Revival on Our College Campuses?

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. We're going to share with you today a major pro-life victory and then talk about revival, how you can be involved and what's happening on college campuses.

Dr. Michael Brown. A few weeks back, I had a guest on the broadcast, Jim Harden, the director of the Compass Care Pregnancy Center in Buffalo. In early June, in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, their pregnancy center was firebombed, they had to shut it down. Jim came on the air with me, full of love and grace towards those that meant them harm, and of course opening his arms wide. To women considering abortion. And the question is, well, what do you do now?

How do you get back in operation in the same building or elsewhere? Well, that was back in June that this happened and we did some updates after that. We've got some good news for you and I want to share that with you. I'm not taking any calls today, but a little over an hour from now, 4.15 Eastern Time, we'll do our weekly Q&A YouTube chats.

You can ask all your questions on all subjects. But right now we want to focus on what's happening in the pro-life movement. And then at the bottom of the hour, excuse me, we're going to shift gears and talk about revival and our college campuses. So, Jim, welcome back to the line of fire. Thanks so much for joining us. Oh, thanks for having me. It's an honor to be back with you again, doctor.

So you made clear that you were not going to stop what you were doing, but you couldn't use the building for a period of time and would have to do things in a more secretive way. What's happened since then? Yeah, well, some great, very exciting things have happened. The church across the country and in Buffalo really stepped up and we were able to rebuild the facility in 52 days.

I mean, that's me and my alike. I mean, material shortages, supply chain issues, labor shortages. It didn't matter. But the people of God just stepped up and I'm standing right now, right now, I'm talking to you in the, in the room where the Molotov cocktail looked up with the entire facility on fire. It is incredibly encouraging to see the people of God at work.

They would not have compass care homeless. In fact, not only did they rebuild the facility, we got three offers the very next day after the firebombing to relocate services in Buffalo, three different locations. And we did.

The very next day, we were up and running in an alternate location, obviously. So just amazing to see how the people of God just love to see lives saved, women served, not just through the pregnancy, but beyond. And in fact, we had one patient, if I can share a quick story with you.

No, no, take your time, please. She was, we served this particular patient about probably a year ago and she just loved, she was at risk for abortion. She was really seriously considering abortion and she came to Compass Care. She received ethical medical care, comprehensive community support. We plugged her into a church. She got connected in the community there. She came to Christ and became friends with one of the mother care team and one of the mother care mentors in her church and who works at Compass Care. And she heard about the firebombing on the news and she said, why would anybody want to do this to Compass Care?

Why would anybody want to do this to an organization that just helps, that helped me? And so she was able to turn around and minister to the staff at Compass Care with the baby that Compass Care helped her have. Just an amazing testimony of how the love of God reaches out to people and essentially gives them their lives, gives them the opportunity to connect with Christ. And they in turn encourage us. It is a wonderful, wonderful evening. That is amazing.

There's obviously the gratification of seeing a baby born in this world, but that adds to the story amazingly. Jim, a few details. What about insurance? What happened with insurance coverage and your building? I'm really happy to say the insurance company has been great to work with. Half a million dollars worth of damage. The insurance company, of course, is doing their due diligence to make sure that, you know, crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's, but they are not balking at anything. They're just like, well, let's get you back up and running.

And that's what the insurance companies are for, right? So I'm grateful for that. What about arrests from the folks that have been called domestic terrorists? What's happened with that?

Well, that's where it gets frustrating. My level of disappointment and frustration is increasing daily. We're at day, oh gosh, I think we're at day 71 now and no arrests.

Yeah, today's Wednesday, right? 71 days and no arrests since our firebombing. And by the way, you know this, but there have been 45 attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers in particular. There have been other attacks on other pro-life organizations and churches, but 45 on pregnancy centers in particular, all across the country since the leak of the Dobbs case overturning Roe back in May.

And more arrests, none, zero, big goose egg. And you know, you compare that and you think, well, gosh, we're sitting on a mountain of evidence. We've got video surveillance.

We've got, you know, pictures of people in cars, et cetera. And we don't have, but you compare that to what happened in Kalamazoo, Michigan on July 31st with an abortion clinic called Planned Parenthood. You know, they, they were, there was an attempted arson attack on them, minimal damage. The there's a, this is on a Sunday, July 31st, and there was a joint federal joint task force that got together on Sunday and were able to figure out from the trial remains of a, of a Dura flame log. They found on the, on the premises where it was purchased, who purchased it and they arrested the guy in four days. Now he's facing 20 years in jail. Now I'm, I'm thankful that they found somebody interested in because this kind of violence is unacceptable anywhere to anybody, right? But, but it seems to me that those same, that same level of resources are not being provided compass care or all these other pregnancy centers. It took the FBI five weeks to look at our video surveillance.

Five weeks. That's unacceptable. They are, it seems to me that they are intentionally slow walking this because we are a politically disfavored organization.

We don't perform a refer for abortions and we don't get along apparently with, with the ideology of the ruling elite. Therefore they're going to, they're going to look the other way and slow walk it. That's what it feels like to me. Yeah.

Well Jim, it is, it is frustrating in the natural for sure. And, and I wanted to bring these things to the attention of our listeners. And folks pray for justice and pray for the repentance of the people involved. Obviously the thing you'd love to see the most Jim is, is these people repenting and saying what we did is wrong.

Obviously they broke the law. There are consequences for that and they endangered people. But the fact of the matter is the goal is to see them repent and get right with God and really know the Lord themselves.

That's the great goal. But justice has its place and you know, throughout the Bible there are a lot of the Psalms are written and a lot of the cries go up to heaven because of injustice. And that's why, that's why we keep praying for God to bring about what's right.

But in that sense it's so important to remember that we're doing God's work and that God's for us because the spirit of the age is going to be against us. In that light Jim, can you tell us nationally what's happening? You mentioned the ruling elite, so the government in power now, the left-leaning government in power being pro-abortion. What's the strategy to combat the overturning of Roe v. Wade? Yeah, there seems to be a four-pronged strategy which we've been monitoring for the last several weeks. We've seen these things start to percolate and so we sent out a press release saying, hey, it looks like there's a four-pronged strategy everybody. And a day later the Biden administration said, oh no, it's a three-pronged strategy. Interesting.

It was the craziest phenomenon. Anyway, so I still believe there's four prongs. Despite what the Biden administration wants us to believe. And I think number one, look, the abortion industry is flagging. They're facing an existential threat to their existence because they're looking at losing 300,000 abortions a year.

That's a big deal. To any type of business model, if you lose 300,000 of anything, you're probably going to go out of business. But number one, I think the pro-abortion politicians are protecting the for-profit abortion industry by deregulating what they're calling self-managed abortion. And that's chemical abortion. The abortion industry had to pivot away from surgical abortion to chemical abortion if they're going to stay alive. They've got to be able to send these chemical abortions for cash in the mail to these women in their homes. And I call chemical abortion the chemical coat hanger because it's 400% more dangerous than surgical abortion. The woman is oftentimes more likely to land in the emergency room after starting the chemical abortion process. It was on the FDA REMS list, risk evaluation and mitigation system.

Only 70, seven zero drugs have made it onto that list and they don't take them off. But the Biden administration pressured the FDA to take it off the REMS list because they want to be able to distribute these quickly to women all across the country. And so deregulating chemical abortion has become a massive priority for them right now. The second thing is de-prioritizing enforcement of abortion restrictions at the state level. You know, Dobbs, when Dobbs came out on June 24th, they basically said, OK, let's give the abortion issue back to the states, the people. They want to do it about abortion. Well, now the federal government and the pro-abortion politicians across these states are trying to essentially rob the people of their ability to regulate abortion as they see fit in their states by essentially de-prioritizing. They're telling law enforcement to de-prioritize the enforcement of these regulations that are being enacted. And so they're doing this de-prioritization of law enforcement at the city level and the ordinance level.

You see it in Columbus, Ohio and Austin, Texas, New Orleans, Atlanta, Denton, other places like that. So that's a major prong in their initiative, a four prong initiative right now. And it's wrong. We're a rule of law government and self-governance is key to one of our tenants as Americans. And they're trying to take that back away from us relative to abortion. They're putting the entire governmental structure of America at risk for their pro-abortion pet industry.

So the third prong is similar. They're trying to regulate the abortion industry's only competition out of business. That's pregnancy centers. Medical pregnancy resource centers are the only competition to the abortion industry. And the abortion industry will not have the ability to have abortion clinics in all states anymore. But the pregnancy centers do have a presence in all 50 states. And these pregnancy centers are going to be, with the 21st century telehealth tools that Compass Care is giving 650 pregnant centers, we're going to be able to have the infrastructure to serve every single woman in America before she travels or before she goes on to get a dangerous chemical abortion drug sent to her. So, you know, time to nurse is critical.

A woman makes the decision about the outcome of her pregnancy within 24 hours after the first positive home pregnancy test. And we can reach her and serve her within 24 minutes or 24 seconds. That's incredible. This is the most exciting moment in the history of the pro-life movement. And probably the most important cultural moment in 150 years in America. And this is a moment that God is handing his people. Look, the Church has an opportunity to be the voice and the hands and feet of Christ in this dark world. And we can start talking about what it means to be human again under God and why everybody is equally valuable from the womb to the tomb without partiality. And that's what pregnancy centers are all about.

We help women not just humanize the child in her womb, but also help her have the baby and beyond. As I just described that story of that wonderful woman who encouraged us that we were able to serve a year ago. Hey, Jim, stay right there.

If you could just stay with us through the break, I've got one more quick question for you. I want you to help our listeners with this. But friends, this is the gospel in action. This is what pro-life is all about. We'll be right back. I'm here with Jim Harden, the Compass Care Pregnancy Center in Buffalo. And, Jim, it's wonderful to hear not just that there was great support and that you're back in operation in the same building and that's extraordinary. Obviously, people could run from this because they're intimidated or scared off by the process of what happened or threats. But I'm assuming with your whole team that it's been the opposite.

Yeah, it has been. The fighting spirit of the people of God serving women and saving lives is really a humbling thing to see. We serve God first and foremost, and we're called to fear Him and Him alone. And it's better to suffer, the Bible says, for doing what is right than to suffer for doing what is wrong. And if that's what this is, if we're going to be treated like second-class citizens so that we can save more lives, well then, so be it. I mean, Jesus did that for us. He sacrificed His life for ours. And He's saying, now go and do likewise.

Be the Good Samaritan to your neighbor. I'm just humbled and honored to be part of this wonderful team. We didn't lose a single staff member, we didn't lose a single patient hour of service. They just kept on moving forward.

They kept walking through the fire. Incredible. Incredible. Alright, so Jim, last question for you. I saw an article today where Seth Dillon, who's from Babylon Bee, the Christian satire site, was on The Joe Rogan Show, which is the world's biggest podcast. And Joe Rogan, of course, is not a believer, but they were talking about censorship and things like that, and apparently in the midst of it, got into an exchange that got pretty passionate about abortion and the case of rape. And Joe Rogan said, no one's going to make my, if my 14-year-old daughter was raped, no one's going to force her to have that baby, so they had an exchange about that. So obviously Seth Dillon's position is two wrongs don't make her right, and murdering the baby doesn't help solve things. But of course, someone looking at this, a parent looking at this, thinking of the horror of it, thinking, you're going to make my daughter carry the reproach of this, all the kids are going to know about it in school, you know, it's going to affect the rest of her life, and even if the baby's given up for adoption, she'll never be the same, and she's got to think about what that rapist did every day for all these months, we can get rid of this and move on. So the argument can sound very compassionate, very caring, if we simply say two wrongs don't make her right, obviously it's true, you don't punish the baby for what the rapist did, but then, what about the woman who's been raped?

So it's an emotionally charged argument for obvious reasons. So Jim, have you actually dialogued with enough women about this to say, okay, the women that have chosen to have their babies express that it had this impact on their lives, or women who chose to abort babies that were conceived in rape, they said this, can you give us not just an argument, but data based on experience? Well, the data based on experience, we've served thousands of women over the years, I think we probably, I mean thousands, and not only that, but we've helped other organizations serve thousands, so our experience spans tens of thousands of patients over 20 years. The likelihood that you actually serve a patient who is pregnant because of rape is very, very low.

So I quite frankly only remember one or two situations where we actually had to report to law enforcement a situation. So the outcome of the pregnancy is, and I think those particular two cases weren't actually pregnant, I don't think they actually conceived. So I would say, look, you want to be careful to not make an argument or make a case based on emotion or an anomaly.

So ruling by exception, for example, making law by an exception is essentially making a law by emotion. We have to look at this from a theological perspective, from God's perspective. What is a human? What does it mean to be human? And is that an act of God or an act of a man? And what we believe is that human beings exist, you and I exist, at the behest of a sovereign act of God.

So what does that mean? Okay, so the circumstances of conception are terrible, absolutely a violation. The reason why we're so upset about rape and incest is because human beings are made in the image of God and should not be violated. We are inviolable because of the inherent dignity we carry. We're supposed to respect and dignify each other, protect each other, and rape is the opposite of that. That's why it's so reprehensible.

And that's exactly the reason why we're pro-life as well. And so while it's difficult to think about the emotional trauma that a rape causes, we have to think about the extreme value of the crown of creation. God can take the most terrible circumstances and turn it on his head and make it a fountain of all blessing.

If that isn't the message of the cross, then I don't know what is. We've got to believe, brothers and sisters, that God can take the worst and make it the best. I don't know how he does it, but he does it every day, and it's a miracle, and that's just it.

It's just a miracle. I can't explain it any other way. And I'm not, I still feel for, we still say, no, this is awful, it's a tragedy, and these people need to be held accountable, these rapists and incest, they need to be held accountable. But we need to look at life from God's perspective and look at crime, prosecuting criminals also from the perspective of justice with respect to the fact that we are made in his image and you can't violate people. So we've got to take it from both perspectives.

Yeah, Jim, I appreciate that, and it does drive us back to those realities. You know, what I've done strategically when people were raised that, so let's just put that aside. Let's deal with the 99% of other abortions.

You agree those are wrong, correct? I'm not even going to argue that now. Let's look at what we're really dealing with seven days a week. The other thing is I've even heard from people who've called in and others who've been involved in working with women who had abortions. What's remarkable is people saying and calling in the show saying that their baby was conceived and raped, but having the baby was the best thing that ever happened to them. And then, you know, the mother trying to pressure the daughter to have an abortion and the daughter deciding not to, and now the mother has become a grandmother and is so thrilled with that, and then also talking to others that had chosen to have an abortion that were raped, saying that that didn't fix things.

It didn't take the pain away. So obviously compassion has to drive everything we do, but there's so much more to this. Jim, I'm thrilled to hear the good report. Your love for the Lord and your courage are a great testimony to many.

Let us seize this great cultural moment and save many lives. Thank you so much for all that you do, my brother. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you having me on. It's been an honor. You bet. God bless you.

All right, what a joy to talk to Jim Harden and to hear that update and hear that report. Hey friends, just a reminder, you can still pre-order. Well, it's not pre-order because we got the books in. You can still order your signed, numbered copy, first edition, first printing of The Political Seduction of the Church. I just wrote an article, let me see if it's live yet, on the Ask Dr. Brown site. I only finished it early afternoon, so it's not up yet.

It'll probably be up later today or tomorrow on askdrbrown.org or wherever else you regularly read my articles. Is the church ready for Trump 2024? The article is not primarily about Donald Trump.

It's primarily about the church. The article is not an attack on Donald Trump. The article is not there to praise Donald Trump.

The article is not to say if he runs, you should vote for him or you shouldn't vote for him. The article asks the question, how did the church do in 2020, from 2016 to 2020? How did we do the first time around with Donald Trump? Did we maintain our godly witness before the world? Did we maintain a spirit of unity around Jesus despite our differences about Trump?

Did we stay free of political obsession and over-exalting human leaders? And, well, based on 17 criteria that I had laid out in two previous books, seven criteria in Donald Trump is Not My Savior, which came out in 2018, as a Trump voter, I wrote that, and Evangelicals at the Crossroads, where we passed the Trump test that came out in 2020, where I gave 10 more criteria to say, okay, this is what we have to get right. Moving forward, this is what we have to get right. So 17, when I scored us in my new book, The Political Seduction of the Church, that's what I do in the last chapter of the book, Political Seduction of the Church. I review those 17 criteria to say, this is what we need to get right in the presidency of Donald Trump and if he wins reelection moving forward. So out of the 17, I score us failing on 15 out of the 17 criteria.

15 out of 17. If Donald Trump runs again, it's unrealistic for us to think he's going to change. His good qualities will be his good qualities, his bad qualities will be his bad qualities. That's the man we voted for, those who voted for him. That's the man we voted for. That he negatively affected many of us, that's on us. He's just who he always was, right? You can't vote for him expecting him to change.

Now he did a tremendous amount of good that I'm profoundly grateful for, but the fact he didn't become a more decent human being, that's who the man is and that's who we voted for. So the question is, is the church ready for another Trump run or will we compromise our witness again and divide over Trump rather than uniting around Jesus? Read my book, The Political Seduction of the Church. It'll help you to understand how we messed up and how to get things right for the future and the beautiful transcendent calling of the church and what our role is in this world.

Involved in politics, involved in culture wars, but in a way that is transcendent. So go to AskDrBrown.org. You can order your copy.

Order multiple. Some do that to give out to friends, colleagues. Get a copy for your pastor as well. AskDrBrown.org. We'll be right back with Matt Bennett talking about revival and how you can be involved. It's our resistance.

You can't resist us. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us, friends, on The Line of Fire. About 45 minutes from now, a little bit less, we'll be back on YouTube. By the way, if you're watching on YouTube now, just click on the thumbs-up button. It helps to get more people looking at the broadcast.

But we'll be back about 42 minutes from now on our YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown, during our exclusive weekly online Q&A chat. I've been really looking forward to this interview today with Matt Bennett, founder and CEO of Christian Union, a Christian leadership development organization with the mission to bring sweeping spiritual and cultural transformation to our nation and the world by developing and networking Christian leaders to make an impact for Christ. Christian Union focuses its activity on America's most influential universities and on professionals in the nation's cities. I've done some Zoom meetings and some face-to-face meetings with students that they have, leaders they have on Ivy League campuses, different campuses in the Northeast, and it's just been a joy to be with them. And Matt has a great heart for revival, real awakening in the church, spreading to the society. And we're going to talk about what's happening on the campuses, but then talk about some key events that you can be involved in.

But we're going to lay this out for you. So, Matt, so glad to have you on the broadcast. Thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks. So great to be on.

Thanks for having me. So, Matt, how did you get a burden? You're obviously an educated man, college campus and seminary, but how did you get your particular burden for the campuses? It had a lot to do with growing up in Houston, Texas, where there was a lot of Christian offerings. And then going to college in the Northeast and noticing there was a lot less. And then noticing that, especially at these influential universities and highly academic universities, there are so many students who learn so much, yet they don't know the basics about the most important message ever given to humankind. And even from a secular perspective, the most important social movement in the history of the earth. And so many know little about Jesus Christ, who he is, why he came, how to know him. The contrast is extraordinary, and we just can't allow that to happen. I remember doing an outreach lecture at Yale University over 30 years ago at the invitation of an on-campus Christian group. And even though I'd been in secular schools all my education from after high school, so from 77 on to, excuse me, 73 on to 85 when I had my PhD, I was still shocked at the atmosphere at Yale, and I remember just how open the immoral stance was, how open gay activism was. This is 30 years ago. Can you paint a picture of some of the minds of some of the people in the room?