Christianity In The Courtroom

00:00 - Speaker 1 Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. 00:09 - Speaker 2 I'm hoping and praying that in California we shake it up enough to where we have to call you. I'm hoping, kelly, we need help. You gotta come and help us us. 00:45 - Speaker 1 That's like saying amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's Word has to say to you. 00:49 - Speaker 2 Here is Jack Hibbs hey everybody, welcome to the National Religious Broadcasters gathering right here in Dallas, texas. We've had a great time bringing some remarkable guests to all of you here at the real life network, and today we have with us a man who, I have to tell you, I get to be bold and I get to be strong on the issues, because I know I've got a good brother that's got my back and that's Kelly Shackelford. And Kelly Shackelford, welcome, brother, love you. In a moment I'm going to get out of the way and let you share with the people about the good news that's been going on regarding religious liberty. But First, liberty is a organization of attorneys that defend your constitutional rights to exercise your freedom, your religious freedom, and, if I remember right, you guys have been, I think, the most successful law group of its kind at the Supreme Court. And so with that, kelly, can you just impress the people with hope? 01:52 - Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, what's happened the last gosh? I was just looking. You know you probably do this too. I have a time with the Lord every year or two where I just sit down and I go dreams. What are my dreams, lord? Where should I go? And I did this for First Liberty years ago, years ago. And I went back and looked at those a couple weeks ago and one of the things it said is get a case to the US Supreme Court. 02:18 - Speaker 2 Get a case as in solo singular. 02:21 - Speaker 3 Now, in the last six years we've had nine, and we're nine and zero. Nine and zero. Yeah, and what happened? People don't understand. There's about 7,000 requests a year for the Supreme Court to take your case, to hear a case. They took 58 last year out of 7,000. 59 the year before Out of 7,000. So if our goal had been for them to take one of our cases, that would be a really heady goal. Right, that's right. I mean, you're pretty bold. They didn't take one, they didn't take two, they didn't take three. We won four religious liberty cases at the Supreme Court in 13 months. That is impossible, only God. 03:00 - Speaker 2 Only God. 03:01 - Speaker 3 And I'm telling you there is a move of God happening right now. I've been doing this for 36 years. I'm telling you what is happening now. I thought impossible. Every step of it. I'm watching. We just overturned a 50-year precedent that was used to attack religious freedom our whole lives. Most people don't understand this. It was in the Coach Kennedy case oh, of course Coach. Okay, the Lemon Law or the Lemon Test. And we just overturned a 47-year-old precedent regarding religious freedom in the workplace that had been used to crush religious freedom gone. I mean it's unbelievable what God is doing and it's just the beginning. It's just the beginning. I mean one of the reasons this happened is we were real involved in judge vetting. We have the most extensive judge vetting in the country, so key. 03:49 - Speaker 2 Please make I know you'll make it clear Friends, listen, listen to what Kelly's about to say, because this is the answer for so many, so much of our nation's woes with what he's about to say. Pay close attention to this, well it started eight years ago. 04:05 - Speaker 3 We do religious freedom and we were preparing for a Hillary Clinton presidency that's right. And Trump won and we were like, okay, we weren't expecting that. We had a meeting, lay everything on the table that we can do for religious freedom under this administration and we immediately saw 132 judicial seats, lifetime appointments, huge. Normally that is not what happens and we just felt God pushing us. You need to research, you need to vet, you need to get data, you need to help, yes, and we thought you know, okay, let's do it. We don't know, we've never done this before. 04:40 Well, here we are, eight years later. We have the most extensive vetting division in the country. We have more data on federal judge choices than anybody, because we've got to know if somebody's going in there for life, are they gonna defend religious liberty, are they gonna defend the Constitution, and if they're 50 years old, which is about the average, if you really do the research, you can know who they are and what they will do, and so in the past, you can know who they are and what they will do, Sure, sure. 05:05 And so in the past, what's happened is people haven't done the work. Wow, and we're committed to it because God called us to this. And, as I mentioned, those victories we just had, that was after the last Trump, when he put those people in. Four or five years later, boom, boom, boom it winds. We've got two more big cases this year that are sitting, not ours, other people's on these issues too. I mean, if you watch what's happening, God is doing something dramatic in the area of religious freedom, and we're just at the beginning of this, we're just starting. And I couldn't help but notice, Jack, I woke up, I was looking. You know I always look at what the enemy says. 05:43 - Speaker 1 So I looked at the New York Times. 05:45 - Speaker 3 That's right. The number one story in the New York Times was how religion is growing across the United States. Really, 22% Bible increase sales over the last year. 05:56 - Speaker 2 That's right. We've been following that. 05:58 - Speaker 3 For the first time in the history of our country, more young males going to church than females. And if you start watching what's going on, God is doing something. He's not just doing it in the religious liberty arena, he's doing that so that it can break out. But we've got to do our part. I mean, take the Kennedy case right. 06:17 Coach Kennedy wins the Lemon Test, which has been in place for 50 years, cited over 7,000 times by courts to crush religious freedom in public. It's why our whole lives we've been told you can't have a nativity scene on the government lawn. You can't have a menorah at Hanukkah. You can't have a Ten Commandments, you can't. Oh, there's prayer at school. We got to stop that. Why? Because any of those things are in the Constitution. No, Because of the lemon test. Well, we just reversed it in Kennedy 7,000 citations over. Everywhere a cross went down, it can come back up. Everywhere a Ten Commandments in the closet, you can pull it back out. You can have a nativity scene on your government lawn. All those things are legal. Now it's up to us on whether we say we're putting one up in our community. 07:02 - Speaker 2 Exactly, it's the muscle. It's the muscle of the republic to move upon our freedoms and to use them. 07:10 - Speaker 3 And we always complain because we're on defense. Yes, so true, we've won here, that's right. This is totally. We're on offense, we can just take it. God said I'm going to give you this land if you'll take it. 07:22 - Speaker 2 I love it. So people who have been tuning in, they're probably tired of me saying this right now, but I have to say it again. You just described what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 6. He said that your obedience and obedience to Christ will be spoken of. Listen to this when you're obedient, god will punish all disobedience. So, in other words, show up to the fight. Just show up, god will do it. Just show up. You can't win a battle unless you show up to the fight. Amen, Amen. 07:53 - Speaker 3 And so it's amazing what's happening. Well, and here's the thing, and I know, last time I was with you at that big conference I gave this imagery, but I think I really think it's appropriate imagery. If anybody's watched Lord of the Rings, yeah, love it there's a time when everything looks dead and dark and the vegetation is decaying and black and a drone goes up and it starts moving across the earth and it looks hopeless and it just seems to move forever. And eventually you see in a distance, you a light, and when you get closer you see it's. It's Calvary, galloping at full speed. At the head horse is Gandalf, the Christ figure is all their whites and white horse, white white rod, with a light right on the end of it. And everywhere it hits the vegetation it turns to green. And I just and I saw that the last time. I said this is where we are Christ is on the lead horse, he's leading. The light is going to overtake the darkness and all we're asking to be done is mount up. We don't even have to lead, just mount up. And that's what I'm saying. 09:07 If you look at what's happening, my whole life I've been doing religious freedom, the things we're overturning. I would have told you 10 years ago. It's impossible to overturn those in my lifetime, and I'm watching God just knock them off, and so he's opening things up for us. But we've got to be obedient. Now that the other side is still hostile, they're still attacking and they're regrouping. We've got I've never had cases like we have. I've got a whole bunch of cases that are only pastors and churches being criminally charged for doing what Jesus would want them to do. That's right Feeding people, helping a homeless person. I've got a guy right now, a pastor in Ohio. He's just been sentenced to 60 days in jail because in Ohio, when it's negative 20 wind chill, he opened the doors of his church to people who were freezing on the streets. 10:00 - Speaker 2 And the problem is. 10:02 - Speaker 3 He's not licensed to be a homeless sinner. He's not licensed to be a homeless sinner, that's right. And civil charges against him, criminal charges against him. This has now been going on for over a year. What an embarrassment. And we had to go to the Court of Appeals and get a stay to keep him out of jail. And the great news again God is always at work in this. We feel like we're going to win eventually. When we get out of this little town and get up, we went to the Attorney General of the state, who we heard was a believer. We said would you want to come look at the church and what's going on? He came down after a visit, tears in his eyes. He said I'm with you. He's now filing briefs on our side against this city. So we have the attorney general of the state of Ohio with us. But I'm just telling you, I've got pastors who are being criminally charged for feeding people for homeless for all of this. Never seen this before in my life. So the enemy is still coming. It's amazing. 11:01 - Speaker 2 You're reminding me of Isaiah, chapter 10, verse 1. It says Woe unto those who write misfortune for the people and issue ill for laws. And that's exactly what's happened. My goodness, I thought, with that kind of a ridiculous story, that you were going to say this was in Fresno or this was in Sacramento. You're talking Ohio. 11:21 - Speaker 3 Ohio, brian, ohio, unbelievable. We've been in shock. I mean, at the very beginning, before any of this started, the pastor went to the mayor and said hey, can we talk about this? Refused to talk to him. This is how he's been treated the whole time. I think what's really going on is they think, if this church leaves the downtown, that there'll be nobody to care for these people and they'll either die or leave, and so they're persecuting this guy because they think it'll make their city prettier. Wow, when, if you look at what's happening in the lives of these people, their lives are all being changed. They're coming to the Lord. There's a glow in their face. 12:03 - Speaker 2 I mean, it's incredible to see what this guy's doing. Kelly, you're just making me. I mean, I got to say something about this, but I have to be careful what I say. We're working hard in California. You know that there's a governor's race that's coming up soon and I've been blessed by the last seven to eight months to be involved in the policymaking of a man that's going to run for governor and in that we have put together a Christ-honoring outreach. 12:41 The governor's office Lord willing, if he wins this governor's office is going to call upon the houses of worship in the state of California to assist the state in alleviating the homeless problem. He's going to say those that are hooked on drugs and crazy and need institutionalization, the state will take that. That's what you pay taxes for. We'll do that. But we're calling upon the we have to say houses of worship. We know that sadly, the synagogues won't show up and the mosques are not going to show up, but the church will show up to take in those who just want to get a new start, want to learn a career, want to get out of the church will show up to take in those who just want to get a new start, want to learn a career, want to get out of the cold and learn how to weld or computer science. We are so excited, but are you telling me that it's possible that we could violate some perception of the law that what we're doing? 13:33 - Speaker 3 is illegal. Well, these low cows want to control their city, yeah, and they think they have power over the church, and what we're informing them is you do not have power over the church. Amen, that's right. Okay, number one, you don't in a spiritual realm. You also don't legally. 13:49 We have a First Amendment. We have a Constitution, which they don't like, yeah, and you mess with the assembly of God's people. You're messing with the First Amendment and you're violating numerous rights. You're violating free speech, free exercise of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of worship. I mean just, you know you're hitting a lot of different things and you're running up against a buzzsaw. So you know, this is a battle, but it's a new battle. There's no precedent on, because we didn't used to do this to pastors we're criminalizing compassion in these cities, and so, anyway and that's just one area. Of course, we've got all kinds of stuff breaking out, but I want people to see the big picture. Overall, though, we're moving in the right direction. God is doing dramatic things with courts, and we're gonna be working on this next set of 150, 160 judges that the administration will put on. We're gonna do everything in our power to make sure that they're the best possible people to represent the Constitution. Religious freedom, I mean, that's what the president would want, but he doesn't always get good information. 14:54 - Speaker 2 That's right. 14:55 - Speaker 3 We're gonna make sure that they have all the information to make the best decisions and if we do that, I want you to think about what this will mean four years from now. That'll be about 400 judges he will put on the court. That's half of all the federal judges, and that's for life. That's a game changer. We will set the courts for 20 to 25 years and our kids and our grandkids will be blessed and protected in the future. 15:21 - Speaker 2 Let me ask you this why didn't the previous administration do that 400? 15:27 - Speaker 3 Well, he did as many as he could do. He did 235,. He tried to do as many as Trump did. But two things about what the Biden administration did. Number one, it was lower court. They didn't have three Supreme Court Justice, they had one. They didn't have as many appellate, it was mainly district court. But the other thing is the way they picked them was really different. 15:49 The Trump judicial nominees were the highest qualified, just academics and everything else that we had ever seen, so very bright, in addition to being originalists, the committed to the Constitution, and that approach the Biden administration was picking based upon identity. They were picking not on talent, but their first priority was, you know, their color, their sexual orientation, all these things, dei, dei. And so the result is, while they had as many total number, they were lower court, I see, and they weren't as talented as the Trump people, and the best arguments win in the legal arena, and so I think they missed on their opportunity. But Trump's going to have this opportunity to have four years separated by four years, and then another four years and we add all those together. That's how he gets to the 400. 16:40 - Speaker 2 If Kelly, if the Senate holds, if the people show up in the midterms. 16:45 - Speaker 3 That's right, and that's why you've got two years. Think of the Trump, the first time People can complain. I wish he'd have picked a little stronger justices or judges or whatever. He had a 5149 Senate, all the while being impeached yes, and that included Murkowski, collins, flake, et cetera, so he had a limitation. Well, it's now a 5347 Senate, so can he put another Justice, thomas, on the court? Yes, he can right now, and so he's got a two-year window, and then we'll have to see what happens in the election. But we feel like our job God put us in this job in addition to all the cases our job is to stand at the gate and say no entry if you're not pro-religious freedom. 17:30 If you're not going to defend the First Amendment and religious liberty, then you might run over us, somebody might run over us, but we're going to stand at the gate and I think this administration wants to do that. There are lots of people with good intentions that want to push their buddies, that want to push their friends. There's a lot of DC stuff that goes on, but you know, data is true and the data is the data. And that see stuff that goes on, but you know data is true and the data is the data and that's what we're providing. We don't have an agenda. Our agenda is the constitution and religious freedom, not a person, and the good information will help them make the best decisions. 18:04 - Speaker 2 Well, kelly, I tell you I'm hoping and praying that in California we shake it up enough to where we have to call you. I'm hoping, kelly, we need help. You gotta come and help us because we're very excited to see in these last several elections if you've looked at that map California is growing redder and redder. We just won 10 new counties for conservative and religious freedoms and that's expanding. I often have the joy on Saturdays there's about five of us that get together in a Zoom call with the House Speaker, mike, and we pray. 18:46 - Speaker 3 Do you know? Mike used to be an attorney at First Liberty. 18:51 - Speaker 2 Now that you say that, yes, I do. Thank you, yeah. So what's what is great is that I get to remind him from time to time that he actually has his job because we fired Nancy Pelosi. But the pathology goes like this Nancy Pelosi lost her job in that election cycle because California sent more conservative Republicans to Congress than any other state. So McCarthy got the nod right, he got the job. And then Mike got that, of course, from McCarthy. So that's my California card that I get to pull on him, which is a lot of fun. 19:32 - Speaker 3 He's got to have every one of those seats right now. Yes, yes, he knows how valuable California is. 19:36 - Speaker 2 Yes, so we want to send him some more. But, Kelly, in wrapping this up real quick, where do people go to support you, to help out, to get into this fight, to show up, as you said earlier? 19:46 - Speaker 3 Just spell out the words firstlibertyorg, firstlibertyorg, and I would encourage them. They can look at the cases and there's all these things on what your rights are, if they need information. But the number one thing I'd ask them to do is there's a deal that says be an insider, where they can get an email every Friday and we'll take the five top religious liberty battles in the country that week and you know, if Coach Kennedy's at the Supreme Court, he needs prayer, that's right, they need to pray. Well, they're not going to know if they don't know he's at the Supreme Court. And then, number two, I want them to be the Paul Revere. 20:20 I want them to see the victories, because we're winning over 90% of our cases every year. If they see those victories and they share those with their friends, then they're going to know hey, I don't have to be scared, I can be bold. I mean, this is not something to be scared of. God is winning, we're winning the cases, and so that's the thing I would love for people to do is go to firstlibertyorg, get that email every week so you'll be emboldened and informed and be the leader in your community on this stuff. And then, if you ever need help, anybody can call us, we're free. 20:56 - Speaker 2 Well, I want to go out with this. Just I want to encourage all of you. So it's been about a year and a half or so ago I don't remember exactly when, but we hosted a pastor's gathering in Huntington Beach, california, and we had various guest speakers, and one of them was Kelly, and I have to tell you the reason why what he gave was so memorable to everyone was that we felt like we were up against the ropes and that there's no hope. And then Kelly comes onto the stage and gives us these incredible decisions that they were able to win in court and, of course, including the Supreme Court, and you could almost see these pastors. There were 250 pastors and their wives, 500 people total. Where they, where you could feel the blood getting back into the head and lungs filling up with hope, and he continues to do that. 21:40 So please, do all that you can to pray and to find out more and maybe play your part, your role, in helping support them, fight these battles. It's not easy and it's not cheap, and I know he's not going to ask, so I'm going to ask for him. So, please, this is a great cause. I love it because it's a forward cause, it's an advancing, it's not just defense, it's going forward and we need that more than ever. If we don't exercise this wonderful republic that we have by exercising our freedoms, we're going to lose them, and we almost lost them, but God has given us a reprieve. So, kelly, it's great, great always to have you. So appreciate you. Thank you, brother, for all that you do. 22:19 - Speaker 3 Thank you. 22:20 - Speaker 2 Thank you. 22:25 - Speaker 1 This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities, are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to https://jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.