Making the voice of Southern Baptists heard in the legislative branch

The ERLC’s presence in our nation’s capital allows us to speak up, for, and from our Southern Baptist churches before various audiences. In our previous episodes, we’ve covered the executive and judicial branches, demonstrating the need for Christians’ involvement in the various facets of our government because policies have real-world effects on all of us. Today, our focus turns to the legislative branch.

To help us better understand the legislative branch and why our involvement matters is David Closson. David serves as the director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council. He researches and writes on life, human sexuality, religious liberty, and related issues from a biblical worldview. David is a Ph.D. candidate in Christian Ethics at Southwestern Seminary. He received his M.Div. and Th.M. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and his B.A. in political science from the University of Central Florida. David lives in the Washington, D.C. area and is a member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

Episode Transcript: Making the voice of Southern Baptists heard in the legislative branch

Narration:

Welcome to the ERLC Podcast where our goal is to help you think biblically about today’s cultural issues. I’m Lindsay Nicolet, and today we’re continuing our series focused on our work in Washington DC.

The ERLC’s presence in our nation’s capital allows us to speak up, for, and from our Southern Baptist churches before various audiences. In our previous episodes, we’ve covered the executive and judicial branches demonstrating the need for Christian’s involvement in the various facets of our government because policies have real world effects on all of us. Today, our focus turns to the legislative branch. 

To help us better understand the legislative branch and why our involvement matters is David Closson. David serves as the director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council. He researches and writes on life, human sexuality, religious liberty, and related issues from a biblical worldview. David is a PhD candidate in Christian ethics at Southwestern Seminary. He received his MDIV and THM from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and his BA in Political Science from the University of Central Florida. David lives in the Washington DC area and is a member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church. 

Now let’s turn to Elizabeth Bristow’s conversation with David Clawson.

Elizabeth Bristow:

David, thanks for joining us today.

David Closson:

Oh, Elizabeth, it’s a joy to be on the program. Thanks again for having me.

Elizabeth Bristow:

Sure. Start out by talking to our audience about why it is important for Christians to be engaged in politics.

David Closson:

Yeah, absolutely. What an important question and even before I answer that question, again, thank you for having me on. I think you know this Elizabeth, but I kind of got my start at the intersection of public policy and theology 10 years ago doing an ERLC internship in the Nashville office; interned with Andrew Walker and Dan Darling and still just have great affection. Whenever I remember the time we spent together and honestly I began cutting my teeth 10 years ago during that internship on this very question that you’re asking me, why is it important for Christians to be engaged in politics. And let me give you two theological principles to start off with. I think number one would be love of neighbor. As Christians, we are called to love our neighbor. Jesus clearly told us that’s the second great commandment. And the way I think about it, Elizabeth, is can I comprehensively love my neighbor if I don’t care about politics, which really affects our basic rights and liberties at just fundamental levels?

Can I say that I care for my unborn neighbor if I don’t care about the political issue of abortion? Can I really say that I care about my minor children neighbors when transgenderism and kind of the whole lobby behind that is reaping irreparable harm on families? And so again, I think we engage as Christians as Southern Baptists on these issues because we love holistically all of our neighbors. But then I think a second theological principle would be stewardship. Now, I think, you know most, if you’re like me, you grew up in Southern Baptist churches your entire life and you have heard sermons on why we need to be good stewards of our money and our time. But I think God calls us to be good stewards of everything he’s entrusted us with. And for those of us who live in a constitutional republic where we have the franchise or we have the ability to vote, I think we’re called to steward that as well.

We’re called to steward everything that God has given us. And for those of us again who live in the United States, we have access to our lawmakers. We choose who’s gonna represent us. We have a voice even when bills are being considered. And so I think to be good stewards of everything God has given us means we have to be engaged in politics. Lemme give you just a real concrete example just at the time we’re recording this, Elizabeth, just a couple of days ago, I was outside the Supreme Court actually with your colleague Hannah Daniel at a rally outside the Supreme Court where the justices were hearing a law that originated from the state of Texas are requiring age verification when it comes to accessing pornographic websites. And now this law doesn’t affect free speech. It doesn’t affect the right of adults to view this filth that’s online, and yet the porn industry is suing. And this case has gone all the way up. Again, Christians should care about this case because we care about our neighbors, we care about minor children not being exposed to this horrifying content. So again, I think it was Ali Beth Stuckey who said, you know, politics matters because policy matters and policy matters ultimately because people matter. And so again, as Christians, we believe that everyone is made in God’s image. And so we engage on these issues because we want the best for our friends and neighbors.

Elizabeth Bristow:

That’s really good, really helpful. So along those same lines, why should Christians pay attention to what’s happening in Congress and how do big picture federal decisions affect the local church and issues that they care most about?

David Closson:

I think we care because Congress makes decisions that have a real life impact. They have a real life impact on our friends and neighbors around the March for Life. Whenever Republicans are in control of either the House or the Senate, we’ll try to time Pro-life votes in conjunction with the March and leadership in the House. And the Senate has indicated that they’re going to bring before Congress the Born Alive Abortion Survivor Protection Act. This is legislation that has been considered in previous iterations of Congress. This is simple legislation that just says that a baby who survives a botched abortion should be entitled to medical care. Now again, as Christians as Southern Baptists, we care deeply. This is one of the animating concerns every year at the Southern Baptist Convention. When we gather at the annual meeting to say that we care about the dignity of unborn children, this is a piece of legislation that would do just that and provide protections to a category of some of the most vulnerable.

Why do we care about this Elizabeth, you asked that, we care because we know that law is inherently pedagogical. The law is a teacher. And often, you know what our laws show that dictates to the American people what is right and what is wrong. Just think about 50 years of having Roe v Wade, the law of the land, how that coarsened our nation’s conscience, and why even though Roe has been overturned, we’re still fighting so many of these battles. You asked me about Congress specifically, at the time we’re recording this, the House of Representatives actually passed a piece of legislation called The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. So again, this is legislation being debated by representatives of Congress, but think of the real world impact. This has, again, on people who we go to church with. If you have young girls who are on sports teams, a rec league or at your school, we know, and this happens all over the country, that biological males have competed against biological women and have won scholarship opportunities, have won trophies, have won all sorts of opportunities.

This is a major issue. This was a huge issue actually in the last election. And Congress has thankfully realized this is an issue and is looking to pass legislation again to protect women and girls, to say that Title X recognizes that a person’s sex is actually based on biology rather than the contested category of gender ideology. And I guess the final thing I would say, you know, why do we care about what Congress is dealing with Elizabeth right now? Maybe this wasn’t the case 20 years ago. You know, maybe where some of the issues we’re dealing with would be marginal tax rates or ethanol subsidies. We’re actually now dealing with creation order issues, issues of life and death, issues that are as basic as reality, male and female. Congress today is actually dealing with issues where you could say there’s a, thus saith the Lord, the fact that God has spoken on some of these issues. And that’s what our Congress is debating. And so because of the real life impact that Congress has, that’s why I think Christians, Southern Baptists, should continue to pay attention to what happens on Capitol Hill.

Elizabeth Bristow:

That’s really helpful. Tell me more about your organization, the Family Research Council, and speak into your role at FRC, and then talk to us about how you work with Congress and the legislative process.

David Closson:

Yeah, so I’ve been a part of the organization since 2018. And let me actually just read to you the mission statement of the Family Research Council. This was actually amended just a couple of years ago, but our mission statement says, the Family Research Council’s mission is to serve in the kingdom of God by championing faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. And kind of my seat on the bus, so to speak, is I’m the director of our center for Biblical Worldview. And so really I get to come in every day and kind of what are the issues that we’re dealing with in culture in the public square and how should churches, pastors, and Christian parents think about these issues? So those are kind of the three categories of kind of folks that I’m always thinking about. Pastors, congregations, and Christian parents, and then providing resources, whether that is videos, whether that’s a book booklets, children’s curriculum, other sorts of resources like that.

One of the things that we did a couple of years ago, and we brought George Barna, the well-known worldview researcher, and he’s put together a worldview, a survey. It asks 54 questions, measuring beliefs and behaviors. So belief, do you believe Jesus, the son of God, do you believe the Bible is God’s word? Do you believe the Holy Spirit is a person? And then behaviors, is it moral to cheat on your taxes? Is it moral to sleep with someone you’re not married to? To be considered someone with a biblical worldview, you actually have to score 80% or higher on beliefs and behaviors. And what we found is that 51% of Americans think they have a biblical worldview, which I think that has all sorts of implications for how we do missions and evangelism. But when you actually measure the beliefs and behaviors, it’s actually only 6% that have a biblical worldview.

We took that same survey inside Evangelical churches. The results are a little bit more encouraging, but not much. 81% of those who attend church, regular attenders, 81% think they have a biblical worldview, which I kind of joke makes me wonder what the other 19% of people who show up to church, they don’t even think they have a biblical worldview. But again, when you measure beliefs and behaviors, it’s 21% that actually have a biblical worldview. It’s better than the 6%, but I don’t know any pastor that would be happy with one out of five. And so part of what I am trying to do is provide resources for those pastors to help inculcate and help disciple a biblical worldview in their congregation. So that’s kinda what the Center for Biblical Worldview does, is a ministry of the Family Research Council. In terms of our focus on the Hill, kind of the legislative process, we have a team of registered lobbyists who will regularly be in communication with members.

So whether that’s the Senate or the House, we have a lot of wonderful relationships with staffers on the hill. We will write model legislation to try to help introduce good pro-life, pro-family, pro-freedom bills. We not only do that at the federal level, we do that at the state level. I think our, in the most recent years, we worked with a legislator in Arkansas to pass legislation to prohibit minor children from accessing cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and actually physical surgeries. And Arkansas became the first of now like 21 states that has passed that model legislation at the federal level. I think one of the, the greatest tools we have, Elizabeth and other organizations use this as well, but we have a scorecard to where kind of our C-four, the FRC action side, we will score votes. And so we will tell members of Congress ahead of time, we support this legislation or we oppose this piece of legislation and we will score you up or down based on how you vote.

And particularly more conservative members, they want to score a hundred percent on the FRC scorecard. At the end of the year, we have an awards ceremony where if you voted with us a hundred percent, you get an award and we recognize you. And of course members love to use that in campaign commercials and whatnot. And so the scorecard I think is one way we use leverage. And then also we speak to tens of thousands of churches, millions of folks around the country, and we tell people how their members are voting. And so sometimes with the chagrin of members, but again, we try to use our megaphone. Our president, Tony Perkins, has a national TV and radio program. And so we’ll use those as means by which we draw attention to the legislation.

Elizabeth Bristow:

That’s really great and it kind of leads me into this next question that I wanna ask you. In your scorecard methodology that you have, you’re somewhat holding these congressmen congresswomen to a higher standard. And so as a Christian, how should we think about the legislative compromise that they may be seeing in Congress? And how can we hold our lawmakers to important ethical standards on the issues that we care most about?

David Closson:

That’s an important question. And again, I don’t wanna sound too partisan, but when you do look at Congress right now, you see a clear worldview divide. And so some of the bills, for example, just in recent years that have been voted on in 2021, when the house was under democratic control, Nancy Pelosi brought to the floor the Women’s Health Protection Act. By the way, those of us who work in politics, we know that bills are often very deceptively named. But that piece of legislation would abolish nearly every state level pro-life bill that has ever been passed that was brought to the floor. Thankfully, all the Republicans opposed it. Only one Democrat opposed it. Again, we’re grateful that it didn’t pass into law, but that was disappointing to see. Again, the parties are really starting to really separate on just that basic issue. When Republicans, by the way, retook the house in 2023, you recall this Elizabeth, after the Roe v Wade decision, you had violence against pregnancy resource centers and churches all over the country, hundreds of acts of violence.

And so the Speaker of the House brought to the floor a resolution condemning violence against churches and pro-life resource centers. Again, these are resource centers that do heroic work. I know at ERLC, the Psalm 139 project has provided dozens and dozens of ultrasound equipment to these pregnancy resource centers. So they had a non-binding resolution and only three Democrats voted the right way on that issue. And so the reason I tell you that, we live in very divided times where even basic pro-life, pro-family laws are seen as contentious. And that’s why compromise is needed. Compromise shouldn’t be seen as a dirty word. You know, I want the most robust, strong pro-life protections, but I recognize with a very slim Republican majority in the Senate, in the house, you’re not gonna get the votes. You need to pass the most robust protections that Southern Baptists, for example, would want.

You still have, even though Republicans will control the White House, the House, and the Senate, you still have that 60 vote threshold in the United States Senate. And Republicans only have 53 seats. And so you have to find compromise. And so can, for example, in this Congress, can we get the Born Alive Infant Abortion Survivors Protection Act over the finish line. Are there seven Democrats who will say, wow, these are babies who survive botched abortions, they deserve and are entitled to respect? I hope so. And if so, we would celebrate that. Realizing though, that’s just the first step towards trying to create a culture of life in this country. And so, I think it’s important because we don’t ever want to compromise our convictions. You know, there’s a, thus saith the Lord on the life issue. We know what God’s opinion is. He tells us, he reveals it to us. Psalm 139, Luke chapter one, verses 39 through 45. And so our role, I think as citizens, is to speak very clearly to our members, our senators, our congressmen where we stand, but recognize that again, over half the country is coming at these issues from a completely different worldview, which is why we’re gonna have to compromise where we can.

Elizabeth Bristow:

That’s really good. We often think of our work in the areas of life, religious liberty, marriage and family, and human dignity. So again, working on a lot of the same and similar issues that you do at the FRC. And I’m wanting to hear from you on what you expect in terms of the congressional agenda in the coming months as we look at the Trump administration. So what do you expect to see; what changes are on the horizon?

David Closson:

Well hold onto your chair because I think the next hundred days, we always talk about the first hundred days of a new administration. You are going to see a flurry of activity again. I already mentioned very soon we’re gonna have a vote in the House and Senate on the Born Alive Bill. We’ve seen the House of Representatives pass bipartisan, I should add is, a couple Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for the Save Women’s Sports Act. So again, that hopefully can get across in the other chamber. And then that would be held for President Trump’s signature. You’re also gonna see these confirmation hearings. They’ve already started in the Senate, but folks like Marco Rubio, the current senator from Florida who’s the nominee for Secretary of State. This is someone who I’ve tracked since he was a, the Speaker of the House in the state of Florida, which is my home state.

You know, phenomenal nominee. I think we’re really excited about that. So expect to see him get confirmed. You’ll see other nominees as well, though Elizabeth, think of Robert Kennedy Jr., who’s been tapped to lead the Health and Human Services Department, which that probably of all the departments deals with the life issue the most. And most of the pro-abortion orders that we’ve seen the Biden administration put out have been under the auspice of HHS. We know RFK Jr. for the vast majority of his adult life has been pro-choice. He’s been pro-abortion. He is committed to senators that he will put pro-life protections in place, expect to see his confirmation hearing in the weeks to come for these issues to come up and for pro-life senators to try to extract commitments from him to make sure that he actually honors his word on that issue. In addition to, I think, congressional action, Elizabeth, I think Southern Baptists particularly should pay attention to the White House and President Trump.

Over the last four years, president Biden has put out dozens and dozens of executive orders that deal with the issues of family, religious freedom, sexuality. President Trump is gonna have the opportunity with a stroke of a pen to undo many of these orders. And you know, I think one of the reasons an overwhelming majority of Southern Baptists voted for the president was because they were given promises and commitments that he would actually follow through with some of these commitments. So in the months to come, we need to be praying that he does that indeed, for example, reinstate the Mexico City Policy, and make sure that our tax dollars don’t fund abortion overseas. Ensure that Title X dollars don’t go to Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics. President Trump did that in his first administration. We need to see him do that again in the second administration. We need to see the administration reinstate protections related to chemical abortion pills under the Biden administration.

They walked back a lot of those protections including in-person visits that women would need to do to receive these pills. We need to see the Trump administration under the FDA put some of those protections back in place. Very briefly, a couple other things that come to mind, you know, since Roe v Wade was overturned under the Department of Defense, abortion travel policy, servicemen and women have been able to use taxpayer dollars to go travel to get abortions. That’s something we would want to see ended on day one. If President Trump’s nominee to lead the Defense Department, Pete Hegseth, is confirmed, we should rejoin the Geneva Consensus Declaration on day one. This is a declaration that was spearheaded under President Trump’s first administration by Valerie Huber that says abortion is not a human right. Again, we’d wanna see that put back into place immediately. And I guess one other thing that comes to mind is I think Trump should immediately reverse the policy under the Biden administration, under NIH, the National Institute of Health, that have allowed aborted fetal tissue to be used in research. Those are all things that could end on day one with the stroke of a pen. And my prayer is that he will follow through with many of the commitments that he’s made.

Elizabeth Bristow:

That’s good. Thanks for drawing some of these really important policies to the forefront of our attention. So a lot of Christians have disengaged from the political scene due to just the rhetoric that’s out there, the polarization that’s out there. But as we’ve already talked about, it’s extremely important for Christians to engage in good policy and advancing good policy amongst our lawmakers. And so in closing, how can churches stay engaged in a healthy way in the political landscape, and even taking it down to the local level, where we can often make the most impact, how can Christians proactively push to see a culture of life flourish in their communities and then beyond?

David Closson:

Yeah, Elizabeth, I think the first thing is to be engaged as far as, being aware of what’s happening. You know, one of the things that we’ve realized here at the Family Research Council is that our perspective is often not even considered in the media anymore. By the way, a term that we’ve coined that I think is helpful, we speak to spiritually active, governance engaged Christians. So the sage-cons, spiritually active governance, engaged conservatives. And you know, there’s 53 million sage-cons in America and often they feel alone. They feel that I’m the only one that cares about government and that has these conservative Christian values. Again, I can’t tell you the last time myself or Tony Perkins was invited to come on cable news to talk about marriage policy. It doesn’t happen anymore because again, so many in our culture have moved on from some of the things that we were debating maybe 10 years ago.

And so FRC actually launched our own news outlet. It’s called the Washington Stand. We put out two podcast episodes a week, about 12 articles a day. Many of those articles deal with what’s happening on Capitol Hill. We have a team of six or seven writers. So I would encourage folks who are listening to our conversation, just familiarize yourself with the Washington Stand. You can go to washingtonstand.com just to be aware. ‘Cause I think that’s the first action point, so to speak, is just be aware of what’s taking place now at the local level. When it actually comes to pastors in caring for their local congregations, again, my challenge to pastors, and I’ve been able to have the privilege to speak around the country and do a lot of pastors workshops, I tell them, you know, to be aware of what’s going on and to speak to the issues.

I don’t want my pastor to get up and, you know, opine about politics and you know, ethanol subsidies and things like that. But where scripture coincides with, again, these clear moral issues, preach on these issues. We did a survey, Elizabeth, this is really interesting. In 2023, we asked folks questions on cultural and political issues and we found out that only 44% of churchgoers said that their pastor had provided either a sermon or teaching about abortion in the year that Roe v Wade was overturned. So in the 12 months after Roe was overturned, only 44% of churchgoers said that they heard anything about the issue from their pastor. Now, if you remember this, and I’m sure everyone does it, in the months that Roe v Wade was overturned, everybody was talking about abortion, the NBA, the WNBA, they were putting out statements. Everybody had an opinion.

Taylor Swift had an opinion. And it appears though that the only ones not talking about it were a lot of pastors. And so again, I don’t want pastors to be coming, you know, too political, but use your discipleship responsibility and stewardship opportunities to preach to these issues where God’s word clearly reveals God’s opinion on these issues. I’ve actually pulled this just a second ago. Did you know Elizabeth, according to this nationwide research we did with George Barnum, only 65% of regular churchgoers believe the Bible identifies the point when human life begins. So that means 35% of churchgoers don’t think the Bible gives us any direction on when life begins. Again, these are people who show up to church every Sunday. And then of those 65% who tell us that the Bible indicates a particular point, only 52% of those identified that life begins at conception.

And so sometimes some of my friends, Elizabeth, tell me, man, you really focus a lot on abortion and religious freedom. And you know, those are some, those kinds of issues you talk about all the time. One of the reasons I do that is because there is really is a lack of knowledge, a lack of understanding because like you said, people have disengaged. So again, to answer the question very specifically to pastors at the local church level, you can begin cultivating a culture of life in your community by informing the moral imagination and conscience of your people by simply preaching about these issues. If you’re doing a sermon series through Luke’s gospel camp out on chapter one, verses 39-45, that passage where Mary and Elizabeth have one of the most profoundly pro-life conversations that you can imagine. If you’re preaching through Romans or first Corinthians, when you get to first Corinthians 6:9, talk about sexuality, talk about God’s good design. I just think that preaching, discipling our people is really where we need to focus a lot of our energy and a lot of our efforts.

I think one thing I would say, we live in contentious times, but we, we also live in exciting times. And you know, regardless of kind of your opinion on how the last election went, I do think the next two years for those of us who are theologically conservative, there are going to be opportunities to see wins when it comes to protecting life. When it comes to just a basic understanding of being created male or female. Over the last couple of years, those of us who are engaged kind of in the public square have been playing a lot of defense. And I think there’s gonna be an opportunity to play some offense. And I’m looking forward to seeing at the federal level, but also the state level, those kind of with a biblical worldview, making arguments in the public square and persuading our friends and neighbors.

I think, again, we have tremendous opportunities over these next couple of months and years. And I am hopeful, and I would encourage anyone listening to this conversation, we know one thing that we can all do is pray. You know, Paul tells us there in first Timothy to pray, why do we pray for rulers and those in authority, that we may lead a peaceable and quiet life that’s dignified in every way. And so that’s something we can all do. Whether you agree with someone on their politics or maybe disagree with how they phrase certain things, we could all be praying. My hope is pretty simple, which is that Christians and particularly Southern Baptists of whom I am one, that those principles we talked about at the beginning of this episode, love of neighbor and stewardship again, why do we care about all these things?

Why do we care about public policy? Why do we care about laws? We love our neighbors and we wanna see human flourishing. We wanna see our friends, our neighbors, we wanna see them thrive. We want them to grow up in a culture where they can see what the good, the true, and the beautiful is, and that they’re not being harmed by bad policy and the effects and consequences of bad policy. And again, we care because of our charge. We as Christians, we feel the weight to be stewards of what God has entrusted us. And I’ve been able to travel a little bit over the last couple of years and meet with Christians in other countries who would do anything to have the influence and the opportunities we have in this country. And so let’s take those stewardship responsibilities of our vote, of our voice seriously and pray that the Lord will use that. We’re called to be faithful, at the end of the day, we’re not called to get particular outcomes. We’re called to be faithful. My hope is that’s kind of what I’ve been able to model here at FRC, and Lord willing, can continue to just be faithful and encourage others to be faithful in the months and years to come.

Narration:

As you heard from David, interacting with the legislative branch of our government is essential because the policies they put forth affect our lives, our communities, and our churches. A Southern Baptist witness before our leaders ensures we are able to share the hope we have in Christ, the goodness of his word, and why his ways are best for our nation’s flourishing. As we engage in this work together for God’s glory and the good of others, let’s pray for God to give our elected officials wisdom in pursuing what’s good, right and true.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the ERLC podcast. Join us next time as we feature our last episode in our Washington DC series.