Meet the pastor running for president
CP: Several states have passed laws requiring athletes to compete on sports teams that correspond with their biological sex as opposed to their declared gender identity. Many states have also passed laws banning minors from obtaining gender transition surgeries. What are your thoughts on signing similar legislation at the federal level?
Binkley: I would absolutely do both of them. We have to protect our kids, we have to allow our kids to be able to compete fairly according to their biological sex and then we have to protect our children from any and all hormone therapy as well as any sort of surgeries that are permanent.
CP: You have talked about the division in the U.S. What is your plan to achieve national unity?
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Binkley: First of all, I need to speak to the importance of it. Abraham Lincoln said a nation divided against itself cannot stand, and he was quoting Jesus when he said that, paraphrasing him. And this is what we have to do. We have to let America know that this level of division that we’re at today cannot continue.
Right now, we do not pass legislation that really allows our country to succeed. We end up doing 300+ executive orders out of every president because we can no longer agree, so we've turned our nation into a nation where we’re less of a republic where laws are written and more of an organization where presidents lay down executive orders to try and accomplish their agenda. We have to get back to leading again. We have to get back to working with each other again.
I think it’s going to require a president that doesn’t demonize or villainize the other party. We have to actually work together. And so, to do that, we have to speak to the importance of it as well as we have to give us something to unite on. It would be pointless for me to say ‘hey, let’s unite,’ but never give us anything to work on together. And so the areas that I’ve picked about the budget, for our future, this is for the next generation, healthcare, all these things affect us all as Americans, the border crisis is not a Republican or Democratic issue.
CP: You are the founder of Create Church. Tell me more about that church. How many members attend?
Binkley: It’s in the neighborhood of 800 or so on a weekend and then sometimes it goes up.
We are a church that’s a multicultural church. My wife is a first-generation [American] and our family’s multicultural.
Our church loves God and they love each other. It’s a community-based church, right in Richardson, Texas, and it’s a church that we help teach people to live by purpose. Our mission is to help people know God, to find freedom, to discover their purpose and then make a difference in this world.
This is what we know: If People know God, they can discover who they are in Christ.
CP: What inspired you to become a pastor?
Binkley: I went on a mission trip to Guatemala in 1995 and that’s when God really spoke to my heart. I heard a word from the Lord, just basically asking me would I pastor his people? And so, I really thought that journey was going to be missions and … planting churches but it was a clear call.
When [my wife Ellie and I] got married in 1999, we both quit corporate America and we came on staff at our church in Atlanta, Georgia. And the name of that church is Victory Church with Pastors Dennis and Colleen Rouse. So we were there for about eight years.
We served there as pastors for a young adult ministry.
We did inner city ministry and school assemblies and missions work. And then a tragedy hit my home in Dallas. My brother was running a business with my dad and he was killed by a drunk driver in 2001, and then God really spoke to our heart about coming back to Dallas and being with my family. ... That’s when God gave me the vision to get back in business and serve in ministry. We’d be doing both.
So, I went back and got my [Masters in Business Administration] from [Southern Methodist University], and then we started the company we have right now, and it began to grow. And then, we did young adult ministry, which we did off and on for about 17 years. And then, we started our church in 2014.
CP: How did you come to Christ?
Binkley: I walked with God a little bit as a teenager. I would hear his voice and then I just drifted from God in high school and college. I never would have thought that I was away from God or that I purposely rejected him. In fact, if you would have asked me to go to church, I would have gone with you. I just never went, and then, I didn’t really know it until I started reading the Bible when I was about 24 years old, that my life was not lining up with him at all.
And so, I gave my life to God in November 1992 and I just gave him my life.
I was living in the world. I was trying to just live for myself in so many ways and all that the world offers. And then, I just surrendered to God, and He came to my heart and spoke to me that he’s got a plan and so when I heard His voice is what really changed my life.
I remember I had an encounter with God about two years later, and when I really had this moment with God, that’s when my life really changed because I was like “Who was this God that would bother talking to me?”
And I fell in love with Him at that point. I would say so that's when I really started pursuing God, about 1994, '95.
CP: Some progressives believe that Christians shouldn’t bring their beliefs into the public square. How do you respond to such arguments?
Binkley: I really believe that freedom of worship and freedom of religion [are] part of our core foundations of our Constitution. And so never in the Constitution are we not supposed to, in fact, nowhere in the Constitution does it say that. That said, I’m running for president of the United States, and … my heart is to lead everybody.
CP: What was your take on Trump? Did you vote for him in 2016 or 2020? Why or why not?
Binkley: I did vote for him and support him. I was at his inauguration in [2017] and I voted for him in 2020. I think I did vote for him because I thought he was the best candidate at the time.
CP: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Binkley: My main mission for America is just to start believing again. You know, we’ve been such at a place of division that we’ve been broken, we’ve been divided. It’s been hard for people to really see how we are going to come out of this division. A lot of … anger is out there on both sides. I actually think we have more in common than what we realize.
I think when we start focusing on things that really matter, we focus on some big problems that we all share, like I shared earlier, the debt, the healthcare problems we’re having or urban America, education issues and job training and the border crisis. I think if we work on some things, we can get some things under our belt, I would call them wins under our belt to help unify our country. And I think that when we do that, just … believe.
It’s time for a new day in America. It’s time for us to turn the page. In Ecclesiastes, it says there’s a time for war and a time for peace and a time to tear down and a time to build up. I really believe it’s a time for healing in our country and for us to move forward for the best days ahead.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
