RUSSELL HUNTER | Abolitionists Rising to End Abortion (Ep. 844)

[music] [music] This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. [music] I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. Russell Hunter, welcome to the studio. Man, I'm stoked to be here. >> Well, I didn't even like really recognize you as you were walking up to the studio because you didn't have like big boards with you with like, you know, these these crazy drawings and stuff on there. So, do you get recognized in public cuz you got a pretty good Instagram and YouTube stuff going? >> Yes, I do. And is that a good thing or a bad thing? >> Um, sometimes it's good. I mean, most of the time that because of the algorithm, the people that recognize me are the people that are getting that Yeah. >> all the time. And so the people that don't recognize me uh are the people that recognize me and they don't like me are usually people that know somebody Yeah. who's been in the So yes, >> they've been in the crossfire. >> Yeah. I've I've probably eaten some uh contaminated food in my time. Okay. You know. >> Yeah. I don't know that I would go to the university center at most of these uh campuses depending upon what you're doing. Let's back up just a little bit because um you know for everyone that would recognize your flannel on your face, they obviously kind of have an idea of what you do for uh for a living or at least you do in your public profile. So um >> let's go let's just go back to your childhood just a little bit to kind of set the scene. And so like I didn't grow up uh in a Christian household and so like I missed out on a lot of the Christianes, but because I was raised in Oklahoma, I call it country music theology. So you believe in God, you're baptized as a kid, it's not believers baptism, and you know, vote Republican and listen to country music and then you get to go to heaven because God loves all those things. So that's country music theology. So I had more of that upbringing. And so it's kind of like Christian adjacent uh more more so than like believers type thing. So for you, were you raised in Oklahoma? >> Yes. Well, okay. It's Christian adjacent, too, but it's not the same as yours. It's Christian adjacent in the sense that uh my parents felt like they needed to take us to church. So my entire childhood, take you to church. But my dad was not an actual believer. >> So it was more like a social like we got to go here because it'll be good for business. >> Yeah. It was at one point in time he ran for office at he was like the chief of staff eventually for AT&T, Southwestern Bell AT&T. >> Um and a wellto-d do guy and you know it's not like wildly known, but he was also a homosexual. So closet homosexual with a wife and you know large family. And so I think it was a front. And so my dad had this thing where we were always in a church but we would be in a church for maybe two or three years and then move and be in a different church. >> And so that was my that was my childhood. And the interesting thing was is like by the grace of God it was always putting me in a church. But I was being raised to kind of see my dad. He had like a big I just remember he had a big black Bible and the big black Bible would sit like on the the nightstand and then on Sunday we'd go to church and then to come home and sit on the nightstand and so I I was I was kind of raised in that sort of we go to church is a thing but it's a Sunday thing and then throughout the week you know my dad's not really there you know so I I don't grow up with the dad that throws the football or like works on cars or anything, but I've got three brothers, so I grow up, you know, fighting with my brothers and all that kind of stuff. >> But it's a it's like a mercy of God, grace of God thing where they do have me in the church. >> And so I'm bumping into a lot of good influences, but we went from being like Nazarines to it was usually it was usually some form of Southern Baptist. >> Okay. >> That we went to. And so when when for you did it become kind of real because like you know my mom took us to this little Church of Christ in lot Oklahoma for a few years and like there was you know we were baptized there because they literally were like well you think should get baptized next week like that was the conversation and then you know I started going to a small Baptist church uh you know in middle school or whatever >> and so that's where I got radically saved uh when I was 15 years old. So for you like what like when was it like no no no this isn't just a place we go but this is actually real. So, so at 10. All right. So, like I don't want to discount what God's done cuz I do remember this and I do believe he began a good work at 10. I was I went to Falls Creek. >> Yeah. >> Right. Went to False Creek. The message it was it was I don't know what the message was, but there was a simple sort of, you know, though none go with me, I still will follow. come down, follow Jesus, you know, be saved sort of thing, you know, sort of a not I don't think it was like easy believ, but it was it wasn't deep or anything. But at 10, I remember sitting in that outside pavilion. I think it's all nice now, but it was like, you know, out there hot, sweaty, uh, you know, playing all day, got the kick drum going, and they're playing the music and there's like an altar call. Yeah. And I did go down at 10:00 and, you know, uh, filled out the card. Jesus is God. He saved me. Uh, I'm a sinner. You know, I realized it, right? And then came back, got baptized in Village Baptist Church, the church that we happened to be going to at the time. Um, and so something happened there. Like I really do think something happened there. But at 15, 16, like most young men, you know, I'm all I'm doing is trying to chase girls, y >> play basketball. Like my entire life is like playing basketball and trying to hook up with chicks. That's like that's, you know, and not really chicks. I wasn't like promiscuous or anything, but like to get a girlfriend and stuff. But um in in like a fail swoop, I you know, mess up my ankle, lose my girlfriend. I think we were starting to make out a lot and I like wrote something down on like a a note or love note or something like my mom found it >> like [laughter] got busted. It was a good thing. This is weird. I've never really told this story publicly, but um but a lot of stuff fell apart in my life and I was in this kind of like what am I doing? like I'm not going to be the the NBA basketball player, which you look at me now and you're like, "No, dude. You were never going to be." >> Hey, but you were when you're 13 and shoot in your driveway. >> I was, you know, and I wasn't bad, you know. Uh but uh I was not going to be that. I was, you know, it's kind of like what am I doing? And I ended up uh kind of shifting out of the basketball thing into studio art at my, you know, high school. And I was I was pretty lost, pretty just lone, not loner kid, but you know, I didn't have a dad, you know, and I had these brothers and because all of my brothers, we didn't have dads. I think we're just kind of all all over the place. And I was it was almost kind of like being raised by wolves, but I had a house, but there was no it was a lot of freedom. And so with a lot of freedom came a lot of stupidity, I think. But um had a youth minister that I told you know, hey man, uh I really love Narnia and I want to die and go to Narnia. And he was like, you know what you like about Narnia. Like I don't remember too much about what he said, but he's like, you know what you like about Narnia? It's Alen and he's based on Jesus. And you know, you like CS Lewis, he wrote Narnia. He also wrote Mere Christianity. And I was like, what? He's like, books for adults. And I was I wasn't like by any means like real heady or philosophical. I was a basketball player, but I read some CS Lewis. There's a little section in mere Christianity where he talks about reading the New Testament, and I was like, "Okay, pause." I read the Gospels, and it was kind of like, "Yeah, that thing that I believed at 10." It turns out that no, I actually do believe that like in my mind, but I'm not really walking in that. I'm not really following him like all these different characters in the gospels that like follow him. And so I, you know, got down on my hands and knees next to the bed and prayed and started following Christ there. And so that thing at 10 to sort of crisis, you know, at 17 is, you know, not your traditional when you got saved. You know, you meet some people that are like, it needs to be a specific date. And I'm wondering, well, it's either this date or it's this date. Right. Either this day or this date. And then in between there's maybe a little bit of delayed sanctification cuz you're a knucklehead. Yeah. No disciples. >> Knucklehead. And then and I would say even yeah disciplehip less, you know, not not good family, you know, that sort of thing. And then even from 17 on, you know, there's a certain sense where I want to say that sanctification has been uh faithful on his part and but it's been necessary the whole time. So, I mean, I got starts and stops like all throughout there. But I tend to believe that what he did at 10 was kind of hold on to me and do something and everything that's happened after that is has been connected to that. So, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to discount what the spirit of God did at 10. Well, and so but so it's kind of similar because you know I get saved at 15 and get baptized and you know because you know the reason why I started going to First Baptist West in L Oklahoma in middle school was because that is where all the best looking girls from my school went to right and so I needed to be there in case something need to be moved or something you know anything needed to happen and so you know cuz I'm a servant at heart you see and so the the thing that was interesting is and this is really why on life started is because I'm learning like okay this is okay I got to figure figure out what this whole Christian thing is. Like, what does it mean to be a Christian? And I'm 15. And so, I'm also trying to figure out what does it mean to be a man, >> right? >> And so, in my infinite wisdom as a 15-year-old, I just came to the conclusion that those are just separate things, right? So, men are outside the church doing man stuff, like killing animals, getting in fist fights, drinking beer, chasing women, like, you know, church guys are being >> Yeah. church guys like touch you when they talk to you and like their shirts are always tucked in even when it's not necessary. And like, you know, it was just these just couldn't be the same people. And it was that didn't really change for me until my my early 20s whenever I kind of start, you know, reading the New Testaments for myself and I'm like, man, this Jesus fell seemed like a, you know, pretty rough Middle Eastern construction worker. Like it just he didn't seem like this whispy-haired Danish guy that >> doesn't remind you of anyone you see at church right? >> No. No. And then, you know, also then you read Wild at Heart and you're given kind of a different plausibility structure for what a man could be and what could look like. >> Okay. >> And I mean, Wild Heart came out in like 2001 and didn't sell really at all for like the first three years. >> Yeah. had a right. So, kind of like a delayed thing, but you know, same thing. I had no disciplehip. No one was training me. Like, and so I just go to the salt seller in lot in Oklahoma and I go buy the Teen Extreme Bible, right? Cuz it was the coolest looking Bible. Cool. >> And then I just Yeah, you just start like reading through it on your own. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know what things mean. You know, know if you're allowed to look at things outside the Bible to explain the Bible. You don't know if that's against the rules. You're too afraid to ask. And so, like for you, you kind of have this delayed sanctification process of seven years. And then, you know, 17, it's kind of like, okay, we're getting serious time. But that also coincides with all right we're about to be out of high school like so what you know where did your education go from there where did your you know process of becoming of being a disciple of Jesus go from there. >> Yeah. Yeah. So uh and and honestly it is it all it's continuous because I I see like the hand of God like providence through the whole thing because when I stop being you know a jock which every time I say that I think that people think that's not that's not possible. >> That's possible. You never know. >> It's like it's like dude you're not a okay I was playing point guard. Okay. Um but >> oh no, you know what I will say? I saw a guy yesterday that I know for a fact is one of the most dangerous human beings physically that I've seen. Young kid, 18 years old, and he's in church and he's got khakis on, a polo shirt, glasses, >> and I'm like, if people knew cuz his face isn't messed up. He doesn't have cauliflower ear or anything like that. But I was like, he is the walking epitome as an 18-year-old of you don't go sticking your finger in anybody's chest cuz you just have no idea. But the same thing derivative when you look at someone you're like you're not a baller and then like they toss a ball and say post up it's like oh dang it I'm about to get embarrassed in front of all my friends so yeah it doesn't matter. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean but I'm not good like that anymore. So so don't don't be challenging me to >> you know I might have a ball here in this room. We might have a hoop. >> Okay. >> Don't film it. Yeah. >> Um, but it it changed my trajectory so much and that's why I'm no good now because I just kind of like left it behind. >> And because I had kind of dabbled in drawing um the the the last two hours of the school um the way it was set up with block scheduling, if you were like on a basketball team or something like that, you had basketball Yeah. >> at the end of school. >> And I give you an extra hour of practice every day. Yeah. and I wasn't going to just sit there with my busted ankle and just watch him play. And so, and you know, by the time I came back, I probably wouldn't really have a spot anymore and all that kind of stuff. So, I was just like, "Ah." I was kind of kind of depressed about it. And so, I was like, "You know what? I'll find whatever's open." And the school counselor was like, "Well, we've got this studio art, but it's like art 4. It's like for people who've already had art one, two, and three." and uh but if you talk to that guy and he'll let you in, you can be in that class. He did not let me in. He was like, "No, I whatever." And I was like, you know, >> kid never play basketball asking to be on varsity. Yeah. Like what are you doing? >> Yeah. And it makes sense on his part. But the class that did let me in shared like a quad with it and it was like a home eck class and I sat in that home class and I just doodled the whole time. You know, this is public school education. You can just sit >> do whatever. >> Do whatever. some like draw. Well, he like two weeks into the semester or whatever sees like my doodle. He kind of stops and he goes, "Huh, that's not that bad. Okay, let me see a portfolio." I showed him a number of drawings and stuff that I'd done and he was like, "Yeah, no, sure. You're in." And so he did move me into this uh studio art class. And then um so that's like junior year. And then my senior year, I don't know what happened. I just went total art nerd. I just I mean I went from like making fun of art nerds to being an art nerd >> and uh was like you know every single elective that I could do was in you know physical arts >> and put together a portfolio um won like young art or young talent in Oklahoma or some kind of contest thing that got me uh before U people. They looked at my portfolio and then I got accepted to the University of Oklahoma to start in their painting program, their art their art thing. A little boring, but went went to OU to do art with a scholarship and it was good because my grades weren't my grades weren't that great. I don't think my I don't I don't think my SATs or whatever were good enough to get into school, >> get into art, doing art. But of course, what God did when I was 17, I got real philosophical and real real I started reading like everything CS Lewis wrote. I started reading all of Francis Schaefer. And Francis Schaefer was just so, you know, worldview, art, like the Christian worldview ought to have a great say on what you're expressing artistically. And so I took a lot of that very seriously. And so all of my uh artwork that you know in the way art school is, you know, you you paint something and you put it up and then the whole class like gathers around and then they critique it. >> Yep. >> They're all like, "What is this one about? Oh, this one's about how evolution's a myth and abortion's murder, homosexuality is a sin, and Islam is a demonic lie." and and it was just like day in and week in and week out whenever I put my paintings up in front of the class, it was just like a debate room. And so I had this art teacher who kind of got fed up with it. Um she's passed Louise Jones at at OU. And she was like, "Hey, um is there any way that you can maybe take a philosophy class as an elective to kind of get some of this?" Because I was just in get out of your system. >> I'm like I'm like setting up a I'm like, "All right, everybody. Here's my painting." And I and I made sure that it was good, like quality art. >> Sure. >> And uh and so this is me learning. This is like God doing something. Um you know, because that's what I do today. Like people know me for the YouTube stuff, but all the abolitionist material, all the art that's involved in it's mine. And [snorts] so not all of it, but a lot of it. And so I would set up these paintings and then have like these debate classes where you've got like, you know, 20 art students telling you that your your idea is stupid, but that your art's good. They're like, "Man, this is really well done, but I disagree with what you're saying here. Markx is right." You know, and >> but but was it like civil or did it get >> it? It was both. It was I think it it was starting out to where that was like the first place where I was being a Christian who was like arguing with people publicly. >> Yeah. >> So, I think it was civil in that I've always been pretty civil. >> When was a different time? I mean, what what years would you have been talking about? >> So, it's like 2000, 2001. >> Okay. I mean, the stuff we see now on a college campus, like the story you just told doesn't even seem plausible now, that you would be one in an art program to begin with and would be allowed to go past your first painting without just getting like shouted down by somebody with purple hair and a nose ring. And >> Yeah. Well, I mean, it was it was uh it was rough in that people were kind of like they would sneer at you. >> Yeah. But I honestly going going all the way back to how I was raised. I spent so much time arguing with my sort of absent dad. Like he would come in and out. He was all moody and stuff and I would fight with him a lot as a kid. And as a kid I'd always think, you know what, he's actually wrong and I'm actually right and I can beat him in all these arguments as long as I choose to argue for the right thing. And I learned that very early. like like you you don't lose arguments if you pick >> the legit answer the person who's arguing for something stupid loses and yes they can train themselves to like you know be sophisticated and argue for untruth but I just remember as a kid thinking I think my and and I I found out as an adult but that my dad was a liar like pathological liar and as a as a little kid I was always like man I got in trouble but I think that I I think I beat my dad in that argument. I think he was wrong. I think I was right. And I think he got all >> fussy and ran off to his room. And you know, I'm like, you know, teenager. But anyway, so like that argument comfortableness translated into this sort of in the art room debating, you know, 10 other 10 other students and the teacher. And it was civil enough, I think, because maybe it was a bit of a different time. It was pre-cancelling, but it was civil um to the point where the teacher Well, let me let me back up. I'm, you know, humbly pretty good at art. So, it was kind of like a cheat code. They're like looking at the painting. You look at the 10 20 paintings in the class and you're like, uh, one of these is better than the others technically and it also happens to be from the Christian guy that's pressing his worldview. So I think that helped and I and I learned that there. I said, "All right, cuz today whenever I produce material, I want it to look very legit." So that that painting teacher said, "Why don't you take a philosophy class? Kind of work a little some of this out of your because you're you're basically turning every um critique class into a debate and we're not really getting to the other students and we're not really talking about technique and art. We're talking about like evolution." And so, which was kind of like the thing I always did, sent me to a philosophy class. Found the same thing in the philosophy class. like all these people are just arguing for nonsense. And uh got real into philosophy again. I was reading a bunch of Christian apologetics by this time. And so I'm bringing all this Christian apologetic stuff into the philosophy program. And then some I think my junior year, yeah, I think the beginning of my junior year, I realized like, you know what, art class, I'm just drawing stuff and painting stuff and sculpting stuff. I don't really need a degree in that. Like what am I going to do? like am I really am I yeah I'm gonna like am I going to be stuck just you know doing that >> like uh I'm going to shift I mean at one point in time I thought I'd be an artist and you know have a studio and all that kind of stuff but I said I I can still do art on the side I'm going to shift to philosophy right which also is not something you want your >> What are you going to teach philosophy now? Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. I was never thinking about >> So you went from art major to philosophy major? >> Yeah. So, I shifted to a philosophy major. And then in the philosophy classes, my my tend my go-to argument would always be historical. I'd always be like, "Okay, so let me you're saying this and you're saying this, but in history, your ideas lead to like atrocities or your ideas lead to failures in scientific advance or something like that." So, I'd make philosophical arguments that were rooted in history. And I had a philosophy professor who's like [sighs] kind of a continental analytical philosopher guy that didn't like that. He was just like, "Why don't you take like a history class like on the side like >> keep moving you down the line? >> Just move me around, man. Just move me around." But this whole time God's, you know, this is a long-winded way of saying I think God's like building me. Um because now and and okay so I finished uh philosophy undergrad with a history of science um minor and then I went on and did history of science as a masters and it was really history and philosophy of science you know but anyway all of that from the being a a jock I think and being you know not not a total book nerd um and being into pop culture culture and stuff like that and then becoming artsy and into that's I guess into a lot of pop culture and everything. Visual expression, then philosophy, then history I use every single day. >> Yeah. >> Like that's what I do. Like I I I create art to push an idea and then I debate and defend that idea. But now over the course of all this, it has been God like providentially built me up to where if I go out on the street and I'm talking to people, whether they go into history or philosophy or, you know, just trying to be more cultural savvy and all that kind of stuff, like leave me behind cuz I'm the dumb Christian. I think they're they're they're running into a different kind of animal than they usually run into whenever they run into street preachers or street evangelists. Okay. So, let's go from like, okay, 17 to master's degree. So, you're getting this artistic foundation, this philosophical foundation, this historical foundation. What are who are you reading like like in for Christianity purposes? Like obviously I'm assuming you're reading the Old Testament, the New Testament, but you know, had you gone from Lewis and Schaefer to fill in the blank or >> Yeah. So, my main guy spiritually throughout this pretty much this whole period became Awtoer. >> Okay. So, um, you know, and I dabbled in some things. Um, it it wasn't it wasn't fully in the cards, I guess, in the divine will of God that I would stick long in the John Piper camp, but, you know, [laughter] I I kind of >> You didn't want to take eight years in Romans. >> Yeah. I mean, I I I you know, I did, you know, there was like desiring God was like a big thing like whenever I was in college and stuff and so, you know, I kind of went off into that, but it seemed like awes. Now, there's some direct connections between the approaches of both of those men, but there are certainly like subtle differences, but you know, obviously we can evaluate Piper because he's still putting out stuff right now. Yeah. Even though he's in his latter years, but what was it that made Toer more your more your pallet flavor palette? >> Okay. So, I can't remember. The same guy um the same guy that had put me on to Lewis had mentioned Toer like I'd heard that name. Yeah. And then another guy was I I he just I I can't remember exactly what it was um that he said about Toer, some kind of quote and some kind of sermon or something like that. And I was like, "Yeah, that's what that's what I need." And it seemed more it seemed more like the um the the what I needed was some kind of a non-carismatic but still Holy Spirit is active in your life Christianity and that you were really you know not just learning about the holiness of God but it was transforming your life. And so I found Toer to be the sort of thing that if I were reading Toer that my weeks where I was in that and in the word were were were more holy were more focused. >> Okay. >> And so um I kind of exhausted Toer though. I kind of like ran through the through the cannon and then some I can't remember what year it was. >> He wasn't he didn't really write a lot of tomes. So it wasn't like you were getting into Richard Bachmann, you know. >> Yeah. No. >> History of the eyewitnesses and it's like, you know, 800 pages or whatever. >> Yeah. So I mean at at a certain point because uh like Francis Schaefer was uh a presuppositionalish Yeah. >> type guy and had built a Christian worldview and from that Christian worldview you could kind of assess things on your own. um my apologetical read reading started going almost entirely reading atheists and agnostics. So I, you know, would read, you know, the >> Well, that was the rise of the four horsemen. >> The four horsemen, you know, all that and then and a lot of Richard Dawkins, you know, and so Dan Dennett and all them. Um, but I I would read a lot of anti-Christian stuff. And, uh, I found that just knowing God, knowing the word, knowing the, you know, the stuff that I picked up from Schaefer and Lewis, I feel like Lewis can destroy all those guys. just I mean I wrote so long ago and I still think all his stuff destroys all their stuff. And so um I stopped probably around the middle of my college years. I really stopped reading Christian apologetics which is no no knock on reading Christian apologetics but you know like hey Ravi Zacharias has got a new book. It's like okay well maybe I'll read that. And you know there were a lot of people reading like uh William Lane Craig and Norm Geser and all those kind of guys >> and I and I don't really want to throw too much shade on them because I think they have a place but for me it was it was always I was being very introspective and like my my belief and understanding of God is not really based on evidence. Hey guys, real quick. So you're there. You're in a small town. 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And so they're they're just taking what Robbie or William Lane Craig or one of those people, Greg Hokll, they're taking what they have to say about scripture >> and then trying to apply it to a potential future conversation that doesn't normally come come to pass. >> And so and like I'm pro- learning all because we have to be able to give an apologia for all the things that we believe. Like yes, for sure. But it's like >> bro, you're biblically illiterate. You are Christian apologetics literate, which is great, but you're biblically illiterate. And so if someone takes you back to the text, right? Like who's the who's the new guy? He's kind of the um he's the English guy. He's young. He kind of looks like he's 12 with a mustache. >> Oh yeah, I see him pop up on YouTube. >> He's I think he's fantastic. >> He's like a skeptic guy, but he's kind of reasonable. >> Yeah. And he's gone from atheism to agnostic now because >> I think I saw a video from him like a week ago something about >> uh >> Christianity may be more serious. >> Alex, is it Alex Okconor? Is that something like Anyway, yeah, we're yelling in the comments right now. But you know a guy like that he's he's going to be a God says great let's go to your text >> and then if you don't have any familiarity with your own text >> oh sorry William didn't talk about this >> right he doesn't even need to take out your worldview because you don't even know the text that he's espouse that you're espousing right that you're purporting to defend and so yeah so if you go too far down the Christian apologetics rabbit hole and it's like look you're not Frank Turk you're going to be doing this for a living you're not going to get invited to debate Sam Harris so it's like hey you know let's kind of go a different direction. Seemed like you figured that out pretty quick. >> Yeah. No, I think I think what it was is I found honestly like and not arrogantly like I found that there was a certain amount once you understood you could do it on your own. You could assess like I didn't need someone [clears throat] to point out how uh defective you know chance variation and natural selection were. >> Yeah. >> Over and over and over and over again. like whatever um you know fossil species that was being put forward as a transitional form I was going to be able to debunk that like I was going to be able to look at it like I understood what was wrong with the mechanism of evolution at a certain point I I didn't have to buy whatever the next intelligent design book was which in a certain sense I think you should do that uh you should keep yourself >> but their arguments aren't evolving but that's the issue it's the same stuff >> and it just was the same way for hundreds of years >> yeah and then and a lot of stuff with the arguments for the existence of God and then The other thing, and I think this is significant. I don't think I see this very often, people want to talk about like the existence of God. Like if you're doing evangelism that's leading you to apologetics, you're doing evangelism on a college campus, they want to talk about the existence of God, like the problem of evil and and evolution, right? They want to go to these things. >> I found that I do believe they know a God. They know God exists. >> That's in Romans. >> They do. They're denying it. They know they're sin. They're sinners. They know they've got sin in their life. And they they hate the idea of God because they they think he's going to not like not just punish them for their sin, but take away their sin, like make them no longer slave to it. And so they know this. And I know they know this. And they want to run off and talk about like Aquinus's five ways or whatever. No, it's a distraction. >> I start just zeroing in on, hey, what particular sin is it that you are carrying out in your life that that's keeping you from admitting that God is God and you? Because that's what it was for me. I mean, I I knew that God was God and I had to yield. like I didn't I didn't it wasn't I mean even though I was reading Mere Christianity it was you know I was seeing everything through that lens that Lewis was constructing about the moral law and all that but it wasn't like a here let me show you all these evidences for the resurrection now I think there's tons of evidence for the resurrection and I think it's good that we have that it's >> you just took it as a given and this is explaining from it >> just like like I I think I know Jesus and I don't think it's because of what's in this Gary Habermas book. But good to know that stuff. >> Mhm. >> Um so I began kind of at that point reading less reading less um traditional sort of like answers books, reading more just Bible. And this is this is kind of where the abolitionism comes from because uh at about this time when I was in my what it' be like my third year in graduate school. So a master's degree in like the history of science because you have like foreign languages and all this kind of stuff can take you four years. And um and I'm in my third year and I I I start, you know, you know, this is bad for my my academic career because I start reading the prophets and I'm like looking at the prophets, you know, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, major and minor. And I'm like, man, the way they're doing this and what they're doing, how they're doing it, and why they're doing it is different. It's a lot different. and their focus is a lot less on the world and a lot more on the people of God. And so that begins to be like a a plague in my mind. Like a man, I'm I'm thinking about debating these bad atheist like these atheists need to get saved. And I'm not even really looking at the church and whether or not we are following the Lord as king. And so that that's planted and I'm doing that and then that's where I'm at in my in my biblical studies reading a lot of prophets and of course you got you know a lot of civil disobedience in there with like Daniel and all that kind of stuff and so that's happening and then academically I'm studying I'm doing a history of science Darwin Asa Gray Darwinian theory coming to America and all this kind of stuff book comes out it's all about how um you know Darwin was motivated to fight racism with his theory it's it's like a it's a madeup thesis that's becoming popular because the intelligent design community has started publishing uh Richard Wyart's thesis that Darwin and Hitler the world views there's a connection and so this book Darwin sacred cause comes out and there's an argument in there that he was motivated to fight slavery and that's why he put forward the origin of species and the descent of man and I'm like this is fishy >> I think this is fishy this is lunatic um so I'll go read the abolitionist to see if any of these abolitionists of slavery are Darwinians. And of course, none of them are. It's like a totally different worldview. It's man's made in the image of God. Darwin's main thesis, and the thing I was writing in my dissertation was that Darwin is out to prove that man's not made in the image of God, >> right? >> And so I get into these abolitionists of slavery. I'm looking at the lives of, you know, the William Wilbur Forces and the William Lloyd Garrison's and and I'm like, I'm so not like these guys. Like, these guys were prophetic to their culture. They looked at their cultures evil practices. They looked at the way they were tolerated among, you know, the religious and they rebuked and they sought to correct oppression and establish justice and equality and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, ah. and they loved their neighbors who were being mistreated. And so reading the prophets, reading all this kind of stuff, everything that had come before just kind of like zeroed in and was like bing and I could not, you know, miss the abortion thing and like like who? Okay, if I want to be like these guys, what neighbor in my culture is uh the neighbor that's being oppressed, the neighbor that's being, you know, mistreated and um murdered essentially? That's the pre-born. And this whole, you know, we've talked this whole time, abortion's not come up. Abortion's not been a part of any anything in my life. >> There's, you know, sanctity of life Sundays. There's pro-life, you know, marches. There's all this different stuff that's happening. But never at any point was I into like pro-life apologetics. So, I was completely dry on that. Um, but I realize, okay, I live in a culture that legally terminates human beings in mass. And all the arguments for that seem to be identical to the arguments being made by oppressors and all past, you know, cultures. Like, h okay, all right, God, I yield. I'll do that. And then from that moment on, it's been it it was go to the coffee shop or the office or whatever, open my laptop to work on my dissertation or open my laptop to work on the abolition of human abortion. And uh I rarely ever click that dissertation thing again. >> So did you end up finishing your dissertation? >> No, I did not. >> You know, I know another guy who got 95% of the way through his doctorate and was just like, I'm never going to do this. like he thought he wanted to be university president until his dissertation on university presidents was like man this seems terrible I don't want to do this and he went oil and gas and so the [laughter] yeah >> and made a lot more money >> it's the most Oklahoma thing Oklahoma story is like you always got to do some oil and gas but it is interesting because I get asked a lot like hey why do you care so much about the abortion topic and the people that are not intellectually honest or they're trying to get at me they either think that I've forced someone to get an abortion or that you know maybe my mom tried to abort me and all that and I'm like no I just don't like bullies and when I grew up like as a kid I was kind of an inbetweener. Like I was big enough to bully some kids but not big enough to not get bullied by other people. And I was a redheaded ginger with really dark freckles and I was overweight until about 9th grade. >> You didn't have a soul, >> dude. Still don't. And so like that's probably that's part of the issue is so I'm learning how to get out of situations. Grew up kind of in a rough area, you know, got knives pulled on me walking home from school. Like so it's like I had to use my humor to get into and out of situations. Like you know, I had to use kind of my hustle to, you know, get into and out of situations and stuff like that. But just as I as I grew up in the faith, it's just like, wait a minute. Like, so nobody would be cool with people going around like killing two-year-olds at the park. But if it's like, you know, 8 weeks of gestation in the womb, like they're they're less human. And I'm the same way. All of these arguments that I help people deal with today, I had never heard any of them. It just never even occurred to me that somebody would think that that was okay. And it wasn't because Republicans shifted and made that one of their main issues. It wasn't because, you know, Christians, you know, Protestants were following the Catholics lead and kind of getting more into the pro-life space or whatever, whatever argue you want to you want to make. >> It was just like, well, you know, that's a person, though, >> right? And so, it never occurred to me that at no point along the justational period that they weren't a person like just and then so it's >> that's kind of how I got into it. And then when you formalize it with a podcast or with different things, okay, now we're looking into the arguments. Okay, here's what people say. Here's how to defeat it. there's questions to ask that make the world default to play to to pieces. They're going to move the goalpost. Okay, here's how to deal with when they move it over here. And when you do that, then you get into socratic method. You get into questioning strategy. You get into the Sandler language system, which was all about asking questions so you could sell life insurance. And [laughter] so it's like >> I got exposed to all those different things as well which help me fight on this particular issue because there's certain things that are just so clear because for people now to even make the claim that it's just a clump of cells it's ignorant in about 49 different ways >> on every on every science, faith, religion philosophy history everything that you look at. >> It's problematic. And that's why like I don't think that I'm particularly uh the most intelligent person on the planet or anything like that, but I never lose any argument about this because I'm debating people who are debating something that's just so categorically false on every front. >> Yeah. >> I mean, they're going to be at odds with science. They're going to be at odds with logic. They're going to be at odds with experience. They're going to be at odds with their own rhetoric, like their own talk about empathy, cuz we've all been there. >> Sure. >> Like all this kind of stuff. We're all walking contradictions in one way or another. But the the best thing, you know, if we're supposed to love our neighbor, one of the best things we can do is we can >> gently lead our neighbor to their own facious arguments. Hold up a mirror >> and be like, >> so just so I can Yeah. I just want to make sure me in an intellectually honest fashion. I want to try to >> reward what I think you're saying back to you. >> Yeah. So they can hear it. >> Yes. affirmative or your stand out loud and they're like, "Oh, that sounds kind of evil. That sounds kind of genocidal." And then at then at that point they have kind of >> So I I I do a lot in the jiu-jitsu space. I've been training jiu-jitsu for a long time. It's the same thing that happens when someone trains for the first time, especially if they were an athlete, especially if they were a high level athlete. >> They got to unlearn a bunch of stuff. Well, they come in and it just doesn't matter how fast their 40 was or how high could how they could jump, they're going to get mauled there. There's >> there's not a scenario where they don't get beat. >> I've consistently heard that jiu-jitsu is like a humbling thing for everybody. >> It has to be. And here's the thing, like I've known we've had a couple of NFL players, uh, former NFL players come through our gym. >> And so when you come in and I I thought my buddy Isaac Tufa, he runs Jesus and jiu-jitsu. who's one of the guys that runs that, you know, Dlineman, you know, bench press champion at UTP, like just solid. And he's the smallest of all of his brothers. And he's like 6' tall, like 300 lb. Just >> Oh. to be huge and to be the smallest of your brother. >> And he goes into a gym like that and he gets mauled by a guy that's about 160 lb. Like he's literally double the guy's size, way more athletic, and it's just none of that matters. And so when that happens to you, and to all of us that have stuck with jiu-jitsu, it's happened to all of us. When it happens to you, you have two options. You walk out, pretend like that never happened. You cover your eyes, plug your ears, and you just pretend like, you know what? If that that wasn't a real fight, if that were a real fight, I'd see red and bodies would just start to drop. And none of that's actually true. >> Doesn't seem like a good way to respond to that. >> Or you take the other path and you go, I need to learn this. I I did not realize I was that helpless in a fight against somebody that was trained. I thought like most men do walking around. I'm fine. If something physical goes down, I played football. Well, you you don't have pads and a helmet on and you're you know, it's not third down like this. >> There's not a referee sitting there. >> Yeah. This is real life and I'm holding you down against your will and there's nothing you can do about it. And so it's kind of the same thing with what you're doing. uh whenever you do this stuff on the street and we're kind of getting ahead ahead of ourselves just a little bit but >> I think it's important you're taking people to a point where they have to make a decision am I going to stick with the thing that I know to not be true so I don't look like a fool y >> or do I embrace the fact I got exposed for a fool and now I'm going to work my way towards that never being a thing anymore for you know I want to be disabused of my ignorance but for you okay so you you decide like this abortion thing is going to be a thing but how does it become like a thing thing because it's one thing to realize it while you're working on your dissertation where you are on college campuses. >> Yeah, there's a ton there. First off, let me let me just say you have you ever had a guy come on a podcast and do the real sensible thing and use the restroom before they start talking. >> Yeah. And then use it in the middle as well. >> And then need to use it in the middle. >> See, that's why I've got this little magic pad. So, I write myself a note. >> I almost thought I was going to grab your pad and be like, "Hey, while you were talking like dude, I got to use this is a great time for me to do ad." So, Jaco Hydrate actually worked on this one. By the magic of editing, he's going to go to the bathroom and then he'll be right back. There you go. Magic of editing. Hopefully, Landon, you got like a cool little graphic that you put in there because I think the last person to do this was Matt Chandler and he had like a really cool like edit that took us out there. So, it'll be a nice little Choco uh drink that comes out there. But basically, what we were talking about is okay >> it's one thing to be sitting there in the coffee shop realizing this dissertation sucks. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to do the abolition stuff. Okay. The subject matter and focus is going to be the unborn. Okay. Well, I don't know how long the road is from that point to kind of what you're doing today, but let's kind of, you know, put some detail on that. >> Yeah. So, man, let me tell you when you Okay, we didn't put this detail here, but I I am a uh a doctoral candidate in the history of science at the University of Oklahoma. My committee >> technically to this day, >> could you pick it back? Okay. I didn't know if you could like pick it back up. Well, you know, actually whenever I left, they did say something like that, but I think I've I think I've let it go. >> Probably severed that at this point. >> I Yes, they they I've still got some friends there actually. Maybe talk about that. But um but okay, in that kind and I'm writing a my dissertation's on like the metaphysical foundations of Darwin's descent of man. So I'm like deep in what the history of science in the Darwin industry. Like these are like all the people that just crank out >> Yeah. true believers >> like Darwin stuff and and it's and and uh you know like I mean I've got I've got like all the volumes of Darwin's letters like I am deep in it and I'm writing this thing I'm friends with you know like the famous Dar not friend friends friends but you know like I'm associating with and doing talks with and you know getting um you know famous Darwinians you know like the Richard Dawkins and that sort of person is coming through the university knows my my main chair peers hell at the university and he's a nice guy and he's an atheist and he's a Darwinian and he knows I'm a Christian but I'm at this point when this all happens because I'm kind of that mindset of keep your head down, get your get your degree and then you know kind of be a little more bold in your Christianity later. uh which is I think bad. You know, a lot of people do that and I and I've seen >> there's a utility to it, but it's super an it's super circumstantial like to this to wherever anecdotally you are. >> Yeah. I mean, I've seen guys do that and then they're like, "Well, I'm going to keep my head down until I get tenure." >> Yeah. >> And I'm going to keep my head down. And then whenever it's time that they can put their head up, they're like, "Man, I've just been doing this so long. Like, I can't do anything. Got to keep it going." >> And so, and so and I had and I had a guy like that. I'm not going to out him, but I had a guy like that on my dissertation knows I'm a Christian. And then I have so my my uh my the guys on my thesis, you know, my uh whatever you call them, my academic guides. Um I've got, you know, a secular humanist, an outright atheist, uh a closet kind of Christian guy, and then another agnostic atheist type person and uh and then off, you know, atheist somewhere else. And those are the people that I am writing for. and working with and I'm going to the history of science conferences and giving talks and they're all about Darwinism and Asa Gray and coming to America and all this kind of stuff when uh this happened in my life and I was going to have to go in and kind of give an update on where the dissertation was and I and I was kind of stalling out because I lost my passion for it. >> Yeah. Um, I mean, and I was I was doing as much or maybe more historical research, but it was all 19th century abolitionist of slavery cuz I by the time I fell in love with like what was going on in America and the debates about uh how we would end child slavery, whether it destroy the country, if we did it immediately, whether it need to be gradual, whether the Constitution was pro-slavery, I was getting all that kind of stuff, which was very far away. now. But luckily, um, it's happening at the same time as my dissertation. So, I can kind of be like, uh, there's a chapter in my dissertation that deals with this claim that Darwin was a abolitionist. And they're like, yeah, but it's it's a it's clear that that's where I'm at. I'm just reading that stuff almost solely and entirely. So, I'm not fooling anyone. So [sighs] I eventually uh I man I got I got outed. I can't remember what h happened. Uh let me back up just a little bit. I decide while I'm in the department, while I'm writing my dissertation on the side, I will create a different Facebook account with a with a different name and I'm going to use it to sort of put these ideas out about the abolitionist view on abortion because I had went and I I read all this pro-life stuff. I went and read all the sort of the Randy Alorns, the Scott Clusendorfs, all of those guys. and I read them. And the problem is when I was studying the pro-life movement, because I was going to get involved. I was going to love my pre-born neighbor as myself. I was going to fight for justice. And I was like, "Okay, let's do this. How how are the Christians doing it?" And I went and I read all those guys. And the arguments they were making and the foundations that they were building their whole project on were incredibly similar, identical to the anti-slavery moderates that were always fighting the abolitionist. And so I I was seeing this in my academic studies like that back in the day there were like people that were like total immediate abolition of slavery because it's a national sin and it's going to bring us under the judgment of God and if we don't repent of it there's going to be a war like in the 1830s. And I'm like I think those guys were right. Obviously history has shown those guys were right but they were a extreme minority. What were the majority of people in the north doing? Well, regulate the cattle slavery system. Make it better for slaves. Get plantation owners to choose to freely manummit and pay their like all this kind of stuff. And don't call it sin. Don't call it a crime. Don't call for like total abolition. That's too dangerous. All that kind of stuff. And I was so I was reading that historically, just I'd say by chance, but by providence. And then I'm like, well, I need to love my pre-born neighbor as myself. And I come and I read the proifers and they're saying all the exact same things. And I'm like, not to not to speak totally ill of them, they're just doing what good people at that time were doing before the emergence of abolitionist. And so, you know, I'm doing this historical thing and this personal thing. And honest, I'm like, ah, I've got to do something. I got to start like an abolitionist group or something. I've got to love my pre I I uh my my office at the university is like a literal mile away from the child sacrifice center in Norman and the church I go to is two miles from the child sacrifice center um the abortion clinic and uh like a coffee shop I go to is near it and I'm like man I am day in and day out when I go to my office to drink my lattes and write my dissertation there are mothers and fathers taking their babies to be murdered and I'm doing nothing. So I I start to feel not just unlike the prophets, not just unlike these historical giants that I'm coming to admire, but I'm just not feeling manly or Christian or worth anything. And so I'm like, Cali, I know about this evil, you know, I'm reading these proifers. I'm seeing these pictures of abortion. I'm just like, okay, I got to do something. So on the side using a pseudonym I began organizing an abolitionist society at the local church and uh you know uh you have to this is like at the heyday early days of Facebook so that so you have to you know everything's going up online. We're all starting to publish our entire worlds. So I've got my academic you know I'm a Christian but you don't have to worry about me because I'm kind of keeping it under wraps. And then I got this guy, Ian John Foponus. That's just >> what what's the [laughter] name again? >> Ian John Philopus, right? >> How in the world do you come with that? >> All right. So is there a story behind that? >> Yeah. There's this ancient early Christian story. All right. Ancient like early Christian philosopher named Philopus uh who had made all these sort of like >> um like you know Craig's colum cosmological argument. Yeah. uh that like can actually be traced back to the Colom school but then predating that to this guy named Philopus who uh [laughter] >> yeah okay >> it's just a cool name like whether his name was Philopus or not >> he was he was like this early Christian philosopher but he was also kind of like uh >> I I don't use this word derogatory like kind of social justice possible connections there okay >> um and then there was this other guy. >> Snuffelagus. Is that the other guy? >> Athanagoras. Actually, Snuff Snuffalas was their pet. >> Got it. >> But Aanagaras and it almost I almost went with Athanagaras, but he was a little more wellknown and did clear. >> Yeah, of course. Everyone knows him. Yeah, of course. >> Yeah, he's super wellknown. You know, Wes Huff, you would know him. Yeah, you would. >> But like uh this guy, these guys, I was kind of reading them on the side like for the for stuff. But anyway, the Ian John, I can't remember. Um, yeah, we had this group and we wanted to call ourselves the Ians. This is like sort of silly, but Ian, we were we were informed and not silent or something like that. >> Yeah. >> All right. I'm glad that didn't stick. But, you know, we all have good ideas in the >> We got bad branding uh in the past. You got to work it all out. But, but I think I I think that was stupid and that didn't go anywhere. But, that was from early on in college or something. And so, I kept the Ian from that. And then I think I just I needed something illiterate like Ian John Philip. So So got it. Got it. >> I create the I create the Facebook page and I'm just pumping out like anti-abortion memes that I think are rightly radical. Like they're they're they're they're true to the fact that abortion is murder. A lot of the pro-life stuff was like pink and blue balloons and babies and butterflies. It's like it's like a it's like an uh it's like an eagle carrying a baby that's born wrapped in an American flag, you know, with butter. >> We've all seen [clears throat] it. >> Yeah. And so I'm like [snorts] ah and Facebook is like we're now we're now allowed to post images. So I'm like kind of you know this is you know this period I'm doing white Helvetica black you know whatever early posters abolitionist thing. And so I'm cranking this stuff out into the Facebook world. And then at Trinity Baptist Church in Norman, it's a church where the pastor and the associate pastor are both big into apologetics and philosophy and theology and debate and all this kind of stuff. And they're always like, "Go out there and engage the culture. Engage the culture." And I'm like, "Okay, cool. This let's, you know, I'm going to I'm going to do abolitionism the way these old abolitionists did it." They were very forthright with their beliefs about God. And I was like looking at the proiffers, they kind of they kind of pushed that back a little bit, you know, kind of like, well, I'm religious. I believe in God, but you don't have to. Like these people were like concerned about whether or not God was on their side. And so I was like, I'm going to make this ultra theological, unashamed, biblical, abortion is murder. It should be criminalized thing and I'm going to do it because it's going on right next to me. Those are my neighbors and these laws are offending my God. I'm going to be salt and light. So, I start a little group in that church while still enrolled and I'm like living a double life and I'm trying to keep that all secret from my atheistic professors. >> Now, did you do the whole like pseudonym thing? Because this sounds very much so like what Katie FA did. I don't know if you're familiar with her. She's a children's rights advocate. Came on the show u you know earlier. She's she's spectacular. But at first she was, you know, stay-at-home mom, pastor's wife, like really kind of low-key. And so she created this separate account. And she actually, you know, if you if you fast forward, she got doxed by this like LGBTQ activist who like said who it was. >> And in this moment, she actually, you know, like a really solid Christian woman, she went to the elders of her church, said, "This is what I've been doing. This is what's has happened. This is why I did it from the beginning. Superhero identity >> and and what should I do?" and they said, you know, lean into this like this is what you've done. This is, you know, this could be a very good thing for you. Like we will protect you. We'll support you. Like, you know, like what a good elder would do. And you know, so it's very similar, but for her thing, like she says that she was intellectually chicken. She didn't want to post as Katie Fast because, you know, all the, you know, the whispers you get in your ear like, "Hey, you're just stay at home mom. You're nothing. You you don't have the philosophical chops that all these other people do. Who are you to speak into culture in this way and say that we should advocate for kids and it's not just abortion and things like that? It's like anti- divorce. It's like that no one ever it's the adults thinking about their own personal happiness in a church. >> Yeah. And it's like adults are worried about their own happiness. We really don't care about the negative outcomes that there are for kids. But she did the exact same thing you did. So like why why not just post as Russell Hunter? >> Yeah. So, one, everyone at the church knew like I was doing this like with these like >> So, it's like a writer with a pin name at your church. At least they knew who was writing. >> It's not totally secret, but I mean like I I don't even know if the account the account may still be up. I might be locked out of it. >> So, what was it? Ian Snuffle or something. Yeah, I think just spell it. Yeah, we'll find it. Just sound it out, guys. >> John flopping. And it's like the uh it's like this painting of this like hooded philosopher, right? And uh it's like, you know, you see the the nose bridge. He looks like he's from like Assassin's Creed or something. >> Yeah. Yeah. [clears throat] >> Little like a philosopher that's also in the Knights Templar a little bit. >> Yeah. And then the AHA symbol above human abortion. We can get into that later, but like it like above his head. >> And it would and and what I was doing was I was making these posters on 11 by 17. I was printing them out and we were like plastering them all over campus and all over Norman. Just like kind of doing sort of somewhat silly but kind of like street art. uh you know uh what's the name you know the kind of the street artist that was blowing up at that time like Shepherd Ferry like we were you know like Obey Giant type stuff like putting all this junk up >> and uh there was not a not a huge stir but kind of a a small stir on campus like they look they there was these they would just be like statements and then the this abolitionist symbol um you know like a culture will be judged by how it treats its weakest members AHA symbol and And it wasn't really clear what it was about. >> And what does HA stand for again? >> So, abolish human abortion. So, it's like an A upwards a two two I's that make an H. And then >> show the camera right there. That'll be where it goes right there. So, you got to see it. There you go. >> Yeah. So, it's it's it's basically the two eyes, image of God, incarnation of Christ, the value of humans are wrapped up in our being image bearsers and recipients of the incarnation. And then you have the higher law, which is to turn lower unjust laws right side up. So you can flip the thing. Okay. So abolish human abortion. So I had made because those abolitionists in uh Britain had the am I not a man and a brother symbol which was the bended the slave on bended knee with am I not a man and a brother. That was them putting the incarnation in the image of God into their symbol. It was an illustration at that time. You know iconography was illustration. And so at my time it wasn't. It's you know just lines. And so I was like I want to do the same thing that they did. They started making these arguments. They started putting a symbol with it. They started flooding the culture. They started popularizing their their movement. And I was just I was like, I'm going to mimic them, but I'm going to do it with modern trappings. So, I just started doing that. But the Ian John Philoponus was supposed to protect me from my professors finding out >> because this had happened. And in a certain sense, I had got religion, you know. I I mean I I was a Christian. I was serious about it, but I was total ivory tower Christian. I was going to keep my head down, do my dissertation, get tenure. I was on that track. And I and I knew some people like in the intelligent design world. I'd done a uh I don't know if you're familiar with like the Discovery Institute. >> Yeah. Yeah. We've had some folks from there on the show. >> Yeah. So I I had done an intern uh like a summer program thing with them and I was pardon me I was keeping that kind of secret because I even though I was studying Darwinism I was not at all persuaded or convinced of Darwinism or even a Christian version of it. I was just like no this is this is vacuous and empty. This is like people making up stuff. Um which you know >> hang on. Don't don't lose your train of thought because that's actually something I'm seeing more and more in modernity and I don't know exactly where it's coming from but it's people that are saying so it's a derivative or I guess it's an outgrowth of the young earth old earth debate but then you've got people that are just like >> hey so God could have made out of chimps the original humanoid Adam and Eve. So, we all have the common ancestor and so this was plan A and we just allegorized it too much in Genesis to where we don't quite understand but it wasn't a man and a woman as we see today. It was just part of that >> representative of early humans, >> right? And and so I don't know if it's it's it's an offshoot of uh you know even William Lane Craig you brought him up he talks about Genesis as being mytho history and then there's the people that are so strict about no the Bible just says what it says and it means what it means. It's like okay then John 15 is Jesus actually a vine when Jesus said is he a door? Does he have a knob that we're supposed to turn to go in? Like, you know, you insert joke here. >> God's got giant wings and he likes to rap. >> So, it's like, no, no, there are different figures of speech. There's different types of writing. There's poetry. There's apocalyptic literature. There's history. There's, you know, poetry. I said that twice. You know, you get the idea. And so, I feel like that's kind of a growing thing to almost intellectually appease, you know, people that have studied in school and they're just like, "Well, that's a way that God could have done it." >> Side note, I don't think it's intellectual at all. Like, I'm serious. like as a as someone who studied the history of science and has seen all this evidence put forward. Oh, this is it. And it turns out it's not it. Oh, here's the evidence. Turns out it's not >> a theory produced as truth and then the truth is >> yeah. >> It's it's it's there's a paradigm in science of naturalism and an expectation and a need to explain design without an intelligent designer, without God. And so you need evolution to be true. And when you need it to be true, well, you give it billions of years and you give it uh some, you know, tools, it's supposed to explain everything. >> When it's more theistic because it's like, no, okay. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. There was a designer, but he just put all the stuff into the machine, hit on, and then just sat back and cross his arms >> or like somehow he's providentially there's like a sort of a Calvinistic view that you can do. The guy I was studying in the 19th century, Asa Graves, sort of like Darwinism was Calvinism in nature and like using all this sin, sex, and death to to bring about certain things. I mean there are intellectually feasible things that you can do but from a very nuts andbolts evidence point of view like it's no it is insane that blue wells and butterflies have a common ancestor or if you just want to do bats like a bat and a blue well have a common ancestor and this common ancestor is produced by um you So natural selection acting on chance variation and mutation. All of our labs, all of our studies show that mutation never produces enough genetic information to get that kind of even if you give it billions upon billions upon billions of years. And then the fossil record is going to be chalk full of all these transitions. >> Well, it's even simpler than that because where do you get the building blocks alive? I had a buddy, we were talking about it literally last night where it's like, okay, let's just take everything else out of the equation. Just explain hydrogen. Oh yeah. >> Like nitrogen, oxygen. Just explain like those two things. >> Go nothing to something. >> Yeah. I mean even Yeah. That backs it up one more step. So it's like time, space, and matter had a timeless space and material beginning. I didn't come up with that. Someone else did. But it's just like >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. That >> So I believe a Middle Eastern Jewish carpenter, you know, was raised from the dead by God. You believe in the most extreme of all possible miracles. >> And it's and it's and I think >> there's a tremendous inequity there. And the reason I think think that it's not intellectual at all, not even for the Christians who want to be theistic evolutionist, I think it's they just don't want to be laughed at. They don't want to be seen. >> They want to be patted on the head. >> They they just they don't want to play. They don't want to be put in the you're a creationist box. And they're so they're so that's their god. I know they worship God, but like they're they're a little a little god in their life is being respected. And so they pretend um to and and they can be more uppidity over the other Christians too. >> You cuz you listen to a guy um deliver u and you know basically a live essay. So you have like a Francis Collins who will say things and if you don't have a scientific background or scientific acumen like a guy like me who sounds really impressive. Yes. If you read an article or a book by Francis Collins or hear him speak you're just like oh wow. It's kind of the same thing like everybody's, you know, on on the right, everyone's favorite philosopher or modern day philosopher would be like a Jordan Peterson type guy because he says some stuff that is so fantastical that your brain can barely comprehend it and you're like, he's kind of on our team. So, come here. Come here. I need some more of that. And I'm I'm very pro Jordan Peterson and I wish him the best of health in his recovery right now. I hope he comes back to to public life soon >> because we need him. But at the same time, like I think that's what a lot of people are trying to do with someone like Francis Collins. And then when someone from because it was someone from the uh from the Discovery Institute, he wrote Stockholm syndrome Christian syndrome Christianity came on the show recently is but we want to ignore when Francis Collins talks about things like abortion and we want to ignore these horrible >> they get all of that stuff wrong like and it's because it's the same thing like hey look I don't want to be out of step with the scientific establishment and the reigning paradigm. So I'm an evolutionist but let me tag Christianity to it. I don't want to be out of step with my culture. They're for abortion in these cases. So, I don't want to be in step with that because I don't want to be out of step. Like, I want to blend in and be respect. I think there's an id there's an idol of respected. I'm the kind of Christian that is not the cook. >> Well, that's where I think third way fall in. Right. So, that's why uh you know, recently like I earlier I did an episode about Entright. He basically came out as proabortion. His his public comments on it were egregious. They were they were terrible. they were morally bankrupt. But he's such a respected, you know, theological writer. >> Oh, yeah. My kids stopped reading his book. >> Well, and so that's the thing like there was a list I you can't talk about too much publicly, but there was, you know, I was basically editing a list of of resources uh that we were going to be making for our audience and things like that. And there were a bunch of things by ENT right on there. And I'm like, he could be in right about a lot of these things, but he's so in in wrong about abortion that it's just like we can't do that. It's like that that is a poison pill thing for me because we can we can differ like on Calvinism, Armenianism. We can differ on, you know, premill, postmail, a mill like all that stuff's fine. We can get into secondary and tertiary doctrines and all that, but you don't believe in the sanctity of life in all cases. >> Oh, he's he's siding with the culture of death, >> right? And and but again, I think you're you're hitting on it, Russell, to where it's like they want to get, you know, a nice little pat on the head. A lot of pastors are doing the same thing. It's these, you know, I'm not Republican. I'm not, you know, Democrat. I'm middle of the road. And what I always [clears throat] say on the show when I ask these people is, okay, great. So, let's take the third way. What is the third way on the issue of transing the children? >> So, you have one side that is like, give them, cut everything off, give them all the hormones. They are what they think they are, but still somehow need to make the physical transition. Then the other side, which is my side, the moral and reasonable side, which is no, this is a mental illness that needs to be cared for and treated and not by cutting off the healthy breast tissue of a confused little girl. Wonder what the third >> What is the middle position on that? what we only cut off one boob, you absolute doofus. And so it's just like it's this moral bankruptcy that these people don't quite quite understand. And again, that's why it's like we have to show them. We have to just put up the mirror. We repeat back to them what they said. And then it's like >> you have to reckon with this, right? You said it. I'm just repeating it. Is this what you mean? But I don't want to get too far off on onto that thing. >> No, it's connected because it is it it the reason that they're going that way is not intellectual. It is spiritual feelings based. It is sin. It like really is sinful desire for self-promotion and it's disobedience. and that God would have his believers doing a certain thing and in a certain way and they're choosing to go with the multitude to do e to do evil, allow evil or turn because I would say that there are certain philosophical beliefs that are evil like that they are worshiping the creation instead of the creator and chief among them is evolutionary naturalism >> of course >> and so and of course you start going down that which you know like an NT Wright or something's gonna go down you're or Francis Collins And lo and behold, look, they're they're down that road with abortion, too. >> Y >> they're going to be down that road with homosexuality. They're going to be So, there really is like a there's a there's a way that you're walking a path that leads to life and that's rooted in the word of God and, you know, guided by the word of God and understanding it. And then there's a way that's not and it's guided by the world. >> And it really is this simple thing. And just like the apologetical conversations we were talking about, oftentimes it's just sin. And it's not it's not that I'm saying it's not important to know a bunch of stuff. I mean, I know a bunch of stuff. Like I'm not I'm not one of these guys that's like, "Oh, I don't read." >> No, I'm one of these guys that's like I've got thousands and thousands of books and I've read I've had months in my life where I've read 12 books a month for period, you know, over many years, you know, like I'm a reader. But what I found is that a lot of people's problems are not intellectual. They're not because they've become really convinced of the evidence. It's what they want to do and they want to do it because it gets them something. And often times it's poultry. It's I'm not laughed at. >> Well, they're they're stepping over dollars to get dimes is kind of what they're doing. And so because they want to be able to put kind of a a veneer over something. And so again, it's okay. It's the same thing as like you have people that are like adding stuff to the gospel because somehow the gospel can't isn't sweet enough. And so they have to kind of add to it and and you know, it's it's you know, addition by subtraction is ultimately what it what it ends up or you know, whatever. >> They need to do something. >> Yeah. They they've got to do something because we can't just present it the way it's presented because it maybe sounds a little judgy, a little a little bit it's a little bit too abrasive. Um, and then they they try to do something which one of my least favorite words in the English lexicon, nuance it. They try to nuance the gospel or they try to nuance things. And I was like, okay, >> well, there are areas of gradation in life for sure. And then there are things that just live in the space of black and white. So you and I can sit here and debate, okay, uh, pre-curve trucker hats are better than flat bill trucker hats, right? So you're a pre-curve guy. I'm a flat bill guy. >> I don't know if I'd debate it with you. I just have the hat that they give me. >> But still, we could have our opinions, but do either one of us get to be right. Well, no, because it's in the world of opinion, but that's a hat. That's either a statement of fact or a statement of falsehood. >> The life of a human being, >> right? And so, going all the way back to the life of the human being thing. So, you've got these arguments swirling around in your brain. You got this alter ego going because you're still you're you're trying to protect the body of work that you have done and you weren't convicted to just like basically tip your own apple cart over. >> The plan was to finish the PhD, right? Then if I was going to go off and sort of start an abolitionist movement, I would do that as a doctor. Right. Right. And so and that seems like the most sane plan in a certain sense. That would have been great. Maybe people would be listening to me more if I had doctor. I don't think so, right? I haven't really had a hard time getting people to listen to me. So, but anyway, I got busted and I got You know who Michael Ruse is? >> Um, have you seen that? What was that old uh movie with like Ben Stein? It was like exposed. It's Ben Stein and he's doing some anti-abortion thing. >> No idea. >> Oh my gosh. How old are How old are you? No, I'm just kidding. >> I'm 39. I I don't know if that is that much older. >> Yeah. You know, >> born 86. >> Yeah. 80. But >> see, I missed out on all like the '8s action movies, too, because I was like two and three years old. >> Oh, man. I watch Stranger Things. I'm like, this is my childhood, you know. >> Okay. All right. Yeah. Before my time. >> Yeah. So, I'm an old man. Old man. But uh the reason I was saying Michael Ruse, he's one of the sort of uh leaders of the Darwin industry. Big deal. Many many like big deal. He he was if the people who'd seen that that movie um with Ben Stein, it was the Discovery Institute's first documentary that they did. Okay. >> And uh and the guy who's like talking about how the early compounds kind of evolved on the back of crystals and he just looks like a total doof. He's like on the back of crystals. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. >> And and it's like and Ben Stein's like >> Crystal. And so it's like the most sort of iconic part of that movie. Um that's funny. You haven't seen that movie. I I'll I'll >> watch it. Watch that. Is that a family movie night kind of movie? >> I don't know. >> Probably not a 5-year-old and three-year-old. >> Yeah, it's >> Well, still working on Lion King. Yeah, >> it's a little nerdy, but but anyway, so Michael Ruse is in town for like the Darwinian Centennial, and uh here I am. I've I've become totally enamored with the abolitionist movements of the past and I'm trying to build an abolitionist movement in the present. I've got about 30 or 40 people at the local church that are sort of meeting every month or you know twice a month to sort of dream up ideas of like if we're going to go to the abortion clinics, how would we how would we engage people? Like what would we do? Um should we go to the high school? Should we go to the colleges? Like should we make some flyers? You know, we're just trying to figure stuff out. Um, so I'm living this dual life and putting up these posters and posting all this stuff. The Ian John Philoponus and the Abolish Human Abortion Facebook page are kind of taking off. Um, our memes are doing well among regular pro-life people. And so I'm trying to keep these these lives separate and uh, also I'm fratonizing with the intelligent design people. I don't know how, but somehow something gets out to the point where Michael Ruse sitting at like a a bar. He's he's in the in at OU to give a lecture and it's me, Michael Ruse, and my uh chair of my dissertation. We're sitting there and Michael Ruse, who who I barely know, you know, he's this famous British historian guy. He's like, "I hear there's a student um moonlighting or secretly infiltrating the program who's an intelligent design advocate and something about abortion or something like that." And I'm just like sitting in the booth [laughter] and I'm like, >> you didn't just immediately raise your hand? >> I had no idea that it was like super well known, but it had be >> How did they even know you were a student? >> Well, no. I I was there as a student. So, I was the uh TA. I was >> No, no. How did they know that the Bubble Upagus name or whatever that was? >> I don't know. I I to this day, I just don't really know. Like, somehow it had it had gotten out. >> It had been figured out. And I think I should talk to I should talk to Pierce, you know, now that I'm like, you know, not under his he's not my I don't care. He's just a guy. I should just ask him. I was like, how long did you know? Like, do you know that? I was like, >> oh, did he know for a while? like I think he knew for a while but I so he had he had signed my master's thesis like you can go buy his book and I'm in his index like like he's he's got which I think is because like he cites my my master's thesis is published in the some science education journal and so he's like referred to it so as a as a professor you have a student and that student gets published that's good on you and so I think there's sort of a kind of I don't want Russell to be this lunatic religious guy I I want him to pretend, keep pretending, and I'll keep pretending. We'll all just pretend together >> so we can get to the end of the rainbow and everybody gets >> we're just all we're all just trying to get tenure, right? And so he's sitting there and he's like, and Michael Ruse is like, "Yeah, like so somehow Michael RS" and he's from uh Britain. [clears throat and laughter] >> So he's wondering aloud in his accent and he's frozen >> and I'm just like, "Oh my gosh." And it was just so awkward and weird. I I think there were some things happening a little before that that it kind of like it was getting it was getting hard because the aha we started putting the AHA symbol like we would chalk like it it kind of went from just >> like getting in the middle of the night. You're like ah chalking the sidewalks or whatever. >> Yeah. Straight up Gideon. We were like looking for ash poles and tearing them down and stuff like that. >> Like I really got it. >> So So we were we were doing like um Yeah. Like lowlevel street art. Vandalism. That's right. Let's go. >> Yeah, man. Okay. We were Yeah, we by this time we had, you know, vinyl stickers and we were putting them on stop signs and stuff. >> We were changing the world. >> That's right. >> And but anyway, it had gotten out. There had been some controversy >> about there's a way this comes full circle in a funny way. Maybe we'll get to it, but it had gotten out. It had come come around that there was this person and they somehow knew it was a graduate student in the history of science. And I was like >> the obvious choice. >> I and I was like the scholaripped guy. Like I mean I had the I was a I was the graduate teaching assistant for the main Darwinian dream course with you know Richard Dawkins. So like when Richard Dawkins came I was the guy giving him a tour of the history of science collections you know showing him our copies of the early editions of the origin of species and helping him. He couldn't even read. It was really funny. There was he was there was like some writing in one of our copies of the uh like the third edition of the origin of species and he's like reading he can't read Darwin's writing but I can read Darwin's writing because that's what I do like academically I I see Darwin's writing all the time >> like his handwriting. >> Yeah, his handwriting. That's right. And Dawkins is like trying to read this inscription and I'm like >> and I got this. >> Excuse me, Richard. Cuz Richard Dawkins is like a fake. He doesn't know the history of science stuff side of it, you know? He's just like a >> Is he as fake as like Bill Nye who's not actually a science guy. He's an engineer. >> Yeah. I think Dawkins is actually at one point in time a scientist, but he's just a propagandist. >> Okay. >> But anyway, so like I'm that I'm in that world and for me to be Christian, it's okay as long as it's like secret or it's like >> Yeah. Like the other guy that you talked about that was on your like committee or whatever. >> Yeah. Like as long as I'm compartmentalizing it. But abolishing abortion to the glory of God is not compartmentalizing your Christianity. >> Not quite. >> And I'm also like having this paradigm shift in my own brain about like doing what I ought to do to love my neighbors as myself regardless of whether or not people laugh at me. And I'm like I think it's like the final thing that God needs to do is like smash this kind of idol of respectable uh you know me I I'd gotten married u my wife she dreamed of being the uh you know the the professor's wife you know we we you know have grad students in the house and you know we go to the geeky academic jackets we jackets and smoking pipes and stuff like that. She had that and I had that and that wasn't going to work for what I was going to end up doing. And so God had to sort of like, okay, you've got you've got the art, you've worked on that, you've got the philosophy, enough of that. You've done the apologetics, enough of that. You got the history stuff. And then I've got you to see what you need to see about this this debate between incrementalism and and immediate abolitionism. You've learned about all this kind of stuff. uh you're ready to go and uh you're not even interested in your your dissertation anymore. I mean, I was not nominally interested in it, but it's not your passion and I'm going to blow up your world. And it it blew it up because that little conversation with Michael Ruse, as small as that was, it was at Coaches, a little like a little pub type bar thing in Norman, it it became known like all the grad students, they all knew and all the professors all knew. the professor that I had a pretty good relationship with, he always knew, like he always knew that I was like a Christian that read Francis Schaefer and stuff like that. Um because he knew me as an undergrad. Um but it was just kind of like, all right, we've lost Russell to radical religious stuff. And uh there were some professors that are like, get [snorts] him out of here. Good riddens. We don't like that guy. he can he can just, you know, go. But I think there were some that were kind of like I think he's like one of our best students like I I don't know now, but I that's what I felt at the moment. And so I went and I talked to the the chair of the department at that time, Stephen Livy Livy, I guess. And uh and I kind of said, "Yeah, my heart has gone in this other direction." And I think uh you know he's like a liberal Christian that probably just thought I was just some kind of weird unicorn. Like I have no idea what to do with this student. He's going to go fight abortion. Like not normally what people drop out of, you know. I was fully funded, you know. So, I I left the program and uh I don't even know exactly how God has taken care of us financially or anything because we were those Christians that were going to wait to have babies until I was done with my had my doctorate. Um I left and you know, we just decided to have babies. My wife had been working um here in Edund at OSBI. She was in the forensics stuff lab there and she had been working and I had been a student and we were not having kids. I dropped out of the program. She got pregnant. She stopped working. I wasn't really working. I mean I was working some like jobs like at the time I mean I don't want to go into it on your program but I was I was at this time contradictory as it may seem I was playing cards. >> Yeah. I was playing Texas Holde for for money. Um, so that's so so I I had played Texas Holde and I knew how to make money doing that. Uh, and I'd worked as a barista and stuff like this. This is kind of too much detail for your show, but I >> This is stuff they don't get on YouTube and on the reals on Instagram. So >> yeah, you're not getting this. >> It's setting the stage though. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So So it is it it all works together. I mean, I think we put up a short like two or three days ago where I was like, if we were sitting at a poker table, I'd have all your money. >> Yeah. And I'm sure some people were >> because they were just so obvious and and real smarmy with what they were saying. >> Yeah. You had to tell, you know, but I was like I was like, man, I wonder how the audience me making poker, you know, some of our some of our audience probably >> not a whole lot of people would be offended by that in this audience. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, so I I was doing that and I wasn't going to go obviously go back to doing that, you know, for money um because that's like a pretty the way I was is a grind. So, I was like, well, what am I going to do? And I just started doing abolitionism stuff. And I started um you know doing our local abolition society and sort of coming up with uh you know gear for people to wear, signs for people to hold, pamphlets for people to pass out, drop cards, all just the propaganda, good propaganda, propagating abolitionist ideology. having weekly meetings and stuff and just different people at different times that have had money and believed in it has said, "Well, you know what? Okay, I'll take care of your car. I'll take care of your uh, you know, mortgage." Like, and so I I began kind of doing this sort of gone from this academic stability because it really was pretty decently paying thing. Um, and you know, I had it set up to where I was going to write my dissertation and try to get it published and all that kind of stuff to not having that stability. My wife, she's pregnant, she's got a kid, and I'm just somehow surviving. Kind of like a weird George Mueller period in my life where we are month to month. We don't exactly know how we're putting gas in the car or food on the table, but it is consistently happening. And I'm consistently just doing abolition stuff. And so, you know, abolitionist Society of Ohio pops up, abolitionist Society of, you know, Kansas pops up. And so, you start having all these little abolitionist groups. And this is all, this is 2012, 2011 to 2012. and uh you know there there at our church and everything uh you know it's just something we're doing and it's thriving and it's starting to replicate and people that are interested in it are interested in it but no one really knows but all the way back in 2011 I knew that the pro-life establishment the pro-life paradigm which I don't know how much we're going to get into that all of it >> we're on your timetable here >> yeah man all of it was going to be paradigmatically different ideologically speaking. What I was going to be doing was attempting to replace what I believed were unbiblical um approaches, strategies, arguments, just a framework in the pro-life world with a more biblical framework. And that would change everything from, you know, rhetoric to tactics to to legislation and all of it. And in 2012, you know, or 2011, sitting down working out like the biblical ideology of abolitionism, like what are the tenants, like what are the unshakable principles upon which we would do this? And I'm just like giving like little talks. um putting up little Facebook video rants and I start seeing it resonate with people all over. Um so you start seeing enough abolitionist in enough places where you're like, "Hey, yeah, maybe we can do this. Maybe we can make a a gear store and we can kind of sell sell things to people." So they have, you know, a lot of the pro-life stuff was dorky looking. you know, the pinks and the blues and the baby feet and all that, which you know, there's a place for that, but it wasn't cool stuff like you're lying here. So, I I was like, "All right, I'm going to work on this material. I'm going to propagate these ideas as these groups pop up. I'm going to try to without having a strong organizational top- down structure. I'm going to try to ideologically unify us all in tenants and a symbol. We can all share the symbol. We can share the ideas. We'll root them in the word of God and we'll connect them to those earlier abolitionist movements and we'll build this thing with like to one big goal of abolishing abortion. But I know this might be shocking to some of your viewers. I don't think you're going to abolish abortion unless you replace the pro-life movement. >> Hey guys, real quick. I know a lot of you train for very specific things. So maybe you've got a mud race coming up, a mountain hunt, a 5K, or maybe you just want to keep up with your kids, or you just don't want to let the old man in. But for a lot of you guys, whether you're working out at the globo gym, or even your garage gym, you get there and you just don't know exactly what to do. 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If they're sacrificing their children and you do not punish them, God will turn his face against you and you have to punish them equally because of what's in Exodus 21 about, you know, like a a pre-born child is is loses its life. Your life is forfeit whenever the two men are fighting. >> Yeah. >> So, I'm like, "All right, so Genesis 9:6, just penalty for murder is death. uh child sacrifice must be punished equally like is murder. And so the laws against murder ought to be applied equally to pre-born human beings because pre-born human beings are image bearsers. And if you're not criminalizing abortion punishing it, you don't just have um a problem in your culture. Like you have a God problem because God's against you. So if you look at Leviticus 20, that's what it says. Like God will turn his face against you. And that's consistent in all the prophets. It's like so Isaiah 1 and Amos 5, the whole thing like put away your musical instruments and let justice roll down. I want justice in Amos 5. In Isaiah 1, it's uh you know uh you have solemn assemblies, you pray, you have all these religious things. You're doing all this stuff, but you're not establishing justice for the fatherless. I don't listen to your prayers. Your hands are full of blood. So it's like with God, if you have the shedding of innocent blood and you uh make turn a blind eye to it, make light of it or compromise with it in any way, he is against you. And so that's just crystal clear in scripture. So I'm thinking along with what like the I learned from the abolitionists of slavery that God was against them for what they were doing that whenever they had written the uh when they so Moses had said if a slave runs away into your keeping you do not return them to their master you help them. But the United States Constitution said if a slave runs away into your keeping you must return them to their master. So this is diametrically opposed to the law of God. And even though there's a form of biblical slavery, man stealing slavery is not it. And so they were like, "It's a crime. It must be punished." And I'm like, "Abortion is crime. It must be punished. If we don't execute the uh punishment against murder of pre-born children, the hearts of the children of men will run to do evil." Ecclesiastes 8:11. And so I've got this whole biblical thing going on, studying it, and I take that and understanding how murder is supposed to be treated. And I look at the pro-life movement, I see a almost 100% group commitment to abortion is bad for women and children. Um, the women who get abortions are victims of abortion. um they uh don't know what they're doing and um when we pass the laws, we need to h have immunity clause for them. They will not get in trouble. And I'm like, okay, what's the pro-choice movement saying? You look at the pro-choice movement and they're like shouting their abortions. >> Yeah. >> And I'm like, okay, they know what they're doing and we're not the first culture in history to practice, you know, child sacrifice. We are just like all cultures that have been in rebellion against God practicing child sacrifice. Ours is just modern, scientific, technologically advanced child sacrifice. And we practice it for the same exact reasons. And the way that it should be treated is the same exact way. And I'm looking at the pro-life movement and I'm like, okay, all like you take their laws, okay, you look at their laws. Uh, we're going to we're going to um stop abortion at the ability to feel pain. All right. This looks a lot like anti-slavery laws that were like regulating what you could and couldn't do with a slave. They're not it's not abolishing child slavery. It's just saying you can't, you know, take off their toes when they run away or something like that. If you're going to whip them, you can only whip them a certain amount of time. Okay? It's like it's like a sort of certain thing. or we're going to protect um we're going to we're going to before you get an abortion, you have to have your parents' permission or you have to look at a sonogram, like these educational type things. Okay, that's very similar to um if you're going to practice transatlantic slavery, you've got to have a certain amount of space for each slave. And I'm seeing all of these analogous type things, all of that stuff, all of those regulatory ideas in the abolitionist movements at the end of them, guys like William Wilburforce had said, you know, at the end of this 20-year campaign, it turned out that the principal stays, the people that were keeping the slave trade from being abolished were not >> they were the moderate abolitionists. the moderate abolitionists, the the so-called gradual abolitionists. He said they they regulated it. They didn't they didn't agree with us that that God was going to judge us for it. They they they always came up. Wilberforce would put forward a law to abolish the slave trade. And someone would be like, well, why don't we just give them more space? And they would vote for the more space for slaves, less of them may die, we're saving some type legislation instead of the abolition. And it was always a substitute. And so that's all I'm seeing from the pro-life movement when you're talking about their legislation, their campaigns, their rhetoric, abortion stops a beating heart. Um, you when I looked at the apologetics, the way that the arguments were being made. Um, >> if you can get around the beating heart thing, then the entire thing falls apart. >> Yeah. Well, I mean like sled, like you know, like the whole sled thing from like Scott Glusenorf and those guys like size, level of development, environment, whatever. like like you can um you can make these secular arguments to meet the person in the middle to get them to agree, but that whole sled argument applies to pigs or dolphins or anything. Life begins at conception for all animals. It's got to be the image of God. And and ultimately, we're trying to defend a human embryo at the moment of conception, a human zygote. They don't have beating hearts. They don't have fingerprints. They don't have um cute little baby bodies. They're they look like like little And I'm like, you guys do not have the philosophical goods and you're not even trying. You need to root this in the incarnation of Christ. We know that the second person of the trinity was the creator of the cosmos who emptied himself and entered the womb of a young unmarried woman who wasn't planning to be with child and became the size of a single cell. And that like Jesus didn't stop existing as a person whenever he entered that womb. And so you've got right there that human embryo is, you know, that's all you need like theologically. And we know cuz you have his development. You have um you know when he's an embryo, John the Baptist is a fetus and he's leaping in the womb, you know, and there there's just all this language about how long he's in there, that he's conceived, all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, you've got all this like strength. Why don't you use it? And then I'm looking at the pro-life movement. The reason they don't use this theological stuff is because they believe that you have to reach people that aren't theological. If you're going to abolish abortion, you need the non-believers, too. That's what they believe. And a lot of people may believe that. And maybe you believe that some >> Well, let me actually try to steal me their side. >> Yep. >> Just just a little bit. >> Y >> because whenever you look at So, I I was talking about this with Mark Wayne Mullen, who's our senator, and we weren't talking about this. We were talking about some other topic on one of our shows. Yeah. >> And he goes, "It's very easy as a" And he wasn't, you know, taking a shot of me, but he's like, "It's very easy as a podcaster or someone on Twitter or someone that's got a blog to be an ideological purist on insert topic." >> Yep. >> Then there's the reality of the legislative body to get something passed into law. And as we're recording this right now, looks like the government shutdown's going to end any day. And there's all the things. And there's, okay, are we going to get rid of the filibuster? Okay, thank God we're not doing that. And then you okay you need 60 votes and okay but in the house you need this many okay you got the majority there's the reality of the legislative body and that's not just reflective of the United States Congress it's reflective of state congresses and local municipalities all things right >> and so what I've told people before because I've brought up some abolitionist ideas is I'm like okay if the two options are what we can get done and what we can't get done >> yeah people always >> I'll take the what we can get done right now for the exact same reason of earlier is because 100% image bearsers of God will spared from, you know, trash bins. >> Well, I'll get to I'll get to Okay. I would be there. >> That's just what I've said before. So, I would hate to not bring that into the conversation. >> Yeah. Yeah. No. So, I'd be with you there were it not for the reality of God. So, I'm there in a lot of other areas, but when you have um which I don't know if I need to go back a little bit to get to here, but when you have God telling you if it's child sacrifice, if you know >> the specificity of the crime, >> if you know they're killing children and you do not punish them, I will punish you. Like you have that you have in Isaiah 10 1-2 like woe to those who make iniquitous decree that make fatherless children pray whenever you okay so what is a fatherless child well think about of a rape conceived child there's no one more fatherless than a rape conceived child all right so you write a law it's to save some babies but in that law it doesn't say it says except for in the case of rape well you know you had to the only way you could pass it to get some was to put this in there and so you put that in there to save some in putting that in there You made God the author of the universe your enemy, right? So now you've got woe to you for your iniquitous decree that made the fatherless child pray. Often over and over in scripture, it's kind of like, you know what? I don't really like this impulse to like save the many. I like this impulse to save the the the least. Like whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me. the most disregarded person is going to be the person you're caring for and all that kind of stuff. And that's the sort of rubric or measurement that God's, you know, put on this one in particular. There may be places where you can do sort of get the best that you can. But the problem is is whenever he said if you don't punish them, then I will turn my face against you. This this thing that's apparently getting some is bringing the judgment of God. And so if you do this and only this, your borders will be open. You might save some babies. You might think you're saving babies. Evidentially, we can show you you're not like you, you know, Oklahoma, we're in Oklahoma, we've had uh since 2016, um you know, people calling for abolition. And in 20 um you know, we we've had uh a bill to abolish abortion as murder filed in the Oklahoma Senate. um abortion is murder should be abolished. From 2016 to this present day, we've had majorities of Republican Christian prolifers, >> super majorities. Yeah, >> super majorities in the House, in the Senate, and in the governor's office, abolish abortion or look at an ultrasound first. This gets ignored or tabled or voted down. We passed this. Every time we pass the one to to get some, our abortion numbers have gone up. Like, you can literally look at it. Pass the increment, abortion numbers go up. You can look at it all the way down to date. There are more abortions in Oklahoma today than there were before Roie Wade was. It's just because it's all pills. Like, you could you could go sit in Governor Stit's office and pop an abortion pill and bring the baby back and present the child to him in a pool of blood and say, "I did this." and cite in the Oklahoma statute that no mother can be held criminally responsible if she's electing the abortion. This is so diametric. That's acquitting the guilty, which is an abomination to God to kill a fatherless child, the least of these that is being knit together in her womb under the cover of unjust laws. And that statute was written by a Christian pro-life conservative politician who was addicted to incremental victories. And so you can do this for all 50 states. You can do this for multiple nations. You can show that what we've done is we've made a plan to get some instead of all. And we've we've kind of I we've kind of argued against the abolitionist position as if it's some kind of a moral purity ideological you know pipe dream thing when that's not like I mean I know there's probably some people out there that are doing it for that reason but that's not what I'm doing. Like I think we are in an actual logical uh um problem uh we that we face like we keep doing the things that God himself tells us not to do and it's to our shame. So like in Oklahoma where we could do it, we don't do it. we do the get the little instead, get the sum instead because we're addicted to the increments. And we believe in the increments because we can't stand on like the word of God or belief in God. It's like um if you look at sort of uh you know the the Bible always, you know, the Bible's chalk full of examples of sort of immediatism and incrementalism. You look at Moses and Pharaoh, like Moses goes to Pharaoh, let my people go. And Pharaoh's like, "Uh, what if I let like you go for a little bit and come back some, you know, get give you some, then you can come back for more later or something." Moses is just like, "No, let my people go. We're leaving. The nation of Israel is leaving." And Pharaoh's like, "Get out of my sight. Um, you had to have the same quote on bricks, but I'm taking your straw." And the people grumbled to Moses, and they're like, "Man, Moses, you made it harder for us. why didn't you just take the deal or whatever, you know, don't go back in and say that. Moses goes back in. He consistently does what God tells him to do, believing that God's going to do something to help him. Pharaoh consistently puts forward increments. Well, like you and your women can go, but the children have to stay. And that's a, you know, it's incre No, we're not doing that. Okay. War plagues. you and your women and your children can go, but not your animals. Your animals have to stay. And Moses is like, not a hoof will remain in Egypt. It's this like radical belief in doing what God says and then God showing up. And so what I think about all this pro-life stuff, all of these little causes, all these little um victories, they are the reason we've had 70 million aborted babies because our problem and and it kind of connects something earlier long long long earlier we talked about our problem is not um with the left and the liberals. Um they're they're not powerful enough to defeat God. like we don't even need to convert any of them. If we like in Oklahoma, let's take it Oklahoma. We have the votes, we have the power, we have the government, we have it all. The only reason abortion is legal in Oklahoma is because of the Republican pro-life supermajorities. And so going back to your point that you made a little bit ago, okay, in order for this to be a real possibility, you have to get rid of the pro-life establishment, if you will, that is currently, you know, >> because they're doing the substitute. So they're like the controlled opposition. >> So I guess two parts. So how >> Yeah. >> So how do you go about >> I mean because we're talking about defunding, dismantling, whatever word you want to use. How do we go about replacing the current, you know, uh the current pro-life movement, but then also how even if you were able to do that, >> how does that translate into winning? >> So, so all right. So, to let me put with this, >> yeah, >> we live in a culture, you said this earlier, we've all seen an ultrasound, right? Yeah. If you want the baby, you put the ultrasound on your refrigerator and you name them and you if you don't want the baby, they're a clump of cells and you kill them. Well, in the ultrasound thing, it's like, okay, Planned Parenthood people know how to not do it correctly to where you can't see the heartbeat. There's ways around it all. >> But, but I just think that our culture is scientifically literate enough that we know where babies come from. >> We know they're human beings. We know that if you abort, >> we know they're not human soup and then all a sudden at 9 months they become a baby right before they come out. >> They don't pop out of the magical vagina tube or whatever. Sorry for that. But, you know, it just doesn't >> there's been worse that has been said at this table. Yeah, we're good. Um, but like they the culture knows everyone. It's just like we're allowing people to be just delusional idiots. Like it just and that's what you see on our content all day long. Just just saying stuff that just contradicts everything. And so we've got this situation. How do we how do we get rid of this? I think sorry this you know this isn't made of tinfoil but I think to powers and principalities and high places strategizing to keep us dehumanizing and destroying pre-born children you know I think it's satanic I think it's like a actual somehow connected to the demonic realm stuff above my pay grade but I think we need people to be sacrificing their children murdering image bearsers in the place of the incarnation every minute of every Okay. And we need it to be covered in the law so that the nation is not blessed by God. And that's what's going on. How do we get out of that? Well, when you can see the life, you have a culture that believes in human rights and loving your neighbor and social justice. How in the world do you keep something like ripping little innocent babies to pieces from being abolished? Controlled opposition. You have to create something that's against that. but isn't abolishing it. So, go with some vin diagrams and I'll get to the practical stuff here in a second. The pro-choice movement for abortion, the pro-life movement against abortion. The abolitionist movement against abortion. Most people would say, "Oh, look, the abolitionist movement and the pro-life movement are they're both against abortion. That's their little vin diagram center, and they're separate from the the pro-choice movement." It's actually not that. The pro-life movement and the pro-choice movement are 100% in agreement that abortion should not be criminalized. So they're right there. They're together. And the abolitionist movement says it should be criminalized. So in a state like Oklahoma, when you put forward a bill to abolish abortion, proifers and pro-choicers both vote against it. And so abortion is not abolished. The proifers explain they have to vote against it because it's too harsh because it criminalizes it. Mothers would be facing penalties if we pass this bill. So the proiffers and whenever that we had the bill before them, you had Planned Parenthood people and Oklahomaans for life people sitting on the same dang row watching it get killed together lobbying their legislators to like Kristen Hawkins is writing letters do not support this bill. The pro-life movement in Louisiana whenever they put forward a bill to abolish abortion, it got out of committee and it was going to the floor. 72 leading pro-life organizations wrote an open letter saying, "We do not and will not ever support any bill that has criminal sanctions on women who murder their babies via abortion." So, the pro-life movement is not just me with a tinfoil hat, is evidentially based killing abolition bills. So, the only way you're going to be able to pass like whatever you need, the 25 senators and the 51 house reps and the governor, that's how many abolitionists you need to do it in Oklahoma. So, you have to destroy the pro-life movement in order to get practically those votes for abolition if we're just looking at legislative legislatively. Well, the only way to destroy that is to destroy those ideas in the culture. So, a pro-life politician running against an abolitionist politician, the abolitionist politician has to win. The only way the abolitionist politician can win is if you've already reached the people with the ideas that they're going to be voting on. So, that's happened now twice in Oklahoma. We've had abolitionist legislators unseat pro-life legislators and run on abolitionist campaigns. uh Senator Dusty Dvers and Senator Warren Hamilton. Um Senator Jake uh I forget his name. He's running for governor now. Um also was an abolitionist in there, but he didn't he didn't run for reelection. So practically you have to change the ideas at the bottom. Um, whenever I was involved in this, to go back a little bit, whenever I kind of dropped out, did the abolitionist movement early on, um, it was a lot of college campuses, high schools, streets, abortion mills. It was a lot of that, engaging online, cultural stuff. By 2016, it had made inroads into the legislature. Um, and Senator Joseph Silk, who had, he was a newly elected senator from the Broken Bow area here in Oklahoma. He was sitting in there, freshman legislator, had a heartbeat bill. You know, babies should be protected after they have a beating heart. You could look at that as saving some, or you could look at it through a biblical lens and say God hates it. It's hard to do that because people think no, it's gonna save some babies. But can it save babies if God's not behind it? In other areas, we know you got to like one man with God is a majority. You know, we may be getting the masses to agree that a beating heart is really important, but a majority without God is a minority or a tragedy, right? Silk. We meet with him. We talk with him about abolition and we're like, "So, do you believe abortion is murder?" "Yeah, life begins at session." "Yeah." "Then why does your bill deny that?" Like, "Do we really think that we're going to fight abortion by literally writing into laws things that are not true?" Like, "Oh, yeah, this isn't true." Like, I believe the per the purpose of government is to uh punish murderers. It's like I believe, you know, Genesis 9:6, we're supposed to punish murderers. That's the purpose of government, small government. But when I write my pro-life bill, I deny that. I believe that all people are equal and life begins at conception. But when I write my pro-life bill, I act as though life begins at the ability to feel pain or I act as though life begins at the the at at a certain trimester or a certain stage of development. Why? To save some. Okay. What does God think about when you do that? And there's your problem. The Bible says he hates it and that he will oppose it. And so for five decades, we've had hundreds of bills, hundreds and hundreds of bills backed by millions and millions of people and billions of dollars. And we haven't been able to abolish something that is ripping the arms and legs off of little human beings and crushing their skulls. It's because we've been doing something that's substitute that God opposes. So like I don't hold this position because I like want to discover some niche thing, you know, like oo I can be special and different. Like I really believe it. Like I truly believe >> learns much easier things to defend. >> Yeah. >> You know what I mean? Like practically speaking [clears throat] if you're just trying to build a YouTube channel. >> Oh yeah. If I'm just trying to build a YouTube channel and I can explain to I mean you know behind the curtain here. Uh the reason I do the YouTube thing is if I can go because we went real legislatively and we found it was very difficult to you know these guys they want the pro-life A+ so they can continue to run and continue to be in office. They don't care what an abolitionist is telling them that their their bill or their vote is contrary to the will of God. I don't freaking care. Like as long as I'm getting reelected and I need the support of the proifers. The proifers are telling me that if I support abolition, they won't support me, which is an active thing that goes on. People need to know that the pro-life establishment, all of the big groups, all all the way down to the small groups will work together to actually punish legislators who vote for abolition bills and try to replace them with prolifers. And so I'm like, golly, we're we're running up against a really difficult situation over here in the legislative realm. more work needs to be done in the culture. I can't get normal Christians to listen to all this kind of stuff about like what does the word of, you know, should we do what the word of God says? Is it best? You know, I can't beat pragmatism. I can't beat all this kind of stuff. I can't even get a a seat at the table. You know, I can't, you know, they're not reading my books or whatever. So, how do I get them to listen to me? Um, well, oh, why don't I go do the culture stuff and why don't I go do the street stuff, do it better or try to do it better than the prolifers because the way that there will be consistency in the legislative legislative language, there'll be consistency in the street engagement. So, whenever I engage on the street, I don't shy away from it being murder and the consequences of murder. I don't shy away from the fact that I'm a Christian that I think that the image of God is like net like I'll even tell people it's like listen if there's no image of God I can understand why a human embryo wouldn't be defended you know cuz I I just I'm like I'm going to stand on the truth plainly state the truth I'm not going to practice any underhanded cunning ways I'm just going to boldly plainly state it and then let the truth of God you know be active and in the knowledge that there is a God in in the heavens who is watching who is part of all these conversations and doesn't need any one of us like everyone says that well what does it look like to actually believe it so we don't need um to try to persuade the all the ACLU Planned Parenthood people are like come up with common ground with people to where maybe we can pass some small bill and then pass something else and pass something else a strategic plan like we literally can figure out what God would have us do. Call on that and only that. And so you say, "Well, it still sounds like a pipe dream. The only reason it sounds like a pipe dream is because there's a pro-life movement." If all the prolifers became abolitionist, it'd be over by the end of the week. And so you've kind of moved focus from legislative side to engaging with the culture side which has led to so if people aren't familiar um abolitionist rising on uh on Instagram. What's the YouTube channel? >> Abolitionist Rising. So it's just abolitionist rising YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram, all that kind of stuff. >> So it's consistent everywhere. There's no random underscores or USA or whatever because you had to do it. >> Um and so you're doing these man on the street things. And so what people might expect is, you know, portable speaker, microphone, loudspeaker, cascading the culture as people walk by, blah blah blah, you know, doing that stuff. Uh, which there there seemingly is some value in that. And then there are some arguments against it. Um, people have seen the, uh, picketing and the signage outside of Planned Parenthoods and things like that. I remember being a student at the University of Central Oklahoma where you were recently. So this would have been my sophomore year. I mean, we're talking 2005, 2006. There's a big display outside the communication building which is right by >> genocide awareness project around. >> Yeah. And it's you know right by my dorm and you know it's just these 20 foot tall pictures of of dead babies and okay here's a dime and then here's dead baby parts and all that and then there's you know they've got like a little fence around them or whatever for seen it. >> Yeah. Obvious reasons. And then so they're trying to engage people around the edges. Didn't seem to be a whole lot of um argumentation going on. It was more like here's our pamphlet and if you don't agree with everything in this pamphlet, you're wrong and look at that dead baby. >> And you know, perhaps there's some value to that and people have been, you know, been touched in that way. I'm I'm I'm sure God, you know, God's drawing straight lines with crooked sticks, right? But the way you're going about it is from from the outside looking in in terms of your process is you've got these kind of poster boards that are, you know, about 3 4 foot tall >> and you've got different sayings. You've got different imagery on there, some of which can easily be shown on Meta in other places, some that has to be blurred out. But anyway, it's it's abolitionist messaging. It's abortionist murder messaging. It's, you know, comparing a uh unborn fetus to a African slave or, you know, it's those types of things. >> And from my perspective, it's meant to grab someone's attention as they're walking by to get them to come up to to say something where you can start the diatic communication and engage with them, >> get their opinion. What is it that you think of my sign? What what do you think I'm communicating? Okay. Well, on that subject, what what would you say your opinion is? Whatever that thing is. And then obviously it leads to a lot of these viral moments. Again, two people getting together and agreeing the entire time. Not super viral. People really don't want to see that. But then you've got this other side that's kind of on the the the more right side, the right side of the thing. It's everyone wants to see someone dunk on a leftist, right? Ben Shapiro dunks on this woke purpleheaded nose ringed weirdo. >> Own the libs, >> right? Own the libs. And there's that side. And believe me, there's some fun in that. Um it loses its utility fairly fast, but there is some some fun in watching that happen. And so that's how you're deciding to engage the culture. And so yeah, I guess when did you I guess come up with the parameters of okay, this is exactly how we're going to do. And then I want to start talking about some individual interactions. >> Yeah. So okay, so to connect where we were deciding to go do that was also something you just should do like, oh hey, we're trying to do all this really hefty ideological stuff, but we should also try to save some kids. like try to help some people not become murderers and help some people, you know, not kill their their children. And so, uh, let's let's go figure out how to engage. Well, especially whenever they shut down like the abortion mills in Oklahoma. So, they shut down all the freestanding child sacrifice centers, but all of the pills come, you know, you just get online and order abortion pills. So, all the abortions are happening in people's dorm rooms or bedrooms, bathrooms, all of stuff. So, I'm like, "Okay, we've got a problem. There's no longer an abortion clinic to go to. The whole culture is the abortion clinic." Oh, lo and behold, the whole culture has If you're going to reason with people to try to save these lives, try to rescue those being taken away to death, you kind of have to go do it everywhere you can. And what better place than like a college campus. Um, so we just decided, um, let's just go do that. a buddy of mine, Sam Riley, works for Abolitionist Rising. Um, he was like, "Hey, can we mic we should mic up and film it, you know? Let's just mic up, film it, maybe get some content." And my first thought was like, >> "No way." >> Yeah. >> Who would watch that? It's like I'm like I'm like in my 40s. Um, like I got like dad vibes. >> I'm talking to teenagers. >> Talking teenagers. And I'm like a guy holding a sign. I I think the guy who holds a sign is kind of like generally speaking, he's like the lunatic character. He's like the the end is near character. The only reason I hold the sign is because I'm like how do >> how do I like start a conversation or whatever? Put something on the sign gets a conversation going. Um there's a place for just exposing unfruitful deeds of darkness, you know, like Ephesians 5:11, just like exposing evil. Um but you know, we try to put provocative, you know, date rapists love abortion is like a sign I'll use. People come up and they're like, "What the heck?" you know, women are sex women are not sex objects. Babies are not body parts. And then people come up and they're confused what I'm saying and I talk to them. But anyway, so I go out to a Norman. It's like an artwalk night. It's like a Friday night artwalk type thing and got some young people with me and you know, we mic up, set up the signs, talk and film it all. And then, you know, we're out there for 2 or 3 hours and then just come home and, you know, Sam's loading up the audio and syncing it to the video and he's like watching it and he messaged uh sort of this thread I'm in. He's like, "Man, this stuff's kind of funny. This is pretty hilarious to watch like these people crashing out and throwing all this stuff at you and you're just kind of like reasoning with them. I I think people would watch this." I'm like, "Uh, [sighs] maybe." I mean, I've had YouTube stuff before. it doesn't seem to really do all that well cuz we were the abolitionist movement was like spreading like leaven like really slowly um in you know just conferences and stuff and I was like yeah sure man put it up or whatever. So he takes a couple of the conversations pulls out shorts puts them up first on Tik Tok and like a couple of them go up and like you know 8 n million views on Tik Tok and it's just like blowing up and and I'm like >> and what year would this have been starting? Oh man, that's like 20 uh what would that be? 2022. >> Okay. Yeah, 2022. Um and it and it's like it's just I'm like what? How is this Tik Tok? Because I wasn't even on TikTok. And I'm like, well, I guess I got to download Tik Tok now and like, you know, get the dopamine hits from these these likes and shares and comments and talk to people. And they're getting just thousands and thousands of comments. And I'm like, oh my gosh, we are like reaching people with this. Yeah, let's just And we were doing activism some but just kind of like just because we were Christian evangelists but we weren't doing it very much. You know, it kind of like had fallen off and we knew that we needed to do more and that's why we went that that time that the first time. But we were like, "Oh, we need to do this more and more regularly." And when you're looking at a video and it's got millions of views and then we were putting up sort of longer form content on YouTube and you're getting 10 15,000 view, you're just like, okay, I don't gather a crowd, but that's a crowd. That's a lot of people. And to connect it to the heavier stuff, I'm like, "Okay, here's how we're going to reach a lot of Christian people with the ideas that we think are important, abolitionism, by doing this, like doing the debating with the pro-aborts and debating it better and from an abolitionist perspective." And so, and that's what's happened. Like prolifers watch it and they're like, "I'm down with this. I'm down with this." And they may or may not notice that there are slight deviations. Like I I never, you know, say I'm pro-life and like, oh, that's odd. He doesn't say he's pro-life. Why? What's abolitionism? Type it in. Oh, there's like a whole p like a whole web world of defining abolitionism. They might end up watching some of my lectures and stuff. So, it's like this this street work is a sort of a gateway drug to the other stuff. But what I've really seen cuz we started on Tik Tok then started putting them on Instagram and YouTube and everywhere else where it's kind of you know gone pretty you know I think we do 30 million views a month and so um like on YouTube and so it's like okay we are reaching a substantial number of people and I read a lot of the comments even if I don't comment a lot like I read a lot of the comments and I see comment after comment where people are just saying things like um you know you've moved me from you pro-choice to pro-life to abolition or you've moved me from like not a Christian to a I'm like why are these people like becoming Christians and I kind of talked to him a little bit and there's it's like no they were living a life there was this thing going on and they were just kind of blind to it somehow seeing someone stand up against it and fight it as if it is what it is and from a world view and not be worried and scared about how they would look and stuff has made a lot of people think what's going on with my Christianity a lot of like what I was doing when I when I was looking at the abolitionist of slavery is now being replicated with people watching the YouTube channel. Like I mean we're talking like it's a regular thing for someone to be like I was an atheist but I was like a pro-life atheist and I was comfortable being a pro-life atheist but I kind of dug deep into this stuff and I realized my atheism is at war with my pro-lifeism stuff. And my pro-lifeism stuff doesn't really have the goods either to get rid of this. And I just slowly but surely like I found myself coming into contact with the living God, you know, and I've repented of my sins and like become a Christian. And I'm just like, ah. So just fruit upon fruit. And I'm not like say we're not like on a podcast. Let me exaggerate it. It's a real thing. And I it blows my mind, you know? I I screenshot him and I put them in a folder on my computer, but we're talking tons of people. I'm like, "Okay, so here's what God's doing through these like YouTube shorts. We do longer content, but the shorts, those we put up one or two shorts a day whenever we're all at work. God is like, "Yes, we're trying to abolish abortion, but I think he's building that movement to abolish abortion and at the same time causing a lot of people to see themselves see themselves as lost and also a lot of people who are Christians see themselves as is as uh unsanctified or unengaged." when it seems to be coinciding with people, there's kind of like a cultural crap or get off the pot moment because I'm getting asked a lot of questions now about um are we are we seeing a movement of God that's unprecedented, which I I think that shows some some historical uh ignorance, but they're like, "Hey, is there a revival happening now?" Cuz you know, when the Asbury thing was happening, what a year or two ago, I remember being like, "For whatever reason, this feels like an artificially long worship service." And you know, they try if there's an actual move of God happening at Asbury, it doesn't get shut down because there aren't enough hotel rooms in within city limits, right? You're going to have people that are just going to be sleeping on the ground outside if a movement of God's happening. And you certainly don't have to move it off site and offer people Chick-fil-A sandwiches to keep the service going. So, it was just kind of strange, [laughter] but then I didn't know that. Yeah. I mean, they had to move it off site so they could logistically deal with it a little bit better. I was like, "Bro, this isn't this isn't a revival." >> And so, um, it doesn't mean that people weren't getting saved. It doesn't mean that people weren't radically having an encounter with the living God. It doesn't mean any of that. It's just like okay >> if you have to strictly take a definition of revival and it's got these check boxes, it just didn't check the boxes. Okay. >> But then I get asked about what's happening now. And one thing that I've been saying is like this year, we're recording this in 2025. There's been a lot of very, very important Christian leaders that have been taken off the chessboard. So, you had my friend Phil Robertson, you have Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, you have John MacArthur, right? Y you've got Charlie Kirk, you've got Vodka, >> and you're just like, what is happening? And I remember just messaging with some guys, especially right after Vod died, cuz he was the fifth out of that group to die. And I'm like, >> it seems like God's getting us ready for something. Because when you have someone that, let's take MacArthur, when you have someone that has the gravitational pull of a John MacArthur, especially if you're a Calvinist or especially if you're reformed or whatever. >> Mhm. >> You're not going to learn how to make the argument yourself because you're just going to send somebody the sermon where John MacArthur like talks about it or you're going to send them a copy of the book where John MacArthur talks about it. Yeah. >> You're not going to do it yourself because you got the big guy. And now in the digital age, even though those guys are dead, they're not dead because they're living on and people are listening to them and reading them. It's like I'm still getting Charlie Kirk stuff every time I open my >> Exactly. And it's like how long has Aquinus been dead and then people are reading him and getting value out of it. Toes are the same. So So that's where we go. >> But you see these these converging all these things converging at the same time. >> So with the election of Trump and I said before that the people the most responsible for Trump being re-elected, number one is Trump, number two is Biden, number three is Kla Harris, number four is probably Charlie Kirk, number five is probably the guy that took a shot at Donald Trump. Right? Those are the people that are the most important to this movement. But then you have Charlie Kirk going on these college campuses and disabusing these children. They're adults but but they're, you know, mentally children because they've extended adolescence into their college years, >> right? >> He's disabusing them of notions and he's doing it with a smile on his face with scripture on his lips and, you know, the gospel central to everything, especially in the last two, three years of of his public work increasing that, >> right? >> Then you see the explosion of Bible sales. You see, especially young Gen Z males flocking back to churches, reading their Bibles. That's also coinciding with Gen Z females being the most liberal and least family focused that any group of people that's ever been surveyed in America has ever been. And there's all these things that are kind of converging at once. So, it makes sense >> that y'all's content is taking off in this space. And so if God is ordaining it and putting his hands on it, you know, I I think that that's a very special thing. So with all that in mind, >> I want to get from you, what are some of the trends that you've seen? And I want to get back to the Charlie Kirk stuff and doing stuff on campus obviously. Yeah. >> But 2022, 23, 24, 25 going into 26, even a short period of time, cuz that's an entire life cycle of a college student, an undergraduate, right? That's how long you've been doing this. >> What are the trends that you're seeing with some of your interactions? Because most of these interactions have some very like, you know, cornerstone things in common. >> Same things you said, but yeah, they're >> right. It's just coming out of a different face hole with a little bit more or less makeup. And so, but what are what are the trends in the interactions like? And it's not just that you've gotten better at it over time because obviously you've gotten more exposure to it. Your arguments are going to get sharper and all that, but let's talk trends. So, one thing, it's a simplified version of what you said, but it relates. I think the left got so insane with all >> super high on their own part. >> Super super clown world stuff. Just just dumb dumb stuff that just is so far away. >> They pulled the rubber band so far. Yeah. They weren't worried about the snapback. >> And I think even people who are left are looking at them going like, "What is this lunacy? You have Bill Maher looking at people while he's smoking a joint and going, "What is wrong with the Democrats?" Like, you know, we've gotten into the bizarro world. >> And so you so so you know, I would look at so the Trump the Trump the first Trump thing, right? The whole the Trump Hillary that whole election and just sort of exacerbating the culture war and you know, he was so like he he was so straightforward. So even if you didn't like him on a lot of things, >> you liked that. >> You liked that. didn't have to guess where he was landing on an issue. >> Yeah. It's like I I it's like it's like like I didn't like Trump on abortion obviously, but I I liked him on his just sort of >> Yeah. I'm going to stand on this stage and I'm just going to like >> tell the truth about you, right? So this kind of telling the truth even though it's not PC thing got a big boost. Like that works. Like when he won, oh my gosh, that works. Like you're allowed to do that. Um, and so, uh, you know, I've heard it before. Like I don't think I'm very Trump-like at all, but like I've heard people say, "Well, you know what I like about your content? You just kind of say it doesn't seem to matter that it's not PC." >> Yeah. >> Like it doesn't seem to matter if it's not PC with your own people. >> You're not trying to be incendiary. >> Yeah. You're not like you're like I think that the regular person can tell when something's um sculpted to to meet some kind of expectation. like whenever they whenever a um whenever a person says um like when some of these prolifers go on campus is they put up their signs and they do their things and they do their own lectures and stuff >> um and the the leftist person comes out there to fight them >> and says, "Well, you're really just a Christian. This is all really just Christianity for you." And then and the prolifer goes, >> you know, no, we register as faith-based to protect us from Camala Harris if she were to become president, you know, blah blah blah, you know, >> or they'll take the intellectual side, which is like, hey, I don't need to defend this using the Bible. >> Yeah, I can put that to the side. I can do this. And they do all that. And I think the students just like, what kind of disingenuous slop is this? Like >> they might disagree with it, but they'd rather you just be serious and upfront. >> They do. And I find that that's like a trend. >> Well, that's the thing with Gen Z. Sorry to cut you off, Ross, but like that's the thing with Gen Z is like they can smell inauthenticity. So, as a small example, there have been a handful of times every year I will have someone that's about to come on the show and their assistant will reach out to me and say, "Hey, can you send me the questions so we can give them to, you know, John Doe to prepare for the interview?" And I say "No." >> Yeah. >> And but because you want authentic, >> right? And I'm like, >> if I give them the questions beforehand, their answers are going to just smack of inauthenticity. And an astute podcast listener is going to smell that immediately. >> Yeah. He's crafting it, >> right? And so it's like, that's not what I want. And I'm like, look at my track record. I have a full track record of non- gotchas, right? I got a full track record of curiosity and I'm trying to tee you up because I've actually read your book. I've actually engaged with your material and I want to tee you up to where you can give the information to my audience that I now have in my brain because I read the book beforehand. And it should work out well for everybody. I get good content. you get to sell books, everyone's happy, >> even if it's not a 100% agreement. >> Exactly. And and I'm okay with missing each other a little bit. And sometimes I'll go back and listen to my interviews and I'm like, "Man, I really should have pushed more there." Or, "Man, I really kind of let that point go because I was thinking about how much time we had left." And you know that. But but ultimately, I think these kids, they're like, "Man, I don't care what you say. Can you just say something you mean? Can you just say it with your chest?" >> And they don't want you They definitely don't want you to be lying and hiding anything. And I I feel like I get tons of respect from like homosexuals, right? And they'll ask me about homosexuality and I'll tell them. >> Yeah. >> And then I'll but I'll show them love. Like I'll treat them like a human and talk to them. >> Yeah. And sometimes love means you say things I don't say. >> I do think that this is sin and that you're in rebellion against God's design and that if you walk in this way, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. It says that. But I can tell you good news. Like your sin is like my sin. I'm separated from God and same savior, same, you know, like. And I just and they're just kind of like, "Huh?" Most Christians like on college campuses that I know because they always bring up, "Well, I've got a Christian friend. He doesn't do that." And I'm like, "Well, your Christian friend, he's >> it's a derivative of if you hear someone playing Sweet Child of Mine in Guitar Center and he's terrible at it, you don't blame Slash for that. That's not his fault. It's the person playing the guitar." >> Yeah. Yeah. And so like that. So that is a trend in in that uh the students come up and talk and if you are giving like you're telling them that this is what I truly believe and I'm going to be consistent cuz they'll try to gotcha you all the time. >> Sure. >> They'll they'll uh you know you'll say life begins at conception and they'll be like oh okay well okay so say you have a petri dish and it's got you know embryos and then you have a baby and I'm going to drop which drop both of them. Uh which one do you catch? Um, you know, I always say, "Oh, the embryos, why?" You know, just to kind of, you know, I don't know if that's what I would do or not, you know, because you you I it's a false >> It's just an insane scenario. >> It's a stupid, you know, like you you probably catch the baby if they're your brother, >> you know, and you don't catch you probably catch the embryos if they're your your embryos, you know, like. So, um, you run into the burning building to to care for the people, you know. It doesn't mean you don't value the other people. So they put these stupid scenarios and I'll answer them and they'll be like whoa what the heck. I'm like well yeah because they're image bearsers of God you know and and like wait you're being all religious and stuff. I was like yeah well I think >> I think that if I'm not religious on this you know I don't think I'd have >> no reason to argue. >> I don't think I'd have motivation or really >> I want to actually park here for a little bit. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Because even recently um because I I I want to know what the culture is saying. I want to know how their arguments are shifting so that I can be ready. so that I can equip men to push back darkness because that's why I was put on this planet to equip men to push back darkness. >> And I remember someone saying, >> you know, burning burning lab, you've got a four-year-old girl in one room and you've got a thousand embryos in the other. Who do you save? So, it's a false equivalency. But I asked around uh to some people privately and I did a little bit of research and I kind of, you know, amalgamated an answer to where it's like that's not enough information. And you kind of alluded to it, but I I I just wanted to kind of double click it just a little bit. And so if someone were to say that to me, I'd say, "What is my relationship to the four-year-old girl in this scenario?" >> What do you mean? Well, is she my daughter? Like, is she my niece? Is she a stranger? What is she? Oh, because if it's my daughter and none of the embryos are mine, and I do want to ask you about IVF as well. None of the embryos are mine. >> I am primarily on this planet. I'm to love God as with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. And to love my neighbor as myself. My primary neighbor is my spouse. My secondary neighbor is my children. my tertiary neighbors, everybody else. And so to the detriment of those souls, I'm going to take care of the soul that was entrusted to me. >> Yeah. >> And then and so you you ask the questions both ways. But it's a disingenuous thing because it's being asked by someone that's proabortion. Proabortionists are not asking who they're allowed to save. They're actually asking who am I allowed to kill without consequence. >> And they're wanting you to just somehow give them that. >> And so it's a false equivalency. And so you have to get them to answer a bunch of questions before you give your question. And so if you say, so this is what I would say. It always gets down to, okay, I'm not related to the 4-year-old girl. I'm not related to these embryos that are in the womb. And what I will say is that these embryos in the womb are it the my choice does not affect who's valuable in this scenario. >> But in this scenario, embryos that cannot feel pain, image bearer of God outside the womb that can feel pain. I'm going to prevent the pain. And also, let's bring up Piper again. I asked Joby Martin about this. He led me to what John Piper thinks about Romans 1 and his read of Romans 1 is that kids that are before the age of accountability, which would include embryos, that they're just going to be taken up to the father, there's no election happening between this or that cuz God knew before time, they would never live outside the womb anyway. And so I'm like, and so in that scenario, that's my decision. But also, all of them are made in the image of God and deserve to to live. you choosing this one over them doesn't mean anything. >> So that's how I would answer it and that's how I'm helping people. But >> here's here's a good one. I I did this one. I don't I don't know if we've got it or we're going to put it out or something. So So you say, "All right, if I answer this, can I can I give you one in exchange?" >> Okay. Yeah. >> And and they're like, "Okay, sure. Whatever." And you say like, "Okay, so there's a burning building." Okay. In that burning building, do you have do you have a husband or a wife or a boyfriend or girlfriend or mom or dad? It's like, "Yeah." Okay. You there's a stairs up and then your your your mom or your your daughter or whatever your son is in this room and then there's three black people in this room [laughter] and you run in or there's this this and a black person or whatever and who who do you save? >> Oh man, they get stuck >> and and then they're like, "Well, I'd save the most of them are just like they'll be like, well my my mom or my daughter or whatever like oh so you think black people aren't alive and aren't human >> and don't deserve to be protected >> and don't deserve to be protected. that's how their analog is working, >> right? >> And then you get them to see that and then then usually they they'll they'll run off, you know, they'll they'll end they they'll end that thing, but I'll also do the thing where I just will like I'll be like, "Well, >> I'll save the embryos and just let the ba the baby will heal or something like that and they'll be like [sighs] and I just like I'm just messing with you. Your thing is dumb." And I'll try to explain it. >> Well, since we're talking about embryos, I do want to get back to the trends that you've seen. I don't want to fall too far off of No, this is perfect consistency thing because they will bring up IVF. >> And so, um, I've I've had some takes, like all kidding aside, no tongue and cheek, I've had some takes on the show where even my biggest supporters are like, "Oh, Kyle, that one's a little rough." >> Um, one of the biggest ones is I think pit bulls are wild animals and shouldn't be able to be owned by individual people because if you delete pit bulls, Doberman's, and Rottweilers, no one in America dies from a dog death pretty much. they basically just is statistically non-existent. Yeah. >> And so, yeah, I've argued that, but then everyone thinks about their pitbull or the nicest pit bull they knew when they were a kid, and they don't think about the fact that it's mauling, you know, infants and elderly people at an astonishing rate uh in this country. So, people didn't like that very much. And I' I've said >> they lost a subscriber. >> Yeah. And I've said some other things that people are just like, well, and right now I'm like, Candace Owen seems like she's losing her grip on reality. She doesn't provide an evidentiary basis. That's a high evidentiary standard for her truth claims. >> I've seen that. And yeah, and I've been told that, you know, I'm I'm completely missing the mark and I'm absolutely full of crap on that and all. So, I've said things that are incendiary, but the thing that I think has ruffled the most Christian feathers has been my position on IVF because this was my position on IVF as of a couple of years ago. I have a niece and nephew because of IVF. IVF is a net net positive because I love them and I can see them and I can touch them. >> Okay. And then I remember reading a book by the 40 Days for Life guys and there's a chapter where they talk about the moral um ramifications of IVF and I remember being like why is this a chapter? This is a morally neutral thing. That's how ignorant I was of the process. And then I read through it and I was like, "Well, sheesh." Like, I didn't realize that that like 95% of people made via that process are are never going to live outside the womb. And you're creating >> a dozen human beings at the hope that one will take whatever that means. And then you get into the issues with, okay, now designer babies, okay, now homosexuals are coming together and having uh designer babies made. Harvard and they collegiate athlete and they have blue eyes and so we're going to make this baby and shove it in the rented wal at the end of the process but give her a you know convenience fee >> and then then I then I heard Al Mohler talk about it and I was like oh my gosh he's talking about the moral ramifications of this then I heard Llaya Rose talk about it I was like holy sheesh what is going on right now >> so I did a big wide net study about IVF and then I did an episode that was called Christians should not use IVF. Now >> you got you got a bunch of push back. >> Well, now a bunch of people that are intellectual cowards saw the artwork which was just a petri dish >> and they saw the title and they of course they didn't, right? >> And they immediately castigated me and the f you mother effers and I can't believe you from Christians by the way. >> And that I I can't believe you would say something like this. Uh there were people that were talking to partners of mine, like partners in business and partners in ministry. >> You need to drop him. >> Yeah. You need to He's marking a void now. How dare you uh continue supporting this. Did you hear what he said? Even though they didn't hear what I said either. >> It's a great golden calf. >> And you know, Katie F has come on the show before and she's talked about it and she just basically looks at her audience. She basically was like, I don't care if this hurts your tummy. Kyle's right. So find a way to to deal with it kind of a thing. >> But that is one thing in in your content. And I haven't even heard you talk about this. I'm sure you have. Is that's so far beyond the core arguments and you're trying to argue some seemingly niche thing. When somebody doesn't even believe life begins at conception, >> going to IVF, there is a connection, but for them it's it's almost too >> too philosophical. It's too much in the world of science and you know uh technology and all that. And so I haven't heard you really engage on it. But that's one thing that I feel like >> prolifers and Christians are really really bad on. And here's the last thing and then I'll give it over to you. >> I've been asked by people, well, what if technologically speaking, >> they can get it to where it's a onetoone. You have a woman and a man, they're Christians and for whatever reason, biologically, idea, right? So, you know, they they've been trying for eight years, they can't do it. >> And so, we can do a onetoone transfer into the womb. And my answer was is morally speaking, you are removing the conjugal union from the creation of image bearsers of God, >> which is anti-God's [clears throat] design and we should not be playing with that. Yeah. >> And so, uh, that that's kind of where I've landed on the issue. And so, I'm just curious for you how you've dealt with it or even if you've had to deal with it very much. >> So, so, so you make me feel bad. >> Good. Good. Yeah. [laughter] I have that effect on people. >> No, you make me feel bad because it's like, oh man, we talk about this all the time. I guess it's not good. >> Hey, John hasn't hit my algorithm. it hasn't hit your algorithm. So, um, so what we have, Hold on a second, let me stay my browser here. So, um, so I've done what, uh, people do outside of abortion mills, outside of IVF labs. Like, I >> definitely haven't seen that. I'm a bad fan. >> Well, no, that's I haven't done it enough. You're actually good. You're letting me know that I haven't done it enough. So, we did um back in 2024, we did launch a thing. Um so, we have like a biblical view of invitro fertilization on the abolitionist rising site. >> Um >> so, guys, just uh Google a biblical >> view of IVF and abolitionist, but also like this untold millions here on um the abolish human abortion website. It's in our fact and in our in our stuff like that. But what we did is um and this whole concept of untold millions, it's a it's 100% right. Okay. The and I and I'll uh I'll send this all to you cuz cuz we've we've put it together. >> We're going to link to Abolitionist Rising in the show notes and everything. >> I've got So I' I've got good friends who've, you know, adopted embryos multiple times. I've got tons of there's there are a lot of abolitionists who have taken the call to rescue those being taken away to death to the point of saying, "Oh, we're going to open our wombs to rescue these children in these cryogenic chambers. They're basically cryogenically incarcerated >> where they're going to either stay until they they perish or they're going >> freezer gives out donated and they're going to be vivisected. You know, they're going to be experimented on or used for all sorts of other nefarious things or just Yeah. Um, you know, and so this is a massively wicked I think just like equal to greater than in to abortion in the number of human lives destroyed by it. >> The numbers are shocking and people just don't know. >> Yeah. Yeah. There there will be more possibly like if you look at the numbers there will be more human beings murdered via the IVF industry than the abortion industry this year in the United States of America. Y >> and it's the way that prolifers kill their kids. So the IVF thing >> and they call it selective reduction whenever multiple embryos take >> Yeah. you put them in there and you selectively reduce them. The the whole the whole idea that you can do it ethically um that you can kind of like yeah one man one woman will will produce one like one. They're not going to do that. >> Yeah. And we're make it financially viable but that's just not even if the technology gets better that's just >> it. Yeah. It's not you're not it's not going to do that. It's never going to happen. And people will say that that's what they're doing and they'll lie. Ultimately, I think this is why we ended up the church that I was in had to leave because here I am not aware that the pastor's daughter of Trinity Baptist Church is like engaging in multiple rounds of IVF and I'm like the anti-abortion guy asked to come, you know, say 5 minutes on a sanctity of life Sunday and I'm up there talking about the implications of the incarnation for in vitro fertilization and that like, hey, you know, this is great. I'm not saying that that human being, your kids or your niece or whatever, like I'm not saying they're not valuable, they're bad or they're >> saying they're brothers and sisters are also valuable. >> Yeah. I'm saying yeah, exactly. And so it's kind of like but this this is so it's so wicked and we knew from the very beginning just philosophically like intellectually we you can study it from what's being done with the selective reduction to what's being done um you know with the leftover embryos and the experimenting on them and all that kind of stuff. You can look at it and see that it's evil and be like that's bad. But in 2016 when when Joseph Silk got that bill of abolition, he took his heartbeat bill. I never finished the story, but he took his heartbeat bill, he became an abolitionist, he gutted it, and he replaced it with life at conception. Abortion is murder, should be treated as murder, Senate Bill um 1119 here in Oklahoma. And he put that forward. Who were the first people who came to the capital to say this is a bad bill. You cannot pass this bill. It was the IV. It was Eli Rashef from the IVF um there at the the big the big hospital. I can't remember the name of the hospital. And we're like, whoa, wait. This bill is saying abortion is murder and it should be abolished and we're defining the intentional destruction of a human being from the moment of conception, which follows from fertilization. Right? This is going to be abolished. Well, the IVF people were like, "Well, that'll shut us down. You can't you can't abolish if you abolish abortion. Even if your bill says nothing about IVF, if your bill says life begins at conception and you're not allowed to terminate in any human embryo, IVF's toast, >> right? >> And so that alone should all these like sort of apologists for IVF should know. It's like who's going to be linking arms with Planned Parenthood and going to the capital to kill your bill? It's the IVF doctor who sat there when you were having the meeting with them and told you all about how God's going to bless you and like did all the stuff and it looked all really pretty. He's he's he's an abortionist. There are no IVF doctors that are not abortionists. >> And and to to elucidate your point further because again some people don't understand this process, but they will implant let's say four embryos at a time >> and every now and then >> all four of them will take. >> All four of them will take. >> So they'll go in and abort. >> Yeah. It's called se they call it selective reduction. That's a euphemism. >> But you know mom and dad are like oh my gosh we can't do four babies and maybe the woman weighs 110 lbs and like physically being able to carry those four it could it could end her life. And you know they have all these considerations and because of >> worshiping at the altar of pragmatism they're like how about just twins? >> Yep. >> And then they come up with some sort of a rhetoric as to okay well looking at the four here are the ones that have the best chance and da da da. And they'll do that before they're even implanted, too, >> right? So they they're basically scoring. Yeah. Grading them and saying, "All right, here are A+, you know, people like, okay, here are the ones where the DNA is a little funky. They may not be so tall. They may not be so jacked. They may not be so tan." And you know, >> and again, it feels better because you're in an air conditioned sanitized facility. It doesn't say Planned Parenthood on the sign. And again, I want to be clear about something because I know you'll echo this. If you have a child in your household right now that was created via the IVF process, praise the Lord that they are here and you are to raise up that child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and put as much gospel kindling around that baby as possible. So when the spirit sparks it, we got the we got the bonfire. >> Y >> but also that was not a onetoone transfer. That's on that's pretty much not a thing. And again, even still you removed it from the conjugal union. You know it's problematic. Yeah, >> it's something to be repented of, not something to like chastise yourself because of. But then there's the practicality if you have people that are still in frozen arrested development. >> No, I mean, think about it, okay? We we don't think that sex outside of marriage is good, right? There's a lot of people with a lot of babies, sex outside of marriage, and then they become more serious followers of Christ. And there you don't you don't have to you don't have to run around saying sex outside of marriage is the is the way to go. Having babies before you're married is the way to go. You do not have to do that, right? So, you can say you can look at the child that's from sex outside of marriage and they're valuable. They're your child. You love them. You can look at the child conceived in vitro. They're valuable, but you can condemn the >> the process, >> right? The same thing with a child conceived via rape. And you know what I've done when I've spoken live is I have an actual sonogram of my second our second child, Elisha, and I've got an actual sonogram from a baby conceived and raped. >> Yeah. Which one of these? >> Yeah. And I, you know, obviously I didn't come up with that. That's a rhetorical uh thing. And I just say, anybody in the audience, just raise your hand. You know, 100 bucks to the person that can get it right. First one bold enough to make a call. Which one's which? And you can only, you know, do it based off of this. No guessing. You have to tell me because you know, >> right? It's an impossible thing to answer, but it it proves the point. And so I think but we don't have that onetoone thing for IVF because it's basically this thing where again I'm in this I do this for a living. like I'm in these different spaces. I'm consuming so much content and I had no clue of the moral ramifications of this process. And then even recently, Albert Mohler, he was asked during a live Q&A about, you know, he was like, they were like, well, you said IVF is a sin, and he kind of bought it back a little bit. >> He said it's it's actually I never said it was a sin, but he didn't say it wasn't a sin. And I was like, whoa. >> This is the same this is the same problem, man. It is it is uh the reason people aren't speaking clearly on this is because if it if you're a pastor and you're relying on the the offering plate, you're losing some offering plate donors when you speak on this. If you're um an Al Mhler, you're losing some connections to some organizations and some platforms if you speak clearly on this. >> Um you know, you have you have got to be able like anything. I mean, like sometimes, you know, like I I'll look, you know, like I'm like I'm not like a big buff dude. I got the cool tattoo, you know, like >> you can though to I can send you to my guy. He's not he's not a far drive away from you, [laughter] man. We can work on it. >> Okay. But, you know, I'm like I just I just feel like I don't have the um >> the manly man sort of thing, but I like see like I think that we have a serious lack of manhood when it comes to being able to say what you believe. And it and it's it's running rampant. >> Let's go back to CS Lewis. How many men are without chess? There are men with big pecs that have no chest. And in the context of CS Lewis, he's talking about conviction to where you can stand upon. I literally shared a meme today. It's that meme of >> it's a little cartoon where there's one guy in the bottom and there's like a thousand people looking at him and the one guy in the bottom has a little speech bubble that says you're all wrong. Y >> and we don't have enough men that are willing to say I understand you feel that way. You're wrong though. This is not a matter of agree to disagree because this is a statement of fact. And so, no, there is no agree to disagree on that because I've gotten to that with people where I've had very very cordial debates on IVF. They're like, "Oh, well, I guess we can agree to disagree." And I'm like, "Unfortunately, we can't." >> Yeah. Yeah. It's agreeing to disagree on something like you literally I am trying to show you that what you're doing is rooted in Hitler's ideology. >> It is eugenics. And what you're doing is akin and constantly connected to abortion pornography like it's going to be connected like I mean when you bring up like how how are two gay dudes having their babies, you know, like what what is like these these evils are attendant to their their connected evils? >> Well, I think there's an inconsistency that I see as well because I will hear the same exact parents that will rail on something like Disney. I can't believe they're injecting LGBTQ stuff into the into the stuff and I can't believe there's a bearded lady at Disneyland and I can't believe all the different things >> while they're paying their Disney Plus monthly subscription and planning their next Disney cruise. >> I'm like, I'm sorry, Mom. Right. >> You're the amount of sourdough you're baking is not, you know, going to make me ignore what we're doing here. And we're all inconsistent to be clear. Yes. Because but there's the evil we know and the evil that we don't because people are like, "Well, if we just take if we only shop at the places that don't give money corporately to Planned Parenthood, there's going to be nowhere to go." And I'm like, "Okay, I can understand that argument. I have clothes from from people where, man, I don't agree with any of the the corporate structure, the things that they do and the things that they stand for and give money to and all that, but I don't know about that." Disney's right in front of your face. This is the easiest one to be like, "Okay, you're telling me you can't replace your kids cartoon time with anything else other than what's on Disney." >> Yeah. The only reason to get like a uh I know I'm losing people here. Don't Sometimes the only reason to get like a Disney Plus thing or is to cancel it >> just say I send it like you you put this show forward cancel which I did do once I I like I can't remember what it was. Something happened. Uh it was actually Netflix. It was like that that kind of child porn thing that they put up dancing kids thing like like >> that's what I told people you can't have a Netflix subscription while that is still on the platform. I put I put Netflix on and that happened like two weeks later and I was like cancelled, you know, like but it was fun cuz I got to fill out the reason and so I'm like yeah, you know, there is a there is a place for like boycots and stuff like that that can be really effective but they're not going to be effective like like Disney couldn't survive if all if everyone who truly believed that homosexuality and the LGBTQ and transgender stuff was like a um satanic plot or something. everyone who believed that if you believed that you couldn't have a Disney Plus subscription, they would. >> So that's where what I'm saying there's there's a >> inconsistency >> kind of a generic base level inconsistency of people and what they're saying and then what they are doing. And so the same thing that I had to do with IVF is once I was >> once you knew >> once I was faced with it, it's like I can't just leave this alone, right? And now I made the decision, right? because I've lost money because of certain episodes that I've done because I got booked to to be booked I booked to do a speaking engagement. Then someone goes and looks at my show and episode four of this podcast is called [ __ ] in the Pews. I got to burn the ships real early and I'm like this is part of our problem. The people that are going to be offended by this title are the exact guys that I'm talking about. And I had a very masculine audience. I didn't want guys with cauliflower and you know busted noses to miss out on Jesus because they see his followers as doughy frumpy dudes that they don't want to be like. But on the other side, it's like there has to be some consistency in the messaging and I just have to bring you what I've learned because this is not, you know, just some, hey, I learned about tax policy and here's this thing I would like to share with you. Although valuable, >> we're talking about literal human life here, but there's just a relative inconsistency with even following the thread. And I think people are everyone's afraid to be disabused of their sincerely held beliefs. But I don't think very many people have a foundation for their sincerely held belief on IVF because they've never had to reckon with the moral issues of the procedure overall. And that's just what I wanted to be is I like I wanted to just present it. Here's what some people have said. Here's where I land. And then gosh, you just, you know, you get crushed for it, but it's like okay, but I wouldn't change it, you know, looking back either. >> Yeah. No. And and it's and it's awesome. I commend you for being willing to like you know it, you see it, you know it's going to have a cost. you do it anyway. That's like that's what I think is a man with a chest. And so, you know, and and I know we kind of we were talking about it earlier. I don't want to jump back to it, but that's where I'm at with the whole pro-life incrementalism stuff as well. >> Like, I I'm building, you know, I you know, I got all these views and I, you know, I could I could be a very successful anti-abortion guy and I could uh open up my um opportunities. I could quadruple them if I would not hold this kind of we have to put an end to the pro-life movement if we ever want to abolish abortion. Yeah. >> You know, so it does limit me, >> but like I actually happen to believe it's true. And so I have to say it. >> And so you're either going to be sacrificing yourself in the process to make more coin or to have a larger profile. And I I told people before like the the doofy kind of leadership business space. >> Mh. Like if I wanted to make generic rah rah business leadership stuff, >> you could be that guy. Go do the stage thing. >> Yeah. Let me put the microphone on and you can do it and here's what you just say in the mirror every morning and here's your affirmation for Wednesday. >> You could do you could do this where there's like um these are all the issues and all Christians that are biblical and serious, they all agree on all these. There's no controversy here and they're different from the world and like you can these are radical things. But then there's like a few over here like IVF's over here, right? >> And so like >> there's the burn the ships category where it's like we're either going to be about it or we're not going to be about it. And so >> but if you don't get the IVF thing right, I don't think you can get the abortion thing right. That's why on the streets and they they've stopped doing it. It's like how do you know? But that IVF question will come up because they've talked to other prolifers that have come to campus and those pro prolifers have said life begins at conception and they say well what do you think about IVF? And the prolifer will say, "Well, you know, it can be done ethically and then the person will know how it's done because they're in a bioengineering or something and they'll know and they'll be like, "No, you're inconsistent." Yeah. >> And now all of a sudden that prolifer who can't be radically anti IVF because they're connected to all these right-wing organizations that are IVF friendly and they don't want to lose and they look consistent and the student smells that inauthenticity, that inconsistency. >> They mark and avoid the person >> and it's just like, yeah, I'm not really learning anything from this this person. Whenever I've done that and gone like and and maybe it's just on our editors, it's not just on our editor. Uh >> yeah, algorithm people, come on. Yeah. Like why haven't I seen it? >> When we've gone to IVF, which we'll we'll have some good stuff cuz it's happened like a couple weeks ago. I had a kid come up to me in the Plaza district um here in Oklahoma City comes up to me. um I'm out there with the anti-abortion sign and he comes he's first first thing out of his mouth he's like he's he's seen me or something online before and he's says something thanks you know I agree with what you're doing and all this kind of stuff and he goes hey but >> what do you think about IVF >> like he said he's like what do you think about in vitro fertilization I think it's kind of controversial he's kind of saying something well well he said it and I go well I'm just going to shoot straight with you man like I think IVF as an industry is demonic [laughter] I just went to the demonic thing >> and then it's like let me I was like let me explain it like it's demonic this guy and we'll put up his stuff and I got his contact. He goes I'm so glad you said that I and my sister twin or conceived IVF and I found out about it recently. I am opposed to IVF even though that's how I got here and I don't like it when people are inconsistent on this. And I was like, "What? >> That's heavy." >> And he lives in uh like um Noble or something. I Well, I don't know where he lives pretty close to me. I'm going to hook up with him and talk to him. But he was he was doing a consistency check on me as someone who was conce you and you're opposed to this cuz he knows how much death is involved in it. >> Well, and also so I've heard other things. There was a a story from a Lee Strobble the introduction of Lee Strobel's like latest book and I just like panic cried whenever he got there because he was describing this uh this little girl who uh mom got pregnant with twins >> and in utero one of the twins passed away, right? And so they give birth to this beautiful baby girl. I think she's three or four years old and they hadn't told her. What do you tell a three or four year old? Like hey, you had a sister but they died late. Like that kind of thing. And then little girl walks up to mom and says, "Mommy, do I have a sister?" >> And the mom is like some kind of memory or something. >> Yeah. The mom is just like absolutely like gobsmacked by this. And she's just like, "Well, why'd you say that, sweetie?" Well, I keep having this dream where this girl who looks just like me tells me that she's my sister. And I'm just like, >> "Yeah, >> oh my gosh." And I'm like reading this book about miracles and near-death experiences and all this kind of thing. And I'm just like, "Oh my gosh." So you have kids or people that are alive today >> that somehow and I don't guys I'm not getting super Pentecostal. I'm not going to start like waving a ribbon and I don't have a tambourine under this table. >> No, this is just brave new world stuff. This is science >> that I don't understand. They feel an odd connection to a multitude of their brothers and sisters that are not alive and they feel this kinship that they can't explain. It's same reason when you talk to twins and they can't tell you why they finish finish each other's sentences and why they can oddly feel each other's pain even though they're a state away like it's just this weird connection that we don't understand the side of glory and they feel a connection to their brothers and sisters. Yeah. >> If this is all just neutral what is that? I don't know. I can't explain that. I don't have a like a you know plausibility structure for that. >> Well, we live in such a jacked up world. This is a little different. But like there are people who are adopting embryos that have been cryogenically stored for 12 years and those embryos are being born and they've got, you know, the embryo that was like some couple, you know, harvested 20 eggs, fertilized them, and then got pregnant on the first one and then put the rest of them in a chamber and then, you know, adopted them out. And they've got like a 13-year-old, right? And that 13-year-old has a uh conceived on the same day >> y >> uh newborn and they can like run into each other and know each other or like look identical to each like I mean it's just like >> it's it's what you said it's brave new world stuff. We're getting in just kind of some crazy crazy and and some friends of mine, a local pastor in Norman, you know, they they tried to adopt a whole family and and they've they've been implanting them and just trying and a lot of them don't work. You know, a lot of implantations fail, but they've got two they're they're a white couple and they've got two they got twins. They're black cuz the they were adopted embryos, you know, didn't care what color they are. and they got tons of flack for white people adopting black like better to leave them in the storage, you know, like and uh and then they've they've adopted and they've implanted all these other siblings. And it's like this weird spiritual reality of those kids, even the kids that didn't implant got to have parent, you know, like got to be adopted into the womb. got to like you know had you know perished from a failure to implant because of the fall of man. Even normal human beings not conceived in vitro failed to implant. It's very common. Sin has racked the womb you know and so it's just like this sort of reality that's like man um these two little girls have you know these siblings. I don't know it's above my pay grade. We don't know how it works, but you know, I believe, you know, they're growing up in a different world. They're growing up in the lap of Christ, and we're going to die. We're going to meet them, and you're going to like, you're going to meet your miscarried children. You know, there's going to be all these children that were aborted. And these are just spiritual realities. And yes, we don't understand scientifically how it's all working. But it we know like >> because there's a theological answer, not a scientific one. >> Yeah. It's it's a theological thing. That's a but it's a reality. But the things that are true theologically are true in the world. And so that's why this little girl in Strobble's book, there's something going on there. I think that women who have had abortions um you know of their own c that's spiritually racked them in just insane ways because they have engaged in the malice of forethought termination of a image bearer inside of their wombs that like Jesus was knitting them together in the womb and they murdered them. So it's like the place of the incarnation like Christ entered the womb. It's an image bearer of God. It's the handiwork of God. It's a blessing of God. And they murdered them. And I think it just is spiritually d just destroys them. And so we live in a world where like a fourth of the women are spiritually destroyed, which is we're seeing it play out politically. We're seeing it play out culturally, right? And so a lot of these people are like repeal the 19th amendment, you know, like well the [laughter] okay, but I I'm hearing your arguments, but you know, it's downwind from this reality and this practice that like we are allowing our women to just be like murderous >> and it's just it's just >> without consequence without spiritually just racking them to death. >> New York City mayoral election, 81% of unmarried women 18 to 29 voted for mom Donnie. Yeah. >> And people are trying to like they're writing all these think pieces about why this is happening. And it's like okay certainly feminism is to blame. But it's like there's this innate godplaced desire by a woman to be cared for by a man. Okay. >> But the feminist poison pill of I don't need no man has been taken by so many women >> and they can just be manipulated. >> But they still have the innate desire to be cared for. So government becomes husband, right? And so they can marry the government. They want to be cared for. And so any policy that takes care of whoever the new least of these category is, that's where they run to because I don't need no man means that I still need to be cared for though because that boss babe corner office extra handbag thing only goes so far. >> Yeah. They don't even want that, >> right? And then whenever they become 40 years old and now they're looking around at the other single cat ladies in their life and they're just like, man, I don't want to go out drinking wine every 3 or 4 days and like I don't need another vacation. Like I want to grow old with somebody. And then you run to the issues of 40 years old, right? Maybe a couple of abortions by that point because they were sexually promiscuous the entire time because they they have the right to be as equally unpreg also to be as sexually promiscuous as one. So when you buy the lie, sometimes there are consequences and you know you you become downstream of that. But I do want to take the incredibly ciruous route back to what I was talking about. Yeah. So trends and we're work we're we're probably up to the three-hour mark at this point on the conversation, but I want to kind of know like all right, so trends I actually want to ditch that question because trends are boring. I want to talk about this stuff where things get hairy, right? Because there are people that are wrong and you know they're wrong, but you're talking to them. At some point they just get mad. A lot of times they just scurry off, >> right? They'll say something, they'll flip you off on the way out and they're just like as they trail off of the microphone and you can't hear them and you can't see them. And so that's just kind of their thing. >> They say their big bad scary thing. >> They say their big scary thing and they run to their dorm room and play video games and like whatever the thing is, right? >> Yep. But there have been there's got to be some times where these things have gotten so hairy and we live in the post Charlie Kirk era where regardless of who you think did it, whether it was a evil cabal of TPUSA and Erica Kirk and Donald Trump and Netanyahu and the rest of the Jews that they killed Charlie Kirk or if it was just some crazy homosexual guy that had a furry boyfriend that just wanted to take a shot and it was an easy one. >> Whatever you believe those extremes are more likely. He was killed on a college campus while expressing his first amendment, you know, beliefs on very important topics. >> This is what you do day in and day out. And just because you're on the University of Central Oklahoma campus, which is in Edund, Oklahoma, which is like Camelot, or if you're in Norman, or if you're in Still Water, or if you're some boardwalk somewhere doing these things, >> Yeah. he was shot in Utah, >> right? the level of people that whether it's clout, whether it's de demonic possession or oppression that's leading them to, you know, take a firearm and end of life, all that stuff's in there. And so when you're having you you're not really ever having knock down dragouts cuz people typically disengage before that, at least from what I've seen, and we've already proven your algorithm people suck at this. But like at what point like are you like, "No, he's not sorry. It's real life." But like at what point are you are you thinking like, man, while I'm engaging right here, someone could just come up right here and it's all over. Is there do y'all have a security protocol? Is it just, hey, we're going to put it in God's hands and let him protect us? What What's going on? >> So, all right, one thing to say in preface of it. Um, before the Charlie Kirk thing, I didn't really think about it at all. >> Really? >> Not really. >> Not Well, you know what's what's funny about that? My wife and I previous to Charlie Kirk, we we had had the discussion about me potentially going to jail for the things that I've said, but we really had never had to reckon with her being a widow. Uh, you know, a wid, you know, widow with >> think about that until something like that. >> Um, I think in particular I have a bit of a I don't know, personality characteristic where I've actually maybe been wrong on this kind of a blind spot. And so I've gone out and I've done this not just in Oklahoma. I I mean I've done it in Seattle and you know all I've done it pretty much everywhere. The super super liberal places, super super conservative places. I basically run into the same things all the time. But um my my fear the only kind of thing that's entered in my mind prior to Charlie Kirk is I've been surrounded by a lot of people and they kind of get up in my face and uh you know get there like there's a couple of videos where you see like big guys get up in my face and you know you know breathe their stenchy breath on me and stuff and or you know kind of front like hey say one more word and I'm going to you know get you or whatever. I've h I've experienced that and I've always found even though I'm not like a physically like I'm usually I'm taller than a lot of people but I'm not like physically >> imposing >> imposing. Um I found that the fact that I don't look like I want to fight and I and I that's not my sort of demeanor. You know I'll do things like if I think someone's going to swing, you know, I'll show the palms of my hands and also protect myself, >> right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, create some distance. >> Yeah. Sort of thing. But I found that mine just not wanting to engage physically like that has pretty much deescalated every situation I've ever been in. But the one that I think of is in big kind of hairy situation just someone kind of like walking by and shanking you type thing. I have thought of that before. The gun thing I never really thought about because um and and even the Charlie Kirk thing I don't think much about it because what Charlie Kirk did is he would set up he would advertise these things. He'd set up under this big tent. He'd have all these people there. He'd be there from this time to this time and it's just like shooting a duck in a barrel, right? It's just like right there. And um you know, there's almost nothing you can do. I just go places. We don't like really announce it. I just show up, you know, but there could be like a a crime of passion like someone's like, "Oh, this guy made fun of me." Or, "I've seen this person on YouTube and like, you know, the world would be a better place if he were dead." I guess that could happen randomly. Um, but I do believe in the providence of God and I do believe like, you know, as harsh as it may seem on the Kirk thing, I think there's like a time and a, you know, like God's got to allow that to happen. And so there's at some level like I am maybe I veer too much in this direction like my wife would doesn't like this that I'm like this and I'm like at some level I can't stop someone. I can prepare a little bit but I think it's going to happen if it's going to happen. So I am trusting in God. I do pray a lot. We always pray and I know that people are covering us with prayer at another level. Yes, we do have security. There's I mean we we uh you know >> I don't want to say exactly how how it all is, >> but you know when we're doing certain things, >> you know, there will be someone there that's doing that. Um and they don't necessarily look like anything. Um you know, they may be big. just kind of like, you know, hey, what's that random construction worker doing right there, you know, but so like we we we do take it into consideration. There are a lot of things, you know, that that I uh you know, you don't you don't really see it maybe in the videos, but there's a there's a certain amount of head on a swivel, paying attention to your environment and everything. I'm trying to do a lot of deescalation stuff. I'm trying to, you know, be very, you know, joking and winsome as much as possible. And then with actual front on bullies, um, yeah, I find that it that it always it always goes away. Um, now that's not, you know, I'm not saying that I've never worn armor and that sort of thing like I will, but um on a college college campus and that sort of stuff, I'm I'm I'm less worried about um guns than I am knives. So I'm prepared for knives. Well, and here's the other thing that we know about gun-free zones. Like, okay, a sign on the door doesn't prevent the gun from coming inside. >> That just prevents lawabiding citizens from having guns. >> Yeah. And and that's the thing that I tell lawabiding citizens that ask me. They're like, well, I know you carry do you carry like everywhere you go? And I'm like, uh, well, I'm I've told you before that I don't outsource my argument to the local magistrates or I don't outsource my I said argument my violence. I don't outsource my violence to the local magistrates. I will call them as a cavalry and it's like yeah send them right but I'm the first line of >> yeah you're supposed to be able to protect you and yours. >> Um and so you know take that for what it's worth and surmise you know meaning from that but um the thing I'm curious about for you as we as we kind of wrap to a close here is obviously guys you know abolitionist rising on all the the socials on YouTube everything check out the show notes. >> Yeah. >> So we kind of know what you've done but what does the future look like? cuz yeah, you know, 5 years ago, Tik Tok wasn't a thing and now if you don't have a Tik Tok, you're you're terrible. And I'm kind of one of those guys like I just had to pick one and so I just picked Instagram cuz it automatically posts to Facebook and so I don't check and like the the DMs on Facebook are so cavernous. So guys, if you're sending me a DM on Facebook, I'm never going to see it because I there's like a magic inbox that pops up like where's this been? Oh, 400 unread me. >> People think you're ignoring them when you're >> I'm not ignoring you. I respond to every email that comes in and I respond to every DM on Instagram. I respond to them all. But we're not on X because in order to be good on X, you have to be interacting with people all day long. And I feel like that is soul sucking. We don't I don't go in the comment section at all. Uh because it can be an absolute cesspool. And when's the last time you ran into a person that was like, "Yeah, I changed my entire worldview based on a comment somebody left that was really well worded on Facebook. It's not like a real thing." >> Yeah. But I appreciate the comments. They help the algorithm. >> Appreciate the comments. They help out the algorithm. But like I don't like I pull pins on grenades and I just walk away. That's just kind of like whatever my thing is. So we don't know what trends are going to look like. We don't know what AI is going to do to anything. All we know is it's going to, you know, incentivize this in inperson face to face sit down type of thing because there's probably going to be a day when someone's thinking they're interacting with me via, you know, a digital like Zoom reading or Riverside or whatever and it's it's going to be a little bit of uncanny valley, but they're going to be like, "No, this kind of seems like Kyle from Unda Life." Like that's the world we're going to live in. So, we're going to have to move to more what you and I are doing right now. But for abolitionists rising, >> you know, and I don't even like looking at 3 to 5 years. I try to make the next correct step, right? Because two years ago, the forging table, which is a thing here, was not a thing. Uh, a year ago, my Dominion program was not a thing. A year ago, the Daily Blade, our our daily devotional podcast for men, none of that was a thing. So, if I was laying out a 3 to 5year plan, I would just, you know, I think God looks at your three to five year plan and goes, "That's really cute. You don't think you're going to get sick? You don't think, you know, I'm not going to blow up this thing over here in a good way and blow up this thing over here in a better three to five, >> right? Sort." So long setup to a short question, but what is what is the future of abolitionist rising? What are those next steps that you want to take that are correct? >> So right now the step that we're taking like literally right now we're very concerned with is the reason we called it abolitionists rising instead of abolitionist rising with I'm the primary guy. We put other people on there but I'm the primary guy in the videos and stuff making the material and everything. >> It's our idea. We don't want just a bunch of viewers. We want a bunch of doers and and we're trying to transform the viewers to doers by creating some kind of like you know it sounds a little militaristic but army of abolitionists and so we're making starting at the beginning of next year so working through the end of this year and the beginning of next year we are planning to sign people up and instead of it being hey I you know right now I'm like okay I'm going to go to this college campus with this sign and this material to do this thing we'll make this video we'll put it out and we'll reach this many people. That's the That's what I've been doing. It's like, oh, no, no, no. Okay, I've got this material. I got this pamphlet of the sign, the shirt, whatever. And I've got this list of these 5,000 people, and we're going to go to these particular institutions and do this particular thing all together on the same day, same time, the same rhetoric because it's abolitionists rising. So, it's been for the last three years, build up an audience, get people to understand what we're doing. Now, it's plug them in, and then mobilize them. And so, the format that that's going to take, and we've already been kind of taking it, like we have a very active Discord server with just a bunch of people. People get plugged in. Hey, I I agree with this. I want to go do this. Like a lot of people think um you know they'll see like our channel or there's like a four or five channels that are very similar to ours, you know, usually using the same signs and all that kind of stuff. The number of people that are out there going and doing what I do is beyond what anyone knows. Like I know cuz I sell the signs. >> There's like thousands of people doing this and they just don't have film teams, you know, or editors or something. And so we're going to basically try to mobilize the bulk of our our viewers and do things with them. The other thing is we're going to uh we're going to we're going to militarize our or politicize I don't know what you're going to say. We're going to take our YouTube channel, which pretty much anything we put out is going to get a default 40 50,000 views, which it needs to be higher for this, but long form content, 50,000 views, short, much more than that. What happens whenever we say, "Hey, abolitionist, we're all together on this. Let me tell you about this state with this bill, with this legislature. Here's the process that this bill goes through. Here are here's here's the good guys and the bad guys. It's going to go into this committee. It's either going to be voted yes or no on this committee. All of you, hundreds of thousands of people, email, text, call, donate. The money that you donate will help the good guys and hurt the bad guys. And so, like, use, you know, I'm kind of putting this out there before we do it, but I don't think you can stop it really. It's like use the audience that we have and turn them to actual political value. And so like we're not playing around. It's not really I mean I want people to change their ideas. I want people to watch. I want people to do, but I'm trying to make them into a very usable commodity in the world to where a bill say in Iowa, you know, I don't live in Iowa, but there's an abolitionist legislator in Iowa and he has a bill and he's an abolitionist and he can tell he can tell me he can tell me what's the process that bill from its filing to its signing and to a law. What is it? Where's it going? and I can take my audience that I've built and I can, you know, step by step by step by step tell people, all right, here here's what the bill is. We will know, not just me, but hundreds of thousands of people will know exactly who it is that kept abortion from being abolished in Oklahoma or Iowa or Idaho or wherever we choose. So, so the immediate sort of grandiose plan is to to make it less about me and more about the abolitionist movement. And then for us as an as an organization, abolitionists rising just as the organization. Um, you know, like here in four or five days, I'll be heading to Australia. I just got back from Canada. So, I've been in Canada where the abolitionist movement is kind of starting to get some legs. going to Australia next year going to the United Kingdom because the abolitionist societies and groups are kind of popping up. So sadly fun but also not so fun. You know, I got four kids and you know a wife that wants me home and everything. a lot of travel, a lot of building up of abolitionism elsewhere because a lot of the things that have been done in our country that have kept abortion from being abolished even in the midst of hundreds of millions of Christians from the pro-life establishment need to be thwarted from gaining ground in some of these other western countries. So, a lot of that is where I'm kind of uh starting to focus. Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. And so we're uh you know we're busily trying to you know raise up support um you know prepare increase our security so that we can do a lot more traveling. So hoping to spend you know a couple of months um working on you know like a documentary project in the United Kingdom on Wilburforce and also engage. I don't know how long they're going to let me uh stand on the streets and talk about abortion in uh >> especially in the UK >> in London. But that's that's the plan for next year. And uh you know, we don't usually ask for funds, but we're going to start asking for funds to make that very possible because I'm not going I'm not going over there without my family. >> Yeah. >> You know, stuff like that. >> Yeah. Especially if we're going to be over there for any length of time. So, man, I really appreciate you coming uh up to the studio today. It's been my pleasure. I'm glad we were able to weave in and out a lot of different things. But that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? >> Well, thanks for having me. I've been a little under the weather, but you know, I think >> I think anyone can tell, right? They might be able to tell. Busted that out there at the end. It's good. >> Yeah, but if you watch the trajectory of the show, I think I I got a little more alive as the show. >> Yeah, you just had to warm up a little bit as it what people didn't realize happened. Yeah, it was it was actually the Jo, dude. >> That's right. Look at your camera. Give him the ad. >> I was I was dead when I came on this program, but about halfway through this bottle, I was like, "Woo!" >> See, that's exactly how it goes. And as you were warming up, it was getting colder in my studio. So, like I snuck a text into my uh wife who's downstairs in the studio. I'm like, "Something went wrong with the heater because it all of a sudden got freezing in here." And this is like the coldest day of the year in Oklahoma. But I think we're okay. I felt the kick on at some point. >> I noticed it very quickly get warm. So, >> well, very good, man. Well, again, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive fivestar review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@unson.life. That's in nfo@ undaunted.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undauntton.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is their song Perpetual, which is off their self-titled debut album on Faceown Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah. [music]