February 1, 2024 Show with Jason Storms on “Abortional Abolitionists”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this first day of February 2024.

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Before I introduce today's guest and topic, I just wanted to give you all an update on the

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Alistair Begg controversy. As many of you, if not most of you, likely already know,

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Alistair had stirred up some controversy recently during a podcast he was involved in, in which he gave a grandmother the recommendation to attend her grandson's wedding to a transgendered individual.

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And he did so with the preface that the grandson was aware of the grandmother's

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Christian faith, was aware of her convictions from the scriptures, that homosexuality was a sin, and that this marriage was not biblically legitimate.

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And, of course, I'm just paraphrasing, I'm using my own words here, but that's in essence what Alistair said.

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But he said that she should nonetheless go to this wedding as an act of love so that the grandson would not have the idea that all of the negative stereotypes and preconceived notions that he had about evangelical

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Christianity were true, and therefore this would be a wonderful surprise to this grandson, seeing that his

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Christian grandma was truly loving and not living up to the stereotypes of bigotry and hate that he had in his mind.

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That stirred up a whole firestorm of controversy where people have been divided over this issue on whether or not to affirm or strongly object to Alistair Begg's comments.

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And I did a program several days ago with M .D. Perkins, author of Dangerous Affirmation and staff member of the

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American Family Association, the organization whose radio network,

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American Family Radio, removed Alistair Begg from their lineup because of those comments and because of his unwillingness to back down and recant them.

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So, the Shepherds Conference, those in charge of that conference that is led by John McArthur at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, they have, as of today, it may have been yesterday but I just learned of it today, they have removed

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Alistair from their speaking lineup. I just wanted to keep you updated on that and we will continue to let you know about how things progress in this situation.

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But today we have on the program a returning guest, Jason Storms. He is

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Assistant Director of Operation Save America, owner of Faithful Soldiers School of Evangelism and Discipleship, and staff member at Mercy Seat Christian Church of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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Today we're going to be addressing the theme, Abortion Abolitionists, what is required of a person to accurately wear that title, and we're going to be explaining the spectrum of activists seeking to rescue the unborn from slaughter in abortion mills.

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This is all being done in preparation for a debate on this program later this month that my guest

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Jason Storms will be having with Scott Klusendorf, who is an incrementalist in the pro -life movement, and they, both

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Jason and Scott, have a mutual high respect for one another, but they disagree very strongly in certain areas on what is a proper biblical and effective strategy for a

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Christian seeking to be faithful to the Scriptures and seeking to be a catalyst in the bringing to an end infanticide in this nation, and globally for that matter.

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And we'll be giving you details on how to and when to listen to this live debate on Iron Trap and Zion Radio.

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But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trap and Zion Radio, Jason Storms.

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Chris, it's a pleasure to be with you, brother. Thank you. Well, first of all, tell our listeners about Operation Save America.

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Yeah, we, our frontline organization for 35 years have been at the forefront of the fight against the pre -born, gospel -centered and church -centered, and we were the organization formerly known as Operation Rescue under the founder,

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Randall Terry, and the rescue movement in the late 80s that, you know, had a tremendous impact culturally and really,

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I'd say, had the abortion industry against the ropes, and there was probably a crossroads for this nation in the early 90s with the election of Bill Clinton.

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All of that sort of fizzled out, you know, the 12 years that preceded that of the rise of the moral majority and 12 years of Republican presidents, and evangelicals waking up to their political and cultural duties, and all that sort of crumbled under Clinton's election in 1992, and then you had the

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Casey decision that affirmed and expanded Roe, and then you had, of course, the FACE Act, which some friends of ours were just convicted this week of FACE violations, and they're looking at up to 10 -plus years in federal prison, and so, you know, the battle has been raging for many decades.

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We're quite deep down the rabbit hole, but our organization has been on the front line of that fight for a long time. I've been involved with them for about 10 years now and been blessed to serve in the ministry under Rusty Thomas, a great brother, and to have taken the ministry over almost three years ago, two and a half years ago now, and Pastor Darren Stid and Brother Lucas Childress serve with me in leadership, along with a brother in South Carolina, Matt Brock, and we've got a great leadership team, and we're really blessed to be able to carry the mantle that has been passed to us.

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Well, praise God for that, and if anybody wants to find out more about Operation Save America, you can go to their website, which is operationsaveamerica .org.

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Now tell us about the Faithful Soldier School of Evangelism and Discipleship.

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Yeah, well, that's actually something—we really now only run a summer camp. We did that school for about eight years through our local church, and it was a discipleship program for young people to come and to get grounded in their faith, and very much a mentorship, discipleship -oriented, and we would take them out in the streets to evangelism, teach them apologetics, how to defend the faith, how to engage the culture.

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We'd go to abortion clinics, college campuses, travel, work with different ministries around the country, and we just saw tremendous fruit and growth in the lives of young people as they come and be with us for a semester, send them back to their local churches to serve, and really was a great catalyst for a lot of growth in young people's lives, and teaching them how to defend the faith, engage the culture in the public square, and to live faithfully for Christ in a very difficult culture.

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And this is still being run, as you said, as a camp. Yeah, we don't do our semesters anymore.

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We actually just do a summer camp, and we've done that now for 14, 15 years. We've had a summer camp, and that's up here in Wisconsin in the frozen tundra.

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We thaw out in the summertime, thankfully, so it's a really fruitful summer camp, and we've made it not a youth camp but a family camp, so we invite parents in their teens to come and be a part of it, worship together, learn together, fellowship, and just have a good time of refreshment in the

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Lord, and that's been very fruitful as well. Something that we're working on with Pastor Rusty Thomas and Darren Stid is what we are calling the

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Kingdom Leadership Institute, and this is in some ways will be kind of a new and improved version of what our

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Faithful Soldier School was. This has been a vision of Rusty's for many years, and he's done a lot of similar kinds of discipleship work over the course of his ministry, and so as he's moved to Florida and started the

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American Reformation Church down there, we are going to be launching the Kingdom Leadership Institute, and that's going to be a program to train pastors, political leaders, and economic, business, and entrepreneurial leaders, so three areas of study.

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It will really be an alternative to traditional seminary and Bible college that I think, unfortunately, most often falls woefully short when it comes to the hands -on practical application and the mentorship and the discipleship.

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I went to seminary, got a seminary degree, and there was really very little assessment of my character, and when you look at Paul's qualifications for a pastor and elder, character is certainly highest on the list above and beyond even theological competence and theological understanding, though that's certainly important, and pastors should certainly hit the books and have some academic prowess and understand the historical

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Christian faith and the various positions that have been held by leaders in the church throughout history and have a good understanding and working knowledge of that, but character is really what sustains a man in ministry and drives a man in the effectiveness of his pulpit ministry, and so humility, courage, integrity—these are the things that oftentimes don't get tested in Bible college and are oftentimes lacking in the pulpit, so it'll be a real hands -on mentorship and discipleship -based curriculum with online academic schooling, and of course we will attempt to shore up and emphasize some of the areas that we feel are lacking in our culture in terms of the church really integrating sound biblical principle into all realms of life and culture.

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So that's going to be exciting. Lord Willen will have that launched, potentially have a pilot program in the fall of this coming year.

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Now will those details be available at faithfulsoldier .com? No, no, that'll be—we have—Rusty has put together a website,

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Kingdom Leadership Institute, and I'm going blank on the precise—I'll look that up before I get that—the

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Kingdom Leadership Institute. Okay, and we'll be sure to announce that whenever you have that at hand.

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Now to update our listeners as to exactly why you're on the program today, we are conducting,

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God willing, as long as everything goes according to our plans.

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God very often has different plans, but we are hoping that on Wednesday, February 21st, right here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, 4 to 6 p .m.

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Eastern Time, we're hoping to have a live debate between Dr.

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Scott Klusendorf and my guest today, Jason Storms. As I mentioned earlier,

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Dr. Klusendorf, who has been a guest on this program, adopts a strategy or philosophy when it comes to the pro -life movement known as incrementalism.

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And my guest today, Jason Storms, although he highly respects Dr. Klusendorf, identifies himself as an abortion abolitionist and believes there are serious differences in ideology and strategy and worldview that have very serious consequences in regard to the struggle to bring an end to infanticide in this world.

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And I think some definitions are in order here.

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Perhaps you could, Jason, be more detailed in definitions of those different philosophies, starting with incrementalism and then moving on to abolitionism.

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And of course, there is a spectrum of thought between those extremes.

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And so you don't have everybody claiming to be one or the other who can be easily pigeonholed and, you know, where you could necessarily automatically understand exactly everything that person believes in regard to the law in the

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United States, what we should be striving for politically, and what is our strategy involved in trying to bring an end to infanticide.

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So let's start with the incrementalist view, and then we can move on to the abolitionist view.

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Yeah, so, you know, I think it's—I don't even really like the term incrementalist, and so I don't really typically even frame the discussion as between abolition versus incrementalism.

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You know, others frame it as pro -lifeism versus abolitionism. Some frame it as incrementalism versus immediatism.

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And, you know, honestly, I'm not really a big fan of any of those terms. I don't really typically use the term incremental or incrementalism.

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I don't typically—I'm not actually quite fond of the term pro -life or the both have some utility in a given context.

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So to me, I think, you know, we first and foremost are Christians, and we are interested in biblical justice, and I think that's where I like to ground my terminology, to try to be biblical in my thinking.

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And sometimes, you know, we can say, oh, you're an incrementalist, and you shouldn't be an incrementalist, and it gets confusing.

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People are like, well, you know, are you always all or nothing? And it's like, well, no, there's going to be some stages in the process.

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And so, well, then that's incrementalism. So there's a lot of debate that goes back and forth, and we'll get into that. But I just think the terms are often confusing.

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They're not biblical terms, you know, largely derived from 18th and 19th century abolitionist movement, which was not a perfect movement by any stretch and didn't actually accomplish its goals in the ways that it had hoped to, you know, with regards to the ending of slavery.

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You know, there's a lot that could be critiqued about American abolitionism, and certainly the fruit of it.

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So, you know, again, I would go back to really, the debate to me is about, are we pursuing biblical justice?

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And so that's what I would emphasize and seek to understand and draw lines and distinctions in accordance with.

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So the incremental position that has been largely embraced by pro -life leaders who would identify as incrementalist, as does

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Scott Klusendorf. Scott Klusendorf identifies as incrementalist.

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Although he does say, pardon me for interrupting, but in his mind, he believes that every person who wants to bring an end to abortion is both an incrementalist and an abolitionist.

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And of course, you have abolitionists who vehemently disagree with that, but go on. I'm sorry for interrupting you.

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No, that's good. Yes. And that's a fair point. It's good to give his perspective on his representation. You know,

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Scott and I just actually spoke yesterday and had a good dialogue. And so I'll start here and this will give some,

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I'll get some history of the pro -life movement and the kind of incrementalism that I think is destructive to advancing the cause of justice in why an abolitionist movement was needed and why our organization and me personally was very supportive, became an abolitionist, yoked myself with the abolitionist movement and became an outspoken voice for that.

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That being said, I feel like I always need to give a qualifier because there's been a lot of bad in the abolitionist movement.

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There's a lot of things and people that I absolutely do not want to associate myself with. And a lot of people who are good godly men and women have had a lot of bad experiences with abolitionists.

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And so I want to be very careful to qualify what I mean and what

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I don't mean when I say I'm an abolitionist. And I don't want to be pigeonholed into sort of some of the jerky behavior of some of the people who've been a poor display of Christian principle and character online particularly.

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So, you know, I would say that I'm pro -life with qualifiers and I would say

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I'm an abolitionist with qualifiers, but really I'm a Christian who's pursuing biblical justice from the pre -born. And so the type of incrementalism that I think is bad, that we denounce and that has been disastrous really, is what we have seen really over the last 40 years of the pro -life movement.

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This is why there was a need for an abolitionist movement. You know, by and large the political, we're really talking about here as a political strategy, right?

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So we're kind of narrowing the focus not to broader cultural engagement or apologetics. You know,

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Scott and I would be largely in agreement on apologetic methodology, although there was a time when he was more in the camp of guys who would argue that we shouldn't mix religion into the debate, that that's just an extra confusing step and our goal is to change people's minds about abortion, save lives.

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If we can have a religious discussion after that, that's great, but we shouldn't lead with religious claims or religious argument.

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We should keep it narrowly focused on the baby and the humanity of the baby. And so I've always disagreed with that position, and I would have disagreed with Scott years ago on that when he was more in that line of thinking.

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And I think he's come around more, and you know, from reading his more recent stuff, he seems to be much more explicitly identifying with the

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Christian worldview and the importance of leading with a Christian worldview and Christian biblical ethics, grounding our arguments in Christian ethics.

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And I think that's imperative. I think that for a lot of the pro -life movement, there has been this wandering in the wilderness for 40 years because we've not been grounded theologically and have been ashamed of the gospel.

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And also, of course, much of the pro -life movement's been driven by the Roman Catholic Church, and there's a whole different set of problems for those of us that are

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Protestants, but there has been a reticence to ground our arguments theologically.

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And as a result, there's been a lack, I would say, of more clarity on how we articulate our positions.

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And so there's those that argue it's the baby's a baby from the time it can feel pain, from the time that it has a heartbeat, when its limbs are fully developed, when it starts to look more like a baby.

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You know, these are all sort of arguments. You know, of course, you have lots of pro -lifers who favor and are willing to accept a wide variety of exceptions to abortion.

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And so none of that is biblical justice. For us, the argument is that this pre -born human being is a human being from the moment of conception.

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Science affirms this to us. This is an argument we would look to science to inform our theology, where we say, you know, we have this amazing lens into the womb and into the early embryonic development of the child, and we understand this process of fertilization.

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That is when a unique individual human life comes into existence. That's a biological scientific fact.

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Every one of us, our life spectrum, our life of growth and development began at fertilization.

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We were living human beings at that point, distinct from our mother. And so the argument would be then that as distinct living human beings, we are made in the image of God, and we have value from God, and thus mothers and fathers have a duty, a parental obligation to love and to protect their children.

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And so everybody recognizes that outside of the womb, of course, if a mother abandons her one -year -old child while she wants to go out and party or do whatever, you know, we recognize that's a massive moral violation, and she's guilty of parental neglect and could potentially be guilty of homicide against her own child.

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And so we would simply extend that recognition of humanity into the womb, back to the moment of fertilization, and we ground this in the biblical ethic of thou shalt not murder.

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And our laws in Western civilization have been grounded historically in the

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Christian faith, and we should be unashamed of that. And it's shameful to the pro -life movement that so many leaders in the pro -life movement are ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ and ashamed of the biblical worldview and the biblical foundation that has given us our legal system in the

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West and also given us the very impetus to fight the injustices that we've rectified from the past.

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The abolitionist movement, of course, for the most part, they were unashamedly Christian. From Frederick Douglass to Harriet Tubman, Harriet Tubman said,

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Jesus told me to go and rescue slaves. I must protect slaves because Jesus told me to do this and commanded me to do this.

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So they were unashamedly Christian. And even up to the modern civil rights movement, of course, Martin Luther King, despite his many flaws, he was a reverend.

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He was a minister, a Christian. And so they sang hymns and preached from the scripture during their marches for equality and civil rights.

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So it has been Christianity that has given us the impetus to right these wrongs around our morality.

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The pro -life movement for years, as I said, has been like the Israelites, wandering in the wilderness for 40 years because we've not wanted to ground ourselves and submit to the law and word of God.

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And the result of that is that you can look at the 40 years plus, almost 50 years of living under Roe versus Wade, and you cannot point to in that time one significant public policy victory.

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I mean, imagine that. The pro -life movement is probably perhaps the largest voting bloc in American politics.

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I mean, look at the elections that pro -lifers win. We were largely responsible for putting

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George W. Bush in office. We're largely responsible for putting Ronald Reagan in office, giving

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Republicans super majorities in many states. During Donald Trump's first term in 2016, from 2016 to 2018,

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Republicans had control of at least two, if not all three branches of 32 states, plus the federal government.

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Think about that. Pro -life Republicans were in control of 32 states and all three branches of the federal government.

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And can you name a policy victory from 2016 to 2018? There wasn't one.

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In fact, let's pick up right where you left off there on the failure of the

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Republican pro -life establishment to accomplish much for the preservation of life for the unborn.

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We'll pick that up right where you left off when we return from our first commercial break.

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If you have a question for Jason, submit it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. If you desire to remain anonymous, please only do so if this is involving a personal and private matter.

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And whenever we're discussing abortion, of course, it is likely to invoke very personal and private questions from listeners.

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But if it's a general question, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. We'll be right back with Jason Storms.

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That's royaldiadem .com, mention Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. We're now back with my guest Jason Storms and before the break,

36:37

Jason, you were explaining how no matter how long

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Republicans have controlled office and appointed

36:48

Supreme Court justices and on and on we could go about some of the things that are viewed as successes amongst

36:56

Republicans, it hardly made a dent at all in bringing an end to the murder of unworn children, if you could just pick up where you left off.

37:06

Yeah, absolutely Chris, and so what we were saying is, you know, I likened the pro -life movement in the over 40 years of bearing the role era,

37:20

I likened it to the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years and disobedience, right, and so you look at the 40 plus years from 1973 on up to the present just a couple years ago and not one single substantive political victory and that is just astounding.

37:44

All that energy, all that money, all that mobilization and not one substantive victory.

37:52

Now what the pro -life movement would do, of course, is they would claim victories, they would celebrate, you know, achievements and accomplishments but these are really just pyrrhic victories, right, they were really just cowardly pandering to a political establishment committed to maintaining the status quo of abortion on demand and so they would nibble around the edges of that, you know, pass a bill that says, you know, you have to wait 24 hours before you can kill your baby, you have to, you know, in some cases show an ultrasound image before you kill your baby, which again it's completely up to the discretion of an abortion doctor and closed doors to do that and so there's no enforcement mechanism of a lot of these laws to begin with but, you know, these and so one of the reasons why all that pro -life energy because,

38:41

I mean, pro -lifers, as we said, put all kinds of people in office, they won all kinds of elections, you can, you know, pro -lifers can win elections but that never translated into substantive policy victories.

38:51

Why is that? Well, one big reason is because they believe the lie that they have to always obey the

38:58

Supreme Court and so when you accept the premise that you cannot defy or resist the

39:07

United States Supreme Court, no matter how absurd or ridiculous their rulings are, then you have painted yourself into a corner and so the

39:16

Casey decision made abundantly clear that state legislatures and the federal government can do nothing that imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to choose.

39:28

So if that's your premise, if that's what you're already accepting at the gate, then what political strategy is left to you?

39:37

You're basically saying I'm going to engage in a political strategy, I'm going to raise funds of pro -life people,

39:43

I'm going to tell them we're committed to ending abortion, raise money and tell them we're pro -life champions while accepting at the very outset of the game that we will do nothing that imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to choose.

39:59

So we already had lost at the beginning and so pro -lifers just accepted that and what a sham and you know the reality is that states and other branches of our federal government had every constitutional lawful right and duty to resist the

40:21

Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is not infallible. The Constitution is the law of the land they are to bow to.

40:29

You know I mean just think about the craziness of this to even give women the right to vote. To give women the right to vote, they had to pass a constitutional amendment.

40:40

But a right to an abortion, no constitutional amendment was needed. Seven black girl justices could just declare it.

40:48

It's in the Constitution, in the penumbras, in the you know the wording that they used was just utterly absurd and you know in 1973 when the

40:57

Roe v. Wade decision came down we should have had 20 or 30 states that said no, absolutely not, not here.

41:06

But every single governor, every single pro -life Christian governor rolled over, ordered the executive branches of a state, police chiefs, sheriffs on down to legally protect the opening of abortion clinics and for almost 50 years that was the reality.

41:34

And so we were beating that drum, defy Roe, defy Roe. And you know they said

41:42

Republican leaders, pro -life leaders would tell us over and over again can't be done, can't be done. And yet we watched the homosexuals do it right.

41:50

We had the federal, we had a federal DOMA law, the Defense of Marriage Act of Bill Clinton of all people signed into law.

41:58

And we had the state of Massachusetts just straight up defied it. They said we're going to give out gay marriage licenses.

42:04

We don't care if that violates federal law. We don't agree with that federal law. We think it's unjust and violates the rights of homosexuals.

42:11

And so we're going to stand in defiance of that law and give out homosexual marriage licenses. And they did.

42:18

And 13 states followed. And so at the time of the Obergefell decision which was of course just an absurdity, a quote unquote legalization of gay marriage, an absolute absurdity, 13 states had already defied the federal government and just said we're going to give out marriage licenses.

42:35

So the left can do it. The left has more conviction, more passion, and more commitment to its principles and courage than we do.

42:44

And we wonder why we're getting our butt kicked in the culture. And so what a shame to the pro -life leaders who will sell their birthright for a pot of porridge, who just for a seat at the table of the

42:56

GOP leadership were willing to trample and sacrifice the blood of pre -born children.

43:03

And so the major pro -life political lobbying organizations in this country have a massive amount of blood on their hands.

43:09

And they have been traitors, treacherous to both Christ and to these little ones they claim to be protecting and defending as they have taken the bribe money of big

43:21

Republican donors and special interest groups to be quiet and to go along to get along and to do the bare minimum.

43:29

And then to go to their base and to go to pro -life rank -and -file people and tell them we're fighting hard for pre -born children.

43:37

We need your money. We need your support. And make sure you go out and vote for George Bush.

43:44

Make sure you go out and vote for guys like Mitch McConnell. He's pro -life.

43:51

And so this has been a sham. It's been a disaster. It's been evil.

43:58

And so in light of this, you know, is what gave rise to the abolitionist movement. And guys down in Norman, Oklahoma, some young men down there and women to help launch this movement.

44:10

We saw what they were doing, you know, 10 years ago and said, yeah, these guys are saying the same things we've been saying.

44:16

And we like this. This is solid, solid rhetoric that we're hearing, solid principles.

44:22

So we jumped on board with it. And we began to help spread the ideas and the message.

44:29

And there was a commitment as the abolitionist movement grew, you know, that the moniker of Defy Roe, Ignore Roe was spreading.

44:38

Pressure was being put on state governments. State governments were being exposed for their weakness, for their hypocrisy, for their cowardice.

44:47

And, you know, what ended up happening in many states, of course, is that they end up passing to silence and appease us. They pass these trigger bills.

44:53

They said, well, we're not going to defy Roe, but we've got to do something because we're being exposed. And so we'll pass a trigger law.

45:00

That's a law that bans abortion once Roe is overturned. And a bunch of states passed that, probably their leadership thinking

45:07

Roe is not going to be overturned in their lifetime, you know. And praise

45:13

God for the Dobbs decision that Roe finally fell. And it took, you know, probably not a very pro -life guy.

45:22

I don't know. Maybe he is. Donald Trump, of all people, who amazingly put three

45:29

Supreme Court justices on the bench in four years and Roe fell.

45:35

Now, Dobbs, of course, was flawed in many ways. They could have done what

45:40

I would say they should have done. They had a duty to do was they could have recognized the pre -born child as a federally protected human person, just as all the rest of us.

45:51

They could have acknowledged that, no, we have constitutional protections under the 5th and 14th Amendments, and pre -born children are human persons and they deserve to be protected.

46:02

And they could have established federal protection and federal rights and a federal recognition of the humanity of pre -born children.

46:10

They failed to do that, and that's unfortunate. But nonetheless, there is much good that came from Dobbs and the repentance of Roe and the fall of Roe has been good.

46:22

And now it has eliminated this huge barrier that all these

46:28

Republican pro -life leaders were hiding behind. And now, of course, what we're seeing, and a lot of good pro -life guys, a lot of guys that have been in the fight that weren't quite where we were at.

46:38

They didn't back us on defying Roe. They didn't support that. They thought it was a little too radical, too extreme. But good guys, nonetheless, are coming to us and saying, you know,

46:50

Jason, the pro -life movement is a lot weaker than I thought. A lot of these legislators are far weaker than I thought.

46:57

Roe is out of the way and they're still offering compromised, weak half measures.

47:05

You know, what do we do? How do we fight this? How do we advance the ball? How do we infuse some testicular fortitude into the pro -life movement?

47:16

And that's what's needed is a revitalization of principle and courage. And I would say that that ultimately comes from being properly grounded in Christ and dependent upon the

47:27

Spirit of God and allowing the Spirit of God to work in and through us in not just our church work, but in our political engagement and our advocacy for public policy and justice, specifically justice for these pre -born children.

47:45

So that brings us to where we are now with sort of the abolitionist movement that has been spreading and been changing hearts and minds despite its flaws and despite some of the problems as there has been several major blowouts within the abolitionist movement.

48:04

Lots of infighting within the abolitionist movement, lots of biting and devouring and all sorts of things that have been unfortunate.

48:11

But despite that, God continues to bless the movement and good godly leaders have been raised up who stand on principle and can be persuasive and who know how to articulate themselves well.

48:28

And the fruit of the Spirit flow out of their lives and they speak with the authority of the

48:34

Word of God. And people are listening and people are seeing the need for strong leadership, principle, and a confronting of the political establishment.

48:45

And so that's what we're doing. So there's a lot there. Well, it seems to be one of the crucial areas of disagreement between those—and

48:56

I know you hate the terms, but they are the reality of our vocabulary—between the incrementalists and the abolitionists involves the prosecution of women in addition to the abortionists, the doctors themselves, and they don't even deserve to have the title of doctor or physician in my opinion.

49:22

But the fact that the incrementalists in varying degrees, most it seems, want no threat of persecution to ever be held over the heads of the women who are murdering their children.

49:41

They only want the physicians prosecuted and imprisoned and so on, whereas the abolitionists are saying you're treating this as if it's not murder.

49:54

Of course we need to have the women who are guilty of murdering their own children prosecuted, just like we would expect a woman who gives birth and throws her baby in a dumpster, allowing it to die of the natural causes and the elements in a trash can, or an angry mother even one day having an argument with her teenage son and shooting him in the head.

50:21

We would expect a murder to be treated like a murder and the mother, if she is a murderer, needs to be prosecuted.

50:31

So this seems to be a key element of the divide, is it not? Oh yes, absolutely.

50:41

That's been a major dividing line and continues to be. I'm optimistic and I'm excited that we're seeing the younger generation in particular, who are a little more principled of pro -life leaders coming around on this issue.

50:56

Lila Rose came out last year and said very forcefully that she believes that mothers have to be held accountable.

51:05

There's got to be some accountability there. They have to be held liable under the law. That was very encouraging for the size of her organization,

51:13

Live Action, to say that. Definitely, I'm sure, brought a lot of blowback. Abby Johnson, another widely recognized pro -life leader, has come out recently and said the same thing, speaking about her past two abortions.

51:29

She said, the baby was the victim. I was not the victim. I was the murderer. I was the perpetrator.

51:36

I needed to hear that because I needed God's forgiveness. How could I repent and find the healing and the mercy of God if I'm being told

51:46

I'm a victim and that I didn't do anything wrong? What was the autobiographical film that she created, the name?

51:54

It's called Unplanned. Right, that's what I thought. Yeah, that was a powerful, powerful, powerful film.

52:00

Yes, and it was a pleasant shock for many in the abolitionist movement to hear her recant her former views against the prosecution of mothers murdering their children.

52:13

Absolutely, and she's taken some strong stance. Even two years ago, while before Dobbs, it was in the middle of the 2020 crisis, she lives in Texas and she made a video.

52:28

She actually had Operation Save America signed in the background. And she said, hey, some of these crazy people have been saying we need to defy the government, the federal government, over pre -born children.

52:37

She's like, I thought that was kind of crazy. But she's like, now that the COVID stuff is going on and lockdowns and mandatory vaccines, she said,

52:44

I'm looking at my Governor Abbott, I'm looking at Governor DeSantis, and they're defying the federal government over this.

52:49

They're telling the Biden administration, no. And I'm applauding them. And so I had the realization, if I'm applauding them and I'm excited and I'm encouraged that they're defying the federal government over masks and vaccines and lockdowns, well, how much more should we be defying the federal government then over the killing of pre -born children?

53:12

And so that was powerful. And so that was encouraging for her to come around and begin to advocate for that.

53:18

So, you know, she's had quite a transformation, I think, in the last several years and by the grace of God.

53:23

And I know there are abolitionists that have been meeting with her and discussing these things with her and have been helping to plant these seeds and move her along.

53:34

So, you know, I give her credit. I was a bit of a critic of Abby Johnson for quite a while. And it's encouraging to see that she seems to be sensitive to the spirit of God and to correction and seems to have some integrity that she is following the logic and the force of these arguments to their conclusions, even if those conclusions are unpopular.

53:54

In fact, we've got to go to our midway break, folks. We'll be right back after these messages. Puritan Reformed is a

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If you are without a biblically sound church home that may be you too and so send in an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:12:38

and put I need a church in the subject line that's also the email address where you can submit a question to Jason Storms.

01:12:44

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com give us your first name at least city and state and country of residence and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter and Jason before the break you were giving accolades to Abby Johnson for her radical switch in ideology in regard to the pro -life movement she has become an abolitionist that do you want to pick up on anything that you failed to say before we went to the break?

01:13:18

No I think that was uh that was sufficient you know I think that Abby and others

01:13:24

I think we're I think we're going to continue to see prominent leaders in the pro -life movement make that transition you know um

01:13:31

I think you're going to see yeah some major players really begin to think this through and be confronted with the force of logic and reason and uh certainly the undeniable history of uh really pathetic results from the pro -life leadership and I think you know people that are principled right now who are fighters and who see that the the escalating almost exponentially wickedness in in our culture the just outright tyranny of the federal government you know people want to see fighters they're going to stand up and fight that and they recognize that the

01:14:10

Republican party has its own swamp dwelling political establishment that does not care about the

01:14:16

American people the constitution or uh or about God and uh and they need to be stood up to and uh people are looking for that in in all spheres and I think people are starting to kick the dots that yeah the pro -life movement is no exception to that where there is a political establishment pro -life establishment that is a part of that swamp and that is actually undermining efforts towards real justice and uh in one of those arguments of course is punishments for mothers so you know

01:14:48

I was just I was just on a podcast yesterday with a guy named Bryce Eddy really cool guy he's on the board of Turning Point USA is he cooler is he cooler than me uh well he's he's like a jiu -jitsu tacticals you know all right he's more dangerous than me but he's more dangerous he's more dangerous than you but I really he's cool he doesn't have the cool northeastern you know kind of new yorker accent that you've got and that you get a cup of coffee you know that that's that gives you endless points that's the only thing you could dig up about me well you've had many more years of faithfulness

01:15:24

I'll give you that okay so you know you got you have the uh the seasoned the seasoned wisdom of an elder so that's uh certainly very commendable if you listen carefully you can hear my own elders laughing but anyway

01:15:42

Chris that's funny so uh but you know what's interesting is is uh actually my son just sent me a clip of Charlie Kirk uh on a popular kind of secular podcast and you know he he was giving some very good pro -life apologetics and defending the pre -born children and doing a pretty good job and then that issue came up with punishment for moms and you know he just pulled the classic card if they're just victims they don't know what they're doing and all these women all these pro choice women that were on there were like what do you mean we're victims you don't think we know what we're doing you don't you think we're incompetent you think we're being just pressured into this that's absurd and you're claiming that abortion is murder and you wouldn't prosecute a so um you know they saw the the the uh inconsistency in that position yes jeff durbin has told me and for those of you who don't know jeff durbin is one of the pastors at apologia church in mesa arizona who is on the front line of seeking to bring an end to infanticide in the united states and who is routinely at abortion clinics and also uh intricately involved in the political system and trying to bring an end to abortion he has told me and this was a surprise when he when he first told me this i don't know how many years ago it was it wasn't that long ago maybe three or four years ago he told me that every single woman that he encounters at an abortion clinic knows she is going into the doors of that building to murder or trial every one of them he said yep yeah no jeff's 100 right and he's got lots of years of experience to to validate that claim and you know of course he's been absolutely at the forefront of engaging this issue culturally apologia and abortion now i've done phenomenal work put some amazing documentaries together and just done some excellent work articulating this and i've been privileged to be with him in quite a few states for some of that work and uh you know the amazing thing is like i said the force of logic and reason is on our side overwhelmingly it's just a matter of being able to have the conversations with people there's a knee -jerk reaction that you typically get with a lot of people because they've been sort of conditioned to think this way and it's been repeated so many times um but when you if you get the opportunity and this is why it's important that we're not jerks and we don't just bash people and just ridicule people online and just you know that kind of thing but that we actually you know labor patiently and long -suffering with our brothers who don't understand these these issues uh but who are genuine christian people you know there there is an opportunity to really persuade a lot of people on this because the force of logic and reason is on our side and a lot of people just haven't heard the arguments they've just not heard these things really articulated and so that's the season we're in right now where the culture is being seeded with these arguments and people are starting to say yeah so for example what i was able to share on that podcast yesterday and and uh the gentleman that i was with you know he's a really solid guy and uh but you know he believes that uh that the moms are victims now we didn't get a chance to really debate it because we kind of ran through a few other topics but i put the arguments out there and i could see he was just chewing on it and he kind of had a knee -jerk response against it but he was just chewing on my arguments but one of the you know one of the things i shared with him is that you know in the state of texas you have groups like you know students for life claiming putting memes out that texas is an abortion free state an abortion free state charlie kirk said on that uh radio show he said that uh the abortion rate in texas has gone down 90 that's what he told these ladies texas the abortion rate's gone down 90 well that's just factually false texas is not abortion free and the abortion rate has not gone down 90 bradley pierce you know excellent attorney runs the foundation to abolish abortion and abolish abortion texas has done some excellent work and his guys on this just released a study on this so based upon all the data we have you know texas was was was doing about probably 55 000 abortions a year annually over the last few years prior to dobs 55 000 in our big pro -life state of texas well now that we are one year and a year and a half after dobs what they're looking at is the the abortion rates probably dropped to around 48 000 or so 49 000 so there's been a decline of about six to eight thousand babies approximately they don't you know numbers there's some some variations in some of the data but so you know that's that's not a certainly not a 90 percent drop and that certainly is not an abortion free state so 30 000 of those abortions are women who've gone out of state they were texas residents and they left the state to get an abortion in another state now that's hard to stop we could pass a bill of equal protection in texas and you know that's still going to be a difficult thing to stop you know there are laws and certainly we can enforce laws you can't go across state lines and go murder somebody in a different state and come back to our state right so there's things that can be done but that's a more difficult fight and it's going to you know be harder to prove and that sort of thing in a so uh but but what you did have is 19 000 self -managed at home abortions texas residents texas women with legal immunity ordering abortion pills delivered right to their home sitting right in their home in houston dallas san antonio take their pills murder their baby with legal immunity 19 000 little babies killed with legal immunity just in texas under the auspices of a abortion ban under the auspices of an abortion free state so the pro -life leaders that are saying this are 100 wrong and they need to be called out for it they need to be challenged on this because it's just flat wrong now we need to do it graciously we need to present the data present the arguments and and the argument leads you to the conclusion the state of texas if you're pro -life you're pro -life leaders and you want to provide legal protection for pre -born children then you must have accountability legally for those mothers one pre -born children deserve it pre -born children deserve to be treated as a born child we don't grant legal immunity for moms to kill born kids we shouldn't be doing it for pre -born kids one a mom kills her one -year -old she's going to jail there are extenuating circumstances of course the mom could be could have a severe mental illness may have been drugged up there's a variety of factors that prosecutors can certainly grant leniency and the same would be the case in an abortion case if a woman kills her baby and she was genuinely coerced or profoundly misled by authority figures in her life to believe that's not really a human being all these variables can be taken into consideration in a trial and prosecutors can certainly grant leniency but you don't write a wholesale exemption into your laws the laws should protect everyone equally and pre -born children should be given the same protection and same defense as a born child and our laws should express that and that really is what it means to be pro -life i would argue if we're going to say you're 100 pro -life your principled pro -life convictions should lead you to the conclusion that every human being from the moment of fertilization deserves the same protection same defense as a born child and that's all we're saying you know that's all we're saying amen and i believe the force the force of reason and conscience and moral law is on our side it's just a matter of us presenting these arguments strongly not cowering and shying away from them not trying to water them down or pander to the middle or pander to the pro -aborts and throw them bones and make exceptions but simply passionately forcefully with conviction and grace articulate our principles and it i think it will be persuasive and we can win in many of these states but this is low -hanging fruit alabama louisiana mississippi arkansas texas thousands of babies being murdered in these extremely pro -life states that's the low -hanging fruit we should get bills of equal protection passed in texas in alabama in mississippi in louisiana in arkansas this year that should be a legislative priority for every pro -life person every principled 100 pro -life person if you tell me you're pro -life and you really mean it then come and support our bills of equal protection in all those states close these loopholes of immunity for moms give equal protection to pre -born children and you will literally save tens of thousands of babies lives this year amen and so that needs to be a legislative priority amen and we have a listener question for you who happens to be this listener happens to be a very dear friend of mine who almost became my pastor but he in god's mercy dodged a bullet because i wound i wound up moving off of long island where a pastor josh freiman formerly lived and pastored i moved off of long island to pennsylvania so it never came to be where josh was my pastor but he is a dear friend who from whom i have benefit benefited greatly a dear brother in christ who is pastor of harvest baptist church in larimore north dakota now and has been for several years um in fact i want to announce that josh will soon be launching his own radio program awake to righteousness which will be heard in north dakota 7 a .m

01:26:09

to 7 30 a .m on sundays and that will be heard on knox radio 13 10 a .m

01:26:16

and 103 .3 and 107 .9 fm that's awake to righteousness a radio ministry of harvest baptist church in larimore north dakota and josh has a question that i believe is a very good question wouldn't expect anything less from josh and let's see here what are your guests thoughts on including the need or responsibility to defend the elderly alongside the unborn oh interesting you know i would say that that's in one sense a different a different fight a different uh issue though certainly falls under the biblical category of justice and love for neighbor and civic duty and so certainly the church should be concerned and have an opinion on the subject not an opinion but a biblically derived position that we are willing to stand and defend in the public square um and so yeah i think that is important because uh many of the same forces that have thrust abortion upon the population are also thrusting euthanasia upon the population and uh there's a lot that could be said about the corruption deep corruption anti -biblical and thus anti -human worldview of uh much of the pharmaceutical world and much of the medical world where you know human beings are sort of guinea pigs or they're just a means to profit and the pride and arrogance and the lack of respect for human life and god's created order has led to uh you know a culture of gross sickness disease obesity that is perpetually misdiagnosed you know rather than telling somebody to go lose some weight go for a jog start exercising regularly start cutting quit eating crap and start eating good food that god designed and uh and start going to church and worshiping the lord and getting better mental health and alleviating stress and worry and fear trust in the lord and work out and take care of your body that the temple of the holy spirit you know we're telling people take this pill lifestyle changes don't matter you can be a complete moral degenerate that's okay just take this pill as if there's no no connection so old people are sick they're dying they're not being treated well in hospitals we have an aging population that is uh you know seen by many to be just a burden a lot of uh a lot of kids can't wait for their parents to die off so they can collect their inheritance you know and euthanize them so that this is a this is a horrible cultural reality of uh of uh you know the post -christian world that uh that met large swaths of the population are now embracing so yeah this is something that's important for pro -life and you value all human life and you value value the teaching of scripture then yet we ought to be speaking about pastors ought to be speaking about it we need to be uh be examining what's happening to the elderly in our culture and by the way i want to plug uh josh fryman's church website here larimorehbc .org

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that's l -a -r -i -m -o -r -e h -b -c .org

01:29:44

and that's the website for harvest baptist church in larimore north dakota love you brother and hope to see you soon and i don't want to get on a sidetrack here but it has often grieved me that the church has succumbed to such a great degree to the worship of youth that uh the opinions of the elderly don't matter at all when churches are designing their liturgy their call to worship their music especially their music they don't care not even for a second do they care about how the elderly amongst them are going to react to things that they may be offended by now i know that there is a difference between planting a fresh church a new church but when you have already a church in existence where there are elderly members it grieves me that and i can't even explain in detail in the english language i'm incapable of conveying how grieved i am that that many pastors and leaders and especially perhaps quote -quote worship leaders they could not care less about what the elderly think about anything they're doing they're they're supposed to just move aside you're going to be in heaven soon anyway so just keep your mouth shut and it just bothers me but anyway um we hundred percent right uh cindy and finley ohio says how is the fight against abortifacients being fought that's a tough one and so you know i uh we've been we've been fighting this for a long time i can remember going to a promise keepers event in baltimore 23 years ago and passing out uh literature there thousands of it with a good friend of mine denny green who he and his family life and liberty ministries was just convicted in that face trial in nashville and uh you know we were exposing uh i was in my early 20s before i was even married uh we were exposing abortifacient birth control to evangelical christians at a promise keepers rally and you know it was not received very well uh one way to have a lot of people who are pro -life get really quiet is when you start talking about abortifacient birth control so you know i think there's a huge educational battle certainly our legislative uh policies you know a bill of equal protection that we advocate which just just prescribes you know just it just puts pre -born children recognizes that they're human beings and uh it puts abortion under homicide statutes um you know that would outlaw effectively implicitly uh abortifacient birth control um it would force birth control manufacturers to to to redesign their their birth control um and this is something certainly that has been a major reason why we've lost some of these statewide ballot initiatives uh certainly uh the personhood amendment that we pushed in mississippi back in 2011 was uh winning 70 percent in the polls at that time and lost ended up losing badly over 60 voted against it because the last two weeks plan period just bombarded the state with information about birth control would be criminal uh you take birth control you could be prosecuted um and ivf as well so you know this is this is an important fight now one of the difficulties of course you know is recognizing and you know we got we got to be honest about this and our rhetoric and careful in our rhetoric home is taking a birth abortifacient birth control is not necessarily a murderer and there are people who like to say that and and i think that that a is just factually false in b you know of course that's going to shut down a lot of discussion and necessary conversation because people are going to have a knee -jerk reaction and we got to be wise right now we approach the conversation and be able to present the facts and information to people but the vast majority of women that are taking abortifacient birth control are not attempting to kill their child right so first degree homicide takes into account motive and intention it is uh you know you were intending to kill the person so um a lot of people are taking birth control don't even know that a boy that an abyss an abortifacient that it can potentially kill an embryo and certainly they're taking it the primary motive for taking it is to prevent getting pregnant not to kill a baby so motive is a factor there would be a factor you know certainly in law and in prosecution and uh in legislative uh endeavors there so um but i do think 100 the church needs to be speaking about abortifacient birth control and teaching you know really what this means is the church needs to be teaching pastors need to be teaching about the early embryonic stages of development i mean this should be a part of sunday morning sermons if you're going through the psalms fearfully and wonderfully made you know uh if you're going through you know uh any passages uh that that that speak of the pre -born child and uh then then it's a fitting place in good exegesis for a bible teacher to to say let's look at embryonic development let's look at what science has shown us about the intricacy and the beauty of the miracle we can see god's handiwork and the beauty of how these little cells uh miraculously come together and grow and multiply and inform into this beautiful precious uh human being so it's just incredible the process and uh we need to be teaching uh our congregations to think rightly and biblically and consistently on uh on early embryonic development in the value of of uh of embryos as as uh as little human beings so i think that's important pastors need to be teaching and talking about it vast majority of pastors don't sadly and uh even a lot of pro -life pastors uh you know who will preach a sanctity of life sermon oftentimes don't get into the necessary detail and properly educate their congregations to think rightly and to respond to objections and to contend for the faith in the public square in an articulate and persuasive manner and that's important especially if we're going to win these legislative fights amen well uh as you know one of the primary reasons that you are on iron sharpens iron radio today is that when i originally made the announcement that you were the representative to defend the abolitionist movement in a debate with scott klusendorf who will be the representative of incrementalism in a debate with you on this program on wednesday february 21st when i first made the announcement i was very surprised that i began to become inundated with uh angry uh social media posts saying that what are you doing having jason storms debate an incrementalist that's like having an incrementalist debate an incrementalist he's no abolitionist and there began to be this outcry uh which seems to have died down in fact there are no i'm very surprised there are no questions that have come in yet from some of those people who were objecting to your participation in this debate representing abolitionism none of these abolitionists who are angry about that have sent in questions today or even comments but but the thing that was just perplexing is that when i would say to these people uh jason storms comes with the highest recommendation to represent abolitionism by the abolitionists that i personally know which include jeff durbin josh bice and brian gunter uh who is the uh pastor of first baptist church in livingston louisiana and is a passionate abortion abolitionist and by the way folks if you want to listen to a wonderful program i did with brian gunter on the theme has pro -life evangelical christian republican house speaker mike johnson betrayed the cause to rescue the unborn from slaughter uh you can just type in gunter in the search engine at iron trip and zion radio .com

01:39:01

g -u -n -t -e -r and that will come up that took place on december 5th of last year uh but uh when i said to these people these men highly recommended uh jason storms to participate in this debate and every one of them said oh that can't be you're mistaken you didn't understand them uh either you're being dishonest or you just totally misunderstood what jeff and josh and brian said those men we love they're our champions they're doing the right thing but jason no way and of course all three of those men that i mentioned adamantly and enthusiastically confirmed that they are 100 behind you as the choice so explain this if you could in fact could you explain it when we come back from the final break we have to go to our final break right now sounds good all right don't go away folks we'll be right back james white of alpha omega ministries here if you've watched my dividing line webcast often enough you know i have a great love for getting bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity and besides that they feel so good i'm so delighted i discovered post tenebrous lux bible rebinding no radio ad will be long enough to sing their praises sufficiently but i'll give it a shot jeffrey rice of post tenebrous lux is a remarkably gifted craftsman and artisan all his work is done by hand from the cutting to the pleating of corners to the perimeter stitching jeffrey uses the finest and buttery soft imported leathers in a wide variety of gorgeous colors like the turquoise goat skin tanned in italy used for my nestle all in 28th edition with a navy blue goat skin inside liner and the electric blue goat skin from a french tannery used to rebind a reformation study bible i used as a gift the silver gilding he added on the page edges has a stunning mirror finish resembling highly polished chrome jeffrey will customize your rebinding to your specifications and even emboss your logo into the leather making whatever he rebinds a one -of -a -kind work of art for more details on post tenebrous lux bible rebinding go to ptl bible rebinding .com

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that's ptl bible rebinding .com i'm dr tony costa professor of apologetics and islam at toronto baptist seminary i'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where i've been invited to speak and have grown to love hope reform baptist church in quorum long island new york pastored by rich jensen and christopher mcdowell it's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of god like the dear saints at hope reform baptist church in quorum who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of christ in his holy word and to enthusiastically proclaim christ jesus the king and his doctrines of sovereign grace in suffolk county long island and beyond i hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as i have for more information on hope reform baptist church go to hope reform li .net

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that's hope reformed li .net or call 631 -696 -5711 that's 631 -696 -5711 tell the folks at hope reform baptist church of quorum long island new york that you heard about them from tony costa on iron sharpens irons when iron sharpens iron radio first launched in 2005 the publishers of the new american standard bible were among my very first sponsors it gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the iron sharpens iron radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the nasb i'm dr joseph piper president and professor of systematic and homiletical theology at greenville presbyterian theological seminary in taylor's south carolina and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor chuck white at the first trinity lutheran church in tonawanda new york and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor anthony methenia of christ church in radford virginia and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor jesse miller of damascus road christian church in gardenville nevada and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor bruce bennett of word of truth church in farmerville long island new york and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor rodney brown of metro bible church in south lake texas and the nasb is my bible of choice i'm pastor jim harrison of redmills baptist church in mayapac falls new york and the nasb is my bible of choice here's a great way for your church to help keep iron sharpens iron radio on the air pastors are your pew bibles tattered and falling apart consider restocking your pews with the nasb and tell the publishers you heard about them from chris arnson on iron sharpens iron radio go to nasbible .com

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1 -800 -NOW -HURT .COM make sure you mention chris arnzen of iron sharpens iron radio also if you're a man in ministry leadership you are invited to my next free biannual iron sharpens iron radio pastor's luncheon thursday june the 6th 11 a .m

01:50:06

to 2 p .m at church of the living christ in loisville pennsylvania which is perry county my guest speaker for the very first time is dr joel beekie the founder and president of puritan reform theological seminary not only is your admission free and your lunch free and your time of fun and fellowship and rest and relaxation free you will also receive everybody will receive a free heavy sack of brand new books personally selected by me and also donated by generous christian publishers all over the united states and the kingdom just for being present there at the free pastor's luncheon so if you want to register for free send me an email to chris arnzen at gmail .com

01:50:47

chris arnzen at gmail .com and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line we're now back with my guest jason storms and jason if you could explain the hostility i was receiving from self -proclaimed abolitionist who believed that you were not an appropriate representative for their cause in this upcoming debate with scott klusendorf on wednesday february 21st on iron sharpens iron radio and the frustrating aspect of it was each and every one of these individuals agreed that jeff durbin josh bice and brian gunter were their heroes and yet they seemed to distrust their discernment about you or they just thought that i was out of my mind and misunderstood what they were saying in their recommendation of you so if you could explain this hey can you hear me yeah i'll hear you loud and clear okay good um my thing was spinning there so yeah so well um my knowledge of those guys is they actually are very critical of josh bice and critical of jeff as well uh in fact many of them have uh you know i've seen comments where they've they've ripped on jeff durbin and in question his genuineness as a as a abolitionist so you know what you've got going on here is there's kind of uh different wings of the abolitionist movement that have emerged and uh from my perspective one would be sort of a reasonable godly leadership uh you know principled but yet uh gracious in the way that we engage with and deal with uh brothers who aren't quite where we are as we move them seek to move in our direction and also just simply recognizing nuance so you know the problem with what you know we call like the early abolitionist movement went by the moniker aha right and there was just a lot of problems there a lot of things that were were out of line you know in some ways it was a youth movement you mentioned earlier the level of disrespect that is routinely shown to older people well that was a big part of the early abolitionist movement and still is a part of the swaths of the abolitionist movement where there is a profound disrespect a willingness to just for young men you know who listen to a aha lecture to just jump on social media and just start bashing older godly men who identify as pro -life and uh and that's just really ugly type behavior you know and and what oftentimes would happen in the midst of that was there seemed to be an inability of some people particularly certain abolitionist leaders to critique ideas and to critique strategy and to critique uh and assess principles without attacking character and impugning motives this is such a common thing where you know in the washington do with scott klusendorf for example people jumped all over scott klusendorf on many threads have just been vicious saying he's just in it for the money and he's just a career man he doesn't really care about babies being killed and just all this kind of stuff was like why would you even say that there's just no reason to you a you know and sometimes this was like 20 year old 25 year old young men saying these things who had been in this fight for like a year or two years cage stage abolitionists yes yes and and so those guys have done just a ton of damage you know those guys attacked jeff durbin jeff had actually back in 2018 exposed a whole bunch of stuff going on uh with a group of guys in norman oklahoma me and russie thomas spent hours mediating that and so um you know there's there's just a group of of abolitionists that uh you know can be really nasty and they get their marching orders from their leaders to just go and attack and agitate they use this phrase agitate agitate agitate so you know that's what they were doing they were they were given marching orders to agitate me they've been told all sorts of things about me that are just flat not true um and so you know they they twist things that i say they look for every opportunity and uh you know to try to discredit me and so one of the reasons i think they do that is because i say the very things i'm saying now i have been critical i've said uh even when i was a shirt wearing you know uh pastor i would say things like look at the abolitionist movement's known for a lot of things love the passion love the zeal love the commitment to principle uh love the way that you guys utilize social media very effectively as young people but one thing the abolitionist movement is not known for is humility and scripture says god resists the proud but gives grace to the humble clothe yourself in humility humble yourself under the mighty hand of god and he will exalt you in due time and so this has been a major problem with the abolitionist movement and many of us have separated ourselves from that behavior and from people that act that way and just said we're not going to associate with that and so that just brings even more of their ire upon us um so bottom line is there is good and bad abolitionists just like there's good and bad incrementalists uh there are godly christian men committed to christ who love the lord of godly children who still are in an incrementalist camp and uh so you know i'll say a word about good and bad incrementalism in that sense as i told you i don't like those terms so um to answer your question succinctly there there's personal issues that some of these folks have personal behavior issues and then there is there is some strategy differences like for example me and jeff durbin some other guys did uh uh had a bill of equal protection in south carolina a few years ago and we we uh the bill was defeated and we had a whole legislative session ahead of us so our bill sponsor jonathan hill great guy he said hey guys the budget's coming up and there's funding for planned parenthood i'm going to introduce a motion to strike the funding for planned parenthood we said let's do it we'll support you we had a rally already planned for equal protection we did that and we also mentioned cutting the funding for planned parenthood well these guys you know particularly in oklahoma they attacked us for that they said oh that's incrementalism that's uh you know you're delaying abolition you know you're compromising they attacked me tagged jeff's attacked others one of the one of the guys that was critiquing us said you know we're not commanded to defund the altars of molek we're commanded to tear down the altars of molek and that sounds really good the problem is that individual has not torn down an altar of molek no abolitionists have torn down an altar of molek none of us have ended abortion abortion is still thriving in this culture and so i'm not interested in theoretical ideology i'm interested in actually ending this killing and what do we need to do to actually end it and the reality is that there's going to be incremental steps in that process as we stand on one line and hold the line and call for equal protection and make the arguments we're going to shift the overton window our direction and we're going to pull the the movement and the establishment our way and we're going to get incremental victories quote unquote uh out of that that's what's going to happen there's going to be steps as they begin to move our direction and we continue to hold the line you know we don't advocate for those incremental bills we don't advocate for those incremental steps we hold the line at abolition and we hold the line equal protection but we recognize that that is a part of the process there's going to be a pulling of the overton window our way and the practical realities of how we're going to see abortion ended it's going to happen that way right we're going to move them from a heartbeat bill to a life of conception bill then we're going to have to deal with the punishments and get the punishments from others woven in and so we don't compromise we don't support those incremental steps we don't celebrate them uh we don't give them a pass those that have uh you know those that are pulling on the other end of the spectrum right the political establishment opposes and they're pulling the other way right um so anyway um you know i think that's that's where some of the the differences can be found is we're not so much interested i'm not interested in just having a pure abstract theoretical ideology that i can club people with and say i'm the pure guy i'm interested in what's going to save baby's lives because i think that's what glorifies the lord amen and we're that's we make it then we're out of time brother go ahead and i want to make sure that bummer yeah that's i want to make sure our listeners have your website operationsaveamerica .org

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operationsaveamerica .org and don't forget about the website for mercy seat christian church where uh my guest jason storms serves on the staff alongside his father -in -law my friend matt true hella who's been a guest on this program mercyseat .net