this dichotomy of those who are in full-time Christian ministry and everybody else. And yet, politics is a serious mission field. We don't always think about it that way, but it's a serious mission field. And so I would say to the church, church, we need you. We need you. Send help, right?
We'd send out those dispatches figuratively from the church, from the capital saying, church, we need you. And let me give you just one example of how this plays out. You know, when I was a senator, I would often have people who would come in and they would advocate on a bill. And so you'd have advocate A, and they would come in and they'd make their case for why I should support the bill. And they would conclude by saying, you know, Senator Crane, we need to do the right thing.
And then literally the very next meeting, advocate B would come in, they'd advocate on the same bill, but they'd take the exact opposite position as the person who would come in before them. And so they want me to go against the bill and they conclude, Senator Crane, we need to do the right thing.
And my answer to both of them was, yes, we do. We do need to do the right thing. Question is, what is the right thing? You often hear this in politics, well, we shouldn't legislate morality. And as I've had to help educate both constituents and colleagues over the years, that is the nature of being a lawmaker.
Law, by definition, is about right and wrong. It's about ought and ought not. It's about should and should not. That is the nature of being a political leader where you are elected to make laws. Now, we can have a lot of debate on what those laws should be and why, but it isn't about whether or not we should legislate morality. The question actually is, whose morality are you going to legislate?
And the answer to that question is upstream. It's based on the worldview of those who are in positions of elected office, who have the power to make the decisions that make the laws.
And so often, you know, if I do get an opportunity to speak to church leaders or to Christians and I will say to them, you know, if we don't do a better job of empowering biblically grounded leaders to follow that call into the political space, then what are we complaining about? Honestly, what are we complaining about?
If we have elected officials who are not coming from a biblical worldview, passing laws that don't align with the biblical worldview, at least they're being consistent. They're doing exactly what they feel called and you know what they're empowered to do.
If we don't have enough Christian political leaders who take their faith seriously and thoughtfully to then pass laws that align with the biblical worldview, then we have to be honest and say maybe the problem isn't in the capital. Maybe the problem is standing in the mirror, right, looking back at me. Maybe the problem is my church in terms of what are we doing to help people think about these things and to help them apply these important ideas in areas from a biblical standpoint. What are we doing?
And so this is obviously something that is very very passionate I mean, I'm very passionate about this. It's so critically important and I now have more opportunity now that I'm a former senator to be able to get back into churches and share this message because I think it's it's so so critical.
Guest Host John Crane:
And so as we round out our conversation, I just want to leave you with this thought. Years ago I wouldn’t say that I was somebody that was huge into math and science, right? You take the bare minimum to get through school and then you move on to the subjects that you would actually rather study.
And so I did the bare minimum of math and science. I wouldn't call myself Bill Nye the Science Guy by any stretch. But I came to discover an important thing when it comes to, you know, light and darkness.
I don't know about you, but when I look across the cultural landscape, it sure looks like the darkness is advancing and it's very concerning for my kids, for our grandkids. And yet I came to discover the relationship between light and darkness—that light is the independent variable and darkness is the dependent variable.
That means wherever there is more light there is less darkness. Wherever there is less light there is more darkness. As Christians, Jesus tells us we're supposed to be the light of the world. And so when we look out at the culture and we see darkness advancing, what we're actually seeing is an optical illusion, because darkness can't advance unless light retreats.
And that's what we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be the light. We're supposed to go into every space of daily living and try to be a little bit of light, add a little bit of good, bring a little bit of value into that space, and try to ultimately draw people closer to God.
And so that's my challenge for us today is to say, okay, where has God called you and what has He called you to do? And for all of us, what does that mean for how we approach government and politics? How do we support the right kind of candidates and help them be everything that God's called them to be?
This is something that I've had the privilege and honor of being able to live, but also I've come to discover the challenge of it. And so I will say this, church, we need you. Church, send help. On behalf of my colleagues who still are serving in all these different places, I can tell you that we can't have enough people to come alongside them and say keep going and you're making a difference.
Well, I'll tell you what, it's been a pleasure to be able to be with you all today and I'll just say if I can be of help to anyone, come find me. I'm online at craneleadership.org. That's craneleadership.org at JBC Leadership Strategies and I'd be happy to help you and empower you to be the very best at what God's called you to be.
This is John Crane signing off on The Todd Huff Show.
Please note that transcript are generated automatically with transcribing tools and AI. While fairly accurate, it is not perfect. 