September 25, 2025 • 42 mins
Today’s Todd Huff Show is hosted by former Indiana State Senator John Crane, who reflects on his journey in politics and why he chose to voluntarily term-limit himself. Drawing from nearly a decade in public office, Crane explains why politics is always downstream from culture—and why the real battle lies upstream in the war of worldviews.
Crane shares candid insights from his time in the Indiana Senate, including his conviction that Christians are called to be a catalyst for redemptive good in politics. He challenges the Church to stop treating politics as “too dirty” for engagement and instead equip the next generation of biblically grounded leaders to step boldly into the arena.
Drawing on Romans 12 and his personal prayer life while serving in office, Crane emphasizes that leadership is intentional influence—and every believer is called to shine light where darkness seems strongest. He urges the Church to take political discipleship seriously, raising up leaders who are thoughtful, principled, and courageous.
If politics is downstream, the Church must go upstream to shape culture with truth, conviction, and biblical clarity. As Crane makes clear: the mission field of politics desperately needs faithful leaders.
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Crane shares candid insights from his time in the Indiana Senate, including his conviction that Christians are called to be a catalyst for redemptive good in politics. He challenges the Church to stop treating politics as “too dirty” for engagement and instead equip the next generation of biblically grounded leaders to step boldly into the arena.
Drawing on Romans 12 and his personal prayer life while serving in office, Crane emphasizes that leadership is intentional influence—and every believer is called to shine light where darkness seems strongest. He urges the Church to take political discipleship seriously, raising up leaders who are thoughtful, principled, and courageous.
If politics is downstream, the Church must go upstream to shape culture with truth, conviction, and biblical clarity. As Crane makes clear: the mission field of politics desperately needs faithful leaders.
Freedom Marketplace: https://freedommarketplace.net
The Stack: https://www.toddhuffshow.com/stack-of-stuff
Email: todd@toddhuffshow.com
Phone: 317.210.2830
Follow us on…
Instagram: @toddhuffshow
Facebook: The Todd Huff Show
Twitter: @toddhuffshow
LinkedIn: The Todd Huff Show
TikTok: @toddhuffshow
Support Our Partners:
https://www.toddhuffshow.com/partners
Show Sponsors:
https://www.mypillow.com/todd Promo Code: TODD
Red, White, & Brand – Text TODD at 317-210-2830 for a 10% discount.
SolTea – Heart health made simple. Two softgels a day. Promo code TODD saves 50% + free shipping.
Full Suite Wealth – Build a legacy that lasts. Advanced strategies + legal guidance. Start at FullSuiteWealth.com.
4:8 Financial – Purpose-centered planning & Biblically Responsible Investing. See how your portfolio aligns with your values. Visit 48Financial.com/Todd.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Attention. You're listening to the Tod Huff Radio show, America's
home for conservative not Bitter talk radio. Be advised that
the content of this program has been documented to prevents
and even cure liberalism, and listening may cause you to
lean to the rights. Here's your Conservative but Not Bitter host,
(00:32):
Todd Huff.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Hey, everybody, this is actually John Crane sitting in for
my good friend Todd Huff. Received an invitation a couple
of weeks ago from Todd asking h 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
(00:58):
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 had the privilege of serving as a Senator
(01:21):
in the state of Indiana from twenty sixteen until last
November of twenty twenty four, 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
(01:44):
opportunity to keep moving up. And so for somebody like
me or whoever, to voluntarily termlament themselves when they didn't
need to came as a big surprise. And so I
get the question often, why did you do that? And
it's a fair question because obviously, just like Todd and
(02:07):
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 to the United
States Congress from the state of Illinois, and one of them,
Phil Crane, served for thirty five years and actually ran
for president in the nineteen eighty Republican primary, lost to
(02:30):
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
(02:51):
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
(03:14):
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 capital 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
(03:38):
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
(03:59):
the door for me to considerate. There was a phone
call that I received in September of twenty fifteen 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
(04:23):
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.
(04:45):
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. However,
it wasn't an open seat, it wasn't unoccupied. In fact,
there was a sitting state senator who was there who
(05:06):
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 eleven percentage points. The heavy lifting was in the primary.
We ended up winning that race and went on to
win in November of twenty sixteen, eighty two to eighteen.
(05:30):
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,
(05:53):
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 Coulson Center for Christian Worldview,
I am blessed to be on the national board of
directors for that, and Chuck Colson has had a significant
(06:15):
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
(06:36):
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
(06:57):
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 and 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.
(07:20):
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 kind of get my mind right.
So I reached on the shelf, grab my Bible and
(07:40):
decided to open it up to my favorite passage in scripture,
which is Romans chapter twelve, 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'll be able to test and approve what God's
will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will. And so
(08:03):
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
gonna go ahead and read through the rest of this passage.
Now I've read the twelfth chapter of Romans I don't
know how many times in my life, and I've even
(08:24):
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. And there's
a fantastic chapter on leadership and how we should be
(08:46):
conducting ourselves. And one of the things that it talks
about in there is the different gifts that we've each
have been given, including the gift of leadership. And it
says further down in verse eight, if God has given
you leadership ability, then take the responsibility seriously. If God's
(09:08):
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
(09:29):
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
(09:50):
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 thirteen one through seven,
which talks about God establishing government and raising up and
(10:15):
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
(10:35):
in that second verse of Romans twelve. 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
(10:58):
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
(11:20):
is especially true. This is why we almost despise, in
many respects, so many politicians because they say so many
aspiring 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
(11:40):
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. And so it's I used to be
one of those that would look from the outside in
through that little key as we're evaluating the decisions of
(12:02):
our political leaders, and I would think to myself, why
are they doing? You know, if I was in charge,
then I'd be doing this, or I certainly wouldn't be
doing that. And 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. And then I
got elected to office and I began to discover that
it is an extraordinarily complicated process. But we still need
(12:25):
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. So to me,
this pursuit into politics was so important God had called
(12:48):
me to it. But I've also discovered since then. You know,
for example, I speak probably one hundred to one hundred
and twenty 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.
(13:09):
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 are getting a little nervous, going, well,
(13:29):
you know, we don't really want to get too involved
in politics, and we appreciate the fact that you're there,
but you know, 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,
(13:49):
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
(14:11):
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
(14:33):
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 were sinners in need of grace,
(14:55):
and that only by God's saving grace, through the sacrifice
of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy 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
(15:16):
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
(15:39):
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,
(16:00):
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 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,
(16:23):
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, not just the good life. The culture
(16:44):
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, who have
pursued it and actually achieved it, and then they get
to the top of the mountain and realize, wait a second,
(17:08):
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 right 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
(17:28):
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 not providing that kind of
direction and council. And so we either try to figure
(17:49):
it out 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
(18:12):
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 rear view
mirror and less years in the windshield as I moved
down the road, and so I began to weigh, you know,
where is the best use of my best contribution. I
(18:35):
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 eighty
(18:55):
sixth 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, you know, 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
(19:17):
heard Andrew b 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
(19:38):
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
(20:00):
call it the battle for thought leadership supremacy. Right, So,
whoever wins the idea war gets to influence everything downstream,
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
(20:24):
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
(20:46):
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 thirty years doing leadership development, Christian worldview training, apologetics,
(21:08):
culture and engagement, all these different things, and yet when
you become a senator, it becomes a very consuming job.
It is 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
(21:31):
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
(21:53):
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 ten months out and finding that I'm
as busy as I've ever been. But I get to
(22:15):
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
(22:40):
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. Hey,
(23:19):
this is John Crane here on the Todd Huff Show.
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
(23:40):
the state of Indiana for about eight years, two terms,
from twenty sixteen 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 termlinit myself, they're understandably surprised and say, well, why
(24:03):
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
(24:26):
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. So every second, every minute,
(24:46):
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
(25:06):
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 world views,
It's that battle for thought leadership supremacy, the idea war,
it's this battle of philosophy. We talk a lot about
(25:26):
it when we talk about what's happening on our colleges
and university campuses across the country. You know, what are
the ideas that are being foisted upon our young people
as they sit in these classrooms. And yet we don't
always think about it as frequently as we should in
terms of the other influences that are shaping not only
(25:49):
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 senator or I was a senator and
(26:10):
people didn't want to get too political, and so for
far too long the church and I'm going to speak
in kind of broad generalities. I know there's 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
(26:31):
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
(26:53):
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
(27:13):
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,
(27:35):
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 lions den
and don't always have the level of support that they need,
(27:55):
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 I have seen
this over the years, and I don't think it's always intentional.
(28:17):
I think it's I think it's unintentional. Frank. 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
(28:39):
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 graduations, right, so you'll have all the young
(29:02):
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 supporters. 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
(29:24):
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 business school in Mike in my city,
and I want to study business, and we politely clap.
(29:46):
Then we get to the next the next young man,
and he says, well, I'm going to go to x
y Z 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
(30:07):
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,
(30:28):
it's you know, it's a dent of iniquity. There, 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,
(30:50):
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 ninety five percent of
the rest of the body of Christ. There are the nurses,
there are the doctors, There are the teachers, there are
the business leaders, there are the sports coaches, and then
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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are 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
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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
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in or leading in, but how does that mission fit
with the larger mission that God has for us. That's
a huge question, and 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. Hey,
(34:20):
This is John Crane here on the Tide 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
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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 do you feel
called into that space, how do equip yourself to go
in and serve well without becoming part of the problem,
(35:08):
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 a senator Crane, but hopefully
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raising up the next crop of leaders in 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
(35:50):
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.
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
(36:12):
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
(36:33):
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 had 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
(36:56):
the right thing. Question is what is the right thing?
Often hear this in politics, why 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 law maker. Law by definition, is about right and wrong.
It's about ought and ought not. It's about should and
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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
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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
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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
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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.
(38:51):
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?
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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 so so critical,
(39:31):
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
some 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 Knight a science guy by any stretch,
(39:53):
but I came to discover an important thing when it
comes to 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 is 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.
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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
as an optical illusion, because darkness can't advance and less
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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,
(41:00):
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
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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.
(41:42):
And I'll just say if I can be of help
to anyone, come find me I'm online at Crane Leadership
dot org. That's Crane cr A n E Leadership dot
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 and signing off on the Todd Huff Show.
Attention. You're listening to the Tod Huff Radio show, America's
home for conservative not Bitter talk radio. Be advised that
the content of this program has been documented to prevents
and even cure liberalism, and listening may cause you to
lean to the rights. Here's your Conservative but Not Bitter host,
(00:32):
Todd Huff.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Hey, everybody, this is actually John Crane sitting in for
my good friend Todd Huff. Received an invitation a couple
of weeks ago from Todd asking h 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
(00:58):
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 had the privilege of serving as a Senator
(01:21):
in the state of Indiana from twenty sixteen until last
November of twenty twenty four, 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
(01:44):
opportunity to keep moving up. And so for somebody like
me or whoever, to voluntarily termlament themselves when they didn't
need to came as a big surprise. And so I
get the question often, why did you do that? And
it's a fair question because obviously, just like Todd and
(02:07):
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 to the United
States Congress from the state of Illinois, and one of them,
Phil Crane, served for thirty five years and actually ran
for president in the nineteen eighty Republican primary, lost to
(02:30):
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
(02:51):
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
(03:14):
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 capital 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
(03:38):
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
(03:59):
the door for me to considerate. There was a phone
call that I received in September of twenty fifteen 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
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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.
(04:45):
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. However,
it wasn't an open seat, it wasn't unoccupied. In fact,
there was a sitting state senator who was there who
(05:06):
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 eleven percentage points. The heavy lifting was in the primary.
We ended up winning that race and went on to
win in November of twenty sixteen, eighty two to eighteen.
(05:30):
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,
(05:53):
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 Coulson Center for Christian Worldview,
I am blessed to be on the national board of
directors for that, and Chuck Colson has had a significant
(06:15):
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
(06:36):
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
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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 and 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.
(07:20):
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 kind of get my mind right.
So I reached on the shelf, grab my Bible and
(07:40):
decided to open it up to my favorite passage in scripture,
which is Romans chapter twelve, 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'll be able to test and approve what God's
will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will. And so
(08:03):
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
gonna go ahead and read through the rest of this passage.
Now I've read the twelfth chapter of Romans I don't
know how many times in my life, and I've even
(08:24):
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. And there's
a fantastic chapter on leadership and how we should be
(08:46):
conducting ourselves. And one of the things that it talks
about in there is the different gifts that we've each
have been given, including the gift of leadership. And it
says further down in verse eight, if God has given
you leadership ability, then take the responsibility seriously. If God's
(09:08):
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
(09:29):
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
(09:50):
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 thirteen one through seven,
which talks about God establishing government and raising up and
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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
(10:35):
in that second verse of Romans twelve. 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
(10:58):
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
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is especially true. This is why we almost despise, in
many respects, so many politicians because they say so many
aspiring 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
(11:40):
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. And so it's I used to be
one of those that would look from the outside in
through that little key as we're evaluating the decisions of
(12:02):
our political leaders, and I would think to myself, why
are they doing? You know, if I was in charge,
then I'd be doing this, or I certainly wouldn't be
doing that. And 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. And then I
got elected to office and I began to discover that
it is an extraordinarily complicated process. But we still need
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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. So to me,
this pursuit into politics was so important God had called
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me to it. But I've also discovered since then. You know,
for example, I speak probably one hundred to one hundred
and twenty 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.
(13:09):
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 are getting a little nervous, going, well,
(13:29):
you know, we don't really want to get too involved
in politics, and we appreciate the fact that you're there,
but you know, 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,
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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
(14:11):
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
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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 were sinners in need of grace,
(14:55):
and that only by God's saving grace, through the sacrifice
of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy 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
(15:16):
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
(15:39):
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,
(16:00):
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 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,
(16:23):
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, not just the good life. The culture
(16:44):
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, who have
pursued it and actually achieved it, and then they get
to the top of the mountain and realize, wait a second,
(17:08):
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 right 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
(17:28):
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 not providing that kind of
direction and council. And so we either try to figure
(17:49):
it out 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
(18:12):
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 rear view
mirror and less years in the windshield as I moved
down the road, and so I began to weigh, you know,
where is the best use of my best contribution. I
(18:35):
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 eighty
(18:55):
sixth 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, you know, 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
(19:17):
heard Andrew b 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
(19:38):
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
(20:00):
call it the battle for thought leadership supremacy. Right, So,
whoever wins the idea war gets to influence everything downstream,
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
(20:24):
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
(20:46):
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 thirty years doing leadership development, Christian worldview training, apologetics,
(21:08):
culture and engagement, all these different things, and yet when
you become a senator, it becomes a very consuming job.
It is 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
(21:31):
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
(21:53):
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 ten months out and finding that I'm
as busy as I've ever been. But I get to
(22:15):
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
(22:40):
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. Hey,
(23:19):
this is John Crane here on the Todd Huff Show.
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
(23:40):
the state of Indiana for about eight years, two terms,
from twenty sixteen 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 termlinit myself, they're understandably surprised and say, well, why
(24:03):
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
(24:26):
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. So every second, every minute,
(24:46):
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
(25:06):
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 world views,
It's that battle for thought leadership supremacy, the idea war,
it's this battle of philosophy. We talk a lot about
(25:26):
it when we talk about what's happening on our colleges
and university campuses across the country. You know, what are
the ideas that are being foisted upon our young people
as they sit in these classrooms. And yet we don't
always think about it as frequently as we should in
terms of the other influences that are shaping not only
(25:49):
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 senator or I was a senator and
(26:10):
people didn't want to get too political, and so for
far too long the church and I'm going to speak
in kind of broad generalities. I know there's 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
(26:31):
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
(26:53):
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
(27:13):
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,
(27:35):
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 lions den
and don't always have the level of support that they need,
(27:55):
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 I have seen
this over the years, and I don't think it's always intentional.
(28:17):
I think it's I think it's unintentional. Frank. 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
(28:39):
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 graduations, right, so you'll have all the young
(29:02):
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 supporters. 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
(29:24):
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 business school in Mike in my city,
and I want to study business, and we politely clap.
(29:46):
Then we get to the next the next young man,
and he says, well, I'm going to go to x
y Z 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
(30:07):
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,
(30:28):
it's you know, it's a dent of iniquity. There, 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,
(30:50):
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 ninety five percent of
the rest of the body of Christ. There are the nurses,
there are the doctors, There are the teachers, there are
the business leaders, there are the sports coaches, and then
(31:15):
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
(31:35):
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
(31:55):
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
(32:17):
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
(32:38):
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
(33:00):
are 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
(33:22):
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
(33:43):
in or leading in, but how does that mission fit
with the larger mission that God has for us. That's
a huge question, and 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. Hey,
(34:20):
This is John Crane here on the Tide 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
(34:44):
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 do you feel
called into that space, how do equip yourself to go
in and serve well without becoming part of the problem,
(35:08):
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 a senator Crane, but hopefully
(35:30):
raising up the next crop of leaders in 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
(35:50):
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.
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
(36:12):
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
(36:33):
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 had 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
(36:56):
the right thing. Question is what is the right thing?
Often hear this in politics, why 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 law maker. Law by definition, is about right and wrong.
It's about ought and ought not. It's about should and
(37:19):
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
(37:43):
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
(38:06):
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
(38:29):
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.
(38:51):
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?
(39:11):
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 so so critical,
(39:31):
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
some 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 Knight a science guy by any stretch,
(39:53):
but I came to discover an important thing when it
comes to 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 is 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.
(40:17):
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
as an optical illusion, because darkness can't advance and less
(40:37):
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,
(41:00):
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
(41:21):
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.
(41:42):
And I'll just say if I can be of help
to anyone, come find me I'm online at Crane Leadership
dot org. That's Crane cr A n E Leadership dot
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 and signing off on the Todd Huff Show.
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