The Coming Political Earthquake/Program 1

Introduction

Dr. John Ankerberg: Welcome to our program. We’ve got a great one for you today and we’re going to talk about the issues that are going to impact all of us in America here via this next election that’s going to take place. You’re going to hear why the November elections will not only affect the next four years but probably the next thirty years. We’ll explain that in a minute. We’re going to talk about how this election could change traditional marriage and the family and could legalize same-sex marriage. We’re going to talk about America’s homeland defense and the security of our nation. We’re going to talk about religious liberty, hate crime laws and government regulations and investigations of Christian ministries.

Now, look, I know that the majority of you are Christians and some of you are Democrats, some of you are Republicans, some of you are Independents and some of you are from other parties. Well, I’m not going to advocate any political candidate or any political party. But I do want to talk about the issues that are facing us. And we are going to base our reply on biblical values, biblical teaching, because I think that you ought to be making your choices on those biblical values if you are a Christian.

Now, to discuss these issues and explain all of this, I’ve invited three terrific guests today who are three of the most knowledgeable people I know in Washington, DC, or any place else. And they are:

Dr. Frank Wright, who is the President of the NRB. Now the NRB, the Ankerberg Show goes on seven major networks in this country and 154 stations overseas and 600 radio stations on every week day, okay? We are one of 1500 other Christian media ministries. And this guy is the boss over all of us. And he also, if you remember, for 20 years he worked with Dr. D. James Kennedy at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, worked in helping in terms of programming as well as choosing ideas for the programming. But then Dr. Kennedy chose him to be the Executive Founding Director of the Center for Christian Statesmanship, a spiritually based outreach to Senators and members of Congress and their staff. After a long period of time we stole him from Dr. Kennedy and he became the President of NRB. He has an actual earned Ph.D. in finances from Florida Atlantic University. He also served as the Director of Community Services, guiding the Coral Ridge outreach program to the poor, and he was a founding board member of the Ft. Lauderdale crisis pregnancy center. So he brings a wealth of experience to the job.

The lady in the middle, okay. This lady is host of Janet Parshall’s America. She does more in a week than any person I think that I know. She does three hours on the radio very day on her program. It is syndicated nationally. She’s on I think all of the Salem Broadcasting Network, the Moody Network, the Bott Network and just about anything. And she has been chosen, from 1998 to the present I think, to be one of the top 100 talkers in Talkers Magazine, the leading trade publication of the National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts. I think when we add up the scorecard at the end of this program, that her words will count twice as much as the three of us combined. In February 2005 President George Bush asked her to represent the White House in the capacity of public delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. If you watch TV, and I think all of you do, you’re watching this program, as a radio and television commentator she has appeared on Crossfire, Hardball, Nightline, the Larry King Show, Donahue, Hannity & Colmes, the 700 Club, Late Night with Aaron Brown. She has appeared on CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, CBN, PBS, BBC and NPR, just to name a few, probably left out some. She also manages to speak 50 times usually every year, and has co-authored six books with her husband, Craig, and a book with her daughter, Sarah. And, Janet, I’m so glad that you’re here.

Craig Parshall, her husband, is a powerhouse in his own sense. He’s the Senior Vice President and General Council for the National Religious Broadcasters. So he’s our attorney for the whole crowd, okay. He oversees all the communications efforts of NRB, including media relations. He is the executive editor of its various publications. Prior to coming to NRB he represented clients before the US Supreme Court, the Federal District Courts and Courts of Appeal in Washington, DC, New York, Philadelphia, Denver, Dallas, Richmond. He’s argued before the state Supreme Courts of Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Maryland.

I’m going to always be grateful for these two guys. Frank, on behalf of the membership, asked Craig to draft an amicus brief, a friend of the court brief, on our behalf in terms of a court case that we were in for seven years. It was profoundly important in terms of the legal issues, involving the right to communicate Christian truth. And they stood with me during that time. And I’ll tell you what, we went all the way to the Supreme Court and we won. And it was an important victory to win. And I thank you for standing with us.

Craig’s assisted leaders on Capitol Hill in drafting the Religious Freedom Amendment to the Constitution, which was introduced in the House of Representatives. He has appeared on almost all of the radio and television shows that you can list. And besides that, he somewhere figured out how to write six tremendous legal suspense novels and received critical acclaim from Publisher’s Weekly and numerous fiction reviews. Those are terrific books. I’ve read all of them. And, folks, you need to get those books of his.

Well, we want to get to the issues. But these are the folks, and I wanted you to know a little bit of their background. Now, here’s the first thing, and I’m coming to Janet. Janet, this is a concern I think we hear it a lot news commentators, political analysts, magazines and so on, and it goes like this: A lot of Christians say I don’t like either presidential candidate so I may sit this one out and not vote at all. And when Christians don’t vote, there are some consequences, but I don’t think a lot of folks realize what those consequences are. Let’s talk about, what are the consequences if the folks that are listening to us right now don’t show up and vote in just about 60 days.

Janet Parshall: Well, let’s start with the plumb line of truth. Scripture says if you know the right thing to do and you don’t do it, it’s a sin. It calls us to influence and occupy until He comes. So in this American government, the government that we’re privileged to live in, how do we influence? Well, we do it through the ballot box. Now, in the primary session, maybe we have the luxury of saying “that’s my absolute favorite candidate.” But by the time it’s all said and done, you get down to two. Now, though someday will come when maybe we’ll have a viable third party candidate, but for the time being, it’s predominately a two person race. So when you get to that election you have to stop and say, what is their worldview? If you decide to sit it out, and by the way there’s a book floating around right now called None of the Above that advocates exactly the position you’re talking about. When we do that we have in fact advocated the antithetical position to what we know to be biblical truth. Because when we sit it out what we’re saying in essence is our vote doesn’t count, we don’t care to influence and occupy. The other person takes preeminence, and the other person de facto actually gets the vote. So that’s a problem.

The second thing is that, look, sometimes if, particularly if you go back and you read 1 and 2 Kings, if you see what happened in Chronicles, sometimes you don’t get the luxury of saying, “I am wild, madly, deeply supportive of that candidate.” What you have to do is kick in that discernment that we’re called to use. The Bible says that if we ask for wisdom, we will get it liberally, the perfect use of that word, by the way. And what we need to do is to say, “Father, give us the discernment to really be able to hear not just what’s being talked out on the campaign trail. But let me look at the record. Let me see whether or not the walk and the talk match. Let me see whether or not what that individual is advocating is reflected in his or her voting record.” And then what we do is prayerfully and carefully step into the booth and say, first and foremost, “God, how do I honor You?” This isn’t about saying what’s in it for me. If we go in saying I want you to lower my taxes, I want you to lower the price of gas, I want you to put a chicken in every pot, then what we’re doing is self-centeredly saying this is about me, when in fact what we’re supposed to do is go back to what the biblical mandate for government is, which is to facilitate good, keep back evil, work for the common welfare. And look for the candidate that will most uphold those standards of righteousness for one simple reason, John; when the righteous rule the people rejoice, when the wicked rule, the people groan.

Ankerberg: Okay, it’s going to affect our families, we’re talking about our children. In what way? Give some illustrations.

J. Parshall: Well, there are several things. What’s at stake right here happens to be the soul of America. Couple of hot button issues immediately that define the soul of a nation is whether or not we value the sanctity of human life. The two individuals that are running for President of the United States could not be farther apart in the spectrum on this issue that two that are seeking the office of President. Secondarily, when we look at the definition of traditional marriage: two diametrically opposite positions. When we look at the issue of national sovereignty and national security, couldn’t be farther than the truth. What about the moral aspect of breaking the back of a family economically? Diametrically opposite positions by the two candidates. And last, but certainly not least, look at the worldview promulgated by these two candidates on the subject of judges, judges who will leave a fingerprint on this culture for not four years, or eight years, but could do it for 30-50 years.

Ankerberg: Yeah. Let’s go into that a little bit more, Craig. The fact is that this is not about just the next four years or eight years. Why?

Craig Parshall: One of the most powerful rights and privileges and opportunities that any President has is to appoint his or her choice of nominees to the Supreme Court. And if history tells us anything in the next presidential administration, and it may last four years, it may go on to eight as President Bush has had, and his predecessor President Clinton had an eight year reign. During that administration usually it’s at least one or two appointments to the Supreme Court. When you look at the age of the Supreme Court justices right now, their health concerns, it’s probably going to be at least two during the next presidential administration. Those Supreme Court justices will not only govern during that administration, but if history tells us anything on that, it will be a law in effect for at least two to three decades. So American citizens will reap the benefits or the unfortunate bad law of a Supreme Court justice for the next 30-40 years.

Ankerberg: Frank, on behalf of the NRB, you are up there, you’re talking with Senators, you’re watching what the Congress does. And you’re seeing first hand how decisions are being made. Why do we need to bring biblical values to the public square in terms of our politicians, of holding their feet to the fire to the things that we believe in?

Frank Wright: Well, John, you’ve heard Janet and Craig describe sort of a tripartite process of arriving at who the best candidate. First, you look for personal integrity in the life of the person. If there’s no personal integrity it doesn’t matter what their political philosophy is, they may say one thing and do another. Secondly, you look for experience. Does this person have the ability to govern, the experience necessary to implement the things that they say they support? Someone without the requisite experience may not be able to accomplish very much. But thirdly, and in direct answer to your question, comes this question of political philosophy. You’re electing someone with integrity hopefully, someone with experience, and then, what is their view of how government should work? Should government be something that’s growing metasticly, and consequently are human freedoms receding as the Founders feared and even predicted? Do the policies that the government enacts tend to be policies that facilitate personal freedom, or do they constrain more and more our freedoms, especially our religious freedoms, our freedom of speech and our freedom of free exercise of our faith? So this question of who occupies the highest office in the land will ultimately impact everybody through legislation, through government regulation, and through the decisions, as Craig has said, that will come down from the Federal courts that have become almost a legislative entity unto themselves.

We cannot afford to sit out in an election when so much hangs in the balance. And based on NRB’s work the last seven or eight years on Capitol Hill, we really see some major threats to the very work that you’re doing in your program, John. Your ability to go forward into 2009 and beyond may be materially affected by what happens in this election.

Ankerberg: Alright, we’re going to take a break. When we come back we’re going to pick that up, because I’m vitally interested in that topic. Are we going to be able to broadcast in the days ahead? Are we going to be able to say things like we’re saying in this program, of expressing our views from a biblical point of view in the public square? We’re going to talk about that when we come right back, so stick with us.

Ankerberg: We’re back. We’re talking with Frank Wright, who’s the President of the NRB, National Religious Broadcasters; talking to Janet Parshall who is host of a three hour daily radio program across the nation called Janet Parshall’s America that I’m sure that many of you listen to; and also to Craig Parshall, our attorney for the National Religious Broadcasters and a man that has represented us in all kinds of areas and probably will in the days ahead.

Let’s talk about those days ahead. You scared me at the NRB. I listened to you talk about the freedoms that we might lose via this coming election, depending on who we elect. I want you to explain to the people. That’s why I asked you to come. Explain to the people what we’re facing.

Wright: John, if you were standing on the beach twenty minutes before the tsunami hit, you would have thought everything was pretty much okay in life. You looked around and saw everything as you were used to seeing it. And suddenly your world changed in a heartbeat when that great wave came ashore. I think that’s where we stand today. We stand at a place where too many Americans, too many Christians particularly, look around and think that the freedoms that they’ve had these many years are something that’s guaranteed to them, things that they will always have.

And I say to you that what’s happening on Capitol Hill today, and what will happen depending on who the next President of the United States is, may change those freedoms so fundamentally that a program like yours, John, will no longer be able to proclaim the full counsel of God’s truth without fear of retribution by some government entity. That a pastor standing in the pulpit of a local church will no longer be able to proclaim the full counsel of God, teaching on God’s plan for human sexuality, God’s standard for the defense of human life, without fear of losing their tax exempt status or far worse.

There is legislation pending in Capitol Hill today even as we sit here in your studio today, that could so constrain your free speech rights, and the rights ultimately of all Americans, that the Bible will be something that’s referred to only in part, because there will be parts of it that are untouchable. There will be parts that if you open it and teach it you will be subject to government sanctions. So we will have come in 200… less than 230 years in this nation, from a time when religious freedom was our first freedom, to where that freedom will be so abridged that the government will be dictating what you can and cannot do in the area of religious free speech and religious free exercise.

Ankerberg: You helped defend us all the way to the Supreme Court. You’re doing other cases. Give me an example that the folks can understand about what we’re facing.

C. Parshall: John, it’s hard to quantify the threat, and I think Dr. Wright has done a great job giving us a word picture in terms of tsunami. Let me give you an international view of this. One of the laws that have been facing the United States and has been underreported is the hate crimes threat. There are a lot of people up there in Congress that feel that we ought to have hate crimes. And boiled down, the problem with hate crimes is it has very little to do with preventing crime and a lot to do with labeling Christians with hate, saying that we are hate-mongers when we simply preach what the Bible has to say about homosexuality, about other religious systems. Shows like yours that specialize in critiquing what the Bible says compared to cults and other world religions, would be muzzled under a hate crimes law because you would be found to be criminally hateful of those that you criticize theologically.

When I was over with Janet, my wife, in the Netherlands recently, there was an incident there that typifies the threat. There was a national cartoonist over there who had not only picked on radical Islam but also so-called fundamentalist Christianity and some other world systems that he didn’t happen to agree with in his cartoons. But the government officials picked his cartoons that criticized radical Islam. And on the basis of hate crime laws in the Netherlands, they arrested the cartoonist, they seized his computer, they searched his house. And now he’s facing the equivalent of felony charges for hate speech over in the Netherlands. That’s what’s coming to the shores of the United States unless we have a change, a wakeup call to Americans in terms of the threats that are being posed right now on Capitol Hill.

Ankerberg: Janet, we’ve got the conventions going on, Democratic first then the Republican. And even while we talk, there are going to be a lot of nice words that are spoken, there’s going to be an enthusiastic presentation from the platform. It’s going to be staged for the American public. A lot of times the issues that we’re talking about aren’t going to be up there. But they are underneath both of these political candidates, the parties, even the people all the way down. We’ve got to talk about, you know, the Senate, the House, Governors, state and local, because these are all under attack in a sense, where people that disagree with biblical values are supporting candidates and issues that will go against what we believe. Now, a lot of Christians that are listening, how do you motivate them to dig a little deeper and to actually apply the Bible to what they’re thinking? We’re going to come back in another program to this whole thing, you know, the non-Christians are listening saying, “You’re going to apply the Bible to this? You’re nuts!” We’re going to talk about that. But for the Christians that actually believe that, but won’t apply that, how do you motivate them?

J. Parshall: Well, if our friends didn’t hear what Craig and Frank just said then they were napping off. Look, the Bible says God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And so we need to judicially, carefully and prayerfully consider exactly what is being promulgated. And these convention weeks are a perfect time to do it. With the advent of the internet simply Google what the party platform is for the Democrats, what the party platform is for the Republicans, and then open your Bible. And the Bible is as Dwight L. Moody said, “that straight stick of truth.” Then look to see where the crooked ideas are. And then when you carefully and prayerfully decide how you are going to vote in November it is going to be very easy. Here is the plumb line of truth; here is the roadmap they are proposing, which one will take you home safely?

Ankerberg: Frank, wrap this up for us. What should we walk away from this program?

Wright: John, I think we need to walk away with a since of urgency. If you were to step out your door late at night to take your dog for a walk and you saw that your neighbor’s house was on fire, you would pound on the door, you would shout fire at the top of your voice, you would throw rocks at the windows to do anything to wake them up so they would not perish in those flames. That may sound overstated, but I think we stand at such an extraordinary point in history that if we don’t pound on the door and wake up and get involved and engage the political process in defense of our freedoms, we will see those freedoms vanish in the mist.

Ankerberg: Yeah, I think this election, four basic issues, there are three basic issues that we are all facing. One is the fact of the sanctity of human life. Number two, I think that traditional marriage I on the table. If we don’t stand up now we could lose that, we are going to talk about that more. I think that the defense of our own homeland, our safety of Americans, people just don’t seem to understand what we are facing. And I suppose the fourth one is the Supreme Court judges, the impact they could have on all of us coming up. Now, folks we are going to pick up next week and we are going to start talking about this thing, what is going to happen to the family? What is at stake for the family in the elections, not only the presidential levels but at the state and…. the state level, the governors, the people at the local levels, all of these people will have an impact and it is going to happen in just a few days. We want you to tune in and we want you to hear what we have to say. So I hope you will join us then.