Looking Ahead in a Divided Country

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Just go to aioclub.org slash radio. Confusion, fear, and anger, those are just some of the emotions many are feeling as they look across the land and see political, moral, and spiritual division. I'm John Fuller, this is Focus on the Family, and we're so glad to have you with us today as we offer some hope and perspective on what's going on and how we can move ahead in this country. Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly, and Jim, we're in Washington D.C. today.

Yeah, we are, and you've hit it really well, John. There's so much angst in the country right now, and fundamentally we're here for the March for Life that'll be done virtually. We're also having meetings with senators and people in the House of Representatives. It's interesting to come to Washington to always get an inside peek about what's happening, especially from our perspective as a Christian.

And so that's what we want to do today is inform you and talk to someone who is right at the top of the game. Senator James Lankford from Oklahoma is within the leadership of the Senate, and he's extremely knowledgeable of the things that are going on. And I really just wanted to hear from him his feelings as a Christian and as a senator as to what's happening in the country right now.

I know there are some who are going to feel like, why do we want to talk about this? It's important for us as Christians to be knowledgeable and informed about what's happening in our country. So there's no agenda other than to do just that, to inform you and talk to Senator Lankford as a believer about what's happening today. And Senator James Lankford has been in the U.S. Senate since 2014.

Before that, he served in the House of Representatives for four years, and as Jim, you noted, he was a youth pastor prior to that for about 20 years. Senator Lankford, it's great to have you with us. Thank you for being here.

Oh, it's really my pleasure to be back with you again. You know, I want to start at kind of the big end of the funnel. You're a believer, you're a youth pastor for 20 years before getting into Congress. When you look at the landscape right now, more as a Christian, not a senator, what do you see and how do you process what's going on right now in the country? I know that there's a lot of people who are really interested in the idea of the paper bleeding into the church, not because the church is not relevant. That church is relevant to speak to those things. But there's some people really interested in saying that's all the church should talk about. They should talk about it more. There's a bigger kingdom purpose that's out there, and we seem to be losing track of that somewhat as a country.

So I guess just finding our way as followers of Christ, to be able to say, what is it we're called to do and to do that well, and to literally seek first the kingdom of God and know all those other things can be taken care of. You know, I interact with the press, not to the extent that you do, but one of the common questions for me as a Christian in leadership will be, you know, why do you land with the Republican Party so often, right? But I'll say it's because that party, although I wish both parties in our country would embrace these things, that they're pro-life. They're plank as pro-life. They're pro-family. These are the things that we stand for and focus on the family. It's almost like they're trying to shame us into, you know, why would you support those Republicans?

And I think for the audience, I just want to get that out. I mean, you're in the Senate, and I so appreciate those pro-life positions for you. I think Susan B. Anthony, they gave you the A-plus award as being a pro-life senator. What would you say to that person that's egging that debate on? You know, why do Christians typically lean toward the Republican Party, and why is faith in politics? Yeah, I would say I know believers that are Democrats, and so I'll have folks that'll say, you think all believers are all Republicans. No, that's not true. And so I get it. Jesus was not a Republican Democrat.

He's the king of the world. That's right. So that's not the issue on it. But I do have a very profound belief in the value of every single person, and I can't seem to shake some of my friends on the Democratic side that believe some children are valuable and some children are not. I can't get past that. To say, I really do believe every child is a gift from God, and I don't have the right to be able to declare that one's valuable, that one is medical waste, and to just set that aside.

So that's not what I'm going to do, number one. And so that's a big issue for me. It's a dividing point. I'll often hear people say things like, well, Democrats care more about the child after they're born, and Republicans just care about them when they're born.

And I always laugh, and I think that's a nice cliché. It's just not factually true, actually. Last year's budget that passed when we were dealing with CARES Act funds and we were dealing with education and child care and all those things, overwhelmingly Republicans and Democrats supported those issues as we're walking through the last year. So it's a cop-out in some ways for some people to be able to say, well, you only care about them in the womb. It's not true in that.

But we do have a different set. We don't believe that government should take care of everything and every child. There's a role for the family. The family should have more choice in education. The family should have more opportunity to be able to do things with their children and be able to leave. They shouldn't have a heavy hand of government. Now, that is a difference between us, but that's just a core belief in the value of the family and the importance of family.

Yeah. And those of us that are watching what you're doing in the Senate applaud you, being able to weave both your faith and the vocation of politics together. Let me ask you, Senator, on the 6th, the day that the Mall hosted the rally and then some of those people went to the Capitol and stormed the Capitol, you were actually speaking in the Senate right at that moment. Describe for us that day what took place and how you felt about it. Yeah, January 6th was a dark day for the country, to say the least. It was a day that we were concerned about some level of violence outside, thinking, okay, if there are protesters and counterprotesters outside, everybody's pretty fired up. I hope everyone behaves themselves.

But none of us had any thought that someone would actually smash through the doors and try to work their way, and they didn't even cross our mind. We had protests at the Capitol every day. Literally, I can walk out of the Capitol after a vote and look outside and go, who's protesting today? What are they protesting? Because it's just so common to see protesters around the Capitol for different issues all the time.

So that day we really didn't think was any different in a lot of ways. I was stepping up to speak in the Senate, and there was kind of a buzz that was going around me with other senators looking at their phone and saying that the protesters are right at the doors of the Capitol. And I turned to Steve Daines, who's a great, solid believer. He sits right next to me on the Senate floor and said, I bet I don't make it through this speech. And I stepped up to start speaking. And about two and a half minutes into the speech, as I'm speaking, I watched the Secret Service rush in the side door, grab Vice President Pence and pull him out. And then they moved Chuck Grassley to go sit in that spot.

And as soon as he did, he gaveled down the Senate and said, we're in recess right now. And a staff member walked up to me and said the protesters are in the building now. And they started locking the doors all around the chamber. The security on the outside of the chamber moved to the inside. They moved the staff that work around the Senate into the Senate chamber, locked the doors down.

And it was clear this is where they're going to take their stand is right inside this room. They were not as worried about the building at that point. Once they'd broken through in multiple places outside, they were most concerned about the people. In that context, how do you process that?

What in your mind was taking place? I mean, people are frustrated on all sides. The election, you know, there are many questions. I thought what the Senate was engaging in along with the House was a good discussion about election security. You know, making sure that our elections are fair and equal and all those right things. What's going on with the angst in the country?

Why is there such emotion that seems uncontrollable now? On all sides. On all sides.

We've seen it through the summer. Yeah, it is exactly the issue. We have disagreements as Americans. That's what the House and the Senate are designed to do. We're not designed to tell people sit down and shut up. We're designed to be able to say, OK, this is the place where we argue these things out and make sure everyone has a voice and that we actually all get a chance to be able to talk out our ideas. So it is entirely appropriate for the House and the Senate to say there are millions of people who have questions on both sides of this.

This is where we talk about it. So there's nothing different about that. There's nothing different about a protest around the Capitol. But there was obviously something very different about people who intentionally planned to come in and smash their way through.

As we know now, it wasn't just a spontaneous event, a passion. There are people that planned, brought the materials, walked outside of the facility, looked for where they were going to go. And actually, while the president was speaking, those folks were already in the process of smashing down and working their way through the police lines. So it wasn't the crowd fired up from leaving the president time at the White House and coming down in a rage. It was already going on.

They had planned to be able to do it. But we saw it this summer in moments where there would be a protest speaking about racial justice in the country. That's an entirely appropriate conversation for us to be able to have. We have a long history of racial injustice in the country. Why would we not want to continue that conversation to be able to work towards making sure every person made in the image of God is treated with honor and respect? That's one of the signature items of us as Americans.

That's entirely appropriate to have those conversations. But then to watch it bleed over into violence often late at night and windows be smashed and trying to occupy federal courthouses. That's not who we are as a country. And I think some of it's the pandemic.

Some of it's just the built up anger of people just being mad at the world because everything in their status quo has changed. But ultimately for those of us as Christians, we have a responsibility to be able to say our hope is somewhere bigger than all of this. And when the status quo has changed, God does not. So if he is our light and our salvation, whom shall we fear? He's the stronghold of our life. Of whom shall we be afraid? So to be able to walk through that journey as a Christian is especially important right now. They see us be stable in the middle of all the chaos.

A friend of mine who's a non-believer said to me, if you guys are concerned, I should be really concerned. And that's what you're saying. In some ways, the Christian community, we need to keep our focus on the eternal things. And it does feel like we're losing a bit of that perspective that the ground fighting has become so important that we're missing the bigger picture.

And that's a frustration that I have constantly. But we're drawn into it because we're concerned about the things that we're losing. The reverence for God, the nation's founding principles. I mean, the idea that conscience, religious liberty, these are core things that this nation was built on. So people are feeling like we're losing the core values. When we all talk about core values, those truly are core values. So we lose the core values as a country in those critical aspects because one family's not passing it on to the next generation, to the next generation, to the next generation. They're expecting government or expecting somebody else to be able to carry on those values.

They don't. We know from a biblical perspective, you pass that on from one generation to the next. The mom and dad pass it down to their children or their grandchildren. And so when we see a failure of that in some families to be able to pass down that value, it gets filled in with the vacuum of the culture.

So being salt and light begins at home. So two things I would say on that. One is make sure our families are actually passing on these values.

Do the first thing. I know we're panicked about other people's families and what's happening in other places in other states. Make sure we're taking care of our own. And the second thing is make sure our hope is based on something that is eternal. Our hope is found in Christ and what he is doing. If our hope is in a government or in a place or in a person or an elected official or in what my school is going to do, your hope's in the wrong spot. We take care of our first responsibility to our family, to our own personal walk with God, and then engage in our culture in a way that makes the greatest difference. Yeah.

And I really appreciate that. And I think it's difficult. I think the Christian community particularly right now with the examples of the cancel culture, even focus on the family. Twitter shut us down for a few days. I'm not even sure if we're back up yet on an issue where we were just stating a fact and they called it hate speech. So there's this destabilization, I guess, that we're not even sure how to communicate any longer.

Yeah, it is. And it's easier just to be able to, if I don't agree with you, silence you. Find a way to be able to isolate you. Make sure you don't have a platform to speak. People don't handle that well. No one likes being told, just be quiet, sit in the corner, you don't matter anymore.

Every person matters to God. And though not every opinion is right, I understand that everyone has an opinion, but not every opinion is right, people do deserve to be heard. And that used to be a core value that we had as Americans, is everyone would be heard. That's what our Congress is all about. That's what neighborhood conversations and school board meetings are all about. Let them be heard. Senator, as so many of our audience members aren't in politics, let me just ask a question on their behalf. I'm Joe Citizen.

I'm Susie Homaker. Whatever my role is, if I see my church being canceled out or shut down or pushed back on because of some faith issues, what do I do? How do I handle that? Yeah, it's hard because right now, especially on the left, it's really shout you down and to be able to find ways that you don't get the opportunity to speak. It's contact people that are donating to some conservative cause or some church that made a statement they don't like and find people to donate to them and not go to their business and boycott them and all those things. So there's a couple things we can do. Obviously, engaging with your neighbors and friends in real conversation. It doesn't help us to say if I was canceled, I'm going to cancel you back and I'm going to disengage from culture even more.

That's what that group wants. They want to say, I don't want to think about you. You're a non person to me.

I'm canceling you. You don't exist and so I want you not to speak and I don't want to see you. So one of the best things we can do is actually go serve them and to actually go engage in those conversations and relationships and say, I don't think we've really met because I'm hearing some things that you think I think and I don't. Can we get time to get dinner together?

Can we get time to be able to talk? And instead of saying, well, I hate you back, to say, okay, I'm going to actually love you when you hate me and let's find out if the Jesus method actually works because Martin Luther King Jr. talked about hate doesn't drive out hate. Only love can do that. Jesus said light comes into darkness and dispels the darkness.

So if there's darkness there, insert some light and find out what happens. And again, people want to say, well, let me elect someone and they'll just fix all this. That's not how it works in a culture. It's each family.

It's each community. It's each individual choosing to be able to reach out to someone who disagrees and establishing that. And the more isolated we are from each other, the angrier and the more separated we'll be. The more that Christians actually engage with people that don't agree philosophically, we end up being salt and light. And that seems to be a biblical principle of adding light to dark places and salt where salt needs to be applied. It is so true and I think I've even experienced that and I think it reasserts the idea that we're made in God's image because as I've met with LGBT folks, when they feel sincerity from you, that you really do care about them, I'd say it's always gone that way where their heart has opened up to what I have to say. To have real dialogue. It's hard to persuade the human spirit or the human heart when you're wagging a finger in their face. It's just the way we're wired.

We will entrench ourselves in our position. But when people feel care and concern from another person, I think it's God-given that it cracks that person's heart open to listen. I think it's a spiritual formula.

A gentle answer does turn away a rat. And there's the scripture to support that. Knights of Columbus on the pro-life front. Knights of Columbus released their annual poll on pro-life issues.

I just received these yesterday, actually. But more than – I just want to read a couple of the stats from this. More than three-quarters of Americans, 76 percent, including a majority who identify as pro-choice, want significant restrictions on abortion. Think of that number. Seventy-seven percent. Seventy-six percent. Seventy-seven percent of those polled either oppose or strongly oppose using tax dollars, which of course the Biden administration, through executive order, has just issued. But 77 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars for abortion. That's 55 percent Democrat. I mean, there is seemingly a strong position in this country not to use tax dollars, not to fund international abortion, yet this government right now is headlong in that direction. And you're sitting there as a senator in the minority.

How do you shake the cobwebs from people, or how do you try to help people make sense of this? So I was actually on the floor of the Senate yesterday and spoke on this exact issue. I had a picture of a child in the womb. It was a great three-dimensional sonogram. The pictures are remarkable.

Now, when my kids were little, it was just like this fuzzy black smear on the page. You kind of figure it out. Now you can see their nose and their eyes and their lips, and it's remarkable the technology that we can see. I had that picture behind me, and I said, there's really only one question that we have to resolve.

There's only one out there, and there's all these options of people saying, there's only one question I'll resolve. Is that a child? And I could show the picture and say, I can count 10 fingers, I can count 10 toes, there's a beating heart, there's a functioning nervous system, there's DNA that's different than the mom's DNA.

They're not the same DNA. That tissue is different than every other tissue in her body is that tissue right there of that child. And to see this face and to say, how can you say that's not a child?

How can you say that? So really, I try to be able to bring it back to the central issue. A lot of people talk about it's a woman's choice, and if she wants to keep this child, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's first begin with the real question. Is that a baby? Because if that's a baby, what are we going to do about that as a culture? Because 48 years ago, the Supreme Court determined not just is abortion going to be legal, but is it going to be required in every state? People lose track of what Roe v. Wade was. Roe v. Wade abortion was already legal in America, just most states didn't allow it. Some states did. The Supreme Court stepped in and said, nope, every state has to allow this.

And so it suddenly became mandatory nationwide. And for the people that say, well, what if Roe was overturned? Well, if Roe was overturned, all that will mean is the conversation will go back to the states again. And states will have to make this decision.

So it's really a cultural conversation that we need to have with people. Forty-eight years later, we don't still accept as a culture what the Supreme Court said. We don't believe the death of 62 million children since 1973 is the right direction for our country.

We believe that every child is valuable, not just some. I think Justice Blackmun, if I remember this correctly, in that decision even said, as we progress, as science perhaps can determine the beginning of life more accurately, then we should probably come back and readdress this. Science is on our side.

Science is totally on our side. One of the things that I said yesterday is please don't tell me that you follow science and you ignore the life of a child. Because there's nothing in the womb that doesn't show that's not a life. In fact, I jokingly tell people if what we found in the womb we found on Mars, we would say there's life on Mars. But no one seems to admit that's life in the womb.

That is a really good point right there. You mentioned the ultrasound machines, and that's something we've been engaged with at Focus for years. Sixteen years, we're nearing a half a million babies saved. And we're grateful to the Pregnancy Resource Centers that we are able to place these machines in partnership with them. And it's something like 57, 58 percent of abortion-minded women, when they are able to see that ultrasound and see their baby, those ten fingers, those ten toes that you mentioned, it changes their heart because they have never seen that.

And they think it's just a blob of tissue. But to your point, it's a unique human being being knitted in their mother's womb that God knew from the beginning of this universe. And that's the position we take. And I think that ripple effect, Senator, of defending life and fighting for life has such impact in what we're seeing today with the disregard for children and sex trafficking and that life is not as precious as it once was. And I think it does begin with our attitude about abortion. And if children are seen as disposable, and I could keep you or I could throw you away, I just had to decide, that does change everything about the psyche of a child to think, well, you chose to keep me, but am I not that valuable one direction or the other? It is just something very important about recognizing the value of every person that sends a message to every other person.

We really are created in the image of God and we have value and purpose. I so appreciate the time that we've had. As the wrap-up question, let me ask you this. I've been being a youth pastor for 20 years, now a senator of the great state of Oklahoma, right next to Colorado. And we have so many good friends in Oklahoma that support the ministry. What do you say to the Christian community about encouragement? There's a heavy-heartedness in the country right now.

It's a big load with the transition of government that we've just experienced, what's happening with cancel culture, big tech, media, churches not being able to meet still because of the pandemic. We're heavy-hearted and I think we're losing perspective. What would you say to us? I'd say a couple of things to them. The first thing I would say is I really do believe God's bigger than all of this.

And he is one that can be trusted in the process. And we should ask the question, God, what are you doing? What direction are you taking us? What are you pushing us out of? I look at things like Acts chapter 7 where you see the stoning of Stephen, a horrible event in the stoning of Stephen, yet it was the trigger that actually pushed the church out of Jerusalem to go around the world to be able to share the Gospel.

That's right. So you have to stop and ask questions when there are difficult moments. God, what are you pushing us to do? Where are you pushing us to go? What is it I'm not doing that I should be doing that you're trying to nudge me towards that I'm fighting against?

So I think it's a reasonable question to ask. The second one is, quite frankly, yesterday I read Psalm 27 in the middle of all the craziness. I read the Psalms in the morning and other scriptures in the evening. I read Psalm 27, and as I read that Psalm, it just reminded me again, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Of whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?

When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh even, I'm not going to fear. And so there's just so many great truths in scripture that you look at and go, okay, God, there have been very difficult moments in history before that we've seen. And you can read through Old Testament or New and to see what God has done through history and through time and to realize he's accomplishing a purpose, and this difficult moment is a difficult moment he's teaching us with. If I ask people their testimony and say, what's God done in your life?

When have you seen his evidence the most? I bet 99 out of 100 would talk about a hard time in their life and what God did through that and how he proved himself faithful. But when we're in that hard time, we never seem to remember that. But at this moment and a hard moment, I would just encourage the church and believers to say, I wonder what God's going to do with this on the other side that we're going to months from now turn around and praise him for that right now we're griping about. And so let's start praising him now for that and what is called in scripture the sacrifice of praise to actually engage and say, okay, God, I'm going to prepare myself and be faithful now.

That is so good. And boy, we'll be praying for you in your role as a senator. Senator Lankford, thank you for being with us on Focus on the Family.

Thanks. It's really an honor to be with you again. Well, we hope that this has been an encouraging conversation for you and that you've seen some more hope that we have in Christ as we look across all the chaos of the day. If we can be of any help to you, please get in touch with us here at Focus on the Family. We're a phone call away.

Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family. John, I do want to urge the viewers to be in prayer for our nation. Whether you're Republican or Democrat, it's important that we lift the nation up before the Lord. Scripture compels us to do that as well.

Senator Lankford has given us a lot to think about. And again, I would ask you to pray specifically for him and others who have a pro-life perspective, who have a pro-marriage perspective, who are trying to do the things that help preserve this nation and to build on those things that most of us believe allowed this nation to be as strong as it is. We need our country to turn back toward God. And that's going to start with us being humble and getting on our knees and praying for that. I love the Scripture in Romans 12 21 that says, Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And that's what we try to do each and every day, both in our character as well as our tone, and to represent Christ in a way that I think he would be pleased with. And remember, Focus on the Family stands ready to help you and your family at your point of need.

It doesn't have to be the big Washington, D.C. thing. If you're struggling, call us. We are there for you.

And I want to make sure we alert you to that. Yeah, and we have said it before, but we do have so many different resources for you wherever you are as a family or in your walk with Christ. Jim, you mentioned praying for the Senator and others. Pray for focus as we continue to encourage families worldwide. Certainly one of the things that has poignancy right now, Jim, here being in D.C., is the sanctity of life and focus on the family's dedication to preserving life at all stages. I'm excited about Option Ultrasound. We've been doing this program for 16 years. We're approaching half a million babies saved through that effort, and that's placing an ultrasound in a pregnancy resource clinic along with all the other services that we can provide, the training, materials. And what a wonderful group of people that are on the front lines doing the Lord's work each and every day. I'd encourage you to consider volunteering at that pregnancy resource center.

Get involved however you can at that local level. That's a wonderful way to express the love of Christ to these women who are in trouble. Also, you can help by supporting Focus on the Family with Option Ultrasound. We've got those metrics down now to where it's $60 to save a baby's life. And I'd love for you to consider giving to Focus to save that one child for $60. And I don't know how else to say it, but can we do that? Let's do it together. Well, if you're able to, please be generous and make a $60 sustaining pledge, a monthly gift to Focus on the Family to make that difference. If you're not able to do that monthly gift, a one-time gift of $60 makes all the difference in the world. Our number again, 800, the letter A and the word family. We'll stop by the episode notes for more. Well, on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family.

I'm John Fuller hoping you have a great weekend and inviting you back on Monday as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. This is the first generation of healthy, mature and responsible children, and this assessment will help get you started. Take the assessment at focusonthefamily.com slash 7trades. That's focusonthefamily.com slash 7trades.