By Andy Hale 

In my lifetime, I have never thought positively about the mixture of faith and politics. There is an endless and nauseatingly long list of incidents of toxic political discourse and religiosity.

If you need more tangible examples, I’d recommend reading Kevin M. Kruse’s One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.

Whatever political camp you land, we all can agree that the mixture of faith and politics in the 2016 Presidential Election left a horrible taste in our mouths.

For one man, the convictions from the 2016 Election plunged him into a race for the congressional seat of the third district of Arkansas.

Robb Ryerse, the author of Running For Our Lives: A Story of Faith, Politics, and the Common Good, sat down with us to discuss faith and politics that make sense.

“There is also no way to discount the role that party loyalty plays in people’s voting patters. Some people simply believe that their party is completely right and other party is completely wrong…I have come to believe that we need a new electoral motivation in American politics,” said Ryerse.

Robb serves as the co-pastor of Vintage Fellowship in Fayetteville, Arkansas, as well as the executive director of Brand New Congress and the Political Director of Vote Common Good.

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Andy Hale created and hosts the podcast of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Hale is the senior pastor of University Baptist Church of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, following eight years as the founding pastor of Mosaic Church of Clayton and five years as CBF’s church start specialist. Follow on Twitter @haleandy