Senator Dusty Deever's Political Agenda

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:09

Hey, everyone. Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. We have a very busy man with us today,

00:16

Pastor and Senator Dusty Devers from the great state of Oklahoma. Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to join me and answer some questions and talk about some important things,

00:26

Senator and Pastor Dusty Devers. Hey, John, thank you so much for having me, man.

00:32

I really respect the work you are doing and you've been doing for many years now. And it's very thankless oftentimes.

00:40

And I've experienced some of the difficulty of doing a thankless job at times.

00:47

But, you know, I wanna be one of the ones who encourages you and lets you know I appreciate you, brother. Thank you so much.

00:54

And I appreciate you. The affection is mutual. I know you've written some articles for TruthScript as well, if people wanna go check those out.

01:01

And so we've had some conversations in private chats and stuff, but we haven't done this yet.

01:07

And so this may be the first of a few that we'll do in the future as you continue on in your role as a state senator in Oklahoma.

01:15

I wanna let you talk and just inspire other men to take a stand for the right thing.

01:22

You went from being a pastor to now being a state senator. That's kind of a heavy decision.

01:29

I don't think people just casually walk into that. So maybe walk us through that. What did that look like for you?

01:37

Yeah, I'll try not to be too long, but there is a long narrative, a storyline that God has written and he's still writing that kind of led me to that decision.

01:48

You see some things in the background here. This is my son's room. I'm at my house today.

01:54

Had a little bit of a reprieve in some of the work for my Senate seat. So I'm at my house in the quietest place with five kids in the house.

02:02

One of them's in college, is one of their upstairs bedrooms. I don't have a basketball goal and medals on my wall in some office.

02:12

I'd have the basketball goal. But yeah, the process to get there, oh man, in 2019 really,

02:21

I started tracking more on a political level whenever we were helping assist in trying to pass the bill to abolish abortion,

02:31

SB 13 in Oklahoma. And then, so I started to learn more about the political process and talking with your elected officials.

02:41

And then in 2020 came and we were really caught on our heels with regard to what's the role of the civil magistrate in relationship to the church, but also what's the civil magistrate's relationship to God and his governing.

02:59

And in reading some of the Westminster Confession and the 1689 and seeing,

03:05

I read through Lex Rex and the Vindicia Contra Terranis and other works like Basiet's The Law and recognizing that our founding fathers of this country, but then even pushing back the

03:20

Puritans and the reformers, they understood this stuff at a far better level than we did.

03:26

And we had much to learn and recover. So really this is what I feel like I'm doing is just a work of repentance and a recovery project of getting back to where we should have been.

03:41

And we were so unequipped to take on 2020 that I felt convicted over it quite frankly and started to lead the church through bearing fruit and keeping with repentance.

03:59

Kind of shift around. Did you wanna say something? No, I can always say something, but I want you to keep talking.

04:07

So tell us the story. Keep going. Yeah, I'll fast forward to coming up to this office.

04:13

We've been preaching through Deuteronomy. I edited a book on God and government by Brett Baggett that you can get on Amazon.

04:22

It's really good. It's really short, but I edited that and helped him along with that. And it was very helpful.

04:28

We taught our church through it. We've been preaching through Deuteronomy for a while.

04:35

And we wrote a member of ours and myself,

04:41

James Silberman. Some of you probably know of him from his work in abolitionists rising and free the states.

04:47

We wrote the statement on Christian nationalism and we were teaching the church through it. And we had this journey with the church that God was taking us on.

04:56

And so when this Senate seat came open, it was a special election. The Senate seat was resigned by the guy that was in our district.

05:06

And we knew that we had to do something. God had positioned us since 2019, particularly we thought to be the most equipped church in our district, having thought through all of these things multiple times and having done deep dives into the relationship of God and government and the relationship of the government to the church that we should run someone.

05:32

So three weeks went by and we were praying for those three weeks. We had a prayer meeting on a

05:38

Thursday night, myself and another one of our elders put ourselves forward and the church then prayed for another hour.

05:47

And then they encouraged, they actually commissioned me to run for the position.

05:56

So from there, I had a whole lot more learning to do about running for Senator and the political process as far as campaigning.

06:06

And now I'm learning a lot at having been elected and really God bringing me into this role about how to legislate from the inside now.

06:19

Excellent, excellent, yeah. And I mean, I have so many questions about how that affects your role as a pastor and what it was like to have people in your own denomination including the current president oppose you in some form.

06:32

I do wanna go to some of the people though in chat cause we actually have four people right now standing by and if you unmute your microphones,

06:42

I know you're ready. There's one person with their microphone unmuted. That's Jeff Reynolds. So I'm gonna go to Jeff first. Hey Jeff, how are you doing?

06:49

Hey John, good, how are you doing? Good to see you. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, my pleasure. I don't think

06:55

I have much to say yet except that this is an awesome, another great discussion with an amazing guest.

07:06

Dusty, congratulations and thank you for the work you're doing. It's these kinds of battles are the things that are gonna make the difference these days.

07:14

I mean, so just appreciate what you're doing. This is great. Yeah, thanks

07:20

Jeff. If you have a question or comment as we go through it just let me know in the private chat and we'll go from there.

07:25

Sorry, I didn't mean to spring that on you. You're the only one with your bike off. So that wasn't intentional.

07:32

Jeff, thank you for the encouragement. I appreciate it. And yeah, John, whenever we think about the transition to being a senator now, essentially in my mind, in the mind of our church, we have three elders at our church.

07:48

It is, it's not a hard shift. I mean, we've taught the people how to read the word of God and how to apply the word of God in their own homes, in their parenting, in having just government in their own personal life and just government in their homes.

08:07

And we as elders are trying to practice just government in the church. And so now we just want to practice just government, righteous government in the civil sphere as well.

08:19

And God's word is clearly capable for that. It's sufficient for all things in life and godliness.

08:25

And that includes life and godliness outside of the home and the church as well.

08:30

So it would cover that. And I mean, I think most pastors, most

08:36

Christians who are, or at least the men who are running their homes well, and the men who are running their churches well, and are good judges, righteous judges who hold the word of God up to matters in their home and who hold the word of God up to matters in the church, they are more capable at holding the word of God up to matters in the civil sphere than really anyone else that's not holding the word of God up to judge.

09:08

Right. Yeah, no, good point. And I just want to say by way of announcement here, anyone who does have a question who's in chat, just turn your microphone on and I'll see it.

09:17

And then I'll know that I can come to you and you can ask a question or make a statement or if you want to argue with Senator Deavers, he's going to get used to that.

09:25

He probably already is. So I wanted to ask you about the Christian nationalism thing. You mentioned it already that you drafted or helped draft this statement when you were still, well, you are still a pastor, but it was when you were not a state

09:39

Senator yet. And this has been one of the questions I get a lot from people is, especially people who've read

09:46

Stephen Wolf's book and they wonder, okay, well, what does this actually look like? So, you say you want a

09:51

Christian nation, you say you want the government to uphold Christian values and you want a

09:57

Christian identity, but what are the steps that you take? What are the laws that you pass?

10:02

What does that effectively look like? And, you know, I've given some specifics like, but for me, it's like,

10:10

I'm not in public office. I'm not doing any of these things directly. And you are, so I think this is a great opportunity maybe to talk about your bills or just what you think it looks like to be a

10:20

Christian, self -consciously so, in public office. And what are the steps that need to be taken to bring, in this case, the state of Oklahoma to a more

10:30

Christian place, I suppose? Yeah. When we talk about Christian, we're not saying, we're not using the term like we would someone that we're bringing into church membership, where we're assessing their profession of faith and their practice of faith to see if they're in the kingdom of God, if they've been born again.

10:54

We're using it more as a set of principles by which we, or a set of principles from the scriptures that we recognize that this world is to be governed by and particularly how governments are to be governed.

11:13

Whenever we talk about authority, governing is about a use of authority. And what is the standard for the use of authority?

11:26

And is that authority prescribed in the scriptures? And we would say, yes,

11:32

God prescribes servants of his to govern as his mediators on this earth.

11:42

And so he has prescribed governing and then he has also prescribed the means for our governing.

11:50

And that means is in accordance with his word. And if we do otherwise, then we are essentially usurping the sovereign rule of God through Christ who has been seated above every power in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

12:11

So that's our marching orders. And it's pretty straightforward as far as, if you wanna talk about Christian nationalism, what we mean by a

12:23

Christian nation. Yeah, what

12:29

I'd like to do is maybe go from general to specific. So we'll go from kind of like the, what you're talking about now, the responsibility of Christians in a civil sphere and then go to the specific bills that you've introduced.

12:44

Now, I didn't ask your permission to this. I probably should have. And you don't have to get involved with this if you don't want to.

12:49

But I think this is a common objection to what you're talking about. This is fresh off the press this morning.

12:56

Owen Strand had responded to you. You wrote, good morning, woke up, poured my cup of straight black coffee, surveyed the landscape, analyzed the situation with various metrics, assessment report,

13:07

Christ is King, undefeated, his government and its increase has no end. And then you quoted Acts 17, six through seven.

13:14

And then Owen Strand responded and said, Christ is King, Dusty, amen. But note, what the apostles focused on, preaching the gospel.

13:21

While we need politicians, the apostles weren't politicians. They were fearless before rulers, but their focus was making disciples and strengthening churches.

13:29

That's the great commission. And so I think that's fairly representative of some of the reaction that you'll see in even reformed evangelical circles to what you're trying to do.

13:40

That Christians don't really have much of a business being in politics, or if they do, it should not ever be thought of as part of the mission of Christians.

13:51

It's something separate. It's a secular thing, I guess. And the two shall never touch.

13:57

And so I know you deal with this objection a lot. What's your response to something like that? Well, goodness gracious, where to start with that?

14:07

I mean, I did write a response to what Owen posted, but essentially, I think the most important part is when you look at the authority of Christ, I think of it like Thomas Boston and some of the other

14:24

Puritans did in terms of Christ's essential aspect of His authority and His mediatorial aspect of His authority.

14:34

Essentially, as God, the Son of God has essential reign and rule over all things.

14:43

Everything in this world was created by Him, for Him, through Him, and without Him, nothing was made that was made.

14:50

So everything in this world is created after Christ and for Christ.

14:56

And whenever we rebelled against God, we were essentially rebelling against Christ and the image of God in Christ on us.

15:07

And that's particularly what was in the fall, we rebelled against God and we broke what was marred is that image of God in Christ on us so that Christ is the only one who can come back and redeem us or reconcile us to God and fix the marred image.

15:26

And that's what He does in coming to earth, living a sinless life, dying a substitutionary death on the cross, raising from the dead on the third day, ascending to the right hand of the

15:38

Father. And now in His current reign, He is both essential King, but also mediatorial

15:45

King. So that's the two aspects of His kingship. And by His mediatorial rule, it means

15:53

He has through the gospel, and this is what we see in the

15:59

Great Commission. This is why I think getting at Owen's flawed hermeneutic here in the

16:09

Great Commission, Christ says the preamble to it is all authority in heaven,

16:15

His essential kingship and on earth as a mediator, He now has kingship, has been given to me.

16:24

And so on the basis of that dual nature of His authority, essential and mediatorial,

16:30

He sends out the apostles to extend the mediatorial reign of Christ.

16:36

They're not extending the essential rule of Christ because He has it by nature of His divinity.

16:42

They're extending the mediatorial rule of Christ through what? Through the preaching of the gospel, yes, and what's embedded in the

16:51

Great Commission is the teaching those people to observe and obey everything that He commands.

16:59

So what we're building in this life is the mediatorial rule of Christ through submitting to Him through the gospel,

17:09

His kingship through the gospel, and submitting to Him by faith through being zealous for good works in every area and those good works actually show off the rule of Christ.

17:22

So how did Owen get it wrong? It's because he fails to see both sides.

17:27

It's a reductionistic hermeneutic. So I'm really going at his theological method largely in that comment.

17:36

Yeah, no, good thoughts. What would you say if someone, and I don't know that he would believe this or I don't know who would believe this, but it just came to my head, you know, extending the rule of Christ in a mediatorial way, when you impose laws on people who are not

17:51

Christians, right, they are godless, let's say they could even be pagans or atheists and they are now forced because they live in a jurisdiction like your own, let's say if they pass some of the laws that you've proposed that requires them to abide at least externally under God's law in some way.

18:12

Is that an extension of the mediatorial role of Christ or how does that work?

18:18

Is that something separate in your mind? Yeah, that's absolutely an extension. And what they're getting is they're getting a measure of grace from being in proximity to true

18:36

Christianity. So whenever Christians are voted into office, it's not just good for Christians, it's good for the wicked as well.

18:47

It's good for those who maybe are yet to come to Christ. So whenever, there are several

18:54

Proverbs and several scriptures that talk about when the righteous increase, the people flourish.

19:05

And so whenever the wicked increase, the people groan, whenever there's wicked rulers, the people groan.

19:12

Why is that? Because God who made this world also spoke. The God who created also speaks.

19:19

And he spoke in his word how the world is to be ordered. And that ordered good is the best life for anyone and everyone, whether they believe in him or not.

19:30

So it is a grace to all under the jurisdiction of a

19:35

Christian leader who will bow the knee to Christ. It's a grace to all of them.

19:42

Yeah. So most Christians you would think would respect someone who wants to, as an elected official, make the law of God, not just important, but required, because it'll make everything better.

19:59

It's the third use of the law. It's going to not just convict of sin, but it's also going to make sure that evil is somewhat put at bay so that conviction can take place.

20:12

There is a standard that's upheld. This just seems basic to me in a way, but there does seem to be an objection that some

20:20

Christians have to it. And I was wondering, I don't want to get too much into the drama here, unless you want to, but if that was part of the reason that the president of the

20:27

Southern Baptist Convention, Barber, gave money in the primary to one of the candidates who was challenging you, or you were challenging them, you were competing against each other in that primary, they did not support you.

20:40

And I've heard, and I don't know this to be true or not, but that particular candidate is not, I guess, as pro -life as you are, or I should say against abortion as you are.

20:51

What's the deal there? It's just confusing, I think, to Southern Baptists, especially thinking like, okay, our president hates abortion,

20:58

I think, and wants the law of God, and sounds like Dusty wants that. So what's the disconnect?

21:06

Yeah, I think the disconnect there is they think

21:11

I, the way I interpret scripture is, they think it's probably too narrow, but I see it being a broader application of scripture to all of life, all of Christ for all of life, where I think they might say that it's too narrow because I want to see the laws applied with consistency.

21:41

I don't wanna make any room for evil that some good may come along,

21:46

Romans 3 .8. But I think it's intimidating for some people to think that way.

21:54

I think a lot of people have been trained by, well, I don't even like to say secular because I don't believe that there's this middle space that's secular, and there's this

22:05

Christian side or this place where God rules, and then there's this secular place, and then there's this

22:11

Satan's world. I don't think that there's that middle space. But I think that a lot of people who are, well, a lot of people for that matter, and especially the post -war folks that have a

22:29

B in front of their names, their categorical name, I think a lot of them were trained by classical liberalism.

22:36

And like there's this quad out in the middle of the university where all ideas are equal and where it's okay.

22:46

And once you walk off the quad, nobody's gonna fight. And there's this middle space that it's kind of like, it's gonna build community as though it's neutral.

22:57

And I just cannot square that with scripture. From the very beginning, it was either you are obeying

23:04

God or you're going to listen to the serpent who says, did God really say?

23:09

So it's either you're coming under the rule of God, your creator, who is also gracious and sent his son, or you're going to come under the rule of the serpent.

23:21

And so it's a serpentine theocracy or a rule of God.

23:28

And there's not a space in the middle. And so I think when people hear me talk about these kinds of things, they think, well, that violates our sensibilities that there's this neutral space and that's the best way to govern.

23:44

That we're gonna get win some and lose some and compromise is the currency of politics.

23:51

And you just have to play politics. And I don't, I'll play politics if we're talking about Jesus is king and we obey him and anything he says to do is what is best and it will happen in accordance with his will and his timing,

24:08

I don't have to worry about the results. I'll play politics like that. But I won't play politics if you think that there's a space to take

24:16

God's rule and reign and to tamper with it and to practice cunning with the scriptures.

24:25

That's really what I think it is. So you don't see, I think that's why some people say, well,

24:30

Christian nationalism is a threat to democracy because they're thinking of this neutral space where their conception of free speech and right to privacy and you can do anything you want really as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.

24:44

That's what they wanna try to preserve. But of course, all manner of evil is cultivated in that space and it's really not that neutral.

24:52

And then that actually affects in this case, the moral and working men and women who are putting the bill for all of this.

25:01

And that I think brings us into some of these bills that you have introduced to the state

25:07

Senate. And I'm looking at your, there's a website called BillTrack and it has all these bills.

25:15

I think there's what, nine bills, something like that that you've introduced, which is that normal?

25:20

I just have to ask, is that, that seems like for someone who just got elected, that's a little bit like a, that's a lot.

25:27

You know, it probably is a lot. They, I came in at a special election and the reason why

25:34

I don't have more actually is because I came in very late in the process.

25:41

Many of the deadlines were already passed. They made, what they said were some concessions for me to actually file.

25:50

And they gave me three bills that already had titles on them but you can change the title before the session starts.

25:58

And even after the session, the titles can change but at least they had to be filed by a certain date.

26:03

And they gave me three bills, they're essentially called shell bills. And then

26:09

I went out and pushed for six bills and I got six more. And essentially what you see in these nine bills are the platforms that I ran on for the most part.

26:24

There's a few others that if I could have gotten bills for, I might've run, but I was warned, don't take on too much.

26:31

And people are telling me you have taken on too much and you've really put yourself, put a target on your back.

26:38

And a lot of people aren't gonna like it. People in Senate leadership are not gonna like it. But in God's providence,

26:47

I ran on certain positions and I told the church, we're gonna run on these platform, on these platform positions, but the liberal media is going to try to make my campaign into something that is hateful, that's spiteful, that's corrupted or whatever, they're going to try to do that.

27:10

So you need to remember church whenever they bring something up, it could only be brought up and made a major issue because it first went through the sovereign

27:20

God's filter. And if he wants it brought up, they would have had to pass it through him.

27:25

And if it gets to me, then I'm going to lean into it even harder. I'm not gonna back away from it.

27:31

And if the people aren't ready, that's not my fault. Obedience is mine. The results belong to God.

27:38

If the people are ready, then I am going to, they'll vote me in and I'll represent these very positions.

27:46

If they aren't ready, then so be it. I'll go back and we'll keep preaching and we'll keep moving forward.

27:51

I'm content with that because I don't need this position. This is not something I need for my bucket list or for my goals in life or for my kids to say, oh, look, your dad really is a winner.

28:03

I don't care about that stuff. I wanna honor the Lord. And so, yeah, there's nine here and there's some pretty significant heavy hitters.

28:12

Let's start with the ones that aren't as heavy that are, they don't get the headlines, but taxes. Because you're seen as a social conservative guy and that's the

28:20

Christian nationals movement, right? But you got two bills on taxes here. Tell me about that. Yeah, yeah. So the first one,

28:26

Senate Bill 2031 is to repeal the state income tax. And right now it's at 4 .75.

28:35

And I think it's an unjust tax and I wanna see it at zero.

28:42

And I can talk about the reasons why, if you'd like, why I think it's an unjust tax.

28:50

But then the second one is, it's called, it's 2037, Senate Bill 2037, and it's called the grocery tax rebate.

29:00

But essentially there's some marketing in that name, but essentially what it's about is setting up a framework for a consumption tax where you tax goods and certain services and not do any unjust taxation.

29:25

Gotcha. And that, wait, did you mention the other one? That's one of them. Eliminating the income tax.

29:31

And then, okay, so I guess that flows into the sales tax rebate? Yes. Okay, gotcha.

29:38

Yeah, this is, we probably could go for a while on that, but then we wouldn't have time for the other stuff.

29:43

If anyone wants to ask a question about that, they're more than welcome. I'm gonna go to Chase Davis though first, Pastor Chase Davis, who's been on the show before and see what he has to say.

29:52

And then Andrew's on deck to ask a question. So, hey Chase.

29:58

Hey guys. Great to be here. How you doing? Good, good, good. So I don't know if you have a question or a comment or an argument you wanna pick a bone with Dusty.

30:09

No, I don't have a bone to pick with Dusty. I do, first of all, really inspired, really thankful for your work, praying for you.

30:16

We just had a talk with our church last night. We do these kind of quarterly teachings.

30:21

Last night was on wealth and money. And so I brought up the issue of taxation. So I'm always interested in talking about that.

30:28

You is kind of wearing dual hats as a politician now and a pastor.

30:33

I'm curious, we're at our church, we're putting up, we're signing, we're putting a petition in the lobby for an abortion abolition bill on Sundays.

30:42

And it makes a lot of evangelicals uncomfortable when you do that kind of thing, mainly because they have this boogeyman of separation of church and state and that kind of thing.

30:51

So how do you as a pastor, through the preaching, is there kind of a firewall in your mind?

30:59

Like, yeah, I won't touch an issue or are you just kind of like everything's fair game? Like, is there something pastors should avoid when getting up and teaching on these things?

31:07

And I'm sure it gets complicated with you wearing two hats. So that would be kind of my thing. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on.

31:14

Good question. You're trying to get me in trouble with the state, aren't you? I'm really not, no. No, I'm not.

31:22

I mean, look, I don't see any firewalls that are provided to me by the scriptures.

31:29

So why should I recognize an unjust law if there is one? I don't see any firewalls provided in the scriptures.

31:38

Pastors should preach the full counsel of the words so that the blood of the people's, the blood of the people is not on their hands, like Paul said.

31:51

So that's not to say that there aren't distinct roles for the church to play and tools for the church to wield versus what the state can wield.

32:01

The church has the tools of the word and sacrament in the preaching of the gospel and the teaching people to obey everything that Jesus commanded, and then the giving of baptism and the giving and receiving of the

32:15

Lord's supper for the discipline and the integrity of the church. The state has been emplaced to protect innocent people, to punish and terrorize evildoers and to promote what is good in accordance with the will of God or the law of God and the word of God.

32:36

And their tools that have been given to them is the sword, the sword of force to protect those innocent people by punishing and terrorizing evildoers.

32:49

The church hasn't been given the sword of violence or justice in that sense. The church has been given a word and sacrament as their tools.

32:59

So yeah, there are distinct tools and roles, but is there conversation that's off limit?

33:06

I don't see that in scripture. Now, if you wanna get to taxation, I'm happy to have a conversation with you about why income tax is an unjust tax.

33:17

Well, unfortunately we have like 20 minutes, so that's the problem. And I wanna get to the, because right now you're making headlines for wanting to ban pornography.

33:25

And I wanna, if we have time, we might not talk about the border. But before that, Andrew has a question or a comment.

33:31

Hey, Andrew, how are you doing? Can you hear me? Yep, yep, I can hear you.

33:37

Can you hear me? Yep. Senator, I'm Andrew from Texas. Here, we're gonna ask a question about Texas in a little bit, if we can get to it.

33:46

But I had a real quick question about the case for Christian nationalism, the book by Stephen Wolf.

33:55

I'm about halfway through working through it, still trying to figure out where everybody kind of is.

34:00

There's a lot of different flavors. I was curious how familiar you are with his work and where you would differ in any sort of noticeable way.

34:15

That's a good question. Yeah, so I've scanned most of it and I've read about, oh, a third of it.

34:25

So I'm not really ready to say where I would disagree with him or not.

34:32

He's a Presbyterian, I'm a Baptist. I think if he's going to follow along with the

34:38

Westminster, whether it was before the American edit or after, I'm not even certain on that.

34:45

And as a 1689, we're gonna have some differences, but I really think that his work is monumental and that what he has done is courageous and he has taken a lot of undue heat for what he's done.

35:08

He's been very misunderstood, sorry, misunderstood and a lot of misguided folks are taking him to task for really,

35:22

I think, irresponsible readings of his work. So I'm not gonna say anything towards that end.

35:30

Yeah, good answer to that. We have Sean next.

35:36

I don't know if Sean has a question or a comment, but Sean, how you doing? Doing great, guys.

35:42

Good to meet you, Senator. Thank you for your service and I appreciate you standing up in this hour.

35:47

We need more men like you. My question really, just really a conversation with you real quick about what's it like to be a freshman

35:55

Senator right now and jumping in with this. I've talked to other first timers and they've said, they had to get good running shoes to run around the

36:03

Capitol. They didn't realize how much that would take for them to do that. But I'd like to know how many bills, how many bills do you anticipate running this?

36:11

Is this something you only have 15 or as a freshman, are you limited to only five or six this year?

36:17

And I'd love to hear you talk about what you think as a freshman is gonna be your actual effect on this legislative session there.

36:25

How much can you do? Yeah, yeah. So a lot of that is going to be determined here over the next few weeks.

36:35

Session runs from February 6th till, well,

36:40

February 5th until the end of May. So we had deadlines to turn in bills.

36:46

And what I was telling John earlier is that I came in so late that it was just running and gunning.

36:51

I was working about 18 hours a day to get these bills written and get them back to the drafters and get edits done.

37:02

And a couple of them need work. There's going to be amendments that I'll even offer on a few of them because I don't think that they're perfect yet.

37:09

And that's fine. This is how the process works. But those nine that I turned in,

37:15

I think are heavy hitters. And you brought up getting running shoes.

37:22

Well, I swore off the use of the elevator. I'm on the fifth floor. And every morning

37:29

I come in with my two bags, with computers in each one of them and other heavy items for protection.

37:39

And I run those five flights of stairs because there's a few reasons for that.

37:47

I need to get in shape a little bit better. I need to be strong. I think I have a responsibility for my body as well before the

37:56

Lord. But I also, it is intimidating for people to see me running up those stairs. And it's been numerous times people have seen me run up the stairs and they're like, it's pretty shocking,

38:12

I guess. But every time, I'll do that probably three times a day. I'll run the five flights of stairs, whether it's to clear my mind or to just get some more energy,

38:25

I'll do that. But yeah, what's the likelihood of them getting passed? That's up to the

38:34

Lord to determine. I am just trying to be faithful. And I've been told that leadership is not gonna sniff out, they're not even gonna come close enough to smell these bills.

38:46

They're not gonna be appropriated to committees. If they are, I'm going to be mocked and shamed. I've been told that the leadership does not want anything that makes the

38:58

Senate look undignified. And some of these bills are gonna make the Senate look undignified, that we would be arguing over these things.

39:06

I mean, in my mind, the people that I'm representing, the 80 ,000 or so people in my district are just as much

39:16

Oklahomans as anybody else, whether I'm a freshman or I've been there 10, 11 years.

39:22

So that representation that they deserve is the same as anybody at the highest positions of the

39:28

Senate. And quite frankly, we have an extra constitutional administrative regime that is running a lot of the state houses and that's running our federal government.

39:41

We are post -constitutional in that way in so many ways. And so most of what we need to be doing is repealing, is to be striking back government and getting the government under the constitution.

39:53

And so, I mean, you bring up a really good question. If my bills won't be even heard in committee or heard from the floor, well, it's not because my constituents didn't want it.

40:04

I was very clear, very honest with them. They sent me up here with all of these positions. I was very straightforward.

40:11

I did not bake and switch them. So they sent me to do this job. And if somebody else keeps me from speaking up for them, that is post -constitutional.

40:23

Thank you, Senator Deavers. We have Tyler who has a question or a comment. Hey, Tyler, how you doing?

40:29

Hey, John. Hey, Dusty. Hey, I don't talk to Tyler. I don't talk to him. I don't talk to him.

40:35

Bye. I actually did almost text you this, but I actually thought this would be a really good one for lots of people because it's something

40:41

I've considered. But if someone, this is my problem, is I just looked up like a lot of questions about running for office.

40:50

And I think most people don't even know like who their mayor is or how long a mayor is in office for or even like a zoning board.

40:59

Let's not even go state level, which where you're at, or even like as high as a mayor. Let's just go like, sorry for the light, like a zoning board, which actually does have a lot of power.

41:09

How would one just find out when are the next elections? Who's up for reelection? Is it even wise for me to run because this person might be actually pretty good?

41:18

Do I really want to run against this person? How would one even start to find where to even go? Because I know guys see you and are thinking, okay,

41:27

I could probably do this. I'm gonna give this a shot. Yeah. Good question. Yeah.

41:33

So in every elected office, there are gonna be rules, whether that's your school board or your city council or your mayor, this county sheriff, the county commissioners, there are rules for how long they can serve in office, how old they have to be, how long they have to be a resident, what their window for filling in the application is, all of those things.

42:08

So I would just do probably a quick Google search and find out what that is right now, because it might be too late or there might be an opening coming.

42:19

You need to go talk to, if it's at the local level, you need to go talk to some of the leaders in your town, go to the city council meetings, go to the school board meetings, go to the county commissioner meetings, go to the meetings, find out what's happening.

42:32

Understand the process a little bit before you just jump into it. That way you'll know what you're getting into more.

42:41

I was going up to the Capitol for four years before running for office.

42:47

It made sense for me to attempt to run for that position.

42:55

Our church recognized that it made absolute sense and not just made sense, but they recognized that God had placed this charge on me and charge on our church to take up our duty together.

43:10

So it didn't come out of the blue. And why didn't it come out of the blue? Because by God's grace, he was causing me to not neglect the small days of, not neglect the day of beginnings or the small beginnings that I was working and just trying to be faithful with the next thing that God gave me.

43:33

And that thing might've went for months just trying to preach on the abortion

43:38

Holocaust, trying to go up to the Capitol and give speeches and help lead psalm sings at the

43:47

Capitol or go to city council meetings and plead with them not to do unconstitutional things.

43:55

Those kinds of things so that it's a fit and it makes sense. So I would not neglect the day of small beginnings.

44:04

I would start getting involved where you are right now, having conversations, get to know the politics of your area, what's good and bad and ugly, get to know the major players and start having conversations with them so that you're geared up for it.

44:19

Well, we have about 10 minutes, nine minutes left. And with that time, I'd like to dedicate half of it to the border issue and then also the pornography issue because that seems to be making headlines right now.

44:30

Maybe we'll start with the pornography issue since that's closely related to one of your bills. I have not read the bill.

44:37

So I'm looking to you to kind of give direction on what your vision is here. But you introduced a bill that would effectively ban pornography.

44:44

And also, as I understand it, sending indecent pictures through electronic communications to people who are not,

44:52

I guess, if they're not married, I don't know exactly how that works. If they're married, I guess they can do that. But maybe explain to us what your vision is here.

45:01

And then if you could also address the practicality of it, because that's the first thing I know I thought was, is this something that can actually be enforced?

45:09

Because I know laws that aren't enforceable tend to degrade the rest of the law in a way because people just think, well, if we broke that one, it doesn't matter.

45:18

We can break this one, right? So how do you enforce something like that? Yeah, yeah. So the

45:24

Oklahoma GOP platform for 2023 on the family section, section

45:30

C, number seven says, we support and encourage rigorous enforcement of all anti -pornography, obscenity, and human trafficking laws.

45:40

So I am operating in accordance with the will of the people of Oklahoma, at least the

45:46

Republicans of Oklahoma, in writing this bill. And what this bill essentially does is it gives, it bans pornography in its production and distribution and consumption, and it puts criminal charges for production, distribution, and consumption.

46:07

And then it makes civil allowances for like a mom, an angry dad who wants to protect his daughter to sue producers or distributors of pornography.

46:21

Or it would give a wife protection for herself from a dirty ex -husband passing around their old pictures.

46:32

So it then also uses the Miller versus California three -prong obscenity test.

46:41

This is where SCOTUS established actually a three -prong obscenity test to determine if speech or expression could be labeled as obscene.

46:51

And if it is labeled as obscene, then it's not protected by the First Amendment.

46:57

So it can be prohibited. And that three -prong test is the prurient test or the arousal test, the offensiveness test, and then the serious value test.

47:10

So those three areas. And I dare say that no one would say that the pornography that's being passed around right now would pass the test to say that's not obscene.

47:22

And that's essentially creating, it's helping refine the

47:29

Miller test and put it actually put it to test both in Oklahoma and on the federal level.

47:37

I'm assuming that the federal level is they're gonna take it up. But Oklahomans by the 10th

47:43

Amendment have the right and the duty to protect Oklahomans to protect

47:50

Oklahoma's people. And that would include pornography. So we're essentially saying, we're asking, does a jury in Oklahoma have the right to say that pornography is obscene and it's against First Amendment rights of the people?

48:08

Well, it's not even against the First Amendment rights of the people. It actually supports or holds the First Amendment rights of the people.

48:15

It's actually a protection against the defiling of the First Amendment. And that's what good law actually does.

48:22

When we think about where do we get our rights, we're essentially saying in our constitution, our rights are from God, they are not from government.

48:33

And so what this legislation is doing is saying, our rights are from God, they're not from the government.

48:41

And you don't have the right to do certain evils in society which pornography is fundamentally an evil.

48:52

It's destructive and corrosive. There is no good to it. And it has been the source of all kinds of evil in our society.

49:04

So we have the right as Oklahomans to strengthen our First Amendment position.

49:10

I think a lot of people from the generation Z, right? I'm a millennial. So right under me believe this or understand this in stronger terms just because they've been ravaged by it.

49:23

And they can see the negative effects it's having on them or their friends. And I just find it interesting because a few years ago,

49:31

I couldn't see this being a big issue for Republicans like anywhere, right?

49:37

I don't know if you felt that way, but it just seemed like it wasn't a big priority. And that priority seems to be growing in my mind, at least on the right.

49:44

There's sort of a more of an interest in re -looking at this. So yeah, thank you for having the bravery to even start this conversation to challenge this since we only have three minutes.

49:55

Border, that's making headlines. I know you're not, you haven't introduced a bill on this topic specifically, but Oklahoma, at least the governor there has vocalized standing with Greg Abbott of Texas.

50:06

And what kinds of things can you as a state senator do if anything to prevent illegal migrants from making their way into Oklahoma and living there and benefiting from things that really belong to the people of Oklahoma?

50:23

Yeah, well, we have a constitution that protects the state's rights to protect themselves.

50:31

And beyond that, God demands that governing authorities protect the people, the innocent people.

50:38

And so we would have the right, divine right from God to protect the people of our state, whether our constitution support it or not, and it does.

50:47

And that right means that we can do a lot of different things.

50:52

We can actually be very creative in what it means to legally protect our people.

50:58

And really it's a sixth commandment issue. The governing authorities have a duty to protect the life and livelihood of their people and to then punish anyone who would threaten the life and livelihood of their people.

51:16

So, you know, we could send, it can't be just me, but what the

51:23

Oklahoma legislature could do is there are lots of things.

51:28

We could send money to Texas to help. We could send National Guard or Oklahoma Guard. We could remind our county commissioners, or well, not our county commissioners, but our sheriffs, our county sheriffs, that they have a duty to protect the people in their county from those who would seek to violate our property and livelihood.

51:52

And even going so far as a county sheriff could deputize a bunch of guys to protect the border of their county.

52:01

They could require warrants for any federal agent that would come in and say, you can't do that.

52:07

They could require really any illegal to have proof of driver's license or proof of Oklahoma residency.

52:17

They could do all these kinds of things. So there's a lot of options out there if the legislature would speak up and would have the backbone to do it if the time comes.

52:30

Well, last question, since we have a minute, how can people pray for you and what kinds of things can they do to support you?

52:36

Yeah, yeah. Well, you can absolutely pray for our family's physical safety. There has been just a very steep, rapid, like a hockey stick rise in threats and harassment towards myself and my family.

52:56

And I'm having to constantly look out the window to see who's coming up the driveway.

53:02

We're having to put in more video cameras and more security around our perimeter and to harden us as a target.

53:14

We've had to talk to the postmaster in our town because there's just all kinds of threats and endangerment.

53:22

You can pray for our safety in that. And my wisdom and our church's strength in taking up this cause and knowing that God has set us apart for this.

53:36

We can pray for a favor in the Oklahoma legislature that they would hear some of these bills and that we would have to argue them from the floor.

53:44

I do want to go up and represent my Lord and the scriptures and our church and the

53:51

Christians and our district. I want to represent with a voice. And I think that's very important.

53:58

You can pray for, last thing, you can pray that I will remain faithful to the

54:07

Lord and not bow the knee to any coercion, any flattery, anything, that I will be bound to the word of God and my conscience would stand on it.

54:22

And I long to do that. I'm still just a man and I need the help of the

54:30

Lord. And every time I talk in situations like this or from in the Capitol, and it's an important conversation,

54:38

I pray. But, and I also say, I believe in the Holy Spirit because God told me that he is going to help me.

54:45

And I trust that he will. Well, Senator, and I should say Pastor Deavers, thank you so much for your time and a lot of respect for you and your humility and all this.

54:56

You're just, you see yourself as a tool to be used by God and nothing else. And that's comes across loud and clear.

55:02

So I would encourage everyone to pray for Pastor and Senator Deavers here. And, you know, think about where you're at in your community.

55:10

What can you do? Not everyone is going to play the same role. Some of us have to be the support.

55:15

Some of us need to be on the front lines, doing the fighting. Some of us may be like Senator Deavers.

55:21

We may have to take a stand and actually put our neck out there. And that's hard. I know that's a very difficult thing to think about.

55:28

And it's something I thought about before too, just, okay, is this the time? Do I have the bandwidth? Is this responsible before the

55:35

Lord? And if he says yes to those things, and you feel that sense of obligation and that energy from the

55:44

Lord to do it, then I would encourage you to do it. And so we need more good men and godly men in these positions.