Podcasts about alabama chief justice roy moore

 S1E04_Schenck_FINALWed, 8/31 5:43PM • 53:55SPEAKERSRob Schenck, Amanda Henderson Amanda Henderson  00:04This is complexified where we dive deep into the places where religion and politics collide with Real Life. I'm your host Amanda Henderson. Today on the show, evangelical pastor, political operative and author Rob Schenk. Too many Rob Schenck is the father of the anti choice movement. As a young pastor, he drew headlines for a stunt in which a dead fetus was thrust at President Bill Clinton. Later, as you'll hear, Rob had the ears and the hearts and the pens of conservative Supreme Court justices. Years later, I had the chance to visit him in his old office overlooking the windows of the Supreme Court chambers. Today, Rob has done a complete about face and his political views. And about face he revealed in his memoir, Costly Grace. And as founder of the Bonhoeffer Institute, he's fighting the rise of Christian Nationalism. Rob Schenck, I am so grateful to have you on our podcast complexified. You are someone who has lived the complexity of religion and politics in your daily life. And it's central to your story. So the first thing that I want to dive into is the ways that we are seeing this rise in Christian Nationalism today. If we've been watching the January 6 hearings, or paying attention to the news at all, we know that one of the biggest threats that we face as a country and as a democracy is this rise in Christian Nationalism. Can you speak to the ways that you see Christian Nationalism as an immediate threat? Rob Schenck02:14Well, first, thank you, Amanda, for the invitation. I'm just as grateful to be in conversation with you, especially about such an enormously consequential subject. I actually seek Christian nationalism as the greatest threat to our democracy, and not just to our democracy. But to free countries and liberal democracies all over the world. I see Christian nationalism as distinctly different and not just different, but opposite of what you see in the model, and Person of Jesus, who was motivated by love for the other affirmation of the other invitation and embrace of the other. And Christian nationalism is the antithesis of that. It's the rejection and contempt and even violence towards the other. So I do see it as the greatest danger we're now facing, for for more than one reason. Amanda Henderson  03:36Can you take us back to your early story, you were raised Jewish, and in your high school years, converted to Christianity and really picked up the helm of this fundamentalist Christianity and then became a leader in that tradition? Rob Schenck03:58Sure. Well, it didn't start that way. You know, you. You referenced my upbringing, which was in a very liberal Jewish home, although as they say, south of the border,  my mother had been a convert to Judaism. Born and baptized, Catholic-raised, Episcopalian, really had no act of faith when she met my father. The family requested very strongly that she convert to Judaism to marry him. She did, and they pledged to raise their children with Jewish identity. So four of us were raised that way. But my mom and dad were very open minded people they said, go out and and shop religion and make your own decisions. And we each dead, and I found the son of an evangelical Methodist minister, who became a close friend And I was introduced to the message of Jesus in this little country church, I was 16 years old. And I had cut my teeth in activism, protesting the Vietnam War, I was anti war, I would have identified then as a pacifist. And here was this person of Jesus I saw as certainly against war and violence for peace. He loved the stranger, marginalized, he looked to me like a hero, in every sense, a moral hero. And I was very drawn to that message, I made a public profession of faith. And two years later, when I was 18, I went to cast my first vote happened to be the 1976 presidential year. And I voted for Jimmy Carter. Why? Because he seemed to exemplify all of the virtues that I saw in Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. Love for the poor, for the margin lies for the suffering, advocate of peace, and so forth. So that was my first encounter with Christianity. And it was the gospel, the message that I embraced, but then as the years went on, and I went to what we call Bible college, which was preparation for professional Christian ministry, and seminary in very theologically conservative settings. I was introduced to the National Association of Evangelicals, and this was during the rise of Ronald Reagan, Jerry Falwell, the Moral Majority, a new political brand of American evangelicalism. Yeah. And that's really important to name I love the way that you really lay that out that this was a new brand, and a new way of expressing evangelical Christianity. And a lot of folks assumed that that's always been the case. But you, you were right there at the beginning of this movement. Sure, I mean, 100 years before that, or maybe 150. Before that. Evangelicals, at least a good portion of them. Were abolitionists working against slavery, they would later work against child labor, they would be some of the first to ordain women and give them leadership full and equal leadership posts in the church, you could argue that for a little period of time, evangelicals looked quite progressive. And then they became terribly regressive. And by the time I was at the seat of the leadership table in American evangelicalism, we were not just regressive. We were politically co opted, and strategically so and it was largely at the hands of, and I'm gonna say this with great affection for folks I know in the south, and some of whom were leaders in the civil rights movement, white and black. But at some point, Southern evangelicalism gained the ascendancy in the United States. So you had figures like Jerry Falwell from Virginia, and favoring the South, who now kind of took over and muscled out those more progressive evangelicals, marginalize them. And Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party struck a deal with the National Association of Evangelicals and other evangelical groups, particularly the fall well, web. And suddenly, you know, I was swept up in that Ronald Reagan was the first president to address a sitting body of American Evangelical leaders, and I was literally on the front row, literally, made sure I had a front row seat when he addressed the annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals, I was there, and I felt the glow of presidential affirmation, and that would lead to a second conversion that I call my conversion to Ronald Reagan, Republican religion, otherwise known as white American evangelicalism. Yeah, that's so important. To name the way that felt to be recognized by someone with power, and to feel the effects and the ripple of that power in your own self and perhaps ego.  Amanda Henderson  09:58Can you speak a little bit to that feeling of being in that circle, being at that table on the front row with the most powerful decision makers in the world.  Rob Schenck10:10Sure, you know, some may think that white, privileged aggrievement was invented by Donald Trump it, it wasn't it, it preceded him by decades. And even in the early 80s, I can remember rehearsing over and over again how American evangelicals were a persecuted and disfavored minority in America. And there was a kind of myth that we were somehow disadvantaged, like, we didn't, you know, we didn't go to Ivy League schools, our clergy were some of the least educated, sometimes non educated people. And so the elite, you know, the Harvard, Yale, Stanford Duke crowd, looked down their noses at us, and publications like The New York Times, and The Washington Post, classified us as sort of the uneducated, ignorant masses. And so we had a feeling of aggrievement, we were aggrieved, and we wanted somehow to get back at elitist culture for persecuting us. And that was very present in those settings. So to have a President of the United States, say, I need you, I'm for you, a whole political party is behind you. And we want you to be in leadership, not to be marginalized. But in fact, to take center stage, that was a real rush to use colloquial language. It was relief, it was a feeling of empowerment. And up until that time, you know, we talked about servant leadership, that you lead by serving others by meeting their needs, by reaching out and loving them even when that affection wasn't reciprocated. And that's pretty tough to do. And I felt a little weary of it by then. And here was a way to instantly claim our place in society, on the national stage, in terms of influence, and even power, because we knew what the bully pulpit of the presidency meant executive powers, it probably meant that we could get a congress someday that would reflect our principles and values. And that's the tack that I took. And it was the track that I set out on. And eventually, I would take my place at the table in Washington, and visit with presidents, with leaders of Congress and ultimately with Justices of the Supreme Court. Yeah, it proved to be right. I mean, I predicted that, and in fact, it took 20 years, but it came to pass. Yeah.  Amanda Henderson  13:42Can you speak to your role in the anti abortion movement and the work to overturn Roe? And just kind of lay the groundwork for how that came to be? For you? Rob Schenck13:57Yeah, well, it started when I was recruited to participate in blockades of clinics, where abortion services among other reproductive health care was offered. And I thought of it as very much in the tradition of, you know, the civil rights movement when there were, you know, lunch counter sit ins. And, you know, we use that language and even sang those songs modified for our movement. And when I entered that arena, he saw, you know, what I then termed the unborn child as a victim of social prejudice and violence, and they needed advocacy. So we were advocates, but very early on in that experience, another voice came into the movement. Rush Limbaugh now notorious, you know, three hour per day, afternoon arch conservative radio talk show host, who, as far as anybody could tell, had no Christian  sensibilities whatsoever. Yeah. But he glommed on to our movements saw it as a kind of hot poker in the eye of liberal elites and championed us. And now we had another kind of public affirmation. It wasn't Ronald Reagan, it was Rush Limbaugh, yeah,  Amanda Henderson  15:41and a real broad reach that can't be understated the reach of his voice during that time,  Rob Schenck15:48massive. In fact, he would quickly rise to the most listened to radio talk show host in broadcast history, and would move political mountains with his influence. And we were a favorite of his. And so suddenly, the movement began to transform. Even using his peculiar vernacular, he invented all kinds of neologisms and bumper sticker type slogans and and we started employing those just as a way of identifying with his massive public influence and political influence. As people may recall, he was the one that Donald Trump would drape with the Presidential Medal of Freedom during a State of the Union address, shortly before Rush Limbaugh died in a very ostentatious, cynical move. But in any case, that's how big he became over time. So that swept me into a fully politicized form of the pro life, I more accurately now terminate the anti abortion, even anti woman movements. And I watched that happen to when I first joined the movement in the late 80s, early 90s, we had many women leaders. But with time, the men would start shoving women, sometimes literally, physically aside, push them out of the way, take center stage. Eventually, those women those women leaders would disappear from from the platforms and take a very secondary or tertiary role in the movement. And the men started showing up. I harbored some doubt about this, but it was unspoken at the time, but the guys would start showing up literally in lizard skin boots. Why buckle belts, sometimes empty holsters on their belts because they didn't want to be arrested for having a weapon or with a weapon. And we were all being arrested for blockading the clinics and they didn't want to complicate matters with a firearm, but they would wear the empty holster to prove I could be wearing a firearm. I could be staying packing gently firepower. And literally Amanda, I'm not kidding you. 10 gallon cowboy hats started showing up everywhere. And suddenly this movement that had been a mix, a gender mix of leadership became exclusively male, and a kind of cartoonish, characterized male movement. And that would set the ethos, the tone of it for the next 20 plus years.  Amanda Henderson  18:52Yeah, one of the things I think we aren't fully aware of at this point, is the ways that these Christian nationalist ideas impact so many different areas of our life. And most recently, the dobs decision in the Supreme Court, which undoes 50 years of precedent with Roe versus Wade, and the effort tooverturn Roe is a part of the pole toward Christian nationalist ideology in the United States today. How did you in that time, see your Christian identity connected to your identity as an American?  Rob Schenck 19:42Yeah, that gets to the heart of the thing, because over about a 10 year period, I came to embrace and promote literally preach and promulgated this idea that our opposition to abortion was grounded in the claims made in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we would say, I would say it, all of our leadership would say it over and over again right about it, and so forth, we would say, the first right is the right to life. You can't enjoy liberty, or pursue happiness unless your life is first defended. So therefore, we must defend life from the moment of conception until natural death. Now, that was a distinctly religious notion. And a distinctly Christian one, and even a more contemporary Christian one. Yeah. So yeah. It's not an ancient idea. Now, it's a new idea. So I failed to appreciate that, how narrow that interpretation of life is.  Amanda Henderson  21:13Can you say a little bit more about that? How is that a new idea? Rob Schenck21:16Well, first of all, it has its origins in Catholic moral teaching, not even in Protestant and certainly not in evangelical moral teaching. Right up to 1973. It shocks people to learn that the Southern Baptist Convention and many other evangelical bodies in the United States actually supported Roe v. Wade in 1973. It was Catholic moral teaching. That was, you know, opposed to Roe v. Wade. There are various dates for that. You know, some will go back to the early centuries of the Christian church, others much later in time, medieval, or even 16th century, 17th century. You know, it depends on which scholar you're talking to. But in any case, it does not date to biblical times. In terms of the Bible, the oldest contemplations instruction, resolutions on these questions are found in Judaism, not in Christianity. And I've argued, Jesus was Jewish. The early disciples were all Jewish. The message of Jesus was contained within the Jewish community. It was proclaimed in synagogues, not in churches, they hadn't been invented yet. So this was a Jewish ethos. And while you find Jesus commenting on many things, he never comments on abortion, even though abortion was widely practiced, in that period, the New Testament period. And in fact, there's been hard evidence of that. Archaeologists have exhumed hard evidence of abortion practices in that world. And yet Jesus never comments on it. Why? I'm convinced it's because he held to a Jewish belief about this, which is that the unborn fetus, the gestating human is of a different order than the Born and independent humans. I'm not an expert on it. I will just say that in Jewish moral instruction, first of all, the woman is always preeminent is in first position, the fetus in second position. And all of this was obliterated by modernarch, conservative, Catholic and later Evangelical, Protestant, moral teaching. It does not have its roots in Scripture, or in Christian history. It has its roots in modern social and political phenomena. And that's really important for us to understand that. Yeah. And when does this get tied to American identity and politics and Christianity? That first happened in the early 70s. But it wouldn't really take hold until the mid 80s. When groups like the Moral Majority, national right to life, and others struck a deal with the Republican Party. And that deal would progress as it went along. You know, in the first instance, it had mostly to do with presidential politics than it would become congressional politics. I was there in the middle to late 90s, at the tables with Republican Party operatives, when they offered us a deal. And they said, Look, we're with you on abortion, we know you want the reversal of Roe v. Wade, we're going to give you that we're going to deliver that for you. But in exchange, and some of them would be quite crude. I can see this, I was seated at an oak table inside the US Capitol, there were a number of national evangelical leaders at the table I was there. I would now put this at about 1995. By by now. It was after the what was called the Republican revolution of the early 90s. And a party operatives said, Look, in exchange, we're going to take down Roe, we're going to make abortion illegal in this country. But you're going to have to give us your full support, you understand that? Wow, everything we bring to the table you will support because there's nowhere else for you to go. You understand that? And there were literal handshakes across the table, we understand. How did you feel in that moment? Do you remember having any doubts or hesitations? Or were you all in? I had momentary reserve, I was a tiny bit conflicted, not enough to count, because it became the perfect expression of the ends justify the means. We have to get rid of this evil called abortion, whatever it takes, that's what we will deliver. And then over time, you become inured to those flashes of conscience. And I regret that deeply. And I'll carry that regret to my grave. Because I wish I would have listened to the voice inside of me. And I didn't. And I'll tell you that. And you know, we all know this to a certain degree. But boy, I'll tell you when you are given unfettered access to a White House, to congressional leadership, Speakers of the House, Senate leaders, and eventually, to the Justices of the Supreme Court. It's very seductive. There's a kind of washing over of your conscience that happens. You have to be extremely careful. And I was not. Frankly, I think the black church gives us the best example of how to maintain one's integrity, moral integrity and still engage. The white church failed entirely on that point. And I was part of that failure. So how did it feel it both felt like almost a superhero power had come over me. And at the same time, I felt in one sense, I lost myself. It was a very hollow feeling that became worse over time. Amanda Henderson  28:39You've been talking a lot about the Supreme Court and and your role as a part of the fundamentalist Christian evangelical movement in the concerted effort to influence the courts and to influence the Supreme Court particularly to build enough power to overturn Roe. Can you speak to that history and your own realizations at this point around that work?  Rob Schenck29:12Well, part of my work in Washington, my headquarters building was immediately across the street from the Supreme Court, I literally looked into the chambers of the justices from my office window of I could look into the conference room where they would eat lunch and then cast their votes on a decision, what's called the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Holy of Holies of the Supreme Court building. And part of my work in the in that time was to not only engage with the justices on a personal face to face level, but to introduce other influencers inside the religious right to their most personal spheres social spheres, into conversations with them. If they could travel with the justices invite the justices to their homes, to their places of business and so forth, all in an effort to bolster their sensibilities that this was exclusively with the conservative members of the court. We didn't even bother to try to engage with what we call the liberal side of the court. In those days, we just went to the conservative justices. We hatched the phrase Minister engage in the ministry of embolden meant to embolden them so they would be stronger, more confident, even more strident in their verbiage, their language, the positions they held, and eventually into their dissents, and even into their majority opinions to actually render up really strong, unapologetic uncompromising positions. And decisions as they did in a number of cases, including the most recent knobs with the reversal of Roe, probably the strongest and most strident right wing language we have ever heard, in an opinion, maybe since the 19th. Century, when, when there were decisions on slavery, and Jim Crow and so forth. So, you know, the quick answer is that was part of my quiet work. It was invisible. We didn't publicize it at all, for obvious reason. And I'm sorry to say it was quite effective. What we did in those years, Yeah, it sure was, we inserted what I called our stealth missionaries into the life of the court. And all these years later, I see that we achieved our objective. Amanda Henderson  31:53Can you speak to those early cracks in your worldview, and your understanding of the work that you were doing and the way that you were moving in these religious and political spaces with such power? When did you start to question your own actions, the whole house of cards that had been built up around your work and ideas at that point?  Rob Schenck32:27Well, it was anything but a sudden flash, to some degree, I harbored those doubts all along, but I, I came up with techniques to silence the voice of conscience deep inside of me to compartmentalize put it on a shelf, tell it, I'll I'll visit you later, sometime. Not now. There's too much work to do. But they were with me. And in particular, one thing that my father had asked me once very early on, and he said, you all talk about making America a great country and promoting its best and making its very best. I have a hard time with that. Because when I was growing up, as a Jewish person, I couldn't join certain clubs. I couldn't go to certain schools. I was beat up for being a Christ killer. When was it so good. And that haunted? And once in a while, I would visit that question and worry a little bit about it. But then I would move on. I remember sitting in a room with several members of Republican members of Congress in Washington. And we were talking about some upcoming election. I can't remember which one, but I do recall saying, you know, in, in our news conferences, we always have a phalanx of white middle aged men. Shouldn't we bring some women and some people of color into this mix? And a congressman from Alabama said, that ain't gonna help our numbers any? What's the use of that? And when he said that I winced and worried about it. But again, I kind of put it in a cabinet and said someday we'll deal with that problem, but not now. And so life went on. And then came a time and I'm almost embarrassed to tell you this. I'm not even sure you know, it was that bad. But I got very involved with former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.  Amanda Henderson  34:41Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah.  Rob Schenck34:42In his campaigns for Chief Justice, which he want to  Amanda Henderson  34:47say a little bit about Roy Moore. Who was he for those who might not remember that name?  Rob Schenck34:52Chief Justice Roy Moore was the Chief Justice of Alabama. I became aware of him when he was a circuit court judge in a little known rural courthouse where he had displayed a hand carved set of the 10 commandments on the wall. He was sued for that, because there were those who came in and said, How can I be sure I'm going to be treated fairly by this judge when he puts his religious beliefs right on the wall, and I don't share those religious beliefs. He won, he lost, he won, he lost. Eventually, when He ascended to Chief Justice of the state, he came up with a plan of installing a massive stone monument of the 10 commandments in the Supreme Court building of Alabama. And I helped him with that, literally, I went down and literally rolled up my sleeves and helped install that giant monument in the Alabama courthouse that would ignite a federal lawsuit. And he would eventually be removed from office by a court of the judiciary, which is extremely rare, even on a state level like that. While I was down there, I was arrested for supporting him in a protest, and I was thrown in the montgomery county jail, which at the time, was full to overflowing. They had a lack of cells to put me out. And so they put me in the psychiatric wing of jail. But it was a very, very sad, very tragic place to be. And oddly, it was the only wing of the jail. That was co ed. So there were men and women on this wing. And three doors for myself was a woman. And this is always difficult for me to tell this story. But there was a woman in a cell who was obviously, you know, experiencing some form of mental illness, she was in great agony and distress, and she kept screaming all day long. Where am I babies? I have three kids. Nobody knows where my baby, where are my babies? Where are my kids? Well, it was at first grating to hear that. And then it just started tearing at my heart at my conscience, hearing this woman's please, to which no one responded, not a soul. Nobody came to her aid. And so I was sitting there tortured, with sound, this woman screams but what I realized in that moment, was I had carried with me this imaginary bubble. All of my career as a national pro life anti abortion leader. The movement I was a part of had this kind of dream state where we imagined that any woman who was in any form of distress over a pregnancy, all she needed to do was cry out for help. And Christians would come from everywhere to assist her. We would bring everything from diapers to food vouchers, to child care, promises babysitting to whatever she needed. We would come to her aid, why would anyone ever want to have an abortion? And all the support you need is right there just for the taking. Call out and we will be there for you. No one was there for this woman. No one No one came. No one cared. No one responded. And for the first time, I came face to face with the reality of a desperate mother who could not care for her children. And she was right there in my conscience in my hearing in my presence only a few yards from me for a torturously long period of time. And I and I tell you that because it awakened me to something that I had never not engaged in to that moment, which was the reality of her world. And quietly I thought, you know, all this time, I have demanded that others leave their reality to live in my fantasy. And in that moment, I was being called out of my fantasy into her reality. And it was like an awakening. But I would still go back to Washington after it was all over and put her on the same shelf where I had put a whole lot of others. And it would await another, I'm sorry to say 10 years, before I would take that off the shelf, that terrible cry of anguish. Amanda Henderson  40:29It's this encounter with the real life of another person that has the power to crack open our fantasies and our imagined worlds. And it's not immediate, as you just named, it takes so much time. And I think that's one of the daunting things about this work. And these efforts to counter Christian nationalism, and these ideal ideologies, and ideas that are so rooted in the imagined worlds that we build for ourselves and that we place on others, it takes so long to break through those cracks. Rob Schenck41:24And it would take a decade, until finally I reached the tipping point. And it was a whole combination of things too numerous to detail here. But the real breaking point for me, came when I took a leave of absence from all of my now very political work in Washington cloak does ministry. But it was really far more political than it was. Even at that point, religious though, religion played a very big role in it. I had to take a leave of absence at one point, and my wife Cheryl was very much ahead of me in this transformation. And she took her own professional hiatus, I took mine, we went out west to Seattle, where she completed a degree she had left off when she was pregnant with our daughter. And then I decided to do my late in life doctoral work. And in that research, I looked at the problem of the evangelical church in Germany during the rise of Adolf Hitler, and not see us. And I can recall this vividly, I was in the dusty, musty basement of my seminary library in Tacoma, Washington, reading about the declaration by the Yvonne Gelish character, the Evangelical Church of Germany, when Paul outhouse one of the most revered Bible teachers of that day, declared that Adolf Hitler was a gift and miracle from God, sent to the German people to make Germany great again. Wow. And as I read that, I was reflecting on my first encounter with Donald Trump, at the 80th birthday party of the renown evangelical religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, at his party where Donald Trump was, you know, this was before he was a declared candidate for president, but he was working the room filled with evangelical leaders. And he had already tried out his slogan, make America great again. words to that effect. I don't think they had quite developed it yet. But it conveyed that and long story short is, I thought, Oh my God. We are replaying precisely what happened in Germany, the confluence of what they call blood and soil, racial and ethnic and patriotic national identity with Christianity. And that, that somehow this indicated the superior race of humans. And I, it was like, suddenly one of those scenes where all these little fragments of imagery and words and experience start coming together. And I sat there and said all Oh my God, we are perpetrating the same error that brought about one of the greatest human catastrophes. And that's why I say now that for me, Christian Nationalism is the greatest threat that we face. Because once you put religion at the service of a racialized ethnocentric political jogger, not, you remove all of the checks on that, because now that it's been sacralized, it's been made holy or divine. You don't dare question it. You can question politics, partisanship, ideology, but you don't question the mind of God. And when I started hearing, my colleagues say, that God has anointed Donald Trump and raised up the Republican Party for this time. You now remove all accountability, because for evangelicals, and I would say the same largely for Arch Conservative Catholics. The Bible says clearly, that to question God is a form of rebellion and to rebel is, quote, as the sin of witchcraft. In other words, it's satanic. So you remove all checks, all accountability, all questioning. And now you have a regime that can order its followers to dutifully obey. And if they don't, they are defying Almighty God, and therefore are in league with the devil. That's an advantage that no other political, social, even military convention can give. And we see all kinds of examples of it. And it's certainly present here, it was present on January 6, during the insurrection, it's been present in state houses, it is certainly present in the current permutation of Republican politics, on every level, and I would argue, without apology that Donald Trump embodied and will again, if reelected to the presidency, so these are not small marginal things. It is the center of the crisis we're living in. And it boils down to the subject you introduced at the very beginning of this conversation, it all amounts to the worst form of Christian nationalism. Amanda Henderson  48:13What are you doing to counter this rise that we see as a threat,  Rob Schenck48:20I'm very conscious, that I did a lot of damagefor a lot of years. And, and that, you know, that's, I don't say that for sympathy or, or to be maudlin. I'm just conscious of it. I'm very aware of it. And I know I have to do a lot of work, to even try to remediate some of that damage. That was done. And I'm trying to do that. But what I'm doing, one of the first things I'm doing is is speaking, is saying things, I think some people think, you know, what can I ever do? Well, the first thing you can do is speak your conscience. Just speak it sometimes in very small, limited ways doesn't mean you have to mount a podium somewhere or publish a tome or do an interview on some national platform. You don't even have to do a podcast with Amanda Henderson, but it helps. But you know, you can speak during a dinner at your family table. Just venture your conscience in a moment in time. Check and challenge somebody lovingly and respectfully. And even maybe with some apology or humility. Sometimes you win bigger that way, even when you assert how right you are in the moment. You might say, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I may be the only one at this table. But it bothers me and I'll tell you why. And I don't know. I go to sleep If these kinds of things, and it really troubles me, and that's just me, and then let others wrestle with fat, even if it annoys them, and angers them, let them own that and experience it, don't take it from them, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. Just let them be upset. We're all big grownups. Just even speaking your conscience, I try to do that on the platforms that I have, whether I'm blogging, or I'm speaking from a podium or a stage, or I'm sitting with sometimes the old colleagues from my old worlds. And it's amazing how many people are out there, troubled in a similar way. And all they've been waiting for is somebody to say it. And they will find you somehow they'll find you, even after the family leaves the table, somebody comes up and pulls on you. And says, I was really glad you said that. Because you know, I've been thinking some of the same things. And it's been bothering me too. And maybe they're whispering, but then two of you get talking. And now you can strengthen one another and you start speaking a little louder with a little more volume, because there's two of you now, not one, and then maybe there'll be a third and on and on it goes. So that's the small way of doing it. The other is, of course, we've got to exercise our privileges and use them as best we can. And one of those is voting. And this is not a time to sit anything out. Amanda Henderson  51:36Wonderful, Rob. Thank you so much. So for those who want to hear more about Rob's story, I can't recommend enough the film by Abigail Disney Armor of Light, and Rob's book costly grace, that I will have links to on the show notes for both of those. Rob, it has been a privilege to work with you and to have conversations and to continue to be challenged to challenge some of my own assumptions. Your story is the epitome of complexified every element from your upbringing to your multiple incredible moments of transformation personally and the ways that you navigate that with nuance and grace. So thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. That was Rob shank founder of the Bonhoeffer Institute next time on complexified. You do not want to miss my conversation with the joyful passionate Reverend Dr. Jackie Lewis of middle Church in New York, and author of the book fierce love. This is time for bold declarations of what love looks like benefits about violence is probably not. Until next time, we are all connected. Let's live that way. Thanks so much for joining us for resources and ideas you can take home to your community, visit our website in the show notes. And if anything in this conversation inspired you please share it with a friend. That is the very best way to support us complexified as presented by the Institute for religion, politics and culture at ILF School of Theology, Lex Dunbar is an invaluable member of the team. Also working hard behind the scenes our engineer Andrew Perrella producer Elaine Appleton grant, Tina VISIR and the rest of the crew at podcast allies. I'm Amanda Henderson

Some atheists have waged war against the Ten Commandments in recent decades, forcing monuments off public property wherever they find them. One famous case involved Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who placed a monument of the Ten Commandments in the judicial building rotunda in Montgomery, the state capitol. This caused no small controversy. After a lengthy legal battle, the monument was removed from the rotunda and Roy Moore was removed from his judgeship. In another famous incident, a monument displaying the Ten Commandments at the Arkansas State Capitol was destroyed by a man who deliberately crashed his car into it less than 24 hours after it had been erected. The same individual destroyed another display by the same method a year earlier in Oklahoma, but was this only an act of one crazed man? As reported by the Associated Press: The Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered the removal of a Ten Commandments display from its Capitol in 2015, and the state's voters in 2016 rejected an initiative aimed at allowing the monument to return. (“Arkansas replaces Ten Commandments monument at state Capitol,” Times Record, April 26, 2018). Some professing Christians are rightfully angered by the assault against this God-given code of law, yet surprisingly, the greatest enemy to the commandments is not atheists. I'll show you who that enemy is, and it may surprise you! Stay tuned!

The struggle over the public viewing of God’s law to man led to Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore being ousted from office—evidence that God is being systematically excluded from public life. In this message we learn more about the judgment of God on America.  Click here to listen (Duration 25:02)

To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/172/29 The struggle over the public viewing of God’s law to man led to Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore being ousted from officeevidence that God is being systematically excluded from public life. In this message we learn more about the judgment of God on America.

We’re joined by former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who will talk with us about his newly launched U.S. Senate campaign. Moore says he’s not afraid of facing more controversy, and he’s not deterred by a call from President Donald Trump that he not run. We’re also joined by Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh of Anniston, who says he doesn’t think Moore can win. Marsh also discusses his constitutional amendment that proposes moving the state to an appointed school board.  

Encore release December 25, 2018. Encore release September 17, 2017. Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has been suspended without pay from his office until the end of his term, effectively putting an end to his judicial career. Moore becomes (as far as we can tell) the only judge in US history to be removed from office TWICE (the first time over his installation of a 2.5 ton Ten Commandments monument in the judiciary building; the second time over his obstruction of the US Supreme Court's same-sex marriage ruling in Obergefell v Hodges. Moore is appealing the decision, although there seems very little chance it will be reversed. Good riddance, we say, although it wouldn't surprise us to see him continue in the political arena; e.g. running for governor or for Congress. Plus: Teresa MacBain, who left the Methodist ministry in 2012 and "came out" as an atheist, has in recent months quietly returned to religion. The freethought community is obviously dismayed and disappointed by this decision, although we wish her the best as she explores what she has describes as a more "progressive" Christianity. (Listen to our interview with Ms. MacBain back in episode 160.) Baseball legend Curt Schilling (lately an infamous anti-evolution tweeter and anti-transgender pinhead) has said he's considering running against Senator Elizabeth Warren in 2018. This could be interesting, but it seems a fair bet at this point that Warren would crush him like a bug.  

Poland’s Anti-Abortion Initiative:BBC, “Poland abortion: Parliament rejects near-total ban.” Accessed October 13, 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-... Anti-Blasphemy in the Digital Age:Joelle Fiss, “Anti-blasphemy in the digital age: When hardliners take over.” Accessed October 13, 2016. https://www.brookings.edu/research/an... New Atheists Set to Work with Reform Minded Muslims:Robyn Blumner, “Newsletter September 21, 2016.” Accessed October 12, 2016. http://us8.campaign-archive2.com/?u=d...Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay, & Phil Torres, “How to Fight Extremism with Atheism.” Accessed October 12, 2016. http://time.com/4484681/new-atheism-j... Freedom From Religion Foundation National Convention:FFRF, “FFRF Pittsburgh convention unveils major surprise opening night.” Accessed October 6, 2016. https://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/i... News Ticker:Ray Sanchez, “Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore suspended over same-sex marriage order.” Accessed October 12, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/30/politic... Ekathimerini.com, “State, Church make peace after row on religion classes.” Chttp://www.ekathimerini.com/212591/ar... Hemant Mehta, “Texas County Leaders Reject Atheist Banner on Courthouse Lawn (But the Nativity Scene Can Stay)” Accessed October 6, 2016. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendly... Jennifer Fenn Lefferts, “Public grants can be used for church renovations, judge rules.” Accessed October 12, 2016. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/reg...

Join Stanford Law Professor Joe Bankman and Sarah Weinstein, a lawyer and psychotherapist, for a special episode about public wellness. Our guest is R. Ashby Pate, a Birmingham, Alabama lawyer who served as the co-prosecutor in the 2016 judicial ethics case against then Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. Ashby is also a former Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau and is well-known for an inspirational speech, Be the Light, in which he advocates for the importance of human connection in the practice of law. Ashby shares his experience as the co-prosecutor against Moore and brings an interesting perspective about the current political divisiveness in advance of the special senatorial election on December 12, 2017. After offering his own wellness technique for managing this important moment in Alabama's history, Ashby closes the episode with a WellnessCast™ first as he sings a few bars of Lead Belly's Midnight Special—featured prominently in Be the Light.

This week on the Conservative Conscience, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore joins Daniel Horowitz to discuss the judiciary, his suspension for defying the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage, and our Stolen Sovereignty.   The Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision created the right to gay marriage from nothing and now the free conscience objections to gay marriage of religious institutions are being trampled upon by the federal government.   “All across our country, we’re seeing a deprivation of a right given by God because the Supreme Court created a right and is mandating that everyone conform to it,” Justice Moore explained.   The Founding Fathers of the American Republic could never have envisioned a time where forces would try to deprive the people of a God-given right to grant a special class of people a right that hasn’t existed in the history of all humankind. Horowitz and Justice Moore discussed the history, meaning, and role of the judiciary and what can be done to reclaim power from a rouge Supreme Court. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discussion of: (1) Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore getting suspended for the rest of his term; (2) the extension of the new parental standing test in New York to a gay dad; (3) a New Jersey appellate court throwing out the entire conviction of Tyler Clementi's Rutgers roommate; and (4) how a New York federal court judge's granting of a motion to dismiss highlights a larger problem with the NYPD and the transgender community.  Visit le-gal.org to learn more about The LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York and to subscribe to LGBT Law Notes, the most comprehensive monthly publication summarizing legal and legislative developments affecting the LGBT community here and abroad.

Denis' hypothetical intro - Special guest host: Tracie Harris! (maybe) - Creepy News: Oral Roberts University requiring freshmen to wear "Fitbits" to "track their fitness." - Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore says state officials have a duty to uphold Alabama SSM ban. - Email: Use of "ISIS" - [Enter: Tracie Harris] - Ken Ham whines about losing Ark Encounter tax break - Email: How did you improve your debating skills? - Email from critical Finnish person - Woman claims power to "exorcise" computer viruses- Copyright 2016, Atheist Community of Austin

This week: the story of a Yorkie buried in a human cemetery and some controversial comments made by Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. As always...thanks for listening! http://palbertelli.podbean.comhttp://www.facebook.com/TheWeekInDoubtPodcasthttps://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-week-in-doubt-podcast/id510160837www.audibletrial.com/theweekindoubtTwitter: @theweekindoubtAlso available on Stitcher

Example for the Courts: Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was kicked out by court over his stand on the 10 commandments. Moore insisted that the State of Alabama should acknowledge God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, and government. They refused and kicked him out. Example in the Schools A new, official interpretation of state law released by Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester requires schools to permit “transgender” boys to use girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms and changing facilities if the boys “assert” they’re really girls.