More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
MTM - Should Christians Celebrate Trump Axing Federal Employees. Guest Hannah Miller
Dive into an engaging and thoughtful discussion as we explore the intersection of Christianity and politics, particularly regarding the views on the Trump administration's actions and their implications. Together with my daughter, Hannah, we reflect on lines of celebration amidst contentious political events—from government job losses to tough stances on immigration.
We consider whether it's appropriate for Christians to celebrate political decisions that might come at a cost to others, weighing emotional responses against the imperative of good governance. This topic ignites deep moral considerations on how we, as Christians, choose to engage with political realities while remaining true to our faith.
As the conversation unfolds, we address the societal expectations placed on Christians, our duty to voice our opinions, and where efficiency and compassion intersect in the realm of politics. This captivating dialogue encourages listeners to reassess their perspectives on how faith influences their political views.
Join us for a rich exploration of these themes, including practical insights and personal reflections that invite you to engage thoughtfully and critically with the swirling conversations in today’s world. Don’t forget to subscribe, share your thoughts, and join the conversation!
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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.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the Country Doctors' Rusty Dusty Scrapbook. I'm delighted today to have as my guest my very own daughter, ms Hannah Miller, who is sitting across the table from me, smiling and charming me with her beauty, her good looks and her intelligence. So, ms Hannah, welcome to More Than Medicine.
Hannah Miller:Thanks for having me today, dad and we're going to be talking about something that I have seen just regarding a few topics politically, but I've coupled them all together kind of under one heading, I guess, and I want us to address it. And the question would be is it right for Christians to be celebratory about what the Trump administration is doing? Let me lay the scene here for us, because you have so much biblical wisdom and it's just fun to talk about these things with you and have these conversations. Here's what's happening.
Hannah Miller:I have a number of Christians in my circle who I have one friend who has been very upset about government employees who are losing their jobs and you know, in particular in her case this one friend's case it is park rangers who have suddenly lost their jobs and I think a few of us have probably seen the stories floating around of there's been one or two park rangers who lost their jobs suddenly and, you know, by the afternoon we're unable to access their email.
Hannah Miller:And then I have another Christian friend who's been very upset about, of course, the illegal immigrants who are being deported, and I think the White House put out some pictures on their social media page and you know, and it's celebrating the capture and deportation of illegal immigrants, and you know she's been very upset about that and wrote this long post about how it's very unchristian for us to be celebrating these things and how juvenile Christians are and Donald Trump and his administration are, and just, and then saying, and then saying a lot, and then other people piling on, fellow believers that I know who are also saying, yes, I might agree, and then talking about, in larger order, the waste that they're cutting out of the federal government.
Hannah Miller:Not just talking about the park rangers losing their job, but a lot of these other folks who are in bureaucracy who are losing their jobs or getting you know being fired or whatever, resigning or whatever they're choosing to do or whatever's happening with them. These other Christians and a lot of them talking together and communicating to one another, being very upset about on the behalf of those folks and saying, you know, it's just, it's not I might agree with, there's some waste going on and we need to cut back on the waste, but we shouldn't be happy about it and it's juvenile for Donald Trump to be conducting it the way that he is and to be so celebratory about doing it, and it's juvenile for Christians to also be celebrating it.
Hannah Miller:And then you know they and they say but you know what he's, exactly what people voted for and they've gotten exactly what they voted for, and there's just a lot of and I don't want to and I want to address this in a in a serious manner because you know, if you've listened to me on my podcast before, you probably already know what I think about that. But I do want to address it seriously because it does give Christians applause and I think we should always be willing to inspect our own hearts.
Hannah Miller:And I think as Christians, it's just a good practice to say okay, lord, is there anything in me as the scriptures tell us, you know? Am I coming at this wrong? And if I'm not, why not? Or if I am, how so? That's right, all right.
Dr. Robert Jackson:So here's the scenario discuss with that intro, let me ask a few questions. All right, you can ask your friend. Was your friend equally incensed when any just pick one out of the hat any major corporation laid off a thousand employees for whatever reason and all those employees lost their jobs? Was she on Facebook crying because some major corporation laid off 1,000 executives? For example, starbucks announced today that they're laying off 1,000 upper-level executives because their upper-level management is too administratively heavy upper level management is too administratively heavy.
Hannah Miller:Okay, joanne's fabrics joanne's fabrics is is closing all of their, all of their stores, I believe. At first they said just a few of them, but now they've, I think, announced that all of their brick and mortars are being closed. And how? How many of us I mean, while we don't like to see joanne's clothes for our own, you know consumer purposes how many of us have have stopped and been like, well, wait a minute. What about all of these people who are losing their jobs?
Dr. Robert Jackson:Losing their jobs.
Hannah Miller:Now, none of us have said that at all Not a single one of my friends. These acquaintances have looked at those scenarios and why that's right. Why are they not upset about these companies doing that?
Dr. Robert Jackson:That's right.
Hannah Miller:Because they understand business is business Business is business, that's right. And these businesses have to do what they've got to do.
Dr. Robert Jackson:The business of government is the business of the taxpayers and when government is bloated and it's too big and inefficient, it's my tax money that's being wasted. It's my tax money that's being wasted and in my entire life I've heard that government is bloated. I've heard that there's fraud, waste and abuse. Representatives that allocates funds has never had the gumption to do what is necessary to slice and dice the budget.
Hannah Miller:They've never done it. And if you also look at a lot of these, you know they're not as what's the word. You know, a lot of these stories get shared and they get, you know, so popular on social media and on the news and all those things. Because they're they elicit our sympathy, they're they're tearjerkers, they're so sad, they they're emotionally, they stir up your emotions and so they get shared and and everybody reads them. But what I have also seen that haven't been shared as much is the truth of people who were like you know what. I worked for the federal government. I've worked in government before and 90 of the people who were like you know what.
Hannah Miller:I worked for the federal government. I've worked in government before and 90% of the people that were there shouldn't have been there.
Speaker 1:We were totally inefficient.
Hannah Miller:We were, you know, way too, way too much bureaucracy. And so, hearing those and I've read quite a few of them- you know saying I, this is the right thing to do if we want to be efficient. But here's the thing A lot of these Christians are saying efficiency isn't everything and efficiency isn't always Christianity. What do you say about that? About that Brace?
Dr. Robert Jackson:There's a biblical word for that, and the biblical word is baloney. Oh okay, you know. Efficiency is everything in the actual business world. If you want to be profitable, you have to be efficient. But in the government, who cares about efficiency? Because they don't have to make a profit? They just send the IRS to bleed you and me dry. They just come down there and shake us upside down and make more coins fall out of our pocket. They just raise our taxes. They don't have to be efficient and they just hire more people and they pay out bigger sums to NGOs and they send more money overseas to cockamamie causes and then they come back and shake us down again. They don't have to be efficient.
Hannah Miller:Well, you know, I think about this too. You know, a lot of these are like I said, they're believers and they're looking at this and they're saying Christ doesn't call us to efficiency. You know, like efficiency is suddenly a bad word. But you know Christ, he calls us to evangelism, he calls us to discipleship. He doesn't call us to efficiency, and sometimes working with people isn't efficient.
Dr. Robert Jackson:The most efficient organizations out there are God-fearing Christian mission organizations that run on thin dimes and their overhead is almost negligible. And it's because they're trying to be as efficient as they can possibly be, because they know that their money comes from Christian people who give and donate with their spare change.
Hannah Miller:Well, I think you can take out if you use another word and then it becomes oh, oh, maybe the scriptures do talk about efficiency, because you know what Another word that you could use right there, when you're just talking about mission organizations who are efficient with their money that they've been given to operate? Another word that we could use right there is that they are faithful with the money that they have been good stewards.
Dr. Robert Jackson:They're good stewards of the money that God has given.
Hannah Miller:Those are terms that we're very familiar with in Christianity and that's a concept that is I mean, I teach that to my kids regarding so much being a good steward of your time, being a good steward of God's earth, being a good steward of the things God gave us in our home.
Dr. Robert Jackson:And how come the government gets to be exempt from being a good steward of taxpayers' money?
Hannah Miller:Separation of church and state Dad.
Dr. Robert Jackson:That's right, sorry. We've talked about that before Go back to your other question about the illegal immigrants. How come your friend wasn't shouting from the rooftop 20 years ago that this very day was going to come?
Hannah Miller:And that's the exact argument that I have brought up to others. I mean, I know that we're all looking at how Donald Trump is handling this, and there are people and it's and it's. Let's be completely honest these are real people with real lives, and it is complicated and it's messy and it's difficult to do all of this and to have to uproot people and move them back to the country that they came from Again. I would say, though, they came here illegally. That's the risk that they took.
Dr. Robert Jackson:They took a big risk and they all knew that this was a possibility.
Hannah Miller:And that is exactly the thing that I want to look at some of my friends they look. While we're all hating on Donald Trump for how he's solving a very difficult issue, let's not forget the administrations and those in Congress who've come before, who have allowed this mess to happen, because we all knew this was coming to a head.
Hannah Miller:We were either just going to have to say, all right, we're not a sovereign nation anymore. Anybody can come in, doesn't matter who you are and what you're coming for, just come on. We have no borders, we're just a blob on the planet, or we were going to have to ship people out and we were going to have to put up a border wall. There is nothing there.
Dr. Robert Jackson:There was 20, there was 20 years of open borders. That was caused by previous administrations, and I lay the fault at the feet of Joe Biden and President Obama and Clinton and previous presidents who threw the borders wide open. They are the ones who created this image of illegals being deported. They're the ones who caused this, not Donald Trump. He's solving the problem and the solution is difficult. Listen, there's an ancient proverb, an African proverb, that says when you ride a lion, you should decide in advance how you're going to get off. Okay, and listen. When you create a problem, you should decide in advance how you're going to solve it. And they created the problem, but they didn't know how to solve it.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Donald J Trump knows how to solve it and it may look a little bit heartless, but it's the solution to the problem. And it may look a little bit heartless, but it's the solution to the problem and it's going to save the taxpayers literally billions of dollars. It was my taxpaying dollars that was buying these illegal immigrants' cars and paying for their apartments in New York City and providing health care and education for their children, and they didn't pay any taxes for that. I did, and you did and all my listeners did, and I'm tired of that. And listen, I am not sad to see those guys in handcuffs going back across the border. That doesn't make me sad at all. In fact I do celebrate, because somebody had to take the bull by the horns and do what was necessary. And we elected Donald Trump to go to Washington and do that very thing. And he did not make empty promises. He did exactly what he said he was going to do and he's solving the problem and God bless him for doing it.
Hannah Miller:Well, and the reality is is. I actually saw a. It was Harvard, I believe. Yeah, a Harvard poll came out in the last few days and the top, some of the top categories were that 81% of Americans. Okay, and this is for 81% of Americans.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Across the board.
Hannah Miller:Across the board and this is including 70% of Democrats and 80% of independents support deporting illegal aliens who've committed crimes, and I mean my argument. Your argument already would be like well, you committed a crime by coming across the border when you came across the border illegally, you committed a crime.
Hannah Miller:You are a criminal and unfortunately and I talked about this on my podcast if your parents came across the border illegally and you are a six-year-old child that is in the first grade in greenville, south carolina, unfortunately you're going to bear the consequences. That's right, and I know that sounds really, really and you are a six-year-old child that is in the first grade in Greenville, south Carolina, unfortunately you're going to bear the consequences. That's right and I know that sounds really, really harsh. But again, as I said a few weeks ago on my podcast, I see kids and families in the counseling room every single week whose kids are bearing the brunt of the terrible choices that their parents have made.
Hannah Miller:Their daddy's an alcoholic. Who's suffering the most? Those kids. Their mama's an alcoholic. Who's suffering the most those kids? Their mama's a drug addict. Who suffers the most? The kid that has to go into foster care. Their mama and daddy are getting divorced because all they do is argue and scream at each other and whatnot. Who's going to suffer the most? Those kids.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Kids are the broken pieces.
Hannah Miller:They are the broken pieces and I know that it's a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible reality, but it is the reality. And you know what? We should look at the parents with even more condemnation and disgust, and disgust for putting their children into that kind of a situation, not at the law for being the law that's right.
Dr. Robert Jackson:The law is not the fault. It's the people who break the law who are at fault.
Hannah Miller:And so you know it's not.
Dr. Robert Jackson:And the police are not at fault and Donald J Trump is not at fault.
Hannah Miller:So, if you're listening to this podcast and you've been seeing some of these things going around and you've been kind of feeling ashamed and you're like you know what, maybe and again, I think it's always appropriate for us to search our own hearts and say, all right, should I be celebratory, let me think about that, let's think about things. Or am I being juvenile? Well, let me just say, and you're feeling like, oh, I'm the only one, I'm a bad Christian, I'm a bad American if I'm doing these things.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Well, the reality is that you are with the majority and you are with the majority of believers, who would look at these things and say, no, this is the right thing to do. Now listen, the Bible says when the wicked rule, the people groan. When the righteous rule, the people rejoice. And rejoicing is like celebrating. And listen Donald Trump and his administration is doing the right thing. He's doing the righteous and just thing, and when he does the righteous and just thing, the people celebrate, they rejoice.
Hannah Miller:And you know, here's the thing I would suggest to you that we actually must, because if we don't, if donald trump and his administration gets to the white house and the few congress members that actually back back some of this up, if they get out there and they stick their necks out there and they start doing the things that we've told them that we want them to do, and then all of a sudden they do it and we start backing up and saying whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But not like that, no, no, no, we didn't mean it like that, we weren't. What happens? What happens? They say, well, they're going to stop, they're going to back off there. We're never going to get anybody in leadership again who's willing to trust us, because these guys in office, their bread and butter is the will of the people. That is how they're there.
Hannah Miller:And if the will of the people which is a fickle thing, let's be honest, but when it shifts, they have to as well. We still live in a constitutional republic. They have to abide by the will of the people, of the American people, and so we have to let them know with a very loud voice when we are displeased, which we're pretty good at doing, but we also have to let them know with a very loud voice when we are pleased and when they are doing the right thing, when they are wielding the sword for justice and righteousness. And you mentioned something a few seconds ago that I want to kind of circle back around to, which was Donald Trump and his personality and his willingness to get out there and to do some of these hard things that a lot of other politicians talk about doing but they're not actually willing to do it because it's hard.
Dr. Robert Jackson:They can't endure the heat. And Donald Trump? He doesn't care about the opposition, he doesn't care about the heat and he doesn't care what the media says about him.
Hannah Miller:That's right and there's been really and truly not a whole lot of men or women in American history in leadership positions who have been able to do and withstand those kind of things. But the men that did are not really looked at incredibly favorably. They're kind of divisive figures in history and these are the people that I look at, like George Patton and who was the one you mentioned him just a minute ago, sherman Sherman, and then you've got, like I said, donald Trump and then Stonewall Jackson and men who they had to make really hard decisions and the consequences of their decisions were really difficult to bear up under.
Dr. Robert Jackson:But the wars that they were fighting, they knew how to win that's right and they did whatever it took to win for the better good of the people.
Hannah Miller:That's right. And you think about all of those men and the wars they were fighting and the things that they were doing and the righteous causes that they fought for they it would have been totally different if they were. And if you're listening to this podcast, you're like Stonewall Jackson. Well, that's a whole different discussion about Stonewall Jackson and who, the man that he was.
Hannah Miller:But all of these men were good men who knew the signs of the times, and I think that's the thing that a lot of Christians right now, who are ashamed of what's being done, don't understand is that the Democrats have been waging war against or in. The progressives and the liberals have been waging war against Christianity itself and the foundation of our faith for decades, and they've been waging war against the Constitution of the United States and against the things that we stand for as a country, even our very national anthem. They have been waging war against for decades and there's not been a Republican who has had the backbone to go against them and stem the tide until Donald Trump, who really and genuinely is an independent.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Well see, he's not bought and sold by any big company or by the Republican Party. He's truly independent. Now, he ran as a Republican, but he's really independent and that's why the Republican establishment despises him. But he's really independent and that's why the Republican establishment despises him, and he's able to withstand all the slings and arrows that are thrown against him because he's independent, but he's an iron-willed man and he's able to accomplish what he accomplished because he's not owned by anybody.
Hannah Miller:You see, and he's willing to make and do hard things. That's right.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Let me say this I told you in the beginning that I would love to be a fly on the wall so I could know what's really truly in Donald Trump's heart. You see, I'd like to know if he has vindictiveness in his heart against those who practiced lawfare against him, those who slandered him and those who invaded the privacy of his home. Or is he just God in himself, the desire for justice and righteousness and protecting we, the people, you and me? Now, I'll be honest, I pray for him every day and I pray that there would not be in his heart vindictiveness and that he would understand that vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and it's not his responsibility to seek vengeance against the folks that were totally against him.
Dr. Robert Jackson:But I was reading in my Bible just the other day and I got to Psalms 101, and this was King David's prayer for himself as the king, the leader in the land. And as I was reading it I said you know, this would be a great psalm for our president to adopt for himself, and I wish I could communicate with him directly and say hey, hey, donald, this would be a great psalm for you to adopt for yourself.
Hannah Miller:We'll start advocating that Paula White, get out of there and you get in. That's what we're going to start doing so.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Here it is. It says I will sing of loving, kindness and justice. That's King David saying that, and I'd give anything if I could say to Donald hey, hey, president, you need to be singing of loving, kindness and justice To you. Oh Lord, I will sing praises, I will give heed to the blameless way. Oh man, wouldn't it be awesome if that was the prayer of our president. When will you come to me? I will walk with my house in the integrity of my heart. You see, that'd be awesome if our president had that prayer.
Dr. Robert Jackson:I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not fasten its grip on me. A perverse heart shall depart from me. I will know no evil. Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy. No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure. That'd be pretty awesome if our president, you know, had that kind of desire in his heart. No eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land. My eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land that they may dwell with me. He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me.
Dr. Robert Jackson:That'd be awesome if our president had men like that to surround him, those who walked in a blameless way. He who practices deceit shall not dwell within my house. He who speaks falsehood shall not maintain his position before me Every morning. I will destroy all the wicked of the land.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Well, he's out there doing it, isn't he? I mean, he and Elon are getting rid of those who have been fraudsters and abusers so as to cut off from the city of the Lord all those who do iniquity. And you see, that's Donald Trump and the American people, ms Hanna, rejoice to see him destroying fraudsters and the abusers of our hard-earned tax money, destroying the liars and the deceivers who have knowingly covered up the government waste for decades, while the IRS has bled you and me dry. To be honest, 50% of my income goes to taxes. When it's all added up federal and state and sales taxes that's half of my income. What in the world could I have done with the other 50% over all these years? But the charlatans in Washington DC have sent it to their pet projects all over the world, and it hurts my heart. The more I understand, then, the more they uncover of the fraud. It makes me angry.
Hannah Miller:And I think we as Christians, on that note, have to understand that there's a lot of government government employees sure that are, and I would say I would gander to say that there's probably 70 of them that are losing their jobs, that are just caught. They're just caught in in in this mess and they weren't people that were trying to destroy you and I, and they weren't trying to be fraudsters and they weren't trying to do, and they were just. They're just people that were caught in the middle of all this. Yeah, but the real. But what we're misunderstanding here is, and while we can look at them and say we're really sorry that you've been caught in the middle of all of this and that your life is being impacted by the decisions and the choices that fraudsters in Washington DC have made, who are in the bureaucracy or even in Congress, we're really sorry about that, but the reality is is that the American taxpayers are the victims in this situation and we have to understand that and realize that. Okay, yeah, we can feel bad for these folks who are caught in the middle here, but there's a vast majority of folks out here who've been victimized for decades and taken advantage of and squashed into the dirt under the heel of the federal government for
Dr. Robert Jackson:decades and decades, and they deserve justice do you know there's 43 million federal employees that's incredible that's more than that's more than the people that live in. I think it's like 16 states.
Hannah Miller:Oh yeah, yeah, that would be. I believe that 100%.
Dr. Robert Jackson:There's more federal employees than live in 16 states. I mean Ohio has, like what?
Hannah Miller:11 million people.
Dr. Robert Jackson:South Carolina has 5 million people, so yeah, there's more federal employees than live in 16 states and we're keeping them up. We're keeping them up.
Hannah Miller:That's not being a good steward of our tax money up.
Dr. Robert Jackson:We're keeping them up. That's not being a good steward of our tax money. Now, who's going to be sad to see all of these federal employees disappear and all the illegal immigrants disappear? Not the taxpayers. Now big business is going to be sad because they're going to lose all their cheap labor. Yeah, okay, the Democrats are going to be sad because their voter bases could disappear and some of the elite Democrats might find themselves in the same handcuffs as the illegal immigrants. So they're frightened to death, yeah, but the taxpayers are celebrating.
Hannah Miller:And the vast majority of taxpayers, and it really is folks on the fringes and I would say it's the far left progressives and then you've got the what I would call the toxically empathetic christians, who don't understand what biblical love and justice, what that really means that's right now.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Let me recommend a book to you. The book is is titled Toxic Empathy by Allie Beth.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Stuckey, by Allie Beth Stuckey. I would recommend all of you get that book and listen to it and read it through. It's not hard to read, it's not very long, but it's an excellent book and it talks about the pro-life issue, illegal immigration, transgenderism, and there's a fourth issue I can't think of it right now, but it's an excellent, excellent four-essay book on these issues and it talks about toxic empathy and misplaced empathy by Christian people and it gives an excellent discussion on those issues and I highly recommend it. The title is Toxic Empathy and it's by Allie Beth Stuckey. All right, our time is up, Ms Hannah.
Hannah Miller:Thanks, Dad. Thanks for having the conversation with me. It's always fun.
Dr. Robert Jackson:Well, we'll be back again next week, and may the Lord 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 Slone Audio Production at bobslone. com.
