Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Hey, guys, my name is Zach Terry and I am the host of Code Red and the founder of Maximum Life. And recently our home church at Fernandina Beach First Baptist Church in North Florida was able to host Scott Coulter, the founder of the Danbury Institute and a major leader in the Southern Baptist convention in recent years. And we were able to just pick his brain about thoughts moving forward what we might do as a convention of churches, especially in light of some of the things that came out of Megan Basham's recent book, shepherds for sale. You know, we need to do more than just complain and gripe about how things are. But as leaders, we should lead forward, and I think Scott offers some good opportunities for a partnership and to work together toward a better future. So enjoy this conversation with Scott Coulter.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: To our great benefit we were reared in the kind of America that inspires patriotism and instills national pride. While it was not perfect, the America we grew to love was characterized by civility, mutual respect, the merit of honest debate, an appreciation for diversity of thought and opinion, and freedom to bring ambition to fruition and an overall acceptance of the facts of physics, biology, and logic. To fly the american flag was to pay tribute to our shared values and inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: In the last two decades, however, a cloud of pollution has settled across the blue sky that serves as the backdrop to those flags that wave in the wind. All across our land, in towns large and small, rural and urbanization, God has been pushed out of our schools and our public squares, and in his place has arrived all manner of anti american rhetoric and chaos.
We now have politicians paying to bail rioters out of jail. We have doctors performing sex change surgeries on minors and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies profiting from it. Men dressed as women are invading spaces once regarded as safe for women and children, places like public libraries in female locker rooms, and there they are, exposing them to indecency and incredible amounts of confusion.
[00:02:28] Speaker D: Socialism is seeping into our nation's fiscal policies. Freedom of religion finds itself under constant threat, and 63 million babies have died on our nation's altar to women's rights. Not even the helpless plight of a born alive infant can stir the hearts that have grown cold through apathy or evil.
It is absolutely clear our nation has both a spiritual problem and a leadership problem. At a time when the easy and perhaps even understandable thing to do is to give up on America. Convinced her greatest days are too far gone and her future too surely sullied, we must rouse ourselves by a sense of duty and determination to stand for.
[00:03:05] Speaker C: The things that matter, out of respect.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: For the memory of those who have sacrificed so much to establish and preserve this land of the free and home of the brave. We cannot now give up and leave the fight while the war still rages. It is our turn now to offer our lives in service to the great american experiment.
[00:03:26] Speaker C: How can we squander so great a gift that has been passed to us and fail our children miserably in so doing? We cannot. We must not, and we need your help. Together we can turn the tide. America is not too far gone, and our values are still as worthy of defense as they were in 1776.
[00:03:46] Speaker D: Do we face opposition? Certainly. Will the battle be handily won? Far from it. But what does it matter? The heart of an honorable patriot and heavenly citizen does not choose battles based on what victory is most easily achieved, but what victory is most worthy of, the fight.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: In defending life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, guided by the very christian values that inspired our forefathers, we find.
[00:04:10] Speaker C: A virtuous battle worthy of engagement. And engage we must. From Concord to Normandy to Gettysburg, some.
[00:04:18] Speaker D: Have given all to defend freedom and democratic ideals.
Now we must give something, a pledge.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the republic. For regents stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Well, tonight's gonna be a little bit different. Go ahead.
If you remember, a few weeks ago, we hosted Miss Megan Basham, and she opened our eyes and made us aware of some of the things that were going on, not just in our world or our nation, but in our own Southern Baptist convention. And it's caused some serious concerns. It's caused us to rethink some of our allegiances and some of the support that we're sending as Southern Baptists. A portion of every dollar that's given goes to help fund our ministries, our southern baptist ministries around the world, and many of those we feel really good about. But we have had some serious concerns about a couple of our entities. And, you know, as we've looked at that and we've withheld or repurposed some of that funding, one of the things that I want to be careful not to do is just gripe and complain.
I want to look at how to correct course and how to make things better. And so this week, last week, I guess, Scott Coulter gave me a call and said he was going to be in the area. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce him and his work at the Danbury Institute to you tonight. And we've talked online, we've talked in person. And so we're just going to try to recreate some of those things tonight. Scott, so welcome, first of all, to First Baptist Church. Thank you for joining us.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: My pleasure. Absolutely honored to be here. Thank you.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Pastor, why don't, for the people who don't know you, why don't you introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your family, where you're from, that sort of thing.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Sure. You bet. So honored to be with you tonight. Coming from Texas, I'm a proud texan in Florida and the other good state in the United States. And so it's an honor to be here. There's only two left. And so, so glad to be here with you tonight. Absolutely. The free State of Florida. Proud to be here. You made it through the storm. And so here we are on the other side. I've been married twelve years to Sheraya, who you saw in the video there as well. And we have two small children. Sheridan is seven years old, Ellery is four. And that was her reciting the pledge of allegiance there to you at the end. Great, great young girl coming along. And this is what has inspired us to start the Danbury Institute is our children. We want to pass on a country that's better than the one we received to our children and to our grandchildren. And we've got a long way to go to get there, but we care so deeply about the next generation and want to honor them, represent them well. And so glad to be here with you tonight.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Well, I know that you've served Southern Baptist in the capacity of our educational system. And so what was your role over at Southwestern?
[00:07:27] Speaker B: I've served within the SBC for a long time, and it feels like a lot longer. The SBC is like dog years. One year is like seven, or maybe in the Bible, a year is like a thousand elsewhere. So it feels like a really long time. But I worked at southwestern seminary for a few years, about a decade there, all the way up to the chief of staff for the president. And the administrative roles there started just as a student, wandered in, learning how to preach, learning about theology, those kind of things, and ended up in a leadership role there for a few years. And so got to see firsthand a lot of what was taking place in our denomination, a lot of what was taking place in the SBC that Megan has shared with you and her book has brought to light in recent days as well.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: Talking about dog years, I'm actually 27 years old.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: And this is what it does, too. You got to be a Southern Baptist priest. It looks like it, a lot of gray. But you had the privilege of working with Doctor Patterson, who was one of the lions of our movement, of our denomination, and we are thankful for the work that he did. And in recent days, you've been pursuing the development of the Danbury Institute. So tell us a little bit about Danbury.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: First of all, give the history of the Danbury association and where that came from.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Sure, you bet. Danbury is in the very fabric of our DNA as Americans. And so you know the story that Christians came to America from all the way across the pond to escape the king and the oversight of the state controlling the church. You realize that's a really big problem when the state can tell the church what they can or cannot do. And it led people to come all the way across the ocean to begin our country, to have religious freedom, religious liberty. And as we were setting up America, the colonies at the time were trying to figure out how to do that. Several of our colonies were looking at starting another state church, maybe a national state church in those days. And it was the Baptists, early on, way back in 1790, that first found this example of an association of churches in Danbury, Connecticut. They formed an association for the purpose of sending a representative, sending an advocate to the state legislatures, to the constitutional Congress that was working at the time, to the federal legislature, to advocate for their christian values, for their religious liberty, for their convictions according to scripture all the way through. You've heard the story likely in 18 oh 118 oh two of the Danbury letter that was written to Thomas Jefferson, the Danbury Baptists wrote to Thomas Jefferson and said, mister president, in his election there will you be sure and protect our freedom to worship and to practice our religion according to scripture and according to what God has called us to do? In 1802, Thomas Jefferson responded back in a letter to those same Danbury Baptists, and he used the phrase, there will forever be separation of church and state. Now, what he meant by that is that the state will be separated from the church. We will not tell you how to practice your religion, how to express your religion. There will be this separation that has been misinterpreted in recent years in egregious and hurtful ways to the church. But Thomas Jefferson responded to those Danbury Baptists. And so that's been the precedent for years since then, of churches engaging, sending representatives to represent them, to speak on their behalf to our legislatures, to our elected officials, and to represent what we believe the Bible calls for our country, our nation, all over the world.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Well, in our time, Southern Baptists are the largest non catholic, christian movement, evangelical movement in the United States. But for most of history, we were the minority. And so, you know, the. Whether it be Presbyterians, Anglicans, congregationalists, whatever it might be, we were always suffering when other people were holding the reins of state, so to speak. And so I think that's what the Danbury Baptists were really concerned about, is they didn't want to be bullied by the congregationalists and whoever it may be that could get into that position of power.
So you had the idea of reforming something like that in light of some of our needs currently. Tell us about that.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yes. In recent times, we have just become increasingly convinced that our country is heading the wrong direction. You don't have to look far to figure that out. You saw some of the clips in those videos there. Our children are being taken the wrong direction. Our churches are being taken the wrong direction. Our SBC is being taken the wrong direction, as you've seen in recent days, in recent times. And I'm just crazy enough to believe that churches can change the course of a country.
Not only can churches change the course of a country, but I think churches are the only way to change the course of a country.
If the people of God don't rise up and stand, stand up and engage, who else will?
There are conservative politicians right now trying to speak into our laws, trying to do good work, but it's the people of God who have scripture as our foundation and our understanding that tells us the truth about the world. If you want to figure out how many genders there are, you have to go to the Bible. If you want to figure out what marriage is, one man and one woman for life, that's in scripture. If you want to talk about when conception is and when human life begins and fertilization that's talked about in scripture, these are not political issues. These are biblical issues. They're faith issues. They're morality issues. And if we give them away to politicians and disengage, they will be mishandled every single time. The church is the only way to change the course of this country. I'm convinced.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Well, one of the sad things that we've observed, we talked about it today with Blackburn. Was it in Tennessee win. Tell us about your visit to DC and the conversation that you had with Marsha Blackburn.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: We've begun meeting with various legislators and lots of different offices, and the time he's talking about her was when we went up and met with a legislator that represented us in Tennessee and some of her staff and her team there. And we were shocked and appalled to realize how few times they had been approached by christians seeking to advocate for biblical issues. As a Southern Baptist, I always thought that there were others that were just handling that for us. There were those doing that on our behalf. Our ethics and religious liberty commission, several other organizations out there that we assume in our churches are up there legislating, advocating, representing us well in these spheres. We went and set up a meeting with her and her team, and they were so excited and eager to meet with christians willing to talk about issues from a biblical worldview, from a scriptural perspective. They had a lot of questions for us about immigration and about church and about what evangelicals and Baptists thought about certain issues in our country. And I began to realize that they were not hearing from nearly as many conservative christians as I assumed they were. And so I asked about some of these organizations. Have you heard from this group? Have you heard from this group? She sent her aide out to look up their logs and see who had been there and who had met with them and realized that those groups simply had not been coming. There were only a couple recorded meetings for very insignificant tasks. And so I realized that I was wrong to think that there were lots of groups operating in this space and that evangelicals, that people that believe, like you and I believe, are really being severely misrepresented and not represented in the public square.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: So if I'm hearing you correctly, and it's been my observation, some of the people who are in the halls of power, who are in office currently, are making some hard stands and leading in a very good direction.
But when our representatives meet with them, if they do, they're usually pushing them the other way. And I know some instances where that's happened, like in Louisiana. Tell us about the abortion bill in Louisiana and what happened there.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the most remarkable things that has happened in my lifetime that I did not think would happen is the overturn of Roe v. Wade. We prayed for that for decades, and we have worked towards that end. We have labored towards that end. But if I'm being honest with you, I did not think we would see that in our lifetime. When that was overturned. I was getting on an airplane when that document first leaked.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Let me interrupt you. I didn't either. That was a shocker.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: And I think that's the thing that where we as believers and we as conservative Americans and Christians, we have to look at it and go, wow, that happened. That happened in our lifetime, that we began to move the needle in a good direction. And so what else could happen? What else? Where else could we move the needle? Are we going to have a world when your grandkids and my grandkids are in high school where tampons are going to be in boys restrooms?
I can't imagine that.
And we're in a generation where we're actually getting some traction.
And so this is not the time to disengage of all times as believers. And so in Louisiana, there was an opportunity to make some massive gains because it went to the states after Roe versus Wade.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that's correct. It went to the states. Roe v. Wade is overturned, by the way. I voted for Donald Trump specifically for that issue. I knew he would appoint Supreme Court justices, or at least he had said he would. We took a risk, we took a gamble on him in that sense, and he delivered what he said he would do. Pastors, leaders in our denomination, were mocked, ridiculed, attacked for that position according to our biblical values, and it fulfilled what we hoped and prayed would happen. Many states all across this country had what were called trigger laws. Thank you so much.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Well, and with that, that in particular, I remember when it happened, and then looking at, at the time, the head of the ERLC that was saying, we're all idiots. And it's like, well, you know, we may be wrong. He may get into office and may be the most liberal president we've ever had. It honestly wouldn't have shocked me at the time, but we knew what Hillary would have done, and she was, if you could say anything about her, she's an honest liberal. She would tell you where she stood. And so if she's going to stack the court in a direction that would not adhere to the constitution, the only option we had was to take a chance at that point. But thank God it proved to be.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: We endured those attacks, we endured the ridicule, we did what we thought was right. And that overturned that in our country. Absolutely. In a historic and unprecedented way. Once that happened, states all across this country had what were called trigger laws that went into place, that had been passed in those states. If Roe v. Wade ever were to be overturned, that those would instantly become laws. Louisiana had a law they were considering there. They had made it through the House, House Bill 13 513. I believe that was one of the strongest anti abortion bills in the history of this country. It would have completely eradicated abortion in Louisiana as that was headed back to the state. And so Christians had been working, been praying, been advocating, moving towards this end for all time. This was the moment to pass this in Louisiana and to set the example for states all across the country. It was being considered until a whole bunch of pro life groups and conservative christian groups started opposing it. There was an open letter that was circulated that even our ERLC signed and supported under the leadership of Mister Leatherwood that opposed the adoption of that bill. And in response to that letter and many others, it was defeated in Louisiana. And so think about the pinnacle of overturning Roe v. Wade. And then now we have an obligation to adopt this in the states of Louisiana, of all places, one of our strongest conservative strongholds in all of the country. And you see the influence here of these, quote unquote, christian and pro life groups that are undermining the work of the pro life initiative there and the chance to really end abortion in that state.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: Now think about what he said.
Pro life groups, pro life groups lobbied against this.
Pro life groups that many southern Baptists had funded in order to say, let's help save these babies before they're killed in their mother's womb.
Pro life groups lobbied against it to leave that door open for more abortions.
We're in a day where you just can't. You have to do what Reagan said. You have to verify. Trust, but verify. It's not like it used to be. And people that you think represent you well, it's just not necessarily so.
We saw it when we were in Israel, Scott, I don't know if you and I knew each other at that time, but when, follow the line, though. When the war broke out, we were there, 50 some odd of our people were there. And immediately when it happened, we started getting all of the calls from different news networks wanting, you know, a blurb to put on their show. And I started thinking, well, what is there, like talking points that we've put out somewhere that I need to hit on as a Southern Baptist? So I go to the ethics and religious liberties social media feed, their website, and this is three or four days into it. And it was silent.
And I reached out to Leatherwood and we had an exchange about that whole situation. But my whole problem was, this is not one of those things. You've got to think long and hard about where you stand on it. When you have terrorists invading your country and raping and murdering women and men and civilians.
You don't have to think three or four days about how to properly nuance your stand on that issue and so that was one of the first times that I saw what we were dealing with.
And so you saw it again when the school shooting happened in Nashville. Tell us about that.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Absolutely. So that was the situation in Louisiana a couple of years ago. I was in Tennessee. There was a horrific, tragic school shooting against one of our christian schools, Covenant Christian school in Nashville. You might have seen this on the news. There was a shooter that went in and was shooting in the school there openly. And one of the greatest accomplishments there was the Metropolitan police of Nashville that went in and amazingly took out that shooter in record time. Men and women who. Men specifically, who ran into danger, who ran into harm's way to defend our children. I am forever behind the police departments of this country and those who were on the front lines defending us and protecting us in those ways. But after that was in the aftermath of all of that. Once the shooter was taken out and begun to look into that situation, it was realized that that was a transgender shooter who was specifically targeting christians. That was a targeted school because it was a christian school by a transgender person who had undergone that. And the ERLC and Mister Leatherwood again led the charge, using lawyers and using all kinds of things to prevent the manifesto written by that school shooter from ever becoming public. Now, I don't understand even today what the motive for that was, but it's tremendously concerning when you have a transgender person attacking christians. And our representatives working tirelessly, tremendously focused on this. This is one of the main things that we've seen him work towards to try and accomplish to prevent that from coming out, which would have indeed cast the transgender community in a negative light and shown some of the persecution directed at Christians and at christian children in a christian school in that sense. So that's absolutely unfathomable to me. I don't believe that's what Southern Baptists are calling our ethics and religious commission to do to represent us. It's very clear what Southern Baptists believe. We all in this room agree. We are a pro life group. We believe in the sanctity of life. We believe in children. We believe in two genders. We believe in marriage. We believe in all of these things that the ERLC should be advocating for on our behalf. And they're negligent in a bunch of those ways. They're absent in a bunch of those ways, but very engaged in a matter here that many of us would not agree with.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Well, you know, there are issues that you and I may disagree on politically and in this room. We can't say that all Southern Baptists agree on all issues, but the ones that he just mentioned, they're pretty clear cut.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: We have a consensus on that, whether.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: In California, Georgia, Florida, that Southern Baptists tend to see those issues the same way.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: The vast majority, and maybe one day our country will get back to such a great place that we can get down into the second and third and fourth issues and have those debates and discussions. But right now, we're operating up here on the top of the mountain, fighting for our children, fighting for our nation, fighting for our churches, fighting for marriages and families, fighting for our freedoms, all those types of things. We're in absolute agreement on those. Southern Baptists have spoken with a thundering, resounding voice on those issues. And it is massively unfortunate that our representatives and our group that's supposed to be representing us are not speaking to the issues that Southern Baptists have hired, employed, and called them to speak to.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: So a great number of our churches, like First Baptists, have begun to earmark, negatively earmark funds to say, send it to the missionaries internationally and nationally. But we don't want to fund operatives that are going to work against what we stand for, our deeply held convictions. And so in that gap, God began to raise up organizations like Danbury. And I really began hearing about it before this year's convention. I know you've been around for a while longer, but you had, at this year's in Indy, you had a luncheon, was it? And you had a special guest who showed up to just say, you know, keep up the good work. Yeah, tell us about that.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Yeah, we had our inaugural event at the SBC this year in Indianapolis, and that was a great event. We had a room full of about 1000 pastors that came together to participate in this and to kind of hear the unveiling of what the Dan Barry Institute is. We've been working on this for about a year now, behind the scenes, taking meetings in Capitol Hill, beginning to meet and work with legislators, building coalitions. And we really wanted, before everything was public, to see, was there a space here? Was there a need here? Was there an opening, or were we just reinventing the wheel? I don't want to. I don't want to start another organization when there are so many in there. We'll just work with one of them. We wanted to see if there truly was a space. We have found that there has. We've had massive inroads, relationships, opportunities to speak to Congress, legislators, to meet on their behalf. And so we began to make things public with the Danbury Institute. We really announced it earlier this year. And then our first public event was at the SBC annual meeting. And what he's referring to there is President Trump was kind to call in and to participate virtually with us there to give a few brief remarks. And he said, I'm so grateful for what you all are doing. I'm grateful for an organization that protects families, that protects children, that protects the sanctity of human life, that's standing for those things. He said, I know what you're going through. I know what the Southern Baptist Convention is going through right now, and I'm standing with you side by side. We took a lot of heat for that. As you can imagine, he also took a lot of heat for that. If you look up our website, we have very strong positions on there that are against abortion, that are for the eradication of abortion, for the total removal of it from our society. We make strong comments about it, about it being child sacrifice, and that there's been almost 70 million unborn human image bearers of God that have been aborted on our watch. We make very strong comments about that. And so the leftist of our country took our comments and took his statement that he's standing with us to say, look, he's a right wing extremist on abortion, all these kind of issues. So he took some heat for that. We took some heat for that. But we understand what we're trying to do here. I'm not a Trump apologist. I'm not here to endorse him or to make any specific comments like that in that sense. But we are an issues based organization, and we have two options coming up in the election here. We have a group that is running to the left that is more extreme than any ticket this country has ever seen, and that has told us what they will do. They have said we will make legal abortion up until birth and even in certain cases beyond. The new vice presidential candidate was announced today, and there are cases in his state today, a couple days ago, in his state, there are cases of babies that were delivered that were left to die on the table.
This is, it's all murder, but this is murder in the most abhorrent ways.
They have told us what they're going to do, and we have an alternative that is a pro life alternative. It's not perfect. We're certainly working with the campaign, working with the administration to try and pull them the right direction, but generally values life and is willing to pass pro life policies and was the group that led to the overturn of Roe v. Wade in this country. And so we have a very clear choice before us coming up in November.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: I bring that up, as you said, not because it was Trump per se, but to show that for whatever reason, God's given you favor with people who have the ultimate influence in our country. And when it comes down to the next four years, I think it was Wilson or somebody who was talking about, you know, when the decisions are made and there's a handful of people in that room, the question is, as you look at both options, how many evangelicals will they surround themselves with who at least give us a fighting chance to let the voice of scripture, the voice of God be heard in the halls of power and then ask yourself how many, which of the two options would have people who are transgender or who stand for that sort of thing in the same room? And I think that choice becomes more and more obvious as you've put this together. I know you've already had some early wins. So that's, that's important to me because I think it's one thing to have really good marketing and present a good product. But my question is, are, have you given evidence that you can move the needle? And you told me today there have been a couple. Can you elaborate on that some?
[00:29:49] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. We really want to do two things, and everything else falls downstream from those two things. I believe with every fiber of my being that the biggest moral challenge our country is facing right now is the sanctity of human life.
If the leftists cannot murder your children before they are born, then once they are born, they are instantly under attack with godless ideologies being taught in their school systems, with transgender ideologies being foisted on them. And if they cannot kill them, then they will sterilize them, they will neuter them, they will take them out of society, and they will train them up as leftists to hate God, to hate the church, and to hate what is good in the world today.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: Can I pause you on that first, very clear?
[00:30:29] Speaker B: They are after our children.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Say that one more time. So the goal, number one, is to eradicate the kid in the womb. And if they don't, if they can't kill the kid in the womb, what's next?
[00:30:42] Speaker B: They're coming after our children. They're coming after my seven year old and my four year old. If they can't get them before they're born, then they will start as soon as they are born. And they will teach them in the public school system, ideologies that are against scripture, against God, and against what is good and moral in the world. And they will convince them of trans ideologies and of gender ideologies and of the breakdown of marriages and family in our country. And they will put them on drugs and change them in a way that is changing the image of God and the way that they were created and the way they were made to function effectively. Sterilizing and neutering them, not allowing them to reproduce, taking away their identity, taking away their personhood. Children are the target of this. It was just a couple of years ago during COVID the San Francisco gay men's choir, I guess, were bored with all of the lockdowns. And they made a Zoom video of them all singing together. And the lyrics to the song are, we're coming for your children. Quietly and silently when you're not suspecting it. We're coming for your children. They walked back and said, oh, that's just a joke. Oh, we were just kidding. Haha. Isn't that funny? But that's absolutely the agenda of what this is doing. If they can't get them before they're born, they'll get them after they're born.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: And it's not just San Francisco, it's not just Miami. We have families in our church where this has happened, where they've gotten online and ordered hormone replacement, or estrogen. Boys ordering estrogen and changing who they are.
That's happened multiple times in the confusion when they hit about fourth grade.
You know, you've lived through seasons of the world when it was the cool thing to be a cutter, when everybody wanted to cut their flesh and make a statement with that.
Right now, that's the thing that they're pushing like crazy is whether it's bisexual, whether it's transgender, whatever it might be. All of these kids are being hit with these ideologies and they're wrestling with it. And if one of our kids stands up to it, it's becoming they're the minority that has to take a big stand. And then, God forbid, they go to the colleges and universities. I know where I've got two right now.
You name the class, it can be arithmetic, it can be algebra, it can be history. And it all comes back down to this gender ideology, marxist ideology, critical race theory, all of those things in the public institutions that our tax dollars are going to support.
And so what do we do to push back on that? You've had a couple of wins. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I just felt like that was so good.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: To unpack that so that's our first issue. They're coming after kids in those ways if they don't get them there. Sex trafficking in our country is on the rise. There's enough fentanyl coming across the border right now that would kill every single living human being in this country. We took our team down to the border and looked at the crisis that's happening there. That's a humanitarian crisis. It's not a political issue. It's a sex and child trafficking crisis. Putting children into the sex slave trade there. That must be stopped. That must be blocked. And so our first issue, our first mountain top, is the sanctity of human life all the way through. This second issue that's important to us as well. Our second issue is our liberty. It's our religious liberty. It's our freedom to worship as a church. It's your pastor's freedom to stand up and preach the Bible and say, this is what the Bible says. It's not hate speech. It's true. It's biblical. It's the pathway to have a good and a godly God honoring life. We have to have the freedoms to minister and to serve in our communities and to say what God has said and what he's called, called us to do about gender and marriage and family, all of those things. So we are advocating for life and for liberty. Those are our two issues. Sanctity of human life and liberty. Religious liberty, specifically. One such case here he wants me to share about happened in Ohio, and the state legislature in Ohio passed what's called the Safe act. This was a tremendous bill that we support, not because we're political, but because it aligns with our christian values from scripture. This bill said that it would be illegal to have transgender procedures on children. That's made illegal and that you had to keep men out of sports and out of women's locker rooms. So I think we're all for that. Anyone with daughters in the room, you don't want men in their sports, men in their locker rooms. If you watch the Olympics, you see how that's working out for us. Not too well. This was passed by the Ohio state legislature and vetoed by our republican ohian governor.
Our republican governor vetoed it. And you can call him and ask him why. I'm not exactly sure, but they mounted an attempt there for the legislature to overturn his veto, and there's a threshold to do that. You've got to get some more votes, more widespread support in those ways. And so they were trying to get enough votes to do that in that sense there. We circulated an open letter that wasn't a political letter, it was just a christian letter. It said, this is what we believe about children and the protection of our children and these issues. We collected a water swath of signatures on that and we delivered that to those congressmen, to those people who were voting in Ohio and said, this is what christians believe. This is our biblical position on these issues. And as our representatives, we expect, and we request that you follow our desires, our biblical positions on those issues. They were successful in that effort. They were able to overturn that governor's veto, and that safe act is now law in Ohio. The ACLU, several other groups have sued them to try and block that. And just yesterday, the court awarded in the favor of the law, and that has been upheld in some ways there. And so just one example in Ohio of protecting our children.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: Amen, Scott. I'm going to open it up in a moment for questions. So you guys will be thinking, if you have questions you want to raise to Scott, or about their work in DC and their work with the SBC, is it particularly a southern Baptist movement that you're doing? In what way? Is it or is it not?
[00:36:54] Speaker B: I'm a southern Baptist. I've been a southern Baptist for all my life. And so what I'm involved in is generally Southern Baptist because that's my family, that's my group, that's where I fit in. But we are open to anyone who wants to work with us. The Danbury Institute is a coalition that's united for life and Liberty. And so there's an independent church, a non denominational church, a Bible church, a church of like minded faith that wants to join with us and stand together on these issues. We absolutely will welcome them into this coalition. We are an association of churches. We also have organizations, groups partnering with us together. We don't want to compete with anybody. We don't want to get on anybody's toes or their turf. But there is so much work to be done in our country right now. We want to be one more voice that's standing for truth and that's representing these things. We're going two directions. Our first goal is to represent these churches, represent these christians, and advocate for their views in Washington, DC, on Capitol Hill, in the state legislatures all across this country, to speak on behalf of this group together. The second goal is to inform and mobilize churches to get involved. There's 16 million Southern Baptists in this country. Evangelicals in general account for 32% of the voting bloc in America. That is a massive, massive group. Leftists are aware of that. They have targeted the church. They have targeted evangelicals in an attempt to fracture or to peel off a portion of that vote. Think about that. If Southern Baptists stay home, that is the entire national margin of an election.
You don't realize it, but we have a massive target on ourselves from those who want to change the course of this country. We have to activate our churches. We have to encourage our pastors to do just what Pastor Zach is doing. Stand up, speak about these issues, preach about these issues. And so we want to represent churches well in the public square and also mobilize them to get involved, to get engaged, and to participate in taking back our country for good and for what's virtuous.
[00:38:46] Speaker A: A lot of why we do this, like sharing these things with you tonight, has to do with kind of pulling back the curtain and letting you see some of the things that we deal with and that we're doing behind the scenes. And again, we're not just trying to rally the troops and have a big gripe session, but we're trying to move the needle. We're trying to bring about some positive change. One of the things that we've noticed locally is when we've worked for change locally, we don't always have the support of our other baptist congregations, but we'll see some charismatic groups, assemblies of God, rallying behind us and standing arm in arm. And many times on some of these issues, we may have more in common with them than we do some other southern Baptist congregations. And that's just the nature of who we are. You know, most of us didn't grow up in a southern baptist context, so we don't think of ourselves at all a southern Baptist first, but we see ourselves as christians that just believe the Bible. And so if there's a Pentecostal or assembly of God, brother or sister, who is willing to help work with us towards some of these common goals, by all means. You know, Doctor Falwell used to say, I'll let anyone help me kill a snake. Right? And so whatever it takes, working together so that when our grandkids come on the scene, they have something that we would recognize to steward for the good of mankind. And it's a crazy time we're living in. At any moment, you'll turn the news on and probably see Israel under attack.
That could happen at any moment. I'm really surprised it hasn't already happened.
When that happens, it's too late to figure out where we stand on that issue.
You really have to have these convictions worked out of on the front end.
And so there's part of me, I mean, there's part of me that doesn't like talking about this stuff on Wednesday night at church at all.
But you have to understand that this is the place where our convictions need to be ironed out.
It's not theoretical. It's not philosophical.
It's here that your backbone is forged.
If you can't stand for truth in this room, where can you?
You know, we're with you. And so that's why sometimes we broach these topics and we address these issues. We bring in people like Scott, who's on the front lines. We introduce him to our people, and we decide at this point, no decision. He's a guest with us tonight, but he's one of the leaders, and they're one of the groups that we're considering funding in the upcoming budget year. You say, well, who makes that decision? You do.
Our job as pastors is to show you to do our homework and to introduce you to some people that we believe can make a difference. That would do a lot better job than some of our entities are doing currently. So we'll cross those bridges in the coming years. I want to give you an opportunity, though, before we end tonight, to see if you have any questions on your mind that you want to explore with Doctor Coulter tonight.
Rob's got a mic. If you have a question, just raise your hand up.
We'll get that to you back there on the right.
Rob thought ahead and wore his tennis shoes tonight. God bless you. Are y'all pushing for a voucher system to help us open more christian schools? Repeat that one time, please.
[00:42:41] Speaker C: A voucher system to help open more christian schools.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: What is your thoughts toward a voucher system? Like in the state, state of Florida, we have a voucher system that allows parents to have the choice of education.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm generally for that. I think parents are in charge of educating and raising their children. I think God has given you your children to raise up and. And it's your job. It's not the state's job, it's not the city's job, it's your job. And so as parents, you have to take that role actively. You have to put them in schools that will teach them things in accordance with our faith or take them out of schools that will teach them things that are in disaccord with our faith. I have just a slight caveat there. If I get nervous anytime the state money is getting into the education process, because no money is a free gift. It always comes with strings attached. And so the more that in our policies, in our legislation, we can block any of those strings and make sure that it truly is support that's free for the parents to use in a way that doesn't come with ideologies from the state or from the government with it. I think we're protecting ourselves in that way. But in general, I am totally for education. That's moving out of government oversight, out of the department of education, into our churches, into our homes, into our families. And that gives parents the ability to make that decision for their children currently in our county.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: Or at least I can speak for Fernandina, having a child who's there in this particular high school, the teachers have been given more freedom to speak conservative values than any school that I'm aware of in the area. So I'm grateful for that. And when we criticize, a lot of times we call out if something's out of line. I also want to speak specifically for some of these teachers that have done the right thing. And we want to stand behind them on days like back to school Sunday and get their back and make sure that they know that we're standing behind them. It would be great if we didn't have to replace public school. It would be wonderful if we could redeem that program, but it will not happen if we don't get involved. Do we have another question over here? Yes, sir.
Scott, you're on the front lines with the federal government and the state governments. These issues, actively working them. You're looking potentially at an organization like our church to support you financially. But what would be your advice to us as ordinary individuals in the way that we could actually do something?
[00:45:10] Speaker B: Couldn't have asked for a better question. Thank you for that. Absolutely. We want to work with this church. We want to be an association of churches. We want to work with you individually. And if you'll visit our website, we've got it up here for you, danberryinstitute.org dot. You can sign up there to receive our communications. We put out a weekly life and liberty brief, which is a summary of the news, what's happening related to those two issues. And so being aware of the issues is a first step. Being engaged, we have to know the challenges that we're facing and be aware of them. We want to have resources on our website. We do already. To help mobilize you about some of the issues. We're circulating open letters. There's places to sign a pro life pledge that are coming very soon. There's ways there that we can add your signature to things that we're taking on, that we're representing. And so part of it's being aware of the issues, part of it's ways to know how to pray for the issues and to talk about these issues. Part of it's actually signing on and allowing us to be a conduit or a conveyor of your name and your signature there. Your church, in some ways, to go talk to legislators and to say, there's a whole lot of constituents in northern Florida that want you to support this biblical position here or that want you to reject this unbiblical position. We want to be the conveyor of those names and represent you in that way there. And then, of course, we need to be talking about these issues and pushing back on the lie that has been injected into our churches for so long that you have to either be a faithful Christianity or care about our country. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. And that idea has been foisted into the SBC, into our churches. You talk about so many Baptists, even here in this city, that aren't participating. They have bought that lie. When you find an issue that's a quote, unquote political issue, almost every one of them right now in our country is not a political issue. It's a spiritual, moral issue. And our faith speaks to those things. Our scripture speaks to those things. And so I would encourage you to use us to be resourced and then to speak out about those things, share those things, and let your voice be heard.
[00:47:04] Speaker A: Do you have another question?
[00:47:05] Speaker E: Yeah, Scott, I'd like to say welcome and thank you for the work that you're doing, because I don't know of too many organizations that are doing it. So one comment is, I don't know if public schools are redeemable, because I think it's a mistake for government to be even conducting education. It should be a free enterprise because it's a conflict of interest for government to be educating children. But the question that I had for you was, what is the scope of your operation right now? Like, how large is the organization? How much influence are you currently having?
[00:47:36] Speaker A: It's asking about the size, the breadth of the organization at this point. I know it's new, but that's one of the things I asked the same thing, Michael, and one of the things I liked about what we talked about today, if you want to unpack this, was the fact that you're accomplishing a great deal with a pretty small budget so tell us about that.
[00:47:59] Speaker B: We started with concern about the SBC several years ago, and we started building an association of conservative churches. And so we have now several thousand pastors and churches in our database that we're working with and that we're communicating with. And so that's been a tremendous blessing.
[00:48:13] Speaker A: And we're one of those churches.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: This is one of them, absolutely. But the Danbury Institute component, the idea of public engagement on behalf of those churches is really new. And so we started for about a year just dipping our toe in the water to see if there was space and a need for this. Before we asked for any support, before we asked for any money, before we asked for churches to actually formally partner with us in that way, we have found out there is a tenfold magnitude need that I did not realize Washington there. And so we have checked that requirement for moving forward to say, is there space for this? The thing we're working on now is supporting and ensuring it up. And so we are all volunteers. There's about seven of us that are operating and leading this organization. We're trying to kind of provide for our families through other means, but we are committed to this. I believe in the core of my heart. This is what God has for us to be doing and is one of the greatest needs in our country today. And so we're going to do it no matter what. If it's just me, Citizen Scott, I'm going to go speak to our representatives on our behalf and to try and serve pastors and churches. The Lord has brought a team of people together. There's seven or eight of us there from all across the country that are working on this, from media teams to communications officers, to operating officers, to a chief legal officer who's working in Oklahoma for the Oklahoma House of Representatives and is helping us in a volunteer capacity as well, that just care about these issues along the way there. And so we're trying to grow, we're trying to raise our budget. I would be honored if you guys would pray for us in that effort. And if there's anyone in this room that wants to help us get started with a seed gift, please come see me afterwards. That would be tremendously appreciated by me, our family, all of us who are working and stepping out in faith to build this. Did I answer your question?
Maybe not.
[00:49:48] Speaker A: No. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us tonight. We would, if we, anytime we introduce somebody like Scott to you, if we didn't believe in what they were doing, we wouldn't give them this platform. So when he says that they could use support financially, you know that we vetted that already, that we're looking at it going, we feel good about it. We're going to bring it before you to consider as a church. So if God does move on anybody at least get more information, where can they, you mentioned the website. I know you're active on X as well. That's a, that's kind of the public discourse currently, and a lot of our people aren't on that. It's formerly known as Twitter. But if you want to just kind of watch how some of these relationships develop, follow me on X, follow our people who are engaged there, and you'll see kind of how some of the conversations are going. It's public. It's a public forum. This is not direct messages per se. This is out in the open, us engaging with these leaders, trying to talk some sense into them usually.
And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But it's a good way to observe just how to have these conversations in a way that honors scripture, honors the Lord, and at the same time get something done. And so I encourage you to do that.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: What's your handle on, we're on danbeerinstitute.org, on the website, on Twitter or X. We're Danbury Institute. You can find us there. We're also on Facebook, also on Instagram, I believe I'm on Twitter as well, Scott Coulter, you can find us up on there. If you sign up on our website, you'll get our emails and we send out all the same content to your email inbox. So if you're like me and you look at emails more than social media, we'll send it to you there as well. Pastor, that's a great comment on the usefulness of these public discourses right now. There was a congressman just a few days ago that was reaching out and said publicly on Twitter, is there any group that can tell me what Southern Baptists think about this now? Those who are funding the cooperative program are paying for a group that did not respond, but our organization wrote back and said, we will tell you what Southern Baptists think about this. They are very, very clear. And so we're using those tools and ways to get this message out and to engage even in that arena there.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: Once again, thank you for your work. Can you say thank you tonight to Scott for being with us?
I want to pray for us.
Let me mention Miss Fay having a surgery on Monday. Donnie's back there. He might tell you more about that. We're going to pray for her as we pray.
Miss Helen Solomon had a stroke. We're going to lift her up as we pray. Ellen Wiggins is at home.
We've got Sharon Sayre reports that her sister, Janice Boyer, has recovered from the setback that she had as well. So let's go to the Lord. Let's ask blessings on the Danbury Institute, and let's pray for these needs that have been mentioned as well. Father, we bow before you tonight.
God is just an opportunity to live in this nation. We're grateful so that, Father, we can look at things as they are and understand that they don't have to be that way. We can get engaged. We're in a nation where we can make a change. We have a tremendous heritage of people who said enough is enough and decided to change the status quo. So, Lord, would you give us that spirit, the spirit that birthed this nation, the spirit that moved those early Baptists to take a stand?
And, Father, would you give us wisdom, just like Daniel in Babylon, as he had to make strategic alliances in order to further your will, give us wisdom about groups to work with. Lord, we thank you for what Scott's doing with the Danbury Institute, and we pray your richest blessings on them.
Father, may you give them favor with people in the halls of power, all to the end, that your will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Have a great week. See you Sunday.
