The Failures & the Future

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Alright, so Zach Conover with End Abortion Now, we are here with Jason Storms, Assistant Director for OSA Now.

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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 to essentially expose what's going on in our nation, the holocaust of the unborn.

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I mean that's the MO 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

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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, 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,

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Operation Save America, formerly Operation Rescue. Excellent, yeah, so it's a movement that began with the

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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

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Christians hearing a message regarding abortion, regarding the reality of abortion, were 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, even the good

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Billy Graham essentially gave tacit approval to abortion, so the evangelicals were by and large in a place of, you know probably due in many ways to the negative impact of the fundamentalism of the previous century, which was an anti -intellectual, separatist movement, 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 clubs off to the side of society, and so guys like Francis Schaeffer were instrumental in reawakening the church, both theologically, the importance of the mission of the church to engage culture, but also to specifically what was happening in our unique time and place, which was the rise of secularism, and of course when

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Schaeffer was writing the Cold War was in prime season, communism was flourishing across the world, where they were literally butchering and massacring

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Christians, massacring their own people, and this spread of atheistic communism around the globe, which had infiltrated of course, and has infiltrated many of our institutions in the media and higher education, and so Marxist thought we see even infiltrating the church in many ways, liberation theology, even in many professing conservative

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Christian circles, so Schaeffer was a big force and a big factor in awakening a lot of people.

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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

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Randall Terry, and a few others, he's a very energetic young man, and he's 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.

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Voting every four years, the Republicans in office is not going to get the job done. So they went through the Reagan era, where Ronald Reagan actually wrote a book against abortion, he was sort of the crowning achievement of the rise of the moral majority, we got this

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Christian conservative man in office who was going to restore faith in America, and of course he appointed

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Justice Kennedy, who now we're lamenting his record, he appointed Sandra Day O 'Connor, also voted in the 1992

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Casey decision to uphold and expand abortion rights. But we've got to have a Supreme Court that's going to overturn

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Roe, right? This will be different. So we'll get to that of course, we put zero hope and trust in the

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Supreme Court or in Trump as president. So Randall Terry and others were able to really motivate evangelical

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Christians to say, what are we doing? 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, were getting arrested to bring attention to racism that still existed in the

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

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And so they started to form movements to go and blockade the doors of abortion clinics.

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And it was peaceful, civil disobedience. And this began to spread across churches around the country.

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And Operation Rescue at that time was a leader in that movement, sort of culminating in 1992 in Wichita, they called it the

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Summer of Mercy. Thousands of Christians descended upon Wichita, where one of the largest and most notorious abortion clinics and doctors,

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George Tiller, 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.

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And he had a massive incinerator in his abortion clinic where he would incinerate the bodies of these babies, would bring in an

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Episcopalian priest to baptize and bless some of these babies when they were aborted. I mean, unbelievable stuff, right?

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And so a lot of it was just sort of waking the church up, really what we continue to do today.

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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 thing.

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And so they were certainly not, they didn't shy away from talking about Jesus, you know, in Christian duty, but it was not necessarily distinctively

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Christian or gospel -centered. It sort of just amalgamated into the pro -life movement at that time, which was by and large a

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Catholic movement, very mixed. And so they just sort of adopted the term pro -life and sort of just jumped into the flow in the river of the pro -life movement and locked arms with the existing pro -life movement.

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And so there was 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.

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So that was the danger. What ended up happening, of course, is the whole rescue movement sort of died in the early 90s.

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You had Bill Clinton elected to office in 1992. One of his first acts was an executive order, the

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FACE Act, Freedom of Access to Clinic and Church Entrances. And he was like, you know what, I'm going to organize these guys together and pump things out.

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He said, well, we're going to include churches, you know, because we don't know if there was a medical movement at that time called ACT UP. And Bill took on the steps of opening up churches and disrupting services and throwing buckets of urine on people and with AIDS -infected needles and threatening to stick people with needles at the time.

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And it was, you know, through the 80s, it was the AIDS fear and the epidemic.

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And so, like San Francisco, for example, you know, most of the solid churches that were preaching against homosexuality were literally driven out of the city.

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The police would stand down because these guys with AIDS -infected needles or whatever they had in them. And there was this fear. Colin Gunn has a great documentary on how it was.

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But 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 a church service or a clinic, an abortion clinic.

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It's going to be now a federal felony to blockade an abortion clinic. So prior, these Christians that would blockade the doors of clinics, there's literally thousands, hundreds of thousands around the country doing this.

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And they were getting a $150 ticket and being cited and released and they were brought back on the street the same day.

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And that was it, right? And now you're looking at a six -month federal prison sentence. A second offense was a two -year federal prison sentence.

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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.

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And so it was a game -changer. But really, the movement was already starting to struggle prior to even that.

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And that was largely, I think, due to some failures in leadership. And so you had a lot of, you know, history has a way of repeating itself, right?

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We're seeing some of these problems raise their head today as there's a movement towards revitalizing a gospel -centered, anti -abortion, church -focused and church -driven movement.

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You know, a lot of young, zealous, youthful folks that sadly, you know, success can be our biggest downfall.

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Yes, yes it can. 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, look at me.

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Exactly, right. And so you had a lot of these young men leading this rescue movement who unfortunately were suddenly cast into the national spotlight.

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

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And so, you know, able to move thousands of people, you know, at their beckoning call. And so that was dangerous.

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And so there was obviously, you know, infighting. There was pride and egos that manifested.

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That are always destructive, you know. And so some of those things were damaging the cause.

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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.

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There was a real revival. But it was unfortunately suffocated by many of the established churches at the time.

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Pastors who their congregations were getting excited. Young people from their church, old people from their church. You know, getting to the streets, wanting to confront this sin.

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And were sadly, had wet blankets thrown on them by their ministry leaders. Who said, this is lawless.

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This is too confrontational. This is counterproductive. Everything we hear today, pretty much.

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Everything we hear today. Everything we hear today, right. And, you know, and again, history repeats itself. It's everything the abolitionists 150 years ago heard.

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It's the same thing Martin Luther King heard. You know, when he was standing, doing his thing, you know. He was arrested over 100 times, you know.

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And so, you know, same type of things that we hear today. And so, certainly there was things about the movement that we could critique.

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And I think so as we have moved forward as a movement. And so that, the leadership eventually of Operation Rescue was passed to, through a couple of hands and eventually to Flip Benham.

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Okay. Who ran the ministry for a long time. And Flip was very much a gospel center.

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King Jesus, you know. Right. As you were talking about last night. Yeah. Absolutely. Jesus rules and reigns now. And he's on the throne.

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That's right. And we're bringing his kingdom and expanding his kingdom to the earth. We are not cowering and waiting for, you know.

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To get snatched out of here. To get snatched out of here. You know, we're not saying, oh well, you know, praise God it's getting worse. Because that just means it's all, you know,

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Jesus is coming back sooner. Jesus said it's going to be this way. So I'm going to the, you know, the church picnic.

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And we're going to, you know, talk about, you know, get our eschatology charts out. And rejoice that our nation is crumbling.

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Right. And the death and destruction flood our streets. And so, no, there was a very strong emphasis on this is a gospel centered movement.

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So Operation Rescue was changed to Operation Save America. The vision expanded beyond just what we're doing to abortion clinics.

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But recognizing that the underlying root causes of abortion are sin.

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And the secularization of our society. Amen. The spread of radical feminism. Yes. The spread of the sexual revolution.

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The emasculation of men. All these things that are connected to the role of the church in discipling the nations.

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Yes. Discipling men to understand their role as providers and protectors. In building strong families.

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And who raise and disciple strong children. And so all these things were connected. You know, of course, encouraging homeschooling.

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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.

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And OSA has been a big part of doing that. And been a strong voice on that for many years. And facing much persecution.

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Yes. 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 going to attempt to distort who and what we are and what our message is.

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Naturally. Naturally. And so we bear, that's the burden and the reproach we bear in following Christ.

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And so that sips the heart of men. And so a lot of pastors, even as we've talked to in the community here in Indianapolis, say, well, we just don't know if we're ready to take up that cross.

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You know, we're in a comfortable place with our church. There you go. At least you know where the fight is. That's right.

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This is it, right? The choice between comfortable and uncomfortable. That's exactly it. You know, we bear the reproach of the cross.

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And that means, you know, Jesus said, be wary when all men speak well of you. Amen. And 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.

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And as pastors, 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.

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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.

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Yes. And we have to not flinch and be faithful. Right. And not get bitter, of course. Yeah.

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And not, you know, render evil for evil. Keep soft hearts, cool heads, strong backbones.

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And so that's been sort of what has sustained OSA in many years or so. Right. And so what we're doing here and what you guys do annually, this is just the outworking of that.

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It's just the annual extension to wherever this happens to be, engaging the culture. Right. You talked about cultural engagement, civil disobedience.

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These are the kind of terms that just they come into a modern evangelicals psyche.

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And it's just it doesn't have a category. There's no category for righteous civil disobedience. Pastors don't talk about it.

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Right. Right. Yeah. There's no category for cultural engagement. We're like, what is that? Right. The culture.

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You're a government. What's a biblical view of government? Government. How often do pastors, you know, exposit verses that articulate a well -rounded theological understanding of what biblical civil government looks like?

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Right. It's a foreign concept. Most Christians get that from AM talk radio. Right. Yeah. Rush Limbaugh and Bill O 'Reilly, you know, have done more to shape the evangelical perspective of social engagement than the pulpits.

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Right. And so, yeah, that ought not be the case. And in that way, EAN and Abortion Now OSA are kindred spirits.

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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.

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So I think you and I, hopefully, we would be in agreement to say that, you know, the

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Great Commission, go therefore and make disciples, bringing about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, is simply the cultural mandate, the dominion mandate, after the resurrection.

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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

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God said in the garden to Adam and Eve. Lift, fill the earth, multiply, be fruitful and subdue it, take dominion.

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And now this side of the resurrection, post cross, post resurrection, post ascension, we're continuing that cause.

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It's the same cause that we're doing. So as you look forward and see, you know, everything, everywhere the

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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?

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Yeah, so what we're continuing to do, and so under Rusty's leadership, Rusty took over five years ago from Philip Benham.

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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 projects with them.

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And so I've known a lot of the folks here for many years. And there's just a lot of good, solid faith in them.

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And now I've been on their social media page. I don't think they've had much of an impact in many years.

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I've tested, you know, character -forming labor and work. And so on that foundation, the role that I see

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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 seen him as a role model, and I'm sure many of the young ministers that are starting out now, they're beginning to face some of the challenges that come to them.

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When you as a young man and as a young church begin to say, we're going to confront this evil, you better be prepared for what you're going to face.

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

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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.

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And so, not to mention just the spiritual attacks and the challenges you face, the intensity of that. So, you know,

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Rusty has navigated those waters. A lot of these men have navigated those waters. And also, 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 supporting each other and saying, hey, we love what

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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.

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We see the good principles and the solid foundation you're building on. Do we think you guys are perfect? Absolutely not. Can we critique this or that?

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Absolutely. And vice versa. And we welcome that because that's what brothers do to each other. We offer, you know, respectful, gracious critiques that help us both improve what we're doing.

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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.

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Jesus said the world would know that we are 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.

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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.

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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 theology books, you know.

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Yeah, everyone's a theologian now, right? Now they can jump around on social media and pump themselves up and prop themselves up.

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And, you know, you've got young guys who can't even hold down a job, haven't been faithful to one church for more than a year, and yet they're running around the

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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.

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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,

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I think, older mature men. And younger mature men. Yes, yes. Who see that and recognize, you know, the temptation to be drawn into that sort of thing.

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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.

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

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That's good. And older men need to be able to do that. The mentoring and the discipleship process is needed.

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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.

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Right. 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.

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Amen. But it has many, many potentials for negative. It's a double -edged sword.

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It's a double -edged sword. It is, yeah. 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.

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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

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Christian leaders, you know, we're denouncing them, you know, in the comfort of their little office, typing up emails, denouncing them.

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

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They forsook that to do the real work of the ministry and take up their cross. And so I think men like that need to be in the forefront of leading this movement.

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But, you know, the downside, like the double -edged sword, there is 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 there.

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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 call other men to get under the authority of good men.

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Yes, amen. And work to set a better example. You know, I get drawn into the fray in some of these fights and I say dumb stuff on social media that I shouldn't.

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Sure. Oh, just you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, Rusty is a great example. You know, and sometimes he just says,

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Jason, stay out of that, you know. Right, right. Don't even comment on that. Yeah. Anybody that has discernment will recognize that what's being said there is frivolous nonsense and these men are divisive.

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And that's good advice because sometimes you can just feed a monster. That's exactly right.

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And you just don't give it attention and it dies, right. So that's one, I think, one distinctive where I see OSA moving in the future.

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That was a long answer, but I think that, you know, that's an important dynamic that we see that just continues to play out over the last several years.

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And so I think Rusty and other men have been risen up to be a voice and be an influence in uniting this fractured movement and helping to facilitate some real mature, you know, what

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I would say is fellowship, you know, some real kingdom work, laboring together for the common cause.

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Other areas, of course, that OSA has moved, that I think has risen us up is Pastor Matt Chiarella, my father -in -law and my pastor, my pastor for 12 years, where I serve as assistant pastor to him,

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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.

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You know, they did some amazing things and really saw a lot of churches woken up. They had 5 ,000

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Christians on the street, you know, one day, blocking the doors with worship links. Hundreds of pastors repenting, getting out on the street, saying, you know,

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God, we've neglected our duties. And so there was, you know, again, a real revival and awakening going on in Milwaukee.

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Sadly, again, like I said, short -lived as all these other factors converge. But Matt, you know, has been faithful for many, many years in the ministry.

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And, you know, 30 years as a faithful pastor, faithful husband, raising children, serving the Lord faithfully.

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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 and the time in to study this thing out, flesh it out, put a book out there that has really taken off.

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And so bringing that important dynamic into this, what we've seen, and what 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.

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They've lost their moral clarity. They've lost their moral authority. And also they've lost their moral courage.

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No strength to stand up and do anything. This is why, despite the fact that Republicans win elections year after year...

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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

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Republican pro -life majorities in their legislator and the governor. 32 states. Democrats control 16 states.

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Republicans control 32 states. The rest are split. 32 states, Republicans pro -life majorities.

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And nothing changes. Nothing changes, right. We went through the George Bush era. George W. Bush.

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Six years of his eight years in office. You had Republican majorities in all three branches of the federal government.

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Right. Republicans controlled the Supreme Court, the federal courts, the legislature, both houses of Congress, and the presidency.

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Six years Republicans were in control. Nothing changed. Planned Parenthood was funded.

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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 that.

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We don't want to be, yeah. And so what we're saying, and what we've recognized of course, and OSA has been saying this,

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Flip Benham was saying this, Rusty's been saying this, conservatism is pretend so. And we don't identify with that.

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We stand upon the scripture. We're part of the kingdom of God. We're interested in advancing the kingdom of God, the

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GOP establishment. And so what has been recognized in this, and so here's where the rubber meets the road.

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So you have all these pro -life people out there. You know, decent, good Christians sitting in the pews who recognize abortion's terrible.

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We shouldn't be having this in our society. And so they go and they vote. They do what their pastor's asking them to do. They do what the pro -life group's asking them to do.

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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.

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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 that's it.

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Yep. And so you have all this influence, all this energy, all this money, all this power, and yet it bottlenecks in what we see coming out of it.

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The fruit of it is zero influence. Mm -hmm. 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

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GOP establishment has been able to say, the courts have ruled. There's nothing we can do.

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All we can do is obey. 32 state governors and 32 state legislators say, we want to do something to change things.

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We're all pro -life. But you know what? The federal courts have ruled. Right. And so we have to sit down, stand down, abdicate our duty and responsibility and our oath to the

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Constitution, and we have to allow little children to be brutally killed in our state.

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Right. So we're saying, no, no, no, no, no. We put folks on trial for that in Nuremberg.

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That's right. 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.

28:07

Yeah. It's not our job to join Hitler in his rebellion against God. Yes, yes. Right. And so we look back with horror, and like I said, we put these guys on trial, and yet here we are doing the same exact thing.

28:19

And so we're saying, you know, so we're basically, you know, the guy that's declaring the emperor has no clothes on, right?

28:24

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.

28:34

You know, if a governor today said, you know what, we're going to tell all the African Americans that they can no longer attend these schools, what would the police just say?

28:42

Okay, sorry, we're going to round you folks up. We've got to follow orders. Right. Today we would look at war with that.

28:48

We'd say that's not an excuse. We can't do that. Where's the resistance? Where's the defiance of that unjust?

28:55

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?

29:04

Right. Can I say one thing about that? Like Romans 13, that's the passage every evangelical will go to to say, we've got to submit, we've got to submit, right?

29:13

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.

29:22

They're God's minister of justice. Their job is to serve him and to recognize his authority and to submit to his word.

29:31

That's something that evangelicals never quote at that part right there. It's like what you said earlier. Jesus in the

29:36

Great Commission said all authority in heaven and earth belongs to him. Yes, that's right. All is pretty well encompassing.

29:43

Right, yeah. Nothing is left outside of that. All realms of government are under God's authority and jurisdiction.

29:52

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's a minister of God to punish evil and to promote the good.

30:03

And he attends continually upon this very thing. That's his job. He's giving these qualifiers. This is what good godly government is supposed to do.

30:11

Just as in all the other realms of government. You know, God says that we're to submit to our elders, our pastors, those who rule in the church.

30:18

It doesn't mean that they have autonomous authority. Right, right. A pastor who's embezzling money through the church.

30:24

Sure, sure, sure. Women in the church, we'd say, OK, you've abdicated your authority as a pastor. Submission is no longer our obligation.

30:29

We don't submit to you. You're now an abusive, ungodly. You have power, but you don't have authority. And we recognize this in the home as well.

30:36

Whether you're talking about children submitting to parents, wives submitting to husbands. Husbands are to rule in the fear of God.

30:43

And parents are to rule their children in the fear of God and to obey God. Which means loving, gracious service to their family.

30:51

And, you know, demonstration of the character of Christ to their family. Just as the civil magistrate is to do.

30:56

Uphold the law of God. And so, yeah, when these guys, you know, so all these realms of government, whether civil, church, family, they all are under God's authority.

31:05

Yeah, under his sovereignty. Delegated authority to them. And they all have limitations. When they step outside their God -ordained role and function, they abdicate their authority and they need to be resisted and defied.

31:14

Simple as that. And so what our message is, what we're bringing 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.

31:29

So let's get involved. Let's dig in here. Let's look at what you guys are doing and see what we're doing. Come in and help and impart this message.

31:35

Call on the legislators and church leaders to understand this and to put together a plan and a strategy to engage the political arena in understanding that the excuse that we have to hide behind the courts no longer flies.

31:51

We're not going to allow you to get away with that. And just think of what would happen if in a state like Texas or Oklahoma, every single professing pro -life

32:00

Christian just said, We will not vote for you. Yeah. If you are not committed to immediately ending abortion now, protecting life, it is your duty.

32:12

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

32:18

And so that's our message. We just announced this week we have a Make the Pledge campaign.

32:25

You can go on the Operation Save America website, Make the Pledge, and that's what we're calling it. We're trying to put teeth into, because we've been teaching and talking about this now for several years, and it's one thing to educate folks and to talk about it.

32:35

We've 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.

32:41

Now, look, you're a good pro -life guy, man. I appreciate what you're doing. This is a nice pro -life organization, good, well -intentioned people running it.

32:47

But guess what? You're part of the problem because your strategy here is flawed. These ideas, you know, we're not attacking you as individuals, per se.

32:54

Right. But you've got to recognize these strategies have been keeping us on this hamster wheel for 40 years.

32:59

Yes. 40 -plus years of wandering in the wilderness while the bloodshed flows in our streets and is on our hands.

33:06

And we have control of 32 states. Yeah. What are we waiting for? We have no excuse. Yeah. Imagine if even half of those governors just stood up and said,

33:15

We're standing up to the federal government. No more. No more. Yeah. The courts cannot make law.

33:20

The courts cannot impose law on our states. Anytime a court, federal court, oversteps its constitutional boundaries and engages in judicial activism, they are acting lawless.

33:31

That's right. And it's our duty to uphold the law. Yeah. Not only with God's law, but in our original system of government. Our constitutional government, absolutely.

33:39

You know, every nominee that Trump is talking about putting in, right, and every time we hear any race, even in our state races, where a state

33:48

Supreme Court judge or what have you is running for office, we sort of do this test of who's the conservative. Who's the liberal justice and who's the conservative?

33:55

So we always ask them questions like, Do they believe in original intent? And are you opposed to judicial activism?

34:02

Or would you be legislating from the bench? Yeah, right. And we always say, and judges say, I'm opposed to judicial activism.

34:08

I will not legislate from the bench. So a good question to ask, of course, as well. So you wouldn't engage in judicial activism, but would you uphold past abuses of judicial activism?

34:21

Yeah, that's good. Then you're essentially affirming judicial activism. Right. Whether you're doing it in the present, or you're simply upholding the abuses from the past, you're affirming judicial activism by saying it is now precedent.

34:32

It is now something we should all embrace and submit to. And that's the prevailing thinking amongst most conservative judges. That's what we're seeing today, right?

34:39

Yes, I'm for original intent, but I won't do anything about the previous disruption of original intent.

34:47

Right, it's now the precedent. And this has been obviously far beyond abortion.

34:53

This has led to abuse. Obviously, Obergefell was the most recent horrific abuse where 30 plus states had overwhelming votes, many of them writing it into the state constitution.

35:04

Wisconsin, where we live, almost a 70 % vote writing it into our state constitution.

35:09

Marriage between a man and a woman. Even California, right? California. Affirmed.

35:16

And just for five Supreme Court justices, not only did they overturn the will of all these states in their constitutional process, they contradicted a

35:28

Supreme Court decision they had made just two years previously. You read the case that Kennedy had written just two years prior.

35:35

He contradicts himself from that. It's nothing but an oligarchy at that point. It is. It's the rule of a small minority.

35:41

It is an arbitrarily ruling oligarchy. There's no standard to which they tie. The constitution is what they say it is.

35:48

They themselves have said that. At any given moment, in any changing whim, the shifting sands of lawless humanism.

35:57

And so we're going to bow to that? In matters of life and death, in matters where Jesus has commanded us to love the least of these, to be a voice for the voiceless, to protect and defend the innocent, that's unacceptable.

36:11

And so we're abdicating our duty in one of the most cowardly ways imaginable. And so pulpits go along with it, pro -life organizations go along with it, and the

36:20

GOP leadership facilitates it. And so we get GOP folks elected year after year after year to perpetuate the status quo.

36:26

And it's a hamster wheel. It's time to get off. And so we need to commit. You're not going to get our vote. We're not going to play that game.

36:32

You're not getting any money. Nothing. Until you actually show that you have some courage and some moral consistency and some logical consistency.

36:41

Yes. And do your duty. Scriptural consistency also. And so I don't want to throw the whole blame on the magistrates.

36:47

Because really with the battles, and this is the other area where Operation Save America has been moving under Rusty's leadership and my involvement in this, is we're recognizing, you know, the battle is not at the abortion clinic.

36:59

It is in the immediate. I mean, those babies that are going to die that day, it doesn't matter if we end abortion ten years from now or if we've got a great strategy to end abortion five years from now.

37:07

In terms of those babies that are scheduled to die today, we have about a hundred people at the abortion clinic in Arlington right now.

37:13

Yeah. And we have about a hundred people downtown preaching the gospel all over downtown right now. And have been out there all week.

37:20

And so we recognize the battle is not really at the abortion clinic. It's at the immediate. Those immediate babies need a voice.

37:26

We need to be at the clinics. But in reality, you know, it's the demand. The abortion doctor is a paid hitman.

37:34

Women have a desire to have abortions. Right. And so even now we see the move towards chemical abortion.

37:39

Right. Where abortion clinics, you know, pro -life organizations are running around the country celebrating the closure of abortion clinics and raising money off of it.

37:47

And they're just sending women home with pills. They're getting it over the counter. Yeah. Right. And they're saying, hey, abortion numbers are down. And really it's because, you know, we're a birth control culture.

37:55

Exactly. Still very anti -child. Yep. And unbiblical in our thinking on having children.

38:00

Yes. And we're seeing this proliferation of chemical abortions now where people are going down to Walgreens to facilitate the killing of that little precious human life.

38:13

And so abortion numbers are declining and pro -life movement is taking credit for it and raising money off of it. But they haven't dealt with the presuppositions of society.

38:20

That's right. They haven't dealt with the reality that we are still a godless culture. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And the fruit of it is all around us with the generation of young people that don't know which bathroom to use that are incapable of sustaining long -term committed relationships.

38:34

Yeah. You know, we're 30's in the new 20's and now it's going to be 40's in the new 20's. Right. You know, a 35 -year -old guy who's sitting in the mother's space and playing video games with him incapable of taking care of himself is also going to be in the new 20's.

38:47

And so we need to be bringing the gospel to the kids. And so that entails the church.

38:54

Yes. And calling the church, you know, to repent of its abdication of its duties.

39:01

Calling pastors and saying, you know, where are your responsibilities? And let's talk about this.

39:09

Let's have a conversation about this. It doesn't mean we act like jerks. It doesn't mean that we are bombastic bulls in a china closet.

39:15

But what it means is that we need to create the social tension and open the door to have the conversation so that people can recognize that there's a massive failure.

39:26

We're seeing this here. People are waking up to it. We're seeing this message resonate around the country.

39:31

We're seeing more and more churches, more and more Christians, wake up to this and now begin to reach out to their legislators and their officials and say this needs to happen.

39:42

Because what I hear from a lot of legislators who we talk to is they say, you know, this is absolutely right. Yeah, I put forward this bill last year because I thought it was the best thing to do.

39:50

But you know what? Now I want to put forward a bill that's calling for total abolition. I want to do that. But here's the problem. I'm the only guy in my legislature that's willing to do this.

39:56

Yeah, I don't have the support. And you know what? I sent out a letter about this. I sent out a thing about this. And guess what? The pro -life groups in my state attacked me, but also not a single church other than yours contacted me about this.

40:08

Not a single church. That's a failure. Not a single Christian showed up to the hearing that we did on the bill. Yeah. Not a single pastor showed up to the committee hearing where this bill was heard.

40:16

And so it was killed in committee because not a single Christian came down to the Capitol, wrote a letter, made a phone call.

40:24

We're too busy being pious and spiritual in our ghettos. And so some of that is ignorance of the political process.

40:30

Sure. A lot of Christians just don't know any better. Right. And that's a failure of leadership.

40:35

You know, because leaders are not... And so some pastors are busy doing the work of discipleship in their local community. And this is kind of on the radar, but proliferate.

40:43

And so they look to the pro -life organizations, you know, they look to these pro -life organizations that they trust and respect. They just outsource it to them.

40:48

They do. And so the pro -life groups come in and they say, and you know, this pastor might be real passionate and he's really disturbed and he watched a

40:54

Bill O 'Reilly segment about George Taylor and he's like, man, this is outrageous, you know. So I'm dating myself. That was 10 years ago.

40:59

I don't know what the new... I hardly watch that stuff anymore, but I don't know what the new voices are. Sean Hannity still... Yeah, I don't really watch him either.

41:05

So, you know, whatever. You know, you listen to some, you know, talk radio guy or somebody on Fox News go off about, you know, the evils of what

41:12

Planned Parenthood was doing. And say the body parts. Right. That was the big thing. It was horrific. Sure. I mean, how many people saw that were just absolutely shocked and horrified, right?

41:19

I mean, what a defining moment for our culture. We're really watching videos of people putting together the body parts of little babies.

41:29

Talking about how there's a brain crushing, cracking a little skull open to explore the brain.

41:35

Yeah. Grabbing little kidneys and grabbing arms and legs and talking about the prices that they're going to have to sell these people. I mean, think of the hideousness.

41:43

I mean, that was made plain for the entire world to see. On a national stage, yeah. So many Christians were outraged.

41:48

You know, called for defunding of Planned Parenthood, called for investigations. You know, and of course we said, you know, we need to be calling for these men to be incarcerated and tried for murder.

41:58

Right. Let's get to the root. Yeah, let's get to the root. But even at that, okay, so you can say, what happened?

42:05

What was the next step? And so, so you say, what's the disconnect?

42:15

What's happening? You know, so you can think of, so a pastor sees that he's watching Fox News and he's like, oh, man, that's outrageous.

42:22

You know, I need to prep. And he preaches a sermon on Sunday. Yeah. So everybody in the congregation is like, hey, man, nobody in this congregation is going to have an abortion.

42:29

You know, we get it. Abortion's wrong. And then what? Okay, we got that out of our system.

42:35

So Tuesday's the potluck. Friday night's, you know, visitation. Right. So, you know.

42:42

That's it. It doesn't ever get legs on it. Wow. We need to make sure when elections come around we're voting for the pro -life candidate.

42:47

Yeah. And so, and so they look to the pro -life groups. And so maybe the pastor called a pro -life organization.

42:56

You know, you know, in our state, Wisconsin, Right to Life, I mean, just a terrible organization.

43:01

Terrible on so many levels. They endorse, they get legislators to put forward horrible bills that do nothing.

43:11

Like we had a 20 -week abortion ban. Yeah, right. That's A, on the face of an enforcer. You can't enforce a 20 -week abortion ban.

43:18

It's self -regulated by the abortion clinic. There's not a police patrolling. There's no regulation mechanism. Right.

43:24

You can't enforce a 20 -week ban. A woman's 24 weeks or 26 weeks and she goes into the clinic, who knows?

43:30

Mm -hmm. Who cares inside that clinic? Right. Not them. Not the clinic. There's nobody who would care and hold them accountable inside that clinic.

43:37

Yeah. And so, there's no enforcement mechanism. And, but there's obviously the obvious 19 -week exception to the bill, right?

43:47

In France, you can't get an abortion past 12 weeks. Most European countries, you can't get an abortion past 12 weeks.

43:53

So, liberal, secular France would look at our great pro -life leaders and say, y 'all are liberal on abortion.

44:01

Exactly. Wow. But that's our big legislative priority. So, that kind of stuff. a pastor goes to Wisconsin Right to Life, say, a

44:08

Wisconsin pastor, sees this, goes to Wisconsin Right to Life because they're the biggest name. He types in pro -life groups and he calls them and talks to one of their spokespeople and says, what can

44:15

I do? I want our church to be involved. And they say, well, we've got a fundraising banquet next month. Why don't you come? It's $200 a meal plate.

44:22

Bring your wife. It's going to be wonderful. We're going to have some great presentations. You'll meet some great folks. You'll hear from some wonderful legislators who are fighting for babies in the capital.

44:30

He's like, OK, that's cool. And she's like, and this is our great legislative thing, so just make sure you tell your people to vote pro -life and encourage them.

44:37

We've got this 20 -week abortion ban that we're going to pass. And so, he's like, OK, cool, that's great.

44:43

All right, send me the stuff. Send me the information. I want to be involved. And that's as far as it goes.

44:48

And you go to the banquet. You go to Wisconsin Rights to Life fundraiser.

44:53

We have our speaker of our house, Robin Voss. He's the speaker of the house. Probably the most influential political leader in the state of Wisconsin.

44:59

Probably more influential than Scott Walker, our governor. He literally kills any pro -life bill that he thinks is too extreme.

45:08

So he says, you guys got one pro -life bill you can pass every year. And it's got to be something no -toast, which is what most of the pro -life groups want to do anyway.

45:18

So they passed this 20 -week ban, which, like I said, liberal in France. Like, it had exceptions anyway, right?

45:25

So like, not going to save a single life. There's not a single woman in the state of Wisconsin who would be prohibited from getting an abortion because that bill passed.

45:32

It didn't save a single life. It did absolutely nothing. The only thing it did is salved our conscience. We simply did something.

45:38

We accomplished something out of our responsibilities. And so, here's the real evil thing that happens. This is where the rubber meets the road.

45:44

This is where we need to really be exposing this. Is, Robin Voss is able to say, we got a pro -life bill passed.

45:52

National Right to Life made this bill. They're a big legislative power. Their, you know, scorecard, their political scorecard to Christians and actually people all over the state.

46:05

This guy, Robin Voss, has a 100 % pro -life voting record. Even though he's a snake who protects abortion in our state.

46:14

And tells anybody that actually speaks up in the legislator, anybody that speaks up about abortion, he threatens to take them off the committee.

46:23

Threatens them to go under state law. Right? And diverts campaign funds away from them.

46:30

And so, an absolute snake, evil man, he can go to Wisconsin by talking. And they're going to have him at this banquet to this pastor who's ignorant, just wants to get involved.

46:39

Goes to the prayer point. Goes to this fundraising banquet because he thinks he's going to meet people that he can network with and wants to be a part and support this organization that's really fighting to end abortion.

46:48

And in reality, they're actually working to protect abortion. And so, Robin Voss is there speaking.

46:54

Wisconsin Right to Life is doing amazing things to protect babies in Wisconsin. And Wisconsin Right to Life gets up and says,

46:59

Robin Voss is a champion for life in our legislator. Give him your campaign. And so churches and pastors in this guy's district when reelection time comes, they see he's 100 % pro -life.

47:12

He's a pro -life champion. Okay, we trust them. They're the guys that are in this fight. They're the guys that have the time and energy to investigate it all and explore it all.

47:17

They're doing that. And I'm a pastor. I'm counseling families. I'm preparing sermons. And I'm visiting the sick and the widow.

47:23

And so, I'm relying on these guys to inform me about what's going on in the political arena. And they're horribly misinforming our pastors.

47:31

And so, we've been exposing this. We've been saying, you know, that deck of cards is going to get blown up and exposed.

47:39

And we've ruffled some big feathers in Wisconsin, of course, in every state here in Indiana. We've worked to create that tension between Indiana right to life, which has been the same thing.

47:49

They've been the Speaker of the House. They've killed the Protection of Conception Act, which a really good state rep here,

47:55

Kurt Nicely, put forward a bill for two consecutive years to define life perception and to criminalize abortion.

48:03

And it even has some language about what about, you know, the state of Indiana having the authority to adjudicate this and not the federal courts.

48:13

And killed in committee by the GOP leadership in Indiana right to life, which is what we can do to primary,

48:23

Kurt Nicely to get him out of there. This is a guy that's a champion and a great man. He's a champion standing up against the homosexual movement and the legislature, standing up against all kind of good things.

48:32

Solid Christian man. Doesn't detach. His Christian faith from the political arena.

48:39

And Indiana right to life ran somebody against the guy. Killed his bill twice and now running somebody against him.

48:45

Thankfully he won. So this type of, you know, we call it a cabal. You know, this evil alliance between these big pro -life groups that are able to raise a lot of money and they get their back scratched by the

48:57

GOP leadership who shows up to their fundraisers and says, you guys are doing an awesome job. And then they show up at the campaign guys, campaign events and say, this guy's an amazing pro -life guy.

49:06

100 % voter, pro -life voting record. And they protect each other, keep each other in power while the status quo is perpetuated.

49:14

And that's why the pro -life movement will not end abortion. Exactly. And so our job, one of the jobs that OSA does, sort of the prophetic voice that we bring as we travel and go to these places is expose that.

49:24

We create that tension. And we look for good pastors that want to work with us on that. But we expose that and find good legislators and good people to begin to build the movement.

49:34

You know, begin talking about it, begin exposing it. And calling churches and pastors to recognize what's going on here so they can get educated and equipped to actually do their duty and not be misled.

49:44

Amen, brother. And that, so, church engagement, obviously, rallying local churches, getting them involved, getting them educated first and foremost on interposition, how to truthfully engage in what scripture commands us to do in civil disobedience, to the magistrates, educating our magistrates, being involved in that.

50:05

This is what's next, I know, for you guys and for us too as we move forward and engage in these things too.

50:10

We have a lot of plans for what we're going to do in Arizona to try and implement these very same things. Maybe we can get down there and help you guys out.

50:16

That would be awesome, man. We would love it. We're going to Spokane, Washington in August. Alright.

50:22

A bunch of churches and folks want to converge in that city, a bunch of young guys and they want to ask the OSA to come and provide some oversight and some covering to the work they're doing and help bring a mature voice and some guidance, some practical guidance to what they're doing.

50:38

And so, yeah, so OSA will be there working with some energetic young church folk and some pastors and yeah, it's going to be good

50:46

August 11th and 12th in Spokane, Washington. So yeah, we'd love to get you guys on the calendar and plan a time to come down to Arizona.

50:53

Alright, man. Well, sounds good. Well, thank you so much for your time, Jason. We appreciate being here. It's just an honor to be with you and support what you guys are doing and we just look forward to continuing to find unity everywhere that we can because we've been made to drink from the same spirit.