Standing on the Wall with Allen West

Part 2: Allen West Interview

Allen West: Hey, it’s such a pleasure to be with you, and thanks for having me.

Tim Moore: Well, if it’s okay, Allen, let’s dispense with any military formality, because we are brothers in Christ first and foremost.

Allen West: You got it. Absolutely.

Tim Moore: Well, one thing I did not mention in my introduction is that you and I have a knack for running into one another from time to time. And that happened repeatedly when I was serving in the Kentucky legislature for 13 years and thankfully has continued to happen even while I’ve been serving here leading Lamb & Lion Ministries.

Allen West: Well, yeah, and I think that’s a great thing that we in the body of Christ have the opportunity to intersect. And also, as it says in Proverbs, “Iron sharpens iron,” so we can continue to get stronger and get better as we go out there in this mission field. And without a doubt, I mean, America is a huge mission field. It’s so funny that people talk about going on missions to other countries. I think we need to have some missionaries right here to once again proclaim the Word of Jesus Christ.

Tim Moore: Amen. You just pulled out my family’s favorite Proverb. If you see me, my brother, and my father and other men in our family, we take very seriously the admonition to sharpen one another. And as my dad once said, “When you sharpen iron, you oftentimes get friction and sparks. You can’t be afraid of the friction and sparks, because it is making us sharper.”

Well, obviously, our dedication to our great God and Savior is what motivated both of us to first serve in the military and then in the political realm, and still today in various ministry and public service capacities.

Allen West: Well, I think that’s so important, because again, when you go and you read Isaiah 6:8, when he stood before the host of the Lord, and he heard the Lord say, “Whom shall We send? Who will go for Us?” And Isaiah said, “Here am I; send me.” I think that that’s part of who we are; that selfless service and sacrifice and commitment that you see in the men and women that put on a uniform, raise their right hand, and say they’ll support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.

And then also to have those exact same men and women, once they take off that uniform as you did and as I did, to seek other means by which they can be servant leaders in their communities and in the halls of government, because I think it’s very important that we have the fundamental, that conservative Christian and also the Judeo-Christian faith heritage values, that they speak in our halls of government as well.

So often people read, especially Christians read Romans 13, and it talks about how Christians are supposed to be subject to government and governance. But the thing is that you’re supposed to be subject to righteous governance. And I think that’s a very important delineation that we need to understand here in the United States of America right now.

Tim Moore: It certainly is because some are trying to take us in a very different direction. You know, Allen, some people, including some believers, think that military service is incompatible with a Christian faith. But Christ, as I read Scripture, never called His followers to absolute pacifism. As a matter of fact, He warned them against acts of personal vindictiveness, but He said that there would be a time when they would take up a sword. And I actually find it very instructive that the one man Jesus lauded in Israel for his faith was a Roman centurion.

Allen West: Well, again, I think that John 15:13 says “No greater love hath a man that he will lay down his life for his friends.” And that’s exactly what it means when you serve in the military, that you’re willing to lay down your life, not just for the people that are there to your left and to your right, but also for something that is greater than yourself. And if you go back and you read and understand the Gettysburg Address from Abraham Lincoln, he talked about how we should be showing increased devotion to those who are willing to make the last full measure of devotion. That’s what our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did for us on Calvary.

And, so, when you think about the men and women who are there serving in the military, and just recently I went to the memorial service for 19-year-old PFC Isabella Gonzalez who was killed in Jordan during a ballistic missile attack from Iran. She gave her life for our earthly freedoms, what we have designated and delineated in the Declaration of Independence, the unalienable rights that are endowed to us by the Judeo-Christian faith heritage God of life, liberty, and property. That’s John Locke, 1689, Second Treatise of Government.

But that also ties into that sacrifice that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ gave to us for our heavenly freedom, our eternal freedoms, the spiritual freedoms. And when you go to the Bible and you read in 2 Corinthians 3:17, where it says that “The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” I think it’s so important that people understand that there is a bond. Freedom has to be protected. I mean, Ronald Reagan talked about that, how it’s only one generation away from being extinct.

And so, if you don’t have those men and women that will stand on freedom’s ramparts and protect those people behind the walls and make sure that they continue to enjoy the blessings of liberty that we have here, which is part of the imperatives there in the Preamble of the Constitution, we don’t want to see this great nation go away. We don’t want to see it fall to the evil that is out there. And if you’re not willing to protect something, I don’t think that you’re understanding how much you love it.

Tim Moore: Exactly right. And I think you and I demonstrate even by our willingness to send forth yet another generation. You mentioned how a son-in-law is about to become a chaplain in the US Army, and so serving both the Lord and in uniform. I have a son who has followed in my footsteps, as well as nephews in the military.

My son is in the Air Force. And as he went into combat, I told him, “I don’t worry about him at all, because” I said, “you’ve got great training. You’ve matured to the point that you’re no longer a daredevil in terms of taking unnecessary risks.” But most importantly, I said, “Son, you’re a follower of Christ, and you are in the center of God’s will. And He will protect you, and He will use your gifts and talents to serve His good and glory. And so, whenever He calls you home, that’s the right time. And therefore, I do not worry wherever you go.”

But as an Airborne Infantry Commander yourself who served in Iraq in the Big Red One, you know what it is like to be responsible for a group of men who look to you for leadership and direction. And Allen, you served with honor and integrity, but you also once stated, and I love this, “If it’s about the lives of my soldiers at stake, I’d go through hell with a gasoline can.” That kind of commitment to the wellbeing of others is refreshing in a society that too often prioritizes, number one, ourself, and evokes for me an image of the kind of watchman God called Ezekiel to be, and the kind of Christian warrior who is ready to charge and conquer the gates of hell.

Allen West: Well, you think about it, what did our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ say in the Garden of Gethsemane? That, “Not My will, but Your will be done.” So, I think it’s so important that we understand that that’s one of the important parts of leadership. That’s what servant leadership is really about. And I think it’s in the book of Mark where it says that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.

And that’s what we have to have in positions of leadership; people that are not interested in their own self-service. They’re not interested in special interest service, but they’re interested in the service to the men and the women that they’ve been called to represent, their constituency or the people that they’ve been called to lead.

So yes, it was important. I always told my troops, and I commanded a battalion of about 600 when we deployed to Iraq, and I was in the 4th Infantry Division; I was in the 1st Infantry Division for Desert Shield, Desert Storm as a captain, but as a lieutenant colonel, I was in the 4ID, and I told my troops, “The most expendable person in this unit is me, because if I have done my job to make sure that they are properly trained, that they’re ready to go out and execute the mission, I don’t have to be there.”

And I think that that’s the same charge that Christ gave to us when He said, “Go therefore and make disciples of the world.” He doesn’t have to be here, but He gave us this mission. And then if we are abiding in Him, as He says, in that vine, then we can go out and we have all of the exact same powers and strength and abilities as He had, because it says in Philippians, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”

Tim Moore: Amen. Well, I’ll tell you what, I so appreciate your attitude. Obviously, that preaches in terms of raising up the next generation of fruit bearers, because too many Christians look around and bemoan the state of affairs, but we should be pouring into, again, young people coming behind us so that there will continue to be much fruit borne. And when the Son of Man comes, the Son of God, there will still be faith on the earth.

You know, Allen, you and I are very close in age, entering the military in 1982 and 1984. And the world back then in the olden days was a simpler place in the sense that our primary potential foe was the Soviet Union. And that bipolar clash of superpowers seems to have given way to a fractured world with multiple threats, and they’ve multiplied indeed around the world.

And yet, despite that shift, or maybe because of it, America seems to have lost its collective moral compass. Our political leaders argue and bicker about fundamental truths that used to be self-evident and certainly do not cease even the internal political conflicts at the water’s edge. When you served in Congress, you saw this trend, and it’s only gotten worse, I dare say.

Allen West: No, you’re absolutely right. And if you go back, there’s a great book by Samuel Huntington called, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. And that’s exactly what happened when this bipolar structure of us and them, being in America and the Soviet Union, when the Soviet Union collapsed, it gave an ability for all of these former fault lines, cultural fault lines, all of these ideological fault lines to once again resurrect themselves.
And I think it’s so important that when I look at our governing bodies, and I’m talking about from city council, school board, the state level, all the way up to the federal level, we have to have that common denominator. We have to have that core foundation and principles. And for me, it’s always been the Constitution. That’s what I took an oath to support and defend, and just the same as yourself, just the same as your son, just the same as my son-in-law, because he’s an officer first and then he is a chaplain after that, but he’s a leader.

And I think it’s so important that we have leaders that are grounded with courage, with competence, with commitment, with conviction, with character to those core principles, those founding values, especially when you look at where we are in the 250th anniversary of the longest running continuous constitutional republic that the world has ever known.

So, we’ve got some challenges to our foundations, to our fundamentals. When you look at this rise of Marxism, that’s really what it is. And when you look at the rise of Islamism here in this country, two ideals, two philosophies that don’t believe in the strength of the individual, they don’t see the individual as being that cornerstone. As a matter of fact, Zohran Mamdani, in his inaugural speech, he said, “We’ll replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

And I think that’s, again, comes back to who we are as Christians, because we don’t do a group hug and pray us all into Heaven. We, each and every one of us, have to make that decision ourselves that we want to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who was born, died on the cross, was buried, but resurrected for my eternal life, and I want to commit to that. And so, I think it’s so important that we understand that that is a foundation of our country.

And there’s no other country like the United States of America that was founded on the premise that the individual is sovereign because our rights come from a sovereign God. That’s the whole purpose of natural rights theory of John Locke. So, when we have people that are trying to push us away from God with the big G, the government with the little g, we have got to have committed men and women in all the halls of government. And that’s why I’m a big proponent of former military and also Christians getting out there and running for elected office.

Tim Moore: The Scriptures talk about the End Times and how the world would be like the Days of Noah with men given over to lust, unnatural relations, and a depraved mind. I’m quoting now from Romans 1; and even forgetting how to blush. And we seem to see that coming to pass before our eyes. You and I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s. We were celebrating the 200th anniversary of America then.

Allen West: Yes, I was 15.

Tim Moore: Yes, in 1976. How have things gotten so bad? We’ve gone so far astray just in the past 50 years, it would seem.

Allen West: Well, it’s very simple. I mean, we stopped talking about these things. We stopped teaching these things. And really, there’s a parallel when you go back and you look at Joshua’s farewell address in chapter 24, verse 15, where he says, “Choose for yourselves today whom ye shall serve, being the gods of the Amorites or the gods from across the river, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” And he challenged the people of Israel to never forget all the things that the Lord had done for them. And they said, “Yes, we will never forget.”

Well, then you flip over into the next book there, Judges, and you start reading in chapter 2 about verse 10 where it says that Joshua and the generations of Joshua had passed away and the children of Israel fell down and started to worship the Baals. And guess what? One of the gods of the Baals was the god of child sacrifice, Molech, and the anger of the Lord burned against them. So, I think that’s what you see happening.

At some point between 1976 and 2026, in this 50-year period, we stopped telling the story. We have ceded over the authority in our homes over our children to other individuals, and they are perverting them with worldly and cultural norms and things of that nature. So, I think it’s very important that, first and foremost, you’ve got to restore the sense of the traditional nuclear family, because that’s been under assault.

We have to get more pastors, ministers in the pulpit to stand on God’s Word and not try to tickle people’s ears, as it says in 2 Timothy chapter 4, with these false narratives, because they’re more interested in getting people sitting in the pews than they are getting people into Heaven. So, I think that that’s where it has to begin…in the home with the family, in restoring our system of education, non-indoctrination.

And the church, once again, has to step up and play a role and not be concerned about… I get so tired of hearing pastors say, “I got to be concerned about my tax-exempt status.” God is not going to ask any pastor when he goes up into glory about a tax-exempt status, because if that’s his biggest concern, God will immediately say, “Hey, look, you denied Me before, man. I’m denying you now. Get out of here.”

Tim Moore: That’s so very dangerous. I love the fact that you cite Judges chapter 2, verse 10, because it said, “There rose up another generation who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.” And you question, is it the fault of the younger generation or is it the fault of the older who did not tell and teach them? It is so imperative.

Allen West: No, it’s the fault of the older generation. And that’s one of the things that he referred to in the Bible that Paul talks about, is that the elders, that’s one of our responsibilities. And like we said in the military, you don’t get respect unless you earn respect. And I think that that’s a very important thing.

Look, who would have ever thought that in 50 years we would get to the point where we couldn’t understand what a woman is? I mean, the WNBA is meeting to understand what the W means in WNBA. I mean, that’s how absurd things have gotten. And again, like you said, if you’re not telling that story, and I’m not just talking about the story of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but I’m also talking about the story of America.

When you have young people that are saying that they think socialism is a great thing, I saw that up close and personal when I was at East Berlin, because we had just finished a mission up there in West Berlin and we got the opportunity to go through Checkpoint Charlie. Our young people don’t know what the face of Marxism really is. When they’re walking around with T-shirts with Che Guevara, okay, some adult failed in their mission to train them upright. What does it say in Proverbs 22:6? “Train up a child the way they should go, when they grow, they shall not depart from it.”

So many people ask me, “How did you become an Army officer? What inspired you to do so?” Very simple: it was 1976, the bicentennial year of the United States of America. I’m 15 years of age, and my dad challenges me to be the first officer in our family. And so, I immediately went and I enrolled in high school Junior ROTC, graduated out of high school, and went to University of Tennessee. That’s where I got my orange jacket, because we’ve got to get ready, Go Vols! And on 31 July 1982, I was commissioned as an Army officer.

That’s what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to challenge our subsequent generations to be better, because my dad was just a corporal in the United States Army in World War II. But what did he say? “You’re going to be the first officer in our family,” because my older brother was an enlisted Marine in Vietnam. That’s what we have to do. We have to challenge them to be good people, but we also have to challenge them spiritually.

When my folks dropped me off at the University of Tennessee when I was a freshman, I could have gone in a different direction. But January of 1980, in my freshman year, that’s when I said, “I’ve got to make this decision myself.” And that’s why I committed to give my life to Christ.

Tim Moore: I’m so glad you did, and that has been obvious in all of your service. When I was still in the military, I was active within Guard and Reserve, but while in the Guard still, I began serving in politics. And after elected and entering the Kentucky legislature, I was called an idealist because I expected politicians from both parties and every stripe to pursue the common good in the public sphere, and because I still expect ministries to stay grounded on and guided by the Word of God. And in spite of many disappointments, anytime men and women are involved, I tell people I remain eternally optimistic.

Now, you continue to serve in many ways to promote right thinking among young people. Would you describe yourself as an idealist or an optimist, or as an eternal optimist?

Allen West: I describe myself as the perpetual American, because Americans believe in a greater day. Americans, as it says in, make sure I get it right, Romans chapter 5, verses 3 through 5, that trials and tribulations, and America has seen many a trial, many a tribulation, but trials and tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces proven hope, not hope in man, but hope in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That describes me.

My favorite person in United States military history, some people say MacArthur, Patton, Chesty Puller, Bull Halsey, I mean, Nimitz. My favorite person was Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College in Maine, just an ordinary college professor, but yet he knew that he had to go and serve. He just could not sit there. And so, of course, he was an educated man, so they made him an officer, then a major, then lieutenant colonel immediately.

There he was at the end of the line, the Army of the Potomac, there at the Battle of Gettysburg. He’s told that he cannot surrender, he cannot retreat, or else the 90,000 men of the Army of the Potomac would be captured by Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. He is the man, a college professor of rhetoric, who said a word that had never been uttered by any leader in the Union Army when he said, “Bayonets!” And he led a bayonet charge down Little Round Top that rallied and won the day, the second day of Gettysburg, defeated the Alabamians who were under John Bell Hood.

Now, America, the story of America is ordinary people doing extraordinary things. We can go back and look at the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence. We can go back and look at and remember the man who crossed the frozen Delaware River and attacked Trenton. That will be 250 years this Christmas. So that’s where I get my hope from, is that these trials and tribulations will make us better.

You go through the crucible in order to make yourself better, to make yourself stronger. And so, you know, idealists, this… No, I’m just the eternal American that understands that we will come out of this better because God is putting this before us, but we’ve got to step up to this challenge.

Tim Moore: Well, I think right now we see that there are many challenges, but it is an opportunity. I quote Chesty Puller in one regard. I think at Chosin Reservoir, he said, “Men, we’re surrounded. They’re in front of us, behind us on every side. They can’t get away from us now.”

Allen West: We can attack them in every direction.

Tim Moore: Yeah, attack any way we want. And the reality is we’re surrounded by people who are lost. And so, as Christians, as ambassadors of our soon-returning King, we don’t have to go, as you said, a world away. We can be right here at home serving as ambassadors, as missionaries, as ministers. And that doesn’t mean just a professional or a full-time minister; that means every Christian who can impact.

I love the attitude of the Special Forces. They say, “You may not be able to impact the entire war. Impact the five feet nearest to you. Impact your unit.” And if you do that, I’ve told my son the same thing, then that will make a difference in those lives. And eventually, if all of us do that, it will make a tremendous difference for the cause of Christ.

Allen West: You bring up a great point, because when you understand the motto of the United States Army Special Forces, De Oppresso Liber, that says to free the oppressed. And when you look at people that are entrapped by sin, they’re being oppressed. And so, our mission as Christians is to go out there and be God’s Green Berets and to liberate these people from that oppression of sin. And this is a target-rich environment.

Like Chesty Puller said, we can attack in any direction. But the thing is that we have to be willing to do that. We have to be willing to understand that when we wake up each and every day, we have to realize our task and purpose. The Great Commission, God gave that, I mean, when Jesus gave that to us.

But when we walk outside that door, and this is something I always taught my daughters, I always said to my subordinate officers that when you walk outside the door, you’re on display and people are watching you, people are looking at you. And sometimes just the stance, the way that you carry yourself can draw people to say, “What is it about Joe or Jenny? What is it about Tim? What is it about Allen that makes them act this way, walk this way, speak this way?” And most people say, “I want some of that,” because it’s positive. And so again, I think that it’s so important that we step up and accept that challenge as members of the body of Christ.

Tim Moore: Well, you obviously are engaged with young people, not just through Young America’s Foundation, but by all of your advocacy. And so many of them are being deceived. We see even young conservatives, even young Christians becoming ambivalent toward or even hostile toward Israel and embracing some of the leftist ideology of our nation, the social democrats, the leftists of this country. What would you say to the young people watching today in terms of the hope that is ours in Christ and the need to stand and to be watchmen on the wall warning others not to go down that satanic path?

Allen West: Well, look, “I will bless those that bless thee, and I will curse those that curse thee.” I don’t want God’s curse on me. I mean, that’s very simple when it comes to Israel. And again, I think that we don’t need to be focused on the government; we need to be focused on what Israel is. And I often tell people that America, without a doubt, is my physical homeland. Israel is a spiritual homeland for me, and I’ve been to Israel twice.

And if we allow the enemies of darkness, this Islamism, to overtake Israel, and they’re surrounded in every way, shape, form, or fashion, then that speaks to us because as the ayatollahs say, there’s the Little Satan and there’s the Great Satan. So, we have to stand with the people that believe in liberty and freedom. We have to stand with those who really, that’s where our Judeo-Christian faith heritage, that’s where it began.

So, I think it’s very important that we don’t turn our backs. We don’t fall to the propaganda. We don’t fall to the lies and the deception of the evil one, the author of confusion, because that’s what he’s seeking to do. And it’s interesting because I do get asked that question by young people quite often, and what I just responded to you is what I tell them.

Tim Moore: Exactly right. Well, I mentioned seeing you as a watchman when we were talking earlier. Some refer to this role today as a sheepdog, and it is fitting that your beloved alma mater, you’re wearing the orange jacket, has a namesake: the Volunteers. Because Allen, you have dedicated your life to serving others selflessly, and yet every follower of Christ has volunteered to serve in the Lord’s army. So how can a young person strive to serve God and their fellow man with all the gifts and talents He has given them?

Allen West: Well, I think it’s so important that you seek Him, and you ask Him to come into your life and to give you that strength, being a young man, a young woman. But I think it’s also very important that they have someone as a mentor, someone as well as a battle buddy, a foxhole mate, or a wingman, whatever, however you want to see it, a shipmate, that can help them go through this, because what the enemy does is he tries to pick you off early on if you’re out there trying to do this by yourself.

So, I think it’s important that, again, that we have the right type of programs in our church. As a matter of fact, the church I attend here in Carrollton, Texas, Sojourn Church, we have started a thing called Chow Line with the Colonel, and that’s exactly what I do. I just sit down and we break some bread, not MREs, we actually eat good, and we just try to have a discussion about what’s on your mind. These current events, all these things, how can we look at this and put it into a biblical perspective? Because that’s what they need. They just need someone to give them the encouragement to embolden them.

So, I think it’s very important that these young people seek God first and then seek someone to be a mentor, seek someone to be their battle buddy.

Tim Moore: Well, Allen, Lieutenant Colonel West, I had long hoped that we could connect for a dialogue like this, and I simply will pray that it is an encouragement to every one of our viewers because it certainly has been to me.

Allen West: It’s my pleasure.

Tim Moore: How can our viewers stay connected with you and your ministry and your service?

Allen West: Well, look, I’m on all the social media platforms out there except for TikTok because I don’t support the Communist Chinese Party. I have a podcast called “Steadfast & Loyal.” I’m the executive director for the American Constitutional Rights Union, and you can follow me at theacru.org.
And I have my fourth book that will be coming out November the 24th that talks about America’s second civil war. So, you can Google that and you can pre-order it if you like, as well as some of the other books that I’ve written that you could get through Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million or even Amazon.

Tim Moore: Very good. Well, “Steadfast & Loyal,” that is an apt description of you, my friend. I hope our paths will cross again soon, here, there, or in the air.

Allen West: Amen. God bless you. God be with you.

Tim Moore: Godspeed, my friend.

Closing

Tim Moore: I so appreciate the dedication Allen West has demonstrated. Whether serving in the US Army, in Congress, or in a variety of other private and ministry settings, he is a man of character who, in the words of Jeremiah 29, has selflessly sought the welfare of this nation and the world.
Every time our paths have crossed, even a brief word of greeting has offered mutual encouragement. Now, it has been a great privilege to host him on Christ in Prophecy.
If the Lord tarries, the world will continue to grow darker. That reality was prophesied many years ago, and we have witnessed the inexorable slide toward moral confusion and paganism right before our eyes. But while that fact saddens us, we are not discouraged. We are all the more encouraged to serve as salt and light in such a time as this.

But as every military commander knows, it is important to maintain unit cohesion in the face of a determined foe, and that is why those who serve Christ must remain united and offer one another mutual encouragement.

Jesus is coming soon. Until He calls us home, let’s be about His work here behind enemy lines. In the words of Todd Friel, who will join us soon on Christ in Prophecy…”Go and serve your King!” Godspeed!

End of Program