Twenty years ago, Frank Pastore was pitching for the Cincinnati Reds. Today, he pitches the truth from his radio studio in Los Angeles.
For nearly four years, Pastore has been the afternoon drive-time host on KKLA 99.5 FM. He integrates religion and politics with the news of the day. Last year, his show won the 2006 National Religious Broadcasters Talk Show of the Year.
Pastore talked with CitizenLink about why Christians should be involved in public policy.
Q. How did you go from professional baseball player to Christian talk-show host?
A. I had been asked to be the guest host for Warren Duffy, who was the first host of Live from L.A. I was incredibly nervous, but decided to get back up on the horse after I had fallen off, and ended up doing it about 100 times. And that gave me the opportunity to sit in for Hugh Hewitt on his national show. So for several years there, I was an official guest host.
Q. Tell me about KKLA and your audience.
A. Survey research says this is the most-listened-to Christian talk show in the country. In our fourth year of operation, and we're thrilled to have won the NRB Talk Show of the Year. I approach it to run a good talk show. I don't intend to run a 'Christian' talk show. I want to do a good talk show, and I happen to be a Christian. We deal with the very same issues the other national talk-show hosts deal with, but we come from a Christian worldview. So we range from politics to theology to Christian worldview to music, to television, to relationships. (Yes, that includes Britney and Paris, he says.)
Q. Why are you so passionate about the issues?
A. Christians need to play cultural offense rather than defense, without being offensive. The way to do that is to know your arguments, know the issues, and to seek clarity in the marketplace of ideas. I have no problem with someone disagreeing with me, if they do so honestly and with integrity. It's just that so many people on the other side of the aisle, both theologically and politically, are deceptive. They don't want to be clear as to what their policy positions are. Much of what I like to do on my show is to take people, intellectually, to the 'zoo' — in the sense of I want them to meet real, living, breathing humans who believe these ideas that reap such horrible consequences.
Q. What is the top threat to America as a nation?
A. Externally, it's the threat of radical Islam. Internally, it is secularization. And actual hostility to, especially, Christianity.
So what does that mean for us as a church, as Christians? We need to know how to engage domestically with naturalism and secularism and present our values, that I believe a vast majority of Americans want to live by, though they might not know that. And also to be informed regarding foreign policy.
Q. What's your best advice to Christians in America?
A. To understand you can serve the Lord in places other than the Third World mission field and the pulpit. Become a good doctor, a good TV show writer, a good actor or actress, a good radio talk-show host, or just a good husband and a good wife. And grow where planted.
I'd like to see seminaries teach classes on telling the story of Western civilization in America. Until our pastors can actually tell the story of why liberty, why freedom, why democracy, why America, we the Church will lose. Being a pastor is more than a three-point sermon with a cue to emotional close. There are so many people in the Church today, especially those on the Left, incapable of drawing moral distinction between good and evil.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Liberals love to say “The Bible talks more about poverty than anything else,” and from this they claim support for their increasingly socialist agenda. Pastore explains why this argument fails, in Exposing How Liberals Misread the Bible.
LISTEN TO THE SHOW
Read more about Frank Pastore and listen to his radio show.
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