The Failures & the Future

The Rescue Movement, Abortion, and the Church’s Call to Wake Up

All right, so Zach Conover with End Abortion Now. We are here with Jason Storms, Assistant Director for OSA Now. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. We're here for the annual OSA conference that's put on every year where OSA basically invades a city and to essentially expose what's going on in our nation, the Holocaust of the unborn.

I mean, that's the M .O. of these, but I don't want to just take that from you. I want you to tell us exactly first, maybe start off just saying, because OSA has been so instrumental in our involvement in this fight and End Abortion Now, I mean, Rusty Thomas, his sermons really were somewhat of a primary catalyst for us and getting us involved in this.

And I know we're not alone in that. We're not special. But Rusty is obviously a faithful man of God. You know, we've seen you take up the mantle in his stead while he is going through this situation right now with his family.

And all of our prayers are with him. But if you could just take a moment and talk about OSA, the history, what it's all about, Operation Save America, formerly Operation Rescue.

Excellent. Yeah, so it's a movement that began with the rescue movement. And so a lot of people in America, young Christians in particular, are not familiar with the rescue movement. It was the largest movement of civil disobedience in our nation's history.

Hundreds of thousands of Christians arrested around the country. So the numerical impact was staggering. And what it basically was, you had Christians hearing a message regarding abortion, regarding the reality of abortion, sort of confronted.

The church was confronted with the reality of abortion that they had been largely ignoring for a long time. When abortion was legalized, many evangelicals were supportive of it. Many evangelicals were quiet about it.

Many evangelicals didn't involve themselves. You know, even think of Billy Graham, you know, essentially gave tacit approval to abortion. So it's the evangelicals are by and large in a place of, you know, probably do in many ways to the negative impact of the fundamentalism of the previous century, which was an anti-intellectuals, a separatist movement.

Yes. And disengaging from culture. And as a result, sort of marginalizing ourselves both from the intellectual arenas and from the political and social arenas. And sort of creating our own little spiritual, little spiritual clubs off to the side of society.

Right. And so, you know, guys like Francis Schaeffer, of course, were instrumental in reawakening the church, both theologically, the importance of the mission of the church to engage culture, but also to to specifically what was happening in our unique time and place, which was the rise of secularism.

And of course, when Schaeffer was writing, the Cold War was in prison, was in crime season. Communism was flourishing across the world. Where they were literally butchering and massacring Christians, massacring their own people.

And this spread of atheistic communism around the globe in which had infiltrated, of course, and has infiltrated much of our many of our institutions in the media and higher education. And so, you know, Marxist thought we see we see even infiltrating the church in many ways, liberation theology, even even in many professing conservative Christian circles.

So so Schaeffer was a big a big force and a big factor in awakening a lot of people. Of course, you had the rise of the moral majority and some of these types of things. And so in the midst of that, you had a young guy named Randall Terry and a few others.

He's a very, very energetic young man and is in his 20s at this time, but very energetic, very visionary, very charismatic. Who was saying, hey, if we believe that these babies are dying, we're going to be getting engaged politically.

We've got to do more than just vote. Right. I mean, voting every four years, the Republicans in office is not going to get the job done. And so they went through the Reagan era where Ronald Reagan actually wrote a book against abortion.

He was the sort of the crowning achievement of the rise of the moral majority. We got this this Christian conservative man in office who was going to restore, you know, faith in America. And of course, he appointed Justice Kennedy.

Now we're lamenting his record. Yeah. He appointed Sandra Day O 'Connor, also voted in the 1992 Casey decision to uphold and expand abortion rights.

But we've got to have a Supreme Court that's going to overturn Roe, right?

Yeah, we just got it. This will be different. This is right. So we'll get to that. Of course, we put zero hope and trust in the Supreme Court or in Trump as president. But so so so Randall Terry and others were able to really motivate evangelical Christians to say, you know, what are we doing?

You know, we just had the civil rights movement. We saw the civil disobedience that took place. We saw the sense of urgency where men like Martin Luther King rocked the boat. We're getting arrested to bring attention to racism and that it still was was was existed in the South.

And and so they were saying, you know, we need to do more. And so we need and they were they were saying we need to go to the to the doors of death. We need to actually act like we believe little babies are dying, people are dying.

Right. You know, and so they started to form movements to go and blockade the doors of abortion clinics. And it was peaceful civil disobedience. And this began to spread across churches around the country.

And so Operation Operation Rescue at that time was a leader in that movement sort of culminating in 1992 in Wichita. They called it the Summer of Mercy. Thousands of Christians descended upon Wichita were one of the largest and most notorious abortion clinics.

And Dr. George Tiller was was practicing and he was a great apologist for the abortion industry and regarded to be a human rights champion and a women's rights champion. And I had a massive incinerator in his abortion clinic.

We would incinerate the bodies of these babies. We're bringing in Episcopalian priests to baptize and bless some of these babies. They were aborted. I mean, unbelievable stuff. Right. And so it's a lot of it was just sort of waking, waking the church up.

Really, what we continue to do today, they were waking the church up and churches were waking up and they were taking action. And a lot of that was a very clinic centered kind of kind of thing. Right.

And so they were they were certainly not. They didn't shy away from from from talking about Jesus, you know, in Christian duty. But it was not necessarily distinctively Christian or gospel centered. It sort of just amalgamated into the pro-life movement at that time, which was by and large a Catholic movement, very mixed.

And so it's sort of they just sort of adopted the term pro-life and sort of just jumped into the to the to the flow in the river of the pro-life movement and locked arms with the existing pro-life movement.

And so and so there was there was some some flaws in thinking that the pro-life movement oftentimes, as we've talked about, as you guys have talked about, as we've often talked about, is sadly not gospel centered.

So that was the danger. What ended up happening, of course, is the whole rescue movement sort of died in the early 90s. You had Bill Clinton elected to office in 1992. Right. One of his first acts was an executive order, the FACE Act, freedom of access to clinic and church entrances with AIDS infected needles and threatening to stick people with needles at the time.

And it was, you know, through the 80s, that was the AIDS epidemic, you know, and the epidemic. And so like San Francisco, for example, most of the solid churches that they had, you know, there was this fear.

But so so the so the compromise was, well, we'll say, you know, it's going to be now not just a misdemeanor to do that, to block a church or disrupt the church service or our clinic abortion. It's going to be now a federal felony.

Right. So to blockade abortion clinics prior, these Christians that would blockade the doors of clinics, literally thousands, hundreds of thousands around the country doing this. And they were getting a hundred and fifty dollar ticket and being cited and released.

And they were back on the streets. And that was it. Right. Yeah. And now you're looking at a six month federal prison sentence. Right. A second offense is a two year prison, federal prison sentence. So one of the gentlemen who actually was the first man tried to do that was actually was here this week for a portion of time.

And so that was a game changer. But really, the movement was already starting to struggle prior to that. And that was largely, I think, due to some failures in leadership. And so you had a lot of history as a way of repeating itself.

Right. We're seeing some of these these problems raised their head today as there's a movement towards revitalizing a gospel centered anti-abortion, church focused and church driven movement. You know, a lot of young, zealous, youthful folks that that sadly, you know, success can be our biggest, our biggest downfall.

Yes. Yes. We get a lot of attention on ourselves. Suddenly the focus can change from the mission and the work to look at me. Look at me. Exactly. Right. And so so so you had a lot of these young men leading this rescue movement who unfortunately were suddenly cast into the national spotlight.

I mean, you know, every major media outlet in the country was was casting a light on them. And they were suddenly able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars or more with one single email or newsletter.

And so, you know, be able to move thousands of people, you know, at their beckoning call. And so that was dangerous. And so there was there was obviously there was, you know, infighting. There was there was there was pride in egos that manifested that are always destructive, you know.

And so so some of those things were damaging the cause. And and also there was really, I think, a sifting of the church. I really believe that there was a genuine revival that took place at that time.

There was a there was a real revival. And but it was unfortunately suffocated by many of the established churches at the time. Pastors who their congregations were getting excited, young people from their church, old people from the church, you know, getting to the streets, wanting to confront this sin.

Yeah. And we're sadly had wet blankets thrown on them by their ministry leaders who said, this is lawless. This is this is this is too confrontational. This is counterproductive.

And so everything we hear today, pretty much everything we hear today.

Right. And, you know, and again, history repeats itself. It's everything the abolitionists under 50 years ago heard. Same thing Martin Luther King heard, you know, when he was standing there doing his thing, you know, he was arrested over 100 times, you know.

And so, you know, same same type of things that that that we hear today. And so certainly there was there was things about the movement that we could critique. And I think so as we have moved forward as a movement and and so that the leadership eventually of Operation Rescue was passed to through a couple of hands and eventually to Flip Benham, who ran the ministry for a long time.

And Flip was was very much a gospel center. King Jesus, you know, as you were talking about last night, he's absolutely Jesus rules and reigns now and he's on the throne. We're bringing his kingdom and expanding his kingdom to the earth.

We are not cowering and waiting for, you know. To get snatched out of here. To get snatched out of here, you know, we're not we're not saying, oh, well, you know, praise God, it's getting worse because that just means it's all, you know, Jesus is coming back sooner.

Jesus said it's going to be this way. So I'm going to the to the to the, you know, the church picnic and we're going to, you know, talk about, you know, get our eschatology charts out and rejoice that our nation is crumbling, you know, and the death and destruction flood our streets.

And so so, no, there was there was there was a very, very strong emphasis on this is a gospel centered movement. So Operation Rescue was changed to Operation Save America. OK, the vision expanded beyond just just what we're doing to abortion clinics, but recognizing that that the underlying root causes of abortion are sin and the secularization of our society, the spread of radical feminism, the spread of sexual revolution, the emasculation of men, all these things that are connected to the role of the church in discipling the nations.

Discipling men to understand their role as providers and protectors in in building strong families and who raise and disciple strong children. And so all these things were connected, you know, of course, encouraging homeschooling and the rising homeschooling movement and calling people out of, you know, the godless public education system.

And so, you know, there's a wide facet of issues, of course, confronting the rise of the homosexual movement. And I know it's been a big part of doing that and been a strong voice on that for many years and facing much, much persecution, much, much, much slander.

You know, you can guarantee everywhere we go, there's going to be media that's going to follow us and they're all they're going to attempt to distort who and what we are and what our message is naturally, naturally.

And so we bear that's the burden and the reproach we bear in following Christ. That sifts the heart of man. And so a lot of pastors, even as we've talked to in the community here in Indianapolis, say, well, we we just don't know if we're ready to to take up that cross.

You know, we we're in a comfortable place with our church.

Well, you know, at least, you know, where the fight is. That's right. This is this is the choice between comfortable and uncomfortable.

That's exactly it. You know, we bear the reproach of the cross. And that means, yeah, you know, Jesus said, be wary when all men speak well of you. Amen. So we have to be prepared to recognize that if we're doing the work of the gospel, we're not going to be liked by a lot of people.

And and as pastors, we you know, we need to have the backbone and the fortitude to recognize, though, as a pastor, you know, we want to have a good testimony abroad. At the same time, we're going to know that there's going to be people that are going to hate our guts.

Right. They're going to lie about us. Yes. And say all men are evil against us. Yes. And we have to to not flinch and be faithful. Right. And not get bitter. Of course, not not not, you know, render evil for evil.

Keep soft hearts, cool heads, strong backbones. And so that's been been been sort of what has sustained the OSA in many years or so.

Gospel-Centered Pro-Life Work and the Failure of Pragmatism

Right. And so what we're doing here and what you guys do annually, this is just the outworking of that. It's just the annual extension to wherever this happens to be engaging the culture. Right. You talked about cultural engagement, civil disobedience.

These are the kind of terms that just they come into a modern evangelicals psyche. And it's just it doesn't have a category. There's no category for righteous civil disobedience. Pastors don't talk about it.

Right. Right. Yeah. There's no category for cultural engagement.

Like, what is that? Right. That the culture of government, what's a biblical view of government? Government. Right. How often do pastors, you know, exposit verses that articulate a well-rounded theological understanding of what biblical civil government looks like?

Right. I mean, it's a foreign concept. So most Christians get that from AM talk radio. Right. Yeah. Rush Limbaugh has in Bill O 'Reilly, you know, have done more to shape the evangelical perspective of social engagement than the pulpits.

Right. And so, yeah, that that ought not be the case.

Yeah. And in that way, EAN and Abortion Now OSA are kindred spirits and the cultural engagement, engaging in that, right, bringing the gospel into conflict with all these idols that you mentioned. Right.

You listed them all off right there. So I think you and I, hopefully we would be in agreement to say that, you know, the Great Commission, Go Therefore and Make Disciples, bringing about the obedience of faith, the sake of his name among all the nations, is simply the the cultural mandate, the dominion mandate after the resurrection.

So Jesus has died. He's rose again. He's seated on his throne. He's reigning as king. And there is no distinction between what God said in the garden to Adam and Eve. Fill the earth, multiply, be fruitful and subdue it.

Take dominion. And now this side of the resurrection, post-cross, post-resurrection, post-ascension, we're continuing that cause. It's the same cause that we're doing. So so as you look forward and see, you know, everything, everywhere the OSA has come from, everything that you guys have engaged in, what does the future do you hope hold for?

What's next in terms of OSA? Obviously, there's going to continue to be these events. There's going to continue to be abortionists called out for what they're doing. There's going to continue to be people that misrepresent both our organizations, you know, and rail against the cause of Christ and the advancement of his kingdom.

There's going to be speaking to magistrates, trying to get local churches involved. What do you see as the next ultimately and hopeful step for OSA?

Building a Unified, Mature Movement

Yeah, so what we're continuing to do. And so under Rusty's leadership, Rusty took over five years ago from from Philip Benham. And that's around the time that I began to get involved. And so I had worked in and out of different things OSA was doing and different people that are involved in OSA and worked on other other projects with them.

And so I've known a lot of the folks here for many years. There's just a lot of character forming labor and work. And so and so on that foundation, the role that I see OSA having and Rusty has sort of been moved into this place of leadership as an aged man, three decades of faithfulness in this fight, where a lot of the younger guys that are coming up now, like you mentioned, have been motivated and inspired by him and see them as they begin to say, we're going to confront this evil, what you're going to face.

It's coming. Church, you know, families, church friends, church leaders that you've thought were your allies, that liked you when you were talking about this subject, this subject, you know, suddenly grow silent.

Suddenly, people that were close to you begin to say things behind your back. Suddenly the media begins to distort and spread stories that are slanderous around you, that people you thought would know better begin to believe and spread about you.

Yeah. And so not to mention just the spiritual challenges, the intensity of everything. So, you know, Rusty has navigated those waters, a lot of these men have navigated those waters. And and also, you know, like we've talked about all the different groups that are out there doing these things, trying to bring some cohesion to our movement where we cannot be attacking and fighting each other, but we can be encouraging each other and fighting, supporting each other and saying, hey, we love what end abortion now is doing.

Come and speak. Come and participate. Come and be involved. We are seeing the good fruit of what you're doing. We see the good principles, the solid foundation you're building on. Do we think you guys are perfect?

Absolutely not. Can we critique this or that? Absolutely. And vice versa. And we welcome that because that's what brothers do to each other. Right. Yeah. We offer, you know, respectful, gracious critiques that help us both improve what we're doing.

We work together, we labor together, we grow together as brothers in this battle. We don't turn on each other and publicly attack each other and do those types of behaviors because we understand that's not productive and it's not pricey.

So Jesus said the world would know that we were his disciples by the love that we have one for another. And so this movement of gospel centered folks confronting abortion in our society and confronting really our entire society with the gospel message, you know, we need to be unified on those core principles.

Yes. And and so I think OSA is in a place to help be a voice and to be an example of what mature seasoned leadership looks like. Yeah. Yeah. That I think is much needed. And especially in the social media age where any young person can jump online and prop themselves up as something, you know, they've read a couple of theology books,.

You know, and yeah, everyone's a theologian now, right?

Now they can jump around on social media and pump themselves up and prop themselves up. And, you know, and you got young guys who can't even hold down a job, never been, you know, haven't been faithful to one church for more than a year.

And yet they're running around the Internet telling everybody how to do things and drawing attention to themselves and stirring up controversy and strife and drawing other people into that controversy and strife.

And, you know, that sort of stuff needs to really be repudiated strongly and a good example of how to rise above that needs to be set by, I think, older mature men and younger mature men who see that and recognize, you know, the temptation to be drawn into that sort of thing, you know, because I think in the heart of all young men, there is a desire for affirmation and appreciation and a desire to be productive and useful.

And so that's good. And so it's good that young men want to put their hand to the plow and labor and they want older men to see that, recognize that and affirm them in the work they're doing. That's good.

And older men need to be able to do that, that the mentoring and the discipleship process is needed. But, of course, that can quickly go off into a ditch on the other side of the road where young men begin to seek praise for things that they really have not earned or accomplished or that are not, you know.

And so that sort of stuff, I think, you know, how we manage our social media and how we manage sort of the new era of technology that opens so many doors for communicating the gospel and bringing attention to what we're doing and glorifying and ultimately uplifting the name of Christ.

Amen. But it has many, many potentials for negative. It's a double edged sword. It's a double edged sword. It is. So mature seasoned men who have been in this fight for a long time and are not interested in any kind of that stuff, but are like, hey, been through all that, been through those seasons of life, you know, raised successfully, raised children and been through it all.

You know, a lot of the men in the USA, they've been locked up. They spent most of their life in jail, sitting in jail cells while their Christian leaders, you know, we're denouncing them, you know, in the comfort of their of their, you know, of their little office, typing up emails, denouncing them.

So so, you know, these guys have been through that, you know, if they wanted to be the sort of guys that they just advance their own careers and climb the corporate ladder of the religious world, you know, they would have done that.

They forsook that to do the real work of the ministry and take up the cross. And so I think men like that need to be in the forefront of leading this movement. But, you know, the downside, like the double edged sword, there's a lot of men like that are not inclined to just be on Facebook all the time or on social media all the time, voicing their opinions to everybody because they recognize there's a lot of stupidity and vanity in that.

So so so I'm sort of in that middle age that bridges that gap. You know, I spend a lot of time on social media, but I very much am under the authority of a lot of these men and and call other men to get under the authority of good men.

Yes. And and work to set a better example. And I get drawn into the fray in some of these fights and I say dumb stuff on social media that I shouldn't. Sure. Oh, just you? Yeah. Yeah. Rusty is a great example, you know, and sometimes he's just said, Jason, stay out of that.

Right. Don't even comment on that. Yeah. Anybody that has discernment will recognize that what's being said there is frivolous nonsense. These men are divisive. And that's good advice, because sometimes you can just feed a monster.

That's exactly right. And you just don't give it attention and it dies. So that's one, I think, one distinctive where I see Austin moving in the future. It was a long answer, but I think that it's an important dynamic that we see that just continues to play out over the last several years.

And so I think Rusty and other men have been risen up to it, to be a voice and be an influence in uniting this fractured movement and helping to facilitate some real mature. You know, what I would say is it is fellowship, fellowship, you know, some real some real kingdom work, laboring together for the coming cause.

Other areas, of course, the OSA has moved. I think God has risen this up is Pastor Matt Chiarella, my father-in-law and my pastor, my pastor for 12 years where I serve as an assistant pastor to him, Mercy Seat Church in Milwaukee.

You know, he's written the book, The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate, and he was a leader in the rescue movement in Milwaukee. You know, they did some amazing things and really saw a lot of churches woken up.

They had five thousand Christians on the street, you know, one day blocking the doors of worship clinics, hundreds of pastors repenting, getting out on the street saying, you know, God, we've neglected our duties.

And so there was a real revival and awakening going on in Milwaukee. Sadly, again, like I said, short lived as all these other factors converge. But Matt has been faithful for many, many years in the ministry and 30 years as a faithful pastor, faithful husband, raising children, serving the Lord faithfully.

And he's written this book, The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate, and, you know, just, you know, it's critical. Really put the work, the time and study this thing out, flesh it out, put a book out there that has really taken off.

And so bringing that that important dynamic into this, what we've seen and we've all sort of recognized is the pro-life movement has gone off the rails long ago in pragmatism, compromise and just, you know, disconnecting what they're doing from the gospel.

They've lost their moral clarity. They've lost their moral authority. And also they've lost their moral courage, no strength to stand up and do anything. This is why, despite the fact that Republicans win elections year after year, nothing changes.

You go back through the Roe era. We've had Republicans have won far more elections than Democrats. Right. So we've had right now in our country, 32 states have Republican pro-life majorities in their legislator and the governor.

Right. 32 states. Democrats control 16 states. Republicans control 32 states. The rest are split. 32 states, Republicans pro-life majorities and nothing changes. Nothing changes. We went through the George Bush era, George W. Bush, six years of his eight years in office.

You had Republican majorities in all three branches of the federal government. Right. Republicans controlled the Supreme Court, the federal courts, the legislature, both houses of Congress and the presidency.

Six years, Republicans were in control. Nothing changed. Planned Parenthood was funded. Abortion clinics were protected. The blood of little babies flooded through the streets. And so we're saying if that's pro-life, we don't want to be a part of it.

We don't want to be. Yeah. And so what we're saying and we've recognized, of course, and OSA has been saying this, Flip Benham was saying this, Rusty has been saying this, conservatism is pretend so. And we don't we don't identify with that.

We stand upon the scripture as part of the kingdom of God. We're interested in advancing the kingdom of God. Yeah. And so what is what is what is been recognizing this? And so here's here's where the rubber meets the road.

So you have all these pro-life people out there, you know, decent, good Christians sitting in the pews who recognize abortion is terrible. We shouldn't be having this in our society. And so they go and they vote.

They do what their pastors ask them to do. They do what the pro-life groups ask them to do. Vote and send us money. Yeah. Those are the kinds of churches that I came from.

Yeah. Make sure you show up for Sanctity of Life Sunday, January 22nd. If you're real radical, you might go to Washington, D .C. for the March for Life. Right. If you're real radical. Right. And so and so that's it.

Yeah. And so you have all this influence, all this energy, all this money, all this power. And yet a bottlenecks in what we see coming out of it. The fruit of it is zero influence. And so you say, well, why is that?

And so there's a variety of factors. But one of the key ones is that the GOP establishment has been able to say the courts have ruled. There's nothing we can do. All we can do is 32 state governors and 32 state legislators say we want to do something to change things.

We're all pro-life. But you know what? The federal courts have ruled. And so we have to sit down, stand down, abdicate our duty and responsibility and our oath to the Constitution. And we have to allow little children to be brutally killed in our state.

We're saying no, no, no, no, no. We we we put, you know, folks on trial for that in Nuremberg. Right. That's right. We you know, we said for the German doctors and the German officers and the German political leaders, the fact that your higher authority, your higher ranking officer, the fact that Adolf Hitler gave the command or whoever gave the command to round up Jews and to execute them.

The excuse that I was just following orders doesn't fly.

Yeah. It's not our job to join Hitler and his rebellion against God. Yes. Yes.

And so we look back with horror and we like I said, we put these guys on trial. And yet here we are doing the same exact thing. And so we're saying, you know, so we're basically, you know, the guy that says that's declaring the emperor has no clothes on.

Right. Yeah. We're saying that is a lie. It is an excuse. You do not have to obey an unjust command from a higher ranking civil authority. Yeah. You know, if if a governor today said, you know what, we're going to tell all the African-Americans, they can no longer attend these schools with the police to say, OK, sorry, we're going to round you folks up.

Got to follow orders. Today, we would look at war with that. We said that's not an excuse. We can't do that. Where's the resistance? Where's the defiance of that unjust? We would all say that. How much more, you know, how much more do we need to recognize when little babies are being murdered right in front of us?

Right. Can I say one thing about that? Like Romans 13, that's that's the passage every evangelical will go to to say, we've got to submit. We've got to submit. Right. But one thing you never hear quoted usually is the second part of that passage.

Right. Because the magistrate is the servant, the deacon of God. So they're God's minister of justice. Their their job is to serve him and to recognize his authority and to submit to his word. That's something that evangelicals never quote at that part right there.

It's like what you said earlier. Jesus in the Great Commission said all authority in heaven and earth belongs to him. That's right. All is pretty well encompassing. Right. Yeah. All means to. Yeah. And so and so.

And so, yeah. So, so nothing is left outside of authority. Yeah. All realms of government are under God's authority and jurisdiction. They do not have authority to do evil. And this is why, as you said, if you continue reading that passage as well, that Paul says, you know, that he is the minute he's a minister of God to punish evil.

Yes. To promote the good. And he attends continually upon this very thing. That's his job. Right. Giving these qualifiers. This is what good godly government is supposed to do. Just as in all the other realms of government.

Yeah. You know, God says that we're to submit to our our elders, our pastors, those who rule in the church. It doesn't mean that they have autonomous authority. Right. Right. A pastor who's embezzling money through the church.

And sure, sure, sure. Women in the church would say, OK, you've abdicated your.

Authority. Yeah. Submission is no longer our obligation.

You're now an abusive, ungodly. You have power, but you don't have authority. And we recognize this in the home as well, with whether you're talking about children submitting to parents, wives submitting to husbands.

Husbands are to are to rule in the fear of God and parents are to rule the children in the fear of God and to obey God, which means loving, gracious servants, service to their family and and, you know, demonstration of the character of Christ to their family, just as the civil magistrate has to do, uphold the law of God.

And so, yeah, when these guys, you know, so so all these realms of government, their civil church family, they all are under God's authority, under the sovereign delegated authority to them. And they all have limitations when they step outside their God ordained role and function.

They abdicate their authority. They need to be resisted and defied simply as simple as that. And yeah, so so what our message is, we'll bring it to the table as we go from state to state. Every year we do a national event in a particular state where we work with local churches.

State-Level Abolition Strategy and the Pledge Campaign

So let's get involved. Let's dig in here. Let's let's let's let's look at what you guys are doing and see what we're coming and help and impart this message and call on the legislators and church leaders to understand this and to put together a plan and a strategy to engage the political arena.

Yes. And understanding that that the excuse that we have to hide in the courts no longer flies. We're not going to allow you to get away with that. And you just think what would happen is if in a state like Texas or Oklahoma, every single professing Christian just said, we will not vote for you now.

Protecting life. It is your duty.

Right. Protect them. Yeah. I think they would start moving. Things would change. Yeah, I think I think things would change.

And so and so that's our message. You know, we just announced this week we have a make the pledge campaign. And you can go on Operation Save America website, make the pledge. And that's what we're calling.

We're trying to put teeth into, you know, because we've been teaching and talking about this now for several years. And it's one thing to educate folks to talk about it. We got to put some teeth into it.

Right. And I think one of the ways to put teeth into it is for Christians just to commit. You're not getting my vote. Now, look, you're you're a good pro-life guy, man. Appreciate what you do. This is a this is a nice pro-life organization.