More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
Interview with Josiah Magnuson: Biblical Civics and Christian Engagement in Government
Unlock the secrets of civic engagement from a Christian perspective as we sit down with Josiah Magnuson, author and legislator for District 38, to discuss his compelling book, "Biblical Civics." This episode promises to equip evangelical Christians with the tools they need to actively participate in government, overcoming misconceptions about the separation of church and state. Magnuson takes us through his 12-week course designed to inspire Christians to be "salt and light" in society, addressing the pervasive influence of pietism and misconceptions that have long kept believers out of political spheres. Together, we explore how Christians can infuse biblical principles into the public arena with courage and conviction.
In a thought-provoking discussion, we dive into a biblical perspective on government and citizenship, stripping away partisan bias to uncover governance principles according to God's will. Drawing from the wisdom of historical figures like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, as well as insights from Dr. Keith Sherlin and William Blackstone, we emphasize the importance of virtue, character, and active civic engagement. Our conversation with Dr. Jackson adds another layer of depth, thanking him for his contributions and looking forward to his future appearances. We close with an invitation to our listeners to explore more about Dr. Jackson's work and continue this meaningful journey with us on "More Than Medicine.
https://biblicalcivics.study/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BVPTNZL6
https://www.instagram.com/biblicalcivics
https://www.jacksonfamilyministry.com
https://bobslone.com/home/podcast-production/
Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, dr Robert Jackson, and his wife Carlotta and daughter Hannah Miller. So listen up, because the doctor is in.
Speaker 2:Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, Dr Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the country doctor's rusty, dusty scrapbook. Well, today I'm honored to have in the studio with me Josiah Magnuson, who's a good friend of mine and who happens to be my legislator here in District 38. How about that? I got it correct. So, Josiah, welcome to More Than Medicine.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Dr Jackson. It's always such a privilege to be here.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm glad to have you in the studio and not online, like so many of my guests are. They call in from all over the country and here you are, sitting right in front of me. That's a delight.
Speaker 3:Well, I live just up the road, so I feel like it would be a shame not to at least come for a visit sometimes, that's right, All right.
Speaker 2:Well now, the topic of our discussion today is a book that you've written entitled Biblical Civics. Yes, sir, so tell me a little bit about the book and what's the purpose of your book.
Speaker 3:So Biblical Civics is a 12-week course. It's a study course designed for primarily Sunday schools or small groups, for Christians to learn about our responsibilities in government and what God created government to do and how we should be involved to be salt and light. And I think there's a lot of people who know that we should be doing something. But as far as, what does that look like? How should we be disciples of Christ and take His lordship into that realm of civil government? This book looks at what does the Bible actually teach about that subject matter and hopefully educates Christians to truly take action.
Speaker 2:Now you know, my wife and I homeschool our children. Could homeschoolers use this book?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It's something that I would say it would be good for, probably middle school or high school level. You know, you can feel free to use it as you need to. It's very flexible and it dives in, I would say, pretty deep, but there's a lot of information there, but it would definitely be a great tool for anybody at any level of learning to be able to make use of.
Speaker 2:Now do you really think there's a need for this kind of book? Make use of.
Speaker 3:Well now, do you really think there's a need for this kind of book? Well, I think, if you look at the level of participation in politics and you see that many evangelical Christians just don't vote and certainly don't get involved to run for office or contact their legislators, and many people, I think, just don't know how, or they don't even know what we're trying to accomplish, if we were to do that, and so I think there is a grave need. I really think that people need to step back, look at the big picture, understand first of all that Scripture does speak to these issues and then see what does the Bible have to say about how to go about it.
Speaker 2:Why do you think it is that so many Christians don't participate in the political process? I was looking at a survey by Barna just before this most recent election and it showed that almost 40 to 50 percent of folks that claim to be evangelical Christian were choosing not to vote.
Speaker 3:That's similar numbers to what I've seen as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, something around 50 percent. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 3:I think it goes to a lot of factors. Sometimes it's just I think people are lazy, unfortunately, you know, and I don't exclude myself from that always. I think we all can get up and do more for the Lord. He's called us, you know, to step out in faith and take courage and take leadership in our families, in our churches and communities. So I think that that's something we all have to contend with, is to just be willing to do the work. But I think it also sometimes comes down to that we're not taught the principles that apply to this area of life, and especially as it regards politics. And we could really go to a lot of other areas, whether it's science, whether it's history, whether it's history, whether it's entertainment, whether it's the arts, people just don't know how to have a biblical worldview of these areas.
Speaker 3:I understand that, but government is certainly one where that's the case and people have been actually, I think, steeped in something which is a faulty view of separation of church and state is kind of what it comes down to is this idea that we are supposed to put politics over here in this bubble, and you know we're never to touch that as Christians, you know, because that's somehow either the devil rules that realm, which I don't believe that's the case. I believe Jesus is the King of kings and has all authority in heaven and earth, or it's just so dirty or something that we're not supposed to address it, and so Christians get very scared, I think, sometimes of touching that realm when we really should not be afraid.
Speaker 3:We need to have that boldness of Christ.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it goes back to pietism. You understand that word, pietism, you understand that word. There's a concept called pietism, where Christians believe that politics is dirty or really involvement in any part of the world. The world is corrupt, the world is polluted and Christians should not be involved in quote the world, and the pietist believe that they should pull back from any involvement in anything that's secular, whether it's politics or medicine or the legal arena or entertainment arena, it doesn't matter what it is. If it's secular, the pietist just didn't want to be involved with it because it was polluted, it was corrupt, it was part of the world, just didn't want to be involved with it because it was polluted, it was corrupt, it was part of the world. Well, the pietist thinking disallows involvement in politics and a lot of Christians have that pietist kind of thinking and so because of that, they don entertainment or medicine or the legal arena or politics. Then who takes over?
Speaker 3:Well, the very people who you're trying to say we don't want to have the influence. That's right. Those who are godless, that's right.
Speaker 2:We let the secular, godless, humanistic part of our culture take over everything else and what happens is the salt stays in the salt shaker. Exactly, the Christian people confine themselves to the four walls of the church and when Jesus has told us that the salt has to purify and preserve the culture, all we're doing is leaving the salt inside the salt shaker and it's never going to preserve, purify the culture. And it's the fault of the church. And Jesus said when the salt has lost its savor, it's good for nothing more than to be cast into the street and trodden underfoot by man. And we see that very thing happening in our country today. The salt has lost its savor and it is being trodden underfoot by men.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think this goes to discipleship to Jesus. I think that it's a discipleship issue not to hide our light under a bushel and scripture talks about this that we're to go out, we're to go occupy until Jesus comes back, and so that's where I think it is a matter of Jesus' lordship over all of life.
Speaker 2:Well, what decided you to write this book in the first place?
Speaker 3:So it kind of goes back to during COVID and you know, as I was seeing, it felt like there was not a lot of resources about what government should even be doing. We saw government overreaching, trying to shut down churches, trying to keep people locked in their homes, and I actually during that time had a couple conversations with some of my fellow legislators in the State.
Speaker 3:House, even those that I would consider strong born-again Christians, who just had some really, I feel deep misconceptions about what government was supposed to be. One gentleman told me that, well, if we really were following the Bible, we would have a monarchy form of government.
Speaker 1:And I said well, I was taken aback by that.
Speaker 3:I feel like you know, you look at 1 Samuel 8 and many other passages in Scripture where God is supposed to be our king and we're supposed to set up judges and officers in all our gates.
Speaker 3:Deuteronomy 16 says so.
Speaker 3:I actually see, if you look at a faithful biblical understanding of government, it does look something like a republic, and so that was kind of different for me to hear that, well, we really should be a monarchy.
Speaker 3:And then another interesting conversation another individual told me well, really, here in the state of South Carolina, our state legislature can do just about anything and that's the way that God intended it, and I thought that's really crazy too, because I believe Scripture shows that government is to be limited for some specific, narrow purposes, particularly establishing justice, and we don't have unlimited power, and so those are things that I think need to be taught. And then, as I tried to, I think, connect with people and, as I have been doing that, to try to teach what are the solutions for taking our country back and getting back to constitutional foundations, what I've found is that people don't know what we're really fighting for until they understand the biblical foundations. That's correct. So that also helped me to realize we need more resources there to teach what those foundations are and hopefully to start steering our state and our country back toward a godly vision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I understand that, and you're right. So many of our friends and family, and even our legislators, do not understand the constitutional basis for our government, and they don't understand a limited government, and so it's important to have books like what you've written that helps people understand that our Constitution has a biblical foundation. Our founders created our Constitution based on biblical concepts. Yes, sir, and so, yeah, a book like what you've written here is important. And so, yeah, a book like what you've written here is important. And the more widespread a book like yours is, I think it would be very beneficial, and I wish everybody in South Carolina could get a hold of it, read it and study it. Well now, how long did it take you to?
Speaker 3:complete and finish the book? So that's a good question. I started, I think, january of 2021 was when I kind of took on the project and it initially was done within about a year or so and I printed off some copies, kind of circulated around, got some feedback and several people including yourself, if I recall told me well, this looks like it needs more work, it's not finished yet, and I actually found that to be very valuable because it helped me to realize this is a serious undertaking and I need to continue with it, so I ended up taking another really two years.
Speaker 3:It really was about a three-year project from 2021 until middle of 2024 is when I would say it was kind of finished. And it took that long because I was trying to study truly what does Scripture say about government? I don't want it to just be my preconceived ideas. I want to be pulling out of Scripture what the text is truly intending and provide a fresh perspective, not just based on some partisan view or some theological bent partisan view or some theological bent.
Speaker 3:I was trying to truly be faithful to God's will for government and so I hope that that's what I accomplished here.
Speaker 2:What were the resources that you found most helpful?
Speaker 3:So I would say a couple of things. One was, you know, god's people speaking to others. I've talked with, for example, dr Keith Sherlin. He gave me a lot of insights. As I was, you know, presenting and researching this, I would say some of the like books and things that I depended upon would be other than just the Bible itself, because I did try to make it truly coming out of Scripture.
Speaker 3:I didn't want to be influenced by too many other things, but I definitely did rely upon, for example, william Blackstone his view on natural law and how he talks about how there is a created order to things, even though that created order is fallen, yet there's still the goodness of God that you can see in the world, which creates a structure that we can interpret and reason through as bound by the Holy Scriptures, and he addresses that. So that's one thing I've certainly built upon there, and there's quite a few others, such as the writings of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were very valuable to me because Madison absolutely articulated on multiple occasions the idea of limited government and how that springs, from which many of our founders talked about.
Speaker 3:How it springs from there is a creator, there is a lawgiver for the world, and so those were all very important to me to make sure that the—I think not just the biblical vision, but also how did the founders of our country see this?
Speaker 2:That was something that I incorporated into the book, for sure Now were there certain key points that you wanted to communicate in your book on biblical civics.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, there were. So the chiefest, if I can say, if that's a word, the chiefest point that I wanted to communicate was that Jesus is king.
Speaker 2:He is king now. He's the king of kings and lord of lords.
Speaker 3:He is the true king, that's right. He's the king of kings and lord of lords. Hallelujah, he is the true king, that's right. And if we live with that perspective, if we truly believe that and live that out in our lives practically, then it applies to every area of life.
Speaker 3:It applies to the public realm, not just something we do in private, but truly how we live our lives, and so that's something that I really wanted to communicate in the book, and so that's something that I really wanted to communicate in the book. Also, I wanted to communicate the idea of how do we correctly respond to tyranny, how do we resist evil? As it deals with the civic dimension lot of questions that I think we do need to wrestle with as believers on. How would Christ have us to use the sword? How would he have us to? You know, are we allowed to stage a revolution?
Speaker 3:you know, against a evil government. Is that something that's part of the biblical worldview? And there's a fine line there, you know that we don't have insurrection, we don't go up and try to overthrow governments, but we do defend the laws, we do defend our neighbors. We do take a stand on what is right. So there's a piece of it there that I really wanted to focus in on how do we take a stand for the true and the good against the incursion of evil? What is the biblical?
Speaker 3:balance there put this off to the side, that it matters how we as we, the people, operate and that it really the freedom of our country rests upon the virtue of our country. It rests on our character and our courage as individuals and as families and as churches, and if we will build that framework, then that is going to bear fruit in the future. If we will sow the seeds now, then we're going to reap that harvest later and that will be a good harvest of liberty and justice and prosperity. And I wanted to help to cast that vision.
Speaker 2:Now, what kind of response have you had to your book and people who actually will sit down and read it?
Speaker 3:It seems to be a really good response so far. I've really been grateful for it. We've had numerous churches that have been going through using the material. Some of them have been Sunday schools. We've had men's Sunday school classes. We've had small groups doing it. I actually heard from, interestingly enough, a small group in Oregon back a few weeks ago that has been doing this and they've been sending letters to their legislators getting people involved. So they've got several folks there that have been working on this. We have some groups, like a Bible study group was another one in Spartanburg that did it. So it seems that there's a lot of interest and I'm grateful for that. As far as the feedback we're getting, everybody says that they enjoy it, they think that it is—I would say they think it's in-depth.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of the feedback we've been getting, but really the response is that people are being inspired to get more involved, and that is my hope is that this book that's a good objective that this book motivates people Sounds like you're accomplishing your objective.
Speaker 2:We don't want couch potatoes.
Speaker 3:We want people to get up and be warriors for the kingdom.
Speaker 2:That's good. Well, I tell people all the time that the church lacks vitamin A, which is application. So many people sit in a pew and they sit and soak but they never do anything. They're not obeying. They sit and soak but they never do anything and they're not obeying. In fact, I was telling a doctor friend today that a disciple of the Lord Jesus is someone who obeys all the commands of our Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of the cost or the consequences. And you see, there are many people who are in the church who are not true disciples because they're listening but they're not obeying. And if they try listening but they're not obeying, and if they try to obey, they're not obeying, regardless of the consequences. And so if you've got folks who are reading your book and they're beginning to apply the principles, then they're beginning to be good disciples.
Speaker 3:Amen, I hope so. I hope so too. I hope that that is the case.
Speaker 2:I hope so too. Now, how can folks get a copy of your book, representative Magnuson? Your book is Biblical Civics. Now how can they get a copy of your book?
Speaker 3:So you can go—you can find it on Amazon. You can search for Biblical Civics, but you can also go to biblicalcivicsstudy not com, but study. That's a website and you can see the links there to purchase the books. We've got a few other resources as well to accompany it. You can also schedule a class if you'd like to have somebody come and get that set up for you. But biblicalcivicsstudy is a good way to access it, and then we also have some of your listeners might be on Instagram. Instagram is a good way to look at the scriptures that support the idea of.
Speaker 3:Christians being involved how we should be involved, and we do scripture verses from time to time. Instagram reels and you can go to atbiblicalcivics on Instagram or on Facebook and see that content as well.
Speaker 2:I got you. How many pages is your book?
Speaker 3:It's. I think 149 was what—this one's 143, but with the ancillary stuff it's 149. I got you.
Speaker 2:Yep, all right. Well, we're listening to Josiah Magnuson, who's my guest today on More Than Medicine. We've been discussing his book, which is entitled Biblical Civics, and I have read through it myself and I want you to know. It's a very interesting book. It's full of good information and when you've read through it, you will be qualified to be somewhat of an expert on how the Bible speaks to you and me about being involved in the political arena and being a good citizen of our country. So, representative Magnuson, I want to thank you for being on More Than Medicine today.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Dr Jackson.
Speaker 2:Very grateful I hope you'll come back and be my guest again another day. We'll have to negotiate that sometime. Thank you, Dr Jackson. Very grateful. I hope you'll come back and be my guest again another day.
Speaker 3:We'll have to negotiate that sometime. Thank you, it's been an honor.
Speaker 2:Thank you, sir. Lord bless you real good. All right, We'll be back again next week on more than medicine. Till then, I pray that the Lord will bless you real good.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this edition of more than medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry, dr Jackson's books, or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, instagram or their webpage at jacksonfamilyministrycom. This podcast is produced by Bob Sloan Audio Production at bobsloancom.
