May 30, 2025 Show with Michael Considine, Esq., Jeff Martin, & Jared Columbel on “Fighting the Injustice of DEI in Court”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 30th day of May 2025.

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Before I introduce my guests for today and the topic we are going to be addressing, I wanted to let you know that if you missed yesterday's extremely important interview with my personal physician,

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Dr. Joel Yeager of HeritageFamilyHealth .org, along with Dr.

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Daniel O 'Rourke and Ernie Springer, who, the three of them, co -authored the book

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Coronavirus and the Leadership of the Christian Church, A Sacred Trust Broken.

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Well, they were guests yesterday to offer a rebuttal to a recent article on ByFaithOnline, which is hosted by the

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PCA denomination, Presbyterian Church in America. The article was written by Dr.

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Gregory Poland, who is a PCA elder, member of the Board of Directors for Westminster Theological Seminary, and director of the

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Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group. Well, in that article, Dr. Poland toes the party line on the coronavirus, and my three guests yesterday believe

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Dr. Poland is thereby perpetuating lies that are extremely dangerous to the health and lives of the populace.

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So that link, that audio link, is now available on ironsharpensironradio .com.

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Just click Browse, and that will be right now anyway, as of today, the first audio link at the top of the page.

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If you are listening in a future date when that will not be the case, just type in Jaeger into the search engine,

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Y -E -A -G -E -R. That's the last name of my doctor, who was the guest, one of the three guests yesterday.

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If you type in Jaeger, that will be one of the interviews I've conducted with him that will come up.

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So I hope that you not only listen, but you pass that important information on. But today,

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I'm excited to have three first -time guests to discuss a very important issue, another very important issue.

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Many of you may have naively believed that with the election of President Donald Trump, that DEI would have vanished from the scene, and that we would no longer have to grapple with this horrible ideology of DEI.

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And we're going to have our guests explain exactly what that is, and why they are involved in a court case involving that horrific and wicked ideology known as DEI.

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But my guests to discuss this today are Michael Considine, attorney at law.

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He's a Christian attorney in Philadelphia handling religious liberty cases. We also have

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Jeff Martin, president of New Mexicans for Civil Rights. And we also have

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Jared Columbell, co -host with his wife Cora of the Christian podcast

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Dedicated Devoted. They're all going to be addressing fighting the injustice of DEI in court, an evil that has yet to be eradicated.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you three men to the program for the very first time.

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First of all, let me offer my greetings to Michael Considine, attorney at law, who actually arranged the guests for today.

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It's great to have you on the program for the first time, Michael. Yes, it's a pleasure to be here. And Jeff Martin, it's great to have you on the program.

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Yeah, thank you, Chris. I'm excited to be with you. And Jared Columbell. Did I pronounce it correctly?

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Because I had already forgotten how you told me to pronounce it. No, Chris, you did a fantastic job.

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It's a pleasure to be here today. And we're excited to unpack this very interesting topic. OK, great.

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And if anybody has any questions, you may email them to Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com.

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Give us your first name, at least city and state of residence and country of residence. If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter involving this subject.

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Well, first of all, let's remind our listeners, Michael Considine, what is

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DEI? DEI is a

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I guess I would call it a strategy to implement.

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Certain values into every area of life, including the workplace and even the federal government.

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And it actually stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. Yes. And tell us about how this insidious ideology, if you will, is involved in a court case that you are involved in representing our other two guests.

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That involves a a nuclear laboratory.

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Yes. Well, based on DEI policies, a program called

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HR 008 was implemented. Which was used to implement

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DEI policies. And based on that, an employee resource group at one of the largest nuclear laboratories in the country was told it could not have a statement of faith.

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It was a Christian group with a Christian statement of faith. It was not permitted to have that.

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And not only that, but it was not permitted to have a disciplinary clause under which it was allowed to require the leaders to have a certain code of conduct.

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And they could be removed if there were things that would violate the

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Bible. And this is a Christian group. And it just required the leaders to ascribe to a

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Christian statement of faith. But others in the group did not have to. And when they refused, they were no longer approved as a employee resource group.

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And so they could no longer have anyone sit on the executive council, which was a council where you could influence the organization to the director, the lab director.

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They couldn't use certain facilities. They couldn't use the campus bulletin or emails or Sandia Daily News or advertise events on Sandia Media or hold recruiting events or host speakers or events or get funding.

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Even though there were many other employee resource groups which were still permitted to do all these things.

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Now, can you explain in a little bit more detail what an employee research group is?

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It's an employee resource group. These are groups which many large employers have that allow employees who have similar interests to form a group for their benefit.

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So, for instance, there could be a Hispanic group, a Black American group, a women's group, and there was a

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LGBT group. And so these various groups have different programs that allow people of shared interest to have speakers and conduct other activities, usually on the premises of the employer.

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Now, this organization, which you are filing a lawsuit against, is a nuclear laboratory that's based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, correct?

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Yes. And how did you, as an attorney in Philadelphia, how did you get involved in the case?

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Well, I'm admitted to the bars of Pennsylvania and Colorado, and I was involved in ministry in Durango, Colorado, with a man, and he moved to Albuquerque, and he told me about this situation.

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And so I think I was contacted by Jeff Martin, and that's how it happened.

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Now, Jeff Martin, since you just were mentioned, why don't you pick up where Michael left off and specifically discuss how you are involved in this case?

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Yes. Thanks, Chris. I'm involved in a couple different ways. I'm a former employee of Sandia National Laboratories, the nuclear lab we're discussing, and I was a leader in this networking group.

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It's called Christians in the Workplace Networking Group. We use C wing for the acronym, and I experienced many of the, frankly, the discrimination against our

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Christian group, many of the events where we were discriminated against while I was serving as a leader in the group.

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We were told we had to remove these pieces that were very important to us of our business plan, which required that our leaders agree to a statement, a

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Christian statement of faith, an Orthodox Christian statement of faith that is very close to the

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Nicene Creed. And also, we were regularly discriminated against.

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They wouldn't allow us to have speakers come that they considered divisive.

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An example was the gentleman who discovered Sodom because he's a

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Christian. Oh, I've had him on the program. Yes.

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He's from Albuquerque. Yes. In fact, he was on the faculty at Trinity Christian College.

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Yes, yes. We couldn't host that in the facility at Sandia.

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We had to go to a church off -site to have the meeting. They wouldn't allow us to do that. So, there were many examples like this.

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They tried to force us to remove these requirements, which

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Jared and I and other leaders had determined were biblical principles that are out of the books of 1

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Timothy and Titus for how you organize a Christian group. And our membership was strongly with us that we needed to retain these requirements.

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So, we stood our ground, and Sandia and their

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DEI group started to make noise that this was a legal issue. And the gentleman that Michael referred to was in my church there, and he referred me to Michael.

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I called Michael because none of us were lawyers—engineers, scientists, and many others, but no lawyers.

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So, that's how we reached out to Michael and got him involved in this. By the way, just so our listeners can hear that fascinating interview that I conducted with archaeologist

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Dr. Stephen Collins, who was just mentioned before. Thank you. He is the archaeologist that is absolutely convinced he has discovered the actual site of Sodom, the notorious city in the

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Old Testament that, along with Gomorrah, was destroyed by God by fire.

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If you type in the search engine at ironsharpensironradio .com, and you type in there

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Stephen Collins, and Stephen with a V as in victory, Stephen Collins, you will discover his audio of the interview

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I conducted with him, discovering the city of Sodom, the fascinating true account of the discovery of the

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Old Testament's most infamous city. So, you will likely be fascinated by that interview.

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So, that was a providential connection that I didn't even know that we had. And, Chris, I think that's now a well -established fact that what

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Collins discovered is actually Sodom. Yeah, in fact, just quickly, I was utterly astonished watching a

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National Geographic, I believe it was a National Geographic TV special.

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It might have been a History Channel, but I think it was National Geographic. But they had a special called

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The Lost Cities of the Bible. And one of the episodes was with Dr.

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Collins, and I was absolutely astonished in a positive way that at the end of the program, the host of this program that made no indication that he was a

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Christian or a believer of any specific religion, he said that he began the interview with Dr.

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Collins with great skepticism, believing that he was going to be hearing just another bunch of myths and legends.

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But he walked away wondering, looking at the site of Sodom with Dr.

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Collins that had received destruction that was more, the geological evidence was that it was more powerful than nuclear explosion or something like that.

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But the host said he was wondering, could this truly have been the hand of God?

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I was shocked, especially knowing of why Sodom and Gomorrah is so infamous.

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And this was a secular scientific program.

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So it was really a positive shock for me. But anyway, I'm sorry I keep interrupting you.

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No, it was good. It's all good. But this was something that, despite the strong technical argument that Collins has, we weren't allowed to discuss the scientific discovery at Sandia National Labs.

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So these were the kind of examples, the kind of things we were experiencing.

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And there's many others under the auspices of DEI there.

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And I'll also just say that I've become quite a bit of a student of critical theory after learning this.

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And that is really the ideology behind all of this

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DEI emphasis that you see in our government and across businesses in the country.

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Now, just to once again clarify, the

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Christian group that you lead or led used the facilities of this nuclear laboratory as other organizations did and do.

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But your group was singled out and barred from use unless you adjusted your mission statement or description of your organization to the point where it was unrecognizable as a

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Christian one. Yes. Okay. Exactly right. And Jared, if you could please chime in with your own personal connection here.

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Yeah. So just to give a little bit of context, this group,

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I had been a member of C -Wing since I had joined Sandia. And please explain what

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C -Wing is. Absolutely. It's Christians in the networking group. It's going to be the networking group that we're talking about today.

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And these networking, well, let's call it an employee resource group. I think that that's the basis of vernacular that we should be using.

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So employee resource groups are these officially sponsored employee groups that Sandia really designed to bring people in that had commonalities.

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Michael had mentioned that. And so C -Wing was actually born out of the need for the

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Christian worldview to be purported at Sandia. It was a very divisive birth, by the way.

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It came about around in 1997 when a C -Wing event had occurred.

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So, again, that's Christians in the workplace networking group. What had happened was, is there was other groups that had spawned up.

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And at that time, there was a great need for the Christian worldview to be present at Sandia.

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I want to make sure that I put emphasis on this very clearly on why Sandia is fundamental and important in this conversation that we're having.

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We talked a little bit about Sandia, its origins. Just to make it a little bit clearer, Sandia is one of the one of the premier federally funded research and development institutes that's really in charge of their highest, their highest level task, in my opinion, is going to be their nuclear program.

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And so what I had seen with this attack on C -Wing from its inception, its divisive birth, was this great hatred of the

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Christian worldview at Sandia. Sandia is known for recruiting from elite schools, and from those elite schools are coming these elite ideologies.

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We talked a little bit earlier about DEI. I'm going to be doing actually a podcast on this one because I think there needs to be something attached to DEI, and that's the

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DEI lie. It's this worldview, this – you could call it a theology of the world that thinks that we can have more equalness if we have more diversity.

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And really what it does is it parses out people into different groups, into groups with commonalities, and it separates them.

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It actually does quite the opposite of unity, and it fragments people into these different disparate groups.

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And so when it comes to the DEI lie, I think it's very important to understand why Sandia is important and how it is going to affect every single

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American, even the world, by holding onto these ideologies. So from its inception,

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I think that Sandia had a great disdain for this employee resource group. To give a little bit of insight into that, there is a multitude of these employee resource groups at Sandia, and they get some very specific things, and we talked about that.

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They get resources from the company that can be funding. They're allowed to use their communication channels.

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They're allowed to go to recruiting events. There is a lot of benefit of being an employee resource group.

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And as I mentioned, Seawing from its inception has never really benefited from being an employee resource group because I believe that there is a great hatred at Sandia for this group.

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And I had been a member of it since I had been a Sandian. I had joined in, I believe, 2010 or 2011, and just as a participant,

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I would show up to the various events that they had. I identified with the biblical Christian worldview, and I saw something very interesting back in,

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I believe, 2017. That was a time where I was able to peer into this group and see how browbeating they were.

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Sandia had taken the systematic approach of trying to dismantle Seawing from its inception.

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And when I say systematic, Michael had mentioned HR008. That's a policy. The policy was actually just designed to help dismantle

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Seawing, really what they were trying to do at Sandia. And I had seen this from the inside, and I know that Jeff can attest to this.

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We had seen such disdain for the Christian worldview that not only would folks be reprimanded, but they would be censored.

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And I was one of those. The case will actually illustrate a numerous amount, a plethora of issues that Christians at Sandia had underwent.

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And the reason why this is so important is if Sandia is in charge of helping with the nuclear strategy, with trying to ensure that we are a sovereign nation and we can protect ourselves, it's very important for folks listening to understand that the attack from within Sandia was a greater demonstrable effort by those who oppose our nation.

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I was seeing a systematic approach of individuals who had a great disdain for this country trying to bring it down from within.

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Sandia directly supports the U .S. Air Force. The U .S. Air Force protects our sovereignty. They also do a lot of great things for our allies around the nation or around the globe.

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And so it's very, very important to understand that this was just kind of the spear, the tip of the iceberg, the spear of the arrow.

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This effort to eliminate Searing was just a greater attempt to try to subvert and to subdue truth.

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That's what Christians were doing at Sandia is they were speaking truth. And anytime something came out that had a little bit of a

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Christian flair, it was instantly censored. These are the kind of things that you'll find within this case that folks at Sandia were really going through.

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And so I think it's very important to understand where Sandia is in relation to the overall protection of the

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U .S., specifically our sovereignty, and how these sort of things are eroding our ability to protect ourselves from within.

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OK, let me just quickly take a listener question here before we go to our first commercial break.

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We have Phyllis in Aquabog, Long Island, New York. And Phyllis says, is any significant member of the

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Trump administration aware of this? Because as Chris Arnzen mentioned at the beginning of the program, the

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DEI was supposed to be eradicated from anything involved in the government. And that's a good question because I plan to send this recording of today's show to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who's been on my program twice before he was secretary of defense.

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He was a Fox News employee, but he had not yet been appointed to that prestigious level of authority.

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And I'm going to submit this to him via email, whether or not he even ever opens the email at this point in his life, because he's probably experiencing the most busy schedule that he's ever had in his entire life.

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But it's worth a shot anyway. But we'll start with Michael again.

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Do you know of any some significant person, as the listener says, involved in the

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Trump administration who is aware of this case? Well, I don't know that any is, but we've already made many efforts to try to bring this matter before President Trump.

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And there have been letters written to him in Mar -a -Lago. I don't know if one went to Washington, but I've also contacted the

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Department of State. And it's very urgent that we could see if we could get even just a two -page summary of this to President Trump, because I believe that he has the power to change the government's position on this, because we're going up against essentially the

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Department of Energy, which is a federal agency. And their policies do not follow the law regarding religious discrimination.

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So we want to get this before President Trump as soon as possible, even today, if we could, because we have an appeal to the

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United States Court of Appeals to the 10th Circuit where we had an oral argument in January. And literally any day the court could rule and they could rule in our favor or they could rule against us.

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So part of the reason we're going on this program is to see if someone could assist us to somehow get this message to President Trump or to people who are in power to make a decision, because the

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Department of Energy is apparently not following the Trump stated goal of eliminating

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DEI in the federal government. OK, well, we're going to go to our first commercial break.

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Once again, if you have any questions of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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As always, give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence in your country of residence. If you live outside the

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USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away.

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We're going to be right back after these messages. James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries announcing that this

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September, I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend

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Chris Arnson has lined up for me. On Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m.,

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I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron radio pre -pastor's luncheon at Church of the

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Living Christ in Loisville. Then on Sunday, September 21st at 1 .30

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p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme. Can we trust the

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Bible is the authentic and inerrant word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

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For more details on the free pastor's luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.

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That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

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I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the

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At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government.

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35:39

Well, welcome back to our discussion. We have three guests today, if you just tuned us in, who are discussing a very important legal case involving a nuclear laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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And the case involves this laboratory violating the rights of a

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Christian group that has been barred from using their facilities, unlike other organizations, has been barred from using their facilities unless they so adjust and rewrite and even abandon their their statement of faith as a

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Christian organization to the point where it no longer even resembles a Christian organization. They cannot use the facilities, and this organization is practicing the standards of DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, basically a leftist ideology that is very destructive and dangerous to the well -being of society.

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And we do have another question here from Boris, who is located in Pompton Plains, New Jersey.

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And Boris says, I was just curious if any of you have had threats of physical harm or otherwise from those who are associated with this laboratory or the

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DEI movement. Michael?

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Really? I didn't work there, so I don't know the answer to that question, but maybe the other guests might know.

37:54

OK, well. And by the way, please, please. In terms of physical.

37:59

Well, please, please announce who you are when you begin to speak, because we can't tell who you are.

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Yeah, absolutely. This is Jared Kohlenbaum. OK. And I think your listener was asking whether or not there was physical threats or intimidation.

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I think one of the things that this case is really articulating, and you started with the statement of faith.

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I would like your listeners to know that's integral to this case. The statement of faith is our identity.

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It's built off of the biblical Christian worldview. And to alter any of that would mean to alter our beliefs.

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And so that's going to be central to this case. Regarding the disparate treatment,

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I don't want to say that there was physical intimidation, but there was most certainly retaliatory type of activity.

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I, for one, no longer work at Sandia. And I can say one of the things that came out of the deposition process of this case is we got to see some of the back end emails.

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So I actually had become the chair of C -Wing, and I was only the chair for a very short period of time.

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It was under my tenure that this went from being sort of an idea that Sandia Labs was going to censor us to sort of a full blown, what

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I would call spiritual warfare attack. And that was the complete removal of C -Wing as a officially sponsored employee resource group, which really meant any of the benefits that I spoke about earlier were completely removed.

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No opportunity to recruit. Most folks didn't know if they could live their faith out at work.

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Very difficult. And by the way, this is an area where it's a very secured area where you have to have a security clearance.

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And so we're talking about a very secure environment where it's already difficult to work understanding the parameters of what you can and cannot do.

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And so regarding the disparate treatment, this case really does articulate a variety of different instances.

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We talked about authors that weren't allowed to be brought in. I, for one, I had top performance two years in a row and I was told many things by managers.

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And I knew as soon as I joined C -Wing specifically as their chair that my career was over.

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And as I had mentioned earlier, we got to see some of the back end communications. And part of this case, too, is some of the leadership that we we had touting this.

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We had a sponsor, which was a associate lab director who had mysteriously disappeared.

40:33

It turns out that Sandia had an opportunity to sort of coax this individual out of his position so that we had no support.

40:43

So I think that if you look pretty closely into this case, you're going to see a lot of really strong facts that demonstrate there was disparate treatment.

40:52

It can be found very easily if you just do a Google search. Just look for Christians in the Workplace Networking Group versus National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC.

41:03

You'll find that there is a plethora of information out there regarding the disparate treatment. Now, can you just repeat again the information about the person who's who's disappeared?

41:15

I didn't quite follow what you were saying about that. Yeah. So one of the things that these employee resource groups are afforded is they get high level sponsorship.

41:25

That high level sponsorship is typically going to be somebody who is very high up in the leadership chain.

41:32

And so we actually had a great believer by the name of John Climo, who was our he was our sponsor and he was also an associate lab director.

41:43

So that's one of the opportunities that's afforded to every employee resource group. Another one is we get quarterly meetings with the lab director who reports directly to Congress.

41:51

These are very important individuals who are able to help us push forward the things that are very important in relation to what that group stands for.

41:59

So John Climo was one of our our sponsors. And when this new policy had come out,

42:06

H .R. 008, it was very clear that Sandia was trying to get us to dismantle our statement of faith.

42:12

They were saying, if you believe in that, that is discriminatory. And we we we had conversations back and forth.

42:19

This is a very long, enduring spiritual battle. As part of this process, we were going to our our sponsor and having ongoing conversations because that sponsor would be able to talk with the leadership team, talk with the labs director.

42:33

And from there, we would get some results. And so as part of that process, we were asked to alter our statement of faith to the point where, as you had mentioned, it completely removed the identity of what the group had stood for.

42:45

And so that sponsor actually he agreed that what they were asking for was kind of the full dismantling of what the group really stood for.

42:54

And so at a certain point in time, we were being pressured. That is the best possible word

42:59

I can use. We're being pressured by the DEI group. By the way, it turns out that they had a tremendous amount of power, a very imbalanced power where they were able to control the agenda of these leaders.

43:10

And that had been something that we had come to find out through the deposition process never should have been, but it was.

43:16

And so as part of this process, our sponsor was really vying for what the group and its identity and its charter was about.

43:24

So we had a charter, the things that we said we're going to undertake and do. And the statement of faith, the alteration of the statement of faith seemed to be very divisive and oppressive.

43:35

And so this sponsor, John Climo, was going to go to his leadership team. And what had happened is he was supposed to have that conversation.

43:43

And I think it was a week or two after we had not heard from him. And he he had actually sent out a communication saying that he was retiring.

43:52

None of us knew that it was happening. We're all kind of taken back because we thought this was an opportunity to have a conversation with higher level leadership.

44:00

And I, for one, just thought it was it was very odd. And so for some time

44:06

I had hypothesized what I thought had happened. And there was an opportunity for us to to connect again with John down the road.

44:14

And he was one of the parties that was disposed. And what had come from that was not necessarily any smoking gun.

44:22

I don't want to put any words in his mouth. I think the depositions speak for themselves. But I think what had happened was is at a certain point, his support of the biblical

44:31

Christian worldview just did not align with what Sandia leadership wanted. When I talked earlier about the systematic dismantling of the

44:38

Christian worldview, I mean, they were really when I say they, I believe that there is a whether connected, interconnected effort to systematically disrupt this group because of what it stood for.

44:51

And so John, as one of our executive sponsors, had actually left.

44:58

And then we should have been given another executive sponsor. But that hadn't happened. And then also the meetings with the labs director were removed from this group, essentially censoring it, not giving it the ability to have the conversations about what the charter was, the statement of faith.

45:14

From there, it just became this large spiritual battle, which turned into a legal battle. So you don't think that the you use the word disappearance of this individual,

45:25

John, you're not saying that you suspect foul play, that he may have been even murdered, are you?

45:32

No, John is still in existence. Oh, OK. Well, when I say foul play,

45:37

I can't speak to the things that happened in the background with certainty and nor do

45:43

I. But my hypothesis was, is that he was ushered out of Sandia because he was standing for what this group stood for, which is the biblical

45:51

Christian worldview. And so in retrospect and through the depositions, we can see that there is some very interesting things that were happening.

45:59

One of them that I would like to mention in particular is that Sandia National Labs is a lab that requires the majority of its work and the participants in that work to hold clearances.

46:10

And so I held a clearance, acute clearance, and many folks who work there do. And that's a very high level clearance.

46:18

And one of John's responsibilities was to ensure the security of the labs. He was an associate lab director,

46:24

I believe, for facilities and security. And so as part of his role, it was his job to identify those who probably should not hold these security clearances.

46:33

And so it had come out later on that as part of this process, during the same time that I think the systematic dismantling of C -Wing was occurring, there had been in the background these efforts to have

46:47

Sandia sponsor these transgender surgeries. And so these are going to be, in my opinion, what

46:55

I would call government -funded surgeries through Sandia National Labs. And so part of one of the things that I think really, and again,

47:03

I don't want to speak to a degree of certainty. It's just me sharing some of the facts that I now know.

47:09

John had mentioned that folks with gender dysphoria, and we know that there's a lot of information around this, they hold a mental state of unwell -being.

47:19

That's probably the best way I can put it. Typically, these folks would not get a security clearance. But something happened back in around 2016, where Sandia started to bring in folks who would not get security clearances.

47:31

And it kind of just, it threw me for a loop. I didn't quite understand it until later on.

47:37

But I think what was happening is under John's role, his view of the biblical Christian worldview didn't actually coincide with the things that were happening.

47:45

He had mentioned that a vote had been taken up in the leadership team where there was a vote put forward on whether or not

47:53

Sandia was going to be undertaking the cost for these transgender surgeries. And he abstained from that vote.

48:00

And so I think there's a variety of things that happened under his leadership that does not look like it aligned very closely with what

48:09

Sandia leadership wanted. I do believe that it points very clearly to this diversity and inclusion group.

48:16

The name is actually IDEAS. It was inclusion, diversity, equity, and something else. I can't remember the last acronym.

48:22

But I believe that this agenda of the leaders at Sandia, one of the most premier nuclear facilities, was being controlled by a very small subset of people.

48:32

And through that agenda, there was many folks, such as myself, that were deliberately and intentionally censored.

48:37

And it was because our truth actually countered what they were doing at the time.

48:44

So to your knowledge, is Sandia still funding the—I can't think of how to properly describe this—sexual…

49:00

Sexual reassignment surgeries would be the official term for that. I do not know if they are still doing that.

49:08

I do know, though, that the majority of us Sandians noticed that there was a huge increase in our insurance premiums.

49:15

I think it was in the year 2018. I can't recall specifically, but something happened at that time.

49:21

And I believe that these surgeries were—they were to the tune of 400 ,000 per surgery.

49:28

And there was about 11 people on a waiting list, according to some of the information that I had heard from the depositions.

49:36

It might have been the depositions or direct information that was transmitted just via conversation.

49:43

But the bigger problem here, Chris, is that it demonstrates that there was some very nefarious activity occurring in one of our nation's greatest labs.

49:53

And you had mentioned this earlier. You said, because President Trump is in office, it does not mean that the

49:59

DEI lie stopped. I can say with a certainty that when he was in office, he was the biggest proponent for the biblical

50:07

Christian worldview. And he had required that all the divisive training that was being implemented had to have stopped.

50:16

And so Sandia actually put a kibosh to that for a temporary period. For your listeners, it's very important to know that Sandia and many of our national institutions have been paying a lot of different consultancies good, good money, funded by taxpayers, in order to teach critical race theory.

50:35

At Sandia, the group that they used was called White Men as Full Diversity Partners.

50:40

And you heard that title correctly, White Men as Full Diversity Partners. And the things that they taught, which are part of our case, are that men who are married, white, heterosexual, and who are on the technical side, meaning highly educated, are outsiders.

50:57

And these folks were being educated to go back into the labs and to teach how to relinquish their privilege.

51:04

And so you saw a lot of browbeaten people who had worked very, very hard being just systematically trained to be ashamed of the things that they had achieved based on their skin color, based on their gender, whether or not they were heterosexual.

51:19

And so there was a lot of really, really important facts that had come out of this case that I think are indicative of what are happening all within our institutions that are designed to protect the

51:31

U .S. OK, we have a question from Miles in Brooklyn, Maryland, who says this nuclear laboratory that's being funded by the

51:42

United States government, is it being used for energy purposes or military?

51:50

I can answer that question. This is Jeff Martin. Sandia National Labs is the preeminent lab in developing and maintaining the nuclear weapons arsenal of the

52:07

United States of America. That's its primary job.

52:13

And so it is actually overseen by the

52:20

National Nuclear Security Agency, which is an agency within the Department of Energy that manages the nuclear weapons and the nuclear propulsion for the

52:31

Navy. So there are ties to the military, but it's all done within the

52:38

Department of Energy and then the National Nuclear Security Agency. There was a question earlier about whether we were trying to trying to get info to government agencies.

52:56

One, the agency that we really want to reach out to is the

53:01

National Nuclear Security Agency, NNSA for short. The trouble is President Trump's designee to be the administrator has not been approved by Congress yet.

53:15

So there are Biden administration holdovers in that administration, and we don't believe we'll get any good hearing with them until Trump personnel get into the agency.

53:35

So that's one of our challenges right now is trying to get through.

53:42

I also wanted to say that we did reach out to the White House Faith Office. Unfortunately, we didn't hear back from them yet, but we continue to try to reach out to different government agencies about the situation.

53:57

OK, we have to go to our base. We have to go to our midway break. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages. Puritan Reformed is a

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

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Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

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Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, a

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Christ -centered, gospel -driven church, looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the

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At Lindbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation, and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

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Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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Dr. Morecraft is Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

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Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sends you. Hello, my name is

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That's also the email address where you can send in a question to our guests. We are talking about fighting

01:11:56

DEI, the wickedness of DEI in the courts, and this is specifically involving a government -funded nuclear laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who in spite of the election of Donald Trump, who intended to purge

01:12:18

DEI and all this kind of leftist ideology, transgender movement and so on, his statements are very clear that he intended to purge them from any affiliation with the

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United States government. Unfortunately, that has not happened in totality yet, and that's why we're having this discussion today.

01:12:46

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:12:51

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Michael, what else should our listeners be aware of that we haven't mentioned yet about this very important case?

01:13:05

Well, they mentioned Mr. Climo, and he was the only member of essentially the board of directors of Sandia that would not agree to a vote to fund gender transition surgeries.

01:13:24

And even though his performance was excellent, within weeks he was told to resign.

01:13:32

And the man who referred me to this client was going to give a speech on Christian apologetics and a 2011 presentation by Stephen Collins on archaeological projects in Jordan proving the accuracy of the

01:13:50

Bible. But he was told that that was too controversial, so he could not give that presentation.

01:13:56

Yeah, that's ironic that National Geographic even didn't think it was too controversial for them to have it featured on a special edition of their show.

01:14:07

So that's quite amazing because they are known for really towing the leftist line of nature and Darwinian evolution and all that stuff.

01:14:20

And yet they had the guts to air an interview with Dr.

01:14:26

Collins on the discovery of the city of Sodom, the site of the city of Sodom.

01:14:35

Marie Miller, who was part of the Seawing Group, was told she couldn't have a presentation in 2017 by Jonathan Servati posted on the

01:14:45

Sandia Daily News. Even though it concerned cellular biology and how the body replicates cells, he could not give a presentation because he did not believe in evolution but in creation and was pro -life.

01:15:02

And in 2015, John Nevers told Terry Hardin, who requested approval to host an atmospheric meteorologist,

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Michael Orr, of Answers in Genesis to speak on global warming. But when they found out that he was a

01:15:17

Christian, they rescinded the approval. But the other groups never had any speaker requests denied.

01:15:27

They had many different speakers. Oh, well, here is a – OK, continue.

01:15:33

I'm sorry. I was interrupting you. In 2021, Sandia email promoted an event sponsored by an employee resource group about a gay military man basically stating the battle he made to stay in the military and be gay.

01:15:52

And that was sent out to all employee resource groups. So they were actively promoting the gay agenda in Sandia.

01:16:05

OK, we have a related question from – let's see.

01:16:11

I was just looking at it. Frederick in Stanford, Kentucky wants to know, were any

01:16:20

Muslim groups using the facilities of this laboratory who were not at all barred or impeded from their own activities, knowing that Muslims, as different as Islam is from Christianity, share a prohibition to homosexuality very strongly?

01:16:46

So, Chris, if I can't – oh. And who is this? Did I interrupt? No, no. Who is this? This is

01:16:51

Jeff. OK.

01:16:58

I think the IDEAS group, the DEI group, was very much wanted to have other religious groups there.

01:17:08

But the members of Sandia NASA Labs were predominantly

01:17:14

Christian. At least that was the dominant group. So they tried to find other religious groups to organize, but there was never any interest.

01:17:26

And in fact, if I can, there's a little bit of the Being Treated Differently story that goes along with this.

01:17:35

The leader of the IDEA group expressed to me that she wanted to see our

01:17:43

Christian group become an all -faiths group because that was best practice at a national laboratory.

01:17:53

And so we were also being pushed to turn our

01:17:59

Christian group into an all -faiths group, and that was very much her desire. And you see, when we didn't agree to that, then we got the pressure to change things.

01:18:12

In fact, as we had discussion about this a little later, we asked, well, you've got groups that are minorities.

01:18:21

Would you have an all -minorities group? And they were aghast that we would even suggest that.

01:18:27

So an all -faiths group was desired, an all -minorities group, no. And has this disruption in your lives, as far as Jared and Jeff are concerned, perhaps we'll have – was that Jared that just spoke or was that Jeff?

01:18:52

That was me, Jeff. Yeah. OK, Jared, why don't you chime in? Has this caused any serious disruption of the well -being of your family?

01:19:03

I don't know. We'll have Jeff as well jump in on that. Yeah, it sure did.

01:19:09

When I stepped into the role of chair for this organization,

01:19:15

I did it in full confidence that God was going to use me in a very strategic way.

01:19:22

But I also knew it really meant the end of my career. I was at Sandia for 10 years, and I intended on staying there for the duration of my career.

01:19:32

But there were many things that had happened that pushed me to the brink, and it happened in a very short duration.

01:19:38

And this group knows it. I stepped into the role of chair, and as soon as I had the opportunity to start the conversation,

01:19:48

I knew all the other chairs from the other employee resource groups. I was very used to working in the executive leadership chain.

01:19:55

I supported them very closely. I knew that speaking out was very controversial, and I stepped into the role of an advocate.

01:20:05

I really think of 1 Peter 3 .15, that we're supposed to show people the hope that we have, and we're supposed to do it in gentleness and respect.

01:20:15

But I knew that the message that we were sharing as Christians was divisive to those who don't believe.

01:20:23

And I knew after one of my first performance reviews, first and foremost, some very odd things had happened.

01:20:29

This group, there was a attempted coup, and I know that sounds a little wild, but there were some very divisive folks who called themselves

01:20:37

Christians who had showed up to one of our meetings, our public meetings, where we give information and we talk about our strategic objectives and how we're doing.

01:20:46

We had some very divisive people show up to one of our publicly held meetings, and they actually caused a security incident.

01:20:53

I have to remind the listeners that this is in a very highly secured environment in which you have to have a security clearance.

01:21:00

The result of that was that I had to file a security complaint with our security team, and I personally underwent an investigation.

01:21:10

I thought the investigation was to figure out why these things happened. So we had a few folks show up to this meeting.

01:21:17

One of them came to my office. Again, this is in a secured area. That individual caused a massive scene and refused to leave my office.

01:21:27

I had to call security. The result of that was I had to undergo a corporate investigation.

01:21:33

The result of that investigation was a direct pressure on why

01:21:39

C -Wing won't let non -believers lead the group. And this is very important for the listeners to understand.

01:21:46

The person that I was speaking with at that time was part of the Ideas group. They were charged with figuring out why this individual, first, why these individuals, three of them in total, one of them on the security team, tried to join the leadership team without going through the proper mechanisms, which is you have to be voted in.

01:22:03

The result of this was I was challenged why we weren't allowing individuals into leadership who are non -believers.

01:22:10

And the gal used these terms, and this is part of the deposition, and I will forever remember it.

01:22:16

She said, inclusivity is allowing a white nationalist into the black leadership group.

01:22:22

And I said, that is not inclusivity. And I told her, everybody has to be wholly qualified.

01:22:28

That was one of the defining and downward -trending moments of my career at Sandia. I had a very good prestigious career.

01:22:35

I'm not a smart guy, Chris. I worked very hard to get to where I was. A lot of people who go to local colleges, such as myself, you don't get these kind of positions at Sandia.

01:22:45

And I worked my tail off to get in there, and I knew as soon as I started speaking against some of these divisive and wicked ideologies, my career was going down the drain.

01:22:55

From there, I was a top performer of a team that I was leading, and I actually had received specific training to become a consultant for an

01:23:06

IT group, and I was actually demoted. From that demotion, I was asked to step back, and they did it in a very, you could call it subversive way, but I was asked to step back.

01:23:18

And from there, my career started going down. The next year, I was another top performer. My performance reviews were stellar, and I still wasn't promoted.

01:23:27

I actually interviewed several times for alternative jobs, trying to figure out where the Lord wanted me, and I can tell you,

01:23:32

I knew my career was dead in the water. And this is a very large institution, by the way. There was,

01:23:38

I think at the time, 13 ,000 -plus people. It might be 15 ,000, but I can tell you, my wife can attest to this as well.

01:23:45

My mental well -being just absolutely went down the tank. I was going to school full -time for apologetics.

01:23:51

I was using it, actively using it, trying to ensure that this group had a standing and fighting chance.

01:23:58

I had a lot of people surrounding me who said, we're your friends and we're there with you, who slowly backed away.

01:24:03

Not everybody, but there was many. And I can tell you, I felt quite alone. I felt abandoned by the

01:24:09

Lord. He did not abandon me. I think that some of this I tried to do in my own strength, which was a very big mistake.

01:24:16

But throughout that entire time, I was working full -time, doing ministry full -time, going to school full -time, and C wing was even full -time.

01:24:22

And it tested almost my entire resolve. All I can say is, it weakened my disposition to what it meant to be a

01:24:33

Christian. That aspect of sharing the hope that we have and doing it with gentleness and respect was very hard to do.

01:24:41

And in the end, what I can say is, the Lord opened up a new chapter in my life, and I did end up leaving

01:24:47

Sandy, which I never thought I would. But my career there was absolutely done. And it was further demonstrated to me that that was the truth when we went through the deposition process.

01:24:57

In my head, by the way, this has been happening since 2018. This process officially kicked off.

01:25:04

This group had been under pressure since its inception in 2000. I think that was its official recognition.

01:25:10

2000 or 2001, this group has been under immense pressure to disband because it doesn't fit the ideological thread and narrative of what it means to be a

01:25:20

Sandean. And at a certain point in time, people like me, we just didn't do very well.

01:25:26

I think earlier we were talking about, have we sounded the alarm bells to different folks?

01:25:33

And we have. And one of the things that had happened at Sandia is there was a there was an engineer and his name was

01:25:40

I believe was Casey Peterson. And him and I talked. He was actually known for creating a video called

01:25:47

Sounding the Alarm. I think that that's what it was. And he talked about critical race theory and how it how it is just perpetuated.

01:25:55

And it is everywhere within our national institutions. And I believe it was at that time that Josh Hockley, the senator of Missouri, had heard about that and they tried to put a stop to it.

01:26:07

I actually had a good conversation with Casey on what it meant to actually sound the alarm bell.

01:26:13

And I go back to First Peter 315 where we were trying to do it in a respectful way and approach this in a respectful, hopefully not legal fashion.

01:26:22

And the steering committee was doing that and I was part of the steering committee. And we're doing this on the behalf of 500 plus Christians.

01:26:30

The group used to be 700 plus. And I tell you, I watched Casey's. First off, he got put on leave of absence immediately.

01:26:38

And all of us knew that to speak against Sandia meant to destroy your career. And so I watched what

01:26:44

Casey did and I had a good conversation with him. And although I didn't stand with him publicly, him and I had a conversation that we got to try to figure out different ways to tackle this, because if we speak, our careers are done.

01:26:57

And I can tell you, I was willing to do that for this group. There was many in this community that thanked me for doing it.

01:27:04

They were unwilling to do it because they knew that they were close to retirement, that this was their career, this was their bread and butter.

01:27:10

Unfortunately, I'm just kind of a I'm a knucklehead who the Lord called me to just be a grand fetcher.

01:27:16

You could call it a dog that has to go get what what the Lord tells me to go get. And so I knew this was an opportunity to vie for the

01:27:23

Christian worldview. But it was going to require sacrificing my career. And I tell you what, Chris, I would do it over and over again.

01:27:30

I didn't know what I was going to endure. And I I'll be honest, I had physical and mental anguish to the point where I thought

01:27:38

I was done as a man. But I stand here today saying that this case has the opportunity.

01:27:43

By the way, we we have talked about this a little bit, but this is sort of one of the only cases that exists for an employee resource group talking about stringent requirements, qualifications for their leaders.

01:27:58

And I think this case actually has the ability to set precedents like we haven't seen before. Michael has done a tremendous job.

01:28:06

And at this point, Michael is really carrying a burden because this group hasn't been able to afford this case.

01:28:12

He is he's come alongside us. He's fighting with us. He has been part of the humiliation that this case has been.

01:28:19

And I tell you what, what a man of God that he that he is for coming alongside us.

01:28:24

And I can tell you that I think and this is what I thought from the get go. This case has the ability to set precedents.

01:28:31

It has the ability also to to really weaken Christian causes such as this.

01:28:37

But I don't believe that that's what the Lord is doing in this one. I think that he is really going to enable this case to set precedents so that other groups such as this have the ability to protect themselves.

01:28:47

Now, before we go to Jeff, forgive me if you've mentioned this already with clarity.

01:28:55

And I just forgot because there's obviously a lot of information being discussed. But what was your specific role there at Sandia?

01:29:04

So in my last role, I was a systems engineer for IT systems. And we all held different hats.

01:29:12

These employee resource groups were really things that we did on our own time. Now, I can say that was for the

01:29:19

C wing folks. Many of these other groups received funding where they were able to tap into it.

01:29:25

And what that meant was, is they were able to use money from from Sandia in order to support their efforts, training out of town, going to to leadership trainings, going to San Francisco C wing.

01:29:39

And Michael might know this dollar amount. He might be able to do some research. But since C wing's inception, they got very little money,

01:29:45

I think to the tune of a couple hundred bucks. And if you look at one of the most touted groups, which was the

01:29:50

LGBTQ group, they had received tens of thousands of dollars. Wow. There is there's a lot of evidence that demonstrates that disparity.

01:29:58

So this group, I can tell you, if you just look at the facts, you'll know this group was really hated from its inception because it was born out of a lawsuit.

01:30:06

It was really a group of Christian engineers and scientists that said, this worldview needs to be present in a national lab.

01:30:16

If we're going to be basing things off of truth and conviction, this worldview must exist.

01:30:21

From its inception, I think it was it was really hated. And so I'm sorry, Chris, can you ask your question one more time?

01:30:28

Well, you believe you answered it. I said, what was your specific role there at the laboratory? Oh, I was talking about the dual roles as well.

01:30:36

I had stepped into the role of a steering committee member. And then at the time,

01:30:43

Marie was our former chair or she was the chair at the time. And so she had retired and she stepped out of that role.

01:30:51

It was at that period that the group was actually chairless. And I noticed that there were some some very ominous things occurring.

01:30:59

There was it seemed like a lot of pressure was happening from different areas. As I mentioned earlier, I called it a very strong spiritual attack.

01:31:08

I stepped into the role as a chair because I knew that this was going to be a spiritual battle.

01:31:13

And so at that time, I was running a group of developers. And what we did is we actually we we created and we modified the tool for configuration management, how you manage all the different things that go into one of the nuclear weapons.

01:31:27

OK, Jeff, now, how has this affected your life personally? And if you could begin with letting us know or reminding us what your specific role was at the laboratory.

01:31:40

Sure, Chris, I'm a I'm a nuclear engineer, a retired

01:31:45

Air Force officer, so I came in with quite a bit of experience to San Diego National Laboratories and was a fairly senior member of the technical staff there.

01:31:55

And so that was my work role, worked on several different things.

01:32:01

Nuclear nonproliferation technology was one of the areas I was an expert on. And so I had had several roles, but usually around those kind of efforts to stop nuclear weapons proliferation, which was part of the lab's agenda.

01:32:19

I was also a steering committee member with Marie Miller, who

01:32:25

Jared mentioned, and with Jared on the Christians in the

01:32:30

Workplace Networking Group C wing till the end of my career. Let's see.

01:32:37

And then as we started to have these difficulties with the idea group trying to force us to remove our statement of faith and disciplinary clauses for our leadership, consistent with the

01:32:56

Bible and core to our group. Eventually, I brought

01:33:03

Michael in and I actually filed a complaint with the

01:33:10

Equal Employment Opportunity Council, the EEOC, that allowed us to pursue the lawsuit since the

01:33:19

EEOC wouldn't do anything. And as far as my story isn't quite as difficult as Jared's was,

01:33:30

I was on the trajectory to a promotion in the last two years of I was at Sandia.

01:33:38

That seemed to evaporate. There was no evidence that anything was going on.

01:33:43

But of course, I'd taken these roles and filed this complaint. And I was fortunate that I was eligible to retire with a pension after 18 years there.

01:33:55

So that's what I did. And so no significant problems for my family, for me and my family.

01:34:05

But probably my career got cut short out of this.

01:34:12

There was no specific evidence, but things seemed to really turn around after I filed that complaint with the

01:34:18

EEOC. Okay. We have Dietrich in Cleveland, Ohio, who wants to know,

01:34:27

I especially want to know what the lawyer has to know about this, but perhaps all the guests do.

01:34:35

Are there any other similar cases that they are aware of where you have government -funded organizations who are still practicing

01:34:47

DEI? That's a good question. I looked to see if there were any cases involving employee resource groups by federal employers, and I really couldn't find any in the research.

01:35:06

But I am certain, though, that there is widespread discrimination against Christians in the federal workplace because Sandia has a sister lab in Los Alamos, and they wanted to have a lawsuit, but I'm not sure what happened with that.

01:35:33

But I'm not sure if any of them have brought suit. And Michael, let's start with you.

01:36:35

lifestyle, the party scene, women, all that. And I remember I was in a fraternity in college, and we had it all.

01:36:44

We had the money, we had the women, we had all the parties. I can remember one time, just God put this thought in me, there has to be more than this.

01:36:51

And soon after that, I met people from Campus Crusade for Christ. They shared the gospel with me, and I did not receive

01:36:59

Christ yet, but God kept sending Christians into my life. I went to the University of North Carolina School of Law, and I got involved with Christian Legal Society there.

01:37:09

And they took me to a Bible -believing church, Chapel Hill Bible Church, and we learned the Book of Romans for like a year.

01:37:16

And finally, I realized I couldn't, I just could not live up to the

01:37:21

Ten Commandments. I needed to be saved for my sins, and I received Christ. And it was,

01:37:28

I was the first, as far as I know, any of my family to ever get saved, even going back all the generations.

01:37:37

And, but it was just such a blessing. But my mother was against my becoming a

01:37:43

Protestant because she was a devout Catholic. And she had one time said she wasn't a sinner, but I came back from a mission trip to China.

01:37:51

I was a teacher in China. I taught, and I was a missionary in China. I came back, and my mother was in intensive care, and I shared the gospel with her, and she received

01:38:01

Jesus. And then three days later, she died. So I've been blessed, I've been blessed tremendously.

01:38:07

Jesus has been, really, I've been given a better life than I'll ever deserve. And that doesn't even count heaven.

01:38:14

And where do you call a church home these days? I attend a church called

01:38:22

Chester Springs Calvary Chapel. It's in Exton, PA, outside of Philadelphia. It's part of the

01:38:28

Calvary Chapel churches. Yes. Well, I've got to introduce you to Denise Toth, who is a

01:38:36

Calvary Chapel member. And she orchestrates the speaking schedule for Dr.

01:38:45

Jason Lyle, a Christian astrophysicist, who was just my last, most recent,

01:38:52

Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon speaker. And so I've got to introduce you to her.

01:38:59

Jeff Martin, you're next in line. Let's hear a summary of your salvation story.

01:39:06

Yeah, thanks. I was led to the Lord when I was nine years old by my 11 -year -old cousin, who was the son of Baptist missionaries who were serving in Venezuela at the time.

01:39:22

And I was baptized when I was 16, a small Bible church. I grew up in northern

01:39:27

Michigan. Then I went to college, and through most of my

01:39:33

Air Force career, I was not walking with the Lord. But my lovely bride and I have three boys, three young boys at the time.

01:39:44

And raising those three boys, the Lord really got a hold of us. And we found a great

01:39:52

Baptist church in Albuquerque when we were there. Served in many roles there.

01:40:00

One of my favorite was led Trail Life USA group with my boys and other boys.

01:40:09

So it was a lot of my service. I served as a deacon there. So it was very good.

01:40:15

When I retired from Sandia, we moved to western Michigan. So we live near Holland, Michigan, these days.

01:40:25

And I attend Calvary Baptist Church, which is not a Calvary Chapel church, but Calvary Baptist Church in Holland, Michigan.

01:40:35

Great. And Jared, let's hear your story. And Chris, one of the things that you had asked if there's anything interesting is the

01:40:45

EEOC case. They're typically filed by individuals and not employee resource groups. And that's what makes this so unique.

01:40:52

On to the testimony. I was raised in a broken home. My father is a first -generation immigrant.

01:41:00

My mother is a very well -educated individual who came from a well -educated family. I was actually raised in a

01:41:08

Mormon family. And from a very young age, I was surrounded by a lot of dysfunction.

01:41:15

And through all of that, I was just a really broken person. From about the age of 12,

01:41:21

I was an addict. I started selling drugs and doing my own thing when I was quite young.

01:41:26

At 14, nobody wanted to be around me. I was probably the worst version of any possible human.

01:41:33

I think of the Apostle Paul saying that he's the chiefest of sinners. And, you know, it's only by the grace of God that I don't wear that anymore, but I still feel it.

01:41:45

It was at a very young age that I was invited to a Bible -believing, Bible -teaching church by my current wife,

01:41:52

Cora. And she was raised by a very godly man who was a pastor. And she invited me to church.

01:42:00

I went to that church, and I heard the gospel, and I could not believe it. It was everything for nothing, and I refused to believe it.

01:42:07

And I remember hardening my heart and searching and just trying to analyze what was being put before me.

01:42:14

And I remember refusing to accept that God is going to give us everything for nothing, that he's going to give us heaven and we don't have to do anything.

01:42:22

I was raised in the Mormon church where works were very big. And I remember being in a sermon in El Cerro Mission, New Mexico, and the preacher was preaching a bilingual message.

01:42:33

And I remember him just saying, if anybody wants to give their life to God, come up here.

01:42:40

And it was like a ton of bricks. I had put up a fight with the Lord. I didn't want anything to do with him.

01:42:46

And he called me on that day. And I remember it was like nothing I can describe. The Bible depicts it as a prick in the heart.

01:42:53

And it was on that day that I surrendered to the Lord. I went up and I confessed with my mouth and I believed in my heart that Jesus was raised from the dead.

01:43:01

And he did that as a sinless man so that I could be part of eternity with him forever. And from that time forward,

01:43:08

I've dedicated my life as best as I could to try to do what he's asked me to do.

01:43:14

I've been married now for 20 years. I have three beautiful children that I've raised in the church.

01:43:20

I try to do my best oftentimes. It doesn't seem like I'm doing my best. But I can say one thing.

01:43:26

God has been faithful through this all. This case, I think, is indicative of how God is working in his people's lives and what he is doing.

01:43:34

I see the thread of Jesus and his blood and his cross all throughout the churches that are present and the people who make up those churches.

01:43:42

And all I can say is my salvation, I don't feel worthy of it.

01:43:48

But it's only by the grace of God. Hallelujah. And where is your church home these days? I just moved to South Dakota, so we're searching for one.

01:43:57

And I could use prayer for that. We were in Forest Meadows Baptist Church down in Tejeda, New Mexico, and now we are churchless.

01:44:05

And it does not feel good. I think we've identified a church that we're thinking of joining, but I'm still praying that the

01:44:11

Lord is going to lead us in the right direction. Well, I don't know how far you are. You're in South Dakota.

01:44:17

I don't know how far you are from Larimore, North Dakota. But I happen to be very close friends with Pastor Josh Fryman of Harvest Baptist Church in Larimore, North Dakota.

01:44:29

So, like I said, I have no idea how far that is from where you are. Neither do

01:44:35

I. I'm in the Sioux Falls area. And I can tell you, I'm very intentionally looking for where the

01:44:43

Lord wants me. It's a hard process because he hasn't clearly indicated this is where you're supposed to be.

01:44:49

Okay, well, we will be praying for you. And we're going to our final break right now. And if you have a question, send it immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:44:58

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Don't go away.

01:45:04

We'll be right back after these messages. James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries announcing that this

01:45:22

September I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend

01:45:27

Chris Arnzen has lined up for me. On Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m.,

01:45:32

I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon at Church of the

01:45:40

Living Christ in Loisville. Then, on Sunday, September 21st at 1 .30

01:45:46

p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the

01:45:51

Bible is the Authentic and Inerrant Word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

01:45:57

For more details on the Free Pastors Luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.

01:46:03

That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

01:46:14

That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

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Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

01:48:37

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

01:48:43

Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ, today and always.

01:48:52

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

01:49:07

I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

01:49:13

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jansen and Christopher McDowell.

01:49:20

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

01:49:38

Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

01:49:45

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

01:49:54

For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

01:50:01

That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

01:50:09

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:50:23

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005.

01:50:36

The publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

01:50:45

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with, or switching to, the NASB.

01:50:51

I'm Pastor Nate Pickowitz of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire, and the

01:50:57

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, New York, and the

01:51:05

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Sule Prince of Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor John Sampson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck Volo of New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Steve Herford of Eastport Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and the

01:51:37

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Roy Owens, Jr. of the

01:51:43

Church of Friendship in Hockley, Texas, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

01:51:49

Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew

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01:52:14

Welcome back. We have Troy in Kent, Connecticut, who asks,

01:52:23

How might the audience pray for these three men, and what can we do to spread the word about this case?

01:52:31

Well, let's start with Michael on that. We see in our country that judges have such power that their political and spiritual beliefs can affect the outcome of a case.

01:52:51

So we respect the law, but we also see that perhaps our best remedy would be to have the president change the

01:53:03

DEE policy so that we can resolve this case, so that this group could go back and have their statement of faith, be treated the same as other groups, have their ability to discipline leaders.

01:53:16

So we want prayer that we could contact the president, and he could change the government's position in this case so it could get resolved, because it'll help not just this case, but I think it'll bring to light many other cases around the country.

01:53:41

So that's our prayer. And we also have a nonprofit that's supporting us in this case, and we have not been able to meet with President Trump, but we would like to meet with him.

01:53:57

And I believe if he knew about this case, he would take action because he can order the

01:54:06

Department of Energy to change its policy in this case, which would mean they would have to change

01:54:12

H .R. 008 so that it would accurately reflect the law on religious discrimination.

01:54:19

Instead of protecting religious expression, it was interpreted here to ban it.

01:54:26

And so we need prayer because time is of the essence. Jeff, you have anything to add?

01:54:34

Yes, I do. Michael mentioned our group, our nonprofit, and I serve as the president of that group.

01:54:44

We formed that to help with situations like this. It's New Mexicans for Civil Rights.

01:54:51

We're at nmcr .net. In my prayer, Michael has been working for a song, and we have tremendous financial liabilities.

01:55:06

C -Wing does for this. NMCR is trying to help that. So if there's anyone out there who can help or at least pray that we can find the financial resources we need to continue this case to protect these constitutionally given rights that we have that are being violated in so many workplaces.

01:55:32

NMCR is also looking for other workplace Christian groups and others whose

01:55:39

First Amendment rights have been violated. So I would just pray that we'll have the perseverance and financial resources to pay

01:55:49

Michael for all he's done for us. Thank you. And Jared? My prayer is that God's people don't grow weary and that they're emboldened to speak the truth.

01:56:03

I think that there's a lot of consequences and repercussions in our day and age right now, and we need truth more than ever.

01:56:12

Do it in gentleness and respect, but don't be afraid to share the truth that the world needs the most.

01:56:19

Thank you. Amen. Well, now I want each of you to give your contact information.

01:56:25

Michael, do you have a website for your law firm? Yes, I do have a website for my law firm.

01:56:33

If people want to make contributions to New Mexicans for Civil Rights, they can go online and make contributions and they are helping fund some of the expenses in the case.

01:56:45

My law firm's website is lawintegrity .com. I am working also as a missionary now, and I'm doing litigation, but I'm mentoring a younger attorney, and I'm right now in a time of transition in my life, asking what

01:57:02

God has for me. I'm in an outreach band. I play music, and I also have a nonprofit of my own that helps fulfill a great commission.

01:57:11

But I can also be reached—my email address is adventure7 at gmail .com.

01:57:17

And, Jeff, you're the president of the aforementioned New Mexicans for Civil Rights.

01:57:22

How do you get a hold of that organization? Well, the best way is through our website at nmcr .net.

01:57:30

You can find us there, and you can find contact information there, so I would direct everyone there to contact me and to get involved with our nonprofit.

01:57:41

Great. And, Jared, as I mentioned when I announced you or introduced you in the beginning of the program, you co -host with your wife,

01:57:50

Cora, the Christian podcast, Dedicated, Devoted. How do our listeners listen to that or watch it?

01:57:58

Yes, you can find us streaming on all platforms. We're on Spotify, podcast. Every platform will have that podcast available.

01:58:06

It's Dedicated, Devoted, all one word. It's really designed to help us sharpen our walk, and so that is one of my passion projects that I'm working on with my wife.

01:58:15

We have 10 episodes out there right now, and I'm hopefully going to get back to it here soon. I would appreciate any emails of encouragement.

01:58:22

It's something that I'm really trying to work on to enable my walk with the Lord and also enable other people. Great. And is that audio and video or audio only?

01:58:32

Right now it's all audio, and hopefully this year I get the video up. Great. Well, I want to thank you guys for doing such a masterful job addressing this very vital case, because this

01:58:48

DEI and leftist Marxist agenda is a lot more threatening to the safety of this country than people may realize.

01:59:00

And I'm so delighted that capable

01:59:06

Christians are fighting the good fight and are on the front lines trying to bring an end to this garbage that has polluted this nation.

01:59:18

I hope that you guys can come back with a victory celebration and discuss how you won this case at some point.

01:59:28

I also want to remind our listeners, please help I Am Sharp on Zion Radio. As I said before, we lost one of our largest clients, so we need your help more than ever at IAmSharpOnZionRadio .com

01:59:41

and click support. Well, I hope you all have a very safe, happy, God -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.

01:59:51

And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.