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Todd's Take
My friends, day two of handing the mic to Krish Dhanam, and if Monday's episode was about gratitude, Tuesday's cut a lot closer to the bone. Krish spent this one on what he calls "authoritative governance" — how a Christian and a conservative is actually supposed to live in this country, not just vote in it.
He built the whole thing around Mr. Zig Ziglar, who mentored him for over two decades, and this year would have been Ziglar's 100th birthday. Ziglar's framework, as Krish laid it out, was God, family, and country — in that order, non-negotiable. Krish talked about the authority of law: honoring what God has ordained, whether or not the culture around us agrees with it. Truth, he said, isn't determined by culture. It never has been. There's no "your truth" and "my truth" — there's just truth, and our job is to live inside it, not renegotiate it every time it gets uncomfortable.
He also told a story about visiting the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte — how Billy Graham's own tombstone just says he was a preacher of the gospel, nothing more, nothing less. Krish also talked about Billy Graham’s wife’s tombstone. Hers reads: "End of Construction. Thank You for Your Patience." She'd seen the phrase on a highway sign years earlier and asked for it on her tombstone. I love that — the idea that this whole life, with all its mess and detours, is just construction, and one day it's finished, and what matters most is whether you were patient and kind with people along the way.
Here's where I think Krish nailed something we need to hear: conviction without winsomeness just makes noise. He told the story of Charles Spurgeon, this rough, unrefined preacher who somehow won thousands of souls, and the answer someone gave for why was simple — "he has a hunger for souls." Not a hunger to win the argument. A hunger for the person on the other side of it. I thought that summarized the essence of “conservative, not bitter” pretty well. Don’t you?
Krish closed with a line from one of his friends: at the end, you'll only ever say one of two things — "I wish I had" or "I'm glad I did." Silence, he said, is a decision. Worth sitting with today, whatever "it" is for you.
Krish is back with me again in August. Go listen to the full conversation at the link at the bottom of this email.
Conservative, not bitter.
Todd
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Quote of the Day
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports."
Stack of Stuff
Peter Kreeft's own site — a good on-ramp if you want to go deeper on the Christian apologetics Krish referenced.
Os Guinness's The Magna Carta of Humanity — the book behind Krish's point about the American Revolution being the first since Sinai not to crown a king.
The full text of Washington's Farewell Address at Founders Online — worth reading in full, not just the highlight reel.
The Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, NC — where Krish made his own pilgrimage.
The Battleground for the Church
Krish's line — "silence is a decision" — points straight at one of our eight battlefronts in America’s cold civll war: the Church. Not the building. The actual body of Christ, the ekklesia, the "called out ones."
Here's how a church compromises in this fight. Sometimes it's loud — a church decides Scripture is negotiable and rewrites the parts that they find uncomfortable. More often it's quiet: a pastor who preaches on almost anything except the verse that would cost him members or a friendship, and calls that wisdom, or grace, or staying "out of politics." It isn't. It's silence, and it's a choice — both his choice and the choice of everyone in the pews who are relieved he made it.
After we sold our house, we stayed in Arcadia, Florida for a few months and we attended a small church there. The church’s pastor (Tyson) was completely willing to share biblical truth with his congregation, no matter what the consequences might be. And because of that, he earned my deep respect. We need pulpits filled with pastors like that all across America.
I'm not saying your church needs to endorse a candidate or defend a tax bracket — I actually do not think that. That's not the role of the church. But going quiet on the parts of Scripture that are absolutely relevant in today’s culture isn't wisdom. It's cowardice wearing its Sunday best.
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