The following is an excerpt from my speech at the Christ is King Festival in Holland, Michigan on June 13, 2026. You can watch the video on Facebook.
I’ve noticed in politics that it’s easy to be a Christian. It’s even easy to be an elected official. What’s difficult is to act like a Christian in politics. It’s difficult to do what’s right, no matter what. In politics, what most people think is that it’s all about compromise. How do we work best with the other side? How much can we get, what can we do?
Christians should be expected to take arrows if they stand up, whether they’re in politics, or business, or ministry. We don’t engage in the public arena for the sake of power. Not for power itself. We engage because our faith demands it. The Bible calls us to be salt and light. We’re also called to seek the welfare of our city. Part of our job is to defend the vulnerable, and stand for truth, justice, and righteousness. When Christians retreat from the public square, then we abandon the very people God has called us to love and to serve.
Charlie Kirk reminded us that Christians are called to be an active, transformative force in our culture. He challenged the idea that faith should stay silent when culture and government drift from biblical truth.
I’ve gotten to see amazing things in the last few years as I’ve been working in politics. One of the opportunities that I’ve had in politics is to go to Hope College, Grand Valley State University, and other places, and set up tables and talk to students. I’d like to share an example from my visits to Grand Valley.
Grand Valley is a progressive institution. When we were first going there, I wondered what we would find on campus. We got a lot of hate; we got a lot of ridicule. Students would sometimes bring homemade signs with inflammatory statements and curse words. However, as time went on, what we discovered was interesting. The more we returned to Grand Valley and tabled, students realized what we were doing. We’d hand out shirts, hats, coffee, donuts, posters, and bibles. Students would come to talk to us at our booth, and they would return to talk in the weeks following when we returned.
The trend that we’re seeing is clear: students know we’re on campus to talk about politics, and they know we’re Christians based on the things we say and the shirts we wear. We know the students are on a wide spectrum of political standpoints and beliefs. However, when students would talk to us, they wanted to talk about faith. We’re there ostensibly to talk about politics, but politics has become such a religion—and the students know it—they come to us to test their own beliefs and to learn about faith. This provides great opportunities for relationship building and sharing the Truth.
Last, but certainly not least, we should engage in politics, voting, and the public square because it makes an impact. I’ve seen it firsthand through my work with Ottawa Impact and Michigan Impact, on college campuses, and in government. This principle holds true: when Christians bring light to the darkness, the darkness flees.
One of my favorite examples of truth impacting government is right here in Ottawa County. In 2022, the people voted for significant change in Ottawa County. On our first day in office, the Board of Commissioners abolished the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Department. This was a major course correction in local government, which usually doesn’t happen.
Since that day, I’ve had people come to me, who claim to be Christians, and say: “Maybe it would have been better if the Board of Commissioners just waited a few months and quietly wrapped up the DEI Department. Maybe it would have been better not to make any big moves, and just let DEI continue a little longer. Maybe it would have been better not to rock the boat.”
That mentality is fundamentally flawed. It ignores the dangers of bad ideas in public policy, and it also ignores the political realities of Jesus’ time. It also ignores the radical nature of Jesus calling both the Jewish people and the Gentiles to a personal relationship with Himself and the Truth.
The positive changes I’ve seen here in Ottawa County are because believers got off the sidelines and got into the game. If we love God and love our neighbors, we must stand up for Truth and operate on biblical principles in every corner of public life.
I want to close with this last statement: there are no short-term solutions. We must stand for Truth in the public square—and inspire the next generation to have a love for our great nation and a love for God. Because as Charlie said, “It’s all about Jesus.”
