The Here I Stand Theology Podcast - The interview with FREE THE STATES (Roe Overturned?)
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In this episode we will be talking with James and Russell about the leaked SCOTUS decision, and what we need to continue to expect.
- 00:00
- All right, welcome to the Here I Stand Theology Podcast. So today we've got a guest in the studio.
- 00:06
- You may have noticed him sitting here, Pastor Aaron Case from Eden Chapel, and we're going to be talking with the guys from Free the
- 00:13
- States. So stay with us. You don't want to miss this. Here I stand.
- 00:33
- I can do no other. God help me. Will you recant or will you not?
- 00:53
- Since your majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer.
- 01:07
- Unless I am convinced by scripture and by plain reason, and not by popes and councils who have so often contradicted themselves, my conscience is captive to the word of God.
- 01:30
- To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. I cannot and I will not.
- 01:48
- Here I stand. I can do no other.
- 01:57
- God help me. Welcome to the
- 02:34
- Here I Stand Theology Podcast. In studio with us, special guest host,
- 02:39
- Pastor Aaron Case. Wave hi to the camera, Aaron. Hey, great to be here. And we've got the guys from Free the
- 02:46
- States with us as well. We are going to be talking to them here in just a moment. We are excited about what's going on.
- 02:53
- We are going to let them, have them give us the rundown on everything. And we are going to talk more about the importance of being abolitionists.
- 03:17
- Thank you, Jesus. All right, let's bring the guys in here.
- 03:23
- Let's add them to the stream. Here we are. Hello, guys. How are you? Russell is holding up his patented, nailed it, mug.
- 03:35
- I thought it was appropriate. Yes, that was very good, very good. And while we're here, it's just starting out.
- 03:41
- Let's go ahead since Russell showed his mug. Let's have Pastor Aaron show his mug. Are you sure you want to do that?
- 03:47
- Go ahead and bring it in. Bring it in because the folks at your church are going to want to see this. Hold it up. Go ahead and take a drink out of it.
- 03:53
- Smile. Now I feel dirty doing this. And say, roll tide. And I will say, thank you,
- 04:03
- Jesus. Oh, man. Small thoughts going through my mind right there.
- 04:09
- Aaron's got the church member where he pastors, where the man graduated from Alabama.
- 04:16
- Oh, goodness. Yeah, maybe in the 60s. Yeah. But Aaron and him have a hard time being in sweet fellowship with one another.
- 04:28
- Luckily, the gospel bond is a stronger bond than football. Yeah. Thank you, Lord. Yes. So you all probably remember we're in Knoxville, Tennessee, right?
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- Home of the Tennessee Volunteers. Come on, man. All right.
- 04:43
- So we are not here to talk about the Vols. We're not here to talk about football, even though Alabama is better.
- 04:50
- All right. So, guys, it has been probably a little over a year since we had you all on the first time.
- 04:57
- All three of you all were on. I don't know if you all remember. I rewatched the episode. You all were making fun of Sam because he always sat in the back.
- 05:06
- He looks real tall. Yeah. Yeah. And he's really probably taller than both of you, ain't he?
- 05:13
- Yeah. He figured out that it was the way the cameras were arranged. They're making it look like that. So it's not that way anymore.
- 05:19
- But he is like our little Oompa Loompa. He's not here now.
- 05:26
- You all can talk about him. No, he's not here because he's over there working. Oh, so he is in studio.
- 05:33
- He's just not there. Oompa Loompa. Well, guys, we are truly thankful that you all are with us today.
- 05:41
- Truly thankful for the work that you all do. Honestly, we thank God for you all every single day.
- 05:49
- And we had the fun questions. Of course, you all remember the arm wrestling question, right? If you all had to arm wrestle each other, who would win?
- 05:56
- We still haven't seen pictures of that. So we need pictures. To put on the wall of manliness.
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- But I do have a question. So if you all had to arm wrestle Rachel, who would win?
- 06:12
- Rachel's smart. She'd probably find some way to use the over the top. Yeah. Or just kick you in the shin underneath the table.
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- So, again, it's been about a year since you were on the podcast the first time. And I know a lot has gone on.
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- Really? Probably the better question, as we put to you all, would be what hasn't happened with you all.
- 06:39
- Last year. So go ahead and give us a rundown. Give us a recap on what y 'all have been up to.
- 06:45
- The breaking news of today and so on. Yeah. So we can get to the news in a minute here.
- 06:51
- I think as far as what's gone on over the last year, you know, our kind of big annual events are the
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- Abolition Now Conference, the Abolition Day Rally. And so we did those earlier this year. I think the conference,
- 07:02
- I think it was for sure the best one we've had yet. Definitely. Yeah. We got to have it at the church that Russell attends.
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- Yeah. So Edmonds First Baptist, which is actually like a large, larger church in Edmond that's just got really good facilities.
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- And the pastor there, Blake Gideon, who had become an abolitionist maybe about a year prior, was being a really good shepherd to the folks there and got a lot of people from the congregation to come.
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- Church just really opened up its doors, platforming the ideas and they've spread without a hitch there.
- 07:32
- So that was really good. And then also this year's Abolition Day Rally and just surrounding things.
- 07:41
- We've seen a lot less apprehension towards us and a lot more acceptance or willingness to hear our arguments.
- 07:50
- So it's been a very good year for that. Yeah. Yeah. We had a house bill for the first time, an abolition bill in the house.
- 07:55
- We've only been on any other chamber thus far. And so, yeah, just getting to interact with a bunch of house reps who we haven't gotten to interact with much.
- 08:03
- And then we also, we brought on a new member. We brought on Tim Gillespie, who is the, he was one of the, he was the director of Oklahoma Second Amendment Association, which is a very, here in Oklahoma, that's a very influential group.
- 08:13
- And so we brought him on to kind of be our representative of the Capitol. And I said, the only other real, real big thing, well
- 08:19
- I guess there's probably two, but the main one was the SPC stuff. So we were working with some of the pastors here in Oklahoma and from around the country to draft the
- 08:27
- SPC resolution on abolishing abortion. And then that got brought to the annual meeting in June. Are you
- 08:33
- SPC officially or did you guys leave it? We're not actually, neither of us. Okay.
- 08:39
- Yeah. But anyway, that was a really, that was a huge event in the history of the movement for sure.
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- To see that much information material get out, to see that many messengers affirm abolitionism. It was really, really encouraging.
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- I noticed on the Liberator podcast the other day that I think it was the most recent one. You were, you were talking quite a bit about Tom Askell.
- 09:00
- That is awesome to hear that he is doing what he's doing and that will probably bring some needed reform.
- 09:07
- Yeah. It's already creating conversations I think that weren't happening because Tom Askell is out, out of the,
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- I don't know what we'd say. He's an out and out abolitionist.
- 09:20
- I don't like the term out of the closet when we talk about being abolitionist or being Calvinist, whatever the case may be.
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- He's an unashamed to align himself with abolitionism, abolitionists. I think he's also good on a number of other areas and he's important that he's being put forward as a potential leader for the denomination.
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- He came on our show and has agreed with us and of course his brother.
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- There's a lot more pastoral support over the past year. There's also the documentary that came out, Storm Comes Rolling Down the
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- Plain. Oh yeah, that was last year. It's a phenomenal resource to get to people who may be the unreached peoples that are not on Facebook or whatever.
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- Still, I want to put a DVD in there and watch it. That was a good resource that came out.
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- It's also available on Bing. All right, so we'll move right along there.
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- Let's talk about the most recent news. The political leak of Justice Alito's draft decision.
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- How did that come about? It's over. No one is murdering children in the United States of America now.
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- That's what you would think from some of the headlines. If you're reading some of the – I got a fundraising email from somebody who was like, the battle's almost over.
- 10:48
- Send us more money and we will finish out the year and abortion will no longer be thinkable in America.
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- I was like, oh my goodness. The past 50 years of pro -life incrementalism and regulationism have made abortion very thinkable even among Christians.
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- We have a long way to go. But yes, recent things in the news have made it hard to sleep.
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- I was up last night. It's a 98 -page draft that got released. I didn't read the last 30 pages, basically the index, but I read all the rest of it last night.
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- Yes, some interesting stuff in there for sure. He mostly went after the historical arguments that were made in Roe.
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- The authors of Roe were basically saying that abortion is deeply rooted in the history and tradition of the
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- United States of America, and therefore when the 14th Amendment says that we'll protect the due process rights to life and liberty, that includes the right to abortion.
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- Alito's basically saying, no, there was never, ever a history or tradition of abortion in America. That's absurd.
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- Roe was wrong on that. And then he argues basically against the other argument for Roe, which has been, even though it's wrong because of sari decisis, the court should uphold what it said previously, even if it was wrong.
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- And so then Alito kind of goes after that. And so, yes, it's a pretty well -written document. Roe appears to be.
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- Of course, it's not a final decision until it's actually announced. This is a draft that was released that he has drafted, but it's not official.
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- Justices can change their vote all the way up until basically the moment that it's announced. And we've seen that before with Obamacare.
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- John Roberts, when they met privately for a private conference, John Roberts voted to strike down Obamacare. And then it came time for the decision, and he supported
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- Obamacare. And so we have seen changes in the past that still could happen, but it appears that Roe is headed to be overturned.
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- Now, the issue that we have with it is that while some good can obviously come, of course, can come from Roe being overturned, that takes away one of the biggest excuses that we hear at the capitals of people not wanting to abolish abortion.
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- They say, well, we have to wait for Roe. And so now that excuse is gone. And so it does take away a huge excuse that politicians use to not abolish abortion, and that is a very helpful thing.
- 13:02
- But it wasn't actually correctly decided. Like if you read the Constitution, it says that no state shall deny to any person the equal protection of the law.
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- So a state can't pick and choose, here's a group of people who are not going to receive this right or this protection or this, whatever, they're going to be treated differently under law than everybody else.
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- States can't do that. And so what we have with abortion is a state that chooses to allow abortion is saying, here's a group of people who are not going to provide protection of the law against murder.
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- We're going to allow them to be murdered. And so abortion is not constitutional. The Constitution is not correctly understood and applied.
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- It outlaws abortion. And that's not what the court did. That's what they should have done. It's not what they did. And so there is still work to do.
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- Because of that, there's work to do in persuading the court of what they should have done. And because the court didn't do what they should have done, there's work to do in persuading all the states to make preborn children equal under law.
- 13:56
- And that's still going to be a long, a lot of work ahead of us. Yeah. And with that being said, too,
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- I was going to, we was going to, I got sidetracked. Let's go ahead and show Shame on the
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- States real quick. And then we'll come back to this topic and we'll go from there because that, this has everything to do with what you just said there.
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- March 1857. The Supreme court rules that black people are inferior beings and have no rights as citizens, that they are property, not persons.
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- That runaway slaves must be returned to their masters and that chattel slavery will never be abolished.
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- A small number of Christians ignore the court's ruling, choose to love their neighbors as themselves and help slaves escape to freedom while they call for total and immediate abolition for decades.
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- Abolitionists have argued that slavery is sin, that it is inconsistent with the declaration of independence, that it is not only wrong, but that the way it has been opposed has been profoundly inadequate.
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- Abolitionists put slavery on trial in the court of public opinion. More and more people begin defying the federal fugitive slave act.
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- And though the nation refuses to repent, the necessity of abolition becomes a reality.
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- January 1973. The Supreme court rules that preborn babies are not persons and have no rights as humans, that no state has the right to protect children in the womb from murder, that no child has the right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.
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- All of the states submit to this unjust decree and over 63 million humans greeted in the image of God are murdered in its wake.
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- Shame on the states. Courts do not make laws. And when the Supreme court is wrong, it ought to be defied.
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- They are not God. Abolitionists are once again, rising up to love their neighbors as themselves, defying the court's unjust rules and working to establish justice within their jurisdictions.
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- It's time for the states to take a stand, protect the innocent among them and abolish abortion within their borders.
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- Learn more at freethestates .com. Do it.
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- Just do it. Don't delay. Just do it.
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- That's a great clip of Sam that you found there. Most folks don't realize that Sam Riley.
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- Hey, by the way, on a side note, if you want to see somebody, if you don't know him, look up Nathan Kravot.
- 16:50
- He's awesome guy, RFP reforming a recovering fundamentalist podcast. You talk about a doppelganger for Shia LaBeouf.
- 16:57
- I guess it's Shia LaBeouf. Is it Shia LaBeouf or Shia LaBeouf? Shia LaBeouf. Do it.
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- So back to what you all were saying there. And another thing that you mentioned in the article and has been brought up,
- 17:13
- I think by others already, is that this could be somewhat of a kind of a ploy by the left.
- 17:22
- Yeah, there's definitely something going on here with this being leaked.
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- Like there. It's very important for people to understand that the Supreme Court is a political institution.
- 17:35
- And oftentimes, certainly for the past. Well, really, actually, from the very beginning. They've been kind of a what is the, you know, what, what, what is the warning?
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- They are not strictly interpreting the Constitution. They do tend to think about politics a whole lot.
- 17:56
- That's why they can have a decision flip in a matter of years just from what the culture kind of demands.
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- And really, one of our things is that we put such a demand on states, nullifying them and ignoring their decisions because we want to basically pressure them to sort of like for the sake of staying relevant.
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- Make a good ruling. You know, so we think of them as a political institution.
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- And so does the left. So does the right. Everyone does. And so the idea that this might have been leaked to create a bunch of chaos so that all these pro abortion organizations would start doing all sorts of things.
- 18:35
- And and, you know, pressure could be put. So it may have may change it, I think, is is part of this story.
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- But I don't think it's the most important thing going on here. Like, I don't think we should be running around like who leaked this and why
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- I think we should stick to and focus on. OK, so what what was he arguing?
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- What does that mean going forward? Because I think the main concern is that a lot of people are going to think, all right, we've done it.
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- We don't realize that abortion isn't being abolished in any state. Battle lines may be being shifted, but there is a very wrong kernel that still remains.
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- And that's the belief from on high from the Supreme Court that states in the
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- United States of America should have the right to determine whether they're going to protect the practice of child sacrifice or not.
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- Now, that's something that we just categorically disagree with. And one of the things
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- I wanted to say right at the beginning is that we're called free the states. And we spend a lot of time trying to say states should be free to criminalize abortion in contradiction to the rulings of the
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- Supreme Court. In contrast, even federal laws like states should be able to uphold the right to life.
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- They should be able to defend the innocent among them and criminalize abortion as murder within their borders.
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- That's a state's right. But conversely, we don't believe that states should have the right to legalize and protect child sacrifice.
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- That's an important thing to understand. Like we don't see like states rights as the as getting a victory here.
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- Back in during the days of slavery, there's the same kind of element. But what was going on there is like the states in the
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- South wanted the right to practice the peculiar institution of chattel slavery.
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- And they were willing to secede for that. They were wrong, but they were right in that states should have the right to protect helping runaways, which helping runaways was what northern states were starting to do.
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- So this is a very complex issue. And I and I've already seen lots of pro -life brothers and sisters arguing.
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- This is great. It's going back to the states. Well, now we just have the same exact battle that we've always had.
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- States rights can be used for good or evil. And like you explained. Right. And like you explained, the
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- Confederate states were trying to make a state's right argument at time when it benefited them to try to protect the institution of slavery.
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- But at the same time, the abolitionists were saying, no, we're going to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act.
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- We're going to nullify all these things, saying that we can't protect slaves up here in the northern states. And so you had both sides were making states rights arguments.
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- So it can be used for good or evil. So we should use it for good. But it's not the foundation. We're not saying states should be able to do just whatever they want.
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- Ultimately, the foundation is God's word. And then after that, the foundation is the Constitution. The state should be free to obey
- 21:36
- God. Exactly. Yeah. So is this the place where we is this the place where we begin to maybe reap all of the abolitionist movements warnings in regards to incrementalism where, you know, all the laws that have been put in place?
- 21:54
- Are we going to start seeing those come into play now? Do you guys think is that is that what's in our future?
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- Now we're going to have to face all the pro -life movements failures and how they've done this incremental approach.
- 22:06
- Yeah, it's really interesting. It dawned on me that the same year that they repeal Roe is the year that Oklahoma passes a law granting immunity for mothers who murder their children.
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- Like like that's that we're going to have to deal with that, like there's no justice, no equal protection, not because of Roe and not at the federal level, but at the state level, because a conservative pro -life legislature, you know, passed their pro -life stuff.
- 22:36
- So I think we're going to see a lot of that. I think a lot of people are going to be surprised when trigger laws that are supposed to go into effect and end abortion don't, you know.
- 22:48
- Yeah, yeah. No, in a lot of states, they don't have those trigger laws. Like you mentioned, those states are all they're going to have on the books is a bunch of laws telling people when, where and how to murder children.
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- And that's going to be what the law of that state is now. And so it's not going to be Roe protecting abortion anymore.
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- And those states, as you mentioned, it's going to be the pro -life laws there. Now we're going to have to go back and repeal all those laws.
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- So that is the situation in a lot of states here in Oklahoma. We do have a trigger bill that gets rid of most of the pro -life regulations.
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- But as Russell mentioned, we don't have anything to actually criminalize abortion itself. We have something that says the abortionist can't help the mother have the abortion, but the mothers are still free in Oklahoma to murder their own children with complete impunity and they will face no prosecution for doing so.
- 23:31
- And so that's what we're going to have to fight here in Oklahoma. Yeah. And on top of that, I think that and I'm kind of.
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- I welcome this part, but we're going to start seeing liberal states fighting very hard for abortion rights.
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- And so the battle is going to be kind of less with pro -lifers in some areas. We're going to actually get to fight the pro -choicers more, but we're also going to see probably lots of moves federally.
- 24:02
- You know, we're already hearing this from Biden and various Democrat leaders. Yeah. You mentioned that.
- 24:08
- Dude, they're already. They're already. It's not just the states. They're already. I got an email today.
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- Of course, it went straight to my junk mail, but it said this on Monday. Politico published a draft decision from the
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- Supreme Court to overturn Roe versus Wade. It says, let us be clear, this draft will not be final until the court officially rules.
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- But it is now obvious that the federal protections of abortion rights will very soon pass away.
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- The consequences will be devastated. This is this is Democratic, by the way. The consequences, this is the email, will be devastating, especially for people of color and young people in the 26
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- Republican controlled states that immediately restrict or outlaw abortion altogether. So we must fight back with all our might.
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- And here is our plan. They're actually sending this out. And it's like you had talked about the rights that we have as states.
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- Right. And I would just boil it down to the simple statement is what
- 25:07
- God has given us in the states is the right to do right, according to his word.
- 25:14
- Yeah. I cannot believe that when I saw that today. Yeah. I mean, if you look at what's going on in California, I mean,
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- Gavin Newsom there is going to be pushing very, very hard to not only make sure that abortion is completely legal and covered and protected in California, but also that people from out of state can get come to the state to get free abortion.
- 25:34
- And so a lot of the battle lines are going to move in those directions. But we're going to see, interestingly, we're going to see the left like liberals kind of nullifying.
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- And we're going to see them challenging and standing up and doing a lot of the things for abortion that we've been calling conservative
- 25:50
- Christians to do against abortion. Like the whole straw man of we can't do this because the courts have said, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
- 25:59
- We're going to see them saying things like, well, the courts can pound sand. Right. They're going to have to find another crutch.
- 26:05
- Right. And so I mean, I think that it's just we can't reiterate it enough that that not a lot has changed about the fundamental thing that abolitionists need to keep on doing.
- 26:19
- And that is seeking to establish justice, equal protection within their borders, with their magistrates, putting the pressure, calling for no compromise, because I think we're going to have just a hundred little battles next year or I guess a few little battles in every state if this does repeal, where we're going to possibly see pro -lifers in purple states arguing for, you know, abortion to be banned after 12 weeks.
- 26:47
- We now have the right to do this. This is pro -life. And so the sort of incrementalism, immediatism debate is going to remain.
- 26:56
- Pro -lifers are going to continue to try to delay total abolition in various states by.
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- I mean, I was arguing with a I don't I don't think he's a brother, but I was arguing with a guy late last night that he was basically saying, well, now that they've repealed
- 27:13
- Roe, we need to actually disciple the the state and curtail abortion slowly until people get the message.
- 27:25
- And I'm like, man, that's what they said back in the days of slavery. Yeah. Yeah. Now that we have the right to regulate abortion here in our pro -life state for the sake of these women, these mothers who don't know any better.
- 27:37
- We need to have a sort of like a one to five year period is what this kind of let's be sure that the slaves all have a room.
- 27:45
- Let's be sure that they get three meals a day instead of two. You know, like you just don't argue that way.
- 27:51
- This guy is actually saying that because it's going to take a while for women to now learn that abortion is bad.
- 27:59
- We need to have a grace period to where they won't get in trouble if they seek abortions for the for the next five years.
- 28:08
- I've seen other pro -lifers argue that. Yeah. And this is like a Catholic pro -lifer guy. I mean, that's why
- 28:13
- I say it wasn't like a brother. It's incredible. It's incredible the non -logic that people have.
- 28:21
- I mean, absolute non -logic. It's like they're thinking backwards in every way possible.
- 28:30
- A lot of indoctrination. Yeah. I mean, it is. It is amazing. So Aaron, Aaron had mentioned, which you had just discussed incrementalism.
- 28:43
- Ask him about what your question was. Yeah. In regards to. OK, so I'm really interested in what you guys would say in this regard.
- 28:54
- Obviously, one of the main arguments that you would hear is the child or the pre -born fetus, whatever.
- 29:04
- It does not have personhood. Right. But now we're seeing even more extreme bills.
- 29:09
- I mean, some stuff that I read that I just think is satire in regards to a baby already being born, you know, past full term.
- 29:18
- I'm wondering, are you guys seeing a change in their argument? Because I know
- 29:23
- I know it's all hypocritical and there's no foundation basically for them to stand upon. But, you know, it was always that it's not a person because it's not, you know, it's in the womb, all these other things.
- 29:34
- Are you guys seeing a shift in their in their argument in regard to that? And and if so, like, what would your answer be to them?
- 29:44
- Yeah, I think that the left isn't afraid of the logical conclusions of their arguments. And so what we're seeing, like I've seen, like in Virginia a few years ago in Virginia, in New York with abortion up to birth.
- 29:54
- And then more recently, I think California, Colorado, Maryland, with those bills saying that even even after birth, mothers who neglect their children to the point that their children actually pass away, that that's not a penalty.
- 30:09
- That's not a crime. Right. They're not afraid of the logical conclusions that they're taking. Right. They're consistent and they're taking all the way to the conclusion of the reductio.
- 30:19
- Right. Yeah. And they're and they're not afraid of that at all. And I think hopefully sometimes it takes seeing how evil it is for the church to really be jarred awake and seeing how evil something is.
- 30:32
- OK, we have to stand up against this now. I wish I wish it didn't have to come to that for the church to kind of wake up and take action.
- 30:39
- I wish the abortion, you know, in the first eight weeks, you know, was enough that we could just know it's legal then or the first 20 weeks or whatever it be.
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- And so that's not when you do something. But sometimes you have to see like the evil all the way at the end of the evil.
- 30:51
- And that's what we're seeing now. And I think it is helping people kind of be served to action in a way that they haven't been before.
- 30:57
- And so that's good. I just wish it didn't. It didn't take it getting to this point for people to be there to action. Yeah. And I want to say something because you brought up the personhood thing.
- 31:05
- This actually started shifting back in 2016. Hillary Clinton actually went on record basically saying, yeah, a fetus, a human fetus, maybe a person, but they're not a person who has this kind of right.
- 31:19
- And so you and you've seen progressively kind of the pro abortion side basically say, yes, this is a human being, but they're not they're not more important than the mother.
- 31:30
- They can terminate them sort of like just embracing their logic fully. And for me, and this is like a theological point, so this is a good podcast for that.
- 31:39
- It's never been for us, for abolitionists and I think for biblical Christians, the arguments never really been abortions wrong because it violates personhood.
- 31:51
- The argument has always needed to be and always truly been abortion is wrong because it murders an image bearer.
- 31:58
- It gives one kind of a human being special murder rights to get rid of another human being.
- 32:04
- And you don't really have to argue about personhood or when personhood begins or what makes a person a person or gives a person rights.
- 32:11
- You can just argue, do you have a human being there? The word of God says that a human being is made in the image of God and you can't murder image bearers.
- 32:19
- And so that's that's the actual prohibition of murder, biblically speaking. And that's why they that's why the
- 32:26
- Supreme Court actually shifted from sort of just like humans have rights to these humans are not persons, because you can arbitrarily come up with a line at which a human becomes a person because they are being sent like that.
- 32:44
- But you can't scientifically, theologically, philosophically, logically argue that a human at some point becomes a human.
- 32:51
- You just really are a human from the moment of conception. And you go through embryological, fetal development, all that kind of stuff.
- 32:58
- So I think that the quicker the church begins to just stand up and say. There no human has the right to murder another human.
- 33:07
- That is our argument. I mess around with this first step. We'll cut to the quick of it.
- 33:13
- And that's the and that's the beautiful thing. I mean, you know, you'll have it on the site, but the five tenets of abolitionism, it's gospel centered, first and foremost, gospel centered, non providentially through the church.
- 33:28
- This is the this is the mode or the method engaged biblically, because if we try to argue with the world from the world's with the world's standards, we're just going to end up pulling our hair out.
- 33:40
- But we have a theological, we have a biblical framework on which to stand that will never fall.
- 33:48
- Yeah, that's our shifting sand. And like your argument personhood, that can shift.
- 33:54
- That's right. Yeah. By what standard? Right. By what standard? Yeah. And then, of course, the fifth tenet that we seek it with immediately without compromise.
- 34:04
- So I'll I'll Aaron. Aaron had this question. I'm going to I'm going to and do you want to ask it or do you want to go ahead?
- 34:13
- Doug and Toby in the cross politics get guys smash mouth incrementalism. I know there was a lot of back and forth that went on there.
- 34:20
- And again, we're not literally not trying to trap anybody really any back and forth. They expressed their position. We want to go back and forth.
- 34:27
- We expressed ours. But yeah, they don't seem to respond to our. So. So how how do we just as as spectators of this, because really, you know, a lot of a lot of folks just see this, they glance over it.
- 34:43
- They don't really dive in deep on what is being called smath match match.
- 34:49
- Easy for me to say. Smash mouth incrementalism. Yeah. Yeah. Roman Catholic pro -life ism.
- 34:55
- Yeah. Well, I think it I always thought it was just a tough name on.
- 35:02
- They put on not being consistent because if there's someone on any of their shows and I do love them,
- 35:08
- I listen to them all the time. I respect the guys. I just disagree with them in this area and infant baptism.
- 35:14
- That's a whole nother whole nother story. But Doug was on last week, by the way. I see. Yeah, that's fine.
- 35:19
- But no, but I see they would call someone to repentance right away, you know, and they would even use the illustration of slavery, you know, in regards to politics or all these other areas.
- 35:31
- But in this one area, you know, it just it always has blown my mind that there I don't see a consistency there because they're like,
- 35:38
- OK, we'll take whatever we get. You know, but we'll take whatever we can get. And I'm like, that's just not consistent with how we share the gospel or call anyone to repentance.
- 35:49
- Yeah. Yeah. And really, even outside of the big argument, the question is, is like, does the word of God allow
- 35:55
- Christians who hold to the law of God or the Bible and what God says about how we do things?
- 36:01
- Are we allowed to support bills that show partiality? No. God hates those.
- 36:07
- Are we allowed to like support iniquity that makes the fatherless children pray certain particular people get left out?
- 36:16
- No, God hates that kind of law. And he doesn't like it whenever people pass those kinds of laws and call them good.
- 36:23
- And so a lot of the a lot of the debate there isn't really like does smash mouth incrementalism work?
- 36:28
- It doesn't. I mean, they've been doing it for 50 years, but it's is it actually biblical to say support
- 36:35
- Senate Bill eight? Like I like I'll just say I like Doug Wilson for a lot of things, but it is actually a very simple argument to say
- 36:44
- Senate Bill eight in Texas. The heartbeat bill is unbiblical in a number of areas. And contrary to what scripture teaches governing authority should do in a number of areas,
- 36:56
- Doug Wilson cannot support it and be biblical at the same time. He has to support it with like a pragmatic argument or support it and say, but don't get me wrong.
- 37:07
- I'm going to go back for more. It's like, no, no, no. The bill shows partiality to children after eight weeks before and not children before it gives immunity to mothers who murder their children.
- 37:20
- It is an unbiblical bill that God hates and you can't support it, even if you're going to come back later and support what he would call an
- 37:29
- Oklahoma style bill, which they have in Texas. But he's just wrong on that.
- 37:35
- But we love him and we wish that he would model it for the world and say, you know what? Turns out I was actually wrong on that.
- 37:43
- Amen. He could like for what is it? What month is it that he burned something?
- 37:49
- Yeah. Like pile up a bunch of stuff that he's written in favor of pro -life and burn it.
- 37:56
- And everyone be like, dang, that's some hardcore. That'd be a display of. I was wondering what he might burn next.
- 38:05
- So maybe that that might be the best thing possible. Possible. So. So, James, in your article, you had made reference for folks to to look back at a previous article that you that you had written on nullification and interposition.
- 38:27
- Talk to us about the importance of nullification, of the idea of nullification, what it is in your position.
- 38:35
- Yeah. So what we believe, what we've always believed, and we're going to continue to believe no matter what happens with the
- 38:41
- Dobbs case, is that magistrates at the state level, first and foremost, have to obey
- 38:46
- Christ. They have to look to God's word and say, what does God's word say about this? And that is their ultimate authority.
- 38:51
- And then next in the kind of the hierarchy of authorities is the U .S. Constitution. So they have to look to the U .S. Constitution and say,
- 38:57
- OK, what does the U .S. Constitution say about the way I'm supposed to write this law or whatever? And then the
- 39:03
- Supreme Court is we're not saying the Supreme Court has no authority. We're not saying abolish the Supreme Court, but we're saying that their authority is subordinate to that of the
- 39:11
- Constitution and subordinate to that of God's word. And so if the Supreme Court is telling you, is telling a state to do something that is contrary to the
- 39:20
- Constitution or contrary to God's word, you should not go along with what the lower authority is telling you to do.
- 39:27
- Amen. Now, in the case that Roe actually is overturned, we're not going to have that issue with the Supreme Court anymore.
- 39:33
- However, as you talked about earlier, like the Democrats are already gearing up to try to codify Roe into law.
- 39:39
- And if they're able, I'm not sure they're going to because they have to get Joe Manchin on board with getting rid of the filibuster.
- 39:44
- And I don't think they're probably going to be able to do that. But if they are, if they are able to codify Roe into law, then we're right back where we started.
- 39:51
- And we have to nullify what D .C. is telling us to do in order to abolish abortion. And so if that happens, then we have to be prepared to do that, to obey
- 39:59
- Christ, uphold the Constitution. And come what may, that conflict with the federal government, maybe they'll take away some like Medicaid money or other federal programs.
- 40:07
- But we have to be prepared to pay that cost. If the strings attached to these monies that are coming from D .C.
- 40:14
- is you must allow child sacrifice, then be gone with any aid that's coming from D .C. Amen.
- 40:19
- If that's what's attached, then we don't need T .C.'s help. And so, yeah, we have to be prepared to nullify and stand up for what's right.
- 40:28
- Amen. Amen. So last of all, guys, you got any other questions?
- 40:35
- No, no, I'm here enjoying right now. You all have been very gracious to be on again and to talk with us and to share this information with our audience.
- 40:44
- And we hope that you'll share it with your platform as well. Just another opportunity for you all, for you guys to get the word out.
- 40:51
- But in closing, because I know you all are coming up to the end of a long day. And I know we actually have to we have to film our episode on SCOTUS immediately following this.
- 41:04
- Oh, man. So we're trying it. This is my fault because I got on a bad sleeping schedule.
- 41:10
- But like, yeah, I don't think that. Yeah, we're just getting started. So we're plugging going live here in like 30 minutes.
- 41:18
- The Liberator podcast. Oh, sweet. Yeah. So let's let's write this down so y 'all can get to that. Thank you again, guys.
- 41:24
- We do appreciate you for being on. So if you all would, in closing, whichever one of you want to give us like a two to three minute gospel presentation, because the gospel is of the utmost importance.
- 41:38
- That's what the Here I Stand Theology podcast stands on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Go for it.
- 41:45
- Yeah. So we are a gospel centered organization. We think that there that there is no.
- 41:50
- Yeah, there is no power and salvation apart from the gospel. There is no power to defeat evil in society, apart from the gospel, that the gospel should be what drives us in every sphere of life.
- 41:59
- And what the gospel is, is that while we were made good,
- 42:04
- God did not intend for this world to be to be broken in the way that it has been. Man brought sin into the world through God.
- 42:11
- God is suffering through all of it. But it was through our choice that sin was brought into the world. We brought disunity between ourselves and God and each each sin that we commit is disunity between ourselves and God.
- 42:22
- And so and so Christ himself had to come to to to solve that problem, to to to be the the atonement for our sins.
- 42:31
- And so by faith alone, in Christ alone, through God's grace alone, we can be reconciled to God.
- 42:39
- And when you reconcile to God, you don't just get raptured up. Right. We got we got work to do here. And so we've got to go and tell other people that they can be reconciled to God and that they can obey
- 42:47
- Christ and they can obey everything he's commanded. And so that's what we're trying to do here. And that's what yeah, that's what the life of the
- 42:54
- Christian should be. Yeah. We're not saved by works. But man, when you get saved, you get to work for God. You're free to obey.
- 43:00
- And that's right. And so, you know, get busy doing that.
- 43:05
- That's exactly right. That is evidence of sanctification. In closing, the
- 43:11
- Puritan William Ames said this. What are the signs of true sanctification? Number one, reformation of all the powers and faculties of the whole man.
- 43:20
- Number two, it's a respect to all the commandments of God. Number three, it's a constant care to avoid all sin.
- 43:27
- Number four, it is a walking before God. And number five, it is a combat between the flesh and the spirit.
- 43:36
- Men, thank you all for fighting the good fight of faith. Any way we can ever be an encouragement or assistance to you.
- 43:44
- Let us know. Let the folks know where they can get in touch with you all, how they can support and encourage you all.
- 43:52
- Yeah, so you can follow us on Facebook, at Freedom States on Facebook, on YouTube at Freedom States, and then the
- 43:58
- Deliberator podcast on whatever podcast apps you will be listening to. As Russell said, we're going to be live on that in just a few minutes here.
- 44:06
- Yeah, that's where you guys can connect. I mean, the important thing is also just to be very bold and active with these ideas.
- 44:13
- And we try to do a lot of education to help people confidently do that. So, yeah, please spend a lot of time on our website.
- 44:19
- James here, he's the guy who works the hardest at writing all this stuff. And all
- 44:25
- I do is complain every once in a while about something, very infrequently. So we know that the coming days are going to be filled with battles.
- 44:36
- And so we're going to be making sure that we assist the church, as part of the church, to argue biblically and rightly.