SPEAKER 01 : 0:00

from the heart of our nation’s capital in Washington, D.C., bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and sound bites into conversations with our nation’s leaders and newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview. Sitting in for Tony is today’s host, Jody Heiss.

SPEAKER 03 : 0:21

Good afternoon and welcome to this special edition of Washington Watch. I’m Jody Heiss, a senior vice president here at the Family Research Council and president of FRC Action. Well, with Congress out right now, we want to bring you some special content from our most recent Pray, Vote, Stand Summit. If you’re not aware, the Pray, Vote, Stand Summit is our annual event that draws Christian voters from all across America to the nation’s capital And the summit addressed some of the issues that are of such critical importance, such as religious freedom, gender ideology, election integrity, the military, protection of the unborn, the importance of the nuclear family, the growing indoctrination of our nation’s schools, and so many more incredibly important topics. It was an absolutely phenomenal event. Well, today we’re going to share with you the addresses delivered by two of the speakers at the summit. Aaron Hawley from Alliance Defending Freedom and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who, by the way, as you know, has been tapped by President-elect Trump to be his nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel. And we’re excited about that. But together, these two drove home the three main action words that define the summit. That is to pray, to vote and to stand. So we have a great show coming your way today. And if you miss any part of it, of course, the website is TonyPerkins.com, where you can find not only this edition of Washington Watch, but past editions as well. We also have a lot of resources there available. So be sure to bookmark that web page, TonyPerkins.com. And before we jump into it, I want to remind you that this Tuesday is Giving Tuesday. We’d love for you to join Family Research Council in shining the light of biblical truth here in Washington, D.C. And during this lame duck session of Congress, FRC is standing as a watchman on our nation’s spiritual walls. We’re protecting faith, family, and freedom. And thanks to a $50,000 challenge match, every dollar you give will be doubled from now through Giving Tuesday on December 4th. So help FRC. Help us continue serving as a prophetic voice in our nation. And you can do so by texting the word LIGHT to 67742. So give today and make an eternal impact. Okay, as I mentioned, this past October, Family Research Council and FRC Action held our fourth annual Pray Vote Stand Summit, drawing Christian voters from all across America. They came to our nation’s capital, and it was an incredible event. By the way, if you missed it by any chance, you can watch it still by getting our Stand Firm app, and you can do that by texting APP, APP, to 67742. Well, among the speakers at the summit was Erin Hawley, Senior Counsel and Vice President of the Center for Life and Regulatory Practice at Alliance Defending Freedom. She’s also the wife of U.S. Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri. Well, in her address, she shared the story behind the Dobbs decision that overturned the infamous Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. And she talked about where we are today in the battle for life. We’ll start from her look back at the environment when Roe was decided.

SPEAKER 06 : 3:53

I wanted to start this morning with just a little bit about what brought us to this day and this time, this moment in American history, and to this fight for life and for the family. So we have to start with Roe. Roe was an egregiously wrong decision that overturned the pro-life law of almost every single state. It’s largely conceded that it was wrong. Professor at Yale and Harvard, John Hardy Lee, talked about it being not constitutional law and barely giving any sense of trying to be constitutional law. Lawrence Tribe from Harvard says its reasoning was a, quote, verbal smokescreen. Even the late Justice Ginsburg criticized it for disrupting the democratic process. The seven male justices who authored and joined Roe said that it, quote, forced upon women a distressful life. and future. This was the vision of motherhood that gave us Roe. And yet, no one thought Roe would be reversed. If we think back to just months before the Dobbs oral argument, I was at a debate with a professor from Columbia, and he had actually worked for the Reagan administration. So I was making all these points that Roe’s wrong, there’s nothing in the Constitution that talks about the right to abortion. that the factors all justify that the Supreme Court overruled that wrong decision rather than sticking to it. And the professor sort of threw up his hands and said, look, I agree with you. I actually wrote a brief in the Reagan administration asking that the Supreme Court to overrule Roe. He said, but it didn’t happen then, and it won’t ever happen. We have Dobbs now, and it’s nothing short of miraculous. So many of you marched and prayed, volunteered at pregnancy care centers, supported pregnancy care centers, supported moms for years. And I just wanted to share a few of the background details of the Dobbs story that you may not know. One of the key players was a single mom turned nurse turned legislator named Becky Curry in Mississippi. So one of the most amazing parts of the Dobbs story to me is that while she was a nurse, Becky Curry helped deliver a 15-week-old child. The child was too young to live, and Becky describes holding the child, that child, as it struggled to live. Then Mississippi enacts its 15-week law, and Becky sponsors it. We have a cert petition that languished for months at the United States Supreme Court until that court changed, until Justice Amy Coney Barrett replaced Justice Ginsburg, we had Mississippi elect a new Attorney General who was staunchly pro-life, Lynn Fitch. And she hired Scott Stewart, an accomplished appellate litigator who insisted that the right thing to do was ask the Supreme Court to overrule Roe and not take any moderate steps. Now that may seem, you know, hindsight’s always 20-20. That may seem like the obvious thing. But even staunchly pro-life lawyers at the time were saying, we need to take it easy. The Supreme Court’s not going to overrule Roe. We need to ask for something moderate. Thank heavens the Attorney General and her team asked for the right result. And one of the great things about the Dobbs decision is that it took place in what we could think of as the year of Jubilee. Roe governed for nearly 50 years. And of course we know that the year of Jubilee is sort of a super Sabbath. It’s a time to rest and be restored, to set the captives free. It’s a year that is holy to the Lord. So there’s no question that Dobbs was a monumental victory for life. It returned to the people the power to protect life. But as we sit here today, the pro-abortion forces have responded in kind. Today we’re seeing an all-out assault on the family, on children. We’re seeing an administration that pushes abortion drugs across state lines without even necessary safeguards for women’s health. Far from the now passe mantra that abortion be safe, legal, and rare, the left now says that women should shout their abortion. We’re seeing medical information peddling false information, terrifying women, when the reality is that every state law, every one, allows doctors to do whatever is necessary to save the life of a mother, and no state prevents treatment for miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies. So we see four key areas of assault. I just want to talk about them briefly, and then about where we can go from here. So first, abortion drugs. We know that the Biden administration allows them to be mailed. They can be mailed to women, to their dorm rooms, to their home, without women ever seeing a doctor. In 2001, the FDA took away that last remaining doctor’s visit. It’s the only opportunity for a woman to check for things like an ectopic pregnancy or to accurately assess gestational age. But women’s health, was sacrificed to free or more access, I should say, to abortion drugs. And make no mistake, these drugs are dangerous. They have a black box warning. They send roughly one in 25 women to the emergency room. And that was before the FDA took away that last remaining doctor’s visit. Second, we have a media by and large that peddles the pro-abortion story. You all have probably all heard about the tragic death of Ms. Amber Nicole Thurman. She died from an infection caused by abortion drugs. And a media outlet, ProPublica, tried to pin her death on George’s pro-life law. Many members of the media and even politicians, even one running for president, jumped on the bandwagon and blamed George’s law. There’s just one problem with this narrative. It is absolutely false. George’s law in no way prevented the treatment of Amber Thurman. In fact, that law didn’t apply for at least two reasons. First, Amber’s twins were already passed. The law didn’t apply because any procedure would not have taken their life. And second, as mentioned, Georgia’s law, like every law in the country, allows treatment, whatever treatment is necessary, to save the life of a mother. I’m not sure why Amber didn’t get that treatment, but I know it wasn’t because of Georgia’s pro-life law. In fact, the doctors involved in her case have never even suggested that their hands were bound by the law. Third, we see pro-abortion forces sort of changing their tune. They’ve long called themselves the pro-choice movement or the pro-choice party. But their recent actions suggest it’s not really about choice at all, but about being pro-abortion. I’d like to introduce you to a young woman named McKenna. McKenna is a young, new mom in Colorado. She was unexpectedly pregnant and, as she tells it, absolutely terrified. At five weeks, she ordered the abortion drugs and took the first one. She immediately regretted her decision and was distraught. She went online, googled, you know, is there any way to reverse this, and contacted the abortion pill reversal network. They set her up with a nurse practitioner who was able to provide progesterone. Progesterone, of course, is something that has been safely used to maintain pregnancies for 50-some years. So this woman, McKenna, took progesterone and recently delivered a healthy, beautiful baby girl that she says she could not imagine life without. There’s a wonderful video, and McKenna just describes how she couldn’t imagine life without her wonderful daughter. But there’s just one catch. McKenna lives in a state where abortion pill reversal, just as provision of progesterone, is outlawed. You can take the abortion drug, but you can’t try to save your baby. And in fact, the Attorney Generals of New York, as well as states like California, have sued pregnancy care centers just for sharing information about abortion pill reversal, because they don’t want women to change their mind. They don’t want to give them the option of saving their baby’s life. Fourth, the elephant in the room, we all know that we’ve seen tens of millions of dollars being dumped into pro-abortion ballot initiatives across the country. They say, the proponents, that they just want to go back to Roe and Casey. But the reality is much different. If you look at the language of those amendments, many of them go far beyond Roe and Casey. They impose something called strict scrutiny that would take away even modest things like a waiting period. or informed consent or the requirement that a doctor be involved in a chemical abortion. They might also open up the door under the guise of reproductive care to the taxpayer funding of things like gender transition drugs or surgeries. It’s not just going back to Roe. So with Roe gone, today at this moment, we’re confronted with a reality, one we always knew, that its demise is not enough. What we need, what we’ve always needed, is a culture of life.

SPEAKER 03 : 13:20

That was Elias Defending Freedom’s Erin Hawley during the 2024 PrayVoteStand Summit. And you’re tuning into Washington Watch. Today, we’re broadcasting special content from that summit, which took place in Washington, D.C. And after the break, we’re going to continue with Erin’s address and hear her exhortation for Christians today to act counter-culturally as Jesus and the early church had done. Incredible information is coming your way, so stay tuned. Much more right after this.

SPEAKER 10 : 14:01

The throne of Jesus Christ is unchallenged. His name was never on the ballot to begin with, and it’s never gonna be on the ballot. He’s the King of Kings, and He’s the Lord of Lords, and nothing’s gonna change that. And so our mission stays the same, preach the gospel, make disciples, get ready for heaven. In the meantime, that we’re to advance the concerns of the kingdom of God here on earth.

SPEAKER 11 : 14:25

America has entered a critical and vulnerable period from now until January the 20th. Join Family Research Council for Operation Prayer Shield, a 10-week prayer initiative for our nation. From now until January 20th, our country faces global challenges, a transition of leadership, and a lame duck session of Congress. This season calls for heightened spiritual vigilance, discernment, and prayer. Text the word SHIELD to 67742 to join us. You’ll have access to prayer points, scripture, prayer calls. Text SHIELD to 67742. Unite with us and pray for our nation.

SPEAKER 08 : 15:01

Let’s not be discouraged. Don’t lose heart. Don’t lose the faith. Stand now strong because the Lord has given us the great privilege of living in a time when our choices matter, when our lives matter, when our courage matters. So let’s stand together and save this great country. God bless the United States of America.

SPEAKER 07 : 15:19

The American Republic has a freedom like no other. It has roots in the scriptures far more than any other heritage. And if we as followers of Jesus and conservatives don’t defend it, who will?

SPEAKER 05 : 15:35

Neutrality is not an option. There are many Christians who believe that if we just keep our heads down, if we just don’t say the wrong thing, that somehow we will come out of this unscathed. You’re naive if you think that, because what they want from us is not our silence. What they want from us is our submission.

SPEAKER 04 : 15:56

Part of the dilemma of Christianity in our generation is that we’ve relied a little too much on human wisdom and human reasoning, human strength, human resource, and we’ve relied too little on the power of God and God’s ability to open doors that we can’t open and do things that we couldn’t even hope to begin to do.

SPEAKER 06 : 16:14

This may not be an easy task, But we are living in a moment of challenge, but also a great opportunity. And we know always that we are not alone, that His Spirit empowers us and protects us, and that He can do the unimaginable. Dobbs, after all, was never supposed to happen.

SPEAKER 11 : 16:36

Father, we thank you. You have entrusted us with this moment in history, and I pray that we would be found faithful, and that as a result of our faithfulness to you, that thousands, millions would come into the kingdom as they would experience the forgiveness of sin and the new life that is found only in Jesus Christ. Amen.

SPEAKER 03 : 17:01

Welcome back to Washington Watch. I’m your Friday host, Jody Heiss. The website is TonyPerkins.com. Today we’re broadcasting special content from the 2024 PrayVote Stand Summit that was held in Washington, D.C. And before the break, we brought you part of the address. It was delivered by Aaron Hawley, Senior Counsel and Vice President of the Center for Life and Regulatory Practice at Alliance Defending Freedom. Erin, of course, is also the wife of U.S. Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri. Well, in this next part, Erin shares some lessons that we all can learn from the early church. And they acted counter-culturally, just as Jesus did. And they did so during a time when infanticide, abortion, child sex abuse, and other awful practices were commonplace. So here’s Erin.

SPEAKER 06 : 17:51

Jesus had so much to say about the dignity and worth of children. Jesus delighted in them, and he radically reformed culture. He called the little children to him, and he flummoxed the religious leaders of the day when he said that the kingdom of heaven would be made up of such of these. In addition to those that the world regarded as outcasts, He said, be wary if you cause these little ones to stumble. We know that Jesus showed the Father’s heart. And that just makes me think of our daughter, Abigail, who I’ve mentioned. We have two gorgeous boys, almost 12 and almost 10, that are the delight of our eyes. But I have to say, Abigail’s name means the Father’s delight. And Abby knows that she is her father’s delight. She bats his little three-year-old eyes, and her daddy is like totally slayed. So he’s been traveling a lot, as you might expect. And so every time before he leaves, she says, Daddy, bring me something. And Daddy obliges. Recently, we were at the grocery store, and she wanted some stuffed animal. I was like, no, Abigail, we’re not going to get anything today. We’re just here for groceries. And you could tell she was debating between throwing a full-scale tantrum or acquiescing. And so she thought about it for a second, and she goes, that’s okay. I asked Daddy. So… And I just, I love this picture that Abigail shows of just the full confidence in her dad’s love. She knows that she is her father’s delight. And the truth of that is that’s true for all of us. It’s true for women who have unplanned pregnancies, and it’s true for those unborn children. So I think today we take inspiration from two things, two lessons from the early church. First, they boldly spoke countercultural truth. that women and children matter. And second, they created this culture of life that we’ve been talking about it. They did this sacrificially. Theologian Rodney Snark attributes the rapid growth of Christianity in the first century to the fact that its adherence improved people’s lives. Rome endured two devastating plagues in the first couple of centuries, and Christians acted counter-culturally. In his Easter letter, Dionysius writes about the heroic nursing efforts of early Christians, so much so that it irritated the Emperor Julian. He instructed pagan priests to keep pace with Christians, and he wrote to the high priest in Galatia in 362, demanding that the pagan worshippers needed to equal the virtues of Christians. He said that the growth in Christianity was caused by their quote, moral character, however pretended, specifically their benevolence towards strangers. They support not only their poor, but ours as well, and everyone can see that we lack aid to them. This culture of life that the Christian community committed to and encapsulated in the first century, extended dignity and worth to every member of society. This was a stark contrast to ancient Rome, where the father determined whether a pregnant woman would have an abortion. Even today, we know that fathers are often the most influential person in a woman’s decision. Yet, at a recent White Dudes for Harris event, Pete Buttigieg pushed Kamala Harris for president because, quote, when abortion is easily accessible. He said the quiet part out loud, acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, abortion isn’t all about a woman’s choice. In fact, evidence shows that most women who have an abortion don’t do so from a position of empowerment. One survey performed by Human Coalition says that the vast majority of women who’ve had an abortion said they would have chosen to parent if their circumstances were different. Nearly a quarter in another survey said that their abortions were either coerced or unwanted. And an astounding 60% of women said they would have preferred to have a child if they’d had either greater emotional or financial security. These statistics are heartbreaking because they suggest that many women don’t think they have a real option. Yet in the tradition of the early church, Christians can act counter-culturally. We can come alongside these moms, telling them that they are the beloved daughters of the King Most High, that they matter more than any mistake that they might have made. Through pro-family policies, through supporting pregnant moms, through Pregnancy and Beyond, through pregnancy care centers that are under such assault from the left, through economic policies that make it possible to support a family and to have children, we must transform culture the threats facing our children facing women facing our families it turns out are far from new but thankfully we as believers can return to one of our earliest missions that is supporting women and children we can recover the legacy of the first century believers and radically transform culture this may not be an easy task But we are living in a moment of challenge, but also of great opportunity. It’s a moment that matters to the direction of our country. It’s a moment when it matters to be a conservative, to be pro-life, to be pro-woman, and to be pro-family. When your voice, the voice of all of the people in this room, is all the more important. And we know, always, that we are not alone. that his spirit empowers us and protects us, and that he can do the unimaginable. Dobbs, after all, was never supposed to happen.

SPEAKER 03 : 24:06

That was Elias Defending Freedom’s Aaron Hawley during the 2024 PrayVote Stand Summit. And you’re tuned in today to a special edition of Washington Watch as we’re broadcasting some of the highlights from that summit that was held in Washington, D.C. And let me just say this. If you missed that summit, I assure you, you want to go back and see it. And we encourage you to do so by downloading our StandFirm app. You can get that app just by going to your app store, Google Play, wherever you get your apps, and you can simply text the word app, APP, to 6742, 67742, and you will be able to watch this. All right, after the break, we’re going to highlight some more addresses from the summit. Mike Huckabee is coming your way right after the break.

SPEAKER 02 : 25:00

Everything we do begins as an idea. Before there can be acts of courage, there must be the belief that some things are worth sacrificing for. Before there can be marriage, there is the idea that man should not be alone. Before there was freedom, there was the idea that individuals are created equal. It’s true that all ideas have consequences, but we’re less aware that all consequences are the fruit of ideas. Before there was murder, there was hate. Before there was a Holocaust, there was the belief by some people that other people are undesirable. Our beliefs determine our behavior, and our beliefs about life’s biggest questions determine our world view. Where did I come from? Who decides what is right and wrong? What happens when I die? Our answers to these questions explain why people see the world so differently. Debates about abortion are really disagreements about where life gets its value. Debates over sexuality and gender and marriage are really disagreements about whether the rules are made by us or for us. What we think of as political debates are often much more than that. They are disagreements about the purpose of our lives and the source of truth. As Christians, our goal must be to think biblically about everything. Our goal is to help you see beyond red and blue, left and right, to see the battle of ideas at the root of it all. Our goal is to equip Christians with a biblical worldview and help them advance and defend the faith in their families, communities, and the public square. Cultural renewal doesn’t begin with campaigns and elections. It begins with individuals turning from lies to truth. But that won’t happen if people can’t recognize a lie and don’t believe truth exists. We want to help you see the spiritual war behind the political war, the truth claims behind the press release, and the forest from the trees.

SPEAKER 03 : 27:03

Welcome back to Washington Watch. I’m your Friday host, Jody Heiss. So glad to have you joining us today. And of course, our website, TonyPerkins.com. Well, today we’re broadcasting content from the 2024 PrayVoteStand Summit. And in this particular segment, we’ll turn to the address that was delivered by Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and now president-elect Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel. And we’ll start with his take on the times in which we’re living. Here’s Governor Huckabee.

SPEAKER 09 : 27:35

I’ve been in politics for a little over 30 years. I’ve run for office. I’ve won offices. I’ve held office. I’ve served. But I can also tell you that what we’re facing today is not the traditional, historical, political spectrum that is horizontal. Left versus the right. Liberal versus the conservative. Democrat versus the Republican. That’s the horizontal spectrum that we have mostly lived under. We’re no longer living in a horizontal world with horizontal issues. Folks, our issues today are vertical. They are up and down, heaven and hell, righteous and unrighteous, good and evil. And we have to understand that the battle is spiritual. The consequences will be political, but the underpinning of it, never kid ourselves, is spiritual. There’s no other explanation for the hatred that is being leveled against the Jewish people and specifically the state of Israel. It’s irrational. Who would have ever believed in our lifetime we would see on the major college campuses of America where college students would believe that it was perfectly okay to shut down the voices and even the ability of a Jewish student to walk across the campus? Look, I grew up in the 60s. My gosh, we had people taking over the president’s office at college campuses arguing for free speech. Today they’re taking over the campuses to argue against free speech. This is a radical difference. We have people who don’t see the world like we grew up seeing it. And the result is that we’re living in a day where people think that it’s perfectly okay for folks to burn down a city and trash a police car and burn down a police station. And the news media will say it’s a mostly peaceful protest as the fire rages behind them. That’s not a difference of opinion. Folks, this is insanity. We’re living in an upside-down world. And when the theme of this conference, pray, vote, stand, I pray that you will embrace this as more than a slogan, that you will see it as a command. I was recently in the film, God’s Not Dead, In God We Trust. I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet. If you haven’t, you need to see it. It’s a wonderful film. I appreciate both of you for watching it. But if you haven’t seen it, I sincerely urge you to. First, it’s, I think, the best of the five-part series. And secondly, I was in it, and I really think you should see it. I just want to tell you this. There is a lot of talk around the country. You know, again, I’m in the film, and people are saying, there’s Oscar talk going on here. Now, not about me or the film. There’s just Oscar talk going on. But not because I’m in it, but here’s an underlying message is this. By the way, General, how are you? God bless you. I love this man down here. One of the greatest Americans in our country. God bless you. But this film is a reminder that there are 40 million self-described evangelical Christians who do not vote in a presidential election. And let me explain what that means. If half of those people who sit in church on their blessed assurance would pray, stand, and vote, we would change every election in this country from the school board all the way to the White House. I do not understand why Christians would ever say, oh, I don’t want to vote. It’s dirty business. Why is it dirty business? Because the Christians have kept their hands out of it. And the reason that it has gotten as dirty, filthy as it is, and it is, I’ll be the first to acknowledge it. I’ve lived in the belly of the beast now for over 30 years. Let me assure you, it is nasty business. But it doesn’t get better when the people who claim to be there for the cleanliness of it don’t show up for the fight. It doesn’t get it better. Look, everybody wants to eat from a clean plate, right? Go to the restaurant, you sit down. When they bring your food, you don’t want lunch on your dinner plate. It’s pretty simple. But if you want to eat from a clean plate, don’t you think somebody’s got to be willing to do the dishes? And don’t you think that maybe God is calling every one of us to engage in the civic responsibility. It’s not just our right, it is our responsibility to be engaged in the process. I don’t understand why a pastor, look, I would never ask a pastor, expect or want a pastor to endorse candidates from the pulpit. Even when I was a candidate, a pastor would say, I’m going to endorse you. I said, don’t. Outside the pulpit, fine. Put my bumper strip on your car. That’d be great. You can tell everybody how you’re going to vote, but don’t do it from the pulpit. I said because the sacred desk needs to be reserved and preserved for the one message of the Lord Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins. There is no other message that should come from that pulpit. So don’t endorse me. I may fail miserably. Jesus will never fail, so preach him. But part of preaching him is to encourage people to do something that is a privilege in this country, and that is the privilege of voting and helping to select the government that is going to oversee our lives.

SPEAKER 03 : 33:29

That was former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee speaking at the 2024 PrayVote Stand Summit back in October. You’re tuned in to Washington Watch. Again, let me just tell you, if you miss the summit or you want to revisit any part of it, you can download the Stand Firm app. Go to your favorite place wherever you get apps and text the word APP to 67742. We’ll be back right in a moment.

SPEAKER 11 : 34:08

Hello, I’m Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council here in Washington, D.C. Behind me is one of the most recognizable buildings in all the world, the U.S. Capitol. What does it stand for? Well, most people say government. But you know, the Bible talks about four institutions of government. You know what they are? And do we have a republic or a democracy? Well, what do you say? Also, what about this thing separation of church and state? Does that mean Christians shouldn’t be involved in government? Guess what? We address those issues and more in our new God and Government course. I invite you to join us to see what the historical record and the Bible has to say about government. Join us for God and Government.

SPEAKER 02 : 35:02

The world is hurting, streets are filled with crime, families are broken, sin is celebrated, and God is mocked. Everywhere we look, the wages of our sin are on full display. As Christians, we know that surrender to God’s will is the solution to our biggest problems, but not everyone agrees. Even in church, we hear people say the most important thing is to be tolerant, that we shouldn’t impose a morality on other people, and that loving our neighbor means celebrating what they do. But you can’t do that. It’s not that you don’t love your neighbor. You do. But you care about God’s opinion more than your neighbor’s opinion, and this makes you different. In fact, sometimes it makes you feel alone, like you are the only one. But there is good news. You are not alone, not even close. Research has found that there are 59 million American adults who are a lot like you. There are millions of people around the country who are born again, deeply committed to practicing their faith, and believe the Bible is the reliable Word of God. But that’s not all. They’re also engaged in our government. They’re voters. They’re more likely to be involved in their community, and they’re making a difference in elections. The problem is that a lot of them feel alone, too. We want to change that. FRC wants to connect these 59 million Americans to speak the truth together, no matter the cost. If you want to learn more about this group and what it means to be a spiritually active, governance-engaged conservative, or if you want to find out if you are one of these sage cons yourself, go to frc.org slash sagecon and take the quiz to find out. The world is hurting and we have the solution. We can’t do it alone, but we can do it if we work together. That’s what we’re working toward every day. Join us. Go to FRC.org slash S-A-G-E-C-O-N SageCon to learn more. That’s S-A-G-E-C-O-N SageCon to learn more.

SPEAKER 03 : 37:03

And welcome back to Washington Watch. I’m your Friday host, Jody Heiss. Thanks so much for tuning in to today’s special program. We’ve been playing some of the highlights from the 2024 PrayVote Stand Summit that was held in Washington, D.C., and I hope you’ve been enjoying them. Well, to close out today’s special edition, we’re going to finish up with the address delivered by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. We’ll start with his encouragement to vote when it’s time to vote. and what happens when we don’t.

SPEAKER 09 : 37:33

It’s not just our right. It is our responsibility to be engaged in the process. I don’t understand why a pastor… Look, I would never ask a pastor, expect, or want a pastor to endorse candidates from the pulpit. Even when I was a candidate, a pastor would say, I’m going to endorse you. I said, don’t. Outside the pulpit, fine. Put my bumper strip on your car. That’d be great. You can tell everybody how you’re going to vote, but don’t do it from the pulpit. I said because the sacred desk needs to be reserved and preserved for the one message of the Lord Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins. There is no other message that should come from that pulpit. So don’t endorse me. I may fail miserably. Jesus will never fail, so preach him. But part of preaching him is to encourage people to do something that is a privilege in this country, and that is the privilege of voting and helping to select the government that is going to oversee our lives. And if we don’t like the government we have and don’t vote, we end up getting the government we deserve and not the one we wanted. And then when our 12-year-old granddaughter is forced into some hideous situation where she loses her privacy, her modesty, and her dignity, And we really can’t complain and say, oh, I wish those people would make different decisions. You were the one who didn’t make the decision. You didn’t even vote. And I would suggest that any pastor that does not encourage his people to be a part of civic engagement and voting is being derelict in the duty of being a shepherd to the sheep. I’m not trying to be mean, I’m not trying to castigate anybody, but folks, this country is on the brink of collapse. Jesus said that we are the salt and the light. Most people have no idea what that means as it related to the first century church. Jesus said you’re the salt. What did he mean? Did he mean that we, oh, a little sprinkle of us here and there seasons the food? No. First century, he’s speaking Sea of Galilee. Fishermen are bringing their fish in. They didn’t bring them out of the boat and put them in ice chest or refrigerated trucks or Yeti coolers. They didn’t have those things. They had one thing, salt. It was a preservative. Salt was the preservative, so they would bring the fish out and immediately start packing the fish in salt because it was the only thing that would keep the fish from putrefying and spoiling. Somebody has said it’s like Baptists. They come out of the water and they immediately start spoiling and putrefying. The Baptists weren’t laughing right then, so I totally understand. It was funny to everybody else though, so it’s okay. When Jesus said, you’re the salt of the earth, he said, look, if something is rotting, you’re the ones who are responsible for keeping it from rotting. You’re the salt. But if you’re not going to be the salt, you’re going to be more like sand, then we’ll trample them under the feet. It’s worthless. If we’re not going to be the salt, then we’re going to see a culture like the one we have. And if you look at our culture and you say, this culture is messed up. Why, we’ve got people saying crazy stuff. We have people that don’t know what a woman is. We appoint them to the Supreme Court. That makes sense, doesn’t it? I’m for women’s rights. I don’t know what a woman is, but I’m for women’s rights. This is crazy town business, people. So if we want to combat that, we better be salt. Otherwise, it gets worse and worse, and the putrefaction of our culture degenerates into something that is unrecognizable and unlivable. Wherever there is a lack of salt, there is rot. If you look at our culture and society today and say, it’s rotting, it’s because there’s not any salt. And who’s the salt? Are we expecting the politicians to deliver that? You shouldn’t. God is expecting his children, the people in our pews. He’s expecting us to be the salt. And he said, not you could be, you should be, you might be. He said, you are the salt of the earth. But are we acting like it? No, we enjoy going to church, and that’s our huddle. But if you have huddles and you never run the play, you never can win the game. And folks, we have a lot of people that get gathered up for the huddle, then they leave the field. Several years ago, I, for a long time, had a bass boat. I loved fishing. And you know, the only problem with a bass boat, those things are expensive, right? Some of you have one. Some of your wives saying, yeah, they’re expensive. And when I had a bass boat, I realized that if I took it down the Arkansas River, I might bump into a stump and knock the lower unit off. I could hit it so hard, it’d put a hole in it, have to get it repaired. And it’d get nasty and dirty in the river. So I ended up doing something that a lot of us boat owners did. I quit going into the water and I joined a boat club. And we put our boats in a warehouse. And every weekend we would go to the warehouse and sit up in our boats and wave at each other. We’d polish our boats. We’d turn on the boat stereo. We would even get together and we would sing boat songs. We would invite people to come in and talk to us about boating and how much fun it was. And we even would take up money and we would send people out to actually get on the water and see what it was like to be in a boat. They would come back and show slides and tell us about being on a boat. When the weekend was over, we’d all turn out the lights, polish our boats, and we’d say goodbye to each other, sing a little boat song, and go on our merry way. You say, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Let me tell you, there’s nothing dumber than people who go to church and they hide out every Sunday and they turn the lights off and they go and they never think again the rest of the week about what they heard on Sunday and they never put their boat in the water. Folks, let me be honest. If a boat gets filled with the water, it ain’t much of a boat. But if a boat never gets in the water, it ain’t much of a boat. And we have too many believers who are the boats that never see water. Yes, you’re going to hit a stump. Yes, you’re going to get hurt. Yes, there are things that are going to get nasty. I can tell you from the experience of being not just a candidate but an office holder, it’s a bad business out there. I tell people all the time, they say, I’m thinking about running for office. What do you think? My response is always the same. If you can’t stand the sight of your own blood, don’t do it. This is a game played, full contact sport, played without pads. And there’ll be times you’ll come off the field in a gurney. It’s not always pleasant and fun, and a lot of people won’t like you. So if you have to be loved and have to be appreciated when everything you do, well, okay. Go to the warehouse. Never put your boat in the water. but our country is sinking because we don’t have enough sailors and we have too many sitters. We need some people who will pray, vote, and stand. And that’s why we’re here. I love what Michelle Bachmann was sharing a few moments ago and especially the powerful prayer. We sometimes really do act like that it, It’s so much about us, and we even sometimes even pray as if, now, God, we know you’re not really going to answer this prayer, but it’s in the program, so here we go. I mean, isn’t that embarrassing that we… I want to tell you a little story. During my tenure as governor, if you came to see me at the state capitol, the governor’s office was on the second floor of the state capitol. And if somebody had an appointment with me or wanted to see somebody from the staff of the governor’s office, they came to the second floor and there was an outer office. It had to be unlocked electronically by the receptionist. And if you got through that first electronically locked door, she would find out who you were and who you had an appointment with. Was it with me or was it with a staff member? And once we determined that there was, in fact, an appointment, then… If it was with a staff member, they would be summoned, they would meet you in the outer office, they would take you to their offices and you would have your appointment. If the appointment was with me, the next step was that another electronically locked door would open and two state troopers would escort a person in where they would ask for photo ID. Yeah, photo ID, gee, what a novel idea. Maybe one day we’ll even do that to vote or whatever. And then they would make sure that this person didn’t have an arrest warrant out for them. They really were who they said they were. And they would get checked out by a couple of state troopers. Then they would go through another electronically locked door where a staff member who was assigned to staff the meeting would greet that person and just remind them of kind of how long they had in the meeting. And please don’t take cell phone calls while we’re in the middle of it because that counted against your clock and simple things like that. They then would go to my assistant, who sat right outside my office door, and she would electronically unlock that door. And as she stepped in, she would knock and announce, Governor, Mr. Tony Perkins is here to see you. And I would say, I don’t want to see him. Good grief. No, she would announce, and that would be the signal that I was supposed to know that my 2 o’clock appointment was there. Now, the way my office was located, if I were sitting at my desk, I looked forward at the door in which she would come in. But I had a big credenza behind my desk on which my computer sat, and I did a lot of my work at the credenza part because it was big and I had a lot of room. And the other reason was I had a great view right down Capitol Avenue from my office window. And then if I turned to my left, I had a beautiful view of the Arkansas River. It was a real nice spot. Corner office, great view. So I liked working that way because the view was better. While I was sitting at my credenza, I was looking down Capitol Avenue, Arkansas River over to my left, back over my right shoulder would have been the entrance door. Nobody knocked. Nobody announced anyone. I just had this feeling. You ever had those? Where you feel like somebody’s in the room with me. You just felt it. So I slowly I turned and looked up and much to my astonishment, there was this rather shabbily dressed young lady standing right over me. You’re probably thinking what anyone would think. How on earth did she get through that many electronically locked doors, that many staff members and troopers? How in the world could she have gotten through and you not even be told? And what’s worse, as she stood over me, she started demanding money. I thought, are you a legislator? That’s what they do. But no. And again, she was not dressed for business at the Capitol. You know what I did? I gave her money. You bet I did. You know the reason? Because that young lady standing over me was a college student who happened to be my daughter. And if she asked me for something, usually she got it. Truth is, she’s still getting it pretty much any time. And she wasn’t dressed up for the occasion. She knew she didn’t have to be. She was a college student. She was dressed like one. And she didn’t have any hesitation whatsoever to say, dad, I need some money. Can you fork over some? Which I dutifully did. You see, she didn’t have to go through all those people to come see me. Standing rule in my office was always that any member of my immediate family had instant access. They called, they were put right through. If they came, they came right in. Now, my assistant might say, look, he’s in a meeting with whoever, and then it would be up to them to decide if it was important enough to interrupt me, and usually they thought it was. I wanted it that way because I never wanted them to think that they took a backseat to anybody. Not the biggest donor, not the most important person in business. Nobody was more important than they were. So here she stands, she’s asking for money. She didn’t have to go through the state troopers, my assistant, the receptionist, the staff members, nobody. And there’s a simple reason why she didn’t have to ask anybody’s permission to stand right there and boldly ask me for money. Because she had something that nobody else that day who came to see me had. She had my name. She had my name. I don’t know how many times I see believers and they act like that we’re just so, we’re so powerless. We’re overwhelmed. We’re going to lose this thing. How can we possibly survive? And I want to just sometimes say, have you not read the book? God has given us his name. He has told us. that we don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to come boldly before his throne and we can ask him anything he wants. He may tell us no, but he loves to tell us yes. And if we were to pray and sincerely repent of our sins and come with a sense of humility about what we’ve done to this world and the country, and if we were to come without apology, and ask him to bring healing to this land and to raise up a generation of godly leaders, even if they weren’t aware of the fact that they were being godly leaders, but that he would use them because God can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick. And we would ask him. He might just turn this nation around. You have his name. Pray, vote, stand. God bless you.

SPEAKER 03 : 52:52

I’m Jody Heist. Thank you so much for tuning into this special edition of Washington Watch. What you just heard was former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee at the 2024 Pray, Vote, Stand Summit. And friends, I tell you, it was one of the most powerful meetings that I’ve ever been a part of. Many of you were there. Many of you watched it. Many of you didn’t. And for those who missed it, one more time, I’d like to give you a way that you can access the content for yourself. You can download our Stand Firm app. Download the word app, APP, to 67742 and get a taste of that summit. Thank you for joining us today. We’ll see you next week on Washington Watch.

SPEAKER 01 : 53:45

Washington Watch with Tony Perkins is brought to you by Family Research Council and is entirely listener supported. Portions of the show discussing candidates are brought to you by Family Research Council Action. For more information on anything you heard today or to find out how you can partner with us in our ongoing efforts to promote faith, family and freedom, visit TonyPerkins.com.