How can you be a member of the Council on Foreign Relations?

This transcript has been adapted from the attached audio. It may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Imagine! Imagine! A 9 o’clock to 2 o’clock program at the Council on Foreign Relations headquarters in New York City on Evangelicals and Foreign Policy¹ in which numerous Evangelical speakers were involved. They were actually talking about Evangelicals in the Middle East and why it is that Evangelicals believe that the Jews are still God’s chosen people and that the Jews being back in the land in 1948 is a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. I was looking around the audience and the people were like, “Uhh?”

This is the first time most of them have ever heard anything like this. Imagine, the role of Israel in Biblical prophecy in a Council on Foreign Relations Meeting!¹ For those who are premillenialists, I bet that’s the first time that the term premillenialism has ever been spoken at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting. And you know what? It was good for them. It was good for them.

I get probably two or three emails a week from people who see that I am a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. I was elected last year. And they say, “How can you be a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.” Well, here’s my answer:

The Council on Foreign Relations came to me and they said we understand that somewhere between 35% and 40% of the population is Evangelical. We don’t have very many Evangelicals in our membership. (And I’m thinking, “No duh.”) And they said we need people like you to come into the Council to help us understand Evangelicals, to understand what Evangelicals believe, and to help us formulate foreign policies that will be able to garner the support of Evangelicals.

This goes back to the very difference between Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. Fundamentalists believe “Come ye out and be ye separate.” [2 Cor 6:17] That’s where they focus. We’re going to separate from people who disagree with us. We’re going to separate from doctrinal error. We’re going to witness by being pure, pure, pure, separate and pure. Evangelicals believe that we are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. [Matthew 5:13] The salt has to touch that which it is going to preserve and the light has to be seen by your good works before men. Jesus says, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” [Matthew 5:16]

So I ask you, when the Council on Foreign Relations asked me to come and witness to them, and explain to them, and share with them what it is Evangelicals believe and why. How on earth, can I say no if I am going to try to be salt and light as Jesus commanded me to be?